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POMONA AND VERTUMNUS

These two were Roman divinities, not Greek. Pomona was the only nymph who did not love the wild woodland. She cared for fruits and orchards and that was all she cared for. Her delight was in pruning and grafting and everything that belongs to the gardener’s art. She shut herself away from men, alone with her beloved trees, and let no wooer come near her. Of all that sought her Vertumnus was the most ardent, but he could make no headway. Often he was able to enter her presence in disguise, now as a rude reaper bringing her a basket of barley-ears, now as a clumsy herdsman, or a vine-pruner. At such times he had the joy of looking at her, but also the wretchedness of knowing she would never look at such a one as he seemed to be. At last, however, he made a better plan. He came to her disguised as a very old woman, so that it did not seem strange to Pomona when after admiring her fruit he said to her, “But you are far more beautiful,” and kissed her. Still, he kept on kissing her as no old woman would have done, and Pomona was startled. Perceiving this he let her go and sat down opposite an elm tree over which grew a vine loaded with purple grapes. He said softly, “How lovely they are together, and how different they would be apart, the tree useless and the vine flat on the ground unable to bear fruit. Are not you like such a vine? You turn from all who desire you. You will try to stand alone. And yet there is one—listen to an old woman who loves you more than you know—you would do well not to reject, Vertumnus. You are his first love and will be his last. And he too cares for the orchard and the garden. He would work by your side.” Then, speaking with great seriousness, he pointed out to her how Venus had shown many a time that she hated hard-hearted maidens; and he told her the sad story of Anaxarete, who had disdained her suitor Iphis, until in despair he hanged himself from her gate-post, whereupon Venus turned the heartless girl into a stone image. “Be warned,” he begged, “and yield to your true lover.” With this, he dropped his disguise and stood before her a radiant youth. Pomona yielded to such beauty joined to such eloquence, and henceforward her orchards had two gardeners.



CHAPTER II

Brief Myths Arranged Alphabetically

AMALTHEA

According to one story she was a goat on whose milk the infant Zeus was fed. According to another she was a nymph who owned the goat. She was said to have a horn which was always full of whatever food or drink anyone wanted, the Horn of Plenty (in Latin Cornu copiae—also known as “the Cornucopia” in Latin mythology). But the Latins said the Cornucopia was the horn of Achelous which Hercules broke off when he conquered that river-god, who had taken the form of a bull to fight him. It was always magically full of fruits and flowers.

THE AMAZONS

Aeschylus calls them “The warring Amazons, men-haters.” They were a nation of women, all warriors. They were supposed to live around the Caucasus and their chief city was Themiscryra. Curiously enough, they inspired artists to make statues and pictures of them far more than poets to write of them. Familiar though they are to us there are few stories about them. They invaded Lycia and were repulsed by Bellerophon. They invaded Phrygia when Priam was young, and Attica when Theseus was King. He had carried off their Queen and they tried to rescue her, but Theseus defeated them. In the Trojan War they fought the Greeks under their Queen, Penthesilea, according to a story not in the Iliad, told by Pausanias. He says that she was killed by Achilles, who mourned for her as she lay dead, so young and so beautiful.

AMYMONE

She was one of the Danaïds. Her father sent her to draw water and a satyr saw her and pursued her. Poseidon heard her cry for help, loved her, and saved her from the satyr. With his trident he made in her honor the spring which bears her name.

ANTIOPE

A princess of Thebes, Antiope, bore two sons to Zeus, Zethus and Amphion. Fearing her father’s anger she left the children on a lonely mountain as soon as they were born, but they were discovered by a herdsman and brought up by him. The man then ruling Thebes, Lycus, and his wife Dirce, treated Antiope with great cruelty until she determined to hide herself from them. Finally she came to the cottage where her sons lived. Somehow they recognized her or she them, and gathering a band of their friends they went to the palace to avenge her. They killed Lycus and brought a terrible death upon Dirce, tying her by her hair to a bull. The brothers threw her body into the spring which was ever after called by her name.

ARACHNE

(This story is told only by the Latin poet Ovid. Therefore the Latin names of the gods are given.)

The fate of this maiden was another example of the danger of claiming equality with the gods in anything whatsoever. Minerva was the weaver among the Olympians as Vulcan was the smith. Quite naturally she considered the stuffs she wove unapproachable for fineness and beauty, and she was outraged when she heard that a simple peasant girl named Arachne declared her own work to be superior. The goddess went forthwith to the hut where the maiden lived and challenged her to a contest. Arachne accepted. Both set up their looms and stretched the warp upon them. Then they went to work. Heaps of skeins of beautiful threads colored like the rainbow lay beside each, and threads of gold and silver too. Minerva did her best and the result was a marvel, but Arachne’s work, finished at the same moment, was in no way inferior. The goddess in a fury of anger slit the web from top to bottom and beat the girl around the head with her shuttle. Arachne, disgraced and mortified and furiously angry, hanged herself. Then a little repentance entered Minerva’s heart. She lifted the body from the noose and sprinkled it with a magic liquid. Arachne was changed into a spider, and her skill in weaving was left to her.