determined in his mind that no mere woman should surpass him in courage
and strength. The sons of Thestius, the queen’s brothers, especially
looked askance at her, and their hearts were filled with jealousy and
wrath; for there seemed no reason why she should not be a match for any
man among them, in a trial where swiftness of foot and sureness of eye
would avail as much as brute force. When Meleager saw their dark looks he
was very angry that they should so far forget their good breeding as to
fail in welcoming a guest, and he rose from his seat and went towards her.
“O maiden,” he said, “we make thee right welcome to our halls, and we
thank thee because thou hast heard our appeal, and art come to help us
in the day of our trouble. Come, now, and sit thee down, and make glad
thy heart with meat and wine, for thou must need it sorely after thy long
journeying.”
As he spoke, he took her by the hand and set her in a place of honor
between his father and himself, and saw that she had her fill of the good
fare on the board. As he sat beside her and talked with her, his heart
was kindled with love, for she was exceeding fair to look upon; and the
more he thought upon the morrow’s hunting, the more loath was he that she
should risk her life in it. At length he said:
“Atalanta, surely thou knowest not what manner of beast it is that we are
gathered together to destroy. Thou hast hunted the swift-footed stag,
perchance, through the greenwood, but never a monster so fierce as this
boar that Diana has sent against us. I tell thee, it will be no child’s
play, but a matter of death to some of us. Hast thou no mother or father
to mourn thee if any evil chance befall, or any lover who is longing for
thy return? Think well ere it be too late.”
But she laughed aloud at his words. “Thou takest me for some drooping
damsel that sits at home and spins, and faints if she see but a drop
of blood. I tell thee, I know neither father, nor mother, nor husband,
nor brother, and I love but little the lot of womenkind. Never have
I lived within four walls, and the first roof that covered me was
the forest-trees of Mount Parthenius. Whence I came or how I got to
Parthenius no one can tell, and I have no wish to find out. As for savage
beasts, had I not the eyes of a hawk and the feet of a deer, I had not
been safe ten seconds on the uplands of Arcadia. For there dwells a
fierce tribe of centaurs—monsters half human and half horse—who have the
passions of men and the strength of beasts. These pursued me over hill
and dale, and I fled like the wind before them; but ever and anon I found
time to turn and let fly from my bow a dart which fell but seldom short
of the mark. So that after a time they gave up in despair, and molested
me no more. So talk not to me of fierce beasts or of danger.”
And nothing that Meleager could say would turn her from her purpose. But
across the board he saw the eyes of Toxeus and Plexippus, his mother’s
brothers, fixed upon him, and their brows were dark and lowering as they
frowned upon him and Atalanta. So he said no more, lest they should
discover his secret and taunt him. As for Atalanta, a stone would have
returned his love as readily as she. For a companion in the hunt she
liked him full well, but to give up her maiden life for his sake was as
far from her thoughts as the east is from the west.
When the morrow dawned, great was the bustle and confusion in the
court of the palace, where all were to meet together for the hunting
of the boar. Attendants ran this way and that to fetch and carry for
their masters, and, as the huntsman blew his horn, the hounds barked
impatiently, and strained, whining, at their leashes. At length, when all
was ready, Althæa with her maidens came forth into the portico, and bade
farewell to her guests, her husband, her brothers, and to Meleager, her
son. “God speed thee, my son,” she said, as she looked proudly on him,
“and good luck to thy hunting.”
Then she stood on the step and waved to them with a smile as they turned
to look back at her before the curve of the roadway hid them from sight.
But though a smile was on her lips, her eyes were full of tears, and her
heart within her was dark with a dim foreshadowing of evil. With a heavy
step, she turned and went into the house, and as she passed the altar by
the hearth she stopped and bowed her head. “Great Diana,” she prayed,
“have mercy and bring my loved ones safely back to me this day.”
Then she went to her chamber and drew forth from its hiding-place the
half-burnt brand on which her son’s life depended. “His life, at any
rate, is safe,” she thought, “so long as this brand is in my keeping.”
And she hid it away again where she knew no one could find it, and set
to work restlessly, to while away the hours as best she could, till the
hunters should come home.
They, meanwhile, had gone their way up the steep path which led into the
mountains and deep into the heart of the forest, where they knew their
prey was lurking. Soon they came upon the track of his hoofs leading to
the dry bed of a stream, where the rushes and reeds grew high in the
marsh-land, and the bending willows cast their shadow over the spot he
had chosen for his lair. Here they spread the nets cautiously about,
and stationed themselves at every point of vantage, and, when all was
ready, let loose the hounds, and waited for the boar to come forth from
his hiding-place. Not long did they have to wait. With a snort of rage
he rushed out. The breath from his nostrils came forth like steam, and
the white foam flew from his mouth and covered his bristly sides and
neck. Quick as lightning, he made for the first man he could see, and
the tramp of his hoofs re-echoed through the woods like thunder as he
came upon the hard ground. As soon as he rushed out, a shower of missiles
fell towards him from every side, but some were aimed awry or fell too
far or too short of him, and those that touched him slipped aside on his
tough hide; and he broke through the nets that had been spread to catch
him, and galloped away unharmed, whilst two of the hunters, who stood in
his path, and had not been able to rush aside in time, lay groaning on
the ground with the iron mark of his hoof upon them. When the rest saw
that he had escaped they gave chase with all speed, headed by Castor and
Pollux, on their white horses, and Atalanta close beside them, running
swiftly as the wind. Ahead of them the woodland track gave a sudden turn
to the left, and the boar, rushing blindly forward, would have plunged
into the undergrowth and bushes, and escaped beyond range of their darts.
But Atalanta, seeing what must happen, stopped short in the chase. Quick
as thought, she put an arrow to the string, and let fly at the great
beast ahead; and Diana, true to her word, guided the arrow so that it
pierced him in the vital part behind the ear. With a snort of pain and
fury, he turned round upon the hunters and charged down towards them as
they came up from behind, and great would have been the havoc he had
wrought among them but for Meleager. As the brute bore down, he leaped
lightly to one side, and, gathering together all his strength, buried the
spear deep into the beast’s black shoulder, and felled him to the earth
with the force of his blow. Immediately the others gathered round, and
helped to finish the work that Meleager had begun, and soon the monster
lay dead upon the ground.
Then Meleager, with his foot upon the boar’s head, spoke to the hunters.
“My friends,” he said, “I thank you all for the courage and devotion you
have shown this day. My land can once more raise her head in joy, for
the monster that wrought such havoc in her fields lies dead here at my
feet. Yet the price of his death has not been light, my friends.” And
they bowed their heads in silence, as they remembered the two whom the
boar had struck in his rush, one of whom was now dead. “Yet those who
have suffered, have suffered gloriously, giving up themselves, as brave
men must, for the sake of others, and their names shall surely not be
unremembered by us all. Once more, my trusty comrades, I thank you, every
man of you. As for thee, lady,” he continued, turning to Atalanta, “while
all have played their part, yet the glory of the hunt is thine. But for
thy sure hand and eye the beast might yet be lurking in the forest.
Wherefore, as a token of our gratitude, I will give to thee the boar’s
head as a trophy to do with as thou wilt.”
At his words a murmur of applause went round the ring of them that
listened. Only the voices of Toxeus and Plexippus were not heard, for
they were mad with jealousy and wrath, and as soon as there was silence
they spoke.
“By what right,” asked Toxeus, “shall one bear off the trophy of a hunt
in which each one of us has played his part?”
The insolence of his words and looks roused the anger of Meleager to
boiling-point. All through the hunt the brothers had shown scant courtesy
to Atalanta, and now their rudeness was past bearing.
“By the same right as the best man bears off the prize in any contest,”
he answered quietly, though he was pale with rage.
“Happy is that one who has first won the heart of the judge, then,” said
Plexippus with a sneer, as he looked at Atalanta.
By the truth and the falsehood of his words Meleager was maddened past
all bearing. Scarce knowing what he did, he sprang upon him, and before
anyone knew what he was about, he had buried his hunting-knife in the
heart of Plexippus. When Toxeus saw his brother fall back upon the
grass, he sprang upon Meleager, and for a moment they swung backwards
and forwards, held each in the other’s deadly grip. But Meleager was the
younger and the stronger of the two, and soon Toxeus too lay stretched
upon the ground beside his brother, and a cry of horror went through the
crowd of those who stood by. Pale and trembling, Meleager turned towards
them.
“My friends,” he said, “farewell. You shall look upon my face no more.
Whether I slew them justly or no, the curse of Heaven is upon me, and I
know that night and day the Furies will haunt my steps, because my hand
is red with the blood of my kinsmen. O fair fields of Calydon, that I
have loved and served all my days, farewell for ever. Never more shall I
look upon you, nor my home on the steep hill-side, nor the face of the
queen, my mother; but I must hide my head in shame far from the haunts of
men. As for thee, lady,” he said, turning to Atalanta, “their taunt was
false, yet true. Right honorably didst thou win the trophy, as all these
here will testify;” and he pointed to the hunters standing round. “Yet my
soul leapt with joy when I found that into thine hand and none other’s I
might give the prize of the hunt. Wherefore, think kindly on my memory,
lady, when I am far away, for a brave man’s heart is in thy keeping.
Farewell.”
And he turned and went away by the forest-path. So surprised were all the
company that no man moved hand or foot to stop him. The first to speak
was Atalanta. “Comrades,” she said, “do you bear home the dead and break
the news as gently as may be to the queen, and I will follow him, if
perchance I can comfort him, for the hand of Heaven is heavy upon him.”
The rumor had reached the city that the boar had been killed, but not
without loss among the gallant band that had gone out against him, and
with a heavy heart Althæa was waiting to know who it was that had fallen.
In time she saw them returning home, and in their midst four litters
carried on the shoulders of some. When she saw them, her heart stood
still with fear, and as they came up and laid down the litters before
the doorway she was as one turned to marble, and moved neither hand nor
foot. When Œneus the king saw her, he took her gently by the hand. “Come
within, lady,” he said; “the hunting of the boar has cost us dear.”
“Ah! tell me the worst at once,” she cried. “I can bear it better so. The
suspense is maddening me.”
“Two of those who lie before thee are strangers who have given themselves
for us,” he said. “One of them is sore wounded, and the other is gone
beyond recovery. The other two, Althæa, are very near and dear to
us—Toxeus and Plexippus, thy brothers.”
And he pointed to two of the bodies which lay side by side before her,
with their faces covered. With a cry she drew back the coverings, and
gazed upon the faces that she loved so well. As she looked, she saw the
wounds that had killed them, and she knew now that it was no wild beast
that had slain them, but the hand of man. Drawing herself up to her full
height, she looked round on those who stood by, and the gleam of her eyes
was terrible to see. “Deceive me no more,” she said, “but tell me how
these two came to fall by the hand of man.”
“Lady,” said Œneus, “they sought a quarrel with one of our company, and
in anger he slew them both.”
For a moment she was silent, then in a low voice, yet one that all could
hear, she spoke. “My curse be upon him, whosoe’er he be. O Daughters
of Destruction, wingless Furies, I bid you track his footsteps night
and day. May no roof cover his head nor any man give him food or drink,
but let him be a vagabond on the face of the earth till just vengeance
overtake him. On thee, Œneus, do I lay this charge, and on my son
Meleager, to avenge the death of these my kinsmen, who have been foully
slain.”
In vain did Œneus try to stop her. She was as one deaf to his entreaties.
When she had finished, she looked round for Meleager, and when she could
not see him, she cried—“where is my son?”
“Lady,” said Œneus, “even now the wingless bearers of thy curse are
hunting him through the forest.”
For a moment she swayed to and fro as though she would fall. “Ye gods,
what have I done?” she muttered.
Then with a cry she turned and rushed through the doorway, across the
deserted palace to her own chamber, and barring the door behind her, she
took from its hiding-place the brand she had kept jealously so long. As
on the day when the Fates had come to her, a bright fire was burning on
the hearth, and deep into the heart of it she pushed the log with both
her hands.
“O my son, my son!” she cried; “to think that I should come to this! But
though the flame that devours thy life burns out my heart within me, yet
must I do it. Thus only can I save thee from my curse. For the word, once
spoken, never dies, and the Furies, once aroused, sleep never, night nor
day. Wherefore Death alone can give thee peace, O Meleager, my first-born
and my dearest.”
Œneus meanwhile had followed her, and stood without, asking her to open
to him. But she cried out to him:
“All is well. I beg thee leave me. I would be alone.”
So he left her; and she stood watching the flames slowly eat the wood
away, and at last, when the log fell apart in ashes, she sank down upon
the floor, and with her son’s life hers too went out for grief.
Meleager meanwhile had gone blindly forward along the forest track, and
from afar Atalanta followed him. For a time he went onward, straight as
an arrow, never stopping, never turning. But when his mother’s curse
was spoken, faster than the whirlwind the Furies flew from the realms
of endless night, and came and crouched before his feet. With a cry he
turned aside, and tried to flee from them, but wherever he looked they
were there before him, and he reeled backward and forward like a drunken
man. But soon his strength seemed to give way, and he fell forward on the
grass, and Atalanta ran forward and took his head upon her knee. To her
eyes they two were alone in the heart of the forest, for the foul shapes
of the Furies he alone had seen. But now he lay with his eyes closed,
faint and weak, and she thought that some time in the hunt he must have
strained himself, and lay dying of some inward hurt that no man could
heal, for on his body she could see not a scratch. So she sat in the
gathering gloom with his head upon her lap. There was naught else she
could do. At last, when his heart beat so faint that she thought it had
stopped once for all, he opened his eyes and looked up at her, and when
he saw her the fear and the madness died out of his face, and he smiled.
“The gods are kind,” he said. Once more he closed his eyes, and Atalanta
knew that he would open them never again. Gently she laid him with his
head on the moss-covered roots of a tree, and sped away to the city
to bear the news of his death. In the darkness of night they bore him
through the forest, and all the people gathered together and watched from
the walls the torchlit procession as it came slowly up the hill. By the
side of his mother they laid him, and burned above them the torches of
the dead, and the mourners, with heads bowed in grief, stood around.
Thus did it come to pass that the hunting of the boar ended in grief for
the land of Calydon, and Atalanta went back to the Arcadian woodlands
with a sore place in her heart for Meleager, who had died happy because
his head was resting on her knee.
THE WINNING OF ATALANTA
By Elsie Finnimore Buckley
Once upon a time there ruled in Arcadian Tegea a proud-hearted king named
Schœnus. A tamer of horses was he, and a man mighty in the hunt and in
battle. Above every other thing he loved danger and sport and all kinds
of manly exercise. Indeed, these things were the passion of his life,
and he despised all womenkind because they could take no part nor lot in
them. And he wedded Clymene, a fair princess of a royal house, because he
wished to raise up noble sons in his halls, who should ride and hunt with
him, and carry on his name when he was dead. On his wedding-day he swore
a great oath, and called upon all the gods to witness it.
“Never,” he swore in his pride, “shall a maid child live in my halls. If
a maid is born to me, she shall die ere her eyes see the light, and the
honor of my house shall rest upon my sons alone.”
For many a long year no child was born to him, and when at last he had
hopes of an heir, the babe that was born was a maid. When he saw the
child his heart was cut in two, and the pride of a father and the pride
of his oath did battle within him for victory.
The pride of his oath conquered, for he was afraid to break his word in
the face of all his people. He hardened his heart, and gave orders that
the child should be cast out upon the mountains to die of hunger and
cold. So the babe was given to a servant, who bore it forth and left it
on the slope of bleak Parthenium.
When Diana, the maiden goddess, saw the child cast forth to die, she
was filled with anger against Schœnus, and swore that it should live.
Wherefore she sent a she-bear to the place where the child lay, and
softened the heart of the beast, so that she lifted it gently in her
mouth and bore it to the cave where her own cubs lay hid. There she
suckled it with her own young ones, and tended it night and day, till it
grew strong and could walk, and the cave rang with its laughter as it
played and gambolled with the young bears. When Diana knew that the child
was old enough to live without its foster-mother, she sent her nymphs to
fetch it away, and when they bore it to her she was well pleased to find
it fair and strong.
“Her name shall be Atalanta,” she said to them. “She shall dwell on the
mountains and in the woods of Arcadia, and be one of my band with you. A
mighty huntress shall she be, and the swiftest of all mortals upon earth;
and in time she shall return to her own folk and bring joy and sorrow to
their hearts.”
Thus it came to pass that Atalanta lived with the nymphs in the woodlands
of Arcadia. They taught her to run and to hunt, and to shoot with bow and
arrows, till soon the day came when she could do these things as well as
any of their band. Diana loved her, and delighted to do her honor; and
when the land of Calydon cried to her for mercy, because of the boar she
had sent to ravage it in her wrath, she decreed that none but Atalanta
should have the glory of that hunt. The tale of how she came to Calydon,
and how the boar was slain at last through her, I have told you before;
and of how death came to Meleager, because he loved her, and would not
let any man insult her while he stood idly by. By the fame of that hunt
her name was carried far and wide through Greece, so that when she came
to the funeral games of Pelias there was no need to ask who she was. She
ran in the foot race against the swiftest in the land, and won the prize
so easily that when she reached the goal the first man had scarce passed
the turning-point, though he was no sluggard to make a mock of. When the
games were over, she went back to Arcadia without a tear or a sigh, but
her face and her memory lived in the heart of many a man whose very name
she had not known.
The tale of how Atalanta went back to her own folk, and of how she was
wooed and won, is as follows:
One day, when King Schœnus held a great hunt in the forest on the edge of
his domain, it chanced that Atalanta had come to those parts; and when
she heard the blare of the bugles and the barking of the hounds her heart
leapt with joy. Full often had she joined in a hunt on the uplands of
Arcadia, and run with the hounds.
So now she joined in the chase as the stag broke loose from cover, and
her white feet flashed in the sunlight as she followed the hounds across
the open moorland. King Schœnus, when he saw her, was glad.
“It is Atalanta, the maiden huntress,” he cried. “See that she be treated
with due courtesy, for she is the only woman on earth who is fit to look
a man in the face.”
And he rode eagerly after her. But the best horse in all that company was
no match for Atalanta. Far ahead of them all she shot, like an arrow from
the bow, and when at last the stag turned at bay in a pool, she was the
first to reach him. When the rest had come up, and the huntsman had slain
the stag, the king turned to her.
“Atalanta,” he said, “the trophy of this chase is thine, and my huntsman
shall bear the head of the stag whithersoever thou shalt bid him. In
token of our esteem, I beg thee to accept this ring. When thou lookest
upon it, think kindly of an old man whose heart is lonely, and who would
fain have a daughter like thee.”
As he spoke he drew off a gold ring from his finger and held it towards
her; the tears stood in his eyes and his hand shook as he looked on her
fair young form, and remembered the babe he had cast out on the mountains
to die. If she had lived she would have been at an age with Atalanta, and
perchance as fair and as strong as she; and his heart was bitter against
himself for the folly of his oath.
When Atalanta heard his words, she had a mind at first to refuse his
gift. Many a man before had offered her gifts, and she had refused them
every one; for she had no wish to be beholden to any man. But when she
saw the eyes of the old king dim with tears, and how his hand shook as
he held out the ring, her heart was softened, and yearned with a strange
yearning towards him. Coming forward, she knelt at his feet and took the
ring, and held his hand and kissed it.
“May the gods grant the prayer of thy heart, sire,” she said, “and give
thee a daughter like unto me, but fairer and more wise than I!”
As he looked down on the hand that held his own the old king trembled
more violently than before, for above the wrist was a birthmark like
the birthmark above the wrist of the babe he had cast forth to die. And
he knew that he made no mistake, for that mark had lived in his mind as
though it had been branded with red-hot steel.
“Atalanta,” he said, “the gods have heard thy prayer. This is not the
first time thy fingers have closed about mine.”
“What meanest thou, sire?” she asked.
“As many years ago as the span of thy young life,” he said, “I held in
my arms a new-born babe, the child that the gods had given me, and its
little hand with a birthmark above the wrist closed about my finger
trustfully. But because of my foolish pride I hardened my heart. I cast
away the gift of the gods and sent the child to die upon the mountains.
But the birthmark on its wrist was branded on my brain so that I could
not forget it. Never till this day have I seen that mark again, and now I
see it on thy wrist, my child.”
He bowed his head as he spoke, and the tears from his eyes fell upon her
hand, which lay in his as she knelt before him.
“Oh, my father!” she cried, and bent forward and kissed his hand.
When he found that she did not turn from him, though she knew what he had
done, he was more deeply moved than before. “Atalanta,” he said, “when I
cast thee forth to die, I gave back to the gods the life they had given
me, and now I have no right to claim it again. Yet would thy presence be
as sunshine in my halls if thou wert to come back to me, my child.”
Thus did the call come to Atalanta to return to her own folk, and the
choice lay before her. On the one side was her free life in the forest,
with Diana and her nymphs, the hunt, the fresh air, and all the things
that she loved; on the other was life within the walls of a city, and
the need to bow her head to the customs and the ways of men. Her heart
misgave her when she thought of it.