vine-tree; and is the original of similar narratives in Ovid,* Propertius,† and Seneca.‡

Mars.

In the Hymn to Mars is contained a piece of Hymn to astronomy, something later in date than the Homeric age, and involving a representation at variance with the popular account of the God of War:

πυραυγέα κύκλον ἑλίσσων αἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοι ζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι.

Thou thy fiery circlet roll'st

Mid the sev'n wand'ring stars of heav'n, where thee
Thy flaming steeds on the third chariot's wheel

Bear ever.

The Poet counts from Saturn through Jupiter to
Mars. The word τύραννος|| also is used in this
Hymn, but is not to be found in the Iliad or
Odyssey.

In one of the Hymns to Minerva a very spirited Hymn to picture is given of the fable of that Goddess

66

springing “ all-armed” from the head of Jupiter:

τὴν αὐτὸς ἐγείνατο μητίετα Ζεὺς

σεμνῆς ἐκ κεφαλῆς, πολεμήϊα τεύχε' ἔχουσαν,
χρύσεα, παμφανόωντα· σέβας δ' ἔχε πάντας ὁρῶντας
ἀθανάτους· ἡ δὲ πρόσθεν Διὸς Αἰγιόχοιο

ἐσσυμένως ὤρουσεν ἀπ ̓ ἀθανάτοιο καρήνου,
σείσασ ̓ ὀξύν ἄκοντα· μέγας δ' ἐλελίζετ ̓ ὄλυμπος

Edip. 449. This story also will put the reader in mind of Ariel.

Minerva.

Mythology.

δεινὸν ὑπ' ὀμβρίμης γλαυκώπιδος· ἀμφὶ δὲ γαῖα
σμερδαλέον ἰάχησεν· ἐκινήθη δ' ἄρα πόντος
κύμασι πορφυρέοισι κυκώμενος.*

Her the Counsellor Jove

In golden arms all shining did beget
Out of his awful head. Amazement seiz'd
The gazing deities, what time she burst
Forth rushing from the Ægis-bearer's front,
And shook a pointed dart ;—the vast Heav'n quak'd
Dreadful beneath the Azure-ey'd ;-the Earth
Groan'd terribly the while;-the Sea was mov'd
With all his dark-blue waves.†

An acquaintance with the Homeric Hymns is not only to be recommended to all students for the sake of the fine poetry which they contain; but also because they present the original form and coloring of many of the mythological fables of the Greeks, which in the course of succeeding ages underwent great changes in one and the other. An accurate knowledge of the popular Theogony and Theology in their successive variations is indispensable to a masterly view of the poetry of the Greeks; without it, a thousand allusions will escape notice-a thousand passages will be imperfectly or not at all understood. That, in most cases, for the primary purposes of poetry, especially in Homer, the fables are to be

*V. 4-12.

This passage evidently suggested to Milton the hint for his grand description of Sin breaking forth from the head of Satan.

Par. Lost.

taken literally, cannot be doubted; nevertheless it is equally certain that the main points of the Greek mythology may be most happily explained in a figurative sense, and it is by no means clear that such an allegorical understanding of them is not the original and fundamental one.* Perhaps the importance of this branch of good scholarship has not been sufficiently considered in our great schools in modern times; at least it seems clear from the old editions of the classic poets that it was formerly much more an object of learned study than at present. It is from the Homeric Poems in general that we may best learn the character and bearings of the Popular Religion of the Greeks-that which the old heroic Poets made familiar to the most humble, and with which the almost exclusive devotion, and the splendid achievements of the Arts, associated feelings of fondness and of admiration in the hearts of the noblest, of their countrymen. The Sailor in the Piræus invoked the God; the Philosopher in the

*"I rather think that the Fable was first, and the Exposition devised, than that the Moral was first, and thereupon the Fable framed; but yet that all the Fables and Fictions of the poets were but pleasure, and not figure, I interpose no opinion. Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself, notwithstanding he was made a kind of scripture by the latter schools of the Grecians, yet I should without any difficulty pronounce, that his fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning; but what they might have upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of them." Bacon, Adv. of Learning, B. II.

Academy meditated on the Power or Law or Attribute; but both stopped to gaze at, and, gazing, almost equally admired, the Shape in which Phidias or Apelles represented the Sailor's God and the Wise Man's Allegory. But, independently of this not unimportant consideration, there is, as I have said before, so much beautiful and vigorous poetry in these Hymns that no boy, who aspires to be a Scholar, should leave school without having read them through frequently and with attention.

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

THE EPIGRAMS.

UNDER the title of Epigrams are classed a few Epigrams.
verses on different subjects, chiefly Addresses to
cities or private individuals. There is one short
Hymn to Neptune, which seems out of its place
here. In the fourth Epigram, Homer is repre-
sented as speaking of his blindness and his itine-
rant life.

κῆρα δ' ἐγὼ, τήν μοι θεὸς ὤπασε γεινομένῳ περ,
τλήσομαι, ἀκράαντα φέρων τετληότι θυμῷ·
οὐδέ τι μοὶ φίλα γυῖα μένειν ἱεραῖς ἐν ἀγυιαῖς
Κύμης ὁρμαίνουσι, μέγας δέ με θυμὸς ἐπείγει
δῆμον ἐς ἀλλοδαπῶν ἰέναι ὀλίγον περ ἐόντα.*

The fate, which God allotted at my birth,
With patient heart will I endure on earth;
But not in Cyme's sacred streets to dwell,
Idle for ever thus, like I so well,

As, my great Mind still leading me before,
Weak though I be, to seek a foreign shore.

* Epig. IV. v. 13-17.