A Book of Myths
grew. Very pitifully Latona looked up in their churlish faces, and her
eyes were as the eyes of a doe that the hunters have pressed very
hard.
"Surely, good people," she said, and her voice was sad and low, "water
is free to all. Very far have I travelled, and I am aweary almost to
death. Only grant that I dip my lips in the water for one deep
draught. Of thy pity grant me this boon, for I perish of thirst."
Harsh and coarse were the mocking voices that made answer. Coarser
still were the jests that they made. Then one, bolder than his
fellows, spurned her kneeling figure with his foot, while another
brushed before her and stepping into the pond, defiled its clarity by
churning up the mud that lay below with his great splay feet.
Loudly the peasants laughed at this merry jest, and they quickly
followed his lead, as brainless sheep will follow the one that
scrambles through a gap. Soon they were all joyously stamping and
dancing in what had so lately been a pellucid pool. The water-lilies
and blue forget-me-nots were trodden down, the fish that had their
homes under the mossy stones in terror fled away. Only the mud came
up, filthy, defiling, and the rustics laughed in loud and foolish
laughter to see the havoc they had wrought.
The goddess Latona rose from her knees. No longer did she seem a mere
woman, very weary, hungry and athirst, travelled over far. In their
surprised eyes she grew to a stature that was as that of the deathless
gods. And her eyes were dark as an angry sea at even.
"Shameless ones!" she said, in a voice as the voice of a storm that
sweeps destroyingly over forest and mountain. "Ah! shameless ones! Is
it thus that thou wouldst defy one who has dwelt on Olympus? Behold
from henceforth shalt thou have thy dwelling in the mud of the
green-scummed pools, thy homes in the water that thy flat feet have
defiled."
As she spoke, a change, strange and terrible, passed over the forms of
the trampling peasants. Their stature shrank. They grew squat and fat.
Their hands and feet were webbed, and their grinning mouths became
great, sad, gaping openings by which to swallow worms and flies. Green
and yellow and brown were their skins, and when they would fain have
cried aloud for mercy, from their throats there would come only the
"_Krroak! krroak! krroak!_" that we know so well.
And when, that night, the goddess of darkness was wrapped in peace in
the black, silver star bespangled robe that none could take from her,
there arose from the pond over which the grey willows hung, weeping,
the clamour of a great lamentation. Yet no piteous words were there,
only the incessant, harsh complaint of the frogs that we hear in the
marshes.
From that time the world went well with Latona. Down to the seashore
she came, and when she held out her arms in longing appeal to the
AEgean islands that lay like purple flowers strewn, far apart, on a
soft carpet of limpid blue, Zeus heard her prayer. He asked Poseidon
to send a dolphin to carry the woman he loved to the floating island
of Delos, and when she had been borne there in safety, he chained the
island with chains of adamant to the golden-sanded floor of the sea.
And on this sanctuary there were born to Latona twin children,
thereafter to be amongst the most famed of the deathless gods--the
god and goddess, Apollo and Diana.
"... Those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,
Which after held the sun and moon in fee."
Milton.
Yet are there times, as we look at the squat, bronze bodies of the
frogs--green-bronze, dark brown spotted, and all flecked with gold,
the turned-down corners of their wistful mouths, their very exquisite
black velvety eyes with golden rims--when the piteous croaks that come
forth from their throats of pale daffodil colour do indeed awake a
sympathy with their appeal against the inexorable decrees of destiny.
"We did not know! We did not understand! Pity us! Ah, pity us!
_Krroak! krroak! krroak!_"
ECHO AND NARCISSUS
In the solitudes of the hills we find her, and yet we may come on her
unawares in the din of a noisy city. She will answer us where the
waves are lashing themselves against the rugged cliffs of our own
British coast, or we may find her where the great yellow pillars of
fallen temples lie hot in the sun close to the vivid blue water of the
African sea. At nightfall, on the lonely northern moors, she mimics
the cry of a wailing bird that calls for its mate, but it is she who
prolongs the roll of the great organ in a vast cathedral, she who
repeats the rattle and crack and boom of the guns, no matter in what
land the war may be raging. In the desolate Australian bush she makes
the crash of the falling limb of a dead gum tree go on and on, and
tortures the human being who is lost, hopelessly lost, and facing a
cruel death, by repeating his despairing calls for help. Through the
night, in old country-houses, she sports at will and gives new life to
sad old tales of the restless dead who restlessly walk. But she echoes
the children's voices as they play by the seashore or pick primroses
in the woods in spring, and when they greet her with laughter, she
laughs in merry response. They may fear her when the sun has gone
down, and when they are left all alone they begin to dread her
mockery. Yet the nymph who sought for love and failed to gain what
she sought must surely find some comfort on those bright days of
summer and of spring when she gives the little children happiness and
they give her their love.
When all the world was young, and nymphs and fauns and dryads dwelt in
the forests, there was no nymph more lovely and more gay than she
whose name was Echo. Diana would smile on her for her fleetness of
foot when she followed her in the chase, and those whom she met in the
leafy pathways of the dim, green woods, would pass on smiling at the
remembrance of her merry chatter and her tricksy humour.
It was an evil day for Echo when she crossed the path of Hera, queen
of the gods. The jealous goddess sought her errant husband, who was
amusing himself with some nymphs, and Echo, full of mischievous glee,
kept her in talk until the nymphs had fled to safety. Hera was furious
indeed when she found out that a frolicsome nymph had dared to play on
her such a trick, and ruthlessly she spoke fair Echo's doom.
"Henceforth," she said, "the tongue with which thou hast cheated me
shall be in bonds. No longer wilt thou have the power to speak in
greeting. To the tongues of others shall thy tongue be slave, and from
this day until time shall cease thou shalt speak only to repeat the
last words that have fallen on thine ears."
A maimed nymph indeed was Echo then, yet whole in all that matters
most, in that her merry heart was still her own. But only for a little
while did this endure.
Narcissus, the beautiful son of a nymph and a river god, was hunting
in a lonely forest one day when Echo saw him pass. To her he seemed
more fair than god or man, and once she had seen him she knew that she
must gain his love or die. From that day on, she haunted him like his
shadow, gliding from tree to tree, nestling down amongst thick fern
and undergrowth, motionless as one who stalks a wild thing, watching
him afar off while he rested, gladdening her eyes with his beauty. So
did she feed her hungering heart, and sought to find contentment by
looking on his face each day.
To her at length came a perfect moment when Narcissus was separated
from his companions in the chase and, stopping suddenly where the
evening sun chequered the pathway of the forest with black and gold,
heard the nymph's soft footfall on the rustling leaves.
"Who's here?" he called.
"_Here!_" answered Echo.
Narcissus, peering amongst the trees' long shadows and seeing no one,
called "Come!"
And "_Come!_" called the glad voice of Echo, while the nymph, with
fast-beating heart, felt that her day of happiness had come indeed.
"Why do you shun me?" then called Narcissus.
"_Why do you shun me?_" Echo repeated.
"Let us join one another," said the lad, and the simple words seemed
turned into song when Echo said them over.
"_Let us join one another!_" she said, and not Eos herself, as with
rosy fingers she turns aside the dark clouds of night, could be fairer
than was the nymph as she pushed aside the leaves of the trackless
wood, and ran forward with white arms outstretched to him who was lord
of her life.
With cold eyes and colder heart the one she loved beheld her.
"Away!" he cried, shrinking back as if from something that he hated.
"_Away!_ I would rather die than that you should have me!"
"_Have me!_" cried Echo pitifully, but she pled in vain. Narcissus had
no love to give her, and his scorn filled her with shame. Thenceforth
in the forest revels she never more was seen, and the nymphs danced
gaily as ever, with never a care for her who had faded and gone away
as completely as though she were a blossom in the passing of spring.
In the solitude of mountain cliffs and caves and rocky places, and in
the loneliest depths of the forest, Echo hid her grief, and when the
winds blew through the dark branches of the trees at night, moaning
and sighing, they could hear far below them the voice of Echo
repeating their lamentations. For her, long nights followed hopeless
days, and nights and days only told her that her love was all in vain.
Then came a night when the winds no longer saw the figure of the
nymph, white and frail as a broken flower, crouching close to the
rocks they passed over. Grief had slain the body of Echo. Only her
voice was left to repeat their mocking laughter, their wistful
sighs--only her voice that lives on still though all the old gods are
gone, and but few there are who know her story.
Heartwhole and happy, Narcissus, slayer of happiness, went on his
way, and other nymphs besides fair Echo suffered from loving him in
vain. One nymph, less gentle than Echo, poured the tale of her love
that was scorned into the sympathetic ears of the goddess of Love, and
implored her to punish Narcissus.
Hot and tired from the chase, Narcissus sought one day a lonely pool
in the woods, there to rest and to quench his thirst.
"In some delicious ramble, he had found
A little space, with boughs all woven round;
And in the midst of all, a clearer pool
Than e'er reflected in its pleasant cool
The blue sky here, and there, serenely peeping
Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping."
As he stooped down to drink, a face looked at his through the crystal
clear water, and a pair of beautiful eyes met his own. His surprise
and joy at the sight of what he felt sure must be the most beautiful
creature on earth, was evidently shared by the nymph of the pool, who
gazed fearlessly up at him.
Round her head she had a nimbus of curls than which that of
Adonis--nay, of the sun-god himself, was not more perfect, while her
eyes were like the brown pools of water in a rippling mountain stream,
flecked with sunshine, yet with depths untold. When Narcissus smiled
at her in rapture, her red lips also parted in a smile. He stretched
out his arms towards her, and her arms were stretched to him. Almost
trembling in his delight, he slowly stooped to kiss her. Nearer she
drew to him, nearer still, but when his mouth would have given itself
to that other mouth that was formed like the bow of Eros--a thing to
slay hearts--only the chilly water of the pool touched his lips, and
the thing of his delight vanished away. In passionate disappointment
Narcissus waited for her to return, and as soon as the water of the
pool grew still, once more he saw her exquisite face gazing wistfully