by Daisy Dunn
When he heard this, Zeus, the deep- and wide-bellowing God,
sent Hermes with his golden staff down into the dark
to talk to Hades there, and ask his permission
to lead Persephone back up from the shadows
and into daylight again, where her mother
could set eyes on her, and so be angry no longer.
Hermes agreed to do this: he hurried away
from his place on Olympus, down into the earth’s
crevasses and crannies, down, till he reached
the king of all the dead in his underground palace,
stretched out at his ease, and by his arm a trembling
bride, who pined still for the mother she had lost.
Coming up close to him, the god Hermes began:
‘Hades, dark-haired lord and master of the dead,
my father Zeus orders me now to take away
from Erebus the royal Persephone, back
to the world, so that Demeter, when she sees
with her own eyes her daughter returning
may relent, and give up her implacable grudge
against the gods – for what she now intends
is terrible, to wipe from the face of the earth
the whole defenceless species of mortal men
by keeping crops under the ground, and then starving
heaven of its offerings. In her rage, Demeter
will have nothing to do with the gods, and she sits
closed in her own temple, apart, holding sway
there over the rocky citadel of Eleusis.’
Hades listened, with just the hint of a smile
on his face, but did not disobey the express
order of Zeus the king, and he spoke at once:
‘Go, Persephone, go back now to your mother,
go in good spirits, and full of happiness,
but don’t feel too much anger or resentment.
You know, I won’t be the worst of all the gods
to have for a husband, brother to your father Zeus;
and here you could be the mistress of everything
that lives and moves, have the finest of honours
among the gods, while for all those failing to pay
their dues by keeping you happy with sacrifice,
proper respect and generous gifts, there will be
nothing in store but punishment forever.’
Persephone jumped straight up, full of excitement,
when she heard what he said; but Hades, looking
around him, and then back over his shoulder,
gave her the tiny, sweet seed of a pomegranate
for something to eat, so that she would not stay
up there forever with the goddess Demeter.
Then Hades got ready his gold-covered chariot,
hitching up his own horses, and in stepped
Persephone, with the strong god Hermes beside her,
who took the reins and the whip in his hands
as both of the horses shot forward obediently
out and away, making good speed on their journey,
untroubled by the sea, or by flowing rivers,
or grassy glens, or freezing mountain tops:
they sliced thin air beneath them as they flew.
When they came to a stop, it was in front of the temple
where Demeter kept vigil; and, at the sight of them,
she ran forward wildly like someone possessed.
At the sight of her mother, Persephone leapt out
and into her arms, and hugged her, and she wept,
and the two of them, speechless, clung hard
to each other, until suddenly Demeter
sensed something wrong, and broke the embrace,
‘My darling,’ she said, ‘I hope that down there
you didn’t eat anything when he took you away?
Tell me, and tell me now: for, if you didn’t,
you can stay with me forever, and with the gods,
and Zeus, your father; but, if you did eat
anything at all, then you’ll have to go back
underground for the third part of every year,
spending the rest of the time at my side: when
flowers come up in spring, and bloom in the summer,
you will rise too from the deep mists and darkness –
to the amazement of men, as well as the gods.
But how did Hades abduct you? What tricks
did he use to bring you away to the dark?’
‘Mother,’ Persephone answered, ‘I will tell you it all.
When Hermes came for me on the orders of Zeus,
to take me out of Erebus, so you could see me
and abandon your vendetta against the gods,
I jumped for joy; but then Hades, unnoticed,
gave me the seed of a pomegranate to eat,
and made me taste it: it was sweet like honey.
I’ll explain, just as you ask me to, how he
snatched me away in the first place, when Zeus
planned everything to bring me down under the earth.
We were playing together in an uncut meadow
– me and all my friends – and gathering for fun
handfuls of the wild flowers that were growing there:
saffron and irises, hyacinths, and young roses,
lilies gorgeous to look at, and a narcissus
that bloomed, just like a crocus, in the soil.
While I was taken up with that, from nowhere
the ground beneath me split apart, and out
came the great king of millions of the dead
who dragged me, as I screamed, into his gold-
covered chariot, and took me down into the earth.
Now you’ve heard what it hurts me to remember.’
That whole day long, they were completely at one:
each warmed the other’s heart, and eased it of sorrow,
the two of them brimming over with happiness
as they hugged one another for joy again and again.
The goddess Hecatē came to them and joined them;
still wearing her veil of white linen, she caught
Demeter’s little daughter over and over
in her arms, and became her companion forever.
Only then did Zeus, the deep- and wide-bellowing God,
send down to speak to Demeter her own mother,
Rhea, to reconcile her with her family.
On his behalf, she could offer whatever new honours
were needed, and guarantee that Persephone
would stay down in the darkness for only a season,
the third of a year, and the rest with her mother
and all of the gods. Rhea hurried to the task,
reaching the fields, near Eleusis at Rarion
where harvests once were abundant, but now
no harvest could come up from the cropless plain
where Demeter had hidden away the white barley,
though afterwards, as the spring went on, it would
thicken and move with long corn, and the furrows
would be filled in due course with cut stalks
while all the rest was gathered up into sheaves.
Here the goddess first came down from the trackless air
and she and Demeter greeted one another with joy.
Rhea delivered her message from Zeus, and the promises
he made for Demeter, and for Persephone,
urging her daughter, ‘Now, child, you must
do the right thing, and not venture too far
by keeping up this grudge of yours against Zeus:
let food grow again for people on the earth.’
Demeter could say nothing against this: she allowed
crops then and there to come from the fertile ground;
she freighted the wide world with flowers and leaves.
She went then to the men in
power – Diocles,
Triptolemus, Eumolpus, and Celeus himself,
the people’s leader, to give them instruction
in her liturgy and rites: all of the mysteries
neither to be questioned, nor departed from,
and not to be spoken about for fear of the gods,
a fear so great as to stop every mouth.
Whoever has witnessed these is blessed among men:
whoever has not been inducted, whoever
has taken no part in them, can expect no good
fortune when death fetches him to the darkness.
Once she had revealed all of this, Demeter
returned to Olympus and the company of the gods;
there she and Persephone, holy and powerful,
live beside Zeus himself, where he plays with thunder.
Anyone whom they favour is deeply blessed,
for they send the god Wealth to his own hearth
dispensing affluence to mortal men.
You who protect the people of fragrant Eleusis,
rocky Antron, and Paros surrounded by the sea,
Lady Demeter, mistress, bountiful goddess,
both you and your lovely child Persephone,
favour me for this hymn, give me a living,
and I will heed you in my songs, now and always.
THE LIFE OF AESOP
The Life of Aesop
Anon.
Translated from the Spanish by John E. Keller and L. Clark Keating, 1993
A number of classical writers gathered together collections of fables under his name, but very little is known of Aesop himself. Legend has it that he was born a slave in the sixth century BC and earned his freedom before carrying his stories across the Greek world. The following two extracts come from an anonymous Life of Aesop, which is something of a fable in itself. Thought to have been assembled some time before the second century AD, the fictional biography was translated widely and proved very popular down the ages. This translation is wonderfully seamless despite being a few stages removed from the earliest texts. It is an English translation of a Spanish version of the story from the fifteenth century.
I
The young Aesop, a disabled slave, proves his cunning.
In the region of Phrygia, where the ancient city of Troy was located, there was a small village called Amonia in which was born a deformed boy, ugly of countenance and with a body more deformed than any other boy of his time. He had a large head and piercing black eyes; he was long of jaw and had a twisted neck; he had fat calves and big feet; he was large of mouth, hump-backed and bepaunched; he stuttered, and his name was Aesop. As he grew, in time he surpassed all others in astuteness. He was soon captured and removed to a foreign country, where he was sold to a rich citizen of Athens named Aristes. And as this gentleman thought him useless and of no profit to serve in his house, he assigned him to work and dig in the fields and on his property.
One day Zenas, to whom was entrusted the administration of the property for his lord, arose from his sleep to go to work, as he usually did on the aforesaid lands. In a short while his lord came with a lad named Agathopus. And as Zenas was showing his master how hard he worked, it happened that he came upon a fig tree in which there were a few figs that had ripened earlier than those on the other fig trees. From this tree Zenas carefully picked the figs and presented them with great courtesy to his lordship, saying: “To you belong the first fruits of your land.” And the lord, seeing the beauty of the figs, said: “I thank you, sincerely, Zenas, for the great affection you have for me.”
As it was the time at which he was accustomed on such a day to bathe and cleanse himself, he said: “Oh, Agathopus, take and guard these figs carefully, for when I return from the bath I shall begin my meal with them.” But as Agathopus took the figs and looked at them, an uncontrollable urge to gluttony arose within him; he looked again and again at the figs in the presence of one of his comrades, and the two of them together looked at them. And he said; “If I were not afraid of our master I would eat these figs one after another.” His companion replied: “I will tell you how to do it in such a way that we will suffer no harm on their account.” Agathopus said: “How can this be?” Said the other: “This is easy for us, for Aesop comes every day to get the bread you are accustomed to give him. And when the lord asks for his figs, we will say that Aesop, coming in from his toil and finding the figs in the pantry, ate them. And when Aesop is sent for, with that slowness and stammer of his, he will not be able to defend himself or make any excuse, and the lord will beat him, and we will get what we want.” Agathopus, having heard this advice, with his desire for the figs began without further thought to eat, and as he ate them with great pleasure and joy Agathopus said laughing: “Grief and sadness will be your lot, Aesop, for upon your shoulders our lord will furiously avenge our guilt.” And so, talking and laughing, they ate up all the figs.
When the lord came from his bath, he asked them to bring him the figs for the first course of his dinner. And Agathopus said: “My lord, Aesop came from his work and, as he found the pantry open, he went in and, not listening to reason, ate them all.” Hearing this, the lord, moved by anger, said: “Who will send for this Aesop for me?” And when Aesop came before the lord, he said to Aesop: “Tell me, mean rascal, shameless one, is this the way you respect me? So little do you fear me that you have had the boldness to eat the figs that were kept in the pantry for me?” Aesop, not being able to answer his master because of his speech impediment, was afraid. And the lord ordered him stripped. But as he was sharp, clever, and astute and knew that he was being falsely accused by those present, he got down on his knees before his master and, making signs, requested a bit of time before he should be beaten, knowing that he could not counter with words the trick his accusers had laid upon him and that he would have to defend himself by cleverness. Whereupon he went to the fire, picked up a pot of hot water he found there, tossed the contents into a basin, and drank it. Then shortly he stuck his fingers into his throat and threw up only the water that he had drunk, for during that day he had had no other food. Then he begged his lord as a favor to have his accusers drink hot water. By command of their lord they drank it, and to keep from vomiting they held their hands to their mouths, but as their stomachs were swollen with hot water they threw up water mixed with figs. And the lord saw plainly, by the experiment, that they had eaten the figs. Turning to them he said: “Because you lied about this man who is not glib, I order you stripped and publicly beaten, that whosoever shall by deceit raise up an accusation against another will have his hide tanned and burnished for a reward.”
II
Aesop has gained his freedom and embarks upon a series of travels as a fable-maker.
But when the Egyptians saw Aesop, they considered him a monster and without knowledge, a fakir and jokester, for they did not realize that in ugly and dull vessels there is sometimes contained a balsam that is the most precious of all liquids, and if sometimes the bottles are not clean, they contain clean wines. So Aesop went to the palace and threw himself at the feet of the king, who in all his majesty received him in kindly fashion. And when he said to him: “Tell me, Aesop, with whom do you compare me and mine?” And Aesop replied: “I compare you to the sun, and your followers to the rays of the sun, for certainly you shine in no other manner than the sun and the solar circle and disk, and your people shine like the rays of the sun that surround it.” Then Nectanabo said to him: “What is the kingdom of Licurus like, as compared with ours?” And Aesop smiling said: “In no way is it lower, but much higher. Just as the sun exceeds the moon and astonishes with its splendor, so the kingdom of Licurus exceeds and overwhelms yours.” The king, marveling at such prompt and skillful reply, and impressed by Aesop’s speaking, said: “Bring me the masters who are to build the tower.” Aesop replied: “After one other thing: show me the place where you want it built.” Going straightaway out of the city, the king then showed him the place in the country. And Aeso
p, in the four corners of the appointed place, put the eagles with the money bags fastened to their feet and with the children in them, who held their tongues in one hand and the food in the other. As the children were borne aloft by the eagles, they called out, showing their tongues and saying: “Give us mortar and give us bricks and wood and the things necessary for building.” When Nectanabo saw this he said: “Why are there men among you who have wings?” And Aesop replied: “For many reasons, yet you, a man, wish to contend with he who is a demigod?”
Then the king of Egypt said: “I confess myself beaten. But I urge you, Aesop, to answer me this: How is it that the mares I brought from Greece, from hearing the neighing of the horses in Babylon, became pregnant and conceived?” And Aesop asked for a day to reply. Going to his house, he ordered his boys to bring him a cat, and they brought it before Aesop, who caused it to he publicly whipped with a stick. The Egyptians, hearing this, tried to free and defend the cat, but not being able to, went to the king and told him of this serious incident. Then the king ordered Aesop to come before him, and when Aesop came before the king he asked him: “Why did you act in this fashion, Aesop? Do you not know that we honor God in the person of a cat?” For the Egyptians honored such an idol. Aesop replied: “This cat this night offended Licurus, for he killed a valiant and generous cock who crowed the hours of the night.” And the king said: “I did not think that you would lie this way, for it cannot be that in one night that cat should go to Babylon and come back here.” Smiling, Aesop said: “The cat went to and returned from Babylon in the same way as the mares who are here get pregnant on hearing the neighing of the horses that are in Babylon.” For these words the king praised and commended the learning of Aesop.
But the following day King Nectanabo had all the learned men and men of philosophic science summoned to the city of the sun. Informing them of Aesop’s wisdom, he invited them to dine, and Aesop with them. When they were at table, one of them said to Aesop: “I greet you in peace. I am sent by God to talk to you. What do you say to that?” Aesop answered: “God by no means wishes men to learn to lie; since your word says that you fear and honor God but little.” Another said: “There is a great temple, one column of which holds up twelve cities, and each city is covered with thirty beams which represent two women.” Aesop said: “In Babylon the children can solve this question. For the temple is the roundness of the earth, the column is the year, the twelve cities are the twelve months, the thirty columns are the days thereof, and the two women tell day and night. For the two continuously run after each other.” King Nectanabo said to his lords: “It is right for me to send tribute to the king of Babylon.”