1.
The Golden Ass
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The Metamorphoses of Apuleius — which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass — is the only Ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety. The protagonist of the novel is called Lucius, at the end of the novel, he is revealed to be from Madaurus, in Numidia, the hometown of Apuleius himself. The plot revolves around the protagonists curiosity and insatiable desire to see, while trying to perform a spell to transform into a bird, he is accidentally transformed into an ass. This leads to a journey, literal and metaphorical, filled with in-set tales. He finally finds salvation through the intervention of the goddess Isis, the date of composition of the Metamorphoses is uncertain. It has variously been considered by scholars as a work preceding Apuleius Apology of 158/9 AD, or as the climax of his literary career. Apuleius adapted the story from a Greek original of which the name is said to be Lucius of Patrae. This Greek text has been lost, but there is Λούκιος ἢ ὄνος, a tale of disputed authorship, traditionally attributed to Lucian of Samosata. This surviving Greek text appears to be an abridgement or epitome of Lucius of Patraes text, possibly the original lost story was written by Lucian and the abridged version was later transmitted under his name. Book One The prologue establishes an audience and a speaker, who defines himself by location, education, the narrator journeys to Thessaly on business. On the way, he runs into Aristomenes and an unnamed traveler, the unnamed traveler refuses to believe Aristomenes story. The narrator scolds the unnamed traveler and tells a story about a sword swallower. He promises Aristomenes a free lunch if he will retell his tale, the narrator believes Aristomenes tale and becomes more eager to learn about magic. The narrator arrives at Hypata, where he stays with Milo, a friend and miser. Photis, Milos servant, takes the narrator to the baths, there, he buys some fish and runs into his old friend Pytheas, who is now a magistrate. Pytheas reveals the name as Lucius. Pytheas says that Lucius overpaid for the fish and humiliates the fish-monger by trampling on the fish, Lucius returns to Milos house, hungry and empty-handed. Milo asks Lucius about his life, his friends, and his wanderings, Book Two The next morning, Lucius meets his aunt Byrrhena in the town, and she warns him that Milos wife is an evil witch who will kill Lucius
2.
Apuleius
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Apuleius was a Latin-language prose writer, platonist philosopher and rhetorian. He was a Numidian who lived under the Roman Empire and was from Madauros and he studied Platonism in Athens, travelled to Italy, Asia Minor, and Egypt and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed a witty tour de force in his own defense before the proconsul and this is known as the Apologia. His most famous work is his bawdy picaresque novel, the Metamorphoses and it is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It relates the adventures of one Lucius, who experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into a donkey. Apuleius was born in Madauros, a colonia in Numidia on the North African coast bordering Gaetulia, as to his first name, no praenomen is given in any ancient source, late-medieval manuscripts began the tradition of calling him Lucius from the name of the hero of his novel. Details regarding his life come mostly from his speech and his work Florida. His father was a magistrate who bequeathed at his death the sum of nearly two million sesterces to his two sons. Apuleius studied with a master at Carthage and later at Athens and he subsequently went to Rome to study Latin rhetoric and, most likely, to speak in the law courts for a time before returning to his native North Africa. He also travelled extensively in Asia Minor and Egypt, studying philosophy and religion, Apuleius was an initiate in several Greco-Roman mysteries, including the Dionysian Mysteries. He was a priest of Asclepius and, according to Augustine, not long after his return home he set out upon a new journey to Alexandria. On his way there he was ill at the town of Oea and was hospitably received into the house of Sicinius Pontianus. The mother of Pontianus, Pudentilla, was a rich widow. With her sons consent – indeed encouragement – Apuleius agreed to marry her, the case was heard at Sabratha, near Tripoli, c.158 AD, before Claudius Maximus, proconsul of Africa. The accusation itself seems to have been ridiculous, and the spirited and this is known as the Apologia. Apuleius accused an extravagant personal enemy of turning his house into a brothel, of his subsequent career we know little. Judging from the works of which he was author, he must have devoted himself diligently to literature
3.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
4.
Cupid
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In classical mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus and he is also known in Latin as Amor. Although Eros is generally portrayed as a winged youth in Classical Greek art. During this time, his iconography acquired the bow and arrow that represent his source of power, a person, or even a deity, in myths, Cupid is a minor character who serves mostly to set the plot in motion. He is a character only in the tale of Cupid and Psyche. Although other extended stories are not told him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as Love conquers all. In art, Cupid often appears in multiples as the Amores, or amorini in the terminology of art history. Cupids are a frequent motif of both Roman art and later Western art of the classical tradition, in the 15th century, the iconography of Cupid starts to become indistinguishable from the putto. Cupid continued to be a figure in the Middle Ages. In the Renaissance, a renewed interest in classical philosophy endowed him with complex allegorical meanings, in contemporary popular culture, Cupid is shown drawing his bow to inspire romantic love, often as an icon of Valentines Day. The Romans reinterpreted myths and concepts pertaining to the Greek Eros for Cupid in their own literature and art, in the Greek tradition, Eros had a dual, contradictory genealogy. He was among the gods who came into existence asexually, after his generation. In Hesiods Theogony, only Chaos and Gaia are older, before the existence of gender dichotomy, Eros functioned by causing entities to separate from themselves that which they already contained. At the same time, the Eros who was pictured as a boy or slim youth was regarded as the child of a divine couple, in Latin literature, Cupid is usually treated as the son of Venus without reference to a father. Seneca says that Vulcan, as the husband of Venus, is the father of Cupid and this last Cupid was the equivalent of Anteros, Counter-Love, one of the Erotes, the gods who embody aspects of love. The multiple Cupids frolicking in art are the manifestation of these proliferating loves and desires. During the English Renaissance, Christopher Marlowe wrote of ten thousand Cupids, in Ben Jonsons wedding masque Hymenaei, in the later classical tradition, Cupid is most often regarded as the son of Venus and Mars, whose love affair represented an allegory of Love and War. The duality between the primordial and the sexually conceived Eros accommodated philosophical concepts of Heavenly and Earthly Love even in the Christian era, Cupid is winged, allegedly, because lovers are flighty and likely to change their minds, and boyish because love is irrational
5.
Eros
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In Greek mythology, Eros was the Greek god of sexual attraction. Some myths make him a god, while in other myths. He was one of the winged love gods, Erotes, Eros appears in ancient Greek sources under several different guises. In the earliest sources, he is one of the gods involved in the coming into being of the cosmos. But in later sources, Eros is represented as the son of Aphrodite, whose mischievous interventions in the affairs of gods and mortals cause bonds of love to form, a cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece, but it was much less important than that of Aphrodite. However, in antiquity, Eros was worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae. In Athens, he shared a very popular cult with Aphrodite, according to Hesiod, one of the most ancient of all Greek sources, Eros was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after Chaos, Gaia, and Tartarus. However, Parmenides, one of the philosophers, makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence. The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries featured Eros as a very original god, aristophanes, influenced by Orphism, relates the birth of Eros, At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, Darkness, and the Abyss. Earth, the Air and Heaven had no existence and he mated in the deep Abyss with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light. In later myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares, Eros was associated with athleticism, with statues erected in gymnasia, and was often regarded as the protector of homosexual love between men. Eros was depicted as carrying a lyre or bow and arrow. He was also depicted accompanied by dolphins, flutes, roosters, roses, “We must have a word with Aphrodite. Let us go together and ask her to persuade her boy, if that is possible, to loose an arrow at Aeetes’ daughter, Medea of the spells, and make her fall in love with Jason. ”He smites maids’ breasts with unknown heat. Once, when Venus’ son was kissing her, his quiver dangling down, in fact the wound was deeper than it seemed, though unperceived at first. Enraptured by the beauty of a man, Eros drove Dionysos mad for the girl with the delicious wound of his arrow, then curving his wings flew lightly to Olympus. And the god roamed over the hills scourged with a greater fire. ”The story of Eros and Psyche has a tradition as a folktale of the ancient Greco-Roman world long before it was committed to literature in Apuleius Latin novel. The novel itself is written in a picaresque Roman style, yet Psyche retains her Greek name, Eros and Aphrodite are called by their Latin names, and Cupid is depicted as a young adult, rather than a child
6.
Hieros gamos
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Hieros gamos or Hierogamy is a sexual ritual that plays out a marriage between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities. The notion of hieros gamos does not presuppose actual performance in ritual, though traditionally, they carry out dances in the praise of lord, they also evolved into Sacred Marriage over time. Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers there were many shrines and temples dedicated to Inanna, the temple of Eanna, meaning house of heaven in Uruk was the greatest of these. The temple housed Nadītu, priestesses of the goddess, in Greek mythology the classic instance is the wedding of Zeus and Hera celebrated at the Heraion of Samos, and doubtless its architectural and cultural predecessors. In Tantric Buddhism of Nepal, Bhutan, India and Tibet, the symbolism is associated with Anuttarayoga tantra where the male figure is usually linked to compassion and skillful means, and the female partner to insight. Yab-yum is generally understood to represent the union of wisdom. Maithuna is a Sanskrit term used in Tantra most often translated as sexual union in a ritual context and it is the most important of the five makara and constitutes the main part of the Grand Ritual of Tantra variously known as Panchamakara, Panchatattva, and Tattva Chakra. The symbolism of union and polarity is a teaching in Tantric Buddhism. The union is realized by the practitioner as an experience within ones own body. The hieros gamos is one of the themes that Carl Jung dealt with, in Wicca, the Great Rite is a ritual based on the Hieros Gamos. It is generally enacted symbolically by a dagger being placed point first into a chalice, in British Traditional Wicca, the Great Rite is sometimes carried out in actuality by the High Priest and High Priestess. Maithuna Spirit spouse Sacred prostitution Sex magic Tantra The Archetype of the Holy Wedding in Alchemy and in the Unconscious of Modern Man, Remo F. Roth, Ph. D
7.
Classical antiquity
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It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer, and continues through the emergence of Christianity and it ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity, blending into the Early Middle Ages. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures, Classical antiquity may refer also to an idealised vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poes words, the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome. The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society. The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse, the 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical, with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, in the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games, in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from Canaan ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean, carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which created conflicts of interest with Etruria. The Etruscans had established control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21,753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth and it was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, the people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretias kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, summoned the Senate and had Superbus, after Superbus expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word Rex meaning King became a dirty and hated throughout the Republic. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras. Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC
8.
Ancient Greek art
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The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality. The art of ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods, the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. The Geometric age is dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years. The 7th century BC witnessed the development of the Archaic style as exemplified by the black-figure style of vase painting. From some point in the 1st century BC onwards Greco-Roman is used, in reality, there was no sharp transition from one period to another. Forms of art developed at different speeds in different parts of the Greek world, strong local traditions, and the requirements of local cults, enable historians to locate the origins even of works of art found far from their place of origin. Greek art of various kinds was widely exported, the whole period saw a generally steady increase in prosperity and trading links within the Greek world and with neighbouring cultures. The survival rate of Greek art differs starkly between media and we have huge quantities of pottery and coins, much stone sculpture, though even more Roman copies, and a few large bronze sculptures. Almost entirely missing are painting, fine metal vessels, and anything in perishable materials including wood, the stone shell of a number of temples and theatres has survived, but little of their extensive decoration. By convention, finely painted vessels of all sorts are called vases, sculptural or architectural pottery, also very often painted, are referred to as terracottas, and also survive in large quantities. In much of the literature, pottery means only painted vessels, pottery was the main form of grave goods deposited in tombs, often as funerary urns containing the cremated ashes, and was widely exported. Other colours were limited, normally to small areas of white. Within the restrictions of these techniques and other conventions, vase-painters achieved remarkable results, combining refinement. White ground technique allowed more freedom in depiction, but did not wear well and was made for burial. Conventionally, the ancient Greeks are said to have made most pottery vessels for everyday use, not for display. Most surviving pottery consists of vessels for storing, serving or drinking liquids such as amphorae, kraters, hydria, libation bowls, oil and perfume bottles for the toilet, jugs, painted vessels for serving and eating food are much less common. Painted pottery was affordable even by people, and a piece decently decorated with about five or six figures cost about two or three days wages
9.
Greco-Roman mysteries
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The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which may not be revealed to outsiders. The most famous mysteries of Greco-Roman antiquity were the Eleusinian Mysteries, the mystery schools flourished in Late Antiquity, Julian the Apostate in the mid 4th century is known to have been initiated into three distinct mystery schools — most notably the mithraists. Because of this element of secrecy, we are ill-informed as to the beliefs and we know that they had a general likeness to one another. They too were embraced by the process of the inculturation of Christianity in its initial phase, the term Mystery derives from Latin mysterium, from Greek mysterion, in this context meaning secret rite or doctrine. The Mysteries were thus schools in all religious functions were closed to the uninitiated. This is also reflected in the division of theology by Varro, in civil theology, natural theology. Mysteries thus supplement rather than compete with civil religion, an individual could easily observe the rites of the state religion, be an initiate in one or several mysteries, and at the same time adhere to a certain philosophical school. In contrast to the rituals of civil religion, participation in which was expected of every member of society. This is important in the context of the persecution of Christians. The mystery schools offered a niche for the preservation of ancient religious ritual and they had, more often than not, come up from a barbarous underworld. The mysteries at Eleusis near Athens lasted for a thousand years, for this reason, what glimpses we do have of the older Greek mysteries have been taken as reflecting certain archaic aspects of common Indo-European religion, with parallels in Indo-Iranian religion. The mystery schools of Greco-Roman antiquity include the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Dionysian Mysteries, the ancient mystery schools were a subject of fascination for 19th and early-20th century German and French classical scholars. This literature had an influence on European culture in the late 19th century. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung borrowed metaphors from this literature to reframe his theories, navigium Isidis Mysticism Notes Further reading Media related to Mysteric religions in ancient world at Wikimedia Commons
10.
Allegory
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As a literary device, an allegory is a metaphor whose vehicle may be a character, place or event, representing real-world issues and occurrences. Many ancient religions are based on astrological allegories, that is, allegories of the movement of the sun, in classical literature two of the best-known allegories are the Cave in Platos Republic and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa. One of the examples of allegory, Platos Allegory of the Cave. In this allegory, Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained in an all of their lives. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows, using language to identify their world. He tries to tell the people in the cave of his discovery, also allegorical is Ezekiel 16 and 17, wherein the capture of that same vine by the mighty Eagle represents Israels exile to Rome. Allegory has an ability to freeze the temporality of a story, Mediaeval thinking accepted allegory as having a reality underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as the facts of surface appearances, if, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ. This text also demonstrates the frequent use of allegory in religious texts during the Mediaeval Period, following the tradition, since meaningful stories are nearly always applicable to larger issues, allegories may be read into many stories which the author may not have recognised. This is allegoresis, or the act of reading a story as an allegory. S, lewis and A Kingdom Far and Clear, The Complete Swan Lake Trilogy by Mark Helprin. The story of the apple falling onto Isaac Newtons head is another famous allegory and it simplified the idea of gravity by depicting a simple way it was supposedly discovered. It also made the scientific revelation well known by condensing the theory into a short tale. According to Henry Littlefields 1964 article, L. Yet, George MacDonald emphasised in 1893 that, A fairy tale is not an allegory, I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and this further reinforces the idea of forced allegoresis, as allegory is often a matter of interpretation and only sometimes of original artistic intention. Like allegorical stories, allegorical poetry has two meanings – a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning, some unique specimens of allegory can be found in the following works, Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene, The several knights in the poem actually stand for several virtues. Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown, The Devils Staff symbolises defiance of God, the characters names, such as Goodman and Faith, ironically serve as paradox in the conclusion of the story. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter, The scarlet letter symbolises many things, the characters, while developed with interiority, are allegorical in that they represent ways of seeing the world. George Orwell – Animal Farm, The pigs stand for political figures of the Russian Revolution, lászló Krasznahorkai - The Melancholy of Resistance and the film Werckmeister Harmonies, It uses a circus to describe an occupying dysfunctional government
11.
Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
12.
Fairy tale
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Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables. The term is used for stories with origins in European tradition and, at least in recent centuries. In less technical contexts, the term is used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness. Colloquially, a tale or fairy story can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale, it is used especially of any story that not only is not true. Legends are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legends, Fairy tales are found in oral and in literary form, the name fairy tale was first ascribed to them by Madame dAulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of todays fairy tales have evolved from stories that have appeared, with variations. The history of the tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways, the Aarne-Thompson classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. It moves in a world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms, a fairy tale with a tragic rather than a happy end is called an anti-fairy tale. Although the fairy tale is a genre within the larger category of folktale. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame DAulnoys conte de fées, Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, criticized the common distinction between fairy tales and animal tales on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals. Were I asked, what is a fairytale, I should reply, Read Undine, that is a fairytale. of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful. As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. However, the presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face. Steven Swann Jones identified the presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales, davidson and Chaudri identify transformation as the key feature of the genre
13.
Myth
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A myth is any traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon. The word myth is derived from the Greek word mythos, which means story. Mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths, myth can mean sacred story, traditional narrative or tale of the gods. A myth can also be a story to explain why something exists, human cultures usually include a cosmogonical or creation myth, concerning the origins of the world, or how the world came to exist. The active beings in myths are generally gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, or animals, most myths are set in a timeless past before recorded time or beginning of the critical history. A myth can be a story involving symbols that are capable of multiple meanings, a myth is a sacred narrative because it holds religious or spiritual significance for those who tell it. Myths also contribute to and express a cultures systems of thought and values, myths are often therefore stories that are currently understood as being exaggerated or fictitious. According to Albert A. Anderson, a professor of philosophy, in these works, the term had several meanings, conversation, narrative, speech, story, tale, and word. Like the related term logos, mythos expresses whatever can be delivered in the form of words, Anderson contrasts the two terms with ergon, a Greek term for action, deed, and work. The term mythos lacks an explicit distinction between true or false narratives, in the context of the Theatre of ancient Greece, the term mythos referred to the myth, the narrative, the plot, and the story of a theatrical play. According to David Wiles, the Greek term mythos in this era covered an entire spectrum of different meanings, from undeniable falsehoods to stories with religious, according to philosopher Aristotle, the spirit of a theatrical play was its mythos. The term mythos was also used for the material of Greek tragedy. The tragedians of the era could draw inspiration from Greek mythology, David Wiles observes that modern conceptions about Greek tragedy can be misleading. It is commonly thought that the ancient audience members were familiar with the mythos behind a play. However, the Greek dramatists were not expected to faithfully reproduce traditional myths when adapting them for the stage and they were instead recreating the myths and producing new versions. Storytellers like Euripides relied on suspense to excite their audiences, in one of his works, Merope attempts to kill her sons murderer with an axe, unaware that the man in question is actually her son. According to an ancient description of reactions to this work. They rose to their feet in terror and caused an uproar, David Wiles points that the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, was primarily a part of its oral tradition
14.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
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Classical tradition
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Philosophy, political thought, and mythology are three major examples of how classical culture survives and continues to have influence. The West is one of a number of world cultures regarded as having a classical tradition, including the Indian, Chinese, Judaic, the study of the classical tradition differs from classical philology, which seeks to recover the meanings that ancient texts had in their original contexts. It examines both later efforts to uncover the realities of the Greco-Roman world and creative misunderstandings that reinterpret ancient values, ideas and aesthetic models for contemporary use. The classicist and translator Charles Martindale has defined the reception of antiquity as a two-way process … in which the present. The beginning of a classical tradition is usually located in the Renaissance. The use and meaning of the tradition may seem, however. The English word tradition, and with it the concept of handing down classical culture, derives from the Latin verb trado, tradere, traditus, in the sense of hand over, hand down. Writers and artists influenced by the tradition may name their ancient models. Often scholars infer classical influence through comparative methods that reveal patterns of thought, unearthing the Past, Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture. Cook, William W. and Tatum, James, african American Writers and Classical Tradition. Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition, An Annotated Bibliography 1961–1991
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Luca Giordano
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Luca Giordano was an Italian late Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, born in Naples, Giordano was the son of the painter Antonio Giordano. In around 1650 he was apprenticed to Ribera on the recommendation of the viceroy of Naples, like Ribera, he painted many half-length figures of philosophers, either imaginary portraits of specific figures, or generic types. He acquired the nickname Luca fa presto, which translates into Luca paints quickly, following a period studying in Rome, Parma and Venice, Giordano developed an elaborate Baroque style fusing Venetian and Roman Influences. His mature work combines the ornamental pomp of Paul Veronese with the complex schemes. He is also noted for his lively and showy use of colour, in 1682–1683 Giordano painted various fresco series in Florence, including one in the dome of Corsini Chapel of the Chiesa del Carmine. In the large block occupied by the former Medici palace, he painted the ceiling of the Biblioteca Riccardiana, the vast frescoes of the latter are contained in the 1670s gallery addition, overlooking the gardens. The planning was overseen by Alessandro Segni and commissioned by Francesco Riccardi and they include the prototypic hagiographic celebration of the Medici family in the center, surrounded by a series of interlocking narratives, allegorical figures and mythological episodes. In 1692 Giordano went to Spain at the invitation of Charles II and he stayed there for ten years, returning to Naples in 1702, following Charles death. While in Spain, he painted decorative schemes at the Buen Retiro Palace, El Escorial, the sacristry of Toledo Cathedral. He also painted pictures for the court, private patrons. His pupils, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, assisted him in Spain, Giordano was popular at the Spanish court, and the king granted him the title of a caballero. After his return to Naples early in 1702, Giordano continued to paint prolifically, executed in a lighter, less rhetorical style, these late works, prefiguring Rococo, proved influential throughout the eighteenth century, and were admired by Fragonard. He spent large sums in acts of munificence, and was particularly liberal to poorer artists, one of his maxims was that the good painter is the one whom the public like, and that the public are attracted more by colour than by design. Giordano had a facility, which often lead to an impression of superficiality of his works. He left many works in Rome, and far more in Naples and this church contains the artists own tomb. Other notable examples are the Judgment of Paris in the Berlin Museum, in later years, he painted influential frescoes for the Cappella Corsini, the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi and other works. Giordano died in Naples in 1705 and his best pupil in painting was Paolo de Matteis
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Protagonist
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A protagonist is the main character in any story, such as a literary work or drama. The protagonist is at the center of the story, typically makes the key decisions, the protagonist usually affects the main characters circumstances as well, as they are often the primary actor propelling the story forward. If a story contains a subplot, or is a made up of several stories. The word protagonist is used notably in stories and forms of literature and culture that contain stories, in those forms the protagonist may simply be the leading actor, or the principal character in the story. The antagonist will provide obstacles and complications and create conflict that test the protagonist, thus revealing the strengths, the earliest known examples of protagonist are dated back to Ancient Greece. At first dramatic performances involved merely dancing and recitation by the chorus, but then in Poetics, Aristotle describes how a poet named Thespis introduced the idea of having one actor step out and engage in a dialogue with the chorus. This was the invention of tragedy, which occurred about 536 B. C, then the poet Aeschylus, in his plays, introduced a second actor, inventing the idea of dialogue between two characters. Sophocles then wrote plays that required a third actor, euripides play Hippolytus may be considered to have two protagonists. The protagonist of the first half is Phaedra, who dies partway through the play and her stepson, the titular Hippolytus, assumes the dominant role in the second half of the play. In Ibsen’s play The Master Builder, the protagonist is the architect Halvard Solness, the young woman, Hilda Wangel, whose actions lead to the death of Solness, is the antagonist. In Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is the protagonist and he is actively in pursuit of his relationship with Juliet, and the audience is invested in that story. The character of Tybalt opposes Romeo’s desires, he is the antagonist, in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Prince Hamlet, who seeks revenge for the murder of his father, is the protagonist. The antagonist would be the character who most opposes Hamlet, Claudius, in the novel The Catcher in the Rye, the character Holden Caulfield is the protagonist. He is the character, and the reader is invested in his story. Sometimes, a work will have a false protagonist, who may seem to be the protagonist, the character Marion in Alfred Hitchcocks film Psycho is an example. A novel that contains a number of narratives may have a number of protagonists, alexander Solzhenitsyns The First Circle, for example, depicts a variety of characters imprisoned and living in a gulag camp. Leo Tolstoys War and Peace, depicts fifteen major characters involved in or affected by a war
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Magic in the Graeco-Roman world
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The study of magic in the Greco-Roman world is a branch of the disciplines of classics, ancient history and religious studies. In the ancient post-hellenistic world of the Greeks and Romans, historians and archaeologists view the public, examples of this phenomenon are found in the various state and cult Temples, Jewish Synagogues and churches. These were important hubs for ancient peoples, representing a connection between the realms and the earthly planes. This context of magic has become a study, especially in the last twenty years. Authors William Swatos and Peter Kivisto define Magic as, any attempt to control the environment or the self by means that are either untested or untestable, such as charms or spells. The principal defining factor of magic in the world is that it was held in low esteem. However, magic seems to have borrowed from religion, adopting religious ceremonies and divine names, also, some mainstream religious rites openly set out to constrain the gods. Other rough criteria sometimes used to distinguish magic from religion include, aimed at selfish or immoral ends, and conducted in secrecy, often for a paying client. Religious rites, on the hand, are more often aimed at lofty goals such as salvation or rebirth. Alongside the more common manifestations of religion, ancient peoples sought individual contact and assistance, along with influence. Ultimately, the practice of magic includes rites that do not play a part in worship and this fusing of practices reached its peak in the world of the Roman Empire, in the 3rd to 5th centuries CE. Via Latin magicus, the word derives from Greek magikos, with magic being the art and craft of the magos. The relationship with magic derives from the Hellenistic identification of Zoroaster as the inventor of astrology and magic. However, in the main, Zoroaster seems to have been almost exclusively identified with astrology, because magos/magikos were influenced by the association with the old Greek word for magic, Greek magos/magikos accordingly held the same meaning that magic and magician do today. Accordingly, the more skeptical writers then also identified the magicians – i. e. the magians – as charlatans or frauds, in Platos Symposium, the Athenian identified them as maleficent, allowing however a measure of efficacy as a function of the god Eros. Pliny paints them in a bad light. Thorndike comments, Greek science at its best was not untainted by magic, in the story Circes magic consists in the use of a wand against Odysseus and his men while Odysseuss magic consists of the use of a secret herb called moly to defend himself from her attack. In the story three requisites crucial to the idiom of magic in literature are found, The use of a mysterious tool endowed with special powers
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Isis
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Isis is a goddess from the polytheistic pantheon of Egypt. She was first worshiped in ancient Egyptian religion, and later her worship spread throughout the Roman Empire, Isis was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves, sinners, artisans and the downtrodden, Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the falcon-headed deity associated with king and kingship. Isis is also known as protector of the dead and goddess of children, as the personification of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaohs power. The pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but her most important temples were at Behbeit El Hagar in the Nile delta, and, beginning in the reign with Nectanebo I, on the island of Philae in Upper Egypt. In the typical form of her myth, Isis was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the Sky and she married her brother, Osiris, and she conceived Horus with him. Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Set, using her magical skills, she restored his body to life after having gathered the body parts that had been strewn about the earth by Set. This myth became very important during the Greco-Roman period, for example, it was believed that the Nile River flooded every year because of the tears of sorrow which Isis wept for Osiris. Osiriss death and rebirth was relived each year through rituals, the worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era. The popular motif of Isis suckling her son Horus, however, the Greek name version of Isis is close to her original, Egyptian name spelling. Isis name was written with the signs of a throne seat. The grammar, spelling and used signs of Isis name never changed during time in any way, however, the symbolic and metaphoric meaning of Isis name remains unclear. The throne seat sign in her name might point to a role as a goddess of kingship. Thus, her name could mean she of the kings throne, but all other Egyptian deities have names that point to clear cosmological or nature elemental roles, thus the name of Isis shouldnt be connected to the king himself. The throne seat symbol might alternatively point to a meaning as throne-mother of the gods and this in turn would supply a very old existence of Isis, long before her first mentioning during the late Old Kingdom, but this hypothesis remains unproven. A third possible meaning might be hidden in the egg-symbol, that was used in Isis name. The egg-symbol always represented motherhood, implying a role of Isis
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Mise en abyme
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Mise en abyme is a French term derived from heraldry, and literally means placed into abyss. The term has developed a number of senses in modern criticism since it was picked up from heraldry by the French author André Gide. A common sense of the phrase is the experience of standing between two mirrors, then seeing as a result an infinite reproduction of ones image. Another is the Droste effect, in which a picture appears within itself and that is named after the 1904 Droste cocoa package, which depicts a woman holding a tray bearing a Droste cocoa package, which bears a smaller version of her image. The phrase has other meanings, however, in the realms of the creative arts. In Western art history, mise en abyme is a technique in which an image contains a smaller copy of itself, in a sequence appearing to recur infinitely. In the terminology of heraldry, the abyme is the center of a coat of arms, the term mise en abyme then meant put in the center. It described a coat of arms appears as a smaller shield in the center of a larger one. A complex example of mise en abyme is seen in the coat of arms of the United Kingdom for the period 1816–1837, as used by King George III. The crown of Charlemagne is placed en abyme within the escutcheon of Hanover, which in turn is en abyme within the arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Another example is the eagle in the modern coat of arms of Russia. While art historians working on the period adopted this phrase and interpreted it as showing artistic self awareness. Many examples, however, can be found in the pre-modern era, to the left, Justinian I offers the Virgin Mary the Hagia Sophia, which contains the mosaic itself. To the right, Constantine I offers the city of Constantinople, an example of this self-referential gift-giving appears in the Stefaneschi Triptych in the Vatican Museum, which features Cardinal Giacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi as the giver of the altarpiece. The modern meaning of the phrase originates with the author André Gide who used it to describe self-reflexive embeddings in various art-forms and this use of the phrase mise en abyme was picked up by scholars and popularized in the 1977 book Le récit spéculaire. Essai sur la mise en abyme by Lucien Dällenbach, mise-en-abîme occurs within a text when there is a reduplication of images or concepts referring to the textual whole. Mise-en-abîme is a play of signifiers within a text, of sub-texts mirroring each other and this mirroring can get to the point where meaning may be rendered unstable and, in this respect, may be seen as part of the process of deconstruction. The film-within-a-film is an example of mise-en-abîme, the film being made within the film refers, through its mise en scène, to the real film being made
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Irony
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Irony, in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case. Irony may be divided into such as verbal, dramatic. Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth, other forms, as identified by historian Connop Thirlwall, include dialectic and practical irony. Also, Eric Partridge, in Usage and Abusage, writes that Irony consists in stating the contrary of what is meant, the use of irony may require the concept of a double audience. The term is used as a synonym for incongruous and applied to every trivial oddity in situations where there is no double audience. The American Heritage Dictionarys secondary meaning for irony, incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs and this sense, however, is not synonymous with incongruous but merely a definition of dramatic or situational irony. It is often included in definitions of irony not only that incongruity is present, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, The term irony has its roots in the Greek comic character Eiron, a clever underdog who by his wit repeatedly triumphs over the boastful character Alazon. The Socratic irony of the Platonic dialogues derives from this comic origin. e, the word came into English as a figure of speech in the 16th century as similar to the French ironie. It derives from the Latin ironia and ultimately from the Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning dissimulation, Romantic irony, A self-aware and self-critical form of fiction. Cosmic irony, A contrast between the absolute and the relative, the general and the individual, which Hegel expressed by the phrase, when the audience knows that the character will die before morning. It is most often used when the author causes a character to speak or act erroneously, in tragic irony, the audience knows the character is making a mistake, even as the character is making it. Verbal irony is distinguished from situational irony and dramatic irony in that it is produced intentionally by speakers, for instance, if a man exclaims, Im not upset. But reveals an upset emotional state through his voice while truly trying to claim hes not upset, but if the same speaker said the same words and intended to communicate that he was upset by claiming he was not, the utterance would be verbal irony. This distinction illustrates an important aspect of verbal irony—speakers communicate implied propositions that are contradictory to the propositions contained in the words themselves. Were left in no doubt as to whos ambitious and whos honourable, the literal truth of whats written clashes with the perceived truth of whats meant to revealing effect, which is irony in a nutshell. Ironic similes are a form of verbal irony where a speaker intends to communicate the opposite of what they mean, a fair amount of confusion has surrounded the issue of the relationship between verbal irony and sarcasm. Fowlers A Dictionary of Modern English Usage states, Sarcasm does not necessarily involve irony and irony has often no touch of sarcasm and this suggests that the two concepts are linked but may be considered separately. 2 a, a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, the psychologist Martin, in The Psychology of Humour, is quite clear that irony is where the literal meaning is opposite to the intended and sarcasm is aggressive humor that pokes fun
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Phaedrus (dialogue)
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The Phaedrus, written by Plato, is a dialogue between Platos protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC, about the time as Platos Republic. Socrates runs into Phaedrus on the outskirts of Athens, Phaedrus has just come from the home of Epicrates of Athens, where Lysias, son of Cephalus, has given a speech on love. Socrates, stating that he is sick with passion for hearing speeches and they sit by a stream under a plane tree and a chaste tree, and the rest of the dialogue consists of oration and discussion. The dialogue, somewhat unusually, does not set itself as a re-telling of the days events. This is in contrast to such dialogues as the Symposium, in which Plato sets up multiple layers between the events and our hearing of it, explicitly giving us an incomplete, fifth-hand account. Socrates Phaedrus Lysias Lysias was one of the three sons of Cephalus, the patriarch whose home is the setting for Platos Republic, Lysias was perhaps the most famous logographos in Athens during the time of Plato. Lysias was a rhetorician and a sophist whose best-known extant work is a defense speech, the speech is a masterpiece in which a man who murdered his wifes lover claims that the laws of Athens required him to do it. The outcome of this speech is unknown, the dialogue consists of a series of three speeches on the topic of love that serves as the subject to construct a discussion on the proper use of rhetoric. They encompass discussions of the soul, madness, divine inspiration, as they walk out into the countryside, Socrates tries to convince Phaedrus to repeat the speech of Lysias which he has just heard. Phaedrus makes several excuses, but Socrates suspects strongly that Phaedrus has a copy of the speech with him, Phaedrus gives in and agrees to perform Lysias speech. Phaedrus and Socrates walk through a stream and find a seat in the shade and you will not be giving your favor to someone who is more sick than sound in the head and is not thinking straight, overcome by love. He explains that it is best to give your favor to one who can best return it and he concludes by stating that he thinks the speech is long enough, and the listener is welcome to ask any questions if something has been left out. Socrates, attempting to flatter Phaedrus, responds that he is in ecstasy, Phaedrus picks up on Socrates subtle sarcasm and asks Socrates not to joke. Socrates retorts that he is still in awe, and claims to be able to make a better speech than Lysias on the same subject. Socrates then proceeds to give Phaedrus credit for leading him out of his native land, when Phaedrus begs to hear it however, Socrates refuses to give the speech. Phaedrus warns him that he is younger and stronger, and Socrates should take his meaning, finally, after Phaedrus swears on the plane tree that he will never recite another speech for Socrates if Socrates refuses, Socrates, covering his head, consents. Socrates, rather than simply listing reasons as Lysias had done, begins by explaining that all men desire beauty, some are in love
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Daemon (classical mythology)
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Dæmon is the Latin word for the Ancient Greek daimōn, which refers to the daemons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy. Daemon is the Latin version of the Greek daimōn, Daemons are benevolent or benign nature spirits, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature or the deities themselves. How far this is an expression of popular superstition is not easy to judge. In Hesiods Theogony, Phaëton becomes an incorporeal daimon or a spirit, but, for example. In the Old Testament, evil spirits appear in the book of Judges, the use of daimōn in the New Testaments original Greek text, caused the Greek word to be applied to the Judeo-Christian concept of an evil spirit by the early second century AD. Homers use of the words theoí and daímones, suggests that while distinct, later writers developed the distinction between the two. Plato, in Cratylus speculates that the word daimōn is synonymous to daēmōn, however, in Platos Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a deity, but rather a great daemon. In Platos Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion that frequently warned him—in the form of a voice—against mistakes, the Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to the daimonion as a daimōn, it was always an impersonal something or sign. By this term he seems to indicate the nature of the human soul. Paul Shorey sees the daimonion not as an inspiration but as a kind of spiritual tact checking Socrates from any act opposed to his moral and intellectual interests. The famous, paradoxical saying of Heraclitus is already directed against such a view, the Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories, agathodaímōn, from agathós, and kakodaímōn, from kakós. Eudaimonia, the state of having a eudaemon, came to mean well-being or happiness, the comparable Roman concept is the genius who accompanies and protects a person or presides over a place. Burkert suggests that, for Plato, theology rests on two Forms, the Good and the Simple, which Xenocrates unequivocally called the unity god in sharp contrast to the gods of epic. In the Archaic or early Classical period, the daimon had been democratized and internalized for each person, whom it served to guide, motivate, similarly, the first-century Roman imperial cult began by venerating the genius or numen of Augustus, a distinction that blurred in time. Maureen A. Tilley, Exorcism in North Africa, Localizing the holy explores the meanings of daimon among Christians in Roman Africa and exorcism practices that passed seamlessly into Christian ritual. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol V, Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols e-text Daemons inhabiting the images of gods Kakodaemons on Theoi. com Abstract Personifications The Daemon Page
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Symposium (Plato)
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The Symposium is a philosophical text by Plato dated c. It concerns itself at one level with the genesis, purpose and nature of love, Love is examined in a sequence of speeches by men attending a symposium, or drinking party. Each man must deliver an encomium, a speech in praise of Love, the party takes place at the house of the tragedian Agathon in Athens. Socrates in his speech asserts that the highest purpose of love is to become a philosopher or, literally, the Symposium was written as a dramatic dialogue – a form used by Plato in more than thirty works – and is regarded as one of his best. Set in Athenian social life, it develops the themes of love, there is little doubt that the content of the dialogue is fictitious, although Plato has built a very realistic atmosphere. Andrew Dalby considers the opening pages of the Symposium the best description in any ancient Greek source of the ramifications of an oral tradition. Plato has set up a multitude of layers between the original symposium and his narrative, he heard it fourth-hand, so it comes to the written text fifth-hand. In addition, the story Socrates narrates was told to Socrates by Diotima, nevertheless, Dalby is eager to add that he does not think the rendering of the discussion by Plato is historically accurate, and considers that the content is in great part his invention. Other scholars, like Walter Hamilton, agree with this view, the disastrous expedition to Syracuse, of which Alcibiades was a commander, took place the following year, after which Alcibiades deserted to Sparta, Athens archenemy. Hamilton remarks that Plato takes care to portray Alcibiades and Socrates, Plato does this to free his teacher from the guilt of corrupting the minds of prominent youths, which had in fact earned Socrates the death sentence in 399 BC. Plato sets the action at a party hosted by the poet Agathon to celebrate his first victory in a dramatic competition, there a discussion develops between the guests on the theme of love. Aristodemus, who was present, reported the conversation to Phoinix, Phoinix told it to another, unnamed person, meanwhile Apollodorus checked it with Socrates, who was present. The unnamed person has told it to Glaucon, but has him a unreliable version and has left him uncertain how long ago the discussion took place. Glaucon has now obtained a version from Apollodorus, who is thus primed to tell the story again to a friend. From this point on, he will be quoting Aristodemus, the dramatic date of the frame conversation, in which Apollodorus speaks to his unnamed friend, is estimated to be between 401 BCE and the time when Socrates was tried and executed in 399 BCE. Plato uses the dialogue to various theories of love. The love to which the participants refer is mostly homosexual love between men, reflecting a reality in classical Greece. Beauty belongs to category of Forms
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Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
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The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The three founders were joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form the seven-member brotherhood and their principles were shared by other artists, including Marie Spartali Stillman and Ford Madox Brown. A later, medievalising strain inspired by Rossetti included Edward Burne-Jones, the groups intention was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. Its members believed the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been an influence on the academic teaching of art. In particular, the group objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts, to the Pre-Raphaelites, according to William Michael Rossetti, sloshy meant anything lax or scamped in the process of painting. Any thing or person of a commonplace or conventional kind, the brotherhood sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. The group associated their work with John Ruskin, an English critic whose influences were driven by his religious background, the group continued to accept the concepts of history painting and mimesis, imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. The Pre-Raphaelites defined themselves as a movement, created a distinct name for their form of art. The groups debates were recorded in the Pre-Raphaelite Journal, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in John Millaiss parents house on Gower Street, London in 1848. At the first meeting, the painters John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Hunt and Millais were students at the Royal Academy of Arts and had met in another loose association, the Cyclographic Club, a sketching society. At his own request Rossetti became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown in 1848, at that date, Rossetti and Hunt shared lodgings in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, Central London. Hunt had started painting The Eve of St. Agnes based on Keatss poem of the same name, as an aspiring poet, Rossetti wished to develop the links between Romantic poetry and art. Ford Madox Brown was invited to join, but the more senior artist remained independent but supported the group throughout the PRB period of Pre-Raphaelitism, other young painters and sculptors became close associates, including Charles Allston Collins, Thomas Tupper, and Alexander Munro. The PRB intended to keep the existence of the secret from members of the Royal Academy. The principles were deliberately non-dogmatic, since the brotherhood wished to emphasise the personal responsibility of artists to determine their own ideas. Influenced by Romanticism, the members thought freedom and responsibility were inseparable, nevertheless, they were particularly fascinated by medieval culture, believing it to possess a spiritual and creative integrity that had been lost in later eras. The emphasis on medieval culture clashed with principles of realism which stress the independent observation of nature, in its early stages, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed its two interests were consistent with one another, but in later years the movement divided and moved in two directions. The realists were led by Hunt and Millais, while the medievalists were led by Rossetti and his followers, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris
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Edward Burne-Jones
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Burne-Joness early paintings show the heavy inspiration of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but by the 1860s Burne-Jones was discovering his own artistic voice. In 1877, he was persuaded to show eight oil paintings at the Grosvenor Gallery and these included The Beguiling of Merlin. The timing was right, and he was taken up as a herald, Edward Coley Burne Jones was born in Birmingham, the son of a Welshman, Edward Richard Jones, a frame-maker at Bennetts Hill, where a blue plaque commemorates the painters childhood. He attended Birminghams King Edward VI grammar school from 1844 and the Birmingham School of Art from 1848 to 1852, before studying theology at Exeter College, at Oxford he became a friend of William Morris as a consequence of a mutual interest in poetry. The members of the Brotherhood read John Ruskin and Tennyson, visited churches, at this time Burne-Jones discovered Thomas Malorys Le Morte dArthur which was to be so influential in his life. In February 1857, Rossetti wrote to William Bell Scott In 1856 Burne-Jones became engaged to Georgiana Georgie MacDonald and she was training to be a painter, and was the sister of Burne-Joness old school friend. The couple married in 1860, after which she made her own work in woodcuts, Georgiana bore a son, Philip, in 1861. A second son, born in the winter of 1864 while Georgiana was gravely ill with scarlet fever, the family soon moved to 41 Kensington Square, and their daughter Margaret was born there in 1866. In 1867 Burne-Jones and his family settled at the Grange, an 18th-century house set in a garden in North End, Fulham. During these difficult years Georgiana developed a friendship with Morris. Morris and Georgie may have been in love, but if he asked her to leave her husband, in the end, the Burne-Joneses remained together, as did the Morrises, but Morris and Georgiana were close for the rest of their lives. His troubled son Philip, who became a portrait painter. His adored daughter Margaret married John William Mackail, the friend and biographer of Morris and their children were the novelists Angela Thirkell and Denis Mackail. In an edition of the magazine, Chums, an article on Burne-Jones stated that. his pet grandson used to be punished by being sent to stand in a corner with his face to the wall. One day on being sent there he was delighted to find the wall prettily decorated with fairies, flowers, birds and his indulgent grandfather had utilised his talent to alleviate the tedium of his favourites period of penance. Burne-Jones once admitted that after leaving Oxford he found himself at five-and-twenty what he ought to have been at fifteen and he had had no regular training as a draughtsman, and lacked the confidence of science. Many are pen-and-ink drawings on vellum, exquisitely finished, of which his Waxen Image is one of the earliest and best examples, although the subject, medium and manner derive from Rossettis inspiration, it is not the hand of a pupil merely, but of a potential master. This was recognized by Rossetti himself, who before long avowed that he had nothing more to teach him
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Love goddess
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A love deity is a deity in mythology associated with sexual love, lust or sexuality. Love deities are common in mythology and may be found in many polytheistic religions, tu Er Shen, a deity who oversees the love between homosexual men. White Peony, a goddess who tempts men, especially ascetics, wutong Shen, a group of five wanton deities from Southern China. They ravished and possessed beautiful women, Pan Jinlian or Pan Chin-Lien, goddess of fornication and prostitution Baimei Shen, Chinese god for prostitution and brothel. On her first assignment with a client, a prostitute was supposed to sacrifice to him Qian Keng. Nüwa, Goddess of the band and wedding jewelry. Represents Heaven and the never ending sexual desire between married couples, chuangmu, Chinese goddess of the bedchamber. She and her husband Chuanggong look after everything that may happen in the bed room, including sex, sleep, king Zhou, one of worst tyrants in Chinese history. Hermaphroditus, god of hermaphrodites and of effeminate men, famous for his sexual powers and is often depicted with an erect phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, pans greatest conquest was that of the moon goddess Selene. He accomplished this by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form, philotes, either Goddess of Affection or a Daimon of sexual intercourse
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Venus (mythology)
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Venus is the Roman goddess whose functions encompassed love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the mother of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles. The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite for Roman art, in the later classical tradition of the West, Venus becomes one of the most widely referenced deities of Greco-Roman mythology as the embodiment of love and sexuality. It has connections to venerari and venia through a common root in an Indo-European *wenes- or *u̯enis. Their common Proto-Indo-European root is assumed as *wen- or *u̯en- to strive for, wish for, desire, Venus has been described as perhaps the most original creation of the Roman pantheon, and an ill-defined and assimilative native goddess, combined with a strange and exotic Aphrodite. The ambivalence of her persuasive functions has been perceived in the relationship of the root *venes- with Latin venenum, in the sense of a charm, in myth, Venus-Aphrodite was born of sea-foam. Roman theology presents Venus as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and her male counterparts in the Roman pantheon, Vulcan and Mars, are active and fiery. Venus absorbs and tempers the male essence, uniting the opposites of male and female in mutual affection and she is essentially assimilative and benign, and embraces several otherwise quite disparate functions. She can give military victory, sexual success, good fortune, in one context, she is a goddess of prostitutes, in another, she turns the hearts of men and women from sexual vice to virtue. Images of Venus have been found in murals, mosaics. Petronius, in his Satyricon, places an image of Venus among the Lares of the freedman Trimalchios lararium, prospective brides offered Venus a gift before the wedding, the nature of the gift, and its timing, are unknown. Some Roman sources say that girls who come of age offer their toys to Venus, it is unclear where the offering is made, in dice-games, a popular pastime among Romans of all classes, the luckiest, best possible roll was known as Venus. Venus signs were for the most part the same as Aphrodites, Venus statues, and her worshipers, wore myrtle crowns at her festivals. Likewise, Roman folk-etymology transformed the ancient, obscure goddess Murcia into Venus of the Myrtles, myrtle was thought a particularly potent aphrodisiac. The female pudendum, particularly the clitoris, was known as murtos, as goddess of love and sex, Venus played an essential role at Roman prenuptial rites and wedding nights, so myrtle and roses were used in bridal bouquets. Marriage itself was not a seduction but a condition, under Junos authority. Venus was also a patron of the ordinary, everyday wine drunk by most Roman men and women, in the rites to Bona Dea, a goddess of female chastity, Venus, myrtle and anything male were not only excluded, but unmentionable
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Oracle
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In classical antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination, the word oracle comes from the Latin verb ōrāre to speak and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction. In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to people. In this sense they were different from seers who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails, the most important oracles of Greek antiquity were Pythia, priestess to Apollo at Delphi, and the oracle of Dione and Zeus at Dodona in Epirus. Other temples of Apollo were located at Didyma on the coast of Asia Minor, at Corinth and Bassae in the Peloponnese, the Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in frenzied states. Walter Burkert observes that Frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks are recorded in the Near East as in Mari in the second millennium BC, in Egypt the goddess Wadjet was depicted as a snake-headed woman or a woman with two snake-heads. Her oracle was in the temple in Per-Wadjet. The oracle of Wadjet may have been the source for the tradition which spread from Egypt to Greece. Evans linked Wadjet with the Minoan snake goddess, a chthonic deity, in Greece the old oracles were devoted to the Mother Goddess. At the oracle of Dodona she will be called Diōnē, who represents the earth-fertile soil, python, daughter of Gaia was the earth dragon of Delphi represented as a serpent and became the chthonic deity, enemy of Apollo, who slew her and possessed the oracle. The Pythia was the mouthpiece of the oracles of the god Apollo, the Pythia was not conceived to be infallible and in fact, according to Sourvinou-Inwood in What is Polis Religion. The ancient Greeks were aware of this and concluded the unknowability of the divine, in this way, the ‘revelations’ of the Oracles were not seen as ‘objective’ truth. Many wealthy individuals bypassed the hordes of people attempting a consultation by making additional animal sacrifices to please the oracle lest their request go unanswered, as a result, seers were the main source of everyday divination. It is from this institution that the English word, oracle, is derived, the Delphic Oracle exerted considerable influence throughout Hellenic culture. Distinctively, this female was essentially the highest authority both civilly and religiously in male-dominated ancient Greece and she responded to the questions of citizens, foreigners, kings, and philosophers on issues of political impact, war, duty, crime, laws—even personal issues. The semi-Hellenic countries around the Greek world, such as Lydia, Caria, Croesus, king of Lydia beginning in 560 B. C. tested the oracles of the world to discover which gave the most accurate prophecies. He sent out emissaries to seven sites who were all to ask the oracles on the day what the king was doing at that very moment. Croesus proclaimed the oracle at Delphi to be the most accurate, who reported that the king was making a lamb-and-tortoise stew
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Apollo
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Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros, Apollo has been recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. As the patron of Delphi, Apollo was an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Amongst the gods custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, as the leader of the Muses and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became an attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans, Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 3rd century CE. The name Apollo—unlike the related older name Paean—is generally not found in the Linear B texts, the etymology of the name is uncertain. The spelling Ἀπόλλων had almost superseded all other forms by the beginning of the common era and it probably is a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios, and the offerings apellaia at the initiation of the young men during the family-festival apellai. According to some scholars the words are derived from the Doric word apella, apella is the name of the popular assembly in Sparta, corresponding to the ecclesia. R. S. P. Beekes rejected the connection of the theonym with the noun apellai, several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks most often associated Apollos name with the Greek verb ἀπόλλυμι, in the ancient Macedonian language πέλλα means stone, and some toponyms may be derived from this word, Πέλλα and Πελλήνη. The role of Apollo as god of plague is evident in the invocation of Apollo Smintheus by Chryses, the Hittite testimony reflects an early form *Apeljōn, which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot Ἀπείλων with Doric Ἀπέλλων. A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo The One of Entrapment, Apollos chief epithet was Phoebus, literally bright. It was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans for Apollos role as the god of light, like other Greek deities, he had a number of others applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god. However, while Apollo has a number of appellations in Greek myth. Aegletes, from αἴγλη, light of the sun Helius, literally sun Lyceus light, the meaning of the epithet Lyceus later became associated with Apollos mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia and who was identified with the wolf
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Jupiter (mythology)
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Jupiter, also Jove, is the god of sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering. Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god, the two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a witness to oaths. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located and he was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the guardian of the state with Juno. His sacred tree was the oak, the Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune, each presided over one of the three realms of the universe, sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually, Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart. The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honoured him more than any other people had, Jupiter was the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested. He personified the divine authority of Romes highest offices, internal organization and his image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Romes ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours. The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiters name, to thank him for his help, they offered him a white ox with gilded horns. A similar offering was made by generals, who surrendered the tokens of their victory at the feet of Jupiters statue in the Capitol. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as embodying Jupiter in the triumphal procession, Jupiters association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as Romes form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings, after the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives were transferred to the patres, nostalgia for the kingship was considered treasonous. Those suspected of harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to the state, in the 5th century BC, the triumphator Camillus was sent into exile after he drove a chariot with a team of four white horses —an honour reserved for Jupiter himself. His house on the Capitoline Hill was razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live there, during the Conflict of the Orders, Romes plebeians demanded the right to hold political and religious office
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Anemoi
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The Spartans were reported to sacrifice a horse to the winds on Mount Taygetus. Astraeus, the deity, and Eos/Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, were the parents of the Anemoi. The daughters of the Anemoi are the Aurae, the deities equivalent to the Anemoi in Roman mythology were the Venti. These gods had different names, but were very similar to their Greek counterparts, borrowing their attributes. Boreas was the Greek god of the north wind and the bringer of winter. Although normally taken as the wind, the Roman writers Aulus Gellius. Boreas is depicted as being strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as an old man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell. Pausanias wrote that Boreas had snakes instead of feet, though in art he was depicted with winged human feet. Boreas two sons Calaïs and Zetes, known as Boreads, were in the crew of the Argo as Argonauts, Boreas was closely associated with horses. He was said to have fathered twelve colts after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius and these were said to be able to run across a field of grain without trampling the plants. Pliny the Elder thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind and he is said to have fathered three giant Hyperborean priests of Apollo by Chione. Boreas was also said to have kidnapped Orithyia, an Athenian princess, Boreas had taken a fancy to Orithyia and had initially pleaded for her favours, hoping to persuade her. When this failed, he reverted to his temper and abducted her as she danced on the banks of the Ilisos. Boreas wrapped Orithyia up in a cloud, raped her, and with her, from then on, the Athenians saw Boreas as a relative by marriage. When Athens was threatened by Xerxes, the people prayed to Boreas, and when they went home they built the god a shrine by the River Ilissus. The abduction of Orithyia was popular in Athens before and after the Persian War, in these paintings, Boreas was portrayed as a bearded man in a tunic, with shaggy hair that is sometimes frosted and spiked. The abduction was also dramatized in Aeschyluss lost play Oreithyia, in other accounts, Boreas was the father of Butes and the lover of the nymph Pitys
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Lucus
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In ancient Roman religion, a lucus is a sacred grove. Lucus was one of four Latin words meaning in general forest, woodland, grove, servius defines the lucus as a large number of trees with a religious significance, as distinguished from the silva, a natural forest, and a nemus, an arboretum that is not consecrated. A saltus usually implied a wilderness area with varied topographical features and it has been conjectured, for instance, that the Lupercal, referred to as a cave, was a small lucus with an artificial grotto, since archaeology has uncovered no natural cave in the area. Apuleius records that when pious travelers happen to pass by a grove or a cult place on their way, they are used to make a vow, or a fruit offering. What the Romans understood by religio lay in these ritual gestures, some ancient sources as well as modern etymologists derive the word from a letting in of light, that is, the lucus was the clearing encompassed by trees. The Old High German cognate lôh also means clearing, holy grove, Lucus appears to have been understood in this sense in early medieval literature, until the 10th century, it is regularly translated into OHG as harug, a word never used for the secular silva. In his book On Agriculture, Cato records a Roman ritual lucum conlucare, the officiant is instructed to offer a pig as a piaculum, a propitiation or expiatory offering made in advance of the potential wrong committed against the grove through human agency. To this end, in offering this pig to thee I humbly beg that thou wilt be gracious and merciful to me, to my house and household, wilt thou deign to receive this pig which I offer thee to this end. The word piaculum is repeated three times in the prayer, emphasizing that the sacrifice of the pig is not a freewill offering, the piaculum compensates the deity for a transgression or offense, and differs from a regular sacrifice offered in the hope of procuring favor in return. The piaculum was a guarantee that the action of clearing was valid, the Lucaria was held on July 19 and 21, according to the Fasti Amiterni, a calendar dating from the reign of Tiberius found at Amiternum in Sabine territory. A lucus might become such a focus of activity that a community grew up around it, as was the case with the Lucus Augusti that is now Lugo in Spain and the Lucus Feroniae near Capena
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Thyine wood
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Thyine wood is a 15th-century English name for a wood from the tree known botanically as Tetraclinis articulata. The name is derived from the Greek word thuon, fragrant wood, or possibly thuein, “to sacrifice”, in Rome, wood from this tree was called citrum, citrus wood. It was considered valuable, and was used for making articles of furniture by the Greeks. Craftsmen who worked in wood and ivory had their own guild. Thyine wood is mentioned in the King James Version of the Bible at Revelation 18,12 as being among the articles which would cease to be purchased when Babylon fell, the New International Version translates the passage citron wood, the Amplified Bible translates it as scented wood. The resin is used as the basis for euparal, a medium used in microscopy. Use in microscopy This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Easton
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Neoclassicism
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The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, laterally competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style continued throughout the 19th, 20th, European Neoclassicism in the visual arts began c.1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Baroque and Rococo styles. Each neo-classicism selects some models among the range of classics that are available to it. They ignored both Archaic Greek art and the works of Late Antiquity, the Rococo art of ancient Palmyra came as a revelation, through engravings in Woods The Ruins of Palmyra. While the movement is described as the opposed counterpart of Romanticism. The case of the main champion of late Neoclassicism, Ingres, demonstrates this especially well. The revival can be traced to the establishment of formal archaeology, the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann were important in shaping this movement in both architecture and the visual arts. With the advent of the Grand Tour, a fad of collecting antiquities began that laid the foundations of many great collections spreading a Neoclassical revival throughout Europe, Neoclassicism in each art implies a particular canon of a classical model. In English, the term Neoclassicism is used primarily of the arts, the similar movement in English literature. This, which had been dominant for decades, was beginning to decline by the time Neoclassicism in the visual arts became fashionable. Though terms differ, the situation in French literature was similar, in music, the period saw the rise of classical music, and Neoclassicism is used of 20th-century developments. Ingress coronation portrait of Napoleon even borrowed from Late Antique consular diptychs and their Carolingian revival, much Neoclassical painting is more classicizing in subject matter than in anything else. A fierce, but often very badly informed, dispute raged for decades over the merits of Greek and Roman art, with Winckelmann. The work of artists, who could not easily be described as insipid, combined aspects of Romanticism with a generally Neoclassical style. Unlike Carstens unrealized schemes, the etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi were numerous and profitable and his main subject matter was the buildings and ruins of Rome, and he was more stimulated by the ancient than the modern. Neoclassicism in painting gained a new sense of direction with the success of Jacques-Louis Davids Oath of the Horatii at the Paris Salon of 1785. Despite its evocation of republican virtues, this was a commission by the royal government, David managed to combine an idealist style with drama and forcefulness. David rapidly became the leader of French art, and after the French Revolution became a politician with control of government patronage in art
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Grisaille
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Grisaille is a term for a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour. It is particularly used in decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco illustrated. Paintings executed in brown are referred to as brunaille, and paintings executed in green are called verdaille, a grisaille may be executed for its own sake, as underpainting for an oil painting, or as a model for an engraver to work from. Rubens and his school sometimes use monochrome techniques in sketching compositions for engravers, originally these were the sides on display for most of the time, as the doors were normally kept closed except on feast days or at the request of tourists. However today these images are invisible in museums when the tryptych is displayed open. In these cases imitation of sculpture was intended, sculpture was still more expensive than a painting even by a top master. The ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel have portions of the design in grisaille, Grisaille, while less widespread in the 20th Century, continues as an artistic technique. Pablo Picassos painting Guernica is one contemporary example, hugo Bastidas is a contemporary American painter known for black and white paintings that imitate the effect of grisaille and often resemble black and white photographs. Bastidas’ paintings frequently reference architecture, water, vegetation and art history, and reflect his concern about the condition, globalization. After returning to New York from a Fulbright Fellowship in his native Ecuador in the early 1990s, Bastidas began using a color palette of black. His medium- and large-scale paintings allude to black-and-white photography, and feature contrasting zones of high, by making thousands of marks with a size No.1 hogs bristle brush on linen primed with rabbit-skin glue, Bastidas achieves a high level of image definition. He also works in photography, which informs his subject matter without rendering a photo-realistic effect. With the 20th centurys emphasis on painting, the grisaille technique lost favour with artists of the period. This historic method is still incorporated into the curriculum of some private ateliers, the term is also applied to monochrome painting in other media such as enamels, where an effect similar to a relief in silver may be intended. It is common in stained glass, where the need for sections in different colours was thereby greatly reduced, portions of a window may be done in grisaille — using, for example, silver stain or vitreous paint — while other sections are done in coloured glass. Sepia tone References A Watercolour Demonstration Using Grisaille Notes Jan Gossarts Saint Jerome Penitent using grisaille Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and workshop, Odalisque in Grisaille
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Wallpaper
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It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as lining paper, textured, with a repeating pattern design, or, much less commonly today. Wallpaper printing techniques include surface printing, gravure printing, silk screen-printing, rotary printing, Wallpaper is made in long rolls, which are hung vertically on a wall. The number of times the pattern repeats horizontally across a roll does not matter for this purpose, a single pattern can be issued in several different colorways. The worlds most expensive wallpaper, Les Guerres DIndependence, was priced at £24,896.50 for a set of 32 panels, the wallpaper was designed by Zuber in France and is very popular in the United States. The main historical techniques are, hand-painting, woodblock printing, stencilling, the first three all date back to before 1700. Wallpaper, using the technique of woodcut, gained popularity in Renaissance Europe amongst the emerging gentry. The social elite continued to hang large tapestries on the walls of their homes and these tapestries added color to the room as well as providing an insulating layer between the stone walls and the room, thus retaining heat in the room. However, tapestries were extremely expensive and so only the rich could afford them. Less well-off members of the elite, unable to buy tapestries due either to prices or wars preventing international trade, turned to wallpaper to brighten up their rooms. Prints were very often pasted to walls, instead of being framed and hung, and the largest sizes of prints, some important artists made such pieces - notably Albrecht Dürer, who worked on both large picture prints and also ornament prints - intended for wall-hanging. The largest picture print was The Triumphal Arch commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, very few samples of the earliest repeating pattern wallpapers survive, but there are a large number of old master prints, often in engraving of repeating or repeatable decorative patterns. These are called ornament prints and were intended as models for wallpaper makers, England and France were leaders in European wallpaper manufacturing. Among the earliest known samples is one found on a wall from England and is printed on the back of a London proclamation of 1509, without any tapestry manufacturers in England, English gentry and aristocracy alike turned to wallpaper. During the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, the manufacture of wallpaper, in 1712, during the reign of Queen Anne, a wallpaper tax was introduced which was not abolished until 1836. By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain was the wallpaper manufacturer in Europe. However this trade was disrupted in 1755 by the Seven Years War and later the Napoleonic Wars. In 1748 the British Ambassador to Paris decorated his salon with blue flock wallpaper, in the 1760s the French manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon hired designers working in silk and tapestry to produce some of the most subtle and luxurious wallpaper ever made
38.
Merry-Joseph Blondel
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Merry-Joseph Blondel was a French history painter of the Neoclassical school. He was a winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1803, for much of Blondels painting career, he was occupied with public commissions for paintings and frescoes in important buildings, including palaces, museums and churches. Merry-Joseph was born on 25 July 1781 to Joseph-Armand Blondel, a painter and expert in stucco decoration, Merry-Joseph had two brothers and a sister, including Charles-Francois Armand Blondel, an architect. Several generations of the Blondel family had associated with architecture. Blondels great uncle, Jacques-Francois Blondel wrote a treatise on the subject, at the age of fourteen, on the advice of his maternal uncle, Merry-Joseph went to work in the office of a Notary, an experience which he would later describe as excruciating. In 1801, once again, Blondel convinced his father to break his contract as his drawing talent secured him a place in the studio of Baron Jean-Baptiste Regnault. Within a year, Blondel had acquired the nickname Monsieur de Cinq-Prix among his peers at the studio, on account of the number of medals and prizes he had won for his drawing. Another year on and Blondels entry to the 1803 salon, a painting depicting Aeneas rescuing his father from the city of Troy. In 1835, Ingres returned as the director of the French Academy in Rome, when Blondel was unexpectedly overlooked for the position of director of the Academy in 1840, Ingres sent him a lengthy and heartfelt letter of condolence. After three years in Rome, Blondel returned to Paris and became an exhibitor at the Louvre salon exhibitions. At the salon of 1817, Blondel won a medal for his painting depicting the Death of Louis XII. After the salon of 1824, the rank of Chevalier in the order of the Legion dHonneur, was bestowed upon both Blondel and Ingres by the French King, Charles X. In 1824, the year of his knighthood, Blondel was awarded a professorship at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, in that same year, Blondel also competed for a vacant seat at the Académie des beaux-arts but lost out to Ingres. He was eventually elected to a seat at the Académie in 1832, most notable among these commissions were, at the palace of Fontainebleau - Salon and Gallery of Diana, a fresco series of 21 paintings of scenes related to the goddess Diana. The Palace of Versailles - a series of full sized portraits depicting all the known kings, the Louvre Museum - frescoes in the Grand staircase, the Salle Henri II, Rooms of the state counsel. The Brongniart Palace - Ceiling painting and several cameos, the Luxembourg Palace - ceiling fresco in the Salle de Seances. The church of St. Thomas Aquinas - fresco cycle, Blondel was working on his fresco cycle at the church of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the 7e arronsissement when he fell ill and died in 1853. In typically simplistic fashion, the exhibition catalogue described the painting as painting no.108, critical references to the painting would later confirm Blondels given title for the picture as La Circassienne au Bain
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Pan (god)
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In Greek religion and mythology, Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the ancient Greek language, from the word paein, meaning to pasture and he has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens, because of this, Pan is connected to fertility. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement. Many modern scholars consider Pan to be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god *Péh2usōn, the Hindu god Pushan is believed to be a cognate of Pan. The connection between Pan and Pushan was first identified in 1924 by the German scholar Hermann Collitz, the name Pan is probably also a cognate with the Greek word πάειν, meaning to pasture, which shares an origin with the modern English word pasture. In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindars Pythian Ode iii,78, Pan is associated with a mother goddess, perhaps Rhea or Cybele, Pindar refers to virgins worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poets house in Boeotia. In some early sources such as Pindar, his father is Apollo via Penelope, Herodotus, Cicero, Apollodorus and Hyginus all make Hermes and Penelope his parents. Pausanias 8.12.5 records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, other sources report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result. This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pans name with the Greek word for all, in the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era, Pan is made cognate with Phanes/Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros. Accounts of Pans genealogy are so varied that it must lie buried deep in mythic time, like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than the Olympians, if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo. Pan might be multiplied as the Pans or the Paniskoi, Kerenyi notes from scholia that Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas, and one a son of Cronus. In the retinue of Dionysos, or in depictions of landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi. The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of people, culturally separated from other Greeks. Greek hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase. Being a rustic god, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices and these are often referred to as the Cave of Pan. In the 4th century BC Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion, the goat-god Aegipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Athens
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Numen
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Numen, pl. numina, is a Latin term for divinity, or a divine presence, divine will. The Latin authors defined it as follows, cicero writes of a divine mind, a god whose numen everything obeys, and a divine power which pervades the lives of men. It causes the motions and cries of birds during augury, in Virgils recounting of the blinding of the one-eyed giant, Polyphemus, from the Odyssey, in his Aeneid, he has Odysseus and his men first ask for the assistance of the great numina. Pliny the younger in a letter to Paternus raves about the power, the dignity, and the majesty, in short, the numen of history. Lucretius uses the expression numen mentis, or bidding of the mind, where bidding is numen, not, however, the numen, unless the mind is to be considered divine. Since the early 20th century, numen has sometimes been treated in the history of religion as a phase, that is. Numen is also used by sociologists to refer to the idea of magical power residing in an object, when used in this sense, numen is nearly synonymous with mana. However, some authors use of mana for ideas about magic from Polynesia. It came to mean the product or expression of power — not, be it noted, thus, numen is not personified and should be distinguished from deus. The cult of Augustus was promoted by Tiberius, who dedicated the Ara Numinis Augusti, in this context, a distinction can be made between the terms numen and genius. The expression Numen inest appears in Ovids Fasti and has been translated as There is a spirit here and its interpretation, and in particular the exact sense of numen has been discussed extensively in the literature. The phrase numen eris caeloque redux mirabere regna appears on line 129 of the poem Metrum in Genesin, nil sine numine is the state motto of Colorado. Its origin could be the phrase. non haec sine numine divum eveniunt from Virgils Aeneid, Numen lumen is the motto of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Elon University. The term numen appears three times in James Joyces Finnegans Wake, animism Lares Penates Sacred Fishwick, Duncan. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, the Idea of the Holy, An Inquiry Into the Non Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine 1926
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Giuseppe Crespi
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Giuseppe Maria Crespi, nicknamed Lo Spagnuolo, was an Italian late Baroque painter of the Bolognese School. His eclectic output includes paintings and portraits, but he is now most famous for his genre paintings. Crespi was born in Bologna to Girolamo Crespi and Isabella Cospi and his mother was a distant relation of the noble Cospi family, which had ties to the Florentine House of Medici. He was nicknamed the Spanish One because of his habit of wearing tight clothes characteristic of Spanish fashion of the time, by age 12 years, he apprenticed with Angelo Michele Toni. From the age of 15–18 years, he worked under the Bolognese Domenico Maria Canuti, the Roman painter Carlo Maratti, on a visit to Bologna, is said to have invited Crespi to work in Rome, but Crespi declined. From this time hence, Crespi worked independently of other artists and his main biographer, Giampietro Zanotti, said of Crespi, never again wanted for money, and he would make the stories and caprices that came into his imagination. Very often also he painted common things, representing the lowest occupations, thus it was for Crespi himself, as he began a career servicing wealthy patrons with artwork. He is said to have had a camera optica in his house for painting, by the 1690s he had completed various altarpieces, including a Temptation of Saint Anthony commissioned by Count Carlo Cesare Malvasia, now in San Niccolò degli Albari. He journeyed to Venice, but surprisingly, never to Rome and he had been forced to flee Bologna with the canvas, which while intended for the Duke, had been fancied by a local priest, Don Carlo Silva for himself. The events surrounding this episode became the source of litigation, in which Crespi, at least for the next five years. An eclectic artist, Crespi was a painter and a brilliant caricaturist. He could be said to have painted a number of masterpieces in different styles and he was not universally appreciated, Lanzi quotes Mengs as lamenting that the Bolognese school should close with the capricious Crespi. Lanzi himself describes Crespi as allowing his turn for novelty at length to lead his fine genius astray, One celebrated series of canvases, the Seven Sacraments, was painted around 1712, and now hangs in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. It was originally completed for Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome, and these imposing works are painted with a loose brushstroke, but still maintain a sober piety. Making no use of symbols such as saints and putti. Crespi is best known today as one of the proponents of baroque genre painting in Italy. Italians, until the 17th century, had little attention to such themes, concentrating mainly on grander images from religion, mythology. In this they differed from Northern Europeans, specifically Dutch painters, there were exceptions, the Bolognese Baroque titan of fresco, Annibale Carracci, had painted pastoral landscapes, and depictions of homely tradespeople such as butchers
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Ceres (mythology)
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In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. She was originally the central deity in Romes so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad and her seven-day April festival of Cerealia included the popular Ludi Ceriales. She was also honoured in the May lustratio of the fields at the Ambarvalia festival, at harvest-time, Ceres is the only one of Romes many agricultural deities to be listed among the Dii Consentes, Romes equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter, whose mythology was reinterpreted for Ceres in Roman art and literature. Roman etymologists thought ceres derived from the Latin verb gerere, to bear, bring forth, produce, because the goddess was linked to pastoral, agricultural and human fertility. Archaic cults to Ceres are well-evidenced among Romes neighbours in the Regal period, including the ancient Latins, Oscans and Sabellians, an archaic Faliscan inscription of c.600 BC asks her to provide far, which was a dietary staple of the Mediterranean world. Throughout the Roman era, Ceres name was synonymous with grain and, by extension and she had the power to fertilise, multiply and fructify plant and animal seed, and her laws and rites protected all activities of the agricultural cycle. In January, Ceres was offered spelt wheat and a pregnant sow and this was almost certainly held before the annual sowing of grain. The divine portion of sacrifice was the entrails presented in an earthenware pot, in a rural context, Cato the Elder describes the offer to Ceres of a porca praecidanea. Before the harvest, she was offered a propitiary grain sample, Ovid tells that Ceres is content with little, provided that her offerings are casta. Ceres main festival, Cerealia, was held from mid to late April and it was organised by her plebeian aediles and included circus games. From c.175 BC, Cerealia included ludi scaenici through April 12 to 18, W. H. Roscher lists these deities among the indigitamenta, names used to invoke specific divine functions. The adult males of the party waited at the grooms house. A wedding sacrifice was offered to Tellus on the brides behalf, Varro describes the sacrifice of a pig as a worthy mark of weddings because our women, and especially nurses call the female genitalia porcus. Spaeth believes Ceres may have included in the sacrificial dedication, because she is closely identified with Tellus and, as Ceres legifera. In the most solemn form of marriage, confarreatio, the bride and groom shared a cake made of far, from at least the mid-republican era, an official, joint cult to Ceres and Proserpina reinforced Ceres connection with Roman ideals of female virtue. The promotion of this cult coincides with the rise of a nobility, an increased birthrate among plebeian commoners. Several of Ceres ancient Italic precursors are connected to fertility and motherhood
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Theophany
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Theophany refers to the appearance of a deity to a human. This term has been used to refer to appearances of the gods in the ancient Greek, while the Iliad is the earliest source for descriptions of theophanies in the Classical tradition/era, probably the earliest description of a theophany is in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Only a small number of theophanies are found in the Hebrew Bible, at Delphi the Theophania was an annual festival in spring celebrating the return of Apollo from his winter quarters in Hyperborea. The culmination of the festival was a display of an image of the gods, usually hidden in the sanctuary, later Roman mystery religions often included similar brief displays of images to excited worshippers. The appearance of Zeus to Semele is more than a mortal can stand, however, most Greek theophanies were less deadly. Unusual for Greek mythology is the story of Prometheus, not an Olympian but a Titan, there are no descriptions of the humans involved in this theophany, but Prometheus was severely punished by Zeus. The Bible states that God revealed himself to man, God speaks with Adam and Eve in Eden, with Cain, with Noah and his sons, and with Abraham and his wife Sarah. Isaiahs first revelation was also a sight of God, Amos had his visions, and so with Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, Balaam also boasted of being one who saw the vision of the Almighty. Most vividly does Eliphaz describe such a revelation, In thoughts from the vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, a spirit passed before my face, the hair of my flesh stood up. He stood still, but I could not discern his appearance, a figure was before mine eyes, a whispering voice I heard. In Midian, while Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law Jethro, the theophany at Biblical Mount Sinai is related in Exodus 19, 16–25. Yahwehs manifestation is accompanied by thunder and lightning, there is a flame, reaching to the sky, the loud notes of a trumpet are heard. Out of the midst of the flame and the cloud a voice reveals the Ten Commandments,5, 4-19 is practically the same, and in its guarded language it strongly emphasizes the incorporeal nature of God. Moses in his points to this revelation as to the source of the election of Israel. God appears on Sinai like a sun and comes accompanied by holy myriads. Likewise, in the Song of Deborah the manifestation is described as a storm, the quakes, Sinai trembles. It is poetically elaborated in the prayer of Habakkuk, here past,2 and Judges v.4, God appears from Teman and Paran. His majesty is described as a glory of light and brightness, the mountains tremble violently, the earth quakes, the people are sore afraid
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Juno (mythology)
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Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter, Juno also looked after the women of Rome. As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina and, together with Jupiter, Junos own warlike aspect among the Romans is apparent in her attire. She often appeared sitting pictured with an armed and wearing a goatskin cloak. The traditional depiction of this aspect was assimilated from the Greek goddess Athena. The name Juno was also thought to be connected to Iove, originally as Diuno. At the beginning of the 20th century, a derivation was proposed from iuven- and this etymology became widely accepted after it was endorsed by Georg Wissowa. Iuuen- is related to Latin aevum and Greek aion through a common Indo-European root referring to a concept of energy or fertile time. The iuvenis is he who has the fullness of vital force, in some inscriptions Jupiter himself is called Iuuntus, and one of the epithets of Jupiter is Ioviste, a superlative form of iuuen- meaning the youngest. Iuventas, Youth, was one of two deities who refused to leave the Capitol when the building of the new Temple of Capitoline Jove required the exauguration of deities who already occupied the site, Juno is the equivalent to Hera, the Greek goddess for love and marriage. Juno is the Roman goddess of love and marriage, Junos theology is one of the most complex and disputed issues in Roman religion. Even more than other major Roman deities, Juno held a number of significant and diverse epithets, names and titles representing various aspects. In accordance with her role as a goddess of marriage. However, other epithets of Juno have wider implications and are thematically linked. Juno is certainly the divine protectress of the community, who shows both a sovereign and a fertility character, often associated with a military one and she is also attested at Praeneste, Aricia, Ardea, Gabii. In five Latin towns a month was named after Juno, outside Latium in Campania at Teanum she was Populona, in Umbria at Pisaurum Lucina, at Terventum in Samnium Regina, at Pisarum Regina Matrona, at Aesernia in Samnium Regina Populona. In Rome she was since the most ancient times named Lucina, Mater and it is debated whether she was also known as Curitis before the evocatio of the Juno of Falerii, this though seems probable. Her various epithets thus show a complex of mutually interrelated functions that in the view of G, the ancient called her Covella in her function of helper in the labours of the new moon
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Cupid and Psyche. A poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon from The Literary Souvenir, 1827.