Half A Hundred Hero Tales Part 2

ARETHUSA

BY V. C. TURNBULL

Lord of all waters was Ocea.n.u.s, the ancient t.i.tan G.o.d, whose beard, like a foaming cataract, swept to his girdle. Many fair daughters had he, of whom poets sing, yet the fairest of all was the nymph Arethusa.

She had not lacked for wooers, but she shunned the haunts of men and abode on the Acroceraunian heights whence she had sprung, or when she descended to the plain hid herself in tangled bushes and overhanging alders. She loved the quiet woodland ways, and had vowed herself to the chaste huntress Diana, and in her train loved to fleet through the woods and over the plains of Achaia, chasing the flying deer.

Now it happened one day that Arethusa, wearied with hunting and with the great heat, wandered alone among the woods and meadows, seeking a place of rest. Presently she heard the ripple of waters, and soon she came to a river flowing between straight poplars and h.o.a.ry willows.

Swiftly and quietly it ran, making no eddies, and so pure were its waters that she could count the pebbles lying in its deep bed like jewels in an open casket.

Joyfully then the tired maiden unbound her sandals, and, sitting down upon the bank, dipped her white feet in the cool water. For a while she sat there undisturbed, and idly watched the growing ripples as she dabbled in the stream. But while she thus rested and played, a strange commotion drew her eyes to the middle of the stream, and a fear fell upon her, for she knew that it could be none other than Alpheus, the G.o.d of that river. Quickly she sprang to her feet, and while yet she stood trembling and irresolute, a hollow voice cried to her from mid-stream. And (oh marvel!) the voice was not terrible like that of a G.o.d, but tender and full of pleading love.

"Whither dost thou hasten, Arethusa?" it said. And again: "Whither dost thou hasten?"

But Arethusa, a maiden who cared nothing for love, would be wooed by neither G.o.d nor man.

Swiftly she fled from the enchanted spot, even before the young river-G.o.d had sprung from the stream with love and longing in his eyes. And now began that long chase of which the end was even stranger than the beginning. Arethusa, weary no longer, darted like a fawn from the river, and Alpheus, more ardent still as the maid was coy, swiftly followed her flying steps. Through woods and meadows, over hills and across valleys--yes, and past more than one city, fled pursuer and pursued. But now, as the day drew towards sunsetting, Arethusa's strong limbs wearied, her strength flagged, and her pace slackened, and in her sick heart she knew how vain a thing it is for a mortal to strive against a G.o.d. For no weariness weighed down the feet of Alpheus; straight and swift he ran as his own river. Now so near was he to the maiden that his long shadow fell across her feet; but no faster could she go, for the sun smote fiercely upon her, and her strength was failing. Louder and louder sounded the footsteps of the G.o.d. Now she could feel his hard breathing in her long hair; was there no escape? With her last strength she cried to her sovereign mistress: "Help, O Huntress, thy huntress maiden! Aid her who so often carried thy bow and thine arrows in the chase!"

And the G.o.ddess answered her votary.

For at once Arethusa was wrapped in a dense cloud, so dense indeed that even the burning eyes of her pursuer could not pierce it. There, then, she crouched, like a hare on its form, while outside she heard the footsteps of Alpheus pacing round her hiding-place, searching and baffled. But he, having come so near his prize, would not now give it up, and she knew that he would watch the cloud till she came forth. At the thought, beads of sweat gathered on her forehead and ran down to her feet. Faster and faster it poured; she was as ice that melts in the sun; and she realized with joy that the G.o.ddess was opening for her another way of escape. All her weariness and terror slid from her straightway; her tired limbs melted into a liquid ease, and it was no maiden but a laughing stream that shot from under the cloud and fled singing towards the western sea.

But Alpheus, noting the guile of the G.o.ddess, laughed aloud, for could he not at will become even as his own river? He changed even as he conceived the thought; and now the chase began once more, only this time river pursued stream, leaping from crag to crag, and rushing across wide wastes of marshy country.

And again Arethusa, finding herself in straits, cried aloud to her sovereign mistress Diana. And, behold, in answer to her prayer, the earth was suddenly rent asunder and a vast black chasm yawned in her path. Into it she plunged, and down, down, down she fell. And into it in pursuit plunged also Alpheus, who loved her so well that he was ready to follow her to the depths of the earth.

The darkness pa.s.sed, and overhead was a beautiful green light, and on all sides a profound and solemn silence. Arethusa had left the land behind, and was pushing across the floor of the ocean. And behind her came the waters of Alpheus. Then into the maiden heart, which as yet had known not love, came something better than fear. From the lover who could follow her even hither why should she fly? On he came, undeterred and unpolluted by the brackish sea, his waters as fresh and pure as when they had first run laughing through the sunlit meadows of Arcadia.... Arethusa sought no more to fly. Love had conquered--Love, the lord of G.o.ds and men, who mocks at maidens' vows and melts the coldest breast. So there, amid the alien waters of the sea, the two met in loving embrace, never again to part. And after this the G.o.ds brought them once again to the light of the sun. For, finding at length a way of escape through a fissure of the rocks, they rushed forth as that Arethusan Fount which springs up in the Sicilian island of Ortygia.

"And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one dale where the morning basks Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks.

At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill; At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of Asphodel; And at night they sleep In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian sh.o.r.e;-- Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more."

Sh.e.l.lEY

THE STORY OF DAPHNE

BY M. M. BIRD

Phoebus Apollo, the Sun-G.o.d, a hunter unmatched in the chase, had slain the awful Python with his shafts. To commemorate such a doughty deed, he inst.i.tuted the Pythian Games wherein n.o.ble youths should strive for mastery. The prize was a simple green wreath, the symbol of victory. The laurel was not yet the leaf dedicated to the wreaths the G.o.ds bestowed upon the happy victors, but every kind of green was worn with promiscuous grace upon the flowing locks of Phoebus.

Flushed with pride in his new success against the Python, Phoebus saw Cupid, Venus' immortal son, bending his bow and aiming his feathered shafts at unwary mortals. A heart once p.r.i.c.ked by one of those tiny darts felt all the bitter-sweet of love, and never recovered from the wound. Him Phoebus taunted. "Are such as these fit weapons for chits?"

he cried. "Know that such archery is my proper business. My shafts fly resistless. See how the Python has met his just doom at my hands. Take up thy torch, and, with that only, singe the feeble souls of lovers."

Cupid returned him answer that though on all beside Apollo's shafts might be resistless, to Cupid would justly be the fame when he himself was conquered. The mischievous boy flew away to the heights of Parna.s.sus, and thence winged one of his sharpest arrows against the breast of the bold deity. Another and different shaft he took, blunt and tipped with lead, and this he aimed at the heart of a certain nymph of surpa.s.sing fairness, a shaft designed to provoke disdain of love in her chaste bosom. Her name was Daphne, the young daughter of Peneus. She was a follower of Diana, the divine huntress. All her days she spent in the woods among the wild creatures, or scoured the open plains with swift feet. All her love was given to the free life of the forest: she roamed in fearless pursuit of beasts of prey, her quiver at her side, her bow in hand, her lovely hair bound in many a fillet about her head. Her father often blamed her. "Thou owest it," he said, "to thyself and me to take a husband."

But she, casting her young arms about his neck, begged him to leave her free to pursue the life she loved, and not set the yoke of marriage on her unwilling shoulders. "No more I beg of thee," she said, "than Diana's fond parent granted her."

Her soft-hearted father consented to respect her whim, but warned her that she would soon rue her unnatural wish.

As Daphne was one day hunting in the forest, Apollo perceived her. The arrow winged by Cupid had not failed of its effect, and the poison of love ran like fever through his veins. He saw the polished argent of her bared shoulder; he saw the disheveled hair that the wind had loosened from its snood; he saw the eyes, limpid and innocent as a fawn's, the beauty and speed of her feet as she fled down the forest glade, her taper fingers as they fitted an arrow to the bow-string. He saw and burned.

Swift as the wind the startled damsel had fled as she espied him, nor when he overtook her would she stay to hearken to his flattering words.

"Stay, nymph!" he cried. "It is no foe who follows you. Why should you flee as the trembling doe from the lion, the lamb from the hungry wolf, the dove from the pursuing falcon? It is a G.o.d who loves and follows. It is a G.o.d you flee from, a G.o.d who loves, and will not be denied."

Still she fled and still he followed; he the loving, she the loath, he pleading and she deaf to his prayers. As a hare doubles to elude the greyhound that is gaining on her, the flying maid turned back and sought thus to elude her pursuer. In vain she strove against a G.o.d.

Terror winged her feet, but there is no escape from Love. He gained ground upon her, and now she felt his hot breath on her hair; his arm was just outstretched to clasp her.

The nymph grew pale with mortal terror. Spent with her long, hard race for freedom, she cast a despairing look around her. No help was to be seen, but near by ran the waters of a little brook. "Oh, help!" she cried, "if water G.o.ds are deities indeed. Earth, I adjure you, gape and entomb this unhappy wretch; or change my form, the cause of all my fear!"

The kind earth heard her frenzied prayer. The frightened nymph found her feet benumbed with cold and rooted to the ground. As Apollo's arms were flung about her a filmy rind grew over her body, her outflung arms were changed to leafy boughs, her hair, her fingers, all were turned to shuddering leaves; only the smoothness of her skin remained.

"G.o.ds and men, we are all deluded thus!" For a maiden he clasped a laurel tree, and his hot lips were pressed upon the cold and senseless bark.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STORY OF DAPHNE]

Yet Apollo is a gracious G.o.d, and presently, when his pa.s.sion had cooled, he repented him of his mad pursuit and its desperate ending.

The idea of the coy maiden, roaming the forest fancy-free, crept into his imagination, more delicate and lovely than when she lived in deed.

So he vowed that the laurel should be his peculiar tree. Her leaves should be bound for poet's brow, should crown the victor in the chariot race, and the conqueror as he marched in the great triumph.

Secure from thunder should she stand, unfading as the immortal G.o.ds; and as the locks of Apollo are unshorn, her boughs should be decked in perpetual green through all the changing seasons.

And the grateful tree could only bend her fair boughs above him and wave the leafy burden of her head.

DEUCALION AND PYRRHA

BY M. M. BIRD

To the golden age of innocence, when the world was young and men a race of happy children, succeeded an age of silver, and then an age of bra.s.s. Last came an age of iron, when every man's hand was against his neighbor, and Justice fled affrighted to the sky. Then the sons of earth, the giants, no longer curbed by law or fear of the G.o.ds, waxed bold and wanton. Piling mountain upon mountain they essayed to scale the heavens and hurl its monarch from his throne. These Jupiter blasted with his red lightnings and transfixed with his winged bolts.

But from their blood, as from seed that the sower scatters, there arose a race of men, a feeble folk, but no less G.o.dless and lawless than their sires. Then Jupiter, beholding the ways of men that they were evil and that none was righteous in his eyes, determined to destroy this world and people it with a new race unlike the first. He was minded at first to destroy it by fire, and made ready his artillery of thunderbolts, but then he bethought him that the vast conflagration might blaze up to heaven itself and scorch the G.o.ds on their golden thrones. So he dropped the bolts from his hand.

"Water," he cried, "as my poet has sung 'is the best of all elements'; by water I will drown the world."

First he bound the North Wind that freezes floods by its icy breath, then loosed the South Wind that brings fog and darkness and horror on its wings. From his beard and eyebrows he rained showers, from his robe and mantle the unceasing floods streamed down and wreathing mists encircled his frowning brow.

He swept above the earth, wringing the waters from the high clouds, while peal on peal of thunder rolled about him.