PART VI WHAT WAS THE END OF THE HEROES

 And now I wish that I could end my story pleasantly; but it is no fault of mine that I cannot.  The old songs end it sadly, and I believe that they are right and wise; for though the heroes were purified at Malea, yet sacrifices cannot make bad hearts good, and Jason had taken a wicked wife, and he had to bear his burden to the last.

 

And first she laid a cunning plot to punish that poor old Pelias, instead of letting him die in peace.

 

For she told his daughters, ‘I can make old things young again; I will show you how easy it is to do.’  So she took an old ram¹ and killed him, and put him in a cauldron with magic herbs; and whispered her spells over him, and he leapt out again a young lamb.  So that ‘Medeia’s cauldron’ is a proverb still, by which we mean times of war and change, when the world has become old and feeble, and grows young again through bitter pains.

 

Then she said to Pelias’ daughters, ‘Do to your father as I did to this ram, and he will grow young and strong again.’  But she only told them half the spell; so they failed, while Medeia mocked them; and poor old Pelias died, and his daughters came to misery².  But the songs say she cured Æson, Jason’s father, and he became young, and strong again.

 

But Jason could not love her, after all her cruel deeds.  So he was ungrateful to her, and wronged her; and she revenged herself on him.  And a terrible revenge she took—too terrible to speak of here.  But you will hear of it yourselves when you grow up, for it has been sung in noble poetry and music; and whether it be true or not, it stands for ever as a warning to us not to seek for help from evil persons, or to gain good ends by evil means.  For if we use an adder³ even against our enemies, it will turn again and sting us.

 

But of all the other heroes there is many a brave tale left, which I have no space to tell you, so you must read them for yourselves;—of the hunting of the boar in Calydon, which Meleager killed; and of Heracles’ twelve famous labours; and of the seven who fought at Thebes; and of the noble love of Castor and Polydeuces, the twin Dioscouroi—how when one died the other would not live without him, so they shared their immortality⁵ between them; and Zeus changed them into the two twin stars which never rise both at once.

 

And what became of Cheiron, the good immortal⁴ beast?  That, too, is a sad story; for the heroes never saw him more.  He was wounded by a poisoned arrow, at Pholoe among the hills, when Heracles opened the fatal wine-jar, which Cheiron had warned him not to touch.  And the Centaurs⁶ smelt⁷ the wine, and flocked to it, and fought for it with Heracles; but he killed them all with his poisoned arrows, and Cheiron was left alone.  Then Cheiron took up one of the arrows, and dropped it by chance upon his foot; and the poison ran like fire along his veins⁸, and he lay down and longed to die; and cried, ‘Through wine I perish, the bane of all my race.  Why should I live for ever in this agony?  Who will take my immortality, that I may die?’

 

Then Prometheus answered, the good Titan, whom Heracles had set free from Caucasus, ‘I will take your immortality and live for ever, that I may help poor mortal men.’  So Cheiron gave him his immortality, and died, and had rest from pain.  And Heracles and Prometheus wept over him, and went to bury him on Pelion; but Zeus took him up among the stars, to live for ever, grand and mild, low down in the far southern sky.

 

And in time the heroes died, all but Nestor, the silver-tongued old man; and left behind them valiant⁹ sons, but not so great as they had been.  Yet their fame, too, lives till this day, for they fought at the ten years’ siege of Troy: and their story is in the book which we call Homer, in two of the noblest songs on earth—the ‘Iliad,’ which tells us of the siege of Troy, and Achilles’ quarrel with the kings; and the ‘Odyssey,’ which tells the wanderings of Odysseus, through many lands for many years, and how Alcinous sent him home at last, safe to Ithaca his beloved island, and to Penelope his faithful wife, and Telemachus his son, and Euphorbus the noble swineherd, and the old dog who licked his hand and died.  We will read that sweet story, children, by the fire some winter night.  And now I will end my tale, and begin another and a more cheerful one, of a hero who became a worthy¹⁰ king, and won his people’s love.

1 ram   

(random access memory)随机存取存储器

参考例句：

• 512k RAM is recommended and 640k RAM is preferred.推荐配置为512K内存，640K内存则更佳。

2 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

3 adder   

n.蝰蛇；小毒蛇

参考例句：

• The adder is Britain's only venomous snake.蝰蛇是英国唯一的一种毒蛇。
• An adder attacked my father.一条小毒蛇攻击了我父亲。

4 immortal   

adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的

参考例句：

• The wild cocoa tree is effectively immortal.野生可可树实际上是不会死的。
• The heroes of the people are immortal!人民英雄永垂不朽！

5 immortality   

n.不死，不朽

参考例句：

• belief in the immortality of the soul 灵魂不灭的信念
• It was like having immortality while you were still alive. 仿佛是当你仍然活着的时候就得到了永生。

6 centaurs   

n.（希腊神话中）半人半马怪物( centaur的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Centaurs – marauders does not have penalty when shooting into support. 半人马掠夺者在支援射击时不受惩罚。 来自互联网
• Centaurs burn this, observing the fumes and flames to refine the results of their stargazing (OP27). 人马用烧鼠尾草产生的火焰和烟雾来提炼他们观星的结果（凤凰社，第27章）。 来自互联网

7 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

8 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 valiant   

adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人

参考例句：

• He had the fame of being very valiant.他的勇敢是出名的。
• Despite valiant efforts by the finance minister,inflation rose to 36%.尽管财政部部长采取了一系列果决措施，通货膨胀率还是涨到了36%。

10 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。