Gods and Heroes
- -
- 100%
- +
One day it happened that Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury (who was one of the gods, and Jupiter’s chief minister and messenger) were on a visit to earth. The night fell, and they grew tired and hungry. So they wandered on to find rest and food; and, as luck would have it, they came to the cottage of Hyrieus, and asked for shelter. Hyrieus thought they were only three poor benighted travelers who had lost their way. But he was very good and charitable, so he asked them in and gave them the best fare he had – bread, roots, and wine – he himself waiting upon them, and trying to make them comfortable. He poured out a cup of wine, and offered it first to Neptune. But Neptune, instead of drinking it, rose from his seat and gave the cup to Jupiter, like a subject to a king who should be first served. You may not think there was much to notice in this; but Hyrieus noticed it, and then, looking intently upon the stranger to whom Neptune had given the cup, he was struck by a sudden religious awe that told him he was in the presence of the king and father of gods and men. He straightway fell on his knees and said: —
“I am poor and humble; but I have in my stall one ox to plough my field. I will gladly offer him up as a sacrifice for joy that Jupiter has thought me worthy to give him bread and wine.”
“You are a good and pious man,” said Jupiter. “Ask of us any gift you please, and it shall be yours.”
“My wife is dead,” said Hyrieus, “and I have vowed never to marry again. But let me have a child.”
“Take the ox,” said Jupiter, “and sacrifice him.”
So Hyrieus, being full of faith, sacrificed his ox, and, at the bidding of Jupiter, buried the skin. And from that skin, and out of the ground, there grew a child, who was named Orion.
Orion grew and grew till he became a giant, of wonderful strength and splendid beauty. He took the most loving care of Hyrieus, and was the best of sons to him. But when the old man died, Orion went out into the world to seek his fortune. And the first service he found was that of Diana, the sister of Apollo, and queen and goddess of the Moon.
Diana, however, had a great deal to do besides looking after the moon. She was three goddesses in one – a goddess of the sky, a goddess of earth, and a goddess of Hades besides. In heaven she was called Luna, whose duty is to light the world when Apollo is off duty. In Hades she was called Hecate, who, with her scepter, rules the ghosts of dead souls. And on earth her name is Diana, the queen, of forests and mountains, of wild animals and hunters. She wears a crescent on her forehead and a quiver at her back; her limbs are bare, and she holds a bow, with which she shoots as well as her brother Apollo. Just as he is called Phœbus, so she is often called Phœbe. She goes hunting all night among the hills and woods, attended by the Nymphs and Oreads, of whom she is queen. There are not so many stories about her as about the other gods and goddesses, and yet she is really the most interesting of them all, as you will see some day.
This great strange goddess had sworn never to love or marry – had sworn it by Styx, I suppose. But Orion was so beautiful and so strong and so great a hunter that she went as near to loving him as she ever did to loving any one. She had him always with her, and could never bear him to leave her. But Orion never thought of becoming the husband of a goddess, and he fell in love with a mortal princess, the daughter of Œnopion, King of Chios, an island in the Ægean Sea.
When, however, he asked the king for his daughter, Œnopion was terribly frightened at the idea of having a giant for his son-in-law. But he dared not say “No.” He answered him: —
“My kingdom is overrun with terrible wild beasts. I will give my daughter to the man who kills them all.” He said this, feeling sure that any man who tried to kill all the wild beasts in Chios would himself be killed.
But Orion went out, and killed all the wild beasts in no time, with his club and his sword. Then Œnopion was still more afraid of him, and said: —
“You have won my daughter. But, before you marry her, let us drink together, in honor of this joyful day.”
Orion, thinking no harm, went with Œnopion to the sea-shore, where they sat down and drank together. But Œnopion (whose name means “The Wine-Drinker”) knew a great deal more about what wine will do, and how to keep sober, than Orion. So before long Orion fell asleep with the strong Chian wine, which the King had invented; and when Orion was sound asleep, Œnopion put out both his eyes.
The giant awoke to find himself blind, and did not know what to do or which way to go. But at last, in the midst of his despair, he heard the sound of a blacksmith’s forge. Guided by the clang, he reached the place, and prayed the blacksmith to climb up on his shoulders, and so lend him his eyes to guide him.
The blacksmith consented, and seated himself on the giant’s shoulder. Then said Orion: —
“Guide me to the place where I can see the first sunbeam that rises at daybreak in the east over the sea.”
Orion strode out, and the blacksmith guided him, and at last they came to the place where the earliest sunbeam first strikes upon human eyes. It struck upon Orion’s, and it gave him back his sight again. Then, thanking the blacksmith, he plunged into the sea to swim back to Diana.
Now Apollo had long noticed his sister’s affection for Orion, and was very much afraid for fear she should break her vow against love and marriage. To break an oath would be a horrible thing for a goddess to do. While Orion was away, making love and killing wild beasts in Chios, there was no fear; but now he was coming back, there was no knowing what might happen. So he thought of a trick to get rid of Orion, and he said: —
“My sister, some people say that you can shoot as well as I can. Now, of course, that is absurd.”
“Why absurd?” asked Diana. “I can shoot quite as well as you.”
“We will soon see that,” said Apollo. “Do you see that little dark speck out there, in the sea? I wager that you won’t hit it, and that I can.”
“We will see,” said Diana. So she drew her bow and shot her arrow at the little dark speck, that seemed dancing on the waves miles and miles away. To hit it seemed impossible. But Diana’s arrow went true. The speck was hit – it sank, and rose no more.
It was the head of Orion, who was swimming back to Diana. She had been tricked into killing him with an arrow from her own bow. All she could do was to place him among the stars.
So her vow was kept; and from that time she never allowed herself to be seen by a man. Women may see her; but if men see her, they go mad or die. There is a terrible story of a hunter named Actæon, who once happened to catch a glimpse of her as she was bathing in a pool. She instantly turned him into a stag, so that his own dogs fell upon him and killed him. And another time, when she saw a shepherd named Endymion on Mount Latmos, and could not help wishing to kiss him for his beauty, she covered herself with clouds as she stooped, and threw him into a deep sleep, so that he might not see her face, or know that he had been kissed by the moon. Only from that hour he became a poet and a prophet, full of strange fancies; and it is said that every man becomes a madman or a poet who goes to sleep in the moonlight on the top of a hill. Diana comes and kisses him in his dreams.
MINERVA; OR, WISDOM
ONE day Jupiter had a very bad headache. He had never had one before, so he did not know what it was or what to do. One god recommended one thing and another proposed another, and Jupiter tried them all; but the more things he tried the worse the headache grew. At last he said: —
“I can’t stand this any more. Vulcan, bring your great sledge-hammer and split open my skull. Kill or cure.”
Vulcan brought his sledge-hammer and split open Jupiter’s skull with a single blow. And out there came a fine, full-grown goddess, clad in complete armor from head to foot, armed with a spear and shield, and with beautiful large blue eyes. She was Minerva (or, in Greek, Athene), the Wisdom that comes from Jupiter’s brain, and makes it ache sometimes.
Minerva was wonderfully good as well as wonderfully wise: not that there is much difference between goodness and wisdom. She is the only goddess, or god either, who never did a foolish, an unkind, or a wrong thing. By the way, though, she once took it into her head that she could play the flute, and the gods laughed at her; but when she looked into a brook and saw what ugly faces she made when she played, she knew at once what made the gods laugh, laughed at herself, threw the flute away, and never played it again; so she was even wise enough not to be vain, or to think she could do well what she did badly.
The only bad thing about good people is that there are so few good stories to tell of them. She was Jupiter’s favorite daughter, and no wonder; and she was the only one of all the gods and goddesses whom he allowed to use his thunder. She was the only one he could trust, I suppose. She was rather too fond of fighting, considering that she was a lady, but she was as good at her needle as her sword. She was so good at spinning, that a woman named Arachne, who was the best spinner and seamstress in the world, hanged herself in despair because she could not spin a web so neatly and finely as Minerva. The goddess turned her into a spider, who is still the finest spinner in the world, next to Minerva alone.
Once the people of Attica wanted a name for their capital, which they had just been building. They asked the gods, and the gods in council decreed that the new city should be named by the god who should give the most useful new present to mankind. Neptune struck the earth with his trident, and out sprang the horse, and nobody thought that his gift could be beaten. But Minerva planted the olive, which is the plant of peace. So the gods gave the honor of naming the new city to Minerva, because the emblem of peace is better than the horse, who is the emblem of war. The name she gave was from her own – Athenæ; and the city is called Athens to this day. The Athenians always paid their chief worship to their goddess-godmother.
Minerva was very handsome, but rather manly-looking for a goddess, and grave; her most famous feature was her blue eyes. “The Blue-eyed Maid” is one of her most usual titles in poetry. She wore a large helmet with waving plumes; in one hand she held a spear; on her left arm she carried the shield on which was the head of the Gorgon Medusa, with living snakes darting from it. But sometimes she carried a distaff instead of a spear. The olive was of course sacred to her, and her favorite bird is the owl, who is always called the Bird of Wisdom.
VENUS
PART I. – THE GOD OF FIRE
YOU may remember reading, at the end of the story of “The Gods and the Giants,” that the quarrels of Jupiter and Juno never ceased to disturb the peace of the sky where the gods dwell. Juno’s temper was terrible, and so was her jealousy, and her pride was beyond all bounds. On the other hand, her character was without reproach, while Jupiter was the worst husband in the whole of heaven. To such a pitch did their quarrels at last reach, that Juno went away to earth, vowing never to see Jupiter again.
I suppose, however, that Jupiter loved Juno in the depth of his heart, or else he was afraid of the scandal that would follow upon a separation between the King and Queen of Heaven. At any rate he consulted his friends as to how the quarrel could be made up, and was advised by one of them, King Cithæron of Platæa, to have it announced that he was about to make some other goddess his queen. On hearing the news, back flew Juno in a rage to the sky to stop the marriage, and finding that there was no marriage to stop, consented to remain, and to forgive her husband once more.
But to quarrel once always makes it easier and easier to quarrel again, and harder and harder to keep love or friendship alive. And before long came another quarrel – the worst of all. Juno scolded furiously, and Jupiter at last said: —
“Enough. You shall destroy the peace of heaven no longer. Out you shall go.”
“All the better,” said Juno. “I will go back to earth as I did before. And I am not going to be tricked by your false stories a second time.”
“No,” said Jupiter; “the happiness of the earth is as dear to me as the happiness of the sky. You shall neither go to earth nor stay in heaven.”
Taking a long golden chain, he fastened it round her, under her shoulders. Then he sent for one of the Cyclopes’ anvils, and fastened it to her feet. Securing the other end of the chain to the keystone of the rainbow, he let her down, so that Juno hung suspended in mid-air, neither upon the earth nor in the sky, while the anvil at her feet prevented her from swinging and from climbing up again by the chain.
It was a terrible position for Juno. Her anger was still at full heat, and such a degradation, in full sight of gods and men, was a heavy wound to her pride, not to speak of the bodily pain which she had helplessly to bear. But she scorned to beg for pardon. So there she hung, plotting revenge, until night came – till Apollo was asleep under the sea, and Diana was away hunting, and Jupiter, making the most of his long-lost quiet, was dozing upon his throne. Then Juno, who certainly could not sleep with an anvil dragging at her legs and a chain at her shoulders, heard a whisper from above, “Hush! Don’t start – don’t scream; keep quite still, and I’ll soon draw your majesty up again.”
Not that Juno had thought of starting or screaming – she was much too dignified. Besides, the whisper, though rather rough and hoarse, was very pleasant to hear just then. For she recognized the voice of Vulcan, her own son, and she knew that he was going to help her.
So she kept quite quiet as she was bidden, and presently she felt herself, anvil and all, being drawn very slowly upwards, just as you may have seen a heavy sack drawn up by a machine to a warehouse window. It must have been rather painful being dragged up while the anvil dragged her down; but she found herself on firm sky at last, and sighed with relief when Vulcan, whipping out his knife, cut the cord at her feet, and let the anvil go thundering down upon the earth below.
You can fancy what a clatter it made. People started out of their sleep – not that that mattered. But it did matter that Jupiter started out of his. He sprang from his throne, and saw at once what had happened. The next moment, with a tremendous kick, he sent Vulcan flying after the anvil.
Vulcan fell and fell, spinning through space, till he lost his senses, and then —
The anvil had fallen upon the island of Lemnos, and the islanders, rushing out of their houses to see what the crash and clatter could be about, were amazed to see what looked like a confused bundle of legs and arms tumbling and whirling through the air. As it came nearer, it seemed to be a human figure. So the people made a sort of network of their arms, to catch it and prevent its being dashed to pieces.
And lucky it was for Vulcan that they did. For when he came to himself he found himself with nothing worse the matter than one leg badly broken.
God though he was, he always remained lame, and he was naturally somewhat deformed. But neither lameness nor deformity prevented his having amazing strength; and he was as clever as he was strong. The people of Lemnos treated him kindly, and he in return taught them to work in metals. They built him a palace, and he set up forges and furnaces, and made all sorts of useful and curious things. He used to work at the forges himself, blowing the fires and wielding the hammer. Among the curious things he made were two mechanical statues, which seemed alive, walked about with him, and even helped him in his work. And at last there came into his head a plan for getting called back into heaven. So he shut himself up in his smithy with his two mechanical workmen, and let nobody know what he was doing there. Those mechanical workmen were among the most useful things he made, for he could trust them to help him in his most secret work without understanding it or being able to tell how it was done.
One day the gods up in heaven were excited by the arrival of a splendid golden throne – a present from the earth for Jupiter. How it came there nobody knew. But there it was, and all agreed that nothing so magnificent in its way had ever been seen before, even in the skies. Jupiter was about to try how it felt to sit upon, when Juno, jealous even of that, went quickly before him and seated herself.
“Ah! that is a comfortable throne!” she exclaimed. “There is nothing like gold to sit upon, after all.”
Jupiter was annoyed with Juno’s behavior, as indeed he was with most things she did. As, however, he did not like to make another scene before all the gods and goddesses, he waited patiently for her to get up again. But she did not move.
At last – “I think that is my throne,” he hinted, in a tone which seemed gentle, but which Juno understood exceedingly well. Still she did not move.
“Thrones are not meant to go to sleep upon,” he said in a yet more meaning way.
And still she did not move.
“Get up!” he thundered at last, his patience gone.
“I can’t!” was all she could say, as she made a vain effort to rise. “The throne is holding me with its arms!”
And so it proved. Juno was held so tightly by the throne that she could scarcely struggle. It was very strange. And presently it became stranger still. Neither the authority of Jupiter, nor all the strength and skill of all Olympus together, could loosen the clutch of the magic throne.
“Ah!” said Mercury – who, you may remember, was Jupiter’s chief messenger, and the quickest and cleverest of all the gods – “if only Vulcan were here! He understands these things.”
“And why is he not here?” asked Jupiter, sternly.
But nobody dared answer, though everybody knew. However, Mercury took the hint, vanished for an instant or two, and, while the gods were vainly tugging at the arms of the throne, reappeared, followed by a limping figure all black and hot from the forge – in short, by Vulcan.
“What is the matter?” asked Vulcan, as innocently as if he had nothing to do with it at all. “Ah! I see. A clever invention; but – By the way, I can’t afford another broken leg: so if I help my mother this time – ”
Seeing from the face of Jupiter that he had nothing to fear, he pressed the tip of his grimy finger upon a secret spring – the arms instantly opened, and Juno was free. What they did with the throne I cannot tell you; but you may be certain that nobody ever sat on it again.
After that, Vulcan remained among the gods as the god of Fire, and was the chief blacksmith of nature. He opened vast forges in the middle of the earth, where he made weapons and armor for gods and heroes, and thunderbolts for Jupiter. The Cyclopes, the giants with one eye in the middle of their foreheads, were his workmen. The chimneys of his furnaces are called volcanoes, of which the chief is Mount Ætna in the island of Sicily; and one can tell when some great work is going on by the smoke and flame that bursts out of these. Volcano, you will no doubt notice, is very nearly the same word as Vulcan.
And so things went on quietly till one day a very wonderful thing happened. Nobody has ever been able to account for it or understand it; so I must just tell you the story as it stands. One lovely spring morning, when there was scarcely the softest breeze to stir the sea, shining like a mirror in the sun, a light amber-colored froth that floated upon the ripples was seen, by watchers upon the shore of the island of Cyprus, to gather into a delicate rosy cloud that presently began to tremble as if it were trying to be alive. It still rested lightly upon the water – so lightly that the breeze, soft and gentle as it was, might have blown it away; but its delicate trembling carried it upwards till at last it seemed to breathe, then to take shape, and at last blossomed into the most beautiful woman – if woman it was – that had ever been seen in the world, or even in heaven. With wonderful grace she glided to the shore; and poets have told how the zephyrs, or soft west winds, guided her as she came, and the four seasons received her on the shore. The people of Cyprus could only wonder and worship; and this was the birth of the great goddess Venus, the Queen of Love, whom the Greeks called Aphrodite, which means born of the Foam of the Sea.
And this wonderful goddess of Love and Beauty Jupiter chose to give in marriage to Vulcan, the deformed and limping god of Fire.
PART II. – LOVE AND THE SOUL; OR, THE STORY OF CUPID AND PSYCHE
THE fact was, that Jupiter himself had fallen in love with the beautiful new goddess. But she would have nothing to say to him: and so, just out of anger and revenge, he ordered her to marry Vulcan, because he was ugly, deformed, and always black with working at his forges.
Altogether it was an unlucky day when Venus came into the sky. Her beauty turned the heads of the gods, and filled the goddesses with envy and jealousy. But all that mattered nothing to her, for she had a magic zone, or girdle, called “Cestus” in Latin: and whenever she put it on she became so irresistibly charming that everybody forgave her everything. Not only the gods, but men also, became her lovers, her own favorite among them all being Mars, the god of War – a cruel and savage god, very unlike the rest, delighting in battle and slaughter. Then, on earth, she tried her best to make a very handsome young prince named Adonis fall in love with her. But he – strange to say – cared nothing for her. The only thing he cared for in the world was hunting: he scorned everything else, Venus included. Still, in spite of his scorn for her, she mourned for him miserably when he was killed by a wild boar. She changed him into the flower called Anemone, so that she might still find him upon earth: though some people say her grief was such that Death took pity on her, and allowed him to come to life again for six months at a time every year. This might mean that Adonis is only another name for the beauty of the earth, which comes to life for the six months of spring and summer, and dies for the six months of autumn and winter. For most of these stories have some sort of meaning.
Venus had a child, named Cupid, which means love. You must often have seen pictures and statues of him – a very beautiful boy, with wings, carrying a bow and arrows. They were magic arrows. For if any man was pricked by one of their points, he fell in love with the first woman he saw: or a woman, in like manner, with the first man. And as Cupid was exceedingly mischievous, and fond of aiming his arrows at people for his own amusement, the wrong women were always falling in love with the wrong men, and the wrong men with the wrong women: and so a great deal of fresh trouble came into the world, as if there had not been enough before, without the mischievous tricks of Cupid. Sometimes he went about blindfolded, shooting his arrows about at random: and then, of course, the confusion was worse than ever. It has been said that the bandage over his eyes means that love is blind to faults. But he does not always wear the bandage: and when he does, I believe it is only when he does not choose to see.
Now in a certain city there lived a king and queen, who had three beautiful daughters. The name of the youngest was Psyche, and she was the most beautiful of all. So beautiful and so charming was she that the people worshiped her as a goddess, instead of Venus. This made Venus very angry indeed, that a mortal girl should receive the honor and worship due to the goddess of Beauty. So, in her jealous wrath, she said to Cupid: —
“Do you see that girl yonder? I order you, as your mother, to make her fall in love with the very meanest of mankind – one so degraded that he cannot find his equal in wretchedness throughout the whole wide world.”
Psyche’s elder sisters were both married to kings; but she herself was so marvelously beautiful that no mere mortal dared to ask for her in marriage. This distressed the king, her father, greatly: for it was thought dishonorable for a princess not to marry. So he consulted the oracle of Apollo – an “oracle” being a place where a god’s voice answered questions. And the voice answered him thus: —