The punishment of great criminals was a fruitful theme for the imaginations and pens of the Greek poets. Tityus, who had offered violence to Leto, is chained to the earth while vultures constantly tear his ever growing liver. Tantalus,[14] who had been admitted to the table of the gods, but impiously thought to test their superior discernment by putting before them the flesh of his son Pelops, is for his crime doomed to suffer the torments of continual hunger and thirst. Just above his head are branches laden with beautiful and luscious fruits, but when he attempts to pluck them a gust of wind bears them quite beyond his reach. He stands on the bank of a beautiful stream clear as crystal, or in the midst of the water, but when he attempts to quench his raging thirst it is impossible even to wet his lips. Sisyphus, once king of Corinth, and a great sinner, was condemned to roll a block of stone up a high mountain, but, soon as the top was reached, the huge stone, by some sudden impulse, rolled back to the plain, and with weary limbs he must continue the fruitless struggle. Ixion, also an insolent offender, is chained, hands and feet, to an ever revolving wheel and tortured without respite or hope of release. And the daughters of Danaus, who at their father’s bidding had slain their husbands the night of their nuptials, are laboriously pouring water into a perforated cask with despair of ever accomplishing the required task of filling it. The punishment was deemed retributory, and in these examplary cases from its nature without end. EROS AND PSYCHE[15] (CUPID AND THE SOUL).—Eros, reputed a son of Aphrodite and Ares, in the earlier legends appears a winged child; then a boy of marvelous beauty on the verge of youth, but small of stature. His characteristic is the golden bow, from whose taut string arrows fly to their mark, with unerring aim, and inflict wounds that represent the consuming pangs of love. As the charming but mischief-making Eros, being solitary, did not grow, his mother, by the advice of Artemis, gave him as a play-fellow a brother whom they named Anteros; his company caused content and happiness. Eros was venerated not only as the god of love, kindly influencing the sexes toward each other, and kindling purest fires on their home altars, but as the author also of loving friendships between youths and men. For this reason probably, his statue was placed between those of Hermes and Hercules in the gymnasia, and the warlike Spartans sacrifice to him before battle, pledging themselves to be faithful, and stand by one another in time of need. The significant myth showing the love of Eros for Psyche is of more recent origin and shows some higher religious notions. Various interpretations of the legend have been suggested, all of them sufficiently fanciful. We give here an abridgment of a much lengthier account found in “Stories from the Classics.”