By Elsie Finnimore Buckley
Long ago, in the city of Thebes, there ruled a king named Laius and his queen Iocasta. They were children of the gods, and Thebes itself, men said, had been built by hands more than mortal; for Apollo had led Cadmus the Phœnician, the son of Zeus, to the sacred spot where he was to raise the citadel of Thebes, and Pallas Athene had help him to slay the monstrous dragon that guarded the sacred spring of Ares. The teeth of the dragon Cadmus took and planted in the plain of Thebes, and from this seed there sprang up a great host of armed men, who would have slain him; but he took a stone and cast it in their midst, whereupon the serpent men turned their arms one against another, fighting up and down the plain till only five were left. With the help of these five, Cadmus built the citadel of Thebes, and round it made a wall so wide that a dozen men and more might walk upon it, and so huge were the stones and so strong was the masonry that parts of it are standing to this day.
As for the city itself, the tale goes that Amphion, the mightiest of all musicians, came with his lyre, and so sweetly did he play that the hearts of the very stones were stirred within them, so that of their own free will they fell into their places, and the town of Thebes rose up beneath the shadow of the citadel.
For many a long day did Laius and Iocasta rule over the people of Thebes, and all that time they had no children; for a dreadful curse lay on the head of Laius that, if ever he had a son, by that son’s hand he should die. At last a boy was born to them, and Laius, remembering the curse, swore that the child should never grow to manhood, and he bade Iocasta slay him forthwith. But she, being his mother, was filled with a great love and pity for the helpless child. When it nestled in her arms and clung to her breast she could not find it in her heart to slay it, and she wept over it many a bitter salt tear, and pressed it closer to her bosom.
So she called a trusty house slave, who knew the king’s decree, and placing the child in his arms, she said: “Go, take it away, and hide it in the hills. Perchance the gods will have pity on it, and put it in the heart of some shepherd, who feeds his flocks on distant pastures, to take the child home to his cot and rear it. Farewell, my pretty babe. The green grass must be thy cradle, and the mountain breezes must lull thee to sleep. May the gods in their mercy bless thy childhood’s hours, and make thy name famous among men; for thou art a king’s son, and a child of the Immortals, and the Immortals forget not those that are born of their blood.”
So the man took the child from Iocasta; but, because he feared the king’s decree, he pierced its ankles and bound them together, for he thought: “Surely, even if some shepherd wandering on the mountainside should light upon the child, he will never rear one so maimed; and if the king should ask, I will say that he is dead.”
But because the child wept for the pain in its ankles, he took it home first to his wife to be fed and comforted, and when she gave it back into his arms, it smiled up into his face. Then all the hardness died out of his heart, for the gods had shed about it a grace to kindle love in the coldest breast.
Now Cithæron lies midway between Thebes and Corinth, and in winter-time the snow lies deep upon the summit, and the wild winds shriek through the rocks and clefts, and the pine trees pitch and bend beneath the fury of the blast, so that men called it the home of the Furies, the awful goddesses, who track out sin and murder. And there, too, in the streams and caverns, dwell the naiads and the nymphs, wild spirits of the rocks and waters, and if any mortal trespass on their haunts, they drive him to madness in their echoing grottoes and gloomy caves. Yet, for all that, though men called it dark Cithæron, the grass about its feet grew fine and green, so that the shepherds came from all the neighboring towns to pasture their flocks on its well-watered slopes. Here it was that Laius’s herdsman fell in with a herdsman of Polybus, King of Corinth, and, seeing that he was a kindly man, and likely to have compassion on the child, he gave it to him to rear.
Now, it had not pleased the gods to grant any children to Polybus, King of Corinth, and Merope, his wife, though they wreathed their altars with garlands and burnt sweet savor of incense; and at last all hope died out of their hearts, and they said: “The gods are angry, and will destroy our race, and the kingdom shall pass into the hands of a stranger.”
But one day it chanced that the queen saw in the arms of one of her women a child she had not seen before, and she questioned her, and asked if it were hers. And the woman confessed that her husband, the king’s herdsman, had found it on dim Cithæron, and had taken pity on it, and brought it home.