Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable

Ch. 16: Hercules, Alcestis, Antigone, Penelope

The river-god Achelous told the story of Erisichthon to Theseus

and his companions, whom he was entertaining at his hospitable

board, while they were delayed on their journey by the overflow

of his waters. Having finished his story, he added, "But why

should I tell of other persons' transformations, when I myself am

an instance of the possession of this power. Sometimes I become

a serpent, and sometimes a bull, with horns on my head. Or I

should say, I once could do so; but now I have but one horn,

having lost one." And here he groaned and was silent.

Theseus asked him the cause of his grief, and how he lost his

horn. To which question the river-god replied as follows: "Who

likes to tell of his defeats? Yet I will not hesitate to relate

mine, comforting myself with the thought of the greatness of my

conqueror, for it was Hercules. Perhaps you have heard of the

fame of Dejanira, the fairest of maidens, whom a host of suitors

strove to win. Hercules and myself were of the number, and the

rest yielded to us two. He urged in his behalf his descent from

Jove, and his labors by which he had exceeded the exactions of

Juno, his step-mother. I, on the other hand, said to the father

of the maiden, 'Behold me, the king of the waters that flow

through your land. I am no stranger from a foreign shore, but

belong to the country, a part of your realm. Let it not stand in

my way that royal Juno owes me no enmity, nor punishes me with

heavy tasks. As for this man, who boasts himself the son of

Jove, it is either a false pretence, or disgraceful to him if

true, for it cannot be true except by his mother's shame.' As I

said this Hercules scowled upon me, and with difficulty

restrained his rage. 'My hand will answer better than my

tongue,' said he. 'I yield you the victory in words, but trust

my cause to the strife of deeds. With that he advanced towards

me, and I was ashamed, after what I had said, to yield. I threw

off my green vesture, and presented myself for the struggle. He

tried to throw me, now attacking my head, now my body. My bulk

was my protection, and he assailed me in vain. For a time we

stopped, then returned to the conflict. We each kept our

position, determined not to yield, foot to foot, I bending over

him, clinching his hands in mine, with my forehead almost

touching his. Thrice Hercules tried to throw me off, and the

fourth time he succeeded, brought me to the ground and himself

upon my back. I tell you the truth, it was as if a mountain had

fallen on me. I struggled to get my arms at liberty, panting and

reeking with perspiration. He gave me no chance to recover, but

seized my throat. My knees were on the earth and my mouth in the

dust.

"Finding that I was no match for him in the warrior's art, I

resorted to others, and glided away in the form of a serpent. I

curled my body in a coil, and hissed at him with my forked

tongue. He smiled scornfully at this, and said, 'It was the

labor of my infancy to conquer snakes.' So saying he clasped my

neck with his hands. I was almost choked, and struggled to get

my neck out of his grasp. Vanquished in this form, I tried what

alone remained to me, and assumed the form of a bull. He grasped

my neck with his arm, and, dragging my head down to the ground,

overthrew me on the sand. Nor was this enough. His ruthless

hand rent my horn from my head. The Naiades took it, consecrated

it, and filled it with fragrant flowers. Plenty adopted my horn,

and made it her own, and called it Cornucopia.

The ancients were fond of finding a hidden meaning in their

mythological tales. They explain this fight of Achelous with

Hercules by saying Achelous was a river that in seasons of rain

overflowed its banks. When the fable says that Achelous loved

Dejanira, and sought a union with her, the meaning is, that the

river in its windings flowed through part of Dejanira's kingdom.

It was said to take the form of a snake because of its winding,

and of a bull because it made a brawling or roaring in its

course. When the river swelled, it made itself another channel.

Thus its head was horned. Hercules prevented the return of these

periodical overflows, by embankments and canals; and therefore he

was said to have vanquished the river-god and cut off his horn.

Finally, the lands formerly subject to overflow, but now

redeemed, became very fertile, and this is meant by the horn of

plenty.

There is another account of the origin of the Cornucopia.

Jupiter at his birth was committed by his mother Rhea to the care

of the daughters of Melisseus, a Cretan king. They fed the

infant deity with the milk of the goat Amalthea. Jupiter broke

off one of the horns of the goat and gave it to his nurses, and

endowed it with the wonderful power of becoming filled with

whatever the possessor might wish.

The name of Amalthea is also given by some writers to the mother

of Bacchus. It is thus used by Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV.:

"That Nyseian isle,

Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,

Whom Gentiles Ammon call, and Libyan Jove,

Hid Amalthea and her florid son,

Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye."

ADMETUS AND ALCESTIS

Aesculapius, the son of Apollo, was endowed by his father with

such skill in the healing art that he even restored the dead to

life. At this Pluto took alarm, and prevailed on Jupiter to

launch a thunderbolt at Aesculapius. Apollo was indignant at the

destruction of his son, and wreaked his vengeance on the innocent

workmen who had made the thunderbolt. These were the Cyclopes,

who have their workshop under Mount Aetna, from which the smoke

and flames of their furnaces are constantly issuing. Apollo shot

his arrows at the Cyclopes, which so incensed Jupiter that he

condemned him as a punishment to become he servant of 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.

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 would 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 call. Then

Alcestis, with a generous self-devotion, proffered herself as the

substitute. Admetus, fond as he was of life, would not have

submitted to receive it at such a cost; but there was no remedy.

The condition imposed by the Fates had been met, and the decree

was irrevocable. Alcestis sickened as Admetus revived, and she

was rapidly sinking to the grave.

Just at this time Hercules arrived at the palace of Admetus, and

found all the inmates in great distress for the impending loss of

the devoted wife and beloved mistress. Hercules, to whom no

labor was too arduous, resolved to attempt her rescue. He went

and lay in wait at the door of the chamber of the dying queen,

and when Death came for his prey, he seized him and forced him to

resign his victim. Alcestis recovered, and was restored to her

husband.

Milton alludes to the story of Alcestis in his Sonnet on his

deceased wife.

"Methought I saw my late espoused saint,

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,

Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,

Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint."

James Russell Lowell has chosen the "Shepherd of King Admetus"

for the subject of a short poem. He makes that event the first

introduction of poetry to men.

"Men called him but a shiftless youth,

In whom no good they saw,

And yet unwittingly, in truth,

They made his careless words their law.

And day by day more holy grew

Each spot where he had trod,

Till after poets only knew

Their first-born brother was a god."

In The Love of Alcestis, one of the poems in The Earthly

Paradise, Mr. Morris thus tells the story of the taming of the

lions:

"----- Rising up no more delay he made,

But took the staff and gained the palace-door

Where stood the beasts, whose mingled whine and roar

Had wrought his dream; there two and two they stood,

Thinking, it might be, of the tangled wood,

And all the joys of the food-hiding trees.

But harmless as their painted images

'Neath some dread spell; then, leaping up, he took

The reins in hand and the bossed leather shook,

And no delay the conquered beasts durst make,

But drew, not silent; and folk just awake,

When he went by as though a god they saw,

Fell on their knees, and maidens come to draw

Fresh water from the fount, sank trembling down,

And silence held the babbling, wakened town."

ANTIGONE

The poems and histories of legendary Greece often relate, as has

been seen, to women and their lives. Antigone was as bright an

example of filial and sisterly fidelity as was Alcestis of

connubial devotion. She was the daughter of OEdipus and Jocasta,

who, with all their descendants, were the victims of an

unrelenting fate, dooming them to destruction. OEdipus in his

madness had torn out his eyes, and was driven forth from his

kingdom Thebes, dreaded and abandoned by all men, as an object of

divine vengeance. Antigone, his daughter, alone shared his

wanderings, and remained with him till he died, and then returned

to Thebes.

Her brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, had agreed to share the

kingdom between them, and reign alternately year by year. The

first year fell to the lot of Eteocles, who, when his time

expired, refused to surrender the kingdom to his brother.

Polynices fled to Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him his

daughter in marriage, and aided him with an army to enforce his

claim to the kingdom. This led to the celebrated expedition of

the "Seven against Thebes," which furnished ample materials for

the epic and tragic poets of Greece.

Amphiaraus, the brother-in-law of Adrastus, opposed the

enterprise, for he was a soothsayer, and knew by his art that no

one of the leaders except Adrastus would live to return. But

Amphiaraus, on his marriage to Eriphyle, the king's sister, had

agreed that whenever he and Adrastus should differ in opinion,

the decision should be left to Eriphyle. Polynices, knowing

this, gave Eriphyle the collar of Harmonia, and thereby gained

her to his interest. This collar or necklace was a present which

Vulcan had given to Harmonia on her marriage with Cadmus, and

Polynices had taken it with him on his flight from Thebes.

Eriphyle could not resist so tempting a bribe, and by her

decision the war was resolved on, and Amphiaraus went to his

certain fate. He bore his part bravely in the contest, but could

not avert his destiny. Pursued by the enemy he fled along the

river, when a thunderbolt launched by Jupiter opened the ground,

and he, his chariot, and his charioteer, were swallowed up.

It would not be in place here to detail all the acts of heroism

or atrocity which marked the contest; but we must not omit to

record the fidelity of Evadne as an offset to the weakness of

Eriphyle. Capaneus, the husband of Evadne, in the ardor of the

fight, declared that he would force his way into the city in

spite of Jove himself. Placing a ladder against the wall, he

mounted, but Jupiter, offended at his impious language, struck

him with a thunderbolt. When his obsequies were celebrated,

Evadne cast herself on his funeral pile and perished.

Early in the contest Eteocles consulted the soothsayer Tiresias

as to the issue. Tiresias, in his youth, had by chance seen

Minerva bathing. The goddess in her wrath deprived him of his

sight, but afterwards relenting gave him in compensation the

knowledge of future events. When consulted by Eteocles, he

declared that victory should fall to Thebes if Menoeceus, the son

of Creon, gave himself a voluntary victim. The heroic youth,

learning the response, threw away his life in the first

encounter.

The siege continued long, with various success. At length both

hosts agreed that the brothers should decide their quarrel by

single combat. They fought and fell by each other's hands. The

armies then renewed the fight, and at last the invaders were

forced to yield, and fled, leaving their dead unburied. Creon,

the uncle of the fallen princes, now become king, caused Eteocles

to be buried with distinguished honor, but suffered the body of

Polynices to lie where it fell, forbidding every one, on pain of

death, to give it burial.

Antigone, the sister of Polynices, heard with indignation the

revolting edict which consigned her brother's body to the dogs

and vultures, depriving it of those rites which were considered

essential to the repose of the dead. Unmoved by the dissuading

counsel of an affectionate but timid sister, and unable to

procure assistance, she determined to brave the hazard and to

bury the body with her own hands. She was detected in the act,

and Creon gave orders that she should be buried alive, as having

deliberately set at nought the solemn edict of the city. Her

love, Haemon, the son of Creon, unable to avert her fate, would

not survive her, and fell by his own hand.

Antigone forms the subject of two fine tragedies of the Grecian

poet Sophocles. Mrs. Jameson, in her Characteristics of Women,

has compared her character with that of Cordelia, in

Shakespeare's King Lear. The perusal of her remarks cannot fail

to gratify our readers.

The following is the lamentation of Antigone over OEdipus, when

death has at last relieved him from his sufferings:

"Alas! I only wished I might have died

With my poor father; wherefore should I ask

For longer life?

Oh, I was fond of misery with him;

E'en what was most unlovely grew beloved

When he was with me. Oh, my dearest father,

Beneath the earth now in deep darkness hid,

Worn as thou wert with age, to me thou still

Wast dear, and shalt be ever."

Francklin's Sophocles

PENELOPE

Penelope is another of those mythic heroines whose beauties were

rather those of character and conduct than of person. She was

the daughter of Icarius, a Spartan prince. Ulysses, king of

Ithaca, sought her in marriage, and won her over all competitors.

When the moment came for the bride to leave her father's house,

Icarius, unable to bear the thoughts of parting with his

daughter, tried to persuade her to remain with him, and not

accompany her husband to Ithaca. Ulysses gave Penelope her

choice, to stay or go with him. Penelope made no reply, but

dropped her veil over her face. Icarius urged her no further,

but when she was gone erected a statue to Modesty on the spot

where they parted.

Ulysses and Penelope had not enjoyed their union more than a year

when it was interrupted by the events which called Ulysses to the

Trojan war. During his long absence, and when it was doubtful

whether he still lived, and highly improbable that he would ever

return, Penelope was importuned by numerous suitors, from whom

there seemed no refuge but in choosing one of them for her

husband. Penelope, however, employed every art to gain time,

still hopping for Ulysses' return. One of her arts of delay was

engaging in the preparation of a robe for the funeral canopy of

Laertes, her husband's father. She pledged herself to make her

choice among the suitors when the robe was finished. During the

day she worked at the robe, but in the night she undid the work

of the day. This is the famous Penelope's web, which is used as

a proverbial expression for anything which is perpetually doing

but never done. The rest of Penelope's history will be told when

we give an account of her husband's adventures.