The mythology of ancient Greece and Italy [for students at the University] / By Thomas Keightley.

  • Keightley, Thomas, 1789-1872.
Date:
1838
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mythology of ancient Greece and Italy [for students at the University] / By Thomas Keightley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/616 (page 13)
    In fact, if the theory of these men be true, the necessity for Christianity becomes a questiona. Of these three classes the last alone is peculiar to modern times: the two former theories were, as we shall presently see, familiar to the ancients. We must also observe, that all are true to a certain extent. Some mythes are historical, some physical, some moral, some theological; but no single one of these theories will suffice to account for the whole body of the mythology of any people. Some of them, too,, apply more to one system than another: the Scandinavian my- thology, for example, is of a more physical character than the Grecian: the Indian is more metaphysical than either the Grecian or the Scandinavian. The mythologies which offer the widest fields for inquiry are those of ancient Greece, of India, and of Scandinavia. To these may be added that of ancient Egypt. Italy has left no mythology, properly speaking, though for the sake of uni- formity we so denominate the account of its deities and reli- gion given in the present work. The Persian cycle, which is preserved in the Shah-nameh of Ferdousi, is purely heroic; and the Celtic tribes of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands had also a small heroic cycle, of which Cuchullin, Fingal, Gaul, Oscar, and other personages whose names are familiar to the readers of the pseudo-Ossian are the heroesb. It is chiefly to the explanation of the rich and elegant my- thology of Greece that modern inquirers have applied them- selves; and by the labours of Vossc, Buttmann, Muller, Volcker, Welcker and other writers, whose names will appear in the following pages, it has in our opinion been reduced a We would advise those who have studied the writings of Creuzer, Gorres, Schelling, Sickler, and other writers of this school, to read as a sure antidote the Antisymbolik of Voss, and the Aglaophamus of Lobeck. b In the author’s ‘ Tales and Popular Fictions,’ chap, iv., will be found some ac- count of the Shah-nameh, and one of its most interesting narratives. The reader will also meet in the same place with some remarks on Ossian. c We shall frequently find ourselves under the necessity of differing in opinion with this estimable critic, but we most heartily concur in the following just pane- gyric on him : “ Dum hsec studia vigebunt, dum patrius sermo coletur, dmn recto veroque suum constabit pretium Semper honos nomenque viri laudesque manebunt.” (Lobeck, Aglaoph. 1295.)