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

      May not a mother in her pride repeat

      What every mortal said?

      One prayer remains

      For me to offer yet.

      Thy quiver holds

      More than nine arrows: bend thy bow; aim here!

      I see, I see it glimmering through a cloud.

      Artemis, thou at length art merciful:

      My children will not hear the fatal twang."98

       79. The Lamentation for Linus. How the people of Argos fell under the displeasure of Apollo is told in the story of Linus, a beautiful son of Apollo and Psamathe. In fear of her father the king, Psamathe exposed the child on the mountains where, brought up by shepherds among the lambs, he was in tender youth torn to pieces by dogs. Meanwhile, Psamathe herself was driven from her father's home; wherefore Apollo sent against the land of the Argives a monster that for a season destroyed the children, but at last was slain by a noble youth named Corœbus. To appease the wrathful deity, a shrine was erected midway between Argos and Delphi; and every year Linus and his mother were bewailed in melancholy lays by the mothers and children of Argos, especially by such as had lost by death their own beloved. The fate of Linus, like that of Hyacinthus and others who succumb in the springtime of life under the excessive love of some shining deity,99 typifies the sudden withering of herbs and flowers and of animal life, – the calves and lambs, young children too, under the fierce shafts of summer. The very name of Linus is taken from the refrain ai-linon, or "woe is me," of the lament anciently sung by the country people when thus afflicted by the unhealthy heats, because of which the crops fail and the dogs go mad and tear the little lambs to pieces. In the Iliad there is a beautiful picture which shows us that the song was not reserved completely for the dog days. It is of a vineyard teeming plenteously with clusters:

      Fig. 63. Æsculapius

       80. Æsculapius. The Thessalian princess Coronis (or the Messenian, Arsinoë) bore to Apollo a child who was named Æsculapius. On his mother's death the infant was intrusted to the charge of Chiron, most famous of the Centaurs, himself instructed by Apollo and Diana in hunting, medicine, music, and the art of prophecy. When the sage returned to his home bearing the infant, his daughter Ocyrrhoë came forth to meet him, and at sight of the child burst into a prophetic strain, foretelling, the glory that he should achieve. Æsculapius, when grown up, became a renowned physician; in one instance he even succeeded in restoring the dead to life. Pluto resented this, and, at his request, Jupiter struck the bold physician with lightning and killed him, but after his death received him into the number of the gods.101

       81. Apollo in Exile. Apollo, indignant at the destruction of this son, wreaked his vengeance on the innocent workmen who had made the thunderbolt. These were the Cyclopes, who had their workshop under Mount Ætna, from which the smoke and flames of their furnaces are constantly issuing. Apollo shot his arrows at the Cyclopes, a deed which so incensed Jupiter that he condemned him to serve 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 Amphrysus. How the god lived among men, and what they thought of him, is well told in the following verses.

      82. Lowell's Shepherd of King Admetus.

      There came a youth upon the earth,

      Some thousand years ago,

      Whose slender hands were nothing worth,

      Whether to plow, or reap, or sow.

      Upon an empty tortoise-shell

      He stretched some chords, and drew

      Music that made men's bosoms swell

      Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.

      Then King Admetus, one who had

      Pure taste by right divine,

      Decreed his singing not too bad

      To hear between the cups of wine:

      And so, well pleased with being soothed

      Into a sweet half-sleep,

      Three times his kingly beard he smoothed,

      And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.

      His words were simple words enough,

      And yet he used them so,

      That what in other mouths was rough

      In his seemed musical and low.

      Men called him but a shiftless youth,

      In whom no good they saw;

      And yet, unwittingly, in truth,

      They made his careless words their law.

      They knew not how he learned at all,

      For idly, hour by hour,

      He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,

      Or mused upon a common flower.

      It seemed the loveliness of things

      Did teach him all their use,

      For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs

      He found a healing power profuse.

      Men granted that his speech was wise,

      But, when a glance they caught

      Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,

      They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.

      Yet after he was dead and gone

      And e'en his memory dim,

      Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,

      More full of love, because of him.

      And day by day more holy grew

      Each spot where he had trod,

      Till after-poets only knew

      Their first-born brother as a god.

      Fig. 64. Admetus must Die

       83. Admetus and Alcestis. 102 Admetus was a suitor, with others, for the hand of Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, who promised her to him who should come for her in a chariot drawn by lions and boars. This task Admetus performed by the assistance of his divine herdsman, and was made happy in the possession of Alcestis. But Admetus falling ill and being near to death, Apollo prevailed on the Fates to spare him on condition that some one should consent to die in his stead. Admetus, in his joy at this reprieve, thought little of the ransom, and, perhaps remembering the declarations of attachment which he had often heard from his courtiers and dependents, fancied that it would be easy to find a substitute. But it was not so. Brave warriors, who would willingly have periled their lives for their prince, shrunk from the thought of dying for him on the bed of sickness; and old servants who had experienced his bounty and that of his house from their childhood up were not willing to lay down the scanty remnant of their days to show their gratitude. Men asked, "Why does not one of his parents

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