mysterious, for it seems to have been celebrated with frantic and awful rites, such as women gashing themselves with knives, besmearing themselves with their blood, and covering their heads with ashes, as if acknowledging, however ignorantly as it regarded themselves, the dreadful consequences of the fall. There is a personage called Orpha, nearly the same as Orpheus, (for both are merely mythological titles implying an oracle of light,) connected with Laconia, according to Servius. She is represented as a nymph, who at the close of her life was changed into a tree, which grew in a sacred enclosure. All these legends may be traced up to one and the same source, namely the medial tree of paradise. Before we quite dismiss Orpheus, we may observe that the history of Amphion is, in some few respects, similar. He is reported to have exercised the same wonderful influence over the brute creation, and even to have built the walls of Thebes with the sound of his lyre, connected as those were with emblematical compound figures, derived from distorted legends of the mysterious Cherubim.* The general history of Proserpina, or, as the Bryant. Analys. Anc. Myth. vol. ii. pp. 410–426. Greeks called her, Persephone, and sometimes Cora, is well known. She is said to have been the inhabitant of a beautiful garden in the centre of the island of Sicily. Ancient writers have handed down to us the most ravishing descriptions of its situation and climate, with many other features manifestly borrowed from traditions of Eden. Enna was the name of this paradise of Trinacria, which was moreover termed the Omphalos of Sicily, and considered oracular, in the same manner as other places of the same nature before described. According to some authors, a sacred lake was connected with the enclosure, called Pergus; and its paradisaic situation is described in the Metamorphoses.* Silva coronat aquas, cingens latus omne; suisque From this lovely enclosure, Persephone was affirmed to have been carried off by the king of hell to the shades below, from whence it was * Metam. v. 388, considered impossible she could be redeemed, because, as tradition reported, the unhappy woman had gathered and eaten an apple, or rather a pomegranate; at all events the forbidden fruit. Ovid's description of this transaction is remarkable;~ cultis dum simplex errat in hortis Puniceum curvâ decerpserat arbore Pomum.* This tree of evil, however, appears to have been esteemed peculiarly sacred to her, and to have been that important one which tradition pointed out as having once grown in the midst of the garden. Claudian, moreover, seems to ́have looked upon Pluto, her ravisher, as death himself, and in some fine verses pourtrays the effects which the king of terrors produced by his then entrance into the world.† Sanchoniathon has also preserved a singular tradition as extant amongst the Phoenicians, which was, that "Eon, the wife of Protogonus," or the first man, "was the first person, who "gathered fruit from trees;" and from this pair, the ancient historian informs us, all mankind were descended. It may here, perhaps, be inquired, of what particular species was the *Metam. lib. v. 535. + De Raptu. Proserp. iii. 235. forbidden fruit? Some have thought it was the product of the vine, and others of the fig tree; some have mentioned the cherry, and others the apple. This last sentiment has prevailed, and may be adduced as an instance of the respect naturally paid to universal tradition. In the holy scripture there seems but little better foundation for it than the others; as merely the "fruit of the tree of knowledge in the midst of "the garden," is mentioned. We may here, however, just observe, that the following passage, from a version of the Canticles, is usually cited in favour of the apple; "I awakened thee "under the apple tree, there thy mother lost "her innocence." We render this passage in our translation; "I raised thee up under the apple "tree; there thy mother brought thee forth; "there she brought thee forth that bare thee."* It is certain, at all events, that memorials are met with in mythology, of this "forbidden "fruit," and that it was looked upon as the source of death and discord, although connected, at the same time, with the sacred institution of marriage, and other features of paradise. Thus the marriage of Hippomenes and *Sol. Song, cap. viii. 5. Calmet. See also a Note in the Varior. Edit. of Sulp. Sever. p. 7. Atafanta,* the latter of whom had been a means of death to so many, is found to have been in connection with three golden apples, gathered from the garden of the Hesperides, which, it may be remarked, seems to have derived its name from " Hets peri, "a tree of fruit;". and we discover, from the Metamorphoses, that this tree grew in the midst of the garden, or sacred enclosure; this, moreover, is further mentioned by Ovid, as having been dedicated by the first of mankind to the worship of Venus, who says, in speaking of it, quem mihi prisci Sacravêre senes; medio nitet arbor in arvo; One of these golden apples was thought to have been thrown by Discord among the deities assembled to celebrate the marriage of Peleus with Thetis. Juno, Minerva, and Venus thereupon came to Paris, a shepherd of Mount * Nat. Com. vii. 7 and 8, +Ovid Metam. x. 645. From the description, it appears pretty evident, that there was a connection between this tree, and that which was reported to flourish in the midst of Hades, from whence the golden branch was gathered. Æneid vi. 136. |