SL L N ILLINGOI UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS S AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2011. COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2011 AE 611 10 TANGLEWOOD TALES FOR YOUNG AND OLD BEING A SECOND WONDER-BOOK BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE COMPLETE EDITION GHIGAGO GEO. M. HILL COMPANY 166-174 S. Clinton Street THE WAYSIDE. INTRODUCTORY. A short time ago I was favored with a flying visit from my young friend Eustace Bright, whom I had not before met with since quitting the breezy mountains of Berkshire. It being the win- t er vacation at his college, Eustace was allowing V himself a little relaxation, in the hope, he told me, of repairing the inroads which severe application -to study had made upon his health; and I was Shappy to conclude, from the excellent physical condition in which I saw him, that the remedy - had already been attended with very desirable Ssuccess. He had now run up from Boston by the noon train, partly impelled by the friendly regard ith which he is pleased to honor me, and partly, as I soon found, on a matter of literary business. It delighted me to receive Mr. Bright, for the first time, under a roof, though a very humble one, which I could really call my own. Nor did I Sfail (as is the custom of landed proprietors all about the world) to parade the poor fellow up and TANGLEWOOD TALES. down over my half a dozen acres; secretly rejoicing nevertheless, that the disarray of the inclement season, and particularly the six inches of snow then upon the ground, prevented him from observ- ing the ragged neglect of soil and shrubbery into which the place has lapsed. It was idle, however, to imagine that an airy guest from MIonument Mountain, Bald-Summit, and old Gray-lock, shag- gy with primeval forests, could see anything to ad- mire in my poor little hill-side, with its growth of frail and insect-eaten locust-trees. Eustace very frankly called the view from my hill-top tame; and so, no doubt, it was, after rough, broken, rugged, headlong Berkshire, and especially the northern parts of the county, with which his college resi- dence had made him familiar. But to me there is a peculiar, quiet charm in these broad mead- ows and gentle eminences. They are better than mountains, because they do not stamp and stereo- type themselves into the brain, and thus grow wearisome with the same strong impression, re- peated day after day. A few summer weeks among mountains, a lifetime among green meadows and placid slopes, with outlines forever new, because continually fading out of the memory,-such would be my sober choice. I doubt whether Eustace did not internally pro- nounce the whole thing a bore, until I led him to THE WAYSIDE-INTRODUCTORY. mly predecessor's little ruined, rustic summer- house, midway on the hillside. It is a mere skele- ton of slender, decaying tree-trunks, with neither walls nor a roof; nothing but a tracery of branches and twigs, which the next wintry blast will be very likely to scatter in fragments along the terrace. It looks, and is, as evanescent as a dream- and yet, in its rustic network of boughs, it has somehow en- closed a hint of spiritual beauty, and has become a true emblem of the subtile and ethereal mind that planned it. I made Eustace Bright sit down on a now-bank, which had heaped itself over the mossy seat, and gazing through the arcked win- dow opposite, he acknowledged that the scene at once grew picturesque. "Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic. It is full of sug- gestiveness, and, in its way, is as good as a ca- thedral. Ah, it would be just the spot for one to sit in, of a summer afternoon, and tell the chil- dren some more of those wild stories from the classic myths!" "It would, indeed," answered I. "The sum- mer-house itself, so airy and so broken, is like one of those old tales, imperfectly remembered; and these living branches of the Baldwin apple-tree, thrusting themselves so rudely in, are like your unwarrantable interpolations. But, by the by, TANGLEWOOD TALES. have you added any more legends to the series, since the publication of the Wonder Book?" "Many more," said Eustace; "Primrose, Peri- winkle, and the rest of them allow me no comfort of my life, unless I tell them a story every day or two. I have run away from home partly to es- cape the importunity of those little wretches! But I have written out six of the new stories, and have brought them for you to look over." "Are they as good as the first?" I inquired. "Better chosen, and better handled," replied Eustace Bright. "You will say so when you re d them." "Possibly not," I remarked. "I know, from my own experience, that an author's last work is al- ways his best one, in his own estimate, until it quite loses the red heat of composition. After that, it falls into its true place, quietly enough. But let us adjourn to my study, and examine these new stories. It would hardly be doing yourself justice, were you to bring me acquainted with them, sitting here on this snowbank!" So we descended the hill to my small, old cot- tage, and shut ourselves up in the southeastern room, where the sunshine comes in, warmly and brightly, through the better half of a winter's day. Eustace put his bundle of manuscript into my hands; and I skimmed through it pretty rapidly, THE WAYSIDE-INTRODUCTORY. trying to find out its merits and demerits by the touch of my fingers, as a veteran story-teller ought to know how to do It will be remembered, that Mr. Bright con- descended to avail himself of my literary experi- ence by constituting me editor of the Wonder Book. As he had no reason to complain of the reception of that erudite work by the public, he was now disposed to retain me in a similar position, with respect to the present volume, which he en- titled "Tanglewood Tales." Not, as Eustace hint- ed, that there was any real necessity for my serv- ices as introductor, inasmuch as his own name had become established, in some good degree of fa- vor, with the literary world. But the connection with myself, he was kind enough to say, had been highly agreeable; nor was he by any means desir- ous, as most people are, of kicking away the lad- der that had perhaps helped him to reach his pres- ent elevation. My young friend was willing, in short, that the fresh verdure of his growing repu- tation should spread over my straggling and half- naked boughs; even as I have sometimes thought of training a vine, with its broad leafiness, and purple fruitage, over the worm-eaten posts and rafters of the rustic summer-house. I was not in- sensible to the advantages of his proposal, and gladly assured him of my acceptance. TANGLEWOOD TALES. Merely from the titles of the stories, I saw at once that the subjects were not less rich than those of the former volume; nor did I at all doubt that Mr. Bright's audacity (so far as that endowment might avail) had enabled him to take full advan- tage of whatever capabilities they offered. Yet, in spite of my experience of his free way of handling them, I did not quite see, I confess, how he could have obviated all the difficulties in the way of ren- dering them presentable to children. These old legends, so brimming over with everything that is most abhorrent to our Christianized moral sense,- some of them so hideous, others so melancholy and miserable, amid which the Greek tragedians sought their themes, and moulded them into the stern- est forms of grief that ever the world saw; was such material the stuff that children's playthings should be made of! How were they to be purified? How was the blessed sunshine to be thrown into them? But Eustace told me that these myths were the most singular things in the world, and that he was invariably astonished, whenever he began to relate one, by the readiness with which it adapted itself to the childish purity of his auditors. The objectionable characteristics seem to be a parasi- tical growth, having no essential connection with the Qriginal fable. They fall away, and are thought of no more, the instant he puts his imagination in 10 THE WAYSIDE-INTRODUCTORY. sympathy with the innocent little circle, whose wide-open eyes are fixed so eagerly upon him. Thus the stories (not by any strained effort of the nar- rator's, but in harmony with their inherent germ) transform themselves, and reassume the shapes which they might be supposed to possess in the pure childhood of the world. When the first poet or romancer told these marvellous legends (such is Eustace Bright's opinion), it was still the Golden Age. Evil had never yet existed; and sorrow, mis- fortune, crime, were mere shadows which the mind fancifully created for itself, as a shelter against too sunny realities; or, at most, but proph- etic dreams, to which the dreamer himself did not yield a waking credence. Children are now the only representatives of the men and women of that happy era; and therefore it is that we must raise the intellect and fancy to the level of childhood, in order to re-create the original myths. I let the youthful author talk as much and as extravagantly as he pleased, and was glad to see him commencing life with such confidence in him- self and his performances. A few years will do all that is necessary towards showing him the truth in both respects. Meanwhile, it is but right to say, he does really appear to have overcome the moral objections against these fables, although at the ex- pense of such liberties with their structure as must 11 TANGLEWOOD TALES. be left to plead their own excuse, without any help from me. Indeed, except that there was a neces- sity for it,-and that the inner life of the legends cannot be come at save by making them entirely one's own property,-there is no defence to be made. Eustace informed me that he had told his stories to the children in various situations,-in the woods, on the shore of the lake, in the dell of Shadow Brook, in the play-room, at Tanglewood fireside, and in a magnificent palace of snow, with ice win- dows, which he helped his little friends to build. His auditors were even more delighted with the contents of the present volume than with the speci- mens which have already been given to the world. The classically learned Mr. Pringle, too, had lis- tened to two or' three of the tales, and censured them even more bitterly than he did The Three Golden Apples; so that, what with praise, and what with criticism, Eustace Bright thinks that there is good hope of at least as much success with the pub- lic as in the case of the Wonder Book. I made all sorts of inquiries about the children, not doubting that there would be great eagerness to hear of their welfare among some good little folks who have written to me, to ask for another volume of myths. They are all, I am happy to say (unless we except Clover), in excellent health 12 THE WAYSIDE-INTRODUCTORY. and spirits. Primrose is now almost a young lady, and, Eustace tells me, is just as saucy as ever. She pretends to consider herself quite beyond the age to be interested by such idle stories asthese; but, for all that, whenever a story is to be told, Primrose never fails to be one of the listeners, and to make fun of it when finished. Periwinkle is very much grown, and is expected to shut up her baby-house and throw away her doll in a month or two more. Sweet Fern has learned to read and write, and has put on a jacket and pair of pataloons,-all of which im- provements I am sorry for. Squash-Blossom, Blue Eye, Plantain, and Buttercup have had the scarlet fever, but came easily through it. Huckleberry, Milkweed, and Dandelion were attacked with the whooping-cough, but bore it bravely, and kept out of doors whenever the sun shone. Cowslip, dur- ing the autumn, had either the measles, or some eruption that looked very much like it, but was hardly sick a day. Poor Clover has been a good deal troubled with her second teeth, which have made her meagre in aspect and rather fractious in temper; nor, even when she smiles, is the matter much mended, since it discloses a gap just within her lips, almost as wide as the barn door. But all this will pass over, and it is predicted that she will turn out a very pretty girl. As for Mr. Bright himself, he is now in his 13 TANGLEWOOD TALES. senior year at Williams College, and has a prospect of graduating with some degree of honorable dis- tinction at the next Commencement. In his ora- tion for the bachelor's degree, he gives me to un- derstand, he will treat of the classical myths, viewed in the aspect of baby stories, and has a great mind to discuss the expediency of using up the whole of ancient history for the same purpose. I do not know what he means to do with himself after leaving college, but trust that, by dabbling so early with the dangerous and seductive business of authorship, he will not be tempted to become an author by profession. If so, I shall be very sorry for the little that I have had to do with the matter, in encouraging these first beginnings. I wish there were any likelihood of my soon seeing Primrose, Ieriwinkle, Dandelion, Sweet Fern, Clover, Plantain, Huckleberry, Milkweed, Cowslip, Buttercup, Blue Eye, and Squash-Blos- som again. But as I do not know when I shall re- visit Tanglewood, and as Eustace Bright probably will not ask me to edit a third Wonder Book, the public of little folks must not expect to hear any more about these dear children from me. Heaven bless them, and everybody else, whether grown people or children! The Wayside, Concord, Mass., March 13, 1853. 14 THE MINOTAUR. In the old city of Troezene, at the foot of a lofty mountain, there lived, a very long time ago, a little boy named Theseus. His grandfather, King Pit- theus, was the sovereign of that country, and was reckoned a very wise man; so that Theseus, being brought up in the royal palace, and being naturally a bright lad, could hardly fail of profiting by the old king's instructions. His mother's name was Aethra. As for his father, the boy had never seen him. But, from his earliest remembrance, Aethra used to go with little Theseus into a wood, and sit down upon a moss-grown rock, which was deeply sunken into the earth. Here she often talked with her son about his father, and said that he was called Aegeus, and that he was a great king, and ruled over Attica, and dwelt at Athens, which was as famous a city as any in the world. Theseus was very fond of hearing about King Aegeus, and often asked his good mother Aethra why he did not come and live with them at Troezene. 15 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "Ah, my dear son," answered Aethra, with a sigh, "a monarch has his people to take care of. The men and women over whom he rules are in the place of children to him; and he can seldom spare time to love his own children as other par- ents do. Your father will never be able to leave his kingdom for the sake of seeing his little boy." "Well, but, dear mother," asked the boy, "why cannot I go to this famous city of Athens, and tell King Aegeus that I am his son?" "That may happen by and by," said Aethra. "Be patient, and we shall see. You are not yet big and strong enough to set out on such an er- rand." "And how soon shall I be strong enough?" The- seus persisted in inquiring. "You are but a tiny boy as yet," replied his mother. "See if you can lift this rock on which we are sitting ?" The little fellow had a great opinion of his own strength. So, grasping the rough protuberances of the rock, he tugged and toiled amain, and got himself quite out of breath, without being able to stir the heavy stone. It seemed to be rooted into the ground. No wonder he could not move it, for it would have taken all the force of a very strong man to life it out of its earthy bed. His mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of 16 THE MINOTAUR. a smile on her lips and in her eyes, to see the zeal- ous and yet puny efforts of her little boy. She could not help being sorrowful at finding him al- ready so impatient to begin his adventures in the world. "You see how it is, my dear Theseus," said she. "You must possess far more strength than now before I can trust you to go to Athens and tell King Aegeus that you are his son. But when you can lift this rock, and show me what is hidden be- neath it, I promise you my permission to depart." Often and often, after this, did Theseus ask his mother whether it was yet time for him to go to Athens; and still his mother pointed to the rock, and told him that, for years to come, he could not be strong enough to move it. And again and again the rosy-cheeked and curly-headed boy would tug and strain at the huge mass of stone, striving, child as he was, to do what a giant could hardly have done without taking both of his great hands to the task. Meanwhile the rock seemed to be sinking farther and farther into the- ground. The moss grew over it thicker and thicker, until at last it looked almost like a soft green seat, with only a few gray knobs of granite peeping out. The over- hanging trees, also, shed their brown leaves upon it, as often as the autumn came, and at its base grew ferns and wild flowers, some of which crept 2 17 TANGLEWOOD TALES. quite over its surface. To all appearance the rock was as firmly fastened as any other portion of the earth's substance. But, difficult as the matter looked, Theseus was now growing up to be such a vigorous youth, that, in his own opinion, the time would quickly come when he might hope to get the upper hand of this ponderous lump of stone. "Mother, I do believe it has started!" cried he, after one of his attempts. "The earth around it is certainly a little cracked!" "No, no, child!" his mother hastily answered. "It is not possible you could have moved it, such a boy as you still are!" Nor would she be convinced, although Theseus showed her the place where he fancied that the stem of a flower had been partly uprooted by the movement of the rock. But Aethra sighed and looked disquieted; for, no doubt, she began to be conscious that her son was no longer a child, and that in a little while hence, she must send him forth among the perils and troubles of the world. It was not more than a year afterwards when they were again sitting on the moss-covered stone. Aethra had once more told him the oft-repeated story of his father, and how gladly he would re- ceive Theseus at his stately palace, and how he would present him to his courtiers and the people, 18 THE MINOTAUR. and tell them that here was the heir of his domin- ions. The eyes of Theseus glowed with enthus- iasm, and he would hardly sit still to hear his mother speak. "Dear mother Aethra," he exclaimed, "I never felt half so strong as now! I am no longer a child, nor a boy, nor a mere youth! I feel myself a man! It is now time to make one earnest trial to remove the stone." "Ah, my dearest Theseus," replied his mother, "not yet! not yet!" "Yes, mother," said he, resolutely, "the time has come." Then Theseus bent himself in good earnest to the task, and strained every sinew with manly strength and resolution. He put his whole brave heart into the effort. He wrestled with the big and sluggish stone as if it had been a living enemy. HIe heaved, he lifted, he resolved now to succeed, or else to perish there, and let the rock be his monument forever! Aethra stood gazing at him, and clasped her hands, partly with a mother's pride, and partly with a mother's sorrow. The great rock stirred! Yes, it was raised slowly from the bedded moss and earth, uprooting the shrubs and flowers along with it, and was turned unon its side. Theseus had conquered! While taking breath he looked joyfully at his 19 TANGLEWOOD TALES. mother, and she smiled upon him through her tears. "Yes, Theseus," she said, "the time has come, and you must stay no longer at my side! See what King Aegeus, your royal father, left for you be- neath the stone, when he lifted it in his mighty arms and laid it on the spot whence you have now removed it." Theseus looked, and saw that the rock had been placed over another slab of stone containing a cav- ity within it; so that it somewhat resembled a roughly-made chest or coffer, of which the upper mass had served as the lid. Within the cavity lay a sword with a golden hilt and a pair of sandals. "That was your father's sword," said Aethra, "and those were his sandals. When he went to be King of Athens he bade me treat you as a child until you should prove yourself a man by lifting this heavy stone. That task being accomplished, you are to put on his sandals in order to follow in your father's footsteps, and also gird on his sword, so that you may fight giants and dragons, as King Aegeus did in his youth." "I will set out for Athens this very day!" cried Theseus. But his mother persuaded him to stay a day or two longer, while she got ready some necessary articles for his journey. When his grandfather, 20 THE MINOTAUR. the wise King Pittheus, heard that Theseus in- tended to present himself at his father's palace, he earnestly advised him to get on board of a vessel and go by sea; because he might thus arrive within fifteen miles of Athens, without either fatigue or danger. "The roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king; "and they are terribly infested with robbers and monsters. A mere lad, like Theseus, is not fit to be trusted on such a perilous journey all by himself. No, no; let him go by sea!" But when Theseus heard of robbers and mon- oters he pricked up his ears, and was s6 much the more eager to take the road along which they were to be met with. On the third day, therefore, he bade a respectful farewell to his grandfather, thanking him for all his kindness, and, after affec- tionately embracing his mother, he set forth, with a good many of her tears glistening on his cheeks, and some, if the truth must be told, that had gushed out of his own eyes. But he let the sun and wind dry them, and walked stoutly on, play- ing with the golden hilt of his sword, and taking very manly strides in his father's sandals. I cannot stop to tell you hardly any of the ad- ventures that befell Theseus on the road to Athens. It is enough to say that he quite cleared that part of the country of the robbers, about whom King 21 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Pittheus had been so much alarmed. One of these bad people was named Procrustes; and he was in- deed a terrible fellow, and had an ugly way of mak- ing fun of the poor travellers who happened to fall into his clutches. In his cavern he had a bed, on which, with great pretence of hospitality, he in- vited his guests to lie down; but if they happened to be shorter than the bed, this wicked villain stretched them out by main force; or, if they were too long, he lopped off their heads or feet, and laughed at what he had done as an excellent joke. Thus, however weary a man might be, he never liked to lie in the bed of Procrustes. Another of these robbers, named Scinis, must likewise have been a very great scoundrel. He was in the habit of flinging his victims off a high cliff into the sea; and, in order to give him exactly his deserts, The- seus tossed him off the very same place. But, if you will believe me, the sea would not pollute itself by receiving such a bad person into its bosom, neither would the earth, having once got rid of him, consent to take him back; so that, be- tween the cliff and the sea, Scinis stuck fast in the air, which was forced to bear the burden of his naughtiness. After these memorable deeds, Theseus heard of an enormous sow, which ran wild, and was the terror of all the farmers round about; and, as he 22 THE MINOTAUR. did not consider himself above doing any good thing that came in his way, he killed this mon- strous creature, and gave the carcass to the poor people for bacon. The great sow had been an aw- ful beast, while ramping about the woods and fields, but was a pleasant object enough when cut up into joints, and smoking on I know not how many dinner tables. Thus, by the time he reached his journey's end, Theseus had done many valiant feats with his father's golden-hilted sword, and had gained the renown of being one of the bravest young men of the day. His fame travelled faster than he did, and reached Athens before him. As he entered the city. he heard the inhabitants talking at the street-corners, and saying that Hercules was brave and Jason too, and Castor and Pollux likewise, but that Theseus, the son of their own king, would turn out as great a hero as the best of them. Th6- seus took longer strides on hearing this, and fancied himself sure of a magnificent reception at his father's court, since he came thither with Fame to blow her trumpet before him, and cry to King Aegeus, "Behold your son!" He little suspected, innocent youth that he was, that here, in this very Athens, where his father reigned, a greater danger awaited him than any which he had encountered on the road. Yet this 23 TANGLEWOOD TALES. was the truth. You must understand that the father of Theseus, though not very old in years, was almost worn out with the cares of government, and had thus grown aged before his time. His nephews, not expecting him to live a very great while, intended to get all the power of the kingdom into their own hands. But when they heard that Theseus had arrived in Athens, and learned what a gallant. young man he was, they saw that he would not be at all the kind of person to let them steal away his father's crown and sceptre, which ought to be his own by right of inheritance. Thus these bad-hearted nephews of King Aegeus, who were the own cousins of Theseus, at once became his enemies. A still more dangerous enemy was Medea, the wicked enchantress; for she was now the king's wife, and wanted to give the kingdom to her son Medus, instead of letting it be given to the son of Aethra, whom she hated. It so happened that the king's nephews met Theseus, and found out who he was, just as he reached the entrance of the royal palace. With all their evil designs against him, they pretended to be their cousin's best friends, and expressed great joy at making his acquaintance. They proposed to him that he should come into the king's presence as a stranger, in order to try whether Aegeus would discover in the young man's features any likeness st THE MINOTAUR. either to himself or his mother Aethra, and thus recognize him for a son. Theseus consented; for he fancied that his father would know him in a moment, by the love that was in his heart. But, while he waited at the door, the nephews ran and told King Aegeus that a young man had arrived in Athens who, to their certain knowledge, in- tended to put him to death, and get possession of his royal crown. "And he is now waiting for admission to your Majesty's presence," added they. "Aha!" cried the old king, on hearing this. "Why, he must be a very wicked young fellow in- deed! Pray, what would you advise me to do with him?" In reply to this question the wicked Medea put in her word. As I have already told you, she was a famous enchantress. According to some stories, she was in the habit of boiling old people in a large caldron, under pretense of making them young again; but King Aegeus, I suppose, did not fancy such an uncomfortable way of growing young, or perhaps was contented to be old, and therefore would never let himself be popped into the caldron. If there were time to spare from more important matters, I should be glad to tell you of Medea's fiery chariot, drawn by winged dragons, in which the enchantress used often to take an airing among 25 TANGLEWOOD TALES. the clouds. This chariot, in fact, was the vehicle that first brought her to Athens, where she had done nothing but mischief ever since her arrival. But these and many other wonders must be left untold; and it is enough to say that Medea, amongst a thousand other bad things, knew how to pre- pare a poison that was instantly fatal to whomso- ever might so much as touch it with his lips. So, when the king asked what he should do with Theseus, this naughty woman had an answer ready at her tongue's end. "Leave that to me, please your Majesty," she re- plied. "Only admit this evil-minded young man to your presence, treat him civilly, and invite him to drink a goblet of wine. Your Majesty is well aware that I sometimes amuse myself with distilling very powerful medicines. Here is one of them in this small phial. As to what it is made of, that is one of my secrets of state. Do but let me put a single drop into the goblet, and let the young man taste it; and I will answer for it, he shall quite lay aside the bad designs with which he comes hither." As she said this, Medea smiled; but, for all her smiling face, she meant nothing less than to poison the poor innocent Theseus, before his father's eyes. And King Aegeus, like most other kings, thought any punishment mild enough for a person who was accused of plotting against his life. IHe 26 THE MINOTAUR. therefore made 'little or no objection to Medea's scheme, and as soon as the poisonous wine was ready, gave orders that the young stranger should be admitted into his presence. The goblet was set on a table beside the king's throne; and a fly, mean- ing just to sip a little from the brim, immediately tumbled into it, dead. Observing this Medea looked round at the nephews, and smiled again. When Theseus was ushered into the royal apart- ment, the only object that he seemed to behold was the white-bearded old king. There he sat on his magnificent throne, a dazzling crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand. His aspect was stately and majestic, although his years and infirm- ities weighed heavily upon him, as if each year were a lump of lead, and each infirmity a ponderous stone, and all were bundled up together, and laid upon his weary shoulders. The tears both of joy and sorrow sprang into the young man's eyes; for he thought how sad it was to see his deal father so infirm, and how sweet it would be to support him with his own youthful strength, and to cheer him up with the alacrity of his loving spirit. When a son takes his father into his warm heart, it re- news the old man's youth in a better way than by the heat of Medea's magic caldron. And this was what Theseus resolved to do. He could scarcely wait to see whether King Aegeus would recognize 27 TANGLEWOOD TALES. him, so eager was he to throw himself into his arms. Advancing to the foot of the throne, he at- tempted to make a little speech, which he had been thinking about as he came up the stairs. But he was almost choked by a great many tender feelings that gushed out of his heart and swelled into his throat, all struggling to find utterance together. And therefore, unless he could have laid his full, over-brimming heart into the king's hand, poor Theseus knew not what to do or say. The cunning Medea observed what was passing in the young man's mind. She was more wicked at that moment than ever she had been before; for (and it makes me tremble to tell you of it) she did her worst to turn all this unspeakable love with which Theseus was agitated, to his own ruin and destruction. "Does your Majesty see his confusion?" she whis- pered in the king's ear. "He is so conscious of guilt, that he trembles and cannot speak. The wretch lives too long! Quick! offer him the wine!" Now King Aegeus had been gazing earnestly at the young stranger, as he drew near the throne. There was something, he knew not what, either in his white brow, or in the fine expression of his mouth, or in his beautiful and tender eyes, that made him instinctively feel as if he had seen this youth before; as if, indeed, he had trotted him on his knee when a baby, and beheld him growing to 28 THE MINOTAUR. be a stalwart man, while he himself grew old. But MVIedea guessed how the king felt, and would not suffer him to yield to these natural sensibilities; although they were the voice of his deepest heart, telling him, as plainly as it could speak, that here was his dear son, and Aethra's son, coming to claim him for a father. The enchantress again whispered in the king's ear, and compelled him, by her witchcraft, to see everything under a false aspect. He made up his mind, therefore, to let Theseus Drink off the poisoned wine. "Young man," said he, "you are welcome! I am proud to show hospitality to so heroic a youth. Do me the favor to drink the contents of this goblet. It is brimming over, as you see, with delicious wine, such as I bestow only on those who are worthy of it! None is more worthy to quaff it than yourself!" So saying, King Aegeus took the golden goblet from the table, and was about to offer it to The- seus. But partly through his infirmities, and partly because it seemed so sad a thing to take away this young man's life, however wicked he might be, and partly, no doubt, because his heart was wiser than his head, and quaked within him at the thought of what he was going. to do,-for all these reasons, the king's hand trembled so much that a 29 TANGLEWOOD TALES. great deal of the wine slopped over. In order to strengthen his purpose, and fearing lest the who e of the precious poison should be wasted, one of his nephews now whispered to him,- "Has your Majesty any doubt of this stranger's guilt? There is the very sword with which he meant to slay you. How sharp, and bright, and terrible it is! Quick!-let him taste the wine; or perhaps he may do the deed even yet." At these words, Aegeus drove every thought and feeling out of his breast, except the one idea of how justly the young man deserved to be. put to death. He sat erect on his throne, and held out the goblet of wine with a steady hand, and bent on Theseus a frown of kingly severity; for, after all, he had too noble a spirit to murder even a treacherous enemy with a deceitful smile upon his face. "Drink!" said he, in the stern tone with which he was wont to condemn a criminal to be beheaded. "'You have well deserved of me such wine as this!" Theseus held out his hand to take the wine. But, before he touched it King Aegeus trembled again. His eyes had fallen on the gold-hilted sword that hung at the young man's side. He drew back the goblet. "That sword!" he cried; "how came you by it?" "It was my father's sword," replied Theseus, with a tremulous voice. "These were his sandals. 30 THE MINOTAUR. Miy dear mother (her name is Aethra) told me his story while I was yet a little child. But it is only a month since I grew strong enough to lift the heavy stone, and take the sword and sandals from beneath it, and come to Athens to seek my father." "Mly son! my son!" cried King Aegeus, flinging away the fatal goblet and tottering down from the throne to fall into the arms of Theseus. "Yes, these are Aethra's eyes. It is my son." I have quite forgotten what became of the king's nephews. But when the wicked Medea saw this new turn of affairs, she hurried out of the room, and going to her private chamber lost no time in set- ting her enchantments at work. In a few moments, she heard a great noise of hissing snakes outside of the chamber window; and, behold! there was her fiery chariot, and four huge winged serpents, wriggling and twisting in the air, flourishing their tails higher than the top of the palace, and all ready to set off on an aerial journey. Medea stayed only long enough to take her son with her, and to steal the crown jewels, together with the king's best robes, and whatever other valuable things she could lay her hands on; and getting into the chariot she whipped up the snakes and ascended high over the city. The king, hearing the hiss of the serpents, scram- 31 TANGLEWOOD TALES. bled as fast as he could to the window, and bawled out to the abominable enchantress never to come back. The whole people of Athens, too, who had run out of doors to see this wonderful spectacle, set up a shout of joy at the prospect of getting rid of her. Medea, almost bursting with rage, uttered precisely such a hiss as one of her own snakes, only ten times more venomous and spiteful; and glar- ing fiercely out of the blaze of the chariot, she shook her hands over the multitude below, as if she were scattering a million curses among them. In so doing, however, she unintentionally let. fall about five hundred diamonds of the first water, to- gether with a thousand great pearls, and two thousand emeralds, rubies, sapphires, opals and to- pazes, to which she had helped herself out of the king's strong-box. All these came pelting down, like a shower of many-colored hailstones, upon the heads of grown people and children, who forth- with gathered them up and carried them back to the palace. But King Aegeus told them that they were welcome to the whole, and to twice as many more, if he had them, for the sake of his delight at finding his son, and losing the wicked Medea. And, indeed, if you had seen how hateful was her last look, as the flaming chariot flew upward, you would not have wondered that both king and people should think her departure a good riddance. 02 THE MINOTAUR. And now Prince Theseus was taken into great favor by his royal father. The old king was never weary of having him sit beside him on his throne (which was quite wide enough for two) and of hear- ing him tell about his dear mother, and his child- hood, and his many boyish efforts to lift the pon- derous stone. Theseus, however, was much too brave and active a young man to be willing to spend all his time in relating things which had al- ready happened. His ambition was to perform other and more heroic deeds, which should be better worth telling in prose and verse. Nor had he been long in Athens before he caught and chained a terrible mad bull, and made a public show of him, greatly to the wonder and admiration of good King Aegeus and his subjects. But pret- ty soon he undertook an affair that made all his foregone adventures seem like mere boy's play. The occasion of it was as follows: One morning, when Prince Theseus awoke he fancied that he must have had a very sorrowful dream, and that it was still running in his mind, even now that his eyes were open. For it appeared as if the air was full of a melancholy wail; and when he listened more attentively, he could hear sobs and groans and screams of woe, mingled with deep, quiet sighs, which came from the king's pal- ace, and from the streets, and from the temples, 33 TANGLEWOOD TALES. and from every habitation in the city And all these mournful noises, issuing out of thousands of separate hearts, united themselves into one great sound of affliction, which had startled Theseus from slumber. He put on his clothes as quickly as he could (not forgetting his sandals and gold-hilted sword), and, hastening to the king, inquired what it all meant. "Alas! my son," quoth King Aegeus, heaving a long sigh, "here is a very lamentable matter in hand! This is the wofullest anniversary in the whole year. It is the day when we annually draw lots to see which of the youths and maidens of Athens shall go to be devoured by the horrible Minotaur!" "The Minotaur!" exclaimed Prince Theseus; and, like a brave young prince as he was, he put his hand to the hilt of his sword. "What kind of a monster may that be? Is it not possible, at the risk of one's life, to slay him?" But King Aegeus shook his venerable head, and to convince Theseus that it was quite a hopeless case, he gave him an explanation of the whole af- fair. It seems that in the island of Crete there lived a certain dreadful monster, called a Minotaur, shaped partly like a man and partly like a bull, and was altogether such a hideous sort of a creature that it is really disagreeable to think of him. If he 34 THE MINOTAUR. were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some desert island, or in the duskiness of some deep cavern, where nobody would ever be torment- ed by his abominable aspect. But King Minos, who reigned over Crete, laid out a vast deal of money in building a habitation for the Minotaur, and took great care of his health and comfort, merely for mischief's sake. A few years before this time, there had been a war between the city of Athens and the island of Crete, in which the Athenians were beaten and compelled to beg for peace. No peace could they obtain, however, ex- cept on condition that they should send seven young men and seven maidens, every year, to be devoured by the pet monster of the cruel King Minos. For three years past, this grievous calam- ity had been borne. And the sobs, and groans, and shrieks, with which the city was now filled, were caused by the people's woe, because the fatal day had come again, when the fourteen victims were to be chosen by lot; and the old people feared lest their sons or daughters might be taken, and the youths and damsels dreaded lest they them- selves might be destined to glut the ravenous maw of that detestable man-brute. But when Theseus heard the story, he straight- ened himself up, so that he seemed taller than ever before; and as for his face, it was indignant, de- 35 TANGLEWOOD TALES. spiteful, bold, tender and compassionate, all in one look. "Let the people of Athens, this year, draw lots for only six young men instead of seven," said he. "I will myself be the seventh; and let the Minotaur devour me, if he can!" "0, my dear son," cried King Aegeus, "why should you expose yourself to this horrible fate? You are a royal prince, and have a right to hold yourself above the destinies of common men." "It is because I am a prince, your son, and the rightful heir of your kingdom, that I freely take upon me the calamity of your subjects," answered Theseus. "And you, my father, being king over this people, and answerable to Heaven for their welfare, are bound to sacrifice what is dearest to you, rather than that the son or daughter of the poorest citizen should come to any harm." The old king shed tears, and besought Theseus not to leave him desolate in his old age, more especially as he had but just begun to know the happiness of possessing a good and valiant son. Theseus, however, felt that he was in the right, and therefore would not give up his resolution. But he assured his father that he did not intend to be eaten up, unresistingly, like a sheep, and that, if the Minotaur devoured him, it should not be with- out a battle for his dinner. And finally, since he 36 THE MINOTAUR. could not help it, King Aegeus consented to let him go. So a vessel was got ready, and rigged with black sails; and Theseus, with six other young men, and seven tender and beautiful damsels, came down to the harbor to embark. A sorrowful multi- tuide accompanied them to the shore. There was the poor old king, too, leaning on his son's arm, and looking as if his single heart held all the grief of Athens. Just as Prince Theseus was going on board, his father bethought himself of one last word to say. "My beloved son," said he, grasping the prince's hand, "you observe that the sails of this vessel are black; as indeed they ought to be, since it goes upon a voyage of sorrow and despair. Now, being weighed down with infirmities, I know not whether I can survive till the vessel shall return. But, as long as I do live, I shall creep daily to the top of yonder cliff, to watch if there be a sail upon the sea. And, dearest Theseus, if by some happy chance you should escape the jaws of the Minotaur, then tear down those dismal sails, and hoist others that shall be bright as the sunshine. Beholding them on the horizon, myself and all the people will [know that you are coming back victorious, and will welcome you with such a festal uproar as Athens never heard before." Theseus promised that hQ would do so. Then, 37 TANGLEWOOD TALES. going on board, the mariners trimmed the vessel's black sails to the wind, which blew faintly off the shore, being pretty much made up of the sighs that everybody kept pouring forth on this melancholy occasion. But by and by, when they got fairly out to sea, there came a stiff breeze from the north- west, and drove them along as merrily over the white-capped waves as if they had been going on the most delightful errand imaginable. And though it was a sad business enough, I rather ques- tion whether fourteen young people, without any old persons to keep them in order, could continue to spend the whole time of the voyage in being miserable. There had been some few dances upon the undulating deck, I suspect, and some hearty bursts of laughter, and other such unseasonable merriment among the victims, before the high, blue mountains of Crete began to show themselves among the far-off clouds. That sight, to be sure, made them all very grave again. Theseus stood among the sailors, gazing eagerly towards the land; although, as yet, it seemed hardly more substantial than the clouds, amidst which the mountains were looming up. Once or twiee, he fancied that he saw a glare of some bright object, a long way off, flinging a gleam across the waves. THE MINOTAUR. "Did you see that flash of light?" he inquired of the master of the vessel. "No, prince; but I have seen it before," answered the master. "It came from Talus, I suppose." As the breeze came fresher just then, the master was busy with trimming his sails, and had no more time to answer questions. But while the vessel flew faster and faster towards Crete, Theseus was astonished to behold a human figure, gigantic in size, which appeared to be striding with a meas- ured movement, along the margin of the island. It stepped from cliff to cliff, and sometimes from one headland to another, while the sea foamed and thundered on the shore beneath, and dashed its jets of spray over the giant's feet. What was still more remarkable, whenever the sun shone on this huge figure, it flickered and glimmered; its vast countenance, too, had a metallic lustre, and threw great flashes of splendor through the air. The folds of its garments, moreover, instead of waving in the wind, fell heavily over its limbs, as if woven of some kind of metal. The nigher the vessel came, the more Theseus wondered what this immense giant could be, and whether it actually had life or no. For though it walked, and made other life-like motions, there yet was a kind of jerk in its gait, which, together with its brazen aspect, caused the young prince to sus- 39 TANGLEWOOD TALES. pect that it was no true giant, but only a wonder- ful piece of machinery. The figure looked all the more terrible because it carried an enormous brass club on its shoulder. "What is this wonder?" Theseus asked of the master of the vessel, who was now at leisure to an- swer him. "It is Talus, the Man of Brass," said the master. "And is he a live giant, or a brazen image?" asked Theseus. "That, truly," replied the master, "is the point which has always perplexed me. Some say, indeed, that this Talus was hammered out for King Minos by Vulcan himself, the skillfullest of all workers in metal. But who ever saw a brazen image that had sense enough to walk round an island three times a day, as this giant walks round the island of Crete, challenging every vessel that comes nigh the shore? And, on the other hand, what living thing, unless his sinews were made of brass, would not be weary of marching eighteen hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, as Talus does without ever sitting down to rest? He is a puzzler, take him how you will." Still the vessel went bounding onward; and now Theseus could hear the brazen clangor of the giant's footsteps, as he trod heavily upon the sea- beaten rocks, some of which were seen to crack and 40 THE MINOTAUR. crumble into the foamy waves beneath his weight. As they approached the entrance of the port the giant straddled clear across it, with a foot firmly planted on each headland, and uplifting his club to such a height that its butt-end was hidden in a cloud, he stood in that formidable posture, with the sun gleaming all over his metallic surface. There seemed nothing else to be expected but that, the next moment, he would fetch his great club down, slam bang, and smash the vessel into a thou- sand pieces, without heeding how many innocent people he might destroy; for there is seldom any mercy in a giant, you know, and quite as little in a piece of brass clock-work. But just then when Theseus and his companions thought the blow was coming, the brazen lips unclosed themselves, and the figure spoke. "Whence come you, strangers?" And when the ringing voice ceased, there was just such a reverberation as you may have heard within a great church bell, for a moment or two after the stroke of the hammer. "From Athens!" shouted the master in reply. "On what errand? " thundered the Man of Brass. And he whirled his club aloft more threateningly than ever, as if he were about to smite them with a thunder-stroke right amidships, because Athens, so little while ago, had been at war with Crete. 41 TANGLEWOOD TALES. S"We bring the seven youths and the seven maid- ens," answered the master, "to be devoured by the Minotaur!" "Pass!" cried the brazen giant. That one loud word rolled all about the sky, while again there was a booming reverberation within the figure's breast. The vessel glided be- tween the headlands of the port, and the giant re- sumed his march. In a few moments, this wond- rous sentinel was far away, flashing in the distant sunshine, and revolving with immense strides around the island of Crete, as it was his never- ceasing task to do. No sooner had they entered the harbor than a party of the guards of King Minos came down to the waterside, and took charge of the fourteen young men and damsels. Surrounded by these armed warriors, Prince Theseus and his compan- ions were led to the king's palace, and ushered into his presence. Now, Minos was a stern and pitiless king. If the figure that guarded Crete was made of brass, then the monarch, who ruled over it, might be thought to have a still harder metal in his breast, and might have been called a man of iron. He bent his shaggy brows upon the poor Athenian victims. Any other mortal, beholding their fresh and tender beauty, and their innocent looks, would have felt himself sitting on thorns until he had made every 42 THE MINOTAUR. soul of them happy, by bidding them go free as the summer wind. But this, immitigable Minos cared only to examine whether they were plump enough to satisfy the Minotaur's appetite. For my part, I wish he himself had been the only victim; and the monster would have found him a pretty tough one. One after another, King Minos called these pale, frightened youths and sobbing maidens to his foot- stool, gave them each a poke in the ribs with his sceptre (to try whether they were in good flesh or no), and dismissed them with a nod to his guards. But when his eyes rested on Theseus, the king looked at him more attentively, because his face was calm and brave. "Young man," asked he, with his stern voice, "are you not appalled at the certainty of being devoured by this terrible Minotaur?" "I have offered my life in a good cause," an- swered Theseus, "and therefore I give it freely and gladly. But thou, King Minos, art thou not thy- self appalled, who, year after year, hast perpetrated this dreadful wrong, by giving seven innocent youths and as many maidens to be devoured by a monster? Dost thou not tremble, wicked king, to turn thine eyes inward on thine own heart? Sit- ting there on the golden throne, and in thy robes of majesty, I tell thee to thy face, King Minos, 43 TANGLEWOOD TALES. thou art a more hideous monster than the Mino- taur himself!" "Aha! do you think me so?" cried the king, laughing in his cruel way. "To-morrow, at break- fast-time, you shall have an opportunity of judg- ing which is the greater monster, the Minotaur or the king! Take them away, guards; and let this free-spoken youth be the Minotaur's first morsel!" Near the king's throne (though I had no time to tell you so before) stood his daughter Ariadne. She was a beautiful and tender-hearted maiden, and looked at these poor doomed captives with very different feelings from those of the iron- breasted King Minos. She really wept, indeed, at the idea of how much human happiness would be needlessly thrown away, by giving so many young people, in the first bloom and rose-blossom of their lives, to be eaten up by a creature who, no doubt, would have preferred a fat ox, or even a large pig, to the plumpest of them. And when she beheld the brave, spirited figure of Prince Theseus bear- ing himself so calmly in his terrible peril, she grew a hundred times more pitiful than before. As the guards were taking him away, she flung herself at the king's feet, and besought him to set all the captives free, and especially this one young man. "Peace, foolish girl!" answered King Minos. "What hast thou to do with an affair like this? It 44 THE MINOTAUR. is a matter of state policy, and therefore quite beyond thy weak comprehension. Go water thy flowers, and think no more of these Athenian caitiffs, whom the Minotaur shall as certainly eat up for breakfast as I will eat a partridge for my supper." So saying, the king looked cruel enough to de- vour Theseus and all the rest of the captives, him- self, had there been no Minotaur to save him the trouble. As he would hear not another word in their favor, the prisoners were now led away, and clapped into a dungeon, where the jailer advised them to go to sleep as soon as possible, because the Minotaur was in the habit of calling for breakfast early. The seven maidens and six of the young men soon sobbed themselves to slumber! But Theseus was not like them. He felt conscious that he was wiser and braver and stronger than his companions, and that therefore he had the re- sponsibility of all their lives upon him, and must consider whether there was no way to save them, even in this last extremity. So he kept himself awake, and paced to and fro across the gloomy dungeon in which they were shut up. Just before midnight, the door was softly un- barred, and the gentle Ariadne showed herself, with a torch in her hand. 45 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Are you awake, Prince Theseus?" she whisp- ered. "Yes," answered Theseus. "With so little time to live, I do not choose to waste any of it in sleep." "Then follow me," said Ariadne, "and tread softly." What had become of the jailer and the guards, Theseus never knew. But however that might be, Ariadne opened all the doors and led him forth from the darksome prison into the pleasant moon- light. "Theseus," said the maiden, "you can now get on board your vessel, and sail away for Athens." "No," answered the young man; "I will never leave Crete unless I can first slay the Minotaur, and save my poor companions, and deliver Athens from this cruel tribute." "I knew that this would be your resolution," said Ariadne. "Come, then, with me, brave Theseus. Here is your own sword, which the guards deprived you of. You will need it; and pray Heaven you may use it well." Then she led Theseus along by the hand until they came to a dark, shadowy grove, where the moonlight wasted itself on the tops of the trees, without shedding hardly so much as a glimmering beam upon their pathway. After going a good way through this obscurity, they reached a high, marble 46 THE MINOTAUR. wall, which was overgrown with creeping plants, that made it shaggy with their verdure. The wall seemed to have no door, nor any windows, but rose up, lofty, and massive, and mysterious, and was neither to be clambered over, nor, so far as Theseus could perceive, to be passed through. Neverthe- less, Ariadne did but press one of her soft little fingers against a particular block of marble, and, though it looked as solid as any other part of the wall, it yielded to her touch, disclosing an entrance just wide enough to admit them. They crept through, and the marble stone swung back into its place. "We are now," said Ariadne, "in the famous labyrinth which Daedalus built before he made himself a pair of wings, and flew away from our island like a bird. That Daedalus was a very cun- ning workman; but of all his artful contrivances, this labyrinth is the most wondrous. Were we to take but a few steps from the doorway, we might wander about all our lifetime, and never find it again. Yet in the very centre of this labyrinth is the Minotaur; and, Theseus, you must go thither to seek him." "But how shall I ever find him," asked Theseus, "if the labyrinth so bewilders me as you say it will?" Just as he spoke they heard a rough and very 47 TANGLEWOOD TALES. disagreeable roar, which greatly resembled the low- ing of a fierce bull, but yet had some sort of sound like a human voice. Theseus even fancied a rude articulation in it, as if the creature that uttered it were trying to shape his coarse breath into words. It was at some distance, however, and he really could not tell whether it sounded most like a bull's roar or a man's harsh voice. "That is the Minotaur's noise," whispered Ari- adne, closely grasping the hand of Theseus, and pressing one of her own hands to her heart, which was all in a tremble. "You must follow that sound through the windings of the labyrinth, and, by and by, you will find him. Stay! take the end of this silken string; I will hold the other end; and then, if you win the victory, it will lead you again to this spot. Farewell, brave Theseus." So the young man took the end of the silken string in his left hand, and his gold-hilted sword, ready drawn from its scabbard, in the other, and trod boldly into the inscrutable labyrinth. How this labyrinth was built is more than I can tell you. But so cunningly contrived a mizmaze was never seen in the world before nor since. There can be nothing else so intricate, unless it were the brain of a man like Daedalus, who planned it, or the heart of any ordinary man; which last, to be sure, is ten times as great a mystery as the labyrinth of Crete. 48 THE MINOTAUR. Theseus had not taken five steps before he lost sight of Ariadne; and in five more his head was growing dizzy. But still he went on, now creeping through a low arch, now ascending a flight of steps, now in one crooked passage and now in another, with here a door opening before him, and there one banging behind, until it really seemed as if the walls spun round, and whirled him round along with them. And all the while, through these hol- low avenues, now nearer, now farther off again, resounded the cry of the Minotaur; and the sound was so fierce, so cruel, so ugly; so like a bull's roar, and withal so like a human voice, and yet like neither of them, that the brave heart of Theseus grew sterner and angrier at every step; for he felt it an insult to the moon and sky, and to our affec- tionate and simple Mother Earth, that such a monster should have the audacity to exist. As he passed onward, the clouds gathered over the moon, and the labyrinth grew so dusky that Theseus could no longer discern the bewilderment through which he was passing. He would have felt quite lost and utterly hopeless of ever again walking in a straight path, if, every little while, he had not been conscious of a gentle twitch at the silken cord. Then he knew that the tender-hearted Ariadne was still holding the other end, and that she was fearing for him, and hoping for him, and 49 TANGLEWOOD TALES. giving him just as much of her sympathy as if she were close by his side. Oh, indeed, I can assure you, there was a vast deal of human sympathy run- ning along that slender thread of silk. But still he followed the dreadful roar of the Minotaur, which now grew louder and louder; and finally so very loud that Theseus fully expected to come close upon him at every new zigzag and wriggle of the path. And at last, in an open space, at the very centre of the labyrinth, he did discern the hideous creature. Sure enough, what an ugly monster it was! Only his horned head belonged to a bull; and yet, some- how or other, he looked like a bull all over, pre- posterously waddling on his hind legs; or, if you happened to view him in another way, he seemed wholly a man, and all the more monstrous for be- ing so. And there he was, the wretched thing, with no society, no companion, no kind of a mate, living only to do mischief, and incapable of know- ing what affection means. Theseus hated him, and shuddered at him, yet could not but be sensible of some sort of pity; and all the more, the uglier and more destestable the creature was. For he kept striding to and fro in a solitary frenzy of rage, continually emitting a hoarse roar, which was oddly mixed up with half-shaped words; and, after listening awhile, Theseus understood that the 50 THE MINOTAUR. Minotaur was saying to himself how miserable he was and how hungry, and how he hated everybody, and how he longed to eat up the human race alive. Ah, the bull-headed villain! And O, my good little people, you will perhaps see, one of these days, as I do now, that every human being who suffers anything evil to get into his nature, or to remain there, is a kind of Minotaur, an enemy of his fellow-creatures, and separated from all good companionship, as this poor monster was. Was Theseus afraid? By no means, my dear auditors. What! a hero like Theseus afraid! Not had the Minotaur had twenty bull heads instead of one. Bold as he was, however, I rather fancy that it strengthened his valiant heart, just at this crisis, to feel a tremulous twitch at the silken cord, which he was still holding in his left hand. It was as if Ariadne was giving him all her might and courage; and, much as he already had, and little as she had to give, it made his own seem twice as muich. And to confess the honest truth, he needed the whole; for now the Minotaur, turning suddenly about, caught sight of Theseus, and instantly lowered his horribly sharp horns, exactly as a mad bull does when he means to rush against an enemy. At the same time he belched forth a tremendous roar, in which there was something like the words of human language, but all disjointed and shaken to . As0lLL- o 51 TANGLEWOOD TALES. pieces by passing through the gullet of a miser- ably enraged brute. Theseus could only guess what the creature in- tended to say, and that rather by his gestures than his words; for the Minotaur's horns were sharper than his wits, and of a great deal more service to him than his tongue. But probably this was the sense of what he uttered: "Ah, wretch of a human being! I'll stick my horns through you, and toss you fifty feet high, and eat you up the moment you come down." "Come on, then, and try it!" was all that Theseus deigned to reply; for he was far too magnanimous to assault his enemy with insolent language. Without more words on either side, there en- sued the most awful fight between Theseus and the Minotaur that ever happened beneath the sun or moon. I really know not how it might have turned out, if the monster, in his first headlong rush against Theseus, had not missed him by a hair's-breadth, and broken one of his horns short off against the stone wall. On this mishap, he bel- lowed so intolerably that a part of the labyrinth tumbled down, and all the inhabitants of Crete mistook the noise for an uncommonly heavy thun- der storm. Smarting with the pain, he galloped around the open space in so ridiculous a way that Theseus laughed at it, long afterwards, though not 52 THE MINOTAUR. precisely at the moment. After this, the two an- tagonists stood valiantly up to one another, and fought sword to horn for a long while. At last, the Minotaur made a run at Theseus, grazed his left side with his horn, and flung him down; and thinking that he had stabbed him to the heart, he cut a great caper in the air, opened his bull mouth from ear to ear, and prepared to snap his head off. But Theseus by this time had leaped up, and caught the monster off his guard. Fetching a sword stroke at him with all his force, he hit him fair upon the neck, and made his bull head skip six yards from his human body, which fell down flat upon the ground. So now the battle was ended. Immediately the moon shone out as brightly as if all the troubles of the world, and all the wickedness and the ugliness that infest human life, were past and gone for- ever. And Theseus, as he leaned on his sword, taking breath, felt another twitch of the silken cord; for all through the terrible encounter he had held it fast in his left hand. Eager to let Ariadne know of his success, he followed the guidance of the thread, and soon found himself at the entrance of the labyrinth. "Thou hast slain the monster!" cried Ariadne, clasping her hands. 53 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "Thanks to thee, dear Ariadne," answered The" seus, "I return victorious." "Then," said Ariadne, "we must quickly sum" mon thy friends, and get them and thyself on board the vessel before dawn. If morning finds thee here, my father will avenge the Minotaur." To make my story short, the poor captives were awakened, and hardly knowing whether it was not a joyful dream, were told of what Theseus had done, and that they must set sail for Athens before daybreak. Hastening down to the vessel, they all clambered on board, except Prince Theseus, who lingered behind them, on the strand, holding Ari- adne's hand clasped in his own. "Dear maiden," said he, "thou wilt surely go with us. Thou art.too gentle and sweet a child for such an iron-hearted father as King Minos. He cares no more for thee than a granite rock cares for the little flower that grows in one of its crevices. But my father, King Aegeus, and my dear mother, Aethra, and all the fathers and mothers in Athens, and all the sons and daughters too, will love and honor thee as their benefactress. Come with us, then; for King Minos will be very angry when he knows what thou hast done." Now, some low-minded people, who pretend to tell the story of Theseus and Ariadne, have the face to say that this royal and honorable maiden did 54 THE MINOTAUR. really flee away, under cover of the night, with the young stranger whose life she had preserved. They say, too, that Prince Theseus (who would have died sooner than wrong the meanest creature in the world) ungratefully deserted Ariadne, on a soli- tary island, where the vessel touched on its voyage to Athens. But, had the noble Theseus heard these falsehoods, he would have served their sland- erous authors as he served the Minotaur! Here is what Ariadne answered, when the brave Prince of Athens besought her to accompany him: "No, Theseus," the maiden said, pressing his hand, and then drawing back a step or two, "I can- not go with you. My father is old and has nobody but myself to love him. Hard as you think his heart is, it would break to lose me. At first King Minos will be angry; but he will soon forgive his only child; and, by and by, he will rejoice, I know, that no more youths and maidens must come from Athens to be devoured by the Minotaur. I have saved you, Theseus, as much for my father's sake as for your own. Farewell! Heaven bless you!" All this was so true, and so maiden-like, and was spoken with so sweet a dignity, that Theseus would have blushed to urge her any longer. Nothing remained for him, therefore, but to bid Ariadne an affectionate farewell, and go on board the vessel, and set sail. 55 TANGLEWOOD TALES, In a few moments the white foam was boiling up before their prow, as Prince Theseus and his com- panions sailed out of the harbor with a whistling breeze behind them. Talus, the brazen giant, on his never-ceasing sentinel's march, happened to be approaching that part of the coast; and they saw him, by the glimmering of the moonbeams on his polished surface, while he was yet a great way off. As the figure moved like clock-work, however, and could neither hasten his enormous strides nor retard them, he arrived at the port when they were just beyond the reach of his club. Nevertheless, straddling from headland to headland, as his cus- tom was, Talus attempted to strike a blow at the vessel, and, overreaching himself, tumbled at full length into the sea, which splashed high over his gigantic shape, as when an iceberg turns a somer- set. There he lies yet; and whoever desires to en- rich himself by means of brass had better go thither with a diving-bell, and fish up Talus. On the homeward voyage, the fourteen youths and damsels were in excellent spirits, as you will easily suppose. They spent most of their time in dancing, unless when the sidelong breeze made the deck slope too much. In due season, they came within sight of the coast of Attica, which was their native country. But here, I am grieved to tell you, happened a sad misfortune. 56 THE MINOTAUR. You will remember (what Theseus unfortunately forgot) that his father, King Aegeus, had enjoined it upon him to hoist sunshine sails, instead of black ones, in case he should overcome the Mino- taur, and return victorious. In the joy of their success, however, and amidst the sports, dancing, and other merriment, with which these young folks wore away the time, they never once thought whether their sails were black, white, or rainbow colored, and, indeed, left it entirely to the mariners whether they had any sails at all. Thus the vessel returned, like a raven, with the same sable wings that had wafted her away. But poor King Aegeus, day after day, infirm as he was, had clambered to the summit of a cliff that overhung the sea, and there sat watching for Prince Theseus, homeward bound; and no sooner did he behold the fatal black- ness of the sails, than he concluded that his dear son, whom he loved so much, and felt so proud of, had been eaten by the Minotaur. He could not bear the thought of living any longer; so, first flinging his crown and sceptre into the sea, (use- less bawbles that they were to him now!) King Aegeus merely stooped forward, and fell headlong over the cliff, and was drowned, poor soul, in the waves that foamed at its base! This was melancholy news for Prince Theseus, who, when he stepped ashore, found himself ki 57 58 TANGLEWOOD TALES. of all the country, whether he would or no; and such a turn of fortune was enough to make any young man feel very much out of spirits. However, he sent for his dear mother to Athens, and, by tak- ing her advice in matters of state, became a very ex- cellent monarch; and was greatly beloved by his people. THE PYGMIES. A great while ago, when the world was full of wonders, there lived an earth-born Giant named Antaeus, and a million or more of curious little earth-born people, who were called Pygmies. This Giant and these Pygmies being children of the same mother (that is to say, our good old Grand- mother Earth), were all brethren and dwelt to- gether in a very friendly and affectionate manner, far, far off, in the middle of hot Africa. The Pyg- inies were so small, and there were so many sandy deserts and such high mountains between them and the rest of mankind, that nobody could get a peep at them oftener than once in a hundred years. As for the Giant, being of a very lofty stature, it was easy enough to see him, but safest to keep out of his sight. Among the Pygmies, I suppose, if one of them grew to the height of six or eight inches, he was reckoned a prodigiously tall man. It must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with 59 TANGLEWOOD TALES. streets two or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage. The king's pal- ace attained to the stupendous magnitude of Peri- winkle's baby-house, and stood in the center of a spacious square, which could hardly have been cov- ered by our hearth-rug. Their principal temple, or cathedral, was as lofty as yonder bureau, and was looked upon as a wonderful, sublime and muag- nificent edifice. All these structures were built neither of stone nor wood. They were neatly plastered together by the Pygmy workmen, pretty much like bird's-nests, out of straw, feathers, egg- shells, and other small bits of stuff, with stiff clay instead of mortar; and when the hot sun had dried them, they were just as snug and comfortable as a Pygmy could desire. The country round about was conveniently laid out in fields, the largest of which was nearly of the same extent as one of Sweet Fern's flower-beds. Here the Pygmies used to plant wheat and other kinds of grain, which, when it grew up and ripened, overshadowed these tiny people, as the pines, and the oaks, and the walnut and chestnut trees over- shadow you and me, when we walk in our own tracts of woodland. At harvest-time, they were forced to go with their little axes and cut down the grain, exactly as a wood-cutter makes a clear- 60 THE PYGMIES. ing in the forest; and when a stalk of wheat, with its overburdened top, chanced to come crashing down upon an unfortunate Pygmy, it was apt to be a very sad affair. If it did not smash him all to pieces, at least, I am sure, it must have made the poor little fellow's head ache. And oh, my stars! if the fathers and mothers were so small, what must the children and babies have been? A whole fain- ily of them might have been put in bed in a shoe, or have crept into an old glove, and played at hide- and-seek in its thumb and fingers. You might have hidden a year-old baby under a thimble. Now these funny Pygmies, as I told you before, had a Giant for their neighbor and brother, who was bigger, if possible, than they were little. He was so very tall that he carried a pine-tree, which was eight feet through the butt, for a walking- stick. It took a far-sighted Pygmy, I can assure you, to discern his summit without the help of a telescope; and sometimes, in misty weather, they could not see his upper half, but only his long legs, which seemed to be striding about by themselves. But at noonday, in a clear atmosphere, when the sun shone brightly over him, the Giant Antaeus presented a very grand spectacle. There he used to stand, a perfect mountain of a man, with his great countenance smiling down upon his little brothers, and his one vast eye (which was as big 61 TANGLEWOOD TALES. as a cart-wheel, and placed right in the center of his forehead) giving a friendly wink to the whole nation at once. The Pygmies loved to talk with Antaeus; and fifty times a day, one or another of them would turn up his head, and shout through the hollow of his fist, "Halloo, brother Antaeus! How are you, my good fellow?" And when the small, distant squeak of their voices reached his ear, the Giant would make answer, "Pretty well, brother Pygmy, I thank you," in a thunderous roar that would have shaken down the walls of their strongest tem- ple, only that it came from so far aloft. It was a happy circumstance that Antaeus was the Pygmy people's friend; for there was more strength in his little finger than in ten million of such bodies as theirs. If he had been as ill-natured to them as he was to everybody else, he might have beaten down their biggest city at one kick, and hardly have known that he did it. With the tor- nado of his breath, he could have stripped the roofs from a hundred dwellings, and sent thousands of the inhabitants whirling through the air. He might have set his immense foot upon a multitude; and when he took it up again, there would have been a pitiful sight, to be sure. But, being the son of Mother Earth, as they likewise were, the Giant gave them his brotherly kindness and loved them 62 THE PYGMIES. with as big a love as it was possible to feel for crea- tures so very small. And, on their parts, the Pyg- mies loved Antaeus with as much affection as their tiny hearts could hold. He was always ready to do them any good offices that lay in his power; as, for example, when they wanted a breeze to turn their windmills, the Giant would set all the sails a-going with the mere natural respiration of his lungs. When the sun was too hot, he often sat himself down, and let his shadow fall over the kingdom, from one frontier to the other; and as for matters in general, he was wise enough to let them alone, and leave the Pygmies to manage their own affairs,-which, after all, is about the best thing that great people can do for little ones. In short, as I said before, Antaeus loved the Pygmies, and the Pygmies loved Antaeus. The Giant's life being as long as his body was large, while the lifetime of a Pygmy was but a span, this friendly intercourse had been going on for innumerable generations and ages. It was written about in the Pygmy histories, and talked about in their ancient traditions. The most venerable and white-bearded Pygmy had never heard of a time, even in his greatest of grandfather's days, when the Giant was not their enormous friend. Once, to be sure (as was recorded on an obelisk, three feet high, erected on the place of the catastrophe), 63 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Antaeus sat down upon about five thousand Pyg- mies, who were assembled at a military review. But this was one of those unlucky accidents for which nobody was to blame; so that the small folks never took it to heart, and only requested the Giant to be careful forever afterwards to examine the acre of ground where he intended to squat himself. It is a very pleasant picture to imagine Antaeus standing among the Pygmies, like the spire of the tallest cathedral that ever was built, while they ran about like pismires at his feet; and to think that, in spite of their difference in size, there was affec- tion and sympathy between them and him! In- deed, it has always seemed to me that the Giant needed the little people more than the Pygmies needed the Giant. For, unless they had been his neighbors and well-wishers, and, as we may say, his playfellows, Antaeus would not have had a single friend in the world. No other being like himself had ever been created. No creature of his own size had ever talked with him, in thunder-like ac- cents, face to face. When he stood with his head among the clouds, he was quite alone, and had been so for hundreds of years, and would be so forever. Even if he had met another Giant, Antaeus would have fancied the world not big enough for two such vast personages, and, in- stead of being friends with him, would have fought 64 THE PYGMIES. him till one of the two was killed. But with the Pygmies he was the most sportive, and humorous, and merry-hearted, and sweet-tempered old Giant that ever washed his face in a wet cloud. His little friends, like all other small people, had a great opinion of their own importance, and used to assume quite a patronizing air towards the Giant. "Poor creature!" they said one to another. "He has a very dull time of it, all by himself; and we ought not to grudge wasting a little of our precious time to amuse him. He is not half so bright as we are, to be sure; and, for that reason, he needs us to look after his comfort and happiness. Let us be kind to the old fellow. Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been Giants too." On all their holidays, the Pygmies had excellent sport with Antaeus. He often stretched himself out at full length on the ground, where he looked like the long ridge of a hill; and it was a good hour's walk, no doubt, for a short-legged Pygmy to jour- ney from head to foot of the Giant. He would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and chal- lenge the tallest of them to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to finger. So fearless were they, that they made nothing of creeping in among the folds of his garments. When his head lay TANGLEWOOD TALES. sidewise on the earth, they would march boldly up, and peep into the great cavern of his mouth, and take it all as a joke (as indeed it was meant) when Antaeus gave a sudden snap of his jaws, as if he were going to swallow fifty of them at once. You would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair, or swinging from his beard. It is impossible to tell half of the funny tricks that they played with their huge comrade; but I do not know that anything was more cur- ious than when a party of boys were seen running races on his forehead, to try which of them could get first round the circle of his one great eye. It was another favorite with them to march along the bridge of his nose, and jump down upon his upper lip. If the truth must be told, they were sometimes as troublesome to the Giant as a swarm of ants or mosquitoes, especially as they had a fondness for mischief, and liked to prick his skin with their little swords and lances, to see how thick and tough it was. But Antaeus took it all kindly enough; although, once in a while, when he happened to be sleepy, he would grumble out a peevish word or two, like the muttering of a tempest, and ask them to have done with their nonsense. A great deal oftener, however, he watched their merriment and gambols until his huge, heavy, clumsy wits were 66 THE PYGMIES. completely stirred up by them; and then would he roar out such a tremendous volume of immeas- urable laughter, that the whole nation of Pygmies had to put their hands to their ears, else it would certainly have deafened them. "Ho! ho! ho!" quoth the Giant, shaking his mountainous sides. "What a funny thing it is to be little! If I were not Antaeus, I should like to be a Pygmy, just for the joke's sake." The Pygmies had but one thing to trouble them in the world. They were constantly at war with the cranes, and had always been so, ever since the long-lived Giant could remember. From time to time very terrible battles had been fought, in which sometimes the little men won the victory, and some- times the cranes. According to some historians, the Pygmies used to go to the battle mounted on the backs of goats and rams; but such animals as these must have been far too big for Pygmies to ride upon; so that, I rather suppose, they rode on squir- rel-back, or rabbit-back, or rat-back, or perhaps got upon hedgehogs, whose prickly quills would be very terrible to the enemy. However, this might be, and whatever creatures the Pygmies rode upon, I do not doubt that they made a formidable appear- ance, armed with sword and spear, and bow and ar- row, blowing their tiny trumpet, and shouting their little war-cry. They never failed to exhort 67 TANGLEWOOD TALES. one another to fight bravely, and recollect that the world had its eyes upon them; although, in simple truth, the only spectator was the Giant Antaeus, with his one, great stupid eye, in the middle of his forehead. When the two armies joined battle, the cranes would rush forward, flapping their wings and stretching out their necks and would perhaps snatch up some of the Pygmies crosswise in their beaks. Whenever this happened, it was truly an awful spectacle to see those little men of might kicking and sprawling in the air, and at last dis- appearing down the crane's long, crooked throat, swallowed up alive. A hero, you know, must hold himself in readiness for any kind of fate; and doubtless the glory of the thing was a consolation to him, even in the crane's gizzard. If Antaeus observed that the battle was going hard against his little allies, he generally stopped laughing, and ran with mile-long strides to their assistance, flour- ishing his club aloft and shouting at the cranes, who quacked and croaked, and retreated as fast as they could. Then the Pygmy army would march homeward in triumph, attributing the victory en- tirely to their own valor, and to the warlike skill and strategy of whomsoever happened to be captain general; and for a tedious while afterwards, noth- ing would be heard of but grand processions, and 68 THE PYGMIES. public banquets, anca brilliant illuminations, and shows of waxwork, with likenesses of the distin- guished officers as small as life. In the above-described warfare, if a Pygmy chanced to pluck out a crane's tail-feather, it proved a very great feather in his cap. Once or twice, if you will believe me, a little man was made chief ruler of the nation for no other merit in the world than bringing home such a feather. But I have now said enough to let you see what a gallant little people these were, and how happily they and their forefathers, for nobody knows how many generations, had lived with the immeasur- able Giant Antaeus. In the remaining part of the story, I shall tell you of a far more astonishing battle than any that was fought between the Pyg- mies and the cranes. One day the mighty Antaeus was lolling at full length among his little friends. His pine-tree walking-stick lay on the ground close by his side. His head was in one part of the kingdom, and his feet extended across the boundaries of another part; and he was taking whatever comfort he could get, while the Pygmies scrambled over him, and peeped into his caverous mouth, and played among his hair. Sometimes, for a minute or two, the Giant dropped asleep, and snored like the rush of a whirl- wind. During one of these little bits of slumber, 69 TANGLEWOOD TALES. a Pygmy chanced to climb upon his shoulder, and took a view around the horizon, as from the sumnmit of a hill; and he beheld something, a long way off, which made him rub the bright specks of his eyes, and look sharper than before. At first he mistook it for a mountain, and wondered how it had grown up so suddenly out of the earth. But soon he saw the mountain move. As it came nearer and nearer, what should it turn out to be but a human shape, not so big as Antaeus, it is true, although a very enormous figure, in comparison with Pygmies, and a vast deal bigger than the men whom we see now- adays. When the Pygmy was quite satisfied that his eyes had not deceived him, he scampered, as fast as his legs would carry him, to the giant's ear, and stooping over its cavity, shouted lustily into it: "Halloo, brother Antaeus! Get up this minute, and take your pine-tree walking-stick in your hand. Here comes another giant to have a tussle with you." "Poh, poh!" grumbled Antaeus, only half awake. "None of your nonsense, my little fellow! Don't you see I'm sleepy? There is not a Giant on earth for whom I would take the trouble to get up." But the Pygmy looked again, and now perceived that the stranger was coming directly toward the prostrate form of Antaeus. With every step he 70 THE PYGMIES. looked less like a blue mountain, and more like an immensely large man. He was soon so nigh, that there could be no possible mistake about the mat- ter. There he was, with the sun flaming on his golden helmet, and flashing from his polished breastplate; he had a sword by his side, and a lion's skin over his back, and on his right shoulder he carried a club, which looked bulkier and heavier than the pine-tree walking-stick of Antaeus. By this time the whole nation of Pygmies had seen the new wonder, and a million of them set up a shout, all together; so that it really made quite an audible squeak. "Get up, Antaeus! Bestir yourself, you lazy old Giant! Here comes another Giant, as strong as you are, to fight with you." "Nonsense, nonsense!" growled the sleepy Giant, "I'll have my nap out, come who may." Still the stranger drew nearer; and now the Pyg- mies could plainly discern that, if his stature were less lofty than the Giant's, yet his shoulders were even broader. And, in truth, what a pair of shoul- ders they must have been! As I told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky. The Pygmies, being ten times as vivacious as their great numskull of a brother, could not abide the Giant's slow move- ments, and were determined to have him on his feet. So they kept shouting to him, and even 71 TANGLEWOOD TALES. went so far as to prick him with their swords. "Get up, get up, get up!" they cried. "Up with you, lazy bones! The strange Giant's club is big- ger than your own, his shoulders are the broadest, and we think him the stronger of the two." Antaeus could not endure to have it said that any mortal was half so mighty as himself. This latter remark of the Pygmies pricked him deeper than their swords; and, sitting up, in rather a sulky humor, he gave a gape several yards wide, rubbed his eye, and finally turned his stupid head in the direction whither his little friends were eagerly pointing. No sooner did he set eye on the stranger than, leaping on his feet, and seizing his walking-stick, he strode a mile or two to meet him; all the while brandishing the sturdy pine-tree, so that it whistled through the air. "Who are you?" thundered the Giant. "And what do you want in my dominions?" There was one strange thing about Antaeus, of which I have not yet told you, lest, hearing of so many wonders all in a lump, you might not believe much more than half of them. You are to know, then, that whenever this redoubtable Giant touched the ground, either with his hand, his foot, or any other part of his body, he grew stronger than ever he had been before. The Earth, you remember, was 72 THE PYGMIES. his mother, and was very fond of him, as being al- most the biggest of her children; and so she took this method of keeping him always in full vigor. Some persons affirm that he grew ten times stronger at every touch; others say that it was only twice as strong. But only think of it! Whenever Antaeus took a walk, supposing it were but ten miles, and that he stepped a hundred yards at a stride, you may try to cipher out how much mightier he was, on sitting down again, than when he first started. And whenever he flung himself on the earth to take a little repose, even if he got up the very next instant, he would be as strong as exactly ten just such giants as his former self. It was well for the world that Antaeus happened to be of a sluggish disposition, and liked ease better than exercise; for if he had frisked about like the Pygmies, and touched the earth.as often as they did, he would long ago have been strong enough to pull down the sky about people's ears. But these great lub- berly fellows resemble mountains, not only in bulk but in their disinclination to move. Any other mortal man, except the very one whom Antaeus had now encountered, would have been half frightened to death by the Giant's fero- cious aspect and terrible voice. But the stranger did not seem at all disturbed. He carelessly lifted his club and balanced it in his hand, measuring 73 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Antaeus with his eye from head to foot, not as if wonder-smitten at his stature, but as if he had seen a great many Giants before, and this was by no means the biggest of them. In fact, if the Giant had been no bigger than the Pygmies (who stood pricking up their ears, and looking and lis- tening to what was going forward), the stranger could not have been less afraid of him. "Who are you, I say?" roared Antaeus again. "What's your name? Why do you come hither? Speak, you vagabond, or I'll try the thickness of your skull with my walking stick." "You are a very discourteous Giant," answered the stranger, quietly, "and I shall probably have to teach you a little civility before we part. As for my name-it is Hercules. I have come hither be- cause this is my most convenient road to the gar- den of the Hesperides, whither I am going to get three of the golden apples for King Eurystheus." "Caitiff, you shall go no farther!" bellowed An- taeus, putting on a grimmer look than before, for he had heard of the mighty Hercules, and hated him because he was said to be so strong. "Neither shall you go back whence you came!" "How will you prevent me," asked Hercules, "from going whither I please?" "By hitting you a rap with this pine-tree here," shouted Antaeus, scowling so that he made himself 74 THE PYGMIES. the ugliest monster in Africa. "I am fifty times stronger than you, and, now that I stamp my foot upon the ground, I am five hundred times stronger! I am ashamed to kill such a puny little dwarf as you seem to be. I shall make a slave of you, and you shall likewise be the slave of my brethren here, the Pygmies. So throw down your club and your other weapons; and as for that lion's skin, I intend to have a pair of gloves made of it." "Come and take it off my shoulders, then," an- swered Hercules, lifting his club. Then the Giant, grinning with rage, strode tow- er-like towards the stranger (ten times strength- ened at every step), and fetched a monstrous blow at him with his pine-tree, which Hercules caught upon his club, and being more skilful than Antaeus he paid him, back such a rap on the sconce, that down tumbled the great lumbering man-mountain flat upon the ground. The poor little Pygmies (who really never dreamed that anybody in the world was half so strong as their brother Antaeus) were a good deal dismayed at this. But no sooner was the Giant down than up he bounced again, with tenfold might, and such a furious visage as was horrible to behold. He aimed another blow at Hercules, but struck awry, being blinded with wrath, and only hit his poor, innocent Mother Earth, who groaned and trembled at the stroke. 75 TANGLEWOOD TALES. His pine-tree went so deep into the ground, and stuck there so fast, that before Antaeus could get it out, Hercules brought down his club across his shoulders with a mighty thwack, which made the Giant roar, as if all sorts of intolerable noises had some screeching and rumbling out of his immeas- urable lungs in that one cry. Away it went, over mountains and valleys, and, for aught I know, was heard on the other side of the African deserts. As for the Pygmies, their capital city was laid in ruins by the concussion and vibration of the air and, though there was uproar enough without their help, they all set up a shriek out of three millions of little throats, fancying, no doubt, that they swelled the Giant's bellow by at least ten times as much. Meanwhile, Antaeus had scrambled upon his feet again, and pulled his pine-tree out of the earth; and, all a-flame with fury, and more out- rageously strong than ever, he ran at Hercules, and brought down another blow. "This time, rascal," shouted he, "you shall not. escape me." But once more Hercules warded off the stroke with his club, and the Giant's pine-tree was shat- tered into a thousand splinters, most of which flew among the Pygmies, and did them more mischief than I like to think about. Before Antaeus could get out of the way Hercules let drive again, and 76 THE PYGMIES. gave him another knock-down blow, which sent him heels over head, but served only to increase his already enormous and insufferable strength. As for his rage, there is no telling what a fiery furnace it had now got to be. His one eye was nothing but a circle of red flame. Having no weapons but his fists, he doubled them up (each bigger than a hogshead), smote one against the other and danced up and down with absolute frenzy, flourishing his immense arms about, as if he meant not merely to kill Hercules, but to *mash the whole world to pieces. "Come on!" roared this thundering Giant. "Let me hit you but one box on the ear, and you'll never have the headache again." Now Hercules (though strong enough, as you already know, to hold the sky up) began to be sen- sible that he should never win the victory, if he kept on knocking Antaeus down; for, by and by, if he hit him such hard blows, the Giant would inev- itably, by the help of his Mother Earth, become stronger than the mighty Hercules himself. So, throwing down his club, with which he had fought so many dreadful battles, the hero stood ready to receive his antagonist with naked arms. "Step forward," cried he. "Since I've broken your pine-tree, we'll try which is the better man at a wrestling match." 77 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "Aha! then I'll soon satisfy you," shouted the Giant, for if there was one thing on which he prided himself more than another, it was his skill in wrestling. Villain, I'll fling you where you can never pick yourself up again." On came Antaeus, hopping and capering with the scorching heat of his rage, and getting new vigor wherewith to wreak his passion, every time he hopped. But Hercules, you must understand, was wiser than this numskull of a Giant, and had thought of a way to fight him-huge earth-born monster that he was-and to conquer him, too, in spite of all that his Mother Earth could do for him. Watching his opportunity, as the mad Giant made a rush at him, Hercules caught him round the middle with both hands, lifted him high into the air, and held him aloft overhead. Just imagine it, my dear little friends! What a spectacle it must have been to see this monstrous fellow sprawling in the air, face downward, kicking out his long legs and wriggling his whole vast body, like a baby when its father holds it at arm's-length towards the ceiling. But the most wonderful thing was, that, as soon as Antaeus was fairly off the earth, he began to lose the vigor which he had gained by touching it. Hercules very soon perceived that hi& troublesome enemy was growing weaker, both because he strug- 78 THE PYGMIES. gled and kicked with less violence, and because the thunder of his big voice subsided into a grum- ble. The truth was, that, unless the Giant touched Mother Earth as often as once in five minutes, not only his overgrown strength, but the very breath of his life would depart from him. Hercules had guessed this secret; and it may be well for us all to remember it, in case we should ever have to fight a battle with a fellow like Antaeus. For these earth-born creatures are only difficult to con- quer on their own ground, but may easily be man- aged if we can contrive to lift them into a loftier and purer region. So it proved with the poor Giant, whom I am really a little sorry for, notwith- standing his uncivil way of treating strangers who came to visit him. When his strength and breath were quite gone, Hercules gave his huge body a toss, and flung it about a mile off, where it fell heavily, and lay with no more motion than a sand-hill. It was too late for the Giant's Mother Earth to help him now; and I should not wonder if his ponderous bones were lying on the same spot to this very day, and were mistaken for those of an uncommonly large elephant. But, alas me! What a wailing did the poor lit- tle Pygmies set up when they saw their enormous brother treated in this terrible manner! If Her. 79 TANGLEWOOD TALES. cules heard their shrieks, however, he took no notice, and perhaps fancied them only the shrill, plaintive twittering of small birds that had been frightened from their nests by the uproar of the battle between himself and Antaeus. Indeed, his thoughts had been so much taken up with the Giant, that he had never once looked at the Pyg- mies, nor even knew that there was such a funny little nation in the world. And now, as he had traveled a good way, and was also rather weary with his exertions in the fight, he spread out his lion's skin on the ground, and reclining himself upon it, fell fast asleep. As soon as the Pygmies saw Hercules preparing for a nap, they nodded their little heads at one another and winked with their little eyes. And when by his deep, regular breathing they noticed that he was asleep, they assembled together in an immense crowd, spreading over a space of about twenty-seven feet square. One of their most elo- quent orators (and a valiant warrior enough, be- sides, though hardly so good at any other weapon as he was with his tongue) climbed upon a toad- stool, and from that elevated position addressed the multitude. His sentiments were pretty near much as follows; or, at all events, something like this was probably the upshot of his speech:- "Tall Pygmies and mighty little men! You and 80 THE PYGMIES. all of us have seen what a public calamity has been brought to pass, and what an insult has here been offered to the majesty of our nation. Yonder lies Antaeus, our great friend and brother, slain, with- in our territory, by a miscreant who took him at disadvantage, and fought him (if fighting it can be called) in a way that neither man, nor Giant, nor Pygmy ever dreamed of fighting until this hour. And, adding a grievous contumely to the wrong al- ready done us, the miscreant has now fallen asleep as quietly as if nothing were to be dreaded from our wrath! It behooves you, fellow country- men, to consider in what aspect we shall stand be- fore the world, and what will be the verdict of im- partial history, should we suffer these accumulated outrages to go unavenged. "Antaeus was our brother, born of that same be- loved parent to whom we owe the thews and sinews, as well as the courageous hearts, which made him proud of our relationship. He was our faithful ally, and fell fighting as much for our national rights and immunities as for his own personal ones. We and our forefathers have dwelt in friendship with him and held affectionate intercourse, as man to man, through immemorial generations. You remember how often our entire people have reposed in his great shadow, and how our little ones have played at hide-and-seek in the tangles of his hair, 6 81 TANGLEWOOD TALES. and how his mighty footsteps have familiarly gone to and fro among us, and never trodden upon any of our toes. And there lies this dear brother--this sweet and amiable friend-this brave and faithful ally-this virtuous Giant-this blameless and ex- cellent Antaeus-dead! Dead! Silent! Powerless! A mere mountain of clay! Forgive my tears! Nay, I behold your own! Were we to drown the world with them, could the world blame us? "But to resume: Shall we, my countrymen, suf- fer this wicked stranger to depart unharmed and triumph in his treacherous victory, among distant communities of the earth? Shall we not rather compel him to leave his bones here on our soil, by the side of our slain brother's bones, so that, while one skeleton shall remain as the everlasting mon- ument of our sorrow, the other shall endure as long, exhibiting to the whole human race a terri- ble example of Pygmy vengeance? Such is the question. I put it to you in full confidence of a response that shall be worthy of our national char- acter, and calculated to increase, rather than di- minish, the glory which our ancestors have trans- mitted to us, and which we ourselves have proudly vindicated in our warfare with the cranes." The orator here was interrupted by a burst of ir- repressible enthusiasm; every individual Pygmy crying out that the national honor must be pre- 82 THE PYGMIES. served at all hazards. He bowed, and making a gesture for silence, wound up his harangue in the following admirable manner:- "It only remains for us, then, to decide whether we shall carry on the war in our national capacity- one united people against a common enemy-or whether some champion, famous in former fights, shall be selected to defy the slayer of our brother Antaeus to single combat. In the latter case, though not unconscious that there may be taller men among you, I hereby offer myself for that enviable duty. And, believe me, dear countrymen, whether I live or die, the honor of this great country, and the fame bequeathed us by our heroic progenitors, shall suffer no diminution in my hands. Never, while I can wield this sword, of which I now fling away the scabbard-never, never, never, even if the crimson hand that slew the great Antaeus shall lay me prostrate, like him, on the soil which I give my life to defend." So saying, this valiant Pygmy drew out his weapon (which was terrible to behold, being as long as the blade of a penknife), and sent the scab- bard whirling over the heads of the multitude. His speech was followed by an uproar of applause, as its patriotism and self-devotion unquestionably deserved; and the shouts and clapping of hands would have been greatly prolonged had they not 83 TANGLEWOOD TALES. been rendered quite inaudible by a deep respira- tion, vulgarly called a snore, from the sleeping Hercules. It was finally decided that the whole nation of Pygmies should set to work to destroy Hercules; not, be it understood, from any doubt that a single champion would be capable of putting him to the sword, but because he was a public enemy, and all were desirous of sharing in the glory of his defeat. There was a debate whether the national honor did not demand that a herald should be sent with a trumpet, to stand over the ear of Hercules, and, after blowing a blast right into it, defy him to the combat by formal proclamation. But two or three venerable and sagacious Pygmies, well versed in state affairs, gave it as their opinion that war al- ready existed, and that it whs their rightful priv- ilege to take the enemy by surprise. Moreover, if awakened, and allowed to get upon his feet, Her- cules might happen to do them a mischief before he could be beaten down again. For, as these sage counsellors remarked, the stranger's club was really very big, and had rattled like a thunderbolt against the skull of Antaeus. So the Pygmies re- solved to set aside all foolish punctilios and assail their antagonist at once. Accordingly, all the fighting men of the nation took their weapons and went boldly up to Her- 84 THE PYGMIES. cules, who still lay fast asleep, little dreaming of the harm which the Pygmies meant to do him. A body of twenty thousand archers marched in front, with their little bows all ready, and the arrows on the string. The same number were ordered to clamber upon Hercules, some with spades to dig his eyes out, and others with bundles of hay and all manner of rubbish, with which they intended to plug up his mouth and nostrils, so that he might perish for lack of breath. These last, however, could by no means perform their appointed duty; inasmuch as the enemy's breath rushed out of his nose in an obstreperous hurricane and whirlwind, which blew the Pygmies away as fast as they came nigh. It was found necessary, therefore, to hit upon some other method of carrying on the war. After holding a council, the captains ordered their troops to collect sticks, straws, dry weeds and whatever combustible stuff they could find, and make a pile of it, heaping it high around the head of Hercules. As a great many thousand Pyg- mies were employed in this task, they soon brought together several bushels of inflammatory matter, and raised so tall a heap that, mounting on its summit, they were quite upon a level with the sleeper's face. The archers, meanwhile, were sta- tioned within bow-shot, with orders to let fly at Hercules the instant that he stirred. Everything 85 TANGLEWOOD TALES. being in readiness, a torch was applied to the pile, which immediately burst into flames, and soon waxed hot enough to roast the enemy had he chosen to lie still. A Pygmy, you know, though so very small, might set the world on fire, just as easily as a Giant could; so that this was certainly the very best way of dealing with their foe, pro- vided they could have kept him quiet while the conflagration was going forward. But no sooner did Hercules begin to be scorched than up he started, with his hair in a red blaze. "What's all this?" he cried, bewildered with sleep, and staring about him as if he expected to see another Giant. At that moment the twenty thousand archers twanged their bowstrings, and the arrows came whizzing, like so many winged mosquitoes, right into the face of Hercules. But I doubt whether more than half a dozen of them punctured the skin, which was remarkably tough, as you know the skin of a hero has good need to be. "Villain!" shouted all the Pygmies at once. "You have killed the Giant Antaeus, our great brother and the ally of our nation. We declare bloody war against you and will slay you on the spot." Surprised at the shrill piping of so many little voices, Hercules, after putting out the conflagraj 86 THE PYGMIES. tion of his hair, gazed all around about, but could see nothing. At last, however, looking narrowly on the ground, he espied the innumerable assem- blage of Pygmiies at his feet. He stooped down, and taking up the nearest one between his thumb and finger, set him on the palm of his left hand, and held him at a proper distance for examination. It chanced to be the very identical Pygmy who had spoken from the top of the toadstool, and had of- ferred himself as a champion to meet Hercules in single combat. "What in the world, my little fellow," ejaculated Hercules, "may you be?" "I am your enemy," answered the valiant Pygmy, in his mightiest squeak. "You have slain the enor- mous Antaeus, our brother by the mother's side, and for ages the faithful ally of our illustrious na- tion. We are determined to put you to death; and for my own part, I challenge you to instant battle, on equal grounds." Hercules was so tickled with the Pigmy's big words and warlike gestures, that he burst into a great explosion of laughter, and almost dropped the poor little mite of a creature off the palm of his hand, through the ecstasy and convulsions of his merriment. "Upon my word," cried he, "I thought I had seen wonders before today, hydras with nine heads, 87 TANGLEWOOD TALES. stags with golden horns, six-legged men, three- headed dogs, giants with furnaces in their stom- achs, and nobody knows what besides. . But here, on the palm of my hand, stands a wonder that out- does them all! Your body, my little friend, is about the size of an ordinary man's finger. Pray, how big may your soul be?" "As big as your own!" said the Pygmy. Hercules was touched with the little man's dauntless courage, and could not help acknowledg- ing such a brotherhood with him as one hero feels for another. "My good little people," said he, making a low obeisance to the grand nation, "not for all the world would I do an intentional injury to such brave fellows as you! Your hearts seem to me so exceedingly great, that, upon my honor, I marvel how your small bodies can contain them. I sue for peace, and, as a condition of it, will take five strides and be out of your kingdom at the sixth. Good-by. I shall pick my steps carefully, for fear of treading upon some fifty of you, without know- ing it. Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! For once Her- cules acknowledges himself vanquished." Some writers say, that Hercules gathered up the whole race of Pygmies in his lion's skin, and car- ried them home to Greece, for the children of King Eurystheus to play with. But this is a mis- 88 THE PYGMIES. 89 take. He left them, one and all, within their own territory; where, for aught I can tell, their descend- ants are alive to the present day, building their little houses, cultivating their little fields, spanking their little children, waging their little warfare with the cranes, doing their little business, what- ever it may be, and reading their little histories of ancient times. In those histories, perhaps, it stands recorded, that, a great many centuries ago, the valiant Pygmies avenged the death of the Giant Antaeus by scaring away the mighty Hercules. THE DRAGON'S TEETH. Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, the three sons of King Agenor, and their little sister Europa (who was a very beautiful child), were at play together, near the seashore, in their father's kingdom of Phoenicia. They had rambled to some distance from the palace where their parents dwelt, and were now in a verdant meadow, on one side of which lay the sea, all sparkling and dimpling in the sunshine, and murmuring gently against the beach. The three boys were very happy, gather- ing flowers, and twining them into garlands, with which they adorned the little Europa. Seated on the grass, the child was almost hidden under an abundance of buds and blossoms, whence her rosy face peeped merrily out, and, as Cadmus said, was the prettiest of all the flowers. Just then, there came a splendid butterfly, flut- tering along the meadow; and Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix set off in pursuit of it, crying out that it was a flower with wings. Europa, who was a little wearied with playing all day long, did not chase 90 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. 91 the butterfly with her brothers, but sat still where they had left he'r, and closed her eyes. For a while, she listened to the pleasant murmur of the sea, which was like a voice saying "Hush!" and bidding her go to sleep. But the pretty child, if she slept at all, could not have slept more than a moment, when she heard something trample on the grass, not far from her, and peeping out from the heap of flowers, beheld a snow-white bull. And whence could this bull have come? Europa and her brothers had been a long time playing in the meadow, and had seen no cattle, nor other liv- ing thing, either there or on the neighboring hills. "Brother Cadmus!" cried Europa, starting up out of the midst of the roses and lilies. "Phoenix! Cilix! Where are you all? Help! Help! Come and drive away this bull!" But her brothers were too far off to hear; espe- cially as the fright took away Europa's voice, and hindered her from calling very loudly. So there she stood, with her pretty mouth wide open, as pale as the white lilies that were twisted among the other flowers in her garlands. Nevertheless, it was the suddenness with which she had perceived the bull, rather than anything frightful in his appearance, that caused Europa so much alarm. On looking at him more attentively, she began to see that he was a beautiful animal, TANGLEWOOD TALES. and even fancied a particularly amiable expression in his face. As for his breath-the breath of cat- tle, you know, is always sweet-it was as fragrant as if he had been grazing on no other food than rosebuds, or, at least, the most delicate of clover blossoms. Never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such smooth horns of ivory as this one. And the bull ran little races, and capered sportively around the child; so that she quite forgot how big and strong he was, and, from the gentleness and playfulness of his actions, soon came to consider him as innocent a creature as a pet lamb. CThus, frightened as she at first was, you might by and by have seen Europa stroking the bull's forehead with her small white hand, and taking the garlands off her own head to hang them on his neck and ivory horns. Then she pulled up some blades of grass, and he ate them out of her hand, not as if he were hungry, but because he wanted to be friends with the child, and took pleasure in eating what she had touched. Well, my stars! was there ever such a gentle, sweet, pretty and amiable creature as this bull, and ever such a nice playmate for a little girl? When the animal saw (for the bull had so much intelligence that it is really wonderful to think of), when he saw that Europa was no longer afraid of 92 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. him, he grew overjoyed, and could hardly contain himself for delight. He frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly leaps, with as little effort as a bird expends in hopping from twig to twig. Indeed, his motion was as light as if he were flying through the air, and his hoofs seemed hardly to leave their print in the grassy soil over which he trod. With his spotless hue, he resembled a snowdrift, wafted along by the wind. Once he galloped so far away that Europa feared lest she might never see him again; so, set- ting up her childish voice, she called him back. "Come back, pretty creature!" she cried. "Here is a nice clover-blossom." And then it was delightful to witness the grati- tude of this amiable bull, and how he was so full of joy and thankfulness that he capered higher than ever. He came running, and bowed his head before Europa as if he knew her to be a king's daughter, or else recognized the important truth that a little girl is everybody's quieen. And not only did the bull bend his neck, he absolutely knelt down at her feet, and made such intelligent nods, and other inviting gestures, that Europa under- stood what he meant just as well as if he had put it into so many words. "Come, dear child," was what he wanted to say, "let me give you a ride on my back." 93 TANGLEWOOD TALES. At the first thought of such a thing Europa drew back. But then she considered in her wise little head that there could be no possible harm in taking just one gallop on the back of this docile and friendly animal, who would certainly set her down the very instant she desired it. And how it would surprise her brothers to see her riding across the green meadow! And what merry times they might have, either taking turns for a gallop, or clambering on the gentle creature, all four chil- dren together, and careering around the field with shouts of laughter that would be heard as far off as King Agenor's palace! "I think I will do it," said the child to herself. And, indeed, why not? She cast a glance around, and caught a glimpse of Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cil- ix, who were still in pursuit of the butterfly, al- most at the other end of the meadow. It would be the quickest way of rejoining them, to get upon the white bull's back. She came a step nearer to him, therefore; and-sociable creature that he was -he showed so much joy at this mark of her con- fidence, that the child could not find it in her heart to hesitate any longer. Making one bound (for this little princess was as active as a squirrel), there sat Europa on the beautiful bull, holding an ivory horn in each hand, lest she should fall off. "Softly, pretty bull, softly!" she said, rather 94 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. frightened at what she had done. "Do not gallop too fast." Having got the child on his back, the animal gave a leap into the air, and came down so like a feather that Europa did not know when his hoofs touched the ground. He then began a race to that part of the flowery plain where her three brothers were, and where they had just caught their splendid butterfly. Europa screamed with delight; and Pheonix, Cilix and Cadmus stood gap- ing at the spectacle of their sister mounted on a white bull, not knowing whether to be frightened or to wish the same good luck for themselves. The gentle and innocent creature (for who could possi- bly doubt that he was so?) pranced round among the children as sportively as a kitten. Europa all the while looked down upon her brothers, nodding and laughing, but yet with a sort of stateliness in her rosy little face. As the bull wheeled about to take another gallop across the meadow, the child waved her hand, and said, "Good-by," playfully pretending that she was now bound on a distant journey, and might not see her brothers again for nobody could tell how long. "Good-by," shouted Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, all in one breath. But, together with her enjoyment of the sport, there was still a little remnant of fear in the child's 95 TANGLEWOOD TALES. heart; so that her last look at the three boys was a troubled one, and made them feel as if their dear sister were really leaving them forever. And what do you think the snowy bull did next? Why, he set off, as swift as the wind, straight down to the sea-shore, scampered across the sand, took an airy leap, and plunged right in among the foaming billows. The white spray rose in a shower over him and little Europa, and fell spattering down upon the water. Then what a scream of terror did the poor child send forth! The three brothers screamed manfully, likewise, and ran to the shore as fast as their legs would carry them, with Cadmus at their head. But it was too late. When they reached the margin of the sand, the treacherous animal was already far away in the wide blue sea, with only his snowy head and tail emerging, and poor little Europa between them, stretching out one hand towards her dear brothers, while she grasped the bull's ivory horn with the other. And there stood Cad- mus, Phoenix and Cilix, gazing at this sad specta- cle, through their tears, until they could no longer distinguish the bull's snowy head from the white- capped billows that seemed to boil up out of the sea's depths around him. Nothing more was ever seen of the white bull-nothing more of the beauti- ful child. 96 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. This was a mournful story, as you may well think, for the three boys to carry home to their parents. King Agenor, their father, was the ruler of the whole country; but he loved his little daugh- ter Europa better than his kingdom, or than all his other children, or than anything else in the world. Therefore, when Cadmus and his two brothers came crying home, and told him how that a white bull had carried off their sister, and swam with her over the sea, the king was quite beside himself with grief and rage. Although it was now twilight, and fast growing dark, he bade them set out instantly in search of her. "Never shall you see my face again," he cried, "unless you bring me back my little Europa, to gladden me with her smiles and her pretty ways. Begone, and enter my presence no more, till you come leading her by the hand." As King Agenor said this, his eyes flashed fire (for he was a very passionate king), and he looked so terribly angry that the poor boys did not even venture to ask for their suppers, but slunk away out of the palace, and only paused on the steps a moment to consult whither they should go first. While they were standing there, all in dismay, their mother, Queen Telephassa (who happened not to be by when they told the story to the king), came 7 97 TANGLEWOOD TALES. hurrying after them, and said that she, too, would go in quest of her daughter. "Oh, no, mother!" cried the boys. "The night is dark, and there is no knowing what troubles and perils we may meet with." "Alas! my dear children," answered poor Queen Telephassa, weeping bitterly, "that is only another reason why I should go with you. If I should lose you, too, as well as my little Europa, what would become of me?" "And let inme go likewise!" said their playfellow Thasus, who came running to join them. Thasus was the son of a seafaring person in the neighborhood; he had been brought up with the young princes, and was their intimate friend, and loved Europa very much; so they consented that he should accompany them. The whole party, there- fore, set forth together; Cadmus, Phoenix, Cilix and Thasus clustered around Queen Telephassa, grasping her skirts, and begging her to lean upon their shoulders whenever she felt weary. In this manner they went down the palace steps, and be- gan a journey which turned out to be a great deal longer than they dreamed of. The last that they saw of King Agenor, he came to the door, with a servant holding a torch beside him, and called after them into the gathering darkness:- 98 STHE DRAGON'S TEETH. "Remember! Never ascend these steps again without the child!" "Never!" sobbed Queen Telephassa; and the three brothers and Thasus answered, "'Never! Never! Never! Never!" And they kept their word. Year after year King Agenor sat in the solitude of his beautiful palace, listening in vain for their returning footsteps, hop- ing to hear the familiar voice of the queen, and the cheerful talk of his sons and their playfellow Thasus, entering the door together, and the sweet, childish accents of little Europa in the midst of them. But so long a time went by that, at last if they had really come, the king would not have known that this was the voice of Telephassa, and these the younger voices that used to make such joyful echoes when the children were playing about the palace. We must now leave King Agenor to sit on his throne, and must go along with Queen Telephassa and her four youthful companions. They went on and on, and traveled a long way, and passed over mountains and rivers, and sailed over seas. Here, and there, and everywhere, they made continual inquiry if any person could tell them what had become of Europa. The rustic people, of whom they asked this question, paused a little while from their labors in the field, and looked very much surprised. They thought it 99 TANGLEWOOD TALES. strange to behold a woman in the garb of a queen (for Telephassa, in her haste, had forgotten to take off her crown and her royal robes) roaming about the country, with four lads around her, on such an errand as this seemed to be. But nobody could give them any tidings of Europa; nobody had seen a little girl dressed like a princess, and mounted on a snow-white bull, which galloped as swiftly as the wind. I cannot tell you how long Queen Telephassa, and Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, her three sois, and Thasus, their playfellow, went wandering along the highways and bypaths, or through the pathless wilderness of the earth, in this manner. But certain it is that, before they reached any place of rest, their splendid garments were quite worn out. They all looked very much travel-stained and would have had the dust of many countries on their shoes, if the streams, through which they waded, had not washed it all away. When they had been gone a year, Telephassa threw away her crown, because it chafed her forehead. "It has given me many a headache," said tie poor queen, "and it cannot cure my heartache." As fast as their princely robes got torn and tat- tered they exchanged them for such mean attire as ordinary people wore. By and by they came to have a wild and homeless aspect; so that you would 100 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. much sooner have taken them for a gypsy family than a queen and three princes, and a young noble- man, who had once a palace for their home, and a train of servants to do their bidding. The four boys grew up to be tall young men, with sunbiurnt faces. Each of them girded on a sword to defend themselves against the perils of the way. When the husbandmen, at whose farm-houses they sought hospitality, needed their assistance in the harvest- field, they gave it willingly; and Queen Telephassa (who had done no work in her palace, save to braid silk threads with golden ones) came behind them to bind the sheaves. If payment was offered they shook their heads, and only asked for tidings of Europa. "There are bulls enough in my pasture," the old farmers would reply, "but I never heard of one like this you tell me of. A snow-white bull with a little princess on his back! Ho! ho! I ask your pardon, good folks; but there never was such a sight seen hereabouts." At last, when his upper lip began to have the down on it. Phoenix grew weary of rambling hither and thither to no purpose. So, one day, when they happened to be passing through a pleasant and solitary tract of country, he sat himself down on a heap of moss. "I can go no farther," said Phoenix. "It is a mere 101 TANGLEWOOD TALES. foolish waste of life, to spend it as we do, in al- ways wandering up and down, and never coming to any home at nightfall. Our sister is lost, and never will be found. She probably perished in the sea, or to whatever shore the White bull may have carried her; it is now so many years ago that there would be neither love nor acquaintance between us should we meet again. My father has forbid- den us to return to his palace; so I shall build me a hut of branches and dwell here." "Well, son Phoenix," said Telephassa, sorrow- fully, "you have grown to be a man, and must do as you judge best; but for my part, I will still go in quest of my poor child." "And we three will go along with you!" cried Cadmus and Cilix, and their faithful friend Thasus. But, before setting out, they all helped Phoenix to build a habitation. When completed, it was a sweet rural bower, roofed overhead with an arch of living boughs. Inside there were two pleasant rooms, one of which had a soft heap of moss for a bed, while the other was furnished with a rustic seat or two, curiously fashioned out of the crooked roots of trees. So comfortable and homelike did it seem that Telephassa and her three companions could not help sighing, to think that they must still roam about the world instead of spending the 102 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. remainder of their lives in some such cheerful abode as they had here built for Phoenix. But, when they bade him farewell, Phoenix shed tears, and probably regretted that he was no longer to keep them company. However, he had fixed upon an admirable place to dwell in. And by and by there came other people, who chanced to have no homes; and, seeing how pleasant a spot it was, they built themselves huts in the neighborhood of Phoenix's habitation. Thus, before many years went by, a city had grown up there, in the centre of which was seen a stately palace of marble, wherein dwelt Phoenix, clothed in a purple robe, and wearing a golden crown upon his head. For the inhabitants of the new city, finding that he had royal blood in his veins, had chosen him to be their king. The very first de- cree of state which King Phoenix issued was, that if a maiden happened to arrive in the kingdom mounted on a snow-white bull, and calling herself Europa, his subjects should treat her with the greatest kindness and respect, and immediately bring her to the palace. You may see, by this, that Phoenix's conscience never quite ceased to trouble him for giving up the quest of his dear sister, and sitting himself down to be comfortable, while his mother and her companions went onward. But often and often, at the close of a weary 103 TANGLEWOOD TALES. day's journey, did Telephassa and Cadmus, Cilix and Thasus remember the pleasant spot in which they had left Phoenix. It was a sorrowful prospect for these wanderers, that on the morrow they must again set forth, and that, after many nightfalls, they would perhaps be no nearer the close of their toilsome pilgrimage than now. These thoughts made them all melancholy at times, but appeared to torment Cilix more than the rest of the party. At length, one morning, when they were taking their staffs in hand to set out, he thus addressed them: "My dear mother, and you good brother Cadmus, and my friend Thasus, methinks we are like people in a dream. There is no substance in the life which we are leading. It is such a dreary length of time since the white bull carried off my sister Europa, that I have quite forgotten how she looked, and the tones of her voice, and, indeed, almost doubt whether such a little girl ever lived in the world. And whether she once lived or no, I am convinced that she no longer survives, and that therefore it is the merest folly to waste our own lives and happi- ness in seeking her. Were we to find her, she would now be a woman grown, and would look upon us all as strangers. So, to tell you the truth, I have resolved to take up my abode here; and I entreat 104 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. you, mother, brother, and friend, to follow my ex- ample." "Not I for one," said Telephassa; although the poor queen, firmly as she spoke, was so travel-worn that she could hardly put her foot to the ground- "not I, for one! In the depths of my heart, little Europa is still the rosy child who ran to gather flowers so many years ago. She has not grown to wonanhood, nor forgotten me. At noon, at night, journeying onward, sitting down to rest, her child- ish voice is always in my ears calling, 'Mother! mother!' Stop here who may, there is no repose for me." "Nor for me," said Cadmus, "while my dear mother pleases to go onward." And the faithful Thasus, too, was resolved to bear them company. They remained with Cilix a few days, however, and helped him to build a rus- tic bower, resembling the one which they had formerly built for Phoenix. When they were bidding him farewell, Cilix burst into tears, and told his mother that it seemed just as melancholy a dream to stay there, in sol- itude, as to go onward. If she really believed that they would ever find Europa, he was willing to continue the search with them, even now. But Telephessa bade him remain there, and be happy, if his own heart would let him. So the pilgrims 105 TANGLEWOOD TALES. took their leave of him, and departed, and were hardly out of sight before some other wandering people came along that way and saw Cilix's habita- tion, and were greatly delighted with the appear- ance of the place. There being abundance of unoc- cupied ground in the neighborhood, these strangers built huts for themselves, and were soon joined by a multitude of new settlers, who quickly formed a city. In the middle of it was seen a magnificent palace of colored marble, on the balcony of which, every noontide, appeared Cilix, in a long purple robe, and with a jewelled crown upon his head; for the inhabitants, when they found out that he was a king's son, had considered him the fittest of all men to be a king himself. One of the first acts of King Cilix's government was to send out an expedition consisting of a grave ambassador and an escort of bold and hardy young men, with orders to visit the principal kingdoms of the earth, and inquire whether a young maiden had passed through those regions, galloping swiftly on a white bull. It is, therefore, plain to my mind, that Cilix secretly blamed himself for giving up the search for Europa, as long as he was able to put one foot before the other. As for Telephassa, and Cadmus, and the good Thasus, it grieves me to think of them, still keep- ing up that weary pilarimaage. The two vtoun 106 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. men did their best for the poor queen, helping her over the rough places, often carrying her across rivulets in their faithful arms, and seeking to shelter her at nightfall, even when they them- selves lay on the ground. Sad, sad it was to hear them asking of every passer-by if he had seen Europa, so long after the white bull had carried her away. But, though the gray years thrust them- selves between, and made the child's figure dim in their remembrance, neither of these true- hearted three ever dreamed of giving up the search. One morning, however, poor Thasus found that he had sprained his ankle, and could not possibly go a step farther. "After a few days, to be sure," said he mourn- fully, "I might make shift to hobble along with a stick. But that would only delay you, and per- haps hinder you from finding dear little Europa, after all your pains and trouble. Do you go for- ward, therefore, my beloved companions, and leave me to follow as I may." "Thou hast been a true friend, dear Thasus," said Queen Telephassa, kissing his forehead. "Be- ing neither my son, nor the brother of our lost Europa, thou hast shown thyself truer to me and her than Phoenix and Cilix did, whom we le left behind us. Without thy loving help, and that my sor QP As, uy hm6s could not have borne 107 TANGLEWOOD TALES. me half so far as this. Now, take thy rest, and be at peace. For-and it is the first time I have owned it to myself-I begin to question whether we shall ever find my beloved daughter in this world." Saying this, the poor queen shed tears, because it was a grievous trial to the mother's heart to con- fess that her hopes were growing faint. From that day forward, Cadmus noticed that she never traveled with the same alacrity of spirit that had heretofore supported her. Her weight was heavier upon his arm. Before setting out, Cadmus helped Thasus build a bower; while Telephassa, being too infirm to give any great assistance, advised them how to fit it up and furnish it, so that it might be as comfortable as - hut of branches could. Thasus, however, did not spend all his days in this green bower. For it happened to him, as to Phoenix and Cilix, that other homeless people visited the spot and liked it, and built themselves habitations in the neighbor- hood. So here, in the course of a few years, was another thriving city with a red freestone palace in the centre of it, where Thasus sat upon a throne, doing justice to the people, with a purple robe over his shoulders, a sceptre in his hand, and a crown upon his head. The inhabitants had made him king, not for the sake of any royal blood (for 108 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. none was in his veins), but because Thasus was an upright, true-hearted, and courageous man, and therefore fit to rule. But, when the affairs of his kingdom were all settled, King Thasus laid aside his purple robe, and crown, and sceptre, and bade his worthiest subject distribute justice to the people in his stead. Then, grasping the pilgrim's staff that had sup- ported him so long, he set forth again, hoping still to discover some hoof-mark of the snow-white bull, some trace of the vanished child. He returned, after a lengthened absence, and sat down wearily upon his throne. To his latest hour, nevertheless, King Thasus showed his true-hearted remem- brance of Europa, by ordering that a fire should always be kept burning in his palace, and a bath steaming hot, and food ready to be served up, and a bed with snow-white sheets, in case the maiden should arrive and require immediate refresh- ment. And though Europa never came, the good Thasus had the blessings of many a poor traveler, who profited by the food and lodging which were meant for the little playmate of the king's boyhood. Telephassa and Cadmus were now pursuing their weary way, with no companion but each other. The queen leaned heavily upon her son's arm, and could walk only a few miles a day. But for all her weakness and weariness, she would not be per- 109 TANGLEWOOT) TALES. suaded to give up the search. It was enough to bring tears into the eyes of bearded men to hear the melancholy tone with which she inquired of every stranger whether he could tell her any news of the lost child. "Have you seen a little girl-no, no, I mean a young maiden of full growth-passing by this way, mounted on a snow-white bull, which gallops as swiftly as the wind?" "We have seen no such wondrous sight," the peo- ple would reply; and very often, taking Cadmus aside, they whispered to him, "Is this stately and sad-looking woman your mother? Surely she is not in her right mind; and you ought to take her home, and make her comfortable, and do your best to get this dream out of her fancy." "It is no dream," said Cadmus. "Everything else is a dream, save that." But, one day, Telephassa seemed feebler than usual, and leaned almost her whole weight on the arm of Cadmus, and walked more slowly than ever before. At last they reached a solitary spot, where she told her son that she must needs lie down, and take a good, long rest. "A good, long rest!" she repeated, looking Cad- inus tenderly in the face,-" a good, long rest, thou dearest one!" 110 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. "As long as you please, dear mother," answered Cadmus. Telephassa bade him sit down on the turf beside her, and then she took his hand. "My son," said she, fixing her dim eyes most lovingly upon him, "this rest that I speak of will be very long indeed! You must not wait till it is finished. Dear Cadmus, you do not comprehend me. You must make a grave here, and lay your mother's weary frame into it. My pilgrimage is over." Cadmus burst into tears, and, for a long time, refused to believe that his dear mother was now to be taken from him. But Telephassa reasoned with him, and kissed him, and at length made him dis- cern that it was better for her spirit to pass away out of the toil, the weariness, the grief, and disap- pointment which had burdened her on earth, ever since the child was lost. He therefore repressed his sorrow, and listened to her last words. "Dearest Cadmus," said she, "thou hast beei the truest son that ever mother had, and faithful to the very last. Who else would have borne with my infirmities as thou hast? It is owing to thy care, thou tenderest child, that nmy grave was not dug long years ago, in some valley, or on some hill-side, that lies far, far behind us. It is enough. Thou shalt wander no more on this hopeless search. But i1 "TANGLEWOOD TALES. when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to Delphi, and inquire of the oracle what thou shalt do next." "0 mother, mother," cried Cadmus, "couldst thou but have seen my sister before this hour!" "It matters little now," answered Telephassa, and there was a smile upon her face. "I go now to the better world, and, sooner or later, shall find my daughter there." I will not sadden you, my little hearers, with telling how Telephassa died and was buried, but will only say, that her dying smile grew brighter, instead of vanishing from her dead face; so that Cadmus felt convinced that, at her very first step into the better world, she had caught Europa in her arms. He planted some flowers on his moth- er's grave, and left them to grow there, and make the place beat tiful, when he should be far away. After performing this last sorrowful duty, he set forth alone, and took the road towards the famous oracle of Delphi, as Telephassa had advised him. On his way thither, he still inquired of most people whom he met whether they had seen Eu- ropa; for, to say the truth, Cadmus had grown so accustomed to ask the question, that it came to his lips as readily as a remark about the weather. He received various answers. Some told him one thing, and some another. Among the rest, a 112 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. mariner affirmed, that, many years before, in a dis- tant country, he had heard a rumor about a white bull, which came swimming across the sea with a child on his back, dressed up in flowers that were blighted by the sea-water. He did not know what had become of the child or the bull; and Cadmus suspected, indeed, by a queer twinkle in the mar- iner's eyes, that he was putting a joke upon him, and had never really heard anything about the matter. Poor Cadmus found it more wearisome to travel alone than to bear all his dear mother's weight while she had kept him company. His heart, you will understand, was now so heavy that it seemed impossible, sometimes, to carry it any farther. But his limbs were strong and active, and well accus- tomed to exercise. He walked swiftly along, think- ing of King Agenor and Queen Telephassa, and his brothers, and the friendly Thasus, all of whom he had left behind him, at one point of his pil- grimage or another, and never expected to see them any more. Full of these remembrances, he came within sight of a lofty mountain, which the peo- ple thereabouts told him was called Parnassus. On the slope of Mount Parnassus was the famous Delphi, whither Cadmus was going. Thiis Delphi was supposed to be the very mid- most spot of the whole world. The place of the 113 TANGLEWOOD TALES. oracle was a certain cavity in the mountain-side, over which, when Cadmus came thither, he found a rude bower of branches. It reminded him of those which he had helped to build for Phoenix and Cilix, and afterwards for Thasus. In later times, when multitudes of people came from great distances to put questions to the oracle, a spacious temple of marble was erected over the spot. But in the days of Cadmus, as I have told you, there was only this rustic bower, with its abundance of green foliage, and a tuft of shrubbery, that ran wild over the mysterious hole in the hill-side. When Cadmus had thrust a passage through the tangled boughs, and made his way into the bower, he did not at first discern the half-hidden cavity. But soon he felt a cold stream of air rushing out of it, with so much force that it shook the ringlets on his cheek. Pulling away the shrubbery which clustered over the hole, he bent forward, and spoke in a distinct but reverential tone, as if addressing some unseen personage inside of the mountain. "Sacred oracle of Delphi," said he, "whither shall I go next in quest of my dear sister Europa ?" There was at first a deep silence, and than a rushing sound, or a noise like a long sigh, proceed- ing out of the interior of the earth. This cavity, you must know, was looked upon as a sort of foun- tain of truth, which sometimes gushed out in audi- 114 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. ble words; although, for the most part, these words were such a riddle that they might just as well have stayed at the bottom of the hole. But Cadmus was more fortunate than many others who went to Delphi in search of truth. By and by, the rushing noise began to sound like articulate language. It repeated, over and over again, the following sen- tence, which, after all, was so like the vague whistle of a blast of air, that Cadmus really did not quite know whether it meant anything or not: "Seek her no more! Seek her no more! Seek her no more!" "What, then, shall I do?" asked Cadmus. For, ever since he was a child, you know, it had been the great object of his life to find his sister. From the very hour that he left following the but- terfly in the meadow, near his father's palace, he had done his best to follow Europa, over land and sea. And now, if he must give up the search, he seemed to have no more business in the world. But again the sighing gust of air grew into some- thing like a hoarse voice. "Follow the cow!" it said. "Follow the cow! Follow the cow!" And when these words had been repeated until Cadmus was tired of hearing them (especially as he could not imagine what cow it was, or why he was 115 TANGLEWOOD TALES. to follow her), the gusty hole gave vent to another sentence. "Where the stray cow lies down, there is your home." rThese words were pronounced but a single time, and died away into a whisper before Cadmus was fully satisfied that he had caught the meaning. He put other questions, but received no answer; only the gust of wind sighed continually out of the cavity, and blew the withered leaves rustling along the ground before it. "Did there really come any words out of the hole?" thought Cadmus; "or have I been dreaming all this while?" lie turned away from the oracle, and thought himself no wiser than when he came thither. Car- ing little what might happen to him, he took the first path that offered itself, and went along at a sluggish pace; for, having no object in view, nor any reason to go one way more than another, it would certainly have been foolish to make haste. Whenever he met anybody, the old question was at his tongue's end:- "Have you seen a beautiful maiden, dressed like a king's daughter, and mounted on a snow-white bull, that gallops as swiftly as the wind?" But, remembering what the oracle had said, he only half uttered the words, and then mumbled the 116 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. rest indistinctly; and, from his confusion, people must have imagined that this handsome young man had lost his wits. I know not how far Cadmus had gone, nor could he himself have told you, when, at no great dis- tance before him, he beheld a brindled cow. She was lying down by the wayside, and quietly chew- ing her cud; nor did she take any notice of the young man until he had approached pretty nigh. Then, getting leisurely upon her feet, and giving her head a gentle toss, she began to move along at a moderate pace, often pausing just long enough to crop a mouthful of grass. Cadmus loitered be- hind, whistling idly to himself, and scarcely notic- ing the cow; until the thought occurred to him, whether this could possibly be the animal which, according to the oracle's response, was to serve him for a guide. But he smiled at himself for fancying such a thing. He could not seriously think that this was the cow, because she went along so quietly, behaving just like any other cow. Evi- dently she neither knew nor cared so much as a wisp of hay about Cadmus, and was only thinking how to get her living along the wayside, where the herbage was green and fresh. Perhaps she was going home to be milked. "Cow, cow, cow!" cried Cadmus. "Hey, Brin- dle, hey! Stop, my good cow." 117 TANGLEWOOD TALES. He wanted to come up with the cow,' so as to examine her, and see if she would appear to know him, or whether there were any peculiarities to distinguish her from a thousand other cows, whose only business is to fill the milk-pail, and sometimes kick it over. But still the brindled cow trudged on, whisking her tail to keep the flies away, and taking as little notice of Cadmus as she well could. If he walked slowly, so did the cow, and seized the opportunity to graze. If he quickened his pace, the cow went just so much the faster; and once, when Cadmus tried to catch her by running, she threw out her heels, stuck her tail straight on end, and set off at a gallop, looking as queerly as cows generally do, while putting themselves to their speed. When Cadmus saw that it was impossible to come up with her, he walked on moderately, as be- fore. The cow, too, went leisurely on, without looking behind. Wherever the grass was greenest, there she nibbled a mouthful or two. Where a brook glistened brightly across the path, there the cow drank, and breathed a comfortable sigh, and drank again, and trudged onward at the pace that best suited herself and Cadmus. "I do believe," thought Cadmus, "that this may be the cow that was foretold me. If it be the one, I suppose she will lie down somewhere hereabouts." 118 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. Whether it were the oracular cow or some other one, it did not seem reasonable that she should travel a great way farther. So, whenever they reached a particularly pleasant spot on a breezy hill-side, or in a sheltered vale, or flowery meadow, on the shore of a calm lake, or along the bank of a clear stream, Cadmus looked eagerly aromund to see if the situation would suit him for a home. But still, whether he liked the place or no, the brindled cow never offered to lie down. On she went at the quiet pace of a cow going homeward to the barn- yard; and, every moment, Cadmus expected to see a milkmaid approaching with a pail, or a herdsman running to head the stray animal, and turn her back towards the pasture. But no milkmaid came; no herdsman drove her back; and Cadmus fol- lowed the stray Brindle till he was almost ready to drop down with fatigue. "0 brindled cow," cried he, in a tone of despair, "do you never mean to stop?" He had now grown too intent on following her to think of lagging behind, however long the way, and whatever might be his fatigue. Indeed, it seemed as if there were something about the ani- mal that bewitched people. Several persons who happened to see the brindled cow, and Cadmus fol- lowing behind, began to trudge after her, pre- cisely as he did. Cadmus was glad of somebody 119 TANGLEWOOD TALES. to converse with, and therefore talked very freely to these good people. He told them all his ad- ventures, and how he had left King Agenor in his palace, and Phoenix at one place, and Cilix at an- other, and Thasus at a third, and his dear mother, Queen Telephassa, under a flowery sod; so that now he was quite alone, both friendless and homeless. He mentioned, likewise, that the oracle had bidden him be guided by a cow, and inquired of the strang- ers whether they supposed that this brindled ani- mal could be the one. "Why, 't is a very wonderful affair," answered one of his new companions. "I am pretty well ac- quainted with the ways of cattle, and I never knew a cow, of her own accord, to go so far without stop- ping. If my legs will let me, I'll never leave fol.. lowing the beast till she lies down." "Nor I!" said a second. "Nor I!" cried a third. "If she goes a hundred miles farther, I'm determined to see the end of it." The secret of it was, you must know, that the cow was an enchanted cow, and that, without their being conscious of it, she threw some of her en- chantment over everybody that took so much as half a dozen steps behind her. They could not pos- sibly help following her, though all the time they fancied themselves doing it of their own accord. The cow was by no means very nice in choosing 120 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. her path; so that sometimes they had to scramble over rocks, or wade through mud and mire, and were all in a terribly bedraggled condition, and tired to death, and very hungry, into the bargain. What a weary business it was! But still they kept trudging stoutly forward, and talking as they went. The strangers grew very fond of Cadmus, and re- solved never to' leave him, but to help him build a city wherever the cow might lie down. In the centre of it there should be a noble palace, in which Cadmus might dwell, and be their king, with a throne, a crown and sceptre, a purple robe, and everything else that a king ought to have; for in him there was the royal blood, and the royal heart, and the head that knew how to rule. While they were talking of these schemes, and beguiling the tediousness of the way with laying out the plan of the new city, one of the company happened to look at the cow. "Joy! joy!" cried he, clapping his hands. "Bin- dle is going to lie down." They all looked; and, sure enough, the cow had stopped, and was staring leisurely about her, as other cows do when on the point of lying down. And slowly, slowly did she recline herself on the soft grass, first bending her fore legs, and then crouching her hind ones. When Cadmus and his companions came up with her, there was the brin- 121 TANGLEWOOD TALES. dled cow taking her ease, chewing her cud, and looking them quietly in the face; as if this was just the spot she had been seeking for, and as if it were all a matter of course. "This, then," said Cadmus, gazing around him, "this is to be my home." It was a fertile and lovely plain, with great trees flinging their sun-speckled shadows over it, and hills fencing it in from the rough weather. At no great distance, they beheld a river gleaming in the sunshine. A home feeling stole into the heart of poor Cadmus. He was very glad to know that here he might awake in the morning, without the ne- cessity of putting on his dusty sandals to travel farther and farther. The days and the years would pass over him, and find him still in this pleasant spot. If he could have had his brothers with him, and his friend Thasus, and could have seen his dear mother under a roof of his own, he might here have been happy, after all their disappointments. Some day or other, too, his sister Europa might have come quietly to the door of his home, and smiled round upon the familiar faces. But, indeed, since there was no hope of regaining the friends sat his oyhood, or ever seeing his dear sister again, Cadmus resolved to make himself happy with these new companions, who had grown so fond of him while following the cow. 122 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. "Yes, my friends," said he to them, "this is to be our home: Here we will build our habitations. The brindled cow, which has led us hither, will supply us with milk. We will cultivate the neigh- boring soil, and lead an innocent and happy life." His companions joyfully assented to this plan; and, in the first place, being very hungry and thirsty, they looked about them for the means of providing a comfortable meal. Not far off they saw a tuft of trees, which appeared as if there might be a spring of water beneath them. They went thither to fetch some, leaving Cadmus stretched on the ground along with the brindled cow; for, now that he had found a place of rest, it seemed as if all the weariness of his pilgrimage, ever since he left King Agenor's palace, had fallen upon him at once. But his new friends had not long been gone, when he was suddenly startled by cries, shouts and screams, and the noise of a terrible struggle, and in the midst of it all, a most awful hissing which went right through his ears like a rough saw. Running towards the tuft of trees, he beheld the head and fiery eyes of an immense serpent or dragon, with the widest jaws that ever a dragon had, and a vast many rows of horribly sharp teeth. Before Cadmus could reach the spot, this pitiless reptile had killed his poor companions, and was busily 123 TANGLEWOOD TALES. devouring them, making but a mouthful of each man. It appears that the fountain of water was en- chanted, and that the dragon had been set to guard it, so that no mortal might ever quench his thirst there. As the neighboring inhabitants carefully avoided the spot, it was now a long time (not less than a hundred years, or thereabouts) since the monster had broken his fast; and, as was natural enough, his appetite had grown to be enormous, and was not half satisfied by the poor people whom he had just eaten up. When he caught sight of Cadmus, therefore, he set up another abominable hiss, and flung back his immense jaws, until his mouth looked like a great red cavern, at the farther end of which were seen the legs of his last victim, whom he had hardly had time to swallow. But Cadmus was so enraged at the destruction of his friends, that he cared neither for the size of the dragon's jaws nor for his hundreds of sharp teeth. Drawing his sword, he rushed at the monster, and flung himself right into his cavernous mouth. This bold method of attacking him took the dragon by surprise; for, in fact, Cadmus had leaped so far down into his throat, that the rows of terrible teeth could not close upon him, nor do him the least harm in the world. Thus, though the struggle was a tremendous one, and though the dragon shat- 124 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. tered the tuft of trees into small splinters by the lashing of his tail, yet, as Cadmus was all the while slashing and stabbing at his very vitals, it was not long before the scaly wretch bethought himself of slipping away. He had not gone his length, how- ever, when the brave Cadmus gave him a sword- thrust that finished the battle; and creeping out of the gateway of the creature's jaws, there he be- held him still wriggling his vast bulk, although there was no longer life enough in him to harm a little child. But do not you suppose that it made Cadmus sor- rowful to think of the melancholy fate which had befallen those poor, friendly people, who had fol- lowed the cow along with him? It seemed as if he were doomed to lose everybody whom he loved, or to see them perish in one way or another. And here he was, after all his toils and troubles, in a solitary place, with not a single human being to help him build a hut. "What shall I do?" cried he aloud. "It were better for me to have been devoured by the dragon, as my poor companions were." "Cadmus," said a voice,-but whether it came from above or below him, or whether it spoke with- in his own breast, the young man could not tell,- "Cadmus, pluck out the dragon's teeth, and plant them in the earth." 125 TANGLEWOOD TALES. This was a strange thing to do; nor was it very easy, I should imagine, to dig out all those deep- rooted fangs from the dead dragon's jaws. But Cadmus toiled and tugged, and after pounding the monstrous head almost to pieces with a great stone, he at last collected as many teeth as might have filled a bushel or two. The next thing was to plant them. This, likewise, was a tedious piece of work, especially as Cadmus was already exhausted with killing the dragon and knocking his head to pieces, and had nothing to dig the earth with, that I know of, unless it were his sword-blade. Finally, how- ever, a sufficiently large tract of ground was turned up, and sown with this new kind of seed; although half of the dragon's teeth still remained to be planted some other day. Cadmus, quite out of breath, stood leaning upon his sword, and wondering what was to happen next. He had waited but a few moments, when he began to see a sight, which was as great a marvel as the most marvellous thing I ever told you about. The sun was shining slantwise over the field, and showed all the moist, dark soil just like any other newly-planted piece of ground. All at once Cad- nmus fancied he saw something glisten very brightly, first at one spot, then at another, and then at a hun- dred and a thousand spots together. Soon he per- ceived them to be the steel heads of spears, sprout- 126 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. ing up everywhere like so many stalks of grain, and continually growing taller and taller. Next ap- peared a vast number of bright sword-blades thrusting themselves up in the same way. A mo- ment afterwards, the whole surface of the ground was broken up by a multitude of polished brass helmets, coming up like a crop of enormous beans. So rapidly did they grow, that Cadmus now dis- cerned the fierce countenance of a man beneath every one. In short, before he had time to think what a wonderful affair it was, he beheld an abund- ant harvest of what looked like human beings, armed with helmets and breastplates, shields, swords and spears; and before they were well out of the earth, they brandished their weapons, and clashed them one against another, seeming to think, little while as they had yet lived, that they had wasted too much of life without a battle. Every tooth of the dragon had produced one of these sons of deadly mischief. Up sprouted, also, a great many trumpeters; and with the first breath that they drew, they put their brazen trumpets to their lips, and sounded a tre- mendous and ear-shattering blast; so that the wholo space, just now so quiet and solitary, reverberated with the clash and clang of arms, the brave war- like music and the shouts of angry men. So en- raged did they all look, that Cadmus fully ex- 127 TANGLEWOOD TALES. pected them to put the whole world to the sword. How fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow! "Cadmus," said the same voice which he had before heard, "throw a stone into the midst of the armed men." So Cadmus seized a large stone, and, flinging it into the middle of the earth army, saw it strike the breastplate of a gigantic and fierce-looking warrior. Immediately on feeling the blow, he seemed to take it for granted that somebody had struck him; and, uplifting his weapon, he smote his next neighbor a blow that cleft his helmet asunder, and stretched him on the ground. In an instant, those nearest the fallen warrior began to strike at one another with their swords and stab with their spears. The confusion spread wider and wider. Each man smote down his brother, and was himself smitten down before he had time to exult in his victory. The trumpeters, all the while, blew their blasts shriller and shriller; each soldier shouted a battle- cry and often fell with it on his lips. It was the strangest spectacle of causeless wrath, and of mis- chief for no good end, that had ever been wit- nessed; but, after all, it was neither more foolish nor more wicked than a thousand battles that have since been fought, in which men have slain their 128 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. brothers with just as little reason as these children of the dragon's teeth. It ought to be considered, too, that the dragon people were made for nothing else; whereas other mertals were born to love and help one another. Well, this memorable battle continued to rage until the ground was strewn with helmeted heads that had been cut off. Of all the thousands that began the fight, there were only five left standing. These now rushed from different parts of the field, and, meeting in the middle of it, clashed their swords, and struck at each other's hearts as fiercely as ever. "Cadmus," said the voice again, "bid those five warriors sheathe their swords. They will help you to build the city." Without hesitating an instant, Cadmus stepped forward, with the aspect of a king and a leader, and extending his drawn sword amongst them, spoke to the warriors in a stern and commanding voice. "Sheathe your weapons!" said he. And forthwith, feeling themselves bound to obey him, the five remaining sons of the dragon's teeth made him a military salute with their swords, re- turned them to the scabbards, and stood before Cadmus in a rank, eyeing him as soldiers eye their captain, while awaiting the word of command. 9 129 TANGLEWOOD TALES. These five men had probably sprung from the biggest of the dragon's teeth, and were the boldest and strongest of the whole army. They were al- most giants, indeed, and had good need to be so, else they never could have lived through so terrible a fight. They still had a very furious look, and, if Cadmus happened to glance aside, would glare at one another, with fire flashing out of their eyes, It was strange, too, to observe how the earth, out of which they had so lately grown, was incrusted, here and there, on their bright breastplates, and even begrimed their faces, just as you may have seen it clinging to beets and carrots when pulled out of their native soil. Cadmus hardly knew whether to consider them as men, or some odd kind of vegetable; although, on the whole, he concluded that there was human nature in them, because they were so fond of trumpets and weapons, and so ready to shed blood. They looked him earnestly in the face, waiting for his next order, and evidently desiring no other employment than to follow him from one battle- field to another, all over the wide world. But Cad- mus was wiser than these earth-born creatures, with the dragon's fierceness in them, and knew better how to use their strength and hardihood. "Come!" said he. '"You are sturdy fellows. Make yourselves useful! Quarry some stones with 130 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. those great swords of yours, and help me to build a city." The five soldiers grumbled a little, and muttered that it was their business to overthrow cities, not to build them up. But Cadmus looked at them with a stern eye, and spoke to them in a tone of authority, so that they knew him for their master, and never again thought of disobeying his com- mands. They set to work in good earnest, and toiled so diligently, that, in a very short time, a city began to make its appearance. At first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome disposi- tion. Like savage beasts, they would doubtless have done one another a mischief, if Cadmus had not kept watch over them and quelled the fierce old serpent that lurked in their hearts, when he saw it gleaming out of their wild eyes. But, in course of time, they got accustomed to honest labor, and had sense enough to feel that there was more true enjoyment in living at peace, and doing good to one's neighbor, than in striking at him with a two- edged sword. It may not be too much to hope that the rest of mankind will by and by grow as wise and peaceable as these five earth-begrimed war- riors who sprang from the dragon's teeth. And now the city was built, and there was a home in it for each of the workmen. But the palace of Cadmus was not yet erected, because they had left 131 TANGLEWOOD TALES. it till the last, meaning to introduce all the new improvements of architecture, and make it very commodious, as well as stately and beautiful. After finishing the rest of their labors, they all went to bed betimes, in order to rise in the gray of the morning, and get at least the foundation of the edifice laid before nightfall. But, when Cadmus arose, and took his way towards the site where the palace was to be built, followed by his five sturdy workmen marching all in a row, what do you think he saw? What should it be but the most magnificent palace that had ever been seen in the world? It was built of marble and other beautiful kinds of stone, and rose high into the air, with a splendid dome and a portico along the front, and carv(ed pillars, and everything else that befitted the habi- tation of a mighty king. It had grown up out of the earth in almost as short a time as it had taken the armed host to spring from the dragon's teeth; and what made the matter more strange, no seed of this stately edifice had ever been planted. When the five workmen beheld the dome, with the morning sunshine making it look golden and glorious, they gave a great shout. "Long live King Cadmus," they cried, "in his beautiful palace." And the new king, with his five faithful followers 132 THE DRAGON'S TEETH. at his heels, shouldering their pickaxes and march- ing in a rank (for they still had a soldier-like sort of behavior, as their nature was), ascended the palace steps. Halting at the entrance, they gazed through a long vista of lofty pillars that were ranged from end to end of a great hall. At the farther extrem- ity of this hall, approaching slowly towards him, Cadmus beheld a female figure, wonderfully beau- tiful, and adorned with a royal robe, and a crown of diamonds over her golden ringlets, and the rich- est necklace that ever a queen wore. His heart thrilled with delight. He fancied it his long-lost sister Europa, now grown to womanhood, comining to make him happy, and to repay him, with her sweet sisterly affection, for all those weary wander- ings in quest of her since he left King Agenor's palace,-for the tears that he had shed, on parting with Phoenix, and Cilix, and Thasus,-for the heart-breakings that had made the whole world seem dismal to him over his dear mother's grave. But, as Cadmus advanced to meet the beautiful stranger, he saw that her features were unknown to him, although, in the little time that it required to tread along the hall, he had already felt a sym- pathy betwixt himself and her. "No, Cadmus," said the same voice that had spoken to him in the field of the armed men, "this s not that dear sister Europa whom you have sought so faithfully all over the wide world. This 133 TANGLEWOOD TALES. is Harmonia, a daughter of the sky, who is given you instead of sister, and brothers, and friend, and mother. You will find all those dear ones in her alone." So King Cadmus dwelt in the palace, with his n.ew friend Harmonia, and found a great deal of comfort in his magnificent abode, but would doubt- less have found as much, if not more, in the hum- blest cottage by the wayside. Before many years went by, there was a group of rosy little children (but how they came thither has always been a mys- tery to me) sporting in the great hall, and on the marble steps of the palace, and running joyfully to meet King Cadmus when affairs of state left him at leisure to play with them. They called him father, and Queen Harmonia mother. The five old soldiers of the dragon's teeth grew very fond of these small urchins, and were never weary of showing them how to shoulder sticks, flourish wooden swords, and march in military order, blow- ing a penny trumpet, or beating an abominable rub-a-dub upon a little drum. But King Cadmus, lest there should be too much of the dragon's teeth in his children's disposition, used to find time from his kingly duties to teach them their A B C,-which he invented for their benefit, and for which many little people, I am afraid, are not half so grateful to him as they ought to be. 134 CIRCE'S PALACE. Some of you have heard, no doubt, of the wise King Ulysses, and how he went to the siege of Troy; and how, after that famous city was taken and burned, he spent ten long years in trying to get back again to his own little kingdom of Ithaca. At one time in the course of this weary voyage he arrived at an island that looked very green and pleasant, but the name of which was unknown to him. For, only a little while before he canme thither, he had met with a terrible hurricane, or rather a great many hurricanes at once, which drove his fleet of vessels into a strange part of the sea, where neither himself nor any of his mariners had ever sailed. This misfortune was entirely ow- ing to the foolish curiosity of his shipmates, who, while Ulysses lay asleep, had untied some very bulky leathern bags, in which they supposed a valuable treasure to be concealed. But in each of these stout bags King Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, had tied up a tempest, and had given it to Ulysses to keep, in order that he might be sure of 135 TANGLEWOOD TALES a favorable passage homeward to Ithaca; and when the strings were loosened, forth rushed the whist- ling blasts, like air out of a blown bladder, whiten- ing the sea with foam, and scattering the vessels nobody could tell whither. Immediately after escaping from this peril, a still greater one had befallen him. Scudding before the hurricane, he reached a place which, as he after- wards found, was called Laestrygonia, where some monstrous giants had eaten up many of his com- panions, and had sunk every one of his vessels, except that in which he himself sailed, by flinging great masses of rock at them, from the cliffs along the shore. After going through such troubles as these, you cannot wonder that King Ulysses was glad to moor his tempest-beaten bark in a quiet cove of the green island, which I began with telling you about. But he had encountered so many dan- gers from giants, and one-eyed Cyclops, and mon- sters of the sea and land, that he could not help dreading some mischief, even in this pleasant and seemingly solitary spot. For two days, therefore, the poor weather-worn voyagers kept quiet, and either stayed on board of their vessel, or merely crept along under cliffs that bordered the shore; and to keep themselves alive they dug shell-fish out of the sand, and sought for any little rill of fresh water that might be running towards the sea. 136 CIRCE'S PALACE. Before the two days were spent they grew very weary of this kind of life; for the followers of King Ulysses, as you will find it important to remember, were terrible gormandizers, and pretty sure to grumble if they missed their regular meals, and their irregular ones besides. Their stock of pro- visions was quite exhausted, and even the shell-fish began to get scarce, so that they had now to choose between starving to death or venturing into the in- terior of the island, where, perhaps, some huge three-headed dragon, or other horrible monster, had his den. Such misshapen creatures were very numerous in those days; and nobody ever expected to make a voyage, or take a journey, without run- ning more or less risk of being devoured by them. But King Ulysses was a bold man as well as a prudent one; and on the third morning he determ- ined to discover what sort of a place the island was, and whether it were possible to obtain a supply of food for the hungry mouths of his compani'ms. So, taking a spear in his hand, he clambered to the summit of a cliff, and gazed round about him. At a distance, towards the centre of the island, he be- held the stately towers of what seemed to be a palace, built of snow-white marble, and rising in the midst of a grove of loffy trees. The thick branches of these trees stretched across the front of the edifice, and more than half concealed it, al- 137 TANGLEWOOD TALES. though, from the portion which he saw, Ulysses judged it to be spacious and exceedingly beautiful, and probably the residence of some great nobleman or prince. A blue smoke went curling up from the chimney, and was almost the pleasantest part of the spectacle to Ulysses. For, from the abundance of this smoke, it was reasonable to conclude that there was a good fire in the kitchen, and that, at dinner- time, a plentiful banquet would be served up to the inhabitants of the palace, and to whatever guests might happen to drop in. With so agreeable a prospect before him, Ulysses fancied that he could not do better than to go straight to the palace gate, and tell the master cf it that there was a crew of poor shipwrecked mar- iners not far off, who had eaten nothing for a day or two, save a few clams and oysters, and would therefore be thankful for a little food. And the prince or nobleman must be a very stingy cur- mudgeon, to be sure, if, at least, when his own dinner was over, he would not bid them welcome to the broken victuals from the table. Pleasing himself with this idea, King Ulysses had made a few steps in the direction of the paJace, when there was a great twittering and chirping from the branch of a neighboring tree. A moment afterwards a bird came flying towards him, and hovered in the air, so as almost to brush his face 138 CIRCE'S PALACE. with its wings. It was a very pretty little bird, with purple wings and body, and yellow legs, and a circle of golden feathers round its neck, and on its head a golden tuft, which looked like a king's crown in miniature. Ulysses tried to catch the bird, but it fluttered nimbly out of his reach, still chirping in a piteous tone, as if it could have told a lamentable story, had it only been gifted with human language. And when he attempted to drive it away, the bird flew no farther than the bough of the next tree and again came fluttering about his head, with its doleful chirp, as soon as he showed a purpose of going forward. "Have you anything to tell me, little bird?" asked Ulysses. And he was ready to listen attentively to what- ever the bird might communicate; for at the siege of Troy, and elsewhere, he had known such odd things to happen, that he would not have consid- ered it much out of the common run had this little feathered creature talked as plainly as himself. "Peep!" said the bird, "peep, peep, pe-weep!" And nothing else would it say, but only, "Peep, peep, pe-weep !" in a melancholy cadence, and over and over and over again. As often as Ulysses moved forward, however, the bird showed the great- est alarm, and did its best to drive him back, with the anxious flutter of its purple wings. Its unac- 139 TANGLEWOOD TALES. countable behavior made him conclude at last that the bird knew of some danger that awaited him, and which must needs be very terrible, beyond all question, since it moved even a little fowl to feel compassion for a human being. So he resolved, for the present, to return to the vessel, and tell his companions what he had seen. This appeared to satisfy the bird. As soon as Ulysses turned back, it ran up the trunk of a tree, and began to pick insects out of the bark with its long, sharp bill; for it was a kind of woodpecker, you must know, and had to get its living in the same manner as other birds of that species. But every little while, as it pecked at the bark of the tree, the purple bird bethought itself of some secret sorrow, and repeated its plaintive note of "Peep, peep, pe-weep!" On his way to the shore, Ulysses had the good luck to kill a large stag by thrusting his spear into its back. Taking it on his shoulders (for he was a remarkably strong man), he lugged it along with him, and flung it down before his hungry compan- ions. I have already hinted to you what gorman- dizers some of the comrades of King Ulysses were. From what is related of them, I reckon that their .vorite diet was pork, and that they had li.ved upon it until a good part of their physical sub- stance was swine's flesh and their tempers and dis- 140 CIRCE'S PALACE. positions were very much akin to the hog. A dish of venison, however, was no unacceptable meal to them, especially after feeding so long on oysters and clams. So, beholding the dead stag, they felt of its ribs in a knowing way, and lost no time in kindling a fire, of drift-wood, to cook it. The rest of the day was spent in feasting; and if these enormous eaters got up from table at sunset, it was only because they could not scrape another morsel off the poor animal's bones. The next morning their appetites were as sharp as ever. They looked at Ulysses, as if they ex- pected him to clamber up the cliff again, and come back with another fat deer upon his shoulders. In- stead of setting out, however, he summoned the whole crew together, and told them it was in vain to hope that he could kill a stag every day for their dinner, and therefore, it was advisable to think of some other mode of satisfying their hunger. "Now," said he, "when I was on the cliff yester- day, I discovered that this island is inhabited. At a considerable distance from the shore stood a marble palace, which appeared to be very spacious, and had a great deal of smoke curling out of one of its chimneys." "Aha!" muttered some of his companions, smack- ing their lips. "That smoke must have come from the kitchen fire. There was a good dinner on the 141. TANGLEWOOD TALES. spit; and no doubt there will be as good a one to- day." "But," continued the wise Ulysses, "you must remember, my good friends, our misadventure in the cavern of one-eyed Polyphemus, the Cyclops! Instead of his ordinary milk diet, did he not eat up two of our comrades for his supper, and a couple more for breakfast, and two at his supper again? Methinks I see him yet, the hideous monster, scan- ning us with that great red eye, in the middle of his forehead, to single out the fattest. And then again only a few days ago, did we not fall into the hands of the king of the Laestrygons, and those other horrible giants, his subjects, who devoured a great many more of us than are now left? To tell you the truth, if we go to yonder palace, there can be no question that we shall make our appearance at the dinner table; but whether seated as guests, or served up as food, is a point to be seriously con- sidered." S"Either way," murmured some of the hungriest of the crew, "it will be better than starvation; particularly if one could be sure of being well fat- tened beforehand, and daintily cooked afterwards." "That is a matter of taste," said King Ulysses, "and, for my own part, neither the most careful fattening nor the daintiest of cookery would recon- cile me to being dished at last. My proposal is, 142 CIRCE'S PALACE. therefore, that we divide ourselves into two equal parties, and ascertain, by drawing lots, which of the two shall go to the palace, and beg for food and assistance. If these can be obtained, all is well. If not, and if the inhabitants prove as inhospitable as Polyphemus, or the Laestrygons, then there will but half of us perish, and the remainder may set sail and escape." As nobody objected to this scheme, Ulysses pro- ceeded to count the whole band, and found that there were forty-six men including himself. He then numbered off twenty-two of them, and put Eurylochus (who was one of his chief officers, and second only to himself in sagacity) at the head. Ulysses took command of the remaining twenty- two men, in person. Then, taking off his helmet, put two shells into it, on one of which was written, "Go," and on the other "Stay." Another person now held the helmet, while Ulysses and Eurylochus drew out each a shell; and the word "Go" was found written on that which Eurylochus had drawn. In this manner, it was decided that Ulysses and his twenty-two men were to remain at the sea- side until the other party should have found out what sort of treatment they might expect at the mysterious palace. As there was no help for it, Eurylochus immediately set forth at the head of his twenty-two followers, who went off in a very 143 TANGLEWOOD TALES. melancholy state of mind, leaving their friends in hardly better spirits than themselves. No sooner had they clambered up the cliff, than they discerned the tall marble towers of the palace, ascending, as white as snow, out of the lovely green shadow of the trees which surrounded it. A gush of smoke came from a chimney in the rear of the edifice. This vapor rose high in the air, and, meet- ing with the breeze, was wafted seaward, and made to pass over the heads of the hungry mariners. When people's appetites are keen, they have a very quick scent for anything savory in the wind. "That smoke comes from the kitchen!" cried one of them, turning up his nose as high as he could, and snuffing eagerly. "And, as sure as I'm a half- starved vagabond, I smell roast meat in it." "Pig, roast pig!" said another. "Ah, the dainty little porker! My mouth waters for him." "Let us make haste," cried the others, "or we shall be too late for the good cheer!" "But scarcely had they made half a dozen steps from the edge of the cliff, when a bird came flutter- ing to meet them. It was the same pretty little bird, with the purple wings and body, the yellow legs, the golden collar round its neck, and the crown-like tuft upon its head, whose behavior had so much surprised Ulysses. It hovered about Eury- lochus, and almost brushed his face with its wings. 144 CIRCE'S PALACE. "Peep, peep, pe-weep!" chirped the bird. So plaintively intelligent was the sound, that it seemed as if the little creature were going to break its heart with some mighty secret that it had to tell, and only this one poor note to tell it with. "My pretty bird," said Eurylochus,-for he was a wary person, and let no token of harm escape his notice,-"my pretty bird, who sent you hither? And what is the message which you bring ?" "Peep, peep, pe-weep!" replied the bird, very sorrowfully. Then it flew towards the edge of the cliff, and looked round at them, as if exceedingly .anxious that they should return whence they came. Eury- lochus and a few of the others were inclined to turn back. They could not help suspecting that the purple, bird must be aware of something mischiev- ous that would befall them at the palace, and the knowledge of which affected its airy spirit with a human sympathy and sorrow. But the rest of the voyagers, snuffing up the smoke from the palace kitchen, ridiculed the idea of returning to the ves- sel. One of them (more brutal than his fellows, and the most notorious gormandizer in the whole crew) said such a cruel and wicked thing, that I wonder the mere thought did not turn him into a wild beast in shape, as he already was in his na- ture. 10 145 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "This troublesome and impertinent little fowl," said he, "would make a delicate titbit to begin din- ner with. Just one plump morsel, melting away between the teeth. If he comes within my reach, I'll catch him, and give him to the palace cook to be roasted on a skewer." The words were hardly out of his mouth, before the purple bird flew away, crying "Peep, peep, pe-- weep," more dolorously than ever. "That bird," remarked Eurylochus, "knows more than we do about what awaits us at the palace." "Come on, then," cried his comrades, "and we'll soon know as much as he does." The party, accordingly, went onward through the green and pleasant wood. Every little while they caught new glimpses of the marble palace, which looked more and more beautiful the nearer they approached it. They soon entered a broad pathway, which seemed to be very neatly kept, and which went winding along with streaks of sunshine falling across it, and specks of light quivering among the deepest shadows that fell from the lofty trees. It was bordered, too, with a great many sweet-smelling flowers such as the mariners had never seen before. So rich and beautiful they were, that, if the shrubs grew wild here, and were native in the soil, then this island was surely the flower- garden of the whole earth; or, if transplanted from 146 CIRCE'S PALACE. some other clime, it must have been from the Happy Islands that lay towards the golden sunset. "There has been a great deal of pains foolishly wasted on these flowers," observed one of the com- pany; and I tell you what he said, that you may keep in mind what gormandizers they were. "For my part, if I were the owner of the palace, I would bid my gardener cultivate nothing but savory potherbs to make a stuffing for roast meat, or to flavor a stew with." "Well said!" cried the others. "But I'll warrant you there's a kitchen-garden in the rear of the pal- ace." At one place they came to a crystal spring, a d paused to drink at it for want of liquor which they liked better. Looking into its bosom, they beheld their own faces dimly reflected, but so extravagant- ly distorted by the gush and motion of the water, that each one of them appeared to be laughing at himself and all his companions. So ridiculous were these images of themselves, indeed, that they did really laugh aloud, and could hardly be grave again as soon as they wished. And after they had drank, they grew still merrier than before. "It has a twang of the wine-cask in it," said one, smacking his lips. "Make haste!" cried his fellows; "we'll find the 147 TANGLEWOOD TALES. wine cask itself at the palace; and that will be bet- ter than a hundred crystal fountains." Then they quickened their pace, and capered for joy at the thought of the savory banquet at which they hoped to be guests. But Eurylochus told them that he felt as if he were walking in a dream. "If I am really awake," continued he, "then, in my opinion, we are on the point of meeting with some stranger adventure than any that befell us in the cave of Polyphemus, or among the gigantic man-eating Laestrygons, or in the windy palace of King Aeolus, which stands on a brazen-walled is- land. This kind of dreamy feeling always comes over me before any wonderful occurrence. If you take my advice, you will turn back." "No, no," answered his comrades, snuffing the air, in which the scent from the palace kitchen was now very perceptible. "We would not turn back, though we were certain that the king of the Laestrygons, as big as a mountain, would sit at the head of the table, and huge Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, at its foot." At length they came within full sight of the palace, which proved to be very large and lofty, with a great number of airy pinnacles upon its roof. Though it was now midday, and the sun shone brightly over the marble front, yet its snowy whiteness, and its fantastic style of architecture, 148 CIRCE'S PALACE. made it look unreal, like the frostwork on a win- dow-pane, or like the shapes of castles which one sees among the clouds by moonlight. But, just then, a puff of wind brought down the smoke of the kitchen chimney among them, and caused each man to smell the odor of the dish that he liked best; and, after scenting it, they thought every- thing else moonshine, and nothing real save this palace, and save the banquet that was evidently ready to be served up in it. So they hastened their steps towards the portal, but had not got half way across the wide lawn, when a pack of lions, tigers, and wolves came bounding to meet them. The terrified mariners started back, expecting no better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured. To their surprise and joy, however, these wild beasts merely capered around them, wagging their tails, offering their heads to be stroked and patted and behaving just like so many well-bred house-dogs, when they wish to express their delight at meeting their master, or their master's friends. The biggest lion licked the feet of Eurylochus; and every other lion, and every wolf and tiger, singled out one of his two-and- twenty followers, whom the beast fondled as if he loved him better than a beef-bone. But, for all that, Eurylochus imagined that he saw something fierce and savage in their eyes; nor 149 TANGLEWOOD TALES. would he have been surprised at any moment, to feel the big lion's terrible claws, or to see each of the tigers make a deadly spring, or each wolf leap at the throat of the man whom he had fondled. Their mildness seemed unreal, and a mere freak; but their savage nature was as true as their teeth and claws. Nevertheless, the men went safely across the lawn with the wild beasts frisking about them, and doing no manner of harm; although, as they mounted the steps of the palace, you might possibly have heard a low growl, particularly from the wolves, as if they thought it a pity, after all, to let the strangers pass without so much as tasting what they were made of. Eurylochus and his followers now passed under a lofty portal and looked through the open door- way into the interior of the palace. The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up' towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash. The water of this fountain, as it spouted upward, was constantly taking new shapes, not very distinctly, but plainly enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they were. Now it was the shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy whiteness of which was made out of the fountain's spray; now it was a lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or an 150 CIRCE'S PALACE. ass, or, as often as anything else, a hog, wallowing in the marble basin, as if it were his sty. It was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the gushing water-spout to assume all these forms. But, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound. A woman's voice was singing melodiously in anoth- er room of the palace, and with her voice was min- gled the noise of a loom, at which she was probably seated, weaving a rich texture of cloth, and inter- twining the high and low sweetness of her voice into a rich tissue of harmony. By and by the song came to an end; and then, all at once, there were several feminine voices talk- ing airily and cheerfully, with now and then a mer- ry burst of laughter, such as you may always hear when three or four young women sit at work to- gether. "What a sweet song that was!" exclaimed one of the voyagers. "Too sweet, indeed," answered Eurylochus, shaking his head. "Yet it was not so sweet as the song of the Sirens, those bird-like damsels who wanted to tempt us on the rocks, so that our ves- sel might be wrecked, and our bones left whiten- ing along the shore." "But just listen to the pleasant voices of those 151 TANGLEWOOD TALES. maidens, and that buzz of the loom, as the shuttle passes to and fro," said another comrade. "What a domestic, household, homelike sound it is! Ah, before that weary siege of Troy I used to hear the buzzing loom and the women's voices under my own roof. Shall I never hear them again, nor taste those nice little savory dishes which my dear- est wife knew how to serve up ?" "Tush! we shall fare better here," said another. "But how innocently those women are babbling together, without guessing that we overhear them! And mark that richest voice of all, so pleasant and familiar, but which yet seems to have the authority of a mistress among them. Let us show ourselves at once. What harm can the lady of the palace and her maidens do to mariners and warriors like us?" "Remember," said Eurylochus, "that it was a young maiden who beguiled three of our friends into the palace of the king of Laestrygons, who ate up one of them in the twinkling of an eye." No warning or persuasion, however, had any ef- fect on his companions. They went up to a pair of folding doors at the farther end of the hall, and throwing them wide' open, passed into the next room. Eurylochus, meanwhile, had stepped behind a pillar. In the short moment while the folding- doors opened and closed again, he caught a glimpse of a very beautiful woman rising from the loom, 152 CIRCE'S PALACE. and coming to meet the poor weather-beaten wan- derers, with a hospitable smile and her hand stretched out in welcome. There were four other young women, who joined their hands and danced merrily forward, making gestures of obeisance to the strangers. They were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to be their mistress. Yet Eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green hair, and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their aspect, although he could not quite determine what it was in the little while that he had to examine them. The folding doors swung quickly back, and left him standing behind the pillar in the solitude of the outer hall. There Eurylochus waited until he was quite weary, and listened eagerly to every sound, but without hearing anything that could help him to guess what had become of his friends. Footsteps, it is true, seemed to be passing and re- passing in other parts of the palace. Then there was a clatter of silver dishes or golden ones, which made him imagine a rich feast in a splendid ban- quettng-hall. But by and by he heard a tremen- dons grunting and squealing, and then a sudden scampering, like that of small, hard hoofs over a turble floor, while the voices of the mistress ana her four handmaidens were screaming altogether 153 TANGLEWOOD TALES. in tones of anger and derision. Eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast. Chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift its shape, as formerly, nor looked either like a long-robed man, or a lion, a tiger, a wolf, or an ass. It looked like nothing but a hog, which lay wallowing in the marble basin, and filled it from brim to brim. But we must leave the prudent Eurylochus wait- ing in the outer hall, and follow his friends into the inner secrecy of the palace. As soon as the beautiful woman saw them, she arose from the loom, as I have told you, and camne forward smiling and stretching out her hand. She took the hand of the foremost among them, and bade him and the whole party welcorhe. "You have been long expected, my good friends," said she. "I and my maidens are well acquainted, with you, although you do not appear to recognize us. Look at this piece of tapestry, and judge if your faces must not have been famil- iar to us." So the voyagers examined the web of cloth whicl the beautiful woman had been weaving in her loom, and, to their vast astonishment, they saw their own figures perfectly represented in different colored threads. It was a life-like picture of their 154 CIRCE'S PALACE. recent adventures, showing them in the cave of Polyphemus, and how they had put out his one great moony eye; while in another part of the tap- estry they were untying leathern bags, puffed out with contrary winds; and further on, they beheld themselves scampering away from the gigantic king of the Laestrygons, who had caught one of them by the leg. Lastly, there they were, sitting on the des- olate shore of this very island, hungry and down- cast, and looking ruefully at the bare bones of the stag which they devoured yesterday. This was as far as the work had yet proceeded; but when the beautiful woman should again sit down at her loom, she would probably make a picture of what had since happened to the strangers and of what was now going to happen. "You see," she said, "that I know all about your troubles; and you cannot doubt that I desire to make you happy for as long a time as you may re- main with me. For this purpose, my honored guests, I have ordered a banquet to be prepared. Fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted, and in luscious stews, and seasoned, I trust, to all your tastes, are ready to be served up. If your appetites tell you it is dinner-time, then come with me to the festal saloon." At this kind invitation, the hungry mariners were quite overjoyed; and one of them, taking 155 TANGLEWOOD TALES. upon himself to be spokesman, assured their hos- pitable hostess that any hour of the day was dinner time with them, whenever they could get flesh to put in the pot, and fire to boil with. So the beau- tiful woman led the way; and the four maidens (one of them had sea-green hair, another a bodice of oak bark, a third sprinkled a shower of water- drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth had some other oddity, wvhich I have forgotten), all these followed behind, and hurried the guests along, until they entered a magnificent saloon. It was built in a perfect oval, and lighted from a crys- tal dome above. Around the walls were ranged two- and-twenty thrones, overhung by canopies of crim- son and gold, and provided with the softest of cush- ions, which were tasselled and fringed with gold cord. Each of the strangers was invited to sit down; and there they were, two-and-twenty storm- beaten mariners, in worn and tattered garb, sitting on two-and-twenty cushioned and canopied thrones, so rich and gorgeous that the proudest monarch had nothing more splendid in his state- liest hall. Then you might have seen the guests nodding, winking with one eye, and leaning from one throne to another, to communicate their satisfaction in hoarse whispers. "Our good aostess has wAde kings of e RE," 156 CIRCE'S PALACE. said one. "Ha! do you smell the feast? I'll en- gage it will be fit to set before two-and-twenty kings." "I hope," said another, "it will be, mainly, good substantial joints, sirloins, spareribs, and hinder quarters, without too many kickshaws. If I thought the good lady would not take it amiss, I should call for a fat slice of fried bacon to begin with." Ah, the gluttons and gormandizers! You see how it was with them. In the loftiest seats of dignity, on royal thrones, they could think of nothing but their greedy appetite, which was the portion of their nature that they shared with wolves and swine; so that they resembled those vilest of ani- mals far more than they did kings-if, indeed, kings were what they ought to be. But the beautiful woman now clapped her hands and immediately there entered a train of two-and- twenty serving-men, bringing dishes of the richest food, all hot from the kitchen fire, and sending up such a steam that it hung like a cloud below the crystal dome of the saloon. An equal number of attendants brought great flagons of wine, of various kinds, some of which sparkled as it was poured out, and went bubbling down the throat; while, of other sorts, the purple liquor was so clear that you could see the wrought figures at the bottom of the goblet. While the servants supplied the two-and-twenty 157 TANGLEWOOD TALES. guests with food and drink, the hostess and her four maidens went from one throne to another ex- horting them to eat their fill, and to quaff wvine abundantly, and thus to recompense themselves, at this one banquet, for the many days when they had gone without a dinner. But, whenever the marin- ers were niot looking at them (which was pretty often, as they looked chiefly into the basins and platters), the beautiful woman and her damsels turned aside and laughed. Even the servants, as they knelt down to present the dishes, might be seen to grin and sneer, while the guests were help- ing themselves to the offered dainties. And, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they did not like. "Here is an odd kind of a spice in this dish," said one. "I can't say it quite suits my palate. Down it goes, however." "Send a good draught of wine down your throat," said his comrade on the next throne. "That is the stuff to make this sort of cookery relish well. Though I must needs say, the wine has a queer taste, too. But the more I drink of it the better I like the flavor." Whatever little fault they might find with the dishes they sat at dinner a prodigiously long while; and it would really have made you ashamed to see how they swilled down the liquor and gobbled up 158 CIRCE'S PALACE. the food. They sat on golden thrones, to be sure; but they behaved like pigs in a sty; and, if they had had their wits about them, they might have guessed that this was the opinion of their beautiful hostess and her maidens. It brings a blush into my face to reckon up, in my own mind, what mountains of meat and pudding, and what gallons of wine, these two-and-twenty guzzlers and gor- mandizers ate and drank. They forgot all about their homes, and their wives and children, and all about Ulysses, and everything else, except this banquet, at which they wanted to keep feasting forever. But at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold any more. "That last bit of fat is too much for me," said one. "And I have not room for another morsel," said his next neighbor, heaving a sigh.' "What a pity! My appetite is as sharp as ever." In short, they all left off eating, and leaned back on their thrones, with such a stupid and helpless aspect as made them ridiculous to behold. When their hostess saw this, she laughed aloud; so did her four damsels; so did the two-and-twenty serv- ing men that bore the dishes, and their two-and- twenty fellows that poured out the wine. And the louder they all laughed, the more stupid and help- less did the two-and-twenty gormandizers look. 159 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Then the beautiful woman took her stand in the middle of the saloon, and stretching out a slender rod (it had been all the while in her hand, although they never noticed it till this moment), she turned it from one guest to another, until each had felt it pointed at himself. Beautiful as her face was, and though there was a smile on it, it looked just as wicked and mischievous as the ugliest serpent that ever was seen; and fat-witted as the voyagers had made themselves, they began to suspect that they had fallen into the power of an evil-minded enchantress. "Wretches," cried she, "you have abused a lady's hospitality; and in this princely saloon your be- havior has been suited to a hogpen. You are al- ready swine in everything but the human form, which you disgrace, and which I myself should be ashamed to keep a moment longer, were you to share it with me. But it will require only the slightest exercise of magic to make the exterior conform to the hoggish disposition. Assume your proper shapes, gormandizers, and begone to the sty!" Uttering these last words, she waved her wand; and stamping her foot imperiously, each of the guests was struck aghast at beholding, instead of his comrades in human shape, one-and-twenty hogs sitting on the same number of golden thrones. Each 160 CIRCE'S PALACE. man (as he still supposed himself to be) essayed to give a cry of surprise, but found that he could merely grunt, and, that, in a word, he was just such another beast as his companions. It looked so in- tolerably absurd to see hogs on cushioned thrones, that they made haste to wallow down upon all fours, like other swine. They tried to groan and beg for mercy, but forthwith emitted the most aw- ful grunting and squealing that ever came out of swinish throats. They would have wrung their hands in despair, but, attempting to do so, grew all the more desperate for seeing themselves squatted on their hams, and pawing the air with their fore trotters. Dear me! what pendulous ears they had! what little red eyes, half buried in fat! and what long snouts, instead of Grecian noses! But brutes as they certainly were, they yet had enough of human nature in them to be shocked at their own hideousness; and, still intending to groan, they uttered a viler grunt and squeal than before. So harsh and ear-piercing it was that you would have fancied a butcher was sticking his knife into each of their throats, or, at the very least, that somebody was pulling every hog by his funny little twist of a tail. "Begone to your sty!" cried the enchantress, giv- ing them some smart strokes with her wand; and then she turned to the serving-men, "Drive ou 11 161 TANGLEWOOD TALES. these swine, and throw down some acorns for them to eat." The door of the saloon being flung open, the drove of hogs ran in all directions save the right one, in accordance with their hoggish perversity, but were finally driven into the back yard of the palace. It was a sight to bring tears into one's eyes (and I hope none of you will be cruel enough to laugh at it), to see the poor creatures go snuffing along, picking up here a cabbage leaf and there a turnip-top, and rooting their noses in the earth for whatever they could find. In their sty, more- over, they behaved more piggishly than the pigs that had been born so; for they bit and snorted at one another, put their feet in the trough, and gob- bled up their victuals in a ridiculous hurry; and, when there was nothing more to be had, they made a great pile of themselves among some unclean straw, and fell fast asleep. If they had any human reason left, it was just enough to keep them wond- ering when they should be slaughtered, and what quality of bacon they should make. Meantime, as I told you before, Eurylochus had waited, and waited, and waited, in the entrance- hall of the palace, without being able to compre- hend what had befallen his friends. At last, when the swinish uproar resounded through the palace, and when he saw the image of a hog in the marble 162 CIRCE'S PALACE. basin, he thought it best to hasten back to the ves- sel, and inform the wise Ulysses of these marvellous occurrences. So he ran as fast as le could down the steps, and never stopped to draw breath till he reached the shore. "Why do you come alone?" asked King Ulysses, as soon as he saw him. "Where are your two-and- twenty comrades?" At these questions, Eurylochus burst into tears. "Alas!" cried he, "I greatly fear that we shall never see one of their faces again." Then he told Ulysses all that had happened, as far as he knew it, and added that he suspected the beautiful woman to be a vile enchantress, and the marble palace, magnificent as it looked, to be only a dismal cavern in reality. As for his companions, he could not imagine what had become of them, unless they had been given to the swine to be de- voured alive. At this intelligence all the voyagers were greatly afftrighted. But Ulysses lost no time in girding on his sword, and hanging his bow and quiver over his shoulders, and taking a spear in his right hand. When his followers saw their wise leader making these preparations, they inquired whither he was going, and earnestly besought him not to leave them. "You are our king," cried they; "and what is more, you are the wisest man in the whole world, 163 TANGLEWOOD TALES. and nothing but your wisdom and courage can get us out of this danger. If you desert us, and go to the enchanted palace, you will suffer the same fate as our poor companions, and not a soul of us will ever see our dear Ithaca again." "As I am your king," answered Ulysses, "and wiser than any of you, it is therefore the more my duty to see what has befallen our comrades, and whether anything can yet be done to rescue them. Wait for me here until to-morrow. If I do not then return, you must hoist sail, and endeavor to find your way to our native land. For my part, I am answerable for the fate of these poor mariners, who have stood by my side in battle, and been so often drenched to the skin, along with me, by the same tempestuous surges. I will either bring them back with me or perish." Had his followers dared, they would have de- tained him by force. But King Ulysses frowned sternly on them, and shook his spear, and bade them stop him at their peril. Seeing him so deter- mined, they let him go, and sat down on the sand, as disconsolate a set of people as could be, waiting and praying for his return. It happened to Ulysses, just as before, that, when he had gone a few steps from the edge of the cliff, the purple bird came fluttering towards him, cry- ing, "Peep, peep, pe-weep!" and using all the art 164 CIRCE'S PALACE. it could to persuade him to go no farther. "What mean you, little bird?" cried Ulysses. "You are arrayed like a king in purple and gold, and wear a golden crown upon your head. Is it be- cause I too am a king, that you desire so earnestly to speak with me? If you can talk in human lan- guage, say what you would have me do." "Peep!" answered the purple bird, very dolor- ously. "Peep, peep, pe-we ep!" Certainly there lay some heavy anguish at the little bird's heart, and it was a sorrowful predica- ment that he could not, at least, have the consola- tion of telling what it was. But Ulysses had no time to waste in trying to get at the mystery. He therefore quickened his pace, and had gone a good way along the pleasant wood-path, when there met him a young man of very brisk and intelligent aspect, and clad in a rather singular garb. He wore a short cloak, and a sort of cap that seemed to be furnished with a pair of wings; and from the light- ness of his step, you would have supposed that there might likewise be wings on his feet. To enable him to walk still better (for he was always on one journey or another), he carried a winged staff, around which two serpents were wriggling and twisting. In short, I have said enough to make you guess that it was Quicksilver; and Ulysses (who knew him of old, and had learned a great deal of 165 TANGLEWOOD TALES. his wisdom from him) recognized him in a mo- ment. "Whither are you going in such a hurry, wise Ulysses?" asked Quicksilver. "Do you not know that this island is enchanted? The wicked enchan- tress (whose name is Circe, the sister of King Aetes) dwells in the marble palace which you see yonder among the trees. By her magic arts, she changes every human being into the brute, beast, or fowl whom he happens most to resemble." "That little bird, which met me at the edge of the cliff," exclaimed Ulysses; "was he a human be- ing once?" "Yes," answered Quicksilver. "He was once a king, named Picus, and a pretty good sort of a king too, only rather too proud of his purple robe, and his crown, and the golden chain about his neck; so he was forced to take the shape of a gaudy- feathered bird. The lions, and wolves, and tigers, who will come running to meet you, in front of the palace, were formerly fierce and cruel men, resem- bling in their dispositions the wild beasts whose forms they now rightfully wear." "And my poor companions," said Ulysses, "have they undergone a similar change, through the arts of this wicked Circe?" "You well know what gormandizers they were," replied Quicksilver; and, rogue that he was, he 166 CIRCE'S PALACE. could not help laughing at the joke. "So you will not be surprised to hear that they have all taken the shapes of swine! If Circe had never done any- thing worse, I really should not think her so very much to blame." "But can I do nothing to help them?" inquired Ulysses. "It will require all your wisdom," said Quick- silver, "and a little of my own into the bargain, to keep your royal and sagacious self from being transformed into a fox. But do as I bid you; and the matter may end better than it has begun." While he was speaking, Quicksilver seemed to be in search of something; he went stooping along the ground, and soon laid his hand on a little plant with a snow-white flower, which he plucked and smelt of. Ulysses had been looking at that very spot only just before; and it appeared to him that the plant had burst into full flower the instant when Quicksilver touched it with his fingers. "Take this flower, King Ulysses," said he. "Guard it as you do your eyesight; for I can assure you it is exceeding rare and precious, and you might seek the whole earth over without ever finding an- other like it. Keep it in your hand, and smell of it frequently after you enter the palace, and while you are talking with the enchantress. Especially when she offers you food, or a draught of wine 167 TANGLEWOOD TALES. out of her goblet, be careful to fill your nostrils with the flower's fragrance. Follow these directions, and you may defy her magic arts to change you into a fox." Quicksilver then gave him some further advice how to behave, and, bidding him be bold and pru- dent, again assured him that, powerful as Circe was, he would have a fair prospect of coming safely out of her enchanted palace. After listening atten- tively, Ulysses thanked his good friend, and re- sumed his way. But he had taken only a few steps, when, recollecting some other questions which he wished to ask, he turned around again, and beh:ld nobody on the spot where Quicksilver had stood; for that winged cap of his, and those winged shoes, with the help of the winged staff, had carried him quickly out of sight. When Ulysses reached the lawn, in front of the palace, the lions and other savage animals came bounding to meet him, and would have fawned upon him and licked his feet. But the wise king struck at them with his long spear, and sternly bade them begone out of his path; for he knew that they had once been bloodthirsty men, and would now tear him limb from limb, instead of fawning upon him, could they do the mischief that was in their hearts. The wild beasts yelped and 168 CIRCE'S PALACE. glared at him, and stood at a distance while he as- conded the palace steps. On entering the hall, Ulysses saw the magic fountain in the centre of it. The up gushing water had now again taken the shape of a man in a long, white, fleecy robe, who appeared to be making ges- tures of welcome. The king likewise heard the noise of the shuttle in the loom, and the sweet melody of the beautiful woman's song, and then the pleasant voices of herself and the four maidens talking together, with peals of merry laughter in- termixed. But Ulysses did not waste much time in listening to the laughter or the song. He leaned his spear against one of the pillars of the hall, and then, after loosening his sword in the scabbard, stepped boldly forward, and threw the folding-doors wide open. The moment she beheld his stately figure standing in the doorway, the beautiful wo- man rose from the loom, and ran to meet him with a glad smile throwing its sunshine over her face, and both her hands extended. "Welcome, brave stranger!" cried she. "We were expecting you." And the nymph with the sea-green hair made a courtesy down to the ground, and likewise bade him welcome; so did her sister with the bodice of oaken bark, and she that sprinkled dew-drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth one with some 169 TANGLEWOOD TALES. oddity which I cannot remember. And Circe, as the beautiful enchantress was called (who had de- luded so many persons that she did not doubt of being able to delude Ulysses, not imagining how wise he was), again addressed him. "Your companions," said she, "have already been received into my palace, and have enjoyed the hospitable treatment to which the propriety of their behavior so well entitled them. If such be your pleasure, you shall first take some refresh- ment, and then join them in the elegant apart- ment which they now occupy. See, I and my maidens have been weaving their figures into this piece of tapestry." She pointed to the web of beautifully woven cloth in the loom. Circe and the four nymphs must have been very diligently at work since the arrival of the mariners; for a great many yards of tapestry had now been wrought, in addition to what I before described. In this new part, Ulysses saw his two- and-twenty friends represented as sitting on cush- ioned and canopied thrones, greedily devouring dainties and quaffing deep draughts of wine. The work had not yet gone any further. Oh no, in- deed. The enchantress was far too cunning to let Ulysses see the mischief which her magic arts had since brought upon the gormandizers. "As for yourself, valiant sir," said Circe, "judg 170 CIRCE'S PALACE. ing by the dignity of your aspect, I take you to be nothing less than a king. Deign to follow me, and you shall be treated as befits your rank." So Ulysses followed her into the oval saloon, where his two-and-twenty comrades had devoured the banquet, which ended so disastrously for them- selves. But, all this while, he had held the snow- white flower in his hand, and had occasionally smelt of it while Circe was speaking; and as he crossed the threshold of the saloon, he took good care to inhale several long and deep snuffs of its fragrance. Instead of two-and-twenty thrones, which had before been ranged around the wall, there was now only a single throne in the centre of the apartment. But this was surely the most magnificent seat that ever a king or an emperor re- posed himself upon, all made of chased gold, stud- ded with precious stones, with a cushion that looked like a soft heap of living roses, and over- hung by a canopy of sunlight, which Circe knew how to weave into drapery. The enchantress took Ulysses by the hand, and made him sit down upon this dazzling throne. Then, clapping her hands, she summoned the chief butler. "Bring hither," said she, "the goblet that is set apart for kings to drink out of. And fill it with the same delicious wine which my royal brother, King Aetes, praised so highly, when he last visited 171 TANGLEWOOD TALES. me with my fair daughter Medea. That good and amiable child! Were she now here, it would de- light her to see me offering this wine to my hon- ored guest." But Ulysses, while the butler was gone for the wine, held the snow-white flower to his nose. "Is it a wholesome wine?" he asked. At this the four maidens tittered; whereupon the enchantress looked round at them, with an as- pect of severity. "It is the wholesomest juice that ever was squeezed out of the grape," said she; "for, instead of disguising a man, as other liquor is apt to do, it brings him to his true self, and shows him as lihe ought to be." The chief butler liked nothing better than to see people turned into swine, or making any kind of a beast of themselves; so he made haste to bring the royal goblet, ,filled with a liquid as bright as gold, and which kept sparkling upward and throwing a sunny spray over the brim. But, delightful as the wine looked, it was mingled with the most potent enchantments that Circe knew how to concoct. For every drop of the pure grape-juice there were two drops of the pure mischief; and the danger of the thing was, that the mischief made it taste all the better. The mere smell of the bubbles, which effer- vesced at the brim, was enough to turn a man's 172 CIRCE'S PALACE. beard into pig's bristles, or make a lion's claws grow out of his fingers, or a fox's brush behind him. "Drink, my noble guest," said Circe, smiling as 'she presented him with the goblet. "You will find in this draught a solace for all your troubles." King Ulysses took the goblet with his right hand, while with his left he held the snow-white flower to his nostrils, and drew in so long a breath that his lungs were quite filled with its pure and simple fragrance. Then, drinking off all the wine, he looked the enchantress. calmly in the face. "Wretch," cried Circe, giving him a smart stroke with her wand, "how dare you keep your human shape a moment longer? Take the form of the brute whom you most resemble. If a hog, go join your fellow-swine in the sty; if a lion, a wolf, a tiger, go howl with the wild beasts on the lawn; if a fox, go exercise your craft in stealing poultry. Thou hast quaffed off my wine, and canst be man no longer." But, such was the virtue of the snow-white flower, instead of wallowing down from his throne in swinish shape, or taking any other brutal form, Ulysses looked even more manly and king-like than before. He gave the magic goblet a toss, and sent it clashing over the marble floor, to the furthest end of the saloon. Then, drawing his sword, he 173 TANGLEWOOD TALES. seized the enchantress by her beautiful ringlets, and made a gesture as if he meant to strike off her head at one blow. "Wicked Circe," cried he, in a terrible voice; "this sword shall put an end to thy enchantments. Thou shalt die, vile wretch, and do no more mis- chief in the world, by tempting human beings into the vices which make beasts of them." The tone and countenance of Ulysses were so awful, and his sword gleamed so brightly, and seemed to have so intolerably keen an edge, that Circe was almost killed by the mere fright, without waiting for a blow. The chief butler scrambled out of the saloon, picking up the golden goblet as he went; and the enchantress and the four maidens fell on their knees, wringing their hands, and screaming for mercy. "Spare me!" cried Circe, -"spare me, royal and wise Ulysses. For now I know that thou art he of whom Quicksilver forewarned me, the most prudent of mortals, against whom no enchantments can pre- vail. Thou only couldst have conquered Circe. Spare me, wisest of men. I will show thee true hospitality, and even give myself to be thy slave, and this magnificent palace to be henceforth thy home." The four nymphs, meanwhile, were making a most piteous ado; and especially the ocean-nymph, 174 CIRCE'S PALACE. with the sea-green hair, wept a great deal of salt water, and the fountain-nymph, besides scattering dew-drops from her fingers' ends, nearly melted away into tears. But Ulysses would not be pacified until Circe had taken a solemn oath to change back his companions, and as many others as he should direct, from their present forms of beast or bird into their former shapes of men. "On these conditions," said he, "I consent to spare your life. Otherwise you must die upon the spot." With a drawn sword hanging over her, the en- chantress would readily have consented to do as much good as she had hitherto done mischief, how- ever little she might like such employment. She therefore led Ulysses out of the back entrance of the palace, and showed him the swine in their sty. There were about fifty of these unclean beasts in the whole herd; and though the greater part were hogs by birth and education, there was wonderfully little difference to be seen betwixt them and their new brethren who had so recently worn the human shape. To speak critically, indeed, the latter rather carried the thing to excess, and seemed to make it a point to wallow in the miriest part of the sty, and otherwise to outdo the original swine in their own natural vocation. When men once turn to 175 TANGLEWOOD TALES. brutes, the trifle of man's wit that remains in them adds tenfold to their brutality. The comrades of Ulysses, however, had not quite lost the remembrance of having formerly stood erect. When he approached the sty, two-and- twenty enormous swine separated themselves from the herd and scampered towards him, with such a chorus of horrible squealing as made him clap both hands to his ears. And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry, or miserable from some other cause. It was curious, in the midst of their distress, to ob- serve them thrusting their noses into the mire, in quest of something to eat. The nymph with the bodice of oaken bark (she was the hamadryad of an oak) threw a handful of acorns among them; and the two-and-twenty hogs scrambled and fought for the prize, as if they had tasted not so much as a noggin of sour milk for a twelvemonth. "These must certainly be my commrades," said Ulysses. "I recognize their dispositions. They are hardly worth the trouble of changing them into the human form again. Nevertheless, we will have it done, lest their bad example should corrupt btho other hogs. Let them take their original shapes, therefore, Dame Circe, if your skill is equal to the task. It will require greater magic, I trow, than it did to make swine of them." 176 CIRCE'S PALACE. So Circe waved her wand again, and repeated a few magic words, at the sound of which the two- and-twenty hogs pricked up their pendulous ears. It was a wonder to behold how their snouts grew shorter and shorter, and their mouths( vWhich they seemed to be sorry for, because they could not gobble so expeditiously) smaller and smaller, and how one and another began to stand upon his hind legs, and scratch his nose, with his fore trotters. At first the spectators hardly knew whether to call them hogs or men, but by and by came to the con- clusion that they rather resembled the latter. Fin- ally, there stood the twenty-two comrades of Ulysses, looking pretty much the same as when they left the vessel. You must not imagine, however, that the swin- ish quality had entirely gone out of them. When once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very difficult getting rid of it. This was proved by the hamadryad, who, being exceedingly fond of mischief, threw another handful of acorns before the twenty-two newly restored people; whereupon down they wallowed, in a moment, and gobbled them up in a very shameful way. Then, recollect- ing themselves, they scrambled to their feet, and looked more than commonly foolish. "Thanks, noble Ulysses" they cried. "From 12 .177 TANGLEWOOD TALES. brute beasts you have restored us to the condition of men again." "Do not put yourselves to the trouble of thanking me," said the wise king. "I fear I have done but little for you." To say the truth, there was a suspicious kind of a grunt in their voices, and for a long time after- wards they spoke gruffly, and were apt to set up a squeal. "It must depend on your own future behavior," added Ulysses, "whether you do not find your way back to the sty." At this moment the note of a bird sounded from the branch of a neighboring tree. "Peep, peep, pe-wee-ep!" It was the purple bird, who, all this while, had been sitting over their heads, watching what was going forward, and hoping that Ulysses would re- member how he had done his utmost to keep him and his followers out of harm's way. Ulysses or- dered Circe instantly to make a king of this good little fowl, and leave him exactly as she found him. Hardly were the words spoken, and before the bird had time to utter another "Pe-weep," King Picus leaped down from the bough of the tree, as majestic a sovereign as any in the world, dressed in a long purple robe and gorgeous yellow stockings, with a splendidly wrought collar about his neck, and a 178 CIRCE'S PALACE. golden crown upon his head. He and King Ulysses exchanged with one another the courtesies which belong to their elevated rank. But from that time forth, King Picus was no longer proud of his crown and his trappings of royalty, nor of the fact of his being a king, he felt himself merely the upper servant of his people, and that it must be his life- long labor to make them better and happier. As for the lions, tigers, and wolves (though Circe would have restored them to their former shapes at his slightest word), Ulysses thought it advisable that they should remain as they now were, and thus give warning of their cruel dispositions, in- stead of going about under the guise of men, and pretending to human sympathies, while their hearts had the bloodthirstiness of wild beasts. So he let them howl as much as they liked, but never troubled his head about them. And when every- thing was settled according to his pleasure, he sent to summon the remainder of his comrades, whom he had left at the sea-shore. These being arrived, with the prudent Eurylochus at their head, they all made themselves comfortable in Circe's enchanted palace, until quite rested and refreshed from the toils and hardships of their voyage. 179 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS Mother Ceres was exceedingly fond of her daughter Proserpina, and seldom let her go alone into the fields. But, just at the time when my story begins, the good lady was very busy, because she had the care of the wheat, and the Indian corn, and the rye and barley, and, in short, of the crops of every kind, all over the earth; and as the season had thus far been uncommonly backward, it was necessary to make the harvest ripen more speedily than usual. So she put on her turban, made of poppies (a kind of flower which she was always noted for wearing), and got into her car, drawn by a pair of winged dragons, and was just ready to set off. "Dear mother," said Proserpina, "I shall be very lonely while you are away. May I not run down to the shore, and ask some of the sea-nymphs to come up out of the waves and play with me?" "Yes, child," answered Mother Ceres. "The sea- nymphs are good creatures, and will never lead you into any harm. But you must take care not to stray 180 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. away from them, nor go wandering about the fields by yourself. Young girls, without their mothers to take care of them, are very apt to get into mis- chief." The child promised to be as prudent as if she were a gr own-up woman, and, by the time the winged dragons had whirled the car out of sight, she was already on the shore, calling to the sea- nymphs to come and play with her. They knew Proserpina's voice, and were not long in showing their glistening faces and sea-green hair above the water, at the bottom of which was their home. They brought along with them a great many beau- tiful shells; and, sitting down on the moist sand, where the surf wave broke over them, they busied themselves in making a necklace, which they hung around Proserpina's neck. By way of showing her gratitude, the child besought them to go with her a little way into the fields, so that they might gather abundance of flowers, with which she would make each of her kind playmates a wreath. "Oh no, dear Proserpina," cried the sea-nymphs; "we dare not go with you upon the dry land. We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. And don't you see how careful we are to let the surf wave break over us every moment or two, so as to keep ourselves comfortably moist? If it were not for 181 TANGLEWOOD TALES. that, we should soon look like bunches of uprooted sea-weed dried in the sun." "It is a great pity," said Proserpina. "But do you wait for me here, and I will run and gather my apron full of flowers, and be back again before the surf wave has broken ten times over you. I long to make you some wreaths that shall be as lovely as this necklace of many-colored shells." "We will wait, then," answered the sea-nymphs. "But while you are gone, we may as well lie down on a bank of soft sponge, under the water. The air to-day is a little too dry for our comfort. But we will pop up our heads every few minutes to see if you are coming." The young Proserpina ran quickly to a spot where, only the day before, she had seen a great many flowers. These, however, were now a little past their bloom; and wishing to give her friends the freshest and loveliest blossoms, she strayed farther into the fields, and found some that made her scream with delight. Never had she met with such exquisite flowers before,-violets, so large and fragrant, roses with so rich and delicate a blush,-such superb hyacinths and such aromatic pinks,-and many others, some of which seemed to be of new shapes and colors. Two or three times, moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of most splendid flowers had suddenly sprouted out 182 THI1 POMJEGRANATE SIE1DS. 18 of the earth before her very eyes, as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther. Proserpina's apron was soon filled and brimming over with delightful blossoms. She was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea-nymphs, and sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths together. But, a little farther on, what should she behold? It was a large shrub, completely covered with the most magnificent flowers in the world. "The darlings!" cried Proserpina; and then she thought to herself, "I was looking at that spot only a moment ago. How strange it is that I did not see the flowers!" The nearer she approached the shrub, the more attractive it looked, until she came quite close to it; and then, although its beauty was richer than words can tell, she hardly knew whether to like it or not. It bore above a hundred flowers of the most brilliant hues, and each different from the others, but all having a kind of resemblance among themselves, which showed them to be sister blos- soms. But there was a deep, glossy lustre on the leaves of the shrub, and on the petals of the flow- ers, that made Proserpina doubt whether they might not be poisonous. To tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and run away. "What a silly child I am!" thought she, taking 183 TANGLEWOOD TALES. courage. "It is really the most beautiful shrub that ever sprang out of the earth. I will pull it up by the roots, and carry it home, and plant it in my mother's garden." Holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, Proserpina seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled and pulled, but was hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots. What a deep- rooted plant it was! Again the girl pulled with all her might, and observed that the earth began to stir and crack to some distance around the stem. She gave another pull, but relaxed her hold, fancy- ing that there was a rumbling sound right be- neath her feet. Did the roots extend down into some enchanted cavern? Then, laughing at her- self for so childish a notion, she made another effort; up came the shrub, and Proserpina stag- gered back, holding the stem triumphantly in hei hand, and gazing at the deep hole which its rootd had left in the soil. Much to her astonishment, this hole kept spread- ing wider and wider, and growing deeper and deeper, until it really seemed to have no bottom; and all the while, there came a rumbling noise out of its depths, louder and louder, and nearer and nearer, and sounding like the tramp of horses' hoofs, and the rattling of wheels. Too much frightened to run away, she stood straining her eyes into this wond- 184 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. erful cavity, and soon saw a team of four sable horses, snorting smoke out of their nostrils, and tearing their way out of the earth with a splendid golden chariot whirling at their heels. They leaped out of the bottomless hole, chariot and all; and there they were, tossing their black manes, flour- ishing their black tails, and curvetting with every one of their hoofs off the ground at once, close by the spot where Proserpina stood. In the chariot sat the figure of a man, richly dressed, with a crown on his head, all flaming with diamonds. He was of a noble aspect, and rather handsome, but looked sullen and discontented; and he kept rubbing his eyes and shading them with his hand, as if he did not live enough in the sunshine to be very fond of its light. As soon as this personage saw the affrighted Pro- serpina, he beckoned her to come a little nearer. "Do not be afraid," said he, with as cheerful a smile as he knew how to put on. "Come! Will not you like to ride a little way with me, in my beautiful chariot ?" But Proserpina was so alarmed, that she wished for nothing but to get out of his reach. And no wonder. The stranger did not look remarkably good natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice, its tones were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the rumbling of an earthquake under 185 TANGLEWOOD TALES. ground as anything else. As is always the case with children in trouble, Proserpina's first thought was to call for her mother. "Mother, Mother Ceres!" cried she, all in a trem- ble. "Come quickly and save me." But her voice was too faint for her mother to hear. Indeed, it, is most probable that Ceres was then a thousand .miles off, making the corn grow in some far-distant country. Nor could it have availed her poor daughter, even had she been with- in hearing; for no sooner did Proserpina begin to cry out, than the stranger leaped to the ground, caught the child in his arms, and again mounting the chariot, shook the reins, and shouted to the four black horses to set off. They immediately broke into so swift a gallop that it seemed rather like flying through the air than running along the earth. In a moment, Proserpina lost sight of the pleasant vale of Enna, in which she had always dwelt. Another instant, and even the summit of Mount Aetna had become so blue in the distance, that she could scarcely distinguish it from the smoke that gushed out of its crater. But still the poor child screamed, and scattered her apron full of flowers along the way, and left a long cry trail- ihg behind the chariot; and many mothers, to whose ears it came, ran quickly to see if any mis- chief had befallen their children. But Mother 186 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. Ceres was a great way off, and could not hear the cry. As they rode on, the stranger did his best to soothe her. "Why should you be so frightened, my pretty child?" said he, trying to soften his rough voice. "I promise not to do you any harm. What! You have been gathering flowers? Wait till we come to my palace, and I will give you a garden full of prettier flowers than those, all made of pearls, and diamonds, and rubies. Can you guess who I am? They call my name Pluto, and I am the king of diamonds and all other precious stones. Every atom of the gold and silver that lies under the earth belongs to me, to say nothing of the copper and iron, and of the coal-mines, which supply me with abundance of fuel. Do you see this splendid crown upon my head? You may have it for a plaything. Oh, we shall be very good friends, and you will find me more agreeable than you expect, when once we get out of this troublesome sun- shine." "Let me go home!" cried Proserpina,-"let me go home!" "My home is better than your mother's," an- swered King Pluto. "It is a palace, all made of gold, with crystal windows; and because there is little or no sunshine thereabouts, the apartments 187 TANGLEWOOD TALES. are illuminated with diamond lamps. You never saw anything half so magnificent as my throne. If you like, you may sit down on it, and be my little queen, and I will sit on the footstool." "I don't care for golden palaces and thrones," sobbed Proserpina. "Oh, my mother, my mother! Carry me back to my mother!" But King Pluto, as he called himself, only shouted to his steeds to go faster. "Pray do not be foolish, Proserpina," said he, in rather a sullen tone. "I offer you my palace and my crown, and all the riches that are under the earth; and you treat me as if I were doing you an injury. The one thing which my palace needs is a merry little maid, to run up stairs and down, and cheer up the rooms with her smile. And this is what you must do for King Pluto." "Never!" answered Proserpina, looking as mis- erable as she could. "I shall never smile again till you set me down at my mother's door." But she might just as well have talked to the wind that whistled past them; for Pluto urged on his horses, and went faster than ever. Proserpina continued to cry out, and screamed so long and so loudly, that her poor little voice was almost screamed away; and when it was nothing but a whisper, she happened to cast her eyes over a great, broad field of waving grain-and whom do you 188 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. think she saw? Who, but Mother Ceres, making the corn grow, and too busy to notice the golden chariot as it went rattling along. The child must- ered all her strength, and gave one more scream, but was out of sight before Ceres had time to turn her head. King Pluto had taken a road which now began to grow excessively gloomy. It was bordered on each side with rocks and precipices, between which the rumbling of the chariot-wheels was reverber- ated with a noise like rolling thunder. The trees and bushes that grew in the crevices of the rocks had very dismil foliage; and by and by, although it was hardly noon, the air became obscured with a gray twilight. The black horses had rushed along so swiftly, that they were already beyond the limits of the sunshine. But the duskier it grew, the more did Pluto's visage assume an air of satisfaction. After all, he was not an ill-looking person, espec- ially when he left off twisting his features into a smile that did not belong to them. Proserpina peeped at his face through the gathering dusk, and hoped that he might not be so very wicked as she at first thought him. "Ah, this twilight is truly refreshing," said King Pluto, "after being so tormented with that ugly and impertinent glare of the sun. How much more agreeable is lamplight or torchlight, more par- 189 TANGLEWOOD TALES. ticularly when reflected from diamonds! It will be a magnificent sight when we get to my palace." "Is it much farther?" asked Proserpina. "And will you carry me back when I have seen it ?" "We will talk of that by and by," answered Pluto. "We are just entering my dominions. Do you see that tall gateway before us? When we pass those gates, we are at home. And there lies my faithful mastiff at the threshold. Cerberus! Cer- berus! Come hither, my good dog!" So saying, Pluto pulled at the reins, and stopped the chariot right between the tall, massive pillars of the gateway. The mastiff of which he had spoken got up from the threshold, and stood on his hinder legs, so as to put his fore paws on the chariot-wheel. But, my stars, what a strange dog it was! Why, he was a big, rough, ugly-looking monster, with three separate heads, and each of them fiercer than the two others; but, fierce as they were, King Pluto patted them all. He seemed as fond of -his three-headed dog as if it had been a sweet little spaniel, with silken ears and curly hair. Cerberus, on the other hand, was evidently re- joiced to see his master, and expressed his attach- ment, as other dogs do, by wagging his tail at a great rate. Proserpina's eyes being drawn to it by its brisk motion, she saw that this tail was neither more nor less than a live dragon, with fiery eyes, 190 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. and fangs that had a very poisonous aspect. And while the three-headed Cerberus was fawning so lovingly on King Pluto, there was the dragon tail wagging against its will, and looking as cross and ill-natured as you can imagine, on its own separate account. "Will the dog bite me?" asked Proserpina, shrinking closer to Pluto. 'What an ugly creature he is!" "Oh, never fear," answered her companion. "Hie never harms people, unless they try to enter my dominions without being sent for, or to get away when I wish to keep them here. Down, Cerberus! Now, my pretty Proserpina, we will drive on." On went the chariot, and King Pluto seemed greatly pleased to find himself. once more in his own kingdom. He drew Proserpina's attention to the rich veins of gold that were to be seen among the rocks, and pointed to several places where one stroke of a pick-axe would loosen a bushel of dia- monds. All along the road, indeed, there were sparkling gems, which would have been of inestimni- able value above ground, but which were here reckoned of the meaner sort, and hardly worth a beggar's stooping for. Not far from the gateway, they came to a bridge, which seemed to be built of iron. Pluto stopped th chariot, and bade Proserpina look at the stream 191 TANGLEWOOD TALES. which was gliding so lazily beneath it. Never in her life had she beheld so torpid, so black, so mud- dy-looking a stream; its waters reflected no images of anything that was on the banks, and it moved as sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to flow, and had rather stagnate than flow either one way or the other. "This is the river Lethe," observed King PIlato. "Is it not a very pleasant stream?" "I think it a very dismal one," said Proserpina. "It suits lny taste, however," answered Pluto, who was apt to be sullen when anybody disagreed with him. "At all events, its water has one very excel- lent quality; for a single draught of it makes peo- ple forget every care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented them. Only sip a little of it, my dear Proserpina, and you will instantly cease to grieve for your mother, and will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your being perfectly happy in my palace. I will send for some, in a golden goblet, the moment we arrive." "Oh, no, no, no!" cried Proserpina, weeping afresh. "I had a thousand times rather be miser- able with remembering my mother, than be happy in forgetting her. That dear, dear mother! I never, never will forget her." "We shall see," said King Pluto. "You do not know what fie times we will have in my palace. 192 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. Here we are just at the portal. These pillars are solid gold, I assure you." He alighted from the chariot, and taking Proser- pina in his arms, carried her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the palace. It was splen- didly illuminated by means of large precious stones, of various hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps, and glowed with a hundred-fold ra- diance all through the vast apartment. And yet there was a kind of gloom in the midst of this en- chanted light; nor was there a single object in the hall that was really agreeable to behold, except the little Proserpina herself, a lovely child, with one earthly flower which she had not let fall from her hand. It is my opinion that even King Pluto had never been happy in his palace, and that this was the true reason why he had stolen away Proserpina, in order that he might have something to love, in- stead of cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome magnificence. And, though he pretended to dislike the sunshine of the upper world, yet the effect of the child's presence, bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery sunbeam had somehow or other found its way into the en- chanted hall. Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and, above all things, not to fail of setting 13 193 TANGLEWOOD TALES. a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by Proser- pina's plate. "I will neither drink that nor anything else," said Proserpina. "Nor will I taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your palace." "I should be sorry for that," replied King Pluto, patting her cheek; for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how. "You are a spoiled child, I perceive, my little Proserpina; but when you see the nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will quickly come again." Then, sending for the head cook, he gave strict orders that all sorts of delicacies, such as young people are usually fond of, should be set before Proserpina. He had a secret motive in this; for, you are to understand, it is a fixed law, that, when persons are carried off to the land of magic, if they once taste any food there, they can never get back to their friends. Now, if King Pluto had been cunning enough to offer Proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk (which was the simple fare to which the child had always been accustomed), it is very probable that she would soon have been tempted to eat it. But he left the matter entirely to his cook, who, like all other cooks, considered nothing fit to eat unless it were rich pastry, or highly sea- soned meat, or spiced sweet cakes,-things which Proserpina's mother had never given her, and the 194 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. smell of which quite took away her appetite instead of sharpening it. But my story must now clamber out of King Pluto's dominions, and see what Mother Ceres has been about, since she was bereft of her daughter. We had a glimpse of her, as you remember, half hidden among the waving grain, while the four black steeds were swiftly whirling along the chariot in which her beloved Proserpina was so unwillingly borne away. You recollect, too, the loud scream which Proserpina gave, just when the chariot was out of sight. Of all the child's outeries, this last shriek was the only one that reached the ears of Mother Ceres. She had mistaken the rumbling of the chariot wheels for a peal of thunder, and imagined that a shower was coming up, and that it would assist her in making the corn grow. But, at the sound of Proserpina's shriek, she started, and looked about in ever direction, not knowing whence it came, but feeling almost certain that it was her daughter's voice. It seemed so unaccountable, however, that the girl should have strayed over so many lands and seas (which she herself could not have trav- ersed without the aid of her winged dragons), that the good Ceres tried to believe that it must be the child of some other parent, and not her own darl- ing Proserpina, who had uttered this lamentable 195 TANGLEWOOD TALES. cry. Nevertheless, it troubled her with a vast many tender fears, such as are ready to bestir themselves in every mother's heart, when she finds it neces- sary to go away from her dear children without leaving them under the care of some maiden aunt or other such faithful guardian. So she quickly left the field in which she had been so busy; and, as her work was not half done, the grain looked, next day as if it needed both sun and rain, and as if it were blighted in the ear, and had something the matter with its roots. The pair of dragons must have had very nimble wings; for in less than an hour Mother Ceres had alighted at the door of her home and found it empty. Knowing, however, that the child was fond of sporting on the sea-shore, she hastened thither as fast as she could, and there beheld the wet faces of the poor sea-nymphs peeping over a wave. All this while the good creatures had been waiting on the bank of sponge, and, once every half-minute or so, had popped up their four heads above water, to see if their playmate were yet com- ing back. When they saw Mother Ceres, they sat down on the crest of the surf wave and let it toss them ashore at her feet. "Where is Proserpina?" cried Ceres. "Where is my child? Tell me, you naughty sea-nymphs, have you enticed her under the sea?" 196 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. "Oh no, good Mother Ceres," said the innocent sea-nymphs, tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. "We never should dream of such a thing. Proserpina has been at play with us, it is true; but she left us a long while ago, mean- ing only to run a little way upon the dry land, and gather some flowers for a wreath. This was early in the day, and we have seen nothing of her since." Ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say, before she hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood. But nobody told her anything that could enable the poor mother to guess what had become of Proserpina. A fisher- man, it is true, had noticed her little footprints in the sand, as he went homeward along the beach with a basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers; several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot-wheels, or the rumbling of distant thunder; and one old woman, while plucking vervain and catnip, had heard a scream, but supposed it to be some childish non- sense, and therefore did not take the trouble to look up. The stupid people! It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew, that it was dark night before Mother Ceres found out that she must seek her daughter elsewhere. So she lighted a torch, and set forth, resolving 197 TANGLEWOOD TALES. never to come back until Proserpina was discov- ered. In her haste and trouble of mind, she quite for- got her car and the winged dragons; or, it may be, she thought that she could follow up the search more thoroughly on foot. At all events, this was the way in which she began her sorrowful journey, holding her torch before her, and looking carefuilly at every object along the path. And, as it hap- pened, she had not gone far before she found one of the magnificent flowers which grew on the shrub that Proserpina had pulled up. "Ha!" thought Mother Ceres, examining it by torchlight. "Here is mischief in this flower! The earth did not produce it by any help of mine, nor of its own accord. It is the work of enchantment, and is therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child." But she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing whether she might ever find any other memorial of Proserpina. All night long, at the door of every cottage and farm-house, Ceres knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if they had seen her child; and they stood, gaping and half asleep at the threshold, and answered her pityingly, and besought her to come in and rest. At the portal of every palace, too, she made so loud a summons that the menials 198 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. hurried to throw open the gate, thinking that it must be some great king or queen, who would de- mand a banquet for supper and a stately chamber to repose in. And when they saw only a sad and anxious woman, with a torch in her hand and a wreath of withered poppies on her head, they spoke rudely, and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon her. But nobody had seen Proserpina, nor could give Mother Ceres the least hint which way to seek her. Thus passed the night; and still she continued her search without sitting down to rest, or stopping to take food, or even remembering to put out the torch; although first the rosy dawn, and then the glad light of the morning sun, made its red flame look thin and pale. But I wonder what sort of stuff this torch was made of; for it burned dimly through the day, and, at night, was as bright as ever, and never was extinguished by the rain or wind, in all the weary days and nights while Ceres was seeking for Proserpina. It was not merely of human beings that she asked tidings of her daughter. In the woods and by the streams, she met creatures of another nature, who used, in those old times, to haunt the pleasant and solitary places, and were very sociable with persons who understood their language and customs, as Mother Ceres did. Sometimes, for instance, she tapped with her finger against the knotted trunk of 199 TANGLEWOOD TALES. a majestic oak; and immediately its rude bark would cleave asunder, and forth would step a beautiful maiden, who was the hamadryad of the oak, dwel- ling inside of it, and sharing its long life, and re- joicing when its green leaves sported with the breeze. But not one of these leafy damsels had seen Proserpina. Then, going a little farther, Ceres would, perhaps, come to a fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the earth, and would dabble with her hand in the water. Behold, up through its sandy and pebbly bed, along with the fountain's gush, a young woman with dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at Mother Ceres, half out of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless motion. But when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes (for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for everybody's grief), would answer, "No!" in a mur- muring voice, which was just like the murmur of the stream. Often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like sunburnt country people, except that they had hairy ears, and little horns upon their foreheads, and the hinder legs of goats, on which they gambolled merrily about the woods and fields. They were a frolicsome kind of creature, but grew as sad as their cheerful dispositions would allow 200 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. when Ceres inquired for her daughter, and they had no good news to tell. But sometimes she came suddenly upon a rude gang of satyrs, who had faces like monkeys and horses' tails behind them, and who were generally dancing in a very boisterous manner, with shouts of noisy laughter. When she stopped to question them, they would only laugh the louder, and make new merriment out of the lone woman's distress. How unkind of those ugly satyrs! And once, while crossing a solitary sheep- pasture, she saw a personage named Pan, seated at the foot of a tall rock, and making music on a shepherd's flute. He, too, had horns, and hairy ears, and goat's feet; but, being acquainted with Mother Ceres, he answered her question as civilly as he knew how, and invited her to taste some milk and honey out of a wooden bowl. But neither could Pan tell her what had become of Proserpina, any better than the rest of these wild people. And thus Mother Ceres went wandering about for nine long days and nights, finding no trace of Proserpina, unless it were now and then a with- ered flower; and these she picked up and put in her bosom, because she fancied that they might have fallen from her poor child's hand. All day she travelled onward through the hot sun; and at night, again, the flame of the torch would redden and gleam along the pathway, and she continued 201 TANGLEWOOD TALES. her search by its light, without ever sitting down to rest. On the tenth day she chanced to espy the mouth of a cavern, within which (though it was bright noon everywhere else) there would have been only a dusky twilight; but it so happened that a torch was burning there. It flickered, and struggled with the duskiness, but could not half light up the gloomy cavern with all its melancholy glimmer. Ceres was resolved to leave no spot without a search; so she peeped into the entrance of the cave, and lighted it up a little more, by holding her own torch before her. In so doing she caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a woman, sitting on the brown leaves of the last autumn, a great heap of which had been swept into the cave by the wind. This woman (if woman it were) was by no means so beautiful as many of her sex; for her head, they tell me, was shaped very much like a dog's; and, by way of ornament, she wore a wreath of snakes around it. But Mother Ceres, the moment she saw her, knew that this was an odd kind of a person, who put all her enjoyment in being miserable, and never would have a word to say to other people, un- less they were as melancholy and wretched as she herself delighted to be. "I am wretched enough now," thought poor 202 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. Ceres, "to talk with this melancholy Hecate, were she ten times sadder than ever she was yet." So she stepped into the cave, and sat down on the withered leaves, by the dog-headed woman's side. In all the world, since her daughter's loss, she had found no other companion. "0 Hecate," said she, "if ever you lose a daughter you will know what sorrow is. Tell me, for pity's sake, have you seen my poor child Proser- pina pass by the mouth of your cavern?" "No," answered Hecate, in a cracked voice, and sighing betwixt every word or two; "no, Mother Ceres, I have seen nothing of your daughter. But my ears, you must know, are made in such a way that all cries of distress and affright, all over the world, are pretty sure to find their way to them; and nine days ago, as I sat in my cave, making my- self very miserable, I heard the voice of a young girl, shrieking as if in great distress. Something, terrible has happened to the child, you may rest assured. As well as I could judge, a dragon, or some other cruel monster, was carrying her away." "You kill me by saying so," cried Ceres, almost ready to faint. "Where was the sound, and which way did it seem to go?" "It passed very swiftly along," said Hecate, "and at the same time there was a heavy rumbling of wheels toward the eastward. I can tell you nothing 203 TANGLEWOOD TALES. more, except that, in my honest opinion, you will never see your daughter again. The best advice I can give you is, to take up your abode in this cavern, where we will be. the two most wretched women in the world." "Not yet, dark Hecate," replied Ceres. "But do you first come with your torch, and help mne to seek for my lost child. And when there shall be no more hope of 'finding her (if that black day is ordained to come), then, if you will give me room to fling myself down, either on these withered leaves or on the naked rock, I will show you what it is to be miserable. But, until I know that she has per- ished from the face of the earth, I will not allow myself space even to grieve." The dismal Hecate did not much like the idea of going abroad into the sunny world.. But then she reflected that the sorrow of the disconsolate Ceres would be like a gloomy twilight round about them both, let the sun shine ever so brightly, and that therefore she might enjoy her bad spirits quite as well as if she were to stay in the cave. So she finally consented to go, and they set out together, both carrying torches, although it was broad daylight and clear sunshine. The torehlight seemed to make a gloom; so that the people whom they met along the road could not very distinctly see their figures; and, indeed, if they once caught a glimpse of He.- 204 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. cate, with the wreath of snakes round her forehead, they generally thought it prudent to run away, without waiting for a second glance. As the pair traveled along in this woe-begone manner, a thought struck Ceres. "There is one person," she exclaimed, "who must have seen my poor child, and can doubtless tell what has become of her. Why did not I think of him before? It is Phoebus." "What," said Hecate, "the young man that al- ways sits in the sunshine? Oh, pray do not think of going near him. He is a gay, light, frivolous young fellow, and will only smile in your face. And, besides, there is such a glare of the sun about him, that he will quite blind my poor eyes, which I have almost wept away already." "You have promised to be my companion," an- swered Ceres. "Come, let us make haste, or the sunshine will be gone, and Phoebus along with it." Accordingly, they went along in quest of Phoe- bus, both of them sighing grievously, and Hecate, to say the truth, making a great deal worse lamen- tation than Ceres; for all the pleasure she had, you know, lay in being miserable, and therefore she made the most of it. By and by, after a pretty long journey, they arrived at the sunniest spot in the whole world. There they beheld a beautiful young man, with long, curling ringlets, vhich 205 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Sseemed to be made of golden sunbeams; his gar- ments were like light summer clouds; and the ex- pression of his face was so exceedingly vivid, that Hecate held her hands before her eyes, muttering that he ought to wear a black veil. Phoebus (for this was the very person whom they were seeking) had a lyre in his hands, and was making its chords tremble with sweet music; at the same time sing- ing a most exquisite song, which he had recently composed. For, besides a great many other accom- plishments, this young man was renowned for his admirable poetry. As Ceres and her dismal companion approached him, Phoebus smiled on them so cheerfully that Hecate's wreath of snakes gave a spiteful hiss, and Hecate heartily wished herself back in her cave. But as for Ceres, she was too earnest in her grief either to know or care whether Phoebus smiled or frowned. "Phoebus!" exclaimed she, "I am in great trouble, and have come to you for assistance. Can you tell me what has become of my dear child Proserpina?" "Proserpina! Proserpina, did you call her name?" answered Phoebus, endeavoring to recol- lect; for there was such a continual flow of pleas- ant ideas in his mind that he was apt to forget what had happened no longer ago than yesterday. "Ah, 206 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. yes, I remember her now. A very lovely child, in- deed. I am happy to tell you, my dear madam, that I did see the little Proserpina not many days ago. You may make yourself perfectly easy about her. She is safe, and in excellent hands." "Oh, where is my dear child?" cried Ceres, clasping her hands and flinging herself at his feet. "Why," said Phoebus-and as he spoke he kept touching his lyre so as to make a thread of music run in and out among his words-"as the little damsel was gathering flowers (and she has really a very exquisite taste for flowers) she was suddenly snatched up by King Pluto and carried off to his dominions. I have never been in that part of the universe; but the royal palace, I am told, is built in a very noble style of architecture and of the most beautiful and costly materials. Gold, dia- monds, pearls, and all manner of precious stones will be your daughter's ordinary playthings. I rec- ommend to you, my dear lady, to give yourself no uneasiness. Proserpina's sense of beauty will be duly gratified, and even in spite of the lack of sun- shine, she will lead a very enviable life." "Hushla Say not such a word!" answered Ceres, indignantly. "What is there to gratify her heart? What are all the splendors you speak of, without affection? I must have her back again. Will you 207 TANGLEWOOD TALES. go with me, Phoebus, to demand my daughter of this wicked Pluto ?" "Pray excuse me," replied Phoebus, with an ele- gant obeisance. "I certainly wish you success, and regret that my own affairs are so immediately press- ing that I cannot have the pleasure of attending you. Besides, I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto. To tell you the truth, his three- headed mastiff would never let me pass the gate- way; for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things in Pluto's kingdom." "Ah, Phoebus," said Ceres, with bitter meaning in her words, "you have a harp instead of a heart, Farewell." "Will you not stay a moment," asked Phoebus, "and hear me turn the pretty and touching story of Proserpina into extemporary verses?" But Ceres shook her head, and hastened away, along with Hecate. Phoebus (who, as I have told you, was an exquisite poet) forthwith began to make an ode about the poor mother's grief; and, if we were to judge of his sensibility by this beauti- ful production, he must have been endowed with a very tender heart. But when a poet gets into the habit of using his heartstrings to make chords for his lyre, he may thrum upon them as much as he will, without any great pain to himself. Accord- 208 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. ingly, though Phoebus sang a very sad song, he was as merry all the while as were the sunbeams amid which he dwelt. Poor Mother Ceres had now found out what had become of her daughter, but was not a whit hap- pier than before. Her case, on the contrary, looked more desperate than ever. As long as Proserpina was above ground there might have been hopes of regaining her. But now, that the poor child was shut up within the iron gates of the king of the mines, at the threshold of which lay the three- headed Cerberus, there seemed no possibility of her ever making her escape. The dismal Hecate, who loved to take the darkest view of things, told Ceres that she had better come with her to the cavern, and spend the rest of her life in being miserable. Ceres answered that Hlecate was welcome to go back thither herself, but that, for her part, she would wander about the earth in quest of the entrance to King Pluto's dominions. And Hecate took her at her word, and hurried back to her beloved cave, frightening a great many little children with a glimpse of her dog's face as she went. Poor Mother Ceres! It is melancholy to think of her, pursuing her toilsome way all alone, and holding up that never-dying torch, the flame of which seemed an emblem of the grief and hope that burned together in her heart. So much did 14 209 TANGLEWOOD TALES. she suffer, that, though her aspect had been quite youthful when her troubles began, she grew to look like an elderly person in a very brief time. She cared not how she was dressed, nor had she ever thought of flinging away the wreath of with- ered poppies, which she put on the very morning of Proserpina's disappearance. She roamed about in so wild a way, and with her hair so disheveled, that people took her for some distracted creature, and never dreamed that this was Mother Ceres, who had the oversight of every seed which the hus- bandman planted. Nowadays, however, she gave herself no trouble about seed-time or harvest, but left the farmers to take care of their own affairs, and the crops to fade or flourish as the case might be. There was nothing now in which Ceres seemed to feel an interest, unless when she saw children at play, or gathering flowers along the wayside. Then, indeed, she would stand and gaze at them with tears in her eyes. The children, too, appeared to have a sympathy with her grief, and would cluster themselves in a little group about her knees, and look up wistfully in her face; and Ceres, after giv- ing them a kiss all round, would lead them to their homes, and advise their mothers never to let them stray out of sight. "For if they do," said she, "it may happen to you, as it has to me, that the iron-hearted King 210 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. Pluto will take a liking to your darlings, and snatch them up in his chariot and carry them away." One day, during her pilgrimage in quest of the entrance to Pluto's kingdom, she came to the pal- ace of King Celeus, who reigned at Eleusis. As- cending a lofty flight of steps, she entered the portal, and found the royal household in very great alarm about the queen's baby. The infant, it seems, was sickly (being troubled with its teeth, I suppose), and would take no food, and was all the time moaning in pain. The queen-her name was Metanira-was desirous of finding a nurse; and when she beheld a woman of matronly aspect com- ing up the palace steps, she thought, in her own mind, that there was the very person whom she needed. So Queen Metanira ran to the door, with the poor wailing baby in her arms, and besought Ceres to take charge of it, or, at least, to tell her what would do it good. "Will you trust the child entirely to me?" asked Ceres. "Yes, and gladly, too," answered the queen, "if you will devote all your time to him. For I can see that you have been a mother." "You are right," said Ceres. "I once had a child of my own. Well; I will be the nurse of this poor, sickly boy. But beware, I warn you, that 211 TANGLEWOOD TALES. you do not interfere with any kind of treatment which I may judge proper for him. If you do so, the poor if ant must suffer for his mother's folly." Then she kissed the child, and it seemed to do him good; for he smiled and nestled closely into her bosom. So Mother Ceres set her torch in a corner (where it kept burning all the while), and took up her abode in the palace of King Celeus, as nurse to the little Prince Demophoon. She treated him as if lihe were her own child, and allowed neither the king nor the queen to say whether he should be bathed in warm or cold water, or what he should eat, or how often he should take the air, or when he should be put to bed. You would hardly believe me, if I were to tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. Instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother con- fessed him to be when Ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. All the good women of the neighborhood crowded to the palace, and held up their hands in unutterable amaze- ment, at the beauty and wholesomeness of this 212 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. darling little prince. Their wonder was the greater, because he was never seen to taste any food; not even so much as a cup of milk. "Pray, nurse," the queen kept saying, "how is it that you make the child thrive so?" "I was a mother once," Ceres always replied; "'and having nursed my own child, I know what other children need." But Queen Metanira, as was very natural, had a great curiosity to know precisely what the nurse did to her child. One night, therefore, she hid herself in the chamber where Ceres and the little prince were accustomed to sleep. There was a fire in the chimney, and it had now crumbled into great coals and embers, which lay glowing on the hearth, with a blaze flickering up now and then, and flinging a warm and ruddy light upon the walls. Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead. She undressed the little prince, and bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase. The next thing she did was to rake back the red embers, and make a hollow place among them, just where the backlog had been. At last, while the baby was crowing and clapping its fat little hands, and laugh- ing in the nurse's face (just as you may have seen your little brother or sister do before going into its 213 TANGLEWOOD TALES. warm bath), Ceres suddenly laid him, all naked a, he was, in the hollow among the red-hot embers. She then raked the ashes over him, and turned quietly away. You may imagine, if you can, how Queen Me- tanira shrieked, thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder. She burst forth from her hiding place, and running to the hearth, raked open the fire, and snatched up poor little Prince Demophoon out of his bed of live coals, one of which he was gripping in each of his fists. He immediately set up a grievous cry, as babies are apt to do when rudely startled out of a sound sleep. To the queen's astonishment and joy, she could perceive no token of the child's being injured by the hot fire in which he had lain. She now turned to Mother Ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery. "Foolish woman," answered Ceres, "did you not promise to intrust this poor infant entirely to me? You little know the mischief you have done him. Had you left him to my care, he would have grown up like a child of celestial birth, endowed with superhuman strength and intelligence, and would have lived forever. Do you imagine that earthly children are to become immortal without being tempered to it in the fiercest heat of the fire? But you have ruined your son. For though he will 214 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. be a strong man and a hero in his day, yet, on account of your folly, he will grow old, and finally die, like the sons of other women. The weak ten- derness of his mother has cost the poor boy an immortality. Farewell." Saying these words, she kissed the little Prince Demophoon, and sighed to think what he had lost, and took her departure without heeding Queen Metanira, who entreated her to remain and cover up the child among the hot embers as often as she pleased. Poor baby! He never slept so warm- ly again. While she dwelt in the king's palace, Mother Ceres had been so continually occupied with taking care of the young prince, that her heart was a little lightened of its grief for Proserpina. But now, having nothing else to busy herself about, she became just as wretched as before. At length, in her despair, she came to the dreadful resolution that not a stalk of grain, nor a blade of grass, not a potato, nor a turnip, nor any other vegetable that was good for man or beast to eat, should be suf- fered to grow until her daughter were restored. She even forbade the flowers to bloom, lest some- body's heart should be cheered by their beauty. Now, as not so much as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground, without the especial permission of Ceres, you may conceive 215 TANGLEWOOD TALES. what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth. The husbandmen plowed and planted as usual; but there lay the rich black furrows, all as barren as a desert of sand. The pastures looked as brown in the sweet month of June as ever they did in chill November. The rich man's broad acres and the cottager's small garden patch were equally blighted. Every little girl's flower-bed showed nothing but dry stalks. The old people shook their white heads, and said that the earth had grown aged like themselves, and was no longer capable of wearing the warm smile of summer on its face. It was really piteous to see the poor, starving cattle and sheep, how they followed be- hind Ceres, lowing and bleating, as if their instinct taught them to expect help from her; and every- body that was acquainted with her power besought her to have mercy on the human race, and, at all events, to let the grass grow. But Mother Ceres, though naturally of an affectionate disposition, was now inexorable. "Never," said she. "If the earth is ever again to see any verdure, it must first grow along the path which my daughter will tread in coming back to me." Finally, as there seemed to be no other remedy, our old friend Quicksilver was sent post haste to King Pluto, in hopes that he might be persuaded 216 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. to undo the mischief he had done, and to set everything right again, by giving up Proserpina. Quicksilver accordingly made the best of his way to the great gate, took a flying leap right over the three-headed mastiff, and stood at the door of the palace in an inconceivably short time. The serv- ants knew him both by his face and garb; for his short cloak, and his winged cap and shoes, and his snaky staff, had often been seen thereabouts in times gone by. He requested to be shown immne- diately into the king's presence; and Pluto, who heard his voice from the top of the stairs, and who loved to recreate himself with Quicksilver's merry talk, called out to him to come up. And while they settled their business together, we must in- quire what Proserpina had been doing ever since we saw her last. The child had declared, as you may remember, that she would not taste a mouthful of food as long as she should be compelled to remain in King Pluto's palace. How she contrived to maintain her resolution, and at the same time to keep her- self tolerably plump and rosy, is more than I can explain; but some young ladies, I am given to understand, possess the faculty of living on air, and Proserpina seems to have possessed it too. At any rate, it was now six months since she left the outside of the earth; and not a morsel, so far as 217 TANGLEWOOD TALES. the attendants were able to testify, has yet passed between her teeth. This was the more creditable to Proserpina, inasmuch as Kiig Pluto had caused her to be tempted, day after day, with all manner of sweetmeats, and richly preserved fruits, and delicacies of every sort such as young people are generally most fond of. But her good mother had often told her of the hurtfulness of these things; and for that reason alone, if there had been no other, she would have resolutely refused to taste them. All this time, being of a cheerful and active disposition, the little damsel was not quite so unhappy as you may have supposed. The im- mense palace had a thousand rooms, and was full of beautiful and wonderful objects. There was a never-ceasing gloom, it is true, which half hid it- self among the innumerable pillars, gliding before the child as she wandered among them, and tread- ing stealthily behind her in the echo of her foot- steps. Neither was all the dazzle of the precious stones, which flamed with their own light, wTorth one gleam of natural sunshine; nor could the most brilliant of the many-colored gems, which Proserpina had for playthings, vie with the simple beauty of the flowers she used to gather. But still, wherever the girl went, among those gilded halls and chambers, it seemed as if she carried 218 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. nature and sunshine along with her, and as if she scattered dewy blossoms on her right hand and on her left. After Proserpina came, the palace was no longer the same abode of stately artifice ar d dismal magnificence that it had been before. The inhabitants all felt this, and King Pluto more than any of them. "My own little Proserpina," he used to say, "I wish you could like me a little better. We gloomy and cloudy-natured persons have often as warm hearts at bottom as those of a more cheerful char- acter. If you would only stay with me of your own accord, it would make me happier than the pos- session of a hundred such palaces as this." "Ah," said Proserpina, "you should have tried to make me like you before carrying me off. And the best thing you can do now is, to let me go again. Then I might remember you sometimes, and think that you were as kind as you knew how to be. Perhaps, too, one day or other, I might come back and pay you a visit." "No, no," answered Pluto, with his gloomy smile, "I will not trust you for that. You are too fond of living in the broad daylight and gather- ing flowers. What an idle and childish taste that is! Are not these gems, which I have ordered to be dug for you, and which are richer than any in my crown-are they not prettier than a violet?" 219 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "Not half so pretty," said Proserpina, snatching the gems from Pluto's hand, and flinging them to the other end of the hall. "Oh, my sweet violets, shall I never see you again?" And then she burst into tears. But young peo- ples' tears have very little saltness or acidity in them, and do not inflame the eyes so much as those of grown persons, so that it is not to be wondered at if, a few moments afterwards, Proser- pina was sporting through the hall almost as mer- rily as she and the four sea-nymphs had sported along the edge of the surf wave. King Pluto gazed after her, and wished that he, too, was a child. And little Proserpina, when she turned about, and beheld the great king standing in his splendid hall, and looking so grand and so melancholy, and so lonesome, was smitten with a kind of pity. She ran back to him, and for the first time in all her life, put her small soft hand in his. "I love you a little," whispered she, looking up in his face. "Do you, indeed, my dear child?" cried Pluto, bending his dark face down to kiss her; but Pros- erpina shrank away from the kiss, for though his features were noble, they were very dusky and grim. "Well, I have not deserved it of you, after keeping you a prisoner for so many months, and starving you, besides. Are you not terribly hun- 220 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. gry? Is there nothing which I can get you to eat?" In asking this question, the king of the mines had a very cunning purpose; for, if you will rec- ollect, if Proserpina tasted a morsel of food in his dominions, she would never afterward be at lib- erty to quit them. "No, indeed," said Proserpina. "Your head cook is always baking, and stewing, and roasting, and rolling out paste, and contriving one dish or an- other, which he imagines may be to my liking. But he might just as well save himself the trouble, poor, fat, little man, that he is. I have no appetite for anything in the world, unless it were a slice of bread of my mother's own baking, or a little fruit out of her garden." When Pluto heard this, he began to see that he had mistaken the best method of tempting Proser- pina to eat. The cook's made dishes and arti- ficial dainties were not half so delicious, in the good child's opinion, as the simple fare to which Mother Ceres had accustomed her. Wondering that he had never thought of it before, the king now sent one of his trusty attendants with a large basket, to get some of the finest and juiciest pears, peaches, and plums, which could anywhere be found in the upper world. Unfortunately, how- ever, this was during the time when Ceres had 221 TANGLEWOOD TALES. forbidden any fruits or vegetables to grow; and, after seeking all over the earth, King Pluto's serv- ant found only a single pomegranate, and that so dried up as to be not worth eating. Nevertheless, since there was no better to be had, he brought this dry, old, withered pomegranate home to the pal- ace, put it on a magnificent golden salver, and carried it up to Proserpina. Now it happened, curiously enough, that, just as the servant was bringing the pomegranate into the back door of the palace, our friend Quicksilver had gone up the front steps, on his errand to get Proserpina away from King Pluto. As soon as Proserpina saw the pomegranate on the golden salver, she told the servant he had bet- ter take it away again. "I shall not touch it," I assure you," said she. "If I were ever so hungry, I should never think of eating such a miserable, dry pomegranate as that." "It is the only one in the world," said the serv- ant. He set down the golden salver, with the wizened pomegranate upon it, and left the room. When he was gone, Proserpina could not help coming close to the table, and looking at this poor specimen of dried fruit with a great deal of eagerness; for, to say the truth, on seeing something that suited her taste, she felt all the six months' appetite taking 222 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. possession of her at once. To be sure, it was a very wretched-looking pomegranate, and seemed to have no more juice in it than an oyster shell. But there was no choice of such things in King Pluto's pal- ace. This was the first fruit she had seen there, and the last she was ever likely to see; and unless she ate it up immediately, it would grow drier than it already was, and be wholly unfit to eat. "At least, I may smell it," thought Proserpina. So she took up the pomegranate, and applied it to her nose; and somehow or other, being in such close neighborhood to her mouth, the fruit found its way into that little red cave. Dear me! what an everlasting pity! Before Proserpina knew what she was about, her teeth had actually bitten it, of their own accord. Just as this fatal deed was done, the door of the apartment opened, and in came King Pluto, followed by Quicksilver, who had been urging him to let his little prisoner go. At the first noise of their entrance, Proserpina withdrew the pomegranate from her mouth. But Quicksilver (whose eyes were very keen, and his wits the sharpest that every anybody had) per- ceived that the child was a little confused; and seeing the empty salver, he suspected that she had been taking a sly nibble of something or other. As for honest Pluto, he never guessed at the secret. 223 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "My little Proserpina," said the king, sitting down, and affectionately drawing her between his knees, "here is Quicksilver, who tells me that a great many misfortunes have befallen innocent people on account of my detaining you in my do- minions. To confess the truth, I myself had al- ready reflected that it was an unjustifiable act to take you away from your good mother. But,. then, you must consider, my dear child, that this vast palace is apt to be gloomy (although the precious stones certainly shine very bright), and that I am not of the most cheerful disposition, and that therefore, it was a natural thing enough to seek for the society of some merrier creature than my- self. I hoped you would take my crown for a plaything, and me--ah, you laugh, naughty Pros- erpina-me, grim as I am, for a playmate. It was a silly expectation." "Not so extremely silly," whispered Proserpina. "You have really amused me very much, some- times." "Thank you," said King Pluto, rather dryly. "But I can see, plainly enough, that you think my palace a dusky prison, and me the iron-hearted keeper of it. And an iron heart I should surely have, if I could detain you here any longer, my poor child, when it is now six months since you tasted food. I give you your liberty. Go with 224 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. Quicksilver. Hasten home to your dear mother." Now, although you may not have supposed it, Proserpina found it impossible to take leave of poor King Pluto without some regrets, and a good deal of compunction for not telling him about the pomegranate. She even shed a tear or two, think- ing how lonely and cheerless the great palace would seem to him, with all its ugly glare and arti- ficial light, after she herself-his one little ray of natural sunshine, whom he had stolen, to be sure, but only because he valued her so much-after she should have departed. I know not how many kind things she might have said to the discon- solate king of the mines, had not Quicksilver hur- ried her away. "Come along quickly," whispered he in her ear, "or his Majesty may change his royal mind. And take care, above all things, that you say nothing of what was brought you on the golden salver." In a very short time, they had passed the great gateway (leaving the three-headed Cerberus, bark- ing, and yelping, and growling, with threefold din, behind them), and emerged upon the surface of the earth. It was delightful to behold, as Proserpina hastened along, how the path grew verdant behind and on either side of her. Wherever she set her blessed foot, there was at once a dewy flower. The violets gushed up along the wayside. The grass 15 225 TANGLEWOOD TALES. and the grain began to sprout with tenfold vigor and luxuriance, to make up for the dreary months that had been wasted in barrenness. The starved cattle immediately set to work grazing, after their long fast, and ate enormously all day, and got up at midnight to eat more. But I can assure you it was a busy time of year with the farmers, when they found the summer coming upon them with such a rush. Nor must I forget to say that all the birds in the whole world hopped about upon the newly blossoming trees, and sang together in a prodigious ecstasy of joy. Mother Ceres had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disconsolately on the doorstep, with her torch burning in her hand. She had been idly watching the flame for some moments past, when, all at once, it flickered and went out. "What does this mean?" thought she. "It was an enchanted torch, and should have kept burning till my child came back." Lifting her eyes, she was surprised to see a sud- den verdure flashing over the brown and barren fields, exactly as you may have observed a golden hue gleaming far and wide across the landscape, from the just risen sun. "Does the earth disobey me?" exclaimed Mother Ceres, indignantly. "Does it presume to be green, -226 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS. when I have bidden it to be barren, until my daughter shall be restored to my arms?" "Then open your arms, dear mother," cried a well-known voice, "and take your little daughter into them." And Proserpina came running, and flung her- self upon her mother's bosom. Their mutual trans- port is not to be described. The grief of their separation had caused both of them to shed a great many tears; and now they shed a great many more, because their joy could not so well express itself in any other way. When their hearts had grown a little more quiet, Mother Ceres looked anxiously at Proserpina. "My child," said she, "did you taste any food while you were in King Pluto's palace?" "Dearest mother," answered Proserpina, "I will tell you the whole truth. Until this very morning, not a morsel of food had passed my lips. But to- day, they brought me a pomegranate (a very dry one it was, and all shriveled up, till there was lit- tle left of it but seeds and skin), and having seen no fruit for so long a time, and being faint with hunger, I was tempted just to bite it. The instant I tasted it, King Pluto and Quicksilver came into the room. I had not swallowed a morsel; but- dear mother, I hope it was no harm-but six of 227 TANGLEWOOD TALES the pomegranate seeds, I am afraid, remained in my mouth." "Ah, unfortunate child, and miserable me!" exclaimed Ceres. "For each of those six pome- granate seeds you must spend one month of every year in King Pluto's palace. You are but half restored to your mother. Only six months with me, and six months with that good-for-nothing King of Darkness!" "Do not speak so harshly of poor King Pluto," said Proserpina, kissing her mother. "He has some very good qualities; and I really think I can bear to spend six months in his palace, if he will only let me spend the other six with you. He certainly did very wrong to carry me off; but then, as he says, it was but a dismal sort of life for him, to live in that great gloomy palace, all alone; and it has made a wonderful change in his spirits to have a little girl to run up stairs and down. There is some comfort in making him so happy; and so, upon the whole, dearest mother., let us be thankful that he is not to keep me the whole year round." 228 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. When Jason, the son of the dethroned King of Iolchos, was a little boy, he was sent away from his parents, and placed under the queerest school- master that ever you heard of. This learned per- son was one of the people, or quadrupeds, called Centaurs. He lived in a cavern, and had the body and legs of a white horse, with the head and shoulders of a man. His name was Chiron; and, in spite of his odd appearance, he was a very ex- cellent teacher, and had several scholars, who after- ward did him credit by making a great figure in the world. The famous Hercules was one, and so was Achilles, and Philoctetes, likewise, and Aescu- lapius, who acquired immense repute as a doctor. The good Chiron taught his pupils how to play upon the harp, and how to cure diseases, and how to use the sword and shield, together with various other branches of education, in which the lads of those days used to be instructed, instead of writing and arithmetic. I have sometimes suspected that Master Chiron 229 TANGLEWOOD TALES. was not really very different from other people, but that, being a kind-hearted and merry old fel- low, he was in the habit of making believe that he was a horse, and scrambling about the school-room on all fours, and letting the little boys ride upon his back. And so, when his scholars had grown up, and grown old, and were trotting their grand- children on their knees, they told them about the sports of their school-days; and these young folks took the idea that their grandfathers had been taught their letters by a Centaur, half man and half horse. Little children, not quite understand- ing what is said to them, often get such absurd notions into their heads, you know. Be that as it may, it has always been told for a fact (and always will be told, as long as the world lasts), that Chiron, with the head of a school- master, had the body and legs of a horse. Just imagine the grave old gentleman clattering and stamping into the school-room on his four hoofs, perhaps treading on some little fellow's toes, flour- ishing his switch tail instead of a rod, and, now and then, trotting out of doors to eat a mouthful of grass! I wonder what the blacksmith charged him for a set of iron shoes. So Jason dwelt in the cave, with this four-footed Chiron, from the time that he was an infant, only a few months old, until he had grown to the full 230 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. height of a man. He became a very good harper, I suppose, and skillful in the use of weapons, and tolerably acquainted with herbs and other doc- tor's stuff, and, above all, an admirable horseman; for, in teaching young people how to ride, the good Chiron must have been without a rival among schoolmasters. At length, being now a tall and athletic youth, Jason resolved to seek his fortune in the world, without asking Chiron's advice, or telling him anything about the matter. This was very unwise, to be sure, and I hope none of you, my little hearers, will ever follow Jason's example. :But, you are to understand, he had heard how that he himself was a prince royal, and how his father, King Aeson, had been deprived of the kingdom of Iolchos by a certain Pelias, who would also have killed Jason, had he not been hidden in the Cen- taur's cave. And, being come to the strength of a man, Jason determined to set all his business to rights, and to punish the wicked Pelias for wrong- ing his dear father, and to cast him down from the throne, and seat himself there instead. With this intention, he took a spear in each hand, and threw a leopard's skin over his should- ers, to keep off the rain, and set forth on his travels, with his long yellow ringlets waving in the wind. The part of his dress on which he most prided himself was a pair of sandals, that had been his 231 TANGLEWOOD TALES. father's. They were handsomely embroidered, and were tied upon his feet with strings of gold. But his whole attire was such as people did not very often see; and as he passed along, the women and children ran to the doors and windows, won- dering whither this beautiful youth was journey- ing, with his leopard's skin and his golden-tied sandals, and what heroic deeds he meant to per- form, with a spear in his right hand and another in his left. I know not how far Jason had traveled, when he came to a turbulent river, which rushed right across his pathway, with specks of white foam among its black eddies, hurrying tumultuously on- ward, and roaring angrily as it went. Though not a very broad river in the dry seasons of the year, it was now swollen by heavy rains and by the melt- ing of the snow on the sides of Mount Olympus; and it thundered so loudly, and looked so wild and dangerous, that Jason, bold as he was, thought it prudent to pause upon the brink. The bed of the stream seemed to be strewn with sharp and rugged rocks, some of which thrust themselves above the water. By and by, an uprooted tree, with shattered branches, came drifting along the current, and got entangled among the rocks. Now and then, a 232 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. drowned sheep, and once the carcass of a cow, floated past. In short, the swollen river had already done a great deal of mischief. It was evidently too deep for Jason to wade, and too boisterous for him to swim; he could see no bridge; and as for a boat, had there been any, the rocks would have broken it to pieces in an instant. "See the poor lad," said a cracked voice close to his side. "He must have had but a poor educa- tion, since he does not know how to cross a little stream like this. Or is he afraid of wetting his fine golden-stringed sandals? It is a pity his four- footed schoolmaster is not here to carry him safely across on his back." Jason looked around greatly surprised, for he did not know that anybody was near. But beside him stood an old woman, with a ragged mantle over her head, leaning on a staff, the top of which was carved into the shape of a cuckoo. She looked very aged, and wrinkled, and infirm; and yet her eyes, which were as brown as those of an ox, were so extremely large and beautiful that, when they were fixed on Jason's eyes, hie could see nothing else but them. The old woman had a pomegran- ate in her hand, although the fruit was then quite out of season. 233 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "Whither are you going Jason?" she now asked. She seemed to know his name, you will observe; and, indeed, those great brown eyes looked as if they had a knowledge of everything, whether past or to come. While Jason was gazing at her, a pea- cock strutted forward and took his stand at the old woman's side. "I am going to Iolchos," answered the young man, "to bid the wicked King Pelias come down from my father's throne, and let me reign in his stead." "Ah, well, then," said the old woman, still with the same cracked voice, "if that is all your busi- ness, you need not be in a very great hurry. Just take me on your back, there's a good youth, and carry me across the river. I and my peacock have something to do on the other side, as well as your- self." "Good mother," replied Jason, "your business can hardly be so important as the pulling down of a king upon his throne. Besides, as you may see for yourself, the river is very boisterous; and if I should chance to stumble, it swould sweep both of us away more easily than it has carried off yonder uprooted tree. I would gladly help you if I could; but I doubt whether I am strong enough to carry you across." 234 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. "Then," said she, very scornfully, "neither are you strong enough to pull King Pelias off his throne. And, Jason, unless you will help an old woman at her need, you ought not to be a king. What are kings made for, save to succor the feeble and distressed? But do as you please. Either take me on your back, or with my poor old limbs I shall try my best to struggle across the stream." Saying this, the old woman poked with her staff in the river, as if to find the safest place in its rocky bed where she might make the first step. But- Jason, by this time, had grown ashamed of his reluctance to help her. He felt that he could never forgive himself, if this poor feeble creature should come to any harm in attempting to wrestle against the headlong current. The good Chiron, whether half horseor no, had taught him that the noblest use of his strength was to assist the weak; and also that he must treat every young woman as if she were his sister, and every old one like a mother. Remembering these maxims, the vigor- ous and beautiful young man knelt down, and requested the good dame to mount upon his back. "The passage seems to me not very safe," he remarked. "But as your business is so urgent, I will try to carry you across. If the river sweeps you away, it shall take me, too." "That, no doubt, will be a great comfort to both 235 TANGLEWOOD TALES. of us," quoth the old woman. "But never fear. We shall get safely across." So she threw her arms around Jason's neck; and lifting her from the ground, he stepped boldly into the raging and foamy current, and began to stag- ger away from the shore. As for the peacock, it alighted on the old dame's shoulder. Jason's two spears, one in each hand, kept him from stumbling, and enabled him to feel his way among the hid- den rocks, although, every instant, he expected that his companion and himself would go down the stream, together with the driftwood of shattered trees, and the carcasses of the sheep and cow. Down came the cold, snowy torrent from the steep side of Olympus, raging and thundering as if it had a real spite against Jason, or, at all events, were determined to snatch off his living burden from his shoulders. When he was half-way across, the up- rooted tree (which I have already told you about) broke loose from among the rocks, and bore down upon him, with all its splintered branches sticking out like the hundred arms of the giant Briareus. It rushed past, however, without touching him. But the next moment his foot was caught in a crevice between two rocks, and stuck there so fast that, in the effort to get free, he lost one of his golden-stringed sandals. 236 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. At this accident Jason could not help uttering a cry of vexation. "What is the matter, Jason?" asked the old woman. "Matter enough," said the young man. "I have lost a sandal here among the rocks. And what sort of a figure shall I cut at the court of King Pelias, with a golden-stringed sandal on one foot, and the other foot bare!" "Do not take it to heart," answered his com- panion, cheerily. "You never met with better for- tune than in losing that sandal. It satisfies me that you are the very person whom the Speaking Oak has been talking about." There was no time, just then, to inquire what the Speaking Oak had said. But the briskness of her tone encouraged the young man; and, besides, he had never in his life felt so vigorous and mighty as since taking this old woman on his back. In- stead of being exhausted, he gathered strength as he went on; and, struggling up against the tor- rent, he at last gained the opposite shore, clam- bered up the bank, and set down the old dame and her peacock safely on the grass. As soon as this was done, however, he could not help looking rather despondently at his bare foot, with only a remnant of the golden string of the sandal cling- ing round his ankle. 237 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "You will get a handsomer pair of sandals by and by," said the old woman, with a kindly look out of her beautiful brown eyes. "Only let King Pelias get a glimpse of that bare foot, and you shall see him turn as pale as ashes, I promise you. There is your path. Go along, my good Jason, and my blessing go with you, and when you sit on your throne, remember the old woman whom you helped over the river." With these words, she hobbled away, giving him a smile over her shoulder as she departed. Whether the light of her beautiful brown eyes threw a glory round about her, or whatever the cause might be, Jason fancied that there was something very noble and majestic in her figure, after all, and that, though her gait seemed to be a rheumatic hobble, yet she moved with as much grace and dignity as any queen on earth. Her peacock, which had now fluttered down from her shoulder, strutted behind her in prodigious pomp, and spread out its magnifi- cent tail on purpose for Jason to admire it. When the old dame and her peacock were out of sight, Jason set forward on his journey. After traveling a pretty long distance, he came to a town situated at the foot of a mountain, and not a great way from the shore of the sea. On the outside of the town there was an immense crowd of people, not only men and women, but children, too, all in 238 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. their best clothes, and evidently enjoying a holi- day. The crowd was thickest toward the sea- shore; and in that direction, over the people's heads, Jason saw a wreath of smoke curling up- ward to the blue sky. He inquired of one of the multitude what town it was, near by, and why so many persons were here assembled together. "This is the kingdom of Iolchos," answered the man, "and we are the subjects of King Pelias. Our monarch has summoned us together, that we may see him sacrifice a black bull to Neptune, who, they say, is his Majesty's father. Yonder is the king, where you see the smoke going up from the altar." While the young man spoke, he eyed Jason with great curiosity; for his garb was quite unlike that of the Iolchians, and it looked very odd to see a youth with a leopard's skin over his shoulders, and each hand grasping a spear. Jason perceived, too, that the man stared particularly at his feet, one of which, you remember, was bare, while the other was dec- orated with his father's golden-stringed sandal. "Look at him! only look at him!" said the man to his next neighbor. "Do you see? He wears but one sandal!" Upon this, first one person, and then another, began to stare at Jason, and everybody seemed to 239 TANGLEWOOD TALES. be greatly struck with something in his aspect; though they turned their eyes much oftener toward his feet than to any other part of his figure. Be- sides, he could hear them whispering to one an- other. "One sandal! One sandal!" they kept saying. "The man with one sandal! Here hlie is at last! Whence has he come? What does he mean to do? What will the king say to the one-sandaled man?" Poor Jason was greatly abashed, and made up his mind that the people of Iolchos were exceedingly ill-bred, to take such public notice of an accidental deficiency in his dress. Meanwhile, whether it were that they hustled him forward, or that Jason, of his own accord, thrust a passage through the crowd, it so happened that he soon found himself close to the smoking altar, where King Pelias was sacrificing the black bull. The murmur and hum of the multitude, in their surprise at the spectacle of Jason with his one bare foot, grew so loud that it disturbed the ceremonies; and the king, holding the great knife with which he was just going to cut the bull's throat, turned, angrily about, and fixed his eyes on Jason. The people had now withdrawn from around him, so that the youth stood in an open space near the smoking altar, front to front with the angry King Pelias. "Who are you?" cried the king, with a terrible 240 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. frown. "And how dare you make this disturb- ance, while I am sacrificing a black bull to my father Neptune?" "It is no fault of mine," answered Jason. "Your Majesty must blame the rudeness of your subjects, who have raised all this tumult because one of my feet happens to be bare." When Jason said this, the king gave a quick, startled glance down at his feet. "Ha!" muttered he, "here is the one-sandaled fellow, sure enough! What can I do with him?" And he clutched more closely the great knife in his hand, as if he were half a mind to slay Jason instead of the black bull. The people round about caught up the king's words indistinctly as they were uttered; and first there was a murmur among them, and then a loud shout. "The one-sandaled man has come! The prophecy must be fulfilled!" For you are to know that, many years before, King Pelias had been told by the Speaking Oak of Dodona, that a man with one sandal should cast him down from his throne. On this account he had given strict orders that nobody should ever come into his presence, unless both sandals were securely tied upon his feet; and he kept an officer in his palace, whose sole business it was to examine people's sandals, and to supply them with a new 16 241 TANGLEWOOD TALES. pair, at the expense of the ioyal treasury, as soon as the old ones began to wear out. In the whole course of the king's reign, he had never been thrown into such a fright and agitation as by the spectacle of poor Jason's bare foot. But, as he was naturally a bold and hard-hearted man, he soon took courage and began to consider in what way he might rid himself of this terrible one-san- daled stranger. "My good young man," said King Pelias, taking the softest tone imaginable, in order to throw Jason off his guard, "you are excessively welcome to my kingdom. Judging by your dress, you must have traveled a long distance; for it is not the fashion to wear leopard-skins in this part of the world. Pray what may I call your name? and where did you receive your education?" "My name is Jason," answdred the young stran- ger. "Ever since my infancy I have dwelt in the cave of Chiron the Centaur. He was my in- structor, and taught me music, and horsemanship, and how to cure wounds, and likewise how to inflict wounds with my weapons!" "I have heard of Chiron the schoolmaster," re- plied King Pelias, "and how that there is an im- mense deal of learning and wisdom in his head, although it happens to be set on a horse's body. It gives me great delight to see one of his scholars 242 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. at my court. But, to test how much you have profited under so excellent a teacher, will you allow me to ask you a single question?" "I do not pretend to be very wise," said Jason. "But ask me what you please, and I will answer to the best of my ability." Now King Pelias meant cunningly to entrap the young man, and to make him say something that should be the cause of mischief and destruction to himself. So with a crafty and evil smile upon his face, he spoke as follows: "What would you do, brave Jason," asked he, "if there were a man in the world, by whom, as you had reason to believe, you were doomed to be ruined and slain-what would you do, I say, if that man stood before you, and in your power?" When Jason saw the malice and wickedness which King Pelias could not prevent from gleam- ing out of his eyes, he probably guessed that the king had discovered what he came for, and that he intended to turn his own words against himself. Still he scorned to tell a falsehood. Like an upright and honorable prince, as he was, he determined to speak out the real truth. Since the king had chosen to ask him the question, and since Jason had promised him an answer, there was no right way, save to tell him precisely what would be the 243 TANGLEWOOD TALES. most prudent thing to do, if he had his worst enemy in his power. Therefore, after a moment's consideration, he spoke up, with a firm and manly voice. "I would send such a man," said he, "in quest of the Golden Fleece!" This enterprise, you will understand, was, of all others, the most difficult and dangerous in the world. In the first place, it would be necessary to make a long voyage through unknown seas. There was hardly a hope, or a possibility, that any young man who should undertake this voyage would either succeed in obtaining the Golden Fleece, or would survive to return home, and tell of the perils he had run. The eyes of King Pelias sparkled with joy, therefore, when he heard Jason's reply. "Well said, wise man with one sandal!" cried he. "Go, then, and, at the peril of your life, bring me back the Golden Fleece." "I go," answered Jason, composedly. "If I fail, you need not fear that I will ever come back to trouble you again. But if I return to lolchos with the prize, then, King Pelias, you must hasten down from your lofty throne, and give me your crown and sceptre." "That I will," said the King, with a sneer. "Meantime, I will keep them very safely for you." 244 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. The first thing that Jason thought of doing, after he left the king's presence, was to go to Do- dona, and inquire of the Talking Oak what course it was best to pursue. This wonderful tree stood in the center of an ancient wood. Its stately irunk rose up a hundred feet into the air, and threw a broad and dense shadow over more than an acre of ground. Standing beneath it, Jason looked up among the knotted branches and green leaves, and into the mysterious heart of the old tree, and spoke aloud, as if he were addressing dome person who was hidden in the depths of the foliage. "What shall I do," said he, "in order to win the Golden Fleece?" At first there was a deep silence, not only within the shadow of the Talking Oak, but all through the solitary wood. In a moment or two, however, the leaves of the oak began to stir and rustle, as if a gentle breeze were wandering amongst them, although the other trees of the wood were perfect- ly still. The sound grew louder, and became like the roar of a high wind. By and by, Jason im- agined that he could distinguish words, but very confusedly, because each separate leaf of the tree seemed to be a tongue, and the whole myriad of tongues were babbling at once. But the noise waxed broader and deeper, until it resembled a tor- 245 TANGLEWOOD TALES. nado sweeping through the oak, and making one great utterance out of the thousand and thousand of little murmurs which each leafy tongue had caused by its rustling. And now, though it still had the tone of a mighty wind roaring among the branches, it was also like a deep bass voice, speak- ing, as distinctly as a tree could be expected to speak, the following words: "Go to Argus, the ship-builder, and bid him build a galley with fifty oars." Then the voice melted again into the indistinct murmur of the rustling leaves, and died gradually away. When it was quite gone, Jason felt inclined to doubt whether he had actually heard the words, or whether his fancy had not shaped them out of the ordinary sound made by the breeze, while pass- ing through the thick foliage of the tree. But on inquiry among the people of Iolchos, he found that there was really a man in the city, by the name of Argus, who was a very skillful builder of vessels. This showed some intelligence in the oak; else how should it have known that any such person existed? At Jason's request, Argus readily consented to build him a galley so big that it should require fifty strong men to row it; al- though no vessel of such a size and burden had heretofore been seen in the world. So the head carpenter, and all his journeymen and apprentices, 246 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. began their work; and for a good while afterward, there they were, busily employed, hewing out the timbers, and making a great clatter with their hammers; until the new ship, which was called the Argo, seemed to be quite ready for sea. And, as the Talking Oak had already given him such good advice, Jason, thought that it would not be amiss to ask for a little more. He visited it again, therefore, and standing beside its huge, rough trunk, inquired what he should do next. This time, there was no such universal quiver- ing of the leaves, throughout the whole tree, as there had been before. But after a while, Jason observed that the foliage of a great branch which stretched above his head had begun to rustle, as if the wind were stirring that one bough, while all the other boughs of the oak were at rest. "Cut me off!" said the branch, as soon as it could speak distinctly-"cut me off! cut me off! and carve me into a figure-head for your galley." Accordingly, Jason took the branch at its word, and lopped it off the tree. A carver in the neigh- borhood engaged to make the figure-head. He was a tolerably good workman, and had already carved several figure-heads, in what he intended for feminine shapes, and looking pretty much like those which we see nowadays stuck up under a vessel's bowsprit, with great staring eyes, that never 247 TANGLEWOOD TALES. wink at the dash of the spray. But (what was very strange) the carver found that his hand was guided by some unseen power, and by a skill be- yond his own, and that his tools shaped out an image which he had never dreamed of. When the work was finished, it turned out to be the figure of a beautiful woman with a helmet on her head, from beneath which the long ringlets fell down upon her shoulders. On the left arm was a shield, and in its center appeared a life-like representa- tion of the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. The right arm was extended, as if pointing onward. The face of this wonderful statue, though not angry or forbidding, was so grave and majestic, that perhaps you might call it severe; and as for the mouth, it seemed just ready to unclose its lips, and utter words of the deepest wisdom. Jason was delighted with the oaken image, and gave the carver no rest until it was completed, and set up where a figure-head has always stood, from that time to this, in the vessel's prow. "And now," cried he, as he stood gazing at the calm, majestic face of the statue, "I must go to the Talking Oak, and inquire what next to do." "There is no need of that, Jason," said a voice, which, though it was far lower, reminded him of the mighty tones of the great oak. "When you desire good advice, you can seek it of me." 248 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. Jason had been looking straight into the face of the image when these words were spoken. But he could hardly believe either his ears or his eyes. The truth was, however, that the oaken lips had moved, and, to all appearance, the voice had pro- ceeded from the statue's mouth. Recovering a little from his surprise, Jason bethought himself that the image had been carved out of the wood of the Talking Oak, and that, therefore, it was really no great wonder, but, on the contrary, the most natural thing in the world, that it should possess the faculty of speech. It would have been very odd, indeed, if it had not. But certainly it was a great piece of good fortune that he should be able to carry so wise a block of wood along with him in his perilous voyage. "Tell me, wondrous image," exclaimed Jason- "since you inherit the wisdom of the Speaking Oak of Dodona, whose daughter you are-tell me where shall I find fifty bold youths, who will take each of them an oar of my galley? They must have sturdy arms to row, and brave hearts to encounter perils, or we shall never win the Golden Fleece." "Go," replied the oaken image-"go, summon all the heroes of Greece." And, in fact, considering what a great deed was to be done, could any advice be wiser than this which Jason received from the figure-head of his 249 TANGLEWOOD TALES. vessel? He lost no time in sending messengers to all the cities, and making known to the whole peo- ple of Greece, that Prince Jason, the son of King Aeson, was going in quest of the Fleece of Gold, and that he desired the help of forty-nine of the bravest and strongest young men alive, to row his vessel and share his dangers. And Jason himself would be the fiftieth. At this news, the adventurous youths, all over the country, began to bestir themselves. Some of them had already fought with giants, and slain dragons; and the younger ones, who had not yet met with such good fortune, thought it a shame to have lived so long without getting astride of a flying serpent, or sticking their spears into a Chi- maera, or, at least, thrusting their right arms down a monstrous lion's throat. There was a fair pros- pect that they would meet with plenty of such adventures before finding the Golden Fleece. As soon as they could furbish up their helmets and shields, therefore, and gird on their trusty swords, they came thronging to lolchos, and clambered on board the new galley. Shaking hands with Jason, they assured him that they did not care a pin for their lives, but would help row the vessel to the remotest edge of the world, and as much farther as he might think it best to go. Many of these brave fellows had been educated 250 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. by Chiron, the four-footed pedagogue, and were therefore old schoolmates of Jason, and knew him to be a lad of spirit. The mighty Hercules, whose shoulders afterward held up the sky, was one of them. And there were Castor and Pollux, the twin brothers, who were never accused of being chicken-hearted, although they had been hatched out of an egg; and Theseus, who was so renowned for killing the Minotaur; and Lynceus, with his wonderfully sharp eyes, which could see through a millstone, or look right down into the depths of the earth, and discover the treasures that were there; and Orpheus, the very best of harpers, who sang and played upon his lyre so sweetly, that the brute beasts stood upon their hind legs and capered merrily to the music. Yes, and at some of his more moving tunes, the rocks bestirred their moss- grown bulk out of the ground, and a grove of forest trees uprooted themselves, and nodding their tops to one another, performed a country dance. One of the rowers was a beautiful young woman, named Atalanta, who had been nursed among the mountains by a bear. So light of foot was this fair damsel that she could step from one foamy crest of a wave to the foamy crest of another, without wet- ting more than the sole of her sandal. She had grown up in a very wild way, and talked much about the rights of women, and loved hunting and 251 TANGLEWOOD TALES. war far better than her needle. But, in my opin- ion, the most remarkable of this famous company were two sons of the North Wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering disposition), who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff out their cheeks, and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. I ought not to for- get the prophets and conjurers, of whom there were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen to-morrow, or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally quite un- conscious of what was passing at the moment. Jason appointed Tiphys to be helmsman, be- cause he was a star-gazer, and knew the points of the compass. Lynceus, on account of his sharp sight, was stationed as a lookout in the prow, where he saw a whole day's sail ahead, but was rather apt to overlook things that lay directly under his nose. If the sea happened to be deep enough, however, Lynceus could tell you exactly what kind of rocks or sands were at the bottom of it; and he often cried out to his companions that they were sailing over heaps of sunken treasure,, which yet he was none the richer for beholding. To confess the truth, few people believed him when he said it. Well! But when the Argonauts, as these fifty brave adventurers were called, had prepared every- thing for the voyage, an unforeseen difficulty 252 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. threatened to end it before it was begun. The ves- sel, you must understand, was so long, and broad, and ponderous that the united force of all the fifty was insufficient to shove her into the water. Her- cules, I suppose, had not grown to his full strength, else he might have set her afloat as easily as a little boy launches his boat upon the puddle. But here were these fifty heroes pushing, and straining, and growing red in the face, without making the Argo start an inch. At last, quite wearied out, they sat themselves down on the shore, exceedingly discon- solate, and thinking that the vessel must be left to rot and fall to pieces, and that they must either swim across the sea or lose the Golden Fleece. All at once Jason bethought himself of the gal- ley's miraculous figure-,head. "0 daughter of the Talking Oak," cried he, "how shall we set to work to get our vessel into the water?" "Seat yourselves," answered the image (for it had known what ought to be done from the very first, and was only waiting for the question to be put)- "seat yourselves, and handle your oars, and let Orpheus play upon his harp." Immediately the fifty heroes got on board, and seizing their oars, held them perpendicularly in the air, while Orpheus (who liked such a task far bet- ter than rowing) swept his fingers across the harp. 253 TANGLEWOOD TALES. At the first ringing note of the music, they felt the vessel stir. Orpheus thrummed away briskly, and the galley slid at once into the sea, dipping her prow so deeply that the figure-head drank the waves with its marvelous lips, and rose again as buoyant as a swan. The rowers plied their fifty oars; the white foam boiled up before the prow; the water gurgled and bubbled in their wake; while Orpheus continued to play so lively a strain of music that the vessel seemed to dance over the billows by way of keeping time to it. Thus tri- umphantly did the Argo sail out of the harbor, amidst the huzzas and good wishes of everybody except the wicked old Pelias, who stood on a prom- ontory, scowling at her, and wishing that he could blow out of his lungs the .tempest of wrath that was in his heart, and so sink the galley with all on board. When they had sailed above fifty miles over the sea, Lynceus happened to cast his sharp eyes behind, and said that there was this bad-hearted king, still perched upon the promontory, and scowling so gloomily that it looked like a black thunder-cloud in that quarter of the horizon. In order to make the time pass away more pleas- antly during the voyage, the heroes talked about the Golden Fleece. It originally belonged, it ap- pears, to a Boeotian ram, who had taken on his back two children, when in danger of their lives, 254 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. and fled with them over land and sea, as far as Colchis. One of the children, whose name was Helle, fell into the sea and was drowned. But the other (a little boy, named Phrixus) wasbrought safe ashore by the faithful ram, who, however, was so exhausted that he immediately lay down and died. In memory of this good deed, and as a token of his true heart, the fleece of the poor dead ram was miraculously changed to gold, and be- came one of the most beautiful objects ever seen on earth. It was hung upon a tree in a sacred grove, where it had now been kept I know not how many years, and was the envy of mighty kings, who had nothing so magnificent in any of their palaces. If I ivere to tell you all the adventures of the Argonauts, it would take. me till nightfall, and perhaps a great deal longer. There was no lack of wonderful events, as you may judge from what you may have already heard. At a certain island they were hospitably received by King Cyzicus, its sovereign, who made a feast for them, and treated them like brothers. But the Argonauts saw that this good king looked downcast and very much troubled, and they therefore inquired of him what was the matter. King Cyzicus hereupon informed them that he and his subjects were greatly abused and incommoded by the inhabitants of a neighbor- 255 TANGLEWOOD TALES. ing mountain, who made war upon them, and killed many people, and ravaged the country. And while they were talking about it, Cyzicus pointed to the mountain, and asked Jason and his com- panions what they saw there. "I see some very tall objects," answered Jason; "but they are at such a distance that I cannot dis- tinctly make out what they are. To tell your Majesty the truth, they look so very strangely that I am inclined to think them clouds, which have chanced to take something like human shapes." "I see them very plainly," remarked Lynceus, whose eyes, you know, were as far-sighted as a tele- scope. "They are a band of enormous giants, all of whom have six arms apiece, and a club, a sword, or some other weapon in each of their hands. "You have excellent eyes," said King Cyzicus. "Yes; they are six-armed giants, as you say, and these are the enemies whom I and my subjects have to contend with." The next day, when the Argonauts were about setting sail, down came these terrible giants, step- ping a hundred yards at a stride, brandishing their six arms apiece, and looking very formidable, so far aloft in the air. Each of these monsters was able to carry on a whole war by himself, for with one of his arms he could fling immense stones, and wield a club with another, and a sword with 256 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. third, while the fourth was poking a long spear at the enemy, and the fifth and sixth were shooting him with a bow and arrow. But, luckily, though the giants were so huge, and had so many arms, they had each but one heart, and that no bigger nor braver than the heart of an ordinary man. Besides, if they had been like the hundred-armed Briareus, the brave Argonauts would have given them their hands full of fight. Jason and his friends went boldly to meet them, slew a great many, and made the rest take to their heels, so that, if the giants had had six legs apiece instead of six arms, it would have served them better to run away with. Another strange adventure happened when the voyagers came to Thrace, where they found a poor blind king, named Phineus, deserted by his sub- jects, and living in a very sorrowful way, all by himself. On Jason's inquiring whether they could do him any service, the king answered that he was terribly tormented by three great winged creatures, called Harpies, which had the faces of women, and the wings, bodies, and claws of vul- tures. These ugly wretches were in the habit of snatching away his dinner, and allowing him no peace of his life. Upon hearing this, the Argo- nauts spread a plentiful feast on the sea-shore, well knowing, from what the blind king said of their 17 257 TANGLEWOOD TALES. greediness, that the Harpies would snuff up the scent of the victuals, and quickly come to steal them away. And so it-turned out; for, hardly was the table set, before the three hideous vulture wo- men came flapping their wings, seized the food in their talons, and flew off as fast as they could. But the two sons of the North Wind drew their swords, spread their pinions, and set off through the air in pursuit of the thieves, whom they at last over- took among some islands, after a chase of hundreds of miles. The two winged youths blustered ter- ribly at the Harpies (for they had the rough temper of their father), and so frightened them with their drawn swords, that they solemnly promised never to trouble King Phineus again. Then the Argonauts sailed onward, and met with many other marvellous incidents, any one of which would make a story by itself. At one time, they landed on an island, and were reposing on the grass, when they suddenly found themselves as- sailed by what seemed a shower of steel-headed ar- rows. Some of them stuck in the ground, while others hit against their shields, and several pene- trated their flesh. The fifty heroes started up, and looked about them for the hidden enemy, but could find none, nor see any spot, on the whole island, where even a single archer could lie con- cealed. Still, however, the steel-headed arrows 258 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. came whizzing among them; and, at last, happen- ing to look upward, they beheld a large flock of birds, hovering and wheeling aloft, and shooting their feathers down upon the Argonauts. These feathers were the steel-headed arrows that had so tormented them. There was no possibility of mak- ing any resistance; and the fifty heroic Argonauts might all have been killed or wounded by a flock of troublesome birds, without ever setting eyes on the Golden Fleece, if Jason had not thought of asking the advice of the oaken image. So he ran to the galley as fast as his legs would carry him. "0 daughter of the Speaking Oak," cried he, All out of breath, "we need your wisdom more than ever before! We are in great peril from a flock of birds, who are shooting us with their steel-pointed feathers. What can we do to drive them away?" "Make a clatter on your shields," said the image. On receiving this excellent counsel, Jason hur- ried back to his companions (who were far more dismayed than when they fought with the six- armed giants), and bade them strike with their swords upon their brazen shields. Forthwith the fifty heroes set heartily to work, banging with might and main, and raised such a terrible clatter that the birds made what haste they could to get away; and though they had shot half the feathery 259 TANGLEWOOD TALES. out of their wings, they were soon seen skimming among the clouds, a long distance off, and looking like a flock of wild geese. Orpheus celebrated this victory by playing a tr'Imphant anthem on his harp, and sang so .melodiously that Jason begged him to desist, lest, as the steel-feathered birds had been driven away by an ugly sound, they might be enticed back again by a sweet one. While the Argonauts remained on this island, they saw a small vessel approaching the shore,, in which were two young men of princely demeanor, and exceedingly handsome, as young princes gen- erally were in those days. Now, who do you im- agine these two voyagers turned out to be? Why, if you will believe me, they were the sons of that very Phrixus, who, in his childhood, had been car- ried to Colchis on the back of the golden-fleeced ram. Since that time, Phrixus had married the king's daughter; and the two young princes had been born and brought up at Colchis, and had spent their play-days in the outskirts of the grove, in the centre of which the Golden Fleece was hanging upon a tree. They were now on their way to Greece, in hopes of getting back a kingdom that had been wrongfully taken from their father. When the princes understood whither the Argo- nauts were going, they offered to turn back and guide them to Colchis. At the same time, how- 260 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. ever, they spoke as if it were very doubtful whether Jason would succeed in getting the Golden Fleece. According to their account, the tree on which it hung was guarded by a terrible dragon, who never failed to devour, at one mouthful, every person who might venture within his reach. "There are other difficulties in the way," con- tinued the young princes. "But is not this enough? Ah, brave Jason, turn back before it is too late. It would grieve us to the heart, if you and your nine- and-forty brave companions should be eaten up, at fifty mouthfuls, by this execrable dragon." "My young friends," quietly replied Jason, "I do not wonder that you think the dragon very ter- rible. You have grown up from infancy in the fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that children feel for the bugboars and hobgoblins which their nurses have talked to them about. But, in my view of the matter, the dragon is merely a pretty large serpent, who is not half so likely to snap me up at one mouthful as I am to cut off his ugly head, and strip the skin from his body. At all events, turn back who may, I will never see Greece again unless I carry with me the Golden Fleece." "We will none of us turn back!" cried his nine- and-forty brave comrades. "Let us get on board the galley this instant; and if the dragon is to make a breakfast of us, much good may it do him." 261 TANGLEWOOD TALES. And Orpheus (whose custom it was to set every- thing to music) began to harp and sing most glo- riously, and made every mother's son of them feel as if nothing in this world were so delectable as to fight dragons, and nothing so truly honorable as to be eaten up at one mouthful, in case of the worst. After this (being now under the guidance of the two princes, who were well acquainted with the way), they quickly sailed to Colchis. When the king of the country, whose name was Aetes, heard of their arrival, he instantly summoned Jason to court. The king was a stern and cruel-looking potentate; and though he put on as polite and hos- pitable an expression as he could, Jason did not like his face a whit better than that of the wicked King Pelias, who dethroned his father. "You are welcome, brave Jason," said King Aetes. "Pray, are you on a pleasure voyage ?-or do you meditate the discovery of unknown islands? -or what other cause has procured me the happi- ness of seeing you at my court?" "Great sir," replied Jason, with an obeisance,- for Chiron had taught him how to behave with propriety, whether to kings or beggars,-"I have come hither with a purpose which I now beg your Majesty's permission to execute. King Pelias, who sits on my father's throne (to which he has no more right than to the one on which your excellent 262 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. Majesty is now seated), has engaged to come down from it, and to give me his crown and sceptre, pro- vided I bring him the Golden Fleece. This, as your Majesty is aware, is now hanging on a tree here at Colchis; and I humbly solicit your gracious leave to take it away." In spite of himself, the king's face twisted itself into an angry frown; for, above all things else in the world, he prized the Golden Fleece, and was even suspected of having done a very wicked act, in order to get it into his own possession. It put him into the worst possible humor, therefore, to hear that the gallant Prince Jason, and forty-nine of the bravest young warriors of Greece, had come to Colchis with the sole purpose of taking away his chief treasure. "Do you know," asked King Aetes, eyeing Jason very sternly, "what are the conditions which you must fulfill before getting possession of the Golden Fleece?" "I have heard," rejoined the youth, "that a dragon lies beneath the tree on which the prize hangs, and that whoever approaches him runs the risk of being devoured at a mouthful." "True," said the king, with a smile that did not look particularly good-natured. "Very true, young man. But there are other things as hard, or per- haps a little harder, to be done, before you can 263 TANGLEWOOD TALES. even have the privilege of being devoured by the dragon. For example, you must first tame my two brazen-footed and brazen-lunged bulls, which Vul- can, the wonderful blacksmith, made for me. There is a furnace in each of their stomachs; and they breathe such hot fire out of their mouths and nostrils, that nobody has hitherto gone nigh them without being instantly burned to a small, black cinder. What do you think of this, my brave Jason?" "I must encounter the peril," answered Jason, composedly, "since it stands in the way of my pur- pose." "After taming the fiery bulls," continued KIing Aetes, who was determined to scare Jason if pos- sible, "you must yoke them to a plough, and must plough the sacred earth in the grove of MIars, and sow some of the same dragon's teeth from which Cadmus raised a crop of armed men. They are an unruly set of reprobates, those sons of the dragon's teeth; and unless you treat them suitably, they will fall upon you sword in hand. You and your nine- and-forty Argonauts, my bold Jason, are hardly numerous or strong enough to fight with such a host as will spring up." "My master Chiron," replied Jason, "taught me, long ago, the story of Cadmus. Perhaps I can 264 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. manage the quarrelsome sons of the dragon's teeth as well as Cadmus did." "I wish the dragon had him," muttered King Aetes to himself, "and the four-footed pedant, his schoolmaster, into the bargain. Why, what a fool- hardy, self-conceited coxcomb he is! We'll see what my fire-breathing bulls will do for him. Well, Prince Jason," he continued, aloud, and as com- plaisantly as he could, "make yourself comfortable for to-day, and to-morrow morning, since you in- sist upon it, you shall try your skill at the plough." While the king talked with Jason, a beautiful young woman was standing behind the throne. She fixed her eyes earnestly upon the youthful stranger, and listened attentively to every word that was spoken; and when Jason withdrew from the king's presence, this young woman followed him out of the room. "I am the king's daughter," she said to him, "and my name is Medea. I know a great deal of which other young princesses are ignorant, and can do many things which they would be afraid so much as to dream of. If you will trust to me, I can in- struct you how to tame the fiery bulls, and sow the dragon's teeth, and get the Golden Fleece." "Indeed, beautiful princess," answered Jason, "if you will do me this service, I promise to be grateful to you may whole life long." 265 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Gazing at Medea, he beheld a wonderful intelli- gence in her face. She was one of those persons whose eyes are full of mystery; so that, while look- ing into them, you seem to see a very great way, as into a deep well, yet can never be certain whether you see into the farthest depths, or whether there be not something else hidden at the bottom. If Jason had been capable of fearing anything, he would have been afraid of making this young prin- cess his enemy; for, beautiful as she now looked, she might, the very next instant, become as ter- rible as the dragon that kept watch over the Golden Fleece. "Princess," he exclaimed, "you seem indeed very wise and very powerful. But how can yoi help me to do the things of which you speak? Are you an enchantress?" "Yes, Prince Jason," answered Medea, with a smile, "you have hit upon the truth. I am an en- chantress. Circe, my father's sister, taught me to be one, and I could tell you, if I pleased, who was the old woman with the peacock, the pomegranate, and the cuckoo staff, whom you carried over the river; and, likewise, who it is that speaks through the lips of the oaken image, that stands in the prow of your galley. I am acquainted with some of your secrets, you perceive. It is well for you that I am favorably inclined; for, otherwise, you would 266 THE GOLDEN FLEEGE. hardly escape being snapped up by the dragon." "I should not so much care for the dragon," re- plied Jason, "if I only knew how to manage the brazen-footed and fiery-lunged bulls." "If you are as brave as I think you, and as you have need to be," said Medea, "your own bold heart will teach you that there is but one way of dealing with a mad bull. What it is I leave you to find out in the moment of peril. As for the fiery breath of these animals, I have a charmed ointment here, which will prevent you from being burned up, and cure you if you chance to be a little scorched." So she put a golden box into his hand, and di- rected him how to apply the perfumed unguent which it contained, and where to meet her at mid- night. "Only be brave," added she, "and before day- break the brazen bulls shall be tamed. The young man assured her that his heart would not fail him. He then rejoined his comrades, and told them what had passed between the princess and himself, and warned them to be in readiness in case there might be need of their help. At the appointed hour he met the beautiful Medea on the marble steps of the king's palace. She gave him a basket, in which were the dragon's teeth, just as they had been pulled out of the mon- 267 TANGLEWOOD TA-LES. ster's jaws by Cadmus, long ago. Medea then led Jason down the palace steps, and through the silent streets of the city, and into the royal pasture- ground, where the two brazen-footed bulls were kept. It was a starry night, with a bright gleam along the eastern edge of the sky, where the moon was soon going to show herself. After entering the pasture, the princess paused and looked around. "There they are," said she, "reposing themselves and chewing their fiery. cuds in that farthest corner of the field. It will be excellent sport, I assure you, when they catch a glimpse of your figure. My father and all his court delight in nothing so much as to see a stranger trying to yoke them, in order to come at the Golden Fleece. It makes a holiday in Colchis whenever such a thing happens. For my part, I enjoy it immensely. You cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder." "Are you sure, beautiful Medea," asked Jason, "quite sure, that the unguent in the gold box will prove a remedy against those terrible burns?" "If you doubt it, if you are in the least afraid," said the princess, looking him in the face by the dim starlight, "you had better never have been born than go a step nigher to the bulls." But Jason had set his heart steadfastly on get- ting the Golden Fleece; and I positively doubt THE GOLDEN FLEECE. whether he would have gone back without it, even had he been certain of finding himself turned into a red-hot cinder, or a handful of white ashes, the instant he made a step farther. He therefore let go Medea's hand, and walked boldly forward in the direction whither she had pointed. At some distance before him he perceived four streams of fiery vapor, regularly appearing, and again vanish- ing, after dimly lighting up the surrounding ob- scurity. These, you will understand, were caused by the breath of the brazen bulls, which was quietly stealing out of their four nostrils, as they lay chew- ing their cuds. At the first two or three steps which Jason made, the four fiery streams appeared to gush out some- what more plentifully; for the two brazen bulls had heard his foot-tramp, and were lifting up their hot noses to sniff the air. He went a little further, and by the way in which the red vapor now spouted forth, he judged that the creatures had got upon their feet. Now he could see glowing sparks and vivid jets of flame. At the next step, each of the bulls made the pasture echo with a terrible roar, while the burning breath, which they thus belched forth, lit up the whole field with a momentary flash. One other stride did bold Jason make; and, g~u- denly, as a streak of lightning, on came these fieit animals roaring like thunder, and sending out 269 TANGLEWOOD TALES. sheets of white flame, which so kindled up the scene that the young man could discern every ob- ject more distinctly than by daylight. Most distinctly of all he saw the two horrible creatures galloping right down upon him, their brazen hoofs rattling and ringing over the ground, and their tails sticking up stiffly into the air, as has always been the fashion with angry bulls. Their breath scorched the herbage before them. So in- tensely hot it was, indeed, that it caught a dry tree, under which Jason was now standing, and set it all in a light blaze. But as for Jason himself (thanks to Medea's enchanted ointment), the white flame curled around his body, without injuring him a jot more than if he had been made of asbestos. Greatly encouraged at finding himself not yet turned into a cinder, the young man awaited the attack of the bulls. Just as the brazen brutes fancied themselves sure of tossing him into the air, he caught one of them by the horn, and the other by his screwed-up tail, and held them in a gripe like that of an iron vice---one with his right hand, the other with his left. Well, he must have been wond- erfully strong in his arms, to be sure. But the secret of the matter was, that the brazen bulls were enchanted creatures, and that Jason had broken the spell of their fiery fierceness by his bold way of handling them. And, ever since that time, it has 270, THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 27 been the favorite method of brave men, when dan- ger assails them, to do, what they call "taking the bull by the horns;" and to gripe him by the tail is pretty much the same thing,-that is, to throw aside fear, and overcome the peril by despising it. It was now easy to yoke the bulls, and to harness them to the plough, which had lain rusting on the ground for a great many years gone by; so long was it before anybody could be found capable of ploughing that piece of land. Jason, I suppose, had been taught how to draw a furrow by the good old Chiron, who, perhaps, used to allow himself to be harnessed to the plough. At any rate, our hero succeeded perfectly well in breaking up the green sward; and by the time that the moon was a quarter of her journey up the sky, the ploughed field lay before him, a large tract of black earth, ready to be sown with the dragon's teeth. So Jason scattered them broadcast, and harrowed them into the soil with a brush-harrow, and took his stand on the edge of the field, anxious to see what would happen next. "Must we wait long for harvest-time?" he in- quired of Medea, who was now standing by his side. "Whether sooner or later it will be sure to come," answered the princess. "A crop of armed men 271 TANGLEWOOD TALES. never fails to spring up, when the dragon's teeth have been sown." The moon was now high aloft in the heavens, and threw its bright beams over the ploughed field, where as yet there was nothing to be seen. Any farmer, on viewing it, would have said that Jason must wait weeks before the green blades would peep from among the clods, and whole months be- fdre the yellow grain would be ripened for the sickle. But by and by, all over the field, there was something that glistened in the moon beams, like sparkling drops of dew. These bright objects sprouted higher, and proved to be the steel heads of spears. Then there was a dazzling gleam from a vast number of polished brass helmets, beneath which, as they grew farther out of the soil, ap- peared the dark and bearded visages of warriors, struggling to free themselves from the imprison- ing earth. The first look that they gave at the upper world was a glare of wrath and defiance. Next were seen their bright breastplates; in every right hand there was a sword or a spear, and on each left arm a shield; and when this strange crop of warriors had but half grown out of the earth they struggled-such was their impatience of re- straint-and, as it were, tore themselves up by the roots. Wherever a dragon's tooth had fallen, there stood a man armed for battle. They made a clangor 273 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. with their swords against their shields, and eyed one another fiercdy; for they had come into this beautiful world, and into the peaceful moonlight, full of rage and stormy passions, and ready to take the life of every human brother, in recompense of the boon of their own existence. There have been many other armies in the world that seemed to possess the same fierce nature with the one which had now sprouted from the dragon's teeth; but these, in the moonlit field, were- the more excusable, because they never had women for their mothers. And how it would have rejoiced any great captain, who was bent on conquering the world, like Alexander or Napoleon, to raise a crop of armed soldiers as easily as Jason did! For a while the warriors stood flourishing their weapons, clashing their swords against their shields, and boiling over with the red-hot thirst for battle. Then they began to shout, "Show us the enemy! Lead us to the charge! I)eath or victory! Come on, brave comrades! Conquer or die!" and a hundred other outcries, such as men always bellow forth on a battle-field, and which these dragon people seemed to have at their tongues' ends. At last, the front rank caught sight of Jason, who, beholding the flash of so many weapons in the moonlight, had thought it best to draw his sword. In a moment all the sons of the dragon's teeth appeared to take 18 273 TANGLEWOOD TALES. Jason for an emeny; and crying with one voice, "Guard the Golden Fleece!" they ran at him with uplifted swords and protruded spears. Jason knew that it would be impossible to withstand this blood- thirsty battalion with his single arm, but deter- mined, since there was nothing better to be done, to die as valiantly as if he himself had sprung from a dragon's tooth. Medea, however, bade him snatch up a stone from the ground. "Throw it among them quickly!" cried she. "It is the only way to save yourself." The armed men were now so nigh that Jason could discern the fire flashing out of their enraged eyes, when he let fly the stone, and saw it strike the helmet of a tall warrior, who was rushing upon him with his blade aloft. The stone glanced from this man's helmet to the shield of his nearest com- rade, and thence flew right into the angry face of another, hitting him smartly between the eyes. Each of the three who had been struck by the stone took it for granted that his next neighbor had given him a blow; and instead of running any farther towards Jason, they began a fight among them- selves. The confusion spread through the host, so that it seemed scarcely a moment before they were all hacking, hewing, and stabbing at one an- other, lopping off arms, heads, and legs, and doing 274 THE GOLDEN FLEEOE. such memorable deeds that Jason was filled with immense admiration; although, at the same time, he could not help laughing to behold these mighty men punishing each other for an offence which he himself had committed. In an incredibly short space of time (almost as short, indeed, as it had taken them to grow up), all but one of the heroes of the dragon's teeth were stretched lifeless on the field. The last survivor, the bravest and strongest of the whole, had just force enough to wave his crimson sword over his head, and give a shout of exultation, crying "Victory! Victory! Immortal fame!" when he himself fell down, and lay quietly among his slain brethren. And there was the end of the army that had sprouted from the dragon's teeth. That fierce and feverish fight was the only enjoyment which they had tasted on this beautiful earth. "Let them sleep in the bed of honor," said the Princess Medea, with a sly smile at Jason. "The world will always have simpletons enough, just like them, fighting and dying for they know net what, and fancying that posterity will take the trouble to put laurel wreaths on their rusty and bat- tered helmets. Could you help smiling, Prince Jason, to see the self-conceit of that last fellow, just as he tumbled down?" "It made me very sad," answered Jason, gravely, 275 TANGLEWOOD TALES. "And, to tell you the truth, princess, the Golden Fleece does not appear so well worth the winning, after what I have here beheld." "You will think differently in the morning," said Medea. "True, the Golden Fleece may not be so valuable as you have thought it; but then there is nothing better in the world; and one must needs have an object, you know. Come! Your night's work has been well performed; and to-morrow you can inform King Aetes that the first part of your allotted task is fulfilled." Agreeably to Medea's advice, Jason went betimes in the morning to the palace of King Aetes. En- tering the presence-chamber he stood at the foot of the throne, and made a low obeisance. "Your eyes look heavy, Prince Jason," observed the king; "you appear to have spent a sleepless night. I hope you have been considering the mat- ter a little more wisely, and have concluded not to get yourself scorched to a cinder, in attempting to tame my brazen-lunged bulls." "That is already accomplished, may it please your Majesty," replied Jason. "The bulls have been tamed and yoked; the field has been ploughed; the dragon's teeth have been sown broadcast, and harrowed into the soil; the crop of armed warriors has sprung up, and they have slain one another, to the last mran. And now I solicit your Majesty's 276 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. permission to encounter the dragon, that I mnay take down the Golden Fleece from the tree, and depart, with my nine-and-forty comrades." King Aetes scowled, and looked very angry and excessively disturbed; for he knew that, in accord- ance with his kingly promise, he ought now to per- mit Jason to win the Fleece, if his courage and skill should enable him to do so. But, since the young man had met with such good luck in the matter of the brazen bulls and the dragon's teeth, the king feared that he would be equally successful in slaying the dragon. And therefore, though he would gladly have seen Jason snapped up at a mouthful, he was resolved (and it was a very wrong thing of this wicked potentate) not to run any further risk of losing his beloved Fleece. "You never would have succeeded in this busi- ness, young man," said he, "if my undutiful daughter Medea had not helped you with her en- chantments. Had you acted fairly, you would have been, at this instant,a black cinder, or a hand- ful of white ashes. I forbid you, on pain of death, to make any more attempts to get the Golden Fleece. To speak my mind plainly, you shall never set eyes on so much as one of its glistening locks." Jason left the king's presence in great sorrow and anger. He could think of nothing better to be done than to summon together his forty-nine 277 TANGLEWOOD TALES. brave Argonauts, march at once to the grove of Mars, slay the dragon, take possession of the Golden Fleece, get on board the Argo, and spread all sail for Iolchos. The success of the scheme depended, it is true, on the doubtful point whether all the fifty heroes might not be snapped up, at so many mouthfuls, by the dragon: But, as Jason was hastening down the palace steps, the Princess Medea called after him, and beckoned him to re- turn. Her black eyes shone upon him with such a keen intelligence, that he felt ag if there were a serpent peeping out of them; and although she had done him so much service only the night be- fore, he was by no means very certain that she would not do him an equally great mischief before sunset. These enchantresses, you must know, are never to be depended upon. "What says King Aetes, my royal and upright father?" inquired Medea, slightly smiling. "Will he give you to the Golden Fleece, without any fur- ther risk or trouble?" "On the contrary," answered Jason, "he is very angry with me for taming the brazen bulls and sowing the dragon's teeth. And he forbids me to make any more attempts, and positively refuses to give up the Golden Fleece, whether I slay the dragon or not." "Yes, Jason," said the princess, "and I can tell 278 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. you more. Unless you set sail from Colchis before to-morrow's sunrise, the king means to burn your fifty-oared galley, and put yourself and your forty- nine brave comrades to the svord. But be of good courage. The Golden Fleece you shall have, if it lies within the power of my enchantments to get it for you. Wait for me here an hour before mid- night." At the appointed hour, you might again have seen Prince Jason and the Princess Medea, side by side, stealing through the streets of Colchis, on their way to the sacred grove, in the centre of which the Golden Fleece was suspended to a tree. While they were crossing the pasture-ground, the brazen bulls came towards Jason, lowing, nodding their heads, and thrusting forth their snouts, which, as other cattle do, they loved to have rubbed and caressed by a friendly hand. Their fierce na- ture was thoroughly tamed; and, with their fierce- ness, the two furnaces in their stomachs had like- wise been extinguished, insomuch that they prob- ably enjoyed far more comfort in grazing and chew- ing their cuds than ever before. Indeed, it had heretofore been a great inconvenience to these poor animals, that, whenever they wished to eat a mouth- ful of grass, the fire out of their nostrils had shrivelled it up, before they could manage to crop i. How they contrived to keep themselves alive is 279 TANGLEWOOD T'ALES. more than I can imagine. But now, instead of emitting jets of flame and streams of sulphurous vapor, they breathed the very sweetest of cow breath. After kindly patting the bulls, Jason followed Medea's guidance into the grove of Mars, where the great oak-trees, that had been growing for cen- turies, threw so thick a shade that the moonbeams struggled vainly to find their way through it. Only here and there a glimmer fell upon the leaf-strewn earth, or now and then a breeze stirred the boughs aside, and gave Jason a glimpse of the sky, lest, in that deep obscurity, he might forget that there was one overhead. At length, when they had gone farther and farther into the heart of the duskiness, Medea squeezed Jason's hand. "Look yonder," she whispered. "Do you see it?" Gleaming among the venerable oaks, there was a radiance, not like the moonbeams, but rather re- sembling the golden glory of the setting sun. It proceeded from an object which appeared to be suspended at about a man's height from the ground, a little farther within the wood. "What is it ?" asked Jason. "Have you come so far to seek it," exclaimed Medea, "and do you got recognize the meed of all your toils and perils, when it glitters before your eyes? It is the Golden Fleece." 280 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. Jason went onward a few steps farther, and then stopped to gaze. Oh, how beautiful it looked, shin- ing with a marvellous light of its own, that in- estimable prize, which so many heroes had longed to behold, but had perished in the quest of it, either by the perils of their voyage, or by the fiery breath of the brazen-lunged bulls. "How gloriously it shines!" cried Jason, in a rapture. "It has surely been dipped in the richest gold of sunset. Let me hasten onward, and take it to my bosom." "Stay," said Medea, holding him back. "Have you forgotten what guards it?" To say the truth, in the joy of beholding the ob- ject of his desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of Jason's memory. Soon, however, something came to pass that reminded him what perils were still to be encountered. An antelope, that probably mistook the yellow radiance for sun- rise, came bounding fleetly through the grove. He was rushing straight towards the Golden Fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss, and the immense head and half thescaly body of the dragon was thrust forth (for he was twisted round the trunk of the tree on which the Fleece hung), and seizing the poor antelope, swallowed him with one snap of his jaws. After this feat the dragon seemed sensible that 281 TANGLEWOOD TALES. some other living creature was within reach on which he felt inclined to finish his meal. In var- ious directions he kept poking his ugly snout among the trees, stretching ,out his neck a terribly long way, now here, now there, and now close to the spot where Jason and the princess were hiding be- hind an oak. Upon my word, as the head came waving and undulating through the air, and reach- ing almost within arm's length of Prince Jason, it was a very hideous and uncomfortable sight. The gape of his enormous jaws was nearly as wide as the gateway of the king's palace. "Well, Jason," whispered Medea (for she was ill-natured, as all enchantresses are, and wanted to make the bold youth tremble), "what do you think now of your prospect of winning the Golden Fleece?" Jason answered only by drawing his sword and making a step forward. "Stay, foolisA youth," said Medea, grasping his arm. "Do not you see you are lost, without me as your good angel? In this gold box I have a magic potion, which will do the dragon's business far more effectually than your sword." The dragon had probably heard the voices; for, swift as lightning, his black head and forked ton- gue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached. Me- 282 THE GOLDEN FLEECE. dea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle, -flingin his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree, and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again,-the dragon fell at full length upon the ground, and lay quite motionless. "It is only a sleeping potion," said the enchant- ress to Prince Jason. "One always finds a use for these mischievous creatures, soon or later; so I did not wish to kill him outright. Quick! Snatch the prize, and let us begone. You have won the Golden Fleece." Jason caught the Fleece from the tree, and hur- ried through the grove, the deep shadows of which were illuminated as he passed by the golden glory of the precious object that he bore along. A little way before him, he beheld the old woman whom he had helped over the stream, with her peacock beside her. She clapped her hands for joy, and beckoning him to make haste, disappeared among the duskiness of the trees. Espying the two winged sons of the North Wind (who were disporting themselves in the moonlight, a few hundred feet aloft), Jason bade them tell the rest of the Argo- nauts to embark as speedily as possible. But Lynceus, with his sharp eyes, had already caught a glimpse of him, bringing the Golden Fleece, al- 283 284 TANGLEWOOD TALES. though several stone-walls, a hill, and the black shadows of the grove of Mars intervened between. By his advice, the heroes had seated themselves on the benches of the galley, with their oars held per- pendicularly, ready to let fall into the water. As Jason drew near, he heard the Talking Image calling to him with more than ordinary eagerness, in its grave, sweet voice:- "Make haste, Prince Jason! For your life, make haste!" With one bound he leaped aboard. At sight of the glorious radiance of the Golden Fleece, the nine-and-forty heroes gave a mighty shout, and Orpheus, striking his harp, sang a song of triumph, to the cadence of which the galley flew over the water, homeward bound, as if careering along with Wingst This book is a preservation facsimile produced for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper). Preservation facsimile printing and binding by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2011