In his Hymn
III: To Artemis, the Greek poet and scholar Callimachus (310-240 BC) wrote of a
chariot being pulled by horned deer:
(95) fawns and the hare that does not close
its eyes, and at sniffing out the covert of the stag and where are the lairs of
the porcupine, and at following the track of the roe deer. Leaving there (and
your hounds hurried after), you found at the foot of Mt. Parrhasius (100)
bounding deer—a great business! They always grazed by the banks of the swift
current with its black pebbles, more massive than bulls, and gold flashed out
from their horns. You were amazed and spoke to your heart: “This would be a
first hunt worthy of Artemis.” (105) There were five in all. Four you took by
running swiftly without hunting with your hounds, so they might pull your swift
chariot. But the one that fled beyond the river Celadon through Hera’s command,
so that it might later become a test for Heracles, the Cerynian crag received.
(Callimachus: The Hymns [trans. Susan
A. Stephens; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015], 118-19)
Commenting
on line 105, Stephens noted the following, showing that deer was indeed the
animal being used to pull the chariot:
105. πίσυρας: Aeolic for τέσσαρες; it occurs
occasionally in Homer (Od. 5.70, 16.249). Of the five deer, Artemis takes four
for her chariot, leaving the last to be a labor for Heracles. The capture of
the Cerynian deer was the third (or sometimes the fourth) of Heracles’ twelve
labors. Treated in Pi. Ol. 3.25–30 and Eur. HF 375–79, it was also a frequent
subject for the plastic arts. Reference to this event here may serve as a
temporal marker—this is very early in Artemis’ career. At some future time the
divinity will encounter the deified Heracles on Olympus. (Ibid., 135)
Of course, a
possible objection is, “Well, this is a stretch, as this is Greek mythology!” True, but such a criticism
ignores two important facts: (1) certain aspects of mythology are based on
everyday reality and (2) the gods in such texts were seen as more powerful
versions of ourselves with parallel desires and ways of doing things.
(My thanks
to D. Charles Pyle for providing the reference to Callimachus. Be sure to check
out his Quora page and his excellent book on theosis)
