Amphion

“ AMPHION Amphion was the son of Jupiter and Antiope, queen of Thebes. With his twin brother Zethus he was exposed at birth on Mount Cithaeron, where they grew up among the shepherds, not knowing their parentage. Mercury gave Amphion a lyre, and taught him to play upon it, and his brother occupied himself in hunting and tending the flocks. Meanwhile Antiope, their mother, who had been treated with great cruelty by Lycus, the usurping king of Thebes, and by Dirce, his wife, found means to inform her children of their rights, and to summon them to her assistance. ”

“ There was, however, one musician, Amphion, king of Thebes, who was anxious to prove that his playing was equal to Apollo's, but knowing how unwise it was to vie with an immortal, he determined not to test his skill publicly, but to carry out his cherished plan at night, when men were dreaming in their beds. ”

“ If that ye, winds, would hear A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre, Your stormy chiding stay; Let Zephyr only breathe, And with her tresses play, Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death. —The winds all silent are, And Phoebus in his chair Ensaffroning sea and air, Makes vanish every star: Night like a drunkard reels Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels; The fields with flowers are decked in every hue, The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue: Here is the pleasant place, And everything save her, who all should grace. ”

“ The magical septenary of Chaldea passes into music on the seven strings of the Orphic lyre. It is harmony which transforms the woods and wildernesses of Greece. To the melody of the songs of Orpheus, the rocks are smoothed, the oaks sway in measures and the wild beasts become subject to man. By such magic did Amphion raise up the walls of Thebes—that wisdom-city of Cadmus, the city of initiation, itself a pantacle like the seven wonders of the world. As Orpheus gave life to numbers, so Cadmus bound thought to the sigils of letters. ”

“ Amphion is thought to have given way to his brother’s humors; so do you yield to the gentle dictates of your friend in power: as often as he leads forth his dogs into the fields and his cattle laden with Ætolian nets, arise and lay aside the peevishness of your unmannerly muse, that you may sup together on the delicious fare purchased by your labor; an exercise habitual to the manly Romans, of service to their fame and life and limbs: especially when you are in health, and are able either to excel the dog in swiftness, or the boar in strength. ”

“ AMPHION and ZETHUS, in ancient Greek mythology, the twin sons of Zeus by Antiope. When children, they were exposed on Mount Cithaeron, but were found and brought up by a shepherd. Amphion became a great singer and musician, Zethus a hunter and herdsman (Apollodorus iii. 5) . ”

“ Orpheus, who sang so entrancingly that mortals forgot their punishments and followed him, and Amphion, who drew the stones into their places in the walls by his music, performed no more of a miracle than a lad who tips a Bessemer converter. ”

“ First she disputes th' Effects of heav'nly Pow'r,
Then at their daring Boldness wonders more;
For poor Amphion with sore Grief distrest,⁠
Hoping to sooth his Cares by endless Rest,
Had sheath'd a Dagger in his wretched Breast.
And she, who toss'd her high disdainful Head,⁠
When thro' the Streets in solemn Pomp she led
The Throng that from Latona's Altar fled,
Assuming State beyond the proudest Queen ”

“ Greek legend gives Amphion, skilled 27in music and learning, and Zeuthus, who labours and follows the chase. The latter by hard labour rolled huge boulders together to build up the walls of Troy, whilst the former but struck the strings of the lyre given to him by Hermes and the great rocks followed him—a symbol of the triumph of mind which Hermes promises to his disciples. Simeon and Levi killed the Shechemites to avenge their sister Dinah; Amphion and Zeuthus drove Dirce, bound to a bull, to her death to avenge their mother Antiope. ”

“ O Mercury, for under thy instruction the ingenious Amphion moved rocks by his voice, you being his tutor; and though my harp, skilled in sounding, with seven strings, formerly neither vocal nor pleasing, but now agreeable both to the tables of the wealthy and the temples [of the gods] ; dictate measures to which Lyde may incline her obstinate ears, who, like a filly of three years old, plays and frisks about in the spacious fields, inexperienced in nuptial loves, and hitherto unripe for a brisk husband. You are able to draw after your tigers and attendant woods, and to retard rapid rivers. ”

“ Amphion was the inventor of music;1438 Pan, the son of Mercury, the music of the reed, and the flute with the single pipe; Midas, the Phrygian,1439 the transverse flute;1440 and Marsyas,231 of the same country, the double-pipe.1441 Amphion invented the Lydian measures in music; Thamyris the Thracian, the Dorian, and Marsyas the Phrygian, the Phrygian style.1442 Amphion, or, according to some accounts, Orpheus, and according to others, Linus, invented the lyre.1443 Terpander, adding three to the former four, increased the number of strings to seven ”

“ Schulemberg, for Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers, and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland's fine linens. The voyage was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a whole ship-load of them? ”

“ The situation is evidently one of great hesitation; there is reluctance on the one hand, persuasion on the other. Moreover, the female figure is that of a mourner, of a supplicant, draped and half-veiled as it is; the figure with the lyre, in the Thracian or Thessalian costume, must necessarily be Amphion, while the other in the loose tunic of a shepherd, must as evidently be his brother, Zethus; and if we put together these facts, we cannot but conclude that the subject of the bas-relief is, as previously stated, Antiope persuading Amphion and Zethus to avenge her on Dirce. ”

“ Amphion was of the royal family of Thebes, and ultimately became ruler of the territory. He is said, by the potency of his lyre, or his skill in the magic art, to have caused the stones to follow him, to arrange themselves in the way he proposed, and without the intervention of a human hand to have raised a wall about his metropolis. [32] It is certainly less difficult to conceive the savage man to be rendered placable, and to conform to the dictates of civilisation, or even wild beasts to be made tame, than to imagine stones to obey the voice and the will of a human being. ”

“ We lay our hearts before thee evermore—
We sing and we adore!"
Keats.
He obtained Amphitrite, daughter of Ocean, in marriage, through the skill of a dolphin, although she had made to herself a vow of perpetual celibacy; and had by him, Triton, one of the sea deities. To the story of Neptune, may be attached the beautiful fable of Arion, the illustrious rival of Amphion and Orpheus.
This famous lyric poet and musician, having gone into Italy, with Periander, tyrant of Corinth, he obtained immense treasures through his profession. ”

“ Amphion: “His skill in music was so great that the very stones were said to have been wrought upon by his lyre, and of themselves to have built the walls of Thebes”—Carey (see Abt Vogler) ; Zethos, brother of Amphion; Euboia, the largest island in the Ægean Sea, now Negroponte. p. 149, Minuai, the Argonauts, companions of Jason. p. 150, Taphian town, Taphiæ, islands in the Ionian Sea. p. 153, peplos, a robe. p. 154, Hellas == Greece; Nemeian monster, the lion slain by Hercules. p. 156, Kentaur race, a people of Thessaly represented as half men and half horses ”

“ The fire, as it is said, spared them while it consumed others by their side; and Pluto, to reward their uncommon piety, placed them after death in the island of Leuce, and they received divine honours in Sicily. Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 4.—Strabo, bk. 6.—Silius Italicus, bk. 14, li. 197.—Seneca, de Beneficiis.
Amphīon, was son of Jupiter, by Antiope daughter of Nycteus, who had married Lycus, and had been repudiated by him when he married Dirce. Amphion was born at the same birth as Zethus, on mount Citheron, where Antiope had fled to avoid the resentment of Dirce ”

“ Further, Onomacritus the Athenian, who is said to have been the author of the poems ascribed to Orpheus, is ascertained to have lived in the reign of the Pisistratidæ, about the fiftieth Olympiad. And Orpheus, who sailed with Hercules, was the pupil of Musæus. Amphion precedes the Trojan war by two generations. And Demodocus and Phemius were posterior to the capture of Troy; for they were famed for playing on the lyre, the former among the Phæacians, and the latter among the suitors. ”

“ On his shoulders: as one hard straining in toil did the image appear.
And Amphion the while to his golden lyre sang loud and clear, {740}
On-pacing; and twice so great was the rock that followed anear.
And next Kythereia with tresses heavily drooping was shown;
And the buckler of onset of Arês she bare: from her shoulder the zone
Of her tunic over her left arm fell with a careless grace
Low over her breast; and ever she seemed on the shield to gaze,
On the face that out of its brazen mirror smiled to her face.
And therein was a herd of shaggy kine ”

“ He related to her how he had formerly cured a whole nation of the bite of certain little serpents, only by showing himself at the end of a staff. (Num. xx:9.) He informed her of the conquests of a hero who made a charming contrast with Amphion, architect of Thebes. ”

“ From narratives such as these the people return at once to the present events, and mourn Amphion extinct together with all his race. The mother is an object of hatred. Yet her brother Pelops is said alone to have mourned for her as well; and after 209 VI. 405-411 he had drawn his clothes from his shoulderB towards his breast, he discovered the ivory on his left shoulder. This shoulder, at the time of his birth, was of the same color with the right one, and was formed of flesh. They say that the Gods afterwards joined his limbs cut asunder by the hands of his father ”

“ Mine eyes arc full of tears, my heart of grief.
[8] Œnone was the daughter of the River-God Kebren.
[9] For the myth here referred to see Ovid, Heroides, xvi., 179-80:—
Ilion aspicies, firmataque turribus altis Moenia,
Phoeboeae; structa canore lyrae.
It was probably an application of the Theban legend of Amphion, and arose from the association of Apollo with Poseidon in founding Troy.
A fabric huge Rose like an exhalation,
(Milton’s Paradise Lost, i., 710-11.) ”

“ Amphiaraus, 235, in Æ. Septem, 91, 124. — in Carcinus’ Thyestes, 35. — — E. Hypsipyle, 304. Amphiaraus, see Sophocles. Amphion, in E. Antiope, 298. Amphitryon, in E. Herc. Fur., 228 ff. Amymone, see Æschylus. Anacreon, 337 n. Anatole France, vi, 326. Anaxagoras, 17, 18, 307. Andromache, 262; in E. Andr., 225 ff.; E. Troades, 243 ff. Andromache, see Euripides. Andromeda, in E. Andromeda, 8, 299 f. Andromeda, see Euripides. Anonymous Life of Sophocles, 15 n. Antæus, in Phrynichus’ Antæus, 7. Antæus, see Phrynichus. Antheus, see Agathon. Anthos, see Agathon. Antigone, 64; in Æ. Septem, 90-1 ”

“ Ages and ages agone it was wrought on the heights of Olympus,
Wrought in the gold-strung loom, by the finger of cunning Athené.
In it she wove all creatures that teem in the womb of the ocean;
Nereid, siren, and triton, and dolphin, and arrowy fishes
Glittering round, many-hued, on the flame-red folds of the mantle.
In it she wove, too, a town where gray-haired kings sat in judgment;
Sceptre in hand in the market they sat, doing right by the people,
Wise: while above watched Justice, and near, far-seeing Apollo. ”

“ Then the dolphin changed into the form of a glowing star, which, shooting high into the heavens, lit up the whole world with its glory; and as the awe-stricken crew stood gazing at the wonder, it fell with the quickness of light upon Parnassus. Into his temple Apollo hastened, and there he kindled an undying fire. Then, in the form of a handsome youth, with golden hair falling in waves upon his shoulders, he hastened to the beach to welcome the Cretan strangers. ”

“ But even while he spake, Amphinomus [Footnote: Am-phi'-no-mus.] turned him about, and saw the ship in the harbour, and the men lowering the sails. Then he laughed and said: "No need is there to send a message, for the men themselves have come. Maybe some god hath told them; maybe they saw the ship of Telemachus go by, and could not overtake it."
Then all the suitors went together to the place of assembly, and Antinous stood up and spake: "See how the gods have delivered this man! All day long our scouts sat and watched upon the headlands, one man taking another's place ”

“ Nevertheless the rocks, ceaselessly clashing, shore off as she passed the extreme end of the stern-ornament. But Athena soared up to Olympus, when they had escaped unscathed. And the rocks in one spot at that moment were rooted fast for ever to each other, which thing had been destined by the blessed gods, when a man in his ship should have passed between them alive. And the heroes breathed again after their chilling fear, beholding at the same time the sky and the expanse of sea spreading far and wide. ”

“ Then spake Amphinomus,—not one of the suitors was of a more understanding heart than he,—"Friends, I would not that Telemachus should be slain; it is a fearful thing to slay the son of a king. First, let us ask counsel of the gods. If the oracles of Zeus approve, then will I slay him with mine own hand ”

“ I can mention others who were once men, who have honours paid to them as gods, and cities dedicated to them, as Eleus in the Chersonese to Protesilaus, and Lebadea in Bœotia to Trophonius: so Amphiaraus has a temple at Oropus, and a statue in white stone. And the altar has five divisions: one belongs to Hercules and Zeus and Pæonian Apollo, and another is dedicated to heroes and heroes’ wives. And the third belongs to Vesta and Hermes and Amphiaraus and the sons of Amphilochus: but Alcmæon, owing to the murder of Eriphyle, has no honour with Amphiaraus, nor with Amphilochus. ”