trouble, never any pain can touch me. Yet woe indeed was mine when
first I saw thy fairest face. For even now dost thou hasten to sorrow,
to darkness, to the dark-shadowed tomb. Thou art but mortal! thy
beauty is short-lived. Thy love for mortal man shall quickly fade and
die. Come to me, Marpessa, and my kisses on your lips shall make thee
immortal! Together we shall bring the sunbeams to a cold, dark land!
Together shall we coax the spring flowers from the still, dead earth!
Together we shall bring to men the golden harvest, and deck the trees
of autumn in our liveries of red and gold. I love thee, Marpessa--not
as mere mortal loves do I love thee. Come to me, Marpessa--my Love--my
Desire!"
When his voice was silent, it seemed as if the very earth itself with
all its thousand echoes still breathed his words: "Marpessa--my
Love--my Desire."
Abashed before the god's entreaties stood Idas. And the heart of
Marpessa was torn as she heard the burning words of the beautiful
Apollo still ringing through her head, and saw her mortal lover,
silent, white-lipped, gazing first at the god and then into her own
pale face. At length he spoke:
"After such argument what can I plead?
Or what pale promise make? Yet since it is
In woman to pity rather than to aspire,
A little I will speak. I love thee then
Not only for thy body packed with sweet
Of all this world, that cup of brimming June,
That jar of violet wine set in the air,
That palest rose sweet in the night of life;
Nor for that stirring bosom all besieged
By drowsing lovers, or thy perilous hair;
Nor for that face that might indeed provoke
Invasion of old cities; no, nor all
Thy freshness stealing on me like strange sleep.
Nor for this only do I love thee, but
Because Infinity upon thee broods;
And thou art full of whispers and of shadows.
Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say
So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell;
Thou art what all the winds have uttered not,
What the still night suggesteth to the heart.
Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth,
Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea;
Thy face remembered is from other worlds,
It has been died for, though I know not when,
It has been sung of, though I know not where.
It has the strangeness of the luring West,
And of sad sea-horizons; beside thee
I am aware of other times and lands,
Of birth far-back, of lives in many stars.
O beauty lone and like a candle clear
In this dark country of the world! Thou art
My woe, my early light, my music dying."
Stephen Phillips.
Then Idas, in the humility that comes from perfect love, drooped low
his head, and was silent. In silence for a minute stood the three--a
god, a man, and a woman. And from on high the watching stars looked
down and marvelled, and Diana stayed for a moment the course of her
silver car to watch, as she thought, the triumph of her own invincible
brother.
From man to god passed the eyes of Marpessa, and back from god to man.
And the stars forgot to twinkle, and Diana's silver-maned horses pawed
the blue floor of the sky, impatient at the firm hand of the mistress
on the reins that checked their eager course.
Marpessa spoke at last, in low words that seemed to come "remembered
from other worlds."
For all the joys he offered her she thanked Apollo. What grander fate
for mortal woman than to rule the sunbeams--to bring bliss to the
earth and to the sons of men? What more could mortal woman crave than
the gift of immortality shared with one whose power ruled the vast
universe, and who still had stooped to lay the red roses of his
passionate love at her little, human feet? And yet--and yet--in that
sorrow-free existence that he promised, might there not still be
something awanting to one who had once known tears?
"Yet I, being human, human sorrow miss."
Then were he indeed to give her the gift of immortal life, what value
were life to one whose beauty had withered as the leaves in autumn,
whose heart was tired and dead? What uglier fate than this, to endure
an endless existence in which no life was, yoked to one whose youth
was immortal, whose beauty was everlasting?
Then did she turn to Idas, who stood as one who awaits the judgment of
the judge in whose hands lies the power of meting out life or death.
Thus she spoke:
"But if I live with Idas, then we two
On the low earth shall prosper hand in hand
In odours of the open field, and live
In peaceful noises of the farm, and watch
The pastoral fields burned by the setting sun.
And he shall give me passionate children, not
Some radiant god that will despise me quite,
But clambering limbs and little hearts that err.
... So shall we live,
And though the first sweet sting of love be past,
The sweet that almost venom is; though youth,
With tender and extravagant delight,
The first and secret kiss by twilight hedge,
The insane farewell repeated o'er and o'er,
Pass off; there shall succeed a faithful peace;
Beautiful friendship tried by sun and wind,
Durable from the daily dust of life."
The sun-god frowned as her words fell from her lips. Even now, as she
looked at him, he held out his arms. Surely she only played with this
poor mortal youth. To him she must come, this rose who could own no
lesser god than the sun-god himself.
But Marpessa spoke on:
"And thou beautiful god, in that far time,
When in thy setting sweet thou gazest down
On his grey head, wilt thou remember then
That once I pleased thee, that I once was young?"
So did her voice cease, and on the earth fell sudden darkness. For to
Apollo had come the shame of love rejected, and there were those who
said that to the earth that night there came no sunset, only the
sullen darkness that told of the flight of an angry god. Yet, later,
the silver moonbeams of Diana seemed to greet the dark earth with a
smile, and, in the winged car of Neptune, Idas and Marpessa sped on,
greater than the gods, in a perfect harmony of human love that feared
nor time, nor pain, nor Death himself.
ARETHUSA
"We have victualled and watered," wrote Nelson from Syracuse in 1798,
"and surely, watering at the fountain of Arethusa, we must have
victory. We shall sail with the first breeze; and be assured I will
return either crowned with laurel or covered with cypress." Three days
later, he won the Battle of the Nile, one of the greatest sea-fights
of history.
Here in our own land the tales of the Greek gods seem very remote.
Like the colours in an old, old portrait, the humanity of the stories
seems to have faded. But in Sicily they grow vivid at once. Almost, as
we stand above Syracuse, that long yellow town by the sea--a
blue-green sea, with deep purple shadows where the clouds above it
grow dark, and little white-sailed boats, like white butterflies, wing
their way across to the far horizon--can we
"Have glimpse of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
Here, to this day, one of the myths most impossible of acceptance to
the scientific modern mind lives on, and Arethusa is not yet forgotten.
"In Ortygia," says Cicero, "is a fountain of sweet water, the name of
which is Arethusa, of incredible flow, very full of fish, which would
be entirely overwhelmed by the sea, were its waters not protected from
the waves by a rampart and a wall of stone." White marble walls have
taken the place of the protecting barrier, but the spring bubbles up to
this day, and Ortygia (Quail Island) is the name still given to that
part of Syracuse. Fluffy-headed, long, green stalks of papyrus grow in
the fountain, and red and golden fish dart through its clear water.
Beyond lie the low shores of Plemmgrium, the fens of Lysimeleia, the
hills above the Anapus, and above all towers Etna, in snowy and
magnificent serenity and indifference to the changes wrought by the
centuries to gods and to men. Yet here the present is completely
overshadowed by the past, and even the story of Arethusa knocks loudly
at the well-barricaded doors of twentieth-century incredulity.
The beautiful Arethusa was a nymph in Diana's train, and many a time
in the chase did she thread her way through the dim woodland, as a
stream flows down through the forest from the mountains to the sea.
But to her, at last, there came a day when she was no longer the
huntress but the hunted.
The flaming wheels of the chariot of Apollo had made the whole land
scintillate with heat, and the nymph sought the kind shelter of a wood
where she might bathe in the exquisite coolness of the river that
still was chilled by the snows of the mountain. On the branch of a
tree that bent over the stream she hung her garments, and joyously
stepped into the limpid water. A ray of the sun glanced through the
leaves above her and made the soft sand in the river's bed gleam like
gold and the beautiful limbs of the nymph seem as though carved from
pure white marble by the hand of Pygmalion himself. There was no sound
there but the gentle sound of the stream that murmured caressingly to
her as it slowly moved on through the solitude, and so gently it
flowed that almost it seemed to stand still, as though regretful to
leave for the unknown forest so beautiful a thing as Arethusa.
"The Earth seemed to love her
And Heaven smiled above her."
But suddenly the stillness of the stream was ruffled. Waves, like the
newly-born brothers of the billows of the sea, swept both down-stream
and up-stream upon her, and the river no longer murmured gently, but
spoke to her in a voice that thrilled with passionate longing.
Alpheus, god of the river, had beheld her, and, beholding her, had
loved her once and forever. An uncouth creature of the forest was he,
unversed in all the arts of love-making. So not as a supplicant did he
come to her, but as one who demanded fiercely love for love. Terror
came upon Arethusa as she listened, and hastily she sprang from the
water that had brought fear upon her, and hastened to find shelter in
the woodlands. Then the murmur, as of the murmur of a river before a
mighty flood comes to seize it and hold it for its own, took form in a
voice that pled with her, in tones that made her tremble as she heard.
"Hear me, Arethusa!" it said. "I am Alpheus, god of the river that now
thou hast made sacred. I am the god of the rushing streams--the god of
the thundering cataracts. Where the mountain streams crash over the
rocks and echo through the shadowy hollows of the hills, I hold my
kingship. Down from Etna I come, and the fire of Etna is in my veins.
I love thee! I love but thee, and thou shalt be mine, and I thine
forever."
Then Arethusa, in blind panic, fled before the god who loved her.
Through the shadowy forest she sped, while he swiftly gained upon her.
The asphodel bent under her flying feet, and the golden flowers of the
_Fiori Maggio_ were swept aside as she fled. Yet ever Alpheus gained
upon her, until at length she felt that the chase was ended, and cried
to Diana to save her. Then a cloud, grey and thick and blinding as the
mist that wraps the mountain tops, suddenly descended and enfolded
her, and Alpheus groped for her in vain.
"Arethusa!" she heard him cry, in a voice of piteous
longing--"Arethusa!--my beloved!"
Patiently he waited, with the love that makes uncouth things
beautiful, until at length a little breath from Zephyrus blew aside
the soft grey veil that hid his beloved from his sight, and he saw
that the nymph had been transformed into a fountain. Not for a moment
did Alpheus delay, but, turning himself into a torrent in flood, he
rushed on in pursuit of Arethusa. Then did Diana, to save her votary,
cleave a way for her through the dark earth even into the gloomy realm
of Pluto himself, and the nymph rushed onward, onward still, and then
upward, until at length she emerged again to the freedom of the blue
sky and green trees, and beheld the golden orange groves and the grey
olives, the burning red geranium flowers and the great snow-capped
mountain of Sicily.
But Alpheus had a love for her that cast out all fear. Through the
terrible blackness of the Cocytus valley he followed Arethusa, and
found a means of bursting through the encumbering earth and joining
her again. And in a spring that rises out of the sea near the shore he
was able at last to mingle his waters with those of the one for whom
he had lost his godship.
"And now from their fountains
In Enna's mountains,
Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted
Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks,
At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore;
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky
When they love but live no more."
Shelley.
PERSEUS THE HERO
"We call such a man a hero in English to this day, and
call it a 'heroic' thing to suffer pain and grief, that
we may do good to our fellow-men."
Charles Kingsley.
In the pleasant land of Argos, now a place of unwholesome marshes,
once upon a time there reigned a king called Acrisius, the father of
one fair daughter. Danae was her name, and she was very dear to the
king until a day when he longed to know what lay hid for him in the
lap of the gods, and consulted an oracle. With hanging head he
returned from the temple, for the oracle had told him that when his
daughter Danae had borne a son, by the hand of that son death must
surely come upon him. And because the fear of death was in him more
strong than the love of his daughter, Acrisius resolved that by
sacrificing her he would baffle the gods and frustrate Death itself. A
great tower of brass was speedily built at his command, and in this
prison Danae was placed, to drag out her weary days.
But who can escape the designs of the gods? From Olympus great Zeus
himself looked down and saw the air princess sighing away her youth.
And, full of pity and of love, he himself entered the brazen tower in
a golden shower, and Danae became the bride of Zeus and happily passed
with him the time of her imprisonment.
To her at length was born a son, a beautiful and kingly child, and
great was the wrath of her father when he had tidings of the birth.
Did the gods in the high heavens laugh at him? The laugh should yet be
on his side. Down to the seashore he hurried Danae and her newly-born
babe, the little Perseus, put them in a great chest, and set them
adrift to be a plaything for winds and waves and a prey for the cruel
and hungry sea.
"When in the cunningly-wrought chest the raging blast
and the stirred billow and terror fell upon her, with
tearful cheeks she cast her arm around Perseus and
spake, 'Alas, my child, what sorrow is mine! But thou
slumberest, in baby-wise sleeping in this woeful ark;
midst the darkness of the brazen rivet thou shinest and
in the swart gloom sent forth; thou heedest not the deep
foam of the passing wave above thy locks nor the voice
of the blast as thou liest in thy purple covering, a
sweet face. If terror had terrors for thee, and thou
wert giving ear to my gentle words--I bid thee sleep, my
babe, and may the sea sleep and our measureless woe; and
may change of fortune come forth, Father Zeus, from
thee. For that I make my prayer in boldness and beyond
right, forgive me.'"
Simonides of Keos.
For days and nights the mother and child were tossed on the billows,
but yet no harm came near them, and one morning the chest grounded on
the rocky beach of Seriphos, an island in the AEgean Sea. Here a
fisherman came on this strange flotsam and jetsam of the waves and
took the mother and child to Polydectes, the king, and the years that
followed were peaceful years for Danae and for Perseus. But as Perseus
grew up, growing each day more goodly to look upon, more fearless,
more ready to gaze with serene courage into the eyes of gods and of
men, an evil thing befell his mother. She was but a girl when he was
born, and as the years passed she grew ever more fair. And the crafty
eyes of old Polydectes, the king, ever watched her more eagerly,
always more hotly desired her for his wife. But Danae, the beloved of
Zeus himself, had no wish to wed the old king of the Cyclades, and
proudly she scorned his suit. Behind her, as she knew well, was the
stout arm of her son Perseus, and while Perseus was there, the king
could do her no harm. But Perseus, unwitting of the danger his mother
daily had to face, sailed the seas unfearingly, and felt that peace
and safety surrounded him on every side. At Samos one day, while his
ship was lading, Perseus lay down under the shade of a great tree, and
soon his eyelids grew heavy with sleep, and there came to him, like
butterflies that flit over the flowers in a sunlit garden, pleasant,
light-winged dreams. But yet another dream followed close on the merry
heels of those that went before. And before Perseus there stood one
whose grey eyes were as the fathomless sea on the dawn of a summer
day. Her long robes were blue as the hyacinths in spring, and the
spear that she held in her hand was of a polished brightness, as the
dart with which the gods smite the heart of a man, with joy
inexpressible, with sorrow that is scarcely to be borne. To Perseus
she spoke winged words.
"I am Pallas Athene," she said, "and to me the souls of men are known.
Those whose fat hearts are as those of the beasts that perish do I
know. They live at ease. No bitter sorrow is theirs, nor any fierce
joy that lifts their feet free from the cumbering clay. But dear to my
heart are the souls of those whose tears are tears of blood, whose joy
is as the joy of the Immortals. Pain is theirs, and sorrow.
Disappointment is theirs, and grief. Yet their love is as the love of
those who dwell on Olympus. Patient they are and long-suffering, and
ever they hope, ever do they trust. Ever they fight, fearless and
unashamed, and when the sum of their days on earth is accomplished,
wings, of whose existence they have never had knowledge, bear them
upwards, out of the mist and din and strife of life, to the life that
has no ending."
Then she laid her hand on the hand of Perseus. "Perseus," she said,
"art thou of those whose dull souls forever dwell in pleasant ease, or
wouldst thou be as one of the Immortals?"
And in his dream Perseus answered without hesitation:
"Rather let me die, a youth, living my life to the full, fighting
ever, suffering ever," he said, "than live at ease like a beast that
feeds on flowery pastures and knows no fiery gladness, no
heart-bleeding pain."
Then Pallas Athene, laughing for joy, because she loved so well a
hero's soul, showed him a picture that made even his brave heart sick
for dread, and told him a terrible story.
In the dim, cold, far west, she said, there lived three sisters. One
of them, Medusa, had been one of her priestesses, golden-haired and
most beautiful, but when Athene found that she was as wicked as she
was lovely, swiftly had she meted out a punishment. Every lock of her
golden hair had been changed into a venomous snake. Her eyes, that had
once been the cradles of love, were turned into love's stony tombs.
Her rosy cheeks were now of Death's own livid hue. Her smile, which
drew the hearts of lovers from their bosoms, had become a hideous
thing. A grinning mask looked on the world, and to the world her
gaping mouth and protruding tongue meant a horror before which the
world stood terrified, dumb. There are some sadnesses too terrible for
human hearts to bear, so it came to pass that in the dark cavern in
which she dwelt, and in the shadowy woods around it, all living things
that had met the awful gaze of her hopeless eyes were turned into
stone. Then Pallas Athene showed Perseus, mirrored in a brazen shield,
the face of one of the tragic things of the world. And as Perseus
looked, his soul grew chill within him. But when Athene, in low voice,
asked him:
"Perseus, wilt even end the sorrow of this piteous sinful one?" he
answered, "Even that will I do--the gods helping me."
And Pallas Athene, smiling again in glad content, left him to dream,
and Perseus awoke, in sudden fear, and found that in truth he had but
dreamed, yet held his dream as a holy thing in the secret
treasure-house of his heart.
Back to Seriphos he sailed, and found that his mother walked in fear
of Polydectes the king. She told her son--a strong man now, though
young in years--the story of his cruel persecution. Perseus saw red
blood, and gladly would he have driven his keen blade far home in the
heart of Polydectes. But his vengeance was to be a great vengeance,
and the vengeance was delayed.
The king gave a feast, and on that day every one in the land brought
offerings of their best and most costly to do him honour. Perseus
alone came empty-handed, and as he stood in the king's court as though
he were a beggar, the other youths mocked at him of whom they had ever
been jealous.
"Thou sayest that thy father is one of the gods!" they said. "Where is
thy godlike gift, O Perseus!"
And Polydectes, glad to humble the lad who was keeper of his mother's
honour, echoed their foolish taunt.
"Where is the gift of the gods that the noble son of the gods has
brought me?" he asked, and his fat cheeks and loose mouth quivered
with ugly merriment.
Then Perseus, his head thrown back, gazed in the bold eyes of
Polydectes.
Son of Zeus he was indeed, as he looked with royal scorn at those whom
he despised.
"A godlike gift thou shalt have, in truth, O king," he said, and his
voice rang out as a trumpet-call before the battle. "The gift of the
gods shall be thine. The gods helping me, thou shalt have the head of
Medusa."
A laugh, half-born, died in the throats of Polydectes and of those who
listened, and Perseus strode out of the palace, a glow in his heart,
for he knew that Pallas Athene had lit the fire that burned in him
now, and that though he should shed the last drop of his life's blood
to win what he sought, right would triumph, and wrong must be worsted.
Still quivering with anger, Perseus went down to the blue sea that
gently whispered its secrets to the shore on which he stood.
"If Pallas Athene would but come," he thought--"if only my dreams
might come true."
For, like many a boy before and since, Perseus had dreamed of gallant,
fearless deeds. Like many a boy before and since, he had been the hero
of a great adventure.
So he prayed, "Come to me! I pray you, Pallas Athene, come! and let me
dream true."
His prayer was answered.
Into the sky there came a little silver cloud that grew and grew, and
ever it grew nearer, and then, as in his dream, Pallas Athene came to
him and smiled on him as the sun smiles on the water in spring. Nor
was she alone. Beside her stood Hermes of the winged shoes, and
Perseus knelt before the two in worship. Then, very gently, Pallas
Athene gave him counsel, and more than counsel she gave.
In his hand she placed a polished shield, than which no mirror shone
more brightly.
"Do not look at Medusa herself; look only on her image here
reflected--then strike home hard and swiftly. And when her head is
severed, wrap it in the goatskin on which the shield hangs. So wilt
thou return in safety and in honour."
"But how, then, shall I cross the wet grey fields of this watery
way?" asked Perseus. "Would that I were a white-winged bird that skims
across the waves."
And, with the smile of a loving comrade, Hermes laid his hand on the
shoulder of Perseus.
"My winged shoes shall be thine," he said, "and the white-winged
sea-birds shalt thou leave far, far behind."
"Yet another gift is thine," said Athene. "Gird on, as gift from the
gods, this sword that is immortal."
For a moment Perseus lingered. "May I not bid farewell to my mother?"
he asked. "May I not offer burnt-offerings to thee and to Hermes, and
to my father Zeus himself?"
But Athene said Nay, at his mother's weeping his heart might relent,
and the offering that the Olympians desired was the head of Medusa.
Then, like a fearless young golden eagle, Perseus spread out his arms,
and the winged shoes carried him across the seas to the cold northern
lands whither Athene had directed him.
Each day his shoes took him a seven days' journey, and ever the air
through which he passed grew more chill, till at length he reached the
land of everlasting snow, where the black ice never knows the
conquering warmth of spring, and where the white surf of the moaning
waves freezes solid even as it touches the shore.
It was a dark grim place to which he came, and in a gloomy cavern by
the sea lived the Graeae, the three grey sisters that Athene had told
him he must seek. Old and grey and horrible they were, with but one
tooth amongst them, and but one eye. From hand to hand they passed
the eye, and muttered and shivered in the blackness and the cold.
[Illustration: THEY WHIMPERED AND BEGGED OF HIM]
Boldly Perseus spoke to them and asked them to guide him to the place
where Medusa and her sisters the Gorgons dwelt.