The Heroes; Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children

And outside before the palace a great garden was walled round, filled full of stately fruit-trees, gray olives and sweet figs, and pomegranates, pears, and apples, which bore the whole year round.  For the rich south-west wind fed them, till pear grew ripe on pear, fig on fig, and grape on grape, all the winter and the spring.  And at the farther end gay flower-beds bloomed through all seasons of the year; and two fair fountains rose, and ran, one through the garden grounds, and one beneath the palace gate, to water all the town.  Such noble gifts the heavens had given to Alcinous the wise.

So they went in, and saw him sitting, like Poseidon, on his throne, with his golden sceptre by him, in garments stiff with gold, and in his hand a sculptured goblet, as he pledged the merchant kings; and beside him stood Arete, his wise and lovely queen, and leaned against a pillar as she spun her golden threads.

Then Alcinous rose, and welcomed them, and bade them sit and eat; and the servants brought them tables, and bread, and meat, and wine.

But Medeia went on trembling toward Arete the fair queen, and fell at her knees, and clasped them, and cried, weeping, as she knelt—

‘I am your guest, fair queen, and I entreat you by Zeus, from whom prayers come.  Do not send me back to my father to die some dreadful death; but let me go my way, and bear my burden.  Have I not had enough of punishment and shame?’

‘Who are you, strange maiden? and what is the meaning of your prayer?’

‘I am Medeia, daughter of Aietes, and I saw my countrymen here to-day; and I know that they are come to find me, and take me home to die some dreadful death.’

Then Arete frowned, and said, ‘Lead this girl in, my maidens; and let the kings decide, not I.’

And Alcinous leapt up from his throne, and cried, ‘Speak, strangers, who are you?  And who is this maiden?’

‘We are the heroes of the Minuai,’ said Jason; ‘and this maiden has spoken truth.  We are the men who took the golden fleece, the men whose fame has run round every shore.  We came hither out of the ocean, after sorrows such as man never saw before.  We went out many, and come back few, for many a noble comrade have we lost.  So let us go, as you should let your guests go, in peace; that the world may say, “Alcinous is a just king.”’

But Alcinous frowned, and stood deep in thought; and at last he spoke—

‘Had not the deed been done which is done, I should have said this day to myself, “It is an honour to Alcinous, and to his children after him, that the far-famed Argonauts are his guests.”  But these Colchi are my guests, as you are; and for this month they have waited here with all their fleet, for they have hunted all the seas of Hellas, and could not find you, and dared neither go farther, nor go home.’

‘Let them choose out their champions, and we will fight them, man for man.’

‘No guests of ours shall fight upon our island, and if you go outside they will outnumber you.  I will do justice between you, for I know and do what is right.’

Then he turned to his kings, and said, ‘This may stand over till to-morrow.  To-night we will feast our guests, and hear the story of all their wanderings, and how they came hither out of the ocean.’

So Alcinous bade the servants take the heroes in, and bathe them, and give them clothes.  And they were glad when they saw the warm water, for it was long since they had bathed.  And they washed off the sea-salt from their limbs, and anointed themselves from head to foot with oil, and combed out their golden hair.  Then they came back again into the hall, while the merchant kings rose up to do them honour.  And each man said to his neighbour, ‘No wonder that these men won fame.  How they stand now like Giants, or Titans, or Immortals come down from Olympus, though many a winter has worn them, and many a fearful storm.  What must they have been when they sailed from Iolcos, in the bloom of their youth, long ago?’

Then they went out to the garden; and the merchant princes said, ‘Heroes, run races with us.  Let us see whose feet are nimblest.’

‘We cannot race against you, for our limbs are stiff from sea; and we have lost our two swift comrades, the sons of the north wind.  But do not think us cowards: if you wish to try our strength, we will shoot, and box, and wrestle, against any men on earth.’

And Alcinous smiled, and answered, ‘I believe you, gallant guests; with your long limbs and broad shoulders, we could never match you here.  For we care nothing here for boxing, or for shooting with the bow; but for feasts, and songs, and harping, and dancing, and running races, to stretch our limbs on shore.’

So they danced there and ran races, the jolly merchant kings, till the night fell, and all went in.

And then they ate and drank, and comforted their weary souls, till Alcinous called a herald, and bade him go and fetch the harper.

The herald went out, and fetched the harper, and led him in by the hand; and Alcinous cut him a piece of meat, from the fattest of the haunch, and sent it to him, and said, ‘Sing to us, noble harper, and rejoice the heroes’ hearts.’

So the harper played and sang, while the dancers danced strange figures; and after that the tumblers showed their tricks, till the heroes laughed again.

Then, ‘Tell me, heroes,’ asked Alcinous, ‘you who have sailed the ocean round, and seen the manners of all nations, have you seen such dancers as ours here, or heard such music and such singing?  We hold ours to be the best on earth.’

‘Such dancing we have never seen,’ said Orpheus; ‘and your singer is a happy man, for Phoebus himself must have taught him, or else he is the son of a Muse, as I am also, and have sung once or twice, though not so well as he.’

‘Sing to us, then, noble stranger,’ said Alcinous; ‘and we will give you precious gifts.’

So Orpheus took his magic harp, and sang to them a stirring song of their voyage from Iolcos, and their dangers, and how they won the golden fleece; and of Medeia’s love, and how she helped them, and went with them over land and sea; and of all their fearful dangers, from monsters, and rocks, and storms, till the heart of Arete was softened, and all the women wept.  And the merchant kings rose up, each man from off his golden throne, and clapped their hands, and shouted, ‘Hail to the noble Argonauts, who sailed the unknown sea!’

Then he went on, and told their journey over the sluggish northern main, and through the shoreless outer ocean, to the fairy island of the west; and of the Sirens, and Scylla, and Charybdis, and all the wonders they had seen, till midnight passed and the day dawned; but the kings never thought of sleep.  Each man sat still and listened, with his chin upon his hand.

And at last, when Orpheus had ended, they all went thoughtful out, and the heroes lay down to sleep, beneath the sounding porch outside, where Arete had strewn them rugs and carpets, in the sweet still summer night.

But Arete pleaded hard with her husband for Medeia, for her heart was softened.  And she said, ‘The Gods will punish her, not we.  After all, she is our guest and my suppliant, and prayers are the daughters of Zeus.  And who, too, dare part man and wife, after all they have endured together?’

And Alcinous smiled.  ‘The minstrel’s song has charmed you: but I must remember what is right, for songs cannot alter justice; and I must be faithful to my name.  Alcinous I am called, the man of sturdy sense; and Alcinous I will be.’  But for all that Arete besought him, until she won him round.

So next morning he sent a herald, and called the kings into the square, and said, ‘This is a puzzling matter: remember but one thing.  These Minuai live close by us, and we may meet them often on the seas; but Aietes lives afar off, and we have only heard his name.  Which, then, of the two is it safer to offend—the men near us, or the men far off?’

The princes laughed, and praised his wisdom; and Alcinous called the heroes to the square, and the Colchi also; and they came and stood opposite each other, but Medeia stayed in the palace.  Then Alcinous spoke, ‘Heroes of the Colchi, what is your errand about this lady?’

‘To carry her home with us, that she may die a shameful death; but if we return without her, we must die the death she should have died.’

‘What say you to this, Jason the Æolid?’ said Alcinous, turning to the Minuai.

‘I say,’ said the cunning Jason, ‘that they are come here on a bootless errand.  Do you think that you can make her follow you, heroes of the Colchi—her, who knows all spells and charms?  She will cast away your ships on quicksands, or call down on you Brimo the wild huntress; or the chains will fall from off her wrists, and she will escape in her dragon-car; or if not thus, some other way, for she has a thousand plans and wiles.  And why return home at all, brave heroes, and face the long seas again, and the Bosphorus, and the stormy Euxine, and double all your toil?  There is many a fair land round these coasts, which waits for gallant men like you.  Better to settle there, and build a city, and let Aietes and Colchis help themselves.’

Then a murmur rose among the Colchi, and some cried ‘He has spoken well;’ and some, ‘We have had enough of roving, we will sail the seas no more!’  And the chief said at last, ‘Be it so, then; a plague she has been to us, and a plague to the house of her father, and a plague she will be to you.  Take her, since you are no wiser; and we will sail away toward the north.’

Then Alcinous gave them food, and water, and garments, and rich presents of all sorts; and he gave the same to the Minuai, and sent them all away in peace.

So Jason kept the dark witch-maiden to breed him woe and shame; and the Colchi went northward into the Adriatic, and settled, and built towns along the shore.

Then the heroes rowed away to the eastward, to reach Hellas, their beloved land; but a storm came down upon them, and swept them far away toward the south.  And they rowed till they were spent with struggling, through the darkness and the blinding rain; but where they were they could not tell, and they gave up all hope of life.  And at last touched the ground, and when daylight came waded to the shore; and saw nothing round but sand and desolate salt pools, for they had come to the quicksands of the Syrtis, and the dreary treeless flats which lie between Numidia and Cyrene, on the burning shore of Africa.  And there they wandered starving for many a weary day, ere they could launch their ship again, and gain the open sea.  And there Canthus was killed, while he was trying to drive off sheep, by a stone which a herdsman threw.

And there too Mopsus died, the seer who knew the voices of all birds; but he could not foretell his own end, for he was bitten in the foot by a snake, one of those which sprang from the Gorgon’s head when Perseus carried it across the sands.

At last they rowed away toward the northward, for many a weary day, till their water was spent, and their food eaten; and they were worn out with hunger and thirst.  But at last they saw a long steep island, and a blue peak high among the clouds; and they knew it for the peak of Ida, and the famous land of Crete.  And they said, ‘We will land in Crete, and see Minos the just king, and all his glory and his wealth; at least he will treat us hospitably, and let us fill our water-casks upon the shore.’

But when they came nearer to the island they saw a wondrous sight upon the cliffs.  For on a cape to the westward stood a giant, taller than any mountain pine, who glittered aloft against the sky like a tower of burnished brass.  He turned and looked on all sides round him, till he saw the Argo and her crew; and when he saw them he came toward them, more swiftly than the swiftest horse, leaping across the glens at a bound, and striding at one step from down to down.  And when he came abreast of them he brandished his arms up and down, as a ship hoists and lowers her yards, and shouted with his brazen throat like a trumpet from off the hills, ‘You are pirates, you are robbers!  If you dare land here, you die.’

Then the heroes cried, ‘We are no pirates.  We are all good men and true, and all we ask is food and water;’ but the giant cried the more—

‘You are robbers, you are pirates all; I know you; and if you land, you shall die the death.’

Then he waved his arms again as a signal, and they saw the people flying inland, driving their flocks before them, while a great flame arose among the hills.  Then the giant ran up a valley and vanished, and the heroes lay on their oars in fear.

But Medeia stood watching all from under her steep black brows, with a cunning smile upon her lips, and a cunning plot within her heart.  At last she spoke, ‘I know this giant.  I heard of him in the East.  Hephaistos the Fire King made him in his forge in Ætna beneath the earth, and called him Talus, and gave him to Minos for a servant, to guard the coast of Crete.  Thrice a day he walks round the island, and never stops to sleep; and if strangers land he leaps into his furnace, which flames there among the hills; and when he is red-hot he rushes on them, and burns them in his brazen hands.’

Then all the heroes cried, ‘What shall we do, wise Medeia?  We must have water, or we die of thirst.  Flesh and blood we can face fairly; but who can face this red-hot brass?’

‘I can face red-hot brass, if the tale I hear be true.  For they say that he has but one vein in all his body, filled with liquid fire; and that this vein is closed with a nail: but I know not where that nail is placed.  But if I can get it once into these hands, you shall water your ship here in peace.’

Then she bade them put her on shore, and row off again, and wait what would befall.

And the heroes obeyed her unwillingly, for they were ashamed to leave her so alone; but Jason said, ‘She is dearer to me than to any of you, yet I will trust her freely on shore; she has more plots than we can dream of in the windings of that fair and cunning head.’

So they left the witch-maiden on the shore; and she stood there in her beauty all alone, till the giant strode back red-hot from head to heel, while the grass hissed and smoked beneath his tread.

And when he saw the maiden alone, he stopped; and she looked boldly up into his face without moving, and began her magic song:—

‘Life is short, though life is sweet; and even men of brass and fire must die.  The brass must rust, the fire must cool, for time gnaws all things in their turn.  Life is short, though life is sweet: but sweeter to live for ever; sweeter to live ever youthful like the Gods, who have ichor in their veins—ichor which gives life, and youth, and joy, and a bounding heart.’

Then Talus said, ‘Who are you, strange maiden, and where is this ichor of youth?’

Then Medeia held up a flask of crystal, and said, ‘Here is the ichor of youth.  I am Medeia the enchantress; my sister Circe gave me this, and said, “Go and reward Talus, the faithful servant, for his fame is gone out into all lands.”  So come, and I will pour this into your veins, that you may live for ever young.’

And he listened to her false words, that simple Talus, and came near; and Medeia said, ‘Dip yourself in the sea first, and cool yourself, lest you burn my tender hands; then show me where the nail in your vein is, that I may pour the ichor in.’

Then that simple Talus dipped himself in the sea, till it hissed, and roared, and smoked; and came and knelt before Medeia, and showed her the secret nail.

And she drew the nail out gently, but she poured no ichor in; and instead the liquid fire spouted forth, like a stream of red-hot iron.  And Talus tried to leap up, crying, ‘You have betrayed me, false witch-maiden!’  But she lifted up her hands before him, and sang, till he sank beneath her spell.  And as he sank, his brazen limbs clanked heavily, and the earth groaned beneath his weight; and the liquid fire ran from his heel, like a stream of lava, to the sea; and Medeia laughed, and called to the heroes, ‘Come ashore, and water your ship in peace.’

So they came, and found the giant lying dead; and they fell down, and kissed Medeia’s feet; and watered their ship, and took sheep and oxen, and so left that inhospitable shore.

At last, after many more adventures, they came to the Cape of Malea, at the south-west point of the Peloponnese.  And there they offered sacrifices, and Orpheus purged them from their guilt.  Then they rode away again to the northward, past the Laconian shore, and came all worn and tired by Sunium, and up the long Euboean Strait, until they saw once more Pelion, and Aphetai, and Iolcos by the sea.

And they ran the ship ashore; but they had no strength left to haul her up the beach; and they crawled out on the pebbles, and sat down, and wept till they could weep no more.  For the houses and the trees were all altered; and all the faces which they saw were strange; and their joy was swallowed up in sorrow, while they thought of their youth, and all their labour, and the gallant comrades they had lost.

And the people crowded round, and asked them ‘Who are you, that you sit weeping here?’

‘We are the sons of your princes, who sailed out many a year ago.  We went to fetch the golden fleece, and we have brought it, and grief therewith.  Give us news of our fathers and our mothers, if any of them be left alive on earth.’

Then there was shouting, and laughing, and weeping; and all the kings came to the shore, and they led away the heroes to their homes, and bewailed the valiant dead.

Then Jason went up with Medeia to the palace of his uncle Pelias.  And when he came in Pelias sat by the hearth, crippled and blind with age; while opposite him sat Æson, Jason’s father, crippled and blind likewise; and the two old men’s heads shook together as they tried to warm themselves before the fire.

And Jason fell down at his father’s knees, and wept, and called him by his name.  And the old man stretched his hands out, and felt him, and said, ‘Do not mock me, young hero.  My son Jason is dead long ago at sea.’

‘I am your own son Jason, whom you trusted to the Centaur upon Pelion; and I have brought home the golden fleece, and a princess of the Sun’s race for my bride.  So now give me up the kingdom, Pelias my uncle, and fulfil your promise as I have fulfilled mine.’

Then his father clung to him like a child, and wept, and would not let him go; and cried, ‘Now I shall not go down lonely to my grave.  Promise me never to leave me till I die.’

PART VI
WHAT WAS THE END OF THE HEROES

And now I wish that I could end my story pleasantly; but it is no fault of mine that I cannot.  The old songs end it sadly, and I believe that they are right and wise; for though the heroes were purified at Malea, yet sacrifices cannot make bad hearts good, and Jason had taken a wicked wife, and he had to bear his burden to the last.

And first she laid a cunning plot to punish that poor old Pelias, instead of letting him die in peace.

For she told his daughters, ‘I can make old things young again; I will show you how easy it is to do.’  So she took an old ram and killed him, and put him in a cauldron with magic herbs; and whispered her spells over him, and he leapt out again a young lamb.  So that ‘Medeia’s cauldron’ is a proverb still, by which we mean times of war and change, when the world has become old and feeble, and grows young again through bitter pains.

Then she said to Pelias’ daughters, ‘Do to your father as I did to this ram, and he will grow young and strong again.’  But she only told them half the spell; so they failed, while Medeia mocked them; and poor old Pelias died, and his daughters came to misery.  But the songs say she cured Æson, Jason’s father, and he became young, and strong again.

But Jason could not love her, after all her cruel deeds.  So he was ungrateful to her, and wronged her; and she revenged herself on him.  And a terrible revenge she took—too terrible to speak of here.  But you will hear of it yourselves when you grow up, for it has been sung in noble poetry and music; and whether it be true or not, it stands for ever as a warning to us not to seek for help from evil persons, or to gain good ends by evil means.  For if we use an adder even against our enemies, it will turn again and sting us.

But of all the other heroes there is many a brave tale left, which I have no space to tell you, so you must read them for yourselves;—of the hunting of the boar in Calydon, which Meleager killed; and of Heracles’ twelve famous labours; and of the seven who fought at Thebes; and of the noble love of Castor and Polydeuces, the twin Dioscouroi—how when one died the other would not live without him, so they shared their immortality between them; and Zeus changed them into the two twin stars which never rise both at once.

And what became of Cheiron, the good immortal beast?  That, too, is a sad story; for the heroes never saw him more.  He was wounded by a poisoned arrow, at Pholoe among the hills, when Heracles opened the fatal wine-jar, which Cheiron had warned him not to touch.  And the Centaurs smelt the wine, and flocked to it, and fought for it with Heracles; but he killed them all with his poisoned arrows, and Cheiron was left alone.  Then Cheiron took up one of the arrows, and dropped it by chance upon his foot; and the poison ran like fire along his veins, and he lay down and longed to die; and cried, ‘Through wine I perish, the bane of all my race.  Why should I live for ever in this agony?  Who will take my immortality, that I may die?’

Then Prometheus answered, the good Titan, whom Heracles had set free from Caucasus, ‘I will take your immortality and live for ever, that I may help poor mortal men.’  So Cheiron gave him his immortality, and died, and had rest from pain.  And Heracles and Prometheus wept over him, and went to bury him on Pelion; but Zeus took him up among the stars, to live for ever, grand and mild, low down in the far southern sky.

And in time the heroes died, all but Nestor, the silver-tongued old man; and left behind them valiant sons, but not so great as they had been.  Yet their fame, too, lives till this day, for they fought at the ten years’ siege of Troy: and their story is in the book which we call Homer, in two of the noblest songs on earth—the ‘Iliad,’ which tells us of the siege of Troy, and Achilles’ quarrel with the kings; and the ‘Odyssey,’ which tells the wanderings of Odysseus, through many lands for many years, and how Alcinous sent him home at last, safe to Ithaca his beloved island, and to Penelope his faithful wife, and Telemachus his son, and Euphorbus the noble swineherd, and the old dog who licked his hand and died.  We will read that sweet story, children, by the fire some winter night.  And now I will end my tale, and begin another and a more cheerful one, of a hero who became a worthy king, and won his people’s love.