Even the Furies were moved to pity.  Those, too, who were suffering punishment for evil deeds ceased to be tormented for themselves, and grieved only for the innocent Orpheus who had lost Eurydice.  Sisyphus, that fraudulent king (who is doomed to roll a monstrous boulder uphill forever), stopped to listen.  The daughters of Danaus left off their task of drawing water in a sieve.  Tantalus forgot hunger and thirst, though before his eyes hung magical fruits that were wont to vanish out of his grasp, and just beyond reach bubbled the water that was a torment to his ears; he did not hear it while Orpheus sang.

So, among a crowd of eager ghosts, Orpheus came, singing with all his heart, before the king and queen of Hades.  And the queen Proserpina wept as she listened and grew homesick, remembering the fields of Enna and the growing of the wheat, and her own beautiful mother, Demeter.  Then Pluto gave way.

They called Eurydice and she came, like a young guest unused to the darkness of the Underworld.  She was to return with Orpheus, but on one condition.  If he turned to look at her once before they reached the upper air, he must lose her again and go back to the world alone.

Rapt with joy, the happy Orpheus hastened on the way, thinking only of Eurydice, who was following him.  Past Lethe, across the Styx they went, he and his lovely wife, still silent as a shade.  But the place was full of gloom, the silence weighed upon him, he had not seen her for so long; her footsteps made no sound; and he could hardly believe the miracle, for Pluto seldom relents.  When the first gleam of upper daylight broke through the cleft to the dismal world, he forgot all, save that he must know if she still followed.  He turned to see her face, and the promise was broken!

She smiled at him forgivingly, but it was too late.  He stretched out his arms to take her, but she faded from them, as the bright snow, that none may keep, melts in our very hands.  A murmur of farewell came to his ears,—­no more.  She was gone.

He would have followed, but Charon, now on guard, drove him back.  Seven days he lingered there between the worlds of life and death, but after the broken promise Hades would not listen to his song.  Back to the earth he wandered, though it was sweet to him no longer.  He died young, singing to the last, and round about the place where his body rested, nightingales nested in the trees.  His lyre was set among the stars; and he himself went down to join Eurydice, unforbidden.

Those two had no need of Lethe, for their life on earth had been wholly fair, and now that they are together they no longer own a sorrow.

ICARUS AND DAEDALUS

By Josephine Preston Peabody

Among all those mortals who grew so wise that they learned the secrets of the gods, none was more cunning than Daedalus.