Myths and Legends of Greece and Rome

SEASHORE

TO BOYS AND GIRLS

HERE are some of the oldest and most beautiful stories in the world. They were, most of them, first told by the Greeks, and then by the Romans, and in many different ways and through many long years they have come down to us.

These stories are still told in Greece by fathers and mothers, and often in Greek homes prizes are given to the children who tell them best. In this book we have tried to tell them in the most delightful way possible. Here and there, like blossoms in a garden, we have placed some of the charming verses in which the great poets have referred to these ancient stories.

The Greeks believed that the high home of their many gods was on the snowy top of Mount Olympus in their own country. These gods, some of them beautiful, all of them strong, and a few of them mischievous or cruel, spent their long days in feasting and fun. They lived like men and women, or, as it sometimes seems to us, more like great children.

Through these stories the Greeks explained how this world came into being, how the spring flowers and the trees were made, what is done by the powerful forces of the air and sea and the underworld, and many mysterious things that we now call science.

Also they used these stories to tell about the things we know and love every day, such as the care that is given by fathers and mothers, the love of brothers and sisters together, how brave men and women do great and heroic deeds, sometimes alone and sometimes to help others. Here are stories of hard work and drudgery and invention and kindness and even of the harm that comes by carelessness and forgetfulness. All through them all you can see how delightful those people believed it is just to be alive. We, like those old Greeks, may seek adventure in living and doing, and we, like them, can find more, because we look for more, in the morning’s sunrise, the day’s play and work and study, and in the sunset’s glory.

Sometimes you will find out in these pages how we have come to use certain familiar words. Sometimes you will see that here is told afresh something that you have known a long time, but did not know where you learned it. Soon you will wish to read, in longer pages and in many more chapters, these great stories as those great storytellers told them.

TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS

HERE are retold, for children who are in about the fifth grade in school, the more interesting and suitable stories from Greek and Roman mythology. The tales are arranged by topic rather than in the formal classification that would be used in a textbook for older young people. As the Pronouncing Dictionary shows, a large range of mythological character is covered, and there are enough details to help the children become familiar with many words and allusions that they will find in their reading.

The method of the book is to retell these ancient legends frankly as enjoyable stories, with some incidental attention to their moral value and some suppression of uncomfortable details. A mine has here been opened of rich and unusual worth. The way has been pointed out for interested future reading.

An interesting and valuable feature of this volume will be found in the Literary References at the close of each chapter. These entice the young reader to read some of the classic poems and prose which tell these stories more fully and beautifully, and include some of the familiar quotations whose meaning is explained by their connection with these classical tales. These References are arranged in the order of interest. The first ones are often the original sources. The last ones are usually more indirect allusions.

Dear isles and sea-indented shore,

Till songs no more be sung,

The singers that have gone before

Will keep your lovers young.

And men will hymn your haunted skies,

And seek your holy streams,

Until the soul of music dies,

And earth has done with dreams.

—Sir Rennell Rodd

STORIES OF THE BEGINNING

PANDORA:

HOW HOPE CAME INTO THE WORLD

Those delicate children,

Thy dreams, still endure.

All pure and lovely things

Wend to the Pure.

Sigh not. Unto the fold

Their way is sure.

—A.E.

WHILE the two brothers, Titans, whose names were Prometheus and Epimetheus, were in charge of this world, the high gods above were very busy. And as they worked they were laughing. Let us see what they were doing.

First Vulcan, the lame, heavenly blacksmith, took earth and water and mixed them with his hands until he had shaped them into the figure of a young woman. When he had finished he made upon his anvil a splendid crown for her head. Then the Queen of Wisdom, Minerva (Athena), covered her with a long, white robe and fastened into her crown a soft, white veil and interwove with it newly opened flowers. Then she led her into the presence of all the gods, and each one of them gave her a gift. Minerva herself gave the skill to make beautiful things with her fingers. Venus gave her beauty. Apollo gave her a lovely voice to speak or sing. Mercury gave her a winning tongue so that nobody could resist her. And when that great company had made all their presents they named this woman Pandora, which means Gifted by all the gods.

Then Mercury, their messenger, led her down to earth. First he offered her to Prometheus. Now the name Prometheus means He who thinks beforehand. As soon as Prometheus looked into her soft blue eyes he remembered that the gods were angry at him because he had stolen fire from the Heavenly House and given it to men. So he was sure that the gods meant him harm. He would not take her from the hands of Mercury, and he said to his brother, Epimetheus, Do not you take her, either.

But the name Epimetheus means He who thinks afterward. When he saw the lovely creature, he desired her. As soon as Mercury led her to him, he seized her hand and made her his own.

Now when Pandora came into this world she was carrying the last gift of the gods, a beautiful casket that was fastened with a latch.

At first the innocent Pandora was perfectly happy in her new home. Everything she saw was full of fresh joy. She was curious to see all the unexpected surprises. And of course it was most pleasant to be cared for and shown about by her big, simple Titan. But after a while she began to wonder what was in the golden casket. Nobody had told her, and Epimetheus did not know. Nobody knew but the high gods.

Do not you take her, either

The wise Prometheus, who thinks beforehand, said to her: You do not know? Then be careful. Do not open it. But Epimetheus, who acts first and thinks afterward, said: You do not know? Then be brave. Let us open it and find out.

At first she listened to Prometheus, and she did not open it. But by and by this thought came to her. The gods have given me many gifts, and all of them have been good. Perhaps here is the finest gift of all. Perhaps they have sent me here to this dear world to share this gift. Perhaps I can make Epimetheus happier by what is in the casket! And all the time a voice, like an echo, kept whispering, What is in the casket?

At length she decided to find out. One day when she was alone she was holding the precious box in her arms. She began to touch the golden latch. It moved easily. She pushed it partly back. It seemed as if it were full of little people who were eager to get out. She gave it a stronger push, and the casket flew open.

But oh, what a dreadful horror! Into this happy world, where there had never been pain or sorrow, flew a host of sicknesses, terrors, griefs, troubles, and deaths, and everything that could hurt or poison or destroy. Feverishly poor Pandora tried to close the box and undo the evil she had done. She tried to force a few of that wicked host back into the casket. She called to Epimetheus and Prometheus to come to help her. But she was still alone, and she realized that she, alone, who had wished no ill and who might have left our world pure and innocent and happy, if she had minded her own affairs, had filled it with cruel and treacherous enemies.

Was there not one gift that she had held back and saved? Yes, still one, a little one, was left behind. The name of this small gift was Hope.

The world had never needed Hope before. What work was there for Hope to do as long as everything was bright and perfect? But now that all was dark, the only tiny light that was left was that which Hope could give.

When the two brothers came up, at first each wished to kill her. So this was what the ruthless gift of the gods was intended for. But Epimetheus knew that it was he who had urged her to open the casket, and when he remembered how happy Pandora had made him, he had not the heart to hurt her. And the wise Prometheus, looking forward along the many years to come, forgave Pandora, because he knew, as Shakespeare sings, that

"True Hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings.

  Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings."

LITERARY REFERENCES

Hawthorne: The Paradise of Children

Longfellow: The Masque of Pandora

Rossetti: Pandora

William Vaughn Moody: Pandora’s Song, from The Fire-Bringer

Hesiod: Works and Days

See also the references under Prometheus

QUOTATIONS

More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods

Endowed with all their gifts; and, O! too like

In sad event, when to the unwiser son

Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared

Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged

On him who had stole Jove’s authentic fire.

—Milton: Paradise Lost, Book IV

Pandora.

Let me die;

What else remains for me?

Epimetheus.

Youth, hope, and love:

To build a new life on a ruined life,

To make a future fairer than the past,

And make the past appear a troubled dream.

—Longfellow: The Masque of Pandora

PROMETHEUS

THE BRAVE FIRE GIVER

Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart

Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong

With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left;

And faith, which is but hope grown wise, and love

And patience, which at the last shall overcome.

—Lowell

WHEN Jupiter, the Father of gods and King of men, was fighting for his kingdom, the giant Prometheus fought by his side. And after the victory was won, Jupiter and his court went away to live in the high heavens, and Jupiter gave this earth to the two Titans, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus, to care for.

Epimetheus made all the animals. He planned their birth and death, and taught them how to find food, and played with them. Prometheus made men and women. He watched his brother while he was making the animals, but when Prometheus made men, he did not make them, like the animals, to walk upon four feet with their heads down, but he made them to stand erect and to look up to the skies, and he taught them how to sing and talk. He loved man so much that he wished to give him a better gift than any that his brother had given to the animals.

At first men lived in caves like bears and lions. They were very cold and unhappy. They wore skins of wild animals and ate all their food raw, because they did not know how to make fires to cook it.

Prometheus felt sorry for them. The gods in the high heavens had forgotten all about men. One day when the gods were not looking, he made his way to Mount Olympus, lighted a torch with a spark from the chariot of the Sun, and hastened back to earth with fire. This was the best gift that was ever given to man. He was no longer afraid of the darkness or of the thunder. No more did he dread the animals that had hunted him. With fire he kept away the frost and cold, he made weapons, he cooked his food, and with the dishes that he learned how to make from melted metals, he served food and drink upon tables. Man thankfully could say to his great Helper:

Thy godlike crime was to be kind

To render . . . less

The sum of human wretchedness,

And strengthen man with his own mind.

But the Great Jupiter in heaven, when he saw the yellow flames and the gray smoke in the house of men, was afraid and angry. He was afraid that Prometheus would gather men together some day with weapons and storm the walls of heaven and drive him from his throne. He was angry because Prometheus had done this secretly, without asking his permission. So he decided that Prometheus must be punished.

Jupiter took Prometheus and bound him with iron chains and fastened him to a mountain side, where the frost and wind and heat scorched and tormented him by day and night. He also set a vulture to gnaw at his heart with its cruel beak all day. Each night while Prometheus slept and the vulture rested, his heart grew again in his breast, but the next day the vulture came and tortured him once more.

For long years Prometheus suffered in silence. At length one day, when Mercury, the messenger of the gods, was passing, Prometheus said to him: I know a secret which Jupiter would give worlds to know. I know of an enemy who shall one day drag him down from his throne.

After that Mercury came every day, at the command of Jupiter, to try to find out Prometheus’ secret. But Prometheus always laughed him to scorn, and as Mercury turned to go away, the icy wind would come shrieking through the air, and the dark cloud sank lower and lower down the hillside until it covered the rock on which the body of the Titan was chained. The great mountain heaved with the earthquake and the blazing thunderbolts darted through the sky. But he never trembled at these terrors that came from Jupiter. And still, as the storm grew fiercer, and the thunder beat upon his body, his voice could be heard amid the din and the roar, telling of the happy day when good should triumph and cruelty should be destroyed forever.

Down in their happy homes, whenever men saw the thunder and the lightning upon the mountain top, they looked into the cheerful firelight and were glad to hear the brave voice of their hero Prometheus. And when, with their little children, they gathered about their open fires they remembered him who was the father of kindness, and their great and loving brother and savior.

They did not build many altars to Prometheus, because every house fire was his altar. But when they became a great and noble people, every year they gave him a festival. Like all their happy festivals, this consisted of athletic games. The feast of Prometheus was a torch race. And in the great arena under the soft twilight six young men from each of the noble cities of Greece ran in competition. The first, the leader of each side, carried a lighted torch. As he ran halfway around the course, he handed his torch to the second, the second to the third, and so on until all had run. The side and the city which safely carried a lighted torch to the last goal was victor, and to that city the laurel wreaths, which were their greatest honor, were given for that year. As Prometheus had handed the torch down from heaven to earth, so they would remember to hand the torch from father to son and thus on to the end of time, always being faithful to keep it lighted, and always being prepared to guard it safely.

As some tell the story, Prometheus finally revealed his secret to Jupiter, and when the great last day of battle came, Prometheus again helped Jupiter to win the final victory.

LITERARY REFERENCES

Æschylus: Prometheus Bound, tr. by Plumptre, Augusta Webster, Byron

Lowell: Prometheus

Mrs. Browning: Prometheus Bound

Shelley: Prometheus Unbound

Byron: Prometheus, Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte

Robert Bridges: Prometheus

Longfellow: Prometheus, or The Poet’s Forethought

QUOTATIONS

Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,

And moments aye divided by keen pangs

Till they seemed years, torture and solitude,

Scorn and despair, these are mine empire.

—Shelley

Titan! to whose immortal eyes

The sufferings of mortality

Seen in their sad reality,

Were not as things that gods despise;

What was thy pity’s recompense?

A silent suffering, and intense;

The rock, the vulture, and the chain.

—Byron

A power from the unknown God,

A Promethean conqueror came;

Like a triumphal path he trod

The thorns of death and shame.

—Shelley: Hellas

In their triumph and their yearning,

In their passionate pulsations,

In their words among the nations,

The Promethean fire is burning.

—Longfellow: Prometheus

CADMUS

I

THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST SISTER

CADMUS, Phœnix, and Cilix, the three sons of King Agenor, were playing near the seashore in their father’s kingdom of Phœnicia, and their little sister Europa was beside them.

They had wandered to some distance from the King’s palace and were now in a green field, on one side of which lay the sea, sparkling brightly in the sunshine, with little waves breaking on the shore.

The three boys were very happy gathering flowers and making wreaths for their sister Europa. The little girl was almost hidden under the flowers and leaves, and her rosy face peeped merrily out among them. She was really the prettiest flower of them all.

While they were busy and happy, a beautiful butterfly came flying past, and the three boys, crying out that it was a flower with wings, set off to try to catch it.

Europa did not run after them. She was a little tired with playing all day long, so she sat still on the green grass and very soon she closed her eyes.

For a time she listened to the sea, which sounded, she thought, just like a voice saying, Hush, hush, and telling her to go to sleep. But if she slept at all it was only for a minute. Then she heard something tramping on the grass and, when she looked up, there was a snow-white bull quite close to her!

Where could he have come from? Europa was very frightened, and she started up from among the tulips and lilies and cried out: Cadmus, brother Cadmus, where are you? Come and drive this bull away. But her brother was too far off to hear her, and Europa was so frightened that her voice did not sound very loud; so there she stood, her blue eyes big with fear, and her pretty red mouth wide open, and her face as pale as the lilies that were lying on her golden hair.

As the bull did not touch her, she began to peep at him, and she saw that he was a very beautiful animal; she even fancied he looked like a kind bull. He had soft, tender, brown eyes, and horns as smooth and white as ivory; and when he breathed, you could feel the scent of rosebuds and clover blossoms in the air.

The bull ran little races round Europa and allowed her to stroke his forehead with her small hands, and to hang wreaths of flowers on his horns. He was just like a pet lamb, and very soon Europa quite forgot how big and strong he really was and how frightened she had been. She pulled some grass and he ate it out of her hand and seemed quite pleased to be friends. He ran up and down the field as lightly as a bird hopping in a tree; his hoofs scarcely seemed to touch the grass, and once when he galloped a good long way, Europa was afraid she would not see him again, and she called out, Come back, you dear bull, I have found you a pink clover blossom. Then he came running and bowed his head before Europa as if he knew she was a King’s daughter, and knelt down at her feet, inviting her to get on his back and have a ride.

At first Europa was afraid: then she thought there could surely be no danger in having just one ride on the back of such a gentle animal, and the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go.

What a surprise it would be to Cadmus and Phœnix and Cilix if they met her riding across the green field, and what fun it would be if they could all four ride round and round the field on the back of this beautiful white bull that was so tame and kind!

I think I will do it, she said, and she looked round the field. Cadmus and his brothers were still chasing the butterfly away at the far end. If I get on the bull’s back I shall soon be beside them, she thought. So she moved nearer, and the gentle, white creature looked so pleased and so kind that she could not resist any longer, and with a light bound she sprang on his back: and there she sat holding an ivory horn in each hand to keep her steady.

Go very gently, good bull, she said, and the animal gave a little leap in the air and came down as lightly as a feather. Then he began a race to that part of the field where the brothers were, and where they had just caught the splendid butterfly. Europa shouted with delight, and how surprised the brothers were to