Part 65

Καὶ γὰρ καὶ οἱ κύνες βλάπτονται, κ. τ. λ. All that Arrian here anticipates as a consequence of neglect of the rural deities, Savary of Caen, in bitterness of heart, invokes on the ill-fated heads of the brethren of the leash; whom he designates as enamoured of the savage pugnacity of the bull-dog greyhound—with which alone, the wolf-greyhound of his country, this poet was acquainted. Great as may have been his love of the harrier’s chase, and great his admiration of its followers, whom he calls Dian’s legitimate worshippers, I cannot conceive him conversant with the genuine pastime of his Celtic ancestry, nor with the κύων τῇ ἀληθείᾳ γενναῖος of Arrian, when he wrote the following virulent anathema:

Talia legitimos non infortunia tangant Cultores, Diana, tuos: inhonora Laconis Sed quoscunque juvat feritas truculenta Molossi, Sola quibus cædes, si qua est in cæde voluptas, Illorum paribus turbentur gaudia causis. Mulcta suppliciis cor insatiabile prædæ. Plecte viros, extingue canes, rabiemque ferocem Instilla, dominus catulis odiosus et ipsis, Exæquet falsum veris Actæona pœnis. Et qui participes (pigeat licet ista precari) Disrumpantur equi, domini plectantur in illis!

Ælian tells us there is a temple of Diana in an isle of the Red Sea called Icarus, abounding with goats, roe-deer, and hares, which a sportsman may catch, if the goddess be duly petitioned; but if not, he is not only unsuccessful in his sport, but punished for the transgression—ἐὰν δὲ μὴ αἰτήσῃ, οὔτε αἱρεῖ, καὶ δίδωσι δίκας, ἃς ἄλλοι λεγούσιν.

Ὅμηρος ἐν τῇ ποιήσει. Arrian alludes to the contest for the prize of archery, at the games celebrated by Achilles on the occasion of the funeral of his friend Patroclus. I give Pope’s translation of the passage:

To the tall top a milk-white dove they tie, The trembling mark at which their arrows fly. “Whose weapon strikes yon fluttering bird, shall bear These two-edged axes, terrible in war; The single he, whose shaft divides the cord.” He said: experienced Merion took the word; And skilful Teucer: in the helm they threw Their lots inscribed, and forth the latter flew. Swift from the string the sounding arrow flies; But flies unblest! No grateful sacrifice, No firstling lambs, unheedful! didst thou vow To Phœbus, patron of the shaft and bow. For this, thy well-aim’d arrow, turn’d aside, Err’d from the dove, yet cut the cord that tied: Adown the mainmast fell the parted string, And the free bird to heav’n displays her wing: Seas, shores, and skies with loud applause resound, And Merion eager meditates the wound: He takes the bow, directs the shaft above, And following with his eye the soaring dove, Implores the god to speed it through the skies, With vows of firstling lambs, and grateful sacrifice. The dove, in airy circles as she wheels Amid the clouds, the piercing arrow feels: Quite through and through the point its passage found, And at his feet fell bloody to the ground.

Ἐπειδὴ μὴ ἐπηύξατο τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι. The God of Archers and Archery.

The poet and the courser would both teach us the same lesson—that without addressing supplication to heaven, we cannot succeed in our undertakings. Merion does not conquer because he is the better archer, but because he is the better man.

Τοὺς ἐκγόνους δὲ τῶν ἐπὶ Θήβας σὺν Πολυνείκῃ. The Homeric line cited by Arrian from the speech of Sthenelus, in the fourth book of the Iliad, alludes to the victors of the second Theban war, wherein the sons of the seven captains subdued the city, before which their fathers had perished:

With fewer troops we storm’d the Theban wall, And happier saw the sev’n-fold city fall. In impious acts the guilty fathers died; The sons subdued, for heav’n was on their side.

Capaneus, the sire of Sthenelus, was thunder-struck, while blaspheming Jupiter—

Talia dicentem toto Jove fulmen adactum Corripuit.

Πολυδάμαντι οὐκ ἐῶντι. From Pope’s translation I extract a part of the speech of Polydamas, with the omen referred to:

Seek not this day the Grecian ships to gain; For sure to warn us Jove his omen sent, And thus my mind explains its clear event: The victor eagle whose sinister flight Retards our host, and fills our hearts with fright, Dismiss’d his conquest in the middle skies, Allow’d to seize, but not retain the prize, &c.

Pope’s version of Hector’s reply to this speech of Polydamas, is one of the most splendid specimens of his talent to be found in the poem—as the whole incident is perhaps the finest of Flaxman’s beautiful illustrations of the immortal bard.

Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν ἀπειθεῖν τῷ θείῳ. Homer himself draws many similar inferences in the progress of his interesting tales both of the Iliad and the Odyssey—χαλεπόν τοι ἐρισθενέος Κρονίωνος—παισὶν ἐριζέμεναι—and again, θεόθεν δ’ οὐκ ἐστ’ ἀλέασθαι: and Pindar abounds with like injunctions of humble submission to the divine will—χρὴ δὲ πρὸς—θεὸν οὐκ ἐρίζειν, κ. τ. λ.—ποτὶ κέντρον δέ τοι—λακτιζέμεν, τελέθει—ὀλισθηρὸς οἶμος. See also vs. 89. ejusd. Carm. The reader cannot but recollect the memorable counterpart to these words, (with reverence be they cited!) in the Apostolic history of the conversion of St. Paul—σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν.

How beautiful the metaphor that runs through the following lines of the poet of Cilicia!

ἀλλ’ αἰεὶ μάκαρες πανυπέρτατοι ἡνία πάντη κλίνουσ’, ᾗ κ’ ἐθέλωσιν· ὁ δ’ ἕσπεται, ὅς κε σαόφρων, πρὶν χαλεπῇ μάστιγι καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλων ἐλάηται.

See the sensible remarks of Xenophon on the words ΣΥΝ ΘΕΩ ΠΡΑΤΤΕΙΝ, at the conclusion of his treatise De Offic. Magistr. Equit. c. +ix.+

Ἄρχεσθαί τε ἀπὸ θεῶν. “A Diis immortalibus,” says Cicero, “sunt nobis agendi capienda primordia:” and Julius Pollux, to whom I have frequently referred in the early part of these annotations, concludes his address to Commodus, at the commencement of his Onomasticon, with the same sentiment—ποιήσομαι δὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν, ἀφ’ ὧν μάλιστα προσήκει τοὺς εὐσεβεῖς, ἀπὸ τῶν θεῶν.

Χαριστήρια θύειν εὖ πράξαντα. So in his Anabasis, Arrian writes, θύσαι Ἀλέξανδρον ἐν Καρμανίᾳ χαριστήρια τῆς κατ’ Ἰνδῶν νίκης, κ. τ. λ. These free-will offerings may be considered in the light of grateful acknowledgments to the gods for blessings received. They were paid by soldiers after victory, by husbandmen after harvest, and by sportsmen after success in the field.

Σπένδειν. Wine was generally used in these libations, but not always; for there were νηφάλια ἱερὰ—sober sacrifices, wherein no wine was poured forth. Generally, however, wine was employed, as we learn from Virgil’s “frontique invergit vina sacerdos.”

Εὐφημεῖν—“favere linguâ, bona verba dicere.” This expression does not seem to mean that the persons present at a sacrifice were to observe profound silence, but rather to abstain only from words of evil omen. Mr. Cowper has preserved its sense correctly in his translation of εὐφημῆσαι, Iliad +ix.+ 171. “That every tongue abstain from speech—Portentous.” Ogilby, Dacier, and Pope, all mistake the signification of εὐφημεῖν. “Præcones clamantes,” says Festus, “populum sacrificiis favere jubebant. Favere est bona fari.” But Bourdin ad Aristoph. Thesmophor. εὐφημεῖν σημαίνει σιγᾷν καὶ σιωπᾷν δι’ εὐφημίας.

Στεφανοῦν. The sacrificial victims were adorned with garlands and crowns on their horns and necks. The altars were decorated with sacred herbs, and the priests themselves wore crowns upon their heads, composed of the leaves of the tree sacred to the deity to whom they paid their devotions. See Tertullian de Idololatriâ.

Ὑμνεῖν. Hunting-carols, it may be, were chanted to Dian and her sylvan train, by the Celts and other sportsmen of old. It was customary to sing hymns in honour of the Gods, and dance around the altar of sacrifice, on occasion of celebrating the more important religious rites; when the songs, in general, commemorated the exploits of the worshipped, enumerated their virtues, and the benefits conferred upon the worshippers, expressing, at the same time, a wish for their continuance. Ὕμνοι μὲν ἐς τοὺς θεοὺς ποιοῦνται, ἔπαινοι δὲ ἐς ἀνθρώπους, says Callisthenes, in his splendid speech on the line of distinction to be drawn between divine and human honours.

Ἀπαρχὰς τῶν ἁλισκομένων ἀνατιθέναι. The ἀπαρχαὶ, or first-fruits of animal sacrifices, were small pieces of flesh cut from every part of the beast, and offered to the gods, (see Homer, passim): but hunters, according to Pitiscus, dedicated to the Goddess of the Chase the head, horns, feet, skin, &c. of the slaughtered game; to which custom Nisus alludes in his invocation to Diana:

Si qua tuis unquam pro me pater Hyrtacus aris Doma tulit, si qua ipse meis venatibus auxi, Suspendive tholo, aut sacra ad fastigia fixi: Hunc sine me, &c.

Ὁ τῇ νίκῃ πολέμου ἀκροθίνια. Before the spoils of victory were distributed among the warriors, they considered themselves obliged to make an offering out of them to the Gods, to whose assistance they were indebted for them all. Those separated to this use were termed, according to the author of the Archæologia Græca, ἀκροθίνια, because taken ἀπ’ ἄκρου τοῦ θινὸς, from the top of the heap.

To Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, and his Origin of the Chase, reference is elsewhere given. Identical with his view of its rise, progress, and demerit, is that of Joannes Sarisberiensis, in his Policraticus, De Venaticâ et autoribus et speciebus ejus, et exercitio licito et illicito. “Et primi quidem Thebani,” says John, (who wrote in the reign of our second Henry, and from whom later authors have purloined the oft-repeated reprobation,) “si fidem sequamur historiæ, eam communicandam omnibus statuerunt. Et ex quo suspecta sit omnibus gens fœda parricidiis, ipcestibus detestanda, insignis fraude, nota perjuriis, hujus artificii, vel potiùs maleficii, in primis præcepta congessit, quæ postmodum ad gentem mollem imbellemque, levem et impudicam (Phrygios loquor) transmitteret,” &c.