Children of the Dawn : Old Tales of Greece

by E. F. Buckley

"What sayest thou now, thou whelp? Begone with thy lying taunt, now that thou hast licked the dust for thy falsehood."

And he flung him out from the hall. But Merope leant pale and sad against a pillar, and veiled her face in her mantle to hide her tears. And when they were alone, Œdipus took her hand and stroked it, and said,

"Grieve not for my fiery spirit, mother, but call me thine own son, and say that I was right to silence the liar who would cast dishonour upon my father's name and upon thee."

But she looked at him sadly and longingly through her tears, and spoke in riddling words,

"The gods, my child, sent thee to thy father and to me in answer to our prayers. A gift of God thou art, and a gift of God thou shalt be, living and dead, to them that love thee. The flesh groweth old and withereth away as a leaf, but the spirit liveth on for ever, and those are the truest of kin who are kin in the spirit of goodness and of love."

But Œdipus was troubled, for she would say no more, but only held his hand, and when he drew it away it was wet with her tears. Then he thought in his heart,

"Verily, my mother would not weep for nought. What if, after all, there be something in the tale? I will go to the central shrine of Hellas and ask the god of Truth, golden-haired Apollo. If he say it is a lie, verily I will thrust it back down that coward's throat, and the whole land shall ring with his infamy. And if it be true—the gods will guide me how to act."

So he set forth alone upon his pilgrimage. And he took the road that runs by the side of the sea and up past Mount Gerania, with its pine-clad slopes, where Megarus, the son of Zeus, took refuge, when the floods covered all the land and only the mountain-tops stood out like islands in the sea. For he followed the cry of the cranes as they sought refuge from the waters, and was saved, and founded the city of Megara, which is called by his name to this day. Right past Ægosthena—the home of the black-footed goats—went Œdipus to Creusis, along the narrow rocky path between the mountains and the sea, where a man must needs be sure of foot and steady of head, if he is to stand against the storms that sweep down from bleak Cithæron. For the winds rush shrieking down the hills like Furies in their wrath, and they sweep all that stands in their way over the beetling cliffs into the yawning, seething gulf below, and those that fall into her ravening jaws she devours like some wild beast, and they are seen no more. Then he went through fertile Thisbe past the little port of Tipha, the home of Tiphys, helmsman of the famous Argonauts, who sailed to nameless lands and unknown seas in their search for the Golden Fleece. And many a roaring torrent did he cross, as it rushed foaming down from the steep white cliffs of Helicon, and over pathless mountains, past rocky Anticyra and the hills of hellebore, and through the barren plain of Cirrha, till he came to rock-built Crisa and the fair Crisean plain, the land of cornfields and vineyards and the grey-green olive-groves, where in spring-time the pomegranate and oleander flowers shine out red as beacon-fires by night.

There he had well-nigh reached his journey's end, and his heart beat fast as he mingled with the band of pilgrims, each bound on his different quest to the god of Light and Truth, golden-haired Apollo, the mightiest of the sons of Zeus and the slayer of Pytho, the famous dragon. At Delphi is his shrine and dwelling-place, and there within his temple stands the sacred stone which fell from heaven and marks the centre of the earth. A great gulf yawns beneath, a mighty fissure going deep down into the bowels of the earth to the regions of the dead and the land of endless night; and deadly fumes rise up and noxious mists and vapours, so that the Pythian priestess, who sits above on her brazen tripod, is driven to frenzy by their power. Then it is that she hears the voice of Apollo, and her eyes are opened to see what no mortal can see, and her ears to hear the secrets of the gods and Fate. Those things which Apollo bids her she chants to the pilgrims in mystic verse, which only the wise can interpret aright. So from north and south and east and west men flocked to hear her prophecies, and the fame of Apollo's shrine went out through every land—from Ocean's stream and the Pillars of Heracles to the far Ionian shore and Euphrates, the mighty river of the East.