A Book of Myths
his child. So proud was he of her beauty and grace, and of her
marvellous swiftness of foot and skill in the chase, that he would
fain have married her to one of the great ones of Greece, but Atalanta
had consulted an oracle. "Marry not," said the oracle. "To thee
marriage must bring woe."
So, with untouched heart, and with the daring and the courage of a
young lad, Atalanta came along with the heroes to the Calydonian Hunt.
She was so radiantly lovely, so young, so strong, so courageous, that
straightway Meleager loved her, and all the heroes gazed at her with
eyes that adored her beauty. And Diana, looking down at her, also
loved the maiden whom from childhood she had held in her protection--a
gallant, fearless virgin dear to her heart.
The grey mist rose from the marshes as the hunt began, and the hunters
of the boar had gone but a little way when they came upon traces of
the hated boar. Disembowelled beasts marked its track. Here, in a
flowery meadow, had it wallowed. There, in rich wheat land, had it
routed, and the marks of its bestial tusks were on the gashed grey
trunks of the trees that had once lived in the peace of a fruitful
olive grove.
In a marsh they found their enemy, and all the reeds quivered as it
heaved its vast bulk and hove aside the weed in which it had wallowed,
and rooted with its tusks amongst the wounded water-lilies before it
leapt with a snort to meet and to slay the men who had come against
it. A filthy thing it was, as its pink snout rose above the green ooze
of the marshes, and it looked up lustingly, defying the purity of the
blue skies of heaven, to bring to those who came against it a cruel,
shameful death.
Upon it, first of all, Jason cast his spear. But the sharp point only
touched it, and unwounded, the boar rushed on, its gross, bristly head
down, to disembowel, if it could, the gallant Nestor. In the branches
of a tree Nestor found safety, and Telamon rushed on to destroy the
filthy thing that would have made carrion of the sons of the gods. A
straggling cypress root caught his fleeting foot and laid him prone, a
helpless prey for the rooting brute. His hounds fell before it, but
ere it could reach him, Atalanta, full of vengeful rage--the pure
angered against the filthy and cruel--let draw her bow, with a prayer
to Diana to guide her shaft aright. Into the boar's smoking flank sped
the arrow.
"The sudden string
Rang, and sprang inward, and the waterish air
Hissed, and the moist plumes of the songless reeds
Moved as a wave which the wind moves no more.
But the boar heaved half out of ooze and slime,
His tense flank trembling round the barbed wound,
Hateful; and fiery with invasive eyes
And bristling with intolerable hair
Plunged, and the hounds clung, and green flowers and white
Reddened and broke all round them where they came.
And charging with sheer tusk he drove, and smote
Hyleus; and sharp death caught his sudden soul,
And violent sleep shed night upon his eyes."
Swinburne.
More than ever terrible was the monster now that it was wounded. One
after the other the hunters fell before its mad rage, and were sent to
the shades by a bloody and merciless death.
Before its furious charge even the heart of a hero might have been
stricken. Yet Meleager, like a mighty oak of the forest that will not
sway even a little before the rush of a storm, stood full in its way
and met its onslaught.
"Aimed on the left side his well-handled spear
Grasped where the ash was knottiest hewn, and smote,
And with no missile wound, the monstrous boar
Right in the hairiest hollow of his hide
Under the last rib, sheer through bulk and bone,
Deep in; and deeply smitten, and to death,
The heavy horror with his hanging shafts,
Leapt, and fell furiously, and from raging lips
Foamed out the latest wrath of all his life."
Great was the shout that rose from those who still lived when that
grim hunt thus came to an end. And when, with his keen blade, Meleager
struck off the head, even as the quivering throat drew its last
agonised breath, louder still shouted the men of Greece. But not for
himself did Meleager despoil the body of his foe. He laid the ugly
thing at the feet of Atalanta.
"This is thy spoil, not mine," he said. "The wounding shaft was sped
by thee. To thee belongs the praise."
And Atalanta blushed rosily, and laughed low and gladly, not only
because Diana had heard her prayer and helped her slay the beast, but
for happiness that Meleager was so noble in his giving.
At that the brows of the heroes grew dark, and angrily one cried:
"Lo, now,
Shall not the Arcadian shoot out lips at us,
Saying all we were despoiled by this one girl."
Like a spark that kindles the dry grass, their kindling anger spread,
and they rushed against Atalanta, seized the trophy she had been
given, and smote her as though she were but a shameless wanton and not
the noble daughter of a king.
And because the heart of Meleager was given very wholly to the fair
huntress, and because those whom he deemed his friends had not only
dishonoured her, but had done him a very grievous wrong, a great rage
seized him. Right and left he smote, and they who had been most bitter
in their jealousy of Atalanta, the two brothers of his own mother,
were laid low in death.
Tidings of the slaying of the boar had been brought to Althaea by swift
messengers, and she was on her way to the temples bearing gifts to the
gods for the victory of her son, when she beheld the slow-footed
procession of those who bore the bodies of the dead. And when she saw
the still faces of her two dear brothers, quickly was her joy turned
into mourning. Terrible was her grief and anger when she learned by
whose hand they were slain, and her mother's love and pride dried up
in her heart like the clear water of a fountain before the scorching
of a devouring fire. No sacrifices to the gods would she offer, but
her dead brothers should have the greatest sacrifice that mother could
make to atone for the guilt of her son. Back to the palace she went,
and from its safe hiding-place drew out the brand that she had rescued
from the flames when Meleager the hero was but a babe that made his
mother's heart sing for joy. She commanded a fire to be prepared, and
four times, as its flames blazed aloft, she tried to lay the brand
upon the pile. Yet four times she drew back, and then at last she
threw into the reddest of the ashes the charred brand that for a
little she held so close to her breast that it seemed as though she
fondled her child.
A wreath of leaves as sign of victory was being placed on Atalanta's
beautiful head by the adoring hands of Meleager when his mother gave
him his doom. Through his body there rushed a pang of mortal agony.
His blood turned to fire, and the hand of Death that smote him was as
a hand of molten lead. In torture his gallant spirit passed away,
uncomplaining, loving through his pain the maid for whose dear sake he
had brought woe upon himself. As the last white ashes in the fire
crumbled and fell away into nothingness, the soul of Meleager
departed. Swiftly through the dark valley his mother's shade followed
him, for she fell upon a sword and so perished. And Diana, looking
down on the grief-stricken sisters of Meleager and on the bitter
sorrow of his father, had compassion on them and turned them into
birds.
So ended the Calydonian Hunt, and Atalanta returned to Arcadia, heavy
at heart for the evil she had wrought unwittingly. And still the Three
Fates span on, and the winds caught up the cold wood ashes and blew
them across the ravaged land that Meleager had saved and that quickly
grew fertile again.
ATALANTA
Atalanta, daughter of the king of Arcadia, returned sad at heart to
her own land. Only as comrades, as those against whose skill in the
chase she was wont to pit her own skill, had she looked upon men. But
Meleager, the hero who loved her and her fair honour more than life
itself, and whose love had made him haste in all his gallant strength
and youthful beauty to the land of the Shades, was one to touch her as
never before had she been touched. Her father, proud of her triumph in
Calydon, again besought her to marry one of her many noble suitors.
"If indeed they love me as thou sayest," said Atalanta to her father,
"then must they be ready to face for my sake even the loss of dear
life itself. I shall be the prize of him who outruns me in a
foot-race. But he who tries and fails, must pay to Death his penalty."
Thereafter, for many days, a strange sight was to be seen in Arcadia.
For one after another the suitors came to race with the maiden whose
face had bewitched them, though truly the race was no more fair to him
who ran than would be a race with Death. No mortal man was as fleet as
Atalanta, who had first raced with the wild things of the mountains
and the forests, and who had dared at last to race with the winds and
leave even them behind. To her it was all a glorious game. Her
conquest was always sure, and if the youths who entered in the contest
cared to risk their lives, why should they blame her? So each day they
started, throbbing hope and fierce determination to win her in the
heart of him who ran--fading hope and despairing anger as he saw her
skimming ahead of him like a gay-hued butterfly that a tired child
pursues in vain. And each day, as the race ended, another man paid the
price of his defeat.
Daily, amongst those who looked on, stood her cousin Milanion. He
would fain have hated Atalanta for her ruthlessness and her joyousness
as he saw his friends die for her sake, yet daily her beauty, her
purity, and her gallant unconsciousness took a firmer hold upon his
heart. To himself he vowed that he would win Atalanta, but not without
help from the gods was this possible. Therefore he sought Aphrodite
herself and asked her aid.
Milanion was a beautiful youth, and to Aphrodite, who loved beauty, he
pled his cause as he told her how Atalanta had become to him more than
life, so that he had ceased to pity the youths, his friends, who had
died for love of her. The goddess smiled upon him with gentle
sympathy.
In the garden of her temple grew a tree with branches and twigs of
gold, and leaves as yellow as the little leaves of the silver birch
when the autumn sun kisses them as it sets. On this tree grew golden
apples, and Aphrodite plucked three of them and gave them to the youth
who had not feared to ask her to aid him to win the maid he loved.
How he was to use the apples she then told him, and, well content,
Milanion returned home.
Next day he spoke to Atalanta.
"So far has victory been thine, Fairest on earth," he said, "but so
far have thy little winged white feet had only the heavy-footed
laggards to outrun. Wilt have me run a race with thee? for assuredly I
shall win thee for my own."
And Milanion looked into the eyes of Atalanta with a smile as gay and
fearless as that with which a hero is wont to look in the eyes of his
fellow.
Look for look did the virgin huntress give him.
Then her cheeks grew red, as though the rosy-fingered dawn had touched
them, and the dawning of love came into her heart.
Even Meleager was not quite so goodly a youth as this. Not even
Meleager had been so wholly fearless.
"Thou art tempted by the deathless gods," she said, but her long
lashes drooped on her cheek as she spoke. "I pity you, Milanion, for
when thou dost race with me, the goal is assuredly the meadows of
asphodel near where sit Pluto and Persephone on their gloomy thrones."
But Milanion said, "I am ready, Atalanta. Wilt race with me now?" And