Mount Parnassus

“ On one occasion, going to the Corycian cave on Mount Parnassus, night came on as he and his companions were making their way through a forest and they came upon a party of goatherds, who gave them goat’s milk and curds for supper, and with whom afterwards they lay down to sleep in the open air. And whether on Mounts Cithaeron, Helicon and Parnassus at Phyle or at Athens, he was almost beside himself amidst the various beauties of nature and art by which he was surrounded. ”

“ The basin of the Cephissus, enclosed by the chains of the Œta and Parnassus, is one of the most remarkable from an hydrological point of view. The river first flows through a bottom-land formerly a lake, and then, forcing for itself a passage through a narrow defile commanded by the spurs of Mount Parnassus, it winds round the rock upon which stood the ancient city of Orchomenus, and enters upon a vast plain, where swamps and lakes are embedded amidst cultivated fields and reed-banks. ”

“ They say that a fellow robbed the god of some treasure, and kept himself and the gold hidden at the place on Mount Parnassus where the forest is thickest. As he slept a wolf attacked and killed him, and every day went to the city and howled. ”

“ Full of these remembrances, he came within sight of a lofty mountain, which the people thereabouts told him was called Parnassus. On the slope of Mount Parnassus was the famous Delphi, whither Cadmus was going.
This Delphi was supposed to be the very midmost spot of the whole world. The place of the oracle was a certain cavity in the mountain-side, over which, when Cadmus came thither, he found a rude bower of branches. It reminded him of those which he had helped to build for Phœnix and Cilix, and afterwards for Thasus. ”

“ Far, far below the affrighted youth could see Earth and Ocean spread out. But as his chariot raced madly down the heights, the clouds were dispersed by his fierce rays, the high mountains began to smoke, the forests to burn; ripened harvests were devoured by fire, whole cities were turned to ashes. Pindus and Parnassus were steaming, the fountains of Mount Ida were dried up, and Ætna raged with redoubled heat. Even the towering Apennines and Caucasus lost their snows, and the huge Alps were one range of living flame. ”

“ Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in crowds:
What was the great Parnassus' self to Thee,
Mount Skiddaw? In his natural sovereignty
Our British Hill is fairer far: He shrouds
His double-fronted head in higher clouds,
And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly. ”

“ Only the shadow of ancient crime and sorrow rests on the fair landscape.
LXXXVI. The Cleft Way.—About five miles to the south-west of Daulis the road, after skirting the eastern foot of the mighty mass of Mount Parnassus, turns sharply to the west and begins to ascend through the long, narrow, and profound valley which leads to Delphi. Just at the point where the road turns westward 374and before it begins the long ascent it is joined from the south-east by the direct road from Lebadea and Thebes. ”

“ Another, Mount Œta, is continued by the high mountains that shut off Thermopylæ to the north and runs on as the boundary between Locris and Bœotia. Still another range, running out of the central complex, has its culmination in Parnassus, 8070 feet high, and is continued, though more interrupted and with a more irregular course, by Mount Helicon in Bœotia and the frontier hills of Attica, from Helicon to Parnes, and bends around into the massive ridge of Mount Pentelicus, from whose summit the spectator can see the prolongation in the islands of Ceos, Cythnos, Seriphos, and others beyond. ”

“ Far up on the slope of gigantic Parnassus, it faces a narrow valley, or ravine, and a bare, calm mountain, scarred by zigzag paths, which look almost like lines sharply cut in the volcanic soil with an instrument. In the distance, away to the right, the defile opens out into the plain of Krissa, at the edge of which lies a section of sea, like a huge uncut turquoise lying in a cup of the land. ”

“ It is one of the finest alluvial bottoms in the world, a deep, dark, vegetable mold—which would produce almost without limit, were it properly cultivated. Before us, blue and dark under a weight of clouds, lay Parnassus; and far across the immense plain the blue peaks of Mount Oeta. In three hours we reached the foot of Helicon, and looked up at the streaks of snow [Pg 139] which melt into the Fountain of the Muses....
As we left Arachova, proceeding toward Delphi, the deep gorge opened, disclosing a blue glimpse of the Gulf of Corinth and the Achaian mountains. ”

“ And beside the water travelers from the plain of Krissa, and travelers from Arachova, that wonderfully placed Parnassian village, renowned for its beautiful women, are pausing. They get down from their horses and mules to lave their hands and to drink. They cross themselves before the little Christian shrine under the trees by the roadside. They sit down in the shadows to rest.
It is very sweet to rest for long hours by the Castalian fountain of Delphi, remote from all habitations upon the great southern slope of Parnassus, under the tree of Agamemnon ”

“ But this dark picture has a bright side. No race that I know is so greedy of education; the small boys, instead of wending unwillingly to school, crowd the doors before they are opened. Where this exceptional feeling is universal we may hope for much.
The last evening at Patras showed us a beautiful view of what is here called Parnassus (Parnassó) , the tall bluff mountain up the Gulf, whose snows at sunset glowed like a balass ruby. We left the Morea at 2 A.M. (December 2) , and covered the fifty-two miles to Zante before breakfast. ”

“ A fine specimen of this Alpine scenery may be obtained by following the mule-path which leads north from Amphissa over the mountains to the village of Gravia in the ancient canton of Doris. With the exception of the village of Topolia, which we leave on the right, and here and there a small farm far up on the mountain-side, not a human dwelling is to be seen. At first the path ascends the western declivities of Parnassus. Looking down to the left we see below us a narrow dale, where in early summer the course of the stream, now nearly dried up, is marked by the red oleander blossoms. ”

“ Leslie Pinckney Hill, schoolmaster of Cheyney, Pennsylvania, and authentic singer, is one of the newest arrivals on the slopes of Parnassus. A first glance tells that he is an agile climber, sinewy, easy of movement, light of step, with both grace and strength. Every indication in form and motion is for some point far up toward the summit. ”

“ This Helicon separates Bœotia from the southern sea, but does not close up completely with Cithæron, leaving way for an army coming from the isthmus, where Leuctra stood to guard the entrance. Over against us, on the west, lay, piled against one another, the dark wild mountains of Phocis, with the giant Parnassus raising its snow-clad shoulders above the rest. But, in the far distance, the snowy Corax of Ætolia stood out in rivalry, and showed us that Parnassus is but the advanced guard of the wild alpine country, which even in Greece proved too rugged a nurse for culture. ”

“ After leaving Thebes, the journey became continually more and more interesting as I drew near to Parnassus: over the plain of Livadia, through the village and khan of Gravia, where one hundred and eighty Greeks fought heroically against three thousand Turks in 1821, over the magnificent Pass of Amblema, across the delightful olive-covered plain of Krissa, and up the mountain to Delphi. ”

“ Shut in on all sides by stupendous cliffs, among which flow the inspiring waters of the Castalian Spring, thousands of feet above which frowns the summit of Parnassus, on which Deucalion is said to have landed after the deluge, this romantic valley makes a deep impression on the mind of the visitor, and it is not strange that at an age when signs and wonders were looked for in every direction, it should have become the home of a sibyl. ”

“ As we recede, other eminences bright with the hues of heaven, rise in rich succession, behind that which at first we had thought so immense; and beyond the rest the lofty summit, whose colour almost mixes with the sky, rises in supreme majesty. The mind measures the more distant by the nearer object, and the powers of the imagination are excited to the utmost. From the want of all these accessories, Ætna does not look so high as Parnassus, which yet I apprehend it considerably exceeds. ”

“ But Olympus, with all its Greek associations, is, alas! a mountain in Turkey; and as for Parnassus, it is overtopped by nearly two hundred feet by a mountain to the west of it. This mountain, called Kiona, a part of the group known in antiquity under the name of Korax, “Crow Mountain,” has the honor of being the highest mountain in the Kingdom of Greece. Parnassus, to be sure, by the greatness of its fame more than overcomes the lacking two hundred feet, just as Erymanthus, on account largely of its famous boar, is of more importance than its higher neighbor to the east, Aroania. ”

“ Change the places, Abury for Parnassus, and we have both the natural, as well as chronological history of the place; a vast temple in form of a serpent, made out of stones left on the surface of the earth after the deluge: not only so but the very name too. The name of Parnassus was originally Larnassus, says Stephanus Byzantinus. The letter L is not a radical in this word, as the learned Dickenson observes in Delphi phœnic. therefore the word is Harnassus, Har is a headland or promontory of a hill, and nahas a serpent, which is no other than our Hakpen of Abury. ”

“ Hence the Scholiast upon Lycophron interprets the words παρ' αντρα in the poet, [662] Τους εσωτατους τοπους του ναου. The cavern is the innermost place of the temple. Pausanias, speaking of a cavern in Phocis, says, that it was particularly sacred to Aphrodite. [663] Αφροδιτη δ' εχει εν σπηλαιῳ τιμας. In this cavern divine honours were paid to Aphrodite. Parnassus was rendered holy for nothing more than for these unpromising circumstances. Ἱεροπρεπης ὁ Παρνασσος, εχων αντρα τε και αλλα χωρια τιμωμενα τε, και, ἁγιστευομενα. [664] The mountain of Parnassus is a place of great reverence ”

“ This summit is found, by modern measurement, to be about eight thousand feet high, and it is covered with snow nearly all the year. When bare it consists only of a desolate range of rocks, with mosses and a few Alpine plants growing on the sheltered and sunny sides of them. From the top of Parnassus travelers who now visit it look down upon almost all of Greece as upon a map. The Gulf of Corinth is a silver lake at their feet, and the plains of Thessaly are seen extending far and [Pg 231] wide to the northward, with Olympus, Pelion, and Ossa, blue and distant peaks, bounding the view. ”

“ To the west we find ourselves in the presence of “double-headed” Parnassus, to which fled Deucalion and Pyrrha, the ancestors of the Greeks, and where the Athenians celebrated their torchlight dances in honour of Bacchus. From the summits of the Parnassus, which rival in height those of the Khiona, raising its pyramidal head towards the north-west, nearly the whole of Greece, with its gulfs, islands, and mountains, lies spread out below us, from the Thessalian Olympus to the Taygetus, at the extremity of the Peloponnesus ”

“ Its length from east to west is about twelve miles, and its breadth from north to south about two. The plain is a dead flat, covered with fields of cotton and maize, and enclosed by bare, stony, barren hills both on the north and on the south. Seen on a bright summer day, with the mountains beyond the Copaic plain appearing blue in the distance and Parnassus towering grandly on the west, the scene is beautiful enough; but on a grey November morning, with the mists down on the distant mountains, it wears a cheerless aspect that well becomes a battlefield where a nation’s freedom was lost. ”

“ At the back of the village to the south rises a huge mountainous cliff of grey rock, its ledges tufted with pines. Between the foot of this great cliff and the village there intervenes a very steep slope, mostly overgrown 367with holly-oak bushes. On the east the village as well as the site of the ancient city is bounded by a very deep rocky ravine, which winds southward into the heart of the mountains. At the bottom of the ravine a torrent flows from Parnassus over a broad gravelly bed to join the Cephisus in the plain below. ”

“ We have remarked, that Parnassus itself is situated on the western boundaries of Phocis. The western side of this mountain is occupied by the Locri Ozolæ; on the southern is Delphi, a rocky spot, resembling in shape a theatre; on its summit is the oracle, and also the city, which comprehends a circle of 16 stadia. Above it lies Lycoreia; here the Delphians were formerly settled above the temple. At present they live close to it around the Castalian fountain. ”

“ Antiquity placed the gods on pinnacles, and satyrs in grooves. The satyr is the savage; half man, half beast. Free countries have their Appenines, their Alps, their Pyrenees an Olympus. Parnassus is a mountain. Mont Blanc was the colossal auxiliary of William Tell; behind and above the great contests of spirits, against the darkness which fills the poems of India, the Himalayas are seen. Greece, Spain, Italy, Helvetia, have the mountain for a type; Cimmeria, Germany, or Brittany have the woods. The forest is barbarous.
The formation of the ground affects many of man's actions. ”