Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Philemon and Baucis, or Hospitality Rewarded

In the hills of eastern Phrygia, in Asia Minor, an oak and a linden grow side by side, their branches touching. It is a simple, rural setting, far from any glittering palaces or soaring citadels. Peasant farmers scratch out their livings here, wholly dependent on the clemency of Demeter for the ripening of their crops and the fattening of their pigs. The soil is not rich and it is always a struggle for the people to fill their barns with enough provender to last them through the winter months, when Demeter languishes and mourns the absence from the upper world of her bright daughter Persephone. That oak tree and the lime tree, unimpressive as they seem when compared to the grand poplar groves and elegant cypress avenues that line the highways connecting Athens and Thebes, are nonetheless the holiest trees in the Mediterranean world. The wise and the virtuous make pilgrimage to them and hang votive gifts in their branches.

Many years ago a settlement had grown up in the valley below. It was somewhere between a town and village in size. It called itself, with that hopeful desperation that always marks out the naming of failed settlements, Eumeneia which means ‘the place of the good months’ – in the forlorn expectation perhaps that Demeter would bless the barren soil of the place and provide bountiful harvests. She rarely did.

At the centre of the agora, the main square, there stood a large temple of Demeter, opposite to one of almost equal size dedicated to Hephaestus (for the people needed their forges and workshops blessed). Around the town could be seen many votive shrines to Hestia and Dionysus. The sparse vineyards that straggled up the hillsides were as carefully tended as any of the olive trees or fields of corn. Life was hard, but the men and women here found much solace in the sour wine of their region.

At the top of a winding lane leading out of the town, in a small stone cottage, lived an old couple called PHILEMON and BAUCIS. They had been married since they were very young and now in their old age they loved each other as deeply as ever, with a quiet unwavering intensity that amused their neighbours. They were poorer than most, their fields were the meanest and most barren in all of Eumeneia, but they had never been heard to complain. Every day Baucis milked their one goat, hoed, stitched, washed and mended, while Philemon sowed, planted, dug and scratched at the earth behind their cottage. In the late afternoons they gathered wild mushrooms, collected firewood or simply walked the hills, hand in hand, talking of this and that or content to be silent companions. If there was enough food to make a supper they would eat, otherwise they would go to bed hungry and fall asleep in each other’s arms. Their three children had long since moved out and were bringing up their own families far away. They never visited and no one else was likely to knock on their door. Until one fateful afternoon.

Philemon had just returned from the fields and was sitting down in preparation for his monthly haircut. There was very little these days to crown his bald old head, but this was a monthly ritual that gave them both pleasure. The loud rat-a-tat-tat on their door almost caused Baucis to drop the razor she had been sharpening. They looked at one another in great surprise, each unable to remember the last time anyone had come calling.

Two strangers stood on the threshold, a bearded man and his younger, smooth-faced companion. His son perhaps.

‘Hello,’ said Philemon. ‘How may we help you?’

The younger man smiled and removed his hat, a strange round cap with a shallow brim. ‘Good afternoon sir,’ he said. ‘We are a pair of hungry travellers, new to this part of the world. I wonder if we might trespass upon your good nature …’

‘Come in, come in!’ said Baucis, bustling up behind her husband. ‘It’s chilly to be out at this time of year. We are higher up than the rest of the town you know and feel the cold a little more. Philemon, why don’t you scare up the fire so that our guests might warm themselves?’

‘Of course, my love, of course. Where are my manners?’ Philemon stooped down and blew into the hearth, awakening the embers.

‘Let me take your cloaks,’ said Baucis. ‘Have a seat, sir, by the fire. And you, sir, I beg.’

‘That is most kind,’ said the older of the two. ‘My name is Astrapos, and this is my son Arguros.’

The younger man bowed at the mention of his name with something of a flourish and seated himself beside the fire. ‘We are very thirsty,’ he said, with a loud yawn.

‘You must have something to drink,’ said Baucis. ‘Husband, you fetch the wine jug and I shall bring dried figs and pine nuts. I hope you gentlemen will consent to dine with us. We can’t offer rich fare, but you would be most welcome.’

‘Don’t mind if we do,’ said Arguros.

‘Let me take your hat and staff …’

‘No, no. They stay with me.’ The young man pulled the staff close to him. It was of a most curious design. Was it a vine that was carved all around it, Baucis wondered? He was twisting it so deftly that the whole thing seemed alive.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Philemon coming forward with a jug of wine, ‘that you may find our local wine a little thin and perhaps a little … sharp. People from neighbouring regions mock us for it, but I assure you that once you are used to the taste it can be really quite drinkable. We think so at least.’

‘Not bad,’ said Arguros after a sip. ‘How did you get the cat to sit on the jug?’

‘Ignore him,’ said Astrapos. ‘He thinks he’s amusing.’

‘Well, I have to admit that was rather funny,’ said Baucis, approaching with fruit and nuts on a wooden plate. ‘I hate to think, young sir, what you’re going to say about the appearance of my dried figs.’

‘You’re wearing a blouse so I can’t see them. But the preserved fruit on this plate looks pleasant enough.’

‘Sir!’ Baucis slapped him playfully and went very pink. What a strange young man.

The slight awkwardness that usually attends the drink and nibbles phase of an evening was quickly mellowed by the cheek and cheerfulness of Arguros and the ready laughter of their hosts. Astrapos seemed to be of a gloomier disposition, and as they went to the table Philemon put a hand on his shoulder.

‘I hope you will forgive the inquisitiveness of a foolish old man, sir,’ he said, ‘but you seem a little distracted. Is there anything we can help you with?’

‘Oh, ignore him. He’s always down in the dumps,’ said Arguros. ‘That’s where he gets his clothes from, haha! But, in truth, there’s nothing wrong with him that a good meal won’t put right.’

Baucis met Philemon’s eyes for a brief instant. There was so little in the larder. A side of salted bacon that they had been saving for the midwinter feast, some preserved fruit and black bread, half a cabbage. They knew they would go hungry for a week if they fed so much as half the appetites of two such hearty men. But hospitality was a sacred thing and the needs of guests must always come first.

‘Another glass of that wine wouldn’t hurt,’ said Arguros.

‘Oh dear,’ said Philemon, looking at the jug, ‘I fear that there isn’t any more …’

‘Nonsense,’ said Arguros snatching it away, ‘plenty left.’ He filled his cup and then Astrapos’s too.

‘How strange,’ said Philemon. ‘I could have sworn the pitcher was only a quarter full.’

‘Where are your cups?’ asked Arguros.

‘Oh please, we don’t need any …’

‘Nonsense,’ Arguros leaned back in his chair and reached for two wooden beakers on the side-table behind him. ‘Now then … Let’s have a toast.’

Philemon and Baucis were amazed, not only that there was enough wine in the pitcher to fill their beakers to the brim, but that its quality was so much better than either of them remembered. In fact, unless they were dreaming, it was the most delicious wine they had ever tasted.

In something of a daze, Baucis wiped the table down with mint leaves.

‘Darling,’ Philemon whispered in her ear, ‘that goose that we were going to sacrifice to Hestia next month. It’s surely more important to feed our guests. Hestia will understand.’

Baucis agreed. ‘I’ll go out and wring its neck. See if you can get the fire hot enough to give it a fine roasting.’

The goose, however, would not be caught. No matter how carefully Baucis waited and pounced, it leapt honking from her grasp every time. She returned to the cottage in a state of agitated disappointment.

‘Gentlemen I am so very sorry,’ she said, and there were tears in her eyes. ‘I’m afraid your meal will be crude and disagreeable.’

‘Tush, lady,’ said Arguros, pouring more wine for everyone. ‘I’ve never partaken of a finer feast.’

‘Sir!’

‘It’s true. Tell them, father.’

Astrapos gave a grim smile. ‘We have been turned away from every house in Eumeneia. Some of the townspeople swore at us. Some spat at us. Some threw stones at us. Some set dogs on us. Yours was the last house we tried and you have shown us nothing but kindness and a spirit of xenia that I was beginning to fear was vanished from the world.’

‘Sir,’ said Baucis, feeling for Philemon’s hand under the table and squeezing it. ‘We can only apologize for the behaviour of our neighbours. Life is hard and they have not always been brought up to venerate the laws of hospitality as they should.’

‘There is no need to make excuses for them. I am angry,’ said Astrapos, and as he spoke a rumble of thunder could be heard.

Baucis looked across into the eyes of Astrapos and saw something that frightened her.

Arguros laughed. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘My father is not angry with you. He is pleased with you.’

‘Leave the cottage and climb the hill,’ said Astrapos, rising. ‘Do not look back. Whatever happens do not look back. You have earned your reward and your neighbours have earned their punishment.’

Philemon and Baucis stood, holding hands. They knew now that their visitors were something more than ordinary travellers.

‘There is no need to bow,’ said Arguros.

His father pointed to the door. ‘To the top of the hill.’

‘Remember,’ Arguros called after them, ‘no looking back.’

Hand in hand Philemon and Baucis walked up the hill.

‘You know who that young man was?’ said Philemon.

‘Hermes,’ said Baucis. ‘When he opened the door to let us go, I saw the snakes twined around his staff. They were alive!’

‘Then the man he called his father was … must have been …’

‘Zeus!’

‘Oh my goodness!’ Philemon paused on the hillside to catch his breath. ‘It’s getting so dark, my love. The sound of the thunder is getting closer. I wonder if …’

‘No darling, we mustn’t look back. We mustn’t.’

Disgusted by the hostility and shameless violations of the laws of hospitality shown to him by the townspeople of Eumeneia, Zeus had decided to do for this community what he had done back in the time of Deucalion and the Great Flood. The clouds gathered into a dense mass at his command, lightning flashed, thunder boomed and the rain began to fall.

By the time the elderly couple struggled to the top of the hill, torrents of water were gushing past them.

‘We can’t just stand here in the rain with our backs to the town,’ said Baucis.

‘I’ll look if you will.’

‘I love you Philemon, my husband.’

‘I love you Baucis, my wife.’

They turned and looked down. They were just in time to see the great flood inundating Eumeneia before Philemon was turned into an oak tree and Baucis into a linden.

For hundreds of years the two trees stood side by side, symbols of eternal love and humble kindness, their intertwining branches hung with the tokens left by admiring pilgrims.fn1