If her tongue had a tang sometimes more than was right, § 86. Clytie.2-In the story of Clytie the conditions are reversed. She was a water-nymph and in love with Apollo, who made her no return. So she pined away, sitting all day long upon the cold ground, with her unbound tresses streaming over her shoulders. Nine days she sat and tasted neither food nor drink, her own tears and the chilly dew her only sustenance. She gazed on the sun when he rose; and as he passed through his daily course to his setting, she saw no other object, her eyes fixed constantly on him. At last, they say, her limbs took root in the ground, and her face became a flower, turning on its stem to follow the journeying sun. In the following lines, Thomas Moore uses the flower as an emblem of constancy : The heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close; As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets 6. MYTHS OF DIANA. § 87. In company with her radiant brother, we find Diana subduing Tityus and the Python and assisting in the punishment of Niobe. The speedy transformation of Daphne has been attributed to this goddess, the champion of maidenhood. According to some, it was she, too, that changed Callisto into a bear, when for love of Jupiter that nymph deserted the huntress-band. Numerous are the myths that celebrate the severity of the goddess of the unerring bow toward those who offended her. How she 1 From the Fable for Critics. 2 Ovid, Metam. 4: 256-270. 1 served Agamemnon for slaying one of her hinds is told in the story of Troy; how she punished Eneus for omitting a sacrifice to her is narrated in the episode of the Calydonian hunt. Similar attributes of the goddess are exemplified in the myths of Arethusa, Acteon, and Orion. It is only when she is identified with Selene, the peaceful moonlight, that we perceive a softer side of character, such as that displayed in her relations with Endymion. § 88. The Flight of Arethusa.3. A woodland nymph of Elis was this Arethusa; she delighted not in her comeliness, but in the joys of the chase. One day, returning from the wood, heated with exercise, she descended to a stream silently flowing, so clear that you might count the pebbles on the bottom. She laid aside her garments; but while she sported in the water, she heard an indistinct murmur rising as out of the depths of the stream. She made haste to reach the nearest bank. A voice followed her, "Why flyest thou, Arethusa? Alpheus am I, the god of this stream." The nymph ran, the god pursued. Arethusa, at last exhausted, cried for help to Diana, who, hearing, wrapped her votary in a thick cloud. Perplexed, the river-god still sought the trembling maiden. But a cold sweat came over her. In less time than it takes to tell, she had become a fountain. Alpheüs attempted then to mingle his stream with hers. But the Cynthian queen cleft the ground; and Arethusa, still endeavoring to escape, plunged into the abyss, and passing through the bowels of the earth, came out in Sicily, still followed by the passionate river-god. In the following version of the pursuit, Arethusa was already a river when Alpheüs espied her. Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountain strook And opened a chasm In the rocks; with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It concealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder The bars of the springs below; Of the River-god were Seen through the torrent's sweep, As he followed the light Of the fleet nymph's flight To the brink of the Dorian deep. "Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer; And under the water The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam; Under the bowers Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones, Over heaps of unvalued stones; Which amid the streams Weave a network of colored light; Where the shadowy waves Are as green as the forest's night: And the sword-fish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts They past to their Dorian home. And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill; Through the woods below And the meadows of Asphodel: And at night they sleep In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian shore; Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more. § 89. The Fate of Actæon. Diana's severity toward young Acteon, grandson of Cadmus whose kindred fell under the curse of Mars, is thus narrated. One day, having repaired to a valley enclosed by cypresses and pines where gushed a fountain of sparkling water, the chaste Diana handed her javelin, her quiver, and her bow to one nymph, her robe to another, while a third unbound the sandals from her feet. Then Crocale, the most skilful of them, arranged her hair, and Nephele, Hyale, and the rest drew water in capacious urns. While the huntress-queen was thus employed in the labors of the toilet, Acteon, the son of Autonoë and Aristæus, having quitted his companions of the chase, and rambling without any especial object, came to the place, led thither by his destiny. As he presented himself at the entrance of the cave, the nymphs, seeing a man, screamed and rushed towards the goddess to hide her with their bodies. But she was taller than the rest, and overtopped them all by a head. Such a color as tinges the clouds at sunset or at dawn came over the countenance of Diana thus taken by surprise. Surrounded as she was by her nymphs, she yet turned half away, and sought with a sudden impulse for her arrows. As they were not at hand, she dashed the water into the face of the intruder, saying, "Now go and tell, if you can, that you have seen Diana unapparelled." Immediately a pair of branching stag's horns grew out of the huntsman's head, his neck gained in length, his ears grew sharp-pointed, his hands became feet, his arms, his long legs, and his body were covered with a hairy spotted hide. Fear took the place of his former boldness, and the hero fled. What should he do?-go home to the palace, or lie hid in the woods? 1 Ovid, Metam. 3: 138-252. |