Part 20 (1/2)

And when Peleus said this he looked over the land and the water for a sign from Zeus.

Even then the G.o.ddess sleeping in the cave had dreams such as had never before entered that peaceful resting place of hers. She dreamt that she was drawn away from the deep and the wide sea. She dreamt that she was brought to a place that was strange and unfree to her. And as she lay in the cave, sleeping, tears that might never come into the eyes of an immortal lay around her heart.

But Peleus, standing on his painted s.h.i.+p, saw a rainbow touch upon the sea. He knew by that sign that Iris, the messenger of Zeus, had come down through the air. Then a strange sight came before his eyes. Out of the sea rose the head of a man; wrinkled and bearded it was, and the eyes were very old. Peleus knew that he who was there before him was Nereus, the ancient one of the sea.

Said old Nereus: ”Thou hast prayed to Zeus, and I am here to speak an answer to thy prayer. She whom you have looked upon is Thetis, the G.o.ddess of the sea. Very loath will she be to take Zeus's command and wed with thee. It is her desire to remain in the sea, unwedded, and she has refused marriage even with one of the immortal G.o.ds.”

Then said Peleus, ”Zeus promised me an immortal bride. If Thetis may not be mine I cannot wed any other, G.o.ddess or mortal maiden.”

”Then thou thyself wilt have to master Thetis,” said Nereus, the wise one of the sea. ”If she is mastered by thee, she cannot go back to the sea. She will strive with all her strength and all her wit to escape from thee; but thou must hold her no matter what she does, and no matter how she shows herself. When thou hast seen her again as thou didst see her at first, thou wilt know that thou hast mastered her.” And when he had said this to Peleus, Nereus, the ancient one of the sea, went under the waves.

II

With his hero's heart beating more than ever it had beaten yet, Peleus went into the cave. Kneeling beside her he looked down upon the G.o.ddess.

The dress she wore was like green and silver mail. Her face and limbs were pearly, but through them came the radiance that belongs to the immortals.

He touched the hair of the G.o.ddess of the sea, the yellow hair that was so long that it might cover her all over. As he touched her hair she started up, wakening suddenly out of her sleep. His hands touched her hands and held them. Now he knew that if he should loose his hold upon her she would escape from him into the depths of the sea, and that thereafter no command from the immortals would bring her to him.

She changed into a white bird that strove to bear itself away. Peleus held to its wings and struggled with the bird. She changed and became a tree. Around the trunk of the tree Peleus clung. She changed once more, and this time her form became terrible: a spotted leopard she was now, with burning eyes; but Peleus held to the neck of the fierce-appearing leopard and was not affrighted by the burning eyes. Then she changed and became as he had seen her first-a lovely maiden, with the brow of a G.o.ddess, and with long yellow hair.

But now there was no radiance in her face or in her limbs. She looked past Peleus, who held her, and out to the wide sea. ”Who is he,” she cried, ”who has been given this mastery over me?”

Then said the hero: ”I am Peleus, and Zeus has given me the mastery over thee. Wilt thou come with me, Thetis? Thou art my bride, given me by him who is highest amongst the G.o.ds, and if thou wilt come with me, thou wilt always be loved and reverenced by me.”

”Unwillingly I leave the sea,” she cried, ”unwillingly I go with thee, Peleus.”

But life in the sea was not for her any more now that she was mastered.

She went to Peleus's s.h.i.+p and she went to Phthia, his country. And when the hero and the sea G.o.ddess were wedded the immortal G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses came to their hall and brought the bride and the bridegroom wondrous gifts. The three sisters who are called the Fates came also. These wise and ancient women said that the son born of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis would be a man greater than Peleus himself.

III

Now although a son was born to her, and although this son had something of the radiance of the immortals about him, Thetis remained forlorn and estranged. Nothing that her husband did was pleasing to her. Prince Peleus was in fear that the wildness of the sea would break out in her, and that some great harm would be wrought in his house.

One night he wakened suddenly. He saw the fire upon his hearth and he saw a figure standing by the fire. It was Thetis, his wife. The fire was blazing around something that she held in her hands. And while she stood there she was singing to herself a strange-sounding song.

And then he saw what Thetis held in her hands and what the fire was blazing around; it was the child, Achilles.

Prince Peleus sprang from the bed and caught Thetis around the waist and lifted her and the child away from the blazing fire. He put them both upon the bed, and he took from her the child that she held by the heel. His heart was wild within him, for the thought that wildness had come over his wife, and that she was bent upon destroying their child. But Thetis looked on him from under those G.o.ddess brows of hers and she said to him: ”By the divine power that I still possess I would have made the child invulnerable; but the heel by which I held him has not been endued by the fire and in that place some day he may be stricken. All that the fire covered is invulnerable, and no weapon that strikes there can destroy his life. His heel I cannot now make invulnerable, for now the divine power is gone out of me.”

When she said this Thetis looked full upon her husband, and never had she seemed so unforgiving as she was then. All the divine radiance that had remained with her was gone from her now, and she seemed a white-faced and bitter-thinking woman. And when Peleus saw that such a great bitterness faced him he fled from his house.

He traveled far from his own land, and first he went to the help of Heracles, who was then in the midst of his mighty labors. Heracles was building a wall around a city. Peleus labored, helping him to raise the wall for King Laomedon. Then, one night, as he walked by the wall he had helped to build, he heard voices speaking out of the earth. And one voice said: ”Why has Peleus striven so hard to raise a wall that his son shall fight hard to overthrow?” No voice replied. The wall was built, and Peleus departed. The city around which the wall was built was the great city of Troy.

In whatever place he went Peleus was followed by the hatred of the people of the sea, and above all by the hatred of the nymph who is called Psamathe. Far, far from his own country he went, and at last he came to a country of bright valleys that was ruled over by a kindly king-by Ceyx, who was called the Son of the Morning Star.

Bright of face and kindly and peaceable in all his ways was this king, and kindly and peaceable was the land that he ruled over. And when Prince Peleus went to him to beg for his protection, and to beg for unfurrowed fields where he might graze his cattle, Ceyx raised him up from where he knelt. ”Peaceable and plentiful is the land,” he said, ”and all who come here may have peace and a chance to earn their food. Live where you will, O stranger, and take the unfurrowed fields by the seash.o.r.e for pasture for your cattle.”