the mortal with whom she had mated, and from mother, or father, or
from the gods themselves, he had received the gift of beauty. It
chanced one day that as Apollo drove his chariot on its
all-conquering round, he saw the boy. Hyacinthus was as fair to look
upon as the fairest of women, yet he was not only full of grace, but
was muscular, and strong as a straight young pine on Mount Olympus
that fears not the blind rage of the North Wind nor the angry tempests
of the South.
When Apollo had spoken with him he found that the face of Hyacinthus
did not belie the heart within him, and gladly the god felt that at
last he had found the perfect companion, the ever courageous and
joyous young mate, whose mood was always ready to meet his own. Did
Apollo desire to hunt, with merry shout Hyacinthus called the hounds.
Did the great god deign to fish, Hyacinthus was ready to fetch the
nets and to throw himself, whole-souled, into the great affair of
chasing and of landing the silvery fishes. When Apollo wished to climb
the mountains, to heights so lonely that not even the moving of an
eagle's wing broke the everlasting stillness, Hyacinthus--his strong
limbs too perfect for the chisel of any sculptor worthily to
reproduce--was ready and eager for the climb. And when, on the
mountain top, Apollo gazed in silence over illimitable space, and
watched the silver car of his sister Diana rising slowly into the deep
blue of the sky, silvering land and water as she passed, it was never
Hyacinthus who was the first to speak--with words to break the spell
of Nature's perfect beauty, shared in perfect companionship. There
were times, too, when Apollo would play his lyre, and when naught but
the music of his own making could fulfil his longing. And when those
times came, Hyacinthus would lie at the feet of his friend--of the
friend who was a god--and would listen, with eyes of rapturous joy, to
the music that his master made. A very perfect friend was this friend
of the sun-god.
Nor was it Apollo alone who desired the friendship of Hyacinthus.
Zephyrus, god of the South Wind, had known him before Apollo crossed
his path and had eagerly desired him for a friend. But who could stand
against Apollo? Sulkily Zephyrus marked their ever-ripening
friendship, and in his heart jealousy grew into hatred, and hatred
whispered to him of revenge. Hyacinthus excelled at all sports, and
when he played quoits it was sheer joy for Apollo, who loved all
things beautiful, to watch him as he stood to throw the disc, his taut
muscles making him look like Hermes, ready to spurn the cumbering
earth from off his feet. Further even than the god, his friend, could
Hyacinthus throw, and always his merry laugh when he succeeded made
the god feel that nor man nor god could ever grow old. And so there
came that day, fore-ordained by the Fates, when Apollo and Hyacinthus
played a match together. Hyacinthus made a valiant throw, and Apollo
took his place, and cast the discus high and far. Hyacinthus ran
forward eager to measure the distance, shouting with excitement over a
throw that had indeed been worthy of a god. Thus did Zephyrus gain his
opportunity. Swiftly through the tree-tops ran the murmuring South
Wind, and smote the discus of Apollo with a cruel hand. Against the
forehead of Hyacinthus it dashed, smiting the locks that lay upon it,
crashing through skin and flesh and bone, felling him to the earth.
Apollo ran towards him and raised him in his arms. But the head of
Hyacinthus fell over on the god's shoulder, like the head of a lily
whose stem is broken. The red blood gushed to the ground, an
unquenchable stream, and darkness fell on the eyes of Hyacinthus, and,
with the flow of his life's blood, his gallant young soul passed away.
"Would that I could die for thee, Hyacinthus!" cried the god, his
god's heart near breaking. "I have robbed thee of thy youth. Thine is
the suffering, mine the crime. I shall sing thee ever--oh perfect
friend! And evermore shalt thou live as a flower that will speak to
the hearts of men of spring, of everlasting youth--of life that lives
forever."
As he spoke, there sprang from the blood-drops at his feet a cluster
of flowers, blue as the sky in spring, yet hanging their heads as if
in sorrow.[4]
[Illustration: DARKNESS FELL ON THE EYES OF HYACINTHUS]
And still, when winter is ended, and the song of birds tell us of the
promise of spring, if we go to the woods, we find traces of the vow of
the sun-god. The trees are budding in buds of rosy hue, the willow
branches are decked with silvery catkins powdered with gold. The
larches, like slender dryads, wear a feathery garb of tender green,
and under the trees of the woods the primroses look up, like fallen
stars. Along the woodland path we go, treading on fragrant
pine-needles and on the beech leaves of last year that have not yet
lost their radiant amber. And, at a turn of the way, the sun-god
suddenly shines through the great dark branches of the giants of the
forest, and before us lies a patch of exquisite blue, as though a god
had robbed the sky and torn from it a precious fragment that seems
alive and moving, between the sun and the shadow.
And, as we look, the sun caresses it, and the South Wind gently moves
the little bell-shaped flowers of the wild hyacinth as it softly
sweeps across them. So does Hyacinthus live on; so do Apollo and
Zephyrus still love and mourn their friend.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] Legend says that on the petals of the hyacinth Apollo transcribed
the letters "Ai,"--"Alas!"
KING MIDAS OF THE GOLDEN TOUCH
In the plays of Shakespeare we have three distinct divisions--three
separate volumes. One deals with Tragedy, another with Comedy, a third
with History; and a mistake made by the young in their aspect of life
is that they do the same thing, and keep tragedy and comedy severely
apart, relegating them to separate volumes that, so they think, have
nothing to do with each other. But those who have passed many
milestones on the road know that "_History_" is the only right label
for the Book of Life's many parts, and that the actors in the great
play are in truth tragic comedians.
This is the story of Midas, one of the chief tragic comedians of
mythology.
Once upon a time the kingdom of Phrygia lacked a king, and in much
perplexity, the people sought help from an oracle. The answer was very
definite:
"The first man who enters your city riding in a car shall be your
king."
That day there came slowly jogging into the city in their heavy,
wooden-wheeled wain, the peasant Gordias and his wife and son, whose
destination was the marketplace, and whose business was to sell the
produce of their little farm and vineyard--fowls, a goat or two, and
a couple of skinsful of strong, purple-red wine. An eager crowd
awaited their entry, and a loud shout of welcome greeted them. And
their eyes grew round and their mouths fell open in amaze when they
were hailed as King and Queen and Prince of Phrygia.
The gods had indeed bestowed upon Gordias, the low-born peasant, a
surprising gift, but he showed his gratitude by dedicating his wagon
to the deity of the oracle and tying it up in its place with the
wiliest knot that his simple wisdom knew, pulled as tight as his
brawny arms and strong rough hands could pull. Nor could anyone untie
the famous Gordian knot, and therefore become, as the oracle promised,
lord of all Asia, until centuries had passed, and Alexander the Great
came to Phrygia and sliced through the knot with his all-conquering
sword.
In time Midas, the son of Gordias, came to inherit the throne and
crown of Phrygia. Like many another not born and bred to the purple,
his honours sat heavily upon him. From the day that his father's wain
had entered the city amidst the acclamations of the people, he had
learned the value of power, and therefore, from his boyhood onward,
power, always more power, was what he coveted. Also his peasant father
had taught him that gold could buy power, and so Midas ever longed for
more gold, that could buy him a place in the world that no descendant
of a long race of kings should be able to contest. And from Olympus
the gods looked down and smiled, and vowed that Midas should have the
chance of realising his heart's desire.
Therefore one day when he and his court were sitting in the solemn
state that Midas required, there rode into their midst, tipsily
swaying on the back of a gentle full-fed old grey ass, ivy-crowned,
jovial and foolish, the satyr Silenus, guardian of the young god
Bacchus.
With all the deference due to the friend of a god Midas treated this
disreputable old pedagogue, and for ten days and nights on end he
feasted him royally. On the eleventh day Bacchus came in search of his
preceptor, and in deep gratitude bade Midas demand of him what he
would, because he had done Silenus honour when to dishonour him lay in
his power.
Not even for a moment did Midas ponder.
"I would have gold," he said hastily--"much gold. I would have that
touch by which all common and valueless things become golden
treasures."
And Bacchus, knowing that here spoke the son of peasants who many
times had gone empty to bed after a day of toilful striving on the
rocky uplands of Phrygia, looked a little sadly in the eager face of
Midas, and answered: "Be it as thou wilt. Thine shall be the golden
touch."
Then Bacchus and Silenus went away, a rout of singing revellers at
their heels, and Midas quickly put to proof the words of Bacchus.
An olive tree grew near where he stood, and from it he picked a little
twig decked with leaves of softest grey, and lo, it grew heavy as he
held it, and glittered like a piece of his crown. He stooped to touch
the green turf on which some fragrant violets grew, and turf grew into
cloth of gold, and violets lost their fragrance and became hard,
solid, golden things. He touched an apple whose cheek grew rosy in the
sun, and at once it became like the golden fruit in the Garden of the
Hesperides. The stone pillars of his palace as he brushed past them on
entering, blazed like a sunset sky. The gods had not deceived him.
Midas had the Golden Touch. Joyously he strode into the palace and
commanded a feast to be prepared--a feast worthy of an occasion so
magnificent.
But when Midas, with the healthy appetite of the peasant-born, would
have eaten largely of the savoury food that his cooks prepared, he
found that his teeth only touched roast kid to turn it into a slab of
gold, that garlic lost its flavour and became gritty as he chewed,
that rice turned into golden grains, and curdled milk became a dower
fit for a princess, entirely unnegotiable for the digestion of man.
Baffled and miserable, Midas seized his cup of wine, but the red wine
had become one with the golden vessel that held it; nor could he
quench his thirst, for even the limpid water from the fountain was
melted gold when it touched his dry lips. Only for a very few days was
Midas able to bear the affliction of his wealth. There was nothing now
for him to live for. He could buy the whole earth if he pleased, but
even children shrank in terror from his touch, and hungry and thirsty
and sick at heart he wearily dragged along his weighty robes of gold.
Gold was power, he knew well, yet of what worth was gold while he
starved? Gold could not buy him life and health and happiness.
In despair, at length he cried to the god who had given him the gift
that he hated.
"Save me, O Bacchus!" he said. "A witless one am I, and the folly of
my desire has been my undoing. Take away from me the accursed Golden
Touch, and faithfully and well shall I serve thee forever."
Then Bacchus, very pitiful for him, told Midas to go to Sardis, the
chief city of his worshippers, and to trace to its source the river
upon which it was built. And in that pool, when he found it, he was to
plunge his head, and so he would, for evermore, be freed from the
Golden Touch.
It was a long journey that Midas then took, and a weary and a starving
man was he when at length he reached the spring where the river
Pactolus had its source. He crawled forward, and timidly plunged in
his head and shoulders. Almost he expected to feel the harsh grit of
golden water, but instead there was the joy he had known as a peasant
boy when he laved his face and drank at a cool spring when his day's
toil was ended. And when he raised his face from the pool, he knew
that his hateful power had passed from him, but under the water he saw
grains of gold glittering in the sand, and from that time forth the
river Pactolus was noted for its gold.
One lesson the peasant king had learnt by paying in suffering for a
mistake, but there was yet more suffering in store for the tragic
comedian.
He had now no wish for golden riches, nor even for power. He wished to
lead the simple life and to listen to the pipings of Pan along with
the goat-herds on the mountains or the wild creatures in the woods.
Thus it befell that he was present one day at a contest between Pan
and Apollo himself. It was a day of merry-making for nymphs and fauns
and dryads, and all those who lived in the lonely solitudes of Phrygia
came to listen to the music of the god who ruled them. For as Pan sat
in the shade of a forest one night and piped on his reeds until the
very shadows danced, and the water of the stream by which he sat leapt
high over the mossy stones it passed, and laughed aloud in its glee,
the god had so gloried in his own power that he cried:
"Who speaks of Apollo and his lyre? Some of the gods may be well
pleased with his music, and mayhap a bloodless man or two. But my
music strikes to the heart of the earth itself. It stirs with rapture
the very sap of the trees, and awakes to life and joy the innermost
soul of all things mortal."
Apollo heard his boast, and heard it angrily.
"Oh, thou whose soul is the soul of the untilled ground!" he said,
"wouldst thou place thy music, that is like the wind in the reeds,
beside my music, which is as the music of the spheres?"
And Pan, splashing with his goat's feet amongst the water-lilies of
the stream on the bank of which he sat, laughed loudly and cried:
"Yea, would I, Apollo! Willingly would I play thee a match--thou on
thy golden lyre--I on my reeds from the river."
Thus did it come to pass that Apollo and Pan matched against each
other their music, and King Midas was one of the judges.
First of all Pan took his fragile reeds, and as he played, the leaves
on the trees shivered, and the sleeping lilies raised their heads, and
the birds ceased their song to listen and then flew straight to their
mates. And all the beauty of the world grew more beautiful, and all
its terror grew yet more grim, and still Pan piped on, and laughed to
see the nymphs and the fauns first dance in joyousness and then
tremble in fear, and the buds to blossom, and the stags to bellow in
their lordship of the hills. When he ceased, it was as though a
tensely-drawn string had broken, and all the earth lay breathless and
mute. And Pan turned proudly to the golden-haired god who had listened
as he had spoken through the hearts of reeds to the hearts of men.
"Canst, then, make music like unto my music, Apollo?" he said.
Then Apollo, his purple robes barely hiding the perfection of his
limbs, a wreath of laurel crowning his yellow curls, looked down at
Pan from his godlike height and smiled in silence. For a moment his
hand silently played over the golden strings of his lyre, and then his
finger-tips gently touched them. And every creature there who had a
soul, felt that that soul had wings, and the wings sped them straight
to Olympus. Far away from all earth-bound creatures they flew, and
dwelt in magnificent serenity amongst the Immortals. No longer was
there strife, or any dispeace. No more was there fierce warring
between the actual and the unknown. The green fields and thick woods
had faded into nothingness, and their creatures, and the fair nymphs
and dryads, and the wild fauns and centaurs longed and fought no more,
and man had ceased to desire the impossible. Throbbing nature and
passionately desiring life faded into dust before the melody that
Apollo called forth, and when his strings had ceased to quiver and
only the faintly remembered echo of his music remained, it was as
though the earth had passed away and all things had become new.
For the space of many seconds all was silence.
Then, in low voice, Apollo asked:
"Ye who listen--who is the victor?"
And earth and sea and sky, and all the creatures of earth and sky, and
of the deep, replied as one:
"The victory is thine, Divine Apollo."
Yet was there one dissentient voice.
Midas, sorely puzzled, utterly un-understanding, was relieved when the
music of Apollo ceased. "If only Pan would play again," he murmured to
himself. "I wish to live, and Pan's music gives me life. I love the
woolly vine-buds and the fragrant pine-leaves, and the scent of the
violets in the spring. The smell of the fresh-ploughed earth is dear
to me, the breath of the kine that have grazed in the meadows of wild
parsley and of asphodel. I want to drink red wine and to eat and love
and fight and work and be joyous and sad, fierce and strong, and very
weary, and to sleep the dead sleep of men who live only as weak
mortals do."
Therefore he raised his voice, and called very loud: "Pan's music is
sweeter and truer and greater than the music of Apollo. Pan is the
victor, and I, King Midas, give him the victor's crown!"
With scorn ineffable the sun-god turned upon Midas, his peasant's face
transfigured by his proud decision. For a little he gazed at him in
silence, and his look might have turned a sunbeam to an icicle.
Then he spoke:
"The ears of an ass have heard my music," he said. "Henceforth shall
Midas have ass's ears."
And when Midas, in terror, clapped his hands to his crisp black hair,
he found growing far beyond it, the long, pointed ears of an ass.
Perhaps what hurt him most, as he fled away, was the shout of
merriment that came from Pan. And fauns and nymphs and satyrs echoed
that shout most joyously.
Willingly would he have hidden in the woods, but there he found no
hiding-place. The trees and shrubs and flowering things seemed to
shake in cruel mockery. Back to his court he went and sent for the
court hairdresser, that he might bribe him to devise a covering for
these long, peaked, hairy symbols of his folly. Gladly the hairdresser
accepted many and many oboli, many and many golden gifts, and all
Phrygia wondered, while it copied, the strange headdress of the king.
But although much gold had bought his silence, the court barber was
unquiet of heart. All day and all through the night he was tormented
by his weighty secret. And then, at length, silence was to him a
torture too great to be borne; he sought a lonely place, there dug a
deep hole, and, kneeling by it, softly whispered to the damp earth:
"King Midas has ass's ears."
Greatly relieved, he hastened home, and was well content until, on the
spot where his secret lay buried, rushes grew up. And when the winds
blew through them, the rushes whispered for all those who passed by to
hear: "King Midas has ass's ears! King Midas has ass's ears!" Those
who listen very carefully to what the green rushes in marshy places
whisper as the wind passes through them, may hear the same thing to
this day. And those who hear the whisper of the rushes may, perhaps,
give a pitying thought to Midas--the tragic comedian of mythology.
CEYX AND HALCYONE
"St. Martin's summer, halcyon days."
_King Henry VI_, i. 2, 131.
"Halcyon days"--how often is the expression made use of, how seldom do
its users realise from whence they have borrowed it.
"These were halcyon days," says the old man, and his memory wanders
back to a time when for him
"All the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen."
Yet the story of Halcyone is one best to be understood by the
heavy-hearted woman who wanders along the bleak sea-beach and strains
her weary eyes for the brown sail of the fishing-boat that will never
more return.
Over the kingdom of Thessaly, in the days of long ago, there reigned a
king whose name was Ceyx, son of Hesperus, the Day Star, and almost as
radiant in grace and beauty as was his father. His wife was the fair
Halcyone, daughter of AEolus, ruler of the winds, and most perfectly
did this king and queen love one another. Their happiness was unmarred
until there came a day when Ceyx had to mourn for the loss of a
brother. Following close on the heels of this disaster came direful
prodigies which led Ceyx to fear that in some way he must have
incurred the hostility of the gods. To him there was no way in which
to discover wherein lay his fault, and to make atonement for it, but
by going to consult the oracle of Apollo at Claros, in Ionia. When he
told Halcyone what he must do, she knew well that she must not try to
turn him from his solemn purpose, yet there hung over her heart a
black shadow of fear and of evil foreboding that no loving words of
assurance could drive away. Most piteously she begged him to take her
with him, but the king knew too well the dangers of the treacherous
AEgean Sea to risk on it the life of the woman that he loved so well.
"I promise," he said, "by the rays of my Father the Day Star, that if
fate permits I will return before the moon shall have twice rounded
her orb."
Down by the shore the sailors of King Ceyx awaited his coming, and
when with passionately tender love he and Halcyone had taken farewell
of each other, the rowers sat down on the benches and dipped their
long oars into the water.
With rhythmic swing they drove the great ship over the grey sea, while
Ceyx stood on deck and gazed back at his wife until his eyes could no
longer distinguish her from the rocks on the shore, nor could she any
longer see the white sails of the ship as it crested the restless
waves. Heavier still was her heart when she turned away from the
shore, and yet more heavy it grew as the day wore on and dark night
descended. For the air was full of the clamorous wailings of the
fierce winds whose joy it is to lash the waves into rage and to strew
with dead men and broken timber the angry, surf-beaten shore.
"My King," she sighed to herself. "My King! my Own!" And through the
weary hours she prayed to the gods to bring him safely back to her,
and many times she offered fragrant incense to Juno, protectress of
women, that she might have pity on a woman whose husband and true
lover was out in the storm, a plaything for ruthless winds and waves.
A helpless plaything was the king of Thessaly. Long ere the dim
evening light had made of the shore of his own land a faint, grey
line, the white-maned horses of Poseidon, king of the seas, began to
rear their heads, and as night fell, a black curtain, blotting out
every landmark, and all home-like things, the East Wind rushed across
the AEgean Sea, smiting the sea-horses into madness, seizing the sails
with cruel grasp and casting them in tatters before it, snapping the
mast as though it were but a dry reed by the river. Before so mighty a
tempest no oars could be of any avail, and for a little time only the
winds and waves gambolled like a half-sated wolf-pack over their
helpless prey. With hungry roar the great weight of black water stove
in the deck and swept the sailors out of the ship to choke them in its
icy depths; and ever it would lift the wounded thing high up on its
foaming white crests, as though to toss it to the dark sky, and ever
again would suck it down into the blackness, while the shrieking winds
drove it onward with howling taunts and mocking laughter. While life
stayed in him, Ceyx thought only of Halcyone. He had no fear, only
the fear of the grief his death must bring to her who loved him as he
loved her, his peerless queen, his Halcyone. His prayers to the gods
were prayers for her. For himself he asked one thing only--that the
waves might bear his body to her sight, so that her gentle hands might
lay him in his tomb. With shout of triumph that they had slain a king,
winds and waves seized him even as he prayed, and the Day Star that
was hidden behind the black pall of the sky knew that his son, a brave
king and a faithful lover, had gone down to the Shades.