so far as it represents spiritual ruin in this
life, and not a literal hell--the dog Cerberus as its gatekeeper--with
this special marking of his character of sensual passion, that he fawns
on all those who descend, but rages against all who would return (the
Virgilian "facilis descendus" being a later recognition of this mythic
character of Hades); the last labor of Hercules is the dragging him up
to the light; and in some sort he represents the voracity or devouring
of Hades itself; and the mediaeval representation of the mouth of hell
perpetuates the same thought. Then, also, the power of evil passion
is partly associated with the red and scorching light of Sirius, as
opposed to the pure light of the sun: he is the dog-star of ruin; and
hence the continual Homeric dwelling upon him, and comparison of the
flame of anger to his swarthy light; only, in his scorching, it is
thirst, not hunger, over which he rules physically; so that the fable
of Icarius, his first master, corresponds, among the Greeks, to the
legend of the drunkenness of Noah.

* Printer's error: should be 23.

The story of Actaeon, the raging death of Hecuba, and the tradition of
the white dog which ate part of Hercules' first sacrifice, and so gave
name to the Cynosarges, are all various phases of the same thought,--the
Greek notion of the dog being throughout confused between its serviceable
fidelity, its watchfulness, its foul voracity, shamelessness, and deadly
madness, while with the curious reversal or recoil of the meaning which
attaches itself to nearly every great myth,--and which we shall presently
see notably exemplified in the relations of the serpent to Athena,--the
dog becomes in philosophy a type of severity and abstinence.

24. It would carry us too far aside were I to tell you the story of
Pandareos' dog--or rather of Jupiter's dog, for Pandareos was its
guardian only; all that bears on our present purpose is that the guardian
of this golden dog had three daughters, one of whom was subject to the
power of the Sirens, and is turned into a nightingale; and the other two
were subject to the power of the Harpies, and this was what happened to
them: They were very beautiful, and they were beloved by the gods in
their youth, and all the great goddesses were anxious to bring them up
rightly. Of all types of young ladies' education, there is nothing so
splendid as that of the younger daughters of Pandareos. They have
literally the fo