{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_The_Age_of_Fable_Chapter_VIII/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_The_Age_of_Fable_Chapter_VIII","id":"wikisource_The_Age_of_Fable_Chapter_VIII","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Fable/Chapter_VIII","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"PYGMALION \u2014 DRYOPE, VENUS AND ADONIS \u2014 APOLLO AND HYACINTHUS\n\nPygmalion saw so much to blame in women that he came at last to\nabhor the sex, and resolved to live unmarried. He was a sculptor,\nand had made with wonderful skill a statue of ivory, so beautiful\nthat no living woman came anywhere near it. It was indeed the\nperfect semblance of a maiden that seemed to be alive, and only\nprevented from moving by modesty. His art was so perfect that it\nconcealed itself and its product looked like the workmanship of\nnature. Pygmalion admired his own work, and at last fell in love\nwith the counterfeit creation. Oftentimes he laid his hand upon it\nas if to assure himself whether it were living or not, and could\nnot even then believe that it was only ivory. He caressed it, and\ngave it presents such as young girls love,\u2014bright shells and\npolished stones, little birds and flowers of various hues, beads\nand amber. He put raiment on its limbs, and jewels on its fingers,\nand a necklace about its neck. To the ears he hung earrings and\nstrings of pearls upon the breast. Her dress became her, and she\nlooked not less charming than when unattired. He laid her on a\ncouch spread with cloths of Tyrian dye, and called her his wife,\nand put her head upon a pillow of the softest feathers, as if she\ncould enjoy their softness.\n\nThe festival of Venus was at hand\u2014a festival celebrated with\ngreat pomp at Cyprus. Victims were offered, the altars smoked, and\nthe odor of incense filled the air. When Pygmalion had performed\nhis part in the solemnities, he stood before the altar and timidly\nsaid, \"Ye gods, who can do all things, give me, I pray you, for my\nwife\"\u2014he dared not say \"my ivory virgin,\" but said instead\u2014\"one\nlike my ivory virgin.\" Venus, who was present at the festival,\nheard him and knew the thought he would have uttered; and as an\nomen of her favor, caused the flame on the altar to shoot up\nthrice in a fiery point into the air. When he returned home, he\nwent to see his statue, and leaning over the couch, gave a kiss to\nthe mouth. It seemed to be warm. He pressed its lips again, he\nlaid his hand upon the limbs; the ivory felt soft to his touch and\nyielded to his fingers like the wax of Hymettus. While he stands\nastonished and glad, though doubting, and fears he may be\nmistaken, again and again with a lover's ardor he touches the\nobject of his hopes. It was indeed alive! The veins when pressed\nyielded to the finger and again resumed their roundness. Then at\nlast the votary of Venus found words to thank the goddess, and\npressed his lips upon lips as real as his own. The virgin felt the\nkisses and blushed, and opening her timid eyes to the light, fixed\nthem at the same moment on her lover. Venus blessed the nuptials\nshe had formed, and from this union Paphos was born, from whom the\ncity, sacred to Venus, received its name.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSchiller, in his poem the \"Ideals,\" applies this tale of Pygmalion\nto the love of nature in a youthful heart. The following\ntranslation is furnished by a friend:\n\n\"As once with prayers in passion flowing,\n\nPygmalion embraced the stone,\n\nTill from the frozen marble glowing,\n\nThe light of feeling o'er him shone,\n\nSo did I clasp with young devotion\n\nBright nature to a poet's heart;\n\nTill breath and warmth and vital motion\n\nSeemed through the statue form to dart.\n\n\"And then, in all my ardor sharing,\n\nThe silent form expression found;\n\nReturned my kiss of youthful daring,\n\nAnd understood my heart's quick sound.\n\nThen lived for me the bright creation,\n\nThe silver rill with song was rife;\n\nThe trees, the roses shared sensation,\n\nAn echo of my boundless life.\"\n\n\u2014S. G. B.\n\nDRYOPE\n\nDryope and Iole were sisters. The former was the wife of\nAndr\u00e6mon, beloved by her husband, and happy in the birth of her\nfirst child. One day the sisters strolled to the bank of a stream\nthat sloped gradually down to the water's edge, while the upland\nwas overgrown with myrtles. They were intending to gather flowers\nfor forming garlands for the altars of the nymphs, and Dryope\ncarried her child at her bosom, precious burden, and nursed him as\nshe walked. Near the water grew a lotus plant, full of purple\nflowers. Dryope gathered some and offered them to the baby, and\nIole was about to do the same, when she perceived blood dropping\nfrom the places where her sister had broken them off the stem. The\nplant was no other than the nymph Lotis, who, running from a base\npursuer, had been changed into this form. This they learned from\nthe country people when it was too late.\n\nDryope, horror-struck when she perceived what she had done, would\ngladly have hastened from the spot, but found her feet rooted to\nthe ground. She tried to pull them away, but moved nothing but her\nupper limbs. The woodiness crept upward, and by degrees invested\nher body. In anguish she attempted to tear her hair, but found her\nhands filled with leaves. The infant felt his mother's bosom begin\nto harden, and the milk cease to flow. Iole looked on at the sad\nfate of her sister, and could render no assistance. She embraced\nthe growing trunk, as if she would hold back the advancing wood,\nand would gladly have been enveloped in the same bark. At this\nmoment Andr\u00e6mon, the husband of Dryope, with her father,\napproached; and when they asked for Dryope, Iole pointed them to\nthe new-formed lotus. They embraced the trunk of the yet warm\ntree, and showered their kisses on its leaves.\n\nNow there was nothing left of Dryope but her face. Her tears still\nflowed and fell on her leaves, and while she could she spoke. \"I\nam not guilty. I deserve not this fate. I have injured no one. If\nI speak falsely, may my foliage perish with drought and my trunk\nbe cut down and burned. Take this infant and give it to a nurse.\nLet it often be brought and nursed under my branches, and play in\nmy shade; and when he is old enough to talk, let him be taught to\ncall me mother, and to say with sadness, 'My mother lies hid under\nthis bark.' But bid him be careful of river banks, and beware how\nhe plucks flowers, remembering that every bush he sees may be a\ngoddess in disguise. Farewell, dear husband, and sister, and\nfather. If you retain any love for me, let not the axe wound me,\nnor the flocks bite and tear my branches. Since I cannot stoop to\nyou, climb up hither and kiss me; and while my lips continue to\nfeel, lift up my child that I may kiss him. I can speak no more,\nfor already the bark advances up my neck, and will soon shoot over\nme. You need not close my eyes, the bark will close them without\nyour aid.\" Then the lips ceased to move, and life was extinct; but\nthe branches retained for some time longer the vital heat.\n\nKeats, in \"Endymion,\" alludes to Dryope thus:\n\n\"\"She took a lute from which there pulsing came\n\nA lively prelude, fashioning the way\n\nIn which her voice should wander. 'T was a lay\n\nMore subtle-cadenced, more forest-wild\n\nThan Dryope's lone lulling of her child;\" etc.\n\nVENUS AND ADONIS\n\nVenus, playing one day with her boy Cupid, wounded her bosom with\none of his arrows. She pushed him away, but the wound was deeper\nthan she thought. Before it healed she beheld Adonis, and was\ncaptivated with him. She no longer took any interest in her\nfavorite resorts\u2014Paphos, and Cnidos, and Amathos, rich in metals.\nShe absented herself even from heaven, for Adonis was dearer to\nher than heaven. Him she followed and bore him company. She who\nused to love to recline in the shade, with no care but to\ncultivate her charms, now rambles through the woods and over the\nhills, dressed like the huntress Diana; and calls her dogs, and\nchases hares and stags, or other game that it is safe to hunt, but\nkeeps clear of the wolves and bears, reeking with the slaughter of\nthe herd. She charged Adonis, too, to beware of such dangerous\nanimals. \"Be brave towards the timid,\" said she; \"courage against\nthe courageous is not safe. Beware how you expose yourself to\ndanger and put my happiness to risk. Attack not the beasts that\nNature has armed with weapons. I do not value your glory so high\nas to consent to purchase it by such exposure. Your youth, and the\nbeauty that charms Venus, will not touch the hearts of lions and\nbristly boars. Think of their terrible claws and prodigious\nstrength! I hate the whole race of them. Do you ask me why?\" Then\nshe told him the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes, who were\nchanged into lions for their ingratitude to her.\n\nHaving given him this warning, she mounted her chariot drawn by\nswans, and drove away through the air. But Adonis was too noble to\nheed such counsels. The dogs had roused a wild boar from his lair,\nand the youth threw his spear and wounded the animal with a\nsidelong stroke. The beast drew out the weapon with his jaws, and\nrushed after Adonis, who turned and ran; but the boar overtook\nhim, and buried his tusks in his side, and stretched him dying\nupon the plain.\n\nVenus, in her swan-drawn chariot, had not yet reached Cyprus, when\nshe heard coming up through mid-air the groans of her beloved,\nand turned her white-winged coursers back to earth. As she drew\nnear and saw from on high his lifeless body bathed in blood, she\nalighted and, bending over it, beat her breast and tore her hair.\nReproaching the Fates, she said, \"Yet theirs shall be but a\npartial triumph; memorials of my grief shall endure, and the\nspectacle of your death, my Adonis, and of my lamentations shall\nbe annually renewed. Your blood shall be changed into a flower;\nthat consolation none can envy me.\" Thus speaking, she sprinkled\nnectar on the blood; and as they mingled, bubbles rose as in a\npool on which raindrops fall, and in an hour's time there sprang\nup a flower of bloody hue like that of the pomegranate. But it is\nshort-lived. It is said the wind blows the blossoms open, and\nafterwards blows the petals away; so it is called Anemone, or Wind\nFlower, from the cause which assists equally in its production and\nits decay.\n\nMilton alludes to the story of Venus and Adonis in his \"Comus\":\n\n\"Beds of hyacinth and roses\n\nWhere young Adonis oft reposes,\n\nWaxing well of his deep wound\n\nIn slumber soft, and on the ground\n\nSadly sits th' Assyrian queen;\" etc.\n\nAPOLLO AND HYACINTHUS\n\nApollo was passionately fond of a youth named Hyacinthus. He\naccompanied him in his sports, carried the nets when he went\nfishing, led the dogs when he went to hunt, followed him in his\nexcursions in the mountains, and neglected for him his lyre and\nhis arrows. One day they played a game of quoits together, and\nApollo, heaving aloft the discus, with strength mingled with\nskill, sent it high and far. Hyacinthus watched it as it flew, and\nexcited with the sport ran forward to seize it, eager to make his\nthrow, when the quoit bounded from the earth and struck him in the\nforehead. He fainted and fell. The god, as pale as himself, raised\nhim and tried all his art to stanch the wound and retain the\nflitting life, but all in vain; the hurt was past the power of\nmedicine. As when one has broken the stem of a lily in the garden\nit hangs its head and turns its flowers to the earth, so the head\nof the dying boy, as if too heavy for his neck, fell over on his\nshoulder. \"Thou diest, Hyacinth,\" so spoke Phoebus, \"robbed of thy\nyouth by me. Thine is the suffering, mine the crime. Would that I\ncould die for thee! But since that may not be, thou shalt live\nwith me in memory and in song. My lyre shall celebrate thee, my\nsong shall tell thy fate, and thou shalt become a flower inscribed\nwith my regrets.\" While Apollo spoke, behold the blood which had\nflowed on the ground and stained the herbage ceased to be blood;\nbut a flower of hue more beautiful than the Tyrian sprang up,\nresembling the lily, if it were not that this is purple and that\nsilvery white. And this was not enough for\nPh\u0153bus; but to confer still greater honor, he marked the petals\nwith his sorrow, and inscribed \"Ah! ah!\" upon them, as we see to\nthis day. The flower bears the name of Hyacinthus, and with every\nreturning spring revives the memory of his fate.\n\n\u00a0\n\nIt was said that Zephyrus (the West wind), who was also fond of\nHyacinthus and jealous of his preference of Apollo, blew the quoit\nout of its course to make it strike Hyacinthus. Keats alludes to\nthis in his \"Endymion,\" where he describes the lookers-on at the\ngame of quoits:\n\n\"Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent\n\nOn either side, pitying the sad death\n\nOf Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath\n\nOf Zephyr slew him; Zephyr penitent,\n\nWho now ere Ph\u0153bus mounts the firmament,\n\nFondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.\"\n\n\u00a0\n\nAn allusion to Hyacinthus will also be recognized in Milton's\n\"Lycidas\":\n\n\"Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.\"","title":"The Age of Fable/Chapter VIII","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":2308}