Читать книгу The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome - Ultimate Collection - Homer - Страница 22

Ar’te mis was the child of Zeus and Leto, twin sister of Apollo. As Apollo took the place of the Titan Helios as god of the sun, so Artemis took the place of Se le’ne as goddess of the moon. In her chariot she too drove across the heavens; her weapons, like his, were the bow and arrows. But Artemis was more generally known as goddess of the chase and of all wild things in nature. Dressed in the short hunting-dress, pulled up through her belt to give her freedom of motion, with quiver and bow over her shoulder she scoured the forest in pursuit of game. Her companions were the mountain nymphs and the spirits of the woods and streams. To her the huntsman made his prayer and to her he offered the first fruits of his game on rough stone altars. But though a huntress, she was yet the friend and protectress of beasts, both wild and domestic, and their young were under her special care.

Fig. 20. Artemis of Versailles.

Artemis is represented as a graceful, active maiden, dressed in a short hunting-dress coming only to the knee, and armed with bow and quiver. When represented as moon-goddess she appears in her chariot. Her emblems are the crescent, and the bow and quiver, and she often has beside her a deer or some other animal of the chase.

As Apollo stood for the ideal of youthful manly beauty, so Artemis was the ideal of maidenhood, of modesty, and of graceful activity. She was the patron goddess of young girls and her worship was served by them. Before marrying, Greek girls offered in sacrifice a lock of hair, together with their dolls or other toys; when in trouble it was to her they called for help.

Fig. 21. Artemis of Gabii.

Ar e thu’sa, now a fountain in the Sicilian city of Syracuse, was once a nymph, a follower of Artemis, and lived in southern Greece. She cared nothing for admiration and love but was wholly devoted to the chase. One day when she was tired and hot, she came upon a clear, cold stream, flowing silently through the woods. She drew near and dipped in, first her toes, then as far as her knees; the cold water was so refreshing that she took off her clothes and plunged into the stream. While she was enjoying her bath, she heard a murmur under the water, and as she hastened to the bank in sudden fear, the hoarse voice of the river-god Al phe’us: " Whither are you hastening, Arethusa?" She fled and the eager god pressed hard upon her. Through fields and pathless woods, over rocks and hills she ran, and ever the sound of his pursuing feet grew nearer. At last she was exhausted and cried to Artemis, the protector of maidens. The goddess heard and threw about her a thick mist to hide her from the eyes of her pursuer. Though baffled, the god still sought her. A cold sweat poured from the maiden's limbs, drops fell from her hair; she was transformed into a spring. But even in this form Alpheus recognized her and, to mingle his waters with hers, laid aside the human form he had assumed. Then Artemis opened the earth, and Arethusa flowed down through black underground ways until she rose again across the sea in Sicily. But the river-god endured even the darkness of the under-world in pursuit of his love, and in that bright Sicilian land at last joined his waves with hers.

That Artemis could be cruel in punishing one who offended her maiden modesty is seen in the story of Ac tæ'on.

In a valley thickly wooded with pine and pointed cypress trees was a natural cave, wherein bubbled a spring of clearest water. Here Artemis, when tired with hunting, used to bathe. She would enter the cave, hand her hunting-spear to one of her attendant nymphs, her bow and quiver to another, to a third her mantle, while others took off her hunting-shoes. Then she would step into the spring, while the nymphs poured water over her.

It was high noon, hot with the heat of the dog-days, and Actæon, satisfied with the morning's sport, had left the other hunters and wandered innocently into the grove. Hoping to find water he entered the cave. At sight of him the nymphs raised a shrill outcry and crowded about Artemis to hide her from his profane eyes. Insulted by the intrusion, unintentional though it was, Artemis protected herself even better. She splashed water from the spring in Actæon's face, saying as she did so: "Now, if you can, boast that you have seen me unappareled!" At touch of the water his human form was changed to that of a stag; and not his form alone, for trembling fear entered his once bold heart and he fled, dreading alike the woods and his own home and former companions. As he fled, his own dogs, driven mad by Artemis, saw him and gave chase, all fifty of them. Over hills and rocks he fled and longed to stop and cry: "I am Actæon; know your master!" But the words would not come, and all the air resounded with the baying of the dogs. They closed in on him and tore him to pieces, while the hunters, who had urged them on, called loudly for Actæon, eager that he should have a share in such good sport. It is said that when the dogs recovered from their madness, they ran howling through the woods, seeking their master.

Fig. 22. Actæon killed by his Dogs.

Once even the maiden Artemis loved a mortal. En dym’i on was a shepherd who kept his flocks on Mt. Latmos, in Asia Minor. As she drove her chariot across the sky by night, Artemis looked down and saw the youth sleeping. His beauty as he lay drew the moon-goddess to him in love. Each night she left her course to descend to the mountain-top and kiss the shepherd. Her long absences and her paleness when she returned aroused the suspicions of the other Olympians, only too glad to detect a sign of weakness in the cold maiden. Wishing to remove temptation from her way, Zeus gave Endymion his choice between death in any form and perpetual youth with perpetual sleep. Endymion chose the latter, and still he sleeps in his cave on Mt. Latmos, visited each night by the moon-goddess, who silently and sadly kisses his pale cheeks. Nor do his flocks suffer, for Artemis drives them by night to rich pastures and watches over their increase. This story was originally told of Selene, but later the Greeks transferred it to the younger goddess.

Fig. 23. Sleeping Endymion.

The giant O ri’on, too, won the affection of Artemis, though perhaps, in this case, she looked upon him rather as a congenial companion in hunting than as a lover. He was a son of Poseidon and had from his father the power of walking through the sea as easily as he walked on the land. Because he was too hasty in his wooing of a certain girl, her father made him drunk and then put out both his eyes. Finding his way by the sound of the hammers to Hephæstus' forge in Lesbos, he borrowed one of the lame god's assistants to act as his guide, and so came to the far east where the sun rises. The brightness of the sun-beams restored his sight, and Orion became a constant companion of Artemis. Apollo disapproved of the friendship, and one day he challenged his sister to hit with her arrow a dark speck that was moving on the water; it was too late when she learned that the mark was Orion's dark head. As she could not restore him to life, she put him in the heavens as a constellation, one of the brightest and most beautiful that we can see. All the winter nights he races across the heavens with his dog, Sirius, at his heels, or he pursues the seven Ple’ia des, maidens changed to stars that one sees all crowded together and pale with fright as they flee. In the summer, Orion appears in the east at dawn, for he loves the dawn-goddess and, great and brilliant as he is, grows pale before her.

Artemis appeared under quite a different character as Hec’a te, for that mysterious deity, who is associated with witchcraft and the horrors of night and darkness, is but another form of the bright moon-goddess. Her dark and mysterious knowledge, such knowledge as sorceresses and witches made use of in their evil charms, came from her association with grave-yards and from the celebration of her worship by night at crossroads, a time and place that open the superstitious mind to impressions of terror and the presence of mysterious powers. She was a goddess of triple form; her three faces looked down the three forks of the roads where her statue was often set up. The baying of dogs on moonlight nights was thought to be a warning of her approach.

The Latin goddess Diana was originally a special deity of women. A temple was dedicated to her in a lonely wood beside the lake of Nemi, in the Alban Hills. Here all the towns of the Latins united in her worship. This shrine is famous because of the gloomy legends connected with it. It was said that in the wood grew a tree on which was a golden bough, and that he who could pluck this bough and slay the priest who kept the shrine thereby succeeded to his honor and retained it until he himself was slain by another. Diana, as a goddess of women and of nature, became identified with the Greek Artemis and was then worshiped as goddess of the moon and the chase.