ARISTAEUS - VIRGIL'S GEORGICS (BOOK IV)

Aristaeus was devastated, utterly devastated and in total despair. Those little, loveable creatures, his bees, had died in the course of a few days. Each one had stopped to flutter it’s little wings and had dropped onto the earth. With each of the corpses, he had noticed one thing, a red thread: symptoms. Symptoms of a lethal disease.

Though...something did not add up. Aristaeus had made sure that no disease nor any other threat could reach his bees, which was one of his beekeeping duties, of course. Even after the death of those creatures, he couldn’t find any indications of the cause of the sickness. In an act of pure desperation and needless to say with a tear streaked face, puffy clear green eyes, tousled blond hair and an aching heart, he sought out his mother. She, a magnificent nymph, had cradled his face and offered comfort wherever she could, yet there was no salvation to his weary soul.

Later, Aristaeus heard from the water god Proteus that his hardships were caused by nymphs at the demand of Orpheus, who lived in a cycle of vindictiveness towards Aristaeus after his lover, Eurydice’s, passing.

Oh, Eurydice...

Now, he remembered. He hadn’t been able to help himself at the time. He swore to the gods that he never meant to harm her, but she had been so beautiful, so magnificent, so...alluring. He had chased her down the banks of the clear river, just wanting to comfort her and tell her he didn’t mean any harm. But the girl had kept running, determined to get away from him. In her haste, she hadn’t noticed the snake in the high grass, which was guarding its eggs.

It happened oh, so quick: her foot made contact with the snake, it shot up, bit into her ankle and released as the venom travelled from her ankle to her heart and brain, numbing everything it passed. Eurydice dropped to the ground and her eyes rolled back into her skull, the color draining from her face.

Aristaeus froze when he became aware that he couldn’t do anything for her, he kissed her cold forehead, a silent farewell and apology, and left silently as cold tears ran down his cheeks with silent sobs, like a teenage girl not wanting to be heard crying. He sulked for days, weeks even. He was left alone. No person to love nor his bees to take care of and keep him busy. Soon, stories started to get told about Orpheus. Aristaaus had heard that Orpheus had tried to get Eurydice back by travelling to the underworld, yet he failed, because of his own concern for her. As Orpheus roamed alone, singing melancholic tunes for his beloved Eurydice, he encountered Maenads. The wild women were jealous of his loyalty to Eurydice, which lead the man to his unfortunate ending, ripped apart in a field and his head left tumbling in a river.

Now, on the banks of the same river where Aristaeus hadn't been able to restrain his curiousity for Euridyce and had initiated the chain reaction of misery, lay Aristaeus. His blond hair fell across his forehead and was spread out like a halo on the grass. He had closed his eyes and the shadows of the trees and his actions moved across him, inch by inch.

Atleast they are united again, Aristaeus thought in melancholy.