The Heroes; Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My ChildrenKingsley, Charles
General
The Heroes; Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children
Kingsley, Charles
Mythology, Greek -- Juvenile literature
Then up rose Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of the North-wind, and
said, ‘Do you not know us, Phineus, and these wings which grow upon our
backs?’ And Phineus hid his face in terror; but he answered not a word.
‘Because you have been a traitor, Phineus, the Harpies haunt you night
and day. Where is Cleopatra our sister, your wife, whom you keep in
prison? and where are her two children, whom you blinded in your rage, at
the bidding of an evil woman, and cast them out upon the rocks? Swear to
us that you will right our sister, and cast out that wicked woman; and
then we will free you from your plague, and drive the whirlwind maidens
to the south; but if not, we will put out your eyes, as you put out the
eyes of your own sons.’
Then Phineus swore an oath to them, and drove out the wicked woman; and
Jason took those two poor children, and cured their eyes with magic
herbs.
But Zetes and Calais rose up sadly and said, ‘Farewell now, heroes all;
farewell, our dear companions, with whom we played on Pelion in old
times; for a fate is laid upon us, and our day is come at last, in which
we must hunt the whirlwinds over land and sea for ever; and if we catch
them they die, and if not, we die ourselves.’
At that all the heroes wept; but the two young men sprang up, and aloft
into the air after the Harpies, and the battle of the winds began.
The heroes trembled in silence as they heard the shrieking of the blasts;
while the palace rocked and all the city, and great stones were torn from
the crags, and the forest pines were hurled earthward, north and south
and east and west, and the Bosphorus boiled white with foam, and the
clouds were dashed against the cliffs.
But at last the battle ended, and the Harpies fled screaming toward the
south, and the sons of the North-wind rushed after them, and brought
clear sunshine where they passed. For many a league they followed them,
over all the isles of the Cyclades, and away to the south-west across
Hellas, till they came to the Ionian Sea, and there they fell upon the
Echinades, at the mouth of the Achelous; and those isles were called the
Whirlwind Isles for many a hundred years. But what became of Zetes and
Calais I know not, for the heroes never saw them again: and some say that
Heracles met them, and quarrelled with them, and slew them with his
arrows; and some say that they fell down from weariness and the heat of
the summer sun, and that the Sun-god buried them among the Cyclades, in
the pleasant Isle of Tenos; and for many hundred years their grave was
shown there, and over it a pillar, which turned to every wind. But those
dark storms and whirlwinds haunt the Bosphorus until this day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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