A New Pantheon

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Acheron, The Waters of Phlegethon were reprefented as Streams of Fire, probably on Account of their hot and ful- phurous Nature. CHAP, XXL Of the Pare or Deftinies THESE infernal Deities who prefided over human Life, were in Number Tbree, and had each their peculiar Province affign'd, Clothas held the Diftaff, Lachefa drew or fpun off the Thread, and Atropos flood ready with her Sciflars to cut it afunder. Thefe were three Sifters, as fome fay, the Daughters of Jupiter and Themis, and Sifter to the Horn or Hours; or according to others the Children of Erebus and Nox. They were Secretaries to the Gods, whofe Decrees they wrote. We are indebted to a late ingenious Writer for the true Mythology of thefe Characters. They were nothing more originally than the myftical Figures or Symbols, which reprefented the Months of January, February, and March amongft . the Egyptians. They depidtur'd thefe in Female Drefles, with the Inftruments of Spinning and Weaving, which was the great Bufmefs carried on in that Seafon. Thefe Images they call'd (i) Pare, which fignifies Linnen Cloth, to denote the Manufacture produc'd by this Induftry. The Greeks, who knew nothing of the true Senfe of thefe allegorical Figures, gave them a Turn fuitable to their Genius, fertile in Fiction. The Paret e were defcrib'd or reprefented in Robes of White, border'd with Purple, and feated on Thrones, with Crowns on their Heads, compos'd of the Flowers of the Narciffus. (i) From Pare, or Pankitr, a Cloth, Curtain or Sail. CHAP. C HAP. XXII. Of the HARPIES. - . - . . TH E next Group of Figures we meet in the Shadowy Realms are the Harpies, who were Three in Number, Ceieno, Aello and Ocypete, the Daughters of Oceanus and Terra. They liv'd in Tbrace, had the Faces of Virgins, the Ears of...