at night?" Edipus, encouraged with the hopes of the reward, undertook it, and happily explained it; so that the Sphynx was enraged, and cast herself headlong into the sea, and died. He said, that the animal was a man, who in his infancy creeps upon shands and feet, and so may be said to go on four feet; when he grows up he walks on two feet; but when he grows old, he uses the support of a staff, and so may be said to walk on three feet. This Edipus was the son of Laius, king of Thebes. Soon after his birth, Laius commanded a soldier to carry his son Edipus into a wood, and then destroy him; because it had been foretold by the oracle, that he should be killed by his own son. But the soldier was moved with pity toward the child, and afraid to imbrue his hands in royal blood; wherefore he pierced his feet with a hook, and hanged him on a tree to be killed with hunger. One of the shepherds of Polybius, king of Corinth, found him, and brought him to the queen, who, because she had no children, educated him as her own son, and from *his swollen feet called him dipus. When Edipus came to age, he knew that king Polybius was not his father, and therefore resolved to find out his parents he consulted the oracle, and was told that he should meet his father in Phocis. In his journey he met some passengers, among whom was his father, but he knew him not: a quarrel arose, and in the fray he by chance killed his father. After this he proceeded on his journey, and arrived at Thebes, where he overcame Sphynx, and for his reward married Jocasta, whom he knew not to be his mother then, but discovered it afterward. He had, by her, two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daugters, Antigone and Ismena. When afterward * Puerum dipum vovacit a tumere pedum odio enim tumeo et res pedem significat. t Senecæ dip. he found, by clear proof, that he had killed his father, and married his mother, he was seized with so great madness that he pulled out his own eyes, and would have killed himself, if his daughter Antigone (who led him about after he was blind) had not hindered him. Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Edipus and Jocasta, *succeeded their father in the government; and they agreed to reign a year each, in their turns. Eteocles reigned the first year, and then refused to admit his brother Polynices to the throne; upon which a war arose, and the two brothers, in a duel, killed each other. Their enmity lasted longer than their lives; for when their bodies were placed on the same pile, to be burnt by the same fire, the flames refused to unite, but divided themselves into two parts. There is a place in the infernal dominions abounding with pleasures and delights, which is called the Elysium; †because thither the souls of the good resort, after they are loosed from the chains of the body and have been purified from the light offences that they had contracted in this world: Quisque suos patimur manes; exinde per amplum All have their manes, and those manes bare : Æneas received this account from one of the inhabitants of it, as Virgil tells us, who describes this place as abounding with all the delights that the most pleasant plains, and the finest and most temperate air, can produce. * Stat.. Theb, उ † ATO TNS AVELWs, a solutione; quod Animae piorum corpo-reis solutae vinculis, loca illi petant postquam purgatae sunt a levioribus noxis quas contraxerent. Devenere locos laetos, et amaena vireta The blissful seats of happy souls below, Stars of their own, and their own sun they know."* There is a river in hell called Lethe, †from the forgetfulness it causes. For if any body drinks this water, he immediately forgets all things past; so that when the souls of the pious have spent many ages in the Elysian fields, they drink the water of Lethe, and are believed to pass into new bodies, and return into the world again: and it is necessary they should forget both the pleasures they have received in Elysium, and the miseries they did formerly endure in this life, that they may willingly return into this miserable ife again. These souls went out from Elysium by that ivory gate; which you see painted in the lower part of this wall: -Animæ, quibus altera fato Corpora debentur, Lethæi ad fluminis undam -Souls that by fate Virg. Æn. 6.713 Are doom'd to take new shapes, at Lethe's brink Mr. Cliffton, an American poet, thus beautifully describes the charms of Elysium, in lines which would do honour to. Pope. "There, rage no storms; the sun diffuses there † Awo ans Audus, ab oblivio ne. QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION. What is said of the Centaurs? What is the history of Geryon? What is said of the Gorgons? What is said of the Chimæra, and what was the occasion of this fable? What is the history of Sphynx? Who explained it? Give the history of Edipus. What is the Elysium, and how is it described? Repeat the lines from Virgil. What is said of the river Lethe ? Repeat the lines from Virgil. Repeat the lines of Mr. Cliffton, in the note PART V. OF THE DII MINORUM GENTIUM; OR, THE SUBORDINATE DEITIES. CHAPTER I. THE PENATES. THE LARES. The fifth division of this Fabulous Pantheon contains the inferior or subordinate gods: the Latins generally called them Dii Minorum Gentium, and sometimes Semones, Minuti, Plebeii, and Patellarii. The Penates are so called from the Latin word penus, which word, *Cicero says, includes every thing that man eats. Or they have perhaps this name from the place allotted to them in the heavens, †because they are placed in the most inward and private parts of the heavens where they reign: hence they call them +Penetrales, and the place of their abode Penetrale. They entirely govern us by their reason, their heat, and their spirit, so that we can neither live, nor use our understanding without them; yet we know neither their number nor names. The ancient Hetrusci called them Consentes and Compli * Est enim penus omne quo vescuntur homines. De Nat. Deor. † Quod penitus insideant, ex quo Penetrales a Poetis vocantur, et locus in quo servabantur eorum effigies Penetrale dictus. Varro ap. Arnob. 1. 3. |