The landsman told of one whom he named ‘the queen of the mountains’ (ἡ
βασίλισσα τῶν βουνῶν) who with a retinue of Nereids was ever roaming
over the hills or dancing in some wooded dell. In form she was as a
Nereid, but taller and more glistening-white than they; and as she
surpassed her comrades in beauty, so did she also excel in cruelty
towards those who heedlessly crossed her path. The sailor on the other
hand had both seen and heard one whom he called ‘the queen of the
shore’ (ἡ βασίλισσα τοῦ γιαλοῦ). Most often she stands in the sea with
the water waist-high about her, and sings passionate love-songs to
those who pass by on the shore. Then must men close fast their eyes and
stop their ears; for, if they yield to her seductions, the bridal bed
is in the depths of the sea and she alone rises up again to tempt yet
others with her fatal love.
The former is without question she of whom Homer sang, ‘In company with
her do mirthful nymphs ... range o’er the land.... High above them all
she carries her head and brow, and full easily is she known, though
they all be beautiful’[413].
Nigh on three thousand years ago was composed this graceful epitome of
beliefs still current to-day; for, though the name of Artemis is no
longer heard, her personality remains. The peasants in general describe
rather than name her. In Zacynthos she is called ‘the great lady’ (ἡ
μεγάλη κυρά)[414]; in Cephalonia and in the villages of Parnassus
she is distinguished simply as ‘the chief’ or ‘the greatest’ of the
Nereids[415]; in either Chios or Scopelos (I cannot say which, for
my shepherd had been born in the former but was then living in the
latter) her title is ‘Queen of the mountains.’ In Aetolia however I was
fortunate enough to hear an actual name assigned, ἡ κυρὰ Κάλω, ‘the
lady Beautiful,’ where the shift of the accent in Κάλω as compared
with the adjective καλός is natural to the formation of a proper name,
and the feminine termination in -ω, almost obsolete now, argues an
early origin. The name therefore in its present form may have come
down unchanged from classical times; but, whatever its age, we may
at least hear in it an echo of the ancient cult-title of Artemis,
Καλλίστη, ‘most beautiful’[416]. The same deity, I suspect, survived
also until recently, under a disguised form but with a kindred name,
in Athens: for the folk there used to tell of one whom they named
‘Saint Beautiful’ (ἡ ἅγι̯α Καλή), but to whom no church was ever
dedicated[417]; her canonisation was only popular.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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