while he swiftly gained upon her.
The asphodel bent under her flying feet, and the golden flowers of the
_Fiori Maggio_ were swept aside as she fled. Yet ever Alpheus gained
upon her, until at length she felt that the chase was ended, and cried
to Diana to save her. Then a cloud, grey and thick and blinding as the
mist that wraps the mountain tops, suddenly descended and enfolded
her, and Alpheus groped for her in vain.
"Arethusa!" she heard him cry, in a voice of piteous
longing--"Arethusa!--my beloved!"
Patiently he waited, with the love that makes uncouth things
beautiful, until at length a little breath from Zephyrus blew aside
the soft grey veil that hid his beloved from his sight, and he saw
that the nymph had been transformed into a fountain. Not for a moment
did Alpheus delay, but, turning himself into a torrent in flood, he
rushed on in pursuit of Arethusa. Then did Diana, to save her votary,
cleave a way for her through the dark earth even into the gloomy realm
of Pluto himself, and the nymph rushed onward, onward still, and then
upward, until at length she emerged again to the freedom of the blue
sky and green trees, and beheld the golden orange groves and the grey
olives, the burning red geranium flowers and the great snow-capped
mountain of Sicily.
But Alpheus had a love for her that cast out all fear. Through the
terrible blackness of the Cocytus valley he followed Arethusa, and
found a means of bursting through the encumbering earth and joining
her again. And in a spring that rises out of the sea near the shore he
was able at last to mingle his waters with those of the one for whom
he had lost his godship.
"And now from their fountains
In Enna's mountains,
Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted
Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks,
At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore;
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky
When they love but live no more."
Shelley.
PERSEUS THE HERO
"We call such a man a hero in English to this day, and
call it a 'heroic' thing to suffer pain and grief, that
we may do good to our fellow-men."
Charles Kingsley.
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