LIFE: GENERATION OF LIFE 2 3 5

Xerxes Xerxes (c.519-465 BC) was the king of Persia, son of Darius 1. He led the invasion of Greece, building a bridge from boats to allow his army to cross the Hellespont (now the Dardenelles) and winning the battles of Artemisium and Thermopylae. He was later defeated at the battle of Salamis and had to withdraw from Greece.

Gina made it clear that Anstice had consistently portrayed Richard as a Lionheart, a Tamburlaine, a veritable Xerxes in the sack.

MARTIN AMIS The Information, 1995

Life: Generation of Life

The bringing to life of something inanimate is a powerful theme in myth and storytelling. In the stories below the 'spark of life' is variously the breath of God, fire, and electricity. • See also Rebirth and Resurrection.

Adam and Eve In the Bible, the Book of Genesis relates how, having created the world and everything in it, God 'formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul' (Gen. 2: 7). God later took one of Adam's ribs and made it into the first woman, Eve. Adam is the first man in both the Judaeo-Christian and Muslim traditions. • See special entry • on p. 5.

I felt like the Adam of the medieval legends; the world-compounded body of a man whose flesh was soil, whose bones were stones, whose blood water, whose hair was grass, whose eyesight sunlight, whose breath was wind, and whose thoughts were clouds.

LAWRENCE DURRELL CleO, 1 9 6 0

Frankenstein Mary Shelley's gothic novel Frankenstein (1818) relates the exploits of Victor Frankenstein, a Genevan student of natural philosophy, who builds a creature resembling a man and brings it to life. The creature, or monster, superhuman in size and strength and terrible in appearance, inspires horror in all who see it, but is miserably lonely and longs to be loved. When Frankenstein refuses to create a mate for his creature, it turns on him and murders both his bride and his brother. Frankenstein decides that he must destroy his own creation, but is himself killed by his monster, which then goes away to end its own life, distraught at the death of its creator.

Oh, Lisa, stop looking at me as if you were Frankenstein, and the monster had just got away from you!

MARY STEWART The Ivy Tree, 1964

There are some things they don't share, however. Charles, for instance, is human (despite what he likes to think to the contrary) but Richard is possibly not. Possibly an extra-terrestrial experiment gone wrong in fact—an alien's idea of what a human is like, put together from spare parts, the creation of a Martian Frankenstein.

KATE ATKINSON Human Croquet, 1997

2 3 6 LIGHT

Pygmalion—of course Galatea was furious.

PHILIP ROTH My Life as a Man, 1970

Your motive was as strong as Hattie's—stronger, because your feelings for Valentine are as violent and perverse as Laurie's were. You've fallen in love with your Galatea, the image you and Hattie created to assume the role of Valerie Valentine, and if the truth came out you'd lose her.

ELIZABETH PETERS Die for Love, 1984

Pinocchio Pinocchio is the famous puppet hero of the story Le Avventure di Pinocchio (1883) by G. Lorenzini, who wrote under the name of Carlo Collodi. According to the story, the puppet Pinocchio is made by the carpenter Geppetto from a piece of wood that magically laughs and cries like a child. Once created, Pinocchio has many strange adventures before finally becoming a real boy.

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus was a demigod, one of the Titans, said to have created the first men by makingfiguresof clay which, with the help of the goddess Athene, he brought to life. He later stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, and according to some stories it was this fire that Prometheus used to breathe life into his figures of clay and so create the first men. The Promethean spark or fire is thus the spark of life or vitality. •See special entry • PROMETHEUS on p. 311.

White necks, carmine lips and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without the Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, the burnished hair grown grey.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE The Professor, 1857

Pygmalion In Greek legend, Pygmalion was the king of Cyprus who created a statue of a beautiful woman, according to Ovid, and then fell in love with it. He prayed to Aphrodite for a wife who resembled the statue, and Aphrodite responded by bringing it to life. The woman, who Pygmalion married, has come to be called Galatea.

And he has gone about her rehabilitation with immense inventiveness. I should have thought it somewhat dangerous to play at Pygmalion, but only now I begin to understand the power of the image.

LAWRENCE DURRELL CleO, 1 9 6 0

Light

Light is closely associated with the sun, and most of the figures below are in fact sun deities although moon deities are also included. Some artists who are noted for their characteristic treatment of light, such as Turner,

LIGHT 2 3 7

are covered under the theme Artists. • See also Darkness.

Apollo In Greek mythology, Apollo, also known as Phoebus (literally 'the bright one') or Phoebus Apollo, was the son of Zeus and Leto. He became associated with the sun and later usurped Helios's place as the god who drove the sun's chariot across the sky each day. His name can be used to denote the sun. • See special entry • APOLLO on p. 15.

Hark! Hark! The lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins arise

His steeds to water at those springs

On chaliced flowers that lies.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Cymbeline, 1609 - 10

He would never have survived the lash of Phoebus.

UMBERTO ECO The Island of the Day Before, 1994

Balder In Scandinavian mythology, Balder was a son of Odin and Frigga, and god of light and the summer sun. His mother, Frigga, had made him invulnerable by making all things swear that they would not harm him. However, she overlooked mistletoe, and the god Loki used this to bring about his death.

Celestial City In John Bunyan's religious allegory Pilgrim''s Progress (1678, 1684), Christian undertakes a pilgrimage to the Celestial City, encountering on the way such adversaries as Giant Despair and Apollyon, the foul fiend. When he finally arrives at the Celestial City, set on a hill, and the gates are opened, he sees that 'the City shone like the sun, the streets also were paved with gold'.

Cold and purple clouds lay on the hilltops, and rising high into the ruddy light were silvery white peaks that shone like the airy spires of some Celestial City.

LOUISA M. ALCOTT Little Women, 1868

Goshen Goshen was the fertile region in Egypt allotted to Jacob and the Israelites, where there was light during the Ninth Plague of Egypt, the plague of darkness: 'there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they dwelt' (Exod. 10: 23). •See special

entry • MOSES AND THE BOOK OF EXODUS on p. 264.

Helios Helios was the Greek sun god, represented as a charioteer who each day drove the chariot of the sun pulled by four white horses across the sky from east to west. Helios was later supplanted by Apollo.

Mithras Mithras was a Persian god of light and truth who was also adopted as a god by the Romans, especially in the military world. He was usually represented in the act of sacrificing a bull.

Phoebe In Greek mythology, Phoebe 'the bright one' was a daughter of the Titans Uranus and Gaia, whose name became associated with the moon.

Like Phoebe breaking through an envious cloud

PHILIP MASSINCER Bashful Lover, 1655

Phoebus Phoebus was an epithet for the Greek god Apollo, meaning 'the

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 2 3 9

Cordelia When in Shakespeare's play King Lear (1623) the king asks his three daughters which of them loves him the best, the two older sisters, Goneril and Regan, flatter their father with extravagant declarations of their love. The youngest daughter, Cordelia, is the only one to speak truthfully, acknowledging that she loves her father according to her duty, but refusing to say that she will always love only him, for when she marries she must also love her husband. Lear is furious and punishes her for what he believes to be her lack of love for him. Later, however, when the king has lost his sanity, it is Cordelia, rather than either of her sisters, who takes him in and cares for him. Cordelia thus represents the ideal of a daughter's love for her father.

Mrs. Whittaker was Cordelia-like to her father during his declining years. She came to see him several times a month, bringing him jelly or potted hyacinths. Sometimes she sent her car and chauffeur for him, so that he might take an easy drive through the town, and Mrs. Bain might be afforded a chance to drop her cooking and accompany him.

DOROTHY PARKER The Wonderful Old Gentleman, 1944

Cupid In Roman mythology, Cupid was the god of love, corresponding to the Greek god Eros. He is often pictured as a beautiful naked boy with wings, carrying a bow and arrows, with which he wounds his victims and makes them fall in love.

And off I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table, surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk, dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a lady's love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE The Professor, 1857

Playing Cupid, I should have you know, isn't just a matter of flying around Arcadia and feeling your tiny winkle throb when the lovers finally kiss. It's to do with timetables and street maps, cinema times and menus, money and organisation.

JULIAN BARNES Talking It Over, 1991

Doris Day Doris Day, born Doris Kappelhoff (1924), is an American film actress and singer who became popular in the 1950s for her roles in musicals, comedies, and light romances such as Calamity Jane (1953) and Pillow Talk (1959). Her name is associated with the idea of a wholesome, girl-next-door romance.

Maybe because I wanted to lend the moment that sort of corny Doris Day romance, make it more memorable than it otherwise would have been.

NICK HORNBY High Fidelity, 1995

Eros In Greek mythology, Eros (called Cupid by the Romans) was the god of love, usually represented as a winged boy with a bow and arrows. Eros is now generally used to represent the idea of sexual love or the libido.

Introduced as lymph on the dart of Eros, it eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution.

THOMAS HARDY Far from the Madding Crowd, 1874

She had loved Private Dukes and spawned a false oath to save him—affronting solider deities for the sake of honeyed, treacherous Eros.

THOMAS KENEALLY The Playmaker, 1987

Cone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone With the Wind (1936), made into a film in 1939 starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, is set during

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the American Civil War. At its centre is the romance between Scarlett O'Hara and the dangerously dashing Rhett Butler. Gone With the Wind can be alluded to as an example of glamorous or overblown romanticism.

Gretna Gretna Green is a village in the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland just north of the English border. It was formerly a popular place for couples eloping from England to be married according to Scots law, without the parental consent required in England for those who were under age.

'Do not ask me, sir,' Remington says coldly. 'I am not here to give you the directions to Gretna. You will not from this moment see my niece nor are you to attempt to open any communication with her, open or clandestine!

TIMOTHY MO An Insular Possession, 1986

Miss Havisham Miss Havisham is a character in Dickens's Great Expectations (1861) who was jilted by her bridegroom on her wedding day and spent years afterwards sitting in her room alone, wearing her wedding dress.

She'd also suffered the tragic history of having been jilted by the same man on two different wedding days, a condition that prompted Dr. Lowji Daruwalla to privately refer to her as 'the Miss Havisham of Bombay—times two!

JOHN iRviNC A Son of the Circus, 1994

I love Magda and Jeremy. Sometimes I stay at their house, admiring the crisp sheets and many storage jars full of different kinds of pasta, imagining that they are my parents. But when they are together with their married friends I feel as if I have turned into Miss Havisham.

HELEN FIELDING Bridget Jones's Diary, 1996

Hymen The son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, Hymen was the Greek god of marriage, usually represented as a handsome young man crowned with flowers and carrying a torch.

To such lengths, indeed, does an intemperate love of pleasure carry some prudent men, or worn out libertines, who marry to have a safe bedfellow, that they seduce their own wives. Hymen banishes modesty, and chaste love takes its flight.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792

I myself sincerely hope that Captain Anderson, gloomiest of Hymens, will marry them aboard so that we may have a complete collection of all the ceremonies that accompany the forked creature from the cradle to the grave.

WILLIAM GOLDiNG Rites of Passage, 1980

Mills and Boon Mills and Boon is the name of a publishing partnership formed by Gerald Mills (d.1927) and Charles Boon (1877-1943), which specializes in publishing popular romantic fiction.

In some respects this is a Mills & Boonish story, with moments of cloying sentimentality and throbbing musical crescendoes.

The Independent, 1995

Ralph stopped himself abruptly. He hadn't come in here to sniff Jem's clothes and form elaborate Mills and Boon-style fantasies about her.

LISA JEWELL Ralph's Party, 1999

Venus Venus, identified with the Greek Aphrodite, was the Roman goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. She was supposed to have been born from the seafoam and was herself the mother of Eros.