The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (2nd ed.) (1911)

Meanwhile, the mountain Cithæron seemed alive with worshipers, and the cries of the Bacchanals resounded on every side. Pentheus, angered by the noise, penetrated through the wood and reached an open space where the chief scene of the orgies met his eyes. At the same moment the women saw him, among them his mother Agave, and Autonoë and Ino, her sisters. Taking him for a wild boar, they rushed upon him and tore him to pieces, – his mother shouting, "Victory! Victory! the glory is ours!"

So the worship of Bacchus was established in Greece.

It was on the island of Naxos that Bacchus afterward found Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, king of Crete, who had been deserted by her lover, Theseus. How Bacchus comforted her is related in another section. How the god himself is worshiped is told by Edmund Gosse in the poem from which the following extracts are taken:

Fig. 86. Bacchic Procession

Behold, behold! the granite gates unclose,
And down the vales a lyric people flows;
Dancing to music, in their dance they fling
Their frantic robes to every wind that blows,
And deathless praises to the vine-god sing.

Nearer they press, and nearer still in sight,
Still dancing blithely in a seemly choir;
Tossing on high the symbol of their rite,
The cone-tipped thyrsus of a god's desire;
Nearer they come, tall damsels flushed and fair,
With ivy circling their abundant hair;
Onward, with even pace, in stately rows,
With eye that flashes, and with cheek that glows,
And all the while their tribute-songs they bring,
And newer glories of the past disclose,
And deathless praises to the vine-god sing.
… But oh! within the heart of this great flight,
Whose ivory arms hold up the golden lyre?
What form is this of more than mortal height?
What matchless beauty, what inspirèd ire!
The brindled panthers know the prize they bear,
And harmonize their steps with stately care;
Bent to the morning, like a living rose,
The immortal splendor of his face he shows,
And where he glances, leaf and flower and wing
Tremble with rapture, stirred in their repose,
And deathless praises to the vine-god sing…[148 - From The Praise of Dionysus.]

Fig. 87. Dionysus visiting a Poet

113. The Choice of King Midas.[149 - Ovid, Metam. 11, 85-145.] Once Silenus, having wandered from the company of Bacchus in an intoxicated condition, was found by some peasants, who carried him to their king, Midas. Midas entertained him royally and on the eleventh day restored him in safety to his divine pupil. Whereupon Bacchus offered Midas his choice of a reward. The king asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold. Bacchus consented. Midas hastened to put his new-acquired power to the test. A twig of an oak, which he plucked from the branch, became gold in his hand. He took up a stone; it changed to gold. He touched a sod with the same result. He took an apple from the tree; you would have thought he had robbed the garden of the Hesperides. He ordered his servants, then, to set an excellent meal on the table. But, to his dismay, when he touched bread, it hardened in his hand; when he put a morsel to his lips, it defied his teeth. He took a glass of wine, but it flowed down his throat like melted gold.

He strove to divest himself of his power; he hated the gift he had lately coveted. He raised his arms, all shining with gold, in prayer to Bacchus, begging to be delivered from this glittering destruction. The merciful deity heard and sent him to wash away his fault and its punishment in the fountainhead of the river Pactolus. Scarce had Midas touched the waters, before the gold-creating power passed into them, and the river sands became golden, as they remain to this day.

Thenceforth Midas, hating wealth and splendor, dwelt in the country and became a worshiper of Pan, the god of the fields. But that he had not gained common sense is shown by the decision that he delivered somewhat later in favor of Pan's superiority, as a musician, over Apollo.[150 - See § 85.Fig. 88. Rape of Proserpina]

CHAPTER IX

FROM THE EARTH TO THE UNDERWORLD

114. Myths of Ceres, Pluto, and Proserpine. The search of Ceres for Proserpine, and of Orpheus for Eurydice, are stories pertaining both to Earth and Hades.

115. The Rape of Proserpine.[151 - Ovid, Metam. 5, 341-347.] When the giants were imprisoned by Jupiter under Mount Ætna, Pluto (Hades) feared lest the shock of their fall might expose his kingdom to the light of day. Under this apprehension, he mounted his chariot drawn by black horses, and made a circuit of inspection to satisfy himself of the extent of the damage. While he was thus engaged, Venus, who was sitting on Mount Eryx playing with her boy Cupid, espied him and said, "My son, take thy darts which subdue all, even Jove himself, and send one into the breast of yonder dark monarch, who rules the realm of Tartarus. Dost thou not see that even in heaven some despise our power? Minerva and Diana defy us; and there is that daughter of Ceres, goddess of earth, who threatens to follow their example. Now, if thou regardest thine own interest or mine, join these two in one." The boy selected his sharpest and truest arrow, and sped it right to the heart of Pluto.

In the vale of Enna is a lake embowered in woods, where Spring reigns perpetual. Here Proserpine (Persephone) was playing with her companions, gathering lilies and violets, and singing, one may imagine, such words as our poet Shelley puts into her mouth:

Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom,
Gods, and men, and beasts, have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.

If with mists of evening dew
Thou dost nourish these young flowers
Till they grow, in scent and hue,
Fairest children of the hours,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.[152 - Song of Proserpine, while gathering flowers on the plain of Enna.]

Pluto saw her, loved her, and carried her off. She screamed for help to her mother and her companions; but the ravisher urged on his steeds and outdistanced pursuit. When he reached the river Cyane, it opposed his passage, whereupon he struck the bank with his trident, and the earth opened and gave him a passage to Tartarus.

116. The Wanderings of Ceres.[153 - Ovid, Metam. 5. 440, 642; Apollodorus, 1, 5, § 2; Hyginus, Fab. 147.] Ceres (Demeter) sought her daughter all the world over. Bright-haired Aurora, when she came forth in the morning, and Hesperus, when he led out the stars in the evening, found her still busy in the search. At length, weary and sad, she sat down upon a stone, and remained nine days and nights in the open air, under the sunlight and moonlight and falling showers. It was where now stands the city of Eleusis, near the home of an old man named Celeus. His little girl, pitying the old woman, said to her, "Mother," – and the name was sweet to the ears of Ceres, – "why sittest thou here alone upon the rocks?" The old man begged her to come into his cottage. She declined. He urged her. "Go in peace," she replied, "and be happy in thy daughter; I have lost mine." But their compassion finally prevailed. Ceres rose from the stone and went with them. As they walked, Celeus said that his only son lay sick of a fever. The goddess stooped and gathered some poppies. Then, entering the cottage, where all was in distress, – for the boy Triptolemus seemed past recovery, – she restored the child to life and health with a kiss. In grateful happiness the family spread the table and put upon it curds and cream, apples, and honey in the comb. While they ate, Ceres mingled poppy juice in the milk of the boy. When night came, she arose and, taking the sleeping boy, molded his limbs with her hands, and uttered over him three times a solemn charm, then went and laid him in the ashes. His mother, who had been watching what her guest was doing, sprang forward with a cry and snatched the child from the fire. Then Ceres assumed her own form, and a divine splendor shone all around. While they were overcome with astonishment, she said, "Mother, thou hast been cruel in thy fondness; for I would have made thy son immortal. Nevertheless, he shall be great and useful. He shall teach men the use of the plow and the rewards which labor can win from the soil." So saying, she wrapped a cloud about her and mounting her chariot rode away.

Fig. 89. Hades and Persephone

Ceres continued her search for her daughter till at length she returned to Sicily, whence she first had set out, and stood by the banks of the river Cyane. The river nymph would have told the goddess all she had witnessed, but dared not, for fear of Pluto; so she ventured merely to take up the girdle which Proserpine had dropped in her flight, and float it to the feet of the mother. Ceres, seeing this, laid her curse on the innocent earth in which her daughter had disappeared. Then succeeded drought and famine, flood and plague, until, at last, the fountain Arethusa made intercession for the land. For she had seen that it opened only unwillingly to the might of Pluto; and she had also, in her flight from Alpheüs through the lower regions of the earth, beheld the missing Proserpine. She said that the daughter of Ceres seemed sad, but no longer showed alarm in her countenance. Her look was such as became a queen, – the queen of Erebus; the powerful bride of the monarch of the realms of the dead.

Fig. 90. Sacrifice to Demeter and Persephone

When Ceres heard this, she stood awhile like one stupefied; then she implored Jupiter to interfere to procure the restitution of her daughter. Jupiter consented on condition that Proserpine should not during her stay in the lower world have taken any food; otherwise, the Fates forbade her release. Accordingly, Mercury was sent, accompanied by Spring, to demand Proserpine of Pluto. The wily monarch consented; but alas! the maiden had taken a pomegranate which Pluto offered her, and had sucked the sweet pulp from a few of the seeds. A compromise, however, was effected by which she was to pass half the time with her mother, and the rest with the lord of Hades.

Of modern poems upon the story of the maiden seized in the vale of Enna, none conveys a lesson more serene of the beauty of that dark lover of all fair life, Death, than the Proserpine of Woodberry, from which we quote the three following stanzas. "I pick," says the poet wandering through the vale of Enna,

I pick the flowers that Proserpine let fall,
Sung through the world by every honeyed muse:
Wild morning-glories, daisies waving tall,
At every step is something new to choose;
And oft I stop and gaze
Upon the flowery maze;
By yonder cypresses on that soft rise,
Scarce seen through poppies and the knee-deep wheat,
Juts the dark cleft where on her came the fleet
Thunder-black horses and the cloud's surprise
And he who filled the place.
Did marigolds bright as these, gilding the mist,
Drop from her maiden zone? Wert thou last kissed,
Pale hyacinth, last seen, before his face?
*       *       *       *       *
Oh, whence has silence stolen on all things here,
Where every sight makes music to the eye?