The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths

William Hansen

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780691195926, 9780691170152
• eBook ISBN: 9781400884674
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

The first anthology ever to present the entire range of ancient Greek and Roman stories—from myths and fairy tales to jokes

Captured centaurs and satyrs, talking animals, people who suddenly change sex, men who give birth, the temporarily insane and the permanently thick-witted, delicate sensualists, incompetent seers, a woman who remembers too much, a man who cannot laugh—these are just some of the colorful characters who feature in the unforgettable stories that ancient Greeks and Romans told in their daily lives. Together they created an incredibly rich body of popular oral stories that include, but range well beyond, mythology—from heroic legends, fairy tales, and fables to ghost stories, urban legends, and jokes. This unique anthology presents the largest collection of these tales ever assembled. Featuring nearly four hundred stories in authoritative and highly readable translations, this is the first book to offer a representative selection of the entire range of traditional classical storytelling.

Set mostly in the world of humans, not gods, these stories focus on figures such as lovers, tricksters, philosophers, merchants, rulers, athletes, artists, and soldiers. The narratives range from the well-known—for example, Cupid and Psyche, Diogenes and his lantern, and the tortoise and the hare—to lesser-known tales that deserve wider attention. Entertaining and fascinating, they offer a unique window into the fantasies, anxieties, humor, and passions of the people who told them.

Complete with beautiful illustrations by Glynnis Fawkes, a comprehensive introduction, notes, and more, this one-of-a-kind anthology will delight general readers as well as students of classics, fairy tales, and folklore.

CHAPTER 1

KINGS AND PRINCESSES

We begin with the famous tale of Cupid and Psyche, the earliest recorded fairytale in Western literature, and continue with two shorter stories set in the world of royalty and palaces.

1. CUPID AND PSYCHE

In a certain city there were a king and queen who had three beautiful daughters. Although the elder two were of pleasant enough appearance and it was thought that human praise could do them justice, the beauty of the youngest girl was so extraordinary and remarkable that human language was too poor to express or even adequately praise it. Indeed, many citizens and foreigners, brought together in eager crowds by word of so exceptional a sight and then stunned at her unequaled beauty, put their right thumb and fingertip upon their lips and offered the girl outright religious adoration as being the goddess Venus herself. Rumor had now spread through nearby cities and neighboring regions that the goddess to whom the deep blue sea had given birth and whom the foamy waves had brought forth was freely granting the grace of her godhead by mingling with mortals; or at least that, newly fertilized by drops from heaven, the earth rather than the sea had produced a second Venus in the flower of her maidenhood.^*

This belief increased enormously day by day. As her fame spread, it reached the nearby islands, much of the mainland, and most of the provinces. Many persons, making long journeys and voyaging over the deep sea, flocked to observe this marvel of the age. No one sailed to Paphos or Knidos or even Kythera to view the goddess Venus herself any more. Her worship was forsaken, her temples disfigured, her couches threadbare, and her rites neglected. Her statues lacked garlands, her altars were bereft of offerings and shamefully cold. It was now the girl to whom people addressed their prayers, and it was in a human shape that the power of the great goddess was placated. At the maiden’s morning appearance she was propitiated with sacrifices and banquets in the name of Venus, who in actuality was elsewhere. And as the girl strolled upon the streets, people crowded around and adored her with garlands and flowers.

This outrageous transference of divine veneration and honors to a mortal girl kindled anger in the real Venus, who, unable to contain her indignation, tossed her head and muttered loudly to herself, “Here I am, the ancient mother of nature, primordial origin of the elements, Venus the nurturer of the whole world! But I have to share my honor with a mortal girl, and my name, founded in heaven, is profaned with foul earth. It seems I myself must put up with shared adoration and vicarious worship, while a mortal girl walks around with my image. It was in vain, then, that that shepherd to whom great Jupiter gave his approval for fairness and impartiality preferred me for my unrivaled beauty to those other great goddesses!^* But this girl, whoever she is, will feel no joy in usurping my honors. I’ll see to it that she regrets this beauty of hers to which she has no right!”

Without delay Venus summoned that winged and reckless son of hers, who, armed with torch and arrows and wickedly scorning public morals, runs through the houses of others at night ruining everyone’s marriages, behaving disgracefully with impunity, and never doing any good. Although he was already irresponsible by nature, she goaded him on even more. Taking him to the city in question, she showed him Psyche—for this was the girl’s name—in person and, fuming and muttering in indignation, laid before him the whole tale of her rival in beauty. “By the bonds of a mother’s love,” she said, “I implore you to avenge your mother fully by the sweet wounds of your arrows and the honeyed burns of your torch. Punish that insolent beauty without mercy, and do this one thing for me willingly in return for all else. Let the maiden be seized with a burning passion for the lowest sort of man, someone whose status, inheritance, and very self Fortune has cursed, a person so lowly that in the entire world he has no equal in wretchedness!”

So she spoke, and after pressing long, avid, and sensuous kisses upon her son, she made her way to the shore of the sea. She trod with her rosy feet upon the surface of the quavering waves and, lo, sat down upon the bright surface of the deep sea. As soon as she wished for it, as if she had issued orders in advance, her marine attendants promptly appeared. There came Nereids singing in chorus, shaggy Portunus with his sea-blue beard, Salacia with an armful of fish, and little Palaemon the dolphin rider. And on all sides troops of Tritons leapt about, one softly blowing his conch-shell trumpet, another blocking the heat of the hostile sun with a silken covering, and a third holding a mirror before his mistress’s eyes, while still others, yoked in pairs, swam beneath her chariot. Such was the host that escorted Venus as she traveled to Ocean.

Meanwhile, for all her conspicuous beauty, Psyche reaped no enjoyment from her loveliness. She was gazed upon by everyone, she was praised by everyone, but no one, king or prince or even commoner, came as a suitor desiring her in marriage. To be sure, they marveled at her divine beauty, but only in the way that everyone marvels at a skillfully worked statue. Her two elder sisters, whose moderate good looks no one had much talked about, had long ago gotten engaged to royal suitors and were now happily wed, but Psyche remained at home as an unmarried maiden and wept at her solitary loneliness, suffering in body and hurt in mind, and hating that beauty of hers that so pleased the entire world.

The wretched father of the unfortunate girl suspected she was the object of heavenly hatred, and feeling anxious about divine anger, he consulted the ancient oracle of Apollon at Miletos. With prayers and sacrifices he asked the great deity for a marriage and husband for the slighted girl. Apollon, though he is Greek and Ionian, kindly gave his oracular response in Latin for this present author of a Milesian tale.^*

King, place the girl, dressed for a funereal wedding,

On the cliff of a lofty mountain.

Expect not a son-in-law of mortal stock,

But a cruel, wild, and viperous calamity

That flies in the air with wings and torments every creature,

Disabling them all with fire and iron,

A being before whom Jove^† himself trembles, the other gods are
terrified,

And the dark waters of the Styx shudder.

After hearing the utterance of the sacred prophecy, the king who once was happy made his way home reluctantly and downcast, and explained the instructions of the inauspicious oracle to his wife. There followed several days of mourning, weeping, and wailing. But eventually the horrid fulfillment of the fearful oracle was at hand. Preparations were made for the poor girl’s funeral-like wedding, the flame of the torch died down with ashes of black soot, the sound of the wedding pipes changed into the plaintive Lydian mode, the joyful wedding song ended in doleful wailing, and the bride wiped away her tears with her own bridal veil. The whole city joined in lamenting the sorrowful fate of the afflicted household, and in sympathy with the general mourning a suspension of public business was forthwith decreed.

But the divine command had to be obeyed, and so poor Psyche proceeded to the punishment ordained for her. After the ceremony of the funereal wedding had been performed with great sorrow, and with the entire populace as escorts, Psyche was led forth, a living corpse, the tearful girl joining in the procession, not of her wedding, but of her funeral. When her parents, dejected by the calamity, were slow to execute the abominable deed, their own daughter urged them on, saying, “Why torture your unhappy old age by prolonging your weeping? Why exhaust your spirit—mine, really—with so much wailing? Why disfigure with useless tears your faces that I revere? Why harm my eyes by harming yours? Why pull out your gray hair? Why beat your chest, your holy breasts? This is your fine reward for my extraordinary beauty. Only now do you understand that you’ve been struck with a fatal blow of impious envy. When the nations and peoples were celebrating me with divine honors, when they united in calling me a new Venus, it was then you should have grieved and wept, then you should have mourned me as one already dead. Now I perceive and understand that I perish only from the name Venus. So lead me to the cliff to which fate has assigned me, and station me there. I hurry on to this happy marriage of mine, to see this noble husband of mine. Why should I put off meeting him who was born for the ruin of the whole world?”

Saying this, the maiden fell silent and with a vigorous step joined the procession of people escorting her. They went to the prescribed cliff of the lofty mountain, on the topmost summit of which they all placed the girl, and leaving behind the wedding torches by which they had lit their way and which were now extinguished by their tears, they returned home with bowed heads. Her wretched parents, worn out by the disaster, hid themselves in the darkness of their shuttered home, giving themselves over to unbroken night.

As Psyche stood terrified, trembling, and weeping on the summit of the cliff, she was slowly wafted up by the mild breeze of a gently blowing Zephyr that made the edges of her clothing flutter here and there and caused its folds to billow, and was conveyed by its tranquil breath little by little down the slope of the high rock. Upon her descent she was gently laid down in the lap of blossoming sod in the valley below.

In this place of soft grass Psyche lay on a bed of dewy turf, her distressed mind calmed down, and fell sweetly asleep. Refreshed from her rest, she arose with her mind at ease. She saw a wood planted with immense trees and a glistening spring of glassy water, and in the middle of the wood beside the course of the spring there stood a palace built not by human hands but by divine art. As soon as you entered it, you would know you were gazing upon the splendid and delightful residence of some god. The paneled ceiling was fashioned from citrus wood and ivory, and columns of gold stood beneath it. The walls were all covered with silver reliefs of wild and tame animals that were on their way to meet the entrant at the door. It was a truly amazing man, or rather demigod or more likely god, who had worked all that silver with such art! The floor was divided up into different pictures in the form of mosaics made of precious stones. Twice blessed and more are those who tread on gems and jewels! The other parts of the house, precious beyond price and extending far and wide, and all the walls, which were solid blocks of gold, gleamed by their own luster so that the house created its own daylight whether the sun wished it or not. So shiny were the rooms, the portico, and the baths. The rest of the opulence answered in the same way to the magnificence of the house so that it seemed to be a heavenly palace built for great Jove to dwell among humans.

Enticed by the delights of the place, Psyche approached and, now a bit bolder, crossed the threshold. Soon her eagerness for the beautiful sight drew her on so that she examined everything in detail. On the other side of the palace she saw storehouses finished with sublime craftsmanship and filled with great treasures. There was nothing that was not there. Beyond even the marvel of such riches, what especially amazed her was that this treasure-house of the whole world was protected by no chains or locks or guards.

As she was looking at these things with the greatest pleasure, a disembodied voice manifested itself, saying, “Mistress, why are you amazed at this great wealth? It’s all yours. So go to your bedroom, soothe your weariness in bed, and proceed to your bath when you wish. We whose voices you hear will diligently attend upon you as your maidservants, and a royal banquet will quickly appear for you after you have tended to your body.” Psyche recognized that her felicity was owed to divine providence. In obedience to the instructions of the bodiless voice, she first dispelled her weariness with sleep and then a bath, whereupon instantly there appeared next to her a seat in the form of a half circle. From the dining utensils she understood that it was for her comfort, and gladly reclined. Abundant courses of nectar-like wine and different foods were placed before her, handled not by a servant but by a sort of breeze. She saw no one, only hearing words being uttered and so having only voices as servants. After the rich feast an invisible being entered and sang, while another played the lyre, which likewise was not visible. Then voices in concert reached her ears so that clearly a chorus was present, although no body appeared.

When these pleasures ended, Psyche went to her bedroom at the urging of the evening. Night was well along when there came a soft sound to her ears. Fearing for her virginity in so solitary a place, she trembled in terror, afraid of the unfamiliar more than of any particular danger. Then her unknown husband entered, joined Psyche in bed, made her his wife, and left quickly before sunrise. The voices attending her in the room took care of the new bride and her lost virginity. Things continued this way for a long time, and, as is natural, the strangeness of the situation turned into pleasure as Psyche became accustomed to it, and the sound of the unseen voices comforted her in her solitude.

Meanwhile, Psyche’s parents were wasting away from tireless sorrow and grief, and, as news of the event spread, her older sisters learned everything, left their homes in sadness and mourning, and went eagerly to see and talk with their parents. That night Psyche’s husband spoke to her as follows (for she had full contact with him in terms of touch and sound, but not sight), “Sweetest Psyche, my dear wife, cruel Fortune is threatening you with deadly danger, which I think you must pay attention to with special caution. Your sisters, upset and believing you are dead, are following in your steps and will soon reach the cliff. If you should hear their wailing, don’t answer them or even look at them, for if you do, you will bring great grief on me and sheer ruin on yourself.” Nodding her assent, she promised she would do as her husband wished. But after he and the night had both disappeared, the poor girl spent the whole day crying and beating her breast, saying again and again that she had now truly come to nothing, confined as she was in her opulent prison, deprived of human company, and unable to comfort her sisters in their grief or even to see them at all. After declining her bath and food and all other refreshment, and crying copiously, she fell asleep.

Presently, and sooner than usual, her husband came to bed, put his arms around his weeping wife, and remonstrated with her, asking, “Is this what you promised me, my Psyche? What am I, your husband, now to expect or hope from you? All day and all night long you keep tormenting yourself, even in your husband’s embrace. Do then as you wish, and obey the ruinous urging of your heart. Only keep in mind my grave warning when you begin, too late, to be sorry.” With prayers and threats of suicide, she forced her husband to accede to her wish, which was to see her sisters, soothe their grief, and speak with them. He yielded to the entreaties of his new bride and even permitted her to present them with gold or jewels, as she might wish. But he warned her repeatedly, sometimes frightening her, not to let herself be persuaded by the baleful advice of her sisters to seek to learn what her husband looked like and not to cast herself down from Fortune’s heights because of impious curiosity, and so no longer partake of his embraces.

She thanked her husband and, her spirits now lifted, said, “I’d prefer to die a hundred times over than to lose my delightful marriage with you, for whoever you are, I love and adore you desperately, as I do my own soul. I wouldn’t compare Cupid himself with you. But I beg you to grant me this wish as well. Order your good servant Zephyr to bring my sisters to me here just as he brought me.” Planting persuasive kisses on him, plying him with soothing words, and entwining him with her arms, she added these words to her caresses: “My darling, my husband, sweet soul of your Psyche.” Her husband unwillingly succumbed to the force and power of her amorous whisperings, and promised to do all she asked. Since daylight was approaching, he vanished from his wife’s hands.

The sisters inquired about the location of the cliff where Psyche had been abandoned, quickly made their way there, and cried their eyes out and beat their breasts until the rocky cliffs re-echoed with sounds like their continuous wailing. Next they began calling their poor sister by name, until the penetrating sound of their howling went down the mountainside, and Psyche, out of her mind with alarm, ran out of her house and said, “Why are you tormenting yourselves ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations and Tables
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Kings and Princesses
• Chapter 2: Gods and Ghosts
• Chapter 3: Legends on Various Themes
• Chapter 4: Tricksters and Lovers
• Chapter 5: Artists and Athletes
• Chapter 6: Memorable Words, Notable Actions
• Chapter 7: Sages and Philosophers
• Chapter 8: Numskulls and Sybarites
• Appendix. Across the Genres: Ancient Terms, Belief, and Relative Numbers
• Notes on the Tales
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Ancient Sources
• List of International Stories
• Index