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Updated: May 19, 2025
Mind, and don’t touch him before the time. If you kill him, you’ll never get the curse off. Come here, you priests of Cybele,” he added, “and be his body-guard.” And he continued to keep a vigilant eye and hand over the old man, in spite of them. The ass, though naturally a good-tempered beast, had been most sadly tried through the day.
Ay, she would have brought you some splendid nephews, sir. Don't you think she is like that stone lady in Plassans corn-market? She spoke thus of a Cybele stretched upon sheaves of wheat, the work of one of Puget's pupils, which was carved on the frontal of the market building.
He ordered his followers to disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious tumult of the festival of Cybele. To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne, were the ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome.
He ordered his followers to disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious tumult of the festival of Cybele. To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne, was the ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome.
Hence came our Lady, haunter of Cybele, the Corybantic cymbals and the grove of Ida; hence the rites of inviolate secrecy, and the lions yoked under the chariot of their mistress. Up then, and let us follow where divine commandments lead; let us appease the winds, and seek the realm of Gnosus. Nor is it a far journey away.
The career of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was in striking contrast to that Meyerbeer. While Meyerbeer was earning the plaudits of crowded theatres throughout the length and breadth of Europe, Berlioz sat alone, brooding over the vast conceptions to which it taxed even his gigantic genius to give musical shape. Even now the balance has scarcely been restored. Though Meyerbeer's popularity is on the wane, the operas of Berlioz are still known for the most part only to students. Before the Berlioz cycle at Carlsruhe in 1893, 'La Prise de Troie' had never been performed on any stage, and though the French master's symphonic works now enjoy considerable popularity, his dramatic works are still looked at askance by managers. There is a reason for this other than the hardness of our hearts. Berlioz was essentially a symphonic writer. He had little patience with the conventions of the stage, and his attempts to blend the dramatic and symphonic elements, as in 'Les Troyens, can scarcely be termed a success. Yet much may be pardoned for the sake of the noble music which lies enshrined in his works. 'Benvenuto Cellini' and 'Béatrice et Bénédict, which were thought too advanced for the taste of their day, are now perhaps a trifle old-fashioned for our times. The first is a picturesque story of Rome in Carnival time. The interest centres in the casting of the sculptor's mighty Perseus, which wins him the hand of the fair Teresa. The Carnival scenes are gay and brilliant, but the form of the work belongs to a bygone age, and it is scarcely possible that a revival of it would meet with wide acceptance. 'Béatrice et Bénédict' is a graceful setting of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado about Nothing. It is a work of the utmost delicacy and refinement. Though humour is not absent from the score, the prevailing impression is one of romantic charm, passing even to melancholy. Very different is the double drama 'Les Troyens. Here Berlioz drew his inspiration directly from Gluck, and the result is a work of large simplicity and austere grandeur, which it is not too much to hope will some day take its place in the world's repertory side by side with the masterpieces of Wagner. The first part, 'La Prise de Troie, describes the manner in which the city of Priam fell into the hands of the Greeks. The drama is dominated by the form of the sad virgin Cassandra. In vain she warns her people of their doom. They persist in dragging up the wooden horse from the sea-beach, where it was left by the Greeks. The climax of the last act is terrific. Æneas, warned by the ghost of Hector of the approaching doom of Troy, escapes; but the rest of the Trojans fall victims to the swords of the Greeks in a scene of indescribable carnage and terror. Cassandra and the Trojan women, driven to take shelter in the temple of Cybele, slay themselves rather than fall into the hands of their captors. 'La Prise de Troie' is perhaps epic rather than dramatic, but as a whole it leaves an impression of severe and spacious grandeur, which can only be paralleled in the finest inspirations of Gluck. In the second division of the work, 'Les Troyens
For in my time there hath been found on the continent a certain country, wherein are I know not what kind of Pastophorian mole-catching priests, who, albeit averse from engaging their proper persons into a matrimonial duty, like the pontifical flamens of Cybele in Phrygia, as if they were capons, and not cocks full of lasciviousness, salacity, and wantonness, who yet have, nevertheless, in the matter of conjugal affairs, taken upon them to prescribe laws and ordinances to married folks.
In short, this tremendous abstraction, Cybele, Ideae, Mater, Isiac controller of the Zodiacs, whatever she may be, has her representative in the half-buried Sphinx even to our own day, watching the stars although nearly swallowed up in the engulphing sands."
The bathing of the image of the goddess in a river may well have been a rain-charm to ensure an abundant supply of moisture for the crops. XXXVI. Human Representatives of Attis FROM INSCRIPTIONS it appears that both at Pessinus and Rome the high-priest of Cybele regularly bore the name of Attis.
The latter is said to have been the local story told by the people of Pessinus, a great seat of the worship of Cybele, and the whole legend of which the story forms a part is stamped with a character of rudeness and savagery that speaks strongly for its antiquity.
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