"When a hare is hunted," he said, "thou knowest how he will double and turn, and take a line he has no mind to pursue to the end. So was it with me. Long ago in my father's house I heard of thee and of thy beauty, and how thou couldst cast such a spell upon the hearts of men that for thy sake they would fling away their lives. And a great desire came upon me to see this thing for myself, for I could scarce believe it. So I set forth alone to find thee, and hid my name from all men as I journeyed, for thus could I be more free to act as seemed best in mine own eyes. And I saw thee run in a race, and that glimpse was enough to tell me that I too one day must run with thee. Yet was I more wary than my rivals. I knew that to come as a suitor was the way to turn thy heart to stone. Wherefore I pretended to be bound by a vow, which would bring me as a passing stranger before thee. Canst thou forgive the lie?"
She smiled into his face.
"It was a daring venture," she said.
"I knew I was as one who treads unknown paths on a moonless night," he answered. "Yet deep in my heart I felt that when a man desires one thing on earth above every other—when he loves that thing better than life itself, he is like to win it in the end, if he walk patiently step by step in faith. He will win that thing, or death in his struggle for it; and he is content that so it should be."
Such was the winning of Atalanta. As for the golden apples, she placed them in a precious casket, and guarded them jealously all her days, for a memorial of the race that she had failed to win.
[Paris and Œnone]
WHEN Peleus the mortal married silver-footed Thetis, the fair nymph of the sea, great was the rejoicing among gods and men; for Peleus was a brave warrior and a mighty man, and well deserved to have for wife a child of the Immortals. To his marriage-feast he bade all the gods and goddesses, and they left their seats on calm Olympus, and came down to Pelion where he dwelt, a band of shining ones, to do honour to the mortal whom they loved. One alone of them all he had not asked—Eris, the black-browed Goddess of Strife, for at his wedding-feast he wished to have happiness and joy, and no dark looks to mar the gladness of his board. But he looked to find shame in the heart of one who knew not shame. As it was, she came unasked, and great was the sorrow that her coming brought, both to him and to his wife and all the fair land of Hellas. For she sowed the seed of discord which blossomed to the blood-red flower of war, in which the mightiest and the best of two great nations fell through ten long years of strife, and among them was Achilles, the swiftest and bravest of mortal men, the son whom Thetis bore to Peleus to be a comfort to him in his old age, and to succeed him when he died. But as it was, Achilles died in battle far from his native land, in the prime and flower of his manhood.