The idea of sanctity, indeed, is not to be discovered here; its traces can only be found among the inspired records; the resemblance to the deity does not reach beyond the flesh and mind; yet the sum of the tale is full of interest. The other sons grew up, and became kings; he, that he might not linger, might not suffer, might not contract taint or undergo decay on earth, was taken up to that sphere, which is the proper home of all things beautiful and good. The thought is somewhat related to that of the following remarkable lines by Emerson: Perchance not he, but nature ailed; The world, and not the infant, failed. It was not ripe yet to sustain A genius of so fine a strain, Who gazed upon the sun and moon As if he came unto his own: And pregnant with his grander thought, Brought the old order into doubt. _His beauty once their beauty tried; They could not feed him, and he died,_ And wandered backward, as in scorn, To wait an Æon to be born. Far as the tradition of Ganymede, according to Homer, is below that of Enoch, it is set by a yet wider distance above the later version of the same tale. Thus, in Euripides, we find him the Διὸς λέκτρων τρύφημα φίλον (Iph. Aul. 1037): and what is more sad is to find, that this utterly debased and depressed idea prevailed over the original and pure one, even to its extinction, and was adopted and propagated by the highest and the lowest poets of the Italian romance[740]. [740] For example, we might quote the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto; and the very vulgar poet, Forteguerra, in the Ricciardetto, vi. 23: Il nettar beve, e Ganimede il mesce, Che tanto a Giuno sua spiace e rincresce. Next in order to the tradition of Ganymede comes that of Tithonus, who, on account of his beauty, was carried up, not by the gods at large, to be as one of them, but by Aurora to become her husband, in which capacity he remained in the upper regions[741]. This is a step downwards; but the next is a stride. In the third tradition, so far as is known from the authentic works of Homer, Æneas is the son of Venus and Anchises, but without their standing in the relation of husband and wife. The particulars of the narrative are supplied in the early Hymn, which perhaps was the more readily ascribed to Homer, because it was believed to embody a primitive form of the tradition. Jupiter inspired Venus with a passion for Anchises, and, after having arrayed herself in fine vestments and golden ornaments, she presented herself to him as he was playing the lyre in solitude on Ida; when the connection was formed that gave birth to Æneas[742]. [741] Il. xi. 1. Od. v. 1. [742] Hymn. ad Ven. 45-80.