Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

RELIGION AND EROTIC

been split by Hephestus with an axe. This story, which is told by older poets such as Hesiod (Theogony, 886 ff.) and Pindar (Olympia, vu, 34 ff. ; Homeric Hymns, 28) with religious seriousness, and meets us on numberless vase paintings, gave later times occasion for fun and jest. ‘Thus Lucian, in his eighth Dialogue of the Gods, wittily parodies the story as follows :—

Hephestus : What must I do, Zeus ? for I have come as you ordered, with the sharpest axe I have, sharp enough even if it were necessary to cut a stone with a single blow.

Zeus: (Good, Hephzstus! Cleave my head and divide it into two parts with a downward blow.

Heph.: Are you testing me, to see whether I am mad? Come now, tell me only what you want done to you.

Zeus: Just this—divide my skull. Obey at once, or you will make me angry, and not for the first time ! But mind you strike with all your might, without delay ; for I am dying with the pains which distract my brain.

Heph.: Mind, Zeus, that we do no harm; for the axe is sharp, and will not play the midwife without bloodshed, in the gentle manner of Eilythyia.

Zeus : Come, strike down boldly ; for I know what is best !

Heph.: Iwill do so, but unwillingly; for who can resist when yougive anorder? [Strikes] What is this? A maiden in full armour! You had a great evil in your head, O Zeus, so naturally you were illtempered when producing so mighty a virgin beneath the membrane of your brain, and one in full armour too ; forsooth, you had a camp and not a head, without us knowing it. Already she leaps and dances the Pyrrhic dance, shakes her shield and brandishes her spear and is roused to fury ; and, most wonderful of all, she is very beautiful and has attained maturity in a few moments! She is bright-eyed, somewhat like a cat, but her helmet

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