"then must they be ready to face for my sake even the loss of dear
life itself. I shall be the prize of him who outruns me in a
foot-race. But he who tries and fails, must pay to Death his penalty."
Thereafter, for many days, a strange sight was to be seen in Arcadia.
For one after another the suitors came to race with the maiden whose
face had bewitched them, though truly the race was no more fair to him
who ran than would be a race with Death. No mortal man was as fleet as
Atalanta, who had first raced with the wild things of the mountains
and the forests, and who had dared at last to race with the winds and
leave even them behind. To her it was all a glorious game. Her
conquest was always sure, and if the youths who entered in the contest
cared to risk their lives, why should they blame her? So each day they
started, throbbing hope and fierce determination to win her in the
heart of him who ran--fading hope and despairing anger as he saw her
skimming ahead of him like a gay-hued butterfly that a tired child
pursues in vain. And each day, as the race ended, another man paid the
price of his defeat.
Daily, amongst those who looked on, stood her cousin Milanion. He
would fain have hated Atalanta for her ruthlessness and her joyousness
as he saw his friends die for her sake, yet daily her beauty, her
purity, and her gallant unconsciousness took a firmer hold upon his
heart. To himself he vowed that he would win Atalanta, but not without
help from the gods was this possible. Therefore he sought Aphrodite
herself and asked her aid.
Milanion was a beautiful youth, and to Aphrodite, who loved beauty, he
pled his cause as he told her how Atalanta had become to him more than
life, so that he had ceased to pity the youths, his friends, who had
died for love of her. The goddess smiled upon him with gentle
sympathy.
In the garden of her temple grew a tree with branches and twigs of
gold, and leaves as yellow as the little leaves of the silver birch
when the autumn sun kisses them as it sets. On this tree grew golden
apples, and Aphrodite plucked three of them and gave them to the youth
who had not feared to ask her to aid him to win the maid he loved.
How he was to use the apples she then told him, and, well content,
Milanion returned home.
Next day he spoke to Atalanta.
"So far has victory been thine, Fairest on earth," he said, "but so
far have thy little winged white feet had only the heavy-footed
laggards to outrun. Wilt have me run a race with thee? for assuredly I
shall win thee for my own."
And Milanion looked into the eyes of Atalanta with a smile as gay and
fearless as that with which a hero is wont to look in the eyes of his
fellow.
Look for look did the virgin huntress give him.
Then her cheeks grew red, as though the rosy-fingered dawn had touched
them, and the dawning of love came into her heart.
Even Meleager was not quite so goodly a youth as this. Not even
Meleager had been so wholly fearless.
"Thou art tempted by the deathless gods," she said, but her long
lashes drooped on her cheek as she spoke. "I pity you, Milanion, for
when thou dost race with me, the goal is assuredly the meadows of
asphodel near where sit Pluto and Persephone on their gloomy thrones."
But Milanion said, "I am ready, Atalanta. Wilt race with me now?" And
steadily he looked in her eyes until again they fell as though at last
they had found a conqueror.
Like two swallows that skim across a sunny sea, filled with the
joyousness of the coming of spring, Atalanta and Milanion started.
Scarcely did their feet seem to touch the solid earth, and all
those who stood by vowed that now, at length, was a race indeed, a
race worthy for the gods to behold.
[Illustration: SHE STOPPED, AND PICKED UP THE TREASURE]
But as they ran, almost abreast, so that none could tell which was the
gainer, Milanion obeyed the bidding of Aphrodite and let fall one of
the golden apples. Never before had Atalanta dreamed of such a
thing--an apple of glistening gold! She stopped, poised on one foot as
a flying bird poises for a moment on the wing, and picked up the
treasure. But Milanion had sped several paces ahead ere she was again
abreast of him, and even as she gained on him, he dropped the second
apple. Again Atalanta was tempted. Again she stopped, and again
Milanion shot ahead of her. Her breath came short and fast, as once
more she gained the ground that she had lost. But, yet a third time,
Milanion threw in her way one of the golden illusions of the gods.
And, yet again, Atalanta stooped to pick up the apple of gold.
Then a mighty shout from those who watched rent the air, and Atalanta,
half fearful, half ashamed, yet wholly happy, found herself running,
vanquished, into the arms of him who was indeed her conqueror. For not
only had Milanion won the race, but he had won the heart of the virgin
huntress, a heart once as cold and remote as the winter snow on the
peak of Mount Olympus.
ARACHNE
The hay that so short a time ago was long, lush grass, with fragrant
meadow-sweet and gold-eyed marguerites growing amongst it in the green
meadow-land by the river, is now dry hay--fragrant still, though dead,
and hidden from the sun's warm rays underneath the dark wooden rafters
of the barn. Occasionally a cat on a hunting foray comes into the barn
to look for mice, or to nestle cosily down into purring slumber. Now
and then a hen comes furtively tip-toeing through the open door and
makes for itself a secret nest in which to lay the eggs which it
subsequently heralds with such loud clucks of proud rejoicing as to
completely undo all its previous precautions. Sometimes children come
in, pursuing cat or hen, or merely to tumble each other over amongst
the soft hay which they leave in chaotic confusion, and when they have
gone away, a little more of the sky can be seen through the little
window in the roof, and through the wooden bars of the window lower
down. Yet, whatever other living creatures may come or go, by those
windows of the barn, and high up on its dark rafters, there is always
a living creature working, ceaselessly working. When, through the
skylight, the sun-god drives a golden sunbeam, and a long shaft of
dancing dust-atoms passes from the window to what was once a part of
the early summer's glory, the work of the unresting toiler is also to
be seen, for the window is hung with shimmering grey tapestries made
by Arachne, the spider, and from rafter to rafter her threads are
suspended with inimitable skill.
She was a nymph once, they say--the daughter of Idmon the dyer, of
Colophon, a city of Lydia. In all Lydia there was none who could weave
as wove the beautiful Arachne. To watch her card the wool of the
white-fleeced sheep until in her fingers it grew like the soft clouds
that hang round the hill tops, was pleasure enough to draw nymphs from
the golden river Pactolus and from the vineyards of Tymolus. And when
she drove her swift shuttle hither and thither, still it was joy to
watch her wondrous skill. Magical was the growth of the web, fine of
woof, that her darting fingers span, and yet more magical the
exquisite devices that she then wrought upon it. For birds and flowers
and butterflies and pictures of all the beautiful things on earth were
limned by Arachne, and old tales grew alive again under her creative
needle.
To Pallas Athene, goddess of craftsmen, came tidings that at Colophon
in Lydia lived a nymph whose skill rivalled that of the goddess
herself, and she, ever jealous for her own honour, took on herself the
form of a woman bent with age, and, leaning on her staff, joined the
little crowd that hung round Arachne as she plied her busy needle.
With white arms twined round each other the eager nymphs watched the
flowers spring up under her fingers, even as flowers spring from the
ground on the coming of Demeter, and Athene was fain to admire, while
she marvelled at the magic skill of the fair Arachne.
Gently she spoke to Arachne, and, with the persuasive words of a wise
old woman, warned her that she must not let her ambition soar too
high. Greater than all skilled craftswomen was the great goddess
Athene, and were Arachne, in impious vanity, to dream that one day she
might equal her, that were indeed a crime for any god to punish.
Glancing up for a moment from the picture whose perfect colours grew
fast under her slim fingers, Arachne fixed scornful eyes on the old
woman and gave a merry laugh.
"Didst say _equal_ Athene? old mother," she said. "In good sooth thy
dwelling must be with the goat-herds in the far-off hills and thou art
not a dweller in our city. Else hadst thou not spoken to Arachne of
_equalling_ the work of Athene; _excelling_ were the better word."
In anger Pallas Athene made answer.
"Impious one!" she said, "to those who would make themselves higher
than the gods must ever come woe unutterable. Take heed what thou
sayest, for punishment will assuredly be thine."
Laughing still, Arachne made reply:
"I fear not, Athene, nor does my heart shake at the gloomy warning of
a foolish old crone." And turning to the nymphs who, half afraid,
listened to her daring words, she said: "Fair nymphs who watch me day
by day, well do ye know that I make no idle boast. My skill is as
great as that of Athene, and greater still it shall be. Let Athene try
a contest with me if she dare! Well do I know who will be the victor."
Then Athene cast off her disguise, and before the frightened nymphs
and the bold Arachne stood the radiant goddess with eyes that blazed
with anger and insulted pride.
"Lo, Athene is come!" she said, and nymphs and women fell on their
knees before her, humbly adoring. Arachne alone was unabashed. Her
cheeks showed how fast her heart was beating. From rosy red to white
went the colour in them, yet, in firm, low voice she spoke.
"I have spoken truth," she said. "Not woman, nor goddess, can do work
such as mine. Ready am I to abide by what I have said, and if I did
boast, by my boast I stand. If thou wilt deign, great goddess, to try
thy skill against the skill of the dyer's daughter and dost prove the
victor, behold me gladly willing to pay the penalty."
The eyes of Athene, the grey-eyed goddess, grew dark as the sea when a
thunder-cloud hangs over it and a mighty storm is coming. Not for one
moment did she delay, but took her place by the side of Arachne. On
the loom they stretched out two webs with a fine warp, and made them
fast on the beam.
"The sley separates the warp, the woof is inserted in
the middle with sharp shuttles, which the fingers hurry
along, and, being drawn within the warp, the teeth
notched in the moving sley strike it. Both hasten on,
and girding up their garments to their breasts, they
move their skilful arms, their eagerness beguiling their
fatigue. There both the purple is being woven, which is
subjected to the Tyrian brazen vessel, and fine shades
of minute difference; just as the rainbow, with its
mighty arch, is wont to tint a long tract of sky by
means of the rays reflected by the shower; in which,
though a thousand different colours are shining, yet the
very transition eludes the eyes that look upon it....
There, too, the pliant gold is mixed with the threads."
Ovid.
Their canvases wrought, then did Athene and Arachne hasten to cover
them with pictures such as no skilled worker of tapestry has ever
since dreamed of accomplishing. Under the fingers of Athene grew up
pictures so real and so perfect that the watchers knew not whether the
goddess was indeed creating life. And each picture was one that told
of the omnipotence of the gods and of the doom that came upon those
mortals who had dared in their blasphemous presumption to struggle as
equals with the immortal dwellers in Olympus. Arachne glanced up from
her web and looked with eyes that glowed with the love of beautiful
things at the creations of Athene. Yet, undaunted, her fingers still
sped on, and the goddess saw, with brow that grew yet more clouded,
how the daughter of Idmon the dyer had chosen for subjects the tales
that showed the weaknesses of the gods. One after another the living
pictures grew beneath her hand, and the nymphs held their breath in
mingled fear and ecstasy at Arachne's godlike skill and most arrogant
daring. Between goddess and mortal none could have chosen, for the
colour and form and exquisite fancy of the pictures of the daughter of
Zeus were equalled, though not excelled, by those of the daughter of
the dyer of Colophon.
Darker and yet more dark grew the eyes of Athene as they looked on
the magical beauty of the pictures, each one of which was an insult to
the gods. What picture had skilful hand ever drawn to compare with
that of Europa who,
"riding on the back of the divine bull, with one hand
clasped the beast's great horn, and with the other
caught up her garment's purple fold, lest it might trail
and be drenched in the hoar sea's infinite spray. And
her deep robe was blown out in the wind, like the sail
of a ship, and lightly ever it wafted the maiden
onward."
Moschus.
Then at last did the storm break, and with her shuttle the enraged
goddess smote the web of Arachne, and the fair pictures were rent into
motley rags and ribbons. Furiously, too, with her shuttle of boxwood
she smote Arachne. Before her rage, the nymphs fled back to their
golden river and to the vineyards of Tymolus, and the women of
Colophon in blind terror rushed away. And Arachne, shamed to the dust,
knew that life for her was no longer worth possessing. She had
aspired, in the pride of her splendid genius, to a contest with a god,
and knew now that such a contest must ever be vain. A cord hung from
the weaver's beam, and swiftly she seized it, knotted it round her
white neck, and would have hanged herself. But ere the life had passed
out of her, Athene grasped the cord, loosened it, and spoke Arachne's
doom:
"Live!" she said, "O guilty and shameless one! For evermore shalt thou
live and hang as now, thou and thy descendants, that men may never
forget the punishment of the blasphemous one who dared to rival a
god."
Even as she spoke, Arachne's fair form dried up and withered. Her
straight limbs grew grey and crooked and wiry, and her white arms were
no more. And from the beam where the beautiful weaver of Lydia had
been suspended, there hung from a fine grey thread the creature from
which, to this day, there are but few who do not turn with loathing.
Yet still Arachne spins, and still is without a compeer.
"Not anie damzell, which her vaunteth most
In skilfull knitting of soft silken twyne,
Nor anie weaver, which his worke doth boast
In dieper, in damaske, or in lyne,
Nor anie skil'd in workmanship embost,
Nor anie skil'd in loupes of fingring fine,
Might in their divers cunning ever dare
With this so curious networke to compare."
Spenser.
Thus, perhaps, does Arachne have her compensations, and in days that
followed long after the twilight of the gods, did she not gain eternal
honour in the heart of every Scot by the tale of how she saved a
national hero? Kindly, too, are her labours for men as she slays their
mortal enemies, the household flies, and when the peasant--practical,
if not favoured by AEsculapius and Hygeia--runs to raid the loom of
Arachne in order to staunch the quick-flowing blood from the cut hand
of her little child, much more dear to her heart is Arachne the spider
than the unknown Athene.
"Also in spinners be tokens of divination, and of
knowing what weather shall fall--for oft by weathers
that shall fall, some spin or weave higher or lower.
Also multitude of spinners is token of much
rain."
Bartholomew.
The sun has not long enough shown his face to dry up the dew in the
garden, and behold on the little clipped tree of boxwood, a great
marvel! For in and out, and all over its twigs and leaves, Arachne has
woven her web, and on the web the dew has dropped a million diamond
drops. And, suddenly, all the colours in the sky are mirrored
dazzlingly on the grey tapestry of her making. Arachne has come to her
own again.
IDAS AND MARPESSA
By day, while the sun-god drove his chariot in the high heavens and
turned the blue-green AEgean Sea into the semblance of a blazing shield
of brass, Idas and Marpessa sat together in the trees' soft shades, or
walked in shadowy valleys where violets and wild parsley grew, and
where Apollo rarely deigned to come. At eventide, when, in royal
splendour of purple and crimson and gold, Apollo sought his rest in
the western sky, Idas and Marpessa wandered by the seashore watching
the little wavelets softly kissing the pebbles on the beach, or
climbed to the mountain side from whence they could see the first
glimpse of Diana's silver crescent and the twinkling lights of the
Pleiades breaking through the blue canopy of the sky. While Apollo
sought in heaven and on earth the best means to gratify his imperial
whims, Idas, for whom all joys had come to mean but one, sought ever
to be by the side of Marpessa. Shadowy valley, murmuring sea, lonely
mountain side, or garden where grew the purple amaranth and where
roses of pink and amber-yellow and deepest crimson dropped their
radiant petals on the snowy marble paths, all were the same to
Idas--Paradise for him, were Marpessa by his side; without her, dreary
desert.
More beautiful than any flower that grew in the garden was Marpessa.
No music that Apollo's lute could make was as sweet in the ears of
Idas as her dear voice. Its music was ever new to him--a melody to
make his heart more quickly throb. New, too, ever was her beauty. For
him it was always the first time that they met, always the same fresh
ravishment to look in her eyes. And when to Idas came the knowledge
that Marpessa gave him love for love, he had indeed won happiness so
great as to draw upon him the envy of the gods.
"The course of true love never did run smooth," and, like many and
many another father since his day, Evenos, the father of Marpessa, was
bitterly opposed to a match where the bridegroom was rich only in
youth, in health, and in love. His beautiful daughter naturally seemed
to him worthy of something much more high. Thus it was an unhappy day
for Marpessa when, as she sat alone by the fountain which dripped
slowly down on the marble basin, and dreamed of her lover, Idas,
Apollo himself, led by caprice, noiselessly walked through the rose
bushes, whose warm petals dropped at his feet as he passed, and beheld
a maiden more fair than the fairest flower that grew. The hum of bees,
the drip, drip of the fountain, these lulled her mind and heart and
soothed her day-dreams, and Marpessa's red lips, curved like the bow
of Eros, smiled as she thought of Idas, the man she loved. Silently
Apollo watched her. This queen of all the roses was not fit to be the
bride of mortal man--Marpessa must be his.
To Evenos Apollo quickly imparted his desire. He was not used to
having his imperial wishes denied, nor was Evenos anxious to do so.
Here, indeed, was a match for his daughter. No insignificant mortal,
but the radiant sun-god himself! And to Marpessa he told what Apollo
wished, and Marpessa shyly looked at her reflection in the pool of the
fountain, and wondered if she were indeed beautiful enough to win the
love of a god.
"Am I in truth so wondrous fair?" she asked her father.
"Fair enough to mate with Apollo himself!" proudly answered Evenos.
And joyously Marpessa replied, "Ah, then am I happy indeed! I would be
beautiful for my Idas' sake!"
An angry man was her father. There was to be no more pleasant dallying
with Idas in the shadowy wood or by the seashore. In the rose garden
Apollo took his place and charmed Marpessa's ears with his music,
while her eyes could not but be charmed by his beauty. The god had no
doubts or fears. Only a little time he would give her, for a very
little only would he wait, and then undoubtedly this mortal maiden
would be his, her heart conquered as assuredly as the rays from his
chariot conquered the roses, whose warm crimson petals they strewed at
his feet. Yet as Marpessa looked and listened, her thoughts were often
far away and always her heart was with Idas. When Apollo played most
exquisitely to her it seemed that he put her love for Idas into music.
When he spoke to her of his love she thought, "Thus, and thus did Idas
speak," and a sudden memory of the human lad's halting words brought
to her heart a little gush of tenderness, and made her eyes sparkle
so that Apollo gladly thought, "Soon she will be mine."
[Illustration: MARPESSA SAT ALONE BY THE FOUNTAIN]
And all this while Idas schemed and plotted and planned a way in which
he could save his dear one from her obdurate father, and from the
passion of a god. He went to Neptune, told his tale, and begged him to
lend him a winged chariot in which he could fly away with Marpessa.
Neptune good-naturedly consented, and when Idas flew up from the
seashore one day, like a great bird that the tempests have blown
inland, Marpessa joyously sprang up beside her lover, and swiftly they
took flight for a land where in peace they might live and love
together. No sooner did Evenos realise that his daughter was gone,
than, in furious anger against her and her lover, he gave chase. One
has watched a hawk in pursuit of a pigeon or a bird of the moors and
seen it, a little dark speck at first, gradually growing larger and
more large until at length it dominated and conquered its prey,
swooping down from above, like an arrow from a bow, to bring with it
sudden death.
So at first it seemed that Evenos must conquer Idas and Marpessa in
the winged chariot of Neptune's lending. But onwards Idas drove the
chariot, ever faster and faster, until before the eyes of Marpessa the
trees of the forest grew into blurs of blue and brown, and the streams
and rivers as they flew past them were streaks of silver. Not until he
had reached the river Lycormas did the angry father own that his
pursuit had been in vain. Over the swift-flowing stream flew the
chariot driven by Idas, but Evenos knew that his horses, flecked with
white foam, pumping each breath from hearts that were strained to
breaking-point, no longer could go on with the chase. The passage of
that deep stream would destroy them. The fierce water would sweep the
wearied beasts down in its impelling current, and he with them. A
shamed man would he be forever. Not for a moment did he hesitate, but
drew his sharp sword from his belt and plunged it into the breast of
one steed and then of the other who had been so willing and who yet
had failed him in the end. And then, as they, still in their traces,
neighed shrilly aloud, and then fell over and died where they lay,
Evenos, with a great cry, leaped into the river. Over his head closed
the eddies of the peat-brown water. Once only did he throw up his arms
to ask the gods for mercy; then did his body drift down with the
stream, and his soul hastened downwards to the Shades. And from that
day the river Lycormas no more was known by that name, but was called
the river _Evenos_ forever.
Onwards, triumphantly, drove Idas, but soon he knew that a greater
than Evenos had entered in the chase, and that the jealous sun-god's
chariot was in pursuit of the winged car of Neptune. Quickly it gained
on him--soon it would have swept down on him--a hawk indeed, this
time, striking surely its helpless prey--but even as Apollo saw the
white face of Marpessa and knew that he was the victor, a mighty
thunderbolt that made the mountains shake, and rolled its echoes
through the lonely fastnesses of a thousand hills, was sent to earth
by Jupiter. While the echoes still re-echoed, there came from Olympus
the voice of Zeus himself.
"_Let her decide!_" he said.
Apollo, like a white flame blown backward by the wind, withheld his
hands that would have seized from Idas the woman who was his heart's
desire.
And then he spoke, and while his burning gaze was fixed upon her, and
his face, in beautiful fury, was more perfect than any exquisite
picture of her dreams, his voice was as the voice of the sea as it
calls to the shore in the moonlit hours, as the bird that sings in the
darkness of a tropic night to its longing mate.