Mythology: Part Five

They allowed him to eat at their table, to taste the nectar and ambrosia which except for him alone none but the immortals could partake of.

They allowed him to eat at their table, to taste the nectar and ambrosia which except for him alone none but the immortals could partake of.

They did more; they came to a banquet in his palace; they condescended to dine with him.

Over the pool fruit trees hung heavy laden with pears, pomegranates, rosy apples, sweet figs.

One of the goddesses, some say Demeter, some Thetis, inadvertently had eaten of the loathsome dish and when the boy’s limbs were reassembled one shoulder was wanting.

One of the goddesses, some say Demeter, some Thetis, inadvertently had eaten of the loathsome dish and when the boy’s limbs were reassembled one shoulder was wanting.

It was a sordid tale.

But in the crowd that greeted him with thanksgiving for his return there were anxious faces, and words of dark foreboding passed from one man to another.

As they wondered and feared, a tumult of noise reached them, chariots rolling, voices shouting.

“No more blood for you and me,” Clytemnestra said to Aegisthus. “We are lords here now. We two will order all things well.” It was a baseless hope.

It was a son’s duty to kill his father’s murderers, a duty that came before all others. But a son who killed his mother was abhorrent to gods and to men. A most sacred obligation was bound up with a most atrocious crime.

She persuaded the avenging goddesses also to accept it, and with this new law of mercy established they themselves were changed. From the Furies of frightful aspect they became the Benignant Ones, the Eumenides, protectors of the suppliant.

She persuaded the avenging goddesses also to accept it, and with this new law of mercy established they themselves were changed. From the Furies of frightful aspect they became the Benignant Ones, the Eumenides, protectors of the suppliant.

They acquitted Orestes, and with the words of acquittal the spirit of evil which had haunted his house for so long was banished.

Orestes went forth from Athena’s tribunal a free man.

They thought about such sacrifices as we do. They were abominable.

But as such it was her terrible task to conduct the sacrifices, not actually herself kill her countrymen, but consecrate them by long-established rites and deliver them over to those who would kill them.

She had been serving the goddess thus for many years when a Greek galley put in at the inhospitable shore, not under stern necessity, storm-driven, but voluntarily.

Did this happen before or after Orestes had been absolved of the guilt of his mother’s murder? It was some time after. Although Athena had pronounced him clear of guilt, in this story all the Erinyes had not accepted the verdict.

“I will tell you what is in the letter so that even if through some mischance you lose your belongings, you will carry my message in your memory and bear it to my friends.”

Say to him, ‘Brother, bring me back home. Free me from this murderous priesthood, this barbarous land.’

He thought the hour for action had emphatically arrived. “We can talk,” he reminded the brother and sister, “when once we are out of this dreadful place.”

But at the mouth of the harbor where it opened out to the sea a heavy wind blowing landward struck them and they could make no headway against it.

And the watchers on the shore saw the wind shift, the waves subside, and the Greek ship leave the harbor, flying under full sail to the sea beyond.

He was out hunting and hot and thirsty entered a grotto where a little stream widened into a pool.

Apollo was the God of Truth. Whatever the priestess at Delphi said would happen infallibly came to pass.

But when their two sons had grown to manhood Thebes was visited by a terrible plague. A blight fell upon everything.

To Ismene, shocking as it was, overwhelming her with anguish for the pitiful dead body and the lonely, homeless soul, it seemed, nevertheless, that nothing could be done except to acquiesce.

“You knew my edict?”
“Yes,” Antigone replied.

“And you transgressed the law?”

Capaneus lies here, a mighty man of wealth, yet humble as a poor man always and a true friend to all. He knew no guile; upon his lips were kind words only.

He describes in fifteen long lines (which I omit) exactly how Philomela’s tongue was cut out and what it looked like as it lay “palpitating” on the earth where Tereus had flung it.

In return for this good gift Cecrops, who had been made arbiter, decided that Athens was hers.

In one story of this contest between the two deities, woman’s suffrage plays a part. In those early days, we are told, women voted as well as men.

But the men, along with Poseidon, were greatly chagrined at this female triumph; and while Poseidon proceeded to flood the land the men decided to take the vote away from the women.

Or he could depict a harvest scene, a field with reapers and sheaf-binders, and a vineyard teeming with clusters of grapes which youths and maidens gathered into baskets while one of them played on a shepherd’s pipe to cheer their labors.

Enraged at this obstinate devotion which none of her wiles could weaken, Aurora at last dismissed him and told him to go back to his wife, but to make sure that she had been as true to him during his absence as he to her.

Enraged at this obstinate devotion which none of her wiles could weaken, Aurora at last dismissed him and told him to go back to his wife, but to make sure that she had been as true to him during his absence as he to her.

To this group, Ion icily remote, Xuthus bewildered but happy, Creüsa feeling that she hated men and that she would not put up with having the son of some unknown, low woman foisted on her, there entered the aged priestess, Apollo’s prophetess.

In her hands she carried two things that made Creüsa, in all her preoccupation, start and look sharply at them.