Such was the tale of Cadmos in the cloistered lace ; the words poured from his eloquent lips, as told the sting of a father’s threat when he would urge on his children, and the counterfeit bull travelling the Tyrian surf, the ravisher of the Sidonian bride, no catching the ravisher, no news of the bride. When Electra heard, she answered in words of consolation :
“My guest, let sister and country and father pass into the whirlpool of Forgetfulness and unremembering silence ! For this is the way men’s life runs on, bringing trouble upon trouble ; since all that are born of mortal womb are slaves by necessity to Fate the Spinner. I am witness, queen though I am, if I was ever born myself one of those Pleiads, seven girls whom our mother once carried under her heart in labour, seven times having called Eileithyia at her lying-in to lighten the pangs of birth after birth—I am witness I for my house is far from my father’s ; no Sterope is near me, no Maia my companion, nor sister Celaino beside me at my hearth; I have not dandled up and down sister Taygete’s Laces daimon at my breast nor held the merry boy on my cherishing arm; I do not see Aleyone’s house hard by, or hear Merope herself speak some heart warming word Here is something besides which I lament even more—in the bloom of his youth my own son has left his home, just when the down was on his cheek, my Dardanos has gone abroad to the bosom of the Idaian land ; he has given the firstling crop of his hair to Phrygian Simoeis, and drunk the alien water of river Thymbrioe. And away by the boundary of Libya my father still suffers hardship, old Atlas with chafing shoulders bowed, upholding the seven-zoned vault of the sky,
Still and all with these great sufferings feed a comfortable hope, by the promises of Zeus, that with my other sisters shall pass from the earth to the stars” Atlantean vault, and dwell in heaven myself a star with my sisters six. Then do you too calm your own sorrows, Unforeseen, for you also the terrible thread of Fate immovable is rolling the eddy of your wandering lot of life, and the seal is set. Have a heart to endure in exile the unbending shackle of necessity, and feed the prevailing hope which foreruns things to come, if with the first seed has rooted your race, if you have got from Libya Poseidon’s blood in your family. Abide among foreigners like Dardanos, there make your - home ; dwell in a city of strangers like your own father Agenor, like Danaos your father’s brother. For another man also who carried his home on his back. one of the divine stock of, a heavenly sprout dropt from Zeus, named Byzas, who had drunk the seven-mouth water of self-begotten Nile, inhabited the neighbouring land, where along the Bosporos shore flows the water once traversed by the Inachian heifer.” To all those who dwelt about he showed a light, when he had turned aside the neck of that mad bull unbending.”
So she spoke, lulling to sleep the anxieties of Cadmos.
But Father Zeus sent his quick messenger Maia’s son on outspread wings to Electra’s house, that he might offer Harmonia to Cadmos for the harmony of wedlock—that maiden immigrant from heaven, whom Ares the wife-thief begat in secret love with Aphrodite . The mother did not nurse it—she was ashamed of the baby which told its own tale of the furtive bed: but away from the bosom of the sky she carried the suckling, lying in her arm, to the fostering house of Electra, when the childbed Seasons had Just delivered her baby still wet, when her breasts were tight and swollen with the gushing white sap. Electra received the bastard daughter with ofan rights, and joined the newborn girl on one breast with her newborn Emathion, held with equal love and care her two different nurslings in her arm. As a shaggy loness of the wilds, mother of twin young sucking-cubs in the Jungle, with her milky dew fits twin teats to the pair of cubs, and gives her twin young each a share of her teats, and licks their skin and the neck as yet hairless, nursing the young birth-mates with equal “care: so Electra then with loving breast foster mothered her brace of newborn babes, the boy and girl, and cherished them with equal care. Often she pressed to her with open hand and loving arm “her baby son and his age-mate girl, on this side and that taking turns of the sap from her rich breast : and she set on her knees the manly boy with the womanly girl, letting out the fold of her lowered gown so as to join thigh parted wide from neigh- a thigh; or singing songs for a sleep-charm, lulled both her babies to slumber with foster-mother’s art, while she stretched her arm enclosing the children’s necks, made her own knee their bed, fluttered the flap of her garment fanning the two faces, to keep the little ones cool, and quenched the waves of heat as the hand-made wind poured out its breath against it,
While Cadmos sat near the prudent queen, into the house came Hermes in the shape of a young man, unforeseen, uncaught, eluding the doorkeeper with his robber’s foot. About his rosy face on both sides locks of hair uncovered hung loose. A light bloom of ruddy down ran about the edge of his round cheeks on either side, fresh young hair newly grown. Like a herald, he held his rod as usual. Wrapt in. cloud from head to toe, with face unseen he reached the rich table when the meal was at an end. Emathion saw him not though close at hand, nor did Harmonia herself and Cadmos at her board, nor the company of serving men ; only god-fearing Electra perceived Hermes the eloquent. Into a corner of the house he led her in surprise to tell his secrets, and spoke in the language of men : ”
Good be with you, my mother’s sister, bedfellow of Zeus! Most blessed of all women that I shall be hereafter, because Cronion keeps the lordship of the world for your children, and your stock shall steer all the cities of the earth ! This is the dower of your love. And along with Maia my mother you shall shine with the Seven Stars in the sky, running your course with Helios, rising with Selene. Children’s friend, I am Hermes, one of your own family, wing-spreading Messenger of the immortals. From heaven I have been sent by your bedfellow, the guests’ protector ruling in the heights, on behalf of your own god-fearing guest. Then do you also obey your Cronion, and let your daughter Harmonia go along with her yearsmate Cadmos as his bride, without asking for bridal gifts. Grant this grace to Zeus and the Blessed ones ; for when the immortals were in distress, this stranger saved them all by his music. This man has helped your bedfellow in trouble, this man has opened the day of freedom for Olympos! Let not your girl bewitch you with mother-loving groans, but give her in marriage to Cadmos our Saviour, in obedience to Cronion and Ares and Cythereia.”
Cite This Text