Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

was indignant that the gods had dared and amazed that they had been able to do it. Her husband, Amphion, overwhelmed with the blow, destroyed himself. But the mother knelt over the lifeRaising her pallid arms to heaven,

less bodies, and kissed them. "Cruel Latona," said she, "satiate thy hard heart, while I follow to the grave my seven sons. Yet where is thy triumph? Bereaved

as I am, I am still richer than thou, my conqueror." Scarce had she spoken, when the bow sounded and struck terror into all hearts except Niobe's alone. She was brave from excess of grief. Her daughters stood in garments of mourning over the biers of their dead brothers. One after another they fell, struck by arrows, beside the corpses that they were bewailing. Only one remained, whom the mother held clasped in her arms, and covered, as it were, with her whole body. "Spare me one, and that the youngest ! Oh, spare me one of so many!

she cried; and while she spoke, that one fell dead. Desolate she sat, among sons, daughters, husband, all dead, and seemed torpid with grief. The breeze moved not her hair, no color was on her cheek, her eyes glared fixed and immovable, there was no sign of life about her. Her very tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and her veins ceased to convey the tide of life. Her neck bent not, her arms made no gesture, her foot no step.

She was

changed to stone, within and without. Yet tears continued to

flow; and, borne on a whirlwind to her native mountain, she still remains, a mass of rock, from which a trickling stream flows, the tribute of her never-ending grief.1

"Amid nine daughters slain by Artemis

Stood Niobe: she rais'd her head above

Those beauteous forms which had brought down the scath
Whence all nine fell, rais'd it, and stood erect,
And thus bespake the goddess enthroned on high:
'Thou heardest, Artemis, my daily prayer

That thou wouldst guide these children in the pass
Of virtue, through the tangling wilds of youth,
And thou didst ever guide them: was it just
To smite them for a beauty such as thine?
Deserv'd they death because thy grace appear'd
In ever modest motion? 'twas thy gift,

The richest gift that youth from heaven receives.
True, I did boldly say they might compare
Even with thyself in virgin purity:

May not a mother in her pride repeat

What every mortal said?

For me to offer yet.

One prayer remains

Thy quiver holds

More than nine arrows: bend thy bow; aim here!

I see, I see it glimmering through a cloud.

Artemis, thou at length art merciful:

My children will not hear the fatal twang.' "12

$ 78. The Lamentation for Linus. - How the people of Argos fell under the displeasure of Apollo is told in the story of Linus, a beautiful son of Apollo and Psamathe. In fear of her father the king, Psamathe exposed the child on the mountains, where, brought up by shepherds among the lambs, he was in tender youth torn to pieces by dogs. Meanwhile Psamathe, herself, was driven from her father's home, wherefore Apollo sent against the land of the Argives a monster that for a season destroyed the children, but at last was slain by a noble youth named Coroebus. To appease the wrathful

1 Ovid, Metam. 6: 165–312.

2 From W. S. Landor's Niobe.

deity, a shrine was erected midway between Argos and Delphi ; and every year Linus and his mother were bewailed in melancholy lays by the mothers and children of Argos, especially by such as had lost by death their own beloved.

$79. Esculapius. The Thessalian princess Coronis (or the Messenian, Arsinoë) bore to. Apollo a child who was named Esculapius. On his mother's death the infant was intrusted to

wWX WITH PACKAHNIE
PYCONEXE YEN

ΙΟΣ ΥΠΕΡΤΕ ΑΝΩΝ ΓΙΛΟΥΛΟΥ
EYJAMENOC

the charge of Chiron, most famous of the Centaurs, himself instructed by Apollo and Diana in hunting, medicine, music, and the art of prophecy. When the sage returned to his home bearing the infant, his daughter Ocyrrhoë came forth to meet him, and at sight of the child burst into a prophetic strain, foretelling the glory that he should achieve. Esculapius, when grown up, became a renowned physician; in one instance he even succeeded in restoring the dead to life. Pluto resented this; and, at his request, Jupiter struck the bold physician with lightning and killed him, but after his death received him into the number of the gods.1

§ 80. Apollo in Exile. - Apollo, indignant at the destruction of this son, wreaked his vengeance on the innocent workmen who had made the thunderbolt. These were the Cyclopes, who had their workshop under Mount Etna, from which the smoke and flames of their furnaces are constantly issuing. Apollo shot his arrows at the Cyclopes, a deed which so incensed Jupiter that he condemned him to serve a mortal for the space of one year. Accordingly, Apollo went into the service of Admetus, king of Thessaly, and pastured his flocks for him on the verdant banks of the river Amphrysus. How the god lived among men, and what they thought of him, is well told in the following verses :

1 Cicero, Natura Deorum, 3, 22.

[blocks in formation]

Men granted that his speech was wise,

But, when a glance they caught

Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,

They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.

Yet after he was dead and gone

And e'en his memory dim,

Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,

More full of love, because of him.

And day by day more holy grew

Each spot where he had trod,

Till after-poets only knew

Their first-born brother as a god.

§ 81. Admetus and Alcestis.1 Admetus was a suitor, with others, for the hand of Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, who promised her to him who should come for her in a chariot drawn by lions and boars. This task Admetus performed by the assistance of his divine herdsman, and was made happy in the possession of Alcestis. But Admetus fell ill, and being near to death, Apollo prevailed on the Fates to spare him on condition that some one should consent to die in his stead. Admetus, in his joy at this reprieve, thought little of the ransom, and, perhaps remembering the declarations of attachment which he had often heard from his courtiers and dependents, fancied that it would be easy to find a substitute. But it was not so. Brave warriors, who would willingly have perilled their lives for their prince, shrunk from the thought of dying for him on the bed of sickness; and old servants who had experienced his bounty and that of his house from their childhood up were not willing to lay down the scanty remnant of their days to show their gratitude. Men asked, "Why does not one of his parents do it? They cannot in the course of nature live much longer, and who can feel like them the call to rescue the life they gave from an untimely end?" But the parents, distressed though they were at the thought of losing him, shrunk from the

1 See Commentary, § 81.

« AnteriorContinuar »