And when Proserpine's eyes were a little more used to the dimness of the cave she saw three gray women, the Fates, with threads and shears, seated beside the throne and singing those words. One of them spun the thread of life, and another twisted its bright and dark lines together. But the third Fate cut the threads apart whenever she liked.
Other grim and terrible creatures met Proserpine's frightened gaze. The Furies had spread their couches there as had also Fear and Hunger. The Hydra hissed with each one of its nine heads and the Chimaeras breathed fire. There was a giant with a hundred arms, and Discord whose hair was bound with a fillet made of vipers.
"Take me back to the light. I want to go home. Oh, I beg of you, take me home!" Proserpine cried, but her words only echoed through the vaults of the kingdom of darkness. And when she tried to make her escape, her frail little hands were bruised from beating against the thick iron door that shut her in.
The next morning Aurora rode through the sky to put away the stars and touch the clouds with the pink color of the dawn. Looking down to the earth, she saw a goddess who had arisen long before the dawn and was hurrying up and down the earth, wringing her hands and with tears in her eyes. She wore a chaplet woven of the golden heads of the grain, and she was straight and strong and beautiful in her flowing robes of green, but she did not lift her eyes from the earth, so deep was her sorrow.
That evening Hesperus, who followed in Aurora's course each sunset to lead out the stars, saw the same goddess. Her robes were torn and stained from her travels and bedraggled with the dew. She was still weeping, and still searching. She was going to search, without rest, all night.
Many others saw this goddess in the days that followed. She was always roaming from daylight until dark, in the open, in sunlight and moonlight, and in falling showers. She was weary and sad. In such a plight a peasant, named Celeus, found her one day. He had been out in a field gathering acorns and blackberries, and binding bundles of sticks for his fire. The goddess sat there on a stone, too tired to go on.
"Why do you sit here alone on the rocks?" Celeus asked her. He carried a heavy load, but he stopped to try and succor her. "Come to my cottage and rest," he entreated her. "My little son is very ill, and we have only a most humble roof, but such as it is we will be glad to share it with you."
The goddess rose and gathered her arms full of crimson poppies. Then she followed Celeus home.
They found deep distress in the cottage, for the little boy was so ill as to be almost past hope. His mother could scarcely speak for her sorrow, but she welcomed the wandering goddess and spread the table for her with curds and cream, apples, and golden honey dripping from the comb. The goddess ate, but her eyes were on the sick child and when his mother poured milk into a goblet for him she mingled the juice of her poppies with it.
At last night came, and the peasants slept. Then the goddess arose and took the little boy in her arms. She touched his weak limbs with her strong, skilful hands, said a charm over him three times, and then laid him in the warm ashes of the fire.
"Would you kill my son? Wicked woman that you are to so abuse my hospitality!" the child's mother cried, awaking and seeing what the goddess had done.
But just then a strange thing happened. The cottage was filled with a splendor like white lightning, and a light seemed to shine from the skin of the goddess. A lovely perfume was scattered from her fragrant garments, and her hair was as bright as gold.
"Your son will not die, but live," she told the wife of Celeus. "He shall grow up and be great and useful. He shall teach men the use of the plough, and the rewards which labor can win from the cultivation of the soil."
"Who are you?" the woman asked in amazement as she saw the boy's white cheeks grow rosy with new life.
"I am Ceres," the goddess answered, "whose grief is greater than yours, for my child is lost. I search the earth for her, and never find her." With these words she was gone, as if she had wrapped herself in a cloud and floated away to meet the dawning of another day of her journey.
That was who this wanderer of the earth was, the immortal Ceres, who still did not care to live without her loved little daughter, Proserpine.
She was obliged to neglect her work of caring for the earth in her search for Proserpine, and disaster came to the land for many seasons. The cattle died and no plough broke the furrows. The seed failed to come up. There was too much sun and too much rain. The birds stole the harvest, little as there was, and seeds and brambles were the main growth. Even Arethusa, the nymph of the fountain, was about to die as Ceres, in her search, came to the banks of the River Cyane, where Pluto had passed with Proserpine to his own domain. Ceres had almost given up hope.
"Ungrateful soil that I have clothed with herbs and fruits and grains," she said. "You have taken my child and shall enjoy my favors no longer."
But Arethusa spoke:
"Do not blame the earth, Mother Ceres," she said. "It opened unwillingly to take your daughter. I come from the waters. I know them so well that I can count the pebbles in the bottom of this river, the willows that shade it and the violets on the bank. I was at play not long since in the river and Alpheus, the god of the stream, pursued me. I ran and he followed in an attempt to keep me from going back to my home in the fountain. As I tried to escape him, I plunged through the depths of the earth and into a cavern. While I passed through the bowels of the earth I saw your Proserpine. She was sad, but had no look of terror. Pluto had made her his queen in the realm of the dead. I have made my way back to tell you."
Ceres knew then that Proserpine was lost to her unless Jupiter helped in taking her away from the king of darkness. She summoned her chariot and rode to Mount Olympus, but even Jupiter had not complete power over Pluto.
"If Proserpine has taken food in Pluto's realm, the Fates will not allow her to return to earth," he told Ceres. "But I will send my swift messenger, Mercury, with Spring to try and bring her home."
In all that time Proserpine had eaten none of the rich food that Pluto had set before her, only six seeds of a red pomegranate as she had pressed the fruit to her lips to quench her thirst. But Spring, with all her strength that can bring new leaves and blooms from dead branches, with the help of Mercury, the god of the winged shoes, brought Proserpine the long way back to her mother for six months. The remaining six months of the year, one month for each pomegranate seed that she had eaten, Proserpine was doomed to spend as queen of Pluto's kingdom of darkness.
No one, and particularly not her mother, worried very much, though, about those months of darkness because of the wonders that Proserpine brought when she returned to earth. Every tree that she touched with her garments burst into green, and wherever her feet pressed the earth the grass and wild flowers appeared and spread. Ploughing and planting were begun again, and the new shoots of the corn pushed up through the ground.
Indeed, it seemed to Ceres that her other child, the corn, was telling the story of lost Proserpine. The seed of the corn that is thrust into the earth and lies there, concealed in the dark, is like Proserpine carried off by the god of the underworld. Then Spring gives the seed a new form and it appears to bless the earth, just as Proserpine was led forth to her mother and to the light of day.
Erisichthon had made up his mind to kill the Dryad who lived in the oak tree.
He was one of the strongest ploughmen in all Greece, and he knew Ceres who presided over the fields and her favorite Dryad of the oak tree very well. The oak tree had stood for centuries in a grove in which Ceres loved to rest, and it was almost a forest in itself. It overtopped the other trees as far as they stretched above the shrubs. Its trunk measured fifteen cubits around, and it was supported upon roots that were almost as strong as iron cables.
It was supposed in those old days of Greece to be a tree of wonders. It was this oak that guarded the wide agricultural domain of Ceres, and the Dryad who lived inside was one of the messengers of this goddess through the farms and orchards. She was a slender, fair young creature who would never grow old and carried sunbeams in her hands that brought new growth wherever she spilled them.
When the grove was empty and still, all the other Dryads would step softly from their dwelling places in the cypress, the olive and the pine trees and join hands as they danced lightly about the oak tree, singing their praises of the great Ceres who fed with her bounty the whole of Greece. The country people, and even those from the cities, came to pay their homage to Ceres' oak, bringing garlands of roses and laurel that they hung on its boughs, and carving messages of thanks and love for the Dryad on its bark.
Erisichthon knew all this, but he wanted a quantity of wood for his farm without the trouble of earning it. He decided the property of Ceres was his, by right, because he had ploughed her fields at the time of the planting. So Erisichthon saw no reason why he should spare the wonderful oak tree, even if it did shelter a Dryad. He called his servants together, armed them with freshly sharpened axes, and they set out for the forest.
When they reached the oak tree, Erisichthon's men hesitated. The tree looked like a temple, its wide spreading branches sheltering the other trees, and its great trunk towering toward the sky like a bronze pillar. Each man remembered Ceres' bounty toward him, her gifts of apples and corn, grapes and wheat, and best of all her offering of land that would bring plenty for the ploughing and planting.
"We cannot cut it. This is a tree well beloved of Ceres," the men said to their master.
"I care not whether it be a tree beloved of the goddess or not," Erisichthon shouted angrily to them. "If I cut it down I shall have no more need of Ceres, for its wood will make me rich beyond the need of planting. She owes me a living on account of the past seasons in which I have worked for her. If Ceres herself were in my way I would cut her down also!" he exclaimed.
With this terrible threat on his lips, the lawless ploughman seized an axe from one of his trembling servants and began chopping the trunk of the mighty tree. He had great strength, and each blow cut a deep gash.
As Erisichthon cut in toward the heart of the oak tree, that held the Dryad, the oak began to shiver and groan, but he showed it no mercy. He ordered his men to tie ropes to the branches and pull, and he continued to cut it until the tree fell with a crash that was like the sound of a thunderbolt, and brought down with it a great part of the forest that surrounded it.
As the giant trunk lay on the ground at the feet of Erisichthon, there was a sighing of the branches like that of a summer breeze passing through, and the leaves fluttered as if they had been stirred by the flight of a bird. It was the spirit of the Dryad whom Erisichthon had so hurt, taking her way to her family of the gods on Mount Olympus.
Those Dryads who were left in the grove hastened to Ceres with news of what had happened.
"This man must be punished!" they cried.
Ceres bowed her head in assent, and the fields of grain bowed also, and the branches of the fruit trees drooped. It was the ripe time of the harvest, but there were no crops on the farm of Erisichthon, and Ceres decreed that no neighbor should share with him.
In the northern part of Greece lay the ice topped mountains of Scythia, a bleak, unfertile region without fruit or grain. Cold, and Fear, and Shuddering lived there and one other, who was more to be dreaded than all three. This was Famine with unkempt hair and sunken eyes, blanched lips, and her skin tightly drawn over her sharp bones. She made her home in a hard, stony field where she pulled up the scanty herbage with her claw-like fingers and tried to subsist on it.
After Erisichthon had cut down the old oak tree Ceres sent to Scythia for Famine.
Erisichthon found that it was going to be a month's task to cut up his wood and carry it to his farm, so he went home to rest over night, planning to start the work in the morning. He felt hungry after his hard work of chopping down the tree, but he had not even a pomegranate for his supper. All his food had strangely disappeared. He decided to go to bed and try to forget his hunger in sleep.
"I will sell a load of wood in the morning for many gold coins," he thought, "and buy food in plenty."
So Erisichthon lay down on his couch and was soon fast asleep. Then Famine sped in through the window and hovered over where he lay. She folded her wings around him and breathed her poison into his veins. Then she hastened back to Scythia, for she had no other errand in a land of plenty.
Erisichthon did not wake but he stirred in his sleep and moved his jaws as if he were eating, for he was very hungry in his dreams. In the morning he woke with a raging hunger that was a hundred times worse than that of the day before.
He sold his load of wood and spent all the money for whatever food the earth, the air, and the sea produced. He consumed vast quantities of fish, fowl, the flesh of lambs, fruit and vegetables; but the more Erisichthon ate, the greater was his hunger. The amount of food that would have been enough for the whole of Athens was not sufficient for this man. He continually craved more.
Erisichthon sold the wood of the entire oak tree, and began selling pieces of the land that made his farm in order to get food for appeasing his terrible hunger. At last his fields were gone and he had to sell his furniture, his tools, his books, and all his vases. Still he could not get food enough to appease his gnawing appetite, so he sold his house and lived in a tent that he set up beside the road. But his hunger was still unsatisfied and in his madness Erisichthon sold his only daughter to be the slave of a fisherman who cast his nets beside the Aegean Sea.
The girl loved her father very dearly and her grief, as she gathered sea weed along the shore for her master, touched the heart of Neptune, the god of the sea. He changed her to the form of a horse, and she went home to Erisichthon, hoping that he would look upon so fine an animal with favor, and give it a home. But her father sold the horse to a chariot racer. She escaped and went again to the shore where Neptune changed her, in turn, to a stag, an ox, and a rare bird. Each time she made her way home, and each time her father sold her to buy food. So the bird flew away to Mount Olympus and was never seen again.
At last there came a day when Erisichthon could feed himself no longer. There was nothing left to him in the world that he could sell, and his hunger was so great that he went, like a raving beast, up and down the bountiful fields of Ceres demanding that food be given him.
But those whom Famine touches because they break Ceres' laws, and destroy life and property find no help unless they try to restore the order that they have hurt. Erisichthon was too weak to work, and he could never raise another oak tree like that one which had been growing for centuries. So he went, at last, to live with Famine in Scythia which was a long way from the Mount of the gods.
Strange things were happening in a field of the beautiful country called Arcadia. A youth who wore a wreath of green laurel leaves on his dark hair sat on a rock and held a lyre in his hands from whose strings he drew sweet music. And as he played a wolf, who had been the terror of the shepherds for many leagues around, came out of the woods and lay down like a great dog at the feet of the youth. Next, the nearby olive trees bent their heads to listen and then moved toward him until they stood in a circle at his feet. Then the hard rock on which the musician rested covered itself with soft green verdure and bluebells and violets began to lift their heads, growing out of its age-old stones.
This was what always happened when Orpheus, the son of Apollo, played the lyre that his father had given him and had taught him to use. Nothing could withstand the charm of his music. Not only the farmers and shepherds, the nymphs and fauns of Arcadian woods and fields were softened and drawn by his tunes, but the wild beasts as well laid by their fierceness and stood, entranced, at his strains.
Orpheus touched his lyre again and played an even lovelier song. And out of the forest glided the nymph, Eurydice, taking her place near Orpheus. His music had won her devotion and Hymen, the god of marriage, had made the two very happy. Their deepest wish was that they might never be separated.
The whole of Arcadia was charmed by Orpheus' lute. No, there was just one person in that beautiful country who positively disliked music, and that was the bee-man, Aristaeus. In fact, Aristaeus could not see the value of anything beautiful, the statues and vases in the temple of Apollo, the tapestries the weavers decorated with so many soft colors, the tints of the wild flowers, or the arch of the rainbow in the sky after a shower. This bee-man could find no interest in anything except his combs of yellow honey, their number, and how many gold coins he would be paid for them. Not only did Aristaeus dislike beautiful things, but he did not want others to enjoy them. A cross old Arcadian, was he not?
He was feeling particularly disagreeable on the morning when Orpheus began playing his lute near his farm. And when Eurydice, whom Orpheus so loved, approached him to ask for a comb of his delicious honey for dinner for the two, Aristaeus entirely lost his temper. He not only refused the nymph, which no one but a very stingy person could have done, for she smiled at him so winningly and asked for it so politely; but he chased Eurydice off his farm.
No one had treated Eurydice so rudely in all her life before. Even Pan had gathered flowers for her to twine into garlands and had refrained from teasing her as he did almost all the other nymphs. And here she was, a long distance from Orpheus and pursued by an ugly tempered country man! Eurydice ran like the wind, the bee-man coming fast behind her. She was much fleeter than he and would have reached the woods safely, but she stepped suddenly on a snake that she had not seen as it lay coiled up in the grass. The snake stung Eurydice's bare feet and she dropped down on the ground.
"It serves her right!" the bee-man said, not going to see how badly she was hurt. And with that he went back to his bees.
Aristaeus was the very first bee-man, the myths tell us. When the gods made the little creatures of the earth they made also the honey bees and taught them how to build themselves homes in hollow trees or holes in the rocks, to find the nectar in the flowers, and make from it their thick, golden honey. Aristaeus was the son of the water-nymph Cyrene, and he came to Arcadia with the remembrance of the music of the waters and the brightness of the sun in his heart, but when he discovered how to attract the bees to his farm and take their honey away from them and sell it, he forgot everything except his business. That was when he began to dislike Orpheus and to become blind to the fair country in which he lived.
"Three hives are swarming to-day," the bee-man thought as he came home. "I ought to be able to get a good sum for the honey." Then, as he reached the orchard where his hives were placed on the wall, he looked about him in amazement. Hives, bees, all were gone. Not a buzz, a sting, or a single drop of honey was left!
Aristaeus looked throughout the entire countryside for his bees for days, but he could not find a single one. At last he gave up the search and did what a good many boys and girls would be apt to do in the same emergency. He went to ask the advice of his mother, the sea-nymph Cyrene.
He went to the edge of the river where he knew she lived and called her.
"O mother, the pride of my life is taken away from me. I have lost my precious bees. My care and skill have availed me nothing. Can you turn from me this blow of misfortune?"
His mother heard these complaints as she sat in her palace at the bottom of the river with her attendant nymphs around her. They were busy spinning and weaving beautiful designs in water weeds and painting pebbles while another told stories to amuse the rest. But the sad voice of the bee-man interrupted them and one put her head above the water. Seeing Aristaeus, she returned and told his mother, who ordered that he be brought down to her.
At the command of Cyrene, the river opened itself and let him pass through, as it stood curled like a mountain on either side. The bee-man descended to the place where the fountains of the great rivers lie. He saw the enormous rock beds of the waters and was almost deafened by their roar as he saw them hurrying off in all their different directions to water the face of the earth. Then Aristaeus came to his mother's palace of shells and stone and he was taken to her apartment where he told her his troubles.
Cyrene, being a dweller of the waters which are the fountain of life, was very wise. She understood at once that her son had made a mistake in not seeing that it was possible to combine beauty and usefulness. Arcadia needed bees, but it needed Orpheus and his lute also, and the gods had punished the bee-man for his sordidness. Still, he was her son and Cyrene decided to try and help Aristaeus out of his difficulty.
"You must go to old Proteus, who is the herdsman of Neptune's sea-calves," Cyrene said. "He can tell you, my son, how to get back your bees, for he is a great prophet. You will have to force him to help you, however. If you are able to seize him, chain him at once; he will answer your questions in order to be released. I will conduct you to the cave where he comes at noon to take his nap. Then you can easily secure him, but when he finds himself in chains he will cause you a great deal of trouble. He will make a noise like the crackling of flames so as to frighten you into loosing your hold on the chain. Or he may become a wild boar, a fierce tiger, a lion with ravenous jaws or a devouring dragon. But you have only to keep Proteus fast bound and when he finds all his arts to be of no avail he will return to his natural shape and obey your commands."
So Cyrene led Aristaeus to the cave by the sea and showed him where to hide behind a rock while she, herself, arose and took her place behind the clouds. Promptly at noon old Proteus, covered with dripping green weeds, issued from the water followed by a herd of sea calves who spread themselves out on the shore. The herdsman of the sea counted them, sat down on the floor of the cave, and then in a very short time had stretched himself out, fast asleep. Aristaeus waited until he was snoring and then he bound him with a heavy chain he had brought for the purpose.
When Proteus awoke and found himself captured, he struggled like a wild animal at bay. Next, he turned to flame and then, in succession to many terrible beasts, but Aristaeus never once let go of the chain that secured him. At last he returned to his true form and spoke angrily to Aristaeus.
"Who are you, who boldly invades my domain and what do you want?" Proteus demanded.
"You know already," the bee-man replied, "for you have the powers of a prophet and nothing is hidden from you. I have lost my bees, and I want to have them returned to me."
At these words, the prophet fixed his eyes on Aristaeus with a piercing look.
"Your trouble is the just reward sent you by the gods because you killed Eurydice," he said. "To avenge her death, her companion nymphs sent this destruction to your bees."
"I killed Eurydice?" Aristaeus asked in amazement. "Does she no longer listen to the music of Orpheus?"
"Yes, but not in Arcadia," Proteus explained. "When she was stung by the viper, she was obliged to make her way alone to the dark realm of Pluto. Orpheus sang his grief to all who breathed the upper air, both gods and men, and then he started out to search for Eurydice. He passed through the crowd of ghosts and entered the realm beyond the dark river Styx. There, in front of the throne of Pluto, he sang of his longing that Eurydice might be restored to him, until the cheeks of even the Fates were wet with tears.
"Pluto himself gave way to Orpheus' music and called Eurydice. She came to Orpheus, limping on her wounded foot. They roam the happy fields of the gods together now, he leading sometimes and sometimes she. And Jupiter has placed Orpheus' lyre among the stars."
As Proteus finished telling his story, the penitent Aristaeus fell on the ground at his feet.
"What can I do to appease the anger of the gods for my wickedness?" he asked.
"You may use your skill to build temples to the two in the country of Arcadia which they so loved," Proteus said. "Take your way home. Forget your own gains for a while and gather stones to fit together for the altars."
So the bee-man did this, and he discovered that he came to enjoy the work very much. He took pleasure in cutting and polishing the stones until they were as beautiful as those of any temple in Greece. As he worked in the grove that he had selected for his building he often thought that he detected the music of Orpheus' lyre as the birds sang, and the streams rippled, and the wind blew through the leaves. He found it very sweet indeed.
One day, shortly after his beautiful altars were built, Aristaeus found a wonder. It was spring, when the nearby orchards were white and sweet with blossoms, and there were all his honey bees returned, and busily starting their hives under the shadow of the temple of Eurydice.
Pomona was a dryad, and Venus had given her a wild apple tree to be her home. As Pomona grew up under the shadow of its branches, protecting the buds from winter storms, dressing herself in its pink blossoms in the spring time, and holding up her hands to catch its apples in the fall, she found that her love for this fruit tree was greater than anything else in her life. At last Pomona planted the first orchard and lived in it and tended it.
The dryads were those favored children of the gods who lived in the ancient woods and groves, each in her special tree. Dressed in fluttering green garments, they danced through the woodland ways with steps as light as the wind, sang to the tune of Pan's pipe, or fled, laughing, from the Fauns. They missed Pomona in the woods, and tales came to these forest dwellers of the wonders she was working in the raising of fruits fit for the table of the gods.
She had trees on which golden oranges and yellow lemons hung among deep green leaves. She raised citrons and limes, and even cultivated the wide spreading tamarind tree whose fruit was of such value to Epictetus, the physician of Greece, in cooling the fires of fever. The wood folk left their mossy hiding places to peer over the wall of Pomona's orchard and watch her working so busily there.
They were a strange company. Pan came from Arcadia where he was the god of flocks and shepherds. He had fastened some reeds from the stream together to make his pipes, and on them he could play the merriest music. It sounded like birds and the singing of brooks and summer breezes all in one. With Pan came his family of Fauns, the deities of the woods and fields. Their bodies were covered with bristling hair, there were short, sprouting horns on their heads, and their feet were shaped like those of a goat. Pan was of the same strange guise as the Fauns were, but to distinguish his rank, he wore a garland of pine about his head.
These and Pomona's sisters, the dryads, watched her longingly from the budding time of the year until the harvest. It was a pleasant sight to see Pomona taking care of her apples. She was never without a pruning knife which she carried as proudly as Jupiter did his sceptre. With it she trimmed away the foliage of her fruit trees wherever it had grown too thick, cut the branches that had straggled out of shape, and sometimes deftly split a twig to graft in a new one so that the tree might bear different, better apples.
Pomona even led streams of water close to the roots of the trees so that they need not suffer from drought. She looked, herself, a part of the orchard, for she wore a wreath of bright fruits and her arms were often full of apples almost as huge and golden as the famous apples of Hesperides.
The dryads and the Fauns begged one, at least, of the apples, but Pomona refused them all. She had grown selfish through the seasons in which she had brought her orchard to a state of such bounteous perfection. She would not give away a single apple, and she kept her gate always locked. So the wood creatures were obliged to go home empty handed to their forest places.
In those days Vertumnus was one of the lesser gods who watched over the seasons. The fame of Pomona's fruits came to the ear of Vertumnus and he was suddenly possessed of a great desire to share the orchard and its care with her. He sent messengers in the form of the birds to plead his cause with Pomona, but she was just as cruel to him as she had been to the family of Pan and to her own sisters. She had made up her mind that she would never share her orchard with any one in the world.
Vertumnus would not give up, though. He had the power to change his form as he willed, and he decided to go to Pomona in disguise to see if he could not win her by appealing to her pity. She was obliged to buy her grain, and one day in October when the apple boughs bent low with their great red and yellow balls a reaper came to the orchard gate with a basket of ears of corn for Pomona.
"I ask no gold for my grain," he said to the goddess, "I want only a basket full of fruit in return for it."
"My fruit is not to be given away or bartered for. It is mine and mine alone until it spoils," Pomona replied, driving the reaper away.
But the following day a farmer stopped at the orchard, an ox goad in his hand as if he had just unyoked a pair of weary oxen from his hay cart, left them resting beside some stream, and had gone on to ask refreshment for himself. Pomona invited him into her orchard, but she did not offer him a single apple. As soon as the sun began to lower she bade him be on his way.
In the days that followed Vertumnus came to Pomona in many guises. He appeared with a pruning hook and a ladder as if he were a vine dresser ready and willing to climb up into her trees and help her gather the harvest. But Pomona scorned his services. Then Vertumnus trudged along as a discharged soldier in need of alms, and again with a fishing rod and a string of fish to exchange for only one apple. Each time that Vertumnus came disguised to Pomona he found her more beautiful and her orchard a place of greater plenty than ever; but the richer her harvest the deeper was her greed. She refused to share even a half of one of her apples.
At last, when the vines were dripping with purple juice of the grape and the boughs of the fruit trees hung so heavily that they touched the ground, a strange woman hobbled down the road and stopped at Pomona's gate. Her hair was white and she was obliged to lean on a staff. Pomona opened the gate and the crone entered and sat down on a bank, admiring the trees.
"Your orchard does you great credit, my daughter," she said to Pomona.
Then she pointed to a grape vine that twined itself about the trunk and branches of an old oak. The oak was massive and strong, and the vine clung to it in safety and had covered itself with bunches of beautiful purple grapes.
"If that tree stood alone," the old woman explained to Pomona, "with no vine to cling to it, it would have nothing to offer but its useless leaves. And if the vine did not have the tree to cling to, it would have to lie prostrate on the ground.
"You should take a lesson from the vine. Might not your orchard be still more fruitful if you were to open the gate to Vertumnus who has charge of the seasons and can help you as the oak helps the vine? The gods believe in sharing the gifts they give the earth. No one who is selfish can prosper for long."
"Tell me about this Vertumnus, good mother," Pomona asked curiously.
"I know Vertumnus as well as I know myself," the crone replied. "He is not a wandering god, but belongs among these hills and pastures of our fair land. He is young and handsome and has the power to take upon himself any form that he may wish. He likes the same things that you do, gardening, and caring for the ruddy fruits. Venus, who gave you an apple tree to be your first home, hates a hard heart and if you will persist in living alone in your orchard, refusing to share your apples, she is likely to punish you by sending frosts to blight your young fruits and terrible winds to break the boughs."
Pomona clasped her hands in fear. She suddenly understood how true was everything that this old woman said. She had known a spring-time when a storm of wind and hail had shaken off the apple blossoms, and frosts had touched the fruits one fall before she had been able to pick them.
"I will open my gate to the country people and to strangers," she said. "I will open it also to Vertumnus if he is still willing to share my orchard and my work."
As Pomona spoke, the old woman rose and her gray hair turned to the dark locks of Vertumnus. Her wrinkles faded in the glow of his sunburned cheeks. Her travel stained garments were replaced by Vertumnus' russet gardening smock and her staff to his pruning fork. He seemed to Pomona like the sun bursting through a cloud. She had never really seen him before, having never looked at anyone except with the eyes of selfishness. Vertumnus and Pomona began the harvesting together, and they opened the gate wide to let in those who had need of sharing their plenty.
Then the fauns danced in and made merry to the tunes that Pan played. The dryads found new homes for themselves in the trunks of the trees, and the seasons gave rain and sunshine in greater abundance than ever before as these two pruned, and trimmed, and grafted the trees and vines together.
Achelous, the river god, took his way past the orchard kingdom of Pomona and Vertumnus and brought with him Plenty who was able to fill her horn with gifts of fruit for all, apples, pears, grapes, oranges, plums, and citrons until it overflowed. Ever since the October when Pomona opened her gate and shared her apples, an orchard has been a place of beauty, bounty, and play.
Once upon a time there was a king of Greece who had three beautiful daughters, but the youngest, who was named Psyche, was the most beautiful of all. The fame of her lovely face and the charm of her whole being were so great that strangers from the neighboring countries came in crowds to enjoy the sight and they paid Psyche the homage of love that was due to Venus herself. Venus' temple was deserted, and as Psyche passed by the people sang her praises, and strewed her way with flowers and wreaths.
Venus had a son, Cupid, who was dearer to her than any other being on Mount Olympus or in the earth. Like every mother, Venus had great ambitions for the future of her son, but she was not always able to follow him, for Cupid had wings and a golden bow and arrows with which he was fond of playing among mortals. What was Venus' wrath to discover at last that Cupid had lost his heart to Psyche, the lovely maiden of earth! It was like a fairy story in which a prince marries a peasant girl and may not bring her home to the palace because of her mean birth. Venus quite refused to recognize Psyche or award her a place in the honored family of the gods.
Cupid and Psyche had a very wonderful earthly palace in which to live. Golden pillars supported the vaulted roof, and the walls of the apartments of state were richly carved and hung with embroidered tapestries of many colors. When Psyche wished food, all she had to do was to seat herself in an alcove when a table immediately appeared without the aid of servants and covered itself with rare fruits and rich cakes and honey. When she longed for music, she had a feast of it played by invisible lutes, and with a chorus of harmonious voices. But Psyche was not happy in this life of luxury, for she had to be alone so much of the time. Venus could not take Cupid away from her altogether, but she allowed him to be with Psyche only in the hours of darkness. He fled before the dawn.
There had been a direful prophecy in Psyche's family of which her sisters had continually reminded her.
"Your youngest daughter is destined for a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist," was the oracle given to the king, and the memory of it began to fill Psyche's heart with fear. Her sisters came to visit her and increased her fear. They asked all manner of questions about Cupid, and Psyche was obliged to confess that she could not exactly describe him because she had never seen him in the light of day. Her jealous sisters began at once to fill Psyche's mind with dark suspicions.
"How do you know," they asked, "that your husband is not a terrible and venomous serpent, who feeds you for a while with all these dainties that he may devour you in the end? Take our advice. Provide yourself with a lamp well filled with oil and tonight, when this villain returns and sleeps, go into his apartment and see whether or not our prophecy is true."
Psyche tried to resist her sisters, but at last their urging and her own curiosity were too much for her. She filled her lamp, and when her husband had fallen into his first sleep, she went silently to his couch and held the light above him.
There lay Cupid, the most beautiful and full of grace of all the gods! His golden ringlets were a crown above his snowy forehead and crimson cheeks, and two wings whose feathers were like the soft white blossoms of the orchard sprang from his shoulders. In her joy at finding no cause for her fears, Psyche leaned over, tipping her lamp, that she might look more closely at Cupid's face. As she bent down, a drop of the burning oil fell on the god's shoulder. He opened his eyes, startled, and looked up at Psyche. Then, without saying a word, he spread his wide wings and flew out of the window.
Psyche tried to follow him, but she had no wings and fell to the ground. For one brief moment Cupid stayed his flight and turned to see her lying there below him in the dust.
"Foolish Psyche," he said, "why did you repay my love in this way? After having disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, could you not trust me? I will inflict no further punishment upon you than this, that I leave you forever, for love cannot live with suspicion." And with these words Cupid flew out of Psyche's sight.
That was the beginning of the long road of trouble Psyche had to follow. She wandered day and night, without food or rest, in search of Cupid. One day she saw a magnificent temple set upon the brow of a lofty hill and she toiled the long way up to it, saying to herself,
"Perhaps my love inhabits here."
When Psyche reached the top of the hill and entered the temple, she saw heaps of corn, some in sheaves and others in loose ears, and there was barley mingled with it. There were sickles and rakes and all the other instruments of the harvest scattered about in great confusion as if the reapers, at the end of the sultry day, had left them in this disorder. In spite of her sorrow, Psyche could not bear to see this disarray and she began trying to set the place in order. She worked so busily that she did not see Ceres, whose temple it was, enter. Turning at last, Psyche saw the goddess of the harvest, wearing her fruit trimmed garments and standing at her side.
"Poor Psyche!" she said pityingly. "But it is possible for you to find a way to the abode of the gods where Cupid has his home. Go and surrender yourself to Venus and try by your own works to win her forgiveness and, perhaps, her favor."
So Psyche obeyed this command of Ceres, although it took a great deal of courage, and she travelled to the temple of Venus in Thebes where the goddess received her in anger.
"The only way by which you can merit the favor of the gods, unfortunate Psyche," she said, "is by your own efforts. I, myself, am going to make a trial of your housewifely skill to see if you are industrious and dilligent."
With these words Venus conducted Psyche to a storehouse connected with her temple where there was an enormous quantity of grain laid up; beans, lentils, barley, wheat and the tiny seeds of the millet which Venus had stored to feed her pigeons.
"Separate all these grains," the goddess said to Psyche, "putting those of the same kind in a pile, and see that you finish before evening." Then she left Psyche who was in consternation at the impossible task spread before her.
Psyche dipped her fingers into the golden heap gathering up a handful to sort the grains, but it took her a long time and the grain lay about her on every side like a yellow river. The grains she held were less than a drop taken from its surface.
"I shall not be able to finish. I shall never see my husband again!" Psyche moaned.
Still she worked on steadily and at last a little ant, a native of the fields, crawled across the floor and took compassion on the toiling Psyche. It was a king in its own domain and was followed by a host of its little red subjects. Grain by grain, they separated the seeds, helping to put them in their own piles, and when the work was accomplished they vanished as quickly as they had appeared.
When evening came Venus returned, breathing odors of nectar and crowned with roses, from a banquet of the gods. When she saw that Psyche's task was done, she scarcely believed her eyes.
"You must have had assistance," she said. "To-morrow you shall try a more difficult undertaking. Beyond my temple you will see a grassy meadow which stretches along the borders of the water. There you will find a flock of sheep with golden shining fleeces on their backs and grazing without a shepherd. Bring me a sample of their precious wool that you gather from each of the fleeces."
Psyche once more obeyed, but this was a test of her life as well as of her endurance. As she reached the meadow, the river god, whispering to her through the rushes, warned her.
"Do not venture among the flock while the sun shines on them," he told her. "In the heat of the rising sun, the rams burn with a cruel rage to destroy mortals with their sharp teeth. Wait until twilight, when you will find their woolly gold sticking to the bushes and the trunks of the trees."
The compassion of the river god helped Psyche to do as Venus had commanded her and she returned to the temple in the evening with her arms full of golden fleece.
Still Venus was not satisfied.
"I have a third task for you," she told the weary Psyche. "Take this box to the realm of Pluto and give it to Proserpine saying to her, 'My mistress, Venus, desires you to send her a little of your beauty, for in tending her son whom Psyche burned she has lost some of her own.' And make all possible haste, for I must use it before I appear next in the circle of the gods on Mount Olympus."
Psyche felt that now her destruction was surely at hand. It was a dangerous road that led to the dark, underground kingdom of Pluto and there were deadly dangers on the way. But Psyche was finding a new courage with each of the difficulties that she had to encounter, and she set out with the box. She passed safely by Cerberus, Pluto's three headed watch dog. She prevailed upon Charon, the ferryman, to take her across the black river and wait for her while she begged Proserpine to fill the box. Then she started back to the light again.
All would have gone well with Psyche if she had not grown curious. That was why her road to the dwelling place of the gods was so long and difficult. Psyche was always mixing up a little bit of earth with her good intentions. Having come so far successfully with her dangerous task, she wanted to open the box.
"I would take only the least bit of this beauty from Venus," Psyche thought, "to make myself more fair for Cupid if I ever behold him again."
So she carefully opened the box, but there was nothing in it of beauty at all. It was a potion that caused Psyche to fall beside the road in a sleep which seemed to have no waking. She did not stir, or breathe, or remember.
It was there that love, in the form of Cupid found Psyche. He was healed of his wound, and he could not bear her absence any longer. He flew through a crack in the window of the palace of Venus and made his way to earth and straight to the spot where Psyche lay. He gathered the deadly sleep from her body and put it fast inside the box again. Then he touched her lightly with one of his arrows and she woke.
"Again you have almost perished because of your curiosity," he said as Psyche reached up her arms to him "but perform exactly this task which my mother asked of you and I will attend to the rest."
Then Cupid, as swift as a bird flies, returned to Mount Olympus and pleaded with Jupiter for a welcome for Psyche. Jupiter consented at last to have this daughter of earth admitted to the family of the gods and Mercury was sent to bring her and offer her the cup of ambrosial nectar that would make her one of the immortals.
It is said that at the moment when Psyche completed her tasks and took her departure for Mount Olympus a winged creature, the butterfly, that had never been seen before on earth, arose from a garden and flew on golden wings up toward the sun. So it was thought that the story of Psyche was the story of the butterfly who bursts its gray house of the cocoon and rises, with a new beauty and the power of wings, toward the sky. And the Greeks had still another name for Psyche whom neither her troubles or the sleep of Pluto could keep from the abode of the gods when Love pleaded for her. They spoke of her as the Soul.
There was a hollow oak tree in front of the house of Melampos in Greece and inside it was a nest of serpents.
Melampos was a farmer, skilful in raising fruits and grains and full of love for everything that lived out of doors. He would not so much as crush an ant hurrying home to its hill with a grain of sand, and although he did not particularly like snakes he saw no harm in these that had made themselves a home in a tree that no one wanted.
"They will do us no hurt unless we disturb them," Melampos told his servants. "Let them alone and perhaps, when the weather is warmer, they will take their way off to the neighboring marsh."
But Melampos' servants were not so sure as he of the harmlessness of the serpents.
"Our master is growing old and child like," they said to each other. "The next time he drives to the city with a load of grain we will get rid of the nest of vipers."
So that was what they did. In Melampos' absence they fired the nest of the serpents with a torch and burned it up completely, as they thought. But when Melampos returned that afternoon and sat down under his arbor to rest and eat his supper of bread and grapes, he saw a pair of bright black eyes peering up at him from the grass. Then he spied a round green head raised above a long green body. It was one of the young serpents that had not been hurt when the nest was burned and had come to the master of the place for protection.
Melampos looked cautiously around to see that no one was watching him.
"If any of the servants see me, they will think me out of my senses," he said to himself, "but I am sorry for this little creature and would befriend it." Then, seeing that he was quite unobserved, Melampos broke off a piece of his bread and threw the crumbs to the young serpent. It devoured them to the last one and then glided off so silently that it left no trail except a long line of gently moving grasses.
The next day the serpent came and the next, always hungry and always lifting its little head and looking at Melampos in its odd, bright way. One day as Melampos broke his bread as usual to share it with the serpent, he heard a voice speaking to him.
"The gods have been watching your kindness, Melampos," it said, "and have rewarded you in the way you will like best. They have given you the power of understanding the tongues of the wild."
Melampos looked all about him, but there was not another mortal within sight. Then his eyes caught those of the serpent and he suddenly realized that it had been its voice which he had heard. That was the beginning of strange experiences for Melampos upon whom the gods had conferred so wonderful a gift.
The serpent never returned after that day, but that very same evening a tree toad spoke to Melampos.
"Water your olive trees well around the roots, Melampos," it said, "for there is a season of drought approaching."
That was an excellent warning, because the farmer had a grove of young trees that needed very tender care. Melampos sprayed the trees and soaked the roots and felt very thankful to the tree toad for its advice.
After a few days of dry weather Melampos was on his way to the city when a grasshopper spoke to him from the side of the road.
"Turn back, Melampos, and gather your sheaves of wheat into your storehouse," the grasshopper said, "for Jupiter is about to send a thunderbolt down to the earth."
That was exactly what happened. Melampos had just time to reach his grain field and order his men to put the ripe sheaves safely under cover when the sky grew black and the thunder rolled along the mountain tops. A high wind blew and the rain was heavy, but Melampos had saved his harvest.
All outdoors talked to Melampos after that, and it was very pleasant indeed, for he had no boys and girls of his own to keep him company. If he sat down to rest on a bank of moss in the forest, he was at once surrounded by friends. A little wild bee would light on a branch in front of him and tell him where he might find its sweet comb dripping with honey nearby. A butterfly would poise on his rough, soil stained hand and tell him where he would be able to see a bed of yellow daffodils beside a brook. Or a bird in a nearby bush would sing to him of the gay doings of Pan and the dryads and tell him the road to take to their haunts farther and deeper in the woods.
Melampos had never had such a good time in his life. He was an excellent husbandman and managed to make his farm pay well every year, but he cared very much more for this friendship of outdoors than he did for the hoards of food each harvest gave him. And, more and more, he came to stay in the woods and fields, holding conversation with the insects and the wild animals.
One harvest season Melampos was returning from the market with a large purse of gold pieces that had just been paid him for the sale of his summer wheat. He was taking his way through a deserted path of the forest where he hoped he might hear the echo, at least, of the merry pipes of Pan. He had not a thought or care in the world when, in an instant, he was laid low on the ground from a blow on his head, his gold was snatched away from him, and he was bound so tightly that he could not move. Melampos had been set upon by a band of robbers who threw him over the back of a horse and made off with him into the recesses of the forest.
It was not that peaceful, sylvan grove of the forest that Pan and his friends inhabited, but a dark, gloomy part where it was so still that even the sound of a twig falling to the ground seemed as loud as the splintering of an arrow, and no one ever passed by. The robbers put Melampos in an underground passage of a prison-like fortress which they had built for themselves. From beam to floor the fortress was built all of oak planks so old and thick and so completely covered with ivy on the outside that it looked like part of the forest itself.
Melampos had only a slit in the wall for a window, and he never saw his captors save when they tossed him some dried crusts once a day. He could hear them, though, counting their stolen coin and rattling it about. Then he heard the sound of clinking armor and the occasional clashing of swords.
"They are planning to kill me," he thought.
He looked longingly at the narrow chink in his prison wall, hardly large enough to let a sunbeam through.
"If I could but beckon to a wood pigeon and tell it my plight, I should be able to send a message to my friends by it," he sighed, "or I could ask the woodpecker who can bore through wood to try and widen my window so that I might escape."
Just then Melampos heard a rustling sound in the heavy beam of the ceiling of the room where he was imprisoned and then a small voice spoke to him.
"We could teach you better than any other creatures how to escape," it said. "For years this forest has belonged to us, small as we are, and in a very short time now it will return to the earth from which the trees that built it came."
Melampos was amazed. He looked in all the corners of the room but could see no one. Then the voice went on.
"No wood, or men who live in shelters made of wood are safe from us. We have bored the beams and timbers of this fortress in a thousand places until they are hollow and ready to fall."
Suddenly Melampos discovered the source of the voice. Through a knothole in a beam above his head a wood worm peered down at him. With its companions it had eaten the planks that made the fortress until it was no safer than a house of paper.
"We are all doomed," Melampos told one of the robbers who brought him his food that night.
"Doomed; what do you mean by that?" the robber asked in terror, for like most of his kind he was nothing but a coward at heart.
Melampos showed him the decayed wood, hollow, and riddled with holes, and the man called his companions to see their danger. They decided that they must flee from the fortress at once, and they decided to give Melampos his freedom. It would not have been safe to stay in the fortress another season, for almost as soon as the winter storms came it crumbled like a house of sand, and the ants and the crickets used it to make themselves winter shelters.
Melampos went back to his farm and the pleasant conversation of the insects, the birds, and his four-footed friends. He was the first mortal to have such friends, but there were others who followed him and found happiness, also, through being kind to little wild creatures.
Although Juno was the queen of the gods she had a failing that is common to mortals. She was very jealous, and particularly of any maiden of Earth whom she fancied might sometime be given a place by Jupiter among the great family of the gods on Mount Olympus. As soon as Juno saw Callisto, a beautiful huntress of the forests of Arcadia, she disliked her.
Perhaps Juno would have liked to be free to roam through the woods where Pan played his music for dancing and the Dryads sported from one season to another as Callisto did. The goddess may have envied the huntress her happy, free life with no royal duties to interfere with her daily chase of the deer or any heavy crown to keep the breezes from tossing her long dark hair. Callisto reverenced Jupiter and Juno alike, with no thought that she might be arousing the displeasure of the goddess, but one day a strange and fearful thing happened to her.
She had just raised her bow to her shoulder ready to shoot an arrow as straight as a dart through the green path of the forest when it suddenly struck her hand and she fell to the moss upon her hands and knees. She tried to reach out her arms in supplication but they had become thick and heavy and were covered with long black hair. Her hands grew rounded, were armed with crooked claws and served her for feet. Her voice, which had been so sweet that it charmed the birds when she called to them, changed to a terrifying growl.
Callisto raised herself as well as she could, lifting up her paws to beg mercy of the gods and uttering frightful roars as she bemoaned her fate. She had always been obliged to defend herself from the lions and wolves that haunted the forest and she felt that she would be at their mercy now. All at once, though, she understood what had happened to her. She, herself, was now no longer a mortal but a wild beast. Juno had persuaded Jupiter to change Callisto to the first bear.
She had never liked to be out in the wood at night, but now she had no shelter and had to roam through the darkness, pursued often by the same wild beasts whom it had been her custom to hunt before. She fled from her own dogs in terror and was in hourly terror of the same arrows which she had formerly aimed so straight. In the winter Callisto crawled into some hollow log or dug a cave for herself that she might keep alive during the season of the North Wind's reign, and when spring came she crawled out, lean and weak, to search for the wild bee's comb and the first juicy berries of the juniper.
One day a boy saw the bear as he was out hunting. Callisto saw him at the same time and realized that he was her own son, Arcas, now grown to be a tall youth and taking his part in the chase as his mother had so many seasons before. Callisto forgot her changed form in her great joy at seeing her son, and she arose to her hind feet and hastened toward him holding out her paws to embrace him. The boy, alarmed, raised his hunting spear and ran to meet the bear and thrust its point through her heart. Callisto's son would have killed her if Jupiter had not, just then, looked down on the forest from his throne and felt a sudden pity for the tragedy he had brought about.
The gods had made a long road in the sky that led to the palace of the Sun. Any one may see this road on a clear night, for it stretches across the face of the sky and is known as the Milky Way. The palaces of the illustrious gods stood on either side of the road and a little farther back were placed the homes of the lesser deities.
At the very moment that Arcas, his spear raised, rushed upon Callisto, two new comers appeared in the sky near the road of the gods. They had the form of a Great Bear and a Little Bear, but their bodies were made of brightly shining stars. The mighty Jupiter had transformed Callisto and her son into these two constellations.
How enraged Juno was when she found it out! She descended to the sea and told her troubles to Oceanus, a giant of the race of Titans who ruled the waters at that time.
"Do you wonder, Oceanus," Juno cried, "why I, the queen of the gods, have left the heavenly plains and seek your depths? It is because my authority has been set aside. I shall be supplanted among my fellow gods, for Callisto, the bear, has been taken up to the skies and given a place among the stars. Who can deny but that she may not occupy my throne next!"
"What would you have me do about it?" old Oceanus asked, a little puzzled as to why Juno had consulted him.
"I forbade Callisto to keep her human form and my will has been unjustly set aside," Juno replied. "Now that she has an abode on the road to heaven she will be able to take any form she desires and may come to you for help in her attempt to steal my throne. I command you to never allow the stars of her constellation to touch the waters."
Oceanus called a council of the other powers of the waters and they assented to Juno's decree. One after another the stars rose and set, touching the sea in their courses, but the Great Bear and the Little Bear moved ceaselessly round and round in the sky, never sinking to rest as the other stars did beneath the ocean. Juno had thought that this would be a punishment for them but as it turned out it was a kind of reward.
Because the Great Bear and the Little Bear were always to be seen in their changeless, shining course, people who were obliged to travel at night, and particularly those who were at sea, grew to depend upon them as a means of finding their way in the darkness. The last star in the tail of the Little Bear indicated the north and was known after a while as the Pole Star. The ancients called it also the Star of Arcadia, for it helped so many mariners to find their way home across the perilous waters.
It had happened to Juno, as it often happens to jealous people to-day, that she had not hurt Callisto in the least but had brought her a great deal of honor.