Bulfinch's Mythology: the Age of Fable Read online

  In a poem dedicated to Leigh Hunt, by Keats, the following allusion to the story of Pan and Syrinx occurs:—

  "So did he feel who pulled the boughs aside,

  That we might look into a forest wide,

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  Telling us how fair trembling Syrinx fled

  Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread.

  Poor nymph poor Pan how he did weep to find

  Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind

  Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain,

  Full of sweet desolation, balmy pain."

  CALLISTO

  Callisto was another maiden who excited the jealousy of Juno, and the goddess changed her into a bear. "I will take away," said she, :"that beauty with which you have captivated my husband." Down fell Callisto on her hands and knees; she tried to stretch out her arms in supplication,— they were already beginning to be covered with black hair. Her hands grew rounded, became armed with crooked claws, and served for feet; her mouth, which Jove used to praise for its beauty, became a horrid pair of jaws; her voice, which if unchanged would have moved the heart to pity, became a growl, more fit to inspire terror. Yet her former disposition remained, and, with continued groaning, she bemoaned her fate, and stood upright as well as she could, lifting up her paws to beg for mercy; and felt that Jove was unkind, though she could not tell him so. Ah, how often, afraid to stay in the woods all night alone, she wandered about the neighborhood of her former haunts; how often, frightened by the dogs, did she, so lately a huntress, fly in terror from the hunters! Often she fled from the wild beasts, forgetting that she was now a wild beast herself; and, bear as she was, was afraid of the bears.

  One day a youth espied her as he was hunting. She saw him and recognized him as her own son, now grown a young man. She stopped, and felt inclined to embrace him. As she was about to approach, he, alarmed, raised his hunting spear, and was on the point of transfixing her, when Jupiter, beholding, arrested the crime, and, snatching away both of them, placed them in the heavens as the Great and Little Bear.

  Juno was in a rage to see her rival so set in honor, and hastened to ancient Tethys and Oceanus, the powers of ocean, and, in answer to their inquiries, thus told the cause of her coming; "Do you ask why I, the queen of the gods, have left the heavenly plains and sought your depths. Learn that I am supplanted in heaven,— my place is given to another. You will hardly believe me; but look when night darkens the world, and you shall see the two, of whom I have so much reason to complain, exalted to the heavens, in that part where the circle is the smallest, in the neighborhood of the pole. Why should any one hereafter tremble at the thought of offending Juno, when such rewards are the consequence of my displeasure! See what I have been able to effect! I forbade her to wear the human form,— she is placed among the stars! So do my punishments result,— such is the extent of my power! Better that she should have resumed her former shape, as I permitted Io to do. Perhaps he means to marry her, and put me away! But you, my foster parents, if you feel for me, and see with displeasure this unworthy treatment of me, show it, I beseech you, by forbidding this guilty couple from coming into your waters." The powers of the ocean assented, and consequently the two constellations of the Great and Little Bear move round and round in heaven, but never sink, as the other stars do, beneath the ocean.

  Milton alludes to the fact that the constellation of the Bear never sets, when he says,

  "Let my lamp at midnight hour

  Be seen in some high lonely tower,

  Where I may oft outwatch the Bear."

  Il Penseroso

  And Prometheus, in James Russell Lowell's poem, says,

  "One after one the stars have risen and set,

  Sparkling upon the hoar-frost of my chain;

  The Bear that prowled all night about the fold

  Of the North Star, hath shrunk into his den,

  Scared by the blithsome footsteps of the dawn."

  The last star in the tail of the Little Bear is the Pole star, called also the Cynosure. Milton says,

  "Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures

  While the landscape round it measures.

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  Towers and battlements it sees

  Bosomed high in tufted trees,

  Where perhaps some beauty lies

  The Cynosure of neighboring eyes."

  L'Allegro.

  The reference here is both to the Pole-star as the guide of mariners, and to the magnetic attraction of the North. He calls it also the "Star of Aready," because Callisto's boy was named Arcas, and they lived in Arcadia. In Milton's Comus, the elder brother, benighted in the woods, says,

  "Some gentle taper!

  Through a rush candle, from

  the wicker hole

  Of some clay habitation,

  visit us

  With thy long levelled rule

  of streaming light,

  And thou shalt be our star of Aready,

  Or Tyrian Chynsure."

  DIANA AND ACTAEON

  It was midday, and the sun stood equally distant from either goal, when young Actaeon, son of King Cadmus, thus addressed the youths who with him were hunting the stag in the mountains:—

  "Friends, our nets and our weapons are wet with the blood of our victims; we have had sport enough for one day, and tomorrow we can renew our labors. Now, while Phoebus parches the earth, let us put by our instruments and indulge ourselves with rest."

  There was a valley thickly enclosed with cypresses and pines, sacred to the huntress-queen, Diana. In the extremity of the valley was a cave, not adorned with art, but nature had counterfeited art in its construction, for she had turned the arch of its roof with stones as delicately fitted as if by the hand of man. A fountain burst out from one side, whose open basin was bounded by a grassy rim. Here the goddess of the woods used to come when weary with hunting and lave her virgin limbs in the sparkling water.

  One day, having repaired thither with her nymphs, she handed her javelin, her quiver, and her bow to one, her robe to another, while a third unbound the sandals from her feet. Then Crocale, the most skilful of them, arranged her hair, and Nephele, Hyale, and the rest drew water in capacious urns. While the goddess was thus employed in the labors of the toilet, behold, Actaeon, having quitted his companions, and rambling without any especial object, came to the place, led thither by his destiny. As he presented himself at the entrance of the cave, the nymphs, seeing a man, screamed and rushed towards the goddess to hide her with their bodies. But she was taller than the rest, and overtopped them all by a head. Such a color as tinges the clouds at sunset or at dawn came over the countenance of Diana thus taken by surprise. Surrounded as she was by her nymphs, she yet turned half away, and sought with a sudden impulse for her arrows. As they were not at hand, she dashed the water into the face of the intruder, adding these words: "Now go and tell, if you can, that you have seen Diana unapparelled." Immediately a pair of branching stag's horns grew out of his head, his neck gained in length, his ears grew sharp-pointed, his hands became feet, his arms long legs, his body was covered with a hairy spotted hide. Fear took the place of his former boldness, and the hero fled. He could not but admire his own speed; but when he saw his horns in the water, "Ah, wretched me!: he would have said, but no sound followed the effort. He groaned, and tears flowed down the face that had taken the place of his own. Yet his consciousness remained. What shall he do? Go home to seek the palace, or lie hid in the woods? The latter he was afraid, the former he was ashamed, to do. While he hesitated the dogs saw him. First Melampus, a Spartan dog, gave the signal with his bark, then Pamphagus, Dorceus, Lelaps, Theron, Nape, Tigris, and all the rest, rushed after him swifter than the wind. Over rocks and clif
fs, through mountain gorges that seemed impracticable, he fled, and they followed. Where he had often chased the stag and cheered on his pack, his pack now chased him, cheered on by his own huntsmen. He longed to cry out, "I am Actaeon; recognize your master!" But the words came not at his will. The air resounded with the bark of the dogs. Presently one fastened on his back, another seized his shoulder. While they held their master, the rest of the pack came up and buried their teeth in his flesh. He groaned, not in a human voice, yet certainly not in a stag's, and, falling on his knees, raised his eyes, and would have raised his arms in supplication, if he had had them. His friends and fellow-huntsmen cheered on the dogs, and looked every where for Actaeon, calling on him to join the sport. At the sound of his name, he turned his head, and heard them regret that he should be away. He earnestly wished he was. He would have been well pleased to see the exploits of his dogs, but to feel them was too much. They were all around him, rending and tearing; and it was not till they had torn his life out that the anger of Diana was satisfied.

  In the "Epic of Hades" there is a description of Actaeon and his change of form. Perhaps the most beautiful lines in it are when Actaeon, changed to a stag, first hears his own hounds and flees.

  "But as I gazed, and careless turned and passed

  Through the thick wood, forgetting what had been,

  And thinking thoughts no longer, swift there came

  A mortal terror; voices that I knew.

  My own hounds' bayings that I loved before,

  As with them often o'er the purple hills

  I chased the flying hart from slope to slope,

  Before the slow sun climbed the eastern peaks,

  Until the swift sun smote the western plain;

  Whom often I had cheered by voice and glance,

  Whom often I had checked with hand and thong;

  Grim followers, like the passions, firing me,

  True servants, like the strong nerves, urging me

  On many a fruitless chase, to find and take

  Some too swift-fleeting beauty, faithful feet

  And tongues, obedient always: these I knew

  Clothed with a new-born force and vaster grown,

  And stronger than their master; and I thought,

  What if they tore me with their jaws, nor knew

  That once I ruled them, brute pursuing brute,

  And I the quarry? Then I turned and fled

  If it was I indeed that feared and fled

  Down the long glades, and through the tangled brakes,

  Where scarce the sunlight pierced; fled on and on,

  And panted, self-pursued. But evermore

  The dissonant music which I knew so sweet,

  When by the windy hills, the echoing vales

  And whispering pines it rang; now far, now near

  As from my rushing steed I leant and cheered

  With voice and horn the chase; this brought to me

  Fear of I knew not what, which bade me fly,

  Fly always, fly; but when my heart stood still,

  And all my limbs were stiffened as I fled,

  Just as the white moon ghost-like climbed the sky,

  Nearer they came and nearer, baying loud,

  With bloodshot eyes and red jaws dripping foam;

  And when I strove to check their savagery,

  Speaking with words; no voice articulate came,

  Only a dumb, low bleat. Then all the throng

  Leapt swift upon me and tore me as I lay,

  And left me man again."

  In Shelley's poem Adonais is the following allusion to the story of Actaeon:—

  "Midst others of less note came one frail form,

  A phantom among men; companionless

  As the last cloud of an expiring storm,

  Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,

  Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness,

  Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray

  With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness;

  And his own Thoughts, along that rugged way,

  Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey."

  Adonais, stanza 31.

  The allusion is probably to Shelley himself.

  LATONA AND THE RUSTICS

  Some thought the goddess in this instance more severe than was just, while others praised her conduct as strictly consistent with her virgin dignity. As usual, the recent event brought older ones to mind, and one of the bystanders told this story. "Some countrymen of Lycia once insulted the goddess Latona, but not with impunity. When I was young, my father, who had grown too old for active labors, sent me to Lycia to drive thence some choice oxen, and there I saw the very pond and marsh where the wonder happened. Near by stood an ancient altar, black with the smoke of sacrifice and almost buried among the reeds. I inquired whose altar it might be, whether of Faunus or the Naiads or some god of the neighboring mountain, and one of the country people replied, 'No mountain or river god possesses this altar, but she whom royal Juno in her jealousy drove from land to land, denying her any spot of earth whereon to rear her twins. Bearing in her arms the infant deities, Latona reached this land, weary with her burden and parched with thirst. By chance she espied in the bottom of the valley this pond of clear water, where the country people were at work gathering willows and osiers. The goddess approached, and kneeling on the bank would have slaked her thirst in the cool stream, but the rustics forbade her. 'Why do you refuse me water?' said she; 'water is free to all. Nature allows no one to claim as property the sunshine, the air, or the water. I come to take my share of the common blessing. Yet I ask it of you as a favor. I have no intention of washing my limbs in it, weary though they be, but only to quench my thirst. My mouth is so dry that I can hardly speak. A draught of water would be nectar to me; it would revive me, and I would own myself indebted to you for life itself. Let these infants move your pity, who stretch out their little arms as if to plead for me'; and the children, as it happened, were stretching out their arms.

  "Who would not have been moved with these gentle words of the goddess? But these clowns persisted in their rudeness; they even added jeers and threats of violence if she did not leave the place. Nor was this all. They waded into the pond and stirred up the mud with their feet, so as to make the water unfit to drink. Latona was so angry that she ceased to feel her thirst. She no longer supplicated the clowns, but lifting her hands to heaven exclaimed, 'May they never quit that pool, but pass their lives there!' And it came to pass accordingly. They now live in the water, sometimes totally submerged, then raising their heads above the surface, or swimming upon it. Sometimes they come out upon the bank, but soon leap back again into the water. They still use their base voices in railing, and though they have the water all to themselves, are not ashamed to croak in the midst of it. Their voices are harsh, their throats bloated, their mouths have become stretched by constant railing, their necks have shrunk up and disappeared, and their heads are joined to their bodies. Their backs are green, their disproportioned bellies white, and in short they are now frogs, and dwell in the slimy pool."

  This story explains the allusion in one of Milton's sonnets, "On the detraction which followed upon his writing certain treatises."

  "I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs

  By the known laws of ancient liberty,.

  When straight a barbarous noise environs me

  Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs.

  As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs

  Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,

  Which after held the sun and moon in fee."

  The persecution which Latona experienced from Juno is alluded to in the story. The tradition was that the future mother of Apollo and Diana, flying from the wrath of Juno, besought all the islands of the Aegean to afford her a place of rest, but all feared too much the potent queen of heaven to assist her rival. Delos alone consented to become the birthplace of the future deities. Delos
was then a floating island; but when Latona arrived there, Jupiter fastened it with adamantine chains to the bottom of the sea, that it might be a secure resting place for his beloved. Byron alludes to Delos in his Don Juan:—

  "The isles of Greece! The isles of Greece!

  Where burning Sappho loved and sung,

  Where grew the arts of war and peace,

  Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!"

  PHAETON

  Epaphus was the son of Jupiter and Io. Phaeton, child of the Sun, was one day boasting to him of his high descent and of his father Phoebus. Epaphus could not bear it. "Foolish fellow," said he "you believe your mother in all things, and you are puffed up by your pride in a false father." Phaeton went in rage and shame and reported this to his mother, Clymene. "If," said he, "I am indeed of heavenly birth, give me, mother, some proof of it, and establish my claim to the honor." Clymene stretched forth her hands towards the skies, and said, "I call to witness the Sun which looks down upon us, that I have told you the truth. If I speak falsely, let this be the last time I behold his light. But it needs not much labor to go and inquire for yourself; the land whence the sun rises lies next to ours. Go and demand of him whether he will own you as a son" Phaeton heard with delight. He travelled to India, which lies directly in the regions of sunrise; and, full of hope and pride, approached the goal whence the Sun begins his course.

  The palace of the Sun stood reared aloft on columns, glittering with gold and precious stones, while polished ivory formed the ceilings, and silver the doors. The workmanship surpassed the material; for upon the walls Vulcan had represented earth, sea and skies, with their inhabitants. In the sea were the nymphs, some sporting in the waves, some riding on the backs of fishes, while others sat upon the rocks and dried their sea-green hair. Their faces were not all alike, nor yet unlike, but such as sisters' ought to be. The earth had its towns and forests and rivers and rustic divinities. Over all was carved the likeness of the glorious heaven; and on the silver doors the twelve signs of the zodiac, six on each side.