Part 14 (2/2)

Rejoice, ye lovers, for he that hated is slain. Love, all ye beloved, for the G.o.d knoweth how to deal righteous judgment.

IDYL XXIV--THE INFANT HERACLES

This poem describes the earliest feat of Heracles, the slaying of the snakes sent against him by Hera, and gives an account of the hero's training. The vivacity and tenderness of the pictures of domestic life, and the minute knowledge of expiatory ceremonies seem to stamp this idyl as the work of Theocritus. As the following poem also deals with an adventure of Heracles, it seems not impossible that Theocritus wrote, or contemplated writing, a Heraclean epic, in a series of idyls.

When Heracles was but ten months old, the lady of Midea, even Alcmena, took him, on a time, and Iphicles his brother, younger by one night, and gave them both their bath, and their fill of milk, then laid them down in the buckler of bronze, that goodly piece whereof Amphitryon had strippen the fallen Pterelaus. And then the lady stroked her children's heads, and spoke, saying:-

'Sleep, my little ones, a light delicious sleep; sleep, soul of mine, two brothers, babes unharmed; blessed be your sleep, and blessed may ye come to the dawn.'

So speaking she rocked the huge s.h.i.+eld, and in a moment sleep laid hold on them.

But when the Bear at midnight wheels westward over against Orion that shows his mighty shoulder, even then did crafty Hera send forth two monstrous things, two snakes bristling up their coils of azure; against the broad threshold, where are the hollow pillars of the house-door she urged them; with intent that they should devour the young child Heracles. Then these twain crawled forth, writhing their ravenous bellies along the ground, and still from their eyes a baleful fire was s.h.i.+ning as they came, and they spat out their deadly venom. But when with their flickering tongues they were drawing near the children, then Alcmena's dear babes wakened, by the will of Zeus that knows all things, and there was a bright light in the chamber.

Then truly one child, even Iphicles, screamed out straightway, when he beheld the hideous monsters above the hollow s.h.i.+eld, and saw their pitiless fangs, and he kicked off the woollen coverlet with his feet, in his eagerness to flee. But Heracles set his force against them, and grasped them with his hands, binding them both in a grievous bond, having got them by the throat, wherein lies the evil venom of baleful snakes, the venom detested even by the G.o.ds. Then the serpents, in their turn, wound with their coils about the young child, the child unweaned, that wept never in his nursling days; but again they relaxed their spines in stress, of pain, and strove to find some issue from the grasp of iron.

Now Alcmena heard the cry, and wakened first, -

'Arise, Amphitryon, for numbing fear lays hold of me: arise, nor stay to put shoon beneath thy feet! Hearest thou not how loud the younger child is wailing? Mark'st thou not that though it is the depth of the night, the walls are all plain to see as in the clear dawn? {127} There is some strange thing I trow within the house, there is, my dearest lord!'

Thus she spake, and at his wife's bidding he stepped down out of his bed, and made for his richly dight sword that he kept always hanging on its pin above his bed of cedar. Verily he was reaching out for his new-woven belt, lifting with the other hand the mighty sheath, a work of lotus wood, when lo, the wide chamber was filled again with night. Then he cried aloud on his thralls, who were drawing the deep breath of sleep, -

'Lights! Bring lights as quick as may be from the hearth, my thralls, and thrust back the strong bolts of the doors. Arise, ye serving-men, stout of heart, 'tis the master calls.'

Then quick the serving-men came speeding with torches burning, and the house waxed full as each man hasted along. Then truly when they saw the young child Heracles clutching the snakes twain in his tender grasp, they all cried out and smote their hands together. But he kept showing the creeping things to his father, Amphitryon, and leaped on high in his childish glee, and laughing, at his father's feet he laid them down, the dread monsters fallen on the sleep of death. Then Alcmena in her own bosom took and laid Iphicles, dry- eyed and wan with fear; {128} but Amphitryon, placing the other child beneath a lamb's-wool coverlet, betook himself again to his bed, and gat him to his rest.

The c.o.c.ks were now but singing their third welcome to the earliest dawn, when Alcmena called forth Tiresias, the seer that cannot lie, and told him of the new portent, and bade him declare what things should come to pa.s.s.

'Nay, and even if the G.o.ds devise some mischief, conceal it not from me in ruth and pity; and how that mortals may not escape the doom that Fate speeds from her spindle, O soothsayer Euerides, I am teaching thee, that thyself knowest it right well.'

Thus spake the Queen, and thus he answered her:

'Be of good cheer, daughter of Perseus, woman that hast borne the n.o.blest of children [and lay up in thy heart the better of the things that are to be]. For by the sweet light that long hath left mine eyes, I swear that many Achaean women, as they card the soft wool about their knees, shall sing at eventide, of Alcmena's name, and thou shalt be honourable among the women of Argos. Such a man, even this thy son, shall mount to the starry firmament, the hero broad of breast, the master of all wild beasts, and of all mankind. Twelve labours is he fated to accomplish, and thereafter to dwell in the house of Zeus, but all his mortal part a Trachinian pyre shall possess.

'And the son of the Immortals, by virtue of his bride, shall he be called, even of them that urged forth these snakes from their dens to destroy the child. Verily that day shall come when the ravening wolf, beholding the fawn in his lair, will not seek to work him harm.

'But lady, see that thou hast fire at hand, beneath the embers, and let make ready dry fuel of gorse, or thorn, or bramble, or pear boughs dried with the wind's buffeting, and on the wild fire burn these serpents twain, at midnight, even at the hour when they would have slain thy child. But at dawn let one of thy maidens gather the dust of the fire, and bear and cast it all, every grain, over the river from the brow of the broken cliff, {129} beyond the march of your land, and return again without looking behind. Then cleanse your house with the fire of unmixed sulphur first, and then, as is ordained, with a filleted bough sprinkle holy water over all, mingled with salt. {130} And to Zeus supreme, moreover, do ye sacrifice a young boar, that ye may ever have the mastery over all your enemies.'

So spake he, and thrust back his ivory chair, and departed, even Tiresias, despite the weight of all his many years.

But Heracles was reared under his mother's care, like some young sapling in a garden close, being called the son of Amphitryon of Argos. And the lad was taught his letters by the ancient Linus, Apollo's son, a tutor ever watchful. And to draw the bow, and send the arrow to the mark did Eurytus teach him, Eurytus rich in wide ancestral lands. And Eumolpus, son of Philammon, made the lad a minstrel, and formed his hands to the boxwood lyre. And all the tricks wherewith the nimble Argive cross-b.u.t.tockers give each other the fall, and all the wiles of boxers skilled with the gloves, and all the art that the rough and tumble fighters have sought out to aid their science, all these did Heracles learn from Harpalacus of Phanes, the son of Hermes. Him no man that beheld, even from afar, would have confidently met as a wrestler in the lists, so grim a brow overhung his dreadful face. And to drive forth his horses 'neath the chariot, and safely to guide them round the goals, with the naves of the wheels unharmed, Amphitryon taught his son in his loving- kindness, Amphitryon himself, for many a prize had he borne away from the fleet races in Argos, pasture-land of steeds, and unbroken were the chariots that he mounted, till time loosened their leathern thongs.

But to charge with spear in rest, against a foe, guarding, meanwhile, his back with the s.h.i.+eld, to bide the biting swords, to order a company, and to measure, in his onslaught, the ambush of foemen, and to give hors.e.m.e.n the word of command, he was taught by knightly Castor. An outlaw came Castor out of Argos, when Tydeus was holding all the land and all the wide vineyards, having received Argos, a land of steeds, from the hand of Adrastus. No peer in war among the demiG.o.ds had Castor, till age wore down his youth.

Thus did his dear mother let train Heracles, and the child's bed was made hard by his father's; a lion's skin was the coverlet he loved; his dinner was roast meat, and a great Dorian loaf in a basket, a meal to satisfy a delving hind. At the close of day he would take a meagre supper that needed no fire to the cooking, and his plain kirtle fell no lower than the middle of his s.h.i.+n.

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