Gods and Heroes; or, The Kingdom of Jupiter

by R. E. Francillon

PART I.—THE KING AND QUEEN OF THE DEAD.

“Not far from Enna’s walls there lies a lake,
Pergus by name: than which not Cayster’s stream
Is fuller of the songs of gliding swans.
A woodland girds it with a veil of leaves
To shelter from the heat; where the fresh soil
Bears purple flowers, and keeps perpetual spring.”

SO the poet Ovid describes the pleasant place where the nymph Proserpine, the beautiful daughter of Ceres, goddess of the fruits of the earth, was one day with her companions, gathering violets and lilies. All were trying who should gather the most, and were very happy and merry. In her search for flowers, Proserpine wandered out of sight of her companions, who went on gathering and singing and laughing: till suddenly their merriment was stopped by a piercing scream for help; and then by another and another; till the cries grew fainter and fainter, and were at last heard no more.

Where was Proserpine? They were sure it was her cries they had heard: and, though they searched through the whole wood, they could not find her anywhere. All they could do was to go to Ceres, and tell her that her daughter had disappeared, and could not be found for all their seeking.

Ceres, who is the best and kindest of all the goddesses, loved her daughter dearly, and was disconsolate at the news. Though always so busy with seed-time and harvest, fields and orchards, she set out to seek for her lost Proserpine; or at least to find out what had become of her. “Mother!” had been Proserpine’s last cry. Ceres wandered, in her search, over the whole world,—nay, she explored the very depths of the sea,—but all in vain. She questioned gods, goddesses, nymphs, fauns, and satyrs, men and women; but none could give her any news of Proserpine. She never slept, but set fire to the pine-trees on the top of Mount Ætna to serve as torches, so that she might see to search by night as well as by day. She forgot to eat and drink, and, though the goddess of Corn and Plenty, she would have perished of hunger and thirst had not an old woman named Baubo, though ignorant who she was, taken pity on her, and given her some hot porridge, which Ceres drank eagerly—so eagerly that a boy who saw her drinking jeered at her for a glutton. This was too much for the goddess, in her despair, to bear. She for once lost her temper, and threw the rest of the hot porridge over the grinning boy, whom it turned into a spotted lizard for laughing at a stranger’s needs and an old woman’s charity.

At length, worn out and desperate, the poor mother wandered back to Sicily, so changed that nobody knew her. Nor could she say who she was, for grief had made her dumb. In this state she arrived at a place called Cyane, near to where Proserpine had been lost. And here one day, while looking at a pool (for she never ceased to look everywhere) she saw her daughter’s girdle lying at the bottom of the water. Then, giving up her last spark of hope, she found her voice again, and mourned aloud. Her grief was terrible to hear and see. She cursed the earth, so that it no longer brought forth corn: she broke the ploughs: the seeds perished in the fields, and the cattle in their stalls.

But one day Ceres, roaming along the banks of the river Alpheus, plainly heard its waters say:—

“We have seen Proserpine! She is unhappy; but she is a great queen: she is the wife of Pluto, the King of the Underworld.”

Then Ceres knew that Proserpine had been carried off by the great and dreadful god Pluto, to whom, when Jupiter divided the world, had been given Hades—the underground kingdom of ghosts and of the souls of the dead: the greatest kingdom of all. It was true:—Pluto had seen Proserpine while she was gathering flowers in the wood, had snatched her up into his chariot with black horses, and, in spite of her struggles and cries for help, had driven off with her to his underground palace through a cavern which he opened with a touch of his two-pronged scepter: the cavern then filled up with water, and became the lake of Cyane, at the bottom of which Ceres had found the girdle. As soon as she could recover her senses, Ceres flew up to heaven, threw herself before Jupiter, and passionately demanded that her daughter should be given back to her.

It was a difficult question for Jupiter to settle. He pitied Ceres with all his heart, and wished to help her. But high reasons of state made him unwilling to offend Pluto: and then, who had ever heard of anybody coming back from Hades? That would be against all the laws of gods and men.

But there were three mysterious beings, of whom I have not yet told you, called the Fates—three sisters who rule over life and death, and whose will even the gods of heaven, even Jupiter himself, must obey. Somewhere or other they sit and spin with their distaffs the histories of nations and the lives and deaths of men. Nothing can happen without their leave; and nobody can prevent from coming to pass whatever the Fates decree. So Jupiter inquired of the Fates if it was their will that Proserpine should return from the kingdom of the grave.

“She may return,” said they. “But not if she has eaten or drunk in the kingdom of Pluto. If she has tasted the food of death, then she may not return.”

When Pluto received this message he was greatly troubled; for, though he had carried off Proserpine in that cruel way, he very deeply loved her, and hoped that, if he could keep her with him, he should at last conquer her sorrow and get her to love him in return. He had made her his wife and queen, and could not bear the thought of losing her. He anxiously inquired of every ghost and spirit in Hades if Queen Proserpine had tasted food, if ever so little; but not one had seen her touch even bread or water since she had been brought below. It was Pluto’s turn to lose Proserpine. Ceres was already rejoicing in the thought of seeing her long-lost daughter. Proserpine was just about to return to earth, when there stepped forth one of Pluto’s courtiers, named Asculaphus, and accused Proserpine of having tasted the juice of seven pomegranate seeds. And the Fates knew that it was true.

And Proserpine also knew it, and cried aloud for sorrow that she should never see her mother again; and her cry turned the treacherous, tale-bearing Asculaphus into a hooting owl. But this did not undo the work of those seven fatal pomegranate seeds. Even the Fates were filled with pity; even the heart of Pluto was touched by the mother’s and the daughter’s despair. The Fates could not change their decree. But it was settled that, though Proserpine must continue to be the wife of Pluto and the Queen of Hades, she should be allowed to spend six months out of every year on earth with Ceres. And that is the reason of summer and winter. It is summer when Ceres is happy with her daughter, and makes the earth rejoice with flowers and fruit and corn. It is winter when she is left alone, and Proserpine goes back to Pluto until next spring. Proserpine is the beauty and joy of the earth, which seems to die in winter, but only to come to life again. And she is the beauty of death besides. You will remember what you read in the story of Psyche about the beauty of Proserpine.

It was Ceres who taught men to plow, harrow, sow, and reap; and they were very grateful to her everywhere. The worship of Ceres, under many names, was the chief part of the religion of ancient times. You will know her, from pictures and statues, as a noble and stately goddess, crowned with a garland of corn, holding a lighted torch, sometimes standing in a chariot drawn by flying dragons. I have said she had many names, one of the most famous being Demeter, which means “Mother Earth”; and “Bona Dea,” that is to say, “the Good Goddess,” was another.

Proserpine, as Queen of Hades, became a very strange and mysterious goddess indeed. One of her names is Hecate, and under that name she rules over magic. She often wears a veil, and a crown of stars; and, like Pluto, carries the scepter with two prongs, differing from Neptune’s trident, which has three.

Pluto was a dark and gloomy god. No temples were ever built to him, and only black animals were sacrificed upon his altars. But he was just, although pitiless and stern. He sits upon a throne of sulphur in his underground palace, from which flow the four rivers of Hades—Cocytus, the river of Lamentation; Acheron, the river of Sorrow; Lethe, the river of Forgetfulness; and Phlegethon, the river of Fire. On his left hand sits Proserpine, near to whom stand the Furies, three fiends with snakes instead of hair; on his right stand the Fates spinning; at his feet lies the three-headed dog, Cerberus; and the Harpies hover over him, waiting for orders.

On the whole, it is not strange that Proserpine should be glad when the time for her six months’ visit to her mother comes round.

PART II.—THE KINGDOM.

HADES,” the name of the kingdom of Pluto and Proserpine, means “invisible,” because it is unseen by living eyes. It is surrounded by the river Styx by which the gods swore their sacred oath, and which flows round and round it in nine circles before springing up into the living world. Even when the Styx rises out of the ground in the land of Arcadia, it still remains a cold black river, whose waters are poisonous to drink; but if anybody was bold enough to bathe in them, and lucky enough to come out alive, no weapon afterwards would have power to wound him. Some people say that Thetis (the goddess who saved Jupiter from the great plot) dipped her child Achilles into the Styx as soon as he was born, head foremost, holding him by the left heel between her finger and thumb. But she forgot that her thumb and finger prevented the water from touching the skin just where she held him. And so, when he grew up, though no weapon could hurt him anywhere else, yet, when he was hit by an arrow in the left heel, he died of the wound.

When anybody died, his body was buried or burned by his friends, and his soul left him and went down to Hades, till it reached the banks of the Styx. Here it waited for Charon’s ferry-boat, about which you read in the story of Psyche. If its friends had buried its body properly, they had given it a small silver coin to pay the ferryman, who took the money and at once rowed it across the river. But if the soul had no money to pay for its passage, it had to wait for a hundred years, shivering and cold. Arrived on the other side, the soul was taken before the three judges of Hades—Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus. All three had been kings on earth, so famous for wisdom and justice that, when they died, Pluto made them the judges of the dead. These decided what was to be done with the soul. If it had been virtuous during its life upon earth, it was allowed to enter Elysium, or the region of happiness; if it had been wicked, it was condemned to the horrible prison of Tartarus, there to be punished by torture.

Elysium, which is also called “the Elysian fields,” or “the Islands of the Blest,” was a very delightful place, like the most beautiful country in the finest weather, never too hot or too cold, and full of sweet scents and sounds. There the souls of the happy enjoyed forever, without ever getting tired, whatever had given them the most pleasure upon earth—hunting, or war, or learning, or music, or whatever it might be: only all their pleasures became innocent and noble, and even if they fought, it was all in friendship and without harm. Nothing was quite real there: it was more like a beautiful and happy dream, lasting forever. Some of the very best and greatest human souls were taken up into Olympus and made “Demi-gods,” that is to say “Half-gods”; but of course this was a very rare honor. The dream of Elysium was thought to be reward enough for the souls which, in their lives, had done more good than evil.

Tartarus, the place of torment, was a very different place, as I need not say. It was farther below the earth than the earth is below the sky, and was surrounded by three brazen walls, and by Phlegethon, the river of Fire. The only entrance was through a high tower, with gates which not even the gods could open, and guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus, which never slept; and the air was three times darker than the darkest midnight, lighted only by the terrible flames of Phlegethon. The jailers were Nemesis and the Furies. Nemesis is the great stern power who never allows the guilty to escape from their just punishment, nor the good to lose their just reward. If people are happier or more fortunate than they deserve to be, she always, either in this life or in Hades, gives them enough misery at last, until they are just as happy or unhappy as they deserve to be, and neither less nor more; and if they seem less happy or less fortunate than they deserve, she makes it up to them in the end. She is often so strangely slow in coming, that she has been called lame. But she always comes at last: if she is slow, she is sure.

There was once a king of the island of Samos, named Polycrates, who was famous for his marvelous good fortune. Nothing ever went wrong with him; he did not seem able to fail in anything, even if he tried; he knew neither misfortune nor sorrow. Though only the prince of a little island, he became, by one stroke of good luck after another, the most powerful monarch of his time, so that the kings of the greatest nations came to his court to do him homage and admire his glory. Among these was Amasis, King of Egypt, who was frightened at the sight of such prosperity, and thought, “This is surely more than any mortal deserves—Nemesis must surely be near at hand!” So he advised Polycrates to bring some misfortune upon himself, to keep Nemesis away. At first Polycrates laughed at such counsel; but, to remove the friendly fears of Amasis, he threw into the sea a ring with a magnificent seal, which he prized the most of all his jewels, and the loss of which made him really unhappy—so you may guess how little unhappiness he had ever known before. A few days afterwards, however, while at dinner with Amasis, he happened to cut open a large fish; and behold, inside the fish he found the ring, which thus came back to him from the bottom of the sea. Instantly Amasis rose from the table and hurried back to Egypt, exclaiming, “I dare not have anything more to do with so fortunate a man—Nemesis must be at the door!” And he was right; and when she came, she came indeed! From the hour when the ring was found in the fish, all the prosperity of Polycrates departed from him; he sank lower and lower; until at last he was treacherously captured by the governor of one of his own cities, and put to a shameful death by torture. You will often hear people speak of “the Ring of Polycrates.” When they do, they mean (or ought to mean) that a life of mixed joy and sorrow, such as most of us have, is what most of us deserve; and that this is the happiest as well as the best for us in the long-run. It is not good for us to know nothing of sorrow or pain. And if we ever feel that we suffer unjustly—well, Nemesis, the slow but the sure, will make it up to us in the end.

However, I must go back to Tartarus, in spite of its unpleasantness. I was speaking of the Furies, who served under Nemesis as its jailers. These were three creatures like women, with hissing and writhing snakes instead of hair, holding a torch in one hand, and a whip made of live scorpions in the other. These whips were the whips of Conscience, with which they scourged and stung the souls both of the dead and the living. They were the chief servants of Nemesis, because the stings of Conscience are the most terrible of all her punishments. The Furies were the most dreadful creatures in or out of Hades. People had such awe and horror of them that they dared not even name them. The real name of the Furies was the “Erinyes,” which means the desperate madness of those whom the gods or fates have cursed. But people who wanted to speak of them always called them the “Eumenides”—that is to say, “the Gracious Ladies”—just as timid people in England used to say “the Good Folk” instead of “the Fairies,” for fear of making them angry by naming their real name.

The tortures of Tartarus were of all sorts and kinds. Among the evil souls which suffered there, the most famous were the three wicked kings, Ixion, Sisyphus, and Tantalus. Ixion was tied by his arms and legs to the spokes of a wheel, which whirled round and round at full speed without ever giving him one moment’s rest. Sisyphus had to carry up to the top of a high and steep hill a huge stone, which, as soon as he got it up, instantly rolled to the bottom again, so that his labor had no end. The torment of Tantalus was perhaps the worst of all. Maddened with hunger and thirst, he was chained to a rock in such a manner that he could not seize one of the delicious fruits that hung close to his eyes, or one of the cups of cool and fragrant drink which unseen hands put to his lips, and then, just as he was about to taste, snatched away again. Being “tantalized” means being treated like Tantalus. Then there were the Danaides, or the forty-nine daughters of King Dananus, who had all murdered their husbands, and were condemned to fill sieves with water, which of course ran out through the holes as soon as they poured it in. There had been fifty Danaides; but the fiftieth had taken no part in her sisters’ crime. There was also the wicked giant Tityus, who was so huge that his body covered nine acres of ground, and whose punishment was, to be perpetually devoured by vultures.

Souls not good enough for Elysium, but not bad enough for Tartarus, were treated in another way. Some were sent to wander about the world as Lemures, or homeless ghosts; others were given to drink of the waters of the Lethe, the river of Forgetfulness, which threw them into a dreamless sleep forever.

PART III.—ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.

UPON the heights of Mount Helicon, by the spring of water called Hippocrene, and upon the peak of Parnassus, whence flows forth the fountain of Castalia, dwelt the Muses—the nine gracious goddesses whose gifts to men are music, poetry, painting, eloquence, and all the pleasures of the mind. The Muse who had the sweetest voice was named Calliope; and she had a son named Orpheus, who grew up to be the most wonderful musician that ever was known. When he sang and played, it was as if his mother’s voice were singing to Apollo’s lyre, so that he charmed gods as well as men.

But though he thus charmed all, he cared for nothing in the whole world but his art, until he met with a girl named Eurydice, with whom he fell passionately in love, and who loved him with her whole heart in return. They married, and for a long time were perfectly happy. But one unlucky day Eurydice, while running through some long grass, was stung by a poisonous snake in the foot; and she died.

To Orpheus it was like losing his own soul; and it was indeed bitterly cruel to have lost Eurydice in the midst of their happiness together. Nothing could comfort him. He could only wander out among the hills and streams with his lyre, lamenting Eurydice, and imploring her to come back to him, in such heartbroken passionate music that the very rivers and mountains and winds seemed to find a voice, and to join with him in his ceaseless prayer of “Eurydice! come back to me, even from the grave.” And so for days and nights he wandered, singing the same song to his lyre, with all his heart and soul, till it seemed impossible that Death itself should be deaf to such a prayer.

At last a very strange thing befell. So desperately sweet did his music grow that the earth could bear it no longer, but opened; so that he saw before him the black waters of the Styx, and Charon’s boat filled with its freight of souls. His wonderful music, made more wonderful still by love and sorrow, had opened to him the very gate of Hades, where Eurydice had gone. Hope rose in his heart. Still playing, he stepped into the boat and crossed the Styx, none hindering him, or even asking him for his fee. Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus, the three stern judges of the dead, let him pass unquestioned—even they forgot their duty in the music of his voice and lyre. As he played and sang there floated round him, drawn by his music, thousands of souls like flocks of birds. The sound of his lyre reached into Tartarus itself. Cerberus crouched harmless; the Furies felt a thrill of pity; for one whole instant Tantalus forgot his thirst, the wheel of Ixion ceased whirling, and the stone of Sisyphus stopped rolling down-hill.

Thus Orpheus played his way into the very presence of Pluto and Proserpine. Pluto pitied him; but it was Proserpine who, no doubt remembering her own mother’s sorrows and wanderings, thought of a way to help him.

“You may have back your wife,” said she; “but on one condition. You have conquered Death; but that is not enough. You must conquer even Love, for her sake. Go back to earth, playing and singing as you came, and Eurydice shall follow behind you. But if, until you pass the gate of Hades, you turn your head to look at her; if you give even a single glance behind you to see if she is there, then you shall never see her again.”

You may think that Eurydice might have been given to him back without any conditions. But Hades was ruled by strict laws, which not even the king and queen could break; and nobody could be allowed to conquer death without showing that he could conquer temptation. Orpheus was overjoyed. Singing a hymn of thanks, he went back the way he came; and presently he could hear a faint sound behind him, as if the whisper of a footfall were keeping pace with him. Was it indeed Eurydice? He longed to look round and see; but he remembered Proserpine’s condition, and he did not let his eyes wander from the chink of daylight which presently began to gleam before him. As he came nearer and nearer to the upper world of light, and life, and day, the footfall behind him grew more and more distinct, until he knew it to be Eurydice’s: it was as if a silent phantom were gradually putting on its body again as it followed him. If he could but once look round—not to look was almost more than he could bear. But he might listen; and now he heard her breathe, deeply and gladly, as the breath of life came back to her. His music was indeed bringing her back from the grave!

At last he saw, full in sight, the sunlit hills of the upper world. Forgetting that the gate of Hades had not yet been passed, he, in his impatience, turned round to clasp Eurydice to his heart—only to see her change back again into a pale, cold ghost, which, with a wail of love and sorrow, faded away forever.

So Orpheus came back again from Hades heartbroken and alone. Once more, doubly hopeless, and hating himself for his own weakness, he wandered among the mountains and forests with his lyre. But while he was broken-hearted, his music became more wonderful than ever; for had he not seen with his eyes all the marvels of the under-world? Lions and tigers followed him as he sang, and became as gentle as lambs. The strongest oaks bent down to listen—nay, even the very mountains bowed their heads, and the swiftest rivers stood still to hear. He sang of Love and Death and Sorrow, and of all the mysteries of the world above, and of the world below, so that men looked upon him as a prophet, and came to him to learn wisdom.

But his own heart remained broken and dead within him. He had no more love left to give to any human being. The noblest and fairest women in the land sought to win his love, but he was deaf and blind to them all. So their love turned to hate; and at last a number of them, enraged by his coldness, fell upon him and slew him, and threw his head into the river Hebrus. And, as his head floated away, the dead lips were heard to murmur:—

“Eurydice! Eurydice!”

PART IV.—THE MAN WHO NEVER DIED.

THERE was just one mortal who kept clear of Hades altogether. But whether he was really lucky in that or not, I must leave you to settle when you have heard his story.

If you have ever seen the sun rise, you have seen the wings of Aurora. Aurora is the dawn; and as she opens her wings you see all their colors—first pale-grey; then a delicate amber, which deepens into saffron; then the tint of a pink-rose, which grows fuller and fuller till it becomes crimson and purple, which turns to gold when the chariot of the Sun appears. It is she who throws open the gates of the sky for Phœbus Apollo to start upon his daily journey, just as it is Thetis who shuts them, and brings the twilight, when his journey is done.

Aurora is always glad and beautiful and young; always full of hope, because she closes her splendid wings and goes to sleep before the troubles of the day begin; and her only work is to feed the flowers with dew. But once upon a time she fell in love with a mortal named Tithonus; and she promised to grant him whatever boon he most desired.

I suppose almost everybody has tried to think of what he would wish for if a goddess or fairy gave him such a chance. Tithonus thought hard for a minute, and then said:—

“Great and beautiful goddess, my wish is that I may never die, so that I may see you every morning forever.”

Now of course it was against all the laws of Hades that a mortal should never die—unless, of course, he was allowed to taste the Ambrosia, the food of the gods, which was very seldom allowed. How Aurora managed it, I cannot tell, because I have never been told. But she kept her word somehow, and Tithonus got leave to live forever.

And so long as he was young and strong, and could get up early in the morning to look at the color of Aurora’s wings, that was all very well. It did just as well as if he were to die in time, like other men. But it happened at last that, while Aurora remained as young as ever, Tithonus began to get old. The promise of endless life did not prevent him from growing bald, and toothless, and liable to catch cold if he went out into the keen morning air. By the time that he was a hundred years old, he became tired of getting up to see the sun rise day after day. At two hundred he felt like a bundle of aches and pains, and he liked a doze in the sun better than a thousand Auroras. At three hundred he became tired of living, and wanted to be able to creep into some quiet corner of Hades, drink a cup of Lethe, and go to sleep and think of nothing. But he could not; for though racked with pain and weary of life, he could not die!

He could only shrink and shrivel till, after many hundreds of years, he was less than two inches long. His skin turned dry and brown. His voice became cracked, and thin, and shrill. He lost his senses, and kept on chirping the same thing over and over again. He never stirred from the warmth of the chimney-corner, night or day. His legs grew as thin as threads of cotton. He dwindled into a dry, wooden-like insect.

In short, a Cricket.

And such he remains to this day. But Aurora is as young and as beautiful and as fresh as ever, and has clean forgotten him; while he spends his life in trying to be merry, and in chirping:—

“Oh, how I want to die!”

THE ADVENTURES OF PERSEUS.

ONCE upon a time there was a king of Argos named Acrisius, to whom it had been foretold that he would be slain by his daughter’s son.

This troubled him greatly. So he built a high tower of brass, and imprisoned his daughter Danaë in the very highest room. Having furnished her with provisions and amusements to last her all her life, he closed up all the entrances, so that nobody could get into the tower, and set guards all round it, so that nobody could even come near it. He did all this so that she should never marry and have a son who would grow up to kill him.

You may imagine what sort of a life Danae led, shut up in the brazen tower. She was made comfortable enough, and had plenty to eat and drink, and musical instruments, and pictures, and jewels, and all such things; but she never, from year’s end to year’s end, saw a face, except when she looked into the looking-glass, nor heard a voice but when she sang to herself—which she soon got tired of doing. She could not even look out of the window, because there were no windows to look from. She lived by lamplight, and she knew that this was to be her life for all the rest of her days.

So Acrisius felt safe and satisfied, and thought he had baffled Fate very cleverly indeed. And thus things went on for many years—what endless years they must have been to the imprisoned princess!—till one day she heard a little chinking noise, as if a gold coin had fallen upon the brazen floor of her room. She did not, however, pay any particular heed; indeed, she must by that time have got used to all sorts of queer fancies. But presently she heard it again. And, looking down in an idle way, sure enough she saw a couple of gold coins lying on the floor.

That seemed rather odd, for whence could they have come? Then a third coin joined the two others, and, raising her eyes to the ceiling, she saw coin after coin coming through a crack so small that she had not known till now that it was there. Faster and faster came the coins, till they became a shower, and the heap of gold on the floor stood higher than her head. Then the shower ceased, and the crack was still so small that she could not see whence the coins had fallen. As she stood wondering, the heap began to stir itself; the gold pieces melted into a single mass, which gradually seemed to take life and form. At last, where the gold had been, she saw the form of a man, but so stately and royal, and so much grander and nobler than any mere man could be, that she fell upon her knees before him.

“I am Jupiter,” said he, raising her, “and I have chosen you to be my earthly bride.”

So just that little crack in the ceiling, only just big enough for a thin gold coin to squeeze through, brought about what Acrisius had been at such trouble to prevent. And in time the news came to the king that a child had been heard crying in the brazen tower. He broke his way in, hurried up the staircase to the highest room, and there, to his rage and terror, he found Danae with a child, a boy, in her arms.

But he was determined not to let fate conquer him. He could not very well have his daughter and grandson put to death—at least openly. But he had them carried out to sea and then turned adrift in a small leaky boat without sail, oars or rudder, so that they were certain to be drowned. This having been done, Acrisius felt happy and comfortable again.

Now there lived on the little island of Seriphus, more than two hundred miles away, an honest fisherman named Dictys. It is often rough weather about there, and bad for fishing; but he was a brave and skilful sailor, and the weather, in order to keep him ashore, had to be very rough indeed. You may think, therefore, how bad the weather was when, for the first time in his life, he was unable to cast his nets for many days and nights together,—so many that he began to wonder what in the world he should do to get food for his wife and children. He used to lie awake listening to the howling wind and roaring sea, and then, going down to the beach, sought for food among the rocks and pools, thinking himself lucky if he could find a damaged crab or a bunch of eatable sea-weed.

One morning while he was searching about with a heavy heart, he, passing a jutting rock, came suddenly upon a young and handsome woman, in clothes all torn and drenched by the waves, sitting with a baby in her lap, and forlornly rocking herself to and fro. Hard by were the broken timbers of a boat, which had doubtless been blown ashore by the wind. Dictys questioned her kindly, but she could not or would not answer; so, taking her by the hand, he led her to his cottage, where his wife, who was as good-hearted as he, made a big fire of wreck-wood, and gave the mother and child a share of what food they had left, though it could ill be spared. From their famished looks he judged that they must have been tossing about on the waves for many days. But though the woman thanked him gratefully, with tears in her eyes, she did not tell him anything of her story except what he could see for himself—that she had been lost at sea.

“Perhaps she has lost her memory,” he said to his wife, when their guests were sleeping, worn out with all they had gone through. “What is to be done? We do not even know who they are.”

“And look at their clothes!” said his wife. “For all their being in rags, they might have been made for a queen and a queen’s son. But whoever they are,” she said with a sigh, “we can’t let them perish of hunger and cold. I never saw such a beautiful child—not even among our own.”

Dictys sighed still more deeply, for to be burdened with two more mouths to feed in those bad times was a serious thing, even though his heart also bled for the misery of the mother and the beauty of the boy.... “I have it, wife!” he exclaimed at last. “As soon as they are rested, and as I’ve nothing else to do, worse luck, I’ll take them to the king. He’ll do something for them, I’m sure. And if he doesn’t, why, we must do what we can, that’s all, and hope for better times.”

So when the mother and child were quite rested and refreshed, Dictys set off with them for the king’s palace, doing his best to cheer them by the way. Seriphus is a very little island, not more than a dozen miles round, so they had not to go far, and fortunately they found the king at home. The King of Seriphus at that time was Polydectes, who, having heard the fisherman’s story, and being struck with the beauty and high-born air both of the woman and of the child, kept them in his own palace, treated them as guests whom he delighted to honor, and was much too polite to ask questions. The mother told nobody anything except that her child’s name was Perseus, and that hers was Danae.

Perseus grew up into such splendid manhood that for a long time Polydectes was fond and proud of him, and treated him as if he were his own son. He was strong and handsome, brave, noble-minded, and marvelously accomplished both in mind and body. He was devoted to his mother; and he could never do enough to show his gratitude to Dictys the fisherman, who had been kind to her in her need. But his very virtues became his misfortune. Polydectes gradually became jealous of him, for he could not help seeing that the people of Seriphus loved and honored Perseus more than the king himself, and he was afraid that they might rebel and make Perseus their king. Besides that, he wanted to have Danae in his power, and without a protector, so that he might marry her against her will. Therefore he bethought him of a plot by which he could get rid of Perseus forever in a seemingly honorable way.

So one day he called the young man to him, and said:—

“Perseus, I know how brave you are, and how fond of all sorts of difficult adventures. Did you ever hear of the Gorgons? Well, the Gorgons are three terrible demon sisters who live in the middle of Africa. Their bodies are covered with scales like dragons, which no spear can pierce; their hands are brazen claws; they have snakes instead of hair, just like the Furies—I mean the Eumenides; and they have teeth as long as the tusks of a wild boar; and whoever looks upon them is turned to stone. All three are dreadful; but the one who is named Medusa is the most dreadful of all. Now I have been thinking, as you are so fond of adventures, you might go and cut off Medusa’s head. It would be something to be proud of for the rest of your days.”

Perseus was rather taken aback by such an errand. In the first place, he did not know where to find the Gorgons; in the second place, how was he to kill a creature who would turn him into stone by one glance of her eyes? But he was much too brave to refuse, or even to think of refusing. “I will just bid my mother good-bye, and then I will start at once,” said he. He did not tell his mother what he had undertaken to do for fear of alarming her; but he said good-bye to her as cheerfully as if he were only going for a night’s fishing with their friend the fisherman. Then, having asked Dictys to take care of his mother till he came back again, he lay down to get a little sleep before starting.

He had a curious dream. He thought that Pluto, Minerva, and Mercury came to his bedside, and that each made him a parting present. Pluto gave him a helmet, Minerva a shield, and Mercury a pair of sandals, with little wings fastened to them, and a curious weapon, of which the blade was shaped like a scythe, and made of a single diamond. But the dream was not so strange as what he found when he woke. There, on his bed, actually lay the helmet, the shield of polished steel, the winged sandals, and the scythe-shaped dagger.

Well, somebody must have put them there. Perhaps they were parting gifts from King Polydectes. So first he put on the helmet; then he placed the weapon in his belt; then he slung the shield over his shoulders; last of all, he bound the winged sandals on his feet, and when the wings spread themselves at his heels, and carried him high up into the air, he began to think that the visit of the gods must have been something more than a dream.

He went up so high that the earth looked like a large map spread out below him, on which the island of Seriphus seemed but a mere speck in the sea over which he was drifting southward. After many hours of this strange sort of travel, he began to descend, and came down upon his feet in the middle of a hot sandy plain, where neither hill nor tree nor water was to be seen. He could not tell where he was. But he did not lose courage; and he set out across the desert, knowing that if he kept straight on in one direction, he must reach somewhere or other in time.

But not till nearly nightfall did he see, in the far distance, a cluster of palm-trees—the sure sign of water, which his long journey over the hot and glaring sand, under the blazing sun, had made him need sorely. Reaching the palm-trees at last, he found, in the midst of the cluster, a wooden hut. Wondering that anybody should live in such a place, but hoping to find food and guidance, he knocked boldly on the door with the hilt of his sword, and was bidden, by a hoarse, cracked voice, to come in.

He entered, and found three very old women warming their hands at a few burning sticks, although it was so hot in the desert that Perseus could hardly bear the weight of his shield. As he came in, the three crones turned their faces towards him; and he saw that one of them had only one eye and no teeth, that another had only one tooth and no eye, and that the third had neither teeth nor eyes.

“I am a traveler,” said Perseus, “and have lost my way. Will you kindly tell me where I am?”

“Come in and show yourself,” said the crone who had the eye, sharply. “I must see who you are before I answer,” she added, though her one eye was looking straight at him all the while.

“Here I am,” said Perseus, stepping into the middle of the room. “I suppose you can see me now.”

“It’s very strange—very strange!” said the old woman. “Sisters, I hear a man’s voice, but I see no man!”

“Nonsense, sister!” said the one who had the tooth. “You can’t have put the eye in right. Let me try.”

To the amazement of Perseus, the first old woman took out her eye and passed it to the second, who, after giving it a polish, put it into her own face and looked round; but she also saw nothing.

The two wrangled for a while as to whether there was anything to be seen; and then the eye was passed round to the third sister. But she also failed to see Perseus, though the eye rolled in her head, and glowed like a live coal.

And so they kept passing the eye round from one to another, and yet nothing could they see. At last Perseus, feeling terribly hot and tired, took off Pluto’s helmet to cool himself, when suddenly—

“There he is! I see him now!” exclaimed the old woman who, at the moment, happened to be using the eye.

Then Perseus found out that his helmet made him invisible when he put it on; and he had already found out the use of his sandals. Perhaps the other gifts would have their uses too.

He let the old women have a good look at him each in turn, and then said—

“I am very hungry and thirsty and tired, and don’t know where I am. Will you give me a little food, and tell me who such kind ladies are, and what this place is, and put me on the right road to where I want to go?”

It was the one who happened to have the eye in her head that always spoke.

“We will give you some food,” said she, “for you seem a very well-behaved young man. This place is the great desert of Libya” (which is what we now call the desert of Sahara, in Africa) “and we are three sisters, called the Graiæ. And where do you want to go?”

“I want to visit the Gorgons, and particularly Medusa,” said he. “Do you happen to know where they are?”

“Of course we know, for they are our own kinswomen! But never, no, never, will we tell you where they live, or the way to get there. Never will we let so handsome a youth be turned into stone!”

“Never!” croaked the old woman with the tooth.

“Never!” mumbled the third.

Perseus did all he could to persuade them, but they were so stubborn that he was only wasting words. Meanwhile they laid out supper, which they ate in a very strange way, each taking her turn with the one tooth which they had among them, and passing it round from one to the other, just as they did with their only eye. This made the meal rather long and slow, for they ate enormously. After supper they put the eye and the tooth into a little box while they took a nap, when Perseus, watching his opportunity, snatched up the box, put on his helmet, and cried out—

“Now tell me the way to Medusa, or else you shall never see or eat again!”

The poor old Graiæ went down on their knees, and implored him to give them back their only tooth and their only eye. But he said—

“It is my turn to be stubborn. Tell me where to find Medusa, and you shall have them back; but not a minute before.”

“I suppose we must, then,” said the eldest, with a sigh. “Well, it won’t be our fault now, whatever happens. And after all, it’s better that you should be turned into stone than that we should be blind and starved.”

“Much better,” her sisters groaned.

“Very well, then,” said the eldest Graia, “you must go straight on, night and day, until you come into the country of King Atlas, which is called Mauritania. Near the king’s palace is a garden where the trees bear golden apples, guarded by a dragon. If the dragon does not devour you, you must pass the garden gate, and go on, a long, long way, till you come to a great lake where, if you do not find the Gorgons, you will be a lucky man.”

Perseus gave the old women back their tooth and eye, which they received with joy, and thanking them for their information, left the hut and traveled on. After many days and nights, during which he found it hard to find food, he came into a fertile country wherein stood a stately palace, so high that it seemed to touch the clouds. Hard by was a vast garden enclosed by a high wall, and at the gate, sure enough, sat a monstrous dragon with glaring eyes. But Perseus, wearing his invisible helmet, passed by safely, because unseen.

In time he came to the lake, where he took off his helmet to quench his thirst. While he was drinking, he was startled by the approach of what sounded like a mighty rush of wind, and he had but just time to put on his helmet again before he saw, reflected in the lake, the flying form of the terrible Medusa—the Gorgon whom he had vowed to slay, and who, not seeing him, sat down beside him with folded wings.

Well was it for Perseus that he remembered what would happen to him if he looked at Medusa. And yet how in the world was he to fight her without looking at her? That was a puzzle indeed. Suddenly he bethought himself of Minerva’s shield, which was polished like a mirror. He turned it towards Medusa, and saw, not herself indeed, but her reflection in the polished shield, which did just as well.

She was indeed a monster—more terrible even than he had expected. She was of gigantic size, hideous and cruel in face, with the scales and wings of a dragon, horrible claws, and hundreds of writhing and hissing snakes on her head instead of hair. No wonder that anybody who looked on her was turned at once into stone. Perseus, wearing his helmet, and guiding himself by his mirror, from which he never moved his eyes, drew his diamond blade, sprang upon the monster, gave one stroke just between her chin and where her scales began, and, in a single moment, her hideous head was rolling on the sand. The snakes gave one last hiss, and the deed was done.

Still keeping his eyes turned away, Perseus, by using his mirror, found the head, which he slung out of his sight behind him. Scarcely had he done this when he heard again the sound of wings, like a great wind—the sisters of Medusa, the other two Gorgons, were flying over the lake like hurricanes to take vengeance upon her slayer. They could not see Perseus himself, because of his helmet; but they saw their sister’s head at his back, and could thus swoop down upon him. But Perseus, remembering his winged sandals, sprang up into the air, and off he flew, with the raging Gorgons after him.

It was a terrible race! Perseus would not throw away the head, though it left such a track behind him. For from one of the splashes of blood which fell upon the earth sprang the giant Chrysaor, armed with a golden sword; from another leaped into life the winged horse Pegasus, who immediately darted off through the air and never stopped until he alighted among the Muses upon Mount Helicon; the smaller drops of blood as they fell became countless serpents, and all manner of loathsome crawling things. On and on Perseus flew, not knowing whither, like one hunted in some horrible dream, till his strength failed him, and he came down to earth, swiftly and half fainting.

When he opened his eyes and raised himself from the ground, he found himself in the most beautiful garden he had ever seen, full of trees laden with fruits of gold. But before him stood a huge giant, so tall that his head was above the clouds. The giant stooped till Perseus could see his face, and said in a voice of thunder:—

“I am Atlas, King of Mauritania! How has a miserable pigmy like you passed the dragon who guards the gate of the garden of golden apples, and entered in?”

“Then from you, as king of this land,” said Perseus, “I claim shelter and protection in my father’s name! For the avengers of blood are following after me to kill me.”

“You are safe with me,” said Atlas. “But who is your father, that you claim shelter and protection in his name?”

“My name is Perseus,” said Perseus, proudly, “and I am the son of Jupiter, the king of gods and men!”

“Of Jupiter?” thundered Atlas. “Then—prepare to die!”

“You would kill a son of Jupiter?” asked Perseus, amazed.

“Ay, and any son of Jupiter who comes in my way! For hath it not been foretold that by a son of Jupiter shall I be robbed of my golden apples? For what else are you here? Son of Jupiter, once more, prepare to die!” And so saying, he lifted his enormous arm, one blow of which would have swept away ten thousand men as if they were a swarm of flies.

Perseus gave himself up for lost, for he had no more chance against Atlas than a beetle would have against an elephant. However, like a brave knight, he resolved to die fighting: he drew his sword and grasped his shield—at least what he meant to be his shield; for it chanced to be Medusa’s head which he brought from behind his shoulder and held up before the giant. Down came the huge right arm of Atlas to crush him. But even in death the head did its work. No sooner were Medusa’s staring eyes turned upon the giant than all in a moment his limbs stiffened, and he became a vast mountain of stone, with its head above the clouds. And there stands Mount Atlas to this day.

Thankful for his wonderful escape, Perseus, without taking a single golden apple, continued his journey, no longer pursued by the Gorgons, who had doubtless lost trace of him. Leaving Mauritania, he recrossed the great Libyan desert, and traveled on and on until he reached the coast of Ethiopia, and entered a great city on the sea-shore.

But though the place was evidently great and rich, the whole air seemed full of sadness and gloom. The people went about silent and sighing, and altogether so woe-begone that they had no attention to spare for a stranger. When he reached the king’s palace the signs of mourning were deeper still: it was like entering a tomb, all was so plunged in speechless sorrow.

“What is the matter?” asked Perseus at last, seizing a passing servant by the arm, and compelling him to listen. “Is it the death of the king?”

“Ah, if it were only that!” said the man. “But no; King Cepheus is alive and well. Alas, and woe is me!” And so once more he fell to wailing, and passed on.

Thus over and over again Perseus vainly sought an answer, getting nothing but tears and groans. And so, none heeding him, he went on till he reached a chamber where sat the king himself in the midst of his court; and here was the deepest mourning of all.

“I perceive you are a stranger,” said King Cepheus. “Pardon us if we have seemed inhospitable and unlike the Æthiopians, the friends of the gods; it is not our way. But,” he continued, the tears flowing as he spoke, “if you knew, you would understand.”

“Let me know,” said Perseus gently, for he was filled with pity for the king’s tears.

“My daughter, the Princess Andromeda,” answered the king, “is condemned to a horrible death; I know not whether she is yet alive.”

“How,” asked Perseus, “can a king’s daughter be condemned to death against her father’s will?”

“No wonder it sounds strange,” answered Cepheus; “but listen: Andromeda is my only child. For some reason—I know not what—the gods have permitted the land to be ravaged by a monster which came out of the sea, whose very breath is a blight and a pestilence, and which spares neither man, woman, nor child. Not one of us is left without cause to mourn. Fearing the destruction of all my people, I asked of the great oracle of Ammon in what way the work of the monster could be stayed. Alas! the oracle declared that nothing would avail but delivering up Andromeda herself to its fury to be devoured. What could I do? Could I doom all my people to lose all their children for the sake of my own? There was but one thing for a king, who is the father of all his people, to do: and even now—” But he could say no more.

“Oracle or no oracle,” cried Perseus, “it shall not be while I am alive! Where is the princess?”

“She was chained at sunrise to a rock on the sea-shore, there to wait for the monster. But where she is now—”

Perseus did not wait for another word, but, leaving the palace, hurried along the shore, already half covered by the rising tide, helping himself over the difficult places by the wings at his heels. At last he came to what made his heart beat and burn with pity and rage. Chained by her wrists to a pillar of rock was the most beautiful of all princesses, stripped naked, but for the long hair that fell over her shoulders, and for the rising waves, which were already nearly waist-high. But what struck Perseus most was her look of quiet courage and noble pride—the look of one who was devoting herself to a cruel death for her country’s sake, and in order that others might be saved.

The whole heart of Perseus went out to her: he vowed, if he could not save her, to share her doom. But before he could reach her side, a huge black wave parted, and forth came the monster—a creature like nothing else of land or sea, with a bloated, shapeless body, studded with hungry, cruel eyes, and hundreds of long, slimy limbs, twisting and crawling, each with a yawning mouth, from which streamed livid fire and horrible fumes. Andromeda turned pale as the loathsome creature came on with a slowness more dreadful than speed. Perseus could not wait. Springing from the rock with his wings, he threw himself, like lightning, full upon the monster, and then began such a struggle as had never been seen before. The creature twined its limbs round Perseus, and tried to crush him. As soon as Perseus tore himself from one, he was clutched by another, while the pulpy mass seemed proof against thrusts or blows.

Perseus felt his life passing from him; he put all the strength left him into one last blow. It fell only on the monster’s right shoulder. But that was the one place where it could be pierced. The coils relaxed, and Perseus, to his own amaze, saw the monster floating, a shapeless corpse, upon the waves.

Having released Andromeda, who had watched the struggle in an agony of dread for what had seemed the certain fate of her champion, he carried her back through the air to her father’s palace; and I need not tell how the mourning turned into wonder and joy!

“What can I do to show my gratitude?” asked Cepheus of Perseus. “Ask of me whatever you will, and it shall be yours, on the word of a king!”

“Give me Andromeda to be my wife,” said Perseus. “That is all I want in the world.”

“Gladly,” said Cepheus; but suddenly he became grave. “I have promised on the word of a king, which cannot be broken. But I must warn you that you are not the first in the field. Andromeda has long been claimed in marriage by the powerful Prince Phineus: and he is not the man to lose what he wants without giving trouble.”

“He never gave any trouble to the monster,” said Perseus, thinking that Cepheus, though kind and honorable, was rather a weak and timid sort of king. So the marriage of Perseus and Andromeda was settled, to the great joy of both; and all the nobles were invited to a great festival in honor of the wedding, and of the delivery of the land. The Æthiopians were famous for their feasts,—so much so that the gods themselves would often leave the nectar and ambrosia of Olympus to be guests at their tables.

Everything went on very happily, when in the very midst of the banquet was heard the clash of arms; and those who were nearest the door cried out that Prince Phineus had come with an army to carry off the bride.

“Do not be alarmed,” said Perseus. “Only let everybody shut his eyes until I bid him open them again.”

It seemed an odd order; but Cepheus and all his Court had such faith in Perseus that they instantly obeyed him, and all shut their eyes. Perseus, especially bidding Andromeda close hers, drew forth Medusa’s head, turning the face towards the door. And when, at his bidding, Cepheus and the rest opened their eyes and looked, they saw Phineus and his army all turned into statues of stone.

After resting from his adventures at the Court of King Cepheus, Perseus set sail with Andromeda, in one of the king’s ships, for Seriphus, where they arrived after a safe and pleasant voyage. He was impatient to see his mother again, and to show King Polydectes how well he had done his errand. On reaching Seriphus, he left Andromeda in the ship, while he went alone on shore to see how things had gone while he had been away.

His way to the palace led him past the temple of Minerva, at the gate of which he found great confusion. Forcing his way through the crowd, he entered, and was astonished to see his mother, Danae, crouching in terror by the altar, with Dictys the fisherman standing before her, and defending her from King Polydectes and his guards, who were crowding the temple. Clearing his way to the altar-steps, Perseus heard hurriedly from Dictys what was happening: how the king, taking advantage of his absence, had been persecuting Danae to marry him against her will, and had at last driven her into the temple to make her his wife by force. Dictys alone had come to her rescue; but what could one man do against the king and all his guards?

“And now you have come,” sighed Dictys, “you will be slain too. See, they are coming on!”

“You sent me to slay Medusa, King Polydectes,” cried Perseus. “See how well I have obeyed you!”

So saying, he held up the fatal head; and the king and his guards forthwith became stone. Thus was Polydectes destroyed by his own treachery.

The people desired to make Perseus king; but he had a longing to pay a visit to the land of Argos, where he had been born, but which he had never seen. So he made Dictys the fisherman King of Seriphus, thinking that kindness, courage, and faithfulness were the chief things to be looked for in the choice of a ruler, and set sail for Argos with his wife and mother.

Of course nobody there knew any of them; for Perseus had left the country when a child in arms, and Danae had spent her girlhood shut up in a brazen tower. It so happened that, when they reached land, the people of Larissa were celebrating some solemn games in honor of their king, who had just died—wrestling, racing, and so forth; and Perseus, hearing the news, went round by way of Larissa to take part in them.

Having shown himself best in every sport, he joined in a game of quoits, in which, as always, he found himself without a rival. Having outdone all others, he thought he would outdo even himself; and, taking up the heaviest quoit, he cast it so far that it passed over the heads of the circle of spectators, so that none could see where it fell—

Until they were startled by a cry which made the people crowd to where an old man had fallen from his seat, and now lay dead upon the ground. The quoit had struck him on the head, and—

“Fly!” cried those who stood about Perseus. “It is Acrisius, King of Argos, whom your unlucky quoit has killed!”

And thus came to pass what had been foretold at the beginning—King Acrisius had been slain by his daughter’s son.

As for Perseus, whose adventures were now at an end, he refused the kingdom of Argos, which had come to him in such an unfortunate manner, and, traveling further into Greece, built a city and made a kingdom for himself, which he called Mycenæ. Here, with Andromeda and Danae, he lived in peace and happiness, ruling so well and wisely that when he died he was made a demi-god, and admitted into Olympus. There are two constellations which are still called Perseus and Andromeda. The Gorgon’s head he consecrated to Minerva, who fixed it in the middle of her shield, where it still retained its power of turning the enemies of the goddess of Wisdom into blocks of stone.

I suspect that one part of this story has reminded you of how St. George of England rescued the Princess Sabra from the dragon. Well, there is this great likeness among all good knights, that they have the help of heaven, because they would be equally good and brave whether they had such help or no.

THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

WHEN Æson, who was King of Iolcos, began to grow old, he left his kingdom to his infant son, Jason. But the throne was usurped by his uncle Pēlĭas, who forthwith consulted an oracle as to what he should do to make himself secure. The answer of the oracle was strange. It was—“Fear nobody who cometh not with and without a shoe.”

“There is nothing very alarming about that,” thought Pelias; so, instead of having Jason killed, as he had first thought of doing, he sent away the child into Thessaly, a long way off, among the people called Centaurs, hoping that he would never hear of him again.

The Centaurs were a very singular race. They were half man and half horse, as if a man’s body down to the waist were set upon a horse’s shoulders. Thus they had a horse’s four legs for running, and a man’s head and arms for thinking and fighting: they were famous archers, very learned, and very brave. Their most famous chief was Chiron, who, besides being their best archer, was also a great philosopher and physician. Chiron, struck by Jason’s quickness, became his teacher, so that the young prince grew up skilled both in all manly exercises and in every branch of human knowledge.

When he had become a man, the Centaur thought it only right that he should know his birth and parentage, and should have a chance of regaining his father’s throne, since he was so fit to be a king. But first he consulted the oracle, which gave to Chiron as strange an answer as it had given to Pelias—“Who seeks a crown shall wear the leopard’s hide.”

So Jason, by Chiron’s counsel, went out hunting, and, having killed a leopard, dressed himself in its skin. Then he set out, on foot and alone, for Iolcos; and proceeded without anything happening to him, until he reached a mountain-torrent, so deep, so broad, and so strong, that the best of swimmers could not hope to reach the other side.

He was gazing at the torrent, wondering what he should do, when a very old woman, bent and lame, came hobbling by, and asked him why he stared so sadly at the stream.

“Reason enough,” said he, “when that water is keeping me from a kingdom.”

“Is that all?” asked the old woman; “I can soon put that right for you. I am going across myself; and I’ll take you on my back with the greatest pleasure in the world.”

Jason thought she was laughing at him. But something about her—he could not tell what—made him feel that she was no common old woman; and even as he looked her back seemed to straighten itself and her figure to enlarge. No; she was certainly not joking: her smile was only friendly and kind. It might not be very dignified for a rightful king to enter his kingdom dressed up in a leopard’s skin and riding on the back of an old woman, and it did not seem very safe, either. However, as there was certainly nothing else to be done, he got upon the back of the old woman, who at once stepped out into the raging stream.

How strong the flood was he could tell from the forest-trees which it had torn up by the roots and was carrying away headlong. But while Jason’s brain reeled with the whirl, the old woman remained as steady as a rock, and strode through the deepest and roughest places with ease. In a wonderfully short time Jason reached the other side, with no worse mishap than the loss of his left shoe.

“Never mind that,” said the old woman. “The river is bound to have something. You have only given it a shoe; most people have to give it their lives.”

“But what do you give it then?” asked Jason.

“Oh, the gods go toll-free,” said the old woman. “I am Juno.” And before Jason had recovered from his surprise, she was gone.

Jason continued his journey till he reached Iolcos, where the oddity of a man dressed in nothing but a leopard’s skin soon gathered a crowd around him. The news of the sight spread about till it reached the ears of King Pelias himself, who came out of his palace to discover what was going on. But as soon as he caught sight of the stranger in the leopard-skin he started with dismay. There stood a man with a shoe and without a shoe—just what the oracle had warned him to fear!

Seeing that it was the king, Jason at once went up to him, and said—

“I am Jason, the son of Æson. Give up to me this kingdom, which is rightfully mine!”

His boldness and his royal bearing had a great effect upon the people, who hated Pelias, and were glad to welcome back the rightful heir. They set up a great shout for Jason, which alarmed Pelias still more; and many of them pressed forward with drawn swords.

But Pelias, if he had not much courage, had plenty of craft. And so he answered, after a moment’s thought:—

“Why, of course you shall have what is your own. Do you think I want to rob you—to keep what is not mine for a single day! I am only too glad to welcome you, my dear nephew, home again. I have been wondering what had become of you, and not till after long searching did I give you up for lost. I think you will find that I have taken good care of your kingdom while you have been away. I deserve some credit for having had all the hard work, while you, no doubt, have been going about and amusing yourself. I am very glad to see you—indeed I am.”

Jason was rather surprised to find everything so easy, and his uncle so friendly. Indeed he hardly knew what to say.

“I am only eager to enter upon my duties,” said he at last; “and I shall look to you to help me to govern well.”

“That is the right spirit,” said Pelias. “So I will tell you the first of your duties; one that I rejoice to give over to better and younger hands than mine. It is difficult and even dangerous—”

“All the better,” said Jason. “It will bring all the more glory.”

“You are an admirable young man! Well, you must know that many generations ago King Athamas of Thebes married a princess of Cloudland, named Nephele, and had two children, Phryxus and Helle. Nephele going mad, he divorced her, and married the princess Ino, and had two children more. Ino hated Nephele’s children, because they stood in the way of her own. So, being a witch, she desolated Thebes by a plague, and got a false oracle to declare that the plague should never cease so long as Phryxus and Helle were alive. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly,” said Jason. “Except that I don’t see what all this old family history has to do with me.”

“Patience, and you will see,” said Pelias. “Just as Phryxus and his sister Helle were about to be sacrificed, a winged ram, with a fleece of pure gold, came out of the sea, took the brother and sister on his back, and flew away with them through the air. Unluckily, while they were flying, Helle turned giddy, tumbled off the ram’s back, and was drowned. You have heard of the Hellespont, I suppose? Well, that is the part of the sea where Helle fell. Phryxus, however, arrived safely at the Court of Æetes, King of Colchis, beyond the great Black Sea, where he sacrificed the ram to Jupiter, out of gratitude for his escape; but kept the golden fleece and married the king’s daughter. At last Æetes, wanting the fleece for himself, murdered Phryxus. There—do you see your royal duty now?”

“I cannot,” said Jason, “honestly say that I do.”

“What? Why, Phryxus was the son of Athamas, who was the son of Æolus, who was the father of Cretheus, who was the father of Æson, who is the father of you. It is as clear as day that Phryxus was your own first cousin once removed. And what duty can be clearer than avenging the murder of a first cousin once removed? Especially when the murderer has a fleece of pure gold waiting for some brave man to bring away. It is so clear a duty that, if you decline it, I will undertake the adventure myself, old as I am, rather than let the wrongs of our royal house go unavenged.”

Now glory was Jason’s ruling passion. He would have felt disgraced if he had declined any adventure, however difficult it might be: and the greater the danger, the greater the glory.

So he had it announced through Iolcos and all the neighboring countries that he had undertaken the Adventure of the Golden Fleece, and that all brave knights who desired to share in its perils and glories would be welcome. The effect of the proclamation was something wonderful. Iolcos was speedily thronged with princes and knights, the best and noblest of all Greece, eager to take part in the expedition; so that Jason found himself captain of a host the like of which for birth and valor had never been seen—fifty chiefs, and every one of them known to fame. It would be too long to name them all. But I must mention “the great twin brethren,” Castor and Pollux, whom you know by more than name: and Orpheus the minstrel, and that other great minstrel, Amphion, whose music had built the walls of Thebes: and Autolycus, the craftiest, and Nestor, the wisest, of all mankind: and Hercŭles, the son of Jupiter, of whose deeds you will read hereafter: and Meleager, who has also a famous story of his own: and Theseus of Athens, with whom you will also meet again,—all these and all their comrades were, like their captain, in the very flower of their youth, strength, and valor. Atalanta, a princess of Scyros, a great huntress, joined the expedition disguised as a man: and Æsculapius was its surgeon and physician.

The next thing was to build a ship to carry so large a company across the great and terrible Black Sea, which the Greeks called the “Euxine,” or “Friendly”—giving it a good name just because they were afraid to give it a bad one, lest it should be angry. The ship was at last built, and called the Argo.

The “Argonauts,” as Jason and his company are called—that is to say, the crew of the Argo—set sail in great state and honor from a port of Thessaly, crossed the Ægean Sea, passed through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmora (as those parts are now called), and then through the Hellespont, the strait where Helle had been drowned, into the Black Sea.

From end to end of these dark and dangerous waters the good ship Argo sailed without mishap, save the death of its pilot, Tiphys, soon after starting. Erginus took his place at the helm. But I cannot help thinking that there was another reason for the good luck of the Argo. For once, when a great storm arose and threatened shipwreck, suddenly two flames of light were seen to play round the heads of Castor and Pollux, and forthwith the wind fell and the waves became calm. You know that—

“Safe comes the ship to haven,
Through tempests and through gales,
If once the great Twin Brethren
Sit shining on the sails”;

and if this was the virtue of their spirits after death, one may be certain that it was a good thing to have Castor and Pollux on board during their brave and blameless lives. Those two flames of light are still often seen hovering about a ship in stormy weather, and sailors still believe them to be of good omen.

After a long voyage, the Argo arrived safely at Æa, the capital of Colchis, where dwelt King Æetes, the same who had murdered Phryxus. Colchis proved to be a rich and fertile country, inhabited by a people curiously like the Gypsies, with very dark complexions and black hair, dressed in brightly colored linen which they alone knew how to weave and dye. They claimed to be descended from a tribe of Egyptians who had wandered thither ages ago; and they had many other secrets which none but they and the Egyptians knew.

Jason, at the head of his company, went before King Æetes, and demanded from him the Golden Fleece. Æetes received him in state, sitting upon his throne; and, after hearing Jason’s demand, answered:—

“Far be it from me, a mere barbarian chieftain, to refuse what is asked of me by so noble an embassy of princes and heroes. I would even now deliver up to you the Golden Fleece, were it in my power. But how can I give it to you when it is guarded, even from myself, by two fierce bulls with brazen horns, which breathe forth flame, and are a match for armies? Before you can obtain the fleece, you must first tame these bulls.”

Jason desired nothing better. So he and all his comrades went into the field where the bulls were, and endeavored to bind them. But neither he, with all his courage, nor the craft of Autolycus, nor the might of Hercules, nor the courage, skill, and strength of the whole company together, could prevail against the bulls, who breathed fire, and gored right and left with their brazen horns. There was work for Æsculapius that day.

King Æetes had known very well how it would be; but Jason, when night, came, retired to the chamber which had been assigned to him in despair. Midnight found him still waking, when the door opened, and there stood before him, holding a lamp, a tall and beautiful woman, dark-skinned, black-eyed, and with long black hair—beautiful, as I have said, but terrible in her beauty.

“You have no cause for shame,” said she, in a softer voice than he would have expected. “They were enchanted bulls: and not ten times your number would have fared better. This is a nation of enchanters, whose king knows how to laugh you Greeks and your boasted bravery to scorn. But I am the greatest of all enchanters; and I will teach you how to tame the bulls—if you will promise me one thing.”

“Anything!” said Jason. “Only tell me who you are, and what you require of me.”

“I am Medea, the king’s daughter,” said she. “And what I require is that you shall marry me this night in the Temple of Hecate, the Queen of Witches, and that you will swear before her altar to be true and faithful to me forever.”

“Gladly,” exclaimed Jason, who, to succeed in his adventure, would have gladly sworn anything to any one.

So he followed her to the Temple of Hecate, the Witch-Queen, and there, with many strange and dreadful rites, he married her, and swore to be true and faithful to Medea forever. Then she gave him a magic herb, and said:—

“This will tame the bulls.” And she also gave him a sling and a stone, adding, “Use this when there is need.”

The next morning Jason went into the field alone. As soon as the scent of the herb reached the bulls’ nostrils they crouched at his feet; and when Æetes and his Court, and the Greek princes with them, came forth, lo! there was Jason quietly driving a plough drawn by the bulls, who were now as tame as common oxen.

“Some one has been betraying me,” thought the king angrily. But he hid his anger, and said: “You have done very well so far. I am sorry to say, however, that the Golden Fleece has other guards. Do you see these serpents’ teeth? You must sow these in the furrow you have made with your plough—and then the gods help you if they can.”

So Jason, having finished his ploughing, sowed the serpents’ teeth as if they were seeds of corn. And then from that seed sprang up, in less than an hour, a strange harvest—an army of giants, as many as the stalks of wheat in a wide field, who rushed upon Jason and the Greeks, and trampled them to the ground.

And every one of them would have been slain had not Jason bethought him of Medea’s sling and stone. Aiming at the chief of the giants, he let fly, and straightway the army vanished like the phantoms of a dream.

The king began to be afraid, for he was coming to an end of his spells. He felt sure he had been betrayed, but could not guess the traitor. But again he pretended friendship, and said: “That, too, was very well done. I see there is something in you Greeks, after all. But it grieves me to the heart to tell you that the most terrible guards of the Golden Fleece still remain—a mighty dragon that never sleeps, but watches the Fleece night and day. If you can kill him—why then—”

“I can but try,” said Jason. So he and his comrades were guided by winding paths to the foot of a tree on which hung the Golden Fleece, splendid in the sun. But at the foot of the tree was a dragon that could have devoured ten times as many, armor and all, with one crunch of his jaws. And he breathed forth such fiery pestilence that none could come near.

Truly it seemed at last as if the adventure was to be in vain.

But, at midnight, Medea came to Jason as before, and gave him another herb, and said, “Take this—and remember your vow.”

Jason was not thinking of the vow, but only of the dragon. The next morning he set forth alone, and having found his way to the tree, waved the herb before the monster. No sooner had the smell of it reached its nostrils than its eyes began to droop and close, and presently the ever-watchful dragon was sleeping soundly. Instantly Jason darted past him, snatched the Golden Fleece from the tree, and hastening back to the palace, displayed it before the king’s astonished eyes.

“Seize the robber!” cried King Æetes, to his guards. But he had come to an end of his enchantments: Jason’s comrades rallied round their captain with drawn swords, and made for the shore.

The king raved and stormed. “Fetch Medea to me,” he cried; “she shall raise such a tempest as will sink the foreign pirates to the bottom of the sea.” But even as he spoke, in ran one of the slaves with the news—

“The Princess Medea—the Greeks are carrying her away!”

“Medea—against her will? No!” cried the king, who now knew who had betrayed him. “There is no power on earth that could make her captive, or carry her away unless she chose to go. Absyrtus,” he said, turning to his son, “hasten after those brigands, and bid your sister return, and I will follow with my whole army to cut them off from their ship and destroy them all.”

The news was true: Medea was so passionately in love with Jason that she had forgotten her father and her country, and was even now guiding the Greeks back to where the Argo lay. But, great enchantress though she was, she was not all-powerful, and she knew that her spells would be in vain against her own people. And her father and her brother knew this too.

Her ears were quick, however; and while the Greeks were still far from the shore, she heard the footsteps of Absyrtus swiftly tracking them; and what was worse, she heard, further off, a tramp and clash, which told her that the whole Colchian army was in pursuit at full speed.

“Hasten on,” she said to Jason. “I will wait here.”

So, while he and the Greeks pressed forward, she faced round and stood in the middle of the path until Absyrtus came up with her. Before he could utter a word, she plunged a dagger into her brother’s heart, cut off his head and limbs, and then slowly followed Jason, dropping a bleeding limb in the path every few yards.

Things happened just as she intended. When King Æetes, riding fast at the head of his horsemen, saw his son’s head lying in the path before him, he threw himself from his horse with a cry of grief; and seeing what lay further along the ground, forgot everything else, even the Golden Fleece, in his sorrow. The cruel witch, Medea, had foreseen that her father would never leave the remains of his dead son ungathered and unburied by the wayside, for the advancing horses to trample and for the vultures to devour. King Æetes was so long in seeking for the last limb that, by the time it was found, Jason and the Greeks had reached their ship and had set sail, and Medea with them.

But the murder of Absyrtus seemed to cling like a curse to the Argo, and to keep her from coming home. Driven out of her course by storms and contrary winds, she wandered into unknown oceans, drifting even so far as the wild and desolate islands of Britain, in the mysterious Northern Sea. The Argonauts narrowly escaped being devoured, ship and all, by the horrible sea-fiend Scylla, with twelve feet, six hideous heads, each with three rows of teeth, and a body made of barking dogs, who sits upon a rock and watches for sailors. And, just avoiding her jaws, they nearly fell into the whirlpool of Charybdis, another sea-fiend, so close to Scylla that it was hardly possible to escape one without being destroyed by the other. They passed the island of the Sirens, of whom you read in the story of Neptune, and would have fallen victims to their singing had not Orpheus made such music on his lyre that the Sirens ceased their own song to listen, and let the ship pass by.

I do not know what Medea was doing all this while. Perhaps she was powerful only on land; perhaps she could do nothing without her magic herbs; perhaps her passion for Jason had made her weak; perhaps she felt some touch of remorse; perhaps her wicked witchcraft was of no effect in the presence of Æsculapius, who, knowing more magic even than she, used his knowledge for helping and healing. But I do know that Jason was beginning to suffer sorely because of the vow he had made of his faith and life to Medea, and to feel that murder and black magic, and a wife whom he dreaded and did not love, were too high a price to pay even for glory. He was not like Perseus, who had warred against evil with the weapons of the gods: Jason had sought only his own glory, and had gained it by means hateful to gods and men.

But his comrades knew nothing of all this—to them he was a hero of heroes, and they made the wanderings of the Argo famous for something better than narrow escapes from peril. They cleared the sea of pirates—a work in which Castor and Pollux especially distinguished themselves; and they righted many wrongs, and carried the knowledge of the gods among far away barbarian tribes. And at last they saw once more the coast of Greece; at last they touched the land of Calydon, where the father of Meleager, one of the Argonauts whom I have already named, was king.

Now this Meleager had a charmed life. The three Fates had been present at his birth—the first had given him courage; the second, strength; but the third had decreed that he should live only so long as a log of wood, then burning upon the hearth, should remain unconsumed. So his mother, Althæa, had forthwith snatched the brand from the burning, and had kept it with care, because upon it depended the life of her son. Meleager welcomed Jason and his companions to Calydon: but they no sooner landed than they heard evil news. The whole country was being laid waste by a huge boar, which not even armies could kill.

Here was another adventure for the Argonauts. They proclaimed a great hunt, and tracked the boar, through mountains and forests, to his very den. In front of the hunters was Meleager; but next to him came Atalanta—that famous huntress, swift-footed as Diana, who had sailed with the Argonauts in the disguise of a man, and had betrothed herself to Meleager while they were homeward bound. Then followed the rest, vying with each other which should be foremost; and besides the Argonauts were the princes and nobles of Calydon, led by the two brothers of Althæa, who still kept the fatal fire-brand secure.

They drove the boar to bay at last, and, after a desperate struggle, Meleager gave it its death-blow. All his companions rejoiced at his good fortune; but when he gave the boar’s head, as a trophy, to Atalanta, the two brothers of Althæa stood forth and said:—

“It is not right to give such honor to a woman—a woman who has no more right to it than we. Such trophies are for men!”

So saying, they tried to seize it from her. But Meleager, enraged at the insult to Atalanta, defended her with his sword, and so unfortunately well that both his uncles were slain.

Althæa, watching from her window for the return of the hunters, at last saw them pass mournfully, bearing the bodies of her dead brothers. “Who has done this?” she cried; and being told it was Meleager, she cursed him, and, in her grief and passion, threw the fatal brand upon the hearth, where it was caught by a flame. Meleager, though still far off, was forthwith seized with scorching pains in all his limbs. As the brand burned, so he burned also, and when it was consumed, a flame seemed to clutch his heart, and he fell dead in Atalanta’s arms.

Althæa, overwhelmed, when it was too late, with horror at the result of her rage, slew herself with her own hand. And such was the miserable ending of the Hunt of Calydon.

The Argonauts, having now returned to Greece, parted, and went each to his own home. Jason drew the Argo on shore near Corinth, consecrating it to Neptune, and leaving it there as a monument of so famous a voyage. Then he returned to Iolcos, bringing the Golden Fleece with him.

He was received with triumph and rejoicing, and a great feast was prepared to welcome him home. But, to his sorrow, he found his father Æson so enfeebled by old age as not to be able to be present at the festival.

“Do not trouble yourself about that,” said Medea. “Let Æson only put himself in my hands, and he shall be as young as you.”

Jason, knowing his wife’s power, consented. So she drew all the blood out of Æson’s veins, and filled them with the juice of certain herbs; and he came to the festival as young-looking and as vigorous as his own son.

But Pelias, the usurper, who hated Jason, was getting old, too; and his daughters, when they saw what had happened to Æson, besought Medea that she would make their father also young and strong again.

“You need not come to me for that,” said she. “You can do it for yourselves when I have shown you how.”

So she killed an old ram, cut him up, and boiled the pieces in a caldron into which she had secretly thrown some herbs. When the water was cold, out from the caldron skipped a young lamb, and frisked away.

The whole thing looked so easy that the daughters of Pelias, that very night, prepared a caldron; and, when the water boiled, killed their father, divided him limb from limb, and threw in the pieces, just as Medea had done with the ram. But nothing happened, though they waited till the flesh had boiled away from the bones.

They hastened to Medea to help them. But she received them with scorn.

“Murderesses!” she exclaimed, “and fools! It is you who butchered Pelias; it is you who must make him live again, if you can. His death is on your hands; not on mine.”

Thus Jason was delivered from his enemy. But the manner of his deliverance got about among the people. They rose up against Medea, and drove her out of the city; and Jason had to follow her to whom he had sold his soul for glory.

He had never loved her; and now his fear of her was turning into hate, and the hate into loathing and horror. All the wickednesses and cruelties she had committed for his sake seemed to have become his own, and to be so many curses upon him. And even her magic had not prospered, seeing that it had cost him the kingdom he might have gained by fair means, and had driven him into exile. His only comfort was in their two children, whom he loved dearly; and at last he could bear life with the terrible Medea no longer. He determined to divorce her; to take the children away from such a mother; and to take another wife whom he could love, and who would not be a terror to him.

Such a wife he found in Creusa, a princess of Corinth. But he was terribly mistaken if he thought he could break the vow he had made to Medea at the altar of Hecate, the Witch-Queen.

Medea affected to be quite content with what had been arranged. She sent Creusa a wedding-dress, and had her children brought to her to bid them farewell. The feast was at its height, and Jason was rejoicing in his freedom, when a cold cloud seemed to come over the guests; and there stood Medea, dark and stern, leading her two children by the hand.

“Traitor and perjurer!” she said to Jason, so that all the guests could hear. “Is this your return for the love I have given you; for the country I left for you; for the sins I have done for you—sins that you took the fruits of, but were too cowardly to do? I have given you to the last moment to prove your faith; and now the last moment has gone. As you choose to be bound to me no longer, my own hands shall destroy the last links that bind you and me.”

So saying, like the tigress she was, she took up the children and dashed them dead upon the floor. At the same moment Creusa shrieked with the agony of the poisoned robe that was clinging to her and destroying her. Jason rushed upon Medea with his sword. But before he could reach her, a chariot drawn by flying dragons, none knew whence, had borne her away, none knew whither, through the air.

Jason, from that time, seemed haunted by the Furies. He wandered aimlessly about the world, unable to rest, until one day his eyes fell upon the ship Argo, still reposing peacefully upon the shore. One may imagine all the things the sight brought to his mind—his old dreams of glory; the unholy vow which had seemed to fulfill them; the weakness and the unfaithfulness which had destroyed them, and him, and others through him. Doubtless, he then saw in Medea not so much the cruel witch as the evil of his own heart, which had taken shape and form and had become a curse from which he could not get free. “If I could only rest like you!” he cried out, falling on his knees before the ship with bowed head and clasped hands. And it seemed as if the Argo heard her old captain’s prayer. A yard dropped from the mainmast upon his bowed head: and ship and captain lay at rest together.

A LOST SECRET.

MINOS, the chief judge of the Court of the Dead in Hades, had been during his life the King of Crete—that large island where Jupiter had been hidden from Saturn. Before the reign of Minos the Cretans had been a number of rude and savage tribes, brigands by land and pirates by sea. He, however, made a single nation of them, civilized them, suppressed brigandage and piracy, built cities, formed a regular army and navy, and gave his people a code of wise and just laws which never had to be changed.

When he, for his justice and his knowledge of law, was made chief judge in Hades, he was succeeded in his kingdom of Crete by his son, Minos the Second. He also was a great and powerful king. He conquered many of the neighboring islands, adding them to his dominions, and made war upon the Athenians, whom he defeated utterly. One of his sons having been killed in that war, he took a cruel revenge upon the vanquished enemy. He laid a tribute upon the city of Athens; and the tribute was that the Athenians should send him every year seven boys and seven girls to be devoured by a monster called the Minotaur—a creature half man and half bull.

When this savage monster first appeared, Minos had been sorely puzzled what to do with such a scourge. Nobody could kill it; and unless it was regularly supplied with a full meal of boys and girls, its fury became uncontrollable. It was partly to keep the Minotaur quiet that he had exacted that particular tribute from his enemies. But neither were the Cretan children safe while the Minotaur was at large.

One day, however, there came to the Court of Minos a stranger who gave his name as Dædalus, an Athenian, and announced himself as having fled from his native city to escape a charge of murder. He was accompanied by a young man, his son, whom he called Icarus; and he asked for whatever employment the king might choose to give him.

“What can you do?” asked Minos.

“Three things,” said Dædalus. “I can split the hardest rocks; I can make ships go without oars; and out of wood and metal I can make living men.”

“Prove your words,” said Minos; “and if you do these things I shall take both you and your son into my service, and pay you well.”

Dædalus bowed, and obtained leave to set up a forge, where he and Icarus were soon heard working all night and all day. If the listeners could have looked in, they would have been surprised. He was making nothing more wonderful than pieces of iron, sharp at one end and thick at the other. When he had made enough, he summoned the king and his Court to see him split the biggest and hardest rock they could find on the sea-shore.

They fixed upon a granite cliff. Dædalus put the sharp end of one of his pieces of iron into one of the smallest cracks in the face of the cliff, and hammered upon the blunt end till he had driven it home. Then between this and the stone he drove in another piece of iron; and between these two a third; and so on, and so on, while the rock began to gape, and then to split, until the upper portion parted itself from the lower, and thundered down into the sea.

The secret was simple enough. Dædalus had simply invented the wedge, which can do much greater things than that when it is skillfully used. But the Cretans were amazed to see, as they thought, one man knocking over a cliff with a common hammer.

Then Dædalus set up a workshop by the shore, with some long sheds, and a supply of hemp and timber. Here also he worked day and night; and at last called Minos and his Court to see a ship go without oars.

The ship had a tall pole rising from the middle of the deck. Dædalus and Icarus went on board, and were seen pulling at some long ropes; and presently the ship seemed to spread out wings like a bird, and to skim over the water as fast as the wind without the help of an oar.

Dædalus had invented sails. But the Cretans were more amazed than before, never having thought of such a simple thing for themselves.

Dædalus then went back to his forge; and what he did there nobody could guess, for scarce a sound was heard. After many days, however, he went to the king’s palace, he and Icarus carrying a long and heavy chest between them. The chest being opened before Minos, Dædalus took out from it a number of images, exquisitely wrought in wood, bronze, ivory, silver, and gold—men and women; fauns, nymphs, animals; creatures of all sorts and kinds.

When Minos had looked at them and admired them, Dædalus touched them one after another; and then, with a whirring noise, the images seemed to live. The nymphs and satyrs joined hands, and danced in a ring round a bronze Pan who piped to them; a number of wooden young men boxed and wrestled: in short—

In short, Dædalus had invented clock-work. But the Cretans were more amazed than ever, and stood staring, half delighted, half frightened, till he put up the figures in their box again.

“You are the man for me!” exclaimed Minos. “I said I would take you into my own service; and I will. You shall make a cage for the Minotaur!”

This was certainly not the reward which Dædalus had looked for. However, he said nothing, but again shut himself up, this time with writing materials, compasses, and rules. After a long time he got a body of workmen together, and built a Labyrinth—a mass of passages and windings so contrived that nobody who was outside could find the way in, and nobody who was once inside could find the way out again. Nobody, that is to say, unless he had the clue, which was of course to be kept secret. The clue which Dædalus invented—and a very good sort it was—was a long silken thread, with one end fastened to the center of the Labyrinth, carried along all the windings to the entrance. Anybody wishing to get in would have to know this, and in which of the many entrances (for there were hundreds of false ones) he must look for the hidden end of the thread. Then all he would have to do would be to wind up the thread into a ball, following it as he wound, until he reached the middle of the maze. And of course there was another clue to lead him out again in the same way. The middle of the Labyrinth was a hall with many columns, and an opening in the roof to let in light and air. This Labyrinth having been finished, Dædalus enticed the Minotaur into the central hall, locked him up there, and gave Minos the key.

So the Cretan children were safe, and the monster had to be content with his fourteen young Athenians every year.

Dædalus kept on doing work after work for Minos, inventing one thing after another, until the queen, who was a wicked woman, persuaded Dædalus to help her in some piece of wickedness which was discovered by the king. Whatever the affair was, it was kept secret to prevent a Court scandal. The king’s anger fell upon Dædalus and Icarus, both of whom he imprisoned in their own Labyrinth—not, I suppose, in the same chamber with the Minotaur.

Indeed I am sure not; because if they had been in the same chamber, Dædalus could have got out by means of the clue. But there was no clue to the chamber where he was imprisoned, and he had built the Labyrinth so cleverly that he himself was lost in its mazes.

Poor Icarus was in despair. But Dædalus only sat down on the base of a column and thought things over in his usual silent and quiet way. After thinking for some days, until they were nearly starved, he set Icarus wondering by doing as follows, in order:—

First, with one of his wedges, he chipped off pieces of stone from the columns.

Secondly, he, in the same way, broke the fragments into pieces of nearly the same size, rounding them roughly.

Thirdly, from a strip of his coat he made a sling.

Fourthly, he watched the opening in the roof, and whenever a bird passed overhead he discharged a stone, and generally brought it down.

Fifthly, when he had got a sufficient number of birds, he plucked out and sorted their wing-feathers.

Sixthly, he collected all the wax-candles in the chamber, and melted them in a fire which he obtained by some secret invention of his own.

Seventhly—but what he did seventhly Icarus could not see.

At last, however, his mysterious work, whatever it was, seemed done. There lay before him two pairs of wings, beautifully made of wax and feathers.

“I have long thought,” said Dædalus, “how to invent a method of flying. I am glad of this imprisonment, which has obliged me to fix my whole mind upon it without interruption.”

“You have found out how to fly—and with wings like those!” exclaimed Icarus in amaze.

“With these very wings. Why not? Science always looks simple. What can look more simple than a wedge, a sail, a clock-spring? Fasten those wings on your shoulders with the wax, just as you see me fasten these on mine. There. Now open them; do you not feel as if you could reach the clouds? Spread them—mount—fly!”

So saying, he soared up through the opening in the roof, Icarus following him, and steered westward, higher and higher through the air. It was morning when they started; by noon they were over the sea out of sight of land.

“Take care!” cried Dædalus. “Don’t fly too high!”

But Icarus, reveling in all the delights of a sea-gull—nay, of an eagle—soared higher and higher towards the noontide sun. In vain Dædalus called upon him to come lower. He only laughed at his father for being timid and cautious, and soared higher and higher still towards the blazing sky.

Suddenly he felt his wings weakening—the wax was melting in the heat of the sun. He tried to spread them, so as to let himself down safely. They hung soft and limp, and down he came headlong into the sea.

“It’s quite clear that one must think of something stronger than wax,” thought Dædalus, as he saw Icarus sink and drown. “Well—I’ve lost my son, but I’ve gained a wrinkle.” Taking care to fly as low as he could, he himself reached the island of Sicily, where he set up another forge, found another king to keep him going, and invented so many wonderful things that to this very day nobody knows what they were.

As for his flying-machine, nobody else has come so near to one as even wax and feathers.

THE CHAMPION OF ATHENS.

ÆTHRA, a daughter of the King of Trœzene, was the wife of a foreign prince, and the mother of an only child, a boy, whom they named Thēseus. While Theseus was still an infant, his father said one day to Æthra—

“I am obliged to set off on a long and distant journey, through countries infested by wild beasts and robbers. If I should never return, take care of our child, bring him up like a king’s son, and send him to the city of Athens as soon as he grows strong enough to lift that stone.”

Æthra promised, and her husband left Trœzene never to return.

Having given up all hope of seeing her husband again, Æthra devoted herself to obeying his last commands. She gave Theseus the education of a prince; and every day, from the time he left her arms, she made him try to lift the stone. The child grew up to be the handsomest, strongest, and bravest youth in all the land, so that he had not a rival of his own age in all manly sports and feats of arms. But he could no more move the stone than he could fly.

At last, however, the moment came when the stone gave way a little. The next day he raised it a trifle further, and so on until he lifted it bodily from the ground, and rolled it away. Underneath it he found a splendid sword, with a curiously carved hilt, unlike any he had ever seen.

The time had therefore come for him to set out for Athens, according to his father’s commands. His mother implored him to go by sea, and not by those perilous paths by which her husband had never returned. But Theseus was only tempted by the dangers; and so, taking the sword with him, he set out for Athens overland.

After a long journey through a wild and difficult country, he reached a village, where he sought for supper and a night’s lodging. But the place seemed deserted, and it was only after a long search that he discovered an old shepherd, of whom he asked where a traveler might find food and shelter.

“Alas!” answered the shepherd, “there is not a scrap of food left in the place, not a house left unplundered. For Sciron has been here.”

“And who is Sciron?” asked Theseus.

“Ah, you must be a stranger indeed! Sciron is the chief of all the robbers. Do you see yonder castle among the mountains? That is where he lives, and thence he issues forth, when he wants food for his gluttony, to plunder and lay waste all the country round. And he is as cruel and savage as he is greedy. Not content with carrying off our cattle and our stores of corn and wine, he seizes men and women, and makes them wait upon him while he feasts; and when the feast is over, he amuses himself by throwing them from a high rock into the sea.”

“Thank you,” said Theseus. “Then I will sup with Sciron.” And off he started for the robber’s castle, leaving the amazed shepherd to think him a madman.

It was a long climb to the castle, which stood on the peak of a high cliff looking down into the sea. Theseus knocked upon the gate with the hilt of his sword, and, when it was opened by a ferocious-looking brigand, announced himself as a stranger who requested hospitality.

“You’ve come to the right place for that!” said the brigand, grimly. “Come with me.”

Theseus followed him into the hall, where broth was being brewed in caldrons, and a fat ox was being roasted whole. The robbers were all about—some preparing the feast, some already carousing, some quarreling over their plunder, some sprawling about the floor. In the midst of all the steam and din sat the chief, a huge and cruel-looking brute, whom Theseus did not need to be told was Sciron.

“So you want hospitality, do you?” asked Sciron. “Very well, as you’re a traveler, and don’t know the ways of the castle, you shall be let off easily. Of course you’ll have to be thrown from the cliff after supper—that’s the rule. But instead of being tortured, you shall only wash my feet for me and wait on me at table. You look as if you understood washing and how things ought to be served. Now, then, get some hot water and begin,” he said, thrusting out a pair of feet which looked as if they had not been touched by water for years.

A grinning robber brought a bowl of hot water. Theseus took it and threw it in the face of Sciron. “That wants washing, too,” said he.

Sciron rushed at him; but Theseus received him at the point of his sword, and the two fought furiously, while the robbers looked on, enjoying the game. Sciron was twice the size and weight of Theseus; but Theseus was the best swordsman in all Greece, and presently had him down.

“There,” said he, pricking Sciron’s throat with his sword, “you have had a lesson in manners. You shall wash my feet and wait on me before you go over the cliff after your victims. For I am not going away to leave a brigand like you alive behind me.”

Sciron, like all such bullies, was a coward at heart, and his own men had no longer any respect for him now that he had been worsted by a stripling. Amid the laughter of the robbers, he had to wash the feet of Theseus, and to serve him humbly with meat and drink, and was finally punished for his many cruel murders by being thrown into the sea.

Having received the thanks of the country for ridding it of such a scourge, Theseus traveled on till he came to another village, where he thought he would rest a little.

No sooner had he entered the place, however, than he was surrounded by a number of armed men, who gave him to understand that he was their prisoner.

“Is this the way you treat travelers in your country?” asked he.

“Assuredly,” answered the captain of the troop. “You are in the country of King Cercyon, and the law is that no traveler may leave it until he has wrestled with the king.”

“I ask for nothing better,” said Theseus. “What happens to the traveler if he conquers Cercyon?”

“Then he may pass on.”

“But if Cercyon conquers him?”

“Then he is tortured till he dies.”

“It is strange,” said Theseus, “that I never heard of such a law, or even of King Cercyon.”

“Not at all strange,” said the captain. “I don’t see how you could have heard it, seeing that no traveler has ever lived to tell the tale. Cercyon has conquered and killed them all, as he will conquer and kill you.”

And when he saw Cercyon Theseus could well believe it. The king was of immense height, with broad shoulders, and muscles that stood out like globes of iron. He smiled savagely when he saw Theseus, and stripped without a word. Theseus stripped also, and the two were soon clasping each other like a pair of fierce bears, or rather like a bear and a man.

It was a tremendous struggle, with all the brute strength on the side of Cercyon. But Theseus knew a hundred turns and twists of which the savage chieftain knew nothing; and at last, to the amazement of all who witnessed the struggle, Cercyon fell dead upon the ground with a broken spine. Thenceforth every traveler might pass through that country safely and without fear.

Theseus traveled on until he found himself benighted in a wild country, through which he wandered about until he reached a castle, where he craved a night’s shelter. Here he was kindly received, and told that the lord of the castle and of the country round was one Procrustes, who never turned a traveler from his door; nay, even now there were two guests with him. And so it proved. Procrustes entertained Theseus and the other two travelers at supper pleasantly and generously, and when it was time to retire for the night, himself conducted them into a chamber, where a bed, with nothing remarkable about it, stood ready in a corner.

“That is the guest-bed,” said Procrustes; “and I hope it will fit you.”

“Fit us?” asked Theseus, puzzled.

“Yes; it is the law of the country that if the bed does not fit the traveler, the traveler must be made to fit the bed. Do you try the bed first,” he said to one of the guests, the tallest of the three.

The traveler lay down, but found the bed rather short, and had to draw up his knees a little. “Be good enough to lie straight,” said Procrustes. He did so, his feet appearing beyond the bottom. Instantly Procrustes, with a sharp hatchet, chopped them off, one after another. “You’ll fit nicely now,” said he. “It’s your turn next,” he said to the second traveler.

This one thought himself safe; for, being short, his toes did not reach the bed’s end by a full two inches. Procrustes gave a signal, and immediately two strong attendants seized the unfortunate man, one by the shoulders and the other by the legs, and proceeded to pull him out to the proper length, despite his yells of pain.

“Stretch him on the rack,” said Procrustes. “Now,” he said to Theseus, “it is your turn in the game, and I hope, for your sake, you will give less trouble than the rest of them.”

Theseus had been taken aback at first by these extraordinary proceedings; but he now perceived that he had fallen upon another of those brigand chiefs who infested the country, and who resembled ogres rather than mere cruel and blood-thirsty savages.

So he drew his sword and closed with Procrustes; nor did he cease fighting till he had fitted the robber to his own bed by making him a whole head shorter. The robbers in the place, cowed by the death of their chief, submitted to Theseus, who went round the castle, and set at liberty hundreds of maimed victims of the slain monster’s cruelty.

Having received such thanks as they could give him, he journeyed on and on until at last he reached Athens. What he was to do there he did not know; but there was no need for him to ask. Somehow the fame of his deeds had flown before him,—how he had rid the country of Sciron and Cercyon and Procrustes, and other wild beasts and brigands, and he was received as befitted his valor.

Now the King of Athens at that time was Ægeus; and the queen was no other than the great and dreadful sorceress Medea, who had come to Athens after the murder of her children, and had married the king. Ægeus took a fancy to Theseus from the young stranger’s first appearance in Athens, gave him a high place at Court, and treated him as if he had been his own son. But with Medea it was different. She had a son of her own, and she was filled with jealousy lest Ægeus should make Theseus the heir to his throne. Moreover, she envied and hated him for his courage and his fame, in which he so far surpassed her own son Medus; and she feared him too, for she failed to bring him under her spells. So she plotted to destroy him in such a way that his death should never be brought home to her, just as she had made the daughters of Pelias the seeming murderesses of their own father.

She therefore pretended a great admiration for Theseus, and got the king to hold a great festival in his honor. It was arranged that Ægeus, during the feast, should send him a golden cup filled with wine, in which Medea secretly steeped one of her deadliest poisons.

All went as she had planned. Ægeus sent the poisoned goblet by one of the cup-bearers to Theseus, who stood up to drink the health of the king and queen. But—

“Hold!” suddenly cried Ægeus, starting; “what sword is that at your side?”

Theseus put down the cup to answer:—

“It is the sword with which I fought my way to Athens. I wear it to-day as my sword of honor.”

“But how comes it at your side?”

Then Theseus told the story of how it had been left by his unknown father under a stone at Trœzene, and how his mother’s name was Æthra. Scarcely had he finished when Ægeus, leaving his throne, fell upon his neck, exclaiming:—

“I was that father! You are my first-born son, and the heir to my crown!”

The Athenians, who already looked upon Theseus as their national hero, greeted their prince and future king with shouts of joy; and when the first excitement was over, Medea was seen no more. Enraged at the failure of her plot, and fearing discovery and vengeance, she vanished from Athens: some said they had seen her borne by dragons through the air. And this is the last of her.

Freed from her evil influence, the old love of Ægeus for Æthra revived, and he could not make enough of his and Æthra’s son. But Theseus did not become idle, and became in all ways the champion and protector of his father’s people. It was he who caught alive the famous wild bull of Marathon, which had ravaged the country for years, and sacrificed it to Minerva. He never spared himself, and he never failed.

At last, however, drew nigh that evil hour of Athens—that day in every year when the seven youths and seven maidens had to be sent to King Minos of Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur. The rule was to choose the victims by lot: so that none felt safe who had sons and daughters young enough to suit the taste of the monster. The seven girls were first chosen. But when it came to drawing lots for the youths, Theseus said:—

“You need draw only six this year. I will myself be the seventh. It may be that I shall find a way to deliver Athens from this tribute; if not, it is for a prince who cannot save his people to perish with them.”

Ægeus was in despair. But no entreaties could turn Theseus from his desperate resolve: neither the prayers of his own father, nor those of all the fathers and mothers in Athens, who would have drawn the seventh lot rather than he who was the pride and hope of the city should go to certain destruction. The ship which bore the yearly victims to Crete always carried black sails in token of public mourning. Theseus, in order to leave a little hope behind him, promised that, if he came back alive, he would hoist a white sail while returning, so that his safety might be seen from afar. Then, in solemn procession, amid the weeping of the crowd, the youths and maidens embarked in the black-sailed ship, Theseus leading them with the calmness of the only true courage—that which can, in cold blood, face danger for the sake of duty. None would have thought the worse of him had he stayed behind: and if he perished it would be as a mere victim, and without glory. Nor was it as if he were encouraged by any oracles, or helped by gifts from the gods. He is the first hero who was both a mere man and who never had any help but his own manfulness. And for all these reasons I think that his voyage to Crete is the finest story I have yet told.

When the ship reached Crete, the fourteen victims were conducted to the Labyrinth, there to be imprisoned until they should be given to the Minotaur. As they passed before Minos and his Court, the king’s youngest daughter, Ariadne, was filled with pity and love for Theseus, and set her thoughts to work how she might save him from his doom. But how in the world was such a thing to be done? None without the clue could either enter or escape from the maze: and even were that possible, it was not likely that the Minotaur would let himself be balked of his prey.

But she watched and waited: she hovered round the Labyrinth night after night, examining every door: until at last she was rewarded by finding, just within one of them, a little silken skein hidden away in a dark corner. The next night, having procured a torch and a sword, she bravely entered the door where the skein was, and, by winding up the silk, followed the clue. Through one twisting passage after another she wandered on and on, up and down long flights of steps, sometimes through great halls confused with columns, and sometimes through tunnels in which it was scarcely possible to stand. There seemed no end to the way. At last, however, the end of the silken thread told her that she had reached the inmost hall: and there her torch showed a sight that froze her with fear.

The victims had been delivered over to the Minotaur. Crowded together in a corner of the hall were six youths and seven girls: stamping and tossing his horned head was the horrible monster, furious with hunger and the sight of human food. Between the Minotaur and his despairing prey stood Theseus, facing the monster, so that he, by being the first victim, might prolong the lives of the others. He had no hope: he could not even struggle, for his hands were bound behind him with cords.

The sight of his courage gave back Ariadne hers. She darted forward, and cut his bonds with her sword. “Fly!” she cried: “follow me—I have the clue!” But as soon as Theseus felt the touch of the steel, he seized the sword from her hand, and, instead of flying, set upon the Minotaur with such fury that the monster bellowed with rage, amazement, and pain.

It was the hardest fight Theseus had ever fought: the wild bull of Marathon had been nothing to the Minotaur, who fought with a bull’s strength and a man’s skill and cunning. But the champion of Athens prevailed at last: and the monster fell dead with a groan which echoed through the Labyrinth like the bellowing of thunder.

“It will wake the whole city!” cried Ariadne: “follow me!” Theseus and his companions, scarce knowing that they were saved, followed Ariadne, who wound up the clue as she ran. When they reached the entrance-gate, the alarm of their escape had been given. Making straight for the shore, they found their black-sailed ship, sped on board, and, thanks to a kindly wind, were out at sea before they could be pursued.

The wind carried them to the island of Naxos: and here they remained—Theseus, Ariadne, and the rest—till the breeze should blow towards Athens. Such a breeze came in time; and then Theseus set sail for home with his thirteen companions, leaving Ariadne behind, to her great sorrow. Nor can anything make me believe that he meant this for a real parting, or that she thought so. One can think of many reasons why she should remain in Naxos for a while: it is quite certain that her powerful father Minos, who had already conquered the Athenians, and shown, by a cruel vengeance, how he hated them, would have attacked them again with all his fleets and armies if he had heard that they were giving shelter to a daughter who had betrayed him. So, leaving Ariadne safe in Naxos, Theseus returned to Athens as the savior of his city and the slayer of the Minotaur.

Meanwhile his father, Ægeus, had been every day and all day long looking out to sea from the farthest point of the shore for the return from Crete of the ship of mourning. He had but little hope, but nobody can help having a little: nor did he quite despair until one morning he saw on the horizon a vessel which he felt sure was the one he was watching for in such agony of mind. Nearer and nearer it came—alas! its sails were still as black as when it was outward bound. Theseus had forgotten to hoist the white sail which was to be the sign of safety.

So Ægeus, giving up his son for lost, threw himself into the sea and perished, just when Theseus was within sight of home. And that sea is called the Ægean, or the Sea of Ægeus, to this day. And thus Theseus, to the joy of the people, but with sorrow in his own heart, found himself king.

And the best of kings he made. The strength of his rule was only equaled by its gentleness. He made wise laws; he took care that all men received justice; he honored the gods; he obtained the respect and friendship of foreign nations; he taught the Athenians to be free, and to govern themselves, so that when he died they remained as great a people as while he was alive.

He sent for his mother, Æthra, and kept her in all love and honor. I wish I could tell you that he sent for Ariadne also. But he never had any other wife: and she was lost to him. There is a strange, mysterious story of how, when she was left sorrowing in Naxos, the god Bacchus (of whom you read in the First Story of Midas)—the god of the bounty of Nature and of the joy that men and women find in her—comforted Ariadne, and made her his bride, and raised her above the earth, giving her a crown of seven stars, which is still to be seen in the sky, and is called “Ariadne’s Crown.”

And there is a yet stranger story of how Theseus, after he was king, had the very wildest of all adventures—nothing less than an attempt to rescue from Hades the goddess Proserpine, and other imprisoned souls. But what happened to him there, and how he escaped the punishment of his daring, belongs to another story. It is as the hero and champion of Athens that he is remembered: and as such we will leave him.

THE HERO OF HEROES.