The god stands with left arm extended holding, it is supposed, either a bow or a shield. A quiver of arrows is slung across his back, and a chlamys, or cloak, hangs over his left shoulder. His is the proud attitude of one who is defending some sacred trust. So he holds his head high and gazes steadily before him as if watching an arrow speed to its mark, or perhaps scanning the vanguard of an approaching army. The expression is not a little haughty, and one detects an almost disdainful curve of the lips as if the god regarded the enemy with scorn. The face is cut in an aristocratic mould, with fine sensitive lines which mark the lover of music and poetry. In fact, the refinement of his beauty has something of a feminine quality.
The carefully curled hair is gathered in a bow knot on the top of his head. It may indeed be supposed that the handsome young god was by no means unconscious of his charms, and took no little pains to display them to good advantage.
The Apollo, however, is a god worthy of our admiration for the noble purity of his countenance. Surely, all base thoughts and mean motives would be put to shame by this pure presence.
The poet Byron, whose "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" describes many interesting sights in Greece and Italy, has written these lines about the Apollo Belvedere:—
"The Lord of the unerring bow,
The god of life, and poesy, and light—
The sun, in human limbs array'd, and brow
All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
The shaft hath just been shot—the arrow bright
With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might,
And majesty flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the deity."
VII
DEMETER (CERES)
The Greeks worshipped among their deities a goddess called Demeter, which means "mother earth." It was her office to attend to the sowing and reaping and all kinds of farm work. She first taught mankind the use of the plough; she helped the men in their threshing and the women in their baking. All country folk sought her blessing in their labors. She was, in fact, a personification of nature, and perhaps it is a remnant of the old Greek belief in our speech that we still refer to "mother earth" and "mother nature."