Alcestis

“ Savitri, the Indian Alcestis
There are few of the Greek stories that we love so much as that of Alcestis. Every one remembers how Admetus, her husband, was under a curse, and unless one could be found to die for him, he must, on a certain day, give up his life and betake himself to the dark realms of Pluto. And no one can forget that there was one to whom death seemed a little thing to suffer, if only thereby Admetus might be saved. ”

“ Ancient as well as modern critics have attempted to explain the return of Alcestis to life in a rationalistic manner, by supposing that during a severe illness she was restored to life by a physician of the name of Heracles. (Palaeph. l. c.; Plut. Amator. p. 761.) Alcestis was represented on the chest of Cypselus, in a group shewing the funeral solemnities of Pelias. ”

“ The question whether Alcestis shall die, or whether Death shall take instead of her one of the old people, is discussed between them exactly as two well-bred landlords, neighbours in the country and living on bad terms, might discuss a question of encroachment or ancient lights. Both are men of cultivated intelligence, quick of apprehension and tenacious of their point. ”

“ Alcestis?
Admetus, his composure a little shaken.
Ah; two answers share my thought,
Questioned of her.
Heracles:
Is she alive or dead?
Admetus:
She is, and is not; and my heart hath bled
Long years for her.
Heracles:
I understand no more.
Thy words are riddles.
Admetus:
Heard'st thou not of yore
The doom that she must meet?
Heracles:
I know thy wife
Has sworn to die for thee.
Admetus:
And is it life,
To live with such an oath hung o'er her head?
Heracles, relieved.
Ah,
Weep not too soon, friend. Wait till she be dead.
Admetus:
He dies who is doomed to die ”

“ Something, much indeed, Alcestis herself contributes to preparation; for knowing that 'the appointed day' has dawned for her, she performs upon herself, with pathetic patience and forethought, the needful washing and robing, and happens even to conceive the desire of looking once more upon the open sky, for which purpose she is carried out, apparently on a litter, to the front of the palace. ”

“ Often when I observe a workman descend from his eagle’s nest in the open steel frame of a lofty building, I look into his face for some trace of exaltation, some message from his wider horizon. You may remember how they gazed into Alcestis’ face when she returned from the House of Hades, that they might find there a token of her shadowed journey. It is lucky that I am no taller than six feet; if ten, giddiness would set in and reversion to type on all fours. An undizzied man is to me as much of a marvel as one who in his heart of hearts is not afraid of a horse. ”

“ Euripides might well be proud of this creation. Not Andromache, not Nausicaa, not even the far-famed consort of Odysseus can exceed in truth and beauty his conception of Alcestis. Yet this is the poet whom Aristophanes had the bad taste to overwhelm with unceasing ridicule, and whom numerous critics, borrowing their canons from him, have rashly pronounced languid and insipid.
Moving on a level below this is the character of 334Electra in the Orestes. In the Alcestis we have rather the results than the developement of inexpressible love, which
“raised a mortal to the skies.” ”

“ The quick thrust and parry are sometimes hard to follow in reading, though in acting the sense would be plain enough. Admetus cries angrily, "Oh, live a longer life than Zeus!" "Is that a curse?" says Pheres; "are you cursing because nobody does you any harm?" (i.e. since you clearly have nothing else to curse for) . Admetus: "On the contrary I blessed you; I knew you were greedy of life." Pheres: "I greedy? It is you, I believe, that Alcestis is dying for." ”

“ Thus in Eciton, there are working and soldier neuters, with jaws and instincts extraordinarily different: in Cryptocerus, the workers of one caste alone carry a wonderful sort of shield on their heads, the use of which is quite unknown: in the Mexican Myrmecocystus, the workers of one caste never leave the nest; they are fed by the workers of another caste, and they have an enormously developed abdomen which secretes a sort of honey, supplying the place of that excreted by the aphides, or the domestic cattle as they may be called, which our European ants guard and imprison. ”

“ The description of the two diseases by Actuarius is so precise that we shall give it in lieu of all the others. The alphi, he says, are superficial, but sometimes extend in depth, so that the hairs appear of the same colour. The white species is tried as to the depth it has spread, by being pricked moderately with a needle; when blood flows though the needle has only penetrated the skin, the disease is curable, but if the discharge be milky it is incurable, inasmuch as the flesh is converted into the disease. ”

“ I may digress by adding, that if the smaller workers had been the most useful to the community, and those males and females had been continually selected, which produced more and more of the smaller workers, until all the workers were in this condition; we should then have had a species of ant with neuters in nearly the same condition as those of Myrmica. For the workers of Myrmica have not even rudiments of ocelli, though the male and female ants of this genus have well-developed ocelli. ”

“ This kind of abscess, though not itself dangerous, has given opportunity for the inoculation of venereal matter in the hands of accoucheurs, and of putrid matter from the dissection of diseased bodies; and has thus been the cause of disease and death. When putrid matter has been thus absorbed from a dead body, a livid line from the finger to the swelled gland in the axilla is said to be visible; which shews the inflammation of the absorbent vessel along its whole course to the lymphatic gland; and death has generally been the consequence. ”

“ The type species of this group, known as Alces machlis, was long considered by European naturalists uniform throughout its circumpolar distribution, in the north of both hemispheres. The American view that practically all animals in this country represent species distinct from their European congeners is now generally accepted, and the name Alces americanus has been given to the American form. ”

“ But actinias have been known to exert great muscular power, and show high possibilities of recuperation. Thus Dr Johnson, of Berwick, saw one whose skin had been cut through by a shell fish it had swallowed, but which outgrew the injury. Then Mr C. Peach has observed actinias spurt out periwinkles, limpets, &c. from their central stomach when they had assimilated the fleshy contents. May not, then, our actinia have come to a premature death through its living for sixty years in civilisation? What brief lives domestic animals have compared with their savage kindreds! ”

“ How poor and bungling are all the imitations of art! When I have the pleasure of seeing you next, we shall sit down—nay, kneel down—and admire these things."—Hogarth to Ellis.
The Alcyonaria are so designated from their principal type, that of the Alcyons. The fresh-water species are composed of a fleshy, sponge-like mass, consisting of vertical, aggregated, membranaceous tubes, which are open on the surface. In these tubes the polyps, which are Isidians, are located. ”

“ AN ascetic, with shaved head or braided hair and living in the cave of a mountain, may pretend to be four hundred years old, and, followed by a number of disciples with braided hair, halt in the vicinity of the capital city of the enemy. The disciples of the ascetic may make presentations of roots and fruits to the king and his ministers and invite them to pay a visit to the venerable ascetic. ”

“ Its peculiar buzz when once heard can never be forgotten by the traveler whose means of locomotion are domestic animals; for it is well known that the bite of this poisonous insect is certain death to the ox, horse, and dog. In this journey, though we were not aware of any great number having at any time lighted on our cattle, we lost forty-three fine oxen by its bite. ”

“ It is improbable that the presence of nematocysts in the tentacles can account for this immunity, as it is known that some predaceous animals do feed upon Coelenterates provided with much larger nematocysts than any Alcyonarian possesses. All Alcyonaria, however, have a characteristic disagreeable odour, and it is possible, as in many other cases, that this is accompanied by an unpleasant taste. But if the Alcyonaria themselves are immune, it is possible that their large yolk-laden eggs may form a not unimportant source of food supply. ”

“ Embryo straight. Endosperm.
Fig. 429.—Diagram of Oxal’s acetosella.
Oxalis (Wood-Sorrel) . Leaves digitate. Species also occur with phyllodia, i.e. leaf-like petioles placed vertically without lamina; a few have pinnate leaves. The flowers are situated singly or in dichasia, and unipared scorpioid cymes. The pollination is effected by insects. Some species are trimorphic (long-, short-, medium-styled flowers) and some, e.g. O. acetosella, have cleistogamic flowers in addition to the ordinary ones. Glands are found on the outer side of the corolla-stamens or of all the stamens. ”

“ Strange to say, the Actiniæ, which live in the mud, are among the most beautifully colored of these animals. They frequently prepare their home with some care, lining their hole by means of the same secretions which give their slimy surface to our common Actiniæ, and thus forming a sort of tube, into which they retire when alarmed. But if undisturbed, they may be seen at the open door of their house with their many colored disk and mottled tentacles extending beyond the aperture, and their mouth wide open, waiting for what the tide may bring them. ”

“ Like most of the insects of this genus, the ocellate spots beneath vary considerably; sometimes they are silvery, at other times not; the anal valves in the male are short and obtuse, and the wings in the female not so sharply pointed. ”

“ Modification in the colour of Salamandra maculosa induced by change in the colour of the soil on which the animals were kept.
1. I will take first the case of Alytes, [12] because it is the most definite example, and because it is the case [Pg 200] which most readily admits of repetition and verification.
The habits of Alytes obstetricans are well known. The animals copulate on land. As the strings of eggs leave the female they are entangled by the hind legs of the male, and being adhesive they stick to him and undergo their development attached to his back and legs. ”

“ These eggs soon hatch, probably during the heat of summer. The larva is very active in its habits, being provided with six legs, attached to the thorax, on the back of which are the little wing-pads, or rudimentary wings. The large head is provided with enormous eyes, while a pair of simple, minute eyelets (ocelli) are placed near the origin of the small bristle-like feelers, or antennæ. Seen from beneath, instead of the formidable array of jaws and accessory organs commonly observed in most carnivorous larvæ, we see nothing but a broad, smooth mask covering the lower part of the face ”

“ The test is permanent and well developed; as a rule it increases with the age of the individual. The branchial sac is large and well developed. Its walls are per forated by numerous slits (stigmata) opening into the peribranchial cavity, which communicates with the exterior by the atrial aperture. Many of the forms reproduce by gemmation, and in most of them the sexually-produced embryo develops into a tailed larva. The Ascidiacea includes three groups, the Simple Ascidians, the Compound Ascidians, and the free-swimming colonial Pyrosoma. ”

“ This colony has for its principal foundation a living Alcyonium, which covers the carapace, and as it develops, adapts itself perfectly to all the inequalities of the cephalothorax; one might consider it an integral part of the crab. Sertulariæ, Corynes, Algæ, develop themselves on this Alcyonium, and the Dromia, masked by this living rock which it carries on its shoulders like the fabled Atlas, marches gravely in pursuit of her prey. She has no fear of arousing the attention of her enemies. The greatest vigilance cannot prevent the sudden attack of these dangerous neighbours. ”

“ The variability is here almost confined to the male sex; but Mr. Wallace and Mr. Bates have shewn [24] that the females of some species are extremely variable, the males being nearly constant. In a future chapter I shall have occasion to shew that the beautiful eye-like spots, or ocelli, found on the wings of many Lepidoptera, are eminently variable. I may here add that these ocelli offer a difficulty on the theory of sexual selection; for though appearing to us so ornamental, they are never present in one sex and absent in the other, nor do they ever differ much in the two sexes. ”

“ The peculiar feature in the habits of the Eciton genus is their hunting for prey in regular bodies, or armies. It is this which chiefly distinguishes them from the genus of common red stinging-ants (Myrmica) , several species of which inhabit England, whose habit is to search for food in the usual irregular manner. All the Ecitons hunt in large organised bodies; but almost every species has its own special manner of hunting. ”

“ In Alcyonium and other Alcyonaria gland cells also occur in the stomodaeum, and it is probable that they secrete a fluid capable of digesting to some extent the food as it passes through. The most important part of the digestion, however, is performed by the six "ventral" mesenteric filaments.
Attention has already been drawn to the fact (p. 330) that two regions of the zooids of the colonial Alcyonaria can be recognised. ”

“ Male pupæ apterous; naked or covered. Adult males with two wings and two halteres; metamorphosis complete; rostrum present in larva and pupa, always absent in adult; tarsi monomerous; feet ending in a single claw; abdomen terminating in a spike which forms the sheath of the penis; eyes present in adult; ocelli often large, sometimes exceeding three in number. ”