The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology : an inquiry / by Richard Payne Knight.

  • Knight, Richard Payne, 1751-1824.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology : an inquiry / by Richard Payne Knight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    No. Pagk. toncheires. These and the Titans are the giants who cannot be killed but only reduced to slavery as the workers in the laboratory of nature. Other powers engage the mighty Zeus :— Three Fates .\tropos Past Remorse Lachesis Present Despair Klotho Future Foreboding - Necessity. Three Furies .Allekto . , Megaira .. Tisiphone The Forty Harpies ] I Eumenides Hatred. ^ Jealousy. Revenge. . . Slander. 329. Marsyas seated.—Boiir. Miis 330. Sculptor at work.—Boiir. Mas 331. Daedalus and Icarus.—Boiir. Miis Daedalus is the cunning workman, the unequaled smith in metals, the .solar artificer, the Sun himself, and Icarus is another Phaethon, in a new attempt to make fame on his father’s reputation. Daedalus made the labyrinth in Crete for the Minotaur, and wings of wax for his ambitious son. See Ovid, Met. VIII. 3. 332. Leda and Jupiter as the Swan.—Palais Royal. 316 Leda is the night, the mother of the gods, and by her Zeus became lather of two pairs of twins at one birth ; as shown in the picture. From two eggs were born Helen and Polydeukes, and Klytaimnestra and Kastor. This is a poetical view of the origin of the human race which is as near the truth as any other. 333. Theseus AND Kentaur.—Palais Royal. 319 Theseus is said to be a great solar hero, a child of Aithra, the pure air, or according to another poet, son of Poseidon, or of Aigeus. Ai geus denotes the dash of waters on the shore, so he is Poseidon. Theseus is the core of a double account, the mythical god, and the , Attic hero-king. The god does a number of great deeds, more or less like those of Hercules, which repeat the account of the war of the gods of light, Indra, Oidipous, Herakles (and Theseus) against the powers of darkness, Vritya, Ahi, Sphinx, &c. In the enemies overcome by dlieseus Sinis Pityokamptes is a robber ; that is to say, the storm- wind is an obscurer of the sunlight. Phaia, the sow of Krommyon (boar of Erymanthos, Chimaira), is the dense fog on the cliff; Skei- ron, the monster who hurls travelers from the cliffs is the fierce wind ; Kerkyon (Kerkopes), who kills by wrestling is probably the whirl- wind, and as the whirlwind is the child of the son and air, it is the story of Laios, or Akrisios, or Amulius, or other beings who destroy their children. In Alope the story of Auge, Semele, Danae is re- peated. The robber Prokroustes (Procrustes) is the hammerer, the beater, the heavy wind with rain or snow. Theseus and Kentaur is