Of all types of young ladies' education, there is nothing so
splendid as that of the younger daughters of Pandareos. They have
literally the four greatest goddesses for their governesses. Athena
teaches them domestic accomplishments, how to weave, and sew, and the
like; Artemis teaches them to hold themselves up straight; Hera, how to
behave proudly and oppressively to company; and Aphrodite, delightful
governess, feeds them with cakes and honey all day long. All goes well,
until just the time when they are going to be brought out; then there is
a great dispute whom they are to marry, and in the midst of it they are
carried off by the Harpies, given by them to be slaves to the Furies, and
never seen more. But of course there is nothing in Greek myths; and one
never heard of such things as vain desires, and empty hopes, and clouded
passions, defiling and snatching away the souls of maidens, in a London
season.
I have no time to trace for you any more harpy legends, though they are
full of the most curious interest; but I may confirm for you my
interpretation of this one, and prove its importance in the Greek mind,
by noting that Polygnotus painted these maidens, in his great religious
series of paintings at Delphi, crowned with flowers, and playing at dice;
and that Penelope remembers them in her last fit of despair, just before
the return of Ulysses, and prays bitterly that she may be snatched away
at once into nothingness by the Harpies, like Pandareos' daughters,
rather than be tormented longer by her deferred hope, and anguish of
disappointed love.
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