Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece Page 4

  Poseidon, the brother of Zeus, also helped in this orgy of destruction. He called together the rivers, saying: “Let loose your currents! Engulf the houses and wreck the dams!” And they carried out his commands, while he himself struck the earth with his trident and shook the ground to make way for the waters. The rivers rolled over the open meadows, deluged the fields, and tore down the saplings, temples, and homes. If a few palaces still loomed here and there, the great tide rose to their roofs in no time at all, and the tallest towers were caught up in a whirlpool. Soon no one could distinguish between water and land. Everything was sea, shoreless sea.

  Men tried to save themselves as best they could. One climbed a high mountain, another took to his boat and rowed over the roof of his submerged house, or over his vineyards, where the vine-sprays brushed against the keel. Fish struggled in the boughs of trees, while the fleeing stag and boar were at the mercy of the tide. Whole peoples were swept away, and those who were spared died of hunger on hills where nothing grew but barren heather and ferns.

  In the land of Phocis there was still one mountain which lifted its peaks above the waste of water. It was Mount Parnassus. Deucalion, whose father Prometheus had warned him of the coming flood, and built him a boat, floated up to this mountain with Pyrrha his wife. No man and no woman created ever surpassed these two in goodness and fear of the gods. When Zeus, looking down from the sky, saw only endless swamp where the earth had been, and only two people left of thousands upon thousands, both guiltless and devout worshippers of his deity, he sent the north wind to drive away the black clouds and scatter the fogs. Once more he showed heaven to earth and earth to heaven, while Poseidon, sovereign over the sea, laid down his trident and smoothed the waves. The sea had shores again; the rivers returned to their beds. The tops of trees, smeared with mud, began to rise from the depths. Next came the hills, and at last the level plain spread clear and dry. Earth was restored.

  Deucalion looked around. The land lay ravaged and silent as the tomb. At the sight, tears ran down his cheeks, and he said to Pyrrha: “My only and beloved companion, in all directions, as far as eye can reach, I see no living thing. We two are the only humans left on earth; all the rest have been drowned in the flood. And we, indeed, are not yet sure of our life. I tremble at every cloud. And even if all danger were past, what should two lonely people do on the abandoned earth? Oh, how I wish my father Prometheus had taught me the art of creating men and breathing spirit into shapes of clay!”

  So he spoke, and in their solitude both he and his wife began to weep. Then they fell on their knees before a half-ruined altar of Themis and pleaded with the immortal goddess. “Tell us, goddess, how we may recreate the vanished race of man. Oh, help the world to live again!”

  “Go from my altar,” said a voice. “Veil your heads, loosen the garments from your limbs, and cast the bones of your mother behind you.”

  Long they pondered over these mysterious words. Pyrrha was the first to break the silence. “Forgive me, great goddess,” she said, “if I shudder and do not obey you, for I hesitate to offend my mother’s shade by scattering abroad her bones.”

  But Deucalion’s mind was suddenly illumined as by a flash of light. He calmed his wife with soothing words. “Unless I am much mistaken,” he said, “the command of the gods never bids us do wrong. The earth is our mother, and her bones are the stones. It is the stones, Pyrrha, that we are to cast behind us!”

  Nonetheless both were very doubtful about this explanation of the command of Themis. Yet—so they thought—there is no harm in trying. So they went to one side, veiled their heads, loosened the clasps of their garments as they had been told, and flung stones backward over their shoulders. And a miracle happened: the stones no longer remained hard and brittle. They became supple, and grew, and took on shape. Human forms stood out, not very distinctly at first, but rather like the first rough outline an artist hews from marble. Whatever was earthen and moist about the stones changed to flesh, and what was firm and hard was transformed to bones, while the veins turned into human veins. So, in a very short time, with the help of the gods, the stones cast by the man became men, those by the woman, women.

  The human race does not deny its origin. It is a sturdy race, well-fitted for a life of toil, and it never forgets the stuff from which it was made.

  ZEUS AND IO

  INACHUS, king of the Pelasgians, the hereditary monarch of an age-old dynasty, had a beautiful daughter called Io. Zeus, the lord of Olympus, once happened to see her as she was tending her father’s flocks in the meadows of Lerna, and love for her leaped up in the god like a flame. Disguised as a mortal, he came to tempt her with sweet, seductive words.

  “How happy will he be who one day calls you his own! Yet there is no mortal worthy of you, you who are fit to be the bride of the ruler of the gods. I am he! I am Zeus! No, do not run away! See, it is burning noon. Come with me to that shady grove, over there to the left, which invites us with its coolness. Why should you toil in the midday heat? You need not be afraid to enter the dim forest where beasts crouch in the dusky ravines, for am I not here to protect you, I, who weigh in my hand the scepter of the sky and flash jagged lightning over the earth?”

  But the girl sped from her tempter, and fear winged her feet, so that she would surely have escaped him, had he not abused his power and plunged the entire region into darkness. She was muffled in mists and slowed her steps in alarm lest she stumble against a rock or lose her footing and slip into a river. And so unhappy Io fell into the snares of Zeus.

  Hera, the mother of the gods, had long since grown accustomed to her husband’s faithlessness, for he frequently turned from her to lavish love on the daughters of demigods and mortals. Yet she had never learned to curb her anger and jealousy, but watched every move of Zeus on earth with unflagging distrust. Now too her gaze rested upon that very region where her husband was disporting himself without her knowledge, and she saw with amazement that in one particular spot the clear day was blurred with heavy mists which rose neither from the river nor the ground, nor were they due to any other natural cause. Her suspicions were instantly aroused. She looked for Zeus over all Olympus, but he was not there. “If I am not mistaken,” she said sullenly to herself, “my husband is doing me a grave wrong.”

  And forthwith she left the high air of heaven, floated down to earth in a cloud, and bade the mists which walled in the seducer and his quarry break apart. Zeus had divined her coming, and to save his beloved from her vengeance, he changed the lovely daughter of Inachus into a snow-white heifer. Even so, the girl was still fair to look upon. Hera, seeing at once through her husband’s ruse, praised the stately animal and guilefully asked to whom it belonged, what breed it was, and where it had come from. In his embarrassment and desire to put an end to her questions, Zeus lyingly told her that the heifer was a mere creature of earth and nothing more. Hera pretended to be satisfied with his answer, but begged him to make her a present of the fine beast. What was the cheated cheat to do? If he granted her request he would lose his beloved; if he refused, her smoldering suspicions would burst into flame and she would surely destroy the unfortunate girl. For the time being, then, he decided to do without her and gave his wife the shimmering creature, whose secret he thought well-hidden.

  Hera seemed charmed with the gift. She knotted a ribbon about the neck of the beautiful heifer, whose heart beat under the animal pelt in mortal despair, and led her off in triumph. But the goddess herself had misgivings about her action and knew she would not be at ease until she had given her rival into very safe keeping. She went in search of Argus, the son of Arestor, who seemed well suited for the task she had in mind. For Argus was a monster with a hundred eyes, of which he closed only one pair at a time, while the rest, glittering like stars over the front and back of his head, remained open and faithful to their duties. It was to Argus that Hera entrusted Io, so that Zeus would be unable to regain the mistress she had deprived him of. Fixed by those hundred eyes, the heifer was al
lowed to graze on slopes, green with luxuriant grass, the livelong day, but wherever she went, never was she out of sight of Argus, even when she moved behind him. At nightfall he locked her up and weighed her neck with heavy chains. She dined on bitter herbs and leathery leaves, lay on the hard bare ground, and drank from turbid pools. Often Io forgot that she was no longer human. She wanted to lift her hands in supplication, only to remember that she had no hands. She wanted to plead with Argus in sweet, compelling words, but when she opened her mouth she shrank from the lows she uttered. Argus did not keep her in one place, for Hera had bidden him pasture her far and wide, so that it would be difficult for Zeus to discover her. Thus it was that she and her guard roamed the countryside, until one day she found herself in her native land, on the bank of the river where she had so often played as a child. Now for the first time she saw herself in her altered shape, and when the head of a horned beast stared back at her from the bright mirror of the waters, she fled from her own image in shuddering alarm. Driven by longing, she turned toward her sisters and her father, but they did not recognize her. Inachus did, indeed, stroke her shimmering flank and proffer her leaves plucked from a bush growing near by. But when the heifer licked his hand in gratitude, and covered it with kisses and human tears, the old man still did not guess whom he had caressed, nor who had returned his caresses. At last the poor girl, whose mind had suffered no change along with her form, had a happy thought. With her hoof she began to trace written symbols in the sand, and soon her father, whose attention had been attracted to this curious behavior, deciphered the news that his own child stood before him.

  “What misery!” exclaimed the old man, as he clung to the horns and neck of his moaning daughter. “Must I find you like this, you whom I have looked for the world over! Alas, I grieved less when I was seeking you than now that I have found you. You are silent? Can you give me no word of comfort, but only low? Fool that I was! All my thoughts were bent upon choosing a son-in-law worthy of you, and now you are like those who run in a herd …” Inachus could not finish his lament, for Argus, the cruel watchman, snatched Io from her father and dragged her far away to a solitary pasture. Then he himself climbed to the peak of a mountain and performed his office by peering to the four corners of the world with his hundred wary eyes.

  And now Zeus could no longer endure the sorrows of Io. He summoned his dear son Hermes and commanded him to trick hated Argus into closing his eyes. Hermes bound his winged sandals to his feet, grasped in his strong hand the staff which scatters sleep, and put on his travelling cap. In this raiment he left his father’s house and sped down to earth. There he laid aside his cap and wings and kept only his staff, so that he looked like a shepherd with his crook. He coaxed a flock of wild goats to follow him and went to the lonely meadow where Io was nibbling the young blades under the stare of the ever-watchful Argus. Then Hermes drew forth a shepherd’s pipe, called a syrinx, and began to sound notes more full and sweet than mortal herdsmen play.

  Hera’s servant, pleased with the unexpected music, rose from his lofty seat and called down: “Whoever you may be, most welcome piper, come and rest on this rock with me. You will find no thicker or greener grass for your beasts, and that clump of close-growing trees offers pleasant shade to the herd.”

  Hermes thanked Argus and clambered up beside him. He began to speak, and his talk was so lively and beguiling that the hours passed unnoticed. Those hundred lids grew heavy, and now Hermes fingered his reed and thought to put Argus to sleep with his playing. But Io’s guard feared the anger of his mistress, should he slacken his watchfulness, and fought his desire for sleep to the extent of keeping at least part of his eyes open. With a great effort he marshalled his drowsy wits and, since the reed pipe was something new, asked his companion its origin.

  “I shall be glad to tell you,” said Hermes, “if you have the patience to listen at this late hour. In the snow-covered hills of Arcadia lived a famous hamadryad called Syrinx. The woodland gods and satyrs were charmed with her loveliness and wooed her ardently, but again and again she eluded their pursuit, for she feared the yoke of marriage. Like Artemis with her girdle, Artemis, lover of the chase, she was loath to give up her maidenhood. Finally the great god Pan saw the nymph as he was roaming the forest and began to court her insistently, though with the proud bearing the knowledge of his own majesty gave him. But him too she spurned and fled through pathless wilderness until she came to the sandy river Ladon, whose waters were just deep enough to block her crossing. She hesitated on the bank and implored her sisters, the nymphs, to take pity upon her and change her form before the god overtook her. Just then he came and clasped her in his arms, but to his great astonishment he found himself holding a reed instead of a maiden. His deep sighs entered the reed, were multiplied in passage, and echoed their own sound in mournful murmurs. The magic of these notes soothed the bereft god’s anguish. ‘So be it, O Loveliness transformed,’ he cried in pain and delight. ‘Even so we shall be united and nothing can ever part us.’ Then he cut himself reeds of various lengths, joined them with wax, and named his flute for the fair hamadryad. Ever since that time we have called the shepherd’s pipe syrinx …”

  This was the tale of the messenger of the gods, and never did he turn his gaze from Argus in the telling. Before the end he saw one eye after another veiled beneath its lid, until at last heavy sleep had put out all the hundred lights. Now Hermes checked the ripple of his voice and with his magic staff touched each of those closed eyes to deepen their oblivion. Then he swiftly drew forth the sickle-shaped sword he had concealed under his shepherd’s smock, cut through the bowed neck of Argus where it was closest to the head, and both head and trunk plunged down from the peak and stained the stones with jets of blood.

  Now Io was free, and though she was still in the shape of a heifer, she sped away in unshackled liberty. But the sharp eyes of Hera detected all that had happened below. She cast about for some instrument to inflict exquisite torment upon her rival, and chanced upon the gadfly. This insect almost crazed Io with its sting and drove her from her own country and over all the earth: to the Scythians, to the Caucasus, to the tribe of the Amazons, the Cimmerian Isthmus, the sea of Maeotis, and thence into Asia. After long and difficult wanderings she came to Egypt. Here, on the shores of the Nile, she sank down upon her forefeet, bent back her head and gazed upward to Zeus in heaven in mute accusation. So stricken with pity was he at sight of her, that he hastened to Hera, embraced her, implored her mercy for the poor girl, who had done nothing to provoke his faithlessness, and swore by the waters of the underworld (on which the gods take their oaths) that he would give up his fondness for her. While he was still beseeching her, Hera heard the low of the heifer which rose through the clear air, even up to Olympus. Her heart softened, and she gave her husband leave to return Io to her own true shape.

  Zeus hurried to earth and swept on to the Nile. He passed his hand over the heifer’s back, and a curious change ensued: the shag vanished from her body, the horns dwindled, her eyes narrowed, the muzzle curved to lips, shoulders and hands appeared, and the hooves were suddenly gone. Nothing of the heifer remained but her fair white color. Io rose from the ground and stood erect, and beauty breathed about her. There, on the bank of the Nile, she bore Zeus a son, Epaphus, and because the people venerated her, who had been so miraculously saved, as though she were a goddess, she ruled over that country for many years. But even so, she was never quite safe from the wrath of Hera, who incited the savage Curetes to steal young Epaphus. So again Io wandered up and down the earth, this time in a futile search for her son. At last—after Zeus had struck the Curetes with lightning—she found Epaphus on the border of Ethiopia, took him back to Egypt, and shared the throne with him. He married Memphis, who bore him Libya, for whom the land of Libya is named. When mother and son died, the peoples of the Nile built temples for them and worshipped them as gods, her as Isis, and him as Apis.

  PHAETHON

  BORNE by luminous pillars, the palace
of the sun-god rose lustrous with gold and flame-red rubies. The cornice was of dazzling ivory, and carved in relief on the wide silver doors were legends and miracle tales. To this beautiful place came Phaethon, son of Phoebus, and asked for his father, the sun-god. He dared not approach too closely, but stopped at a little distance, because he could not endure that glittering, burning nearness.

  Phoebus, robed in crimson, was seated on his throne adorned with matchless emeralds. To the right and the left of him stood his retinue ranged in appointed order: the Day, the Month, the Year, the Centuries, and the Seasons: young Spring with his fillet of flowers, Summer garlanded with sheaves of yellow grain, wine-stained Autumn, and Winter, whose locks were white as hail. The all-seeing eyes of Phoebus, in the midst of these, soon noticed the youth, who was gazing at the glory about him in silent amazement. “Why did you undertake this journey?” he asked him. “What brings you to the palace of your father, my son?”

  “O father,” answered Phaethon, “it is because on earth men are making mock of me and slandering my mother Clymene. They say that I only pretend to be of heavenly origin, and that, in reality, I am the son of a quite ordinary, unknown man. So I have come to beg of you some token which will prove to the world that I am indeed your son.”

  He paused, and Phoebus laid aside the beams which circled his head and bade him come close. Then he embraced him tenderly, flinging his arms around him, and said: “Clymene, your mother, told you the truth, my son, and I shall never disown you in the face of the world. But to dispel your doubts forever, ask a gift of me. I swear by the Styx, that river in the underworld upon which all gods take their oath, that your wish shall be granted, no matter what it may be.”

  Phaethon barely waited for his father to finish. “Then make my wildest dream come true!” he cried. “For one whole day let me guide the winged chariot of the sun!”