white-faced and tired-eyed, anxiously watched the sea, that still was
tossing in half-savage mood. Eagerly she gazed at the place where last
the white sail had been seen. Was it not possible that Ceyx, having
weathered the gale, might for the present have foregone his voyage to
Ionia, and was returning to her to bring peace to her heart? But the
sea-beach was strewn with wrack and the winds still blew bits of
tattered surf along the shore, and for her there was only the heavy
labour of waiting, of waiting and of watching for the ship that never
came. The incense from her altars blew out, in heavy sweetness, to
meet the bitter-sweet tang of the seaweed that was carried in by the
tide, for Halcyone prayed on, fearful, yet hoping that her prayers
might still keep safe her man--her king--her lover. She busied herself
in laying out the garments he would wear on his return, and in
choosing the clothes in which she might be fairest in his eyes. This
robe, as blue as the sky in spring--silver-bordered, as the sea in
kind mood is bordered with a feathery silver fringe. She could recall
just how Ceyx looked when first he saw her wear it. She could hear his
very tones as he told her that of all queens she was the peeress, of
all women the most beautiful, of all wives the most dear. Almost she
forgot the horrors of the night, so certain did it seem that his dear
voice must soon again tell her the words that have been love's litany
since ever time began.
In the ears of Juno those petitions for him whose dead body was even
then being tossed hither and thither by the restless waves, his
murderers, came at last to be more than even she could bear. She gave
command to her handmaiden Iris to go to the palace of Somnus, god of
Sleep and brother of Death, and to bid him send to Halcyone a vision,
in the form of Ceyx, to tell her that all her weary waiting was in
vain.
In a valley among the black Cimmerian mountains the death-god Somnus
had his abode. In her rainbow-hued robes, Iris darted through the sky
at her mistress's bidding, tingeing, as she sped through them, the
clouds that she passed. It was a silent valley that she reached at
last. Here the sun never came, nor was there ever any sound to break
the silence. From the ground the noiseless grey clouds, whose work it
is to hide the sun and moon, rose softly and rolled away up to the
mountain tops and down to the lowest valleys, to work the will of the
gods. All around the cave lurked the long dark shadows that bring fear
to the heart of children, and that, at nightfall, hasten the steps of
the timid wayfarer. No noise was there, but from far down the valley
there came a murmur so faint and so infinitely soothing that it was
less a sound than of a lullaby remembered in dreams. For past the
valley of Sleep flow the waters of Lethe, the river of Forgetfulness.
Close up to the door of the cave where dwelt the twin brothers, Sleep
and Death, blood-red poppies grew, and at the door itself stood
shadowy forms, their fingers on their lips, enjoining silence on all
those who would enter in, amaranth-crowned, and softly waving sheaves
of poppies that bring dreams from which there is no awakening. There
was there no gate with hinges to creak or bars to clang, and into the
stilly darkness Iris walked unhindered. From outer cave to inner cave
she went, and each cave she left behind was less dark than the one
that she entered. In the innermost room of all, on an ebony couch
draped with sable curtains, the god of sleep lay drowsing. His
garments were black, strewn with golden stars. A wreath of half-opened
poppies crowned his sleepy head, and he leaned on the strong shoulder
of Morpheus, his favourite son. All round his bed hovered pleasant
dreams, gently stooping over him to whisper their messages, like a
field of wheat swayed by the breeze, or willows that bow their silver
heads and murmur to each other the secrets that no one ever knows.
Brushing the idle dreams aside, as a ray of sunshine brushes away the
grey wisps of mist that hang to the hillside, Iris walked up to the
couch where Somnus lay. The light from her rainbow-hued robe lit up
the darkness of the cave, yet Somnus lazily only half-opened his
eyes, moved his head so that it rested more easily, and in a sleepy
voice asked of her what might be her errand. "Somnus," she said,
"gentlest of gods, tranquilliser of minds and soother of careworn
hearts, Juno sends you her commands that you despatch a dream to
Halcyone in the city of Trachine, representing her lost husband and
all the events of the wreck."
Her message delivered, Iris hastened away, for it seemed to her that
already her eyelids grew heavy, and that there were creeping upon her
limbs, throwing silver dust in her eyes, lulling into peaceful slumber
her mind, those sprites born of the blood-red poppies that bring to
weary mortals rest and sweet forgetfulness.
Only rousing himself sufficiently to give his orders, Somnus entrusted
to Morpheus the task imposed upon him by Juno, and then, with a yawn,
turned over on his downy pillow, and gave himself up to exquisite
slumber.
When he had winged his way to Trachine, Morpheus took upon himself the
form of Ceyx and sought the room where Halcyone slept. She had watched
the far horizon many hours that day. For many an hour had she vainly
burned incense to the gods. Tired in heart and soul, in body and in
mind, she laid herself down on her couch at last, hoping for the gift
of sleep. Not long had she slept, in the dead-still sleep that
weariness and a stricken heart bring with them, when Morpheus came and
stood by her side. He was only a dream, yet his face was the face of
Ceyx. Not the radiant, beautiful son of the Day Star was the Ceyx who
stood by her now and gazed on her with piteous, pitying dead eyes.
His clothing dripped sea-water; in his hair was tangled the weed of
the sea, uprooted by the storm. Pale, pale was his face, and his white
hands gripped the stones and sand that had failed him in his dying
agony.
Halcyone whimpered in her sleep as she looked on him, and Morpheus
stooped over her and spoke the words that he had been told to say.
"I am thy husband, Ceyx, Halcyone. No more do prayers and the
blue-curling smoke of incense avail me. Dead am I, slain by the storm
and the waves. On my dead, white face the skies look down and the
restless sea tosses my chill body that still seeks thee, seeking a
haven in thy dear arms, seeking rest on thy warm, loving heart."
With a cry Halcyone started up, but Morpheus had fled, and there were
no wet footprints nor drops of sea-water on the floor, marking, as she
had hoped, the way that her lord had taken. Not again did Sleep visit
her that night.
A grey, cold morning dawned and found her on the seashore. As ever,
her eyes sought the far horizon, but no white sail, a messenger of
hope, was there to greet her. Yet surely she saw something--a black
speck, like a ship driven on by the long oars of mariners who knew
well the path to home through the watery ways. From far away in the
grey it hasted towards her, and then there came to Halcyone the
knowledge that no ship was this thing, but a lifeless body, swept
onwards by the hurrying waves. Nearer and nearer it came, until at
length she could recognise the form of this flotsam and jetsam of the
sea. With heart that broke as she uttered the words, she stretched
out her arms and cried aloud: "O Ceyx! my Beloved! is it thus that
thou returnest to me?"
To break the fierce assaults of sea and of storm there had been built
out from the shore a mole, and on to this barrier leapt the distraught
Halcyone. She ran along it, and when the dead, white body of the man
she loved was still out of reach, she prayed her last prayer--a
wordless prayer of anguish to the gods.
"Only let me get near him," she breathed. "Grant only that I nestle
close against his dear breast. Let me show him that, living or dead, I
am his, and he mine forever."
And to Halcyone a great miracle was then vouchsafed, for from out of
her snowy shoulders grew snow-white pinions, and with them she skimmed
over the waves until she reached the rigid body of Ceyx, drifting, a
helpless burden for the conquering waves, in with the swift-flowing
tide. As she flew, she uttered cries of love and of longing, but only
strange raucous cries came from the throat that had once only made
music. And when she reached the body of Ceyx and would fain have
kissed his marble lips, Halcyone found that no longer were her own
lips like the petals of a fair red rose warmed by the sun. For the
gods had heard her prayer, and her horny beak seemed to the watchers
on the shore to be fiercely tearing at the face of him who had been
king of Thessaly.
[Illustration: A GREY COLD MORNING FOUND HER ON THE SEASHORE]
Yet the gods were not merciless--or, perhaps, the love of Halcyone was
an all-conquering love. For as the soul of Halcyone had passed into
the body of a white-winged sea-bird, so also passed the soul of her
husband the king. And for evermore Halcyone and her mate, known as the
Halcyon birds, defied the storm and tempest, and proudly breasted,
side by side, the angriest waves of the raging seas.
To them, too, did the gods grant a boon: that, for seven days before
the shortest day of the year, and for seven days after it, there
should reign over the sea a great calm in which Halcyone, in her
floating nest, should hatch her young. And to those days of calm and
sunshine, the name of the Halcyon Days was given.
And still, as a storm approaches, the white-winged birds come flying
inland with shrill cries of warning to the mariners whose ships they
pass in their flight.
"Ceyx!" they cry. "Remember Ceyx!"
And hastily the fishermen fill their sails, and the smacks drive
homeward to the haven where the blue smoke curls upwards from the
chimneys of their homesteads, and where the red poppies are nodding
sleepily amongst the yellow corn.
* * * * *
_Note._--The kingfisher is commonly known as the real
"Halcyon" bird. Of it Socrates says: "The bird is not
great, but it has received great honour from the gods
because of its lovingness; for while it is making its
nest, all the world has the happy days which it calls
halcyonidae, excelling all others in their calmness."
ARISTAEUS THE BEE-KEEPER
"... Every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivers hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees."
Tennyson.
In the fragrance of the blossom of the limes the bees are gleaning a
luscious harvest. Their busy humming sounds like the surf on a reef
heard from very far away, and would almost lull to sleep those who
lazily, drowsily spend the sunny summer afternoon in the shadow of the
trees. That line of bee-hives by the sweet-pea hedge shows where they
store their treasure that men may rob them of it, but out on the
uplands where the heather is purple, the wild bees hum in and out of
the honey-laden bells and carry home their spoils to their own free
fastnesses, from which none can drive them unless there comes a foray
against them from the brown men of the moors.
How many of us who watch their ardent labours know the story of
Aristaeus--he who first brought the art of bee-keeping to perfection in
his own dear land of Greece, and whose followers are those men in
veils of blue and green, that motley throng who beat fire-irons and
create a hideous clamour in order that the queen bee and her excited
followers may be checked in their perilous voyagings and beguiled to
swarm in the sanctuary of a hive.
Aristaeus was a shepherd, the son of Cyrene, a water nymph, and to him
there had come one day, as he listened to the wild bees humming
amongst the wild thyme, the great thought that he might conquer these
busy workers and make their toil his gain. He knew that hollow trees
or a hole in a rock were used as the storage houses of their treasure,
and so the wily shepherd lad provided for them the homes he knew that
they would covet, and near them placed all the food that they most
desired. Soon Aristaeus became noted as a tamer of bees, and even in
Olympus they spoke of his honey as a thing that was food for the gods.
All might have gone well with Aristaeus had there not come for him the
fateful day when he saw the beautiful Eurydice and to her lost his
heart. She fled before the fiery protestations of his love, and trod
upon the serpent whose bite brought her down to the Shades. The gods
were angry with Aristaeus, and as punishment they slew his bees. His
hives stood empty and silent, and no more did "the murmuring of
innumerable bees" drowse the ears of the herds who watched their
flocks cropping the red clover and the asphodel of the meadows.
Underneath the swift-flowing water of a deep river, the nymph who was
the mother of Aristaeus sat on her throne. Fishes darted round her
white feet, and beside her sat her attendants, spinning the fine
strong green cords that twine themselves round the throats of those
who perish when their arms can no longer fight against the force of
the rushing current. A nymph sang as she worked, an old, old song,
that told one of the old, old tales of man's weakness and the power of
the creatures of water, but above her song those who listened heard a
man's voice, calling loudly and pitifully.
The voice was that of Aristaeus, calling aloud for his mother. Then his
mother gave command, and the waters of the river rolled asunder and
let Aristaeus pass down far below to where the fountains of the great
rivers lie. A mighty roar of many waters dinned in his ears as the
rivers started on the race that was to bring them all at last to their
restless haven, the Ocean. To Cyrene he came at length, and to her
told his sorrowful tale:
"To men who live their little lives and work and die as I
myself--though son of a nymph and of a god--must do," he said, "I have
brought two great gifts, oh my mother. I have taught them that from
the grey olives they can reap a priceless harvest, and from me they
have learned that the little brown bees that hum in and out of the
flowers may be made slaves that bring to them the sweetest riches of
which Nature may be robbed."
"This do I already know, my son," said Cyrene, and smiled upon
Aristaeus.
"Yet dost thou not know," said Aristaeus, "the doom that has overtaken
my army of busy workers. No longer does there come from my city of
bees the boom of many wings and many busy little feet as they fly,
swift and strong, hither and thither, to bring back to the hives
their honeyed treasure. The comb is empty. The bees are all dead--or,
if not dead, they have forsaken me forever."
Then spoke Cyrene. "Hast heard, my son," she said, "of Proteus? It is
he who herds the flocks of the boundless sea. On days when the South
Wind and the North Wind wrestle together, and when the Wind from the
East smites the West Wind in shame before him, thou mayst see him
raise his snowy head and long white beard above the grey-green waves
of the sea, and lash the white-maned, unbridled, fierce sea-horses
into fury before him. Proteus only--none but Proteus--can tell thee by
what art thou canst win thy bees back once more."
Then Aristaeus with eagerness questioned his mother how he might find
Proteus and gain from him the knowledge that he sought, and Cyrene
answered: "No matter how piteously thou dost entreat him, never, save
by force, wilt thou gain his secret from Proteus. Only if thou canst
chain him by guile as he sleeps and hold fast the chains, undaunted by
the shapes into which he has the power to change himself, wilt thou
win his knowledge from him."
Then Cyrene sprinkled her son with the nectar of the deathless gods,
and in his heart there was born a noble courage and through him a new
life seemed to run.
"Lead me now to Proteus, oh my mother!" he said, and Cyrene left her
throne and led him to the cave where Proteus, herdsman of the seas,
had his dwelling. Behind the seaweed-covered rocks Aristaeus concealed
himself, while the nymph used the fleecy clouds for her covering. And
when Apollo drove his chariot across the high heavens at noon, and all
land and all sea were hot as molten gold, Proteus with his flocks
returned to the shade of his great cave by the sobbing sea, and on its
sandy floor he stretched himself, and soon lay, his limbs all lax and
restful, in the exquisite joy of a dreamless sleep. From behind the
rocks Aristaeus watched him, and when, at length, he saw that Proteus
slept too soundly to wake gently he stepped forward, and on the
sleep-drowsed limbs of Proteus fixed the fetters that made him his
captive. Then, in joy and pride at having been the undoing of the
shepherd of the seas, Aristaeus shouted aloud. And Proteus, awaking,
swiftly turned himself into a wild boar with white tusks that lusted
to thrust themselves into the thighs of Aristaeus. But Aristaeus,
unflinching, kept his firm hold of the chain. Next did he become a
tiger, tawny and velvet black, and fierce to devour. And still
Aristaeus held the chain, and never let his eye fall before the glare
of the beast that sought to devour him. A scaly dragon came next,
breathing out flames, and yet Aristaeus held him. Then came a lion, its
yellow pelt scented with the lust of killing, and while Aristaeus yet
strove against him there came to terrify his listening ears the sound
of fire that lapped up and thirstily devoured all things that would
stand against it. And ere the crackle of the flames and their great
sigh of fierce desire had ceased, there came in his ears the sound of
many waters, the booming rush of an angry river in furious flood, the
irresistible command of the almighty waves of the sea. Yet still
Aristaeus held the chains, and at last Proteus took his own shape
again, and with a sigh like the sigh of winds and waves on the
desolate places where ships become wrecks, and men perish and there is
never a human soul to save or to pity them, he spoke to Aristaeus.
"Puny one!" he said, "and puny are thy wishes! Because thou didst by
thy foolish wooing send the beautiful Eurydice swiftly down to the
Shades and break the heart of Orpheus, whose music is the music of the
Immortals, the bees that thou hast treasured have left their hives
empty and silent. So little are the bees! so great, O Aristaeus, the
bliss or woe of Orpheus and Eurydice! Yet, because by guile thou hast
won the power to gain from me the knowledge that thou dost seek,
hearken to me now, Aristaeus! Four bulls must thou find--four cows of
equal beauty. Then must thou build in a leafy grove four altars, and
to Orpheus and Eurydice pay such funeral honours as may allay their
resentment. At the end of nine days, when thou hast fulfilled thy
pious task, return and see what the gods have sent thee."
"This will I do most faithfully, O Proteus," said Aristaeus, and
gravely loosened the chains and returned to where his mother awaited
him, and thence travelled to his own sunny land of Greece.
Most faithfully, as he had said, did Aristaeus perform his vow. And
when, on the ninth day, he returned to the grove of sacrifice, a sound
greeted him which made his heart stop and then go on beating and
throbbing as the heart of a man who has striven valiantly in a great
fight and to whom the battle is assured.
For, from the carcase of one of the animals offered for sacrifice, and
whose clean white bones now gleamed in the rays of the sun that forced
its way through the thick shade of the grove of grey olives, there
came the "murmuring of innumerable bees."
"Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth
sweetness."
And Aristaeus, a Samson of the old Greek days, rejoiced exceedingly,
knowing that his thoughtless sin was pardoned, and that for evermore
to him belonged the pride of giving to all men the power of taming
bees, the glory of mastering the little brown creatures that pillage
from the fragrant, bright-hued flowers their most precious treasure.
PROSERPINE
"Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom,
Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
If with mists of evening dew
Thou dost nourish those young flowers
Till they grow, in scent and hue,
Fairest children of the hours,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine."
Shelley.
The story of Persephone--of Proserpine--is a story of spring. When the
sun is warming the bare brown earth, and the pale primroses look up
through the snowy blackthorns at a kind, blue sky, almost can we hear
the soft wind murmur a name as it gently sways the daffodils and
breathes through the honey sweetness of the gold-powdered catkins on
the grey willows by the river--"Persephone! Persephone!"
Now once there was a time when there was no spring, neither summer nor
autumn, nor chilly winter with its black frosts and cruel gales and
brief, dark days. Always was there sunshine and warmth, ever were
there flowers and corn and fruit, and nowhere did the flowers grow
with more dazzling colours and more fragrant perfume than in the fair
garden of Sicily.
To Demeter, the Earth Mother, was born a daughter more fair than any
flower that grew, and ever more dear to her became her child, the
lovely Proserpine. By the blue sea, in the Sicilian meadows,
Proserpine and the fair nymphs who were her companions spent their
happy days. Too short were the days for all their joy, and Demeter
made the earth yet fairer than it was that she might bring more
gladness to her daughter Proserpine. Each day the blossoms that the
nymphs twined into garlands grew more perfect in form and in hue, but
from the anemones of royal purple and crimson, and the riotous red of
geraniums, Proserpine turned one morning with a cry of gladness, for
there stood before her beside a little stream, on one erect, slim
stem, a wonderful narcissus, with a hundred blossoms. Her eager hand
was stretched out to pluck it, when a sudden black cloud overshadowed
the land, and the nymphs, with shrieks of fear, fled swiftly away. And
as the cloud descended, there was heard a terrible sound, as of the
rushing of many waters or the roll of the heavy wheels of the chariot
of one who comes to slay. Then was the earth cleft open, and from it
there arose the four coal-black horses of Pluto, neighing aloud in
their eagerness, while the dark-browed god urged them on, standing
erect in his car of gold.
"'The coal-black horses rise--they rise,
O mother, mother!' low she cries--
Persephone--Persephone!
'O light, light, light!' she cries, 'farewell;
The coal-black horses wait for me.
O shade of shades, where I must dwell,
Demeter, mother, far from thee!'"[5]
In cold, strong arms Pluto seized her--in that mighty grasp that will
not be denied, and Proserpine wept childish tears as she shivered at
his icy touch, and sobbed because she had dropped the flowers she had
picked, and had never picked the flower she most desired. While still
she saw the fair light of day, the little oddly-shaped rocky hills,
the vineyards and olive groves and flowery meadows of Sicily, she did
not lose hope. Surely the King of Terrors could not steal one so
young, so happy, and so fair. She had only tasted the joy of living,
and fain she would drink deeper in the coming years. Her mother must
surely save her--her mother who had never yet failed her--her mother,
and the gods.
But ruthless as the mower whose scythe cuts down the seeded grass and
the half-opened flower and lays them in swathes on the meadow, Pluto
drove on. His iron-coloured reins were loose on the black manes of his
horses, and he urged them forward by name till the froth flew from
their mouths like the foam that the furious surf of the sea drives
before it in a storm. Across the bay and along the bank of the river
Anapus they galloped, until, at the river head, they came to the pool
of Cyane. He smote the water with his trident, and downward into the
blackness of darkness his horses passed, and Proserpine knew no more
the pleasant light of day.
"What ails her that she comes not home?
Demeter seeks her far and wide,
And gloomy-browed doth ceaseless roam
From many a morn till eventide.
'My life, immortal though it be,
Is nought,' she cries, 'for want of thee,
Persephone--Persephone!'"
So, to the great Earth Mother came the pangs that have drawn tears of
blood from many a mortal mother's heart for a child borne off to the
Shades.
"'My life is nought for want of thee,--
Persephone! Persephone!'" ...
The cry is borne down through the ages, to echo and re-echo so long as
mothers love and Death is still unchained.