some, savage, cold, gloomy, and inhospitable. Forests of pine trees crown its cliffs, and its sides are filled with dark, rough caves. Here the maddened Pentheus fled, here Actaeon was mangled, and the unhappy Oedipus exposed. But the slopes of Helicon are clothed with groves of olive, walnut, and almond trees, while higher up are found clusters of ilex and arbutus, the oleander and the myrtle. No noxious herb is found here, and here the first narcissus bloomed."

Byron in Childe Harold, Canto IV., thus alludes to Egeria and her grotto:

"Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
Egeria! all thy heavenly bosom beating

For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
The purple midnight veiled that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy," etc.

THE WINDS.

When so many less active agencies were personified, it is not to be supposed that the winds failed to be so. They were Boreas

or Aquilo, the north wind, Zephyrus or Favonius, the west, Notus or Auster, the south, and Eurus, the east. The first two

have been chiefly celebrated by the poets, the former as the type of rudeness, the latter of gentleness. Boreas loved the nymph Orithyia, and tried to play the lover's part, but met with poor success. It was hard for him to breathe gently, and sighing was out of the question. Weary at last of fruitless endeavors, he acted out his true character, seized the maiden and carried her off. Their children were Zetes and Calais, winged warriors, who accompanied the Argonautic expedition, and did good service in an encounter with those monstrous birds the Harpies.

Pausanias says that this story is based on history; that Boreas was king of Thrace and Orithyia was the daughter of Erichtheus; that near the river Ilissus he carried her off to his own country and married her.

Zephyrus was the lover of Flora. Milton alludes to them in Paradise Lost, where he describes Adam waking and contemplating Eve still asleep :

"He on his side

Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love,

Hung over her enamoured, and beheld

Beauty which, whether waking or asleep,

Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice,
Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,

Her hand soft touching, whispered thus: 'Awake!
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,

Heaven's last, best gift, my ever-new delight." "

CHAPTER XXIII.

ACHELOUS AND HERCULES-ADMETUS AND ALCESTISANTIGONE-PENELOPE.

ACHELOUS AND HERCULES.

THE river-god Achelous told the story of Erysichthon to Theseus and his companions, whom he was entertaining at his hospitable board, while they were delayed on their journey by the overflow of his waters. Having finished his story he added, "But why should I tell of other persons' transformations, when I myself am an instance of the possession of this power. Sometimes I become a serpent, and sometimes a bull, with horns on my head. Or I should say, I once could do so; but now I have but one horn, having lost one. And here he groaned and was

silent.

Theseus asked him the cause of his grief, and how he lost his horn. To which question the river-god replied as follows: 66 'Who likes to tell of his defeats? Yet I will not hesitate to relate mine, comforting myself with the thought of the greatness of my conqueror, for it was Hercules. Perhaps you have heard of the fame of Deianira, the fairest of maidens, whom a host of suitors strove to win. Hercules and myself were of the number, and the rest yielded to us two. He urged in his behalf his descent from Jove, and his labors by which he had exceeded the exactions of Juno, his stepmother. I, on the other hand, said to the father of the maiden,' Behold me, the king of the waters that flow through your land. I am no stranger from a foreign shore, but belong to the country, a part of your realm. Let it not stand in my way that royal Juno owes me no enmity, nor punishes me with heavy tasks. As for this man, who boasts himself the son of Jove, it is either a false pretence or disgraceful to him if true, for it cannot be true except by his mother's shame.' As I said this Hercules scowled upon me, and with

difficulty restrained his rage. My hand will answer better than my tongue,' said he. 'I yield you the victory in words, but trust my cause to the strife of deeds.' With that he advanced toward me, and I was ashamed, after what I had said, to yield. I threw off my green vesture, and presented myself for the struggle. He tried to throw me, now attacking my head, now my body. My bulk was my protection, and he assailed me in vain. For a time we stopped, then returned to the conflict. We each kept our position, determined not to yield, foot to foot, I bending. over him, clinching his hands in mine, with my forehead almost touching his. Thrice Hercules tried to throw me off, and the fourth time he succeeded, brought me to the ground and himself upon my back. I tell you the truth, it was as if a mountain had fallen on me. I struggled to get my arms at liberty, panting and reeking with perspiration. He gave me no chance to recover, but seized my throat. My knees were on the earth and my mouth in the dust.

66

'Finding that I was no match for him in the warrior's art, I resorted to others, and glided away in the form of a serpent. I curled my body in a coil, and hissed at him with my forked tongue. He smiled scornfully at this, and said, 'It was the labor of my infancy to conquer snakes.' So saying he clasped my neck with his hands. I was almost choked, and struggled to get my neck out of his grasp. Vanquished in this form, I tried what alone remained to me, and assumed the form of a bull. He grasped my neck with his arm, and dragging my head down to the ground, overthrew me on the sand. Nor was this enough. His ruthless hand rent my horn from my head. The Naiades took it, consecrated it, and filled it with fragrant flowers. Plenty adorned my horn and made it her own, and called it Cornucopia."

The ancients were fond of finding a hidden meaning in their mythological tales. They explain this fight of Achelous and Hercules by saying, Achelous was a river that in seasons of rain overflowed its banks. When the fable says that Achelous loved Deianira, and sought a union with her, the meaning is, that the river in its windings flowed through part of Deianira's kingdom. It was said to take the form of a snake because of its winding, and of a bull because it made a brawling or roaring in its course. When the river swelled it made itself another channel. Thus

its head was horned. Hercules prevented the return of these periodical overflows, by embankments and canals; and therefore he was said to have vanquished the river-god and cut off his horn. Finally, the lands formerly subject to overflow, but now redeemed, became very fertile, and this is meant by the horn of plenty.

There is another account of the origin of the Cornucopia. Jupiter at his birth was committed by his mother, Rhea, to the care of the daughters of Melisseus, a Cretan king. They fed the infant deity with the milk of the goat Amalthea. Jupiter broke off one of the horns of the goat and gave it to his nurses, and endowed it with the wonderful power of becoming filled with whatever the possessor might wish.

The name of Amalthea is also given by some writers to the mother of Bacchus. It is thus used by Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV.:

That Nyseian isle,

Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,
Whom Gentiles Ammon call, and Libyan Jove,
Hid Amalthea and her florid son,

Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye."

ADMETUS AND ALCESTIS.

Aesculapius, the son of Apollo, was endowed by his father with such skill in the healing art that he even restored the dead to life. At this Pluto took alarm, and prevailed on Jupiter to launch a thunderbolt at Aesculapius. Apollo was indignant at the destruction of his son, and wreaked his vengeance on the innocent workmen who had made the thunderbolt. These were the Cyclopes, who have their workshop under Mount Aetna, from which the smoke and flames of their furnaces are constantly issuing. Apollo shot his arrows at the Cyclopes, which so incensed Jupiter that he condemned him as a punishment to become the servant of a mortal for the space of one year. Accordingly Apollo went into the service of Admetus, king of Thessaly, and pastured his flocks for him on the verdant banks of the river Amphrysos.

Admetus was a suitor, with others, for the hand of Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, who promised her to him who should