And truly, it seems to me, as I gather in my mind the evidences of insane
religion, degraded art, merciless war, sullen toil, detestable pleasure,
and vain or vile hope, in which the nations of the world have lived since
first they could bear record of themselves--it seems to me, I say, as if
the race itself were still half-serpent, not extricated yet from its
clay; a lacertine breed of bitterness--the glory of it emaciate with
cruel hunger, and blotted on the leaf a glittering slime, and in the sand
a useless furrow.
72. There are no myths, therefore, by which the moral state and fineness
of intelligence of different races can be so deeply tried or measured, as
by those of the serpent and the bird; both of them having an especial
relation to the kind of remorse for sin, or for the grief in fate, of
which the national minds that spoke by them had been capable. The
serpent and vulture are alike emblems of immortality and purification
among races which desired to be immortal and pure; and as they recognize
their own misery, the serpent becomes to them the scourge of the Furies,
and the vulture finds its eternal prey in their breast.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110