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.