MYTHS OF THE OLDER HEROES: THE HOUSE OF DANAÜS, AND ITS CONNECTIONS
=148. The Older and the Younger Heroes.= We have already narrated
the adventures of certain demigods and heroes, such as Prometheus,
Deucalion, Cadmus, Amphion, Orpheus. Others of importance were Perseus,
Hercules, Minos, [OE]dipus, Theseus, Jason, Meleager, Peleus, Pelops,
Castor and Pollux. These and their contemporaries may be called the
_Older Heroes_. They are renowned either for individual exploits or for
the part played by them in one or more of three great expeditions,--the
War against Laomedon of Troy, the Voyage for the Golden Fleece, and the
Hunt of the Calydonian Boar.
The _Younger Heroes_ were of a later generation, which was concerned in
four important enterprises,--the War of the Seven against Thebes, the
Trojan War, the Wanderings of Ulysses, and the Adventures of Æneas.
The exploits of the Older Heroes may be arranged in respect of their
probable sequence in time, and of their grouping according to families
of heroes. If we observe the principle of genealogy, one race, that
of Inachus of Argos, attracts our notice in the heroes descended
from Pelasgus,[199] Belus, and Agenor. The family of Belus gives us
the famous House of Danaüs, the family of Agenor the Houses of Minos
and Labdacus. Another race, that of Deucalion, gives us the heroes
of the Hellenic branch, most notably those descended from Æolus.
With these families most of the Older Heroes are, by blood or by
adventure, to some extent connected. Bearing this fact in mind and at
the same time observing the chronological sequence of adventures, we
obtain an arrangement of myths as illustrating the races, families,
or houses--(1) of Danaüs of Argos, (2) of Æolus of Thessaly, (3) of
Ætolus, (4) of Minos of Crete, (5) of Cecrops and of Erichthonius of
Attica, (6) of Labdacus of Thebes.[200]
=149. The Genealogy of Danaüs.= As the Hellenes, in the north, traced
their descent from Deucalion and Pyrrha of Thessaly, so the Pelasgic
races of the south from the river-god Inachus, son of Oceanus. The
son of Inachus, Phoroneus, lived in the Peloponnesus and founded the
town of Argos. This Phoroneus conferred upon the Argives the benefits
attributed by other Greeks to Prometheus. He was succeeded by his son
Pelasgus, from whom a division of the Greek people derive their name.
With the love of Jupiter for the sister of Phoroneus, the fair Io, we
are already acquainted. Her son was Epaphus, king of Egypt, from whom
were descended (1) Agenor of Ph[oe]nicia, father of Europa and Cadmus,
and (2) Belus of Egypt, father of Ægyptus and Danaüs. To the family of
Agenor we shall return in the history of Minos, son of Europa, and of
[OE]dipus, descendant of Cadmus.
[Illustration: FIG. 115. THE DANAÏDS]
=150. The Danaïds.=[201] Ægyptus and his fifty sons drove Danaüs and
his fifty daughters back to Argos, the ancestral home of the race.
Finally, a reconciliation was arranged by means of a fiftyfold marriage
between the sons of Ægyptus and the Danaïds. But in accordance with
a treacherous command of Danaüs, all his daughters save Hypermnestra
slew their husbands on the wedding night. For this crime the forty-nine
Danaïds were condemned to spend eternity in Tartarus, trying to fill
with water a vessel full of holes. From Hypermnestra and her husband,
Lynceus, was sprung the royal house of Argos. Their son was Abas, their
grandson, Acrisius,--of whom the following narrative is told.
[Illustration: FIG. 116. DANAË AND PERSEUS AND THE CHEST]
=151. The Doom of King Acrisius.=[202] The daughter of Acrisius was
Danaë, of surpassing loveliness. In consequence of an oracle which
had prophesied that the son of Danaë would be the means of his
grandfather's death, the hapless girl was shut in an underground
chamber, that no man might love or wed her. But Jupiter, distilling
himself into a shower of gold, flooded the girl's prison, wooed, and
won her. Their son was Perseus. King Acrisius, in dismay, ordered
mother and child to be boxed up in a chest and set adrift on the sea.
The two unfortunates were, however, rescued at Seriphus by a fisherman,
who conveyed the mother and infant to Polydectes, king of the country,
by whom they were treated at first with kindness, but afterwards with
cruelty.
=152. Perseus and Medusa.=[203] When Perseus was grown up, Polydectes
sent him to attempt the conquest of the Gorgon Medusa,[204] a terrible
monster who had laid waste the country. She had once been a maiden
whose hair was her chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty
with Minerva, the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her
ringlets into hissing serpents. She became a monster of so frightful an
aspect that no living thing could behold her without being turned into
stone. All around the cavern where she dwelt might be seen the stony
figures of men and animals that had chanced to catch a glimpse of her
and had been petrified at the sight. Perseus, favored by Minerva and
Mercury, set out against the Gorgon, and approached first the cave of
the three Grææ:
[Illustration: FIG. 117. MEDUSA]
There sat the crones that had the single eye,
Clad in blue sweeping cloak and snow-white gown;
While o'er their backs their straight white hair hung down
In long thin locks; dreadful their faces were,
Carved all about with wrinkles of despair;
And as they sat they crooned a dreary song,
Complaining that their lives should last so long,
In that sad place that no one came anear,
In that wan place desert of hope and fear;
And singing, _still they rocked_ their bodies bent,
And ever each to each the eye they sent.[205]
[Illustration: FIG. 118. MEDUSA]
Snatching the eye, Perseus compelled the Grææ, as the price of its
restoration, to tell him how he might obtain the helmet of Hades that
renders its wearer invisible, and the winged shoes and pouch that were
necessary. With this outfit, to which Minerva added her shield and
Mercury his knife, Perseus sped to the hall of the Gorgons. In silence
sat two of the sisters,--
But a third woman paced about the hall,
And ever turned her head from wall to wall
And moaned aloud, and shrieked in her despair;
Because the golden tresses of her hair
Were moved by writhing snakes from side to side,
That in their writhing oftentimes would glide
On to her breast, or shuddering shoulders white;
Or, falling down, the hideous things would light
Upon her feet, and crawling thence would twine
Their slimy folds about her ankles fine.[206]
[Illustration: FIG. 119. PERSEUS
From the sculpture by Cellini]
This was Medusa. Her, while she was praying the gods to end her misery,
or, as some say, while she was sleeping, Perseus approached, and,
guided by her image reflected in the bright shield which he bore, cut
off her head, and so ended her miserable existence. Thus are described
the horror and the grace of her features in death:
It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death.
Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone;
Whereon the lineaments of that dead face
Are graven, till the characters be grown
Into itself, and thought no more can trace;
'Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown
Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanize and harmonize the strain.[207]...
=153. Perseus and Atlas.= From the body of Medusa sprang the winged
horse Pegasus, of whose rider, Bellerophon, we shall presently be
informed.
[Illustration: FIG. 120. PERSEUS WITH HEAD OF MEDUSA]
After the slaughter of Medusa, Perseus, bearing with him the head of
the Gorgon, flew far and wide, over land and sea. As night came on, he
reached the western limit of the earth, and would gladly have rested
till morning. Here was the realm of Atlas, whose bulk surpassed that
of all other men. He was rich in flocks and herds, but his chief pride
was his garden of the Hesperides, whose fruit was of gold, hanging from
golden branches, half hid with golden leaves. Perseus said to him,
"I come as a guest. If thou holdest in honor illustrious descent, I
claim Jupiter for my father; if mighty deeds, I plead the conquest of
the Gorgon. I seek rest and food." But Atlas, remembering an ancient
prophecy that had warned him against a son of Jove who should one
day rob him of his golden apples, attempted to thrust the youth out.
Whereupon Perseus, finding the giant too strong for him, held up the
Gorgon's head. Atlas, with all his bulk, was changed into stone. His
beard and hair became forests, his arms and shoulders cliffs, his head
a summit, and his bones rocks. Each part increased in mass till the
giant became the mountain upon whose shoulders rests heaven with all
its stars.
=154. Perseus and Andromeda.= On his way back to Seriphus, the
Gorgon-slayer arrived at the country of the Æthiopians, over whom
Cepheus was king. His wife was Cassiopea--
That starred Æthiope queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended.[208]
These nymphs had consequently sent a sea monster to ravage the coast.
To appease the deities, Cepheus was directed by the oracle to devote
his daughter Andromeda to the ravening maw of the prodigy. As Perseus
looked down from his aërial height, he beheld the virgin chained to
a rock. Drawing nearer he pitied, then comforted her, and sought the
reason of her disgrace. At first from modesty she was silent; but when
he repeated his questions, for fear she might be thought guilty of
some offense which she dared not tell, she disclosed her name and that
of her country, and her mother's pride of beauty. Before she had done
speaking, a sound was heard upon the water, and the monster appeared.
The virgin shrieked; the father and mother, who had now arrived, poured
forth lamentations and threw their arms about the victim. But the
hero himself undertook to slay the monster, on condition that, if the
maiden were rescued by his valor, she should be his reward. The parents
consented. Perseus embraced his promised bride; then--
Loosing his arms from her waist he flew upward, awaiting the sea beast.
Onward it came from the southward, as bulky and black as a galley,
Lazily coasting along, as the fish fled leaping before it;
Lazily breasting the ripple, and watching by sand bar and headland,
Listening for laughter of maidens at bleaching, or song of the fisher,
Children at play on the pebbles, or cattle that passed on the
sand hills.
Rolling and dripping it came, where bedded in glistening purple
Cold on the cold seaweeds lay the long white sides of the maiden,
Trembling, her face in her hands, and her tresses afloat on the
water.[209]
[Illustration: FIG. 121. PERSEUS FINDS ANDROMEDA]
[Illustration: PERSEUS FREEING ANDROMEDA]
The youth darted down upon the back of the monster and plunged his
sword into its shoulder, then eluded its furious attack by means of
his wings. Wherever he could find a passage for his sword, he plunged
it between the scales of flank and side. The wings of the hero were
finally drenched and unmanageable with the blood and water that the
brute spouted. Then alighting on a rock and holding by a projection, he
gave the monster his deathblow.
The joyful parents, with Perseus and Andromeda, repaired to the
palace, where a banquet was opened for them. But in the midst of the
festivities a noise was heard of warlike clamor, and Phineus, who had
formerly been betrothed to the bride, burst in, demanding her for his
own. In vain, Cepheus remonstrated that all such engagements had been
dissolved by the sentence of death passed upon Andromeda, and that if
Phineus had actually loved the girl, he would have tried to rescue her.
Phineus and his adherents, persisting in their intent, attacked the
wedding party and would have broken it up with most admired disorder,
but
Mid the fabled Libyan bridal stood
Perseus in stern tranquillity of wrath,
Half stood, half floated on his ankle plumes
Out-swelling, while the bright face on his shield
Looked into stone the raging fray.[210]
Leaving Phineus and his fellows in merited petrifaction, and conveying
Andromeda to Seriphus, the hero there turned into stone Polydectes and
his court, because the tyrant had rendered Danaë's life intolerable
with his attentions. Perseus then restored to their owners the charmed
helmet, the winged shoes, and the pouch in which he had conveyed the
Gorgon's head. The head itself he bestowed upon Minerva, who bore it
afterward upon her ægis or shield. Of that Gorgon shield no simpler
moral interpretation can be framed than the following:
What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield
That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone,
But rigid looks of chaste austerity,
And noble grace that dashed brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe![211]
With his mother and his wife Perseus returned to Argos to seek his
grandfather. But Acrisius, still fearing his doom, had retired to
Larissa in Thessaly. Thither Perseus followed him, and found him
presiding over certain funeral games. As luck would have it, the hero
took part in the quoit throwing, and hurled a quoit far beyond the
mark. The disk, falling upon his grandfather's foot, brought about the
old man's death, and in that way the prophecy was fulfilled. Of Perseus
and Andromeda three sons were born, through one of whom, Electryon,
they became grandparents of the famous Alcmene, sweetheart of Jove and
mother of Hercules.
=155. Bellerophon and the Chimæra.=[212] The horse Pegasus, which
sprang from the Gorgon's blood, found a master in Bellerophon of
Corinth. This youth was of the Hellenic branch of the Greek nation,
being descended from Sisyphus and through him from Æolus, the son of
Hellen.[213] His adventures should therefore be recited with those of
Jason and other descendants of Æolus in the next chapter, but that
they follow so closely on those of Perseus. His father, Glaucus, king
of Corinth, is frequently identified with Glaucus the fisherman. This
Glaucus of Corinth was noted for his love of horse racing, his fashion
of feeding his mares on human flesh, and his destruction by the fury
of his horses; for having upset his chariot, they tore their master to
pieces. As to his son, Bellerophon, the following is related:
In Lycia a monster, breathing fire, made great havoc. The fore part
of his body was a compound of the lion and the goat; the hind part
was a dragon's. The king, Iobates, sought a hero to destroy this
Chimæra, as it was called. At that time Bellerophon arrived at his
court. The gallant youth brought letters from Pr[oe]tus, the son-in-law
of Iobates, recommending Bellerophon in the warmest terms as an
unconquerable hero, but adding a request to his father-in-law to put
him to death. For Pr[oe]tus, suspecting that his wife Antea looked with
too great favor on the young warrior, schemed thus to destroy him.
Iobates accordingly determined to send Bellerophon against the
Chimæra. Bellerophon accepted the proposal, but before proceeding to
the combat, consulted the soothsayer Polyidus, who counseled him to
procure, if possible, the horse Pegasus for the conflict. Now this
horse had been caught and tamed by Minerva and by her presented to the
Muses. Polyidus, therefore, directed Bellerophon to pass the night in
the temple of Minerva. While he slept, Minerva brought him a golden
bridle. When he awoke, she showed him Pegasus drinking at the well of
Pirene. At sight of the bridle, the winged steed came willingly and
suffered himself to be taken. Bellerophon mounted him, sped through the
air, found the Chimæra, and gained an easy victory.
[Illustration: FIG. 122. BELLEROPHON AND PEGASUS]
After the conquest of this monster, Bellerophon was subjected to
further trials and labors by his unfriendly host, but by the aid of
Pegasus he triumphed over all. At length Iobates, seeing that the hero
was beloved of the gods, gave him his daughter in marriage and made
him his successor on the throne. It is said that Bellerophon, by his
pride and presumption, drew upon himself the anger of the Olympians;
that he even attempted to fly to heaven on his winged steed; but the
king of gods and men sent a gadfly, which, stinging Pegasus, caused him
to throw his rider, who wandered ever after lame, blind, and lonely
through the Aleian field, and perished miserably.
=156. Hercules (Heracles): His Youth.=[214] Alcmene, daughter of
Electryon and granddaughter of Perseus and Andromeda, was beloved
of Jupiter. Their son, the mighty Hercules, born in Thebes, became
the national hero of Greece. Juno, always hostile to the offspring of
her husband by mortal mothers, declared war against Hercules from his
birth. She sent two serpents to destroy him as he lay in his cradle,
but the precocious infant strangled them with his hands. In his youth
he passed for the son of his stepfather Amphitryon, king of Thebes,
grandson of Perseus and Andromeda, and son of Alcæus. Hence his
patronymic, Alcides. Rhadamanthus trained him in wisdom and virtue,
Linus in music. Unfortunately the latter attempted one day to chastise
Hercules; whereupon the pupil killed the master with a lute. After this
melancholy breach of discipline, the youth was rusticated,--sent off
to the mountains, where among the herdsmen and the cattle he grew to
mighty stature, slew the Thespian lion, and performed various deeds
of valor. To him, while still a youth, appeared, according to one
story, two women at a meeting of the ways,--Pleasure and Duty. The
gifts offered by Duty were the "Choice of Hercules." Soon afterward
he contended with none other than Apollo for the tripod of Delphi;
but reconciliation was effected between the combatants by the gods
of Olympus, and from that day forth Apollo and Hercules remained
true friends, each respecting the prowess of the other. Returning to
Thebes, the hero aided his half brother Iphicles and his reputed father
Amphitryon in throwing off the yoke of the city of Orchomenus, and
was rewarded with the hand of the princess Megara. A few years later,
while in the very pride of his manhood, he was driven insane by the
implacable Juno. In his madness he slew his children, and would have
slain Amphitryon, also, had not Minerva knocked him over with a stone
and plunged him into a deep sleep, from which he awoke in his right
mind. Next, for expiation of the bloodshed, he was rendered subject
to his cousin Eurystheus and compelled to perform his commands. This
humiliation, Juno, of course, had decreed.
=157. His Labors.= Eurystheus enjoined upon the hero a succession
of desperate undertakings, which are called the twelve "Labors of
Hercules." The first was the combat with the lion that infested the
valley of Nemea, the skin of which Hercules was ordered to bring to
Mycenæ. After using in vain his club and arrows against the lion,
Hercules strangled the animal with his hands and returned, carrying its
carcass on his shoulders; but Eurystheus, frightened at the sight and
at this proof of the prodigious strength of the hero, ordered him to
deliver the account of his exploits, in future, outside the town.
[Illustration: FIG. 123. HERACLES AND THE NEMEAN LION]
His second labor was the slaughter of the Hydra, a water serpent that
ravaged the country of Argos and dwelt in a swamp near the well of
Amymone. It had nine heads, of which the middle one was immortal.
Hercules struck off the heads with his club; but in the place of each
dispatched, two new ones appeared. At last, with the assistance of his
faithful nephew Iolaüs, he burned away the other heads of the Hydra and
buried the ninth, which was immortal, under a rock.
[Illustration: FIG. 124. HERACLES AND THE HYDRA]
His third labor was the capture of a boar that haunted Mount Erymanthus
in Arcadia. The adventure was, in itself, successful. But on the
same journey Hercules made the friendship of the centaur Pholus,
who, receiving him hospitably, poured out for him without stint the
choicest wine that the centaurs possessed. As a consequence, Hercules
became involved in a broil with the other centaurs of the mountain.
Unfortunately his friend Pholus, drawing one of the arrows of Hercules
from a brother centaur, wounded himself therewith and died of the
poison.
The fourth labor of Hercules was the capture of a wonderful stag of
golden antlers and brazen hoofs, that ranged the hills of Cerynea,
between Arcadia and Achaia.
His fifth labor was the destruction of the Stymphalian birds, which
with cruel beaks and sharp talons harassed the inhabitants of the
valley of Stymphalus, devouring many of them.
His sixth labor was the cleaning of the Augean stables. Augeas, king
of Elis, had a herd of three thousand oxen, whose stalls had not been
cleansed for thirty years. Hercules, bringing the rivers Alpheüs and
Peneüs through them, purified them thoroughly in one day.
[Illustration: FIG. 125. HERACLES BRINGING HOME THE BOAR]
His seventh labor was the overthrow of the Cretan bull,--an awful but
beautiful brute, at once a gift and a curse bestowed by Neptune upon
Minos of Crete.[215] This monster Hercules brought to Mycenæ.
His eighth labor was the removal of the horses of Diomedes, king of
Thrace. These horses subsisted on human flesh, were swift and fearful.
Diomedes, attempting to retain them, was killed by Hercules and given
to the horses to devour. They were then delivered to Eurystheus; but,
escaping, they roamed the hills of Arcadia, till the wild beasts of
Apollo tore them to pieces.
His ninth labor was of a more delicate character. Admeta, the daughter
of Eurystheus, desired the girdle of the queen of the Amazons, and
Eurystheus ordered Hercules to get it. The Amazons were a nation
dominated by warlike women, and in their hands were many cities. It
was their custom to bring up only the female children, whom they
hardened by martial discipline; the boys were either dispatched to the
neighboring nations or put to death. Hippolyta, the queen, received
Hercules kindly and consented to yield him the girdle; but Juno, taking
the form of an Amazon, persuaded the people that the strangers were
carrying off their queen. They instantly armed and beset the ship.
Whereupon Hercules, thinking that Hippolyta had acted treacherously,
slew her and, taking her girdle, made sail homeward.
[Illustration: FIG. 126. HERACLES WITH THE BULL]
The tenth task enjoined upon him was to capture for Eurystheus the oxen
of Geryon, a monster with three bodies, who dwelt in the island Erythea
(the red),--so called because it lay in the west, under the rays of the
setting sun. This description is thought to apply to Spain, of which
Geryon was king. After traversing various countries, Hercules reached
at length the frontiers of Libya and Europe, where he raised the two
mountains of Abyla and Calpe as monuments of his progress,--the Pillars
of Hercules; or, according to another account, rent one mountain into
two and left half on each side, forming the Strait of Gibraltar.
The oxen were guarded by the giant Eurytion and his two-headed dog,
but Hercules killed the warders and conveyed the oxen in safety to
Eurystheus.
One of the most difficult labors was the eleventh,--the robbery of
the golden apples of the Hesperides. Hercules did not know where to
find them; but after various adventures, arrived at Mount Atlas in
Africa. Since Atlas was the father of the Hesperides, Hercules thought
he might through him obtain the apples. The hero, accordingly, taking
the burden of the heavens on his own shoulders,[216] sent Atlas to seek
the apples. The giant returned with them and proposed to take them
himself to Eurystheus. "Even so," said Hercules; "but, pray, hold this
load for me a moment, while I procure a pad to ease my shoulders."
Unsuspectingly the giant resumed the burden of the heavens. Hercules
took the apples.
[Illustration: FIG. 127 HERACLES AND CERBERUS]
His twelfth exploit was to fetch Cerberus from the lower world. To
this end he descended into Hades, accompanied by Mercury and Minerva.
There he obtained permission from Pluto to carry Cerberus to the upper
air, provided he could do it without the use of weapons. In spite of
the monster's struggling he seized him, held him fast, carried him to
Eurystheus, and afterward restored him to the lower regions. While
in Hades, Hercules also obtained the liberty of Theseus, his admirer
and imitator, who had been detained there for an attempt at abducting
Proserpine.[217]
After his return from Hades to his native Thebes, he renounced his wife
Megara, for, having slain his children by her in his fit of madness, he
looked upon the marriage as displeasing to the gods.
Two other exploits not recorded among the twelve labors are the
victories over Antæus and Cacus. Antæus, the son of Poseidon and Gæa,
was a giant and wrestler whose strength was invincible so long as he
remained in contact with his mother Earth. He compelled all strangers
who came to his country to wrestle with him, on condition that if
conquered, they should suffer death.
Hercules encountered him and, finding that it was of no avail to throw
him,--for he always rose with renewed strength from every fall,--lifted
him up from the earth and strangled him in the air.
Later writers tell of an army of Pygmies which, finding Hercules asleep
after his defeat of Antæus, made preparations to attack him, as if
they were about to attack a city. But the hero, awakening, laughed at
the little warriors, wrapped some of them up in his lion's skin, and
carried them to Eurystheus.
[Illustration: FIG. 128. HERACLES AND ANTÆUS]
Cacus was a giant who inhabited a cave on Mount Aventine and plundered
the surrounding country. When Hercules was driving home the oxen of
Geryon, Cacus stole part of the cattle while the hero slept. That their
footprints might not indicate where they had been driven, he dragged
them backward by their tails to his cave. Hercules was deceived by the
stratagem and would have failed to find his oxen, had it not happened
that while he was driving the remainder of the herd past the cave
where the stolen ones were concealed, those within, beginning to low,
discovered themselves to him. Hercules promptly dispatched the thief.
Through most of these expeditions Hercules was attended by Iolaüs, his
devoted friend, the son of his half brother Iphicles.
=158. His Later Exploits.= On the later exploits of the hero we can
dwell but briefly. Having, in a fit of madness, killed his friend
Iphitus, he was condemned for the offense to spend three years as the
slave of Queen Omphale. He lived effeminately, wearing at times the
dress of a woman and spinning wool with the handmaidens of Omphale,
while the queen wore his lion's skin. But during this period he
contrived to engage in about as many adventures as would fill the life
of an ordinary hero. He rescued Daphnis from Lityerses and threw the
bloodthirsty king[218] into the river Mæander; he discovered the body
of Icarus[219] and buried it; he joined the company of Argonauts,
who were on their way to Colchis to secure the golden fleece, and he
captured the thievish gnomes, called Cercopes. Two of these grotesque
rascals had made off with the weapons of Hercules while he was
sleeping. When he had caught them he strapped them, knees upward,
to a yoke and so bore them away. Their drollery, however, regained
them their liberty. It is said that some of them having once deceived
Jupiter were changed to apes.
=159. The Loss of Hylas.=[220] In the Argonautic adventure Hercules was
attended by a lad, Hylas, whom he tenderly loved and on whose account
he deserted the expedition in Mysia; for Hylas had been stolen by the
Naiads.
... Never was Heracles apart from Hylas, not when midnoon was
high in heaven, not when Dawn with her white horses speeds
upwards to the dwelling of Zeus, not when the twittering
nestlings look towards the perch, while their mother flaps her
wings above the smoke-browned beam; and all this that the lad
might be fashioned to his mind, and might drive a straight
furrow, and come to the true measure of man....
And Hylas of the yellow hair, with a vessel of bronze in his
hand, went to draw water against supper-time for Heracles himself
and the steadfast Telamon, for these comrades twain supped ever
at one table. Soon was he ware of a spring in a hollow land,
and the rushes grew thickly round it, and dark swallowwort,
and green maidenhair, and blooming parsley, and deer grass
spreading through the marshy land. In the midst of the water
the nymphs were arranging their dances,--the sleepless nymphs,
dread goddesses of the country people, Eunice, and Malis, and
Nycheia, with her April eyes. And now the boy was holding out
the wide-mouthed pitcher to the water, intent on dipping it; but
the nymphs all clung to his hand, for love of the Argive lad had
fluttered the soft hearts of all of them. Then down he sank into
the black water, headlong all, as when a star shoots flaming from
the sky, plumb in the deep it falls; and a mate shouts out to the
seamen, "Up with the gear, my lads, the wind is fair for sailing."
Then the nymphs held the weeping boy on their laps, and with
gentle words were striving to comfort him. But the son of
Amphitryon was troubled about the lad, and went forth, carrying
his bended bow in Scythian fashion, and the club that is ever
grasped in his right hand. Thrice he shouted, "Hylas!" as loud as
his deep throat could call, and thrice again the boy heard him,
and thrice came his voice from the water, and, hard by though
he was, he seemed very far away. And as when a bearded lion, a
ravening lion on the hills, hears the bleating of a fawn afar off
and rushes forth from his lair to seize it, his readiest meal,
even so the mighty Heracles, in longing for the lad, sped through
the trackless briars and ranged over much country.
Reckless are lovers: great toils did Heracles bear, in hills
and thickets wandering; and Jason's quest was all postponed to
this....
Thus loveliest Hylas is numbered with the Blessed; but for a
runaway they girded at Heracles--the heroes--because he roamed
from Argo of the sixty oarsmen. But on foot he came to Colchis
and inhospitable Phasis.
=160. The Rescue of Daphnis.=[221] Daphnis was the ideal Sicilian
shepherd and to him was ascribed the invention of pastoral story and
song. His father was Hermes (Mercury); his mother, a nymph who laid
him when an infant in a charming valley in a laurel grove from which
he received his name,[222] and on account of which Apollo loved him
and endowed him with the gift of idyllic verse. He was brought up by
nymphs and shepherds, and, avoiding the noisy haunts of men, he tended
his flocks on Mount Ætna, winter and summer. He loved a maiden named
Piplea, but she was borne away by robbers. He followed them to Phrygia,
and there found his sweetheart in the power of the king of that realm,
Lityerses. This Lityerses had a pleasant custom of making strangers try
a contest with him in reaping corn. If he overcame them, he cut off
their heads in the evening and concealed their bodies in the sheaves,
singing a comfortable song meanwhile. In order to win back Piplea,
Daphnis entered upon the reaping contest with the king and made himself
comfortable, too, by singing a harvest song meanwhile. But Lityerses
surpassed him at the work and was about to put him to death, singing
no doubt a comfortable song of the reaper, Death, meanwhile,--when
suddenly Hercules appeared upon the scene. He doesn't seem to have
spent much time singing: he assured Daphnis of his head by cutting
off that of the pleasant king; and then he threw the body into the
river Mæander. Daphnis regained his Piplea and one would suppose that
they lived happy ever after. Another story, unfortunately, relates
events in which Piplea's name does not occur. A Naiad fell in love with
the handsome shepherd and made him promise eternal fidelity to her,
threatening him with blindness if he violated his vow. It was hard for
poor Daphnis, for nearly every lass he met made love to him. At last a
princess intoxicated him and he forgot his vow. Immediately the Naiad
showed the quality of her love by striking him blind. He consoled
himself for a while by singing his songs and playing the flute as he
wandered from place to place. Then weary, he called on his father for
aid. Mercury accordingly transported him to heaven and caused a well
to gush forth on the spot from which he ascended. Here the Sicilians
offered yearly sacrifice in his honor.
Theocritus gives us a Lityerses song as he undoubtedly used to hear it
sung by the harvesters of the country-side in Sicily:[223]
Demeter, rich in fruit and rich in grain, may this corn be easy
to win and fruitful exceedingly!
Bind, ye binders, the sheaves, lest the wayfarer should cry, "Men
of straw were the workers here; aye, and their hire was wasted!"
See that the cut stubble faces the North wind, or the West;--'tis
thus that the grain waxes richest.
They that thresh corn should shun the noonday sleep; at noon the
chaff parts easiest from the straw.
As for the reapers, let them begin when the crested lark is
waking, and cease when he sleeps, but take holiday in the heat.
Lads, the frog has a jolly life: he is not cumbered about a
butler to his drink; for he has liquor by him unstinted!
Boil the lentils better, thou miserly steward; take heed lest
thou chop thy fingers, when thou'rt splitting cummin seed.
When Matthew Arnold is writing of the death of his dear friend, the
poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in Italy,[224] he says:
And now in happier air,
Wandering with the great Mother's train divine....
Within a folding of the Apennine,
Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!
Putting his sickle to the perilous grain
In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,
For thee the Lityerses song again
Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;
Sings his Sicilian fold,
His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes:--
And how a call celestial round him rang,
And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang,--
And all the marvel of the golden skies!
=161. The Expedition against Laomedon.= After his servitude under
Omphale was ended, Hercules sailed with eighteen ships against Troy.
For Laomedon, king of that realm, had refused to give Hercules the
horses of Neptune, which he had promised in gratitude for the rescue of
his daughter Hesione from the sea-monster.[225] The hero, overcoming
Troy, placed a son of Laomedon, Priam, upon the throne, and gave
Hesione to Telamon, who, with Peleus, Oïcles, and other Greek heroes,
had accompanied him. Also worthy of mention among the exploits of
Hercules were his successful expeditions against Pylos and Sparta,
his victory over the giants, his struggle with Death for the body
and life of Alcestis,[226] and his delivery, according to prophecy,
of Prometheus, who until that time had remained in chains upon the
Caucasian Mountains.[227]
=162. The Death of Hercules.= Finally, the hero married Dejanira,
daughter of [OE]neus of Calydon and sister of Meleager of the
Calydonian hunt. With her he lived three prosperous years. But on one
occasion, as they journeyed together, they came to a river across
which the centaur Nessus carried travelers for a stated fee. Hercules
proceeded to ford the river and gave Dejanira to Nessus to be carried
across. Nessus, however, attempted to make off with her; whereupon
Hercules, hearing her cries, shot an arrow into his heart. The centaur,
as he died, bade Dejanira take a portion of his blood and keep it,
saying that it might be used as a charm to preserve the love of her
husband. Dejanira did so. Before long, jealous of Hercules' fondness
for Iole of [OE]chalia, a captive maiden, she steeped a sacrificial
robe of her husband's in the blood of Nessus. As soon as the garment
became warm on the body of Hercules, the poison penetrated his limbs.
In his frenzy he seized Lichas, who had brought him the fatal robe,
and hurled him into the sea; then tried to wrench off the garment, but
it stuck to his flesh and tore away whole pieces of his body.
[Illustration: FIG. 129. HERCULES AND NESSUS]
Alcides, from [OE]chalia crowned
With conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore,
Through pain, up by the roots Thessalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of [OE]ta threw
Into the Euboic Sea.[228]
[Illustration: THE WEDDING OF HERCULES AND HEBE]
In this state he embarked on board a ship and was conveyed home.
Dejanira, on seeing what she had unwittingly done, hanged herself.
Hercules, prepared to die, ascended Mount [OE]ta, where he built a
funeral pile of trees, gave his bow and arrows to Philoctetes,[229] and
laid himself upon the pile, his head resting on his club and his lion's
skin spread over him. With a countenance as serene as if he were taking
his place at a festal board, he commanded Philoctetes to apply the
torch. The flames spread apace, and soon invested the whole mass.[230]
The gods themselves grieved to see the champion of the earth so brought
to his end. But Jupiter took care that only his mother's part in him
should perish by the flames. The immortal element, derived from Jupiter
himself, was translated to heaven; and by the consent of the gods--even
of reluctant Juno--Hercules was admitted as a deity to the ranks of the
immortals. The white-armed queen of heaven was finally reconciled to
the offspring of Alcmene. She adopted him for her son and gave him in
marriage her daughter Hebe.
Deep degraded to a coward's slave,
Endless contests bore Alcides brave,
Through the thorny path of suffering led;
Slew the Hydra, crushed the lion's might,
Threw himself, to bring his friend to light,
Living, in the skiff that bears the dead.
All the torments, every toil of earth,
Juno's hatred on him could impose,
Well he bore them, from his fated birth
To life's grandly mournful close.
Till the god, the earthly part forsaken,
From the man in flames asunder taken,
Drank the heavenly ether's purer breath.
Joyous in the new unwonted lightness,
Soared he upwards to celestial brightness,
Earth's dark heavy burden lost in death.
High Olympus gives harmonious greeting
To the hall where reigns his sire adored;
Youth's bright goddess, with a blush at meeting,
Gives the nectar to her lord.[231]
In the tragedy called The Maidens of Trachis, Sophocles describes this
hero as "The noblest man of all the earth, of whom thou ne'er shalt
see the like again." To some of us the manner of his earthly end may
seem unworthy; but the Greek poets teach that, in the unabated vigor of
one's powers, serenely to meet and accept one's doom is the happiest
death. This view is well expressed by Matthew Arnold in the following
fragment of a Greek chorus sung with reference to the death of Hercules:
O frivolous mind of man,
Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts!
Though man bewails you not,
How _I_ bewail you!...
For you will not put on
New hearts with the inquirer's holy robe,
And purged, considerate minds.
And him on whom, at the end
Of toil and dolor untold,
The Gods have said that repose
At last shall descend undisturb'd--
Him you expect to behold
In an easy old age, in a happy home;
No end but this you praise.
But him, on whom, in the prime
Of life, with vigor undimm'd,
With unspent mind, and a soul
Unworn, undebased, undecay'd,
Mournfully grating, the gates
Of the city of death have forever closed--
_Him_, I count _him_, well-starr'd.[232]
Here we take leave for a time of the descendants of Inachus. We shall
revert to them in the stories of Minos of Crete and of the house of
Labdacus.
FOOTNOTES:
[199] § 21, and Commentary, § 57.
[200] For references to genealogical tables, see Commentary, § 148.
[201] Apollodorus, 2, 1, § 5, etc.; Pausanias; Ovid, Heroides, 14;
Horace, Odes, 3; 11; 23.
[202] Simonides of Ceos, also Apollodorus, Pausanias, and Hyginus
(Fables).
[203] Ovid, Metam. 4, 608-739; 5, 1-249.
[204] For Gorgons and Grææ, see § 52.
[205] William Morris, The Doom of King Acrisius, in The Earthly
Paradise.
[206] William Morris, The Doom of King Acrisius, in The Earthly
Paradise.
[207] From Shelley's lines On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the
Florentine Gallery.
[208] Milton, Il Penseroso, l. 19.
[209] From Charles Kingsley's Andromeda.
[210] Milman, Samor.
[211] Milton, Comus.
[212] Iliad, 6, 155-202; Apollodorus, 1, 9, § 3; Horace, Odes, 4; 11;
26.
[213] See Commentary, §§ 103, 155.
[214] Authorities are Homer,--Iliad and Odyssey; Theocritus 24; 25,
etc.; Apollodorus, 2, 4, § 7, etc.; Sophocles, Women of Trachis;
Euripides, Hercules Furens; Ovid, Metam. 9, 102-272; Seneca,--Hercules
Furens and [OE]tæus; Hyginus, etc.
[215] § 172.
[216] Atlas and the heavens, § 153.
[217] § 180.
[218] § 160.
[219] § 173.
[220] Theocritus. Idyl XIII (Lang's translation).
[221] Theocritus, Idyl X, 41, and the Scholia; Virgil, Bucol. 5; 8; 10;
and Comments.
[222] See the story of Daphne.
[223] Theocritus, Idyl X (Lang's translation).
[224] Thyrsis.
[225] § 119.
[226] § 83.
[227] § 15.
[228] Milton.
[229] See § 220. According to Sophocles, Philoctetes' father P[oe]as
applied the torch.
[230] See the spirited poems, Deïaneira and Herakles, in the classical,
but too little read, Epic of Hades, by Lewis Morris.
[231] Schiller's Ideal and Life. Translated by S. G. Bulfinch, brother
of Thomas Bulfinch.
[232] From Fragment of Chorus of a "Dejaneira."
[Illustration: FIG. 130. THE BUILDING OF THE ARGO]