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For the Greek gods, in spite of the white and red of their fair fleet limbs, were not really what they appeared to be. The curved brow of Apollo was like the sun’s disk crescent over a hill at dawn, and his feet were as the wings of the morning, but he himself had been cruel to Marsyas[106.1] and had made Niobe childless [106.2]: in the steel shields of the eyes of Pallas there had been no pity for Arachne[106.3] [106a]: the pomp and peacocks of Hera were all that was really noble about her[106.4]: and the Father of the Gods himself had been too fond of the daughters of men. The two deep suggestive figures of Greek mythology were, for religion, Demeter, an earth-goddess, not one of the Olympians, [106.5] and, for art, Dionysus, the son of a mortal woman to whom the moment of his birth had proved the moment of her death also.[106.6]
因为希腊的神祗，尽管他们有着好看伶俐的四肢，红白光鲜，却不见得真有外表那么堂皇。 阿波罗曲线型的前额，就像拂晓时分在山顶刚探出来的半轮红日，他的双脚像黎明的双翼，但他却对长笛对手玛耳绪阿斯心狠手辣，剥了他的皮，还杀死了尼俄柏所有的子女；那个别名叫帕拉斯的雅典娜，她钢盾般的双眼里却不见对阿剌克涅的怜悯[106a]；赫拉除了她的派头和孔雀外，没多少高贵可言；而众神之父本人，却对人间女子太过钟情了。希腊神话中深具暗示意义的有两个人物：对宗教来说是大地女神德美特，她不是奥林波斯山诸神的一员；对艺术来说是狄俄倪索斯，一名民间凡妇的儿子，他出世之时成了自己母亲去世之日。
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