Panthea

“ Her attendants placed her on a litter, and threw a tent-covering over her, to conceal her from the admiring troops. When the dead body of Abradatas was brought from the battle, Panthea reproached herself that she had urged him to such desperate courage. With the stern enthusiasm of ancient times, she stabbed herself to the heart, and died on her husband’s breast; having first given directions that their corpses should be wrapped in the same mantle. ”

“ Then Panthea, all other being commaunded to stande backe, saide: “Truely Abradatas, if there be women, that esteme their husbandes better then their owne liues, I thinke you knowe that I am one of them. Therefore what neede I to expresse euery particular thing: my factes, as I thinke, do perswade you more then woordes. And thus indeuouring my selfe towardes you, our mutuall loue is such, as I had rather be buried quicke with you, being a noble man, then to liue in shame. I regarde you with the beste, and my selfe not as the worste. ”

“ Pandarus (Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida) , i. 221; viii. 326; xi. 295 et seq. Pandemonium (in Milton’s Paradise Lost) , v. 65, 318 n.; xi. 506. Pandora (Barry’s) , ix. 421, 422. Pangs of Conscience. See The Ravens (Pocock’s) . Pannel (J. P. Kemble’s) , viii. 537; xi. 303, 305. —— The, and The Ravens, xi. 303. Panopticon (Bentham’s) , iv. 197; vii. 129, 240, 247, 249; viii. 411. Pantagruel (Rabelais) , iv. 378 n.; v. 113; viii. 29. Panthea (in Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and No King) , v. ”

“ In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the great God Pan is not dead, as was rumored. Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God. ”

“ Hence Jupiter Ammon was represented under the figure of a Ram; Apis under a Cow; Osiris of a Bull; Mercury or Thol of an Ibis; Diana or Babastis of a Cat; and Pan of a Goat. From these sources are derived the fabulous transformation of the gods celebrated in Egyptian Mythology, and afterwards imported into Greece and Italy to serve as the subjects of the Grecian and Roman Pantomimes.
Pantomime as we now know the term, means, not only the Art of acting in dumb show, but also that of a spectacle or Christmas entertainment. ”

“ Enter Pentheus, clad like a Bacchanal, and strangely excited, a spirit of Bacchic madness overshadowing him.
Thy shape, methinks, is like to one Of Cadmus' royal maids! Pentheus.
Yea; and mine eye Is bright! Yon sun shines twofold in the sky, Thebes twofold and the Wall of Seven Gates. . . . And is it a Wild Bull this, that walks and waits Before me? There are horns upon thy brow! What art thou, man or beast? For surely now The Bull is on thee! Dionysus.
He who erst was wrath, Goes with us now in gentleness. He hath Unsealed thine eyes to see what thou shouldst see. Pentheus. ”

“ Out of the most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, metaphysical system, he made a gorgeous Pantheon, full of beautiful, majestic, and life-like forms. He turned atheism itself into a mythology, rich with visions as glorious as the gods that live in the marble of Phidias, or the virgin saints that smile on us from the canvas of Murillo. The Spirit of Beauty, the Principle of Good, the Principle of Evil, when he treated of them, ceased to be abstractions. ”

“ I only wish to premise plainly that I am not concerned with any view of the world such as implies or admits that, whether by process of creation, or emanation, or self-division, or evolution, the oneness of the Eternal has ever been marred, or anything other than the being of God has been or can be produced.
But before passing on to the promised historical review, it is, perhaps, Pantheism either Philosophical or Religious or both. necessary to refer again to a remark previously made, that Pantheism may be considered either from the point of view of philosophy, or from that of religion. ”

“ In regard to the gods and goddesses of the Grecian Pantheon, we observe that most of them were immoral; at least they had the usual infirmities of men. They are thus represented by the poets, probably to please the people, who like all other peoples had to make their own conceptions of God; for even a miraculous revelation of deity must be interpreted by those who receive it, according to their own understanding of the qualities revealed. ”

“ How Pantagruel passed the time with his servants In what hierarchy of such venomous creatures do you place Panurge's future spouse? asked Friar John. Art thou speaking ill of women, cried Panurge, thou mangy scoundrel, thou sorry, noddy-peaked shaveling monk? By the cenomanic paunch and gixy, said Epistemon, Euripides has written, and makes Andromache say it, that by industry, and the help of the gods, men had found remedies against all poisonous creatures; but none was yet found against a bad wife. ”

“ Penthesilea is a work apart. Passionate, headlong, almost savage, is the character of the queen of the Amazons, yet wonderfully sweet in its gentler moods and glorified with the golden glow of high poetry. Nothing could be further removed from the pseudo-classical manner of the eighteenth century than this modern and individual interpretation of the old mythical story of Penthesilea and Achilles, between whom love breaks forth in the midst of mortal combat. ”

“ Thus, those who hold that the reasonable soul and flesh is one man—one altogether—but at the same time deny that the toe or the finger, or the stomach or the heart, is the man, are bound in consistency to recognise that if Pantheism affirms God to be All in All, it does not follow that Pantheism must hold a man, or a tree, or a tiger to be God. ”

“ And, indeed, the nearest approach they made to the more genuine Pantheism of modern times was the conception of a world emanating from and projected outside Brahmă, to be re-merged in him after the lapse of ages. Now, if I am right in my definition of Pantheism as absolutely identifying God with the Universe, [3] so that, in fact, there cannot be anything but God, the inconsistency here noted must be regarded as fatal to the genuineness of the Indian or indeed of any other ancient Pantheism. ”

“ The older Eastern religions are, to begin with, Pantheistic. We have seen how religion generally in its development takes form and content from its governing conception of God. We have seen also that there are three governing conceptions of God: He is conceived as Transcendent or Immanent, or else He is simply identified with the range and force of the universe. Pantheism is generally the creation of brooding wonder and uncritical thought; Pantheism feels rather than thinks; it accepts rather than seeks to explain. It may be devout enough but its devotion is passive rather than active. ”

“ But Pentheus stood fixed in his purpose. He no longer sent messengers, but went himself to where Cithaeron, the chosen seat for the god's sacred rites, was resounding with songs and the shrill cries of worshippers. As a spirited horse snorts when the brazen trumpet with tuneful voice sounds out the battle and his eagerness for the fray waxes hot, so did the air, pulsing with the long-drawn cries, stir Pentheus, and the wild uproar in his ears heated his wrath white-hot. ”

“ An Americanism for trouser material. See “Pantaloon.”
Pantechnicon. A Greek word compounded out of pan, all, and techne, art. The large vehicle of this name was first used exclusively for the conveyance of pictures and art treasures to exhibitions.
Pantheism. From the Greek pan, all, and theos, God; the religion which recognises the Spirit of God moving throughout all the processes, works, and glories of His creation. The single doctrine expressed by Pantheism is that “God is everything, and everything is God.” ”

“ Penthesilea, virgin queen of the man-defying virgins—fairest of earth’s fair daughters—had left her boundless plains beside the cold Thermodon—had called her quivered heroines from warring with the mountain pard, and chasing the huge urus of the plain, to launch the unerring shaft and ply the two-edged axe against the sevenfold shield of Salamis, against the Pelian spear. ”

“ In the Grecian Mythology the labours of Hercules, the expedition of Osiris, the wanderings and transformation of Io, the fable of the conflagration of Phaeton, the rage of Proserpine, the wanderings of Ceres, the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Orgia, or sacred rites of Bacchus, in fine, the ground work of Grecian Mythology is to be traced to the East, from where also all our nursery tales, and also our popular Pantomime subjects ”

“ Why Pantheism as a Religion was called Modern.
In the earlier part of this essay I made the remark that Pantheism as a religion is almost entirely modern. The context, however, clearly showed what was meant; for several pages have been occupied with indications of the ideas and teaching of individual Pantheists from Xenophanes to Spinoza. But we do not usually take much note of a religion that is confined to one or two men in an age. If it dies out we treat it merely as a curiosity, or an intellectual puzzle, like the dreams of Jacob Boehme, or the atheistic ecclesiasticism of Comte. ”

“ Recking nought of Pentheus: so from forth his halls I come to you.
But, methinks,—for there within the house a footfall's sound there is,—
He shall straightway come without. Ha, what shall he say unto this?
Lightly shall I bear his bluster, whatsoe'er his fury's stress; 640
For it is the wise man's part to rein his wrath in soberness.
Enter Pentheus.
Pentheus.
Foul outrage this!—the stranger hath escaped,
Though bound but now in fetters fast as fate.
Ha!
There is the man! What means this? How hast thou 645
Won forth to stand before my very halls?
Dionysus. ”

“ Yet have you never heard of any so wonderful as that of Pantagruel; for it is a very difficult matter to believe, how in the little time he was in his mother's belly he grew both in body and strength. That which Hercules did was nothing, when in his cradle he slew two serpents, for those serpents were but little and weak, but Pantagruel, being yet in the cradle, did far more admirable things, and more to be amazed at. ”

“ Pantheism is veiled Atheism. It is not necessary to argue this proposition at length. Pantheists often speak of the great being, which, according to Pantheism, is composed of all the intelligences of the universe. Can any man conceive of such a being? Can intelligences be piled one upon another, like brick and mortar, and thus be compounded? And if my spirit be the highest intelligence in the universe, did it create itself? ”

“ The ‘Timæus’ dialogue presents some interesting theologic dogma; here133.4 in the scale of Divine creation the Olympian Pantheon, which seems to be accepted rather for the sake of ancient tradition, is given the third place after the planets and the Sun which are the second works of the Supreme Creator, the first being the cosmic Heaven. These deities of the polytheism, then, are not immortal in their own nature, but are held together for all eternity by the will of the highest God. ”

“ Pantheism, personified, is a hypocrite, a deceiver. The name God, as a proper name in the English language, means the Divine Being, Jehovah, the Eternal and Infinite Spirit, the Creator and Lord of the universe. Pantheists say they believe in God, but they tell you, when pressed, they mean by that name "everything"—God is everything. ”

“ Of all the temples of the Romans, the Pantheon is by far the most original and typical, and as a rotunda it is unmatched in the ancient world. There is a simplicity about its proportions, the height being exactly equal to the width, and in the mode by which it is lighted through a single aperture in the roof, which gives it a character of grandeur that redeems the clumsiness of detail, which would nearly spoil any edifice less grand in conception. ”

“ Pantheism is that perversion of reason and language which denies God's personality, and calls some imaginary soul of the world, or the world itself, by his name. While Pantheists are fully agreed upon the propriety of getting rid of a God who could note their conduct, and call them to account for it hereafter, and who would claim to exercise any authority over them here, they are by no means agreed, either in India, Germany, or America, as to what they shall call by his name. ”

“ Peter’s affords the best sample of modern art in Rome178, so does the Pantheon exhibit the most satisfactory and best-preserved specimen of ancient art; for, notwithstanding the injuries it has sustained by the hands of barbarians of all ages, no signs of natural decay are yet visible; and with this magnificent model before their eyes, it appears strange, that the architects of St. Peter’s should not have accomplished [Pg 276] their task more worthily. The Pantheon seems to be the hemispherical summit of a modern temple, taken off and placed on the ground ”

“ Lest they should kill thee, seeing thee as a man."
Here is the true irony of tragedy. Pentheus, who has derided his grandsire and the holy prophet for their unseemly attire and senile folly,—Pentheus, who has threatened to behead the Lydian wizard, and had imprisoned his attendants, is himself persuaded by the god he so abhors to put on the garb of a Bacchanal, and in that guise to pass through the streets of Thebes. ”

“ When a man pauses for the purpose of attentively reviewing the Pantheon of Greece and Rome, what strikes him at the first with most depth of impression and with most horror is, the wickedness of this Pantheon. And he observes with surprise, that this wickedness, which is at a furnace-heat in the superior gods, becomes fainter and paler as you descend. ”