Cythera

“ CHAPTER XXIII. And Cythera lies opposite Bœæ, and to the promontory of Platanistus—the point where the island is nearest to the mainland—from the promontory on the mainland called Ass’ jaw-bone is about 4 stades’ sail. And at Cythera there is a station for ships called Scandea, and Scandea is about 10 stades from the town of Cythera as you go along the cliffs. And the temple of Celestial Aphrodite is the most holy and most ancient of all the temples the Greeks have of Aphrodite, and the statue is an old wooden one, the goddess is in complete armour. ”

“ Cythera, just south of the Peloponnesus, was sacred to Aphrodite (Venus) , as it was here fable said she rose from the sea-foam. Beyond Cythera, in the Mediterranean, midway between Greece and Egypt, is the large island of Crete, noted in legend for its labyrinth and its legislator Minos.
Influence of Country.—The physical features of a country have much to do with the moulding of the character and the shaping of the history of its people. Mountains, isolating neighboring communities and shutting out conquering races, foster the spirit of local patriotism and preserve freedom ”

“ These gods have gone, and Rubens, who lives again in that palette of light and rosy flesh, wanders bewildered in these fêtes, where the riot of the senses is stilled,—animated caprices which seem to await the crack of a whip to dissolve and disappear in the realm of fancy like a mid-summer night's dream! It is Cythera; but it is Watteau's. It is love, but it is a poetic love, a love that dreams and thinks; modern love, with its aspirations and its crown of melancholy. ”

“ The inscriptions of Artaxerxes, discovered at Susa, call her Anāhid, which 70was the Persian name of the planet Venus. The characteristics of Venus, the queen of beauty, may seem somewhat at variance with Ishtar of Arbela, the goddess of war, but it will be remembered that the Greeks of Cythera, one of the Ionian islands, worshipped an armed Venus, and from this island she took the name of Cythera; the fable that she rose from the sea probably means that her worship was introduced into the island by a maritime people, doubtless the Phœnicians. ”

“ Yet now the case was so altered, that Antalcidas, being one of the Ephors, out of fear sent away his children privately to the island of Cythera. When the enemy essayed to get over the river, and thence to attack the town, Agesilaus, abandoning the rest, betook himself to the high places and strong-holds of it. But it happened, that Eurotas at that time was swollen to a great height with the snow that had fallen, and made the passage very difficult to the Thebans, not only by its depth, but much more by its extreme coldness. ”

“ Cyprus makes her Κύπρις in the Iliad, and from Cythera she is also Cytherea in the Odyssey. She thus stands distinct from Juno: to whom the Argeian name is simply an appendage, though one of a most characteristic force, and one involving important inferences as to her origin. Nor is she less distinct from Minerva, whose name is not derivative in form when she is called Ἀθήνη, and whom we must consider as the eponymist of Athens, and not its namesake. No [251] indication could be of greater force, than this marked localism, in stamping the ideas about Venus as purely human in their origin. ”

“ Cyrus, surnamed the Younger, second son of Darius II.; conspired against his brother Artaxerxes Mnemon, was sentenced to death, pardoned, and restored to his satrapy in Asia Minor; conspired anew, raised a large army, including Greek mercenaries, marched against his brother, and was slain at Cunaxa, of which last enterprise and its fate an account is given in the "Anabasis" of Xenophon; d. 401 B.C.
Cythera, the ancient name of Cerigo ”

“ Antigonus, the teacher of Alexander, when one day the latter was having a cythera played for his delight, took hold of the instrument and cast it into the mud1 and said these words: at your age it behoves you to reign and not to play the cythera. ”

“ While a naked man comes swiftly Like a spurt of white foam rent From the crest of a falling breaker, Over the poppies sent. He puts his surf-wet fingers Over her startled eyes, And asks if she sees the land, the land, The land of her glad surmise. THIRD PART AGAIN in her blue, blue mantle Riding at Joseph's side, She says, "I went to Cythera, And woe betide!" Her heart is a swinging cradle That holds the perfect child, But the shade on her forehead ill becomes A mother mild. ”

“ Here, too, they witness the pangs of souls tormented for their crimes against the deity of Love. Afterwards they reach a great water, where Cupid's barge comes sailing by, and takes them to the island of Cythera. It is a level land of gardens, groves and labyrinths, adorned with theaters and baths, and watered by a mystic font of Venus. Near the Tomb of Adonis in this demesne of Love, Polia and Poliphil sit down to rest among the nymphs, and Polia relates the story of their early passion.-225-
It is here, if anywhere, that we come across reality in this romance. ”

“ First of all, on the prows of the Phoenician ships, the tutelary image of Aphrodite Euploea, the protectress of sailors, comes to Cyprus—to Cythera; it is in this simplest sense that she is, primarily, Anadyomene.+ And her connexion [219] with the arts is always an intimate one. In Cyprus her worship is connected with an architecture, not colossal, but full of dainty splendour—the art of the shrine-maker, the maker of reliquaries; the art of the toilet, the toilet of Aphrodite; the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite is full of all that ”

“ Chaucer, C. T., I 772; La Belle Dame, 244; T. G. 742.
42. Cf. 'So that here-after my ladi may it loke'; T. G. 1392.
45. Cf. 'Ther was enclosed rype and sad corage'; C. T., E 220.
49, 50. Here the mountain of Cithæron, in Bœotia, is confused with the island of Cythera, sacred to Venus, whence her name Cytherea was derived. The mistake arose, of course, from the similarity of the names, and occurs (as said in vol. v. p. 78, note to A 1936) , in the Roman de la Rose, where we find:—
'Citeron est une montaigne ... ”

“ Translated from some French stanzas by Francis Wrangham, and Printed in Poems by Francis Wrangham, M.A., Member of Trinity College, Cambridge, London (1795) , Sold by J. Mawman, 22 Poultry, pp. 106-111. In the edition of 1795, the original French lines are printed side by side with Wordsworth’s translation, which closes the volume.—Ed.
[216]
When Love was born of heavenly line,
What dire intrigues disturb’d Cythera’s joy!
Till Venus cried, “A mother’s heart is mine;
None but myself shall nurse my boy.” ”

“ Such painters as Greuze, Lancret, and Boucher spread before the eyes living idyls, while Watteau and Frangonard conjure dreams of ideal Cytheras, of a chimerical paradise where reign eternal youth and eternal desire. The politics of our kings and of our ministers of the period is but a succession of faults and weaknesses. The best concerted plans come to naught. ”

“ So ended the discussion; and every one having made his invocation to his own special divinity, all retired to rest.
There was little more to be gained from the Cydonians; accordingly, on the following morning, having made a few trifling purchases, I prepared to start. My own intention was first to round the western limit of the island and to steer full north; next, having sighted the two Cytheras, to coast along the mainland till we reached the mouth of the Achelous, where I hoped to replenish our supply of water, and to transact some profitable business with the natives ”

“ Chaucer, VII. 65, 98; IX. 236; XVII. 41; XXIX. 1.
Cipryde, Venus, IX. 20. (Venus and Cipryde, Venus and the Cyprian goddess, really one and the same.)
Citharea, Venus, XXIV. 50, 556; Cithera, V. 5; Citherè, XXIV. 1178.
Citharee, Cythera, but an error for Cithaeron, XXIV. 49. See note. ”

“ The clinging kiss of Cypris at his side--
Alas, he knew not that she kissed him as he died!
I wail--responsive wail the Loves with me.
Ah, cruel, cruel is that wound of thine,
But Cypris' heart-wound aches more bitterly.
The Oreads weep; thy faithful hounds low whine;
But Cytherea's unbound tresses fine
Float on the wind; where thorns her white feet wound,
Along the oaken glades drops blood divine.
She calls her lover; he, all crimsoned round
His fair white breast with blood, hears not the piteous sound.
Alas! for Cytherea wail the Loves,
With the beloved dies her beauty too. ”

“ On the day following, Chloris punctually sought Cytherea, for appreciation must be shown the cordiality of the beauty. That was a question apart from others: one is just and polite before anything else. A person overhearing the chatting and laughing of that afternoon in Cytherea's room [221] would have thought certainly he listened to a pair of heart friends. The greater expense of admiration between the two women seemed of a truth to be borne by Cytherea. Chloris must look herself mentally over in astonishment at this value set on her by so great a judge. ”

“ Cytherea, you know who that weak woman is.
‘By such toilsome labour as this I got him here as my steward. And I wanted to see him your husband, Cytherea!—the husband of my true lover’s child. It was a sweet dream to me.... Pity me—O, pity me! To die unloved is more than I can bear! I loved your father, and I love him now.’
That was the burden of Cytherea Aldclyffe. ”

“ Grove with such a possibility; she hadn't, the truth was, at first attracted him in that way. Now he thought that he had been blind to have missed her resemblance to Cytherea. She was Cytherea! This, in a measure, accounted for him, since, with so much to consider, he badly needed an accounting. It wasn't simply, here, that he had kissed a married woman; there was nothing revolutionary or specially threatening in that; it was the sensation of danger, of lightning, the recognition of that profoundly disturbing countenance, which filled him with gravity and a determined plan of restraint. ”

“ It burns in me as the sun burns in the sky.
The glowing face of Cytherea in Titian’s Venus and Adonis, the heated cheek, the lips that kiss each eye that gazes on them, the desiring glance, the golden hair—sunbeams moulded into features—this face answered me. Juno’s wide back and mesial groove, is any thing so lovely as the back? Cythereals poised hips unveiled for judgment; these called up the same thirst I felt on the green sward in the sun, on the wild beach listening to the quiet sob as the summer wave drank at the land. I will search the world through for beauty. ”

“ Miss Aldclyffe removed her arms from Cytherea’s neck. ‘’Tis now with you as it is always with all girls,’ she said, in jealous and gloomy accents. ‘You are not, after all, the innocent I took you for. No, no.’ She then changed her tone with fitful rapidity. ‘Cytherea, try to love me more than you love him—do. I love you more sincerely than any man can. Do, Cythie: don’t let any man stand between us. O, I can’t bear that!’ She clasped Cytherea’s neck again. ”

“ Before the time Chloris had at last rigidly fixed for a formal visit came a message from Cytherea inviting her. Hard as she sought to discover a reason for misliking the dainty note, she could find none; it was irreproachable, and Chloris dressed herself for the occasion with a divided mind, the preponderant part of which was finally comfort: she should at least grapple now with a reality.
She came to Cytherea's house at evening under Damon's escort. As one approached it among the trees it looked rather more like one's idea of an Eastern temple than a sea-coast cottage. ”

“ It is the reflection of bright amber-coloured hair on a blonde skin, tinted with vermilion imparting a sort of luminous radiance divinely feminine. Scrutinise this countenance more closely; and you perceive that the features are in perfect harmony with each other, and harmonise with the complexion. You behold a face, such as the Athenian fancy has elaborated into an almost living reality in the goddess Cytherea.
This creature of golden roseate hue is yet very young—scarcely more than a child—but in the blue sky above her burns a fiery sun; and in twelve months she will be a woman. ”

“ The few persons forming the wedding-party were constrained in movement and tone, and from the nave of the church came occasional coughs, emitted by those who, in spite of the weather, had assembled to see the termination of Cytherea’s existence as a single woman. Many poor people loved her. They pitied her success, why, they could not tell, except that it was because she seemed to stand more like a statue than Cytherea Graye.
Yet she was prettily and carefully dressed; a strange contradiction in a man’s idea of things—a saddening, perplexing contradiction. ”

“ Fossil Cyprides. Wealden. Sussex and Isle of Wight.
Cypris. Lign. 174.—The animals of this genus belong to those Crustaceans in which the covering of the body is not divided into transverse segments, but consists of a large dorsal shield, having the form of a bivalve shell. They are often very minute, and numerous kinds swarm in our lakes and pools. « 528 » The species of an allied genus, named Cythere, the shells of which cannot always with certainty be distinguished in a fossil state from those of Cypris, inhabit salt or brackish waters. ”

“ The two Cythereas continued at the Westminster Hotel, Miss Aldclyffe informing her companion that business would detain them in London another week. The days passed as slowly and quietly as days can pass in a city at that time of the year, the shuttered windows about the squares and terraces confronting their eyes like the white and sightless orbs of blind men. On Thursday Mr. Nyttleton called, bringing the whole number of replies to the advertisement. Cytherea was present at the interview, by Miss Aldclyffe’s request—either from whim or design. ”