On the Word Hermaphrodite. cxli 



In Hederich's Lexicon the word Hermaphroditos is thus explained : — " Filius 

 Veneris et Mercurii : semimas ; ambigui sexus ; androgynus." This is indeed giving 

 a tolerably wide margin, yet not wider than that which naturalists are still willing to 

 allow. The first or mythological interpretation seems to be unquestioned,* but the 

 application does not appear to me very clearly traceable to the parentage of our hero : 

 simply regarded as the son of Mercury and Venus, it does not seem extraordinary that 

 he should have received his euphonious cognomen; his history, however, clearly ex- 

 plains the application of that cognomen in matters of science : it is on this wise. Like 

 Cephalus, Actaeon, and other heroes reflected in Ovid from the more brilliant lights of 

 Greece, Hermaphroditus was a mighty hunter. He pursued the sport in many lands, 

 and one day, having missed his quarry after a most exciting and laborious chace, he 

 came to a lonely lake of the purest and most delicious water: he threw himself down 

 on the bank, and having taken a refreshing draught, fell asleep under an umbrageous 

 canopy of boughs. As he lay, "beautiful exceedingly," locked in the arms of sleep, 

 the nymph Salmacis beheld him, and instantaneously conceived for him that absorb- 

 ing passion which decided the fate of both for ever. He awoke, and beheld the nymph 

 bending over him: she avowed her passion; but he, possibly mindful of some Dulcinea 

 at home, possibly bound by some plighted troth, turned a deaf ear to her endearments, 

 and refused to yield to her seductive entreaties. In this situation of masculine firmness 

 and virtue, sculptors and painters have fixed the group, and rendered it immortal :f 

 but this is not our business. Salmacis secured our hero ere he could escape, pressed 

 him with one arm to her bosom, and lifting the other towards heaven, devoutly prayed 

 that their bodies henceforth might be united in one. Her prayer was heard. The 

 two bodies became one body. A statue now extant at Rome exhibits the extraordi- 

 nary conformation required to render the fable complete ; but a moment's reflection 

 will, I think, supply another and more natural solution. 



Some of the poets have taken another view of this matter, and seem to consider 

 Venus as a god of both sexes ; and there are not a few instances in which Venus is 

 spoken of as a male and as Hermaphroditos. All the school editions of Virgil have a 

 note appended to the word Deo, in the line — 



" Descendo, ac ducente Deo flammam inter et hostes," — Mn. ii. 632, 



* Except by Bell. After having penned these few sentences, it occurred to me to 

 turn to the word Hermaphroditus in Bell's Pantheon, a copy of which extraordinary 

 publication has descended to me as a heir-loom. The opening passage I will recite. 

 " Hermaphroditus the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, i. e., of Mars (!) and Venus." 

 This curious parenthetical explanation, however, does not originate with the conceited 

 compiler of the ' New Pantheon ; ' it is an unacknowledged piracy : but a compiler 

 who copies so gross a blunder is not trustworthy on any point. 



f The reader of the classics cannot but be struck with the great analogy between 

 Salmacis trying to detain Hermaphroditos, Venus dissuading Adonis from the chase, 

 and the amatory designs of Potiphar's wife on Joseph. Painters and sculptors have 

 preserved what may be called a family likeness in their illustrations of the three sub- 

 jects : the lady in nearly all instances is seated, and holding the flowing robes of the 

 gentleman, whose virtuous soul seems horrified at the idea of the solicited endearments, 

 and whose anxiety to escape is depicted in every feature and every limb. 



IX. APPENDIX. C C 



