A Book of Myths
because of its lovingness; for while it is making its
nest, all the world has the happy days which it calls
halcyonidae, excelling all others in their calmness."
ARISTAEUS THE BEE-KEEPER
"... Every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivers hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees."
Tennyson.
In the fragrance of the blossom of the limes the bees are gleaning a
luscious harvest. Their busy humming sounds like the surf on a reef
heard from very far away, and would almost lull to sleep those who
lazily, drowsily spend the sunny summer afternoon in the shadow of the
trees. That line of bee-hives by the sweet-pea hedge shows where they
store their treasure that men may rob them of it, but out on the
uplands where the heather is purple, the wild bees hum in and out of
the honey-laden bells and carry home their spoils to their own free
fastnesses, from which none can drive them unless there comes a foray
against them from the brown men of the moors.
How many of us who watch their ardent labours know the story of
Aristaeus--he who first brought the art of bee-keeping to perfection in
his own dear land of Greece, and whose followers are those men in
veils of blue and green, that motley throng who beat fire-irons and
create a hideous clamour in order that the queen bee and her excited
followers may be checked in their perilous voyagings and beguiled to
swarm in the sanctuary of a hive.
Aristaeus was a shepherd, the son of Cyrene, a water nymph, and to him
there had come one day, as he listened to the wild bees humming
amongst the wild thyme, the great thought that he might conquer these
busy workers and make their toil his gain. He knew that hollow trees
or a hole in a rock were used as the storage houses of their treasure,
and so the wily shepherd lad provided for them the homes he knew that
they would covet, and near them placed all the food that they most
desired. Soon Aristaeus became noted as a tamer of bees, and even in
Olympus they spoke of his honey as a thing that was food for the gods.
All might have gone well with Aristaeus had there not come for him the
fateful day when he saw the beautiful Eurydice and to her lost his
heart. She fled before the fiery protestations of his love, and trod
upon the serpent whose bite brought her down to the Shades. The gods
were angry with Aristaeus, and as punishment they slew his bees. His
hives stood empty and silent, and no more did "the murmuring of
innumerable bees" drowse the ears of the herds who watched their
flocks cropping the red clover and the asphodel of the meadows.
Underneath the swift-flowing water of a deep river, the nymph who was
the mother of Aristaeus sat on her throne. Fishes darted round her
white feet, and beside her sat her attendants, spinning the fine
strong green cords that twine themselves round the throats of those
who perish when their arms can no longer fight against the force of
the rushing current. A nymph sang as she worked, an old, old song,
that told one of the old, old tales of man's weakness and the power of
the creatures of water, but above her song those who listened heard a
man's voice, calling loudly and pitifully.
The voice was that of Aristaeus, calling aloud for his mother. Then his
mother gave command, and the waters of the river rolled asunder and
let Aristaeus pass down far below to where the fountains of the great
rivers lie. A mighty roar of many waters dinned in his ears as the
rivers started on the race that was to bring them all at last to their
restless haven, the Ocean. To Cyrene he came at length, and to her
told his sorrowful tale:
"To men who live their little lives and work and die as I
myself--though son of a nymph and of a god--must do," he said, "I have
brought two great gifts, oh my mother. I have taught them that from
the grey olives they can reap a priceless harvest, and from me they
have learned that the little brown bees that hum in and out of the
flowers may be made slaves that bring to them the sweetest riches of
which Nature may be robbed."
"This do I already know, my son," said Cyrene, and smiled upon
Aristaeus.
"Yet dost thou not know," said Aristaeus, "the doom that has overtaken
my army of busy workers. No longer does there come from my city of
bees the boom of many wings and many busy little feet as they fly,
swift and strong, hither and thither, to bring back to the hives
their honeyed treasure. The comb is empty. The bees are all dead--or,
if not dead, they have forsaken me forever."
Then spoke Cyrene. "Hast heard, my son," she said, "of Proteus? It is
he who herds the flocks of the boundless sea. On days when the South
Wind and the North Wind wrestle together, and when the Wind from the
East smites the West Wind in shame before him, thou mayst see him
raise his snowy head and long white beard above the grey-green waves
of the sea, and lash the white-maned, unbridled, fierce sea-horses
into fury before him. Proteus only--none but Proteus--can tell thee by
what art thou canst win thy bees back once more."
Then Aristaeus with eagerness questioned his mother how he might find
Proteus and gain from him the knowledge that he sought, and Cyrene
answered: "No matter how piteously thou dost entreat him, never, save
by force, wilt thou gain his secret from Proteus. Only if thou canst
chain him by guile as he sleeps and hold fast the chains, undaunted by
the shapes into which he has the power to change himself, wilt thou
win his knowledge from him."
Then Cyrene sprinkled her son with the nectar of the deathless gods,
and in his heart there was born a noble courage and through him a new
life seemed to run.
"Lead me now to Proteus, oh my mother!" he said, and Cyrene left her
throne and led him to the cave where Proteus, herdsman of the seas,
had his dwelling. Behind the seaweed-covered rocks Aristaeus concealed
himself, while the nymph used the fleecy clouds for her covering. And
when Apollo drove his chariot across the high heavens at noon, and all
land and all sea were hot as molten gold, Proteus with his flocks
returned to the shade of his great cave by the sobbing sea, and on its
sandy floor he stretched himself, and soon lay, his limbs all lax and
restful, in the exquisite joy of a dreamless sleep. From behind the
rocks Aristaeus watched him, and when, at length, he saw that Proteus
slept too soundly to wake gently he stepped forward, and on the
sleep-drowsed limbs of Proteus fixed the fetters that made him his
captive. Then, in joy and pride at having been the undoing of the
shepherd of the seas, Aristaeus shouted aloud. And Proteus, awaking,
swiftly turned himself into a wild boar with white tusks that lusted
to thrust themselves into the thighs of Aristaeus. But Aristaeus,
unflinching, kept his firm hold of the chain. Next did he become a
tiger, tawny and velvet black, and fierce to devour. And still
Aristaeus held the chain, and never let his eye fall before the glare
of the beast that sought to devour him. A scaly dragon came next,
breathing out flames, and yet Aristaeus held him. Then came a lion, its
yellow pelt scented with the lust of killing, and while Aristaeus yet
strove against him there came to terrify his listening ears the sound
of fire that lapped up and thirstily devoured all things that would
stand against it. And ere the crackle of the flames and their great
sigh of fierce desire had ceased, there came in his ears the sound of
many waters, the booming rush of an angry river in furious flood, the
irresistible command of the almighty waves of the sea. Yet still
Aristaeus held the chains, and at last Proteus took his own shape
again, and with a sigh like the sigh of winds and waves on the
desolate places where ships become wrecks, and men perish and there is
never a human soul to save or to pity them, he spoke to Aristaeus.
"Puny one!" he said, "and puny are thy wishes! Because thou didst by
thy foolish wooing send the beautiful Eurydice swiftly down to the
Shades and break the heart of Orpheus, whose music is the music of the
Immortals, the bees that thou hast treasured have left their hives
empty and silent. So little are the bees! so great, O Aristaeus, the
bliss or woe of Orpheus and Eurydice! Yet, because by guile thou hast
won the power to gain from me the knowledge that thou dost seek,
hearken to me now, Aristaeus! Four bulls must thou find--four cows of
equal beauty. Then must thou build in a leafy grove four altars, and
to Orpheus and Eurydice pay such funeral honours as may allay their
resentment. At the end of nine days, when thou hast fulfilled thy
pious task, return and see what the gods have sent thee."
"This will I do most faithfully, O Proteus," said Aristaeus, and
gravely loosened the chains and returned to where his mother awaited
him, and thence travelled to his own sunny land of Greece.
Most faithfully, as he had said, did Aristaeus perform his vow. And
when, on the ninth day, he returned to the grove of sacrifice, a sound
greeted him which made his heart stop and then go on beating and
throbbing as the heart of a man who has striven valiantly in a great
fight and to whom the battle is assured.
For, from the carcase of one of the animals offered for sacrifice, and
whose clean white bones now gleamed in the rays of the sun that forced
its way through the thick shade of the grove of grey olives, there
came the "murmuring of innumerable bees."
"Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth
sweetness."
And Aristaeus, a Samson of the old Greek days, rejoiced exceedingly,
knowing that his thoughtless sin was pardoned, and that for evermore
to him belonged the pride of giving to all men the power of taming
bees, the glory of mastering the little brown creatures that pillage
from the fragrant, bright-hued flowers their most precious treasure.
PROSERPINE
"Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom,
Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
If with mists of evening dew
Thou dost nourish those young flowers
Till they grow, in scent and hue,
Fairest children of the hours,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine."
Shelley.
The story of Persephone--of Proserpine--is a story of spring. When the
sun is warming the bare brown earth, and the pale primroses look up
through the snowy blackthorns at a kind, blue sky, almost can we hear
the soft wind murmur a name as it gently sways the daffodils and
breathes through the honey sweetness of the gold-powdered catkins on
the grey willows by the river--"Persephone! Persephone!"
Now once there was a time when there was no spring, neither summer nor
autumn, nor chilly winter with its black frosts and cruel gales and
brief, dark days. Always was there sunshine and warmth, ever were
there flowers and corn and fruit, and nowhere did the flowers grow
with more dazzling colours and more fragrant perfume than in the fair
garden of Sicily.
To Demeter, the Earth Mother, was born a daughter more fair than any
flower that grew, and ever more dear to her became her child, the
lovely Proserpine. By the blue sea, in the Sicilian meadows,
Proserpine and the fair nymphs who were her companions spent their
happy days. Too short were the days for all their joy, and Demeter
made the earth yet fairer than it was that she might bring more
gladness to her daughter Proserpine. Each day the blossoms that the
nymphs twined into garlands grew more perfect in form and in hue, but
from the anemones of royal purple and crimson, and the riotous red of