Various - Myths That Every Child Should Know

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"Certainly, certainly," answered Atlas; "and very fair apples they are.
I took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you. Ah! it is a
beautiful spot, that garden of Hesperides. Yes; and the dragon with a
hundred heads is a sight worth any man's seeing. After all, you had
better have gone for the apples yourself."

"No matter," replied Hercules. "You have had a pleasant ramble, and have
done the business as well as I could. I heartily thank you for your
trouble. And now, as I have a long way to go, and am rather in
haste--and as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden
apples--will you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders again?"

"Why, as to that," said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the
air twenty miles high, or thereabouts and catching them as they came
down--"as to that, my good friend, I consider you a little unreasonable.
Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your cousin, much quicker
than you could? As His Majesty is in such a hurry to get them, I promise
you to take my longest strides. And, besides, I have no fancy for
burdening myself with the sky, just now."

Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders.
It being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out
of their places. Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking
that the sky might be going to fall next.

"Oh, that will never do!" cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of
laughter. "I have not let fall so many stars within the last five
centuries. By the time you have stood there as long as I did, you will
begin to learn patience!"

"What!" shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, "do you intend to make me
bear this burden forever?"

"We will see about that, one of these days," answered the giant. "At all
events, you ought not to complain if you have to bear it the next
hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand. I bore it a good while
longer, in spite of the backache. Well, then, after a thousand years, if
I happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again. You are
certainly a very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity to
prove it. Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it!"

"Pish! a fig for its talk!" cried Hercules, with another hitch of his
shoulders. "Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you? I
want to make a cushion of my lion's skin, for the weight to rest upon.
It really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many
centuries as I am to stand here."

"That's no more than fair, and I'll do it!" quoth the giant; for he had
no unkind feeling toward Hercules, and was merely acting with a too
selfish consideration of his own ease. "For just five minutes, then,
I'll take back the sky. Only for five minutes, recollect! I have no idea
of spending another thousand years as I spent the last. Variety is the
spice of life, say I."

Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant! He threw down the golden
apples, and received back the sky from the head and shoulders of
Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged. And Hercules picked
up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins and
straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the
slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after
him to come back. Another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew
ancient there; and again might be seen oak trees, of six or seven
centuries old, that had waxed thus aged betwixt his enormous toes.

And there stands the giant to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a
mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder
rumbles about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant
Atlas, bellowing after Hercules!

CHAPTER II

THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS

Mother Ceres was exceedingly fond of her daughter Proserpina, and seldom
let her go alone into the fields. But, just at the time when my story
begins, the good lady was very busy, because she had the care of the
wheat, and the Indian corn, and the rye and barley, and, in short, of
the crops of every kind, all over the earth; and as the season had thus
far been uncommonly backward, it was necessary to make the harvest ripen
more speedily than usual. So she put on her turban, made of poppies (a
kind of flower which she was always noted for wearing) and got into her
car drawn by a pair of winged dragons, and was just ready to set off.

"Dear mother," said Proserpina, "I shall be very lonely while you are
away. May I not run down to the shore, and ask some of the sea nymphs to
come up out of the waves and play with me?"

"Yes, child," answered Mother Ceres. "The sea nymphs are good creatures,
and will never lead you into any harm. But you must take care not to
stray away from them, nor go wandering about the fields by yourself.
Young girls, without their mothers to take care of them, are very apt to
get into mischief."

The child promised to be as prudent as if she were a grown-up woman,
and, by the time the winged dragons had whirled the car out of sight,
she was already on the shore, calling to the sea nymphs to come and
play with her. They knew Proserpina's voice, and were not long in
showing their glistening faces and sea-green hair above the water, at
the bottom of which was their home. They brought along with them a great
many beautiful shells; and, sitting down on the moist sand, where the
surf wave broke over them, they busied themselves in making a necklace,
which they hung round Proserpina's neck. By way of showing her
gratitude, the child besought them to go with her a little way into the
fields, so that they might gather abundance of flowers, with which she
would make each of her kind playmates a wreath.

"Oh, no, dear Proserpina," cried the sea nymphs; "we dare not go with
you upon the dry land. We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath
we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. And don't you see how
careful we are to let the surf wave break over us every moment or two,
so as to keep ourselves comfortably moist? If it were not for that, we
should soon look like bunches of uprooted seaweed dried in the sun."

"It is a great pity," said Proserpina. "But do you wait for me here, and
I will run and gather my apron full of flowers, and be back again before
the surf wave has broken ten times over you. I long to make you some
wreaths that shall be as lovely as this necklace of many-coloured
shells."

"We will wait, then," answered the sea nymphs. "But while you are gone,
we may as well lie down on a bank of soft sponge, under the water. The
air to-day is a little too dry for our comfort. But we will pop up our
heads every few minutes to see if you are coming."

The young Proserpina ran quickly to a spot where, only the day before,
she had seen a great many flowers. These, however, were now a little
past their bloom; and wishing to give her friends the freshest and
loveliest blossoms, she strayed farther into the fields, and found some
that made her scream with delight. Never had she met with such exquisite
flowers before--violets, so large and fragrant--roses, with so rich and
delicate a blush--such superb hyacinths and such aromatic pinks--and
many others, some of which seemed to be of new shapes and colours. Two
or three times, moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of
most splendid flowers had suddenly sprouted out of the earth before her
very eyes, as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther.
Proserpina's apron was soon filled and brimming over with delightful
blossoms. She was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the
sea nymphs, and sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths
together. But, a little farther on, what should she behold? It was a
large shrub, completely covered with the most magnificent flowers in the
world.

"The darlings!" cried Proserpina; and then she thought to herself, "I
was looking at that spot only a moment ago. How strange it is that I did
not see the flowers!"

The nearer she approached the shrub, the more attractive it looked,
until she came quite close to it; and then, although its beauty was
richer than words can tell, she hardly knew whether to like it or not.
It bore above a hundred flowers of the most brilliant hues, and each
different from the others, but all having a kind of resemblance among
themselves, which showed them to be sister blossoms. But there was a
deep, glossy lustre on the leaves of the shrub, and on the petals of the
flowers, that made Proserpina doubt whether they might not be
poisonous. To tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half
inclined to turn round and run away.

"What a silly child I am!" thought she, taking courage. "It is really
the most beautiful shrub that ever sprang out of the earth. I will pull
it up by the roots, and carry it home, and plant it in my mother's
garden."

Holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, Proserpina
seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled and pulled, but was
hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots. What a deep-rooted plant
it was! Again the girl pulled with all her might, and observed that the
earth began to stir and crack to some distance around the stem. She gave
another pull, but relaxed her hold, fancying that there was a rumbling
sound right beneath her feet. Did the roots extend down into some
enchanted cavern? Then, laughing at herself for so childish a notion,
she made another effort; up came the shrub, and Proserpina staggered
back, holding the stem triumphantly in her hand, and gazing at the deep
hole which its roots had left in the soil.

Much to her astonishment, this hole kept spreading wider and wider, and
growing deeper and deeper, until it really seemed to have no bottom; and
all the while, there came a rumbling noise out of its depths, louder and
louder, and nearer and nearer, and sounding like the tramp of horses'
hoofs and the rattling of wheels. Too much frightened to run away, she
stood straining her eyes into this wonderful cavity, and soon saw a team
of four sable horses, snorting smoke out of their nostrils, and tearing
their way out of the earth with a splendid golden chariot whirling at
their heels. They leaped out of the bottomless hole, chariot and all;
and there they were, tossing their black manes, flourishing their black
tails, and curveting with every one of their hoofs off the ground at
once, close by the spot where Proserpina stood. In the chariot sat the
figure of a man, richly dressed, with a crown on his head, all flaming
with diamonds. He was of a noble aspect, and rather handsome, but looked
sullen and discontented; and he kept rubbing his eyes and shading them
with his hand, as if he did not live enough in the sunshine to be very
fond of its light.

As soon as this personage saw the affrighted Proserpina, he beckoned her
to come a little nearer.

"Do not be afraid," said he, with as cheerful a smile as he knew how to
put on. "Come! Will not you like to ride a little way with me, in my
beautiful chariot?"

But Proserpina was so alarmed that she wished for nothing but to get out
of his reach. And no wonder. The stranger did not look remarkably
good-natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice, its tones
were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the rumbling of an
earthquake under ground as anything else. As is always the case with
children in trouble, Proserpina's first thought was to call for her
mother.

"Mother, Mother Ceres!" cried she, all in a tremble. "Come quickly and
save me."

But her voice was too faint for her mother to hear. Indeed, it is most
probable that Ceres was then a thousand miles off, making the corn grow
in some far-distant country. Nor could it have availed her poor
daughter, even had she been within hearing; for no sooner did Proserpina
begin to cry out than the stranger leaped to the ground, caught the
child in his arms, and again mounting the chariot, shook the reins, and
shouted to the four black horses to set off. They immediately broke into
so swift a gallop that it seemed rather like flying through the air
than running along the earth. In a moment, Proserpina lost sight of the
pleasant vale of Enna, in which she had always dwelt. Another instant,
and even the summit of Mount AEtna had become so blue in the distance
that she could scarcely distinguish it from the smoke that gushed out of
its crater. But still the poor child screamed and scattered her apron
full of flowers along the way, and left a long cry trailing behind
the chariot; and many mothers, to whose ears it came, ran quickly to see
if any mischief had befallen their children. But Mother Ceres was a
great way off, and could not hear the cry.

As they rode on, the stranger did his best to soothe her.

"Why should you be so frightened, my pretty child?" said he, trying to
soften his rough voice. "I promise not to do you any harm. What! You
have been gathering flowers? Wait till we come to my palace, and I will
give you a garden full of prettier flowers than those, all made of
pearls, and diamonds, and rubies. Can you guess who I am? They call my
name Pluto, and I am the king of diamonds and all other precious stones.
Every atom of the gold and silver that lies under the earth belongs to
me, to say nothing of the copper and iron, and of the coal mines, which
supply me with abundance of fuel. Do you see this splendid crown upon my
head? You may have it for a plaything. Oh, we shall be very good
friends, and you will find me more agreeable than you expect, when once
we get out of this troublesome sunshine."

"Let me go home!" cried Proserpina--"let me go home!"

"My home is better than your mother's," answered King Pluto. "It is a
palace, all made of gold, with crystal windows; and because there is
little or no sunshine thereabouts, the apartments are illuminated with
diamond lamps. You never saw anything half so magnificent as my throne.
If you like, you may sit down on it, and be my little queen, and I will
sit on the footstool."

"I don't care for golden palaces and thrones," sobbed Proserpina. "Oh,
my mother, my mother! Carry me back to my mother!"

But King Pluto, as he called himself, only shouted to his steeds to go
faster.

"Pray do not be foolish, Proserpina," said he, in rather a sullen tone,
"I offer you my palace and my crown, and all the riches that are under
the earth; and you treat me as if I were doing you an injury. The one
thing which my palace needs is a merry little maid, to run up stairs and
down, and cheer up the rooms with her smile. And this is what you must
do for King Pluto."

"Never!" answered Proserpina, looking as miserable as she could. "I
shall never smile again till you set me down at my mother's door."

But she might just as well have talked to the wind that whistled past
them; for Pluto urged on his horses, and went faster than ever.
Proserpina continued to cry out, and screamed so long and so loudly that
her poor little voice was almost screamed away; and when it was nothing
but a whisper, she happened to cast her eyes over a great, broad field
of waving grain--and whom do you think she saw? Whom but Mother Ceres,
making the corn grow, and too busy to notice the golden chariot as it
went rattling along. The child mustered all her strength, and gave one
more scream, but was out of sight before Ceres had time to turn her
head.

King Pluto had taken a road which now began to grow excessively gloomy.
It was bordered on each side with rocks and precipices, between which
the rumbling of the chariot wheels was reverberated with a noise like
rolling thunder. The trees and bushes that grew in the crevices of the
rocks had very dismal foliage; and by and by, although it was hardly
noon, the air became obscured with a gray twilight. The black horses had
rushed along so swiftly that they were already beyond the limits of the
sunshine. But the duskier it grew, the more did Pluto's visage assume an
air of satisfaction. After all, he was not an ill-looking person,
especially when he left off twisting his features into a smile that did
not belong to them. Proserpina peeped at his face through the gathering
dusk, and hoped that he might not be so very wicked as she at first
thought him.

"Ah, this twilight is truly refreshing," said King Pluto, "after being
so tormented with that ugly and impertinent glare of the sun. How much
more agreeable is lamp-light or torchlight, more particularly when
reflected from diamonds! It will be a magnificent sight when we get to
my palace."

"Is it much farther?" asked Proserpina. "And will you carry me back when
I have seen it?"

"We will talk of that by and by," answered Pluto. "We are just entering
my dominions. Do you see that tall gateway before us? When we pass those
gates, we are at home. And there lies my faithful mastiff at the
threshold. Cerberus! Cerberus! Come hither, my good dog!"

So saying, Pluto pulled at the reins, and stopped the chariot right
between the tall, massive pillars of the gateway. The mastiff of which
he had spoken got up from the threshold and stood on his hinder legs, so
as to put his fore paws on the chariot wheel. But, my stars, what a
strange dog it was! Why, he was a big, rough, ugly-looking monster, with
three separate heads, and each of them fiercer than the two others; but,
fierce as they were, King Pluto patted them all. He seemed as fond of
his three-headed dog as if it had been a sweet little spaniel with
silken ears and curly hair. Cerberus, on the other hand, was evidently
rejoiced to see his master, and expressed his attachment, as other dogs
do, by wagging his tail at a great rate. Proserpina's eyes being drawn
to it by its brisk motion, she saw that this tail was neither more nor
less than a live dragon, with fiery eyes, and fangs that had a very
poisonous aspect. And while the three-headed Cerberus was fawning so
lovingly on King Pluto, there was the dragon tail wagging against its
will, and looking as cross and ill-natured as you can imagine, on its
own separate account.

"Will the dog bite me?" asked Proserpina, shrinking closer to Pluto.
"What an ugly creature he is!"

"Oh, never fear," answered her companion. "He never harms people, unless
they try to enter my dominions without being sent for, or to get away
when I wish to keep them here. Down, Cerberus! Now, my pretty
Proserpina, we will drive on."

On went the chariot, and King Pluto seemed greatly pleased to find
himself once more in his own kingdom. He drew Proserpina's attention to
the rich veins of gold that were to be seen among the rocks, and pointed
to several places where one stroke of a pickaxe would loosen a bushel of
diamonds. All along the road, indeed, there were sparkling gems which
would have been of inestimable value above ground, but which were here
reckoned of the meaner sort and hardly worth a beggar's stooping for.

Not far from the gateway they came to a bridge which seemed to be built
of iron, Pluto stopped the chariot, and bade Proserpina look at the
stream which was gliding so lazily beneath it. Never in her life had she
beheld so torpid, so black, so muddy looking a stream: its waters
reflected no images of anything that was on the banks, and it moved as
sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to flow, and
had rather stagnate than flow either one way or the other.

"This is the river Lethe," observed King Pluto. "Is it not a very
pleasant stream?"

"I think it a very dismal one," said Proserpina.

"It suits my taste, however," answered Pluto, who was apt to be sullen
when anybody disagreed with him. "At all events, its water has one very
excellent quality; for a single draught of it makes people forget every
care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented them. Only sip a little of
it, my dear Proserpina, and you will instantly cease to grieve for your
mother, and will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your being
perfectly happy in my palace. I will send for some, in a golden goblet,
the moment we arrive."

"Oh no, no, no!" cried Proserpina, weeping afresh. "I had a thousand
times rather be miserable with remembering my mother, than be happy in
forgetting her. That dear, dear mother! I never, never will forget her."

"We shall see," said King Pluto. "You do not know what fine times we
will have in my palace. Here we are just at the portal. These pillars
are solid gold, I assure you."

He alighted from the chariot, and taking Proserpina in his arms, carried
her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the palace. It
was splendidly illuminated by means of large precious stones of various
hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps and glowed with a
hundred-fold radiance all through the vast apartment. And yet there was
a kind of gloom in the midst of this enchanted light; nor was there a
single object in the hall that was really agreeable to behold, except
the little Proserpina herself, a lovely child, with one earthly flower
which she had not let fall from her hand. It is my opinion that even
King Pluto had never been happy in his palace, and that this was the
true reason why he had stolen away Proserpina, in order that he might
have something to love, instead of cheating his heart any longer with
this tiresome magnificence. And though he pretended to dislike the
sunshine of the upper world, yet the effect of the child's presence,
bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery sunbeam
had somehow or other found its way into the enchanted hall.

Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in
preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things not to fail of
setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by Proserpina's plate.

"I will neither drink that nor anything else," said Proserpina. "Nor
will I taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your
palace."

"I should be sorry for that," replied King Pluto, patting her cheek; for
he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how. "You are a
spoiled child, I perceive, my little Proserpina; but when you see the
nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will quickly
come again."

Then, sending for the head cook, he gave strict orders that all sorts
of delicacies, such as young people are usually fond of, should be set
before Proserpina. He had a secret motive in this; for, you are to
understand, it is a fixed law that, when persons are carried off to the
land of magic, if they once taste any food there, they can never get
back to their friends. Now, if King Pluto had been cunning enough to
offer Proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk (which was the simple
fare to which the child had always been accustomed), it is very probable
that she would soon have been tempted to eat it. But he left the matter
entirely to his cook, who, like all other cooks, considered nothing fit
to eat unless it were rich pastry, or highly seasoned meat, or spiced
sweet cakes--things which Proserpina's mother had never given her, and
the smell of which quite took away her appetite, instead of sharpening
it.

But my story must now clamber out of King Pluto's dominions, and see
what Mother Ceres has been about since she was bereft of her daughter.
We had a glimpse of her, as you remember, half hidden among the waving
grain, while the four black steeds were swiftly whirling along the
chariot in which her beloved Proserpina was so unwillingly borne away.
You recollect, too, the loud scream which Proserpina gave, just when the
chariot was out of sight.

Of all the child's outcries, this last shriek was the only one that
reached the ears of Mother Ceres. She had mistaken the rumbling of the
chariot wheels for a peal of thunder, and imagined that a shower was
coming up, and that it would assist her in making the corn grow. But, at
the sound of Proserpina's shriek, she started, and looked about in every
direction, not knowing whence it came, but feeling almost certain that
it was her daughter's voice. It seemed so unaccountable, however, that
the girl should have strayed over so many lands and seas (which she
herself could not have traversed without the aid of her winged dragons),
that the good Ceres tried to believe that it must be the child of some
other parent, and not her own darling Proserpina who had uttered this
lamentable cry. Nevertheless, it troubled her with a vast many tender
fears, such as are ready to bestir themselves in every mother's heart,
when she finds it necessary to go away from her dear children without
leaving them under the care of some maiden aunt, or other such faithful
guardian. So she quickly left the field in which she had been so busy;
and, as her work was not half done, the grain looked, next day, as if it
needed both sun and rain, and as if it were blighted in the ear and had
something the matter with its roots.

The pair of dragons must have had very nimble wings; for, in less than
an hour, Mother Ceres had alighted at the door of her home and found it
empty. Knowing, however, that the child was fond of sporting on the
seashore, she hastened thither as fast as she could, and there beheld
the wet faces of the poor sea nymphs peeping over a wave. All this
while, the good creatures had been waiting on the bank of sponge, and,
once every half-minute or so, had popped up their four heads above
water, to see if their playmate were yet coming back. When they saw
Mother Ceres, they sat down on the crest of the surf wave, and let it
toss them ashore at her feet.

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