Melampus

“ But just before he sets sail, there comes "a stranger, a seer, a fugitive, having slain a man." Theoclymenus it is, of the prophetic race of Melampus, the history of which is here given. The victim of a fateful deed now beseeches Telemachus for protection and receives it; the prophet hereafter will give his forewarnings to the Suitors. Yet he could not save himself from his own fate in spite of his foresight; so all the seers of the family of Melampus have a strain of fatality in them; they foreknow, but cannot master their destiny. ”

“ He designates Melampus “as a clever man, who had acquired for himself the art of prophecy;” and had procured through Kadmus much information about the religious rites and customs of Egypt, many of which he introduced into Greece [930] —especially the name, the sacrifices, and the phallic processions of Dionysus: he adds, “that Melampus himself did not accurately comprehend or bring out the whole doctrine, but wise men who came after him made the necessary additions.” ”

“ Melampus subsequently obtained a share in the kingdom of Argos in return for having cured the daughters of its king Proetus, who had been driven mad for offering resistance to the worship of Dionysus or for stealing the gold from the statue of Hera. At Aegosthena in Megara there was a sanctuary of Melampus, and an annual festival was held in his honour. According to Herodotus, he introduced the cult of Dionysus into Greece from Egypt, and his name (“black foot”) is probably “a symbolical expression of his character as a Bacchic propitiatory priest and seer” (Preller) . ”

“ Melampus gave him rust of iron in wine, and that remedy proved successful. This was the earliest Vinum Ferri. Melampus is supposed to have lived about 1380 B.C.
Glaucus.
Glaucus, son of Minos, king of Crete, was playing when a child and fell into a large vat of honey, in which he was suffocated. The child being lost the king sent for Polyidus of Argos, a famous magician, and ordered him to discover his son. Polyidus having found the dead body in the honey, it occurred to Minos [14] that so clever a man could also bring him back to life. ”

“ Whence Melampus the Augure conjectured at the slaughter of the Greeks by the flight of little birds, when he saith, Thou seest that no bird taketh his flight in fair weather. Swallows, because when they are dying they provide a place of safety for their young, do portend a great patrimony, or Legacy after the death of friends. A Bat meeting any one running away, signifies an evasion: for although she have no wings, yet she flies. ”

“ The ancient seer Melampus possessed a suggestive1 name (Blackfoot) , 8 and it seems also to be typical for seers to be blind. Dwarfed statute, ugliness and deformity have become especially typical for those mysterious chthonian gods, the sons of Hephaestus, the Cabin, to whom great power to perform miracles was ascribed. The name signifies " powerful," and the Samothracian cult is most intimately united with that of the ithyphalhc Hermes, who, according to the account of Herodotus, was brought to Attica by the Pelasgians. ”

“ There was a fountain in Arcadia, which had the reputation of creating an aversion to wine in whoever happened to bathe in it, although the water was innocent and wholesome to drink: and the tradition was, that it had received this singular property from Melampus, a celebrated physician of antiquity, when he made use of it to cure certain Arcadian princesses, the daughters of Prœtus, of a strange species of madness. These young ladies fancied themselves to be changed into cows. ”

“ The cottage soon where good Eumæus slept,
The swine-herd, faithful to his num'rous charge. ⁠675
↑ Iphyclus the son of Phylacus had seized and detained cattle belonging to Neleus; Neleus ordered his nephew Melampus to recover them, and as security for his obedience seized on a considerable part of his possessions. Melampus attempted the service, failed, and was cast into prison; but at length escaping, accomplished his errand, vanquished Neleus in battle, and carried off his daughter Pero, whom Neleus had promised to the brother of Melampus, but had afterward refused her. ”

“ Now, as we were thus strolling about the Morai, the old chronicler elucidating its mysteries, we suddenly spied Pani and the pilgrims approaching the image of Doleema; his child leading the guide.
"This," began Pani, pointing to the idol of stone, "is the holy god Ananna who lives in the sap of this green and flourishing tree."
"Thou meanest not, surely, this stone image we behold?" said Divino.
"I mean the tree," said the guide. "It is no stone image."
"Strange," muttered the chief; "were it not a guide that spoke, I would deny it. As it is, I hold my peace." ”

“ Now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried Aleema.
"Think not of him, sweet Yillah," I cried. "Look on me. Am I not white like yourself? Behold, though since quitting Oroolia the sun has dyed my cheek, am I not even as you? Am I brown like the dusky Aleema? They snatched you away from your isle in the sea, too early for you to remember me there. But you have not been forgotten by me, sweetest Yillah. Ha! ha! ”

“ In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the priest; who by a spell unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now showed signs of opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy revealings, as of the dawn behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding, the blossom exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the air. Condensing at last, there emerged from this mist the same radiant young Yillah as before; her locks all moist, and a rose- colored pearl on her bosom. Enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful child now tarried in the sacred temple of Apo, buried in a dell ”

“ Yillah trembled at their cries. My own heart beat hard with undefinable dread. The corpse of Aleema seemed floating before: its avengers were raging behind.
But soon these phantoms departed. For very soon it appeared that in vain the pagans pursued. Their craft, our fleet Chamois outleaped. And farther and farther astern dropped the evil-boding canoe, till at last but a speck; when a great swell of the sea surged up before it, and it was seen no more. Samoa swore that it must have swamped, and gone down. ”

“ Have you not observed, that until now, when we are completely by ourselves, I have refrained from freely discoursing of what we have seen in this island? Trust me, my lord, there is no man, that bears more in mind the necessity of being either a believer or a hypocrite in Maramma, and the imminent peril of being honest here, than I, Babbalanja. And have I not reason to be wary, when in my boyhood, my own sire was burnt for his temerity; and in this very isle? Just Oro! it was done in the name of Alma,—what wonder then, that, at times, I almost hate that sound. ”

“ For Yillah was lovely enough to be really divine; and so I might have been tranced into a belief of her mystical legends.
But with what passionate exultation did I find myself the deliverer of this beautiful maiden; who, thinking no harm, and rapt in a dream, was being borne to her fate on the coast of Tedaidee. Nor now, for a moment, did the death of Aleema her guardian seem to hang heavy upon my heart. I rejoiced that I had sent him to his gods; that in place of the sea moss growing over sweet Yillah drowned in the sea, the vile priest himself had sunk to the bottom. ”

“ Yet, as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver ; himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death ; Death trellised Life ; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.
Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an object of vertù. ”

“ With its companions it had eaten the planks that made the fortress until it was no safer than a house of paper.
"We are all doomed," Melampos told one of the robbers who brought him his food that night.
"Doomed; what do you mean by that?" the robber asked in terror, for like most of his kind he was nothing but a coward at heart.
Melampos showed him the decayed wood, hollow, and riddled with holes, and the man called his companions to see their danger. They decided that they must flee from the fortress at once, and they decided to give Melampos his freedom. ”

“ In the fable of Melusina, there are several points deserving of consideration, as—the framework of the story, the half-serpent or fish-shape of Melusina, and her appearances as warnings of impending misfortune or death. The minor details, as, for instance, the trick with the hide, which is taken from the story of Dido, shall not detain us.
The framework of the myth is the story-radical corresponding with that of Lohengrin. The skeleton of the romance is this—
1. A man falls in love with a woman of supernatural race. ”

“ Sifted out, my motives to this enterprise justified not the mad deed, which, in a moment of rage, I had done: though, those motives had been covered with a gracious pretense; concealing myself from myself. But I beat down the thought.
In relating her story, the maiden frequently interrupted it with questions concerning myself:—Whence I came: being white, from Oroolia? Whither I was going: to Amma? And what had happened to Aleema? For she had been dismayed at the fray, though knowing not what it could mean; and she had heard the priest’s name called upon in lamentations. ”

“ But now, a current of air swept aside the eddying incense; and the willful boy, all eagerness to behold the image, went hither and thither; but the gathering of attendants was great; and at last he exclaimed, "Oh Oro! I can not see thee, for the crowd that stands between thee and me."
"Who is this babbler?" cried they with the censers, one and all turning upon the pilgrims; "let him speak no more; but bow down, and grind the dust where he stands; and declare himself the vilest creature that crawls. So Oro and Alma command." ”

“ Having taken to our canoes once again, we were silently sailing along, when Media observed, “Babbalanja; though I seldom trouble myself with such thoughts, I have just been thinking, how difficult it must be, for the more ignorant sort of people, to decide upon what particular image to worship as a guardian deity, when in Maramma, it seems, there exists such a multitude of idols, and a thousand more are to be heard of.”
“Not at all, your highness. The more ignorant the better. The multitude of images distracts them not. But I am in no mood for serious discourse ”

“ All round the down, waved scarlet thickets of sumach, moaning in the wind, like the gory ghosts environing Pharsalia the night after the battle; scaring away the peasants, who with bushel-baskets came to the jewel-harvest of the rings of Pompey’s knights.
Beneath the heaped turf of this down, lay thousands of glorious corpses of anonymous heroes, who here had died glorious deaths.
Whence, in the florid language of Diranda, they called this field “The Field of Glory.” ”

“ Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak, presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose shadow, every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain: a silent phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen.
At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth, and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her arms in a caress; saying, "Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?" And at last, when it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the whole valley in gloom; Aleema would say, "Arise Yillah ”

“ He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. ”

“ Terrific shade of tattooed Tammahammaha! if, from a vile dragon’s molars, rose mailed men, what heroes shall spring from the cannibal canines once pertaining to warriors themselves!—Am I the witch of Endor, that I conjure up this ghost? Or, King Saul, that I so quake at the sight? For, lo! roundabout me Tammahammaha’s tattooing expands, till all the sky seems a tiger’s skin. But now, the spotted phantom sweeps by; as a man-of-war’s main-sail, cloud-like, blown far to leeward in a gale. ”

“ No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. ”

“ She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from Oroolia, the Island of Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the Polynesians. To this isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical power, she had been spirited from Amma, the place of her nativity. Her name was Yillah. And hardly had the waters of Oroolia washed white her olive skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when one day strolling in the woodlands, she was snared in the tendrils of a vine. ”