Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (50 page)

5

The Meadow Nymphs

Before bees began, there was a clan of meadow nymphs who had learned to plunder flowers of their sweetness and to distill the fragrant juice with the cider of apple, fig, and pomegranate, making a drink so magically delicious that anyone who tasted it wanted nothing else.

One day when the nymphs were brewing their potion in a big pot, the odor floated to the top of Olympus where the gods dwelt. Down swooped Zeus and Hermes to see what smelled so good. They smiled with pleasure when they saw the cluster of meadow nymphs, for the leaf-clad creatures were very fresh and lovely. Two nymphs drifted toward them, bearing dripping ladles, and crying “Taste! Taste!”

Zeus gulped down a ladleful of the drink. He drank again, then raised his arm and spoke:

“O lovely creatures of meadow and field, I thank you for concocting this marvelous potion. But you must control your overflowing generosity, my dears. For all sweetness carries a sting, and those tasting this drink will find their idea of themselves foolishly enlarged. They may fancy themselves immortal—a condition reserved, as you know, for me and my family. Therefore, to avoid trouble, this drink, fit for the gods, is hereby declared fit
only
for the gods. All lesser breeds shall be forbidden to drink it. Is this understood?”

“Yes … yes …” murmured the nymphs, pressing about him. They never really listened to what any male of any species had to say—god, demigod, or mortal—but they were expert at reading face and gesture, and knew that Zeus was feeling very pleased and important. So they pretended to understand what he had said, and queued up for his blessing—which he bestowed heartily upon each, with a hug and a kiss, Hermes assisting.

Whereupon, the gods flew off believing that they had passed a solemn law, and the nymphs drifted to their flowerbed, giving no thought at all to what had been decreed.

So it was that the drink became known as
nectar
, or “deathless”, and was not only the favorite beverage of the gods but the foundation of their diet. Boiled with ground yellow wheat kernels, it was used as a food, and was known as
ambrosia
, or “immortality”. And the gods feasted daily upon nectar and ambrosia.

It happened one day that a nymph running across the meadow found her way blocked by a flock of sheep. Without pausing, she leaped onto the back of a ram and, stepping lightly from sheep to sheep, raced over the tightly packed mass. Then she heard a curious mewing sound. She leaped down and ran to a ewe that was sprawled on the grass somewhat separated from the others. Kneeling, the nymph saw that the ewe was suckling a human infant, a boy.

Looking about, she saw bloody rags on the grass, a bloody tuft of wool, some raw bones—and realized that the child's parents must have been eaten by wolves, and that the baby had found his way to a mother sheep whose newborn lamb had also been eaten. The nymph cradled the infant in her arms and raced back to her sisters who shouted with joy when they saw the beautiful babe. They immediately adopted him, vowing to care for him as no child had ever been cared for. Indeed, they raised the child tenderly and merrily, and he was very happy among them. But Cora, the nymph who had found him in the field, was always his favorite, and she doted on him.
Butes
was the name he was given, meaning “herdsman.”

He grew into a boy, golden-skinned, lithe as a satyr, with a poll of reddish-brown hair and amber eyes that could turn almost yellow. The nymphs swore that those eyes glowed in the dark—like a cat's.

The beautiful boy grew into a beautiful youth, and was the cause of the first quarrels among the clan. For every nymph in the meadow planned to marry him as soon as he was ready. Now, this was the only flaw in the boy's happiness. Butes loved them all, and couldn't bear the thought of disappointing any one of them. Actually, he felt quite ready to select a mate—but was trying to put off the day of decision by pretending to be more childish than he felt.

Nymphs are not easily fooled in such matters, though, and things were growing tense. One of the larger ones lost her patience one evening, slung Butes over her shoulder, and began to run off into the woods with him. But she was caught by Cora, who broke a branch over the head of the abductress, and snatched him back.

Then she took him aside, and said: “My child, you are a child no longer.”

“Of course not!” he cried. “I'm grown up—or almost.”

“Yes,” she said. “You're almost a young man—almost ripe. And my sisters of the glade are growing restless, very restless. Each of them wants you for her own, and they are accustomed to going after what they want.”

“Dear Cora,” said Butes. “Please understand that I have done nothing to encourage them.”

“They don't need much encouragement,” said the nymph. “One look at you is enough. And spring is almost upon us. The moon kneels lower each night, and shines more hotly. I can't keep knocking them over the head one by one, as they try to carry you off.”

“What can I do about it? Go away?”

“Just for a little while,” said Cora. “Just to give them time to roam meadow, grove, and stream for shepherds or woodsmen or satyrs—enough for all.”

“I don't mind going,” said Butes. “I'm getting restless too. Perhaps I'll go to sea.”

“To sea?”

“Sometimes I walk on the beach and watch the ships spreading their wings to the wind, and I want to be aboard.”

“No, no!” cried Cora. “Sea voyages are too long. And too perilous. There are storms, shipwrecks, monsters—all sorts of dreadful things can happen.”

“You know, I think I'd like danger. I've never even seen a monster.”

“If I have my way, you won't,” said Cora. “But you can see something even more exciting. As you know, twice a year we of the Meadow Clan deliver our nectar to the gods. We take turns making the journey to Olympus. My idea is for you to make the next trip. It will take you away from here for a month or so. Give you a chance to visit the gods in their own wonderful home, and perhaps make some useful contacts. A friend or two in high places do a young man no harm. By the time you come back, each nymph will be paired off, and you will be safe for another year—by which time, perhaps, you will have chosen someone for yourself.”

“That can only be you, dearest Cora.”

“We'll see.” she murmured, kissing him in a way that meant she had already seen all she had to. “But go, my child,” she whispered. “You must not linger. By first light, we shall begin loading the donkeys, and off you shall go.”

Indeed, the nymphs began to load the donkeys at daybreak, and had finished before the sun was high enough to dry the grass. Butes, wrapped in a cloak against the morning chill, kissed each nymph goodbye, saving Cora till last. She drew him aside, and gave him a crystal flask.

“What's this?” he asked.

“Something you'll need,” she said. “I had a dream last night, the kind that shines a light into the darkness of time to come, showing us more than we want to know. Monstrous perils are to be flung into your path, my lovely boy. If you are to live long enough to be my mate, you shall need the special protection of a god.”

“Which one?”

“You shall meet them all on Olympus, and be able to choose for yourself. When you select one, be it fierce Ares, subtle Hermes, radiant Apollo, or deft Hephaestus, give him this crystal flask, making sure no one else sees you do it.”

“What's in it?”

“Nectar. Ordinary nectar. But you shall describe it as something extraordinary—drawn from a blossom hitherto unknown and of matchless flavor, and especially brewed by the clan-mother herself for the exclusive use of whichever god you offer it to.”

“But,” said Butes, “when he tastes it, won't he know it's the same nectar he's been drinking every day?”

“No,” said Cora. “He'll believe what you have told him. It is a god's nature to welcome praise and to magnify it even as he hears it. He'll swallow every word of your tale about the special nectar in the flask. Vanity will combine with imagination to convince him that your gift is all you say it is. And he will stand ready to befriend you—at least until someone else gives him a better gift.”

“I shall do as you bid, dearest Cora. But must it be a god? How about a goddess?”

“No!” cried Cora. “Not a goddess! Any goddess you give that to will immediately boast about it to the other goddesses to make them jealous—and she'll succeed. You'll have gained one goddess as a friend, and the rest as enemies.”

“You are as wise as you are beautiful,” said Butes. “I'll do exactly as you say.”

“The sun is climbing fast. You must be off.”

“Farewell,” said Butes. “I shall return.”

6

A Fatal Gift

When Butes led his string of donkeys through the marble pillars that marked the entrance to the garden of the gods, he was met by a hundred-handed giant named Briareus who served Zeus as doorman and porter. The giant swiftly unloaded the donkeys, and holding a heavy keg of nectar in each pair of hands—there were fifty kegs—he carried them easily up the garden path toward the palace.

Butes understood that his beasts could not be allowed to enter the garden because they would eat the flowers. He led them a short distance downhill, then turned them out to pasture on the slope.

The peaks of the Olympian range wear snow in the winter, but the dwelling of the gods is divinely shielded from the weather. In palace and garden it is always June.

Dusk had fallen by the time Butes had climbed the slope again. The gods were preparing to dine. Their table stood in the garden. It was a massive slab of marble resting on four tree stumps. This evening, the younger gods were dining alone, for their elders had been summoned to High Council by Zeus, and were meeting in his throne room.

The hundred-handed Briareus had a brother equally well-furnished with hands, who was the gardener for the gods. His name was Botanus, and he had traveled the world over seeking the most exquisite flowers to transplant upon Olympus. He had also hunted down those songbirds whose voices were sweetest and brought two of each to nest in the trees around the palace. At dusk in that garden the voices of the birds thronged the air, and the scent of the flowers hung most heavily. Music and fragrance became one, a distillate of that happiness which is the natural element of the gods—who, walking in their garden at dusk, were reaffirmed in their divinity, and worked up an appetite for dinner.

Butes passed between the marble pillars and into the garden where the gods had begun to dine. The lad dared not approach. He clutched the flask of nectar and stood there, gawking.

The gods were clad in light. Apollo in golden light, shot with crimson. His sister Artemis in pearly shifting hues, hot silver fading to silver-brown, turning to sunken fires as when the moon hangs over the sea, watching itself drown. Ares was cloaked in the ominous smoulder of watch-fires, the tragic glare of funeral pyres. Hephaestus was lit by the bright open flame of the forge. Hermes was clad in a strange, blue-silver light, as of cold intellectual fires. Athena brooded in owl-light, the murderous dusk in which the great bird hunts.

Bewildered by radiance, diminished by awe, Butes fell to his knees before the glorious assemblage. He wanted to sink lower than his knees, roll in adoration before them like a dog rolling in the dust. As he knelt there, a fragrance reached him. The fragrance became music, the music of a voice speaking just to him, murmuring, “Butes, arise!”

He arose, feeling himself fill with powerful joy. At the end of the great table he saw another light—a soft light, but one that seemed to swallow all the rest. A soft pink flame as of roses filtering sunlight, becoming fragrance, turning to birdsong. He saw the rosy light parting, as when a beautiful woman brushes away a plume of hair that veils her face.

There, at the end of the table, was the naked face of beauty itself—the face of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love.

Forgetting all that Cora had warned him against, he leaped onto the table. Threading his way through flagons and platters and past the astounded faces of the feasting gods, he raced toward Aphrodite. Kneeling before her, he thrust the flask at her with both hands, crying:

“For you, Aphrodite! For you alone!”

By the last glimmer of twilight, Aphrodite led Butes through the garden. She was murmuring to him, but he couldn't answer. He was choked with joy. She wore a blue tunic, and her feet were bare. A dove rode her shoulder. She led Butes to the roses. The rose was her flower as the dove was her bird. Among trees, the apple was sacred to her, and the myrtle.

“I value your gift,” she said. “And I value him who brings it even more. But you have been rash.”

“Because the other goddesses will be jealous?” asked the lad.

“Yes, sweet boy.”

“I would risk more than their wrath to please you, my lady.”

“Nevertheless,” said Aphrodite, “their anger is to be feared. When you leave this place, I want you to take certain precautions. Do not go hunting. For Artemis is the Huntress Maiden, Queen of the Chase; she can turn an arrow or spear in mid-flight. And some hunter, trying to aim at a deer or a wild boar, will find himself accidentally killing you.”

“I shall shun the chase,” said Butes. “I don't like to kill animals anyway.”

“Do not walk across ploughed fields,” said Aphrodite. “They are ruled by Demeter, who may send a snake to bite your heel.”

“I shall avoid ploughed fields,” said Butes.

“To fend off Athena's wrath is more difficult,” said Aphrodite. “She is implacable when seeking vengeance. I shall have to buy her mercy. She covets a certain marvelous mirror made for me by my husband, Hephaestus; it permits me to see the back of my head when combing my hair. I don't know what good it will do her; she's always wearing that ugly helmet—but she wants it anyway. I'll give her the thing if she agrees to forgive you.”