
 <5arttcll Jltttoeraita 2Ixbrarg 
 
 Jtitaca. ^tta Qarb 
 
 S3i)ite l$iBtocical Sibcaty 
 
 THE GIFT OF PRESIDENT WHITE 
 M*?H[^!N?P_BY THE UNIVERSITY IN ACCORD- 
 
 "*NCE- With the provisions 
 
 OF THE GIFT 
 
Cornell University Library 
 NA 2500.L64 
 
 Architecture, mysticism and njyth- 
 
 3 1924 008 729 349 
 
 OLIN LIBR DATE 
 
 POUSU'^^ 
 
 
 JjPp4^F ■ '.> 
 
 
 
 ^QffiiH 
 
 HMfiii. 
 
 
 
 *os>^ 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 se* 
 
 gpTgg^fcr— 
 
 •— 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 AU^ 
 
 ^^ww 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 •. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S^. 
 

Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008729349 
 
ARCHITECTURE 
 
 MYSTICISM AND MYTH 
 
ARCHITECTVRE 
 MYSTICISM AND 
 
 MYTH. By fT. R. ythaby 
 with illustrations by the Author 
 
 ' Are there symbols which may be called constant ; proper to 
 all races, all societies, and all countries P ' C^sar Daly. 
 
 1892 
 
 New York: Macmillan & Co. 
 
 <15 
 

 A. 3^^i 
 
 1 
 
 ■ yJ«af «/«» pelers grete'of fasper longe 
 I sawgh a temple ofglas ifounded strange.' — Chaucer. 
 
 Vv-.....-.^'.--i, vb-t:: 
 
 Ji 
 
 
PRE FA CE 
 
 TN sending out this essay, I must ask for indulgence. 
 In the first place, because this is, so far as known to 
 me, the only attempt to set out, from an architect's point 
 of view, the basis of certain ideas common in the architec- 
 ture of many lands and religions, the purposes behind 
 structure and form which may be called the esoteric principles 
 of architecture. 
 
 And secondly, for an attempt to deal with a subject 
 that could only be rightly handled by one having the 
 equipments of a wide scholarship ; while I can only claim 
 that there should come of regular apprenticeship and long 
 practice in any craft or art, a certain instinct of insight not 
 possessed by 7nere outsiders though never so learned. The 
 author who asks the question quoted on the title-page, says 
 that Mr. Herbert Spencef^s essay on the origin of the styles of 
 architecture fails because he was not himself an architect, and 
 no architect had prepared the way. 1 refer to this in the 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 hope that writing thus, on my own art, may be sufficient 
 excuse for any appearance of affectation and presumption in 
 quoting unfamiliar matter at secondhand; for I must say at 
 once, what will be sufficiently apparent on any page, that my 
 knowledge of books is only that of the general reader, and that 
 I have made use of such inferior editions, translations, and 
 chance extracts as have come in my way; venturing to suppose 
 that, if the thought were clear, a passage originally in hiero- 
 glyphs, or on clay tablets, might be dealt with as readily as a 
 paragraph from an evening paper. 
 
 In such a wide field T have thought it well to con- 
 centrate my attention on some few definite points, and I 
 fear, in doing this, there may be some unnecessary insistence 
 and repetition : a tendency to overprove, and an attempt to 
 explain too much ; on the one hand to burden with what 
 is obvious, on the other to weaken by unfounded conjecture. 
 
 The main proposition occurred to me after collecting and 
 comparing a large number of architectural legends, and it was 
 not until I read definitely, for further confirmation, that I 
 found statements, a sentence here and there, anticipating me 
 on nearly every point. It is only since this has been in the 
 publisher^ hands that I have seen Dr. Warren's ■' Paradise 
 Found,' to find there several coincidences with my chapters 
 IV. andv. 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 To clear the page of footnotes, and to strengthen the 
 structure of the argument by expert evidence, T have gener- 
 ally preferred to transcribe my authorities directly rather 
 than attempt, by paraphrasing them, to give an air of ease 
 and unity to my own work. Equally by either method— 
 ' Would you know the new, you must search the old.' 
 
 T have the pleasure of thanking friends who have helped 
 me, especially Mr. Ernest Newton and Mr. E. S. Prior. 
 The figures 22, 24, and 30 are from sketches kindly lent me 
 by Mr. Brindley, Mr. Schultz, and Mr. Barnsley. 
 
 2 GRAY'S INN SQUARE. 
 
' The prince Humayun fitted up seven houses of entertainment, and 
 named them after the seven planets, ordering all the furniture, paintings, 
 and also the dresses of those who waited upon him, to bear something 
 that was an emblem of the tutelar star of the house. In the house of 
 the Moon met foreign ambassadors, travellers, and poets. Military 
 men attended him in the house of Mars, and judges, lawgivers, and 
 secretaries were received in that of Mercury.^ 
 
 Ferishta's History of India. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 see page 
 
 FRONTISPIECE 
 
 Ziggurat of Belus at Babylon 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 I. THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 ' II. THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 I Chinese ' Hall of Distinction ' I 
 Fig. I. \ Buddhist Plan of the World 
 
 \Astrologers' Houses of the Sky J 
 Fig. 2. A Buddhist Tope 
 
 III. FOUR SQUARE . 
 
 Fig. 3. EzeMeVs City . 
 Fig. 4. Chinese Plan 
 
 IV. AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 Fig. 5. The Four Rivers and Central Tree 
 Fig. 6. The Central Stone of Delphi 
 Fig. 7. The Same 
 Fig. 8. Plan of Dome of the Rock 
 
 V. THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 Fig. 9. Indian Lamp Tree 
 Fig. 10. Greek Lamp Tree 
 Fig. II. The Gqfden Candlestick from the arch of 
 Titus .... 
 
 128 
 
 I 
 
 9 
 32 
 46 
 48 
 
 S3 ' 
 
 63 
 
 63 
 
 ^^ 
 
 75 
 79 
 80 
 
 95 
 
 "5 
 116 
 
 117 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XI. THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND THREE HUNDRED 
 AND SIXTY DAYS .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VI. THE PLANETARY SPHERES . . .122 
 
 Fig, 12. Seven-Walled City, from \l,%\ Dante . 137 
 Fig. 13. The Throne on Seven Steps of the Heavens . 138 
 
 VII. THE LABYRINTH . . . -149 
 
 Fig. 14. Floor Labyrinth at Ravenna . IS' 
 
 Fig. 15. Early Coins of Crete . . -153 
 
 Fig. 16. Isle of Crete, frofn the Hereford Map IS4 
 
 VIII. THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN . . -174 
 
 Fig. 17. Door Lintel, Ebba, Carthage 178 
 
 Fig. 18. Syrian Tomb Door, Galilee . 180 
 
 Fig. 19. East Toran, Sanchi Tope . . 182 
 
 Fig. 20. Phcenician Toran, Coin of Paphos 183 
 
 Fig. 21. Chinese Tomb Door, Canton . .185 
 
 IX. PAVEMENTS ' LIKE THE SEA . . .; 201 
 
 Fig. 22. Marble Pavement, Constantinople . .211 
 
 Fig. IT,. Roman Pavement, Cirencester . . 213 
 Fig. 24. Pavement Patterns, The Baptistery, Florence 216 
 
 X. CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY . . .221 
 
 Fig. 25. Mosaic Dome, Ravenna . . 223 
 
 Fig. zd. Egyptian Goddess of the Sky . .231 
 
 Fig, 27. Egyptian Temple Ceiling . 233 
 
 23s 
 
 XII. THE SYMBOL OF CREATION . . -254 
 
 Fig. 28. Italian Canopy, from a Tile . . 259 
 
 Fig. 29. Italian Lamp from Mantegna . 261 
 
 Pig, SO- Ostrich Egg from Mycente . . 269 
 
ARCHITECTVRE, MYSTICISM 
 AND MYTH 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ' Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination 
 of those images, that have been previously gathered and deposited in 
 the memory : nothing can come of nothing : he who has laid up no 
 materials can produce no combinations,^ — Reynolds, Discourse I i. 
 
 THE history of architecture, as usually written, 
 with its theory of utilitarian origins from the hut 
 and the tumulus, and further developments in that way 
 — the adjustment of forms to the conditions of local 
 circumstance ; the clay of Mesopotamia, the granite of 
 Egypt, and marble of Greece — is rather the history of 
 building : of ' Architecture ' it may be, in the sense we 
 so often use the word, but not the Architecture which 
 is the synthesis of the fine arts, the commune of all , 
 the crafts. 
 
 As the pigments are but the vehicle of painting, so 
 is building but the vehicle of architecture, which is 
 the thought behind form, embodied and realised for 
 the purpose of its manifestation and transmission. 
 Architecture, then, interpenetrates building, not for 
 satisfaction of the simple needs of the body, but the 
 complex ones of the intellect. I do not mean that 
 we can thus distinguish between architecture and 
 
 A 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 building, in those qualities in which they meet and 
 overlap, but that in the sum and polarity of them 
 all ; these point to the response of future thought, 
 those to the satisfaction of present need ; and so, 
 although no hut or mound, however early or rude, 
 but had something added to it for thought's sake, 
 yet architecture and building are quite clear and 
 distinct as ideas — the soul and the body. 
 
 Of the modes of this thought we must again dis- 
 tinguish ; some were unconscious and instinctive, as 
 the desire for symmetry, smoothness, sublimity, and the 
 like merely aesthetic qualities, which properly enough 
 belong to true architecture ; and others were direct and 
 didactic, speaking by a more or less perfect realisation, 
 or through a code of symbols, accompanied by tradi- 
 tions which explained them. The main purpose and 
 burthen of sacred architecture — and all architecture, 
 temple, tomb, or palace, was sacred in the early days 
 — is thus inextricably bound up with a people's 
 thoughts about God and the universe. 
 
 Behind every style of architecture there is an earlier 
 style, in which the germ of every form is to be found ; 
 except such alterations as may be traced to new 
 conditions, or directly innovating thought in religion, 
 all is the slow change of growth, and it is almost 
 impossible to point to the time of invention of any 
 custom or feature. As Herbert Spencer says of cere- 
 monial generally: 'Adhering tenaciously to all his 
 elders taught him, the primitive man deviates into 
 novelty only through unintended modifications. Every 
 one now knows that languages are not devised but 
 evolve ; and the same is true of usages.' It has, 
 rightly, been the habit of historians of architecture to 
 lay stress on the differences of the several styles and 
 schools of successive ages, but, in the far larger sense. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 all architecture is one, when traced back through the 
 stream of civilisations, as they followed or influenced 
 one another. For instance, argue as archaeologists 
 may, as to whether the columns at Beni Hassan are 
 rightly called proto-Doric, it is a fact to be read as 
 in an open book, that a Greek temple and an 
 Egyptian temple are substantially at one, when we 
 consider the infinite possibilities of form, if dis- 
 associated from tradition. 
 
 It has often been pointed out, how early examples 
 of stone construction still repeat the forms of the 
 manner of building in wood that went before, and so 
 is it always. How long the steamship retained 
 survivals of the sailing vessel, and how the vocabulary 
 of the coachroad still answers for the railway. 
 
 What then, I want to ask, are the ultimate facts 
 behind all architecture which has given it form ? 
 Mainly three : First, the similar needs and desires of 
 men ; secondly, on the side of structure, the necessities 
 imposed by materials, and the physical laws of their 
 erection and combination ; and thirdly, on the side 
 of style, nature. It is of this last that I propose to 
 write ; the influence of the known and imagined facts 
 of the universe on architecture, the connection between 
 the world as a structure, and the building, not of 
 the mere details of nature and the ornaments of 
 architecture, but of the whole — the Heavenly Temple 
 and the Earthly Tabernacle. ' Has anyone,' says Mr 
 Lillie in his " Buddhism in Christendom," ' puzzled 
 over the fact, that the only modern representative 
 of the initiates of the ancient mysteries should 
 occupy themselves entirely with the business of 
 the hodman and builder ; what is the connection 
 between the kingdom of heaven, and matter of fact 
 mortar, tee-squares and trowels ? Esoteric masonry 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 occupied itself in reality, with a temple built without 
 sound of hammer, axe, or tool of iron. It was the 
 temple of the skies, the Macrocosmos, in point of fact.' 
 
 It will be necessary, not only to examine architec- 
 ture in the monuments, but the contemporary state- 
 ments which relate to them, the stories about buildings, 
 and even the mythology of architecture, for such a 
 mythology there is. 
 
 If we trace the artistic forms of things, made by 
 man, to their origin, we find a direct imitation of 
 nature. The thought behind a ship is the imitation of 
 a fish. So to the Egyptians and Greeks the ' Black 
 Ship ' bore traces of this descent, and two eyes were 
 painted at the prow. The custom still lingers on the 
 Mediterranean and on the waters of China : the eyes 
 are given, it is said, to enable the ship to see its way 
 over the pathless sea. Tables and chairs, like the beasts, 
 are quadrupeds ; the lion's leg and foot of modern 
 furniture come to us from the Greeks, and, earlier, 
 they were used in Assyria and Egypt. Thrones 
 had beasts on either hand, a custom traditionally 
 followed for thrones, Hittite, Chaldean, or Hindu, that 
 of Solomon, the imperial throne at Constantinople, 
 or our own Coronation chair. The Egyptian funeral 
 bier seems like a joke, so frank and unmodified is the 
 imitation : it looks, as shown on the mummy cases, 
 like a long, flat-backed lion, tail and all ; the example 
 preserved in the Boulak Museum, has the ordinary 
 parallelogram of a bed, each leg being a lion's leg ; a 
 head is attached to the middle of the front rail, and a 
 tail, like a pump handle, projects far behind in a great 
 sweeping curve. 
 
 Where else, indeed, should we go for the highest 
 imagination? In the modern Greek folk stories, 
 the hero usually has three marvellous robes; one 
 
INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 embroidered with the heavens and its stars, the second 
 with the sea and fish swimming there, the third with 
 the earth in May and all its flowers. Could anyone 
 produce finer designs ? 
 
 The commonplaces of poetry, in which the world is 
 likened to a building, ' heavenly vaults,' or ' azure 
 domes,' ' gates of sunrise,' and the rest, are survivals 
 of a time when the earth was not a tiny ball, pro- 
 jected at immeasurable speed through infinite space, 
 one, among other fireflies of the night, but was stable 
 and immovable, the centre of the universe, the floor on 
 which the sky was built. The whole, a chamber 
 lighted by the sun, moon, and stars. 
 
 The ceremonial of religion during the great building 
 ages in Chaldea, Egypt, and India, was going through 
 the phase of Nature worship, in which the sky, the 
 sun, the sea were not so much veiled, as afterwards 
 to the Greeks, until they became persons, not things ; 
 but open and understood, astronomical observation 
 was closely associated as part of the cultus. 
 
 In all this there is enough to dispose us to receive 
 evidence of a cosmical symbolism in the buildings of 
 the younger world, and we shall find that the intention 
 of the temple (speaking of the temple idea, as we 
 understand it) was to set up a local reduplication of 
 the temple not made with hands, the World Temple 
 itself — a sort of model to scale, its form governed 
 by the science of the time ; it was a heaven, an 
 observatory, and an almanack. Its foundation was a 
 sacred ceremony, the time carefully chosen by augury, 
 and its relation to the heavens defined by observation. 
 Its place was exactly below the celestial prototype ; 
 like that it was sacred, like that strong, its founda- 
 tions could not be moved, if they were placed 
 foursquare to the walls of the firmament, as are still 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 our churches — and was it not to be like the heavenly- 
 sanctuary, that Solomon built the temple without the 
 sound of tool ? 
 
 I do not necessarily claim that this was the origin 
 of all structures set apart for a purpose in a sense 
 sacred ; nor possibly in every case was this the first 
 interpretation of some of the symbols. Customs 
 have many explanations. I claim that, given the idea 
 of a universe and universe gods, the phase here set 
 out was a necessary one ; and as this stage certainly 
 everywhere preceded the age, when works, worthy 
 the name of architecture, were produced — buildings 
 which enshrined ideas — it is here we shall find the 
 formative factor in their design. And for this there 
 is ample authority ; De la Saussaye, in his compre- 
 hensive 'Manual of the Science of Religion' (1891), 
 says 'the symbolism of temple buildings some- 
 times seems to refer to the structure of the world, 
 sometimes to the religious relationship of men to the 
 gods.' 
 
 Beginning with the form of the world in the first 
 chapter, the three or four which follow, deal with 
 the relation of the building to it as a whole, and the 
 rest with parts and details. 
 
 We need not suppose that temples were a sum 
 of these symbols in all cases, if in any ; but that 
 from this common book of architecture, each took 
 what he would, little or much, sometimes openly, 
 sometimes with more or less translation, some- 
 times at first hand, often as a half-remembered 
 tradition. 
 
 The ritual side of symbolism is entirely neglected 
 here, but there is ample evidence that sacred 
 ceremony, the state that surrounded a throne, and the 
 pageant of war, all had reference to the ritual and 
 
INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 pomp of nature ; so that man might be one with her 
 and share her invincible strength. Ridiculous as, at 
 first, it may seem, the Throne, Crown, and Orb of Her 
 Majesty Queen Victoria can only be explained in this 
 way : they are all symbols of a God in his temple ; 
 and hereditary kingship has ever5^where, as Mr Spencer 
 has shown, claimed divinity, God descent, and after- 
 wards God consent — the right divine. As is said in 
 the old Chinese book, the Li Ki (Sac. Books of E. 
 Vol. 28), 'all ceremonial usages, looked at in their 
 general characteristics, are the -embodiment of the 
 ideas suggested by heaven and earth ; take their laws 
 from the changes of the four seasons ; imitate the 
 operation of the contracting and developing move- 
 ments in nature, and are conformed to the feelings of 
 men. It is on this account that they are called the 
 Rules of Propriety; and when anyone finds fault 
 with them, he only shows his ignorance of their 
 origin.' 
 
 Old architecture lived because it had a purpose. 
 Modern architecture, to be real, must not be a mere 
 envelope without contents. As M. Cesar Daly says in 
 his Hautes Etudes, if we would have architecture excite 
 an interest, real and general, we must have a symbolism, 
 immediately comprehensible by the great majority of 
 spectators. But this message cannot be that of the 
 past — terror, mystery, splendour. Planets may not 
 circle nor thunder roll in the temple of the future. 
 No barbaric gold with ruddy bloom ; no jewels ; 
 emeralds half a palm over, rubies like an egg, and 
 crystal spheres, can again be used more for magic 
 than for beauty. No terraced temples of Babylon to 
 reach the skies ; no gold-plated palaces of Ecbatana, 
 seven-walled ; no ivory palaces of Ahab ; nor golden 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 houses of Nero with corridors a mile long; no 
 stupendous temples of Egypt at first all embracing, 
 then court and chamber narrowing and becoming 
 lower, closing in on the awed worshipper and crushing 
 his imagination ; these, all of them, can never be built 
 again, for the manner and the materials are worked 
 out to their final issue. Think of the Sociology and 
 Religion of all this, and the stain across it, " each 
 stone cemented in the blood of a human creature." 
 Those colossal efforts of labour forced on by an 
 implacable will, are of the past, and such an archi- 
 tecture is not for us, nor for the future. 
 
 What, then, will this art of the future be ? The 
 message will still be of nature and man, of order and 
 beauty, but all will be sweetness, simplicity, freedom, 
 confidence, and light ; the other is past, and well is 
 it, for its aim was to crush life : the new, the future, is 
 to aid life and train it, ' so that beauty may flow into 
 the soul like a breeze.' 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 ' Tales of ages long forgotten 
 Now the legends of creation 
 Once familiar to the children.' — KALEVALA. 
 
 IF we erase from the mind absolutely all that science 
 has laboriously spied out of the actual facts of 
 the material universe, and ask ourselves what would 
 have been the thoughts by which man attempted at 
 first to explain and image forth the natural order, we 
 may put ourselves in sympathy with notions that at 
 first seem absurd. We may see that the progress 
 of science is merely the framing and destruction 
 one by one of a series of hypotheses, and that the 
 early cosmogonies are one in kind with the widest 
 generalisations of science — from certain appearances 
 to frame a theory of explanation, from phenomena 
 to generalise law. 
 
 In thus putting ourselves back into the early world, 
 not only must we remember the limitations to the 
 knowledge of phenomena, but also the inadequate 
 means of expression. Not only must we ask our- 
 selves what primitive man — to use the phrase for 
 what it is worth, not letting it betray us — can have 
 observed : we must ask at the same time ; what 
 images can he have had before him to which he might 
 
lO THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 liken the wonder of the sky and the might of the 
 sea? Or rather, these are two phases of the same 
 question by which we may realise the early systems, 
 for in these things at least concepts were immediately 
 linked with words, words which were descriptive 
 comparisons. 
 
 The unknown universe could then only be explained 
 in terms of its known parts; the earth, shut in by the 
 night sky, must have been thought of as a living 
 creature, a tree, a tent, a building; and these each 
 form the world system to peoples now living. ' Given 
 the data,' says Herbert Spencer, 'as known to him, 
 the inference drawn by the primitive man is the 
 reasonable inference.' 
 
 A tree with wide over-arching branches must have 
 formed an apt and satisfactory explanation, for 
 legends of a world tree are so widely distributed ; 
 we meet with them at the dawn of record, and they 
 still strike their roots where 'wild in woods' the 
 savage runs. 
 
 The Chaldean inscriptions describe such a tree as 
 growing at the centre of the world ; its branches of 
 crystal formed the sky and drooped to the sea. The 
 Phoenicians thought the world like a revolving tree, over 
 which was spread a vast tapestry of blue embroidered 
 with stars. Traces of this scheme linger late into times 
 of culture, and would account for a story in ' Apollonios 
 of Tyana ' that the people of Sardis doubted if the trees 
 were not created before the earth; an idea exactly 
 parallel to the controversy in the Talmud, as to the 
 priority in creation of the heavens or the earth ; one 
 side maintaining that the object was made first and 
 then the pedestal; the other, that the foundation is 
 laid before the building is erected. 
 
 All the East knew of such a tree ; in Japan the gods 
 broke their swords against it in vain ; in Greece its 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC II 
 
 memory seems long to have survived as the olive of 
 the forest of Colonas. 
 
 In the Norse system a vast tree, the world-ash, 
 rises in the centre of the earth, its branches forming 
 the several heavens of the gods, its roots strike deep 
 into hell, and there — 
 
 ' A serpent evermore 
 
 Lies deep asleep at the world's dark core.' 
 
 Maori science still represents such a tree as rising 
 to the heavens, ' that dark nocturnal canopy which like 
 a forest spreads its shade,' its mighty growth first forced 
 asunder Heaven and Earth. Such an idea is probably 
 very uniform at a certain early stage of civilisation — 
 'The fundamental conception of these myths,' says 
 Lenormant, ' which never appear in perfection except 
 under their oldest forms, represents the universe as 
 an enormous tree.' Its trunk transfixes the earth, 
 projecting upwards into heaven and below into the 
 abyss, the heavens revolve on this axis, and may be 
 reached by climbing the stem. 
 
 An extract from Dr Tylor's 'Early History of 
 Mankind' will lead us to a later point of view. 
 Man now surrounded by his own works sees in the 
 universe a larger ' tent to dwell in,' a chamber, and 
 ultimately a most elaborate structure, a conception 
 which lasts long even in the direct line of descent 
 of science. This idea it is children find so diffi- 
 cult to shake off — that there must be a brick wall 
 somewhere circumscribing the universe, and we still 
 recognise it in the phrase to 'make the welkin ring.' 
 
 'There are,' says Dr Tylor, 'other mythological 
 ways besides the heaven-tree by which, in different 
 parts of the world, it is possible to go up and down 
 between the surface of the ground and the sky or the 
 regions below. . . . Such tales belong to a rude and 
 primitive state of knowledge of the earth's surface. 
 
12 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 and what lies above and below it. The earth is a flat 
 plain surrounded by the sea, and the sky forms a roof 
 on which the sun and moon and stars travel. The 
 Polynesians who thought, like so many other people 
 ancient and modern, that the sky descended at the 
 horizon and enclosed the earth, still call foreigners 
 " heaven burs ters," as having broken in from another 
 world outsider The sky is to most savages, what 
 it is called in the South American language, "the 
 earth on high," and we can quite understand the 
 thought of some Paraguayans that at death their 
 souls would go up to heaven by the tree which joins 
 earth and sky. There are holes or windows through 
 the sky-roof or firmament where the rain comes 
 through; and if you climb high enough, you can get 
 through and visit the dwellers above, who look and 
 talk and live very much in the same way as the 
 people upon earth. As above the flat earth, so below 
 it, there are regions inhabited by men or manlike 
 creatures, who sometimes come up to the surface, and 
 sometimes are visited by the inhabitants of the upper 
 earth. We live, as it were, upon the ground-floor of 
 a great house, with upper storeys rising one over 
 another above us, and cellars down below.' 
 
 This stage of thought lasted so long, embracing the 
 great architectural ages in its span, that one cannot 
 but see that there must have been a relation and 
 reaction between such a world structure and the 
 buildings of man, especially the sacred buildings set 
 apart, as they mostly were, for a worship that thought 
 it found its object in earth, sky, and stars. 
 
 It would appear generally that to the great civilising 
 races a square formed universe preceded the hemi- 
 spherical ; indeed, we are much in the hemispherical 
 age at present, it is just archaic enough to furnish the 
 poet with his similes, but an old poet like Job found 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC I3 
 
 his comparisons in the chamber-form, a cubical box 
 with a lid on. In the centre of this vast box whose 
 lid is the sky rises the earth mountain, which is its 
 prop and the pivot of its revolutions. It was seen 
 that the centre of this revolution is at a point within 
 the space guarded by the great bear, and that beyond 
 this the stars dip under the earth of the northern 
 horizon. Thus the earth mountain in the North 
 furnishes a most adequate explanation of the apparent 
 motions of the heavens ; the crystal or metal heaven 
 of the fixed stars revolves about it, and consequently 
 the stars are hidden behind it in every revolution. 
 The sun, moon, and planets issuing from a hole at the 
 east, and sinking into another at the west, move over- 
 head and find their way back by a subterranean path. 
 The motive power was sometimes given by active 
 beings, as in the Book of Enoch, or by the winds ; 
 thus the universe was like a great mill. 
 
 It is likely that the dome was the next step, although 
 as yet they were hard put to it to convey the idea, so a 
 skull or half an eggshell furnished the comparison for 
 the whole canopy of heaven, as in the northern system 
 of the Edda: — 
 
 Earth was not formed nor heaven above, a yawning 
 gap there was, but grass nowhere. The earth is 
 made fast in the midst, the sea round about it in a 
 ring. The firmament in the form of a skull was set 
 up over the earth with four sides, and under each 
 corner they set dwarfs. The earth, called Midgard, 
 is round without, and beyond is the deep sea ; 
 in the midst of the world was reared Asgard, where 
 Odin is enthroned seeing over the whole world and 
 each man's doings. Without in the deep sea lies the 
 Midgard-worm, tail in mouth. The holiest seat of 
 the gods is at Yggdrasil's ash, its boughs spread 
 over the whole world. Three roots it has, one in 
 
14 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 heaven, one in hell, where is Nidhogg, one where 
 before was Yawning-gap, and there is the Spring of 
 Knowledge. A fair hall is there, and from it issue 
 three maidens — Has-been, Being, and Will-be — who 
 shape the lives of men. On the boughs of the ash sits 
 an eagle, wise in much, and between his eyes a hawk, 
 while a squirrel runs up and down the tree bearing 
 words of hate betwixt the eagle and the worm. 
 
 The following may serve as a general description 
 of what we may call the chamber type, either square 
 or round, with a ceiling or a dome. The earth is 
 a mountain, and around its base flows the ocean, 
 or it floats on the ocean ; beyond is a high range 
 of mountains which form the walls of the enclo- 
 sure, and on these is either laid the ceiling in one 
 great slab, or it is domed (sometimes the system 
 is a compromise, the earth square, the sky circular, 
 and they do not seem to have realised the difficulty of 
 the pendentives 1). The firmament is sustained by 
 the earth mountain in the centre ; as in the Esquimaux 
 account given by Dr Rink ' the earth with the sea 
 supported by it, rests upon pillars, and covers an 
 under-world accessible by various entrances from the 
 sea, as well as from mountain clefts. Above the 
 earth an upper world is found, beyond which the blue 
 sky, being of solid consistence, vaults itself like an 
 outer shell, and, as some say, revolves around some 
 high mountain top in the far north.' A man in a boat 
 went' ' to the border of ocean, where the sky comes 
 down to meet it.' (H. Spencer, Sociology, I.) Man 
 was created on the mountain top, where it is in con- 
 tact with heaven, and all earthly vegetation springs 
 from the seeds of the central tree. In the South 
 Pacific, Mr Andrew Lang tells us, the sky is a solid 
 vault of blue stone. In the beginning of things the 
 sky pressed hard on the earth, and the god Ru was 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 15 
 
 obliged to thrust the two asunder. Ru is now the 
 Atlas of Mangaia, ' The sky-supporting Ru.' 
 
 Above the firmament is the Over-sea, and the rain 
 falls from it through perforations ; it serves as the floor 
 of the upper regions, and flowing down the firmament, 
 or down the sides of the mountain, supplies earthly 
 seas ; the stars are either attached to the firmament or 
 float on this over-sea. There is an amusing story of 
 this celestial sea as late as Gervase of Tilbury. Some 
 people coming out of church were surprised to see an 
 anchor dangling by a rope from the sky, which caught 
 in the tombstones, presently a man was seen descend- 
 ing with the object of detaching it, but as he reached 
 the earth he died as we should if drowned in water. 
 
 The Egyptian system would seem to have been 
 of the square type. The Egyptian, says ChampoUion, 
 ' compared the sky to the ceiling of an edifice ; ' 
 illustrations which figure the Cosmos in personified 
 forms are frequent on the temples and mummy cases. 
 An example is given by Lenormant {Histoire Ancienne) 
 showing Seb the Earth-Mountain, Tpe the firma- 
 ment, and Nut the heavenly waters. In the Book of 
 the Dead the soul passes through the gateway of this 
 world into the other, ' the House of Osiris,' and that 
 too was shut in by a wall with a great gateway for 
 the sun at the east to reach our land ; the dead had to 
 be ferried over the waters which surrounded the earth, 
 and so the river of death had purely a geographical 
 import in its origin. 
 
 Renouf says that ' Ra is addressed as Lord of the 
 great dwelling. The "great dwelling" is the universe, 
 as the Hall of Seb is the earth, the Hall of Nut the 
 heaven, and the Hall of the twofold Maat is the 
 netherworld.' 
 
 Water was with them the primordial element in the 
 formation of the universe, of which Maspero gives this 
 
l6 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 account : ' For the astronomers of Egypt, as for the writer 
 of the first chapter of Genesis, the sky was " fluid " {une 
 masse liquide), and enclosed wholly the earth resting 
 on the solid atmosphere ; when the elemental chaos 
 took form, the God Schou raised on high the waters 
 and spread them out in space. It is on this celestial 
 ocean, Nut, that the planets and stars float, the monu- 
 ments show us them as genii of human or animal 
 form navigating each his bark in the wake of Osiris. 
 There was another widely known conception which 
 presented the stars fixed like suspended lamps to the 
 celestial vault, and they were lighted afresh each 
 night by Divine power to give light to the nights of 
 earth.' 
 
 The cosmogonic theories in the Veda have been 
 abstracted by Mr Wallis and summarised in a review 
 in the Academy (November 1887). 'The Rig Vedic 
 hymns disclose three distinct lines of thought in 
 regard to the creation of the world, yielding three 
 separate views as to its construction. The simplest 
 theory is that the building of the world was done 
 very much as the building of a house, by architects 
 and artificers.' ' What, indeed, was the wood ? 
 What, too, was that tree,' asks a hymn, ' from which 
 they fashioned the heaven and the earth } ' The 
 space was laid out with the measuring rod of 
 Varuna. This measuring - rod was the sun ; and 
 hence the measurers of the earth are the solar deities, 
 especially Vishnu, ' who measured the regions of the 
 earth, and made fast the dwelling-places on high, 
 stepping forth the Mighty Strider in three steps.' 
 The edifice had three stories or flats — the earth, the 
 air, and the heavens — the measurement beginning 
 from the front of the structure, or the East ' Indra 
 measured out as it were a house with measures from 
 the front.' 'The Dawn shone with brilliance and 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC IJ 
 
 opened for us the doors;' the doors that 'open 
 high and wide with their frames.' The roofing of 
 the house is referred to in the epithet of the sky 
 as 'beamless or without rafters.' The firmness of 
 the edifice is marvelled at and praised. While the 
 design and general structure are assigned to the 
 greater deities, and especially to Indra as their repre- 
 sentative, the woodwork and other details are done 
 by artificer gods. As the first act of the Indian 
 peasant on taking possession of a new house is to 
 bring in sacred fire, so, says Mr Wallis, ' the first act 
 of the gods after the formation of the world was to 
 produce the celestial Agni.' 
 
 In the Avesta the sky is said to be ' like a palace 
 built of a heavenly substance firmly established with 
 ends that lie far apart' The idea of the temple of the 
 sky is common to the classic poets, and becomes the 
 palace or temple of glass of the Romancers. 
 
 The early system of Chaldea belongs to the hemi- 
 spherical class, and it is an interesting fact that modern 
 evidence goes to show that the dome was first known 
 in the Land of the Plain. ' The Turanians of Chaldea 
 represented the earth like a bark inverted and hollow 
 underneath, not one of those oblong boats in use with 
 us, but of a kind entirely round which the reliefs 
 show, and which are still used on the Euphrates. In 
 the interior hollow was concealed the abyss — the 
 place of darkness and of death ; upon the convex 
 surface was spread the earth, properly so called, 
 enveloped on all sides by the stream of Ocean. 
 Chaldea was regarded as the centre of the world, 
 and far beyond the Tigris reposed the mountain of 
 the east which united the heavens and the earth. 
 The heavens were in the form of a vast hemisphere, 
 of which the lower rim rested upon the extremity of 
 the terrestrial bark beyond the river of ocean.' 
 
18 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 ' The firmament was spread out over the earth like 
 a curtain ; it turned, as if on a pivot, around the 
 mountain of the east, and carried with it in its never- 
 resting course the fixed stars with which its vault 
 was studded. Between the heavens and the earth 
 circled about the seven planets like large animals full 
 of life; then came the clouds, the winds, the thunder, 
 the rains. The earth rested on the abyss, the sky upon 
 the earth. The early Chaldeans had not yet asked 
 themselves upon what rested the abyss ' (Maspero). 
 
 It is delightfully appropriate that to the heroic age 
 of Greece a shield (probably circular and convex with 
 a central boss) figured the form of the earth. To 
 Homer the land where appeared the phantoms of 
 the dead is beyond the ocean. We may suppose 
 that this was the lonely shore of the belt of moun- 
 tains from which the firmament would spring. The 
 abyss is Tartarus, as in Iliad VIII., ' gloomy Tar- 
 tarus very far from hence (Olympus), where there 
 is a very deep gulf beneath the earth, and iron portals 
 and a brazen threshold as far below Hades as heaven 
 is from earth.' Hesiod is more particular ; in nine 
 days would a brazen anvil fall from Heaven to Earth, 
 and nine other days from earth to Tartarus. 
 
 Thus the Homeric scheme knew the earth as de- 
 picted by the shield of Achilles ; it was surrounded 
 by ocean, and was midway between the solid metal 
 heavens and Tartarus, probably, like a disc in a 
 spherical envelope. Many-peaked Olympus, where 
 the gods assembled, is rather the celestial Olympus — 
 the surface of the vault of heaven, than a mere 
 earthly mountain. A good account of this is given in 
 Duncker's ' History of Greece ' (I. IX.), on its summit 
 was the ' all-nourishing lake ' from which flowed all the 
 waters of the world ; the earthly Olympus was but a 
 symbol of the heavenly mount. Anaxagoras taught 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 19 
 
 that the celestial vault was made of stone. Theophras- 
 tus said the milky way was the junction of the two 
 halves of the solid dome so badly joined that the light 
 came through ; others said that it was a reflection of 
 the sun's light on the vault of heaven (Flammarion, 
 ' Astronomical Myths '). 
 
 Later when Phoenician voyagers had explored the 
 Western seas, and a knowledge of India opened up 
 the East, it was evidently felt that the world extended 
 east and west, and with the same climate, while north 
 and south the range was inconsiderable and the 
 climate changing ; so that Herodotus says, ' I smile 
 when I see many persons describing the circumference 
 of the earth who have no sound reason to guide them; 
 they describe ocean flowing round the earth, which 
 is made circular as if by a lathe.' Certain, however, 
 that it was planned on some simple geometrical form, 
 the proportion of 2 to i was accepted. Mr Charles 
 Elton, writing of the traveller Pytheas of Marseilles 
 330 B.C., and the extension of the estimate of size 
 necessitated by his voyages, says, 'The world was 
 thought to be twice as long as its own breadth ; the 
 total breadth from the spicy regions of Ceylon to the 
 frozen shores of Scythia being taken at about 3400 
 miles ; the length from Cape of St Vincent to the 
 ocean east of India at about 6800 miles.' Pytheas 
 increased the estimate, 'thus making the world 4700 
 miles wide, and being compelled by the accepted 
 formula to extend its length to 9400 miles.' 
 
 The next step was to accept the spherical theory 
 for the earth as well as for the heavens. We shall find 
 a return to the Middle Ages to the proportion of the 
 double square. 
 
 Pythagoras seems to have borrowed the fully-devel- 
 oped Eastern scheme ; for the Babylonians had later 
 
20 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 arrived at a highly complex and carefully reasoned 
 structure of several heayenly spheres ; which appar- 
 ently were elaborated in this way. The blue heaven 
 of the fixed stars is seen to revolve around the pole at 
 a constant rate, sweeping the whole of the stars with it. 
 But the sun and moon and five other planets do not 
 for long occupy their positions relative to the other 
 bodies ; it is seen that they have a motion through 
 the signs proper to themselves from the thirty days of 
 the moon to the thirty years of Saturn, and so the 
 Chaldean astronomers assigned a revolving sphere to 
 each of these : seven concentric spheres revolving at 
 rates proportioned to their distance from the centre 
 on a common axis through the pole star. 'The 
 Chaldean astronomers,' says Lenormant (Magic), 
 ' imagined a spherical heaven completely enveloping 
 the earth; the periodical movements of the planets 
 took place in the lower zone of the heavens under- 
 neath the firmament of the fixed stars ; astrology 
 afterwards ascribed to them seven concentric and 
 successive spheres. The firmament supported the 
 ocean of the celestial waters.' These seven spheres, 
 forming as many regions above in the heavens or 
 below in the underworld, were distinguished by 
 colours such as Herodotus describes for the walls of 
 Ecbatana of the Medes, 'a symbolism which,' con- 
 tinues Lenormant, ' was borrowed direct from the 
 Babylonian religion — the colours of the seven planetary 
 bodies.' It is necessary that this system should be 
 firmly grasped ; it is the perfected structure of astrology 
 which for two thousand years solved the problem of 
 the universe over the whole of civilisation ; it is the 
 system embodied in all Mysticism, Astrology, and 
 Arts magic. It was by irresistible analogy that the 
 earth also became a sphere. 
 
 In the Western world the scheme attributed to 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 21 
 
 Pythagoras gives in all twelve spheres, which succeed 
 each other in the following order, beginning from the 
 remotest : (i) Sphere of the fixed stars ; (2) of Saturn ; 
 (3) Jupiter ; (4) Mars ; (5) Venus ; (6) Mercury; (7) Sun ; 
 (8) The Moon ; (9) Sphere of Fire ; (10) Sphere of Air; 
 (11) Sphere of Water; (12) The Earth. 'The early 
 Pythagoreans further conceived that the heavenly 
 bodies, like other moving bodies, emitted a sound ; 
 these they supposed made up a harmonious symphony. 
 Hence they established an analogy between the inter- 
 vals of ■ the seven planets and the musical scale ' 
 (Sir G. C. Lewis, ' Astronomy of the Ancients ')• 
 
 The motive power in the Chaldean system was the 
 energy of seven spirits who governed the several 
 spheres ; these, as angels of the stars, survived to the 
 Middle Ages, and in their cabbalistic form — Zadkiel, 
 Raphael, and the like — are still familiar to those who 
 put their trust in prophetic almanacks. We shall see 
 what Dante says of the orders of angels. 
 
 The most picturesque prospect of these whirling 
 spheres is that in Cicero's vision of Scipio. — ' The 
 globular bodies of the stars greatly exceeded the 
 magnitude of the earth, which now to me appeared 
 so small that I was grieved to see our empire 
 contracted as it were into a very point. Which, 
 while I was too eagerly gazing on, Africanus said : 
 — " How long will your attention be fixed upon 
 the earth ? Do you not see into what temples you 
 have entered ? All things are connected by nine 
 circles, or rather spheres; one of which (which is the 
 outermost) is heaven, and comprehends all the rest, 
 inhabited by the all-powerful God, who binds and 
 controls the others; and in this sphere reside the 
 original principles of those endless revolutions which 
 the planets perform. Within this are contained seven 
 other spheres that turn round backward ; that is, in a 
 
22 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 contrary direction to that of the heaven. Of these, 
 that planet which on earth you call Saturn occupies 
 one sphere. That shining body which you see next 
 is called Jupiter, and is friendly and salutary to man- 
 kind. Next, the lucid one, terrible to the earth, which 
 you call Mars. The sun holds the next place, almost 
 under the middle region ; he is the chief, the leader, 
 and the director of the other luminaries ; he is the 
 soul and guide of the world, and of such immense bulk, 
 that he illuminates and fills all other objects with his 
 light. He is followed by the orbit of Venus and that 
 of Mercury as attendants, and the Moon rolls in the 
 lowest sphere enlightened by the rays of the sun. 
 Below this there is nothing but what is mortal and 
 transitory, excepting those souls which are given to 
 the human race by the goodness of the gods. What- 
 ever lies above the moon is eternal. For the earth, 
 which is the ninth sphere, and is placed in the centre of 
 the whole system, is immovable, and below all the rest, 
 and all bodies by their natural gravitation tend toward 
 it." Which, as I was gazing at in amazement, I said 
 as I recovered myself, " From whence proceed these 
 sounds so strong and yet so sweet that fill my ears ? " ' 
 It is the melody of the spheres which human sensi- 
 bility is too dulled by use to be conscious of hearing. 
 
 The distinction of above and below was not lost nor 
 the solidity of the spherical heavens, as seen in this 
 extract from the Astrologer Manilius : — 
 
 ' Come, then, prepare your mind for learning the 
 Meridians ; they are four in number, their position in 
 the firmament is fixed, and they modify the influence 
 of the signs as these speed across them. One is 
 placed where the heaven rises springing up to form 
 its vault, and this one has the first view of the earth 
 from the level. The second is placed facing it on the 
 opposite border of the aether, and from this begins 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 2J 
 
 the falling-away of the firmament and its headlong 
 sweep down to the Nether- world. The third marks 
 the highest part of the heavens aloft, when Phcebus 
 reaches this he is weary, and his horses out of breath ; 
 here, then, he rests a moment while he is giving the 
 downward turn to the day and balancing the shadows 
 of noon. The fourth holds the very bottom of all, 
 and has the glory of being the foundation of the 
 round world ; on it the stars cease their sinkings and 
 begin their upward course once more ; it is equidistant 
 from the setting and the rising.' The flatness of the 
 earth was not necessarily affected in popular view. 
 Strabo finds it necessary to argue that the earth must 
 be of a spherical form, for if it was of an infinite depth 
 it would transfix the planetary spheres and prevent 
 them going round ! 
 
 This seven-fold system came westward with Latin 
 civilisation, and made the world-scheme for our Saxon 
 forefathers. 
 
 From the fragments collected by Cory of the 
 writings attributed to Zoroaster, it would appear that 
 the Persian Universe was fashioned in the like form : 
 ' For the Father congregated the seven firmaments of 
 the world, circumscribing them of a convex figure.' 
 These seven firmaments are conceived of in the old 
 Persian writings as transparent 'mountains,' one with- 
 out the other. 
 
 The ancient Hindus understood the universe to be 
 formed by seven concentric envelopes around the 
 central earth-mountain Meru, on which the waters 
 of the celestial Ganges fell out of heaven, and circling 
 it seven times in its descent, distributed its waters in 
 four great streams to the whole earth. And the 
 Mexicans had nine heavens distinguished by different 
 colours one over the other. 
 
 The Arab system is clearly set forth by Lane : — 
 
24 THE WORLD FA6RIC 
 
 ' According to the common opinion of the Arabs, 
 there are seven heavens, one above another, and 
 seven earths, one beneath another; the earth which 
 we inhabit being the highest of the latter, and next 
 below the lowest heaven. The upper surface of each 
 heaven and of each earth are believed to be nearly 
 plane, and are generally supposed to be circular. 
 Thus is explained a passage of the Koran in which 
 is said that God has created seven heavens and as 
 many earths or storeys of the earth. Traditions 
 differ respecting the fabric of the seven heavens. In 
 the most credible account, according to a celebrated 
 historian, the first is described as formed of emerald ; 
 the second of white silver; the third of large white 
 pearls ; the fourth of ruby ; the fifth of red gold ; the 
 sixth of yellow jacinth ; and the seventh of shining 
 light. Some assert Paradise to be in the seventh 
 heaven ; indeed, I have found this to be the general 
 opinion of my Muslim friends ; but the author above 
 quoted proceeds to describe, next above the seventh 
 heaven seven seas of light, then an undefined number 
 of veils or separations of different substances seven of 
 each kind, and then Paradise, which consists of seven 
 stages one above another (these are distinguished by 
 the names of precious gems) canopied by the Throne 
 of the Compassionate. These several regions of 
 Paradise are described in some traditions as forming 
 so many degrees, or stages ascended by steps.' 
 
 'The earth is believed by the Arabs to be sur- 
 rounded by the ocean, which is described as bounded 
 by a chain of mountains called Kaf, which encircles 
 the whole as a ring, and confines and strengthens the 
 entire fabric; these mountains are described as 
 composed of green chrysolite like the green tint of 
 the sky. Mecca, according to some, or Jerusalem, 
 according to others, is exactly in the centre. The 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 25 
 
 earth is supported by successive creations one be- 
 neath the other. The earth is upon water, the water 
 upon the rock, the rock on the back of the bull, the 
 bull on the bed of sand, the sand on the fish, the 
 fish upon a still suffocating wind, the wind on a 
 vale of darkness, the darkness on a mist, and what 
 is beneath the mist is unknown. It is believed that 
 beneath the earth and the seas of darkness is Jahen- 
 nem, which consists of seven stages, one beneath 
 another.' 
 
 Dante himself sums up in that culminating year 
 1300 of the Middle Ages all lore Classic and Oriental, 
 and in the Convito gives the clearly reasoned system 
 on which he constructs the world scheme of the ' Divine 
 Comedy : ' — 
 
 ' I say, then, that concerning the number of the 
 heavens and their site, different opinions are held by 
 many, although the truth at last may be found. 
 Aristotle believed, following merely the ancient fool- 
 ishness of the Astrologers, that there might be only 
 eight heavens, of which the last one, and which con- 
 tained all, might be that where the_^;ir«(f stars are ('fixed 
 in the sense of attached) that is the eighth sphere, 
 and that beyond it there could be no other. Ptolemy, 
 then, perceiving that the eighth sphere is moved by 
 many movements, seeing its circle to depart from the 
 right circle, which turns from east to west, constrained 
 by the principles of philosophy, of necessity desires a 
 Primum mobile, a most simple one, supposing another 
 heaven to be outside the heaven of the fixed stars, 
 which might make that revolution from east to west, 
 which I say is completed in twenty-four hours nearly, 
 that is, twenty -three hours, fourteen parts of the fifteen 
 of another, counting roughly. Therefore, according 
 to him, and according to that which is held in Astro- 
 logy and in Philosophy, since these movements were 
 
26 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 seen, there are nine movable heavens, the sight of 
 which is evident and determined, according to an 
 art which is termed Perspective, Arithmetical, and 
 Geometrical, by which and by other sensible appear- 
 ances it is visibly and reasonably seen, as in the 
 eclipses of the sun it appears sensibly that the moon 
 is below the sun. And by the testimony of Aristotle, 
 who saw with his own eyes, according to what he says 
 in the second book on Heaven and the World, the 
 Moon being new, to enter below Mars, on the side 
 not shining, and Mars to remain concealed so long 
 that he reappeared on the other bright side of the 
 Moon which was towards the west. And the order 
 of the houses is this, that the first that they enumerate 
 is that where the moon is ; the second is that where 
 Mercury is ; the third is that where Venus is ; the 
 fourth is that where the Sun is ; the fifth is that where 
 Mars is; the sixth is that where Jupiter is; the seventh 
 is that where Saturn is; the eighth is that of the Stars; 
 the ninth is that which is not visible except by that 
 movement which is mentioned above, which they desig- 
 nate the great crystalline sphere, diaphanous, or rather 
 all transparent. Truly, beyond all these the Catholics 
 place the Empyrean Heaven, which is as much as to 
 say the Heaven of Flame, or rather the Luminous 
 Heaven, and they assign it to be immovable.' 
 
 ' So, then, gathering together this which is discussed, 
 it seems that there may be ten heavens, and it is to 
 be known that each heaven below the crystalline has 
 two firm poles as to itself; and the ninth has them 
 firm and fixed, and not mutable in any respect. 
 And each one, the ninth even as the others, has a 
 circle which one may term the equator of its own 
 heaven ; and this circle has more swiftness in its 
 movement than any other part of its heaven. I say, 
 then, that in proportion as the heaven is nearer to 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 2/ 
 
 the equatorial circle, so much the more noble is it in 
 comparison to its poles ; since it has more motion 
 and more actuality and more life and more form and 
 more touch from that which is above itself, and con- 
 sequently has more virtue. ... It is then to be known, 
 in the first place, that the movers thereof are substances 
 apart from material that is intelligences, which the 
 common people term angels ; and of these creatures, 
 as of the heavens, different persons have different ideas, 
 although the truth may be found. There were certain 
 philosophers, of whom Aristotle appears to be one, who 
 only believed these to be so many as there are revolu- 
 tions in the heavens, and no more ; saying that the 
 others would have been eternally in vain, and without 
 operation, which was impossible, inasmuch as their 
 being, is their operation. There were others like 
 Plato, a most excellent man, who placed not only so 
 many Intelligences as there are movements in heaven, 
 but even as there species of things, that is, manner of 
 things; as of one species are all mankind, and of 
 another all the gold, and of another all the silver, and 
 so with all ; and they are of the opinion that as the 
 Intelligences of the heavens are generators of those 
 movements each after his kind, so these were gene- 
 rators of the other things, each being a type of its 
 species ; and Plato calls them Ideas, which is as much 
 as to say, so many universal forms and natures. The 
 Gentiles call them gods and goddesses, although they 
 could not understand these so philosophically as 
 Plato did.' 
 
 He continues that as there are nine movable 
 spheres, so are there nine orders of Angels divided 
 into three Hierarchies : ' The first is that of the 
 Angels, the second of the Archangels, the third of 
 the Thrones. Then there are the Dominations ; after 
 them the Virtues ; then the Principalities. Above 
 
28 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 these are the Powers, and the Cherubim, and above 
 all are the Seraphim.' 
 
 As an abstract of the early Jewish system, we will 
 condense the substance of the article 'Firmament' 
 in Dr Smith's Bible Dictionary. ' The word trans- 
 lated firmament is the Hebrew word rakia. The 
 verb raka means to expand by beating, and is 
 especially used of beating out metals into thin 
 plates, and it is in this sense that the word is applied 
 to the heaven in Job xxxvii. i8: "Hast thou spread 
 [rather hammered] out the sky, which is strong, and 
 as a molten looking glass?" The mirrors to which he 
 refers being made of metal. The sense of solidity, 
 therefore, is combined with the ideas of expansion 
 and tenuity. . . . Further, the office of the rakia in 
 the economy of the world demanded strength and 
 substance ; it was to serve as a division between the 
 waters above and the waters below, being supported at 
 the edge of the earth's disc by the mountains. In 
 keeping with this view the rakia was provided with 
 windows and doors through which the rain and the 
 snow might descend. A secondary purpose of the 
 rakia was to support the heavenly bodies — sun, moon, 
 and stars — in which they were fixed as nails, and from 
 which, consequently, they might be said to drop off.' 
 
 Philo and Josephus state that there was a relation 
 between the design of the Temple and the world ; 
 and the early Fathers set forth the scheme with much 
 fulness, as shown by Letronne in the ' Revue des deux 
 Mondes! Clement of Alexandria is one of these, 
 writing in the beginning of the third century ; and 
 Severianus, Bishop of Gabala in Syria, compares the 
 world to a house of which the earth is the ground 
 floor, the lower sky (the firmament) the ceiling, and 
 the over-sky the roof. Dioderus, Bishop of Tarsus, 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 29 
 
 about the same time compares the world to a two- 
 staged tent. Theophilus of Antioch in the second 
 century sets out a similar view. The light shining 
 as in an enclosed chamber lit up all that was under 
 heaven ; a second heaven is to us invisible, after 
 which this heaven we see has been called firmament, 
 and to which half the water was taken up that it might 
 serve for rains, and showers, and dews to mankind ; 
 and half the water was left on earth for rivers, and 
 fountains, and seas. In the ' Recognitions of 
 Clement,' there is an account of the creation. 'In 
 the beginning when God had made the heaven 
 and the earth as one house, the shadow which 
 was cast by the mundane bodies involved in dark* 
 ness those things which were enclosed in it,' i.e. 
 the world before the sun was a camera obscura, 
 ' then at length light is appointed for the day 
 and darkness for the night. And now the water 
 which was within the world, in the middle space 
 of that first heaven and earth, congealed as if by 
 frost, and solid as crystal, is distended ; and the 
 middle spaces of the heaven and earth are separated 
 as by a firmament of this sort ; and that firma- 
 ment the Creator called heaven, so called by the 
 name of that previously made ; and so He divided 
 into two portions that fabric of the universe although 
 it was only one house ! ' The waters that remained 
 below flowed away to the abyss exposing the land. 
 And so all things were prepared for the men who were 
 to dwell in it. 
 
 The next writer claims also to follow the teaching 
 of an Eastern bishop as to the world fabric, and 
 reverts to the symbolism of the Tabernacle. This 
 is Cosmas, a merchant of Alexandria and traveller 
 into India and the far East, in the first half of the 
 sixth century, who wrote a treatise on the subject. 
 
30 THE WORLD FABRIC 
 
 In this work, ' Christian Topography,' he attempted 
 to demonstrate that it was necessary for all Christians 
 to believe the universe to be of the form of a travelling 
 trunk with a rounded lid ; the tabernacle of Moses 
 being its true image, the whole enclosing the sun, 
 moon, and stars in a sort of immense coffer of oblong 
 form, of which the upper part forms a double ceiling. 
 He thinks the Babylonians were led away to believe 
 in the spherical form of the earth after the building of 
 the tower of Babel, but he demolishes ' very easily all 
 these fables for the figure and composition of the 
 universe.' 
 
 ' God in creating the world supported it on nothing ; 
 according to the word of Job, " He has suspended the 
 earth in the void." God therefore having created the 
 earth, united the extremity of the sky to the extremity 
 of the earth, supporting the firmament on four sides 
 by the sky, as a wall which raised itself aloft, forming 
 so a sort of house entirely enclosed, or a long vaulted 
 chamber ; for, as saith the Prophet Isaiah, " He has 
 disposed the heavens in form of a vault ; " and Job 
 speaks thus of the earth and the heavens : " He has 
 spread out the sky which is strong, and like a molten 
 looking glass. Whereupon are the foundations thereof 
 fashioned ? Or who laid the corner stone thereof? " 
 How can such words be applied to a sphere ? Moses, 
 speaking of the Tabernacle — that is, the image of the 
 world — says that it was twice as long as wide. We say, 
 therefore, with the Prophet Isaiah, that the form of the 
 heavens that embraces the universe is that of a vault, 
 with Job that it was joined to the earth, and with 
 Moses that the earth is more long than large. The 
 second day of creation God made a second sky, that 
 which we see, like in appearance, but not in reality, to 
 the first ; this second sky is placed in the midst of the 
 space which separates the earth from the outer heavens, 
 
THE WORLD FABRIC 3I 
 
 and it extends like a second roof or ceiling all over 
 the earth, dividing in two the waters, those that are 
 above the firmament from those below on the earth, 
 and so of one house was two made, the one above, the 
 other below. The length of the earth is from east 
 to west, the sea we call ocean divides the part we 
 inhabit from that beyond, to which is joined the sky.' 
 
 Some drawings, given in Charton's ' Voyageurs 
 Anciens,' accompany the original manuscript. The 
 earth rises like a mountain, around which circle the 
 sun and moon, alternately hidden and revealed ; at 
 the base is the ocean, and beyond are the mountains 
 which take the vertical sides of the sky ; from the 
 lateral walls rises a semicircular barrel vault, at the 
 spring of which is the flat firmament supporting the 
 waters like a floor. 
 
 He then considers the Tabernacle in detail. The 
 candlestick represented the seven planets, the veil 
 with its tissue of hyacinth, purple, scarlet, and fine 
 linen, recalled the elements, and divided the outer 
 temple from the sanctuary, as the earth is divided 
 from the heavens. 
 
 ' Thus,' says Cosmas, ' were all the phenomena of 
 the universe represented in the Tabernacle.' 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 ' The altar cell was a dome low-lit. 
 And a veil hung in the midst of it ; 
 At the pole points of its circling girth 
 Four symbols stood of the world' s first birth. 
 Air and water and fire and earth,' 
 
 — RosSETTi, Rose Mary. 
 
 WE cannot think of a time when Man had not 
 asked, Where am I ? Nor, when he had arrived 
 at an explanation, that it was not set forth by represen- 
 tation ; not a definition in a book, or by carefully chosen 
 speech, but dramatically by that parley aux yeux 
 which is an increasing factor in speech as you go 
 backwards in the history of intelligent communicatioq- 
 
 If we remember that ' old means not old in chron- 
 ology, but in structure: that is most archaic which 
 lies nearest to the beginning of human progress con- 
 sidered as a development,' we may roughly put as the 
 beginning of graphic and descriptive astronomy the 
 dance and the story. The dance, on the one hand, 
 becomes a part of ritual, and the story passes into 
 mythology. 
 
 Every key applied to custom and mythology un- 
 locks some of their secrets ; and Mr Max Miiller, Mr 
 Andrew Lang, and Dr Tylor are certainly agreed 
 that to a large extent what is now mythology was 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 33 
 
 once an explanation of nature. In this view the 
 Odyssey itself is an old and artistic geography, and 
 the stories of Hercules, Theseus, and Jason, astronomy 
 for the young. 
 
 We ought at this point to examine rites and cere- 
 monies, savage dances, priestly observance, courtly 
 ceremony, and the pomp of war, the great festivals 
 and games ; and in all these things we should find 
 that man, after a certain stage was reached, was ever 
 trying to conform himself to the ritual of nature, so 
 that, like it in some respects, he might share its power 
 and permanence. 
 
 But ritual is too wide a subject merely to glance at ; 
 we must limit ourselves to things made, or poets' 
 views of how they should be made. In these the 
 tendency has been universal to embody the natural 
 order : not a plan of the world for science, but as 
 a religious mystery and symbol ; as magic amulet, 
 charm, fetish^ 
 
 Such was the shield of Achilles ; and Mr Gladstone, 
 so well is this understood, bases his inquiry as to 
 the Homeric Geography on the description in the 
 Iliad of this work of Hephsestos, the fabricator 
 God. ' On it he formed earth, sky, and sea, the un- 
 wearied sun, full moon, and all the signs with which 
 the sky is crowned — Pleiades, Hyads, the might of 
 Orion, and the Bear (which men also call the Wain), 
 it turns there and watches Orion, nor dips it into 
 ocean.' And so on with the whole lovely description 
 comprising the entire Cosmos. 
 
 1. The sun, moon, and revolving signs of the 
 heavens. 
 
 2. The earth, two cities — one at peace, the other 
 at war ; the life of the fields in the round of the year ; 
 ploughing, reaping and the vintage, herding of cattle 
 
 anH Qhppn folds. 
 
34 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 3. The dancing place that Dsdalus built for fair- 
 haired Ariadne, where they imitated in the circling 
 dance the tortuous way of the labyrinth — a hint on 
 the shield of the under-world. 
 
 4. Ocean which flowed round the world beside the 
 outer edge of the thick-made shield. 
 
 This making the shield a map of things celestial is 
 followed by .^schylus in the ' Seven against Thebes.' 
 Before the first gate Tydeus bore a shield — 
 
 ' With this proud argument. A sable sky 
 Burning with stars ; and in the midst full orbed 
 A silver moon, the eye of night . . . . ' 
 
 And NonnoB gives Bacchus a shield blazoned with 
 the whole celestial system {Dupuis). 
 
 In Temple pageantry the sky was often represented 
 by a veil or mantle of purple tissue scintillating with 
 stars, either robing the God, hung before the sanctuary, 
 or covering artificial erections, Asherim, ' The Groves ' 
 of Scripture. 
 
 Lenormant in his ' Origines' remarking that a 
 winged oak with a veil thrown over it, ' the tree and 
 the peplos,' was the image by which the Phoenicians 
 figured the universe, citing Pausanias for an actual 
 temple veil of this kind at Gabala in Syria ; quotes 
 from Nonnos the description of Harmonia weaving 
 the magnificent web patterned with the images of the 
 whole natural order: — 
 
 ' Bent over Athene's cunning loom, Harmonia wove 
 a peplos with the shuttle ; in the stuff which she wove, 
 she first represented the earth with its omphalos in 
 the centre; around the earth she spread out the 
 sphere of heaven, varied by the figures of the stars. 
 She harmoniously accompanied the earth with the 
 sea that is associated with it, and she painted thereon 
 the rivers, under their image of bulls with men's faces 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 35 
 
 furnished with horns. Lastly, all along the exterior 
 edge of the well-woven vestment she represented the 
 ocean in a circle enveloping the Universe in its 
 course.' 
 
 Josephus states that the veil of Herod's temple was 
 blue, scarlet, white, and purple, embroidered with the 
 constellations of heaven. 
 
 The well-known practice of renewing these temple 
 veils yearly agrees with their astronomical signifi- 
 cance. The annual procession with the new covering 
 to the Caaba at Mecca, still continues this practice. 
 
 ' Which of the deities 
 
 Shall we have as a patron ? We must weave our mantle, 
 Our sacred mantle of course. . . . The yearly mantle 
 To one or other of them.' — Aristophanes, Birds. 
 
 When the world was a tree, every tree was in 
 some sort its representation ; when a tent or a build- 
 ing, every tent or building : but when the relation 
 was firmly established, there was action and re- 
 action between the symbol and the reality, and ideas 
 taken from one were transferred to the other, until 
 the symbolism became complicated, and only par- 
 ticular buildings would be selected for the symbolic 
 purpose : certain forms were reasoned from the building 
 to the world, and conversely certain thoughts of the 
 universe were expressed in the structure thus set apart 
 as a little world for the House of God — a Temple. 
 
 To the Teutonic nations trees were the first 
 temples, as resembling the universe tree, the shelter 
 of the gods : with them, according to Grimm, temple 
 and tree were convertible words. 
 
 Pliny says ' trees were the first temples ; even at 
 this day the simple rustic of ancient custom dedicates 
 his noblest tree to God;' and in ' Outlines of Primitive 
 Belief (Keary) it is said, ' Certain it is that, amone 
 
36 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 people who live in woody lands, we find long con- 
 tinuing the habit of using a tree trunk for the main 
 pillar of the house, of building circular walls round 
 that tree, and sloping the roof down to them from 
 it. Of such kind was the house of our Northern 
 ancestors. . . . All this is mere prosaic fact, but soon 
 we pass on to the region of belief and mythology. 
 The Norsman on the image of his own house 
 fashioned his picture of the entire world. The earth 
 with the heaven for a roof, was to him but a mighty 
 chamber, and likewise had its great supporting tree, 
 passing through the midst and branching far upwards 
 among the clouds.' The general accuracy of this 
 view would seem to be confirmed by the Japanese 
 story given by Sir H. Reid, in which the first home 
 of newly created man was built round the heavenly 
 spear, which formed at once its roof tree and the 
 world axis. 
 
 Berosos describes the paintings in the Temple of 
 Belus at Babylon; chaotic rather than cosmic it may 
 be said, but having not any the less a direct reference 
 to the framing of the world : — ' There was a time 
 when all was water and darkness, in which monstrous 
 animals were spontaneously engendered : men with 
 two wings, and some with four ; with two faces and 
 two heads, the one male and the other female, and 
 with the other features of both sexes united in their 
 single bodies ; men with the legs and horns of a goat 
 and the feet of a horse ; others with the hind quarters 
 of a horse and the other part a man like the 
 hippo-centaurs. , There were also bulls with human 
 heads, dogs with four bodies and fishes' tails, and 
 other quadrupeds, in which various animal forms were 
 blended, fishes, reptiles, serpents, and all kinds of 
 monsters with the greatest variety in their forms. 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 37 
 
 monsters whose images we see in the paintings of the 
 temple of Bel at Babylon.' 
 
 These composite figures, says Perrot, ' were not a 
 caprice of the artists who made them, but were 
 suggested by a cosmic theory of which they formed, 
 as it were, a plastic embodiment and illustration.' 
 The description of the abominations done in Jerusalem 
 (Ezekiel viii. 10, 1 1) is a close parallel and confirmation. 
 Other descriptions of Babylonian temples lead us 
 to see a cosmical symbolism in their structure ; that 
 by Apollonius is quoted in a later chapter, and 
 another in an Arab translation of the Nabathean 
 agriculture, relates how the images of the gods 
 throughout the world betook themselves to Babylon, 
 to the temple of the sun, ' to the great golden image 
 suspended between heaven and earth. The sun 
 image stood, they say, in the midst of the temple 
 surrounded by all the images of the world ; next 
 to it stood the images of the sun in all countries ; 
 then those of the moon ; next those of Mars ; 
 after them the images of Mercury ; then those of 
 Jupiter ; after them those of Venus ; and last of all, 
 of Saturn.' (Baring Gould, 'Curious Myths.') This 
 was evidently a temple with a'dome like the firmament, 
 from which golden sun and planets were suspended, 
 and agrees entirely with the account by Apollonius. 
 
 But the buildings of Babylon and their more or 
 less lineal descendants in Persia, all of well-defined 
 planetary symbolism, are considered in later chapters, 
 so we will pass them for the present with just an 
 extract from that old mine, Maurice's ' Antiquities of 
 India : '— 
 
 ' Porphyry states that the Mithraic caverns repre- 
 sented the world. According to Eubulus, Zoroaster 
 first of all, among the neighbouring mountains 
 of Persia, consecrated a natural cell, adorned with 
 
38 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 flowers and watered with fountains, in honour of 
 Mithra, the father of the universe. For he thought 
 a cavern an emblem of the world fabricated by 
 Mithra; and in this cave were many geographical 
 symbols arranged with the most perfect symmetry and 
 at certain distances, which shadowed out the elements 
 and climates of the world.' 
 
 ' In Persia's hallowed caves the Lord of Day 
 Pours through the central gloom his fervid ray ; 
 High wrought in burnished gold the Zodiac shines, 
 And Mithra toils through all the blazing signs.' 
 
 — Statius. 
 
 Not to elaborate an interpretation of the Pyramids, 
 which have already had far too many ingenious theories 
 built with their silent stones, and it is better to keep 
 clear of conjecture lest the whole argument becomes a 
 sort of pyramid-inverted. Can we believe that the 
 greatest works ever accomplished by man, with infinite 
 toil and laborious accuracy, in an age when almost every 
 act had a religious significance and a mystical reason, 
 carried no symbol — had no thought and message 
 embodied in their design ? And this in a tomb the 
 dwelling of no mere man, but the Pharaoh, son of Ra 
 the Sun. Moreover, there is hardly a sepulchral 
 tablet but has expanded on its top edge the sign of 
 the sky, at times painted blue and dotted with stars. 
 Mr R. Proctor thinks it proved that they had an 
 astrological significance in addition to their use as 
 tombs. 
 
 According to Brugsch, the Sun temple at Heliopolis 
 had a sacred sealed chamber in form of a pyramid, 
 called ' Ben-Ben,' in which were kept the two barks 
 of the sun ; an inscription gives an account of the 
 visit of a king : — ' The arrangement of the House of 
 Stars was completed, the fillets were put on, he was 
 purified with balsam and holy water, and the' flowers 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 39 
 
 were presented to him for the house of the obelisk. 
 He took the flowers, and ascended the stairs to 
 the great window to look upon the Sun god Ra 
 in the house of the obelisk. Thus the king him- 
 self stood there. The prince was alone. He drew 
 back the bolt and opened the doors, and beheld 
 his father Ra in the exalted house of the obelisk, and 
 the morning bark of Ra, and the evening bark of 
 Turn. The doors were then shut, the sealing clay 
 was laid on, and the King himself impressed his 
 seal.' 
 
 The imagery of the temples and many inscriptions 
 make clear that their intention was to localise their 
 great prototype, the temple of the heavens. The 
 dedicator of an inscription speaks thus of the temple 
 of Neith, the mother of the Sun god Ra : ' Moreover, 
 I informed him (Cambyses) also of the high con- 
 sequence of the habitation of Neith.; it is such as a 
 heaven in all its quarters (' a heaven in its whole 
 plan,' Renouf translates). . . . Moreover, of the 
 high importance of the south chamber, and of the 
 north chamber, of the chamber of the morning Sun 
 Ra, and of the chamber of the evening Sun Tum. 
 These are the mysterious places of all the gods ' 
 (Brugsch). 
 
 Maspero in his recent book ' Egyptian Archaeology' 
 considers at length the constructive and decorative 
 symbolism of the Egyptian temple. 'The temple 
 was built in the likeness of the world, as the 
 world was known to the Egyptians. The earth, 
 as they believed, was a flat and shallow plane, 
 longer than its width; the sky, according to some, 
 extended overhead like an immense iron ceiling, and, 
 according to others, like a shallow vault. As it could 
 not remain suspended in space, without some support, 
 they imagined it to be held in place by four immense 
 
40 THE MICROCOSMO^ 
 
 props or pillars. The floor of the temple naturally 
 represented the earth. The columns, and if needful, 
 the four corners of the chambers stood for the pillars. 
 The roof vaulted at Abydos, flat elsewhere, corre- 
 sponded exactly with the Egyptian idea of the sky. 
 Each of these parts was therefore decorated in con- 
 sonance with its meaning ; those next to the ground 
 were clothed with vegetation. The bases of the 
 columns were surrounded by leaves, and the lower part 
 of the walls were adorned with long stems of lotos or 
 papyrus, in the midst of which animals were occa- 
 sionally depicted. Bouquets of water plants, emerging 
 from the water, enliven the bottom of the wall space 
 in certain chambers. Elsewhere we find full-blown 
 flowers interspersed with buds or tied together with 
 cords. . . . The ceiling was painted blue, and 
 spangled with five pointed stars painted yellow, occa- 
 sionally interspersed with the cartouches of the royal 
 founder. The vultures of Nekheb and Uati, the 
 godesses of the south and north, crowned and armed 
 with divine emblems, hovered above the central nave 
 of the hypostyle halls and on the underside of the 
 lintels of the front doors, above the head of the 
 Great King as he passed through on his way to the 
 sanctuary.' 
 
 'At the Ramessium, at Edfou, at Philae, at Denderah, 
 at Ombos, at Esnah, the depths of the firmament 
 seemed to open to the eyes of the faithful, revealing 
 the dwellers therein. There the celestial ocean 
 poured forth its floods, navigated by the sun and 
 moon, with their attendant escort of planets, con- 
 stellations, and decans; there also the genii of the 
 months and days passed in long procession. In the 
 Ptolemaic age zodiacs fashioned after Greek models 
 were sculptured side by side with astronomical tables 
 of purely native origin. Finally, the decoration of 
 
T-HE MICROCOSMOS 41 
 
 the lowest part of the walls and of the ceiling were 
 restricted to a small number of subjects, which were 
 always similar, the most important and varied scenes 
 being suspended as it were between earth and heaven 
 on the sides of the chambers and the Pylons. These 
 scenes illustrated the official relations which subsisted 
 between Egypt and the gods. . . . The sun, tra- 
 velling from east to west, divided the universe into 
 two worlds — the world of the north and the world of 
 the south. The Temple, like the universe, was double, 
 and an imaginary line, passing through the axis of 
 the sanctuary, divided it into two temples — the temple 
 of the south on the right hand, and the temple of the 
 north on the left. Each chamber was divided, in 
 imitation of the temple, into two halves.' 
 
 To pass to the Semitic peoples. Philo Judseus states 
 that the Temple of Solomon was built in imitation of 
 the world fabric, and Josephus gives the same explan- 
 ation of the symbolism of the Tabernacle. It has been 
 seen in the first chapter how the Tabernacle was the 
 pattern of the universe in small to the early Christian 
 Fathers ; and the text of the Psalms would seem to 
 prove that this was the Psalmist's own view : ' And 
 he built his sanctuary like high (palaces), like the 
 earth, which he hath established for ever ' (Ps. Iviii.). 
 
 Often it is not so much the actual earth and visible 
 heavens that were symbolised, as the original celestial 
 world of the golden age — Paradise ; but a real, sub- 
 stantial, and geographical Paradise. 
 
 Of the Caaba of Mecca — an early Arab temple still 
 preserved in continued use — the story is told, that 
 after Adam and Eve were cast out of Paradise, they 
 came together again near to Mecca. Adam prayed 
 for a shrine ' similar to that at which he had worshipped 
 when in Paradise. The supplication of Adam was 
 
42 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 effectual. A tabernacle or temple, formed of radiant 
 clouds, was lowered down by the hands of angels, and 
 placed immediately below its prototype in the celestial 
 paradise. Towards the heaven-descended shrine 
 Adam thenceforth turned in prayer, and round it he 
 daily made seven circuits, in imitation of the rites of 
 the adoring angels.' So much for the symbolism of the 
 Caaba — ' the Cube ' — of Mecca. Other allied Semitic 
 structures, the small buildings found by Renan in 
 Syria, have this cubical form. So also have later 
 buildings of Roman date, described by Count de 
 Vogiid as ' Kalybes ' : these are surmounted by 
 cupolas. This accomplished archaeologist says : ' The 
 cube is essentially a mystical form, which is found in 
 the cellae of Egyptian temples and that of Jerusalem ; 
 the hemisphere is the image of the celestial vault. 
 We know that the cella of a temple was regarded as 
 the dwelling of the god represented by the statue — a 
 mystic symbol, or an invisible oracle. Originally the 
 sacred edifice was the image of the celestial dwelling, 
 as the symbol which inhabited it was the image of 
 the divine personage. The Etruscan priest who built 
 a sanctuary, traced above in the sky with his wand 
 the foundations which he re-produced on earth — he 
 transported, so to say, upon the earth a part of the 
 sky to make a dwelling for his God. This idea is 
 found in all countries, although it may not be so 
 formally expressed ' {La Syrie Centrale). 
 
 To the early European races, in the same way, ' the 
 most magnificent temple which the ancients imagined, 
 and which preceded all their notions of buildings 
 made with hands, was the vault of Olympus, in which 
 they supposed the great Jove to reside.' More 
 particularly was this symbolism preserved in later 
 time in the circular structures, the Tholos of Hestia 
 in Greece, and of Vesta in Rome : a form which is 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 43 
 
 allowed by the latest authorities to represent the 
 heavenly vault. 
 
 Plutarch in ' Isis and Osiris ' describes a temple of 
 Vesta : — ' Numa built a temple of an orbicular form, 
 for the preservation of the sacred fire ; intending by the 
 fashion of the edifice to shadow out not so much the 
 earth, or Vesta considered in that character, as the 
 whole universe, in the centre of which the Pytha- 
 goreans placed fire, which they called Vesta and 
 Unity.' Ovid in the ' Fasti ' gives the same explan- 
 ation ; the temple represented the round earth, ' a 
 reason for its figure worthy of our approval.' 
 
 The great rotunda at Rome, the Pantheon, is, of 
 course, the most superb temple in this manner, 143 
 feet in diameter, with a simple aperture in the dome 
 thirty feet across, through which streams the great beam 
 of the sun. The height to the zenith, from the floor, 
 is equal to the diameter, so that it would just contain 
 a sphere. Of this vast domed expanse, Pliny says, 
 'quod forma ejus convexa fastigiatum cseli similitud- 
 inem ostenderet." ■ It has been suggested for the plan, 
 a circle with eight great niches, one of which is occu- 
 pied by the door to the north, that the south niche 
 was intended to be occupied by Phoebus Apollo, and 
 the rest by the Moon and five other planets — Diana, 
 Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. 
 
 The ancient Latin custom at the foundation of 
 sacred buildings, in relating them to the heavens, is 
 thus described : * Templum is the same word as the 
 Greek temenos ; for the templum, according to Servius, 
 was any place which was circumscribed and separated 
 by the augurs from the rest of the land by a certain 
 solemn formula. A place thus set apart and hallowed 
 by the augurs was always intended to serve religious 
 purposes, but chiefly for taking the auguria. The 
 place in the heavens within which the observations were 
 
44 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 to be made was likewise called templum, as it was 
 marked out and separated from the rest by the staff 
 of the augur. When the augur had defined the tem- 
 plum within which he intended to make his observa- 
 tions, he fixed his tent {tabernaculum), in it, and this 
 tent was likewise called templum or, more accurately, 
 templum minus ' (Dr Smith's Diet.). 
 
 The Druids had, as a rite, yearly to pull down and 
 rebuild the roof of their temple, ' as a symbol of the 
 destruction and renovation of the world.' The yearly 
 veil, or the rekindled fire, is a much less serious form 
 of the renewal, type and guarantee of the world's 
 continuance. 
 
 The poets and romance writers have preserved the 
 tradition of buildings like the world temple even 
 to the Renaissance ; the central temple in the Hypn- 
 erotomachia is circular, with a dome from which 
 hangs one great orbicular lamp ; and the town and 
 temple in Campanella's ' Civitas Solis ' is elaborately 
 symbolical. The town was divided into seven great 
 rings named from the seven planets, with four main 
 streets and gateways looking to the points of the 
 compass; the temple in the centre was also cir- 
 cular, and domed. Above the altar, a large globe 
 represented the earth ; on the dome were all the stars 
 of heaven from the first to the sixth magnitude, with 
 their names and influences marked, and the meridians 
 and great circles in relation to the altar. The pave- 
 ment was of precious stones. Seven golden, ever- 
 burning lamps bore the names of the seven planets. 
 Louis XIV. seems to have tried to realise some- 
 thing of this sort at Marley; and according to Mr 
 H. Melville, ' Royal Arch Mason,' in a book entitled 
 * Veritas,' even the modern ritual of Masonic Lodges 
 is cosmical. 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 45 
 
 But we have not done with the East and the beghi- 
 ning of history. ' It has ever been accepted as a 
 physical axiom in China that heaven is round and 
 earth is square ; and among the relics of Nature 
 worship of old we find the altar of heaven at Pekin 
 I round, while the altar of earth is square.' The former 
 lis described farther on in Chapter VI. According 
 to Professor Legge, it dates from the twelfth century 
 !.C., and is thus primitive Chinese before Confucius. 
 '\The sovereigns of the Chan dynasty (1152-250 B.C.) 
 wJbrshipped in a building which they called the Hall 
 of [Light, which also served the purpose of an audience 
 arad council chamber. It was 112 feet square, and 
 surmounted by a dome typical of heaven above and 
 earth beneath ' (Giles' ' Historic China '). 
 
 In the old Chinese book the Li-Ki (Sacred Books 
 of ijhe East) there is a long account of the ' Hall of 
 Distinction,' accompanied by a native plan. In it the 
 Emperor as ' Son of Heaven ' has to go through an 
 elaborate solar ritual, passing from room to room as 
 the sun, passes into the several solar mansions. A 
 large square enclosure surrounds .the whole, with four 
 ceremonial gateways {Pailoos) opening to the cardinal 
 points. The building is perfectly square, and divided 
 into three each way, making in all nine apartments, 
 the middle one being called-the hall of the centre. The 
 exterior wall of each apartment — three facing each of 
 the four quarters of the heavens— -is dedicated to one 
 of the months, the angle rooms being named twice 
 over. The ' hall of the centre is only occupied for a 
 time between the sixth and seventh month. The 
 ' Son of Heaven's ' progress is also marked by dress 
 and symbolism appropriate to the season. 
 
 If we compare this with the Buddhist plan of the 
 world given in Bock's ' Siam,' the reproduction of the 
 pattern of the world will be apparent. The diagram 
 
46 
 
 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 * — T 1 ' 
 
 N /^ 
 
 of the twelve heavenly houses used by astrologers is 
 very similar (see figures). 
 
 ^ The first emperor of United 
 
 China in the third century B.C. 
 — a Caligula for cruelty, a 
 Nero for splendour — is said in 
 Chinese history to have built a 
 gorgeous country palace. ' The 
 most remarkable feature of thCj 
 whole was the plan on which 
 was arranged. The vario( 
 edifices were so disposed as 
 correspond with and otherwi 
 represent that part of t. 
 heavens which lies between tfhe 
 North Star, the Milky Wfcy, 
 and the Constellation Aqufila, 
 the vacant spaces being /de- 
 noted by courts, corridors/ and 
 winding paths. This, it fe said, 
 ____^_^___^ was partly intended as/ an ac- 
 y^\ / knowledgment of ttle benign 
 
 •5^ _i<r celestial influencgg^o which the 
 
 emperor asGiiSed the brilliant 
 success-that had always attend- 
 ed him, and partly as a monu- 
 ment of the vastness of his 
 ' dominions, which could only be 
 symbolised by an imitation of 
 the starry vaalt on high' (Balfour, 'Chinese Scrap 
 Book '.) 
 
 Sir W. Chambers, in his account of Chinese gardens, 
 with their summer-houses and pavilions, says: 
 ' Some of these are called Mian Ting, or Halls of the 
 Moon, being of prodigious size, and composed each of 
 a vaulted room made in the shape of a hemisphere, the 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 47 
 
 concave of which is artfully painted in imitation of a 
 nocturnal sky, and pierced with an infinite number of 
 little windows, made to represent the moon and stars, 
 being filled with tinted glass that admits the light in 
 the quantities necessary to spread over the whole 
 interior fabric the pleasing gloom of a fine summer's 
 night. The pavements of these rooms are sometimes 
 laid out in parterres of flowers ; but oftenest the bottom 
 is full of clear running water, which falls in rills from 
 the sides of a rock in the centre ; many little islands 
 float upon its surface, and move around as the cur- 
 rent directs, some of them covered with tables for the 
 banquet, seats, and other objects.' 
 
 Of the Taouist temples, Dr Edkins tells us : ' The 
 endeavour is made in these to represent the gods of 
 the religion in their celestial abodes seated on their 
 thrones.' In India the rock-cut caves of Ellora are 
 said to be complete representations of the paradise of 
 Siva ; the great props left to support the roof are 
 called 'Sumeru,' after the sky-supporting mountain, 
 the 'Beautiful Meru.' 
 
 The Buddhist Stupas or Topes — those nearly solid 
 masses of the form of a bubble floating on water, 
 as an old author has it, or of a bell on a platform, sur- 
 mounted by umbrella-shaped canopies — would more 
 properly, perhaps, be classed with the solid structures 
 of Babylon and Mexico in Chapter VI., as represent- 
 ing the heavenly regions from without as the mount 
 of heaven, instead of from within, as a dwelling for 
 deity. Asoka, according to the legend, had eighty- 
 four thousand constructed simultaneously : on them 
 every splendour was lavished — gilding, great glass 
 jewels, golden bells; statues of elephants with real 
 tusks guarded the enclosures, and at festivals they 
 were buried in a profusion of flowers. Fa-Hian speaks 
 of one as 700 feet high ; but some were only a foot or 
 
48 
 
 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 two in diameter. Mr A. Lillie, in his ' Buddhism in 
 Christendom,' gives a diagram of a stupa representing 
 the successive zones of the heavens. Professor Beal in 
 the 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. v., 
 states that the great tope at Sanchi represents heaven 
 and earth, and points out how even the curious Bud- 
 dhist railing, which surrounds some of these structures, 
 
 is of a chessboard pattern, as the enclosing walls of 
 Paradise are described to be ; the four great gates in 
 these enclosures are called Torana, which means an 
 ornamental gate or door to the abode of the celestials. 
 The same author in his little book on Chinese 
 Buddhism remarks : ' Whether it be true or not that a 
 simple idea underlies all rightly-directed efforts of 
 man to raise a building fit for the worship of God, 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 49 
 
 in this particular Buddhism illustrates the supposed 
 rule. The symbolism of the tope or stupa from the 
 crowning spire of which the (Chinese) pagoda origin- 
 ates, is, like that of all other sacred edifices, intended 
 to figure out an idea of the world or universe ruled 
 over or occupied by one supreme Spirit or Being. 
 This certainly was the meaning of the figure and 
 furniture of the Jewish tabernacle and of the temple. 
 As Josephussays in his 'Antiquities,' Solomon rose up 
 and said, ' O Lord ! Thou hast an eternal house, and 
 such as Thou hast created for Thyself out of Thine 
 own work, we know it to be the heaven, and the air, 
 and the earth, and the sea:' it was a symbol of 
 this that Solomon built, so Philo tells us, and Cosmas 
 labours at length to show the same thing. The 
 stupa is a high solid structure based on a square 
 foundation or platform, from which rises into the 
 air a semicircular dome, which is crowned by a 
 square railing, or sometimes a solid cube with eyes 
 on every side. The square platform represents 
 earth, the semicircular dome figures out the air, the 
 railed structure on the top denotes the heaven, where 
 watch the four gods (indicated by eyes). This was 
 the first great effort to describe in stone the idea 
 of the world, or the three worlds, over which the 
 supreme presence of Buddha was supposed to rule ; in 
 this stupa were his relics denoting his presence, the 
 only authorised substitute for himself As the sys- 
 tem grew the idea of the universe expanded also, 
 and it was not only earth and air and heaven that had 
 to be represented, but the towering worlds above the 
 heaven, and after that the platforms or plateaux (it is 
 the only word we can use) of heavens extending 
 upwards and towards the eight points of space ; hence 
 the symbolism expanded also, and above the cubical 
 structure was erected a high staff with rings or 
 
so THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 umbrellas to denote world soaring above world to the 
 uppermost empyrean. Now it is this crowning pole 
 with its rings or umbrellas that originated the idea of 
 the pagoda. Each platform in this structure denotes 
 a world ; as they tower upwards in beautifully decreas- 
 ing size, they offer to the eye an effort of the mind 
 of man to represent the idea of the infinite. On 
 each side of these platforms there are bells and 
 tinkling copper leaves to denote the eternal ' music 
 of the spheres,' and the beautifully carved balustrades 
 and projecting eaves are ever described as proper 
 emblems of the happy beings who enjoy the presence 
 of the Buddhas dwelling in these supreme regions. 
 This is the origin of the pagodas, and there is nothing 
 which gives China its distinctive architectural character 
 so much as these Buddhist structures not used for 
 worship, but to figure out the illimitable nature of 
 the space in which dwells the spiritual essence of 
 all the Buddhas ' (Beal). 
 
 In the modern Chinese ritual of Buddhism Dr 
 Edkins says, ' Kan (heaven) is the covering let down 
 over an idol, as in the phrase Fo-Kan (a shrine for 
 Buddha), and it here represents the sky as a canopy 
 stretched over the world. Yu (the earth) is the chariot 
 in which the idol sits.' The tooth of Buddha in Ceylon 
 is preserved under nine of these bell-shaped gold 
 and jewelled canopies representing the nine heavens. 
 Buddhist bells in China and Japan are usually 
 ornamented with meridian lines, the sun, and the 
 stars. 
 
 In China the tombstones are often the well-known 
 composite symbol consisting of a cube as a base, on it 
 a sphere, then a cone, a crescent, and an inverted 
 pear-shaped apex ; on each of the solids are charac- 
 ters signifying earth, air, fire, water, and ether, in the 
 order in which the elements were supposed to be 
 
THE MICROCOSMOS 51 
 
 superimposed. And even the coinage, circular with 
 a square hole, is well-understood as symbolising 
 heaven and earth. 
 
 In Christian architecture it is still said at times 
 that the nave and the chancel, divided by the 
 screen, symbolise earth and heaven ; and Curzon gives 
 it as the acknowledged significance of the Byzantine 
 Churches with the Bema shut off by the Iconastasis. 
 
 Didron tells us that the two or three thousand 
 sculptures of one of the greater French cathedrals 
 of the thirteenth century are stone encyclopaedias 
 comprising nature, science, ethics, and history. ' These 
 sculptures, then, are, in the fullest sense of the word, 
 what in the language of the Middle Ages was called 
 the "Image or Mirror of the Universe.'" But it is 
 rather the universe of religious ideas than the actual 
 solid built world. The Byzantine scheme preserved 
 more of the original thought : Christ was enthroned 
 at the zenith of the central dome, then zone below 
 zone, were the heavenly powers, the saints, and all 
 nature, one great chorus of praise. 
 
 A Byzantine church in Athens, the Magale Panagia, 
 is described in ' Archaeologia' (Vol. I., New Series), 
 and photographs are given of the paintings now 
 destroyed. High in the centre of the dome is the 
 Christ enthroned, with His feet on the mystic wheels, 
 the whole expanse being a deep blue, next comes a 
 series of nine semicircles containing representations 
 of the Orders of the Hierarchy — the Seraphim, the 
 Cherubim, the Thrones, the Dominions, the Virtues, 
 the Powers, the Principalities, the Archangels, the 
 Angels — which respectively rule the nine heavenly 
 zones ; the primum. mobile, sphere of the fixed stars, 
 and the seven planets. Below these a belt circles the 
 dome, blue of the firmament, set all over with stars 
 
52 THE MICROCOSMOS 
 
 and the twelve signs of the zodiac ; to the east is the 
 sun, and to the west the moon ; still below these on the 
 walls are the winds, hail, and snow ; and still lower 
 mountains, and trees, and the life on the earth, and 
 with all is interwoven passages from the last three 
 Psalms : — 
 
 ' O praise the Lord of heaven ; praise Him in the 
 height. Praise Him, all ye angels of His ; praise 
 Him, all His host. Praise Him, sun and moon ; praise 
 Him, all ye stars and light. Praise Him, all ye 
 heavens ; and ye waters that are above the heavens. 
 Let them praise the Name of the Lord.' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 ' A tower of strength that stood 
 Four square to all the winds that blow. ' 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 THE perfect temple should stand at the centre of 
 the world, a microcosm of the universe fabric, 
 its walls built four square with the walls of heaven. 
 And thus they stand the world over, be they Egyptian, 
 Buddhist, Mexican, Greek, or Christian, with the 
 greatest uniformity and exactitude. When the world 
 has become circular and spherical, the squareness is 
 retained almost universally as a characteristic of the 
 celestial earth, the four-square enclosure on the top of 
 the world mountain, where the polar tree or column 
 stands, and whence issue the four rivers. From the 
 thought of such an enclosure we get, Lenormant 
 states, our word ' Paradise.' 
 
 The significance of the direction of buildings is much 
 wider than is understood by Orientation, a looking 
 to the rising sun ; for the pyramids, and the Baby- 
 lonian and Mexican stepped temples, or rather altars, 
 are square, and the Buddhist topes circular in a square 
 enclosure, with no sanctuary to define direction. When, 
 however, there is a major axis, it agrees (with some 
 exceptions in Egypt) with the sun's path through the 
 heavens. 
 
54 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 The universal early use in temples was to have 
 the entrance at the east, facing the sunrise, and the 
 more sacred part of the sanctuary to the west, where 
 was the throne of the presence. It was the god or 
 the altar that thus fronted the sun as it rose through 
 the eastern door, and the reversal of this later seems 
 to have been the result of the temple becoming a 
 place for congregation rather than a local habitation 
 of the god. 
 
 Egypt furnishes some exceptions in temples, which 
 have their axes at various angles. In a recent lecture 
 (May 1891) before the Society of Antiquaries, Mr 
 Norman Lockyer explained some conclusions he had 
 reached as to complicated temple groups like that at 
 Karnak. Starting with Mariette's dates obtained from 
 the inscriptions, and searching the star-lists for each 
 angle, he found that the temples were directed to watch 
 certain important stars, such as Gamma Draconis, 
 Canopus, and Vega. When, owing to the precession, 
 of the equinoxes, the star no longer rose or set through 
 the open portal as viewed from the remote and dark 
 sanctuary which was specially contrived like a great 
 stone telescope for the purpose of receiving pure light, 
 another temple was built at an angle with the first, 
 and possibly across its ' fairway ' to the horizon, for it 
 was no longer required. This is evidently a refined 
 and complicated system, and therefore comparatively 
 late. 
 
 The pyramids, however, are set out with the greatest 
 accuracy. Mr Petrie's careful survey shows that the 
 Great Pyramid deviated only 5 ', and he says that it is 
 the world that has shifted rather than the structure — 
 no fault to its builders ! The group of three, more- 
 over, stand en echelon, so that each has its four sides 
 clear to the four quarters to which Mariette says they 
 were dedicated. On the east side of each was a small 
 
FOUR SQUARE 55 
 
 isolated temple with its door eastward. One ol^hese 
 is the so-called temple of the Sphinx. ' It is to be 
 noticed,' Mr Proctor says, ' that the peculiar figure and 
 position of the pyramids will bring about the following 
 relations. Between the autumn and the spring equi- 
 noxes the rays of the rising and setting sun illuminated 
 the southern face of the pyramids; whereas during the 
 rest of the year, that is, the six months between the 
 spring and autumn equinoxes, the rays of the rising 
 and setting sun illuminated the northern face.' The 
 slanting passage appears to have pointed directly to 
 the pole star. 
 
 ' Like the house of the living, the tomb was strictly 
 oriented, but after a mystic principle of its own. In 
 the necropolis of Memphis the door of nearly every 
 tomb is turned to the east, and there is not a single 
 stele which does not face in that direction. In the 
 necropolis of Abydos both door and stele are more 
 often turned towards the south ; that is, towards the 
 sun at its zenith. But neither at Memphis, at Abydos, 
 nor at Thebes is there a tomb which is lighted from 
 the west, or presents its inscription to the setting sun. 
 Thus, from the shadowy depths where they dwell, the 
 dead have their eyes turned to the quarter of the 
 heavens where the life-giving flame is each day re- 
 kindled, and seem to be waiting for the ray which is 
 to destroy their night, and to rouse them from their 
 long repose ' (Perrot and Chipiez). ' The major axis 
 of the rectangle upon which these structures (tombs) 
 are planned always runs due north and south; and at 
 Gizeh, the necropolis of the west, they are arranged 
 upon a symmetrical plan, so as to resemble a chess- 
 board, on which all the squares are strictly oriented. 
 The principal face of the tomb is turned to the east. 
 In four cases out of five the entrance to its chambers, 
 when there is one, is found upon, this face. Next 
 
S6 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 after the eastern face in relative importance comes 
 that which is turned towards the north ' (Mariette). 
 
 That orientation in a limited sense was not the 
 object to the Egyptians, but rather a desire to make 
 their building square with the cardinal sides of earthand 
 sky, is again and again expressed in the inscriptions. 
 That of Thothmes III. on the foundations of Kar- 
 nack says that ' after the position of the building had 
 been fixed according to the position of the four 
 quarters the great stone gates were erected ' (Brugsch). 
 This laying out the lines to square with the world is 
 a part of ceremonial at foundations in all countries at 
 all times ; we see it again and again repeated, as also 
 the thought that there was a magic influence in it, the 
 magic of correspondence ; for, as the foundations of 
 heaven and earth are firm, ' not to be moved for ever,' 
 so the building imitating them would share their 
 stability. In Egypt it is expressed in a regular 
 formula — ' It is such as a heaven in all its quarters,' 
 ' firm as the heavens.' In the Psalms, as also in the 
 Vedas, the firmness of the world temple is extolled. 
 
 The Buddhist buildings are strictly related to the 
 heavens. The circular tope is surrounded by an 
 enclosure exactly square, with a gateway to the north 
 and to the south, to the east and to the west ; the 
 east gate being the chief entrance, the west the exit. 
 The temples containing statues of Buddha were 
 entered at the east — 'Statue of Buddha facing the 
 east,' Fa-Hian reiterates. The Hindu temple of 
 Jagannatha follows the same rule. In the temples 
 of Japan, a mirror hangs at the far end ; and in 
 the old temples of Peru a golden disc of the sun, 
 over the altar, fronted through the open door the 
 dawn of day. 
 
 The Greek temples were entered at the east. Mr 
 Penrose finds that, like the Egyptian temples, the 
 
FOUR SQUARE 57 
 
 axis through the open door was directed to the point 
 of rising of some star which appeared above the 
 horizon before dawn. The Syrian and Persian tem- 
 ples were also entered at the eastern end. 
 
 In Western Asia (again to quote from Perrot) ' the 
 inhabitants of Mesopotamia were so much impressed 
 by celestial phenomena, and believed so firmly in the 
 influence of the stars over human destiny, that they 
 were sure to establish some connection between those 
 heavenly bodies and the arrangement of their edifices. 
 All the buildings of Chaldea and Assyria are oriented; 
 the principle is everywhere observed, but it is not 
 always understood in the same fashion. Mesopotam- 
 ian buildings were always rectangular and often 
 square on plan, and it is sometimes the angles and 
 sometimes the centres of each face that are directed 
 to the four cardinal points. The earlier Chaldean 
 structures, as Warka, follow the former method, as do 
 the remains at Nineveh.' ' On the other hand, in 
 those ruins at Nimroud that have been identified with 
 the ancient Calah, it is the sides of the mound and of 
 the buildings upon it that face the four cardinal 
 points. The first of these two methods of orientation 
 had the advantage of establishing a more exact and 
 well-defined relation between the disposition of the 
 building and those celestial points to which a peculiar 
 importance was attached.' The two small temples 
 excavated at Nimroud by Layard were entered at 
 the east, and had their sanctuaries to the west. The 
 inscriptions repeat very much the thoughts which 
 we have seen were present to the Egyptian builders. 
 In the inscription on the great bulls at the entrance 
 gates of the square enclosure at Korsabad the founder 
 says, ' I placed the lintels in the four heavenly direc- 
 tions, I opened eight gates in the direction of the four 
 rai-Hinal noints. Towards the four rep-ions of the sun 
 
58 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 I disposed the cornices and the door posts ' (Inscrip- 
 tion of Sargon, B.C. 710, 'Records of the Past'). 
 
 Of this four-sided world, each quarter had a 
 ' regent,' apparently in their origin the winds. These 
 four guardians of the regions play a part in many 
 systems, and generally under the symbols of amor- 
 phous persons or beasts. 
 
 That this was the case in Egypt we have the word 
 of Mariette ; they are the ' four powers of the Amenti,' 
 whose heads, three animal and one human, surmount 
 the four funereal vases in the burial ceremonies. 
 
 In the northern system of the Edda the heavens, 
 which were set up with four sides, have a dwarf 
 supporting every corner. 
 
 In the myths of ancient' America these creatures 
 play a large part, and are defined clearly as the 
 four winds. ' In the mythology of Yucatan the four 
 gods Bacab were supposed to stand one at each corner 
 of the world, supporting like gigantic caryatides, the 
 overhanging firmament. When at the general deluge 
 the other gods and men were swallowed by the waters, 
 they alone escaped to people the earth anew. . . . 
 The East was distinguished by yellow, the South by 
 red, the West by black, the North by white, and these 
 colours appear again in different parts of the world with 
 the same meaning, as representing the four quarters of 
 the world' (M. Muller, Gifford Lect. 1890). 
 
 All over the East these four kings of the regions 
 are known. In the Avesta and other Persian writings 
 they are described as 'four chieftains appointed on 
 the four sides.' They are the four Maharajas of the 
 Buddhists. ' Great champions of the earth and the 
 heavens against the demons. These four are repre- 
 sented in full armour with drawn swords' (Sir M. 
 Williams)! In a mystical form they enter into Jewish 
 
FOUR SQUARE 59 
 
 tradition. They appear as the four composite 
 creatures of Ezekiel's vision, full of eyes, that support 
 the firmament, 'the colour of the terrible crystal 
 which stretched forth over their heads above,' with 
 faces of a man, a Hon, an ox, and an eagle. They 
 seem to stand at the four cardinal points, the lion on 
 the right side (south), and the ox on the left (north). 
 
 The pseudo Enocla writes : ' I also beheld the four 
 winds which bear up the earth, and the firmament of 
 heaven,' and in his vision of heaven he 'heard the 
 voices of those upon the four sides magnifying the 
 Lord of Glory.' He asks whose were the four voices 
 of the four sides, and is told that they are Michael, 
 Raphael, Gabriel, and the fourth Phanuel. 
 
 In the Apocalypse, it is these, the beast symbols 
 of the North, South, East, and West, round about the 
 throne, who ' cease not day nor night, saying, Holy, 
 holy, holy.' The ' four winds of the four corners of the 
 earth' are also mentioned in Revelation vii. r. 
 
 Compare the like forms of the protecting genii of 
 the Chaldeans given by Lenormant (Magic, p. 121). 
 The four riders in the Revelation on horses white, 
 red, black, and pale resemble the four chariots with 
 horses, red, black, white, and grisled in Zechariah 
 (chap. vi.). ' These are the four spirits (or winds) of 
 the heavens.' Renan thinks the riders of the Apoca- 
 lypse are planets, but see how each is associated with 
 one of the four beasts, and how they had power over 
 a fourth part of the earth. Lenormant tells us (Con- 
 temp. Rev. Sept. 1881) that the four rivers spouted out 
 from their fount on Meru through the mouths of four 
 symbolic animals of four colours and metals. E. white 
 or silver, S. red or copper, W. yellow or gold, N. brown 
 or iron. These are the colours of the four castes and of 
 all kindred who set out from Meru to people the world. 
 
 Then there are the four ages ' of the gradual de- 
 
6o FOUR SQUARE 
 
 generacy of successive ages, which is expressed by 
 the metals the names of which are applied to them ; 
 gold, silver, bronze, and iron ' (Lenormant). Remark 
 also how in Daniel vii., ' Four great beasts diverse 
 from one another,' symbolise the coming of four 
 great kingdoms. 
 
 These four symbols we find present in our microcosm 
 the temple. In the Buddhist temples of China, ' two 
 colossal wooden statues meet the eye on each side, 
 these are the four great Kings of Devas ; they govern 
 the continents lying in the direction of the four cardinal 
 points from mount Sumeru.' They are called Tein- 
 Wang, ' the Princes of Heaven.' Miss Bird saw them in 
 Japanese temples painted in bright colours, and tramp- 
 ling demons under foot. The 'Celestial' army, accord- 
 ing to directions in the ancient books, was to be mar- 
 shalled under the banners of these four regents of the 
 quarters; to the East a blue Dragon, West a white 
 tiger, a red bird to the South, and to the North a black 
 warrior. 
 
 The celestial mount Meru was of different colours 
 on the four sides. In the temple to the Spirits of 
 Land and Grain at Pekin, ' the terrace is laid with 
 earth of five colours arranged according to the 
 ordinary Chinese distribution of the five colours 
 among the cardinal points : blue is east, red is south, 
 black is north, white is west, and yellow is central. 
 The inner wall is built with different coloured bricks 
 on each of its four sides, according to position' 
 (Edkins, in Williamson's Journeys). 
 
 If we rearranged these colours for ourselves, white 
 might reasonably stand for the east as the point of 
 light, red for the meridian sun of south, blue for the 
 west of evening, and black for north. 
 
 Sometimes there appears to have been eight regents, 
 who thus guarded the angles as well as the sides of the 
 
FOUR SQUARE 6l 
 
 square, just as the four winds became eight. In the 
 Ramayana the City of Ayodhya is described : ' Every 
 gate of the city was guarded by mighty heroes who 
 were as strong as the eight gods who rule the eight 
 points of the universe.' These eight giant porters are 
 sculptured in pairs on the side posts of each of the 
 four gates at the Sanchi tope. 
 
 The guardians of the corners of the world stand at 
 the four angles of the Egyptian sepulchral chamber 
 shown in the papyrus of Ani; published by the British 
 Museum : and as the four powers of the Amenti 
 they always accompany the throned Osiris. Under 
 the form of the four beast-symbols of the Evangelists 
 they rightly fill the pendentives of the domed 
 heavens of Byzantine churches, as at the Mausoleum 
 of Galla Placidia. At St. Mark's the four Evangelists 
 stand over the four heavenly rivers, which pour out 
 their waters one in each angle; and we seem still 
 to preserve in the nursery the tradition of these 
 watchers — 
 
 ' Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 Bless the bed that I lie on, 
 Two to foot, and two to head, 
 Four to carry me when I'm dead.' 
 
 In Chaldea there were powers, not beneficent 
 guardians, but to be guarded against. 'From the 
 four cardinal points the impetuosity of their invasion 
 burns like fire. They violently attack the dwellings 
 of man ' (Chaldean Magic). 
 
 They were legion, but cprtain spirits of the winds 
 seem to have had distinct forms according to the 
 quarters from which they approached. These demons 
 had Jiorrible compound forms made up of lion, eagle, 
 bull, scorpion, and whatever beast bites, thrusts, and 
 stings, and Lenormant remarks how the talisman 
 consisted of the form of the power to be combated 
 
62 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 placed to face the quarter from which each one acted ; 
 for so terrible was each of them in appearance, that 
 it was affrighted by its own image, like a Gorgon 
 slain by a mirror. Besides the great bulls and lions 
 guarding the doors, there were sculptured on the 
 walls of the fa5ade a . combat between the Chaldean 
 Hercules, Gilgames (Gizdhubar), ' Patrol of the four 
 regions,' and one of these creatures. 
 
 At Persepolis there are four colossal sculptures of 
 this kind, of which fine photographs are given in 
 Dieulafoy's great work, and they are described by 
 Sir R. K. Porter as — (i) A compound of lion with 
 head of eagle ; (2) a winged lion with eagle's claws ; 
 (3) a horned lion ; and (4) a unicorn bull. All these 
 the hero, in this case Cyrus the King, calmly slays 
 with the sword, a token to the demons what they were 
 to expect. 
 
 The world walls made a vast square, the type of all 
 perfect gardens and cloisters, the enclosure four-square, 
 in which, according to the Avesta, man was first placed. 
 The square paradise of Yima, where men were saved 
 from the flood. The word Yard (garth) is but the 
 Scandinavian Garth, the world. 
 
 The Sacred Court, the Temenos of the Greeks, the 
 Haram or Mosque of the Arabs, preceded the temple ; 
 the steps probably being — (i) The Sacred Site ; (2) the 
 Enclosure delimiting this ; (3) the Altar ; (4) the 
 Shrine by the Altar in the Court, the dwelling of the 
 Deity worshipped from without by procession and 
 prostration ; (5) the Altar is brought within the build- 
 ing; and (6) the temple becomes a place for congrega- 
 tion, the orientation being changed. 
 
 The Book of Enoch, after describing the rising and 
 setting of sun and moon, proceeds to account for the 
 winds : ' I beheld twelve gates open for all the winds; 
 
FOUR SQUARE 
 
 63 
 
 N 
 
 \V 
 
 r 
 
 5*000 
 
 "1 
 II 
 
 1 
 
 EZEKIEL'5 CTTy' 
 
 1 
 
 L 
 
 SVBVKBS 
 
 - J 
 
 three of them are open in the front of heaven, three in 
 the west, three on the right side of heaven, and three 
 on the left. The first 
 three are those which 
 are towards the east.' 
 
 This is the perfect type 
 of the Temple enclosure, 
 or the City wall; ' on the 
 east three gates ; on the 
 north three gates; on the 
 south three gates; and 
 on the west three gates.' 
 
 Compare Ezekiel's 
 vision (c. 48) of the 
 ideal city 4500 measures ^ 
 
 square, and three gates to each quarter, with the 
 plan of an Assyrian, or a Hindu enclosure, or with 
 the walls of the City of Pekin (Taidu), as described 
 by Marco Polo: 'The 
 wall of the city has 
 twelve gates, three on 
 each side of the square.' 
 The modern town of 
 Mandalay, the Burmese 
 capital city, is likewise 
 walled square, a mile 
 and an eighth long on 
 every face, and there 
 are twelve gates, three on 
 every side. The palace 
 is in the midst, and in 
 the exact centre of the 
 palace and of the city 
 rises the seven -roofed 
 spire, which the Burmese look upon as the centre of 
 Burma, and therefore of creation (Scott, 'Burma'). 
 
64 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 The perfect type of these cities is the Chinese square 
 enclosure, with twelve gates of the ' Hall of Dis- 
 tinction,' as figured in Dr Morrison's Dictionary,' or 
 of the Temple of Earth at Pekin given by Du Halde. 
 That the gates should face the cardinal aspects is 
 quite universal. Was it not on issuing from the four 
 gates of the city in succession, beginning "at the east, 
 that Buddha saw the sights which made him enter on 
 ' the path '? The towns in England of Roman founda- 
 tion still have north, south, east, and west gates, fol- 
 lowing the camps and the Etruscan cities. The east 
 gate was reserved for the prince as directed by 
 Ezekiel. When there are three gates together, the 
 central one is the Royal Gate, 'and kept shut, 
 except when the Khan passes that way,' as Marco 
 Polo says ; just as in the great churches from 
 Constantinople to Chartres, the middle door is 
 the King's. From the triple eastern gate the 
 main avenue ran westward, as at Alexandria. At 
 Palmyra, over fifteen hundred columns, sixty feet 
 high, were disposed in four rows. At Damascus ' the 
 street called Straight' started from the east gate, and 
 had two rows of Corinthian pillars. ' Every great city " 
 of the East had a via recta — a " straight street," or higHt : 
 street, somewhat similar in plan and ornament to that-^^- 
 at Palmyra ' (Porter, ' Bashan '). ;■' 
 
 This four squareness was a talismanic assurance of J; 
 permanence and stability. The thought that, as the^ 
 heavens were stable upon the earth, so any building 
 four square with them would be immovable, seems, as 
 we have seen, a natural analogy. Fa-Hian says of a 
 Buddhist monastery, ' The side is forty paces square; 
 though heaven should quake and the earth open, this 
 spot would not move.' Professor Beal in a note 
 compares this with the Egyptian treasure city of 
 Rameses, ' solid upon the earth like the four pillars of 
 
FOUR SQUARE 65 
 
 the firmament' In the Talmud the Temple of Jeru- 
 salem is called the 'immovable house;' and it is 
 surely the same symbol of indestructibility that is 
 taken by St. John in the cubical city of the Apocalypse. 
 The most ancient form of Rome, 'the City of 
 Romulus,' was called Roma Quadrata; it was built 
 on the Palatine Hill, and enclosed by a wall, around 
 which the sacred pomoerium was marked out by a 
 plough furrow, a religious ceremony in the founda- 
 tion of towns by the Etruscans. ' Within the area of 
 Apollo (temple on the Palatine) was also a mysterious 
 object which appears to have symbolised the ancient 
 Roma Quadrata. This sacred object, which was prob- 
 ably a cubical block of stone used as an altar, was called 
 Roma Quadrata, and was surrounded by a circular 
 trench, the Mundus, a symbol of the mystic plough 
 turned furrow, by which the pomoerium or sacred 
 circuit line was marked in accordance with the 
 primitive religious ceremonies performed while found- 
 ing a new city' (Middleton, 'Ancient Rome'). 
 
 Of all forms,[the cube and the hemispherfe are 
 the most sacred ; the first was that of the Sanctuary 
 at Jerusalem, and that chosen by St John as the 
 type of the Holy Cjty ; ' its length, breadth, and 
 height were equal.' [MiiJFergusson tells us that the 
 temple of Herod wasioofcttbits long in the body, 
 100 cubits high, and 100 cubits broad on the fagade, 
 ' so as to make it practically a cube, or at least a 
 building of three equal dimensions.' The cube was 
 the form of the shrine of one stone forty cubits 
 every way that Herodotus saw in Egypt ; the 
 Phoencian shrines found by Renan at Amrit ; and 
 the Ciaba, 'the cube,' of Mecca. The temples 
 of Janus Quadrifrons were ' built with four equal 
 sides, with a door and three windows on each side.' 
 
66 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 The hemisphere is the form of the Buddhist topes. 
 To combine the two has been the builder's problem in 
 all ages. 
 
 Another form is also persistent — the double-square ; 
 Vitruvius, indeed, says, ' The length of a temple 
 must be twice its width ; ' and, roughly, this is the 
 proportion to which classic examples conform. 
 Plato makes the temple that surmounted his ideal 
 city one stadium long by half a stadium wide. The 
 King's chamber in the great Pyramid is exactly of 
 this proportion, as was the Cella of the Temple of 
 the Jews. We have seen the classic geographers 
 of the fourth century, B.C., amongst whom is 
 Pytheas, making the earth of precisely this form, 
 and a reason has been suggested sufficient to account 
 for it. Another, however, which must strongly have 
 confirmed their view is to be found in the range 
 of the sun along the horizon from the winter to the 
 summer solstice. Symmetrical both on the rising 
 and setting horizons, and subtending an angle which 
 seemed just within the ends of a parallelogram of 
 which the width was equal to half its length. 
 
 Now to the Hindus east to west is ' lengthways,' 
 north to south is 'crossways.' In the Persian Bundahisk 
 it is said, ' From where the sun comes in on the longest 
 day to where it comes in on the shortest day is the 
 East ; from where it comes in on the shortest day 
 to where it goes off on the shortest day is South ; 
 where it goes in on the shortest to where it goes in 
 on the longest day is the West ; from where it comes 
 in on the longest to where it goes off on the longest 
 day is the North.' In the Talmud an exactly 
 similar account is given. The sun rages up and down 
 the eastern and western horizon like a mighty beast 
 prisoned in a cage ; it cannot go farther because of 
 the enclosing sides of the firmament. The gates 
 
FOUR SQUARE Q'j 
 
 for it to pass to the lower world and rise again are 
 only found in the ends of the box. 
 
 We need barely refer to the actual use of the Temple 
 as a calendar ; the sun ray entering at the eastern door 
 at the moment of its appearance above the horizon 
 was certainly registered, and so gave in a long series 
 an accurate observation of the solar year ; once a 
 year more especially it exactly fell on the altar. Even 
 now in some of the French cathedrals — Bourges and 
 Nevers, for instance — diagonal lines may be seen right 
 across the floor graduated into a scale of months and 
 days. 
 
 The observations and ceremony connected with 
 determining the orientation, and laying the foundation 
 stone, were of the greatest importance. Brugsch 
 gives an inscription recording the foundation of 
 Abydos : ' I gave the order,' says the King, ' to prepare 
 the cords and pegs for the laying of the foundation in 
 my presence. The advent of the day of the new moon 
 was fixed for the festival of the laying the foundation 
 stone.' 
 
 Accordingto Berosos, the gods taught the Chaldeans 
 the rules for the foundation of towns and building of 
 temples. Of the modern Buddhist custom. Bock 
 gives us an instance from Siam : 'The site being 
 duly dedicated to the purpose, eight round stones are 
 taken, and a parallelogram marked out with them, 
 one being placed at each of the eight points of the 
 compass.' In the old Latin rites (quoting the French 
 Dictionary of Antiquities) one of the chief duties of 
 the augurs was to set out the new temple foundation 
 from the heavens. The usage ' appears to have been 
 to direct the Cardo according to the meridian when the 
 observer faced the south, and had at his left the east, 
 "the happy side," later they adopted the Etruscan 
 
68 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 practice, and turned towards the west, with the view 
 of combining the ideas of the Etruscans, who placed 
 the seat of the gods to the north — therefore the happy- 
 side — and the Roman custom which had placed the 
 north to the left in turning to the east. It has been 
 thought that at times the Cardo was not the axis, but 
 the diagonal of a square, and that the augur stationed 
 at the centre directed his vision to the angles.' 
 
 To the late Romans of the time of Vitruvius the 
 aspect seems to have been opposed to what had been 
 the universal earlier practice. He tells us, ' If there be 
 nothing to prevent it, and the use of the edifice allow 
 it, the temples of the immortal gods should have such an 
 aspect that the statue in the Cella may have its face- 
 towards the west, so that those who enter to sacrifice, 
 or to make offerings, may have their faces to the east 
 as well as to the statue in the temple. Thus suppliants 
 and those performing their vows seem to have the 
 temple, the East, and the Deity, as it were, looking on 
 them at the same moment. Hence all the altars 
 of the gods should be placed towards the east.' In 
 another place he explains how the true north may be 
 obtained. In a marble slab or a level space a gnomon 
 is placed upright. The shadow cast by the gnomon 
 is to be marked about the fifth hour before the meridian,, 
 the extreme point being accurately determined, and 
 from the centre of the gnomon a circle is described 
 equal in radius to the length of the shadow just obtained. 
 After the sun has passed the meridian watch the 
 shadow until the moment when it touches the circle 
 again at another point ; a line drawn from the centre 
 bisecting the arc thus obtained will indicate the 
 north. 
 
 Christian buildings at first followed the old west- 
 ward direction of the Jewish temple ; for instance, the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem built by 
 
FOUR SQUARE 69 
 
 Constantine. So also early churches in Italy, and 
 even here in England, were 'occidented ' rather than 
 oriented. This ultimately gave way to the east- 
 ward direction ; all Justinian's churches have their 
 prospect towards the east, and it becomes of interest 
 to determine if this is with the object of their being 
 directed towards Jerusalem, or of conforming to orienta- 
 tion. The great church built by Constantine at 
 Bethlehem, which is directly south of Jerusalem, and 
 only a few miles off, lies east and west, not north 
 and south, as it would if directed to the Holy City. 
 Still further south the Coptic Churches of Egypt are 
 described by Mr Butler as having the entrance ' almost 
 invariably towards, if not in the western side, while 
 the sanctuaries lie always on the eastern.' Far south 
 in Abyssinia the curious excavated monolithic churches 
 follow the same axis west to east. 
 
 A passage in Procopius gives a clear statement of 
 the purpose in the orientation of Sta Sophia, the 
 great Church of Christendom. He says, 'The part where 
 the sacred mysteries are performed in honour of God 
 is built towards the rising sun.' And of the Church of 
 the Apostles, rebuilt by Justinian, in Constantinople, 
 he gives this interesting relation : ' The lines were 
 drawn in the form of a cross, joining one another in 
 the middle, the upright one pointing to the rising and 
 the setting sun, and the other cross line towards the 
 north and the south wind. These were surrounded 
 by a circuit of walls, and within by columns placed 
 both above and below; at the crossing of the two 
 straight lines, that is, about the middle point of them, 
 there is a place set apart that may not be entered 
 except by the priests, and which is consequently 
 termed the sanctuary. The transepts which lie on 
 each side of this about the cross line are of equal 
 length ; but that part of the upright line towards the 
 
70 FOUR SQUARE 
 
 setting sun is built so much longer than the other 
 part as to form the figure of the Cross.' 
 
 The old Antiquary Stukeley gave a very clear 
 account of orientation anticipating the points here set 
 out. ' Ever since the world began, in building temples 
 or places of religious worship, men have been studious 
 in setting them according to the quarters of the 
 heavens ; since they considered the world as the 
 general temple, or house of God, and that all particular 
 temples should be regulated according to that idea. 
 The east naturally claims a prerogative, where the 
 sun and all the planets and stars rise. The east they 
 therefore considered the face and front of the universal 
 temple.' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 ' . . . That stellar concave spreading overhead, softly absorbed int'7 
 me, rising so free interminably high, stretching east, west, north, south 
 — and I, though but a point in the cent7-e below, embodying all.' 
 
 — Walt Whitman. 
 
 THERE would seem to be delight and mystery 
 inherent to the ideas of a boundary or a centre. 
 Children show this by standing in two counties or 
 parishes at the same time, and being much comforted 
 thereby — only disappointed, like the little girl in 
 Punch, that there are not pretty colours at the 
 division, as on the maps. Do you not remember 
 being told that the Town Hall 'at home' was the 
 centre of the mileage of the diverging roads, and 
 being much impressed by this, the middle of the 
 world, which should have been specially marked by 
 a ' golden milestone.' Paris, London, or Boston is the 
 ' hub ' of the universe to their several inhabitants. 
 ' All roads lead to Rome.' 
 
 'Ah! Messer Greco,' George Eliot makes her 
 cultured Barber, Nello, say of his shop ' Apollo and 
 the Razor,' ' if you want to know the flavour of our 
 scholarship, you must frequent my shop ; it is the 
 focus of Florentine intellect, and in that sense the 
 navel of the earth, as my great predecessor Burchieilo 
 71 
 
72 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 said of his shop, on the more frivolous pretension that 
 his street of the Calimara was the centre of our city.' 
 
 When the earth was a plane surface with boundaries 
 which were certain in form, if unknown in extent, ' the 
 centre is with us ' would be a claim advanced in a 
 much more definite form by different countries or 
 rival cities. On an Arab fountain in Sicily was the 
 inscription, ' I am in the centre of the garden ; this 
 garden is the centre of Sicily, and Sicily of the whole 
 world.' 
 
 The Mediterranean still preserves its name of the 
 world's central sea. Maspero tells us the Chaldeans 
 considered themselves better than their neighbours, 
 and the centre of the world ; and Professor Sayce 
 that in the forest of Eridu — into the heart whereof 
 man had not penetrated — was the ' centre of the 
 earth ' and the ' holy house of the gods.' The 
 Egyptians, too considered they were the only true 
 centre. 'The Egyptians were particularly remark- 
 able for their great love for their country, which is 
 also inherited by their successors. They considered 
 it to be under the immediate protection of the gods 
 and the centre of the world ; they even called it the 
 world itself; and it was thought to be the favoured 
 spot where all created beings were first generated, 
 while the rest of the earth was barren and unin- 
 habited " (Wilkinson). Bunsen mentions a map of 
 the world under the form of a human figure in which 
 Egypt was the heart. 
 
 In ' Voyageurs Anciens' Charton says, ' Chaque 
 peuple r^pondait avec une assurance naive. " Le centre 
 est chez moi" — For the Egyptians the centre was 
 Thebes ; for the Assyrians, Babylon ; for the Hindus, 
 Mount Meru ; for the Jews, Jerusalem ; for the 
 Greeks, Olympus or the temple of Delphi, and later, 
 in the time of Herodotus, Rhodes.' In the same col- 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 73 
 
 lection of travels a modern Arab view as to the form 
 and centre of the world is given. God created the 
 earth square, and covered with stones ; and from 
 the top of Mount Sinai, which is the centre of the 
 world, traced a great circle whose circumference 
 touched the fotjr sides of the square. He then com- 
 manded the angels to throw all the stones into the 
 comers, which correspond with the four cardinal 
 points. The circle thus cleared was given to the Arabs, 
 who are the children best beloved ; then he called 
 the four angles France, Italy, England, and Russia. 
 
 An inscription of a king of Susa (B.C. 710, ' Records 
 of the Past ') makes this claim for the ' Susian land, 
 which is the first of the earth, and the centre of all 
 mankind.' 
 
 It was the same with Persia — ' The country of Iran 
 is better than other places, for it is in the middle.' 
 
 China also has always been a specially favoured 
 country, and its position is marked in its very name — 
 the ' Middle Kingdom.' In the letter from the Em- 
 peror of China to the King of England in 18 17 he 
 claims that he has received from heaven the govern- 
 ment of the world, and that China is ' the flourishing 
 and central empire,' the source of good influences. 
 The Hindus also have a name implying that their 
 country is the centre, and the old Japanese poems 
 call theirs the Middle Kingdom. 
 
 A confusion was likely to arise at once in regard to 
 this centre, for the centre of the heavenly revolutions 
 is seen to be in the north ; hence the world mountain, 
 the pivot of these revolutions also rose in the north. 
 For instance, according to the ' Encyclopaedia of 
 India,' 'The Hindus at Bikanir Rajputana taught 
 that the mountain Meru is in the centre surrounded 
 by concentric circles of land and sea. Some Hindus 
 
74 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 regard Mount Meru as the north pole. The astrono- 
 mical views of the Puranas make the heavenly bodies 
 turn round it' 
 
 This world-mountain was Nizir to the Chaldeans, 
 Olympus to the Greeks, Hara Berezaiti to the 
 Persians of the Avesta, the later Alborz and Elburz ; 
 a transfer, as says Mme. Ragozin, of ' mythical 
 heavenly geography to the earth.' This mountain — 
 the solar hill of the Egyptians — we shall again 
 refer to in the next two or three chapters. At 
 its apex springs, the heaven tree on which the 
 solar bird is perched. From its roots spring the 
 waters of life — the celestial sea, which, rushing 
 adown the firmament, supplies the ocean which cir- 
 cumscribes the earth or falls directly in rain. At 
 their fountain these springs are guarded by a goddess. 
 In Egypt Nut, the goddess of the oversea, leans from 
 the branches of the heavenly /^^j^a and pours forth 
 the celestial water. In the Vedas, Yama, lord of the.. 
 waters, sits in the highest heaven in the midst of the 
 heavenly ocean under the tree of life, which drops the 
 nectar Soma, and here, on the ' navel of the waters,' 
 matter first took form. In the Norse, the central tree 
 Yggdrasil has at its roots the spring of knowledge 
 guarded by the Norns, the northern Fates ; two swans 
 the parents of all those of earth, float there. In 
 Chaldea the mighty tree of Eridu, centre of the 
 world, springs by the waters. The Avesta gives a 
 very complete picture — Iran is at the centre of the 
 seven countries of the world ; it was the first created, 
 and so beautiful, that were it not that God has 
 implanted in all men a love for their own land, all 
 nations would crowd into this the loveliest land. To 
 the east somewhere, but still at the centre of the world, 
 rises the ' Lofty Mountain,' from which all the moun- 
 tains of the earth have grown, ' High Haraiti ; ' at its 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 75 
 
 summit is the gathering place of waters, out of which 
 spring the two trees, the heavenly Haoma (Soma), 
 and another tree which bears all the seeds that ger- 
 minate on earth. This heavenly mountain is called 
 'Navel of Waters', for the fountain of all waters 
 springs there, guarded by a majestic and beneficent 
 goddess. In Buddhist accounts, the waters issue in 
 four streams like the 
 rivers of Eden from 
 this reservoir, and flow 
 to the cardinal points, 
 each making one com- 
 plete circuit in its de- 
 scent. In the Persian 
 Bundahish there are two 
 of these heavenly rivers 
 flowing east and west. 
 To the Hindus the 
 Ganges is such a 
 heavenly stream. ' The 
 stream of heaven was 
 called by the Greeks Achelous.' The Nile in Egypt, 
 the Hoang-Ho in China, and the Jordan to the Jews, 
 seem to have been celestial rivers. This mountain of 
 heaven is often figured in Christian art with the four 
 rivers issuing from under the Throne of God. 
 
 Sir John Maundeville gives an account of the 
 earthly Paradise quite perfect in its detailed scheme. 
 It is the highest place on earth, nearly reaching to the 
 circle of the moon (as in Dante), and the flood did 
 not reach it. 'And in the highest place, exactly in the 
 middle, is a well that casts out the four streams' 
 — Ganges, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates. ' And men 
 there beyond say that all the sweet waters of the 
 world above and beneath take their beginning from 
 the well of Paradise, and out of that well all waters 
 
•j6 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 come and go.' The illustration is from the Hereford 
 Map. 
 
 In the Odyssey — which appears to be a voyage to 
 the three worlds by a Greek Dante, and parallel, as Mr 
 Andrew Lang has remarked, to an old Indian tale 
 in which the hero sets off to find the city of gold — 
 Ulysses, after visiting the country of Cyclops and other 
 lands evidently beyond the verge of civilisation, law, 
 and order, goes to the isle of .iEolus, King of the winds, 
 and to the island of Circe, where is the 'dancing 
 place of the dawn.' He descends to the underworld 
 and explores it ; returning, he passes the gates of the 
 firmament, the clashing mountains, and comes to the 
 isle of the Sun, and shipwrecked, he alone reaches the 
 isle of Calypso, and remains eight years ; but then 
 leaving her, comes at last to divine Scheria, paradise, 
 and city of gold, 'far off from men that live by 
 bread.' Then asleep in a magic bark he is conveyed 
 to earth and home. 
 
 This island of the lone goddess Calypso is Ogygia, 
 ' where is the navel of the sea' far removed on a ' won- 
 drous space of brine whereby is no city of mortals;' 
 ' and, lo, there about the hollow cave trailed a gadding 
 garden vine all rich with clusters. And fountains 
 four set orderly were running with clear water hard by 
 one another, turned each to his own course. And all 
 around soft meadows bloomed of violets and parsley.' 
 Can we doubt that Calypso is the guardian goddess 
 of the heavenly spring, of the four streams that 
 supply the earth? Can we doubt that this 'outer 
 zone' of Ulysses' voyages is on the oversea, thus 
 making a complete pendant to the underworld. As a 
 parallel let us remark how closely Lucian follows all 
 this in his Satire, reaching upperworld and lower 
 world in a ship. The heavenly spring is, of course, 
 the fountain of the water of life, and Ulysses ought 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 7/ 
 
 certainly to have drunk of it like the traveller of the 
 Egyptian Ritual of the Dead. What did the hero of 
 the Odyssey go there for if not to bring back a true 
 report of such a remarkable place ? Duncker says of 
 Athene, ' She is the spirit of this fountain itself.' 
 
 All the scheme is rational enough ; men wanting 
 to explain the rain, the moving tides and flowing 
 rivers of earth, supposed a perennial fountain rose in 
 the heavens, four streams from which flowed down 
 the heavenly vault, and entering by certain openings, 
 circled round the ocean stream, and then fell into the 
 abyss: Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, Cocytus, and Styx, 
 probably have their origin in this thought. 
 
 To return to the Middleworld. Sung-Yun, the 
 Chinese traveller in India to collect Buddhist records 
 (518 A.D.), speaking of the great mountain country, 
 the watershed of the Indus and Oxus, still called the 
 Roof of the World, says: 'After entering the Tsung- 
 Ling mountains step by step, we crept upwards for 
 four days, and reached the highest point of the range. 
 From this point as a centre, looking downwards, it 
 seemed just as though we were poised in mid-air. 
 Men say that this is the middle point of heaven and 
 earth. The people of this region use the water of the 
 rivers for irrigating their lands ; and when they were 
 told that in the Middle Kingdom (China) the fields 
 were watered by the rain, they laughed and said,. 
 ' How could heaven produce enough for all ? ' Hiuen 
 Tsiang (a.d. 629) says that at the central point of the 
 world, in the mountains of Pamir, there was a lake 
 blue and bottomless ; out of it flowed two streams to 
 east and west, supplying the waters of the world. 
 
 When China received Buddhism there arose a 
 difficulty as to the Middle Kingdom ; for the orthodox 
 said that India, where Buddha lived, was the middle 
 
78 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 land, ' as shown by the gnotnon which at the summer 
 solstice in that latitude casts no shadow. China, they 
 say, cannot so well be called the central kingdom, 
 because there is a shadow on the day mentioned' 
 (Edkins). Fa-Hian was disliked by his country- 
 men for admitting the superior claim of India. It 
 shows how the human mind works in fixed grooves 
 to find Sir John Maundeville giving the same ' proof 
 of the gnomon for the central position of Jerusalem. 
 
 The Greeks seem to have attached great mystic 
 and ritual importance to the centre. Delphi was the 
 navel of all Greece, but Crete had an omphalos, and a 
 story was attached regarding the birth of Jupiter. 
 Pausanias mentions an omphalos at Phlius marking 
 the centre of the Peloponnese. In Sicily the modern 
 Castro Giovanni occupies the site of Enna, Umbilicus 
 SicilicB, and this was the place where Persephone was 
 carried away from the upper world. In Babylon 
 also it was at the world's centre that Tammuz made 
 his descent, for here is the lid stone of the lower 
 world. Each separate worship appears to ha\'e its 
 ' Kibleh,' Delos for Apollo, Paphos for Venus, and 
 Delphi the ancient hearth of Hestia. At Megara 
 the altar was the omphalos. 
 
 Mount Cronios in Olympia, Lenormant says, ' was 
 the omphalos of the sacred city of Elis, the primitive 
 centre of worship.' It is easy to see that this ' centre 
 of worship,' this ' centre of the earth where is the holy 
 house of the gods,' was likely to become identified with 
 a building, the ancient mother temple of a people, be 
 it at Babylon, at Delphi, or at Mecca. Brugsch says, 
 'The Egyptians, like the ancients in general, com- 
 menced the foundation of their towns by the construc- 
 tion of a temple, which formed the centre of the town 
 that was to be built' 
 
 Delphi to the Greeks was pre-eminently the centre 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 19 
 
 of the world ; here was the famous and ancient temple 
 of Apollo, the god who, as Plato has it, ' sits in the 
 centre on the navel of the earth.' 
 
 Has Delphi taken over this tradition as being seated 
 on Parnassus, the mountain of the flood of Deucalion? 
 And do the other stories of Parnassus and' the 
 spring of poesy arise from its being associated with 
 another tradition of the earthly paradise ? 
 
 In the description before given of the peplos 
 representing the universe woven by Harmonia, 
 we have seen how ' she first represented the earth 
 with its omphalos in the centre : ' but this centre of 
 the world is not only to be found in ideal poet-made 
 designs, it was realised in architecture. On the floor 
 of the temple of Delphi was a stone ' called by the 
 Delphians the Navel, according to their tradition, the 
 centre of the world ' (Pausanias). The story was told, 
 that to determine the true centre of the earth, Jupiter 
 sent out two eagles, one from the east, the other from 
 the west, and they met at this spot. 
 
 According to Strabo, two gold eagles were placed 
 at the sides of the omphalos. This composition is 
 
8o 
 
 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 preserved to us by a marble found in Sparta. As 
 early as Pindar these golden birds of Zeus are men- 
 tioned, but later marble sculpture or mosaic represented 
 them. On the vases we have many contemporary 
 drawings of this composition (see T. H. Middleton in 
 Jour. Hellenic Soc, vol. ix.) : in most of these the 
 sacred stone is shown of the form of half an e.%^, raised 
 on a step on which the birds stood 'affronted;' other 
 representations show the ei^'g form complete : it was 
 decorated by fillets, leafy branches, and netted work. 
 
 This centre stone of the whole world seems to 
 have profoundly touched the Greek imagination ; and 
 among the multitude of references to it, it has a' part 
 in the tragedies of .^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euri- 
 pides. The first scene of the ' Eumenides ' takes place 
 in the outer court of the oracle — A priestess passes 
 into the Adytum, but returns crouching with fear, 
 supporting herself against the walls : — 
 
 ' Lo ! Into yon recess 
 With garlands hung I go, and there I see 
 Upon the central stone a God-loathed man 
 Sitting as suppliant, and with hands that dripped 
 Blood drops, and holding sword but newly drawn.' 
 
 — Plumptre. 
 Orestes, pursued by the Furies, has taken sanctuary 
 in the temple of Apollo, and the matricide is thus 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 8l 
 
 discovered on the centre-stone of the world, of the 
 universe, a ' God-loathed man,' while his sword still 
 drips with his mother's blood. 
 
 We may see embodied in this myth of the centre 
 stone the result of the general direction of thought ; 
 as each people were certainly ' the people ' first born 
 and best beloved of the gods, so their country occupied 
 the centre of the world. It would be related how the 
 oldest and most sacred city, or rather temple, was 
 erected exactly on the navel. A story like this told 
 of a temple would lead to the marking in the centre 
 of its area the true middle point by a circular stone, a 
 stone which would become most sacred and ceremonial 
 in its import. Such a tendency seems to lie close to 
 the root of ideas ; Professor Smyth in his interpreta- 
 tion of the great Pyramid thought that it marked in 
 a special way the world's centre. 
 
 In the rites of Greece and Rome it was the hearth 
 that was specially identified with the omphalos and 
 so in Latin we have ' focus,' and in French ' foyer,' 
 at once hearth and centre. 
 
 ' According to Pythagoras, the fire of Hestia {foyer 
 du monde) was at the centre of the earth and the 
 ivorld.' 
 
 'In this sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi (formerly 
 dedicated to Hestia), near the stone omphalos was 
 the altar of the sacred fire of Hestia, the goddess 
 who symbolised the .stability of the earth. In the 
 primitive Greek houses of a circular form the hearth 
 was at the centre, and the smoke found its way out 
 it the apex. Each Greek city had its prytaneum in 
 Form of a rotunda {tkolos), an edifice consecrated to 
 Hestia ; and the hearth sacred to the city was placed 
 under the centre of the vault, in the same way that 
 the foyer of Delphi — foyer common to all Greeks — 
 
82 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 was under the summit of the heavenly vault' {Diction- 
 naire des Antiquitds). 
 
 The Prytaneum was the civic hall, the pole of the 
 city life, and here, on the focus of the town, was kept 
 alight the undying fire of Hestia; for just as the 
 family life centred around the hearth, so political life 
 surrounded the city hearth, from which colonists going 
 from the mother town took of the sacred central fire 
 to establish their own prytaneum ; and if in after time 
 it ceased to burn, the metropolis was again the source 
 of new fire. So it was that, according to tradition, 
 ^neas brought from Troy the sacred fire, which was 
 maintained by the Vestals in the circular temple of 
 the Forum. 
 
 A mystery still clings to the hearth, and it still is 
 the centre of the world. It seems a part of the Aryan 
 inheritance ; for while the nations were as yet unsepar- 
 ated, 'the hearth was in the midst of the dwelling; 
 that hearth was to each member of the household, as 
 it were, an umbilicus orbis, or navel of the earth. . . . 
 Hearth being only another form of earth, as in the 
 German erde and herde^ (Keary, 'Dawn of History'). 
 It has been suggested that this early home was a 
 circular roofed hut, and thus a sky-like canopy to the 
 central fire. 
 
 A central circle was found in the palace at Tiryns. 
 Dr Schliemann writes : ' In the exact centre of the 
 hall, and therefore within the square enclosed by the 
 four pillars, there is found in the floor a circle of about 
 3.30 m. diameter. There can be little doubt that this 
 circle indicates the position of the hearth in the centre 
 of the megaron. The hearth was in all antiquity the 
 centre of the house, about which the family assembled, 
 at which food was prepared, and where the guest 
 received the place of honour. Hence it is frequently 
 indicated by poets and philosophers as the navel or 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 83 
 
 centre of the house. In the oldest time it was not 
 only symbolically, but actually the centre of the house, 
 and especially of the megaron. It was only in later 
 days, in the great palaces of the Romans, that it was 
 removed from the chief rooms and established in a 
 small by-room. . . . It is hardly an accidental 
 circumstance that, in the middle of the largest hall in 
 the pergamos of the Homeric Troy, a large circle is 
 to be seen in the centre of the floor. . . . There can 
 be no doubt that at Troy too the spacious hall, with 
 its vestibule, was the megaron, and the circle in its 
 centre marked the place of the hearth.' 
 
 The imperial palace at Constantinople, which must 
 have been the topstone of the world's art in building — 
 embodying as it did all knowledge and tradition. 
 Classic and Christian, and gathering for material all 
 the splendours of the earth — had on the floors of 
 those wonderful rooms, the design of which we can 
 still follow in the descriptions collated by Labarte 
 {Palais Imp. Cons.), sacred hearth or navel stones. 
 ' The floor of Chalce was composed of beautiful marble 
 mosaic; below the dome in the pavement was a 
 large slab of porphyry, of circular form, to which they 
 gave the name of Omphalion.' The Emperor, after 
 having bought back for a large sum certain bonds, 
 to which citizens of Constantinople had put their 
 hands, burnt these bonds upon the omphalion of 
 porphyry in Chalce. We also find an omphalion 
 encased in the pavement of the grand triclinium of 
 Justinian ; they existed in other rooms of the palace, 
 and notably in front of the thrones. The Emperor 
 stood on these slabs of porphyry at certain ceremonies, 
 and his passing over or pausing on them seems to 
 have been the occasion for those present to prostrate 
 themselves before him. 
 
 On the floor of St Peter's, in Rome, there is a 
 
84 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 circular slab of antique porphyry, 8 ft. 6 in. in diameter, 
 on which, tradition says, every emperor since Charle- 
 magne stood at coronation. The Popes also on it per- 
 formed certain official acts. Ducange mentions an 
 omphalos in Sancta Sophia ; it was directly under the 
 dome, and called meso-naos, omphalos, or mes-omphalos. 
 
 Whether the temple of Vesta in Rome, close to the 
 Forum, was or was not at any time actually a geogra- 
 phical centre, it is certain that the Forum contained 
 such an one in the Milliarum aureum Umbilicus 
 Urbis, which had on it the names and distances of the 
 towns on the roads which here met at a centre from 
 all Italy. As some late writers speak of the omphalos 
 as distinct from the golden milestone, and as the 
 foundations of two circular structures have been 
 discovered in the Forum, Mr. Middleton is inclined 
 to look on one as the milestone, and the other as 
 the omphalos. The sacred stone on the Palatine, 
 mentioned in the last chapter, would seem to have 
 been the omphalos of primitive Rome, ' the city of 
 Romulus.' Mr Gomme tells us a stone was always 
 set up at the establishment of primitive villages, and 
 that London Stone is an example. 
 
 If we go to the west, the centre is there. ' The his- 
 torian of Yucatan describes a celebrated sanctuary 
 known as "the centre and foundation of heaven," 
 which was the object of great veneration ' (Charnay) ; 
 and M. R^ville quotes Garcilasso, the native historian 
 of Peru, who says that Cuzco, the sacred city, was 
 founded by the gods, and ' its name signifies navel.' 
 'Splendid roads stretched from Cuzco towards the 
 four quarters of the heavens.' And again, ' The great 
 Teocalli of Mexico commanded the four chief roads 
 that parted from its base to unite the capital to all 
 the countries beneath the sceptre of its rulers. It was 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 85 
 
 the palladium of the empire.' The roads diverge in 
 this way from the great Lamassary of the holy city of 
 Thibet, which is also a world centre. The ' four cross 
 roads ' of old English customs were probably of so 
 much consequence, because such a situation estab- 
 lished a sympathetic magic with the universe. 
 
 If we go to the far East, the stone of foundation is 
 there. In Japan the world is carried on an enormous 
 leviathan the Earthquake fish {Jishin-uwo), and whgn 
 it moves there is an earthquake; one god only can 
 then quiet it, and this he does ' by pinning it down 
 with the Kaua-mi-ishi, or ' rivet rock of the world.' 
 As every Japanese knows, this stone is in the pro- 
 vince of Hitachi' (The 'Century,' Jan. 1890). Two 
 temples at Is6 form the kibleh of Shintoism, toward 
 which the people turn in prayer. 
 
 There appears from Grimm {Teut. Myth) to have 
 been such a stone known to the Northern nations as 
 the ' Dille- Stein,' or Lid of Hell ; he compares it with 
 the lapis manalis that closed the mouth of the 
 Etruscan Mundus. In the Talmud there was access 
 to the lower world at Jerusalem, although the whole 
 world was but a ' pot-lid ' to hell. 
 
 In India the great iron pillar of Delhi, standing 
 amidst the ruins of the old capital, was set up in the 
 fourth century; later, in the twelfth century, the great 
 Mohammedan Mosque of .the Imperial City was built 
 round it as the exact middle point of its vast court. 
 The pillar commemorated the power of a Raja who, 
 as the inscription reads, ' obtained with his own arm 
 an undivided sovereignty over the earth.' A Holy 
 Braman assured a Raja of the eighth century that 
 the pillar had been driven so deeply into the earth 
 that it rested on the head of Vasuki, the serpent king, 
 who supports the world, and consequently had become 
 immovable, whereby the dominion was insured for 
 
86 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 ever to the dynasty of its founder as long as the pillar 
 stood. The incredulous Raja ordered the monument 
 to be dug up, when it was found to be reddened 
 with the blood of the serpent king (Hunter's Gaz. 
 of India). We have here probably a Braman centre 
 in opposition to the sacred site of the Buddhists. In 
 Southern India the Temple of Mandura is the centre 
 of the Tamil people ; here in the inmost sanctuary a 
 rock, symbol of Siva, crops out of the floor. ' Its roots 
 are said to be in the centre of the earth, and to have 
 been there since the Creation.' Here the kings were 
 taken when about to die (Clements Markham). 
 
 In China, the centre of the ancient royal cult is 
 the altar or temple of heaven, in the old city of 
 Pekin. One stone circular and flawless forms the 
 centre of zone after zone of marble steps and terraces. 
 ' Here the Emperor kneels, and is surrounded first by 
 the circles of the terraces and their enclosing walls, 
 and then by the circle of the horizon. He thus seems 
 to himself and his court to be in the centre of the 
 universe, and, turning to the north, assuming the 
 attitude of a subject, he acknowledges in prayer that 
 he is inferior to heaven and to heaven alone ' (Edkins. 
 see Williamson's Journeys). 
 
 Gaya is the great Holy Place of Buddhism, the 
 Mecca of its sites ; here Buddha sat under the Bodhi 
 tree when he reached complete enlightenment. While 
 he was yet seeking there came to him a voice saying 
 that he was to find a Pipal tree, under which was a 
 ' diamond throne.' All the past Buddhas seated on 
 this throne have obtained true enlightenment (Beal). 
 
 The Bodhi tree itself as described by Hiuen Tsiang 
 was surrounded by an enclosure which was long east 
 and west, and narrow north and south, with four gates 
 to the cardinal points. ' In the middle of the 
 enclosure is the diamond throne, when the great earth 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 87 
 
 arose this also appeared. It is the middle of the 
 great Chiliocosm ; it goes down to the limits of the 
 golden wheel, and upwards it is flush with the ground. 
 It is composed of diamonds ; in circuit it is a hundred 
 paces or so. . . . It is the place where the Buddhas 
 attain the sacred path of Buddahood. When the 
 great earth is shaken this spot alone is unmoved. 
 Therefore when Tathagata was about to reach the 
 condition of enlightenment, and he went successively 
 to the four angles of this enclosure, the earth shook 
 and quaked ; but afterwards coming to this spot, all 
 was still and at rest. When the true law decays and 
 dies it will be no longer visible.' 
 
 The Chiliocosm is not this world alone, but the 
 whole assemblage of worlds — the universe. Sir M. 
 Williams tells us a stone marked with nine concentric 
 circles is still shown at Gaya as the Diamond Throne. 
 
 Jerusalem has been to Jews and Christians the 
 centre of the world, 'beautiful for situation, joy of the 
 whole earth.' What the Temple was as a centre of 
 worship is shown by Solomon's dedicatory prayer and 
 by Daniel's open window toward Zion. The following 
 is the direction as to prayer in the Talmud : ' Those 
 who are in foreign countries beyond the borders of 
 Palestine ought in praying to turn their faces towards 
 the sacred land as it is written, " They shall address 
 their prayer ' to Thee by the way of the land which 
 Thou hast given to their ancestors" (i Kings viii. 48). 
 Those who dwell in Palestine direct their countenance 
 towards Jerusalem, for it is written, " They shall pray 
 unto Thee towards the city which Thou hast chosen." 
 Those who make their prayer in Jerusalem turn 
 towards the mount of the Temple, as it is said in 
 the same verse, " And the house which I have builded 
 in Thy name." Those who are upon the mount of the 
 
88 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 temple turn towards the Holy of Holies. "They 
 shall address their prayer to Thee in this place, and 
 Thou wilt hear it in heaven Thy dwelling-place, Thou 
 wilt hear it and will pardon." Hence it follows 
 that those of the north should turn towards the 
 south, those of the south towards the north, the men 
 of the east towards the west, the men of the west 
 towards the east, so that all Israel shall turn in the act 
 of prayer.' 
 
 But not only was it a ceremonial centre ; it was 
 geographically the midst of the earth ; and the follow- 
 ing from the Talmud (Hershon) shows that to the 
 Rabbis the Temple had an omphalion stone, and that 
 it was built not only on a rock, but on the rock. 
 
 ' The world is like the eyeball of man ; the white is 
 the ocean that surrounds the world, the black is the 
 world itself, and the pupil is Jerusalem, and the image 
 in the pupil is the Temple.' 
 
 ' The world's " foundation stone " sank to the depths 
 under the Temple of the Lord, and upon this the sons 
 of Korah used to stand and pray.' 
 
 ' The land of Israel is situated in the centre of the 
 world, and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel, 
 and the Temple in the centre of Jerusalem, and the 
 Holy of Holies in the centre of the Temple, and the 
 foundation stone on which the world was grounded is 
 situated in front of the ark.' 
 
 ' When the ark was removed a stone was there from 
 the days of the first prophets ; it was called Foundation. 
 It was three digits high above the earth.' 
 
 The great temple of Bel, the most ancient, most 
 sacred temple at Babylon, was called, Professor 
 Sayce tells us, in his Hibbert Lectures, ' the house of 
 the foundation stone of heaven and earth' In 
 Jerusalem the 'Dome of the Rock,' El Sakhrah, 
 occupying the traditional site of the temple 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 89 
 
 sanctuary, surrounds a mass of the living rock, the 
 bare summit of Mount Moriah, which for about sixty by 
 forty feet crops out of the beautiful paving ; under it is 
 the ' Well of Souls ; ' and the Turkish Pacha told Sir 
 Charles Warren ' it lay on the top leaves of a palm 
 tree, from the roots of which spring all the rivers of the 
 world.' Nusir-i-Khusran, who visited the sites in 
 1003 A.D., says that God commanded Moses to make 
 
 this stone the kibleh, and later Solomon built the 
 temple about it as a centre. From it the four 
 doors open, as an early pilgrim says, to the four 
 quarters of the world. In Mohammedan tradition 
 this rock is the world's foundation stone. It is 
 known to them as the kibleh (point of adoration, 
 centre) of Moses. Mahomet thought at first of adopt- 
 ing it in the place of the old Arab centre of Mecca, 
 
go AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 well understanding the religious need of such a: 
 omphalos to Eastern thought, as in it the idea c 
 separation from others is most forcibly expressed. Th 
 Prophet says, ' Verily although thou shouldest sho^ 
 unto those to whom the Scripture hath been given a 
 kinds of signs, yet they will not follow thy kiblel 
 neither shalt thou follow their kibleh ; nor will on 
 part of them follow the kibleh of the other.' At th 
 last day, however, even the black stone of Mecca wi^ 
 come as a bride to the rock of Jerusalem, and thu 
 arises any confusion there may be as to the worl 
 centre of Islam. The late Professor Palmer tells u 
 what the rock is to those in Jerusalem : ' This Sakhral 
 is the centre of the world, and on the day of resurrec 
 tion the angel Israfil will stand upon it to blow th 
 last trumpet ; it is also eighteen miles nearer heave: 
 than any other place in the world ; and beneath it i 
 the source of every drop of sweet water that flows o 
 the face of the earth; it is supposed to be suspende( 
 miraculously between heaven and earth. The effec 
 upon the spectators was, however, so startling that it wa 
 found necessary to place a building round it and cor 
 ceal the marvel.' 
 
 The Samaritans still look to Gerizim as their hoi 
 mountain. ' This is their kibleh, to which they tur 
 in prayer wherever they may be ' (Warren). ' Ou 
 fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say the 
 in Jerusalem is the place where men ought t 
 worship.' 
 
 Of Hermon Miss Beaufort wrote : ' It is remarkabl 
 that Hermon was anciently encompassed by a circ] 
 of temples all facing the summit. Can it be that th 
 mountain was the great sanctuary of Baal, and that 
 was to the old Syrians what Jerusalem was to tt 
 Jews, and what Mecca is to the Moslems } ' One < 
 these temples has sculptured on the side towards tY 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 91 
 
 mountain a huge watching face. Another Syrian 
 temple, that of Mabog (Hierapolis), seems to have 
 been a world centre and well of the abyss ; this city 
 occupied the site of Carchemish, the capital of the 
 Hittites, and it is probably their rites and legends 
 that were continued here. The temple stood in the 
 very centre of the ' Holy City,' and it was built (so 
 went the legend) by their Noah directly over the 
 chasm where the waters of the Deluge had been 
 swallowed up (Sayce Hittites). 'At Jerusalem also 
 there was a cleft in which the waters of the flood 
 disappeared ' (Robertson Smith, Semites). Pausanias 
 says there was a cavity in the precincts of the temple 
 of Olympia where the waters of the deluge escaped. 
 
 To the Mohammedans generally the Caaba at 
 Mecca is the true centre, lowered as it was directly 
 from Paradise under which it stands, and to it all 
 Islam turns in prayer, 'Turn thy face towards the 
 temple of Mecca, and whenever ye pray, turn your 
 :faces towards that place' {Koran). In an account 
 of modern schools in Cairo, Mr Loftie says, 'The 
 children learn that it takes five hundred years of 
 travelling to get round the mighty plain, while 
 perhaps a few yards from the school door hangs one 
 of Mr Cook's placards offering to do the whole 
 business in ninety days. The one important fact 
 which the children retain is, that Mecca is the centre 
 of the earth.' All mosques look to this kibleh. 
 
 To the early Christians and throughout the Middle 
 Ages Jerusalem was the centre. Jerome calls it the 
 navel of the world, and Clement of Alexandria remarks 
 that the outer court of the Tabernacle was, 'they say,' 
 the middlemost point of heaven and earth. Arculf 
 in 670 A.D. tells us that Jerusalem being in the middle, 
 was called the ' navel of the earth,' and he gives the 
 proof of the shadowless pillar. In the time of Abbot 
 
92 AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 
 
 Daniel's visit (1106) the centre was canopied by- 
 small dome on pillars. The Hereford map of th 
 thirteenth century shows the world as a plane circl 
 surrounded by ocean, round whose borders are th 
 eaters of men and the one-eyed, the half men an 
 those ' whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders 
 Within this border we find everything that heart coul 
 desire, the red sea is very red, the pillars of Hercule 
 are pillars indeed ; there is the terrestial paradis 
 enclosed by a battlemented wall ; and unicorni 
 manticoras,salamanders,and other beasts of fascinatin 
 habits are clearly shown on the lands where the 
 live. The centre of all is Jerusalem, a circula 
 walled town, within which again is a smaller circl( 
 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The centre 
 position of Jerusalem was not given up when i 
 became accepted as a fact that the earth was a sphen 
 Dante holds both for true, and this is how Si 
 John Maundeville reconciles any difficulty : ' I 
 going from Scotland or from England toward 
 Jerusalem, men go always upwards, for our land is i 
 the low part of the earth, towards the west ; and th 
 land of Prester John is in the low part of the worl 
 towards the east ; and they have the day when w 
 have the night, and, on the contrary, they have th 
 night when we have the day ; for the earth and se 
 are of a round form, as I have said before ; and as me 
 go upward towards one part, they go downward t 
 another. Also you have heard me say that Jerusaler 
 is in the middle of the world ; and that may be prove 
 and shown there by a spear which is fixed in th 
 earth at the hour of mid-day, when it is equinoctia 
 which gives no shadow on any side.' 
 
 The Greek Church still accepts Jerusalem as th 
 middle of the world, and in their portion of the Hoi 
 Sepulchre point it out to unbelieving tourists to-day. 
 
AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH 93 
 
 ' The Greeks,' says Curzon, ' have possession of the 
 choir of the church which is opposite the door. This 
 part of the building is of great size, and is magnifi- 
 cently decorated with gold and carving and stiff 
 pictures of the saints. In the centre is a globe of 
 black marble on a pedestal, under which they say the 
 head of Adam was found ; and you are told also that 
 this is the exact centre of the globe.' 
 
 His plan shows this by the sign 
 
 'THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD.' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 ' Impious ! the trees of vegetable gold 
 
 Such as in Eden's groves 
 
 Yet innocent it grew ; 
 Impious ! he made his boast, though Heaven had hid 
 
 So deep the baneful ore. 
 That they should branch and bud for him. 
 That art should force their blossoms and their fruit, 
 
 And recreate for him whate'er 
 
 IVas lost in Paradise, 
 Therefore at Shedad's voice 
 Here towered the palm, a silver trunk. 
 
 The fine gold network growing out 
 
 Loose from its rugged boughs. 
 Tall as the cedar of the mountain, here 
 Rose the gold branches, hung with emerald leaves. 
 Blossomed with pearls, and rich with ruby fruit.' 
 
 — SouTHEY, Thalaba. 
 
 OF all the wonders of the Palace at Constantinople 
 as described in 'Count Robert of Paris,' the 
 most wonderful is the golden tree that stood near the 
 throne, with the singing birds that moved by 
 mechanical art. Such a tree is indispensable to the 
 palace of Romance. 
 
 In the ' Gest Hystoriale ' of the destruction of Troy, 
 Englished in the fourteenth century, the writer does his 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 95 
 
 utmost for the splendours of Troy town and its 
 palace. During a truce Ulysses — 
 
 ' He was the fairest by ferre of all the felle Grekes, 
 And falsest in his fare, and full of disseit ' — 
 
 and Diomedes visit the palace called Ylion, 'made 
 all of marbyll with mason devyse.' They are asto- 
 nished at its splendour, especially the great hall, in 
 the midst of which ' was a tre that was tried all of 
 tru gold.' It was larger than a laurel, twelve cubits 
 high ; its boughs made the circuit of the whole 
 hall, some of gold, some of silver ; with leaves, buds, 
 and fair fruit 'that shemert as shire as any shene 
 stonys.' 
 
 Lydgate, in the ' Warre of Troy,' brings forward, 
 without discount, the description of such desirable 
 properties when he tells 
 
 ' Of a tree that Amyddes stode. 
 On which to loke they thought it did them good, 
 Musing where it were Artifyciall, 
 Erect or sette by magyke natirall. 
 Or by engyne of workmen curyous. 
 Through subtyll craftes supersticious 
 Or other worke of Nycromancye 
 Or profounde castynge of Philosophye, 
 By apparaunce or YUusyion 
 Outher by crafte of incantacion.' 
 
 The genealogy of this tree probably descends 
 through the romance of Alexander. Alexander hav- 
 ing in India jousted with a Sultan for a kingdom, 
 finds in the palace so won, along with other treasures, 
 a vine of gold, with leaves of emeralds, and fruit of 
 other precious gems. Just such a tree as is described 
 by Sir John Maundeville, ' Of the great Chan of 
 Cathay, of the royalty of his palace, and how he sits 
 at meat.' ' Within the palace, in the hall, there are 
 twenty-four pillars of fine gold ; and all the walls are 
 covered within with red skins of animals called pan- 
 
96 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 thers, fair beasts, and well smelling ; so that for the 
 sweet odour of the skins no evil air may enter into 
 the palace. The skins are as red as blood, and shine 
 so bright against the sun that a man may scarcely 
 look on them. And many people worship the beasts 
 when they meet them first in a morning, for their 
 great virtue, and for the good smell that they have. 
 . . . The hall of the palace is full nobly arrayed and 
 full marvellously attired on all parts, in all things that 
 men apparel any hall with. And first, at the head of 
 the hall, is the emperor's throne, very high, where he 
 sits at meat ; it is of fine precious stones, bordered all 
 about with purified gold and precious stones, and 
 great pearls. And the steps up to the table are of 
 precious stones, mixed with gold ; and at the left side 
 of the emperor's seat is the seat of his first wife, one 
 step lower than the emperor, and it is of jasper 
 bordered with gold and precious stones. And the seat 
 of his second wife is lower than his first wife, and is 
 also of jasper bordered with gold, as that other is. 
 And the seat of the third wife is still lower by a step 
 than the second wife — for he has always three wives 
 with him wherever he is. And, after his wives, on the 
 same side, sit the ladies of his lineage, still lower, 
 according to their ranks, and all those that are 
 married have a counterfeit, made like a man's foot, 
 upon their heads, a cubit long, all wrought with great, 
 fine, and orient pearls, and above made with pea- 
 cock's feathers, and of other shining feathers; and 
 that stands upon their heads like a crest, in token 
 that they are under man's foot and under subjection 
 of man; and they that are unmarried have none such. 
 ' And after, at the right side of the emperor, first 
 sits his eldest son, who shall reign after him, one step 
 lower than the emperor, in such manner of seats as 
 do the empresses ; and after him other great lords of 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 97 
 
 his lineage, each of them a step lower than the other, 
 according to their rank. The empergr has his table 
 alone by himself, which is of gold and precious 
 stones ; or of crystal bordered with gold and full of 
 precious stones ; or of amethysts, or of lignum aloes 
 that comes out of Paradise ; or of ivory bound and 
 bordered with gold ; and each of his wives has also 
 her table by herself, and his eldest son, and the other 
 lords also; and the ladies and all that sit with the em- 
 peror have very rich tables alone by themselves ; and 
 under the emperor's table sit four clerks, who write 
 all that the emperor says, be it good or evil, for all 
 that he says must be held good; for he may not 
 change his word nor revoke it. 
 
 ' At great feasts men bring before the emperor's 
 table great tables of gold, and thereon are peacocks 
 of gold, and many other kinds of different fowls, all 
 of gold, and richly wrought and enamelled ; and they 
 make them dance and sing, clapping their wings 
 together, and making great noise ; and whether it be 
 by craft or by necromancy, I know not, but it is a 
 goodly sight to behold. But I have the less marvel, 
 because they are the most skilful men in the world in 
 all sciences and in all crafts ; for in subtilty, malice, 
 and forethought they surpass all men under heaven ; 
 and therefore they say themselves that they see with 
 two eyes, and the Christians see but with one, because 
 they are more subtle than they. I busied myself 
 much to learn that craft; but the master told me 
 that he had made a vow to his god to teach it to no 
 creature, but only to his eldest son. 
 
 ' Also above the emperor's table and the other 
 tables, and above a great part of the hall, is a vine 
 made of fine gold, which spreads all about the hall ; 
 and it has many clusters of grapes, some white, some 
 green, some yellow, some red, and some black, all of 
 
 G 
 
98 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREB 
 
 precious stones ; the white are of crystal, beryl, and 
 iris ; the yellovy of topazes ; the red of rubies, grenaz, 
 and alabraundines ; the green of emeralds, of perydoz, 
 and of chrysolites ; and the black of onyx and gar- 
 nets. And they are all so properly made that it 
 appears a real vine bearing natural grapes. 
 
 ' And before the emperor's table stand great lords 
 and rich barons, and others that serve the emperor at 
 meat; and no man is so bold as to speak a word 
 unless the emperor speak to him, except minstrels 
 that sing songs and tell jests, or other disports, to 
 solace the emperor. And all the vessels that men 
 are served with in the hall or in chambers are in pre- 
 cious stones, and especially at great tables, either of 
 jasper, or of crystal, or of amethyst, or of fine gold, 
 and the cups are of emeralds, and sapphires, or topazes, 
 of perydoz, and of many other precious stones. 
 Vessel of silver is there none, for they set no value on 
 it to make vessels of; but they make therewith steps, 
 and pillars, and pavements to halls and chambers. 
 . . . This emperor hath in his chamber, in one of the 
 pillars of gold, a ruby and a carbuncle of half a foot 
 long, which in the night gives so great light and 
 shining that it is as light as day.' 
 
 This is quoted at length, because it is such a very well- 
 furnished hall, ' marvellously attired on all parts,' as 
 Sir John has it, and typical of architectural ideas here in 
 England in the fourteenthcentury. Itwas only poverty 
 of resource made them content with stone, and oak, 
 and glass ; marble, ebon-tree, and beryl-stone would 
 have pleased them better. But all this glory almost 
 dims beside the imperial palace atConstantinopleunder 
 the later emperors, of which there is preserved suffi- 
 cient account by contemporary writers of authority. 
 
 So vast was this palace that it was divided into 
 different regions, known by several names, as Chalce, 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 99 
 
 Daphne, Cathisma. In the middle of the atrium of 
 the last was a great basin of bronze and silver, with a 
 vase of gold, on certain occasions filled with fruit, which 
 ' all the world ' might take. Beyond this atrium was 
 a peristyle of the most precious marbles in the form 
 of an arc, and called the Sigma. Amongst the imperial 
 apartments was the chrysotriclinium ; this, the very 
 sanctuary of the imperial cult, was of octagonal 
 form, covered by a cupola. From each of the eight 
 sides opened an apse, that opposite the entrance being 
 closed by doors covered with plates of silver. At 
 great receptions these doors remained closed until all 
 had taken their places ; then, when everything was still, 
 two officers threw back the silver valves, and the em- 
 peror was discovered on his throne, before whom all 
 prostrated themselves. In the apse of another chamber 
 was placed the throne called ' Solomon's.' It was of 
 gold, purfled with precious gems, and on it mechanical 
 golden birds warbled songs ; above shone an immense 
 cross encrusted with precious stones ; around were 
 golden seats for the imperial family. On the steps 
 were two lions of gold, which rose to their feet roaring. 
 Thereby were golden trees, on the branches of which 
 birds of different kinds imitated the songs of those in 
 the wild wood. 
 
 This account is taken from Labarte's Le Palais 
 imperial de Constantinople. Much the same may be 
 found in Gibbon, who gives a description of an 
 audience that Liutprand, Bishop of Cremona, had 
 with the emperor : ' When he approached the throne, 
 the birds of the golden tree began to warble their 
 notes, which were accompanied by the roarings of the 
 two lions of gold. With his two companions Liut- 
 prand was compelled to bow and fall prostrate; 
 thrice he touched the ground with his forehead ; he 
 arose, but in the short interval the throne had been 
 
lOO THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 hoisted by an engine from the floor to the ceiling : the 
 imperial figure appeared in new and more gorgeous 
 apparel, and the interview was concluded in haughty 
 and majestic silence.' 
 
 This palace, it is said, was built on the model of 
 that of the Caliph of Baghdad, brought back by an 
 ambassador to that court, and there also we shall find 
 the golden tree. An Arab writer quoted by Gibbon 
 gives the following account of the reception of a 
 Greek embassy in the year 917: 'The porters or 
 doorkeepers were in number seven hundred. Barges 
 and boats with the most superb decoration were seen 
 swimming on the Tigris, nor was the palace itself less 
 splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight thousand 
 pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hundred of 
 which were of silk embroidered with gold. The 
 carpets on the floor were twenty-two thousand. A 
 hundred lions were brought out, with a keeper to each 
 lion. Among the other spectacles of rare and stu- 
 pendous luxury was a tree of gold and silver spreading 
 into eighteen large branches, on which and on the 
 lesser boughs sat a variety of birds made of the same 
 precious metals, as well as the leaves of the tree. While 
 the machinery affected spontaneous motions, the 
 several birds warbled their natural harmony. Through 
 this scene of magnificence the Greek ambassador was 
 led by the vizier to the foot of the Caliph's throne.' 
 Lane says the tree rose from a pond which was sur- 
 rounded by the ' Palace of the Tree.' Without doubt 
 it represents the vegetation of Paradise, and probably 
 it formed a part of the treasure taken from Chosroes, 
 as Baghdad was built about a hundred years after the 
 Conquest. A story of a king who built a false paradise 
 seems always to have been current in this region of 
 Western Asia. Here Marco Polo places the paradise 
 of the King of the Assasins. 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE lOI 
 
 The East is the true soil to produce trees like 
 this ; there, indeed, they seem to flourish. Permit 
 an extract describing a tree that may not properly 
 belong to the present subject. The monk Rubruquis, 
 sent on a mission from St Louis to Central Asia in 
 quest of Prester John, found in the service of the 
 Tartar Khan a goldsmith of Paris who had just 
 fabricated what he considered his masterpiece :— 
 
 ' In the Khan's palace,' says Rubruquis, ' because it 
 was unseemly to carry about bottles of milk and other 
 drinks there, Master William made him a great silver 
 tree, at the root whereof were four silver lions, having 
 each one pipe, through which flowed pure cow's milk, 
 and four other pipes were conveyed within the body 
 of the tree unto the top thereof, and the tops spread 
 back again downwards ; and upon every one of them 
 was a golden serpent, whose tails twined about 
 the body of the tree, and one of these pipes ran with 
 wine, another with koumis, another with " ball " — a 
 drink made of honey, and another of drink made of 
 rice. Between the pipes, at the top of the tree, he 
 made an angel holding a trumpet, and under the tree 
 a hollow vault, wherein a man might be hid, and a 
 pipe ascended from this vault through the tree to the 
 angel. He first made bellows, but they gave not 
 wind enough. Without the palace walls there was a 
 chamber wherein the several drinks were brought, 
 and there were servants there ready to pour them out 
 when they heard the angel sounding his trumpet. 
 And the boughs of the tree were of silver, and the 
 leaves of the fruit. When, therefore, they want drink, 
 the master butler crieth to the angel that he sound 
 the trumpet. Then he, hearing (who is hid in the 
 vault), bloweth the pipe strongly, which goeth to 
 the angel, and the angel sets his trumpet to his 
 mouth, and the trumpet soundeth very shrill. Then 
 
102 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 the servants hearing, which are in the chamber ; each of 
 them poureth forth his drink into the proper pipe, and 
 all the pipes pour them forth from above, and they 
 are received below in vessels prepared for that 
 purpose.' 
 
 It may be remarked that these mechanical move- 
 ments were within the range of legitimate art in the 
 Middle Ages, for Villars de Honecourt, a contem- 
 porary of Rubruquais, describes how angels might be 
 made to bow the head at the holy name. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, Tavernier, another 
 French traveller, saw a golden gem-bearing tree made 
 for the Great Mogul's palace at Agra ; and as he was 
 an expert in gems, there is no doubt of his testimony. 
 In this palace, ' on the side that looks towards 
 the river, there is a divan, or a kind of outjutting 
 balcony, where the king sits to see his elephants fight. 
 Before the divan, is a gallery that serves for a portico, 
 which Cha-Jehan had a design to have adorned all 
 over with a kind of lattice-work of emeralds and 
 rubies that should have represented to the life grapes 
 when they are green and when they begin to grow 
 red ; but this design, which made such a noise in the 
 world, and required more riches than all the world 
 could afford to perfect, remains unfinished ; there being 
 only three stocks of a vine in gold, with their leaves 
 like the rest ought to have been; and enamelled 
 in their natural colours with emeralds, rubies, and 
 garnets wrought into the fashion of grapes.' 
 
 In such collections of Hindu Folk-stories as ' Old 
 Deccan Days,' we find these trees ; indeed, in India 
 they appear to be realised even to this day. Sir 
 George Birdwood says : ' Trees of solid gold and 
 silver representing the mango or any other tree, and of 
 all sizes, are common decorations in Hindu houses. 
 Often they are made of silk and feathers and tinsel, 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 103 
 
 and they always recall to mind the terpole or golden 
 vine made in ancient times by the goldsmiths of 
 Jerusalem.' 
 
 One of these golden vines of Jerusalem decorated 
 the entrance to Herod's Temple. The gate, Josephus 
 says, with the wall about it, was all covered with gold. 
 ' It also had golden vines upon it, from which clusters 
 of grapes hung down equal in height to that of a 
 man.' This appears to have been carried on the beams 
 of the Toran or isolated gate, and ' whoever vowed a 
 leaf, or grape, or bunch of grapes, suspended it from 
 the vine.' Thus adorned, the gate of sunrise must 
 have surpassed all imagination in splendour, as the 
 rising sun shone on the precious metal. Another vine 
 of the value of five hundred talents called Terpole, 
 'the delight,' was sent to Pompey, which seems to 
 have much impressed the people of Rome when 
 carried in the triumph, as it is mentioned by Pliny 
 and Tacitus. 
 
 In Mediaeval and Eastern traditions there existed 
 somewhere, difficult, but mayhap not impossible of 
 access, the terrestrial Paradise, and there such trees 
 expanded, their branches swaying in the perfumed air. 
 After the discovery of America and the riches of 
 Peru, the hope of finding this golden land seems to 
 have revived. Even men like Raleigh appear to have 
 been moved by the illusion ; in his account of the dis- 
 covery of Guiana he quotes with approval the descrip- 
 tion by the Spanish historian of the Indies, Lopez, of 
 the state and magnificence of the Emperor who had his 
 seat at Manoa, which the Spaniards call El Dorado. 
 All the vessels of the kitchen were of gold, and he had 
 the images of all beasts, birds, and trees in their due 
 proportion and bigness all of gold. ' Yea, and they 
 say the Ingas had a garden of pleasure in an island 
 
104 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 near Puna, where they went to recreate themselves 
 when they would take the air of the sea, which 
 had all kind of garden herbs, flowers, and trees of 
 gold and silver, an invention and magnificence till 
 then never seen.' This agrees with the native 
 accounts of the temple of the sun and its gardens 
 at Cuzco, where the animals, insects, and trees were of 
 gold (Nadaillac). Such gardens wherever found are 
 set imitations of Paradise. 
 
 One of the rulers of Cairo, the son of Ibn-Tulun, 
 who succeeded him in 883, seems to have set himself 
 to rival the garden of delights in a ' paradise,' ' which 
 was filled with lilies, gilliflowers, saffron ; with palms 
 and trees of all sorts, the trunks of which he coated 
 with copper gilt, behind which leaden pipes supplied 
 fountains which gushed forth to water the garden. 
 Peacocks, guinea-fowls, doves, and pigeons with rare 
 birds from Nubia, had their home in the garden 
 and aviary. There was also a menagerie, and 
 especially a blue-eyed lion, who crouched beside his 
 master when he sat at table, and guarded him when 
 he slept. But the chief wonder remains to be described. 
 It was a lake of quicksilver ; on the surface of this lake 
 lay a leather bed inflated with air, fastened by silk 
 bands to four silver supports at the corners ; here 
 alone the insomnolent sovereign could take his rest ' 
 (S. Lane-Poole). 
 
 We remember the garden in which Aladdin gathered 
 from the trees the precious stones they bore, ' all of 
 the largest size, and the most perfect ever seen in the 
 whole world.' To the Mohammedan such a garden 
 still exists, but hidden from human eyes. It is said 
 that Sheddad, the third or fourth in descent from 
 Noah, bliilt in ' Irim of many columns ' a palace, and 
 enclosed a garden in imitation of Paradise. Southey 
 gives the following in his notes to ' Thalaba : ' 'A 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 105 
 
 pleasant and elevated spot being fixed upon, Sheddad 
 despatched a hundred chiefs to collect skilled artists 
 and workmen from all countries. He also commanded 
 the monarchs of Syria and Ormus to send him all 
 their jewels and precious stones. Forty camel-loads 
 of gold, silver, and jewels were daily used in the 
 building, which contained a thousand spacious quad- 
 rangles of many thousand rooms. In the areas were 
 artificial trees of gold and silver, whose leaves were 
 emeralds, and fruit clusters of jewels and pearls. The 
 ground was strewed with ambergris, musk, and saffron. 
 Between every two of the artificial trees was planted 
 one of delicious fruit. This romantic abode took up 
 five hundred years in the completion. When finished, 
 Sheddad marched to view it, and when arrived near, 
 divided two hundred thousand youthful slaves whom 
 he had brought with him from Damascus into four 
 detachments, which were stationed in cantonments 
 prepared for their reception on each side of the 
 garden, towards which he proceeded with his favourite 
 courtiers. Suddenly was heard in the air a voice 
 like thunder, and Sheddad, looking up, beheld a 
 personage of majestic figure and stern aspect, who 
 said, " I am the angel of death, commissioned to seize 
 thy impure soul." Sheddad exclaimed, " Give me 
 leisure to enter the garden," and was descending 
 from his horse, when the seizer of life snatched 
 away his impure spirit, and he fell dead upon the 
 ground. At the same time, lightnings flashed and 
 destroyed the whole army of the infidel, and the 
 rose garden of Irim became concealed from the sight 
 of man.' 
 
 The gold trees of Paradise may be found even 
 to-day. Lady Dufferin tells us how the colossal gilt 
 stupa of Rangoon stands on a raised plateau ; all 
 round it there is an enclosure of small topes : ' outside 
 
I06 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 these is a row of gilt trees bearing glass fruits.' The 
 whole is symbolic of the celestial mountain of the 
 gods. 
 
 Quintus Curtius, in the 'History of Alexander,' 
 describes the state and splendour of the Indian 
 monarch Musicanus : ' Golden vines twined round 
 the silver columns of the palace, amidst whose 
 branches artificial birds of silver in imitation of those 
 most esteemed in India were disposed by the nicest 
 art by the curious designer ' (Maurice). 
 
 The Greeks told of a tree of gold, the handiwork of 
 the somewhat mythical artist Theodorus of Samos, 
 who is said to have been the first to cast bronze 
 statues. Heredotus tells us that Pythias, a Lydian of 
 enormous wealth, made Darius a present of a golden 
 vine and a plane tree. Athenaeus -describes the vine 
 as having clusters of jewels in form and colour of 
 grapes, the whole spread like a rich canopy over the 
 golden bed of that monarch. 
 
 Philostratus says that ApoUonius saw the golden 
 tree, with fruit of olives represented by emeralds, 
 which was given by Pygmalion King of Tyre to the 
 Tyrian temple of Hercules at Gades. 
 
 In the last resort such great achievements are 
 ' works of fairy,' or of the immortal crafts-gods. 
 Hephaestos who formed the shield of Achilles like 
 the world in shape, who wrought the gold and silver 
 dogs at the Palace gate of Alcinous like the guardians 
 of the gate of the west, made also such a tree. ' Zeus 
 after carrying off Ganymede to be his cupbearer, 
 made atonement to the royal family of Troy by the 
 present of a vine of gold fashioned by Hephaestos ' 
 (A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion). 
 
 The transition from a tree made by supernatural 
 art to a ' natural ' golden tree is but slight ; such 
 was the tree from which .(Eneas had to pluck the 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 107 
 
 bough before he could pass on the way to the 
 underworld. 
 
 ' A branch held sacred to the Stygian Juno, 
 Whose leafage and whose twigs are flexile gold : 
 The subterranean kingdom none may enter 
 Who doth not gather first the golden foil.' 
 
 An Indian historian, quoted by Orme, says of 
 Mamud of Gazna, that in the course of his conquests 
 he found a tree growing out of the earth to an 
 enormous size, of which the substance was pure gold ; 
 this would seem an Eastern version of the incident 
 quoted later from the ' Romance of Alexander,' where 
 the tree foretells his death. 
 
 In Greek stories, too, we have trees which bear 
 golden fruit or flowers connected with the land of the 
 blissful west, as in Pindar — ' But the ocean breezes 
 blow around the blessed islands, and golden flowers 
 burn on their bright trees for evermore ; ' or Hesiod — 
 ' The Hesperian maids who guard the golden fruit 
 beyond the ocean's sound.' And just as Hercules 
 goes to this garden, so does* the Babylonian hero 
 Gilgames, in his wanderings beyond the gates of the 
 sun, see a tree, which — 
 
 ' To the forest of the trees of the gods in appearance was equal. 
 Emeralds it carried as its fruit, 
 The branch refuses not to support a canopy, 
 Crystal they carried as shoots. 
 Fruit they carry, and to the sight it is glistening.' 
 
 Count d'Alviella, in an exhaustive article, ^ Les 
 Arbres Paradiseaques', speaks of this conception as 
 that of ' a celestial tree carrying for fruit the planets, 
 stars, and all the gems of heaven.' Fire and thunder 
 were produced in its branches which cloud the sky, 
 and drop the heavenly ambrosia. Professor Sayce 
 and Lenormant agree in this view. The fruit of this 
 tree, says the latter, is fire. It can hardly be doubted 
 
I08 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 that it is this same tree whose many branches we have 
 been tracing to a common stem. The golden gem- 
 bearing tree is the natural growth of traditions of that 
 all-embracing world tree which carries the stars for 
 its fruit in the dark heaven of night. Dr Terrien de 
 Lacouperie has also devoted a special study to this 
 cosmic tree. He sees it represented in the Tat pillar of 
 Egypt as well as in the star-bearing tree of Hindus 
 and Iranians, the calendar tree of China, and many 
 others. 
 
 A similar conception is plainly expressed in the 
 Kalevala, where Wainamoinen — 
 
 ' Sang aloft a wondrous pine tree 
 Till it pierced the clouds in growing 
 With its golden top and branches, 
 Till it touched the very heavens ; 
 Spread its branches in the ether, 
 Sings the moon to shine for ever. 
 In the fir tree's emerald branches. 
 In its top he sings the Great Bear.' 
 
 The bear was in a cradle, and the tree stood on the 
 summit of the Gold Hill; and, as in our nursery song, 
 
 ' . . . The winds and sacred branches 
 Rock him to his lasting slumber. 
 To the pleasure of the hunter.' 
 
 Sir William Drummond says of the tree of the 
 Cabbalists : ' Though called a tree, it was a type of 
 the mundane system, and in CEdipus Judaicus a fruit 
 tree was certainly a symbol of the starry heavens, and 
 the fruits typified the constellations. The Arabians 
 typify the zodiac by a fruit tree, and on the twelve 
 branches of this tree the stars are depicted as fruits. 
 The Cabbalists represent the tree of life as marked 
 with the emblems of the zodiac, and as bearing 
 twelve fruits,' etc., and -concludes : ' We shall hardly 
 doubt that trees, and especially fruit trees, were 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 109 
 
 symbols of the starry heavens' (Landseer). This, 
 may we not say, becomes certainty when the trees 
 a^TQ golden and hezx gems as fruit. 
 
 The planets were co-related to the several precious 
 stones, as is shown in the next chapter. The fitness 
 of the comparison between a gem and a star is at once 
 apparent to the child, ' like a diamond in the sky.' It is 
 curious here to remember that gold and precious 
 stones were always thought of as self-lustrous ; 
 Homer's palaces give out a radiance like moonlight ; 
 and Cupid's palace in Apuleius was plated over with 
 gold, so that ' even were the sun to withhold his light 
 the palace could make a day for its own.' The 
 columns of gold and emeralds seen by Herodotus at 
 Tyre gave out light, and the imperial crown hang- 
 ing over the throne at Constantinople, as seen by 
 Benjamin of Tudela, lighted up the whole chamber 
 with its brilliance. The well-designed palace of ro- 
 mance is always lighted, like Prester John's, externally 
 by a carbuncle on every gable ; and inside as in the 
 Folk tale ' Childe Rowland,' where a huge carbuncle 
 was suspended from the dome, ' spinning round and 
 round, and this is what gave light by its rays to the 
 whole hall.' 
 
 Many avenues lead us to the one gem-bearing tree ; 
 its branches may be said to stretch over all the earth. 
 The story of Jason and the golden fleece is strictly 
 parallel to that of Theseus — the imposed task, the 
 help of the princess, the flight, and the parting. But 
 the scene is the northern hemisphere of the heavens, 
 not the underworld of the south pole. The golden 
 treasure is guarded by a serpent, doubtless the cloud 
 dragon of darkness, who winds about that tree whose 
 stem is the axis of the heavenly revolution, just as 
 Draco still coils about the pole. 
 
 The tree of the golden fruit of the Hesperides grows 
 
no THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 on Mount Atlas, the sky-sustaining mountain, in the 
 country 'beyond the north wind,' where it was 
 guarded by the dragon Ladon. Some confusion seems 
 to have been occasioned as to the position of Mount 
 Atlas, which was later understood to be in the west ; 
 the complication came about, possibly, in consequence 
 of the generally received opinion that the land of 
 the departed was westward with the sunset, and yet 
 on the world mountain. In other accounts the 
 mountain paradise is north-east, or even east, a con- 
 sequence probably of the westward migration of the 
 peoples after the polar significance had been for- 
 gotten. In the Talmud, for instance, the sun is said 
 to be red in the east because of the roses of Eden, 
 and to glow at eve because of the fires of hell. 
 
 Like Atlas the Indian Mount Meru bore a tree, 
 Parajita, which perfumes the whole world with its 
 blossoms ; and India is called Jambu-dwipa, the land 
 of myrtle blooms, from this tree, which grows at its 
 centre. Its earthly position was hidden among the 
 Himalayas, ' mountains of heaven.' In the Veda 
 it is the heavenly Soma tree, dropping nectar for 
 the gods. In the Avesta of the Persians the details 
 are amplified, but the scene — the world, mountain 
 of paradise — and the tree are the same. ' Haoma, 
 golden flowered, that grows on the heights, Haoma 
 that restores us, that drives death afar.' There is 
 also a companion tree, and two birds roost on their 
 branches. These mythical birds — ' the two eagles of 
 the sky, Amru and Chamru — are invoked as helpful 
 powers. They nestle on the tree of life in the 
 heavens.' On the highest peak grows the Haoma ; from 
 the sea of heavenly waters grows the other tree, which 
 bears all seeds. 'When Amru sits on this tree the 
 seeds fall down, and Chamru carries them away,' and 
 they are rained down on the earth with the showers. 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE III 
 
 So all earthly trees as well as all the waters come to 
 us from the central heaven, where all life originated 
 (Duncker's Hist. Ant). The more modern Persian 
 Simurgh in Firdausi is the counterpart of the bird of 
 the tree of life. 
 
 The northern world-ash, the high seat of the gods 
 and prop of the sky, had the stars for fruit ; around its 
 stem was coiled Nidhogg the serpent, and on the top- 
 most branch the eagle sang of creation and destruc- 
 tion. A tree like this is the fit habitation for such a 
 bird as is well known in old fables under different 
 names : and so in Eastern story the Garuda perches 
 on a wonderful tree, from which it flies to seize the 
 rhinoceros or elephant in its grip and bear them away. 
 
 In old Japanese lore there is a vast metal pine 
 tree which grows in the north at the world centre. 
 Our Saxon forefathers told of Irminsul the column 
 of the sky — the ' Pole ' in the double significance. 
 The golden apple tree appears frequently in Folk 
 Stories, usually in connection with a visit to the other 
 world. In a Bohemian storyan immense tree grows past 
 the clouds. A princess desires to have of its fruit. 
 Hans, the youngest son of a peasant — the male 
 parallel of Cinderella, scorned but successful — after 
 all have failed, makes the essay. He starts, taking a 
 number of wooden shoes to drop one daily. After 
 climbing some days, he sees a light glimmering ; it is 
 the dwelling of a very old woman ; he asks how far it 
 is to the top, and she answers : ' Thou hast yet far to 
 go, I am only Monday. Thou must come to Tues- 
 day, Wednesday, and so on to Saturday.' In his 
 long journey upwards all this comes to pass. After 
 leaving Saturday, he comes to a stone wall, into which 
 the stem of the tree had grown. He goes through a 
 little door, and in a golden meadow there is a golden 
 city, with splendours unendurable to human eyes. 
 
112 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 golden creatures leaped in the pasture, and the fruit 
 of the tree was all of gold. ' Hans believed he was 
 in heaven, and he stopped there ; others say he came 
 down again to earth and related this story.' Monday, 
 Tuesday, and the rest occupy the planetary spheres ; 
 the wall is the firmament. 
 
 There is a remarkable agreement in these legends 
 of the Greek, Babylonian, Hindu, Norse, and Finnish 
 world mountain. It stood at the North Pole, ' in the 
 country of the Hyperboreans ;'itwasof gold and precious 
 stones, or of crystal, like the dome-shaped mountains 
 of glass in Folk Tales. At its apex grows the great 
 Tree of the Heavens, whose stem and branches of 
 gold carry stars of precious stones for fruit, and on 
 whose highest point perches the solar Phoenix. Here 
 is the Earthly Paradise, the Garden of the Sun, as is 
 perfectly understood in the following, extracts from 
 the ' Romance of Alexander,' from Sir John Maunde- 
 ville, and from Dante. 
 
 In India, Alexander and his army came to two 
 paths, eastward and north ; they try eastward, but it 
 is impassable, and they go back and attempt the other 
 to the north, by which at last they reach a cliff 
 covered with diamonds, with hanging chains of red 
 gold. Two thousand five hundred steps there were, 
 which they ascend, and reach the clouds and 'wait 
 for wonders,' They see 'a palais, one of the pre- 
 cioussest and proudest in earth, and built, as the book 
 says, with two broad gates and seventy windows, of 
 gold, carven, and clustered with gems.' 
 
 There was a temple surrounded by a garden of 
 golden vines full of great fruit of carbuncle stones ; it 
 was the ' house of the sun ' and paradise. Alexander 
 enters, and on a gorgeous bed he finds a god, who 
 asks him if he would have his future known by inquiry 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE II3 
 
 of the trees of the sun and moon ; on his consenting, 
 they approach two enormous trees, that of the moon 
 was silver ; the tree of the sun was gold, and on its crest 
 sat ' a proud bird.' ' All gilded was her gorge with 
 golden feathers.' ' Yon is a fearless fowl, a Fenix we 
 call.' It is predicted that Alexander will never return. 
 
 ' Of Paradise,' says Sir John Maundeville, ' I cannot 
 speak properly, for I was not there. It is far beyond; 
 and that forthinketh me, and also I was not worthy. 
 But as I have heard say of wise men beyond, I shall 
 tell you with goodwill. Paradyse terrestre, as wise 
 men say, is the highest place of earth that is in all the 
 world, and it is so high that it toucheth nigh to the 
 circle of the moon there as the moon maketh her turn.' 
 There, also, is the Well of Paradise, many precious 
 stones, much lignum aloes, and much gravel of gold. 
 
 In Dante's system the point under the zenith of our 
 northern heavens is occupied by Jerusalem ; the anti- 
 podes of this is Mount Purgatory, which rises from 
 the seas of the southern hemisphere, the land being 
 drawn up to the mountain, leaving the sea all round. 
 It is in the form of the Babylonian terraced pyramid 
 of seven stages ; the top is the earthly paradise, and 
 he passes thence to the circle of the moon. 
 
 ' Those who in ancient times have feigned in song 
 The Age of Gold and its felicity. 
 Dreamed of this place perhaps upon Parnassus ; 
 Here was the human race in innocence. 
 Here evermore was spring, and every fruit, 
 This is the nectar of which each one speaks.' 
 
 Such was Beatrice's welcome, and then he sees — 
 ' A little further on seven trees of gold. 
 
 But when I had approached so near to them, 
 
 The faculty that lends discourse to reason 
 Did apprehend that they were candlesticks.' 
 H 
 
114 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 It is thus as a light-bearer, a candelabrum, 
 that the artificial tree would best fulfil a symbolic 
 function in the representation of the great mysterious 
 tree whose canopy forms the firmament and bears the 
 light-giving stars as its fruit — a symbolism which we 
 appear to perpetuate, as year by year at the winter 
 solstice we light the candles on the Christmas tree. 
 In the East, where tradition ' lingers last, as loath to 
 die,' the lighting is properly by means of a lamp-tree. 
 ' There is in the Prince of Wales' collection a remark- 
 able candelabrum in silver gilt from Shringar, shaped 
 like a conventional tree, and ornamented all over with 
 the crescent and flame device and hanging fishes, its 
 design being evidently derived through Persia from a 
 Turkoman original. The candelabra seen in Hindu 
 temples constantly takes this tree form without the 
 addition of the symbols of the sky and ether.' And 
 not only in temples ; ' the high brass tree, like cande- 
 labra, with a number of branches bearing little lamps 
 filled with oil, and having a wick in each, are a marked 
 feature in great houses in Lahore ' (Birdwood, ' Indian 
 Arts '). In the Indian Museum at South Kensington 
 are several of these lamp-trees, one of which, figured 
 on next page, is a very fine design ; it has not very 
 many leaves, but monkeys climb on the boughs. In 
 another example the lamp bowls are shaped like birds. 
 
 The classic bronze candelabra that fill our museums 
 almost universally follow the same thought through 
 many modifications of design. Sometimes where there 
 is but one stem it has vestiges of lopped branches, or 
 leafy appendages at intervals ; or the top bowl rests on 
 the fork of three branches which have been cut off. 
 Others again, perfectly plain, have an animal chasing 
 a bird up the stem ; still others, with or without an 
 otherwise clearly defined tree form, have a snake coiled 
 round the stem. There are examples of all of these 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 "S 
 
 in the British Museum, two or three of each show that 
 they are types, not accidents. Close to these candelabra 
 
 is a bronze Hercules standing by the tree of the 
 Hesperides ; the guardian serpent being coiled around 
 
ii6 
 
 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 its trunk, exactly like the serpent on the candlesticks. 
 We may hardly doubt that this bronze tree is a 
 candlestick, the branches of which bore suspended 
 lamps. A tree candelabrum found at Pompeii has 
 hanging lamps in the form of snails. These classic 
 
 candlesticks wher- 
 ever found, in Et- 
 ruria, Greece, or 
 South Italy, have 
 this tree-like form. 
 Of the Etruscan 
 ones Mr Dennis 
 says : — 
 
 'The shafts are 
 
 often fluted, or 
 
 twisted, or knotted 
 
 .7' ~ - _= 1 1 US ^E=j like the stem of a 
 
 \,^_^/ IWI tree. It was a 
 
 favourite conceit to 
 
 introduce a cat or 
 
 squirrel chasing a 
 
 bird up the shaft, 
 
 and the bowl above 
 
 has often little birds 
 
 around it, as though 
 
 it were a nest, so 
 
 _^^-=saj^^^ - ^^ -=- ^. that the whole is 
 
 Q. ff^ ^^'XTtC' ^i^ t\^&x\ intended to 
 
 *»— -* V/-.-/^ represent a tree. 
 
 Sometimes a boy 
 or monkeyis climb- 
 ing the shaft, or a snake is coiling round it. It often 
 terminates above, not in a bowl, but in a number of 
 branches, from which lamps were suspended.' 
 
 Dr Smith's Dictionary gives a similar account of 
 the Greek examples. Even the later Roman marble 
 candelabra carry forward the tradition. 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 117 
 
 A parallel custom was for the lamp to have seven 
 nozzles, the number of the planets, like an example of 
 Roman work in the British Museum, and this became 
 a very general form, and still seven lamps burn before 
 the altars of many churches. We may also while 
 speaking of the symbolism of lighting, remark that 
 the hanging crowns of light in Christian Churches, of 
 which that at Hildeshiem is such a fine example, were 
 
 understood to symbolise the New Jerusalem with its 
 twelve towered gates. Mr Morris, with fine insight, 
 makes the solitary lamp in the ' House of the Wolfings' 
 ' The Hall Sun.' That these should all be undying 
 flames is, of course, of the essence of the symbolism. 
 
 Nor can we forget the seven-branched candlestick 
 in the Temple, of gold, ornamented with ' knops and 
 
Il8 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 flowers;' the seven lamps symbolising to Josephus 
 the seven planets. It seems to have been understood 
 in the Middle Ages that this was a tree, for a fourteenth 
 century poem on Bible history makes the birds flutter 
 among the leaves when the golden treasure from 
 Jerusalem is exhibited at the feast in Babylon. Mr 
 Robertson Smith sees in the candlestick such a sym- 
 bolic tree, the motive being taken from the almond. 
 
 Following the Jewish was the Christian candle 
 tree. The description of Durham tells of a great 
 paschal candlestick that rose even to the high vault, 
 nearly as broad as the choir below, with seven flower- 
 shaped branches for tapers. Great seven-branched 
 candlesticks are frequent; those of Hildesheim and 
 Vienna are the best known from the casts at South 
 Kensington; the latter is called the 'Virgin's tree.' 
 It appears from Mr Walcott's ' Dictionary of Archae- 
 ology' that all important churches had a seven- 
 branched candlestick, and 'in some churches there 
 was a magnificent series of branches grouped together 
 called the Tree.' In Sta. Sophia, as finished by 
 Justinian, were placed many candelabra in the like- 
 ness of trees ; the whole effect was ' like a wood.' 
 
 At Delphi there was a bronze palm tree surmounted 
 by a gilt statue of Athene, on it there were owls and 
 imitations of fruit. Plutarch also describes, in the 
 same temple, a sacred palm-tree of bronze with frogs 
 in relief around the base. Almost certainly these 
 would be lamp bearing trees. Gerald Massey cites a 
 description of a temple in Cambodia where a bronze 
 tree, about which coiled a serpent, rose from a pool of 
 water. 
 
 Athenaeus says, ' Euphorion in his historical com- 
 mentaries says that the young Dionysius, the tyrant 
 of Sicily, dedicated in the prytaneum at Tarentum a 
 candlestick capable of containing as great a number 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE II9 
 
 of candles as there are days in the year.' Like a 
 many branched tree, it overhung the sacred hearth 
 in the skylike tholos. 
 
 Pausanias describes the Hght before the statue of 
 Athene in the Erechtheum : ' And Callemachus made 
 a golden lamp for the goddess. And when they fill 
 this lamp with oil, it lasts for a whole year, although 
 it burns continuously night and day, and the wick is 
 of a particular kind of cotton flax, the only sort im- 
 perishable by fire; and above the lamp is a palm 
 tree of brass, reaching to the roof, and carrying off 
 the smoke ; and Callemachus, the maker of this lamp, 
 although he comes behind the first artificers, yet was 
 remarkable for ingenuity, and got the name of Art 
 Critic, whether his own appellation, or given him by 
 others,' From Pliny it is apparent that this is no 
 isolated artistic whim, but that it was well understood 
 that the temples should be lighted with trees bearing 
 lamps, like the golden fruit of the heavens. Cande- 
 labra {lychnuchi f ensiles), he says, were placed in the 
 temples, or gave their light in the form of trees loaded 
 with fruit; such is the one, for instance, in the temple 
 of the Palatine Apollo, which Alexander the Great, 
 at the sacking of Thebes, brought to Cyme, and 
 dedicated to that god. An instance this of Greek 
 workmanship of considerable, perhaps of remote, 
 antiquity. 
 
 A slab recently discovered in Rome, showing the 
 Mithraic sanctuary, has on each side trees ; one carries 
 the sun as a demi-figure with a halo, and the other 
 the moon with a crescent. Curiously enough, in St. 
 Mark's at Venice there is such a representation in 
 the mosaics ; two lofty pillars are figured supporting 
 each a chariot and horses ; in the one is Phoebus, in 
 the other Diana with the crescent, and against them 
 is written, ' Stata Soils,' ' Stata Lunae,' a conception 
 
120 THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 
 
 entirely the same as is found thousands of years 
 before on Babylonian seals. 
 
 Dr Isaac Taylor says that the primitive Chinese 
 symbol for light was the sun on a tree. In Japanese 
 religious processions, sun and moon are carried about 
 in trees. The sacred trees of Greece, Apollo's laurel 
 at Delos, the olive of Athene in the Erectheium, and 
 the oak of Dodona, may have belonged to crude tree 
 worship, a subject treated at length by Mr Frazer in 
 the 'Golden Bough.' Duncker, however, saw in 
 Dodona another localisation of paradise with its 
 mount, tree, and the water of heaven. 
 
 The slabs and gems of Assyria repeatedly and 
 variously show us the sacred celestial tree, the complete 
 composition having the tree in the middle, above it the 
 winged sun disc of Asshur, and on either side guardian 
 genii. It bears fruit, and is called ' The Shining Tree,' 
 or ' Tree of Great Light.' There is no doubt that its 
 image was set up in the temples ; for a slab in the 
 Louvre, figured by Perrot, shows the king standing 
 before a tree of artificial construction ; and such, too, 
 was ' the graven image of the grove ' that the apostate 
 King of Israel placed in the Temple (2 Kings xxi. 7). 
 It is also shown among the Temple furniture carried 
 in processions. It was an ingeniously designed tree 
 of metal, of great splendour ; the fruit of that shown 
 so clearly in the beautiful slab figured by Perrot (fig. 
 45, Vol. II.) was doubtless of jewels. It has been 
 pointed out, by Layard and others, how the number 
 seven enters into their composition. 
 
 In Assyria, at an age unknown, the copy in the 
 Temple of the golden gem-bearing tree of the sky 
 was probably first set up. In Egypt, however, we 
 also meet the legend of the heavenly prototype, and 
 farther we cannot strain our gaze into the past. Nut, 
 the goddess of the heavenly ocean, whose body is 
 
THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE 121 
 
 decked with stars, has her abode in such a tree ; the 
 pilgrim to the lower world eats of its fruit, and the 
 goddess, leaning from the tree, pours out the water 
 of life. This was in the west, on the way travelled 
 by the dead. To the east there was another tree, 
 with wide radiating branches bearing jewels; up it 
 the strong morning sun, Horus, the first giant killer, 
 climbs to the zenith of heaven — ■ 
 
 ' The beautiful green tints on the horizon at day- 
 break and at the sunset are mythologically repre- 
 sented by the " Sycamore of Emerald," through the 
 midst of which the sun god advances into the firma- 
 ment ' (Renouf, ' Hibbert Lectures '). 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 ' And after shewed hym the nyne spheris 
 And after that the melodye herd he, 
 That Cometh ofthilke speris thries thre; 
 That welleys of musyke ben and melodye 
 In this world here and cause of armonye.' — Chaucer. 
 
 THE number seven is written on the sky. What 
 time the seven planets were counted and indi- 
 vidualised is beyond all history ; probably not two in 
 a hundred even now guess at any other planet than 
 Venus ; probably not two in a thousand have ever 
 seen Mercury, certainly not without a telescope ; yet 
 all of them we find distinguished by names and 
 grouped together as errant bodies among the fixed 
 stars in the earliest traditions : — (i) The Sun, (2) the 
 Moon, (3) Mars, (4) Mercury, (5) Jupiter, (6) Venus, 
 (7) Saturn. 
 
 The first known and named probably of all constel- 
 lations, the Great Bear, always visible above the 
 horizon, ' never bathing in ocean,' as Homer has it, is 
 a group of seven. The lesser Bear has the same 
 form, which is repeated a third time by the great 
 square of Pegasus, and the three bright stars in 
 Andromeda and Perseus. Seven also are the sym- 
 metrical and splendid stars of Orion. In France, 
 the Pleiades are still called the ' seven stars,' and the 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 12$ 
 
 north is named the Septentrion, from the stars of the 
 Great Bear. 
 
 The planets gave their names to the days of the 
 week, and still distinguish them all over the world 
 from France to China, and they are but slightly 
 obscured for us by their northern names. 
 
 The seven days of the week are the nearest whole 
 number to one-fourth of a month, a moon's quarter. 
 The two days completing the month of thirty days 
 were in Assyria intercalary. 
 
 Immense has been the influence of this magic num- 
 ber in philosophy, material and metaphysical. The 
 life of man has been divided into seven ages. The 
 first seven are the years of infancy. At three times 
 seven — twenty-one — we become 'of age.' Three 
 times twenty-one is the ' grand climacteric ; ' and 
 seventy years is put as the time to die. 
 
 So the life of the world was in Middle Age histories 
 divided into seven eras, of which we are in the last. 
 There were seven material heavens; this middle 
 world was divided into a like number of zones or 
 ' climates,' and the under world into as many depths. 
 In the philosophy of the schools every factor of the 
 universe had a sevenfold division. 
 
 In the Cursor Mundi it is remarked that there are 
 seven holes in the head, ' for maister sterres are there 
 seven.' 
 
 So absorbing has been the nature of this number, 
 that where groups occur, of anything from four to a 
 dozen, let us say, they are almost sure to be ' seven 
 sisters,' or 'seven brethren.' Sevenoaks, the seven 
 hills of Rome, or of Constantinople, the seven holy 
 cities of India, the seven architectural wonders of the 
 world. Mr. Ruskin tells us he found great difficulty 
 in limiting his ' seven lamps ' so that they should not 
 become eight or nine. 
 
124 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 The seven planets have had a potent influence over 
 architecture and the arts. 
 
 The sun, the moon, and the five other planets 
 were not only observed to move independently of the 
 ' sphere ' of the fixed stars, but independently of each 
 other, in varying periods. As the whole moving 
 heaven of the ' fixed stars ' was a solid ' firmament ' 
 studded with stars revolving around a pivot, the 
 earth mountain ; so, as the system was perfected, 
 other transparent spheres had to be imagined, one 
 for each planet, carrying it around in its due time. 
 The heavenly mountain of the gods is thus either 
 entirely celestial, the exterior of our firmament, 
 and the whole seven successive domed heavens ; 
 or it is the central mountain of this lower world, 
 the prop and pole of the heavens, divided into 
 seven stages, one to each planetary sphere. Prac- 
 tically it is impossible to keep these two notions sepa- 
 rate, and to say which is the Olympus — the stepped 
 mountain supporting the heavens, or the seven-fold 
 heavens itself. Dr. Rink, speaking of the Esqui- 
 maux, says : ' The upper world, it would seem, may 
 be considered identical with the mountain, round the 
 top of which the vaulted sky is for ever circling.' 
 Olympus, to the Greeks, was many peaked, or of 
 many layers, like the stratum without stratum of the 
 Iranian mountain of the stars. By the addition of a 
 sphere for the fixed stars, and an outer and immovable 
 envelope, the seven became nine heavens. 
 
 In the Vedas there are seven heavens. ' In the 
 Hindu cosmogony,' writes Sir G. Birdwood, 'the 
 world is likened to a lotus flower floating in the 
 centre of a shallow circular vessel, which has for 
 its stalk an elephant, and for its pedestal a tortoise. 
 The seven petals of the lotus flower represent the 
 seven divisions of the world, as known to the ancient 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES , 125 
 
 Hindus, and the tabular torus, which rises from their 
 centre, represents Mount Meru, the ideal Himalayas 
 (Himmel), the Hindu Olympus. It ascends by seven 
 spurs, on which the seven separate cities and palaces 
 of the gods are built, amid green woods and murmur- 
 ing streams, in seven circles placed one above another.' 
 Here is a tree which perfumes the whole world with its 
 blossoms, a car of lapis lazuli, a throne of fervent gold ; 
 ' and over all, on the summit of Meru, is Brahmapura, 
 the entranced city of Brahma, encompassed by the 
 sources of the sacred Ganges, and the orbits in which 
 for ever shine the sun and silver moon and seven 
 planetary spheres.' The old Japanese poems trans- 
 lated by Mr Chamberlain speak of a mountain at 
 the ' earth's acme or omphalos, which extended even 
 to the skies ; on its summit was a beautiful house.' 
 
 The modern view in Siam is similar. Mr. Carl 
 Bock writes : ' According to Laosian idea, the centre 
 of the world is Mount Zinnalo, which is half under 
 water and half above. The sub-aqueous part of the 
 mount is a solid rock, which has three root-like rocks 
 protruding from the water into the air below. Round 
 this mountain is coiled a large fish of such leviathan 
 proportions that it can embrace and move the moun- 
 tain ; when it sleeps the earth is quiet, but when it 
 moves it produces earthquakes.' 'Above the earth 
 and around this great mountain is the firmament, 
 with the sun, the moon, and the stars. These are 
 looked upon as the ornaments of the heavenly temples. 
 Above the water is the inhabited earth, and on each 
 of the four sides of Mount Zinnalo are seven hills, 
 rising in equal gradations one above the other, which 
 are the first ascents the departed has to make.' 
 
 The planets themselves, which were affixed to their 
 several spheres, were apparently thought of as having 
 the nature of self-lustrous metals or gems, as they 
 
126 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 were perceived to be diversified in colour — the golden 
 sun, the silver moon, the red Mars of war. Thus the 
 names of the several precious stones were given to 
 the spheres. 
 
 In the Mohammedan scheme, as we have seen, the 
 seven spheres have these distinctive colours. The 
 first is described as formed of emerald; the second, 
 of white silver ; the third, of large white pearls ; 
 the fourth, of ruby ; the fifth, of red gold ; the sixth, 
 of yellow jacinth ; and the seventh, of shining light.' 
 
 Such being the conception of a holy mountain whose 
 top reached to heaven ; we need not wonder, we may 
 expect to find many local identifications of it in the 
 inaccessible snow-capped mountains of Pamir or the 
 Himalayas ; in Ararat, Parnassus, and the Thessalian 
 Olympus. Inferior sites would also be artificially 
 improved, thus Lenormant, in his article on Ararat 
 and Eden (Contemp. Rev., Sept. 1881), thinks it clearly 
 proved that Solomon and Hezekiah had this idea in 
 the distribution of the waters which flowed from 
 under the Temple in four streams, one of which 
 was named Gihon. He quotes Obry : ' The Bud- 
 dhists of Ceylon have endeavoured to transform their 
 central mountain. Peak of the Gods, into Meru, and 
 to find four streams descending from its sides to 
 correspond with the rivers of their paradise.' And 
 Wilford, in vol. viii. of ' Asiatic Researches,' says the 
 early kings of India were fond of raising mounds of 
 earth called ' Peaks of Meru,' which they reverenced 
 like the holy mount. One of these near Benares bore 
 an inscription which makes this clear. A country was 
 divided into seven, nine, or twelve nomes or provinces, 
 and the people into as many castes or tribes. 
 
 The Chaldeans had early perfected this universe 
 of seven spherical strata, and with them we have 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 127 
 
 stupendous architectural structures, known as Zig- 
 gurats, erected, ' as an imitation or artificial reproduc- 
 tion of the mythical mountain of the assembly of the 
 stars ' (Ararat and Eden). 
 
 ' Now, the pyramidical temple is the tangible ex- 
 pression, the material and architectural manifestation, 
 of the Chaldaio-Babylonian religion. Serving both 
 as a sanctuary and as an observatory for the stars, 
 it agreed admirably with the genius of the essentially 
 siderial religion to which it was united by an indis- 
 soluble bond ' (' Chaldean Magic '). 
 
 These structures belong to a class not properly 
 temples. They are rather Mounts of Paradise — 
 terraced altars. 'God Thrones' might best explain 
 their purpose. They represent the world from with- 
 out as a seat rather than a shrine for the Deity. If 
 the word temple is here used, it is only in deference 
 to custom. 
 
 Herodotus describes the Ziggurat of Babylon thus : 
 ' The sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square enclo- 
 sure two furlongs each way, with gates of solid brass, 
 was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the 
 precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong 
 in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second 
 tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The 
 ascent up to the top is on the outside by a path which 
 winds round all the towers. When one is about halfway 
 up, one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons 
 are wont to sit sometime on their way to the summit. 
 On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple.' 
 
 This great metropolitan ' God Throne,' Perrot gives 
 as the type of the Chaldean temple ; and from the 
 mounds and the temples depicted on the slabs, he 
 has, together with the architect M. Chipiez, made a 
 series of restorations in the volumes on the Art of 
 Babylon and Assyria. He says : ' In spite of the 
 
128 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 words of Herodotus, M. Chipiez has only given his 
 tower seven stages, because that number seems to 
 have been sacred and traditional, and Herodotus may 
 well have counted the plinth or the terminal chapet in 
 the eight mentioned in his description.' 
 
 Mr George Smith, indeed, deciphered a tablet 
 which actually gave the dimensions of this Ziggurat 
 for all the seven stages. The bottom stage was 300 
 feet square and no feet high ; the second, 260 feet 
 sloping upwards, and 60 feet high ; the third, 200 
 feet, and 20 feet high ; fourth, fifth, and sixth, 170, 
 140, no feet respectively, each 20 feet high. And 
 the top stage, the seventh (evidently the sanctuary, 
 from its change of form), was oblong, 80 by 70 feet, 
 and 50 feet high ; the whole height being thus 300 
 feet, exactly the same as the base. These dimensions 
 are set out in the drawing that forms the frontispiece, 
 which is believed to be the first published drawing 
 founded on these measurements ; that of Perrot 
 and Chipiez being entirely conjectural. However 
 doubtful the translation into English measure may 
 be, the form and proportion remain, and the result 
 is a majestic and mysterious suggestion of volume 
 and stability. 
 
 Herodotus also gives an account of the city and 
 palace of Ecbatana of the Medes : ' This fortification 
 is so contrived that each circle was raised above the 
 other by the height of the battlements only. The 
 situation of the ground, rising by an easy ascent, was 
 very favourable to the design. But that which was 
 particularly attended to is that, there being seven 
 circles altogether, the king's palace and the treasury 
 are situated within the innermost of them. The 
 largest of these walls is about equal in circumference 
 to the city of Athens. The battlements of the first 
 circle are white ; of the second, black ; of the third, 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 129 
 
 purple ; of the fourth, blue ; of the fifth, bright red. 
 Thus the battlements of all the circles are painted 
 with different colours ; but the two last have their 
 battlements plated, the one with silver, the other with 
 gold.' 
 
 Erech, the old sacred city of the Chaldeans, is 
 called on a tablet ' The City of the Seven Zones or 
 Stones ' (Sayce). ^ 
 
 At Borsippa, close to Baylon, there was a very 
 ancient terraced temple or Ziggurat ; it was restored 
 by Nebuchadnezzar, and an inscription of his is pre- 
 served, which says : ' I have repaired and perfected the 
 marvel of Borsippa, the temple of the seven spheres 
 of the world. I have erected it in bricks which I have 
 covered with copper. I have covered with zones, 
 alternately of marble and other precious stones, the 
 sanctuary of God.' Rawlinson writes : ' The orna- 
 mentation of the edifice was chiefly by means of 
 colour. The seven stages represented the seven 
 spheres, in which moved, according to ancient Chal- 
 dean astronomy, the seven planets. To each planet 
 fancy, partly grounding itself upon fact, had from of 
 old assigned a peculiar tint or hue. The sun was 
 golden ; the moon, silver ; the distant Saturn, almost 
 beyond the region of light, was black; Jupiter was 
 orange (the foundation for this colour, as for that of 
 Mars and Venus, was probably the actual hue of the 
 planet) ; the fiery Mars was red ; Venus was a pale 
 Naples yellow ; Mercury, a deep blue. The seven 
 stages of the tower-like walls of Ecbatana gave a 
 visible embodiment to these fancies. The basement 
 stage, assigned to Saturn, was blackened by means of 
 a coating of bitumen spread over the face of the 
 masonry; the second stage, assigned to Jupiter, 
 obtained the appropriate orange colour by means of 
 a facing of burned bricks of that hue ; the third stage, 
 
 1 
 
I30 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 that of Mars, was made blood-red by the use of half- 
 burned bricks formed of a red clay ; the fourth stage, 
 assigned to the Sun, appears to have been actually 
 covered with; thin plates of gold ; the fifth, the stage 
 of Venus, received a pale yellow tint from the em- 
 ployment of bricks of that colour; the sixth, the 
 sphere of Mercury, was given an azure tint by vitri- 
 faction, the whole stage having been subjected to an 
 intense heat after it was erected, whereby the bricks 
 composing it were converted into a mass of blue slag; 
 the seventh stage, that of the Moon, was probably, 
 like the fourth, coated with actual plates of metal. 
 Thus the building rose up in stripes of varied colour, 
 arranged almost as Nature's cunning arranges the 
 hues of the rainbow — tones of red coming first, suc- 
 ceeded by a broad stripe of yellow, the yellow being 
 followed by blue. Above this the glowing silvery 
 summit melted into the bright sheen of the sky' 
 (Ancient Monarchies). 
 
 The order in which the stages encircled one another 
 spreading outwards to the base, represented in correct 
 sequence the orbits of the planets, as was supposed, 
 around the earth. The small orbit of the moon at 
 the top ; the sun taking the place of the earth, as it 
 appears to journey through the twelve signs of the 
 year ; and Saturn last of all. Generally, however, as 
 in the walls of Ecbatana, the sun and moon lead the 
 planets in the order of the days of the week. The 
 order in which the days of the week are named after 
 the planets, Mr Proctor says, is obtained in the 
 following manner. If all the hours throughout the 
 week are dedicated to the planets in the sequence of 
 their observed -distances — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, 
 Venus, Mercury, Moon — then beginning with Saturday 
 the planet which rules the first hour of the next day 
 will be the Sun, and of the next the Moon, and so on 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 131 
 
 for all the days of the week. This explanation takes for 
 granted that the days were divided into twenty-four 
 parts before the seven days were named after the 
 planets. 
 
 Another of these Ziggurats, an adjunct to Sargon's 
 palace, was discovered by M. Place at Korsabad, 
 and by him named the Observatory; this was 143 
 feet at the base, and is supposed to have been the 
 same height. Three whole stages and part of a 
 fourth, were still in existence. ' Coloured stucco, vary- 
 ing in hue from one stage to another, was still visible, 
 and confirmed the statement of Herodotus as to the 
 traditional sequence of the tints.' The stages of this 
 building were each about 20 feet high. The first was 
 white ; the second, black ; the third, red ; the fourth, 
 white ; and fragments of other colours were found in 
 the dibris. 
 
 The plan of one of these temples, with the path mak- 
 ing seven complete circuits before it reaches the centre 
 and the top, is very much the same as the traditional 
 form of the labyrinth of Crete, and intimately con- 
 nected with it in origin ; or rather, they are complemen- 
 tary ideas, the one representing the seven spheres of 
 the overheavens, the other the seven circles of the 
 under-world. But we will try to follow this clue 
 of the labyrinth in the next chapter. 
 
 According to the poet Nonnos, Thebes was built 
 by Cadmus circular in form ; the main streets from 
 the centre went north, south, east, and west, and 
 every one of the seven gates was consecrated to a 
 planet. It was thus quite a celestial city, and the 
 seven gates retained their planetary designations in 
 historical times. 
 
 In an article in the 'Journal of the Geographical 
 Society ' (vol. X.), Sir H. Rawlinson quotes, from an 
 historian of Armenia of the fifth century of our era, 
 a description of Atropatene, ' the second Ecbatana, or 
 
132 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 the seven-walled city.' He adds : ' The story of the 
 seven walls is one of Sabaean origin, and the seven 
 colours are precisely those which are used by the 
 Orientals to denote the seven great heavenly bodies 
 or the seven climates in which they revolve. Thus 
 Nizami describes a seven-bodied palace, built by 
 Bahram Gur (the Sassanian monarch), nearly in the 
 same terms as Herodotus. The palace dedicated to 
 Saturn, he says, was black ; that of Jupiter, orange, 
 or, more strictly, of sandal wood colour ; of Mars, 
 scarlet ; of the Sun, golden ; and Venus, white ; of 
 Mercury, azure ; and of the Moon, green — a hue 
 which is applied by the Orientals to silver.' Sir H. 
 Rawlinson doubts the actual existence of seven con- 
 centric walls at Ecbatana with their several metals 
 and colours, but thinks it likely that the city was 
 dedicated to the heavenly bodies. In another 
 account of Persian monumental symbolism, we find 
 the whole series, not as before the Sun and Moon 
 alone, represented by metals — The seven planetary 
 metals. Origen quotes Celsus as to the mysteries of 
 Mithras — ' For in the latter there is a representation 
 of the two heavenly revolutions, of the movement, to 
 wit, of the fixed stars, and of that which takes place 
 among the planets, and of the passage of the soul 
 through these. The representation is of the follow- 
 ing nature. There is a ladder with lofty gates, and, 
 on the top of it, an eighth gate. The first gate con- 
 sists of lead, the second of tin, the third of copper, the 
 fourth of iron, the fifth of a mixture of metals, the 
 sixth of silver, and the seventh of gold. The first 
 gate they assign to Saturn, indicating by the lead the 
 slowness of this star ; the second to Venus, compar- 
 ing her to the splendour and softness of tin ; the third 
 to Jupiter, being firm and solid ; the fourth to Mer- 
 cury, for iDoth mercury and iron are fit to endure all 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 133 
 
 things, and are money-making and laborious ; the 
 fifth to Mars, because, being composed of a mixture 
 of metals, it is varied and unequal ; the sixth, of 
 silver, to the Moon ; the seventh, of gold, to the Sun, 
 imitating the colours of the two latter.' 
 
 The Buddhists held an exactly similar view as to 
 the transmigration through several heavens before 
 the heaven of heavens of Buddha was reached — the 
 ascent, in other words, of the stages of the holy Mount 
 Meru. We have shown before that the tope was the 
 microcosm of the material sky as imagined by the 
 Buddhists. These, too, would seem to have had their 
 zones of planetarj' colours ; for Fa-Hian, the Chinese 
 pilgrim to the Buddhist shrines of India and Ceylon, 
 at the end of the fourth century, describes nearly 
 every tope he sees as ' covered with layers of all the 
 precious substances,' 'the seven precious substances' 
 (Legge). These precious substances are given by Mr 
 Rhys Davids as gold, silver, lapis-lazuli, rock crystal, 
 rubies, diamonds or emeralds, and agate. Major 
 Cunningham gives a similar list, substituting amethyst 
 for the diamond. In the tope at Sanchi, with the 
 relics, he found seven beads of the 'precious things.' 
 Indeed, we are told that after Buddha's enlightenment, 
 a Raja built a hall for him of the seven precious sub- 
 stances, where he sat on a seven-gemmed throne. 
 
 Seven or nine-staged buildings were common all 
 over India, Ceylon, Burmah, and Java, as Mr 
 Fergusson's third volume sufficiently shows. All 
 these, according to Col. Yule (Jour. R. Asiatic 
 Soc. 1870), symbolised the mundane system. He 
 quotes with approval from Koeppen : ' In Tibet, 
 we are told every orthodoxly-constructed Buddhist 
 temple either is, or contains, a symbolical representa- 
 tion of the divine regions of Meru, and the heaven of 
 the gods, saints, and Buddhas rising above it.' He 
 
134 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 then describes the ' Pagoda ' at Mengoon, in Burmah, 
 as being ' intended as a complete symbolical represen- 
 tation or model of Mount Meru,' as it rises in seven- 
 terraced stages, surrounded by jagged parapets of 
 ' mountainous outline,' which figure the several zones 
 of the heavenly mount. The Pagoda of Rangoon 
 stands on a terrace 900 by 700 feet, and 166 feet high ; 
 there are four flights of steps, the eastern being the 
 most holy. On this terrace stands the central shrine, 
 1355 feet round, and 370 high ; this was surmounted 
 by tiers of ' Umbrellas,' to which were hung multitudes 
 of gold and silver bells of fabulous worth, and the 
 whole mass was gilt. ' The central edifice represents 
 Mount Meru, and the circle of smaller buildings repre- 
 sents the mountains outside the world-girdling sea' 
 (' The Burman,' Shway Yeo). 
 
 A remarkable temple at Jehol, in Mongolia, is de- 
 scribed as 'a series of square buildings, each series 
 higher than the other, till the last, which is eleven 
 storeys high, and 200 feet at least square ; the storeys 
 are painted red, yellow, and green alternately . . . 
 the tiles of the roof also are blue' (Williamson's 
 Journeys). 
 
 The Heavens are nine in the Edda : ' I mind me 
 of nine homes of nine supports. The great mid-pillar 
 in the earth below.' Also in the Kalevala. ' The nine 
 starry vaults of ether." In China, long before Buddhist 
 influence, the same symbolism obtained. Professor 
 Legge gives a prayer addressed to Shang Ti 
 (Heaven), dwelling in the sovereign heavens, look- 
 ing up to the lofty nine-storied azure vault' The 
 'Altar to Heaven' in Pekin, where this worship 
 was celebrated, was in existence twelve centuries 
 before our era. It consists of a triple circular 
 terrace 210 feet wide at the base, 150 in the middle, 
 and 90 at the top. ' The platform is laid with marble 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES I35 
 
 slabs, forming nine concentric circles ; the inner circle 
 consists of nine stones round the central stone, which 
 is a perfect circle.' On this slab, ' flawless as a piece of 
 the cerulean heavens,' the Emperor kneels. ' Round 
 him on the pavement are the nine circles of as many- 
 heavens, consisting of nine stones, then eighteen, then 
 twenty-seven, and so on in successive multiples of 
 nine, till the square of nine, the favourite number of 
 Chinese philosophy, is reached in the outermost circle 
 of eighty-one stones. Four flights of steps of nine 
 each lead down to the middle terrace, where are 
 placed tablets to the spirits of the Sun, Moon, and 
 Stars, and the Year God.' 
 
 The order followed in worship is that of court 
 ceremonial. First come the nine orders of nobility, 
 and then the nine ranks of officers — the distinctions 
 being indicated by different coloured balls on their 
 caps : the Emperor being at the vertex (Edkins in 
 Williamson's Journeys). Not only have we here the 
 temple of heaven, but the celestial hierarchy and ritual. 
 
 Mr Squier, an American archaeologist, points out a 
 similar meaning in the structures of Mexico. ' The 
 Mexicans believed in nine heavens, their conception 
 differing only in this respect from that of the Hindus. 
 The first or superior heaven was called " The Residence 
 of the Supreme God ; " the second, or next inferior, 
 the Azure Heaven ; the next, or seventh, the Green 
 ■ Heaven,' etc. And quoting from Lord Kingsborough : 
 ' The Mexicans believed in nine heavens, which they 
 supposed were distinguished from each other by the 
 planets which they contained, from the colour of which 
 they received their several denominations ' (a native 
 drawing is given as illustration, showing the nine 
 heavens as so many ceilings studded with stars). 
 ' It is not an assumption supported only by analogy 
 that the Mexican teocalli were symbolical structures.' 
 
136 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 (He then cites Boturini's account of the reformer king 
 of Tezcuco.) " This celebrated Emperor built a tower 
 of nine stages, symbolising the nine heavens, and upon 
 its summit erected a dark chapel, painted within of the 
 fairest blue, with cornices of gold, dedicated to God the 
 Creator, who has His seat above the heavens " ' (The 
 Serpent Symbol in America). Prescott says the 
 tower was 'nine stories high, to represent the nine 
 heavens ; a tenth was surmounted by a roof painted 
 black, and profusely gilded with stars on the outside, 
 and incrusted with metals and precious stones within. 
 He dedicated this to the unknown God, the Cause of 
 causes.' The finds at Warka, and some inscriptions, 
 would go to show that the shrines in Chaldea sur- 
 mounting the Ziggurat were also of the fairest blue, 
 lapis-lazuli. Maspero and Perrot are disposed to 
 accept the account of a Greek writer that the great 
 Pyramid was decorated in zones of colour, with the 
 apex gilt ; and it would seem more than a coincidence 
 that the earliest pyramids, attributed to the first four 
 dynasties, should be in stages. That of Sakkarah still 
 has six steps, decreasing from thirty-eight feet high at 
 the bottom to twenty-nine feet for the top, in remark- 
 able resemblance to the Ziggurat of Babel. And Mr 
 Petrie has found that the pyramid of Medum was 
 built in seven degrees before the outer and continuous 
 casing was applied, ' producing a pyramid which 
 served as a model to future sovereigns.' 
 
 In the outer circle of his underworld Dante sees 
 the fields of peace of the great pagan dead. From 
 his description and Botticelli's drawing, in the 1481 
 edition, with its seven circular walls, a high tower gate- 
 way in each, an Assyrian would know at once it was 
 the city of the dead : — 
 
 ' We came unto a noble castle's foot, 
 
 Seven times encompassed with lofty walls, 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 137 
 
 Defended round by a fair rivulet ; 
 This we passed over, even as firm ground ; 
 
 Through portals seven I entered vifith these sages ; 
 
 We came into a meadow of fresh verdure ; 
 People were there with solemn eyes and slow, 
 
 Of great authority in their countenance ; 
 They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.' 
 
 — Canto iv. 
 
 According to Sir George Birdwood, the regents of 
 the planets that govern the days of the week in India 
 are distinguished by the following colours : (i) The 
 regent of the Sun and the first day of the week, bright 
 yellow ; (2) of the Moon, white ; (3) of Mars, red ; (4) 
 of Mercury, yellow; (5) of Jupiter, also yellow; (6) 
 of Venus, white ; (7) of Saturn, black. 
 
 In making thrones, the same author says, ' The 
 colour of any stone used should be that of the planets 
 presiding over the destiny of the person for whom the 
 throne is made.' We have already seen Buddha's 
 throne, made of all the seven planetary substances, 
 and that the vast pyramid structures of Babylon were 
 thrones for the god to which the coloured terraces 
 formed so many steps. 
 
 The tradition of the throne on the seven heavenly 
 steps lasts on into the Middle Ages. A thirteenth 
 xentury MS. at Heidelberg, which figures the uni- 
 
138 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 verse, shows the Throne of the Majesty standing on 
 seven decreasing circular steps forming to the earth 
 the vaults of heaven. An inscription, ' seven steps in 
 fashion of a hollow vault,' makes the meaning clear, 
 and is especially valuable as giving us the scheme of 
 Dante's Paradise, which has so puzzled the commen- 
 tators. Dante, standing at the apex on the outer 
 material heaven, looks up and sees over and around, 
 another and another expanse. As he stands centrally 
 
 under them, the steps of the throne form an inverted 
 amphitheatre, ' the white rose ' — 
 
 ' And it expands itself in circular form 
 To such extent, that its circumference 
 Would be too large a girdle for the Sun.' 
 The throne high over all becomes a type ;" and all 
 thrones must have seven steps. Compare the' descrip- 
 tion of Solomon's throne in the Book of Chronicles 
 and Josephus: 'Moreover the king made a great 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 139 
 
 throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold. And 
 there were six steps to the throne, with a footstool of 
 gold, which were fastened to the throne, and stays on 
 each side of the sitting place, and two lions standing 
 by the stays ; and twelve lions stood there on the one 
 side, and on the other side upon the six steps. There 
 was not the like made in any kingdom ' (2 Chron. ix. 
 17). Josephus varies slightly, but in both are the 
 seven pairs of lions standing at seven degrees of 
 height : " A throne of prodigious bigness, of ivory, and 
 having six steps to it, on every one of which stood on 
 each end of the steps two lions ; two other lions 
 standing above also ; but at the sitting place of the 
 throne hands came out to receive the king ; and when 
 he sat backward, he rested on half a bullock that 
 looked towards his back ; and all was fastened to- 
 gether with gold.' In the Talmud are also the seven 
 pairs of animals, but, to add some ingenuity, the 
 animals and birds are such as prey on one another, 
 'symbolical of enemies dwelling together in peace.' 
 ' And the wolf shall then dwell with the sheep.' Over 
 the throne was hung a chandelier of gold, with seven 
 branches, ornamented with roses, knops, bowls, and 
 tongs ; and on the seven branches were the seven 
 names of the patriarchs engraven — Adam, Noah, 
 Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job. 
 
 The Arab writers add to the wonders. Two lions 
 were made for the throne by genii and set at the foot ; 
 two eagles were placed above it ; and when the king 
 mounted it, the lions stretched out their paws, and 
 when he sat down the eagles shaded him with their 
 wings. All this seems to have been achieved in the 
 throne in the imperial palace at Constantinople — con- 
 structed in imitation of, and called Solomon's throne — 
 where the beasts of gold rose to their feet and roared, 
 and close by was the golden tree and singing birds. 
 
I40 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 But the steps should be adorned with the planetary 
 colours, like the throne of Prester John, as vouched for 
 by Sir John Maundeville. ' Of the steps approaching 
 his throne where he sits at meat, one is of onyx, another 
 of crystal, another green jasper, another amethyst, 
 another sardonyx, another cornelian, and the seventh ^ 
 on which he sets his feet is of chrysolite. All these 
 steps are bordered with fine gold, with other precious 
 stones, set with great orient pearls. The sides of 
 the seat of his throne are of emeralds and bordered 
 full nobly with gold, and dubbed with other precious 
 stones and great pearls. All the pillars in his chamber 
 are of fine gold, with precious stones, and with many 
 carbuncles, which give great light by night to all 
 people. And although the carbuncle gives light enough, 
 nevertheless at all times a vessel of crystal, full of balm, 
 is burning to give good smell and odour to the 
 emperor, and to expel all wicked airs and corruptions.' 
 
 In the ' Romance of Alexander ' the throne of the 
 conquered Darius has seven such steps. They were 
 of amethyst, smaragdine, topaz, garnet, adamant, 
 gold and earth. The first keeps one from drunken- 
 ness, the second protects the sight, the topaz reflects 
 an inverted image, the garnet is the brightest, the 
 adamant, which is the hardest, attracts ships, gold is 
 the chief of metals, and the earth reminded the King 
 that he too was but dust. 
 
 Fa-Hian, in India, in the fourth century, sees a relic 
 of Buddha exposed on 'a pedestal of the seven 
 precious substances, and covered with a bell of lapis 
 lazuli both adorned with pearls.' 
 
 In Egypt the covering of the throne, and its footstool, 
 figured the blue star set expanse of heaven. In Mexico 
 also it was of azure. The King has everywhere been 
 a god seated on the heavenly throne. There is still 
 reason behind the most imaginative design. 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 141 
 
 The septfold planetary system holds in Heraldry. 
 To quote from Baron Portal on the symbolism of 
 colour : — ' All coats of arms, says Anselm in the Palais 
 de PHonneur, are differenced by two metals, five 
 colours, and two furs. The two metals are, or and 
 argent; the five colours are azure, gules, sable, 
 sinople (green), porpure ; and the two furs ermine 
 and vair. Aristotle in his time gave names to the 
 metals and colours according to the seven planets. Or, 
 was called the Sun ; argent, the Moon ; azure, Jupiter ; 
 gules, Mars ; sable, Saturn ; sinople, Venus ; and 
 porpure, Mercury, and each god was painted with his 
 appropriate metal and colour.' In the Middle Ages, 
 when the heavenly spheres had been increased to nine, 
 with nine orders of spirits to govern them, the seven- 
 fold arrangement of the metals and tinctures was 
 increased to nine by two other tinctures — ^tenn6 
 (tawny), orange, and sanguin^, blood colour. The 
 ' Boke of St. Albans,' compiled in the fifteenth century 
 by Dame Juliana Berners, gives us the Mediaeval lore 
 as to heraldry and the ninefold colours : — 
 
 ' The lawe of Armes the wiche was effigured and 
 begunne before any lawe in the worlde, both the lawe 
 of nature and before the commandementis of God. 
 
 ' And this lawe of armys was grounded upon the IX 
 dyveris orderys of angels in heven encrowned with IX 
 dyveris precious stonys of colourisand of vertuys dyveris 
 also of them are figured the IX colouris in armys. 
 
 'The first stone is calde Topazion, signyfiyng gold 
 in armys ' (its virtue is truth), etc., etc. 
 
 The seven or nine perfect heraldic tinctures are 
 thus the precious stones and metals of the seven 
 planets or nine heavens. Well may Lydgate say of 
 these stones ideally used in blazoning arms : — 
 
 ' The which stones come from Paradise, 
 Therefore they are so precious singular.' 
 
142 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 In old-fashioned heraldry this tradition is preserved, 
 and the tinctures called either by their ordinary 
 heraldic names, by the names of gems, or of the planets, 
 the first being used to blazon the coats of commoners, 
 the gems for nobles, and the planets for sovereign 
 princes. 
 
 Or Topaz Sol 
 
 Argent Pearl Luna 
 
 Sable Diamond Saturn 
 
 Gules Ruby Mars 
 
 Azure Sapphire Jupiter 
 
 Vert Emerald Venus 
 
 Porpure Amethyst Mercury 
 
 The natural colours of the planets as they appear to 
 the eye, or under a low power, are said to be 
 Saturn . Deep bluish. 
 
 Jupiter . White. 
 
 Venus . Yellow. 
 
 Mars Red. 
 
 Mercury . . Pale blue. 
 
 In comparing the lists, the Sun and Moon are the 
 two metals. Mars is always red, Saturn always black, 
 Venus is yellow or green. Mercury blue or purple, and 
 Jupiter is the least certain. The heraldic correspond- 
 ences given in the Palais de I'Honneur may perhaps be 
 accepted as authoritative. The significance of colour 
 is thus given by a modern magician (Eliphas Ldvi) : 
 ' Those who love blue are idealists and dreamers ; 
 those who like red are materialistic and passionate ; 
 yellow, fantastic and capricious ; green, mercantile and 
 crafty ; those who give their preference to black are 
 ruled by Saturn.' This accords with the rule of the 
 planets over the several temperaments, as we preserve 
 it in ordinary speech — Jovial, Mercurial, and Saturnine 
 or Melancholy. 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 143 
 
 We have seen above the association of the metals 
 with the seven stars; their correspondence is 
 sufficiently obvious, and they share in modern science 
 the same signs, and in one case the same name. 
 There is a great deal of astrology in the sciences yet. 
 
 Sun © 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 % 
 
 Tin. 
 
 Moon ]) 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Venus 
 
 ? 
 
 Copper 
 
 Mars $ 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Saturn 
 
 P 
 
 Lead. 
 
 Mercury 5 
 
 Mercury. 
 
 
 
 
 Chaucer gives a list identical with this except that 
 the quicksilver of Mercury is contracted to silver. 
 Gower in the ' Confessio Amantis ' gives similar 
 correspondences, except that 'Jupiter the brass be- 
 stoweth.' 
 
 In the East the perfect metal was naturally an alloy 
 of all these. 
 
 Once grasp the colours and qualities of the seven 
 planets, and you possess the master key of Astrology. 
 As these powers might be present in the twelve houses 
 of the heavens devoted to Birth, Riches, Marriage, 
 etc. ; so would the fortune of the subject be influenced. 
 Two Capitals of the Ducal Palace at Venice show 
 us how they rule Man and the Sciences ; one depicting 
 the seven ages, the other the seven liberal arts. 
 
 The Moon governs Infancy. 
 
 Mercury „ Boyhood. 
 
 Venus „ Adolescence, 
 
 Sun „ Young Manhood. 
 
 Mars „ Manhood. 
 
 Jupiter „ Age. 
 
 Saturn „ Decrepitude. 
 
 The seven arts were Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, 
 Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. 
 
 The traditional association of colours and stones 
 with the planets is barely yet extinct in the: West, 
 
144 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 where old brooches may be seen of six coloured 
 stones, and lavas set round a seventh central one, all 
 with carved heads of the planets, and at the centre 
 the rayed head of Apollo. In the East it is well 
 understood. The gorgeous gold treasure from Bur- 
 mah in the Indian Museum which has the splendour 
 that only half barbaric work ever attains to, the bloom 
 of red gold, and the profuse setting of uncut stones 
 mesmerising the imagination into exaltation, has 
 on most of the pieces eight precious stones set round 
 an enormous ruby as large as a nut. This symbolic 
 group is called Nauratan (nine gems). Throughout 
 India ' they are the only stones esteemed precious.' 
 
 To come back again to the Chaldean world 
 mountain, home of the gods, birthplace of the 
 nations, and, like Meru, a mountain of precious 
 stones. In the tablets it is called Nizar, and its 
 summit by a name familiar to us as that of its archi- 
 tectural representation — Ziggurat. Madame Ragazoin 
 puts this symbolic purpose clearly before us. 'So 
 vivid was the conception in the popular mind, and 
 so great the reverence entertained for it, that it was 
 attempted to reproduce the type of the holy moun- 
 tain in the palaces of their kings and the temples of 
 their gods.' 
 
 ' As the gods dwelt on the summit of the Mountain 
 of the World, so their shrines should occupy a position 
 as much like their residence as the feeble means of man 
 would permit. That this is no idle fancy is proved by 
 the very name of " Ziggurat," which means " mountain 
 peak," and also by the names of some of these temples ; 
 one of the oldest, and most famous, indeed, in the City 
 of Assur was named " The House of the Mountain of 
 Countries." ' 
 
 And Professor Sayce, in his Hibbert Lectures, is 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 145 
 
 equally definite. ' As the peak of the Mount of the 
 Deluge (Nizar) was called Ziggurat or temple tower, 
 so, conversely, the Mountain of the World was the 
 name given to a temple Ziggurat at Calah.' 'A frag- 
 mentary tablet which gives, as I believe, the Baby- 
 lonian version of the building of the tower of Babel, 
 especially identifies it with " the illustrious mound." ' 
 The name given to the tower of the chief temple 
 at Kis was ' The Illustrious Mountain of Mankind.' 
 
 Our last picture of the earthly paradise and world 
 mountain shall be that of the Kingdom of Atlas, 
 for which Plato gathers up just what he requires of 
 tradition, and uses it with the realism of Swift. The 
 successive zones of water and land, and the many- 
 coloured walls, show it to be as real a legend of the 
 heavenly Mount Mem as is the picture of a Buddhist 
 paradise given here for comparison. 
 
 We will take first the story told by the Buddha 
 to Ananda of ' The Great King of Glory :' — 
 
 'Kasavati was the royal city . . . and on the east 
 and on the west it was twelve leagues in length, and 
 on the north and on the south it was seven leagues in 
 breadth. 
 
 ' The royal city Kasavati, Ananda, was surrounded 
 by seven ramparts. Of these, one rampart was of 
 gold, and one of silver, and one of beryl, and one of 
 crystal, and one of agate, and one of coral, and one of 
 all kinds of gems. 
 
 ' To the royal city Kasavati, Ananda, there were four 
 gates ; one was of gold, and one of silver, and one of 
 jade, and one of crystal. 
 
 ' At each gate seven pillars were fixed of the seven 
 precious substances and four times the height of a 
 man. The city was surrounded by seven rows of palm 
 trees ; of gold, of silver, and of gems ; their fruits 
 were jewels, from which, shaken by the wind, there 
 
 K 
 
146 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 arose delightful music. In this city was a palace of 
 righteousness, a league east and west by a half-league 
 north and south, with 84,000 chambers, each of gold, 
 silver, beryl, and crystal ; at each door stood a palm 
 tree. The palace was all hung about with a network 
 of bells of gold and silver, the music of which was 
 sweet and intoxicating. There was a lotus lake lined 
 with tiles of gold, silver, beryl, and crystal. 
 
 ' I was that king, and all these things were mine ! See, 
 Ananda, how all these things are past, are ended, have 
 vanished away !' (Rhys Davids, S.B. of East, vol. xi.) 
 Plato's island of Atlantis had in the centre a 
 plain, in the midst of which was a mountain. 
 Poseidon enclosed the hill all round, making alternate 
 zones of sea and land, larger and smaller, encircling 
 one another; there were two of land and three of 
 water, which he turned as with a lathe out of the 
 centre of the island, equidistant every way. 
 
 ' His eldest son he named Atlas, and from him the 
 whole island and the ocean received the name of 
 Atlantic. In the first place they dug out of the earth 
 whatever was to be found there, mineral as well as 
 metal ; and that which is now only a name, and was 
 then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug 
 out of the earth in many parts of the island . . . 
 also whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, 
 whether roots or herbage, or woods or essences which 
 distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that 
 land. . . . All these that sacred island, which then 
 beheld the light of the sun, brought forth fair and 
 wondrous and in infinite abundance. 
 
 ' They bridged across the zones and opened water- 
 ways from one zone to the other. . . . All this, in- 
 cluding the zones and the bridge, they surrounded by 
 a stone wall, on all sides placing towers and gates 
 where the sea passed in. 
 
THE PLANETARY SPHERES 147 
 
 ' One kind of stone was white, another black, and a 
 third red ; some of their buildings were simple, but in 
 others they put together different stones, varying the 
 pattern to please the eye, and to be a natural source 
 of delight. The entire circuit of the wall that went 
 round the outermost zone they covered with a coating 
 of brass ; and the circuit of the next wall they coated 
 with tin; and the third, which encompassed the citadel, 
 flashed with the red light of orichalcum. The palaces 
 in the interior were constructed on this wise : — In the 
 centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and 
 Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was sur- 
 rounded by an enclosure of gold. Here too was 
 Poseidon's own temple, which was a stadium in length 
 and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate 
 height, having a strange Asiatic look. All the outside 
 of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they 
 covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In 
 the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, adorned 
 everywhere with gold, and silver, and orichalcum ; and 
 all the other parts of the walls, and pillars, and floor, 
 they lined with orichalcum. 
 
 ' In the temple they placed statues of gold : there 
 was the god himself standing in a chariot — the 
 charioteer of six winged horses — and of such a size 
 that he touched the roof of the building with his head. 
 . . . Enough of the plan of the royal palace. 
 Leaving the palace and crossing the three harbours 
 outside you come to a wall which began at the sea and 
 went all round ; this was everywhere distant fifty 
 stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed 
 the whole. 
 
 ' Such was the vast power which the god settled in 
 the lost island of Atlantis. They despised everything 
 but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, 
 and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and 
 
148 THE PLANETARY SPHERES 
 
 other property, which seemed only a burden to them : 
 neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did 
 wealth deprive them of their self-control, but they were 
 sober, and saw'clearly that all these goods are increased 
 by virtue and friendship with one another ' (Critias 
 Jowett). 
 
 ' Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God ; 
 every precious stone was thy covering. Thou wast 
 upon the holy mountain of God ; thou hast walked up 
 and down in the midst of the stones of fire.' 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 ' Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky! 
 The west opened its gates, the bed of thy repose is there. The waves come 
 to behold thy beauty. They lift their trembling heads. They see thee 
 lovely in thy sleep. They shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy ' 
 cave, O sun! Let thy return be in joy.' — OssiAN. 
 
 IN ' The Bible of Amiens ' Mr Ruskin describes 
 the labyrinth once inlaid on the floor of the 
 nave of the cathedral, and in 1825 'removed to make 
 the old pavement more polite.' In that outburst of 
 fervour, from the middle of the twelfth to the end of 
 the thirteenth century, wrought into the stones of the 
 great cathedrals — speaking particularly of France — 
 when the scheme of imagery and symbolism had been 
 consummated, so that no part of the building should 
 be without its teaching, one of these labyrinths 
 belonged by right to the floor : ' a recognised emblem 
 of many things to the people.' 
 
 This one of Amiens was octagonal, and forty-two 
 feet across ; the effigy of the architect was at the centre, 
 and a legend containing the date 1288. There was 
 another, similar, at St Quentin ; and one at Rheims, 
 square, and thirty-five feet across, was laid down 
 in 1240 and destroyed in 1779. Another, about 
 the same time, was broken up in the Cathedral at Arras. 
 At St Omer, in the Abbey of St Bertin, mountains, 
 
 '49 
 
I50 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 animals, and towns were depicted on the pathway, and 
 the Temple of Jerusalem in the centre. It has been 
 suggested that the maze was a symbol of life and of 
 the coil of sin. 'The whole device was deemed to 
 be indicative of the complicated folds of sin by which 
 man is surrounded, and how impossible it would be 
 to extricate himself from them except through the 
 assisting hand of Providence ' (Didron's Annales). 
 
 At Bayeux there is a maze formed by patterned tiles 
 in the chapter-house. At Sens there was a fine 
 example; and another still exists in St Stephen's Abbey 
 at Caen. One, especially beautiful, at Chartres, inlaid 
 with dark stone on light, has a pathway of some six' 
 hundred and sixty feet round and round to the centre. 
 In the thirteenth century sketch book of the architect 
 Viliars de Honecourt, there is a drawing of a maze like 
 this of Chartres, indeed, it is identical in planning. 
 These French labyrinths appear to have been called 
 ' la Heue' or ' Chemin de Jerusalem; ' they were placed 
 at the west end of the nave, and people made a pil- 
 grimage on their knees, following the windings of 
 the pathway to the centre, which is said to have been 
 called Sancta Ecclesia or del. 
 
 There is a German example in the Church of St 
 Severius, Cologne. 
 
 In England there was one at Canterbury, but none 
 now remain in our churches. There are, however, a 
 great number cut in turf. One of these, at Saffron 
 Walden, is a hundred and ten feet across: wholly 
 overgrown with grass, its form is made out by 
 alternate ridge and furrow. Others are at Wing, 
 in Rutlandshire ; Alkborough, in Lincolnshire ; 
 Boughton Green, Northants; St Catharine's Hill, 
 Winchester; Sneiton, Nottinghamshire; and Pimpern, 
 near Blandford. They were given the names of Miz- 
 Maze, Julian's Bower, Troy Town, or Shepherd's Race. 
 
THE LABYRINTH 151 
 
 Their age is not known, but, according to the country 
 historian, some sort of spring festival seems to have 
 been held at that of Saffron Walden. Those formed 
 by clipped hedges, ' green mazes,' are an ordinary part 
 of ornamental gardening, and designs for them may be 
 found in Serlio and other vsrriters. There was a fine 
 
 regular one at Theobald's old palace, and the maze at 
 Hampton Court is known to everybody. One, of 
 water, in the Hypnerotomachia, on which tiny shal- 
 lops floated and seven gate-towers divided the stream, 
 is evidently symbolical of life. 
 
 In Italy some beautiful examples are found — one 
 
152 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 at Ravenna, in St Vitale, is here represented ; another 
 is in St Michele, Pavia ; and two others are in Rome, 
 at S.M. in Trastevere, and S.M. in Aquiro. 
 
 Through Roman examples on pavements and gems 
 we are led back to the Greek coins of Crete, where, 
 in the fifth or sixth century B.C. the device first 
 appears. (For illustrations see Didron's Annales, De 
 Caumont, ' Archaeological Journal,' and 'The Architec- 
 tural Dictionary.') 
 
 Of course the varieties in the mere design of mazes 
 would be infinite; their resemblance is the striking 
 fact, so that, considered merely as a device or 
 pattern, the tradition is one for the two thousand 
 years from the Greek coin of Gnossus to Botti- 
 celli's print in the Renaissance, and we wonder 
 how it passed from place to place. There are no 
 false paths, not a single cul-de-sac, but simply the 
 longest involved path, from the entrance to the eye ; 
 you follow far enough, and necessarily reach the 
 centre. When the root of tradition was broken away 
 from at the Renaissance, all this was altered, and 
 mazes became inventions, every one different from 
 the others — spiders' webs of enticing false paths. 
 
 The windings and doublings of the inlaid one at 
 St Quentin are identical beyond all possibility of 
 merely fortuitous coincidence with the one on the 
 green at Alkborough, as is also that of Sens with 
 that at Boughton Green. The Chartres labyrinth is 
 absolutely the same in design as one on the door 
 jamb at Lucca, with this difference, that the former, 
 thirty feet across, is ornamented at the centre, and 
 the latter is but a scratched line. This one in 
 turn is exactly like that on the Hereford Map 
 of the World, and that one also in the sketch book 
 of Viliars de Honecourt, with the only exception 
 that this last is reversed. These four, then, severally 
 
THE LABYRINTH 153 
 
 in Italy, France, and England, are absolutely related — 
 in form and proportion, number of walls and plan- 
 ning of their revolutions, they are transcripts of one 
 another or a common original. Those at Ravenna, on 
 Botticelli's engraving, and on a picture at Cambridge, 
 are but slight variations from this typical form, or from 
 a Roman one scratched on a wall at Pompeii, and the 
 original Cretan examples here given from the coins. 
 
 All the time it was understood 
 to be the labyrinth of Daedalus, in 
 Crete, into which, aided by Ari- 
 adne's thread, Theseus penetrated 
 and safely returned. This is the 
 subject of Botticelli's engraving. 
 On the Hereford Map the plan of 
 the labyrinth nearly fills the whole 
 map of Crete: it is inscribed 
 Labarintus id est domus Dealli 
 (see next page). The great floor 
 labyrinth at Amiens was inscribed 
 Maison de Dalus. In the Lucca 
 example there is also an in- 
 scription — ' This is the labyrinth 
 which Cretan D^dalus built, out 
 of which nobody could get who 
 was inside, except Theseus ; nor 
 could he have done it unless he 
 had been helped with a thread by Ariadne, all for 
 love ' (' Fors Clavigera '). 
 
 At Pavia the Minotaur is represented at the vor- 
 tex in the form of a centaur. That at Pompeii 
 had written against it, ' Labyrinthus hie habitat 
 Minotaurus! Those on the Greek coins belong to 
 the town founded by Minos himself, where the laby- 
 rinth was said to have been built ; and the reverses of 
 the coins have the head of Theseus, who thus 
 
154 
 
 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 
 accompanies the symbol of his ' life's problem.' So, 
 from the earliest Greek to the Renaissance there 
 is an unbroken sequence of examples giving this 
 form to the house of the Minotaur. We can well 
 understand that, once existing and associated with 
 rites of pilgrimage or penance, they would easily 
 acquire different local names — 'The way to Jei;u- 
 salem,' and the rest — but the form and the rite 
 
 ^ — -_ . | existed before any 
 
 ~ such titles. 
 
 That in Roman 
 times they were 
 marked out on turf 
 as well as inlaid in 
 pavements, and that 
 there was a popular 
 custom of following 
 the windings of the 
 pathway, is shown 
 by Pliny, who, speak- 
 ing of the under- 
 ground assemblage 
 of chambers, the so- 
 called labyrinth of 
 Moeris in Egypt, 
 says, — ' Nor is it as 
 we sometimes see 
 drawn in the country 
 games of boys, where a small strip contains passages 
 several miles long.' 
 
 In the reign of Commodus, Q. Julius Miletus built 
 a labyrinth as an institution for the amusement of 
 the people. (C. O. Muller.) 
 
 The choros, or dancing-place, built by Daedalus for 
 Ariadne — as it existed in story, of course, not in stone 
 — was probably such a labyrinth. 
 
THE LABYRINTH 155 
 
 The Hindu dance in honour of Krishna, as the sun- 
 god, is described as a ' circular sunwise dance, in 
 which the dancers twisted, and turned, and wheeled 
 round about in supposed imitation of the sun, moon, 
 and planets.' 
 
 This is repeated in the sevenfold star-wise pro- 
 cession around the temple of Jagannatha, or the 
 Caaba of Mecca. M. Rdville, writing of similar 
 dances in Mexico, says, that worshippers entered 
 into union with the deity by imitating his move- 
 ments. ' There were several sacred dances having 
 the character of imitating the movements of the 
 stars.' Knowing the right form of these involutions 
 was of the greatest importance. Mr A. Lang tells us 
 that td savages ' those who don't dance our dance are 
 foreigners.' And the plot of one of our folk stories — 
 ' Child Rowland ' — is the awful consequences of run- 
 ning round a church ' widershins ' or contra sunwise. 
 
 Here in England ' the boys to this day divert them- 
 selves with running in it one after another, the first 
 leading them by many windings quite through and 
 back again. Stukeley supposes that it is called 
 Julian from lulus and the Trojan games in Virgil ' 
 (Fosbroke 'Encyc. Antiq.' 1840). Mr Gerald Massey 
 tells us mazes are ' still figured in the children's games 
 in Cornwall and Wales, and consist of seven circles 
 round a centre cut in the grassy sod.' In the Western 
 Counties anything untidy and confused is said to be 
 'like Troy Town.' 
 
 Herodotus opens with a fourfold legend of the origin 
 tf the war of Troy — the stories of lo, Europa, Medea, 
 and Helen,, all seemingly varients of one 'far told 
 tale' of a princess enticed away over sea. A 
 hero in a foreign land is set to do a great deed and 
 to endure a great peril ; the king of the country 
 
156 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 sets the task in malice ; but his daughter sees, loves, 
 and helps the hero; he overcomes, and they fly 
 away over the sea together; but fate suffers it 
 not so for long, and then comes a sorrowful part- 
 ing. ' Everywhere there is the search for the bright 
 maiden who has been stolen away, everywhere the 
 long struggle to recover her : the war of Ilion has 
 been fought out in every Aryan land ' (Sir G. Cox). 
 
 Europa's son, Minos, becomes the great king and 
 lawgiver of Crete, and the whole story is repeated. 
 A vast prison-house has been built by Daedalus to 
 confine the Minotaur, and a tribute is imposed on 
 Athens of seven youths and seven maidens yearly 
 sacrificed to the hidden monster. On a year one 
 of these is Theseus, the hero who is to end 'the 
 infamy of Crete.' ' When Theseus arrived in Crete, 
 according to most historians and authors, Ariadne, 
 falling in love with him, gave him a clue of thread, 
 and instructed him how to pass with it through the 
 intricacies of the labyrinth. Thus assisted, he set 
 sail, carrying off Ariadne.' (Plutarch.) 
 
 Minos, the king, has three characteristics in classic 
 lore ; he is, above all, the great administrator of law ; 
 he is the judge of the under world of the dead ; he is 
 the lord of the labyrinth. Already, when we first meet 
 his name in the Homeric poems, he is the earthly 
 king of Crete and the ruler of the dead in Hades. 
 Odysseus describes his descent to the house of 
 Hades, — 'There, then, I saw Minos, glorious son of 
 Zeus, wielding a golden sceptre, giving sentence 
 from his throne to the dead, while they sat and 
 stood around the prince, asking his dooms through 
 the wide-gated house of Hades. . . . And 
 Ariadne, the daughter of Wizard Minos, whom 
 Theseus on a time was bearing from Crete to the 
 hill of sacred Athens ' (Odyss. XI.) 
 
THE LABYRINTH I57 
 
 The story is closely parallel to that of Osiris, in 
 Egypt. Osiris, overcome by the powers of evil and 
 darkness, goes to be the judge of the under world, in 
 the hall of justice, which is surrounded by walls, wherein 
 are twelve or fifteen successive gates to be passed. 
 This is reached by tortuous ways past finding out, were 
 it not for the guide book of the departed, ' The Book 
 of the Dead.' Isis goes in quest of her lover, and 
 the powers of darkness are at last overcome by 
 Horus, the rising sun of a new day. The Egyptian 
 myth has been universally regarded as solar, the 
 House of Osiris with its seven halls being the under 
 world, ' the nocturnal abode ' through which the sun 
 nightly finds his way back to the east. 
 
 ' Osiris is the setting sun. Plutarch identifies him 
 with Hades. Both, he says, originally meant the 
 dwellings, and came to mean the god of the dead ' 
 (Lefdbure). 
 
 ' Osiris is the sun of yesterday, who was overcome 
 by Night in the person of Set, who, in his turn, was 
 vanquished by Horus, the son of Osiris. . . . Horus is 
 the sun in full strength ' (Renouf). 
 
 The power of darkness is represented as the giant 
 serpent Apap, 'with which,' says Lenormant, 'the 
 sun, under the form of Ra or Horus, contends 
 during his nocturnal passage round the lower hemi- 
 sphere, and over which he is destined to triumph 
 before reappearing in the east. The conflict of Horus 
 with Apap is ever renewed at the seventh hour of the 
 night, a little before sun rising.' 
 
 In his recent book, the ' Golden Bough,' Mr Frazer 
 regards Osiris as a god of vegetation. Should this be 
 accepted,it will not conflict with the conclusion reached 
 in this chapter. Whether Sun or Vegetable Life, it is 
 still the dark under world to which he withdraws — 
 house of darkness, winter, and death. 
 
158 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 Theseus, it is generally allowed, is a duplication of 
 Hercules, the solar hero. Melkarth, the sun-god of the 
 Phoenicians, Horus, of the Egyptians, and the other 
 parallels make it clear that his achievement of the 
 labyrinth was one of many descents into the night- 
 land to fight the serpent, dragon, or minotaur of 
 death and darkness. 
 
 The story of Herodotus of the founding of the city 
 of Ecbatana by the great lawgiver of the Medes is 
 closely alUed to the foundation of Gnossus and the 
 building of the labyrinth by Minos, who instituted 
 law in Crete. Without necessarily questioning the 
 existence of an actual Ecbatana with seven walls, 
 each dedicated to a planet, or a real Dioces, we may 
 see the close connection of this history with other 
 stories of the Just Judge in the underground, seven- 
 walled, world of the dead. The labyrinth of Minos, 
 as found on the coins, is such a seven-walled 
 citadel. 
 
 Dioces, the first king of the Medes, says the Father 
 of History (or of Folk Lore), ' applied himself with 
 great zeal to the exercise of justice, and the people 
 chose him for their king. And, as the Medes obeyed 
 him in this also, he built lofty and strong walls, which 
 now go under the name of Ecbatana, one placed in a 
 circle within the other.' . . . ' He established the 
 following regulations : — That no man should be 
 admitted to the king's presence, but every one consult 
 him by means of messengers, and that none should 
 be permitted to see him . . . that he might appear 
 to be of a different nature to those who did not see 
 him. He was very severe in the distribution of 
 justice ; and the parties contending were obliged to 
 send him their cases in writing . . . and all other 
 things were regulated by him ; so that, if he received 
 information that any man had injured another, he 
 
THE LABYRINTH 159 
 
 would presently send for him and punish him in 
 proportion to his offence ; and for this purpose he 
 had spies and eavesdroppers in every part of his 
 dominions.' Is not this a Minos apportioning justice 
 to all men in the lower world rather than a human 
 king in an earthly city? We must not, however, 
 forget that kings and tyrants have secluded them- 
 selves ; Mokanna, the veiled prophet, for instance, 
 and divine monarchs generally. 
 
 Strabo, speaking of Avernus, near Cumae, where 
 the Italian peoples supposed the descent to be, 
 says : — ' There is here a spring of water, near to 
 the sea, fit for drinking, from which, however, every 
 one abstained, as they thought it water from Styx. 
 They thought, likewise, that the oracle of the dead 
 was situated somewhere here. Ephorus, peopling 
 the place with Kimmerii, tells us that they dwell 
 in underground habitations, and that these communi- 
 cate with one another by means of certain subter- 
 ranean passages ; and that they conduct strangers 
 through them to the oracle, which is built far below 
 the surface of the earth. They lived in the mines 
 together, with the profits accruing from the oracle 
 and grants made to them by the king. It was a 
 traditional custom for the servants of the oracle never 
 to behold the sun, and only to quit their caverns at 
 night. At last, however, these men were extermi- 
 nated by one of the kings, the oracle having deceived 
 him ; but the oracle is still in existence, though 
 removed to another place. Such were the myths 
 related by our ancestors.' 
 
 Duncker cites a Greek author of the second century, 
 who, in describing the Sabaeans, gives an echo of a 
 similar tradition. ' Their chief city, Mariaba, lies on a 
 mountain. Here lives the king, who pronounces justice 
 for the people ; but he is never allowed to leave his 
 
l6o THE LABYRINTH 
 
 palace. If he acts otherwise, he is stoned by the 
 people, in obedience to an ancient oracle.' 
 
 Peoples now living in a low phase of development 
 account for the judgment of the dead in exactly the 
 same way. 'It is a belief of the Australians, as, 
 according to Bosman, it was with the people of the 
 Gold Coast,, that a very powerful wizard lives far in- 
 land ; and the negroes held that to this warlock the 
 spirits of the dead went to be judged according to the 
 merit of their actions. Here we have a doctrine 
 (quoting Mr Andrew Lang in "Myth and Ritual") 
 answering to the Greek belief in the wizard Minos, 
 iEacus, and Rhadamanthus, and to the Egyptian idea 
 of Osiris as judge of the departed.' 
 
 In Herodotus a story is related of Rhamsinitus, 
 in whose reign, he tells us, 'there was a perfect 
 administration of justice.' ' He descended alive into 
 the place the Greeks call Hades, and there played at 
 dice with Ceres, and sometimes won and at other 
 times lost' A ceremony was instituted imitating 
 this descent, and in another story, this same king 
 possesses a wonderful treasury-house, which is inge- 
 niously robbed by a master of theft — a plot, as 
 Mr Clouston has shown, which is found in the 
 folk tales of many peoples, even to this day, and 
 which may, after all, be what Sir G. Cox, approaching 
 from another point of view, sees in it — the sun break- 
 ing through the prison-house of the under world, 
 always with all people the treasury of riches. 
 
 The Greek story of Theseus and Ariadne had its 
 Phoenician co-relative in Adonis and Astarte, the 
 Tammuz and Istar of the Assyrians. ' One of the 
 most popular of old Babylonian myths,' says Professor 
 Sayce, 'told how Istar had wedded the young and 
 beautiful sun -god Tammuz, and had descended into 
 Hades in search of him when he had been slain by 
 
THE LABYRINTH l6l 
 
 the boar's tusk of winter.' Istar ' was the goddess of 
 the evening star.' In the narrative of her adventures 
 in the lower world, ' the house out of which there is no 
 exit,' we seem to get a clear idea of the point of 
 departure of these stories, in thought if not in geo- 
 graphy. The following is taken from Lenormant's 
 ' Chaldean Magic ' : — 
 
 'The country whence none return is divided into 
 seven zones, like those of Dante's Inferno, upon the 
 model of the seven planetary spheres. . . . Seven gates 
 gave admission, each guarded by a porter. . . . This 
 idea of the circles of the under world is also found in 
 the Egyptian mythology of the ritual of the dead — 
 the deceased had to pass through fifteen pylons in his 
 descent.' In the centre of this grave-land was the 
 palace of the ruler and a temple of justice. As Istar 
 passes through each of the seven gates the porter 
 requires her jewels and apparel. At the first, her 
 crown ; at the second, the rings from her ears ; at the 
 third, her necklace of precious stones ; at the fourth, 
 the pectoral from her bosom ; at the fifth, her girdle 
 of gems ; at the sixth, bracelets ; at the seventh, her 
 robe. 
 
 In the version given by Perrot it is not merely a 
 country divided into zones, but a city of seven walls — 
 a structure like the labyrinth of Daedalus. ' We know 
 from the narrative of Istar that they looked upon it 
 as an immense building situated in the centre of the 
 earth, and bounded on every side by the great river 
 whose waters bathe the foundations of the world. 
 This country of the dead is called ' the land where 
 one sees nothing,' or 'the land from whence is no 
 return.' The house is surrounded by seven strong 
 walls. In each there is a single door, which is 
 fastened by a bolt as soon as a new comer has 
 entered.' 
 
 L 
 
l62 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 The descriptive epithets show it as very clearly 
 imagined. ' The house in which the evening has no 
 morning, whence there is no return. There, too, stand 
 the foundations of the earth, the meeting of the mighty 
 waters.' The earth being convex and hollow, like an 
 inverted bowl, the palace of the ruler of the dead was 
 in the void beneath, around flows the earthly ocean, and 
 on that rests the foundations of the over sea. 
 
 The seven spherical envelopes passing under the 
 earth, as above in the heavens, divide it into as many 
 regions. Tammuz, Theseus, Horus — the strong sun — 
 penetrate this prison-house, and rise out of the eastern 
 gate, but the path is so involved that none of the dead 
 find their way back. This is the origin of the labyrinth, 
 nor can we wonder that mediaeval mystics made use 
 of its symbolism at the non-sacred end of their 
 churches. 
 
 This under world of seven walls is quite universal. 
 In Origen there is an account of the Ophites, with 
 their invocations to seven demons, who guarded as 
 many gates in the passage of the soul. 
 
 The Zoroastrian fragments in Cory preserve the 
 same plan for the under world. Over the earth there 
 were seven successive firmaments for the planets, and 
 below us : ' Stoop not down, for a precipice lies below 
 the earth, drawing under in a descent of seven steps, 
 beneath which is the throne of dire necessity.' 
 
 In the later Persian, Shah-Nameh of Firdausi,Rustem, 
 the Hercules of Iran, undertakes seven great labours 
 in seven days, when he reaches a place called the 
 seven mountains, he fights a demon 'within a deep 
 and horrible recess.' 
 
 In India the same scheme of a labyrinthine under 
 world would seem to have existed from the Vedic 
 time, for such appears to be the cave to which the 
 cloud cattle of the sun are driven off by a trackless 
 
THE LABYRINTH 163 
 
 path. In the Hindu system, under the Olympian 
 Mount Meru, with its seven zones, ' there are seven 
 lower worlds, which are all beautiful paradises, though 
 inhabited by demons and nagas ; the latter are half 
 men and half serpents, and are governed by three 
 great snakes, which reign over all the snakes on 
 earth.' 
 
 The Mohammedan cosmogony is very similar. Ac- 
 cording to Lane there are seven material heavens, and 
 seven earths, one below the other ; Jaheniiem is also 
 divided into seven stages ; to which, according to 
 D'Herbelot, there are seven great portals. In the 
 Jewish traditions of the Cabbalah there are seven 
 infernal halls. The lowest Buddhist hell, called in 
 the Chinese 'earth prison,' is surrounded by a seven- 
 fold iron wall. This verse from the poetic Edda 
 shows the thought of the Northmen, which was also 
 that of our old English ancestors : — 
 
 ' Without and within 
 I seemed to go through all 
 The seven lower worlds.' 
 
 Professor Rhys (Hibbert Lect.) quotes a story of 
 the descent of the Celtic hero to the land of Shades. 
 The words might as well be uttered by Istar herself, 
 so typical they are : — 
 
 ' When I went to the land of Scath, 
 There was the fort of Scath, with its lock of iron ; 
 1 laid hands upon it. 
 Seven walls there were around this city ; 
 Hateful was its stronghold.' 
 
 Dante, confessedly in the Convito, founds on the 
 planetary spheres (following Ptolemy, and to the seven 
 adding two others, for the spheres of the iixed stars 
 and the primum mobile) his nine-fold arrangement of 
 the circles of Paradise and the Inferno. It is most 
 remarkable how he relates his descent, to that of 
 
l64 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 Theseus in the Labyrinth of Daedalus. Minos is the 
 guardian and judge who assigns to each his proper 
 circle, and, guarding the way to the seventh circle, he 
 encounters the Minotaur : — 
 
 ' And on the border of the broken chasm 
 The infamy of Crete was stretched along. 
 
 My sage towards him shouted : " Peradventure 
 Thou think'st that here may be the Duke of Athens, 
 Who in the world above brought death to thee ? 
 
 Get thee gone, beast, for this one cometh not 
 Instructed by thy sister, but he comes 
 In order to behold your punishments." ' 
 
 Does not the description of the Malebolge seem as if it 
 was founded directly on such a labyrinth as that on 
 the floor at Ravenna, which must have been familiar 
 to him ? 
 
 ' Right in the middle of the field malign 
 
 There yawns a well exceeding wide and deep, 
 Of which its place the structure will recount. 
 Round then is that enclosure which remains 
 Between the well and foot of the high, hard bank, 
 And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom. 
 As where, for the protection of the walls, 
 Many and many moats surround the castles, 
 The part in which they are a figure forms 
 Just such an image those presented there ; 
 
 And as about such strongholds, from their gates 
 Unto the outer bank are little bridges, 
 So from the precipice's base did little crags 
 
 Project, which intersected dykes and moats, 
 Unto the well that truncates and collect them.' 
 
 — Canto xviii. 
 It has been too much the custom to see mere arbi- 
 trary inventions in Dante's system, but he wrote in 
 quite another temper than did Milton. Dante em- 
 bodies no fancies of his own ; but follows the universe 
 system of his age. In the words of Dean Milman, 
 'Dante is the one authorised topographer of the 
 mediceval hell ; ' topographer is the word. 
 
THE LABYRINTH 165 
 
 In some instances we have the sun in the lower 
 world, not obscured by any impersonation, as in the 
 ' Rest in thy shadowy cave, O sun,' of Ossian, quoted 
 under the heading of this chapter, which agrees re- 
 markably with what Pytheas, the traveller of Mar- 
 seilles, was told in the north regarding the sun : ' The 
 barbarians used to point out to us the lair or sleeping- 
 place of the sun ; for the nights at one place were only 
 three hours long, at another place only two hours.' 
 (Compare Dr. Tylor's Anthropology, pp. 332, 349). 
 
 Mr A. Lang quotes, in his ' Myth and Ritual,' an 
 account given by the Piute Indians : ' Down, deep 
 under the ground, deep, deep, under all the ground, 
 is a great hole. At night, when he has passed over 
 the world, looking down on everything, and finished 
 his work, he, the sun", goes into his hole, and he crawls 
 and creeps along it till he comes to his bed in the 
 middle part of the earth. So then he, the sun, stops 
 there in his bed all night. This hole is so little, and 
 he, the sun, is so big, that he cannot turn round in it ; 
 and so he must, when he has had all his sleep, pass 
 on through, and in the morning we see him come out 
 in the east. When he, the sun, has so come out, he 
 begins to hunt up through the sky to catch and eat 
 any he can of the stars, his children, for if he does not 
 so catch and eat he cannot live. He, the sun, is not 
 all seen. The shape of him is like a snake or lizard. 
 It is not his head that we can see, but his belly,'filled up 
 with the stars that times and times he has swallowed.' 
 
 The moon, it goes on to say, is his wife, and sleeps 
 in the same hole, but when he returns and is cross, 
 she comes away. As in Hesiod, one home cannot 
 contain them both; and so sun and moon do not 
 appear at the same time in the upper world. 
 
 Such, then, have been the thoughts of men regarding 
 the land peopled by their dead, the cavernous deep 
 
l66 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 whose dark windings the sun has nightly to thread, to 
 reappear in the morning victor over the powers of dark- 
 ness. Well may the Dawn, Moon, or planet Venus 
 furnish the clue by which the new day is won, and greet 
 him on his issuing from the gates ; but not for long can 
 they be together — Ariadne must be left behind at 
 Naxos, as the sun hastens westward. This is the sub- 
 ject of the ' gest ' of Theseus. Hesiod, indeed, wrote a 
 ' Descent of Theseus,' now lost, and such an adventure 
 seems interwoven in the ' Odyssey,' where Circe, the en- 
 chantress, counterpart of Istar, furnishes Ulysses with 
 directions for his visit to the land of the shades. 
 
 The root of the story thus being the going down of 
 Tammuz into the seven-walled city of the dead, it 
 would naturally be asked, Where is the gate of this 
 city ? And, as it was always ' in the west,' alike to 
 Egyptian, Babylonian, Phcenician, and Greek, the 
 place depended on the country where the question 
 was asked. The story of Europa, and of Theseus 
 and Ariadne, is acknowledged to be Phoenician ; and 
 we can well understand how, looking out from the 
 Syrian sea-board, Crete, the island in the west, became 
 one of the first of many such points, which, as civilisa- 
 tion came westward, removed farther and farther to 
 the setting sun. Sicily, in the story of Persephone ; 
 and again, beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Procopius 
 has a story how the dead assembled on the coast of 
 Gaul and were ferried over to Britain ; they were, 
 indeed, invisible, but the bark sank deep into the 
 waters with the burden, and its speed answered to an 
 unknown force. 
 
 Teneriffe was another such site, so that in a 
 Spanish map of 1346 it bears the name of the Island 
 of Hades ; Ireland had ' St Patrick's purgatory ; ' 
 beyond, again, it is the New Atlantis of the western 
 ocean ; and in the time of Columbus the people still 
 
THE LABYRINTH 167 
 
 had a tradition of a country to which they gave the 
 name of 'Seven Cities.' Stories also would naturally 
 enough arise of persons who by accident or by entice- 
 ments strayed over that threshold. Pausanias tells 
 us of a man of Gnossus who strayed into a cave and 
 was overcome by a sleep that lasted forty years ; 
 Pliny has a similar tale ; and such are the mediaeval 
 stories of Tannhauser, Thomas the Rhymer, and 
 Ogier the Dane, for which see Wright's ' Patrick's 
 Purgatory,' Baring Gould's 'Curious Myths,' and 
 Hartland's ' Science of Fairy Tales.' 
 
 In another set of stories entirely parallel, it is the 
 maiden who is carried off to the dark under world. 
 Persephone gathering the crocuses and the white 
 lilies of the fields in Enna is borne off like Europa, 
 not to Crete, but to the dark labyrinth of the under 
 world by its lord Pluto, to spend a portion of her time 
 away from the bright summer world, ' she herself the 
 spring,' as Dante says. Such a story finds its explana- 
 tion in this other from the Romance of Alexander. 
 
 In farther India, Alexander, having seen most of 
 the wonders of that land of wonders, comes 'to a 
 district where he beheld women, who being interred 
 during the winter sprung up to life on the approach 
 of summer, with renovated grace and beauty, or, as it is 
 prettily expressed in the metrical romance of ' Lambert 
 li Cors,' as given by Dunlop :— 
 
 ' Quant Teste revient, et le beau temps s' espure 
 En guise de fleur blanche revienient a nature.' 
 
 And so it comes in all the pretty stories that this 
 imprisoned heroine has to be awakened by the kiss of 
 the hero, of the Theseus or Sigurd type ; and so, too, 
 their palace is set round with ring fences, seven. In 
 Hindu story, Rama dreams of a peerless beauty, and 
 
l68 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 is told that she lives afar off in (i) a glass palace, (2) 
 round the palace runs a river, (3) round the river is a 
 garden of flowers, (4 — 7) and round the garden are 
 four thick groves of trees. Thousands of princes have 
 failed to overcome these difficulties; all, until the 
 chosen hero comes. In another, Pandi-Phul Ranee, 
 ' The Queen of the five flowers,' dwelt in a small house 
 round which were seven wide ditches and seven great 
 hedges of spears (Old Deccan Days). 
 
 In the Russian stories the hero goes to the other 
 world through a hole in the ground, he slays a vast 
 snake or composite creature, Koshchei the deathless, 
 and frees the captive maiden. In the Servian version 
 he regains earth by the flight of an eagle. The best 
 known of all these tales is ' The Sleeping Beauty,' ' La 
 Belle au Bois Dormant' of Perrault. Grimm's 'Briar 
 Rose,' who sleeps within a maze of briars that none 
 may penetrate until the hero and the time — the 
 spring — are come. 
 
 In the Ramayana Sita, called 'daughter of the 
 furrow,' is carried off by Ravana the king of the 
 under world and lord of riches ; she is won back 
 by Rama, but the earth ever claims her again ; as 
 Professor Max Miiller, speaking of Brynhild says, 
 ' thus we see that the awaking and budding spring is 
 gone, carried away by Gunnar ; like Proserpina by 
 Pluto ; like Sita by Ravana.' 
 
 A story similar to this, told of ' the Queen of the 
 flowers,' ' Rosebriar,' or Rosa-Mundi, gets attached 
 to a real Rosamond Clifford, ' the fairest flower in all 
 the worlde.' The maze of Woodstock thus appears 
 in Stow : — ' Rosamond, the fayre daughter of Walter, 
 Lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II. (poisoned by 
 Queen Eleanor, as some thought), dyed at Woodstock 
 (a.d. 1 1 77), where king Henry had made for her a 
 house of wonderful working; so that no man or 
 
THE LABYRINTH 169 
 
 woman might come to her, but he that was instructed 
 by the king, or such as were right secret with him 
 touching the matter. This house after some was 
 named Labyrinthus or Dedalus worke, which was 
 wrought Hke a knot in a garden called a maze ; but it 
 was commonly said that lastly the Queen came to her 
 by a clue of thridde, or silke, and so dealt with her 
 that she lived not long after ; but when she was dead 
 she was buried at Godstow in an house of nunnes, 
 beside Oxford, with these verses upon her tomb 
 
 ' Hie jacit in tumba, Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda : 
 Non redolet, sed olet, quae redolere solet." 
 
 We will leave the myth with the beautiful story in 
 Maundeville of the daughter of ' Ypocras ' changed 
 into a serpent, ' and they say that she shall remain in 
 that form until the time that a knight come who shall 
 be so bold that he dare come to her and kiss her on 
 the mouth, and she lies in an old castle in a cave, and 
 appears twice or thrice in the year.' The castle in 
 the cave, not the maiden, is all that properly belongs 
 to our subject. 
 
 This imagery of the under world, a;s the labyrinth 
 of the dead, had a further influence on architecture 
 than the figured mazes of the floors. It formed the 
 ideal plan of the tomb. 
 
 Maspero is clear as to this. ' During the day 
 the pure soul was in no serious danger, but in the 
 evening, when the eternal waters which flow along 
 the vaulted heavens fall in vast cascades adown the 
 west and are engulphed in the bowels of the earth, 
 the soul follows the escort of the sun and the other 
 luminary gods into th« lower world bristling with 
 ambuscades and perils. For twelve hours the divine 
 squadron defiles through long and gloomy corridors, 
 
I/O THE LABYRINTH 
 
 where numerous genii, some hostile, some friendly, 
 now struggle to bar the way, and now to aid it in 
 surmounting the difficulties of the journey. Great 
 doors, each guarded by a gigantic serpent, were sta- 
 tioned at intervals, and led to an immense hall full of 
 flame and fire, peopled by hideous monsters and 
 executioners, whose office it was to torture the damned. 
 Then came more dark and narrow passages, more 
 blind gropings in the gloom, more strife with malevo- 
 lent genii, and again the welcoming of the propitious 
 gods. At midnight began the upward journey to- 
 wards the eastern region of the world; and in the 
 morning, having reached the confines of the Land of 
 Darkness, the sun emerged from the east to light 
 another day.' ' The tombs of the kings were con- 
 structed upon the model of the world of night. They 
 had their passages, their doors, their vaulted halls, 
 which plunged down into the depths of the moun- 
 tain.' The wall-paintings carry farther this same 
 intention ; if the planning gives the geography these 
 give the very scenery of the lower world. ' At Thebes 
 as at Memphis the intention was to secure to the double 
 the enjoyment of his new abode, and to usher the soul 
 into the company of the gods of the Solar Osirian 
 cycle as well as to guide it through the labyrinth of 
 the infernal regions. Taken as a series, these tableaux 
 form an illustrated narrative of the travels of the sun 
 and the soul through the twenty-four hours of the day 
 and night. Each hour is represented, as also the 
 domain of each hour, with its circumscribing boundary, 
 the door of which is guarded by a huge serpent. These 
 serpents have their various names, as " Fire Face," 
 " Flaming Eye," " Evil Eye." He was assailed like 
 Dante and Virgil at the gates of Hell, by frightful 
 sounds and clamourings. Each circle had its voice, 
 not to be confounded with the voices of other circles. 
 
THE LABYRINTH 171 
 
 Here the sound was as an immense humming of wasps ; 
 yonder it was as the lamentation of women for their 
 husbands, and the howling of she beasts for their mates ; 
 elsewhere it was as the rolling of the thunder. The 
 sarcophagus as well as the walls were covered with 
 these scenes of joyous or sinister import' 
 
 This interpretation is fully borne out by Perrot. 
 ' The soul had to appear before the tribunal of Osiris, 
 the sun of night. . . . The tomb had its snares 
 and narrow passages, its gaping depths, and the mazes 
 of its intersecting corridors. Thus the tombs of the 
 Theban period embody the Egyptian solution of the 
 problem which has always exercised mankind. Their 
 subterranean corridors were a reproduction upon a 
 smaller scale of the leading characteristics of the 
 under world.' . . . ' A reproduction in small of 
 the regions of the other world.' 
 
 Miss Edwards writes of the Tombs of the Kings : 
 ' To go down into one of these great sepulchres is to 
 descend one's self into the lower world, and to tread 
 the path of the shades ; crossing the threshold we look 
 up, half expecting to read those terrible words in which 
 all who enter are warned to leave hope behind them. 
 The passage slopes before our feet ; the daylight fades 
 behind us. At the end of the passage comes a flight 
 of steps, and from the bottom of that flight of steps 
 we see another corridor slanting down into depths of 
 utter darkness.' 
 
 The tomb of Seti I. penetrates 470 feet and is 180 
 feet deep in the earth ; another has some 24,000 square 
 feet taken up by the passages, halls, staircases, pits, 
 and chambers of the tomb. The inside of the mag- 
 nificent alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I. in the Soane 
 Museum is entirely covered with engravings giving 
 the course of the sun and the passage of the gateways 
 to reach the Hall of Justice. This is an Egyptian atlas. 
 
172 THE LABYRINTH 
 
 nor were they without a handbook to the land from 
 which no tourist returns, for the guide-book for the 
 dead was laid in the coffin, telling them of all the 
 turnings, and of all the ruses of the wicked spirits who 
 would entice them away from the one true path. Just 
 as Mr Carl Bock tells us that, when a chief dies in 
 Borneo, directions are chanted so that the dead shall 
 not mistake the way and may avoid tempting but false 
 allurements. 
 
 On a wide comparison, important tombs are 
 generally labyrinthine ; and it may be suggested that 
 the carved maze-like patterns — those incised on the 
 Mycenae slabs, for instance, as shown by Schliemann — 
 had sometimes the intention of figuring the grave 
 land. The Etruscan tomb chambers are particularly 
 involved, as maybe seen in the plans given by Dennis. 
 The tomb of Lars Porsenna is thus described by 
 Pliny : — ' He was buried under the city of Clusium, in 
 a spot where he has left a monument of rectangular 
 masonry, each side whereof is three hundred feet wide 
 and fifty high, and within the square of the basement 
 is an inextricable labyrinth ; out of which, no one who 
 ventures in without a clue of thread, can ever find an 
 exit.' 
 
 In the initiations and mysteries, imitations of the 
 labyrinth of the dark world seem to have been built. 
 Professor Sayce quotes from an Assyrian tablet which 
 describes the initiation of a priest of the Sun-god 
 Samas, who is ' made to descend into an artificial 
 imitation of the lower world.' And the Elusinian 
 Mysteries embodied the same thought. In Buddhist 
 story we are told that Asoka in his evil days 
 actually built ' a hell ' and tortured people there. 
 
 Another widely distributed myth in connection 
 with old buildings, that of the underground passage 
 would seem a parallel thought, perhaps best explained 
 
THE LABYRINTH 173 
 
 by this underway of the sun, which everyone felt as- 
 sured must go under his own particular temple. Be 
 this as it may, we are likely to be told in many old 
 church and abbey in England, especially if ruined, 
 that 'there is a passage underground which runs 
 from here for miles and miles ; it crosses under the 
 river, and the other end is at the castle.' The 
 story is told in France, in one instance, of all 
 the way from Aries to the amphitheatre at Ntmes. 
 Sir H. Layard heard the same tale in the wildest 
 part of Persia ; just as it was told Herodotus in 
 Egypt that there was a subterranean gallery from 
 the Great Pyramid to the Nile; or to the French 
 traveller Theveniot, that it passed from the Pyramid 
 to come out of the head of the great Sphynx. The 
 Euphrates Expedition spent some time in searching 
 for a passage which was reported to have existed 
 under the river (Ainsworth). A story like this, once 
 having obtained a hold on the imagination, seems to 
 have an undying vitality. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 ' The eastern gate 
 Where the great sun begins his state.' — Milton. 
 
 ' The doors of Heaven seem slowly to open, and what are called 
 the bright flocks of the Dawn step out of the dark stable, returning 
 to their wonted pastures. . . . Not only the east, but the west, 
 and the south,and the north, the whole temple of Heaven, is illuminated.' 
 — Max M tiller (Comp. Myth.). 
 
 WHEN the earth, or rather the wall of moun- 
 tains surrounding the utmost bounds of 
 ocean, was the foundation of the solid sky, some 
 contrivance was necessary to account for the dis- 
 appearance and return of the sun. A new sun, 
 it was thought, was created in the morning to die 
 at night, the creature of a day. Others believed 
 that when it reached the ocean it was floated round 
 by the north to the place of rising in the east ; or that, 
 as the earth rose in the north like a great mountain, 
 the sun was periodically hidden behind it. The 
 general early view, however, was that there were 
 two openings — the Gates of the East, and the Gates 
 of the West. Through the one the sun enters in 
 the morning the mundane temple, to pass out at 
 the other in the evening, and thence pursue its way 
 back by the dark path of the under world. 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 175 
 
 Thus Hesiod : — 
 
 ' There night and day, near passing, mutual greeting still 
 Exchange, alternate as they glide athwart 
 The brazen threshold vast. This enters, that 
 Forth issues, nor the two can one abode 
 At once contain. This passes forth and roams 
 The round of earth. That in the mansion waits 
 Till the due season of her travel come.' 
 
 In the Veda : — ' The dawn shone with brilliance and 
 opened for us the doors that open high and wide with 
 their frames.' 
 
 In Babylonia the same scheme is shown, in such 
 texts as the invocations to the rising sun, given in 
 ' Records of the Past,' and by Lenormant, of which the 
 first is curiously like Hesiod. ' He opened great gates 
 on every side ; he made strong the portals on the left 
 hand and on the right ; in the centre he placed 
 luminaries. The moon he appointed to rule the night 
 and to wander through the night until the dawn of 
 day.' 
 
 ' Sun, thou shinest in the lowest heavens : Thou 
 openest the bolts which close the high heavens : Thou 
 openest the gate of Heaven.' Or : — ' In the great door 
 of the high heavens in the opening which belongs to 
 thee.' Steps led up the sky from the east gate and 
 descended to the west (Lenormant). Dr Hayes Ward 
 in the American Journal of Archaeology (Vol. 3), 
 shows some dozen Babylonian seals, with intaglios of 
 the Sun-god passing through the double-valved gate 
 of the East and beginning to chmb the mountain of 
 the sky. The gate has two guardian figures. 
 
 To the Egyptians, the sun was The Opener. The 
 gates to the grave land are often mentioned in the 
 Book of the Dead, and are figured on the tombs. 
 
 In Virgil, it is the slamming of these great portals 
 
176 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 of the firmament that makes the thunder resound from 
 the whole vault of heaven; probably a primitive 
 thought, as it is such a good explanation, ' quem super 
 origens porta tonat cseli ' (Georg. iii. 260). 
 
 To the Phoenicians, Hercules (Melkarth) the sun- 
 god, established in the distant west the Pillars of 
 Hercules, identified afterwards with the mountains on 
 either hand at the Straits of Gibraltar ; but even as late 
 as Tacitus it was not decided where they were, nor 
 what. 
 
 Such being the gates of the world structure, we may 
 expect temple doors to have a definite relation to their 
 great prototypes ; and accordingly in chapter iii. we 
 saw that not only did the building offer its four walls 
 to the four heavenly aspects, but it was the universal 
 early practice for the great door to be ' the Gate of 
 Sunrise.' This door of enormous size was properly 
 the sole opening to the temple, serving as much for 
 light as to enter by ; it was thrown open at dawn, and 
 the sun thus entered the world temple and its 
 microcosm at one bound. His symbol signs as we 
 shall see the temple gates, and by a natural reaction, 
 what belongs to one idea is reflected in the other. 
 
 In Egypt the gates of the under world through which 
 the sun passes are shown in the illustrations to the 
 Book of the Dead as great pylons like the entrances 
 to the temples. Every temple pylon becomes a sun 
 gate, and sculptured and painted on the centre of its 
 lintel is the red disc of the sun. ' The winged 
 globe,' says Wilkinson, 'always having its place 
 over the doorways.' And Perrot and Chipiez, ' It was 
 generally ornamented with the winged globe, an 
 emblem which was afterwards appropriated by the 
 nations which became connected with Egypt. This 
 emblem in its full development was formed by the 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 177 
 
 solar disc, supported on each side by the urzeus, the 
 serpent which meant royalty. The disc and its 
 supporters are flanked by two wide-stretching wings 
 with rounded fan-shaped extremities, which symbolized 
 the untiring activity of the sun in making its daily 
 journey from one end of the firmament to the other. 
 Egyptologists tell us that the group as a whole 
 signifies the triumph of right over wrong, the victory 
 of Horus over Set (light over dark). An inscription 
 at Edfou tells us that after this victory Thoth ordered 
 that the emblem should be carved over every door in 
 Egypt, and in fact there are very few lintels without 
 it.' That is, there was a sacred legend saying that 
 the God of Wisdom ordered the sun to be represented 
 on every portal, to symbolise the victory of the sun 
 over darkness, in the struggle at daybreak at the gates 
 of the east. 
 
 These colossal gates are the all-important features to 
 which the shrines are but secondary ; so much so that 
 an Egyptian temple might be defined as a series of 
 gates. They were most impressive in themselves and 
 their ritual significance must have awed into thought 
 and silence whoever entered. Miss Edwards thus 
 describes Karnak, Denderah, and the rock-cut temple 
 at Aboo Simbel. ' Crossing this court in the glowing 
 sunlight we came to a mighty doorway. Only a 
 jutting fragment of the lintel stone remains. That 
 stone when perfect measured forty feet and ten 
 inches across. The doorway must have been full a 
 hundred feet in height ' (Karnak). 
 
 ' The winged globe depicted upon a gigantic scale 
 on the curve of the cornice seems to hover above the 
 central doorway' (Denderah). 
 
 ' On certain mornings in the year, in the very heart 
 01 the mountain, as the sun comes up above the 
 eastern hill-tops, one long level beam strikes through 
 
 M 
 
178 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 the doorway, pierces the inner darkness like an arrow, 
 penetrates to the sanctuary, and falls like fire from 
 Heaven upon the altar at the feet of the gods. No one 
 who has watched for the coming of that shaft of sun- 
 light can doubt that it was a calculated effect, and 
 that the excavation was directed at one especial 
 angle in order to produce it. In this way Ra, to 
 whom the temple was dedicated, may be said to 
 have entered in daily, and by a direct manifestation 
 of his presence to have approved the sacrifices of 
 his worshippers' (Aboo Simbel). Sculptured over 
 the door is a figure of Horus bearing the sun disc. 
 
 An inscription of Rameses II. on the temple of 
 Ptah, at Memphis, might well boast ; — 
 
 ' Its gates are like the heavenly horizon of light.' 
 
 The Phoenicians likewise signed with the sun the 
 centre of their doorways, borrowing the Egyptian 
 orb at Byblos. At Ebba the sun rises between two 
 moons (see above from Perrot). The great cere- 
 monial propylse to the temples, as shown on the 
 coins, have the sun and moon depicted immediately 
 above them. And in the ruins at Medeba, in Moab, Dr 
 Tristram found upon a lintel over an ancient door- 
 way the sculptured emblems of the sun and moon. 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 179 
 
 The acroterion of the portico of the Heraeum at 
 Olympia, the oldest known temple in Greece, was a 
 solar disc ; and another instance of the same kind 
 is given by Lebas and Waddington. 
 
 In the classic period of Syrian art most of the 
 great temple doors had sculptured on the under side 
 of the epistyle an enormous eagle with expanded 
 wings. The great eastern door of the sun temple 
 at Baalbek, ' city of the sun,' is the finest of these ; 
 it is 21 feet wide, and therefore, some 40 feet 
 high, as the approved proportion was twice as high 
 as broad. ' Here on the lower surface (lintel of the 
 door) is the celebrated figure of the crested eagle, 
 beautifully wrought, holding in his talons a caduceus, 
 and in his beak strings of long garlands extending 
 on each side, where the other ends are borne up 
 by flying genii. The crest shows that it was not the 
 Roman eagle ; but as the same figure is found in the 
 great Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, Volney and 
 others regarded it as the Oriental eagle consecrated 
 to the sun' (Robinson 'Palestine Researches'). 
 
 The lintel of Palmyra is figured by Wood and 
 Dawkins. The door faces due east, and the great eagle 
 appears to fly into the temple, the wings expanded 
 ten or twelve feet ; the rest of the space is occupied 
 by stars, and two genii of the dawn. In front, on the 
 eastern side of the vast court, 700 feet square, is a 
 magnificent propylon. 
 
 The Memoirs of the Palestine Exploration Society 
 describe remains of a temple of similar style at 
 Kades, fronting full east, with three doorways, the 
 centre one being very large. ' The lintel, which lies 
 broken in front of the doorway, bears on the under 
 side a representation of the winged deity, the Sun ; 
 it resembles the lintel of the small temple at Baalbek.' 
 
 Another remarkable instance is the great eastern. 
 
i8o 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 portal of the temple of Baalzamin, figured and 
 described by De Vogud. Here is, first, a ' solar head 
 with rays' on the lintel; the lower side of the 
 architrave of the pillared portico has the solar bird, 
 and on its front face is a large sculptured disc. 
 
 The cornice or arch of the door was at times only 
 charged with a circular sun-disc, as that of the tomb at 
 Shefa Amr, in Galilee, here figured. It was this 
 tradition that was afterwards followed in the univer- 
 sal Syrian Christian custom of placing a disc with the 
 sacred monogram or cross on the lintel, usually with 
 ribbon-like appendages, right and left, which are direct 
 survivals of the Egyptian uraeus, that in a similar 
 position accompanied the sun's orb. This becomes a 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN l8l 
 
 decorative commonplace in Byzantine art, either at 
 Constantinople or Venice. 
 
 In Persia also the gates were dedicated to the sun. 
 At Hatra, a temple, supposed to have been erected 
 under the Parthian dynasty, has the sun rising be- 
 tween two moons displayed on the eastern door ; 
 this, and many others, have birds right and left, em- 
 blems of dawn. Later, under the Sassanian kings, 
 the tradition was preserved on the great arch of 
 Chosroes II., at Tak-i-Bostan. Flandin shows at its 
 crown a crescent moon, and on either hand flying genii. 
 There was also, Rawlinson thinks, a ball, 'thus pre- 
 senting to the spectator, at the culminating point of 
 the whole sculpture, the familiar emblems of two of 
 the national divinities.' 
 
 A symbol of the sun is placed in the same way 
 centrally over the great ceremonial gates of the 
 enclosure of the Buddhist topes, which face the 
 cardinal points, the ritual providing that the pro- 
 cession should enter by the gate at the east, circle 
 round the dome — representing the firmament — 
 and go out at the west. These wheel symbols of 
 the sun remain at Sanchi ; and the custom would 
 seem to have been followed generally, for an 
 ancient native authority says that the Raja of Ceylon 
 inserted gems in the centres of ' the four suns ' in 
 the great tope. 'This, perhaps,' adds General Cun- 
 ningham, 'points to the absorption of the ancient 
 sun-worship into Buddhism ; for the wheel was one 
 of the common and obvious emblems of the sun.' 
 (In the Talmud the sun was the great whirling 
 wheeH ' But for the noise of the solar wheel, the 
 hubbub of The City (Rome) might be heard ; but for 
 the noise of the city, the sound of the revolving 
 wheel.') 
 
 In Orissa, we find not only the sun, or sun and moon, 
 
l82 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 but the whole of the planets. ' The Nava Graha, or 
 nine planets, adorn the lintels of all the temples of 
 the Kessari line' (Fergusson). Sometimes they are 
 sculptured figures, at otners merely nine bosses. 
 
 '.•a*i. 
 
 Ilii 
 
 mi> 
 
 i^iiii'i: 
 
 It is impossible not to compare the great Buddhist 
 gateways, with their triple lintels and sun-discs, to 
 the propylons of Phoenician temples preserved in 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 183 
 
 semblance on coins (see that of Paphos, figured 
 below). These have double lintels binding the other- 
 wise isolated sideposts, and over the centre of the 
 lintel are the sun and moon. Probably the doorposts 
 of the sun-gates in the East and West are the origin of 
 the two pillars that served for symbol of Melkarth in 
 Phoenician temples, for this symbol was not a single 
 stone, a shapeless aerolith, but a pair of pillars of 
 metal or emerald glass, almost certainly connected by a 
 lintel. They are bethels and 
 ' Gates of Heaven ' dedicated 
 to the Opener. Perrot remarks 
 that, ' in speaking of the Phce- 
 nician and Syrian temples, 
 classic authors often mentioned 
 the tall pillars which rose in 
 couples before the sanctuary. 
 In the temples of Melkarth, at 
 Gades, they were of bronze, 
 eight cubits high, and bore a 
 long inscription. In the shrine 
 of the same deity at Tyre the 
 admiration of Herodotus was 
 stirred by the sight of two shafts, 
 one of pure gold and the other of emerald, that is, of 
 lapis lazuli or coloured glass. These shafts or stelae 
 probably stood in similar places to those occupied at 
 Jerusalem by Jachin and Boaz, the two famous bronze 
 columns, which rose at the threshold of a building also 
 erected by a Phoenician architect.' 
 
 Such pillars have been found engraved as a symbol 
 of Melkarth on a votive stele (see Perrot's Phoenicia), 
 and they really form a gateway, a trilithon, for, stand- 
 ing apart, they are connected by a lintel ; over them 
 are the sun and moon — a counterpart of the gateway 
 to the temple on the coin of Paphos. 
 
l84 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 Professor Robertson Smith, in the recent volume 
 of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' (art. Temple), says 
 definitely : ' Such twin pillars or twin stelae in stone 
 are of constant occurrence in Phoenician sacred art, 
 and are still familiar to us as the Pillars of Hercules.' 
 
 The Egyptian obelisks that flank the great portals 
 of the temples, at once occur to us as having a 
 corresponding intention. In both ancient and modern 
 times the symbolism of these is understood to be 
 solar. 'Dedicated to the sun,' says that at Rome set up 
 by Augustus. According to Pliny, they ' represent rays 
 of the sun.' ' The obelisks,' says Ebers, ' were sacred 
 to Ra, the sun.' It has been remarked that sometimes 
 they were entirely gilt, that the apex was at other 
 times covered with gilded bronze, and some at least 
 appear to have carried spheres or discs, also of gilded 
 metal. 
 
 An inscription describes two obelisks erected by 
 Queen Hashop, the sister of the great Thothmes : 
 ' Their tops are covered with copper of the best war 
 tributes of all countries ; they are seen a great many 
 miles off. It is a flood of shining splendour when the 
 sun rises between them' (Brugsch). The Assyrian 
 slabs and bronzes seem to make it clear that 'sun 
 pillars' flanked the entrances, or were set up right 
 and left of an altar. 
 
 In India, pillars supporting sun-wheels are found 
 at the entrance gates to sacred buildings. Fergusson 
 says: 'My impression is that all the pillars sur- 
 mounted by lions in front of the caves, as at Karla, 
 supported originally a wheel in metal' Such 'chakra 
 pillars ' are frequent on the Buddhist sculptures, and 
 the wheels appear to have been turned on an axle. 
 In Orissa, Dr Hunter tells us, ' sun pillars ' are sur- 
 mounted by the charioteer of the god, or by an eagle. 
 
 In Peru and Mexico we get exactly the same inter- 
 pretation of the universal thought. At the gold- 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 185 
 
 plated temple of Cuzco ' the doors opened to the east, 
 and at the far end was the golden disc of the sun, 
 placed so as to reflect the first rays of the morning on 
 its brilliant surface, and, as it were, reproduce the 
 golden luminary.' ' Columns of the sun ' were erected 
 in Peru. ' They were regarded as " seats of the sun," 
 who loved to rest upon them. At the equinoxes and 
 solstices they placed golden thrones upon them for 
 him to sit upon.' Quadrants were traced at the base 
 as dials (Rdville, Hibbert Lectures). 
 
 The monolithic doorway at Tiahuanco has on the 
 centre of the lintel ' a figure, probably representing 
 the sun ' (Clements Markham). 
 
 In China it is the same. A tomb doorway at 
 Canton, figured by Dresser, has the entire lintel 
 sculptured with the sun rising from the clouds ; but 
 the most usual form is to charge the beam or the 
 ridge of the great roofed gates {Pailoos) with a flaming 
 sun rising between two guardian dragons. 
 
 The custom of erecting such a fore-gate is still 
 maintained at the Shinto temples of Japan. Dr 
 Dickson says the temple enclosure 'is marked by a 
 stone torii or sacred portal. The torii is character- 
 istic of all Shinto shrines ; it consists of two upright 
 posts, on the tops of which rests a horizontal beam, 
 projecting slightly on each side; beneath this is a 
 smaller cross beam, whose ends do not project. The 
 
l86 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 material used is generally wood, but may be stone 
 or bronze. The original purpose of the torii was to 
 serve as a perch for the sacred fowls, kept to give 
 warning of the daybreak; but after the introduction 
 of Buddhism it came to be regarded as a gateway.' 
 We may remark here, that the weathercocks on every 
 church are gilded birds that greet the sun. 
 
 In M. Bing's recent book on Japanese art it is 
 remarked that everything is symbolical in the archi- 
 tecture of Japan. 'The torii is a "roost," as the word 
 indicates, and its two bent beams are made in order 
 that the sun, the King of Nature, may come, like a 
 bird, and perch there.' Hokusai, the great Japanese 
 artist, has devoted a book to this very subject, and he 
 accounts for the curves of the massive roofs of the 
 temple porches thus: 'The sun, represented by a large 
 circle on a horizontal line, is supported on its right 
 and left by four smaller circles, representing the four 
 seasons.' Though a diagram which he gives really 
 seems far fetched, it is interesting that he associates 
 the sun thus definitely with the gate ; and our wide 
 comparison sufficiently answers the question of the 
 writer who quotes this from Hokusai in the first- 
 named work, and asks, ' Has this explanation any 
 historical value, or is it only ingenious and poetical ? 
 At any rate, it is enough that it should come from a 
 Japanese artist, who does not limit to that extent his 
 indications of a like nature in order to prove how 
 strong is the conviction in Japan that architectural 
 forms come, more or less, from hazy recollections of 
 some ancient symbolism.' 
 
 The suggestion that the torii were primarily roosts 
 either in purpose or by etomology is certainly not well 
 founded, although it was made by Mr Satow. They 
 were doubtless derived with Buddhism from the gatesto 
 the Indian topes there called torana, ' Celestial gates.' 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 187 
 
 In Japan, the palace of the god-king at Kioto is 
 entered by ' The Gate of the Sun ' (Reid) ; and Dr 
 Dresser saw pilgrims worshipping the rising sun as 
 seen between two rocks connected by a straw-band, 
 from which Shinto symbols were pendant. 
 
 These Shinto symbols are the torii itself, the 
 mirror, slips of paper attached to a wand, and 
 the rope. This last is of rice-straw, ' varying in thick- 
 ness from the heavy cable which , often hangs 
 across a torii or temple entrance to that no thicker" 
 than a finger, which is suspended across house doors.' 
 In Peru a chain was suspended from two rocks across 
 a valley to catch the sun (Frazer, ' Golden Bough '). 
 The two pillars in front of the temple of Paphos, 
 CO. Miiller says, were joined by a chain. In Hindu 
 temples a chain is sometimes found festooned across 
 the top of the portal. The thought of localising the 
 sun by catching him at the eastern door would thus 
 seem general. The actual sun, we may remember, 
 was often thought to be chained in the performance 
 of his daily toil. 
 
 In Arcadia, Pausanias visited a grove of Zeus: — 
 ' And on the highest crest of the whole mountain there 
 is a mound of heaped-up earth, the altar of Zeus 
 Lycaeus ; and the most part of Peloponnesus can be 
 seen from that place ; and before the altar stand two 
 pillars facing the rising sun, and thereon golden eagles 
 of yet more ancient workmanship ' (viii. 2). 
 
 At the most ancient of the sacred sites in Greece — 
 the pre-Homeric oracle of Zeus of Dodona — were two 
 columns ; on one was a brazen bowl, on the other a 
 brazen statue. Against the bowl it was arranged that 
 balls attached to chains should strike, swayed by the 
 wind. It cannot be doubted that the chain-work and 
 pomegranates around the bowls on the pillars of 
 Solomon were intended, in the same way, to form 
 
l88 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 aeolian bells, shivering out music to every breath of 
 wind, like the golden bells suspended about the ex- 
 terior of Burmese temples, which are definitelyintended 
 to recall the sweet sounds of paradise. For these 
 gates of Solomon and Herod see the chapter ' Toran ' 
 in Ferguson's ' Temple of the Jews.' 
 
 The gate, according to Josephus, had no doors, ' for it 
 symbolised the heavens, everywhere open and every- 
 where visible.' In the Talmud it is said that it was 
 40 cubits high and 20 broad. Above the pillars 
 were five beams of wood, each of which projected at 
 the ends a cubit more than the one below. ' A golden 
 vine was spread over this gateway of the temple, and 
 it was carried on the supporting beams.' (Other 
 Syrian gateways were ornamented with sculptured 
 vins ; and this gives us another Byzantine origin.) 
 rThc whole porch and inner doorway were entirely 
 \ covered with gold. This was opened at the moment 
 of sunrise ; when the noise, it was said, of loosing the 
 bolts was heard even to Jericho. Across the porch 
 hung a veil embroidered with st ars. J 
 
 The Greek Propj//tza of the Acropolis follows the same 
 thought ; and it is of some interest to note that the 
 early Greek and Etruscan doorways were of forms 
 suitable and common to these isolated structures — the 
 jambs inclined, and the lintel widely over-lapping them. 
 
 The Japanese say that ' unless you passed under 
 the toran on entering the temple your prayers would 
 not be listened to ' (Fergusson) ; and some Christians 
 who were obliged to give up their faith had to pass 
 under one of these torii, as a sign ; for this, too, is 
 none other than the gate of heaven. Probably the 
 custom of squeezing between pillars has been at times 
 associated with this thought. St Willibald, in the 
 eighth century, says of the Ascension Church : ' the 
 man who can creep between the wall and the columns 
 is free from his sins.' 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 189 
 
 Pairs of pillars are associated together also as 
 memorials of the dead, or used to record the past. 
 The two brazen columns in: the temple of Hercules 
 at Gades bore a long legend. And Procopius, in 
 'Wars of the Vandals/ says that in his time two 
 huge stone stelae existed in the Numidian town 
 of Tirgisis, inscribed by the inhabitants, in Phoenician, 
 with the legend, 'We are they who fled from 
 before Joshua, the robber, the son of Nun.' A 
 yet older record was said to preserve, in this way, the 
 learning of those before the flood. ' The sons of Seth 
 wrote the knowledge of things celestial upon two 
 columns.' ' And that their inventions might not be 
 lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam's 
 prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one 
 time by the force of fire, and at another time by the 
 violence of water, they made two pillars, the one of 
 brick, the other of stone; they inscribed their dis- 
 coveries on them both, that, in case the pillar of brick 
 should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone 
 might remain, and exhibit these discoveries to man- 
 kind, and also inform them that there was another 
 pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in 
 the land of Siriad to this day.' (Josephus, I.-II.) 
 
 The pair of immense pillars before the temple at 
 Hieropolis were said to have been in some way 
 connected with the flood. 
 
 The most characteristic and persistent type of tomb 
 was the dolmen, or trilithon ; ranging from the 
 rudest balancing of rough stones to perfectly finished 
 work — a pair of columns with an entablature. In this 
 form they are especially found in Syria and places 
 connected with Phoenicia; but the custom is of 
 wider distribution than can be attributed to contact 
 with any one country. Fergusson, in ' Rude Stone 
 Monuments,' has already pointed out the affinity with 
 
190 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 the toran gateway, giving an illustration of a 
 Buddhist tomb of the toran form as corresponding to 
 the Western sepulchral trilithons. As in Egypt, and 
 generally to the peoples of antiquity, the soul was 
 expected to pass through the gate of the west ; and as 
 in most early tombs — those of Persia and Lycia, for 
 example — there is a false door, a mere representation 
 of a doorway, with two guardian watchers; as, further- 
 more, we have seen that the grave was the under world 
 in double : shall we not be justified in regarding these 
 sepulchral trilithons as at once the door of the tomb 
 and portal of the under world ? It was so certainly in 
 Egypt. Maspero tells us how in the tombs of early or 
 later dynasties the chief object is a false_di30iv-t]ie^ 
 eatrance-to the '-pfprnal Knm p' nf fhp r| pa(l_ ' It is 
 often found in the west, but that position was not 
 prescribed by rule (?). In" the earliest times it was 
 indicated like a real door, low and narrow, framed 
 and decorated like the d oor of an ordinary house, but 
 not pierced-throGgTT. An inscription graven upon the 
 lintel, in large readable characters, commemorated 
 the name and rank of the owner.' In the pyramid of 
 Unas (sixth dynasty), the chamber was lined with 
 alabaster, and engraved to represent great monu- 
 mental doors ; and carrying the duplication even 
 farther, 'small obelisks, about; three feet in height, 
 are found in tombs^as- early as the fourth dynasty. 
 They are placed on either side of the door which 
 leads to the dwelling of the dead.' 
 
 In the 'Encyclopaedia of India' (Balfour, art. 'Toran') 
 this same suggestion is made: 'The dolmen or 
 trilithic altar, in the centre of all those monuments 
 called Druidic, is most probably a toran, sacred to 
 the sun-god, ... to whom (in India), as soon as 
 the temple is raised the toran is erected.' 
 
 The Egyptian obelisks were pre-eminently used for 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN I9I 
 
 important inscriptions, and their symbolic suitability 
 as everlasting records will be reinforced by what 
 Perrot says of the hieroglyphic significance of the 
 obelisk: — ' It was used to write the syllable men, which 
 signified firmness or stability! From the Bible Dic- 
 tionary we learn that Boaz and Jachin, the names of 
 the pillars of Solomon, had an equivalent value. 
 Jachin, 'he established;' Boaz, 'in him is strength.' 
 Renan reads : ' May the double column firmly stand.' 
 We can hardly doubt longer that twin columns re- 
 present the eternal and immovable pillars of the sky — 
 Heaven's gate — through which the worshipper must 
 pass to the temple ; or the soul to the other world. 
 
 Portals must have guardians. The gateways of the 
 Assyrians were in this respect like the sun gates of 
 the east and the west, where the solid firmament 
 rested on two winged genii in the form of bulls. 
 ' The " path of the Sun " to the " great twin gates " 
 was guarded by the pair of scorpion kerubim ' (Bos- 
 cawen, Bab. Record). 
 
 ' We read invocations to the two bulls who flanked 
 the gate of the infernal abode, which were no longer 
 simulacra of stone, but living beings, like the bulls at 
 the gates of the celestial palaces of the gods.' 
 
 ' The invocation which follows is addressed to the 
 ears of the bull " placed on the right of the bronze 
 enclosure," because they imagined the gate of hell to 
 be flanked by human-headed bulls like those which 
 guarded the gates of the Assyrian palaces ; only these 
 bulls were living genii : " O great bull, very great bull, 
 which stampest high, which openest access to the 
 interior ! " The bull on the left of the bronze enclosure 
 is invoked in his turn ' (Lenormant). 
 
 It is clear at this point that these are not the charac- 
 teristics of the temple and palace gate read into the 
 
192 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 solar gateway to the under world, but the exact 
 reverse; for these guardians were known to story 
 ages before it was possible to realise such ' simulacra ' 
 in stone as are to be seen in the British Museum. In 
 the inscription on the bull of the gateway at Khorsa- 
 bad, its great builder says : ' I opened eight gates in 
 the direction of the four cardinal points. I have 
 named the large gates of the east the gates of Samas 
 (the sun) and of Bin.' Another king ornaments 
 with silver ' the gate of the sunrise.' 
 
 The huge human-headed bulls were reproductions 
 for the gate of the palace, of the creatures that 
 guarded the sun gates of the east and west, to 
 which they were dedicated. 'Such,' says Lenor- 
 mant, 'are the readings furnished us, from the 
 cuneiform inscriptions, upon the nature and signifi- 
 cance of the genii in the form of winged bulls with 
 human countenances whose images were stationed as 
 guardians at the portals of the edifices of Babylonia 
 and Assyria.' These representations of the guardians 
 of the sun gate had a magical and beneficent influence, 
 as is shown in an inscription of Esarhaddon : ' Bulls 
 and lions carved in stone, which with their majestic 
 mien deter wicked enemies from approaching: the 
 guardians of the footsteps, the saviours of the path of 
 the king, who constructed them at the gates. . . . 
 May the bull of good fortune, the genius of good 
 fortune, the guardian of the footsteps of my majesty, 
 the giver of joy to my heart, for ever watch over it! 
 Never more may its care cease.' 
 
 In Egypt the gates of the under world were guarded 
 by creatures in the form of animals which are often 
 mentioned in the Ritual. We saw also that the sun disc 
 was placed over the gateway in memory of the battle 
 between Horus, the rising sun, and the_Eower-ef 
 darkness: to wage this war Horus took the -shape- of 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 193 
 
 a, hum an-hea ded lion , the sphinx ; and this creature is 
 calleTthe ' sun on th'STJorijon.' Sreliot the sphinxes 
 which guard~Hi5'entrances of the temples — a single pair, 
 or an ayenue of hundreds— evidentlyderivedfromthese? 
 
 It is the same in the East and in Greece. ' The 
 Vedic poets,' says Professor Max Muller, ' have ima- 
 gined two dogs belonging to Yama, the lord of the 
 departed spirits. They are called the messengers of 
 Yama, bloodthirsty and broad-snouted, brown, four- 
 eyed, and pale — the " dawn children." The departed 
 is told to pass by them on his way to the fathers, who 
 are rejoicing with Yama. Yama is asked to protect 
 the departed from these dogs ; and finally the dogs 
 themselves are implored to grant life to the living, 
 and to let them see the sun again. These two dogs 
 represent one of the lowest of the many conceptions 
 of morning and evening. . . . Greece, though she re- 
 cognised Hermes as guide to the souls of the departed, 
 did not degrade him to the rank of the watch-dog of 
 Hades. These watch-dogs, Kerber os-and— _Qlt hros, 
 represent, however, the two dog^s of Yama — the^joom 
 c^ijnorning_and evening, here conceived" as hostile and 
 demoniacal powers.' One of them was black, and 
 the other was spotted. 
 
 Now let us compare all this with Homer's concep- 
 tion of a palace as it ought to be, the palace of 
 Alcinous : ' Brazen were the walls, which ran this way 
 and that, from the threshold to the inmost chamber ; 
 and round them was a frieze of blue ; and golden 
 were the doors that closed in the good house. Silver 
 were the door-posts that were set on the brazen 
 threshold, and silver the lintel thereupon ; and the 
 hook of the door was of gold ; and on either side stood, 
 golden hounds and silver, which Hephsestos wrought 
 by his cunning to guard the palace of great-hearted 
 Alcinous, being free from death and age all their days! 
 
 N 
 
194 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 This view has already been suggested by Mr Keary 
 in his ' Outlines of Primitive Belief : ' The two gods 
 (of the palace door) have, I fancy, a special meaning. 
 I see in them the descendants of the Sarameys, or 
 whatever in early Aryan belief preceded these guar- 
 dians of the house of death, who are own brothers to 
 the two dogs of the Wild Huntsman, Hackelburg. 
 The garden which surrounds the palace of Alcinous 
 distinctly presents the picture of a home of the 
 blessed. It is just like the gardens of the Hesperides, 
 and like all pictures which before or after have been 
 drawn of the earthly paradise.' 
 
 It is interesting to find these two guardian dogs of 
 the entrance to the death land exist still in Irish observ- 
 ance. Lady Wild tells us that mourners are enjoined 
 not to wail for some time after the passing of the 
 spirit, for fear of waking the two dogs who guard the 
 way, so that they tear the pilgrim when he comes to 
 the gates. 
 
 The two great beasts, rampant supports of a central 
 pillar above the Lion gate at Mycenae, are but the 
 guardians of the ' jaws of death, the gate of hell.' An 
 exactly parallel treatment may be found in the British 
 Museum in the gables of the Lycian tombs, where 
 sphinxes guard the false door. Or at times there is a 
 central pillar, like the Mycenae composition, where, 
 unfortunately, the chapiter is broken away. Two such 
 sphinxes, with the pillar, are placed over the central 
 epistyle of the early temple of Assos ; and the arrange- 
 ment afterwards becomes one of the common-places 
 of design, but for long rightly associated with the 
 door of the temple or the tomb. The Chaldean 
 prototype is shown in George Smith's 'Chaldea.' 
 Two composite creatures, scorpion-men, 'warders of 
 the sun,' stand on either side of a pillar-like object, 
 and above hovers the symbol of the sun. 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF TKE SUN I95 
 
 This practice of putting horrible human or compo- 
 site monsters in effigy at the xiborway of entrance is 
 universal. The custom probably has a root in 
 the simple nature of things, the at-once-felt appro- 
 priateness of it ; but there can be no doubt that the 
 guardians of the sun gate were put there in answer to 
 the question, ' Why do the dead return not ? ' These 
 beasts 'fawn on all who enter,' but rend all who 
 would pass thence again. 'Easy is the descent to 
 Avernus.' 
 
 All over the East, in India, China, Siam, Japan, the 
 gates are so protected. Before the temples of the latter 
 two statues are placed, called ' the Averagers ' (Dixon) ; 
 and Miss Bird tells us that house doors and even 
 cupboards have prints of these warders. Some of the 
 Indian temples have enormous rearing horses, with 
 their riders spearing enemies. 
 
 In the early Buddhist structures in Ceylon the 
 gates are guarded by giant creatures, who fulfil the 
 same purpose of magical protection as the genii of 
 Assyria. They are named dvarpal, 'guardians of 
 the approaches.' ' Tliese grotesque demon figures 
 were supposed to be endowed with a mysterious 
 power, vested in their intense hideousness, of scaring 
 away enemies.' The groups of flesh-tearing lions 
 at the gates of Lombard churches are identical in their 
 intention. The early Christian use, as shown by De 
 VogU6 of Syria, was to put Michael and Gabriel on 
 either side of the door ; sometimes also instead 
 of the figures, the disc on the centre of the arch 
 had the letters X. M. V. for Christ, Michael, and 
 Gabriel. The Byzantine 'Manual of Iconography' 
 says these archangels should be painted right and 
 left, inside the door; and Mrs Jameson tells us they 
 were also painted on the jambs of the triumphal arch 
 to tlie chancel. 
 
196 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 If the gate is the doorway ofdeath, it would inter- 
 pret that curious pTiitTrEive~cusfbm Bywhich to touch 
 the threshold was ominous of evil. Early travellers in 
 the £ast.tell us how carefully this had to be avoi ded ; 
 and we know howlhrid es had_ tolbeJifted_oy e'r the 
 threshold. 
 
 It has often been said that we see a system, and 
 read our modern methods of thought into old observ- 
 ances that were followed without an intelligent 
 motive. This is no doubt perfectly true, but it 
 should be urged in reply that a method may explain 
 even the unconscious developments of thought. It is 
 no answer to Mr Ruskin to say that Turner allowed 
 that the critic saw more than the painter did in his 
 pictures : that is the critic's justification. 
 
 The gateway of one of the Peruvian temples is 
 pierced through a single enormous stone, perfectly 
 squared, and entirely covered with sculptures. So 
 fascinating has been the idea of ' monolithism,' that 
 probably only the supreme difficulty made it infre- 
 quent. Tavernier mentions seeing a doorway to 
 a mosque at Taurus ' cut out of a great transparent 
 white stone, four-and-twenty feet high and twelve 
 broad.' The three stones of jambs and lintel wfere 
 the nearest practicable approximation. 
 
 Pausanias tells us of many temples, that their doors 
 were only thrown open once a year. He says the door 
 of the tomb of Helen of Adiabene, at Jerusalem, 
 'cannot be opened except on one particular day of 
 the year. And then it opens by the machinery 
 alone, keeping open for some time, and then shuts 
 again.' 
 
 It was usual to cover the east door itself with 
 shining metal. Nebuchadnezzar says of the temple of 
 Babylon : — ' The gate of glory I made as brilliant as the 
 sun.' So well known was this practice in Greece^ that 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 197 
 
 Aristophanes makes a passing allusion to gilded temple 
 doors. In Syria it was the same ; at the temple 
 of Mabog (Hierapolis) the doors were gilded, as 
 also was the entire sanctuary, walls and ceiling. 
 Two immense columns, one hundred and eighty feet 
 high, flanked the door, inside which, on the left, was 
 placed the throne of the sun. The great eastern gate 
 of Herod's temple was entirely gilt, and also a region 
 of the wall surrounding it. So it is that we get the 
 ' Golden Gate ' of the Protevangelion ; and in Jeru- 
 salem to-day the gateway entering the sacred area 
 has the same name. Constantinople and Ravenna had 
 such gates, and so had Rome, for the 'Mirabilia' speaks 
 of the Porta Aurea. In Egypt, as we have seen, the 
 obelisks were gilt, so probably were the doors; 
 and the custom holds good in modern India and Bur- 
 mah. At the Palace of Spalato, the four gates at the 
 cardinal points were called gold, brass, iron, and the 
 sea gate. Some of the Greek temple doors were 
 overlaid with ivory. 
 
 The earliest Christian buildings naturally looked to 
 the temple as a type, and it would appear from Euse- 
 bius, that even the toran found a place in the new struc- 
 tures. Describing the Church of Tyre, he says that a 
 magnificent propylon was built, far off toward the 
 sun-rising, to attract the passer-by ; passing through 
 the court and other gates, the entrance to the temple 
 itself was reached, which also fronted the rising sun, 
 and was covered with brass. 
 
 Later, when the churches were entered opposite 
 the setting sun, the power of the old symbolism was 
 lost, but it survived long, if largely unconsciously. 
 Right into the Middle Ages shining metal was the 
 only fit material for the doors of entrance. Those of 
 the basilica of St John, at Damascus, were of silver ; 
 those of Constantinople and Rome of gilt bronze. 
 
198 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 It was also customary throughout the Middle 
 Ages to sculpture the signs of the zodiac on the arch 
 of the great west door. The doorways of Venice, 
 especially, have very generally the sun and moon 
 sculptured at the crown of the arch ; and there is a 
 fine instance at Piacenza, with the signs of the zodiac 
 up the arch, and the sun and moon at its zenith. In 
 the ' Stones of Venice,' Mr Ruskin says : ' The sun 
 and moon on each side of the cross are constantly 
 employed on the keystones of Byzantine arches.' 
 
 Of the archivolts of the central doorway of St 
 Mark's, he says : ' The sculptures of the months are 
 on the under surface, beginning at the bottom, on the 
 left hand of the spectator as he enters, and following 
 in succession round the archivolt ; separated, however, 
 into two groups at the centre by a beautiful figure of 
 the youthful Christ, sitting in the midst of a slightly 
 hollowed sphere, covered with stars, to represent the 
 firmament, and with the attendant sun and moon set 
 one on each side, to rule over the day and over the 
 night.' 
 
 But to return — when Josiah cleared the Temple of 
 Jerusalem of the idolatrous objects and symbols that 
 had been set up there by his apostate predecessor, it 
 was from the eastern gate that the symbolic chariot of 
 the sun was removed. ' And he took away the horses 
 that the kings of Judah had given to the sun at the 
 entering in of the house of the LORD . . . and 
 burned the chariots of the sun with fire.' It was, 
 doubtless, a throne for the sun like that at Mabog. 
 
 The beautiful Greek metope of Phoebus rising in 
 his quadriga, found at Ilium, represented as it is 
 coming directly outwards, was evidently intended for 
 a position over the eastern entrance portico ; either 
 alone in the centre, or balanced by the declining car of 
 night. As Dr Schliemann says : " Helios here, so to 
 
THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN I99 
 
 Speak, bursts forth from the gates of day, and sheds 
 the light of his glory over the universe.' This, the 
 actual moment of sunrise, is a fine and fitting subject 
 for the eastern entrance of a temple ; it is found yet 
 more dramatically in the eastern pediment of the 
 Parthenon. The scene of the sculpture is Olympus, 
 and the central subject is the birth of Athene. In 
 the left angle of the pediment — to quote Mr Murray — 
 ' Helios is represented emerging in his chariot from 
 the waves. It has been noted by Michaelis that the 
 angle in which this figure was placed is the darkest 
 spot in the eastern pediment, and that it is only fully 
 illuminated at the moment of sunrise. The right 
 angle of the pediment belongs to the car of the 
 goddess of the night . . . the horse a marked contrast 
 in motive to the pair in the opposite angle. The 
 heads of the horses of Helios are thrown upwards 
 with fiery impatience as they spring from the waves; 
 the downward inclination of the head here described, 
 and the distended nostril, indicate that the car of 
 Selene is about to vanish below the horizon.' It 
 is the precise moment of the double action at sun- 
 rise, as given by Homer and Hesiod, ' where herdsman 
 hails herdsman as he drives in his flock, and the other 
 who drives forth answers the call. There might a 
 sleepless man have earned a double wage, the one as 
 neat-herd, the other shepherding white flocks ; so near 
 are the outgoings of the night and the day.' _ 
 
 Next to Helios, the mountain god reclines, and 
 next again the Hours. ' Self-moving ground, upon 
 their hinges the gates of Heaven, whereof the HorcB 
 are warders' (II. v. 749). 
 
 Bournouf, in his L^gende AtMnienne, examines the 
 orientation of this temple : a carefully engraved line 
 of axis on the pavement points 14" 11' north of east, 
 where he thinks the first ray of dawn appears at the 
 
200 THE GOLDEN GATE OF THE SUN 
 
 equinoxes. The pediment pictures the eternal drama 
 of the dawn, 'the whole subject is a reflection of the 
 sky as in a mirror.' 
 
 The great portico of the Parthenon is the very gate 
 of the sun. Out of it the sun rises and the night 
 withdraws, above it stand the gods on Olympus. 
 
 Finally the gate is one of the most essential symbols, 
 religious or political. Holy places like Babel were 
 ' God's gates,' and at the gate the king met the people 
 in judgment. Eastern palaces had a porch like Solo- 
 mon's, ' a porch for the throne where he might judge, 
 even the porch of judgment' (i Kings vii. 7). 
 
 Having traced the tradition, we are in a position to 
 sketch the ritual of the sunrise at the eastern portal, 
 with the aid of the fine description by Ezekiel of the 
 ' abominations done in Israel.' ' And he brought me 
 into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, 
 at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the 
 porch and the altar, were about five-and-twenty men, 
 with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and 
 their faces toward the east, and they worshipped the 
 sun toward the east.' 
 
 It is the moment of sunrise, chill and expectant; 
 all the gates are thrown open to the east. The wor- 
 shippers are waiting, and the golden tips of the 
 obelisks are already burning. The sun shows its 
 red rim through the open ceremonial gate of the 
 outer court. They prostrate themselves. 
 
 There is a sudden awaking sense of heat and life and 
 light, a passing vibration in the air. The little bells fes- 
 tooned from pillar to pillar shiver out silver notes ; a 
 deep strain vibrates from the sanctuary. They stand on 
 their feet. The great gates of the temple close with a 
 clangour that reverberates like thunder. 
 
 Baal has entered into his temple. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 '. . . The sea, flat like a pavement of lapis-lazuli, ascendedimpercep- 
 tibly to the sky on the horizon. ' — Flaubert. 
 
 IN the ' Stones of Venice ' Mr Ruskin wrote of the 
 floors of the basilicas of Murano and St Mark : 
 ' We feel giddy at the first step we make on the pave- 
 ment, for it is of Greek mosaic, waved like the sea, 
 and dyed like a dove's neck.' ' Round the domes of 
 its roof the light enters only through narrow aper- 
 tures, like large stars ; and here and there a ray or 
 two from some far-away casement wanders into the 
 darkness, and casts a narrow phosphoric stream upon 
 the waves of the marble that heave and fall in a 
 thousand colours along the floor.' 
 
 Mr Street, in 1854, described 'the wild beauty of 
 the pavement ' in St Mark's as swelling up and down 
 like a petrified sea ; and he went on to suggest that 
 this undulation of surface was an intentional making 
 of the floor in the semblance of the sea. This, mag- 
 nificent as it would be as imagination, has not gener- 
 ally been approved, and the balance of evidence from 
 technical examinations of the construction and settle- 
 ments is against the theory. As a parallel, Mr 
 Street referred to the pavement of the 'Mother 
 Church ' at Constantinople as representing water in 
 its design ; but the floor is entirely covered with mat- 
 ting, and it has never been drawn, nor precisely 
 described. 
 
202 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 The Story of its representing water which appears 
 in many recent books on Constantinople, is borrowed 
 from Von Hammer's description of the church. The 
 original is given by Codinus, an officer of the 
 Imperial palace at Constantinople, who wrote an 
 account of Sta. Sophia in the fifteenth century, 
 from which a friend has made the following extracts. 
 In the church, as finished by Justinian, 'the varied 
 hues of the pavement were like the ocean.' This 
 was destroyed when the roof fell in ; and in the 
 repairs undertaken by Justin, the nephew of Justinian, 
 'as he could not otherwise obtain variegated stones, 
 he sent Marses, the patrician, to Proconnesus to 
 quarry marble as near like it as possible. Four 
 rivers of leek-green marble were laid, like the 
 four streams which flow from Paradise to the sea' 
 The marbles named are those known to us as pavo- 
 nazzetto and verde antico : and some friends who 
 examined the floor, as far as it might be seen through 
 the chinks of ' that accursed matting,' say that it is laid 
 in slabs of whitish marble with green bands ; but it 
 is impossible without more evidence to say that this is 
 the original floor. 
 
 It is only in story that we can find ideal architec- 
 ture — the pure thought unrelated to cost and utility. 
 The romance writers delighted in decorating their 
 dream edifices with marvellous pavements ; bronze in 
 the palace of Alcinous, in ' Cupid and Psyche' mosaic 
 pictures of jewels, in mediaeval story jasper, onyx, 
 paste of coral, or alternate squares of gold and silver for 
 living chess. But actual pavements have been hardly 
 less remarkable. Some were areas of black marble or 
 wholly of white slabs, ' like snow,' says Procopius of a 
 floor in a church built by Justinian. Another, in the 
 palace at Constantinople, ' imitated the flowers of the 
 field.' In mediaeval pavements, the subjects usually are 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 203 
 
 chapters from Nature's story, and in this they follow 
 Roman and Eastern tradition. The four Seasons, for 
 instance, was a favourite subject for classic pavements, 
 whether in Carthage or in Cirencester. A mosaic from a 
 Christian church at Tyre was brought from Syria by 
 Renan, which represented the Seasons, Months, and 
 Winds. In Italy, the Year is often enthroned in the 
 centre, holding Sun and Moon, and surrounded by 
 the Months with the several appropriate Labours of 
 the Fields. The four Rivers of Eden are poured out of 
 great vases, and the angles are filled up with the 
 beasts of the earth. At Brindisi and Otranto are 
 floors of fine design, whatever may be their meaning: — 
 ' The principal divisions are formed by gigantic trees 
 resting upon elephants and extending far into -the 
 nave; the branches are alive with animals of all 
 kinds.' These motives, Woltmann says, are borrowed 
 from the designs of Oriental carpets. We find, again 
 and again, that to follow up any thought in decora- 
 tive design leads to the East, apparently to Persia ; 
 and as the farther East was influenced as much by 
 Persian art, we may see here the centre of at least 
 true Aryan design. 
 
 When Ahasuerus made his feast at Shushan the 
 floor was 'of porphyry, and marble, and alabaster, 
 and stone of a blue colour' (lapis-lazuli). There 
 is a beautiful Assyrian pavement in the British 
 Museum, of alabaster, wrought like a tapestry; and 
 Sadi tells us of a tomb floored with marble and 
 turquoise. Philostratus describes a temple of the sun 
 seen by Apollonius in India, the walls of which were 
 of red marble, like fire with streaks of gold ; on the 
 pavement was an image of the sun, with its rays 
 imitated in dazzling profusion of rubies and diamonds. 
 
 We might have expected to find floors with geo- 
 graphies ; but — except the carpet of Chosroes, repre- 
 
204 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 senting a garden with its paths, trees, and running 
 water-courses, with parterres of spring flowers of 
 the brightest hues : and a carpet belonging to one of 
 the Fatimite caliphs, which represented the earth 
 with its mountains, seas, rivers, highways, and cities, 
 especially Mecca and Medinah, each marked with its 
 proper name — none have been found described. 
 
 But far beyond all these realised or imagined designs 
 the finest is the floor like the sea; the thought of 
 which penetrates us like certain vibrations in music. 
 It is the pavement in the heavenly temple of the 
 Apocalypse : — 
 
 ' And before the throne there was a sea of glass, 
 like unto crystal.' ' Them that had gotten the victory 
 . . . stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of 
 God' (chs. iv. and xv.) Compare the firmament, 
 like 'the terrible crystal,' on which was placed the 
 sapphire throne in Ezekiel, also 'the paved work' 
 of clear sapphire in Exodus (xxiv. lo). The pseudo 
 Enoch, in his vision of heaven, entered a spacious 
 habitation of crystal, 'its walls, as well as its pave- 
 ment, were formed with stones of crystal, and crystal 
 likewise was the ground.' 
 
 This is the ultimate conception on which is founded 
 the crystal floors of romance; but probably, as we 
 shall see, it was not taken directly and consciously 
 from the Revelation. In Lydgate's ' Warre of Troy,' 
 the floor of the hall in Priam's palace is of jasper. 
 In the ' Gest Hystoriale ' of the Destruction of Troy, 
 Hector, while suffering from his wounds, was laid in 
 the proud ' Palace of Ylion ' : — 
 
 ' Hit was pight up with pilirs all of pure stonys 
 Palit full proudly ; and a proud floor 
 Wrought all with crystall, clere as the sonne.' 
 
 In each corner was a pillar, and on it an image of 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 20$ 
 
 gold with 'gematry justly ajoynet' The design is 
 repeated again in the tomb of Hector 'trayturly 
 slayn,' the same figures and floor of 'clere crystalL' 
 ' As Dares tells in his treatise,' is the authority given 
 for all these wonders ; but Dares and Dictys say no- 
 thing half so nice in their bald and dreary narrative. 
 The genealogy for the palace of romance probably 
 ascends through the Alexander stories, and Apuleius 
 in Cupid and Psyche, to the Eastern cities of gold, 
 of which Homer's palace of Alcinous is a Greek 
 version. 
 
 Justinian, at Constantinople, appears definitely to 
 have set himself to rival Solomon as a builder. His 
 throne was not only made in the fashion of 
 Solomon's, but actually called 'Solomon's throne;' 
 and when he had erected Sta. Sophia, the most splen- 
 did church Christendom has ever seen, he exclaimed : 
 ' Glory be to God ! who has esteemed me worthy to 
 achieve a work so sublime ; O Solomon, I have sur- 
 passed thee ! ' It is said that he intended at first to 
 floor his church with gold, like the Temple ; but, fear- 
 ing man's cupidity, he substituted the floor of marble,, 
 resembling water. 
 
 Now, there is an Eastern legend of Solomon laying 
 a floor like the sea in his wonderful palace in Jerusa- 
 lem : — ' When the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame 
 of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard 
 questions ' (Book of Chronicles). These, according to 
 Eastern tradition, were riddles, like those which 
 passed between Solomon and Hiram of Tyre. But 
 'there was nothing hid from Solomon,' and, en re- 
 vanche, he retorts by transporting the throne of Queen 
 Balkis to his palace by the aid of the genii who ever 
 served him, so that on her arrival she was confronted 
 by her own throne. ' It was said unto her : enter the 
 palace. And when she saw it she imagined it to be a 
 
206 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 great water, and she discovered her legs, by lifting up 
 her robe, to pass through it. Whereupon Solomon said 
 unto her: Verily, this is a palace evenly floored with 
 glass (Koran xxvii.) Or, as some understand, adds 
 Sale, this was in ' the court before the palace, which 
 Solomon had commanded to be built against the 
 arrival of Balkis ; the floor or pavement being of 
 transparent glass, laid over running water in which 
 fish were swimming. Fronting this pavement was 
 the royal throne, on which Solomon sat to receive 
 the Queen.' 
 
 A similar floor is given to the palace of The City 
 of Brass, in the ' Arabian Nights,' probably the most 
 wonderful piece of architectural imagination in litera- 
 ture. The Emeer Moosa and his followers came 
 to a high-walled city, from the midst of which shines 
 the tower of brass. They entered and pressed on to the 
 palace, and found a saloon constructed of polished 
 marble, adorned with jewels. ' The beholder imagined 
 upon its floor was running water, and if any one walked 
 upon it he would slip. The Emeer Moosa therefore 
 ordered the Sheykh Abd-Es-Samad to throw upon it 
 something that they might be enabled to walk upon it ; 
 and he did this, and so contrived that they passed on.' 
 
 The story, incorporated in the Koran soon after the 
 year 622, is probably from the Talmud, which contains 
 this version : — All the kingdoms congratulated Solo- 
 mon as the worthy successor of his father David, whose 
 fame was great among all nations, save one, the King- 
 dom of Sheba, the capital of which was called Kitore. 
 
 To this kingdom, Solomon sent a letter. 
 
 ' From me. King Solomon, peace to thee and to thy 
 government. Let it be known to thee, that the 
 Almighty God has made me to reign over the whole 
 world, the kingdoms of the north, the south, the east, 
 and the west. Lo, they have come to me with their 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 207 
 
 congratulations, all save thee alone. Come thou also, 
 I pray thee, and submit to my authority, and much 
 honour shall be done thee ; but if thou refusest, behold 
 I shall by force compel thy acknowledgment. 
 
 ' To thee, Queen Sheba, is addressed this letter in 
 peace, from me, King Solomon, the Son of David.' 
 
 When Solomon heard that the Queen was coming he 
 sent Benayahu, the son of Yehoyadah, the general of 
 his army, to meet her. When the queen saw him she 
 thought he was the king, and she alighted from her 
 carriage. 
 
 Then Benayahu asked, ' Why alightest thou from 
 thy carriage ? ' and she answered, ' Art thou not his 
 majesty the king ? ' 
 
 'No,' replied Benayahu, 'I am but one of his 
 officers.' Then the queen turned back and said to 
 her ladies in attendance, ' If this is but one of the officers, 
 and he is so noble and imposing in appearance, how 
 great must be his superior the king.' 
 
 And Benayahu, the son of Yehoyadah, conducted 
 Queen Sheba to the palace of the king. 
 
 Solomon prepared to receive his visitor in an apart- 
 ment laid and lined with glass, and the queen at first 
 was so deceived by the appearance that she imdgined 
 the king to be sitting in water. 
 
 And when the queen had tested Solomon's wisdom 
 and witnessed his magnificence, she said, ' I believed 
 not what I heard, but now I have come and my eyes 
 have seen it all ; behold, the half has not been told to 
 me. Happy are thy servants who stand before thee 
 continually, to listen to the wisdom of thy words. 
 Blessed be the Lord thy God, who hath placed thee on a 
 throne to rule righteously and in justice.' 
 
 There is a practically identical story in another of the 
 quarry books of the world, the Sanscrit epic of the 
 Mahabharata, which sings the long strife of rival royal 
 
208 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 houses. One of the Rajas celebrates a royal sacrifice. 
 'When the sacrifice had been fully accomplished, 
 Duryodhana entered the place where it had been per- 
 formed, and saw very many beautiful things that he had 
 never beheld in his own Raj at Hastinapur. Amongst 
 other wonders wa^ a square, made of black crystal, which 
 appeared to the eye of Duryodhana to be clear water, 
 and as he stood on the margin he began to draw up 
 his garments lest they should be wetted, and then 
 throwing them off he plunged in to bathe and was 
 struck violently on the head against the crystal. Then 
 he was much ashamed and left that place.' 
 
 Mr Talboys Wheeler suggests that this may be 
 borrowed from the Koran, but allows that it may have 
 had an independent origin. There can, however, be 
 little doubt that these transcendental palaces, which are 
 handed on through milleniums of Indian story, find 
 their origin in the structures of the land which is not 
 subject to winter's wind, nor any decay — The City of 
 Gold founded in the waters above the firmament. 
 
 In the fifteenth century Italian romance, called 
 the Hypnerotomachia, the author seems to have col- 
 lected all the architectural wonders of history and 
 romance ; but how should he come by this same story ? 
 Poliphilus, after penetrating zone after zone of gardens, 
 which occupy an island, comes at last to a circular 
 temple, open to the sky, and on entering it was 
 astonished to find ' a marvel more grand and stupefying 
 than anything he had ever seen ; ' the whole area 
 of the amphitheatre was apparently paved with one 
 sole stone of obsidian, entirely black and of invincible 
 hardness, so polished and shining that at the first 
 moment he feared desti'uction by walking into an 
 abyss. It reflected the light of day so perfectly that he 
 contemplated the profound and limpid sky as in a quiet 
 sea : everything was reflected as in a polished mirror. 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 209 
 
 According to the story in the Koran, Solomon's 
 throne seems to stand on the waters, just as was 
 imagined of God's throne. ' It is He who hath created 
 the heavens and the earth in six days, but His throne 
 was above the waters, before the creation thereof 
 (Koran xi.). ' For the Mohammedans supposed this 
 throne, and the waters whereon it stands — which waters 
 they imagine were supported by a spirit or wind — were, 
 with some other things, created before the heavens and 
 the earth. This fancy they borrowed from the Jews, 
 who also say that the throne of glory then stood and 
 was borne on the face of the waters by the breath of 
 God's mouth' (Sale). An account of this pavement 
 of waters above the firmament is given in Smith's 
 'Dictionary of the Bible' — 'Further, the office of 
 the rakia (firmament or solid expansion) in the 
 economy of the world demanded strength and 
 substance. It was to serve as a division between 
 the waters above and the waters below .... 
 and accordingly the rakia was created to support 
 the upper reservoir (Psalms cxlviii. 4 and civ. 3), 
 where Jehovah is represented as " building His 
 chambers of water," not simply in water, that being 
 the material of which the beams and joists were 
 made.' 
 
 In Ezekiel's vision of a perfect temple, after he 
 has seen every court and chamber, and measured 
 them with his reed, he is brought again to the 
 door: — 'And, behold, waters issued out from under 
 the threshold of the house eastward : for the forefront 
 of the house stood toward the east.' The waters 
 came from the south of the altar, and after passing 
 through the court and the outer gate became a 
 mighty river flowing to the sea. It is the river of 
 the water of life, 'and everything shall live whither 
 the river cometh.' 
 
 O 
 
210 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 To return to Constantinople once more : an account 
 of the emperor's bed-chamber, in the imperial palace, 
 is given by Bayet [IS Art Byzantin.), quoting from 
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus. A range of the palace 
 called ' Cenourigion,' was built by Basil, the Mace- 
 donian ; one of the rooms had sixteen columns, 
 of green marble, and of onyx, sculptured with 
 branches of the vine, and the vault was covered with 
 golden mosaic. 'But nothing could equal the royal 
 bed-chamber. The pavement was of mosaic, the 
 centre was a peacock in a circle of Carian marble, 
 surrounded by rays, and an outer circle. From 
 this second circle issued, as it were, streams or rivers 
 of green marble of Thessaly, which flowed, seemingly, 
 to the four angles of the room {comme des ruisseaux 
 ou des fleuves de marble vert de T/tessalie) ; the four 
 interspaces left between the marble streams had eagles 
 wrought in mosaic, which seemed to live and to 
 breathe. The lower part of the walls were encrusted 
 with glass, in many pieces of varied colour, in the forms 
 of flowers. Above a gold band, the walls were covered 
 with mosaic, on the golden field of which were 
 enthroned Basil and Eudoxia, and their children 
 around them. In the centre of the ceiling glittered 
 a cross of emerald glass on a star-lit sky.' In the same 
 book (Bayet) is a story taken from Codinus, of 
 flooding Sta. Sophia with water, which, although not 
 questioned by the author, seems to be an expedient 
 so impracticable and injurious as to be obviously a 
 myth — ^just such a myth as would arise to account 
 for a pavement representing water. ' When the dome 
 fell in Anthemius and Isidore were dead, but the latter 
 had left a nephew, who was charged with the works. 
 He increased the elevation of the cupola, and at the 
 same time gave greater solidity to the great arches. 
 They this time left the centres longer in place, and all 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 211 
 
 the scaffolding. They also inundated with water the 
 Jower fart of the church, so that pieces of wood in falling 
 should not cause any injury.' 
 
 In the great area of Sta. Sophia it is not possible 
 to see the floor, but in one of the galleries a green 
 marble pavement is still uncovered. It is formed of 
 very large slabs of antique Cipollino (Browning's 
 ' onion stone '), the slabs being laid in such a manner 
 
 that what were the two faces of the division made by 
 the saw in the original block are opened out side by 
 side, thus obtaining a symmetrical wave-like veining. 
 Mr Brindley, the best English authority on marbles, 
 says — ' Cippolino produces, when sawn across the bed, 
 sea-wave like effects, to which the Roman and 
 Byzantine architects were very partial' 
 
 In St Mark's at Venice where the floor is generally 
 covered by the most varied and intricate mosaic in 
 ■existence, there is, just in the most important place of 
 
212 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 the area, centrally in front of the choir screen, a 
 similar 'sea' of marble. Twelve immense slabs of 
 Cipollino, each thirteen feet long by five feet wide, are 
 arranged in the same way as to matching one another, 
 covering an area thirty feet by twenty-six feet with their 
 rippled veining. The marble block from which these 
 slabs were cut was brought from the east, and the 
 slabs were laid down in quite evident imitation of 
 the floor of Sta. Sophia. 
 
 If the ceiling belonged of right to the sky, the floor 
 is yielded to the sea. When Galla Placidia escaped 
 from shipwreck, she dedicated a pavement in St John 
 the Evangelist at Ravenna — a picture of the ship- 
 wreck recalling the peril of the queen by its likeness 
 to the storm-tossed waves of the sea. Mr Baring 
 Gould describes a pavement he discovered in a Gallo- 
 Roman palace near Pau : — ' In the principal room the 
 pavement was very elaborate ; the design was, how- 
 ever, rudely interrupted by a monstrous cross, nearly 
 twenty feet by thirteen feet, with its head towards 
 the south and its foot at the head of a flight of marble 
 steps descending into what we were unable to decide 
 whether it was a bath or a vestibule. The ground of 
 the cross was white, the limbs were filled with cuttle, 
 lobsters, eels, oysters, and fish swimming as though in 
 their natural element ; but the centre, where the arms 
 intersected, was occupied by a gigantic bust of Neptune 
 with his trident.' 
 
 Sir Charles Newton says: — 'On a mosaic found 
 at Oudnah, in Algeria, we have a representation of 
 the sea, remarkable for the fulness of details with 
 which it is made out. The mosaic lines the floor and 
 sides of a bath ; and, as was commonly the case in the 
 baths of the ancients, serves as a figurative represen- 
 tation of the water it contained. On the sides are 
 hippocamps, figures riding on dolphins, and islands- 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 213 
 
 Stand ; on the floor are fish, crabs, 
 
 on which fishermen 
 and shrimps.' 
 
 The baths of Caracalla, in Rome, have such sea 
 pavements treated pictorially,' as well as patterns in a 
 conventional rendering of sea waves. And the baths 
 of Titus even had a floor of lapis lazuli — a great pool 
 of ultramarine. 
 
 If we take any collection of Roman mosaic floors — 
 as, for instance, those now exhibited on the staircase 
 of the British Museum, or the drawings at South 
 Kensington — it is most remarkable how often the 
 
 floor is designed as a sea ; there are subjects such as 
 Neptune and Amphitrite ; Ulysses in his ship ; or a 
 fisherman in a boat, the rest of the area being filled with 
 fish : or, more frequently, only fish and marine monsters 
 ' swimming as though in their natural element ;' the sea 
 being represented by the flowing lines of the plain 
 white mosaic, with a darker broken line here and 
 there in various directions. One of the most beautiful 
 of these is an English example that was discovered at 
 Cirencester, and figured by Lysons. 
 
 We can hardly suppose that all of these were in 
 baths. At Lydney on the Severn, a mosaic was 
 found forming the floor of a temple to the Celtic 
 
214 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 'God of the Deeps/ to whom the pavement was 
 dedicated ; inscribed offerings proved that this was 
 a temple. Great sea serpents and fish swim over the 
 expanse of the floor (C. W. King). 
 
 The best authenticated specimen of Greek mosaic 
 floor, that of the pronaos of the temple of Zeus, at 
 Olympia, of which only a small fragment exists, 
 represents a triton and fish swimming. Within 
 the temple, directly in front of the great statue of 
 Zeus enthroned, by Pheidias, and right across the 
 sanctuary, was an area of black marble twenty-two 
 feet square, and slightly sunk below the rest of the 
 floor. Pausanias describes it, and the foundations yet 
 show its place. Shining with the oil thrown over the 
 ivory figure, and reflecting it and the lights, it must 
 have resembled the deep still sea, the sea of heaven 
 which bore the throne of Zeus, and in which the stars 
 floated. There is an irresistible suggestion of water 
 in these marble floors when highly polished. Miss 
 Beaufort, for instance, saw in a Damascus mosque, 
 what every worshipper of the throned Zeus must have 
 seen and understood in the Temple of Olympia — ' The 
 polished marble floor shone darkly, like a lake of 
 black water, reflecting back the few lamps like stars.' 
 
 A representation of the sea of heaven with its stars 
 is especially appropriate to the floor of the holy place, 
 which bears the figure of the god, or the altcir. 
 
 It was quite general in the Middle Ages to figure 
 the signs of the zodiac on the floor of the sanctuary, 
 thus marking it like the ' paved work ' of heaven. 
 
 ' Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.' 
 
 — Merchant of Venice. 
 Left behind in the west end of the church was the laby- 
 rinth of the lower world, but the holy place, raised seven 
 steps, was heaven itself. In England we have a fine 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 215 
 
 zodiac on the floor at Canterbury. The choir of St 
 Remi, at Rheims, had a pavement of marble and 
 enamel ; on one side of which was figured the earthly 
 paradise with the four rivers, the earth seated on ocean, 
 and the seasons ; on the other side were the four cardinal 
 points, the zodiacal circle, and within the last the two 
 bears of the North Pole studded with stars. Some 
 British-Roman pavements display the sun in the 
 middle surrounded by the planets. 
 
 In the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, a slab of 
 dark stone inlaid in the floor is said to be a piece of 
 the pavement of paradise. 
 
 Many of the churches of Italy have wave patterns 
 on the floors, and in some instances we are able to 
 identify them as set imitations of the waters. In the 
 crypt of an early church at Piacenza the space before 
 the altar has a mosaic pavement with undulating 
 lines of waves in which fishes swim, and circular discs 
 contain the zodiacal signs ; these heavenly signs 
 floating on the water appear to mark it as the oversea. 
 
 In the great basin of the Baptistry at Pisa the floor 
 again definitely represents the water it contains. 
 
2l6 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 At Florence, the floor of the Baptistry is laid in 
 patterns suggesting running and rippled water, with 
 the sun and zodiacal signs. {See figures.) 
 
 With all these examples, it cannot be doubted that 
 the wave-like patterns of the central space at Grado, 
 or portions in St Mark's, represent the sea by a 
 traditional pattern. 
 
 To the Egyptians the realm of Osiris was watered 
 by a network of smiling canals. Wilkinson writes 
 of the happy dead admitted to these Elysian fields : — 
 'Horus introduces him to the presence of Osiris, 
 who, in his palace, attended by I sis and Nepthys, 
 sits on his throne in the midst of the waters, from 
 which rises the lotus, bearing upon its expanded 
 flower the four genii of Amenti.' In the plate given 
 by Wilkinson of the scene from which he takes his 
 description, Osiris is shown under a pillar-borne 
 canopy, seated on a throne placed on the waters, the 
 water being shown by a parallelogram covered with 
 zigzag lines. 
 
 In some of the Egyptian temples, the lower part 
 of the side walls is painted with growing water plants, 
 and next the floor is the zigzag line of water. The 
 bases of the columns are wrapped round with water 
 leaves ; the shafts themselves being bundles of water 
 reeds. 
 
 The gods are sometimes shown supported by the 
 oversea, Ra floating in his bark, or enthroned (like 
 that discovered by Miss Edwards' party at Aboo 
 Simbel) on a platform of blue spangled with stars. 
 As the Pharaoh had the effigies of his enemies painted 
 on the soles of his shoes so that he might tread them 
 in the dust, as his footstool was carved on its 
 sides with prostrate captives : so, with symbolic 
 intention, the thrones and footstools shown at the 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 217 
 
 Ramessium, and in the tombs of the kings, were covered 
 with tissue of blue sprinkled with stars. The king, 
 godlike, crushes his enemies under his footstool, 
 and treads underfoot the azure flood in which float 
 the stars. No mere accident this, but an ordered 
 symbolism; it occurs many times, the stars being 
 treated exactly as they are on the star ceilings of the 
 temples, an acknowledged symbol of the sky and 
 heavens reserved for sacred places. 
 
 The most beautifully worked and preserved Baby- 
 lonian tablet in the British Museum represents the 
 king before the sun-god Samas. It is carefully 
 engraved by Lenormant {Histoire Ancienne de 
 r Orient), and by Perrot. The image of the god 
 sits on a throne, under a canopy; before him is a 
 great sun disc, with flaming rays on it, which is 
 revolved by means of ropes as the king is led forward. 
 The floor of this composition, on which stands the 
 throne, the sun altar, and the worshippers, is an area 
 of water, and on it are a row of stars — without doubt 
 stars, for above the god are engraved the forms of the 
 sun, moon, and stars ; and the stars on the pavement 
 repeat the last with exactitude. The text says it 
 represents the king before Samas in his temple at 
 Sippara, and it seems possible that the floor there 
 really represented the oversea. It is not without 
 some relation, we might suppose, to these thoughts that 
 an Assyrian pavement in the British Museum is 
 entirely patterned over with the lotus. 
 
 There is abundance of evidence besides what has 
 been given, that the celestial sea forms the floor of 
 the over-world ; our dome being the under side of 
 the pavement, as in Blake : — 
 
 ' Lo ! the vault of paved heaven.' 
 
 In the Brahmanical system, the paradise is well 
 
2l8 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 watered with broad, beautiful lakes. 'These lakes 
 are covered with water-lilies, red, blue, and white, 
 each blossom having a thousand petals ; and on the 
 most beautiful of all these calm lakes floats a throne, 
 glorious as the sun, whereon Krishna the beautiful 
 reposes ' (Miss Gordon Gumming). Indeed, the whole 
 city of Krishna is built on the waters. 
 
 To the Buddhist, the ' lotus throne' of Buddha rests 
 on the waters — Buddha being called 'the Jewel on 
 the lotus.' Even in the Rig Veda, Yama, the lord of 
 death, is ' the assembler of men who departed to the 
 mighty waters,' ' the heavenly ocean ; ' and Varuna 
 dwells in a golden palace, where he ' sits throned in 
 unapproachable light, on the waters of heaven.' In 
 the Avesta, the ' lofty mountain,' the exterior of the 
 domed firmament is the seat of the gods, and the 
 source of all the waters of earth. The paradise of the 
 Burmese has ' gorgeous palaces, with crystal pave- 
 ments, golden columns, and jewelled walls.' 
 
 Doubtless to a parallel phase of the thought belong 
 the vast sacred lakes attached to the temples of India, 
 on which, as the homes of the gods, they seem to float. 
 It was the same in Greece, in Syria, Babylon, and 
 Egypt ; here the priests imitated the voyage of the sun, 
 and here swam sacred fish. ' At Sais, in the sacred 
 precinct ... is a lake ornamented with a stone 
 margin, formed in a circle, and in size it appeared to 
 me much the same as that at Delos, which is called 
 the circular. In this lake they perform by night the 
 representation of that person's adventures, which they 
 call mysteries ' (Herodotus). 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, in one of his inscriptions, speaks of 
 surrounding the temple he had built with a lake. 
 And in India the golden temple of Amritzur seems to 
 float on an artificial sea, crossed by a single cause- 
 way, entering on which, as Lady Dufferin remarks, the 
 
PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 219 
 
 pilgrim puts off his ' earthly shoes.' At Marttand 
 the temple court was filled with water, in which 
 atepping-stones were placed, leading from the gateway. 
 The fountain of ablution is common to the religions 
 of the East. Although its use is obvious, both for 
 practical and symbolic purity, yet the water was ' holy 
 water,' and represented the fountain of life. Professor 
 Sayce, in his Hibbert Lectures, says ' the temples of 
 Babylonia were provided with large basins filled with 
 water, and used for purificatory purposes, which re- 
 sembled the sea made by Solomon in his temple at 
 Jerusalem, and were called deeps or abysses' Pausanias 
 also mentions seas in Greek temples. 
 
 That there is something impressive to the imagin- 
 ation in thus making the floor to appear like a sea, is 
 sufficiently borne out by the following instances from 
 modern romance and poetry ; from French, German, 
 and English authors. To take them respectively : — 
 
 Flaubert thus describes the assembly at the 
 temple in Carthage : ' The elders sat on the ebony 
 benches, having thrown over their heads the ends of 
 their long robes. They remained motionless, with 
 their hands crossed in their wide sleeves ; and the 
 mother-of-pearl pavement resembled a luminous 
 stream, that ran under their bare feet, from the altar 
 to the door.' 
 
 In Eber's Egyptian romance, ' Uarda,' a temporary 
 palace is built, in which to welcome back Rameses 
 from the war in Syria. As the author leans so on his 
 correct archaeology, the floor of the banqueting-hall 
 may be taken from a wall painting. 'This (the 
 palace) was of unusual height, and had a vaulted 
 wooden ceiling, which was painted blue, and sprinkled 
 with stars, to represent the night heavens. Thick 
 carpets, which seemed to have transported the sea- 
 
220 PAVEMENTS LIKE THE SEA 
 
 shore on to the dry land — for their pale blue ground 
 was strewn with a variety of shells, fishes, and water- 
 plants — covered the floor of the banqueting-hall.' 
 
 Mr William Morris makes use of the thought in 
 the description of a new fourteenth century church, 
 in ' A Dream of John Ball ' : ' The white shafts of 
 the arches rose out of the shining pavement in the 
 moonlight as though out of a sea, dark, but with 
 gleams struck over it.' In the story of ' Cupid and 
 Psyche,' in his ' Earthly Paradise,' it seems as if the 
 floor is taken from the account of the reception of 
 Queen Balkis by Solomon, for the idea is not found 
 in the story by Apuleius. 
 
 ' At last she came into a chamber cool, 
 Paved cunningly in the manner of a pool, 
 Where red fish seemed to swim through the float.ng weed ; 
 And at the first she thought it so indeed, 
 And took the sandals quickly from her feet ; 
 But when the glassy floor these did but meet, 
 The shadow of a long-forgotten smile 
 Her anxious face a moment did beguile.' 
 
 The last instance is that in Southey's ' Thalaba,' 
 which is not so much a continuation of the tradition as 
 a reverting to the original idea which underlies the 
 whole series — an imitation by human hands, in an 
 artificial paradise, of the water or transparent crystal 
 pavement above the firmament, where stands the 
 throne. Shedad, who, according to Arab story, lived 
 in the early ages of the world, built to himself such a 
 lordly pleasure-house and garden of delights : — 
 
 ' Here emerald columns o'er the marble courts 
 Fling their green rays, as when, amid a shower, 
 The sun shines loveliest on the vernal corn ; 
 Here Shedad bade the sapphire floor be laid 
 As though with feet divine to trample azure light, 
 Like the blue pavement of the firmament.' 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 ' He first framed, 
 • For the children of earth. 
 
 The heaven as a roof — 
 Holy Creator!' — C^DMON. 
 
 ' Look you, this brave, o' erhanging firmament , 
 This majestical roof fretted with golden fire ' — ^Hamlet. 
 
 WE speak of the sky as a vault, a dome ; but 
 before domes or vaults were invented it 
 evidently could have been likened to neither. It was 
 then without doubt a ceiling, a ilat extension. 
 
 Of course the sky was understood to be hollow, 
 semi-spherical, at a very early time indeed ; but it is 
 evidently a more advanced and philosophical view than 
 the other. 
 
 If we may take it as proved that the architectural 
 dome was known and first reared in Chaldea (see 
 Perrot) by a people who saw in the sky a solid hemi- 
 sphere, and much given to nature symbolism in their 
 buildings ; may not the design and daring construction 
 of the cupola be attributed to the form of the heavenly 
 dome, and the desire that the 'ceiling' of the temple 
 should still recall the ceiling of the great nature temple ? 
 
 There is such a clear and constraining congruity 
 between them that to describe a dome seems to call 
 for the simile to the firmament: St Paul's, for in- 
 stance — 
 
222 
 
 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 ' Whose sky-like dome 
 Hath typified, by reach of daring art, 
 Infinity's embrace ' (Wordsworth). 
 
 It may be said that at great periods of architecture 
 ceilings were always skies. Viollet-le-Duc tells us, in 
 his Dictionnaire de V Architecture (Art. Peinture), that 
 the whole scheme of interior colour had to be re- 
 adjusted in the thirteenth century to harmonise with 
 the vaults, which were painted the most brilliant of 
 blues, parsemee, with gold stars, against which nothing 
 could hold its 
 own but vermilion, 
 black, and more 
 
 -22 
 
 
 
 
 gold? ' The" Sainte V;-*^^' • ^ / ^"^ j.i ^ ■^■iu^'X' 
 Chapelle of Paris -?r.^f.-;^^|^4;^C.:^f r-.^;,;.^- 
 
 •• nv. ill- ^ i^l 
 
 :k'')^- 
 
 
 yy--^i: 
 
 
 
 ^•'*^vilL:^^=^:5?^-^*^- 
 
 may be taken for 
 example ; and in 
 England, 'Conrad's 
 gloriouschoir,'built 
 in 1 1 50. In Italy, 
 at the same time, 
 the practice was 
 universal. It will 
 suffice to refer to 
 Siena and Orvi- 
 eto Cathedrals with 
 their vaults, stars on azure ; in Orvieto, still un- 
 touched, in wonderful harmony of changing and 
 decaying colour, blue to emerald, like the evening 
 sky while as yet the earliest star alone burns there. 
 
 In Giotto's Arena Chapel at Padua, the walls are 
 covered with pictured panels, the background of all 
 alike being of blue leading up to the sky of the vault. 
 Again in Italy — but this time in pure Byzantine 
 style direct from Constantinople — the dome of 
 the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, at Ravenna, is a 
 
CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 223 
 
 magnificent instance in brilliant mosaic; blue, pow- 
 dered with a profusion of stars to the zenith. (See 
 figure.) In Sta. Sophia itself, the ciborium over the 
 altar was supported on four silver pillars, the under 
 side of the dome twinkling with stars. The manual 
 obtained by Didron on Mount Athos describes how 
 ceilings should be designed as heavens. 
 
 In 'Roman' Rome, the gorgeous taste of Nero 
 seems to have affected these ceilings at the Golden 
 Palace ; and Tacitus gives an account of the scene at 
 Pompey's theatre on the occasion of the reception of 
 an Eastern prince : — ' The stage and the whole inside 
 of that noble structure were cased with gold : such a 
 profusion of wealth and magnificence had never been 
 displayed to view. To screen the spectators from the 
 rays of the sun, a purple canopy, inlaid with golden 
 stars, was spread over their heads.' A Roman example 
 may be seen in Smith's ' Dictionary' (Art. Penates). 
 
 As showing that it touched the imagination and was 
 no mere decorative tradition, better than facts, we 
 have fiction and legends, the twelfth century guide- 
 book to the eternal city, the Mirabilia Vrbis Romce 
 (Nichols) contains the account of 'a temple that 
 was called Holovitreum, being made of glass and 
 gold by mathematical craft, where was an astro- 
 nomy with all the signs of the heavens, the .which 
 was destroyed by St Sebastian.' A MS. of the 
 fourteenth century, incorporated in the same book, 
 tells of the wonders of the Flavian amphitheatre. 
 'The Colosseum was the temple of the sun, of 
 marvellous greatness and beauty, disposed with 
 many diverse vaulted chambers, and all covered with 
 a heaven of gilded brass, where thunders and 
 lightnings and glittering fires were made, and where 
 rain was shed through slender tubes. Besides this, 
 
224 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 there were the signs super-celestial and the planets 
 Sol and Luna, that were drawn along in their proper 
 chariots. And in the midst abode Phoebus — that is, 
 the god of the sun — which, having his feet on the earth, 
 reached into heaven with his head, and did hold in his 
 hand an orb, signifying that Rome ruled over the world.' 
 Our own Higden, in the Polychronicon, adds to the 
 might and marvel of the sun-god in this place : — ' This 
 brazen statue, gilded with imperial gold, continually- 
 shed rays through the darkness, and turned round in 
 even movement with the sun, carrying his face always 
 opposite to the solar body ; and all the Romans when 
 they came near worshipped, in token of subjection.' 
 The story of a temple of glass is especially interesting. 
 Benjamin of Tudela about the same time describes 
 another as existing at Damascus. 
 
 In the Dietrich Romances, King Laurin of the Rose 
 Garden has a subterranean palace to which he carries off 
 his bride. In it 'the walls were of polished marble inlaid 
 with gold and silver ; the floor was formed of a single 
 agate, the ceiling of a sapphire, and from it there hung 
 shining carbuncles like stars in the blue sky of night.' 
 In the ' Parsifal,' Titurel, the ancestor of the hero, 
 builds on Mount Salvatch a temple worthy to enshrine 
 the sangreal. It was discovered that the rock or core 
 of the mountain was one entire onyx of enormous size, 
 and this was flattened into a flooring and polished with 
 great care. One morning the plan was found 
 miraculously marked out and all the materials ready, 
 and with supernatural aid the temple was soon com- 
 pleted. It was circular in form, and had seventy-two 
 octagonal choirs and thirty-six belfries. In the midst 
 was a tower with many windows, its topmost point 
 a ruby, out of which rose a cross of clear crystal 
 surmounted by a golden eagle with outstretched wings. 
 ' Within the building, sculptured vines, roses, and lilies 
 
CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 22S 
 
 twined about the pillars, forming bowers, on whose 
 branches birds seem to flutter as if alive. At every 
 intersection of the arches was a glowing carbuncle that 
 turned night into day ; and the vaulted roof was blue, 
 of sapphire, in which a miracle of art was to be seen. 
 The sun, moon, and stars, placed there by the builders, 
 moved in the same order as the real luminaries in the 
 heavens. In the wide inner space of the great temple 
 a second and smaller sanctuary was built, resembling 
 the first, but far more beautiful. This was the place 
 intended for the sangreal should it come down to 
 earth ' (Wagner and M'Dowall). 
 
 The alliterative Romance of Alexander (Early 
 English Text) describes the palace of Candace as built 
 all of gold, encrusted with precious stones, on pillars 
 of polished porphyry. An inner chamber was by sor- 
 cery wonderfully founded, and ' made by marvel to 
 move.' 'Twenty tamed oliphants turned it about,' 
 and, as the Queen and Alexander entered, it began 
 to revolve. 
 
 Similar imagery is used in the popular mediaeval 
 history, 'The Invention of the Cross' in Caxton's 
 'Golden Legend,' and other earlier Cross poems. 
 One of the thirteenth century, published by the 
 Early English Text Society, says : There was a king 
 named 'Cosdre' (Chosroes). He conquered many 
 lands. He came to Jerusalem and took possession of a 
 part of the sweet Cross, which he removed to Persia. 
 
 ' A swithe heig towr of gold and seluer he let him sone a-rere 
 Of gimmes and of stones precious ther aboute he lette do ; 
 Toume of sonne and mon and of sterres also 
 Schinen, as hit themself were and tomen a-boute faste 
 And thunderinge he made eke that the folk ofte agaste 
 'Mid small holes throwh queyntyse that water ofte ther 
 He made hit ofte to grounde falle as they hit reyn were 
 As ferforth as couthe eny mon make mid queyntyse 
 The fourme as it an hevene were he made on alia wise.' 
 
 P 
 
226 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 Here he rears a throne, and set himself up as a god. 
 Heraclius, the emperor, makes war on Chosroes, and 
 finds him on the throne in his false heaven where 
 he slays him, and then restores the sacred wood to 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Sir H- Rawlinson, writing of Ecbatana in the 
 'Journal of the Geographical Society,' quotes Cedre- 
 nus, the Byzantine historian, on the wars of Justinian 
 and Heraclius against Chosroes. Heraclius, when he 
 took possession of Canzaca, ' found the abominable 
 image of Chosroes ; a figure of the king enthroned 
 beneath the globular dome of the palace, as though 
 he were seated in the heavens ; around him were em- 
 blems of the sun and moon and stars, to which, in his 
 superstition, he seemed to offer adoration, as if to the 
 gods, while sceptre-bearing angels ministered on 
 every side, and curiously-wrought machines distilled 
 drops of water, to represent the falling rain, and 
 uttered roaring sounds in imitation of the peals of 
 thunder. All these things the emperor consumed 
 with fire, and, at the same time, he reduced to ashes 
 the temple and the entire city.' 
 
 Canzaca was taken by Heraclius in 628. Rawlin- 
 son (Vn. Monarchy) tells us of the even greater 
 splendours of Dastagherd : — ' The Orientals say that 
 the palace was supported on forty thousand columns 
 of silver, adorned by thirty thousand rich hangings 
 upon the walls, and further ornamented by a thousand 
 globes suspended from the roof (p. 528). 'The royal 
 crown — which could not be worn, but was hung from 
 the ceiling by a gold chain exactly over the head of 
 the king when he took his seat in his throne-room— 
 is said to have been adorned with a thousand pearls, 
 each as large as an &g<g. The throne itself was of 
 gold, and was supported on four feet, each formed of 
 a single enormous ruby ' (p. 640). The globes were 
 
CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 22/ 
 
 ' probably of crystal or gold.' A curtain shut off the 
 king from ordinary gaze, and the courtiers were 
 organised in seven ranks. In the paradise attached 
 were beasts for the chase — lions and tigers, gazelles, 
 peacocks and pheasants. But the most splendid of 
 these palaces was that of Ctesiphon, taken b^jthe 
 ArabsjiotLieti^years later than the campaign of Hera- 
 clius, the facade' of which stands to-day with its great 
 atiched portal^^seventy-two feet wide and eighty-five 
 feet hrghr'''In tKe~cehtre was the Hall of Audience — a, 
 noble_a^ai±nienlr'Mae-h«adred- and 11TEeiaS!.IeeT'lbng=^^ 
 eighty-five feet high, with a magnificent vaulted roof, 
 bedecked with goldenstars so arr anged as to represent the 
 motions^jof the Janets among the. twelve signs of the.- 
 jso^idc^'where the nionafdl'Was'a'ccuStCiffiea" tcrsit on a 
 golden throne.' The treasury was full of gold, gems, and 
 arms ; spices, gums, and perfumes. ' In one apart- 
 ment was found a carpet of white brocade four 
 hundred and fifty feet long and ninety broad, with a 
 border worked in precious stones of various hues, to 
 represent a garden of all kinds of beautiful flowers. 
 The leaves were formed of emeralds, the blossoms 
 and buds of pearls, rubies, and sapphires, and other 
 gems of immense value.' There was a horse of gold 
 with a jewelled saddle, and a camel of silver ; suits of 
 gold armour, scimitars, and ' cuirasses of Solomon ' 
 <Rawlinson (VII. Mon. 565). 
 
 There can be no doubt that these many notices 
 show us the ceremony of the Persian court continued 
 through centuries. The kingLj2^aj._gDd,-i-brath.eF-©f~ 
 the sun and moon,' as he calls himself; and he sat in 
 the middle of a universe of his own, ministered to by 
 the seven orders of the heavenly hierarchy — as in 
 Chinyth' aeTrg'Triiie~whtr5urrourid-lhe throng . 
 
 It accord well wltlT the theatrical geniusof Nero 
 that he should have copied this solemn and magical 
 
228 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 symbolism (which, we have also seen,formed part of the 
 Mithraic ritual) in a mere supper-room of his palace. 
 
 Of this wonderful palace, called the Golden House, 
 sober annalists give accounts marvellous in compari- 
 son even with the marvels of romance. ' In nothing,' 
 says Suetonius, 'was he more prodigal than in his 
 buildings. He completed his palace by continuing it 
 from the Palatine to the Esquiline Hill, calling the 
 building at first only "The Passage ;" but after it was 
 burnt down and rebuilt, the " Golden House." Of its 
 dimensions and furniture it may be sufficient to say 
 thus much : the porch was so high that there stood in 
 it a colossal statue of himself a hundred and twenty 
 feet in height, and the space included in it was so 
 ample that it had triple porticos a mile in length ; and 
 a lake like a sea, surrounded with buildings that had 
 the appearance of a city ; within its area were corn- 
 fields, vineyards, pastures, and woods containing a 
 vast number of animals of various kinds, both wild 
 and tame. In other parts it was entirely overlaid 
 with gold, and adorned with gold and mother-of-pearl. 
 The supper-rooms were vaulted, and compartments 
 of the ceilings, inlaid with ivory, were made to re^ 
 volve, and scatter flowers ; while they contained pipes 
 which shed unguents upon the guests. The chief 
 banqueting-room was circular, and revolved perpetu- 
 ally, night and day, in imitation of the motion of the 
 celestial bodies. The baths were supplied with water 
 from the sea and the Albula. Upon the dedication 
 of this magnificent house, after it was finished, all he 
 said in approval of it was; 'That he had now "a 
 building fit for a man." ' 
 
 It is said, by Philostratus, that Appolonius of 
 Tyana, when in Babylon, 'visited an apartment 
 belonging to the men, the ceiling of which was domed 
 in the form of the heavens, and covered with sapphire 
 
CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 229 
 
 which is a stone of an azure colour resembling the 
 sky. Under this canopy were suspended the images 
 of their reputed deities, wrought in gold, and shedding 
 a light as if from heaven. Here it is where the king 
 sits in judgment. Four golden figures in form of 
 birds are hung from the roof It was doubtless in 
 such a place that Ahasuerus sat, god-like, when Esther 
 feared to approach. In Persia, where modern ceilings 
 still imitate the sky, it would seem to be an unbroken 
 tradition from the earliest days. Not a ceiling remains 
 to us from the buildings of Assyria, but it is significant 
 that an inscription reads : ' I caused a ceiling of cedar 
 wood to be made, beautiful as the stars of heaven, 
 adorned with gold/ It is probable that the shrines 
 were lined over the ceiling and walls with lapis lazuli, 
 or blue tiles, as fragments have been found. In 
 Mexico, the shrine represented a star-strewn sky ; and 
 in China, the roofs of the sacred buildings of Pekin 
 are covered with azure porcelain. 
 
 In the temples of Syria, zodiacs are sculptured on 
 the stone ceilings. The Hindus, in the temples of 
 Orissa, followed the same custom. 
 
 In Athens, it is said, in the third cent. B.C. concave 
 ceilings were emblazoned with the heavenly signs. 
 The many fragments we have of Greek ceilings found 
 in excavation, and figured in books, show that they 
 were usually divided into small square panels or 
 coffers, the field of which was blue, each charged with 
 a golden star. The British Museum, and other modern 
 classics, follow this method ; sometimes the coffers 
 were slightly concave. 
 
 A modern ceiling designed with a real feeling for 
 mystery, is that arranged by the Marquis of Bute 
 at Mount Stuart House, where the aspect of the 
 heavens at his birth is correctly set out on the library 
 ceiling. 
 
230 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 It is in Egypt that we shall find this dedication of 
 the ceiling to the sky the most completely accepted, 
 and that not only in the temple but in the tomb also ; 
 there, on the table of offerings, are food and wine for 
 sustenance, and on its walls are figured all the works 
 of the days of the earthly year and its pastimes ; no 
 mere decoration, but a ' double ' of the things of earth, 
 so that the dead may suffer no want in his long habita- 
 tion. Over all is the sky in semblance ; the deep blue of 
 night with its stars, cloudless and still ; never intended 
 to be seen by other eyes than the eyes of the dead. 
 
 In sacred pictures the upper edge of the scene is 
 occupied by the ideogram for sky or ceiling, a horiz- 
 ontal bar with a nib turned down vertically at each 
 end, sometimes blue and the field for a line of stars. 
 'By the band of stars along the top of each scene, 
 they represented the sky, or the ceiling of the temple, 
 where the ceremony which is made the subject of the 
 picture was supposed to have taken place. In fact, the 
 ceilings of temples are very often decorated with 
 white stars, with a red spot in the middle, scattered 
 on a blue sky ; these stars sometimes cover the whole 
 ceiling, and form then the only decoration' {Description 
 de I' Egypt). 
 
 This hieroglyph is also the symbol of the imper- 
 sonation of the sky, Tpe. Wilkinson says : ' She was 
 a deification of the heaven itself, or that part of the 
 firmament in which the stars are placed ; she is some- 
 times represented under the hieroglyphic character 
 signifying "the heavens" studded with stars, and 
 sometimes as a human figure, whose body, as it bends 
 forward with outspread arms, appears to overshadow 
 the earth and encompass it, in imitation of the vault 
 of heaven, reaching from one side of the horizon to 
 the other. In this posture she encloses the zodiacs, 
 as at Esneh and Denderah.' 
 
CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 231 
 
 ChampoUion says: 'The Egyptians compared the 
 sky to the ceilings of an edifice, and those of the 
 greater part of the temples are painted blue, powdered 
 with stars. . . . The goddess of the sky is figured 
 under the form of a woman, whose body, placed 
 horizontally, and out of all proportion long, embraces 
 a large space, circumscribed by the legs and arms, 
 which are vertical. . . . It is to be remarked that the 
 body of the goddess Tpe, shown on the astronomical 
 
 ^ / 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 ^^ 
 
 — > 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 f ^ 
 
 ^z 
 
 / 
 
 ^ 
 
 < 
 
 Ml 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 f 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 A 
 
 \^ 
 
 sculptures, is disposed in a manner to recall the form 
 of the hieroglyph.' 
 
 Sometimes two goddesses are shown, who are 
 thus described by Lenormant : ' Two female figures 
 posed in such a manner that their bodies form, 
 as it were, a flat ceiling, of which the legs and arms 
 are of each end the supports ; they are Tpe, the sky, 
 and Nut, the celestial ocean.' The ceiling of the 
 portico at Philae, figured in the Description of the 
 French Commission, has both these figures extended 
 on the ceiling ; their bodies are laid down in profile. 
 
232 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 with legs and arms bent at right angles to the torso, 
 the Egyptians never drawing the figure in full face 
 until a late time. At Denderah, this difficulty has 
 been surmounted, and the goddess is full face, and 
 particularly well rendered. The third figure, some- 
 times found, which the over-shadowing goddess 
 touches with finger tips and toes, is Seb, the earth. 
 
 In the first volume of the Description there are 
 other examples given. At Esneh, the ceiling of the 
 portico has one of these figures at each end, perfectly 
 rectangular in form, and the space is filled with 
 zodiacal signs as well as stars. At Erment, three sides 
 of the ceiling are surrounded by one of these figures, 
 the body being drawn out to immense length, and 
 ruled perfectly straight, filling the longitudinal side of 
 the ceiling, which exceeds by three times the ends 
 occupied by the arms and legs. 
 
 The ceiling of the portico at Denderah furnishes 
 the most exaggerated example of all. The bodies of 
 the goddesses, covered with the zigzag of water, stretch 
 along the sides, like long streams, on which float lines 
 of stars, the mid-space being occupied by the signs of 
 the zodiac, and other astronomical figures and stars. 
 
 Much earlier, and by far the most hnpressive, is 
 that in the tombs of the kings at Thebes, of the great 
 period of the nineteenth dynasty. This nude figure 
 is beautifully proportioned, drawn with the precision 
 of a Greek vase painting, and fearlessly coloured the 
 brightest lapis lazuli blue. The watchful goddess of 
 the sky, all-embracing, lost in the darkness in the 
 farther part of the chamber, peers down from the 
 ceiling, her body bedecked with the planets as bright 
 discs, ' the stars on the body of the heavenly goddess 
 Nut' 
 
 There is another variety of sky ceiling at Denderah. 
 A square apartment has a large circle touching its 
 
CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 233 
 
 sides; around an outer zone are the signs of the 
 zodiac, and the central space is filled with the 
 northern constellations. 
 
 The simpler form, of stars only, thickly strewn as 
 •daisies in a meadow, is the most beautiful representa- 
 tion of ' the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven.' 
 A good coloured plate of one of these is given in 
 Lepsius. On a bright blue sky large white five- 
 rayed stars (why do stars appear to have five rays ?), 
 
 are regularly spaced, almost touching one another. In 
 the middle of every one is a spot of bright red, 
 which, on the white with the surrounding blue, seems 
 to make them dance and flicker before the eyes ; 
 others have white stars on an expanse of black, as 
 in the pyramids of Dashour ; or, again, the stars may 
 be gold. ' The ceilings of the temples of Thebes had 
 generally a blue ground, upon which vultures, with 
 their great wings outspread, floated among golden 
 stars ' (Perrot). Not to give a catalogue of these, we 
 will content ourselves by looking at an early one. 
 
234 CEILINGS LIKE THE SKY 
 
 In 1881, Maspero opened a pyramid at Sakkarah, 
 belonging to a king, the last Pharaoh of the fifth 
 dynasty. Here, at a time to which no man can num- 
 ber back the years, ' the side walls are covered with 
 fine hieroglyphs, painted green, and the roof sprinkled 
 with stars of the same hue.' 
 
 Last of all, more pathetic than temple or tomb with 
 their ceilings like the sky, the coffin itself was adorned 
 in the same way. Coffins in the British Museum of a 
 late period have their lids painted on the under side to 
 resemble the sky, a greenish-blue studded with stars ; 
 along the margins are the signs of the zodiac in two 
 rows ; in the middle of these, longways, is the goddess 
 of the heavens, in full face, white and serene, her eyes 
 for ever looking down into his whom she watches and 
 guards. 
 
 These men of Egypt loved the same sky that we 
 also love. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND THREE HUNDRED 
 AND SIXTY DAYS 
 
 'Slop! stop! Oman stop ! for the sake oftliree liundred and sixty- 
 five, which are in the year.' — Servian Folk Lore. 
 
 THE parallelism so often made out between the 
 childhood of the individual and of the race is 
 well sustained in the gradual apprehension of number 
 by both. With them both, numeration begins by 
 ' One, two,' and ' Ever so many ; ' both use the symbol- 
 of a determinate number for a great multitude ; and 
 by both, as the process is carried further, the numbers 
 are instinctively connected with the 'digits' of the 
 hand. Reckoning by fives seems to have preceded 
 the decimal system of both hands, and is still in use, 
 in taking in merchandise by tale — the man in charge 
 chalking on some shutter, or other tally-board, four 
 upright strokes, and then the fifth as a diagonal. As 
 children help their addition or subtraction on their 
 little fingers, so it was in the beginning. As they 
 hold up their hands in dumb show for five, or ten, so 
 did the infant man. His tally-board was always at 
 hand, just as his measure of length, the palm, span, or 
 foot, the cubit, or the fathom, was never mislaid. The 
 Chaldean table books 'measures of length' began, 
 ' five fingers one hand,' in a way still familiar in 
 measuring horses. 
 
 Of the most primitive stage of number. Sir John 
 
236 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 Lubbock gives some account. The Bushman had not 
 names beyond ' two;' three would be called ' two — one,' 
 and four ' two — two,' and so on. They seldom lose 
 oxen, for they discover a loss not by numbering the 
 head, ' but by the absence of a face they know.' 
 
 ' All over the world the fingers are used as counters ; 
 and although the numerals of most races are so worn 
 down by use that we can no longer detect their 
 original meaning, there are many savage tribes in 
 which the words used are merely the verbal expres- 
 sions of the signs used in counting with the fingers. 
 Where names are given to the first four numerals, five 
 is " one hand," and beyond it is one, two, three, four, 
 on the second hand — ten being " two hands." Hence, 
 no doubt, the decimal system in mathematics, ten, has 
 been selected because we have ten fingers.' 
 
 Vitruvius points out all this : ' It is worthy of re- 
 mark that measures universally used in all buildings, 
 and other works, are derived from the members of 
 the human body, as the digit, the palm, the foot, the 
 cubit, and that these form a perfect number, called by 
 the Greeks teleios. The ancients considered ten a 
 perfect number, because the fingers are ten in number, 
 and the palm is derived from them, and from the 
 palm is derived the foot. Plato therefore called ten a 
 perfect number ; for nature having formed the hands 
 with ten fingers, a number composed of units, called 
 monades in Greek, that number advancing beyond 
 ten as to eleven, twelve, etc., is not perfect until 
 another ten is completed.' , 
 
 It will be sufficiently obvious to affirm that the first 
 recurring period noticed and counted would be that 
 of the moon's phases, twenty-nine days, twelve hours, 
 forty-four minutes ; the nearest whole number in ' a 
 moon ' thus being thirty days — ' six hands.' Then the 
 yearwould be measured: twelve moons — three hundred 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 237 
 
 and sixty days; the true primitive year. How the 
 Egyptians and the Greeks set about correcting this is 
 told by Herodotus : ' The Egyptians were the first to 
 discover the year, which they divided into twelve 
 parts, and they say they made this discovery from the 
 stars ; and, so far, I think they act more wisely than 
 the Grecians, in that the Grecians insert an intercalary 
 month every third year, on account of the seasons ; 
 whereas the Egyptians, reckoning twelve months of 
 thirty days each, add five days each year above that 
 number, and so with them the circle of the seasons 
 comes round to the same point.' That three Hundred 
 and sixty days was the original year, improved 
 by five additional days, is amply proved by the inves- 
 tigators of the monuments. The five days thrown in 
 over were set apart as festivals, and a story that Osiris 
 should not be born in the year, was fulfilled by his 
 being born on one of the five days. That the original 
 Greek year was also of three hundred and sixty days, 
 is seen more clearly in another passage of Herodotus 
 (1-32) and in Homer, as quoted later on. 
 
 Plutarch says of the Romans, that before Numa 
 'they had no idea of the difference between the 
 annual course of the sun and that of the moon, and 
 only laid down this position, that the year consisted of 
 three hundred and sixty days.' 
 
 It was the same in Assyria, as astronomical tablets 
 have made evident. 'Twelve months to each year, 
 three hundred and sixty days in number, as recorded.' 
 The course of the sun through the stars was parti- 
 tioned according to the twelve months — the twelve 
 signs of the zodiac — and these, sub-divided by their 
 thirty days, gave the three hundred and sixty degrees, 
 the basis since for all angular measure ; the day was 
 divided into six parts, each subdivided by sixty, and 
 the same for the night, as is still the case in Japan. 
 
238 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 In the Bible account of Noah and the Flood, exactly 
 five consecutive months made one hundred and fifty 
 days ; therefore the year must have had three hundred 
 and sixty. The Hindoo year of the Veda was the same, 
 the sun-god having seven hundred and twenty twin 
 children, three hundred and sixty days and nights. 
 In the ' Mahabharata,' a young Brahmin descends 
 through a cavern to the city of the serpents. He sees 
 two women weaving a veil, the one with white, the other 
 with black threads, of day and night. He sees a 
 wheel with twelve spokes ; three hundred and sixty 
 rays issue from the nave — the days of the year. In 
 Mexico, the number of days was evidently at first the 
 same, for five days were intercalary. 
 
 Thus twelve, and three hundred and sixty, became 
 important and easily recognised numbers — fixed 
 points in a sea of abstractions. 'As many as the 
 moons ; ' 'As many as the days in a year.' These 
 important stepping-stones so far are ten, twelve, thirty, 
 three hundred and sixty ; not very even in their stride 
 certainly, but sure and firm. If, however, we halve 
 one, and double the other, of the two middle terms, 
 the series will be much improved — six, ten, sixty (ten 
 by six), three hundred and sixty (sixty by six), three 
 thousand six hundred (sixty by sixty), etc. If this 
 view of the growth of numeration is or is not right in 
 every particular, it is sufficiently confirmed for Assyria 
 by mathematical tablets, the scale having a sexagesimal 
 base with ten : sixty, six hundred, three thousand six 
 hundred (Boscawen). And Berosos even tells us the 
 names of these : ' Now a sarus is esteemed to be three 
 thousand six hundred, a neros six hundred, and a 
 sossus sixty.' 
 
 Of the use of this system, the Chaldean account of 
 the flood gives reiterated instances : ' And the God, 
 the immutable lord, repeated the command in a 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 239 
 
 dream, " Build a vessel and finish it. By a deluge I 
 will destroy substance and life. Cause thou to go up 
 into the vessel the substance of all that has life. The 
 vessel thou shalt build, six hundred cubits shall be the 
 measure of its length, and sixty cubits the amount of* 
 its breadth and of its height." I poured on its exterior 
 three times three thousand , six hundred measures of 
 asphalte, and three times three thousand six hundred 
 measures of asphalte within, three times three thousand 
 six hundred men porters brought on their heads the 
 chests of provisions. I kept three thousand six hun- 
 dred chests for the nourishment of my family, and 
 the mariners divided among themselves twice three 
 thousand six hundred chests ' (Lenormant). 
 
 This important number three hundred and sixty — 
 as many as the days in the year — is largely the basis 
 of those long periods we find in early mythical 
 chronology. In Babylonia, according to Berosos, the 
 ten kings before the deluge reigned each in multiples 
 of this period, making a total of four hundred and 
 thirty-two thousand years (three hundred and sixty, 
 by twelve, by one hundred), and from the deluge to 
 the Persian Conquest three thousand six hundred 
 years. In India the sacred chronology proceeds by 
 the same method, as shown by the following from Sir 
 G. Birdwood : ' The year of the gods consists of three 
 hundred and sixty mortal years. The first age lasted 
 four thousand eight hundred years of the gods, the 
 second three thousand six hundred, the third two 
 thousand four hundred, and the fourth, the present or 
 black age, which began about B.C. 3101, is limited to 
 one thousand two hundred years of the gods.' 
 
 The day of Brahma lasts four thousand three 
 hundred and twenty millions of years (three hundred 
 and sixty by twelve) : this is the Brahmanical chron- 
 ology, but there is another system ' based in the reigns 
 
240 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 of successive Manus, evidently handed down from 
 Vedic times ; each Manu was supposed to reign for 
 four million three hundred and twenty thousand 
 years (three hundred and sixty by twelve thousand). 
 
 In accounting for the coincidence of chronological 
 numbers, Bunsen made out a cycle of sixty years, 
 but the number of the days in the year is clearly the 
 explanation for the Egyptian period, as given by 
 Manetho at a late time, when a highly corrected solar 
 year was known of 365 '2 5 days. He tells us that the 
 old Egyptian chronicle comprised thirty-six thousand 
 five hundred and twenty-five years in as many 
 volumes — a hundred times as many as the days of 
 the year. 
 
 Pliny says that the labyrinth of Egypt had lasted 
 three thousand six hundred years. 
 
 This number is the first of any considerable sum 
 to meet us in Greek literature (Od. XIV., 20), as 
 noticed by Mr Gladstone, 'Among all the numbers 
 used in Homer the highest which he appears to use 
 with a clearly determinate meaning is that of the 
 three hundred and sixty fat hogs under the care of 
 Eumseus in Ithica. The reason for considering this 
 number as having a pretty definite sense in the poet's 
 mind is that it stands in evident association with the 
 number of days as it was probably then reckoned in 
 the year.' 
 
 In China, says Hue, ' This number (three hundred 
 and sixty-five), which corresponds with the days of 
 the year, expresses, according to the genius of the 
 Chinese, a great multiple, an uninterrupted series.' 
 
 •It is told of a certain builder that his method of 
 estimating was to guess the quarter, and multiply by 
 four; the ancients would appear to have multiplied 
 by three hundred and sixty. Professor Max Miiller 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 241 
 
 tells US how as early as 600 B.C. ' every verse, every 
 word, every syllable of the ' Veda ' had been carefully 
 counted ; ' the number of the syllables was given as 
 four hundred and thirty-two thousand, a number we 
 have already seen formed by a base of three hundred 
 and sixty. Vitruvius says the circuit of the earth 
 was ascertained by Eratosthenes of Cyrene to be 
 two hundred and fifty-two thousand stadia ; that 
 is, a hundred fold the number of the degrees by 
 the mystical number of the planets. And Dante, in 
 the Convito, says the wise men of Egypt had counted 
 the stars of heaven as twenty-two thousand, which is 
 the nearest round number to three hundred and sixty 
 by sixty (twenty-one thousand six hundred). In the 
 Talmud there are said to be ' as many thousands of 
 myriads of stars as the three hundred and sixty-five 
 days in the solar year,' and in the Persian book, the 
 Bundahish, there are six thousand four hundred and 
 eighty stars (three hundred and sixty by eighteen). 
 
 In Plato's ideal Republic the inhabitants are five 
 thousand and forty (three hundred and sixty by 
 fourteen). 
 
 In the Orphic system there were three hundred and 
 sixty gods, and the Gnostics acknowledged this 
 number of genii. 
 
 But it was not alone for the calculation of the un- 
 known quantity in mythical periods, the multitude of 
 the stars, or circle of the earth, that this number was 
 used : for the distance of places and size of countries 
 it was of equal service to the ancient geographers as 
 to the historians and astronomers. Herodotus, Strabo, 
 and Diodorus use it frequently, but apparently 
 without fear of inaccuracy : Strabo, for instance, 
 gives the course of the Euphrates as thirty- 
 six thousand stadia, the distance from Paphos to 
 Alexandria three thousand six hundred, and the 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 Appian way, Rome to Brundusium, three hundred 
 and sixty. 
 
 As a measure of circumference, especially for the 
 walls of cities, it was even more largely and more 
 appropriately used ; says Herodotus, ' the lake named 
 from Mceris, near which the labyrinth is built, 
 occasions greater wonder ; its circumference measures 
 three thousand six hundred stades, or sixty schoenes, 
 equal to the sea coast of Egypt.' 
 
 Rawlinson extracted from the accounts given of 
 Babylon, for the circuit of its walls : — 
 
 Ctesias 
 
 360 stades 
 
 Clitarchus . 
 
 365 ,. 
 
 Q. Curtius . 
 
 368 „ 
 
 Strabo 
 
 38s ., 
 
 And he is disposed to accept these as being 
 sufficiently accurate estimates : but if we allow, with 
 the editor of Strabo (Bohn's edition), as to the number 
 three hundred and eighty-five, 'critics agree in this 
 being a mistake for three hundred and sixty-five ; the 
 number of stadia in the wall, according to ancient 
 authors, corresponded with the number of days in the 
 year;' the whole series become but dimensions in 
 mythland. Carthage, the same ancient writer says, 
 'is situated on a peninsula, comprising a circuit of 
 three hundred and sixty stadia, with a wall of which 
 sixty stadia are upon the neck of the peninsula, and 
 reached from sea to sea;' also, he tells us, there was 
 a space fortified on the isthmus of the Chersonesus — 
 three hundred and sixty stadia. Diodorus Siculus 
 says that one stadium of the walls of Babylon was 
 erected every day by the two millions of men em- 
 ployed by Semiramis, so that the circumference was 
 completed in a year. He says that three hundred and 
 sixty thousand men were employed in building the great 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 243 
 
 pyramid. Also, that it was the custom in an ancient 
 Egyptian festival for three hundred and sixty priests 
 to take water from the Nile in as many vessels, and 
 pour them out in a cistern which would not retain 
 the water, thus representing the lapse of the days. 
 And at the Tomb of Osiris, at Philse, three hundred 
 and sixty vases were daily filled with milk during 
 the days of lamentation. 
 
 Herodotus, too, makes good use of the number. 
 Darius, he says, divided his empire into twenty 
 satrapies who paid tribute in gold or in kind ; five 
 of them paying three hundred and sixty talents, 
 and the Cilicians, 'three hundred and sixty white 
 horses — one for every day.' Also, in connection 
 with Babylon, he tells us ' when Cyrus, in his march 
 against that city, arrived at the river Gyndes, one of 
 the sacred white horses, through wantonness, plunged 
 into the stream, which carried him away and drowned 
 him. Cyrus was much enraged with the river for this 
 affront, and threatened to make the stream so weak 
 that, henceforth, women should easily cross it without 
 wetting their knees. After this menace, deferring 
 his expedition against Babylon, he divided his army 
 into two parts ; and having so divided it, he marked 
 out by lines one hundred and eighty channels on each 
 side of the river, diverging every way ; then having 
 distributed his army, he commanded them to dig. 
 His design was indeed executed by the numbers he 
 employed, but they spent the whole summer in the 
 work. When Cyrus had avenged himself on the 
 river Gyndes by distributing it into three hundred 
 and sixty channels, and the second spring began to 
 shine, he then advanced against Babylon.' Pliny says 
 that the Mesopotamian valley was three hundred and 
 sixty miles in breadth, and Herodotus, that when the 
 Persians built two bridges of boats across the 
 
244 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 Hellespont for the invasion of Greece, one had three 
 hundred and sixty, the other three hundred and 
 fourteen boats. From Egypt, according to the last 
 author, the King Amasis sent a corselet as a present to 
 the Lacedaemonians. ' This corselet was made of 
 linen, with many figures of animals inwrought, and 
 adorned with gold and cotton wool : and on this 
 account each thread of the corselet makes it worthy of 
 admiration, for though it is fine it contains three 
 hundred and sixty threads all distinct.' Pliny gives 
 the number as three hundred and sixty-five. 
 
 'It is said that there is a Persian song in which is reck- 
 oned up three hundred and sixty useful properties of 
 the Palm' (Strabo). More modern Persian makes much 
 the same use of the number, for Sadi says of the veins, 
 that the body is a meadow through which are flowing 
 three hundred and sixty rivulets. The crocodile, it 
 was said by the ancient writers on Natural History, had 
 three hundred and sixty teeth, and laid eggs sixty at 
 a time. Gibbon tells us the Arabs found in Spain a 
 table of emerald supported on three hundred and 
 sixty-five legs. In Cashmere there was a village 
 with three hundred and sixty fountains dedicated 
 to the moon. Ayeni Akberi, quoted by Maurice.) 
 
 Tavernier, in the court of the chateau of August- 
 bourg, in Denmark, was shown a tree so extra- 
 ordinarily large that it sheltered a number of tables 
 ranged underneath. ' Je ne les ay pas contfees mais 
 le Concierge nous dit qu' il y en a autant que des 
 Jours en I'an.' 
 
 A Chinese book of birds, which in ' Mythical Mons- 
 ters 'is said to be of the third or fourth century, describes 
 their Phoenix the ' Fung Hwang ' as the principal of 
 three hundred and sixty different species of birds. A 
 monument of the seventh century quoted by Hue says 
 that after the primitive and pure religion was forsaken, 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 245 
 
 three hundred and sixty-five sects arose and upset all 
 ideas. In a Japanese work of the beginning of this 
 century, translating a Chinese original some two 
 thousand years old, the mystical relation between the 
 world and man as a microcosm ( ' Little Heaven and 
 Earth ') is drawn out with a detail amazingly like that 
 of mediaeval mystagogues. ' Man receives his human 
 form from heaven and earth, and therefore he resembles 
 heaven as to his head, which is round, and earth to 
 his feet, which are square. If in heaven there are five 
 elements, fire, water, wood, metal, and earth, in man 
 there are also the corresponding viscera : lung, heart, 
 liver, stomach, and kidneys ; if in heaven there are the 
 five planets or stars, the fire star, the water star, the wood 
 star, the metal star, and the earth star, in man also we 
 find the five fingers and nails ; if in heaven there are the 
 four seasons, the twelve months, and the three hundred 
 and sixty days, man displays also the four limbs, twelve 
 great joints, and three hundred and sixty minor 
 articulations' (Fauld's Nipon). Many things seem 
 to have been arranged on a correct numerical plan at 
 Constantinople : in the royal college burnt, it is said, in 
 the reign of Leo the Isaurian (but Gibbon appears to 
 doubt if it ever existed) the president was named the 
 Sun of Science, his twelve associates were Signs of the 
 Zodiac, and the number of books in the library was 
 three hundred and sixty-five thousand. Justinian is said 
 by Codinus to have allotted three hundred and sixty 
 properties to Sta. Sophia, and to have devoted a year's 
 tribute from Egypt, three hundred and sixty-five 
 hundred thousand sesterces, to the construction of the 
 ambo and solia. Sir John Maundeville makes Prester 
 John to be served by three hundred and sixty knights : 
 and tells us that King David had a like number of 
 wives and concubines. They were as many in the 
 story of Hasan in the Arabian Nights, ' three hundred 
 
246 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 and sixty, according to the number of days in the 
 year.' 
 
 It is to cities and buildings that the number ' as 
 many as the days in the year ' has the most frequent 
 application ; from the earliest descriptions of Babylon 
 and Carthage, as we have seen, to the present day in 
 England, the number and phrase are universally 
 current. It is told of Blenheim ; Heriot's Hospital, 
 Edinburgh ; Castletown, near Dublin ; Syon House, 
 and of many besides, that they have as many windows 
 as the days of the year ; but the story is more striking 
 when applied to an ordinary ' Squire's House ' in the 
 country. It was told of a house of this sort, to the writer 
 when quite a little child, and the memory of this, as 
 something mysterious, is the origin of this chapter. In 
 some instances, Salisbury Cathedral for example, the 
 comparison is extended through days of the year, 
 weeks, months, and even hours and minutes. 
 
 At Calais, landing under the great revolving flashes 
 of the new lighthouse, you are told that it has as many 
 steps as the days in the year. 
 
 In the Edda, Thor's palace has five hundred and 
 forty halls : and — 
 
 ' Five hundred doors 
 And forty more, 
 Methinks are in Valhalla.' 
 
 That is, one might suppose, sixty to each storey in the 
 nine-fold heavens. 
 
 Lucian describes the city of the Isle of the Blessed : 
 ' Instead of corn, the fields bring forth loaves of ready- 
 made bread like mushrooms. There are three hundred 
 and sixty-five fountains of water round the city, as 
 many of honey, and five hundred, rather smaller, of 
 sweet-scented oil, besides seven rivers of milk and 
 eight of wine.' 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 247 
 
 Kirwan the Holy, as founded by the Companion of 
 the Prophet, is said to have been three hundred and 
 sixty paces in circuit. 
 
 Modern Bokhara is said to have a mosque for every 
 day, so also Cairo. 
 
 Nushirwan fortified a great wall with this number 
 of towers. In the Talmud, it is written that there are 
 three hundred and sixty-five crowned heads in Rome, 
 and the same number of dukes in Babylon. ' Rabbi 
 Samlai explains that six hundred and thirteen com- 
 mandments were communicated to Moses ; three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five negative, according to the number 
 of days in the year ; and two hundred and forty-eight 
 positive, according to the number of members in the 
 human body.' 
 
 The mediaeval writer of the 'Stations of Rome ' says 
 that the eternal city was surrounded by forty-two 
 walls, with ' grete toweres thre hundred and sixty ; ' 
 the twelfth century Mirabilia says three hundred three 
 score and one. 
 
 William of Malmesbury writes of the church of St 
 Sylvester, in Rome, ' and there too the three hundred 
 and sixty-five martyrs rest in one sepulchre.' There 
 is a legend of St Patrick visiting Rome magically, and 
 bringing back three hundred and sixty-five relics to 
 Ireland (Stokes). 
 
 ' In the Great City (of Rome) there were three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five streets, and in each street there 
 were three hundred and sixty-five palaces, and m every 
 one of these there were three hundred and sixty- five 
 steps ; each of which palaces contained sufficient store 
 to maintain the whole world ' (Talmud, Hershon). 
 
 The persistence of this story in regard to Rome 
 is remarkable. It is said to-day that there are three 
 hundred and sixty-five churches in the city (Miss 
 Edwards, Nile). 
 
248 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 But it is not in Rome only ; all over Europe the 
 number is current ; in Cyprus the town of Kuklia 
 (Paphos) is reported to have possessed three hundred 
 and sixty-five churches, there are actual traces of 
 six! (Journal of Hellenic Society, 1888.) In Greece, 
 Athens and other towns claim to have had this 
 number of churches. 
 
 The old Arab temple at Meccah had three hundred 
 and sixty statues surrounding that of Hobal the 
 sun god. Sale in his notes to the Koran, quoting 
 an Arab author, says ' there were no less than three 
 hundred and sixty idols, equalling in number the 
 days of the year.' Dupuis mentions three hundred 
 and sixty chapels built around the superb mosque of 
 Balk, erected by the chief of the family of the 
 Barmecides, each for one of the same number of genii : 
 also the same number of temples built upon the moun- 
 tain Lowham in China, and of idols in a palace of 
 the Mikado (du Dairi) in Japan. Pliny describes 
 the wonderful erection of Scaurus, who 'executed 
 the greatest work that has ever been made by man, 
 even when intended to be of everlasting duration, 
 his theatre I mean : this building consisted of three 
 storeys supported on three hundred and sixty columns.' 
 
 The Jew Benjamin of Tudela was at Constant- 
 inople in the second half of the twelfth century. He 
 writes : ' At Constantinople is the place of worship 
 called Sta. Sophia, and the Metropolitan seat of 
 the popes of the Greeks, who are at variance with 
 the Pope of Rome. It contains as many altars as 
 there are days in the year, and possesses innumerable 
 riches. All the other places of worship in the whole 
 world 3o not equal Sta. Sophia in riches, it is orna- 
 mented with pillars of gold and silver, and with in- 
 numerable lamps of the same precious materials.' The 
 story is evidently as well known in the folk lore of the 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 249 
 
 East as here in the West. Wheeler, travelling in Greece 
 in 1670, says of Arta, where is a Byzantine church, 
 'Signior Manno Mannia, a rich merchant of that place, 
 told me that the cathedral church is a great building 
 that hath as many doors and windows as there were 
 days in the year.' A Mohammedan writer, El-Harawi, 
 visited Constantinople in the thirteenth century, and 
 writes : 'In this place are statues of brass and marble 
 pillars, wonderful talismans and other monuments of 
 greatness, to which no equal can be found in the habit- 
 able world. Here is also Agia Sophia, the greatest 
 church they have. I was told by Yakub Ibn Abd 
 Allah that he had entered it, and that it was just as I 
 have described it: within it are three hundred and sixty 
 doors, and they say one of the angels resides there. 
 Round about this place they have made fences of 
 gold, and the story they relate of him is very strange.' 
 El Harawi promises to speak in another place ' of the 
 arrangement of the church, its size, height, doors, and 
 the pillars that are in it ; also of the wonders of the 
 city, its order, and the sort of fish found in it ; the gate 
 of gold, the towers of marble, the brazen elephants, 
 and all its monuments and wonders : ' exclaiming in 
 conclusion, ' This city, which is greater than its fame, 
 may God of His bounty and grace make the capital of 
 Islam ! ' 
 
 It is very curious to find Professor Piazzi Smyth 
 claiming that the great pyramid was 365-25 sacred 
 cubits on each side ; the whole four sides having a 
 hundred ' pyramid inches ' for every day in the year. 
 
 In the English translation, made in the end of the 
 sixteenth century, of ' Doctor Faustus,' one of the 
 passages added to the German original, in the account 
 of the travels of Faustus, describes the great circular 
 castle of St Angelo in Rome. ' Well, forward he went 
 to Rome, which lay and doth yet lie on the river 
 
250 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 Tibris, the which divideth the city into two parts. Over 
 the river are four great stone bridges, and upon the 
 one bridge, called Ponte St Angelo, is the castle of St 
 Angelo, wherein are so many great cast pieces as there 
 are days in the year, and such pieces as will shoot 
 seven bullets off with one fire.' 
 
 Another instance from an English source is to be 
 found in Hakluyt's collection, in the account given 
 by Miles Phillips, one of the company put ashore 
 in the West Indies by Master John Hawkins in the 
 year 1568. In a town near Mexico, he says, there was 
 built by the Spaniards a very fair church called Our 
 Lady's Church, in which there is an image of Our Lady 
 in silver and gilt, being as high and as large as a tall 
 woman; in which church, and before this image, there 
 are as many lamps of silver as there be days in the 
 year, which upon high days are all lighted.' 
 
 In the ancient Greek town of Tarentum, there was 
 said by Athenseus to be a candelabrum which carried 
 lights equal in number to the days in the year. There 
 is an appropriateness in these lights, as also in the 
 windows of the same number (especially if the windows, 
 are in a circular building), which will lead us to a sug- 
 gestion why this number should be so universally 
 applied to buildings. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus says of the Remessium at Luxor : 
 — ' Through these chambers we reach the top of the 
 sepulchre (of Rameses II.) where is a golden circle 
 three hundred and sixty-five cubits in circumference, 
 and one cubit thick. On this circle are marked 
 divisions for every day in the year, and in each is 
 noted the rising and setting of the stars, and the 
 influence which the Egyptian astrologers attributed 
 to these constellations.' 
 
 The two stories following are from Benjamin of 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 251 
 
 Tudela: ' In Rome you find eighty halls of the eighty 
 eminent kings, who were all called Imperator, from 
 the King Tarquin to the King Pepin, the father of 
 Charles, who first conquered Spain, and wrested it 
 from the Mohammedans. In the outskirts of Rome 
 is the palace of Titus, who was rejected by the three 
 hundred senators in consequence of his having wasted 
 three years in the conquest of Jerusalem, which, 
 according to their will, he ought to have accom- 
 plished in two years. There is also the hall of the 
 palace of the King Vespasianus, a very large and 
 strong building ; also the hall of King Galba, con- 
 taining three hundred and sixty windows, equal in 
 number to the days of the year. The circumference 
 of this palace is nearly three miles. A battle was 
 fought here in times of yore, and in the palace fell 
 more than a hundred thousand, whose bones are hung 
 up there even to the present day.' 
 
 ' Damascus contains a Mohammedan Mosque, called 
 the synagogue of Damascus, a building of unequalled 
 magnificence. They say that it was the palace of 
 Ben-Hadad, and that one wall of it is framed of glass 
 by enchantment. This wall contains as many openings 
 as there are days in the solar year, and the sun in gradual 
 succession throws its light into the openings, which 
 are divided into degrees equal in number to the hours 
 of the day, so that by this contrivance everybody may 
 know what time it is. The palace contains vessels 
 richly ornamented with gold and silver, formed like 
 tubs, and of a size to allow three persons to bathe in 
 them at once. In this building is also preserved the 
 rib of a giant, which measures nine spans in length 
 and two in breadth, and which belonged to an ancient 
 giant named Abchamos, whose name was found en- 
 graved upon a stone of his tomb ; and it was further 
 stated in the inscription that he reigned over the 
 
252 THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN AND 
 
 whole world.' Indeed, it seems likely enough he did 
 if this is his palace, for it can be none other than the 
 crystal dome of the world fabric itself, with the 
 windows in the firmament, through which the sun 
 shines successively for each day of the year. It is 
 here we may see the root of the attribution in story 
 of this number of windows to earthly temples ; the 
 story originally told of the dome of the sky, the 
 house of the sun, as a true explanation of the facts 
 of nature, gets applied, at last to famous buildings 
 from the hands of man, as a myth. Once at least, 
 and probably many times, the number has actually 
 ruled in the design of a temple. This instance is the 
 triple circular platform of the altar of Heaven at 
 Pekin. 'The balustrades have nine by eight, or 
 seventy-two pillars and rails, on the upper terrace. 
 On the middle terrace there are one hundred and 
 eight ; and in the lower one hundred and eighty. 
 These amount in all to three hundred and sixty — ^the 
 number of degrees in a circle ' (Edkins in Williamson's 
 Journeys in N. China). 
 
 The three hundred and sixty windows of heaven 
 described in the Bundahish, the old Persian writings 
 collected about the eighth century (Sacred Books of 
 the East), is clearly enough the prototype of the 
 story of the Damascus mosque of Benjamin of 
 Tudela. The whole is quite a scientific treatise, and 
 especially clear in its statement of the many layers of 
 the heavenly Olympus as one embracing the other, 
 sphere beyond sphere. Mount Alburz is the firma- 
 ment within which the sun travels and is restrained. 
 'Of Mount Alburz it is declared that around the 
 world and Mount Terak the revolution of the sun is 
 like a moat around the world ; it turns back owing to 
 the enclosure of Mount Alburz around Terak. For 
 there are a hundred and eighty apertures iii the 
 
THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DAYS 253 
 
 East, and a hundred and eighty in the West through 
 Alburz ; and the sun every day conies in through an 
 aperture and goes out through an aperture ; and the 
 whole connection and motion of the moon and con- 
 stellations and planets is with it. . . . And when 
 it arrives at Verak (Aries) the night and day have 
 again become equal, as when it went forth from Verak. 
 So that when it comes back to Verak in three hundred 
 and sixty days and the five Gatha days, it goes in and 
 comes out of one and the same aperture ; the aperture 
 is not mentioned, for if it had been mentioned the 
 demons would have known the secret and been able 
 to introduce disorder.' 
 
 The editor adds that for the ' five supplementary 
 days added to the last of the twelve months of thirty 
 days to complete the year, no additional apertures 
 were provided in Alburz, and the sun appears 
 to have the choice of either of the two central 
 apertures out of the one hundred and eighty on each 
 side of the world. This arrangement seems to 
 indicate that the idea of the apertures is earlier than 
 the rectification of the calendar which added the five 
 Gatha days to an original year of three hundred and 
 sixty days ' 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 ' They entered an apartment containing nothing except a black 
 painting representing a woman. Her legs reached to the top of one of 
 the walls; her body occupied the entire ceiling; from hernavel hung 
 suspended, by a thread, an enormous egg; and the remainder of her 
 body, her head downward, descended the other wall, to , the level of the 
 pavement, where her finger ends touched' — Salammbo. 
 
 THE late William Burges built for himself a house 
 strange and barbarously splendid : none more 
 than he could be minutely intimate with the thought 
 of old art, or more saturated with a passion for colour, 
 sheen, and mystery. Here were silver and jade, onyx 
 and malachite, bronze and ivory, jewelled casements, 
 rock crystal orbs, marble inlaid with precious metals ; 
 lustre, iridescence and colour everywhere ; vermilion 
 and black, gold and emerald ; everywhere device and 
 symbolism, and a fusion of Eastern feeling with his 
 style. 
 
 In his own bedroom the bed and other furniture is 
 vermilion heightened by crimson glazes. Over the 
 mantle a syren combs her long gilt hair, looking-glass 
 in hand — the mirror no make-believe. The ceiling has 
 red beams crossing a black field studded with small 
 convex mirrors, two inches across, surrounded by gilt 
 rays, the mirrors giving back the candle-light like stars 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 255 
 
 in the midnight sky. The hangings are Eastern 
 embroidery, and the pictures Persian miniatures. The 
 ceiling of the next room is even more extraordinary 
 and mysterious; it is divided into four squares by 
 heavy beams, at the middle point of which there is a 
 convex mirror as large as the moon : each of these 
 squares is crossed by diagonal ribs of bright flamingo 
 red, and a circle is drawn around the points of inter- 
 section, from which hang emus' eggs — four in all — 
 large, almond-shaped, and matchless green. They 
 vibrate as you enter the room. 
 
 Burges had been to Constantinople, and there a 
 few years ago hung from the dome of Sta. Sophia, 
 ' the fairest and noblest church in the world,' a light 
 frame of iron, an oetagon, perhaps some sixty feet 
 across, with radii and inner concentric lines; a vast 
 spider's web, suspended, it must have seemed — such is 
 tihe immensity — from the very vault of heaven. On 
 this frame were artlessly hung an infinity of lamps, tiny 
 glass vases of oil with floating wicks. Here and again 
 amongst them were suspended ostrich eggs, all placed 
 with no more precision than the lights and oranges on 
 a Christmas tree — long, short, straight and awry, and 
 so near the floor as to be almost under the sight of 
 the reader of the ' perspicuous book,' as he ascended 
 the high pulpit of the conquered mosque with the law 
 and a naked sabre, the alternatives of Islam. 
 
 It appears from photographs that vulgar gas lights 
 have now taken the place of the original lamp frame, but 
 it is shown in the interior view given in Texier and 
 Pullan's book. These hanging eggs seem of universal 
 use in the East, alike in church, mosque, and tomb. 
 Still at Constantinople, the frames of lights in the 
 mosque of Achmet are decorated with globes of crystal 
 and ostrich eggs. They are usually stained in bright 
 colours, and have small metal mounts at top and 
 
256 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 bottom, with a pendant or tassel below. Such a frame 
 carrying lamps and eggs may be seen in the wonderful 
 water colour by Lewis at South Kensington. 
 
 The drawings of interiors of Arab mosques in 
 Eber's ' Egypt ' show, in a number of instances, a 
 long cord, an egg, and then the lamp. Sometimes 
 as many as a dozen are thus suspended here and 
 there, or in a row from a beam. As far up the 
 Nile as Assouan, Miss Edwards describes a mosque 
 as 'cool and clean and spacious, the floor being 
 covered with matting, and some scores of ostrich 
 eggs depending from the ceiling.' In the Coptic 
 churches the custom is equally observed, as may 
 be seen in Butler's ' Coptic Churches of Egypt, 
 from which the following extract is taken ; and it is 
 interesting to note how such a seemingly trivial cir- 
 cumstance as the hanging of an egg from the ceiling 
 arrests the attention, and invites inquiry as to the 
 intention of it : — 
 
 'The ostrich egg is a curious but common orna- 
 ment in the religious buildings of the Copts, the 
 Greeks, and the Muslims alike. It may be seen in 
 the ancient church of the Greek convent in Kasr-ash 
 Shammah, and in most of the mosques in Cairo, 
 mounted in a metal frame, and hung by a single wire 
 from the roof In the churches it usually hangs 
 before the altar screen ; but at Abu-s-Sifain, an 
 ostrich egg is suspended also from the point of the 
 arches of the baldakyn. Here and there it is placed 
 above a lamp, threaded by the suspending cord, as in 
 the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem ; and some- 
 times it hangs from a wooden arm fastened on to 
 the pillars of the nave, as in the Nestorian church 
 of At-Tahara, in Mosul. Sometimes, instead of the 
 egg of the ostrich, artificial eggs of beautiful Damascus 
 porcelain, coloured with designs in blue or purple, 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 257 
 
 were employed, but these have almost entirely dis- 
 appeared; in the churches of the two Cairos there 
 is, I believe, not one left ; but a few still remain in 
 the churches of Upper Egypt, and in the mosques. 
 The tomb mosque of Kait Bey, without the walls of 
 Cairo, contains some fine specimens. These porcelain 
 eggs are considerably smaller than an ostrich egg, but 
 larger than a hen's egg. In the British Museum there 
 is a porcelain egg from Abyssinia, with cherubim 
 rudely painted under the glaze. It clearly belonged 
 once to a Christian place of worship. The " Griffin's 
 egg " was a common ornament in our own mediaeval 
 churches. In the inventory of 1383 A.D., no less than 
 nine are mentioned as belonging to Durham Cathe- 
 dral ; and Pennant speaks of two as still remaining in 
 1780. . . . From the fact that marble eggs are said 
 to have been discovered in some early martyrs' tombs 
 at Rome, and that in all Christian lands eggs are 
 associated with Easter-time, some think that the egg 
 was regarded as emblematic of the Resurrection.' 
 Another explanation was given to the author here 
 quoted, by the Copts themselves. An ostrich is pro- 
 verbially vigilant, therefore the egg becomes a type 
 of watchfulness. 'This explanation seems rational,' 
 he adds, ' for the devotion of the ostrich to its brood 
 is, I believe, in accordance with the facts of natural 
 history, and the use of the egg may well have arisen 
 in Africa, where the habits of the bird are better 
 known. At any rate, it is the best solution of the 
 question.' 
 
 From the conclusion we must dissent, for the custom 
 is universal, and of ancient origin, handed down from 
 a time before Christianity, and all evidence points to 
 the former explanation being the true one — resurrec- 
 tion, or rather, life. The egg is the typical germ, and 
 therefore the natural symbol of creation. That the 
 
 R 
 
258 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 Copts may see in it a symbol of vigilance we need not 
 at all dispute, nor even contend that it is now used 
 with definite symbolical meaning. For centuries 
 — millenniums — they have been suspended from the 
 ceilings of temples and tombs, and may now be accepted 
 in many instances as merely ornamental trappings, 
 but even thus accounted of good and sacred omen, 
 from the importance of the points from which they 
 are suspended ; for not only are they hung in sacred 
 buildings, but in places of honour and of ritual 
 importance. In the churches in Athens numbers 
 of ostrich eggs hang before the pictures of the 
 Iconastasis. 
 
 The ' Griffin's eggs ' were not necessarily ostrich 
 eggs ; in one instance they are described as having 
 a brown and hairy exterior, the inside white, with a 
 clear liquid yelk. We can buy them now for four- 
 pence, as cocoa-nuts. 
 
 In portraits of Eastern kings an egg is sometimes 
 shown suspended from the centre of the tester of 
 the throne, and this is quite a traditional observ- 
 ance, which we find followed in Italian art ; unless, 
 indeed, a crown is suspended there, like that Benjamin 
 of Tudela saw at Constantinople, glittering with 
 jewels. Something pendant and freely swinging there 
 must be to satisfy the Eastern taste; a means of beauty 
 to which we rarely resort except for lamps, which have 
 had to give way to the rigid pipe of gas. Cardinals' 
 hats hang with splendid effect from the dim height of the 
 vaults of foreign cathedrals, drooping and faded from 
 age. But of all these things, a large jewel swinging 
 from a cord would be the most mysterious and mag- 
 nificent, like that over the Great Mogul's Peacock 
 throne, as seen by Tavernier : ' When the king sets 
 himself upon the throne, there is a transparent jewel 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 259 
 
 with a diamond appendant of eighty or ninety carats, 
 encompassed with rubies and emeralds, so hung that 
 it is always in his eye.' Another pendant was a green 
 parrot in one emerald. Suspended votive crowns were 
 frequent in earlier days. Constantine is said to have 
 devoted his to the sepulchre of our Lord ; and in 
 England, Canute dedicated his to Winchester. In the 
 
 Cluny Museum are several of these crowns ; a treasure- 
 trove at Toledo. They are of about the eighth century, 
 and there are hardly now in the world objects more 
 strangely fascinating, with their pendant strings 
 of jewels — circlets of blazing splendour, in barbaric 
 gold. ^ In a former chapter we have seen that 
 these insignia and orbs were suspended from the 
 
26o THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 ceilings in Persia and in Assyria. We meet, too, in 
 several places with a tradition of suspended chains 
 of gold — in the porch of the Temple of Herod, in 
 India, and in Scandinavia. 
 
 Pendant ostrich eggs are found in festoons at 
 Jerusalem and at Mount Athos, and may be seen in 
 the west at Toledo and Marseilles. In India, Miss 
 Gordon Gumming saw ostrich eggs suspended from 
 the gorgeous canopy of one of the great tombs of 
 Delhi. At Tunis, they continue to be brought to the 
 tombs, where they are suspended as ex votos. The 
 Moorish mosques and tombs in Algiers are crowded 
 with them, and at Kirwan, the holy city inland, they 
 are hung over the tomb of 'The Companion,' with 
 gilded balls of earth from Mecca. At Damascus, 
 Lady Burton describes the tomb of St John as 
 ' hung over with lamps and ostrich eggs ; these latter 
 are the ornaments of all holy places, and are supposed 
 to bring good fortune.' It is the same over the tomb 
 of the holy Hasan and his brother. Enough has been 
 said to show that the practice of hanging these eggs is, 
 or was recently, followed in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 
 by all Ghristians — Catholic, Greek, Coptic, Nestorian, 
 Abyssinian, Armenian ; and by all Mohammedans in 
 Turkey, Persia, India, Syria, Egypt, and Algeria. Let 
 us follow up the tradition historically. 
 
 In a picture of the fifteenth century, in the National 
 Gallery, by Marco Marziale, he shows an apse designed 
 after that in St Mark's, Venice, and intended for part 
 of the interior of the Temple. From the centre of 
 this apse hangs a beautiful lamp, threaded on the cord 
 of which is an ostrich egg, directly over the Christ. 
 A picture of Mantegna's has a similar lamp {see 
 next page). Hung over the tomb, as we have seen in 
 several instances, or as here, over our Lord, they are 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 261 
 
 emblems of resurrection, and it is in this sense that 
 they are so universally used in the early spring as 
 
 ' Easter eggs,' not only in 
 London and Paris, but widely 
 over the world. Walcott's 
 ' Dictionary of Archaeology ' 
 says : ' The egg was the 
 symbol of creation in Egypt, 
 and of hope and the resurrec- 
 tion among the early Chris- 
 tians; the custom of giving 
 coloured pasch eggs on Easter 
 morning is found in the East, 
 in the Tyrol, in Russia, in 
 Greece, and many parts of 
 England, where it may be 
 traced back to the time of 
 Edward I., and was observed 
 at Gray's Inn in the reign of 
 Elizabeth. In France, the 
 pasch egg is eaten before any 
 other nourishment on Easter 
 day. Paul II. issued a form 
 of benediction of eggs for 
 England, Scotland, and Ire- 
 land ; Henry VIII. received 
 a paschal egg in a case of 
 silver filagree from the Pope.' 
 And an interesting point 
 follows : ' De Moleon says 
 that at Angers, on Easter 
 day, two chaplains, standing 
 behind the altar, addressed 
 two cubiculars or corbeliers, 
 as they advanced, "Whom seek ye?" and to the 
 reply, "Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified," answered, 
 
262 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 " He is risen ; He is not here." Then those who 
 personated the Maries took from the altar two ostrich 
 eggs wrapped in silk, and descended singing, 
 " Alleluia, the Lord is risen." ' 
 
 In the account of Muscovy in 1567, in Hakluyt, it 
 is told how the people prepared eggs against Easter, 
 dyed red with basil, ' and gentlemen and gentlewomen 
 have eggs gilded, which they carry in like manner. 
 They use it, as they say, for a great love, and in token 
 of the resurrection, whereof they rejoice ; for when 
 two friends meet during the Easter holidays they 
 come and take one another by the hand ; the one of 
 them saith : ' The Lord or Christ is risen ; ' the other 
 answereth : ' It is so, of a truth,' and then they kiss 
 and exchange their eggs (both men and women), con- 
 tinuing in kissing for days together.' Waterton tells 
 us that where he was at school, in the North of 
 England, they had pasch eggs dyed purple on 
 Easter morning. 
 
 The custom of hanging an egg from a dome 
 appears in the story of the lamp, where Aladdin 
 is made to ask for the roc's egg itself to adorn 
 his palace. It was a roc's egg that Sinbad saw, 
 half buried in the sands of Serindib, like a dome 
 fifty feet in diameter. The story of the roc is linked 
 to that of other immense mythical birds. In Japan 
 the appearance of a vast bird is accounted, with 
 earthquake and flood, as one of the 'seven cala- 
 mities.' ' The Garuda of the Hindus, the Simurgh of 
 the old Persians, the Angka of the Arabs, the Bar- 
 Yuchre of the Rabbinical legends, the Gryps of the 
 Greeks, were probably all versions of the same original 
 fable' (Col. Yule's 'Marco Polo'). Then there are 
 Ainru and Chmnru of the Avesta, which, like the 
 eagle of the Norse and the phoenix of the ' Romance 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 263 
 
 of Alexander,' are perched aloft on the ' tree of all 
 seeds.' The prowess of this mythical bird is one of 
 the story subjects in the world's lore — how it flies 
 with elephants in its grasp, or carries off the strong 
 hero Rustem ; or in the Talmud : ' An egg once drop- 
 ped out of the nest of a bird called Bar-Yuchnei, which 
 deluged sixty cities and swept away three hundred 
 cedars. The question therefore arose : " Does the bird 
 generally throw out its eggs ? " Rav Ashi answered : 
 " No ; that was a rotten one " ' (Hershon). Already, 
 in the clay writings, there is the mighty Zu bird, on a 
 high mountain, alone. 
 
 In Egypt it was the golden t.g^ hatched by the 
 goose that produced the mundane matter ; and the 
 bird is only framed on a scale suitable, or even 
 perhaps hardly adequate, to the work it has to do ! 
 Nearly all systems giving an account of a genesis 
 agree in this, that as the second or third step there 
 was produced from chaos a gigantic egg. The 
 Egyptian, PhcEnician, Assyrian, Hindu, and Greek 
 systems are here at one. ' From Desire and Vapour 
 proceeded primitive Matter. It was a muddy water — 
 black, icy, profound — encompassing insensible mon- 
 sters, incoherent parts of forms to be born. Then 
 Matter condensed and became an egg. It broke ; 
 one half formed the earth, the other half the firma- 
 ment. The sun, the moon, the winds, and the clouds 
 appeared, and a crash of thunder awakened the sen- 
 tient animals.' The Orphic fragments and Aristo- 
 phanes preserve a Greek tradition to the same effect. 
 When only Chaos and Night existed — 
 
 ' At length, in the dreary chaotical closet 
 Of Erebus old, was a privy deposit ; 
 By night the primasval in secresy laid 
 A Mystical Egg, that in silence and shade 
 Was brooded and hatched.' — The Birds. 
 
264 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 And we may complete the scheme from quite another 
 source — the northern Kalevala: — 
 
 ' From one half of the egg, the lower, 
 Grows the nether vault of Terra ; 
 From the upper half remaining 
 Grows the upper vault of Heaven.' 
 
 The Hindu code of Manu gives an account entirely 
 similar. The Eternal, willing to create, made by 
 thought the humid principle and in it deposited 
 matter. This primitive germ floated on the waters ; 
 soon the mass condensed itself into an egg, 
 brilliant as gold and full of light. From this 
 mysterious envelope was born Brahma, father of 
 all spirits, At the end of a year the egg opened 
 of itself; the upper half formed the sky, the lower 
 part the earth, the air is between, with the eight 
 regions and the reservoir of waters. Another account 
 says the egg contained the five elements, and was 
 enclosed in seven envelopes, like the wrappings of 
 an onion ; the seven envelopes falling off became the 
 seven heavens, and the seven worlds of the Brahman 
 world scheme. 
 
 M. Dognde, in Les Symbols Antiques, I'CEuf, has 
 traced the symbolic use of the egg as it appears on 
 the monuments or in literature, but only in a footnote 
 is the suspended ostrich egg mentioned, as it is found 
 in Temple, Tomb, Church, and Mosque. 
 
 ' In Japan, in the Pagoda of Miaco,' he says, 'upon 
 a large square altar is placed a bull of massive gold on 
 a block of rock ; the animal is ornamented by a rich 
 collar, and pushes with its horns an ^^'g floating in the 
 water contained in a cavity of the rock. To explain 
 this image, the following is told by the Priests. At 
 the time of chaos, before the creation, the world was 
 concealed and inert in an egg which floated on the 
 surface of the waters. . . The divine bull image of 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 265 
 
 creative force broke the egg by a stroke of its horns, 
 and from the egg issued the terrestrial globe.' 
 
 The earth itself was considered by several mediaeval 
 writers to be oviform. Bede likened the world to an 
 egg, as did also Edrisi the Arabian geographer : it half 
 floated in water in an upright position, Jerusalem 
 being at the top. 
 
 The egg symbol was especially made use of by the 
 Egyptians : it is shown on the monuments and referred 
 to in the texts as a symbol of the embryo creation 
 (Ra in the Egg). Wilkinson, writing of the ostrich, 
 says ' even its eggs were required for some ornamental 
 or religious use, and these with the plumes formed 
 part of the tribute imposed by the Egyptians on the 
 conquered countries where it abounded. The purpose 
 to which the eggs were applied is unknown ; but we 
 may infer, from a religious prejudice in their favour 
 among the Christians of Egypt, that some superstition 
 was connected with them, and that they were sus- 
 pended in the temples of the ancient Egyptians, as 
 
 they still are in the churches of the Copts 
 
 They consider them the emblems of watchfulness : 
 sometimes they use them with a different view ; the 
 rope of their lamps is passed through an ostrich egg 
 shell in order to prevent rats coming down and 
 drinking the oil, as we were assured by the monks of 
 Dayr Antonios.' 
 
 When the primordial egg was a part of the cosmo- 
 logical legend of a people, it is easy to see that not 
 only was any egg a symbol of the origin of life, but 
 an especially large egg would be preserved as 
 sacred, and suspended in the temple an image of the 
 world floating in the void : and there does seem 
 something inherently mysterious in the structure and 
 perfect form of a very large egg. One, for instance, 
 in the Museum of Natural History is some thirteen 
 
266 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 inches long, thirty inches in girth ; it will hold two and 
 one-third gallons. 
 
 Although there is no incontrovertible evidence of 
 eggs having been suspended in Egyptian temples, of 
 Greece we have the clearest contemporary testimony 
 by Pausanias. 'And hard by (Boonita in Laconia) is 
 the temple of Hilaira and Phoebe, who, the writer of 
 the Cyprian poems says, were the daughters of 
 Apollo ; and their priestesses are maidens, called also 
 Leucippides as well as the goddesses. One of their 
 statues was touched up by a priestess of the god- 
 desses, who, with an art not unknown in our days, 
 put a new face on the old statue ; but a dream pre- 
 vented her treating the other statue in the same way. 
 Here is hung up an egg, fastened to the roof by fillets ; 
 they say it is the egg which Leda is said to have laid' 
 (iii. 1 6). The story of Leda and the parallel one of 
 Latona are but distorted cosmic myths of Night and 
 Chaos, from which is formed the egg mundane. 
 
 The egg, firmly and widely accepted as a symbol of 
 life and creation, becomes an emblem of resurrection 
 and new life ; and thus the widely-spread observance 
 of Easter egg customs, and the association with 
 the tomb. ' Marble eggs are said to have been dis- 
 covered in some early martyr's tomb at Rome' 
 (Butler). 'Admitted to the funeral ceremonies, the 
 egg was also deposited in the tomb with the cinders 
 of the dead. Eggs have been found in many tombs 
 at Nola ' (Dogn^e). In the British Museum are six 
 large ostrich eggs, decorated with carvings in low 
 relief, of Archaic style, which were found in one tomb 
 at Vulci, in Etruria. Perrot, who illustrates them, 
 says they are of Phoenician origin. The holes — 
 one large in the centre with three smaller ones 
 round it, and one hole only at the other end — show 
 that they were certainly mounted, probably with 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 267 
 
 a metal cap, for suspension, like the modern ones in 
 the East. 
 
 Mr Dennis (Etruria) says : ' The eggs have holes in 
 them as if for suspension, and bring to mind the great 
 roc's egg of the Arabian Nights ; or rather, recall the 
 fact of ostrich eggs being suspended in mosques at the 
 present day. Imitations of ostrich eggs in terra cotta 
 (as though the supply of real ones was not sufficient) 
 have been found in the tombs of Vulci. Hens' eggs are 
 often found not only in Etruria but in Greece and her 
 colonies, and are sometimes enclosed in vases. Many 
 museums of Italy contain specimens of this singular 
 sepulchral furniture, probably in this case an emblem 
 of resurrection.' Instances of all these are in the 
 British Museum. In a tomb at Bologna an Etruscan 
 was exhumed with an egg in his hands (Sir F. Burton). 
 
 Of the Latin races Dogn^e says ' it was by following 
 the empire of the same idea that they affected the 
 ovoid form for funeral vases,' an example of the 
 reaction of thought and custom on design which, if 
 true here, is certainly as well founded in the case of 
 Egyptian funeral vases, some of which in the British 
 museum are of the form of an egg : and on the tables 
 of offerings shown in the reliefs there are almost 
 invariably egg-shaped vessels. 
 
 Maurice, in his ' Antiquities of India,' says of a ser- 
 pent coiled around an egg used as a symbol on coins : 
 ' The Phoenecians adorned the lofty temples of Tyre 
 with this emblem, which was there seen suspended on 
 high, and encircling in its genial folds the mundane 
 egg or symbol of the universe.' This is entirely 
 parallel on the one side to the account of Pausanias 
 quoted above of the egg suspended in memory of that 
 laid by Leda, and on the other to Chaldian myth. Not 
 only was it a symbol of the earth's first birth to the 
 Phoenicians, but to the Assyrians as well. ' The Chaos- 
 
268 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 serpent,' says Mr Boscawen, 'lay coiled round the 
 earth until slain by Merodach the Lord of Light' 
 The serpent is represented with the body of a woman, 
 and ' it was this Queen of Chaos who ruled while the 
 earth lay like the cosmic egg in her coils, in the time 
 when as yet none of the gods had come forth.' 
 
 Of its early votive use by the Semites, Mr Robertson 
 Smith tells us that the people of Mecca annually 
 visited a tree where they suspended weapons, gar- 
 ments, and ostrich eggs. 
 
 In the British Museum is an ovoid stone from 
 Chaldea which has an inscription of Sargon I. (to 
 whose name is attached the earliest date in monu- 
 mental history) dedicating it to the temple of Sippara : 
 it is of beautiful veined alabaster, about three inches 
 long, and pierced for suspension. Schliemann found 
 several eggs of oriental alabaster at ' Troy ' and 
 Mycenae which he considered ex votos. 
 
 There is a beautiful specimen in the Museum at 
 Athens of an ostrich egg, the surface of which is 
 decorated with swimming dolphins of blue vitreous 
 material probably of Egyptian origin. This was found 
 in a tomb at Mycenae, and would seem to be 
 earlier than the sixth century ; it is pierced for a cord, 
 and is an object of singular beauty {see next page). In 
 the South Kensington Museum there are two or three 
 ostrich eggs for hanging, elaborately carved, of Persian 
 work ; and many of porcelain, from the churches of 
 Anatolia, painted with cherubim. 
 
 It is curious to notice how the hanging lamp affects 
 the form of the egg with which it is so often 
 associated in the East. The Jewish seven-light brass 
 synagogue lamp of several pieces hanging one to the 
 other, has at the bottom an egg-shaped pendant. 
 Many of the Italian renaissance lamps are ovoid : and 
 a very splendid enamelled Russian lamp in South 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 269 
 
 Kensington Museum is of the same form itself, with a 
 pendant separate piege the size and shape of an 
 ostrich egg. It may be that the shape is aesthetically 
 the best for suspension, the form of every drop -of 
 water as it falls. It is sufficient for us that the egg 
 
 was used as an 
 architectural sym- 
 bol of the origin 
 of the world, sus- 
 pended from the 
 sky-like dome, re- 
 cord of a genesis, 
 an emblem of the 
 mystery of life, and 
 a hope of resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 Now when we 
 recall the egg which 
 Aladdin desired to 
 suspend from the 
 dome of his palace, 
 we can feel with him 
 that even that room 
 with the twenty- 
 four jewelled lat- 
 tices was not per- 
 fect without it. The 
 mistake was to ask 
 the Genie for the 
 roc's egg itself, and 
 not to be content 
 with its symbol. The adventure is the third and last 
 peril of Aladdin, and the termination of the story : 
 when the younger brother of the African Magician,, 
 disguised as the Holy Woman Fatima, is taken to the 
 
270 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 palace by the Princess Badroulboudour : — ' My good 
 mother,' said the princess, ' I am delighted to enjoy 
 the company of such a holy woman as yourself, who 
 will by your presence bring down blessings upon the 
 whole palace. And now I mention this palace, pray 
 tell me what you think of ,it. But before I show you 
 the other apartments, tell me how you like this hall?' 
 
 ' Pardon my freedom of speech, gracious lady,' re- 
 plied the dissembling magician. ' My opinion, if it can 
 be of any value, is that if the egg of a roc were sus- 
 pended from the centre of the dome, this hall would 
 not have its equal in any of the four quarters of the 
 world, and your palace would be the wonder of the 
 whole universe.' 
 
 ' My good mother,' returned the princess, ' tell me 
 what kind of bird a roc is, and where the egg of one 
 could be found ? ' ' Princess,' answered the feigned 
 Fatima, ' the roc is a bird of prodigious size which in- 
 habits the summit of Mount Caucasus ; and the archi- 
 tect who designed your palace can procure you a roc's 
 
 egg-' 
 
 Aladdin returned late on the same everting, when the 
 false Fatima had taken leave of the princess, and had 
 retired to the apartment allotted to her. As soon as 
 he entered the palace, he went to the apartment of the 
 princess. He saluted and embraced her; but she 
 seemed to him to receive him with less than her usual 
 welcome. ' I do not find you, my princess, in your 
 usual good spirits,' said Aladdin. ' Has anything hap- 
 pened during my absence that has displeased or vexed 
 you .' Do not, in the name of heaven, conceal it from 
 me ; for there is nothing in my power that I will not 
 do to attempt to dispel it.' ' I have been disturbed by 
 a mere trifle,' replied the princess, ' and it really gives 
 me so little anxiety that I did not suppose that my 
 discomposure would be so apparent in my face and 
 
THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 271 
 
 manner that you could have perceived it. But since 
 you have observed some alteration in me, which I by 
 no means intended, I will not conceal the cause, incon- 
 siderable as it is. I thought as you did yourself,' the 
 princess continued, 'that our palace was the most 
 superb, the most beautiful, and the most completely 
 decorated of all the buildings in the whole world. I 
 will tell you, however, what has come into my head on 
 thoroughly examining the hall of the twenty-four 
 windows: Do not you think with me that if a roc's 
 egg were suspended from the centre of the dome, it 
 would greatly improve the effect ? ' ' It is enough, 
 my princess,' replied Aladdin, 'that you think the 
 absence of a roc's egg a defect. You shall find by the 
 diligence with which I am going to repair this 
 omission, that there is nothing I will not do for the 
 love of you.' 
 
 Aladdin instantly left the princess and went up to 
 the hall of the twenty-four windows ; and then taking 
 out of his bosom the lamp, which he always carried 
 about with him since the distress he had undergone 
 from the neglect of that precaution, he rubbed it to 
 summon the genie, who immediately appeared before 
 him. 'O Genie ! ' said Aladdin, ' a roc's egg should be 
 suspended from the centre of the dome in order to 
 make it perfect ; I command you in the name of the 
 lamp which I hold to get this defect rectified.' 
 
 Aladdin had scarcely pronounced these words when 
 the genie uttered so loud and dreadful a scream that 
 the very room shook, and Aladdin could not refrain 
 from trembling violently. 'How thou wretch!' ex- 
 claimed the genie in a voice that would have made the 
 most courageous man shake with dread, 'is it not 
 enough that I and my companions have done every- 
 thing thou hast chosen to command ? Wouldst thou 
 repay our services by such unparalleled ingratitude as 
 
2/2 THE SYMBOL OF CREATION 
 
 to command me to bring thee my master, and hang 
 him up in the midst of this vaulted dome ? For this 
 crime thou dost deserve to be instantly torn to 
 atoms, and thy wife and palace should per- 
 ish with thee. But thou art fortunate 
 that the request did not originate 
 with thee,and thatthecommand 
 is not in any way thine.' ^/ 
 
 THE 
 END