Thick darkness now obscured the dusky skies: Dismiss your fears; I come and leave my shrine; His form, though larger, nobler, I'll assume, And changed, as gods should be, bring aid to Rome." Was followed by the cheerful dawn of light. Now was the morn with blushing streaks o'erspread, What seats he deigns to choose, what land to bless; Forerunning hissings his approach confessed; Bright shone his golden scales, and waved his lofty crest. The trembling altar his appearance spoke, The marble floor and glittering ceiling shook; The doors were rocked, the statue seemed to nod, And all the fabric owned the present god, The world's great mistress, Rome, receives him now; The land, a narrow neck, itself extends, Round which his course the stream divided bends; OVID'S Metamorphoses, book 15. BOREAS. BOREAS, the chief of the gods who presided over the four winds, was the son of Astræus and Aurora. He was adored by the Greeks and Romans, but principally by the former, who erected altars, and celebrated festivals named Boreasmi, at Athens, to his honour: he had also temples and sacrifices in Arcadia. This god was supposed to dwell in Thrace, and preside over the nation of the Hyberboreans, who constantly sent offerings to Boreas into Greece. He is drawn as an old grey-haired man, adorned with wings. From Thracia, nurse of steeds, comes rushing forth, And moves it with his breath: then howl the shores Tears the thick pine trees from the mountain's brow, HYMEN. This god, worshipped by the Greeks as Hymen, by the Romans as Thalassius, was, by the early mythologists, said to be the son of Bacchus, and the goddess of beauty. He is described, by more modern writers, as being of Athenian origin. Hymen was universally worshipped as the god of marriage, and, as such, his presence was invoked on all occasions when that rite was to be solemnized. If he appeared with his torch brightly burning, it was considered as a happy omen; but, if he absented himself, or his torch flamed but faintly, it was deemed most inauspicious, and a calamitous termination to the nuptials was expected. Festivals were instituted, and sacrifices offered to him, under the figure of a young man crowned with roses, and attired in a purple or saffron vest, bearing in his hand his famous torch. Ovid well describes his unfortunate appearance at the marriage of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the disastrous events which succeeded their union. Thence, in his saffron robe, for distant Thrace, With dread these inauspicious signs were viewed, For as the bride, amid the Naiad train, Instant she fell, and sudden breathed her last. Metamorphoses, book 10. SOMNUS. This gloomy deity, the son of Erebus and Nox, presided over sleep, and is generally classed with the infernal rulers, from the circumstance of his palace being situated in Chaos, or unbounded space, beyond the confines of the peopled universe. He is usually represented as buried in deep slumbers on a couch surrounded with sable curtains, fantastic images of the phantasies and dreams flitting near him. Morpheus, the god of dreams, is his principal attendant; he watches by his side, holding in one hand a vase containing narcotic juices, and in the other fresh gathered poppies, which are peculiarly sacred to this god, on account of their somniferous qualities. Mors, the goddess of death, and daughter of Night, is sometimes introduced by mythologists into the cave of Somnus, in the form of a skeleton armed with a scymeter and a scythe. |