"It is all one," said Atta."But I crave a boon.Let me fight my last fight by your side.I am of older stock than you, and a king in my own country.I would strike my last blow among kings."There was an hour of respite before battle was joined, and Atta spent it by the edge of the sea.He had been given arms, and in girding himself for the fight he had found Apollo's offering in his breastfold.He was done with the gods of the Hellenes.His offering should go to the gods of his own people.So, calling upon Poseidon, he flung the little gold cup far out to sea.It flashed in the sunlight, and then sank in the soft green tides so noiselessly that it seemed as if the hand of the Sea-god had been stretched to take it."Hail, Poseidon!" the Lemnian cried."I am bound this day for the Ferryman.To you only I make prayer, and to the little Hermes of Larisa.Be kind to my kin when they travel the sea, and keep them islanders and seafarers for ever.
Hail and farewell, God of my own folk!"
Then, while the little waves lapped on the white sand, Atta made a song.He was thinking of the homestead far up in the green downs, looking over to the snows of Samothrace.At this hour in the morning there would be a tinkle of sheep-bells as the flocks went down to the low pastures.Cool wind would be blowing, and the noise of the surf below the cliffs would come faint to the ear.In the hall the maids mould be spinning, while their dark-haired mistress would be casting swift glances to the doorway, lest it might be filled any moment by the form of her returning lord.Outside in the chequered sunlight of the orchard the child would be playing with his nurse, crooning in childish syllables the chanty his father had taught him.And at the thought of his home a great passion welled up in Atta's heart.
It was not regret, but joy and pride and aching love.In his antique island creed the death he was awaiting was not other than a bridal.He was dying for the things he loved, and by his death they would be blessed eternally.He would not have long to wait before bright eyes came to greet him in the House of Shadows.
So Atta made the Song of Atta, and sang it then, and later in the press of battle.It was a simple song, like the lays of seafarers.It put into rough verse the thought which cheers the heart of all adventurers--nay, which makes adventure possible for those who have much to leave.It spoke of the shining pathway of the sea which is the Great Uniter.A man may lie dead in Pontus or beyond the Pillars of Herakles, but if he dies on the shore there is nothing between him and his fatherland.It spoke of a battle all the long dark night in a strange place--a place of marshes and black cliffs and shadowy terrors.
"In the dawn the sweet light comes," said the song, "and the salt winds and the tides will bear me home..."When in the evening the Persians took toll of the dead, they found one man who puzzled them.He lay among the tall Lacedaemonians on the very lip of the sea, and around him were swathes of their countrymen.It looked as if he had been fighting his way to the water, and had been overtaken by death as his feet reached the edge.Nowhere in the pass did the dead lie so thick, and yet he was no Hellene.He was torn like a deer that the dogs have worried, but the little left of his garments and his features spoke of Eastern race.The survivors could tell nothing except that he had fought like a god and had been singing all the while.
The matter came to the ear of the Great King who was sore enough at the issue of the day.That one of his men had performed feats of valeur beyond the Hellenes was a pleasant tale to tell.And so his captains reported it.Accordingly when the fleet from Artemision arrived next morning, and all but a few score Persians were shovelled into holes, that the Hellenes might seem to have been conquered by a lesser force, Atta's body was laid out with pomp in the midst of the Lacedaemonians.And the seamen rubbed their eyes and thanked their strange gods that one man of the East had been found to match those terrible warriors whose name was a nightmare.Further, the Great King gave orders that the body of Atta should be embalmed and carried with the army, and that his name and kin should be sought out and duly honoured.
This latter was a task too hard for the staff, and no more was heard of it till months later, when the King, in full flight after Salamis, bethought him of the one man who had not played him false.Finding that his lieutenants had nothing to tell him, he eased five of them of their heads.
As it happened, the deed was not quite forgotten.An islander, a Lesbian and a cautious man, had fought at Therrnopylae in the Persian ranks, and had heard Atta's singing and seen how he fell.
Long afterwards some errand took this man to Lemnos, and in the evening, speaking with the Elders, he told his tale and repeated something of the song.There was that in the words which gave the Lemnians a clue, the mention, I think, of the olive-wood Hermes and the snows of Samothrace.So Atta came to great honour among his own people, and his memory and his words were handed down to the generations.The song became a favourite island lay, and for centuries throughout the Aegean seafaring men sang it when they turned their prows to wild seas.Nay, it travelled farther, for you will find part of it stolen by Euripides and put in a chorus of the Andromache.There are echoes of it in some of the epigrams of the Anthology; and, though the old days have gone, the simple fisher-folk still sing snatches in their barbarous dialect.The Klephts used to make a catch of it at night round their fires in the hills, and only the other day Imet a man in Scyros who had collected a dozen variants, and was publishing them in a dull book on island folklore.
In the centuries which followed the great fight, the sea fell away from the roots of the cliffs and left a mile of marshland.
About fifty years ago a peasant, digging in a rice-field, found the cup which Atta bad given to Poseidon.There was much talk about the discovery, and scholars debated hotly about its origin.
