faces covered before her. With a wild cry she rushed to them, and 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 OEneus, "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,
foul wingless Furies, by the blood of my brothers yet wet upon his
hand, 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, OEneus, 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 OEneus 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, the blood froze in her veins.
"My son," she cried--"where is my son?"
"Lady," said OEneus, "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."
OEneus 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, loathsome shapes of darkness and of horror. With a cry he turned
aside, and tried to flee from them, but wherever he looked they were
there before him, and he reeled backwards and forwards 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 nought else she could do. Help lay so far away that he would have
died alone had she left him. 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; and the heart of each man of them was heavy within him as he
thought that the hero and saviour of his country was being carried
dead into the walls of his native town. 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.
[Illustration]
The Curse of Echo
In the flowery groves of Helicon Echo was once a fair nymph who, hand
in hand with her sisters, sported along the green lawns and by the
side of the mountain-streams. Among them all her feet were the
lightest and her laugh the merriest, and in the telling of tales not
one of them could touch her. So if ever any among them were plotting
mischief in their hearts, they would say to her,
"Echo, thou weaver of words, go thou and sit beside Hera in her bower,
and beguile her with a tale that she come not forth and find us. See
thou make it a long one, Echo, and we will give thee a garland to
twine in thy hair."
And Echo would laugh a gay laugh, which rang through the grove.
"What will you do when she tires of my tales?" she asked.
"When that time comes we shall see," said they.
So with another laugh she would trip away and cast herself on the
grass at Hera's feet. When Hera looked upon Echo her stern brow would
relax, and she would smile upon her and stroke her hair.
"What hast thou come for now, thou sprite?" she would ask.
"I had a great longing to talk with thee, great Hera," she would
answer, "and I have a tale--a wondrous new tale--to tell thee."
"Thy tales are as many as the risings of the sun, Echo, and each one
of them as long as an old man's beard."
"The day is yet young, mother," she would say, "and the tales I have
told thee before are as mud which is trampled underfoot by the side of
the one I shall tell thee now."
"Go to, then," said Hera, "and if it pleases me I will listen to the
end."
So Echo would sit upon the grass at Hera's feet, and with her eyes
fixed upon her face she would tell her tale. She had the gift of
words, and, moreover, she had seen and heard many strange things which
she alone could tell of. These she would weave into romances, adding
to them as best pleased her, or taking from them at will; for the best
of tale-tellers are those who can lie, but who mingle in with their
lies some grains of truth which they have picked from their own
experience. And Hera would forget her watchfulness and her jealousies,
and listen entranced, while the magic of Echo's words made each scene
live before her eyes. Meanwhile the nymphs would sport to their
hearts' content and never fear her anger.
But at last came the black day of reckoning when Hera found out the
prank which Echo had played upon her so long, and the fire of her
wrath flashed forth like lightning.
"The gift whereby thou hast deceived me shall be thine no more," she
cried. "Henceforward thou shalt be dumb till someone else has spoken,
and then, even if thou wilt, thou shalt not hold thy tongue, but must
needs repeat once more the last words that have been spoken."
"Alas! alas!" cried the nymphs in chorus.
"Alas! alas!" cried Echo after them, and could say no more, though she
longed to speak and beg Hera to forgive her. So did it come to pass
that she lost her voice, and could only say that which others put in
her mouth, whether she wished it or no.
Now, it chanced one day that the young Narcissus strayed away from his
companions in the hunt, and when he tried to find them he only
wandered further, and lost his way upon the lonely heights of Helicon.
He was now in the bloom of his youth, nearing manhood, and fair as a
flower in spring, and all who saw him straightway loved him and longed
for him. But, though his face was smooth and soft as maiden's, his
heart was hard as steel; and while many loved him and sighed for him,
they could kindle no answering flame in his breast, but he would spurn
them, and treat them with scorn, and go on his way, nothing caring.
When he was born, the blind seer Teiresias had prophesied concerning
him,
"So long as he sees not himself he shall live and be happy."
And his words came true, for Narcissus cared for neither man nor
woman, but only for his own pleasure; and because he was so fair that
all who saw him loved him for his beauty, he found it easy to get
from them what he would. But he himself knew nought of love, and
therefore but little of grief; for love at the best brings joy and
sorrow hand in hand, and if unreturned, it brings nought but pain.
Now, when the nymphs saw Narcissus wandering alone through the woods,
they, too, loved him for his beauty, and they followed him wherever he
went. But because he was a mortal they were shy of him, and would not
show themselves, but hid behind the trees and rocks so that he should
not see them; and amongst the others Echo followed him, too. At last,
when he found he had really wandered astray, he began to shout for one
of his companions.
"Ho, there! where art thou?" he cried.
"Where art thou?" answered Echo.
When he heard the voice, he stopped and listened, but he could hear
nothing more. Then he called again.
"I am here in the wood--Narcissus."
"In the wood--Narcissus," said she.
"Come hither," he cried.
"Come hither," she answered.
Wondering at the strange voice which answered him, he looked all
about, but could see no one.
"Art thou close at hand?" he asked.
"Close at hand," answered Echo.
Wondering the more at seeing no one, he went forward in the direction
of the voice. Echo, when she found he was coming towards her, fled
further, so that when next he called, her voice sounded far away. But
wherever she was, he still followed after her, and she saw that he
would not let her escape; for wherever she hid, if he called, she had
to answer, and so show him her hiding-place. By now they had come to
an open space in the trees, where the green lawn sloped down to a
clear pool in the hollow. Here by the margin of the water she stood,
with her back to the tall, nodding bulrushes, and as Narcissus came
out from the trees she wrung her hands, and the salt tears dropped
from her eyes; for she loved him, and longed to speak to him, and yet
she could not say a word. When he saw her he stopped.
"Art thou she who calls me?" he asked.
"Who calls me?" she answered.
"I have told thee, Narcissus," he said.
"Narcissus," she cried, and held out her arms to him.
"Who art thou?" he asked.
"Who art thou?" said she.
"Have I not told thee," he said impatiently, "Narcissus?"
"Narcissus," she said again, and still held out her hands
beseechingly.
"Tell me," he cried, "who art thou and why dost thou call me?"
"Why dost thou call me?" said she.
At this he grew angry.
"Maiden, whoever thou art, thou hast led me a pretty dance through the
woods, and now thou dost nought but mock me."
"Thou dost nought but mock me," said she.
At this he grew yet more angry, and began to abuse her, but every word
of abuse that he spoke she hurled back at him again. At last, tired
out with his wanderings and with anger, he threw himself on the grass
by the pool, and would not look at her nor speak to her again. For a
time she stood beside him weeping, and longing to speak to him and
explain, but never a word could she utter. So at last in her misery
she left him, and went and hid herself behind a rock close by. After a
while, when his anger had cooled down somewhat, Narcissus remembered
he was very thirsty, and noticing for the first time the clear pool
beside him, he bent over the edge of the bank to drink. As he held out
his hand to take the water, he saw looking up towards him a face which
was the fairest face he had ever looked on, and his heart, which never
yet had known what love was, at last was set on fire by the face in
the pool. With a sigh he held out both his arms towards it, and the
figure also held out two arms to him, and Echo from the rock answered
back his sigh. When he saw the figure stretching out towards him and
heard the sigh, he thought that his love was returned, and he bent
down closer to the water and whispered, "I love thee."
"I love thee," answered Echo from the rock.
At these words he bent down further, and tried to clasp the figure in
his arms, but as he did so, it vanished away. The surface of the pool
was covered with ripples, and he found he was clasping empty water to
his breast. So he drew back and waited awhile, thinking he had been
overhasty. In time, the ripples died away and the face appeared again
as clear as before, looking up at him longingly from the water. Once
again he bent towards it, and tried to clasp it, and once again it
fled from his embrace. Time after time he tried, and always the same
thing happened, and at last he gave up in despair, and sat looking
down into the water, with the teardrops falling from his eyes; and the
figure in the pool wept, too, and looked up at him with a look of
longing and despair. The longer he looked, the more fiercely did the
flame of love burn in his breast, till at length he could bear it no
more, but determined to reach the desire of his heart or die. So for
the last time he leaned forward, and when he found that once again he
was clasping the empty water, he threw himself from the bank into the
pool, thinking that in the depths, at any rate, he would find his
love. But he found naught but death among the weeds and stones of the
pool, and knew not that it was his own face he loved reflected in the
water below him. Thus were the words of the prophet fulfilled, "So
long as he sees not himself he shall live and be happy."
Echo, peeping out from the rock, saw all that had happened, and when
Narcissus cast himself into the pool, she rushed forward, all too
late, to stop him. When she found she could not save him, she cast
herself on the grass by the pool and wept and wept, till her flesh and
her bones wasted away with weeping, and naught but her voice remained
and the curse that was on her. So to this day she lives, a formless
voice haunting rocks and caves and vaulted halls. Herself no man has
seen since the day Narcissus saw her wringing her hands for love of
him beside the nodding bulrushes, and no man ever shall see again. But
her voice we all have heard repeating our words when we thought that
no one was by; and though now she will say whatever we bid her, if
once the curse were removed, the cry of her soul would be,
[Illustration: For the last time he leaned forward.]
"Narcissus, Narcissus, my love, come back--come back to me!"
By the side of the clear brown pool, on the grass that Echo had
watered with her tears, there sprang up a sweet-scented flower, with a
pure white face and a crown of gold. And to this day in many a land
men call that flower "Narcissus," after the lad who, for love of his
own fair face, was drowned in the waters of Helicon.
[Illustration]
The Sculptor and the Image
In the fair isle of Cyprus, long ago, lived a young sculptor named
Pygmalion. As a child he had been quick to see beauty in the forms
around him, and while he found nothing better, he would dig the clay
in the garden and sit for many a long hour happy in the shade of the
trees, modelling horses and cows and human figures, whilst his mother
was busied with her duties in the house. She, for her part, was glad
he had found something to amuse him and keep him out of mischief, for
he had no brothers or sisters to play with, and his father was dead,
so they two lived alone together in a great white house between the
mountains and the sea. From time to time she would come down into the
garden to look at his figures and praise them; for though they were
childish and crude, and sometimes grotesque, they were full of life
and promise, and being a wise woman, she knew that where Nature points
the way, it is well to make the road as smooth as may be. At first she
gave him no better material to work with than the clay he could dig
for himself, nor any master to teach him; for she wished to see how
long he would persevere, and how far he would get alone. There are
times, too, when a master can hinder more than he can teach.
One day when he was old enough, she took him down to the city below,
where the people were keeping the feast of Aphrodite, and they watched
the glad procession wind through the streets, with its choruses of
priests and maidens, and little children scattering roses in the way.
With the rest of the folk they followed the procession up the hill to
the shining temple, and Pygmalion stood beside his mother, and
wondered at the tapering white columns and the clouds of incense, and
all the colours and fair forms such as he had never seen before. The
picture of all these things he carried home in his mind, and thought
of them by day and dreamt of them by night, till they became almost as
real to him as the living forms he saw around him. Then he worked more
busily than ever at his modelling in the garden; but whereas before he
had been content to leave the figures he had made, standing them out
in rows for his mother to admire, now he was no longer pleased with
his work. He would look at the figure he had made and compare it with
the image in his mind, and he saw that while his ideal was fair and
beautiful beyond measure, his work was clumsy and rude. Then he would
set to work and alter his model. But whatever he did he was not
satisfied, and when his mother came down from the house to see him,
she found him with broken bits lying about him, and never a finished
figure to show her.
Then she knew that one of two things had happened; either he had come
to the limit of his powers, and, as a child will, had grown tired of a
thing in which he could make no further progress; or else he had
reached an age when the mind sees fair forms which the hand cannot
fashion, and in disgust at his failure he had broken up his figures,
though they were better than what he had done before, because they
fell short of the ideal in his mind.
"Thou art tired of playing with clay, my child," she said; "come with
me, and I will see if we cannot find something that will please thee
better."
So she kept him with her, and taught him letters, and read to him
tales of the gods and heroes, till the child's eyes grew big with
wonder, and she saw that all she read passed before his mind like a
moving picture. She read to him from the old Greek poets, tales of
bravery and might, of love and of adventure--tales, too, of cruelty
and bloodshed, jealousy and hate. But whatever she read was beautiful,
for the Greeks loved beauty above all things else, and clothed their
thoughts in fair forms of words, so that even when they told of
wickedness and wrong they left no stain of ugliness upon the mind.
Pygmalion drank in eagerly all that was read to him, and because he
had within him the soul of a poet he understood. The music of the
words sank into his heart like seed planted in a fertile soil, which
springs up to forms of loveliness and grace. So did the old tales
bring before his eyes shapes of beauty, and once again he began to go
down into the garden and try to mould them into figures of clay. His
mother watched him, and saw that he persevered, and that week by week
his models grew more beautiful and more true, as the image in his own
mind grew clearer. Then she knew that her reading had done what she
hoped it would do, and that the vague and fleeting visions had become
for him forms as clear as those he saw around him.
"At least my son has the soul of an artist," she thought, "but whether
he has the hands and the fingers of one who can do more than play with
the clay, the gods alone can tell. He shall have a master to teach
him, and in time we shall see whether he is one of the many in whom
the divine fire burns, but whose bodies are instruments too coarse to
carry out the thoughts of the soul, or whether he is one of the few
who are able to do that of which others vainly dream."
So she gave him a master--a white-haired, venerable man, in whom lived
the spirit of the old Greek sculptors, who had been the first to show
mankind how stone and marble might be wrought into shapes of beauty.
He taught the lad how to work in all kinds of stone and metal, and to
copy faithfully the forms he saw around him. But he would not let him
be satisfied with this alone, for he saw that he had in him the making
of better things.
"Pygmalion," he would say, "in life there are many things that are not
fair, but in art all things should be fair, and no art is truly great
that is not beautiful. When thou lookest on the world, see only that
which is beautiful; thou, because thou hast the soul of a poet, wilt
see beauty where others cannot find it. Drink it in as a thirsty man
will drink from the wayside stream, then give forth to the world, in
stone, copies of those ideal forms thou seest with the eye of thy soul
alone."
The child was an apt pupil; he understood, and did as his master bade
him.
As the years flew by, he grew to be a man and a great sculptor, so
that in the temples of the gods and the palaces of the rich his
statues stood, and at the corners of the streets, a joy to rich and
poor. The years, which had brought him to fame, had taken from him the
white-haired old man, his master, and the mother who had helped to
make him what he was; and now he lived alone in the great white house
between the mountains and the sea. But he was happy, perfectly happy,
working all day long at his images, and dreaming each night of fairer
forms that he would some day work into stone and marble. His friends
would come up from the town to look at his work, or to buy, and would
say to him,
"Pygmalion, art thou not lonely here, all alone? Why dost thou not
take thee a wife, and rear up children to be a comfort to thee in
thine old age?"
And he would answer, "No, I am not lonely, for my art is to me both
wife and children. I will never marry one of the daughters of men."
Whatever they said, they could not move him from his resolve. But what
his friends could not do Aphrodite accomplished. When she saw there
was one man among the Cyprians who had reached the prime of life
without giving her a thought, or offering up one prayer before her
shrine, she was angry, and determined that he should feel her power.
So one night she sent into his mind the vision of a maiden, who in
loveliness surpassed all other forms he had ever dreamed of, and she
set his heart aflame, so that he thought he saw a living form before
him. He started up in his bed and held out his arms towards her, but
awoke with a start to find he was clasping the empty air. Then he knew
it was only a vision he had seen; but it haunted him, and he tossed
restlessly from side to side, unable to sleep. At last he could bear
it no more; while the dawn was yet grey in the east he rose from his
couch and went to his workroom. Gathering together his instruments and
some clay, he set to work to model the figure of his dream. On and on
he worked, scarce thinking of food or rest, and chose out a block of
fair white marble, which day by day grew into shape beneath his
fingers. In his hand there seemed a magic it had never had before, so
that his chisel never failed nor slipped, till the marble stood
transformed before him, shaped into the image of a perfect woman, the
vision of his dream; and he loved her as other men love a woman in the
flesh, with his whole heart and soul. But small joy did he have of his
love, for though he had fashioned her with eyes that spoke to him of
love and hands held out towards him, yet when he spoke to her she
could give no answer, and when he clasped her in his arms her touch
was the cold, hard touch of marble. Then he tried to put her away from
his mind, and covered her over with a curtain; but when he was not
looking at the marble figure, her image was still present before his
mind, and he could not forget her. Day by day his love grew, till it
became a burning fever in his heart. He grew thin and ill from want of
food and rest, and could neither work by day nor sleep by night. His
friends, when they came up to see him, marvelled at the change in
him; and when they asked to see what new work he had done he would
answer,
"My friends, I have no new work to show you. The cunning has departed
from my hand. Never again shall I fashion the white marble into shapes
of beauty."