Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

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The following, in brief, are the twelve labors attributed to
Hercules: 1. He strangled the Ne'mean lion, and ever after wore
his skin. 2. He destroyed the Lernae'an hydra, which had nine
heads, eight of them mortal and one immortal. 3. He brought into
the presence of Eurystheus a stag famous for its incredible
swiftness and golden horns. 4. He brought to Mycenae the wild
boar of Eryman'thus, and slew two of the Centaurs, monsters who
were half men and half horses. 5. He cleansed the Auge'an stables
in one day by changing the courses of the rivers Alphe'us and
Pene'us. 6. He destroyed the carnivorous birds of the lake
Stympha'lus, in Arcadia. 7. He brought into Peloponnesus the
prodigious wild bull which ravaged Crete. 8. He brought from
Thrace the mares of Diome'de, which fed on human flesh. 9. He
obtained the famous girdle of Hippol'y-te, queen of the Amazons.
10. He slew the monster Ge'ry-on, who had the bodies of three
men united. 11. He brought from the garden of the Hesper'i-des
the golden apples, and slew the dragon which guarded them. 12. He
went down to the lower regions and brought upon earth the
three-headed dog Cer'berus.

The favor of the gods had completely armed Hercules for his
undertakings, and his great strength enabled him to perform them.
This entire fable of Hercules is generally believed to be merely
a fanciful representation of the sun in its passage through the
twelve signs of the zodiac, in accordance with Phoenician mythology,
from which the legend is supposed to be derived. Thus Hercules
is the sun-god. In the first month of the year the sun passes
through the constellation Leo, the lion; and in his first labor
the hero slays the Nemean lion. In the second month, when the
sun enters the sign Virgo, the long-extended constellation of
the Hydra sets--the stars of which, like so many heads, rise
one after another; and, therefore, in his second labor, Hercules
destroys the Lernaean hydra with its nine heads. In like manner
the legend is explained throughout. Besides these twelve labors,
however, Hercules is said to have achieved others on his own
account; and one of these is told in the fable of Hercules and
Antae'us, in which the powers of art and nature are supposed to
be personified.

FABLE OF HERCULES AND ANTAEUS.

Antae'us--a son of Neptune and Terra, who reigned over Libya, or
Africa, and dwelt in a forest cave--was so famed for his Titanic
strength and skill in wrestling that he was emboldened to leave
his woodland retreat and engage in a contest with the renowned
hero Hercules. So long as Antaeus stood upon the ground he could
not be overcome, whereupon Hercules lifted him up in the air,
and, having apparently squeezed him to death in his arms, threw
him down; but when Antaeus touched his mother Earth and lay at
rest upon her bosom, renewed life and fresh power were given him.

In this fable Antaeus, who personifies the woodland solitude and
the desert African waste, is easily overcome by his adversary,
who represents the river Nile, which, divided into a thousand
arms, or irrigating canals, prevents the arid sand from being
borne away and then back again by the winds to desolate the fertile
valley. Thus the legend is nothing more than the triumph of art
and labor, and their reclaiming power over the woodland solitudes
and the encroaching sands of the desert. An English poet has very
happily versified the spirit of the legend, to which he has appended
a fitting moral, doubtless suggested by the warning of his own
approaching sad fate.[Footnote: This gifted poet, Mortimer Collins,
died in 1876, at the age of forty-nine, a victim to excessive
literary labor and anxiety.]

Deep were the meanings of that fable. Men
Looked upon earth with clearer eyesight then,
Beheld in solitude the immortal Powers,
And marked the traces of the swift-winged Hours.
Because it never varies, all can bear
The burden of the circumambient air;
Because it never ceases, none can hear
The music of the ever-rolling sphere--
None, save the poet, who, in moor and wood,
Holds converse with the spirit of Solitude.

And I remember how Antaeus heard,
Deep in great oak-woods, the mysterious word
Which said, "Go forth across the unshaven leas
To meet unconquerable Hercules."
Leaving his cavern by the cedar-glen,
This Titan of the primal race of men,
Whom the swart lions feared, and who could tear
Huge oaks asunder, to the combat bare
Courage undaunted. Full of giant grace,
Built up, as 'twere, from earth's own granite base.
Colossal, iron-sinewed, firm he trod
The lawns. How vain against a demi-god!
Oh, sorrow of defeat! He plunges far
Into his forests, where deep shadows are,
And the wind's murmur comes not, and the gloom
Of pine and cedar seems to make a tomb
For fallen ambition. Prone the mortal lies
Who dared mad warfare with the unpitying skies,
But lo! as buried in the waving ferns,
The baffled giant for oblivion yearns,
Cursing his human feebleness, he feels
A sudden impulse of new strength, which heals
His angry wounds; his vigor he regains--
His blood is dancing gayly through his veins.
Fresh power, fresh life is his who lay at rest
On bounteous Hertha's kind creative breast.
[Footnote: Hertha, a goddess of the ancient Germans,
the same as Terra, or the Earth. Her favorite retreat
was a sacred grove in an island of the ocean.]

Even so, O poet, by the world subdued,
Regain thy health 'mid perfect solitude.
In noisy cities, far from hills and trees,
The brawling demi-god, harsh Hercules,
Has power to hurt thy placid spirit--power
To crush thy joyous instincts every hour,
To weary thee with woes for mortals stored,
Red gold (coined hatred) and the tyrant's sword.

Then--then, O sad Antaeus, wilt thou yearn
For dense green woodlands and the fragrant fern;
Then stretch thy form upon the sward, and rest
From worldly toil on Hertha's gracious breast;
Plunge in the foaming river, or divide
With happy arms gray ocean's murmuring tide,
And drinking thence each solitary hour
Immortal beauty and immortal power,
Thou may'st the buffets of the world efface
And live a Titan of earth's earliest race.
--MORTIMER COLLINS.

THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

From what was probably a maritime adventure that plundered some
wealthy country at a period when navigation was in its infancy
among the Greeks, we get the fable of the Argonautic Expedition.
The generally accepted story of this expedition is as follows:
Pe'lias, a descendant of AE'o-lus, the mystic progenitor of the
Great AEol'ic race, had deprived his half-brother AE'son of the
kingdom of Iol'cus in Thessaly. When Jason, son of AEson, had
attained to manhood, he appeared before his uncle and demanded
the throne. Pelias consented only on condition that Jason should
first capture and bring to him the golden fleece of the ram which
had carried Phrix'us and Hel'le when they fled from their stepmother
I'no. Helle dropped into the sea between Sigae'um and the
Cher'sonese, which was named from her Hellespon'tus; but Phrixus
succeeded in reaching Col'chis, a country at the eastern extremity
of the Euxine, or Black Sea. Here he sacrificed the ram, and
nailed the fleece to an oak in the grove of Mars, where it was
guarded by a sleepless dragon.

Joined by the principal heroes of Greece, Hercules among the
number, Jason set sail from Iolcus in the ship Argo, after first
invoking the favor of Jupiter, the winds, and the waves, for the
success of the expedition. The ceremony on this occasion, as
descried by the poets, reads like an account of the "christening
of the ship" in modern times, but we seem to have lost the full
significance of the act.

And soon as by the vessel's bow
The anchor was hung up,
Then took the leader on the prow
In hands a golden cup,
And on great father Jove did call;
And on the winds and waters all
Swept by the hurrying blast,
And on the nights, and ocean ways,
And on the fair auspicious days,
And sweet return at last.

From out the clouds, in answer kind,
A voice of thunder came,
And, shook in glistening beams around,
Burst out the lightning flame.
The chiefs breathed free, and, at the sign,
Trusted in the power divine.
Hinting sweet hopes, the seer cried
Forthwith their oars to ply,
And swift went backward from rough hands
The rowing ceaselessly.
--PINDAR. Trans. by Rev. H. F. CARY.

After many adventures Jason reached Col'chis, where, by the aid
of magic and supernatural arts, and through the favor of Me-de'a,
daughter of the King of Colchis, he succeeded in capturing the
fleece. After four months of continued danger and innumerable
hardships, Jason returned to Iolcus with the prize, accompanied
by Medea, whom he afterward deserted, and whose subsequent history
is told by the poet Euripides in his celebrated tragedy entitled
Medea.

Growing out of the Argonautic legend is one concerning the youth
Hy'las, a member of the expedition, and a son of the King of
Mys'ia, a country of Asia Minor. Hylas was greatly beloved by
Hercules. On the coast of Mysia the Argonauts stopped to obtain
a supply of water, and Hylas, having gone from the vessel alone
with an urn for the same purpose, takes the opportunity to bathe
in the river Scaman'der, under the shadows of Mount Ida. He throws
his purple chlamys, or cloak, over the urn, and passes down into
the water, where he is seized by the nymphs of the stream, and, in
spite of his struggles and entreaties, he is borne by them "down
from the noonday brightness to their dark caves in the depths
below." Hercules went in search of Hylas, and the ship sailed
from its anchorage without him. We have a faithful and beautiful
reproduction of this Greek legend, both in theme and spirit, in
a poem by BAYARD TAYLOR, from which the following extracts are
taken:

Hylas.

Storm-wearied Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen: on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plains enamel;
Cool in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
"Why should I haste?" said young and rosy Hylas;
The seas are rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander."

He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glittering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped, and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his limbs, and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the river's cheek was pillowed;
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white, round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.

There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas!"
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas!"
He thought--"The voices are but ear-born music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley;
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea-waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph"--again the murmur, "Hylas!"

The sound that seemed to come from the lilies was the voice of
the sea-nymphs, calling to him to go with them where they wander--

"Down beneath the green translucent ceiling--
Where, on the sandy bed of old Scamander,
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing."

To all their entreaties Hylas exclaims:

"Leave me, naiads!
Leave me!" he cried. "The day to me is dearer
Than all your caves deep-spread in ocean's quiet.
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters.
Let me return! the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours--I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being--
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!"

But the remonstrances and struggles of Hylas unavailing:

The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water
Pleading for help; but heaven's immortal archer;
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead;
And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant as he sank forever.
The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Blew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hercules, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him;
And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas!"
The empty echoes made him answer--"Hylas!"

THE TROJAN WAR.

Of all the events of the Heroic period, however, the Trojan war
has been rendered the most celebrated, through the genius of
Homer. The alleged causes of the war, briefly stated, are these:
Helen, the most beautiful woman of the age, and the daughter of
Tyn'darus, King of Sparta, was sought in marriage by all the
Princes of Greece. Tyndarus, perplexed with the difficulty of
choosing one of the suitors without displeasing all the rest,
being advised by the sage Ulysses, bound all of them by an oath
that they would approve of the uninfluenced choice of Helen, and
would unite to restore her to her husband, and to avenge the
outrage, if ever she was carried off. Menela'us became the choice
of Helen, and soon after, on the death of Tyndarus, succeeded to
the vacant throne of Sparta.

Three years subsequently, Paris, son of Priam, King of Ilium,
or Troy, visited the court of Menelaus, where he was hospitably
received; but during the temporary absence of the latter he
corrupted the fidelity of Helen, and induced her to flee with
him to Troy. When Menelaus returned he assembled the Grecian
princes, and prepared to avenge the outrage. Combining their
forces under the command of Agamem'non, King of Myce'nae, a brother
of Menelaus, they sailed with a great army for Troy. The
imagination of the poet EURIPIDES describes this armament as
follows:

With eager haste
The sea-girt Aulis strand I paced,
Till to my view appeared the embattled train
Of Hellas, armed for mighty enterprise,
And galleys of majestic size,
To bear the heroes o'er the main;
A thousand ships for Ilion steer,
And round the two Atridae's spear
The warriors swear fair Helen to regain.

After a siege of ten years Troy was taken by stratagem, and the
fair Helen was recovered. On the fanciful etymology of the word
Helen, from a Greek verb signifying to take or seize, the poet
AECHYLUS indulges in the following reflections descriptive of the
character and the history of this "spear-wooed maid of Greece:"

Who gave her a name
So true to her fame?
Does a Providence rule in the fate of a word?
Sways there in heaven a viewless power
O'er the chance of the tongue in the naming hour?
Who gave her a name,
This daughter of strife, this daughter of shame,
The spear-wooed maid of Greece!
Helen the taker! 'tis plain to see,
A taker of ships, a taker of men,
A taker of cities is she!
From the soft-curtained chamber of Hymen she fled,
By the breath of giant Zephyr sped,
And shield-bearing throngs in marshalled array
Hounded her flight o'er the printless way,
Where the swift-flashing oar
The fair booty bore
To swirling Sim'o-is' leafy shore,
And stirred the crimson fray.
--Trans. by BLACKIE.

According to Homer, the principal Greek heroes engaged in the
siege of Troy, aside from Agamemnon, were Menelaus, Achilles,
Ulysses, Ajax (the son of Tel'amon), Di'omed, Patro'clus, and
Palame'des; while among the bravest of the defenders of Troy
were Hector, Sarpe'don, and AEne'as.

The poet's story opens, in the tenth year of the siege, with an
account of a contentious scene between two of the Grecian chiefs
--Achilles and Agamemnon--which resulted in the withdrawal of
Achilles and his forces from the Grecian army. The aid of the
gods was invoked in behalf of Achilles, and Jupiter sent a
deceitful vision to Agamemnon, seeking to persuade him to lead
his forces to battle, in order that the Greeks might realize
their need of Achilles. Agamemnon first desired to ascertain the
feeling or disposition of the army regarding the expedition it
had undertaken, and so proposed a return to Greece, which was
unanimously and unexpectedly agreed to, and an advance was made
toward the ships. But through the efforts of the valiant and
sagacious Ulysses all discontent on the part of the troops was
suppressed, and they returned to the plains of Troy.

Among those in the Grecian camp who had complained of their
leaders, and of the folly of the expedition itself, was a brawling,
turbulent, and tumultuous character named Thersi'tes, whose
insolence Ulysses sternly and effectively rebuked. The following
sketch of Thersites reads like a picture drawn from modern
life; while the merited reproof administered by Ulysses is in
the happiest vein of just and patriotic indignation:

Ulysses and Thersites.

Thersites only clamored in the throng,
Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue;
Awed by no shame, by no respect controlled,
In scandal busy, in reproaches bold;
With witty malice, studious to defame;
Scorn all his joy, and censure all his aim;
But chief he gloried, with licentious style,
To lash the great, and monarchs to revile.

His figure such as might his soul proclaim:
One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame;
His mountain shoulders half his breast o'erspread,
Thin hairs bestrew'd his long misshapen head;
Spleen to mankind his envious heart possessed,
And much he hated all--but most, the best.
Ulysses or Achilles still his theme;
But royal scandal his delight supreme.
Long had he lived the scorn of every Greek,
Vext when he spoke, yet still they heard him speak:
Sharp was his voice; which, in the shrillest tone,
Thus with injurious taunts attacked the throne.

Ulysses, in his tent, listens awhile to the complaints, and censures,
and scandals against the chiefs, with which Thersites addresses
the throng gathered around him, and at length--

With indignation sparkling in his eyes,
He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies:
"Peace, factious monster, born to vex the state
With wrangling talents formed for foul debate,
Curb that impetuous tongue, nor, rashly vain,
And singly mad, asperse the sovereign reign.

"Have we not known thee, slave! of all our host
The man who acts the least, upbraids the most?
Think not the Greeks to shameful flight to bring;
Nor let those lips profane the name of King.
For our return we trust the heavenly powers;
Be that their care; to fight like men be ours.

"But grant the host, with wealth our chieftain load;
Except detraction, what hast thou bestowed?
Suppose some hero should his spoil resign,
Art thou that hero? Could those spoils be thine?
Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore,
And let these eyes behold my son no more,
If on thy next offence this hand forbear
To strip those arms thou ill deserv'st to wear,
Expel the council where our princes meet,
And send thee scourged and howling through the fleet."
--B. II. POPE'S Trans.

COMBAT OF MENELAUS AND PARIS.

The opposing armies being ready to engage, a single combat is
agreed upon between Menelaus, and Paris son of Priam, for the
determination of the war. Paris is soon vanquished, but is rescued
from death by Venus; and, according to the terms on which the
combat took place, Agamemnon demands the restoration of Helen.
But the gods declare that the war shall go on. So the conflict
begins, and Diomed, assisted by the goddess Pallas (or Minerva),
performs wonders in this day's battle, wounding and putting to
flight Pan'darus, AEneas, and the goddess Venus, even wounding
the war-god Mars, who had challenged him to combat, and sending
him groaning back to heaven.

Hector, the eldest son of Priam King of Troy, and the chief hero
of the Trojans, leaves the field for a brief space, to request
prayers to Minerva for assistance, and especially for the removal
of Diomed from the fight. This done, he seeks a momentary interview
with his wife, the fair and virtuous Androm'a-che, whose touching
appeal to him, and his reply, are both, perhaps, without a parallel
in tender, natural solicitude.

Parting of Hector and Andromache.

"Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run?
Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son!
And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, a helpless orphan he?
For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice.
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain!
Oh grant me, gods! ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
And end with sorrows as they first begun.

"No parent now remains my griefs to share,
No father's aid, no mother's tender care.
The fierce Achilles wrapp'd our walls in fire,
Laid The'be waste, and slew my warlike sire!
By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell;
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell.
My mother lived to bear the victor's bands,
The queen of Hippopla'cia's sylvan lands.

"Yet, while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all in thee:
Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all
Once more will perish, if my Hector fall.
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share:
Oh, prove a husband's and a father's care!
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,
Where yon wild fig-trees join the walls of Troy;
Thou from this tower defend the important post;
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host,
That pass Tydi'des, Ajax, strive to gain,
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train.
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given,
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven.
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy."

The chief replied: "That post shall be my care,
Nor that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd,
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,
Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame!
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to the embattled plains:
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father's glories and my own.

"Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates;
(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,
Must see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,
Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore,
Not all my brothel's gasping on the shore,
As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread.

"I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!
In Argive looms our battles to design,
And woes, of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hype'ria's spring.
There, while you groan beneath the load of life,
They cry: 'Behold the mighty Hector's wife!'
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,
Embitters all thy woes by naming me.
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
A thousand griefs shall waken at the name!
May I lie cold before that dreadful day,
Pressed with a load of monumental clay!
Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep."

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
Stretched his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child;
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground.
Then kissed the child, and, lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods preferred a father's prayer:

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