A Book of Myths
Black grew the brow of the son of Danae when she told him what cruel
things she had suffered in his absence from the hands of Polydectes
the king. Straight to the palace Perseus strode, and there found the
king and his friends at their revels. For seven years had Perseus been
away, and now it was no longer a stripling who stood in the palace
hall, but a man in stature and bearing like one of the gods.
Polydectes alone knew him, and from his wine he looked up with mocking
gaze.
"So thou hast returned? oh nameless son of a deathless god," he said.
"Thou didst boast, but methinks thy boast was an empty one!"
But even as he spoke, the jeering smile froze on his face, and the
faces of those who sat with him stiffened in horror.
"O king," Perseus said, "I swore that, the gods helping me, thou
shouldst have the head of Medusa. The gods have helped me. Behold the
Gorgon's head."
Wild horror in their eyes, Polydectes and his friends gazed on the
unspeakable thing, and as they gazed they turned into stone--a ring of
grey stones that still sit on a hillside of Seriphos.
With his wife and his mother, Perseus then sailed away, for he had a
great longing to take Danae back to the land of her birth and to see
if her father, Acrisius, still lived and might not now repent of his
cruelty to her and to his grandson. But there he found that the sins
of Acrisius had been punished and that he had been driven from his
throne and his own land by a usurper. Not for long did the sword of
Perseus dwell in its scabbard, and speedily was the usurper cast
forth, and all the men of Argos acclaimed Perseus as their glorious
king. But Perseus would not be their king.
"I go to seek Acrisius," he said. "My mother's father is your king."
Again his galley sailed away, and at last, up the long Euboean Sea
they came to the town of Larissa, where the old king now dwelt.
A feast and sports were going on when they got there, and beside the
king of the land sat Acrisius, an aged man, yet a kingly one indeed.
And Perseus thought, "If I, a stranger, take part in the sports and
carry away prizes from the men of Larissa, surely the heart of
Acrisius must soften towards me."
Thus did he take off his helmet and cuirass, and stood unclothed
beside the youths of Larissa, and so godlike was he that they all
said, amazed, "Surely this stranger comes from Olympus and is one of
the Immortals."
In his hand he took a discus, and full five fathoms beyond those of
the others he cast it, and a great shout arose from those who watched,
and Acrisius cried out as loudly as all the rest.
"Further still!" they cried. "Further still canst thou hurl! thou art
a hero indeed!"
And Perseus, putting forth all his strength, hurled once again, and
the discus flew from his hand like a bolt from the hand of Zeus. The
watchers held their breath and made ready for a shout of delight as
they saw it speed on, further than mortal man had ever hurled before.
But joy died in their hearts when a gust of wind caught the discus as
it sped and hurled it against Acrisius, the king. And with a sigh like
the sigh that passes through the leaves of a tree as the woodman fells
it and it crashes to the earth, so did Acrisius fall and lie prone. To
his side rushed Perseus, and lifted him tenderly in his arms. But the
spirit of Acrisius had fled. And with a great cry of sorrow Perseus
called to the people:
"Behold me! I am Perseus, grandson of the man I have slain! Who can
avoid the decree of the gods?"
For many a year thereafter Perseus reigned as king, and to him and to
his fair wife were born four sons and three daughters. Wisely and well
he reigned, and when, at a good old age, Death took him and the wife
of his heart, the gods, who had always held him dear, took him up
among the stars to live for ever and ever. And there still, on clear
and starry nights, we may see him holding the Gorgon's head. Near him
are the father and mother of Andromeda--Cepheus and Cassiopeia, and
close beside him stands Andromeda with her white arms spread out
across the blue sky as in the days when she stood chained to the rock.
And those who sail the watery ways look up for guidance to one whose
voyaging is done and whose warfare is accomplished, and take their
bearings from the constellation of Cassiopeia.
NIOBE
"... Like Niobe, all tears."
Shakespeare.
The quotation is an overworked quotation, like many another of those
from _Hamlet_; yet, have half of those whose lips utter it more than
the vaguest acquaintance with the story of Niobe and the cause of her
tears? The noble group--attributed to Praxiteles--of Niobe and her
last remaining child, in the Uffizi Palace at Florence, has been so
often reproduced that it also has helped to make the anguished figure
of the Theban queen a familiar one in pictorial tragedy, so that as
long as the works of those Titans of art, Shakespeare and Praxiteles,
endure, no other monument is wanted for the memory of Niobe.
Like many of the tales of mythology, her tragedy is a story of
vengeance wreaked upon a mortal by an angry god. She was the daughter
of Tantalus, and her husband was Amphion, King of Thebes, himself a
son of Zeus. To her were born seven fair daughters and seven beautiful
and gallant sons, and it was not because of her own beauty, nor her
husband's fame, nor their proud descent and the greatness of their
kingdom, that the Queen of Thebes was arrogant in her pride. Very sure
she was that no woman had ever borne children like her own children,
whose peers were not to be found on earth nor in heaven. Even in our
own day there are mortal mothers who feel as Niobe felt.
But amongst the Immortals there was also a mother with children whom
she counted as peerless. Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana, was
magnificently certain that in all time, nor in eternity to come, could
there be a son and daughter so perfect in beauty, in wisdom, and in
power as the two that were her own. Loudly did she proclaim her proud
belief, and when Niobe heard it she laughed in scorn.
"The goddess has a son and a daughter," she said. "Beautiful and wise
and powerful they may be, but I have borne seven daughters and seven
sons, and each son is more than the peer of Apollo, each daughter more
than the equal of Diana, the moon-goddess!"
And to her boastful words Latona gave ear, and anger began to grow in
her heart.
Each year the people of Thebes were wont to hold a great festival in
honour of Latona and her son and daughter, and it was an evil day for
Niobe when she came upon the adoring crowd that, laurel-crowned, bore
frankincense to lay before the altars of the gods whose glories they
had assembled together to celebrate.
"Oh foolish ones!" she said, and her voice was full of scorn, "am I
not greater than Latona? I am the daughter of a goddess, my husband,
the king, the son of a god. Am I not fair? am I not queenly as Latona
herself? And, of a surety, I am richer by far than the goddess who has
but one daughter and one son. Look on my seven noble sons! behold the
beauty of my seven daughters, and see if they in beauty and all else
do not equal the dwellers in Olympus!"
And when the people looked, and shouted aloud, for in truth Niobe and
her children were like unto gods, their queen said, "Do not waste thy
worship, my people. Rather make the prayers to thy king and to me and
to my children who buttress us round and make our strength so great,
that fearlessly we can despise the gods."
In her home on the Cynthian mountain top, Latona heard the arrogant
words of the queen of Thebes, and even as a gust of wind blows
smouldering ashes into a consuming fire, her growing anger flamed into
rage. She called Apollo and Diana to her, and commanded them to avenge
the blasphemous insult which had been given to them and to their
mother. And the twin gods listened with burning hearts.
"Truly shalt thou be avenged!" cried Apollo. "The shameless one shall
learn that not unscathed goes she who profanes the honour of the
mother of the deathless gods!"
And with their silver bows in their hands, Apollo, the smiter from
afar, and Diana, the virgin huntress, hasted to Thebes. There they
found all the noble youths of the kingdom pursuing their sports. Some
rode, some were having chariot-races, and excelling in all things were
the seven sons of Niobe.
Apollo lost no time. A shaft from his quiver flew, as flies a bolt
from the hand of Zeus, and the first-born of Niobe fell, like a young
pine broken by the wind, on the floor of his winning chariot. His
brother, who followed him, went on the heels of his comrade swiftly
down to the Shades. Two of the other sons of Niobe were wrestling
together, their great muscles moving under the skin of white satin
that covered their perfect bodies, and as they gripped each other, yet
another shaft was driven from the bow of Apollo, and both lads fell,
joined by one arrow, on the earth, and there breathed their lives
away.
Their elder brother ran to their aid, and to him, too, came death,
swift and sure. The two youngest, even as they cried for mercy to an
unknown god, were hurried after them by the unerring arrows of Apollo.
The cries of those who watched this terrible slaying were not long in
bringing Niobe to the place where her sons lay dead. Yet, even then,
her pride was unconquered, and she defied the gods, and Latona, to
whose jealousy she ascribed the fate of her "seven spears."
"Not yet hast thou conquered, Latona!" she cried. "My seven sons lie
dead, yet to me still remain the seven perfect lovelinesses that I
have borne. Try to match them, if thou canst, with the beauty of thy
two! Still am I richer than thou, O cruel and envious mother of one
daughter and one son!"
But even as she spoke, Diana had drawn her bow, and as the scythe of a
mower quickly cuts down, one after the other, the tall white blossoms
in the meadow, so did her arrows slay the daughters of Niobe. When one
only remained, the pride of Niobe was broken. With her arms round the
little slender frame of her golden-haired youngest born, she looked up
to heaven, and cried upon all the gods for mercy.
"She is so little!" she wailed. "So young--so dear! Ah, spare me
_one_," she said, "only one out of so many!"
But the gods laughed. Like a harsh note of music sounded the twang of
Diana's bow. Pierced by a silver arrow, the little girl lay dead. The
dignity of Latona was avenged.
Overwhelmed by despair, King Amphion killed himself, and Niobe was
left alone to gaze on the ruin around her. For nine days she sat, a
Greek Rachel, weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,
because they were not. On the tenth day, the sight was too much even
for the superhuman hearts of the gods to endure. They turned the
bodies into stone and themselves buried them. And when they looked on
the face of Niobe and saw on it a bleeding anguish that no human hand
could stay nor the word of any god comfort, the gods were merciful.
Her grief was immortalised, for Niobe, at their will, became a stone,
and was carried by a wailing tempest to the summit of Mount Sipylus,
in Lydia, where a spring of Argos bore her name. Yet although a rock
was Niobe, from her blind eyes of stone the tears still flowed, a
clear stream of running water, symbol of a mother's anguish and
never-ending grief.
HYACINTHUS
... "The sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him--Zephyr penitent
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain."
Keats.
"Whom the gods love die young"--truly it would seem so, as we read the
old tales of men and of women beloved of the gods. To those men who