gil tells us he had fifty heads and a hundred hands, from which he was called Centumgeminus, and aby the Grecians, Briareus. He hurled a hundred rocks against Jupiter at one throw; yet Jupiter dashed him down, bound him in a hundred chains, and thrust him under the mountain Ætna; where, as often as he moves his side, the mountain casts forth great flames of fire. cAloeus, because of his age, could not in this war take up arms against the gods; but he sent Othus and Ephialtes, who, though his wife Iphimedia had them by Neptune, were called Aloïde, from their reputed father. They went in their father Aloeus' stead, and assisted the Giants; but the same fate attended them, and they also suffered the punishment of their rashness in hell. Tityus was the son of Jupiter and Elara, born in a subterraneous cave, in which Jupiter hid his mother, fearing the anger of Juno. She brought forth a child of so prodigious a bulk, that the earth was rent to give him a passage out of the cave; and thence he was believed to be the son of the earth. Juno afterward persuaded this giant to accuse Latona of adultery; for which Jupiter struck him with thunder down into hell: there And as Egeon, when with heaven he strove, * Nec non et Tityum, terræ omniparentis alumnum, Y Virg. Æn. 6. he lies stretched out, covering nine acres of ground with his body; and a vulture continually gnaws his liver, which grows again every month. To these we may add the Titans, the sons of Terra and Cœlum; the chief of whom was Titanus, Saturn's eldest brother: they made war against Saturn, because the birth of Jupiter was concealed, and conquered him; but they were afterward overcome by Jupiter, and cast down into hell. SECT. 3.-OTHER FAMOUS OFFENDERS. PHLEGYAS, who was king of the Lapitha in Thessa lia and the father of the nymph Coronis. When he heard that Apollo had debauched his daughter, he went in anger and fired the temple of Apollo at Delphi : for which the enraged god shot him through the body with an arrow, and inflicted on him the following punishment: A great stone hangs over his head, which he imagines every moment will fall down and crush him to pieces: thus he sits, perpetually fearing what will never come to pass; which makes him frequently call out to men, to observe the rules of justice and the precepts of religion. Ixion was the son of this Phlegyas: he killed his own sister, and obtained his pardon from the gods, who advanced him to heaven; and his prosperity made him so A rav'nous vulture, in his open side Th' immortal hunger lasts, th' immortal food remains. a Eschyl. in Prometheo. b Quos super atra silex jamjam lapsura, cadentique Imminet assimilis. -A massy stone, Ready to drop, hangs o'er his cursed head. Virg. Æn. 6. C Discite justitiam montiti, et non temnere Divos. wanton, that he attempted to violate the chastity of Juno. This insolent attempt was discovered to Jupiter, who sent a cloud in the shape of Juno, which the deceived lover embraced, and thence those monsters the Centaurs were born: he was then thrown down to the earth again; where, because he boasted every-where that he had familiarly known the queen of the gods, he was struck with thunder down into hell, and tied fast to a wheel, which turns about continually. Salmoneus was king of Elis: his ambition was not satisfied with an earthly crown, for he desired divine honours; and, that the people might esteem him a god, he built a brazen bridge over the city, and drove his chariot upon it, imitating, by this noise, Jupiter's thunder; he also threw down lighted torches, and those who were struck by them, were taken and killed. Jupiter would not suffer so great insolence, therefore threw the proud man from his stage headlong into hell, where Eneas, when he visited the infernal regions, saw him punished, as Virgil relates. a Sisyphus was a famous robber, killed by Theseus: bhe is condemned in hell to roll ca great and unwieldy stone to the top of a high hill, and as often as the stone almost touches the top of the mountain, it slides down again. The Belides were fifty virgin-sisters, so called from their grandfather Belus; and named also Danaïdes, from their father Danaüs, who married them to the fifty sons of his brother. The oracle foretold, that Danais should be slain by his son-in-law; wherefore he commanded his daughters to provide daggers, and on their wedding night to kill their husbands. The daughters a Vidi crudeles dantem Salmonea pœnas, b Hesiod. Argon. C Ingens et non exsuperabile saxum. Virg. Æn. 6, performed their promises, and killed their husbands, except Hypermnestra, for she spared Lynceus, her husband, who afterward killed Danaüs, and took his kingdom. This great impiety was thus punished; "they were condemned to draw water out of a deep well, and fill a tub that (like a sieve) is full of holes : the water runs out of the tub as fast as it is put in, so that they are tormented with an unprofitable labour, without end. Tantalus, another remarkable criminal, was the son of Jupiter by the nymph Plota. He invited all the gods to a feast, to get a plain and clear proof of their divinity when they came, he killed and quartered his own son Pelops, and boiled him, and set the joints before them to eat. All the gods abstained from such horrid diet, except Ceres, who being melancholy and inattentive, from the recent loss of her daughter, eat one of the child's shoulders. Afterward the gods sent Mercury to recal him to life, and gave him an ivory shoulder, instead of the shoulder which Ceres had eaten. This Pelops was the husband of Hippodamia, who bore him Atreus and Thyestes; the latter of whom was banished, because he corrupted Ærope, his brother Atreus' wife; and when he was recalled from banishment, he eat up those children that he had by her; for Atreus killed them and had them served in dishes to the table, where he and Thyestes dined together. It is said,that the sun could not endure so horrible a sight, and turned his course back again to the east. But as Tantalus' crime was greater, so was his punishment; dfor he is tormented with eternal hunger and thirst in the midst of plenty both of meat and drink : he stands in water up to his lips, but cannot reach it; and fruit is placed just to his mouth which he cannot take hold of. Ovid mentions the a Assiduas repetunt quas perdunt Belides undas. Ov. Met. 4. They hourly fetch the water that they spill. Euseb. Præp. Evang. Pindar. in Olymp. d Hom. Odyss.11. Half-drown'd he thirsts, the dangling apples swing punishment of Tantalus, but assigns another reason for it; namely, because he divulged the secrets of the gods to men. Now this fable of Tantalus represents the condition of a miser, who in the midst of plenty suffers want, and wants as much the things which he has, as those which he has not; as Horace rightly says, where he applies this fable of Tantalus to the real wants of the covetous man. CHAPTER XI. MONSTERS OF HELL. THERE are many strange pictures of these infernal monsters, but the most deformed are the Centaurs,who are the ancient inhabitants of Thessalia, and the first who tamed horses, and used them in war. Their neighbours, who first saw them on horseback, thought that they had partly the members of a man, and partly the limbs of a horse. But the poets tell us another story; for they say that Ixion begat them of a cloud, which he believed to be Juno. Whence they are called 'Nubigena; and Bacchus is said to have overcome them. Geryon, because he was the king of three islands called Balearides, cis feigned to have three bodies; or, it may be because there were three brothers of the same name, whose minds and affections were so united, that they seemed to be governed and to live by one soul, They add, that Geryon kept oxen, which devoured the strangers that came to him: they were guarded by a a Tantalus à labris sitiens fugientia captat Flumina. Quid rides ? mutato nomine, de te Fabula narratur. b Serm. 1. 1. Though Tantalus, you've heard, does stand chin deep At which you smile; now all on't would be true, Were the name chang'd and the tale told of you. |
