The materials for this story are taken from two poets, the Greek Aeschylus and the Roman Ovid, separated from each other by four hundred and fifty years and still more by their gifts and temperaments. They are the best sources for the tale. It is easy to distinguish the parts told by each, Aeschylus grave and direct, Ovid light and amusing. The touch about lovers’ lies is characteristic of Ovid, as also the little story about Syrinx.
In those days when Prometheus had just given fire to men and
when he was first bound to the rocky peak on Caucasus, he had a strange visitor.
A distracted fleeing creature came clambering awkwardly up over the cliffs and
crags to where he lay. It looked like a heifer, but talked like a girl who
seemed mad with misery. The sight of Prometheus stopped her short. She
cried,
This that I see—
A form storm-beaten,
Bound to the rock.
Did you do wrong?
Is this your punishment?
Where am I?
Speak to a wretched wanderer.
Enough—I have been tried enough—
My wandering—long wandering.
Yet I have found nowhere
To leave my misery.
I am a girl who speak to you,
But horns are on my head.
Prometheus recognized her. He knew her story and he spoke her
name.
I know you, girl, Inachus’ daughter, Io.
You made the god’s heart hot with love
And Hera hates you. She it is
Who drives you on this flight that never ends.
Wonder checked Io’s frenzy. She stood still, all amazed. Her
name—spoken by this strange being in this strange, lonely place! She begged,
Who are you, sufferer, that speak the truth
To one who suffers?
And he answered,
You see Prometheus who gave mortals fire.
She knew him, then, and his story.
You—he who succored the whole race of men?
You, that Prometheus, the daring, the enduring?
They talked freely to each other. He told her how Zeus had
treated him, and she told him that Zeus was the reason why she, once a princess
and a happy girl, had been changed into
A beast, a starving beast,
That frenzied runs with clumsy leaps and bounds.
Oh, shame…
Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera, was the direct cause of her
misfortunes, but back of them all was Zeus himself. He fell in love with her,
and sent
Ever to my maiden chamber
Visions of the night
Persuading me with gentle words:
“O happy, happy girl,
Why are you all too long a maid?
The arrow of desire has pierced Zeus.
For you he is on fire.
With you it is his will to capture love.”
Always, each night, such dreams possessed me.
But still greater than Zeus’s love was his fear of Hera’s
jealousy. He acted, however, with very little wisdom for the Father of Gods and
Men when he tried to hide Io and himself by wrapping the earth in a cloud so
thick and dark that a sudden night seemed to drive the clear daylight away. Hera knew perfectly well that there was a
reason for this odd occurrence, and instantly suspected her husband. When she
could not find him anywhere in heaven she glided swiftly down to the earth and
ordered the cloud off. But Zeus too had been quick. As she caught sight of him
he was standing beside a most lovely white heifer—Io, of course. He swore that
he had never seen her until just now when she had sprung forth, newborn, from
the earth. And this, Ovid says, shows that the lies lovers tell do not anger the
gods. However, it also shows that they are not very useful, for Hera did not
believe a word of it. She said the heifer was very pretty and would Zeus please
make her a present of it. Sorry as he was, he saw at once that to refuse would
give the whole thing away. What excuse could he make? An insignificant little
cow… He turned Io reluctantly over to his wife and Hera knew very well how to
keep her away from him.
She gave her into the charge of Argus, an excellent
arrangement for Hera’s purpose, since Argus had a hundred eyes. Before such a
watchman, who could sleep with some of the eyes and keep on guard with the rest,
Zeus seemed helpless. He watched Io’s misery, turned into a beast, driven from
her home; he dared not come to her help. At last, however, he went to his son
Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and told him he must find a way to kill
Argus. There was no god cleverer than Hermes. As soon as he had sprung to earth
from heaven he laid aside everything that marked him as a god and approached
Argus like a country fellow, playing very sweetly upon a pipe of reeds. Argus
was pleased at the sound and called to the musician to come nearer. “You might as well sit by me on this rock,” he said, “you see
it’s shady—just right for shepherds.” Nothing could have been better for Hermes’
plan, and yet nothing happened. He played and then he talked on and on, as
drowsily and monotonously as he could; some of the hundred eyes would go to
sleep, but some were always awake. At last, however, one story was
successful—about the god Pan, how he loved a nymph named Syrinx who fled from
him and just as he was about to seize her was turned into a tuft of reeds by her
sister nymphs. Pan said, “Still you shall be mine,” and he made from what she
had become
A shepherd’s pipe
Of reeds with beeswax joined.
The little story does not seem especially tiresome, as such
stories go, but Argus found it so. All of his eyes went to sleep. Hermes killed
him at once, of course, but Hera took the eyes and set them in the tail of the
peacock, her favorite bird.
It seemed then that Io was free, but no; Hera at once turned
on her again. She sent a gad-fly to plague her, which stung her to madness. Io
told Prometheus,
He drives me all along the long sea strand.
I may not stop for food or drink.
He will not let me sleep.
Prometheus tried to comfort her, but he could point her only
to the distant future. What lay immediately before her was still more wandering
and in fearsome lands. To be sure, the part of the sea
she first ran along in her frenzy would be called Ionian after her, and the
Bosphorus, which means the Ford of the Cow, would preserve the memory of when
she went through it, but her real consolation must be that at long last she
would reach the Nile, where Zeus would restore her to her human form. She would
bear him a son named Epaphus, and live forever after happy and honored. And
Know this, that from your race will spring
One glorious with the bow, bold-hearted,
And he shall set me free.
Io’s descendant would be Hercules, greatest of heroes, than
whom hardly the gods were greater, and to whom Prometheus would owe his
freedom.
The materials for this story are taken from two poets, the Greek Aeschylus and the Roman Ovid, separated from each other by four hundred and fifty years and still more by their gifts and temperaments. They are the best sources for the tale. It is easy to distinguish the parts told by each, Aeschylus grave and direct, Ovid light and amusing. The touch about lovers’ lies is characteristic of Ovid, as also the little story about Syrinx.
In those days when Prometheus had just given fire to men and
when he was first bound to the rocky peak on Caucasus, he had a strange visitor.
A distracted fleeing creature came clambering awkwardly up over the cliffs and
crags to where he lay. It looked like a heifer, but talked like a girl who
seemed mad with misery. The sight of Prometheus stopped her short. She
cried,
This that I see—
A form storm-beaten,
Bound to the rock.
Did you do wrong?
Is this your punishment?
Where am I?
Speak to a wretched wanderer.
Enough—I have been tried enough—
My wandering—long wandering.
Yet I have found nowhere
To leave my misery.
I am a girl who speak to you,
But horns are on my head.
Prometheus recognized her. He knew her story and he spoke her
name.
I know you, girl, Inachus’ daughter, Io.
You made the god’s heart hot with love
And Hera hates you. She it is
Who drives you on this flight that never ends.
Wonder checked Io’s frenzy. She stood still, all amazed. Her
name—spoken by this strange being in this strange, lonely place! She begged,
Who are you, sufferer, that speak the truth
To one who suffers?
And he answered,
You see Prometheus who gave mortals fire.
She knew him, then, and his story.
You—he who succored the whole race of men?
You, that Prometheus, the daring, the enduring?
They talked freely to each other. He told her how Zeus had
treated him, and she told him that Zeus was the reason why she, once a princess
and a happy girl, had been changed into
A beast, a starving beast,
That frenzied runs with clumsy leaps and bounds.
Oh, shame…
Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera, was the direct cause of her
misfortunes, but back of them all was Zeus himself. He fell in love with her,
and sent
Ever to my maiden chamber
Visions of the night
Persuading me with gentle words:
“O happy, happy girl,
Why are you all too long a maid?
The arrow of desire has pierced Zeus.
For you he is on fire.
With you it is his will to capture love.”
Always, each night, such dreams possessed me.
But still greater than Zeus’s love was his fear of Hera’s
jealousy. He acted, however, with very little wisdom for the Father of Gods and
Men when he tried to hide Io and himself by wrapping the earth in a cloud so
thick and dark that a sudden night seemed to drive the clear daylight away. Hera knew perfectly well that there was a
reason for this odd occurrence, and instantly suspected her husband. When she
could not find him anywhere in heaven she glided swiftly down to the earth and
ordered the cloud off. But Zeus too had been quick. As she caught sight of him
he was standing beside a most lovely white heifer—Io, of course. He swore that
he had never seen her until just now when she had sprung forth, newborn, from
the earth. And this, Ovid says, shows that the lies lovers tell do not anger the
gods. However, it also shows that they are not very useful, for Hera did not
believe a word of it. She said the heifer was very pretty and would Zeus please
make her a present of it. Sorry as he was, he saw at once that to refuse would
give the whole thing away. What excuse could he make? An insignificant little
cow… He turned Io reluctantly over to his wife and Hera knew very well how to
keep her away from him.
She gave her into the charge of Argus, an excellent
arrangement for Hera’s purpose, since Argus had a hundred eyes. Before such a
watchman, who could sleep with some of the eyes and keep on guard with the rest,
Zeus seemed helpless. He watched Io’s misery, turned into a beast, driven from
her home; he dared not come to her help. At last, however, he went to his son
Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and told him he must find a way to kill
Argus. There was no god cleverer than Hermes. As soon as he had sprung to earth
from heaven he laid aside everything that marked him as a god and approached
Argus like a country fellow, playing very sweetly upon a pipe of reeds. Argus
was pleased at the sound and called to the musician to come nearer. “You might as well sit by me on this rock,” he said, “you see
it’s shady—just right for shepherds.” Nothing could have been better for Hermes’
plan, and yet nothing happened. He played and then he talked on and on, as
drowsily and monotonously as he could; some of the hundred eyes would go to
sleep, but some were always awake. At last, however, one story was
successful—about the god Pan, how he loved a nymph named Syrinx who fled from
him and just as he was about to seize her was turned into a tuft of reeds by her
sister nymphs. Pan said, “Still you shall be mine,” and he made from what she
had become
A shepherd’s pipe
Of reeds with beeswax joined.
The little story does not seem especially tiresome, as such
stories go, but Argus found it so. All of his eyes went to sleep. Hermes killed
him at once, of course, but Hera took the eyes and set them in the tail of the
peacock, her favorite bird.
It seemed then that Io was free, but no; Hera at once turned
on her again. She sent a gad-fly to plague her, which stung her to madness. Io
told Prometheus,
He drives me all along the long sea strand.
I may not stop for food or drink.
He will not let me sleep.
Prometheus tried to comfort her, but he could point her only
to the distant future. What lay immediately before her was still more wandering
and in fearsome lands. To be sure, the part of the sea
she first ran along in her frenzy would be called Ionian after her, and the
Bosphorus, which means the Ford of the Cow, would preserve the memory of when
she went through it, but her real consolation must be that at long last she
would reach the Nile, where Zeus would restore her to her human form. She would
bear him a son named Epaphus, and live forever after happy and honored. And
Know this, that from your race will spring
One glorious with the bow, bold-hearted,
And he shall set me free.
Io’s descendant would be Hercules, greatest of heroes, than
whom hardly the gods were greater, and to whom Prometheus would owe his
freedom.
This story, so like the Renaissance idea of the classical—fantastic, delicately decorated, bright-colored—is taken entirely from a poem of the third-century Alexandrian poet Moschus, by far the best account of it.
Io was not the only girl who gained geographical fame because
Zeus fell in love with her. There was another, known far more widely—Europa, the
daughter of the King of Sidon. But whereas the wretched Io had to pay dearly for
the distinction, Europa was exceedingly fortunate. Except for a few moments of
terror when she found herself crossing the deep sea on the back of a bull she
did not suffer at all. The story does not say what Hera
was about at the time, but it is clear that she was off guard and her husband
free to do as he pleased.
Up in heaven one spring morning as he idly watched the earth,
Zeus suddenly saw a charming spectacle. Europa had waked early, troubled just as
Io had been by a dream, only this time not of a god who loved her but of two
Continents who each in the shape of a woman tried to possess her, Asia saying
that she had given her birth and therefore owned her, and the other, as yet
nameless, declaring that Zeus would give the maiden to her.
Once awake from this strange vision which had come at dawn,
the time when true dreams oftenest visit mortals, Europa decided not to try to
go to sleep again, but to summon her companions, girls born in the same year as
herself and all of noble birth, to go out with her to the lovely blooming
meadows near the sea. Here was their favorite meeting place, whether they wanted
to dance or bathe their fair bodies at the river mouth or gather flowers.
This time all had brought baskets, knowing that the flowers
were now at their perfection. Europa’s was of gold, exquisitely chased with
figures which showed, oddly enough, the story of Io, her journeys in the shape
of a cow, the death of Argus, and Zeus lightly touching her with his divine hand
and changing her back into a woman. It was, as may be perceived, a marvel worth
gazing upon, and had been made by no less a personage than Hephaestus, the
celestial workman of Olympus.
Lovely as the basket was, there were flowers as lovely to fill
it with, sweet-smelling narcissus and hyacinths and violets and yellow crocus,
and most radiant of all, the crimson splendor of the wild
rose. The girls gathered them delightedly, wandering here and there over the
meadow, each one a maiden fairest among the fair; yet even so, Europa shone out
among them as the Goddess of Love outshines the sister Graces. And it was that
very Goddess of Love who brought about what next happened. As Zeus in heaven
watched the pretty scene, she who alone can conquer Zeus—along with her son, the
mischievous boy Cupid—shot one of her shafts into his heart, and that very
instant he fell madly in love with Europa. Even though Hera was away, he thought
it well to be cautious, and before appearing to Europa he changed himself into a
bull. Not such a one as you might see in a stall or grazing in a field, but one
beautiful beyond all bulls that ever were, bright chestnut in color, with a
silver circle on his brow and horns like the crescent of the young moon. He
seemed so gentle as well as so lovely that the girls were not frightened at his
coming, but gathered around to caress him and to breathe the heavenly fragrance
that came from him, sweeter even than that of the flowery meadow. It was Europa
he drew toward, and as she gently touched him, he lowed so musically, no flute
could give forth a more melodious sound.
Then he lay down before her feet and seemed to show her his
broad back, and she cried to the others to come with her and mount him.
For surely he will bear us on his back,
He is so mild and dear and gentle to behold.
He is not like a bull, but like a good, true man,
Except he cannot speak.
Smiling she sat down on his back, but the others, quick
though they were to follow her, had no chance. The bull leaped up and at full
speed rushed to the seashore and then not into, but over, the wide water. As he
went the waves grew smooth before him and a whole procession rose up from the
deep and accompanied him—the strange sea-gods, Nereids riding upon dolphins, and
Tritons blowing their horns, and the mighty Master of the Sea himself, Zeus’s
own brother.
Europa, frightened equally by the wondrous creatures she saw
and the moving waters all around, clung with one hand to the bull’s great horn
and with the other caught up her purple dress to keep it dry, and the winds
Swelled out the deep folds even as a sail
Swells on a ship, and ever gently thus
They wafted her.
No bull could this be, thought Europa, but most certainly a
god; and she spoke pleadingly to him, begging him to pity her and not leave her
in some strange place all alone. He spoke to her in answer and showed her she
had guessed rightly what he was. She had no cause to fear, he told her. He was
Zeus, greatest of gods, and all he was doing was from love of her. He was taking
her to Crete, his own island, where his mother had hidden him from Cronus when
he was born, and there she would bear him
Glorious sons whose sceptres shall hold sway
Over all men on earth.
Everything happened, of course, as Zeus had said. Crete came
into sight; they landed, and the Seasons, the gatekeepers of Olympus, arrayed
her for her bridal. Her sons were famous men, not only in this world but in the
next—where two of them, Minos and Rhadamanthus, were rewarded for their justice
upon the earth by being made the judges of the dead. But her own name remains
the best known of all.
The first part of this story goes back to the Odyssey; the second part is told only by the third-century Alexandrian poet Theocritus; the last part could have been written by no one except the satirist Lucian, in the second century A.D. At least a thousand years separate the beginning from the end. Homer’s vigor and power of storytelling, the pretty fancies of Theocritus, the smart cynicism of Lucian, illustrate in their degree the course of Greek literature.
All the monstrous forms of life which were first created, the
hundred-handed creatures, the Giants, and so on, were permanently banished from
the earth when they had been conquered, with the single exception of the
Cyclopes. They were allowed to come back, and they became finally great
favorites of Zeus. They were wonderful workmen and they forged his thunderbolts.
At first there had been only three, but later there were many. Zeus gave them a
home in a fortunate country where the vineyards and cornlands, unplowed and
unsown, bore fruits plenteously. They had great flocks of sheep and goats as
well, and they lived at their ease. Their fierceness and
savage temper, however, did not grow less; they had no laws or courts of
justice, but each one did as he pleased. It was not a good country for
strangers.
Ages after Prometheus was punished, when the descendants of
the men he helped had grown civilized and had learned to build far-sailing
ships, a Greek prince beached his boat on the shore of this dangerous land. His
name was Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) and he was on his way home after the
destruction of Troy. In the hardest battle he had fought with the Trojans, he
had never come as near to death as he did then.
Not far from the spot where his crew had made the vessel fast
was a cave, open toward the sea and very lofty. It looked inhabited; there was a
strong fence before the entrance. Odysseus started off to explore it with twelve
of his men. They were in need of food and he took with him a goatskin full of
very potent and mellow wine to give whoever lived there in return for
hospitality. The gate in the fence was not closed and they made their way into
the cave. No one was there, but it was clearly the dwelling of some very
prosperous person. Along the sides of the cave were many crowded pens of lambs
and kids. Also there were racks full of cheeses and pails brimming with milk,
delightful to the sea-worn travelers who ate and drank as they waited for the
master.
At last he came, hideous and huge, tall as a great mountain
crag. Driving his flock before him he entered and closed the cave’s mouth with a
ponderous slab of stone. Then looking around he caught sight of the strangers,
and cried out in a dreadful booming voice, “Who are you who enter unbidden the
house of Polyphemus? Traders or thieving pirates?” They
were terror-stricken at the sight and sound of him, but Odysseus made swift to
answer, and firmly, too: “Shipwrecked warriors from Troy are we, and your
suppliants, under the protection of Zeus, the suppliants’ god.” But Polyphemus
roared out that he cared not for Zeus. He was bigger than any god and feared
none of them. With that, he stretched out his mighty arms and in each great hand
he seized one of the men and dashed his brains out on the ground. Slowly he
feasted off them to the last shred, and then, satisfied, stretched himself out
across the cavern and slept. He was safe from attack. No one but he could roll
back the huge stone before the door, and if the horrified men had been able to
summon courage and strength enough to kill him they would have been imprisoned
there forever.
During that long terrible night Odysseus faced the awful thing
that had happened and would happen to every one of them if he could not think
out some way of escape. But by the time day had dawned and the flock gathering
at the entrance woke the Cyclops up, no idea at all had come to him. He had to
watch two more of his company die, for Polyphemus breakfasted as he had supped.
Then he drove out his flock, moving back the big block at the door and pushing
it into place again as easily as a man opens and shuts the lid to his quiver.
Throughout the day, shut in the cave, Odysseus thought and thought. Four of his
men had perished hideously. Must they all go the same dreadful way? At last a
plan shaped itself in his mind. An enormous timber lay near the pens, as long
and as thick as the mast of a twenty-oared ship. From this he cut off a good
piece, and then he and his men sharpened it and hardened
the point by turning it round and round in the fire. They had finished and
hidden it by the time the Cyclops came back. There followed the same horrible
feast as before. When it was over Odysseus filled a cup with his own wine that
he had brought with him and offered it to the Cyclops. He emptied it with
delight and demanded more, and Odysseus poured for him until finally a drunken
sleep overcame him. Then Odysseus and his men drew out the great stake from its
hiding-place and heated the point in the fire until it almost burst into flame.
Some power from on high breathed a mad courage into them and they drove the
red-hot spike right into the Cyclops’ eye. With an awful scream he sprang up and
wrenched the point out. This way and that he flung around the cavern searching
for his tormentors, but, blind as he was, they were able to slip away from
him.
At last he pushed aside the stone at the entrance and sat down
there, stretching his arms across, thinking thus to catch them when they tried
to get away. But Odysseus had made a plan for this, too. He bade each man choose
out three thick-fleeced rams and bind them together with strong, pliant strips
of bark; then to wait for day, when the flock would be sent out to pasture. At
last the dawn came and as the beasts crowding through the entrance passed out
Polyphemus felt them over to be sure no one carried a man on his back. He never
thought to feel underneath, but that was where the men were, each tucked under
the middle ram, holding on to the great fleece. Once out of that fearful place
they dropped to the ground and, hurrying to the ship, in no time launched it and
were aboard. But Odysseus was too angry to leave in
prudent silence. He sent a great shout over the water to the blind giant at the
cave’s mouth. “So, Cyclops, you were not quite strong enough to eat all of the
puny men? You are rightly punished for what you did to those who were guests in
your house.”
The words stung Polyphemus to the heart. Up he sprang and tore
a great crag from the mountain and flung it at the ship. It came within a hair’s
breadth of crushing the prow, and with the backwash the boat was borne landward.
The crew put all their strength into their oars and just succeeded in pulling
out to sea. When Odysseus saw that they were safely away, he cried again
tauntingly, “Cyclops, Odysseus, wrecker of cities, put out your eye, and do you
so tell anyone who asks.” But they were too far off by then; the giant could do
nothing. He sat blinded on the shore.
This was the only story told about Polyphemus for many years.
Centuries passed and he was still the same, a frightful monster, shapeless,
huge, his eye put out. But finally he changed, as what is ugly and evil is apt
to change and grow milder with time. Perhaps some storyteller saw the helpless,
suffering creature Odysseus left behind as a thing to be pitied. At all events,
the next story about him shows him in a very pleasing light, not terrifying at
all, but a most poor credulous monster, a most ridiculous monster, quite aware
of how hideous and uncouth and repulsive he was, and therefore wretched, because
he was madly in love with the charming, mocking sea nymph, Galatea. By this time
the place where he lived was Sicily and he had somehow got his eye back, perhaps
by some miracle of his father who in this story is Poseidon, the great God of the Sea. The lovelorn giant knew Galatea would
never have him; his case was hopeless. And yet, whenever his pain made him
harden his heart against her and bid himself, “Milk the ewe you have; why pursue
what shuns you?”, the minx would come softly stealing near him; then suddenly a
shower of apples would pelt his flock and her voice would ring in his ears
calling him a laggard in love. But no sooner was he up and after her than she
would be off, laughing at his slow clumsiness as he tried to follow her. All he
could do was again to sit wretched and helpless on the shore, but this time not
trying in fury to kill people, only singing mournful love songs to soften the
sea nymph’s heart.
In a much later story, Galatea turned kind, not because the
exquisite, delicate, milk-white maid, as Polyphemus called her in his songs,
fell in love with the hideous one-eyed creature (in this tale, too, he has got
back his eye), but because she prudently reflected that he was the favored son
of the Lord of the Sea and by no means to be despised. So she told her sister
nymph, Doris, who had rather hoped to attract the Cyclops herself, and who began
the talk by saying scornfully, “A fine lover you’ve got—that Sicilian shepherd.
Everybody’s talking about it.”
| GALATEA: | None of your airs, please. He’s the son of Poseidon. There! |
| DORIS: | Zeus’s, for all I care. One thing’s certain—he’s an ugly, ill-mannered brute. |
| GALATEA: | Just let me tell you, Doris, there’s something very manly about him. Of course it’s true he’s got only one eye, but he sees as well with it as if he had two. |
| DORIS: | It sounds as if you were in love yourself. |
| GALATEA: | I in love—with Polyphemus! Not I—but of course I can guess why you’re talking like this. You know perfectly well he has never noticed you—only me. |
| DORIS: | A shepherd with only one eye thinks you handsome! That’s something to be proud of. Anyway, you won’t have to cook for him. He can make a very good meal off a traveler, I understand. |
But Polyphemus never won Galatea. She fell in love with a
beautiful young prince named Acis, whom Polyphemus, furiously jealous, killed.
However, Acis was changed into a river-god, so that story ended well. But we are
not told that Polyphemus ever loved any maiden except Galatea, or that any
maiden ever loved Polyphemus.
The first story about the creation of the narcissus is told only in an early Homeric Hymn of the seventh or eighth century, the second I have taken from Ovid. There is an immense difference between the two poets, who are separated from each other not only by six or seven hundred years, but also by the fundamental difference between the Greek, and the Roman. The Hymn is written objectively, simply, without a touch of affectation. The poet is thinking of his subject. Ovid is as always thinking of his audience. But he tells this story well. The bit about the ghost trying to look at itself in the river of death is a subtle touch which is quite characteristic of him and quite unlike any Greek writer. Euripides gives the best account of the festival of Hyacinthus; Apollodorus and Ovid both tell his story. Whenever there is any vividness in my narrative it may be ascribed securely to Ovid. Apollodorus never deviates into anything like that. Adonis I have taken from two third-century poets, Theocritus and Bion. The tale is typical of the Alexandrian poets, tender, a little soft, but always in exquisite taste.
In Greece there are most lovely wild flowers. They would be
beautiful anywhere, but Greece is not a rich and fertile country of wide meadows
and fruitful fields where flowers seem at home. It is a land of rocky ways and
stony hills and rugged mountains, and in such places the exquisite vivid bloom
of the wild flowers,
A profusion of delight,
Gay, bewilderingly bright,
comes as a startling surprise. Bleak heights are carpeted in
radiant colors; every crack and crevice of a frowning crag blossoms. The
contrast of this laughing, luxuriant beauty with the clear-cut, austere grandeur
all around arrests the attention sharply. Elsewhere wild flowers may be little
noticed—but never in Greece.
That was as true in the days of old as it is now. In the
faraway ages when the tales of Greek mythology were taking shape men found the
brilliant blossoms of the Greek spring a wonder and a delight. Those people
separated from us by thousands of years, and almost completely unknown to us,
felt as we do before that miracle of loveliness, each flower so delicate, yet
all together covering the land like a rainbow mantle flung over the hills. The first storytellers in Greece told story
after story about them, how they had been created and why they were so
beautiful.
It was the most natural thing possible to connect them with
the gods. All things in heaven and earth were mysteriously linked with the
divine powers, but beautiful things most of all. Often an especially exquisite
flower was held to be the direct creation of a god for his own purpose. That was
true of the narcissus, which was not like ours of that name, but a lovely bloom
of glowing purple and silver. Zeus called it into being to help his brother, the
lord of the dark underworld, when he wanted to carry away the maiden he had
fallen in love with, Demeter’s daughter, Persephone. She was gathering flowers
with her companions in the vale of Enna, in a meadow of soft grass and roses and
crocus and lovely violets and iris and hyacinths. Suddenly she caught sight of
something quite new to her, a bloom more beautiful by far than any she had ever
seen, a strange glory of a flower, a marvel to all, immortal gods and mortal
men. A hundred blossoms grew up from the roots, and the fragrance was very
sweet. The broad sky above and the whole earth laughed to see it, and the salt
wave of the sea.
Only Persephone among the maidens had spied it. The rest were
at the other end of the meadow. She stole toward it, half fearful at being
alone, but unable to resist the desire to fill her basket with it, exactly as
Zeus had supposed she would feel. Wondering she stretched out her hands to take
the lovely plaything, but before she touched it a chasm opened in the earth and
out of it coal-black horses sprang, drawing a chariot and driven by one who had a look of dark splendor, majestic and
beautiful and terrible. He caught her to him and held her close. The next moment
she was being borne away from the radiance of earth in springtime to the world
of the dead by the king who rules it.
This was not the only story about the narcissus. There was
another, as magical, but quite different. The hero of it was a beautiful lad,
whose name was Narcissus. His beauty was so great, all the girls who saw him
longed to be his, but he would have none of them. He would pass the loveliest
carelessly by, no matter how much she tried to make him look at her. Heartbroken
maidens were nothing to him. Even the sad case of the fairest of the nymphs,
Echo, did not move him. She was a favorite of Artemis, the goddess of woods and
wild creatures, but she came under the displeasure of a still mightier goddess,
Hera herself, who was at her usual occupation of trying to discover what Zeus
was about. She suspected that he was in love with one of the nymphs and she went
to look them over to try to discover which. However, she was immediately
diverted from her investigation by Echo’s gay chatter. As she listened amused,
the others silently stole away and Hera could come to no conclusion as to where
Zeus’s wandering fancy had alighted. With her usual injustice she turned against
Echo. That nymph became another unhappy girl whom Hera punished. The goddess
condemned her never to use her tongue again except to repeat what was said to
her. “You will always have the last word,” Hera said, “but no power to speak
first.”
This was very hard, but hardest of all when Echo, too, with all the other lovelorn maidens, loved Narcissus.
She could follow him, but she could not speak to him. How then could she make a
youth who never looked at a girl pay attention to her? One day, however, it
seemed her chance had come. He was calling to his companions. “Is anyone here?”
and she called back in rapture, “Here—Here.” She was still hidden by the trees
so that he did not see her, and he shouted, “Come!”—just what she longed to say
to him. She answered joyfully, “Come!” and stepped forth from the woods with her
arms outstretched. But he turned away in angry disgust. “Not so,” he said; “I
will die before I give you power over me.” All she could say was, humbly,
entreatingly, “I give you power over me,” but he was gone. She hid her blushes
and her shame in a lonely cave, and never could be comforted. Still she lives in
places like that, and they say she has so wasted away with longing that only her
voice now is left to her.
So Narcissus went on his cruel way, a scorner of love. But at
last one of those he wounded prayed a prayer and it was answered by the gods:
“May he who loves not others love himself.” The great goddess Nemesis, which
means righteous anger, undertook to bring this about. As Narcissus bent over a
clear pool for a drink and saw there his own reflection, on the moment he fell
in love with it. “Now I know,” he cried, “what others have suffered from me, for
I burn with love of my own self—and yet how can I reach that loveliness I see
mirrored in the water? But I cannot leave it. Only death can set me free.” And
so it happened. He pined away, leaning perpetually over the pool, fixed in one
long gaze. Echo was near him, but she could do nothing; only when, dying, he called to his image, “Farewell—farewell,” she
could repeat the words as a last good-bye to him.
They say that when his spirit crossed the river that encircles
the world of the dead, it leaned over the boat to catch a final glimpse of
itself in the water.
The nymphs he had scorned were kind to him in death and sought
his body to give it burial, but they could not find it. Where it had lain there
was blooming a new and lovely flower, and they called it by his name,
Narcissus.
Another flower that came into being through the death of a
beautiful youth was the hyacinth, again not like the flower we call by that
name, but lily-shaped and of a deep purple, or, some say, a splendid crimson.
That was a tragic death, and each year it was commemorated by
The festival of Hyacinthus
That lasts throughout the tranquil night.
In a contest with Apollo
He was slain.
Discus throwing they competed,
And the god’s swift cast
Sped beyond the goal he aimed at
and struck Hyacinthus full in the forehead a terrible wound.
He had been Apollo’s dearest companion. There was no rivalry between them when
they tried which could throw the discus farthest; they were only playing a game.
The god was horror-struck to see the blood gush forth and the lad, deathly pale,
fall to the ground. He turned as pale himself as he caught him up in his arms and tried to stanch the wound. But it was too late. While he
held him the boy’s head fell back as a flower does when its stem is broken. He
was dead and Apollo kneeling beside him wept for him, dying so young, so
beautiful. He had killed him, although through no fault of his, and he cried,
“Oh, if I could give my life for yours, or die with you.” Even as he spoke, the
bloodstained grass turned green again and there bloomed forth the wondrous
flower that was to make the lad’s name known forever. Apollo himself inscribed
the petals—some say with Hyacinth’s initial, and others with the two letters of
the Greek word that means “Alas”; either way, a memorial of the god’s great
sorrow.
There is a story, too, that Zephyr, the West Wind, not Apollo,
was the direct cause of the death, that he also loved this fairest of youths and
in his jealous anger at seeing the god preferred to him he blew upon the discus
and made it strike Hyacinth.
• • •
Such charming tales of lovely young people who, dying in the
springtime of life, were fittingly changed into spring flowers, have probably a
dark background. They give a hint of black deeds that were done in the
far-distant past. Long before there were any stories told in Greece or any poems
sung which have come down to us, perhaps even before there were storytellers and
poets, it might happen, if the fields around a village were not fruitful, if the
corn did not spring up as it should, that one of the villagers would be killed
and his—or her—blood sprinkled over the barren land. There was no idea as yet of
the radiant gods of Olympus who would have loathed the
hateful sacrifice. Mankind had only a dim feeling that as their own life
depended utterly on seedtime and harvest, there must be a deep connection
between themselves and the earth and that their blood, which was nourished by
the corn, could in turn nourish it at need. What more natural then, if a
beautiful boy had thus been killed, than to think when later the ground bloomed
with narcissus or hyacinths that the flowers were his very self, changed and yet
living again? So they would tell each other it had happened, a lovely miracle
which made the cruel death seem less cruel. Then as the ages passed and people
no longer believed that the earth needed blood to be fruitful, all that was
cruel in the story would be dropped and in the end forgotten. No one would
remember that terrible things had once been done. Hyacinthus, they would say,
died not slaughtered by his kinsfolk to get food for them, but only because of a
sorrowful mistake.
• • •
Of these deaths and flowery resurrections the most famous was
that of Adonis. Every year the Greek girls mourned for him and every year they
rejoiced when his flower, the bloodred anemone, the windflower, was seen
blooming again. Aphrodite loved him; the Goddess of Love, who pierces with her
shafts the hearts of gods and men alike, was fated herself to suffer that same
piercing pain.
She saw him when he was born and even then loved him and
decided he should be hers. She carried him to Persephone to take charge of him
for her, but Persephone loved him too and would not give him back to Aphrodite, not even when the goddess went down to the
underworld to get him. Neither goddess would yield, and finally Zeus himself had
to judge between them. He decided that Adonis should spend half the year with
each, the autumn and winter with the Queen of the Dead; the spring and summer
with the Goddess of Love and Beauty.
All the time he was with Aphrodite she sought only to please
him. He was keen for the chase, and often she would leave her swan-drawn car, in
which she was used to glide at her ease through the air, and follow him along
rough woodland ways dressed like a huntress. But one sad day she happened not to
be with him and he tracked down a mighty boar. With his hunting dogs he brought
the beast to bay. He hurled his spear at it, but he only wounded it, and before
he could spring away, the boar mad with pain rushed at him and gored him with
its great tusks. Aphrodite in her winged car high over the earth heard her
lover’s groan and flew to him.
He was softly breathing his life away, the dark blood flowing
down his skin of snow and his eyes growing heavy and dim. She kissed him, but
Adonis knew not that she kissed him as he died. Cruel as his wound was, the
wound in her heart was deeper. She spoke to him, although she knew he could not
hear her:—
“You die, O thrice desired,
And my desire has flown like a dream.
Gone with you is the girdle of my beauty,
But I myself must live who am a goddess
And may not follow you.
Kiss me yet once again, the last, long kiss,
Until I draw your soul within my lips
And drink down all your love.”
The mountains all were calling and the oak trees answering,
Oh, woe, woe for Adonis. He is dead.
And Echo cried in answer, Oh, woe, woe for Adonis.
And all the Loves wept for him and all the Muses too.
But down in the black underworld Adonis could not hear them,
nor see the crimson flower that sprang up where each drop of his blood had
stained the earth.
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