Children of the Dawn : Old Tales of GreeceBuckley, E. F. (Elsie Finnimore)
General
Children of the Dawn : Old Tales of Greece
Buckley, E. F. (Elsie Finnimore)
Mythology, Greek -- Juvenile literature
The tale goes of Orpheus that at last he came to Thrace and the wild
mountain lands that lie to the north of Greece. There he tamed the
fierce hill tribes with the magic of his song, and lived a life of
abstinence and purity and ecstasy of the soul. But the followers of
Dionysos who dwelt in those parts looked on him askance; for whereas
they worshipped the god with shedding of blood and rending of goats,
in the madness that is born of wine, the ecstasy of his worship was
born of music and beauty, and he would have no part nor lot in their
wild revels. And because there is no hate that is greater than the
hate of those who worship one god in divers way, there came a day when
the mad frenzy of the Mænads was turned against Orpheus himself. As he
sat looking forth on the sunrise and singing as he touched his lyre,
the raving band came up behind him, full of madness and of wine. And
they tore him limb from limb in their frenzy, as they had torn the
wild goats before, and cast his head into the Hebrus, thinking to
silence his singing for ever. But his head floated on the waves of
the eddying stream, fair and fresh as in life, singing as it floated
its magic enchanting song. Gently the river bore it along and down to
the sea, and the blue sea waves kissed it and passed it from one to
the other, till at last they cast it up, still singing, on the shores
of the Lesbian Isle. There the Muses came and buried it, and made of
its tomb a sacred shrine, where, for many a long year, men came from
far and wide to worship and consult the oracle. About that shrine the
nightingales sang more sweetly than in any other spot on earth, for
they learnt their song from the lips of Orpheus himself. And men bound
themselves in a holy brotherhood which they called by his name, and
lived by the rules he had written on his tablets. Some of those who
pretended to follow him were charlatans and rogues, and brought
dishonour and ridicule upon his name, while others kept the letter
without the spirit of his law; but among them were those of a pure
and blameless life, who kept his doctrines, and handed them down
from generation to generation, till in time they became the
foundation-stones of the great philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato.
Thus did Orpheus live and die, and pointed out to men the path to
immortality by purity and abstinence and ecstasy of the soul. There
were many of old who hated his doctrine, and many who hate it now;
and, indeed, it is not one by which every man can live. But there are
those to whom it brings peace and joy, though they call it by other
names than his; and these are the Bacchoi, the initiated, who have
seen the inward light, and their souls are at peace.
The Flight of Arethusa
Many, many hundred years ago a small band of colonists set sail from
Corinth to found for themselves a new home and a new city in the
far-away west. With a song upon their lips, the sailors bent to their
oars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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