to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been
put to death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and made his
escape. Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he
could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean. And here,
unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his
journey must needs be at an end.
Nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean.
But, suddenly, as he looked towards the horizon, he saw something, a
great way off, which he had not seen the moment before. It gleamed very
brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the
sun, when it rises or sets over the edge of the world. It evidently drew
nearer; for, at every instant, this wonderful object became larger and
more lustrous. At length, it had come so nigh that Hercules discovered
it to be an immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or burnished brass.
How it had got afloat upon the sea is more than I can tell you. There it
was, at all events, rolling on the tumultuous billows, which tossed it
up and down, and heaved their foamy tops against its sides, but without
ever throwing their spray over the brim.
"I have seen many giants, in my time," thought Hercules, "but never one
that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!"
And, true enough, what a cup it must have been! It was as large--as
large--but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was.
To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill-wheel;
and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more
lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook. The waves tumbled it onward,
until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of the spot
where Hercules was standing.
As soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not
gone through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well
how to conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of
the common rule. It was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous
cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in
order to carry Hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the
Hesperides. Accordingly, without a moment's delay, he clambered over
the brim, and slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion's
skin, he proceeded to take a little repose. He had scarcely rested,
until now, since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the
river. The waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the
circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the
motion was so soothing that it speedily rocked Hercules into an
agreeable slumber.
His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze
against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and
reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as
loudly as ever you heard a church-bell. The noise awoke Hercules, who
instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was.
He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great
part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an
island. And, on that island, what do you think he saw?
No; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand
times! It positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous
spectacle that had ever been seen by Hercules, in the whole course of
his wonderful travels and adventures. It was a greater marvel than the
hydra with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut
off; greater than the six-legged man-monster; greater than Antaeus;
greater than anything that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since
the days of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld, by
travellers in all time to come. It was a giant!
But such an intolerably big giant! A giant as tall as a mountain; so
vast a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle, and
hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge eyes,
so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which he was
voyaging. And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his great hands
and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules could discern
through the clouds, was resting upon his head! This does really seem
almost too much to believe.
Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
the strand. Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile long, and a mouth
of the same width. It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
strength. What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
those who let themselves be weighed down by them. And whenever men
undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.
Poor fellow! He had evidently stood there a long while. An ancient
forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak-trees, of
six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced
themselves between his toes.
The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.
"Who are you, down at my feet there? And whence do you come, in that
little cup?"
"I am Hercules!" thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
quite as loud as the giant's own. "And I am seeking for the garden of
the Hesperides!"
"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter. "That is a
wise adventure, truly!"
"And why not?" cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant's
mirth. "Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!"
Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds
gathered about the giant's middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of
thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it
impossible to distinguish a word. Only the giant's immeasurable legs
were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now
and then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume
of mist. He seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep,
rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps, and
rolled away over the hills, like them. Thus, by talking out of season,
the foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath, to no
purpose; for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he.
At last, the storm swept over, as suddenly as it had come. And there
again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the
pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it
against the background of the sullen thunderclouds. So far above the
shower had been his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the
rain-drops!
When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he
roared out to him anew.
"I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world! And I hold the sky upon
my head!"
"So I see," answered Hercules. "But, can you show me the way to the
garden of the Hesperides?"
"What do you want there?" asked the giant.
"I want three of the golden apples," shouted Hercules, "for my cousin,
the king."
"There is nobody but myself," quoth the giant, "that can go to the
garden of the Hesperides, and gather the golden apples. If it were not
for this little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a
dozen steps across the sea, and get them for you."
"You are very kind," replied Hercules. "And cannot you rest the sky upon
a mountain?"
"None of them are quite high enough," said Atlas, shaking his head.
"But, if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one,
your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine. You seem to be a
fellow of some strength. What if you should take my burden on your
shoulders, while I do your errand for you?"
Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong
man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to
uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an
exploit, he was the one. Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an
undertaking, that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.
"Is the sky very heavy?" he inquired.
"Why, not particularly so, at first," answered the giant, shrugging his
shoulders. "But it gets to be a little burdensome, after a thousand
years!"
"And how long a time," asked the hero, "will it take you to get the
golden apples?"
"Oh, that will be done in a few moments," cried Atlas. "I shall take ten
or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before
your shoulders begin to ache."
"Well, then," answered Hercules, "I will climb the mountain behind you
there, and relieve you of your burden."
The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that
he should be doing the giant a favor, by allowing him this opportunity
for a ramble. And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for
his own glory, if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do
so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.
Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders
of Atlas, and placed upon those of Hercules.
When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did
was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle
he was then. Next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest
that had grown up around it; then, the other. Then, all at once, he
began to caper, and leap, and dance, for joy at his freedom; flinging
himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again
with a shock that made the earth tremble. Then he laughed--Ho! ho!
ho!--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and
near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers. When
his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles at the
first stride, which brought him midleg deep; and ten miles at the
second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more at
the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist. This was the
greatest depth of the sea.
Hercules watched the giant, as he still went onward; for it was really a
wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off,
half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty,
and blue, as a distant mountain. At last the gigantic shape faded
entirely out of view. And now Hercules began to consider what he should
do, in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be
stung to death by the dragon with the hundred heads, which guarded the
golden apples of the Hesperides. If any such misfortune were to happen,
how could he ever get rid of the sky? And, by the by, its weight began
already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.
"I really pity the poor giant," thought Hercules. "If it wearies me so
much in ten minutes, how must it have wearied him in a thousand years!"
O my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in
that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads! And
there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery
clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercules
uncomfortable! He began to be afraid that the giant would never come
back. He gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to
himself that it was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the
foot of a mountain, than to stand on its dizzy summit, and bear up the
firmament with his might and main. For, of course, as you will easily
understand, Hercules had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well
as a weight on his head and shoulders. Why, if he did not stand
perfectly still, and keep the sky immovable, the sun would perhaps be
put ajar! Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be
loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the
people's heads! And how ashamed would the hero be, if, owing to his
unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack, and show a great
fissure quite across it!
I know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the
huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea.
At his nearer approach, Atlas held up his hand, in which Hercules could
perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all
hanging from one branch.
"I am glad to see you again," shouted Hercules, when the giant was
within hearing. "So you have got the golden apples?"
"Certainly, certainly," answered Atlas; "and very fair apples they are.
I took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you. Ah! it is a
beautiful spot, that garden of the Hesperides. Yes; and the dragon with
a hundred heads is a sight worth any man's seeing. After all, you had
better have gone for the apples yourself."
"No matter," replied Hercules. "You have had a pleasant ramble, and have
done the business as well as I could. I heartily thank you for your
trouble. And now, as I have a long way to go, and am rather in
haste,--and as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden
apples,--will you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders
again?"
"Why, as to that," said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the
air twenty miles high, or thereabouts and catching them as they came
down,--"as to that, my good friend, I consider you a little
unreasonable. Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your cousin,
much quicker than you could? As his majesty is in such a hurry to get
them, I promise you to take my longest strides. And, besides, I have no
fancy for burdening myself with the sky, just now."
Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders.
It being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out
of their places. Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking
that the sky might be going to fall next.
"Oh, that will never do!" cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of
laughter. "I have not let fall so many stars within the last five
centuries. By the time you have stood there as long as I did, you will
begin to learn patience!"
"What!" shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, "do you intend to make me
bear this burden forever?"
"We will see about that, one of these days," answered the giant. "At all
events, you ought not to complain, if you have to bear it the next
hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand. I bore it a good while
longer, in spite of the back-ache. Well, then, after a thousand years,
if I happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again. You
are certainly a very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity
to prove it. Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it!"
"Pish! a fig for its talk!" cried Hercules, with another hitch of his
shoulders. "Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you? I
want to make a cushion of my lion's skin, for the weight to rest upon.
It really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so
many centuries as I am to stand here."
"That's no more than fair, and I'll do it!" quoth the giant; for he had
no unkind feeling towards Hercules, and was merely acting with a too
selfish consideration of his own ease. "For just five minutes, then,
I'll take back the sky. Only for five minutes, recollect! I have no idea
of spending another thousand years as I spent the last. Variety is the
spice of life, say I."
Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant! He threw down the golden
apples, and received back the sky, from the head and shoulders of
Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged. And Hercules picked
up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins,
and straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the
slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after
him to come back. Another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew
ancient there; and again might be seen oak-trees, of six or seven
centuries old, that had waxed thus aged betwixt his enormous toes.
And there stands the giant to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a
mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder
rumbles about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant
Atlas, bellowing after Hercules!
Tanglewood Fireside
_After the Story_
"Cousin Eustace," demanded Sweet Fern, who had been sitting at the
story-teller's feet, with his mouth wide open, "exactly how tall was
this giant?"
"O Sweet Fern, Sweet Fern!" cried the student, "do you think I was
there, to measure him with a yard-stick? Well, if you must know to a
hair's-breadth, I suppose he might be from three to fifteen miles
straight upward, and that he might have seated himself on Taconic, and
had Monument Mountain for a footstool."
"Dear me!" ejaculated the good little boy, with a contented sort of a
grunt, "that was a giant, sure enough! And how long was his little
finger?"
"As long as from Tanglewood to the lake," said Eustace.
"Sure enough, that was a giant!" repeated Sweet Fern, in an ecstasy at
the precision of these measurements. "And how broad, I wonder, were the
shoulders of Hercules?"
"That is what I have never been able to find out," answered the student.
"But I think they must have been a great deal broader than mine, or than
your father's, or than almost any shoulders which one sees nowadays."
"I wish," whispered Sweet Fern, with his mouth close to the student's
ear, "that you would tell me how big were some of the oak-trees that
grew between the giant's toes."
"They were bigger," said Eustace, "than the great chestnut-tree which
stands beyond Captain Smith's house."
"Eustace," remarked Mr. Pringle, after some deliberation, "I find it
impossible to express such an opinion of this story as will be likely to
gratify, in the smallest degree, your pride of authorship. Pray let me
advise you never more to meddle with a classical myth. Your imagination
is altogether Gothic, and will inevitably Gothicize everything that you
touch. The effect is like bedaubing a marble statue with paint. This
giant, now! How can you have ventured to thrust his huge,
disproportioned mass among the seemly outlines of Grecian fable, the
tendency of which is to reduce even the extravagant within limits, by
its pervading elegance?"
"I described the giant as he appeared to me," replied the student,
rather piqued. "And, sir, if you would only bring your mind into such a
relation with these fables as is necessary in order to remodel them, you
would see at once that an old Greek had no more exclusive right to them
than a modern Yankee has. They are the common property of the world, and
of all time. The ancient poets remodelled them at pleasure, and held
them plastic in their hands; and why should they not be plastic in my
hands as well?"
Mr. Pringle could not forbear a smile.
"And besides," continued Eustace, "the moment you put any warmth of
heart, any passion or affection, any human or divine morality, into a
classic mould, you make it quite another thing from what it was before.
My own opinion is, that the Greeks, by taking possession of these
legends (which were the immemorial birthright of mankind), and putting
them into shapes of indestructible beauty, indeed, but cold and
heartless, have done all subsequent ages an incalculable injury."
"Which you, doubtless, were born to remedy," said Mr. Pringle, laughing
outright. "Well, well, go on; but take my advice, and never put any of
your travesties on paper. And, as your next effort, what if you should
try your hand on some one of the legends of Apollo?"
"Ah, sir, you propose it as an impossibility," observed the student,
after a moment's meditation; "and, to be sure, at first thought, the
idea of a Gothic Apollo strikes one rather ludicrously. But I will turn
over your suggestion in my mind, and do not quite despair of success."
During the above discussion, the children (who understood not a word of
it) had grown very sleepy, and were now sent off to bed. Their drowsy
babble was heard, ascending the staircase, while a northwest-wind roared
loudly among the tree-tops of Tanglewood, and played an anthem around
the house. Eustace Bright went back to the study, and again endeavored
to hammer out some verses, but fell asleep between two of the rhymes.
THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER
The Hill-Side
_Introductory to "The Miraculous Pitcher"_
And when, and where, do you think we find the children next? No longer
in the winter-time, but in the merry month of May. No longer in
Tanglewood play-room, or at Tanglewood fireside, but more than half-way
up a monstrous hill, or a mountain, as perhaps it would be better
pleased to have us call it. They had set out from home with the mighty
purpose of climbing this high hill, even to the very tip-top of its bald
head. To be sure, it was not quite so high as Chimborazo, or Mont Blanc,
and was even a good deal lower than old Graylock. But, at any rate, it
was higher than a thousand ant-hillocks, or a million of mole-hills;
and, when measured by the short strides of little children, might be
reckoned a very respectable mountain.
And was Cousin Eustace with the party? Of that you may be certain; else
how could the book go on a step further? He was now in the middle of the
spring vacation, and looked pretty much as we saw him four or five
months ago, except that, if you gazed quite closely at his upper lip,
you could discern the funniest little bit of a mustache upon it. Setting
aside this mark of mature manhood, you might have considered Cousin
Eustace just as much a boy as when you first became acquainted with him.
He was as merry, as playful, as good-humored, as light of foot and of
spirits, and equally a favorite with the little folks, as he had always
been. This expedition up the mountain was entirely of his contrivance.
All the way up the steep ascent, he had encouraged the elder children
with his cheerful voice; and when Dandelion, Cowslip, and Squash-Blossom
grew weary, he had lugged them along, alternately, on his back. In this
manner, they had passed through the orchards and pastures on the lower
part of the hill, and had reached the wood, which extends thence towards
its bare summit.
The month of May, thus far, had been more amiable than it often is, and
this was as sweet and genial a day as the heart of man or child could
wish. In their progress up the hill, the small people had found enough
of violets, blue and white, and some that were as golden as if they had
the touch of Midas on them. That sociablest of flowers, the little
Houstonia, was very abundant. It is a flower that never lives alone, but
which loves its own kind, and is always fond of dwelling with a great
many friends and relatives around it. Sometimes you see a family of
them, covering a space no bigger than the palm of your hand; and
sometimes a large community, whitening a whole tract of pasture, and all
keeping one another in cheerful heart and life.
Within the verge of the wood there were columbines, looking more pale
than red, because they were so modest, and had thought proper to seclude
themselves too anxiously from the sun. There were wild geraniums, too,
and a thousand white blossoms of the strawberry. The trailing arbutus
was not yet quite out of bloom; but it hid its precious flowers under
the last year's withered forest-leaves, as carefully as a mother-bird
hides its little young ones. It knew, I suppose, how beautiful and
sweet-scented they were. So cunning was their concealment, that the
children sometimes smelt the delicate richness of their perfume before
they knew whence it proceeded.
Amid so much new life, it was strange and truly pitiful to behold, here
and there, in the fields and pastures, the hoary periwigs of dandelions
that had already gone to seed. They had done with summer before the
summer came. Within those small globes of winged seeds it was autumn
now!