Mythos (2019 Re-Issue) by Stephen Fry

Author:Stephen Fry [Fry, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781452179049
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2019-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

THE WATER DRAGON

For three days and three nights Cadmus, Harmonia, and their train of loyal Tyrians followed the heifer with the half-moon markings as it lumbered up and down hills, through meadows, over fields, and across streams. They seemed to be traveling in a southeasterly direction toward the province of Boeotia.122

Harmonia believed that the heifer might turn out to be Europa herself. After all, in ravishing her Zeus had transformed himself into a bull, so why mightn’t she have taken bovine form too? Cadmus, hypnotized by the rhythmic swaying of the cow’s broad posterior, was more inclined to think that the whole thing was a cruel hoax sent to perplex him.

Quite suddenly, after descending a steep hill and arriving at the edge of a wide plain, the heifer sank heavily down and gave vent to an exhausted groan.

“Good lord,” said Cadmus.

“Just as the oracle prophesied!” cried Harmonia. “What did the Pythia say? ‘Where the cow falls, there must you build.’ So.”

“So?” said Cadmus, irked. “What do you mean, ‘So’? Build? Build what? Build how?”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Harmonia. “Let’s sacrifice the cow to Pallas Athena. The poor thing’s almost dead anyway. Athena will guide us.”

Cadmus agreed and elected to pitch a primitive kind of camp right there. So that he could properly purify the sacrifice he sent some of his men to fetch water from a nearby spring.

Cadmus slit the cow’s throat and was just sprinkling its blood on a makeshift altar bedecked with wildflowers and burnt sage when one of the Tyrians returned in the most pitiable state of distress, bearing awful news. A dragon, in the grotesque form of a giant water serpent, guarded the spring. It had already killed four men, constricting them in its coils and biting off their heads with its enormous jaws. What could be done?

Heroes do not wring their hands and wonder, heroes act. Cadmus hurried to the spring, picking up a heavy boulder on the way. Hiding behind a tree he whistled to attract the dragon’s attention, and then threw the boulder at the dragon’s head, smashing its skull and killing it outright.

“So much for water snakes,” said Cadmus, looking down at the monster’s blood and brains as they mixed with the waters of the spring.

A voice sounded out loud and clear. “Son of Agenor, why do you stare at the snake you have slain? You too shall be a snake and endure the stares of strangers.”

Cadmus looked around but could see no one. The voice must have sounded inside him. He shook his head and returned to the camp, delighted alike by the cheers of his supporters and the admiring kisses of Harmonia, to whom he said nothing about the voice he had heard.

Far enough away to be able to do so without Cadmus hearing, one of his men was drawing in his breath through his teeth with the irritating relish of those who have bad news to impart. This man came from Boeotia and whispered to his companions with

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