The San Francisco call., 1897-03-10

Icarus, told by Ovid in such sweet Latin. The
day, and the exiled Roman, sent in his exile
to one OF the Egean Isles, simply framed the
picture with golden edge that has given to
IT most OF It's value. It is not always wise to
undervaiue the ancient poets just because
they were heather. In the story of D8d alus
and his son Icarus (who took the place of q
murdered nephew whose talents eclipsed those
OF the SOM is concealed moral as high valued
and deep as that of any of the proverbs Of
Solomon.
The story of Icarus is SO identined with
Crete that one can look to no other place for
assoclat ions with the most inspired OF an
uque sculptors, Sarpedon-ne who later
lowered amid the field" in the Trojan war
had been driven by his brother Mines from
Crete, and Minos took the throne. D8dalus
sought him, and Minos told him to build the
labyrinth, and Dedalus built it. Whereupon
hangs the story OF Theseus and Ariadne-Ihe
built the labyrinth, and in its deadly passages
the Athenian youths and maidens were pent
up to be devoured by the monster Minotaur,
until Iheseus, the hero, guided by the silkenn
thread OF Ariadne, the king daughter, secured
the cew to the labyrinthfne mysteries, and
Arladne was carried off in triumph by the hero
as a reward.
To Crete we must go for the tabled river
Lethe, draught from the swest-tasting waters
OF which drowned all sorrow and gave ''seep
eternal in an eternal night" In Crete 1t was
that ina the sirens lived, or say rather it was on
songs that lured the mariner to his destruc-
ton. Thus will Homer tell you how Ulysses
stopped the ears of his sailors with wax and
ordered his men to bind him to the mast lest,
perforce OF the song, he would order his
ships to steer toward the rocks and. lose all.
Today you may see the very pool in which
ahe sirens bathedjand the very rocks upon
wnlch many good ship, as good ships went
IN those days, was dashed to pieces. 1t Is
suda Bay, as said in these 'thin-taced times
OF ours" and Cape Malaxa, with Akrotirion
looking up in the distance There Is no coast
scenery, not even the sub-tropical latitudes of
our own Pacific, that can compare with the
Wlldness OF Crete. 1t was from Suda-perhaps
before the bay and rocks had such a modern
name-that the Teutons drew their beautiful
fable of Loreli.
You have read Homer. You know how
Agamemnon went with his great feet to Troy
10 "aVenge private wrong" You are IA
mlilar with the story of that splendid epic
and the part the immortal gods played in it.
Greece seems to be predominant in that best
OF poems. But when the truth is known, the
part OF Greece is merely secondary. 1t was
Crete that led the war on Troy. When Helen
plunged the Achaians into that memora BILE
struggle Icomeneus was the sovereign OF the
Island. He espoused the cause of the Greeks
Tor were not the Greeks and the Cretans Of one
blood land led his navy to the front.
r, more than eighty good ships were sent from
the kingdom-to Troy. bearing the flower and
prime OF the free manhood OF the rugged
Island. ldomeneus himself Wac present and
was 10 small part of that famous strife Re-
member that this is not fable, but history. For
these were comparatively recent times and
the successor of the immortal Minos was sim
ply helping his first cousins, the Greeks. At
the close of the Trojan war Icomeneus re-
turned to the kingdom only to find that it had
forgotten his greatness. Homer tells US that
at that time in Crete the people were COM
posed of the Achaei the Dorians and the Pc
lasgi. These people rose up and drove the
king from his domains. But this is somewhat
modern for Crete.
To Crete we must go for oil that is left of
nj ty r. fs hot htryx lnlo
can be traced the history of man better than
traditional history-may go awry now and
then. but langu age never. There is nothing
SO plastic as language. Words expressive OF
things, change with all change They are
modified by the lightest breath OF custom are
swerved by the merest suspicion Of conquest !;
suffer In their character by the contiguity of
trade and lose themselves in the meshes of
changing civilization as do the roots of re-
ligion, dress and table manners
If this be so-and who can doubt Tito
Crete we must go for all that's original, for all
that is left of the old Greeks. Modern Greek,
as 1t is spoken in Athens. is not Greek at all.
The perfect Greek scholar walks around him
in the waste and wilderness of words for q
dialects OF Homer are dead The Aeolic, the
men-if we except Crete. In that blessed
island alone are to be found the remains of
the language OF Pythagoras, Plato. Socrates
and Aristotle. In the hills OF Sphakia, or
Sfakia (as the English spell iU there remains
the last trace OF the old language of the gods
and the Greeks. And it is here only, in all
the world, that this language can be heard.