Classical Mythology

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN LITERATURE AND ART 681

SHAKESPEARE, MARLOWE, AND SPENSER

English authors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries made extensive use
of classical mythology, in drama and narrative poems, as ornaments in lyric po-
etry and by means of mythological allusion in prose and verse works. Allusions
were not always explicit. For example, when Ben Jonson addresses the moon as
"Queen and huntress, chaste and fair," he is alluding to Artemis (Diana). In
William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) Twelfth Night, the Duke imagines himself to
be Actaeon as he recalls his first sight of Olivia (1.1. 19-23):

t

O! When mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence.
That instant was I turn'd into a hart,
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me.
Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander (1598, completed by Chapman) and
Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis (1593) are outstanding examples of narrative po-
ems drawn from Ovid's legends. In drama, history rather than mythology more
commonly provided Renaissance authors with material, but one distinguished
exception is Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, published in 1604 and, in a revised ver-
sion, in 1616. Marlowe (1564-1593) makes the mythological Helen a symbol of
surpassing sensual beauty, an object of Faustus' desire. Here are the famous lines
in which Faustus embraces Helen (Doctor Faustus 1328-1334):

t

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships

And burn't the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!

Her lips suck forth my soul. See where it flies!

Come, Helen, come give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,

And all is dross that is not Helena.

Masques were dramatic productions, usually allegorical in nature, in which
the characters were drawn from classical mythology. The most distinguished ex-
ample of the genre is Milton's Comus (1634), which combines a pastoral setting
with classical allegory. Another example is the masque in Shakespeare's The Tem-
pest (Act 4, scene 1). The custom of having aristocrats dress up as classical gods
and goddesses survived in France and England well into the eighteenth century.

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Ovid's Metamorphosis English'd. By George Sandys, 1632. Engraving for Book 3 by Fran-
cis Clein and Salomon Savery. Each book of the poem was prefaced by a full-page illus-
tration, giving a summary representation of the book's legends. Book 3 is devoted to the
Theban legends: the death of Semele appears on the upper right; the battle of the Spar-
toi in the right center; Cadmus, after killing the dragon in the lower right, looking up at
Mars [Ares] in the sky; Actaeon in the lower left. (Smith College, Mortimer Rare Book Room.)