The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (2nd ed.) (1911). Bulfinch Thomas
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Fig. 62. Niobe and her Youngest Daughter
Amid nine daughters slain by Artemis
Stood Niobe; she rais'd her head above
Those beauteous forms which had brought down the scath
Whence all nine fell, rais'd it, and stood erect,
And thus bespake the goddess enthroned on high:
"Thou heardest, Artemis, my daily prayer
That thou wouldst guide these children in the pass
Of virtue, through the tangling wilds of youth,
And thou didst ever guide them: was it just
To smite them for a beauty such as thine?
Deserv'd they death because thy grace appear'd
In ever modest motion? 'twas thy gift,
The richest gift that youth from heaven receives.
True, I did boldly say they might compare
Even with thyself in virgin purity:
May not a mother in her pride repeat
What every mortal said?
One prayer remains
For me to offer yet.
Thy quiver holds
More than nine arrows: bend thy bow; aim here!
I see, I see it glimmering through a cloud.
Artemis, thou at length art merciful:
My children will not hear the fatal twang."98
79. The Lamentation for Linus. How the people of Argos fell under the displeasure of Apollo is told in the story of Linus, a beautiful son of Apollo and Psamathe. In fear of her father the king, Psamathe exposed the child on the mountains where, brought up by shepherds among the lambs, he was in tender youth torn to pieces by dogs. Meanwhile, Psamathe herself was driven from her father's home; wherefore Apollo sent against the land of the Argives a monster that for a season destroyed the children, but at last was slain by a noble youth named Corœbus. To appease the wrathful deity, a shrine was erected midway between Argos and Delphi; and every year Linus and his mother were bewailed in melancholy lays by the mothers and children of Argos, especially by such as had lost by death their own beloved. The fate of Linus, like that of Hyacinthus and others who succumb in the springtime of life under the excessive love of some shining deity,99 typifies the sudden withering of herbs and flowers and of animal life, – the calves and lambs, young children too, under the fierce shafts of summer. The very name of Linus is taken from the refrain ai-linon, or "woe is me," of the lament anciently sung by the country people when thus afflicted by the unhealthy heats, because of which the crops fail and the dogs go mad and tear the little lambs to pieces. In the Iliad there is a beautiful picture which shows us that the song was not reserved completely for the dog days. It is of a vineyard teeming plenteously with clusters:
And there was a pathway through it by which the vintagers might go. And maidens and striplings in childish glee bare the sweet fruit in plaited baskets. And in the midst of them a boy made pleasant music on a clear-toned viol, and sang thereto a sweet Linos-song with delicate voice; while the rest with feet falling together kept time with the music and song.100
Fig. 63. Æsculapius
80. Æsculapius. The Thessalian princess Coronis (or the Messenian, Arsinoë) bore to Apollo a child who was named Æsculapius. On his mother's death the infant was intrusted to the charge of Chiron, most famous of the Centaurs, himself instructed by Apollo and Diana in hunting, medicine, music, and the art of prophecy. When the sage returned to his home bearing the infant, his daughter Ocyrrhoë came forth to meet him, and at sight of the child burst into a prophetic strain, foretelling, the glory that he should achieve. Æsculapius, when grown up, became a renowned physician; in one instance he even succeeded in restoring the dead to life. Pluto resented this, and, at his request, Jupiter struck the bold physician with lightning and killed him, but after his death received him into the number of the gods.101
81. Apollo in Exile. Apollo, indignant at the destruction of this son, wreaked his vengeance on the innocent workmen who had made the thunderbolt. These were the Cyclopes, who had their workshop under Mount Ætna, from which the smoke and flames of their furnaces are constantly issuing. Apollo shot his arrows at the Cyclopes, a deed which so incensed Jupiter that he condemned him to serve 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. How the god lived among men, and what they thought of him, is well told in the following verses.
82. Lowell's Shepherd of King Admetus.
There came a youth upon the earth,
Some thousand years ago,
Whose slender hands were nothing worth,
Whether to plow, or reap, or sow.
Upon an empty tortoise-shell
He stretched some chords, and drew
Music that made men's bosoms swell
Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.
Then King Admetus, one who had
Pure taste by right divine,
Decreed his singing not too bad
To hear between the cups of wine:
And so, well pleased with being soothed
Into a sweet half-sleep,
Three times his kingly beard he smoothed,
And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.
His words were simple words enough,
And yet he used them so,
That what in other mouths was rough
In his seemed musical and low.
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.
They knew not how he learned at all,
For idly, hour by hour,
He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,
Or mused upon a common flower.
It seemed the loveliness of things
Did teach him all their use,
For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs
He found a healing power profuse.
Men granted that his speech was wise,
But, when a glance they caught
Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,
They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.
Yet after he was dead and gone
And e'en his memory dim,
Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,
More full of love, because of him.
And day by day more holy grew
Each spot where he had trod,
Till after-poets only knew
Their first-born brother as a god.
Fig.
From W. S. Landor's Niobe.
See Commentary, §§ 64, 80.
Iliad, 18, 564 (Lang, Leaf, and Myers' translation).
Cicero, Natura Deorum, 3, 22.