Hyginus, who lived on terms of close intimacy with Ovid, a fragmentary work called the Book of Fables, which is sometimes a useful source of information, and four books of Poetical Astronomy, have been attributed. The works, as we have them, could not have been written by a friend of the cultivated Ovid. Translations and Studies. For a general treatment of the great poets of Rome, the student is referred to W. L. Collins' Series of Anc. Classics for Engl. Readers (Lippincott, Phila.). For the Cupid and Psyche of Apuleius, read Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean, Lond.: 1885. Of translations, the following are noteworthy: Ovid:— the Metamorphoses, by Dryden, Addison, and others; into English blank verse by Ed. King, Edin.: 1871; transl. by Riley, Lond. 1851; Englished by Geo. Sandys, Lond. 1660. Vergil's Æneid, translations: — into verse by John Conington, Lond.: 1873; into dactylic hexameter by Oliver Crane, N.Y.: 1888; the Æneids into verse by Wm. Morris, Lond.: 1876; Bks. 1-4, by Stanyhurst, 1582 (Arber's Reprint); Æneis, by Dryden. Catullus: transl. by Robinson Ellis, Lond.: 1871; by Sir Theodore Martin, Edin.: 1875. Horace: transl. by Theodore Martin, Edin.: 1881; by Smart, Lond.: 1853; Odes and Epodes in Calverley's translations, Lond. 1866; Odes, etc., by Conington, Lond.: 1872; Odes and Epodes, by Lord Lytton, N.Y.: 1870. See, also, under Pope, and Wilkinson, p. 540. § 13. For Scandinavian literature, see foot-notes to pp. 30-33 and references in § 185 C. Runes were "the letters of the alphabets used by all the old Teutonic tribes . . . The letters were even considered magical, and cast into the air written separately upon chips or spills of wood, to fall, as fate determined, on a cloth, and then be read by the interpreters . . . The association of the runic letters with heathen mysteries and superstition caused the first Christian teachers to discourage, and, indeed, as far as possible, suppress their use. They were, therefore, superseded by the Latin alphabet, which in First English was supplemented by retention of two of the runes, named 'thorn' and 'wen,' to represent sounds of 'th' and 'w,' for which the Latin alphabet had no letters provided. Each rune was named after some object whose name began with the sound represented. The first letter was F, Feoh, money; the second U, Ur, a bull; the third Th, Thorn, a thorn; the fourth O, Os, the mouth; the fifth R, Rad, a saddle; the sixth C, Cen, a torch; and the six sounds being joined together make Futhorc, which is the name given to the runic A B C." Morley's English Writers, 1: 267. See also Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale, 2: 691, under Runes and Rune-stones; Cleasby's IcelandicEnglish Dictionary; and George Stephens' Old Northern Runic Monuments, 2 v., Lond.: 1866–68. § 14. For Translations of the Nibelungenlied, see § 185 C. For other German lays of myth, the Gudrun, the Great Rose Garden, the Horned Siegfried, etc., see Vilmar's Geschichte der deutschen National-Litteratur, 42-101, Leipz.: 1886. See also, in general, Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, Göttingen: 1855; Ludlow's Popular Epics of the Middle Ages, 2 v., Lond.: 1865; George T. Dippold's Great Epics of Medieval Germany, Boston: 1891. § 15. Translations and Studies of Oriental Myths and Sacred Writings. Egyptian. See Birch's Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms, British Museum; Miss A. B. Edwards' A Thousand Miles up the Nile, Lond. 1876. For the principal divinities, see Index to this work. - Indian. Max Müller's translation of the Rig-Veda-Sanhita; Sacred Books of the East, 35 vols., edited by Max Müller, the Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, Institutes of Vishnu, etc., translated by various scholars, Oxford: 1874-90; Müller's History of Sanskrit Literature, Lond.: 1859; Weber's History of Indian Literature, Lond.: 1878; H. H. Wilson's Rig-Veda-Sanhita, 6 v., Lond. 1850-70; Muir's Sanskrit Texts, and his Principal Deities of the RigVeda, 5 v., Lond.: 1868-73; J. Freeman Clarke's Ten Great Religions, Boston: 1880; the Mahâbhârata, translated by Protap Chundra Roy, Nos. 1-76, Calcutta: 1883-93. See Indian Idylls by Edwin Arnold. The Episode of Nala - Nalopákhyánam — translated by Monier Williams, Oxford: 1879. Of the Râmâyana, a paraphrase (in brief) is given by F. Richardson in the Iliad of the East, Lond. 1870. E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, with translations, Chicago: 1891; W. Ward's History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, 3 vols., Lond.: 1822. On Buddhism, read Arnold's Light of Asia. For the chief divinities of the Hindus, see Index to this work. Persian.-J. Freeman Clarke's Ten Great Religions; Johnson's Oriental Religions; Haug's Essays on the Sacred Language, Literature, etc., of the Parsis, by E. W. West, Boston: 1879. In illustration should be read Moore's Fire-Worshippers in Lalla Rookh. 66 § 16. Chaos: a gap. Compare the “ Beginning Gap" of Norse mythology. Eros a yearning. Erebus: black, from root meaning to cover. § 17. Uranus (Greek Ouranos) corresponds with the name of the Indian divinity Varunas, root var, to cover. Uranus is the starry vault that covers the earth; Varunas became the rain-giving sky. Titan: the honorable, powerful; the king; later, the signification was limited to the sun. Oceanus probably means flood. Tethys: the nourisher, nurse. Hyperion: high; the sun. Thea: the beautiful, shining; the moon. She is called by Homer Euryphaëssa, the far-shining. Iapetus: the sender, hurler, wounder; compare the Hebrew Japhet. Themis: that which is established, law. the wanderer on 1 Popular etymology. The suffix ion is patronymic. Mnemosyne: memory. Other Titans were Cous and Phoebe, figurative of the radiant lights of heaven; Creus and Eurybië, mighty powers, probably of the sea; Ophion, the mighty serpent, and Eurynome, the far-ruling, who, according to Apollonius of Rhodes, held sway over the Titans until Cronus cast them into the Ocean, or into Tartarus. Cronus (Greek Kronos) is, as his name shows, the god of ripening, harvest, maturity. Rhea comes from Asia Minor, and was there worshipped as the Mother Earth, dwelling creative among the mountains. Cronus (Kronos) has been naturally, but wrongly, identified with Chronos, the personification of Time, which, as it brings all things to an end, devours its own offspring; and also with the Latin Saturn, who, as a god of agriculture and harvest, was represented with pruning-knife in hand, and regarded as the lord of an ancient golden age. The three Cyclopes were Brontes, Steropes, and Arges. Cyclops means the round-eyed. The Hecatonchires were Briareus, the strong, called also Ægæon (see 21 C); Cottus, the striker; Gyes (or Gyges), the vaulter, or crippler. Gyges is called by Horace (Carm. 2, 17: 14) Centimanus, — the hundred-handed. Illustrative. Milton, in Paradise Lost 10: 581, refers to the tradition of Ophion and Eurynome, who "had first the rule of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven." Hyperion: see Shakespeare's Hamlet, "Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself." Also Hen. V. 4:1; Troil. and Cressida 2:3; Titus Andron. 5:3; Gray, Prog. of Poesy, "Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war"; Spenser, Prothalamion, "Hot Titans beames." On Oceanus, Ben Jonson, Neptune's Triumph. On Saturn, see Shakespeare, Much Ado 1:3; 2 Hen. IV. 2:4; Cymbeline 2:5; Titus Andron. 2:3 and 4:3; Milton, P. L. 1:512, 519, 583, and Il Penseroso 24. See Robert Buchanan, Cloudland, "One like a Titan cold," etc.; Keats, Hyperion. In Art. - Helios (Hyperion) rising from the sea: sculpture of eastern pediment of the frieze of the Parthenon (British Museum). § 18. Homer makes Jupiter (Zeus) the oldest of the sons of Cronus; Hesiod makes him the youngest, in accordance with a widespread savage custom which makes the youngest child heir in chief. — LANG, Myth, Ritual, etc., 1: 297. According to other legends Zeus was born in Arcadia, or even in Epirus at Dodona, where was his sacred grove. He was in either case reared by the nymphs of the locality. According to Hesiod, Theog. 730, he was born in a cave of Mount Dicte, in Crete. § 19. Atlas, according to other accounts, was not doomed to support the heavens until after his encounter with Perseus. See § 136. § 21. See Milton's Christ's Nativity, "Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine." The monster is also called Typhoeus (Hesiod, Theog. 1137). The The monster personifies fiery vapors pro name means to smoke, to burn. ceeding from subterranean places. Other famous Giants were Mimas, Polybotes, Ephialtes, Rhoetus, Clytius. See Preller, 1:60. Briareus (really a Centimanus) is frequently ranked among the giants. Illustrative. Shakespeare, Troil. and Cressida 1 : 2; Milton, P. L. 1: 199; Pope, Dunciad 4: 66. For giants, in general, see P. L. 3:464; 11:642, 688; Samson Agonistes, 148. §§ 22-25. Prometheus: forethought.1 Epimetheus: afterthought. The secret preserved by Prometheus was to the effect that, in time, Jupiter and his dynasty should be overthrown. Prometheus knew also that he would be released from chains by one of his descendants in the thirteenth generation. This deliverer was Hercules, son of Alcmene and Jupiter. Sicyon (or Mecone): a city of the Peloponnesus, near Corinth. Illustrative.. Milton, P. L., " More lovely than Pandora whom the gods endowed with all their gifts." Poems. D. G. Rossetti, Pandora; Longfellow, Masque of Pandora; Thos. Parnell, Hesiod, or the Rise of Woman. Prometheus, by Byron, Lowell, H. Coleridge; Prometheus Bound, by Mrs. Browning; translations of Eschylus, Prometheus Bound, Augusta Webster, E. H. Plumptre; Shelley, Prometheus Unbound; R. H. Horne, Prometheus, the Fire-bringer. See Byron's Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte. The Golden Age: Chaucer, The Former Age (EÆtas Prima). In Art.-Ancient: Prometheus Unbound, vase picture (Monuments Inédits: Rome and Paris). Modern: Thorwaldsen's sculpture, Minerva and Prometheus. Pandora: Sichel (oil), Rossetti (crayons, oil), F. S. Church (water-colors). § 26. Dante (Durante) degli Alighieri was born in Florence, 1265. Banished by his political opponents 1302, he remained in exile until his death, which took place in Ravenna, 1321. His Vita Nuova (New Life), recounting his ideal love for Beatrice Portinari, was written between 1290 and 1300; his great poem, the Divina Commedia (the Divine Comedy) consisting of three parts, Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso,—during the years of his exile. Of the Divine Comedy, says Lowell, "It is the real history of a brother man, of a tempted, purified, and at last triumphant human soul." John Milton (b. 1608) was carried by the stress of the civil war, 1641-1649, away from poetry, music, and the art which he had sedulously cultivated, into the stormy sea of politics and war. Perhaps the severity of his later sonnets and the sublimity of his Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes are the fruit of the stern years of controversy through which he lived, not as a poet, but as a statesman and a pamphleteer. Cervantes (1547-1616), the 1 Popular etymology. The root of the name indicates Fire-god. author of the greatest of Spanish romances, Don Quixote. His life was full of adventure, privation, suffering, with but brief seasons of happiness and renown. He distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto, 1571; but in 1575, being captured by Algerine cruisers, he remained five years in harsh captivity. After his return to Spain he was neglected by those in power. For full twenty years he struggled for his daily bread. Don Quixote was published in and after 1605. Corybantes: the priests of Cybele, whose festivals were violent, and whose worship consisted of dances and noise suggestive of battle, $ 45 a. § 28. Astræa was placed among the stars as the constellation Virgo, the virgin. Her mother was Themis (Justice). Astræa holds aloft a pair of scales, in which she weighs the conflicting claims of parties. The old poets prophesied a return of these goddesses and of the Golden Age. See also Pope's Messiah,— "All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail, and Milton's Hymn to the Nativity, 14, 15. In P. L. 4: 998, et seq., is a different conception of the golden scales, "betwixt Astræa and the Scorpion sign." § 29. Illustrative. - B. W. Proctor, the Flood of Thessaly. See Ovid's famous narrative of the Four Ages and the Flood, Metamorphoses 1: 89–415. Deucalion: Bayard Taylor's Prince Deukalion; Milton, P. L. II: 12. Interpretative. This myth combines two stories of the origin of the Hellenes, or indigenous Greeks, - one, in accordance with which the Hellenes, as earth-born, claimed descent from Pyrrha (the red earth); the other and older, by which Deucalion was represented as the only survivor of the flood, but still the founder of the race (in Greek lads), which he created by casting stones (in Greek ldes) behind him. The myth, therefore, proceeds from an unintended pun. Although, finally, Pyrrha was by myth-makers made the wife of Deucalion, the older myth of the origin of the race from stones was preserved. See Max Müller, Sci. Relig., Lond.: 1873, p. 64. § 30. For genealogy of the race of Inachus, Phoroneus, Pelasgus, and Io, see § 59 C. Pelasgus is frequently regarded as the grandson, not the son, of Phoroneus. For the descendants of Deucalion and Hellen, see § 132 (5) of this commentary. § 31. In the following genealogical table (A), the names of the great gods of Olympus are printed in heavy-face. Latin forms of names or Latin substitutes are used. Illustrative. On the Gods of Greece, see E. A. Bowring's translation of Schiller's Die Götter Griechenlands and Bayard Taylor's Masque of the |