calla, the very age, remarkably enough, to which the tomb, if not the vase, belongs, that we find a version of the story incomparably the nearest to the design of all that have been preserved; and as the Lemnian sophist appears in this valuable composition, more intent on displaying learning than invention, we may confidently infer that the rare myths he preserves were derived from earlier obscure sources. The marine Daimon, thus runs his tale, enamoured of Peleus, visited him incognita on Mount Pelion; but when on a time he beheld her from the heights, sporting on the calm sea with dolphins and hippocamps, 20 he recognized her divine nature, and was alarmed when she approached. The goddess, however, encouraged him to confidence, reminding him how Eos loved Tithonus, how Aphrodite was enamoured of Anchises, how Selene visited the sleeping Endymion; "and I," she said, "will bring to you a son of more than mortal prowess." Here then at last we find a version of the mythus distinctly embodying the leading motives, as expressed in the group on the vase, the abashed hero, the encouraging goddess; and this authority, taken in conjunction with the other coincidences of the design already insisted on, I hold to be sufficient to vindicate the interpretation of the subject as the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, notwithstanding its glaring incongruity in a principal point with the more prevalent versions and representations. We still certainly have not, and we are not likely to have, a literary statement of the mythus corresponding with the monument in every particular, accounting for the introduction and occupation of every personage and every detail. Art no doubt. usually followed poetry; but the poetry that chiefly influenced art did not all become fixed in literature, and of that which did, we possess but a small portion. The productions of ancient art preserved to us bear a still smaller proportion to those that have perished; and rarely indeed is it that a monument occurs presenting a precise reflection of the ideas of a poet that has come down to us. We may congratulate ourselves if we can identify the special conception of the artist in the monument we seek to explain, in one version of the story. On this leading 20 Cf. Tibull. I. XI. 45. Talis ad Hæmonium Nereis Pelea quondam Vecta est frenato coerula pisce Thetis. -See the piscis frenatus of a Nereid, Pl. vII. of Gerhard's Apulian Vases. idea, the treatment of all details depends,-what particular details were likely to be presented, and what was the extent of modification they received to reduce them to harmony with the spirit of the new composition, we must seek for and may discern by resorting to the fund of poetical and artistic associations connected with the subject, as preserved in the mass of parallel and conflicting legends on the same or similar incidents. The bas-relief, on which Winckelmann 21 relied for his interpretation, is one of a series of compositions of great similarity, representing the surprise of a sleeping nymph or youth by a celestial or heroic lover; in all of these, whether representing 22 Mars and Ilia, Dionusos and Ariadne, Peleus and Thetis, or Selene and Endymion, we have a constant recurrence of parallelism in motives, groups and details; and in all, the leading characteristic is the attitude already noticed in the Thetis of our secondary group, as expressive of somnolence, the attitude of the Capitoline Ariadne. On the vase these stock materials are all identifiable, but treated in accordance with the altered scheme of the mythus. As this is no longer a surprise, the usual group is divided; the somnolent nymph and advancing hero are made keys of distinct compositions, their expression and attitudes being at the same time adjusted to suit particular space and altered occupation. The delicate touches by which the figure of Peleus is brought into such distinct contrast to his bolder antetypes, render it a perfect study; in the parallel myths both in literature and on monuments, we find intimations of other intermediate phases of expression. The rashness of the lover of the Greek Anthology 23 becomes stealthiness in the approach of Dionusos,24 conducted by Eros and aided by the god of sleep, like the Peleus of the sarcophagus, to the reposing Aura; while Selene, contemplating the sleeping Endymion, approaches with an expression in 21 Monumen. inedit., pl. 110. 22 These compositions are among the most familiar to the students of figured antiquity; I content myself with referring to the most accessible,-Millin. Gal. Myth. 131, 550, 35, 117, 63, 241; Museo Pio-Clem. IV. 16; Galerie Giustin. t. 11., n. 110; Mus. Capit., t. IV., pl. XXIV. and XXIX.; Denkmäler d. Alt. κεῖτο περὶ κροτάφους πῆχυν ἐλιξαμένη. 24 Nonnus, Dionys, XLVIII. 614. termediate between the stealthy Dionusos and daring Peleus; and on a bas-relief we recognise the same diffident, tripping, tip-toe step of the love-escorted goddess, that is described by Lucian, and reflects the motive of our group.25 gay The heralding and inciting Eros, either alone or with his compeers, is as active in the compositions already referred to, as in that on the vase; but for the exact circumstances of his introduction here, the best precedent is furnished by literature. Euripides, in his drama of Andromeda, represented her lover Perscus as an exiled and disinherited adventurer, despised by her father Cepheus, proud of royalty and riches, but nobly confident in his own worth and boldness, aspiring to, and gallantly achieving, the love of the princess and alliance with her house, by the exploit of slaying the sea monster to which, in obedience to an oracle, she was exposed. Not, however, unaided; like the knight of another chivalry, which in its most poetical form is under great obligations to his adventures,— "He sighed a sigh and he prayed a prayer; The prayer was to his patron saint, The sigh was for his lady fair." Among the fragments of the drama, we find his appeal to Eros, if he will teach beauty to appear as beautiful, at least to lend to lovers a helping hand through the labours their passion imposes on them.26 Philostratus describes a picture in which Eros was engaged loosening the bands of Andromeda; and he too notices the invocation of Perseus to the god for assistance in the contest; in this appeal, therefore, he is an antetype of the Peleus of the vase, as we get a hint from Tzetzes 27 that his ambitious love of the daughter of the dignified and disdainful king, was compared by the tragedian to the alliance of Peleus and his 25 Visconti, Mus. Pio-Clem. 1v. 16; Lucian, Deo. Dial. Aphrodite et Selene, XI. 2. Compare also the bas-relief figured by Otto Jahn, Archäol. Beitr. taf. I.; his description, though unconscious of the analogies of the group on the Portland Vase, exhibits and illustrates them most remarkably: Aus der ruhigen Stellung sehnsüchtiger Betrachtung (the motive of our secondary group,) wird sie durch Eros zu Endymion fortgezogen, und sehr zart und fein ist das keusche Widerstreben, mit welchem sie diesem Zuge dennoch folgt, in ihrer Haltung ausgedrückt. Indem sie genöthigt wird den einen Fuss vorwärts zu setzen, sucht sie mit dem andern eine Stütze zum Widerstand zu gewinnen; und während sie Eros die Hand bietet, sucht sie doch auch ihn abzuwehren und sieht ihn an, als flehe sie um Schonung."-P. 68. 26 Euripid. Frag. ap. Athen, XIII. p. 561, No. 135, Dindorf. 27 Chiliad. 11. 46. goddess bride. The celebrated group of Perseus and Andromeda, the bas-relief of the Capitoline Museum, presents in the meeting arms of the pair, and the bashful grace of Andromeda, parallel artistic ideas that correspond with the recognised parallelism of the myths. Thus it was that the Greeks never disdained, and never deserted, an artistic idea, or a natural expression, so long as one of its harmonies remained unexhausted; and the more familiarity we obtain with their works, the more freely we shall recognise this law "of linked sweetness," notwithstanding the injuries that barbarism and time have inflicted on the series. Thetis, as a Nereid, is most frequently represented as daughter of Nereus, who appears on some of the vases receiving from her sisters the announcement of the attempt of Peleus; but other authorities style Poseidon her father, by the ordinary substitution of one sea god for another.28 Peleus again, we hear, having failed in one attempt to surprise Thetis, sacrificed to the sea gods, and especially invoked Poseidon,29 and according to Pindar, conciliated the god as 30 rau3pós, the character which properly answers to his position in our group; in Lucian we find the pair of lovers conducted to the nuptial chamber by Poseidon and Amphitrite.31 Poseidon witnesses the attempt of Peleus on the Athenian vase of Dr. Clarke, published in Walpole's Memoirs, and finally, appears at the end of a sarcophagus 32 bearing the ceremonious marriage of Thetis, attended by a marine monster, and in the formal attitude of the vase, appropriate to him as god both of land and sea, as both shaking and establishing shores and continents, Gaieochos and Asphalios no less than Ennosigaios. 33 The marine monster just adverted to, as attendant on Poseidon, is the same creature (the pistrix,) that on another sarcophagus fawns on Peleus as he advances towards the reposing Thetis; the same that on the Portland vase is associated with the goddess as a symbol of her nature and power. On the chest of Cypselus, at Elis, Pausanias 3 saw a group of Peleus seizing 28 Cf. Appian. 11. v. 35; Catullus, Epith. 28. 29 Lactant. Placid. Fab. XI. and VII. 30 Pindar, Nem. v. 67; Cf. Thiersch, Epochen der bild. Kunst., p. 169. 31 Dial. Marin. v. 34 32 Winckelmann, Mon. Antichi, p. 154, n. 112. 33 Cf. Macrob. Sat. 1. 17; Oppian. Kyn. v. fin.; Hom. Hymn. in Nep. V. 2. 34 Pausan. v. 18. the virgin Thetis, while a serpent started from her hand to attack him; a parallel conception of the subject to those familiar to us on the vases. It would perhaps be rash to affirm that the monster of our group has no relationship in art to the serpent of the archaic works; but admitting, and even asserting the parallelism, we shall misconceive the principles on which a significant detail was transferred by a Greek artist from one composition to another, if we infer that the import of the emblem is necessarily the same in the derived as in the archetypal instance. A chief charm and art in these transferences, depends on the perfect mastery exercised by the artist over the transferred symbol, so that it shall recal the original composition, yet still be so perfectly in harmony with its new scene and circumstance as to exclude the slightest shade of incongruity. I must therefore demur to the assumption of Millingen, that the pistrix here, as suggested by the serpent of earlier groups, is intended, like them, as an emblem of the transformations of the goddess. It has no appearance of rushing, or being about to rush, to attack the hero; and as the reluctance of the goddess is the sole motive of her transformations, to introduce these or their emblem where the feeling finds no place, would violate consistency and the propriety of art. The attitude of Thetis in this group is, I have no doubt, related by a chain of modifications to the same ideal that furnished the Ariadne of the Herculanean painting, seated on the shore and watching the retiring sea-boat of Theseus; we have but to imagine this very figure at the next stage of the tale, turning her head at the approach of Dionusos and accepting his consolatory hand, and we see before us the Thetis of the vase. In the reversed torch in the hand of the Thetis of the secondary group, we have another symbol which recurs over and over again in the parallel compositions, yet in each usually with some peculiarity of employment and import. Ordinarily it seems intended to symbolize night and darkness; it occurs in the hand of Hesperus, and on a bas-relief of inferior workmanship representing the marriage of Eros and Psyche, it is placed in the hand of the bridegroom as here in that of the bride. Philostratus, in his description of a picture of the interview of Jason and Medea, interprets a reversed torch in the hand of Eros as implying together with the tranquillity of his attitude, his folded |