son of Ægeus, undertook to deliver his country from the terrible impost, and set sail for Crete as one of the destined victims. On his arrival he was seen and loved by Ariadne, daughter of the king, who furnished him with a clue of thread, by means of which he might retrace his steps with certainty, and escape from the "inextricabilis error" of the monster's den. Theseus slew the Minotaur, delivered his companions and carried off the princess, but having landed on the island of Dia, he was warned by Pallas in a dream to abandon his mistress and hasten to Athens. The deserted Ariadne was found all disconsolate by Bacchus, who, smitten by her beauty, chose her for his bride, and bestowed on her a golden chaplet, which the gods, in honour of the giver, planted as a constellation in the sky, where it still beams under the title of the Cretan Crown, and guides the course of the wandering mariner. Ariadne is mentioned twice by Homer, in the Iliad XVIII. 590, where Hephaestus is said to have represented on the shield of Achilles a dance Like unto that which erst in Gnossus broad For fair-tressed Ariadne was devised and in the Odyssey XI. 320, where she is seen by Ulysses among other famous personages dwelling in the realms below. Procris I saw and Ariadne fair, Sage Minos' daughter, her whom Theseus once Of sacred Athens, but he tasted not The joys of full fruition, she was slain1 By Artemis, in Dia's sea-girt isle, If this passage be genuine, which many doubt, it must refer to some more ancient version of the tale. In Hesiod, as in later writers, Ariadne is the partner of Bacchus, thus Theog. 947. But Dionysus of the golden locks Old Minos daughter, and to her Jove gave 1. Gnosus or Gnossus was the chief city of ancient Crete, and from " Or "was held,” i. e., detained, according as we read iσxs or ixra this word are formed the adjectives Gnosius and Gnosiacus, (which are used as equivalent to the more general epithets Cressius, Cretaus, Creticus, Cretensis,) and likewise the feminine Græco-poetic forms Gnosis and Gnosiăs, which are frequently placed absolutely, like Cressa, for Ariadne, puella being understood as in the line before us, and below v. 30. The towns next in importance to Gnosus were Gortys or Gortyna, and Cydonia, and hence the adjectives Gortynius and Cydonius are equivalent to Cretan, as when Virgil names stabula Gortynia and Cydonia spicula. Cressa is used absolutely by Propertius' to indicate Pasiphae the wife of Minos,2 and by Ovid in one passage for Ariadne, and in another for Aerope.3 2. Dia, now Standia, was the name of a small island off the coast of Crete, immediately opposite to Gnosus. Dia was also one of the appellations of Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades, according to some the birth-place of Bacchus, who was worshipped there with peculiar zeal. The epithet brevis seems to make it certain that Ovid meant to indicate the former in the passage before us. 3. (Utque erat a somno,) i. e., "just as she had started from slumber," with hair dishevelled and disordered dress. 6. (Indigno,) i. e., "unmerited." The use of indignus in this passive sense is not uncommon, e. g. Virg. Æ. XII. 810. Nec tu me aëria solam nunc sede videres Digna, indigna pati and VI. 162. ..Atque illi Misenum in littore sicco Ut venere vident indigna morte peremtum. 11. The student should observe that most of the ceremonies which accompanied the worship of Bacchus seem to have been introduced from the East, and like the rites of Cybele and others derived from the same source, belong to the class of those which have been denominated orgiastic, or enthusiastic. The public celebration of such festivals was characterized by a deafening din, proceeding from the brattling of trumpets, the rolling of drums, and the clashing of cymbals, intermingled with the shrill notes of the fife, while the priests and devotees danced or ran about with frantic gestures, shouting and screaming, tearing their hair, beating their breasts, and often slashing themselves with knives, forming in this respect a striking contrast to the solemni 1 IV. vii. 57. 2 Amor. I. vii. 11. 3 A. A. I. 327. ties indigenous to Greece, which were all distinguished either by gentle devotion or simple light hearted merriment. Hence, too, the determined opposition made by the grave and austere Romans to the introduction of the Bacchanalian Orgies; and although the worship of Cybele was naturalized at an early period, in accordance with the injunctions of the Sibylline books, it seems for a considerable time to have been kept under decent restraint. 12. (Attonita...manu,) "the frantic hand of the Bachanals." Attonitus is properly thunder-struck, and hence applied to those who are struck by a god, divinely inspired. Virgil has the expression more fully. Tum, quorum attonitæ Baccho nemora avia matres Undique collecti coëunt, Martemque fatigant.-Æ. VII. 580. 13. (Excidit.) This is commonly translated "she fell to the earth through terror;" perhaps it would be better to understand mente “she became senseless through fear." There is frequently an ellipse of memoria after excido, e. g. Ov. T. IV. v. 10. Excidit heu nomen quam mihi pæne tuum. Somewhat different is the expression in R. A. 348. Infelix vitiis excidet illa suis, i. e., "the unhappy woman will fall from your favour in consequence of her defects." 13. (Rupitque,) "cut short," "broke off." Her voice failed. 15, Mimallonides, female votaries of Bacchus, otherwise termed Manades, Thyades, Evades, Baccha, &c.; we find also the form Mimallones in Stat. Theb. IV. 659. Post exsultantes spolia armentalia portant and the adjective Mimalloneus in Pers. S. I. 99. Torva Mimalloneis implerunt cornua bombis. The derivation of these words is uncertain. Some etymologists would connect them with the lofty mountain range of Mimas in Ionia, the scene of Bacchanalian rites; others with the Greek iɛîõbai, because they imitated the gestures and actions of men, &c. 1 16. (Satyri.) The Satyrs who are constantly represented as the attendants of Bacchus, occupied the same place in Grecian as the Fauns did in the Italian mythology. They were rural deities who roamed through the woods and wilds, dwelling in caves, and endeavouring to gain the love of the nymphs. They were usually represented with horns and the feet of goats, and covered with long shaggy hair. The derivation of the word is uncertain; but in all probability the Doric Tírugos, which signifies a he-goat, is only a dialectic form of Σάτυρος. 16. Pravius is a poetic word applied as an epithet to any thing which goes before another, leading the way. Ovid thus describes the shades of Orpheus and Eurydice wandering together in the Elysian fields, Met. XI. 64. Hic modo coniunctis spatiantur passibus ambo: 17. Silenus is another of the constant attendants upon Bacchus, having acted as the guardian and tutor of the youthful god. ... custos famulusque Dei Silenus alumni. -Hor. A. P. 239. The description here given corresponds perfectly with the representations found in ancient works of art, in which he appears as a fat, squat, pot-bellied, bald, snub-nosed, wide-nostrilled, half-tipsy old man,2 sometimes riding upon an ass and grasping a ferula (vágong,) sometimes staggering along or lying asleep with a huge drinking cup in his arms. Although the poets make him the butt and laughing-stock of the Dionysiac troop,3 yet they invest him with the attributes of a bard and a philosopher also, as may be seen from the magnificent song put into his mouth by Virgil, and the strange legends regarding his capture by king Midas.4 We ought also to observe that Silenus, when taken by himself, is a well-defined personage, but that it is difficult to distinguish the Sileni,5 whom we find mentioned in the plural number as a class of deities, 1 Bochart considers it a Semitic word in which case Mimallonides might be connected with Memallelan, i. e., garrulæ, loquaculæ, or with Mamal, a wine-press. 2 See also the pictures drawn by Lucian in his Concilium Deorum and his Bacchus. 3 e. g., compare extract from Ovid, p. 103, v. 33 50. 4 Recorded by Theopompus, and copied from him by Ælian, V. H. 111. 18, and Servius on Virg. Ecl. VI. 13, and H. X. 142. 5 See notes on extracts from Ovid, p. 104, v. 57. from the Satyrs. In the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite they are described as the lovers of the nymphs, and in Catullus they are styled Nysigena, i. e,, born at Nysa, and are coupled with the Satyrs as forming part of the train of Bacchus. The whole of the passage here alluded to has been imitated by Ovid, and is in itself so beautiful and spirited that it well deserves to be remembered. At parte ex alia, florens volitabat Iacchus OVID. REMEDIA AMORIS. 169. 6. (Fenore.) Properly the "interest of money," that which money produces or begets from the obsolete feo to produce or create the root of fetus, fecundus, &c. Thus fenus corresponds exactly to the Greek Tóxos. Here it is applied to the return made by the soil for the labour bestowed upon it, and similarly by Tibull. II. vi. 22. Spes alit agricolas; spes sulcis credit aratis Semina, quæ magno fenore reddat ager. The same figure is found even in prose: Pliny, describing the extreme fertility of Mesopotamia, says that after the corn has sprung up "Babylone tamen bis secant, tertio depascunt: alioquin folia tantum fierent. Sic quoque cum quinquagesimo fenore messes reddit exilitas soli; verum diligentioribus cum centesimo quinquagesimo.”—(H. N. XVIII c. 17.)-Where exilitas soli seems to signify "the bare soil without manure or any artificial stimulus." |