TABLE OF CONTENTS I. PROLOGUE I-II In the Danaides1 of Aeschylus (525-456 в. c.), Aphrodite is represented as saying: The pure heaven longs to penetrate the soil, while at the same time desire lays hold upon the earth to enjoy these nuptials. Accordingly the rain, descending from the bridegroom heaven, impregnates the earth, which then brings forth grain for the use of mortals, and food for their flocks. The fruits of the trees, too, arrive at their perfection by means of this moist wedlock. And all these things are brought to pass with my aid. Not unlike this is the fragment (890 Nauck) of Euripides (480-406 B. c.), associated with it by Athenæus (600 B): 2 The earth longs for rain when the dry soil, barren by reason of drought, must needs have moisture. The holy heaven, in turn, when laden with showers, longs, at the impulse of Aphrodite, to descend into the earth. And when these two have been made one by love, they bring forth and nourish for us everything by which men everywhere live and thrive. As Munro, the editor of Lucretius, has said*: From the Vedas to the Pervigilium Veneris, poets and philosophers love to celebrate this union of Ether and Earth, Ether as the father descending in showers into the lap of Mother Earth. The notion Frag. 44 Sidgwick (otherwise 4I or 43): ἐρᾷ μὲν ἁγνὸς οὐρανὸς τρῶσαι χθόνα, δένδρων οπώρα δ' ἐκ νοτίζοντος γάνους τέλειός ἐστι· τῶνδ' ἐγὼ παραίτιος. Reading the traditional γάμου for the emendation, γάνους. |