Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece

by Gustav Schwab

  In the middle of the grove of the Erinyes the earth gaped, and the opening was rimmed with a threshold of bronze, the mouth of many winding paths. Legend, taking shape from various ancient tales, had it that this cave was an entrance to the underworld. Oedipus chose one of the twisting ways, but he did not let his retinue accompany him to the grotto itself. Under a hollow tree he halted, sat down on a stone, and undid the belt of his stained beggar’s dress. Then he called for water from a flowing stream, cleansed himself of the dust of his long wanderings, and donned a festive robe which his daughters brought him. When he rose refreshed and renewed, thunder rumbled up from the bowels of the earth. Tremulously Antigone and Ismene clung in his arms. He kissed them and said: “Farewell, my children. From this day on you will be orphaned.” But while he was still clasping them close, a voice like a clapper striking on bronze vibrated, none knew whether from heaven or the heart of earth, saying: “Why do you loiter, Oedipus? Why do you delay?”

  The blind king heard and knew that the god was demanding his own. He loosed the fingers of his children and laid them in the hand of Theseus to show that he put them in his care for the rest of their lives. Then he bade all turn their backs on him and leave. Only Theseus was permitted to approach the threshold of the opening. His retinue and his daughters obeyed him and did not look back until they had gone a long way. When they did, a miracle had come to pass. There was no longer any sign of King Oedipus. No flash of lightning split the sky, no thunder crashed, no stormwind swept the grove. The air was quiet and serene. The dark doors of the underworld had opened noiselessly, and the old man, purified and free from pain and regret, had descended into the depths, as though borne on the wings of gentle spirits. Theseus stood alone, shading his eyes with his hand, as if a vision too awesome and divine had dazzled his sight. They saw him lift his arms to Olympus and then throw himself on the earth, making supplication both to the immortals in heaven and to the gods of the underworld. After this brief prayer, the king returned to the daughters of King Oedipus and assured them of his protection. In unbroken silence, his spirit filled with holy divinings, he went back to Athens.

  THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

  POLYNICES AND TYDEUS AS THE GUESTS OF ADRASTUS

  ADRASTUS, son of Talaus, king of Argos, had five children, of which two, Argia and Deipyle, were daughters. Concerning these a singular oracle had been issued: their father, so it was said, would wed one of them to a lion, the other to a boar. In vain the king pondered over the meaning of this strange prophecy, and when the girls were grown, thought only of finding them husbands as quickly as possible, so that nothing might come of the terrible prediction. But the gods see to it that their words are fulfilled.

  From two different directions fugitives came to the gates of Argos, one from Thebes: Polynices, who had been driven from the city by his brother Eteocles; the other, Tydeus, son of Oeneus, from Calydon, from which he had fled after unintentionally slaying a kinsman in the course of a hunt. The two met in Argos, in front of the palace. Night had fallen, and in the darkness they took each other for enemies and began to fight. Adrastus heard the clash below, descended with a torch, and separated them. As they stood to the right and left of him, two stalwart heroes, the king started as though he had seen a specter, for on the shield of Polynices was a lion’s head, while the head of a boar stared at him from that of Tydeus. Polynices had chosen the lion for his emblem in honor of Heracles, while Tydeus had taken the boar in memory of Meleager and his hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Now Adrastus understood the meaning of the oracle. The fugitives became his sons-in-law. The elder daughter, Argia, was wedded to Polynices, the younger, Deipyle, to Tydeus. And Adrastus pledged both princes to reinstate them on the thrones of the countries from which they had been exiled.

  Thebes was chosen as the goal of the first expedition, and Adrastus summoned the heroes of the land, seven princes, including himself, with their seven hosts. Their names were Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, the husband of Adrastus’ sister, Capaneus, his nephew, and finally Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus, brothers of the king of Argos. But Amphiaraus, the king’s brother-in-law, who had been his enemy for many years, was a soothsayer and foretold a disastrous end to the whole campaign. First he tried to shake Adrastus and the other heroes in their resolve, but when he saw that his efforts were in vain, he went to a hiding-place which no one knew save Eriphyle, his wife and sister to the king, and there concealed himself from all men. For a long time they searched for him, since Adrastus did not want to go without him whom he called the eye of his hosts.

  Now when Polynices had been compelled to leave Thebes, he had taken with him a necklace and veil, which Aphrodite had once given Harmonia at her marriage to Cadmus, founder of Thebes. But both the necklace and veil were fraught with death for the wearer and had already caused the destruction of Harmonia, Semele, the mother of Dionysus, and Jocasta. The last to own them was Argia, wife of Polynices, who was also to drain the cup of sorrow, and now her husband decided to bribe Eriphyle with the necklace and thus get her to reveal the whereabouts of her husband. Eriphyle had long envied her niece the magnificent jewels the stranger had brought her, and so when she saw the glittering gems linked with gold, she could not resist, but told Polynices to follow her and led him to the refuge of Amphiaraus. The seer could not now well evade joining his fellows, all the less because when he and Adrastus had called a truce to their feud, and the king had given him his sister to wife, he had promised to let Eriphyle be the judge of any future disagreement which might come up between her brother and her husband. So Amphiaraus girt on his armor and assembled his warriors. But before he set out, he called his son Alcmaeon and had him swear a solemn oath that the moment he heard of his father’s death, he would take vengeance on the wife who had betrayed him.

  THE HEROES SET OUT. HYPSIPYLE AND OPHELTES

  The other heroes had also completed their preparations, and soon Adrastus stood ringed by a mighty host, which set out in seven divisions, commanded by seven heroes. They left the city of Argos, their hearts high with hope and assurance, and the fanfares of trumpets and shrilling of flutes speeded them on their way. But long before they arrived at their destination, misfortune overtook them. They had reached the woods of Nemea. Every spring and river and lake had run dry, and they were tormented with heat and burning thirst. Their armor weighed upon their limbs; the shields were heavy in their hands, and the fine dust their feet whirled up in the road settled on their dry lips and gritted in their mouths. The very foam flecks dried on the jowls of their horses; they distended their nostrils and champed at the bit, their tongues swollen with thirst.

  While Adrastus with some others was searching the woods for a spring or a well, they came upon a mourning woman of singular beauty. She was seated in the shadow of a tree, a boy-child at her breast, and though her dress was mean, her floating locks and proud bearing gave her the appearance of a queen. The king was overwhelmed with astonishment, and thinking that this must surely be the nymph of these forests, he fell on his knees before her and implored her aid for himself and his men who were perishing of thirst. But the woman cast down her eyes and answered him humbly. “I am no goddess, stranger. And if you see about me something which is more than mortal, it must have been stamped on my features by greater suffering than others bear. I am Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas. Once I was queen among the women of Lemnos. But I was seized by pirates and then, after unutterable misery, sold as a slave to King Lycurgus of Nemea. The boy I am nursing is not my own. He is Opheltes, the son of my lord, and I have been chosen to tend him. As for you, I shall gladly help you procure what you need. A single spring still gushes in this desolate waste, and no one but myself knows of the secret approach to it. There will be enough water to refresh all your host. Follow me!” And the woman rose, laid the child tenderly in the soft grass, and lulled him with a little song.

  Adrastus and his men called the others, and soon the entire host crowded the narrow woodland path after Hypsipyle. Winding
through the thick underbrush, they reached a rock-hewn gorge. Over it hovered cool spray. It blew into the hot faces of those who had outstripped the queen walking with their leader and slaked their skin with moisture. The sound of water, falling over stone in a torrent, grew louder and louder. “Water!” they cried exultingly, leaped down into the ravine, and stood on the wet boulders, catching the jets in their helmets. “Water, water!” echoed the host. Their voices rang above the surge of the cascade, and the cliffs echoed the shout. They threw themselves along the green margin of the brimming brook which issued from the ravine, and gulped the sweet cool water in long satisfying draughts. They found a wider passage for the chariots. The charioteers did not stop to unharness the horses but drove straight into the swirling tide, where the brook broadened to a river, and let their beasts cool their sweating flanks and dip their weary heads.

  When every man and every creature was refreshed, Hypsipyle guided Adrastus and his followers back to the road, telling them of the deeds and sufferings of the women of Lemnos, while the host followed at a respectful distance. Before they reached the place where they had first seen Hypsipyle under the arched branches of a tree, her ear, sharpened by watchfulness for her nursling, plainly caught the frightened wail of the child, which the rest scarcely heard. She herself had been the mother of children, left behind in Lemnos when the pirates took her away from those she loved, and now all her love was lavished on little Opheltes. Her pulse beat faster with foreboding. Swiftly she ran to the place where she had held the child to her bosom. He was gone, and she no longer heard even his voice. But as her eyes swiftly searched about the tree, she suddenly realized the terrible fate which had befallen her charge while she was doing a kindness to the Argive host. For not far from the trunk lay a hideous serpent coiled in idle repose, heavy with the meal it just had made. Her very hair stood up in horror, and her cries of agony trembled on the wind and were carried to the heroes, who hurried to aid her. The first to see the serpent was Hippomedon. Without an instant’s reflection he tore a rock from the ground and hurled it at the creature, but the stone rebounded from the scaly body, and crumbled as if it had been a handful of earth. Then Hippomedon lunged at the monster with his spear. It sped into the gaping jaws, spattered the grass with the serpent’s brains, and the point came out at the crest. The body turned like a top on the long projecting spear, and the hissing breath came in slower and slower gasps until the creature lay dead.

  And now the poor foster mother dared follow the traces of the child. The earth was red with his blood, and at last, far from the trunk of the tree, she found a pile of little bones picked bare. She knelt, gathered them in her lap, and gave them to Adrastus. He buried the boy who had lost his life because of them and arranged a solemn funeral feast for him. In his honor they founded the Nemean games and worshipped him as a demigod under the name of Archemorus, the Early-Perfect.

  Hypsipyle did not escape the rage which the child’s death kindled in Eurydice, wife of Lycurgus. She had her slave imprisoned and vowed she should die the cruelest of deaths. But by the grace of Chance, Hypsipyle’s eldest sons were already on the trail of their mother, and soon after these happenings they reached Nemea and freed her from captivity.

  THE HEROES ARRIVE IN THEBES

  “This is an omen of how this expedition will end!” Amphiaraus, the seer, had said gloomily when they discovered the bones of Opheltes. But the others were more concerned with the killing of the serpent and claimed that this was a sign of good fortune. And because the host had fully recovered from the hardship of thirst, they were all in excellent spirits and paid no attention to the sighs of this prophet of evil. A few days more, and the Argives were before the walls of Thebes.

  Eteocles and his uncle Creon were prepared to defend the city long and stubbornly, and now the son of Oedipus addressed his people: “Remember, fellow citizens, what you owe the city which was a gentle mother to you in childhood and reared you to stalwart warriors. All of you, from the youth who has not yet grown into manhood, to the man whose hair is graying, I call on you all to defend the altars of your native gods, your fathers, wives, and children, the free earth on which you stand. He who reads omens from the flight of birds has told me that during the coming night the Argives will concentrate their host and make an attack upon Thebes. On to the gates! To the walls! To arms! Occupy the ramparts! Man the towers! Guard every entrance and do not fear the numbers of the enemy. My spies are all about and will discover the tactics of the foe. I shall make my plans according to the message they bring.”

  While Eteocles was thus spurring his men to action, Antigone stood on the highest parapet of the palace, and with her was an old man, the armor-bearer of her grandfather Laius. Soon after her father’s death she and her sister Ismene had left the protection of King Theseus out of a great longing for their own country. They came with the vague hope of assisting their brother Polynices, even though they did not approve of the siege he contemplated, and with the determination to share the fate of the beloved city of their birth. Creon and Eteocles had received Antigone with open arms, for they regarded her as a voluntary hostage and a welcome go-between.

  On this day she had climbed the old palace stair, built of sweet-smelling cedar, and stood on the platform listening to the old man as he explained the position of the enemy. The great host was encamped on all the fields surrounding the city, along the banks of the Ismenus, and around the fountain of Dirce, famed since the days of old. There was motion among the men. They were dividing off into troops, and the entire region shone with the glint of metal, like the sea in the sun. Masses of foot-soldiers and riders churned around the gates of the besieged city. The girl was terror-stricken at the sight, but the old man comforted her. “Our walls are high and solid,” he said. “And our oaken gates have heavy bolts of iron. The city lies secure within and is defended by many brave warriors who do not fear the grimmest battle.” Then, in response to her questions, he pointed out to her the various leaders. “That one over there, whose helmet glitters in the light, who swings his great polished shield as though it were weightless and goes in the van of his men, is Prince Hippomedon, who lives in Mycene, near the waters of Lerna. He is tall of stature, like the giants who once sprang from the earth! More to the right, do you see? That one who is just jumping the waters of Dirce on his horse, who wears armor resembling that of barbarians—that is Tydeus, son of Oeneus, the brother of your brother’s wife. He and his Aetolians carry heavy shields and are known for their skill in the use of the lance. I recognize him by his emblem, for I have visited the enemy’s camp as a messenger.”

  “And who is that young hero?” the girl asked. “Young and yet with a man’s beard, who looks about with such savage glances? He is just passing a burial mound, and his men are following him slowly.”

  “That is Parthenopaeus,” the old man told her. “He is the son of Atalanta, friend of Artemis. But do you see those two over there, near the grave of the daughters of Niobe? The elder is Adrastus, who heads the entire expedition, and the younger—does he look familiar to you?”

  “I can see only his shoulders and the outline of his body,” said Antigone with painful emotion. “And yet I recognize my brother Polynices. Could I but fly like the clouds, float down to him, and clasp my arms around his neck! How he gleams in his golden armor—like the morning sun! But who is that charioteer who holds the reins in so firm a hand, drives a white chariot, and uses his goad with such calm deliberation?”

  “That is Amphiaraus, the seer.”

  “And the one who is pacing along the walls, measuring them, and looking for the best places to attack?”

  “That is arrogant Capaneus, who has scoffed at our city and threatened to take you and your sister to Mycenae, by the waters of Lerna—as slaves.”

  Antigone paled and asked to be taken back. The old man gave her his hand and helped her down the stair and to her chamber.

  MENOECEUS

  In the meantime Creon and Eteocles had been holding a coun
cil of war and resolved to send one leader to each of the seven gates of Thebes; thus seven Theban princes would oppose Polynices and his six allies. But before the battle broke out, they desired an omen, such as can be read from the flight of birds, to give them an inkling of the outcome. Now among the Thebans lived the seer Tiresias, son of Eueres and the nymph Chariclo. Once, in the days of his youth, he had surprised Athene visiting with his mother and had seen what he should not. For this the goddess had afflicted him with blindness. Chariclo had implored her friend to restore her son’s sight, but this was beyond Athene’s power. Out of pity for him she laid a spell on his ears and, of a sudden, he understood the language of birds. From that time on he had been soothsayer for the city.