167. Pelias.1 In another instance, Medea made her arts the instrument of revenge. Pelias, the usurping uncle of Jason, still kept him out of his heritage. But the daughters of Pelias wished Medea to restore their father also to youth. Medea simulated consent, but prepared her caldron for him in a new and singular way. She put in only water and a few simple herbs. In the night she persuaded the daughters of Pelias to kill him. They at first hesitated to strike, but Medea chiding their irresolution, they turned away

their faces and, giving random blows, smote him with their weapons. Starting from his sleep, the old man cried out, "My daughters, would you kill your father?" Whereat their hearts failed them, and the weapons fell from their hands. Medea, however, struck the fatal blow.

They placed him in the caldron, but, as might be expected, with no success. Medea herself had taken care to escape before they discovered the treachery. She had, however, little profit of the fruits of her crime. Jason, for whom she had sacrificed so much, put her away, for he wished to marry Creüsa, princess of Corinth. Whereupon Medea, enraged at his ingratitude, called on the gods for vengeance; then, sending a poisoned robe as a gift to the bride, killing her own children, and setting fire to the palace, she mounted her serpent-drawn chariot and fled to Athens. There she married King Ægeus, the father of Theseus; and we shall meet her again when we come to the adventures of that hero.2

FIG. 133. MEDEA AND DAUGHTERS OF PELIAS

The incantation of Medea readily suggests that of the witches in Macbeth :

Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmèd pot.
Fillet of a fenny snake

In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digged i' the dark. .
Make the gruel thick and slab.1

1 Macbeth, IV, i. Consult.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FAMILY OF ÆTOLUS AND ITS CONNECTIONS

168. The Calydonian Hunt.1 One of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition had been Meleager, a son of Œneus and Althæa, rulers of Calydon in Ætolia. His parents were cousins, descended from a son of Endymion named Ætolus, who had colonized that realm. By ties of kinship and marriage they were allied with many historic figures. Their daughter Dejanira had become, as we have already noted, the wife of Hercules; while Leda, the sister of Althæa, was mother of Castor and Pollux,2 and of Clytemnestra and Helen, intimately concerned in the Trojan War.

When her son Meleager was born, Althæa had beheld the three Destinies, who, as they spun their fatal thread, foretold that the life of the child should last no longer than a certain brand then burning upon the hearth. Althæa seized and quenched the brand, and carefully preserved it while Meleager grew to boyhood, youth, and man's estate. It chanced, then, that neus, offering sacrifices 'to the gods, omitted to pay due honors to Diana; wherefore she, indignant at the neglect, sent a boar of enormous size to lay waste the fields of Calydon. Meleager called on the heroes of Greece to join in a hunt for the ravenous monster. Theseus and his friend Pirithoüs, Jason, Peleus the father of Achilles, Telamon the father of Ajax, Nestor, then a youth, but who in his age bore arms with Achilles and Ajax in the Trojan War, these and many more joined in the enterprise. With them came, also, Atalanta, the daughter of Iasius, of the race of Callisto,

A buckle of polished gold confined her vest, an ivory quiver hung on her left shoulder, and her left hand bore the bow. Her face blended feminine beauty with the graces of martial youth. Meleager saw and, with chivalric reverence, somewhat thus addressed her :

For thy name's sake and awe toward thy chaste head,

O holiest Atalanta! no man dares

Praise thee, though fairer than whom all men praise,
And godlike for thy grace of hallowed hair

And holy habit of thine eyes, and feet

That make the blown foam neither swift nor white,
Though the wind winnow and whirl it; yet we praise
Gods, found because of thee adorable

And for thy sake praiseworthiest from all men:
Thee therefore we praise also, thee as these,

Pure, and a light lit at the hands of gods.1

But there was no time then for love; on to the hunt they pushed. To the hunt went also Plexippus and Toxeus, brothers of Queen Althæa, braggarts, envious of Meleager. Speedily the hunters drew near the monster's lair. They stretched strong nets from tree to tree; they uncoupled their dogs; they sought the footprints of their quarry in the grass. From the wood was a descent to marshy ground. Here the boar, as he lay among the reeds, heard the shouts of his pursuers and rushed forth against

1 From Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon.

them. One and another is thrown down and slain. Jason, Nestor, Telamon open the attack, but in vain.

Then all abode save one,

The Arcadian Atalanta: from her side

Sprang her hounds, laboring at the leash, and slipped,
And plashed ear-deep with plunging feet; but she
Saying, "Speed it as I send it for thy sake,
Goddess," drew bow and loosed; the sudden string
Rang, and sprang inward, and the waterish air
Hissed, and the moist plumes of the songless reeds
Moved as a wave which the wind moves no more.
But the boar heaved half out of ooze and slime,
His tense flank trembling round the barbed wound,
Hateful; and fiery with invasive eyes,

And bristling with intolerable hair,

Plunged, and the hounds clung, and green flowers and white
Reddened and broke all round them where they came.1

It was a slight wound, but Meleager saw and joyfully proclaimed it. The attack was renewed. Peleus, Amphiaraüs, Theseus, Jason, hurled their lances. Ancæus was laid low by a mortal wound. But Meleager,

Rock-rooted, fair with fierce and fastened lips,

Clear eyes and springing muscle and shortening limb
With chin aslant indrawn to a tightening throat,
Grave, and with gathered sinews, like a god,
Aimed on the left side his well-handled spear,

Grasped where the ash was knottiest hewn, and smote,
And with no missile wound, the monstrous boar

Right in the hairiest hollow of his hide,
Under the last rib, sheer through bulk and bone,
Deep in; and deeply smitten, and to death,

The heavy horror with his hanging shafts

Leapt, and fell furiously, and from raging lips
Foamed out the latest wrath of all his life.1

Then rose a shout from those around; they glorified the conqueror, crowded to touch his hand. But he, placing his foot upon the head of the slain boar, turned to Atalanta, and bestowed

1 From Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon.