PART I.—THE STORIES OF LATONA AND NIOBE.
JUPITER once fell in love with a beautiful Titaness named Latona. This made Juno terribly angry: so she sent a huge and horrible snake, called Python, to hunt Latona all over the world. And she went to Terra, and made her swear not to give Latona a resting-place or a hiding-place anywhere.
So poor Latona was hunted and driven about by Python night and day. She also went to our Grandmother Earth, and begged for a corner to rest in or a cave to hide in. But old Terra said, “No. I have sworn to Juno that you shall have no rest in me.”
At last, in her despair, she went to Neptune, and prayed him to hide her in his waters, since Earth had refused her. Neptune said, “I wish I could, with all my heart; but what place is there, in the sea or on the land, where you can hide from the Queen of the Sky? But wait—there’s one thing that nobody knows of but me. There is an island under the sea; and this island is always moving and wandering about, so that nobody can see it, or tell where it may chance to be, for it is never in the same place two minutes together. It isn’t sea, because its land; but it doesn’t belong to Terra, because it’s under the sea, and has no bottom. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you. I’ll fix it where nobody can find it, and you’ll be safe there, because it’s neither earth nor sea.”
So Neptune anchored the floating island in a part of the Ægean Sea. The island is called Delos; and it is there still, just where it was fixed by Neptune for Latona.
Latona went and lived there, safe from Juno and Python. After a time she had two children, a son and a daughter. The son was named Apollo, and the daughter Diana.
Both were beautiful, but Apollo was the most beautiful boy ever born. He was a wonderful child in every way. The very instant he was born he made a bow and arrow, and went across the sea, and found Python, and killed him. When he was four years old, he built one of the wonders of the world—a great altar to the gods, made of the horns of the goats that his sister Diana used to hunt and shoot in the mountains. With two such children to help her, Latona no longer felt afraid of Juno. So she left Delos, and came, with her two children, into a country of Asia Minor, called Lydia.
Now there was a princess in Thebes named Niobe, who had fourteen beautiful children—seven daughters and seven sons. She was very fond and proud of them, and she did not like to hear people talking about Latona’s wonderful children. “What signifies a miserable couple of children, when I have fourteen?” she used to say. “I don’t think much of Latona”; and, in her jealousy, she never lost a chance of insulting the mother of Apollo and Diana.
Of course these insults came to Latona’s ears. Apollo and Diana heard of them too; and they resolved to punish the proud princess who insulted and scorned their mother. I scarcely like to tell you of how they punished Niobe, for I cannot think of anything more cruel.
Each of them took a bow and seven arrows. Apollo shot with his arrows all the seven sons of Niobe. Diana shot six of Niobe’s seven daughters, leaving only one alive. “There!” said they; “what signifies a miserable one child, when our mother has two?”
When poor Niobe saw her children killed before her she wept bitterly, and she could not stop her tears. They flowed on and on, until she cried herself into stone.
As for Apollo, he kept on growing handsomer and stronger until he became a god—the most glorious of all the gods in the sky. Jupiter made him the god of the Sun, and made his sister, Diana, goddess of the Moon. He was also the god of all beautiful and useful things: of music, painting, poetry, medicine. Several names were given to him. One of his names is “Phœbus,” which means bright and splendid like the sun. “Apollo” means “the Destroyer”: people must guess for themselves why he was called “the Destroyer.”
In pictures and statues he is always made graceful, beautiful, and young. He has no hair on his face, but wears long waving hair. Sometimes he carries a lyre—a sort of small harp—and sometimes a bow. Very often he wears a wreath of laurel. You must take a great deal of notice of Apollo, or Phœbus, because he is the most famous of all the gods next to Jupiter. It will help you to know him if you think of him as always beautiful, wise, and bright, but rather cruel and hard.
PART II.—THE FLAYED PIPER; OR, THE STORY OF MARSYAS.
THE men who filled the earth after the Great Flood were a great deal cleverer than people are now. A king’s son named Cadmus invented the alphabet—which is, perhaps, the most wonderful thing in the world. And when he wanted to build the city of Thebes, he got a great musician, named Amphion, to play to the stones and trees, so that they, by dancing to his tunes, built themselves into walls and houses without the help of any masons or carpenters. At last men became so wonderfully clever in everything, that a physician named Æsculapius, who was a son of Apollo, found out how to bring back dead people to life again.
But when Jupiter heard that Æsculapius had really made a dead man live, he was angry, and rather frightened too. For he thought, “If men know how to live forever, they will become as great and as wise as the gods, and who knows what will happen then?” So he ordered the Cyclopes to make him a thunderbolt, and he threw it down from heaven upon Æsculapius and killed him. No other man knew the secret of Æsculapius, and it died with him.
But Apollo was very fond and proud of his son, and was in a great rage with Jupiter for having killed him. He could not punish Jupiter, but he took his bow and arrows and shot all the Cyclopes who had made the thunderbolt.
Then it was Jupiter’s turn to be angry with Apollo for killing his servants, who had only done what they were told to do. He sentenced him to be banished from the sky for nine years.
So Apollo left the sky and came down to the earth, bringing with him nothing but his lyre. You know that Mount Olympus, where the gods live, is in Thessaly, so that Thessaly was the country in which Apollo found himself when he came down from the sky. He did not know what to do with himself for the nine years, so he went to a king of Thessaly named Admetus, who received him very kindly, and made him his shepherd. I don’t think Admetus could have known who Apollo was, or he would hardly have set the great god of the Sun to look after his sheep for him.
So Apollo spent his time pleasantly enough in watching the king’s sheep and in playing on his lyre.
Now there was a very clever but very conceited musician named Marsyas, who had invented the flute, and who played on it better than anybody in the world. One day Marsyas happened to be passing through Thessaly, when he saw a shepherd sitting by a brook watching his sheep, and playing to them very beautifully on a lyre. He went up to the shepherd, and said:—
“You play very nicely, my man. But nobody can do much with those harps and fiddles and trumpery stringed things. You should learn the flute; then you’d know what music means!”
“Indeed?” said Apollo. “I’m sorry, for your sake, that your ears are so hard to please. As for me, I don’t care for whistles and squeaking machines.”
“Ah!” said Marsyas, “that’s because you never heard Me!”
“And you dare to tell me,” said Apollo, “that you put a wretched squeaking flute before the lyre, which makes music for the gods in the sky?”
“And you dare to say,” said Marsyas, “that a miserable twanging, tinkling lyre is better than a flute? What an ignorant blockhead you must be!”
At last their wrangling about their instruments grew to quarreling; and then Apollo said:—
“We shall never settle the question in this way. We will go to the next village and give a concert. You shall play your flute and I will play my lyre, and the people shall say which is the best—yours or mine.”
“With all my heart,” said Marsyas. “I know what they will say. But we must have a wager on it. What shall it be?”
“We will bet our skins,” said Apollo. “If I lose, you shall skin me; and if you lose, I will skin you.”
“Agreed,” said Marsyas.
So they went to the next village, and called the people together to judge between the flute and the lyre.
Marsyas played first. He played a little simple tune on his flute so beautifully that everybody was charmed. But Apollo then played the same tune on his lyre, even more beautifully still.
Then Marsyas took his flute again and played all sorts of difficult things—flourishes, runs, shakes, everything you can think of—in the most amazing manner, till the people thought they had never heard anything so wonderful. And indeed never had such flute-playing been heard.
But Apollo, instead of following him in the same fashion, only played another simple tune—but this time he sang while he played.
You can imagine how gloriously the god of Music sang! You can fancy how much chance Marsyas had of winning when Apollo’s voice was carrying the hearts of the people away.... “There,” said Apollo, when he had finished, “beat that if you can—and give me your skin!”
“It is not fair,” said Marsyas. “This is not a singing match: the question is, Which is the best instrument—the flute or the lyre?”
“It is fair,” said Apollo. “If you can sing while you are playing the flute, then I have nothing to say. But you can’t sing, you see, because you have to use your lips and your breath in blowing into those holes. Is not that instrument best which makes you sing best—Yes or No? And if I mustn’t use my breath, you mustn’t use yours.”
You must judge for yourself which was right. But the people decided for Apollo. And so Apollo, having won the wager, took Marsyas and skinned him, and hung his body on a tree.
PART III.—TOO MUCH GOLD; OR, THE FIRST STORY OF MIDAS.
THERE were other beings besides men upon the earth in those days. You ought to know something about them now, because Apollo, while he was banished from the sky, had a great deal to do with them. These beings were called Nymphs, Fauns, and Satyrs.
The Nymphs were a kind of beautiful she-fairies.
Dryads were nymphs who lived in forests.
Hamadryads were nymphs who lived in trees. Every tree has a Hamadryad, who lives in it, who is born when it first grows, and who dies when it dies. So that a Hamadryad is killed whenever a tree is cut down.
Naiads were nymphs belonging to brooks and rivers. Every stream has its Naiad.
Ŏreads were nymphs who lived upon hills and mountains. They used to attend upon Apollo’s sister Diana, who went hunting every moonlight night among the hills.
The Fauns and Satyrs were he-creatures, like men, with the hind-legs of goats, short horns on their foreheads, and long pointed ears. But there was a difference between the Fauns and Satyrs. The Fauns were handsome, gentle, innocent, and rather foolish. The Satyrs were hideous, clumsy, hairy monsters, with flat faces, little eyes, and huge mouths, great gluttons, often drunk, and sometimes mischievous: most of them were dull and stupid, but many of them had plenty of sense and knowledge. The Fauns and Satyrs lived among the woods and hills, like the Dryads and Oreads.
The king of all these Nymphs, Fauns, and Satyrs was a god named Pan, who was himself a very hideous satyr. He had nothing to do with the gods of Olympus, but lived on the earth, chiefly in a part of Greece called Arcadia. “Pan” is the Greek for “all”—you may remember the same word in the name of “Pan-dora.” He was called “Pan” because he was the god of “all” nature—all the hills and mountains, all the woods and forests, all the fields, rivers, and streams.
The ugliest, fattest, greediest, tipsiest, cleverest, and wisest of all the satyrs was named Silenus. He was hardly ever sober, but he knew so much and understood the world so well, that one of the gods, named Bacchus, made Silenus his chief adviser and counselor. You will hear more of Bacchus later on. I will only tell you now that he was not one of the great gods of Olympus, but lived on the earth, like Pan. Only, while Pan was the god of all wild, savage nature, Bacchus was the god of nature as men make it: Bacchus taught men to turn Pan’s wild woods into corn-fields and gardens, to put bees into hives, and to make wine. I think Silenus had an especially great deal to do with the wine-making. You will often hear Bacchus called the god of wine, and so he was; but he was a great deal more and better.
This has been a long beginning to my story; but if you will get it well into your head, you will find it easy to remember, and will make a great step in understanding mythology.
Now once upon a time Silenus got very drunk indeed—more drunk even than usual. He was traveling about with Bacchus, but had strayed away by himself, and, when night came on, could not find his way back into the road. He could do nothing but blunder and stagger about in the middle of the thick, dark forest, stumbling and sprawling over the roots of the trees, and knocking his head against the branches. At last he gave a tremendous tumble into a bush, and lay there, too drunk and too fat to pick himself up again. So he went to sleep and snored terribly.
Presently some huntsmen passed by, and thought they heard some wild beast roaring. You may guess their surprise when they found this hideous old satyr helplessly drunk and unable to move. But they did not catch a satyr every day: so they took him by the head and shoulders, and brought him as a prize to the king.
This king was King Midas of Phrygia, which is a country in Asia Minor. As soon as King Midas saw the satyr, he guessed him to be Silenus, the friend of Bacchus: so he did everything to make him comfortable till his drunkenness should pass away. It passed away at last; and then King Midas sent all round about to find where Bacchus was, so that Silenus might go back to him. While the search was being made, the king and the satyr became great friends, and Silenus, keeping fairly sober, gave Midas a great deal of good advice, and taught him science and philosophy.
At last Bacchus was found; and Midas himself brought Silenus back to him. Bacchus was exceedingly glad to see Silenus again, for he was beginning to be afraid that he had lost him forever. “Ask any gift you please,” he said to King Midas, “and it shall be yours.”
“Grant me,” said Midas, “that everything I touch shall turn into gold.”
Bacchus looked vexed and disappointed. But he was bound by his promise, and said:—
“It is a fool’s wish. But so be it. Everything you touch shall turn to gold.”
Midas thanked Bacchus, said good-bye to Silenus and went home. How rich he was going to be—the richest king in the whole world! He opened his palace door, and lo! the door became pure, solid gold. He went from room to room, touching all the furniture, till everything, bedsteads, tables, chairs, all became gold. He got a ladder (which turned into gold in his hands) and touched every brick and stone in his palace, till his whole palace was gold. His horses had golden saddles and golden bridles. His cooks boiled water in golden kettles: his servants swept away golden dust with golden brooms.
When he sat down to dinner, his plate turned to gold. He had become the richest man in the world, thought he with joy and pride, as he helped himself from the golden dish before him. But suddenly his teeth jarred against something hard—harder than bone. Had the cook put a flint into the dish? Alas! it was nothing of the kind. His very food, as soon as it touched his lips, turned to solid gold!
His heart sank within him, while the meat before him mocked his hunger. Was the richest man in the world to starve? A horrible fear came upon him. He poured out wine into a golden cup, and tried to drink, and the wine turned into gold! He sat in despair.
What was he to do? What was the use of all this gold if he could not buy with it a crust of bread or a draught of water? The poorest ploughman was now a richer man than the king. He could only wander about his golden palace till his hunger became starvation, and his thirst a fever. At last, in his despair, he set out and followed after Bacchus again, to implore the god to take back the gift of gold.
At last, when nearly starved to death, he found him. “What!” said Bacchus, “are you not content yet? Do you want more gold still?”
“Gold!” cried Midas, “I hate the horrible word! I am starving. Make me the poorest man in the whole world. Silenus taught me much; but I have learned for myself that a mountain of gold is not the worth of a single drop of dew.”
“I will take back my gift, then,” said Bacchus. “But I will not give you another instead of it, because all the gods of Olympus could not give you anything better than this lesson. You may wash away your folly in the first river you come to. Good-bye—and only don’t think that gold is not a good thing because too much of it is a bad one.”
Midas ran to the banks of the river Pactolus, which ran hard by. He threw off his golden clothes, and hurried barefoot over the sands of the river—and the sand, wherever his naked feet touched it, turned to gold. He plunged into the water, and swam through to the other side. The Curse of the Golden Touch left him, and he ate and drank, and never hungered after gold again. He had learned that the best thing one can do with too much gold is to give it away as fast as one can.
The sand of the river Pactolus is said to have gold in it to this day.
PART IV.—THE CRITIC; OR, THE SECOND STORY OF MIDAS.
ONCE upon a time the god Pan fell in love with a Naiad, or water-nymph, named Syrinx. She was very beautiful, as all the nymphs were; but Pan, as you know, was very ugly—so ugly that she hated him, and was afraid of him, and would have nothing to do with him. At last, to escape from him, she turned herself into a reed.
But even then Pan did not lose his love for her. He gathered the reed, and made it into a musical instrument, which he called a Syrinx. We call it a Pan-pipe, after the name of its inventor, and because upon this pipe Pan turned into music all his sorrow for the loss of Syrinx, making her sing of the love to which she would not listen while she was alive.
I suppose that King Midas still kept up his friendship for Silenus and the satyrs, for one day he was by when Pan was playing on his pipe of reeds, and he was so delighted with the music that he cried out, “How beautiful! Apollo himself is not so great a musician as Pan!”
You remember the story of Marsyas, and how angry Apollo was when anybody’s music was put before his own? I suppose that some ill-natured satyr must have told him what King Midas had said about him and Pan. Anyway, he was very angry indeed. And Midas, the next time he looked at himself in his mirror, saw that his ears had been changed into those of an Ass.
This was to show him what sort of ears those people must have who like the common music of earth better than the music which the gods send down to us from the sky. But, as you may suppose, it made Midas very miserable and ashamed. “All my people will think their king an Ass,” he thought to himself, “and that would never do.”
So he made a very large cap to cover his ears, and never took it off, so that nobody might see what had happened to him. But one of his servants, who was very prying and curious, wondered why the king should always wear that large cap, and what it was that he could want to hide. He watched and watched for a long time in vain. But at last he hid himself in the king’s bedroom; and when Midas undressed to go to bed, he saw to his amazement that his master had Ass’s ears.
He was very frightened too, as well as amazed. He could not bear to keep such a curious and surprising secret about the king all to himself, for he was a great gossip, like most people who pry into other people’s affairs. But he thought to himself, “If I tell about the king’s ears he will most certainly cut off my own! But I must tell somebody. Whom shall I tell?”
So, when he could bear the secret no longer, he dug a hole into the ground, and whispered into it, “King Midas has the Ears of an Ass!” Then, having thus eased his mind, he filled up the hole again, so that the secret might be buried in the earth forever.
But all the same, before a month had passed, the secret about the king’s ears was known to all the land. How could that be? The king still wore his cap, and the servant had never dared to speak about it to man, woman, or child. You will never be able to guess how the secret got abroad without being told.
It was in this way. Some reeds grew up out of the place where the servant had made the hole, and of course the reeds had heard what had been whispered into the ground where their roots were. And they were no more able to keep such a wonderful secret to themselves than the servant had been. Whenever the wind blew through them they rustled, and their rustle said, “King Midas has the Ears of an Ass!” The wind heard the words of the reeds, and carried the news through all the land, wherever it blew, “King Midas has the Ears of an Ass!” And all the people heard the voice of the wind, and said to one another, “What a wonderful thing—King Midas has the ears of an Ass!”
ONE day, Apollo, while following his flock of sheep, met a little boy playing with a bow and arrows.
“That isn’t much of a bow you’ve got there,” said Apollo.
“Isn’t it?” said the boy. “Perhaps not; but all the same, I don’t believe you’ve got a better, though you’re so big and I’m so small.”
Now you know that Apollo never could bear to be told that anybody could have anything, or do anything, better than he. You remember how he treated Marsyas and Midas for saying the same kind of thing. So he took his own bow from his shoulder, and showed it to the boy, and said, “As you think you know so much about bows and arrows, look at that; perhaps you’ll say that the bow which killed the great serpent Python isn’t stronger than your trumpery little toy.”
The boy took Apollo’s bow and tried to bend it; but it was much too strong for him. “But never mind,” said he. “My little bow and arrows are better than your big ones, all the same.”
Apollo was half angry and half amused. “You little blockhead! how do you make out that?” asked he.
“Because,” said the boy, “your bow can kill everybody else—but mine can conquer you. You shall see.”
And so saying he let fly one of his arrows right into Apollo’s heart. The arrow was so little that Apollo felt nothing more than the prick of a pin: he only laughed at the boy’s nonsense, and went on his way as if nothing had happened.
But Apollo would not have thought so little of the matter if he had known that his heart had been pricked by a magic arrow. The boy’s name was Cupid: and you will read a good deal about him both in this book and in others. Oddly enough, though the boy was one of the gods of Olympus, Apollo had never seen him before, and knew nothing about him. Perhaps Cupid had not been born when Apollo was banished from the sky. However this may be, there is no doubt about what Cupid’s arrows could do. If he shot into the hearts of two people at the same time with two of his golden arrows, they loved each other, and were happy. But if he shot only one heart, as he did Apollo’s, that person was made to love somebody who did not love him in return, and perhaps hated him: so he became very miserable.
So it happened to Apollo. He became very fond of a nymph named Daphne. But though he was so great and glorious a god, and she only a Naiad, she was only afraid of him and would have nothing to do with him—because Cupid, out of mischief, shot her heart with one of his leaden arrows, which prevented love. Apollo prayed her to like him; but she could not, and when she saw him coming used to hide away at the bottom of her river.
But one day she was rambling in a wood a long way from her home. And, to her alarm, she suddenly saw Apollo coming towards her. She took to her heels and ran. She ran very fast indeed; but her river was far away, and Apollo kept gaining upon her—for nobody on the earth or in the sky could run so fast as he. At last she was so tired and so frightened that she could run no longer, and was obliged to stand still.
“Rather than let Apollo touch me,” she said, “I would be a Hamadryad, and never be able to run again!”
She wished it so hard, that suddenly she felt her feet take root in the earth. Then her arms turned to branches, and her fingers to twigs, and her hair to leaves. And when Apollo reached the spot, he found nothing but a laurel bush growing where Daphne had been.
That is why “Daphne” is the Greek for “Laurel.” And forever after Apollo loved the bush into which Daphne had been turned. You may know Apollo in pictures by his laurel wreath as well as by his lyre and bow.
It is a very ancient saying that “Love conquers all things.” And that is exactly what Cupid meant by saying that his toy-bow was stronger even than the bow which had killed Python, and could conquer with ease even the god of the Sun.
YOU remember that Apollo and Diana were born in the island of Delos. The part of Delos where they were born was a mountain called Cynthus; and for that reason Apollo was often called Cynthius, and Diana, Cynthia. Bear this in mind, in order to follow this story.
While Apollo was on earth, Amyclas, the King of Sparta, engaged him to be the teacher of his son. This boy, named Hyacinthus, was so handsome and so amiable that Apollo became exceedingly fond of him; indeed, he could not bear to be away from his pupil’s company.
But the west wind, whose name is Zephyrus, was also very fond of the boy, whose chief friend he had been before Apollo came. He was afraid that the son of Amyclas liked Apollo best; and this thought filled him with jealousy. One day, as he was blowing about the king’s garden, he saw Apollo and the boy playing at quoits together. “Quoits” are heavy rings made of iron: each player takes one, and throws it with all his strength at a peg fixed in the ground, and the one who throws his quoit nearest to the peg wins the game. Zephyrus was so angry and jealous to see the two friends amusing themselves while he was blowing about all alone, that he determined to be revenged upon both of them.
First of all the boy threw his quoit, and came very near to the peg indeed—so near that even Apollo, who could do everything better than anybody, thought he should find it very hard to beat him. The peg was a great way off, so Apollo took up the heaviest quoit, aimed perfectly straight, and sent it flying like a thunderbolt through the air. But Zephyrus, who was waiting, gave a great blast, and blew Apollo’s quoit as it was flying, so that it struck the boy, who fell to the ground.
It was a cruel thing altogether. Apollo thought that he himself had struck his friend by aiming badly: the boy thought the same, for neither could tell it was Zephyrus,—nobody has ever seen the wind.
So perished Hyacinthus: nor could Apollo do anything to show his love and grief for his friend except change him into a flower, which is called Hyacinth to this day. It is said that, if you look, you will find “Hya” written in Greek letters upon every petal of the flower. Some people, however, say that it is not “Hya” at all, but “Aiai,” which means “alas.” I don’t know which is true; but if you will some day look at the petal of a hyacinth through a microscope (the stronger the better, I should say), you will find out for yourself and be able to tell me.
Apollo seems to have been rather fond of turning his friends into trees and flowers. There was another friend of his named Cyparissus, who once, by accident, killed one of Apollo’s favorite stags, and was so sorry for what he had done, and pined away so miserably, that the god, to put him out of his misery, changed him into a cypress-tree. “Cypress” comes from Cyparissus, as you will easily see. And we still plant the cypress in churchyards, because it is the tree of tears and mourning that cannot be cured.
THERE was a nymph named Clytie, who was so beautiful that Apollo fell in love with her. She was very proud and glad of being loved by the god of the Sun, and loved him a great deal more than he loved her. But she believed that his love was as great as her own: and so she lived happily for a long time.
But one day, Apollo happened to see a king’s daughter, whose name was Leucothoe. He thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen: so he fell in love with her, and forgot Clytie as much as if there was nobody but Leucothoe in the world. Clytie, however, knew nothing of all this, and only wondered why Apollo never came to see her any more.
Now the king, whose name was Orchamus, kept his daughter very strictly: and did not wish her to have anything to do with Apollo. I suppose he was afraid of Apollo’s loving her for a time, and then leaving her to be miserable and unhappy, as happened to many nymphs and princesses in those days besides Clytie. So when King Orchamus found that Apollo was making love to Leucothoe, he shut her up in his palace, and would not allow her to go out or anybody else to go in.
But Apollo was much too clever to be beaten in that way. He disguised himself as Leucothoe’s own mother, and so came to see her whenever he pleased, without anybody being anything the wiser. And so everything went on just as he wished, if it had not been for Clytie, whom he had treated just as King Orchamus was afraid he would treat Leucothoe.
Clytie wondered why Apollo never came to