Читать книгу The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome - Ultimate Collection - Homer - Страница 15

Table of Contents

While the gods of the Greek religion were personifications of natural powers, yet they were conceived after the fashion of human beings, both in bodily form and in their needs and passions. They were born, grew, married, and suffered, though death never came to them. These beings, like men, only greater and more beautiful, must have cities and homes like those of men, only greater and more beautiful. So the Greeks of the mainland looked up to the cloud-capped peak of Mt. Olympus, majestic, mysterious, eternally enduring, and saw there, under the arch of heaven, the golden halls of the divine city.

There, as they say, is the seat of the gods that standeth fast forever. Not by winds is it shaken, nor ever wet with rain, nor doth the snow come nigh thereto, but most clear air is spread about it cloudless, and the white light floats over it. Therein the blessed gods are glad for all their days. (Odyssey, VI. 42 ff.)

It was a true celestial city, conceived after the model of the Greek city-states. At the gates of cloud the Hours stood as guardians, within the walls rose the palaces of the gods, and on the topmost peak, the acropolis, was the great hall where the members of the Olympic Council gathered for deliberation or for feasting. Ambrosia was the food served at these banquets, and nectar, poured into the cups by Hebe, the goddess of youth, nourished the ichor flowing in the gods' veins instead of blood. The nostrils of the feasters were filled with the rich odor of sacrifices offered on earth, and their ears charmed by the songs the Muses sang to the accompaniment of Apollo's lyre.

Fig. 3. Zeus.

In the place of honor sat Zeus on his golden throne, and Hera, his sister and wife, sat beside him, while about them assembled the other ten Olympians, all brothers, sisters, sons, or daughters of the " father of gods and king of men." For after his victory over the Titans Zeus ruled supreme over heaven and earth. He challenges the other Olympians to dispute his power:

Go to now, ye gods, make trial that ye all may know. Fasten ye a rope of gold from Heaven, and all ye gods lay hold thereof and all goddesses; yet could ye not drag from Heaven to earth Zeus, counselor supreme, not though ye toiled sore. But once I likewise were minded to draw with all my heart, then should I draw you up with very earth and sea withal. ... By so much am I beyond gods and beyond men. (Iliad, VIII. 18 ff.)

As sky-god he drew the clouds over the face of heaven, sending storm and rain upon the earth, or he dispersed them and looked down over all as a benignant father. The weapon of his anger was the thunderbolt; Victory stood at his right hand. Yet his rule was not one of arbitrary violence; he was the author and promoter of law and order, of a civilized and regulated intercourse between men, of hospitality and just treatment of man by man. Hesiod calls upon the Muses to sing of him in words that recall the song of the Virgin Mary:

Muses of Pieria, who glorify with song, come sing of Zeus your father, and declare his praise, through whom are men famed and unfamed, sung and unsung, as Zeus Almighty will. Lightly he giveth strength, and lightly he afflicteth the strong; lightly he bringeth low the mighty and lifteth up the humble; lightly he maketh the crooked to be straight and withereth the proud as chaff; Zeus, who thundereth in Heaven, who dwelleth in the height. (Hesiod, Works and Days, 1 ff.)

Zeus was married to his sister, "Hera of the golden throne," a beautiful, queenly goddess, yet, as Homer portrays her, a very human woman, implacably jealous of Zeus's other loves, intriguing to get her own way, using against her lord all the traditional weapons of a woman. For all his power and majesty, Olympian Zeus went in dread of his wife's reproaches and persistency and drew the thickest of clouds between them when he indulged in any pleasure of which she would not approve. Though she had no choice but to yield when he asserted his will, she reserved to herself the compensation of taunts and a sullen demeanor. On one occasion when he had promised a favor to another of the goddesses, this altercation took place:

Anon with taunting words spake she to Zeus, the son of Cronus, "Now who among the gods, thou crafty of mind, hath devised counsel with thee? It is ever thy good pleasure to hold aloof from me and in sweet meditation to give thy judgments, nor of thine own good will hast thou ever brought thyself to declare unto me the thing thou purposeth

Then the father of gods and men made answer to her: " Hera, think not thou to know all my sayings; hard are they for thee, even though thou art my wife. But whichsoever it is seemly for thee to hear, none sooner than thou shalt know, be he god or man. Only when I will to take thought aloof from the gods, then do not thou ask of every matter nor make question."

. . . He said, and Hera the ox-eyed queen was afraid, and sat in silence, curbing her heart. (Iliad, I. 539 ff.)

Though Hera was Zeus's queen- and lawful wife, he united himself with many other goddesses and mortal women. Many of these unions originated as symbols of natural facts, others as symbols of philosophic truths. Thus as sky-god, god of sun and rain, Zeus must join in marriage union with De me’ter, the grain-goddess, that Per seph’o ne, the young com of the new year, may be born. Again, as the great, creating, regulating mind, he must unite with Mnemosyne (ne mos’i nē) or Memory, that the Nine Muses, the goddesses of poetry, music, and science, may draw from father and mother what is needed for all great creative work. But the extraordinary number of Zeus's unions was due to the fact that Greek mythology was not the creation or inheritance of one land and people, but was drawn from the religion and traditions of Greeks in many different lands and under many different conditions. The religious traditions of many peoples with whom the Greeks had intercourse were incorporated by them into their own mythology. Moreover, each Greek state had its own local hero, the ancestor or early king of that group, and these heroes were always of divine origin, very many of them the sons of Zeus by mortal women. Thus the Arcadians traced their descent from Areas, a son of Callisto by Zeus, of whose love the following story is told.

Cal lis’to was a nymph, a favorite companion of the huntress Ar’te mis. One day, wandering alone in the woods, she lay down upon the ground to rest. Zeus saw her there, and thinking himself quite safe from the jealous eyes of Hera, came down secretly and wooed her. Callisto would gladly have escaped the attentions of the god and gone to rejoin Artemis and her nymphs; but who could withstand Zeus! Artemis, who, as herself a maiden, would have none but maidens in her company, turned Callisto away when she would have rejoined her. Solitary and sad the nymph lived in the woods until she bore to Zeus a son, Areas. Now Zeus's love for Callisto was known to Hera. "You shall not go unpunished," said she to the nymph, "for I shall take away that beauty by which you charmed my husband's love." In vain Callisto begged for pity. Her arms began to be covered with coarse black hair; crooked claws grew from her hands, which now served as forefeet; that face which once aroused Zeus's love was deformed by huge ugly jaws. When she would have prayed for mercy, the power to speak was taken from her, and an angry frightened growl was all that she could utter. But under her bear's form her human heart, her grief and her love remained. How often in her solitary anguish, fearing to rest in the dark woods, she sought her old home! How often she was driven away by the barking dogs! Once herself a huntress, she was now the hunted. Often she hid from the bears she met in the mountains, forgetful that she was now of their kind. So fifteen troubled years passed. One day her son Areas, out hunting wild beasts, met with his mother in the forest. She recognized her child and ran to greet him. Terrified by the rush of the great bear, he aimed at her his hunting-spear. Zeus checked his blow and raised Callisto to the heavens, where he set her as the constellation of the Great Bear. Hera's jealousy was not at all satisfied by this. " Behold I took from her her human form and now she is made a goddess! Is this the punishment for a guilty woman! Is this my power! " She went to the sea-gods and prayed that they would never permit Callisto to dip below their waves. The prayer was granted, and thus it is that the Great Bear can always be seen in the heavens and never sinks below the waters.

Another story that shows the unrelenting hatred with which Hera pursued those favored by Zeus is that of Io.

Io was the daughter of In’a chus, a river-god. Zeus loved and wooed and won her, coming to her secretly under cover of a cloud spread between their meeting-place and Hera's watchful eyes. But the jealous queen, looking down upon the realm of Argos, and wondering to see the low-lying cloud under a clear sky, at once suspected some wrong-doing on her husband's part. She glided down from heaven and bade the cloud recede. Zeus, however, had foreseen the coming of his wife and had changed the daughter of Inachus into a beautiful white heifer. Suspecting the trick, Hera requested the heifer as a gift, and Zeus was constrained to yield or acknowledge his love. Io was given by her mistress in charge of Argus, a monster of whose hundred eyes but two were closed at one time. When she would have held out supplicating hands to Argus, she had no hands to hold out. When she tried to speak, she was terrified by her own lowing. She came to the banks of the river Inachus where she was wont to play; when she saw the reflection of her great mouth and new-formed horns, she fled from her own image in terror. The Naiads did not know her; her own father Inachus did not know her. She followed her father and sisters and offered herself to be petted and admired. She licked their hands and kissed her father's palms, nor could she keep back the big tears from rolling down her nose. At last with her hoof she traced in the sand the letters of her own name, lo. "Woe is me!" cried her father, and fell upon the heifer's neck. "I have sought you through all lands. Better were it that I had never found you." Hundred-eyed Argus parted them as they lamented, and put her in a new pasture. But Zeus could not endure to see her so unhappy. He sent Hermes, his son and messenger, most wily of gods, to destroy the ever-watchful Argus. Laying aside his winged sandals and disguised as a shepherd, Hermes approached Argus, who, weary of his lonely and tedious watch, called to him to come and share the shade of his tree. Seated beside Argus, Hermes piped to him charmingly on his shepherd's pipes, varying with song the long stories with which he beguiled the hours. Two by two the hundred eyes were closed, until at last no eye was awake to watch his charge. Hermes at once slew him and set Io free. The hundred eyes Hera took and placed in the tail of her sacred peacock, where they may be seen to-day. But her jealous wrath still pursued unfortunate lo. She sent a gad-fly to torment her and drive her from land to land. In her weary search for peace, the heifer passed over the strait that divides Europe from Asia, whence it derives its name, Bosphorus, the way of the cow. Over the sea, too, that bears her name, the Ionian Sea, she wandered, until at last she arrived in Egypt, where she was restored to her natural form and gave birth to a son, the ancestor of the Ionian Greeks.

An ti’o pe was the daughter of the king of Thebes. By Zeus she became the mother of two sons Am phi’on and Zethus. Immediately after their birth the babies were taken from her and exposed on Mt. Cithæron, where they grew up among the shepherds. Antiope fell into the power of her uncle Lycus, whose wife Dirce treated her with the greatest cruelty. After some years she made her escape and fled to Mt. Cithæron, where she happened to take refuge in the hut where her sons lived. As one of a company of Bacchantes, votaries of the wine-god Bacchus, Dirce came, by chance, to the same place, and finding the hated Antiope, she ordered Amphion and Zethus to kill her by tying her to the horns of a fierce bull. They were about to carry out this barbarous command when the shepherd informed them that the victim was their own mother. Releasing her, they now executed the same sentence on Dirce, who was instantly torn in pieces by the angry bull. Lycus, too, was killed, and the brothers became kings of Thebes. It is said that when they were building walls about the city Zethus’ strength enabled him to lift huge stones into place, but that Amphion's skill as a musician was so great that when he played his lyre stones yet more huge rose of themselves and took their places in the wall.

Fig. 4. Dirce tied to the bull.

The story of Baucis and Phi le’mon shows how Zeus could reward those who respected the law of hospitality and punish those who violated it.

In a certain place where now is a marsh frequented by wild birds was once a village. Here Zeus came in the guise of a mortal, and with him his son Hermes, winged sandals laid aside. They went to a thousand dwellings seeking rest and refreshment; all were barred against them. Yet one, a little house thatched with reeds, received them. Here good old Baucis and her husband Philemon had grown old together, making happiness even out of their poverty by bearing it together with contented hearts. Here then came the Immortals, and bending down their heads entered the low door. The old man placed a seat and bade them sit down, while Baucis bustled to throw over it a coarse covering. Then she gathered together the dying embers, added dry leaves and fuel and blew it into a flame with her feeble breath. Her husband brought in a cabbage from the little garden, cut a fat piece from the long-cherished flitch of bacon, and put them over the fire to cook. They shook up their cushion of soft sedge-grass, laid it on the dining-couch, and put over it a covering that, poor and patched though it was, they used only on great festivals. While the gods reclined on the couch, the trembling old woman, with skirts tucked up, set out the table. One foot of the table was uneven; a brick steadied it, and a handful of greens cleaned off the top. The feast began with olives, stewed berries, endive, radishes, cottage-cheese, and eggs carefully fried, all served in earthenware dishes. After this the mixing-bowl and cups, made of beech-wood lined with smooth wax, were set out for the wine — not rich old wine, but the best they had. There were nuts, figs, dried dates, plums, and fragrant apples served in baskets, and purple grapes gathered from the vines, and in the fiddle of the table the honey-comb. Above all there were cordial looks and eager good-will. And now the astonished couple began to notice that the mixing-bowl, as often as it was emptied, filled up again of its own accord. They trembled, and holding out their hands in supplication, asked forgiveness for the humble fare. There was one single goose, the guardian of the little farm; this its masters now prepared to slaughter for their divine guests. It escaped them, and flapping its wings, dodged about the little room and at last took refuge at the feet of the gods. The Immortals forbade its slaughter. "We are gods," said they, "and while this neighborhood pays the penalty for its inhospitality, you shall be free from misfortune. Leave your house and follow us." The two old people obeyed and, hobbling along with their sticks, climbed the hill. When a little way from the top, they looked back and saw all the village covered by a marsh; only their own house was left. While they wondered and bewailed their neighbors' fate, that little old hut of theirs was transformed. In place of the forked sticks supporting a roof thatched with reeds, rose marble columns crowned with gilded beams; the doors were of embossed metal, and the pavement of marble. Then the son of Cronus spoke: " Ask, righteous old man" and worthy woman, what you will." Philemon consulted a moment with Baucis and then answered: "We ask to be priests and to keep your shrines; and since we have lived happily together, let the same hour take us both, and let me never see the grave of my wife nor have to be buried by her hands." Their prayer was granted; they were guardians of the temple as long as they lived. One day as they stood side by side before the temple each saw a change come over the other. Now their forms, bent with age, grew straight and strong and rooted firmly in the earth. Then as the waving tree-tops grew over their heads, each said: "Farewell, O Wife! O Husband!" and then the bark covered their mouths. And so, in after years, the shepherds pointed out the oak and the linden growing side by side, and said: "The gods care for the godly, and protect those who do them service."

Fig. 5. Head of Zeus.

Zeus was represented in art as a man of generous build and majestic bearing, usually draped from the waist down. His head was massive, his brows heavy, his hair and beard extremely thick, as though his face looked out from masses of piled thunder-clouds. Beneath his overhanging eyebrows gleamed those eyes whose glance was lightning, and the heavily lined forehead foreboded that frown at which the heavens shook. His whole appearance was that of the majestic and powerful god of heaven and earth. He was generally represented as seated upon a throne, holding in one hand his scepter or a spear, and in the other his weapons, the winged thunderbolts. With him often appeared the eagle, the bird that by his bold heavenward flight and lightning-descent upon his prey was associated with the sky-god. On his scepter or beside him appeared a winged female figure, Victory, for he held the balances of fate and gave victory to this or that warrior as he willed. Among the Greeks themselves the statue most admired was that of gold and ivory set up in the temple at Olympia, in southern Greece. Before this representation of the greatest of their gods, Greeks from all parts of the Hellenic world met once in every four years to offer sacrifice and to compete in athletic contests, honoring their divinity by the exhibition of perfect bodies under perfect control. So great was the honor paid to successful contestants that the most famous lyric poets of Greece devoted their genius to celebrating them in hymns, which were sung by choruses to the accompaniment of the lyre or flute when the victors returned to their own cities in triumphal state. Moreover, the greatest sculptors joined to do them honor; for the proudest glory of an Olympic victor was the right he gained of having his statue set up in the precinct of the god. As one walks now through the ruins at Olympia, here he can make out the plan of the palestra in whose wide spaces Greek youth wrestled, ran races, rivaled one another in throwing the discus. Here was the long colonnade or stoa beneath whose shade poets read their works; in front, long rows of statues of youths, nude as they appeared when winning their victories. Here was the line of treasuries of all the states of Greece, and in the center, even now impressive for the great drums of its columns, fallen and piled in confusion by the earthquakes of centuries, rise the high foundations of the great temple of Olympian Zeus.

Fig. 6. View of ruins at Olympia.

At Do do'na, in Epirus, was a famous oracle of Zeus, one of the oldest holy places in all Greece. Here the priestess read the will of the god from the sound of the rustling leaves of the great oak, a tree especially sacred to Zeus. In every part of the Greek world were places set apart for his worship, and each state claimed his favor for some special reason. As late as early Christian times in Crete the grave of Zeus was pointed out, for conceptions of immortal gods were strangely combined with thoughts of death.

Zeus was identified by the Romans with their old Latin god, Jupiter or Jove, and the stories told of the one were transferred to the other. Jupiter was originally a sky-god, as Zeus was, and king of gods and men. Temples in his honor crowned many high hills in Italy, and he was called upon to send rain in time of drought. On the Alban Mount the temple of Jupiter Latiaris was the religious center of the Latin Confederacy. Jupiter Optimus Maximus was worshiped on the Capitoline Hill at Rome as guardian of the state and giver of victory in war, and to him generals returning victorious to celebrate a triumph offered the best of the spoils of war. Like Zeus, the Roman Jupiter was protector of right and truth and the sanctity of oaths.