Cephisus

“ Cephisus is content to carry the emblems of his origin, which he emphasizes at the same time by representative action:
"Thy father I, Cephisus, that brave river
Who is all water, doe like water shiver.
As any man of iudgment may descrye
By face, hands washt, and bowle, thy father I."
In the same way Narcissus, rising up after his supposed death, bears a daffodil as a sign of his metamorphosis, addressing the audience after a manner more brusque than polite:
"If you take mee for Narcissus y'are very sillye,
I desire you to take mee for a daffa downe dillye ”

“ About twenty-seven stades distant from Panopeus is Daulis. The men there are few in number, but for size and strength no Phocians are more renowned even to this day. They say that the name of the city is derived from Daulis, a nymph, the daughter of the Cephisus. ”

“ The Cephisus is the Attic one; this is a statue, which Pausanias saw on the banks of the river, of the son of Mnesimache cutting his locks over the stream."
Professor Campbell writes:—"The Homeric passage is Iliad, 23, 140-151, where Achilles cuts off for Patroclus the lock of hair, which his father Peleus had vowed to the river Spercheius in case of his son's safe return. This is referred to by Plato,—Rep. 3, 391 B,—who regards it as an act of impiety to have given that, which was sacred to the river, to a dead body. ”

“ A military officer among the ancient Romans, who commanded a (centum) hundred men.
Century. In an ancient military sense, meant a hundred soldiers, who were employed in working the battering-ram.
Cephalonia. One of the Ionian Islands; was taken from the Ætolians by the Romans 189 B.C., and given to the Athenians by Hadrian in 135. It was conquered by the Normans in 1146, afterwards passed into the possession of the Venetians, and was taken by the English in 1819.
Cephisus. A river in Attica, near which Walter de Brienne, duke of Athens, was defeated and slain by the Catalans in 1311. ”

“ Such were the sad predictions uttered by the Pythian priestess, and this old oracle cited out of the Sibyl's verses:
The battle on Thermodon that shall be Safe at a distance I desire to see, Far, like an eagle, watching in the air. Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there.
This Thermodon, they say, is a little rivulet here in our country in Chaeronea, running into the Cephisus. But we know of none that is so called at the present time ”

“ Then Cepheus said, "You must not take my daughter away at once, for she is to us like one alive from the dead. Stay with us here a year, and after that you shall return with honour." And Perseus consented. So they went up to the palace; and when they came in, there stood in the hall Phineus, the brother of Cepheus, chafing like a bear robbed of her whelps, and with him his sons, and his servants, and many an armed man, and he cried to Cepheus:
"You shall not marry your daughter to this stranger of whom no one knows even the name. ”

“ So I turned aside among the cypresses. They will calm me, I thought. Their whisperings are so grave. They flaunt not their joy at the sun’s kisses, like the shameless trees along the roadside. They keep their hearts unmoved in sun and in storm; they are the true stoics of Nature. And their calm is sympathetic; it comes not of a soul immovable; it comes of strength in trial.
And the cypresses wrapped me round in their scent—the grave, penetrating odour in which the battered spirit folds its wings to rest, and [181] the heart-beats grow quieter, and the brow smooths itself out in peace. ”

“ CYPSELUS, tyrant of Corinth (c. 657–627 B.C.) , was the son of Aeëtion and Labda, daughter of Amphion, a member of the ruling family, the Bacchiadae. He is said to have derived his name from the fact that when the Bacchiadae, warned that he would prove their ruin, sent emissaries to kill him in his cradle, his mother saved him by concealing him in a chest (Gr. κυψέλη) . The story was, of course, a subsequent invention. When he was grown up, Cypselus, encouraged by an oracle, drove out the Bacchiadae, and made himself master of Corinth. ”

“ One evening, by the light of a splendid moon, which was reflected from the sea of Marmora, and the violet summits of Mount Olympus, I sat alone under the cypresses of the 'Ladders of the Dead;' those cypresses which overshadow innumerable tombs of Mussulmans, and descend from the heights of Pera to the shores of the sea. No one ever passes at that hour: you would suppose yourself an hundred miles from the capital, if a confused hum, wafted by the wind, was not occasionally heard, which speedily died away among the branches of the cypress. ”

“ Cepheus, king of the land; and the faces of all gathered blackness.
Then once more they cast; and Cassiopœia was taken,
Deep-bosomed wife of the king, whom oft far-seeing Apollo
Watched well-pleased from the welkin, the fairest of Æthiop women:
Fairest, save only her daughter; for down to the ankle her tresses
Rolled, blue-black as the night, ambrosial, joy to beholders.
Awful and fair she arose, most like in her coming to Here,
Queen before whom the Immortals arise, as she comes on Olympus,
Out of the chamber of gold, which her son Hephæstos has wrought her. ”

“ No sound was heard but the panting breath of Cephyse, and, at intervals, the slight crackling of the charcoal, which began to burn, and already sent forth a faint sickening vapor. Cephyse, seeing the fire completely lighted, and feeling already a little dizzy, rose from the ground, and said to her sister, as she approached her, “It is done!”
“Sister,” answered Mother Bunch, kneeling on the mattress, whilst Cephyse remained standing, “how shall we place ourselves? I should like to be near you to the last.” ”

“ Cefi, the chief of his priests, then answered, “Consider, oh king, what this teaching is that is now 15 delivered to us. I declare to you, I have learned for a certainty that the religion we have had up to the present has neither virtue nor usefulness in it. For none of thy servants has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I, and nevertheless there 20 are many who receive greater gifts and favors from thee than I, and are more prosperous in all their undertakings. ”

“ Whenever the oracle made such a prophecy about a child, it was customary for the ruler to try to make away with it, and that the ruler of Corinth did in this case. All efforts were unsuccessful, however, because his homely mother hid him in a chest when the spies came to the house. Now the Greek word for chest is kupsele, and therefore this boy was called Cypselus. He grew up to be a fine young man, and entered political life as champion of the people—the demos, as the Greeks would say, and was therefore a democratic politician. ”

“ The Romans, and other heathens upon this occasion, made use of cypress, which being once cut, will never flourish nor grow any more, as an emblem of their dying for ever, and being no more in life. But instead of that, the antient Christians used the things before mentioned; they laid them under the corps in the grave, to signify, that they who die in Christ, do not cease to live. For though, as to the body they die to the world, yet as to their souls, they live to God. ”

“ The men of the house of Aeacus, though it was long since they had seen Cephalus, yet knew him, grasped his hand, and brought him into their father's house. The hero advanced, the centre of all eyes, retaining even yet the traces of his old beauty and charm, bearing a branch of his country's olive, and, himself the elder, flanked on right and left by two of lesser age, Clytos and Butes, sons of Pallas. After they had exchanged greetings, Cephalus delivered the message of the Athenians, asking for aid and quoting the ancestral league and treaty between their two nations. ”

“ What do you here? What cruel men have bound you?'
'I am Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, king of a strange people. The lot fell on me, of all the maidens in the city, to be offered to the monster fish that walks on feet, who is their god. Once a year they give to him a maiden.'
Perseus thereon drew the sword Herpê, and cut the chains of bronze that bound the girl as if they had been ropes of flax, and she fell at his feet, covering her eyes with her hands. ”

“ And it sang as it flitted from bough to bough, until it reached the quiet churchyard where the grass grows green upon the graves, where the roses bloom living on the breast of death, and the cypress points to the immortal skies. There on the cypress' topmost twig it perched and sang a song so rich and rare, so far-reaching, that it touched the heart of Death sitting on the chest of the emperor,—for, after all, Death has a tender heart. Filled with a longing for his own garden, melted by the Nightingale's song, he vanished in a cold, grey mist,—out at the window. ”

“ On this southward-looking slope the cypresses attain a symmetry, a slenderness, a height, a thickness of texture and richness of colour unmatched in Stamboul. They grow in squares, many of them, or in magic circles. The stones under them are older than the others, and more like things of nature in the flowered grass. On certain happy afternoons, when the sun brings a fairy depth and softness of green out of the cypresses, when their shadows fall lance-like across bare or mossy aisles, and the note of a solitary bird echoes between them, it is hard not to imagine oneself in an enchanted wood. ”

“ She knelt down before the little chafing-dish, filled with charcoal. But Cephyse took hold of her under the arm, and obliged her to rise again, saying to her, "Let me light the fire—that is my business."
"But, Cephyse—"
"You know, poor sister, that the smell of charcoal gives you the headache!"
At the simplicity of this speech, for the Bacchanal Queen had spoken seriously, the sisters could not forbear smiling sadly.
"Never mind," resumed Cephyse; "why suffer more and sooner than is necessary?" ”

“ Then, smiling with that bitter irony, so frequent, we repeat, in the most gloomy moments, Cephyse added, "I say, sister, weather-boards at our doors and windows, to prevent the air from getting in—what a luxury! we are as delicate as rich people."
"At such a time, we may as well try to make ourselves a little comfortable," said Mother Bunch, trying to jest like the Bacchanal Queen. ”

“ CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS Cephalus was a beautiful youth and fond of manly sports. He would rise before the dawn to pursue the chase. Aurora saw him when she first looked forth, fell in love with him, and stole him away. But Cephalus was just married to a charming wife whom he loved devotedly. Her name was Procris. She was a favorite of Diana, the goddess of hunting, who had given her a dog which could outrun every rival, and a javelin which would never fail of its mark ”

“ And so the wonder tale revealeth that the proud Young Cypress, who gazeth with such shining eyes into those of his mother, is the noble shoot of a mighty tree whose shadow extendeth over the earth, and whose fame shall be sung by the Children of Ormuzd as long as the world lasts. ”

“ As they were deeply interested in the care of herds and flocks we naturally find that certain star groups represented to them pastoral scenes. These stellar pictures of the ancients are interesting as showing the changes wrought by the advance of progress and civilisation, and there must indeed have been a fascination in painting pictures on the widespread canvas of the night with a brush steeped in the bright-hued pigments of imagination.
Smyth alluded to the constellation Cepheus as "the Dog," and a ring of stars in this group was known to the Arabs as "a Pot." ”

“ For I know that every one looks not now to the things that are of the world, but that he is hoping for a heavenly crown. Moreover, I said that perhaps you had forgotten to write to me. For if from the lowest place I may be called by you yours, or brother, if I should be worthy to hear myself named Celerinus; yet, when I also was in such a purple [2] confession, I remembered my oldest brethren, and I took notice of them in my letters, that their former love was still around me and mine. ”

“ CEPHEUS (sē'-fūs) (Face North.)
Location.—A line drawn from (α) to (β) Cassiopeiæ and prolonged about 18 degrees strikes (α) Cephi. The nearest bright star west of Polaris is (γ) Cephi. Cepheus is an inconspicuous constellation, lying partly in the Milky Way. A view of this constellation through binoculars will repay the observer. Cepheus is characterized by a rude square, one side of which is the base of an isosceles triangle. Look for the so-called garnet star (μ) , probably the reddest star visible to the naked eye in the United States. The star (ζ) has a blue companion star. ”

“ Cepheus and Cassiopeia were the king and queen of Ethiopia, and had a very beautiful daughter, Andromeda. Her mother boasted that the maiden was fairer than the Nereids, who in their anger persuaded Neptune to send a sea-monster to ravage the shores of Ethiopia. To appease the offended deities Andromeda, by the command of an oracle, was exposed to this monster. The hero Perseus rescued her and married her. ”

“ In the dark, mindful silence and inflection of the cypress trees, lost races, lost language, lost human ways of feeling and of knowing. Men have known as we can no more know, have felt as we can no more feel. Great life-realities gone into the darkness. But the cypresses commemorate. In the afternoon, Aaron felt the cypresses rising dark about him, like so many high visitants from an old, lost, lost subtle world, where men had the wonder of demons about them, the aura of demons, such as still clings to the cypresses, in Tuscany. ”