The Daughters of Cecrops
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It is a plausible conjecture that the three archaic statues of women
discovered in the soil of the Acropolis, near the Erechtheum, represent
Aglaurus, Ersé and Pandrosus, daughters of Cecrops, the serpent
king of mythical Athens. They are in the archaic style of Greek art
before the Persian war, and may well have been buried when, at the
command of the Delphian Oracle, the Athenians deserted their city, sought
their ‘wooden walls’ and defeated Xerxes at Salamis.
‘Go forth, go forth,’ the Pythia said,
‘Vex me no more, but flee afar
The fire, the sword, the death, the dread,
That sweep behind the Syrian car.
Lo! blood drips from the temple wall,
The end is nigh, the end of all!’
The voice from Delphi boded woe;
The sacred serpent did forsake
His ancient haunts, and would forgo
The proffer of the honey-cake;
While, men's hearts failing them for fear,
They watched the death of Greece draw near.
The Great King's will—an eastern wind—
Black storms of men before him drave
Cloud upon cloud, with clouds behind,
And every soul of them a slave,
And one hope moving one and all—
To see the last free people fall!
Then ere the warriors took the sea
Men did conceal their holy things,
Their ancient gods that had been free,
And might not brook the breath of kings;
And statues three they buried thus—
Aglaurus, Ersé, Pandrosus.
The daughters of the Serpent King
They laid them by Erechtheus' shrine,
In mother-earth; and sorrowing
Betook them to their walls of pine,
And fought at Salamis, and freed
Their land, their gods, and smote the Mede.
Perchance at Salamis they fell,
The men who knew the secret spot
Where Cecrops' marble daughters dwell,
Forsaken and remembered not.
Howe'er it chanced, in earth they lay
Unknown, unworshipped till to-day.
And twice a thousand years have sped,
And Greece, that was enslaved, is free;
Though her old fanes are fallen—fled
The goddess of the Ægidæ;
But these three marble maidens dwell
Unharmed, beside Athênê's well!
As new arisen they stand to-day,
Fresh from the hand of Canochus;
The re-arisen Hellas may
Defy the lapse of ages thus;
In time's despite serenely fair,
A marvel in Athenian air!
The laurel of the god of old
Was proof against the thunderstroke.
On laurel'd Hellas Persia rolled
In thunder, and in spray she broke;
Even so this present tyranny
Must break, and leave serener sky!
