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Primogenial, or Creative Love, in the Orphic mythology, is the first-born of Night and Chaos, the most ancient of the gods, and the parent of all things. According to Aristophanes, Night produced an egg in the bosom of Erebus, and golden-winged Love burst in due season from the shell. The Egyptians, as Plutarch informs us in his Erotic dialogue, recognised three distinct powers of Love: the Uranian, or Heavenly; the Pandemian, Vulgar or Earthly; and the Sun. That the identity of the Sun and Primogenial Love was recognised also by the Greeks, appears from the community of their epithets in mythological poetry, as in this Orphic line: Πρωτογονος Φαεθων περιμηκεος ηερος υιος. Lactantius observes that Love was called Πρωτογονος, which signifies both first-produced and first-producing, because nothing was born before him, but all things have proceeded from him. Primogenial Love is represented in antiques mounted on the back of a lion, and, being of Egyptian origin, is traced by the modern astronomical interpreters of mythology to the Leo of the Zodiac. Uranian Love, in the mythological philosophy of Plato, is the deity or genius of pure mental passion for the good and the beautiful; and Pandemian Love, of ordinary sexual attachment.

Lysippus.

Phryne was the mistress of Praxiteles. She requested him to give her his most beautiful work, which he promised to do, but refused to tell which of his works was in his own estimation the best. One day when he was with Phryne, her servant running in announced to him that his house was on fire. Praxiteles started up in great agitation, declaring that all the fruit of his labour would be lost, if his Love should be injured by the flames. His mistress dispelled his alarm, by telling him that the report of the fire was merely a stratagem, by which she had obtained the information she desired. Phryne thus became possessed of the masterpiece of Praxiteles, and bestowed it on her native Thespia. Strabo names, instead of Phryne, Glycera, who was also a Thespian; but in addition to the testimony of Pausanias and Athenæus, Casaubon cites a Greek epigram on Phryne, which mentions her dedication of the Thespian Love.

Sacrifices were offered at this festival for the appeasing of all public and private dissensions. Autobulus,in the beginning of Plutarch's Erotic dialogue, says, that his father and mother, when first married, went to the Thespian festival, to sacrifice to Love, on account of a quarrel between their parents.

The allusions are to the Hippolytus and Alcestis of Euripides, and to the Antigone of Sophocles.

Τα δε ροδα εκεινα ουκ ην ροδα αληθινα: τα δ'ην εκ της αγριας δαφνης φυομενα: ροδοδαφνην αυτην καλουσιν ανθ ρωποι: κακον αριστον ονω τουτο παντι, και ιππω: φασι γαρ τον φαγοντα αποθνησκειν αυτικα. Lucianus in Asino. —“These roses were not true roses: they were flowers of the wild laurel, which men call rhododaphne, or rose-laurel. It is a bad dinner for either horse or ass, the eating of it being attended by immediate death.” Apuleius has amplified this passage: “I observed from afar the deep shades of a leafy grove, through whose diversified and abundant verdure shone the snowy colour of refulgent roses. As my perceptions and feelings were not asinine like my shape, I judged it to be a sacred grove of Venus and the Graces, where the celestial splendor of their genial flower glittered through the dark-green shades. I invoked the propitious power of joyful Event, and sprang forward with such velocity, as if I were not indeed an ass, but the horse of an Olympic charioteer. But this splendid effort of energy could not enable me to outrun the cruelty of my fortune. For on approaching the spot, I saw, not those tender and delicate roses, the offspring of auspicious bushes, whose fragrant leaves make nectar of the morning-dew; nor yet the deep wood I had seemed to see from afar; but only a thick line of trees skirting the edge of a river. These trees, clothed with an abundant and laurel-like foliage, from which they stretch forth the cups of their pale and inodorous flowers, are called, among the unlearned rustics, by the far from rustic appellation of laurel-roses: the eating of which is mortal to all quadrupeds. Thus entangled by evil fate, and despairing of safety, I was on the point of swallowing the poison of those fictitious roses, &c.” Pliny says, that this plant, though poison to quadrupeds, is an antidote to men against the venom of serpents.

The plane was sacred to the Genius, as the oak to Jupiter, the olive to Minerva, the palm to the Muses, the myrtle and rose to Venus, the laurel to Apollo, the ash to Mars, the beech to Hercules, the pine to Pan, the fir and ivy to Bacchus, the cypress to Sylvanus, the cedar to the Eumenides, the yew and poppy to Ceres, &c. “I swear to you,” says Socrates in the Phædrus of Plato, “by any one of the gods, if you will, by this plane.”

Ascra derived its name from a nymph, of whom Neptune was enamoured. She bore him a son named Œoclus, who built Ascra in conjunction with the giants Ophus and Ephialtes, who were also sons of Neptune, by Iphimedia, the wife of Alœus. Pausanias mentions, that nothing but a solitary tower of Ascra was remaining in his time. Strabo describes it as having a lofty and rugged site. It was the birth-place of Hesiod, who gives a dismal picture of it.

“The andrachne,” says Pausanias, “grows abundantly in Helicon, and bears fruit of incomparable sweetness.”—Pliny says, “It is the same plant which is called in Latin illecebra: it grows on rocks, and is gathered for food.”

It was said by the Thracians, that those nightingales which had their nests about the tomb of Orpheus, sang more sweetly and powerfully than any others. Pausanias, L. IX.

It was the custom of Pan to repose from the chace at noon. Theocritus, Id. I.

The children of the Sun were known by the splendor of their eyes and hair. Πασα γαρ ηελιου γενεη αριδηλος ιδεσθαι Ηεν: επει βλεφαρων αποτηλοθι, μαρμαρυγησιν Οιον εκ χρυσεων αντωπιον ιεσαν αιγλην. Apollonius, IV. 727. And in the Orphic Argonautics Circe is thus described:—εκ δ'αρα παντες Θαμβεον εισοροωντες: απο κρατος γαρ εθειραι Πυρσαις ακτινεσσιν αλιγκιοι ηωρηντο: Στιλβε δε καλα προσωπα, φλογος δ'απελαμπεν αυτμη.

“The dreaded name of Dæmogorgon” is familiar to every reader, in Milton's enumeration of the Powers of Chaos. Mythological writers in general afford but little information concerning this terrible Divinity. He is incidentally mentioned in several places by Natalis Comes, who says, in treating of Pan, that Pronapides, in his Protocosmus, makes Pan and the three sister Fates the offspring of Dæmogorgon. Boccaccio, in a Latin treatise on the Genealogy of the Gods, gives some account of him on the authority of Theodotion and Pronapides. He was the Genius of the Earth, and the Sovereign Power of the Terrestrial Dæmons. He dwelt originally with Eternity and Chaos, till, becoming weary of inaction, he organised the chaotic elements, and surrounded the earth with the heavens. In addition to Pan and the Fates, his children were Uranus, Titæa, Pytho, Eris, and Erebus. This awful Power was so sacred among the Arcadians, that it was held impious to pronounce his name. The impious, however, who made less scruple about pronouncing it, are said to have found it of great virtue in magical incantations. He has been supposed to be a philosophical emblem of the principle of vegetable life. The silence of mythologists concerning him, can only be attributed to their veneration for his “dreaded name”; a proof of genuine piety which must be pleasing to our contemporary Pagans, for some such there are.

The late but certain vengeance of the gods, occurs in many forms as a sentence among the classical writers; and is the subject of an interesting dialogue, among the moral works of Plutarch, which concludes with the fable of Thespesius, a very remarkable prototype of the Inferno of Dante.