<h3><!-- page 161--><SPAN name="page161"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>PART VI<br/> WHAT WAS THE END OF THE HEROES</h3>
<p>And now I wish that I could end my story pleasantly; but it is
no fault of mine that I cannot. The old songs end it sadly,
and I believe that they are right and wise; for though the heroes
were purified at Malea, yet sacrifices cannot make bad hearts
good, and Jason had taken a wicked wife, and he had to bear his
burden to the last.</p>
<p>And first she laid a cunning plot to punish that poor old
Pelias, instead of letting him die in peace.</p>
<p>For she told his daughters, ‘I can make old things young
again; I will show you how easy it is to do.’ So she
took an old ram and killed him, and put him in a cauldron with
magic herbs; and whispered her spells over him, and he leapt out
again a young lamb. So that ‘Medeia’s
cauldron’ is a proverb still, by which we mean times of war
and change, when the world has become old and feeble, and grows
young again through bitter pains.</p>
<p>Then she said to Pelias’ daughters, ‘Do to your
father as I did to this ram, and he will grow young and strong
again.’ But she only told them half the spell; so
they failed, while Medeia mocked them; and poor old Pelias died,
and his daughters came to misery. But the songs say she
cured Æson, Jason’s father, and he became young, and
strong again.</p>
<p>But Jason could not love her, after all her cruel deeds.
So he was ungrateful to her, and wronged her; and she revenged
herself on him. And a terrible revenge she took—too
terrible to speak of here. But you will hear of it
yourselves when you grow up, for it has been sung in noble poetry
and music; and whether it be true or not, it stands for ever as a
warning to us not to seek for help from evil persons, or to gain
good ends by evil means. For if we use an adder even
against our enemies, it will turn again and sting us.</p>
<p>But of all the other heroes there is many a brave tale left,
which I have no space to tell you, so you must read them for
yourselves;—of the hunting of the boar in Calydon, which
Meleager killed; and of Heracles’ twelve famous labours;
and of the seven who fought at Thebes; and of the noble love of
Castor and Polydeuces, the twin Dioscouroi—how when one
died the other would not live without him, so they shared their
immortality between them; and Zeus changed them into the two twin
stars which never rise both at once.</p>
<p>And what became of Cheiron, the good immortal beast?
That, too, is a sad story; for the heroes never saw him
more. He was wounded by a poisoned arrow, at Pholoe among
the hills, when Heracles opened the fatal wine-jar, which Cheiron
had warned him not to touch. And the Centaurs smelt the
wine, and flocked to it, and fought for it with Heracles; but he
killed them all with his poisoned arrows, and Cheiron was left
alone. Then Cheiron took up one of the arrows, and dropped
it by chance upon his foot; and the poison ran like fire along
his veins, and he lay down and longed to die; and cried,
‘Through wine I perish, the bane of all my race. Why
should I live for ever in this agony? Who will take my
immortality, that I may die?’</p>
<p>Then Prometheus answered, the good Titan, whom Heracles had
set free from Caucasus, ‘I will take your immortality and
live for ever, that I may help poor mortal men.’ So
Cheiron gave him his immortality, and died, and had rest from
pain. And Heracles and Prometheus wept over him, and went
to bury him on Pelion; but Zeus took him up among the stars, to
live for ever, grand and mild, low down in the far southern
sky.</p>
<p>And in time the heroes died, all but Nestor, the
silver-tongued old man; and left behind them valiant sons, but
not so great as they had been. Yet their fame, too, lives
till this day, for they fought at the ten years’ siege of
Troy: and their story is in the book which we call Homer, in two
of the noblest songs on earth—the ‘Iliad,’
which tells us of the siege of Troy, and Achilles’ quarrel
with the kings; and the ‘Odyssey,’ which tells the
wanderings of Odysseus, through many lands for many years, and
how Alcinous sent him home at last, safe to Ithaca his beloved
island, and to Penelope his faithful wife, and Telemachus his
son, and Euphorbus the noble swineherd, and the old dog who
licked his hand and died. We will read that sweet story,
children, by the fire some winter night. And now I will end
my tale, and begin another and a more cheerful one, of a hero who
became a worthy king, and won his people’s love.</p>
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