Wonder Stories.
by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.
HOW THE MYTHS BEGAN
Long ago, when our earth was more than two thousand years younger, there was a wonderful place called Mount Olympus at the top of the world that the ancients could see quite clearly with the eyes of hope and faith. It did not matter that the Greek and Roman people had never set foot on this mountain in the clouds. They knew it in story and reverenced the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses who inhabited it.
In the days when the myths were told, Greece was a more beautiful country than any that is the result of civilization to-day, because the national ideal of the Greeks was beauty and they expressed it in whatever they thought, or wrote, or made with their hands. No matter how far away from home the Greeks journeyed they remembered with pride and love their blue bays and seacoast, the fertile valleys and sheep pastures of Arcadia, the sacred grove of Delphi, those great days when their athletes met for games and races at Athens, and the wide plains of Olympia covered and rich with the most perfect temples and statues that the world has ever known. When the Greeks returned the most beloved sight that met their eyes was the flag of their nation flying at Corinth, or the towers of the old citadel that Cadmus had founded at Thebes.
It was the youth time of men, and there were no geographies or histories or books of science to explain to the ancients those things about life that everyone wants to know sooner or later. There was this same longing for truth among the Roman people as well as among the Greeks. The Romans, also, loved their country, and built temples as the Greeks did, every stone of which they carved and fitted as a stepping stone on the way to the abode of the G.o.ds.
But who were these G.o.ds, and what did a belief in their existence mean to the Greek and Roman people?
There have been certain changes in two thousand years on our earth. We have automobiles instead of chariots, our ships are propelled by steam instead of by a favorable wind, and we have books that attempt to tell us why spring always follows winter and that courage is a better part than cowardice. But we still have hard winters and times when it is most difficult to be brave. We still experience war and famine and crime, and peace and plenty and love in just about the same measure that they were to be found in Greece and Rome. The only difference is that we are a little closer to understanding life than the ancients were. They tried to find a means of knowing life facts and of explaining the miracles of outdoors and of ruling their conduct by their daily intercourse with this higher race of beings, the G.o.ds, on Mount Olympus.
There was a gate of clouds on the top of Mount Olympus that the G.o.ddesses, who were known as the Seasons, opened to allow the inhabitants of the Mount to descend to the earth and return. Jupiter, the ruler of the G.o.ds, sat on the Olympian throne holding thunderbolts and darts of lightning in his mighty hands. The same arts and labors as those of men were practised by these celestial beings. Minerva and her handmaidens, the Graces, wove garments for the G.o.ddesses of more exquisite colors and textures than any that could be made by human hands. Vulcan built the houses of the G.o.ds of glittering bra.s.s. He shaped golden shoes that made it possible for them to travel with great speed, and he shod their steeds so that their chariots could ride upon the water. Hebe fed the G.o.ds with nectar and ambrosia, prepared and served by her own fair hands. Mars loosed the dogs of war, and the music of Apollo"s lute was the song of victory and peace when war was ended. Ceres tended and blessed the fields of grain, and Venus, clad in beautiful garments by the Seasons, expressed the desire of the nations, of dumb beasts and of all nature for love.
There were many more than these, making the great immortal family of the G.o.ds, like men, but different in their higher understanding of life and its meaning. They lived apart on their Mount, but they descended often to mingle with the people. They stood beside the forge and helped with the harvest, their voices were heard in the rustling leaves in the forest and above the tumult and crash of war. They guarded the flocks and crowned the victors in games and carried brave warriors to Elysian fields after their last battles. They loved adventure and outdoors; they felt joy and knew pain. These G.o.ds were the daily companions of the ancients who have given them to us in our priceless inheritance of the cla.s.sics and art.
When you read the poems of the blind Roman, Homer, and those of Ovid and Virgil; when you see a picture of a columned Greek temple or the statue of the Apollo Belvedere or the Guido Reni painting of Aurora lighting the sky with the torches of day, you, too, are following the age-old stepping stones that led to Mount Olympus. The myths were the inspiration for the greatest writing and architecture and sculpture and painting that the world has ever known. They were more than this.
Among the ruins of the ancient cities there was found one temple with a strange inscription on the altar: "To the unknown G.o.d." The temple was placed on Mars Hill as if, out of the horrors of war, this new hope had come to the people.
The word mythology means an account of tales. The myths were just that, tales, but most beautiful and worth while stories. So that people who made them and retold them and lived as the G.o.ds would have had them live came, finally, to feel that there was need for them to build this other, last altar.
WHAT PROMETHEUS DID WITH A BIT OF CLAY
Every boy and girl has the same wonder at one time or another.
"How was the world made?" they ask.
So did the boys and girls of that long ago time when the myths were new, and the Greek teachers told them that the earth and sky were all a huge Chaos at first until the G.o.ds from their thrones, with the help of Nature, straightened out all things and gave order to the world. They separated the earth from the sea, first, and then the sky from both of these. The universe was all a flaming ma.s.s in the beginning but the fiery part was light and ascended, forming the skies. The air hung just below the skies. The waters were very heavy and took the lowest place where the earth held them safely in its hollows.
Just as one takes a ball of clay and moulds it into shape, some one of the G.o.ds, it was said, moulded the Earth. He gave places to the rivers and the bays, raised mountains, planted the forests and laid out fertile fields. And, next, the fishes swam in the waters, birds flew through the woods and built nests, and four-footed beasts began to be seen everywhere.
But the earth was not finished then by any means. There were two giants of the race of the t.i.tans who inhabited the earth at that time, and both of these brothers, Prometheus and Epimetheus, could do marvellous things with their hands. Prometheus took a little of the new earth in his hands and as he looked it over he saw, hidden in it, some heavenly seeds, very tiny of course but they gave him an idea about something wonderful that he might be able to do. So Prometheus mixed some water with this handful of earth and seed; he kneaded it well, and then he skilfully moulded it into a form as nearly like the G.o.ds as he could make it. This figure of clay stood upright. Instead of turning its eyes down to the ground as the four-footed creatures did, this form that Prometheus had made looked up toward the sky where the sun and the stars shone now that the air had cleared.
Prometheus had made man.
While the giant was accomplishing this, his brother, Epimetheus, had been busy with the task of equipping the other creatures of the earth so that they could take care of themselves. To some he gave the gift of courage, to others wisdom, great strength, or swiftness. Each creature was given that which he most needed. It was then that the slow moving tortoise found his sh.e.l.l and the eagle his talons. The deer was given his slender limbs and the dove his wings. The sheep put on his woolly covering that was to be renewed as often as man sheared it, and the horse, the camel and the elephant were provided with such great strength in their backs that they were able to draw and carry heavy loads.
Epimetheus was greatly interested in the man that his brother had made and he felt that he might be in danger from the wild beasts that were now so numerous and haunted the forests. So he suggested something to the giant and Prometheus took a torch, cut in the first forest, up to heaven and lighted it at the chariot of the sun. In this way he brought down fire to the earth.
That was the most useful gift he could possibly have given man. This first man had begun to dig caves and make leafy covers in the woods and huts woven of twigs to be his shelters. Now that fire had come to the earth he was able to light a forge and shape metals into weapons and tools. He could defend himself from wild beasts with the spear he made, and cut down trees with his axe for building a stronger home. He made a ploughshare and harnessed Epimetheus" oxen to it as he planted his fields with food grains.
It seemed as if the earth was going to be a very good place indeed for man and his children, but after awhile all kinds of unexpected things began to happen. The strange part about it was that man, Prometheus"
mixture of clay and heavenly seed, seemed to be at the bottom of most of the trouble. Men used the axe to rob the forests of timber for building war ships and fortifications around the towns, and they forged swords and helmets and shields. Seamen spread their sails to the wind to vex the face of the ocean. Men were not satisfied with what the surface of the earth could give them, but dug deep down underneath it and brought up gold and precious stones about which they fought among themselves, each wanting to possess more than his neighbor. The land was divided into shares and this was another cause of war, for each landowner wanted to take away his brother"s grant and add it to his own.
Even the G.o.ds began to augment the troubles of the earth.
In the beginning, before the forge fires were lighted, there had been a Golden Age. Then the fields had given all the food that man needed.
Flowers came up without the planting of seeds, the rivers flowed with milk, and thick, yellow honey was distilled by the honey bees. But the G.o.ds sent the Silver Age, not so pleasant as the one of gold. Jupiter, the king of the G.o.ds, shortened the spring and divided the year into seasons. Man learned then what it was to be too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer. Then came the Bronze and the Iron ages. That was when war and greed broke out.
Jupiter decided that the people of the earth should be further punished.
He imprisoned the north wind which scatters the clouds and sent out the south wind to cover the face of the sky with pitchy darkness. The clouds were driven together with a crash and torrents of rain fell. The crops were laid low so that all the year"s labor of the husbandman was destroyed. Jupiter even called upon his brother, Neptune, who was the G.o.d of the sea, to let loose the rivers and pour them over the land. He tore the land with an earthquake so that even the sea overflowed its sh.o.r.es. Such a flood as followed; the earth was nearly all sea without sh.o.r.e! The hills were the only land, and people were obliged to ride from one to another of them in boats while the fish swam among the tree tops. If an anchor was dropped, it found a place in a garden. Awkward sea-calves gamboled about where there had once been lambs playing in green pastures; wolves struggled in the water among sheep, and yellow lions and tigers were submerged by the rush of the sea.
It really seemed as if the earth was about to be lost in a second chaos, but at last a green mountain peak appeared above the waste that the waters had made and on it a man and woman of the race the giant Prometheus had made took refuge. Remembering the heavenly seed that was part of their birthright, they looked up toward the sky and asked Jupiter to take pity on them. Jupiter ordered the north wind to drive away the clouds, and Neptune sounded his horn to order the waters to retreat. The waters obeyed, and the sea returned to its basins.
It was a very bare and desolate earth upon which the people looked down from the Mount of Parna.s.sus. They had not forgotten how to build and mine and plant and harvest and keep a home. They would have to begin things all over again, they knew, and there were two ways of going about it.
One way would be to leave the earth the desert place which it now was and try to wreak vengeance on the G.o.ds for the destruction they had brought upon the earth. Prometheus, the t.i.tan, still lived and he was possessed of a secret by means of which he could take Jupiter"s throne away from him. He would probably never have used this secret, but the fact that he had it came to the ears of the mighty Jupiter and caused much consternation among the G.o.ds. Jupiter ordered Vulcan, the smith of the G.o.ds, to forge some great links for a heavy chain. With these he chained Prometheus to a rock and sent a vulture to eat his flesh which grew again continually so that Prometheus suffered most terrible pain as the vulture returned each day.
His torture would come to an end the moment he told his secret, Jupiter a.s.sured Prometheus, but the giant would not speak because of the harm his words might cause the men and women of earth. He suffered there without any rest, and the earth began to take on its former guise of fertility and prosperity as man tried to bring again the Golden Age through his own efforts. And whenever a man felt like giving up the task, which was indeed a mighty one, he would think of Prometheus chained to the rock. His flesh that came from the earth was the prey of the vulture, but the seed of the G.o.ds which was hidden in every mortal, gave him strength to resist what he believed to be wrong and bear suffering.
A strange old story, is it not? But it is also a story of to-day. Ours is the same earth with its fertile fields and wide forests, its rich mines and its wealth of flocks and herds. They are all given to us, just as the G.o.ds gave them to the first men, for the development of peace and plenty. And man, himself, is still a mixture of earth stuff and something else, too, that Prometheus called heavenly seed and we call soul. When selfishness and greed guide our uses of land and food and the metals there is apt to be pretty nearly as bad a time on the earth as when Jupiter and Neptune flooded it. But there is always a chance to be a Prometheus who can forget about everything except the right, and so help in bringing again the Golden Age of the G.o.ds to the world.
[1]THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN
Long, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was a child named Epimetheus who never had either father or mother; and that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless like himself, was sent by the G.o.ds to be his playfellow and helpmate. Her name was Pandora.
The first thing that Pandora saw when she entered the cottage where Epimetheus lived was a great box. And almost the first question that she put to him was this,
"Epimetheus, what have you in that box?"
"My dear little Pandora," answered Epimetheus, "that is a secret, and you must be kind enough not to ask any questions about it. The box was left here to be kept safely, and I do not myself know what it contains."
It is thousands of years since the myths tell us that Epimetheus and Pandora lived; and the world now-a-days is a very different sort of place from what it was then. There were no fathers or mothers to take care of the children, because there was no danger or trouble of any kind, and no clothes to be mended, and there was plenty to eat and drink. Whenever a child wanted his dinner, he found it growing on a tree. It was a very pleasant life indeed. No labor had to be done, no tasks studied, all was sport and dancing and the sweet voices of children talking, or caroling like birds, or laughing merrily all day long.
But Pandora was not altogether happy on account of Epimetheus"
explanation about the box.
"Where can it have come from?" she continually asked herself, "and what on earth can be inside it?" At last she spoke to Epimetheus.
"You might open the box," Pandora said, "and then we could see its contents for ourselves."
"Pandora, what are you thinking of?" Epimetheus exclaimed. And his face expressed so much horror at the idea of looking into a box, which had been given him on condition that he never open it, that Pandora thought it best not to suggest it any more. Still she could not help thinking and talking about it.
"At least," she said, "you can tell me how it came here."