Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life

by L. W. Yaggy; T. L. Haines

Thus Eos spoke to him for many days, and the great happiness of his life was marred, for the words of Eos would come back to his mind, as he looked on the happy and guileless Prokris. He had begun to doubt whether she were in very deed so pure and good as she seemed to be, and at last he said to Eos that he would prove her love. Then Eos told him how to do so, and said that if he came before his wife as a stranger and brought to her rich gifts, as from a distant land, she would forget her love for Kephalos.

With a heavy heart he went away, for he foreboded evil days from the subtle words of Eos, and he departed and dwelt in another land. So the time passed on, until many weeks and months had gone by, and Prokris mourned and wept in the house of Erechtheus, until the brightness of her eye was dimmed and her voice had lost its gladness. Day after day she sought throughout all the land for Kephalos, day after day she went up the hill of Hymettos, and as she looked towards the sea, she said, "Surely he will come back again; ah, Kephalos, thou knowest not the love which thou hast forsaken." Thus she pined away in her sorrow, although to all who were around her she was as gentle and as loving as ever. Her father was now old and weak, and he knew that he must soon die, but it grieved him most of all that he must leave his child in a grief more bitter than if Kephalos had remained to comfort her. So Erechtheus died, and the people honored him as one of the heroes of the land, but Prokris remained in his house desolate, and all who saw her pitied her for her true love and her deep sorrow. At last she felt that Kephalos would return no more, and that she could no more be happy until she went to her father in the bright home of the heroes and the gods.

Then a look of peace and loving patience came over her fair face, and she roamed with a strange gladness through every place where Kephalos had wandered with her; and so it came to pass that one day Prokris sat resting in the early morning on the eastern slopes of Mount Hymettos, when suddenly she beheld a man coming near to her. The dress was strange, but she half thought she knew his tall form and the light step as he came up the hill. Presently he came close to her, and she felt as if she were in a strange dream. The sight of his face and the glance of his eye carried her back to the days that were past, and she started up and ran towards him, saying, "O Kephalos, thou art come back at last; how couldst thou forsake me so long?" But the stranger answered, in a low and gentle voice (for he saw that she was in great sorrow), "Lady, thou art deceived. I am a stranger come from a far country, and I seek to know the name of this land." Then Prokris sat down again on the grass, and clasped her hands, and said, slowly, "It is changed and I can not tell how; yet surely it is the voice of Kephalos." Then she turned to the stranger, and said, "O stranger, I am mourning for Kephalos, whom I have loved and lost; he, too, came from a far land across the sea. Dost thou know him, and canst thou tell me where I may find him?" And the stranger answered, "I know him, lady; he is again in his own home, far away, whither thou canst not go; yet think not of him, for he has forgotten his love." Then the stranger spoke to her in gentle and soothing words, until her grief became less bitter. Long time he abode in the land, and it pleased Prokris to hear his voice while his eye rested kindly on her, until she almost fancied that she was with Kephalos once more. And she thought to herself, "What must that land be, from which there can come two who are beautiful as the bright heroes?"

So at last, when with soft and gentle words he had soothed her sorrow, the stranger spoke to her of his love, and Prokris felt that she, too, could love him, for had not Kephalos despised her love and forsaken her long ago? So he said, "Canst thou love me, Prokris, instead of Kephalos?" and when she gently answered "Yes," then a change came over the face of the stranger, and she saw that it was Kephalos himself who clasped her in his arms. With a wild cry she broke from him, and as bitter tears ran down her cheek, she said, "O Kephalos, Kephalos, why hast thou done thus? all my love was thine, and thou hast drawn me into evil deeds." Then, without tarrying for his answer, with all her strength she fled away, and she hastened to the sea shore and bade them make ready a ship to take her from her father's land. Sorrowfully they did as she besought them, and they took her to the Island of Crete, far away in the eastern sea.

When Prokris was gone, the maiden Eos came and stood before Kephalos, and she said to him, "My words are true, and now must thou keep the vow by which thou didst swear to love me, if Prokris should yield herself to a stranger." So Kephalos dwelt with Eos, but for all her fond words he could not love her as still he loved Prokris.

Meanwhile Prokris wandered, in deep and bitter sorrow, among the hills and valleys of Crete. She cared not to look on the fair morning as it broke on the pale path of night; she cared not to watch the bright sun as he rose from the dark sea, or when he sank to rest behind the western waters. For the earth had lost all its gladness, and she felt that she could die. But one day as she sat on a hill-side and looked on the broad plains which lay stretched beneath, suddenly a woman stood before her, brighter and more glorious than the daughters of men, and Prokris knew, from the spear which she held in her hand and the hound which crouched before her, that it was Artemis, the mighty child of Zeus and Leto. Then Prokris fell at her feet, and said, "O lady Artemis, pity me in my great sorrow;" and Artemis answered, "Fear not, Prokris, I know thy grief. Kephalos hath done thee a great wrong, but he shall fall by the same device wherewith he requited thy pure and trusting love." Then she gave to Prokris her hound and her spear, and said, "Hasten now to thine own land, and go stand before Kephalos, and I will put a spell upon him that he may not know thee. Follow him in the chase, and at whatsoever thou mayest cast this spear, it shall fall, and from this hound no prey which thou mayest seek for shall ever escape."

So Prokris sailed back to the land of Erechtheus with the gifts of Artemis. And when Kephalos went to the chase, Prokris followed him, and all the glory of the hunt fell to her portion, for the hound struck down whatever it seized, and her spear never missed its aim. And Kephalos marveled greatly, and said to the maiden, "Give me thy hound and thy spear," and he besought the stranger many times for the gift, till at last Prokris said, "I will not give them but for thy love, thou must forsake Eos and come to dwell with me." Then Kephalos said, "I care not for Eos; so only I have thy gifts, thou shalt have my love." But even as he spoke these words, a change came over the face of the stranger, and he saw that it was Prokris herself who stood before him. And Prokris said, "Ah, Kephalos, once more thou hast promised to love me, and now may I keep thy love, and remain with thee always. Almost I may say that I never loved any one but thee, but thou art changed, Kephalos, although still the same, else wouldst thou not have promised to love me for the gift of a hound and a spear." Then Kephalos besought Prokris to forgive him, and he said, "I am caught in the trap which I laid for thee, but I have fallen deeper. When thou gavest thy love to me as to a stranger, it pleased thee yet to think that I was like Kephalos, and my vow to thee has been given for the mere gifts which I coveted." But Prokris only said, "My joy is come back to me again, and now I will leave thee no more."

So once more in the land of Erechtheus Prokris and Kephalos dwelt together in a true and deep love. Once more they wandered over hill and dale as in the times that were past, and looked out from the heights of Hymettos to the white shore of Eubœa, as it glistened in the light of early day. But whenever he went to the chase with the hound and the spear of Artemis, Prokris saw that Eos still watched if haply she might talk with Kephalos alone, and win him again for herself. Once more she was happy, but her happiness was not what it had been when Kephalos first gave her his love, while her father, Erechtheus, was yet alive. She knew that Eos still envied her, and she sought to guard Kephalos from the danger of her treacherous look and her enticing words. She kept ever near him in the chase, although he saw her not, and thus it came to pass that one day, as Prokris watched him from a thicket, the folds of her dress rustled against the branches, so that Kephalos thought it was some beast moving from his den, and hurled at her the spear of Artemis that never missed its mark. Then he heard the cry as of one who has received a deadly blow, and when he hastened into the thicket, Prokris lay smitten down to the earth before him. The coldness of death was on her face, and her bright eye was dim, but her voice was as loving as ever, while she said, "O Kephalos, it grieves me not that thy arm hath struck me down. I have thy love, and having it, I go to the land of the bright heroes, where my father, Erechtheus, is waiting for his child, and where thou, too, shalt one day meet me, to dwell with me forever." One loving look she gave to Kephalos, and the smile of parting vanished in the stillness of death.