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You remember that Ulysses met Agamemnon among the other ghosts. The King
of Men, as the _Iliad_ calls him, had vast beacons lighted from isle to
isle, and from cape to cape, to announce that Troy was won, and that he
was on his way home, little knowing what a welcome was in store for him.
His wife Clytemnestra had never forgiven him for the loss of Iphigenia,
and had listened to his cousin AEgisthus, who wanted to marry her. She
came forth and received Agamemnon with apparent joy, but his poor captive
Cassandra wailed aloud, and would not cross the threshold, saying it
streamed with blood, and that this was a house of slaughter. No one
listened to her, and Agamemnon was led to the bath to refresh himself
after his journey. A new embroidered robe lay ready for him, but the
sleeves were sewn up at the wrists, and while he could not get his hands
free, AEgisthus fell on him and slew him, and poor Cassandra likewise.
His daughter Electra, fearing that her young brother Orestes would not be
safe since he was the right heir of the kingdom, sent him secretly away
to Phocis, where the king bred him up with his own son Pylades, and the
two youths loved each other as much as Achilles and Patroclus had done.
It was the bounden duty of a son to be the avenger of his father's blood,
and after eight years, as soon as Orestes was a grown warrior, he went
with his friend in secret to Mycenae, and offered a lock of his hair on
his father's tomb. Electra, coming out with her offerings, found these
tokens, and knew that he was near. He made himself known, and she
admitted him into the house, where he fulfilled his stern charge, and
killed both Clytemnestra and AEgisthus, then celebrated their funeral
rites with all due solemnity.
This was on the very day that Menelaus and Helen returned home. They had
been shipwrecked first in Egypt, where they spent eight years, and then
were held by contrary winds on a little isle on the coast of Egypt, where
they would have been starved if Menelaus had not managed to capture the
old sea-god Proteus, when he came up to pasture his flock of seals on the
beach, and, holding him tight, while he changed into every kind of queer
shape, forced him at last to speak. By Proteus' advice, Menelaus
returned to Egypt, and made the sacrifices to the gods he had forgotten
before, after which he safely reached Sparta, on the day of
Clytemnestra's obsequies. Just as they were ended, the Furies, the
avengers of crime, fell upon Orestes for having slain his mother. He
fled in misery from Mycenae, which Menelaus took into his own hands,
while the wretched Orestes went from place to place, still attended and
comforted by faithful Pylades, but he never tried to rest without being
again beset by the Furies. At last Apollo, at the oracle at Delphi, sent
him to take his trial at the court of justice at Athens, called
Areopagus, Ares' (or Mars') Hill, after which the oracle bade him fetch
the image of Diana from Tauris, marry his cousin Hermione, the daughter
of Menelaus and Helen, and recover his father's kingdom.
Pallas Athene came down to preside at Areopagus, and directed the judges
to pronounce that, though the slaying of a mother was a fearful crime,
yet it was Orestes' duty to avenge his father's death. He was therefore
acquitted, and purified by sacrifice, and was no more haunted by the
Furies, while with Pylades he sailed for Tauris. In that inhospitable
place it was the custom to sacrifice all strangers to Diana, and, as soon
as they had landed, Orestes and Pylades were seized, and taken to the
priestess at the temple, that their hair might be cut and their brows
wreathed for the sacrifice. The priestess was no other than Iphigenia,
who had been snatched away from Aulis, and, when she and the brother,
whom she had left an infant, found each other out, she contrived to leave
the temple by night, carrying the image of Diana with her. They went to
Delphi together, and there Iphigenia met Electra, who had heard a false
report that her beloved Orestes had been sacrificed by the priestess of
Tauris, and was just going to tear out her eyes, when Orestes appeared,
and the sisters were made known to each other. A temple was built for
the image near Marathon, in Attica, and Iphigenia spent the rest of her
life as priestess there. Orestes, in the meantime, married
Hermione--after, as some say, killing Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, to
whom she was either promised or married--and reigned over both Mycenae
and Sparta until the hundred years' truce with the Heracleids, or
grandsons of Hercules, had come to an end, and they returned with a party
of Dorians and conquered Sparta, eighty years after the Trojan war.
[Picture: Plain of Sparta, with Mount Taygetus]
This is the last of the events of the age of heroes, when so much must be
fable, though there may be a germ of historical truth which no one can
make out among the old tales that had come from the East, and the like of
which may be found among the folk-lore of all nations. These are the
most famous of the stories, because they joined all Greeks together, and
were believed in by all Greeks alike in their main circumstances; but
every state had its own story, and one or two may be told before we end
this chapter of myths, because they are often heard of, and poetry has
been written about some of them.
At Thebes, in Boeotia, the king, Laius, was told that his first child
would be his death. So as soon as it was born he had its ancles pierced,
and put it out in a wood to die; but it was found by a shepherd, and
brought to Corinth, where the queen named it OEdipus, or Swollen Feet,
and bred it up as her own child. Many years later OEdipus set out for
the Delphic oracle, to ask who he was; but all the answer he received was
that he must shun his native land, for he would be the slayer of his own
father. He therefore resolved not to return to Corinth, but on his
journey he met in a narrow pass with a chariot going to Delphi. A
quarrel arose, and in the fight that followed he slew the man to whom the
chariot belonged, little knowing that it was Laius, his own father.
He then went on through Boeotia. On the top of a hill near Thebes sat a
monster called the Sphinx, with a women's head, a lion's body, and an
eagle's wings. She had been taught riddles by the Muses, and whoever
failed to answer them she devoured upon the spot. Whoever could answer
her was to marry the king's sister, and share the kingdom. OEdipus went
bravely up to her, and heard her question, "What is the animal that is at
first four-legged, then two-legged, then three-legged?" "Man," cried
OEdipus. "He creeps as a babe on all-fours, walks upright in his prime,
and uses a staff in his old age." Thereupon the Sphinx turned to stone,
and OEdipus married the princess, and reigned many years, till there was
a famine and pestilence, and the oracle was asked the cause. It answered
that the land must be purified from the blood of Laius. Only then did
OEdipus find out that it was Laius whom he had slain; and then, by the
marks on his ancles, it was proved that he was the babe who had been
exposed, so that he had fulfilled his fate, and killed his own father.
To save Thebes, he left the country, with his eyes put out by way of
expiation, and wandered about, only attended by his faithful daughter
Antigone, till he came to Athens, where, like Orestes, he was sheltered,
and allowed to expiate his crime. After his death, Antigone came back to
Thebes, where her two brothers Eteocles and Polynices had agreed to reign
each a year by turns; but when Eteocles' year was over he would not give
up to his brother, and Polynices, in a rage, collected friends, among
whom were six great chiefs, and attacked Thebes. In the battle called
"The Seven Chiefs against Thebes," all were slain, and Eteocles and
Polynices fell by each other's hands. Their uncle Creon forbade that the
bodies of men who had so ruined their country should receive funeral
honours from anyone on pain of death, thus condemning their shades to the
dreary flitting about on the banks of the Styx, so much dreaded. But
their sister Antigone, the noblest woman of Greek imagination, dared the
peril, stole forth at night, and gave burial alone to her two brothers.
She was found out, and put to death for her sisterly devotion, though
Creon's own son killed himself for grief and love of her. This happened
in the generation before the Trojan war, for Tydeus, the father of
Diomed, was one of the seven chiefs.
Macedon, the country northward of Greece, had one very droll legend.
Midas, king of the Bryges, at the foot of Mount Bermion, had a most
beautiful garden, full of all kinds of fruit. This was often stolen,
until he watched, and found the thief was old Silenus, the tutor of
Bacchus. Thereupon he filled with wine the fount where Silenus was used
to drink after his feast, and thus, instead of going away, the old god
fell asleep, and Midas caught him, and made him answer all his questions.
One was, "What is best for man?" and the answer was very sad, "What is
best for man is never to have been born. The second best is to die as
soon as may be." At last Silenus was released, on condition that he
would grant one wish, and this was that all that Midas touched should
turn to gold; and so it did, clothes, food, and everything the king took
hold of became solid gold, so that he found himself starving, and
entreated that the gift might be taken away. So he was told to bathe in
the river Pactolus, in Lydia, and the sands became full of gold dust;
but, in remembrance of his folly, his ears grew long like those of a
donkey. He hid them by wearing a tall Phrygian cap, and no one knew of
them but his barber, who was told he should be put to death if ever he
mentioned these ears. The barber was so haunted by the secret, that at
last he could not help relieving himself, by going to a clump of reeds
and whispering into them, "King Midas has the ears of an ass;" and
whenever the wind rustled in the reeds, those who went by might always
hear them in turn whisper to one another, "King Midas has the ears of an
ass." Some accounts say that it was for saying that Pan was a better
musician than Apollo that Midas had his ass's ears, and that it was Lydia
of which he was king; and this seems most likely, for almost as many
Greeks lived in the borders of Asia Minor as lived in Greece itself, and
there were many stories of the hills, cities, and rivers there, but I
have only told you what is most needful to be known--not, of course, to
be believed, but to be known.
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