The Dolphin Rider
Authors: Bernard Evslin
The Dolphin Rider
and Other Greek Myths
Bernard Evslin
For Tanya
who listens with her eyes
Contents
The Dolphin Rider
This is the tale of Arion. He was a very talented young man who asked Apollo, the god of music, to teach him the lyre. Apollo was so amused by this bold request, which no one in the world had dared to make before, that he taught Arion to play the lyre most beautifully.
Now Arion lived in a city near the sea called Corinth. He was a bold, adventure-loving youth, and wanted very much to travel. But when he was a child an oracle, foretelling the future, had said, “Avoid the sea. For no ship will bring you back from any voyage you make.” Arion's parents believed this, and made him stay at home.
But the boy grew more restless every day. He would go down to the harbor and watch the ships scudding out to the open sea, their sails spread to the wind. When he saw this he felt full of longing for far places. He would unsling his lyre and sing a song of ships and storms and castaways⦠of giants and cannibals and sea-monsters, and all the adventures he had dreamed of.
His song was so beautiful that dolphins rose to the surface to listen. They sat there in the water, balancing themselves on their tails, listening. Sometimes they wept great salt tears. When Arion stopped singing, they clapped their flippers, shouting, “Bravo! Bravo! Moreâ¦More!” and he would have to sing again. Often he sang to them all night long. And when the stars paled he could see giant shadows gliding nearby â swordfish and sharks, devilfish and giant turtles, which had risen from the depths, not for an easy meal, but to listen to the enchanting sounds he was making.
Then, for his twentieth birthday, Apollo gave Arion a golden lyre. The youth was eager to try it out at the great music festival held in Sicily.
“Oracles and soothsayers are gloomy by nature,” he told himself. “How often do they tell you anything happy? They try to scare you so that you'll come back and pay them again, hoping to hear something better. Anyway, that's what I choose to believe, for I must see the world no matter what happens.”
So Arion took his lyre and set sail for Sicily. He played and sang so beautifully in the festival that the audience went mad with delight. They heaped gifts upon him â a jeweled sword, a suit of silver armor, an ivory bow and quiver of bronze-tipped arrows, and a fat bag of gold. Arion was so happy that he forgot all about the prophecy. In his eagerness to get home and tell about his triumphs, he took the first ship back to Corinth, although the captain was a huge, ugly, dangerous-looking fellow, with an even uglier crew.
On the first afternoon out, Arion was sitting in the bow, gazing at the purple sea, when the captain strode up and said, “Pity â you're so young to die.”
“Am I to die young?” Arion asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely certain.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I'm going to kill you.”
“That does seem a pity,” said Arion. “When is this sad event to take place?”
“Soon. In fact, immediately.”
“But why? What have I done?”
“Something foolish. You let yourself become the owner of a treasure that I must have â that jewelled sword, the silver armor, not to mention that delicious, fat bag of gold. You should never show things like that to thieves.”
“Why can't you take what you want without killing me?”
“Too big a risk, my boy. You might complain to the king about being robbed, and that would be very dangerous for us. So you have to go. I'm sure you understand.”
“I see you've thought the matter over carefully,” said Arion. “Well, I have only this to ask: Let me sing a last song before I die.”
At the music festival, Arion had composed a song of praise to be sung on special occasions. And he sang it now â praising first Apollo, who had taught him music, then old Neptune, master of the sea. He sang praise to the sea itself and those who dwell there â the gulls and ocean nymphs and gliding fish. He sang to the magic changefulness of the waters, which put on different colors as the sun climbs and sinks.
So singing, Arion leaped from the bow of the ship, lyre in hand, and plunged into the sea.
He had sung so beautifully that the creatures of the deep had swum up to hear him. Among them was a school of dolphins. The largest one quickly dived, then rose to the surface, lifting Arion on his back.
“Thank you, friend,” said Arion.
“A poor favor to return for such heavenly music,” said the dolphin as he swam away with Arion on his back.
The other dolphins danced along on the water, as Arion played. They swam very swiftly and brought Arion to Corinth a day before the ship was due. He went immediately to his friend, Periander, king of Corinth, and told him his story. Then he took the king down to the waterfront to introduce him to the dolphin that had saved his life. The dolphin, who had become very fond of Arion, longed to stay with him in Corinth. So the king had the river dammed up to make a giant pool on the palace grounds, and there the dolphin stayed when he wished to visit Arion.
When the thieves' ship arrived in port, captain and crew were seized by the king's guard and taken to the castle. Arion stayed hidden.
“Why have you taken us captive, oh king?” said the captain. “We are peaceable law-abiding sailors.”
“My friend Arion took passage on your ship!” roared the king. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”
“Poor lad,” said the captain. “He was quite mad. He was on deck singing to himself one day, and then suddenly jumped overboard. We put out a small boat, circled the spot for hours. We couldn't find a trace. Sharks probably. Sea's full of them there.”
“And what do you do to a man-eating shark when you catch him?” asked the king.
“Kill him, of course,” said the captain. “We can't let them swim free and eat other sailors.”
“A noble sentiment,” said Arion, stepping out of his hiding place. “That's exactly what we do to two-legged sharks in Corinth.”
So the captain and his crew were taken out and hanged. The ship was searched and Arion found all that had been taken from him. He insisted on dividing the gifts with the king. When Periander protested, Arion laughed and said: “Treasures are trouble. You're a king and can handle them. But I'm a minstrel and must travel light.”
And all his life Arion sang songs of praise. His music grew in power and beauty until people said he was a second Orpheus. When he died Apollo set him in the sky â and his lyre, and the dolphin too. They shine in the night sky still, the stars of constellations we still call the Lyre and the Dolphin.
The Gift of Fire
Prometheus was a bold young giant who insisted on finding things out for himself. He feared no one, not even Zeus, who ruled the gods on Mount Olympus and the men on earth, and kept everyone frightened with his mighty thunderbolt. Prometheus knew how much the powerful god hated questions about his rule, but the young giant asked them anyway when there was something he wanted to know.
One morning he walked up to Zeus and said, “Oh, thunderer, I do not understand. You have put men on earth, but you keep them in fear and darkness.”
“Perhaps you had better leave all matters concerning man to me,” said Zeus in a warning tone. “Their fear, as you call it, is simply respect for the gods. The âdarkness' is the peaceful shadow of my law. Man is happy now. And he will remain happy â unless someone tells him he is
un
happy. Let us not speak of this again.”
But Prometheus persisted. “Look at man!” he said. “Look below. There he crouches in cold dark caves. He is at the mercy of the beasts and the weather. He even eats his meat raw. Tell me why you refuse to give man the gift of fire.”
Zeus answered, “Don't you know, Prometheus, that every gift has a price? And the cost of the gift is usually more than it is worth. Man does not have fire, true. He has not learned the crafts which go with fire. But he is lucky all the same. He does not suffer disease, or warfare, or old age, or that inward sickness called worry. He is quite happy without fire. And so, I say, he shall remain.”
“Man is happy the way animals are happy,” retorted Prometheus. “What was the sense of creating this race called man if he must live like the beasts, without fire? He doesn't even have any fur to keep him warm.”
“He is different from the beasts in other ways,” said Zeus. “Man needs someone to worship. And we gods need someone to worship us. That is why man was made.”
“But wouldn't fire and the things that fire can do for him make him more interesting?”
“More interesting, perhaps, but much more dangerous. Like the gods, man is full of pride. It would take very little to make this pride swell to giant size. If I improve man's lot, he will forget the very thing which makes him so pleasing to us: his need to worship and obey. He will become poisoned with pride and begin to fancy that he himself is a god. Before we know it he will be storming Mount Olympus. You have said enough, Prometheus. I have been patient with you. Do not try me too far. Go now, and trouble me no more with your questions.”
But Prometheus was not satisfied. All that night he lay awake making plans. When dawn came he left his bed and, standing tiptoe on Olympus, stretched his arm to the eastern horizon, where the first faint flames of the sun were flickering. In his hand he held a reed filled with dry fiber. He thrust it into the sunrise until a spark smouldered. Then he put the reed in his tunic and came down from the mountain.
At first, men were frightened by his gift. It was so hot, so quick. It bit sharply when you touched it, and set the shadows dancing. The men thanked Prometheus, but they asked him to take away his gift.
But instead Prometheus took the haunch of a newly killed deer and held it over the fire. When the meat began to sear and sputter, filling the cave with the rich smell of roasting venison, the people went mad with hunger. They flung themselves on the meat, and ate greedily, burning their tongues.
“That which cooked the meat is called fire,” Prometheus told them. “It is an ill-natured spirit, a little brother of the sun, but if you handle it carefully it can change your whole life. You must feed it with twigs â but only until it is big enough to roast your meat or heat your cave. Then you must stop, or it will eat everything in sight, and you too. If it escapes, use this magic â water. If you touch it with water it will shrink to the right size again.”
Prometheus left the fire burning in the first cave, and the children stared at it, wide-eyed. Then he went to every cave in the land, bringing his gift of fire.
For some time afterward, Zeus was kept busy with the affairs of the gods. Then, one day, he looked down from Mt. Olympus, and was amazed. Everything had changed. Zeus saw woodsmen's huts, farmhouses, villages, walled towns, even a castle or two. He saw men cooking their food and carrying torches to light their way at night. He saw forges blazing, men beating out ploughs, keels, swords, spears. They were making ships and raising white winds of sails, daring to use the fury of the winds for their journeys. They were even wearing helmets, and riding out to do battle â like the gods themselves.
Zeus was very angry. He seized his largest thunderbolt. “So men want fire,” he said to himself. “I'll give them fire â more than they can use. I'll burn their miserable little ball of earth to a cinder.”