lates
and filthy coenobites, of imbecile rulers and rampant robbers, of the
threatened dissolution of every tie, legal, social, or political; an age of
earthquake, war, and famine! Bacchus, who is known from Aristophanes not to
have excelled in criticism, protested that his laureate was greater than
Homer; and, though Homer could not go quite so far as this, he graciously
conceded that if he had himself been an Egyptian of the fifth century, with
a faint glimmering of the poetical art, and encumbered with more learning
than he knew how to use, he might have written almost as badly as his
modern representative. More impartial critics judged Nonnus's achievement
more favourably, and all agreed that his steadfastness in the faith
deserved some special mark of distinction. The Muses under Pallas's
direction (being themselves a little awkward in female accomplishments)
embroidered him a robe; Hermes made a lyre, and Hephaestus forged a
plectrum. Apollo added a chaplet of laurel, and Bacchus one of ivy. Whether
from distrust of Hermes' integrity, or wishing to make the personal
acquaintance of his follower, Phoebus volunteered to convey the testimonial
in person, and accordingly took his departure for the Egyptian Thebaid.

As Apollo fared through the sandy and rugged wilderness under the blazing
sun of an African summer afternoon, he observed with surprise a vast crowd
of strange figures swarming about the mouth of a cavern like bees
clustering at the entrance to a hive. On a nearer approach he identified
them as a posse of demons besetting a hermit. Words cannot describe the
enormous variety of whatever the universe holds of most heterogeneous.
Naked women of surpassing loveliness displayed their charms to the
anchorite's gaze, sturdy porters bent beneath loads of gold which they
heaped at his feet, other shapes not alien from humanity allured his
appetite with costly dishes or cooling drinks, or smote at him with swords,
or made feints at his eyes with spears, or burned sulphur under his nose,
or displayed before him scrolls of poetry or learning, or shrieked
blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed him from a little distance with
glances of leering affection; while a motley crowd of goblins, wearing the
heads of boars or lions, or whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or
hoofed, or scaled, or feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and
wrangled with each other and their betters, mopping and mowing, grunting
and grinni