During many of his best years, André Gide planned to
write a "Treatise on the Dioscuri" or "Castor and Pol-
lux," of which, unfortunately, only a few highly sugges-
tive pages ever appeared--under the more descriptive
title "Thoughts on Greek Mythology." They were pub-
lished in the September 1919 issue of the Nouvelle Re-
vue Française. In emphasizing the inner fatality of the
heroes and the psychological truth of the myths, Gide
was following the lead established in the mid-nineteenth
century by the brilliant Louis Ménard, as Gilbert Highet
points out in his stimulating study of The Classical
Tradition, adding: "It was through him and his pupil
Leconte de Lisle that Greek legends, instead of being
merely pretty rococo decorations, became, for the French
Parnassians, grand and beautiful expressions of profound
truths." It so happens that Gide encountered Greek
mythology in Leconte de Lisle's translations.

The Greek fable is like Philemon's pitcher, which no
thirst can empty, if one drinks with Jupiter. (Oh! It is
the god whom I invite to my table!) And the milk my
thirst draws from it is assuredly not that which Mon-
taigne drank, I know--nor was the thirst of Keats and
Goethe that of Racine or Chénier. Others will come like

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