The Open court . hy Iris. Zeus sits in his grove lightly covered by his veil of \rch:eologists find diiiliculty in explaining the three youths with wreaths ontheir heads. Jhc easiest cxi)lanation seems to be that they represent man-isinfl rejoicing on this festive occasion. 8r pcriiiniRd at llir Iniiiilc. aii ccvcuu^uhS ami rusldiiis whirliU)rnK(l pari of llu i)nl)lir life of tlir coniiuonwcallli. In one i)arlof Asia Minor where Semitic inllnenees prevail, the ,i;-o(l-nian isworshiptd nnder the name of Aduhs, which means Lord/^ Inthe sprin,-;- Adonis celehrales his
The Open court . hy Iris. Zeus sits in his grove lightly covered by his veil of \rch:eologists find diiiliculty in explaining the three youths with wreaths ontheir heads. Jhc easiest cxi)lanation seems to be that they represent man-isinfl rejoicing on this festive occasion. 8r pcriiiniRd at llir Iniiiilc. aii ccvcuu^uhS ami rusldiiis whirliU)rnK(l pari of llu i)nl)lir life of tlir coniiuonwcallli. In one i)arlof Asia Minor where Semitic inllnenees prevail, the ,i;-o(l-nian isworshiptd nnder the name of Aduhs, which means Lord/^ Inthe sprin,-;- Adonis celehrales his marria-e with the ^oddess Istar. or Aphrodite, or as we now commonl\ say, \enns, hntwhen the year draws to a close an<l ve.^etalion withers, he is woundedin a chase for the wild hoar (an animal sacred to him), and liiebeautiful i^xxl dies to indicate the deadened condition of natureduring the winter. In the siirin- he re-awakes to new life nms the cotn-se of his divine Ill K \ \s V from tlic Poiiipcian Fresco slmwn on the precedinsf page. In some places and at certain seasons of the year the o-oddessof nature was a virgin, and virginity 1ormed her typical again in (jther legends or on other occasions she was cele-brated as the bride or tlie wife of some god. 1die same divinitycould be the protectress at the same time of the arts and sciences,of warfare, of life and death and resurrection. These ditleren-tiations led to distinctions, and we have in (Ireek mythol-ogv the virgin Diana, ami the virgin Athene b\ the side of -The IS. 82 THE OPEN COURT. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, etc., the goddess Hera, Queen ofHeaven, and wife of Zeus, and many others. All these figureswere once united in one divinity, and we find that in some mythsthe ancient Babylonian Istar still shows features of all of them,l)ut the more the legends of the gods assumed a literary shape,tlie more deiinite became the fi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887
