A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

its ugly tomb in the dark soil, and spreading joyous white and
gold-powdered wings in the caressing sunshine, amidst the radiance
and the fragrance of the summer flowers. Still, too, do we sadly watch
her sister, the white moth, heedlessly rushing into pangs unutterable,
thoughtlessly seeking the anguish that brings her a cruel death.
THE CALYDONIAN HUNT
OEneus and Althæa were king and queen of Calydon, and to them was
born a son who was his mother's joy and yet her bitterest sorrow.
Meleager was his name, and ere his birth his mother dreamed a dream
that the child that she bore was a burning firebrand. But when the baby
came he was a royal child indeed, a little fearless king from the first
moment that his eyes, like unseeing violets, gazed steadily up at his
mother. To the chamber where he lay by his mother's side came the
three Fates, spinning, ceaselessly spinning.
"He shall be strong," said one, as she span her thread. "He shall be
fortunate and brave," said the second. But the third laid a billet of wood
on the flames, and while her withered fingers held the fatal threads, she
looked with old, old, sad eyes at the new-born child.
"To thee, O New-Born," she said, "and to this wood that burns, do we
give the same span of days to live."
From her bed sprang Althæa, and, heedless of the flames, she seized the
burning wood, trod on it with her fair white feet, and poured on it water
that swiftly quenched its red glow. "Thou shalt live forever, O
Beloved," she said, "for never again shall fire char the brand that I have
plucked from the burning."
And the baby laughed.
"Those grey women with bound hair Who fright the gods frighted not
him; he laughed Seeing them, and pushed out hands to feel and haul
Distaff and thread."