Faunus

“ Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair under Monte Gennaro,
(Haunt even yet, I must think, as I wonder and gaze, of the shadows,
Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces,)
Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations,
Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:--
So not seeing I sung ”

“ Faunus, or Pan, sits at the foot of the pine, the syrinx and the double pipe being placed at his feet. In his right hand he holds an olive branch, while a young winged genius advances towards him as if to receive it, and another genius of the same kind appears to be caressing him and whispering into his ear. On the other side of the terminal statue of Silvanus we see the caduceus of Mercury and the bale of wool, manifest indications of success in the wool trade. ”

“ Faunus is connected with favere, and means ‘the kind or propitious one,’ like Faustus and Faustulus, and as some think, Favonius [1127] and Fons. This derivation was known to Servius [1128] : ‘quidam Faunos putant dictos ab eo quod frugibus faveant.’ 259It is not in itself inconsistent with what we know of the rural Faunus, or with analogous supernatural beings, like the ‘good people.’ It was accepted by Preller and Schwegler, and has affected their conclusions about Faunus; e. g. Schwegler based on it the view, now generally held, that Evander is a Greek translation of Faunus [1129] . ”

“ Fauna, a deity among the Romans, daughter of Picus, and originally called Marica. Her marriage with Faunus procured her the name of Fauna, and her knowledge of futurity that of Fatua and Fatidica. It is said that she never saw a man after her marriage with Faunus, and that her uncommon chastity occasioned her being ranked among the gods after death. She is the same, according to some, as Bona Mater. Some mythologists accuse her of drunkenness, and say that she expired under the blows of her husband, for an immoderate use of wine. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 47, &c.—Varro.—Justin, bk. ”

“ A feast was given them at which they sat at table, while their masters served them, to show the natural equality of men, and that all things belonged equally to all, in the reign of Saturn.
Faunus, [Footnote: There was also a goddess called Fauna, or Bona Dea.] the grandson of Saturn, was worshipped as the god of fields and shepherds, and also as a prophetic god. His name in the plural, Fauns, expressed a class of gamesome deities, like the Satyrs of the Greeks.
Quirinus was a war god, said to be no other than Romulus, the founder of Rome, exalted after his death to a place among the gods. ”

“ Wings in form very much like those of G. faunus, but the fore wing not as strongly produced at the ends of the upper radial, and the hind wing at the end of the first submedian. The wings are much darker below than in faunus, without large pale spots, at most sprinkled with white scales. Expanse 2.00-2.30 inches.
Occurs in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.
The life history of this species is not as yet known. It is highly probable that the insect has the same tastes as the other species of the genus, and lives upon much the same food-plants. ”

“ Polus had got thither before them, and made a miserable Howling out of the Hedge; Faunus begins his Exorcism, and Polus steals away in the Dark to the next Village, and brings from thence another Person, for the Play could not be acted without a great many of them. Tho.Well, what do they do? Ans.They mount themselves upon black Horses, and privately carry Fire along with them; when they come pretty near to the Circle, they shew the Fire to affright Faunus out of the Circle. Tho.What a Deal of Pains did this Polus take to put a Cheat upon People? Ans.His Fancy lies that Way. ”

“ See above, p. 126. It may be noticed that the Bona Dea, whose solemn rite occurs also at the beginning of this month, was identified with Fauna, the female form of Faunus (R. Peter, in Lex. s. v. Fauna) ; i. e. their powers for good and evil were thought to be much alike.
1143. Preller, i. 381 and reff.
1144. See under Lupercalia, p. 320.
1145. Ovid, Fasti, 3. 291 foll. I am glad to see that Wissowa accepts this story as genuine Italian (Lex. s. v. 1456) .
1146. Cic. de Div. 1. 101; Livy, 2. 7 (Silvanus) , and Dion. Hal. 5. 16 (Faunus) of the battle by the wood of Arsia. ”

“ After this Noise had gone on for some Time, at once we heard a most dreadful Shout, and a Band of horrid Figures rushed into the Ring, with a Nimbleness hardly conceivable; they struck the Ground in exact Measure, answering the rough Musick; at once all the Descriptions of the Fawns and Satyrs of the Latin Poets came into my Mind, and indeed the Indians seemed to be the same Kind of brown dancing People, as lived under King Faunus, some 3000 Years ago in Italy; they are most chearful and loving to their Friends, but implacable and cruel to their Enemies. ”

“ Mrs. Browning, Flush or Faunus (sonnet) . Dryads: Pope, Moral Essays, 4, 94; Winter, 12; Collins, The Passions; Keats, Nightingale, Psyche. Satyrs: Milton, Lycidas; Dryden, Mrs. Anne Killigrew, 6; Hawthorne, Marble Faun.
In Art. Fauns (sculpture) : The Barberini Faun (Munich) ; the Drunken Faun, Sleeping Faun, Faun and Bacchus, and Dancing Faun (National Museum, Naples) ; the Dancing Faun (Lateran, Rome) ; the so-called Faun of Praxiteles or Marble Faun (Fig. 106 in text—a Satyr—best copy in the Capitoline, Rome) . Pan and [Pg 513] Apollo: Græco-Roman sculpture (Museum, Naples) . Pan: Fig. ”

“ Faunas of different eras are distinguished partly by the absence from the one of type's present in the other, and partly by the unlikenesses between the types common to both. Such contrasts between Faunas as are due to the appearance or disappearance of types, are of secondary significance: they possibly, or probably, do not imply anything more than migrations or extinctions. The most significant contrasts are those between successive groups of organisms of the same type. ”

“ To tell the truth his appearance is a little tousled: one tail feather is missing, lost in a fight, that is unless he has encountered some bad fairy in the village. Fanny suspects him of having a bad head; but she is a girl, and it does not worry her that her cock sparrow has a bad head if his heart is good. She pets him and calls him pretty names. All of a sudden he grows bigger and longer: his wings change into two arms. ”

“ In a few days more an anonymous green parrot arrived, in a gilt cage, with a little note in a clerk's hand, addressed to 'Miss Ruthyn (of Knowl) , Bartram-Haugh,' &c. It contained only 'Directions for caring green parrot,' at the close of which, underlined, the words appeared—'The bird's name is Maud.'
The bouquets I invariably left on the table-cloth, where I found them—the bird I insisted on Milly's keeping as her property. During the intervening fortnight Dudley never appeared, as he used sometimes to do before, at luncheon, nor looked in at the window as we were at breakfast. ”

“ White Fang had come straight from the Wild, where the weak perish early and shelter is vouchsafed to none. In neither his father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor in the generations before them. A constitution of iron and the vitality of the Wild were White Fang's inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole of him and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity that of old belonged to all creatures. ”

“ The little hollow in which he stood; the three hawthorn trees at his right; every crease and undulation of the sward, every angle and crack in the lichen-covered rock at his feet, recurred with a sharp and instantaneous recognition to his memory.
"Many a time your brother and I fished for hours together from that bank there, just where the bramble grows. That bramble has not grown an inch ever since, not a leaf altered; we used to pick blackberries off it, with our rods stuck in the bank—it was later in the year than now—till we stript it quite bare after a day or two. ”

“ But when the frames of poles were made into tepees by being covered with cloth and skins, White Fang was astounded. It was the colossal bulk of them that impressed him. They arose around him, on every side, like some monstrous quick-growing form of life. ”

“ We afterwards went into the sculpture-gallery, where I looked at the Faun of Praxiteles, and was sensible of a peculiar charm in it; a sylvan beauty and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. The lengthened, but not preposterous ears, and the little tail, which we infer, have an exquisite effect, and make the spectator smile in his very heart. This race of fauns was the most delightful of all that antiquity imagined. It seems to me that a story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, might be contrived on the idea of their species having become intermingled with the human race ”

“ The gods were all-powerful, and a dog was no match against them; yet White Fang learned to face them, fiercely belligerent and unafraid. Duty rose above fear, and thieving gods learned to leave Grey Beaver's property alone. ”

“ But if the foot of the intruder touch it, or even tread in its immediate vicinity, the puff adder lunges either forward or sideways, with a swiftness that the human eye cannot follow, and, having buried its fangs deep in the flesh, holds on like a bulldog, forcing two streams of venom into the tissues. The expression of this snake—its square muzzle and glaring, lidless eyes with vertical pupils—the extraordinary gape of the jaws and the huge, erected fangs, form what is probably one of the most fiendishly menacing combinations in nature. ”

“ The strange god walked softly, but more softly walked White Fang, for he had no clothes to rub against the flesh of his body. He followed silently. In the Wild he had hunted live meat that was infinitely timid, and he knew the advantage of surprise.
The strange god paused at the foot of the great staircase and listened, and White Fang was as dead, so without movement was he as he watched and waited. Up that staircase the way led to the love-master and to the love-master's dearest possessions. White Fang bristled, but waited. The strange god's foot lifted. ”

“ Sellon, for his part, was as anxious to get away as his host. He was thoroughly sick of his present quarters, and of the daily occupation of seeing a few more wretched Angoras pay the debt of Nature—of staring at the glassy, shimmering horizon, and wondering when it was going to rain. Thoroughly sick, too, of swarming flies and of rough food none too appetisingly displayed—of a sofa-bed, and falling asleep to the accompaniment of the ticking rustle of the tarantulas hunting their prey in the thatch overhead, and occasionally running over his ear in the night. It was all very well for Fanning. ”

“ Here, where canoes were cached on poles high in the air and where stood fish-racks for the drying of fish, camp was made; and White Fang looked on with wondering eyes. The superiority of these man-animals increased with every moment. There was their mastery over all these sharp-fanged dogs. It breathed of power. But greater than that, to the wolf-cub, was their mastery over things not alive; their capacity to communicate motion to unmoving things; their capacity to change the very face of the world. ”

“ I am, on the contrary, very much interested for you—I am, I assure you, dear a cheaile.'
And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains, upon the back of mine. I looked up in her face. She was not smiling. On the contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners ruefully, as before, and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.
I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face so often immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume; but this lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still. ”

“ White Fang knew the law well: to opress the weak and obey the strong. He ate his share of meat as rapidly as he could. And then woe the dog that had not yet finished! A snarl and a flash of fangs, and that dog would wail his indignation to the uncomforting stars while White Fang finished his portion for him.
Every little while, however, one dog or another would flame up in revolt and be promptly subdued. Thus White Fang was kept in training. He was jealous of the isolation in which he kept himself in the midst of the pack, and he fought often to maintain it. ”

“ She does know how to paint up to the ninety-nines—she does, the old cat. I beg your pardon, Miss, but that she is—a devil, and no mistake. I found her out first by her thieving the Master's gin, that the doctor ordered him, and filling the decanter up with water—the old villain; but she'll be found out yet, she will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She's not right, they think—a witch or a ghost—I should not wonder. Catherine Jones found her in her bed asleep in the morning after she sulked with you, you know, Miss, with all her clothes on, what-ever was the meaning ”

“ The larva of Fannia is a flattened-looking grub with distinct segments, decorated by numerous feathery processes. It lives amongst decaying vegetation and fruit, and also amongst fermenting animal matter and dejecta. Sometimes it is found in rotting grass. As we shall see later, it frequently passes into the human alimentary canal. ”

“ Being a female, she possessed no such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog, her instinctive fear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen. White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyed upon her flocks from the time sheep were first herded and guarded by some dim ancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned his rush at her and braced himself to avoid the contact, she sprang upon him. He snarled involuntarily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this made no offer to hurt her. ”