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CASTOR AND POLLUX
Castor and Pollux were the offspring of Leda and the Swan, under
which disguise Jupiter had concealed himself. Leda gave birth to
an egg from which sprang the twins. Helen, so famous afterwards as
the cause of the Trojan war, was their sister.
When Theseus and his friend Pirithous had carried off Helen from
Sparta, the youthful heroes Castor and Pollux, with their
followers, hastened to her rescue. Theseus was absent from Attica
and the brothers were successful in recovering their sister.
Castor was famous for taming and managing horses, and Pollux for
skill in boxing. They were united by the warmest affection and
inseparable in all their enterprises. They accompanied the
Argonautic expedition. During the voyage a storm arose, and
Orpheus prayed to the Samothracian gods, and played on his harp,
whereupon the storm ceased and stars appeared on the heads of the
brothers. From this incident, Castor and Pollux came afterwards to
be considered the patron deities of seamen and voyagers, and the
lambent flames, which in certain states of the atmosphere play
round the sails and masts of vessels, were called by their names.
After the Argonautic expedition, we find Castor and Pollux engaged
in a war with Idas and Lynceus. Castor was slain, and Pollux,
inconsolable for the loss of his brother, besought Jupiter to be
permitted to give his own life as a ransom for him. Jupiter so far
consented as to allow the two brothers to enjoy the boon of life
alternately, passing one day under the earth and the next in the
heavenly abodes. According to another form of the story, Jupiter
rewarded the attachment of the brothers by placing them among the
stars as Gemini the Twins.
They received divine honors under the name of Dioscuri (sons of
Jove). They were believed to have appeared occasionally in later
times, taking part with one side or the other, in hard-fought
fields, and were said on such occasions to be mounted on
magnificent white steeds. Thus in the early history of Rome they
are said to have assisted the Romans at the battle of Lake
Regillus, and after the victory a temple was erected in their
honor on the spot where they appeared.
Macaulay, in his "Lays of Ancient Rome," thus alludes to the
legend:
"So like they were, no mortal
Might one from other know;
White as snow their armor was,
Their steeds were white as snow.
Never on earthly anvil
Did such rare armor gleam,
And never did such gallant steeds
Drink of an earthly stream.
"Back comes the chief in triumph
Who in the hour of fight
Hath seen the great Twin Brethren
In harness on his right.
Safe comes the ship to haven,
Through billows and through gales.
If once the great Twin Brethren
Sit shining on the sails."
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