GGGGE CHAPTER IV. JASON APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. Half ridden off with by the thing he rode. TENNYSON. N the eastern coast of Thes'saly, a little south of Mount Olym'pus, where great Zeus and his attendant gods were thought to dwell, there stood the city of Iol'cos, whither, you may recollect, the frightened Cre'theus, his brother, built the town above the Pagase'an Gulf,' seven furlongs from the sea. They had at least three other brothers, kings of different states in Greece. Of Sis'yphus, who reigned at Corinth, Ath'amas had fled. 1 Now the Gulf of Volo. there is a strange and terrible tradition that we must defer, but Salmo'neus needs especial mention here. At first he lived in Thes'saly; but when he grew to manhood he removed to E'lis on the western shore of Greece, and by the banks of the Alphe'us he built a town and named it for himself - Salmo'ne. Salmo'ne. He had a wife, Alcid'ice, and by her had a daughter Ty'ro. This daughter loved the river-god Eni'peus; but Posei'don, ruler of the seas, wished her for himself. When Ty'ro's mother died, her father took another wife, Side'ro, who, like many second wives, treated her step-daughter harshly, so that the girl often wandered by the riverside lonely and sorrowful. Then the wily Posei'don took the form of young Eni'peus, and being a god, he easily deceived the maiden, and with his loving words he won her to a secret marriage. When twin sons, Ne'leus and Pe'lias, were born to Ty'ro, the step-mother Side'ro was terribly enraged. She almost starved Ty'ro, kept her clothed in wretched rags, and told such wicked tales about her to the haughty king that he almost hated her himself. Meanwhile Posei'don neglected her, and so she wandered sadly by the river-bank and lived for her two sons alone. But the fleet years passed away, and they grew up to be great, strong lads. One day, when they heard Side'ro call their mother mean and vile, and tell her, with a blow, to leave her father's house and never more return, they laid a cruel plot. When the step-mother went at night to sacrifice in He'ra's1 grove, the boys lay hidden there, and Pelias seized a sacrificial knife and plunged it to her heart. The same night Salmo'neus had arranged to celebrate the completion of a brazen bridge across the river Alphe'us; and now, in his haughty pride, all ignorant of Side'ro's fate, he entered a golden four-horse chariot. A slave stood by his side holding a sheaf of flaming brands. The king whipped up his horses and drove, with loud reverberations, along the echo ing bridge, while ever, as he went, he caught 1 He'ra, the sister and wife of Zeus, was called Juno by the Romans. You will think this strange and boyish sport The clattering of hoofs upon 1 The ancients represented Zeus as grasping a sheaf of thunderbolts in his hand, in token of his power over the regions of the air and sky, where he chiefly exercised his dominion. the bridge of brass, and the bright torches gleaming through the night, seemed, to his childish fancy, a fine counterfeit of thunder and lightning. But for his impiety he met a swift reward. When you learn Latin and read Ver'gil, if you remember what I have just told you, it will be easy for you to understand the words of the Sib'yl when, in describing the place of torment underneath the earth, she said : — "I saw Salmo'neus suffering cruel punishment while he imitates the flames of Jove1 and thunders of Olym'pus. He, drawn by four horses, and shaking firebrands, went exulting through a crowd of Greeks, and through a city in the midst of E'lis, and demanded for himself the honor of a god. The insane one! who had tried to represent a tempest and the inimitable thunder with brass and with the tramping of his horn-hoofed steeds. But the All-powerful Father amid the dense clouds threw his thunderbolt (he did not scatter torches or the smoky flame of brands), and hurled him headlong with cyclonic might." 2 1 Zeus, or Jupiter. 2 Appendix, Note 6. |