Hermogenes

“ The simplicity of Hermogenes, who is ready to believe anything that he is told, heightens the effect. Socrates in his genial and ironical mood hits right and left at his adversaries: Ouranos is so called apo tou oran ta ano, which, as some philosophers say, is the way to have a pure mind; the sophists are by a fanciful explanation converted into heroes; “the givers of names were like some philosophers who fancy that the earth goes round because their heads are always going round.” ”

“ These rules for symmetry were established by Hermogenes, who was also the first to devise the principle of the pseudodipteral octastyle. ”

“ There remains a difficulty which seems to demand a more exact answer: In what relation does the satirical or etymological portion of the dialogue stand to the serious? Granting all that can be said about the provoking irony of Socrates, about the parody of Euthyphro, or Prodicus, or Antisthenes, how does the long catalogue of etymologies furnish any answer to the question of Hermogenes, which is evidently the main thesis of the dialogue: What is the truth, or correctness, or principle of names? ”

“ More than that (Diodorus answered) , I summon others to my aid and I have a reward cried for his recovery.
Soc. Well, if one of your domestics is sick, do you tend him and call in the doctors to save his life?
Diod. Decidedly I do.
Soc. And if an intimate acquaintance who is far more precious to you than any of your household slaves is about to perish of want, you would think it incumbent on you to take pains to save his life? Well! now you know without my telling you that Hermogenes (2) is not made of wood or stone. If you helped him he would be ashamed not to pay you in kind. ”

“ The nu he observed to be sounded from within, and therefore to have a notion of inwardness; hence he introduced the sound in endos and entos: alpha he assigned to the expression of size, and nu of length, because they are great letters: omicron was the sign of roundness, and therefore there is plenty of omicron mixed up in the word goggulon (round) . Thus did the legislator, reducing all things into letters and syllables, and impressing on them names and signs, and out of them by imitation compounding other signs. That is my view, Hermogenes, of the truth of names ”

“ Probably they held the same belief as Tertullian, in regard to the dogma of endless hell.
[157]
The Hermogenians believed that the earth and the whole universe have been uncreated, and are eternal. Hermogene said: "God has either taken evil from himself, or from nothing, or from a pre-existing matter. He could not take evil from himself, for he is indivisible; and, besides, evil could not abide in a being infinitely perfect. He could not take evil from nothing, for in this case it would have been in his power not to produce it ”

“ He does not commit himself to the belief that they are the bones of “Agamemnôn,” pure and simple; they are the bones of “Schliemann’s Agamemnôn.” Yet primæval Hellas, primæval Mykênê, has a history which may well live through alike unreasonable doubts and undiscerning faith. Call him what we will—Agamemnôn or anything else—the name matters little. It is a marked moment in one’s life when one looks on the bones of one who, we need not doubt, was, in days long before Hekataios wrote or even before Homer sang, a lord of many islands and of all Argos. ”

“ This happened once in presence of Hermogen, and myself. We were ordered out of the room, and I wept bitterly; but Hermogen only said, 'It is the devil that has done this to her!'
"Thus the belief was firmly impressed on my mind, that my mother every day held conversations with some frightful spectre, whom, even to look upon, would, to any one else, be death. (As to religious instructions, they were, of course, yet wholly beyond my comprehension.) One day, after rambling through the castle, I was horrified to find myself alone in the blue cabinet which had been alluded to by Hermogen. ”

“ Frequently I thought of Hermogen's words—'Thy mother speaks with the devil;' and began to think, that the unknown was, in truth, an agent of the Arch-fiend, employed to entice me to destruction. Yet I could not cease to love him; and when Reinhold came back, on one occasion, from a journey, and talked much of a certain Brother Medardus, whom he had heard preach in the town of Königswald, there arose within me an obscure dim apprehension, that the original of the beloved and yet dreaded vision might be that very Medardus ”

“ Hereupon Hermogen drew himself one step backwards, and fixing on the old man, a dark, gloomy look, almost with an expression of repressed rage, which was truly frightful:—
"Know, then," said he, "that I myself am the destiny—the demon, as thou sayest, by whom I am persecuted and destroyed, that my conscience is loaded with guilt, nay, with the stain of a shameful, infamous, and mortal crime, which I thus endeavour to expiate in misery and in despair!—Therefore, I beseech you, be compassionate, and implore, too, my father's consent, that he may allow me to go into a monastery!" ”

“ Some statues of this kind are described by a name compounded of that of Hermes and another divinity: thus we have Hermanubis, Hermares, Hermathena, Hermeracles, Hermeros, Hermopan. There is another class of these works, in which the bust represented no deity at all, but was simply the portrait of a man. Even these statues, however, retained the names of Hermae and Termini. The Hermae were used by the wealthy Romans for the decoration of their houses. The following engraving exhibits a Hermes decorated with garlands and surrounded with the implements of his worship. ”

“ In its completed shape, the lightning-wand is the caduceus, or rod of Hermes. I observed, in the preceding paper, that in the Greek conception of Hermes there have been fused together the attributes of two deities who were originally distinct. The Hermes of the Homeric Hymn is a wind-god; but the later Hermes Agoraios, the patron of gymnasia, the mutilation of whose statues caused such terrible excitement in Athens during the Peloponnesian War, is a very different personage. He is a fire-god, invested with many solar attributes, and represents the quickening forces of nature. ”

“ I could understand every word that they said.
"Hermogen," said the old man, "by this obstinate silence, you bring your nearest friends to utter despair. Your dark melancholy increases; your youthful strength is withered. This extravagant resolution of becoming a monk, ruins all your father's hopes and wishes. Yet he would willingly give up the hopes that he had formed, if, from youth onwards, you had shewn any real tendency of character to loneliness and monachism. ”

“ However, I could by no means get rid of the frightful image; he continued to run along by my side, and to speak with me at intervals, till at last it seemed to me as if I must actually enter into conversation, and relate to him the recent adventures of my life. Accordingly, I confessed that I had just now been very foolish, and had allowed myself once more to be terrified by the insane Hermogen; however, that St Rosalia should now very soon be irrevocably mine, and that, for her sake only, I had become a monk, and received the investiture and consecration. ”

“ Who should guide the ghosts down the darkling ways but the deity of the dusk; sometimes he made love to fair ghostly maids whom he attended. So easy is it to interpret all the functions of a god as reflections of elemental phenomena. The origin of Hermes remains obscure; but he is, in his poetical shape, one of the most beautiful and human of the deities. He has little commerce with the beasts; we do not find him with many animal companions, like Apollo, nor adored, like Dionysus, with a ritual in which are remnants of animal-worship. ”

“ They would fatten on my heart's-blood,—but then—I should die—I should die—Death would release me from thy vengeance!"
"My serpents," howled out the spectre, who now seemed like an infernal fury,—"my serpents may nourish themselves from thy heart's-blood, but herein consists not thy torment, oh wretched sinner! Thy pain is within thine own bosom, and in vain hopest thou for release in death. Thy torment is the thought of thine own crimes, and this thought is eternal!"
Hereafter the figure of Hermogen, streaming with blood, rose up out of the dusky void, and Euphemia fled before him. ”

“ In the same way, Hermes takes the herds of King Admetos to pasture; he leads them to browse near the herds of Apollo, from whom he steals a hundred bulls and twelve cows, preventing the dogs from barking (as Hêraklês does when he leads away Geryon's oxen) . This Hermes, this god Mercury, god of merchants, this merchant and robber, is the same as the skilful and cunning thief of the stories who carries off horses, draught oxen, caskets, and ear-rings from the king; he is the hero-thief; but a shade distinguishes him from the monster brigand or Vedic demoniacal Paṇis ”

“ It is requisite to observe, that these adventures are wound up by the death of the Baroness and of Hermogen; that of the former, by means of poison, which she had prepared for Medardus; and of the latter, in single combat with the monk, who, in self-defence, killed his antagonist.]
[At this point the Editor recommences his transcription.]
When Hermogen fell, I ran in wild frenzy down stairs. Then I heard shrilling voices through the castle, that cried aloud, "Murder! murder!" ”

“ Hermon had imagined Aristotle like him, while the bust of Pythagoras, with which he was familiar, resembled Erasistratus.
The convalescent could scarcely expect anything more than beneficial advice from Herophilus; for this tireless investigator rarely rendered assistance to the sick in the city, because the lion's share of his time and strength were devoted to difficult researches. The King favoured these by placing at his disposal the criminals sentenced to death. In his work of dissection he had found that the human brain was the seat of the soul, and the nerves originated in it. ”

“ Hermod, the quick or nimble, resembles Mercury not only in his marvelous celerity of motion, but he, too, was the messenger of the gods, and, like the Greek divinity, he flashed hither and thither, aided not by winged cap and sandals, but by Odin’s steed Sleipnir, whom he alone was allowed to bestride. Instead of the Caduceus, he bore the wand Gambantein. He questioned the Norns and the magician Rossthiof, through whom he learned that Vali would come to avenge his brother Balder and to supplant his father Odin. ”

“ In these pictures the monks and hermits are represented in gowns made of a kind of coarse matting, and they have long beards, and some of them are covered with hair; these, I take it, were the ones most to be admired, as in the Greek Church sanctity is always in the inverse ratio to beauty. All Greek saints are painfully ugly, but the hermits are much uglier, dirtier, and older than the rest. They must have been very fusty people beside, eating roots and living in holes like rats and mice. ”

“ According to Plutarch the ancients “set Hermes by the side of Aphrodite,” i.e. the male and female principles of generation; and the two deities were worshipped together in Argos and elsewhere. But this phallic character does not explain other aspects of Hermes, as the messenger-god, the master-thief or the ideal Greek ephebe. It is impossible to adopt the view that the Homeric poets turned the rude shepherd-god of Arcadia into a messenger, in order to provide him with a place in the Olympian circle. To their Achaean audience Hermes must have been more than a phallic god. ”

“ The sight of him made old people feel young again. Even the sage monk Hermes, devoted to study and experiment, was unable to keep the fruit-seller out of his mind, and would fain have discovered the secret of his charm, partly for the friendly purpose of explaining to the lad himself his perhaps more than natural gifts with a view to their profitable cultivation. ”

“ I am satisfied that we have in Hermes two entirely distinct divinities run into one, through the confusion of similar names, that the Pelasgic, Ithyphallic Hermes is an entirely distinct god from the tricksy, thievish youth with winged feet and fluttering mantle. The Pelasgic Hermes (from ἔρμα) is the sun as generator of life, whilst the other Hermes (from ὁρμή) is the impetuous wind, whose representative Saramâ exists as the gale in Indian mythology. Hermes Psychopompos is therefore the wind bearing away the souls of the dead. ”

“ We may conclude the chapter with a short reference to that most remarkable transaction, the mutilation of the Hermæ, which occurred B.C. 415, just before the Sicilian expedition, and in its consequences bears a striking analogy to the passage in history which we have just related. The Hermæ were square pillars, surmounted by a head of the god, Hermes, or Mercury, which, in compliance with an ancient custom, were placed at the entrances of temples and houses. Most of these throughout Athens were defaced in the course of one night. ”

“ It was only after days of the hardest struggle, the cruellest suspense, that the thought flashed on me that the idea of Hermes leading away the dead female might, in this case, have been carried one step farther; that the male figure might be no living man, no man at all, but Hermes himself actually banqueting in Hades with the soul of his disembodied protégée! ”

“ Mogens smiled.
“You don’t believe in elves, but you should. It is beautiful to believe in all that, in gnomes and elves. I believe in mermaids too, and elder-women, but goblins! What can one do with goblins and three-legged horses? Old Mary gets angry when I tell her this; for to believe what I believe, she says is not God-fearing. Such things have nothing to do with people, but warnings and spirits are in the gospel, too. What do you say?”
“I, oh, I don’t know—what do you really mean?”
“You surely don’t love nature?” ”