Tanglewood Tales (12 page)

Cadmus, quite out of breath, stood leaning upon his sword, and wondering
what was to happen next. He had waited but a few moments, when he began
to see a sight, which was as great a marvel as the most marvelous thing
I ever told you about.

The sun was shining slantwise over the field, and showed all the moist,
dark soil just like any other newly-planted piece of ground. All at
once, Cadmus fancied he saw something glisten very brightly, first at
one spot, then at another, and then at a hundred and a thousand spots
together. Soon he perceived them to be the steel heads of spears,
sprouting up everywhere like so many stalks of grain, and continually
growing taller and taller. Next appeared a vast number of bright sword
blades, thrusting themselves up in the same way. A moment afterwards,
the whole surface of the ground was broken by a multitude of polished
brass helmets, coming up like a crop of enormous beans. So rapidly did
they grow, that Cadmus now discerned the fierce countenance of a
man beneath every one. In short, before he had time to think what a
wonderful affair it was, he beheld an abundant harvest of what looked
like human beings, armed with helmets and breastplates, shields, swords,
and spears; and before they were well out of the earth, they brandished
their weapons, and clashed them one against another, seeming to think,
little while as they had yet lived, that they had wasted too much of
life without a battle. Every tooth of the dragon had produced one of
these sons of deadly mischief.

Up sprouted also a great many trumpeters; and with the first breath that
they drew, they put their brazen trumpets to their lips, and sounded a
tremendous and ear-shattering blast, so that the whole space, just now
so quiet and solitary, reverberated with the clash and clang of arms,
the bray of warlike music, and the shouts of angry men. So enraged did
they all look, that Cadmus fully expected them to put the whole world to
the sword. How fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could
get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow!

"Cadmus," said the same voice which he had before heard, "throw a stone
into the midst of the armed men."

So Cadmus seized a large stone, and flinging it into the middle of
the earth army, saw it strike the breastplate of a gigantic and
fierce-looking warrior. Immediately on feeling the blow, he seemed to
take it for granted that somebody had struck him; and, uplifting his
weapon, he smote his next neighbor a blow that cleft his helmet asunder,
and stretched him on the ground. In an instant, those nearest the fallen
warrior began to strike at one another with their swords, and stab with
their spears. The confusion spread wider and wider. Each man smote down
his brother, and was himself smitten down before he had time to exult in
his victory. The trumpeters, all the while, blew their blasts shriller
and shriller; each soldier shouted a battle cry, and often fell with it
on his lips. It was the strangest spectacle of causeless wrath, and of
mischief for no good end, that had ever been witnessed; but, after all,
it was neither more foolish nor more wicked than a thousand battles that
have since been fought, in which men have slain their brothers with just
as little reason as these children of the dragon's teeth. It ought to
be considered, too, that the dragon people were made for nothing else;
whereas other mortals were born to love and help one another.

Well, this memorable battle continued to rage until the ground was
strewn with helmeted heads that had been cut off. Of all the thousands
that began the fight, there were only five left standing. These now
rushed from different parts of the field, and, meeting in the middle of
it, clashed their swords, and struck at each other's hearts as fiercely
as ever.

"Cadmus," said the voice again, "bid those five warriors sheathe their
swords. They will help you to build the city."

Without hesitating an instant, Cadmus stepped forward, with the aspect
of a king and a leader, and extending his drawn sword amongst them,
spoke to the warriors in a stern and commanding voice.

"Sheathe your weapons!" said he.

And forthwith, feeling themselves bound to obey him, the five remaining
sons of the dragon's teeth made him a military salute with their swords,
returned them to the scabbards, and stood before Cadmus in a rank,
eyeing him as soldiers eye their captain, while awaiting the word of
command.

These five men had probably sprung from the biggest of the dragon's
teeth, and were the boldest and strongest of the whole army. They were
almost giants indeed, and had good need to be so, else they never could
have lived through so terrible a fight. They still had a very furious
look, and, if Cadmus happened to glance aside, would glare at one
another, with fire flashing out of their eyes. It was strange, too,
to observe how the earth, out of which they had so lately grown, was
incrusted, here and there, on their bright breastplates, and even,
begrimed their faces; just as you may have seen it clinging to beets
and carrots, when pulled out of their native soil. Cadmus hardly
knew whether to consider them as men, or some odd kind of vegetable;
although, on the whole, he concluded that there was human nature in
them, because they were so fond of trumpets and weapons, and so ready to
shed blood.

They looked him earnestly in the face, waiting for his next order,
and evidently desiring no other employment than to follow him from one
battlefield to another, all over the wide world. But Cadmus was wiser
than these earth-born creatures, with the dragon's fierceness in them,
and knew better how to use their strength and hardihood.

"Come!" said he. "You are sturdy fellows. Make yourselves useful! Quarry
some stones with those great swords of yours, and help me to build a
city."

The five soldiers grumbled a little, and muttered that it was their
business to overthrow cities, not to build them up. But Cadmus looked at
them with a stern eye, and spoke to them in a tone of authority, so that
they knew him for their master, and never again thought of disobeying
his commands. They set to work in good earnest, and toiled so
diligently, that, in a very short time, a city began to make its
appearance. At first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome
disposition. Like savage beasts, they would doubtless have done one
another a mischief, if Cadmus had not kept watch over them, and quelled
the fierce old serpent that lurked in their hearts, when he saw it
gleaming out of their wild eyes. But, in course of time, they got
accustomed to honest labor, and had sense enough to feel that there
was more true enjoyment in living at peace, and doing good to one's
neighbor, than in striking at him with a two-edged sword. It may not be
too much to hope that the rest of mankind will by and by grow as wise
and peaceable as these five earth-begrimed warriors, who sprang from the
dragon's teeth.

And now the city was built, and there was a home in it for each of the
workmen. But the palace of Cadmus was not yet erected, because they had
left it till the last, meaning to introduce all the new improvements
of architecture, and make it very commodious, as well as stately and
beautiful. After finishing the rest of their labors, they all went to
bed betimes, in order to rise in the gray of the morning, and get at
least the foundation of the edifice laid before nightfall. But, when
Cadmus arose, and took his way towards the site where the palace was
to be built, followed by his five sturdy workmen marching all in a row,
what do you think he saw?

What should it be but the most magnificent palace that had ever been
seen in the world. It was built of marble and other beautiful kinds of
stone, and rose high into the air, with a splendid dome and a portico
along the front, and carved pillars, and everything else that befitted
the habitation of a mighty king. It had grown up out of the earth in
almost as short a time as it had taken the armed host to spring from the
dragon's teeth; and what made the matter more strange, no seed of this
stately edifice ever had been planted.

When the five workmen beheld the dome, with the morning sunshine making
it look golden and glorious, they gave a great shout.

"Long live King Cadmus," they cried, "in his beautiful palace."

And the new king, with his five faithful followers at his heels,
shouldering their pickaxes and marching in a rank (for they still had a
soldier-like sort of behavior, as their nature was), ascended the palace
steps. Halting at the entrance, they gazed through a long vista of
lofty pillars, that were ranged from end to end of a great hall. At the
farther extremity of this hall, approaching slowly towards him, Cadmus
beheld a female figure, wonderfully beautiful, and adorned with a royal
robe, and a crown of diamonds over her golden ringlets, and the richest
necklace that ever a queen wore. His heart thrilled with delight. He
fancied it his long-lost sister Europa, now grown to womanhood, coming
to make him happy, and to repay him with her sweet sisterly affection,
for all those weary wonderings in quest of her since he left King
Agenor's palace—for the tears that he had shed, on parting with
Phoenix, and Cilix, and Thasus—for the heart-breakings that had made
the whole world seem dismal to him over his dear mother's grave.

But, as Cadmus advanced to meet the beautiful stranger, he saw that
her features were unknown to him, although, in the little time that it
required to tread along the hall, he had already felt a sympathy betwixt
himself and her.

"No, Cadmus," said the same voice that had spoken to him in the field of
the armed men, "this is not that dear sister Europa whom you have sought
so faithfully all over the wide world. This is Harmonia, a daughter of
the sky, who is given you instead of sister, and brothers, and friend,
and mother. You will find all those dear ones in her alone."

So King Cadmus dwelt in the palace, with his new friend Harmonia,
and found a great deal of comfort in his magnificent abode, but would
doubtless have found as much, if not more, in the humblest cottage by
the wayside. Before many years went by, there was a group of rosy little
children (but how they came thither has always been a mystery to me)
sporting in the great hall, and on the marble steps of the palace, and
running joyfully to meet King Cadmus when affairs of state left him at
leisure to play with them. They called him father, and Queen Harmonia
mother. The five old soldiers of the dragon's teeth grew very fond
of these small urchins, and were never weary of showing them how to
shoulder sticks, flourish wooden swords, and march in military order,
blowing a penny trumpet, or beating an abominable rub-a-dub upon a
little drum.

But King Cadmus, lest there should be too much of the dragon's tooth in
his children's disposition, used to find time from his kingly duties
to teach them their A B C—which he invented for their benefit, and for
which many little people, I am afraid, are not half so grateful to him
as they ought to be.

Some of you have heard, no doubt, of the wise King Ulysses, and how he
went to the siege of Troy, and how, after that famous city was taken and
burned, he spent ten long years in trying to get back again to his
own little kingdom of Ithaca. At one time in the course of this weary
voyage, he arrived at an island that looked very green and pleasant, but
the name of which was unknown to him. For, only a little while before
he came thither, he had met with a terrible hurricane, or rather a great
many hurricanes at once, which drove his fleet of vessels into a strange
part of the sea, where neither himself nor any of his mariners had ever
sailed. This misfortune was entirely owing to the foolish curiosity of
his shipmates, who, while Ulysses lay asleep, had untied some very
bulky leathern bags, in which they supposed a valuable treasure to be
concealed. But in each of these stout bags, King Aeolus, the ruler of
the winds, had tied up a tempest, and had given it to Ulysses to keep in
order that he might be sure of a favorable passage homeward to Ithaca;
and when the strings were loosened, forth rushed the whistling blasts,
like air out of a blown bladder, whitening the sea with foam, and
scattering the vessels nobody could tell whither.

Immediately after escaping from this peril, a still greater one had
befallen him. Scudding before the hurricane, he reached a place, which,
as he afterwards found, was called Laestrygonia, where some monstrous
giants had eaten up many of his companions, and had sunk every one of
his vessels, except that in which he himself sailed, by flinging great
masses of rock at them, from the cliffs along the shore. After going
through such troubles as these, you cannot wonder that King Ulysses
was glad to moor his tempest-beaten bark in a quiet cove of the green
island, which I began with telling you about. But he had encountered so
many dangers from giants, and one-eyed Cyclops, and monsters of the sea
and land, that he could not help dreading some mischief, even in this
pleasant and seemingly solitary spot. For two days, therefore, the poor
weather-worn voyagers kept quiet, and either staid on board of their
vessel, or merely crept along under the cliffs that bordered the shore;
and to keep themselves alive, they dug shellfish out of the sand, and
sought for any little rill of fresh water that might be running towards
the sea.

Before the two days were spent, they grew very weary of this kind of
life; for the followers of King Ulysses, as you will find it important
to remember, were terrible gormandizers, and pretty sure to grumble
if they missed their regulars meals, and their irregular ones besides.
Their stock of provisions was quite exhausted, and even the shellfish
began to get scarce, so that they had now to choose between starving to
death or venturing into the interior of the island, where perhaps some
huge three-headed dragon, or other horrible monster, had his den. Such
misshapen creatures were very numerous in those days; and nobody ever
expected to make a voyage, or take a journey, without running more or
less risk of being devoured by them.