Gorgo

“ I have suffered so long. Can you not relent?"
"My mother," she said, "was Gorgo before me and her mother was Gorgo and hers also and hers. No Gorgo ever relented. Nor I."
"I have been punished enough," he said. "More than enough. And all for a dog and a horse and a slave."
"Clearchos," she said, "you force me to talk. I do not want to talk. You are the only man I ever loved or ever will love. ”

“ The thing’s as easy as lying. Let the ladies change
Their names; or if so be Chremes knows not their names, 428
Let them but change their parts. Gorgo—for that’s the lady,
Whom you would bring, I guess—let Gorgo pass to-day
For Clinia’s mistress; let Antiphila play the maid;
Wh hinders not that when they come, each take his own.
You have your Gorgo; you, sir, your Antiphila:
And none will be any the wiser. ”

“ They are so lost in their dreams that nothing more can trouble them," said the eagle.
When night came, and all three eagles were asleep, there was a light scraping on the steel wires stretched across the top of the cage. The two listless old captives did not allow themselves to be disturbed by the noise, but Gorgo awakened.
"Who's there? Who is moving up on the roof?" he asked.
"It's Thumbietot, Gorgo," answered the boy. "I'm sitting here filing away at the steel wires so that you can escape." ”

“ Gorgo hoped that he would get far up into West Bothnia that day. As luck would have it, he heard the boy remark to himself that in a country like the one through which they were now travelling it must be impossible for people to live.
The land which spread below them was Southern Medelpad. When the eagle heard the boy's remark, he replied:
"Up here they have forests for fields."
The boy thought of the contrast between the light, golden-rye fields with their delicate blades that spring up in one summer, and the dark spruce forest with its solid trees which took many years to ripen for harvest. ”

“ When we shall be dust of perished summers, 30
Any man could say who found that likeness,
Smiling gently on it, “This was Gorgo!”
LXXXVI Love is so strong a thing,
The very gods must yield,
When it is welded fast
With the unflinching truth.
Love is so frail a thing, 5
A word, a look, will kill.
Oh lovers, have a care
How ye do deal with love.
LXXXVII Hadst thou, with all thy loveliness, been true,
Had I, with all my tenderness, been strong,
We had not made this ruin out of life,
This desolation in a world of joy,
My poor Gorgo. 5
Yet even the high gods at times do err ”

“ P. Women can tell you everything about everything. Jupiter's marriage with Juno not excepted.
G. Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates!
P. Tremendous! Take hold of me, Gorgo, and you, Eunoe, take hold of Eutychis!—tight hold, or you'll be lost. Here we go in all together. Hold tight to us, Eunoe. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Gorgo, there's my scarf torn right in two. For heaven's sake, my good man, as you hope to be saved, take care of my dress!
Stranger. I'll do what I can, but it doesn't depend upon me.
P. What heaps of people! They push like a drove of pigs. ”

“ The following are the last surviving words which Gorgo gave to the world:
Gorgo. Praxinoe, certainly women are wonderful things. That lucky woman, to know all that; and luckier still to have such a voice! And now we must see about getting home. My husband has not had his dinner. That man is all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting for his dinner he's dangerous to go near. Adieu! precious Adonis, and may you find us all well when you come next year! ”

“ The eagle told him that the expanse of coast which spread beneath them was Westbottom, and that the blue ridges far to the west were in Lapland.
Only to be once more seated comfortably on Gorgo's back, after all that he had suffered during the forest fire, was a pleasure. Besides, they were having a fine trip. The flight was so easy that at times it seemed as if they were standing still in the air. The eagle beat and beat his wings, without appearing to move from the spot; on the other hand, everything under them seemed in motion. The whole earth and all things on it moved slowly southward. ”

“ A strange unrest seethed in this dense mass of humanity. The heathen were trembling with rage, clutching their amulets and charms, or shaking angry fists; the Christians thrilled with anxiety and pious zeal, and used their hands to lift the cross or to ward off the evil one with outstretched fingers. Every face and every gesture, the muttered curses and pious hymns—all showed that some terrible and fateful event was impending over all. Gorgo herself felt as though she were standing on the brink of a crater, while air and earth heaved around her ”

“ But perhaps you have not heard of the punishment of the Cretan Gorgo, a somewhat similar case to that of Leucomantis, except that she was turned into stone as she peeped out of window to see her lover carried out to burial. For this Gorgo had a lover called Asander, a proper young man and of a good family, but reduced in fortune, though he thought himself worthy to mate with anybody. ”

“ As the boy glanced down at the rich valley, he complained of feeling hungry. He had had no food for two whole days, he said, and now he was famished. Gorgo did not wish to have it said that the boy had fared worse in his company than when he travelled with the wild geese, so he slackened his speed.
"Why haven't you spoken of this before?" he asked. "You shall have all the food you want. There's no need of your starving when you have an eagle for a travelling companion."
Just then the eagle sighted a farmer who was sowing a field near the river strand. ”

“ Gorgo was only ten years old then, but she was worthy to be a king's daughter, because, being good and true herself, she helped her father to be good and true also.
5. When she grew to be a woman she became the wife of a king, and then she showed herself as noble a queen as she had been a princess. Her husband was that King Leonidas who stood in the narrow pass of Thermopylæ with his small army, and fought back the great hosts of the Persians until he and all his heroic band were killed. ”

“ She did not understand the matter, but when she saw her father look troubled and hesitate, she took hold of his hand and said, "Papa, come away—come, or this strange man will make you do wrong." The king went away with the child, and saved himself and his country from dishonor. Character is power, even in a child. When grown to womanhood, Gorgo was married to the hero Leonidas. ”

“ Terror was always with him; and he never escaped from it even in his disturbed and heavy sleep.
As he recovered his strength, this life became irksome and almost unendurable; these darksome chambers of the dead seemed almost as abhorrent to him as the prison cell of Gorgona. There was no change from one morn to another; only when the sun had set did he dare to come to the door of the tomb, and breathe the air, and cast a hurried glance, the glance of the hunted creature, over the silent and lonesome plains. ”

“ The eyes were closed, and the Gorgon was still in a deep slumber; but there was an unquiet expression disturbing her features, as if the monster was troubled with an ugly dream. She gnashed her white tusks, and dug into the sand with her brazen claws. ”

“ Little malicious fays sit on the little children's tables, as if they were tender children, and very much loved to see men and human pleasure; anon they start up as wild huntresses, and run through the blossoms; a thousand hands turn up the garden with its blossoming trees, and point its black, gloomy thicket of roots like summits up into heaven; Gorgon heads look out of the twigs, and up in the thunder-house there is an incessant weeping and laughing;—nothing is fair and soft but the great, daring Tartarus. ”

“ Soon the gentle light of day had gone, and he found himself in a place where clammy fog blotted out all things, and where the sea was black as the water of that stream that runs through the Cocytus valley. And in that silent land where there is "neither night nor day, nor cloud nor breeze nor storm," he found the cave of horrors in which the Gorgons dwelt. ”

“ But when people happened to catch a glimpse of their glittering brightness, aloft in the air, they seldom stopped to gaze, but ran and hid themselves as speedily as they could. You will think, perhaps, that they were afraid of being stung by the serpents that served the Gorgons instead of hair,—or of having their heads bitten off by their ugly tusks,—or of being torn all to pieces by their brazen claws. ”

“ Then rushes up with a scream, and stooping the wrath of his eyebrows
Falls from the sky, like a star, while the wind rattles hoarse in his pinions.
Over him closes the foam for a moment; and then from the sand-bed
Rolls up the great fish, dead, and his side gleams white in the sunshine.
Thus fell the boy on the beast, unveiling the face of the Gorgon ”

“ Two miles out of Gorgona you enter a mule path running through a dense forest, the branches interchanging overhead, forming an arbor sufficiently dense to exclude the sun. You sometimes pass through gullies in the side of the mountain, sufficiently wide at the bottom to admit the mule and his rider, and looking up, you find yourself in a chasm with perpendicular sides, twenty feet in depth, into which the sun has never shone. ”

“ But Gorgons rather; nay, that word is weak,
Nor may I match the Gorgons' shape with theirs!
Such have I seen in painted semblance erst--
Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus' board,--
But these are wingless, black, and all their shape
The eye's abomination to behold.
Fell is the breath--let none draw nigh to it--
Wherewith they snort in slumber; from their eyes
Exude the damned drops of poisonous ire:
And such their garb as none should dare to bring
To statues of the gods or homes of men. ”

“ Górgo, a gurgle, a streame or swallow of waters, a gulfe, a whirle-poole. Also a gullet, a spout or gutter to conueigh water.
Gorgogliáre, to gurgle as water doth in running. Also to bubble in the water. Also to gargle or ratle in the throate. Also to breede or become full of little vermine, wormelets, or such creepers as breede in drie pulse.
Gorgogliẻstro, the weede bell-rags, belders, or water-parsley. Some take it for water-cresses. ”

“ His physiognomy becomes still more disfigured by his outbursts of wrath, which are not rare, when his true character is more rapidly developed in the working of his features than by all the chiselling and carving of the Gorgon’s head. His blue eyes stare and sparkle in his deadly pale countenance, and his inmost soul reflects itself in its real light, at this moment, as if in a mirror—it is the face of a tiger. Every one, seeing him for the first time, finds him a handsome man, but with something inexpressibly gloomy in his look, and in the melancholy features shaded by a dark beard. ”

“ GORGON, GORGONS (Gr. Γοργώ, Γοργόνες, the “terrible,” or, according to some, the “loud-roaring”) , a figure or figures in Greek mythology. Homer speaks of only one Gorgon, whose head is represented in the Iliad (v. 741) as fixed in the centre of the aegis of Zeus. In the Odyssey (xi. 633) she is a monster of the under-world. Hesiod increases the number of Gorgons to three—Stheno (the mighty) , Euryale (the far-springer) and Medusa (the queen) , and makes them the daughters of the sea-god Phorcys and of Keto. Their home is on the farthest side of the western ocean ”

“ "Yes, the Gorgon HAS dried your tears," he said.
"Well, she opened my eyes too; it's a delusion to say that she blinds people. What she does is just the contrary—she fastens their eyelids open, so that they're never again in the blessed darkness. ”

“ Gorgona is located upon a bend of the river, from which a fine view of the river and valley is obtained. The valley is here about five miles wide, the mountains rising from it in successive ranges, and with increasing elevations. It is an admirable location for a town, and must become one of considerable importance—especially should it be on the route of the proposed railroad across the Isthmus. It has a far better appearance than Chagres; the streets are laid out with some pretensions to regularity. It is the head of canoe navigation, and steamboats of light draft can approach it. ”

“ Life at Gorgona resembled life at Cruces so nearly that it does not need a separate description. Down with the store and hotel keepers came the muleteers and mules, porters and hangers-on, idlers and thieves, gamblers and dancing women; and soon the monte-tables were fitted up, and plying their deadly trade; and the dancers charmed the susceptible travellers as successfully in the dirty streets of Gorgona as they had previously done in the unwholesome [Pg 54] precincts of Cruces. And Dr. Casey was very nearly getting himself into serious trouble, from too great a readiness to use his revolver. ”

“ After crossing the river, the country becomes open, and large patches of rich land are seen under a rude kind of cultivation, until the native town of Gorgona is reached, where, in old days, boats were exchanged for horses and mules, on the overland route. ”

“ A young American woman, whose character can be best described by the word “vicious,” fell ill at Gorgona, and was left behind by her companions under the charge of a young negro, her slave, whom she treated most inhumanly, as was evinced by the poor girl’s frequent screams when under the lash. One night her cries were so distressing, that Gorgona could stand it no longer, but broke into the house and found the chattel bound hand and foot, naked, and being severely lashed. ”

“ The Attic tradition, reproduced in Euripides (Ion 1002) , regarded the Gorgon as a monster, produced by Gaea to aid her sons the giants against the gods and slain by Athena (the passage is a locus classicus on the aegis of Athena) .
The Gorgons are represented as winged creatures, having the form of young women; their hair consists of snakes; they are round-faced, flat-nosed, with tongues lolling out and large projecting teeth. Sometimes they have wings of gold, brazen claws and the tusks of boars. ”