Part 2 (2/2)
Atalanta, the third of this ill.u.s.trious group, the daughter of Iasius, King of Arcadia, was a famous runner and sportswoman. She took part with Meleager in the grand hunt for the Calydonian boar, and it was she who at last brought the boar to bay and gave him a mortal wound. When Atalanta returned to her father's court, she had numberless suitors for her hand; but, anxious to preserve her freedom, she imposed the condition that every suitor should engage with her in a footrace: if he were beaten, his life was forfeited; if successful, she would become his bride. Many had thus lost their lives. Finally, Hippomenes, a youth under the protection of Aphrodite, who had bestowed on him three golden apples, desired to race with the princess. Atalanta soon pa.s.sed her antagonist, but, as she did so, a golden apple fell at her feet. She stooped to pick it up, and Hippomenes regained the lead. Again she pa.s.sed him, and again a golden apple caused her to pause, and Hippomenes shot ahead. Finally, just as she was about to reach the goal, the third golden apple tempted her to stop once more, and Hippomenes won the race and a peerless bride.
III
WOMEN OF THE ILIAD
The reader of the Iliad and the Odyssey finds himself in an atmosphere altogether human. As he peruses these pages, so rich in pictures of the life and manners of heroic times, it matters little to him whether the men and women of epic song had merely a mythical existence, or were, in fact, historical figures. The contemporaries of Homer and later Greeks had an unshaken belief in the reality of those men and women; and the poet has breathed into them the breath of genius, which gives life and immortality.
We have in these poems the most ancient expression of the national sentiment of the Greeks, and from them we can form a correct idea of the relations of men and women in prehistoric times, and of the character and status of woman in the childhood of the Greek world.
It is a noteworthy fact that the plots of both the Iliad and the Odyssey--as well as the most interesting episodes they contain--turn upon love for women; and a clear idea of the importance of woman in the Heroic Age could not be given better than by briefly reviewing the brilliant panorama of warlike and domestic scenes in which woman figures.
We are first introduced to a Greek camp in Troy land. During ten long years the hosts of the Achaeans have been gathered before the walls of Ilium. What is the cause of this long struggle? A woman! Paris, son of King Priam, had carried off to his native city Queen Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Aided by the wiles of Aphrodite, to whom he had awarded the golden apple as the fairest in the contest of the three G.o.ddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, Paris succeeded in winning the heart of this fairest of Greek women and in persuading her to desert husband and daughter to follow the fortunes of a handsome stranger. On the isle of Cranae their nuptial rites were celebrated, and after much voyaging they reached their new home in Troy, where King Priam, fascinated with the beauty and grace of this new daughter, in spite of his dread of the consequences, graciously received the errant pair. The Greek chieftains bound themselves by an inviolable oath to a.s.sist the forsaken husband to recover his spouse, and, marshalling their forces, they entered upon the long and tedious war. Thus, a woman was the cause of the first great struggle between Orient and Occident, of the a.s.sembling of the mighty hosts of the Achaeans under King Agamemnon, of ten years of siege and struggle and innumerable wars, of the hurling of many valiant souls to Hades, of the fall of Troy, and of the varied wanderings and dire fortunes of the surviving heroes and heroines of the epic story.
The Iliad does not tell the whole story of the Trojan War; Homer invites the muse to sing of but one episode thereof--the dire wrath of Achilles.
The cause of that violent outburst is also a woman. The Greek chieftains are gathered in the place of a.s.sembly, along the banks of the Scamander.
In their midst is an aged priest of the town of Chryse, bearing in his hand the fillets of Apollo, the Far-darter, upon a golden staff. He beseeches the Greeks to restore to him his dear child, the maiden Chryseis, their captive, and to accept in return the proffered ransom, reverencing the G.o.d. There is a sympathetic murmur among the chieftains, who urge the granting of the pet.i.tion; but the thing pleases not the heart of Agamemnon, king of men, who had received the beautiful captive as his own share of the booty, and for love of her will not give her up.
So he roughly sends the old man away, and lays stern charge upon him not to be seen again near the s.h.i.+ps of the Achaeans. Outraged in his dignity as a priest and in his tenderness as a father, the aged sire prays to Apollo, who at once sends dire pestilence upon the Greeks; and the pyres of the dead burn continually in mult.i.tude. Nine days speed the G.o.d's shafts throughout the host, and on the tenth the valiant warrior Achilles summons the folk to a.s.sembly, and bids Calchas, ”most excellent of augurs,” declare the cause of the pestilence. Calchas, after much hesitation, responds that the Far-darter has brought war upon the Greeks because Agamemnon has done despite to the priest, and has not set his daughter free and accepted the ransom.
Agamemnon is violently enraged at the seer; his dark heart within him is greatly filled with anger, and his eyes are like flas.h.i.+ng fire. He charges the seer with never saying anything that is pleasant for him to hear. And as for Chryseis, he would fain keep her himself in his household; for he prefers her even before Clytemnestra, his wedded wife, to whom she is nowise inferior, neither in favor nor stature nor wit nor skill. Yet if she be taken away from him for the good of the people, he demands another prize forthwith, that alone of the Greeks he may not be without reward. Then is the valiant Achilles enraged at the covetousness of his chief, and a violent quarrel ensues. At last, Agamemnon a.s.serts that he will send back Chryseis, but he will come and take in return Achilles's meed of honor, Briseis of the fair cheeks, that Achilles may know how far the mightier is he and that no other may hereafter dare to rival him to his face.
Then is the son of Peleus the more enraged, and, had not the G.o.ddess Athena appeared and restrained his wrath, he would have a.s.sailed Agamemnon on the spot. However, he speaks again with bitter words and declares that hereafter longing for Achilles will come upon the Achaeans one and all; for no more will he fight with the Greeks against the Trojans. So the a.s.sembly breaks up, after this battle of violent words between the twain. Achilles returns to his huts and trim s.h.i.+ps, with Patroclus and his company; and Agamemnon sends forth Odysseus and others on a fleet s.h.i.+p to bear back to her father the lovely Chryseis, and to offer a hecatomb to Apollo. Thus Chryseis is restored to her father's arms, and appears no more in the story.
But Atrides ceases not from the strife with which he has threatened Achilles. He summons straightway two heralds, and bids them go to the tent of Achilles and take Briseis of the fair cheeks by the hand and lead her to him. Unwillingly they go on their mission, and find the young warrior sitting sorrowfully beside his hut and black s.h.i.+p. He knows wherefore they come, and bids his friend Patroclus bring forth the damsel and give them her to lead away. And Patroclus hearkens to his dear companion, and leads forth from the hut Briseis of the fair cheeks, and gives her to the heralds. And the twain take their way back along the s.h.i.+ps of the Achaeans and with them goes the maiden, all unwilling.
In this moment of grief at the loss of the woman he loves, Achilles bethinks him of his dear mother, the Nereid Thetis, and, stretching forth his hand toward the sea, he prays to her to hearken to him. His lady mother hears him as she sits in the sea depths beside her aged sire, and with speed she arises from the gray sea, and sits down beside him and strokes him with her hand and inquires the cause of his sorrow.
Into her sympathetic ear he tells all the story of his wrongs, and the G.o.ddess shows herself the tenderest and most loving of mothers. He bids her seek justice for him at the throne of mighty Zeus, with whom she is potent on account of favors she has done him. She bewails with her son that she has borne him to brief life and evil destiny; but she bids him continue wroth with the Achaeans, and refrain utterly from battle, while she will early fare to Zeus's palace upon Mount Olympus, and she thinks to win him. True to her promise, she betakes herself to sunny Olympus and finds the father of G.o.ds and men sitting apart from all the rest upon the topmost peak. She clasps his knees with one hand as a suppliant and with the other strokes his chin, and prays him to do honor to her son and exalt him with recompense for the gross wrong he has suffered.
And Zeus, though he knows that it will lead to strife with Lady Hera, his spouse, promises to heap just vengeance upon Agamemnon.
Thus, upon the very threshold of the Iliad, the chord of maternal affection is struck; and when the wild pa.s.sions of early manhood have led to sorrow and humiliation, the mother appears, affording sympathy and comfort, and is ready to traverse sea and earth and heaven to intercede for her wronged and grief-stricken son.
Achilles remains away from battle, sulking beside the s.h.i.+ps. The odds are now in favor of the Trojans in the conflict that is being waged.
Both sides are weary of continual fighting, and a single combat is arranged between Menelaus and Paris, the wronged husband and the present lord of Helen. The meed of victory is to be Helen herself, with all her treasures, she now appearing for the first time in the Epos.
Helen is summoned from her palace to witness the combat. So she hastens from her chamber, attended by two handmaidens, and comes to the place of the Scaean gates, where are gathered King Priam and the elders of the city.
Homer nowhere attempts to describe Helen's beauty in detail, but impresses it upon the reader merely by showing the bewitching effect of her presence upon others. Even these sage old men fall under the spell of her divine beauty, and, when they see her coming upon the towers, softly speak winged words, one to the other:
”Small blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long time suffer hards.h.i.+ps; marvellously like is she to the immortal G.o.ddesses to look upon. Yet even so, though she be so goodly, let her go upon their s.h.i.+ps and not stay to vex us and our children after us.”
Priam, however, addresses his beautiful daughter-in-law with gentle words, laying the blame, not on her, but on the G.o.ds, for the dolorous war of the Achaeans. Helen utters expressions of self-reproach, and then, at Priam's request, points out the famous warriors of the invading host.
Paris is vanquished in the single combat, and Menelaus would have slain his foe, and in that moment have regained Helen, had not the G.o.ddess Aphrodite s.n.a.t.c.hed up Paris in a cloud and transported him to his chamber. Aphrodite then appears to Helen, in the form of an aged dame, and bids her return to her lord. Helen recognizes the G.o.ddess, and her scornful, bitter reply shows how the high-spirited lady rebelled at the chains with which Aphrodite bound her. The wrath and menace of Aphrodite, however, overcome her n.o.ble resolution, and she reluctantly returns. When she sees her husband, she chides him scornfully for his cowardice, and regrets that he had not perished at the hands of Menelaus. But Paris is unaffected by her reproaches. His thoughts, as ever, are not of war, but of love, and Helen, owing to the subtle power of Aphrodite, cannot long resist his caresses. Meanwhile, the injured husband rages through the host like a wild beast, if anywhere he might set his eyes on and slay the wanton Paris.
We are now approaching a series of domestic scenes, in which figure the three princ.i.p.al female characters of the Iliad. Owing to the abortive issue of the single combat, the truce between Greeks and Trojans is declared at an end, and the forces once more array themselves in conflict. The Trojans are being hard pressed. Hector returns to the city to command Hecuba, his mother, to a.s.semble the aged dames of Troy, who should go to Athena's temple and supplicate the G.o.ddess to have compa.s.sion on them. At the gates the Trojans' wives and daughters gather about him, inquiring of their loved ones. As he enters the royal palace, his beautiful mother meets him and clasps him by the hand, and bids him, weary of battle, pause to take refreshments. But Hector resists her solicitous entreaties, urges her to gather the aged wives together, and, with the most beautiful robe in the palace as an offering, to go to the temple and supplicate Athena to have mercy. Hecuba does as he commands, and the solemn procession mounts the citadel and implores the G.o.ddess to have mercy on them and turn the tide of combat. The G.o.ddess, however, is inflexible: she denies their prayer.
Hector, meanwhile, stops at the palace of Paris. He finds Helen seated among her handmaidens, distributing to them their tasks, and Paris polis.h.i.+ng his beautiful armor. Hector severely rebukes his brother; but words of scorn make but little impression on the smooth and courteous Paris. Helen now addresses Hector, for whom she has a sisterly love and admiration that contrasts painfully with her contempt for her cowardly lord; and her words reveal the bitterness of her heart, because of her evil destiny and because ”even in days to come we may be a song in the ears of men that shall be hereafter.” Hector responds with sympathetic regard to the sisterly confidence of Helen, and bids her rouse her husband once more to enter the combat, while in the meantime he will go to his own house to behold his dear wife and infant boy; for he knows not if he shall return home to them again, or if the G.o.ds will now overthrow him at the hands of the Achaeans.
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