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CHAPTER XXI.

THE DESCENDANTS OF CECROPS AND ERICHTHONIUS.

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§ 151. Cecrops and Erichthonius.- Cecrops, half-snake, halfman, came from Crete or Egypt into Attica, founded Athens, and chose Minerva rather than Neptune as its guardian. His successor was Erichthonius, or Erechtheus, a snake-formed genius of the fertile soil of Attica. This Erichthonius was a special ward of the goddess Minerva, who brought him up in her temple. His son Pandion had two daughters, Procne and Philomela, of whom he gave the former in marriage to Tereus, king of Thrace (or of Daulis in Phocis). This ruler, after his wife had borne him a son Itys (or Itylus), wearied of her, plucked out her tongue by the roots to ensure her silence, and, pretending that she was dead, took in marriage the other sister, Philomela. Procne by means of a web, into which she wove her story, informed Philomela of the horrible truth. In revenge upon Tereus, the sisters killed Itylus, and served up the child as food to the father; but the gods, in indignation, transformed Procne into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, forever bemoaning the murdered Itylus, and Tereus into a hawk, forever pursuing the sisters.*

"Hark! ah, the nightingale —

The tawny-throated!

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!

What triumph! hark! - what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,

1 Ovid, Metam. 2: 555; Apollod. 3: 14, § 1; Pausanias; and Hyginus, Fab. 48.

2 Ovid, Metam. 2:554; 6:676; Homer, Il. 2:547; Od. 7:81; Hyginus, Poet. Astr. 2:13.

8 For Ruskin's interpretation, see Queen of the Air, § 38.

Apollod. 3: 14, § 8; Ovid, Metam. 6:412-676.

Still, after many years in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain

That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain
Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,

To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no calm?

"Dost thou to-night behold,

Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse,

With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes,

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?

Dost thou once more assay

Thy flight, and feel come over thee,

Poor fugitive, the feathery change

Once more, and once more seem to make resound

With love and hate, triumph and agony,

Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?

Listen, Eugenia —

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!
Again-thou hearest?

Eternal passion!

Eternal pain!"1

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§ 152. Theseus.2 A descendant of Erechtheus and Pandion was Ægeus, king of Athens. By Æthra, granddaughter of Pelops, he became the father of the Attic hero, Theseus. Ægeus, on parting from Æthra, before the birth of the child, had placed his sword and shoes under a large stone, and had directed her to send the child to him if it should prove strong enough to roll away the stone and take what was under. The lad Theseus was brought up at Troezen, of which Pittheus, Æthra's father, was king. When Æthra thought the time had come, she led Theseus to the stone.

1 Matthew Arnold, Philomela.

2 Ovid, Metam. 7: 350-424; Plutarch's Theseus.

He

removed it with ease, and took the sword and shoes. Since, at that time, the roads were infested with robbers, his grandfather Pittheus pressed him earnestly to take the shorter and safer way to his father's country, by sea; but the youth, feeling in himself the spirit and the soul of a hero, and eager to signalize himself like Hercules, determined on the more perilous and adventurous journey by land.

His first day's journey brought him to Epidaurus, where dwelt Periphetes, a son of Vulcan. This ferocious savage always went armed with a club of iron, and all travellers stood in terror of his violence; but beneath the blows of the young hero he speedily fell.

Several similar contests with the petty tyrants and marauders of the country followed, in all of which Theseus was victorious. Most important was his slaughter of Procrustes, or the Stretcher. This giant had an iron bedstead, on which he used to tie all travellers who fell into his hands. If they were shorter than the bed, he stretched them till they fitted it; if they were longer than the bed, he lopped off their limbs.

In the course of time, Theseus reached Athens; but here new dangers awaited him. For Medea, the sorceress, who had fled from Corinth after her separation from Jason,' had become the wife of Ægeus. Knowing by her arts who the stranger was, and fearing the loss of her influence with her husband, if Theseus should be acknowledged as his son, she tried to poison the youth; but the sword which he wore discovered him to his father, and prevented the fatal draught. Medea fled to Asia, where the country afterwards called Media is said to have received its name from her. Theseus was acknowledged by his sire, and declared successor to the throne.

§ 153. Theseus and Ariadne.2- Now the Athenians were at that time in deep affliction, on account of the tribute of youths and maidens which they were forced to send to the Minotaur, dwelling in the labyrinth of Crete, a penalty said to have been imposed

19 147.

2 Od. 11:321; Plutarch's Theseus; Catullus, LXIV.

by Minos upon the Athenians because geus had sent Androgeüs, the son of Minos, against

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the Marathonian bull, and so had brought about the young man's death.

From this calamity Theseus resolved to deliver his countrymen, or to die in the attempt. He, therefore, in spite of the entreaties of his father, presented himself as champion of Athens and of her fair sons and daughters, to do battle against the Minotaur; and departed with the victims in a vessel bear

ing black sails, which he promised his father to change for white in the event of his returning victorious. So,

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Rather than cargo on cargo of corpses undead should be wafted 1
Over the ravening sea to the pitiless monster of Creta, -
Leaving the curvèd strand Piræan, and wooing the breezes,
Theseus furrowed the deep to the dome superb of the tyrant.

Then as the maid Ariadne beheld him with glances of longing, -
Princess royal of Creta Minoan, tender, sequestered, —
Locked in a mother's embrace, in seclusion virginal, fragrant,
Like some myrtle set by streaming ways of Eurotas,

Like to the varied tints that Spring invites with her breezes, -
Then, as with eager gaze she looked her first upon Theseus,
Never a whit she lowered her eyes nor ceased to consume him,
Ere to the core profound her breast with love was enkindled.
-God-born boy, thou pitiless heart, provoker of madness,
Mischievous, mingling care with the fleeting pleasure of mortals, -
Goddess of Golgi, thou, frequenter of coverts Idalian,

1 Catullus, LXIV. From the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis. A Translation in Hexameters, by Charles Mills Gayley.

In what wildering seas ye tossed the impassionate maiden

Ever a-sighing, aye for the fair-haired stranger a-sighing!
Ah, what ponderous fears oppressed her languishing bosom,
How, more pallid than gold her countenance flashed into whiteness,
What time Theseus marched unto death or to glory undying,
Manful, minded to quell the imbruted might of the monster!

Not unaided, however, did he undertake the task; for Ariadne, apprehensive lest he might lose his way in the dædalian labyrinth, furnished him with a thread, the gift of Vulcan, which, unrolled by Theseus as he entered the maze, should enable him on his return to retrace his former path. Meanwhile,

Offering artless bribes, Ariadne invoked the Immortals,
Kindled voiceless lip with unvoiced tribute of incense,
Suppliant, not in vain: for, like to an oak upon Taurus,
Gnarled, swinging his arms,- - like some cone-burthenèd pine-tree
Oozing the life from his bark, that, riven to heart by the whirlwind,
Wholly uprooted from earth, falls prone with extravagant ruin,
Perishes, dealing doom with precipitate rush of its branches, —
So was the Cretan brute by Theseus done to destruction,
E'en so, tossing in vain his horns to the vacuous breezes,

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Then with abundant laud he turned, unscathed from the combat,
Theseus, guiding his feet unsure by the filament slender,
Lest as he threaded paths circuitous, ways labyrinthine,
Some perverse, perplexing, erratic alley might foil him.

Why should I tarry to tell how, quitting her sire, Ariadne
Quitting the sister's arms, the infatuate gaze of the mother,-
She whose sole delight, whose life, was her desperate daughter, -
How Ariadne made less of the love of them all than of Theseus?
Why should I sing how sailing they came to the beaches of Dia, —
White with the foam, how thence, false-hearted, the lover departing
Left her benighted with sleep, the Minoïd, princess of Creta?

Gazing amain from the marge of the flood-reverberant Dia,
Chafing with ire, indignant, exasperate, — lo, Ariadne,
Lorn Ariadne, beholds swift craft, swift lover retreating.
Nor can be sure she sees what things she sees of a surety,
When upspringing from sleep, she shakes off treacherous slumber,
Lone beholds herself on a shore forlorn of the ocean.

Carelessly hastens the youth, meantime, who, driving his oar-blades

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