Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles A First Latin Reader by Kirtland, John

ULYSSES

Homer, _The Odyssey_, translated by Bryant (verse), William Morris (verse), Palmer (prose), Butcher and Lang (prose). Lamb, _The Adventures of Ulysses_. Hawthorne, _Tanglewood Tales: Circe's Palace_. Cox, _Tales of Ancient Greece: The Lotos-Eaters, Odysseus and Polyphemos, Odysseus and Kirke_. Church, _Stories from Homer: The Cyclops, The Island of Aeolus, Circe_. Tennyson, _The Lotos-Eaters_. Matthew Arnold, _The Strayed Reveler_. Dobson, _The Prayer of the Swine to Circe_.

THE MYTHS IN ART

Burne-Jones, _Perseus and the Graeae_. Caravaggio, _Head of Medusa_. Leonardo da Vinci, _Head of Medusa_. Canova, _Perseus_. Benvenuto Cellini, _Perseus_, and _Perseus saving Andromeda_. Piero di Cosimo, _Perseus and Andromeda_. Charles Antoine Coypel, _Perseus and Andromeda_. Domenichino, _Perseus and Andromeda_. Rubens, _Perseus and Andromeda_. Giovanni da Bologna, _Hercules and the Centaur_. Bandinelli, _Hercules and Cacus_. Guido Reni, _Dejanira and the Centaur Nessus_. Canova, _Hercules and Lichas_. Sichel, _Medea_. Genelli, _Jason and Medea capturing the Golden Fleece_. Burne-Jones, _Circe_. L. Chalon, _Circe and the Companions of Ulysses_. Riviere, _Circe and the Companions of Ulysses_.

Photographs and lantern-slides of all the works mentioned above may be obtained of the Soule Art Company, Boston. The list might have been made much longer, but it seemed likely to prove most helpful if limited to works of which reproductions are so easily obtainable. For the treatment of the myths in ancient art, the teacher is referred to the numerous pertinent illustrations in Baumeister's _Denkmaeler des klassischen Altertums_, or the same editor's _Bilder aus dem griechischen und roemischen Altertum fuer Schueler_, the latter of which contains the cuts of the larger work, and is so cheap and so useful that it ought to lie on the desk of every teacher of Greek or Latin.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The _Fabulae Faciles_, or 'Easy Stories.' are four Greek myths retold in Latin, not by a Roman writer, however, but by an Englishman, who believed that they would afford interesting and pleasant reading for young folks who were just beginning the study of the Latin language. By myth is meant an imaginative tale that has been handed down by tradition from remote antiquity concerning supernatural beings and events. Such tales are common among all primitive peoples, and are by them accepted as true. They owe their origin to no single author, but grow up as the untutored imagination strives to explain to itself the operations of nature and the mysteries of life, or amuses itself with stories of the brave exploits of heroic ancestors.

The most beautiful and delightful of all myths are those that have come down to us in the remains of the literature and the art of ancient Greece and Rome; they are also the most important to us, for many of the great masterpieces of English literature and of modern art have been inspired by them and cannot be understood and appreciated by one ignorant of classical mythology.

Of this mythology the _Fabulae Faciles_ give but a small part. If you wish to know more of the subject, you should read Gayley's _The Classic Myths in English Literature_, Guerber's _Myths of Greece and Rome_, or the books by Kingsiey, Cox, Church, and Francillon mentioned earlier.

PERSEUS