Page:A book of myths.djvu/103

 THE CALYDONIAN HUNT

Œneus 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 newborn 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." 69