This book of Greek Myths takes an unusual approach and covers some material that is not commonly covered in children's stories. It is based on the Odes of Pindar rather than traditional mythology. It includes several well-known stories, such as the tale of Jason and the birth of Castor and Pollux, but also several much lesser known tales, as told by one of the greatest of the Greek Poets of the Classic age. Show All     Download:     PDF       EPUB

Preface

The name of this book is borrowed from the Ode in which Pindar has enshrined the loveliest of fairy stories—the "leaf-fringed legend" of the Pansy Child. The poet was bidden to prepare that Ode in honour of a friend's victory in the Olympic Games, and he likens his task to the building of a palace. Golden pillars, he says, must bear up the porch of this House of Song, and the glories of the victor shall form those pillars, glittering afar in the sumptuous frontal of the fabric. Now, chief among the victor's glories, was his descent from the namesake of the Pansy, the holy Seer of Olympia, and so, through that Golden Porch, Pindar leads us into Fairyland.

In adding one more to the innumerable collections of stories from the Greek, I have hoped to break fresh ground by reproducing the myths of Pindar's Odes, as far as possible in a free translation, and with such additions only as were needed to form a framework. Some of these legends are already wholly or partly familiar, but several will be new, I think, to English readers.

It may be said that Greek myths, especially as handled by the poet who wove into them his deepest criticisms of life, are misleadingly, if not profanely, entitled fairy tales.

But I would plead that nothing in Greek literature, except the stories of Herodotus, is so steeped in the true fairy atmosphere as are the myths of Pindar. I need not speak of Aeschylus, the creatures of whose Titanic imagination belong to a universe of their own; but consider, for example, the poet of the Odyssey. His wonder-world, though real, lies far away; Odysseus, he makes us feel, has only to get back to Ithaca, and he has no more chance of encountering a Cyclops or a Laestrygon than you or I have. For Pindar, on the contrary, all Hellas is enchanted ground; it was in Arcadia, in Argos, in his own Thebes, that men of old fought uncanny monsters, entertained divinity unawares, and learnt Earth's secrets from talking beasts and birds. What wonder, if for him, living in such a land, and turning from the upheaval of a new era to gaze fondly on an ideal past, that vanished world came alive again! At least, it is one charm of his story-telling that he seems to be describing things he saw happen with his own eyes, and another, that the marvels befall quite simply, and, so to speak, intelligibly, in the natural course of events.

To these essentials of the perfect fairy tale, Pindar adds the accepted dramatis personae—the brave young prince, the wicked king, his foil, and the incomparably beautiful princess. And always, as in fairy tales all the world over, the wicked king comes to a bad end, while the deserving hero lives happy ever after.

The legends of the Trojan War belong of course to a different category, for between the time of Heracles and the time of Achilles the sun of the fairy age has set.

It should perhaps be mentioned that some of the stories here presented are put together from the myths of several Odes, and most contain a good deal not to be found in Pindar. But where I have used other sources, or invented details, I have tried firstly to introduce no version of a myth not undoubtedly current in Pindar's day, and secondly, to remember his maxim, that "disparagement of the gods is a hateful art."

Proem

He that erst these legends told Sang in far-off days of gold, Ere yet from Earth the bright gods went, or toiling mortals, prison-pent Where the frowning cities stand, Forgot the way to Fairyland. A blissful child, thro' greenwood bowers He strayed, amid the April flowers, And there, 'tis told, he once was found On pansy pillow sleeping sound, While the dusky mountain bees Left for him the clover leas, Left bluebell copse and crocus mead, On his dreaming lips to feed. But, for kisses that they stole, The wingéd thieves paid wondrous toll, Hallowing with chrism pure Those baby lips, their rose-red lure. Strange the might, as I shall tell, Hidden in that honey-spell! For the child, a striping grown, Still would haunt the forest lone, Musing, ferny ways along, The golden themes of antique song— Wars and perilous wanderings, Ancient marvels, hero-kings Vanquishing in dauntless mood Earth's primaeval dragon-brood, All glittering quests, all glories won Since Time's great wheel began to run. So, like a bee, his aëry thought Store of secret treasure wrought From every bud and blossom bright In Memory's garden of delight. Many a Summer morn the boy Ranged the dewy woods in joy; Many an eve sat, half a-dream, Where hazels hid a tinkling stream, While softly to its drowsy chime His lute's low harmonies kept time. Then, in some divinest hour, The magic of the wild-bee dower, Swift as blaze of slumbering flame, Sent a rapture thro' his frame. To the runnel's brink he sprang, Struck his Dorian lute and sang Such a song, the nightingale Hearing, hushed her plaintive tale; Such a song, the goat-foot Pan Envied once a child of man! Yes, the God whose music thrills Thro' silent places of the hills, The Watcher of the upland flocks Who pipes at noon upon the rocks, Tiptoed near, the boughs among, Fain to learn that mortal song, And oft, since then, his reed flung by To carol it in Arcady. Great Pan is dead; the woodlands hoar Ring to his wild notes no more; And the voice he loved that day Long from Earth has past away. Yet still in this her wintry age Its honey breathes from PINDAR'Spage, Whereon who looks shall seem to hear Its very accents warbling clear Of Thebes or Troy the tale sublime, Or some green idyll of the prime, In that sweetest human tongue Moulded when the world was young. Ah, might these dissonant echoes vain Retrieve one cadence of the strain!