Stories of Old Greece and RomeBaker, Emilie K. (Emilie Kip)
General
Stories of Old Greece and Rome
Baker, Emilie K. (Emilie Kip)
Mythology, Greek -- Juvenile literature; Mythology, Roman -- Juvenile literature
They need not the moon in that land of delight
They need not the pale, pale star;
The sun is bright, by day and night,
Where the souls of the blessed are.
They till not the ground, they plow not the wave,
They labor not, never! oh, never!
Not a tear do they shed, not a sigh do they heave,
They are happy forever and ever!"
LIII
The chosen device of Charles V. of Germany represented the Pillars of
Hercules entwined by a scroll that bore his motto "Plus Ultra." This
device, represented on the German dollar, has been adopted as the sign
of the American dollar ($).
LIV
The Pygmies were a nation of dwarfs, so called from a Greek word
meaning the cubit or measure of about thirteen inches, which was said
to be the height of these people. They lived near the sources of the
Nile, or, according to others, in India. Homer tells us that the
cranes used to migrate every winter to the Pygmies' country, where
they occasioned a fierce warfare. H. M. Stanley, in his last African
expedition, discovered a race of diminutive men that correspond very
well in appearance to those mentioned by Homer.
Terra is the same goddess as Gæa (the Earth).
Poem:--
Battle of Pygmies and Cranes JAMES BEATTIE
LV
The Apples of the Hesperides may have been suggested by the oranges of
Spain.
See the poem "The Golden Apples," in William Morris's "Earthly
Paradise."
LVI
Two poems on the Medusa which are well worth reading are "The Doom of
King Acrisius" in William Morris's "Earthly Paradise," and Shelley's
lines "On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery."
LVII
There are translations of Simonides's "Lament of Danaë" by William C.
Bryant and John H. Frere.
Tennyson has a singular use of the proper noun in the "Princess" when
he says:--
"Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me."
LVIII
Cassiopeia was said to have been an Ethiopian; and was, therefore,
in spite of her boasted beauty black. Milton alludes to her in "Il
Penseroso" as:
"that starred Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended."
Though Cassiopeia attained the honor of being set among the stars, she
was placed--through the efforts of the sea-nymphs--in a part of the
heavens near the pole, where she is half the time held with her head
downward, to teach her humility.
LIX
For a Gaelic Andromeda and Perseus, see "The Thirteenth Son of the King
of Erin" in Curtin's "Myths of Ireland."
Poem:--
Andromeda CHARLES KINGSLEY
LX
From the incident of Bellerophon's bearing to Iobates the letters that
contained his own death-warrant, came the expression "Bellerophontic
letters." This is used to describe any written message that a person
may deliver, unknowingly, and that is prejudicial to himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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