Frontispiece from Erasmus Darwin's The Temple of Nature (1803). The image suggests the goddess of poetry pulling aside the veil to reveal the many-breasted Artemis of Ephesus, goddess of wild nature. One tradition claims that the goddess had said, "No on has lifted my veil": "I am the Mother without spouse, the Original Mother; all are my children, and therefore none has ever dared to approach me" (Frazer, "The Golden Bough"). The original drawing for this engraving was by Henry Fuseli. |