And although she bore
her emblem of the bow, like a silver crescent, she was never terrible,
but beneficent and lovely.
Indeed, there was once a young shepherd, Endymion, who used to lead his
flocks high up the slopes of Mount Latmos to the purer air; and there,
while the sheep browsed, he spent his days and nights dreaming on the
solitary uplands. He was a beautiful youth and very lonely. Looking
down one night from the heavens near by and as lonely as he, Diana saw
him, and her heart was moved to tenderness for his weariness and
solitude. She cast a spell of sleep upon him, with eternal youth, white
and untroubled as moonlight. And there, night after night, she watched
his sheep for him, like any peasant maid who wanders slowly through the
pastures after the flocks, spinning white flax from her distaff as she
goes, alone and quite content.
Endymion dreamed such beautiful dreams as come only to happy poets.
Even when he woke, life held no care for him, but he seemed to walk in
a light that was for him alone. And all this time, just as the Sun-god
watched over the sheep of King Admetus, Diana kept the flocks of
Endymion, but it was for love's sake.
THE CALYDONIAN HUNT.
In that day of the chase, there was one enterprise renowned above all
others,--the great hunt of Calydon. Thither, in search of high
adventure, went all the heroes of Greece, just as they joined the quest
of the Golden Fleece, and, in a later day, went to the rescue of Fair
Helen in the Trojan War.
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