Hyde greek indd
WHY CADMUS FOUNDED A CITY
Download 1.22 Mb. View original pdf
|
| WHY CADMUS FOUNDED A CITY I THE LOSS OF EUROPA One day, a little girl called Europa was playing in a meadow by the seashore. She sat on the grass with her lap full of flowers, and was plaiting the flowers into wreaths for her three big brothers, Cadmus, Phœnix, and Cilix, who were not faraway. Suddenly she looked up and saw a snow-white bull, with beautiful silvery horns, standing near her. At first she was afraid, but the bull seemed so gentle, and looked at her in such a friendly way, that she lost all fear of it. Taking some clover blossoms from her lap, she ran up to it and held them to its mouth. It ate the flowers daintily from her fingers, and then began skipping around on the grass almost as lightly as a bird. Finally, coming to the place where Europa was plaiting her flowers, it lay down by her side. She patted it and threw some of the wreaths over its horns, then clapped her hands to see how pretty they looked. After this, she climbed up to its back, when it got up and galloped around the meadow with her. Europa, holding on by 49 WHY CADMUS FOUNDED A CITY one of its white horns, laughed, and enjoyed the ride, and did not notice that the bull was taking her farther and farther away from home, and closer to the shore, till it suddenly jumped into the sea and began to swim away with her. Then she was frightened and screamed for her brothers, who heard her, and ran down to the shore. But they could not stop the white bull. Europa was carried off , and was never seen nor heard from again. When the three brothers told their father, King Agenor, what had happened, he was quite brokenhearted and very angry besides. He said that little Europa should not have been left alone, and he blamed Cadmus more than the other brothers, because Cadmus was the oldest. Finally he said to Cadmus, Go and find Europa and bring her back or, if you cannot find her, never enter the doors of your father’s palace again In those days, one could not go far from a walled city without meeting with many dangers hence, in order that Cadmus might not be entirely alone, his father sent two slaves to bear him company. When the great gates of the city closed behind them, the three started out, walking toward the west, as that was the direction that the bull had taken. They passed through lonely forests they crossed mountain- chains they contrived to make their way across the sea to other lands but they could not find Europa nor hear any news of her. Cadmus felt quite sure that the search was useless. |