of Agamemnôn; and when describing Hector eager for slaughter, he says that he had the eyes of Gorgo and of mandestroying Ares'. The Gorgeian Head was on the ægis of Zeus, and the hero of the Odyssey fears to remain in Erebos lest Persephoneia should send out the Gorgeian head of the dire monster'd against hime. Along with the Grææ, according to the Theogony, Keto bore to Phorcys the Gorgons, 'who dwelt beyond the bright Ocean in the extremity toward night, where the clear-voiced Hesperides abide.' It names them Stheino, Euryale and Medusa, which last alone was mortal. Poseidôn, it is added, lay with her in a soft mead amid the spring-flowers,' and when her head was cut off by Perseus, the 'great' Chrysaor (Gold-sword) and the steed Pegasos (Fount-horse) sprang forth. Eschylus calls the Gorgons the three sisters of the Grææ, winged, serpent-fleeced, hateful to man, whom no one can look on and retain his breaths.' They were also represented as winged on the ancient coffer of Kypselos at Olympiah. On the shield of Heracles the Gorgons are girt with serpents. Others describe them as having their heads environed with scaly snakes, and with huge teeth like those of swine, brazen hands and golden wings. Their looks, it is added, turned all who beheld them to stonek.

The Gorgons and the Grææ are always mentioned together, and they seem to have been appropriated to the mythe of Perseus. We might therefore suppose them to have been a pure poetic fiction, were it not that, as we shall show, the Gorgon in that mythe, Medusa, is merely another form of Pallas-Athene. It is therefore not improbable that the theory of some mythologists of the present day may be the true one; namely, that the two Gorgons and two Grææ are

b Il. viii. 348.

c Il. v. 741.

a Il. xi. 36. d Od. xi. 633. It may be doubted if Homer was acquainted with the story of Perseus: the passage in which he is mentioned (Il. xiv. 519.) is, we think, justly regarded as an interpolation. Völcker (Myth. Geog. 15.) refers to Il. xix. 116. 125; but that passage, besides its being in one of the later books, is liable to objection. See Heyne and Payne Knight in loc.

Theog. 274. seq.

i Hesiod, Shield, 233.

& Prom. 804. seq.

h Paus. v. 18, 5.

Apollod. ii. 4. 2. Tzetz. Lyc. 838. Sch. Esch. Prom. ut sup.

only personifications of the terrors of the sea, the former denoting the large strong billows of the wide open main, the latter the white-crested waves that dash against the rocks of the coasta. They must have originally belonged to the Sea (Pontos), whose grandchildren they are, and not to the calm soft-flowing Ocean, whither they were transported when they had ceased to be regarded as personifications, and had been introduced into the mythe of Perseus. As in this mythe Medusa (Mistress)—whose name is of a nature totally different from theirs-was added to the Gorgons, the principle of uniformity probably led to a similar increase of the Grææ.

All these beings are, we think, placed by the Theogony in Oceanic isles; they may however have dwelt on the opposite coast, though we believe few who are well versed in the cosmology of those times will assign them that gloomy region; most certainly they are not on this side of Ocean. Hither, however, they were all removed in the course of time, and even to the Syrtes and Cyreneb. In short, with the exception of Hesiod, every writer of antiquity places them somewhere in Libya. This however is not to be wondered at, for it is only a part of the system of localisation, which assigned a definite abode in well-known countries to all the beings of fable, which brought for example the transoceanic Kimmerians over to the fertile plains of Campania in Italy.

"Apрrviai. Harpyia. Harpies.

The Harpies or Snatchers of Homere and Hesiod are personifications of storm-winds (Oveλλai). The former says nothing of their form or parentage; the latter terms them well-haired, (a usual mark of beauty,) and says that they were sisters of Iris, daughters of Thaumas and Electra, swift

a Hermann. De Mythol. etc. (Opusc. ii. 180.) Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 212. Myth. Geog. 17. Hermann renders Pephredo and Enyo, Auferona and Inundona.

There seems to us to be much probability in Völcker's (Myth. Geog. 227. seq.) reading of Kupývns for Kiσ0ývŋs in Eschylus' Prometheus, 799; for this poet, as we have just seen, places the Gorgons near lake Tritonis.

Serv. Æn. vi. 106. Strabo, v. 4.

From ȧρrál. There was a species of hawk named prŋ (II. xix. 359.). Leclerc derived Harpy from the Semitic Arba (7) locust. • Il. xvi. 149. Od. i. 211; xiv. 371; xx. 61. seq.

as birds or as the blasts of winda. Their names, he says, are Aello (Storm) and Ocypete (Swift-flyer). Homer says that Xanthos and Balios, the steeds of Achilleus, were the offspring of Zephyros by the Harpy Podarge (Swift-foot), whom he met grazing in a mead by the stream of Oceanb. Virgil names one of the Harpies Celano".

In the Argonautic cycle the Harpies appear as the tormentors of Phineus. They are there represented as odious offensive monsters with female faces, and the bodies, wings, and claws, of birds d.

"Aveμol. Venti. Winds.

The winds are represented in the Ilias as gods: Iris goes to them as they are feasting in the dwelling of Zephyros, to inform them of the prayer of Achilleus that they would inflame the pyre of Patroclos. In the Odysseyf, the winds are not directed by separate deities, but are all under the charge of Æolos. We may, as a matter of course, observe that the Wind-gods of Homer are not winged.

The Winds were divided into wholesome and noxious. The former, which were Boreas (North), Zephyros (West), and Notos (South), were according to Hesiods the children of Astræos (Starry) and Eôs (Dawn). The other winds, he saysh, (probably meaning only those which blow from the East,) are the race of Typhoeus, whom he describes as the last and most terrible child of Earth. In Greece, as over the rest of Europe, we may observe the east-wind is pernicious.

Boreas (Bopéas) was called Clear weather- or Frost-producer (ai@pnyevýs). He loved Oreithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus king of Athens, and carried her offk. The Athenians ascribed

3

Theog. 267. seq.

b Il. xvi. 149. From this and from Od. xx. 65. 77. it may be perhaps inferred that the shore of Ocean was the abode of the Harpies.

Æn. iii. 211. Tzetz. Lyc. 166.

d Below, Part II. chap. the last. Argonautics. See also Eschyl. Eum. 50. Virgil,

ut supra, 216.

e Il. xxiii. 192.

& Theog. 378.

f Od. x. 1. Apoll. Rh. iv. 765. Virg. Æn. i. 52. h Id. 869.

i Il. xv. 171; xix. 358; also ai@pnyevérns, Od. v. 296. See Appendix (E.). * See below, Part II. chap. v.

the destruction of the fleet of Xerxes by a storm to the partiality of Boreas for the country of Oreithyia, and built a temple to him after that events. Boreas is also said by Homerb to have turned himself into a horse out of love to the mares of Erichthonios, and to have begotten on them twelve foals.

Zephyros (Zépupos) is described by Homer as a strongblowing wind, but he was afterwards regarded as gentle and soft-breathing. Love was the offspring of Zephyros and Iris, and one of the Seasons bore to this wind-god a son named Carpos (Fruit)a.

The South- (Nótos) and East-wind (Eupos) have been left without adventures. The Winds have all wings or horses and chariots in the works of the later poets and the artists.

The names Euros and Zephyros probably come from s and Copos, which denoted the East and Weste. Boreas is thought to be Oreas (from opos), as rushing from the mountains. Notos perhaps signified wet, and is akin to the Ger

CHAPTER XIX.

INHABITANTS OF THE ISLES AND COASTS OF THE WESTSEA.-LOTUS-EATERS, CYCLOPES, GIANTS, ÆOLOS, LÆSTRYGONIANS, CIRCE, SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, PHAETHUSA AND LAMPETIA, CALYPSO, PHÆACIANS, SYRIA AND ORTYGIA.

THE romantic geography of the most romantic poem of Greece, the Homeric Odyssey, is now to occupy our attention. Its poet is in our eyes a Grecian Ariosto, and we should as soon hope to discover the true position of the isle of Alcina as of those of Circe and Calypso. The moment he conducts his hero away from Greece, he engages him in magic regions amidst ogres, fairies, and monsters of various kinds, as numerous as ever were encountered by the knights of Gothic romance. To form these he took possession of the cosmogonic Cyclopes and Giants and transformed them; he adopted the tales of Phoenician mariners, and he transferred the wonders of other mythic cycles to the West-sea, which he made the scene of his hero's adventures.

It is a question among critics whether the Odyssey is or is not the work of one mind, whether the domestic scenes in Ithaca, and the wondrous adventures related to Alcinoös, are parts of one continuous preconceived narrative. Into this interesting subject we are not required at present to enter, for the geography of these parts is distinct, the one lying in the domains of romance, the other confining itself to the sober realms of the actual earth. We shall first direct our attention to the lattera.

In the Ilias the only places noticed out of Greece to the

* On the Homeric geography the best work by far is that of Völcker, so frequently alluded to in these pages. The Elteste Weltkunde' of Voss has two great defects; he will localise every place and people, and he is resolute in maintaining the two poems to be the produce of one mind, and denies all interpolation.

S