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

RRLIGION AND Erotic

ancient times ; she secretly bears a child in the forest, a boy, whom in her sore need she is obliged to leave lying there; but two snakes come and feed him with honey. The foster-father returns from Delphi with the answer that the new-born boyis Apollo’s son, and is destined to become the ancestor of an immortal family of seers. He now inquires everywhere, yet no one knows anything of the boy; but the mother fetches him out of the wood, where he lay covered with violets, wherefore she named him Iamos, that is, ‘‘ the son of violets ” (from ion, a violet).

The story further told that Apollo had forced the love of Cyrene, the daughter of the Thessalian King Hypseus. This story also Pindar has illuminated wonderfully in his own manner ; it was inconsistent with his high conception of the gods that Apollo should have obtained the love of Cyrene by force, therefore the poet describes how in the heart of Apollo passion strives with the nobility of his soul, and transfers this conflict to a dialogue between Apollo and Cheiron, the wise centaur and tutor of the heroes. As Heinemann says, Apollo and Cheiron, that is, youthful impetuousness and the spirit of wisdom, are the twin souls in the breast of the god. Hence is to be explained Cheiron’s humorous, indeed bantering tone: he gives his advice, but he knows that Apollo will not decide otherwise than he does (Pythia, ix, 18 ff.). “ And Hypseus cherished his fair-armed daughter, Cyrene; she cared not for pacing to and fro before the loom, nor for merry banquets with stay-at-home maidens of her own age ; but, using for the contest brazen darts and the falchion, she would slay the fierce beasts of prey, thus in very deed assuring deep and perfect rest for her father’s kine, while she spent on her eyelids but a scanty store of that slumber which is so sweet a bedfellow when dawn draweth near. Once did Apollo, the far-darting god of the wide quiver, find her without spears, wrestling alone with a monstrous

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