Atalanta in Calydon | Page 2

her first-born son, dreamed that she brought forth a brand burning; and upon his birth came the three Fates and prophesied of him three things, namely these; that he should have great strength of his hands, and good fortune in this life, and that he should live no longer when the brand then in the fire were consumed: wherefore his mother plucked it forth and kept it by her. And the child being a man grown sailed with Jason after the fleece of gold, and won himself great praise of all men living; and when the tribes of the north and west made war upon Aetolia, he fought against their army and scattered it. But Artemis, having at the first stirred up these tribes to war against Oeneus king of Calydon, because he had offered sacrifice to all the gods saving her alone, but her he had forgotten to honour, was yet more wroth because of the destruction of this army, and sent upon the land of Calydon a wild boar which slew many and wasted all their increase, but him could none slay, and many went against him and perished. Then were all the chief men of Greece gathered together, and among them Atalanta daughter of Iasius the Arcadian, a virgin, for whose sake Artemis let slay the boar, seeing she favoured the maiden greatly; and Meleager having despatched it gave the spoil thereof to Atalanta, as one beyond measure enamoured of her; but the brethren of Althaea his mother, Toxeus and Plexippus, with such others as misliked that she only should bear off the praise whereas many had borne the labour, laid wait for her to take away her spoil; but Meleager fought against them and slew them: whom when Althaea their sister beheld and knew to be slain of her son, she waxed for wrath and sorrow like as one mad, and taking the brand whereby the measure of her son's life was meted to him, she cast it upon a fire; and with the wasting thereof his life likewise wasted away, that being brought back to his father's house he died in a brief space, and his mother also endured not long after for very sorrow; and this was his end, and the end of that hunting.

ATALANTA IN CALYDON.
CHIEF HUNTSMAN.
Maiden, and mistress of the months and stars Now folded in the flowerless fields of heaven, Goddess whom all gods love with threefold heart, Being treble in thy divided deity, A light for dead men and dark hours, a foot Swift on the hills as morning, and a hand To all things fierce and fleet that roar and range Mortal, with gentler shafts than snow or sleep; Hear now and help and lift no violent hand, But favourable and fair as thine eye's beam Hidden and shown in heaven, for I all night Amid the king's hounds and the hunting men Have wrought and worshipped toward thee; nor shall man See goodlier hounds or deadlier edge of spears, But for the end, that lies unreached at yet Between the hands and on the knees of gods, O fair-faced sun killing the stars and dews And dreams and desolation of the night! Rise up, shine, stretch thine hand out, with thy bow Touch the most dimmest height of trembling heaven, And burn and break the dark about thy ways, Shot through and through with arrows; let thine hair Lighten as flame above that nameless shell Which was the moon, and thine eyes fill the world And thy lips kindle with swift beams; let earth Laugh, and the long sea fiery from thy feet Through all the roar and ripple of streaming springs And foam in reddening flakes and flying flowers Shaken from hands and blown from lips of nymphs Whose hair or breast divides the wandering wave With salt close tresses cleaving lock to lock, All gold, or shuddering and unfurrowed snow; And all the winds about thee with their wings, And fountain-heads of all the watered world; Each horn of Achelo��s, and the green Euenus, wedded with the straitening sea. For in fair time thou comest; come also thou, Twin-born with him, and virgin, Artemis, And give our spears their spoil, the wild boar's hide. Sent in thine anger against us for sin done And bloodless altars without wine or fire. Him now consume thou; for thy sacrifice With sanguine-shining steam divides the dawn, And one, the maiden rose of all thy maids, Arcadian Atalanta, snowy-souled, Fair as the snow and footed as the wind, From Ladon and well-wooded Maenalus Over the firm hills and the fleeting sea Hast thou drawn hither, and many an arm��d king, Heroes, the crown of men, like gods in fight. Moreover out of all the Aetolian land, From the full-flowered Lelantian