Half A Hundred Hero Tales Part 1

Half a Hundred Hero Tales.

by Various.

PREFACE

The apology offered for adding yet another book of Cla.s.sical Stories to the endless existing versions, ancient and modern, in verse and in prose, is the plea that Vivien offers to Merlin for her "tender rhyme":

"It lives dispersedly in many hands, And every minstrel sings it differently."

"You Greeks," said the Egyptian priest to Herodotus, "are always children," and Greece will never lose the secret of eternal youth. The tale of Troy divine, of Thebes and Pelops' line, the song of sweet Colonus, the most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby, Dido with a willow in her hand--these old stories of Homer and Sophocles, of Virgil and Ovid, have not lost their gloss and freshness. "The innocent brightness of a new-born day is lovely yet." They have been sung or said by Wace and Caxton, by Chaucer and Wordsworth, by Keats and William Morris; they have been adapted for young readers by Fenelon, by Niebuhr, by Kingsley, by Hawthorne, and yet the last word has not been said. Each new editor makes his own selection, chooses some new facet, or displays the jewel in a new light. As Sainte-Beuve remarks of "Don Quixote" and other world cla.s.sics, "One can discover there something more than the author first of all tried to see there, and certainly more than he dreamed of putting there."

The present collection of Fifty Stories (there might well have been five hundred) makes no pretense either of completeness or of uniformity. Some of the contributors have followed closely the texts, others have given free play to their fancy, but in every case the myths have been treated simply as stories and no attempt has been made either to trace their origin or to indicate their religious or ethical significance. Most of the stories point their own moral, and need no more commentary than Jack the Giant-killer or the Sleeping Beauty.

Young readers of to-day resent the sermons even of a Kingsley. From "Tanglewood Tales," a book that was the joy of our childhood, we have borrowed ten stories, and have taken the liberty of dividing into chapters and slightly abridging the longest of Hawthorne's Tales. All but one of the remaining forty are original versions.

PLUTO AND PROSERPINE

BY H. P. MASKELL

In the very heart of Sicily are the groves of Enna--a land of flowers and rippling streams, where the spring-tide lasts all through the year. Thither Proserpine, daughter of Ceres, betook herself with her maidens to gather nosegays of violets and lilies. Eager to secure the choicest posy, she had wandered far from her companions, when Pluto, issuing, as was his wont, from his realm of shadows to visit the earth, beheld her, and was smitten by her childlike beauty. Dropping her flowers in alarm, the maiden screamed for her mother and attendants. 'Twas in vain; the lover seized her and bore her away in his chariot of coal-black steeds. Faster and faster sped the team as their swart master called to each by name and shook the reins on their necks. Through deep lakes they sped, by dark pools steaming with volcanic heat, and on past the twin harbors of Syracuse.

When they came to the abode of Cyane, the nymph rose up from her crystal pool and perceived Pluto. "No farther shalt thou go!" she cried. "A maiden must be asked of her parents, not stolen away against her mother's will!" For answer the wrathful son of Saturn lashed his foam-flecked steeds. He hurled his royal scepter into the very bed of the stream. Forthwith the earth opened, making a way down into Tartarus; and the chariot vanished through the yawning cave, leaving Cyane dissolved in tears of grief for the ravished maiden and her own slighted domain.

Meanwhile Ceres, anxious mother, had heard her daughter's cry for help. Through every clime and every sea she sought and sought in vain.

From dawn to dewy eve she sought, and by night she pursued the quest with torches kindled by the flames of aetna. Then, by Enna's lake, she found the scattered flowers and shreds of the torn robe, but further traces there were none.

Weary and overcome with thirst, she chanced on a humble cottage and begged at the door for a cup of water. The goodwife brought out a pitcher of home-made barley wine, which she drained at a draught. An impudent boy jeered at the G.o.ddess, and called her "toss-pot." Dire and swift was the punishment that overtook him. Ceres sprinkled over him the few drops that remained; and, changed into a speckled newt, he crept away into a cranny.

Too long would be the tale of all the lands and seas where the G.o.ddess sought for her child. When she had visited every quarter of the world she returned once more to Sicily. Cyane, had she not melted away in her grief, might have told all. Still, however, on Cyane's pool the girdle of Proserpine was found floating, and thus the mother knew that her daughter had been carried off by force. When this was brought home to her, she tore her hair and beat her breast. Not as yet did she know the whole truth, but she vowed vengeance against all the earth, and on Sicily most of all, the land of her bereavement. No longer, she complained, was ungrateful man worthy of her gifts of golden grain.

A famine spread through all the land. Plowshares broke while they were turning the clods, the oxen died of pestilence, and blight befell the green corn. An army of birds picked up the seed as fast as it was sown; thistles, charlock, and tares sprang up in myriads and choked the fields before the ear could show itself.

Then Arethusa, the river nymph, who had traveled far beneath the ocean to meet in Sicily her lover Alpheus, raised her head in pity for the starving land, and cried to Ceres: "O mourning mother, cease thy useless quest, and be not angered with a land which is faithful to thee. While I was wandering by the river Styx I beheld thy Proserpine.

Her looks were grave, yet not as of one forlorn. Take comfort! She is a queen, and chiefest of those who dwell in the world of darkness. She is the bride of the infernal king."

Ceres was but half consoled, and her wrath was turned from Sicily to the bold ravisher of her daughter. She hastened to Olympus, and laid her plaint before Jupiter. She urged that her daughter must be restored to her. If only Pluto would resign possession of Proserpine, she would forgive the ravisher.

Jupiter answered mildly: "This rape of the G.o.d lover can scarce be called an injury. Pluto is my brother, and like me a king, except that he reigns below, whereas I reign above. Give your consent, and he will be no disgrace as a son-in-law."

Still Ceres was resolved to fetch her daughter back, and Jupiter at length agreed that it should be so on condition that Proserpine, during her sojourn in the shades, had allowed no food to pa.s.s her lips.

In joy the mother hurried down to Tartarus and demanded her daughter.

But the fates were against her. The damsel had broken her fast. As she wandered in the fair gardens of Elysium she had picked a pomegranate from the bending tree, and had eaten seven of the sweet purple seeds. Only one witness had seen her in the fatal act. This was Ascalaphus, a courtier of Pluto, who some say had first put it into the mind of the king to carry off Proserpine. In revenge for this betrayal, Ceres changed him into an owl, and doomed him ever after to be a bird of ill-omen who cannot bear the light of day, and whose nightly hooting portends ill tidings to mortals.

But Ceres was not doomed to lose Proserpine utterly. Jupiter decreed that for six months of each year her daughter was to reign in dark Tartarus by Pluto's side; for the other six months she was to return to earth and dwell with her mother. Joy returned to the mother's saddened heart; the barren earth at her bidding once more brought forth its increase. Soon the fields were smiling with golden corn, and the mellow grapes hung heavy on the vines, and once again that favored land became the garden of the world.

PAN AND SYRINX

BY MRS. GUY E. LLOYD

Long ages ago in the pleasant land of Arcadia, where the kindly shepherds fed their flocks on the green hills, there lived a fair maiden named Syrinx. Even as a tiny child she loved to toddle forth from her father's house and lose herself in the quiet woods. Often were they forced to seek long and far before they found her, when the dew was falling and the stars coming out in the dark blue sky; but however late it was, they never found her afraid nor eager to be safe at home. Sometimes she was curled up on the soft moss under the shelter of a spreading tree, fast asleep; sometimes she was lying by the side of a stream listening to the merry laughter of the water; sometimes, sitting over the stones upon the hillside, she would be watching with wonder and delight the lady moon, with her bright train of clouds, racing across the sky as if in hot chase.

Years pa.s.sed on, and Syrinx grew into a tall and slender maiden, with long fair hair and great gray eyes, with a look in them that made her seem to be always listening. Out in the woods there are so many sounds for any one who has ears to hear--the different notes of the birds, the hum of the insects, the swift, light rustle as some furry four-legged hunter creeps through the underwood. Then there is the pleasant, happy murmur of the breeze among the leaves, with a different sound in it for every different tree, or the wild shriek of the gale that rends the straining branches, or the bubbling of the spring, or the prattle of the running stream, or the plash of the waterfall. Many are the sounds of the woods, and Syrinx knew and loved them all until

"Beauty born of murmuring sound, Had pa.s.sed into her face."

"Have a care, Syrinx," her playfellows would say sometimes. "If you wander alone in the woods, some day you will see the terrible G.o.d Pan."

"I should like well to see him," the maiden made answer one day to an old crone who thus warned her. "The great G.o.d Pan loves the woods and everything that lives in them, and so do I. We must needs be friends if we meet."

The old woman looked at her in horror and amaze. "You know not what you say, child," she made answer. "Some aver that none can look upon Pan and live, but of that I am none so sure, for I have heard of shepherds to whom he has spoken graciously, and they never the worse for it. But of this there is no doubt--whoever hears the shout of Pan runs mad with the sound of it. So be not too venturesome, or evil will come of it."

Now Syrinx might have taken warning from these wise and kindly words.

As it was, she treasured them, and only wondered what this G.o.d could be like, the sound of whose shout made men run mad. She feared to see him, and would have run swiftly away if she had caught a glimpse of him, and yet she went continually to the far and silent groves whither, so the shepherds said, Pan was most wont to resort.

It chanced one day that Syrinx had wandered farther than was her wont; she had been in the woods since daybreak, and now it was high noon.

She was tired and hot, and lay down to rest on a bank beneath a tall ash tree that was all covered with ivy, and resting there she soon fell fast asleep. While she slept the wild things of the woods came to look upon her with wonder. A doe that was pa.s.sing with her fawn stood for a moment gazing mildly upon the maiden, and the fawn stooped and licked her fingers, but at the touch Syrinx stirred in her sleep and both doe and fawn bounded away among the bushes. A little squirrel dropped lightly from a tree and sat up close beside her, his tail curled jauntily over his back, his bright eyes fixed upon her face.

The little furry rabbits first peeped at her out of their holes, and then growing bolder came quite close and sat with their soft paws tucked down and their ears c.o.c.ked very stiffly, listening to her quiet breathing. And last of all, stepping noiselessly over the gra.s.s, came the lord of all the wild things, the great G.o.d Pan himself.

His legs and feet were like those of a goat, so that he could move more quickly and lightly than the wild gazelle, and his ears were long and pointed--ears like those of a squirrel, so that he could hear the stirring of a nestling not yet out of its egg. Softly he drew nigh to the maiden, and there was a wicked smile in his bright dark eyes. But as he bent to look into her face she stirred, and he leapt lightly back and sat himself down a little s.p.a.ce from her, leaning on his arm among the brushwood till he was half hidden from her. Beside him lay a great bough torn from the tree by some winter storm; Pan drew this to him and began to cut from it a piece of wood whereof to fashion a dainty little drinking-cup. And lying there, cutting at the wood, Pan began to whistle low and sweetly to himself, just as though he had been some shepherd or huntsman resting in the shade.

At first the soft notes made for the half-awakened maiden a dream of singing birds and rippling water; then her drowsy eyes unclosed and she became aware of a bearded face turned half away from her and bent over some sort of work. For a time she lay still, and Pan forebore to glance at her, but cut away at the piece of wood he was fashioning, and whistled to himself as though he had not marked the maiden.

Presently, broad awake, Syrinx raised herself upon her elbow and gazed full upon the stranger, who glanced round at her in a careless, friendly way, and nodded to her with a kindly smile.

"Thou hast slept well, fair maiden," said Pan, in a low, gentle voice, that sounded like the far-off murmur of a winter torrent.

And Syrinx, rea.s.sured by the gleam of the merry dark eyes, made answer: "Yea, fair sir, for I had wandered far, and was aweary."

"How hast thou dared to wander so far from the haunts of men?" asked the sylvan G.o.d, "Art thou not afeard of all that might meet thee here in the deep forest?"

"I fear none of the wild things of the wood," answered Syrinx simply, "for none has ever done me hurt. If thou art, as I judge thee, a hunter, thou knowest that it is through fear alone that the beasts of the forest do harm to man. But I move ever quietly among them, and do not startle them, and they go on their ways and leave me in peace."

"Thou art pa.s.sing wise," said Pan; "there are few indeed of thy years who have attained to thy knowledge. When a man perceives a rustling in the brushwood he flings his spear at the place; while women, for the most part, scream and flee. But the fearless may walk quiet and unharmed through the depths of the forest."

"There is one fear in my heart, kind stranger," said Syrinx earnestly.

"There be shepherds who say that in these forest paths they have seen and spoken with the great G.o.d Pan himself. But some say that it is death to see him, and all say that men run mad at the sound of his shout. How thinkest thou? Hast thou ever caught a glimpse of him?"

There was a merry twinkle in those dancing eyes as the stranger made answer: "Nay, maiden, I have never seen him of whom thou speakest; but cast away thy last fear, for sure I am that the sight of him is not death to any living thing. He loves and cares for all that hath life; and as for his shout, that is only heard in battle, for he never cries aloud save in wrath, and then indeed it brings confusion to his enemies or to those who withstand him, but to his friends it brings courage and triumph."