THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



169 



PSYCHE IN THE I'LAME, 



natural philosophy ia poetically depicted to the eye by the device, 

 which we see on many ancient gems, of Cupid holding a butterfly 

 over his torch, by which act is at the same time typified the suffer- 

 ing of the soul from being subjugated by passion; and, mystically, 

 its purification ' as by fire ' from 

 the defilement of matter. Such 

 an ingenious allegory was not 

 likely to escape the attention of 

 the poets, and we accordingly 

 find it alluded to by them at an 

 early period. Thus Meleager, 

 B.C. 160, plays very prettily, in 

 one of his epigrams, upon the 

 double meaning of the word 

 Fsyche, as a moth and as the 

 soul, introducing it in immediate 

 connection with Eros, or Love.' 



The same authoress, in allu- 

 sion to the caterpillar, says : ' At 

 the close of its final existence as 

 a worm, crawling upon this lower 

 earth, an emblem of man encum- 

 bered with his material body, 

 this insect lies dead as it were 



for a season, in a sort of tomb or grave, which bears a great resem- 

 blance to the mummies found in the Egyptian tombs. In this state 

 of darkness,' the authoress continues, ' it remains throughout the 

 gloom of winter ; at the joyous return of spring, the torpid chrysalis 

 bursts its bonds, leaves its earthly body (or rather case), never 

 more to be resumed, and soars up towards heaven, decked in the 

 most gorgeous attire, and rejoicing in new life ; a beauteous type of 

 the celestial soul freed I'rom the restraints of matter, and exulting in 

 liberty and light.' 



' Like other animal symbols,' says Payne Knight, in his ' In- 

 quiry into the Symbolical Language of the Ancients,' ' as the owl, 

 under which Minerva was first depicted, this Psyche was by degrees 

 melted into the human form, the original wings only being retained 

 to mark its meaning. So elegant an allegory would naturally be a 

 favourite subject of art among a refined and ingenious people ; and 

 it accordingly appears to have been diversified and repeated by the 

 Greek sculptors more than any other which this system of emana- 

 tion so favourable to art could have formed.' 



It would take us far beyond the province of this work to 

 enumerate all the interpretations which have been given of this 

 fable, for there are few authors who have written upon ancient litera- 

 ture or the arts but have given their ideas as to its symbolical 

 meaning; in the arts, especially that of sculpture and engraving 

 upon gems and stones, even down to our own times, it is one of the 

 most favourite subjects treated, and every collection, either of an- 

 cient or modern art, lias some representation of the subject. 



That there is a pure and lofty signification symbolically repre- 



Junc. 



