3. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the myths of the ancients, as the earliest literary crystallization of social order and religious fear, record the incipient history of religious ideals and of moral conduct. For though ethnologists may insist that to search for truth in mythology is vain, the best of them will grant that to search for truth through mythology is wise and profitable. If we accept the statement (often stretched beyond its proper limit) that mythology is primitive philosophy, and the other statement that an ancient philosophy never dies, but by process of internal growth, of modification, and of accretion acquires a purer spirit and a new and higher form,—then, since truth was never yet conceived of error (ex nihilo nihil fit), the truth now recognized, while it did not exist in that fraction of myth which happens to be irrational, existed as an archetypal impulse,—set the myth in motion, and, as a process refining the mind of man, tended steadily to eliminate from primitive philosophy (that is, from the myths that embodied primitive philosophy) the savage, ephemeral, and irrational element. For all myths spring from the universal and inalienable desire to know, to enjoy, to teach. These impulses of knowledge, of imaginative relaxation, of conduct, are the throbbing of the heart of reason; the first or the second is the primal pulse of every myth, and to the life of every myth each impulse may be, at some period, contributory. This study has led men to trace soberly the progress of their kind from the twilight of gray conjecture to the dawn of spiritual conviction and rational individuality; to discern a continuity of thought, an outward reach of imagination, an upward lift of moral and religious ideas; to confess the brotherhood of humanity and an inspiring purpose which holds good for every race and through all time.
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
1. Of the Classic Myths in their Relation to Literature. It is essential that the teacher of mythology, no matter what textbook or system he uses or what classic epic he proposes to present, should first make himself acquainted with the meaning of myth, its origin and elements; the difference between myth and fable, between myths explanatory and myths æsthetic, myths reasonable and myths unreasonable, the theories of myth-making as a process of deterioration or as a process of development. He should also inform himself concerning the ways in which the leading myths have been disseminated, and how the survivors have been preserved. Materials for this preparation he will find in Chapters XXX-XXXII of this book as readily, perhaps, as elsewhere; but no matter where he obtains this information he should in a simple and interesting talk pass on the cream of it to the pupils about to begin the study of the stories themselves. He will in that way bring them to a reasonable appreciation of the value of myths and their relation to our civilization, and awaken in them anticipatory interest in the proposed reading. It is a great mistake to plunge students of high-school age, without preliminary orientation and a justification of the study, into a world which may otherwise appear to them unreasonable in conception and unrelated in experience. Pupils may, if time permits, read these concluding chapters, and so obtain a systematic outlook upon the subject, during a brief review in the senior year, but not earlier.
This book should be studied for its materials and the inspiration that it affords,—not word by word for its style, or as a dictionary or scientific authority; nor paragraph by paragraph with a painful committing to memory of each myth and each episode in the myth. Discrimination must be made. Some of these myths, and especially the episodes from the epics (Chapters XXII-XXIX), are to be read rapidly and in large assignments, sometimes at home with reports in class, sometimes in class and at sight, but always for the enjoyment. Others are to be studied in detail, but solely when they are of special and vital significance, historically, morally, or æsthetically. Emphasis should be laid only occasionally and sparingly upon interpretations of mythical materials. What both teacher and student should aim at is the picture—manners, morals, ideals, heroic figures, epic events, broad and vivid against the canvas of antiquity: that, and the reality of classic order, grandeur, and restraint.
The myths are here presented in a logical and genealogical arrangement; and they should be studied in this order, so that the pupil may carry away, not a jumble of sporadic recollections, but some conception of the systems of creative imagination which obtained in earlier civilizations. The knowledge of the myths and the proper perspective of their relation, one to another, may further be fixed by the study of the family ties that motivate many of the incidents of mythical adventure, and that must have been commonplaces of information to the inventors and narrators of these stories.
The myths may well be reproduced as exercises in narration, comparison, description; and they may be regarded as stimulus for imaginative invention concerning local wonders and beauties of nature. Pupils may also be encouraged to consider, and to comment upon, the moral qualities of the heroes and heroines of mythology. Thus they may be led to recognize the difference between ancient and modern standards of right and wrong. To this end, and for the supply of further nutriment, it is important that teachers collect from their reading of the classic originals, or from translations of the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Greek dramatists, the Æneid, the Metamorphoses, etc., material supplementary to the text, and give it freely to their classes. To facilitate this practice the sources of the myths have been indicated in the footnotes of this volume, and a few of the best translations have been mentioned in the Commentary. Instructors should also read to the classes illustrative English poems, or portions of them based upon the myths under consideration; and they should encourage the pupils to collect from their English reading additional examples of the literary survival or adaptation of ancient story. For this purpose special sections of the Commentary have been prepared, indicating some of the best known literary applications of each myth.
The Commentary is numbered in sections corresponding to those of the text. The Textual Notes should be studied in connection with each lesson, the Interpretative more sparingly, as I have said. They should not be suffered to spoil the interest in the stories as such. They are of interest in themselves only to maturer minds. Allusions and interpretations which the younger pupil does not appreciate will, if the book is used for purposes of reference in his further English, Latin, or Greek studies, be clear before the end of his course.
From the outset care should be taken that pupils give to the classical names their proper accent, and that they anglicize both vowels and consonants according to the recognized rules laid down in the Latin grammars, the English dictionaries, and the pages preceding the Index of this book.
Mythological and classical geography should not be neglected. The maps accompanying this volume will be serviceable; but there should be in the classroom one of Kiepert's maps of the World as Known to the Ancients (Orbis Veteribus Notus), or maps of Ancient Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. The teacher will find the International Atlas (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York), A. Keith Johnston's School and College Atlas of Ancient Geography, or the new edition of the same by James Cranstoun, issued as Ginn and Company's Classical Atlas, indispensable in the prosecution of general reading.
When it is the intention to study, in connection with the book, an Homeric epic or a portion of it, the teacher should first make sure that the class has an adequate preliminary training in general mythology (such, for instance, as may be provided by the first twenty-one chapters); he should then outline rapidly and entertainingly the epic as a whole, emphasizing its position in the literature of the world and its relation to the world of its own times, before proceeding to read it in detail with the class. Excellent suggestions as to this method of study are offered in the Introduction to Maxwell & Chubb's Pope's Homer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, and XXIV (Longmans), and in the Introduction to the Riverside Edition of the Odyssey: Ulysses among the Phæacians (Houghton Mifflin Company).