The Song of Orpheus

by Tracy Barrett

  Some gods and goddesses you might not have heard of and who might come in handy:

  Epimetheus, god of excuses

  Kairos, god of luck

  Momos, god of ridicule

  Pasithea, goddess of relaxation

  Peitha, goddess of persuasion (call on her if you’re in trouble and Epimetheus doesn’t help)

  Pheme, goddess of gossip

  Psamathe, goddess of beaches

  Zelus, god of jealousy

  I.

  WHERE THINGS COME FROM

  DON’T MESS WITH A SUPERHERO

  One story down, sixteen to go. If things keep going this well, I should get through in plenty of time. You don’t have any place you have to be, do you?

  How about something with a little more action this time? And maybe something funny to help us forget those gloomy Fates?

  So however it was that the universe came into being, soon afterward there was an earth, too, with people and animals and plants living on it. There were also gods. Most of them lived on a mountain called Mount Olympos, but they came to earth pretty often, and they appear in a lot of myths, some of which you may know. There were also demi-gods, who were half god and half human. A demi-god named Herakles stars in a lot of myths. You might know him better by his Roman name, Hercules. He was big and strong and heroic.

  Or was he? Like most bullies, Herakles couldn’t stand to be teased, as he was in this story of two mischievous brothers.

  The brothers were named Akmon and Passalos. Their mother was the daughter of the king of Ethiopia and their father was a water spirit. The brothers were small and homely. They were also clever and quick, as well as being thieves and mischief-makers. They climbed trees expertly, which made it easy for them not only to steal fruit but also to escape from the farmers whose crops they ruined.

  Their mother despaired that her boys would ever grow up to be good citizens. She constantly told them to behave themselves, but they ignored her. When she tried to punish them, they just laughed. But one warning made them curious.

  “Watch out for Burntbottom!” she would say, her voice serious. “Don’t bother Burntbottom!”

  “Who’s Burntbottom?” her sons would ask, but she always refused to say more. She just repeated her warning with a shake of her finger.

  So they would shrug and run off to cause more trouble for their neighbors, having a great time and never getting caught.

  One summer day, the brothers had wandered farther from home than usual when Akmon noticed someone asleep under a tree. He nudged Passalos and pointed. Curious, they crept close and stared. It was a huge man, and all he wore was a lion-skin. A quiver full of arrows was slung over one of his big shoulders, and he clutched an enormous bow in his fist. He looked like a hunter, taking a nap through the hot part of the day.

  A sleeping man was too great a temptation for the brothers to ignore. What could they steal from him? They eyed the lion skin with longing, but its gigantic paws were knotted around the man’s neck, and they knew they could never untie them without waking him up. The bow was a beauty, but even if they managed to make away with it, they were much too small to handle such a large weapon.

  Then their eyes lit on the arrows. They exchanged a glance and crept closer. Passalos squatted behind the man and slowly, carefully, drew one of the long shafts out of its quiver. He passed it to Akmon and reached for another.

  Akmon couldn’t help snickering with excitement, and at the sound, the man woke up. Moving more quickly than seemed possible for someone so large, he grabbed the feet of the two brothers, a pair in each hand, and stood up.

  Akmon and Passalos were dangling head down, but they weren’t worried yet; they had been caught before and had always managed to get away.

  “Who are you? How dare you disturb my sleep?” The man’s eye fell on the arrow in the grass. “And how dare you steal from me?”

  “I’m Passalos,” Akmon answered.

  “I’m Akmon,” Passalos said. Even in their dire situation, they couldn’t help lying. It was just in their natures.

  The huge hunter shook the brothers until their teeth rattled. “And what about my arrows? Do you know what happens to thieves?”

  They did. The punishment for stealing something valuable, like arrows, was severe; it could mean the loss of a hand, a severe whipping—even death. But they still weren’t worried.

  “You can’t punish us,” Passalos said. “Our mother is a princess. And our father is a water spirit.”

  The man laughed scornfully. “My mother is a princess, too. But my father is no water spirit.”

  “Not everyone can have a water spirit for a father,” Akmon said pityingly. “You just have to learn to live with it.”

  “Now let us go before you get in trouble,” Passalos added.

  The man paid no attention. “No, he’s not a water spirit.” He lifted the brothers higher and boomed right in their faces, “My father is Zeus!”

  The man whose arrow they had stolen was no mere hunter. He was Herakles, son of the king of the gods, and he was a demi-god, himself. He was stronger than any human alive. He was also known for having quite a temper.

  For once, the brothers had no answer. They stared at the demi-god, and then at each other in sudden terror as Herakles bound them by the ankles to each end of a long stick, which he then slung over his shoulder. He turned and strode toward town.

  “Where are you taking us?” Passalos managed to squeak.

  “To the town well,” Herakles said grimly. “I’m going to drown you.”

  Akmon and Passalos begged and pleaded to be let go. They said that they’d had no intention of keeping the arrows, that they were just having a little fun, but Herakles didn’t answer. After a while, they too fell silent as they were carried along, dangling upside down, one in front of their captor, the other behind, both swaying with each step he took.

  But they didn’t stay silent for long. Since Herakles was so tall and they were so short, their eyes were level with his knees, and being the mischief-makers they were, they couldn’t resist sneaking a peek up the lion-skin cloak he wore. Akmon, who was in back, let out a hoot of laughter.

  “What is it?” Passalos asked.

  At that moment, Herakles switched the pole from one shoulder to the other, and this time, Passalos was hanging behind him. As he bounced along, his head bobbing, he too looked up under the lion skin, and he saw what his brother had already noticed.

  Herakles must have been hunting in the nude earlier in the day, and his rear end had gotten sunburned.

  “Burntbottom!” Passalos jeered.

  “Burntbottom!” Akmon joined in.

  Herakles tried to ignore them, but as they laughed and teased, his face turned bright red. He wasn’t used to people making fun of him. Finally, he bellowed, “SHUT UP!”

  Up on Mount Olympos, Herakles’s father, Zeus, heard the angry shout. He looked down to earth. He saw his huge son striding along with two little humans bobbing on the ends of a pole over his shoulder, both of them laughing, and Herakles glowering and looking almost as though he was going to cry. The king of the gods burst out laughing. The other deities ran over to see what was so funny, and soon the sky echoed with their laughter.

  Herakles pretended not to hear and kept walking, his face turning redder and redder, until he reached the town square. Keeping his captives’ ankles bound together, he slipped them off the pole and dropped them over the side of the well.

  Zeus decided to reward Akmon and Passalos for providing the Olympians with so much amusement. He threw a spell down to the earth, and as the brothers fell, their faces flattened. Hair grew all over their bodies, and long tails sprouted from their behinds. Their legs and feet grew so thin that the ropes slipped off their ankles, and they grabbed the stone walls of the well just before they hit the water.

  The brothers had always been good climbers, but even they were surprised at how quickly and easily they pulled themselves up and out. But no one was more surprised th
an Herakles, for instead of two human boys, what scampered out of the well were the first monkeys the world had ever seen.

  There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Lion

  The most famous stories about Herakles tell about his “twelve labors,” twelve seemingly impossible tasks that he had to accomplish. The first was to kill a lion that was terrorizing the city of Nemea.

  This was no ordinary lion. Like a werewolf, the Nemean lion couldn’t be harmed by most weapons; his magical fur was invincible to ordinary spears and arrows. He dragged women into his lair in order to lure men into it. When the men approached his cave, they saw what appeared to be an injured woman lying there. When they tried to rescue her, the woman suddenly turned into a lion and devoured them.

  Herakles finally killed the Nemean lion, either by clubbing and then strangling him or by shooting an arrow into his open mouth. From then on, the hero always wore the lion’s skin as a cloak.

  IF IT ISN’T ONE THING, IT’S ANOTHER

  Did you like the tale about Herakles and the brothers who turned into monkeys? It always cracks me up to think of those little guys peeking up Herakles’s robe.

  Sorry, didn’t mean to lose it like that. It’s not a very realistic story, and I don’t think anyone ever thought it really happened. It was just a story to explain why monkeys sometimes act like naughty children. And maybe to show that the big strong guy doesn’t always win.

  I don’t know if the ancient Greeks believed the one I’m about to tell you, either. Most of them probably thought this story was hilarious, but things have changed, and some people might find it upsetting now. You make up your mind which you think it is. Maybe both?

  So this myth is about Salmakis. She was a nymph, a kind of humanlike girl that lives in the wild. There were many different kinds of nymphs: The ones called dryads protected trees, oreads protected mountains (I’m thinking about telling a story later about an oread), and naiads lived in and protected streams and rivers and ponds.

  Either nymphs don’t live where we are right now or else they’ve gone extinct. I wish there were still some around. It would be nice to have some company. Oh, well, can’t be helped. And with any luck, I’ll be with Eurydice soon, and then I won’t be lonely anymore.

  Salmakis was a naiad—a water nymph. The way she acted would have been unthinkable for a well-brought-up girl in ancient Greece, and probably would be today, for all I know. But by behaving badly, she got what she wanted—or did she? You decide.

  The land of Anatolia is in what is now Turkey, a country very close to Greece. A lot of Greeks lived there in my day. In Anatolia, there once existed a marvelous pond. Its waters were so clear that a visitor standing at the edge could see its bottom as clearly as if only air lay above it. No spiky grasses or slimy moss grew on the earth and rocks around it, only soft grass as inviting as the finest couch.

  Most nymphs liked hunting and other outdoor sports. Salmakis lived in this pond and was its guardian spirit, and she was the only nymph who never picked up a bow and arrow, never joined in a hunt led by the goddess Artemis, never practiced throwing a spear. As they were leaving on a hunt, the other nymphs would call out to her: “Salmakis, it’s a beautiful day! Please come with us; you’ll have a good time, we promise!”

  And she would always answer, “No, thanks. I feel like a swim today” or “It looks like rain; you go on without me.” After a while, the nymphs stopped asking, which was just fine with Salmakis. She would watch them come back in the evening, dirty and disheveled, sometimes limping from a wound made by a stray arrow or the tusk of a boar, and wonder what they could possibly find fun about hunting. She preferred to sit at the water’s edge and gaze at her own reflection as she combed out her long hair, pondering whether it looked better up or down, whether a center part or one on the side suited her face more, whether she should encourage her hair to curl around her temples or clip it back.

  One day, Salmakis decided to pick some flowers to twine in her long locks. She waded out of the water and poked among the bushes to see what was in bloom. She happened to glance up just as a boy emerged from the forest and threw himself down, as if exhausted, at the edge of her pond. She was about to scold him for trespassing when she paused and looked at him. He was so handsome. He was almost as handsome as she was pretty, she thought. Luckily, she still held her comb, so she arranged her hair in the most becoming way possible, straightened her dress, and approached him, despite the fact that in her time and place, it would have been shocking for a girl—even a nymph—to talk to a boy her parents didn’t know.

  When the youth saw her, he sprang to his feet, looking even handsomer when he blushed. Salmakis didn’t know it, but the boy’s father was the messenger god, Hermes, and his mother was Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The youth was named Hermaphroditos after both his parents. He lived in a nearby mountain range and was on a walking trip, exploring the region.

  Hermaphroditos had been raised by naiads, so he was familiar with their ways. He guessed that Salmakis was the guardian spirit of the pond at whose edge he had stopped.

  “Please excuse me,” he said. “I hope I’m not trespassing.”

  Salmakis took a step closer. “Oh, no.” She smiled at him. “You’re welcome to drink and take a rest here.”

  Something about her made Hermaphroditos uneasy, but he couldn’t very well refuse her hospitality without being rude, so he thanked her and squatted by the pond. He cupped his fingers and drank some of the clear water, and then he rose. “Well,” he said. “Thank you very much. I’ll be on my way now.”

  But Salmakis was so smitten with Hermaphroditos that she ran up and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, please, don’t go!” she cried. “Why don’t you stay with me? We could get married and you could live here forever!”

  Hermaphroditos jumped back, freeing himself from her embrace. “Married? Why—why—I don’t even know you! What are you talking about? I’m sorry if I said something that made you think—I don’t know what you’re—I’d better leave.”

  Salmakis managed to calm herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You can’t leave so soon; everyone would say I hadn’t been hospitable, and that would shame me. Please stay a little longer. I’ll go away and leave you in peace.” He hesitated, since he really was nice and didn’t want to be discourteous, and Salmakis took a few steps away. “See? I’m going. Stay as long as you like. Clean the road dust from your clothes. I’ll just go for a walk and come back when you’ve left.”

  She disappeared into the woods, but she didn’t go far. Instead, she knelt behind a shrub and parted its branches so that she could gaze at him.

  Hermaphroditos, thinking he was alone and unobserved, took off his sandals. He waded into the pond to relieve the blisters that had arisen during his hike. The cool water felt so good that he walked in up to his knees and then dove under the water. He came up with his dark curls hanging down his neck and his wet lashes looking even longer than they had when dry.

  Salmakis couldn’t contain herself. He was just too handsome! Forgetting her promise not to return to her pond until Hermaphroditos had left, she ran from her hiding place and jumped into the water. She grabbed the startled boy and hugged him tight. She kissed him again and again as he struggled to get away, twisting and turning, kicking out with his feet and trying to free his arms from her grasp. But he had as much chance of getting away from the nymph as a snake has of escaping an eagle’s talons.

  Salmakis shouted, “I’ve won! I’ve won! He’s mine!”

  “Let go of me, you crazy girl!” Hermaphroditos sputtered over a mouthful of water that went down the wrong way.

  But she clung to him all the tighter and called out, “Gods, please grant that the two of us will never be parted! Keep us together forever!”

  The gods granted her wish, although (as often happens) not exactly in the way she meant. Their two bodies joined together as one, and Hermaphroditos, who had entered the pond as two separate people, emerged from it as a new being: half man an
d half woman.

  Don’t Believe Everything You Read

  This myth appeared later than most and seems to be a comic story about marriage. In one version of the myth, the encounter between Hermaphroditos and Salmakis occurred on the fourth day of the month, which was considered a lucky day to get married. Hermes and Aphrodite, the parents of Hermaphroditos, were sometimes worshipped as a couple, and both were called upon to bless brides on their wedding day. This story might have been told to amuse wedding guests, but people today might not find it so funny to read about someone being kissed and hugged without their permission.

  THE TRUTH WILL OUT

  So you liked that one? Not too silly? Not upsetting? Okay if I keep going? This will be my fourth tale, and I don’t want to waste any time.

  You know, not many people come through the woods here, and I was just about to give up hope when I saw you. Some of the people who pass by don’t even hear me when I try to get them to stop. A couple times they’ve built fires on top of me, when the ground is wet and they want a dry surface. Do they ever think that it might hurt to have a fire on top of your head? No. I’m just a rock to them.

  So let’s get on with it. Here’s a tale that’s a little more serious. It’s all about truth-telling, which was as important in my time as it is for you modern folks.

  A lot of things have changed in the past few thousand years, though. In my day, we didn’t have all the things you people can’t seem to live without. We had some kinds of metal, but it was really expensive. Only rich people could afford anything made of glass. Most cooking pots, serving ware, dishes, cups, lamps, religious objects, statues, and other things we used in our everyday lives were made from clay.