A Book of Myths
waters flowed into the Styx, part into the Cocytus, and well did
Psyche know that a hideous death from the loathly creatures that
protected the fountain must be the fate of those who risked so proud
an attempt. Yet because she knew that she must "dree her weird," as
Pan had said, she plodded onward, towards that dark mountain from
whose side gushed the black water that she sought. And then, once
again, there came to her a message of love. A whirring of wings she
heard, and
"O'er her head there flew the bird of Jove,
The bearer, of his servant, friend of Love,
Who, when he saw her, straightway towards her flew,
And asked her why she wept, and when he knew,
And who she was, he said, 'Cease all thy fear,
For to the black waves I thy ewer will bear,
And fill it for thee; but, remember me,
When thou art come unto thy majesty.'"
And, yet once again, the stricken heart of Psyche was gladdened, and
when at nightfall she came with her ewer full of water from the dread
stream and gave it to Aphrodite, although she knew that a yet more
arduous task was sure to follow, her fear had all passed away.
With beautiful, sullen eyes, Aphrodite received her when she brought
the water. And, with black brow, she said: "If thou art so skilled in
magic that no danger is known to thee, I shall now give thee a task
all worthy of thy skill."
Thereon she told her that she must seek that dark valley where no
silver nor golden light ever strikes on the black waters of Cocytus
and of the Styx; and where Pluto reigns in gloomy majesty over the
restless shades. From Proserpine she was to crave for Aphrodite the
gift of a box of magical ointment, the secret of which was known to
the Queen of Darkness alone, and which was able to bring to those who
used it, beauty more exquisite than any that the eyes of gods or of
men had as yet looked upon.
"I grow weary and careworn," said Aphrodite, and she looked like a
rose that has budded in Paradise as she spoke. "My son was wounded by
a faithless slave in whom, most weakly, he put his trust, and in
tending to his wound, my beauty has faded."
And at these scornful words, the heart of Psyche leaped within her.
"In helping his mother, I shall help him!" she thought. And again she
thought, "I shall atone." And so, when day was come, she took her way
along the weary road that leads to that dark place from whence no
traveller can ever hope to return, and still with gladness in her
heart. But, as she went onward, "cold thoughts and dreadful fears"
came to her.
"Better were it for me to hasten my journey to the shades," she
thought.
And when she came to an old grey tower, that seemed like an old man
that Death has forgotten, she resolved to throw herself down from it,
and thus swiftly to find herself at her journey's end. But as she
stood on the top of the tower, her arms outstretched, like a white
butterfly that poises its wings for flight, a voice spoke in her ear.
"Oh, foolish one," it said, "why dost thou strive to stay the hope
that is not dead?" And while she held her breath, her great eyes wide
open, the voice spoke on, and told her by what means she might
speedily reach Hades and there find means to face with courage the
King of Darkness himself and his fair wife, Proserpine.
All that she was bidden to do, Psyche did, and so at last did she
come before the throne of Proserpine, and all that Psyche endured, all
that she saw, all that through which she came with bleeding heart and
yet with unscathed soul, cannot here be written.
To her Proserpine gave the box of precious ointment that Aphrodite
described, and gladly she hastened homeward. Good, indeed, it was to
her when again she reached the fair light of day. Yet, when she had
won there, there came to Psyche a winged thought, that beat against
the stern barriers of her mind like a little moth against a window.
"This ointment that I carry with me," said Psyche to herself, "is an
ointment that will bring back to those all faded by time, or worn by
suffering, a beauty greater than any beauty that has joyed the
Immortals!" And then she thought:
"For my beauty, Eros--_Love_--loved me; and now my beauty is worn and
wasted and well-nigh gone. Were I to open this box and make use of the
ointment of Proserpine, then indeed I should be fair enough to be the
bride of him who, even now, believes that he loves me--of Eros whose
love is my life!"
So it came to pass that she opened the fateful box. And out of it
there came not Beauty, but Sleep, that put his gyves upon her limbs,
and on her eyelids laid heavy fingers. And Psyche sank down by the
wayside, the prisoner of Sleep.
But Eros, who had loved her ever, with a love that knew the ebb and
flow of no tides, rose from his bed and went in search of her who had
braved even the horrors of Hades for his dear sake. And by the wayside
he found her, fettered by sleep. Her little oval face was white as a
snowdrop. Like violets were her heavy eyelids, and underneath her
sleeping eyes a violet shadow lay. Once had her mouth been as the bow
of Eros, painted in carmine. Now either end of the bow was turned
downwards, and its colour was that of a faded rose-leaf.
And as Eros looked at her that he loved, pity stirred his heart, as
the wind sweeps through the sighing, grey leaves of the willow, or
sings through the bowing reeds.
"My _Beloved_!" he said, and he knew that Psyche was indeed his
beloved. It was her fair soul that he loved, nor did it matter to him
whether her body was like a rose in June or as a wind-scourged tree in
December. And as his lips met hers, Psyche awoke, and heard his soft
whisper:
"Dear, unclose thine eyes.
Thou mayst look on me now. I go no more,
But am thine own forever."
Lewis Morris.
Then did there spring from the fair white shoulders of Psyche, wings
of silver and of gold, and, hand in hand with Eros, she winged her way
to Olympus.
And there all the deathless gods were assembled, and Aphrodite no
longer looked upon her who had once been her slave with darkened
brows, but smiled upon her as the sun smiles upon a new-born flower.
And when into the hand of Psyche there was placed a cup of gold, the
voice of the great Father and King of Olympus rang out loud and clear:
"Drink now, O beautiful, and have no fear!
For with this draught shalt thou be born again,
And live for ever free from care and pain."
William Morris.
In this wise did Psyche, a human soul, attain by bitter suffering to
the perfect happiness of purified love.
And still do we watch the butterfly, which is her emblem, bursting
from its ugly tomb in the dark soil, and spreading joyous white and
gold-powdered wings in the caressing sunshine, amidst the radiance and
the fragrance of the summer flowers. Still, too, do we sadly watch her
sister, the white moth, heedlessly rushing into pangs unutterable,
thoughtlessly seeking the anguish that brings her a cruel death.
THE CALYDONIAN HUNT
OEneus and Althaea were king and queen of Calydon, and to them was
born a son who was his mother's joy and yet her bitterest sorrow.
Meleager was his name, and ere his birth his mother dreamed a dream
that the child that she bore was a burning firebrand. But when the
baby came he was a royal child indeed, a little fearless king from the
first moment that his eyes, like unseeing violets, gazed steadily up
at his mother. To the chamber where he lay by his mother's side came
the three Fates, spinning, ceaselessly spinning.
"He shall be strong," said one, as she span her thread. "He shall be
fortunate and brave," said the second. But the third laid a billet of
wood on the flames, and while her withered fingers held the fatal
threads, she looked with old, old, sad eyes at the new-born child.
"To thee, O New-Born," she said, "and to this wood that burns, do we
give the same span of days to live."
From her bed sprang Althaea, and, heedless of the flames, she seized
the burning wood, trod on it with her fair white feet, and poured on
it water that swiftly quenched its red glow. "Thou shalt live forever,
O Beloved," she said, "for never again shall fire char the brand that
I have plucked from the burning."
And the baby laughed.
"Those grey women with bound hair
Who fright the gods frighted not him; he laughed
Seeing them, and pushed out hands to feel and haul
Distaff and thread."
The years sped on, and from fearless and beautiful babyhood, Meleager
grew into gallant boyhood, and then into magnificent youth. When Jason
and his heroes sailed away into a distant land to win the Golden
Fleece, Meleager was one of the noble band. From all men living he won
great praise for his brave deeds, and when the tribes of the north and
west made war upon AEtolia, he fought against their army and scattered
it as a wind in autumn drives the fallen leaves before it.
But his victory brought evil upon him. When his father OEneus, at
the end of a fruitful year, offered sacrifices to the gods, he omitted
to honour the goddess Diana by sacrificing to her, and to punish his
neglect, she had sent this destroying army. When Meleager was victor,
her wrath against his father grew yet more hot, and she sent a wild
boar, large as the bulls of Epirus, and fierce and savage to kill and
to devour, that it might ravage and lay waste the land of Calydon. The
fields of corn were trampled under foot, the vineyards laid waste, and
the olive groves wrecked as by a winter hurricane. Flocks and herds
were slaughtered by it, or driven hither and thither in wild panic,
working havoc as they fled. Many went out to slay it, but went only to
find a hideous death. Then did Meleager resolve that he would rid the
land of this monster, and called on all his friends, the heroes of
Greece, to come to his aid. Theseus and his friend Pirithous came;
Jason; Peleus, afterwards father of Achilles; Telamon, the father of
Ajax; Nestor, then but a youth; Castor and Pollux, and Toxeus and
Plexippus, the brothers of Althaea, the fair queen-mother. But there
came none more fearless nor more ready to fight the monster boar of
Calydon than Atalanta, the daughter of the king of Arcadia. When
Atalanta was born, her father heard of her birth with anger. He
desired no daughter, but only sturdy sons who might fight for him, and
in the furious rage of bitter disappointment he had the baby princess
left on the Parthenian Hill that she might perish there. A she-bear
heard the baby's piteous cries, and carried it off to its lair, where
she suckled it along with her young, and there the little Atalanta
tumbled about and played with her furry companions and grew strong and
vigorous as any other wild young creature of the forest.
Some hunters came one day to raid the den and kill the foster-mother,
and found, amazed, a fearless, white-skinned thing with rosy cheeks
and brave eyes, who fought for her life and bit them as did her fierce
foster-brothers, and then cried human tears of rage and sorrow when
she saw the bear who had been her mother lying bloody and dead. Under
the care of the hunters Atalanta grew into a maiden, with all the
beauty of a maid and all the strength and the courage of a man. She
ran as swiftly as Zephyrus runs when he rushes up from the west and
drives the white clouds before him like a flock of timid fawns that a
hound is pursuing. The shafts that her strong arm sped from her bow
smote straight to the heart of the beast that she chased, and almost
as swift as her arrow was she there to drive her spear into her
quarry. When at length her father the king learned that the beautiful
huntress, of whom all men spoke as of one only a little lower than
Diana, was none other than his daughter, he was not slow to own her as