The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-01-23
The Story of the CentaurS.

The fable Of the Centaurs is II fable
of the highlands. Their haunts were
among the businesses of the Thessalian
and Arcadian mountains. Arcadia.
however, was not their earliest home
their earliest home was Thessaly, where
they ranged the forests of Mount
Pelion, and from thence as far as Ossa
and the gorge of Tempe. along the
great eastern ridge which shuts out the
plain of the Enipeus from the sea.
That inland plain was from time imme-
mortal the great horse breeding dis.
trict of the Greek world, and it was
natural that, together with many an
other sacred and heroic legend If the
race, this legend of the man-horse
should spring up among the mountains
which fenced 1T round about. The
prOdigious nature of the creatures was
accounted for by the prodigious cir
cumstances of their birth. They were
the children or grandchildren of the
murderer 1xion, who, when the Gods
had granted him publication, incur-
rightly repaid their clemency by seek
ing to do violence to the queen of the
gods, Here. Here, so ran the story,
substituted for herself cloud in her
own likeness (Nephele); and from the
embrace of Ixion and the cloud was
descended the monstrous progeny of
the Centaurs. With the exception OF
Cheiron, who was II different charac
ter and parentage, the Centaurs passed
with the Greeks rs the very types OF
easonless lust and impulse. Hsmer
calls them 'beasts" as opposed to men
shaggy beasts of the mountain;
Pindar, "a portentious tribe the At
tic tragedians. Il 'fonr-legged outrage
BUSINESS, "a "twy formed, invisible, bes
tial cavalry, outrageous. lawless, over
bearing in strength" Their weapons
are huge stones and pine branches
their occupation, the hunting of hares
foxes, bears, and deer; their diet; raw
flesh; the taste or even the smell OF
wine makes them ungovernable. Now
and again they come swooping down
from their forest glades and precipices
for war or foray among the haunts OF
men. There one celebrated wal fale
was tha5 which they waged to their own
ndoing against the Lapiths, a race OF
rough and tough Thessalian heroes
resented as settled in the same noun
famous region beneath the slopes of Os-
sa and Othrys. The king OF the La
piths was Peirithoos, and this Peiri-
thoos was the son of Ixion and his wife
Dia, or us some said, Of Dia not by her
husband Ixion, but by mighter father,
the god Zeus. The Centaurs and La.
piths, then, were a kind of cousins
they had already been at strife about
the Inheritance of their common pro
jenitor Ixion, AND had come to terms
concerning that strife, when it hap
pened that the Lapith king, Peirithoos
took to himself bride, Hippodameia-
variously named also Deidameia or La.
odameia : and invited the Centaurs tc
the wedding feast. To the same teas,
was also bidden the Attic hero Thcseus
the friend and companion-in-arms OF
Peithoos. Milk was at first set before
the savage guests, and for while all
went we'll; but when wine was opened
they swept away the milk from tie
board, and seized the silver drinking
horns, and in Il trice the wine played
wildiirc IL their veins. One OF them,
Eurytion, was the first to go mad with
brute desire; he fell upon and seized
the bride; following him all the rest OF
the tribe give way to the same frenzy,
and break up the feast, and seize each
upon a youth or maiden among the
marriage guests. The Lapith heroes
leap 10 the rescue, with Theseus
foremost in the fray beside his friend
the tables are overturned, and the
chargers and wine jars snatched up for
weapons, and death is dealt among the
crashing of axes. and brands, and
stakes, Of wrought stones wrenched
from tlIesh Did and Intel. nay, of the
sacrilcial affairs themselves, which the
combatants tear up and hurl at each
other in the medley. All day long
RACES the fight, and according to some
accounts for many days thereafter, till
at last human valor prevails over brute
feroc:ts. Theseus avenges his friend
ana Stays the ravisher Eurytion, and
the brayest OF the Centaurs perish in
like manner by other hands, though
no, before they have wrought sore hay.
oc among their enemies. Cornhiil
Maya,Dte.