Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

THE HEROES,
or
GREEK FAIRY TALES

FOR MY CHILDREN

by
CHARLES KINGSLEY

illustrated

london:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
and new york
1889

The right of translation if
reserved

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

to
MY CHILDREN

ROSE, MAURICE, AND MARY

a little
present
of old greek fairy tales

PREFACE

My Dear Children,

Some of you have heard already of the old Greeks; and all of
you, as you grow up, will hear more and more of them.  Those
of you who are boys will, perhaps, spend a great deal of time in
reading Greek books; and the girls, though they may not learn
Greek, will be sure to come across a great many stories taken
from Greek history, and to see, I may say every day, things which
we should not have had if it had not been for these old
Greeks.  You can hardly find a well-written book which has
not in it Greek names, and words, and proverbs; you cannot walk
through a great town without passing Greek buildings; you cannot
go into a well-furnished room without seeing Greek statues and
ornaments, even Greek patterns of furniture and paper; so
strangely have these old Greeks left their mark behind them upon
this modern world in which we now live.  And as you grow up,
and read more and more, you will find that we owe to these old
Greeks the beginners of all our mathematics and
geometry—that is, the science and knowledge of numbers, and
of the shapes of things, and of the forces which make things move
and stand at rest; and the beginnings of our geography and
astronomy; and of our laws, and freedom, and politics—that
is, the science of how to rule a country, and make it peaceful
and strong.  And we owe to them, too, the beginning of our
logic—that is, the study of words and of reasoning; and of
our metaphysics—that is, the study of our own thoughts and
souls.  And last of all, they made their language so
beautiful that foreigners used to take to it instead of their
own; and at last Greek became the common language of educated
people all over the old world, from Persia and Egypt even to
Spain and Britain.  And therefore it was that the New
Testament was written in Greek, that it might be read and
understood by all the nations of the Roman empire; so that, next
to the Jews, and the Bible which the Jews handed down to us, we
owe more to these old Greeks than to any people upon earth.

Now you must remember one thing—that
‘Greeks’ was not their real name.  They called
themselves always ‘Hellens,’ but the Romans miscalled
them Greeks; and we have taken that wrong name from the
Romans—it would take a long time to tell you why. 
They were made up of many tribes and many small separate states;
and when you hear in this book of Minuai, and Athenians, and
other such names, you must remember that they were all different
tribes and peoples of the one great Hellen race, who lived in
what we now call Greece, in the islands of the Archipelago, and
along the coast of Asia Minor (Ionia, as they call it), from the
Hellespont to Rhodes, and had afterwards colonies and cities in
Sicily, and South Italy (which was called Great Greece), and
along the shores of the Black Sea at Sinope, and Kertch, and at
Sevastopol.  And after that, again, they spread under
Alexander the Great, and conquered Egypt, and Syria, and Persia,
and the whole East.  But that was many hundred years after
my stories; for then there were no Greeks on the Black Sea
shores, nor in Sicily, or Italy, or anywhere but in Greece and in
Ionia.  And if you are puzzled by the names of places in
this book, you must take the maps and find them out.  It
will be a pleasanter way of learning geography than out of a dull
lesson-book.

Now, I love these old Hellens heartily; and I should be very
ungrateful to them if I did not, considering all that they have
taught me; and they seem to me like brothers, though they have
all been dead and gone many hundred years ago.  So as you
must learn about them, whether you choose or not, I wish to be
the first to introduce you to them, and to say, ‘Come
hither, children, at this blessed Christmas time, when all
God’s creatures should rejoice together, and bless Him who
redeemed them all.  Come and see old friends of mine, whom I
knew long ere you were born.  They are come to visit us at
Christmas, out of the world where all live to God; and to tell
you some of their old fairy tales, which they loved when they
were young like you.’

For nations begin at first by being children like you, though
they are made up of grown men.  They are children at first
like you—men and women with children’s hearts; frank,
and affectionate, and full of trust, and teachable, and loving to
see and learn all the wonders round them; and greedy also, too
often, and passionate and silly, as children are.

Thus these old Greeks were teachable, and learnt from all the
nations round.  From the Phoenicians they learnt
shipbuilding, and some say letters beside; and from the Assyrians
they learnt painting, and carving, and building in wood and
stone; and from the Egyptians they learnt astronomy, and many
things which you would not understand.  In this they were
like our own forefathers the Northmen, of whom you love to hear,
who, though they were wild and rough themselves, were humble, and
glad to learn from every one.  Therefore God rewarded these
Greeks, as He rewarded our forefathers, and made them wiser than
the people who taught them in everything they learnt; for He
loves to see men and children open-hearted, and willing to be
taught; and to him who uses what he has got, He gives more and
more day by day.  So these Greeks grew wise and powerful,
and wrote poems which will live till the world’s end, which
you must read for yourselves some day, in English at least, if
not in Greek.  And they learnt to carve statues, and build
temples, which are still among the wonders of the world; and many
another wondrous thing God taught them, for which we are the
wiser this day.

For you must not fancy, children, that because these old
Greeks were heathens, therefore God did not care for them, and
taught them nothing.

The Bible tells us that it was not so, but that God’s
mercy is over all His works, and that He understands the hearts
of all people, and fashions all their works.  And St. Paul
told these old Greeks in after times, when they had grown wicked
and fallen low, that they ought to have known better, because
they were God’s offspring, as their own poets had said; and
that the good God had put them where they were, to seek the Lord,
and feel after Him, and find Him, though He was not far from any
one of them.  And Clement of Alexandria, a great Father of
the Church, who was as wise as he was good, said that God had
sent down Philosophy to the Greeks from heaven, as He sent down
the Gospel to the Jews.

For Jesus Christ, remember, is the Light who lights every man
who comes into the world.  And no one can think a right
thought, or feel a right feeling, or understand the real truth of
anything in earth and heaven, unless the good Lord Jesus teaches
him by His Spirit, which gives man understanding.

But these Greeks, as St. Paul told them, forgot what God had
taught them, and, though they were God’s offspring,
worshipped idols of wood and stone, and fell at last into sin and
shame, and then, of course, into cowardice and slavery, till they
perished out of that beautiful land which God had given them for
so many years.

For, like all nations who have left anything behind them,
beside mere mounds of earth, they believed at first in the One
True God who made all heaven and earth. But after a while, like
all other nations, they began to worship other gods, or rather
angels and spirits, who (so they fancied) lived about their
land.  Zeus, the Father of gods and men (who was some dim
remembrance of the blessed true God), and Hera his wife, and
Phoebus Apollo the Sun-god, and Pallas Athené who taught
men wisdom and useful arts, and Aphrodite the Queen of Beauty,
and Poseidon the Ruler of the Sea, and Hephaistos the King of the
Fire, who taught men to work in metals.  And they honoured
the Gods of the Rivers, and the Nymph-maids, who they fancied
lived in the caves, and the fountains, and the glens of the
forest, and all beautiful wild places.  And they honoured
the Erinnues, the dreadful sisters, who, they thought, haunted
guilty men until their sins were purged away.  And many
other dreams they had, which parted the One God into many; and
they said, too, that these gods did things which would be a shame
and sin for any man to do.  And when their philosophers
arose, and told them that God was One, they would not listen, but
loved their idols, and their wicked idol feasts, till they all
came to ruin.  But we will talk of such sad things no
more.

But, at the time of which this little book speaks, they had
not fallen as low as that.  They worshipped no idols, as far
as I can find; and they still believed in the last six of the ten
commandments, and knew well what was right and what was
wrong.  And they believed (and that was what gave them
courage) that the gods loved men, and taught them, and that
without the gods men were sure to come to ruin.  And in that
they were right enough, as we know—more right even than
they thought; for without God we can do nothing, and all wisdom
comes from Him.

Now, you must not think of them in this book as learned men,
living in great cities, such as they were afterwards, when they
wrought all their beautiful works, but as country people, living
in farms and walled villages, in a simple, hard-working way; so
that the greatest kings and heroes cooked their own meals, and
thought it no shame, and made their own ships and weapons, and
fed and harnessed their own horses; and the queens worked with
their maid-servants, and did all the business of the house, and
spun, and wove, and embroidered, and made their husbands’
clothes and their own.  So that a man was honoured among
them, not because he happened to be rich, but according to his
skill, and his strength, and courage, and the number of things
which he could do.  For they were but grown-up children,
though they were right noble children too; and it was with them
as it is now at school—the strongest and cleverest boy,
though he be poor, leads all the rest.

Now, while they were young and simple they loved fairy tales,
as you do now.  All nations do so when they are young: our
old forefathers did, and called their stories
‘Sagas.’  I will read you some of them some
day—some of the Eddas, and the Voluspà, and Beowulf,
and the noble old Romances.  The old Arabs, again, had their
tales, which we now call the ‘Arabian Nights.’ 
The old Romans had theirs, and they called them
‘Fabulæ,’ from which our word
‘fable’ comes; but the old Hellens called theirs
‘Muthoi,’ from which our new word ‘myth’
is taken.  But next to those old Romances, which were
written in the Christian middle age, there are no fairy tales
like these old Greek ones, for beauty, and wisdom, and truth, and
for making children love noble deeds, and trust in God to help
them through.

Now, why have I called this book ‘The
Heroes’?  Because that was the name which the Hellens
gave to men who were brave and skilful, and dare do more than
other men.  At first, I think, that was all it meant: but
after a time it came to mean something more; it came to mean men
who helped their country; men in those old times, when the
country was half-wild, who killed fierce beasts and evil men, and
drained swamps, and founded towns, and therefore after they were
dead, were honoured, because they had left their country better
than they found it.  And we call such a man a hero in
English to this day, and call it a ‘heroic’ thing to
suffer pain and grief, that we may do good to our
fellow-men.  We may all do that, my children, boys and girls
alike; and we ought to do it, for it is easier now than ever, and
safer, and the path more clear.  But you shall hear how the
Hellens said their heroes worked, three thousand years ago. 
The stories are not all true, of course, nor half of them; you
are not simple enough to fancy that; but the meaning of them is
true, and true for ever, and that is—Do right, and God will
help you.’

Farley Court,
   Advent, 1855.

CONTENTS

[I owe an apology to the few scholars who may happen to read
this hasty jeu d’esprit, for the inconsistent method
in which I have spelt Greek names.  The rule which I have
tried to follow has been this: when the word has been hopelessly
Latinised, as ‘Phœbus’ has been, I have left it
as it usually stands; but in other cases I have tried to keep the
plain Greek spelling, except when it would have seemed pedantic,
or when, as in the word ‘Tiphus,’ I should have given
an altogether wrong notion of the sound of the word.  It has
been a choice of difficulties, which has been forced on me by our
strange habit of introducing boys to the Greek myths, not in
their original shape, but in a Roman disguise.]

p.
1STORY I.—PERSEUS

PART I
HOW PERSEUS AND HIS MOTHER CAME TO SERIPHOS

Once upon a time there were two princes who were twins. 
Their names were Acrisius and Prœtus, and they lived in the
pleasant vale of Argos, far away in Hellas.  They had
fruitful meadows and vineyards, sheep and oxen, great herds of
horses feeding down in Lerna Fen, and all that men could need to
make them blest: and yet they were wretched, because they were
jealous of each other.  From the moment they were born they
began to quarrel; and when they grew up each tried to take away
the other’s share of the kingdom, and keep all for
himself.  So first Acrisius drove out Prœtus; and he
went across the seas, and brought home a foreign princess for his
wife, and foreign warriors to help him, who were called Cyclopes;
and drove out Acrisius in his turn; and then they fought a long
while up and down the land, till the quarrel was settled, and
Acrisius took Argos and one half the land, and Prœtus took
Tiryns and the other half.  And Prœtus and his
Cyclopes built around Tiryns great walls of unhewn stone, which
are standing to this day.

But there came a prophet to that hard-hearted Acrisius and
prophesied against him, and said, ‘Because you have risen
up against your own blood, your own blood shall rise up against
you; because you have sinned against your kindred, by your
kindred you shall be punished.  Your daughter Danae shall
bear a son, and by that son’s hands you shall die.  So
the Gods have ordained, and it will surely come to
pass.’

And at that Acrisius was very much afraid; but he did not mend
his ways.  He had been cruel to his own family, and, instead
of repenting and being kind to them, he went on to be more cruel
than ever: for he shut up his fair daughter Danae in a cavern
underground, lined with brass, that no one might come near
her.  So he fancied himself more cunning than the Gods: but
you will see presently whether he was able to escape them.

Now it came to pass that in time Danae bore a son; so
beautiful a babe that any but King Acrisius would have had pity
on it.  But he had no pity; for he took Danae and her babe
down to the seashore, and put them into a great chest and thrust
them out to sea, for the winds and the waves to carry them
whithersoever they would.

The north-west wind blew freshly out of the blue mountains,
and down the pleasant vale of Argos, and away and out to
sea.  And away and out to sea before it floated the mother
and her babe, while all who watched them wept, save that cruel
father, King Acrisius.

So they floated on and on, and the chest danced up and down
upon the billows, and the baby slept upon its mother’s
breast: but the poor mother could not sleep, but watched and
wept, and she sang to her baby as they floated; and the song
which she sang you shall learn yourselves some day.

And now they are past the last blue headland, and in the open
sea; and there is nothing round them but the waves, and the sky,
and the wind.  But the waves are gentle, and the sky is
clear, and the breeze is tender and low; for these are the days
when Halcyone and Ceyx build their nests, and no storms ever
ruffle the pleasant summer sea.

And who were Halcyone and Ceyx?  You shall hear while the
chest floats on.  Halcyone was a fairy maiden, the daughter
of the beach and of the wind.  And she loved a sailor-boy,
and married him; and none on earth were so happy as they. 
But at last Ceyx was wrecked; and before he could swim to the
shore the billows swallowed him up.  And Halcyone saw him
drowning, and leapt into the sea to him; but in vain.  Then
the Immortals took pity on them both, and changed them into two
fair sea-birds; and now they build a floating nest every year,
and sail up and down happily for ever upon the pleasant seas of
Greece.

So a night passed, and a day, and a long day it was for Danae;
and another night and day beside, till Danae was faint with
hunger and weeping, and yet no land appeared.  And all the
while the babe slept quietly; and at last poor Danae drooped her
head and fell asleep likewise with her cheek against the
babe’s.

After a while she was awakened suddenly; for the chest was
jarring and grinding, and the air was full of sound.  She
looked up, and over her head were mighty cliffs, all red in the
setting sun, and around her rocks and breakers, and flying flakes
of foam.  She clasped her hands together, and shrieked aloud
for help.  And when she cried, help met her: for now there
came over the rocks a tall and stately man, and looked down
wondering upon poor Danae tossing about in the chest among the
waves.

He wore a rough cloak of frieze, and on his head a broad hat
to shade his face; in his hand he carried a trident for spearing
fish, and over his shoulder was a casting-net; but Danae could
see that he was no common man by his stature, and his walk, and
his flowing golden hair and beard; and by the two servants who
came behind him, carrying baskets for his fish.  But she had
hardly time to look at him, before he had laid aside his trident
and leapt down the rocks, and thrown his casting-net so surely
over Danae and the chest, that he drew it, and her, and the baby,
safe upon a ledge of rock.

Then the fisherman took Danae by the hand, and lifted her out
of the chest, and said—

‘O beautiful damsel, what strange chance has brought you
to this island in so flail a ship?  Who are you, and
whence?  Surely you are some king’s daughter; and this
boy has somewhat more than mortal.’

And as he spoke he pointed to the babe; for its face shone
like the morning star.

But Danae only held down her head, and sobbed out—

‘Tell me to what land I have come, unhappy that I am;
and among what men I have fallen!’

And he said, ‘This isle is called Seriphos, and I am a
Hellen, and dwell in it.  I am the brother of Polydectes the
king; and men call me Dictys the netter, because I catch the fish
of the shore.’

Then Danae fell down at his feet, and embraced his knees, and
cried—

‘Oh, sir, have pity upon a stranger, whom a cruel doom
has driven to your land; and let me live in your house as a
servant; but treat me honourably, for I was once a king’s
daughter, and this my boy (as you have truly said) is of no
common race.  I will not be a charge to you, or eat the
bread of idleness; for I am more skilful in weaving and
embroidery than all the maidens of my land.’

And she was going on; but Dictys stopped her, and raised her
up, and said—

‘My daughter, I am old, and my hairs are growing gray;
while I have no children to make my home cheerful.  Come
with me then, and you shall be a daughter to me and to my wife,
and this babe shall be our grandchild.  For I fear the Gods,
and show hospitality to all strangers; knowing that good deeds,
like evil ones, always return to those who do them.’

So Danae was comforted, and went home with Dictys the good
fisherman, and was a daughter to him and to his wife, till
fifteen years were past.

p.
8PART II
HOW PERSEUS VOWED A RASH VOW

Fifteen years were past and gone, and the babe was now grown
to be a tall lad and a sailor, and went many voyages after
merchandise to the islands round.  His mother called him
Perseus; but all the people in Seriphos said that he was not the
son of mortal man, and called him the son of Zeus, the king of
the Immortals.  For though he was but fifteen, he was taller
by a head than any man in the island; and he was the most skilful
of all in running and wrestling and boxing, and in throwing the
quoit and the javelin, and in rowing with the oar, and in playing
on the harp, and in all which befits a man.  And he was
brave and truthful, gentle and courteous, for good old Dictys had
trained him well; and well it was for Perseus that he had done
so.  For now Danae and her son fell into great danger, and
Perseus had need of all his wit to defend his mother and
himself.

I said that Dictys’ brother was Polydectes, king of the
island.  He was not a righteous man, like Dictys; but
greedy, and cunning, and cruel.  And when he saw fair Danae,
he wanted to marry her.  But she would not; for she did not
love him, and cared for no one but her boy, and her boy’s
father, whom she never hoped to see again.  At last
Polydectes became furious; and while Perseus was away at sea he
took poor Danae away from Dictys, saying, ‘If you will not
be my wife, you shall be my slave.’  So Danae was made
a slave, and had to fetch water from the well, and grind in the
mill, and perhaps was beaten, and wore a heavy chain, because she
would not marry that cruel king.  But Perseus was far away
over the seas in the isle of Samos, little thinking how his
mother was languishing in grief.

Now one day at Samos, while the ship was lading, Perseus
wandered into a pleasant wood to get out of the sun, and sat down
on the turf and fell asleep.  And as he slept a strange
dream came to him—the strangest dream which he had ever had
in his life.

There came a lady to him through the wood, taller than he, or
any mortal man; but beautiful exceedingly, with great gray eyes,
clear and piercing, but strangely soft and mild.  On her
head was a helmet, and in her hand a spear.  And over her
shoulder, above her long blue robes, hung a goat-skin, which bore
up a mighty shield of brass, polished like a mirror.  She
stood and looked at him with her clear gray eyes; and Perseus saw
that her eye-lids never moved, nor her eyeballs, but looked
straight through and through him, and into his very heart, as if
she could see all the secrets of his soul, and knew all that he
had ever thought or longed for since the day that he was
born.  And Perseus dropped his eyes, trembling and blushing,
as the wonderful lady spoke.

‘Perseus, you must do an errand for me.’

‘Who are you, lady?  And how do you know my
name?’

‘I am Pallas Athené; and I know the thoughts of
all men’s hearts, and discern their manhood or their
baseness.  And from the souls of clay I turn away, and they
are blest, but not by me.  They fatten at ease, like sheep
in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the
stall.  They grow and spread, like the gourd along the
ground; but, like the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller,
and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down
unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of the land.

‘But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those
who are manful I give a might more than man’s.  These
are the heroes, the sons of the Immortals, who are blest, but not
like the souls of clay.  For I drive them forth by strange
paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the monsters,
the enemies of Gods and men.  Through doubt and need, danger
and battle, I drive them; and some of them are slain in the
flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win
noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their
latter end I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of Gods
and men.  Tell me now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of
men seem to you more blest?’

Then Perseus answered boldly: ‘Better to die in the
flower of youth, on the chance of winning a noble name, than to
live at ease like the sheep, and die unloved and
unrenowned.’

Then that strange lady laughed, and held up her brazen shield,
and cried: ‘See here, Perseus; dare you face such a monster
as this, and slay it, that I may place its head upon this
shield?’

And in the mirror of the shield there appeared a face, and as
Perseus looked on it his blood ran cold.  It was the face of
a beautiful woman; but her cheeks were pale as death, and her
brows were knit with everlasting pain, and her lips were thin and
bitter like a snake’s; and instead of hair, vipers wreathed
about her temples, and shot out their forked tongues; while round
her head were folded wings like an eagle’s, and upon her
bosom claws of brass.

And Perseus looked awhile, and then said: ‘If there is
anything so fierce and foul on earth, it were a noble deed to
kill it.  Where can I find the monster?’

Then the strange lady smiled again, and said: ‘Not yet;
you are too young, and too unskilled; for this is Medusa the
Gorgon, the mother of a monstrous brood.  Return to your
home, and do the work which waits there for you.  You must
play the man in that before I can think you worthy to go in
search of the Gorgon.’

Then Perseus would have spoken, but the strange lady vanished,
and he awoke; and behold, it was a dream.  But day and night
Perseus saw before him the face of that dreadful woman, with the
vipers writhing round her head.

So he returned home; and when he came to Seriphos, the first
thing which he heard was that his mother was a slave in the house
of Polydectes.

Grinding his teeth with rage, he went out, and away to the
king’s palace, and through the men’s rooms, and the
women’s rooms, and so through all the house (for no one
dared stop him, so terrible and fair was he), till he found his
mother sitting on the floor, turning the stone hand-mill, and
weeping as she turned it.  And he lifted her up, and kissed
her, and bade her follow him forth.  But before they could
pass out of the room Polydectes came in, raging.  And when
Perseus saw him, he flew upon him as the mastiff flies on the
boar.  ‘Villain and tyrant!’ he cried; ‘is
this your respect for the Gods, and thy mercy to strangers and
widows?  You shall die!’  And because he had no
sword he caught up the stone hand-mill, and lifted it to dash out
Polydectes’ brains.

But his mother clung to him, shrieking, ‘Oh, my son, we
are strangers and helpless in the land; and if you kill the king,
all the people will fall on us, and we shall both die.’

Good Dictys, too, who had come in, entreated him. 
‘Remember that he is my brother.  Remember how I have
brought you up, and trained you as my own son, and spare him for
my sake.’

Then Perseus lowered his hand; and Polydectes, who had been
trembling all this while like a coward, because he knew that he
was in the wrong, let Perseus and his mother pass.

Perseus took his mother to the temple of Athené, and
there the priestess made her one of the temple-sweepers; for
there they knew she would be safe, and not even Polydectes would
dare to drag her away from the altar.  And there Perseus,
and the good Dictys, and his wife, came to visit her every day;
while Polydectes, not being able to get what he wanted by force,
cast about in his wicked heart how he might get it by
cunning.

Now he was sure that he could never get back Danae as long as
Perseus was in the island; so he made a plot to rid himself of
him.  And first he pretended to have forgiven Perseus, and
to have forgotten Danae; so that, for a while, all went as
smoothly as ever.

Next he proclaimed a great feast, and invited to it all the
chiefs, and landowners, and the young men of the island, and
among them Perseus, that they might all do him homage as their
king, and eat of his banquet in his hall.

On the appointed day they all came; and as the custom was
then, each guest brought his present with him to the king: one a
horse, another a shawl, or a ring, or a sword; and those who had
nothing better brought a basket of grapes, or of game; but
Perseus brought nothing, for he had nothing to bring, being but a
poor sailor-lad.

He was ashamed, however, to go into the king’s presence
without his gift; and he was too proud to ask Dictys to lend him
one.  So he stood at the door sorrowfully, watching the rich
men go in; and his face grew very red as they pointed at him, and
smiled, and whispered, ‘What has that foundling to
give?’

Now this was what Polydectes wanted; and as soon as he heard
that Perseus stood without, he bade them bring him in, and asked
him scornfully before them all, ‘Am I not your king,
Perseus, and have I not invited you to my feast?  Where is
your present, then?’

Perseus blushed and stammered, while all the proud men round
laughed, and some of them began jeering him openly. 
‘This fellow was thrown ashore here like a piece of weed or
drift-wood, and yet he is too proud to bring a gift to the
king.’

‘And though he does not know who his father is, he is
vain enough to let the old women call him the son of
Zeus.’

And so forth, till poor Perseus grew mad with shame, and
hardly knowing what he said, cried out,—‘A present!
who are you who talk of presents?  See if I do not bring a
nobler one than all of yours together!’

So he said boasting; and yet he felt in his heart that he was
braver than all those scoffers, and more able to do some glorious
deed.

‘Hear him!  Hear the boaster!  What is it to
be?’ cried they all, laughing louder than ever.

Then his dream at Samos came into his mind, and he cried
aloud, ‘The head of the Gorgon.’

He was half afraid after he had said the words for all laughed
louder than ever, and Polydectes loudest of all.

‘You have promised to bring me the Gorgon’s
head?  Then never appear again in this island without
it.  Go!’

Perseus ground his teeth with rage, for he saw that he had
fallen into a trap; but his promise lay upon him, and he went out
without a word.

Down to the cliffs he went, and looked across the broad blue
sea; and he wondered if his dream were true, and prayed in the
bitterness of his soul.

‘Pallas Athené, was my dream true? and shall I
slay the Gorgon?  If thou didst really show me her face, let
me not come to shame as a liar and boastful.  Rashly and
angrily I promised; but cunningly and patiently will I
perform.’

But there was no answer, nor sign; neither thunder nor any
appearance; not even a cloud in the sky.

And three times Perseus called weeping, ‘Rashly and
angrily I promised; but cunningly and patiently will I
perform.’

Then he saw afar off above the sea a small white cloud, as
bright as silver.  And it came on, nearer and nearer, till
its brightness dazzled his eyes.

Perseus wondered at that strange cloud, for there was no other
cloud all round the sky; and he trembled as it touched the cliff
below.  And as it touched, it broke, and parted, and within
it appeared Pallas Athené, as he had seen her at Samos in
his dream, and beside her a young man more light-limbed than the
stag, whose eyes were like sparks of fire.  By his side was
a scimitar of diamond, all of one clear precious stone, and on
his feet were golden sandals, from the heels of which grew living
wings.

They looked upon Perseus keenly, and yet they never moved
their eyes; and they came up the cliffs towards him more swiftly
than the sea-gull, and yet they never moved their feet, nor did
the breeze stir the robes about their limbs; only the wings of
the youth’s sandals quivered, like a hawk’s when he
hangs above the cliff.  And Perseus fell down and
worshipped, for he knew that they were more than man.

But Athené stood before him and spoke gently, and bid
him have no fear.  Then—

‘Perseus,’ she said, ‘he who overcomes in
one trial merits thereby a sharper trial still.  You have
braved Polydectes, and done manfully.  Dare you brave Medusa
the Gorgon?’

And Perseus said, ‘Try me; for since you spoke to me in
Samos a new soul has come into my breast, and I should be ashamed
not to dare anything which I can do.  Show me, then, how I
can do this!’

‘Perseus,’ said Athené, ‘think well
before you attempt; for this deed requires a seven years’
journey, in which you cannot repent or turn back nor escape; but
if your heart fails you, you must die in the Unshapen Land, where
no man will ever find your bones.’

‘Better so than live here, useless and despised,’
said Perseus.  ‘Tell me, then, oh tell me, fair and
wise Goddess, of your great kindness and condescension, how I can
do but this one thing, and then, if need be, die!’

Then Athené smiled and said—

‘Be patient, and listen; for if you forget my words, you
will indeed die.  You must go northward to the country of
the Hyperboreans, who live beyond the pole, at the sources of the
cold north wind, till you find the three Gray Sisters, who have
but one eye and one tooth between them.  You must ask them
the way to the Nymphs, the daughters of the Evening Star, who
dance about the golden tree, in the Atlantic island of the
west.  They will tell you the way to the Gorgon, that you
may slay her, my enemy, the mother of monstrous beasts. 
Once she was a maiden as beautiful as morn, till in her pride she
sinned a sin at which the sun hid his face; and from that day her
hair was turned to vipers, and her hands to eagle’s claws;
and her heart was filled with shame and rage, and her lips with
bitter venom; and her eyes became so terrible that whosoever
looks on them is turned to stone; and her children are the winged
horse and the giant of the golden sword; and her grandchildren
are Echidna the witch-adder, and Geryon the three-headed tyrant,
who feeds his herds beside the herds of hell.  So she became
the sister of the Gorgons, Stheino and Euryte the abhorred, the
daughters of the Queen of the Sea.  Touch them not, for they
are immortal; but bring me only Medusa’s head.’

‘And I will bring it!’ said Perseus; ‘but
how am I to escape her eyes?  Will she not freeze me too
into stone?’

‘You shall take this polished shield,’ said
Athené, ‘and when you come near her look not at her
herself, but at her image in the brass; so you may strike her
safely.  And when you have struck off her head, wrap it,
with your face turned away, in the folds of the goat-skin on
which the shield hangs, the hide of Amaltheié, the nurse
of the Ægis-holder.  So you will bring it safely back
to me, and win to yourself renown, and a place among the heroes
who feast with the Immortals upon the peak where no winds
blow.’

Then Perseus said, ‘I will go, though I die in
going.  But how shall I cross the seas without a ship? 
And who will show me my way?  And when I find her, how shall
I slay her, if her scales be iron and brass?’

Then the young man spoke: ‘These sandals of mine will
bear you across the seas, and over hill and dale like a bird, as
they bear me all day long; for I am Hermes, the far-famed
Argus-slayer, the messenger of the Immortals who dwell on
Olympus.’

Then Perseus fell down and worshipped, while the young man
spoke again:

‘The sandals themselves will guide you on the road, for
they are divine and cannot stray; and this sword itself, the
Argus-slayer, will kill her, for it is divine, and needs no
second stroke.  Arise, and gird them on, and go
forth.’

So Perseus arose, and girded on the sandals and the sword.

And Athené cried, ‘Now leap from the cliff and be
gone.’

But Perseus lingered.

‘May I not bid farewell to my mother and to
Dictys?  And may I not offer burnt-offerings to you, and to
Hermes the far-famed Argus-slayer, and to Father Zeus
above?’

‘You shall not bid farewell to your mother, lest your
heart relent at her weeping.  I will comfort her and Dictys
until you return in peace.  Nor shall you offer
burnt-offerings to the Olympians; for your offering shall be
Medusa’s head.  Leap, and trust in the armour of the
Immortals.’

Then Perseus looked down the cliff and shuddered; but he was
ashamed to show his dread.  Then he thought of Medusa and
the renown before him, and he leaped into the empty air.

And behold, instead of falling he floated, and stood, and ran
along the sky.  He looked back, but Athené had
vanished, and Hermes; and the sandals led him on northward ever,
like a crane who follows the spring toward the Ister fens.

p.
23PART III
HOW PERSEUS SLEW THE GORGON

So Perseus started on his journey, going dry-shod over land
and sea; and his heart was high and joyful, for the winged
sandals bore him each day a seven days’ journey.

And he went by Cythnus, and by Ceos, and the pleasant Cyclades
to Attica; and past Athens and Thebes, and the Copaic lake, and
up the vale of Cephissus, and past the peaks of Œta and
Pindus, and over the rich Thessalian plains, till the sunny hills
of Greece were behind him, and before him were the wilds of the
north.  Then he passed the Thracian mountains, and many a
barbarous tribe, Pæons and Dardans and Triballi, till he
came to the Ister stream, and the dreary Scythian plains. 
And he walked across the Ister dry-shod, and away through the
moors and fens, day and night toward the bleak north-west,
turning neither to the right hand nor the left, till he came to
the Unshapen Land, and the place which has no name.

And seven days he walked through it, on a path which few can
tell; for those who have trodden it like least to speak of it,
and those who go there again in dreams are glad enough when they
awake; till he came to the edge of the everlasting night, where
the air was full of feathers, and the soil was hard with ice; and
there at last he found the three Gray Sisters, by the shore of
the freezing sea, nodding upon a white log of drift-wood, beneath
the cold white winter moon; and they chaunted a low song
together, ‘Why the old times were better than the
new.’

There was no living thing around them, not a fly, not a moss
upon the rocks.  Neither seal nor sea-gull dare come near,
lest the ice should clutch them in its claws.  The surge
broke up in foam, but it fell again in flakes of snow; and it
frosted the hair of the three Gray Sisters, and the bones in the
ice-cliff above their heads.  They passed the eye from one
to the other, but for all that they could not see; and they
passed the tooth from one to the other, but for all that they
could not eat; and they sat in the full glare of the moon, but
they were none the warmer for her beams.  And Perseus pitied
the three Gray Sisters; but they did not pity themselves.

So he said, ‘Oh, venerable mothers, wisdom is the
daughter of old age.  You therefore should know many
things.  Tell me, if you can, the path to the
Gorgon.’

Then one cried, ‘Who is this who reproaches us with old
age?’  And another, ‘This is the voice of one of
the children of men.’

And he, ‘I do not reproach, but honour your old age, and
I am one of the sons of men and of the heroes.  The rulers
of Olympus have sent me to you to ask the way to the
Gorgon.’

Then one, ‘There are new rulers in Olympus, and all new
things are bad.’  And another, ‘We hate your
rulers, and the heroes, and all the children of men.  We are
the kindred of the Titans, and the Giants, and the Gorgons, and
the ancient monsters of the deep.’  And another,
‘Who is this rash and insolent man who pushes unbidden into
our world?’  And the first, ‘There never was
such a world as ours, nor will be; if we let him see it, he will
spoil it all.’

Then one cried, ‘Give me the eye, that I may see
him;’ and another, ‘Give me the tooth, that I may
bite him.’  But Perseus, when he saw that they were
foolish and proud, and did not love the children of men, left off
pitying them, and said to himself, ‘Hungry men must needs
be hasty; if I stay making many words here, I shall be
starved.’  Then he stepped close to them, and watched
till they passed the eye from hand to hand.  And as they
groped about between themselves, he held out his own hand gently,
till one of them put the eye into it, fancying that it was the
hand of her sister.  Then he sprang back, and laughed, and
cried—

‘Cruel and proud old women, I have your eye; and I will
throw it into the sea, unless you tell me the path to the Gorgon,
and swear to me that you tell me right.’

Then they wept, and chattered, and scolded; but in vain. 
They were forced to tell the truth, though, when they told it,
Perseus could hardly make out the road.

‘You must go,’ they said, ‘foolish boy, to
the southward, into the ugly glare of the sun, till you come to
Atlas the Giant, who holds the heaven and the earth apart. 
And you must ask his daughters, the Hesperides, who are young and
foolish like yourself.  And now give us back our eye, for we
have forgotten all the rest.’

So Perseus gave them back their eye; but instead of using it,
they nodded and fell fast asleep, and were turned into blocks of
ice, till the tide came up and washed them all away.  And
now they float up and down like icebergs for ever, weeping
whenever they meet the sunshine, and the fruitful summer and the
warm south wind, which fill young hearts with joy.

But Perseus leaped away to the southward, leaving the snow and
the ice behind: past the isle of the Hyperboreans, and the tin
isles, and the long Iberian shore, while the sun rose higher day
by day upon a bright blue summer sea.  And the terns and the
sea-gulls swept laughing round his head, and called to him to
stop and play, and the dolphins gambolled up as he passed, and
offered to carry him on their backs.  And all night long the
sea-nymphs sang sweetly, and the Tritons blew upon their conchs,
as they played round Galatæa their queen, in her car of
pearled shells.  Day by day the sun rose higher, and leaped
more swiftly into the sea at night, and more swiftly out of the
sea at dawn; while Perseus skimmed over the billows like a
sea-gull, and his feet were never wetted; and leapt on from wave
to wave, and his limbs were never weary, till he saw far away a
mighty mountain, all rose-red in the setting sun.  Its feet
were wrapped in forests, and its head in wreaths of cloud; and
Perseus knew that it was Atlas, who holds the heavens and the
earth apart.

He came to the mountain, and leapt on shore, and wandered
upward, among pleasant valleys and waterfalls, and tall trees and
strange ferns and flowers; but there was no smoke rising from any
glen, nor house, nor sign of man.

At last he heard sweet voices singing; and he guessed that he
was come to the garden of the Nymphs, the daughters of the
Evening Star.

They sang like nightingales among the thickets, and Perseus
stopped to hear their song; but the words which they spoke he
could not understand; no, nor no man after him for many a hundred
years.  So he stepped forward and saw them dancing, hand in
hand around the charmed tree, which bent under its golden fruit;
and round the tree-foot was coiled the dragon, old Ladon the
sleepless snake, who lies there for ever, listening to the song
of the maidens, blinking and watching with dry bright eyes.

Then Perseus stopped, not because he feared the dragon, but
because he was bashful before those fair maids; but when they saw
him, they too stopped, and called to him with trembling
voices—

‘Who are you?  Are you Heracles the mighty, who
will come to rob our garden, and carry off our golden
fruit?’  And he answered—

‘I am not Heracles the mighty, and I want none of your
golden fruit.  Tell me, fair Nymphs, the way which leads to
the Gorgon, that I may go on my way and slay her.’

‘Not yet, not yet, fair boy; come dance with us around
the tree in the garden which knows no winter, the home of the
south wind and the sun.  Come hither and play with us
awhile; we have danced alone here for a thousand years, and our
hearts are weary with longing for a playfellow.  So come,
come, come!’

‘I cannot dance with you, fair maidens; for I must do
the errand of the Immortals.  So tell me the way to the
Gorgon, lest I wander and perish in the waves.’

Then they sighed and wept; and answered—‘The
Gorgon! she will freeze you into stone.’

‘It is better to die like a hero than to live like an ox
in a stall.  The Immortals have lent me weapons, and they
will give me wit to use them.’

Then they sighed again and answered, ‘Fair boy, if you
are bent on your own ruin, be it so.  We know not the way to
the Gorgon; but we will ask the giant Atlas, above upon the
mountain peak, the brother of our father, the silver Evening
Star.  He sits aloft and sees across the ocean, and far away
into the Unshapen Land.’

So they went up the mountain to Atlas their uncle, and Perseus
went up with them.  And they found the giant kneeling, as he
held the heavens and the earth apart.

They asked him, and he answered mildly, pointing to the
sea-board with his mighty hand, ‘I can see the Gorgons
lying on an island far away, but this youth can never come near
them, unless he has the hat of darkness, which whosoever wears
cannot be seen.’

Then cried Perseus, ‘Where is that hat, that I may find
it?’

But the giant smiled.  ‘No living mortal can find
that hat, for it lies in the depths of Hades, in the regions of
the dead.  But my nieces are immortal, and they shall fetch
it for you, if you will promise me one thing and keep your
faith.’

Then Perseus promised; and the giant said, ‘When you
come back with the head of Medusa, you shall show me the
beautiful horror, that I may lose my feeling and my breathing,
and become a stone for ever; for it is weary labour for me to
hold the heavens and the earth apart.’

Then Perseus promised, and the eldest of the Nymphs went down,
and into a dark cavern among the cliffs, out of which came smoke
and thunder, for it was one of the mouths of Hell.

And Perseus and the Nymphs sat down seven days, and waited
trembling, till the Nymph came up again; and her face was pale,
and her eyes dazzled with the light, for she had been long in the
dreary darkness; but in her hand was the magic hat.

Then all the Nymphs kissed Perseus, and wept over him a long
while; but he was only impatient to be gone.  And at last
they put the hat upon his head, and he vanished out of their
sight.

But Perseus went on boldly, past many an ugly sight, far away
into the heart of the Unshapen Land, beyond the streams of Ocean,
to the isles where no ship cruises, where is neither night nor
day, where nothing is in its right place, and nothing has a name;
till he heard the rustle of the Gorgons’ wings and saw the
glitter of their brazen talons; and then he knew that it was time
to halt, lest Medusa should freeze him into stone.

He thought awhile with himself, and remembered
Athené’s words.  He rose aloft into the air,
and held the mirror of the shield above his head, and looked up
into it that he might see all that was below him.

And he saw the three Gorgons sleeping as huge as
elephants.  He knew that they could not see him, because the
hat of darkness hid him; and yet he trembled as he sank down near
them, so terrible were those brazen claws.

Two of the Gorgons were foul as swine, and lay sleeping
heavily, as swine sleep, with their mighty wings outspread; but
Medusa tossed to and fro restlessly, and as she tossed Perseus
pitied her, she looked so fair and sad.  Her plumage was
like the rainbow, and her face was like the face of a nymph, only
her eyebrows were knit, and her lips clenched, with everlasting
care and pain; and her long neck gleamed so white in the mirror
that Perseus had not the heart to strike, and said, ‘Ah,
that it had been either of her sisters!’

But as he looked, from among her tresses the vipers’
heads awoke, and peeped up with their bright dry eyes, and showed
their fangs, and hissed; and Medusa, as she tossed, threw back
her wings and showed her brazen claws; and Perseus saw that, for
all her beauty, she was as foul and venomous as the rest.

Then he came down and stepped to her boldly, and looked
steadfastly on his mirror, and struck with Herpé stoutly
once; and he did not need to strike again.

Then he wrapped the head in the goat-skin, turning away his
eyes, and sprang into the air aloft, faster than he ever sprang
before.

For Medusa’s wings and talons rattled as she sank dead
upon the rocks; and her two foul sisters woke, and saw her lying
dead.

Into the air they sprang yelling and looked for him who had
done the deed.  Thrice they swung round and round, like
hawks who beat for a partridge; and thrice they snuffed round and
round, like hounds who draw upon a deer.  At last they
struck upon the scent of the blood, and they checked for a moment
to make sure; and then on they rushed with a fearful howl, while
the wind rattled hoarse in their wings.

On they rushed, sweeping and flapping, like eagles after a
hare; and Perseus’ blood ran cold, for all his courage, as
he saw them come howling on his track; and he cried, ‘Bear
me well now, brave sandals, for the hounds of Death are at my
heels!’

And well the brave sandals bore him, aloft through cloud and
sunshine, across the shoreless sea; and fast followed the hounds
of Death, as the roar of their wings came down the wind. 
But the roar came down fainter and fainter, and the howl of their
voices died away; for the sandals were too swift, even for
Gorgons, and by nightfall they were far behind, two black specks
in the southern sky, till the sun sank and he saw them no
more.

Then he came again to Atlas, and the garden of the Nymphs; and
when the giant heard him coming he groaned, and said,
‘Fulfil thy promise to me.’  Then Perseus held
up to him the Gorgon’s head, and he had rest from all his
toil; for he became a crag of stone, which sleeps for ever far
above the clouds.

Then he thanked the Nymphs, and asked them, ‘By what
road shall I go homeward again, for I wandered far round in
coming hither?’

And they wept and cried, ‘Go home no more, but stay and
play with us, the lonely maidens, who dwell for ever far away
from Gods and men.’

But he refused, and they told him his road, and said,
‘Take with you this magic fruit, which, if you eat once,
you will not hunger for seven days.  For you must go
eastward and eastward ever, over the doleful Lybian shore, which
Poseidon gave to Father Zeus, when he burst open the Bosphorus
and the Hellespont, and drowned the fair Lectonian land. 
And Zeus took that land in exchange, a fair bargain, much bad
ground for a little good, and to this day it lies waste and
desert with shingle, and rock, and sand.’

Then they kissed Perseus, and wept over him, and he leapt down
the mountain, and went on, lessening and lessening like a
sea-gull, away and out to sea.

p.
36PART IV
HOW PERSEUS CAME TO THE ÆTHIOPS

So Perseus flitted onward to the north-east, over many a
league of sea, till he came to the rolling sand-hills and the
dreary Lybian shore.

And he flitted on across the desert: over rock-ledges, and
banks of shingle, and level wastes of sand, and shell-drifts
bleaching in the sunshine, and the skeletons of great
sea-monsters, and dead bones of ancient giants, strewn up and
down upon the old sea-floor.  And as he went the blood-drops
fell to the earth from the Gorgon’s head, and became
poisonous asps and adders, which breed in the desert to this
day.

Over the sands he went,—he never knew how far or how
long, feeding on the fruit which the Nymphs had given him, till
he saw the hills of the Psylli, and the Dwarfs who fought with
cranes.  Their spears were of reeds and rushes, and their
houses of the egg-shells of the cranes; and Perseus laughed, and
went his way to the north-east, hoping all day long to see the
blue Mediterranean sparkling, that he might fly across it to his
home.

But now came down a mighty wind, and swept him back southward
toward the desert.  All day long he strove against it; but
even the winged sandals could not prevail.  So he was forced
to float down the wind all night; and when the morning dawned
there was nothing to be seen, save the same old hateful waste of
sand.

And out of the north the sandstorms rushed upon him, blood-red
pillars and wreaths, blotting out the noonday sun; and Perseus
fled before them, lest he should be choked by the burning
dust.  At last the gale fell calm, and he tried to go
northward again; but again came down the sandstorms, and swept
him back into the waste, and then all was calm and cloudless as
before.  Seven days he strove against the storms, and seven
days he was driven back, till he was spent with thirst and
hunger, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.  Here
and there he fancied that he saw a fair lake, and the sunbeams
shining on the water; but when he came to it it vanished at his
feet, and there was nought but burning sand.  And if he had
not been of the race of the Immortals, he would have perished in
the waste; but his life was strong within him, because it was
more than man’s.

Then he cried to Athené, and said—

‘Oh, fair and pure, if thou hearest me, wilt thou leave
me here to die of drought?  I have brought thee the
Gorgon’s head at thy bidding, and hitherto thou hast
prospered my journey; dost thou desert me at the last?  Else
why will not these immortal sandals prevail, even against the
desert storms?  Shall I never see my mother more, and the
blue ripple round Seriphos, and the sunny hills of
Hellas?’

So he prayed; and after he had prayed there was a great
silence.

The heaven was still above his head, and the sand was still
beneath his feet; and Perseus looked up, but there was nothing
but the blinding sun in the blinding blue; and round him, but
there was nothing but the blinding sand.

And Perseus stood still a while, and waited, and said,
‘Surely I am not here without the will of the Immortals,
for Athené will not lie.  Were not these sandals to
lead me in the right road?  Then the road in which I have
tried to go must be a wrong road.’

Then suddenly his ears were opened, and he heard the sound of
running water.

And at that his heart was lifted up, though he scarcely dare
believe his ears; and weary as he was, he hurried forward, though
he could scarcely stand upright; and within a bowshot of him was
a glen in the sand, and marble rocks, and date-trees, and a lawn
of gay green grass.  And through the lawn a streamlet
sparkled and wandered out beyond the trees, and vanished in the
sand.

The water trickled among the rocks, and a pleasant breeze
rustled in the dry date-branches and Perseus laughed for joy, and
leapt down the cliff, and drank of the cool water, and ate of the
dates, and slept upon the turf, and leapt up and went forward
again: but not toward the north this time; for he said,
‘Surely Athené hath sent me hither, and will not
have me go homeward yet.  What if there be another noble
deed to be done, before I see the sunny hills of
Hellas?’

So he went east, and east for ever, by fresh oases and
fountains, date-palms, and lawns of grass, till he saw before him
a mighty mountain-wall, all rose-red in the setting sun.

Then he towered in the air like an eagle, for his limbs were
strong again; and he flew all night across the mountain till the
day began to dawn, and rosy-fingered Eos came blushing up the
sky.  And then, behold, beneath him was the long green
garden of Egypt and the shining stream of Nile.

And he saw cities walled up to heaven, and temples, and
obelisks, and pyramids, and giant Gods of stone.  And he
came down amid fields of barley, and flax, and millet, and
clambering gourds; and saw the people coming out of the gates of
a great city, and setting to work, each in his place, among the
water-courses, parting the streams among the plants cunningly
with their feet, according to the wisdom of the Egyptians. 
But when they saw him they all stopped their work, and gathered
round him, and cried—

‘Who art thou, fair youth? and what bearest thou beneath
thy goat-skin there?  Surely thou art one of the Immortals;
for thy skin is white like ivory, and ours is red like
clay.  Thy hair is like threads of gold, and ours is black
and curled.  Surely thou art one of the Immortals;’
and they would have worshipped him then and there; but Perseus
said—

‘I am not one of the Immortals; but I am a hero of the
Hellens.  And I have slain the Gorgon in the wilderness, and
bear her head with me.  Give me food, therefore, that I may
go forward and finish my work.’

Then they gave him food, and fruit, and wine; but they would
not let him go.  And when the news came into the city that
the Gorgon was slain, the priests came out to meet him, and the
maidens, with songs and dances, and timbrels and harps; and they
would have brought him to their temple and to their king; but
Perseus put on the hat of darkness, and vanished away out of
their sight.

Therefore the Egyptians looked long for his return, but in
vain, and worshipped him as a hero, and made a statue of him in
Chemmis, which stood for many a hundred years; and they said that
he appeared to them at times, with sandals a cubit long; and that
whenever he appeared the season was fruitful, and the Nile rose
high that year.

Then Perseus went to the eastward, along the Red Sea shore;
and then, because he was afraid to go into the Arabian deserts,
he turned northward once more, and this time no storm hindered
him.

He went past the Isthmus, and Mount Casius, and the vast
Serbonian bog, and up the shore of Palestine, where the
dark-faced Æthiops dwelt.

He flew on past pleasant hills and valleys, like Argos itself,
or Lacedæmon, or the fair Vale of Tempe.  But the
lowlands were all drowned by floods, and the highlands blasted by
fire, and the hills heaved like a babbling cauldron, before the
wrath of King Poseidon, the shaker of the earth.

And Perseus feared to go inland, but flew along the shore
above the sea; and he went on all the day, and the sky was black
with smoke; and he went on all the night, and the sky was red
with flame.

And at the dawn of day he looked toward the cliffs; and at the
water’s edge, under a black rock, he saw a white image
stand.

‘This,’ thought he, ‘must surely be the
statue of some sea-God; I will go near and see what kind of Gods
these barbarians worship.’

So he came near; but when he came, it was no statue, but a
maiden of flesh and blood; for he could see her tresses streaming
in the breeze; and as he came closer still, he could see how she
shrank and shivered when the waves sprinkled her with cold salt
spray.  Her arms were spread above her head, and fastened to
the rock with chains of brass; and her head drooped on her bosom,
either with sleep, or weariness, or grief.  But now and then
she looked up and wailed, and called her mother; yet she did not
see Perseus, for the cap of darkness was on his head.

Full of pity and indignation, Perseus drew near and looked
upon the maid.  Her cheeks were darker than his were, and
her hair was blue-black like a hyacinth; but Perseus thought,
‘I have never seen so beautiful a maiden; no, not in all
our isles.  Surely she is a king’s daughter.  Do
barbarians treat their kings’ daughters thus?  She is
too fair, at least, to have done any wrong I will speak to
her.’

And, lifting the hat from his head, he flashed into her
sight.  She shrieked with terror, and tried to hide her face
with her hair, for she could not with her hands; but Perseus
cried—

‘Do not fear me, fair one; I am a Hellen, and no
barbarian.  What cruel men have bound you?  But first I
will set you free.’

And he tore at the fetters, but they were too strong for him;
while the maiden cried—

‘Touch me not; I am accursed, devoted as a victim to the
sea-Gods.  They will slay you, if you dare to set me
free.’

‘Let them try,’ said Perseus; and drawing,
Herpé from his thigh, he cut through the brass as if it
had been flax.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘you belong to me, and not
to these sea-Gods, whosoever they may be!’  But she
only called the more on her mother.

‘Why call on your mother?  She can be no mother to
have left you here.  If a bird is dropped out of the nest,
it belongs to the man who picks it up.  If a jewel is cast
by the wayside, it is his who dare win it and wear it, as I will
win you and will wear you.  I know now why Pallas
Athené sent me hither.  She sent me to gain a prize
worth all my toil and more.’

And he clasped her in his arms, and cried, ‘Where are
these sea-Gods, cruel and unjust, who doom fair maids to
death?  I carry the weapons of Immortals.  Let them
measure their strength against mine!  But tell me, maiden,
who you are, and what dark fate brought you here.’

And she answered, weeping—

‘I am the daughter of Cepheus, King of Iopa, and my
mother is Cassiopoeia of the beautiful tresses, and they called
me Andromeda, as long as life was mine.  And I stand bound
here, hapless that I am, for the sea-monster’s food, to
atone for my mother’s sin.  For she boasted of me once
that I was fairer than Atergatis, Queen of the Fishes; so she in
her wrath sent the sea-floods, and her brother the Fire King sent
the earthquakes, and wasted all the land, and after the floods a
monster bred of the slime, who devours all living things. 
And now he must devour me, guiltless though I am—me who
never harmed a living thing, nor saw a fish upon the shore but I
gave it life, and threw it back into the sea; for in our land we
eat no fish, for fear of Atergatis their queen.  Yet the
priests say that nothing but my blood can atone for a sin which I
never committed.’

But Perseus laughed, and said, ‘A sea-monster?  I
have fought with worse than him: I would have faced Immortals for
your sake; how much more a beast of the sea?’

Then Andromeda looked up at him, and new hope was kindled in
her breast, so proud and fair did he stand, with one hand round
her, and in the other the glittering sword.  But she only
sighed, and wept the more, and cried—

‘Why will you die, young as you are?  Is there not
death and sorrow enough in the world already?  It is noble
for me to die, that I may save the lives of a whole people; but
you, better than them all, why should I slay you too?  Go
you your way; I must go mine.’

But Perseus cried, ‘Not so; for the Lords of Olympus,
whom I serve, are the friends of the heroes, and help them on to
noble deeds.  Led by them, I slew the Gorgon, the beautiful
horror; and not without them do I come hither, to slay this
monster with that same Gorgon’s head.  Yet hide your
eyes when I leave you, lest the sight of it freeze you too to
stone.’

But the maiden answered nothing, for she could not believe his
words.  And then, suddenly looking up, she pointed to the
sea, and shrieked—

‘There he comes, with the sunrise, as they
promised.  I must die now.  How shall I endure
it?  Oh, go!  Is it not dreadful enough to be torn
piecemeal, without having you to look on?’  And she
tried to thrust him away.

But he said, ‘I go; yet promise me one thing ere I go:
that if I slay this beast you will be my wife, and come back with
me to my kingdom in fruitful Argos, for I am a king’s
heir.  Promise me, and seal it with a kiss.’

Then she lifted up her face, and kissed him; and Perseus
laughed for joy, and flew upward, while Andromeda crouched
trembling on the rock, waiting for what might befall.

On came the great sea-monster, coasting along like a huge
black galley, lazily breasting the ripple, and stopping at times
by creek or headland to watch for the laughter of girls at their
bleaching, or cattle pawing on the sand-hills, or boys bathing on
the beach.  His great sides were fringed with clustering
shells and sea-weeds, and the water gurgled in and out of his
wide jaws, as he rolled along, dripping and glistening in the
beams of the morning sun.

At last he saw Andromeda, and shot forward to take his prey,
while the waves foamed white behind him, and before him the fish
fled leaping.

Then down from the height of the air fell Perseus like a
shooting star; down to the crests of the waves, while Andromeda
hid her face as he shouted; and then there was silence for a
while.

At last she looked up trembling, and saw Perseus springing
toward her; and instead of the monster a long black rock, with
the sea rippling quietly round it.

Who then so proud as Perseus, as he leapt back to the rock,
and lifted his fair Andromeda in his arms, and flew with her to
the cliff-top, as a falcon carries a dove?

Who so proud as Perseus, and who so joyful as all the
Æthiop people?  For they had stood watching the
monster from the cliffs, wailing for the maiden’s
fate.  And already a messenger had gone to Cepheus and
Cassiopoeia, where they sat in sackcloth and ashes on the ground,
in the innermost palace chambers, awaiting their daughter’s
end.  And they came, and all the city with them, to see the
wonder, with songs and with dances, with cymbals and harps, and
received their daughter back again, as one alive from the
dead.

Then Cepheus said, ‘Hero of the Hellens, stay here with
me and be my son-in-law, and I will give you the half of my
kingdom.’

‘I will be your son-in-law,’ said Perseus,
‘but of your kingdom I will have none, for I long after the
pleasant land of Greece, and my mother who waits for me at
home.’

Then Cepheus said, ‘You must not take my daughter away
at once, for she is to us like one alive from the dead. 
Stay with us here a year, and after that you shall return with
honour.’  And Perseus consented; but before he went to
the palace he bade the people bring stones and wood, and built
three altars, one to Athené, and one to Hermes, and one to
Father Zeus, and offered bullocks and rams.

And some said, ‘This is a pious man;’ yet the
priests said, ‘The Sea Queen will be yet more fierce
against us, because her monster is slain.’  But they
were afraid to speak aloud, for they feared the Gorgon’s
head.  So they went up to the palace; and when they came in,
there stood in the hall Phineus, the brother of Cepheus, chafing
like a bear robbed of her whelps, and with him his sons, and his
servants, and many an armed man; and he cried to
Cepheus—

‘You shall not marry your daughter to this stranger, of
whom no one knows even the name.  Was not Andromeda
betrothed to my son?  And now she is safe again, has he not
a right to claim her?’

But Perseus laughed, and answered, ‘If your son is in
want of a bride, let him save a maiden for himself.  As yet
he seems but a helpless bride-groom.  He left this one to
die, and dead she is to him.  I saved her alive, and alive
she is to me, but to no one else.  Ungrateful man! have I
not saved your land, and the lives of your sons and daughters,
and will you requite me thus?  Go, or it will be worse for
you.’  But all the men-at-arms drew their swords, and
rushed on him like wild beasts.

Then he unveiled the Gorgon’s head, and said,
‘This has delivered my bride from one wild beast: it shall
deliver her from many.’  And as he spoke Phineus and
all his men-at-arms stopped short, and stiffened each man as he
stood; and before Perseus had drawn the goat-skin over the face
again, they were all turned into stone.

Then Perseus bade the people bring levers and roll them out;
and what was done with them after that I cannot tell.

So they made a great wedding-feast, which lasted seven whole
days, and who so happy as Perseus and Andromeda?

But on the eighth night Perseus dreamed a dream; and he saw
standing beside him Pallas Athené, as he had seen her in
Seriphos, seven long years before; and she stood and called him
by name, and said—

‘Perseus, you have played the man, and see, you have
your reward.  Know now that the Gods are just, and help him
who helps himself.  Now give me here Herpé the sword,
and the sandals, and the hat of darkness, that I may give them
back to their owners; but the Gorgon’s head you shall keep
a while, for you will need it in your land of Greece.  Then
you shall lay it up in my temple at Seriphos, that I may wear it
on my shield for ever, a terror to the Titans and the monsters,
and the foes of Gods and men.  And as for this land, I have
appeased the sea and the fire, and there shall be no more floods
nor earthquakes.  But let the people build altars to Father
Zeus, and to me, and worship the Immortals, the Lords of heaven
and earth.’

And Perseus rose to give her the sword, and the cap, and the
sandals; but he woke, and his dream vanished away.  And yet
it was not altogether a dream; for the goat-skin with the head
was in its place; but the sword, and the cap, and the sandals
were gone, and Perseus never saw them more.

Then a great awe fell on Perseus; and he went out in the
morning to the people, and told his dream, and bade them build
altars to Zeus, the Father of Gods and men, and to Athené,
who gives wisdom to heroes; and fear no more the earthquakes and
the floods, but sow and build in peace.  And they did so for
a while, and prospered; but after Perseus was gone they forgot
Zeus and Athené, and worshipped again Atergatis the queen,
and the undying fish of the sacred lake, where Deucalion’s
deluge was swallowed up, and they burnt their children before the
Fire King, till Zeus was angry with that foolish people, and
brought a strange nation against them out of Egypt, who fought
against them and wasted them utterly, and dwelt in their cities
for many a hundred years.

p.
53PART V
HOW PERSEUS CAME HOME AGAIN

And when a year was ended Perseus hired Phoenicians from Tyre,
and cut down cedars, and built himself a noble galley; and
painted its cheeks with vermilion, and pitched its sides with
pitch; and in it he put Andromeda, and all her dowry of jewels,
and rich shawls, and spices from the East; and great was the
weeping when they rowed away.  But the remembrance of his
brave deed was left behind; and Andromeda’s rock was shown
at Iopa in Palestine till more than a thousand years were
past.

So Perseus and the Phoenicians rowed to the westward, across
the sea of Crete, till they came to the blue Ægean and the
pleasant Isles of Hellas, and Seriphos, his ancient home.

Then he left his galley on the beach, and went up as of old;
and he embraced his mother, and Dictys his good foster-father,
and they wept over each other a long while, for it was seven
years and more since they had met.

Then Perseus went out, and up to the hall of Polydectes; and
underneath the goat-skin he bore the Gorgon’s head.

And when he came into the hall, Polydectes sat at the
table-head, and all his nobles and landowners on either side,
each according to his rank, feasting on the fish and the
goat’s flesh, and drinking the blood-red wine.  The
harpers harped, and the revellers shouted, and the wine-cups rang
merrily as they passed from hand to hand, and great was the noise
in the hall of Polydectes.

Then Perseus stood upon the threshold, and called to the king
by name.  But none of the guests knew Perseus, for he was
changed by his long journey.  He had gone out a boy, and he
was come home a hero; his eye shone like an eagle’s, and
his beard was like a lion’s beard, and he stood up like a
wild bull in his pride.

But Polydectes the wicked knew him, and hardened his heart
still more; and scornfully he called—

‘Ah, foundling! have you found it more easy to promise
than to fulfil?’

‘Those whom the Gods help fulfil their promises; and
those who despise them, reap as they have sown.  Behold the
Gorgon’s head!’

Then Perseus drew back the goat-skin, and held aloft the
Gorgon’s head.

Pale grew Polydectes and his guests as they looked upon that
dreadful face.  They tried to rise up from their seats: but
from their seats they never rose, but stiffened, each man where
he sat, into a ring of cold gray stones.

Then Perseus turned and left them, and went down to his galley
in the bay; and he gave the kingdom to good Dictys, and sailed
away with his mother and his bride.

And Polydectes and his guests sat still, with the wine-cups
before them on the board, till the rafters crumbled down above
their heads, and the walls behind their backs, and the table
crumbled down between them, and the grass sprung up about their
feet: but Polydectes and his guests sit on the hillside, a ring
of gray stones until this day.

But Perseus rowed westward toward Argos, and landed, and went
up to the town.  And when he came, he found that Acrisius
his grandfather had fled.  For Proetus his wicked brother
had made war against him afresh; and had come across the river
from Tiryns, and conquered Argos, and Acrisius had fled to
Larissa, in the country of the wild Pelasgi.

Then Perseus called the Argives together, and told them who he
was, and all the noble deeds which he had done.  And all the
nobles and the yeomen made him king, for they saw that he had a
royal heart; and they fought with him against Argos, and took it,
and killed Proetus, and made the Cyclopes serve them, and build
them walls round Argos, like the walls which they had built at
Tiryns; and there were great rejoicings in the vale of Argos,
because they had got a king from Father Zeus.

But Perseus’ heart yearned after his grandfather, and he
said, ‘Surely he is my flesh and blood, and he will love me
now that I am come home with honour: I will go and find him, and
bring him home, and we will reign together in peace.’

So Perseus sailed away with his Phoenicians, round Hydrea and
Sunium, past Marathon and the Attic shore, and through Euripus,
and up the long Euboean sea, till he came to the town of Larissa,
where the wild Pelasgi dwelt.

And when he came there, all the people were in the fields, and
there was feasting, and all kinds of games; for Teutamenes their
king wished to honour Acrisius, because he was the king of a
mighty land.

So Perseus did not tell his name, but went up to the games
unknown; for he said, ‘If I carry away the prize in the
games, my grandfather’s heart will be softened toward
me.’

So he threw off his helmet, and his cuirass, and all his
clothes, and stood among the youths of Larissa, while all
wondered at him, and said, ‘Who is this young stranger, who
stands like a wild bull in his pride?  Surely he is one of
the heroes, the sons of the Immortals, from Olympus.’

And when the games began, they wondered yet more; for Perseus
was the best man of all at running, and leaping, and wrestling
and throwing the javelin; and he won four crowns, and took them,
and then he said to himself, ‘There is a fifth crown yet to
be won: I will win that, and lay them all upon the knees of my
grandfather.’

And as he spoke, he saw where Acrisius sat, by the side of
Teutamenes the king, with his white beard flowing down upon his
knees, and his royal staff in his hand; and Perseus wept when he
looked at him, for his heart yearned after his kin; and he said,
‘Surely he is a kingly old man, yet he need not be ashamed
of his grandson.’

Then he took the quoits, and hurled them, five fathoms beyond
all the rest; and the people shouted, ‘Further yet, brave
stranger!  There has never been such a hurler in this
land.’

Then Perseus put out all his strength, and hurled.  But a
gust of wind came from the sea, and carried the quoit aside, and
far beyond all the rest; and it fell on the foot of Acrisius, and
he swooned away with the pain.

Perseus shrieked, and ran up to him; but when they lifted the
old man up he was dead, for his life was slow and feeble.

Then Perseus rent his clothes, and cast dust upon his head,
and wept a long while for his grandfather.  At last he rose,
and called to all the people aloud, and said—

‘The Gods are true, and what they have ordained must
be.  I am Perseus, the grandson of this dead man, the
far-famed slayer of the Gorgon.’

Then he told them how the prophecy had declared that he should
kill his grandfather, and all the story of his life.

So they made a great mourning for Acrisius, and burnt him on a
right rich pile; and Perseus went to the temple, and was purified
from the guilt of the death, because he had done it
unknowingly.

Then he went home to Argos, and reigned there well with fair
Andromeda; and they had four sons and three daughters, and died
in a good old age.

And when they died, the ancients say, Athené took them
up into the sky, with Cepheus and Cassiopoeia.  And there on
starlight nights you may see them shining still; Cepheus with his
kingly crown, and Cassiopoeia in her ivory chair, plaiting her
star-spangled tresses, and Perseus with the Gorgon’s head,
and fair Andromeda beside him, spreading her long white arms
across the heaven, as she stood when chained to the stone for the
monster.

All night long, they shine, for a beacon to wandering sailors;
but all day they feast with the Gods, on the still blue peaks of
Olympus.

p.
60STORY II.—THE ARGONAUTS

PART I
HOW THE CENTAUR TRAINED THE HEROES ON PELION

I have told you of a hero who fought with wild beasts and with
wild men; but now I have a tale of heroes who sailed away into a
distant land, to win themselves renown for ever, in the adventure
of the Golden Fleece.

Whither they sailed, my children, I cannot clearly tell. 
It all happened long ago; so long that it has all grown dim, like
a dream which you dreamt last year.  And why they went I
cannot tell: some say that it was to win gold.  It may be
so; but the noblest deeds which have been done on earth have not
been done for gold.  It was not for the sake of gold that
the Lord came down and died, and the Apostles went out to preach
the good news in all lands.  The Spartans looked for no
reward in money when they fought and died at Thermopylæ;
and Socrates the wise asked no pay from his countrymen, but lived
poor and barefoot all his days, only caring to make men
good.  And there are heroes in our days also, who do noble
deeds, but not for gold.  Our discoverers did not go to make
themselves rich when they sailed out one after another into the
dreary frozen seas; nor did the ladies who went out last year to
drudge in the hospitals of the East, making themselves poor, that
they might be rich in noble works.  And young men, too, whom
you know, children, and some of them of your own kin, did they
say to themselves, ‘How much money shall I earn?’
when they went out to the war, leaving wealth, and comfort, and a
pleasant home, and all that money can give, to face hunger and
thirst, and wounds and death, that they might fight for their
country and their Queen?  No, children, there is a better
thing on earth than wealth, a better thing than life itself; and
that is, to have done something before you die, for which good
men may honour you, and God your Father smile upon your work.

Therefore we will believe—why should we not?—of
these same Argonauts of old, that they too were noble men, who
planned and did a noble deed; and that therefore their fame has
lived, and been told in story and in song, mixed up, no doubt,
with dreams and fables, and yet true and right at heart.  So
we will honour these old Argonauts, and listen to their story as
it stands; and we will try to be like them, each of us in our
place; for each of us has a Golden Fleece to seek, and a wild sea
to sail over ere we reach it, and dragons to fight ere it be
ours.

And what was that first Golden Fleece?  I do not know,
nor care.  The old Hellens said that it hung in Colchis,
which we call the Circassian coast, nailed to a beech-tree in the
war-God’s wood; and that it was the fleece of the wondrous
ram who bore Phrixus and Helle across the Euxine sea.  For
Phrixus and Helle were the children of the cloud-nymph, and of
Athamas the Minuan king.  And when a famine came upon the
land, their cruel step-mother Ino wished to kill them, that her
own children might reign, and said that they must be sacrificed
on an altar, to turn away the anger of the Gods.  So the
poor children were brought to the altar, and the priest stood
ready with his knife, when out of the clouds came the Golden Ram,
and took them on his back, and vanished.  Then madness came
upon that foolish king, Athamas, and ruin upon Ino and her
children.  For Athamas killed one of them in his fury, and
Ino fled from him with the other in her arms, and leaped from a
cliff into the sea, and was changed into a dolphin, such as you
have seen, which wanders over the waves for ever sighing, with
its little one clasped to its breast.

But the people drove out King Athamas, because he had killed
his child; and he roamed about in his misery, till he came to the
Oracle in Delphi.  And the Oracle told him that he must
wander for his sin, till the wild beasts should feast him as
their guest.  So he went on in hunger and sorrow for many a
weary day, till he saw a pack of wolves.  The wolves were
tearing a sheep; but when they saw Athamas they fled, and left
the sheep for him, and he ate of it; and then he knew that the
oracle was fulfilled at last.  So he wandered no more; but
settled, and built a town, and became a king again.

But the ram carried the two children far away over land and
sea, till he came to the Thracian Chersonese, and there Helle
fell into the sea.  So those narrow straits are called
‘Hellespont,’ after her; and they bear that name
until this day.

Then the ram flew on with Phrixus to the north-east across the
sea which we call the Black Sea now; but the Hellens call it
Euxine.  And at last, they say, he stopped at Colchis, on
the steep Circassian coast; and there Phrixus married Chalciope,
the daughter of Aietes the king; and offered the ram in
sacrifice; and Aietes nailed the ram’s fleece to a beech,
in the grove of Ares the war-God.

And after awhile Phrixus died, and was buried, but his spirit
had no rest; for he was buried far from his native land, and the
pleasant hills of Hellas.  So he came in dreams to the
heroes of the Minuai, and called sadly by their beds, ‘Come
and set my spirit free, that I may go home to my fathers and to
my kinsfolk, and the pleasant Minuan land.’

And they asked, ‘How shall we set your spirit
free?’

‘You must sail over the sea to Colchis, and bring home
the golden fleece; and then my spirit will come back with it, and
I shall sleep with my fathers and have rest.’

He came thus, and called to them often; but when they woke
they looked at each other, and said, ‘Who dare sail to
Colchis, or bring home the golden fleece?’  And in all
the country none was brave enough to try it; for the man and the
time were not come.

Phrixus had a cousin called Æson, who was king in Iolcos
by the sea.  There he ruled over the rich Minuan heroes, as
Athamas his uncle ruled in Boeotia; and, like Athamas, he was an
unhappy man.  For he had a step-brother named Pelias, of
whom some said that he was a nymph’s son, and there were
dark and sad tales about his birth.  When he was a babe he
was cast out on the mountains, and a wild mare came by and kicked
him.  But a shepherd passing found the baby, with its face
all blackened by the blow; and took him home, and called him
Pelias, because his face was bruised and black.  And he grew
up fierce and lawless, and did many a fearful deed; and at last
he drove out Æson his step-brother, and then his own
brother Neleus, and took the kingdom to himself, and ruled over
the rich Minuan heroes, in Iolcos by the sea.

And Æson, when he was driven out, went sadly away out of
the town, leading his little son by the hand; and he said to
himself, ‘I must hide the child in the mountains; or Pelias
will surely kill him, because he is the heir.’

So he went up from the sea across the valley, through the
vineyards and the olive groves, and across the torrent of
Anauros, toward Pelion the ancient mountain, whose brows are
white with snow.

He went up and up into the mountain, over marsh, and crag, and
down, till the boy was tired and footsore, and Æson had to
bear him in his arms, till he came to the mouth of a lonely cave,
at the foot of a mighty cliff.

Above the cliff the snow-wreaths hung, dripping and cracking
in the sun; but at its foot around the cave’s mouth grew
all fair flowers and herbs, as if in a garden, ranged in order,
each sort by itself.  There they grew gaily in the sunshine,
and the spray of the torrent from above; while from the cave came
the sound of music, and a man’s voice singing to the
harp.

Then Æson put down the lad, and whispered—

‘Fear not, but go in, and whomsoever you shall find, lay
your hands upon his knees, and say, “In the name of Zeus,
the father of Gods and men, I am your guest from this day
forth.”’

Then the lad went in without trembling, for he too was a
hero’s son; but when he was within, he stopped in wonder to
listen to that magic song.

And there he saw the singer lying upon bear-skins and fragrant
boughs: Cheiron, the ancient centaur, the wisest of all things
beneath the sky.  Down to the waist he was a man, but below
he was a noble horse; his white hair rolled down over his broad
shoulders, and his white beard over his broad brown chest; and
his eyes were wise and mild, and his forehead like a
mountain-wall.

And in his hands he held a harp of gold, and struck it with a
golden key; and as he struck, he sang till his eyes glittered,
and filled all the cave with light.

And he sang of the birth of Time, and of the heavens and the
dancing stars; and of the ocean, and the ether, and the fire, and
the shaping of the wondrous earth.  And he sang of the
treasures of the hills, and the hidden jewels of the mine, and
the veins of fire and metal, and the virtues of all healing
herbs, and of the speech of birds, and of prophecy, and of hidden
things to come.

Then he sang of health, and strength, and manhood, and a
valiant heart; and of music, and hunting, and wrestling, and all
the games which heroes love: and of travel, and wars, and sieges,
and a noble death in fight; and then he sang of peace and plenty,
and of equal justice in the land; and as he sang the boy listened
wide-eyed, and forgot his errand in the song.

And at the last old Cheiron was silent, and called the lad
with a soft voice.

And the lad ran trembling to him, and would have laid his
hands upon his knees; but Cheiron smiled, and said, ‘Call
hither your father Æson, for I know you, and all that has
befallen, and saw you both afar in the valley, even before you
left the town.’

Then Æson came in sadly, and Cheiron asked him,
‘Why camest you not yourself to me, Æson the
Æolid?’

And Æson said—

‘I thought, Cheiron will pity the lad if he sees him
come alone; and I wished to try whether he was fearless, and dare
venture like a hero’s son.  But now I entreat you by
Father Zeus, let the boy be your guest till better times, and
train him among the sons of the heroes, that he may avenge his
father’s house.’

Then Cheiron smiled, and drew the lad to him, and laid his
hand upon his golden locks, and said, ‘Are you afraid of my
horse’s hoofs, fair boy, or will you be my pupil from this
day?’

‘I would gladly have horse’s hoofs like you, if I
could sing such songs as yours.’

And Cheiron laughed, and said, ‘Sit here by me till
sundown, when your playfellows will come home, and you shall
learn like them to be a king, worthy to rule over gallant
men.’

Then he turned to Æson, and said, ‘Go back in
peace, and bend before the storm like a prudent man.  This
boy shall not cross the Anauros again, till he has become a glory
to you and to the house of Æolus.’

And Æson wept over his son and went away; but the boy
did not weep, so full was his fancy of that strange cave, and the
centaur, and his song, and the playfellows whom he was to
see.

Then Cheiron put the lyre into his hands, and taught him how
to play it, till the sun sank low behind the cliff, and a shout
was heard outside.

And then in came the sons of the heroes, Æneas, and
Heracles, and Peleus, and many another mighty name.

And great Cheiron leapt up joyfully, and his hoofs made the
cave resound, as they shouted, ‘Come out, Father Cheiron;
come out and see our game.’  And one cried, ‘I
have killed two deer;’ and another, ‘I took a wild
cat among the crags;’ and Heracles dragged a wild goat
after him by its horns, for he was as huge as a mountain crag;
and Coeneus carried a bear-cub under each arm, and laughed when
they scratched and bit, for neither tooth nor steel could wound
him.

And Cheiron praised them all, each according to his
deserts.

Only one walked apart and silent, Asclepius, the too-wise
child, with his bosom full of herbs and flowers, and round his
wrist a spotted snake; he came with downcast eyes to Cheiron, and
whispered how he had watched the snake cast its old skin, and
grow young again before his eyes, and how he had gone down into a
village in the vale, and cured a dying man with a herb which he
had seen a sick goat eat.

And Cheiron smiled, and said, ‘To each Athené and
Apollo give some gift, and each is worthy in his place; but to
this child they have given an honour beyond all honours, to cure
while others kill.’

Then the lads brought in wood, and split it, and lighted a
blazing fire; and others skinned the deer and quartered them, and
set them to roast before the fire; and while the venison was
cooking they bathed in the snow-torrent, and washed away the dust
and sweat.

And then all ate till they could eat no more (for they had
tasted nothing since the dawn), and drank of the clear spring
water, for wine is not fit for growing lads.  And when the
remnants were put away, they all lay down upon the skins and
leaves about the fire, and each took the lyre in turn, and sang
and played with all his heart.

And after a while they all went out to a plot of grass at the
cave’s mouth, and there they boxed, and ran, and wrestled,
and laughed till the stones fell from the cliffs.

Then Cheiron took his lyre, and all the lads joined hands; and
as be played, they danced to his measure, in and out, and round
and round.  There they danced hand in hand, till the night
fell over land and sea, while the black glen shone with their
broad white limbs and the gleam of their golden hair.

And the lad danced with them, delighted, and then slept a
wholesome sleep, upon fragrant leaves of bay, and myrtle, and
marjoram, and flowers of thyme; and rose at the dawn, and bathed
in the torrent, and became a schoolfellow to the heroes’
sons, and forgot Iolcos, and his father, and all his former
life.  But he grew strong, and brave and cunning, upon the
pleasant downs of Pelion, in the keen hungry mountain air. 
And he learnt to wrestle, and to box, and to hunt, and to play
upon the harp; and next he learnt to ride, for old Cheiron used
to mount him on his back; and he learnt the virtues of all herbs
and how to cure all wounds; and Cheiron called him Jason the
healer, and that is his name until this day.

p.
73PART II
HOW JASON LOST HIS SANDAL IN ANAUROS

And ten years came and went, and Jason was grown to be a
mighty man.  Some of his fellows were gone, and some were
growing up by his side.  Asclepius was gone into Peloponnese
to work his wondrous cures on men; and some say he used to raise
the dead to life.  And Heracles was gone to Thebes to fulfil
those famous labours which have become a proverb among men. 
And Peleus had married a sea-nymph, and his wedding is famous to
this day.  And Æneas was gone home to Troy, and many a
noble tale you will read of him, and of all the other gallant
heroes, the scholars of Cheiron the just.  And it happened
on a day that Jason stood on the mountain, and looked north and
south and east and west; and Cheiron stood by him and watched
him, for he knew that the time was come.

And Jason looked and saw the plains of Thessaly, where the
Lapithai breed their horses; and the lake of Boibé, and
the stream which runs northward to Peneus and Tempe; and he
looked north, and saw the mountain wall which guards the
Magnesian shore; Olympus, the seat of the Immortals, and Ossa,
and Pelion, where he stood. Then he looked east and saw the
bright blue sea, which stretched away for ever toward the
dawn.  Then he looked south, and saw a pleasant land, with
white-walled towns and farms, nestling along the shore of a
land-locked bay, while the smoke rose blue among the trees; and
he knew it for the bay of Pagasai, and the rich lowlands of
Hæmonia, and Iolcos by the sea.

Then he sighed, and asked, ‘Is it true what the heroes
tell me—that I am heir of that fair land?’

‘And what good would it be to you, Jason, if you were
heir of that fair land?’

‘I would take it and keep it.’

‘A strong man has taken it and kept it long.  Are
you stronger than Pelias the terrible?’

‘I can try my strength with his,’ said Jason; but
Cheiron sighed, and said—

‘You have many a danger to go through before you rule in
Iolcos by the sea: many a danger and many a woe; and strange
troubles in strange lands, such as man never saw
before.’

‘The happier I,’ said Jason, ‘to see what
man never saw before.’

And Cheiron sighed again, and said, ‘The eaglet must
leave the nest when it is fledged.  Will you go to Iolcos by
the sea?  Then promise me two things before you
go.’

Jason promised, and Cheiron answered, ‘Speak harshly to
no soul whom you may meet, and stand by the word which you shall
speak.’

Jason wondered why Cheiron asked this of him; but he knew that
the Centaur was a prophet, and saw things long before they
came.  So he promised, and leapt down the mountain, to take
his fortune like a man.

He went down through the arbutus thickets, and across the
downs of thyme, till he came to the vineyard walls, and the
pomegranates and the olives in the glen; and among the olives
roared Anauros, all foaming with a summer flood.

And on the bank of Anauros sat a woman, all wrinkled, gray,
and old; her head shook palsied on her breast, and her hands
shook palsied on her knees; and when she saw Jason, she spoke
whining, ‘Who will carry me across the flood?’

Jason was bold and hasty, and was just going to leap into the
flood: and yet he thought twice before he leapt, so loud roared
the torrent down, all brown from the mountain rains, and
silver-veined with melting snow; while underneath he could hear
the boulders rumbling like the tramp of horsemen or the roll of
wheels, as they ground along the narrow channel, and shook the
rocks on which he stood.

But the old woman whined all the more, ‘I am weak and
old, fair youth.  For Hera’s sake, carry me over the
torrent.’

And Jason was going to answer her scornfully, when
Cheiron’s words came to his mind.

So he said, ‘For Hera’s sake, the Queen of the
Immortals on Olympus, I will carry you over the torrent, unless
we both are drowned midway.’

Then the old dame leapt upon his back, as nimbly as a goat;
and Jason staggered in, wondering; and the first step was up to
his knees.

The first step was up to his knees, and the second step was up
to his waist; and the stones rolled about his feet, and his feet
slipped about the stones; so he went on staggering, and panting,
while the old woman cried from off his back—

‘Fool, you have wet my mantle!  Do you make game of
poor old souls like me?’

Jason had half a mind to drop her, and let her get through the
torrent by herself; but Cheiron’s words were in his mind,
and he said only, ‘Patience, mother; the best horse may
stumble some day.’

At last he staggered to the shore, and set her down upon the
bank; and a strong man he needed to have been, or that wild water
he never would have crossed.

He lay panting awhile upon the bank, and then leapt up to go
upon his journey; but he cast one look at the old woman, for he
thought, ‘She should thank me once at least.’

And as he looked, she grew fairer than all women, and taller
than all men on earth; and her garments shone like the summer
sea, and her jewels like the stars of heaven; and over her
forehead was a veil woven of the golden clouds of sunset; and
through the veil she looked down on him, with great soft
heifer’s eyes; with great eyes, mild and awful, which
filled all the glen with light.

And Jason fell upon his knees, and hid his face between his
hands.

And she spoke, ‘I am the Queen of Olympus, Hera the wife
of Zeus.  As thou hast done to me, so will I do to
thee.  Call on me in the hour of need, and try if the
Immortals can forget.’

And when Jason looked up, she rose from off the earth, like a
pillar of tall white cloud, and floated away across the mountain
peaks, toward Olympus the holy hill.

Then a great fear fell on Jason: but after a while he grew
light of heart; and he blessed old Cheiron, and said,
‘Surely the Centaur is a prophet, and guessed what would
come to pass, when he bade me speak harshly to no soul whom I
might meet.’

Then he went down toward Iolcos; and as he walked he found
that he had lost one of his sandals in the flood.

And as he went through the streets, the people came out to
look at him, so tall and fair was he; but some of the elders
whispered together; and at last one of them stopped Jason, and
called to him, ‘Fair lad, who are you, and whence come you;
and what is your errand in the town?’

‘My name, good father, is Jason, and I come from Pelion
up above; and my errand is to Pelias your king; tell me then
where his palace is.’

But the old man started, and grew pale, and said, ‘Do
you not know the oracle, my son, that you go so boldly through
the town with but one sandal on?’

‘I am a stranger here, and know of no oracle; but what
of my one sandal?  I lost the other in Anauros, while I was
struggling with the flood.’

Then the old man looked back to his companions; and one
sighed, and another smiled; at last he said, ‘I will tell
you, lest you rush upon your ruin unawares.  The oracle in
Delphi has said that a man wearing one sandal should take the
kingdom from Pelias, and keep it for himself.  Therefore
beware how you go up to his palace, for he is the fiercest and
most cunning of all kings.’

Then Jason laughed a great laugh, like a war-horse in his
pride.  ‘Good news, good father, both for you and
me.  For that very end I came into the town.’

Then he strode on toward the palace of Pelias, while all the
people wondered at his bearing.

And he stood in the doorway and cried, ‘Come out, come
out, Pelias the valiant, and fight for your kingdom like a
man.’

Pelias came out wondering, and ‘Who are you, bold
youth?’ he cried.

‘I am Jason, the son of Æson, the heir of all this
land.’

Then Pelias lifted up his hands and eyes, and wept, or seemed
to weep; and blessed the heavens which had brought his nephew to
him, never to leave him more.  ‘For,’ said he,
‘I have but three daughters, and no son to be my
heir.  You shall be my heir then, and rule the kingdom after
me, and marry whichsoever of my daughters you shall choose;
though a sad kingdom you will find it, and whosoever rules it a
miserable man.  But come in, come in, and feast.’

So he drew Jason in, whether he would or not, and spoke to him
so lovingly and feasted him so well, that Jason’s anger
passed; and after supper his three cousins came into the hall,
and Jason thought that he should like well enough to have one of
them for his wife.

But at last he said to Pelias, ‘Why do you look so sad,
my uncle?  And what did you mean just now when you said that
this was a doleful kingdom, and its ruler a miserable
man?’

Then Pelias sighed heavily again and again and again, like a
man who had to tell some dreadful story, and was afraid to begin;
but at last—

‘For seven long years and more have I never known a
quiet night; and no more will he who comes after me, till the
golden fleece be brought home.’

Then he told Jason the story of Phrixus, and of the golden
fleece; and told him, too, which was a lie, that Phrixus’
spirit tormented him, calling to him day and night.  And his
daughters came, and told the same tale (for their father had
taught them their parts), and wept, and said, ‘Oh who will
bring home the golden fleece, that our uncle’s spirit may
rest; and that we may have rest also, whom he never lets sleep in
peace?’

Jason sat awhile, sad and silent; for he had often heard of
that golden fleece; but he looked on it as a thing hopeless and
impossible for any mortal man to win it.

But when Pelias saw him silent, he began to talk of other
things, and courted Jason more and more, speaking to him as if he
was certain to be his heir, and asking his advice about the
kingdom; till Jason, who was young and simple, could not help
saying to himself, ‘Surely he is not the dark man whom
people call him.  Yet why did he drive my father
out?’  And he asked Pelias boldly, ‘Men say that
you are terrible, and a man of blood; but I find you a kind and
hospitable man; and as you are to me, so will I be to you. 
Yet why did you drive my father out?’

Pelias smiled, and sighed.  ‘Men have slandered me
in that, as in all things.  Your father was growing old and
weary, and he gave the kingdom up to me of his own will. 
You shall see him to-morrow, and ask him; and he will tell you
the same.’

Jason’s heart leapt in him when he heard that he was to
see his father; and he believed all that Pelias said, forgetting
that his father might not dare to tell the truth.

‘One thing more there is,’ said Pelias, ‘on
which I need your advice; for, though you are young, I see in you
a wisdom beyond your years.  There is one neighbour of mine,
whom I dread more than all men on earth.  I am stronger than
he now, and can command him; but I know that if he stay among us,
he will work my ruin in the end.  Can you give me a plan,
Jason, by which I can rid myself of that man?’

After awhile Jason answered, half laughing, ‘Were I you,
I would send him to fetch that same golden fleece; for if he once
set forth after it you would never be troubled with him
more.’

And at that a bitter smile came across Pelias’ lips, and
a flash of wicked joy into his eyes; and Jason saw it, and
started; and over his mind came the warning of the old man, and
his own one sandal, and the oracle, and he saw that he was taken
in a trap.

But Pelias only answered gently, ‘My son, he shall be
sent forthwith.’

‘You mean me?’ cried Jason, starting up,
‘because I came here with one sandal?’  And he
lifted his fist angrily, while Pelias stood up to him like a wolf
at bay; and whether of the two was the stronger and the fiercer
it would be hard to tell.

But after a moment Pelias spoke gently, ‘Why then so
rash, my son?  You, and not I, have said what is said; why
blame me for what I have not done?  Had you bid me love the
man of whom I spoke, and make him my son-in-law and heir, I would
have obeyed you; and what if I obey you now, and send the man to
win himself immortal fame?  I have not harmed you, or
him.  One thing at least I know, that he will go, and that
gladly; for he has a hero’s heart within him, loving glory,
and scorning to break the word which he has given.’

Jason saw that he was entrapped; but his second promise to
Cheiron came into his mind, and he thought, ‘What if the
Centaur were a prophet in that also, and meant that I should win
the fleece!’  Then he cried aloud—

‘You have well spoken, cunning uncle of mine!  I
love glory, and I dare keep to my word.  I will go and fetch
this golden fleece.  Promise me but this in return, and keep
your word as I keep mine.  Treat my father lovingly while I
am gone, for the sake of the all-seeing Zeus; and give me up the
kingdom for my own on the day that I bring back the golden
fleece.’

Then Pelias looked at him and almost loved him, in the midst
of all his hate; and said, ‘I promise, and I will
perform.  It will be no shame to give up my kingdom to the
man who wins that fleece.’  Then they swore a great
oath between them; and afterwards both went in, and lay down to
sleep.

But Jason could not sleep for thinking of his mighty oath, and
how he was to fulfil it, all alone, and without wealth or
friends.  So he tossed a long time upon his bed, and thought
of this plan and of that; and sometimes Phrixus seemed to call
him, in a thin voice, faint and low, as if it came from far
across the sea, ‘Let me come home to my fathers and have
rest.’  And sometimes he seemed to see the eyes of
Hera, and to hear her words again—‘Call on me in the
hour of need, and see if the Immortals can forget.’

And on the morrow he went to Pelias, and said, ‘Give me
a victim, that I may sacrifice to Hera.’  So he went
up, and offered his sacrifice; and as he stood by the altar Hera
sent a thought into his mind; and he went back to Pelias, and
said—

‘If you are indeed in earnest, give me two heralds, that
they may go round to all the princes of the Minuai, who were
pupils of the Centaur with me, that we may fit out a ship
together, and take what shall befall.’

At that Pelias praised his wisdom, and hastened to send the
heralds out; for he said in his heart, ‘Let all the princes
go with him, and, like him, never return; for so I shall be lord
of all the Minuai, and the greatest king in Hellas.’

p.
87PART III
HOW THEY BUILT THE SHIP ‘ARGO’ IN IOLCOS

So the heralds went out, and cried to all the heroes of the
Minuai, ‘Who dare come to the adventure of the golden
fleece?’

And Hera stirred the hearts of all the princes, and they came
from all their valleys to the yellow sands of Pagasai.  And
first came Heracles the mighty, with his lion’s skin and
club, and behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows
and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the
fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons
of the magic swan; and Cæneus, the strongest of mortals,
whom the Centaurs tried in vain to kill, and overwhelmed him with
trunks of pine-trees, but even so he would not die; and thither
came Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of the north wind; and
Peleus, the father of Achilles, whose bride was silver-footed
Thetis, the goddess of the sea.  And thither came Telamon
and Oileus, the fathers of the two Aiantes, who fought upon the
plains of Troy; and Mopsus, the wise soothsayer, who knew the
speech of birds; and Idmon, to whom Phoebus gave a tongue to
prophesy of things to come; and Ancaios, who could read the
stars, and knew all the circles of the heavens; and Argus, the
famed shipbuilder, and many a hero more, in helmets of brass and
gold with tall dyed horse-hair crests, and embroidered shirts of
linen beneath their coats of mail, and greaves of polished tin to
guard their knees in fight; with each man his shield upon his
shoulder, of many a fold of tough bull’s hide, and his
sword of tempered bronze in his silver-studded belt; and in his
right hand a pair of lances, of the heavy white ash-staves.

So they came down to Iolcos, and all the city came out to meet
them, and were never tired with looking at their height, and
their beauty, and their gallant bearing and the glitter of their
inlaid arms.  And some said, ‘Never was such a
gathering of the heroes since the Hellens conquered the
land.’  But the women sighed over them, and whispered,
‘Alas! they are all going to their death!’

Then they felled the pines on Pelion, and shaped them with the
axe, and Argus taught them to build a galley, the first long ship
which ever sailed the seas.  They pierced her for fifty
oars—an oar for each hero of the crew—and pitched her
with coal-black pitch, and painted her bows with vermilion; and
they named her Argo after Argus, and worked at her all day
long.  And at night Pelias feasted them like a king, and
they slept in his palace-porch.

But Jason went away to the northward, and into the land of
Thrace, till he found Orpheus, the prince of minstrels, where he
dwelt in his cave under Rhodope, among the savage Cicon
tribes.  And he asked him, ‘Will you leave your
mountains, Orpheus, my fellow-scholar in old times, and cross
Strymon once more with me, to sail with the heroes of the Minuai,
and bring home the golden fleece, and charm for us all men and
all monsters with your magic harp and song?’

Then Orpheus sighed, ‘Have I not had enough of toil and
of weary wandering, far and wide since I lived in Cheiron’s
cave, above Iolcos by the sea?  In vain is the skill and the
voice which my goddess mother gave me; in vain have I sung and
laboured; in vain I went down to the dead, and charmed all the
kings of Hades, to win back Eurydice my bride.  For I won
her, my beloved, and lost her again the same day, and wandered
away in my madness, even to Egypt and the Libyan sands, and the
isles of all the seas, driven on by the terrible gadfly, while I
charmed in vain the hearts of men, and the savage forest beasts,
and the trees, and the lifeless stones, with my magic harp and
song, giving rest, but finding none.  But at last Calliope
my mother delivered me, and brought me home in peace; and I dwell
here in the cave alone, among the savage Cicon tribes, softening
their wild hearts with music and the gentle laws of Zeus. 
And now I must go out again, to the ends of all the earth, far
away into the misty darkness, to the last wave of the Eastern
Sea.  But what is doomed must be, and a friend’s
demand obeyed; for prayers are the daughters of Zeus, and who
honours them honours him.’

Then Orpheus rose up sighing, and took his harp, and went over
Strymon.  And he led Jason to the south-west, up the banks
of Haliacmon and over the spurs of Pindus, to Dodona the town of
Zeus, where it stood by the side of the sacred lake, and the
fountain which breathed out fire, in the darkness of the ancient
oakwood, beneath the mountain of the hundred springs.  And
he led him to the holy oak, where the black dove settled in old
times, and was changed into the priestess of Zeus, and gave
oracles to all nations round.  And he bade him cut down a
bough, and sacrifice to Hera and to Zeus; and they took the bough
and came to Iolcos, and nailed it to the beak-head of the
ship.

And at last the ship was finished, and they tried to launch
her down the beach; but she was too heavy for them to move her,
and her keel sank deep into the sand.  Then all the heroes
looked at each other blushing; but Jason spoke, and said,
‘Let us ask the magic bough; perhaps it can help us in our
need.’

Then a voice came from the bough, and Jason heard the words it
said, and bade Orpheus play upon the harp, while the heroes
waited round, holding the pine-trunk rollers, to help her toward
the sea.

Then Orpheus took his harp, and began his magic
song—‘How sweet it is to ride upon the surges, and to
leap from wave to wave, while the wind sings cheerful in the
cordage, and the oars flash fast among the foam!  How sweet
it is to roam across the ocean, and see new towns and wondrous
lands, and to come home laden with treasure, and to win undying
fame!’

And the good ship Argo heard him, and longed to be away
and out at sea; till she stirred in every timber, and heaved from
stem to stern, and leapt up from the sand upon the rollers, and
plunged onward like a gallant horse; and the heroes fed her path
with pine-trunks, till she rushed into the whispering sea.

Then they stored her well with food and water, and pulled the
ladder up on board, and settled themselves each man to his oar,
and kept time to Orpheus’ harp; and away across the bay
they rowed southward, while the people lined the cliffs; and the
women wept, while the men shouted, at the starting of that
gallant crew.

p.
93PART IV
HOW THE ARGONAUTS SAILED TO COLCHIS

And what happened next, my children, whether it be true or
not, stands written in ancient songs, which you shall read for
yourselves some day.  And grand old songs they are, written
in grand old rolling verse; and they call them the Songs of
Orpheus, or the Orphics, to this day.  And they tell how the
heroes came to Aphetai, across the bay, and waited for the
south-west wind, and chose themselves a captain from their crew:
and how all called for Heracles, because he was the strongest and
most huge; but Heracles refused, and called for Jason, because he
was the wisest of them all.  So Jason was chosen captain;
and Orpheus heaped a pile of wood, and slew a bull, and offered
it to Hera, and called all the heroes to stand round, each
man’s head crowned with olive, and to strike their swords
into the bull.  Then he filled a golden goblet with the
bull’s blood, and with wheaten flour, and honey, and wine,
and the bitter salt-sea water, and bade the heroes taste. 
So each tasted the goblet, and passed it round, and vowed an
awful vow: and they vowed before the sun, and the night, and the
blue-haired sea who shakes the land, to stand by Jason faithfully
in the adventure of the golden fleece; and whosoever shrank back,
or disobeyed, or turned traitor to his vow, then justice should
minister against him, and the Erinnues who track guilty men.

Then Jason lighted the pile, and burnt the carcase of the
bull; and they went to their ship and sailed eastward, like men
who have a work to do; and the place from which they went was
called Aphetai, the sailing-place, from that day forth. 
Three thousand years and more they sailed away, into the unknown
Eastern seas; and great nations have come and gone since then,
and many a storm has swept the earth; and many a mighty armament,
to which Argo would be but one small boat; English and
French, Turkish and Russian, have sailed those waters since; yet
the fame of that small Argo lives for ever, and her name
is become a proverb among men.

So they sailed past the Isle of Sciathos, with the Cape of
Sepius on their left, and turned to the northward toward Pelion,
up the long Magnesian shore.  On their right hand was the
open sea, and on their left old Pelion rose, while the clouds
crawled round his dark pine-forests, and his caps of summer
snow.  And their hearts yearned for the dear old mountain,
as they thought of pleasant days gone by, and of the sports of
their boyhood, and their hunting, and their schooling in the cave
beneath the cliff.  And at last Peleus spoke, ‘Let us
land here, friends, and climb the dear old hill once more. 
We are going on a fearful journey; who knows if we shall see
Pelion again?  Let us go up to Cheiron our master, and ask
his blessing ere we start.  And I have a boy, too, with him,
whom he trains as he trained me once—the son whom Thetis
brought me, the silver-footed lady of the sea, whom I caught in
the cave, and tamed her, though she changed her shape seven
times.  For she changed, as I held her, into water, and to
vapour, and to burning flame, and to a rock, and to a black-maned
lion, and to a tall and stately tree.  But I held her and
held her ever, till she took her own shape again, and led her to
my father’s house, and won her for my bride.  And all
the rulers of Olympus came to our wedding, and the heavens and
the earth rejoiced together, when an Immortal wedded mortal
man.  And now let me see my son; for it is not often I shall
see him upon earth: famous he will be, but short-lived, and die
in the flower of youth.’

So Tiphys the helmsman steered them to the shore under the
crags of Pelion; and they went up through the dark pine-forests
towards the Centaur’s cave.

And they came into the misty hall, beneath the snow-crowned
crag; and saw the great Centaur lying, with his huge limbs spread
upon the rock; and beside him stood Achilles, the child whom no
steel could wound, and played upon his harp right sweetly, while
Cheiron watched and smiled.

Then Cheiron leapt up and welcomed them, and kissed them every
one, and set a feast before them of swine’s flesh, and
venison, and good wine; and young Achilles served them, and
carried the golden goblet round.  And after supper all the
heroes clapped their hands, and called on Orpheus to sing; but he
refused, and said, ‘How can I, who am the younger, sing
before our ancient host?’  So they called on Cheiron
to sing, and Achilles brought him his harp; and he began a
wondrous song; a famous story of old time, of the fight between
the Centaurs and the Lapithai, which you may still see carved in
stone. [96]  He sang how his brothers came to
ruin by their folly, when they were mad with wine; and how they
and the heroes fought, with fists, and teeth, and the goblets
from which they drank; and how they tore up the pine-trees in
their fury, and hurled great crags of stone, while the mountains
thundered with the battle, and the land was wasted far and wide;
till the Lapithai drove them from their home in the rich
Thessalian plains to the lonely glens of Pindus, leaving Cheiron
all alone.  And the heroes praised his song right heartily;
for some of them had helped in that great fight.

Then Orpheus took the lyre, and sang of Chaos, and the making
of the wondrous World, and how all things sprang from Love, who
could not live alone in the Abyss.  And as he sang, his
voice rose from the cave, above the crags, and through the
tree-tops, and the glens of oak and pine.  And the trees
bowed their heads when they heard it, and the gray rocks cracked
and rang, and the forest beasts crept near to listen, and the
birds forsook their nests and hovered round.  And old
Cheiron claps his hands together, and beat his hoofs upon the
ground, for wonder at that magic song.

Then Peleus kissed his boy, and wept over him, and they went
down to the ship; and Cheiron came down with them, weeping, and
kissed them one by one, and blest them, and promised to them
great renown.  And the heroes wept when they left him, till
their great hearts could weep no more; for he was kind and just
and pious, and wiser than all beasts and men.  Then he went
up to a cliff, and prayed for them, that they might come home
safe and well; while the heroes rowed away, and watched him
standing on his cliff above the sea, with his great hands raised
toward heaven, and his white locks waving in the wind; and they
strained their eyes to watch him to the last, for they felt that
they should look on him no more.

So they rowed on over the long swell of the sea, past Olympus,
the seat of the Immortals, and past the wooded bays of Athos, and
Samothrace the sacred isle; and they came past Lemnos to the
Hellespont, and through the narrow strait of Abydos, and so on
into the Propontis, which we call Marmora now.  And there
they met with Cyzicus, ruling in Asia over the Dolions, who, the
songs say, was the son of Æneas, of whom you will hear many
a tale some day.  For Homer tells us how he fought at Troy,
and Virgil how he sailed away and founded Rome; and men believed
until late years that from him sprang our old British
kings.  Now Cyzicus, the songs say, welcomed the heroes, for
his father had been one of Cheiron’s scholars; so he
welcomed them, and feasted them, and stored their ship with corn
and wine, and cloaks and rugs, the songs say, and shirts, of
which no doubt they stood in need.

But at night, while they lay sleeping, came down on them
terrible men, who lived with the bears in the mountains, like
Titans or giants in shape; for each of them had six arms, and
they fought with young firs and pines.  But Heracles killed
them all before morn with his deadly poisoned arrows; but among
them, in the darkness, he slew Cyzicus the kindly prince.

Then they got to their ship and to their oars, and Tiphys bade
them cast off the hawsers and go to sea.  But as he spoke a
whirlwind came, and spun the Argo round, and twisted the
hawsers together, so that no man could loose them.  Then
Tiphys dropped the rudder from his hand, and cried, ‘This
comes from the Gods above.’  But Jason went forward,
and asked counsel of the magic bough.

Then the magic bough spoke, and answered, ‘This is
because you have slain Cyzicus your friend.  You must
appease his soul, or you will never leave this shore.’

Jason went back sadly, and told the heroes what he had
heard.  And they leapt on shore, and searched till dawn; and
at dawn they found the body, all rolled in dust and blood, among
the corpses of those monstrous beasts.  And they wept over
their kind host, and laid him on a fair bed, and heaped a huge
mound over him, and offered black sheep at his tomb, and Orpheus
sang a magic song to him, that his spirit might have rest. 
And then they held games at the tomb, after the custom of those
times, and Jason gave prizes to each winner.  To
Ancæus he gave a golden cup, for he wrestled best of all;
and to Heracles a silver one, for he was the strongest of all;
and to Castor, who rode best, a golden crest; and Polydeuces the
boxer had a rich carpet, and to Orpheus for his song a sandal
with golden wings.  But Jason himself was the best of all
the archers, and the Minuai crowned him with an olive crown; and
so, the songs say, the soul of good Cyzicus was appeased and the
heroes went on their way in peace.

But when Cyzicus’ wife heard that he was dead she died
likewise of grief; and her tears became a fountain of clear
water, which flows the whole year round.

Then they rowed away, the songs say, along the Mysian shore,
and past the mouth of Rhindacus, till they found a pleasant bay,
sheltered by the long ridges of Arganthus, and by high walls of
basalt rock.  And there they ran the ship ashore upon the
yellow sand, and furled the sail, and took the mast down, and
lashed it in its crutch.  And next they let down the ladder,
and went ashore to sport and rest.

And there Heracles went away into the woods, bow in hand, to
hunt wild deer; and Hylas the fair boy slipt away after him, and
followed him by stealth, until he lost himself among the glens,
and sat down weary to rest himself by the side of a lake; and
there the water nymphs came up to look at him, and loved him, and
carried him down under the lake to be their playfellow, for ever
happy and young.  And Heracles sought for him in vain,
shouting his name till all the mountains rang; but Hylas never
heard him, far down under the sparkling lake.  So while
Heracles wandered searching for him, a fair breeze sprang up, and
Heracles was nowhere to be found; and the Argo sailed
away, and Heracles was left behind, and never saw the noble
Phasian stream.

Then the Minuai came to a doleful land, where Amycus the giant
ruled, and cared nothing for the laws of Zeus, but challenged all
strangers to box with him, and those whom he conquered he
slew.  But Polydeuces the boxer struck him a harder blow
than he ever felt before, and slew him; and the Minuai went on up
the Bosphorus, till they came to the city of Phineus, the fierce
Bithynian king; for Zetes and Calais bade Jason land there,
because they had a work to do.

And they went up from the shore toward the city, through
forests white with snow; and Phineus came out to meet them with a
lean and woful face, and said, ‘Welcome, gallant heroes, to
the land of bitter blasts, the land of cold and misery; yet I
will feast you as best I can.’  And he led them in,
and set meat before them; but before they could put their hands
to their mouths, down came two fearful monsters, the like of whom
man never saw; for they had the faces and the hair of fair
maidens, but the wings and claws of hawks; and they snatched the
meat from off the table, and flew shrieking out above the
roofs.

Then Phineus beat his breast and cried, ‘These are the
Harpies, whose names are the Whirlwind and the Swift, the
daughters of Wonder and of the Amber-nymph, and they rob us night
and day.  They carried off the daughters of Pandareus, whom
all the Gods had blest; for Aphrodite fed them on Olympus with
honey and milk and wine; and Hera gave them beauty and wisdom,
and Athené skill in all the arts; but when they came to
their wedding, the Harpies snatched them both away, and gave them
to be slaves to the Erinnues, and live in horror all their
days.  And now they haunt me, and my people, and the
Bosphorus, with fearful storms; and sweep away our food from off
our tables, so that we starve in spite of all our
wealth.’

Then up rose Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of the
North-wind, and said, ‘Do you not know us, Phineus, and
these wings which grow upon our backs?’  And Phineus
hid his face in terror; but he answered not a word.

‘Because you have been a traitor, Phineus, the Harpies
haunt you night and day.  Where is Cleopatra our sister,
your wife, whom you keep in prison? and where are her two
children, whom you blinded in your rage, at the bidding of an
evil woman, and cast them out upon the rocks?  Swear to us
that you will right our sister, and cast out that wicked woman;
and then we will free you from your plague, and drive the
whirlwind maidens to the south; but if not, we will put out your
eyes, as you put out the eyes of your own sons.’

Then Phineus swore an oath to them, and drove out the wicked
woman; and Jason took those two poor children, and cured their
eyes with magic herbs.

But Zetes and Calais rose up sadly and said, ‘Farewell
now, heroes all; farewell, our dear companions, with whom we
played on Pelion in old times; for a fate is laid upon us, and
our day is come at last, in which we must hunt the whirlwinds
over land and sea for ever; and if we catch them they die, and if
not, we die ourselves.’

At that all the heroes wept; but the two young men sprang up,
and aloft into the air after the Harpies, and the battle of the
winds began.

The heroes trembled in silence as they heard the shrieking of
the blasts; while the palace rocked and all the city, and great
stones were torn from the crags, and the forest pines were hurled
earthward, north and south and east and west, and the Bosphorus
boiled white with foam, and the clouds were dashed against the
cliffs.

But at last the battle ended, and the Harpies fled screaming
toward the south, and the sons of the North-wind rushed after
them, and brought clear sunshine where they passed.  For
many a league they followed them, over all the isles of the
Cyclades, and away to the south-west across Hellas, till they
came to the Ionian Sea, and there they fell upon the Echinades,
at the mouth of the Achelous; and those isles were called the
Whirlwind Isles for many a hundred years.  But what became
of Zetes and Calais I know not, for the heroes never saw them
again: and some say that Heracles met them, and quarrelled with
them, and slew them with his arrows; and some say that they fell
down from weariness and the heat of the summer sun, and that the
Sun-god buried them among the Cyclades, in the pleasant Isle of
Tenos; and for many hundred years their grave was shown there,
and over it a pillar, which turned to every wind.  But those
dark storms and whirlwinds haunt the Bosphorus until this
day.

But the Argonauts went eastward, and out into the open sea,
which we now call the Black Sea, but it was called the Euxine
then.  No Hellen had ever crossed it, and all feared that
dreadful sea, and its rocks, and shoals, and fogs, and bitter
freezing storms; and they told strange stories of it, some false
and some half-true, how it stretched northward to the ends of the
earth, and the sluggish Putrid Sea, and the everlasting night,
and the regions of the dead.  So the heroes trembled, for
all their courage, as they came into that wild Black Sea, and saw
it stretching out before them, without a shore, as far as eye
could see.

And first Orpheus spoke, and warned them, ‘We shall come
now to the wandering blue rocks; my mother warned me of them,
Calliope, the immortal muse.’

And soon they saw the blue rocks shining like spires and
castles of gray glass, while an ice-cold wind blew from them and
chilled all the heroes’ hearts.  And as they neared
they could see them heaving, as they rolled upon the long
sea-waves, crashing and grinding together, till the roar went up
to heaven.  The sea sprang up in spouts between them, and
swept round them in white sheets of foam; but their heads swung
nodding high in air, while the wind whistled shrill among the
crags.

The heroes’ hearts sank within them, and they lay upon
their oars in fear; but Orpheus called to Tiphys the helmsman,
‘Between them we must pass; so look ahead for an opening,
and be brave, for Hera is with us.’  But Tiphys the
cunning helmsman stood silent, clenching his teeth, till he saw a
heron come flying mast-high toward the rocks, and hover awhile
before them, as if looking for a passage through.  Then he
cried, ‘Hera has sent us a pilot; let us follow the cunning
bird.’

Then the heron flapped to and fro a moment, till he saw a
hidden gap, and into it he rushed like an arrow, while the heroes
watched what would befall.

And the blue rocks clashed together as the bird fled swiftly
through; but they struck but a feather from his tail, and then
rebounded apart at the shock.

Then Tiphys cheered the heroes, and they shouted; and the oars
bent like withes beneath their strokes as they rushed between
those toppling ice-crags and the cold blue lips of death. 
And ere the rocks could meet again they had passed them, and were
safe out in the open sea.

And after that they sailed on wearily along the Asian coast,
by the Black Cape and Thyneis, where the hot stream of Thymbris
falls into the sea, and Sangarius, whose waters float on the
Euxine, till they came to Wolf the river, and to Wolf the kindly
king.  And there died two brave heroes, Idmon and Tiphys the
wise helmsman: one died of an evil sickness, and one a wild boar
slew.  So the heroes heaped a mound above them, and set upon
it an oar on high, and left them there to sleep together, on the
far-off Lycian shore.  But Idas killed the boar, and avenged
Tiphys; and Ancaios took the rudder and was helmsman, and steered
them on toward the east.

And they went on past Sinope, and many a mighty river’s
mouth, and past many a barbarous tribe, and the cities of the
Amazons, the warlike women of the East, till all night they heard
the clank of anvils and the roar of furnace-blasts, and the
forge-fires shone like sparks through the darkness in the
mountain glens aloft; for they were come to the shores of the
Chalybes, the smiths who never tire, but serve Ares the cruel
War-god, forging weapons day and night.

And at day-dawn they looked eastward, and midway between the
sea and the sky they saw white snow-peaks hanging, glittering
sharp and bright above the clouds.  And they knew that they
were come to Caucasus, at the end of all the earth: Caucasus the
highest of all mountains, the father of the rivers of the
East.  On his peak lies chained the Titan, while a vulture
tears his heart; and at his feet are piled dark forests round the
magic Colchian land.

And they rowed three days to the eastward, while Caucasus rose
higher hour by hour, till they saw the dark stream of Phasis
rushing headlong to the sea, and, shining above the tree-tops,
the golden roofs of King Aietes, the child of the Sun.

Then out spoke Ancaios the helmsman, ‘We are come to our
goal at last, for there are the roofs of Aietes, and the woods
where all poisons grow; but who can tell us where among them is
hid the golden fleece?  Many a toil must we bear ere we find
it, and bring it home to Greece.’

But Jason cheered the heroes, for his heart was high and bold;
and he said, ‘I will go alone up to Aietes, though he be
the child of the Sun, and win him with soft words.  Better
so than to go altogether, and to come to blows at
once.’  But the Minuai would not stay behind, so they
rowed boldly up the stream.

And a dream came to Aietes, and filled his heart with
fear.  He thought he saw a shining star, which fell into his
daughter’s lap; and that Medeia his daughter took it
gladly, and carried it to the river-side, and cast it in, and
there the whirling river bore it down, and out into the Euxine
Sea.

Then he leapt up in fear, and bade his servants bring his
chariot, that he might go down to the river-side and appease the
nymphs, and the heroes whose spirits haunt the bank.  So he
went down in his golden chariot, and his daughters by his side,
Medeia the fair witch-maiden, and Chalciope, who had been
Phrixus’ wife, and behind him a crowd of servants and
soldiers, for he was a rich and mighty prince.

And as he drove down by the reedy river he saw Argo
sliding up beneath the bank, and many a hero in her, like
Immortals for beauty and for strength, as their weapons glittered
round them in the level morning sunlight, through the white mist
of the stream.  But Jason was the noblest of all; for Hera,
who loved him, gave him beauty and tallness and terrible
manhood.

And when they came near together and looked into each
other’s eyes the heroes were awed before Aietes as he shone
in his chariot, like his father the glorious Sun; for his robes
were of rich gold tissue, and the rays of his diadem flashed
fire; and in his hand he bore a jewelled sceptre, which glittered
like the stars; and sternly he looked at them under his brows,
and sternly he spoke and loud—

‘Who are you, and what want you here, that you come to
the shore of Cutaia?  Do you take no account of my rule, nor
of my people the Colchians who serve me, who never tired yet in
the battle, and know well how to face an invader?’

And the heroes sat silent awhile before the face of that
ancient king.  But Hera the awful goddess put courage into
Jason’s heart, and he rose and shouted loudly in answer,
‘We are no pirates nor lawless men.  We come not to
plunder and to ravage, or carry away slaves from your land; but
my uncle, the son of Poseidon, Pelias the Minuan king, he it is
who has set me on a quest to bring home the golden fleece. 
And these too, my bold comrades, they are no nameless men; for
some are the sons of Immortals, and some of heroes far
renowned.  And we too never tire in battle, and know well
how to give blows and to take: yet we wish to be guests at your
table: it will be better so for both.’

Then Aietes’ race rushed up like a whirlwind, and his
eyes flashed fire as he heard; but he crushed his anger down in
his breast, and spoke mildly a cunning speech—

‘If you will fight for the fleece with my Colchians,
then many a man must die.  But do you indeed expect to win
from me the fleece in fight?  So few you are that if you be
worsted I can load your ship with your corpses.  But if you
will be ruled by me, you will find it better far to choose the
best man among you, and let him fulfil the labours which I
demand.  Then I will give him the golden fleece for a prize
and a glory to you all.’

So saying, he turned his horses and drove back in silence to
the town.  And the Minuai sat silent with sorrow, and longed
for Heracles and his strength; for there was no facing the
thousands of the Colchians and the fearful chance of war.

But Chalciope, Phrixus’ widow, went weeping to the town;
for she remembered her Minuan husband, and all the pleasures of
her youth, while she watched the fair faces of his kinsmen, and
their long locks of golden hair.  And she whispered to
Medeia her sister, ‘Why should all these brave men die? why
does not my father give them up the fleece, that my
husband’s spirit may have rest?’

And Medeia’s heart pitied the heroes, and Jason most of
all; and she answered, ‘Our father is stern and terrible,
and who can win the golden fleece?’  But Chalciope
said, ‘These men are not like our men; there is nothing
which they cannot dare nor do.’

And Medeia thought of Jason and his brave countenance, and
said, ‘If there was one among them who knew no fear, I
could show him how to win the fleece.’

So in the dusk of evening they went down to the river-side,
Chalciope and Medeia the witch-maiden, and Argus, Phrixus’
son.  And Argus the boy crept forward, among the beds of
reeds, till he came where the heroes were sleeping, on the
thwarts of the ship, beneath the bank, while Jason kept ward on
shore, and leant upon his lance full of thought.  And the
boy came to Jason, and said—

‘I am the son of Phrixus, your Cousin; and Chalciope my
mother waits for you, to talk about the golden fleece.’

Then Jason went boldly with the boy, and found the two
princesses standing; and when Chalciope saw him she wept, and
took his hands, and cried—‘O cousin of my beloved, go
home before you die!’

‘It would be base to go home now, fair princess, and to
have sailed all these seas in vain.’  Then both the
princesses besought him; but Jason said, ‘It is too
late.’

‘But you know not,’ said Medeia, ‘what he
must do who would win the fleece.  He must tame the two
brazen-footed bulls, who breathe devouring flame; and with them
he must plough ere nightfall four acres in the field of Ares; and
he must sow them with serpents’ teeth, of which each tooth
springs up into an armed man.  Then he must fight with all
those warriors; and little will it profit him to conquer them,
for the fleece is guarded by a serpent, more huge than any
mountain pine; and over his body you must step if you would reach
the golden fleece.’

Then Jason laughed bitterly.  ‘Unjustly is that
fleece kept here, and by an unjust and lawless king; and unjustly
shall I die in my youth, for I will attempt it ere another sun be
set.’

Then Medeia trembled, and said, ‘No mortal man can reach
that fleece unless I guide him through.  For round it,
beyond the river, is a wall full nine ells high, with lofty
towers and buttresses, and mighty gates of threefold brass; and
over the gates the wall is arched, with golden battlements
above.  And over the gateway sits Brimo, the wild
witch-huntress of the woods, brandishing a pine-torch in her
hands, while her mad hounds howl around.  No man dare meet
her or look on her, but only I her priestess, and she watches far
and wide lest any stranger should come near.’

‘No wall so high but it may be climbed at last, and no
wood so thick but it may be crawled through; no serpent so wary
but he may be charmed, or witch-queen so fierce but spells may
soothe her; and I may yet win the golden fleece, if a wise maiden
help bold men.’

And he looked at Medeia cunningly, and held her with his
glittering eye, till she blushed and trembled, and
said—

‘Who can face the fire of the bulls’ breath, and
fight ten thousand armed men?’

‘He whom you help,’ said Jason, flattering her,
‘for your fame is spread over all the earth.  Are you
not the queen of all enchantresses, wiser even than your sister
Circe, in her fairy island in the West?’

‘Would that I were with my sister Circe in her fairy
island in the West, far away from sore temptation and thoughts
which tear the heart!  But if it must be so—for why
should you die?—I have an ointment here; I made it from the
magic ice-flower which sprang from Prometheus’ wound, above
the clouds on Caucasus, in the dreary fields of snow. 
Anoint yourself with that, and you shall have in you seven
men’s strength; and anoint your shield with it, and neither
fire nor sword can harm you.  But what you begin you must
end before sunset, for its virtue lasts only one day.  And
anoint your helmet with it before you sow the serpents’
teeth; and when the sons of earth spring up, cast your helmet
among their ranks, and the deadly crop of the War-god’s
field will mow itself, and perish.’

Then Jason fell on his knees before her, and thanked her and
kissed her hands; and she gave him the vase of ointment, and fled
trembling through the reeds.  And Jason told his comrades
what had happened, and showed them the box of ointment; and all
rejoiced but Idas, and he grew mad with envy.

And at sunrise Jason went and bathed, and anointed himself
from head to foot, and his shield, and his helmet, and his
weapons, and bade his comrades try the spell.  So they tried
to bend his lance, but it stood like an iron bar; and Idas in
spite hewed at it with his sword, but the blade flew to splinters
in his face.  Then they hurled their lances at his shield,
but the spear-points turned like lead; and Caineus tried to throw
him, but he never stirred a foot; and Polydeuces struck him with
his fist a blow which would have killed an ox, but Jason only
smiled, and the heroes danced about him with delight; and he
leapt, and ran, and shouted in the joy of that enormous strength,
till the sun rose, and it was time to go and to claim
Aietes’ promise.

So he sent up Telamon and Aithalides to tell Aietes that he
was ready for the fight; and they went up among the marble walls,
and beneath the roofs of gold, and stood in Aietes’ hall,
while he grew pale with rage.

‘Fulfil your promise to us, child of the blazing
Sun.  Give us the serpents’ teeth, and let loose the
fiery bulls; for we have found a champion among us who can win
the golden fleece.’

And Aietes bit his lips, for he fancied that they had fled
away by night: but he could not go back from his promise; so he
gave them the serpents’ teeth.

Then he called for his chariot and his horses, and sent
heralds through all the town; and all the people went out with
him to the dreadful War-god’s field.

And there Aietes sat upon his throne, with his warriors on
each hand, thousands and tens of thousands, clothed from head to
foot in steel chain-mail.  And the people and the women
crowded to every window and bank and wall; while the Minuai stood
together, a mere handful in the midst of that great host.

And Chalciope was there and Argus, trembling, and Medeia,
wrapped closely in her veil; but Aietes did not know that she was
muttering cunning spells between her lips.

Then Jason cried, ‘Fulfil your promise, and let your
fiery bulls come forth.’

Then Aietes bade open the gates, and the magic bulls leapt
out.  Their brazen hoofs rang upon the ground, and their
nostrils sent out sheets of flame, as they rushed with lowered
heads upon Jason; but he never flinched a step.  The flame
of their breath swept round him, but it singed not a hair of his
head; and the bulls stopped short and trembled when Medeia began
her spell.

Then Jason sprang upon the nearest and seized him by the horn;
and up and down they wrestled, till the bull fell grovelling on
his knees; for the heart of the brute died within him, and his
mighty limbs were loosed, beneath the steadfast eye of that dark
witch-maiden and the magic whisper of her lips.

So both the bulls were tamed and yoked; and Jason bound them
to the plough, and goaded them onward with his lance till he had
ploughed the sacred field.

And all the Minuai shouted; but Aietes bit his lips with rage,
for the half of Jason’s work was over, and the sun was yet
high in heaven.

Then he took the serpents’ teeth and sowed them, and
waited what would befall.  But Medeia looked at him and at
his helmet, lest he should forget the lesson she had taught.

And every furrow heaved and bubbled, and out of every clod
arose a man.  Out of the earth they rose by thousands, each
clad from head to foot in steel, and drew their swords and rushed
on Jason, where he stood in the midst alone.

Then the Minuai grew pale with fear for him; but Aietes
laughed a bitter laugh.  ‘See! if I had not warriors
enough already round me, I could call them out of the bosom of
the earth.’

But Jason snatched off his helmet, and hurled it into the
thickest of the throng.  And blind madness came upon them,
suspicion, hate, and fear; and one cried to his fellow,
‘Thou didst strike me!’ and another, ‘Thou art
Jason; thou shalt die!’  So fury seized those
earth-born phantoms, and each turned his hand against the rest;
and they fought and were never weary, till they all lay dead upon
the ground.  Then the magic furrows opened, and the kind
earth took them home into her breast and the grass grew up all
green again above them, and Jason’s work was done.

Then the Minuai rose and shouted, till Prometheus heard them
from his crag.  And Jason cried, ‘Lead me to the
fleece this moment, before the sun goes down.’

But Aietes thought, ‘He has conquered the bulls, and
sown and reaped the deadly crop.  Who is this who is proof
against all magic?  He may kill the serpent
yet.’  So he delayed, and sat taking counsel with his
princes till the sun went down and all was dark.  Then he
bade a herald cry, ‘Every man to his home for
to-night.  To-morrow we will meet these heroes, and speak
about the golden fleece.’

Then he turned and looked at Medeia.  ‘This is your
doing, false witch-maid!  You have helped these
yellow-haired strangers, and brought shame upon your father and
yourself!’

Medeia shrank and trembled, and her face grew pale with fear;
and Aietes knew that she was guilty, and whispered, ‘If
they win the fleece, you die!’

But the Minuai marched toward their ship, growling like lions
cheated of their prey; for they saw that Aietes meant to mock
them, and to cheat them out of all their toil.  And Oileus
said, ‘Let us go to the grove together, and take the fleece
by force.’

And Idas the rash cried, ‘Let us draw lots who shall go
in first; for, while the dragon is devouring one, the rest can
slay him and carry off the fleece in peace.’  But
Jason held them back, though he praised them; for he hoped for
Medeia’s help.

And after awhile Medeia came trembling, and wept a long while
before she spoke.  And at last—

‘My end is come, and I must die; for my father has found
out that I have helped you.  You he would kill if he dared;
but he will not harm you, because you have been his guests. 
Go then, go, and remember poor Medeia when you are far away
across the sea.’  But all the heroes cried—

‘If you die, we die with you; for without you we cannot
win the fleece, and home we will not go without it, but fall here
fighting to the last man.’

‘You need not die,’ said Jason.  ‘Flee
home with us across the sea.  Show us first how to win the
fleece; for you can do it.  Why else are you the priestess
of the grove?  Show us but how to win the fleece, and come
with us, and you shall be my queen, and rule over the rich
princes of the Minuai, in Iolcos by the sea.’

And all the heroes pressed round, and vowed to her that she
should be their queen.

Medeia wept, and shuddered, and hid her face in her hands; for
her heart yearned after her sisters and her playfellows, and the
home where she was brought up as a child.  But at last she
looked up at Jason, and spoke between her sobs—

‘Must I leave my home and my people, to wander with
strangers across the sea?  The lot is cast, and I must
endure it.  I will show you how to win the golden
fleece.  Bring up your ship to the wood-side, and moor her
there against the bank; and let Jason come up at midnight, and
one brave comrade with him, and meet me beneath the
wall.’

Then all the heroes cried together, ‘I will go!’
‘and I!’ ‘and I!’  And Idas the rash
grew mad with envy; for he longed to be foremost in all
things.  But Medeia calmed them, and said, ‘Orpheus
shall go with Jason, and bring his magic harp; for I hear of him
that he is the king of all minstrels, and can charm all things on
earth.’

And Orpheus laughed for joy, and clapped his hands, because
the choice had fallen on him; for in those days poets and singers
were as bold warriors as the best.

So at midnight they went up the bank, and found Medeia; and
beside came Absyrtus her young brother, leading a yearling
lamb.

Then Medeia brought them to a thicket beside the
War-god’s gate; and there she bade Jason dig a ditch, and
kill the lamb, and leave it there, and strew on it magic herbs
and honey from the honeycomb.

Then sprang up through the earth, with the red fire flashing
before her, Brimo the wild witch-huntress, while her mad hounds
howled around.  She had one head like a horse’s, and
another like a ravening hound’s, and another like a hissing
snake’s, and a sword in either hand.  And she leapt
into the ditch with her hounds, and they ate and drank their
fill, while Jason and Orpheus trembled, and Medeia hid her
eyes.  And at last the witch-queen vanished, and fled with
her hounds into the woods; and the bars of the gates fell down,
and the brazen doors flew wide, and Medeia and the heroes ran
forward and hurried through the poison wood, among the dark stems
of the mighty beeches, guided by the gleam of the golden fleece,
until they saw it hanging on one vast tree in the midst. 
And Jason would have sprung to seize it; but Medeia held him
back, and pointed, shuddering, to the tree-foot, where the mighty
serpent lay, coiled in and out among the roots, with a body like
a mountain pine.  His coils stretched many a fathom,
spangled with bronze and gold; and half of him they could see,
but no more, for the rest lay in the darkness far beyond.

And when he saw them coming he lifted up his head, and watched
them with his small bright eyes, and flashed his forked tongue,
and roared like the fire among the woodlands, till the forest
tossed and groaned.  For his cries shook the trees from leaf
to root, and swept over the long reaches of the river, and over
Aietes’ hall, and woke the sleepers in the city, till
mothers clasped their children in their fear.

But Medeia called gently to him, and he stretched out his long
spotted neck, and licked her hand, and looked up in her face, as
if to ask for food.  Then she made a sign to Orpheus, and he
began his magic song.

And as he sung, the forest grew calm again, and the leaves on
every tree hung still; and the serpent’s head sank down,
and his brazen coils grew limp, and his glittering eyes closed
lazily, till he breathed as gently as a child, while Orpheus
called to pleasant Slumber, who gives peace to men, and beasts,
and waves.

Then Jason leapt forward warily, and stept across that mighty
snake, and tore the fleece from off the tree-trunk; and the four
rushed down the garden, to the bank where the Argo
lay.

There was a silence for a moment, while Jason held the golden
fleece on high.  Then he cried, ‘Go now, good
Argo, swift and steady, if ever you would see Pelion
more.’

And she went, as the heroes drove her, grim and silent all,
with muffled oars, till the pine-wood bent like willow in their
hands, and stout Argo groaned beneath their strokes.

On and on, beneath the dewy darkness, they fled swiftly down
the swirling stream; underneath black walls, and temples, and the
castles of the princes of the East; past sluice-mouths, and
fragrant gardens, and groves of all strange fruits; past marshes
where fat kine lay sleeping, and long beds of whispering reeds;
till they heard the merry music of the surge upon the bar, as it
tumbled in the moonlight all alone.

Into the surge they rushed, and Argo leapt the breakers
like a horse; for she knew the time was come to show her mettle,
and win honour for the heroes and herself.

Into the surge they rushed, and Argo leapt the breakers
like a horse, till the heroes stopped all panting, each man upon
his oar, as she slid into the still broad sea.

Then Orpheus took his harp and sang a pæan, till the
heroes’ hearts rose high again; and they rowed on stoutly
and steadfastly, away into the darkness of the West.

p. 127PART V
HOW THE ARGONAUTS WERE DRIVEN INTO THE UNKNOWN SEA

So they fled away in haste to the westward; but Aietes manned
his fleet and followed them.  And Lynceus the quick-eyed saw
him coming, while he was still many a mile away, and cried,
‘I see a hundred ships, like a flock of white swans, far in
the east.’  And at that they rowed hard, like heroes;
but the ships came nearer every hour.

Then Medeia, the dark witch-maiden, laid a cruel and a cunning
plot; for she killed Absyrtus her young brother, and cast him
into the sea, and said, ‘Ere my father can take up his
corpse and bury it, he must wait long, and be left far
behind.’

And all the heroes shuddered, and looked one at the other for
shame; yet they did not punish that dark witch-woman, because she
had won for them the golden fleece.

And when Aietes came to the place he saw the floating corpse;
and he stopped a long while, and bewailed his son, and took him
up, and went home.  But he sent on his sailors toward the
westward, and bound them by a mighty curse—‘Bring
back to me that dark witch-woman, that she may die a dreadful
death.  But if you return without her, you shall die by the
same death yourselves.’

So the Argonauts escaped for that time: but Father Zeus saw
that foul crime; and out of the heavens he sent a storm, and
swept the ship far from her course.  Day after day the storm
drove her, amid foam and blinding mist, till they knew no longer
where they were, for the sun was blotted from the skies. 
And at last the ship struck on a shoal, amid low isles of mud and
sand, and the waves rolled over her and through her, and the
heroes lost all hope of life.

Then Jason cried to Hera, ‘Fair queen, who hast
befriended us till now, why hast thou left us in our misery, to
die here among unknown seas?  It is hard to lose the honour
which we have won with such toil and danger, and hard never to
see Hellas again, and the pleasant bay of Pagasai.’

Then out and spoke the magic bough which stood upon the
Argo’s beak, ‘Because Father Zeus is angry,
all this has fallen on you; for a cruel crime has been done on
board, and the sacred ship is foul with blood.’

At that some of the heroes cried, ‘Medeia is the
murderess.  Let the witch-woman bear her sin, and
die!’  And they seized Medeia, to hurl her into the
sea, and atone for the young boy’s death; but the magic
bough spoke again, ‘Let her live till her crimes are
full.  Vengeance waits for her, slow and sure; but she must
live, for you need her still.  She must show you the way to
her sister Circe, who lives among the islands of the West. 
To her you must sail, a weary way, and she shall cleanse you from
your guilt.’

Then all the heroes wept aloud when they heard the sentence of
the oak; for they knew that a dark journey lay before them, and
years of bitter toil.  And some upbraided the dark
witch-woman, and some said, ‘Nay, we are her debtors still;
without her we should never have won the fleece.’  But
most of them bit their lips in silence, for they feared the
witch’s spells.

And now the sea grew calmer, and the sun shone out once more,
and the heroes thrust the ship off the sand-bank, and rowed
forward on their weary course under the guiding of the dark
witch-maiden, into the wastes of the unknown sea.

Whither they went I cannot tell, nor how they came to
Circe’s isle.  Some say that they went to the
westward, and up the Ister [130a] stream, and so
came into the Adriatic, dragging their ship over the snowy
Alps.  And others say that they went southward, into the Red
Indian Sea, and past the sunny lands where spices grow, round
Æthiopia toward the West; and that at last they came to
Libya, and dragged their ship across the burning sands, and over
the hills into the Syrtes, where the flats and quicksands spread
for many a mile, between rich Cyrene and the Lotus-eaters’
shore.  But all these are but dreams and fables, and dim
hints of unknown lands.

But all say that they came to a place where they had to drag
their ship across the land nine days with ropes and rollers, till
they came into an unknown sea.  And the best of all the old
songs tells us how they went away toward the North, till they
came to the slope of Caucasus, where it sinks into the sea; and
to the narrow Cimmerian Bosphorus, [130b] where the Titan
swam across upon the bull; and thence into the lazy waters of the
still Mæotid lake. [130c]  And thence
they went northward ever, up the Tanais, which we call Don, past
the Geloni and Sauromatai, and many a wandering shepherd-tribe,
and the one-eyed Arimaspi, of whom old Greek poets tell, who
steal the gold from the Griffins, in the cold Riphaian hills. [131a]

And they passed the Scythian archers, and the Tauri who eat
men, and the wandering Hyperboreai, who feed their flocks beneath
the pole-star, until they came into the northern ocean, the dull
dead Cronian Sea. [131b]  And there
Argo would move on no longer; and each man clasped his
elbow, and leaned his head upon his hand, heart-broken with toil
and hunger, and gave himself up to death.  But brave Ancaios
the helmsman cheered up their hearts once more, and bade them
leap on land, and haul the ship with ropes and rollers for many a
weary day, whether over land, or mud, or ice, I know not, for the
song is mixed and broken like a dream.  And it says next,
how they came to the rich nation of the famous long-lived men;
and to the coast of the Cimmerians, who never saw the sun, buried
deep in the glens of the snow mountains; and to the fair land of
Hermione, where dwelt the most righteous of all nations; and to
the gates of the world below, and to the dwelling-place of
dreams.

And at last Ancaios shouted, ‘Endure a little while,
brave friends, the worst is surely past; for I can see the pure
west wind ruffle the water, and hear the roar of ocean on the
sands.  So raise up the mast, and set the sail, and face
what comes like men.’

Then out spoke the magic bough, ‘Ah, would that I had
perished long ago, and been whelmed by the dread blue rocks,
beneath the fierce swell of the Euxine!  Better so, than to
wander for ever, disgraced by the guilt of my princes; for the
blood of Absyrtus still tracks me, and woe follows hard upon
woe.  And now some dark horror will clutch me, if I come
near the Isle of Ierne. [132]  Unless you
will cling to the land, and sail southward and southward for
ever, I shall wander beyond the Atlantic, to the ocean which has
no shore.’

Then they blest the magic bough, and sailed southward along
the land.  But ere they could pass Ierne, the land of mists
and storms, the wild wind came down, dark and roaring, and caught
the sail, and strained the ropes.  And away they drove
twelve nights, on the wide wild western sea, through the foam,
and over the rollers, while they saw neither sun nor stars. 
And they cried again, ‘We shall perish, for we know not
where we are.  We are lost in the dreary damp darkness, and
cannot tell north from south.’

But Lynceus the long-sighted called gaily from the bows,
‘Take heart again, brave sailors; for I see a pine-clad
isle, and the halls of the kind Earth-mother, with a crown of
clouds around them.’

But Orpheus said, ‘Turn from them, for no living man can
land there: there is no harbour on the coast, but steep-walled
cliffs all round.’

So Ancaios turned the ship away; and for three days more they
sailed on, till they came to Aiaia, Circe’s home, and the
fairy island of the West. [133]

And there Jason bid them land, and seek about for any sign of
living man.  And as they went inland Circe met them, coming
down toward the ship; and they trembled when they saw her, for
her hair, and face, and robes shone like flame.

And she came and looked at Medeia; and Medeia hid her face
beneath her veil.

And Circe cried, ‘Ah, wretched girl, have you forgotten
all your sins, that you come hither to my island, where the
flowers bloom all the year round?  Where is your aged
father, and the brother whom you killed?  Little do I expect
you to return in safety with these strangers whom you love. 
I will send you food and wine: but your ship must not stay here,
for it is foul with sin, and foul with sin its crew.’

And the heroes prayed her, but in vain, and cried,
‘Cleanse us from our guilt!’ But she sent them away,
and said, ‘Go on to Malea, and there you may be cleansed,
and return home.’

Then a fair wind rose, and they sailed eastward by Tartessus
on the Iberian shore, till they came to the Pillars of Hercules,
and the Mediterranean Sea.  And thence they sailed on
through the deeps of Sardinia, and past the Ausonian islands, and
the capes of the Tyrrhenian shore, till they came to a flowery
island, upon a still bright summer’s eve.  And as they
neared it, slowly and wearily, they heard sweet songs upon the
shore.  But when Medeia heard it, she started, and cried,
‘Beware, all heroes, for these are the rocks of the
Sirens.  You must pass close by them, for there is no other
channel; but those who listen to that song are lost.’

Then Orpheus spoke, the king of all minstrels, ‘Let them
match their song against mine.  I have charmed stones, and
trees, and dragons, how much more the hearts of men!’ 
So he caught up his lyre, and stood upon the poop, and began his
magic song.

And now they could see the Sirens on Anthemousa, the flowery
isle; three fair maidens sitting on the beach, beneath a red rock
in the setting sun, among beds of crimson poppies and golden
asphodel.  Slowly they sung and sleepily, with silver
voices, mild and clear, which stole over the golden waters, and
into the hearts of all the heroes, in spite of Orpheus’
song.

And all things stayed around and listened; the gulls sat in
white lines along the rocks; on the beach great seals lay
basking, and kept time with lazy heads; while silver shoals of
fish came up to hearken, and whispered as they broke the shining
calm.  The Wind overhead hushed his whistling, as he
shepherded his clouds toward the west; and the clouds stood in
mid blue, and listened dreaming, like a flock of golden
sheep.

And as the heroes listened, the oars fell from their hands,
and their heads drooped on their breasts, and they closed their
heavy eyes; and they dreamed of bright still gardens, and of
slumbers under murmuring pines, till all their toil seemed
foolishness, and they thought of their renown no more.

Then one lifted his head suddenly, and cried, ‘What use
in wandering for ever?  Let us stay here and rest
awhile.’  And another, ‘Let us row to the shore,
and hear the words they sing.’  And another, ‘I
care not for the words, but for the music.  They shall sing
me to sleep, that I may rest.’

And Butes, the son of Pandion, the fairest of all mortal men,
leapt out and swam toward the shore, crying, ‘I come, I
come, fair maidens, to live and die here, listening to your
song.’

Then Medeia clapped her hands together, and cried, ‘Sing
louder, Orpheus, sing a bolder strain; wake up these hapless
sluggards, or none of them will see the land of Hellas
more.’

Then Orpheus lifted his harp, and crashed his cunning hand
across the strings; and his music and his voice rose like a
trumpet through the still evening air; into the air it rushed
like thunder, till the rocks rang and the sea; and into their
souls it rushed like wine, till all hearts beat fast within their
breasts.

And he sung the song of Perseus, how the Gods led him over
land and sea, and how he slew the loathly Gorgon, and won himself
a peerless bride; and how he sits now with the Gods upon Olympus,
a shining star in the sky, immortal with his immortal bride, and
honoured by all men below.

So Orpheus sang, and the Sirens, answering each other across
the golden sea, till Orpheus’ voice drowned the
Sirens’, and the heroes caught their oars again.

And they cried, ‘We will be men like Perseus, and we
will dare and suffer to the last.  Sing us his song again,
brave Orpheus, that we may forget the Sirens and their
spell.’

And as Orpheus sang, they dashed their oars into the sea, and
kept time to his music, as they fled fast away; and the
Sirens’ voices died behind them, in the hissing of the foam
along their wake.

But Butes swam to the shore, and knelt down before the Sirens,
and cried, ‘Sing on! sing on!’  But he could say
no more, for a charmed sleep came over him, and a pleasant
humming in his ears; and he sank all along upon the pebbles, and
forgot all heaven and earth, and never looked at that sad beach
around him, all strewn with the bones of men.

Then slowly rose up those three fair sisters, with a cruel
smile upon their lips; and slowly they crept down towards him,
like leopards who creep upon their prey; and their hands were
like the talons of eagles as they stept across the bones of their
victims to enjoy their cruel feast.

But fairest Aphrodite saw him from the highest Idalian peak,
and she pitied his youth and his beauty, and leapt up from her
golden throne; and like a falling star she cleft the sky, and
left a trail of glittering light, till she stooped to the Isle of
the Sirens, and snatched their prey from their claws.  And
she lifted Butes as he lay sleeping, and wrapt him in golden
mist; and she bore him to the peak of Lilybæum, and he
slept there many a pleasant year.

But when the Sirens saw that they were conquered, they
shrieked for envy and rage, and leapt from the beach into the
sea, and were changed into rocks until this day.

Then they came to the straits by Lilybæum, and saw
Sicily, the three-cornered island, under which Enceladus the
giant lies groaning day and night, and when he turns the earth
quakes, and his breath bursts out in roaring flames from the
highest cone of Ætna, above the chestnut woods.  And
there Charybdis caught them in its fearful coils of wave, and
rolled mast-high about them, and spun them round and round; and
they could go neither back nor forward, while the whirlpool
sucked them in.

And while they struggled they saw near them, on the other side
the strait, a rock stand in the water, with its peak wrapt round
in clouds—a rock which no man could climb, though he had
twenty hands and feet, for the stone was smooth and slippery, as
if polished by man’s hand; and halfway up a misty cave
looked out toward the west.

And when Orpheus saw it he groaned, and struck his hands
together.  And ‘Little will it help us,’ he
cried, ‘to escape the jaws of the whirlpool; for in that
cave lives Scylla, the sea-hag with a young whelp’s voice;
my mother warned me of her ere we sailed away from Hellas; she
has six heads, and six long necks, and hides in that dark
cleft.  And from her cave she fishes for all things which
pass by—for sharks, and seals, and dolphins, and all the
herds of Amphitrite.  And never ship’s crew boasted
that they came safe by her rock, for she bends her long necks
down to them, and every mouth takes up a man.  And who will
help us now?  For Hera and Zeus hate us, and our ship is
foul with guilt; so we must die, whatever befalls.’

Then out of the depths came Thetis, Peleus’
silver-footed bride, for love of her gallant husband, and all her
nymphs around her; and they played like snow-white dolphins,
diving on from wave to wave, before the ship, and in her wake,
and beside her, as dolphins play.  And they caught the ship,
and guided her, and passed her on from hand to hand, and tossed
her through the billows, as maidens toss the ball.  And when
Scylla stooped to seize her, they struck back her ravening heads,
and foul Scylla whined, as a whelp whines, at the touch of their
gentle hands.  But she shrank into her cave
affrighted—for all bad things shrink from good—and
Argo leapt safe past her, while a fair breeze rose
behind.  Then Thetis and her nymphs sank down to their coral
caves beneath the sea, and their gardens of green and purple,
where live flowers bloom all the year round; while the heroes
went on rejoicing, yet dreading what might come next.

After that they rowed on steadily for many a weary day, till
they saw a long high island, and beyond it a mountain land. 
And they searched till they found a harbour, and there rowed
boldly in.  But after awhile they stopped, and wondered, for
there stood a great city on the shore, and temples and walls and
gardens, and castles high in air upon the cliffs.  And on
either side they saw a harbour, with a narrow mouth, but wide
within; and black ships without number, high and dry upon the
shore.

Then Ancaios, the wise helmsman, spoke, ‘What new wonder
is this?  I know all isles, and harbours, and the windings
of all seas; and this should be Corcyra, where a few wild
goat-herds dwell.  But whence come these new harbours and
vast works of polished stone?’

But Jason said, ‘They can be no savage people.  We
will go in and take our chance.’

So they rowed into the harbour, among a thousand black-beaked
ships, each larger far than Argo, toward a quay of
polished stone.  And they wondered at that mighty city, with
its roofs of burnished brass, and long and lofty walls of marble,
with strong palisades above.  And the quays were full of
people, merchants, and mariners, and slaves, going to and fro
with merchandise among the crowd of ships.  And the
heroes’ hearts were humbled, and they looked at each other
and said, ‘We thought ourselves a gallant crew when we
sailed from Iolcos by the sea; but how small we look before this
city, like an ant before a hive of bees.’

Then the sailors hailed them roughly from the quay,
‘What men are you?—we want no strangers here, nor
pirates.  We keep our business to ourselves.’

But Jason answered gently, with many a flattering word, and
praised their city and their harbour, and their fleet of gallant
ships.  ‘Surely you are the children of Poseidon, and
the masters of the sea; and we are but poor wandering mariners,
worn out with thirst and toil.  Give us but food and water,
and we will go on our voyage in peace.’

Then the sailors laughed, and answered, ‘Stranger, you
are no fool; you talk like an honest man, and you shall find us
honest too.  We are the children of Poseidon, and the
masters of the sea; but come ashore to us, and you shall have the
best that we can give.’

So they limped ashore, all stiff and weary, with long ragged
beards and sunburnt cheeks, and garments torn and
weather-stained, and weapons rusted with the spray, while the
sailors laughed at them (for they were rough-tongued, though
their hearts were frank and kind).  And one said,
‘These fellows are but raw sailors; they look as if they
had been sea-sick all the day.’  And another,
‘Their legs have grown crooked with much rowing, till they
waddle in their walk like ducks.’

At that Idas the rash would have struck them; but Jason held
him back, till one of the merchant kings spoke to them, a tall
and stately man.

‘Do not be angry, strangers; the sailor boys must have
their jest.  But we will treat you justly and kindly, for
strangers and poor men come from God; and you seem no common
sailors by your strength, and height, and weapons.  Come up
with me to the palace of Alcinous, the rich sea-going king, and
we will feast you well and heartily; and after that you shall
tell us your name.’

But Medeia hung back, and trembled, and whispered in
Jason’s ear, ‘We are betrayed, and are going to our
ruin, for I see my countrymen among the crowd; dark-eyed Colchi
in steel mail-shirts, such as they wear in my father’s
land.’

‘It is too late to turn,’ said Jason.  And he
spoke to the merchant king, ‘What country is this, good
sir; and what is this new-built town?’

‘This is the land of the Phæaces, beloved by all
the Immortals; for they come hither and feast like friends with
us, and sit by our side in the hall.  Hither we came from
Liburnia to escape the unrighteous Cyclopes; for they robbed us,
peaceful merchants, of our hard-earned wares and wealth.  So
Nausithous, the son of Poseidon, brought us hither, and died in
peace; and now his son Alcinous rules us, and Arete the wisest of
queens.’

So they went up across the square, and wondered still more as
they went; for along the quays lay in order great cables, and
yards, and masts, before the fair temple of Poseidon, the
blue-haired king of the seas.  And round the square worked
the ship-wrights, as many in number as ants, twining ropes, and
hewing timber, and smoothing long yards and oars.  And the
Minuai went on in silence through clean white marble streets,
till they came to the hall of Alcinous, and they wondered then
still more.  For the lofty palace shone aloft in the sun,
with walls of plated brass, from the threshold to the innermost
chamber, and the doors were of silver and gold.  And on each
side of the doorway sat living dogs of gold, who never grew old
or died, so well Hephaistos had made them in his forges in
smoking Lemnos, and gave them to Alcinous to guard his gates by
night.  And within, against the walls, stood thrones on
either side, down the whole length of the hall, strewn with rich
glossy shawls; and on them the merchant kings of those crafty
sea-roving Phæaces sat eating and drinking in pride, and
feasting there all the year round.  And boys of molten gold
stood each on a polished altar, and held torches in their hands,
to give light all night to the guests.  And round the house
sat fifty maid-servants, some grinding the meal in the mill, some
turning the spindle, some weaving at the loom, while their hands
twinkled as they passed the shuttle, like quivering aspen
leaves.

And outside before the palace a great garden was walled round,
filled full of stately fruit-trees, gray olives and sweet figs,
and pomegranates, pears, and apples, which bore the whole year
round.  For the rich south-west wind fed them, till pear
grew ripe on pear, fig on fig, and grape on grape, all the winter
and the spring.  And at the farther end gay flower-beds
bloomed through all seasons of the year; and two fair fountains
rose, and ran, one through the garden grounds, and one beneath
the palace gate, to water all the town.  Such noble gifts
the heavens had given to Alcinous the wise.

So they went in, and saw him sitting, like Poseidon, on his
throne, with his golden sceptre by him, in garments stiff with
gold, and in his hand a sculptured goblet, as he pledged the
merchant kings; and beside him stood Arete, his wise and lovely
queen, and leaned against a pillar as she spun her golden
threads.

Then Alcinous rose, and welcomed them, and bade them sit and
eat; and the servants brought them tables, and bread, and meat,
and wine.

But Medeia went on trembling toward Arete the fair queen, and
fell at her knees, and clasped them, and cried, weeping, as she
knelt—

‘I am your guest, fair queen, and I entreat you by Zeus,
from whom prayers come.  Do not send me back to my father to
die some dreadful death; but let me go my way, and bear my
burden.  Have I not had enough of punishment and
shame?’

‘Who are you, strange maiden? and what is the meaning of
your prayer?’

‘I am Medeia, daughter of Aietes, and I saw my
countrymen here to-day; and I know that they are come to find me,
and take me home to die some dreadful death.’

Then Arete frowned, and said, ‘Lead this girl in, my
maidens; and let the kings decide, not I.’

And Alcinous leapt up from his throne, and cried,
‘Speak, strangers, who are you?  And who is this
maiden?’

‘We are the heroes of the Minuai,’ said Jason;
‘and this maiden has spoken truth.  We are the men who
took the golden fleece, the men whose fame has run round every
shore.  We came hither out of the ocean, after sorrows such
as man never saw before.  We went out many, and come back
few, for many a noble comrade have we lost.  So let us go,
as you should let your guests go, in peace; that the world may
say, “Alcinous is a just king.”’

But Alcinous frowned, and stood deep in thought; and at last
he spoke—

‘Had not the deed been done which is done, I should have
said this day to myself, “It is an honour to Alcinous, and
to his children after him, that the far-famed Argonauts are his
guests.”  But these Colchi are my guests, as you are;
and for this month they have waited here with all their fleet,
for they have hunted all the seas of Hellas, and could not find
you, and dared neither go farther, nor go home.’

‘Let them choose out their champions, and we will fight
them, man for man.’

‘No guests of ours shall fight upon our island, and if
you go outside they will outnumber you.  I will do justice
between you, for I know and do what is right.’

Then he turned to his kings, and said, ‘This may stand
over till to-morrow.  To-night we will feast our guests, and
hear the story of all their wanderings, and how they came hither
out of the ocean.’

So Alcinous bade the servants take the heroes in, and bathe
them, and give them clothes.  And they were glad when they
saw the warm water, for it was long since they had bathed. 
And they washed off the sea-salt from their limbs, and anointed
themselves from head to foot with oil, and combed out their
golden hair.  Then they came back again into the hall, while
the merchant kings rose up to do them honour.  And each man
said to his neighbour, ‘No wonder that these men won
fame.  How they stand now like Giants, or Titans, or
Immortals come down from Olympus, though many a winter has worn
them, and many a fearful storm.  What must they have been
when they sailed from Iolcos, in the bloom of their youth, long
ago?’

Then they went out to the garden; and the merchant princes
said, ‘Heroes, run races with us.  Let us see whose
feet are nimblest.’

‘We cannot race against you, for our limbs are stiff
from sea; and we have lost our two swift comrades, the sons of
the north wind.  But do not think us cowards: if you wish to
try our strength, we will shoot, and box, and wrestle, against
any men on earth.’

And Alcinous smiled, and answered, ‘I believe you,
gallant guests; with your long limbs and broad shoulders, we
could never match you here.  For we care nothing here for
boxing, or for shooting with the bow; but for feasts, and songs,
and harping, and dancing, and running races, to stretch our limbs
on shore.’

So they danced there and ran races, the jolly merchant kings,
till the night fell, and all went in.

And then they ate and drank, and comforted their weary souls,
till Alcinous called a herald, and bade him go and fetch the
harper.

The herald went out, and fetched the harper, and led him in by
the hand; and Alcinous cut him a piece of meat, from the fattest
of the haunch, and sent it to him, and said, ‘Sing to us,
noble harper, and rejoice the heroes’ hearts.’

So the harper played and sang, while the dancers danced
strange figures; and after that the tumblers showed their tricks,
till the heroes laughed again.

Then, ‘Tell me, heroes,’ asked Alcinous,
‘you who have sailed the ocean round, and seen the manners
of all nations, have you seen such dancers as ours here, or heard
such music and such singing?  We hold ours to be the best on
earth.’

‘Such dancing we have never seen,’ said Orpheus;
‘and your singer is a happy man, for Phoebus himself must
have taught him, or else he is the son of a Muse, as I am also,
and have sung once or twice, though not so well as he.’

‘Sing to us, then, noble stranger,’ said Alcinous;
‘and we will give you precious gifts.’

So Orpheus took his magic harp, and sang to them a stirring
song of their voyage from Iolcos, and their dangers, and how they
won the golden fleece; and of Medeia’s love, and how she
helped them, and went with them over land and sea; and of all
their fearful dangers, from monsters, and rocks, and storms, till
the heart of Arete was softened, and all the women wept. 
And the merchant kings rose up, each man from off his golden
throne, and clapped their hands, and shouted, ‘Hail to the
noble Argonauts, who sailed the unknown sea!’

Then he went on, and told their journey over the sluggish
northern main, and through the shoreless outer ocean, to the
fairy island of the west; and of the Sirens, and Scylla, and
Charybdis, and all the wonders they had seen, till midnight
passed and the day dawned; but the kings never thought of
sleep.  Each man sat still and listened, with his chin upon
his hand.

And at last, when Orpheus had ended, they all went thoughtful
out, and the heroes lay down to sleep, beneath the sounding porch
outside, where Arete had strewn them rugs and carpets, in the
sweet still summer night.

But Arete pleaded hard with her husband for Medeia, for her
heart was softened.  And she said, ‘The Gods will
punish her, not we.  After all, she is our guest and my
suppliant, and prayers are the daughters of Zeus.  And who,
too, dare part man and wife, after all they have endured
together?’

And Alcinous smiled.  ‘The minstrel’s song
has charmed you: but I must remember what is right, for songs
cannot alter justice; and I must be faithful to my name. 
Alcinous I am called, the man of sturdy sense; and Alcinous I
will be.’  But for all that Arete besought him, until
she won him round.

So next morning he sent a herald, and called the kings into
the square, and said, ‘This is a puzzling matter: remember
but one thing.  These Minuai live close by us, and we may
meet them often on the seas; but Aietes lives afar off, and we
have only heard his name.  Which, then, of the two is it
safer to offend—the men near us, or the men far
off?’

The princes laughed, and praised his wisdom; and Alcinous
called the heroes to the square, and the Colchi also; and they
came and stood opposite each other, but Medeia stayed in the
palace.  Then Alcinous spoke, ‘Heroes of the Colchi,
what is your errand about this lady?’

‘To carry her home with us, that she may die a shameful
death; but if we return without her, we must die the death she
should have died.’

‘What say you to this, Jason the Æolid?’
said Alcinous, turning to the Minuai.

‘I say,’ said the cunning Jason, ‘that they
are come here on a bootless errand.  Do you think that you
can make her follow you, heroes of the Colchi—her, who
knows all spells and charms?  She will cast away your ships
on quicksands, or call down on you Brimo the wild huntress; or
the chains will fall from off her wrists, and she will escape in
her dragon-car; or if not thus, some other way, for she has a
thousand plans and wiles.  And why return home at all, brave
heroes, and face the long seas again, and the Bosphorus, and the
stormy Euxine, and double all your toil?  There is many a
fair land round these coasts, which waits for gallant men like
you.  Better to settle there, and build a city, and let
Aietes and Colchis help themselves.’

Then a murmur rose among the Colchi, and some cried ‘He
has spoken well;’ and some, ‘We have had enough of
roving, we will sail the seas no more!’  And the chief
said at last, ‘Be it so, then; a plague she has been to us,
and a plague to the house of her father, and a plague she will be
to you.  Take her, since you are no wiser; and we will sail
away toward the north.’

Then Alcinous gave them food, and water, and garments, and
rich presents of all sorts; and he gave the same to the Minuai,
and sent them all away in peace.

So Jason kept the dark witch-maiden to breed him woe and
shame; and the Colchi went northward into the Adriatic, and
settled, and built towns along the shore.

Then the heroes rowed away to the eastward, to reach Hellas,
their beloved land; but a storm came down upon them, and swept
them far away toward the south.  And they rowed till they
were spent with struggling, through the darkness and the blinding
rain; but where they were they could not tell, and they gave up
all hope of life.  And at last touched the ground, and when
daylight came waded to the shore; and saw nothing round but sand
and desolate salt pools, for they had come to the quicksands of
the Syrtis, and the dreary treeless flats which lie between
Numidia and Cyrene, on the burning shore of Africa.  And
there they wandered starving for many a weary day, ere they could
launch their ship again, and gain the open sea.  And there
Canthus was killed, while he was trying to drive off sheep, by a
stone which a herdsman threw.

And there too Mopsus died, the seer who knew the voices of all
birds; but he could not foretell his own end, for he was bitten
in the foot by a snake, one of those which sprang from the
Gorgon’s head when Perseus carried it across the sands.

At last they rowed away toward the northward, for many a weary
day, till their water was spent, and their food eaten; and they
were worn out with hunger and thirst.  But at last they saw
a long steep island, and a blue peak high among the clouds; and
they knew it for the peak of Ida, and the famous land of
Crete.  And they said, ‘We will land in Crete, and see
Minos the just king, and all his glory and his wealth; at least
he will treat us hospitably, and let us fill our water-casks upon
the shore.’

But when they came nearer to the island they saw a wondrous
sight upon the cliffs.  For on a cape to the westward stood
a giant, taller than any mountain pine, who glittered aloft
against the sky like a tower of burnished brass.  He turned
and looked on all sides round him, till he saw the Argo
and her crew; and when he saw them he came toward them, more
swiftly than the swiftest horse, leaping across the glens at a
bound, and striding at one step from down to down.  And when
he came abreast of them he brandished his arms up and down, as a
ship hoists and lowers her yards, and shouted with his brazen
throat like a trumpet from off the hills, ‘You are pirates,
you are robbers!  If you dare land here, you die.’

Then the heroes cried, ‘We are no pirates.  We are
all good men and true, and all we ask is food and water;’
but the giant cried the more—

‘You are robbers, you are pirates all; I know you; and
if you land, you shall die the death.’

Then he waved his arms again as a signal, and they saw the
people flying inland, driving their flocks before them, while a
great flame arose among the hills.  Then the giant ran up a
valley and vanished, and the heroes lay on their oars in
fear.

But Medeia stood watching all from under her steep black
brows, with a cunning smile upon her lips, and a cunning plot
within her heart.  At last she spoke, ‘I know this
giant.  I heard of him in the East.  Hephaistos the
Fire King made him in his forge in Ætna beneath the earth,
and called him Talus, and gave him to Minos for a servant, to
guard the coast of Crete.  Thrice a day he walks round the
island, and never stops to sleep; and if strangers land he leaps
into his furnace, which flames there among the hills; and when he
is red-hot he rushes on them, and burns them in his brazen
hands.’

Then all the heroes cried, ‘What shall we do, wise
Medeia?  We must have water, or we die of thirst. 
Flesh and blood we can face fairly; but who can face this red-hot
brass?’

‘I can face red-hot brass, if the tale I hear be
true.  For they say that he has but one vein in all his
body, filled with liquid fire; and that this vein is closed with
a nail: but I know not where that nail is placed.  But if I
can get it once into these hands, you shall water your ship here
in peace.’

Then she bade them put her on shore, and row off again, and
wait what would befall.

And the heroes obeyed her unwillingly, for they were ashamed
to leave her so alone; but Jason said, ‘She is dearer to me
than to any of you, yet I will trust her freely on shore; she has
more plots than we can dream of in the windings of that fair and
cunning head.’

So they left the witch-maiden on the shore; and she stood
there in her beauty all alone, till the giant strode back red-hot
from head to heel, while the grass hissed and smoked beneath his
tread.

And when he saw the maiden alone, he stopped; and she looked
boldly up into his face without moving, and began her magic
song:—

‘Life is short, though life is sweet; and even men of
brass and fire must die.  The brass must rust, the fire must
cool, for time gnaws all things in their turn.  Life is
short, though life is sweet: but sweeter to live for ever;
sweeter to live ever youthful like the Gods, who have ichor in
their veins—ichor which gives life, and youth, and joy, and
a bounding heart.’

Then Talus said, ‘Who are you, strange maiden, and where
is this ichor of youth?’

Then Medeia held up a flask of crystal, and said, ‘Here
is the ichor of youth.  I am Medeia the enchantress; my
sister Circe gave me this, and said, “Go and reward Talus,
the faithful servant, for his fame is gone out into all
lands.”  So come, and I will pour this into your
veins, that you may live for ever young.’

And he listened to her false words, that simple Talus, and
came near; and Medeia said, ‘Dip yourself in the sea first,
and cool yourself, lest you burn my tender hands; then show me
where the nail in your vein is, that I may pour the ichor
in.’

Then that simple Talus dipped himself in the sea, till it
hissed, and roared, and smoked; and came and knelt before Medeia,
and showed her the secret nail.

And she drew the nail out gently, but she poured no ichor in;
and instead the liquid fire spouted forth, like a stream of
red-hot iron.  And Talus tried to leap up, crying,
‘You have betrayed me, false witch-maiden!’  But
she lifted up her hands before him, and sang, till he sank
beneath her spell.  And as he sank, his brazen limbs clanked
heavily, and the earth groaned beneath his weight; and the liquid
fire ran from his heel, like a stream of lava, to the sea; and
Medeia laughed, and called to the heroes, ‘Come ashore, and
water your ship in peace.’

So they came, and found the giant lying dead; and they fell
down, and kissed Medeia’s feet; and watered their ship, and
took sheep and oxen, and so left that inhospitable shore.

At last, after many more adventures, they came to the Cape of
Malea, at the south-west point of the Peloponnese.  And
there they offered sacrifices, and Orpheus purged them from their
guilt.  Then they rode away again to the northward, past the
Laconian shore, and came all worn and tired by Sunium, and up the
long Euboean Strait, until they saw once more Pelion, and
Aphetai, and Iolcos by the sea.

And they ran the ship ashore; but they had no strength left to
haul her up the beach; and they crawled out on the pebbles, and
sat down, and wept till they could weep no more.  For the
houses and the trees were all altered; and all the faces which
they saw were strange; and their joy was swallowed up in sorrow,
while they thought of their youth, and all their labour, and the
gallant comrades they had lost.

And the people crowded round, and asked them ‘Who are
you, that you sit weeping here?’

‘We are the sons of your princes, who sailed out many a
year ago.  We went to fetch the golden fleece, and we have
brought it, and grief therewith.  Give us news of our
fathers and our mothers, if any of them be left alive on
earth.’

Then there was shouting, and laughing, and weeping; and all
the kings came to the shore, and they led away the heroes to
their homes, and bewailed the valiant dead.

Then Jason went up with Medeia to the palace of his uncle
Pelias.  And when he came in Pelias sat by the hearth,
crippled and blind with age; while opposite him sat Æson,
Jason’s father, crippled and blind likewise; and the two
old men’s heads shook together as they tried to warm
themselves before the fire.

And Jason fell down at his father’s knees, and wept, and
called him by his name.  And the old man stretched his hands
out, and felt him, and said, ‘Do not mock me, young
hero.  My son Jason is dead long ago at sea.’

‘I am your own son Jason, whom you trusted to the
Centaur upon Pelion; and I have brought home the golden fleece,
and a princess of the Sun’s race for my bride.  So now
give me up the kingdom, Pelias my uncle, and fulfil your promise
as I have fulfilled mine.’

Then his father clung to him like a child, and wept, and would
not let him go; and cried, ‘Now I shall not go down lonely
to my grave.  Promise me never to leave me till I
die.’

p. 161PART VI
WHAT WAS THE END OF THE HEROES

And now I wish that I could end my story pleasantly; but it is
no fault of mine that I cannot.  The old songs end it sadly,
and I believe that they are right and wise; for though the heroes
were purified at Malea, yet sacrifices cannot make bad hearts
good, and Jason had taken a wicked wife, and he had to bear his
burden to the last.

And first she laid a cunning plot to punish that poor old
Pelias, instead of letting him die in peace.

For she told his daughters, ‘I can make old things young
again; I will show you how easy it is to do.’  So she
took an old ram and killed him, and put him in a cauldron with
magic herbs; and whispered her spells over him, and he leapt out
again a young lamb.  So that ‘Medeia’s
cauldron’ is a proverb still, by which we mean times of war
and change, when the world has become old and feeble, and grows
young again through bitter pains.

Then she said to Pelias’ daughters, ‘Do to your
father as I did to this ram, and he will grow young and strong
again.’  But she only told them half the spell; so
they failed, while Medeia mocked them; and poor old Pelias died,
and his daughters came to misery.  But the songs say she
cured Æson, Jason’s father, and he became young, and
strong again.

But Jason could not love her, after all her cruel deeds. 
So he was ungrateful to her, and wronged her; and she revenged
herself on him.  And a terrible revenge she took—too
terrible to speak of here.  But you will hear of it
yourselves when you grow up, for it has been sung in noble poetry
and music; and whether it be true or not, it stands for ever as a
warning to us not to seek for help from evil persons, or to gain
good ends by evil means.  For if we use an adder even
against our enemies, it will turn again and sting us.

But of all the other heroes there is many a brave tale left,
which I have no space to tell you, so you must read them for
yourselves;—of the hunting of the boar in Calydon, which
Meleager killed; and of Heracles’ twelve famous labours;
and of the seven who fought at Thebes; and of the noble love of
Castor and Polydeuces, the twin Dioscouroi—how when one
died the other would not live without him, so they shared their
immortality between them; and Zeus changed them into the two twin
stars which never rise both at once.

And what became of Cheiron, the good immortal beast? 
That, too, is a sad story; for the heroes never saw him
more.  He was wounded by a poisoned arrow, at Pholoe among
the hills, when Heracles opened the fatal wine-jar, which Cheiron
had warned him not to touch.  And the Centaurs smelt the
wine, and flocked to it, and fought for it with Heracles; but he
killed them all with his poisoned arrows, and Cheiron was left
alone.  Then Cheiron took up one of the arrows, and dropped
it by chance upon his foot; and the poison ran like fire along
his veins, and he lay down and longed to die; and cried,
‘Through wine I perish, the bane of all my race.  Why
should I live for ever in this agony?  Who will take my
immortality, that I may die?’

Then Prometheus answered, the good Titan, whom Heracles had
set free from Caucasus, ‘I will take your immortality and
live for ever, that I may help poor mortal men.’  So
Cheiron gave him his immortality, and died, and had rest from
pain.  And Heracles and Prometheus wept over him, and went
to bury him on Pelion; but Zeus took him up among the stars, to
live for ever, grand and mild, low down in the far southern
sky.

And in time the heroes died, all but Nestor, the
silver-tongued old man; and left behind them valiant sons, but
not so great as they had been.  Yet their fame, too, lives
till this day, for they fought at the ten years’ siege of
Troy: and their story is in the book which we call Homer, in two
of the noblest songs on earth—the ‘Iliad,’
which tells us of the siege of Troy, and Achilles’ quarrel
with the kings; and the ‘Odyssey,’ which tells the
wanderings of Odysseus, through many lands for many years, and
how Alcinous sent him home at last, safe to Ithaca his beloved
island, and to Penelope his faithful wife, and Telemachus his
son, and Euphorbus the noble swineherd, and the old dog who
licked his hand and died.  We will read that sweet story,
children, by the fire some winter night.  And now I will end
my tale, and begin another and a more cheerful one, of a hero who
became a worthy king, and won his people’s love.

p. 165STORY III.—THESEUS

PART I
HOW THESEUS LIFTED THE STONE

Once upon a time there was a princess in Trœzene,
Aithra, the daughter of Pittheus the king.  She had one fair
son, named Theseus, the bravest lad in all the land; and Aithra
never smiled but when she looked at him, for her husband had
forgotten her, and lived far away.  And she used to go up to
the mountain above Troezene, to the temple of Poseidon and sit
there all day looking out across the bay, over Methana, to the
purple peaks of Ægina and the Attic shore beyond.  And
when Theseus was full fifteen years old she took him up with her
to the temple, and into the thickets of the grove which grew in
the temple-yard.  And she led him to a tall plane-tree,
beneath whose shade grew arbutus, and lentisk, and purple
heather-bushes.  And there she sighed, and said,
‘Theseus, my son, go into that thicket and you will find at
the plane-tree foot a great flat stone; lift it, and bring me
what lies underneath.’

Then Theseus pushed his way in through the thick bushes, and
saw that they had not been moved for many a year.  And
searching among their roots he found a great flat stone, all
overgrown with ivy, and acanthus, and moss.  He tried to
lift it, but he could not.  And he tried till the sweat ran
down his brow from heat, and the tears from his eyes for shame;
but all was of no avail.  And at last he came back to his
mother, and said, ‘I have found the stone, but I cannot
lift it; nor do I think that any man could in all
Troezene.’

Then she sighed, and said, ‘The Gods wait long; but they
are just at last.  Let it be for another year.  The day
may come when you will be a stronger man than lives in all
Troezene.’

Then she took him by the hand, and went into the temple and
prayed, and came down again with Theseus to her home.

And when a full year was past she led Theseus up again to the
temple, and bade him lift the stone; but he could not.

Then she sighed, and said the same words again, and went down,
and came again the next year; but Theseus could not lift the
stone then, nor the year after; and he longed to ask his mother
the meaning of that stone, and what might lie underneath it; but
her face was so sad that he had not the heart to ask.

So he said to himself, ‘The day shall surely come when I
will lift that stone, though no man in Troezene can.’ 
And in order to grow strong he spent all his days in wrestling,
and boxing, and hurling, and taming horses, and hunting the boar
and the bull, and coursing goats and deer among the rocks; till
upon all the mountains there was no hunter so swift as Theseus;
and he killed Phaia the wild sow of Crommyon, which wasted all
the land; till all the people said, ‘Surely the Gods are
with the lad.’

And when his eighteenth year was past, Aithra led him up again
to the temple, and said, ‘Theseus, lift the stone this day,
or never know who you are.’  And Theseus went into the
thicket, and stood over the stone, and tugged at it; and it
moved.  Then his spirit swelled within him, and he said,
‘If I break my heart in my body, it shall up.’ 
And he tugged at it once more, and lifted it, and rolled it over
with a shout.

And when he looked beneath it, on the ground lay a sword of
bronze, with a hilt of glittering gold, and by it a pair of
golden sandals; and he caught them up, and burst through the
bushes like a wild boar, and leapt to his mother, holding them
high above his head.

But when she saw them she wept long in silence, hiding her
fair face in her shawl; and Theseus stood by her wondering, and
wept also, he knew not why.  And when she was tired of
weeping, she lifted up her head, and laid her finger on her lips,
and said, ‘Hide them in your bosom, Theseus my son, and
come with me where we can look down upon the sea.’

Then they went outside the sacred wall, and looked down over
the bright blue sea; and Aithra said—

‘Do you see this land at our feet?’

And he said, ‘Yes; this is Troezene, where I was born
and bred.’

And she said, ‘It is but a little land, barren and
rocky, and looks towards the bleak north-east.  Do you see
that land beyond?’

‘Yes; that is Attica, where the Athenian people
dwell.’

‘That is a fair land and large, Theseus my son; and it
looks toward the sunny south; a land of olive-oil and honey, the
joy of Gods and men.  For the Gods have girdled it with
mountains, whose veins are of pure silver, and their bones of
marble white as snow; and there the hills are sweet with thyme
and basil, and the meadows with violet and asphodel, and the
nightingales sing all day in the thickets, by the side of
ever-flowing streams.  There are twelve towns well peopled,
the homes of an ancient race, the children of Kekrops the serpent
king, the son of Mother Earth, who wear gold cicalas among the
tresses of their golden hair; for like the cicalas they sprang
from the earth, and like the cicalas they sing all day, rejoicing
in the genial sun.  What would you do, son Theseus, if you
were king of such a land?’

Then Theseus stood astonished, as he looked across the broad
bright sea, and saw the fair Attic shore, from Sunium to Hymettus
and Pentelicus, and all the mountain peaks which girdle Athens
round.  But Athens itself he could not see, for purple
Ægina stood before it, midway across the sea.

Then his heart grew great within him, and he said, ‘If I
were king of such a land I would rule it wisely and well in
wisdom and in might, that when I died all men might weep over my
tomb, and cry, “Alas for the shepherd of his
people!”’

And Aithra smiled, and said, ‘Take, then, the sword and
the sandals, and go to Ægeus, king of Athens, who lives on
Pallas’ hill; and say to him, “The stone is lifted,
but whose is the pledge beneath it?”  Then show him
the sword and the sandals, and take what the Gods shall
send.’

But Theseus wept, ‘Shall I leave you, O my
mother?’

But she answered, ‘Weep not for me.  That which is
fated must be; and grief is easy to those who do nought but
grieve.  Full of sorrow was my youth, and full of sorrow my
womanhood.  Full of sorrow was my youth for Bellerophon, the
slayer of the Chimæra, whom my father drove away by
treason; and full of sorrow my womanhood, for thy treacherous
father and for thee; and full of sorrow my old age will be (for I
see my fate in dreams), when the sons of the Swan shall carry me
captive to the hollow vale of Eurotas, till I sail across the
seas a slave, the handmaid of the pest of Greece.  Yet shall
I be avenged, when the golden-haired heroes sail against Troy,
and sack the palaces of Ilium; then my son shall set me free from
thraldom, and I shall hear the tale of Theseus’ fame. 
Yet beyond that I see new sorrows; but I can bear them as I have
borne the past.’

Then she kissed Theseus, and wept over him; and went into the
temple, and Theseus saw her no more.

p. 172PART II
HOW THESEUS SLEW THE DEVOURERS OF MEN

So Theseus stood there alone, with his mind full of many
hopes.  And first he thought of going down to the harbour
and hiring a swift ship, and sailing across the bay to Athens;
but even that seemed too slow for him, and he longed for wings to
fly across the sea, and find his father.  But after a while
his heart began to fail him; and he sighed, and said within
himself—

‘What if my father have other sons about him whom he
loves?  What if he will not receive me?  And what have
I done that he should receive me?  He has forgotten me ever
since I was born: why should he welcome me now?’

Then he thought a long while sadly; and at the last he cried
aloud, ‘Yes!  I will make him love me; for I will
prove myself worthy of his love.  I will win honour and
renown, and do such deeds that Ægeus shall be proud of me,
though he had fifty other sons!  Did not Heracles win
himself honour, though he was opprest, and the slave of
Eurystheus?  Did he not kill all robbers and evil beasts,
and drain great lakes and marshes, breaking the hills through
with his club?  Therefore it was that all men honoured him,
because he rid them of their miseries, and made life pleasant to
them and their children after them.  Where can I go, to do
as Heracles has done?  Where can I find strange adventures,
robbers, and monsters, and the children of hell, the enemies of
men?  I will go by land, and into the mountains, and round
by the way of the Isthmus.  Perhaps there I may hear of
brave adventures, and do something which shall win my
father’s love.’

So he went by land, and away into the mountains, with his
father’s sword upon his thigh, till he came to the Spider
mountains, which hang over Epidaurus and the sea, where the glens
run downward from one peak in the midst, as the rays spread in
the spider’s web.

And he went up into the gloomy glens, between the furrowed
marble walls, till the lowland grew blue beneath his feet and the
clouds drove damp about his head.

But he went up and up for ever, through the spider’s web
of glens, till he could see the narrow gulfs spread below him,
north and south, and east and west; black cracks half-choked with
mists, and above all a dreary down.

But over that down he must go, for there was no road right or
left; so he toiled on through bog and brake, till he came to a
pile of stones.

And on the stones a man was sitting, wrapt in a bearskin
cloak.  The head of the bear served him for a cap, and its
teeth grinned white around his brows; and the feet were tied
about his throat, and their claws shone white upon his
chest.  And when he saw Theseus he rose, and laughed till
the glens rattled.

‘And who art thou, fair fly, who hast walked into the
spider’s web?’  But Theseus walked on steadily,
and made no answer; but he thought, ‘Is this some robber?
and has an adventure come already to me?’  But the
strange man laughed louder than ever, and said—

‘Bold fly, know you not that these glens are the web
from which no fly ever finds his way out again, and this down the
spider’s house, and I the spider who sucks the flies? 
Come hither, and let me feast upon you; for it is of no use to
run away, so cunning a web has my father Hephaistos spread for me
when he made these clefts in the mountains, through which no man
finds his way home.’

But Theseus came on steadily, and asked—

‘And what is your name among men, bold spider? and where
are your spider’s fangs?’

Then the strange man laughed again—

‘My name is Periphetes, the son of Hephaistos and
Anticleia the mountain nymph.  But men call me Corynetes the
club-bearer; and here is my spider’s fang.’

And he lifted from off the stones at his side a mighty club of
bronze.

‘This my father gave me, and forged it himself in the
roots of the mountain; and with it I pound all proud flies till
they give out their fatness and their sweetness.  So give me
up that gay sword of yours, and your mantle, and your golden
sandals, lest I pound you, and by ill-luck you die.’

But Theseus wrapt his mantle round his left arm quickly, in
hard folds, from his shoulder to his hand, and drew his sword,
and rushed upon the club-bearer, and the club-bearer rushed on
him.

Thrice he struck at Theseus, and made him bend under the blows
like a sapling; but Theseus guarded his head with his left arm,
and the mantle which was wrapt around it.

And thrice Theseus sprang upright after the blow, like a
sapling when the storm is past; and he stabbed at the club-bearer
with his sword, but the loose folds of the bearskin saved
him.

Then Theseus grew mad, and closed with him, and caught him by
the throat, and they fell and rolled over together; but when
Theseus rose up from the ground the club-bearer lay still at his
feet.

Then Theseus took his club and his bearskin, and left him to
the kites and crows, and went upon his journey down the glens on
the farther slope, till he came to a broad green valley, and saw
flocks and herds sleeping beneath the trees.

And by the side of a pleasant fountain, under the shade of
rocks and trees, were nymphs and shepherds dancing; but no one
piped to them while they danced.

And when they saw Theseus they shrieked; and the shepherds ran
off, and drove away their flocks, while the nymphs dived into the
fountain like coots, and vanished.

Theseus wondered and laughed: ‘What strange fancies have
folks here who run away from strangers, and have no music when
they dance!’  But he was tired, and dusty, and
thirsty; so he thought no more of them, but drank and bathed in
the clear pool, and then lay down in the shade under a
plane-tree, while the water sang him to sleep, as it tinkled down
from stone to stone.

And when he woke he heard a whispering, and saw the nymphs
peeping at him across the fountain from the dark mouth of a cave,
where they sat on green cushions of moss.  And one said,
‘Surely he is not Periphetes;’ and another, ‘He
looks like no robber, but a fair and gentle youth.’

Then Theseus smiled, and called them, ‘Fair nymphs, I am
not Periphetes.  He sleeps among the kites and crows; but I
have brought away his bearskin and his club.’

Then they leapt across the pool, and came to him, and called
the shepherds back.  And he told them how he had slain the
club-bearer: and the shepherds kissed his feet and sang,
‘Now we shall feed our flocks in peace, and not be afraid
to have music when we dance; for the cruel club-bearer has met
his match, and he will listen for our pipes no more.’ 
Then they brought him kid’s flesh and wine, and the nymphs
brought him honey from the rocks, and he ate, and drank, and
slept again, while the nymphs and shepherds danced and
sang.  And when he woke, they begged him to stay; but he
would not.  ‘I have a great work to do,’ he
said; ‘I must be away toward the Isthmus, that I may go to
Athens.’

But the shepherds said, ‘Will you go alone toward
Athens?  None travel that way now, except in armed
troops.’

‘As for arms, I have enough, as you see.  And as
for troops, an honest man is good enough company for
himself.  Why should I not go alone toward
Athens?’

‘If you do, you must look warily about you on the
Isthmus, lest you meet Sinis the robber, whom men call
Pituocamptes the pine-bender; for he bends down two pine-trees,
and binds all travellers hand and foot between them, and when he
lets the trees go again their bodies are torn in
sunder.’

‘And after that,’ said another, ‘you must go
inland, and not dare to pass over the cliffs of Sciron; for on
the left hand are the mountains, and on the right the sea, so
that you have no escape, but must needs meet Sciron the robber,
who will make you wash his feet; and while you are washing them
he will kick you over the cliff, to the tortoise who lives below,
and feeds upon the bodies of the dead.’

And before Theseus could answer, another cried, ‘And
after that is a worse danger still, unless you go inland always,
and leave Eleusis far on your right.  For in Eleusis rules
Kerkuon the cruel king, the terror of all mortals, who killed his
own daughter Alope in prison.  But she was changed into a
fair fountain; and her child he cast out upon the mountains, but
the wild mares gave it milk.  And now he challenges all
comers to wrestle with him, for he is the best wrestler in all
Attica, and overthrows all who come; and those whom he overthrows
he murders miserably, and his palace-court is full of their
bones.’

Then Theseus frowned, and said, ‘This seems indeed an
ill-ruled land, and adventures enough in it to be tried. 
But if I am the heir of it, I will rule it and right it, and here
is my royal sceptre.’

And he shook his club of bronze, while the nymphs and
shepherds clung round him, and entreated him not to go.

But on he went nevertheless, till he could see both the seas
and the citadel of Corinth towering high above all the
land.  And he past swiftly along the Isthmus, for his heart
burned to meet that cruel Sinis; and in a pine-wood at last he
met him, where the Isthmus was narrowest and the road ran between
high rocks.  There he sat upon a stone by the wayside, with
a young fir-tree for a club across his knees, and a cord laid
ready by his side; and over his head, upon the fir-tops, hung the
bones of murdered men.

Then Theseus shouted to him, ‘Holla, thou valiant
pine-bender, hast thou two fir-trees left for me?’

And Sinis leapt to his feet, and answered, pointing to the
bones above his head, ‘My larder has grown empty lately, so
I have two fir-trees ready for thee.’  And he rushed
on Theseus, lifting his club, and Theseus rushed upon him.

Then they hammered together till the greenwoods rang; but the
metal was tougher than the pine, and Sinis’ club broke
right across, as the bronze came down upon it.  Then Theseus
heaved up another mighty stroke, and smote Sinis down upon his
face; and knelt upon his back, and bound him with his own cord,
and said, ‘As thou hast done to others, so shall it be done
to thee.’  Then he bent down two young fir-trees, and
bound Sinis between them for all his struggling and his prayers;
and let them go, and ended Sinis, and went on, leaving him to the
hawks and crows.

Then he went over the hills toward Megara, keeping close along
the Saronic Sea, till he came to the cliffs of Sciron, and the
narrow path between the mountain and the sea.

And there he saw Sciron sitting by a fountain, at the edge of
the cliff.  On his knees was a mighty club; and he had
barred the path with stones, so that every one must stop who came
up.

Then Theseus shouted to him, and said, ‘Holla, thou
tortoise-feeder, do thy feet need washing to-day?’

And Sciron leapt to his feet, and answered—‘My
tortoise is empty and hungry, and my feet need washing
to-day.’  And he stood before his barrier, and lifted
up his club in both hands.

Then Theseus rushed upon him; and sore was the battle upon the
cliff, for when Sciron felt the weight of the bronze club, he
dropt his own, and closed with Theseus, and tried to hurl him by
main force over the cliff.  But Theseus was a wary wrestler,
and dropt his own club, and caught him by the throat and by the
knee, and forced him back against the wall of stones, and crushed
him up against them, till his breath was almost gone.  And
Sciron cried panting, ‘Loose me, and I will let thee
pass.’  But Theseus answered, ‘I must not pass
till I have made the rough way smooth;’ and he forced him
back against the wall till it fell, and Sciron rolled head over
heels.

Then Theseus lifted him up all bruised, and said, ‘Come
hither and wash my feet.’  And he drew his sword, and
sat down by the well, and said, ‘Wash my feet, or I cut you
piecemeal.’

And Sciron washed his feet trembling; and when it was done,
Theseus rose, and cried, ‘As thou hast done to others, so
shall it be done to thee.  Go feed thy tortoise
thyself;’ and he kicked him over the cliff into the
sea.

And whether the tortoise ate him, I know not; for some say
that earth and sea both disdained to take his body, so foul it
was with sin.  So the sea cast it out upon the shore, and
the shore cast it back into the sea, and at last the waves hurled
it high into the air in anger; and it hung there long without a
grave, till it was changed into a desolate rock, which stands
there in the surge until this day.

This at least is true, which Pausanias tells, that in the
royal porch at Athens he saw the figure of Theseus modelled in
clay, and by him Sciron the robber falling headlong into the
sea.

Then he went a long day’s journey, past Megara, into the
Attic land, and high before him rose the snow-peaks of
Cithæron, all cold above the black pine-woods, where haunt
the Furies, and the raving Bacchæ, and the Nymphs who drive
men wild, far aloft upon the dreary mountains, where the storms
howl all day long.  And on his right hand was the sea
always, and Salamis, with its island cliffs, and the sacred
strait of the sea-fight, where afterwards the Persians fled
before the Greeks.  So he went all day until the evening,
till he saw the Thriasian plain, and the sacred city of Eleusis,
where the Earth-mother’s temple stands.  For there she
met Triptolemus, when all the land lay waste, Demeter the kind
Earth-mother, and in her hands a sheaf of corn.  And she
taught him to plough the fallows, and to yoke the lazy kine; and
she taught him to sow the seed-fields, and to reap the golden
grain; and sent him forth to teach all nations, and give corn to
labouring men.  So at Eleusis all men honour her, whosoever
tills the land; her and Triptolemus her beloved, who gave corn to
labouring men.

And he went along the plain into Eleusis, and stood in the
market-place, and cried—

‘Where is Kerkuon, the king of the city?  I must
wrestle a fall with him to-day.’

Then all the people crowded round him, and cried, ‘Fair
youth, why will you die?  Hasten out of the city, before the
cruel king hears that a stranger is here.’

But Theseus went up through the town, while the people wept
and prayed, and through the gates of the palace-yard, and through
the piles of bones and skulls, till he came to the door of
Kerkuon’s hall, the terror of all mortal men.

And there he saw Kerkuon sitting at the table in the hall
alone; and before him was a whole sheep roasted, and beside him a
whole jar of wine.  And Theseus stood and called him,
‘Holla, thou valiant wrestler, wilt thou wrestle a fall
to-day?’

And Kerkuon looked up and laughed, and answered, ‘I will
wrestle a fall to-day; but come in, for I am lonely and thou
weary, and eat and drink before thou die.’

Then Theseus went up boldly, and sat down before Kerkuon at
the board; and he ate his fill of the sheep’s flesh, and
drank his fill of the wine; and Theseus ate enough for three men,
but Kerkuon ate enough for seven.

But neither spoke a word to the other, though they looked
across the table by stealth; and each said in his heart,
‘He has broad shoulders; but I trust mine are as broad as
his.’

At last, when the sheep was eaten and the jar of wine drained
dry, King Kerkuon rose, and cried, ‘Let us wrestle a fall
before we sleep.’

So they tossed off all their garments, and went forth in the
palace-yard; and Kerkuon bade strew fresh sand in an open space
between the bones.

And there the heroes stood face to face, while their eyes
glared like wild bulls’; and all the people crowded at the
gates to see what would befall.

And there they stood and wrestled, till the stars shone out
above their heads; up and down and round, till the sand was
stamped hard beneath their feet.  And their eyes flashed
like stars in the darkness, and their breath went up like smoke
in the night air; but neither took nor gave a footstep, and the
people watched silent at the gates.

But at last Kerkuon grew angry, and caught Theseus round the
neck, and shook him as a mastiff shakes a rat; but he could not
shake him off his feet.

But Theseus was quick and wary, and clasped Kerkuon round the
waist, and slipped his loin quickly underneath him, while he
caught him by the wrist; and then he hove a mighty heave, a heave
which would have stirred an oak, and lifted Kerkuon, and pitched
him right over his shoulder on the ground.

Then he leapt on him, and called, ‘Yield, or I kill
thee!’ but Kerkuon said no word; for his heart was burst
within him with the fall, and the meat, and the wine.

Then Theseus opened the gates, and called in all the people;
and they cried, ‘You have slain our evil king; be you now
our king, and rule us well.’

‘I will be your king in Eleusis, and I will rule you
right and well; for this cause I have slain all
evil-doers—Sinis, and Sciron, and this man last of
all.’

Then an aged man stepped forth, and said, ‘Young hero,
hast thou slain Sinis?  Beware then of Ægeus, king of
Athens, to whom thou goest, for he is near of kin to
Sinis.’

‘Then I have slain my own kinsman,’ said Theseus,
‘though well he deserved to die.  Who will purge me
from his death, for rightfully I slew him, unrighteous and
accursed as he was?’

And the old man answered—

‘That will the heroes do, the sons of Phytalus, who
dwell beneath the elm-tree in Aphidnai, by the bank of silver
Cephisus; for they know the mysteries of the Gods.  Thither
you shall go and be purified, and after you shall be our
king.’

So he took an oath of the people of Eleusis, that they would
serve him as their king, and went away next morning across the
Thriasian plain, and over the hills toward Aphidnai, that he
might find the sons of Phytalus.

And as he was skirting the Vale of Cephisus, along the foot of
lofty Parnes, a very tall and strong man came down to meet him,
dressed in rich garments.  On his arms were golden
bracelets, and round his neck a collar of jewels; and he came
forward, bowing courteously, and held out both his hands, and
spoke—

‘Welcome, fair youth, to these mountains; happy am I to
have met you!  For what greater pleasure to a good man, than
to entertain strangers?  But I see that you are weary. 
Come up to my castle, and rest yourself awhile.’

‘I give you thanks,’ said Theseus: ‘but I am
in haste to go up the valley, and to reach Aphidnai in the Vale
of Cephisus.’

‘Alas! you have wandered far from the right way, and you
cannot reach Aphidnai to-night, for there are many miles of
mountain between you and it, and steep passes, and cliffs
dangerous after nightfall.  It is well for you that I met
you, for my whole joy is to find strangers, and to feast them at
my castle, and hear tales from them of foreign lands.  Come
up with me, and eat the best of venison, and drink the rich red
wine, and sleep upon my famous bed, of which all travellers say
that they never saw the like.  For whatsoever the stature of
my guest, however tall or short, that bed fits him to a hair, and
he sleeps on it as he never slept before.’  And he
laid hold on Theseus’ hands, and would not let him go.

Theseus wished to go forwards: but he was ashamed to seem
churlish to so hospitable a man; and he was curious to see that
wondrous bed; and beside, he was hungry and weary: yet he shrank
from the man, he knew not why; for, though his voice was gentle
and fawning, it was dry and husky like a toad’s; and though
his eyes were gentle, they were dull and cold like stones. 
But he consented, and went with the man up a glen which led from
the road toward the peaks of Parnes, under the dark shadow of the
cliffs.

And as they went up, the glen grew narrower, and the cliffs
higher and darker, and beneath them a torrent roared, half seen
between bare limestone crags.  And around there was neither
tree nor bush, while from the white peaks of Parnes the
snow-blasts swept down the glen, cutting and chilling till a
horror fell on Theseus as he looked round at that doleful
place.  And he asked at last, ‘Your castle stands, it
seems, in a dreary region.’

‘Yes; but once within it, hospitality makes all things
cheerful.  But who are these?’ and he looked back, and
Theseus also; and far below, along the road which they had left,
came a string of laden asses, and merchants walking by them,
watching their ware.

‘Ah, poor souls!’ said the stranger. 
‘Well for them that I looked back and saw them!  And
well for me too, for I shall have the more guests at my
feast.  Wait awhile till I go down and call them, and we
will eat and drink together the livelong night.  Happy am I,
to whom Heaven sends so many guests at once!’

And he ran back down the hill, waving his hand and shouting,
to the merchants, while Theseus went slowly up the steep
pass.

But as he went up he met an aged man, who had been gathering
drift-wood in the torrent-bed.  He had laid down his faggot
in the road, and was trying to lift it again to his
shoulder.  And when he saw Theseus, he called to him, and
said—

‘O fair youth, help me up with my burden, for my limbs
are stiff and weak with years.’

Then Theseus lifted the burden on his back.  And the old
man blest him, and then looked earnestly upon him, and
said—

‘Who are you, fair youth, and wherefore travel you this
doleful road?’

‘Who I am my parents know; but I travel this doleful
road because I have been invited by a hospitable man, who
promises to feast me, and to make me sleep upon I know not what
wondrous bed.’

Then the old man clapped his hands together and
cried—

‘O house of Hades, man-devouring! will thy maw never be
full?  Know, fair youth, that you are going to torment and
to death, for he who met you (I will requite your kindness by
another) is a robber and a murderer of men.  Whatsoever
stranger he meets he entices him hither to death; and as for this
bed of which he speaks, truly it fits all comers, yet none ever
rose alive off it save me.’

‘Why?’ asked Theseus, astonished.

‘Because, if a man be too tall for it, he lops his limbs
till they be short enough, and if he be too short, he stretches
his limbs till they be long enough: but me only he spared, seven
weary years agone; for I alone of all fitted his bed exactly, so
he spared me, and made me his slave.  And once I was a
wealthy merchant, and dwelt in brazen-gated Thebes; but now I hew
wood and draw water for him, the torment of all mortal
men.’

Then Theseus said nothing; but he ground his teeth
together.

‘Escape, then,’ said the old man, ‘for he
will have no pity on thy youth.  But yesterday he brought up
hither a young man and a maiden, and fitted them upon his bed;
and the young man’s hands and feet he cut off, but the
maiden’s limbs he stretched until she died, and so both
perished miserably—but I am tired of weeping over the
slain.  And therefore he is called Procrustes the stretcher,
though his father called him Damastes.  Flee from him: yet
whither will you flee?  The cliffs are steep, and who can
climb them? and there is no other road.’

But Theseus laid his hand upon the old man’s month, and
said, ‘There is no need to flee;’ and he turned to go
down the pass.

‘Do not tell him that I have warned you, or he will kill
me by some evil death;’ and the old man screamed after him
down the glen; but Theseus strode on in his wrath.

And he said to himself, ‘This is an ill-ruled land; when
shall I have done ridding it of monsters?’  And as he
spoke, Procrustes came up the hill, and all the merchants with
him, smiling and talking gaily.  And when he saw Theseus, he
cried, ‘Ah, fair young guest, have I kept you too long
waiting?’

But Theseus answered, ‘The man who stretches his guests
upon a bed and hews off their hands and feet, what shall be done
to him, when right is done throughout the land?’

Then Procrustes’ countenance changed, and his cheeks
grew as green as a lizard, and he felt for his sword in haste;
but Theseus leapt on him, and cried—

‘Is this true, my host, or is it false?’ and he
clasped Procrustes round waist and elbow, so that he could not
draw his sword.

‘Is this true, my host, or is it false?’  But
Procrustes answered never a word.

Then Theseus flung him from him, and lifted up his dreadful
club; and before Procrustes could strike him he had struck, and
felled him to the ground.

And once again he struck him; and his evil soul fled forth,
and went down to Hades squeaking, like a bat into the darkness of
a cave.

Then Theseus stript him of his gold ornaments, and went up to
his house, and found there great wealth and treasure, which he
had stolen from the passers-by.  And he called the people of
the country, whom Procrustes had spoiled a long time, and parted
the spoil among them, and went down the mountains, and away.

And he went down the glens of Parnes, through mist, and cloud,
and rain, down the slopes of oak, and lentisk, and arbutus, and
fragrant bay, till he came to the Vale of Cephisus, and the
pleasant town of Aphidnai, and the home of the Phytalid heroes,
where they dwelt beneath a mighty elm.

And there they built an altar, and bade him bathe in Cephisus,
and offer a yearling ram, and purified him from the blood of
Sinis, and sent him away in peace.

And he went down the valley by Acharnai, and by the
silver-swirling stream, while all the people blessed him, for the
fame of his prowess had spread wide, till he saw the plain of
Athens, and the hill where Athené dwells.

So Theseus went up through Athens, and all the people ran out
to see him; for his fame had gone before him and every one knew
of his mighty deeds.  And all cried, ‘Here comes the
hero who slew Sinis, and Phaia the wild sow of Crommyon, and
conquered Kerkuon in wrestling, and slew Procrustes the
pitiless.’  But Theseus went on sadly and steadfastly,
for his heart yearned after his father; and he said, ‘How
shall I deliver him from these leeches who suck his
blood?’

So he went up the holy stairs, and into the Acropolis, where
Ægeus’ palace stood; and he went straight into
Ægeus’ hall, and stood upon the threshold, and looked
round.

And there he saw his cousins sitting about the table at the
wine: many a son of Pallas, but no Ægeus among them. 
There they sat and feasted, and laughed, and passed the wine-cup
round; while harpers harped, and slave-girls sang, and the
tumblers showed their tricks.

Loud laughed the sons of Pallas, and fast went the wine-cup
round; but Theseus frowned, and said under his breath, ‘No
wonder that the land is full of robbers, while such as these bear
rule.’

Then the Pallantids saw him, and called to him, half-drunk
with wine, ‘Holla, tall stranger at the door, what is your
will to-day?’

‘I come hither to ask for hospitality.’

‘Then take it, and welcome.  You look like a hero
and a bold warrior; and we like such to drink with us.’

‘I ask no hospitality of you; I ask it of Ægeus
the king, the master of this house.’

At that some growled, and some laughed, and shouted,
‘Heyday! we are all masters here.’

‘Then I am master as much as the rest of you,’
said Theseus, and he strode past the table up the hall, and
looked around for Ægeus; but he was nowhere to be seen.

The Pallantids looked at him, and then at each other, and each
whispered to the man next him, ‘This is a forward fellow;
he ought to be thrust out at the door.’  But each
man’s neighbour whispered in return, ‘His shoulders
are broad; will you rise and put him out?’  So they
all sat still where they were.

Then Theseus called to the servants, and said, ‘Go tell
King Ægeus, your master, that Theseus of Troezene is here,
and asks to be his guest awhile.’

A servant ran and told Ægeus, where he sat in his
chamber within, by Medeia the dark witch-woman, watching her eye
and hand.  And when Ægeus heard of Troezene he turned
pale and red again, and rose from his seat trembling, while
Medeia watched him like a snake.

‘What is Troezene to you?’ she asked.  But he
said hastily, ‘Do you not know who this Theseus is? 
The hero who has cleared the country from all monsters; but that
he came from Troezene, I never heard before.  I must go out
and welcome him.’

So Ægeus came out into the hall; and when Theseus saw
him, his heart leapt into his mouth, and he longed to fall on his
neck and welcome him; but he controlled himself, and said,
‘My father may not wish for me, after all.  I will try
him before I discover myself;’ and he bowed low before
Ægeus, and said, ‘I have delivered the king’s
realm from many monsters; therefore I am come to ask a reward of
the king.’

And old Ægeus looked on him, and loved him, as what fond
heart would not have done?  But he only sighed, and
said—

‘It is little that I can give you, noble lad, and
nothing that is worthy of you; for surely you are no mortal man,
or at least no mortal’s son.’

‘All I ask,’ said Theseus, ‘is to eat and
drink at your table.’

‘That I can give you,’ said Ægeus, ‘if
at least I am master in my own hall.’

Then he bade them put a seat for Theseus, and set before him
the best of the feast; and Theseus sat and ate so much, that all
the company wondered at him: but always he kept his club by his
side.

But Medeia the dark witch-woman had been watching him all the
while.  She saw how Ægeus turned red and pale when the
lad said that he came from Troezene.  She saw, too, how his
heart was opened toward Theseus; and how Theseus bore himself
before all the sons of Pallas, like a lion among a pack of
curs.  And she said to herself, ‘This youth will be
master here; perhaps he is nearer to Ægeus already than
mere fancy.  At least the Pallantilds will have no chance by
the side of such as he.’

Then she went back into her chamber modestly, while Theseus
ate and drank; and all the servants whispered, ‘This, then,
is the man who killed the monsters!  How noble are his
looks, and how huge his size!  Ah, would that he were our
master’s son!’

But presently Medeia came forth, decked in all her jewels, and
her rich Eastern robes, and looking more beautiful than the day,
so that all the guests could look at nothing else.  And in
her right hand she held a golden cup, and in her left a flask of
gold; and she came up to Theseus, and spoke in a sweet, soft,
winning voice—

‘Hail to the hero, the conqueror, the unconquered, the
destroyer of all evil things!  Drink, hero, of my charmed
cup, which gives rest after every toil, which heals all wounds,
and pours new life into the veins.  Drink of my cup, for in
it sparkles the wine of the East, and Nepenthe, the comfort of
the Immortals.’

And as she spoke, she poured the flask into the cup; and the
fragrance of the wine spread through the hall, like the scent of
thyme and roses.

And Theseus looked up in her fair face and into her deep dark
eyes.  And as he looked, he shrank and shuddered; for they
were dry like the eyes of a snake.  And he rose, and said,
‘The wine is rich and fragrant, and the wine-bearer as fair
as the Immortals; but let her pledge me first herself in the cup,
that the wine may be the sweeter from her lips.’

Then Medeia turned pale, and stammered, ‘Forgive me,
fair hero; but I am ill, and dare drink no wine.’

And Theseus looked again into her eyes, and cried, ‘Thou
shalt pledge me in that cup, or die.’  And he lifted
up his brazen club, while all the guests looked on aghast.

Medeia shrieked a fearful shriek, and dashed the cup to the
ground, and fled; and where the wine flowed over the marble
pavement, the stone bubbled, and crumbled, and hissed, under the
fierce venom of the draught.

But Medeia called her dragon chariot, and sprang into it and
fled aloft, away over land and sea, and no man saw her more.

And Ægeus cried, ‘What hast thou
done?’  But Theseus pointed to the stone, ‘I
have rid the land of an enchantment: now I will rid it of one
more.’

And he came close to Ægeus, and drew from his bosom the
sword and the sandals, and said the words which his mother bade
him.

And Ægeus stepped back a pace, and looked at the lad
till his eyes grew dim; and then he cast himself on his neck and
wept, and Theseus wept on his neck, till they had no strength
left to weep more.

Then Ægeus turned to all the people, and cried,
‘Behold my son, children of Cecrops, a better man than his
father was before him.’

Who, then, were mad but the Pallantids, though they had been
mad enough before?  And one shouted, ‘Shall we make
room for an upstart, a pretender, who comes from we know not
where?’  And another, ‘If he be one, we are more
than one; and the stronger can hold his own.’  And one
shouted one thing, and one another; for they were hot and wild
with wine: but all caught swords and lances off the wall, where
the weapons hung around, and sprang forward to Theseus, and
Theseus sprang forward to them.

And he cried, ‘Go in peace, if you will, my cousins; but
if not, your blood be on your own heads.’  But they
rushed at him; and then stopped short and railed him, as curs
stop and bark when they rouse a lion from his lair.

But one hurled a lance from the rear rank, which past close by
Theseus’ head; and at that Theseus rushed forward, and the
fight began indeed.  Twenty against one they fought, and yet
Theseus beat them all; and those who were left fled down into the
town, where the people set on them, and drove them out, till
Theseus was left alone in the palace, with Ægeus his
new-found father.  But before nightfall all the town came
up, with victims, and dances, and songs; and they offered
sacrifices to Athené, and rejoiced all the night long,
because their king had found a noble son, and an heir to his
royal house.

So Theseus stayed with his father all the winter: and when the
spring equinox drew near, all the Athenians grew sad and silent,
and Theseus saw it, and asked the reason; but no one would answer
him a word.

Then he went to his father, and asked him: but Ægeus
turned away his face and wept.

‘Do not ask, my son, beforehand, about evils which must
happen: it is enough to have to face them when they
come.’

And when the spring equinox came, a herald came to Athens, and
stood in the market, and cried, ‘O people and King of
Athens, where is your yearly tribute?’  Then a great
lamentation arose throughout the city.  But Theseus stood up
to the herald, and cried—

‘And who are you, dog-faced, who dare demand tribute
here?  If I did not reverence your herald’s staff, I
would brain you with this club.’

And the herald answered proudly, for he was a grave and
ancient man—

‘Fair youth, I am not dog-faced or shameless; but I do
my master’s bidding, Minos, the King of hundred-citied
Crete, the wisest of all kings on earth.  And you must be
surely a stranger here, or you would know why I come, and that I
come by right.’

‘I am a stranger here.  Tell me, then, why you
come.’

‘To fetch the tribute which King Ægeus promised to
Minos, and confirmed his promise with an oath.  For Minos
conquered all this land, and Megara which lies to the east, when
he came hither with a great fleet of ships, enraged about the
murder of his son.  For his son Androgeos came hither to the
Panathenaic games, and overcame all the Greeks in the sports, so
that the people honoured him as a hero.  But when
Ægeus saw his valour, he envied him, and feared lest he
should join the sons of Pallas, and take away the sceptre from
him.  So he plotted against his life, and slew him basely,
no man knows how or where.  Some say that he waylaid him by
Oinoe, on the road which goes to Thebes; and some that he sent
him against the bull of Marathon, that the beast might kill
him.  But Ægeus says that the young men killed him
from envy, because he had conquered them in the games.  So
Minos came hither and avenged him, and would not depart till this
land had promised him tribute—seven youths and seven
maidens every year, who go with me in a black-sailed ship, till
they come to hundred-citied Crete.’

And Theseus ground his teeth together, and said, ‘Wert
thou not a herald I would kill thee for saying such things of my
father; but I will go to him, and know the truth.’  So
he went to his father, and asked him; but he turned away his head
and wept, and said, ‘Blood was shed in the land unjustly,
and by blood it is avenged.  Break not my heart by
questions; it is enough to endure in silence.’

Then Theseus groaned inwardly, and said, ‘I will go
myself with these youths and maidens, and kill Minos upon his
royal throne.’

And Ægeus shrieked, and cried, ‘You shall not go,
my son, the light of my old age, to whom alone I look to rule
this people after I am dead and gone.  You shall not go, to
die horribly, as those youths and maidens die; for Minos thrusts
them into a labyrinth, which Daidalos made for him among the
rocks,—Daidalos the renegade, the accursed, the pest of
this his native land.  From that labyrinth no one can
escape, entangled in its winding ways, before they meet the
Minotaur, the monster who feeds upon the flesh of men. 
There he devours them horribly, and they never see this land
again.’

Then Theseus grew red, and his ears tingled, and his heart
beat loud in his bosom.  And he stood awhile like a tall
stone pillar on the cliffs above some hero’s grave; and at
last he spoke—

‘Therefore all the more I will go with them, and slay
the accursed beast.  Have I not slain all evil-doers and
monsters, that I might free this land?  Where are
Periphetes, and Sinis, and Kerkuon, and Phaia the wild sow? 
Where are the fifty sons of Pallas?  And this Minotaur shall
go the road which they have gone, and Minos himself, if he dare
stay me.’

‘But how will you slay him, my son?  For you must
leave your club and your armour behind, and be cast to the
monster, defenceless and naked like the rest.’

And Theseus said, ‘Are there no stones in that
labyrinth; and have I not fists and teeth?  Did I need my
club to kill Kerkuon, the terror of all mortal men?’

Then Ægeus clung to his knees; but he would not hear;
and at last he let him go, weeping bitterly, and said only this
one word—

‘Promise me but this, if you return in peace, though
that may hardly be: take down the black sail of the ship (for I
shall watch for it all day upon the cliffs), and hoist instead a
white sail, that I may know afar off that you are
safe.’

And Theseus promised, and went out, and to the market-place
where the herald stood, while they drew lots for the youths and
maidens, who were to sail in that doleful crew.  And the
people stood wailing and weeping, as the lot fell on this one and
on that; but Theseus strode into the midst, and
cried—‘Here is a youth who needs no lot.  I
myself will be one of the seven.’

And the herald asked in wonder, ‘Fair youth, know you
whither you are going?’

And Theseus said, ‘I know.  Let us go down to the
black-sailed ship.’

So they went down to the black-sailed ship, seven maidens, and
seven youths, and Theseus before them all, and the people
following them lamenting.  But Theseus whispered to his
companions, ‘Have hope, for the monster is not
immortal.  Where are Periphetes, and Sinis, and Sciron, and
all whom I have slain?’  Then their hearts were
comforted a little; but they wept as they went on board, and the
cliffs of Sunium rang, and all the isles of the Ægean Sea,
with the voice of their lamentation, as they sailed on toward
their deaths in Crete.

p. 206PART III
HOW THESEUS SLEW THE MINOTAUR

And at last they came to Crete, and to Cnossus, beneath the
peaks of Ida, and to the palace of Minos the great king, to whom
Zeus himself taught laws.  So he was the wisest of all
mortal kings, and conquered all the Ægean isles; and his
ships were as many as the sea-gulls, and his palace like a marble
hill.  And he sat among the pillars of the hall, upon his
throne of beaten gold, and around him stood the speaking statues
which Daidalos had made by his skill.  For Daidalos was the
most cunning of all Athenians, and he first invented the
plumb-line, and the auger, and glue, and many a tool with which
wood is wrought.  And he first set up masts in ships, and
yards, and his son made sails for them: but Perdix his nephew
excelled him; for he first invented the saw and its teeth,
copying it from the back-bone of a fish; and invented, too, the
chisel, and the compasses, and the potter’s wheel which
moulds the clay.  Therefore Daidalos envied him, and hurled
him headlong from the temple of Athené; but the Goddess
pitied him (for she loves the wise), and changed him into a
partridge, which flits for ever about the hills.  And
Daidalos fled to Crete, to Minos, and worked for him many a year,
till he did a shameful deed, at which the sun hid his face on
high.

Then he fled from the anger of Minos, he and Icaros his son
having made themselves wings of feathers, and fixed the feathers
with wax.  So they flew over the sea toward Sicily; but
Icaros flew too near the sun; and the wax of his wings was
melted, and he fell into the Icarian Sea.  But Daidalos came
safe to Sicily, and there wrought many a wondrous work; for he
made for King Cocalos a reservoir, from which a great river
watered all the land, and a castle and a treasury on a mountain,
which the giants themselves could not have stormed; and in
Selinos he took the steam which comes up from the fires of
Ætna, and made of it a warm bath of vapour, to cure the
pains of mortal men; and he made a honeycomb of gold, in which
the bees came and stored their honey, and in Egypt he made the
forecourt of the temple of Hephaistos in Memphis, and a statue of
himself within it, and many another wondrous work.  And for
Minos he made statues which spoke and moved, and the temple of
Britomartis, and the dancing-hall of Ariadne, which he carved of
fair white stone.  And in Sardinia he worked for
Iölaos, and in many a land beside, wandering up and down for
ever with his cunning, unlovely and accursed by men.

But Theseus stood before Minos, and they looked each other in
the face.  And Minos bade take them to prison, and cast them
to the monster one by one, that the death of Androgeos might be
avenged.  Then Theseus cried—

‘A boon, O Minos!  Let me be thrown first to the
beast.  For I came hither for that very purpose, of my own
will, and not by lot.’

‘Who art thou, then, brave youth?’

‘I am the son of him whom of all men thou hatest most,
Ægeus the king of Athens, and I am come here to end this
matter.’

And Minos pondered awhile, looking steadfastly at him, and he
thought, ‘The lad means to atone by his own death for his
father’s sin;’ and he answered at last
mildly—

‘Go back in peace, my son.  It is a pity that one
so brave should die.’

But Theseus said, ‘I have sworn that I will not go back
till I have seen the monster face to face.’

And at that Minos frowned, and said, ‘Then thou shalt
see him; take the madman away.’

And they led Theseus away into the prison, with the other
youths and maids.

But Ariadne, Minos’ daughter, saw him, as she came out
of her white stone hall; and she loved him for his courage and
his majesty, and said, ‘Shame that such a youth should
die!’  And by night she went down to the prison, and
told him all her heart; and said—

‘Flee down to your ship at once, for I have bribed the
guards before the door.  Flee, you and all your friends, and
go back in peace to Greece; and take me, take me with you! for I
dare not stay after you are gone; for my father will kill me
miserably, if he knows what I have done.’

And Theseus stood silent awhile; for he was astonished and
confounded by her beauty: but at last he said, ‘I cannot go
home in peace, till I have seen and slain this Minotaur, and
avenged the deaths of the youths and maidens, and put an end to
the terrors of my land.’

‘And will you kill the Minotaur?  How,
then?’

‘I know not, nor do I care: but he must be strong if he
be too strong for me.’

Then she loved him all the more, and said, ‘But when you
have killed him, how will you find your way out of the
labyrinth?’

‘I know not, neither do I care: but it must be a strange
road, if I do not find it out before I have eaten up the
monster’s carcase.’

Then she loved him all the more, and said—‘Fair
youth, you are too bold; but I can help you, weak as I am. 
I will give you a sword, and with that perhaps you may slay the
beast; and a clue of thread, and by that, perhaps, you may find
your way out again.  Only promise me that if you escape safe
you will take me home with you to Greece; for my father will
surely kill me, if he knows what I have done.’

Then Theseus laughed, and said, ‘Am I not safe enough
now?’  And he hid the sword in his bosom, and rolled
up the clue in his hand; and then he swore to Ariadne, and fell
down before her, and kissed her hands and her feet; and she wept
over him a long while, and then went away; and Theseus lay down
and slept sweetly.

And when the evening came, the guards came in and led him away
to the labyrinth.

And he went down into that doleful gulf, through winding paths
among the rocks, under caverns, and arches, and galleries, and
over heaps of fallen stone.  And he turned on the left hand,
and on the right hand, and went up and down, till his head was
dizzy; but all the while he held his clue.  For when he went
in he had fastened it to a stone, and left it to unroll out of
his hand as he went on; and it lasted him till he met the
Minotaur, in a narrow chasm between black cliffs.

And when he saw him he stopped awhile, for he had never seen
so strange a beast.  His body was a man’s: but his
head was the head of a bull; and his teeth were the teeth of a
lion, and with them he tore his prey.  And when he saw
Theseus he roared, and put his head down, and rushed right at
him.

But Theseus stept aside nimbly, and as he passed by, cut him
in the knee; and ere he could turn in the narrow path, he
followed him, and stabbed him again and again from behind, till
the monster fled bellowing wildly; for he never before had felt a
wound.  And Theseus followed him at full speed, holding the
clue of thread in his left hand.

Then on, through cavern after cavern, under dark ribs of
sounding stone, and up rough glens and torrent-beds, among the
sunless roots of Ida, and to the edge of the eternal snow, went
they, the hunter and the hunted, while the hills bellowed to the
monster’s bellow.

And at last Theseus came up with him, where he lay panting on
a slab among the snow, and caught him by the horns, and forced
his head back, and drove the keen sword through his throat.

Then he turned, and went back limping and weary, feeling his
way down by the clue of thread, till he came to the mouth of that
doleful place and saw waiting for him, whom but Ariadne!

And he whispered ‘It is done!’ and showed her the
sword; and she laid her finger on her lips, and led him to the
prison, and opened the doors, and set all the prisoners free,
while the guards lay sleeping heavily; for she had silenced them
with wine.

Then they fled to their ship together, and leapt on board, and
hoisted up the sail; and the night lay dark around them, so that
they passed through Minos’ ships, and escaped all safe to
Naxos; and there Ariadne became Theseus’ wife.

p. 214PART IV
HOW THESEUS FELL BY HIS PRIDE

But that fair Ariadne never came to Athens with her
husband.  Some say that Theseus left her sleeping on Naxos
among the Cyclades; and that Dionusos the wine-king found her,
and took her up into the sky, as you shall see some day in a
painting of old Titian’s—one of the most glorious
pictures upon earth.  And some say that Dionusos drove away
Theseus, and took Ariadne from him by force: but however that may
be, in his haste or in his grief, Theseus forgot to put up the
white sail.  Now Ægeus his father sat and watched on
Sunium day after day, and strained his old eyes across the sea to
see the ship afar.  And when he saw the black sail, and not
the white one, he gave up Theseus for dead, and in his grief he
fell into the sea, and died; so it is called the Ægean to
this day.

And now Theseus was king of Athens, and he guarded it and
ruled it well.

For he killed the bull of Marathon, which had killed
Androgeos, Minos’ son; and he drove back the famous
Amazons, the warlike women of the East, when they came from Asia,
and conquered all Hellas, and broke into Athens itself.  But
Theseus stopped them there, and conquered them, and took
Hippolute their queen to be his wife.  Then he went out to
fight against the Lapithai, and Peirithoos their famous king: but
when the two heroes came face to face they loved each other, and
embraced, and became noble friends; so that the friendship of
Theseus and Peirithoos is a proverb even now.  And he
gathered (so the Athenians say) all the boroughs of the land
together, and knit them into one strong people, while before they
were all parted and weak: and many another wise thing he did, so
that his people honoured him after he was dead, for many a
hundred years, as the father of their freedom and their
laws.  And six hundred years after his death, in the famous
fight at Marathon, men said that they saw the ghost of Theseus,
with his mighty brazen club, fighting in the van of battle
against the invading Persians, for the country which he
loved.  And twenty years after Marathon his bones (they say)
were found in Scuros, an isle beyond the sea; and they were
bigger than the bones of mortal man.  So the Athenians
brought them home in triumph; and all the people came out to
welcome them; and they built over them a noble temple, and
adorned it with sculptures and paintings in which we are told all
the noble deeds of Theseus, and the Centaurs, and the Lapithai,
and the Amazons; and the ruins of it are standing still.

But why did they find his bones in Scuros?  Why did he
not die in peace at Athens, and sleep by his father’s
side?  Because after his triumph he grew proud, and broke
the laws of God and man.  And one thing worst of all he did,
which brought him to his grave with sorrow.  For he went
down (they say beneath the earth) with that bold Peirithoos his
friend to help him to carry off Persephone, the queen of the
world below.  But Peirithoos was killed miserably, in the
dark fire-kingdoms under ground; and Theseus was chained to a
rock in everlasting pain.  And there he sat for years, till
Heracles the mighty came down to bring up the three-headed dog
who sits at Pluto’s gate.  So Heracles loosed him from
his chain, and brought him up to the light once more.

But when he came back his people had forgotten him, and Castor
and Polydeuces, the sons of the wondrous Swan, had invaded his
land, and carried off his mother Aithra for a slave, in revenge
for a grievous wrong.

So the fair land of Athens was wasted, and another king ruled
it, who drove out Theseus shamefully, and he fled across the sea
to Scuros.  And there he lived in sadness, in the house of
Lucomedes the king, till Lucomedes killed him by treachery, and
there was an end of all his labours.

So it is still, my children, and so it will be to the
end.  In those old Greeks, and in us also, all strength and
virtue come from God.  But if men grow proud and
self-willed, and misuse God’s fair gifts, He lets them go
their own ways, and fall pitifully, that the glory may be His
alone.  God help us all, and give us wisdom, and courage to
do noble deeds! but God keep pride from us when we have done
them, lest we fall, and come to shame!

the
end

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

Footnotes

[96]  In the Elgin Marbles.

[130a]  The Danube.

[130b]  Between the Crimæa and
Circassia.

[130c]  The Sea of Azov.

[131a]  The Ural Mountains?

[131b]  The Baltic?

[132]  Britain?

[133]  The Azores?