Читать книгу Gods and Heroes - Francillon Robert Edward - Страница 10

I. – THE LAUREL

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.

II. – THE HYACINTH

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.

III. – THE SUNFLOWER

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 see her till she could bear it no longer; and she watched him, to find out what was the reason of it all. She watched till at last she saw somebody who looked like a queen go into the palace of King Orchamus. But she knew Apollo much too well to be taken in by any disguise. She secretly followed him into the palace, and found him making love to Leucothoe.

In her misery and jealousy, she went straight to King Orchamus, and told him what she had seen. Perhaps she hoped that the king would send his daughter away altogether, so that Apollo would then come back to her. She could not possibly foresee what would really happen. King Orchamus was so enraged with his daughter for receiving Apollo’s visits against his commands that he ordered Leucothoe to be buried alive. Of course he could not punish Apollo: because Apollo was a god, while he was only a king.

Perhaps you will think that Apollo might have managed to save Leucothoe from such a terrible death as her father had ordered for her. As he did not, I suppose that King Orchamus had her buried before anybody could tell the news – at any rate she was dead when Apollo arrived at her grave. All he could do for her was to show his love and his sorrow by turning her into a tree from which people take a sweet-smelling gum called myrrh.

As to Clytie, whose jealousy had caused the death of the princess, he refused ever to speak to her or look at her again: and he turned her into a sunflower, which has no perfume like the myrrh-tree into which he had changed Leucothoe. But, in spite of his scorn and of everything he could do to her, Clytie loved him still: and though he would not look at her, she still spends her whole time in gazing up at him with her blossoms, which are her eyes. People say that the blossoms of the sunflower always turn toward the sun – towards the east when he is rising, toward the west when he is setting, and straight up at noon, when he is in the middle of the sky. Of course, like all other blossoms, they close at night, when he is no longer to be seen. As for the sun himself, I suspect he has forgotten both Clytie and Leucothoe long ago; and sees no difference between them and any other trees or flowers.

IV. – THE NARCISSUS

This story has nothing to do with Apollo: but I may as well tell it among the other flower stories.

There was a very beautiful nymph named Echo, who had never, in all her life, seen anybody handsomer than the god Pan. You have read that Pan was the chief of all the Satyrs, and what hideous monsters the Satyrs were. So, when Pan made love to her, she very naturally kept him at a distance: and, as she supposed him to be no worse-looking than the rest of the world, she made up her mind to have nothing to do with love or love-making, and was quite content to ramble about the woods all alone.

But one day, to her surprise, she happened to meet with a young man who was as different from Pan as any creature could be. Instead of having a goat’s legs and long hairy arms, he was as graceful as Apollo himself: no horns grew out of his forehead, and his ears were not long, pointed, and covered with hair, but just like Echo’s own. And he was just as beautiful in face as he was graceful in form. I doubt if Echo would have thought even Apollo himself so beautiful.

The nymphs were rather shy, and Echo was the very shyest of them all. But she admired him so much that she could not leave the spot, and at last she even plucked up courage enough to ask him, “What is the name of the most beautiful being in the whole world?”

“Whom do you mean?” asked he. “Yourself? If you want to know your own name, you can tell it better than I can.”

“No,” said Echo, “I don’t mean myself, I mean you. What is your name?”

“My name is Narcissus,” said he. “But as for my being beautiful – that is absurd.”

“Narcissus!” repeated Echo to herself. “It is a beautiful name. Which of the nymphs have you come to meet here in these woods all alone? She is lucky – whoever she may be.”

“I have come to meet nobody,” said Narcissus. “But – am I really so beautiful? I have often been told so by other girls, of course; but really it is more than I can quite believe.”

“And you don’t care for any of those girls?”

“Why, you see,” said Narcissus, “when all the girls one knows call one beautiful, there’s no reason why I should care for one more than another. They all seem alike when they are all always saying just the same thing. Ah! I do wish I could see myself, so that I could tell if it was really true. I would marry the girl who could give me the wish of my heart – to see myself as other people see me. But as nobody can make me do that, why, I suppose I shall get on very well without marrying anybody at all.”

Looking-glasses had not been invented in those days, so that Narcissus had really never seen even so much of himself as his chin.

“What!” cried Echo, full of hope and joy; “if I make you see your own face, you will marry me?”

“I said so,” said he. “And of course what I say I’ll do, I’ll do.”

“Then – come with me!”

Echo took him by the hand and led him to the edge of a little lake in the middle of the wood, full of clear water.

“Kneel down, Narcissus,” said she, “and bend your eyes over the water-side. That lake is the mirror where Diana comes every morning to dress her hair, and in which, every night, the moon and the stars behold themselves. Look into that water, and see what manner of man you are!”

Narcissus kneeled down and looked into the lake. And, better than in any common looking-glass, he saw the reflected image of his own face – and he looked, and looked, and could not take his eyes away.

But Echo at last grew tired of waiting. “Have you forgotten what you promised me?” asked she. “Are you content now? Do you see now that what I told you is true?”

He lifted his eyes at last. “Oh, beautiful creature that I am!” said he. “I am indeed the most divine creature in the whole wide world. I love myself madly. Go away. I want to be with my beautiful image, with myself, all alone. I can’t marry you. I shall never love anybody but myself for the rest of my days.” And he kneeled down and gazed at himself once more, while poor Echo had to go weeping away.

Narcissus had spoken truly. He loved himself and his own face so much that he could think of nothing else: he spent all his days and nights by the lake, and never took his eyes away. But unluckily his image, which was only a shadow in the water, could not love him back again. And so he pined away until he died. And when his friends came to look for his body, they found nothing but a flower, into which his soul had turned. So they called it the Narcissus, and we call it so still. And yet I don’t know that it is a particularly conceited or selfish flower.

As for poor Echo, she pined away too. She faded and faded until nothing was left of her but her voice. There are many places where she can even now be heard. And she still has the same trick of saying to vain and foolish people whatever they say to themselves, or whatever they would like best to hear said to them. If you go where Echo is, and call out loudly, “I am beautiful!” – she will echo your very words.