The Mysteries of All Nations. James Grant
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also. Medusa, it will be remembered, was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal. Her sisters, Stheno and Euryale, were neither subject to old age nor death. She greatly surpassed the other two in elegance of figure and comeliness of face; but in nothing was her superiority more remarkable than in the beauty of her locks. Minerva, provoked either because her temple had been profaned, or because her personal charms had been slighted by Medusa, who had preferred her own beauty to that of the goddess, turned her fine hair, of which she boasted greatly, into serpents, and gave to her eyes the power of converting to stone all at whom she looked. The blood which fell from Medusa's head when Perseus carried it over Africa in his flight, was supposed to produce the numerous serpents which infest that country, and also the winged horse Pegasus.
But to return to Acrisius. Let us see whether the prediction of the Oracle, that foretold he would be put to death by his daughter's son, was fulfilled. The fame of his grandson, after his remarkable adventures, having reached the ears of Acrisius, he went to Larissa to see him, at the time Teutamis was celebrating funereal games in honour of his father. To this city Perseus had repaired with the view of distinguishing himself among the combatants. Here he accidentally killed, with a quoit, an old man, who was found to be his grandfather Acrisius, and thus verified the oracular prediction.
Alcithoe and her sisters denied the divinity of Bacchus, and refused to join in his worship. Whilst the Theban women were employed celebrating the orgies of that god, the daughters of Minyas (for that was their father's name) continued at their looms. To enliven their hours of labour, one of them proposed that each in her turn should relate some amusing tale, to which, the other sisters agreeing, she with whom the idea originated was requested to begin. After hesitating for some time which of her numerous collections would be most agreeable—whether Babylonian Dercetis changed to a fish or her daughter to a dove, or Naias, who by magic transformed young men to fishes, or the tree the berries of which were formerly white, but turned to purple by being stained with blood—she preferred the last in consequence of its being little known. She then narrates the simple but beautiful and affecting fable of Pyramus and Thisbe. Leuconoe next, after mentioning the exposure of Mars and Venus, relates the history of Leucothoe, with whom Apollo fell in love, and afterwards turned into a rod of frankincense. To this she adds the fiction of Clytie, whom the same god changed into a sunflower. Alcithoe being then requested by her sisters to tell a story—despising as too common the fables of Daphnis, a shepherd on Mount Ida, who, for violating his marriage promise, was transformed to stone; of Scython, who changed his sex; of Celemis, a nurse of Jupiter, converted to adamant; and of the nymph Similax, and her lover Crocus, turned into flowers—prefers the history of the fountain Salmacis, who conceived a violent attachment for Hermaphroditus, the son of Mercury and Venus. These sisters, having discontinued their narrating, remained still obstinate in their contempt of Bacchus, who, in revenge, changed their implements into vines and ivy, and themselves into bats.
Cadmus, a son of Agenor, king of Phœnicia, and Telephassa or Agriope, was ordered by his father to go in search of his sister Europa, whom Jupiter had carried away, and not to return unless he found her. His search being unsuccessful, he is said to have consulted the oracle of Apollo, by which he was commanded to build a city where he saw a heifer standing on the grass, and call the country Bœotia. Having found the heifer, he sent his men to a fountain for water, which was at no great distance, that he might offer a sacrifice in gratitude to the god. But the spring being sacred to Mars, a dragon guarded it, which devoured all his men. By the art of Minerva, he overcame the dragon, and sowed its teeth, which grew up armed men, who, on his throwing a stone amongst them, began to fight, and all were killed except five, who assisted him in building Thebes. Hence Pentheus, in addressing the Thebans, calls them Anguigenæ, serpent or snake-descended. The ferocity of the petty tribes who inhabit that part of Greece, and Cadmus's plan of subduing the natives by artfully exciting them to fight against each other until the strength and resources of the contending parties were quite exhausted, satisfactorily explain the tale of the dragon, the armed men that sprang from his teeth, and the stone which he threw among them. He afterwards married Harmonia or Harmonie, the daughter of Mars and Venus, by whom he had one son and four daughters. In advanced life, oppressed with sorrow at the fate of his daughter Ino and her two sons, he fled from Thebes to Illyricum, where he was changed into a dragon.
Halcyone's husband, Ceyx, a king of Trachinia, was drowned while attempting to cross to Claros to consult the Oracle. Disconsolate in consequence of his departure, she incessantly implored the gods for his safe return. Juno, moved by her constant prayers for her husband after his death, and compassionating the violence of her sorrow, entreated Somnus to send Morpheus, who, assuming the form and voice of Ceyx, appeared in a dream, and informed her of his fate. Frantic with grief, she ran to the beach, and, according to her dream, found the body of Ceyx floating lifeless to the shore. The queen of Trachinia was changed into a bird, in her attempt to reach by a bound the body of her husband, which she no sooner touched than it underwent the same transformation. Their mutual attachments remaining, they continue to live together as birds, distinguished by the same tenderness and affection which had marked their conjugal state when in the human form.
Hercules was possessed of the greatest physical strength. He had a great enemy in Hera, who, knowing that the child who should be born that day was fated to rule over all the descendants of Perseus, contrived to delay the birth of Hercules and hasten that of Eurystheus. Eurystheus thus, by decree of fate, became chief of the Perseidæ. While yet in the cradle, Hercules showed his divine origin by strangling two serpents sent by Hera to destroy him. In course of time Eurystheus summoned Hercules to appear before him, and ordered him to perform the labours which, by priority of birth, he was empowered to impose on him. Hercules, unwilling to obey, went to Delphi to consult the Oracle, and was informed that he must perform ten labours imposed on him by Eurystheus, after which he should attain to immortality. The first labour imposed on him was to destroy the lion that haunted the forests of Nemea and Cleonæ, and could not be wounded by the arrows of a mortal. Hercules boldly attacked the lion and strangled him. The second was to destroy the Learnæan hydra, which he accomplished with the aid of Iolaus; but because he obtained assistance in his work, Eurystheus refused to reckon it. Hercules's third labour was to catch the hind of Diana, famous for its swiftness, its golden horns, and brazen feet. The fourth was to bring alive to Eurystheus a wild boar, which ravaged the neighbourhood of Erymanthus. The fifth was to cleanse the stables of Augeas, king of Elis, where three thousand oxen had been confined for many years; which task he accomplished in one day, by turning the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through the stables. For certain reasons this exploit was not counted. His sixth was to destroy the carnivorous birds, with brazen wings, beaks, and claws, which ravaged the country near the lake Stymphalis, in Arcadia. The seventh was to bring alive to Peloponnesus a bull, remarkable for its beauty and strength, which Poseidon had given to Minos, king of Crete, in order that he might sacrifice it; which Minos refusing to do, Poseidon made the bull mad, and it laid waste the island. Hercules brought the bull on his shoulders to Eurystheus, who set it at liberty. The eighth labour was to obtain the mares of Diomedes, king of the Bistones, in Thrace, which fed upon human flesh. The ninth was to bring the girdle of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. The tenth was to kill the monster Geryon, and bring his herds to Argos. These were all the labours originally imposed on Hercules; but as Eurystheus acknowledged only eight of them, Hercules was commanded to perform two more. The eleventh labour was to obtain the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides. Atlas, who knew where to find the apples, brought them to Hercules, who meantime supported the vault of heaven. The last labour was to bring from the infernal regions the three-headed dog Cerberus. When Hercules brought the dog to Eurystheus, the latter, pale with fright, ordered him to be set at liberty, whereupon Cerberus immediately sank into the earth. Hercules's servitude was now ended, but his great performances were not. He fought with the centaurs and giants. When his period of slavery had ended, he married Dejanira; with her he went to Trachinia. At the river Evenus he encountered the centaur Nessus. Nessus, under pretence of carrying Dejanira over, attempted to offer her violence, which caused Hercules to slay him with a poisoned arrow. Nessus, before expiring, instructed Dejanira how to prepare a love potion for Hercules. He erected an altar to Zeus Kenæos. In order to celebrate the rite with due solemnity, he sent Lichas to Trachis for a white garment. Dejanira, being jealous, anointed the robe with the philter she had received from Nessus. Hercules put it on, and immediately the poison penetrated his bones. Maddened