Pentheus here exclaimed, "We have wasted time enough on this

silly story. Take him away and have him executed without delay."

Acetes was led away by the attendants and shut up fast in prison;

but while they were getting ready the instruments of execution,

the prison doors opened of their own accord and the chains fell

from his limbs, and when the guards looked for him he was no

where to be found.

Pentheus would take no warning, but instead of sending others,

determined to go himself to the scene of the solemnities. The

mountain Cithaeron was all alive with worshippers, and the cries

of the Bacchanals resounded on every side. The noise roused the

anger of Pentheus as the sound of a trumpet does the fire of a

war-horse. He penetrated the wood and reached an open space

where the wildest scene of the orgies met his eyes. At the same

moment the women saw him; and first among them his own mother,

Agave, blinded by the god, cried out, "See there the wild boar,

the hugest monster that prowls in these woods! Come on, sisters!

I will be the first to strike the wild boar." The whole band

rushed upon him, and while he now talks less arrogantly, now

excuses himself, and now confesses his crime and implores pardon,

they press upon and wound him. In vain he cries to his aunts to

protect him from his mother. Autonoe seized one arm, Ino the

other, and between them he was torn to pieces, while his mother

shouted, "Victory! Victory! We have done it; the glory is

ours!"

So the worship of Bacchus was established in Greece.

There is an allusion to the story of Bacchus and the mariners in

Milton's Comus, at line 46. The story of Circe will be found in

Chapter XXII.

"Bacchus that first from out the purple grape

Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,

After the Tuscan mariners transformed,

Coasting the Tyrrhene shore as the winds listed

On Circe's island fell; (who knows not Circe,

The daughter of the Sun? Whose charmed cup

Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,

And downward fell into a grovelling swine.)"

ARIADNE

We have seen in the story of Theseus how Ariadne, the daughter of

King Minos, after helping Theseus to escape from the labyrinth,

was carried by him to the island of Naxos and was left there

asleep, while Theseus pursued his way home without her. Ariadne,

on waking and finding herself deserted, abandoned herself to

grief. But Venus took pity on her, and consoled her with the

promise that she should have an immortal lover, instead of the

mortal one she had lost.

The island where Ariadne was left was the favorite island of

Bacchus, the same that he wished the Tyrrhenian mariners to carry

him to, when they so treacherously attempted to make prize of

him. As Ariadne sat lamenting her fate, Bacchus found her,

consoled her and made her his wife as Minerva had prophesied to

Theseus. As a marriage present he gave her a golden crown,

enriched with gems, and when she died, he took her crown and

threw it up into the sky. As it mounted the gems grew brighter

and were turned into stars, and preserving its form Ariadne's

crown remains fixed in the heavens as a constellation, between

the kneeling Hercules and the man who holds the serpent.

Spenser alludes to Ariadne's crown, though he has made some

mistakes in his mythology. It was at the wedding of Pirithous,

and not Theseus, that the Centaurs and Lapithae quarrelled.

"Look how the crown which Ariadne wore

Upon her ivory forehead that same day

That Theseus her unto his bridal bore,

When the bold Centaurs made that bloody fray

With the fierce Lapiths which did them dismay;

Being now placed in the firmament,

Through the bright heaven doth her beams display,

And is unto the stars an ornament,

Which round about her move in order excellent."

Chapter XV

The Rural Deities. Erisichthon. Rhoecus. The Water Deities.

Camenae. Winds.

Pan, the god of woods and fields, of flocks and shepherds, dwelt

in grottos, wandered on the mountains and in valleys, and amused

himself with the chase or in leading the dances of the nymphs.

He was fond of music, and, as we have seen, the inventor of the

syrinx, or shepherd's pipe, which he himself played in a masterly

manner. Pan, like other gods who dwelt in forests, was dreaded

by those whose occupations caused them to pass through the woods

by night, for the gloom and loneliness of such scenes dispose the

mind to superstitious fears. Hence sudden fright without any

visible cause was ascribed to Pan, and called a Panic terror.

As the name of the god signifies in Greek, ALL, Pan came to be

considered a symbol of the universe and personification of

Nature; and later still to be regarded as a representative of all

the gods, and heathenism itself.

Sylvanus and Faunus were Latin divinities, whose characteristics

are so nearly the same as those of Pan that we may safely

consider them as the same personage under different names.

The wood-nymphs, Pan's partners in the dance, were but one of

several classes of nymphs. There were beside them the Naiads,

who presided over brooks and fountains, the Oreads, nymphs of

mountains and grottos, and the Nereids, sea-nymphs. The three

last named were immortal, but the wood-nymphs, called Dryads or

Hamadryads, were believed to perish with the trees which had been

their abode, and with which they had come into existence. It was

therefore an impious act wantonly to destroy a tree, and in some

aggravated cases was severely punished, as in the instance of

Erisichthon, which we shall soon record.

Milton, in his glowing description of the early creation, thus

alludes to Pan as the personification of Nature:

"Universal Pan,

Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,

Led on the eternal spring."

And describing Eve's abode:

"In shadier bower

More sacred or sequestered, though but feigned,

Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor nymph

Nor Faunus haunted."

Paradise lost, B. IV.

It was a pleasing trait in the old Paganism that it loved to

trace in every operation of nature the agency of deity. The

imagination of the Greeks peopled all the regions of earth and

sea with divinities, to whose agency it attributed those

phenomena which our philosophy ascribes to the operation of the

laws of nature. Sometimes in our poetical moods we feel disposed

to regret the change, and to think that the heart has lost as

much as the head has gained by the substitution. The poet

Wordsworth thus strongly expresses this sentiment:

"Great God, I'd rather be

A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn.

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from th4e sea,

And hear old Tritou blow his wreathed horn."

Schiller, in his poem The Gods of Greece, expresses his regret

for the overthrow of the beautiful mythology of ancient times in

a way which has called forth an answer from a Christian poetess,

Mrs. Browning, in her poem called The Dead Pan. The two

following verses are a specimen:

"By your beauty which confesses

Some chief Beauty conquering you,

By our grand heroic guesses

Through your falsehood at the True,

We will weep NOT! Earth shall roll

Heir to each god's aureole,

And Pan is dead.

"Earth outgrows the mythic fancies

Sung beside her in her youth;

And those debonaire romances

Sound but dull beside the truth.

Phoebus' chariot course is run!

Look up poets, to the sun!

Pan, Pan is dead."

These lines are founded on an early Christian tradition that when

the heavenly host told the shepherds at Bethlehem of the birth of

Christ, a deep groan, heard through all the isles of Greece, told

that the great Pan was dead, and that all the royalty of Olympus

was dethroned, and the several deities were sent wandering in

cold and darkness. So Milton, in his Hymn to the Nativity:

"The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;

From haunted spring and dale,

Edged with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent;

With flower-enwoven tresses torn,

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn."

ERISICHTHON

Erisichthon was a profane person and a despiser of the gods. On

one occasion he presumed to violate with the axe a grove sacred

to Ceres. There stood in this grove a venerable oak, so large

that it seemed a wood in itself, its ancient trunk towering

aloft, whereon votive garlands were often hung and inscriptions

carved expressing the gratitude of suppliants to the nymph of the

tree. Often had the Dryads danced round it hand in hand. Its

trunk measured fifteen cubits round, and it overtopped the other

trees as they overtopped the shrubbery. But for all that,

Erisichthon saw no reason why he should spare it, and he ordered

his servants to cut it down. When he saw them hesitate, he

snatched an axe from one, and thus impiously exclaimed, :"I care

not whether it be a tree beloved of the Goddess or not; were it

the goddess herself it should come down, if it stood in my way."

So saying, he lifted the axe, and the oak seemed to shudder and

utter a groan. When the first blow fell upon the trunk, blood

flowed from the wound. All the bystanders were horror-struck,

and one of them ventured to remonstrate and hold back the fatal

axe. Erisichthon with a scornful look, said to him, "Receive the

reward of your piety;" and turned against him the weapon which he

had held aside from the tree, gashed his body with many wounds,

and cut off his head. Then from the midst of the oak came a

voice, "I who dwell in this tree am a nymph beloved of Ceres, and

dying by your hands, forewarn you that punishment awaits you."

He desisted not from his crime, and at last the tree, sundered by

repeated blows and drawn by ropes, fell with a crash, and

prostrated a great part of the grove in its fall.

The Dryads, in dismay at the loss of their companion, and at

seeing the pride of the forest laid low, went in a body to Ceres,

all clad in garments of mourning, and invoked punishment upon

Erisichthon. She nodded her assent, and as she bowed her head

the grain ripe for harvest in the laden fields bowed also. She

planned a punishment so dire that one would pity him, if such a

culprit as he could be pitied to deliver him over to Famine.

As Ceres herself could not approach Famine, for the Fates have

ordained that these two goddesses shall never come together, she

called an Oread from her mountain and spoke to her in these

words: "There is a place in the farthest part of ice-clad

Scythia, a sad and sterile region without trees and without

crops. Cold dwells there, and Fear, and Shuddering, and Famine.

Go to Famine and tell her to take possession of the bowels of

Erisichthon. Let not abundance subdue her, nor the power of my

gifts drive her away. Be not alarmed at the distance," (for

Famine dwells very far from Ceres,) "but take my chariot. The

dragons are fleet and obey the rein, and will take you through

the air in a short time." So she gave her the reins, and she

drove away and soon reached Scythia. On arriving at Mount

Caucasus she stopped the dragons and found Famine in a stony

field, pulling up with teeth and claws the scanty herbage. Her

hair was rough, her eyes sunk, her face pale, her lips blanched,

her jaws covered with dust, and her skin drawn tight, so as to

show all her bones. As the Oread saw her afar off (for she did

not dare to come near) she delivered the commands of Ceres; and

though she stopped as short a time as possible, and kept her

distance as well as she could, yet she began to feel hungry, and

turned the dragons' heads and drove back to Thessaly.

In obedience to the commands of Ceres, Famine sped through the

air to the dwelling of Erisichthon, entered the bed-chamber of

the guilty man, and found him asleep. She enfolded him with her

wings and breathed herself into him, infusing her poison into his

veins. Having discharged her task, she hastened to leave the

land of plenty and returned to her accustomed haunts.

Erisichthon still slept, and in his dreams craved food, and moved

his jaws as if eating. When he awoke his hunger was raging.

Without a moment's delay he would have food set before him, of

whatever kind earth, sea, or air produces; and complained of

hunger even while he ate. What would have sufficed for a city or

a nation was not enough for him. The more he ate, the move he

craved. His hunger was like the sea, which receives all the

rivers, yet is never filled; or like fire that burns all the fuel

that is heaped upon it, yet is still voracious for more.

His property rapidly diminished under the unceasing demands of

his appetite, but his hunger continued unabated. At length he

had spent all, and had only his daughter left, a daughter worthy

of a better parent. HER TOO HE SOLD. She scorned to be the

slave of a purchaser, and as she stood by the seaside, raised her

hands in prayer to Neptune. He heard her prayer, and, though her

new master was not far off, and had his eye upon her a moment

before, Neptune changed her form, and made her assume that of a

fisherman busy at his occupation. Her master, looking for her

and seeing her in her altered form, addressed her and said, "Good

fisherman, whither went the maiden whom I saw just now, with hair

dishevelled and in humble garb, standing about where you stand?

Tell me truly; so may your luck be good, and not a fish nibble at

your hook and get away." She perceived that her prayer was

answered, and rejoiced inwardly at hearing the question asked her

of herself. She replied, "Pardon me, stranger, but I have been

so intent upon my line, that I have seen nothing else; but I wish

I may never catch another fish if I believe any woman or other

person except myself to have been hereabouts for some time." He

was deceived and went his way, thinking his slave had escaped.

Then she resumed her own form. Her father was well pleased to

find her still with him, and the money too that he got by the

sale of her; so he sold her again. But she was changed by the

favor of Neptune as often as she was sold, now into a horse, now

a bird, now an ox, and now a stag, got away from her purchasers

and came home. By this base method the starving father procured

food; but not enough for his wants, and at last hunger compelled

him to devour his limbs, and he strove to nourish his body by

eating his body, till death relieved him from the vengeance of

Ceres.

RHOECUS

The Hamadryads could appreciate services as well as punish

injuries. The story of Rhoecus proves this. Rhoecus, happening

to see an oak just ready to fall, ordered his servants to prop it

up. The nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the

tree, came and expressed her gratitude to him for having saved

her life, and bade him ask what reward he would have for it.

Rhoecus boldly asked her love, and the nymph yielded to his

desire. She at the same time charged him to be constant, and

told him that a bee should be her messenger, and let him know

when she would admit his society. One time the bee came to

Rhoecus when he was playing at draughts, and he carelessly

brushed it away. This so incensed the nymph that she deprived

him of sight.

Our countryman, James Russell Lowell, has taken this story for

the subject of one of his shorter poems. He introduces it thus:

"Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece,

As full of freedom, youth and beauty still,

As the immortal freshness of that grace

Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze."

THE WATER DEITIES

Oceanus and Tethys were the Titans who ruled over the Sea. When

Jove and his brothers overthrew the Titans and assumed their

power, Neptune and Amphitrite succeeded to the dominion of the

waters in place of Oceanus and Tethys.

NEPTUNE

Neptune was the chief of the water deities. The symbol of his

power was the trident, or spear with three points, with which he

used to shatter rocks, to call forth or subdue storms, to shake

the shores, and the like. He created the horse, and was the

patron of horse races. His own horses had brazen hoofs and

golden manes. They drew his chariot over the sea, which became

smooth before him, while the monsters of the deep gambolled about

his path.

AMPHITRITE

Amphitrite was the wife of Neptune. She was the daughter of

Nereus and Doris, and the mother of Triton. Neptune, to pay his

court to Amphitrite, came riding on the dolphin. Having won her,

he rewarded the dolphin by placing him among the stars.

NEREUS AND DORIS

Nereus and Doris were the parents of the Nereids, the most

celebrated of whom were Amphitrite, Thetis, the mother of

Achilles, and Galatea, who was loved by the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Nereus was distinguished for his knowledge, and his love of truth

and justice, and is described as the wise and unerring Old Man of

the Sea. The gift of prophecy was also ascribed to him.

TRITON AND PROTEUS

Triton was the son of Neptune and Amphitrite, and the poets make

him his father's trumpeter. Proteus was also a son of Neptune.

He, like Nereus, is styled a sea-elder for his wisdom and

knowledge of future events. His peculiar power was that of

changing his shape at will.

THETIS

Thetis, the daughter of Nereus and Doris, was so beautiful that

Jupiter himself sought her in marriage; but having learned from

Prometheus the Titan, that Thetis should bear a son who should be

greater than his father, Jupiter desisted from his suit and

decreed that Thetis should be the wife of a mortal. By the aid

of Chiron the Centaur, Peleus succeeded in winning the goddess

for his bride, and their son was the renowned Achilles. In our

chapter on the Trojan war it will appear that Thetis was a

faithful mother to him, aiding him in all difficulties, and

watching over his interests from the first to the last.

LEUCOTHEA AND PALAEMON

Ino, the daughter of Cadmus and wife of Athamas, flying from her

frantic husband, with her little son Melicertes in her arms,

sprang from a cliff into the sea. The gods, out of compassion,

made her a goddess of the sea, under the name of Leucothea, and

him a god under that of Palaemon. Both were held powerful to

save from shipwreck, and were invoked by sailors. Palaemon was

usually represented riding on a dolphin. The Isthmian games were

celebrated in his honor. He was called Portumnus by the Romans,

and believed to have jurisdiction of the ports and shores.

Milton alludes to all these deities in the song at the conclusion

of Comus.

"Sabrina fair,

Listen and appear to us,

In name of great Oceanus;

By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,

And Tethys' grave, majestic pace,

By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,

And the Carpathian wizard's hook (Proteus)

By scaly Triton's winding shell,

And old soothsaying Glaucus; spell,

By Leucothea's lovely hands,

And her son who rules the strands,

By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet,

And the songs of Sirens sweet."

Armstrong, the poet of the Art of preserving Health, under the

inspiration of Hygeia, the goddess of health, thus celebrates the

Naiads. Paeon is a name both of Apollo and Aesculapius.

"Come, ye Naiads! To the fountains lead!

Propitious maids! The task remains to sing

Your gifts (so Paeon, so the powers of health

Command), to praise your crystal element.

Oh, comfortable streams! With eager lips

And trembling hands the languid thirsty quaff

New life in you; fresh vigor fills their veins.

No warmer cups the rural ages knew,

None warmer sought the sires of humankind;

Happy in temperate peace their equal days

Felt not the alternate fits of feverish mirth

And sick dejection; still serene and pleased,

Blessed with divine immunity from ills,

Long centuries they lived; their only fate

Was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death."

THE CAMENAE

By this name the Latins designated the Muses, but included under

it also some other deities, principally nymphs of fountains.

Egeria was one of them, whose fountain and grotto are still

shown. It was said that Numa, the second king of Rome, was

favored by this nymph with secret interviews, in which she taught

him those lessons of wisdom and of law which he embodied in the

institutions of his rising nation. After the death of Numa the

nymph pined away and was changed into a fountain.

Byron, in Childe Harold, Canto IV., thus alludes to Egeria and

her grotto:

"Here didst thou dwell in this enchanted cover,

Egeria! All thy heavenly bosom beating

For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;

The purple midnight veiled that mystic meeting

With her most starry canopy."

Tennyson, also, in his Palace of Art, gives us a glimpse of the

royal lover expecting the interview.

"Holding one hand against his ear,

To list a footfall ere he saw

The wood-nymph, stayed the Tuscan king to hear

Of wisdom and of law."

THE WINDS

When so many less active agencies were personified, it is not to

be supposed that the winds failed to be so. They were Boreas or

Aquilo, the north wind, Zephyrus or Favonius, the west, Notus or

Auster, the south, and Eurus, the east. The first two have been

chiefly celebrated by the poets, the former as the type of

rudeness, the latter of gentleness. Boreas loved the nymph

Orithyia, and tried to play the lover's part, but met with poor

success. It was hard for him to breathe gently, and sighing was

out of the question. Weary at last of fruitless endeavors, he

acted out his true character, seized the maiden and carried her

off. Their children were Zetes and Calais, winged warriors, who

accompanied the Argonautic expedition, and did good service in an

encounter with those monstrous birds the Harpies.

Zephyrus was the lover of Flora. Milton alludes to them in

Paradise Lost, where he describes Adam waking and contemplating

Eve still asleep:

"He on his side

Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love

Hung over her enamored, and beheld

Beauty which, whether waking or asleep,

Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice,

Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,

Her hand soft touching, whispered thus, 'Awake!

My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,

Heaven's last, best gift, my ever-new delight.'"

Dr. Young, the poet of the Night Thoughts, addressing the idle

and luxurious, says:

"Ye delicate! Who nothing can support

(Yourselves most insupportable), for whom

The winter rose must blow, . .

. . . . And silky soft

Favonious breathe still softer or be chid!"

Fortuna is the Latin name for Tyche, the goddess of Fortune. The

worship of Fortuna held a position of much higher importance at

Rome than did the worship of Tyche among the Greeks. She was

regarded at Rome as the goddess of good fortune only, and was

usually represented holding the cornucopia.

Victoria, the Latin form for the goddess Nike, was highly honored

among the conquest-loving Romans, and many temples were dedicated

to her at Rome. There was a celebrated temple at Athens to the

Greek goddess Nike Apteros, or Wingless Victory, of which remains

still exist.

Chapter XVI

Achelous and Hercules. Admetus and Alcestis. Antigone.

Penelope

The river-god Achelous told the story of Erisichthon to Theseus

and his companions, whom he was entertaining at his hospitable

board, while they were delayed on their journey by the overflow

of his waters. Having finished his story, he added, "But why

should I tell of other persons' transformations, when I myself am

an instance of the possession of this power. Sometimes I become

a serpent, and sometimes a bull, with horns on my head. Or I

should say, I once could do so; but now I have but one horn,

having lost one." And here he groaned and was silent.

Theseus asked him the cause of his grief, and how he lost his

horn. To which question the river-god replied as follows: "Who

likes to tell of his defeats? Yet I will not hesitate to relate

mine, comforting myself with the thought of the greatness of my

conqueror, for it was Hercules. Perhaps you have heard of the

fame of Dejanira, the fairest of maidens, whom a host of suitors

strove to win. Hercules and myself were of the number, and the

rest yielded to us two. He urged in his behalf his descent from

Jove, and his labors by which he had exceeded the exactions of

Juno, his step-mother. I, on the other hand, said to the father

of the maiden, 'Behold me, the king of the waters that flow

through your land. I am no stranger from a foreign shore, but

belong to the country, a part of your realm. Let it not stand in

my way that royal Juno owes me no enmity, nor punishes me with

heavy tasks. As for this man, who boasts himself the son of

Jove, it is either a false pretence, or disgraceful to him if

true, for it cannot be true except by his mother's shame.' As I

said this Hercules scowled upon me, and with difficulty

restrained his rage. 'My hand will answer better than my

tongue,' said he. 'I yield you the victory in words, but trust

my cause to the strife of deeds. With that he advanced towards

me, and I was ashamed, after what I had said, to yield. I threw

off my green vesture, and presented myself for the struggle. He

tried to throw me, now attacking my head, now my body. My bulk

was my protection, and he assailed me in vain. For a time we

stopped, then returned to the conflict. We each kept our

position, determined not to yield, foot to foot, I bending over

him, clinching his hands in mine, with my forehead almost

touching his. Thrice Hercules tried to throw me off, and the

fourth time he succeeded, brought me to the ground and himself

upon my back. I tell you the truth, it was as if a mountain had

fallen on me. I struggled to get my arms at liberty, panting and

reeking with perspiration. He gave me no chance to recover, but

seized my throat. My knees were on the earth and my mouth in the

dust.

"Finding that I was no match for him in the warrior's art, I

resorted to others, and glided away in the form of a serpent. I

curled my body in a coil, and hissed at him with my forked

tongue. He smiled scornfully at this, and said, 'It was the

labor of my infancy to conquer snakes.' So saying he clasped my

neck with his hands. I was almost choked, and struggled to get

my neck out of his grasp. Vanquished in this form, I tried what

alone remained to me, and assumed the form of a bull. He grasped

my neck with his arm, and, dragging my head down to the ground,

overthrew me on the sand. Nor was this enough. His ruthless

hand rent my horn from my head. The Naiades took it, consecrated

it, and filled it with fragrant flowers. Plenty adopted my horn,

and made it her own, and called it Cornucopia.

The ancients were fond of finding a hidden meaning in their

mythological tales. They explain this fight of Achelous with

Hercules by saying Achelous was a river that in seasons of rain

overflowed its banks. When the fable says that Achelous loved

Dejanira, and sought a union with her, the meaning is, that the

river in its windings flowed through part of Dejanira's kingdom.

It was said to take the form of a snake because of its winding,

and of a bull because it made a brawling or roaring in its

course. When the river swelled, it made itself another channel.

Thus its head was horned. Hercules prevented the return of these

periodical overflows, by embankments and canals; and therefore he

was said to have vanquished the river-god and cut off his horn.

Finally, the lands formerly subject to overflow, but now

redeemed, became very fertile, and this is meant by the horn of

plenty.

There is another account of the origin of the Cornucopia.

Jupiter at his birth was committed by his mother Rhea to the care

of the daughters of Melisseus, a Cretan king. They fed the

infant deity with the milk of the goat Amalthea. Jupiter broke

off one of the horns of the goat and gave it to his nurses, and

endowed it with the wonderful power of becoming filled with

whatever the possessor might wish.

The name of Amalthea is also given by some writers to the mother

of Bacchus. It is thus used by Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV.:

"That Nyseian isle,

Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,

Whom Gentiles Ammon call, and Libyan Jove,

Hid Amalthea and her florid son,

Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye."

ADMETUS AND ALCESTIS

Aesculapius, the son of Apollo, was endowed by his father with

such skill in the healing art that he even restored the dead to

life. At this Pluto took alarm, and prevailed on Jupiter to

launch a thunderbolt at Aesculapius. Apollo was indignant at the

destruction of his son, and wreaked his vengeance on the innocent

workmen who had made the thunderbolt. These were the Cyclopes,

who have their workshop under Mount Aetna, from which the smoke

and flames of their furnaces are constantly issuing. Apollo shot

his arrows at the Cyclopes, which so incensed Jupiter that he

condemned him as a punishment to become he servant of a mortal

for the space of one year. Accordingly Apollo went into the

service of Admetus, king of Thessaly, and pastured his flocks for

him on the verdant banks of the river Amphrysus.

Admetus was a suitor, with others, for the hand of Alcestis, the

daughter of Pelias, who promised her to him who should come for

her in a chariot drawn by lions and boars. This task Admetus

performed by the assistance of his divine herdsman, and was made

happy in the possession of Alcestis. But Admetus fell ill, and

being near to death, Apollo prevailed on the Fates to spare him

on condition that some one would consent to die in his stead.

Admetus, in his joy at this reprieve, thought little of the

ransom, and perhaps remembering the declarations of attachment

which he had often heard from his courtiers and dependents,

fancied that it would be easy to find a substitute. But it was

not so. Brave warriors, who would willingly have perilled their

lives for their prince, shrunk from the thought of dying for him

on the bed of sickness; and old servants who had experienced his

bounty and that of his house from their childhood up, were not

willing to lay down the scanty remnant of their days to show

their gratitude. Men asked, "Why does not one of his parents

do it? They cannot in the course of nature live much longer, and

who can feel like them the call to rescue the life they gave from

an untimely end?" But the parents, distressed though they were

at the thought of losing him, shrunk from the call. Then

Alcestis, with a generous self-devotion, proffered herself as the

substitute. Admetus, fond as he was of life, would not have

submitted to receive it at such a cost; but there was no remedy.

The condition imposed by the Fates had been met, and the decree

was irrevocable. Alcestis sickened as Admetus revived, and she

was rapidly sinking to the grave.

Just at this time Hercules arrived at the palace of Admetus, and

found all the inmates in great distress for the impending loss of

the devoted wife and beloved mistress. Hercules, to whom no

labor was too arduous, resolved to attempt her rescue. He went

and lay in wait at the door of the chamber of the dying queen,

and when Death came for his prey, he seized him and forced him to

resign his victim. Alcestis recovered, and was restored to her

husband.

Milton alludes to the story of Alcestis in his Sonnet on his

deceased wife.

"Methought I saw my late espoused saint,

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,

Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,

Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint."

James Russell Lowell has chosen the "Shepherd of King Admetus"

for the subject of a short poem. He makes that event the first

introduction of poetry to men.

"Men called him but a shiftless youth,

In whom no good they saw,

And yet unwittingly, in truth,

They made his careless words their law.

And day by day more holy grew

Each spot where he had trod,

Till after poets only knew

Their first-born brother was a god."

In The Love of Alcestis, one of the poems in The Earthly

Paradise, Mr. Morris thus tells the story of the taming of the

lions:

"---- Rising up no more delay he made,

But took the staff and gained the palace-door

Where stood the beasts, whose mingled whine and roar

Had wrought his dream; there two and two they stood,

Thinking, it might be, of the tangled wood,

And all the joys of the food-hiding trees.

But harmless as their painted images

'Neath some dread spell; then, leaping up, he took

The reins in hand and the bossed leather shook,

And no delay the conquered beasts durst make,

But drew, not silent; and folk just awake,

When he went by as though a god they saw,

Fell on their knees, and maidens come to draw

Fresh water from the fount, sank trembling down,

And silence held the babbling, wakened town."

ANTIGONE

The poems and histories of legendary Greece often relate, as has

been seen, to women and their lives. Antigone was as bright an

example of filial and sisterly fidelity as was Alcestis of

connubial devotion. She was the daughter of OEdipus and Jocasta,

who, with all their descendants, were the victims of an

unrelenting fate, dooming them to destruction. OEdipus in his

madness had torn out his eyes, and was driven forth from his

kingdom Thebes, dreaded and abandoned by all men, as an object of

divine vengeance. Antigone, his daughter, alone shared his

wanderings, and remained with him till he died, and then returned

to Thebes.

Her brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, had agreed to share the

kingdom between them, and reign alternately year by year. The

first year fell to the lot of Eteocles, who, when his time

expired, refused to surrender the kingdom to his brother.

Polynices fled to Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him his

daughter in marriage, and aided him with an army to enforce his

claim to the kingdom. This led to the celebrated expedition of

the "Seven against Thebes," which furnished ample materials for

the epic and tragic poets of Greece.

Amphiaraus, the brother-in-law of Adrastus, opposed the

enterprise, for he was a soothsayer, and knew by his art that no

one of the leaders except Adrastus would live to return. But

Amphiaraus, on his marriage to Eriphyle, the king's sister, had

agreed that whenever he and Adrastus should differ in opinion,

the decision should be left to Eriphyle. Polynices, knowing

this, gave Eriphyle the collar of Harmonia, and thereby gained

her to his interest. This collar or necklace was a present which

Vulcan had given to Harmonia on her marriage with Cadmus, and

Polynices had taken it with him on his flight from Thebes.

Eriphyle could not resist so tempting a bribe, and by her

decision the war was resolved on, and Amphiaraus went to his

certain fate. He bore his part bravely in the contest, but could

not avert his destiny. Pursued by the enemy he fled along the

river, when a thunderbolt launched by Jupiter opened the ground,

and he, his chariot, and his charioteer, were swallowed up.

It would not be in place here to detail all the acts of heroism

or atrocity which marked the contest; but we must not omit to

record the fidelity of Evadne as an offset to the weakness of

Eriphyle. Capaneus, the husband of Evadne, in the ardor of the

fight, declared that he would force his way into the city in

spite of Jove himself. Placing a ladder against the wall, he

mounted, but Jupiter, offended at his impious language, struck

him with a thunderbolt. When his obsequies were celebrated,

Evadne cast herself on his funeral pile and perished.

Early in the contest Eteocles consulted the soothsayer Tiresias

as to the issue. Tiresias, in his youth, had by chance seen

Minerva bathing. The goddess in her wrath deprived him of his

sight, but afterwards relenting gave him in compensation the

knowledge of future events. When consulted by Eteocles, he

declared that victory should fall to Thebes if Menoeceus, the son

of Creon, gave himself a voluntary victim. The heroic youth,

learning the response, threw away his life in the first

encounter.

The siege continued long, with various success. At length both

hosts agreed that the brothers should decide their quarrel by

single combat. They fought and fell by each other's hands. The

armies then renewed the fight, and at last the invaders were

forced to yield, and fled, leaving their dead unburied. Creon,

the uncle of the fallen princes, now become king, caused Eteocles

to be buried with distinguished honor, but suffered the body of

Polynices to lie where it fell, forbidding every one, on pain of

death, to give it burial.

Antigone, the sister of Polynices, heard with indignation the

revolting edict which consigned her brother's body to the dogs

and vultures, depriving it of those rites which were considered

essential to the repose of the dead. Unmoved by the dissuading

counsel of an affectionate but timid sister, and unable to

procure assistance, she determined to brave the hazard and to

bury the body with her own hands. She was detected in the act,

and Creon gave orders that she should be buried alive, as having

deliberately set at nought the solemn edict of the city. Her

love, Haemon, the son of Creon, unable to avert her fate, would

not survive her, and fell by his own hand.

Antigone forms the subject of two fine tragedies of the Grecian

poet Sophocles. Mrs. Jameson, in her Characteristics of Women,

has compared her character with that of Cordelia, in

Shakespeare's King Lear. The perusal of her remarks cannot fail

to gratify our readers.

The following is the lamentation of Antigone over OEdipus, when

death has at last relieved him from his sufferings:

"Alas! I only wished I might have died

With my poor father; wherefore should I ask

For longer life?

Oh, I was fond of misery with him;

E'en what was most unlovely grew beloved

When he was with me. Oh, my dearest father,

Beneath the earth now in deep darkness hid,

Worn as thou wert with age, to me thou still

Wast dear, and shalt be ever."

Francklin's Sophocles

PENELOPE

Penelope is another of those mythic heroines whose beauties were

rather those of character and conduct than of person. She was

the daughter of Icarius, a Spartan prince. Ulysses, king of

Ithaca, sought her in marriage, and won her over all competitors.

When the moment came for the bride to leave her father's house,

Icarius, unable to bear the thoughts of parting with his

daughter, tried to persuade her to remain with him, and not

accompany her husband to Ithaca. Ulysses gave Penelope her

choice, to stay or go with him. Penelope made no reply, but

dropped her veil over her face. Icarius urged her no further,

but when she was gone erected a statue to Modesty on the spot

where they parted.

Ulysses and Penelope had not enjoyed their union more than a year

when it was interrupted by the events which called Ulysses to the

Trojan war. During his long absence, and when it was doubtful

whether he still lived, and highly improbable that he would ever

return, Penelope was importuned by numerous suitors, from whom

there seemed no refuge but in choosing one of them for her

husband. Penelope, however, employed every art to gain time,

still hopping for Ulysses' return. One of her arts of delay was

engaging in the preparation of a robe for the funeral canopy of

Laertes, her husband's father. She pledged herself to make her

choice among the suitors when the robe was finished. During the

day she worked at the robe, but in the night she undid the work

of the day. This is the famous Penelope's web, which is used as

a proverbial expression for anything which is perpetually doing

but never done. The rest of Penelope's history will be told when

we give an account of her husband's adventures.

Chapter XVII

Orpheus and Eurydice. Artistaeus. Amphion. Linus.

Thamyris. Marsyas. Melampus. Musaeus

Orpheus was the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope. He was

presented by his father with a lyre and taught to play upon it,

and he played to such perfection that nothing could withstand the

charm of his music. Not only his fellow mortals, but wild beasts

were softened by his strains, and gathering round him laid by

their fierceness, and stood entranced with his lay. Nay, the

very trees and rocks were sensible to the charm. The former

crowded round him and the latter relaxed somewhat of their

hardness, softened by his notes.

Hymen had been called to bless with his presence the nuptials of

Orpheus with Eurydice; but though he attended, he brought no

happy omens with him. His very torch smoked and brought tears

into their eyes. In coincidence with such prognostics Eurydice,

shortly after her marriage, while wandering with the nymphs, her

companions, was seen by the shepherd Aristaeus, who was struck

with her beauty, and made advances to her. She fled, and in

flying trod upon a snake in the grass, was bitten in the foot and

died. Orpheus sang his grief to all who breathed the upper air,

both gods and men, and finding it all unavailing resolved to seek

his wife in the regions of the dead. He descended by a cave

situated on the side of the promontory of Taenarus and arrived at

the Stygian realm. He passed through crowds of ghosts, and

presented himself before the throne of Pluto and Proserpine.

Accompanying the words with the lyre, he sung, "O deities of the

underworld, to whom all we who live must come, hear my words, for

they are true! I come not to spy out the secrets of Tartarus,

nor to try my strength against the three-headed dog with snaky

hair who guards the entrance. I come to seek my wife, whose

opening years the poisonous viper's fang has brought to an

untimely end. Love had led me here, Love, a god all powerful

with us who dwell on the earth, and, if old traditions say true,

not less so here. I implore you by these abodes full of terror,

these realms of silence and uncreated things, unite again the

thread of Eurydice's life. We all are destined to you, and

sooner or later must pass to your domain. She too, when she

shall have filled her term of life, will rightly be yours. But

till then grant her to me, I beseech you. If you deny me, I

cannot return alone; you shall triumph in the death of us both."

As he sang these tender strains, the very ghosts shed tears.

Tantalus, in spite of his thirst, stopped for a moment his

efforts for water, Ixion's wheel stood still, the vulture ceased

to tear the giant's liver, the daughters of Danaus rested from

their task of drawing water in a sieve, and Sisyphus sat on his

rock to listen. Then for the first time, it is said, the cheeks

of the Furies were wet with tears. Proserpine could not resist,

and Pluto himself gave way. Eurydice was called. She came from

among the new-arrived ghosts, limping with her wounded foot.

Orpheus was permitted to take her away with him on one condition,

that he should not turn round to look at her till they should

have reached the upper air. Under this condition they proceeded

on their way, he leading, she following, through passages dark

and steep, in total silence, till they had nearly reached the

outlet into the cheerful upper world, when Orpheus, in a moment

of forgetfulness, to assure himself that she was still following,

cast a glance behind him, when instantly she was borne away.

Stretching out their arms to embrace one another they grasped

only the air. Dying now a second time she yet cannot reproach

her husband, for how can she blame his impatience to behold her?

"Farewell," she said, "a last farewell," and was hurried away,

so fast that the sound hardly reached his ears.

Orpheus endeavored to follow her, and besought permission to

return and try once more for her release but the stern ferryman

repulsed him and refused passage. Seven days he lingered about

the brink, without food or sleep; then bitterly accusing of

cruelty the powers of Erebus, he sang his complaints to the rocks

and mountains, melting the hearts of tigers and moving the oaks

from their stations. He held himself aloof from womankind,

dwelling constantly on the recollection of his sad mischance.

The Thracian maidens tried their best to captivate him, but he

repulsed their advances. They bore with him as long as they

could; but finding him insensible, one day, one of them, excited

by the rites of Bacchus, exclaimed, "See yonder our despiser!"

and threw at him her javelin. The weapon, as soon as it came

within the sound of his lyre, fell harmless at his feet. So did

also the stones that they threw at him. But the women raised a

scream and drowned the voice of the music, and then the missiles

reached him and soon were stained with his blood. The maniacs

tore him limb from limb, and threw his head and his lyre into the

river Hebrus, down which they floated, murmuring sad music, to

which the shores responded a plaintive symphony. The Muses

gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at

Libethra, where the nightingale is said to sing over his grave

more sweetly than in any other part of Greece. His lyre was

placed by Jupiter among the stars. His shade passed a second

time to Tartarus, where he sought out his Eurydice and embraced

her, with eager arms. They roam through those happy fields

together now, sometimes he leads, sometimes she; and Orpheus

gazes as much as he will upon her, no longer incurring a penalty

for a thoughtless glance.

The story of Orpheus has furnished Pope with an illustration of

the power of music, for his Ode for St. Cecelia's Day. The

following stanza relates the conclusion of the story:

"But soon, too soon the lover turns his eyes;

Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!

How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?

No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.

Now under hanging mountains,

Beside the falls of fountains,

Or where Hebrus wanders,

Rolling in meanders,

All alone,

He makes his moan,

And calls her ghost,

Forever, ever, ever lost!

Now with furies surrounded,

Despairing, confounded,

He trembles, he glows,

Amidst Rhodope's snows.

See, wild as the winds o'er the desert he flies;

Hark! Haemus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries.

Ah, see, he dies!

Yet even in death Eurydice he sung,

Eurydice still trembled on his tongue;

Eurydice the woods,

Eurydice the floods,

Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung."

The superior melody of the nightingale's song over the grave of

Orpheus, is alluded to by Southey in his Thalaba:

"Then on his ear what sounds

Of harmony arose!

Far music and the distance-mellowed song

From bowers of merriment;

The waterfall remote;

The murmuring of the leafy groves;

The single nightingale

Perched in the rosier by, so richly toned,

That never from that most melodious bird

Singing a love-song to his brooding mate,

Did Thracian shepherd by the grave

Of Orpheus hear a sweeter melody,

Though there the spirit of the sepulchre

All his own power infuse, to swell

The incense that he loves."

ARISTAEUS, THE BEE-KEEPER

Man avails himself of the instincts of the inferior animals for

his own advantage. Hence sprang the art of keeping bees. Honey

must first have been known as a wild product, the bees building

their structures in hollow trees or holes in the rocks, or any

similar cavity that chance offered. Thus occasionally the

carcass of a dead animal would be occupied by the bees for that

purpose. It was no doubt from some such incident that the

superstition arose that the bees were engendered by the decaying

flesh of the animal; and Virgil, in the following story (From the

Georgies, Book IV.1.317), shows how this supposed fact may be

turned to account for renewing the swarm when it has been lost by

disease or accident.

The shepherd Aristaeus, who first taught the management of bees,

was the son of the water-nymph Cyrene. His bees had perished,

and he resorted for aid to his mother. He stood at the river

side and thus addressed her: "Oh, mother, the pride of my life is

taken from me! I have lost my precious bees. My care and skill

have availed me nothing, and you, my mother, have not warded off

from me the blow of misfortune." His mother heard these

complaints as she sat in her palace at the bottom of the river

with her attendant nymphs around her. They were engaged in

female occupations, spinning and weaving, while one told stories

to amuse the rest. The sad voice of Aristaeus interrupting their

occupation, one of them put her head above the water and seeing

him, returned and gave information to his mother, who ordered

that he should be brought into her presence. The river at her

command opened itself and let him pass in, while it stood curled

like a mountain on either side. He descended to the region where

the fountains of the great rivers lie; he saw the enormous

receptacles of waters and was almost deafened with the roar,

while he surveyed them hurrying off in various directions to

water the face of the earth. Arriving at his mother's apartment

he was hospitably received by Cyrene and her nymphs, who spread

their table with the richest dainties. They first poured out

libations to Neptune, then regaled themselves with the feast, and

after that Cyrene thus addressed him: "There is an old prophet

named Proteus, who dwells in the sea and is a favorite of

Neptune, whose herd of sea-calves he pastures. We nymphs hold

him in great respect, for he is a learned sage, and knows all

things, past, present, and to come. He can tell you, my son, the

cause of the mortality among your bees, and how you may remedy

it. But he will not do it voluntarily, however you may entreat

him. You must compel him by force. If you seize him and chain

him, he will answer your questions in order to get released, for

he cannot, by all his arts, get away if you hold fast the chains.

I will carry you to his cave, where he comes at noon to take his

midday repose. Then you may easily secure him. But when he

finds himself captured, his resort is to a power he possesses of

changing himself into various forms. He will become a wild boar

or a fierce tiger, a scaly dragon, or lion with yellow mane. Or

he will make a noise like the crackling of flames or the rush of

water, so as to tempt you to let go the chain, when he will make

his escape. But you have only to keep him fast bound, and at

last when he finds all his arts unavailing, he will return to his

own figure and obey your commands." So saying she sprinkled her

son with fragrant nectar, the beverage of the gods, and

immediately an unusual vigor filled his frame and courage his

heart, while perfume breathed all around him.

The nymph led her son to the prophet's cave, and concealed him

among the recesses of the rocks, while she herself took her place

behind the clouds. Then noon came and the hour when men and

herds retreat from the glaring sun to indulge in quiet slumber,

Proteus issued from the water, followed hy his herd of sea-

calves, which spread themselves along the shore. He sat on the

rock and counted his herd; then stretched himself on the floor of

the cave and went to sleep. Aristaeus hardly allowed him to get

fairly asleep before he fixed the fetters on him and shouted

aloud. Proteus, waking and finding himself captured, immediately

resorted to his arts, becoming first a fire, then a flood, then a

horrible wild beast, in rapid succession. But trying all in

vain, he at last resumed his own form and addressed the youth in

angry accents: "Who are you, bold youth, who thus invade my

abode, and what do you want with me?" Aristaeus replied,

"Proteus, you know already, for it is needless for any one to

attempt to deceive you. And do you also cease your efforts to

elude me. I am led hither by divine assistance, to know from you

the cause of my misfortune and how to remedy it." At these words

the prophet, fixing on him his gray eyes with a piercing look,

thus spoke: "You received the merited reward of your deeds, by

which Eurydice met her death, for in flying from you she trod

upon a serpent, of whose bite she died. To avenge her death the

nymphs, her companions, have sent this destruction bo your bees.

You have to appease their anger, and thus it must be done: Select

four bulls of perfect form and size, and four cows of equal

beauty, build four altars to the nymphs, and sacrifice the

animals, leaving their carcasses in the leafy grove. To Orpheus

and Eurydice you shall pay such funeral honors as may allay their

resentment. Returning after nine days you will examine the

bodies of the cattle slain and see what will befall." Aristaeus

faithfully obeyed these directions. He sacrificed the cattle, he

left their bodies in the grove, he offered funeral honors to the

shades of Orpheus and Eurydice; then returning on the ninth day

he examined the bodies of the animals, and, wonderful to relate!

A swarm of bees had taken possession of one of the carcasses, and

were pursuing their labors there as in a hive.

In the Task, Cowper alludes to the story of Aristaeus, when

speaking of the ice-palace built by the Empress Anne of Russia.

He has been describing the fantastic forms which ice assumes in

connection with waterfalls, etc."

"Less worthy of applause though more admired,

Because a novelty, the work of man,

Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,

Thy most magnificent and mighty freak,

The wonder of the north. No forest fell

When thou wouldst build, no quarry sent its stores

T'enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods

And make thy marble of the glassy wave.

In such a palace Aristaeus found

Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale

Of his lost bees to her maternal ear."

Milton also appears to have had Cyrene and her domestic scene in

his mind when he describes to us Sabrina, the nymph of the river

Severn, in the Guardian-spirit's Song in Comus:

"Sabrina fair!

Listen when thou art sitting

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave

In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;

Listen for dear honor's sake,

Goddess of the silver lake!

Listen and save."

The following are other celebrated mythical poets and musicians,

some of whom were hardly inferior to Orpheus himself:

AMPHION

Amphion was the son of Jupiter and Antiope, queen of Thebes.

With his twin brother Zethus he was exposed at birth on Mount

Cithaeron, where they grew up among the shepherds, not knowing

their parentage. Mercury gave Amphion a lyre, and taught him to

play upon it, and his brother occupied himself in hunting and

tending the flocks. Meanwhile Antiope, their mother, who had

been treated with great cruelty by Lycus, the usurping king of

Thebes, and by Dirce, his wife, found means to inform her

children of their rights, and to summon them to her assistance.

With a band of their fellow-herdsmen they attacked and slew

Lycus, and tying Dirce by the hair of her head to a bull, let him

drag her till she was dead (the punishment of Dirce is the

subject of a celebrated group of statuary now in the Museum at

Naples). Amphion, having become king of Thebes fortified the

city with a wall. It is said that when he played on his lyre the

stones moved of their own accord and took their places in the

wall.

In Tennyson's poem of Amphion is an amusing use of this story:

"Oh, had I lived when song was great,

In days of old Amphion,

And ta'en my fiddle to the gate

Nor feared for reed or scion!

And had I lived when song was great,

And legs of trees were limber,

And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,

And fiddled to the timber!

"'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,

Such happy intonation,

Wherever he sat down and sung

He left a small plantation;

Whenever in a lonely grove

He set up his forlorn pipes,

The gouty oak began to move

And flounder into hornpipes."

LINUS

Linus was the instructor of Hercules in music, but having one day

reproved his pupil rather harshly, he roused the anger of

Hercules, who struck him with his lyre and killed him.

THAMYRIS

An ancient Thracian bard, who in his presumption challenged the

Muses to a trial of skill, and being overcome in the contest was

deprived by them of his sight. Milton alludes to him with other

blind bards, when speaking of his own blindness (Paradise Lost,

Book III.35).

MARSYAS

Minerva invented the flute, and played upon it to the delight of

all the celestial auditors; but the mischievous urchin Cupid

having dared to laugh at the queer face which the goddess made

while playing, Minerva threw the instrument indignantly away, and

it fell down to earth, and was found by Marsyas. He blew upon

it, and drew from it such ravishing sounds that he was tempted to

challenge Apollo himself to a musical contest. The god of course

triumphed, and punished Marsyas by flaying him alive.

MELAMPUS

Melampus was the first mortal endowed with prophetic powers.

Before his house there stood an oak tree containing a serpent's

nest. The old serpents were killed by the servants, but Melampus

took care of the young ones and fed them carefully. One day when

he was asleep under the oak, the serpents licked his ears with

their tongues. On awaking he was astonished to find that he now

understood the language of birds and creeping things. This

knowledge enabled him to foretell future events, and he became a

renowned soothsayer. At one time his enemies took him captive

and kept him strictly imprisoned. Melampus in the silence of

night heard the wood-worms in the timbers talking together, and

found out by what they said that the timbers were nearly eaten

through, and the roof would soon fall in. He told his captors

and demanded to be let out, warning them also. They took his

warning, and thus escaped destruction, and rewarded Malampus and

held him in high honor.

MUSAEUS

A semi-mythological personage who was represented by one

tradition to be the son of Orpheus. He is said to have written

sacred poems and oracles. Milton couples his name with that of

Orpheus in his Il Penseroso:

"But, oh, sad virgin, that thy power

Might raise Musaeus from his bower,

Or bed the soul of Orpheus sing

Such notes as warbled to the string,

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

And made Hell grant what love did seek."

Chapter XVIII

Arion. Ibycus. Simonides. Sappho

The poets whose adventures compose this chapter were real

persons, some of whose works yet remain, and their influence on

poets who succeeded them is yet more important than their

poetical remains. The adventures recorded of them in the

following stories rest on the same authority as other narratives

of the Age of Fable, that is, that of the poets who have told

them. In their present form, the first two are translated from

the German, the story of Arion from Schlegel, and that of Ibycus

from Schiller.

ARION

Arion was a famous musician, and dwelt at the court of Periander,

king of Corinth, with whom he was a great favorite. There was to

be a musical contest in Sicily, and Arion longed to compete for

the prize. He told his wish to Periander, who besought him like

a brother to give up the thought. "Pray stay with me," he said,

"and be contented. He who strives to win may lose." Arion

answered, "A wandering life best suits the free heart of a poet.

The talent which a god bestowed on me, I would fain make a source

of pleasure to others. And if I win the prize, how will the

enjoyment of it be increased by the consciousness of my wide-

spread fame!" He went, won the prize, and embarked with his

wealth in a Corinthian ship for home. On the second morning

after setting sail, the wind breathed mild and fair. "Oh,

Periander," he exclaimed, "dismiss your fears! Soon shall you

forget them in my embrace. With what lavish offerings will we

display our gratitude to the gods, and how merry will we be at

the festal board!" The wind and sea continued propitious. Not a

cloud dimmed the firmament. He had not trusted too much to the

ocean, but he had to man. He overheard the seamen exchanging

hints with one another, and found they were plotting to possess

themselves of his treasure. Presently they surrounded him loud

and mutinous, and said, "Arion, you must die! If you would have

a grave on shore, yield yourself to die on this spot; but if

otherwise, cast yourself into the sea." "Will nothing satisfy

you but my life?" said he. "Take my gold, and welcome. I

willingly buy my life at that price." "No, no; we cannot spare

you. Your life will be too dangerous to us. Where could we go

to escape from Periander, if he should know that you had been

robbed by us? Your gold would be of little use to us, if, on

returning home, we could never more be free from fear." "Grant

me, then," said he, "a last request, since nought will avail to

save my life, that I may die as I have lived, as becomes a bard.

When I shall have sung my death-song, and my harp-strings shall

cease to vibrate, then I will bid farewell to life, and yield

uncomplaining to my fate." This prayer, like the others, would

have been unheeded, they thought only of their booty, but to

hear so famous a musician, that moved their rude hearts. "Suffer

me," he added, "to arrange my dress. Apollo will not favor me

unless I be clad in my minstrel garb."

He clothed his well-proportioned limbs in gold and purple fair to

see, his tunic fell around him in graceful folds, jewels adorned

his arms, his brow was crowned with a golden wreath, and over his

neck and shoulders flowed his hair perfumed with odors. His left

hand held the lyre, his right the ivory wand with which he struck

its chords. Like one inspired, he seemed to drink the morning

air and glitter in the morning ray. The seamen gazed with

admiration. He strode forward to the vessel's side and looked

down into the blue sea. Addressing his lyre, he sang, "Companion

of my voice, come with me to the realm of shades. Though

Cerberus may growl, we know the power of song can tame his rage.

Ye heroes of Elysium, who have passed the darkling flood, ye

happy souls, soon shall I join your band. Yet can ye relieve my

grief? Alas, I leave my friend behind me. Thou, who didst find

thy Eurydice, and lose her again as soon as found; when she had

vanished like a dream, how didst thou hate the cheerful light! I

must away, but I will not fear. The gods look down upon us. Ye

who slay me unoffending, when I am no more, your time of

trembling shall come. Ye Nereids, receive your guest, who throws

himself upon your mercy!" So saying, he sprang into the deep

sea. The waves covered him, and the seamen held on their way,

fancying themselves safe from all danger of detection.

But the strains of his music had drawn round him the inhabitants

of the deep to listen, and dolphins followed the ship as if

chained by a spell. While he struggled in the waves, a dolphin

offered him his back, and carried him mounted thereon safe to

shore. At the spot where he landed, a monument of brass was

afterwards erected upon the rocky shore, to preserve the memory

of the event.

When Arion and the dolphin parted, each to his own element, Arion

thus poured forth his thanks. "Farewell, thou faithful, friendly

fish! Would that I could reward thee; but thou canst not wend

with me, nor I with thee. Companionship we may not have. May

Galatea, queen of the deep, accord thee her favor, and thou,

proud of the burden, draw her chariot over the smooth mirror of

the deep."

Arion hastened from the shore, and soon saw before him the towers

of Corinth. He journeyed on, harp in hand, singing as he went,

full of love and happiness, forgetting his losses, and mindful

only of what remained, his friend and his lyre. He entered the

hospitable halls, and was soon clasped in the embrace of

Periander. "I come back to thee, my friend," he said. "The

talent which a god bestowed has been the delight of thousands,

but false knaves have stripped me of my well-earned treasure; yet

I retain the consciousness of wide-spread fame." Then he told

Periander all the wonderful events that had befallen him, who

heard him with amazement. "Shall such wickedness triumph?" said

he. "Then in vain is power lodged in my hands. That we may

discover the criminals, you must remain here in concealment, and

so they will approach without suspicion." When the ship arrived

in the harbor, he summoned the mariners before him. "Have you

heard anything of Arion?" he inquired. "I anxiously look for his

return." They replied, "We left him well and prosperous in

Tarentum." As they said these words, Arion stepped forth and

faced them. His well proportioned limbs were arrayed in gold and

purple fair to see, his tunic fell around him in graceful folds,

jewels adorned his arms, his brow was crowned with a golden

wreath, and over his neck and shoulders flowed his hair perfumed

with odors; his left hand held the lyre, his right the ivory wand

with which he struck its chords. They fell prostrate at his

feet, as if a lightning bolt had struck them. "We meant to

murder him, and he has become a god. O Earth, open and receive

us!" Then Periander spoke. "He lives, the master of the lay!

Kind Heaven protects the poet's life. As for you, I invoke not

the spirit of vengeance; Arion wishes not your blood. Ye slaves

of avarice, begone! Seek some barbarous land, and never may

aught beautiful delight your souls!"

Spencer represents Arion, mounted on his dolphin, accompanying

the train of Neptune and Amphitrite:

"Then was there heard a most celestial sound

Of dainty music which did next ensue,

And, on the floating waters as enthroned,

Arion with his harp unto him drew

The ears and hearts of all that goodly crew;

Even when as yet the dolphin which him bore

Through the Aegean Seas from pirates' view,

Stood still, by him astonished at his love,

And all the raging seas for joy forgot to roar."

Byron, in his Childe Harold, Canto II., alludes to the story of

Arion, when, describing his voyage, he represents one of the

seamen making music to entertain the rest:

"The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve!

Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand;

Now lads on shore may sigh and maids believe;

Such be our fate when we return to land!

Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand

Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love;

A circle there of merry listeners stand,

Or to some well-known measure featly move

Thoughtless as if on shore they still were free to rove."

IBYCUS

In order to understand the story of Ibycus which follows, it is

necessary to remember, first, that the theatres of the ancients

were immense buildings providing seats for from ten to thirty

thousand spectators, and as they were used only on festal

occasions, and admission was free to all, they were usually

filled. They were without roofs and open to the sky, and the

performances were in the daytime. Secondly, the appalling

representation of the Furies is not exaggerated in the story. It

is recorded that AEschylus, the tragic poet, having on one

occasion represented the Furies in a chorus of fifty performers,

the terror of the spectators was such that many fainted and were

thrown into convulsions, and the magistrates forbade a like

representation for the future.

Ibycus, the pious poet, was on his way to the chariot races and

musical competitions held at the Isthmus of Corinth, which

attracted all of Grecian lineage. Apollo had bestowed on him the

gift of song, the honeyed lips of the poet, and he pursued his

way with lightsome step, full of the god. Already the towers of

Corinth crowning the height appeared in view, and he had entered

with pious awe the sacred grove of Neptune. No living object was

in sight, only a flock of cranes flew overhead, taking the same

course as himself in their migration to a southern clime. "Good

luck to you, ye friendly squadrons," he exclaimed, "my companions

from across the sea. I take your company for a good omen. We

come from far, and fly in search of hospitality. May both of us

meet that kind reception which shields the stranger guest from

harm!"

He paced briskly on, and soon was in the middle of the wood.

There suddenly, at a narrow pass, two robbers stepped forth and

barred his way. He must yield or fight. But his hand,

accustomed to the lyre and not to the strife of arms, sank

powerless. He called for help on men and gods, but his cry

reached no defender's ear. "Then here must I die," said he, "in

a strange land, unlamented, cut off by the hand of outlaws, and

see none to avenge my cause." Sore wounded he sank to the earth,

when hoarse screamed the cranes overhead. "Take up my cause, ye

cranes," he said, "since no voice but yours answers to my cry."

So saying, he closed his eyes in death.

The body, despoiled and mangled, was found, and though disfigured

with wounds, was recognized by the friend in Corinth who had

expected him as a guest. "Is it thus I find you restored to me?"

he exclaimed; "I who hoped to entwine your temples with the

wreath of triumph in the strife of song!"

The guests assembled at the festival heard the tidings with

dismay. All Greece felt the wound, every heart owned its loss.

They crowded round the tribunal of the magistrates, and demanded

vengeance on the murderers and expiation with their blood.

But what trace or mark shall point out the perpetrator from

amidst the vast multitude attracted by the splendor of the feat?

Did he fall by the hands of robbers, or did some private enemy

slay him? The all-discerning sun alone can tell, for no other

eye beheld it. Yet not improbably the murderer even now walks in

the midst of the throng, and enjoys the fruits of his crime,

while vengeance seeks for him in vain. Perhaps in their own

temple's enclosure he defies the gods, mingling freely in this

throng of men that now presses into the ampitheatre.

For now crowded together, row on row, the multitude fill the

seats till it seems as if the very fabric would give way. The

murmur of voices sounds like the roar of the sea, while the

circles widening in their ascent rise, tier on tier, as if they

would reach the sky.

And now the vast assemblage listens to the awful voice of the

chorus personating the Furies, which in solemn guise advances

with measured step, and moves around the circuit of the theatre.

Can they be mortal women who compose that awful group, and can

that vast concourse of silent forms be living beings!

The choristers, clad in black, bore in their fleshless hands

torches blazing with a pitchy flame. Their cheeks were

bloodless, and in place of hair, writing and swelling serpents

curled around their brows. Forming a circle, these awful beings

sang their hymn, rending the hearts of the guilty, and enchaining

all their faculties. It rose and swelled, overpowering the sound

of the instruments, stealing the judgment, palsying the heart,

curdling the blood.

"Happy the man who keeps his heart pure from guilt and crime!

Him we avengers touch not; he treads the path of life secure from

us. But woe! Woe! To him who has done the deed of secret

murder. We, the fearful family of Night, fasten ourselves upon

his whole being. Thinks he by flight to escape us? We fly still

faster in pursuit, twine our snakes around his feet and bring him

to the ground. Unwearied we pursue; no pity checks our course;

still on and on to the end of life, we give him no peace nor

rest." Thus the Eumenides sang, and moved in solemn cadence,

while stillness like the stillness of death sat over the whole

assembly as if in the presence of superhuman beings; and then in

solemn march completing the circuit of the theatre, they passed

out at the back of the stage.

Every heart fluttered between illusion and reality, and every

breast panted with undefined terror, quailing before the awful

power that watches secret crimes and winds unseen the skein of

destiny. At that moment a cry burst forth from one of the

uppermost benches "Look! Look! Comrade, yonder are the cranes

of Ibycus!" And suddenly there appeared sailing across the sky a

dark object which a moment's inspection showed to be a flock of

cranes flying directly over the theatre. "Of Ibycus! did he

say?" The beloved name revived the sorrow in every breast. As

wave follows wave over the face of the sea, so ran from mouth to

mouth the words, "Of Ibycus! Him whom we all lament, with some

murderer's hand laid low! What have the cranes to do with him?"

And louder grew the swell of voices, while like a lightning's

flash the thought sped through every heart, "Observe the power of

the Eumenides! The pious poet shall be avenged! The murderer

has informed against himself. Seize the man who uttered that cry

and the other to whom he spoke!"

The culprit would gladly have recalled his words, but it was too

late. The faces of the murderers pale with terror betrayed their

guilt. The people took them before the judge, they confessed

their crime and suffered the punishment they deserved.

SIMONIDES

Simonides was one of the most prolific of the early poets of

Greece, but only a few fragments of his compositions have

descended to us. He wrote hymns, triumphal odes, and elegies.

In the last species of composition he particularly excelled. His

genius was inclined to the pathetic, and none could touch with

truer effect the chords of human sympathy. The Lamentation of

Danae, the most important of the fragments which remain of his

poetry is based upon the tradition that Danae and her infant son

were confined by order of her father Acrisius in a chest and set

adrift on the sea. The chest floated towards the island of

Seriphus, where both were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman, and

carried to Polydectes, king of the country, who received and

protected them. The child Perseus when grown up became a famous

hero, whose adventures have been recorded in a previous chapter.

Simonides passed much of his life at the courts of princes, and

often employed his talents in panegyric and festal odes,

receiving his reward from the munificence of those whose exploits

he celebrated. This employment was not derogatory, but closely

resembles that of the earliest bards, such as Demodocus,

described by Homer, or of Homer himself as recorded by tradition.

On one occasion when residing at the court of Scopas, king of

Thessaly, the prince desired him to prepare a poem in celebration

of his exploits, to be recited at a banquet. In order to

diversify his theme, Simonides, who was celebrated for his piety,

introduced into his poem the exploits of Castor and Pollux. Such

digressions were not unusual with the poets on similar occasions,

and one might suppose an ordinary mortal might have been content

to share the praises of the sons of Leda. But vanity is

exacting; and as Scopas sat at his festal board among his

courtiers and sycophants, he grudged every verse that did not

rehearse his own praises. When Simonides approached to receive

the promised reward Scopas bestowed but half the expected sum,

saying, "Here is payment for my portion of the performance,

Castor and Pollux will doubtless compensate thee for so much as

relates to them." The disconcerted poet returned to his seat

amidst the laughter which followed the great man's jest. In a

little time he received a message that two young men on horseback

were waiting without and anxious to see him. Simonides hastened

to the door, but looked in vain for the visitors. Scarcely

however had he left the banqueting-hall when the roof fell in

with a loud crash, burying Scopas and all his guests beneath the

ruins. On inquiring as to the appearance of the young men who

had sent for him, Simonides was satisfied that they were no other

than Castor and Pollux themselves.

Sappho

Sappho was a poetess who flourished in a very early age of Greek

literature. Of her works few fragments remain, but they are

enough to establish her claim to eminent poetical genius. The

story of Sappho commonly alluded to is that she was passionately

in love with a beautiful youth named Phaon, and failing to obtain

a return of affection she threw herself from the promontory of

Leucadia into the sea, under a superstition that those who should

take that "Lover's-leap," would, if not destroyed, be cured of

their love.

Byron alludes to the story of Sappho in Childe Harold, Canto II.:

Those who wish to know more of Sappho and her leap, are referred

to the Spectator, Nos. 223 and 229, and also to Moore's Evenings

in Greece.

Chapter XIX

Endymion. Orion. Aurora and Tithonus. Acis and Galatea

Endymion was a beautiful youth who fed his flock on Mount Latmos.

One calm, clear night, Diana, the Moon, looked down and saw him

sleeping. The cold heart of the virgin goddess was warmed by his

surpassing beauty, and she came down to him, kissed him, and

watched over him while he slept.

Another story was that Jupiter bestowed on him the gift of

perpetual youth united with perpetual sleep. Of one so gifted we

can have but few adventures to record. Diana, it was said, took

care that his fortunes should not suffer by his inactive life,

for she made his flock increase, and guarded his sheep and lambs

from the wild beasts.

The story of Endymion has a peculiar charm from the human meaning

which it so thinly veils. We see in Endymion the young poet, his

fancy and his heart seeking in vain for that which can satisfy

them, finding his favorite hour in the quiet moonlight, and

nursing there beneath the beams of the bright and silent witness

the melancholy and the ardor which consumes him. The story

suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams

than in reality, and an early and welcome death.

S. G. Bulfinch

The Endymion of Keats is a wild and fanciful poem, containing

some exquisite poetry, as this, to the moon:

"The sleeping kine

Couched in thy brightness dream of fields divine.

Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,

Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes,

And yet thy benediction passeth not

One obscure hiding place, one little spot

Where pleasure may be sent; the nested wren

Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken."

Dr. Young in the Night Thoughts alludes to Endymion thus:

"These thoughts, O Night, are thine;

From thee they came like lovers' secret sighs,

While others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign,

In shadows veiled, soft, sliding from her sphere,

Her shepherd cheered, of her enamored less

Than I of thee."

Fletcher, in the Faithful Shepherdess, tells,

"How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,

First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes

She took eternal fire that never dies;

How she conveyed him softly in a sleep,

His temples bound with poppy, to the steep

Head of Old Latmos, where she stoops each night,

Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,

To kiss her sweetest."

ORION

Orion was the son of Neptune. He was a handsome giant and a

mighty hunter. His father gave him the power of wading through

the depths of the sea, or as others say, of walking on its

surface.

Orion loved Merope, the daughter of Oenopion, king of Chios, and

sought her in marriage. He cleared the island of wild beasts,

and brought the spoils of the chase as presents to his beloved;

but as Oenopion constantly deferred his consent, Orion attempted

to gain possession of the maiden by violence. Her father,

incensed at this conduct, having made Orion drunk, deprived him

of his sight, and cast him out on the sea shore. The blinded

hero followed the sound of the Cyclops' hammer till he reached

Lemnos, and came to the forge of Vulcan, who, taking pity on him,

gave him Kedalion, one of his men, to be his guide to the abode

of the sun. Placing Kedalion on his shoulders, Orion proceeded

to the east, and there meeting the sun-god, was restored to sight

by his beam.

After this he dwelt as a hunter with Diana, with whom he was a

favorite, and it is even said she was about to marry him. Her

brother was highly displeased and often chid her, but to no

purpose. One day, observing Orion wading though the sea with his

head just above the water, Apollo pointed it out to his sister

and maintained that she could not hit that black thing on the

sea. The archer-goddess discharged a shaft with fatal aim. The

waves rolled the dead body of Orion to the land, and bewailing

her fatal error with many tears, Diana placed him among the

stars, where he appears as a giant, with a girdle, sword, lion's

skin, and club. Sirius, his dog, follows him, and the Pleiads

fly before him.

The Pleiads were daughters of Atlas, and nymphs of Diana's train.

One day Orion saw them, and became enamored, and pursued them.

In their distress they prayed to the gods to change their form,

and Jupiter in pity turned them into pigeons, and then made them

a constellation in the sky. Though their numbers was seven, only

six stars are visible, for Electra, one of them, it is said, left

her place that she might not behold the ruin of Troy, for that

city was founded by her son Dardanus. The sight had such an

effect on her sisters that they have looked pale ever since.

Mr. Longfellow has a poem on the "Occultation of Orion." The

following lines are those in which he alludes to the mythic

story. We must premise that on the celestial globe Orion is

represented as robed in a lion's skin and wielding a club. At

the moment the stars of the constellation one by one were

quenched in the light of the moon, the poet tells us,

"Down fell the red skin of the lion

Into the river at his feet.

His mighty club no longer beat

The forehead of the bull; but he

Reeled as of yore beside the sea,

When blinded by Oenopion

He sought the blacksmith at his forge,

And climbing up the narrow gorge,

Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun."

Tennyson has a different theory of the Pleiads:

"Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade,

Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."

Locksley Hall

Byron alludes to the lost Pleiad:

"Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below."

See also Mrs. Heman's verses on the same subject.

AURORA AND TITHONUS.

Aurora, the goddess of the Dawn, like her sister the Moon, was at

times inspired with the love of mortals. Her greatest favorite

was Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy. She stole him away,

and prevailed on Jupiter to grant him immortality; but forgetting

to have youth joined in the gift, after some time she began to

discern, to her great mortification, that he was growing old.

When his hair was quite white she left his society; but he still

had the range of her palace, lived on ambrosial food, and was

clad in celestial raiment. At length he lost the power of using

his limbs, and then she shut him up in his chamber, whence his

feeble voice might at times be heard. Finally she turned him

into a grasshopper.

Memnon was the son of aurora and Tithonus. He was king of the

AEthiopians, and dwelt in the extreme east, on the shore of

Ocean. He came with his warriors to assist the kindred of his

father in the war of Troy. King Priam received him with great

honors, and listened with admiration to his narrative of the

wonders of the ocean shore.

The very day after his arrival, Memnon, impatient of repose, led

his troops to the field. Antilochus, the brave son of Nestor,

fell by his hand, and the Greeks were put to flight, when

Achilles appeared and restored the battle. A long and doubtful

contest ensued between him and the son of Aurora; at length

victor declared for Achilles, Memnon fell, and the Trojans fled

in dismay.

Aurora, who, from her station in the sky, had viewed with

apprehension the danger of her son, when she saw him fall

directed his brothers, the Winds, to convey his body to the banks

of the river Esepus in Paphlagonia. In the evening Aurora came,

accompanied by the Hours and the Pleiads, and wept and lamented

over her son. Night, in sympathy with her grief, spread the

heaven with clouds; all nature mourned for the offspring of the

Dawn. The Aethiopians raised his tomb on the banks of the stream

in the grove of the nymphs, and Jupiter caused the sparks and

cinders of his funeral-pile to be turned into birds, which,

dividing into two flocks, fought over the pile till they fell

into the flame. Every year, at the anniversary of his death,

they return and celebrate his obsequies in like manner. Aurora

remains inconsolable for the loss of her son. Her tears still

flow, and may be seen at early morning in the form of dew-drops

on the grass.

Unlike most of the marvels of ancient mythology, there will exist

some memorials of this. On the banks of the river Nile, in

Egypt, are two colossal statues, one of which is said to be the

statue of Memnon. Ancient writers record that when the first

rays of the rising sun fall upon this statue, a sound is heard to

issue from it which they compare to the snapping of a harp-

string. There is some doubt about the identification of the

existing statue with the one described by the ancients, and the

mysterious sounds are still more doubtful. Yet there are not

wanting some modern testimonies to their being still audible. It

has been suggested that sounds produced by confined air making

its escape from crevices or caverns in the rocks may have given

some ground for the story. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, a late

traveller, of the highest authority, examined the statue itself,

and discovered that it was hollow, and that "in the lap of the

statue is a stone, which, on being struck, emits a metallic

sound, that might still be made use of to deceive a visitor who

was predisposed to believe its powers."

The vocal statue of Memnon is a favorite subject of allusion with

the poets. Darwin, in his Botanic Garden, says,

"So to the sacred Sun in Memnon's fane

Spontaneous concords choired the matin strain;

Touched by his orient beam responsive rings

The living lyre and vibrates all its strings;

Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong,

And holy echoes swell the adoring song."

ACIS AND GALATEA

Scylla was a fair virgin of Sicily, a favorite of the Sea-Nymphs.

She had many suitors, but repelled them all, and would go to the

grotto of Galatea, and tell her how she was persecuted. One day

the goddess, while Scylla dressed her hair, listened to the

story, and then replied, "Yet, maiden, your persecutors are of

the not ungentle race of men, whom if you will you can repel; but

I, the daughter of Nereus, and protected by such a band of

sisters, found no escape from the passion of the Cyclops but in

the depths of the sea;" and tears stopped her utterance, which

when the pitying maiden had wiped away with her delicate finger,

and soothed the goddess, "Tell me, dearest," said she, "the cause

of your grief." Galatea then said, "Acis was the son of Faunus

and a Naiad. His father and mother loved him dearly, but their

love was not equal to mine. For the beautiful youth attached

himself to me alone, and he was just sixteen years old, the down

just beginning to darken his cheeks. As much as I sought his

society, so much did the cyclops seek mine; and if you ask me

whether my love for Acis or my hatred for Polyphemus was the

stronger, I cannot tell you; they were in equal measure. Oh,

Venus, how great is thy power! This fierce giant, the terror of

the woods, whom no hapless stranger escaped unharmed, who defied

even Jove himself, learned to feel what love was, and touched

with a passion for me, forgot his flocks and his well-stored

caverns. Then, for the first time, he began to take some care of

his appearance, and to try to make himself agreeable; he harrowed

those coarse locks of his with a comb, and mowed his beard with a

sickle, looked at his harsh features in the water, and composed

his countenance. His love of slaughter, his fierceness and

thirst of blood prevailed no more, and ships that touched at his

island went away in safety. He paced up and down the sea-shore,

imprinting huge tracks with his heavy tread, and, when weary, lay

tranquilly in his cave.

"There is a cliff which projects into the sea, which washes it on

either side. Thither one day the huge Cyclops ascended, and sat

down while his flocks spread themselves around. Laying down his

staff which would have served for a mast to hold a vessel's sail,

and taking his instrument, compacted of numerous pipes, he made

the hills and the waters echo the music of his song. I lay hid

under a rock, by the side of my beloved Acis, and listened to the

distant strain. It was full of extravagant praises of my beauty,

mingled with passionate reproaches of my coldness and cruelty.

"When he had finished he rose up, and like a raging bull, that

cannot stand still, wandered off into the woods. Acis and I

thought no more of him, till on a sudden he came to a spot which

gave him a view of us as we sat. 'I see you,' he exclaimed, 'and

I will make this the last of your love-meetings.' His voice was

a roar such as an angry Cyclops alone could utter. AEtna

trembled at the sound. I, overcome with terror, plunged into the

water. Acis turned and fled, crying, 'Save me, Galatea, save me,

my parents!" The Cyclops pursued him, and tearing a rock from

the side of the mountain hurled it at him. Though only a corner

of it touched him it overwhelmed him.

"All that fate left in my power I did for Acis. I endowed him

with the honors of his grandfather the river-god. The purple

blood flowed out from under the rock, but by degrees grew paler

and looked like the stream of a river rendered turbid by rains,

and in time it became clear. The rock cleaved open, and the

water, as it gushed from the chasm, uttered a pleasing murmur."

Thus Acis was changed into a river, and the river retains the

name of Acis.

Chapter XX

The Trojan War

Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, but on one occasion she did a

very foolish thing; she entered into competition with Juno and

Venus for the prize of beauty. It happened thus. At the

nuptials of Peleus and Thetis all the gods were invited with the

exception of Eris, or Discord. Enraged at her exclusion, the

goddess threw a golden apple among the guests with the

inscription, "For the most beautiful." Thereupon Juno, Venus,

and Minerva, each claimed the apple. Jupiter not willing to

decide in so delicate a matter, sent the goddesses to Mount Ida,

where the beautiful shepherd Paris was tending his flocks, and to

him was committed the decision. The goddesses accordingly

appeared before him. Juno promised him power and riches, Minerva

glory and renown in war, and Venus the fairest of women for his

wife, each attempting to bias his decision in her own favor.

Paris decided in favor of Venus and gave her the golden apple,

thus making the two other goddesses his enemies. Under the

protection of Venus, Paris sailed to Greece, and was hospitably

received by Menelaus, king of Sparta. Now Helen, the wife of

Menelaus, was the very woman whom Venus had destined for Paris,

the fairest of her sex. She had been sought as a bride by

numerous suitors, and before her decision was made known, they

all, at the suggestion of Ulysses, one of their number, took an

oath that they would defend her from all injury and avenge her

cause if necessary. She chose Menelaus, and was living with him

happily when Paris became their guest. Paris, aided by Venus,

persuaded her to elope with him, and carried her to Troy, whence

arose the famous Trojan war, the theme of the greatest poems of

antiquity, those of Homer and Virgil.

Menelaus called upon his brother chieftains of Greece to fulfil

their pledge, and join him in his efforts to recover his wife.

They generally came forward, but Ulysses, who had married

Penelope and was very happy in his wife and child, had no

disposition to embark in such a troublesome affair. He therefore

hung back and Palamedes was sent to urge him. When Palamedes

arrived at Ithaca, Ulysses pretended to be mad. He yoked an ass

and an ox together to the plough and began to sow salt.

Palamedes, to try him, placed the infant Telemachus before the

plough, whereupon the father turned the plough aside, showing

plainly that he was no madman, and after that could no longer

refuse to fulfil his promise. Being now himself gained for the

undertaking, he lent his aid to bring in other reluctant chiefs,

especially Achilles. This hero was the son of that Thetis at

whose marriage the apple of Discord had been thrown among the

goddesses. Thetis was herself one of the immortals, a sea-nymph,

and knowing that her son was fated to perish before Troy if he

went on the expedition, she endeavored to prevent his going. She

sent him away to the court of king Lycomedes, and induced him to

conceal himself in the disguise of a maiden among the daughters

of the king. Ulysses, hearing he was there, went disguised as a

merchant to the palace and offered for sale female ornaments,

among which he had placed some arms. While the king's daughters

were engrossed with the other contents of the merchant's pack,

Achilles handled the weapons and thereby betrayed himself to the

keen eye of Ulysses, who found no great difficulty in persuading

him to disregard his mother's prudent counsels and join his

countrymen in the war.

Priam was king of Troy, and Paris, the shepherd and seducer of

Helen, was his son. Paris had been brought up in obscurity,

because there were certain ominous forebodings connected with him

from his infancy that he would be the ruin of the state. These

forebodings seemed at length likely to be realized, for the

Grecian armament now in preparation was the greatest that had

ever been fitted out. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and brother of

the injured Menelaus, was chosen commander-in-chief. Achilles

was their most illustrious warrior. After him ranked Ajax,

gigantic in size and of great courage, but dull of intellect,

Diomedes, second only to Achilles in all the qualities of a hero,

Ulysses, famous for his sagacity, and Nestor, the oldest of the

Grecian chiefs, and one to whom they all looked up for counsel.

But Troy was no feeble enemy. Priam, the king, was now old, but

he had been a wise prince and had strengthened his state by good

government at home and numerous alliances with his neighbors.

But the principal stay and support of his throne was his son

Hector, one of the noblest characters painted by heathen

antiquity. Hector felt, from the first, a presentiment of the

fall of his country, but still persevered in his heroic

resistance, yet by no means justified the wrong which brought

this danger upon her. He was united in marriage with Andromache,

and as a husband and father his character was not less admirable

than as a warrior. The principal leaders on the side of the

Trojans, besides Hector, were Aeneas and Deiphobus, Glaucus and

Sarpedon.

After two years of preparation the Greek fleet and army assembled

in the port of Aulis in Boeotia. Here Agamemnon in hunting

killed a stag which was sacred to Diana, and the goddess in

return visited the army with pestilence, and produced a calm

which prevented the ships from leaving the port. Calchas the

soothsayer thereupon announced that the wrath of the virgin

goddess could only be appeased by the sacrifice of a virgin on

her altar, and that none other but the daughter of the offender

would be acceptable. Agamemnon, however reluctant, yielded his

consent, and the maiden Iphigenia was sent for under the pretence

that she was to be married to Achilles. When she was about to be

sacrificed the goddess relented and snatched her away, leaving a

hind in her place, and Iphigenia enveloped in a cloud was carried

to Tauris, where Diana made her priestess of her temple.

Tennyson, in his Dream of Fair women, makes Iphigenia thus

describe her feelings at the moment of sacrifice, the moment

represented in our engraving:

"I was cut off from hope in that sad place,

Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears;

My father held his hand upon his face;

I, blinded by my tears,

"Still strove to speak; my voice was thick with sighs,

As in a dream. Dimly I could descry

The stern black-bearded kings, with wolfish eyes,

Waiting to see me die.

"The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat,

The temples and the people and the shore;

One drew a sharp knife through my tender throat

Slowly, and nothing more."

The wind now proving fair the fleet made sail and brought the

forces to the coast of Troy. The Trojans came to oppose their

landing, and at the first onset Protesilaus fell by the hand of

Hector. Protesilaus had left at home his wife Laodamia, who was

most tenderly attached to him. When the news of his death

reached her she implored the gods to be allowed to converse with

him only three hours. The request was granted. Mercury led

Protesilaus back to the upper world, and when he died a second

time Laodamia died with him. There was a story that the nymphs

panted elm trees round his grave which grew very well till they

were high enough to command a view of Troy, and then withered

away, while fresh branches sprang from the roots.

Wordsworth has taken the story of Protesilaus and Laodamia for

the subject of a poem. It seems the oracle had declared that

victory should be the lot of that party from which should fall

the first victim to the war. The poet represents Protesilaus, on

his brief return to earth, as relating to Laodamia the story of

his fate:

"The wished-for wind was given; I then revolved

The oracle, upon the silent sea;

And if no worthier led the way, resolved

That of a thousand vessels mine should be

The foremost prow impressing to the strand,

Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.

"Yet bitter, ofttimes bitter was the pang

When of thy loss I thought, beloved wife!

On thee too fondly did my memory hang,

And on the joys we shared in mortal life,

The paths which we had trod, these fountains, flowers;

My new planned cities and unfinished towers.

"But should suspense permit the foe to cry,

'Behold they tremble! Haughty their array,

Yet of their number no one dares to die!'"

In soul I swept the indignity away;

Old frailties then recurred; but lofty thought

In act embodied my deliverance wrought.

. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .

Upon the side

Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)

A knot of spiry trees for ages grew

From out the tomb of him for whom she died;

And ever when such stature they had gained

That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,

The trees' tall summits withered at the sight,

A constant interchange of growth and blight!"

THE ILIAD

The war continued without decisive results for nine years. Then

an event occurred which seemed likely to be fatal to the cause of

the Greeks, and that was a quarrel between Achilles and

Agamemnon. It is at this point that the great poem of Homer, the

Iliad, begins. The Greeks, though unsuccessful against Troy, had

taken the neighboring and allied cities, and in the division of

the spoil a female captive, by name Chryseis, daughter of

Chryses, priest of Apollo, had fallen to the share of Agamemnon.

Chryses came bearing the sacred emblems of his office, and begged

the release of his daughter. Agamemnon refused. Thereupon

Chryses implored Apollo to afflict the Greeks till they should be

forced to yield their prey. Apollo granted the prayer of his

priest, and sent pestilence into the Grecian camp. Then a

council was called to deliberate how to allay the wrath of the

gods and avert the plague. Achilles boldly charged their

misfortunes upon Agamemnon as caused by his withholding Chryseis.

Agamemnon enraged, consented to relinquish his captive, but

demanded that Achilles should yield to him in her stead Briseis,

a maiden who had fallen to Achilles' share in the division of the

spoil. Achilles submitted, but forthwith declared that he would

take no further part in the war. He withdrew his forces from the

general camp and openly avowed his intention of returning home to

Greece.

The gods and goddesses interested themselves as much in this

famous war as the parties themselves. It was well known to them

that fate had decreed that Troy should fall, at last, if her

enemies should persevere and not voluntarily abandon the

enterprise. Yet there was room enough left for chance to excite

by turns the hopes and fears of the powers above who took part

with either side. Juno and Minerva, in consequence of the slight

put upon their charms by Paris, were hostile to the Trojans;

Venus for the opposite cause favored them. Venus enlisted her

admirer Mars on the same side, but Neptune favored the Greeks.

Apollo was neutral, sometimes taking one side, sometimes the

other, and Jove himself, though he loved the good King Priam, yet

exercised a degree of impartiality; not however without

exceptions.

Thetis, the mother of Achilles, warmly resented the injury done

to her son. She repaired immediately to Jove's palace, and

besought him to make the Greeks repent of their injustice to

Achilles by granting success to the Trojan arms. Jupiter

consented; and in the battle which ensued the Trojans were

completely successful. The Greeks were driven from the field,

and took refuge in their ships. Then Agamemnon called a council

of his wisest and bravest chiefs. Nestor advised that an embassy

should be sent to Achilles to persuade him to return to the

field; that Agamemnon should yield the maiden, the cause of the

dispute, with ample gifts to atone for the wrong he had done.

Agamemnon consented, and Ulysses, Ajax, and Phoenix were sent to

carry to Achilles the penitent message. They performed that

duty, but Achilles was deaf to their entreaties. He positively

refused to return to the field, and persisted in his resolution

to embark for Greece without delay. The Greeks had constructed a

rampart around their ships, and now, instead of besieging Troy,

they were in a manner besieged themselves within their rampart.

The next day after the unsuccessful embassy to Achilles, a battle

was fought, and the Trojans, favored by Jove, were successful,

and succeeded in forcing a passage through the Grecian rampart,

and were about to set fire to the ships. Neptune, seeing the

Greeks so pressed, came to their rescue. He appeared in the form

of Calchas the prophet, encouraged the warriors with his shouts,

and appealed to each individually till he raised their ardor to

such a pitch that they forced the Trojans to give way. Ajax

performed prodigies of valor, and at length encountered Hector.

Ajax shouted defiance, to which Hector replied, and hurled his

lance at the huge warrior. It was well aimed, and struck Ajax

where the belts that bore his sword and shield crossed each other

on the breast. The double guard prevented its penetrating, and

it fell harmless. Then Ajax, seeing a huge stone, one of those

that served to prop the ships, hurled it at Hector. It struck

him in the neck and stretched him on the plain. His followers

instantly seized him, and bore him off stunned and wounded.

While Neptune was thus aiding the Greeks and driving back the

Trojans, Jupiter saw nothing of what was going on, for his

attention had been drawn from the field by the wiles of Juno.

That goddess had arrayed herself in all her charms, and, to crown

all, had borrowed of Venus her girdle called Cestus, which had

the effect to heighten the wearer's charms to such a degree that

they were quite irresistible. So prepared, Juno went to join her

husband, who sat on Olympus watching the battle. When he beheld

her she looked so charming that the fondness of his early love

revived, and, forgetting the contending armies and all other

affairs of state, he thought only of her and let the battle go as

it would.

But this absorption did not continue long, and when, upon turning

his eyes downward, he beheld Hector stretched on the plain almost

lifeless from pain and bruises, he dismissed Juno in a rage,

commanding her to send Iris and Apollo to him. When Iris came he

sent her with a stern message to Neptune, ordering him instantly

to quit the field. Apollo was dispatched to heal Hector's

bruises and to inspirit his heart. These orders were obeyed with

such speed that while the battle still raged, Hector returned to

the field and Neptune betook himself to his own dominions.

An arrow from Paris's bow wounded Machaon, son of Aesculapius,

who inherited his father's art of healing, and was therefore of

great value to the Greeks as their surgeon, besides being one of

their bravest warriors. Nestor took Machaon in his chariot and

conveyed him from the field. As they passed the ships of

Achilles, that hero, looking out over the field, saw the chariot

of Nestor and recognized the old chief, but could not discern who

the wounded chief was. So calling Patroclus, his companion and

dearest friend, he sent him to Nestor's tent to inquire.

Patroclus, arriving at Nestor's tent, saw Machaon wounded, and

having told the cause of his coming would have hastened away, but

Nestor detained him, to tell him the extent of the Grecian

calamities. He reminded him also how, at the time of departing

for Troy, Achilles and himself had been charged by their

respective fathers with different advice; Achilles to aspire to

the highest pitch of glory, Patroclus, as the elder, to keep

watch over his friend, and to guide his inexperience. "Now,"

said Nestor, "is the time for such influence. If the gods so

please, thou mayest win him back to the common cause; but if not

let hm at least send his soldiers to the field, and come thou,

Patroclus, clad in his armor, and perhaps the very sight of it

may drive back the Trojans."

Patroclus was strongly moved with this address, and hastened back

to Achilles, revolving in his mind all he had seen and heard. He

told the prince the sad condition of affairs at the camp of their

late associates; Diomedes, Ulysses, Agamemnon, Machaon, all

wounded, the rampart broken down, the enemy among the ships

preparing to burn them, and thus to cut off all means of return

to Greece. While they spoke the flames burst forth from one of

the ships. Achilles, at the sight, relented so far as to grant

Patroclus his request to lead the Myrmidons (for so were

Achilles' soldiers called) to the field, and to lend him his

armor that he might thereby strike more terror into the minds of

the Trojans. Without delay the soldiers were marshalled,

Patroclus put on the radiant armor and mounted the chariot of

Achilles, and led forth the men ardent for battle. But before he

went, Achilles strictly charged him that he should be content

with repelling the foe. "Seek not," said he, "to press the

Trojans without me, lest thou add still more to the disgrace

already mine." Then exhorting the troops to do their best he

dismissed them full of ardor to the fight.

Patroclus and his Myrmidons at once plunged into the contest

where it raged hottest; at the sight of which the joyful Grecians

shouted and the ships reechoed the acclaim. The Trojans, at the

sight of the well-known armor, struck with terror, looked every

where for refuge. First those who had got possession of the ship

and set it on fire left and allowed the Grecians to retake it and

extinguish the flames. Then the rest of the Trojans fled in

dismay. Ajax, Menelaus, and the two sons of Nestor performed

prodigies of valor. Hector was forced to turn his horses' heads

and retire from the enclosure, leaving his men entangled in the

fosse to escape as they could. Patroclus drove them before him,

slaying many, none daring to make a stand against him.

At last Sarpedon, son of Jove, ventured to oppose himself in

fight to Patroclus. Jupiter looked down upon him and would have

snatched him from the fate which awaited him, but Juno hinted

that if he did so it would induce all others of the inhabitants

of heaven to interpose in like manner whenever any of their

offspring were endangered; to which reason Jove yielded.

Sarpedon threw his spear but missed Patroclus, but Patroclus

threw his with better success. It pierced Sarpedon's breast and

he fell, and, calling to his friends to save his body from the

foe, expired. Then a furious contest arose for the possession of

the corpse. The Greeks succeeded and stripped Sarpedon of his

armor; but Jove would not allow the remains of his son to be

dishonored, and by his command Apollo snatched from the midst of

the combatants the body of Sarpedon and committed it to the care

of the twin brothers Death and Sleep, by whom it was transported

to Lycia, the native land of Sarpedon, where it received due

funeral rites.

Thus far Patroclus had succeeded to his utmost wish in repelling

the Trojans and relieving his countrymen, but now came a change

of fortune. Hector, borne in his chariot, confronted him.

Patroclus threw a vast stone at Hector, which missed its aim, but

smote Cebriones, the charioteer, and knocked him from the car.

Hector leaped from the chariot to rescue his friend, and

Patroclus also decended to complete his victory. Thus the two

heroes met face to face. At this decisive moment the poet, as if

reluctant to give Hector the glory, records that Phoebus took

part against Patroclus. He struck the helmet from his head and

the lance from his hand. At the same moment an obscure Trojan

wounded him in the back, and Hector pressing forward pierced him

with his spear. He fell mortally wounded.

Then arose a tremendous conflict for the body of Patroclus, but

his armor was at once taken possession of by Hector, who,

retiring a short distance, divested himself of his own armor and

put on that of Achilles, then returned to the fight. Ajax and

Menelaus defended the body, and Hector and his bravest warriors

struggled to capture it. The battle raged with equal fortune,

when Jove enveloped the whole face of heaven with a dark cloud.

The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and Ajax, looking

round for some one whom he might dispatch to Achilles to tell him

of the death of his friend and of the imminent danger that his

remains would fall into the hands of the enemy, could see no

suitable messenger. It was then that he exclaimed in those

famous lines so often quoted,

"Father of heaven and earth! Deliver thou

Achaia's host from darkness; clear the skies;

Give day; and, since thy sovereign will is such,

Destruction with it; but, oh, give us day."

Cowper.

Or, as rendered by Pope,

"Lord of earth and air!

Oh, king! Oh, father! Hear my humble prayer!

Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore;

Give me to see and Ajax asks no more;

If Greece must perish we thy will obey

But let us perish in the face of day."

Jupiter heard the prayer and dispersed the clouds. Then Ajax

sent Antilochus to Achilles with the intelligence of Patroclus's

death, and of the conflict raging for his remains. The Greeks at

last succeeded in bearing off the body to the ships, closely

pursued by Hector and Aeneas and rest of the Trojans.

Achilles heard the fate of his friend with such distress that

Antilochus feared for a while that he would destroy himself. His

groans reached the ears of his mother, Thetis, far down in the

deeps of ocean where she abode, and she hastened to him to

inquire the cause. She found him overwhelmed with self-reproach

that he had indulged his resentment so far, and suffered his

friend to fall a victim to it. But his only consolation was the

hope of revenge. He would fly instantly in search of Hector.

But his mother reminded him that he was now without armor, and

promised him, if he would but wait till the morrow, she would

procure for him a suit of armor from Vulcan more than equal to

that he had lost. He consented, and Thetis immediately repaired

to Vulcan's palace. She found him busy at his forge making

tripods for his own use, so artfully constructed that they moved

forward of their own accord when wanted, and retired again when

dismissed. On hearing the request of Thetis, Vulcan immediately

laid aside his work and hastened to comply with her wishes. He

fabricated a splendid suit of armor for Achilles, first a shield

adorned with elaborate devices, then a helmet crested with gold,

then a corslet and greaves of impenetrable temper, all perfectly

adapted to his form, and of consummate workmanship. It was all

done in one night, and Thetis, receiving it, descended with it to

earth and laid it down at Achilles' feet at the dawn of day.

The first glow of pleasure that Achilles had felt since the death

of Petroclus was at the sight of this splendid armor. And now

arrayed in it, he went forth into the camp, calling all the

chiefs to council. When they were all assembled he addressed

them. Renouncing his displeasure against Agamemnon and bitterly

lamenting the miseries that had resulted from it, he called on

them to proceed at once to the field. Agamemnon made a suitable

reply, laying all the blame on Ate, the goddess of discord, and

thereupon complete reconcilement took place between the heroes.