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Actaeon
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There once lived a hunter,
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a great and skilful hunter called Actaeon.
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He and his friends had been hunting in hot August with their bows and spears and bright arrows and their fierce hunting dogs.
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All morning they’d been hunting until the ground was soaked red with the blood of wild animals
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and their nets, spears, arrows and knives were clogged and caked with sticky gore.
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Now it was too hot to carry on.
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‘My friends,’ said Actaeon,
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‘we’ve killed enough for one day.
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The blistering sun is at its height,
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cracking open the fields with its heat.
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Let’s rest in the shade of these trees.
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Look! The dogs are panting for water.
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It’s time to lie down and take our ease.’
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His friends threw down their weapons and stretched out on the cool ground under the overhanging trees.
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His dogs ran to a trickling stream and lapped up the water with their lolling tongues.
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And Actaeon strolled along the stream’s edge,
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following the mossy river bank as it wound this way and that,
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delighting in the rippling music of the flowing water.
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Then suddenly he heard a deeper note in the distance;
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the thrumming, cascading sound of a waterfall.
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He hurried towards it.
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There is a hidden valley in that forest that is overgrown with sharp, needled cypress trees and tall pines.
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At one end of it a stream tumbles from high, ragged rocks into a pool of clear water with soft, grassy banks.
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It is here that Artemis, the goddess of chastity and the chase, loves to bathe.
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And on the day of my story she was naked and waist deep in the water.
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She was surrounded by nymphs.
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One had taken Artemis’ javelin.
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Another held her bow and quiver of arrows.
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Another had her cloak hanging across her arm.
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One was combing the goddess’ hair.
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One had a jug and was sluicing the cool, pure water over the goddess’ perfect shoulders.
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As Actaeon followed the stream, towards the sound of the waterfall,
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he suddenly heard the rise and fall of women’s voices talking and laughing.
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He hurried towards the sound.
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The wood grew thicker, cypress and pine.
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The steam wound between the trunks of the trees.
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Then suddenly the trees stopped and he stepped into a dappled clearing.
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And there they were –
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a goddess and her attendant nymphs,
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beautiful beyond words and stark naked.
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It was the nymphs who saw Actaeon first.
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They lifted their hands to their mouths and screamed.
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They clustered round the goddess as though they could hide her nakedness with their own bodies,
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but she was far taller than they were.
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Artemis blushed as red as the rosy dawn and turned away from Actaeon so that he could see only her back.
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And then she began to shake and to tremble with fury.
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If only her javelin and her arrows were to hand,
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she would kill the wretched mortal where he stood.
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She scooped up a handful of water.
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She called out over her shoulder,
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‘Now, if you can, go and tell your friends how you saw a goddess naked.’
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Suddenly she swung round and flung the water into Actaeon’s face.
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No sooner had it struck him than he felt a heavy crown of antlers bursting out of his brow.
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His neck lengthened,
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his hands and feet became cloven hooves,
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his ears stretched upwards,
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his arms and legs lengthened,
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his body was suddenly covered with dappled hide.
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In the moment it had taken him to blink the water from his eyes,
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he had turned into a stag.
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Then the goddess filled him with animal panic:
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the stag turned and ran.
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Actaeon bounded along the edge of the stream,
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amazed at his lightness.
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He glimpsed his reflection in the water.
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He wanted to cry
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‘What has happened to me?’
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but all that came out of Actaeon’s mouth was the belling cry of a stag.
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His thoughts were the thoughts of a man but to all the world he was a beast.
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He thought, ‘What shall I do?
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How can I make myself known?
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Should I run home or hide in the forest?’
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Human tears trickled down his stag face.
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It was Melampus, Actaeon's Spartan hound,
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who saw the stag first.
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He began to bark.
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Deep thinking Ichnobates, his Cretan hunting dog,
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spied him next.
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They set off in hot pursuit,
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followed by Dorceus, Pamphagus, Oribasus,
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Nebrophonus who was strong as a wild boar,
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Pterelas the swiftest in the pack,
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Agre with the keenest nose,
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Nape whose mother was a wolf,
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lanky Ladon and black Harpalus with a white star on his forehead.
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All of Actaeon's dogs,
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too many to name,
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chased the mighty stag.
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Like a furious wind they pursued him.
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Actaeon’s friends,
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woken by the hubbub,
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leapt to their feet.
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‘One last kill to end the day.
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Come on! Let’s follow the dogs.
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Where’s Actaeon?
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Actaeon! Actaeon!’
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Actaeon heard them calling for him as if he were not there.
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He could hear his own dogs close behind him.
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He tried to shout,
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‘I am your master.
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Don’t you know me?’
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But no words came.
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He ran, leaping and bounding,
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and they followed him sweeping over rocks and crags,
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over cliffs and through thickets.
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The air echoed with barking.
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It was Melanchaetes who was the first to fasten his teeth into his master’s back.
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Then Theridamas and Harpalus clung to his shoulder.
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Actaeon staggered and then the whole pack was on him,
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sinking their teeth into his body until there was no place left for tearing.
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And behind the dogs his friends’ voices:
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‘Actaeon, where are you?
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Come and look at this.
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Such a mighty stag!’
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They shouted for him as if he were absent.
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He turned his antlered head at the sound of his name.
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He fell to his knees.
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His head swayed.
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The woods that had echoed to the sound of his happy hunting now echoed to the grunts and groans of his dying.
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Every dog’s mouth was filled with his hair and muscle until at last his life was torn from his bones.
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The great stag shuddered and died,
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and only then did the anger of Artemis,
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the bright huntress, goddess of the chase,
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grow still and find peace.