dog with two heads, and a dragon with seven. Hercu les killed the guards and drove the oxen away. The Harpies, so called "from their rapacity, were born of Oceanus and Terra. They had the faces of virgins, and the bodies of birds; their hands were armed with claws, and their habitation was in the islands. Their names were Aello, Ocypete, and Celeno; which last brought forth Zephyrus (the west wind) and Balius and Xanthus, the horses of Achilles. Virgil gives us an belegant description of these three sisters. To the three Harpies add the three Gorgons, Medusa,. Stheno, and Euryale, who were the daughters of Phorcus and Cete. Instead of hair, their heads were covered with vipers, which so terrified the beholder, that they turned him presently into a stone. Perhaps they intended to represent, by this part of the fable, the extraordinary beauty of these sisters; which was such, that whoever saw them were amazed, and stood immoveable like stones. There were other Gorgons beside, born of the same parents, who were called Lamia, or Empuse. They had only one eye and one tooth, common to them all they kept this tooth and eye at home in a little vessel, and whichsoever of them went 1 Ab αρπάζω, rapio. At subite horrifico lapsu de montibus adsunt When from the mountain-tops, with hideous cry Æn. S: abroad, she used them. They had the faces of wo men, and also the necks and breasts; but below they were covered with scales, and had the tails of serpents. They used to entice men, and then devour them. Their breasts were naked, and their bosoms were open; they looked on the ground as it were out of modesty; thus they tempted men to discourse with them, and when they came near, these Lamie used to fly in their faces, and strangle them, and tear them to pieces. And what more plainly expresses the evil arts of wicked women? Against whom the Scriptures caution us in these words, "The sea-monsters draw out the breast, they give suck." Others only mention one Lamia, who was a most beautiful woman: Jupiter debauched her, and Juno, through jealousy, deprived her of the children that she bore. She became distracted with grief, and devoured other people's children in their cradles. g The Chimera dwas a monster, which vomited forth fire ; he had the head and breast of a lion, the belly of a goat, and the tail of a dragon, as it is expressed in a known verse, and described by Ovid. A volcano in Lycia occasioned this fable; for on the top of the mountain were lions, in the middle, where was pasture, goats lived, and the bottom of it abounded with serpents. Bellerophon made this mountain habitable, and therefore is said to have killed the Chimera. The monster Sphinx was begotten iof Typhon and Echidna. She had the head and breast of a woman, a Dion. Hist. Libvæ. b Lamiæ nudaverunt mammam. Lamentat. iv. 3. c Dures Rerum Libycar. 1. 2. d Hom. Iliad. e Hesiod. in Theog. 14. 1 Prima leo, postrema draco, media inde capella. 8 Quoque Chimæra jugo, mediis in partibus ignem, And on the craggy top Chimera dwell's, with lion's face and mane, A goat's rough body, and a serpent's train. h Pausan. in Corinth. i Vide Nat. Com. Met. 9. the wings of a bird, the body of a dog, and the paws of a lion. She lived in the mountain Sphincius, assaulted all passengers, and infested the country about Thebes; insomuch that the oracle of Apollo was consulted concerning her, and answer was made, that unless some. body did resolve the riddle of Sphinx, there would be no end of that great evil. Many endeavoured to explain it, but were overcome, and torn in pieces by the mon ster. Creon, at that time king of Thebes, published an edict through all Greece, in which, if any one could explain the riddle of Sphinx, he promised that he would give him to wife his own sister Jocasta. The riddle was this: "What animal is that, which goes upon four feet in the morning, upon two at noon, and upon three at night?" Oedipus, encouraged with the hopes of the reward, undertook it, and happily explained it; so that the Sphinx was enraged, and cast herself headlong from a rock, and died. He said, that the animal was a man, who in his infancy creeps upon his hands and feet, and so may be said to go on four feet; when he grows up, he walks on two feet; but when he grows old, he uses the support of a staff, and so may be said to walk on three feet. This Oedipus was the son of Laius, king of Thebes. Soon after his birth, Laius commanded a soldier to carry his son Oedipus, into a wood, and then destroy him; because it had been foretold by the oracle, that he should be killed by his own son. But the soldier was moved with pity toward the child, and afraid to embrue his hands in royal blood; wherefore he pierced his feet with a hook, and hanged him upon a tree to be killed with hunger. One of the shepherds of Polybius, king of Corinth, found him, and brought him to the queen, who, because she had no children, educated him as her own son, and from this swollen feet called him Oedipus. a Quidnam animal mane quadrupes, meridie bipes, vesperi tripes esset? b Stat. 1. Theb. Plutarch. Ælian. et alii. c Puerum Edipum vocavit à tumere pedum oldi enim tumeo et Tes pedem significat. When Oedipus came to age, he knew that king Polybius was not his father, and therefore resolved to find out his parents he consulted the oracle and was told that he should meet his father in Phocis. In his journey he met some passengers, among whom was his father, but he knew him not: a quarrel arose, and in the fray he by chance killed his father. After this, he proceeded on his journey, and arrived at Thebes, where he overcame Sphinx, and for his reward married Jocasta, whom he knew not to be his mother then, but discovered it afterward. He had, by her, two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismenɑ. When afterward he found, by clear proof, that he had killed his father, and married his mother, he was seized with so great madness that he pulled out his own eyes, and would have killed himself, if his daughter Antigone (who led him about after he was blind) had not hindered him. Ete Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus and Joeasta, bsucceeded their father in the government; and they agreed to reign a year each, in their turns. ocles reigned the first year, and then refused to admit his brother Polynices to the throne; upon which a war arose, and the two brothers, in a duel, killed each other. Their enmity lasted longer than their lives; for when their bodies were placed on the same pile, to be burnt by the same fire, the flames refused to unite, but divided themselves into two parts. CHAPTER XII. THE ELYSIUM. THERE is a place in the infernal dominions abounding with pleasures and delights, which is called the Elysium; because thither the souls of the good resort, after they are loosed from the chains of the body, and have been purged from the light offences that they had contracted in this world. Æneas received this account from one of the inhabitants of it, as Virgil tells us, who describes this place as abounding with all the delights that the most pleasant plains, the most verdant fields, the shadiest groves, and the finest and most temperate air can produce. * Aπò Tйg húσews, a solutione ; quod Anime piorum corporeis solutæ vinculis, loca illi petant postquam purgatæ sunt à levio ribus noxis quas contraxerant. b Quisque suos patimur manes; exinde per amplum These holy rites perform'd, they took their way, Stars of their own, and their own sun they know. Æn. 6. |
