United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Observing the effects of the sun's rays, Apollo is represented, in heathen mythology, as holding a bow, and shooting his arrows upon the earth. "Pay sacred reverence to Apollo's song, Lest watchful the far-shooting god emit His fatal arrows." PRIOR'S Callimachus. The heat in some parts of Judea has often proved fatal, even at a very early period of the year.
"High upon Olympus, on his golden throne, the blue sky shines above him, and around stand the immortals;" and then, mingled with the sound of the waves, came songs from Apollo's lyre, and descriptions of Bacchus, drawn by his soft-footed leopards, of Venus and her snowy doves, of fauns and nymphs, and wondrous people, of whom Ida had never before heard.
"However these sheep look when they are sheared," he said, "this seems to be robbery to me." "Robbery!" the good-natured decurion exclaimed. "This is but a religious rite that Mercury got out of the cradle at two days to establish. Only he took Apollo's cattle while we are contenting ourselves with the sheep of mortal ownership. Robbery! What an inelegant word!"
Me, cast out from my country and following the utmost limits of the sea, Fortune the omnipotent and irreversible doom settled in this region; and my mother the Nymph Carmentis' awful warnings and Apollo's divine counsel drove me hither.
To the astonished Sport of Fortune the vision of this radiant girl, in shape and stature and in noble air, is more than mortal, yet scarcely more than woman: "Like thee, I saw of late, In Delos, a young palm-tree growing up Beside Apollo's altar."
The altered hue, the rolling eyes, the floating locks, the frenzied gesture all is possession, horror, mystery. Apol. Who lists may hear Apollo's soothfast rede Of stiff debate, heroic challenge ringing Shrill, and each headpiece lined with fence of proof. Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife; Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak.
I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo's temple at Delphi was, "Man, the fool of the farce." Truly, the gods must have created us for their amusement; and when Olympus palls, they ring up the curtain on some such screaming comedy as was that. It "makes the fancy chuckle, while the heart doth ache."
There is an artistic rhythm in the writings of the classical authors like those of Cicero, Herodotus, and Thucydides as marked as in the beautiful measure of Homer and Virgil. Plato did not write poetry, but his prose is as "musical as Apollo's lyre." Burke and Macaulay are as great artists in style as Tennyson himself.
Not a bit, not a bit; and no day can be so holy but what the laugh of a child will make it holier still. Strike with hand of fire, on, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's golden hair!
Zeus, as head of the pantheon, naturally took a distinguished place as patron of oracles; and Apollo's relation to music and inspiration may account in part for the preëminence of his oracular shrine. In many cases, however, the grounds of the choice of a particular deity as oracle-giver escape us.
Word Of The Day