laughs his heart sore at an ale-house jest. Dunbar, and the author of
the Hymn, and the savage with his tale of Tundun or Daramulun, have all
quite contradictory sets of ideas alternately present to their minds; the
mediaeval poet, of course, being conscious of the contradiction, which
makes the essence of his humour, such as it is. To Greece, in its
loftier moods, Apollo was, despite his myth, a noble source of
inspiration, of art, and of conduct. But the contradiction in the low
myth and high doctrine of Apollo, could never be eradicated under any
influence less potent than that of Christianity. {34} If this theory of
Apollo's origin be correct, many pages of learned works on Mythology need
to be rewritten.




THE HYMN TO HERMES


[Hermes with the boy Dionysos. Statue by Praxiteles, found at Olympia:
lang35.jpg]

The Hymn to Hermes is remarkable for the corruption of the text, which
appears even to present _lacunae_. The English reader will naturally
prefer the lively and charming version of Shelley to any other. The poet
can tell and adorn the story without visibly floundering in the pitfalls
of a dislocated text. If we may judge by line 51, and if Greek musical
tradition be correct, the date of the Hymn cannot be earlier than the
fortieth Olympiad. About that period Terpander is said to have given the
lyre seven strings (as Mercury does in the poem), in place of the
previous four strings. The date of Terpander is dubious, but probably