Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (41 page)
Read Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One Online
Authors: Bernard Evslin
The great head rose from the floor as if it were a separate living thing, tearing its ears from the men's grasp. They fell to the floor and scrambled away. Polyphemus was on his feet, screeching, bellowing, and clutching at the bloody hole that had been his eye. He began to stamp around the cave, trying to crush people under his feet. He slapped the walls with great blows of his hand, unfortunately for one man who had chosen to hide in a niche of rock. The fingers found him and tore him to pieces. Ulysses couldn't even hear the sailor's screams because the monster was bellowing so.
Ulysses crawled toward the goat pen at the far end of the cave, motioning his men to follow. They crawled after him and slid among the giant goats just in time, for the Cyclops had stopped bellowing and was listening. He would certainly have heard the men panting and the thumping of their hearts had not the snuffling of the goats hidden smaller sounds.
Then Ulysses saw him go to the door of the cave and swing the great slab aside. He realized what this meant. With the cave open the goats would rush out to crop the grass, leaving the area clear so that the monster could search it thoroughly.
“Quickly!” whispered Ulysses. “Swing under the bellies of the goats.”
The men swung themselves under the huge rams, clutching at their wiry wool. The herd moved toward the mouth of the cave and tried to crowd through. Ulysses was horrified to see an enormous hand descending upon his goat, but the hand only brushed over the animal's back and did not search underneath. The herd passed through, still carrying the men.
The giant rushed to the back of the cave and began to stamp and scrabble around the goat pen, bellowing with fury when he found no one. The herd grazed on the slope. Ulysses was dismayed to see a big yellow moon floating in the sky. It was almost as bright as day.
“Stay low!” he whispered. He saw tall shadows moving toward the cave and knew the other Cyclopes must be coming to see what was happening.
“What happened?” they called to Polyphemus.
“I'm blind, blind.”
“Who did it?”
“Nobody.”
“Oh, an accident! How unlucky.”
“Hurry, catch him!” Polyphemus shouted.
“Catch who?”
“Nobody! Hurry!”
“He's gone mad,” they told each other.
Polyphemus tried to push through them to catch the men, who he knew would be fleeing toward the sea. But the others packed around him, trying to help him, to stop him, because they thought he had been driven mad by pain.
“Now!” shouted Ulysses. “Follow me!”
They raced toward the beach. Looking back, Ulysses saw Polyphemus break through the crowd and come bounding toward them.
“Faster!” cried Ulysses. “He's coming!”
The men had a head start, but the giant could cover twenty yards at a stride. The Cyclops, who had developed a nose like a wild beast, could smell fear and knew that he was coming nearer. He uttered a shattering roar.
“This way!” shouted Ulysses, as he angled off through a grove of trees. It wasn't a straight line to the skiff, but he knew that Polyphemus would follow them wherever they ran. The plan worked. The Cyclops followed them through the grove; they could hear him crashing into trees and bellowing with fury. Even so, they were only a few yards ahead when they reached their skiff.
They pushed it into the surf, leaped in, and rowed with all their might. Polyphemus stood on the shore, listening. He heard the oars splashing and the men panting. He scooped up a large rock and hurled it after them. It struck just astern.
They reached the ship, which was riding at anchorâa beautiful sight on the moon-spangled water. They scrambled aboard. Ulysses turned and shouted: “Goodbye, monster, goodbye, foolâdrunken, gluttonous fool! If anyone asks you again, it was not Nobody but Ulysses who put out your ugly eye.”
Artemis, riding in her swan chariot, heard this taunt. She saw that Polyphemus was hurling a last rock, and she guided it so that it landed amidships, smashing the deck and crushing five of the crew.
She dipped low and listened to Polyphemus, who had lifted his sightless face to the moon and was howling like a wolf.
“Poor brute,” she whispered. “I promise that Ulysses shall be punished for what he has done. He shall be visited with storm, shipwreck, and sorcery. And if he ever reaches home, it shall be as a beggar, a stranger, one man alone among enemies.”
Artemis, like all gods and goddesses, made more promises than she kept. But she kept this oneâand made it all happen to Ulysses just that way.
As for the Cyclopes, there are those that believe that they still labor in the mountains and can be heard there to this day, rumbling and shaking the earth. What we do know is that the earth still quakes and mountains still explode in fire, and nobody really knows why.
THE DRAGON OF BOEOTIA
For my grandson
LUKE BURBANK
whose eyes, fathom-blue, draw us deep.
Characters
Monster
The Dragon of Boeotia | A self-made monster; also known as Abas the Abominable |
Gods
Zeus (ZOOS) | King of the Gods |
Hermes (HUR meez) | Zeus's son; the Messenger God |
Hades (HAY deez) | God of the Underworld |
Poseidon (poh SY duhn) | God of the Sea |
Demeter (DEM it tuhr) | Goddess of the Harvest |
Hephaestus (hee FEHS tus) | The Smith God |
Prometheus (proh MEE thee uhs) | The Titan; born of the gods; a friend of mankind |
Atropos (AT roh pohs) | Eldest of the Fates; Lady of the Shears; she cuts the thread of life |
Lachesis (LAK ee sihs) | The second Fate; she measures the thread of life |
Clotho (KLOH thoh) | Youngest of the Fates; she spins the thread of life |
Ikelos (IHK uh luhs) | Son of Hypnos, God of Sleep |
Mortals
Celeus (SEL ee uhs) | King of Eleusis |
Abas (AH buhs) | Celeus's eldest son; crown prince of Eleusis |
Triptolemus (trihp TAHL uh muhs) | Abas's younger brother |
Agenor (AG uh nor) | King of Phoenicia; father of Cyllix, Phoenix, Cadmus, and Europa |
Cyllix (SY lihx) | Agenor's eldest son |
Phoenix (FEE nihx) | Agenor's second son |
Cadmus (KAD muhs) | Agenor's youngest son |
Europa (yoo ROH puh) | Agenor's only daughter |
Others
Arachne (uh RAK nee) | Formerly a maid of Lydia; then the first spider |
Two vultures | Employed by Zeus to torture Prometheus |
The black goat | Foster sister of Zeus; companion of Cadmus |
A brown heifer | Also helpful to Cadmus |
The dragon-men | Born from the dragon's buried teeth |
Sileni (sy LAY nee) | Minor gods of wood and glade |
Contents
1
The Curse
Abas, crown prince of Eleusis, was a cold, sly youth who liked to hurt people but wasn't allowed to because his father, King Celeus, was a kindly man. “All that will change when I take the throne,” said Abas to himself. “I mean to be feared, not loved. And I
will
be king one day, and do what I like to those I dislike. I can't wait.”
But expectations, even princely ones, sometimes turn sour. And this eldest son never did become king.
One day, while riding through the fields, Abas saw a figure in the distance. He heard a voice calling, “Persephone! Persephone!” It was a woman's voice, but unusually loud. Then he saw a tall figure striding toward him. He looked up in amazement. Even on horseback he came only to her waist. “I seek my daughter, little man,” she said. “Have you seen her?”
Abas did not relish being called “little man,” but she was much too big to get angry at.
“I am Demeter,” she said. “Barley-mother. Goddess of Growing Things. My daughter is Persephone. She was out with her paintbox to tint the flowers, as she does every spring. She's a rosebud herself, the little beauty, but she's gone ⦠gone. Please, have you seen her?”
“I regret to say I have not,” replied Abas. “Perhaps you should look in the meadow yonder, where wild flowers grow.”
“Thank you,” said Demeter, and went off with long strides, but so gracefully she seemed to float. Her voice came trailing back: “Persephone ⦠Persephone.”
But now that the goddess had left, Abas allowed his spite to boil over. “Persephone! Persephone!” he yelled jeeringly. “Come home; your mother wants you!”
Suddenly a huge screaming filled the meadow and gladeâa savage gust of sound that made the horse buck and sent Abas flying off its back. He scrambled up and saw Demeter looming over him. Her hair was loose, her eyes blazing.
“Do you mock me?” she gasped. “Do you mock a mother in her grief? Do you jeer at me, Demeter, Mistress of Crops, who decrees famine or plenty, as I will? Do you dare?”
Her great hands gripped each other, and Abas shrank away, thinking she was about to pluck him off the ground and squeeze the life out of him. But she only pointed her hands at him, mumbling.
He felt her voice enter him. He felt his body tighten. It was a weird constriction, as if, indeed, a great pair of hands had seized him. But the goddess still had not touched him; she just pointed at him and mumbled. Abas felt himself dwindling. His chin hit something. It was his foot. A different kindâthree-toed.
It had rained that morning, then cleared. Abas was beside a furrow that had caught some water, and he saw himself mirrored. He was tiny, green, jointed, polishedâtapering to a whip of tail at one end and a head, very narrow, at the other. He stared at himself through popping eyes as his tongue flicked with marvelous speed. He watched that tongue wrap around a fly and draw it into his mouth. And he, who had always loathed the uncleanness of flies, felt himself devour one with gusto.
He looked up. Demeter was looking down at him. He was pressed against the earth by the wind of her voice.
Lizard you are,
lizard shall be
Scuttle away,
and remember me.
F
rom that terrible day on, Abas lived as a tiny green reptile. This was particularly hateful to him, for while he had a lizard's body, he still had a human brain ticking inside his little leathery skull, and all his memories were intact. This is exactly what Demeter had intended, for it made his punishment infinitely more painful.
The lizard who had been a prince didn't know what to do. He thought of trying to find Demeter, to plead for her forgiveness. But, remembering her grief and rage, he knew that the goddess would never forgive him, that he was locked in his horrid little reptile form forever.
“No,” he thought, “I don't want to live this way. I'll starve myself to death; I'll catch no more flies.”
Nevertheless, as soon as he got hungry, Abas found himself waiting in the dappled shade where he was hard to see, his tongue flicking, catching insects and eating them until he was hungry no longer. He couldn't help it; hunger made him forget everything except getting something to eat. But as soon as his belly was full, life became intolerable again.
“I don't seem to be able to starve myself,” he thought. “So I'll try another way. I'll let one of the things that hunt me eat its fill too. I won't scuttle away. I won't climb a tree or dive down a hole. I'll just stay where I am and be eaten. One moment of dreadful pain and I'll be gone, saving myself years of suffering.”