86 On the Theogony. 



to have been iiiikiiown to liim. As the Halys is unnoticed, we can hardfy 

 suppose him to have been acquainted even with the interior of Asia Minor. 

 Besides these rivers, we have a long list of aquatic nymphs, called by the 

 commentators, sea nymphs; but, as that province belonged to the Nereids, 

 we are inclined to consider the present catalogue as river goddesses ; and 

 their names, where the etymology is most obvious, will confirm this view, 

 such as swift-flowing, fair-flowing — affording pasture to sheep — and rosy, 

 ideas evidently connected with rivers, and not the sea. The poet 

 reckons up more than forty of these Oceanides,* but informs us that he 

 spares as many more, as their total number amounted to three thousand : 

 the nymph Calypso, that old acquaintance of, the readers of the Odyssey, 

 is among those here named. The infernal and awful river Styx also be- 

 longed to this family. 



2. Hyperion and his sister Thia (1. 371) produce the sun, the moon, 

 and aurora. Here again the allegory is physical and obvious. 



3. Crius espouses Eurybia, daughter of Pontus (1. 375). These cha- 

 racters in themselves are obscure ; but we soon find ourselves still in the 

 midst of physical allegory, for Astroeus, their first-born, takes unto himself 

 his cousin Aurora, (of the family last-mentioned,) and from them spring 

 Lucifer and all the stars of heaven, and the several winds. 



Pallas, the second son of Crius, also espouses a cousin, Styx, the daughter 

 of Ocean (I. 383). The Stygian descendants belong to the moral school of 

 personification — Zeal and Victory, Strength and Force. t " These always 

 dwell," saith the poet, "with Jove, the thunderer; nor is there any 

 station or path where they follow him not as their chief." Their mother 

 Styx, (the most sacred of oaths,) is also equally associated with him. The 

 mythological account given for this is, that Jupiter thus rewarded the 

 fidelity of Styx, when the Titans rebelled against him. It is sufficiently 

 obvious why these attributes of almighty power should be associated with 



* The introduction of the Oceanides as the chorus in the Prometheus of j95schj'lu9, 

 sympathizing with the sufferings of that cruelly-oppressed victim, must be familiar 

 to every reader of the classics. 



t We have before observed that jEschylus has borrowed these personifications, 

 but we may be more surprised to find a very similar group in the Northern Edda, 

 where, in the Vafthrudnismal, stanza 51, we read : — 



Vidar oc Vali The warlike heroes Vidar and Vali 



Byggia ve Goda, DwcU in the hall of the gods. 



Modi oc Magni. And Courage and Force. 



In iEscbylus these characters clearly represent might, as opposed to right ; they 

 enforce a passive submission to the most tyrannical and unjust commands of Jupiter, 

 and reproach every natural expression of pity in Vulcan, while constrained to fetter 

 the oppressed Prometheus to the rock. We cannot well conceive a more revolting 

 picture of the attributes of a being adored as the supreme God, and must wonder 

 how it could have been drawn by any of his professed worshippers, and represented 

 among such in public and almost religious ceremonies. 



