A Book of Myths
followed long after the twilight of the gods, 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 multitude 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-god drove his chariot in the high heavens and
turned the blue-green AEgean Sea into the semblance of a blazing shield
of brass, 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 seashore 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 gods.
"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 passed, 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-god 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 god.
"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 seashore. 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 god 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 assuredly 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."
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
passion of a god. 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
seashore 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 passage 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 gods 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-god'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 shore 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 god'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 god 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 brimming 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,