Soothing his sorrows with the silver-framed
Harmonious lyre, spoil taken when he took
Æetion’s city: with that lyre his cares
He soothed, and glorious heroes were his theme.
Cowper.
[155] The servant of the Muse.] Laws were always promulgated in verse, and often publicly sung; a practice which remained in many places long after letters were become common: morality was taught: history was delivered in verse. Lawgivers, philosophers, historians, all who would apply their experience or their genius to the instruction and amusement of others, were necessarily poets. The character of poet was therefore a character of dignity: an opinion even of sacredness became attached to it: a poetical genius was esteemed an effect of divine inspiration and a mark of divine favour: and the poet, who moreover carried with him instruction and entertainment, not to be obtained without him, was a privileged person, enjoying by a kind of prescription the rights of universal hospitality. Mitford.
Yet in the vulgar tradition, Homer is represented as a mere ballad-singing mendicant! and whoever attempts to refute, by the light of historic evidence and of reason, this or similar absurdities of modern ignorance, when sanctioned by popular prejudice, must expect to be set down as a dealer in paradoxes.
[156] First of all beings Chaos was.] The ancients were in general materialists, and thought the world eternal. But the mundane system, or at least the history of the world, they supposed to commence from the deluge. The confusion which prevailed at the deluge is often represented as the chaotic state of nature: for the earth was hid, and the heavens obscured, and all the elements in disorder. Bryant.
[157] Or in the dark abysses of the ground.] Tartarus is considered by Brucker in his epitome of the Theogony (Historia Critica Philosophiæ, tom. 1.) as the third birth. Tartarus is, indeed, after introduced as a person, but in the singular number: the word is here used in the plural, and I conceive it to mean simply the cavities of the earth, and to be connected with the preceding sentence.
[158] The Cyclops brethren.] Thucydides acquaints us concerning the Cyclopes, that they were the most ancient inhabitants of Sicily, but that he could not find out their race. Strabo places them near Ætna and Icontina, and supposes that they once ruled over that part of the island; and it is certain that a people called Cyclopians did possess that province. It is generally agreed by writers upon the subject, that they were of a size superior to the common race of mankind. Among the many tribes of the Amonians who went abroad, were to be found people who were styled Anakim; and were descended from the sons of Anak: so that this history, though carried to a great excess, was probably founded in truth. They were particularly famous for architecture; and in all parts whither they came, they erected noble structures, which were remarkable for their height and beauty: and were often dedicated to the chief deity, the sun, under the name of Elorus and P’Elorus. People were so struck with their grandeur, that they called every thing great or stupendous Pelorian (πελωρος, huge): and when they described the Cyclopians as a lofty towering race, they came at last to borrow their ideas of this people from the towers to which they alluded. They supposed them in height to reach the clouds, and in bulk equal to the promontories on which these edifices were founded. As these buildings were often-times light-houses, and had in their upper story one round casement, “like an Argolick buckler or the moon,” by which they afforded light in the night-season, the Greeks made this a characteristic of the people. They supposed this aperture to have been an eye, which was fiery and glaring, and placed in the middle of their foreheads. What confirmed the mistake was the representation of an eye, which was often engraved over the entrance of these temples: the chief deity of Ægypt being elegantly represented by the symbol of an eye, which was intended to signify the superintendency of Providence. The notion of the Cyclopes framing the thunder and lightning for Jupiter, arose chiefly from the Cyclopians engraving hieroglyphics of this sort upon the temples of the deity. The poets considered them merely in the capacity of blacksmiths, and condemned them to the anvil. Bryant.