When the day came which King OEneus had set, there was a wonderful
gathering of men at Calydon. The greatest heroes in the world were
there; and every one was fully armed, and expected to have fine sport
hunting the terrible wild boar. With the warriors from the south there
came a tall maiden armed with bow and arrows and a long hunting spear.
It was our friend Atalanta, the huntress.
"My daughters are having a game of ball in the garden," said old King
OEneus. "Wouldn't you like to put away your arrows and your spear, and
go and play with them?"
Atalanta shook her head and lifted her chin as if in disdain.
"Perhaps you would rather stay with the queen, and look at the women
spin and weave," said OEneus.
"No," answered Atalanta, "I am going with the warriors to hunt the wild
boar in the forest!"
How all the men opened their eyes! They had never heard of such a thing
as a girl going out with heroes to hunt wild boars.
"If she goes, then I will not," said one.
"Nor I, either," said another.
"Nor I," said a third. "Why, the whole world would laugh at us, and we
should never hear the end of it."
Several threatened to go home at once; and two brothers of Queen Althea,
rude, unmannerly fellows, loudly declared that the hunt was for heroes
and not for puny girls.
But Atalanta only grasped her spear more firmly and stood up, tall and
straight, in the gateway of the palace. Just then a handsome young man
came forward. It was Meleager.
"What's this?" he cried. "Who says that Atalanta shall not go to the
hunt? You are afraid that she'll be braver than you--that is all. Pretty
heroes you are! Let all such cowards go home at once."
But nobody went, and it was settled then and there that the maiden
should have her own way. And yet the brothers of Queen Althea kept on
muttering and complaining.
For nine days the heroes and huntsmen feasted in the halls of King
OEneus, and early on the tenth they set out for the forest. Soon the
great beast was found, and he came charging out upon his foes. The
heroes hid behind the trees or climbed up among the branches, for they
had not expected to see so terrible a creature. He stood in the middle
of a little open space, tearing up the ground with his tusks. The white
foam rolled from his mouth, his eyes glistened red like fire, and he
grunted so fiercely that the woods and hills echoed with fearful sounds.
[Illustration: YOU OUGHT TO HAVE SEEN THE TALL HUNTRESS MAIDEN THEN]
Then one of the bravest of the men threw his spear. But that only made
the beast fiercer than ever; he charged upon the warrior, caught him
before he could save himself, and tore him in pieces with his tusks.
Another man ventured too far from his hiding-place and was also
overtaken and killed. One of the oldest and noblest of the heroes
leveled his spear and threw it with all his force; but it only grazed
the boar's tough skin and glanced upward and pierced the heart of a
warrior on the other side. The boar was getting the best of the fight.
Atalanta now ran forward and threw her spear. It struck the boar in the
back, and a great stream of blood gushed out. A warrior let fly an arrow
which put out one of the beast's eyes. Then Meleager rushed up and
pierced his heart with his spear. The boar could no longer stand up; but
he fought fiercely for some moments, and then rolled over, dead.
The heroes then cut off the beast's head. It was as much as six of them
could carry. Then they took the skin from his great body and offered it
to Meleager as a prize, because he had given the death wound to the wild
boar. But Meleager said:
"It belongs to Atalanta, because it was she who gave him the very first
wound." And he gave it to her as the prize of honor.
You ought to have seen the tall huntress maiden then, as she stood among
the trees with the boar's skin thrown over her left shoulder and
reaching down to her feet. She had never looked so much like the queen
of the woods. But the rude brothers of Queen Althea were vexed to think
that a maiden should win the prize, and they began to make trouble. One
of them snatched Atalanta's spear from her hand, and dragged the prize
from her shoulders, and the other pushed her rudely and bade her go back
to Arcadia and live again with the she-bears on the mountain side. All
this vexed Meleager, and he tried to make his uncles give back the spear
and the prize, and stop their unmannerly talk. But they grew worse and
worse, and at last set upon Meleager, and would have killed him if he
had not drawn his sword to defend himself. A fight followed, and the
rude fellows struck right and left as though they were blind. Soon both
were stretched dead upon the ground. Some who did not see the fight said
that Meleager killed them, but I would rather believe that they killed
each other in their drunken fury.
And now all the company started back to the city. Some carried the
boar's huge head, and some the different parts of his body, while others
had made biers of the green branches, and bore upon them the dead bodies
of those who had been slain. It was indeed a strange procession.
A young man who did not like Meleager, had run on in front and had
reached the city before the rest of the company had fairly started.
Queen Althea was standing at the door of the palace, and when she saw
him she asked what had happened in the forest He told her at once that
Meleager had killed her brothers, for he knew that, with all their
faults, she loved them very dearly. It was terrible to see her grief.
She shrieked, and tore her hair, and rushed wildly about from room to
room. Her senses left her, and she did not know what she was doing.
It was the custom at that time for people to avenge the death of their
kindred, and her only thought was how to punish the murderer of her
brothers. In her madness she forgot that Meleager was her son. Then she
thought of the three Fates and of the unburned firebrand which she had
locked up in her chest so many years before. She ran and got the stick
and threw it into the fire that was burning on the hearth.
It kindled at once, and she watched it as it blazed up brightly. Then
it began to turn into ashes, and as the last spark died out, the noble
Meleager, who was walking by the side of Atalanta, dropped to the ground
dead.
When they carried the news to Althea she said not a word, for then she
knew what she had done, and her heart was broken. She turned silently
away and went to her own room. When the king came home a few minutes
later, he found her dead.
So ended the hunt in the wood of Calydon.