The Dolphin Rider (2 page)

But then another thought came to him and he lowered his arm. “No,” he said to himself. “I'll attend to these mortals later. My first business is with Prometheus. And when I finish with him no one else — man, god, or giant — will dare to disobey me.”

Zeus then called his guards and had them seize Prometheus. He ordered them to drag him off to the far north. There they bound Prometheus to a mountain peak with great chains specially forged by the god of fire. These chains were so strong that even a giant could not break them, no matter how hard he struggled. When the friend of man was bound to the mountain, Zeus sent two vultures to hover about him forever, tearing at his vitals, and eating his liver.

Men knew that a terrible thing was happening on the mountain, but they did not know what it was. They could hear the wind shriek like a giant in torment, and sometimes like fierce birds.

For centuries Prometheus lay there helpless — until another hero was born, brave enough to defy the gods. He climbed the mountain peak, struck the chains from Prometheus, and killed the vultures. His name was Hercules.

And so, at last, man was able to repay Prometheus for his great gift — the gift of fire.

The Mysterious Box

Zeus brooded. He could not forget how Prometheus had dared to break his law and teach man the use of fire. After the lord of the sky had punished Prometheus with an endless torment for giving man fire, he began to plan how to punish man for accepting the gift. He thought and brooded, and finally he hit upon a plan.

“A good scheme,” he told himself. “It will give me vengeance and entertainment as well. Of course there is always a chance that the girl will resist temptation and save mankind. But I'll take that risk.”

He ordered the fire god to mold a girl out of clay. Then Zeus breathed life into the clay girl. The clay turned to flesh, and a maiden lay sleeping before him. Then he called the gods together, and asked them each to give her a special gift, and told them what he wanted those gifts to be.

Apollo taught her to sing and play the lyre. Athena taught her to spin. Ceres taught her how to plant seeds and make things grow. Venus gave her the gift of beauty and taught her to dance. Neptune gave her the power to change herself into a mermaid so that she could swim in the stormiest seas without drowning. Mercury gave her a beautiful golden box. But he told her she must never, never open it. And, finally, Hera gave her the tricky gift of curiosity.

Mercury took her by the hand and led her down the slope of Mount Olympus. He led her to the brother of Prometheus and said, “Father Zeus regrets the disgrace which has fallen upon your family. And to show you that he doesn't blame you for your brother's crime, he offers you this girl to be your wife. She is the fairest maid in all the world. Her name is Pandora, the all-gifted.”

So the brother of Prometheus married Pandora. She spun and baked and tended her garden, and played the lyre and danced for her husband. For a while they were the happiest young couple on earth.

But from the first Pandora could not help thinking about the golden box. She was very proud of it. She kept it on the table and polished it every day. But the box sparkled in the sunlight and seemed to be winking at her. She could not help wondering what was inside.

She began to talk to herself in this way: “Mercury must have been teasing. He's always making jokes; everyone knows that. Yes, he was teasing me, telling me never to open his gift. If it is so beautiful outside, what a treasure there must be inside! Diamonds and sapphires and rubies more lovely than anyone has ever seen. After all, it is a gift from the hand of a god. If the box is so rich, the gift inside must be even more splendid. Perhaps Mercury really expects me to open the box and tell him how delighted I am with his gift. Perhaps he's waiting for me to thank him. He probably thinks I'm ungrateful.”

But even as she was telling herself all this, she knew in her heart that it was not so. The box must
not
be opened. She
must
keep her promise.

Finally, she knew she had to do something to stop herself from thinking about the box. She took it from the table, and hid it in a dusty little storeroom. But it seemed to be burning there in the shadows. It scorched her thoughts wherever she went. She kept passing that room and stepping into it and making excuses to dawdle there. Once she took the box from its hiding place and stroked it — then quickly shoved it out of sight and rushed from the room.

After some days of this torment, she locked the golden box in a heavy oak chest. She put great bolts on the chest, and dug a hole in her garden. Then she put the chest in the hole and covered it over — and rolled a boulder on top of it. When her husband came home that night, her hair was wild and her hands were bloody, and her tunic was torn and stained. But all she would tell him was that she had been working in the garden.

That night the moonlight blazed in the room. Pandora could not sleep. She sat up in bed and looked around. All the room was swimming in moonlight. Everything was different. There were deep shadows and bright patches of silver, all mixed, all moving. She arose quietly and tiptoed from the room.

She went out into the garden. The trees were swaying. The whole world was adance in the magic white fire of moonlight. She felt full of wild strength. She walked over to the rock and pushed. The rock rolled away as lightly as a pebble. Then she took a shovel and dug down to the chest. She unfastened the bolts and drew out the golden box. It was cold, cold! The coldness burned her hand to the bone. She trembled, not with cold, but with fear. She felt that the box held the very secret of life. She must look inside or die.

Pandora took a little golden key from her tunic, fitted it into the keyhole, and gently opened the lid. There was a swarming, a wild throbbing, a nameless rustling, and a horrid sickening smell. Out of the box, as she held it up in the moonlight, swarmed small, scaly, lizardlike creatures with bat wings and burning red eyes.

They flew out of the box, circled her head once, clapping their wings and screaming thin little jeering screams. Then they flew off into the night, hissing and cackling.

Half fainting, Pandora sank to her knees. With her last bit of strength she clutched the box and shut down the lid, catching the last little monster just as it was wriggling free. It shrieked and spat and clawed her hand, but she thrust it back into the box and locked it in. Then she dropped the box and fainted away.

What were those loathsome creatures that flew out of the golden box? They were all the ills that trouble mankind; the spites and jealousies, disease of every kind, old age, famine, drought, poverty, war, and all the evils that bring grief and misery. After they flew out of the box, they scattered. They flew into every home, and swung from the rafters, waiting. And even today, when their time comes, they swoop down and sting, bringing pain and sorrow and death to men and women everywhere.

But bad as they were, things could have been worse. For the creature that Pandora managed to shut in the box was the worst of all. It was Foreboding, the knowledge of misfortune to come. If it had flown free, people would know ahead of time every terrible thing that was to happen to them throughout their lives. Hope would have died. And that would have been the death of man as well. For people can bear endless trouble, but they cannot live without hope.

Narcissus and Echo

Echo was the best beloved of all the nymphs of river and woods. She was not only very beautiful and very kind, but she had a hauntingly beautiful voice. All the children of the villages used to come into the woods to beg her to sing to them and tell them stories.

One day as Echo sat among a circle of wide-eyed boys and girls, telling them stories of heroes and gods and monsters, a handsome young woodsman, all dressed in green, came into the grove. He was carrying a bulging sack over his shoulder.

Now Echo didn't know this, but the young woodsman was Zeus, king of the gods, in disguise. Occasionally Zeus liked to change into human form and wander the earth. He waited, enchanted by Echo's voice, until she finished her tale, and then said, “Well told, beautiful maiden! I have a present for you and for each boy and girl.”

He opened the sack. It was full of golden apples — solid gold and heavy and shining. He gave one to Echo and one each to the children, who began to play ball with them, tossing them from one to another. In the midst of their play the woodsman disappeared.

Echo knew now that the woodsman was Zeus, for she recognized the golden apples which grew on a magic tree belonging to Zeus' wife, Hera. Echo also knew that Hera, who was not as kind as Zeus, would be very angry when she learned that her husband was giving away her precious golden apples. Echo couldn't wait to tell the news to her friend Venus, goddess of love and beauty.

The next day she told Venus how Zeus had come to the grove disguised as a woodsman and given away Hera's golden apples. “See, he gave me one too,” she said, tossing it up in the air so that it flashed in the sunlight.

“You'd better hide that, my child,” said Venus.

“Why? It's so beautiful. I don't want to hide it. I want to look at it.”

“Take my advice,” said Venus. “Hide it. Hera is very jealous. She knows what Zeus has done and she is furious.”

Poor Echo was soon to learn how dangerous it was to make Hera angry. For the queen of the gods sent her spies everywhere. And very soon she learned that Zeus had given one of her precious golden apples to a wood nymph named Echo.

“Echo, eh?” snarled Hera. “That little tree toad who thinks she's a nightingale? Well, I'll make her sorry she ever laid eyes on a golden apple. I'll punish her in a way that will be remembered forever.”

Hera strode down from Olympus, muttering to herself, scowling, black hair flying. This happened on a day that Venus was visiting Echo. They were sitting comfortably in the woods on a fallen log, chatting.

“All the world asks me for favors,” Venus said. “But not you, Echo. Tell me, isn't there someone you want to love you? Just name him, and I will send my son, Cupid, to shoot him with an arrow, and make him fall madly in love with you.”

But Echo laughed, and said, “Alas, sweet Venus, I have seen no boy who pleases me. None seems beautiful enough to match my secret dream. When the time comes I shall ask your help — if it ever comes.”

“Well, you are lovely enough to have the best,” said Venus. “And remember, I am always at your service.”

Now Echo did not know this, but at that very moment the most beautiful boy in the whole world was lost in that very wood. His name was Narcissus. He was so handsome that he had never been able to speak to any woman except his mother, for any girl who saw him immediately fainted. Because of this he had a very high opinion of himself. As he went through the woods, he thought: “Oh, how I wish I could find someone as beautiful as I am. I will not love anyone less perfect in face or form than myself. Why should I? This makes me lonely, it's true. But it's better than lowering myself.”

As he walked along talking to himself, Narcissus was getting more and more lost in the woods. In another part of that wood, Echo had just said farewell to Venus, and was going back to the hollow tree in which she lived. As she came to a clearing in the forest, she saw something that made her stop in astonishment and hide behind a tree. What she saw was a tall, purple-clad figure moving through the trees. She recognized Hera, and hurried forward to curtsy low before the queen of the gods. “Greetings, great queen,” Echo said. “Welcome to the wood.”

“Wretched creature!” Hera cried. “I know how you tricked my husband! Well, I have a gift for you too. Because you used your voice to bewitch my husband, you shall never be able to say anything again — except the last words that have been said to you. Now, try babbling.”

“Try babbling,” said Echo.

“No more shall you chat with your betters. No more shall you gossip, tell stories or sing songs. You shall endure this punishment forever.”

“Forever,” said Echo, sobbing.

Then Hera went away to search for Zeus. Echo, weeping, rushed toward her home in the hollow tree. As she was running she saw a dazzling brightness that she thought was the face of a god, and she stopped to look. But it was no god. It was a boy about her own age, with yellow hair and eyes the color of sapphires. When she saw him, all the pain of her punishment dissolved and she was full of great laughing joy. Here was the boy she had been looking for all her life. He was a boy as beautiful as her secret dream — a boy she could love.

Echo danced toward him. He stopped and said, “Pardon me, but can you show me the path out of the wood?”

“Out of the wood?” said Echo.

“Yes,” he said. “I'm lost. I've been wandering here for hours and I can't seem to find my way out of the wood.”

“Out of the wood.”

“Yes, I've told you twice. I'm lost. Can you help me find the way?”

“The way?”

“Are you deaf, perhaps? Why must I repeat everything?”

“Repeat everything?”

“No, I will not. It's a bore. I won't do it.”

“Do it.”

“Look, I can't stand here arguing with you. If you don't want to show me the way, I'll just try to find someone who can.”

“Who can.”

Narcissus glared at her and turned away. But Echo went to him, and put her arms around him, and tried to kiss his face.

“Oh, no!” said Narcissus, pushing her away. “Stop it! You can't kiss me.”

“Kiss me.”

“No!”

“No!”

Again Echo tried to kiss Narcissus, but he pushed her aside. She fell on her knees on the path, and lifting her lovely tearstained face, tried to speak to him. But she could not. She reached up and grasped his hand.

“Let go!” he said. “You cannot hold me here. I will not love you.”

“Love you.”