The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

The voice remaineth: legend saith the bones Took on themselves the texture of the rocks.

But retribution awaited Narcissus. The prayer had been uttered that he might also be possessed by love hopelessly beyond all chance of return. It so happened that one day, wearied with the chase, the youth lay down beside a spring of sparkling water, silvery-clear in the midst of the green forest. Here he was destined to fall in love with his own reflection.

He yearned to quench his thirst: thirst grew afresh:

He drank, love-smitten with the image seen,

Enamoured of a bodiless hope. It looked

As if the water were alive. Himself,

In love with his own self, lay there unmoved

Of gaze, like Parian marble statuesque;

And saw, as in a mirror, two sweet eyes,

His own reflected, as it might be stars;

Saw locks for Bacchus or Apollo's fit,

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Saw his smooth cheeks and ivory neck and charm Of face, where snowy whiteness mixed with red: Unwitting he desires himself, and is His own admirer, wooed and wooing too.

It is now his turn to waste away, slowly consumed by a passion for an unattainable beauty, which the waters always seem to sever from him. He becomes a mere shadow of his former self, and moves even the pity of Echo whom he spurned. She responds to his melancholy sighs and his melting words of farewell. At last the end comes.

On the green sward he laid a weary head:

Death closed the eyes that loved their owner's charm.

But when the Naiads and Dryads came to pay due funeral rites to the beautiful Narcissus,

No corse was anywhere: they found a flower Yellow at heart with snow-white petals round.

CEYX AND HALCYONE

Once in time of trouble the prince Ceyx resolved to visit the oracle of the Clarion Apollo in quest of advice and consolation. It was with deep sorrow that his loving wife Halcyone heard of his resolve; for she felt ominous forebodings a9 to the dangers of a voyage. She entreated her husband to allow her to accompany him;

But he will neither drop his purposed plan To sail, nor let his consort share the risk.

A ship is got ready; and there are tearful leave-takings between this devoted pair.

Seeing the ship, as 'twere in prescience,

She shuddered, and 'mid rain of starting tears

Folded her husband to her, and at last

When her sad lips had faltered out " Farewell!"

She fainted in her utter agony.

After she revived, she could still see Ceyx high on the poop of the receding vessel. For a time they could wave to each other: then he ceased to be distinguishable, then too the hull, and

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Ovid

finally even the sails; and Halcyone retired in sorrow to her couch. The ship soon met with a terrific storm. It battled gallantly against the sea; but at length destruction came.

Skill fails and courage sinks; as many deaths

Menace the mariners as there are waves:

One cannot check his tears; and one is mazed;

Another envies those whom burial

Awaits; another lifts his hands in prayer,

Or thinks of brother, or of parent, or

Of home and children—all that he hath left.

But Ceyx thinks only of Halcyone, and her name is upon his lips as he fights for life amidst the wreckage. In the black night the waters at last overwhelm him, and he goes down. Meanwhile his faithful wife was offering to Juno fervent prayers for his safety; and the goddess could no longer endure that entreaties should be offered for one who had actually undergone death. Juno, therefore, determined to despatch her messenger, Iris, to the sleep-god instructing him to send a vision that shall intimate to Halcyone the drowning of Ceyx.

Hard by the Mirk-folk is a hollow cave—

Deep hollow home and lair of lazy Sleep.

No beam of morn or noon or sundown e'er

Can enter it. Earth breathes out, blent with dark,

Her mists and gloaming of uncertain light.

No sentry chanticleer with crested head

Crows for the Dawn; no restless dog, nor goose

Yet shrewder, breaks the silence with a sound.

Wild beasts, nor cattle, nor the wind-tost bough

Nor tongue of men a-quarrelling is heard.

Dumb Quiet houseth here. Below the crag

Wells Lethe's water in a murmui uig rill,

Whose slumbrous pebble-music wooes to rest.

Before the cave-mouth plenteous poppies bloom

And countless herbs whose juice dank Night extracts—

A draught to sprinkle dusky earth withal.

In the whole house there is no door to creak

On turning hinge: the threshold hath no guard.

Towers in the midst a couch of ebony,

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Downy, self-coloured, draped with sable quilt: There lies the God, his limbs in languor lapped, And round him, aping divers shapes, recline Vain Dreams, as many as the harvest-ears Or forest-leaves or sands upon the shore.

Hither came Iris with Juno's behest. The sleep-god then selected Morpheus to assume the appearance of the drowned Ceyx and appear in a dream to Halcyone.

Before the sad wife's couch he stood, his beard Adript, and hair still wet with briny ooze.