Hero Tales, Page 3

  THE HUNT IN THE WOOD OF CALYDON

  RELATED BY AUTOLYCUS[1]

  "When I was younger than I am to-day," said the old chief, as they satone evening in the light of the blazing brands--"when I was muchyounger than now, it was my fortune to take part in the most famousboar hunt the world has ever known.

  "There lived at that time, in Calydon, a mighty chief namedOineus--and, indeed, I know not but that he still lives. Oineus wasrich in vineyards and in orchards, and no other man in all Greece washappier or more blessed than he. He had married, early in life, thePrincess Althea, fairest of the maidens of Acarnania; and to them a sonhad been born, golden-haired and beautiful, whom they called Meleager.

  "When Meleager was yet but one day old, his father held him in hisarms, and prayed to Zeus and the mighty powers above: 'Grant, FatherZeus, and all ye deathless ones, that this my son may be the foremostamong the men of Greece. And let it come to pass, that when they seehis valiant deeds, his countrymen shall say, "Behold, this youth isgreater than his father," and all of one accord shall hail him as theirguardian king.'

  "Then his mother, Althea, weeping tears of joy, prayed that the boymight grow up to be pure-minded and gentle, the hope and pride of hisparents, and the delight and staff of their declining years.

  "Scarcely had the words of prayer died from her lips, when there cameinto her chamber the three unerring Fates who spin the destinies ofmen. White-robed and garlanded, they stood beside the babe, and withunwearied fingers drew out the lines of his untried life. Clotho heldthe golden distaff in her hand, and twirled and twisted the delicatethread. Lachesis, now sad, now hopeful, with her long white fingersheld the hour-glass, and framed her lips to say, 'It is enough.' AndAtropos, blind and unpitying as the future always is, stood ready, withcruel shears, to clip the twist in twain. Busily and silently Clothospun; and the golden thread, thin as a spider's web, yet beautiful as asunbeam, grew longer and more golden between her skilful fingers. ThenLachesis cried out, 'It is finished!' But Atropos hid her shearsbeneath her mantle, and said, 'Not so. Behold, there is a brandburning upon the hearth. Wait until it is all burned into ashes andsmoke, and then I will cut the thread of the child's life. Spin on,sweet Clotho!'

  "Quick as thought, Althea sprang forward, snatched the blazing brandfrom the hearth, and quenched its flame in a jar of water; and when sheknew that not a single spark was left glowing upon it, she locked itsafely in a chest where none but she could find it. As she did this,the pitiless sisters vanished from her sight, saying as they flittedthrough the air, 'We bide our time.'

  "Meleager grew up to be a tall and fair and gentle youth; and when atlast he became a man, he sailed on the ship Argo, with Jason and thegreat heroes of that day, in search of the Golden Fleece. Many bravedeeds were his in foreign lands; and when he came home again toCalydon, he brought with him a fair young wife, gentle Cleopatra,daughter of Idas the boaster.

  "Oineus had gathered in his harvest; and he was glad and thankful inhis heart, because his fields had yielded plenteously; his vines hadbeen loaded with purple grapes, and his orchards filled with abundanceof pleasant fruit. Grateful, as men should always be, to the givers ofpeace and plenty, he held within his halls a harvest festival, to whichhe invited the brave and beautiful of all the country round. Happy wasthis feast, and the hours were bright with smiles and sunshine; and menforgot sorrow and labor, and thought only of the gladness of life.

  "Then Oineus took of the first-fruits of his fields and his vineyardsand his orchards, and offered them with much thankfulness to the giversof good. But he forgot to deck the shrine of Artemis with gifts,little thinking that the huntress queen cared for anything which mortalmen might offer her. Ah, woful mistake was that! For, in her anger atthe slight, Artemis sent a savage boar, with ivory tusks and foamingmouth, to overrun the lands of Calydon. Many a field did the monsterravage, many a tree uproot; and all the growing vines, which late hadborne so rich a vintage, were trampled to the ground.

  "Sadly troubled was Oineus, and he knew not what to do. For the fiercebeast could not be slain, but with his terrible tusks he had sent manya rash hunter to an untimely death. Then the young man Meleager said,'I will call together the heroes of Greece, and we will hunt the boarin the wood of Calydon.'

  "So at the call of Meleager, the warriors flocked from every land, tojoin in the hunt of the fierce wild boar. Among them came Castor andPollux, the twin brothers; and Idas, the boaster, the father-in-law ofMeleager; and mighty Jason, captain of the Argo; and Atalanta, theswift-footed daughter of Iasus, of Arcadia; and many Acarnanianhuntsmen led by the brothers of Queen Althea. Thither also did Ihasten, although men spitefully said that I was far more skilful intaking tame beasts than in slaying wild ones.

  "Nine days we feasted in the halls of Oineus; and every day we triedour skill with bows and arrows, and tested the strength of ourwell-seasoned spears. On the tenth, the bugles sounded, and hounds andhuntsmen gathered in the courtyard of the chief, chafing for the hunt.

  "Soon we sallied forth from the town, a hundred huntsmen, with dogsinnumerable. Through the fields and orchards, laid waste by the savagebeast, we passed; and Atalanta, keen of sight and swift of foot, herlong hair floating in the wind behind her, led all the rest. It wasnot long until, in a narrow dell once green with vines and trees, butnow strewn thick with withered branches, we roused the fierce creaturefrom his lair.

  "At first he fled, followed closely by the baying hounds. Thensuddenly he faced his foes; with gnashing teeth and bloodshot eyes, hecharged furiously upon them. A score of hounds were slain outright;and Cepheus, of Arcadia, rushing blindly onward, was caught by thebeast, and torn in pieces by his sharp tusks. Then swift-footedAtalanta, bounding forward, struck the beast a deadly blow with herspear. He stopped short, and ceased his furious onslaught.

  "Terrible were the cries of the wounded creature, as he made a lastcharge upon the huntsmen. But Meleager with a skilful sword-thrustpierced his heart and the beast fell weltering in his gore. Great joyfilled the hearts of the Calydonians when they saw the scourge of theirland laid low and helpless. They quickly flayed the beast, and theheroes who had shared in the hunt divided the flesh among them; but thehead and the bristly hide they offered to Meleager.

  "'Not to me does the prize belong,' he cried, 'but to Atalanta, theswift-footed huntress. For the first wound--the true death stroke,indeed--was given by her; and to her, woman though she be, all honorand the prize must be awarded.'

  "With these words, he bore the grinning head and the bristly hide tothe young huntress, and laid them at her feet. Then his uncles, thebrothers of Queen Althea, rushed angrily forward, saying that no womanshould ever bear a prize away from them; and they seized the hide, andwould have taken it away, had not Meleager forbidden them. Yet theywould not loose their hold upon the prize, but drew their swords, andwrathfully threatened Meleager's life.

  "The hero's heart grew hot within him, and he shrank not from theaffray. Long and fearful was the struggle--uncles against nephew; butin the end the brothers of Althea lay bleeding upon the ground, whilethe victor brought again the boar's hide, and laid it the second timeat Atalanta's feet. The fair huntress took the prize, and carried itaway with her to deck her father's hall in the pleasant Arcadian land.And the heroes, when they had feasted nine other days with King Oineus,betook themselves to their own homes.

  "But the hearts of the Acarnanian hunters were bitter toward Meleager,because no part of the wild boar was awarded to them. They calledtheir chiefs around them, and all their brave men, and made war uponKing Oineus and Meleager. Many battles did they fight round Calydon;yet so long as Meleager led his warriors to the fray, the Acarnaniansfared but ill.

  "Then Queen Althea, filled with grief for her brothers' untimely fate,forgot her love for her son, and prayed that her Acarnanian kinsmenmight prevail against him. Upon the hard earth she knelt: she beat theground with her hands, and heaped the dust about her; and, weepingbitter tears, she called up
on Hades to avenge her of Meleager. Andeven as she prayed, the pitiless Furies, wandering amid the darkness,heard her cries, and came, obedient to her wishes.

  "When Meleager heard that his mother had turned against him, hewithdrew in sorrow to his own house, and sought comfort and peace withhis wife, fair Cleopatra; and he would not lead his warriors any moreto battle against the Acarnanians. Then the enemy besieged the city: afearful tumult rose about the gates; the high towers were assaulted,and everywhere the Calydonians were driven back dismayed and beaten.

  "With uplifted hands and tearful eyes, King Oineus and the elders ofthe city came to Meleager, and besought him to take the field again.Rich gifts they offered him. They bade him choose for his own the mostfertile farm in Calydon--at the least fifty acres, half for tillage andhalf for vines; but he would not listen to them.

  "The din of battle thickened outside the gates; the towers shook withthe thundering blows of the besiegers. Old Oineus with trembling limbsclimbed up the stairway to his son's secluded chamber, and, weeping,prayed him to come down and save the city from fire and pillage. Stillhe kept silent, and went not. His sisters came, and his most trustedfriends. 'Come, Meleager,' they prayed, 'forget thy grief, and thinkonly of our great need. Aid thy people, or we shall all perish!'

  "None of these prayers moved him. The gates were beaten down; theenemy was within the walls; the tide of battle shook the very towerwhere Meleager sat; the doom of Calydon seemed to be sealed. Then camethe fair Cleopatra, and knelt before her husband, and besought him towithhold no longer the aid which he alone could give. 'O Meleager,'she sobbed, 'none but thou can save us. Wilt thou sit still, and seethe city laid in ashes, thy dearest friends slaughtered, and thy wifeand sweet babes dragged from their homes and sold into cruel slavery?'

  "Then Meleager rose and girded on his armor. To the streets hehastened, shouting his well-known battle cry. Eagerly and hopefullydid the Calydonian warriors rally around him. Fiercely did they meetthe foe. Terrible was the bloodshed. Back from the battered gates andthe crumbling wall the Acarnanian hosts were driven. A panic seizedupon them. They turned and fled, and not many of them escaped theswords of Meleager's men.

  "Again there was peace in Calydon, and the orchards of King Oineusblossomed and bore fruit as of old; but the gifts and large rewardswhich the elders had promised to Meleager were forgotten. He had savedhis country, but his countrymen were ungrateful.

  "Meleager again laid aside his war gear, and sought the quiet of hisown home and the cheering presence of fair Cleopatra. For theremembrance of his mother's curse and his country's ingratitude weighedheavily on his mind, and he cared no longer to mingle with his fellowmen.

  "Then it was that Althea's hatred of her son waxed stronger, and shethought of the half-burned brand which she had hidden, and of the wordswhich the Fatal Sisters had spoken so many years before.

  "'He is no longer my son,' said she, 'and why should I withhold theburning of the brand? He can never again bring comfort to my heart;for the blood of my brothers, whom I loved, is upon his head.'

  "And she took the charred billet from the place where she had hiddenit, and cast it again into the flames. And as it slowly burned away,so did the life of Meleager wane. Lovingly he bade his wife farewell;softly he whispered a prayer to the unseen powers above; and as theflickering flames of the fatal brand died into darkness, he gentlybreathed his last.

  "Then sharp-toothed remorse seized upon Althea, and the mother lovewhich had slept in her bosom was reawakened. Too late, also, the folkof Calydon remembered who it was that had saved them from slavery anddeath. Down into the comfortless halls of Hades, Althea hastened toseek her son's forgiveness. The loving heart of Cleopatra, surchargedwith grief, was broken; and her gentle spirit fled to the world ofshades to meet that of her hero-husband. Meleager's sisters would notbe consoled, so great was the sorrow which had come upon them; and theywept and lamented day and night, until kind Artemis in pity for theiryouth changed them into the birds which we call Meleagrides."

  [1]Autolycus was a famous mountain chief who lived in rude state on theslopes of Parnassus and was noted for his courage and cunning. He wasthe grandfather of Odysseus (Ulysses), to whom the story is supposed tohave been related.