TRITON, PROTEUS, PORTUMNUS, GLAUCUS, ÆOLUS, THE SYRENS, CHARYBDIS AND SCYLLA, CIRCE AND THE HARPIES.
Triton was the son of Neptune and Amphitrite, and was reckoned of much importance among the sea deities, being able to raise or to calm storms at his pleasure. He is generally represented with a shell in his hand.
"Old Triton blowing his sea horn."
Wordsworth.
His body above the waist, is that of a man, but below, a dolphin's, while by some he is shown with the fore feet of a horse. He usually precedes the chariot of the god of the sea, sounding his shell, and is resembled, in this, by his sons the Tritons.
Proteus, son of Oceanus and Thetis, was guardian of the subjects of Neptune, and had the power of looking into the future, from that God, because he had tended for him the monsters of the sea.
"The shepherd of the seas, a prophet, and a god,
High o'er the main, in watery pomp he rides,
His azure car and finny coursers guides.
With sure foresight, and with unerring doom
He sees what is, and was, and is to come."
Virgil.
From his knowledge of futurity, mankind are said to have received the greatest benefits.
————————"Blue Proteus dwells,
Great Neptune's prophet, who the ocean quells;
He in a glittering chariot courses o'er
The foaming waves, him all the nymphs adore,
Old Nereus too, because he all things knows,
The past, the present, and the future shows;
So Neptune pleased who Proteus thus inspired,
And with such wages to his service hired,
Gave him the rule of all his briny flocks,
That feed among a thousand ragged rocks."
The changes which this deity was able to make in his appearance, caused the name of Proteus to be synonimous with change. Thus
"The Proteus lover woos his playful bride,
To win the fair he tries a thousand forms,
Basks on the sands, or gambols in the storms.
A dolphin now, his scaly sides he laves;
And bears the sportive damsel on the waves;
She strikes the cymbals as he moves along,
And wondering Ocean listens to the song.
And now a spotted pard the lover stalks,
Plays round her steps, and guards her favoured walks;
As with white teeth he prints her hand, caressed,
And lays his velvet paw upon her breast,
O'er his round face her snowy fingers strain
The silken knots and fit the ribbon-rein.
And now a swan he spreads his plumy sails,
And proudly glides before the fanning gales;
Pleased on the flowery brink with graceful hand
She waves her floating lover to the land;
Bright shines his sinuous neck with crimson beak,
He prints fond kisses on her glowing cheek,
Spreads his broad wings, elates his ebon crest,
And clasps the beauty to his downy breast."
Darwin.
He usually resided on the Carpathian sea, and like the rest of the sea gods, reposed upon the shore, where those resorted who wished to consult him to obtain any revelation; but it was necessary to secure him, lest by taking some unnatural shape, he should elude their vigilance.
Portumnus, the guardian of doors, was at first known as
Melicerta, and was the son of Athamas and Ino. He was saved by his mother from the fury of his father, Athamas, who became inflamed by such a sudden fury, that he took Ino for a Lioness, and her two children for whelps. In this fit of madness, he dashed one of them against a wall; Ino fled with Melicerta in her arms, and threw herself into the sea from a high rock, and was changed into a sea deity, by Neptune, who had compassion on her misfortunes. It is supposed by many, that the Isthmian games were in honour of Portumnus.
Glaucus was a fisher of Bœotia, and remarking, on one occasion, that the fish which he threw on the grass, seemed to receive fresh vigour from touching the ground, he attributed it to the grass, and tasting it, was seized with a sudden desire to live in the sea.
Upon this, he leapt into the water, and was made a sea deity by Oceanus, at the request of the marine gods.
Æolus, god of the winds, reigned in the Vulcanean islands, and was under the power of Neptune, who allowed him to give liberty to the winds, or to recall them into their caverns at his pleasure.
"Oh many a voice is thine thou wind!
Full many a voice is thine,
From every scene thy wing o'ersweeps
Thou bear'st a sound and sign;
A minstrel wild and strong thou art,
With a mastery all thine own,
And the spirit is thy harp, O wind!
That gives the answering tone.
"Thou hast been across red fields of war,
Where shivered helmets lie,
And thou bringest thence the thrilling note
Of a clarion in the sky:
A rustling of proud banner folds,
A peal of stormy drums,—
All these are in thy music met,
As when a leader comes.
"Thou hast been o'er solitary seas,
And from their wastes brought back
Each noise of waters that awoke
In the mystery of thy track;
The chime of low, soft southern waves
On some green palmy shore,
The hollow roll of distant surge,
The gathered billows roar.
"Thou art come from forests dark and deep,
Thou mighty, rushing wind!
And thou bearest all their unisons
In one, full swell combined;
The restless pines, the moaning stream,
All hidden things and free,
Of the dim, old sounding wilderness,
Have lent their soul to thee.
"Thou art come from cities lighted up
For the conqueror passing by,
Thou art wafting from their streets, a sound
Of haughty revelry:
The rolling of triumphant wheels,
The harpings in the hall,
The far off shout of multitudes,
Are in thy rise and fall.
"Thou art come from kingly tombs and shrines,
From ancient minsters vast,
Through the dark aisles of a thousand years
Thy lonely wing hath passed;
Thou hast caught the anthem's billowy swell,
The stately dirge's tone;
For a chief, with sword and shield, and helm,
To his place of slumber's gone.
"Thou art come from long forsaken homes,
Wherein our young days flew,
Thou hast found sweet voices lingering there,
The loved, the kind, the true!
Thou callest back those melodies,
Though now all changed and fled,
Be still, be still, and haunt us not
With music from the dead!
"Are all these notes in thee, wild wind?
These many notes in thee?
Far in our own unfathomed souls
Their fount must surely be;
Yes! buried, but unsleeping, there;
Thought watches, memory lies,
From whose deep urn the tones are poured
Through all earth's harmonies."
Hemans.
The principal winds are Boreas, Auster, Eurus and Zephyrus. Boreas, God of the North, carried away Orithya, who refused to receive his addresses. By her he had Zetes and Calais, Cleopatra and Cheone. He once changed himself into a horse, to unite himself with the mare of Dardanus, by which he had a female progeny of twelve, so swift, that they ran or rather flew over the sea without wetting a foot. The Athenians dedicated altars to him when Xerxes invaded Europe.
Auster, God of the south wind, appeared generally as an old man with grey hair, a gloomy countenance, a head covered with clouds, a sable vesture and dusky wings. He is the dispenser of rain and of all heavy showers.
Eurus, God of the east, is represented as a young man, flying with great impetuosity, and often appearing in a playful and wanton humour.
Zephyrus, God of the West, the warmest of all the winds, married Flora, and was said to produce flowers and fruits, by the sweetness of his breath. Companion of love, he has the figure of a youth, and the wings of a butterfly.
SONGS OF THE WINDS.
"We are free! we are free! in our home the skies,
When we calmly sleep, or in tumult rise,
When we smile on the vision-like realms below,
Or vengefully utter the chords of woe.
When we dance in the sunbeams, or laughingly play
With the spring clouds that fly from our kisses away,
When we grapple and fight with the bellowing foam,
Or slumber and sleep in our shadowless home."
NORTH WIND.
"I've blastingly wandered
Where nature doth pant;
And gloomily pondered
O'er sadness and want.
An old man was sighing
O'er angel lips gone,
His cherub was dying,
And he was alone.
On his grey locks I clotted
An ice-crown cold,—
His sinews I knotted;
His tale is told."
SOUTH WIND.
"I met two young lovers,
And listed their vows,
Where the woodbine covers
The old oak boughs.
Enhancing their pleasures
I fluttered around.
And joined with glad measures
Their soft sighs' sound.
They blessed me for bringing
Sweet perfumes near,
They blessed me for singing
A cadence so dear."
EAST WIND.
"I've wafted through bowers
Where angels might muse,
And kiss their bright flowers
Of loveliest hues.
And maidens were singing
Of beauty and love,
Their symphonies ringing,
Resounded above.
I parted the tresses,
From fairy-like brows,
Where the lily impresses
Its earliest vows."
WEST WIND.
"I've rolled o'er the regions
Of earth and sea,
And laughed at the legions
That trembled at me.
I've madly gambolled
With clouds and waves;
And closed, as I rambled,
My victim's grave.
I've roared and I've revelled,
With fiend-like glee,
Earth's palaces levelled,
Wrecks dashed o'er the sea."
CHORUS.
"We are free, we are free, in our realms of air,
We list to no sorrow, we own no care;
We hold our carousals aloft with the stars,
Where they glitter along in their golden cars,
We frolic and bound with the playful wave,
Which the prison-like confines of earth doth lave;
We are glad, we are glad, and in breeze or in blast,
We will sport round the world as long as 'twill last."
Jennings.
Alcyone, the daughter of Æolus, married Ceyx, who was drowned as he was going to Claros to consult an oracle. Alcyone was apprized in a dream of her husband's fate, and finding on the morrow his body upon the shore, she threw herself into the sea. The Gods, touched by her fidelity, changed her and her husband into the birds of the same name, who keep the waters calm and serene while they build and sit on their nests in the surface of the sea.
"O, poor Alcyone!
What were thy feelings on the stormy strand,
When thou saw'st Ceyx borne a corse to land?
O, I could weep with thee,
And sit whole tides upon the pebbly shore,
And listen to the waves lamenting roar,
O, poor Alcyone!
But now thy stormy passion past,
Thou upon the wave at last,
Buildest, from all tempest free,
Thou and Ceyx, side by side,
Charming the distempered tide,
O, dear Alcyone!"
The Syrens were three in number, and were companions of Proserpine, at the time of her being carried off; they prayed for wings from the Gods, to unite their efforts with those of Ceres.
In despair at the uselessness of their search, they retired to the sea shore, where, in the midst of desolate rocks, they sang songs of the most enchanting and attractive nature, while those who were drawn by their beauty to listen to them, perished on the spot.
"Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause."
Ovid.
Charybdis was an avaricious woman, who, stealing from Hercules, was slain by him, and became one of the divinities of the sea.
Scylla, daughter of Hecate and of Phorcys, was a beautiful nymph, greatly beloved by Glaucus, also one of the deities of the sea. Scylla scorned his addresses, and the God, to render her propitious, sought the aid of Circe, who no sooner saw him than she became enamoured, and, instead of assisting him, tried to win his love to herself tho' in vain. To punish her rival, Circe poured the juice of poisonous herbs into the waters of the fountain where Scylla bathed, and no sooner had the nymph entered, than her body, below the
waist, was changed into frightful monsters, like dogs, which never ceased barking, while the remainder of her form assumed an equally hideous appearance, being supported by twelve feet, with six different heads, each bearing three rows of teeth. This sudden metamorphose so alarmed her, that she threw herself into that part of the sea which separates the coast of Italy and Sicily, where she was changed into rocks which continue to bear her name, and which were deemed as dangerous to sailors, as the whirlpool of Charybdis, on the coast of Sicily, and from which has arisen the proverb, "By avoiding Charybdis we fall upon Scylla!"
"Upon the beech a winding bay there lies,
Sheltered from seas, and shaded from the skies;
This station Scylla chose; a soft retreat
From chilling winds and raging cancer's heat.
The vengeful sorceress visits this recess,
Her charm infuses, and infects the place.
Soon as the nymph wades in, her nether parts
Turn into dogs, then at herself she starts.
A ghastly horror in her eyes appears
But yet she knows not what it is she fears,
In vain she offers from herself to run,
And drag's about her what she strives to shun.
"Oppressed with grief the pitying god appears,
And swells the rising surges with his tears;
From the detested sorceress he flies,
Her art reviles, and her address denies,
Whilst happless Scylla, changed to rocks, decrees
Destruction to those barks that beat the seas."
Garth.
The Harpies were monsters with the faces of old women, the wings and body of a vulture, the ears of a bear, having claws on their feet and hands, and spreading famine wherever they made their hideous appearance.
