Gods and Heroes

PART III. – THE GREAT FLOOD; OR, THE STORY OF DEUCALION

PROMETHEUS turned out to be quite right in saying that men would give more trouble to Jupiter than the Titans or the Giants, or anything that had ever been made. As time went on, men became more and more wicked every day.

Now there lived in Thessaly, on the banks of a river, a man and his wife, named Deucalion and Pyrrha. I think they must have been good people, and not like all the other men and women in the world. One day, Deucalion noticed that the water in the river was rising very high. He did not think much of it at the time, but the next day it was higher, and the next higher still. At last the river burst its banks, and spread over the country, sweeping away houses and drowning many people.

Deucalion and Pyrrha escaped out of their own house just in time, and went to the top of a mountain. But, to their terror, the waters still kept on spreading and rising, until all the plain of Thessaly looked like a sea, and the tops of the hills like islands.

“The water will cover the hills soon,” said Deucalion, “and then the mountains. What shall we do?”

Pyrrha thought for a moment, and then said: —

“I have heard that there is a very wise man on the top of Mount Caucasus who knows everything. Let us go to him, and perhaps he will tell us what to do and what all this water means.”

So they went down the other side, and went on and on till they reached the great Caucasian mountains, which are the highest in all Europe, and are always covered with snow. They climbed up to the highest peak, and there they saw a man, chained to the ice, with a vulture tearing and gnawing him. It was Prometheus, who had made the first man.

Deucalion tried to drive the horrible bird away. But Prometheus said: —

“It is no use. You can do nothing for me. Not even the Great Flood will drive this bird away, or put me out of my pain.”

“Ah! the Great Flood!” cried Deucalion and Pyrrha together. “We have left it behind us – are we safe up here?”

“You are safe nowhere,” said Prometheus. “Soon the waters will break over the mountains round Thessaly and spread over the whole world. They will rise and rise till not even this peak will be seen. Jupiter is sending this flood to sweep away from the face of the earth the wickedness of man. Not one is to be saved. Even now, there is nobody left alive but you two.”

Deucalion and Pyrrha looked: and, in the distance, they saw the waters coming on, and rising above the hills.

“But perhaps,” said Prometheus, “Jupiter may not wish to punish you. I cannot tell. But I will tell you what to do – it may save you. Go down the mountain till you come to a wood, and cut down a tree.” Then he told them how to make a boat – for nobody knew anything about boats in those days. Then he bade them good bye, and they went down the hill sorrowfully, wishing they could help Prometheus, and doubting if they could help themselves.

They came to the wood, and made the boat – just in time. The water rose; but their boat rose with the water. At last even the highest peak of Caucasus was covered, and they could see nothing but the sky above them and the waters round. Then the clouds gathered and burst, and the sky and the sea became one great storm.

For nine days and nights their little boat was tossed about by the winds and waves. But on the tenth day, as if by magic, the sky cleared, the water went down, and their boat was left high and dry on the top of a hill.

They knelt, and thanked Jupiter, and went down the hill hand in hand – the only man and the only woman in the whole world. They did not even know where they were.

But presently they met, coming up the hill, a form like a woman, only grander and more beautiful. They were afraid. But at last they had courage to ask: —

“Who are you? And where are we?”

“This hill is Mount Parnassus; and I am Themis, the goddess of Justice,” said she. “I have finished my work upon the earth, and am on my way home to the sky. I know your story. Live, and be good, and be warned by what has happened to all other men.”

“But what is the use of our living?” they asked, “and what is the use of this great world to us two? For we have no children to come after us when we die.”

“What you say is just,” said the goddess of Justice. “Jupiter will be pleased enough to give this empty world to a wiser and better race of men. But he will be quite as content without them. In short, you may have companions, if you want them, and if you will teach them to be better and wiser than the old ones. Only you must make them for yourselves.”

“But how can we make men?” asked they.

“I will tell you. Throw your grandmother’s bones behind you without looking round.”

“Our grandmother’s bones? But how are we to find them after this flood, or to know which are hers?”

“The gods,” said Themis, “tell people what to do, but not how it is to be done.” And she vanished into the air.

I think Themis was right. All of us are taught what we ought to do; but we are usually left to ask ourselves whether any particular thing is right or wrong.

Deucalion and Pyrrha asked one another; but neither knew what to say. The whole world, after the Great Flood, was full of bones everywhere. Which were their grandmother’s, and where? They wandered about over half the world trying to find them, but all in vain, till they thought they would have to give it up in despair.

At last, however, Pyrrha said to Deucalion: —

“I have a thought. We are all called the children of Jupiter, you know, because he is called the father of gods and men. And Jupiter and all the gods are the children of Cœlus and Terra. Now, if we are the children of Jupiter, and Jupiter is the child of Terra, then Terra must be our grandmother. And Terra is the Earth; so our grandmother is the Earth, you see.”

“But,” asked Deucalion, “what about the bones?”

“What are the bones of the Earth but the stones?” said Pyrrha. “The stones must be our Grandmother’s Bones.”

“I don’t think you’re right,” said Deucalion. “It’s much too easy a thing – only to throw a few stones. But there’s no harm in trying.”

So they gathered two heaps of stones, one for him and one for her, and threw the stones behind them, over their shoulders, without turning round – just as Themis had told them.

When they had thrown away all their stones, they looked to see if anything had happened. And lo! every stone thrown by Pyrrha had become a woman, and every stone thrown by Deucalion had become a man.

So they kept on throwing stones till the world was full of men and women again. And Deucalion and Pyrrha became their king and queen.

APOLLO

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.