Children of the Dawn Part 22

"O Orpheus, my heart is starving for one look, one word. I know thou lovest me, but oh! to see thine eyes tell me so and hear thy lips say it."

He longed to turn and clasp her in his arms, and tell her how he loved her better than life. But still he refrained, and hugged his lyre close to his breast in his agony; and as soon as the boat touched the sh.o.r.e he leapt out and hastened up the steep, dark path, whilst the sweat stood out in drops upon his brow, so hard was the way and so stifling the air. Behind him followed Eurydice, and if the way was hard for him, for her it was ten times harder. She had no strength for words, and only by her sobs did Orpheus know she was following still.

So they went on, till at length the air grew pure and fresh, and the daylight shone before them at the mouth of the cave. With eager steps Orpheus pressed forward, longing for the moment when he might clasp his wife in his arms and speak to her once more. But as the way grew easier for him, it grew harder for Eurydice; since no one may pa.s.s from death to life without sore travail and pain. So she struggled and stumbled after him, and her heart gave way within her as she felt she could follow no farther.

"Orpheus!" she cried in her despair, "thy hand."

Ere reason could restrain him, his heart had answered her sudden cry, and he turned and held out his arms to help her. All too late he knew his folly. For even as he was about to hold her she slipped away, and as smoke is borne away on the wings of the wind, so was she borne away, helpless and lifeless, to the realms of the dead, and her voice floated back like the echo of a dream,

"Farewell, Orpheus. Alas! Alas! farewell!"

So for the second time did he lose Eurydice; and if his grief was great before, it was ten times greater now. For as the cup of joy had touched his lips it had slipped from his hand and broken, and he knew that the chance the G.o.ds had given him once they would give him never again, but that all his life long he must dwell in loneliness without Eurydice his wife. Blindly he went forward with his lyre beneath his arm. The strings hung broken and lifeless, for the rocks and thorns had torn them as he pa.s.sed on his way up from Hades. But he heeded not nor made any effort to mend them, for the strings of his heart hung broken too, and the music in his soul was dead. In black despair he wandered on, and the suns.h.i.+ne to his eyes was darkness, and the fair forms of earth were sadder than the phantoms of Hades had seemed to him while hope still beat in his breast. As a colt that has wandered far by unknown paths returns at last surely to his homestead, so did his feet carry him back to Pelion and the dear home of his boyhood.

Not till he stood in the path which led up to the cave did he know where he had come; but when he saw the mouth of the cave before him his eyes were opened once more, and a faint joy stole into his heart as he went on and sat down on a stone outside. All was silent and deserted, and he sat for awhile alone with his own sad thoughts, till he felt a touch upon his shoulder, and looked up into the face of Cheiron standing beside him.

"O my master!" he cried.

"My son, thou hast suffered," said Cheiron.

"I have been down into Hades, Cheiron," he answered.

"My child," said Cheiron, "I know it all."

He gazed upon him, his great mild eyes full of pity, and Orpheus gazed back at him, and knew that he understood, though how he had learnt his tale he could not tell. His heart drew comfort from the sympathy that understood without words, and was softened as the parched earth is softened by rain, so that he took Cheiron's hands between his, and bowed his head upon them, and wept.

Thus it came to pa.s.s that he returned to his boyhood's home, and dwelt once more with Cheiron and his lads beneath the shade of snow-capped Pelion. In time the bitterness of his grief was purged away, and he remembered Eurydice as something bright and fair that had been woven into the web of his life while yet it was young, and which could never be taken away. As he listened again to the old songs which Cheiron had sung to him and his comrades when they were lads, the fire and the eagerness of his youth were born once more within him. When he saw the elder ones go forth into the world and little lads brought up to take their place with Cheiron, he felt how life stands ever beckoning and calling to those in whose veins the blood of G.o.ds and heroes runs, and they go forth to rule and to serve, to fight and to labour, in answer to the call which the foolish do not hear. So one morning he took his lyre, which for many a long day had lain silent, and putting fresh strings for the ones that were broken, he pa.s.sed his fingers lovingly over them as of old. And the spirit of music sprang to life once more in his heart, as the flowers spring to life when the winter is past, so that once again he could charm every living thing by the magic of his song.

When Cheiron knew that his power had come back to him he was glad.

"Orpheus," he said, "thou hast conquered. A weaker man than thou art would have lain crushed beneath the foot of adversity. But those who bravely rise again are stronger than before."

"Master," he said, "when I saw the broken strings of my lyre and felt my voice choked within me, I said, 'With the breaking of this string the music dies and becomes a voiceless echo of the past, just as now Eurydice is a shade in the shadowy land while her body is dust upon earth,' and lo! ere the strings were mended or the voice grew strong again, the soul of song lived once more in my heart, as on the day when first my mother Calliope breathed her spirit upon me. If music may live without sound or words, may not the soul live too without bones and flesh? This is a mystery, and I must seek the wide world for an answer."

And Cheiron smiled upon him.

"It is good to seek," said he, "though thou find no answer in the end."

"Yet will I find an answer," said Orpheus.

So when the call of Jason came soon after, for him to sail with the heroes in the good s.h.i.+p _Argo_ for the finding of the Golden Fleece, and to be their minstrel on the stormy seas, he went down right gladly to Iolchos. At the sound of his song the gallant s.h.i.+p leapt over the stones and into the sea like a charger ready for battle, though before she had been too heavy to move. So he sailed with the heroes on their perilous venture, filling their hearts with courage and hope, and took them safely through many a danger by the magic of his song. But though many had set out, there were few that returned, and he saw the wreck of many a promising life on that terrible voyage, but found no answer to his quest. He bowed his head in reverence to the memory of those who, for the sake of adventure and honour and a n.o.ble name, had poured forth their lives like water on a thirsty soil, knowing full well when they set forth that the danger would be for all, but the prize and the dear home-coming for few.

So, as soon as might be, he set forth again to wander the wide world alone with his lyre. Some say he went to Egypt, others say to Crete, but wherever he went he found at last the answer to his quest. For he found the great G.o.d Dionysos, the G.o.d of many names--Bromios, Bacchos, Zagreus--who fills men's minds with inspiration and divine madness, so that they become one with him and with the life that lives for ever behind the forms of things that die. He ate of the flesh of the mystic bull, which is the G.o.d himself, and to the sound of his lyre the Maenads danced over the mountains and through untrodden woods, and held to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s young lions, and cubs of the untamed wolf. Far away from towns and cities, where custom and language raise barriers between man and man, on the breast of the untouched earth they danced their mystic dance, and became one with Bacchos and with all things that have life in the present, or have lived in the past. There Orpheus found Eurydice again in the communion of soul with soul, and learnt what she had meant when she said, "Some day our love shall prevail, never again to be conquered." So it came to pa.s.s that he became the priest of Bacchos, the mystic G.o.d, who is one with Life and Love. And he wrote upon tablets the rule of life, by which, through purity and initiation, men may become one with the G.o.d, and when they have been purified by birth and re-birth in many diverse forms, they may win, because they are one with him, the immortal life that changeth not, like the life of the stars in heaven.

The tale goes of Orpheus that at last he came to Thrace and the wild mountain lands that lie to the north of Greece. There he tamed the fierce hill tribes with the magic of his song, and lived a life of abstinence and purity and ecstasy of the soul. But the followers of Dionysos who dwelt in those parts looked on him askance; for whereas they wors.h.i.+pped the G.o.d with shedding of blood and rending of goats, in the madness that is born of wine, the ecstasy of his wors.h.i.+p was born of music and beauty, and he would have no part nor lot in their wild revels. And because there is no hate that is greater than the hate of those who wors.h.i.+p one G.o.d in divers way, there came a day when the mad frenzy of the Maenads was turned against Orpheus himself. As he sat looking forth on the sunrise and singing as he touched his lyre, the raving band came up behind him, full of madness and of wine. And they tore him limb from limb in their frenzy, as they had torn the wild goats before, and cast his head into the Hebrus, thinking to silence his singing for ever. But his head floated on the waves of the eddying stream, fair and fresh as in life, singing as it floated its magic enchanting song. Gently the river bore it along and down to the sea, and the blue sea waves kissed it and pa.s.sed it from one to the other, till at last they cast it up, still singing, on the sh.o.r.es of the Lesbian Isle. There the Muses came and buried it, and made of its tomb a sacred shrine, where, for many a long year, men came from far and wide to wors.h.i.+p and consult the oracle. About that shrine the nightingales sang more sweetly than in any other spot on earth, for they learnt their song from the lips of Orpheus himself. And men bound themselves in a holy brotherhood which they called by his name, and lived by the rules he had written on his tablets. Some of those who pretended to follow him were charlatans and rogues, and brought dishonour and ridicule upon his name, while others kept the letter without the spirit of his law; but among them were those of a pure and blameless life, who kept his doctrines, and handed them down from generation to generation, till in time they became the foundation-stones of the great philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato.

Thus did Orpheus live and die, and pointed out to men the path to immortality by purity and abstinence and ecstasy of the soul. There were many of old who hated his doctrine, and many who hate it now; and, indeed, it is not one by which every man can live. But there are those to whom it brings peace and joy, though they call it by other names than his; and these are the Bacchoi, the initiated, who have seen the inward light, and their souls are at peace.

The Flight of Arethusa

Many, many hundred years ago a small band of colonists set sail from Corinth to found for themselves a new home and a new city in the far-away west. With a song upon their lips, the sailors bent to their oars.

"Heave ho! Heave ho!" they sang, "for the three-cornered isle of the west! Heave ho! for the fountain that fails not, and the whispering willow-trees! Heave ho! for the waters that are wedded with the waters of our own native land!"

Then, as the breeze filled their sails, they pulled in their oars, and looked back for the last time at the home they were leaving for ever.

Proudly between two seas did the rock of Corinth raise her head, encircled with a diadem of walls and towers. With tears in their eyes they watched her sink, and soon all around them was nothing but the waste of the grey sea waves. Thus did they leave the old land for the new with joy and sorrow, hope and fear in their hearts, and sailed away to the west, to the land of their dreams, the three-cornered isle of which the oracle had spoken. For when Archias, their leader, had consulted the priestess at Delphi, she had answered,

"To Trinacria the G.o.d bids thee go, the three-cornered isle of the west. There on Ortygia, the sacred islet, shalt thou build thee a home, by the side of the fountain that fails not, Arethusa, whose waters are wedded with the waters of thine own native land."

So, in obedience to her words, Archias set sail with his little band.

And they found Ortygia and the spring Arethusa in the shade of the whispering willows. There they planted the seed of that city, which grew to be the greatest in all Sicily and the mistress of the Mediterranean--Syracuse, proud Corinth's prouder daughter. For her sake many a battle has been fought and many a weary war been waged; for through long centuries men knew that whoever held the keys of Syracuse held the keys of power in their hands.

But what did the priestess mean when she bade Archias go to the isle whose waters were wedded with the waters of his own native land? And how came it that when he and his band reached Sicily they found there the flowers and the fruit of the home they had left, and streams that ran in and out of the limestone rocks like the streams of the Peloponnese? I will tell you.

Arethusa, around whose spring in Ortygia the whispering willows bent, was once a nymph, who dwelt in the Arcadian woodlands and followed Artemis the maiden huntress, over hill and over dale. Artemis loved her above all the other nymphs who were her handmaids, and as a sign of her favour she would let her carry her bow and her quiver full of darts. On many a hot summer's day did Arethusa and her companions bathe with their mistress in the cool deep mountain pools. Above their heads the great oaks of the forest spread their branches, and the gra.s.s beneath their feet was fresh and green. So long as they stayed by the side of their mistress the nymphs were safe from harm, for no G.o.d or G.o.ddess in all the land was so powerful as Artemis, and she knew how to protect her own.

So it came to pa.s.s that, because Arethusa had never known what fear was, she grew to think that there was no such thing, and one day she left her mistress and her comrades, and wandered forth alone through the woods. Her heart was gay and light, and she sang as she went. In the gloom of the forest she was like a ray of the sun, and on the bare hill-sides she was like a sparkling stream that leaves green gra.s.s and flowers wherever it pa.s.ses. But she thought nothing of her beauty, nor feared any harm because of it. As soon would lily cease from growing, because it feared to be plucked for the sake of its fair sweet flower.

So she wandered on happy and light-hearted on that bright summer's day.

At last she came to a broad river that barred her path. High up above her head the water fell leaping and roaring down the face of the rocks, while below the swift current hurried along through swirling eddies and foam. When she saw that she could go no farther, she sat down on a rock by the edge of a stream, and let the cool water play over her feet; then she bent down to fill her hand and drink. As she did so her heart stopped beating, and her limbs grew stiff and numb, and for the first time in her life she knew what fear was. For out of the waters before her there rose up what seemed a great billow of foam and spray, which stretched out a long arm towards her, and from the tips of five great fingers the drops fell cold upon her shoulders.

With a cry, she drew herself together, and turned and fled; but she had seen the form of the river-G.o.d grow clear in the billow, with the water flowing down from his damp hair and beard, and the flash of his eyes like the flash of lightning in the midst of the foam. It was Alpheus, the king of all the rivers of Peloponnese. He had seen Arethusa alone on the bank, and for love of her beauty he had risen from the depths of the stream and stretched out his arms to gather her to himself, and draw her down beneath the waves, to live with him and be his for ever. But she had been too quick for him, and now she fled before him as a deer flees before the hounds, whilst the fear that had numbed her at first now lent wings to her feet. Over hill and over dale she fled, swift as the rus.h.i.+ng wind. Her bright locks flew out behind her, and as she leapt from rock to rock her white robes gleamed like the gleam of sunlit waters. Close behind her came Alpheus. The deafening roar of his flood sounded like thunder in her ears, and his misty breath blew cold upon her cheek. On and on she fled, with the swiftness and strength of despair, till at last she could go no farther; for before her stretched the blue waste of the cruel Ionian, and the spray of the waves stung her face, while behind her the floods of Alpheus rushed thundering down. Then she stretched forth her hands, and cried out to the Maid of the Sea,

"O Dictynna, Dictynna, have mercy! In the name of great Artemis, whom thou lovest as I do, help me now."

The Maid of the Sea heard her cry, and wrapped her about in a mist, and her body and her limbs were unloosed and melted away, till she became a spring of fresh, pure water that bubbled and danced over the stones of the sh.o.r.e, and dived at last into the waves of the sea. But behind her the flood of Alpheus still rushed leaping and foaming. He had followed her over mountain and valley, and he followed her now through the ocean. Down through the white waves they dived into the depths of the sea, and pa.s.sed like silvery currents of light through the green sleeping waters, on and on, through forests of seaweed, and over sh.e.l.l-strewn rocks, till they were stopped at last in their flight by the roots of the three-cornered isle. There, through the fissures and clefts, they forced their way up once more to the sunlight, and side by side they leapt down from the rocks and the crags--down towards the sea once again. But Arethusa fled no longer in terror, and her fear of Alpheus was gone; for he pursued her no more in a thundering, boisterous flood. Now he held out his strong white arms, and called to her gently and low--as gently as the waves call in summer as they dance to the sh.o.r.e.

"Arethusa, Arethusa, I love thee. Come, join thy waters with mine."

But she leapt away from him with a happy, mischievous laugh, and tossed back the spray from her hair, so that it fell on his cheek like a shower of kisses. Thus she leapt laughing, down over the rocks and crags towards the sea, knowing full well that he played with her, and that any moment he could make her his own. At last, as she hovered for a moment on the brink of the cliff, he caught her in his strong white arms, and together they dived once more into the salt sea waves, so that their waters were mingled, and for evermore they were one. And Arethusa showed her bright head again in the spring beneath the willows of Ortygia, which is called by her name to this day. From the time of her flight that spring never failed or grew dry, for from the snows of the mountains Alpheus flowed always to meet her, bringing coolness and plenty to the waters he loved. Men said, moreover, that if a cup were put into the stream of Alpheus in the Peloponnese it would find its way at last to the spring in Ortygia--which showed that the waters of Arethusa and Alpheus were wedded and blended together, so that they lived apart no more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On and on she fled with the swiftness and strength of despair.]

And that was the reason why Archias found in Sicily the flowers and the fruit of the land he had left; for Alpheus had borne their seeds in his stream from Peloponnese, and scattered them right and left as he sprang through the rocks, that the winds of heaven might sow them where they willed. To this day you will find in Sicily the olive and the vine, and the blus.h.i.+ng flower of the almond, and the narcissus with its crown of gold, as you find them in Peloponnese; for is not the water that feeds their meadows one stream that joins two lands?

And on the first coins of Syracuse you will find the head of the nymph Arethusa, with the fish swimming round about; for was it not by the side of her spring that the first stones of the city were laid, on the sacred isle of Ortygia, round which the sea-fish swam?

Thus did Arethusa flee in terror from Alpheus, to be wedded to him at last in a land across the sea.

The Winning of Atalanta

Once upon a time there ruled in Arcadian Tegea a proud-hearted king named Schoenus. A tamer of horses was he, and a man mighty in the hunt and in battle. Above every other thing he loved danger and sport and all kinds of manly exercise. Indeed, these things were the pa.s.sion of his life, and he despised all womenkind because they could take no part nor lot in them. And he wedded Clymene, a fair princess of a royal house, because he wished to raise up n.o.ble sons in his halls, who should ride and hunt with him, and carry on his name when he was dead. On his wedding-day he swore a great oath, and called upon all the G.o.ds to witness it.

"Never," he swore in his pride, "shall a maid child live in my halls.

If a maid is born to me, she shall die ere her eyes see the light, and the honour of my house shall rest upon my sons alone."