Ælian

“ Aelian mentions other remarkable examples of the piety displayed by brutes. ‘Elephants worship the sun, stretching out their trunks to it like hands when it rises while men doubt the existence of the gods, or at least their care for us.’ ‘There is an island in the Black Sea, sacred to Heracles, where the mice touch nothing that belongs to the god. ”

“ It is, perhaps, characteristic of the times that Aelian’s stories should redound more especially to the credit of Asclêpius and Heracles, who were not gods of the first order, but demi-gods or deified mortals. Their worship, like that of the Nature-powers connected with earth rather than with heaven, belongs particularly to the popular religion, and seems to have been repressed or restrained in societies organised on aristocratic principles. ”

“ A monarch so conversant in all branches of natural history, would certainly not neglect furnishing his officers with instructions for collecting every curiosity in the country to which they made voyages, which gave him a knowledge that distinguished him from all the princes of his time. Ælian relates that they were brought into Greece from some barbarous country, and that they were held in such high estimation, that a male and female were valued at Athens at 1000 drachmæ, or £32. ”

“ No judicial penalty, however, was meted out to the fanatical Epicurean eunuch who, with the object of proving that the gods had no existence, forced himself blaspheming into that part of the sanctuary into which the hierophant and the hierophantide alone had the right of entry. Ælianus states that a divine punishment in the form of a disease alone overtook him. ”

“ Then the horse reared himself and lashed the air with his feet, and fell with his rider beneath him. And the men of Troy and the Latins sent up a great shout. Then Æneas hasted and drew his sword, and stood above him, crying, “Where is the fierce Mezentius now?” And the king said, when he breathed again, “Why threatenest thou me with death? Slay me; thou wrongest me not. I made no covenant with thee for life, nor did my Lausus when he died for me. Yet grant me this one thing. Thou knowest how my people hateth me. Keep my body, I pray thee, from them, that they do it no wrong. ”

“ Great in her charms, as when on gods above
She looks, and breathes herself into their love.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK II.
Taking the hero by the hand as he was in the act of raising his sword to strike Helen, the goddess thus rebuked him: "What is it that excites your anger now, my son? Where is your regard for me? Have you forgotten your father Anchises and your wife and little son? They would have been killed by the Greeks if I had not cared for them and saved them. It is not Helen or Paris that has laid low this great city of Troy, but the wrath of the gods. ”

“ Of inborn worth, his lab’ring soul oppress’d,
Roll’d in his eyes, and rag’d within his breast.
Then loud he call’d Aeneas thrice by name:
The loud repeated voice to glad Aeneas came.
“Great Jove,” he said, “and the far-shooting god,
Inspire thy mind to make thy challenge good!”
He spoke no more; but hasten’d, void of fear,
And threaten’d with his long protended spear.
To whom Mezentius thus: “Thy vaunts are vain.
My Lausus lies extended on the plain:
He’s lost! thy conquest is already won;
The wretched sire is murder’d in the son.
Nor fate I fear, but all the gods defy. ”

“ Thus warned, Æneas went forward in silence, and at the direction of the Sibyl he offered the Golden Bough at the gate.
Now came they at length to the regions of joy, the green retreats and happy groves of Elysium. An ampler ether and a purer light invest these fields, for the blessed have their own sun and stars. In jousts and races, in dance and song, they fleet the golden hours, a blessed company of bards and patriots, paladins and victors in the races. Among them Æneas marked Ilus, a former king of Troy, and Dardanus, that city's founder. ”

“ The personages of the action are prominent in poetry and legend, or by their ethnical names stir the sentiment of national enthusiasm—Aeneas and Anchises, Dido, Acestes, Evander, Turnus. The spheres of activity in which they are engaged are war and sea adventure. The passion of love is a powerful addition to the older sources of interest. The Aeneid revives, by a conventional compromise between the present and the remote past, some image of the old romance of Greece; it creates the romance of “that Italy for which Camilla the virgin, Euryalus, and Turnus and Nisus died of wounds.” ”

“ Taking command of his Etruscan allies, and followed by four hundred Arcadian horse under the young Pallas, whom his father gladly sends, as the youths of noble houses were sent in the days of knighthood, to learn the art of war under so great a captain, Æneas sets out on his march for Turnus’s capital. The old king does not part from his son without sad misgivings; he has trusted Æneas with more than his life.
Venus has not been neglectful of her son. She has persuaded Vulcan to forge for him weapons and armour of such sort as only the immortal smith can make. ”

“ He no sooner looked than he cried out, “It is he—indeed, indeed it is he!” And Eean, his hands grasping the old man, said, “It is Anluan! It is my father!”
Then it was told to Eean how Anluan had left the nets of a fisherman after his son had gone with Zabulun as his apprentice; and it was told, too, how he had come to the palace, and how he had been made the officer at the King’s doorway on account of his extraordinary patience, a patience that he had learned when he handled the net, and that wore out the most insistent of those who came with requests to the King. ”

“ Then Æneas prayed, saying, “O Phœbus, who didst always pity the sorrows of Troy, and didst guide the arrow of Paris that it slew the great Achilles, I have followed thy bidding, journeying over many lands, and now I lay hold on this shore of Italy, which ever seemed to fly before me. Grant thou that our ill fortune follow us no more. And all ye gods and goddesses who loved not Troy, be merciful to us. And thou, O prophetess, give, if it may be, such answer as I would hear. So will I and my people honor thee forever. ”

“ But the Holy Spirit [26] taught them to give thanks on being all rendered equal among themselves, and led them to a state of true repose. Thus, then, they tell us that the Æons were constituted equal to each other in form and sentiment, so that all became as Nous, and Logos, and Anthropos, and Christus. The female Æons, too, became all as Aletheia, and Zoe, and Spiritus, and Ecclesia. Everything, then, being thus established, and brought into a state of perfect rest, they next tell us that these beings sang praises with great joy to the Propator, who himself shared in the abounding exaltation. ”

“ To these friendly words Ilioneus, speaking for the Trojans, replied that it was no storm that sent them to Italy. "Willingly and with design," said he, "have we come to your shores, O king, after having been expelled from a kingdom once the most powerful under the sun. Our race is derived from Jupiter himself, and our chief, Aeneas, descended from the gods, has sent us to your court. All the world has heard of the destruction of our city, Troy. Driven by misfortunes over many seas, we beg for a settlement in your country. ”

“ There were Trojan heroes, however, as well as Greek, and Æneas was one of them. Virgil, the Latin poet, has told in the Æneid the story of his troubles and adventures. Æneas, too, was driven over the waters, for the Gods had told him it was the will of Jupiter, or Zeus, as it is in Greek, for him to seek Italy and there found a city. Part of his journey is the same as that of Ulysses. He, too, stops at the country of the one-eyed giants and has to row as fast as he can to escape the rocks that they throw at his vessel. ”

“ And Æneas gave the two equal gauntlets, and they stood with heads thrown back, and began the battle. Dares indeed was swifter to move, and vigorous, and young; and Entellus was huge of stature, but slow and scant of breath. Many blows they aimed at each other: many times one smote the other on his breast or his cheek, but struck not home. And ever Entellus abode in the same place, swaying himself hither and thither with watchful eyes. ”

“ Like Æneas too she is no solitary wanderer; she guides a new colony to the site of the future Carthage as he to the site of the future Rome. When Æneas stands before her, it is as a wanderer like herself. His heart is bleeding at the loss of Creusa, of Helen, of Troy. He is solitary in his despair. He is longing for the touch of a human hand, the sound of a voice of love. He is weary of being baffled by the ghostly embraces of his wife, by the cloud that wraps his mother from his view. He is [Pg 275] weary of wandering, longing with all the old-world intensity of longing for a settled home. ”

“ As Æneas springs up from his couch, warned by this vision, his ears are greeted by the confused sound of distant clamor, hoarse cries, and the accustomed noise of battle. The sky is red with flames. Rushing out, he finds that the Greek forces from wooden horse and fleet have filled the city, while the Trojans, taken unawares, are making brave but desultory resistance. Collecting a band of men, he makes stubborn stand again and again; but at last overpowered, his men flee in scattered twos and threes.
Æneas finds himself near Priam's palace. ”

“ According to Geoffrey of Monmouth "Brutus," the first king of Britain (from whom the island was called Britain) , was a descendant of Æneas.
Aene'id, the epic poem of Virgil, in twelve books. When Troy was taken by the Greeks and set on fire, Aene'as, with his father, son, and wife, took flight, with the intention of going to Italy, the original birthplace of the family. The wife was lost, and the old father died on the way; but after numerous perils by sea and land, Æneas and his son Asca'nius reached Italy. ”

“ DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK VI.
Anchises told his son much about the dwellers in Elysium. On the banks of the river Lethe—the river of forgetfulness—was a countless multitude of spirits which, he said, were yet to live in earthly bodies. They were the souls of unborn generations of men. Amongst them, he pointed out to AEneas, the spirits of many of those who were to be his own descendants in the kingdom he was to establish in Italy. ”

“ Thus Alenas, declared and elected king of Thessaly, by the oracle of Apollo, and by the means withal of his father's brother, both proved himself afterward a most noble prince, excelling all his progenitors and predecessors, and also raised the whole nation and his country a great name and mighty puissance.
Furthermore, it is seemly and convenient by joying and taking a glory in the advancement, prosperity, honours and dignities of brothers' children, to augment the same, and to encourage and animate them to virtue, and when they do well, to praise them to the full. ”

“ They marvel at Aeneas' gifts, marvel at Iülus, at the god's face aflame and forged speech, at the mantle and veil wrought with yellow acanthus-flower. Above all the hapless Phoenician, victim to coming doom, cannot satiate her soul, but, stirred alike by the boy and the gifts, she gazes and takes fire. He, when hanging clasped on Aeneas' neck he had satisfied all the deluded parent's love, makes his way to the queen; the queen clings to him with her eyes and all her soul, and ever and anon fondles him in her lap, ah, poor Dido! witless how mighty a deity sinks into her breast ”

“ They wind the hill, and thro’ the blissful meadows go.
But old Anchises, in a flow’ry vale,
Review’d his muster’d race, and took the tale:
Those happy spirits, which, ordain’d by fate,
For future beings and new bodies wait.
With studious thought observ’d th’ illustrious throng,
In nature’s order as they pass’d along:
Their names, their fates, their conduct, and their care,
In peaceful senates and successful war.
He, when Aeneas on the plain appears,
Meets him with open arms, and falling tears.
“Welcome,” he said, “the gods’ undoubted race! ”

“ Some of them contend together in wrestling and running; and some dance in measure, singing the while a pleasant song; and Orpheus, clad in a long robe, makes music, touching his harp, now with his fingers and now with an ivory bow. Here did Æneas marvel to see the mighty men of old, such as were Ilus, and Dardanus, builder of Troy. Their spears stood fixed in the earth, and their horses fed about the plain; for they love spear and chariot and horses, even as they loved them upon earth. ”

“ And he bade the men clear the decks and put out the oars to row, and shift the sails to the wind. Then he spake to Æneas, saying, “Italy we may not hope to reach with this weather. No, not though [Pg 97] Jupiter himself promise it to us. But, if I remember me aright, the havens of Sicily are at hand, wherefore let us turn our course thither.”
And Æneas answered, “It is well: for I see that the winds are contrary to us. And, of a truth, there is no land whither I would more gladly go, seeing that my father Anchises is buried there.” ”

“ We shall not disgrace the kingdom; nor will the rumour of your renown be lightly gone or the grace of all you have done fade away; nor will Ausonia be sorry to have taken Troy to her breast. By the fortunes of Aeneas I swear, by that right hand mighty, whether tried in friendship or in warlike arms, many and many a people and nation—scorn us not because we advance with hands proffering chaplets and words of supplication—hath sought us for itself and desired our alliance; but yours is the land that heaven's high ordinance drove us forth to find. ”

“ Now Æneas was sore troubled at these things, and doubted much whether he should still abide in the land of Sicily nor heed the Fates, or should yet follow after Italy. Then the old man, Nautes, the priest of Pallas, in whom more than in all men besides dwelt the wisdom of the goddess, spake to him, saying, “Son of the goddess, it must needs be that we go whither the Gods call us. Yet mayest thou devise something for this present necessity, taking counsel with King Acestes, seeing that he also is a son of Troy. ”