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Apollo (the Sun
God), having offended Jupiter by slaying the Cyclopes, who forged his
thunderbolts by which he had killed Aesculapius for bringing dead men to
life, had been banished from heaven. He became servant to Admetus, king of
Thessaly, in whose employment he remained nine years as one of his
shepherds. He was treated with great kindness by his master, and they
became true lovers of each other. When Apollo, restored to the favour of
heaven, had left the service of Admetus and resumed his god-like offices,
he heard that his old master and friend was sick unto death, and he
determined to save his life. Accordingly he descended on Mount Parnassus,
and penetrated to the abode of the Fates, in the dark regions below the
roots of the mountains, and there he found the three who preside over the
destinies of mankind—Clotho with her distaff, Lachesis with her spindle,
and Atropos with a pair of scissors about to cut the thread of Admetus’
life—and begins to plead for the life of his friend Admetus, whom Atropos
has just doomed to death. The Fates bid Apollo go back to earth and wake
it from dreams. Apollo demands a truce to their doleful amusement, and
requests them to extend the years of Admetus to threescore and ten. The
Fates ask him if he thinks it would add to his friend’s joy to have his
life lengthened, seeing that life is only illusion? Infancy is but
ignorance and mischief, youth becomes foolishness, and age churlishness.
Apollo should ask for life for one whom he hates, not for the friend he
loves. The Sun’s beams produce such semblance of good as exists by simply
gilding the evil. Apollo objects that if it were happier to die, men’s
greeting would not be “Long life!” but “Death to you!” Man loves his life,
and he ought to know best. The Fates say this is all the glamour shed by
Apollo’s rays. Apollo concedes that man desponds when debarred of
illusion: “suppose he has in himself some compensative law?” and the God
then produces a bowl of wine, man’s invention, of which he invites them to
taste. The Fates, after some objection, drink and get tipsy and merry,
Atropos even declaring she could live at a pinch! Apollo delivers them a
lecture; he tells them Bacchus invented the wine; as he was the youngest
of the gods, he had to discover some new gift whereby to claim the homage
of man. He tampered with nothing already arranged, yet would introduce
change without shock. As the sunbeams and Apollo had transformed the
Fates’ cavern without displacing a splinter, so has the gift of Bacchus
turned the adverse things of life to a kindlier aspect; man accepts the
good with the bad, and acquiesces in his fate; this is the work of Zeus.
He demands of the Fates if, after all, Life be so devoid of good? “Quashed
be our quarrel!” they exclaim, and they dance till an explosion from the
earth’s centre brings them to their senses once more, and the pact is
dissolved. They learn that the powers above them are not to be cajoled
into interfering with the laws of life and the inevitable decrees of which
the Fates are but the ministers. At last they agree to lengthen the life
of Admetus if any mortal can be found to forgo the fulfilment of his own
life on his account. Apollo protests that the king’s subjects will strive
with one another for the glory of dying that their king may survive. First
in all Pheræ will his father offer himself as his son’s substitute. “Bah!”
says Clotho. “Then his mother,” suggests Apollo; “or, spurning the
exchange, the king may choose to die.” With the jeers of the three the
scene closes. Mr. Browning’s lovely poem Balaustion’s Adventure should
be read next after this, as the Prologue to the Parleyings has little or
no relation to the rest of the volume.
Notes.—Parnassus, a mountain of Greece, sacred to the Muses and Apollo
and Bacchus. Dire ones, the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
Admetus, the husband of Alcestis, whose wife died to save his life. The
Fates, the Destinies, the goddesses supposed to preside over human life:
Clotho, who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, who determines the
length of the thread; Atropos, who cuts it off. Woe-purfled,
embroidered with woe. Weal-prankt, decked out with prosperity. Moirai,
the Parcæ, the Fates. Zeus, Jupiter, the Supreme Being. Eld, old age.
Sweet Trine, the Three, the Trinity of Fates. Bacchus, the Wine-God.
Semele’s Son: Semele was the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia; when Zeus
appeared to her in his Divine splendour she was consumed by the flames and
gave birth to Bacchus, whom Zeus saved from the fire and hid in his thigh.
Bacchus, when made a god, raised her to heaven under the name of Thyone.
Swound, a swoon. Cummers, gossips, female acquaintances. Collyrium,
eye-wash. Pheræ, a town in Thessaly, where King Pheres reigned, who was
the father of Admetus.
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