Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/111

89 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 89 " First of all (the Theogony, strictly so called, begins) was Chaos'* ; that is, the abyss, in which all peculiar shape and figure is lost, and of which we arrive at the conception by excluding all idea of definite form. It is evident, however, that, as Hesiod represents other beings as spring- ing out of Chaos, he must have meant by this word not mere empty space, but a confused mixture of material atoms, instinct with the prin- ciple of life. " Afterwards arose (that is from Chaos) the wide-bosomed Earth, the firm resting-place of all things; and gloomy Tartara in the depth of the Earth; and Eros, the fairest of the immortal godsf." The Earth, the mother of all living things, according to the notion of the Greeks and many oriental countries, is conceived to arise out of the dark abyss ; her foundations are in the depth of night, and her surface is the soil upon which light and life exist. Tartara is, as it were, only the dark side of the Earth ; by which it still remains connected with Chaos. As the Earth and Tartara represent the brute matter of Chaos in a more perfect form, so in Eros the living spirit appears as the principle of all increase and development. It is a lofty conception of the poet of the Theogony, to represent the God of Love as proceed- ing out of Chaos at the beginning of all things ; though probably this thought did not originate with him, and had already been expressed in ancient hymns to Eros, sung at Thespia?. Doubtless it is not an accidental coincidence that this city, which was 40 stadia from Ascra, should have possessed the most renowned temple of Eros in all Greece ; and that in its immediate neighbourhood Hesiod should have given to this deity a dignity and importance of which the Homeric poems con- tain no trace. But it appears that the poet was satisfied with borrowing this thought from the Thespian hymns without applying it in the subsequent part of his poem. For although it is doubtless implied that all the following marriages and births of the gods spring from the in- fluence of Eros, the poet nevertheless omits expressly to mention its operation. " Out of Chaos came Erebus," the darkness in the depths of the Earth, " and black Night" the darkness which passes over the. surface of the Etrth. " From the union of Night and Erebus pro- ceeded JEthcr and Day" It may perhaps appear strange that these dark children of Chaos bring forth the ever-shining /Ether of the highest heavens, and the bright daylight of the earth ; this, however, is only a consequence of the general law of development observed in the Theogony, that the dim and shapeless is the prior in point of time ; and that the world is perpetually advancing from obscurity to bright- t Plato and Aristotle in their quotations of this passage omit Tartara (also called Tartarus) ; but probably only because it has not so much importance among the prinripia mundi as the others. Tartara could also be considered as included un.ler the Earth, as it is also called Ta^ra^a yam. But the poet of the Theogony must have stated his origin in this place ; as lower down he describes Typhosus as the
 * xuo;, literally synonymous with ;£«*/*«, chasm.
 * onof the Earth and Tartarus.