The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch (autobiographies to read TXT) 📕

When I stretch forth my arms you do the same; and you smile upon me and answer my beckonings with the like.” His tears fell into the water and disturbed the image. As he saw it depart, he exclaimed, “Stay, I entreat you! Let me at least gaze upon you, if I may not touch you.” With this, and much more of the same kind, he cherished the flame that consumed him, so that by degrees he lost his color, his vigor, and the beauty which formerly had so charmed the nymph Echo. She kept near him, however, and when he exclaimed, “Alas! alas!” she answered him with the same words. He pined away and died; and when his shade passed the Stygian river, it leaned over the boat to catch a look of itself in the waters. The nymphs mourned for him, especially the water-nymphs; and when they smote their breasts Echo smote hers also. They prepared a funeral pile and would have burned the body, but it was nowhere to be found; but in its place a flower, purple within, and surrounded with white leaves, which bears the name and preserves the memory of Narcissus.

Milton alludes to the story of Echo and Narcissus in the Lady’s song in “Comus.” She is seeking her brothers in the forest, and sings to attract their attention:

“Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen Within thy aery shell By slow Meander’s margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale, Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are? O, if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere, So may’st thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all heaven’s harmonies.”

Milton has imitated the story of Narcissus in the account which he makes Eve give of the first sight of herself reflected in the fountain:

“That day I oft remember when from sleep I first awaked, and found myself reposed Under a shade on flowers, much wondering where And what I was, whence thither brought, and how. Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound Of waters issued from a cave, and spread Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved Pure as the expanse of heaven; I thither went With unexperienced thought, and laid me down On the green bank, to look into the clear Smooth lake that to me seemed another sky. As I bent down to look, just opposite A shape within the watery gleam appeared, Bending to look on me. I started back; It started back; but pleased I soon returned, Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks Of sympathy and love. There had I fixed Mine eyes till now, and pined wi vain desire, Had not a voice thus warned me: ‘What thou seest, What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;’” etc.

—Paradise Lost, Book IV.

No one of the fables of antiquity has been oftener alluded to by the poets than that of Narcissus. Here are two epigrams which treat it in different ways. The first is by Goldsmith:

“ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH, STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING

“Sure ‘twas by Providence designed, Rather in pity than in hate, That he should be like Cupid blind, To save him from Narcissus’ fate.”

The other is by Cowper:

“ON AN UGLY FELLOW

“Beware, my friend, of crystal brook Or fountain, lest that hideous hook, Thy nose, thou chance to see; Narcissus’ fate would then be thine, And self-detested thou would’st pine, As self-enamoured he.”

CLYTIE

Clytie was a water-nymph and in love with Apollo, who made her no return. So she pined away, sitting all day long upon the cold ground, with her unbound tresses streaming over her shoulders. Nine days she sat and tasted neither food nor drink, her own tears and the chilly dew her only food. She gazed on the sun when he rose, and as he passed through his daily course to his setting; she saw no other object, her face turned constantly on him. At last, they say, her limbs rooted in the ground, her face became a flower [Footnote: The sunflower.] which turns on its stem so as always to face the sun throughout its daily course; for it retains to that extent the feeling of the nymph from whom it sprang.

Hood, in his “Flowers,” thus alludes to Clytie:

“I will not have the mad Clytie, Whose head is turned by the sun; The tulip is a courtly quean, Whom therefore I will shun; The cowslip is a country wench, The violet is a nun;— But I will woo the dainty rose, The queen of every one.”

The sunflower is a favorite emblem of constancy. Thus Moore uses it:

“The heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close; As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets The same look that she turned when he rose.”

HERO AND LEANDER

Leander was a youth of Abydos, a town of the Asian side of the strait which separates Asia and Europe. On the opposite shore, in the town of Sestos, lived the maiden Hero, a priestess of Venus. Leander loved her, and used to swim the strait nightly to enjoy the company of his mistress, guided by a torch which she reared upon the tower for the purpose. But one night a tempest arose and the sea was rough; his strength failed, and he was drowned. The waves bore his body to the European shore, where Hero became aware of his death, and in her despair cast herself down from the tower into the sea and perished.

The following sonnet is by Keats:

“ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER

“Come hither all sweet maidens soberly, Down looking aye, and with a chasten’d light Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be As if so gentle that ye could not see, Untouch’d, a victim of your beauty bright, Sinking away to his young spirit’s night, Sinking bewilder’d’mid the dreary sea. ‘Tis young Leander toiling to his death Nigh swooning he doth purse his weary lips For Hero’s cheek, and smiles against her smile O horrid dream! see how his body dips Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile; He’s gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!”

The story of Leander’s swimming the Hellespont was looked upon as fabulous, and the feat considered impossible, till Lord Byron proved its possibility by performing it himself. In the “Bride of Abydos” he says,

“These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne.”

The distance in the narrowest part is almost a mile, and there is a constant current setting out from the Sea of Marmora into the Archipelago. Since Byron’s time the feat has been achieved by others; but it yet remains a test of strength and skill in the art of swimming sufficient to give a wide and lasting celebrity to any one of our readers who may dare to make the attempt and succeed in accomplishing it.

In the beginning of the second canto of the same poem, Byron thus alludes to this story:

“The winds are high on Helle’s wave, As on that night of stormiest water, When Love, who sent, forgot to save The young, the beautiful, the brave, The lonely hope of Sestos’ daughter.

O, when alone along the sky The turret-torch was blazing high, Though rising gale and breaking foam, And shrieking sea-birds warned him home; And clouds aloft and tides below, With signs and sounds forbade to go, He could not see, he would not hear Or sound or sight foreboding fear. His eye but saw that light of love, The only star it hailed above; His ear but rang with Hero’s song, ‘Ye waves, divide not lovers long.’ That tale is old, but love anew May nerve young hearts to prove as true.”