A Book of Myths Part 3

Glancing up for a moment from the picture whose perfect colours grew fast under her slim fingers, Arachne fixed scornful eyes on the old woman and gave a merry laugh.

"Didst say equal Athene? old mother," she said. "In good sooth thy dwelling must be with the goat-herds in the far-off hills and thou art not a dweller in our city. Else hadst thou not spoken to Arachne of equalling the work of Athene; excelling were the better word."

In anger Pallas Athene made answer.

"Impious one!" she said, "to those who would make themselves higher than the G.o.ds must ever come woe unutterable. Take heed what thou sayest, for punishment will a.s.suredly be thine."

Laughing still, Arachne made reply: "I fear not, Athene, nor does my heart shake at the gloomy warning of a foolish old crone." And turning to the nymphs who, half afraid, listened to her daring words, she said: "Fair nymphs who watch me day by day, well do ye know that I make no idle boast. My skill is as great as that of Athene, and greater still it shall be. Let Athene try a contest with me if she dare! Well do I know who will be the victor."

Then Athene cast off her disguise, and before the frightened nymphs and the bold Arachne stood the radiant G.o.ddess with eyes that blazed with anger and insulted pride.

"Lo, Athene is come!" she said, and nymphs and women fell on their knees before her, humbly adoring. Arachne alone was unabashed. Her cheeks showed how fast her heart was beating. From rosy red to white went the colour in them, yet, in firm, low voice she spoke.

"I have spoken truth," she said. "Not woman, nor G.o.ddess, can do work such as mine. Ready am I to abide by what I have said, and if I did boast, by my boast I stand. If thou wilt deign, great G.o.ddess, to try thy skill against the skill of the dyer's daughter and dost prove the victor, behold me gladly willing to pay the penalty."

The eyes of Athene, the grey-eyed G.o.ddess, grew dark as the sea when a thunder-cloud hangs over it and a mighty storm is coming. Not for one moment did she delay, but took her place by the side of Arachne. On the loom they stretched out two webs with a fine warp, and made them fast on the beam.

"The sley separates the warp, the woof is inserted in the middle with sharp shuttles, which the fingers hurry along, and, being drawn within the warp, the teeth notched in the moving sley strike it. Both hasten on, and girding up their garments to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, they move their skilful arms, their eagerness beguiling their fatigue. There both the purple is being woven, which is subjected to the Tyrian brazen vessel, and fine shades of minute difference; just as the rainbow, with its mighty arch, is wont to tint a long tract of sky by means of the rays reflected by the shower; in which, though a thousand different colours are s.h.i.+ning, yet the very transition eludes the eyes that look upon it.... There, too, the pliant gold is mixed with the threads."

Ovid.

Their canvases wrought, then did Athene and Arachne hasten to cover them with pictures such as no skilled worker of tapestry has ever since dreamed of accomplis.h.i.+ng. Under the fingers of Athene grew up pictures so real and so perfect that the watchers knew not whether the G.o.ddess was indeed creating life. And each picture was one that told of the omnipotence of the G.o.ds and of the doom that came upon those mortals who had dared in their blasphemous presumption to struggle as equals with the immortal dwellers in Olympus. Arachne glanced up from her web and looked with eyes that glowed with the love of beautiful things at the creations of Athene. Yet, undaunted, her fingers still sped on, and the G.o.ddess saw, with brow that grew yet more clouded, how the daughter of Idmon the dyer had chosen for subjects the tales that showed the weaknesses of the G.o.ds. One after another the living pictures grew beneath her hand, and the nymphs held their breath in mingled fear and ecstasy at Arachne's G.o.dlike skill and most arrogant daring. Between G.o.ddess and mortal none could have chosen, for the colour and form and exquisite fancy of the pictures of the daughter of Zeus were equalled, though not excelled, by those of the daughter of the dyer of Colophon.

Darker and yet more dark grew the eyes of Athene as they looked on the magical beauty of the pictures, each one of which was an insult to the G.o.ds. What picture had skilful hand ever drawn to compare with that of Europa who, "riding on the back of the divine bull, with one hand clasped the beast's great horn, and with the other caught up her garment's purple fold, lest it might trail and be drenched in the h.o.a.r sea's infinite spray. And her deep robe was blown out in the wind, like the sail of a s.h.i.+p, and lightly ever it wafted the maiden onward."

Moschus.

Then at last did the storm break, and with her shuttle the enraged G.o.ddess smote the web of Arachne, and the fair pictures were rent into motley rags and ribbons. Furiously, too, with her shuttle of boxwood she smote Arachne. Before her rage, the nymphs fled back to their golden river and to the vineyards of Tymolus, and the women of Colophon in blind terror rushed away. And Arachne, shamed to the dust, knew that life for her was no longer worth possessing. She had aspired, in the pride of her splendid genius, to a contest with a G.o.d, and knew now that such a contest must ever be vain. A cord hung from the weaver's beam, and swiftly she seized it, knotted it round her white neck, and would have hanged herself. But ere the life had pa.s.sed out of her, Athene grasped the cord, loosened it, and spoke Arachne's doom: "Live!" she said, "O guilty and shameless one! For evermore shalt thou live and hang as now, thou and thy descendants, that men may never forget the punishment of the blasphemous one who dared to rival a G.o.d."

Even as she spoke, Arachne's fair form dried up and withered. Her straight limbs grew grey and crooked and wiry, and her white arms were no more. And from the beam where the beautiful weaver of Lydia had been suspended, there hung from a fine grey thread the creature from which, to this day, there are but few who do not turn with loathing. Yet still Arachne spins, and still is without a compeer.

"Not anie damzell, which her vaunteth most In skilfull knitting of soft silken twyne, Nor anie weaver, which his worke doth boast In dieper, in damaske, or in lyne, Nor anie skil'd in workmans.h.i.+p embost, Nor anie skil'd in loupes of fingring fine, Might in their divers cunning ever dare With this so curious networke to compare."

Spenser.

Thus, perhaps, does Arachne have her compensations, and in days that followed long after the twilight of the G.o.ds, did she not gain eternal honour in the heart of every Scot by the tale of how she saved a national hero? Kindly, too, are her labours for men as she slays their mortal enemies, the household flies, and when the peasant--practical, if not favoured by AEsculapius and Hygeia--runs to raid the loom of Arachne in order to staunch the quick-flowing blood from the cut hand of her little child, much more dear to her heart is Arachne the spider than the unknown Athene.

"Also in spinners be tokens of divination, and of knowing what weather shall fall--for oft by weathers that shall fall, some spin or weave higher or lower. Also mult.i.tude of spinners is token of much rain."

Bartholomew.

The sun has not long enough shown his face to dry up the dew in the garden, and behold on the little clipped tree of boxwood, a great marvel! For in and out, and all over its twigs and leaves, Arachne has woven her web, and on the web the dew has dropped a million diamond drops. And, suddenly, all the colours in the sky are mirrored dazzlingly on the grey tapestry of her making. Arachne has come to her own again.

IDAS AND MARPESSA.

By day, while the sun-G.o.d drove his chariot in the high heavens and turned the blue-green AEgean Sea into the semblance of a blazing s.h.i.+eld of bra.s.s, Idas and Marpessa sat together in the trees' soft shades, or walked in shadowy valleys where violets and wild parsley grew, and where Apollo rarely deigned to come. At eventide, when, in royal splendour of purple and crimson and gold, Apollo sought his rest in the western sky, Idas and Marpessa wandered by the seash.o.r.e watching the little wavelets softly kissing the pebbles on the beach, or climbed to the mountain side from whence they could see the first glimpse of Diana's silver crescent and the twinkling lights of the Pleiades breaking through the blue canopy of the sky. While Apollo sought in heaven and on earth the best means to gratify his imperial whims, Idas, for whom all joys had come to mean but one, sought ever to be by the side of Marpessa. Shadowy valley, murmuring sea, lonely mountain side, or garden where grew the purple amaranth and where roses of pink and amber-yellow and deepest crimson dropped their radiant petals on the snowy marble paths, all were the same to Idas--Paradise for him, were Marpessa by his side; without her, dreary desert.

More beautiful than any flower that grew in the garden was Marpessa. No music that Apollo's lute could make was as sweet in the ears of Idas as her dear voice. Its music was ever new to him--a melody to make his heart more quickly throb. New, too, ever was her beauty. For him it was always the first time that they met, always the same fresh ravishment to look in her eyes. And when to Idas came the knowledge that Marpessa gave him love for love, he had indeed won happiness so great as to draw upon him the envy of the G.o.ds.

"The course of true love never did run smooth," and, like many and many another father since his day, Evenos, the father of Marpessa, was bitterly opposed to a match where the bridegroom was rich only in youth, in health, and in love. His beautiful daughter naturally seemed to him worthy of something much more high. Thus it was an unhappy day for Marpessa when, as she sat alone by the fountain which dripped slowly down on the marble basin, and dreamed of her lover, Idas, Apollo himself, led by caprice, noiselessly walked through the rose bushes, whose warm petals dropped at his feet as he pa.s.sed, and beheld a maiden more fair than the fairest flower that grew. The hum of bees, the drip, drip of the fountain, these lulled her mind and heart and soothed her day-dreams, and Marpessa's red lips, curved like the bow of Eros, smiled as she thought of Idas, the man she loved. Silently Apollo watched her. This queen of all the roses was not fit to be the bride of mortal man--Marpessa must be his.

To Evenos Apollo quickly imparted his desire. He was not used to having his imperial wishes denied, nor was Evenos anxious to do so. Here, indeed, was a match for his daughter. No insignificant mortal, but the radiant sun-G.o.d himself! And to Marpessa he told what Apollo wished, and Marpessa shyly looked at her reflection in the pool of the fountain, and wondered if she were indeed beautiful enough to win the love of a G.o.d.

"Am I in truth so wondrous fair?" she asked her father.

"Fair enough to mate with Apollo himself!" proudly answered Evenos.

And joyously Marpessa replied, "Ah, then am I happy indeed! I would be beautiful for my Idas' sake!"

An angry man was her father. There was to be no more pleasant dallying with Idas in the shadowy wood or by the seash.o.r.e. In the rose garden Apollo took his place and charmed Marpessa's ears with his music, while her eyes could not but be charmed by his beauty. The G.o.d had no doubts or fears. Only a little time he would give her, for a very little only would he wait, and then undoubtedly this mortal maiden would be his, her heart conquered as a.s.suredly as the rays from his chariot conquered the roses, whose warm crimson petals they strewed at his feet. Yet as Marpessa looked and listened, her thoughts were often far away and always her heart was with Idas. When Apollo played most exquisitely to her it seemed that he put her love for Idas into music. When he spoke to her of his love she thought, "Thus, and thus did Idas speak," and a sudden memory of the human lad's halting words brought to her heart a little gush of tenderness, and made her eyes sparkle so that Apollo gladly thought, "Soon she will be mine."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARPESSA SAT ALONE BY THE FOUNTAIN]

And all this while Idas schemed and plotted and planned a way in which he could save his dear one from her obdurate father, and from the pa.s.sion of a G.o.d. He went to Neptune, told his tale, and begged him to lend him a winged chariot in which he could fly away with Marpessa. Neptune good-naturedly consented, and when Idas flew up from the seash.o.r.e one day, like a great bird that the tempests have blown inland, Marpessa joyously sprang up beside her lover, and swiftly they took flight for a land where in peace they might live and love together. No sooner did Evenos realise that his daughter was gone, than, in furious anger against her and her lover, he gave chase. One has watched a hawk in pursuit of a pigeon or a bird of the moors and seen it, a little dark speck at first, gradually growing larger and more large until at length it dominated and conquered its prey, swooping down from above, like an arrow from a bow, to bring with it sudden death.

So at first it seemed that Evenos must conquer Idas and Marpessa in the winged chariot of Neptune's lending. But onwards Idas drove the chariot, ever faster and faster, until before the eyes of Marpessa the trees of the forest grew into blurs of blue and brown, and the streams and rivers as they flew past them were streaks of silver. Not until he had reached the river Lycormas did the angry father own that his pursuit had been in vain. Over the swift-flowing stream flew the chariot driven by Idas, but Evenos knew that his horses, flecked with white foam, pumping each breath from hearts that were strained to breaking-point, no longer could go on with the chase. The pa.s.sage of that deep stream would destroy them. The fierce water would sweep the wearied beasts down in its impelling current, and he with them. A shamed man would he be forever. Not for a moment did he hesitate, but drew his sharp sword from his belt and plunged it into the breast of one steed and then of the other who had been so willing and who yet had failed him in the end. And then, as they, still in their traces, neighed shrilly aloud, and then fell over and died where they lay, Evenos, with a great cry, leaped into the river. Over his head closed the eddies of the peat-brown water. Once only did he throw up his arms to ask the G.o.ds for mercy; then did his body drift down with the stream, and his soul hastened downwards to the Shades. And from that day the river Lycormas no more was known by that name, but was called the river Evenos forever.

Onwards, triumphantly, drove Idas, but soon he knew that a greater than Evenos had entered in the chase, and that the jealous sun-G.o.d's chariot was in pursuit of the winged car of Neptune. Quickly it gained on him--soon it would have swept down on him--a hawk indeed, this time, striking surely its helpless prey--but even as Apollo saw the white face of Marpessa and knew that he was the victor, a mighty thunderbolt that made the mountains shake, and rolled its echoes through the lonely fastnesses of a thousand hills, was sent to earth by Jupiter. While the echoes still re-echoed, there came from Olympus the voice of Zeus himself.

"Let her decide!" he said.

Apollo, like a white flame blown backward by the wind, withheld his hands that would have seized from Idas the woman who was his heart's desire.

And then he spoke, and while his burning gaze was fixed upon her, and his face, in beautiful fury, was more perfect than any exquisite picture of her dreams, his voice was as the voice of the sea as it calls to the sh.o.r.e in the moonlit hours, as the bird that sings in the darkness of a tropic night to its longing mate.

"Marpessa!" he cried, "Marpessa! wilt thou not come to me? No woe nor 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 br.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d pa.s.sed the eyes of Marpessa, and back from G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sionate children, not Some radiant G.o.d 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, Pa.s.s off; there shall succeed a faithful peace; Beautiful friends.h.i.+p tried by sun and wind, Durable from the daily dust of life."

The sun-G.o.d 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 G.o.d than the sun-G.o.d himself.

But Marpessa spoke on: "And thou beautiful G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.ds, 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 a.s.sured 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 G.o.ds 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 b.u.t.terflies, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sionate longing. Alpheus, G.o.d 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, G.o.d of the river that now thou hast made sacred. I am the G.o.d of the rus.h.i.+ng streams--the G.o.d of the thundering cataracts. Where the mountain streams crash over the rocks and echo through the shadowy hollows of the hills, I hold my kings.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d 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 enc.u.mbering earth and joining her again. And in a spring that rises out of the sea near the sh.o.r.e he was able at last to mingle his waters with those of the one for whom he had lost his G.o.ds.h.i.+p.

"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 sh.o.r.e; Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more."

Sh.e.l.ley.

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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ds and frustrate Death itself. A great tower of bra.s.s 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 G.o.ds? 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ds in the high heavens laugh at him? The laugh should yet be on his side. Down to the seash.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+nest and in the swart gloom sent forth; thou heedest not the deep foam of the pa.s.sing 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 G.o.ds and of men, an evil thing befell his mother. She was but a girl when he was born, and as the years pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+p 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 b.u.t.terflies 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 G.o.ds 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 c.u.mbering 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+eld, 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds!" they said. "Where is thy G.o.dlike 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 G.o.ds that the n.o.ble son of the G.o.ds 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 G.o.dlike 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 G.o.ds shall be thine. The G.o.ds 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.