In answer to his call there flocked from far and wide to Calydon a great host of brave men, and mighty was the muster which gathered beneath the roof of Œneus for the hunting of the boar. Jason himself came, the leader of the Argonauts, and Castor and Pollux, the great twin brethren, whose stars are in the sky. There was Theseus, too, who slew the Minotaur, and Peirithous his friend, who went down with him to Hades, and tried to carry off Proserpine from the King of the Dead. And swift-footed Idas came, and Lynceus, his brother, whose eyes were so sharp that they could see into the center of the earth. Others were there besides, whose names are too many to tell, and Toxeus and Plexippus, the brothers of Althæa the queen, whom she loved as she loved her own son Meleager. In the great hall a sumptuous feast was spread, and loud was the laughter and bright were the faces, as one friend met another he had not seen for many a long day. The feast was well under way when one of the attendants whispered in the ear of the king that yet another guest had come for the hunting of the boar. “Who is he?” asked the king. “My lord, I know not,” the man replied. “Well, keep him not standing without, at all events,” said Œneus, “but show him in here, and we will make him welcome with the rest.” In a few moments the man returned, and held back the curtain of the great doorway for the newcomer to enter. All eyes were turned eagerly that way to see who it might be, and a murmur of surprise ran round the hall; for they saw upon the threshold no stalwart warrior, as they had expected, but a maiden young and beautiful. She was clad in a hunter’s tunic, which fell to her knee, and her legs were strapped about with leathern thongs. Crosswise about her body she wore a girdle, from which hung a quiver full of arrows, and with her right hand she leant on a great ashen bow like a staff. Her shining hair fell back in waves from her forehead, and was gathered up in a coil behind, and she held her head up proudly and gazed round on the company unabashed. The glow of her cheek and the spring of her step told of life in the open, and of health-giving sport over hill and dale, so that she might have been Diana herself come down from her hunting on the mountains. She looked round the hall till her eyes fell on Œneus, the host, in the place of honor, and in no wise troubled by the silence which her coming had caused, she said: “Sire, for my late-coming I crave thy pardon. Doubtless some of thy guests have come from more distant lands than I, but, as ill-luck would have it, I chose to come by way of the sea instead of by the isthmus. For a whole day I ate out my heart with waiting till the wind fell, and I could cross over in safety.”