/////////'/ THIS BOOK WAS AWARDED ^^ /'///* rf/'ff /. mf& i TALES ANCIENT GREECE. BY THE REV. SIR GEORGE W, COX, MA, BART. A History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the end of the Persian War. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. Cloth, price 36$. The Mythology of the Aryan Nations. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. Cloth, price 285. A General History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the death of Alexander the Great, with a sketch of the subsequent History to the present time. Crown 8vo. Cloth, price 75. 6d. School History of Greece. With Maps. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, price 33. 6d. The Great Persian War from the Histories of Herodotus. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, price 33. 6d. A Manual of Mythology in the form of Question and Answer. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, price 35. LONDON : C. KEGAN PAUL & CO. I PATERNOSTER SQUARE. TALES ANCIENT GREECE. BY THE REV. % SIR GEORGE W. COX, M.A., BART. AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF GREECE," ETC. LONDON: C. KEGAN PAUL & Co., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 1879. 25atot?me &** BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved. BL 7*7 C t, 3 PREFACE. | HE Tales collected in this volume have, with one exception, appeared in the ' Tales from Greek Mythology/ * The Gods and Heroes,' and ' Tales of Thebes and Argos.' The ' Tales from Greek Mythology ' were written for the use of young children. It has been found necessary to modify a few of these stories, to bring them nearer to the level of the rest. The story of the ' Vengeance of Odysseus' has been added to complete the series of legends from the Odyssey, so as to give some idea of that poem as a whole. In place of the longer introductions prefixed to the * Gods and Heroes ' and to the < Tales of Thebes and Argos,' a new introduction is given, tracing each story to its earliest form, and resolving it into its original elements. I have here placed before the reader results rather than proofs. Recent discussions on the subject seem to justify the conviction that the foundations of the science of Comparative Mythology have been firmly laid, and that its method is unassailable. That the story of the Trojan M575598 PREFACE. War is almost wholly mythical, has been conceded even by the stoutest champions of Homeric unity. That it contains some few grains of actual history, is all that they venture to urge ; and to this plea the answer is, that while such possibilities cannot be denied, there is no warrant for a more positive conclusion. But the very process which has stripped these legends of all value as a chronicle of actual events has invested them with a new and infinitely deeper interest. Less than ever are they mere idle tales to please the fancy or while away a weary hour ; less than ever are they worthless fictions which the historian or philosopher may afford to despise, These legends, taken as a whole, present to us a form of society and a condition of thought through which all mankind had to pass long before the dawn of history. Yet that state of things was as real as the time in which we live. They who spoke the language of these early tales were men and women with joys and sorrows and interests here and hereafter not unlike our own. To turn aside from what they have to tell us is a cold and irrational selfishness; to examine their utterances carefully and patiently is nothing less than our bounden duty. Something they have to tell us of what men thought in times which could not be very far removed from the birth of the human race, of the aspects under which the outward world was presented to their eyes, of the rela- tion which they felt to exist between themselves and the things or beings which they saw and felt on the earth PREFACE. vil and in the heavens. It is possible that such an exami- nation may impart to us a knowledge which may bring with it both comfort and encouragement : it is idle to check it by uttering set phrases which may convey no meaning even to those who use them. I gladly acknowledge myself indebted for many valu- able suggestions and remarks to M. Baudry, who, with M. Delerot, has translated this series of Tales into French. 1 I may also be permitted to take this oppor- tunity of expressing my thanks for a translation which shows throughout that the task has been a labour of love. 1 Les Dieux et les Heros : Hachette et Cie. CONTENTS. PACK INTRODUCTION xiii THE GODS AND HEROES. I. THE DELIAN APOLLO ...... 3 II. THE PYTHIAN APOLLO 4 III. NIOBE AND LETO 9 IV. DAPHNE 12 V. KYRENE 13 VI. HERMES IS VII. THE SORROW OF DEMETER 26 VIII. THE SLEEP OF ENDYMldN ..... 3O IX. PHAETHON 33 X. BRIARE6S 35 XI. SEMELE 37 XII. DIONYSOS 39 XIII. PENTHEUS 4 2 XIV. ASKLEPIOS 44 xv. IXION 47 XVI. TANTALOS 53 XVII. THE TOILS OF HERAKLES ....-- 55 XVIII. ADMETOS . 62 XIX. EPIMETHEUS AND PANDORA .... 64 XX. l6 AND PROMETHEUS 67 XXI. DEUKALION 72 XXII. POSEIDON AND ATHENE 75 XXIII. MEDUSA 79 XXIV. DANAE 82 XXV. PERSEUS 85 XXVI. ANDROMEDA 91 XXVII. AKRISIOS 99 XXVIII. KEPHALOS AND PROKRIS 103 XXIX. SKYLLA 112 XXX. PHRIXOS A'ND HELLE 115 XXXI. MEDEIA 122 XXXII. THESEUS 126 XXXIII. ARIADNE 132 CONTENTS. PACK XXXIV. ARETHUSA 136 XXXV. TYRO 138 XXXVI. NARKISSOS 140 XXXVII. ORPHEUS AND EURYDIKE 14! XXXVIII. KADMOS AND EUROPA 146 XXXIX. BELLEROPH6N 1 53 XL. ALTHAIA AND THE BURNING BRAND . . .157 XLI. IAMOS l62 TALES OF THE TROJAN WAR. XLII. OZN6NE 167 XLIII. IPHIGENEIA 177 XLIV. ACHILLEUS l8l XLV. SARPEDON 1 88 XLVI. MEMN6N IQ2 XLVII. HEKTOR AND ANDROMACHE . . . .193 XLVIII. THE LOTOS-EATERS IQ9 XLIX. ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMOS .... 204 L. ODYSSEUS AND KIRKE . ... . .213 LI. ODYSSEUS AND THE SEIRENS .... 2IQ LII. THE CATTLE OF HELIOS 222 LIII. ODYSSEUS AND KALYPSO 230 LIV. ODYSSEUS AND NAUSIKAA" 237 LV. THE VENGEANCE OF ODYSSEUS .... 24! TALES OF THEBES. LVI. LAIOS 263 LXVII. CEDIPUS 268 LVIII. POLYNEIKES 274 LIX. ANTIGONE 277 LX. ERIPHYLE 279 MISCELLANEOUS TALES. LXI. ATYS AND ADRASTOS ...... 285 LXII. THE VENGEANCE OF APOLLO .... 2Q2 LXIII. THE STORY OF ARION 298 LXIV. THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND THE MICE . . 303 LXV. THE TREASURES OF RHAMPSINITOS . < . 309 PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES OCCURRING IN THIS WORK. IN the present Edition an effort has been made to assimilate the spelling of proper names as nearly as possible to the Greek. An exception has been made in the case of some names, of which the Latin forms are to us familiar sounds, or even household words. Thus it has been thought better not to substitute Kyklops for Cyclops, or Phoibos Apollon for Phoebus Apollo. But in general it will be admitted that much is lost by departing from the Greek forms ; and the change will have been made to some purpose if it leads even to the partial abandonment of our insular pronunciation of the vowels in Greek or Latin names. We should thus see that in many cases the Latin forms involved no change of sound. The Greek Moirai and the Latin Mceras were pro- nounced precisely alike ; and the difficulty is at once in great part surmounted if we bear in mind that the Greek ai and the Latin & should be pronounced like ai in fail, the Greek oi and ei and the Latin os like ee in sheen. The following List of Names and Words occurring in this volume is confined to those of which the quantity may possibly appear doubtful to readers not acquainted with Greek. AchelSos Acheron Admetos Aiakos Aethlios Aietes Agamedes Agave Agelaos Aipytos Agora Akrisios Alkidike Alkinoos Alkmene Amazon Androgeos Andromeda Amphion Apate Antiope Antigone Aphrodite Amphiaraos AmphimedSn Amphmomos Amythaon Antmoos xii PRONUNCIA TION OF PROPER NAMES. Arene Ermys Lampetie Philoktetes Arete (Virtue, p. Erinyes LaQdameia Phlegyas 72) Europa LaSdike Phle'gye's Arete, mother of Eur5tas LaQmedon Ph^lakQs Nausikaa Euryale LaiSs Polyphemos Arguphea Eur^lochos LabdakSs Pttria Arion Eurymachos Leiodes Phaisana Artemis Eurytos Lykaon Pelion Asklepios Eurydike LykQsoura Pherse Astyanax Eurynome Marathon Phfires Athamas Harmoma Melanthios Peiiphetes Athene Hekabe Medusa PQlybos AutSlykos Hekate Malea Prometheus Automedon Helenos Maenalos Pr6dikos Autonoos Hesperos Mykenae Salmoneus Axylos Hesperides Megara Sarped5n Beroe Helios MerSpe Selene Boreas Herakles Nausikaa Se"mele Boibeis Hesioneus Niobe SerTphos Balios Hyperion Nephele Sidero Briareos Ilion Neritos SimSeis Charites Iphitos GEchalia Sipylos Cycldpes lasion CEdipus Stymphalos Danae lamos Okalea Symplegades Deipyle Idomeneus CEnone Toenaron Deianeira Ithaka Ogygia Tantalos Demeter Ixion Okeanos Telemos Deukalion Ismene Omphale Tele machos Dionysos lole Orch5men5s Teutamidas Doulichion Kapaneus Orion Teiresias Diomedes Kalydon Ortjgia Telephassa Dodona Kleobis Ouranos Telphusa Eetion Klymene Paiedn ThanatSs EndymiSn Kouretes Pandion Thebdoros Empeus Keleos ^ Pandora Thera Enkelados Kephalos Pandareos Thersites Epaphos Kephisos Patara Thrinakia Epigonoi Kerberos PeinthSQs Tithonos EpTmetheus Kolonos Pegasos Tlepblgmos Enphyle Kybebe Pelias Trachis ^ Eteokles Kyrene PeneWpe Tr5phonios Erginos Kyllene PersephSne Typhaon Eumenides KQronis Phaethon Typhoeus Euripos Krommyon Phaethousa Theokl^menos INTRODUCTION. results obtained from the examination of Lan- guage in its several forms leave no room for doubt that the great stream of mythology has been traced to its fountain-head. We can no longer shut our eyes to the fact that there was a stage in the history of human speech, during which all the abstract words in constant use among ourselves were utterly un- known, when men had formed no notions of virtue or prudence, of thought and intellect, of slavery or freedom, but spoke only of the man who was strong, who could point the way to others and choose one thing out of many, of the man who was bound to any other or able to do as he pleased. That even this stage was not the earliest in the history of language is now a growing opinion among philologists ; but for the comparison of legends current in different coun- tries it is not necessary to carry the search further back. Language without words denoting abstract qualities implies a condition of thought in which men were only awakening to a sense of the objects which surrounded them, and points to a time when the world was to them full of strange sights and sounds, some beautiful, some bewildering, some terrific, when, in short, they knew little of themselves beyond the vague consciousness of their existence, and nothing of the phenomena of the world without. In such a state they could but attribute to all that they saw or touched or heard a life which was like their own in its consciousness, its joys, xiv INTRODUCTION. and its sufferings. That power of sympathising with nature which we are apt to regard as the peculiar gift of the poet was then shared alike by all. This sympathy was not the result of any effort. It was inseparably bound up with the words which rose to their lips. It implied no special purity of heart or mind ; it pointed to no Arcadian paradise where shepherds knew not how to wrong or oppress or torment each other. We say that the morning light rests on the mountains ; they said that the sun was greeting his bride, as naturally as our own poet would speak of the sun- light clasping the earth, or the moonbeams as kissing the sea. We have then before us a stage of language correspond- ing to a stage in the history of the human mind, in which all sensible objects were regarded as instinct with a conscious life. The varying phases of that life were therefore de- scribed as truthfully as they described their own feelings or sufferings ; and hence every phrase became a picture. But so long as the conditions of their life remained unchanged, they knew perfectly what the picture meant, and ran no risk of confusing one with another. Thus they had but to describe the things which they saw, felt, or heard, in order to heap up an inexhaustible store of phrases faithfully describing the facts of the world from their point of view. This language was indeed the result of an observation not less keen than that by which the inductive philosopher ex- torts the secrets of the natural world. Nor was its range much narrower. Each object received its own measure of attention, and no one phenomenon was so treated as to leave no room for others in their turn. They could not fail to note the changes of days and years, of growth and decay, of calm and storm ; but the objects which so changed were to them living things, and the rising and setting of the sun, the return of winter and summer, became a drama in which the actors were their enemies or their friends. That this is a strict statement of facts in the history of the human mind, philology alone would abundantly prove ; but not a few of these phrases have come down to us in ORIGIN OF MYTHICAL SPEECH. xv their earliest form, and point to the long-buried stratum of language of which they are the fragments. These relics ex- hibit in their germs the myths which afterwards became the legends of gods and heroes with human forms, and furnished the groundwork of the epic poems, whether of the Eastern or the Western world. So long as we do not suppose that this great fabric was reared by system, it matters little how we arrange the legends of which it is made up. We may take the daily alternation of light and darkness, or the yearly changes of summer and winter, so long as we do not fancy that these old phrases spoke only of the sun in his daily course, or only of vapours and storms. The mythical or myth-making language of mankind had no partialities ; and if the career of the sun occupies a large extent of the horizon, we cannot iairly simulate ignorance of the cause. Men so placed would not fail to put into words the thoughts or emotions roused in them by the varying phases of that mighty world on which we, not less than they, feel that our life depends, although we may know something more of its nature. Thus grew up a multitude of expressions which described the sun as the child of the night, as the destroyer of the dark- ness, as the lover of the dawn and the dew of phrases which would go on to speak of him as killing the dew with his spears, and of forsaking the dawn as he rose in the heaven. The feeling that the fruits of the earth were called forth by his warmth would find utterance in words which spoke of him as the friend and the benefactor of man ; while the constant recurrence of his work would lead them to describe him as a being constrained to toil for others, as doomed to travel over many lands, and as finding everywhere things on which he could bestow his love or which he might de- stroy by his power. His journey, again, might be across cloudless skies, or amid alternations of storm and calm ; his light might break fitfully through the clouds, or be hidden for many a weary hour, to burst forth at last with dazzling splendour as he sank down in the western sky. INTRODUCTION. He would thus be described as facing many dangers and many enemies, none of whom, however, may arrest his course ; as sullen, or capricious, or resentful ; as grieving for the loss of the dawn whom he had loved, or as nursing his great wrath and vowing a pitiless vengeance. Then as the veil was rent at eventide, they would speak of the chief, who had long remained still, girding on his armour ; or of the wanderer throwing off his disguise, and seizing his bow or spear to smite his enemies ; of the invincible warrior whose face gleams with the flush of victory when the fight is over, as he greets the fair-haired Dawn who closes as she had begun the day. To the wealth of images thus lavished on the daily life and death of the sun there would be no limit. He was the child of the morning, or her husband, or her destroyer ; he forsook her and he returned to her, either in calm serenity or only to sink presently in deeper gloom. So with other sights and sounds. The darkness of night brought with it a feeling of vague horror and dread j the return of daylight cheered them with a sense of un- speakable gladness and thus the sun who scattered the black shades of night would be the mighty champion doing battle with the biting snake which lurked in its dreary hiding- place. But as the sun accomplishes his journey day by day through the heaven, the character of the seasons is changed. The buds and blossoms of spring-time expand in the flowers and fruits of summer, and the leaves fall and wither on the approach of winter. Thus the daughter of the earth would be spoken of as dying or as dead, as severed from her mother for five or six weary months, to be restored to her again until the time for her return to the dark land should once more arrive. But as no other power than that of the sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the sun alone could rouse her, when he slays the frost and cold which lie like snakes around her motionless form. It is unnecessary to multiply instances for the sake of showing that this language was the perfectly natural and even involuntary utterance of thoughts awakened, not by RANGE OF MYTHICAL LANGUAGE. xvii one or another, but by all the phenomena of the outward world. Winds and storms, thunder and lightning, drought, famine and pestilence, mists and vapours, were all endowed with the same life in a language which could adapt itself with a boundless elasticity to all physical conditions what- soever. The thunder became the dark speech of the cloud which brought sickness and death. The eye of light which glares down through the dense storm vapours was the eye of the monstrous child sprung from the union of the earth and the sea. It drought scorched the crops, it was because the chariot of the sun approached too near to the earth. If the storm kindled the forests into flame, it was because the wind was hungry ; and if the fire alone devoured that which came in its way, it was because the wind, though able to kindle fire, could not satisfy with food the cravings of its hunger. It would therefore be a grave error to suppose that the form of thought which laid the foundations of the most complicated mythology found utterance in phrases applicable only to one particular set of phenomena, instead of embrac- ing all alike in proportion to the impression made by them