Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/36

14 the male personification of Nature, of which the first was celebrated with vehement joy, the latter with excessive lamentation, recur in a perpetual cycle, which must in the end have wearied and stupified the mind. The Grecian worship of Nature, on the other hand, in all the various forms which it assumed in different places, places one deity, as the highest of all, at the head of the entire system, the God of heaven and light; for that this is the meaning of the name Zeus is shown by the occurrence of the same root (Diu) with the same signification, even in the Sanscrit, and by the preservation of several of its derivatives which remained in common use both in Greek and Latin, all containing the notion of heaven and day. With this god of the heavens, who dwells in the pure expanse of ether, is associated, though not as a being of the same rank, the goddess of the Earth, who in different temples (which may be considered as the mother-churches of the Grecian religion) was worshipped under different names, Hera, Demeter, Dione, and some others. of less celebrity. The marriage of Zeus with this goddess (which signified the union of heaven and earth in the fertilizing rains) was a sacred solemnity in the worship of these deities. Besides this goddess, other beings are associated on one side with the Supreme God, who are personifications of certain of his energies; powerful deities who carry the influence of light over the earth, and destroy the opposing powers of darkness and confusion: as Athena, born from the head of her father, in the height of the heavens; and Apollo, the pure and shining god of a worship belonging to other races, but who even in his original form was a god of light. On the other side are deities, allied with the earth and dwelling in her dark recesses; and as all life appears not only to spring from the earth, but to return to that whence it sprung, these deities are for the most part also connected with death: as Hermes, who brings up the treasures of fruitfulness from the depth of the earth, and the child, now lost and now recovered by her mother Demeter, Cora, the goddess both of flourishing and of decaying Nature. It was natural to expect that the element of water (Poseidon) should also be introduced into this assemblage of the personified powers of Nature, and should be peculiarly combined with the goddess of the Earth: and that fire (Hephæstus) should be represented as a powerful principle derived from heaven and having dominion on the earth, and be closely allied with the goddess who sprang from the head of the god of the heavens. Other deities are less important and necessary parts of this system, as Aphrodite, whose worship was evidently for the most part propagated over Greece from Cyprus and Cythera by the influence of