ON THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS.

PART I.

As the mythology of the Greeks is intimately connected with their philosophy and theology, it is not at all wonderful, since the moderns are ignorant of the latter, that they have not genuinely developed the former. Lord Bacon, indeed, has done all, in attempting to unfold this mythology, that great genius, with out the assistance of genuine philosophy, is able to effect. But the most piercing sagacity, the most brilliant wit, and the most exquisite subtilty of thought, without this assistance, are here of no avail. It is indeed easy for ingenious men to explain an ancient fable, in a way which to the superficial observer shall appear to be the precise meaning which its inventor designed to convey, though it be in reality very far from the truth. This may be easily accounted for, by considering that all fables are images of truths; but those of the Greeks, of truths with which but few are acquainted. Hence, like pictures of unknown persons, they become the subjects of endless conjecture and absurd opinion, from the similitude which every one fancies he discovers in them to objects which are generally known, and with which he is familiar. He who understands the explanations given by the Platonic philosophers, of these fables, will immediately subscribe to the truth of this observation, as he will find that these interpretations are a scientific development of their external or apparent meaning.

In order to demonstrate this, I shall present the reader with an elucidation of some of the principal fables of the Greeks, by these philosophers, and particularly of those of Homer: preparatory to which, it will be necessary, in the first place, to consider whence the ancients were induced to devise fables; in the second place, to show what the difference is, between the fables of philosophers and those of poets; and in the third place, to enumerate the different species of fables, and give examples of each.

As to the first particular then, the ancients employed fables,1 looking to two things, nature and our soul. They employed them by looking to nature, and the fabrication of things, as fol

I Vid. Olympiodor. MS. Schol. in Platonis Gorgiam.
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lows. From things that are visible, we believe in things invisible; and from bodies, in incorporeal natures. For, seeing the orderly arrangement of bodies in the universe, we understand that a certain incorporeal power presides over them. As we therefore see that our body is moved, but is no longer so after death, we conceive that it was a certain incorporeal power which moved it. Hence perceiving that we believe in things incorporeal and invisible from things visible and corporeal, fables came to be adopted, in order that we might arrive from things visible to invisible natures; as for instance, that on hearing the adulteries, bonds, and lacerations, of the Gods, the castrations of heaven, and the like, we may not rest satisfied with the apparent meaning of such particulars, but may proceed to the unapparent, and investigate its true signification. After this manner therefore, looking to the nature of things, were fables employed.'

But from looking to the human soul, they originated as follows: While we are children we live according to the phantasy; but the phantastic part is conversant with figures, and types, and things of this kind. That the phantastic part in us therefore

The philosopher Sallust likewise, in the following admirable manner, unfolds the reason why fables were employed by the ancients, in his golden treatise On the Gods and the World.1

"The first utility arising from fables is this-that they excite us to inquiry, and do not suffer our reasoning power to remain in indolent rest. That fables therefore are divine, may be shown from those by whom they are employed. For they are used by divinely inspired poets; by the best of philosophers; by those who instituted the mysteries; and by the Gods themselves in oracles. But why fables are - divine, it is the province of philosophy to investigate. Since, then, all beings rejoice in similitude, but turn away abhorrent from dissimilitude, it is requisite that assertions about the Gods should be similar to them, in order that they may be adapted to the dignity of their essence, and may render the Gods propitious to those by whom the assertions are made; which can alone be effected through fables. Hence fables imitate the Gods, and the goodness of the Gods, according to the effable and ineffable, the visible and invisible, the perspicuous and the concealed. For as the Gods impart to all men in common the benefits produced by sensibles, but to the wise alone the benefits of intelligibles, thus also fables proclaim to all men that there are Gods; but who they are, and in what their nature consists, they unfold to those who are capable of obtaining this knowledge. They likewise imitate the energies of the Gods. For the world also may be called a fable; bodies, indeed, and sensible things being visibly contained in it, but souls and intellects subsisting in it latently. And besides this, to teach all men the truth concerning the Gods, produces contempt in the stupid, through their inability of understanding it, and indolence in the worthy; but to conceal the truth in fables, prevents the contempt of the former, and compels the latter to philosophise. Why, however, do fables speak of thefts, adulteries, paternal bonds, and other absurd and atrocious deeds? May it not be said, that such narrations are attended with this admirable effect-that the soul, through the apparent absurdity, is immediately led to conceive that these assertions are veils, and that the truth contained in them is arcane?

! Vid. Cap. III.

may be preserved, we employ fables, in consequence of this part rejoicing in fables. It may also be said, that a fable is nothing else than a false discourse,' adumbrating the truth: for a fable is the image of truth. But the soul is the image of the natures prior to herself; and hence she rejoices in fables, as an image in an image. As we are therefore from our childhood nourished in fables, it is necessary that they should be introduced. And thus much for the first problem, concerning the origin of fables.

In the second place, let us consider what the difference is between the fables of philosophers and poets. Each, therefore, has something in which it abounds more than, and something in which it is deficient from, the other. Thus for instance, the poetic fable abounds in this-that we must not rest satisfied with the apparent meaning, but pass on to the occult truth. For who, endued with intellect, would believe that Jupiter was desirous of having connexion with Juno, and on the ground, without waiting to go into the bed-chamber? So that the poetic fable abounds, in consequence of asserting such things as do not suffer us to stop at the apparent, but lead us to explore the occult truth. But it is defective in this, that it deceives those of a juvenile age. Plato, therefore, neglects fables of this kind, and banishes Hemer from his Republic; because youth, on hearing such fables, will not be able to distinguish what is allegorical from what is not.

Philosophical fables, on the contrary, do not injure those who go no farther than the apparent meaning. Thus for instance, they assert that there are punishments and rivers under the earth: and if we adhere to the literal meaning of these, we shall not be injured. But they are deficient in this, that as their apparent signification does not injure, we often content ourselves with

'Conformably to this definition of a fable by Olympiodorus, Timæus the Locrian, in his treatise περι ψυχας κόσμω και φυσιος, says : ως γαρ τα σώματα νοσώδεσι ποκα υγιαζόμες, είναι μη εική τους υγιεινοτατοις" ούτω τας ψυχας απειργομες ψευδεσι λόγοις είχα μη αγηται αλαθεσι. i. e. “ For as we sometimes restore bodies to health by things of a noxious nature, when this is not to be effected by such as are most salubrious; thus also we restrain souls [from evil conduct,] by false assertions, when they are incapable of being led by such as are true." So entirely ignorant, however, are many of the present day, even among those that are called learned, of this definition of a fable, that the fables of Homer are continually defamed by these men, as monstrously incongruous, from not perceiving that they have a hidden meaning, and that like the curtains which formerly guarded the adyta of temples from the profane eye, they are the veils of truths the most luminous and divine.

2 Hence it follows that those who are deceived by these fables, i. e. who consider them solely according to their literal meaning, are juvenile in understanding.

this, and do not explore the latent truth. We may also say, that philosophic fables look to the energies of the soul. For if we were entirely intellect alone, and had no connexion with the phantasy, we should not require fables, in consequence of always associating with intellectual natures. If, again, we were entirely irrational, and lived according to the phantasy, and had no other energy than this, it would be requisite that the whole of our life should be fabulous. Since, however, we possess intellect, opinion, and phantasy, demonstrations are given with a view to intellect and hence Plato says, that if any one is willing to energise according to intellect, he will have demonstrations bound with adamantine chains; if according to opinion, he will have the testimony of renowned persons; and if according to the phantasy, he will have fables by which it is excited; so that from all these he will derive advantage.

Plato therefore rejects the more tragical mode of mythologising adopted by the ancient poets, who thought proper to establish an arcane theology respecting the Gods, and on this account devised wanderings, castrations, battles, and lacerations, of the Gods, and many other symbols of the truth about divine natures, which this theology conceals;-this mode he rejects, and asserts that it is in every respect most foreign from 'erudition. But he considers those mythological discourses about the Gods, to be more persuasive and more adapted to truth, which assert that a divine nature is the cause of all good, but of no evil; and that it is void of all mutation, comprehending in itself the fountain of truth, but never becoming the cause of any deception to others. For such types of theology Socrates delivers in the Republic.

Hence, all the fables of Plato, guarding the truth in concealment, have not even their externally apparent apparatus, discordant with our undisciplined and unperverted anticipations of divinity. But they bring with them an image of the mundane composition, in which both the apparent beauty is worthy of divinity, and a beauty more divine than this is established in the unapparent lives and powers of its causes.

In the third place, with respect to the different species of fables, they are five in number, and are beautifully unfolded by the philosopher Sallust, in his treatise on the Gods and the World,' as follows: "Of fables, some are theological, others physical, others psychical, (or pertaining to soul,) others mate

1 Vid. Cap. IV.

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rial, and others are mingled from these. Theological fables never employ body, but survey the essences themselves of the Gods; and of this kind, are Saturn's absorptions of his children. For since Saturn is an intellectual God, but every intellect is converted to itself, the fable obscurely indicates the essence of the God. But we may survey fables physically, when they speak of the energies of the Gods about the world. Thus for instance, some conceiving Time to be Saturn, and calling the parts of time the children of the whole of time, say that the children are absorbed by the father. The psychical mode of fables consists in surveying the energies of the soul herself; because the intellections of our souls, though they proceed into other things, yet abide in their parents. And the material mode, is that which is especially used through inerudition by the Egyptians, who call bodies themselves, and conceive them to be, Gods. According to this mode, earth is denominated Isis, but moisture Osiris, and heat Typhon; or water is called Saturn, but fruits Adonis, and wine Bacchus. And to assert, indeed, that these are dedicated to the Gods, in the same manner as plants, and stones, and animals, is the province of wise men; but it pertains to madmen only to call them Gods; unless after the same manner as when from custom we call the orb of the sun, and the rays emanating from that orb, the sun itself.

"The mixed species of fables may be seen in many other examples, and in that in which it is said that Strife at a banquet of the Gods threw a golden apple, and that a contention about it arising among the Goddesses, they were sent by Jupiter to take the judgment of Paris, who, being charmed with the beauty of Venus, gave her the apple in preference to the rest. For here, the banquet manifests the supermundane powers of the Gods; and on this account they subsist in conjunction with each other. But the golden apple is the world, which, as it consists of contraries, is very properly said to be thrown by Strife. As different Gods, however, impart different gifts to the world, they appear to contend for the apple. And a soul living according to sense, (for this is Paris) and not perceiving the other powers in the universe, says that the apple subsists alone through the beauty of Venus. But of fables, the theological

Thus also he is defined by Plato in the Cratylus to be xopos vous, a pure intellect. Saturn, according to the fable, not only devoured his children, but afterwards refunded them, because intellect not only seeks and procreates, but produces into light and profits.

2 I refer the reader who wishes to see the physical species of fables largely unfolded, to the allegories of Heraclides or Heraclitus in Gale's Opuscula Mythologica.