The-mythology-of-ancient-greece-and-italy-thomas-keightley

INTRODUCTION. 5
to those of man ; and, like man, they stood in daily need of
food and repose. Chariots drawn by horses or other animals
of celestial breed conveyed theni over earth, sea, and air;
their clothing and arms were usually of the form of those of
mortals, but of superior workmanship and materials8. The
gods were not, strictly speaking, eternal : they were born, ac
cording to most systems of mythology ; and some, at least,
assigned a period to their duration.
In the eyes of their worshipers these gods had each his
distinct personal existence and sphere of action. The Greek,
for example, fully believed that Helios, the Hindoo that
Surya, guided the course of the sun each day. When, there
fore, we shall in future speak of gods of the sea, the sun, the
moon, we would not be understood to mean personifications
of these objects. In truth, a personification of the sea or sun
is not a very intelligible expression. We mean by these gods,
deities presiding over and directing them, but totally distinct
from them ; regents of them, in the sense in which the arch
angel Uriel is by Milton called the regent of the sun. Per
sonification properly accords only with qualities and attri
butes ; and we shall in our progress meet with a class of dei
ties, such as Mischief, Strife, Prayers, which are strictly speak
ing such.
When a people had thus formed for themselves a system
of gods so like to man, and yet ruling over the world, it was
natural that a body of mythes, or legends of their adventures,
and of their dealings with mankind, should gradually arise ;
and as they passed from hand to hand, receive various embel
lishments and additions, till what was at first but a mere dry as
sertion or conjecture became a marvellous or an agreeable tale.
It is the opinion of one of the ablest mythologists of the pre
sent day, that there is a certain stage in the culture of a people
in which the mythic is the natural mode of representation, to
which men are led by a kind of necessity, and in which they
act almost unconsciously. He gives as an instance the pesti
lence in the commencement of the Ilias. Allowing, he says,
the carrying away captive of the daughter of Chryses and the
a See the minute description of Hera dressing herself in Homer, II. xiv. 170 seq.