TANTALUS, PELOPS, ATREUS, AND THYESTES.
Tantalus, son of Jupiter, reigned in Phrygia. Wishing to test the divinity of the gods who were visiting him, he murdered his son Pelops, and served up to them his limbs, demanding of them to name what the new meat was. The faithless cruelty of Tantalus was discovered, and the Gods refused to touch the horrible repast, with the exception of Ceres, who, thinking only on her lost Proserpine, eat one of his shoulders, with her accustomed appetite. Jupiter enraged at this atrocious conduct of Tantalus, destroyed his palace with a thunderbolt, and ordered Mercury to precipitate him to the bottom of hell. Here he is represented as punished with an insatiable thirst, and placed up to the chin in the midst of a pool of water, that passes around, yet never touches his lips; while, above his head, hangs a bough, laden with delicious fruit, which, when his hand would grasp it, is borne away by a sudden blast of wind.
Pelops was restored to life by Jupiter, and supplied with an ivory shoulder, in place of that which had been devoured by Ceres, and to which was granted the power of healing, by its touch, every complaint. He succeeded to the throne of his father, and maintained the war against the King of Troy for a long time, but was at last forced to leave Phrygia and seek a retreat in Pisa, where he married Hippodamia, the daughter of the king, that monarch having declared that she should only wed the man who would run on foot as fast as he could proceed in his chariot. This difficulty was overcome by Pelops, who bribed the charioteer to give his master an old chariot which broke down in the middle of the course, and killed Œnomaus; and when the charioteer would have claimed the reward of his infamy, he threw him into the sea, under pretext of punishing his negligence.
Thus master of the kingdom of Pisa, and the hand of Hippodamia, he made bold war upon his neighbour, and conquered their land, which he named Peloponnessus, or the isle of Pelops.
In the family of the Pelopides murder and assassination seem never to have ceased their fearful course. Atreus and Thyestes, the sons of Pelops, having been counselled by Hippodamia to kill
Chrysippus, who was an illegitimate son of Pelops, they refused to obey, which so exasperated her, that she stabbed the child with her own hands.
Pelops, suspecting his two sons of the crime, banished them from his court. Atreus sought the kingdom of Eurystheus, King of Argos, and succeeded him on his throne, after marrying his daughter. Here he treated his brother Thyestes, who had followed him to the court, with great kindness, but he was recompensed with ingratitude, for his brother succeeded in winning the affections of his wife.
Irritated at so unlooked for a crime, Atreus took a fearful vengeance. Having been banished from the city for some time, Thyestes was again recalled, and invited to a sumptuous feast, at which was served up the children born to him by the connexion with his brother's wife, all of whom had been sacrificed to his vengeance.
When the repast was over he showed to him the heads of the
children, a sight which struck Thyestes with horror. The deed was so cruel and impious, that the very sun is said to have started back in amazement; and the unhappy Thyestes slew himself with his sword.
There was now one son left, named Egisthus, who, himself the fruit of a great crime, had been brought up by Agamemnon, and to him did the spectre of Thyestes appear, to exhort him to revenge upon his brother the cruel act he had performed; nor were the fates satisfied until the deed had been accomplished, which revenged upon Atreus the infamous and atrocious conduct at which the very sun itself had started.
"Asked by his wife to his inhuman feast,
Tereus, unknowingly, is made a guest:
While she, her plot the better to disguise
Styles it some unknown mystic sacrifice:
And such the nature of the hallowed rite,
The wife her husband only could invite,
The slaves must all withdraw, and be debarred the sight.
Tereus on a throne of antique state,
Loftily raised, before the banquet sate;
And, glutton-like, luxuriously pleased
With his own flesh, his hungry maw appeased.
Nay, such a blindness o'er his senses falls,
That he for Itys to the table calls.
When Procne, now impatient to disclose
The joy that from her full revenge arose,
Cries out, in transports of a cruel mind,
'Within yourself, your Itys you may find.'
Still at this puzzling answer with surprise,
Around the room he winds his curious eyes;
And, as he still enquired, and called aloud;
Fierce Philomela, all besmeared with blood,
Her hand with murder stained, her spreading hair
Hanging dishevelled, with a ghastly air,
Stepped forth, and flung full in the tyrant's face
The head of Itys, gory as it was:
Nor ever longed so much to use her tongue,
And, with a just reproach, to vindicate her wrong.
The Thracian monarch from the table flings
While with his cries the vaulted parlour rings;
His imprecations echo down to hell,
And rouse the snaky furies from their Stygian cell.
One while, he labours to disgorge his breast,
And free his stomach from the cursed feast;
Then, weeping o'er his lamentable doom,
He styles himself his son's sepulchral tomb,
Now, with drawn sabre, and impetuous speed,
In close pursuit he drives Pandion's breed;
Whose nimble feet spring with so swift a force
Across the fields, they seem to wing their course:
And now, on real wings themselves they raise,
And steer their airy flight by different ways:
One to the woodland's shady covert hies,
Around the smoky roof the other flies;
Whose feathers yet the marks of murder stain,
Where, stampt upon her breast, the crimson spots remain.
Tereus, through grief, and haste to be revenged,
Shares the like fate, and to a bird is changed:
Fixed on his head, the crested plumes appear;
Long is his beak, and sharpened like a spear;
Thus armed, his looks his inward mind display,
And, to a lapwing turned, he fans his way."
Ovid.
