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Title: The Venus of Milo - an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood
Author: Carus, Paul
Language: English
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[Illustration: THE VENUS OF MILO]
THE VENUS OF MILO
AN ARCHEOLOGICAL STUDY OF
THE GODDESS OF WOMANHOOD
BY
PAUL CARUS
ILLUSTRATED
αἰδοίν χρυσοστέφανον καλὴν Άφροδἰτην ᾄσουαι--HOMERIC HYMN.
CHICAGO LONDON
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1916
CONTENTS.
PAGE
List of Illustrations v
The Discovery of a Rare Art Treasure 1
Dumont d’Urville’s Report 5
Viscount Marcellus on his “Souvenirs” 11
Debay’s Drawing 15
Description of the Statue 22
Restorations 27
Recent Theories 42
What the Facts Reveal 51
The Meaning of “Aphrodite” 62
The Cult of Aphrodite 68
The Goddess of War 77
The Descent into Hades 83
The Magna Dea of the Nations 96
The Origin of Woman 121
Aphrodite in Art 145
Classical Hymns 171
Index 179
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Venus of Milo (Frontispiece).
The Field of Yorgos Bottonis 2
The Site of Melos from the Port 6
Fragments Found at Melos 12
Debay’s Drawing of Venus 16
Head of the Venus of Milo 18
The Head of Tralles 19
The Venus of Milo 23
A Mutilated Statue of Eros 28
Venus with Shield and Pencil 29
Venus with Mirror 30
Venus as Victory 31
Drawing by Hasse and Henke 32
Restoration by Furtwaengler 33
Saloman’s Latest Restoration 34
Restoration by Saloman 35
Venus Sending out the Dove 36
The Mother of the Gods. Painting by Francisca P. Del Mar 38
Venus on the Swan 55
Head of Venus of Milo. Profile view 57
Head of Venus of Milo. Front view 59
Heavenly and Worldly Love. By Titian 66
Birth of Venus. Ludovisi relief 70
Detail from the Ludovisi Relief 72
Winter and Summer 73
Venus and Anchises 75
Venus Victrix 77
Eros in the Underworld 84
Carrying in Procession the Symbol of Istar 97
Isis and Horus 99
Egyptian Representation of the Dead Man and His Soul 99
Astarte and the Dove 100
The Human-Headed Bird 101
Amulet of the Mycenaean Period 102
Isis and the Fish 102
Aphrodite with Rabbit 103
Relief from Boghaz-Köi 104
A Later Astarte 105
A Leaden Idol 105
Astarte in Cyprus 106
The Goddess of Navigation 107
Sargent’s Astarte 108
The Immaculate Conception. By Murillo 109
Kwan-Yon and the Fish 111
A Poem on Kwan-Yon 112
Benten, The Japanese Goddess of Divine Love 113
Kwan-Yon. By Li Lung-mien 114
Kwan Yon as the Buddha 115
T’ien Hou, Queen of Heaven 116
Freya 119
Adam and Eve Called to Account 133
The Creation of Woman 136
Detail from Ghiberti’s Doors 137
The Creation of Woman. By Michelangelo 138
Adam and Eve in Paradise. By Gustave Doré 139
The First Family. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld 140
Primitive Man. By Gabriel Max 142
Babylonian Clay Figures 145
The Venus of Brassempouy 146
Lakshmi 147
Coins of Cilicia, Tarsus, Gaulos and Perga 148
Coins of Perga in Pamphylia 149
Three Artemis Medals 149
Coin of Antiochus Euergetes 150
Istar on a Coin of Tarsus 150
Coins of Emesa, Iasos Caria, Paphos and Lydia 151
The Diana of Ephesus in the Vatican 152
The Diana of Ephesus in Naples 153
Cyprian Aphrodite 154
Archaic Aphrodite with Dove 155
Archaic Venus in Pompeian Style 155
Aphrodite Sosandra by Kalamis 156
Aphrodite and Ares 157
Attic Sculpture of the Fifth Century B. C. 158
Aphrodite of Alcamenes, Known as Venus Genetrix 159
Head of the Cnidian Venus. Profile 160
The Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles 161
The Venus of Praxiteles on a Cnidian Coin 162
Head of the Crouching Venus 163
Venus Crouching in the Bath 164
Venus with the Unguent Jar 165
The Venus of Panderma. Front view 167
The Venus of Panderma. Rear view 168
The Venus Head in the Museum of Bardos 169
Head of the Cnidian Venus. Front view 172
Another View of the Cnidian Venus 175
THE DISCOVERY OF A RARE ART TREASURE.
Melos (Italian _Milo_), one of the smallest Greek islands, would
scarcely be known at all except to specialists in geography or ancient
history, had not a happy accident brought to light on one of its
hillsides that most beautiful piece of sculpture which ever since its
discovery has been known as the Venus of Milo.
_Melon_ means apple, and the island of Melos (the “apple island”)
belongs to the Cyclades, being the most southern and western member of
that group. It lies almost straight west from the southern tip of the
Peloponnesus and in a direction south to south-west from Athens.
Melos was inhabited in ancient times by Dorians who sympathized with
Sparta against Athens, but when the Athenians conquered it after a most
stubborn resistance they slaughtered the entire Dorian male population
and replaced them by Athenian colonists. Since then the island remained
absolutely faithful to Athens, in fact it was the last possession which
still belonged to Athens when the Ionian confederacy broke up, and the
friendly relations between Melos and her metropolis continued even after
Greece had become a Roman province.
[Illustration: THE FIELD OF YORGOS BOTTONIS.
Cross shows where the Venus was found. (From the _Century Magazine_,
1881, Vol. I, p. 99.)]
On this island of Melos, a peasant by the name of Yorgos Bottonis and
his son Antonio, while clearing away the stones near the ruins of an
ancient theater in the vicinity of Castro, the capital of the island,
came accidentally across a small underground cave, carefully covered
with a heavy slab and concealed, which contained a fine marble statue in
two pieces, together with several other marble fragments. This happened
in February, 1820.
The Rev. Oiconomos, the village priest who guided the finder in this
matter, invited M. Louis Brest, the French consul of Melos, to see the
statue and offered it to him (in March of the same year) for 20,000
francs. M. Brest does not seem to have been in a hurry to buy, but he
claims to have written to the French minister at Constantinople. One
thing is sure, no answer had come by April when His French Majesty’s
good ship “Chevrette” happened to cast anchor in the harbor at Melos and
an ensign on board, Monsieur Dumont d’Urville, went to see the statue.
The inability to sell it had brought the price down, and the finder was
willing to part with it to the young Frenchman for only 1200 francs. M.
d’Urville was more energetic than M. Brest and as soon as he reached
Constantinople the French Minister at once authorized a certain Count
Marcellus, a member of the French embassy, to go to Melos and procure
the statue.
Count Marcellus arrived on the French vessel “Estafette” in May, but
found that the statue in the meantime had been sold to a certain Nikolai
Morusi for 4800 francs and had just been placed aboard a little brig
bound for Constantinople, the home of the buyer. At this juncture the
three Frenchmen, M. Brest, M. d’Urville and Count Marcellus, decided not
to let their treasure so easily escape them, so M. Brest protested
before the Turkish authorities that the bargain had been concluded,
declaring that Bottonis had no right to sell his prize to any other
party. They even threatened to use force and, being backed by the French
mariners of the “Estafette,” said that under no conditions would they
allow the statue to leave the harbor.
While the three Frenchmen claimed that France was entitled to have the
statue for 1200 francs they were willing to pay not only 4800 francs,
the price promised by Morusi, but 6000 francs. The new buyer had not yet
paid and so the peasant was satisfied with the cash offered him, while
the Turkish authorities did not care either way. Thus it came to pass
that the valuable marble was transferred to the French warship on May
25, 1820, (so at least runs the original report without the fantastic
story of a battle) and after much cruising was carried to Constantinople
where it was placed on the “Lionne,” another French ship bound for
France and destined to bring home the French Minister, Marquis de
Rivière. The “Lionne” reached France in October, 1820, and the statue
was delivered at the Louvre in February, 1821.
DUMONT D’URVILLE’S REPORT.
The most important passage of Dumont d’Urville’s report[1] about the
discovery of the statue reads in an English translation thus:
“The Chevrette set sail from Toulon on April 3 (1820) in the morning,
and anchored on the sixteenth in the roadstead of Milo....
“On the 19th I went to look at some antique pieces discovered at Milo a
few days before our arrival. Since they seem to me worthy of attention I
shall here record the result of my observation in some detail....
“About three weeks before our arrival at Milo a Greek peasant digging in
his field ... came across some stones of considerable size. As these
stones ... had a certain value, this consideration encouraged him to dig
still further, and so he succeeded in clearing out a sort of recess in
which he found a marble statue together with two hermae and some other
pieces, likewise of marble.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF MELOS FROM THE PORT.
White cross shows where the Venus was found. (From the _Century
Magazine_, 1881, Vol. I, p. 99)]
“The statue was in two pieces joined in the middle by two small iron
tenons. Fearing he would lose the fruit of his toil, the Greek had the
upper part of the two hermae carried away and deposited in a stable. The
rest were left in the cave. I examined all very carefully, and the
various pieces seemed to me in good taste, as far as my slight
acquaintance with the arts permitted me to judge of them.
“I measured the two parts of the statue separately and found it very
nearly six feet in height; it represented a nude woman whose left hand
was raised and held an apple, and the right supported a garment draped
in easy folds and falling carelessly from her loins to her feet. Both
hands have been mutilated and are actually detached from the body. The
hair is coiled in the back and held up by a bandeau. The face is very
beautiful and well preserved except that the tip of the nose is injured.
The only remaining foot is bare; the ears have been pierced and may have
contained pendants.
“All these attributes would seem to agree well enough with the Venus of
the judgment of Paris; but in that case where would be Juno, Minerva and
the handsome shepherd? It is true that a foot clad in a cothurnus and a
third hand were found at the same time. On the other hand the name of
the Island Melos has a very close connection with the word μῆλον which
means apple. Might not this similarity of the words have indicated the
statue by its principal attribute?
“The two hermae were with it in the cave. Beyond this fact there is
nothing remarkable about them. Their height is about three feet and a
half. One is surmounted by the head of a woman or child and the other by
the face of an old man with a long beard.
“The entrance to the cave was surmounted by a piece of marble four feet
and a half long and about six or eight inches wide. It bore an
inscription of which only the first half has been respected by Time. The
rest is entirely effaced. This loss is inestimable; ... at least we
might have learned on what occasion and by whom the statues had been
dedicated.
“At any rate I have carefully copied the remaining characters of this
inscription and I can guarantee them all except the first, of which I am
not sure. The space which I indicate for the defaced part has been
measured in proportion to the letters which are still legible:
:ΑΚΧΕΟΣΑΤΙΟΥΥΠΟΓΥ...........ΑΣ
ΤΑΝΤΕΕΞΕΔΡΑΝΚΑΙΤΟ.............
ΕΡΜΑΙΗΡΑΚΛΕΙ
“The pedestal of one of the hermae also bore an inscription but its
characters had been so mutilated that it was impossible for me to
decipher them.
“At the time of our passage to Constantinople the ambassador asked me
about this statue and I told him what I thought about it, and sent to M.
de Marcellus, secretary of the embassy, a copy of the inscription just
given. Upon my return M. de Rivière informed me that he had acquired the
statue for the museum and that it had been put on board one of the
vessels at the landing. However, on our second trip to Milo in the month
of September I regretted to learn that the affair was not yet ended. It
seems that the peasant, tired of waiting, had decided to sell this
statue for the sum of 750 piasters to a neighboring priest who wished to
make a present to the dragoman of the Captain Pacha, and M. de Marcellus
came just at the moment when it was being shipped to Constantinople. In
despair at seeing this fine piece of antiquity about to escape him he
made every effort to recover it, and thanks to the mediation of the
primates of the island the priest finally consented, but not without
reluctance, to abandon his purchase and give up the statue....
“On April 25 in the morning we doubled the promontory indicated....”
I understand from M. Dumont d’Urville’s report that the statue was in
“two parts” each about three feet high, that both hands were mutilated
and detached from the body,” and that he had reason to believe that the
“left hand was raised and held an apple and the right supported a
garment.” I say “he had reason to believe” it, but he positively speaks
as if he had seen it although this cannot be the case, for he
contradicts this fact by the unequivocal statement that the hands “are
actually detached from the body.” He says, “it represented a nude
woman, etc.” and the word “represented” need not mean that it was
complete with all the limbs intact and in their proper places.
Obviously M. d’Urville here describes the statue restored with the
fragments which were found in the cave, were bought of the finder, the
peasant Bottonis, and are now preserved in a glass case in the Louvre at
Paris. One of these fragments is a hand holding an apple, and there is
also a portion of an arm.
This interpretation is important in so far as discussions have arisen in
later years as to the original position of the hands when attempts to
restore the statue were made, and then the claim was made that the
statue had been found complete, that it had been broken by the French
sailors in its transportation and that the French authorities had been
careless in handling the whole affair.
VISCOUNT MARCELLUS ON HIS “SOUVENIRS.”
It is important to know the facts with regard to the debris found
together with the so-called Venus of Milo, as stated by a second eye
witness, the Viscount Marcellus. He wrote his reminiscences on the Venus
of Milo in a book entitled _Souvenirs_, and the second edition of this
was reviewed by Lenormant. In answer to some objections of the latter
the Viscount published “a last word on the Venus of Milo.”[2]
In this he enumerates as follows the objects brought away from the cave
where the Venus had been found:
“No. 1. The nude upper part of the statue.
“No. 2. The lower draped portion.
“Yorgos, their original owner ... gave me at the same time three small
accessories of the statue found in a field near by.... These were:
“No. 3. The top of the hair commonly called the chignon, etc.
“No. 4. A shapeless and mutilated fore-arm.
“No. 5. Part of a hand holding an apple.
“The last two objects seemed to me to be of the same kind of marble and
of a grain near enough like that of the statue, but I could not tell
whether they could reasonably be assumed to belong to a Venus whose
attitude I no longer remembered....
[Illustration: FRAGMENTS FOUND AT MELOS.[3] Nos. 4 and 5 of Viscount
Marcellus’s list.]
“The primates at the same time sent me the three hermae (Nos. 6, 7 and
8) which were still at Castro, and a left foot in marble (No. 9) which
had been found in the neighborhood of the field of Yorgos lower down
toward the valley where the burial caves are.
“They wished also to give me the inscription found in the same locality
which I had already seen in their town. It is the one which commences
with the Greek words: ΑΓΧΕΟΣ ΑΤΙΟΥ....
“I here repeat that with this exception I took away from Milo everything
which had been taken from the ground with the Venus or near by, and I
have no remembrance of having seen there, much less of having received
or acquired myself, any other Greek inscription which made mention of a
sculptor with a mutilated name, etc. Of course I would be eager enough
with anything that might be able to throw light on the discovery, and
since in my _Souvenirs de l’Orient_ (I, p. 249) I cite an epigraph of
almost no significance I would not wittingly or negligently have omitted
any Greek letters near the excavation or relating to its details.
Neither should it be forgotten that in fact I indicate only ‘three
hermae, some pedestals and other bits of marble debris’ (I, p. 237) as
the result of Yorgos’s successive excavations; and further down (p. 48)
these same hermae and other antique fragments without ever speaking of
any inscription.”
The inscription more completely mentioned by Dumont d’Urville has also
been published by Clarac with only a few insignificant variations. He
adds the missing B at the beginning, reads I in place of E, and has two
Σ’s. It is a votive inscription which has no connection with our Venus.
Being of little value, the authorities of the Louvre did not take good
care of it and it is now lost. The probable meaning of the inscription
is “Bakchios, (son of) Atios the subgymnasiarch (has donated) the arcade
and the ... [he has erected according to a vow] to Hermes, Heracles,
...”
* * * * *
These reports of two eye-witnesses are important not so much for what
they contain as for what they do not contain. Neither M. Dumont
d’Urville nor Viscount Marcellus mentions the name of the artist of the
statue. An inscription is copied by both in which Bacchus, Hermes and
Heracles are mentioned, but no reference is made to the name of
Agesander or Alexander of Antioch as having been seen on a fragment of
the pedestal--an artist who makes his appearance in a mysterious way and
whose acquaintance we shall make in the next chapter. Moreover, since
other pieces of debris were found either in the cave or in a neighboring
field, there is no reason whatever that any one of them, let alone the
left hand holding an apple, should have been attached to our statue.
We shall have occasion to refer to these points again.
DEBAY’S DRAWING.
The famous French painter David happened to be in exile at the time of
the discovery of the Venus of Milo, and, taking an especial interest in
this wonderful piece of ancient art, he induced one of his disciples, a
certain Debay, to have his son Auguste Debay, a young art student, make
a drawing of the statue as soon as it was put up in the Louvre. This
drawing was afterwards published by M. de Clarac in his “Notice” and we
here republish it on account of the importance it has gained as a
document in the history of the statue.
Debay’s drawing shows a plinth bearing an inscription and also
exhibiting a square hole in the ground near the left foot of the statue.
The angle of vision is indicated by the line “_xx_” which shows the
height from which the statue was viewed by M. Debay. The point _a_
corresponds to the place of the eye projected horizontally at a distance
in front which cannot have been more than one and one-half times the
height of the statue. Geometrically this place is determined by the
intersection of two lines
[Illustration: DEBAY’S DRAWING OF VENUS.]
from _a_ and _b_ constructed in a horizontal plane at right angles to
the vertical axis of the statue.
The inscription on the pedestal of M. Debay’s drawing reads:
...--ΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΗΝΙΔΟΥ
... ΙΟΧΕΥΣΑΠΟΜΑΙΑΝΔΡΟΥ
ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ
“ ... andros son of Menides of [Ant]iochia on the Maiandros.”
Since of the last missing letter before the Α the lowest stroke of a
Greek Ξ or of an Σ is discernible in the drawing, the name must have
read “Alexandros” or “Agesandros.” This man cannot have lived before the
third century B. C. because his native city Antioch on the Maeander was
founded by Antiochus I, the second of the Diadochs (280-261 B. C.)
According to Professor Kirchhoff’s view the character of the letters
belongs to the first century and may in his opinion be dated back at
most to the middle of the second century B. C.
We have no information whatever why the plinth was joined to the statue.
All we know about it is that it appears on the Debay drawing and is lost
now, but it continues to be a mystery to archeologists.
Some consider it as genuine and denounce the authorities of the Louvre
for their extraordinary carelessness in having allowed so important a
document to be lost, and others see no reason why this
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE VENUS OF MILO.]
[Illustration: THE HEAD OF TRALLES.]
piece of marble which possessed no significance whatever should be so
highly treasured.
If the piece of the pedestal with the inscription belonged to the
statue, for which assumption, as we have seen, there is no reason
whatever, the statue would be of a comparatively late date, but we
really do not know what the plinth bearing the name “ ... andros” has to
do with the statue.
Archeologists have discovered other heads showing a remarkable
similarity in their features to the Venus of Milo. Among them is a head
discovered in Tralles, Asia Minor, which shows almost the same face as
the Venus of Milo. So close is the resemblance that both seem to have
been made after the same model. It may be that one has been copied from
the other or both chiseled from a common prototype. We here reproduce
the heads of both, after half-tone pictures published by Saloman.[4]
Overbeck believes that the Venus of Milo is not an original. He says:
“It seems permissible to doubt the originality of this composition, and
to refer it back to an older original which we can no longer determine,
as the common prototype of the statue of Milo and of other similar
statues. For this reason there would be no objection to assigning the
origin of our statue to the period of imitation. Although I deem the
dependence of the statue upon an older original assured, I am
disinclined to deny a certain degree of originality, but in those very
features which I deem to be original are the very marks of a late
revision.”
Conze[5] compares our Venus of Milo with the style of the Pergamene
sculptures, and in his essay on the results of the excavation at
Pergamum, page 71, he calls attention to the fact that the warm tone of
the skin and the sketchy method of the treatment of the hair seem
characteristic of a later period, pointing out the similarity of a piece
of Pergamene sculpture with the head of the Venus of Milo.
Shall we assume that this head of Tralles is older than the Venus of
Milo and that we must look upon the art of Pergamum as the school in
which our artist, Agesander or Alexander or whoever he may have been,
drew his inspiration? We have no positive proof on either side but
internal evidence speaks in favor of regarding the Venus of Milo as
original, and we cannot place any confidence in the genuineness of the
plinth in the Debay drawing, so may regard the statue as the work of a
classical, though unknown, Athenian artist, or at least one who worked
for Athens and her temples.
A DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUE.
We have before us in the statue of the Venus of Milo one of the greatest
masterpieces of ancient Hellas, and it is of secondary importance
whether or not it was the artist’s intention to represent the goddess of
love and beauty. Surely this work of art represents womanhood at its
best--a noble feminine figure in full maturity, not a maiden but fully
developed, a wife or mother; and yet not as a mother with a child, nor
as a wife with her husband, but simply as a woman.
There is nothing frivolous about her, no coquetry, nothing amorous. Her
eyes betray not the slightest touch of a sensual emotion, not that
sentimental moistness, τὸ ὑγρόν as the Greeks called it, and thereby the
artist succeeded in transfiguring naked beauty by a self-possessed
chastity unrivaled in the art of statuary.
The consensus of art admirers, which is almost, though not quite,
universal, sees in this marble the great mother-goddess, _das ewig
Weibliche_, idealized femininity, the goddess of beauty and love, whom
the Greeks called Aphrodite and the Romans Venus.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF MILO.]
The goddess (if we may so call her) stands before us erect in queenly
dignity. Her dress is falling down leaving the upper body entirely
uncovered, and yet in spite of the nudity of the figure we are struck
with its unparalleled purity and nobility of expression.
The statue has suffered many injuries. Both arms have been broken off
and are now lost, and so is the left foot. The tip of the nose has been
restored, and there are scratches and cudgel marks all over the body
which could not be mended without destroying the original work in the
general treatment of the skin. The ears are pierced, so there must
originally have been earrings which robbers had torn away before the
statue was secreted in the cave.
A line in the hair of the statue shows holes which prove plainly that on
top of the head there must have been a coronet like that commonly worn
by Greek goddesses and called by the Greeks σφενδόνη, “sling,” because
with the strings attached it resembles a sling. It was worn especially
by the Queen of Heaven, Hera (the Juno of the Roman pantheon).
Since the arms have been broken off and lost, the artist’s conception
with regard to the posture can only be surmised. The face is calm and
without passion. It wears a commanding expression, apparently with a
suggestion of surprise, even of self-defence.
Judging from the muscles of the left shoulder the left arm must have
been raised. Sometimes it has been claimed that the broken hand with the
apple, which with other debris was found in the neighborhood, belonged
to the statue; and that the apple being the emblem of Venus and at the
same time that of the island of Milo as well, the statue represented the
patron goddess of the island, but this is very doubtful. Archeologists
are not in full accord upon this point for the mere reason that the
fragment of the hand with the apple is of rough workmanship and is
commonly judged as not worthy of the statue; at best it might be
regarded as the work of an ancient restoration. All critics, however,
are pretty well agreed that the right hand must have grasped for the
falling garment, preliminarily held up by the raised knee.
The Venus of Milo is at present the pride of the Louvre at Paris, and
the place where she stands on account of her presence alone may be
likened to an ancient pagan shrine, comparable to the room in the
Dresden gallery where the Sistine Madonna stands, the latter being a
Christian counterpart of the former.
Our Blessed Lady of Milo, as we may call this beautiful representative
of Greek paganism in imitation of Veit Valentin’s name _Die hohe Frau
von Milo_, has always a group of admiring visitors sitting quietly
before her, and there is often a hush in the room which recalls the
sanctity of religious chapels attended by quiet worshipers. There is a
sacred atmosphere surrounding the statue and even the hurried
globe-trotter feels that he has come into the presence of some divinity
that exerts her influence upon the world not by might, but by beauty,
grace and loveliness.
RESTORATIONS.
Many attempts have been made to restore the statue of the Venus of Milo,
and we here reproduce a number of them, but none of them have proved
successful. It almost seems, as the German poet Heinrich Heine somewhere
says, that the Venus of Milo in her helpless condition with her arms
broken off appeals more to our sympathy than in her original condition
of glory when she received the homage of faithful worshipers, and it is
true the very mutilated form is extremely attractive in its present
dilapidated state. Broken by fanatics of a hostile faith, she represents
in dignity and beauty the natural charm of Greek religion at its best.
The hordes of bigoted monks vented their hatred with especial wrath
against the goddess of love and also against her son, Eros, as may be
seen from a figure of this god represented in his daintiest
youthfulness. Here too the marks of the clubs of a furious mob are
visible, betraying the same spirit as in the treatment of the Venus of
Milo. It is the fanaticism of ascetic frenzy in the bitterness
[Illustration: A MUTILATED STATUE OF EROS.]
of its wrath against nature in general and love in particular that
showed itself in these iconoclastic demonstrations.
[Illustration: VENUS WITH SHIELD AND PENCIL.]
We regret now the destruction of the Greek idols as a barbaric warfare
waged upon art. We have begun to sympathize with the vanquished gods,
and archeologists are trying to restore what early Christianity
ruthlessly destroyed or mutilated.
[Illustration: VENUS WITH MIRROR.]
Those restorers of the Venus of Milo who reject the genuineness of the
right hand holding an apple enjoy the greatest liberty in their work of
reconstruction, and we find some of them representing our Venus as
holding a shield on her knee and writing upon it. Others assume that her
right hand holds a mirror, while still others who claim that there is no
necessity of interpreting the statue to be a Venus, believe her to be a
Victory or Niké, and put wreaths in her hands.
[Illustration: VENUS AS VICTORY.
Probably by T. Bell.]
[Illustration: DRAWING BY HASSE AND HENKE.]
Hasse and Henke have treated the problem of restoration from the
standpoint of anatomy, and plausibly claim that the left hand should be
raised higher than other restorers have proposed.
[Illustration: RESTORATION BY FURTWAENGLER.]
The restoration of Furtwängler, according to which the goddess rests her
left arm on a column and holds an apple in her hand, has for a long
time
[Illustration: SALOMAN’S LATEST RESTORATION.]
been considered the most probable, and yet even this can scarcely be
regarded as satisfactory.
[Illustration: RESTORATION BY SALOMAN.]
Mr. Geskel Saloman, a Swedish archeologist, also places a column at her
left side and uses it for her elbow to rest on. In consideration of some
ancient descriptions of a dramatic ceremony performed
[Illustration: VENUS SENDING OUT THE DOVE.
Vase picture after Creuzer, _Deutsche Schriften_, 1846, I, II, p. 238.
Reproduced from the Erbach Collection.]
at Corinth he places a dove on her right hand. The idea is that having
received the apple as the prize of beauty she sends out the dove to her
worshipers to announce her triumph and inform them that they may
celebrate the victory.
Veit Valentin attempts to construct his restoration out of the data
furnished by the marble itself and seems to come nearest to the truth.
He assumes that the goddess, when in the act of undressing for a bath,
finds herself surprised by an intruder. There is no fear or alarm in her
attitude, but she raises her hand in protest with a self-poised
assurance and grasps with her right hand the falling garment which she
attempts to support by a hurried motion of her left knee. We regret that
we have not seen either a picture or a statue of this restoration, but
we are deeply impressed that this idea is most probably correct.
The latest restoration comes from Francisca Paloma Del Mar (Frank
Paloma) who places a child on the left arm of the goddess, and this
conception is defended in a special pamphlet by Alexander Del Mar.[6]
Mr. Del Mar brings out the idea that the reverence in which the great
mother goddess was held among the pagans was not substantially different
in piety from Christian Madonna worship, and this view is brought out in
the painting by the artist
[Illustration: THE MOTHER OF THE GODS.
From a painting by Francisca P. Del Mar.]
Frank Paloma here reproduced. Mr. Del Mar thinks that the pagan goddess
served the inhabitants of Melos as a Christian Virgin. He says:
“What more natural than for the pious islanders of Melos, terrified by
the harsh edicts of Theodosius, to simply burn the pedestal and
inscription belonging to their pagan goddess, and continue to worship
under another name the same embodiment of that holy sentiment of love
and maternity which they had hitherto been accustomed to adore.”
Mr. Del Mar relies on the testimony of Count Marcellus who finally
concluded the bargain in the name of the French government and quotes
him as saying in his _Souvenirs de l’Orient_, I, 255: “It can be
demonstrated that the statue represented the Panagia or Holy Virgin of
the little Greek chapel whose ruins I saw at Milo.”
It seems to us that the statue cannot have carried a child on her left
arm because the marble would show more trace of pressure where the
mother must have touched the babe, even when we make allowance for a
polishing in the restored portions; and we would suggest further that
the arm carrying the child would be held farther down. When a mother
carries a child, her upper and lower arms are naturally at right angles
and the position of having them at a very acute angle at the elbow
appears quite artificial.
The haloes placed upon the heads of mother and child and the apple of
empire in the infant’s hand are attributes belonging to the Christian
era and so constitute other objections to Mr. Del Mar’s restoration. The
halo is of late pagan origin, and in the form of rays it was first used
to characterize gods of light, as for instance Helios and Selene. The
round form of the nimbus is later still and seems to have arisen with
the development of the art of painting. The apple of empire was not used
in the days of antiquity but appears frequently in Constantinople and in
early Christian symbolism.
Without entering into details we leave it to the taste of the reader
whether he would select any of these restorations as a possible solution
of the problem: we prefer to admire the statue as it appears now; for
after all the broken figure still remains dearer to us in its wonderful
and appealing beauty than any of the restorations. We ourselves believe
that modern man will come to the conclusion that in this image in its
present shape we have a noble martyr of ancient paganism. Even the
original statue itself in all its perfection, if it could be restored to
us as it came fresh from the artist’s workshop, could not replace the
torso as we know it now.
This is the reason why we do not take a great interest in the various
restorations of the Venus of Milo, and therefore are not inclined to
undertake a close study of them or to enter into an elaborate
recapitulation of these otherwise quite laudable attempts. We can only
say that none of the restorations here discussed seems to solve the
problem. Nevertheless we do not believe the problem to be beyond the
possibility of solution, and we will state briefly what in our opinion
the facts suggest.
We believe that among all the propositions made by restorers the
simplest one, that of Veit Valentin, alone deserves our interest.
If we consider the dominating motive of the statue we must grant that it
neither belongs to the very earliest times in which Venus was fully
dressed, nor to the latest in which nudity, intensified in its
suggestiveness by prudery, had nearly become the most characteristic
feature of the deity of love. It takes its place in the midst of Greek
art development when the first attempt was made to show the human form,
and this is done in such a way as not to go to the extreme of a complete
denudation but only suggests it and, as it were, with a protest on the
part of the goddess. For the attitude of the statue plainly indicates
that the goddess endeavors to retard the falling garment so as to give
the right arm a moment’s time to grasp it and to hold it up. It is more
than merely probable that the left arm was raised toward an unexpected
intruder in warning not to approach. There is no fear in the expression
of the face, no fright, no anticipation of danger. The whole attitude
makes us suspect that the missing left hand was raised with a forbidding
gesture, expressing the command, _Ne prorsum! Ne plus ultra! Noli me
tangere!_
RECENT THEORIES.
The statue discovered on the island of Milo acquired a fame beyond the
greatest expectations, and the intense interest taken in it frequently
gave rise to bitter discussions about its history and the causes of its
mutilation. Thus it happened that the authorities of the Louvre, or even
the French government itself, were held responsible for the sad state of
desolation in which it now appears.
Accusations were made that this venerable piece of classic art had been
treated with inexcusable neglect, that important inscriptions belonging
to it had been lost, and the claim was even made that the statue was
whole at the time it was found. The dissatisfied parties interpreted M.
Dumont d’Urville’s report in the sense that he had seen the statue
whole, quoting from his description: “It represented a nude woman whose
left hand was raised and held an apple and the right supported a garment
draped in easy folds and falling carelessly from her loins to her feet.”
This in their opinion meant that M. d’Urville had seen the statue
complete in this posture when he bought it. The sentence which runs,
“Both hands have been mutilated and are actually detached from the
body,” according to this contention is to be interpreted that this must
have happened before the French party delivered the statue to the
Louvre, probably at the time when the French marines forced its transfer
from the Turkish brig to the French warship “Estafette.”
The points raised in this discussion overlook some significant facts
which if duly considered dispose of the claim that the statue was whole
and unmutilated when discovered and sold to M. Dumont d’Urville.
Viscount Marcellus enumerates the objects discovered in the cave and
mentions fragments of the statue found in the field nearby. Could he, an
eye witness, have believed that it was whole and unmutilated when he
assumes that a number of separate fragments belonged to it?
It is not impossible that the quarrel between the French marines and the
Turks was a regular fight; that they came to blows, but scarcely to
shots. If there had been any fatalities we would have heard of it in the
first report of the acquisition of the statue; but no serious wounds in
the struggle are mentioned even in the later report, although in it we
learn of a fight on the beach about the possession of the statue, and
this later became humorously exaggerated into a battle involving drawn
cutlases and a bleeding ear.
The discussion was renewed in 1912 by M. Alcard who laid much emphasis
upon the testimony of Lieutenant Matterer, a comrade of M. Dumont
d’Urville. He is claimed to have felt such disgust about the endless
disputes on the original form of the Venus of Milo that he wished to put
an end to them. He says: “When I saw the statue in the hut of Yorgos
Bottonis on whose field it was found, the left arm was attached to the
bust and held an apple over her head.”
This positive statement stands in plain contradiction to the older
records and it seems that the imagination of the valiant naval officer
played his memory a trick after the lapse of nearly half a century.
Perhaps it is impossible to evolve the exact truth definitely, but it
seems to me that we must not estimate these later testimonies too
highly, for it would be more difficult then to explain the actual
condition of the statue and its agreement with the older descriptions,
than now to account for these later depositions of a few excitable and
imaginative men who feel that they have something of great importance to
declare. Moreover, the most important witness, Lieutenant Matterer, is
characterized in these accounts as “an officer of great merit but no
literary cultivation,” which does not seem to make his opinion
especially reliable.
The _Sunday Record-Herald_ of Chicago (Nov. 24, 1912) contains a summary
of this later phase of the discussion as to the condition of the Venus
of Milo from which we quote a few passages that in spite of the
sensational character of the account may be of interest. The American
reporter, relying on his French sources, says:
“The great Thiers began his start in journalism by a study of this Venus
and the riddle of her arms. So when he became president of the French
republic he ordered the ambassador to Greece, Jules Ferry, to make a
trip to Melos and pick up local tradition. Ferry did better. He found
the son and nephew still alive, Antonio and Yorgos Jr. ‘They have grown
to be beautiful old men--white-bearded, ruddy, robust and bright-eyed,’
reported Ferry. ‘Examined separately before the French vice-consul at
Castro they declared steadily, with minute details and explanatory
gestures and poses, that Venus, when they found her, was standing
upright on her pedestal, her right arm sustaining her draperies and her
left arm raised and extended, its hand holding an apple.’”
I assume that the old Greek peasants spoke Greek, and so M. Ferry
probably understood their meaning mainly from their “explanatory
gestures and poses” which might as well have expressed their idea of the
original attitude of the statue as the way in which they actually saw
it.
“The popular story of the countryside also,” continued Ferry’s report,
“is a tale of battle. At fifty years’ distance the recollection remains
and tradition is not yet born. The discovery of the Venus Victrix, the
dispute of which she was the object, the fight on the beach, the victory
of the French and her final abduction violently impressed the
islanders--and the impression remains.”
“The battle of the beach” is described in sensational terms. The French
war-schooner “Estafette” had reached Melos in May 1820, when her
commander Robert saw the Greek brig “Galaxidion” (flying the Turkish
flag) anchored nearby, and to the consternation of himself and
Marcellus, the secretary of the French embassy at Constantinople, there
appeared on shore at the foot of the hill a crowd of Greek and Turkish
sailors laboriously transporting the upper half of the statue toward
that same Turkish brig. The account continues:
“The Greeks and Turks advanced slowly, changing shifts and reposing.
Marcellus and Robert looked in each other’s eyes. ‘There’s just time,’
said Robert. They armed a long-boat full of marines, Marcellus and
Robert with them in command, and reached the shore just as men from a
Turkish long-boat came running to protect their brethren. From the hill
of Castro M. Brest, the French vice-consul, was making good time to the
_mêlée_. Cutlasses and clubs opened the dance.
“The Turks dropped the marble idol. Around Venus it was slash and parry,
kick, bite, jab, gouge and roll. A cutlass takes off a Turkish ear.
Enough carnage! When you fly the Turkish flag you don’t soak the sands
with your life-blood for a graven image made against the law of the
Prophet. The Turks pull for the brig. The French have copped the
peerless one, Venus Victrix, impassive, stares past them at the
white-capped sea, where she was born. Is there a faint smile of
satisfaction on the lovely lips?
“The stretcher had been injured. All were excited. Hurry, the Turks may
return in force! That stretcher is no good. Put rollers under the flat
of the block. Pull on the ropes! _Attention!_ The bust is slipping!
_Malheur_, she’s on her back? _Tant pis!_! Now, my children, yet another
effort! Good old long-boat! Embark! It was hot work, but she’s ours.
Best say as little as possible about it. Monsieur le Vice-Consul, you
will please to arrange the settlement of this annoying episode
diplomatically!
“Negotiations lasted two days. Finally the Turkish brig ceded to the
French the lower part of the statue; but when the ‘Estafette’ sailed for
Piraeus. Venus bore irreparable wounds.
“So they say. Such is said to be the secret--or part of it. Among
fragments of marble gathered up after the battle of the beach were
debris of her arms--in particular of the beautiful left arm which MM.
d’Urville and Matterer had seen entire on her shoulder, lifting the
triumphal apple!”
The report of M. Ferry makes the trip from Paris to Melos worth while
and may have pleased the learned president of the republic, M. Thiers.
The American reporter’s account throws light on the theory suggested by
the results of M. Ferry’s trip:
“Venus Victrix was received in Paris by the Count de Clarac, curator of
the Louvre, then Royal Museum. Did he know of the fight? Perhaps. Was it
to forestall a possible hint that a French war-ship could attack and
plunder the war-ship of a friendly power in profound peace, or to
prevent a dream of the impossible possibility that the marvelous statue
could have been mutilated in any French hands, by accident or otherwise,
that he assumes Venus to have been dug up [in its present condition]?”
The official report of Count de Clarac when the statue was received at
the Louvre runs as follows:
“Bust and front have scarcely suffered from the ravages of time. They
keep the velvety skin of a master of the great Greek period, who, after
polishing, once more skimmed the chisel over the perfect work. But here
and there are slight lesions, due, probably, to careless pickstrokes in
digging her up. The shoulders have been much damaged, traces of cords
indicate that she was dragged along the shore toward the Turkish brig,
and in that fatal passage the shoulders and haunches were scraped and
worn, several finger breadths being taken off the former.”
The fertile imagination of the account changes the Greek brig
“Galaxidion” into a Turkish man-of-war so as to impress the reader that
there is a diplomatic secret to be hidden which might involve the
French authorities into a war with Turkey. The cause, being about the
goddess of love, would be quite romantic but a war is serious enough to
make the authorities wish to avoid it and prefer to cast a shadow of
mystery over the whole affair.
We shall see later that the mutilations of the statue need not have
originated from careless handling on the part of the French marines when
they took possession of the statue.
Here is another passage which describes the nature of the injuries of
the Venus statue without, however, being proof of the battle of the
beach:
“The shoulder has been broken, not merely scraped and worn, by dragging.
And the author of another report, M. Lange, chief restorer of the Royal
Museum in 1820, specialist of vast experience and a workman to boot,
notes certain exfoliations or scrapings of the left arm fragments
‘running straight up on to the shoulder of the statue, and found also on
the back of the hand fragment, which show that these different parts
formed one with the shoulder; and these straight scratches could only
have been made, all following the same direction, when the left arm was
entire!’”
This quotation is made to prove that the arm was still connected with
the statue before it was scraped along the ground, but may not this
scraping have taken place before it was hidden in the cave?
The Louvre’s acquisition of the Venus of Milo proved in some respects a
misfortune to the Count de Clarac. Charles Lenormant, the archeologist,
in a contribution to the _Correspondant_ in 1854 mercilessly attacked
the director of the Louvre and his staff, saying (as reported in the
_Record-Herald_):
“I have always believed that from the beginning to better accredit a
production which is its own best proofs, they designedly caused to
disappear accessories which might derange the idea that they had just
conquered a _chef-d’oeuvre_ of the grand epoch of Greek art. Thus,
besides the arms, they suppressed the debris of an inscription.”
Can we entertain the suspicion that the authorities of the Louvre
purposely destroyed the inscription assumed to have been found with the
debris of the Venus of Milo and that they suppressed facts or the
knowledge of facts which might bear testimony against their cherished
theories as to the provenience of their favorite piece of art? Scarcely!
The inscription, as we have seen, was doubtless lost because nobody
cared for it, for there was no evidence that it belonged to the statue.
WHAT THE FACTS REVEAL.
Of all the statues of classical antiquity the Venus of Milo is the
greatest favorite, not only with the public at large but with art
critics as well, and it is strange that the statue has acquired this
popularity, for it is by no means perfect in conception nor has it been
made by any one of the famous artists. The sculptor is either not known
at all or, if the pedestal bearing the name of Agesandros or Alexandros
actually belonged to the statue, he was a man unknown to fame, and it
seems difficult to point out the reasons which give to this most badly
wrecked piece of marble its peculiar charm.
We cannot help thinking that the artist worked after a living model and
followed details pretty faithfully. It has been noticed for instance
that the feet of the Venus are larger than those of the average woman of
to-day and the head is unusually small. In fact this close adherence to
actual life may be the main secret of the charm of the statue, for on
account of this reality there is a personal element in it, and we can
almost read the character of the woman who stood as a model. We see at
once an absence of any and every lascivious trait quite common to Venus
figures of a later period, and in the face there is a remarkable
unconsciousness of self.
We may assume that the artist belonged to the famous school of Rhodes or
to the group of those artists who made Pergamum famous with their work,
but no statement can be made with certainty. Upon archeological grounds
we cannot place the date of the statue earlier than about 400 B. C., nor
later than the first part of the second century B. C., and this opinion
is mainly based upon the excellent workmanship, the peculiar warmth of
the skin as well as the classical simplicity of the statue as a whole.
It appears that this valuable piece of art is worthy of a Phidias, a
Praxiteles, a Lysippos, or a Scopas.
Having searched art books in vain for an explanation of the history of
the Venus of Milo and its tragic fate, we will here briefly recapitulate
what the simple facts of the statue, its workmanship, its sad and
mutilated condition and also its place of discovery, can teach us.
The statue shows a few scratches which indicate that it may have been
dragged along the ground, but the marble bears innumerable indentations
which can scarcely be explained otherwise than as due to blows with
heavy sticks or clubs. The story of M. Ferry recapitulated in the
foregoing chapter does not suffice. Some mutilations may be due to a
rough handling in transportation, but the scratches are few and the
cudgel marks are many. Apparently the statue has stood an attack of a
mob of infuriated enemies who hated the goddess and regarded her as a
devil--as the patron deity of the worst of sins. She must have endured a
terrible persecution at the hands of implacable enemies, and these
enemies can only have been Christians.
It is obvious that the statue has been hidden, and we need not doubt
that it was concealed by pagan worshipers who wanted to preserve the
effigy of the goddess. The marks of brutal treatment visible all over
the body of the statue indicate that the fair goddess had been most
furiously belabored as if in corporeal chastisement with rods and any
weapons that happened to be at hand. The arms are broken and we must
assume that the statue was upset and thrown from its pedestal. Probably
the goddess fell on her right shoulder which is crushed, while the left
arm exhibits a smooth fracture as if it had been broken by the
concussion of the fall. If the arms are not the fragments enumerated by
Count Marcellus and now preserved in the Louvre, they must have been
lost; possibly they were smashed to small fragments.
Can we assume that the provincial population of a small island could
have produced the greatest piece of art of antiquity? Could a few
farmers have engaged a sculptor who must have been the equal of Phidias
and Scopas? If the statue had represented the tutelary goddess of the
island, would not some Greek author have alluded to its existence; would
not Pausanias have mentioned the fact? The idea that the statue was of
indigenous workmanship is a mere assumption and by no means probable.
But whence can the statue have come, and how did it find its way to this
little island in the Ægean Sea?
This question is not unanswerable; we need only consider the history of
the island and its political connections.
The island of Milo was too small a place to have a temple that could
afford a statue of such extraordinary value, and we must assume that it
was carried thither on a ship. Athens is the only place that we can
think of which might have been its original home.
The early centuries of the Christian era were troublesome times.
Lawlessness prevailed and a general decadence had set in, which was due
to the many civil wars in both Greece and Italy. The establishment of
the Roman empire checked the progress of degeneration but only in
external appearance. In reality a moral and social deterioration
continued to take an ever stronger hold upon the people. The old
religion broke down and the new faith was by no means so ideal in the
beginning as it is frequently represented by writers of ecclesiastical
history.
Our notions concerning the vicious character of
[Illustration: VENUS ON THE SWAN.
A kylix from Capua.]
ancient paganism are entirely wrong. Even the worship of Aphrodite and
of the Phenician Astarte was by no means degraded by that gross
sensualism of which the fathers of the church frequently accuse it.
Wherever we meet with original expressions of the pagan faith we find
deep reverence and childlike piety. In many respects the worship of
Istar in Babylonia and Astarte in Phenicia, of Isis in Egypt, of
Athene, Aphrodite and Hera in Greece, of the Roman Juno, and Venus, the
special protectress of the imperial family, was noble in all main
features, and did not differ greatly from the cult of the Virgin Mary
during the Middle Ages. We shall discuss this phase in a subsequent
chapter and here reproduce an ancient platter which is ascribed by
archeologists to the fourth century B. C., and shows a noble and serene
Venus who is fully draped and flying on a swan.
When Christianity spread over the Roman empire, the city of Athens was
the last stronghold of paganism, but even there the mass of the
population had become Christian. There was a time in the development of
Christianity when it was hostile not only to ancient pagan mythology but
also to pagan science and to pagan art. This was the age in which almost
all the statues of the Greek gods were either destroyed, or maltreated
and shattered so that not one has come down to us unmutilated.
Prof. F. C. Conybeare of University College, Oxford, describes
conditions of that age in his translation of the _Apology and Acts of
Apollonius and Other Monuments of Christianity_, as follows:
“The obvious way of scotching a foul demon was to smash his idols; and
we find that an enormous number of martyrs earned their crown in this
manner, especially in the third century, when their rapidly increasing
numbers rendered them bolder and more ready to make a display of their
intolerance.
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE VENUS OF MILO.
Profile view.]
Sometimes the good sense or the worldly prudence of the Church
intervened to set limits to so favorite a way of courting martyrdom; and
at the Synod of Elvira, c. A. D. 305, a canon was passed, declaring the
practice to be one not met with in the Gospel nor recorded of any of the
Apostles, and denying to those who in future resorted to it the honors
of martyrdom. But in spite of this, the most popular of the saints were
those who had resorted to such violence and earned their death by it;
and as soon as Christianity fairly got the upper hand in the fourth
century, the wrecking of temples and the smashing of the idols of the
demons became a most popular amusement with which to grace a Christian
festival. As we turn over the pages of the martyrologies, we wonder that
any ancient statues at all escaped those senseless outbursts of
zealotry.”
It must have been in one of these “outbursts of zealotry” that one of
the temples of Aphrodite was attacked and the statue of the goddess
brutally assaulted. The mutilated statue presumably lay prone upon the
ground at the foot of its pedestal at the overturned altar, and had to
suffer under the clubs of fanatical zealots. When night broke in and the
rioters sought their homes, the few friends of paganism, perhaps the
priests, perhaps some well-to-do philosophers and admirers of the
ancient Greek civilization, came to the rescue. They met stealthily at
the place of the tumult and with the assistance of
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE VENUS OF MILO.
Front view.]
their servants had the statue carried away down to a ship at anchor in
the harbor. Before the riot could be renewed on the next morning the
ship set sail for the island of Milo where the devotees of the goddess
may have had friends, or where possibly one of their own number
possessed a farm. There they hid the statue, and it is certain that the
act of concealment was done in the greatest haste, for it was only
lightly covered over, and a mark, discovered later on by careful
investigation of the place of hiding, was scratched into the curbstone
on the wayside to indicate the spot.
This explanation seems to me simple enough to be acceptable. The facts
seem to tell it. Consider the age when paganism broke down; consider the
fanaticism of the early Christians, the uncultured mobs led by fanatical
monks, mobs capable of tearing to pieces a noble woman--I refer to
Hypatia--in the conviction that they were doing a good deed pleasing in
God’s sight. Other statues of pagan gods have received exactly this
treatment. Is it possible to explain the cudgel marks on the statue of
the Venus of Milo differently?
It seems strange that this explanation has not been offered before. The
data of the conditions in which the statue was found, the place of
hiding, the political relation of Melos to Athens, and the character
both of the few pagans and of the multitudes of Christians who lived in
the beginning of the Christian era, tell us the story of the statue,
its sad fate and why it found here a safe place of concealment.
The pagan remnant was small and kept quiet for fear of persecution, but
we may very well imagine how they lived in the hope that paganism would
celebrate a revival, that the storms of these barbarous outbursts would
pass by and the temples of the gods would be restored in all their
ancient glory. Then would come the time to bring the goddess back to her
ancient dwelling place, to raise her altar again and light the sacrifice
anew. But though the riots ceased and the authorities restored order,
though for a short time a pagan emperor sat again on the throne of
Cæsar, the ancient gods never returned and Christianity permanently
replaced paganism. The devotees of the lost cause died without seeing
their hope fulfilled. The desecrated statue remained hidden and their
secret was buried with them in the grave.
THE MEANING OF “APHRODITE.”
The etymology of the name Aphrodite is doubtful. The Greeks derived it
from the word ἀφρός = foam, because the goddess was said to have risen
from the foam of the sea. This wild guess of ancient Greek philology may
have been responsible for the fable that Uranus (Heaven) nightly
embraced Gaia (Earth) until he was attacked and mutilated by his
rebellious son Kronos. Uranus, deprived of his creative ability, retired
to the outskirts of the world. Mythologists assume that herewith the
creation of the raw material of the universe ceased, but that the
generative principle being now mingled with the sea changed into foam,
whence rose the goddess that represents all fertility and creativeness
in both vegetable and animal domains.
If this legend of the origin of Aphrodite is not simply the product of
the wrong etymology of her name[7] it is assumed to have been imported
from Phenicia. The only other similar myth known is found among the
South Sea islanders where Rangi (Heaven) and Papa (Earth) embraced one
another so closely that no life could originate, Rangi being regarded as
a great blue canopy of stone. Then Tane Mahuta, their youngest son,
corresponding to Kronos, the youngest child of Uranus and Gaia, cruelly
separated the couple and forced his father upward and pressed his mother
down, thus becoming the creator of life on earth.[8]
The ancient Greeks were poor philologists and similar failures of
etymological speculation are quite common among them. Thus they
explained the origin of names like Heracles as “the fame of Hera,” or
Amazon as “the woman without breasts,” or Prometheus as “the
forethinker,” etc. All these derivations are wild and obviously wrong
guesses, nor may our modern philologists, though more scientific, be
always exactly correct. We are taught now by comparative philology that
Prometheus, the firebringer, is the Sanskrit word _pramathyus_, “the
driller,” denoting the hard stick[9] which by a swift rotation in a soft
piece of wood produces the spark that calls forth the beneficent flame.
This explanation seems probable but we cannot say that our etymologies
of other names have been equally successful.
One recent interpretation of “Aphrodite” would make us regard the name
as an Egyptian importation, explaining the word to mean _Apharadat_,
“the gift of Ra,” the sun-god, derived from _Pha Raa Da-t_ with the
prosthetic A; but this, like the suggested derivation of Psyche from
_Pha Sakhu_, “the mummy,” seems to be a mere accident of homophony.
Other Greek names such as Elysion from _Aalu_, the Elysian Fields of the
Egyptians, Charon from _Kere_, driver or skipper (ferryman), are better
attested, but if the name Aphrodite came from Egypt the cult of a
goddess by that name and character has been lost or obliterated.
* * * * *
Originally Aphrodite was the same figure as Hera or Juno, Artemis or
Diana and Pallas Athene or Minerva. These female deities are
differentiations of the idealized and personified activities of
womanhood: Hera as the queen of heaven, the protectress of wifehood;
Diana of girlhood and virginity; Athene as the goddess of battles, as
protectress of arts and sciences, as wisdom personified; Aphrodite, the
personification of beauty and love.
The ancient pagans were not so very unlike the Christians; e. g., Istar,
like the Virgin Mary, represented at the same time eternal virginity and
motherhood, and the name of the temple on the Acropolis might truly be
translated “Church of the Holy Virgin,” for Parthenon is derived from
παρθένος, “virgin.”
In prehistoric times there was more reverence for the female deity than
for the male god. So Ares (or Mars) is the god of fight, of
combativeness, while Athene is the teacher of the art of warfare, of
generalship, of strategy in battle.
The character of Aphrodite as a universal principle was never lost sight
of. She was and remained the giver of life, joy, love, loveliness,
grace, fertility, increase, exuberance, rejuvenescence, springtime,
restoration of life, immortality, prosperity and the charm of
existence,--and all this she was in one, all as a universal principle
and in its cosmic significance.
The same idea is also expressed in Eros, called in Latin Amor or Cupido,
who is regarded as the oldest and at the same time the youngest of the
gods, represented as a beautiful youth. This same Eros is said to have
existed prior to Aphrodite, for when she rose out of the sea, Eros met
her at the shore, while according to another version he was regarded as
her son.
The notion that Aphrodite is the cosmic principle of love has found
expression in poetry and philosophy, but her mythical nature has never
been definitely settled. Homer, who calls Aphrodite Cypris (Κύπις)
speaks of her in the Iliad (V, 312) as the daughter of Zeus[10] and
Dione, the goddess
[Illustration: HEAVENLY AND WORLDLY LOVE.
By Titian.]
who in olden times was worshiped on the Acropolis in Athens, in Dodona,
and in other localities, as the wife of the Olympian ruler and as his
female counterpart. Dione is probably the same word as Hera’s Latin name
Juno. As her daughter, Aphrodite is called Dionæa (Διωναία) and also by
her mother’s name Dionē.
Being the goddess of sexual love, Aphrodite was also held responsible
for all relations between men and women, and philosophers felt the need
of distinguishing between heavenly love and vulgar passion, calling the
former “Aphrodite Urania,” the latter “Aphrodite Pandemos.” In Plato’s
Symposium (180 D) the heavenly love is described as “the older one, born
without mother, the daughter of heaven,” while the younger and less
divine Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. The same contrast is
brought out in the age of the Renaissance by Titian in his famous
picture of heavenly and worldly love.
The distinction between celestial and earthly love however is artificial
and has certainly not influenced the cult of the goddess. It is a later
thought, invented by philosophers for the purpose of teaching a lesson.
THE CULT OF APHRODITE.
Polytheism is not a stable religion. It changes with the growth of
civilization, and we do not know a time in which it was not constantly
in a state of transition.
The myths which connect Aphrodite in one place with Adonis, in others
with Mars, Hephæstos, Anchises and other gods or mortals, were
originally several different developments of the same fundamental idea,
the love story of the goddess of love. This is quite natural and ought
to be expected, but when in the days of a more international
communication these myths were told in different shapes in all
localities, they in their combination served greatly to undermine the
respect for the goddess and to degrade the conception of her even as
early as in the time when the Homeric epics were composed. Nevertheless,
since the sarcasm remained limited for a long time to the circle of
heretics and scoffers, the noble conception of Aphrodite was preserved
down to the latest days of paganism.
In other words Venus was originally the mother of mankind. She was at
once the Queen of Heaven or Juno, the Magna Mater or Venus Genetrix, the
educator and teacher or Pallas Athene, the eternal virgin or Diana, and
the all-nourishing earth-goddess, Demeter or Ceres; and this view had
better be stated inversely, that the original mother of mankind became
differentiated in the course of history into these several activities of
womanhood, as Juno, Venus, Diana, Ceres and Athene, which divinities
were again reunited in Christianity in the form of Mary, the Queen of
Heaven, the Mother of God, the Lady as an authority and guide in life,
and the Eternal Virgin.
Aphrodite was worshiped in a prehistoric age, and the origin of her cult
is plainly traceable to the Orient, especially to Phenicia and further
back to Pamphylia, Syria, Canaan and Babylon. The Phenician Astarte was
imported to the islands of the Ægean Sea, to Cythera, Paphos and
Amathus. Hence even in the Hellenistic age she was still honored with
the names Cytherea, Paphia and Amathusia.
From the Ægean islands the cult of Aphrodite spread rapidly to Sparta,
Athens and other Greek centers. The barbaric origin of the Aphrodite
cult is in evidence in the myth of Aphrodite’s birth as the foam-born,
but it is difficult to say whom we shall deem responsible for the
legend--perhaps the inhabitants of the islands. Certainly we cannot lay
the burden of the invention of the story upon
[Illustration: BIRTH OF VENUS.
Relief found in the Villa Ludovisi.]
the Asiatics, at least not on the Syrians, for according to an account
of Nigidius Figulus,[11] the fish of the Euphrates found a large egg in
the floods and pushed it ashore, where it was brooded upon by a dove
until the Syrian goddess came forth from it.
An exquisitely graceful relief pictures the birth of Venus from the foam
of the ocean. She appears as a young maiden covered with a diaphanous
garment, and is being lifted out of the water by the Graces. The marble
is preserved in the National Museum at Rome and was discovered by
excavations in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi in 1887.
The Oriental goddess was originally the queen of the starry heaven,
either the moon or the morning star, and as such she was the same figure
which in other places gave rise to the development of Artemis. We may
emphasize here that like the Christian Mary the pagan female divinity
was at the same time both the eternal virgin and the celestial mother.
Mythology cannot stand the application of logical rationalism, and we
must not try to make the traditional legends rigidly consistent.
While we recognize a strong Oriental influence in the Greek construction
of the Aphrodite cult, we must acknowledge that in Greece we have a new
and independent origin of the divine ideal of femininity. In Mesopotamia
Istar was a very popular deity, and innumerable idols have been found in
the shape of a naked woman, commonly called
[Illustration: DETAIL FROM THE LUDOVISI RELIEF.]
“Beltis” or “Lady,” but this conception of the goddess of femininity
cannot be regarded as the prototype of the Greek Aphrodite who at an
early period assumed a definitely Greek figure and character. Without
detracting from her universal significance as the cosmic principle of
generation, the artistic conception of the Greek mind at once idealized
her as the incarnation of loveliness and grace, and from Phidias down to
the end of paganism she has retained this ideal.
[Illustration:
WINTER. SUMMER.
End pieces of the Ludovisi relief.]
In Cnidos Aphrodite was worshiped in three forms: as gift-giver
(δωρῑτις), as goddess of the high places (ἀκραία) and as the lucky
sailor (εὔπλοια), and we learn that bloody sacrifices were not permitted
(Tac., _Hist._, II, 3), even on the main altar in Paphos.
Originally, Aphrodite was not only love, grace and beauty, but the
mistress, the lady, the queen; and so she is represented in Cythera as
fully armed. The same is true in Sparta and in Corinth where her temple
was erected on the highest place of the city, called Acrocorinthus.
The sensual features of the Aphrodite cult were certainly not absent in
ancient Hellas. We know that in Corinth there were large numbers of
hierodules in the temple who helped to make the ceremonies gorgeous and
impressive, but judging from the language used by Æschylus and Pindar
they were highly respected and received public acknowledgment for their
fervent prayers during the Persian wars.
In the early imperial time of Rome, the authority of Venus was promoted
by the fact that she was the tutelary deity of Cæsar, who through the
similarity of his name “Julius” with “Julus,” the son of Æneas, was
encouraged to derive his legendary pedigree from Æneas, the mythical
founder of the Latin race, the son of Anchises and Aphrodite.
With the rise of Christianity the worship of Venus naturally
deteriorated very rapidly, and the fathers of the church referring to
all the different versions of her love affairs maligned her in the eyes
of the world by identifying the Venus Urania with the Venus Vulgaris,
and their views have contributed a good deal to disfigure her picture in
later centuries.
[Illustration: VENUS AND ANCHISES.]
In the times of Cæsar she was still the great goddess whose domain was
not limited to beauty and love nor even to the procreation of life, in
which capacity she was called Venus Genetrix, but she was also Venus
Victrix, or the goddess who in battle assures victory. Yea, more than
all this, she was the goddess of life and immortality connected with the
chthonian gods--the powers of death in the underworld. Her emblem, the
pomegranate, is also found in the hands of Persephone, indicating a
kinship between Aphrodite and the daughter of Demeter.
It is not accidental that Aphrodite as the goddess of love and
generation is also the queen of the underworld. She begets life, she
restores to life; she leads into Hades and back out of Hades into the
world of life. It is for this reason that, according to Pausanias (II,
10, 4), her statue in the temple at Sicyon carries the chthonian
symbols, the apple and the poppy, in her hands, and there her
priestesses were bound by a vow of chastity.
The chthonian aspect of the Aphrodite cult appears in the legend of the
death of Adonis with all its details of funeral lamentations and
ceremonies and the great hope of his resurrection. Istar herself
descends to the underworld, as we shall see further down (see pp.
85-95), and we know at least that in Cyprus a tomb of Aphrodite has been
shown.[12]
THE GODDESS OF WAR.
One special function of the mother goddess was leadership in war. It was
a custom among the Arabians until recent times that the warriors of a
tribe were led in battle by a girl riding at their head with breast
exposed, inspiring them in their attack to the display of irresistible
courage; and if it was a common practice in prehistoric times, we may
assume that this function of womanhood established the character of
Istar as the goddess of war, later on differentiated as the Greek Pallas
Athene and the Roman Bellona.
[Illustration: VENUS VICTRIX.[*] After Hirt, _Bilderbuch_, Plate VII,
11.]
[*] Engraving on a gem representing the statue of Venus Erycina
on the Capitoline. This interpretation does not exclude other
possibilities. Certainly the attitude of little Eros is artistic and
pleasing.]
We may be sure that the character of Aphrodite as Venus Victrix is by no
means a late Roman invention of the days of Cæsar but dates back to the
most ancient days of Babylonian tradition. She was from the start of
history the great _Magna Mater_, the All-Mother and Queen to whom the
people appealed in all their needs, especially in war. In Greece she is
frequently addressed as νικηφόρος, bringer of victory.
A penitential psalm on the destruction of the ancient city of Erech has
been preserved in a fragment which in Theodore G. Pinches’s translation
reads thus:[13]
“How long, my Lady, shall the strong enemy hold thy sanctuary?
There is want in Erech, thy principal city;
Blood is flowing like water in E-ulbar, the house of thine oracle;
He, the enemy, has kindled and poured out fire like
hailstones on all thy lands.
My Lady, sorely am I fettered by misfortune;
My Lady, thou hast surrounded me, and brought me to grief.
The mighty enemy has smitten me down like a single reed.
Not wise myself, I cannot take counsel;[14]
I mourn day and night like the fields.
I, thy servant, pray to thee.”
As Venus Victrix, the warlike goddess akin to the Greek Pallas Athene,
Istar, appears to Asurbanipal in a vision, recorded in a cuneiform
inscription of the annals of this powerful Assyrian king, and refers to
the invasion of Tiumman, King of Elam. The passage reads in H. Fox
Talbot’s translation thus:[15]
“In the month Ab, the month of the heliacal rising of Sagittarius, in
the festival of the great Queen [Istar] daughter of Bel, I [Asurbanipal,
King of Assyria,] was staying at Arbela, the city most beloved by her,
to be present at her high worship.
“There they brought me news of the invasion of the Elamite, who was
coming against the will of the gods. Thus:
“‘Tiumman has said solemnly, and Istar has repeated to us the tenor of
his words: thus: “I will not pour out another libation until I have gone
and fought with him.”’
“Concerning this threat which Tiumman had spoken, I prayed to the great
Istar. I approached to her presence, I bowed down at her feet, I
besought her divinity to come and save me. Thus:
“‘O goddess of Arbela, I am Asurbanipal, King of Assyria, the creature
of thy hands, [chosen by thee and] thy father [Asur] to restore the
temples of Assyria, and to complete the holy cities of Akkad. I have
gone to honor thee, and I have gone to worship thee. But he Tiumman,
King of Elam, never worships the gods....
[Here some words are lost.]
“‘O thou Queen of queens, Goddess of war, Lady of battles, Queen of the
gods, who in the presence of Asur thy father speakest always in my
favor, causing the hearts of Asur and Marduk to love me.... Lo! now,
Tiumman, King of Elam, who has sinned against Asur thy father, and has
scorned the divinity of Marduk thy brother, while I Asurbanipal have
been rejoicing their hearts. He has collected his soldiers, amassed his
army, and has drawn his sword to invade Assyria. O thou archer of the
gods, come like a [thunderstorm] ... in the midst of the battle, destroy
him, and crush him with a fiery bolt from heaven!’
“Istar heard my prayer. ‘Fear not!’ she replied, and caused my heart to
rejoice. ‘According to thy prayer thine eyes shall see the judgment. For
I will have mercy on thee!’
* * * * *
“In the night-time of that night in which I had prayed to her, a certain
seer lay down and had a dream. In the midst of the night Istar appeared
to him, and he related the vision to me, thus:
“‘Istar who dwells in Arbela, came unto me begirt right and left with
flames, holding her bow in her hand, and riding in her open chariot as
if going to the battle. And thou didst stand before her. She addressed
thee as a mother would her child. She smiled upon thee, she Istar, the
highest of the gods, and gave thee a command. Thus: “take [this bow],”
she said, “go with it to battle! Wherever thy camp shall stand I will
come.”
“‘Then thou didst say to her, thus: “O Queen of the goddesses, wherever
thou goest let me go with thee!” Then she made answer to thee, thus: “I
will protect thee! and I will march with thee at the time of the feast
of Nebo. Meanwhile eat food, drink wine, make music, and glorify my
divinity, until I shall come and this vision shall be fulfilled.”
“‘Thy heart’s desire shall be accomplished. Thy face shall not grow pale
with fear: thy feet shall not be arrested: thou shalt not even scratch
thy skin in the battle. In her benevolence she defends thee, and she is
wroth with all thy foes. Before her a fire is blown fiercely, to destroy
thy enemies.’”
Mr. Talbot makes the following editorial comment on the historical event
connected with Asurbanipal’s narrative:
“The promises which the goddess Istar made to the king in this vision of
the month Ab were fulfilled. In the following month (Elul) Asurbanipal
took the field against Tiumman, and his army speedily achieved a
brilliant victory. Tiumman was slain, and his head was sent to Nineveh.
There is a bas-relief in the British Museum representing a man driving
a rapid car, and holding in his hand the head of a warrior, with this
inscription, _Kakkadu Tiumman_, ‘The head of Tiumman.’”
THE DESCENT INTO HADES.
As the goddess of love Venus is the restorer of life, and as such she
descends into the underworld and brings the dead back to life. Lewis
Richard Farnell in his _Cults of the Greek States_[16] reproduces a
remarkable votive tablet which shows Hermes the soul-dispatcher
(_psychopompos_) confronting a woman holding in her outstretched hand a
pomegranate blossom (the symbol of both the chthonian Aphrodite and
Persephone) and Eros, the god of love, on her arm. The obvious meaning
of the tablet indicates that it is love which redeems from death. This
conception of the great goddess found a fit expression in the myth of
Demeter’s daughter Persephone (called in Latin “Proserpina”) who, after
being snatched away by Pluto, the ruler of Hades, is allowed to return
to earth. So life on earth with its bloom of vegetation dies off each
winter but returns annually in the spring.
This idea became a symbol of human immortality in the Eleusinian
mysteries, presumably derived from older sources which go back to
religious cults in Babylonia and Asia Minor, and the Christian doctrine
is apparently derived from the same tradition. Paul says (1 Cor. xv.
36-38):
[Illustration: EROS IN THE UNDERWORLD.
Votive terra-cotta tablet.]
“Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. And
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but
bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God
giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own
body.”
Jesus echoes the same argument and uses the same simile of the grain of
wheat in John xii. 24:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.”
The most important document still at our command relating to the
chthonian Venus is a fragmentary poem called “Istar’s Descent to Hell.”
The main subject is introduced in order to justify the possibility of
conjuring the dead from Sheol. Dr. Jeremias[17] explains the situation
as follows:
“A man grieves over the death of his sister. He consults a magus as to
how to release the spirit of the deceased from the prison of Hades. The
priest tells him the story of Istar’s descent to Sheol for the sake of
proving that the gates of Sheol are not unconquerable, and advises him
to address Istar, the conqueror of Hades, and Tammuz her consort, with
prayer and sacrifice, in order to gain their assistance. He is requested
to comply with funeral ceremonies at the coffin of the dead and to begin
his mourning with the assistance of the Uhats, the companions of Istar.
The spirit of the dead, hearing the lamentations of her brother,
requests him to rescue her from the horrors of Sheol through mourners’
music and sacrifices in the days of Tammuz, which is the time when the
people sing and weep, as told by Ezekiel viii. 14, and mourn for their
dead under the shape of Tammuz. The concluding lines of the poem, which
are summed up in these words, form the core of the whole, while the
legend of Istar’s descent to Sheol is only an introduction to it, and
constitutes a part of the conjuration of the dead. From other documents
of Babylonian literature we learn that on the names of Istar and Tammuz,
the hero and heroine of the legends of the descent to Sheol, depend the
hopes of a rescue from Sheol.” (_Loc cit._, pp. 7-8.)
It appears that people celebrated with special preference the days of
the god Tammuz, who represented the disappearance of vegetation and its
resurrection to life. The legend of Istar’s descent[18] to Sheol reads
in the translation based on Dr. Jeremias’s version as follows:
(OBVERSE OF THE TABLET.)
“To the land of no return, to the land [which thou knowest (?)],[19]
Istar, the daughter of the moon-god, meditated [to go].
The daughter of the moon-god meditated to go
To the house of darkness, to the seat of Irkalla,
To the house whose visitor never returns, 5.
On the path the descent of which never leads back,
To the house whose occupants are removed from the light,
To the place where dust is food, and dirt is meat,
Where they (the occupants) see no light, where they dwell in darkness,
Where they are clothed like birds, dressed with wings,[20]. 10.
Where upon gate and bolt dust is spread.
“When Istar had reached the gate of the land of no return,
She spake to the keeper of the gate:
‘Keeper of the waters, open thy gate,
Open thy gate,--I wish to enter! 15.
If thou openest not, if I cannot enter,
I shall demolish the gate, I shall break the bolt,
I shall smash the threshold, I shall break the doors;
I shall lead out the dead, shall make them eat and live,
And unto the crowds of the living the dead shall I join.’ 20.
“The keeper opened his mouth and spake
In reply to the sublime Istar:
‘Stay, my lady, do not upset [the door]!
I will announce thy name to Queen Allatu.’
“The keeper entered and spake to Queen Allatu: 25.
‘The water has been crossed by thy sister Istar....”
[The goddess Allatu is greatly agitated about Istar’s appearance in
Sheol. The poem continues:]
“When Goddess Allatu [heard] this....
Like unto a tree cut down....
Like unto reeds mowed down [she drooped and spake]: 30.
‘What has driven her heart, what....
These waters have I [made encompass Sheol] ...
Like the inundation of the deluge, like the swelling (?)
waters of a great flood,
I will weep over the men who left their wives.
I will weep over the wives who were taken from their consorts, 35.
Over the little children I will weep, who prematurely
[were taken away].[21]
Go, keeper, open the gate,
And strip her according to the primordial decree.’
The keeper went, he opened the door to her:
‘Enter, my lady, let the underworld [Kûtu] rejoice; 40.
Let the palace of the land of no return rejoice at thy arrival!’
“Through the first door he bade her enter and, stripping her,
Took off from her head the golden crown.
‘Why, O keeper, takest thou from my head the golden crown?’
‘Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of the
mistress of the earth.’[22]
Through the second door he bade her enter and, stripping her, 45.
Took off the ornaments from her ears.
‘Why, O keeper, takest thou the ornaments from my ears?’
‘Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of the
mistress of the earth.’
Through the third door he bade her enter and, stripping her,
Took off the chains from her neck.
‘Why, O keeper, takest thou the chains from my neck?’
‘Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of the
mistress of the earth.’ 50.
Through the fourth door he bade her enter and, stripping her,
Took off the ornaments from her breast.
‘Why, O keeper, takest thou the ornaments from my breast?’
‘Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of the
mistress of the earth.’
Through the fifth door he bade her enter and, stripping her,
Took off the gem-covered belt from her hips.
‘Why, O keeper, takest thou the gem-covered belt from my hips?’ 55.
‘Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of the
mistress of the earth.’
Through the sixth door he bade her enter and, stripping her,
Took off the bracelets from her hands and feet.
‘Why, O keeper, takest thou the bracelets from my hands and feet?’
‘Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of the
mistress of the earth.’
Through the seventh door he bade her enter and, stripping her, 60.
Took off the robe from her body.
“Why, O keeper, takest thou the robe from my body?’
‘Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of the
mistress of the earth.’
Now, when Istar was descended to the land of no return--
Allatu beheld her, and vehemently upbraided her;
Istar, forgetful, assaulted her.... 65.
Then Allatu opened her mouth and spake.
Addressing Namtar, her servant, giving him
this command:
‘Go, Namtar, open (?) my....
Let her out ... the goddess Istar,
With a disease on her eyes [punish her], 70.
With a disease on her hips [punish her],
With a disease on her feet [punish her],
With a disease on her heart [punish her],
With a disease on her head [punish her],
Upon her whole person [inflict diseases].’ 75.
When Istar, the lady, [was thus afflicted],
The bull no longer covered the cow, the he-ass the she-ass,
The lord no longer sought the maiden of the street.
The lord fell asleep in giving command,
The maid-servant fell asleep....” 80.
REVERSE OF THE TABLET.
“Pap-sukal, the servant of the great gods, scratched his
face before Samas,
Clothed in mourning and filled with....
Samas went: he went to Sin, his father [and wept];
Before Ea, the king, he shed tears;
‘Istar has descended into the land and has not returned. 5.
Since Istar descended into the land of no return,
The bull no longer covers the cow,
The jack-ass no longer covers the she-ass,
A man no longer seeks the maiden of the street,
The lord falls asleep in giving command,
The maid-servant falls asleep.... 10.
Then Ea in the wisdom of his heart created a male being,
He created Uddusunâmir,[23] the servant of the gods:
‘Go forth, Uddusunâmir! to the door of the land of no
return turn thy face,
The seven doors of the land of no return shall open before thee,
Let Allatu see thee, let her rejoice at thy arrival. 15.
When her heart has become calm, and her soul is comforted,
Conjure her in the name of the great gods,[24]
Lift up thy head over the source of waters (?), make up
thy mind (and speak):
‘Not, O my lady, shall the spring be debarred from me;
from its waters I will drink.’
When Allatu heard this, 20.
She smote her loins and bit her finger[25] (and spake):
‘Thou hast made a demand which cannot be fulfilled--
Hence, Uddusunâmir, I will confine thee in the great prison,
The slime of the city shall be thy food,
The gutters of the street shall be thy drink, 25.
The shadow of the wall shall be thy habitation.
The thresholds, thy dwelling-place,
Prison and confinement shall break thy strength.
[Allatu curses Uddusunâmir, but the conjuration which he uttered is
too powerful, and she must obey. Thus the power of the realm of
death is broken and Istar is free.]
Allatu opened her mouth and spake,
To give command to Namtar, her servant: 30.
‘Go, Namtar, demolish the eternal palace,
Demolish the pillars, make the thresholds quake;
Lead out the Anunnaki, put them upon the golden throne,[26]
Sprinkle upon Goddess Istar the water of life;
Take her away from me!’ 35.
Namtar went and demolished the eternal palace,
He demolished the pillars and made the thresholds (?) quake,
He led out the Anunnaki and placed them upon the golden throne,
“He sprinkled upon Goddess Istar the waters of life and led her away:
Through the first door he led her and replaced the
robe upon her body; 40.
Through the second door he led her and replaced the
bracelets upon her hands and feet;
Through the third door he led her and replaced the
gem-covered belt upon her hips;
Through the fourth door he led her and replaced the ornament
upon her breast;
Through the fifth door he led her and replaced the chains
upon her neck;
Through the sixth door he led her and replaced the ornaments
in her ears;
Through the seventh door he led her and replaced upon her
head the golden crown.” 45.
[The conjurer here addresses the brother and promises the release of his
dead sister from the power of Allatu. The poem continues:]
“‘When she (Allatu) does not afford release, turn to her
(to Istar) [thy face].
To Tammuz, the consort of her youth,
Pour pure water and costly balm ... [invite a priest].
Cover him with the sacrificial robe, a crystal flute may he [blow].
Let the Uhats weep with grievous [lamentations]. 50.
Let the goddess Belili break the precious utensil[27] ...
With diamonds shall be filled thy....”
[Now the spell takes effect. The spirit of the departed sister
rises from Sheol:]
“Thus she heard the lamentations of her brother, the goddess
Belili broke the precious utensil,
With diamonds were filled the ... [and the departed spirit said:]
‘My only brother, let me not perish, 55.
In the days of Tammuz play the crystal flute,
Play the instrument....
In those days play to me, the male mourners and the female mourners
Let them play upon instruments....
Let them breathe incense....” 60.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
Though we may fairly well assume that in prehistoric ages all nations
revered a _Magna Mater_, historical development points to the Orient as
the place whence the cult of Aphrodite was imported into Greece; there
it found the soil prepared by the common belief in a mother goddess, a
world-creatrix, a lady divine and supreme. The Greek Aphrodite was the
same as the Astarte of the Tyrians, the “great goddess” of the Syrians
and the Istar of the Babylonians.
It is quite certain that the cult of this goddess-mother played a more
important part in the world of primitive mankind than the cult of a God
the Father, the male deity of a later age. The goddess of love and life
under whatever name she may have been known, as Our Lady, the Queen of
Heaven, the Mistress of the World, the holy mother _genetrix_ of all
living creatures, the _Dea optima maxima_ or Most High Goddess, was
practically the same all over the world. We may not be mistaken if we
attribute the height of her worship to the age of matriarchy. In
prehistoric times the _Magna Dea_ was looked up to with awe and
reverence, possibly even with a devotion more ardent than in a later
period. The Ancient of Days or Jupiter, i. e., Diespiter, the father of
time and light, was symbolized by the all-embracing sky and also by the
sun. The Greeks called him Zeus, a name pronounced _dzeus_, connected
with the Latin _deus_ and _dies_, and Sanskrit _deva_, the creator and
ruler of the world. The _Magna Dea_ was the all-mother, and it is but to
be expected that when the social conditions of matriarchy changed into
the age of the patriarchs the reverence for an all-mother was superseded
by the worship of an all-father.
[Illustration: CARRYING IN PROCESSION THE SYMBOL OF ISTAR]
The _Magna Dea_ was all in all to mankind. Her emblem as the goddess of
vegetation and of the sustenance of life was the apple or pomegranate.
As the goddess of the human soul she is represented as a bird like the
Egyptian representation of the soul, a human-headed hawk; or as a dove,
the symbol which later on represents the gnostic Sophia, the mother of
the child-god, and in Christian dogmatology, the Holy Ghost.
Originally the deity was triune in India, in Egypt, and in other
countries. In India we become acquainted with Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva,
the Creator, the Revealer (or Avatar), and the Transformer (i. e., the
one who destroys and renews). In Babylon the universe is divided into
the three kingdoms of Heaven, Water and Earth under the three rulers,
Anu, Ea and Marduk; and in Egypt men worshiped God the father or Osiris,
God the mother or Isis, and God the child or Horus. Similar trinities
are met with in other religions, and the Christian Trinity, although not
taught by Jesus, is one of the oldest doctrines of the Christian church.
Here indeed the Egyptian conception of God as father, mother and child
makes its first appearance in the apocryphal writings, for there are
passages in heretical gospels where Jesus speaks of the Holy Ghost as
his mother. This idea might have been accepted as an orthodox thought if
the age had not been strongly ascetic and dualistic, but on that account
the feminine character of the Holy Ghost became offensive to the fathers
of the church. In Hebrew the Holy Ghost as _Ruah_ was still conceived
as a brooding pigeon, but among the Gentile Christians the conception of
the third person of the Trinity was translated by the neuter noun πνεῡμα
and in Latin by the masculine _spiritus_. Nevertheless the old symbol of
the brooding pigeon was retained and a feminine designation such as
Sophia, the consort of God, was occasionally tolerated in the Greek
church and among the Gnostics.
[Illustration: ISIS AND HORUS.
From Lenormant.]
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN REPRESENTATION OF THE DEAD MAN AND HIS SOUL.]
Wings have always been the symbol of thought,
[Illustration: ASTARTE AND THE DOVE.]
and serve as a simile to represent the soul not only in Egyptian
mythology but also in Babylon and on the Greek islands. A human-headed
bird attributed to a primitive period of Babylonian civilization has
[Illustration: THE HUMAN-HEADED BIRD.
A figure unearthed among the ruins of Babylon. From Lenormant.]
been interpreted as the soul of Semiramis, and may represent either a
dead person or the goddess of the dead, and the same idea is expressed
in a little figurine of the Greek islands which shows us a
[Illustration: AMULET[28] OF THE MYCENAEAN PERIOD.]
[Illustration: ISIS AND THE FISH.]
female deity with a dove on her head. We can scarcely be mistaken if we
interpret this little figurine as an amulet denoting the goddess whose
emblem is the dove. Whether the figure represent the goddess herself
with her emblematic bird or whether it be the portrait of a dead person
protected by the dove, is of secondary importance. The main truth on
which we insist here is that the dove is the emblem of the great goddess
to whom people look for salvation in the dark beyond. Thus flocks of
pigeons enjoyed great liberties in Hierapolis, the holy city of
Syria,--probably in the same way that the pigeons in St. Mark’s place
are befriended in Venice both by the inhabitants and by foreign
visitors.
Another emblem of the goddess of womanhood is the fish, as is fully
described in Lucian’s most interesting treatise “On the Syrian Goddess.”
In Egypt Isis has been represented with a fish surmounting her head as
an emblematic ornament.
In some parts of Greece the hare or rabbit has also been sacred to
Aphrodite, unquestionably on account of the fertility of that animal.
Even to-day in Christian times the Easter hare and the egg are the
symbols of spring, and the Easter festival cannot be celebrated without
them.
[Illustration: APHRODITE WITH RABBIT.]
A remarkable monument has been discovered in Boghaz-Köi in Cappadocia.
It represents a procession of gods standing on their symbolic animals,
and what interests us mainly is that it portrays the meeting of a god
and a goddess, he standing on human beings, she on an animal which is
apparently a lioness. Among her followers is a man on a leopard and two
figures standing on a double-headed eagle. The idea of this symbol was
carried to Europe by crusaders and became the emblem
[Illustration: RELIEF FROM BOGHAZ-KOEI.]
of the Holy Roman empire; it is still retained in the imperial arms of
Austria and has also been accepted by the Czar of Russia. The subject of
this monument in Cappadocia is still considered as under question. There
is no explanation and there are no ancient books that can throw light
upon it. But the composition speaks for itself. We see here the great
goddess meeting the heroic god--whatever names they may have borne.
[Illustration: A LATER ASTARTE.]
[Illustration: A LEADEN IDOL.]
Marduk (or Melkarth or Bel or Baal) is a deity who rises to sovereignty
through his victory over the powers of evil, and the climax of his life
consists
[Illustration: ASTARTE IN CYPRUS.
From Ohnefalsch-Richter, _Kypros_.]
in his marriage. Can this great sculpture refer to any other topic than
the festive occasion of the victorious god’s marriage ceremonial when he
meets the great bridal goddess?[29]
The name Istar has been traced also in the Phenician word _Astarte_. The
goddess was held in high esteem in Phenicia and was regarded also as the
patroness of navigation. Coins represent her standing on the prow of a
ship, and, strange to say, very frequently she carries a Latin cross in
her arms. Beside the cross her emblems are also the moon and the
swastika, and the latter is frequently found on her dress, and in one
very archaic leaden figurine discovered by Schliemann in the ruins of
Troy, the swastika is placed on her body to indicate the mysterious
power of procreation. The idol was apparently intended to be carried in
the hand, for its lower part ends in a shapeless stick.
[Illustration: THE GODDESS OF NAVIGATION.
Sidonian coins reproduced from Calmet No. 6.]
From the excavations of Cyprus we reproduce
[Illustration: SARGENT’S ASTARTE.
Reproduction with the permission of Curtis and Cameron. Altered from
their copyright photograph.]
[Illustration: THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
By Murillo.]
the picture of a well-preserved statue of Astarte which must have been
the recipient of offerings before an altar in some of the ancient
temples (p. 106).
A beautiful modern picture of Astarte has been worked out by Sargent in
his frescoes on the walls of the Boston Public Library, and we can see
on this very picture her similarity to Murillo’s ideal of Mary in his
many paintings of the “Immaculate Conception.”
* * * * *
There is a counterpart of the western _Magna Dea_ in eastern Asia, but
we no longer know it in its primitive form and have it only as it is
represented in art in the shape of a Buddhist deity, a kind of female
Buddha, called in China Kwan-Yon and in Japan, Benten. Here again in
some cases we find that the fish is her symbol as it is that of the
Syrian goddess, and she frequently presents a remarkable similarity to
the Christian Virgin Mary. She is never pictured naked like the Greek
Aphrodite but is always dressed in the most scrupulously decent
fashion.[30]
One picture of Kwan-Yon with the fish bears an inscription which is a
poetical expression of wonder at the mystery of incarnation, and
following a literal translation we render it into English as follows:
[Illustration: KWAN-YON AND THE FISH.
In the Pei-lin at Singan-fu. After a Chinese color-print.]
“Untidy o’er her temples
Falls her disheveled hair.
The maid is easy-going--
In sooth she does not care.
Not decked in precious jewels
Nor dressed in gaudy lace,
She carries in her basket
A fish to the market place.
Who thinks that Buddha were
Made human form in her!”
[Illustration: A POEM ON KWAN-YON.
Paper impression of a carving in stone.]
The Chinese deity Kwan-Yon may, for all we know, be the _Magna Mater_ of
most primitive China. At least she was an ancient popular goddess. When
Buddhism was introduced into the Middle Kingdom she was too dear to the
people to be abandoned or degraded in rank, and so she was interpreted
to be a female incarnation of the Buddha himself. Some pictures or
statuettes represent her as denoting motherly love by holding a baby in
her arms, which
[Illustration: BENTEN, THE JAPANESE GODDESS OF DIVINE LOVE.
From a relief preserved in the Field Museum Chicago.]
[Illustration: KWAN-YON
By Li Lung-mien (11th cent.) From the original painting in the
collection of Charles L. Freer in Detroit.]
gives her an obvious resemblance to the Christian Mary, the mother of
Christ.
[Illustration: KWAN-YON AS THE BUDDHA.
In the Musée Guimet.]
The ancient Chinese were rich in divinities of all kinds and among them
there is a goddess who
[Illustration: T’IEN HOU, QUEEN OF HEAVEN.]
in one way or other might easily have developed into the Buddhist
Kwan-Yon. This is the Queen of Heaven or Holy Mother, who is worshiped
with great fervor in some localities. Emperor K’ang Hi bestowed upon her
the high title of _T’ien Hou_, that is, “Heaven’s Ruler,” but we may
very well assume that she did not originate in his days but existed
since older times. She, or some figure like her, must have been known
before the importation of Buddhism, and Kwan-Yon presupposes the
primitive existence of a female deity of love, charity and universal
goodwill.
* * * * *
The northern Venus, called Freya, the mother-goddess of the Teutons and
in fact of all the Teutonic races, did not share the fate of the Venus
of classical antiquity. She never deteriorated into the goddess of
sensuality. It is strange that we descendants of the Germanic nations
are better posted on the national gods of Greece and Rome than on those
of our own ancestors. These are mainly remembered from the names of the
week days and even there the god of war, Tiu, has become quite
unintelligible in Tuesday. Freya’s day, Friday, is easily recognizable
as the Latin _dies Veneris_ or _vendredi_, and it is peculiar that on
that very day Christian custom still retains the fish diet of the
ancient Astarte. The motive of course is changed, and the fish is no
longer thought of as the emblem of Astarte but is eaten in remembrance
of the death of Christ on the cross. Fish has become the diet of
fasting. Such is the logic of tradition, which persists after the reason
for it has gradually been forgotten.
H. A. Guerber in his _Myths of Northern Lands_ describes Freya as
follows:
“Although goddess of love, Freya was not soft and pleasure-loving, for
the ancient northern races said that she had very martial tastes, and
that as Valfreya[31] she often led the Valkyrs down to the
battle-fields, choosing and claiming one-half the heroes slain. She was
therefore often represented with corselet and helmet, shield and spear,
only the lower part of her body being clad in the usual flowing feminine
garb.
“Freya transported the chosen slain to Folkvang, where they were duly
entertained, and where she also welcomed all pure maidens and faithful
wives, that they might enjoy the company of their lovers and husbands
even after death. The joys of her abode were so enticing to the heroic
northern women that they often rushed into battle when their loved ones
were slain, hoping to meet with the same fate; or they fell upon their
swords, or were voluntarily burned on the same funeral pyre as the
beloved remains.
“As Freya was inclined to lend a favorable ear to lovers’ prayers, she
was often invoked by them, and it was customary to indite love songs in
her honor, which were sung on all festive occasions, her very name in
Germany being used for the formation of the verb _freien_, i. e., ‘to
woo.’”
[Illustration: FREYA.
From Guerber’s _Myths of Northern Lands_.]
When the conception of the mother goddess of antiquity began to decay, a
new faith spread and under a new name the old ideal was revived as Mary,
Mother of God, _Maria Theotokos_; the star of the sea, or _Stella
Maris_; and the Italian fishermen sing to her the beautiful lines,
“_O sanctissima, O piissima,_
_Dulcis mater amata._”
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN.
The problem of womanhood has found different expressions in different
ages. In prehistoric times all great questions were answered
mythologically. Cosmogeny and anthropogeny, including gynecogeny, were
expressed in stories of gods, while in later periods the same facts
remained and found different solutions in religious dogmas and still
later in scientific investigations.
The same subjects have been treated in a different spirit during the
Christian era and again differently still under the influence of a
scientific world-conception. Socrates respected the gods but he no
longer believed in them as personalities. He explained them as
signifying some facts of experience. To him love found expression in a
belief in Aphrodite and in her powerful son, Eros. Further, his disciple
Plato explains to us the significance of love and devotes a special
dialogue to a discussion of its meaning in every aspect. This dialogue
of Plato’s, the Symposium, may truly be characterized as the most
poetical and most interesting discussion of Greek philosophy. It tells
of a banquet to which Agathon has invited his friends, among whom we
find the philosopher Socrates, the poet Aristophanes (the disciple of
Socrates), Pausanias, Phaedrus and some others. After dinner Phaedrus
proposes to make speeches in honor of love, and Pausanias begins by
drawing a distinction between heavenly and earthly love, extolling the
former and giving scant praise to the latter. Aristophanes is the next
speaker, but, being prevented by a severe hiccup from taking up the
discussion, gives precedence to Eryximachus, the physician. This speaker
approves the distinction made by Pausanias, but generalizes the
conception of love by regarding it as a universal principle, bringing
about the harmony that regulates nature in the course of the seasons in
its relations of moist and dry, hot and cold, etc., and whose absence is
marked by diseases of all sorts. Aristophanes, having recovered from his
hiccup, proposes to offer a new explanation setting forth a novel theory
of the origin of human nature. We quote extracts from the translation of
Jowett:
“Primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had
four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite
ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy
members and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men
now do, backward and forward as he pleased, and he could also roll over
and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet,
eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the
air; this was when he wanted to run fast.... Terrible was their might
and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made
an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes
who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands
upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill
them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the
giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which
men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer
their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of
reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: ‘Methinks I have a plan
which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall
continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be
diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the
advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright
on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will
split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.’ He spoke and
cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as
you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after
another, he bade Apollo give the face and half of the neck a turn in
order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would
thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their
wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled
the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called
the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the
center which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel);
he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a
shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in
the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state.
After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half,
came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in
mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of
dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do
anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived,
the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them--being
the sections of entire men or women--and clung to that.”
This ingenious theory of primitive man as a union of two human creatures
is perhaps older than Plato and may not be original with him. At any
rate the Biblical passage in Gen. i. 27 and Gen. ii 21-22 may also have
been given the interpretation of man’s creation of Adam and Eve. The
oldest texts read plainly: “And God created man in his image, in the
image of God created he him, male and female created he them”; but it
has been pointed out that the same primitive man is here spoken of,
first in the singular as “him,” and then at the end of the verse in the
plural, “them.” The idea that originally Adam comprised in himself the
nature of Eve as well is suggested by the story that Eve was taken out
of the side of Adam and was formed from one of his ribs.
Obviously the idea expressed here in this passage of Genesis is
ultimately the same as that of the Greek poet Aristophanes, and from the
standpoint of modern physiology neither man nor woman is an individual,
but the combination of two, viz., the father and mother. Each one of
them, man alone or woman alone, is but a one-sided half of human
existence. Each, by itself alone, is doomed to die; both together are
immortal.
The Genesis story of the creation of woman is portrayed in many of the
artistic representations of the creation of Eve.
Suggestions made to explain the original story of the creation of man in
the sense suggested by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium, may not be
tenable but they are not altogether senseless.
We must consider that primitive legends have originated from curiosity
with regard to some problem that has presented itself to man in the
childhood of the race. In our present case we have to deal with the
question why the ribs of man’s chest do not entirely enclose the body,
but leave unprotected an opening in the middle, the so-called
procardium, where they turn upward. The primitive answer to this problem
was the story we have been discussing, and thence the notion seems
implied that before Eve, the feminine portion of man, had been taken out
of his side he must have been an androgynous being, and we will add that
there is a scientific truth underlying this primitive idea.
Living substance is originally asexual, or rather bisexual,[32] and in
its primitive state it is immortal. A moner does not experience what we
call death; unless it is crushed or destroyed by poison, it lives on and
grows. When it outgrows its proper size it divides into two parts. It
does not die; nor does it beget a young moner; it divides. There are two
new moners, but there is not a mother and a child; the two are
coordinate. Both are mothers and both are children. Death is not the
original lot of life. Death comes into the world by birth. Life in
itself can be destroyed by physical violence or by chemical means, but
if it is not thus destroyed it is unending; or, in other words,
immortality is a fact.
The differentiation of life into two sexes places a limit upon the
existence of the differentiated parts. Each individual grows to a
definite size and is limited to a definite span of duration: “The days
of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength
they be fourscore years, yet is their strength, labor and sorrow.”
The story of the garden of Eden was given a symbolical interpretation at
an early date. We read in Origen’s refutation of Celsus (Book IV,
Chapter XXXVIII):
“In the next place, as it is his object to slander our scriptures, he
[Celsus] ridicules the following statement: ‘And God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed
up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which he had taken from the
man, made he a woman,’ and so on; without quoting the words which would
give the hearer the impression that they are spoken with a figurative
meaning. He would not even have it appear that the words were used
allegorically, although he says afterward, that ‘the more modest among
Jews and Christians are ashamed of these things, and endeavor to give
them somehow an allegorical signification.’”
It is not an accident that the fruit of the tree of life was conceived
by Christians at an early date as an apple or pomegranate, the symbol of
Aphrodite. We must assume that the apples of the Hesperides which
Hercules was requested to obtain, and also the apples of Iduna bestowing
immortality upon the Teutonic gods, possess ultimately the same
significance as the apple of Eve.
* * * * *
We do not mean to gather here all the traditions about the origin of
woman, but we will quote two accounts from a modern book of Hindu tales,
called _A Digit of the Moon and Other Love Stories from the Hindu_, and
translated from the original manuscripts by F. W. Bain. Here we are told
of a king who falls in love with a princess when he sees her picture. He
leaves his kingdom in the hands of his ministers and travels out in
search of his love, accompanied by his faithful companion Rasakósha.[33]
The passage containing the story of the origin of woman reads thus:
“One day, as they rested at noon beneath the thick shade of a
_Kadamba_[34] tree, the King gazed for a long time at the portrait of
his mistress. And suddenly he broke silence, and said, ‘Rasakósha, this
is a woman. Now, a woman is the one thing about which I know nothing.
Tell me, what is the nature of women?’ Then Rasakósha smiled, and said:
‘King, you should certainly keep this question to ask the Princess; for
it is a hard question. A very terrible creature indeed is a woman, and
one formed of strange elements. _A propos_, I will tell you a story:
listen.
“‘In the beginning, when Twashtri[35] came to the creation of woman, he
found that he had exhausted his materials in the making of man, and that
no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound meditation,
he did as follows: He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of
creepers, and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and
the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness
of leaves, and the tapering of the elephant’s trunk, and the glances of
deer, and the clustering of rows of bees,[36] and the joyous gaiety of
sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds,
and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the
softness of the parrot’s bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the
sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of
fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the
cooing of the _kókila_,[37] and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the
fidelity of the _chakrawáka_;[38] and compounding all these together, he
made woman and gave her to man. But after one week man came to him and
said: Lord, this creature that thou hast given me makes my life
miserable. She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond endurance,
never leaving me alone: and she requires incessant attention, and takes
all my time up, and cries about nothing, and is always idle; and so I
have come to give her back again, as I cannot live with her. So Twashtri
said: Very well: and he took her back. Then after another week, man came
again to him, and said: Lord I find that my life is very lonely since I
gave back that creature. I remember how she used to dance and sing to
me, and look at me out of the corner of her eye, and play with me, and
cling to me; and her laughter was music, and she was beautiful to look
at, and soft to touch: so give her back to me again. So Twashtri said:
Very well: and gave her back again. Then after only three days, man came
to him again, and said: Lord, I know not how it is; but after all, I
have come to the conclusion that she is more of a trouble than a
pleasure to me: so please take her back again. But Twashtri said: Out on
you! Be off! I will have no more of this. You must manage how you can.
Then man said: But I cannot live with her. And Twashtri replied: Neither
could you live without her. And he turned his back on man and went on
with his work. Then man said: What is to be done? for I cannot live
either with or without her.’
“And Rasakósha ceased, and looked at the King. But the King remained
silent, gazing intently at the portrait of the Princess.”
Another story, of like character, is told in the same book, on pages
372-374, only with the difference that it points out a lesson for woman
that she must cleave to her husband because she possesses no
independent existence by herself. (The same, however, in the Indian
story is not true of man.) This is the explanation the faithful wife
Wanawallari gives to the Brahman who tempts her to leave her husband.
She says:
“Once there was a time when there were neither men nor women, but the
universe existed alone. And then one day, when the Creator was
meditating with a view to further creation, he said to himself:
‘Something is wanting to complete the creation which I have created. It
is blind, and unconscious of its own curious beauty and excellence.’
Thereupon he created a man. And instantly the creation became an object
of wonder and beauty, being reflected like a picture in the mirror of
the mind of the man. Then the man roamed alone in the world, wondering
at the flowers and the trees and the animals, and at last he came to a
pool. And he looked in and saw himself. Then full of astonishment, he
exclaimed: ‘This is the most beautiful creature of all.’ And he hunted
incessantly through the whole world to find it, not knowing that he was
looking for himself. But when he found that in spite of all his
endeavors he could never do more than see it on the surface of pools, he
became sad and ceased to care about anything. Then the Creator,
perceiving it, said to himself: ‘Ha! this is a difficulty which I never
foresaw, arising naturally from the beauty of my work. But now, what is
to be done? For here is this man, whom I made to be a mirror for my
world, snared in the mirror of his own beauty. So I must somehow or
other cure this evil. But I cannot make another man, for there would be
two centers to the circle of the universe. Neither can I add anything to
the circumference of nature, for it is perfect in itself. There is
necessary, therefore, some third thing: not real, for then it would
disturb the balance of the universe; nor unreal, for then it would be
nothing: but poised on the border between reality and nonentity.’ So he
collected the reflections on the surface of the pools, and made of them
a woman. But she, as soon as she was made, began to cry. And she said:
‘Alas! alas! I am, and I am not.’ Then said the Creator: ‘Thou foolish
intermediate creature, thou art a nonentity only when thou standest
alone. But when thou art united to the man, thou art real in
participation with his substance.’ And thus, O Brahman, apart from her
husband a woman is a nonentity and a shadow without a substance: being
nothing but the mirror of himself, reflected on the mirror of illusion.”
* * * * *
Early Christian art took little or no interest in the parents of
mankind. So far as we can discover neither the catacombs of Rome nor
Christian sarcophagi are adorned with representations of Adam and Eve.
Wherever they may occur they are rare exceptions. There is no trace of
them in the _fondi d’oro_ (gold-bottomed glasses), nor in the mosaics.
In painting they become more and more frequent in the beginning of the
Middle Ages, and we reproduce here, as one of the oldest representations
of the subject, a picture from the so-called Alcuin Bible preserved in
the British Museum.
[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE CALLED TO ACCOUNT.
From the so-called Alcuin Bible (9th cent.)]
The name “Alcuin Bible” is not justified, for the work dates from some
time after Alcuin; but after all it comes from his school, and the book
was produced in Tours about the middle of the ninth century, still
showing the influence of the brilliant scholar of Charlemagne’s court.
We will say here that the so-called Alcuin Bible is severely criticized
by Anton Springer on account of “the ugliness of its figures,” but there
is more to be seen in this picture than mere awkwardness of style. The
psychology of the picture here reproduced is exceedingly good. The eyes
of Adam and Eve, and of the Lord in rebuking them, show real
appreciation of the mental processes of the individuals. God walks into
the garden with his finger raised, like a teacher who rebukes children
caught stealing apples. God’s finger is not straight, a fact which
presupposes a close observation of life. His eyes express kindliness as
well as admonition, while Adam and Eve stand conscience-stricken by the
side of the tree. They do not dare to look into the face of God, and
Adam, with his clumsy hand, points to Eve as the cause of the evil,
while her face expresses admission, though in her turn she lays the
blame on the snake which stands erect at her left.
It is true that the technique is abominable. The heads are ridiculously
large, and the hands are out of proportion. The bodies do not express
the beauty generally credited to both Adam and Eve as the most perfect
handiwork of God. The paints in the picture are reported to be no better
than the drawing. The flesh is of a gray color shaded with maroon
streaks. In contrast to the sickly and poverty-stricken appearance of
the human couple the good Lord is dressed in gold, like a wealthy
nobleman of the age, and the scene is shown to be in Paradise by the
trees too being overlaid with gold. Nevertheless the situation is very
clearly a garden, copied from nature, and the very story, with all its
details, could be reconstructed from this picture.
In time, with the advance of art, the figures of Adam and Eve come more
and more to assume the artistic appearance of natural beauty. Adam and
Eve represent mankind in its primitive state, devoid of spirituality but
perfect in health and vigor. It is noteworthy that Christian art
portrays in them paganism in its rudeness and ignorance, and so they
acquire a certain relationship to Greek antiquity.
In the Renaissance we reach a perfection in the figures of Adam and Eve
which attains the ideal of classical beauty. Every painter believed it
his duty to represent the two fatal scenes, the fall of man and the
expulsion from Paradise. Similar scenes also begin to appear in
sculptured reliefs. A scene on one side of the large pillars in the
front of the cathedral at Orvieto is devoted to the subject of Eve’s
creation.
The creation of man and woman is the first scene portrayed on Ghiberti’s
great bronze entrance-doors of the baptistery at Florence. These
beautiful
[Illustration: THE CREATION OF WOMAN.
Relief on the cathedral of Orvieto (14th cent.)]
reliefs represent the beginning of a new and greater period of art. It
is Ghiberti’s merit to have created an originally Christian conception
quite different from the classical reliefs of plastic art. We observe in
his work evidence of a close study of garments and draperies, and the
attempt to bring out not only bodily beauty but a spiritual expression
and allegorical meaning. Most of the characters presented are plainly
portraits of men and women who have served as living models.
[Illustration: DETAIL FROM GHIBERTI’S DOORS.
First panel.]
In the lower left corner of this panel on Ghiberti’s door God is
creating man. In the center he is raising Eve from the side of the
sleeping Adam, who lies prostrate on the ground. God is here always
surrounded and assisted by angels, who lift up Eve while the good Lord
watches her rise. In the middle left part of the picture we see Adam
and Eve taking the apple from the serpent which is entwined about the
tree between them. In the right corner our unfortunate ancestors are
being driven out of Paradise. Eve stands in despair, while Adam is
visible in the rear.
[Illustration: THE CREATION OF WOMAN. By Michelangelo (15th cent.)]
[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE IN PARADISE.
By Gustave Doré.]
[Illustration: THE FIRST FAMILY. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld.]
Michelangelo’s Creation of Eve is represented on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and is perhaps the most vigorous
expression of the original strength of the mother of mankind. It will be
observed that here too Eve comes from Adam’s side, although the picture
seems to show her fully grown.
From among the more modern pictures we reproduce a drawing by Gustave
Doré representing Adam and Eve. Here we see them in their state of
innocence, Eve being pictured as reclining on the ground, while Adam
looks upon her in love and admiration.
Of the more recent pictures we will mention only those of Schnorr von
Carolsfeld, who has succeeded most effectively in striking the proper
traditional note in Bible illustrations. He represents Adam and Eve
according to the dogmatic belief of Protestant Christianity. In the
scene here reproduced they are portrayed after their expulsion from
Paradise in their comfortable primitive home, where Adam, leaning on his
hoe, rests from his labors while Eve sits in the background with a
distaff in her hand, and their two sons are playing about them.
* * * * *
And now, in conclusion, the question as to the place of this theme in
the art of the future. Has not the present generation lost interest in
our ancestors? Since the legend is no longer believed literally, our
artistic imagination is not attracted so strongly by it. The story of
the fall of man has become an allegory, an interesting tale, but it is
no longer a truth. We believe now in evolution, and so Gabriel Max has
pictured a new Eve for us which is the mother of modern man,--the mother
who bequeaths to her son a deeper comprehension of life and a truer
insight into the nature of things.
[Illustration: PRIMITIVE MAN.
By Gabriel Max.]
The picture is at first sight repulsive, but the more we look at it and
the more we study the artist’s intentions, the more it grows on us. Here
is a primitive couple of the ape-man type, fossil remains of which have
been found in the Neanderthal, in Cannstatt and in Spy. They must have
been very savage, and we shudder at their appearance. How unpleasant it
would be to meet such creatures in a lonely forest! The male is very
brutish while the female shows traces of a dawning intelligence.
Verily, we discover in this scene represented by Gabriel Max a close
resemblance to pictures of the holy family. And considered rightly, the
similarity is by no means fortuitous, for here we have indeed a holy
family. It is an uncultured primitive couple of a speechless tribe of
forest men, yet the hope of progress and a brave determination to take
up the battle of life for the sake of the babe that is born to them
becomes visible in the mother’s eyes.
After all, the wife of _homo alalus_, of the primitive speechless man,
is still the same Eve. There is the same sacrifice of motherlove, the
same determination of bringing to life the man of the future, the
higher, better, nobler man, whose life will be much more worth living
than was her own.
This is the secret of life, that we live not for ourselves but for
others. If mankind were one great immortal being, how monotonous life
would be; how egotistical would all our aspirations become! But nature
renders all egotism futile. None of us finds an abiding home here on
earth; we pass away and new generations fill the places we leave vacant.
Daily the world grows older, and yet it remains ever young. There is the
same happiness, the same bliss and joy that ever thrilled the heart of a
mother. Christianity has abolished Venus, the great mother goddess, but
Eve has taken her place; and if Eve too is to be deposed, mankind will
still cling to the old idea of eternal womanhood, the patron of love and
loveliness, of wifehood and of motherhood.
APHRODITE IN ART.
[Illustration: BABYLONIAN CLAY FIGURES.]
The oldest assured statues of Venus, of an all-nourishing mother
goddess, are perhaps the little figurines frequently found in
Mesopotamia representing “the Lady” or Beltis (the feminine of Bel,
“the Lord”) in the shape of a naked woman, sometimes with a child in her
arms; but we may fairly well assume that even the artists of the stone
age took up this all-absorbing subject, and if this be the case we may
be justified in calling the torso of a naked female figure discovered in
Brassempouy, a Venus,--so far the oldest Venus that has come down to us.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF BRASSEMPOUY.]
[Illustration: LAKSHMI.
In the Musée Guimet.]
[Illustration: A CILICIAN COIN.]
[Illustration: COIN OF TARSUS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF GAULOS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF PERGA.]
In India the goddess of beauty was revered under the name of Lakshmi,
and we need not doubt that she still finds worshipers among the Hindu
population of to-day, but there are no statues left of the age of
ancient Brahmanism. All monuments are of comparatively late origin; in
fact the large mass of Hindu idols is quite modern, although it
represents art and religious notions of a typically primitive character.
Another and, as it seems, independent development can be traced from the
worship of stone pillars or bethels. A _bethel_, i. e., “house of God,”
well known from the Bible as a monument of divine revelation, developed
gradually into the representation of a stiff female figure like the
Diana of Ephesus, but we cannot doubt that the primitive idea of it was
the worship of an all-nourishing mother. From her the Greek conception
of the chaste moon goddess, the virgin Artemis or Diana, developed in
course of time; but the Diana of Ephesus still preserves symbols of a
pantheistic conception of the All under the allegory of a mother
goddess. (For illustrations see pages 152 and 153.)
[Illustration: COINS OF PERGA IN PAMPHYLIA.]
[Illustration: THREE ARTEMIS MEDALS.]
Among the Semites the oldest bethels, or houses of God, were pillars of
stone. We need not assume that they were gods or goddesses, for judging
from Biblical information they may be interpreted as monuments marking a
holy place, i. e., a spot where a deity had revealed himself in some
way.
The primitive form of a bethel,[39] or as the Greeks transcribed the
Phenician term, βαίτυλος, has often been represented on coins. Sometimes
two columns are placed, one on each side, and the stone is frequently
accompanied with the symbols of the goddess, fruit and eggs; sometimes
doves perch on the sanctuary; sometimes the pillar is covered with a
temple roof. We know one instance in which it bears the symbol of a
Latin cross and gradually it assumes in a coarse style the features of a
woman. Such is the beginning of the manufacture of idols which at first
are extremely stiff and assume only gradually--indeed very slowly--an
artistic shape.
[Illustration: COIN OF ANTIOCHUS EUERGETES.]
[Illustration: ISTAR ON A COIN OF TARSUS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF EMESA.]
[Illustration: COIN OF IASOS CARIA.]
[Illustration: COIN OF PAPHOS, CYPRUS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF IULIA GORDUS, LYDIA.]
At the dawn of the historic age the oldest Greek statues and paintings
of Venus show her fully robed and draped. Great numbers of Aphrodite
amulets of small size and made of glazed terra-cotta have been found
mainly on the Ægean islands where her cult had spread from Babylon and
Syria. They resemble the Babylonian Beltis statuettes in having
[Illustration: THE DIANA OF EPHESUS IN THE VATICAN.
After a photograph.]
[Illustration: THE DIANA OF EPHESUS.
Alabaster statue now in the museum of Naples. (Roscher, _Lex._, I, col.
588.)]
the arms crossed over the breast, but as a rule their hips are
unnaturally broad. Some of them have a bird’s (possibly a pigeon’s) head
and all have large ears with earrings.
The very oldest real statues of Aphrodite, products of primitive
manufacture, have been lost, and none of the temple idols have survived
Christian iconoclasm, but we have information that Kanachus[40] in the
sixth century before Christ, and Kalamis, Phidias and Alcamenes in the
fifth, have represented the goddess as dignified and severe. We
reproduce here drawings of archaic statues fully dressed. Some of them
are still awkward but give evidence of the artist’s reverence. An
archaic Venus of the style familiar in Pompeii was formerly regarded as
a Moera but to-day after Gerhard’s interpretation it is considered as a
Venus Proserpina.
[Illustration: CYPRIAN APHRODITE.[41]]
The statue by Kalamis which once stood upon the Acropolis at Athens and
was called Aphrodite Sosandra[42] is also fully dressed, but much more
graceful. A veil is tied about her hair, and in her right hand the
goddess is clasping some folds of her upper garment, while her extended
left hand holds a pomegranate blossom.
[Illustration: ARCHAIC APHRODITE WITH DOVE.
Roscher, _Lex._, I, 409.]
[Illustration: ARCHAIC VENUS IN POMPEIAN STYLE.]
Among the Attic votive reliefs there is one interpreted as Aphrodite and
Ares,[43] which shows
[Illustration: APHRODITE SOSANDRA BY KALAMIS.
From Roscher, _Lex._, I, col. 412.]
Aphrodite unveiling her face to Ares. She holds a pitcher in her right
hand and is pouring its contents into a vessel in his hands. It is also
to be noted that the action takes place above an empty altar. The child
behind her in this connection can only represent her son Eros.
In the National Museum at Rome there is an Attic sculpture of the fifth
century which is somewhat bolder in showing the outlines of the figure.
This Aphrodite is clad in a very diaphanous garment, the left breast
being quite uncovered.
[Illustration: APHRODITE AND ARES.
Votive relief from _Monuments grecs_, Pl. I.]
In the beautiful statue by Alcamenes, a copy of
[Illustration: ATTIC SCULPTURE OF THE FIFTH CENTURY B. C.
In the National Museum at Rome.]
which is still preserved in the Louvre, the dress seems to be of
slightly heavier texture and the posture more simple and dignified. In
her left hand the goddess holds a pomegranate and is lifting with
[Illustration: APHRODITE OF ALCAMENES, KNOWN AS VENUS GENETRIX.]
her right hand a corner of her drapery above her right shoulder.
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.]
It was in the days of the highest development of
[Illustration: THE CNIDIAN VENUS OF PRAXITELES.
In the Vatican Museum at Rome.]
Greek art that the greatest artists dared to show the goddess of love in
perfect nudity. The statues of Phidias still retain the severe
expression of her divine character, but Praxiteles endeavors to show her
beauty as in primitive times without any dress, in a careless but
graceful and artistic pose. So at least appears the most authoritative
record of her appearance on the Cnidian coin. Other statues, especially
the Vatican marble known as the Venus of Praxiteles, are partly dressed.
It is assumed that many replicas of ancient masterpieces did not follow
their originals in all details.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF PRAXITELES ON A CNIDIAN COIN.
From Roscher, _Lex._, I, col. 416.]
This statue of Praxiteles was ordered by the Cnidians from the artist
for public worship, and when finished they placed it in the temple of
Aphrodite Euploia built especially to serve as a shrine for
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE CROUCHING VENUS.]
this piece of art. The goddess was the patroness of the island of Cnidos
and therefore her image was impressed upon the Cnidian coins as the
great artist had depicted her. The best copies of the Cnidian
[Illustration: VENUS CROUCHING IN THE BATH.
In the Vatican.]
Aphrodite are preserved in the Vatican and in the Glyptothek at Munich.
[Illustration: VENUS WITH THE UNGUENT JAR.
In the Vatican.]
The Vatican is rich in Venus statues of a similar type which have been
worked out in the spirit of Praxiteles, and we here reproduce
photographs of what has been called the crouching Venus and also the
Venus with the unguent jar.
These statues of Aphrodite in the Vatican and most others produced in
the latter portion of the classical period of Greek art are entirely
nude, but with the exception of the very latest ones we must grant that
they are endowed with divine dignity. An improper feature enters only
when nudity betrays either an intentional display, with a pretense of
prudery, or an obvious purpose to excite sensuality. Originally these
features are foreign to the Greek goddess and develop only with the
decay of Hellenic civilization. They appear obtrusively in the so-called
Venus of Medici, and worse still in the so-called Venus Kalypygos, in
this way justifying to some extent the harsh opinion of Christian
pietists who have vitiated our notion of Greek deities down to the
present day. From the standpoint here taken I may be permitted to omit
entirely any reproduction of pictures of this latest phase of the
artistic conception of Venus.
Among the portrayals of Venus we deem two recent discoveries worthy of
reproduction on account of their sweetness and gracefulness. One is the
Venus of Panderma and the other a bust found in a wrecked ship by sponge
divers at the bottom of the sea off the African coast in the
Mediterranean. The former was found in a shipwreck near the coast
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF PANDERMA.
Front view.]
of Panderma in the year 1884, together with coins of the time of
Lysimachos. It is made of Parian marble and shows the goddess standing
near a small pillar over which her garment is hung. She is represented
at the moment when her hands are tying a long ribbon around her head to
hold up her curly hair which falls back behind the ears. Furtwängler and
Salomon Reinach have devoted much attention to the statue, the latter
in his _Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine_, and both praise
highly the beauty of the goddess.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF PANDERMA.
Rear view.]
The head of the goddess Venus now preserved in the museum at Bardos near
Tunis must have lain hidden for over two thousand years. It had
[Illustration: THE VENUS HEAD IN THE MUSEUM OF BARDOS.]
probably been ordered by lovers of art living in Africa and never
reached its place of destination. The shells which cover part of the
bust have happily not attacked the features of the goddess and so the
beauty of the face is left unmarred.
CLASSICAL HYMNS.
The worship of Aphrodite in the days of classical paganism is best
characterized by two hymns attributed to Homer, but it must be
understood that this whole class of poetry constitutes Homeric apocrypha
of a comparatively late date. We quote the original from the Teubner
edition:
ΣΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ
Κυπρογενῆ Κυθέρειαν ἀείσομαι, ἥτε βροτοῖσι
μείλιχα δῶρα δίδωσιν, ἐφ’ ἱμερτῷ δὲ προσώπῳ
αἰεὶ μειδιάει καὶ ἐφ’ ἱμερτὸν θέει ἄνθος.
Χαῖρε, θεά, Σαλαμῖνος ἐυκτιμένης μεδέουσα
καὶ πάσης Κύπρου: δὸς δ’ ἱμερόεσσαν ἀοιδήν.
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.
A versified translation of our own reads thus:
“My verse shall praise thee, goddess fair and mighty,
Great Queen of Cyprus, glorious Aphrodite
Who unto mortals love’s sweet gift bestowest
And in the charm of richest beauty glowest.
Thou holdest in thy hand the magic flower
Whose spell subjects us to thy gentle power.
Hail, gracious lady, soother of all woes,
Who conquerest by pleasing smiles thy foes.
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.
Front view.]
As we thy beauty worship and admire
Inspire my song with thy celestial fire.
So shall my muse forever honor thee
And her whom thou commendest unto me.”
Here is another hymn, not less charming:
ΣΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ
Αἰδοίην, χρυσοστέφανον, καλὴν Ἀφροδίτην
ᾄσομαι, ἣ πάσης Κύπρου κρήδεμνα λέλογχεν
εἰναλίης, ὅθι μιν Ζεφύρου μένος ὑγρὸν ἀέντος
ἤνεικεν κατὰ κῦμα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης
ἀφρῷ ἔνι μαλακῷ: τὴν δὲ χρυσάμπυκες Ὧραι
δέξαντ’ ἀσπασίως, περὶ δ’ ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἕσσαν:
κρατὶ δ’ ἐπ’ ἀθανάτῳ στεφάνην εὔτυκτον ἔθηκαν
καλήν, χρυσείην: ἐν δὲ τρητοῖσι λοβοῖσιν
ἄνθεμ’ ὀρειχάλκου χρυσοῖό τε τιμήεντος:
δειρῇ δ’ ἀμφ’ ἁπαλῇ καὶ στήθεσιν ἀργυφέοισιν
ὅρμοισι χρυσέοισιν ἐκόσμεον, οἷσί περ αὐταὶ
Ὧραι κοσμείσθην χρυσάμπυκες, ὁππότ’ ἴοιεν
ἐς χορὸν ἱμερόεντα θεῶν καὶ δώματα πατρός.
αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάντα περὶ χροὶ κόσμον ἔθηκαν,
ἦγον ἐς ἀθανάτους: οἳ δ’ ἠσπάζοντο ἰδόντες
χερσί τ’ ἐδεξιόωντο καὶ ἠρήσαντο ἕκαστος
εἶναι κουριδίην ἄλοχον καὶ οἴκαδ’ ἄγεσθαι,
εἶδος θαυμάζοντες ἰοστεφάνου Κυθερείης.
Χαῖῥ ἑλικοβλέφαρε, γλυκυμείλιχε: δὸς δ’ ἐν ἀγῶνι
νίκην τῷδε φέρεσθαι, ἐμὴν δ’ ἔντυνον ἀοιδήν.
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.
Translated into English verse the hymn reads:
“The venerable Lady I adore,
Queen Aphrodite, owner of the shore
Of seagirt Cyprus. Thither Zephyr’s breeze
Had wafted her as babe with gentle ease.
While yet unborn, in briny foam lay she
Floating on billows of the surging sea,
Whence she came forth. The Seasons young and fair
With gold-embroidered bridles guided her,
They took her to their arms and they caressed
The little maid and had her beauty dressed
In garments of Ambrosian fabric wrought.
And then a crown of golden weight they brought,
Three-handled, which above her head they placed.
Her soft white neck with carcanets was graced,
The strands of which her silver breast adorn
In such a way as by the Seasons worn
At dances in sylvestrian resort
Or in Olympus at their father’s court.
They carried up the babe so fair and wee
To the immortals, who in ecstacy
Began at once to hug and fondle her
And kiss her hands. All vowed that they would wear
The sacred flower of this divine fair maid
At Hymen’s feast in festival parade.
Yea, such great charm the Gods e’en never saw;
They gazed and wondered and they stood in awe.
O goddess, dark-browed, sweet of voice,
In thee my song shall glory to rejoice!
On us poor mortals here on earth below
Life’s palm and heaven’s happiness bestow.
[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.]
Praised be forever thy divinity,
And the fair sex which representeth thee.”
The nature of Venus as the mother of the universe, the mistress of
existence, and the representative of all that is charming and lovely
endeared her to the philosopher as well as to the poet, and so in Rome
at a later day even the freethinker among classical poets, Titus
Lucretius, dedicated to her his philosophical book of poetry, _De rerum
natura_, in these often quoted words:[44]
“Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands--for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Through thee are risen to visit the great sun--
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away;
For thee the dedal Earth bears gentle flowers;
For thee wide waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the sérene sky
Glow with diffusèd radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred.
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Then amain,
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead;
And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains.
Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth.
Kind after kind. And since ’tis thou alone
Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
Is risen to reach the holy shores of light,
Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born,
Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
Which I presume on Nature to compose
For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
Peerless in every grace at every hour--
Wherefore, indeed, Divine one, give my words
Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
O’er sea and land the savage works of war,
For thou alone hast power with public peace
To aid mortality; since he who rules
The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
How often to thy bosom flings his strength,
O’ermastered by the eternal wound of love--
And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,
Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
Hanging upon thy lips? Him thus reclined
Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
Peace for the Roman, glorious Lady, peace!
For in a season troublous to the state
Neither may I attend this task of mine
With thought untroubled, nor may mid such events
The illustrious scion of the Memmian house
Neglect the civic cause.”
* * * * *
The temples of Aphrodite lie in ruins, and her worship is abandoned; but
the ideal of womanhood which she represented has remained to this day,
and will remain so long as mankind will continue to exist on earth. The
artist of the statue of Milo has left us an unsurpassed interpretation
of this ideal which even in its mutilated condition is noble and
beautiful. At the same time nature does not cease to actualize the type
in every living woman that has been born into the world. Each one of
them with all her individual traits, her preferences and even her
feminine faults is a specimen of the eternal ideal of womanhood--the
divinity of love, of grace, of charm, of beauty, a source of inspiration
as well as of physical and intellectual creativeness.
The ancient paganism has passed away and will never come back, but
because its superstitions are gone we need no longer scorn its gods. We
can recognize their grandeur, their nobility, their beauty, yea their
truth; and if we contemplate the representation of their ideals in Greek
art, we must own that the Venus of Milo is not the least among them.
INDEX.
Adonis, Death of, 76.
Æneas, 74.
Æschylus, 74.
Agesander or Alexander of Antioch, 14, 17, 20, 21, 51.
Alcamenes, 154, 157-159.
Alcard, 44.
Alcuin Bible, 133-135.
Amazon, Etymology of, 63.
Anchises, 68;
and Aphrodite, 74, 75.
Antiochus Euergetes, 150.
Antiochus Soter, 17.
Aphrodite, and Ares, 155-157;
as a universal principle, 65, 73;
Birth of, 62, 69;
Cypris, 65;
Etymology of the name, 62, 64;
Euploia, 162;
Pandemos, 67;
Sosandra, 154, 156;
Urania, 67, 74;
Worship of, 55, 68-75.
Apple, emblem of mother-goddess, 98;
emblem of Venus, 25;
held in hand, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 25, 30, 33, 44, 45, 47;
Melos means, 1, 25;
of empire, 39-40.
Archaic Venus, 154-155.
Ares, Aphrodite and, 155-157.
Artemis, 149.
Astarte, 69, 107;
A later, 105;
and the Dove, 100;
in Cyprus, 106, 110;
Sargent’s, 108, 110;
Worship of, 55.
Asurbanipal, 79, 80.
Athene, 69, 77, 79;
Worship of, 56.
Athens, 54, 56, 67.
Babylon, Trinity in, 98.
Bacchus, 14.
Bain, F. W., 128.
Bajot, 5_n_.
Bardos, 168, 169.
Battle on the beach, 43, 46-47, 49.
Bell, T., 31.
Bellona, 77.
Beltis, 73, 145, 151.
Benten, 110, 113.
Bethel, 148-150.
Birth, of Aphrodite, 62, 69, 70;
of Syrian goddess, 71.
Boghaz-Köi, 103-105.
Bottonis, Antonio, 2, 45.
Bottonis, Yorgos, a Greek peasant, 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 44.
Bottonis, Yorgos, Jr., 45.
Brassempouy, Venus of, 146.
Brest, Louis, 3, 46.
Buddha, Kwan-Yon as the, 112, 115.
Cæsar, 74, 75.
Capua, 55.
Carolsfeld, Schnorr von, 140-141.
Carus, _The Bride of Christ_, 107;
_Soul of Man_, 126.
Castro in Melos, 2, 12, 45, 46.
_Century Magazine_, 2, 6.
Charm of statue, 26, 27.
“Chevrette,” 3, 5.
Christian Trinity, 98-99.
Christianity, 56, 74, 144.
Chthonian Venus, 75, 83, 85.
Clarac, Count de, 13, 15, 50;
Report of, 48.
Cnidian Venus, 160-163, 172.
Cnidos, 73, 163.
Condition of statue, 9-10, 24, 43, 45, 48, 49.
Conybeare, F. C., 56.
Conze, 21.
Corinth, Hierodules in, 74.
Coronet, 24.
Creation, Greek legend of, 62;
Maori legend of, 63_n_.
Creuzer, 36.
Crouching Venus, 163, 164, 166.
Cyprian Aphrodite, 154.
Cyprus, 76, 107;
Astarte in, 106, 110.
Date of statue, 20, 52.
David, 15.
Debay, Auguste, 15;
Drawing of, 16, 21.
Del Mar, Alexander, 37, 39-40.
Del Mar, Francisca Paloma, 37, 38.
Demeter, 69.
Descent into Hades, 76, 83-95.
Description of statue, 6-8, 22-25, 41, 42, 45, 51, 52.
Diana of Ephesus, 149, 152-153.
Dionæa, 67.
Dione, 65.
Discovery of statue, 2, 5-6, 44.
Dodona, 67.
Doré, Gustave, 139, 141.
Dove, 98, 102;
Astarte and the, 100;
Venus sending out the, 36, 37.
Egypt, Trinity in, 98.
Eleusinian mysteries, 83.
Ephesus, Diana of, 149, 152-153.
Epithets of Aphrodite, 65, 67.
Eros, 27, 28, 65, 77_n_, 83;
in the underworld, 84;
Statue of, 28.
“Estafette,” 3, 4, 43, 46, 47.
Eve, Adam and, in art, 132-141;
Apple of, 127, 138;
Creation of, 125, 127, 135, 138, 140.
Fanaticism, 27, 60.
Farnell, Lewis Richard, 83.
Ferry, Jules, 52;
Report of, 45-47.
Figulus, Nigidius, 71.
Fish, 103;
Isis with the, 102;
Kwan-Yon with the, 110-111;
of the Euphrates, 71;
on Friday, 117.
Foam-born, 62, 69.
Fragments, 2, 6, 10, 11, 12_n_, 13, 43, 47, 53.
Freer, Charles L., 114.
Freya, 117-120.
Furtwängler, 167;
Restoration by, 33.
“Galaxidion,” 46, 48.
Gauttier, 5_n_.
Gerhard, 154.
Ghiberti, 135-138.
Gilchrist, Edward, 86_n_.
Glyptothek, 165.
Greek, legend of creation, 62;
philology, 63;
religion, 27.
Guerber, H. A., 117, 119.
Hades, Descent into, 76, 83-95.
Halo, 39-40.
Hasse and Henke, 32, 33.
Hawk, Human-headed, 98.
Heine, Heinrich, 27.
Helios, 40.
Hephæstos, 68.
Hera (Juno), 24;
Worship of, 56.
Heracles, 14, 127;
Etymology of, 63.
Hermae, 6, 7, 8, 13.
Hermes, 14;
(psychopompos), 83.
Hesiod, 62.
Hesperides, Apple of the, 127.
Hierapolis, 102.
Hirt, 77.
History of the statue, 52-60.
Holy Ghost, 98.
Homer, 65.
Homeric hymns, 171-176.
Hypatia, 60.
Idols, Beginning of, 150.
Iduna, Apples of, 127.
India, Trinity in, 98.
Inscription, on plinth, 15, 17;
Votive, 8, 13-14, 50.
Isis, and Horus, 99;
and the fish, 102, 103;
Worship of, 55.
Istar, 71, 79, 80, 81, 107;
and Tammuz, 86;
Carrying in procession the symbol of, 97;
on coin of Tarsus, 150;
Worship of, 55.
Istar’s Descent to Hell, 85-95.
Jeremias, Dr. Alfred, 85.
Jesus, 84.
Jowett, 122-126.
Kalamis, 154, 156.
Kalypygos, Venus, 166.
Kanachus, 154.
K’ang Hi, 116.
Kirchhoff, 17.
Kronos, 62.
Kwan-Yon, as the Buddha, 112, 115;
by Li Lung-mien, 114;
Poem on, 112;
with the fish, 110-111.
Lady, 69, 73, 78, 96, 145.
Lakshmi, 147.
Lang, Andrew, 63_n_.
Lange, M., 49.
Lenormant, Charles, 11, 50.
Lenormant, F., 99, 101.
Leonard, William Ellery, 176_n_.
Life, Secret of, 143.
“Lionne,” 4.
Louvre, 4, 10, 12, 25, 43, 48, 49, 53, 158;
Authorities of the, 14, 17, 42, 50.
Love, Goddess of, 22, 39, 64, 74, 75, 76, 83, 117-120, 144, 178;
Goddess of sexual, 67.
Lucian, 103.
Lucretius, Titus, 176.
Ludovisi relief, 70-73.
Lung-mien, Li, 114.
Lysimachos, 167.
Lysippos, 52.
Magna Dea, 96ff.
Man, Origin of, 122;
Primitive, 142.
Maori legend of creation, 63_n_.
Marcellus, Viscount, 3, 9, 14, 39, 43, 53;
Report of, 11-13.
Marduk, 105.
Mary, Virgin, 64, 69, 71, 110, 115, 120;
Worship of, 37, 56.
Matriarchy, 96, 97.
Matterer, Lieutenant, 44, 47.
Max, Gabriel, 141-143.
Measurements of statue, 7-8.
Medici, Venus of, 166.
Melos, 1, 2, 45, 46, 47;
Inhabitants of, 39, 53;
Name of, 1, 7;
Site of, 6.
Michelangelo, 138, 140.
Mirror, Venus with, 30, 31.
Montaiglon, M. A., 5_n_.
Morusi, Nikolai, 3, 4.
Mother-goddess, The, 22, 68, 77, 96ff, 117, 120, 144.
Murillo, 109, 110.
Mutilation of statue, 7, 24, 27, 40, 42-43, 49, 53.
National Museum, 157, 158.
Navigation, Goddess of, 107.
Nebo, 81.
Nudity in art, 166;
of statue, 22, 24, 41.
Ohnefalsch-Richter, 106.
Oiconomos, 3.
_Open Court_, 110.
Oriental influence, 70-71, 96.
Original, Statue an, 20-21.
Orvieto, 135, 136.
Overbeck, 20.
Paganism, 55, 135, 178;
End of, 60, 68, 73.
Panderma, Venus of, 166-168.
Paphos, 73.
Paul, St., 84.
Pausanias, 54, 76, 154_n_.
Pedestal, 14, 17, 20.
Penitential psalm, 78.
Pergamum, 21, 52.
Persephone, 76;
Myth of, 83.
Phidias, 52, 54, 73, 154, 162.
Philology of Greeks, 63.
Pinches, Theodore G., 78.
Pindar, 74.
Plato, 62, 67, 121, 124, 128_n_.
Pluto, 83.
Polytheism, 68.
Pomegranate, 83, 98, 127;
emblem of Venus, 76;
held in hand, 158.
Pompeian Venus, 154-155.
Praxiteles, 52, 160-163.
Preller, 76_n_, 154.
Prometheus, Etymology of, 63.
Purchase of statue, 3-4, 9.
Queen of heaven, 64, 69, 74, 96, 116.
Rabbit, 103.
_Record-Herald_, 44, 50.
Reinach, Salomon, 167.
Restorations, 27-41.
Rivière, Marquis de, 4, 9.
Robert, Commander, 46.
Roscher, 63_n_, 71_n_, 153, 154_n_, 155_n_, 156, 162.
Sailors, French, 4, 10, 49;
Turkish, 46.
Saloman, Geskel, 20;
Restorations by, 34, 35.
Sargent’s Astarte, 108, 110.
Schliemann, 107.
Scopas, 52.
Sculptor of the statue, 13, 21, 51, 52, 53.
Selene, 40.
Semiramis, 101.
Shield and pencil, Venus with, 29, 31.
Sistine Madonna, 25.
Socrates, 121.
Sophia, 99;
The gnostic, 98.
Soul, Egyptian, 98, 99.
Springer, Anton, 134.
Star of the sea, 120.
Steinthal, H., 63_n_.
Swastika, 107.
Syrian goddess, 96, 103;
Birth of, 71.
Tacitus, 73.
Talbot, H. Fox, 79, 81.
Tammuz, 86.
Taylor, 63_n_.
Theodosius, 39.
Thiers, 45, 47.
T’ien Hou, 116.
Titian, 66, 67.
Tiumman, 79, 80;
Head of, 82.
Tomb of Aphrodite, 76.
Toulon, 5.
Tralles, Head of, 19, 20, 21.
Tree of life, 127.
Trinities, 98.
Turkish brig, 43, 46, 48.
Unguent jar, Venus with the, 165, 166.
Uranus and Gaia, 62.
Urville, Dumont d’, 3, 13, 14, 42-43, 44, 47;
Report of, 5-9.
Valentin, Veit, 25;
Restoration by, 37, 41.
Vatican, 152, 160-163, 164, 165.
Venice, Doves of, 103.
Venus Erycina, 77_n_;
Genetrix, 69, 75, 159;
Kalypygos, 166;
of Milo; full figure, 16, 23;
of Milo; head, _fr._, 18, 57, 59;
of Milo; restored, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38;
on the swan, 55, 56;
Proserpina, 154;
Urania, 74;
Victrix, 75, 77, 78, 79;
Victrix, Statue called, 45, 47, 48;
Vulgaris, 74.
Victory, Venus of Milo as, 31.
War, Goddess of, 77-82.
Wings, 99.
Woermann, 102_n_.
Woman, Origin of, 127-132.
Zealotry, Outbursts of, 58.
Zeus, 65.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Published under the title “Relation d’une expédition hydrographique
dans le Levant et la mer-Noire de la gabarre de Sa Majesté la
_Chevrette_, commandée par M. Gauttier, capitaine de vaisseau, dans
l’année 1820,” in _Annales maritimes et coloniales de Bajot_, 1821, and
reprinted in _Archives de l’art français, publiés sous la direction de
M. A. Montaiglon_, II series, Vol. II, 1863, pp. 202ff.
[2] “Un dernier mot sur la Venus de Milo,” in the _Revue
Contemporaine_, 1839, XIII, pp. 289ff.
[3] These fragments are preserved in a glass case at the window in the
same room of the Louvre where the Venus of Milo stands.
[4] Geskel Saloman, _Die Restauration der Venus von Milo, den Manen de
Claracs gewidmet_. Stockholm, 1895. Plate IV.
[5] Conze, _Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen zu Pergamon_.
[6] _The Venus di Milo, Its History and Its Art._ New York, Cambridge
Encyclopedia Co., 1900.
[7] As we might suppose in reading Hesiod, _Th._, 195ff, and Plato,
_Crat._, 406 c.
[8] Taylor mentions this Maori legend in his _New Zealand_, 119. Cf.
Andrew Lang, _Myth, Ritual and Religion_, I, 302, and Roscher, _Lex._,
s. v. “Kronos,” col. 1542.
[9] H. Steinthal, “Die Sage von Prometheus,” in _Zeitschrift für
Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, II, ii, 8-9.
[10] Διὸς κούρη.
[11] As reported in Roscher’s _Lexikon_, s. v. “Aphrodite.”
[12] Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_, I, p. 364.
[13] The original is written in a Sumerian dialect with a translation
into the Semitic Babylonian. See _Records of the Past_, New Series,
Vol. I, p. 85.
[14] Literally, “I do not take counsel, myself I am not wise.”
[15] _Records of the Past_, Vol. VII, p. 67.
[16] II, Pl. XLVIII, p. 697.
[17] For further details see Dr. Alfred Jeremias, who publishes
the text of the passages here quoted and offers a literal German
translation with editorial notes and other explanations. The
conception of the document as set forth in the quoted passages is
based upon the interpolation of Dr. Jeremias, which he justifies in
his critical notes. Dr. Jeremias’s interpretation of the concluding
words is justified by another cuneiform tablet which while relating a
conjuration of the dead begins with the same description of Sheol as
does the legend of Istar’s descent to Hell.
[18] The ancient poem of Istar’s descent to Hades has been cast into
poetic form by Edward Gilchrist. See _The Monist_, April, 1912. (Vol.
XXII, pp. 259-267.)
[19] The passages in brackets are mutilated in the original and the
words are suggested by the context or sometimes by parallel passages.
[20] Perhaps the dress of wings is an expression of the belief that the
soul is winged, found also in Egypt, where the soul of man is compared
to a human-headed hawk, in which form it is at liberty to visit other
places.
[21] Why the goddess Allatu proposes to weep is not quite clear.
Perhaps it is a promise to have all the funeral rituals with their
wailings and lamentations properly attended to for the sake of
preventing further attempts at having the dead reclaimed.
[22] The goddess Allatu.
[23] _Uddusunâmir_ means “his light will illumine.” The significance of
this being does not seem to be clear. Perhaps he is a mere puppet, an
automaton to bear the curse of Allatu without suffering harm.
[24] The name of the great gods is the most powerful means of
conjuration, and Ea alone, the god of unfathomable wisdom, seems
to have command of it. The Babylonian origin of the Talmudic and
cabalistic belief in the power of the mysterious name is fully
established.
[25] The same gestures of grief are recorded in Jeremiah xxxi. 19 for
the Hebrews, in Odyssey XXXI, 198 for the Greeks. In a similar way, we
read of Ea in another document, “when he heard this he bit his lip”
(cf. A. S. K. T., LXXXVI, 24).
[26] The context does not reveal why the Anunnaki, the seven evil
spirits of Sheol, should be placed upon the golden throne.
[27] The significance of Belili’s breaking a precious utensil in the
ritual of lamentation is not clear.
[28] From Woermann’s _Geschichte der Kunst_.
[29] For further details with regard to this relief see the author’s
_The Bride of Christ_, p. 8.
[30] See the author’s article. “The Fish as a Mystic Symbol in China
and Japan,” _The Open Court_, July, 1911.
[31] _Val_ means “the battle-field”; the name _Valkyrie_ designates
“the one who chooses,” viz., the maiden of Odin who selects heroes
for _Valhall_, the great hall of the god of battles. The root _Val_
is still preserved in the modern German word _Wahlstatt_, “place of
battle.”
[32] See the author’s _Soul of Man_, pp. 399ff.
[33] Pronounce _Russakósh_. The name refers to the part he will play in
the story; it means both “a ball of mercury,” and “a treasure of taste,
wit, literary sentiments or flavors,” a sort of walking encyclopedia.
The King’s companion is a salient figure in Hindu drama: he is a sort
of Sancho Panza, minus the vulgarity and the humor.
[34] “A tree with orange-colored fragrant blossoms.”
[35] The Hindu Vulcan, sometimes, as here, used for the Creator,
_dhatri_ = Plato’s δεμιοῡργος. Sanskrit literature is the key to
Plato; much of his philosophy is only the moonlike reflection of Hindu
mythology.
[36] Hindu poets see a resemblance between rows of bees and eye-glances.
[37] The Indian cuckoo. The crane is a by-word for inward villainy and
sanctimonious exterior.
[38] The _chakrawáka_, or Brahmany drake, is fabled to pass the night
sorrowing for the absence of his mate and she for him.
[39] בֵּיתאֵל
[40] Terra-cotta in Berlin Museum (Roscher, _Lex._, I, col. 407).
[41] See Pausanias 2, 10, 4.
[42] Cf. Roscher, _Lex._, I. cols. 411-412, and Preller. _Gr. M._, I,
p. 383.
[43] See Roscher, _Lex._, I, col. 406, and _Monuments grecs_, Pl. 1.
[44] From Dr. William Ellery Leonard’s translation.
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