The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (2nd ed.) (1911)

160. The Rescue of Daphnis. 221 Daphnis was the ideal Sicilian shepherd and to him was ascribed the invention of pastoral story and song. His father was Hermes (Mercury); his mother, a nymph who laid him when an infant in a charming valley in a laurel grove from which he received his name,222 and on account of which Apollo loved him and endowed him with the gift of idyllic verse. He was brought up by nymphs and shepherds, and, avoiding the noisy haunts of men, he tended his flocks on Mount Ætna, winter and summer. He loved a maiden named Piplea, but she was borne away by robbers. He followed them to Phrygia, and there found his sweetheart in the power of the king of that realm, Lityerses. This Lityerses had a pleasant custom of making strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn. If he overcame them, he cut off their heads in the evening and concealed their bodies in the sheaves, singing a comfortable song meanwhile. In order to win back Piplea, Daphnis entered upon the reaping contest with the king and made himself comfortable, too, by singing a harvest song meanwhile. But Lityerses surpassed him at the work and was about to put him to death, singing no doubt a comfortable song of the reaper, Death, meanwhile, – when suddenly Hercules appeared upon the scene. He doesn't seem to have spent much time singing: he assured Daphnis of his head by cutting off that of the pleasant king; and then he threw the body into the river Mæander. Daphnis regained his Piplea and one would suppose that they lived happy ever after. Another story, unfortunately, relates events in which Piplea's name does not occur. A Naiad fell in love with the handsome shepherd and made him promise eternal fidelity to her, threatening him with blindness if he violated his vow. It was hard for poor Daphnis, for nearly every lass he met made love to him. At last a princess intoxicated him and he forgot his vow. Immediately the Naiad showed the quality of her love by striking him blind. He consoled himself for a while by singing his songs and playing the flute as he wandered from place to place. Then weary, he called on his father for aid. Mercury accordingly transported him to heaven and caused a well to gush forth on the spot from which he ascended. Here the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifice in his honor.

Theocritus gives us a Lityerses song as he undoubtedly used to hear it sung by the harvesters of the country-side in Sicily:223

Demeter, rich in fruit and rich in grain, may this corn be easy to win and fruitful exceedingly!Bind, ye binders, the sheaves, lest the wayfarer should cry, "Men of straw were the workers here; aye, and their hire was wasted!"See that the cut stubble faces the North wind, or the West; – 'tis thus that the grain waxes richest.They that thresh corn should shun the noonday sleep; at noon the chaff parts easiest from the straw.As for the reapers, let them begin when the crested lark is waking, and cease when he sleeps, but take holiday in the heat.Lads, the frog has a jolly life: he is not cumbered about a butler to his drink; for he has liquor by him unstinted!Boil the lentils better, thou miserly steward; take heed lest thou chop thy fingers, when thou'rt splitting cummin seed.

When Matthew Arnold is writing of the death of his dear friend, the poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in Italy,224 he says:

And now in happier air,Wandering with the great Mother's train divine…Within a folding of the Apennine,Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!Putting his sickle to the perilous grainIn the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,For thee the Lityerses song againYoung Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;Sings his Sicilian fold,His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes: —And how a call celestial round him rang,And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, —And all the marvel of the golden skies!

161. The Expedition against Laomedon. After his servitude under Omphale was ended, Hercules sailed with eighteen ships against Troy. For Laomedon, king of that realm, had refused to give Hercules the horses of Neptune, which he had promised in gratitude for the rescue of his daughter Hesione from the sea-monster.225 The hero, overcoming Troy, placed a son of Laomedon, Priam, upon the throne, and gave Hesione to Telamon, who, with Peleus, Oïcles, and other Greek heroes, had accompanied him. Also worthy of mention among the exploits of Hercules were his successful expeditions against Pylos and Sparta, his victory over the giants, his struggle with Death for the body and life of Alcestis,226 and his delivery, according to prophecy, of Prometheus, who until that time had remained in chains upon the Caucasian Mountains.227

162. The Death of Hercules. Finally, the hero married Dejanira, daughter of Œneus of Calydon and sister of Meleager of the Calydonian hunt. With her he lived three prosperous years. But on one occasion, as they journeyed together, they came to a river across which the centaur Nessus carried travelers for a stated fee. Hercules proceeded to ford the river and gave Dejanira to Nessus to be carried across. Nessus, however, attempted to make off with her; whereupon Hercules, hearing her cries, shot an arrow into his heart. The centaur, as he died, bade Dejanira take a portion of his blood and keep it, saying that it might be used as a charm to preserve the love of her husband. Dejanira did so. Before long, jealous of Hercules' fondness for Iole of Œchalia, a captive maiden, she steeped a sacrificial robe of her husband's in the blood of Nessus. As soon as the garment became warm on the body of Hercules, the poison penetrated his limbs. In his frenzy he seized Lichas, who had brought him the fatal robe, and hurled him into the sea; then tried to wrench off the garment, but it stuck to his flesh and tore away whole pieces of his body.

Fig. 129. Hercules and Nessus

Alcides, from Œchalia crownedWith conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore,Through pain, up by the roots Thessalian pines,And Lichas from the top of Œta threwInto the Euboic Sea.228

THE WEDDING OF HERCULES AND HEBE

In this state he embarked on board a ship and was conveyed home. Dejanira, on seeing what she had unwittingly done, hanged herself. Hercules, prepared to die, ascended Mount Œta, where he built a funeral pile of trees, gave his bow and arrows to Philoctetes,229 and laid himself upon the pile, his head resting on his club and his lion's skin spread over him. With a countenance as serene as if he were taking his place at a festal board, he commanded Philoctetes to apply the torch. The flames spread apace, and soon invested the whole mass.230

The gods themselves grieved to see the champion of the earth so brought to his end. But Jupiter took care that only his mother's part in him should perish by the flames. The immortal element, derived from Jupiter himself, was translated to heaven; and by the consent of the gods – even of reluctant Juno – Hercules was admitted as a deity to the ranks of the immortals. The white-armed queen of heaven was finally reconciled to the offspring of Alcmene. She adopted him for her son and gave him in marriage her daughter Hebe.

Deep degraded to a coward's slave,Endless contests bore Alcides brave,Through the thorny path of suffering led;Slew the Hydra, crushed the lion's might,Threw himself, to bring his friend to light,Living, in the skiff that bears the dead.All the torments, every toil of earth,Juno's hatred on him could impose,Well he bore them, from his fated birthTo life's grandly mournful close.Till the god, the earthly part forsaken,From the man in flames asunder taken,Drank the heavenly ether's purer breath.Joyous in the new unwonted lightness,Soared he upwards to celestial brightness,Earth's dark heavy burden lost in death.High Olympus gives harmonious greetingTo the hall where reigns his sire adored;Youth's bright goddess, with a blush at meeting,Gives the nectar to her lord.231

In the tragedy called The Maidens of Trachis, Sophocles describes this hero as "The noblest man of all the earth, of whom thou ne'er shalt see the like again." To some of us the manner of his earthly end may seem unworthy; but the Greek poets teach that, in the unabated vigor of one's powers, serenely to meet and accept one's doom is the happiest death. This view is well expressed by Matthew Arnold in the following fragment of a Greek chorus sung with reference to the death of Hercules:

O frivolous mind of man,Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts!Though man bewails you not,How I bewail you!..For you will not put onNew hearts with the inquirer's holy robe,And purged, considerate minds.And him on whom, at the endOf toil and dolor untold,The Gods have said that reposeAt last shall descend undisturb'd —Him you expect to beholdIn an easy old age, in a happy home;No end but this you praise.But him, on whom, in the primeOf life, with vigor undimm'd,With unspent mind, and a soulUnworn, undebased, undecay'd,Mournfully grating, the gatesOf the city of death have forever closed —Him, I count him, well-starr'd.232

Here we take leave for a time of the descendants of Inachus. We shall revert to them in the stories of Minos of Crete and of the house of Labdacus.

CHAPTER XV

THE FAMILY OF ÆOLUS

163. Descendants of Deucalion. Athamas, brother of Sisyphus, was descended from Æolus, whose father, Hellen, was the son of Deucalion of Thessaly. Athamas had by his wife Nephele two children, Phrixus and Helle. After a time, growing indifferent to his wife, Athamas put her away and took Ino, the daughter of Cadmus. The unfortunate sequel of this second marriage we have already seen.233

Nephele, apprehending danger to her children from the influence of their stepmother, took measures to put them out of her reach. Mercury gave her a ram with a golden fleece, on which she set the two children. Vaulting into the air, the animal took his course to the east; but when he was crossing the strait that divides Europe and Asia, the girl Helle fell from his back into the sea, which from her was afterward called the Hellespont – now the Dardanelles. The ram safely landed the boy Phrixus in Colchis, where he was hospitably received by Æetes, the king of that country. Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Jupiter, but the fleece he gave to Æetes, who placed it in a consecrated grove under the care of a sleepless dragon.234

164. The Quest of the Golden Fleece. 235 Another realm in Thessaly, near to that of Athamas, was ruled over by his nephew Æson. Æson, although he had a son Jason, surrendered the crown to a half brother, Pelias,236 on condition that he should hold it only during the minority of the lad. This young Jason was, by the way, a second cousin of Bellerophon and of the Atalanta who ran against Hippomenes, and a first cousin of Admetus, the husband of Alcestis.237 When, however, Jason, being grown up, came to demand the crown, his uncle Pelias with wily intent suggested to him the glorious quest of the golden fleece. Jason, pleased with the thought, forthwith made preparations for the expedition. At that time the only species of navigation known to the Greeks consisted of small boats or canoes hollowed out from trunks of trees; when, accordingly, Jason employed Argus to build a vessel capable of containing fifty men, it was considered a gigantic undertaking. The vessel was named Argo, probably after its builder. Jason soon found himself at the head of a bold band of comrades, many of whom afterward were renowned among the heroes and demigods of Greece.

From every region of Ægea's shoreThe brave assembled; those illustrious twinsCastor and Pollux; Orpheus, tuneful bard;Zetes and Calaïs, as the wind in speed;Strong Hercules and many a chief renowned.On deep Iolcos' sandy shore they thronged,Gleaming in armor, ardent of exploits, —And soon, the laurel cord and the huge stoneUplifting to the deck, unmoored the bark;Whose keel of wondrous length the skillful handOf Argus fashioned for the proud attempt;And in the extended keel a lofty mastUpraised, and sails full swelling; to the chiefsUnwonted objects. Now first, now they learnedTheir bolder steerage over ocean wave,Led by the golden stars, as Chiron's artHad marked the sphere celestial.238

Theseus, Meleager, Peleus, and Nestor were also among these Argonauts, or sailors of the Argo. The ship with her crew of heroes left the shores of Thessaly, and touching at the island of Lemnos, thence crossed to Mysia and thence to Thrace. Here they found the sage Phineus, who instructed the Argonauts how they might pass the Symplegades, or Clashing Islands, at the entrance of the Euxine Sea. When they reached these islands they, accordingly, let go a dove, which took her way between the rocks and passed in safety, only losing some feathers of her tail. Jason and his men, seizing the favorable moment of the rebound, plied their oars with vigor and passed safe through, though the islands closed behind them and actually grazed the stern of the vessel. They then rowed along the shore till they arrived at the eastern end of the sea, and so landed in the kingdom of Colchis.

Fig. 131. Jason Conquers the Bulls and Steals the Fleece

Jason made known his message to the Colchian king, Æetes, who consented to give up the golden fleece on certain conditions, namely, that Jason should yoke to the plow two fire-breathing bulls with brazen feet, and that he then should sow the teeth of the dragon that Cadmus had slain. Jason, although it was well known that a crop of armed men would spring up from the teeth, destined to turn their weapons against their producer, accepted the conditions, and a time was set for the undertaking. The hero, however, wisely spent the interval in wooing Medea, the daughter of Æetes; and with such success that they plighted troth before the altar of Hecate. The princess then furnished her hero with a charm which should aid him in the contest to come.

Accordingly, when the momentous day was arrived, Jason with calmness encountered the fire-breathing monsters and speedily yoked them to the plow. The Colchians stood in amazement; the Greeks shouted for joy. Next, the hero proceeded to sow the dragon's teeth and plow them in. Up sprang, according to prediction, the crop of armed men, brandished aloft their weapons, and rushed upon Jason. The Greeks trembled for their hero. Medea herself grew pale with fear. The hero himself for a time, with sword and shield, kept his assailants at bay; but he surely would have been overwhelmed by the numbers, had he not resorted to a charm which Medea had taught him: seizing a stone, he threw it in the midst of his foes. Immediately they turned their arms against one another, and soon there was not one of the dragon's brood alive.

It remained only to lull to sleep the dragon that guarded the fleece. This was done by scattering over him a few drops of a preparation which, again, Medea had supplied. Jason then seized the fleece, and, with his friends and his sweetheart accompanying, hastened to the vessel. It is said that, in order to delay the pursuit of her father Æetes, Medea tore to pieces her young brother Absyrtus and strewed fragments of him along the line of their flight. The ruse succeeded.

165. The Return of the Argonauts. On their way home the Argonauts beat a devious course, sailing after other dangers had been overcome, by the island that the Sirens infested. And here the heroes would have hung their halsers and remained, had not Orpheus vanquished the seductive strains of the sea-muses with his own more melodious and persuasive song.239

Oh, happy seafarers are yeAnd surely all your ills are past,And toil upon the land and sea,Since ye are brought to us at last;

chanted the Sirens, promising long rest and the kingdoms of sleep.

But now, but now, when ye have lainAsleep with us a little whileBeneath the washing of the main,How calm shall be your waking smile!

Then Orpheus replied, encouraging his men:

A little more, a little more,O carriers of the Golden Fleece!A little labor with the oar,Before we reach the land of Greece.E'en now, perchance, faint rumors reachMen's ears of this our victory,And draw them down upon the beachTo gaze across the empty sea.

Again the Sirens:

Alas! and will ye stop your ears,In vain desire to do aught,And wish to live 'mid cares and fears,Until the last fear makes you nought?

But Orpheus, reminding the rowers of home and love and joy:

Is not the May-time now on earth,When close against the city wallThe folks are singing in their mirth,While on their heads the May flowers fall?

carried them past triumphant.

The Argonauts arrived safe in Thessaly. Jason delivered the fleece to Pelias, and dedicated the Argo to Neptune.

166. Medea and Æson. 240 Medea's career as a sorceress was, by no means, completed. At Jason's request she undertook next to restore his aged father Æson to the vigor of youth. To the full moon she addressed her incantations, to the stars, to Hecate, to Tellus, the goddess of the earth. In a chariot borne aloft by dragons she traversed the fields of air to regions where flourished potent plants, which only she knew how to select. Nine nights she employed in her search, and during that period shunned all intercourse with mortals.

Fig. 132. Medea

Next she erected two altars, the one to Hecate, the other to Hebe, and sacrificed a black sheep, – pouring libations of milk and wine. She implored Pluto and his stolen bride to spare the old man's life. Then she directed that Æson be led forth; and throwing him into a deep sleep, she laid him on a bed of herbs, like one dead. No eye profane looked upon her mysteries. With streaming hair thrice she moved round the altars, dipped flaming twigs in the blood, and laid them thereon to burn. Meanwhile, the caldron with its contents was preparing. In it she put magic herbs, with seeds and flowers of acrid juice, stones from the distant East, and sand from the shore of all-surrounding ocean, hoar-frost gathered by moonlight, a screech owl's head and wings, and the entrails of a wolf. She added fragments of the shells of tortoises and the liver of stags – animals tenacious of life – and the head and beak of a crow, which outlives nine generations of men. These, with many other things "without a name," she boiled together for her purposed work, stirring them with a dry olive branch. The branch, when taken out, instantly was green and erelong was covered with leaves and a plentiful growth of young olives; and as the liquor boiled and bubbled and sometimes bubbled over, the grass wherever the sprinklings fell leaped into verdure like that of spring.

Seeing that all was ready, Medea cut the throat of the old man, let out his blood, and poured into his mouth and his wound the juices of her caldron. As soon as he had completely imbibed them, his hair and beard lost their whiteness and assumed the color of youth; his paleness and emaciation were gone; his veins were full of blood, his limbs of vigor and robustness; and Æson, on awakening, found himself forty years younger.

Fig. 133. Medea and Daughters of Pelias

167. Pelias. 241 In another instance, Medea made her arts the instrument of revenge. Pelias, the usurping uncle of Jason, still kept him out of his heritage. But the daughters of Pelias wished Medea to restore their father also to youth. Medea simulated consent, but prepared her caldron for him in a new and singular way. She put in only water and a few simple herbs. In the night she persuaded the daughters of Pelias to kill him. They at first hesitated to strike, but Medea chiding their irresolution, they turned away their faces and, giving random blows, smote him with their weapons. Starting from his sleep, the old man cried out, "My daughters, would you kill your father?" Whereat their hearts failed them, and the weapons fell from their hands. Medea, however, struck the fatal blow.

They placed him in the caldron, but, as might be expected, with no success. Medea herself had taken care to escape before they discovered the treachery. She had, however, little profit of the fruits of her crime. Jason, for whom she had sacrificed so much, put her away, for he wished to marry Creüsa, princess of Corinth. Whereupon Medea, enraged at his ingratitude, called on the gods for vengeance; then, sending a poisoned robe as a gift to the bride, killing her own children, and setting fire to the palace, she mounted her serpent-drawn chariot and fled to Athens. There she married King Ægeus, the father of Theseus; and we shall meet her again when we come to the adventures of that hero.242

The incantation of Medea readily suggests that of the witches in Macbeth:

Round about the caldron go;In the poison'd entrails throw. —Toad, that under cold stoneDays and nights has thirty-oneSwelter'd venom sleeping got,Boil thou first i' the charmèd pot…Fillet of a fenny snakeIn the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,Lizard's leg and howlet's wing, —For a charm of powerful troubleLike a hell-broth boil and bubble…Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,Witches' mummy, maw and gulfOf the ravin'd salt-sea shark,Root of hemlock digged i' the dark…Make the gruel thick and slab.243

CHAPTER XVI

THE FAMILY OF ÆTOLUS AND ITS CONNECTIONS

168. The Calydonian Hunt. 244 One of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition had been Meleager, a son of Œneus and Althæa, rulers of Calydon in Ætolia. His parents were cousins, descended from a son of Endymion named Ætolus, who had colonized that realm. By ties of kinship and marriage they were allied with many historic figures. Their daughter Dejanira had become, as we have already noted, the wife of Hercules; while Leda, the sister of Althæa, was mother of Castor and Pollux,245 and of Clytemnestra and Helen, intimately concerned in the Trojan War.

When her son Meleager was born, Althæa had beheld the three Destinies, who, as they spun their fatal thread, foretold that the life of the child should last no longer than a certain brand then burning upon the hearth. Althæa seized and quenched the brand, and carefully preserved it while Meleager grew to boyhood, youth, and man's estate. It chanced, then, that Œneus, offering sacrifices to the gods, omitted to pay due honors to Diana; wherefore she, indignant at the neglect, sent a boar of enormous size to lay waste the fields of Calydon. Meleager called on the heroes of Greece to join in a hunt for the ravenous monster. Theseus and his friend Pirithoüs,246 Jason, Peleus the father of Achilles, Telamon the father of Ajax, Nestor, then a youth, but who in his age bore arms with Achilles and Ajax in the Trojan War,247– these and many more joined in the enterprise. With them came, also, Atalanta, the daughter of Iasius, of the race of Callisto, —

Arcadian Atalanta, snowy-souled,Fair as the snow and footed as the wind.248

A buckle of polished gold confined her vest, an ivory quiver hung on her left shoulder, and her left hand bore the bow. Her face blended feminine beauty with the graces of martial youth. Meleager saw and, with chivalric reverence, somewhat thus addressed her:

For thy name's sake and awe toward thy chaste head,O holiest Atalanta! no man daresPraise thee, though fairer than whom all men praise,And godlike for thy grace of hallowed hairAnd holy habit of thine eyes, and feetThat make the blown foam neither swift nor white,Though the wind winnow and whirl it; yet we praiseGods, found because of thee adorableAnd for thy sake praiseworthiest from all men:Thee therefore we praise also, thee as these,Pure, and a light lit at the hands of gods.249

Fig. 134. Meleager on the Boar Hunt