* 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.
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