Children of the Dawn - Old Tales of Greece

The eleven tales here presented are very various both in date, character, and detail; and they seem well chosen for their purpose. The first story, called The Riddle of the Sphinx, gives us in brief the whole Theban tale, from King Laius and the magical building of the city, to the incomparable scene from Sophocles' last play, describing the Passing of Œdipus. It even includes the heroic action of Antigone, in burying with due rites her dead brother, in spite of the tyrant's threats, and at the cost of her own life. One other tale in this selection rests in large measure on the Attic drama—namely, the story of Alcestis, the fourth in this series. The two charming love-stories which come second and third in this series, though unquestionably Greek in origin, reach us from Roman sources, and bear clear evidence in their form and spirit of belonging to a later age. The character of the love romance in Hero and Leander and the transparent allegory of Eros and Psyche (Love and the Soul), leave little doubt on this point. The fifth and tenth stories (in both of which Atalanta appears) rest in their present shape on the authority of Apollodorus; but the incidents of the Calydonian boar-hunt, and the race for the hand of the princess, won by the suitor's clever trick of the golden apples, are found as local traditions connected with two different parts of Greece, Arcadia and Bœotia, and may be in their earliest form of great antiquity. The two fanciful stories of Echo and Narcissus, and Alpheus and Arethusa, which form the sixth and ninth in this series, are among the prettiest of Nature myths, and are characteristic Greek inventions. The three remaining stories are those of Pygmalion, Orpheus, and Œnone. It only remains to commend these beautiful old stories, in their English dress, to the favour of those for whom they are intended. It is a pleasure to publish this new, high quality, and affordable edition of these timeless stories.