Читать книгу The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome - Ultimate Collection - Homer - Страница 39

Table of Contents

When Europa had been carried off to Crete by Zeus in the form of a beautiful white bull, her father A ge’nor had ordered his sons to go out in search of their sister and not to return unless they found her. Cadmus, one of the sons, therefore, set out from Phoenicia and wandered for many years through the islands and coasts of the sea, until at last, despairing of success, he came to Delphi to consult the oracle. Apollo told him that the search was quite vain and commanded him to follow a cow who would lead him to the spot where he was destined to found a new city. Hardly had Cadmus left the oracle when the cow appeared and going before him into Boeotia lay down near the place where later stood the citadel of Thebes.

Wishing to make a sacrifice to his patron goddess Athena, Cadmus sent his men to the spring of Ares, close at hand, to fetch water for the purification. The spring was guarded by a terrible dragon, himself a son of Ares, and no one of Cadmus' men returned to tell the tale. Puzzled at the long delay, Cadmus went himself to the spring. There lay the bloody and mangled bodies of his companions, and over them threatened the huge triple jaws and three-forked tongues of the dragon. At the bidding of Athena Cadmus killed the beast with a stone and sowed in the ground its huge teeth, from which sprang up a crop of armed men of more than human size and strength. Still at Athena's bidding, Cadmus threw a stone into their midst, whereupon they turned their weapons upon one another and fought on fiercely until only five were left. These five made peace with one another and with Cadmus and became under him the founders of the five great Theban families.

Fig. 82. Cadmus and the Dragon.

To atone for the blood of Ares' sacred dragon slain by his hand, Cadmus had to serve the god for eight years. At the end of this time Athena made him king of the new city he had founded, and Zeus gave him as wife Harmo’nia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. All the gods came down from Olympus to honor the wedding, and the Muses, led by Apollo, sang the marriage hymn. Cadmus gave to his bride a marvelous necklace; some say it was made for him by Hephæstus, and others that he received it from Europa, to whom it had been given by Zeus. Whatever was its origin, Harmonia's necklace always brought disaster to its owner; indeed, notwithstanding the splendor of his marriage, an ill fate pursued Cadmus. Hoping to avoid his destiny, he left his city and settled in Illyria, but even there the resentment of Ares pursued him. At last, quite discouraged, he declared in bitterness that, since a serpent was so cherished and so faithfully avenged by the gods, he wished that he might be one. Immediately his wish was granted and Harmonia shared his fate. The tombs of the hero and his wife were set up in the land of their exile and were guarded by their geniuses in the forms of serpents. Cadmus is credited with having introduced the alphabet into Greece from Phoenicia.

The evil fate of Cadmus pursued his descendants. One of his four daughters was Sem’ele, the mother of Bacchus, who, as was told in the account of that god (see p. 165), was burned to ashes by the brightness of her lover Zeus. Another was the mother of that unfortunate Actæon who was torn to pieces by his own dogs. (See p. 85.) A third became a votary of Bacchus and in her madness tore to pieces her own son Pentheus. (See p. 168.) The fourth inflicted and suffered terrible woes through Hera's anger at her for taking care of Semele's child Bacchus.

The curse laid upon the family of Cadmus passed over his one son and that son's son, but fell with redoubled force in the next generation upon the family of La’i us. It was in defiance of the warning of the gods that Lams married his cousin Jo cas’ta, for an oracle had pronounced that he was destined to meet his death at the hands of a son born of that union. In order to avoid this danger he commanded that the baby born to his wife should at once be put to death. The duty was entrusted to a shepherd, who, however, being tender-hearted, could not bear to take the infant's life, but after piercing his feet and binding them with thongs, intended to leave him to his fate on Mt. Cithæron. It happened that a shepherd of the king of Corinth, who was pasturing his flocks on the mountains, received the poor maimed infant and took him to his king and queen. As they were childless, the royal couple gladly adopted him and brought him up as their own son.

The boy, Called Œdipus or Swollen-Foot, grew up in the belief that he was the real son and rightful heir of the king of Corinth, but a certain insulting hint that he once received with regard to his birth troubled him enough to send him to Apollo's oracle at Delphi to ask the truth. He received no direct answer to his question, but was told that he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified by this prophecy, he turned his back on Corinth, resolved never to return while his supposed parents lived.

As he hurried along the steep mountain path leading away from Delphi, he met a chariot coming from the direction of Thebes. The charioteer somewhat arrogantly ordered him out of the way, and Œdipus, accustomed to being treated as a prince and being, besides, deeply troubled over the tragic prophecy, violently resented the order and provoked a blow from the master of the chariot. In a passion of rage Œdipus drew his sword and killed both master and charioteer. The old man was King Laius. On his arrival at Thebes Œdipus found the city in great tribulation over the destruction caused by a mysterious being with the body of a lion, the head of a woman, and the wings of a bird. This creature, the Sphinx, had seated herself above the road and asked all passers-by the following riddle: "What is it that, though it has one voice, is four-footed, and two-footed, and three-footed?" Those who could not answer the riddle the Sphinx killed, and a great pile of whitening bones lay about her. But Œdipus was not daunted by the fate of those others who had gone before, and when the question was put to him he answered: "It is man, since in his babyhood he goes on hands and knees, in his manhood he walks upright, and when old supports himself with a cane." In chagrin at being answered the Sphinx threw herself over the cliff, and thus the city was freed. The Thebans honored the stranger who had come to their relief in every way, and even made him their king and gave him as wife the widowed queen. Jocasta bore to him four children, two sons and two daughters, and for a long time he lived in peace and prosperity, loved and honored by all his grateful people.

Fig. 83. Œdipus and the Sphinx.

But at last the day of retribution came, and a blight and pestilence fell upon the city, so that the fields yielded no grain, and men and beasts died. To the ambassadors sent to Delphi to learn the cause the answer was returned that not until the city was purged of the murderer of King Laius would the curse be removed. Œdipus had never suspected that the old man he had killed on the road from Delphi was the Theban king, and the truth was the less likely to come to him since the sole attendant of the murdered king who had escaped had told a big story of a robber band that had attacked them on the road. Œdipus, therefore, proclaimed that whosoever knew anything of the men who had done this deed should declare it, and that the guilty ones should be put to death or driven into banishment. A blind seer who was brought to testify before the king at first refused to speak, and when, goaded by a charge of treachery, he declared, "Thou art the man who has brought pollution upon this land!" Œdipus turned upon him in furious disbelief. Only when he learned the time and place of the murder and the age and appearance of the murdered man, was he convinced of his own guilt, and with this conviction came a yet more bitter discovery. For through the testimony of the Theban and Corinthian shepherds who had been concerned in his exposure and his adoption as an infant he learned that he was the son of Laius whom he had killed and the husband of his own mother. The terrible truth had already broken upon Jocasta, and she had gone into the private chambers of the palace and hung herself. With the pin of her brooch her wretched husband put out both his eyes, that he might never look upon the holy sun again.

Jocasta's brother Creon took the throne, and blind Œdipus, led by his heroic and faithful daughter An tig’o ne, went into exile. His end was mysterious. At Athens, under the noble king Theseus, he found refuge and protection, but with prophetic knowledge of what his fate was to be, he sought the sacred grove of the Furies at Colo’nus, close to Athens, and there amid thunder and strange portents he disappeared from the sight of men.

The curse that rested on the family was not lifted by Œdipus' death. His two sons, Ete’ocles and Pol y nieces, who had deserted their father in his old age and blindness and by him had been cursed for this faithlessness, quarreled about the throne, and Eteocles drove his brother from the kingdom. Polynices, therefore, went to Argos and persuaded the king Adras’tus, to champion his cause. An army was gathered, and seven great chiefs were found to undertake the expedition against seven-gated Thebes. The seer Am phi a ra’us went unwillingly, for he knew that the war was contrary to the will of the gods, and that from it he should never, return alive. But when he married it had been agreed that if any difference should arise between him and his brother-in-law Adrastus, his wife E ri’phy le should be the judge. Polynices, therefore, bribed her with Harmonia's necklace, and she treacherously sent her husband to the war. Of the seven heroes Adrastus alone returned alive. The brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, meeting in single combat, died at one another's hands, thus fulfilling the curse with which Œdipus had cursed them when they had deserted him in his day of trouble and exile.

Eteoclcs was buried by Creon and the Thebans with all due honor, but it was decreed that the body of Polynices, as that of a traitor, should be left for the dogs and vultures to devour. Antigone, loyal to her brother as she had been to her father, at the risk of her life and in spite of the dissuasion of her weaker sister Is me’ne, gave the body the last rites of burial, without which the shade must wander hopeless on the banks of Acheron. In punishment she was buried alive, and her lover, Creon's son, killed himself upon her tomb. With Antigone's act of self-sacrifice and dreadful death the long tragedy of the family of Cadmus came to an end.

In the next generation the city of Thebes finally fell before the seven sons of the original Seven, and the son of Polynices was established on the throne. This war is known as the war of the Ep ig’o ni or descendants.