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HLMENCKEN

Memorial Service


H. L. MENCKEN

It can’t be said of Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956) that he bid adieu to faith with any reluctance. He seems to have been born with a contempt for it, which was vividly expressed in his early work on Friedrich Nietzsche. Tempted too much by eugenics and “social Darwinism” again, Mencken nonetheless did invaluable work against the biblical fundamentalists and other fanatics who tried to ban both alcohol and the teaching of evolution, and his accounts of the famous Scopes “monkey trial” in Tennessee in 1925 have deservedly become classics of reporting. Here he trains his lynx-like eye on ancient gods and delivers a funeral oration much less regretful than Thomas Hardy’s.

Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year—and it is no more than five hundred years ago—fifty thousand youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried on with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with ten thousand gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Alien G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of General Coxey, Richmond P. Hobson, Nan Patterson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler, and Tom Sharkey.


Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother, Tezcatilpoca. Tezcatilpoca was almost as powerful: he consumed twenty-five thousand virgins a year. Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quetzalcoatl is? Or Tialoc? Or Chalchihuitlicue? Or Xiehtecutli? Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Or Mictlan? Or Ixtlilton? Or Omacatl? Or Yacatecutli? Or Mixcoatl? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitles? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard-of hell do they await the resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Cæsar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Or that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial jack-ass? There was a time when the Irish revered all these gods as violently as they now hate the English. But today even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.


But they have company in oblivion: the hell of dead gods is as crowded as the Presbyterian hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsalluta, and Deva, and Belisama, and Axona, and Vintios, and Taranuous, and Sulis, and Cocidius, and Adsmerius, and Dumiatis, and Caletos, and Moccus, and Ollovidius, and Albiorix, and Leucitius, and Vitucadrus, and Ogmios, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshiped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose—all gods of the first class, not dilettanti. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them—temples with stones as large as hay-wagons. The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests, wizards, archdeacons, evangelists, haruspices, bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake. Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels: villages were burned, women and children were butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence. Worse, the very tombs in which they lie are lost, and so even a respectful stranger is debarred from paying them the slightest and politest homage.


What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile valley? What has become of:



 

Resheph


 

Baal


 

Anath


 

Astarte


 

Ashtoreth


 

Hadad


 

El


 

Addu


 

Nergal


 

Nebo


 

Ninib


 

Shalem


 

Dagon


 

Sharrab


 

Melek


 

Yau


 

Ahijah


 

Isis


 

Amon-Re


 

Osiris


 

Ptah


 

Sebek


 

Anubis


 

Molech



All these were once gods of the highest eminence. Many of them are mentioned with fear and trembling in the Old Testament. They ranked, five or six thousand years ago, with Jahveh himself; the worst of them stood far higher than Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:



 

Bilé


 

Gwydion


 

Lêr


 

Manawyddan


 

Arianrod


 

Nuada Argetlam


 

Morrigu


 

Tagd


 

Govannon


 

Goibniu


 

Gunfled


 

Odin


 

Sokk-mimi


 

Llaw Gyffes


 

Memetona


 

Lleu


 

Dagda


 

Ogma


 

Kerridwen


 

Mider


 

Pwyll


 

Rigantona


 

Ogyrvan


 

Marzin


 

Dea Dia


 

Mars


 

Ceros


 

Jupiter


 

Vaticanus


 

Cunina


 

Edulia


 

Potina


 

Adeona


 

Statilinus


 

Iuno Lucina


 

Diana of Ephesus


 

Saturn


 

Robigus


 

Furrina


 

Pluto


 

Vediovis


 

Ops


 

Consus


 

editrina


 

Cronos


 

Vesta


 

Enki


 

Tilmun


 

Engurra


 

Zer-panitu


 

Belus


 

Merodach


 

Dimmer


 

U-ki


 

Mu-ul-lil


 

Dauke


 

Ubargisi


 

Gasan-abzu


 

Ubilulu


 

Elum


 

Gasan-lil


 

U-Tin-dir ki


 

U-dimmer-an-kia


 

Marduk


 

Enurestu


 

Nin-lil-la


 

U-sab-sib


 

Nin


 

U-Mersi


 

Persephone


 

Tammuz


 

Istar


 

Venus


 

Lagas


 

Bau


 

U-urugal


 

Mulu-hursang


 

Sirtumu


 

Anu


 

Ea


 

Beltis


 

Nirig


 

Nusku


 

Nebo


 

Ni-zu


 

Samas


 

Sahi


 

Ma-banba-anna


 

Aa


 

En-Mersi


 

Allatu


 

Amurru


 

Sin


 

Assur


 

AbilAddu


 

Aku


 

Apsu


 

Beltu


 

Dagan


 

Dumu-zi-abzu


 

Elali


 

Kuski-banda


 

Isum


 

Kaawanu


 

Mami


 

Nin-azu


 

Nin-man


 

Lugal-Amarada


 

Zaraqu


 

Qarradu


 

Suqamunu


 

Ura-gala


 

Zagaga


 

Ueras


You may think I spoof. That I invent the names. I do not. Ask the rector to lend you any good treatise on comparative religion: you will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest standing and dignity—gods of civilized peoples—worshipped and believed in by millions. All were theoretically omnipotent, omniscient, and immortal. And all are dead.

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