Juno is esteemed the goddess of kingdoms and riches. She is represented as a majestic beautiful woman, riding in a golden chariot drawn by peacocks, waving a sceptre in her hand, and wearing a crown set about with roses and lilies, and encircled with fair Iris, or the rainbow. She is also supposed to preside over matrimony and births, and is the guardian angel of woman.
Venus is the goddess of love and beauty; she sprang from the foam of the sea. As soon as she was born she was cast upon the island of Cyprus, where she was educated, and afterwards being carried to heaven, was married to Vulcan. Her image is fair and beautiful; she is clothed with purple, glittering with diamonds. There are two Cupids on her side, while around her are the Graces. Her chariot is of ivory, drawn by swans, doves, or swallows.
Whilst Latona was wandering through the fields of Lycia, she desired to drink from a spring at the bottom of a valley, but the country rustics drove her away. In spite of her entreaties, they refused to allow her to slake her thirst, whereupon, in wrath, she, cursing them, said, "May ye always live in this water!" Immediately they were turned into frogs, and leaped into the streams and pools, where they continued to exist.
Vulcan, notwithstanding his noble descent, is obliged to follow the trade of a blacksmith. On account of his deformity, he was cast down from heaven into the isle of Lemnos. His leg was broken by the fall. He erected a forge, where he makes thunderbolts for his father Jupiter and armour for the other gods. His servants are called Cyclops, because they have but one eye. Though Vulcan is unpleasant in the sight of others, Venus thinks him the most beautiful of all the divinities.
Æolus keeps the winds under his power in a cave in the Æolian Islands, where he dwells. He can raise storms and hurricanes, and restrain their rage at pleasure.
Momus is a jester, mocker, or mimic. His life is spent in idleness, merely observing the sayings and doings of the gods, and then censuring and deriding them. For instance, when Neptune was made a bull, Minerva a house, and Vulcan a man, Momus was appointed to judge as to whom the greatest skill was manifested in creation. The carping god disapproved of all. He found fault with the bull for not having his horns before his eyes in his forehead, that he might be enabled to push the surer. He condemned the house, because it was fixed and could not be carried away in case it was placed in a bad neighbourhood. But the god, he said, who made man, was most imprudent because he did not make a window in the human breast, that the thoughts might be seen.
CHAPTER X.
Satyrs described—Diana's Retirement—Pallas, the Goddess of Shepherds and Pasture—The vile Flora—Pomona deceived—Celestial Nymphs—Terrestrial Nymphs—River Gods and Goddesses—Sirens—Witch Circe—Infernal Deities—Passage to Tartarus—Palace of Pluto—Judges of Hell—Goddesses of Destiny—Furies—Night, Death, and Sleep: by whom presided over—Names of Monsters condemned in the place of Punishment—Tartarian Regions—Delights of the Elysian Fields—Food and Drink of Pagan Gods—Festivals of Heathens—Colour of Gods—Sacrifices to Deities—Things sacred to Gods.
Satyrs are partly of human likeness and partly of bestial shape. They have heads of human form, with horns and brutish ears; they have crooked hands, rough hairy bodies, goats' legs and feet and tails. The chief of these monsters is the god Pan, the inventor of the musical pipe.
Diana, out of love to Chastity, avoids consort with men, retires into the woods, and there diverts herself with hunting, whence she is reckoned the goddess of the woods and the chase. Pallas is esteemed the goddess of shepherds and pasture, and is the reputed inventress of corn, and is thought by some to be Ceres or Vesta. Flora is the goddess of flowers. By a vile trade, she accumulated a vast amount of money, and made the people of Rome her heirs, who, in return, placed her among the divinities.
Ferona and Pomona are two goddesses of trees and fruits. The latter was advised by the god Vertumnus to enter the matrimonial state in the guise of a hagged old woman; but without success, till he appeared to her as a fair young man, and then she felt the power of love, and yielded to his wishes. The Nymphs are a company of neat charming virgins, living near the gardens of Pomona. They are of three classes:—1st the Celestial Nymphs, called Genii, who guide the spheres and dispense the influences of the stars to things on earth. 2nd, the Terrestrial Nymphs, as Dryades, who preside over the woods and live in the oaks; and Hamadryades, who are born and die with the oaks; the Oreades, who preside over the mountains; the Napææ, who preside over the groves and valleys; the Limnatides, who look after the meadows and fields. 3rd, Marine Nymphs.
As the chief of the marine and river gods and goddesses, Neptune stands at the head. He is represented with black hair and blue eyes, arrayed in a mantle of azure, holding a trident in his right hand, and embracing his queen with his left arm. He stands upright in his chariot, drawn by sea horses, and is attended by nymphs. Proteus is the son of Neptune, but some say he is the offspring of Oceanus and Tethys. His business is to tend the sea-calves. He can turn himself into any shape. Triton, the son and trumpeter of Neptune, is a man to the middle and a dolphin below; he has two fore feet, like those of horses, and is provided with two tails. Oceanus is the son of Cœlum and Vesta, husband to Tethys, god of the sea, and father of the rivers and springs. Nereus, also the son of Oceanus and Tethys, is father of fifty daughters, called Nereides or Sea Nymphs. Palæmon and his mother Ino, together with the fisherman Glaucus, are reckoned among the sea deities. The Sirens resemble mermaids, having the faces of women, but bodies of flying fish. They are reported to be excellent songsters, that play on the Sicilian coasts, and tempt passengers on shore, where they sing them asleep and kill them. Scylla and Charybdis are two other sea monsters. Scylla is the daughter of Phorcys, and beloved by Glaucus, whom therefore the witch Circe by her enchantments turned into a rock, with dogs around her. Charybdis is a very ravenous woman, who stole Hercules's oxen, for which crime Jupiter struck her dead with a thunder-bolt, and then turned her into a gulf or whirlpool in the Sicilian Sea. The Sea Nymphs are the Nereides already referred to. The Naides or Naiades preside over fountains and springs; the Potameides preside over rivers, and Limniades over lakes.
In noticing the Infernal Deities, we shall describe the dismal regions, where wicked spirits dwell, and over which they are reported to preside. The name commonly given to these regions is Hades or Tartarus, understood to signify hell. The passage leading thereto is a wide dark cave, through which one has to pass by a steep rocky descent till he arrives at a gloomy grove and an unnavigable lake called Avernus, from which such poisonous vapours rise as to kill birds flying over it. Yet over this lake the souls of the dead must pass. To assist them, an old decrepit, long-bearded fellow, the oft-heard of Charon, attends with a ferry-boat to carry them to the other side, at a fare not less than a halfpenny.
After this there are four rivers to be passed over—Acheron, whose waters are very bitter; the Styx, a lake rather than a river, and so sacred to the gods, that if any of them swore by it and broke his oath, he was deprived of his godhead, and was prohibited from drinking nectar for a hundred years; the river Cocytus, which flows out of Styx with a lamentable groaning, resembling the painful sounds and exclamations of the damned; the river Phlegethon, so called because it swells with waves of fire and streams of flames.
The souls having passed these rivers, are conducted to the palace of Pluto, king of the infernal regions, where the gate is guarded by Cerberus, a dog with three heads, whose body is covered with snakes in place of hair. This dog is the porter of hell.
Pluto initiated funeral obsequies for the dead: he sits on a throne covered with darkness, holding a key in his hand, and crowned with ebony. Beside him is his queen Proserpina, whom he stole from Ceres.
Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus are judges in hell. The first two are sons of Jupiter by Europa, and the last is his son by Ægina. These are believed to judge the souls of the dead.
The Fates are named Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, and are the goddesses of destiny. They order and manage the fatal thread of life. Clotho draws the thread, Lachesis turns