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"The story pleases me well, and if you will tell me another such, I will take pains to believe that also." "Then Zeus be my witness! I will find means to prove it," cried Arion. "Have I not said that I doubted not?" asked Periander. "Yet I would gladly see the proof. My crown to your lute upon the issue!" "So be it!" said Arion.
In days of yore, the musician used to play in softest, sweetest strain, and then take an airing amongst the dolphins; “inter delphinas Arion.” But nowadays, our tars have quite capsized the custom; and instead of riding ashore on the dolphin, they invited the dolphin aboard.
The oligarchy was supplanted by Cypselus, B.C. 655, a man of the people, whose mother was of noble birth, but rejected by her family, of the ruling house of the Bacchiadæ, on account of lameness. It was under his reign that the poet Arion, or Lesbos, flourished, to whom he gave his patronage.
All that has been told about the lake of Baiæ or the dolphins of Arion is not to be compared with the stories of this fish. They gave it the name of Matu, meaning generous or noble, and whenever one of the king's attendants, specially known by him, called from the bank Matu, Matu, the fish, remembering favours received, raised its head and came towards the shore to eat from the man's hand.
But you see constancy isn't one of that noble Irishman's virtues. He loves and he rides away when the lady won't have him, bien entendu. No, Arion was sent up to Tattersall's, and disposed of in the usual way. Some fellow bought him for a covert hack." "I hope the man wasn't a heavy weight," exclaimed Vixen, almost in tears. She thought Rorie was horribly unfeeling. "What does it matter?
I thought this was better than Arion and the dolphin, and I could really understand how it could be, though it is all gone now. I can only remember lying, crying, in the bottom of the boat.
She would not have permitted herself to smile yesterday; but now the funeral was over, the blinds were drawn up, and a mild cheerfulness was allowable. "If you would condescend to tell me where you are going, Vixen, I might contrive to come there too, by-and-by. We could have some rides together. You'll take Arion, of course."
The Scriptural theory; according to which all mythological legends are derived from the narratives of Scripture, though the real facts have been disguised and altered. Thus Deucalion is only another name for Noah, Hercules for Samson, Arion for Jonah, etc.
Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that.
Arion hastened from the shore, and soon saw before him the towers of Corinth. He journeyed on, harp in hand, singing as he went, full of love and happiness, forgetting his losses, and mindful only of what remained, his friend and his lyre. He entered the hospitable halls, and was soon clasped in the embrace of Periander. "I come back to thee, my friend," he said.
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