#The Re4al Treasure

[msclaritea]

The Story of Agra

A real treasure

Chapter Text

 "But I love you," Hephaestus said sadly to Aphrodite.    "You must be joking," she responded, waving her hand aside. "Surely you can't expect me to love you. You're so hideous I can barely tolerate looking at you, much less touching you. Besides, why would I go through the labor and agony of childbirth for you? Any child of yours would be a deformed little monster." Aphrodite fluffed her hair as she turned her back to him and continued buffing her nails. Weeks had passed since his rejection, but still Hephaestus sat alone and embarrassed, and his forge was silent. "Poor Hephaestus," Zeus said. "His heart is broken. What be sure that the design properly reflects the sun and moon, for day or night she must look stately and wise as well as beautiful." He thought of nothing but Athena and, as his design took form, so did his love for her. What can we do to help?" "He needs to work," Athena said. "I'll ask him to design new armor and weapons for me. That should cheer him up." She went to Hephaestus and asked him and soon he was absorbed in his new project.     "I don't need love," Hephaestus thought. "I have all the satisfaction I need in my work, after all, no one anywhere in the universe is as talented as me." He set to work to design the perfect armor. "I must be inspired to design Athena's armor," he thought, "for she is perfect and anything that touches her must also be perfect." He thought about Athena, daydreaming about how she might appear on the battlefield.  He pounded gold into a wrist protector that looked more like an intricate decorative bracelet than the battle gear it really was. He held it up and turned it over in his hands. "This is very nice," he said proudly. "Athena will be impressed. Oh, how she will love me when she sees it. I'll adorn her with fabulous treasures that I alone can create, and her love for me will grow with every gift I give her for surely she will understand that there is no one else in the universe like me. We'll have marvelous children together, for they will be beautiful and wise like her and inventive and artistic like me. Ah," he sighed, "this is surely what must be." He was jarred from his daydream as the door opened and Athena walked in. "How is my armor progressing?" she asked. "Can I try it on?" Hephaestus heard nothing that she said. Instead, the lame and ugly artisan, unable to control himself, attacked her with a flurry of kisses. "What's wrong with you? Stop that right now!" she commanded, but he didn't listen. "Get away from me!" she screamed, as she pushed him away.

The more he was rebuffed, the more excited he became until, in his excitement, he tore off his clothes. That stimulated him so much that his semen spurted out, hitting Athena on the thigh.

"Oh, no!" she yelled in disgust as she wiped her leg with a leaf and threw it on the ground. Kicking dirt over the leaf, she stepped back; then the patch of ground trembled and a crack appeared.

Hephaestus and Athena, on opposite sides of the shivering mound, stood frozen with curiosity as they watched a child's head break through the surface of the earth. Soon, like a little plant, a tiny body slithered snakelike through the fissure and into the open air.

The child twisted his neck and looked up into the eyes of his parents. He had Athena's alert blue gray eyes, but he also had a deformed spine and legs that were even more snakelike than his father's. Athena and Hephaestus stopped their fussing and looked with pity on the poor child.

"Don't feel sorry for me,"

he said. "

I'm a miracle. I have my mother's wisdom and my father's creativity. The world will be a better place because I am here,"

the child said confidently.

Athena gently picked him up and cradled him close to her heart, while a warm tear ran down her cheek as she held his face next to hers.

"I'll name you Erichthonius,"

she whispered to him,

"and I will give you the gift of immortality."

The parents immediately began to prepare their baby's gift. Hephaestus designed and constructed a magnificent golden chest. It was intricately carved and inlaid with emeralds, amethysts, rubies, sapphires and diamonds in a design of the tree of life. Then Athena took some wool from her father's nurses' magical goat and spun the soft hair into a wonderful blanket. She wrapped her baby in it and placed him in Hephaestus' golden trunk.

"Now I must find someone to care for my baby,"

Athena said. After finding something wrong with everyone she thought of, she finally chose the three daughters of another son of Hephaestus, the king of Athens.

King Cecrops and his three daughters, Pandrosos, Herse and Aglauros, were waiting when Athena arrived. Pandrosos stood next to her father and they listened carefully as Athena said, "

This chest is the most important thing in the world to me. Keep it safe from harm but promise that you will never open it."

Pandrosos and King Cecrops nodded in agreement, but Herse and Aglauros paid attention only to the beautiful trunk.

"What could it be that's so important to have such a lovely box?"

Aglauros whispered to her sister.

Pandrosos carefully picked up the chest and took it to her room to hide it safely, but her sisters were not so obedient.

They sneaked behind her and watched as she hid the chest. The sisters waited until the next day when Pandrosos was gone.

Then, checking that no one was looking, they let themselves into her room and pulled off the cloth that hid the golden chest. The magical chest sparkled in the sunlight, its jewels casting a rainbow of light against the wall. Any one of the jewels was larger than anything they had ever seen,

but all the jewels together were overwhelming. They ran their fingers across the sides, toying with the emeralds and rubies as their fingertips touched the gems.

The branches of the jewel encrusted tree of life seemed move across the box, as if it were blowing in a gentle wind. "This is the most magnificent box I've ever seen," Aglauros said. "Whatever is inside must be very valuable. Pandrosos is gone. Let's take a look." "I don't know if we should," Herse said nervously. "Athena said, 'Do not open that box!' I think we should obey her." "No. Athena told Pandrosos and Father never to open it," Aglauros said. "She didn't ask us." Herse smiled, then nodded in agreement. They each grasped a corner of the trunk and raised its lid.

  Inside a baby was wrapped in a blanket and a snake coiled around him. The girls screamed and the snake darted out of the chest, biting Aglauros first, and then her sister. Within seconds the poisonous venom drove them both mad and they saw themselves jumping off the Acropolis while Athena screamed, "

you are driven mad by your curiosity and lack of principles. Fools; to most want what you are denied."

Then the girls lost consciousness.

When Pandrosos returned to her room, she saw the open empty chest between the dead bodies of her sisters. Athena had already taken Erichthonius and she never again entrusted his care to anyone else. There are several versions to this myth, but the main one used has the sisters falling to their deaths into the sea.

 The sister Aglauros is also referred to as AGRALOS, from Attica.

SIGN

"Bartholomew is a clever fellow," said he. "How do you think he found out where the treasure was? He had come to the conclusion that it was somewhere indoors: so he worked out all the cubic space of the house, and made measurements everywhere, so that not one inch should be unaccounted for. Among other things, he found that the height of the building was seventy-four feet, but on adding together the heights of all the separate rooms, and making every allowance for the space between, which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring the total to more than seventy feet. There were four feet unaccounted for. These could only be at the top of the building. He knocked a hole, therefore, in the lath-and-plaster ceiling of the highest room, and there, sure enough, he came upon another little garret above it, which had been sealed up and was known to no one."

Garret, "a top-floor or attic room".

 In the second half, Faust takes the embodiment of Plutus, and meets an interesting boy in a chariot.

The Boy-Charioteer who drives Faust is the personified spirit of poetry, a selfless source of beauty and inspiration.

The main sources of imagery in this scene, fire and gold, refer to the dangerous elements within and beneath society,

both of which can equally be used for good and evil.

"A golden evening..a house on fire"

Faust

See what hitherward is tending! Lo! a four-yoked chariot splendid Through the crowd its way has wended, Yet the crowd it does not sunder; I can see no crushing yonder. In the distance colours shimmer, Stars gay-coloured beam and flimmer, Magic-lantern-like they glimmer. All storm on as to assault. Clear the way! I shudder!

Boy Charioteer. Halt! Steeds, let now your wings fall idle, Feel the well-accustomed bridle; Master self as you I master; When I thrill you, on! and faster! Let us honour now these spaces! Look around at all the faces; More and more admirers cluster. Herald, up! Take wonted muster! Ere we flee, tell thou our stories, Name us and describe and show us; For we all are allegories, Therefore thou shouldst surely know us.

Herald. There's no name I could ascribe thee, But I rather might describe thee. Boy Charioteer. Try it then!

Herald. I must avow, Firstly, young and fair art thou. A half-grown boy thou art; but women rather Would see thee full-grown altogether. It seems that thou wilt be a fickle wooer, Right from the start a real in-doer.

Boy Charioteer. That's well worth hearing! On with thee, Discover now the riddle's happy key.

Herald. Thy flashing ebony eyes, locks black and glowing, More radiant from the jewelled diadem! And what a graceful robe doth stream From shoulder down to buskin flowing, With glittering gaud and purple hem! Now might we flouting "Maiden!" deem thee, Yet, good or ill as it might be, Already maidens would esteem thee. They'd teach thee soon thine A B C.

Boy Charioteer. And yonder one, in splendour glowing, Who proudly sits on chariot throne?

Herald. A king he seems, of wealth o'erflowing; Happy the man who has his favour won! He has naught more to earn and capture, He swift espies where aught's amiss, And has in giving more pure rapture Than in possessing and in bliss.

Boy Charioteer. To stop with this will not avail; Thou must describe him in far more detail. Herald. There's no describing Dignity. The healthy, full-moon face I see, The lips so full, the cheeks so blooming Beneath the turban's beauty looming, The flowing robe he's richly wearing- What shall I say of such a bearing? He seems a ruler known to me.  

Boy Charioteer. Plutus, the god of wealth, is he. Hither he comes in gorgeous trim; Sorely the Emperor longs for him. Herald. Now thine own What and How relate to me!

Boy Charioteer. I am Profusion, I am Poesy! The poet who's attained his goal When he's poured out his inmost soul. I too am rich with untold pelf And value me the peer of Plutus' self, Adorn, enliven, make his revels glow; And what he lacks, that I bestow.

Herald. Bragging becomes thee charmingly, But now thine arts, pray, let us see.

Boy Charioteer. Here see me snap my fingers. Lo! Around the chariot gleam and glow! And now a necklace of pearls appears!

  The Boy to Plutus:

Didst thou not give me charge supreme Over the four-yoked, whirlwind team? Guide I not happily as thou leadest? Am I not everywhere thou biddest? And on bold pinions did I not for thee Bear off the palm of victory? However oft for thee as I've contended, Success was ever my portion; and when now The laurel decorates thy brow, Did not my hand and art entwine and blend it?  

Plutus. If need be that I testify, then hear it! I say with joy: Thou art spirit of my spirit! Thy deeds are ever after my own will; Rich as I am, thou art richer still. Thy service to reward in fitting measure, The laurel more than all my crowns I treasure. This truth in all men's hearts I would instill: In thee, dear son, I have much pleasure.

Boy Charioteer [to the crowd]. The greatest gifts my hand deals out, Lo! I have scattered roundabout. On this head and on that one too There glows a flamelet that I threw. From one to other head it skips, To this one cleaves, from that one slips; It seldom flares up like a plume, And swiftly beams in transient bloom. Ere many its worth recognize, It burns out mournfully and dies.

Even at an early age, Erichthonius was clever and creative, and he had a cheery disposition despite his disability.

His only concern was that his lack of mobility limited him.    He went to his father's workshop and, for weeks, watched as Hephaestus used his tools and worked the forge crafting item after magnificent item. "Your work is beautiful," he said to Hephaestus. "How did you learn to make all these marvelous things?"   "I learned by doing," the god said. "The more you try, the more you can do. You must always be willing to try something new, and never be afraid of making a mistake. Learning what doesn't work is as important as learning what does work." Hephaestus spoke while he deftly formed a bezel around a huge black pearl. The silver setting glowed, showing off the silver-gray pearl to perfection. "Start with something small and simple. Then build up in complexity as your skills grow with you." "I have a project already in mind," Erichthonius said to his father. "May I try it?" "Of course," was his response. "What is it?" Erichthonius smiled, "I can't tell you. It's a secret." So he set to work on his project without even telling his father.  He scrutinized every detail and, before very long, he had built a beautiful cart with two high wheels on the outside and with a long yoke between them. Then Erichthonius purchased four huge gray stallions. He tied them to the yoke and then sat upon the bench in the bronze cart. "I'm calling this a chariot," he proudly told his father. Holding the reins loosely, he slapped them against his stallion's backs and then headed for Earth, where he practiced handling his new vehicle upon the bumpy roads to Athens. 

The Boy Charioteer, the treasured child from the bejeweled chest. In early Greek culture, the snake was an earthly symbol; 'From The Earth' or 'Earthly'. He is an aspect of Faust; his more human, poetic, side; perhaps how he wished to be, just as how Dorian saw Basil, who immortalized him in a portrait...or Watson, who immortalized Holmes?