Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/71

Rh It is necessary that I should advertise the reader of what he will not fail to peroeive, that the tales are not always perfect in every part; nor are the positions laid down at the commencement always remembered. This may result from ignorant transcribers having omitted some passages, and interpolated others: and such a supposition accounts, as I observed before, for the numerous variations which appear in various copies, as well as for the introduction of certain expressions that have been considered arguments in behalf of their origin. That they have been collected from all countries, and at many times, I have no doubt. Some appear of Italian construction, a few German, but the greater part oriental. The absolute power of the emperors, who sport with life and death in the most capricious and extraordinary manner—the constant introduction of the leprosy and crucifixion, amply confirm their connection with the East.

"It may not be thought impertinent to close this discourse with a remark on the subjoined to the stories of the . This was an age of vision and mystery: and every work was believed to contain a double, or secondary, meaning. Nothing escaped this eccentric spirit of refinement and abstraction; and, together with the Bible, as we have seen, not only the general history of ancient times was explained allegorically, but even the poetical fictions of the classics were made to signify the great truths of religion, with a degree of boldness, and a want of discrimination, which, in another age, would have acquired the character of the most profane levity, if not of absolute impiety, and can only be defended from the simplicity of the state of knowledge which then prevailed.

"Thus, God creating man of clay, animated with the vital principle of respiration, was the story of Prometheus, who formed a man of similar materials, to which he communicated life by fire stolen from heaven. Christ twice born, of His Father, God, and of His mother, Mary, was prefigured by Bacchus, who was first born of Semele, and afterwards of Jupiter. And as Minerva sprung from the brain of Jupiter, so Christ proceeded from God without a mother. Christ born of the Virgin Mary was expressed in the fable of Danäe shut within a tower, through the covering of which Jupiter descended in a shower of gold, and begat Perseus. Actæon, killed by his own hounds, was a type of the persecution and death of our Saviour. The poet Lycophron relates that Hercules, in returning from the adventure of the golden fleece, was shipwrecked; and that, being devoured by a