At sight of this new foe, at any rate, she came to a strange
submission. The savage virgin had turned to very woman, and was
presently a willing slave, returning on the gaily appointed ship in
all haste to Athens, where in supposed wedlock she bore King Theseus
a son.
With their annual visit--visit to the Gargareans!--for the purpose of
maintaining their [162] species, parting with their boys early, these
husbandless women could hardly be supposed a very happy, certainly
not a very joyous people. They figure rather as a sorry measure of
the luck of the female sex in taking a hard natural law into their
own hands, and by abnegation of all tender companionship making shift
with bare independence, as a kind of second-best--the best
practicable by them in the imperfect actual condition of things. But
the heart-strings would ache still where the breast had been cut
away. The sisters of Antiope had come, not immediately, but in
careful array of battle, to bring back the captive. All along the
weary roads from the Caucasus to Attica, their traces had remained in
the great graves of those who died by the way. Against the little
remnant, carrying on the fight to the very midst of Athens, Antiope
herself had turned, all other thoughts transformed now into wild
idolatry of her hero.
Pages:
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196