United States or Réunion ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Here was Zaemon that was father to Nais, Zaemon that had seen me yesterday seated on the divan at Phorenice's elbow, and who to-day could denounce me as Deucalion if so he chose. These rebels had expended a navy in their wish to kill me four days earlier, and if they knew of my nearness, even though Nais were my advocate, her cold reasoning would have had little chance of an audience now.
Apidanean Arcadians alone existed, Arcadians who lived even before the moon, it is said, eating acorns on the hills; nor at that time was the Pelasgian land ruled by the glorious sons of Deucalion, in the days when Egypt, mother of men of an older time, was called the fertile Morning-land, and the river fair-flowing Triton, by which all the Morning-land is watered; and never does the rain from Zeus moisten the earth; but from the flooding of the river abundant crops spring up.
I have already expressed my belief that the Pelasgi were not a barbarous race, speaking a barbarous tongue, but that they were akin to the Hellenes, who spoke the Grecian language, and are considered the proper Grecian family. Deucalion, the founder of the Hellenes, was of Pelasgic origin son of Prometheus, and nephew of Atlas, king of the Pelasgic Arcadia.
Phorenice put down the rebellion in masterly fashion, and gave the conquered a choice between sword and service. They fell into her ranks at once, and were faithful to her from that moment. I tell you, Deucalion, there is a marvellous fascination about the woman." "Her present historian seems to have felt it." "Of course I have. Every one who sees her comes under her spell.
I offered him oh, Deucalion, it makes me blush to think of the things I did offer to that man, but there was no stirring him. He has watched the tormentors so many times, that there is no tempting him into touch of their instruments." "If you have failed, why bring me out here?" "Oh, I am not inveigling you into a lover's walk with myself, sir.
"By the Gods, Deucalion, you may be a great prince, but I've only known you as a man. You're the finest fighter of beasts and men that walks this world to-day, and I love you for it. That spear-stroke of yours on the lizard is a thing the singers in the taverns shall make chaunts about."
She would fail to see the humor in my fetching back this pretty impostor. Alas! Were I Deucalion or Pyrrha or whoever else it was that repeopled the world, I should have left jealousy out of the make-up of wives. It is a needless element. It gives them no pleasure, and Jove! how inconvenient it is for husbands! Now, I am not jealous of my wife.
"Pardon me, O noble goddess," she said, "if I do not obey you and cannot consent to scatter the bones of my mother." Then Deucalion had a happy thought. He comforted his wife. "Either my reason deceives me," he said, "or the command of the goddess is good and involves no impiety. The great mother of all of us is the Earth; her bones are the stones, and these, Pyrrha, we will cast behind us!"
Then Deucalion thus addressed Pyrrha: "O wife, only surviving woman, joined to me first by the ties of kindred and marriage, and now by a common danger, would that we possessed the power of our ancestor Prometheus, and could renew the race as he at first made it! But as we cannot, let us seek yonder temple, and inquire of the gods what remains for us to do."
"Pah," she said, and frowned. "Have you appetite only for the sterner pleasures of life? My good Deucalion, they must have been rustic folk in that colony of yours. Well, you shall give me news now of the toothsomeness of this feast." Dishes and goblets were placed before us, and we began to eat, though I had little enough appetite for victual so broken and so highly spiced.
Word Of The Day