<h1 id="id00861" style="margin-top: 5em">CHAPTER XXVI</h1>
<h5 id="id00862">ENDYMION—ORION—AURORA AND TITHONUS—ACIS AND GALATEA</h5>
<h5 id="id00863">DIANA AND ENDYMION</h5>
<p id="id00864" style="margin-top: 2em">Endymion was a beautiful youth who fed his flock on Mount Latmos.
One calm, clear night Diana, the moon, looked down and saw him
sleeping. The cold heart of the virgin goddess was warmed by his
surpassing beauty, and she came down to him, kissed him, and
watched over him while he slept.</p>
<p id="id00865">Another story was that Jupiter bestowed on him the gift of
perpetual youth united with perpetual sleep. Of one so gifted we
can have but few adventures to record. Diana, it was said, took
care that his fortunes should not suffer by his inactive life, for
she made his flock increase, and guarded his sheep and lambs from
the wild beasts.</p>
<p id="id00866">The story of Endymion has a peculiar charm from the human meaning
which it so thinly veils. We see in Endymion the young poet, his
fancy and his heart seeking in vain for that which can satisfy
them, finding his favorite hour in the quiet moonlight, and
nursing there beneath the beams of the bright and silent witness
the melancholy and the ardor which consumes him. The story
suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams
than in reality, and an early and welcome death.—S. G. B.</p>
<p id="id00867">The "Endymion" of Keats is a wild and fanciful poem, containing
some exquisite poetry, as this, to the moon:</p>
<p id="id00868"> "… The sleeping kine<br/>
Couched in thy brightness dream of fields divine.<br/>
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,<br/>
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes,<br/>
And yet thy benediction passeth not<br/>
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot<br/>
Where pleasure may be sent; the nested wren<br/>
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken;" etc., etc.<br/></p>
<p id="id00869">Dr. Young, in the "Night Thoughts," alludes to Endymion thus:</p>
<p id="id00870"> "… These thoughts, O night, are thine;<br/>
From thee they came like lovers' secret sighs,<br/>
While others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign,<br/>
In shadows veiled, soft, sliding from her sphere,<br/>
Her shepherd cheered, of her enamoured less<br/>
Than I of thee."<br/></p>
<p id="id00871">Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," tells:</p>
<p id="id00872"> "How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,<br/>
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes<br/>
She took eternal fire that never dies;<br/>
How she conveyed him softly in a sleep,<br/>
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep<br/>
Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,<br/>
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,<br/>
To kiss her sweetest."<br/></p>
<h5 id="id00873">ORION</h5>
<p id="id00874">Orion was the son of Neptune. He was a handsome giant and a mighty
hunter. His father gave him the power of wading through the depths
of the sea, or, as others say, of walking on its surface.</p>
<p id="id00875">Orion loved Merope, the daughter of Oenopion, king of Chios, and
sought her in marriage. He cleared the island of wild beasts, and
brought the spoils of the chase as presents to his beloved; but as
Oenopion constantly deferred his consent, Orion attempted to gain
possession of the maiden by violence. Her father, incensed at this
conduct, having made Orion drunk, deprived him of his sight and
cast him out on the seashore. The blinded hero followed the sound
of a Cyclops' hammer till he reached Lemnos, and came to the forge
of Vulcan, who, taking pity on him, gave him Kedalion, one of his
men, to be his guide to the abode of the sun. Placing Kedalion on
his shoulders, Orion proceeded to the east, and there meeting the
sun-god, was restored to sight by his beam.</p>
<p id="id00876">After this he dwelt as a hunter with Diana, with whom he was a
favorite, and it is even said she was about to marry him. Her
brother was highly displeased and often chid her, but to no
purpose. One day, observing Orion wading through the sea with his
head just above the water, Apollo pointed it out to his sister and
maintained that she could not hit that black thing on the sea. The
archer-goddess discharged a shaft with fatal aim. The waves rolled
the dead body of Orion to the land, and bewailing her fatal error
with many tears, Diana placed him among the stars, where he
appears as a giant, with a girdle, sword, lion's skin, and club.
Sirius, his dog, follows him, and the Pleiads fly before him.</p>
<p id="id00877">The Pleiads were daughters of Atlas, and nymphs of Diana's train.
One day Orion saw them and became enamoured and pursued them. In
their distress they prayed to the gods to change their form, and
Jupiter in pity turned them into pigeons, and then made them a
constellation in the sky. Though their number was seven, only six
stars are visible, for Electra, one of them, it is said left her
place that she might not behold the ruin of Troy, for that city
was founded by her son Dardanus. The sight had such an effect on
her sisters that they have looked pale ever since.</p>
<p id="id00878">Mr. Longfellow has a poem on the "Occultation of Orion." The
following lines are those in which he alludes to the mythic story.
We must premise that on the celestial globe Orion is represented
as robed in a lion's skin and wielding a club. At the moment the
stars of the constellation, one by one, were quenched in the light
of the moon, the poet tells us</p>
<p id="id00879"> "Down fell the red skin of the lion<br/>
Into the river at his feet.<br/>
His mighty club no longer beat<br/>
The forehead of the bull; but he<br/>
Reeled as of yore beside the sea,<br/>
When blinded by Oenopion<br/>
He sought the blacksmith at his forge,<br/>
And climbing up the narrow gorge,<br/>
Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun."<br/></p>
<p id="id00880">Tennyson has a different theory of the Pleiads:</p>
<p id="id00881"> "Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow<br/>
shade,<br/>
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."<br/></p>
<p id="id00882"> —Locksley Hall.</p>
<p id="id00883">Byron alludes to the lost Pleiad:</p>
<p id="id00884">"Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below."</p>
<p id="id00885">See also Mrs. Hemans's verses on the same subject.</p>
<h5 id="id00886">AURORA AND TITHONUS</h5>
<p id="id00887">The goddess of the Dawn, like her sister the Moon, was at times
inspired with the love of mortals. Her greatest favorite was
Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy. She stole him away, and
prevailed on Jupiter to grant him immortality; but, forgetting to
have youth joined in the gift, after some time she began to
discern, to her great mortification, that he was growing old. When
his hair was quite white she left his society; but he still had
the range of her palace, lived on ambrosial food, and was clad in
celestial raiment. At length he lost the power of using his limbs,
and then she shut him up in his chamber, whence his feeble voice
might at times be heard. Finally she turned him into a
grasshopper.</p>
<p id="id00888">Memnon was the son of Aurora and Tithonus. He was king of the
Aethiopians, and dwelt in the extreme east, on the shore of Ocean.
He came with his warriors to assist the kindred of his father in
the war of Troy. King Priam received him with great honors, and
listened with admiration to his narrative of the wonders of the
ocean shore.</p>
<p id="id00889">The very day after his arrival, Memnon, impatient of repose, led
his troops to the field. Antilochus, the brave son of Nestor, fell
by his hand, and the Greeks were put to flight, when Achilles
appeared and restored the battle. A long and doubtful contest
ensued between him and the son of Aurora; at length victory
declared for Achilles, Memnon fell, and the Trojans fled in
dismay.</p>
<p id="id00890">Aurora, who from her station in the sky had viewed with
apprehension the danger of her son, when she saw him fall,
directed his brothers, the Winds, to convey his body to the banks
of the river Esepus in Paphlagonia. In the evening Aurora came,
accompanied by the Hours and the Pleiads, and wept and lamented
over her son. Night, in sympathy with her grief, spread the heaven
with clouds; all nature mourned for the offspring of the Dawn. The
Aethiopians raised his tomb on the banks of the stream in the
grove of the Nymphs, and Jupiter caused the sparks and cinders of
his funeral pile to be turned into birds, which, dividing into two
flocks, fought over the pile till they fell into the flame. Every
year at the anniversary of his death they return and celebrate his
obsequies in like manner. Aurora remains inconsolable for the loss
of her son. Her tears still flow, and may be seen at early morning
in the form of dew-drops on the grass.</p>
<p id="id00891">Unlike most of the marvels of ancient mythology, there still exist
some memorials of this. On the banks of the river Nile, in Egypt,
are two colossal statues, one of which is said to be the statue of
Memnon. Ancient writers record that when the first rays of the
rising sun fall upon this statue a sound is heard to issue from
it, which they compare to the snapping of a harp-string. There is
some doubt about the identification of the existing statue with
the one described by the ancients, and the mysterious sounds are
still more doubtful. Yet there are not wanting some modern
testimonies to their being still audible. It has been suggested
that sounds produced by confined air making its escape from
crevices or caverns in the rocks may have given some ground for
the story. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, a late traveller, of the highest
authority, examined the statue itself, and discovered that it was
hollow, and that "in the lap of the statue is a stone, which on
being struck emits a metallic sound, that might still be made use
of to deceive a visitor who was predisposed to believe its
powers."</p>
<p id="id00892">The vocal statue of Memnon is a favorite subject of allusion with
the poets. Darwin, in his "Botanic Garden," says:</p>
<p id="id00893"> "So to the sacred Sun in Memnon's fane<br/>
Spontaneous concords choired the matin strain;<br/>
Touched by his orient beam responsive rings<br/>
The living lyre and vibrates all its strings;<br/>
Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong,<br/>
And holy echoes swell the adoring song."<br/></p>
<h5 id="id00894">Book I., 1., 182.</h5>
<h5 id="id00895">ACIS AND GALATEA</h5>
<p id="id00896">Scylla was a fair virgin of Sicily, a favorite of the Sea-Nymphs.
She had many suitors, but repelled them all, and would go to the
grotto of Galatea, and tell her how she was persecuted. One day
the goddess, while Scylla dressed her hair, listened to the story,
and then replied, "Yet, maiden, your persecutors are of the not
ungentle race of men, whom, if you will, you can repel; but I, the
daughter of Nereus, and protected by such a band of sisters, found
no escape from the passion of the Cyclops but in the depths of the
sea;" and tears stopped her utterance, which when the pitying
maiden had wiped away with her delicate finger, and soothed the
goddess, "Tell me, dearest," said she, "the cause of your grief."
Galatea then said, "Acis was the son of Faunus and a Naiad. His
father and mother loved him dearly, but their love was not equal
to mine. For the beautiful youth attached himself to me alone, and
he was just sixteen years old, the down just beginning to darken
his cheeks. As much as I sought his society, so much did the
Cyclops seek mine; and if you ask me whether my love for Acis or
my hatred of Polyphemus was the stronger, I cannot tell you; they
were in equal measure. O Venus, how great is thy power! this
fierce giant, the terror of the woods, whom no hapless stranger
escaped unharmed, who defied even Jove himself, learned to feel
what love was, and, touched with a passion for me, forgot his
flocks and his well-stored caverns. Then for the first time he
began to take some care of his appearance, and to try to make
himself agreeable; he harrowed those coarse locks of his with a
comb, and mowed his beard with a sickle, looked at his harsh
features in the water, and composed his countenance. His love of
slaughter, his fierceness and thirst of blood prevailed no more,
and ships that touched at his island went away in safety. He paced
up and down the sea-shore, imprinting huge tracks with his heavy
tread, and, when weary, lay tranquilly in his cave.</p>
<p id="id00897">"There is a cliff which projects into the sea, which washes it on
either side. Thither one day the huge Cyclops ascended, and sat
down while his flocks spread themselves around. Laying down his
staff, which would have served for a mast to hold a vessel's sail,
and taking his instrument compacted of numerous pipes, he made the
hills and the waters echo the music of his song. I lay hid under a
rock by the side of my beloved Acis, and listened to the distant
strain. It was full of extravagant praises of my beauty, mingled
with passionate reproaches of my coldness and cruelty.</p>
<p id="id00898">"When he had finished he rose up, and, like a raging bull that
cannot stand still, wandered off into the woods. Acis and I
thought no more of him, till on a sudden he came to a spot which
gave him a view of us as we sat. 'I see you,' he exclaimed, 'and I
will make this the last of your love-meetings.' His voice was a
roar such as an angry Cyclops alone could utter. Aetna trembled at
the sound. I, overcome with terror, plunged into the water. Acis
turned and fled, crying, 'Save me, Galatea, save me, my parents!'
The Cyclops pursued him, and tearing a rock from the side of the
mountain hurled it at him. Though only a corner of it touched him,
it overwhelmed him.</p>
<p id="id00899">"All that fate left in my power I did for Acis. I endowed him with
the honors of his grandfather, the river-god. The purple blood
flowed out from under the rock, but by degrees grew paler and
looked like the stream of a river rendered turbid by rains, and in
time it became clear. The rock cleaved open, and the water, as it
gushed from the chasm, uttered a pleasing murmur."</p>
<p id="id00900">Thus Acis was changed into a river, and the river retains the name
of Acis.</p>
<p id="id00901">Dryden, in his "Cymon and Iphigenia," has told the story of a
clown converted into a gentleman by the power of love, in a way
that shows traces of kindred to the old story of Galatea and the
Cyclops.</p>
<p id="id00902"> "What not his father's care nor tutor's art<br/>
Could plant with pains in his unpolished heart,<br/>
The best instructor, Love, at once inspired,<br/>
As barren grounds to fruitfulness are fired.<br/>
Love taught him shame, and shame with love at strife<br/>
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life."<br/></p>
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