Non divenga una fera, anzi che un Dio.
The Greek mythology, departing from the very basis of the Divine idea in the conception of its gods, converts them, by a moral necessity, not into man, but into something which is morally beneath man. There is not among all the deities what we can call one full unbroken development of noble character. They are, as a general rule, except so far as they are modified by the traditive element, Titanic creations of intellect or power, or both, without virtue. Even where, as in the cases of Minerva and Diana, they are pure, their purity does not inspire or impress the Poet with half the force and fire which he must have felt when he drew the matron Andromache, or the maid Nausicaa. But this is not the common case. With great reservation indeed as to the traditional, in comparison with the mythical divinities, and likewise as to the female deities, in comparison with the gods, we must admit that, as a general rule, the Immortals of Homer, when brought to the bar of a cool inquiry, are in their own personal conduct impure voluptuaries, and that the laws, which formed the basis of family life, and which in Homer’s time still kept human society from total corruption, for them had no restraining power, indeed no recognised existence.
There is no sense of shame accompanying the excesses of the gods, such as Homer has marked, not without tenderness, in regard to the trespass of Astyoche[636];
παρθένος αἰδοίη, ὑπερώϊον εἰσαναβᾶσα.
On the contrary, Jupiter refers with marked self-satisfaction to his affairs of this kind in the Fourteenth Iliad; and shows the very temper, described by Saint Paul as that of the most advanced depravity, which not only yields to temptation, but seals its own offence with habitual and deliberate approval[637]: Οὐ μόνον αὐτὰ ποιοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ συνευδοκοῦσι τοῖς πράσσουσιν.
Cruelty of Calypso in her love.
We may take Calypso as no unfair specimen of the ethics of the Immortals. In the hope of sensual pleasure, she keeps Ulysses a prisoner in her far island. She sees him pining in wretchedness for his home and family from day to day; and well knows the distress that his absence must cause to a virtuous wife and son, as well as the public evils, sure to arise from the prolonged absence of a wise and able sovereign. Yet she never relents, but still in her odorous cavern she sings to the movement of her golden distaff. (Od. v. 59.) When Hermes makes known to her the decree that she cannot resist for his return, she complains of the cruelty of the upper gods, but adds, ‘as I cannot help myself, let him perish if Zeus will.’ She promises, however, to send him off in safety, and keeps her word; but it is when she has been well warned by Mercury of the consequences of disobedience, and firmly bound by Ulysses with the oath which was terrible even to the Immortals. (Od. v. 146, 184.)
The sentiment of envy, which they had begun to entertain towards men, appears also to have been felt towards members of the divine order. It was envy with which the gods viewed the happiness enjoyed by Aurora in her union with Orion, till it ended with his death; and that moved Jupiter to destroy Iasion, the object of the choice of Demeter[638]. But this (so says Calypso) was envy of the male towards the female deities. There is no reciprocal sentiment: and it is curious here to observe the inequality of the sexes, together with so many other signs and beginnings of corruption, established among the Immortals in a manner unknown to human society at the time.
Calypso may or may not be justified in the charge she makes against the gods; but, at least, it seems clear that, though they have some regard to the prevalence of moral laws as between one man and another, they by no means impute any moral guilt to her in her cruel detention of Ulysses, even while they rectify a wrong by their decree.
The inferiority of the moral standard, which marks the order of gods, is likewise traceable in the various races which are described by Homer as claiming a special relationship to them; the Cyclopes, the Læstrygonians, and even perhaps the Phæacians. Against the last of these we can certainly charge no more than an epicurean and inglorious ease: but the two former not only do not forfeit, they even prove, their relationship to the gods by being at once more strong and more vicious than common men.