Golden Apples of the Hesperides

“ At his nearer approach, Atlas held up his hand, in which Hercules could perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all hanging from one branch.
"I am glad to see you again," shouted Hercules, when the giant was within hearing. "So you have got the golden apples?"
"Certainly, certainly," answered Atlas; "and very fair apples they are. I took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you. Ah! it is a beautiful spot, that garden of Hesperides. Yes; and the dragon with a hundred heads is a sight worth any man's seeing. ”

“ The Apple tree was formerly supposed to be the Tree of Knowledge, the fruit of which was eaten by Eve in Paradise; and it is a curious fact, that the apple tree is also distinguished by legends in the mythologies of the Greeks, the Scandinavians, and the Druids. The pagans believed that the golden fruit of the Hesperides, which it was one of the labours of Hercules to procure, in spite of the fierce dragon that guarded them and never slept, were apples ”

“ And again the goddess murky Night, though she lay with none, bare Blame and painful Woe, and the Hesperides who guard the rich, golden apples and the trees bearing fruit beyond glorious Ocean. Also she bare the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, [10] who give men at their birth both evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty. ”

“ Such is, of course, the popular assumption; based upon what we are taught in school books and in standard works of reference. But, as a matter of fact, in many cases the round object admittedly signified an apple; the Golden Apple of the Hesperides: a well known phallic symbol. Whenever a round object unsurmounted by anything is to be seen in the hand of either the Sun-God Hercules or Venus the Goddess of Love, it admittedly may have been, for it admittedly often was, a representation, not of the world, but of the Golden Apple. ”

“ Others, again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,—apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and faded in the house. ”

“ As I lay on the shore in the night-time, I saw her as a great light afar, and she drew near to me with the foam playing white about her feet. In her hand she bore three shining golden apples.
“‘Fear not, Milanion,’ she said; ‘I have heard the cry of thy heart. Here are three apples from mine own apple-tree. If she whom thou lovest loves thee in return, she cannot resist the spell of their golden brightness. When thou runnest against her, cast them one by one into the middle of the course. If she love thee she will turn aside to pick them up. ”

“ She came near him and she said: “The apple, O King, came from the garden that is watched over by the Daughters of the Evening Land. He who eats it has a little of the weight of old age taken from him. But things more wonderful even than the shining apples grow in that far garden. There are plants there the juices of which make youthful again all aged and failing things. The apple would bring you a little way toward the vigor of your prime. But the juices I have can bring you to a time more wonderful—back even to the strength and the glory of your youth.” ”

“ Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your cousin, much quicker than you could? As his majesty is in such a hurry to get them, I promise you to take my longest strides. And, besides, I have no fancy for burdening myself with the sky, just now.”
Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders. It being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out of their places. Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking that the sky might be going to fall next.
“O, that will never do!” cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of laughter. ”

“ The Hesperides--daughters of sunset--danced golden-footed on the threshold of evening, and their glimmering skirts swept earth also, set radiance upon Eylesbarrow and hung like a beacon of fire against the deep storm-purple of the east. Thrice this glory waxed and waned; then all light vanished; the colour song was sung; the day died.
Not observing these gracious phenomena upon Night's fringes, the mother, the man and his maiden went in together. ”

“ In the ‘Old Griffin,’ the rich princess is cured by rosy-cheeked Apples. In the ‘White Snake,’ a servant who understands the voice of birds, helps creatures in distress, gets them aid, and procures golden Apples from three ravens which fly over the sea to the end of the world, where stands the tree of life. When he had got the Apple, he and the princess eat it and marry. Again, in the ‘Wonderful Hares,’ a golden Apple is the gift for which the finder is to gain a princess; and that Apple grew on a tree, the sole one of its kind. ”

“ Many suitors lost the race and were killed. But finally young man called Hippomenes obtained from the Goddess of Love three golden apples, and he was told that if he dropped these apples while running, the girl would stop to pick them up, and that in this way he might be able to win the race. ”

“ At length the appointed hero arrives, slays the hawk, gathers the golden Apples, and delivers the princess.
According to a Hanoverian legend, a young girl descends to the infernal regions by means of a staircase, which she discovers under an Apple-tree growing at the back of the house. She sees a garden, where the sun seems to shine more brightly than on earth; the trees are blossoming or are loaded with fruit. The damsel fills her apron with Apples, which become golden when she returns to earth. ”

“ Very well, uncle; I feel quite tempted to fail, to inveigle you into a sensible termination to a foolish story. We often invent tales in the interval at school, and I'll give you one that my schoolmates like. It is called
[Pg 253] ;
The Rose of Hesperus; A FAIRY TALE.
Every one has heard of the Garden of Hesperus, famous in all ancient times for its exquisite beauty. Its golden fruit, more precious by far than the fleece of Jason, in search of which heroes perilled their lives on board the good ship Argo, was watched by a terrible dragon, whose eyes were never sealed by slumber. ”

“ Once they were taken away by Hercules, the strong hero who performed many wonderful labors, but they were afterwards restored to the careful hands of the maidens.
Many heroes heard of the beautiful land, Hesperia, and of the wonderful apples growing there, and sailed westward to find them. Some people think that the golden apples were really the oranges of Spain, a rich and famous country west of Greece.
[Pg 178]
National Museum, Naples. ”

“ We have developed a new race of American seedlings. Most of the old varieties that were so highly esteemed across the ocean are now rarely mentioned. Our newer and better kinds have largely supplanted them. As time advanced more choice varieties were added, until we may now confidently boast of having the best apples in existence. Whoever has eaten our delicious Grimes Golden, Jonathan, and Northern Spy, need not look for better kinds, because they cannot now be found. Indeed, the name “Seek-no-farther” has been triumphantly applied to one variety. ”

“ But, both in the Greek mind and Turner’s, this natural meaning of the legend was a completely subordinate one. The moral significance of it lay far deeper. In the second, but principal sense, the Hesperides were not daughters of Atlas, nor connected with the winds of the west, but with its splendor. They are properly the nymphs of the sunset, and are the daughters of night, having many brothers and sisters, of whom I shall take Hesiod’s account.
§ 6. “And the Night begat Doom, and short-withering Fate, and Death. ”

“ His power of song and sureness of cadence are not excelled within his range of Herrick. topic, which includes flowers and maidens—whom he treats as creatures of the same race—and the swift decay of both their beauties, and secular regret over this decay and his own mortality and the transience of amorous pleasure, and the virtues of his friends, and country sports and lore, and religious compunction for his own paganism. The Hesperides are pure Renaissance work, in natural sympathy with the Roman elegiac writings and with the Pseudo-Anacreon. ”

“ Before thee stands this fair Hesperides, With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch'd; ”

“ I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun. ”

“ These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. ”

“ An orchard in bloom is one of the most pleasing sights the eye beholds; as if the firmament had stooped to the tree-tops and touched every twig with spangles, and man had mingled his essence with the seasons, in its flushing tokens. And how rich the spectacle at the autumnal harvest:
"Behold the bending boughs, with store of fruit they tear, And what they have brought forth, for weight, they scarce can bear."
Apples are general favorites. Every eye covets, every hand reaches to them. It is a noble fruit: the friend of immortality, its virtues blush to be tasted. ”

“ A dead, half-plucked bird floated past him, near a half-eaten apple. "Poor thing," said Edwin, "you have endured to the end, and if not to be is better than to be, you might be congratulated that never more will bright-hued dainties tempt you, or hunger gnaw at your vitals when you have naught else with which to satisfy its claims. Yet the sun is so beautiful, and apples sweet to the taste, and I doubt not that your worst nest was more comfortable than the filthy nothingness that bears you away." ”

“ Without moving my feet, I lay my hands on apples, Virginia creeper, asparagus, marigold, sweet sultan, oxalis, plantain, crab-grass, white clover, all growing securely in one place, and everyone like unto itself alone. ”

“ The dew was falling, the dusk closing, as I trotted briskly homewards down the road. Lonely spaces everywhere, above and around. Only Hesperus hung in the sky, solitary, pure, ineffably far-drawn and remote; yet infinitely heartening, somehow, in his valorous isolation. ”

“ Hesperus, golden lamp of the lovely daughter of the foam, dear Hesperus, sacred jewel of the deep blue night, dimmer as much than the moon, as thou art among the stars pre-eminent, hail, friend, and as I lead the revel to the shepherd’s hut, in place of the moonlight lend me thine, for to-day the moon began her course, and too early she sank. I go not free-booting, nor to lie in wait for the benighted traveller, but a lover am I, and ’tis well to favour lovers. ”