Demeter, that, while the other gods all refuse, she, dreaming about her lost daughter, eats part of the shoulder of Pelops before she knows what she is doing); another sin is, telling the secrets of the gods; and only the fourth—­stealing the golden dog of Pandareos—­is connected with gluttony.  The special sense of this myth is marked by Pandareos receiving the happy privilege of never being troubled with indigestion; the dog, in general, however mythically represents all utter senseless and carnal desires; mainly that of gluttony; and in the mythic sense of Hades—­that is to say, so far as it represents spiritual ruin in this life, and not a literal hell—­the dog Cerberus as its gatekeeper—­with this special marking of his character of sensual passion, that he fawns on all those who descend, but rages against all who would return (the Virgilian “facilis descendus” being a later recognition of this mythic character of Hades); the last labor of Hercules is the dragging him up to the light; and in some sort he represents the voracity or devouring of Hades itself; and the mediaeval representation of the mouth of hell perpetuates the same thought.  Then, also, the power of evil passion is partly associated with the red and scorching light of Sirius, as opposed to the pure light of the sun:  he is the dog-star of ruin; and hence the continual Homeric dwelling upon him, and comparison of the flame of anger to his swarthy light; only, in his scorching, it is thirst, not hunger, over which he rules physically; so that the fable of Icarius, his first master, corresponds, among the Greeks, to the legend of the drunkenness of Noah.

* Printer’s error:  should be 23.

The story of Actaeon, the raging death of Hecuba, and the tradition of the white dog which ate part of Hercules’ first sacrifice, and so gave name to the Cynosarges, are all various phases of the same thought,—­the Greek notion of the dog being throughout confused between its serviceable fidelity, its watchfulness, its foul voracity, shamelessness, and deadly madness, while with the curious reversal or recoil of the meaning which attaches itself to nearly every great myth,—­and which we shall presently see notably exemplified in the relations of the serpent to Athena,—­the dog becomes in philosophy a type of severity and abstinence.

24.  It would carry us too far aside were I to tell you the story of Pandareos’ dog—­or rather of Jupiter’s dog, for Pandareos was its guardian only; all that bears on our present purpose is that the guardian of this golden dog had three daughters, one of whom was subject to the power of the Sirens, and is turned into a nightingale; and the other two were subject to the power of the Harpies, and this was what happened to them:  They were very beautiful, and they were beloved by the gods in their youth, and all the great goddesses were anxious to bring them up rightly.  Of all types of young ladies’ education, there is nothing so splendid