The Fates or Parace were three in number, daughters of necessity. They were supposed to spin and cut the thread of human life and destiny. Clotho held the distaff, Lachesis turned the spindle, Atropos cut the thread. Happy days were spun out of gold and silver, while the thread of sorrow was black worsted. The Fates are represented as three women bending under the weight of years, Clotho wore a robe of various colors, and a crown composed of seven stars. Her distaff reached from heaven to earth. The robe of Lachesis was spangled with stars, and near her lay a bundle of spindles. Atropos, clothed in black, held the fatal shears, ready to cut the thread of life. Nemesis was the goddess who presided over the punishment of guilt. She is represented as traversing the earth with great diligence, in search of the wicked; furnished with wings, a helm and a chariot wheel, to signify that no place could secure the guilty from her pursuit. As a daughter of Astrea, or Justice, she rewarded virtue, while she punished vice with unrelenting severity. To the infernal divinities no altars were ever raised. Trenches were cut in the earth, into which was poured the blood of black sheep or heifers. During the prayers, the priest first lowered his hands towards the earth, instead of raising them towards heaven. Being regarded as implaca ble, these deities were objects of great terror. No hymns were composed to their honor; no temples were dedicated to them. The principal criminals of whom we have record as being punished in the infernal regions were: (1) The Titans who were precipitated into Tartarus for having made war on Jupiter and the gods; they were six in number named as follows: Atlas, Briareus, Gyges, Iapetus, Hyperion, and Oceanus. Some poets speak of them as whelmed beneath Sicily, and state that the dreadful eruptions of Etna, are occasioned by their violent struggles. (2) Sisyphus for having attempted to deceive Pluto, is condemned to the never-ceasing Pluto was the supreme ruler of the to him were generally black sheep. infernal regions and the third son of It is from his name of Orcus that the Saturn and Ops.* His principal English word ogre is derived. names were Dis, signifying riches; Hades, the unseen; Ungus, from the Latin word to impel; Februus, from the word expressing the purifications which were practiced in funeral rites; Orcus, Quietus, and Summanus. He was represented seated on a throne, surrounded with gloomy dark ness; his countenance severe and frowning; in his hand a two-pronged fork, or a key, emblematical of the impossibility of returning from his dominions; his head crowned with the flowers of the Narcissus, or with Cypress or Ebony. Sometimes he is seen in a black chariot, drawn by black horses, a helmet on his head, which has the power of rendering him invisible. The victims offered *See CONTRIBUTOR, Vol. XIV, page 350. Plutus was the son of Ceres and Jason; the God of riches, who was represented as blind, to signify that riches are dispensed indifferently to the good and the wicked. We find in the records of ancient mythology, that the doctrine of transmigration of souls was believed in to a great extent. In view of the modern form of this doctrine known as theosophy, this is interesting. The ancients believed that when the souls left the bodies which they animated, they were conducted by Mercury either to Tartarus or the Elysian fields; the wicked to the former, the virtuous to the latter. It was almost universally believed that after remaining for one thousand years in that abode, the souls returned to earth and animated other bodies, either of men or of animals. Before they quitted the infernal regions, they drank of the waters of Lethe, which made them forget all past events. This idea was derived likewise from the Egyptians, and in imitation of them. Orpheus, Homer, and other poets introduced it into their writings. There were three judges of the infernal regions. Ninos, son of Jupiter, and King of Crete, was suJupiter and Europa, was judge of the preme judge. Rhadamanthus, son of Asiatios; whilst Eacus, son of Jupiter and Egina, was appointed to stood in a place called the Field of judge the Europeans. The tribunal could never approach. Truth, which falsehood and calumny The Furies were three in number; Tisiphone, Megara and Alecto. They were accounted to be the daughters of Acheron and Nox. Their names signify rage, slaughter and torches in their hands: their heads envy. They are represented with covered with snakes instead of hair, and holding whips of serpents or scorpions; and funeral robes bound The Fates or Parace were three in number, daughters of necessity. They were supposed to spin and cut the thread of human life and destiny. Clotho held the distaff, Lachesis turned the spindle, Atropos cut the thread. Happy days were spun out of gold and silver, while the thread of sorrow was black worsted. The Fates are represented as three women bending under the weight of years, Clotho wore a robe of various colors, and a crown composed of seven stars. Her distaff reached from heaven to earth. The robe of Lachesis was spangled with stars, and near her lay a bundle of spindles. Atropos, clothed in black, held the fatal shears, ready to cut the thread of life. Nemesis was the goddess who presided over the punishment of guilt. She is represented as traversing the earth with great diligence, in search of the wicked; furnished with wings, a helm and a chariot wheel, to signify that no place could secure the guilty from her pursuit. As a daughter of Astrea, or Justice, she rewarded virtue, while she punished vice with unrelenting severity. To the infernal divinities no altars! were ever raised. Trenches were cut in the earth, into which was poured the blood of black sheep or heifers. During the prayers, the priest first lowered his hands towards the earth, instead of raising them towards heaven. Being regarded as implaca ble, these deities were objects of great terror. No hymns were composed to their honor; no temples were dedicated to them. The principal criminals of whom we have record as being punished in the infernal regions were: (1) The Titans who were precipitated into Tartarus for having made war on Jupiter and the gods; they were six in number named as follows: Atlas, Briareus, Gyges, Iapetus, Hyperion, and Oceanus. Some poets speak of them as whelmed beneath Sicily, and state that the dreadful eruptions of Etna, are occasioned by their violent struggles. (2) Sisyphus for having attempted to deceive Pluto, is condemned to the never-ceasing labor of rolling an enormous rock up the summit of a steep mountain. (3) Phlegyas, a son of Mars, for having set fire to the temple of Apollo, at Delphi, sees, with terror a vast rock suspended over his head, perpetually threatening to fall and crush him beneath its stupendous weight. (4) The giant Tityus, a son of Jupiter, whose body covers nine acres, was slain by the arrow of Apollo, because he dared to insult Diana, and was thrown into Tartarus, where vultures unceasingly prey upon his liver which is being continually renewed. (5) Ixion, the rival of Jupiter, is bound to a wheel surrounded with serpents, and perpetually turning over a river of fire. (6) Tantalus, king of Phrygia, for having savagely murdered his own son Pelops, and served up his body at a banquet of the gods, is condemned to the ever-enduring pain of parching thirst and ravenous hunger. Though plunged in water and surrounded with delicious food, they both elude his eager grasp. Lastly, the daughters of Danaus, fifty in number, who, all but one, at the command of their inhuman father, in one night killed their husbands, the sons of Egyptus, their father's brother, were sentenced to the continued toil of filling, with water, vessels which had no bottom. Geo. F. Phillips, M. A., Principal Weber Stake Academy, Ogden. A NOBLE PUNISHMENT. IN THE Year 1853, after Napoleon III. had become Emperor of the French, he visited Bologne. One of his first commands after arriving there was to have a search instituted for those persons who, during his unfortunate experience in that city in 1840, when he made an ineffectual attempt on the throne of France, had arrested him just as he was about to reach the vessel which brought him from England, and thus effect his escape, and which arrest resulted in his imprisonment for more than five years. A marine and policeman were, after some investigation, seized and charged with the offense. They were told of the reason for their being taken in charge, and were notified to be prepared to appear before the Emperor on the following morning. The intelligence thus communicated caused them very great uneasiness, for they supposed, as well they might, that so soon as Napoleon found them. really guilty of the charge, the truth of which they were in no position to deny, he would not hesitate to inflict upon them the most severe punishment. On the following day the marine was first summoned into the Emperor's presence. Napoleon approached him with stern countenance and said: "So you are the person that swam after me, and pulled me from the water by my hair?"" "Your majesty, I- I—," tremblingly stuttered the marine. "No deception!" sternly commanded the Emperor, "was or was it not you?" "It was I, your majesty," replied the fellow after summoning all his courage, "I saw that the other pursuers had aimed their guns at you. You would have been either shot or drowned. I sprang into the sea, and was thus the humble means of saving your life." The Emperor could scarcely contain himself from laughter. This sly fellow was equal to the emergency, and endeavored to remove the appearance of crime from the act which had caused his arrest, and turn the event to his advantage in making himself appear a hero that saved his present ruler's life. "Here then, my son," said the Emperor with a smile, "is the cross of the Legion of Honor, which you are to wear as evidence of your faithful performance of duty, and also five hundred francs to help you to remember me." The policeman, who was next brought in, did not possess the fertile imagination of his companion to assist him out of his difficulty. He was, however, a brave man who worthily wore on his breast the cross of the Legion of Honor for acts of bravery. As the Emperor questioned him concerning the part he took in the affair, he courageously replied: "Yes, indeed, your majesty, you had violated the law. I was in service and therefore assisted in your arrest.' "And for that act you received the cross which you now wear, did you not?" inquired Napoleon. "Your majesty, I am an old soldier," answered the fellow, "but it is true that the arrest was the immediate cause of my being remembered with this honor. "Well then, my brave fellow,' concluded the Emperor, "I regret that your possession of the cross prevents me from conferring it upon. you." He thereupon took from his own coat a military medal, which he pinned on the breast of the policeman, and gave him also five hundred francs. All France rejoiced at this noble treatment of two humble subjects by Napoleon III., and it won for him a warm place in the hearts of thousands of his subjects. M. L. |