"If with mists of evening dew Thou dost nourish these young flowers On thine own child, Proserpine." i 1 § 107. Orpheus and Eurydice.2- Of mortals who have visited Hades and returned, none has a sweeter or sadder history than Orpheus, son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope. Presented by his father with a lyre and taught to play upon it, he became the most famous of musicians; and not only his fellow-mortals but even the wild beasts were softened by his strains. The very trees and rocks were sensible to the charm. And so also was Eurydice, whom he loved and won. Hymen was called to bless with his presence the nuptials of Orpheus with Eurydice, but he brought no happy omens with him. His torch smoked and brought tears into the eyes. In coincidence with such prognostics, Eurydice, shortly after her marriage, was seen by the shepherd Aristæus, who was struck with her beauty, and made advances to her. In flying she trod upon a snake in the grass, was bitten in the foot, and died. Orpheus sang his grief to all who breathed the upper air, both gods and men, and finding his complaint of no avail, resolved to seek his wife in the regions of the dead. He descended by a cave situated on the side of the promontory of Tænarus, and arrived in the 1 P. B. Shelley: Song of Proserpine, while gathering flowers on the plain of Enna. 2 Ovid, Metam. 10: 1-77. Stygian realm. He passed through crowds of ghosts, and presented himself before the throne of Pluto and Proserpine. Accompanying his words with the lyre, he sang his petition for his wife. Without her he would not return. In such tender strains he sang Tantalus, in spite of his thirst, that the very ghosts shed tears. stopped for a moment his efforts for water, Ixion's wheel stood still, the vulture ceased to tear the giant's liver, the daughters of Danaüs rested from their task of drawing water in a sieve,1 and Sisyphus sat on his rock to listen. Then for the first time, it is said, the cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears. Proserpine could not resist, and Pluto himself gave way. Eurydice was called. She came from among the new-arrived ghosts, limping with her wounded foot. Orpheus was permitted to take her away with him on condition that he should not turn round to look at her till they should have reached the upper air. Under this condition, they proceeded on their way: he leading, she following. Mindful of his promise, without let or hindrance the bard passed through the horrors of hell. All Hades held its breath. 1 Commentary, § 133. 2 Commentary, § 107. On he stept, And Cerberus held agape his triple jaws; There, Orpheus! Orpheus! there was all "Ah, what!" she cried, "what madness hath undone Me! and, ah, wretched! thee, my Orpheus, too! For lo! the cruel Fates recall me now; Night rolls intense around me as I spread She spake, and, like a vapour, into air Now would not row him o'er the lake again, Beneath a rock o'er Strymon's flood on high, And sooth'd the tiger, moved the oak, with song.1 The Thracian maidens tried their best to captivate him, but he repulsed their advances. Finally, excited by the rites of Bacchus, 1 From W. S. Landor's Orpheus and Eurydice in Dry Sticks. one of them exclaimed, "See yonder our despiser!" and threw at him her javelin. The weapon, as soon as it came within the sound of his lyre, fell harmless at his feet: so also the stones that they threw at him. But the women, raising a scream, drowned the voice of the music, and overwhelmed him with their missiles. Like maniacs they tore him limb from limb; then cast his head and lyre into the river Hebrus, down which they floated, murmuring sad music, to which the shores responded. The Muses buried the fragments of his body at Libethra, where the nightingale is said to sing over his grave more sweetly than in any other part of Greece. His lyre was placed by Jupiter among the stars; but the shade of the bard passed a second time to Tartarus, and rejoined Eurydice. The superior melody of the nightingale's song over the grave of Orpheus is alluded to by Southey in his Thalaba: "Then on his ear what sounds Far music and the distance-mellowed song The waterfall remote; The murmuring of the leafy groves; Perched in the rosier by, so richly toned, The incense that he loves." Other mortals who visited the Stygian realm and returned were Hercules, Theseus, Ulysses, and Eneas.' 1 See Index. CHAPTER XIII. MYTHS OF NEPTUNE, RULER OF THE WATERS. § 108. Neptune was lord both of salt waters and of fresh. The myths that turn on his life as lord of the sea illustrate his defiant invasions of lands belonging to other gods, or his character Of his con as earth-shaker and earth-protector. tests with other gods, that with Minerva for Athens has been related. He contested Corinth with Helios, Argos with Juno, Ægina with Jove, Naxos with Bacchus, and Delphi with Apollo. That he did not always make encroachments in person upon the land that he desired to possess or to punish, but sent some monster instead, will be seen in the myth of Andromeda1 and in the following story of Hesione," the daughter of Laomedon of Troy. Neptune and Apollo had fallen under the displeasure of Jupiter, after the overthrow of the giants. They were compelled, it is said, to resign for a season their respective functions, and to serve Laomedon, then about to build the city of Troy. They aided the king in erecting the walls of the city, but were refused the wages agreed upon. Justly offended, Neptune ravaged the land by floods, and sent against it a sea-monster, to satiate the appetite of which the desperate Laomedon was driven to offer his daughter Hesione. But Hercules appeared upon the scene, killed the monster, and rescued 1 § 137. 2 Iliad 5: 649; Apollodorus III. 12, § 7. |