And so went striding off, on that straight way And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts And recommence at sorrow: drops like seed After the blossom, ultimate of all. Say, does the seed scorn earth and seek the sun? Surely it has no other end and aim Than to drop, once more die into the ground, Taste cold and darkness and oblivion there: And thence rise, tree-like grow through pain to joy, Long time the Thessalians waited and mourned. Herakles, no doubt they supposed him dead. When it be? Ay, he it was advancing! In he strode, He neither raised his face nor spoke, this time, The while his friend surveyed him steadily. As for - but can That friend looked rough with fighting: had he strained Somehow, a victory - for there stood the strength, - his big frame Shone out, all Herakles was back again, As the words followed the saluting hand. 'Admetus," said he, "take and keep this woman, my captive, till I come thy way again." But Admetus would admit no woman into the hall that Alcestis had left empty. Then cried Herakles, "Take hold of her. See now, my friend, if she look not somewhat like that wife thou hast lost." Ah, but the tears come, find the words at fault! It was the crowning grace of that great heart, Able to do now all herself had done, Risen to the height of her: so, hand in hand, Beside, when he found speech, you guess the speech. It was some mocking God that used the bliss Assure him that no spectre mocked at all; ... But all the time, Alkestis moved not once Herakles solemnly replied, "Not yet And on our upper world the third day rise! - Not only in Arcadia, Laconia, § 82. Apollo, the Musician. and Thessaly did Apollo care, as a herdsman, for the cattle of a mortal master; in Mount Ida, too, by the order of Jupiter he herded for a year the "shambling, crook-horned kine" of King Laomedon, and, playing on the lyre, aided Neptune to build the walls of Troy, just as Amphion, in his turn, had aided in the building of Thebes. Apollo's life as herdsman was spent in establishing wise laws and customs, in musical contests on the flute, and the lyre, or in passages of love with nymphs and maidens of mortal mould. 2 § 83. Apollo, Pan, and Midas. It is said that on a certain occasion Pan had the temerity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge the god of the lyre to a trial of skill. The challenge was accepted, and Tmolus, the mountain-god, was chosen umpire. The senior took his seat, and cleared away the trees from his ears to listen. At a given signal Pan blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower Midas, who happened to be present. Then Tmolus turned his head toward the sun-god, and all his trees turned with him. Apollo rose; his brow wreathed with Parnassian laurel, while his robe of Tyrian purple swept the ground. In his left hand he held the lyre, and with his right hand struck the strings. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to the lyric god, and all but Midas acquiesced in the judgment. He dissented, and 1 For the originals, see Iliad 2:715, and the Alcestis of Euripides. questioned the justice of the award. Apollo promptly transformed his depraved pair of ears into those of an ass. King Midas tried to hide his misfortune under an ample turban But his hair-dresser found it too much for his discretion to keep such a secret; he dug a hole in the ground, and, stooping down, whispered the story, and covered it up. But a thick bed of reeds springing up in the meadow began whispering the story, and has continued to do so from that day to this, every time a breeze passes over the place. In the following "Hymn,"1 Pan taunts Apollo as he might have done when Midas was sitting contentedly by: From the forests and highlands We come, we come; From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb, Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, The birds on the myrtle bushes, The cicale above in the lime, Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was Liquid Peneüs was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay, In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 1 Shelley, Hymn of Pan. Speeded by my sweet pipings. The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, And the brink of the dewy caves, And all that did then attend and follow I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the dædal Earth, And of Heaven-and the giant wars, And then I changed my pipings, — It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed: § 84. The Loves of Apollo. - Beside Psamathe of Argos,1 Coronis of Thessaly, and the nymph Clymene,3 Apollo loved the muse Calliope, who bore him Orpheus, and the nymph Cyrene, whose son was Aristæus. Of his relations with two other maidens the following myths exist. § 85. Daphne. -The lord of the silver bow was not always prosperous in his wooing. His first love, which, by the way, owed its origin to the malice of Cupid, was specially unfortunate. It appears that Apollo, seeing the boy playing with his bow and arrows, had tauntingly advised him to leave warlike weapons for hands worthy of them and content himself with the torch of love. Whereupon the son of Venus had rejoined, "Thine arrows may strike all things else, Apollo, but mine shall strike thee." 1 § 78. 2 § 79. 3 § 75. 4 § 107. 6 Ovid, Metam. 1: 452-567. 5 § 130. |