GREEK MYTHOLOGY.
P. 76, c. 1.—“Cosmogony.” Derived from two Greek words signifying the world, and to create; hence its meaning, the doctrine or science of the creation of the world.
“Gea.” This name appears in many of our words to-day, such as geography, geology, geometry, etc., and in each retains its primitive meaning.
P. 76, c. 2.—“Comus.” From a Greek word meaning revel. From it comes our word comedy. In Milton’s poem Comus is represented as a base enchanter who endeavors to beguile and entrap the innocent by means of his “brewed enchantments.”
P. 77, c. 1.—“Centimani,” hundred-handed. Three giants, sons of Uranus and Gea. They had each one hundred hands and fifty heads, and were of extraordinary size and terrible strength.
P. 77, c. 2.—“Phlegra,” phlegˈraˈ. The most westerly of three peninsulas running out from Chalcidice, in Macedonia.
P. 78, c. 1.—“Anthropomorphic,” an-thro-po-morˈphic. Pertaining to the representation of the deity under human form.
“Monotheism.” The doctrine that there is but one God.
“Polytheism.” The doctrine of many gods.
“Archilocus,” ar-chilˈo-chus. (B. C. 714-676.) The first Greek poet who wrote according to fixed rules.
“Terpander.” (B. C. 700-650.) The father of Greek music, and through it, of lyric poetry.
“Epicharmos,” ep-i-charˈmos. Lived about B. C. 540. The chief comic poet among the Dorians, one of the races of the Greeks.
P. 78, c. 2.—“Theogony,” the-ogˈo-ny. That branch of heathen theology which taught the genealogy of their gods.
“Tytyus.” A son of Jupiter.
“Python.” A monster serpent. Apollo founded the Pythian games in honor of this victory.
P. 79, c. 1.—“Orestes.” Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, was murdered by Ægisthus and Clytemnestra. Orestes avenged his father’s death by killing his mother and her guilty partner, for which he was pursued by the Furies.
“Orpheus.” One of the Argonauts. He enchanted with his music act only the wild beasts, but the trees and rocks, so that they followed the sound of his golden harp. He went after his lost wife, Proserpine, into the abodes of Hades, and suspended the torments of the lost, by his music. He won his wife back from the most inexorable of all deities, but had promised not to look back at her till they had arrived in the upper world. The anxiety of love overcame him, and he looked round to see that she was surely following. At that moment she was caught back to the infernal region.