Читать книгу Mythology in Marble - Louie M. Bell - Страница 5
ОглавлениеJupiter.
“The Father of Gods.”
“From the great father of the gods above
My muse begins; for all is full of Jove.”
—Milton.
STORY.
THE KING OF THE HEAVENS.
“When gods began with wrath,
And war rose up between their brows,
Some choosing to cast Cronus from his throne,
That Zeus might king it there, and some in haste,
With opposite oaths, that they would have no Zeus
To rule the gods forever.”
—E.B. Browning.
Cronus, the father of Jupiter, was in the habit of swallowing his children at birth, but when Jupiter was born his mother, Rhea, hid him in a cave and gave to the unnatural father a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes which he accepted, unaware of the deception.
Jupiter grew up under the care of the nymphs, and, after a mighty conflict, overthrew the dynasty of the old gods and took possession of the throne and dominion of Cronus. He was then supreme ruler of gods and men, but had viceroys of the sea and the regions of the dead in Neptune and Pluto. His lawful wife, Juno, reigned with him in equal sovereignty. Their children were Mars, Vulcan and Hebe. Although wedded to Juno, Jupiter as the deity of the visible heavens, had brides and children in many lands. The abode of this wisest and most glorious of the divinities was on Mt. Olympus in the unclouded ether.
INTERPRETATION.
The strange story of Cronus, who swallowed his own children, has reference to the consumption and reproduction continually going on in nature.
The words Jupiter, Zeus, Jove, mean heaven, father, almighty.
ART.
This Carrara marble head was found at Otricoli, a small town near Rome, in 1775, and is called the most beautiful of all the representations of Jupiter. The high forehead is made to appear still higher by the lines of the hair which meet in the center in a pointed arch. A deep furrow divides the hair from the face. The curled beard seems admirably in keeping with Olympian dignity.
The work was probably executed in Rome in about the first century.
