Phaon

“ Sappho
The eternal stars to bed! Ask me no more,—
My Phaon, you must ask me nevermore:
Though Music pipe from Memory’s darkest pine
Her tenderest note, all time her wings are torn;
The assuaging founts of tears themselves have failed.
Life to the lees I drained, and I have grown
Too lightly wayward with its wine of love,
Too sadly troubled with its wind of change,
And some keen madness burns through all my blood.
The whimpering velvet whelps of Passion once
I warmed in my white breast, and now full-grown
And gaunt they stalk me naked through the world ”

“ GOLDEN PULSE
Golden pulse grew on the shore,
Ferns along the hill,
And the red cliff roses bore
Bees to drink their fill;
Bees that from the meadows bring
Wine of melilot,
Honey-sups on golden wing
To the garden grot.
But to me, neglected flower,
Phaon will not see,
Passion brings no crowning hour,
Honey nor the bee. ”

“ Ask not the cause that I new numbers choose, The lute neglected and the lyric Muse; Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow, And tuned my heart to elegies of woe, I burn, I burn, as when through ripen'd corn By driving winds the spreading flames are borne! 10 Phaon to Ætna's scorching fields retires, While I consume with more than Ætna's fires! No more my soul a charm in music finds; Music has charms alone for peaceful minds. ”

“ With as dainty a taste as Horace's rat, He turn'd away from such food as that. "What, tench for a heron! poh! I scorn the thought, and let them go." The tench refused, there came a gudgeon; "For all that," said the bird, "I budge on. I'll ne'er open my beak, if the gods please, For such mean little fishes as these." He did it for less; For it came to pass, That not another fish could he see; And, at last, so hungry was he, That he thought it of some avail To find on the bank a single snail. Such is the sure result Of being too difficult. Would you be strong and great, Learn to accommodate. ”

“ He is covered with gold and red, and has an embroidered hat on like a mandarin's; he's fast asleep; and, by Jove, he smells like a polecat! It's worth going over only to have it to say. Fiew! pooh! oh! It is a perfume. Faugh!"
Not caring to accept this tempting invitation, we got along slowly toward the door. I bade them good-night, reminding them of their promise. And so found my way at last to my carriage; and was soon rolling slowly toward the Dragon Volant, on the loneliest of roads, under old trees, and the soft moonlight. ”

“ Æon, discovered that life might be sustained by the fruits of trees. Their immediate descendants were called Genos and Genea, who lived in Phoenicia, and in time of drought stretched forth their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him they regarded as the sole Lord of Heaven, and called him Baal-samin, which means ‘Lord of Heaven’ in the Phoenician tongue, and is equivalent to Zeus in Greek. ”

“ Scene.—Garden of King Phanor’s Country House. King Phanor discovered with Chrysal, Zoram, Aristæus, and Palmis. Aristæus is standing sulkily apart.
As the curtain rises, King Phanor is finishing a recitation which he is accompanying on a mandolin, in a very affected manner.
Phanor. “Oh, I would not—no, I would not be there!”
(Zoram and Chrysal applaud vigorously.)
Chrysal. My lord, I pray you read it once again,
My ears are greedy for the golden sound.
Phan. Chrysal, you make me blush!
Chrys.My lord, a blush
Is modesty’s sole herald—and true worth
Is ever modest. Pray you, sir, again! ”

“ In Assyrian, however, kha is “fish,” and not dag; while in Hebrew, though dag is “fish,” dagan is “corn.” It may be noted also that the Phoenician remains contain no representation of a fish deity. On the whole, it is perhaps best to be content with the account of Philo, and to regard the Phoenician Dagon as a “Zeus Arotrios”—a god presiding over agriculture and especially worshipped by husbandmen. The name, however, does not occur in the Phoenician remains which have come down to us. ”

“ They say that it lives about five hundred years in the wilderness, and when advanced in age it builds itself a pile of sweet wood and aromatic gums, fires it with the wafting of its wings, and thus burns itself; and that from its ashes arises a worm, which in time grows up to be a Phoenix. Hence the Phoenicians gave—’
‘Never mind what they gave,’ said the Phoenix, ruffling its golden feathers. ‘They never gave much, anyway; they always were people who gave nothing for nothing. ”

“ He was in the world of men, where movement is not easy and the very air a burden. In his own sphere, in his own element, he might have outrun Fionn, but this was Fionn’s world, Fionn’s element, and the flying god was not gross enough to outstrip him. Yet what a race he gave, for it was but at the entrance to his own Shi’ that the pursuer got close enough. Fionn put a finger into the thong of the great spear, and at that cast night fell on Aillen mac Midna. ”

“ She snuggled closer, and he said, "Falana!" as though touch and taste and smell had identified the girl as surely as sight. She was Falana, the aunt of his first patient. She wore the shapeless, crude garments of the tribe, yet it was as though there were neither homespun nor even a wisp of air between them.
Falana had no words to waste as she found his mouth in the darkness. There was nothing to explain. When he stepped back and further into the gloom, she was close as ever; and, as if seeing in the darkness, she seemed to know exactly where he spread his sheepskin mat—
She did know. ”

“ They soon outran the swift winds, clove asunder the morning clouds, and the vast, immeasurable universe lay before Phaëthon’s gaze. The chariot swung from side to side as the load was too light. When the steeds noticed this, they took to wild flight and left the usual course. The youth was overcome by fear. How could he find the course again? Not once but many times he sought to free the tangled reins. Upward went the chariot. When Phaëthon looked upon the height of the sky, a panic seized him, his knees trembled, and all grew dark before his eye. ”

“ Even the lion may have been affronted in the great mountain, and if we are unable to describe the method of its chase in Phoenicia, the reason is that the Phoenician artists have, in their representations of lion hunts, adopted almost exclusively Assyrian models.1266 The Phoenician gift of facile imitation was a questionable advantage, since it led the native artists continually to substitute for sketches at first hand of scenes with which they were familiar, conventional renderings of similar scenes as depicted by foreigners. ”

“ Down sinks he in the strife; No tears can save his life. They slay, and dress, and salt the beast, And cook his flesh in many a feast, And many a neighbour gets a taste. As Phaedrus says it, pithily, The master's is the eye to see:-- I add the lover's, as for me. [27] Phaedrus, II. 8 (The Stag and the Oxen) ; and others.
XXII.--THE LARK AND HER YOUNG ONES WITH THE OWNER OF A FIELD. [28] "Depend upon yourself alone," Has to a common proverb grown. 'Tis thus confirm'd in Aesop's way:-- The larks to build their nests are seen Among the wheat-crops young and green ”

“ A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.
'Doctor, one word,' I said, I believe, quite wildly. 'Do you—do you think his mind is at all affected?'
'Insane?' he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness, that brightened into a smile. 'Pooh, pooh! Heaven forbid! not a saner man in England.'
Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed, notwithstanding his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the afternoon Doctor Bryerly went away. ”

“ I wish 'twas under the sea. I hate France—I do—like the devil. Don't you? They're always a-threatening me wi' France, if I dare say a word more about the po'shay, or—or anyone.'
I really was curious about Cormoran; but Cormoran was not to be defined to me by Milly; nor did she, in reality, know more than I respecting the arrival of the night before.
One day I was surprised to see Doctor Bryerly on the stairs. I was standing in a dark gallery as he walked across the floor of the lobby to my uncle's door, his hat on, and some papers in his hand. ”

“ Like Adonis, he was fond of hunting in the woods that clothe the flanks of Lebanon, and there he was seen by Astronoë, the Phoenician goddess, the mother of the gods (in whom we cannot fail to recognise Astarte) , who persecuted him with her attentions to such an extent that to escape her he was driven to the desperate resource of self-emasculation. Upon this the goddess, greatly grieved, called him Pæan, and by means of quickening warmth brought him back to life, and changed him from a man into a god, which he thenceforth remained. ”

“ Here we have the burning of the world involved in the myth of Phaëton, son of Phœbus--Apollo--the Sun--who drives the chariot of his father; he can not control the horses of the Sun, they run away with him; they come so near the earth as to set it on fire, and Phaëton is at last killed by Jove, as he killed Typhon in the Greek legends, to save heaven and earth from complete and common ruin. ”

“ The most prominent characters in the Fionn saga, after the death of Fionn's father Cumal, are Fionn, his son Oisin, his grandson Oscar, his nephew Diarmaid with his ball-seire, or "beauty-spot," which no woman could resist; Fergus famed for wisdom and eloquence; Caoilte mac Ronan, the swift; Conan, the comic character of the saga; Goll mac Morna, the slayer of Cumal, but later the devoted friend of Fionn, besides a host of less important personages. Their doings, like those of the heroes of saga and epos everywhere, are mainly hunting, fighting, and love-making. ”

“ However, this evening Phanis doesn't see them.
He's in such a state that he remembers a thousand and one things. They come to mind all at the same time: the games he played, the courses he had last year, a fruit he cut and ate when he was little; a nest he'd found... Everything coming and going in his head, like ants in a nest. His head is buzzing.
His eyelids are burning and swollen. He really wants to sleep.
At last sleep came. This time it was deeper. Phanis will have slept for at least five or six hours. He felt in his sleep that he was cold, but he couldn't get up. ”

“ Before he could make up his mind, Falana said, "Turn around and see—I've got it."
As he twisted about, the horse shifted, moving out of the shadow and into light strong enough for him to see the ruby she had in her hand. It collected enough of the glow to pulse and flame as though in its own right. ”

“ The priests of that temple have all their writing dated by the fowl that is called Phoenix; and there is none but one in all the world. And he cometh to burn himself upon the altar of the temple at the end of five hundred years; for so long he liveth. And at the end of the five hundred years, they array their altar carefully, and put thereon spices and live sulphur, and other things that will burn lightly. And then the bird Phoenix cometh and burneth himself to ashes. And the first day next after, men find in the ashes a worm; and the second day next after, men find a bird, quick and perfect ”

“ Here it was that the Phoenician character developed especially those traits by which it is commonly known to the world at large—a genius for commerce and industry, a passion for the undertaking of long and perilous voyages, an adaptability to circumstances of all kinds, and an address in dealing with wild tribes of many different kinds which has rarely been equalled and never exceeded. ”

“ The other principal Phoenician deities were El, Melkarth, Dagon, Hadad, Adonis, Sydyk, Eshmun, the Cabeiri, Onca, Tanith, Tanata, or Anaitis, and Baalith, Baaltis, or Beltis. El, or Il, originally a name of the Supreme God, became in the later Phoenician mythology a separate and subordinate divinity, whom the Greeks compared to their Kronos1135 and the Romans to their Saturn. ”

“ The new Phœnix flew back to the Arabian desert to live his five hundred years as each of his race had done, sacred, afar, and apart, but not forgotten, though in his old age he might come to deem so. For in the bright Temple of the Sun there are always folk of childlike sympathy who delight to honor the eternal Phœnix of romance and mystery,—the dear, undying memory of a time long past. ”

“ Under Greek influence he was identified with Pan, and just as there was supposed to be a number of Panisci, so the existence of many Fauni was assumed—misshapen and mischievous goblins of the forest, with pointed ears, tails and goat’s feet, who loved to torment sleepers with hideous nightmares. In poetical tradition Faunus is an old king of Latium, the son of Picus (Mars) and father of Latinus, the teacher of agriculture and cattle-breeding, and the introducer of the religious system of the country, honoured after death as a tutelary divinity. ”

“ Pho, pho, said the scoffer, a grey-haired man who stood leaning over his crutch with eyes full of pity [Pg 64] and sorrow, pho, pho, the noise that you hear is only the noise of the tide.
Nay, nay, Elder Smith, nay, nay, said an associate of the speaker. If it is only the noise of the tide, why have we not heard it before? and why do we not hear it now? just now, when the witch is about to be—
True ... true ... it may not be the Evil one, after all.
The Evil one, Joe Libby! No, no! it is God himself, our Father above! ”

“ When Fionn saw that the enchanter was put to flight, he descended from the high bank of the rath and pursued him. Many miles he went, and when he splashed through the rippling waters of the Boyne he was close on the heels of the magician. At length Fionn called out: "O Aillen mac Midna, turn your face to me. Let it not be said that death shamefully overtook you in the back, as you fled from a boy"; but Aillen still continued his flight. Then Fionn poised his spear—which for a long time had struggled in his hand, striving to free itself—and with all the strength of his arm threw it ”