Dio Chrysostom, A Libyan Myth 1

To develop a Libyan myth⁠ and to fritter away one's industry upon such a subject is not a promising undertaking—indeed not, since these themes do not incline the most able men to imitation. 

Nevertheless, we must not refrain because of their contempt from dallying with such themes. For perhaps we ourselves should derive no small benefit if the myth in some way were given the right turn and became a parable of the real and the true. 

Now when one employs his powers to such an end, he suggests to me the farmer's treatment of plant life, when it is success­ful. Sometimes by grafting cultivated and fruit-bearing scions on wild and barren stocks and making them grow there, he changes a useless and unprofitable plant into a useful and profitable one. 

And in just the same way, when some useful and edifying moral is engrafted on an unprofitable legend, the latter is saved from being a mere idle tale. Perhaps, too, those who composed these tales in the first place composed them for some such purpose, using allegory and metaphor for such as had the power to interpret them aright. 

So much by way of prelude to my ode, as someone has said. It still remains to recite and sing the ode itself, that is, the myth which tells to what we may best liken the human passions. 

Once upon a time, so runs the story, there was a dangerous and savage species of animal whose main haunt was in the uninhabited regions of Libya. For that country even to this day seems to produce all sorts of living creatures, reptiles as well as other kinds. 

Now among them was the species with which this story has to deal. It had a body that, in general, was a composite thing of the most incongruous parts, an utter monstrosity, and it used to roam as far as the Mediterranean and the Syrtis in search of food. For it hunted both the beasts of prey such as the lion and the panther, even as those hunt the deer and the wild asses and the sheep, but took the most delight in catching men; and this is why it used to come near the settlements even as far as the Syrtis. 

The Syrtis is an arm of the Mediterranean extending far inland, a three days' voyage, they say, for a boat unhindered in its course. But those who have once sailed into it find egress impossible; for shoals, crosscurrents, and long sand bars extending a great distance out make the sea utterly impassable or troublesome. For the bed of the sea in these parts is not clean, but as the bottom is porous and sandy it lets the sea seep in, there being no solidity to it. 

This, I presume, explains the existence there of the great sandbars and dunes, which remind one of the similar condition created inland by the winds, though here, of course, it is due to the surf. The surrounding country is very much the same—a lonely stretch  of sandy dunes. However that may be, if shipwrecked mariners came inland or any Libyans were compelled to pass through or lost their way, the beasts would make their appearance and seize them. 

The general character and appearance of their body were as follow: the face was that of a woman, a brief woman. The breast and bosom, and the neck, too, were extremely beautiful, the like of which no mortal maid or bride in the bloom of youth could claim, nor sculptor or painter will ever be able to reproduce. The complexion was of dazzling brightness, the glance of the eyes aroused affection and yearning in the souls of all that beheld. 

The rest of the body was hard and protected by scales, and all the lower part was snake, ending in the snake's baleful head. Now the story does not say that these animals were winged like the sphinxes—nor that they, like them, spoke or made any sound whatever except a hissing noise such as dragons make, very shrill—but that they were the swiftest of all land creatures, so that no one could ever escape them. 

And while they overcame other creatures by force, they used guile with man, giving them a glimpse of their bosom and breasts and at the same time they infatuated their victims by fixing their eyes upon them, and filled them with a passionate desire for intercourse. 

Then the men would approach them as they might women, while they on their part stood quite motionless, often dropping their eyes in the manner of a decorous woman. But as soon as a man came within reach they seized him in their grasp; for they had clawlike hands too, which they had kept concealed at first. 

Then the serpent would promptly sting and kill him with his poison; and the dead body was devoured by the serpent and the rest of the beast together. 

IMAGE: Isobel Lilian Gload, The Kiss of the Enchantress (c. 1890)