Minos, king of Crete, he found a refuge. He put all his mighty powers
at the service of Minos, and for him designed an intricate labyrinth
which, like the river Meander, had neither beginning nor ending, but
ever returned on itself in hopeless intricacy. Soon he stood high in
the favour of the king, but, ever greedy for power, he incurred, by
one of his daring inventions, the wrath of Minos. The angry monarch
threw him into prison, and imprisoned along with him his son, Icarus.
But prison bars and locks did not exist that were strong enough to
baffle this master craftsman, and from the tower in which they were
shut, Daedalus and his son were not long in making their escape. To
escape from Crete was a less easy matter. There were many places in
that wild island where it was easy for the father and son to hide, but
the subjects of Minos were mostly mariners, and Daedalus knew well that
all along the shore they kept watch lest he should make him a boat,
hoist on it one of the sails of which he was part inventor, and speed
away to safety like a sea-bird driven before the gale. Then did there
come to Daedalus, the pioneer of inventions, the great idea that by his
skill he might make a way for himself and his son through another
element than water. And he laughed aloud in his hiding place amongst
the cypresses on the hillside at the thought of how he would baffle
the simple sailormen who watched each creek and beach down on the
shore. Mockingly, too, did he think of King Minos, who had dared to
pit his power against the wits and skill of Daedalus, the mighty
craftsman.
Many a Cretan bird was sacrificed before the task which the inventor
had set himself was accomplished. In a shady forest on the mountains
he fashioned light wooden frames and decked them with feathers, until
at length they looked like the pinions of a great eagle, or of a swan
that flaps its majestic way from lake to river. Each feather was bound
on with wax, and the mechanism of the wings was so perfect a
reproduction of that of the wings from which the feathers had been
plucked, that on the first day that he fastened them to his back and
spread them out, Daedalus found that he could fly even as the bird
flew. Two pairs he made; having tested one pair, a second pair was
made for Icarus, and, circling round him like a mother bird that
teaches her nestlings how to fly, Daedalus, his heart big with the
pride of invention, showed Icarus how he might best soar upwards to
the sun or dive down to the blue sea far below, and how he might
conquer the winds and the air currents of the sky and make them his
servants.
That was a joyous day for father and son, for the father had never
before drunk deeper of the intoxicating wine of the gods--Success--and
for the lad it was all pure joy. Never before had he known freedom and
power so utterly glorious. As a little child he had watched the birds
fly far away over the blue hills to where the sun was setting, and had
longed for wings that he might follow them in their flight. At times,
in his dreams, he had known the power, and in his dreaming fancy had
risen from the cumbering earth and soared high above the trees and
fields on strong pinions that bore him away to the fair land of
heart's desire--to the Islands of the Blessed. But when Sleep left
him and the dreams silently slipped out before the coming of the light
of day, and the boy sprang from his couch and eagerly spread his arms
as, in his dreams, he had done, he could no longer fly. Disappointment
and unsatisfied longing ever came with his waking hours. Now all that
had come to an end, and Daedalus was glad and proud as well to watch
his son's joy and his fearless daring. One word of counsel only did he
give him.
"Beware, dear son of my heart," he said, "lest in thy new-found power
thou seekest to soar even to the gates of Olympus. For as surely as
the scorching rays from the burnished wheels of the chariot of Apollo
smite thy wings, the wax that binds on thy feathers will melt, and
then will come upon thee and on me woe unutterable."
In his dreams that night Icarus flew, and when he awoke, fearing to
find only the haunting remembrance of a dream, he found his father
standing by the side of his bed of soft leaves under the shadowy
cypresses, ready to bind on his willing shoulders the great pinions
that he had made.
Gentle Dawn, the rosy-fingered, was slowly making her way up from the
East when Daedalus and Icarus began their flight. Slowly they went at
first, and the goat-herds who tended their flocks on the slopes of
Mount Ida looked up in fear when they saw the dark shadows of their
wings and marked the monster birds making their way out to sea. From
the river beds the waterfowl arose from the reeds, and with great
outcry flew with all their swiftness to escape them. And down by the
seashore the mariners' hearts sank within them as they watched,
believing that a sight so strange must be a portent of disaster.
Homewards they went in haste to offer sacrifices on the altars of
Poseidon, ruler of the deep.
Samos and Delos were passed on the left and Lebynthos on the right,
long ere the sun-god had started on his daily course, and as the
mighty wings of Icarus cleft the cold air, the boy's slim body grew
chilled, and he longed for the sun's rays to turn the waters of the
AEgean Sea over which he flew from green-grey into limpid sapphire and
emerald and burning gold. Towards Sicily he and his father bent their
course, and when they saw the beautiful island afar off lying like a
gem in the sea, Apollo made the waves in which it lay, for it a
fitting setting. With a cry of joy Icarus marked the sun's rays paint
the chill water, and Apollo looked down at the great white-winged
bird, a snowy swan with the face and form of a beautiful boy, who sped
exulting onwards, while a clumsier thing, with wings of darker hue,
followed less quickly, in the same line of flight. As the god looked,
the warmth that radiated from his chariot touched the icy limbs of
Icarus as with the caressing touch of gentle, life-giving hands. Not
long before, his flight had lagged a little, but now it seemed as if
new life was his. Like a bird that wheels and soars and dives as if
for lightness of heart, so did Icarus, until each feather of his
plumage had a sheen of silver and of gold. Down, down, he darted, so
near the water that almost the white-tipped waves caught at his wings
as he skimmed over them. Then up, up, up he soared, ever higher,
higher still, and when he saw the radiant sun-god smiling down on
him, the warning of Daedalus was forgotten. As he had excelled other
lads in foot races, now did Icarus wish to excel the birds themselves.
Daedalus he left far behind, and still upwards he mounted. So strong he
felt, so fearless was he, that to him it seemed that he could storm
Olympus, that he could call to Apollo as he swept past him in his
flight, and dare him to race for a wager from the AEgean Sea to where
the sun-god's horses took their nightly rest by the trackless seas of
the unknown West.
In terror his father watched him, and as he called to him in a voice
of anguished warning that was drowned by the whistling rush of the air
currents through the wings of Icarus and the moist whisper of the
clouds as through them he cleft a way for himself, there befell the
dreaded thing. It seemed as though the strong wings had begun to lose
their power. Like a wounded bird Icarus fluttered, lunged sidewise
from the straight, clean line of his flight, recovered himself, and
fluttered again. And then, like the bird into whose soft breast the
sure hand of a mighty archer has driven an arrow, downwards he fell,
turning over and yet turning again, downwards, ever downwards, until
he fell with a plunge into the sea that still was radiant in shining
emerald and translucent blue.
Then did the car of Apollo drive on. His rays had slain one who was
too greatly daring, and now they fondled the little white feathers
that had fallen from the broken wings and floated on the water like
the petals of a torn flower.
On the dead, still face of Icarus they shone, and they spangled as if
with diamonds the wet plumage that still, widespread, bore him up on
the waves.
Stricken at heart was Daedalus, but there was no time to lament his
son's untimely end, for even now the black-prowed ships of Minos might
be in pursuit. Onward he flew to safety, and in Sicily built a temple
to Apollo, and there hung up his wings as a propitiatory offering to
the god who had slain his son.
And when grey night came down on that part of the sea that bears the
name of Icarus to this day, still there floated the body of the boy
whose dreams had come true. For only a little while had he known the
exquisite realisation of dreamed-of potentialities, for only a few
hours tasted the sweetness of perfect pleasure, and then, by an
over-daring flight, had lost it all for ever.
The sorrowing Nereids sang a dirge over him as he was swayed gently
hither and thither by the tide, and when the silver stars came out
from the dark firmament of heaven and were reflected in the blackness
of the sea at night, it was as though a velvet pall, silver-decked in
his honour, was spread around the slim white body with its
outstretched snowy wings.
So much had he dared--so little accomplished.
Is it not the oft-told tale of those who have followed Icarus? Yet who
can say that gallant youth has lived in vain when, as Icarus did, he
has breasted the very skies, has flown with fearless heart and soul to
the provinces of the deathless gods?--when, even for the space of a
few of the heart-beats of Time, he has tasted supreme power--the
ecstasy of illimitable happiness?
CLYTIE
The sunbeams are basking on the high walls of the old garden--smiling
on the fruit that grows red and golden in their warmth. The bees are
humming round the bed of purple heliotrope, and drowsily murmuring in
the shelter of the soft petals of the blush roses whose sweetness
brings back the fragrance of days that are gone. On the old grey
sundial the white-winged pigeons sleepily croon as they preen their
snowy plumage, and the Madonna lilies hang their heads like a
procession of white-robed nuns who dare not look up from telling their
beads until the triumphal procession of an all-conquering warrior has
gone by. What can they think of that long line of tall yellow flowers
by the garden wall, who turn their faces sunwards with an arrogant
assurance, and give stare for stare to golden-haired Apollo as he
drives his blazing car triumphant through the high heavens?
"Sunflowers" is the name by which we know those flamboyant blossoms
which somehow fail so wholly to suggest the story of Clytie, the nymph
whose destruction came from a faithful, unrequited love. She was a
water-nymph, a timid, gentle being who frequented lonely streams, and
bathed where the blue dragon-flies dart across the white water-lilies
in pellucid lakes. In the shade of the tall poplar trees and the
silvery willows she took her midday rest, and feared the hours when
the flowers drooped their heads and the rippling water lost its
coolness before the fierce glare of the sun.
But there came a day when, into the dark pool by which she sat, Apollo
the Conqueror looked down and mirrored his face. And nevermore did she
hide from the golden-haired god who, from the moment when she had seen
in the water the picture of his radiant beauty, became the lord and
master of her heart and soul. All night she awaited his coming, and
the Dawn saw her looking eastward for the first golden gleams from the
wheels of his chariot. All day she followed him with her longing gaze,
nor did she ever cease to feast her eyes upon his beauty until the
last reflection of his radiance had faded from the western sky.
Such devotion might have touched the heart of the sun-god, but he had
no wish to own a love for which he had not sought. The nymph's
adoration irked him, nor did pity come as Love's pale substitute when
he marked how, day by day, her face grew whiter and more white, and
her lovely form wasted away. For nine days, without food or drink, she
kept her shamed vigil. Only one word of love did she crave. Unexacting
in the humility of her devotion, she would gratefully have nourished
her hungry heart upon one kindly glance. But Apollo, full of scorn and
anger, lashed up his fiery steeds as he each day drove past her, nor
deigned for her a glance more gentle than that which he threw on the
satyrs as they hid in the dense green foliage of the shadowy woods.
Half-mocking, Diana said, "In truth the fair nymph who throws her
heart's treasures at the feet of my golden-locked brother that he may
trample on them, is coming to look like a faded flower!" And, as she
spoke, the hearts of the other immortal dwellers in Olympus were
stirred with pity.
"A flower she shall be!" they said, "and for all time shall she live,
in life that is renewed each year when the earth stirs with the
quickening of spring. The long summer days shall she spend forever in
fearless worship of the god of her love!"
And, as they willed, the nymph passed out of her human form, and took
the form of a flower, and evermore--the emblem of constancy--does she
gaze with fearless ardour on the face of her love.
"The heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look that she turned when he rose."
Some there are who say that not into the bold-faced sunflower did her
metamorphosis take place, but into that purple heliotrope that gives
an exquisite offering of fragrance to the sun-god when his warm rays
touch it. And in the old walled garden, while the bees drowsily hum,
and the white pigeons croon, and the dashing sunflower gives Apollo
gaze for gaze, and the scent of the mignonette mingles with that of
clove pinks and blush roses, the fragrance of the heliotrope is, above
all, worthy incense to be offered upon his altar by the devout lover
of a god.
THE CRANES OF IBYCUS
"For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ."
Shakespeare.
Ibycus, the poet friend of Apollo, was a happy man as he journeyed on
foot through the country where the wild flowers grew thick and the
trees were laden with blossom towards the city of Corinth. His tuneful
voice sang snatches of song of his own making, and ever and again he
would try how his words and music sounded on his lyre. He was light of
heart, because ever had he thought of good, and not evil, and had
always sung only of great and noble deeds and of those things that
helped his fellow-men. And now he went to Corinth for the great
chariot-races, and for the great contest of musicians where every true
poet and musician in Greece was sure to be found.
It was the time of the return to earth of Adonis and of Proserpine,
and as he was reverently about to enter the sacred grove of Poseidon,
where the trees grew thick, and saw, crowning the height before him,
the glittering towers of Corinth, he heard, overhead, the harsh cries
of some other returned exiles. Ibycus smiled, as he looked up and
beheld the great flock of grey birds, with their long legs and strong,
outstretched wings, come back from their winter sojourn on the golden
sands of Egypt, to dance and beck and bow to each other by the marshes
of his homeland.
"Welcome back, little brothers!" he cried. "May you and I both meet
with naught but kindness from the people of this land!"
And when the cranes again harshly cried, as if in answer to his
greeting, the poet walked gaily on, further into the shadow of that
dark wood out of which he was never to pass as living man. Joyous, and
fearing no evil, he had been struck and cast to the ground by cruel
and murderous hands ere ever he knew that two robbers were hidden in a
narrow pass where the brushwood grew thick. With all his strength he
fought, but his arms were those of a musician and not of a warrior,
and very soon he was overpowered by those who assailed him. He cried
in vain to gods and to men for help, and in his final agony he heard
once more the harsh voices of the migratory birds and the rush of
their speeding wings. From the ground, where he bled to death, he
looked up to them.
"Take up my cause, dear cranes!" he said, "since no voice but yours
answers my cry!"
And the cranes screamed hoarsely and mournfully as if in farewell, as
they flapped their way towards Corinth and left the poet lying dead.
When his body was found, robbed and terribly wounded, from all over
Greece, where he was known and loved, there uprose a great clamour of
lamentation.
"Is it thus I find you restored to me?" said he who had expected him
in Corinth as his honoured guest; "I who hoped to place the victor's
laurels on your head when you triumphed in the temple of song!"
And all those whom the loving personality of Ibycus and the charm of
his music had made his friends were alert and eager to avenge so foul
a murder. But none knew how the wicked deed had come to pass--none,
save the cranes.
Then came the day to which Ibycus had looked forward with such joy,
when thousands upon thousands of his countrymen sat in the theatre at
Cyprus and watched a play that stirred their hearts within them.
The theatre had for roof the blue vault of heaven; the sun served for
footlights and for the lights above the heads of those who acted. The
three Furies--the Eumenides--with their hard and cruel faces and snaky
locks, and with blood dripping from their eyes, were represented by
actors so great that the hearts of their beholders trembled within
them. In their dread hands lay the punishment of murder, of
inhospitality, of ingratitude, and of all the cruellest and basest of
crimes. Theirs was the duty of hurrying the doomed spirits entrusted
to their merciless care over the Phlegethon, the river of fire that
flows round Hades, and through the brazen gates that led to Torment,
and their robes were robes worn
"With all the pomp of horror, dy'd in gore."
Virgil.
In solemn cadence, while the thousands of beholders watched and
listened enthralled, the Furies walked round the theatre and sang
their song of terror:
"Woe! woe! to him whose hands are soiled with blood! The darkness
shall not hide him, nor shall his dread secret lie hidden even in the
bowels of the earth! He shall not seek by flight to escape us, for
vengeance is ours, and swifter than a hawk that strikes its quarry
shall we strike. Unwearying we pursue, nor are our swift feet and our
avenging arms made slow by pity. Woe! woe! to the shedder of innocent
blood, for nor peace nor rest is his until we have hurried his
tormented soul down to torture that shall endure everlastingly!"
As the listeners heard the dirge of doom, there were none who did not
think of Ibycus, the gentle-hearted poet, so much beloved and so
foully done to death, and in the tensity of the moment when the voices
ceased, a great thrill passed over the multitudes as a voice, shrill
with amazed horror, burst from one of the uppermost benches:
"_See there! see there! behold, comrade, the cranes of Ibycus!_"
Every eye looked upwards, and, harshly crying, there passed overhead
the flock of cranes to whom the poet had entrusted his dying message.
Then, like an electric shock, there came to all those who beheld the
knowledge that he who had cried aloud was the murderer of Ibycus.
"Seize him! seize him!" cried in unison the voices of thousands.
"Seize the man, and him to whom he spoke!"
Frantically the trembling wretch tried to deny his words, but it was
too late. The roar of the multitudes was as that of an angry sea that
hungers for its prey and will not be denied. He who had spoken and him
to whom he spoke were seized by a score of eager hands.
In white-faced terror, because the Furies had hunted them down, they
made confession of their crime and were put to death. And the flock of
grey-plumaged, rosy-headed cranes winged their way on to the marshes,
there to beck and bow to each other, and to dance in the golden
sunset, well content because their message was delivered, and Ibycus,
the poet-musician who had given them welcome, was avenged.
SYRINX
"Is it because the wild-wood passion still lingers in
our hearts, because still in our minds the voice of
Syrinx lingers in melancholy music, the music of regret
and longing, that for most of us there is so potent a
spell in running waters?"
Fiona Macleod.
As the evening shadows lengthen, and the night wind softly steals
through the trees, touching with restless fingers the still waters of
the little lochans that would fain have rest, there can be heard a
long, long whisper, like a sigh. There is no softer, sadder note to be
heard in all Pan's great orchestra, nor can one marvel that it should
be so, for the whisper comes from the reeds who gently sway their
heads while the wind passes over them as they grow by lonely lake or
river.
This is the story of Syrinx, the reed, as Ovid has told it to us.
In Arcadia there dwelt a nymph whose name was Syrinx. So fair she was
that for her dear sake fauns and satyrs forgot to gambol, and sat in
the green woods in thoughtful stillness, that they might see her as
she passed. But for none of them had Syrinx a word of kindness. She
had no wish for love.
"But as for Love, truly I know him not,
I have passionately turned my lips therefrom,
And from that fate the careless gods allot."
Lady Margaret Sackville.
To one only of the gods did she give her loyal allegiance. She
worshipped Diana, and with her followed the chase. As she lightly sped
through the forest she might have been Diana herself, and there were
those who said they would not know nymph from goddess, but that the
goddess carried a silver bow, while that of Syrinx was made of horn.
Fearless, and without a care or sorrow, Syrinx passed her happy days.
Not for all the gold of Midas would she have changed places with those
love-lorn nymphs who sighed their hearts out for love of a god or of a
man. Heartwhole, fancy free, gay and happy and lithe and strong, as a
young boy whose joy it is to run and to excel in the chase, was
Syrinx, whose white arms against the greenwood trees dazzled the eyes
of the watching fauns when she drew back her bow to speed an arrow at
the stag she had hunted since early dawn. Each morning that she awoke
was the morning of a day of joy; each night that she lay down to rest,
it was to sleep as a child who smiles in his sleep at the remembrance
of a perfect day.
But to Syrinx, who knew no fear, Fear came at last. She was returning
one evening from the shadowy hills, untired by the chase that had
lasted for many an hour, when, face to face, she met with one whom
hitherto she had only seen from afar. Of him the other nymphs spoke
often. Who was so great as Pan?--Pan, who ruled the woods. None could
stand against Pan. Those who defied him must ever come under his power
in the end. He was Fear; he was Youth; he was Joy; he was Love; he was
Beast; he was Power; he was Man; he was God. He was Life itself. So
did they talk, and Syrinx listened with a smile. Not Pan himself could
bring Fear to her.
Yet when he met her in the silent loneliness of a great forest and
stood in her path and gazed on her with eyes of joyous amazement that
one so fair should be in his kingdom without his having had knowledge
of it, Syrinx felt something come to her heart that never before had
assailed it.
Pan's head was crowned with sharp pine-leaves. His face was young and
beautiful, and yet older than the mountains and the seas. Sadness and
joy were in his eyes at the same time, and at the same moment there
looked out from them unutterable tenderness and merciless cruelty. For
only a little space of time did he stand and hold her eyes with his
own, and then in low caressing voice he spoke, and his words were like
the song of a bird to his mate, like the call of the earth to the sun
in spring, like the lap of the waves when they tell the rocks of their
eternal longing. Of love he spoke, of love that demanded love, and of
the nymph's most perfect beauty. Yet as he spoke, the unknown thing
came and smote with icy hands the heart of Syrinx.