CHAPTER I
In the grotto from which the river emerged in a mysterious way the nymph Cyanée gave birth to twins; one was a son who was named Caunos, and the other a girl to whom the name of Byblis was given.
They both grew up upon the banks of the Méandre, and sometimes Cyanée showed them beneath its transparent surface the divine appearance of their father, whose soul disturbed its flowing stream.
The only world the children knew was the forest in which they were born. They had never seen the sun except through the network of its branches. Byblis never left her brother, and walked with her arm around his neck.
She wore a little tunic which her mother had woven for her in the depths of the river, which tunic was blue-grey like the first light of dawn. Caunos wore around his waist nothing but a garland of roses from which hung a yellow waist-cloth.
As soon as it was light enough for them to walk in the woods, they wandered far away, playing with the fruits which had fallen to the ground, or searching for the largest and most sweetly-scented flowers. They always shared their finds and never quarrelled, so that their mother spoke proudly of them to the other nymphs her friends.
Now when twelve years from the day of their birth had sped, their mother became uneasy and sometimes followed them.
The two children played no longer, and when they returned from a day in the forest, they brought back nothing with them, neither birds, flowers, fruits, nor garlands. They walked so close together that their hair was mingled. Byblis’ hands strayed about her brother’s arms. Sometimes she kissed him upon the cheek: then they both remained silent.
When the heat was too great they glided beneath the low branches, and lying on their breasts upon the sweet-smelling grass talked and adored each other without ever withdrawing from each other’s embrace.
Then Cyanée took her son aside and said to him—
“Why are you sad?”
Caunos replied—
“I am not sad. I used to be when I was playing and laughing. Now everything is changed. I no longer feel the need of play, and if I do not laugh it is because I am happy.”
Then Cyanée asked him, “Why are you happy?”
The answer which Caunos gave her was—
“Because I look at Byblis.”
Cyanée asked him too—
“Why is it that you do not now look at the forest?”
“Because Byblis’ hair is softer and more scented than the grass; because Byblis’ eyes—”
But Cyanée stopped him. “Child! be silent!”
Hoping to cure him of his illicit passion, she at once took him to a mountain-nymph who had seven daughters most wondrously and indescribably beautiful.
Both of them, after planning together, said to him—
“Make your choice, Caunos, and the one who pleases you shall be your wife.”
But Caunos looked at the seven young girls as unmovedly as if he had been looking at seven rocks; for the image of Byblis quite filled his little soul, and there was not room in him for an alien love.
For a month Cyanée took her son from mountain to mountain, and from plain to plain without succeeding in diverting him from his desire.
At last realizing that she would never overcome his obstinate passion, she began to hate her son and accuse him of infamous conduct. But the child did not understand why his mother reproached him. Why among all women was he to be refused the one he loved? Why was it that caresses, which would have been permissible in the importunate arms of another, became criminal in the arms of his beloved Byblis? For what mysterious reason was it that a sentiment which he knew to be good, tender and capable of any sacrifice, was deemed worthy of every punishment? Zeus, he thought, married his sister, and Aphrodite dared to deceive her brother Ares with her brother Hephaïstos. For he did not yet know that the gods alone have given themselves an intelligent morality and that they disturb men’s virtue by incomprehensible laws.
Now Cyanée said to her son—
“I disown you as my child!”
She made a sign to a Centaur which was going towards the sea, and had Caunos placed upon its back. Then the beast went rapidly away.
For some time Cyanée followed her son with her eyes. Caunos in his fright clung to the shoulders of the beast, and was sometimes buried in its monstrous mane. Then Centaur moved with long and powerful strides; it travelled in a straight line, and soon grew small in the distance. Then it turned behind a clump of bushes, and reappeared looking from afar like a tiny and almost stationary speck. At last Cyanée could see it no longer.
Slowly the mother of Byblis retraced her steps into the forest.
She was sad, but at the same time proud of saving by a forced separation the destiny of her two children; and she thanked the gods for giving her the strength to accomplish such a heartrending duty.
“Now,” she thought, “Byblis being alone will forget the brother who has been sacrificed for her. She will fall in love with the first man who knows how to caress her, and from the marriage-bed will spring, as is right, a race half human and half divine. Blest are the immortal gods!”
But when she returned to the grotto, little Byblis had disappeared.