BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY

THE AGE OF FABLE

OR STORIES OF GODS AND HEROES

by Thomas Bulfinch

[1855]

CHAPTER IV

JUNO AND HER RIVALS, IO AND CALLISTO – DIANA AND ACTAEON – LATONA
AND THE RUSTICS

JUNO AND HER RIVALS, IO AND CALLISTO

JUNO one day perceived it suddenly grow dark, and immediately
suspected that her husband had raised a cloud to hide some of his
doings that would not bear the light. She brushed away the cloud,
and saw her husband on the banks of a glassy river, with a beautiful
heifer standing near him. Juno suspected the heifer’s form concealed
some fair nymph of mortal mould- as was, indeed, the case; for it
was Io, the daughter of the river god Inachus, whom Jupiter had been
flirting with, and, when he became aware of the approach of his
wife, had changed into that form.

Juno joined her husband, and noticing the heifer praised its beauty,
and asked whose it was, and of what herd. Jupiter, to stop
questions, replied that it was a fresh creation from the earth. Juno
asked to have it as a gift. What could Jupiter do? He was loath to
give his mistress to his wife; yet how refuse so trifling a present as
a simple heifer? He could not, without exciting suspicion; so he
consented. The goddess was not yet relieved of her suspicions; so
she delivered the heifer to Argus, to be strictly watched.

Now Argus bad a hundred eyes in his head, and never went to sleep
with more than two at a time, so that he kept watch of Io constantly
He suffered her to feed through the day, and at night tied her up with
a vile rope round her neck. She would have stretched out her arms to
implore freedom of Argus, but she had no arms to stretch out, and
her voice was a bellow that frightened even herself. She saw her
father and her sisters, went near them, and suffered them to pat her
back, and heard them admire her beauty. Her father reached her a
tuft of grass, and she licked the outstretched hand. She longed to
make herself known to him and would have uttered her wish; but,
alas! words were wanting At length she bethought herself of writing,
and inscribed her name- it was a short one- with her hoof on the sand.
Inachus recognized it, and discovering that his daughter, whom he
had long sought in vain, was hidden under this disguise, mourned
over her, and, embracing her white neck, exclaimed, “Alas! my
daughter, it would have been a less grief to have lost you
altogether!” While he thus lamented, Argus, observing, came and
drove her away, and took his seat on a high bank, from whence he could
see all round in every direction.

Jupiter was troubled at beholding the sufferings of his mistress,
and calling, Mercury told him to go and despatch Argus. Mercury made
haste, put his winged slippers on his feet, and cap on his head,
took his sleep-producing wand, and leaped down from the heavenly
towers to the earth. There he laid aside his wings, and kept only
his wand, with which he presented himself as a shepherd driving his
flock. As he strolled on he blew upon his pipes. These were what are
called the Syrinx or Pandean pipes. Argus listened with delight, for
he had never seen the instrument before. “Young man,” said he, “come
and take a seat by me on this stone. There is no better place for your
flocks to graze in than hereabouts, and here is a pleasant shade
such as shepherds love.” Mercury sat down, talked, and told stories
till it grew late, and played upon his pipes his most soothing
strains, hoping to lull the watchful eyes to sleep, but all in vain;
for Argus still contrived to keep some of his eyes open though he shut
the rest.

Among other stories, Mercury told him how the instrument on which he
played was invented. “There was a certain nymph, whose name was
Syrinx, who was much beloved by the satyrs and spirits of the wood;
but she would have none of them, but was a faithful worshipper of
Diana, and followed the chase. You would have thought it was Diana
herself, had you seen her in her hunting dress, only that her bow
was of horn and Diana’s of silver. One day, as she was returning
from the chase, Pan met her, told her just this, and added more of the
same sort. She ran away, without stopping to hear his compliments, and
he pursued till she came to the bank of the river, where be overtook
her, and she had only time to call for help on her friends the water
nymphs. They heard and consented. Pan threw his arms around what he
supposed to be the form of the nymph and found he embraced only a tuft
of reeds! As he breathed a sigh, the air sounded through the reeds,
and produced a plaintive melody. The god, charmed with the novelty and
with the sweetness of the music, said, ‘Thus, then, at least, you
shall be mine.’ And he took some of the reeds, and placing them
together of unequal lengths, side by side, made an instrument which he
called Syrinx, in honour of the nymph.” Before Mercury had finished
his story he saw Argus’s eyes all asleep. As his head nodded forward
on his breast, Mercury with one stroke cut his neck through, and
tumbled his head down the rocks. O hapless Argus! the light of your
hundred eyes is quenched at once! Juno took them and put them as
ornaments on the tail of her peacock, where they remain to this day.

But the vengeance of Juno was not yet satiated. She sent a gadfly to
torment Io, who fled over the whole world from its pursuit. She swam
through the Ionian sea, which derived its name from her, then roamed
over the plains of Illyria, ascended Mount Haemus, and crossed the
Thracian strait, thence named the Bosphorus (cowford), rambled on
through Scythia, and the country of the Cimmerians, and arrived at
last on the banks of the Nile. At length Jupiter interceded for her,
and upon his promising not to pay her any more attentions Juno
consented to restore her to her form. It was curious to see her
gradually recover her former self. The coarse hairs fell from her
body, her horns shrank up, her eyes grew narrower, her mouth
shorter; hands and fingers came instead of hoofs to her forefeet; in
fine there was nothing left of the heifer, except her beauty. At first
she was afraid to speak, for fear she should low, but gradually she
recovered her confidence and was restored to her father and sisters.

In a poem dedicated to Leigh Hunt, by Keats, the following
allusion to the story of Pan and Syrinx occurs:

“So did he feel who pulled the bough aside,
That we might look into a forest wide,

. . . . . . . .

Telling us how fair trembling Syrinx fled
Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread.
Poor nymph- poor Pan- how he did weep to find
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain,
Full of sweet desolation, balmy pain.”

CALLISTO

Callisto was another maiden who excited the jealousy of Juno, and
the goddess changed her into a bear. “I will take away,” said she,
“that beauty with which you have captivated my husband.” Down fell
Callisto on her hands and knees; she tried to stretch out her arms
in supplication- they were already beginning to be covered with
black hair. Her hands grew rounded, became armed with crooked claws,
and served for feet; her mouth, which Jove used to praise for its
beauty, became a horrid pair of jaws; her voice, which if unchanged
would have moved the heart to pity, became a growl, more fit to
inspire terror. Yet her former disposition remained, and with
continual groaning, she bemoaned her fate, and stood upright as well
as she could, lifting up her paws to be, for mercy, and felt that Jove
was unkind, though she could not tell him so. Ah, how often, afraid to
stay in the woods all night alone, she wandered about the
neighbourhood of her former haunts; how often, frightened by the dogs,
did she, so lately a huntress, fly in terror from the hunters! Often
she fled from the wild beasts, forgetting that she was now a wild
beast herself; and, bear as she was, was afraid of the bears.

One day a youth espied her as he was hunting. She saw him and
recognized him as her own son, now grown a young man. She stopped
and felt inclined to embrace him. As she was about to approach, he,
alarmed, raised his hunting spear, and was on the point of transfixing
her, when Jupiter, beholding, arrested the crime, and snatching,
away both of them, placed them in the heavens as the Great and
Little Bear.

Juno was in a rage to see her rival so set in honour, and hastened
to ancient Tethys and Oceanus, the powers of ocean, and in answer to
their inquiries thus told the cause of her coming: “Do you ask why
I, the queen of the gods, have left the heavenly plains and sought
your depths? Learn that I am supplanted in heaven- my place is given
to another. You will hardly believe me; but look when night darkens
the world, and you shall see the two of whom I have so much reason
to complain exalted to the heavens, in that part where the circle is
the smallest, in the neighbourhood of the pole. Why should any one
hereafter tremble at the thought of offending Juno when such rewards
are the consequence of my displeasure? See what I have been able to
effect! I forbade her to wear the human form- she is placed among
the stars! So do my punishments result- such is the extent of my
power! Better that she should have resumed her former shape, as I
permitted Io to do. Perhaps he means to marry her, and put me away!
But you, my foster-parents, if you feel for me, and see with
displeasure this unworthy treatment of me, show it, I beseech you,
by forbidding this couple from coming into your waters.” The powers of
the ocean assented and consequently the two constellations of the
Great and Little Bear move round and round in heaven, but never
sink, as the other stars do, beneath the ocean.

Milton alludes to the fact that the constellation of the Bear
never sets, when he says:

“Let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,” etc.

And Prometheus, in J. R. Lowell’s poem, says:

“One after one the stars have risen and set,
Sparkling upon the hoar frost of my chain;
The Bear that prowled all night about the fold
Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his den,
Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn.”

The last star in the tail of the Little Bear is the Polestar, called
also the Cynosure. Milton says:

“Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
While the landscape round it measures.

. . . . . . . .

Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.”

The reference here is both to the Polestar as the guide of mariners,
and to the magnetic attraction of the North. He calls it also the
“Star of Arcady,” because Callisto’s boy was named Arcas, and they
lived in Arcadia. In “Comus,” the brother, benighted in the woods,
says:

“…Some gentle taper!
Though a rush candle, from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us
With thy long levelled rule of streaming light,
And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,
Or Tyrian Cynosure.”

DIANA AND ACTAEON

Thus in two instances we have seen Juno’s severity to her rivals;
now let us learn how a virgin goddess punished an invader of her
privacy.

It was midday, and the sun stood equally distant from either goal,
when young Actaeon, son of King Cadmus, thus addressed the youths
who with him were hunting the stag in the mountains:

“Friends, our nets and our weapons are wet with the blood of our
victims; we have had sport enough for one day, and to-morrow we can
renew our labours. Now, while Phoebus parches the earth, let us put by
our implements and indulge ourselves with rest.”

There was a valley thick enclosed with cypresses and pines, sacred
to the huntress queen, Diana. In the extremity of the valley was a
cave, not adorned with art, but nature had counterfeited art in its
construction, for she had turned the arch of its roof with stones,
as delicately fitted as if by the hand of man. A fountain burst out
from one side, whose open basin was bounded by a grassy rim. Here
the goddess of the woods used to come when weary with hunting and lave
her virgin limbs in the sparkling water.

One day, having repaired thither with her nymphs, she handed her
javelin, her quiver, and her bow to one, her robe to another, while
a third unbound the sandals from her feet. Then Crocale, the most
skilful of them, arranged her hair, and Nephele, Hyale, and the rest
drew water in capacious urns. While the goddess was thus employed in
the labours of the toilet, behold Actaeon, having quitted his
companions, and rambling without any especial object, came to the
place, led thither by his destiny. As he presented himself at the
entrance of the cave, the nymphs, seeing a man, screamed and rushed
towards the goddess to hide her with their bodies, but she was
taller than the rest and overtopped them all by a head. Such a
colour as tinges the clouds at sunset or at dawn came over the
countenance of Diana thus taken by surprise. Surrounded as she was
by her nymphs, she yet turned half away, and sought with a sudden
impulse for her arrows. As they were not at hand, she dashed the water
into the face of the intruder, adding these words: “Now go and tell,
if you can, that you have seen Diana unapparelled.” Immediately a pair
of branching stag’s horns grew out of his head, his neck gained in
length, his ears grew sharp-pointed, his hands became feet, his arms
long legs, his body was covered with a hairy spotted hide. Fear took
the place of his former boldness, and the hero fled. He could not
but admire his own speed; but when he saw his horns in the water, “Ah,
wretched me!” he would have said, but no sound followed the effort. He
groaned, and tears flowed down the face which had taken the place of
his own. Yet his consciousness remained. What shall he do?- go home to
seek the palace, or lie hid in the woods? The latter he was afraid,
the former he was ashamed to do. While he hesitated the dogs saw
him. First Melampus, a Spartan dog, gave the signal with his bark,
then Pamphagus, Dorceus, Lelaps, Theron, Nape, Tigris, and all the
rest, rushed after him swifter than the wind. Over rocks cliffs,
through mountain gorges seemed impracticable, he fled and they
followed. Where he had often chased the stag and cheered on his
pack, his pack now chased him, cheered on by his huntsmen. He longed
to cry out, “I am Actaeon; recognize your master!” but the words
came not at his will. The air resounded with the bark of the dogs.
Presently one fastened on his back, another seized his shoulder. While
they held their master, the rest of the pack came up and buried
their teeth in his flesh. He groaned,- not in a human voice, yet
certainly not in a stag’s,- and falling on his knees, raised his eyes,
and would have raised his arms in supplication, if he had had them.
His friends and fellow-huntsmen cheered on the dogs, and looked
everywhere for Actaeon calling on him to join the sport. At the
sound of his name he turned his head, and heard them regret that he
should be away. He earnestly wished he was. He would have been well
pleased to see the exploits of his dogs, but to feel them was too
much. They were all around him, rending and tearing; and it was not
till they had torn his life out that the anger of Diana was satisfied.

In Shelley’s poem “Adonais” is the following allusion to the story
of Actaeon:

“Midst others of less note came one frail form,
A phantom among men: companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm,
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness,
Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray
With feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness;
And his own Thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey.”
Stanza 31.

The allusion is probably to Shelley himself.

LATONA AND THE RUSTICS

Some thought the goddess in this instance more severe than was just,
while others praised her conduct as strictly consistent with her
virgin dignity. As usual, the recent event brought older ones to mind,
and one of the bystanders told this story: “Some countrymen of Lycia
once insulted the goddess Latona, but not with impunity. When I was
young, my father, who had grown too old for active labours, sent me to
Lycia to drive thence some choice oxen, and there I saw the very
pond and marsh where the wonder happened. Near by stood an ancient
altar, black with the smoke of sacrifice and almost buried among the
reeds. I inquired whose altar it might be, whether of Faunus or the
Naiads, or some god of the neighbouring mountain, and one of the
country people replied, ‘No mountain or river god possesses this
altar, but she whom royal Juno in her jealousy drove from land to
land, denying her any spot of earth whereon to rear her twins. Bearing
in her arms the infant deities, Latona reached this land, weary with
her burden and parched with thirst. By chance she espied in the bottom
of the valley this pond of clear water, where the country people
were at work gathering willows and osiers. The goddess approached, and
kneeling on the bank would have slaked her thirst in the cool
stream, but the rustics forbade her. “Why do you refuse me water?”
said she; “water is free to all. Nature allows no one to claim as
property the sunshine, the air, or the water. I come to take my
share of the common blessing. Yet I ask it of you as a favour. I
have no intention of washing my limbs in it, weary though they be, but
only to quench my thirst. My mouth is so dry that I can hardly
speak. A draught of water would be nectar to me; it would revive me,
and I would own myself indebted to you for life itself. Let these
infants move your pity, who stretch out their little arms as if to
plead for me;” and the children, as it happened, were stretching out
their arms.

“‘Who would not have been moved with these gentle words of the
goddess? But these clowns persisted in their rudeness; they even added
jeers and threats of violence if she did not leave the place. Nor
was this all. They waded into the pond and stirred up the mud with
their feet, so as to make the water unfit to drink. Latona was so
angry that she ceased to mind her thirst. She no longer supplicated
the clowns, but lifting her hands to heaven exclaimed, “May they never
quit that pool, but pass their lives there!” And it came to pass
accordingly. They now live in the water, sometimes totally
submerged, then raising their heads above the surface or swimming upon
it. Sometimes they come out upon the bank, but soon leap back again
into the water. They still use their base voices in railing, and
though they have the water all to themselves, are not ashamed to croak
in the midst of it. Their voices are harsh, their throats bloated,
their mouths have become stretched by constant railing, their necks
have shrunk up and disappeared, and their heads are joined to their
bodies. Their backs are green, their disproportioned bellies white,
and in short they are now frogs, and dwell in the slimy pool.'”

This story explains the allusion in one of Milton’s sonnets, “On the
detraction which followed upon his writing certain treatises.”

“I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known laws of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs.
As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Railed at Latona’s twin-born progeny,
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.”

The persecution which Latona experienced from Juno is alluded to
in the story. The tradition was that the future mother of Apollo and
Diana, flying from the wrath of Juno, besought all the islands of
the Aegean to afford her a place of rest, but all feared too much
the potent queen of heaven to assist her rival. Delos alone
consented to become the birthplace of the future deities. Delos was
then a floating island; but when Latona arrived there, Jupiter
fastened it with adamantine chains to the bottom of the sea, that it
might be a secure resting-place for his beloved. Byron alludes to
Delos in his “Don Juan”:

“The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!”