Skip to main content

MELAMPUS


MELAMPUS
 MELAMPUS, a cousin of Bellerophon, won glory and fame and one third of a kingdom, all because he was kind to animals. Once when he was a child, he found a dead mother snake on the road. He did not kick it into a ditch, but gave it a proper funeral, picked up the little motherless snakes, and reared them tenderly. In gratitude they licked his ears so clean that he could understand the language of all animals, crawling and flying. From their talk he learned the secrets of the earth and grew wise beyond measure.
Once he was thrown into prison for trying to steal some cows from a neighboring king, and one night as he lay on his cot, he heard a family of termites talking inside the roof beam. "Brother," said one termite to another, "if we go on chewing all night, the roof will collapse before morning."
Melampus jumped up and hammered at the door. He demanded to be moved at once, for the roof would soon fall in. The jailer laughed, but Melampus made such a fuss that he was finally moved. Just then the roof did cave in. Everybody marveled, and the king called for him and told him that, if he could find a cure for his sick son, he could have the cows he had tried to steal. The young prince had been sick since he was a child, and no one knew what ailed him.
Melampus slaughtered an ox and spread the meat on the ground. Right away, two vultures swooped down and began to gorge themselves. When they had eaten their fill, one of the vultures said to the other, “I haven’t been so full since that time when the king sacrificed a ram to the gods. I remember how terrified the little prince was when he saw his father with a bloody knife in his hand. He screamed so loudly that his father threw away his knife and ran to comfort him. The knife stuck in the tree over yonder and wounded the tree nymph. She cast a spell on the boy and he has been sick ever since. Now the bark has closed over the knife, but if the king knew what I know, he would dig out the rusty blade, make a brew from the rust, and give it to the prince to drink.”
Melampus at once dug out the blade and made a rusty brew. The sickly prince drank it and right away he was so fit that he bounded over a field of barley without bending a stalk. Melampus won great fame as a healer and from all corners of Greece, kings sent for him to cure their sick.
The King of Tiryns had three lovely daughters who suddenly went quite out of their minds and thought they were cows. The king sent for Melampus, who said that he would cure them if the king would give him a third of his kingdom. That was far too much, thought the king, and Melampus went away. The princesses grew worse and ran all over the kingdom mooing like cows. The king again sent for Melampus. This time Melampus came with his brohter and now he wanted a third of the kingdom for his brother, too! He had to agree, for it was very embarrassing to him that his daughters ran around shouting, “We are cows, we are cows!”
Melampus hired some faster runners and sent them after the crazy girls. The had to run halfway across Greece before they could catch them and bring them back. Melampus forced them to drink a draught of magic herbs, and that cured all of them except one, poor girl, who died of exhaustion.
The king, who had to part with two-thirds of his kingdom, thought that he might as well give Melampus and his brother each a princess in the bargain, and they all lived happily thereafter.
MELAMPUS
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Danaus

Loud was the song of the Muses about Danaus, first of a line of great kings and heroes. King Danaus of Libya had fifty daughters, his brother, King Aegyptus, had fifty sons. The fifty sons wanted to marry the fifty daughters, but they were rough and rowdy and King Danaus did not want them for sons-in-law. He feared that they might carry off his daughters by force, so secretly he built a ship with fifty oars and fled with his daughters. The fifty princesses pulled at the oars and rowed the ship across the wide sea. They reached Argos, in Greece, and when the people there saw the king standing in the prow of a gorgeous ship rowed by princesses, they were awed. They were certain that Danaus had been sent by the gods, and made him their king. Danaus was a good ruler, and peace and happiness reigned in Argos until one day another splendid ship arrived. And who should be at the oars but King Aegyptus' fifty sons, who had come to claim their brides. Danaus did not dare to oppose th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merope - Pleiades

Merope is one of the seven Pleiades, daughters of Atlas and Pleione . Pleione, their mother, is the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and is the protector of sailors. Merope is the faintest of the stars because she was the only of the Pleiades to have married a mortal. Her sisters had relations with gods and bore them sons, but Merope married Sisyphus and lived on the island Chios. Merope gave birth to Glaukos, Ornytion, Almus, Thersander and Sinon. The star Merope is often called the "lost Pleiad" because she was at first not seen by astronomers or charted like her sisters. One myth says that she hid her face in shame because she had an affair with a mortal man, another says she went to Hades with her husband, Sisyphus . They were the sisters of Calypso, Hyas, the Hyades , and the Hesperides. The Pleiades were nymphs in the train of Artemis , and together with the seven Hyades were called the Atlantides, Dodonides, or Nysiades, nursemaids and teachers to the infant Di...
Post a Comment
Read more

Briareus, Gyges and Cottus

BRIAREOS (Briareus) was one of the Hekantonkheires (Hecatoncheires), three primordial hundred-handed, fifty-headed storm giants. He was more specifically a god of sea-storms and in this guise he was often named Aigaion (Of the Aegean). Briareos wed Poseidon 's daughter Kymopoleia ("Wave-Ranging") and dwelt with her in the depths of the sea. His two brothers, on the other hand, were appointed guardians of the gates of the storm-pit Tartaros. According to some Aigaios (Aegaeus) was a storm-giant ally of the Titanes and father of Briareos instead of a just a by-name of Briareos himself. AEGAEON (Aigaiôn), a son of Uranus by Gaea . Aegaeon and his brothers Gyges and Cottus are known under the name of the Uranids, and are described as huge monsters with a hundred arms (hekatoncheires) and fifty heads. Most writers mention the third Uranid under the name of Briareus instead of Aegaeon, which is explained in a passage of Homer, who says that men called him Aegaeon, but ...
Post a Comment
Read more