Half a Hundred Hero Tales of Ulysses and The Men of Old

by Unknown

BY MRS. GUY E. LLOYD

Not far from the beautiful city of Athens, and within sight of its temple-crowned citadel, the Acropolis, lies the village of Colonos.

Here, on the slope of the hill, once stood a sacred grove of laurel, whose evergreen sprays adorn Apollo's hair; of olive, planted there by the gray-eyed goddess, Minerva, protectress of Athens; and of vine, the gift of Bacchus.

To this grove there came one day an old man, blind and meanly clad, but for all that venerable and noble of aspect, the unfortunate King Œdipus, led by his daughter Antigone, the sole prop and comfort of his old age.

Sad indeed had been the fate of Œdipus. It had been decreed by the immortal gods that he should slay his father, King Laïus, and while he was still a babe in arms Laïus bade his servants take the child and leave him amongst the bare rocks of Cithæron. Here the forsaken infant was found by a shepherd, who bore him far away from his own city of Thebes to Corinth. Merope the queen chanced to see the child, and struck by the likeness to her own child whom she had just lost, she adopted him, and he was brought up in the palace, believing himself to be truly the son of those with whom he dwelt. But having learnt from the oracle of Apollo that he was doomed to slay his own father, he left Corinth in order to escape that doom, and on the road it fell on him without his being aware of it. For he met a choleric old man in a chariot, who tried to thrust him out of the path, and in defending himself against the old man's goad he smote him with his staff and slew him, not knowing who he was. But this was his father, Laïus, King of Thebes.

Œdipus, journeying on, with no thought but to get far from Corinth and avoid all possibility of parricide, came by chance to his own unknown city, Thebes. Here he delivered the people from a monstrous plague, the Sphinx, and they chose him by acclamation for their king. Thereafter he ruled them well and happily till the wrath of the gods fell upon them for the unavenged murder of their late king. Then did Œdipus turn his mind to seek out the slayer of Laïus, and seeking diligently he found, in the end, that he himself had slain the king, and that the king was his own father. In grief and horror at his own unwitting crime, he stabbed and lacerated his own eyes. To crown his cup of sorrows he was driven from his home by his wicked and ambitious sons, and he wandered out into the world a blind beggar, guided and supported by his faithful daughter Antigone.

Far had they wandered, and they were worn with toil and hunger when they sank down to rest beside the sacred grove of Colonos. Antigone guessed that the tower-crowned hill she saw before her in the distance guarded Athens, but she did not know what place this might be where her father rested, and was about to seek some one from whom to inquire, when by chance a man passed by along the road. Œdipus was beginning to ask this stranger to tell them somewhat of the place whither his wanderings had brought him, but the man interrupted his half-spoken question by telling him instantly to leave his seat, for this grove was the home of dread and mighty goddesses, and no man was permitted to set foot within the close, or even to approach the precincts.

Then Œdipus asked the name of these goddesses. The wayfarer himself called them Eumenides, the Gracious Ones; at Athens they were known as the Semnai, or Dread Ladies; but their proper name was the Erinys, or Avengers of Blood.

When Œdipus heard this he was glad, for the oracle had promised that the end of all his woes should come when he reached the shrine of the Dread Goddesses, and that as a sign that his troubles were over there should come a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky. Moreover the oracle foretold a blessing on the land that gave him burial. Therefore Œdipus begged the stranger to go in all haste to summon to him Theseus, the great and just King of Athens. But meanwhile the Thebans also had heard from the oracle that peace and prosperity should be to the last resting-place of the toil-worn Œdipus, and they had sent out to seek him and bring him back to his own city.

It was beside the grove of the Dread Goddesses that the Thebans found their uncrowned king, but he refused to return to a land that had driven him forth from its borders, choosing rather to die where he was, in the land of his adoption, the hospitable state of Athens. But the Thebans were angered at his refusal, and seized and bore off his faithful daughter Antigone. And the old king was in sore distress; but when he appealed to Theseus to help him, Theseus stood his friend and pursued the band that was bearing away Antigone, and brought her back to her father, safe and sound.