Mellona is the goddess who invented the art of making honey. And Fornax is esteemed a goddess; because, before the invention of grinding the wheat, the bread corn was parched in a furnace, Ovid makes mention of this goddess. These mean deities are but the refuse of the gods. Let us leave them and turn our eyes to the left-hand wall in this Pantheon, where we shall see the gods of the Sea. a Artem mellificii excogitavit. b Facta Dea est Fornax, læti fornace coloni A Goddess Fornax is, and her the clowns adore, Fast 6. TH PUY PART III OF THE GODS OF THE SEA. SECT. 1. CHAPTER I. -NEPTUNE. HIS NAME AND DESCENT. Are P. THIS is a glorious and beautiful scene. these the gods of the waters? Are these the marine gods, whose numerous companies are carried all over the liquid plains of the sea in shells? M. These are the gods, the presidents, the princes, of the vast finny regions, and the moderators of the flowing waves. P. And who is that king, with black hair and blue eyes, who holds a sceptre in his right hand like a fork with three tines, and is so beautifully arrayed in a mantle of blue, clasping his left hand round his queen's waist ? He stands upright in his chariot, which is a large escalop-shell, drawn by sea-horses, and attended by odd. kind of animals, which resemble men in the upper parts, and fish in the lower. M. It is Neptune, whose name is derived, by the change of a few letters, from the word anubo, which signifies to cover; because the sea encompasses, embraces, and, as it were, covers the land. Or, as others believe, he is so called from an Egyptian word (nepihen) which signifies the coasts and promontories, and other A nubendo quod mare terras obnubat. Varro. parts of the earth which are washed by the waters. So that Cicero, who derives Neptune from nando (swimming) is either mistaken, bor the place is corrupt. a It is Neptune, I say, the governor of the sea, the father of the rivers and the fountains, and the son of Saturn by Ops. His mother preserved him from the devouring jaws of Saturn, who, as we remarked before, eat up all the male children that were born to him, by giving Saturn a young foal to eat in his stead. In the Greek he is called Пodoy [Poseidon] because he so binds our feet that we are not able to walk within his dominions, that is, on the water. When he came to age, Saturn's kingdom was divided by lot, and the maritime parts fell to him. He and Apollo, by Jupiter's command,were forced to serve Laomedon, in building the walls of Troy: because he and some other gods had plotted against Jupiter. Then he took Amphitrite to wife, who refused a long [time to hearken to his courtship, and comply with his desires: but at last, by the assistance of a dolphin; and by the power of flattery, he gained her. To recompense which kindness, the dolphin was placed among the stars, and made a constellation. Amphitrite had two other names; Salacia, so called from salum, the sea, for the salt water toward the lower part and bottom of the sea; and Venilia, so named from veniendo, because the sea goes and comes with the tide, or ebbs and flows by turns. SECT. 3.ACTIONS OF NEPTUNE. THE poets tell us, that Neptune produced a horse, in Attica, out of the ground, by striking it with his a De Nat. Deor. 2. am b Lipsius et Bochartus. c Qui wool Stopov, hoc est, pedibus vinculum injicit, ne pedibus aquas bulemus. Plato in Cratyl. d Dicitur ἀμφιτρίτη παρὰ τὸ ἀμετ Opie, à circumterendo, quod terram mare circumterat. e Aug. de Civ. Dei. f Soph. in Edip. Magno tellus percussa tridenti. Virg. Geo. 1. With his huge trident having struck the ground. |
