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

RELIGION AND ErRoTIc

for them in the inn,” that is certainly a touching picture, simple and intimate, which in particular has given to art countless incitements to wonderful representations. But the Greek poetical account celebrates true orgies of beauty in describing the birth of its god of light (Homeric Hymns, iii, 89 ff. ; Theognis, 5 ff.).

Thus the Greek saviour entered into life, to begin the fight with the powers of darkness, who were conceived of as horrible dragons, and afterwards to fulfil his own special mission, that is, to bless men with light, sun and joy in life. When his mother Leto is handled by the uncouth giant Tityus (Homer, Od., xi, 576) with lustful grip, he lays the monster low with his unerring arrows and banishes him to the underworld, there to be punished eternally as a symbol of illicit sexual greed.

As god of light and joy he selects as his charming favourite and playmate, Hyacinthus. But all that is beautiful flourishes only for a short while; an unlucky accident or, according to another version, the jealousy of the wind-god Zephyrus, who had fallen in love with the beautiful boy, directs the orb of the discus when hurled while they were playing together, so that it hurtled down upon the head of Hyacinthus, and he dies in tenderest youthful beauty ; and the earth afterwards causes the flower named after him to spring from his blood, an ingenious symbol—that soon found its way into popular song—of the quickly passing transitory time of youthful bloom and the sweet spring, whose flowers speedily wither under the glowing orb of the sun (to which the discus points), and in the fiery heat of the dogstar of summer. In memory of the beautiful favourite of Apollo, who died so early, the festival of the Hyacinthia was celebrated in July (p. 114).

Among the most charming stories related of Apollo in mythology, are those of his life as a herdsman. Homer (1., xxi, 448 ; ii, 766) already knows

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