BOUGHT WITH THB>-,lNCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND The gift of Henrg m. Sage i89r _B^!^n.aL.nQ 2_&1-m..v^3l^. ..:. j£puaJ2fiU JR H ' i 1965 W -^ CornePI University Library PA 3622.A2A65 1893 Greek poets in English verse. giish verse. 3 1924 026 456 693 FA 1?93 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026456693 GREEK POETS IN ENGLISH VERSE BY Various Translators EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY WILLIAM HYDE APPLETON Professor of Greek in Swarthniore College BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1893 A. 4-7^7' Copyright, 1893, By WILLIAM HYDE APPLETON. All rights reserved. I ' IIMI III ) I I , ,, , - [ CORNELL\ UIVIVLRSITY' tIBRARY The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. xiB PREFACE. The editor has attempted in this work to do for Greek poetry, through the medium of translations, what has been so often done for English poetry, that is, to give to the reader, within the compass of a single volume, some idea of its wealth, and at the same time to stimulate and guide him to further and more thorough reading. The study of the Greek language would seem to be coming more and more to be the study of the few. But a knowledge of Greek history, Greek art, Greek literature, thought, and feeling, is the concern of everybody. Foi-tu- nately, these things are not the monopoly of Greek scholars. The English language now contains much excellent translation from the Greek, both prose and poetry, scattered, however, through a multitude of volumes. With the additional aid of the histories of Greek literature, the many critical essays upon Greek subjects, together with such works as the series of " Ancient Classics for English Readers," it has become quite possible to pursue a Greek course in English. Indeed, there would seem to be no rea- iv PREFACE. son why our higher schools and colleges should not give, in the English language, courses in the study of Greek and Latin literatures to their non-clas- sical students. Mr. Eichard G. Moulton, of Eng- land, who has had large experience in this matter of teaching ancient literature in translation, has shown in America, as in England, how attractive these themes may be made to large audiences of persons not supposed to be acquainted with the works in the original. The present work may be considered as a contribution in this direction. Its contents must speak in its behalf and furnish the reason for its being. It is hoped that to those little ac- quainted with the subject the book will at least reveal somewhat of the astonishing wealth of Greek poetry in spite of all its loss, — a poetry as rich " As is the ooze and bottom of the sea With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries." Tliis very richness of material has made the task of selection one of no little difficulty. It is hoped that the passages given will be found to be fairly repre- sentative of the great ages and phases of Greek poetry. Still the editor regrets the absence of much which he would have been glad to introduce were greater space at his command. He fears, too, that as no book of selections can meet exactly the tastes and wishes of all, some one of his readers may miss the very thing that he hopes to find. PREFACE. V In the case of Homer the choice of translators has been particularly embarrassing. The vexed question of Homeric translation cannot be discussed in this place, but it is safe to say that no version has yet met all demands. Nor shall we ever have a finality in this matter, though Homer will not cease to be translated while the world shall stand ; for the lovers of his poetry must still puzzle over the haunting problem. Under the circumstances it has seemed best to the editor not to confine himself to the recognition of any single translator as supreme in merit. For the Iliad two passages have been given from Chapman on account of his position in literature as an Elizabethan classic. But, if the truth must be told, his is the last translation in the world to be recommended to the general reader. The reason is apparent. Chapman is hard read- ing. Every page has vigorous phrasing and pas- sages of a sweet poetic charm, but at the same time, we can read scarcely a dozen lines consecutively without being brought up suddenly by some obscur- ity of the sense through his quaintness, indirectness, or looseness of construction. It is too much to ask of readers of translation that they should stop every few minutes to puzzle over the meaning of what they are reading. Pope, however inadequate from the point of view of the scholar, is in style vigorous and brilliant, and has the important merit demanded vi PREFACE. in a translation — that of being readable. With this feeling the selections from the Iliad have been made chiefly from him, while passages have also been given from the blank verse translations of Cowper and Bryant. For the Odyssey the editor has drawn largely from Worsley's beautiful version in Spenserian stanzas. Some passages have also been given in the spirited ballad measures of Maginn — his efforts in this direction being an interesting experiment and cleverly executed, but sufficiently convincing that the ballad manner is not the manner of Homer. As for that dream of scholars and poets alike, — a successful rendering of Homer into English in the original dactylic hexameters, — it seems little likely of realization ; though here and there great success has been attained with single passages, as in Dr. Hawtrey's " Helen on the Walls of Troy," and in Mr. E. C. Stedman's " Death of Agamemnon," both given in this volume. The plan of the work excluded prose versions, but it is nevertheless the feeling of the editor that it is through these that the non-classical reader must gain his nearest approach to Homer. The beauti- ful versions of the Odyssey by Messrs. Butcher and Lang in England and Professor G. H. Palmer in America are instances of marvelous success in close prose translation. PREFACE. vil It remains for the editor — while recognizing his obligation to the great translators of the past — to acknowledge particularly his indebtedness to the many English scholars of the " living present " whose names appear in these pages. To the Amer- ican translators, Mrs. Lilla Cabot Perry, Professor William C. Lawton, and Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, the thanks of the editor are also due for permission to use translations from their published works. W. H. A. SwABTHMOBE COLLEGE, March, 1893. CONTENTS. PAGE Intboduction xvii HOMER. Iliad The Quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon . . 3 Helen on the Walls of Troy 22 The Advance of the Two Armies into the Battle 23 The Parting of Hector and Andromache . . 24 The Trojan Camp at Night 30 Achilles refuses the Gifts of Agamemnon . . 31 The Valor of the Ajaces. Sarpedon and Glaucns Si The Dead Sarpedon borne by Sleep and Death to his Native Lycia 38 Achilles' Horses weep for Patroelus ... 40 The Return of AeMUes to the War .... 42 The Death of Hector 48 Priam begs from Achilles the Body of his Son Hector 60 Odyssey Penelope and the Minstrel 65 Helen at the Banquet 68 Hermes arrives at Calypso's Grotto ... 72 The Palace and Gardens of King Alcinoiis . . 73 The Lotus-Eaters 76 Circe and the Companions of Ulysses ... 77 The Story of Agamemnon's Death ... 81 The Punishment of Tantalus and Sisyphus . 86 The Daughters of Pandarus 87 The Slaying of the Suitors 88 Ulysses tells his Story to Penelope ... 94 HOMERIC HYMNS. To Hermes 98 To Minerva .106 X CONTENTS. HESIOD. Thbogony The Muses 107 Aphrodite born from the Foam of the Sea . . 108 The Wokks and Days Pandora and her Casket 109 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. Calldsus Exhortation to Battle ... . . 112 Tykt^tjs Martial Elegy 113 Archilochus Equanimity 114 Alcman Nature's Calm 115 MlMlTERMUS Youth and Age 115 Alc^us Winter 116 Imitation of Alc£eus 116 Sappho Ode to a LoTed One 117 Hymn to Aphrodite 118 To Evening 119 The Maiden in Love 119 To One who loved not Poetry . . . 119 The Moon .120 Death 120 Song of the Rose 120 Eeinna Epitaph on her friend, Baucis .... 121 Theogots Song 121 Enjoy the Present 122 Education 122 Jove's Ways 123 Resignation ....;. . 123 Rash, Angry Words 124 The Poet's Duty 124 CONTENTS. xi SlMONIDES OF CeOS Danae and her Babe adrift 124 Marathon X25 Thermopylae 125 Epitaph for Spartans 126 Baochyudes Praise of Pea«e 126 CAIiLISTBATTJS Patriotic Song 127 Htbrias the Cretan Soldier's Song 127 Anontmotjs Swallow's Song 128 It it only were Eight 129 Drink from my Cup 129 Vanity of Life 129 The Best Gifts 130 Ode to Health 130 PINDAR. Second OiiTMPiAN Ode For Theron, King of Agrigentnm . . . 131 FotJKTH Olympian Ode For Psaumis, of Camarina • 134 FiHST Pythian Ode Power of Music 135 Fifth Isthmian Ode Visit of Hercules to Telamon 137 Fragments An Eclipse of the Sun 138 Happiness of the Departed 139 .ESCHYLUS. Agamemnon The Watchman at Argos 140 The Sacrifice of Iphigenia 141 The Beacon Fires 144 The Woe wrought by Helen 146 Sufferings of the Greeks during the Trojan War 149 Agamemnon's Return 150 The Murder of Agamemnon 159 CONTENTS. Choephori The Chorus mourn the Fate of Agamemnon The Eumeotdes Song of the Furies The Seven against Thebes Lament for the Two Brothers . PBOMETHEnS Prometheus bound to the Kock Benefits conferred on Man by Prometheus The Chorus moralizes upon the Fate of lo . Prometheus utters his Last Words . The Persians The Battle of Salamis SOPHOCLES. (Edipus the King Prayer for DeUverance from the Pestilence The Holiness of Law .... The BHnd Qjjdipus and his Children Chorus moralizes on the Fate of CEdipus (Edipus at Colonus The Arrival at the Sacred Grove Praise of Colonus . Long Life not to be desired Antigone No Kespite from Divine Wrath Power of Love .... Antigone goes to her Death . Ajax Lament for the Affliction of Ajax Farewell of Ajax to his Comrades Last Words of Ajax . Electra The Chariot Race ... Fragments Strange that the Godless prosper A Fair Euboean Shore . Prosperity Uncertain EURIPIDES. Alobstis Farewell to Alcestis 165 168 169 170 176 179 180 181 183 186 188 189 190 196 199 200 202 203 204 206 208 209 210 211 211 212 CONTENTS. xiii The Hospitable House of Admetus . . . 213 The Strength of Fate 214 Medea Warning from the Evil Fortune of Medea . . 216 HiPPOLYTOS Hippolytoa with his Huntsmen singing to Artemis 218 Chorus, celebrating the Power of Love . . . 219 Hecuba Song of the Captive Trojau Maiden . . . 221 The Sacrifice of Polyxena 222 A Trojan Wife narrates the FaU of Troy . . 225 Helena Helen's Return to Greece 227 Obestes Electra and Orestes 229 Iphigenia at Aulis The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis . . . .239 Hebotoes Fubbns Youth and Age 241 Ion Ion and the Birds 243 Tboades Cassandra's Wild Marriage-Song .... 244 Bacch^ Chorus of Bacchanals 246 Cyclops Chorus of Satyrs, driving their Goats . . . 248 Love Song 249 Fbagments Children in the House 249 Retribution 250 High Birth 250 Noble Blood 250 The Nobly Born 250 A Brave Man's Fatherland 250 ARISTOPHANES. The Bibds In Bird-Land 251 Chorus of Birds ... ... 261 The Fbogs Bacchus and the Frogs 263 Chorus of the " Initiated " 269 XIV CONTENTS. The Clouds Song of the Clouds 270 THEOCRITUS. Idyls ACarvenCnp 272 The Cyclops in Love 274 The Syracusan Gossips 278 The Distaff 286 BION. Idyls Lament for Adonis 288 The Teacher taught 293 MOSCHUS. Idyls The Stray Cupid 295 Death the End 296 Sea and Shore 296 Love's Lesson 297 The Craft of a Keeper of Sheep .... 297 APOLLONIUS EHODIUS. Aegonautica Medea at Night 298 MUS^US. Hebo and Leandee The First Interview 300 Leander promises to swim the Hellespont . . 301 THE ANTHOLOGY. ^SOP Life 302 Agathias Vintage Song 302 " Leave a Kiss but in the Cup " . . . . 303 Antipatee Lament over Corinth 304 Antipatee of Sidon Sappho 304 To Anacreon 305 CONTENTS. XV ASOLEPIADDS To Hesiod 306 Callimachus To Heraelitus 306 Crates Old Age 306 Ion To Euripides 307 JDIJAN0S Antecessor Stay in Town 307 Julian op Egypt On Democritus 308 MeI/EAGER Spring .... .... 308 To Heliodora 308 LovQ at the Door 309 O Gentle Ships 309 To HeUodora 310 Metbodokus Life a Boon 311 Nossis Love 311 Paliadas , Enjoy the Present 312 PadX THB SlLENTLART Farewell 312 An Unknown Grave 312 Philemon The Upright Character 313 Philip of Thbssalonica To Homer 313 Plato 'Neath this Tall Pine 313 To Stella 314 To Stella 314 Love Asleep 314 POSIDIPPUS Life a Bane 315 EUFINUS Golden Eyes 315 SiMMiAs OP Thebes The Tomb of Sophocles 316 xvi CONTENTS. To Amyntor 316 ToProte 317 Anonymous To Themistooles 317 The Spirit of Plato 317 Plato's Soul .... ... 318 After many a Dusty Mile ...... 318 The Maid at the Web .... .318 Response of the Pythian Priestess . . . 319 Anacreontics TheDoTe . . .... 319 The Wounded Cupid 321 The Grasshopper . .... 321 Cupid Benighted . 322 Love's Arrows . 324 Cupid a Prisoner . 325 Enjoy the Present ... 325 On Himself 325 TheSwaUow .326 PROCLUS. Hymns To the Muses 328 Notes 331 Index of Titles 355 Index of Translators 359 INTEODUCTION. OuB debt to the Greeks in art, in literature, in philosophy, has been universally recognized. Great as is our obligation in the realm of art, it is as great in that of literature. Some notion of what we owe to Greek poetry may be formed if we can imagine ourselves suddenly deprived of it, were such an ap- palling calamity possible ; still more, if we can im- agine that ancient song never to have been sung, and its inspiration and stimulus never to have wrought their mighty magic in the new literature of Europe that arose with the Renaissance. We might indeed curiously inquire what, in that event, would be our poetical treasure to-day, but the speculation would be altogether idle. We may accept the fact of obli- gation with gratitude and wonder. In the presence of the great masters of Greek poetry all eulogy is vain. There is simply no satisfying estimate to be made of their surpassing merit. Nor is there any final analysis that can lay bare the germ or pro- cess from which sprang such flower-like perfection. There is no art to tell us how the work may again be done. The wrath of Achilles, the wanderings of Ulysses, the woes of the house of Thebes, and the tragedy of the house of Mycenae still hold us under the spell of their tremendous power, but they can xviii INTRODUCTION. never be told again. The Greeks created ; they imitated none nor can they be imitated, for the secret of their art lies " deeper than ever plummet sounded." The great lines of poetical development were in the Epic, the Lyric, and the Drama. When we come to consider the earliest poetry of the Greeks, the Epic, we are confronted at once by the " Homeric Question," that spectre which it would seem will never down. But the question of the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey need not concern us here. Interesting as it is in some ways, and leading in- cidentally to some profitable results, it is, never- theless, as far as its solution is concerned, like the wandering wood of Errour in which Una and the Knight went so woefully astray, or like those speculations of Milton's fallen angels who "found no end in wandering mazes lost." But our failure to solve the mystery of their origin need not dis- turb our enjoyment of the poems. Whoever the author, whatever the process of their construction, here are the two great Epics, consistent, harmoni- ous wholes — different in kind, but equal in charm. The Iliad is not, as might seem from its name, the story of Ilium ; that is, it does not tell the entire story of the Trojan War. It narrates but an episode, occurring in the tenth year of the long struggle, and at the close of the poem Troy is stUl untaken. Still the poet has managed to give us scenes which might be called representative — such as might have occurred at any time during the war, and he has made us as well acquainted with its great INTROD UCTWN. xix heroes, Achilles, Ulysses, Hector, and the rest, as if we had followed them during the long period sup- posed to have passed before the opening of the poem. The poet states as his theme the wrath of Achilles and its disastrous results. What is his first picture ? We see an aged priest of Apollo drawing near the camp of the Greeks. In his hand he carries a gilded stafE bearing the soft woolly chaplet that marks his holy office. He comes from Chrysa, the little neighboring town which the Greeks have sacked, and seeks to ransom his daughter, who has become the prize of Agamemnon. He is rudely repulsed, and as he returns along the shore of the loud resounding sea he raises a prayer for ven- geance to the god whom he serves. Then Apollo sends his darts of pestilence among the Greeks. Agamemnon is humbled and returns the girl, but to recompense himself takes away Bi-iseis from Achil- les. That haughty warrior yields to his superior lord, but announces his purpose to enter the field no more until his wrongs are atoned for. And now the Greeks may see how they will fare in battle without their foremost champion. The poet goes on to tell how they fought for two long days ; how at the end of the second day, trembling on the verge of ruin, they send a night embassy to Achilles, im- ploring his return ; how he refuses, and they enter upon a third day of fighting ; how the Trojans push on in victory to the very beach, and are already calling for torches to fire the ships of the Greeks ; how Achilles then, to save the fleet from utter de- struction, gives his armor to his friend Patroclus to XX INTROD VCTION. wear in his stead ; how the Trojans flee in terror, supposing that Achilles has really returned to the battle ; how Patroclus is finally slain by Hector, and how the anguish of Achilles for his friend and his wild hunger for revenge accomplish what nothing else could do, and bring him again to the battle ; how he slays Hector and is appeased once more. Such is the bare outline of the poem. But this is not Homer, any more than canvas, brush, or paint is the picture. This is, however, the story which the poet has wrought into fadeless beauty, the story upon which he has lavished a world of wealth in character, situation, incident, or episode, all trans- figured in the light of divinest poetry. Apollo de- scending to earth in the blackness of his wrath ; the bright^eyed goddess staying the half-drawn sword of Achilles in the council of the kings ; sweet-voiced Nestor pouring forth the story of his youthful prow- ess ; Chryses praying to the archer-god ; Olympus trembling with the nod of Zeus ; Ulysses staying the runaway Greeks in their race to their ships ; the assembled host, reverent before the priest, offer- ing their perfect hecatombs to the immortals ; Helen on the walls of Troy, entrancing the elders of the city with her divine beauty ; Agamemnon sorrow- ing over the wounded Menelaus ; the Greeks, with measured tread and silent as one man, marching into battle ; Athena arming herself in her fringed segis whereon sat plumed Terror, Strife, Valor, and the dire Gorgon head ; Hector laying off his helmet with its nodding crest to caress his frightened child ; the thunderbolt falling before the terrified horses INTRODUCTION. xxi of Diomed ; Achilles sitting at the door of his tent, delighting his soul with the harp and song, and starting up to receive the envoys of Agamemnon ; Hector with the Trojans hoarding the ships of the Greeks ; Sleep and Death bearing the dead Sarpe- don to his native Lycia ; the fight over the body of Patroclus; the Trojan host panic-stricken at the shout of Achilles from the trench ; Achilles warned by the voice of his horse Xanthus ; the descent of the gods to battle ; Achilles' fearful struggle with the river ; the death of Hector ; Priam kissing the hand that had slain his son ; — these are Homer. When we turn from the Iliad to the Odyssey, we pass into a different world. And what a world of infinite variety and beauty ! The Iliad echoes with the din of war. The Odyssey is a story of adven- ture, full of the wild and thrilling, but not want- ing in sweet pictures of idyllic charm. The poet takes us into the wonderland of the early world. At the Phseacian court we hear Ulysses, the wan- derer, tell a story more marvelous. than that which Othello poured into the listening ear of Desde- mona : — " Of antres vast aud deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven ; And of the cannibals that each other eat, The anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders." We yield ourselves in imagination to the delight- ful charm. We creep with the timid voyagers over unknown seas where the rosy-fingered dawn ever reveals some new surprise ; we linger with the Lotus- xxil INTROD UCTION. eaters ; we escape the Cyclops, and the Lsestrygo- nians, and the charms of Circe ; we pass the Sirens' isle, with its " Magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn ; " we escape the perils of Scylla and Charybdis ; tarry a whole month in the island of the Sun, and when the foolish mariners slay the sacred oxen of " the god that travels above," we gaze upon the awful prodigies that ensued: "The skins were creeping and the flesh bellowing upon the spits, both the roast and the raw, and there was a sound as of the voice of kine." The curse follows the impious men, and they set sail again only to be swallowed up in the storm, Ulysses alone coming safe to Calypso's isle. Released eventually by Calypso, the hero comes to the last stage of his wanderings — to the land of the Phaeacians. And here the creative fancy of the poet wins its greatest triumph. What happy land is this, ruled over by the gracious king Alcinous, like an immortal, while his lady wife and queen " sits by the hearth, in the light of the fire, weav- ing yarn of sea-purple stain, a wonder to behold ! " There, too, is their daughter, the peerless maiden Nausicaa. In their palace there is a brightness as of the sun and moon through the high-roofed halls. In their garden " the fruit never faileth winter or summer, enduring all the year through. Pear upon pear waxes old, and apple upon apple — yea, and cluster ripens upon cluster of the grape, and fig upon fig." Who are these mysterious people who INTRODUCTION. xxiii have naught to do with other men, who are near of kin to the gods, and whom the gods often visit, feasting at the board with them, seated by their side ? Who are these luxurious sailors, " who care not for bow nor quiver, but only for mast and oar ; whose ships have no pilots nor rudders, but them- selves understand the thoughts and intents of the men, and traverse the great gulf of the sea, ever shrouded in mist and cloud, and fearing no wreck nor ruin ? " We can give no answer ; nor is it needful. Must we rationalize every fiction of the poet ? The Phseacian realm lies not on earth. It is the poet's dream of a happy land. The Odyssey has the supreme excellence of ab- sorbing interest. The old story-teller rivets our gaze at the outset, and " holds us with his glittering eye," even as the wedding guest was held. From those strange opening scenes of the poem, where the lawless suitors throng the great hall of Ulysses in his absence, slaying and eating his " traUing-footed, crumpled-homed oxen," and paying their court to Penelope while the young Telemachus, her son, is unable to repel their insolence — all through the poem, amid the various adventures of the hero, until his final return, when the suitors are slain and the king is once more restored to his own, the Odyssey maintains its wondrous charm, the charm of the world's earliest and greatest story-book. The main themes of Greek Jragedy have been summed up by Milton : — " Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine." xxiv INTRODUCTION. The story of the Pelopidse may be read in the great trilogy of ^schylus. In the Agamemnon that hero returns to his home after his ten years' absence at Troy, but only to be slain. When the herald has announced his approach the Chorus break forth into their wild mysterious wail — a wail for the past, with dim bodings of calamity to come. Helen is the immediate cause : — " Who gave that war-wed, strife-upstirring one The name of Helen, ominous of ill ? For aU too plainly she Hath been to men and ships. And towers as doom of Hell. From bower of gorgeous curtains forth she sailed With breeze of Zephyr Titan-born and strong ; And hosts of many men. Hunters that bore the shield, Went on the track of those who steered their boat Unseen to leafy banks of Simoi's, On her account who came. Dire cause of strife with bloodshed in her train." But there are other causes. Prosperity brings pride, and pride goeth before destruction. The gods themselves are envious of men. Then, too, ancestral crimes are working out their own pun- ishment. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. And now the chariot of Agamemnon draws near. By his side is the pale, prophetic Cas- sandra. Then follow the lesser captives, the victo- rious soldiers with their trophies and all the train of the conqueror. The Chorus change their boding wail to the chant of welcome : — " Come then, king, thou son of Atreus, Waster of the towers of Troia, INTROD UCTION. xxv What of greeting and of homage Shall I give, nor overshooting, Nor due meed of honor missing ? " Clytemnestra now appears with words of hollow greeting, like another Lady Macbeth, when Duncan passes under her battlements : — " I hail my lord as watch-dog of the fold. The stay that saves the ship, of lofty roof Main column-prop, a father's only child, Land that beyond all hope the sailor sees. Morn of great hiightness following after storm, Clear-flowing fount to thirsty traveler." Then she bids her attendants strew before the king purple tapestries, as he steps down from the car of triumph. Let not the foot that hath trampled upon Ilium touch now the vulgar earth. But Agamem- non protests. " Honor me as a man, but not as a god," he cries. Doomed monarch ! He knows his danger ; but praise is sweet to hear, and he is over-~ ruled. Only he removes his sandals, as if to avert the curse, and with words of prayer — " As I tread Upon these rohes, sea-purpled, may no wrath From glance of gods smite on me from afar " — he passes to the chamber where death awaits him. But though the dark powers of doom have wrought the destruction of Agamemnon, his murderers must not escape. The second play of the trilogy, the ChoSphori (Libation Bearers), is a drama of retribu- tion. Here, as in the Agamemnon, we have the warning note struck at the very outset : — xxvi INTROD nCTION. ' ' Those who judge of dreams Told, calling God to witness, that the souls Below were wroth and vexed with those that slew them." Years have elapsed since the death of Agamemnon. Meantime in a distant land his son, Orestes, has grown to man's estate. He feels that a •work is laid upon him to perform. With Hamlet he might cry out: — " The time is out of joint : cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right ! " He returns to the home of his ancestors. His sis- ter, Electra, recognizes him, and together the two plan the deed of vengeance and deliverance, .^gis- thus is first slain. Clytemnestra hearing the tumult comes hurrying in : — " Cly. What means all this ? What cry is this thou mak'st ? Servant. I say the dead are killing one that lives. Cly. Ah me ! I see the drift of thy dark speech ; By guile we perish, as of old we slew ; Let some one hand at once axe strong to slay ; Let 's see if we are conquered or can conquer, For to that point of evil am I come. Enter Orestes and PrLADEs/rom the other door. Ores. 'T is thee I seek : he there has had enough. IPointing to the dead body of iEeiSTHus. Cly. Ah me ! my loved jEgisthus ! Art thou dead ? Ores. Lov'st thou the man ? Then in the self -same tomb Shalt thou now lie, nor in his death desert him. Cly. {baring her bosom). Hold, boy ! Respect this breast of mine, my son, Whence thou full oft, asleep, with toothless gums, Hast sucked the mUk that sweetly fed thy life. Ores. What shall I do, my Pylades ? Shall I Through this respect forbear to slay my mother ? INTROD UCTION. xxvii Pyl, Where, then, are Loxias' 1 other oracles, The Pythian counsels, and the fast-woven vows ? Have all men hostile rather than the gods. Ores. My judgment goes with thine ; thou speakest well. [To Clttemnestba. Follow : I mean to slay thee where he lies, For while he lived thou held'st him far above My father. Sleep thou with him in thy death, Since thou lov'st him, and whom thou should'st love hat'st." Orestes drags her from the stage. Her doom is sealed. The son must slay his mother ; so appalling are the intertangling fates that enmesh these men and women of the Grecian legend — scarce-respons- ible creatures, scions of ancestral houses, clothed in purple for their petty hour, but ever mere pieces in the game of the high gods above them ! Orestes returns to the scene. 'T is all in vain that he would clear himself from his awful crime, as acting under the command of Apollo. Alas ! a mother's blood cries for vengeance, and as the play closes the dread shapes of the Furies appear in the background : — "Dark-rohed, and all their tresses entwined With serpents." The wretched youth knows too well their meaning. He cries : — " These are no phantom terrors that I see. Full clear they are my mother's vengeful hounds." And he rushes forth to be a wanderer on the face of the earth, the " vengeful hounds " ever tracking his steps. ^ Apollo. xxvin INTRODUCTION. The third play of the great trilogy, the Eumen- ides, is the story of deliverance. The wretched Orestes has come in his wanderings to Delphi, to the shrine of Apollo, the god under whose authority he has acted, and to whom he must look for his re- demption. Together they repair to Athens, followed ever by the malignant Furies. Here, in the sacred seat of Athena herself, that goddess solemnly insti- tutes a tribunal for the trial of Orestes, — a tribunal to be revered, in all later ages, as the highest judi- cial authority, — the famous court of the Areopagus. Here the pleadings are heard, for and against Ores- tes, and the votes are equal for acquittal and con- demnation. But Athena now declares the merciful principle, to be recognized forever in Athenian law, that equality of votes shall mean acquittal. And so the curse is removed from Orestes, and he is once more a free man. The story of Mycense is ended. The story of the Labdacidae, the royal house of Thebes, is told by Sophocles in a triad of plays (not technically a " trilogy "). In the OEdipus Tyran- nus we see the king, OEdipus, at the height of his power. A pestilence is raging, and the people have seated themselves on the palace steps. With all confidence they call upon the king to deliver them now, as he had done aforetime, when he solved the riddle of the dreadful Sphinx. The king promises his aid. The oracle announces that the murderer of Laius must be cast forth. But where shall he be found ? That murder had always been wrapped in impenetrable mystery. CEdipus proclaims his pur- pose to hunt him out, and at the same time impre- INTROD UCTION. xxix cates upon him the most awful curses. He then adds : — " If in my house, I knowing it, he dwells — May every curse I spake on my head fall." Words of terrible significance, full of the awful "irony" of the Greek drama. For QCdipus, years before, had done a murder, not knowing his vic- tim, and the murdered man was Laius ! The search goes on ; the poor king is himself soon enmeshed in a web of evidence. Horrors on hoiTors accumulate, and the wretched monarch rushes forth from Thebes a homeless outcast. At the opening of the second play, the (Edipus at Colonus, some years have elapsed. No picture of more appealing beauty and tenderness could be imagined than the first scene. Milton must have had it in mind when he brings his Samson upon the stage, sightless and led by an attendant : — " A little further lend thy guiding hand, To these dark steps a' little further on." The blind old king has come in his wanderings to a suburb of Athens — to Colonus, the birthplace of Sophocles himself, radiant now and forever in the immortal beauty of the poet's caressing verse : — " All in hloom With laurel, olive, vine ; while nightingales, On crowding wing, sing sweet within the grove." And who is the guide of the blind old man ? It is Antigone, the daughter, dear, faithful, and true to the very last. Here it is that the oracle has told XXX INTROD UCTION. CEdipus that his woe-worn life shall find its end. Theseus, the king of Athens, comes out to meet him. The two kings enter the sacred grove together. Suddenly the sky darkens, the warning notes of the thunder begin to mutter, and CEdipus knows that his hour is at hand. Soon is heard from the depths the divine call, " CEdipus, CEdipus, why dost thou delay ? " And how he passed away not even Theseus, who was with him, could tell ; but the after legend could only say, " He was not; for God took him." In the Antigone, the third play of the series, we have the story of a sister's devotion to the memory of her brother — a devotion which with unflinching heroism meets death itself rather than fail in sis- terly duty. Antigone, as the heroine of the play, is the object of chief interest, from the very first scene, in which she appears in confidential conversa- tion with her sister Ismene, — ' ' Death's purpose flashing in her face," — and. discloses her resolution to perform the burial rites for her brother Polynices, whose body has been cast out by King Creon to be a prey to the dogs and vultures of the Theban plain, while death had been proclaimed as the punishment for him who should give it sepulture. She proceeds to carry out her purpose, unaided by Ismene, but is detected and dragged before Creon ; and then it is that she rises to a height of moral grandeur that is fairly sub- lime, in her appeal from the law of a mortal to that higher law, written not upon tables of stone, but in the eternal instincts of the human soul : — INTROD UCTION. xxxi " Creon. And thou didst dare to disobey these laws ! Antig. Yea, for it was not Zeus who gave them forth ; Nor Justice, dwelling with the gods below. Who traced these laws for all the sons of men. Nor did I deem thy edicts strong enough. That thou, a mortal man, shouldst overpass The unwritten laws of God that know not change. They are not of to-day nor yesterday. But live forever ; nor can man assign When first they sprang to being." But the penalty for breaking the law, Creon's law, is death ; and Antigone is dragged away to the cave that is to be her living tomb. It is the same Antigone that led her father to his restful death at Colonus. De Quincey, in a rapture at the impas- sioned beauty of her situation in connection . with her character, cries out : " Holy heathen — daughter of God, before God was known, flower from Para- dise after Paradise was closed ; that quitting all things for which flesh languishes, safety and honor, a palace and a home, didst make thyself a houseless pariah lest the poor pariah king, thy outcast father, should want a hand to lead him in his darkness, or a voice to whisper comfort in his misery ; angel that bad'st depart forever the glories of thy own bridal day lest he that had shared thy nursery in child- hood should want the honors of a funeral ; idola- trous yet Christian Lady that in the spirit of mar- tyrdom trod'st alone the yawning billows of the grave, flying from earthly hopes, lest everlasting despair should settle upon the grave of thy brother ! " And here, perhaps, we might think that the play xxxii INTROD UCTTON. should end; but the dramatist was not satisfied without bringing upon Creon, the wrong-doer, the consequences of his cruelty, obstinacy, and impiety. His son, Hsemon, who is betrothed to Antigone, forces his way into the cave and slays himself upon her prostrate form, she having already taken her own life rather than endure the agonies of a lin- gering death by starvation. And while the hor- ror-stricken king is yet bewailing his son, "one woe doth tread upon another's heels," a messenger brings to him the tidings that his wife, too, in despair for the loss of her child, has dealt herseK the stroke of death. Perhaps it is inartistic, as Mr. Symonds suggests, that Sophocles should thus, at the very close of the play, divert our attention and sympathy from Anti- gone, the innocent and martyred heroine, to Creon, the cause of all the suffering. But certain it is that we find our hearts softening for the monarch amid the overwhelming wreck of all his happiness. We feel that he, too, must soon follow the others ; for there is nothing now left for him to live for, in this heritage of woe that has come upon him. In the bitterness of his soul he cries out : — " Lead me, ye guards, Lead me forth quickly ; lead me out of sight, And come thou, then, come thou, The last of all my dooms, that brings to me Best boon, my life's last day. All near at hand Is turned to evil ; and upon my head There falls a doom far worse than I can bear." INTRODUCTION. xxxiii Between Euripides and his compeers, ^schylus and Sophocles, there seems to be a great gulf fixed. With one hand he keeps fast hold' on a world which is passing away ; with the other he is reaching for- ward to the far-off feelings, emotions, and expe- rience of a world that is to come. Grandeur is the characteristic of the shows and forms that fill the swelling scene of iEschylus. We are moving among gods and heroes. All of his personages seem idealized and lifted to a higher plane than that of the actualities of human life. Thus in the Prometheus the scene is indeed upon earth, but the personages are super-terrestrial, divine — Hephaes- tus and Hermes, Oceanus and the sea-nymphs, the Titan sufferer himself — all save lo ; and she, though a mortal, is by her relations to Zeus lifted beyond the human pale. The scene itself lies in a region of no common tread. It is upon rugged cliffs where the sea beats — inaccessible to mortal foot. So Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and Cassandra, so the seven assailants of Thebes, and likewise its majestic defenders, are cast in no common mould. And even The Persians, though dealing with con- temporary history, is shown by De Quincey to be invested with the same ideal grandeur. As for Sophocles, no words can overstate his su- preme merit — that faultless beauty of his creations, that finish and perfection which the drama, rough- hewn by .Slschylus, seems to take beneath his form- ing hand. We read that Sophocles, when fifteen years old, was chosen for his beauty to lead the chorus of boys who sang the victory of Salamis. xxxiv INTROD UCTION. Did nature, that endowed him with beauty of per- son, endow him also beyond his generation with the love and perception of beauty ? Beauty is the sin- gle word to characterize his dramatic excellence ; and with beauty we understand the Greek feeling for symmetry as well ; that sense of proportion and fitness which was so dear to them. In Sophocles is no excess — " nothing too much." He is a typ- ical Greek, and his work is typical of the blithe race with whom beauty was religion, whose words and works are ever proclaiming as their final utterance, — " Beauty is truth, truth beauty ; that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." But the characteristic of Euripides is surely the human touch. Here are still gods and heroes, but they are humanized. They are become like unto us. We are moving among men and women. In his knowledge of human nature Euripides is an an- ticipation of Shakespeare. In spite of his proverb- ial misogyny he has given us women of unsurpassed nobility. The " spretae injuria formse " transforms Medea into a fury, but in Alcestis he shows us " how divine a woman may become." Euripides has received hard treatment at the hands of his critics, from Aristophanes to Schlegel. The counts against him are many. He is too philosophical, too rhetorical. His people are too disputatious. There is too much striving for efiBect. True, all of it, to some extent ; but all this will count but little in the scale against him who was the poet of life and character, the poet of human nature : — INTROD nCTION. xxxv " Euripides the human, With his droppings of warm tears.'' Euripides is an interesting study in his special characteristics. He belongs to the romantic school, if we may be allowed a modern word, — a roman- tic poet before romanticism was formulated and named. He, too, seems breaking away from the classic ideals of his time. He will endure no tram- mels ; with him all is free and unrestricted — " wild above rule or art.'' A good idea of his manner of handling a theme may be obtained by comparing his Phoenissse with the Seven against Thebes of ^schylus where the two poets treat the same story. We may here see how Euripides elaborates and embellishes his mate- rial. The play of ^schylus is a grand poem cast in the dramatic form, — tragic in the highest degree, — the catastrophe being the death of the two brothers slain by each other's hand. It opens with the noble speech of Eteocles, the king, calling upon the citizens to support him in this hour of peril when the foe are at the very gates of the town. Then follows the great scene, occupying a third of the play, where the Theban scout makes his report of the condition of affairs outside the walls, and tells the names and devices of the seven Argive chieftains who are to lead the assault, each stationed at one of the seven gates. Eteocles no- thing daunted appoints, with splendid eulogy, his Theban champions to confront them — man against man. He reminds us of Macbeth in the hour of his extremity. His courage is superb. He cries : — xxxvi INTRODUCTION. ' ' Man hath no armor, -war hath no array At which this heart can tremble ; no deyioe Nor blazonry of battle can inflict The wounds they menace ; crests and clashing bells Without the spear are toothless." When the scout closes his enumeration with the name of Polynices, then, to the horror of the Cho- rus, Eteocles announces his purpose himself to con- front his brother : — " 'T is I will face this warrior : who can boast A right to equal mine ? Chief against chief. Foe against foe, and brother against brother ! What, ho ! my greaves, my spear, my armor proof Against the storm of stones ! My stand is chosen." He rushes to the field, and the play then hastens rapidly to its completion. The Chorus sing of the woes of the royal house, and then a messenger arrives, reporting the city saved, but the brothers slain by each other's hand. Then follows the clos- ing scene, which ^schylus seems to have treated with an eye to dramatic efEect. The funeral cor- tege enters, and when the bodies of the brothers are set down, the sisters, Antigone and Ismene, bewail their untimely death. A herald now makes pro- clamation that the body of Polynices shall be cast forth unburied. Whereupon Antigone announces her purpose to defy the law and perform the funeral rites. And so the play closes. The PhoenissBB is twice as long as the Seven against Thebes, but the main action is essentially the same, while the additional length results from the greater number of dramatis persouae intro- INTRODUCTION. xxxvii duced : Jocasta, Creon, Teiresias, Menoeceus, CEdi- pus, and Polynices not appearing at all in the " Seven." The play opens with the usual Euripi- dean prologue in which Jocasta, the mother of the king, tells us that she has arranged for Polynices to enter the city under a flag of truce, for a confer- ence with his brother Eteocles, with a view to a possible adjustment of their quarrel. In the next scene the information which was given in ^schylus by the scout is imparted to us by Euripides through a device picturesque and beautiful. The girl An- tigone appears, with her aged attendant, upon the battlements of the town, where he points out to her the various chieftains of the besieging army. Of course the hint is taken from Homer, but the scene has the characteristic touch of Euripides. Then follows the interview between the two brothers, giving occasion to much admirable rhetoric, but all in vain. They gi-ow more bitter and part from each other in hatred and contempt — Polynices re- turning to his friends, the besiegers, and Eteocles proceeding to make the final arrangements for the impending conflict. When Creon tells him that he must appoint seven champions for the seven gates he replies : — " It shall be so ; and as thou dost advise I will appoint a chieftain for each gate — To equal foes opposing equal champions. But yet to name each one would be delay Unseemly when beneath our very wails The foe doth lurk." The last lines are curious, as evidently aimed at xxxviii INTROD UCTION. ^schylus, in criticism of the long description of the champions given in the " Seven." Euripides at the same time saw an opportunity to excuse him- self for declining competition with the splendid portraiture of the warriors given by his great pre- decessor. Next follows the incident of the story of Menoeceus, who sacrifices himself for his country — the oracle having foretold that by his voluntary death the city might be saved, ^schylus made no use of this legend, but Euripides could not neg- lect the opportunity afforded him by a pathetic sug- gestion, though it was dramatically unnecessary to the main action. In the next scene a messenger appears and calls for the queen, Jocasta, in order to report to her the repulse of the foe. To her eager, anxious questioning about the fate of her two sons he seems to evade reply. " Forbear the rest," he says, — " Joe. Nay, but I must not forbear. Thou dost conceal some evil with dark words. Mess. I cannot speak the ill after the good. Joe. Nay, but thou shalt." Whereupon he tells her that he left her sons upon the point of engaging in single combat. The queen in her horror calls upon her daughter Antigone, and they rush forth, if perchance they may yet prevent the fight. But in the next scene a messenger ap- pears to report the worst. The mother had come too late — only in time to find her warrior sons prostrate on the battlefield. Eteoeles gasping for breath reaches forth his hand already cold with the coming on of death. He is able to utter no word INTRODUCTION. xxxix to his mother ; " only his eyes speak in tears his love." His brother Polynices has just strength enough to beg for burial in his native earth. And when he gasps forth in his last breath, — " Fare ye well, the darkness gathers round me, " — the mo- ther can endure no more, but grasps the fratricidal sword and gives herself the death. The messenger has hardly finished his story when, to crown the horrors of the play, the aged CEdipus enters, with " blind, staff-guided steps," and joins his despairing wail to the lamentations of his daughters over tlie fallen sons and brothers : — " had Cithjeron sunk Within the unf athomed depths of Tartarus Or ever it preserred my life. . . . And now I, whither shall I go ? Who shall he now the guide to these dark steps ? " From the brief account here given of the Phoe- nisssB it will be seen that whatever be its faults it is fairly crowded with incident, treated with the pathetic human touch of a master. The Aristophanic comedy is one long revel of fun, frolic, and absurdity. Its particular charac- teristic is extravagance. Frere speaks of it as a " grave, humorous, impossible, great lie." When we begin to read Aristophanes let us understand at the outset that we are to be surprised at nothing. Nothing is too sacred for him. His comedies are not comedies in the modern sense of the word. The comedy of society, of typical people, of typi- cal situations, arose later. Of that comedy but few xl INTRODUCTION. fragments survive, and only from the plays of the Latin comic writers, who were avowed imitators of .the Greek, can we form any adequate idea of its character. But the Aristophanic comedy was, in the main, personal and political, satirical of public men and events, vrith a license in language almost incredible. To understand its many allusions, jokes, puns, — the points of the play in question, — we must travel back, in imagination, to the little Greek capital of more than twenty centuries ago, and must know something of the political situation, something of the social life and gossip of the day ; in a word, we must live again in ancient Athens. Three of the comedies of Aristophanes may be called the " war plays. " He began to write soon after the opening of the great struggle between Athens and Sparta, that " Thirty Years War " which soon grew so burdensome, and resulted so disastrously for Athens. Now in war time there is always a peace party, and so it was in Athens. The Achar- nians, the earliest surviving comedy of Aristopha- nes, written when the war was some half dozen years old, is a protest against its further continuance. The play takes its name from Acharnse, one of the country villages near Athens, the Chorus being composed of old men belonging to that place. The leading character of the comedy is Dikaiopolis, an honest farmer who is tired to death of the war. He has been living in the cramped life of the city, where the country people have had to come for refuge, and he wants to get back to his little farm, where he never heard the word " buy," INTRODUCTION. xli because he raised his own olives and garlic on his own land. Through his opposition to the contin- uance of the war he comes into some danger and is brought to trial, but finally acquitted. In this play the poet has sought to contrast, in vivid man- ner, the blessings of peace and the calamities of war. It is full of allusions to tickle the ear of an Athenian audience — banquets with all the deli- cacies of the table, of which the war had so long deprived them, together with their attendant plea- sures — the chaplets, the flute-players, and the dan- cers. The closing scene of the comedy was prob- ably prepared with great care to form a grand tableau, as the final illustration of the moral of the play — Peace. Lamachus, a general in the war, comes limping in, wounded on one of his expedi- tions, and calling loudly for ointment and bandages. On the other hand, Dikaiopolis appears with a com- pany of fellow - revelers just ready to engage in the festivity of an elaborate banquet, the prepara- tions for which the audience have seen going on in the preceding scene. There are two other war comedies, the Peace and the Lysistrata. In the Peace a discontented Athenian, Trygseus, rides up to heaven on a beetle to intercede with Zeus and procure peace. All the gods are gone away except Hermes. The gods, he says, are disgusted with the Greeks and have gone off to get out of their way, leaving War in their place with instructions to pound the Greeks to pieces in an enormous mortar ; and as for Peace, War has cast her into a deep pit and heaped stones xlii INTBOD UCTION. upon her. Trygseus, however, manages to draw out Peace, and brings her and her attendants, The- oria (Holiday) and Opora (Plenty), with great re- joicing to Athens. In the Lysistrata, written when the war had dragged on to its twentieth year, the women are represented as laying hold of the gov- ernment with a view to ending the struggle. Now these three plays represent the burning question of the time — the war with the Lacedaemonians. But other interests, too, there were which engaged the attention of men, and which came under the lash of Aristophanes. In certain comedies the personal element comes out strongly. In the Knights, Cleon, the demagogue, is assailed. Terribly does the poet belabor the upstart tanner, this creature of vulgar birth and foul tongue, whom he so despised. The whole essence and spirit of the wrath of Aristopha- nes might be said to be concentrated in that cry of the Knights as they sweep down upon the wretched demagogue : — ' ' Close around him and confound him, the conf ounder of us all. Pelt him, pummel him and mawl him ; rummage, ransack, OTcrhaul him, Overbear him and out-bawl him ; bear him down and bring him under. Bellow like a burst of thunder, robber ! harpy ! sink of plunder ! Rogue and villain ! rogue and cheat ! rogue and villain, I repeat ! " In the Clouds it is Socrates who is satirized ; in the Frogs it is Euripides. In each of these plays we see the fight of the conservative — in the Clouds INTROD UCTION. xliii against the teachers of new-fangled manners and morals ; in the Frogs against innovators in poetry like Euripides, who not merely in this play, but elsewhere, received the hardest treatment from the hands of his great contemporary. But no short account can present any adequate idea of the abounding wealth of Aristophanes. This wealth, indeed, is a notable characteristic — this unending resource, extending in every direc- tion. His fertility and facility in the use of char- acter and situation, yea, even in word, are amazing. They are seen, too, in his transitions, his contrasts. Never was the juxtaposition of the incongruous more fully realized. In the midst of the broadest farce, suddenly ring out the notes of sweetest lyric melody — some plaint of nightingale ; some joyous song of the cloud-maidens that float on forever through the depths of ether ; some solemn chant of the rapt " initiates " of the Elysian Fields. The fact that so small a part of the Greek drama has survived the wreck of time may well cause the keenest regret. We possess hardly a tenth of the work of JEschylus and Sophocles ; and though we have a larger number of plays from Euripides, they form but a small part of the dramas credited to him. As for Phrynicus, Agathon, Ion of Chios, and the other tragic writers, contempora- ries or successors of the " great triad " — they are mere names for us. In comedy, too, the loss has been immense. Of the earlier comic writers Aristophanes is the only survivor, and we have from him not a quarter of xliv INTROD UCTION. the plays he is said to have written. From the New Comedy, of which Menandei- was the acknow- ledged master, we have not a single play — only fragments. Says MahafiEy, — " There is no branch of Greek literature which seems to have been more prolific than comedy ; and yet, of the many hun- dreds of pieces cited, there is not a single complete specimen surviving." It is not intended nor is it possible to give in this introduction a complete account of Greek poe- try. The object has been to indicate some of its important phases, though with necessarily inadequate treatment. While the Epic and the Drama are the chief treasure left to us, enough has survived of the Lyric (outside the dramatic choruses) to show us that this was indeed "a song in many keys." In order of time the Lyric follows the Epic, and from one of its forms — the choral ode — was de- veloped the Drama, the ode or chorus continuing to form a characteristic and beautiful feature in its construction. But of the many varieties of choral poetry enumerated in the ancient writers little now remains. From Pindar we have some forty com- plete poems of the class called Epinicia or Odes of Victory, but only fragments are left to represent the various other departments of lyric verse in which he excelled. His great triumphal odes are a special study. They are the delight of the scholar, but in the changed conditions of modern life can- not appeal to-day to readers generally as they did to the old Greek world. Says Mr. Jebb : " The INTRODUCTION. xlv glory of his song has passed forever from the world with the sound of the rolling harmonies on which it once was borne, with the splendor of rush- ing chariots and athletic forms around which it threw its radiance, with the white-pillared cities by the ^gean or Sicilian sea in which it wrought its spell, with the beliefs or joys which it ennobled ; but those who love his poetry, and who strive to enter into its high places, can still know that they breathe a pure and bracing air, and can still feel vibrating through a clear, calm sky the strong pulse of the eagle's wings as he soars with steady eyes against the sun." But if Pindar is rather for the few, there are others of the earlier poets whose appeal is more general. The strains (alas ! too few) of Tyrtseus, of Mimnermus, of Sappho, and of Simonides, with their burden of pathetic fervor, of tender melan- choly, or of joyous appreciation of the nature about us and the love within us, must have their peren- nial charm, because they vibrate to that one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. With the passing away of the great dramatic period Greek poetry enters upon its decline. With the conquests of Alexander, Greek civilization and culture are more widely diffused. Alexandria be- comes a new literary centre. Here and elsewhere poetry is written, though rarely with the fresh spontaneous charm of its early forms. It is now the " child of an age that lectures, not creates." Still, much of this later poetry, albeit more artifi- cial, has the Greek sense of beauty yet palpitating xlvi INTROD UCTION. within it which will make it a joy forever. The- ocritus and the Sicilian brotherhood must e'en take their pleasure in all that is beautiful while they may ; and above all, their pleasure in song. " Do but sing," cries one of their sLepLerds : — " There is no more sunshine nor singing Under the grave, in the realm of the dead where all is forgotten." At the beginning of the Christian Era the great epochs of Greek poetry have passed away. We still, however, find polished verse written on a vari- ety of themes. The old Greek fire, too, flashes up at intervals in the mystical outpourings of Neo- platonism, and in the verse of Nonnus, Quintus, Smyrnseus, and Mussens. Proclus' Prayer to the Muses is an exquisite strain — in part a wail, but in the main an aspiration, a prayer for safe guid- ance to the haven of rest, — " Where the immortals are, when this life's fever Is left behind as a dread gulf o'erpassed ; And souls, like mariners, escaped forever, Throng on the happy foreland, saved at last." "With Proclus (450 a. d.), it has been said, the long catalogue of Poets may end — the line that reaches back, through fifteen centuries, to Homer. GREEK POETS IN ENGLISH VERSE. HOMER. ILIAD, 1. 1-430. THE QUARREL OF ACHILLES AND AGA- MEMNON. The Invocation ; Chryses, the Priest ; tlie Pes- tilence. Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing ! That wrath which hurled to Pluto's gloomy reign The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain ; Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore. Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore ; Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove ! Declare, O Muse ! in what ill-fated hour Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power ? Latona's son a dire contagion spread, And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead ; The king of men his reverend priest defied, And for the king's offense the people died. For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain His captive daughter from the victor's chain. Suppliant the venerable father stands, Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands : 4 HOMER. By these he begs ; and lowly bending down, Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown. He sued to all, but chief implored for grace The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race. " Ye kings and warriors ! may your vows be crowned. And Troy's proud waUs lie level with the ground. May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. But oh ! relieve a wretched parent's pain. And give Chryseis to these arms again ; If mercy fail, yet let my presents move, And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove." The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare. The priest to reverence and release the fair. Not so Atrides : he, with kingly pride. Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied : " Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains, Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains ; Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod. Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god. Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain ; And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain, Till time shall rifle every youthful grace, And age dismiss her from my cold embrace. In daily labors of the loom employed, Or doomed to deck the bed she once enjoyed. Hence then ! To Argos shall the maid retire Far from her native soil and weeping sire." The trembling priest along the shore returned. And in the anguish of a father mourned. ILIAD. 5 Disconsolate, not daring to complain, Silent he wandered by the sounding main : Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays, The god who darts around the world his rays. " O Smintheus ! ' sprung from fair Latona's line, Thou guardian power of Cilia the divine, Thou source of light whom Tenedos adores. And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores : If e'er with -yrreaths I hung thy sacred fane. Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain ; God of the silver bow ! thy shafts employ. Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy." Thus Chryses prayed. The favoring power at- tends, And from Olympus' lofty tops descends. Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound ; Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound. Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, And gloomy darkness roUed around his head. The fleet in view, he twanged his deadly bow. And hissing fly the feathered fates below. On mules and dogs the infection first began, And last, the vengeful arrows fixed in man. For nine long nights through all the dusky air The pyres, thick-flaming, shot a dismal glare. But ere the tenth revolving day was run. Inspired by Juno, Thetis' godlike son Convened to council aU the Grecian train ; For much the goddess mourned her heroes slain. 1 Epithet of ApoUo. 6 BOMER. The Assembly of Greeks ; the Quarrel of Aehilles and Agamemnon. The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest, Achilles thus the king of men addressed : " Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore. And measure back the seas we crossed before ? The plague destroying whom the sword would spare, 'T is time to save the few remains of war. But let some prophet or some sacred sage Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage ; Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove. If broken vows this heavy curse have laid, Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid. So heaven atoned shall dying Greece restore, And Phoebus dart his burning shafts no more." He said and sat : when Calchas thus replied, Calchaa the wise, the Grecian priest and guide, That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view The past, the present, and the future knew : Uprising slow the venerable sage Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age : " Beloved of Jove, Achilles ! would'st thou know Why angry Phoebus bends his fatal bow ? First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word Of sure protection, by thy power and sword ; For I must speak what wisdom would conceal. And truths, invidious to the great, reveal. Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too wise, Instruct a monarch where his error lies ; ILIAD. 7 For though we deem the short-lived fury past, 'T is sure the mighty will revenge at last." To whom Pelides : " From thy inmost soul Speak what thou know'st, and speak without con- trol. Even by that god I swear, who rules the day, To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey, And whose blest oracles thy lips declare ; Long as Achilles breathes this vital air. No daring Greek, of all the numerous band. Against his priest shall lift an impious hand : Not even the chief by whom our hosts are led. The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head." Encouraged thus, the blameless man replies : " Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice. But he, our chief, provoked the raging pest, Apollo's vengeance for his injured priest. Nor will the god's awakened fury cease. But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase. Till the great king, without a ransom paid. To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid. Perhaps, with added sacrifice and prayer. The priest may pardon, and the god may spare." The prophet spoke ; when, with a gloomy frown. The monarch started from his shining throne ; Black choler filled his breast that boiled with ire. And from his eyeballs flashed the living fire. " Augur accursed ! denouncing mischief still, Prophet of plagues, forever boding ill ! Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king ? For this are Phoebus' oracles explored, 8 HOMER. To teach the Greeks to murmur at their lord ? For this with falsehoods is my honor stained ; Is heaven offended, and a priest profaned, Because my prize, my beauteous maid, I hold. And heavenly charms prefer to proffered gold ? A maid, unmatched in manners as in face. Skilled in each art, and crowned with every grace. Not half so dear were Clytemnestra's charms, When first her blooming beauties blessed my arms. Yet, if the gods demand her, let her sail ; Our cares are only for the public weal : Let me be deemed the hateful cause of aU, And suffer, rather than my people fall. The prize, the beauteous prize, I wiU resign, So dearly valued, and so justly mine. But since for common good I yield the fair, My private loss let grateful Greece repair ; Nor unrewarded let your prince complain, That he alone has fought and bled in vain." " Insatiate king ! " (Achilles thus replies) " Fond of the power, but fonder of the prize ! Would'st thou the Greeks their lawful prey should yield. The due reward of many a well-fought field ? The spoils of cities razed, and warriors slain, We share with justice, as with toil we gain : But to resume whate'er thy avarice craves, (That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves. Yet if our chief for plunder only fight. The spoils of Hion shall thy loss requite. Whene'er, by Jove's decree, our conquering powers Shall humble to the dust her lofty towers." ILIAD. Then thus the king : " Shall I my prize resign With tame content, and thou possessed of thine ? Great as thou art, and like a god in fight, Think not to rob me of a soldier's right. At thy demand shall I restore the maid ? First let the just equivalent be paid, Such as a king might ask ; and let it be A treasure worthy her and worthy me. Or grant me this, or with a monarch's claim This hand shall seize some other captive dame. The mighty Ajax shall his prize resign, Ulysses' spoils, or e'en thy own be mine. The man who suffers, loudly may complain ; And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain. But this when time requires. It now remains We launch a bark to plough the watery plains, And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa's shores. With chosen pilots, and with laboring oars. Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend, And some deputed prince the charge attend. This Greta's king, or Ajax shall fulfill, Or wise Ulysses see performed our will ; Or, if our royal pleasure shall ordain, Achilles' self conduct her o'er the main ; Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage, The god propitiate, and the pest assuage." At this, Pelides, frowning stern, replied : " tyrant, armed with insolence and pride ! Inglorious slave to interest, ever joined With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind ! What generous Greek, obedient to thy word. Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword ? 10 HOMER. What cause have I to war at thy decree ? The distant Trojans never injured me ; To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led ; Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed ; Far hence removed, the hoarse-resounding main, And walls of rocks, secure my native reign, Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace. Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race. Hither we sailed, a voluntary throng. To avenge a private, not a public wrong : What else to Troy the assembled nations draws, But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother's cause ? Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve. Disgraced and injured by the man we serve ? And dar'st thou threat to snatch my prize away. Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day ? A prize as small, O tyrant ! matched with thine, As thy own actions if compared to mine. Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey. Though mine the sweat and danger of the day. Some trivial present to my ships I bear. Or barren praises pay the wounds of war. But know, proud monarch, I 'm thy slave no more : My fleet shall waft me to ThessaUa's shore. Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain, What spoils, what conquests, shaU Atrides gain ? " To this the king : " Fly, mighty warrior ! fly. Thy aid we need not, and thy threats defy : There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight. And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right. Of all the kings (the gods' distinguished care) To power superior none such hatred bear ; ILIAD. 11 Strife and debate thy restless soul employ, And wars and horrors are thy savage joy. If thou hast strength, 't was Heaven that strength bestowed, For know, vain man ! thy valor is from God. Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away, Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway : I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate Thy short-lived friendship and thy groundless hate. Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons ; but here 'T is mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear. Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand. My bark shall waft her to her native land ; But then prepare, imperious prince ! prepare. Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair : E'en in thy tent I 'U seize the blooming prize, Thy loved Brise'is, with the radiant eyes. Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour Thou stood'st a rival of imperial power ; And hence to all our host it shall be known That kings are subject to the gods alone." Achilles heard, with grief and rage oppressed ; His heart swelled high and labored in his breast. Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruled, Now fired by wrath, and now by reason cooled : That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword. Force through the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord ; This whispers soft his vengeance to control, And calm the rising tempest of his soul. 12 HOMER. Minerva prevents Achilles from drawing his Sword. Just as in anguish of suspense he stayed, WhUe half unsheathed appeared the glittering blade, Minerva swift descended from above, Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove ; (For both the princes claimed her equal care ;) Behind she stood, and by the golden hair AchiUes seized ; to him alone confessed ; A sable cloud concealed her from the rest. He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries, (Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes :) " Descends Minerva, in her guardian care, A heavenly witness of the wrongs I bear From Atreus' son ! Then let those eyes that view The daring crime, behold the vengeance too." " Forbear ! " (the progeny of Jove replies) " To calm thy fury I forsake the skies : Let great Achilles, to the gods resigned. To reason yield the empire o'er his mind. By awful Juno this command is given ; The king and you are both the care of heaven. The force of keen reproaches let him feel, But sheathe, obedient, thy revenging steel. For I pronounce (and trust a heavenly power) Thy injured honor has its fated hour, When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore. And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store. Then let revenge no longer bear the sway, Command thy passions, and the gods obey." To her Pelides : " "With regardful ear, ILIAD. J3 'T is just, goddess ! I thy dictates hear. Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress : Those who revere the gods, the gods will bless." He said, observant of the blue-eyed maid ; Then in the sheath returned the shining blade. The goddess swift to high Olympus flies, And joins the sacred senate of the skies. Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook, Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke : " monster ! mixed of insolence and fear, Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer ! When wert thou known in ambushed fights to dare. Or nobly face the horrid front of war ? 'T is ours the chance of fighting fields to try, Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die. So much 't is safer through the camp to go, And rob a subject than despoil a foe. Scourge of thy people, violent and base ! Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race. Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past, Are tamed to wrongs, or this had been thy last. Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear. Which severed from the trunk (as I from thee) On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; This sceptre, formed by tempered steel to prove An ensign of the delegates of Jove. From whom the power of laws and justice springs : (Tremendous oath ! inviolate to kings :) By this I swear, when bleeding Greece again Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain. When flushed with slaughter, Hector comes to spread 14 EOMEB. The purpled shore with mountains of the dead, Then shalt thou mourn the affront thy madness gave, Forced to deplore, when impotent to save : Then rage in bitterness of soul to know This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe." He spoke ; and furious hurled against the ground His sceptre starred with golden studs around ; Then sternly silent sat. With like disdain, The raging king returned his frowns again. Nestor's Speech. To calm their passion with the words of age, Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage. Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skilled : Words sweet as honey from his lips distilled : Two generations now had passed away. Wise by his rule, and happy by his sway ; Two ages o'er his native realm he reigned, And now, the example of the third, remained. All viewed with awe the venerable man ; Who thus with mild benevolence began : " What shame, what woe is this to Greece ! what joy To Troy's proud monarch, and the friends of Troy ! That adverse gods commit to stern debate The best, the bravest of the Grecian state. Young as you are, this youthful heat restrain. Nor think your Nestor's years and wisdom vain. A godlike race of heroes once T knew. Such as no more these aged eyes shall view ! Lives there a chief to match Pirithous' fame, Dryas the bold, or Ceneus' deathless name ; ILIAD. 15 Theseus, endued with more than mortal might, Or Polyphemus, like the gods in fight ? With these of old to toils of hattle bred, In early youth my hardy days I led ; Fired with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds, And smit with love of honorable deeds. Strongest of men, they pierced the mountain boar, Ranged the wild deserts red with monsters' gore. And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore. Yet these with soft persuasive arts I swayed ; When Nestor spoke, they listened and obeyed. If in my youth, e'en these esteemed me wise. Do you, young warriors, hear my age advise. Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave ; That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave : Nor thou, AchiUes, treat our prince with pride ; Let kings be just, and sovereign power preside. Thee the first honors of the war adorn. Like gods in strength, and of a goddess born ; Him, awful majesty exalts above The powers of earth, and sceptred sons of Jove. Let both unite with well-consenting mind, So shall authority with strength be joined. Leave me, king, to calm Achilles' rage ; Rule thou thyself, as more advanced in age. Forbid it, gods ! Achilles should be lost, The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host." This said, he ceased : the king of men replies ; " Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise. But that imperious, that unconquered soul. No laws can limit, no respect control : Before his pride must his superiors fall, 16 HOMER. His word the law, and he the lord of all ? Him must our hosts, our chiefs, ourself obey ? What king can bear a rival in his sway ? Grant that the gods his matchless force have given ; Has foul reproach a privilege from heaven ? " Here on the monarch's speech Achilles broke. And furious, thus, and interrupting, spoke : " Tyrant, I well deserved thy galling chain, To hve thy slave, and stiU to serve in vain, Should I submit to each unjust decree : Command thy vassals, but command not me. Seize on Briseis, whom the Grecians doomed My prize of war,.yet tamely see resumed ; And seize secure ; no more Achilles draws His conquering sword in any woman's cause. The gods command me to forgive the past ; But let this first invasion be the last : For know, thy blood, when next thou dar'st invade. Shall stream in vengeance on my reeking blade." Th& Assembly breaks up. At this they ceased ; the stern debate expired : The chiefs in sullen majesty retired. Achilles with Patroclus took his way. Where near his tents his hollow vessels lay. Meantime Atrides launched with numerous oars A well-rigged ship for Chrysa's sacred shores : High on the deck was fair Cliryseis placed. And sage Ulysses with the conduct graced : Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stowed, Then, swiftly saihng, cut the liquid road. The host to expiate, next the king prepares, ILIAD. 17 "With pure lustrations and with solemn prayers. Washed by the briny wave, the pious train Are cleansed ; and cast the ablutions in the main. Along the shores whole hecatombs were laid, And bulls and goats to Phoebus' altars paid. The sable fumes in curling spires arise, And waft their grateful odors to the skies. The army thus in sacred rites engaged, Atrides still with deep resentment raged. To wait his will two sacred heralds stood, Talthybius and Eurybates the good. " Haste to the fierce Achilles' tent," (he cries) " Thence bear Brise'is as our royal prize : Submit he must ; or, if they will not part, Ourself in arms shall tear her from his heart." The unwilling heralds act their lord's commands ; Pensive they walk along the barren sands : Arrived, the hero in his tent they find, With gloomy aspect, on his arm reclined. At awful distance long they silent stand, Loth to advance, or speak their hard command ; Decent confusion ! This the godlike man Perceived, and thus with accent mild began : " With leave and honor enter our abodes, Ye sacred ministers of men and gods ! I know your message ; by constraint you came ; Not you, but your imperious lord I blame. Patroclus, haste, the fair Briseis bring ; Conduct my captive to the haughty king. But witness, heralds, and proclaim my vow, Witness to gods above, and men below ! But first, and loudest, to your prince declare, 18 HOMER. That lawless tyrant whose commands you bear ; Unmoved as death Achilles shall remain, Though prostrate Greece shall bleed at every vein : The raging chief in frantic passion lost, Blind to himself, and useless to his host, Unskilled to judge the future by the past, In blood and slaughter shall repent at last." Patroclus now the unwilling beauty brought ; She, in soft sorrows, and in pensive thought, Passed silent, as the heralds held her hand. And oft looked back slow-moving o'er the strand. Interview of Achilles with his Goddess-Mother, Thetis. Not so his loss the fierce Achilles bore ; But sad retiring to the sounding shore, O'er the wild margin of the deep he hung. That kindred deep from which his mother sprung ; There bathed in tears of anger and disdain, Thus loud lamented to the stormy main : " O parent goddess ! since in early bloom. Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom. ; Sure, to so short a race of glory born, Great Jove in justice should this span adorn. Honor and fame at least the Thunderer owed ; And ill he pays the promise of a god, If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, Obscures my glories, and resumes my prize." Far in the deep recesses of the main. Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign. The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide. And like a mist she rose above the tide ; ILIAD. 19 Beheld him mourning on the naked shores, And thus the sorrows of his soul explores : " Why grieves my son ? thy anguish let me share, Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care." He deeply sighing said : " To tell my woe, Is but to mention what too well you know. From Thebfe, sacred to Apollo's name, (Eetion's realm) our conquering army came. With treasure loaded and triumphant spoils. Whose just division crowned the soldier's toils ; But bright Chryse'is, heavenly prize ! was led By vote selected to the general's bed. The priest of Phoebus sought by gifts to gain His beauteous daughter from the victor's chain ; The fleet he reached, and, lowly bending down, Held forth the sceptre and the laurel crown, Entreating all ; but chief implored for grace The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race : The generous Greeks their joint consent declare, The priest to reverence, and release the fair. Not so, Atrides : he, with wonted pride. The sire insulted, and his gifts denied : The insulted sire (his god's peculiar care) To Phoebus prayed, and Phoebus heard the prayer : A dreadful plague ensues ; the avenging darts Incessant fly, and pierce the Grecian hearts. A prophet then, inspired by heaven, arose, And points the crime, and thence derives the woes ; Myself the first the assembled chiefs incline To avert the vengeance of the power divine ; Then, rising in his wrath, the monarch stormed ; 20 HOMER. Incensed he threatened, and his threats performed : The fair Chryseis to her sire was sent, With ofEered gifts to make the god relent ; But now he seized Briseis' heavenly charms, And of my valor's prize defrauds my arms, Defrauds the votes of all the Grecian train ; And service, faith, and justice plead in vain. But, goddess ! thou thy suppKant son attend, To high Olympus' shining court ascend. Urge all the ties to former service owed, And sue for vengeance to the thundering god. Oft hast thou triumphed in the glorious hoast That thou stood'st forth of all the ethereal host, When bold rebellion shook the realms above, The undaunted guard of cloud-compelling Jove. When the bright partner of his awful reign. The warlike maid, and monarch of the main. The traitor-gods, by mad ambition driven, Durst threat with chains the omnipotence of heaven. Then called by thee, the monster Titan came ; (Whom gods Briareus, men ^geon name ;) Through wondering skies enormous stalked along ; Not he that shakes the solid earth so strong : With giant-pride at Jove's high throne he stands. And brandished round him all liis hundred hands. The affrighted gods confessed their awful lord, They dropped the fetters, trembled and adored. This, goddess, this to his remembrance call. Embrace his knees, at his tribunal fall ; Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train. To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main, To heap the shores with copious dead, and bring ILIAD. 21 The Greeks to know the curse of such a king : Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head O'er all his wide dominion of the dead, And mourn in blood that e'er he durst disgrace The boldest warrior of the Grecian race." " Unhappy son ! " (fair Thetis thus replies, WhUe tears celestial trickle from her eyes,) " Why have I borne thee with a mother's throes. To fates averse, and nursed for future woes ? So short a space the light of heaven to view ! So short a space ! and fiUed with sorrow too ! O might a parent's careful wish prevail, Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail, And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun, Which now, alas ! too nearly threats my son. Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I '11 go To great Olympus crowned with fleecy snow. Meantime, secure within thy ships, from far Behold the field, nor mingle in the war. The sire of gods, and all the ethereal train, On the warm limits of the farthest main, Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace The feasts of Ethiopia' s blameless race : Twelve days the powers indulge the genial rite. Returning with the twelfth revolving light. Then will I mount the brazen dome and move The high tribunal of immortal Jove." The goddess spoke : the rolling waves unclose ; Then down the deep she plunged, from whence she rose. And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast In wild resentment for the fair he lost. Alexander Pope. 22 HOMER. ILIAD, in., 235-244. HELEN ON THE WALLS OF TKOY. Helen, having pointed out to Priam the prominent Grecian chieftains in the plain helow, thus continues : — " CiiEAELT the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ; Known to me well are the faces of all ; their names I remember ; Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders, Castor fleet in the car, — Polydeukes brave with the cestus, — Own dear brethren of mine, — one parent loved us as infants. Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedsemon, Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters. Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the coun- cil of Heroes, All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened ? " So said she ; — they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing. There, in their own dear land, their Fatherland, Lacedsemon. X O. Havjtrey. ILIAD. 23 ILIAD, IV., 422-456. THE ADVANCE OF THE TWO ARMIES INTO THE BATTLE. As when the ocean-billows, surge on surge. Are pushed along to the resounding shore Before the western wind, and first a wave Uplifts itself, and then against the land Dashes and roars, and round the headland peaks Tosses on high and spouts its spray afar, So moved the serried phalanxes of Greece To battle, rank succeeding rank, each chief Giving command to his own troops ; the rest Marched noiselessly ; you might have thought no voice Was in the breasts of all that mighty throng, So silently they all obeyed their chiefs. Their showy armor glittering as they moved In firm array. But, as the numerous flock Of some rich man, while the white milk is drawn Within his sheepfold, hear the plaintive call Of their own lambs, and bleat incessantly, Such clamors from the mighty Trojan host Arose ; nor was the war-cry one, nor one The voice, but words of mingled languages. For they were called from many different climes. These Mars encouraged to the fight ; but those The blue-eyed Pallas. Terror, too, was there. And Fright, and Strife that rages unappeased, — Sister and comrade of man-slaying Mars, — Who rises small at first, but grows, and lifts 24. HOMER. Her head to heaven and walks upon the earth. She, striding through the crowd and heightening The mutual rancor, flung into the midst Contention, source of bale to all alike. And now, when met the armies in the field, The ox-hide shields encountered, and the spears. And might of warriors mailed in brass ; then clashed The bossy bucklers, and the battle-din Was loud ; then rose the mingled shouts and groans Of those who slew and those who fell ; the earth Ran with their blood. As when the winter streams Rush down the mountain-sides, and fill, below, With their swift waters, poured from gushing springs, Some hoUow vale, the shepherd on the heights Hears the far roar, — such was the mingled din That rose from the great armies when they met. William Cullen Bryant. ILIAD, VI., 369-502. THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. He said, and passed with sad presaging heart To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part ; At home he sought her, but he sought in vain : She, with one maid of all her menial train. Had thence retired ; and with her second joy, The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, Pensive she stood on Ilion's towery height, Beheld the war, and sickened at the sight : There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore. Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore. ILIAD. 25 But he who found not whom his soul desired, Whose virtue charmed him as her beauty fired, Stood in the gates, and asked what way she bent Her parting steps ; if to the fane she went. Where late the mourning matrons made resort ; Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court. Not to the court (replied the attendant train), Nor mixed with matrons to Minerva's fane : To Hion's steepy tower she bent her way. To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day. Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword. She heard and trembled for her absent lord : Distracted with surprise, she seemed to fly, Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye. The nurse attended with her infant boy. The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy. Hector, this heard, returned without delay ; Swift through the town he trod his former way. Through streets of palaces, and walks of state ; And met the mourner at the Scaean gate. With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair, His blameless wife, Eetion's wealthy heir : (Cilician Thebfe great Eetion swayed, And Hippoplacus' wide extended shade ;) The nurse stood near, in whose embraces pressed His only hope hung smiling at her breast. Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn, Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn. To this loved infant Hector gave the name Scamandrius, from Scamander's honored stream ; Astyanax the Trojans called the boy. From his great father, the defense of Troy. 26 HOMER Silent the warrior smiled, and pleased resigned To tender passions all his mighty mind : His beauteous princess cast a mournful look, Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke ; Her bosom labored with a boding sigh, And the big tear stood trembling in her eye. " Too daring prince ! ah, whither dost thou run ? Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son ! And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be, A widow I, a helpless orphan he ! For sure such courage length of life denies ; And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice. Greece in her single heroes strove in vain ; Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain ! Oh, grant me, Gods ! ere Hector meets his doom, All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb ! So shall my days in one sad tenor run. And end with sorrows as they first begun. No parent now remains my griefs to share, No father's aid, no mother's tender care. The fierce Achilles wrapped our walls in fire, Laid Thebb waste, and slew my warlike sire ! His fate compassion in the victor bred ; Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead. His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil And laid him decent on the funeral pile ; Then raised a mountain where his bones were burned ; The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorned, Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow A barren shade, and in his honor grow. By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell ; ILIAD. 27 In one sad day beheld the gates of hell : While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed ; Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled ! My mother lived to bear the victor's bands, The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands : Redeemed too late, she scarce beheld again Her pleasing empire and her native plain, When ah ! oppressed by life-consuming woe. She fell a victim to Diana's bow. Yet, while my Hector still survives, I see My father, mother, brethren, aU, in thee : Alas ! my parents, brothers, kindred, all Once more will perish, if my Hector fall. Thy wife, thy infant in thy danger share : Oh, prove a husband's and a father's care ! That quarter most the skillful Greeks annoy. Where yon wild fig-trees join the walls of Troy : Thou from this tower defend the important post ; There Agamemnon points his dreadful host. That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain. And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train. Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given, Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven. Let others in the field their arms employ. But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy." The chief replied : " That post shall be my care, Not that alone, but all the works of war. How would the sons of Troy, in arms renowned, And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground. Attaint the lustre of my former name, Should Hector basely quit the field of fame ? 28 HOMER. My early youth was bred to martial pains, My soul impels me to the embattled plains : Let me be foremost to defend the throne, And guard my father's glories, and my own. Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates : (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates !) The day when thou, imperial Troy ! must bend, And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind. Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore. Not all my brothers gasping on the shore ; As thine, Andromache ! thy griefs I dread ; I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led ! In Argive looms our battles to design. And woes, of which so large a part was thine ! To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring The weight of waters from Hyperia's * spring. There, while you groan beneath the load of life, They cry. Behold the mighty Hector's wife ! Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see, Embitters all thy woes, by naming me. The thoughts of glory past, and present shame, A thousand griefs shall waken at the name ! May I lie cold before that dreadful day, Pressed with a load of monumental clay ! Thy Hector, wrapped in everlasting sleep. Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep." Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy Stretched his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, ^ A fountain in Greece. ILIAD. 29 Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest. With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled, And Hector hasted to relieve his child, The glittering terrors from his hrows unbound, And placed the beaming helmet on the ground ; Then kissed the child, and, lifting high in air Thus to the gods preferred a father's prayer : " O thou ! whose glory fills the ethereal throne, And aU ye deathless powers ! protect my son ! Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown. To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown. Against his country's foes the war to wage. And rise the Hector of the future age ! So when triumphant from successful toils Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils. Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim. And say, This chief transcends his father's fame : While pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy, His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy." He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms, Restored the pleasing burden to her arms ; Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid. Hushed to repose, and with a smile surveyed. The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear, She mingled with a smUe a tender tear. The softened chief with kind compassion viewed. And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued : "Andromache ! my soul's far better part, Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart ? No hostile hand can antedate my doom, TiU fate condemns me to the silent tomb. Fixed is the term to all the race of earth ; 30 HOMER. And such the hard condition of our birth, No force can then resist, no flight can save ; All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. No more — but hasten to thy tasks at home, There guide the spindle, and direct the loom : Me glory summons to the martial scene. The field of combat is the sphere for men. Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim. The first in danger, as the first in fame.'' Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes His towery helmet, black with shading plumes. His princess parts with a prophetic sigh, Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye. That streamed at every look : then, moving slow, Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe. There, while her tears deplored the godlike man, Through all her train the soft infection ran. The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed, And mourn the living Hector, as the dead. Pcpe. ILIAD, Vin., 542-565. THE TKOJAN CAMP AT NIGHT. So Hector said, and sea-like roared his host ; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own ; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine And bread from out the houses brought, and heaped Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain Rolled the rich vapor far into the heaven. ILIAD. 31 And these all night upon the bridge of war Sat glorying ; many a fire before them blazed : As when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart : So many a fire between the ships and stream Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, A thousand on the plain ; and close by each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire : And champing golden grain the horses stood Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn. Lard Tennyson. ILIAD, IX., 374-426. ACHILLES REFUSES THE GIFTS OF AGAMEMNON. I NEVER will partake his works, nor counsels, as before ; He once deceived and injured me, and he shall never more Tye my affections with his words. Enough is the increase Of one success in his deceits ; which let him joy in peace. And bear it to a wretched end. Wise Jove hath reft his brain To bring him plagues, and these his gifts I as my foes, disdain. Even in the numbness of calm death I will revenge- ful be, 52 HOMER. Though ten or twenty times so much he would be- stow on me, All he hath here, or anywhere, or Orchomen con- tains, To which men bring their wealth for strength ; or all the store remains In circuit of Egyptian Thebes, where much hid treasure lies, Whose walls contain an hundred ports, of so ad- mired a size. Two hundred soldiers may a-front with horse and chariots pass. Nor, would he amplify all his like sand, or dust, or Should he reclaim me, till his wreak paid me for all the pains That with his contumely burned, lite poison, in my veins. Nor shall lis daughter be my wife, although she might contend With golden Venus for her form ; or if she did transcend Blue-eyed Minerva for her works ; let him a Greek select Fit for her, and a greater king. For if the gods protect My safety to my father's court, he shall choose me a wife. Many fair Achive princesses of unimpeachfed life In HeUe and in Phthia live, whose sires do cities hold. Of whom I can have whom I will. And, more an hundredfold ILIAD. 33 My true mind in my country likes to take a lawful wife Than in another nation ; and there delight my life With those goods that my father got, much rather than die here. Not aU the wealth of well-built Troy, possessed, when peace was there, All that Apollo's marble fane in stony Pythos holds, I value equal with the life that my free breast en- folds. Sheep, oxen, tripods, crest-decked horse, though lost, may come again. But when the white guard of our teeth no longer can contain Our human soul, away it flies, and, once gone, never more To her frail mansion any man can her lost powers restore. And therefore since my mother-queen, famed for her silver feet, Told me two fates about my death in my direction meet; The one, that, if I here remain t' assist our victory, My safe return shall never live, my fame shall never die ; If my return obtain success, much of my fame decays, But death shall linger his approach, and I live many days. This being revealed, 't were foolish pride t' abridge my life for praise. Then with myself I will advise others to hoise their sail, 34 HOMER. For 'gainst the height of Hion you never shall pre- vail: Jove with his hand protecteth it, and makes the soldiers bold. This tell the King in every part, for so grave leg- ates should, That they may better counsels use, to save their fleet and friends By their own valors ; since this course, drowned in my anger, ends. George Chapman. ILIAD, XII., 265-330. THE VALOK OF THE AJACES. SARPEDON AND GLAUCUS. The Greeks yet stood, and stUl repaired the fore- fights of their wall With hides of oxen, and from thence they poured down stones in showers Upon the underminers' heads. Within the fore- most towers Both the Ajaces had command, who answered every part, The assaulters and their soldiers repressed, and put in heart ; Repairing valor as their wall; spake some fair, some reproved, Whoever made not good his place ; and thus they all sorts moved : " countrymen, now need in aid would have excess be spent, ILIAD. 35 The excellent must be admired, the meanest excel- lent, The worst do well. In changing war all should not be alike. Nor any idle ; which to know fits all, lest Hector strike Your minds with frights, as ears with threats. For- ward be all your hands. Urge one another. This doubt down, that now be- twixt us stands, Jove will go with us to their walls.'' To this effect aloud Spake both the princes ; and as high, with this, the expulsion flowed. And as in winter time when Jove his cold, sharp javelins throws Amongst us mortals ; and is moved to white earth with his snows ; The winds asleep, he freely pours, till highest prom- inents. Hilltops, low meadows, and the fields that crown with most contents The toils of men, seaports, and shores, are hid, and every place But floods, that snow's fair, tender flakes, as their own brood, embrace ; So both sides covered earth with stones, so both for life contend. To show their sharpness ; through the wall uproar stood up an end. Nor had great Hector and his friends the rampire overrun, 36 HOMER. If heaven's great Counselor, high Jove, had not inflamed his son Sarpedon (like the forest's king when he on oxen flies) Against the Grecians ; his round targe he to his arm applies, Brass-leaved without, and all within thick ox-hides quilted hard, The verge nailed round with rods of gold ; and, with two darts prepared, He leads his people. As ye see a mountain lion fare, Long kept from prey, in forcing which, his high mind makes him dare Assault upon the whole full fold, though guarded never so With well-armed men, and eager dogs ; away he will not go, But venture on and either snatch a prey, or be a prey; So fared divine Sarpedon's mind, resolved to force his way Through all the forefights and the wall ; yet since he did not see Others as great as he in name, as great in mind as he. He spake to Glaucus ; " Glaucus, say, why are we honored more Than other men of Lycia, in place ; with greater store Of meats and cups ; with goodlier roofs ; delight- some gardens ; walks ; ILIAD. 37 More lands and better ; so much wealth, that court and country talks Of us and our possessions, and every way we go, Gaze on us as we were their gods ? This where we dwell is so ; The shores of Xanthus rmg of this ; and shall we not exceed As much in merit as in noise ? Come, be we great in deed As well as look ; shine not in gold, but in the flames of fight ; That so our neat-armed Lycians may say : ' See, these are right Our kings, our rulers; these deserve to eat and drink the best ; These govern not ingloriously ; these, thus exceed the rest. Do more than they command to do.' O friend, if keeping back Would keep back age from us and death, and that we might not wrack In this hfe's human sea at aU, but that deferring now We shunned death ever, nor would I half this viia valor show, Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance ; But since we must go, though not here ; and that, besides the chance Proposed now, there are infinite fates of other sorts in death. Which neither to be fled nor 'scaped, a man must sink beneath ; 38 HOMER. Come, try we if this sort be ours, and either render thus Glory to others, or make them resign the like to us.'' This motion Glaucus shifted not, but without words obeyed. Foreright went both, a mighty troop of Lycians followed. Chapman. ILIAD, XVI., 638-683. THE DEAD SAEPEDON BOElSrE BY SLEEP AND DEATH TO HIS NATIVE LYCIA. Now great Sarpedon on the sandy shore, His heavenly form defaced with dust and gore, And stuck with darts by warring heroes shed, Lies undistinguished from the vulgar dead. His long-disputed corse the chiefs enclose. On every side the busy combat grows ; Thick as beneath some shepherd's thatched abode, (The pails high foaming with a milky flood,) The buzzing flies, a persevering train, Inqessant swarm, and chased, return again. Jove viewed the combat with a stern survey, And eyes that flashed intolerable day. Fixed on the field his sight, his breast debates The vengeance due, and meditates the fates : Whether to urge their prompt effect, and call The force of Hector to Patroclus' fall, This instant see his short-lived trophies won. And stretch him breathless on his slaughtered son ; ILIAD. 39 Or yet, with many a soul's untimely flight, Augment the fame and horror of the fight. To crown Achilles' valiant friend with praise At length he dooms ; and that his last of days Shall set in glory ; bids him drive the foe ; Nor unattended see the shades below. Then Hector's mind he fills with dire dismay ; He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away. Sunk with Troy's heavy fates, he sees decline The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine. Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled, And left their monarch with the common dead. Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall. (So Jove decreed !) At length the Greeks obtain The prize contested, and despoil the slain. The radiant arms are by Patroclus borne, Patroclus' ships the glorious spoils adorn. Then thus to Phoebus, in the realms above. Spoke from his throne the cloud-compelhng Jove ; " Descend, my Phoebus ! on the Phrygian plain, And from the fight convey Sarpedon slain ; Then bathe his body in the crystal flood ; With dust dishonored, and deformed with blood ; O'er all his limbs ambrosial odors shed. And with celestial robes adorn the dead. Those rites discharged, his sacred corse bequeath To the soft arms of silent Sleep and Death. They to his friends the mournful charge shall bear ; His friends a tomb and pyramid shall rear ; What honors mortals after death receive, Those unavailing honors we may give ! " 40 HOMER. Apollo bows, and from mount Ida's height, Swift to the field precipitates his flight ; Thence from the war the breathless hero bore, Veiled in a cloud, to silver Simois' shore ; There bathed his honorable wounds, and dressed His manly members in the immortal vest ; And with perfumes of sweet ambrosial dews, Kestores his freshness, and his form renews. Then Sleep and Death, two twins of winged race, Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace. Received Sarpedon, at the god's command. And in a moment reached the Lycian land ; The corse amidst his weeping friends they laid. Where endless honors wait the sacred shade. Pope. ILIAD, XVII., 426-468. ACHILLES' HOUSES WEEP FOR PATEOCLUS. Meantime, at distance from the scene of blood, The pensive steeds of great Achilles stood ; Their godlike master ^ slain before their eyes, They wept, and shared in human miseries. In vain Automedon now shakes the rein, Now plies the lash, and soothes and threats in vain ; Nor to the fight, nor Hellespont they go ; Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe : Still as a tombstone, never to be moved. On some good man or woman unreproved. Lays its eternal weight ; or fixed as stands A marble courser by the sculptor's hands, ^ Patroclus, to whom Achilles had lent his horses. ILIAD. 41 Placed on the hero's grave. Along their face The big round drops coursed down with silent pace Conglobing on the dust. Their manes, that late Circled their archbd necks, and waved in state, Trailed on the dust beneath the yoke were spread. And prone to earth was hung their languid head : Nor Jove disdained to cast a pitying look. While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke : " Unhappy coursers of immortal strain ! Exempt from age, and deathless now in vain ; Did we your race on mortal man bestow, Only, alas ! to share in mortal woe ? For ah ! what is there of inferior birth, That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth ; What wretched creature of what wretched kind. Than man more weak, calamitous, and blind ? A miserable race ! but cease to mourn : For not by you shall Priam's son be borne High on the splendid car : one glorious prize He rashly boasts ; the rest our will denies. Ourself will swiftness to your nerves impart, Ourself with rising spirits swell your heart. Automedon your rapid flight shall bear Safe to the navy through the storm of war. For yet 't is given to Troy, to ravage o'er The field, and spread her slaughters to the shore ; The sun shall see her conquer, till his fall With sacred darkness shades the face of all." He said ; and breathing in the immortal horse Excessive spirit, urged them to the course ; From their high manes they shake the dust, and bear 42 HOMER. The kindling chariot through the parted war. So flies a vulture through the clamorous train Of geese, that scream, and scatter round the plain. From danger now with swiftest speed they flew, And now to conquest with like speed pursue ; Sole in the seat the charioteer remains, Now plies the javelin, now directs the reins. Pope. ILIAD, XIX., 276^24. THE RETURN OF ACHILLES TO THE WAR. Brisels mourns the Death of Patroclus. The speedy council at his word adjourned : To their black vessels all the Greeks returned. Achilles sought his tent. His train before Marched onward, bending with the gifts they bore. Those in the tents the squires industrious spread ; The foaming coursers to the stalls they led ; To their new seats the female captives move : Briseis, radiant as the Queen of Love, Slow as she passed, beheld with sad survey Where, gashed with cruel wounds, Patroclus lay. Prone on the body fell the heavenly fair. Beat her sad breast, and tore her golden hair ; All beautiful in grief, her humid eyes Shining with tears, she lifts, and thus she cries : " Ah, youth forever dear, forever kind, Once tender friend of my distracted mind ! I left thee fresh in life, in beauty gay ! Now find thee cold, inanimated clay ! What woes my wretched race of life attend ! ILIAD. 43 Sorrows on sorrows, never doomed to end ! The first loved consort of my virgin-bed Before these eyes in fatal battle bled ! My three brave brothers in one mournful day, All trod the dark, irremeable way : Thy friendly hand upreared me from the plain. And dried my sorrows for a husband slain ; Achilles' care you promised I should prove. The first, the dearest partner of his love ; That rites divine should ratify the band, And make me empress in his native land. Accept these grateful tears ! for thee they flow. For thee, that ever felt another's woe ! " Her sister captives echoed groan for groan. Nor mourned Patroclus' fortunes, but their own. The leaders pressed the chief on every side ; Unmoved he heard them, and with sighs denied. " If yet AchiUes have a friend, whose care Is bent to please him, this request forbear ; Till yonder sun descend, ah ! let me pay To grief and anguish one abstemious day." He spoke, and from the warriors turned his face : Yet still the brother-kings of Atreus' race, Nestor, Idomeneus, Ulysses sage, And Phoenix, strive to calm his grief and rage. His rage they calm not, nor his grief control ; He groans, he raves, he sorrows from his soul. " Thou too, Patroclus ! " (thus his heart he vents) " Once spread the inviting banquet in our tents : Thy sweet society, thy winning care, Once stayed Achilles, rushing to the war. But now, alas ! to death's cold arms resigned, 44 HOMER. What banquet but revenge can glad my mind ? What greater sorrow could affict my breast, What more, if hoary Peleus were deceased ? Who now, perhaps, in Phthia dreads to hear His son's sad fate, and drops a tender tear. What more, should Neoptolemus the brave (My only offspring) sink into the grave ? If yet that offspring lives ; (I distant far. Of all neglectful, wage a hateful war.) I could not this, this cruel stroke attend ; Fate claimed Achilles, but might spare his friend. I hoped Patroclus might survive, to rear My tender orphan with a parent's care. From Scyros' isle conduct him o'er the main. And glad his eyes with his paternal reign. The lofty palace, and the large domain. For Peleus breathes no more the vital air ; Or drags a wretched life of age and care, But till the news of my sad fate invades His hastening soul, and sinks him to the shades.'' Sighing he said : his grief the heroes joined. Each stole a tear for what he left behind. Their mingled grief the sire of heaven surveyed, And thus with pity to his blue-eyed maid : ■' " Is then Achilles now no more thy care, And dost thou thus desert the great in war ? Lo, where yon sails their canvas wings extend. All comfortless he sits, and wails his friend : Ere thirst and want his forces have oppressed, Haste and infuse ambrosia in his breast." He spoke, and sudden at the word of Jove 1 Minerva (Athene). ILIAD. 45 Shot the descending goddess from above. So swift through ether the shrill Harpy springs, The wide air floating to her ample wings. To great AchiUes she her flight addressed, And poured divine ambrosia in his breast, With nectar sweet, (refection of the gods !) Then, swift ascending, sought the bright abodes. Now issued from the ships the warrior train. And like a deluge poured upon the plain. As when the piercing blasts of Boreas blow. And scatter o'er the fields the driving snow ; From dusky clouds the fleecy winter flies, Whose dazzling lustre whitens all the skies : So helms succeeding helms, so shields from shields Catch the quick beams, and brighten all the fields ; Broad glittering breastplates, spears with pointed rays. Mix in one stream, reflecting blaze on blaze : Thick beats the centre as the coursers bound, With splendor flame the skies, and laugh the fields around. Full in the midst, high-towering o'er the rest. His limbs in arms divine AchUles dressed ; Arms which the father of the fire bestowed. Forged on the eternal anvils of the god. Grief and revenge his furious heart inspire, His glowing eyeballs roll with living fire ; He grinds his teeth, and furious with delay O'erlooks the embattled host, and hopes the bloody day. The silver cuishes first his thighs infold ; Then o'er his breast was braced the hollow gold : 46 HOMER. The brazen sword a various baldric tied, That, starred with gems, hung glittering at his side; And, like the moon, the broad refulgent shield Blazed with long rays, and gleamed athwart the field. So to night-wandering sailors, pale with fears. Wide o'er the watery waste a light appears. Which on the far-seen mountain blazing high. Streams from some lonely watch-tower to the sky : With mournful eyes they gaze and gaze again ; Loud howls the storm and drives them o'er the main. Next, his high head the helmet graced ; behind The sweepy crest hung floating in the wind : Like the red star, that from his flaming hair Shakes down diseases, pestilence, and war ; So streamed the golden honors from his head, Trembled the sparkling plumes, and the loose glo- ries shed. The chief beholds himself vpith wondering eyes ; His arms he poises, and his motions tries ; Buoyed by some inward force, he seems to swim. And feels a pinion lifting every limb. And now he shakes his great paternal spear, Ponderous and huge ! which not a Greek could rear : From Pelion's cloudy top an ash entire Old Chiron felled, and shaped it for his sire ; A spear which stern Achilles only wields, The death of heroes, and the dread of fields. ILIAD. 47 As Achilles is about to anter the battle, Xanthus, his Horse, addresses him. Automedon and Alcimus prepare The immortal coursers and the radiant car ; (The silver traces sweeping at their side ;) Their fiery mouths resplendent bridles tied ; The ivory-studded reins, returned behind, Waved o'er their backs, and to the chariot joined. The charioteer then whirled the lash around, And swift ascended at one active bound. All bright in heavenly arms, above his squire, Achilles mounts, and sets the field on fire ; Not brighter Phoebus in the ethereal way, Flames from bis chariot, and restores the day. High o'er the host all terrible he stands. And thunders to his steeds these dread commands : " Xanthus and Balius ! of Podarges' strain, (Unless ye boast that heavenly race in vain) Be swift, be mindful of the load ye bear. And learn to make your master more your care. Through falling squadrons bear my slaughtering sword, Nor, as ye left Patroclus,-' leave your lord." The generous Xanthus, as the words he said, Seemed sensible of woe, and drooped his head : Trembling he stood before the golden wain, And bowed to dust the honors of his mane. When, strange to tell ! (so Juno willed) he broke Eternal silence, and portentous spoke : 1 AchUles had lent hia horses to Patroolus, and the latter had been slain in the fight. 48 HOMER. " Achilles ! yes ! this day at least we bear, Thy rage in safety through the files of war : But come it wUl, the fatal time must come, Nor ours the fault, but God decrees thy doom. Not through our crime, or slowness in the course, Fell thy Patroclus, but by heavenly force ; The bright far-shooting god who gUds the day, (Confessed we saw him) tore his arms away. No : — could our swiftness o'er the winds prevail, Or beat the pinions of the western gale, All were in vain : the Fates thy death demand, Due to a mortal and immortal hand." Then ceased forever, by the Furies tied. His fateful voice. The intrepid chief replied With unabated rage : " So let it be ! Portents and prodigies are lost on me. I know my fates : to die, to see no more My much loved parents, and my native shore — Enough — when heaven ordains I sink in night ; Now perish Troy ! " he said, and rushed to fight. Pope. ILIAD, XXII., 248-515. THE DEATH OF HECTOR. The Meeting and the Contest. Now when the advancing chiefs stood face to face, The crested hero. Hector, thus began : " No longer I avoid thee as of late, son of Peleus ! Thrice around the walls Of Priam's mighty city have I fled, ILIAD. 49 Nor dared to wait thy coming. Now my heart Bids me encounter thee ; my time is come To slay or to be slain. Now let us call The gods to witness, who attest and guard The covenants of men. Should Jove bestow On me the victory, and I take thy life, Thou shalt meet no dishonor at my hands ; But, stripping off the armor, I will send The Greeks thy body. Do the like by me." The swift Achilles answered with a frown : " Accursed Hector, never talk to me Of covenants. Men and lions plight no faith, Nor wolves agree with lambs, but each must plan Evil against the other. So between Thyself and me no compact can exist. Or understood intent. First, one of us Must fall and yield his life-blood to the god Of battles. Summon all thy valor now. A skillful spearman thou hast need to be. And a bold warrior. There is no escape. For now doth Pallas doom thee to be slain By my good spear. Thou shalt repay to me The evil thou hast done my countrymen, — My friends whom thou hast slaughtered in thy rage." He spake, and, brandishing his massive spear, Hurled it at Hector, who beheld its aim From where he stood. He stooped, and over him The brazen weapon passed, and plunged to earth. Unseen by royal Hector, Pallas went And plucked it from the ground, and brought it back 50 HOM£R. And gave it to the hands of Peleus' son, While Hector said to his illustrious foe : " Godlike Achilles, thou hast missed thy mark ; Nor hast thou learned my doom from Jupiter, As thou pretendest. Thou art glib of tongue, And cunningly thou orderest thy speech. In hope that I who hear thee may forget My might and valor. Think not I shall flee. That thou mayst pierce my back : for thou shalt send Thy spear, if God permit thee, through my breast As I rush on thee. Now avoid in turn My brazen weapon. Would that it might pass Clean through thee, aU its length ! The tasks of war For us of Troy were lighter for thy death. Thou pest and deadly foe of all our race ! " He spake, and brandishing his massive spear, Hurled it, nor missed, but in the centre smote The buckler of Pelides. Far away It bounded from the brass, and he was vexed To see that the swift weapon from his hand Had flown in vain. He stood perplexed and sad ; No second spear had he. He called aloud On the white-bucklered chief, Deiphobus, To bring another ; but that chief was far. And Hector saw that it was so and said : — " Ah me ! the gods have summoned me to die. I thought my warrior-friend, Deiphobus, Was by my side ; but he is still in Troy, And Pallas has deceived me. Now my death Cannot be far, — is near ; there is no hope ILIAD. 51 Of my escape, for so it pleases Jove And Jove's great archer-son, who have till now Delivered me. My hour at last is come ; Yet not ingloriously or passively I die, but first will do some valiant deed, Of which mankind shall hear in after time." He spake, and drew the keen-edged sword that hung. Massive and finely tempered, at his side, And sprang — as when an eagle high in heaven. Through the thick cloud, darts downward to the plain To clutch some tender lamb or timid hare. So Hector, brandishing that keen-edged sword, Sprang forward, while Achilles opposite Leaped toward him, aU on fire with savage hate. And holding his bright buckler, nobly wrought. Before him. On his shining helmet waved The fourfold crest ; there tossed the golden tufts With which the hand of Vulcan lavishly Had decked it. As in the stUl hours of night Hesper goes forth among the host of stars, The fairest light of heaven, so brightly shone. Brandished in the right hand of Peleus' son, The spear's keen blade, as, confident to slay The noble Hector, o'er his glorious form His quick eye ran, exploring where to plant The surest wound. The glittering mail of brass Won from the slain Patroclus guarded well Each part, save only where the coUar-bones Divide the shoulder from the neck, and there Appeared the throat, the spot where life is most 52 HOMER. In peril. Through that part the noble son Of Peleus drave his spear ; it went quite through The tender neck, and yet the brazen blade Cleft not the windpipe, and the power to speak Remained. The Trojan fell amid the dust. And thus Achilles boasted o'er his fall : " Hector, when from the slain Patroclus thou Didst strip his armor, little didst thou think Of danger. Thou hadst then no fear of me, Who was not near thee to avenge his death. Fool ! there was left within the roomy ships A mightier one than he, who should come forth, The avenger of his blood, to take thy life. Foul dogs and birds of prey shall tear thy flesh ; The Greeks shall honor him with funeral rites." And then the crested Hector faintly said : " I pray thee by thy life, and by thy knees, And by thy parents, suffer not the dogs To tear me at the galleys of the Greeks. Accept abundant store of brass and gold, Which gladly wiU my father and the queen. My mother, give in ransom. Send to them My body, that the warriors and the dames Of Troy may light for me the funeral pile." The swift AchiUes answered with a frown : " Nay, by my knees entreat me not, thou cur, Nor by my parents. I could even wish My fury prompted me to cut thy flesh In fragments, and devour it, such the wrong That I have had from thee. There will be none To drive away the dogs about thy head, Not though thy Trojan friends should bring to me ILIAD. 53 Tenfold and twentyfold the offered gifts, And promise others, — not though Priam, sprung From Dardanus, should send thy weight in gold. Thy mother shall not lay thee on thy bier, To sorrow over thee whom she brought forth ; But dogs and birds of prey shall mangle thee." And then the crested Hector, dying, said : " I know thee and too clearly I foresaw I should not move thee, for thou hast a heart Of iron. Yet reflect that for my sake The anger of the gods may fall on thee. When Paris and Apollo strike thee down, Strong as thou art, before the Scsean gates." Thus Hector spake, and straightway o'er him closed The night of death ; the soul forsook his limbs. And flew to Hades, grieving for its fate, So soon divorced from youth and youthful might. Then said the great Achilles to the dead : " Die thou ; and I, whenever it shall please Jove and the other gods, will meet my fate." He spake, and, plucking forth his brazen lance, He laid it by, and from the body stripped The bloody mail. The thronging Greeks beheld With wonder Hector's tall and stately form, And no one came who did not add a wound ; And, looking to each other, thus they said : " How much more tamely Hector now endures Our touch than when he set the fleet on fire ! " Such were the words of those who smote the dead. But now, when swift Achilles from the corpse 04 HOMER. Had stripped the armor, he stood forth among The Achaian host, and spake these wingfed words : " Leaders and princes of the Grecian host ! Since we, my friends, by favor of the gods. Have overcome the chief who wrought more harm To us than all the rest, let us assault The town, and learn what they of Troy intend ; — Whether their troops will leave the citadel Since he is slain, or hold it with strong hand. Though Hector is no more. But why give thought To plans like these while yet Patroclus lies A corpse unwept, unburied, at the fleet ? I never will forget him while I live And while these limbs have motion. Though be- low In Hades they forget the dead, yet I Will there remember my beloved friend. Now then, ye youths of Greece, move on and chant A pEean, while returning to the fleet. We bring great glory with us ; we have slain The noble Hector, whom, throughout their town. The Trojans ever worshiped like a god." He spake, and, planning in his mind to treat The noble Hector shamefully, he bored The sinews of his feet between the heel And ankle ; drawing through them leathern thongs He bound them to the car, but left the head To trail in dust. And then he climbed the car, Took in the shining mail, and lashed to speed The coursers. Not unwillingly they flew. Around the dead, as he was dragged along. The dust arose ; his dark locks swept the ground. ILIAD. 55 That head, of late so nohle in men's eyes, Lay deep amid the dust, for Jove that day Suffered the foes of Hector to insult His corse in his own land. Chri^fof Hecuba and Priam. His mother saw, And tore her hair, and flung her lustrous veil Away, and uttered piercing shrieks. No less His father, who so loved him, piteously Bewailed him ; and in all the streets of Troy The people wept aloud, with such lament As if the towery Ilium were in flames Even to its loftiest roofs. They scarce could keep The aged king within, who, wUd with grief. Struggled to rush through the Dardanian gates, And, rolling in the dust, entreated all Who stood around him, calling them by name : " Refrain, my friends, though kind be your in- tent. Let me go forth alone, and at the fleet Of Greece will I entreat this man of blood And violence. He may perchance be moved With reverence for my age, and pity me In my gray hairs ; for such a one as I Is Peleus, his own father, by whose care This Greek was reared to be a scourge to Troy, And, more than all, a cause of grief to me. So many sons of mine in life's fresh prime Have fallen by his hand. I mourn for them. But not with such keen anguish as I mourn For Hector. Sorrow for his death will bring 66 HOMER. My soul to Hades. Would that he had died Here in my arms ! this solace had been ours, — His most mihappy mother and myself Had stooped to shed these tears upon his bier." He spake, and wept, and aU the citizens Wept with him. Hecuba among the dames Took up the lamentation, and began : — " Why do I live, my son, when thou art dead. And I so wretched ? — thou who wert my boast Ever, by night and day, where'er I went. And whom the Trojan men and matrons called Their bulwark, honoring thee as if thou wert A god. They glory in thy might no more, Since fate and death have overtaken thee." Weeping she spake. Andromache hears of Hector's Death. Meantime Andromache Had heard no tidings of her husband yet. No messenger had even come to say That he was still without the gates. She sat In a recess of those magnificent balls. And wove a twofold web of brilliant hues, On which were scattered flowers of rare device ; And she had given her bright-haired maidens charge To place an ample caldron on the fire. That Hector, coming from the battlefield. Might find the warm bath ready. Thoughtless one ! She knew not that the blue-eyed archei>queen. Far from the bath prepared for him, had slain Her husband by the hand of Peleus' son. ILIAD. . 67 She heard the shrieks, the wail upon the tower, Trembled in every limb, and quickly dropped The shuttle, saying to her bright-haired maids : " Come with me, two of you, that I may learn What now has happened. 'T is my mother's voice That I have heard. My heart leaps to my mouth ; My limbs fail under me. Some deadly harm Hangs over Priam's sons ; far be the hour When I shall hear of it. And yet I fear Lest that Achilles, having got between The daring Hector and the city gates, May drive him to the plain alone, and quell The desperate valor that was ever his ; For never would he keep the ranks, but ranged Beyond them, and gave way to no man's might." She spake, and from the royal mansion rushed Distractedly, and with a beating heart. Her maids went with her. When she reached the tower And throng of men, and, standing on the wall. Looked forth, she saw her husband dragged away Before the city. Toward the Grecian fleet The swift steeds drew him. Sudden darkness came Over her eyes, and in a breathless swoon She sank away and fell. The ornaments Dropped from her brow, — the wreath, the woven band. The net, the veil which golden Venus gave That day when crested Hector wedded her. Dowered with large gifts, and led her from her home, Eetion's palace. Round her in a throng 68 HOMER. Her sisters of the house of Priam pressed, And gently raised her in that deathlike swoon. But when she breathed again, and to its seat The conscious mind returned, as in their arms She lay, with sobs and broken speech she said : "Hector, — O wretched me! — we both were born To sorrow ; thou at Troy, in Priam's house, And I at Thebe in Eetion's halls. By woody Placos. From a little child He reared me there, — unhappy he, and I Unhappy ! that I had ne'er been born ! Thou goest down to Hades and the depths Of earth, and leavest me in thine abode, Widowed, and never to be comforted. Thy son, a speechless babe, to whom we two Gave being, — hapless parents ! cannot have Thy loving guardianship now thou art dead. Nor be a joy to thee. Though he survive The cruel warfare which the sons of Greece Are waging, hard and evil yet wiU be His lot hereafter ; others wUl remove His landmarks and will make his fields their own. The day in which a boy is fathei'less Makes him companionless ; with downcast eyes He wanders, and his cheeks are stained with tears. Unfed he goes where sit his father's friends. And plucks one by the cloak, and by the robe Another. One who pities him shaU give A scanty draught, which only wets his lips. But not his palate ; while another boy. Whose parents both are living, thrusts him thence ILIAD. 59 With blows and vulgar clamor : ' Get thee gone ! Thy father is not with us at the feast.' Then to his mdowed mother shall return Astyanax in tears, who not long since Was fed, while sitting in his father's lap, On marrow and the delicate fat of lambs. And ever when his childish sports had tired The boy, and sleep came stealing over him, He slumbered, softly cushioned, on a couch And in his nurse's arms, his heart at ease And satiate with delights. But now thy son Astyanax, — whom so the Trojans name Because thy valor guarded gate and tower, — Thy care withdrawn, shall suffer many things. While far from those who gave thee birth, beside The roomy ships of Greece, the restless worms ShaU make thy flesh their banquet when the dogs Have gorged themselves. Thy garments yet re- main Within the palace, delicately wrought And graceful, woven by the women's hands ; And these, since thou shalt put them on no more, Nor wear them in thy death, I burn with fire Before the Trojan men and dames ; and all Shall see how gloriously thou wert arrayed." Weeping she spake, and with her wept her maids. Bryant. 60 HOMER. ILIAD, XXIV., 468-598. PRIAM BEGS FROM ACHILLES THE BODY OF HIS SON HECTOR. So saying, Hermes swiftly sought again The Olympian heights. Then Priam, to the ground Alighting, left Idaeus charged to watch The steeds and mules, while right toward the tent, Achilles' residence, himself advanced. Him there he found, and sitting found apart His fellow-warriors, of whom two alone, Automedon and Alcimus the brave Attended his commands ; he had himself Supped newly, and the board stood unremoved. Unseen of all huge Priam entered, stood Before Achilles, clasped his knees and kissed Those terrible and homicidal hands. Which had destroyed so many of his sons. As when a fugitive for blood the house Of some chief enters in a foreign land, All gaze, astonished at the sudden guest. So gazed Achilles seeing Priam there, And so stood all astonished, each his eyes In silence fastening on his fellow's face. But Priam kneeled, and suppliant thus began : " Think, Achilles, semblance of the gods ! On thy own father full of days like me, And trembling on the gloomy verge of life. Some neighbor chief, it may be, even now Oppresses him, and there is none at hand, No friend to succor him in his distress. ILIAD. 61 Yet, doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives, He still rejoices, hoping, day by day, That one day he shall see the face again Of his own son from distant Troy returned. But me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons, So late the flower of Hium, all are slain. When Greece came hither, I had fifty sons : — ... A numerous house ! But fiery Mars hath thinned it. One I had. One, more than all my sons the strength of Troy, Whom standing for his country thou hast slain — Hector. His body to redeem I come Into Achaia's fleet, and bring, myself, Bansom inestimable to thy tent. Oh, fear the gods ! and for remembrance' sake Of thy own sire, Achilles ! pity me, More hapless still ; who bear what, save myself. None ever bore, thus lifting to my Ups Hands dyed so deep with slaughter of my sons." So saying, he wakened in his soul regret Of his own sire ; softly he placed his hand On Priam's hand, and pushed him gently away. Remembrance melted both. Stretched prone before Achilles' feet, the king his son bewailed. Wide-slaughtering Hector ; and Achilles wept By turns his father, and by turns his friend, Patroclus ; sounds of sorrow filled the tent. But when Achilles, satisfied at length With lamentation, felt his bosom eased Of its oppressive charge, and breathed again. Upstarting from his seat, with pity moved Of Priam's silver locks and silver beard. 62 HOMER. He raised the ancient father by the hand, Whom in wing'd accents kind he thus bespake : " Numerous indeed thy sorrows are — alas ! How could st thou venture to the ships alone, Alone into my presence, who have slain So many of thy sons renowned in arms ? Thou hast a heart of iron, terror-proof. Come — sit beside me. Let us, if we may. Great mourners both, bid sorrow sleep awhile. There is no profit of our sighs and tears ; For thus, exempt from care themselves, the gods Ordain man's miserable race to mourn. Fast by the threshold of Jove's courts are placed Two casks, one stored with evil, one with good. From which the god dispenses as he wills. For whom the glorious Thunderer mingles both. His life is checkered with alternate good And evil ; but to whom he gives unmixed The bitter cup, he makes that man a curse, His name becomes a byword of reproach. His strength is hunger-bitten, and he walks The blessed earth, unblest, go where he may. So was my father Peleus at his birth Nobly endowed, with plenty and with wealth Distinguished by the gods past all mankind. Lord of the Myrmidons, and, though a man. Yet matched from Heaven with an immortal bride. But even him the gods afflict, a son Refusing him, who might possess his throne Hereafter ; for myself, his only heir. Pass as a dream, and while I live, instead Of solacing his age, here sit, before ILIAD. 63 Your distant walls, the scourge of thee and thine. Thee also, ancient Priam, we have heard Reported once possessor of such wealth As neither Lesbos, seat of Macar owns. Nor Eastern Phrygia, nor yet all the ports Of Hellespont, but thou didst pass them all In riches, and the number of thy sons. But since the gods first brought on thy domain Tins woe, hostihty and deeds of blood Always surround the city where thou reign'st. Cease, therefore, from unprofitable tears. Which, ere they raise thy sou to life again. Shall doubtless find fresh cause for which to flow.'' To whom the godlike ancient king replied : " Urge not, divine Achilles, me to sit. While Hector lies unburied in the camp : Loose him, and loose him now, that with these eyes I may behold my son ; accept a prize Magnificent, which mayst thou long enjoy. And, since my life was precious in thy sight, Mayst thou revisit safe thy native shore ! " To whom Achilles, lowering, and, in wrath : " Move me no more. I purpose of myself To loose him ; Thetis, daughter of the Deep, Hath taught me that the will of Jove is such. Priam ! I understand thee well. I know That, by some God conducted, thou hast reached Achaia's fleet ; for, without aid divine. No mortal, even in his prime of youth, Had dared the attempt ; guards vigilant as ours He should not easily elude ; such gates, So massy, should not easily unbar. 64 HOMER. Thou, therefore, vex me not in my distress. Lest I abhor to see thee in my tent, And, borne beyond all limits, set at naught Thee and thy prayer, and the command of Jove." He said ; the old king trembled, and obeyed. Then sprang Pelides like a lion forth. Not sole, but with his two attendant friends, Alcimus and Automedon the brave ; For them (Patroclus slain) he honored most Of all the Myrmidons. They loosed the mules And horses from the yoke, then introduced And placed the herald of the hoary king. They lightened next the litter of its charge Inestimable, leaving yet a vest With two rich robes, that Priam might convey The body not uncovered back to Troy. Then, calling forth his women, them he bade Lave and anoint the body, but apart, Lest haply Priam, noticing his son, Through stress of grief should give resentment scope, And irritate by some afEront himself To slay him in despite of Jove's commands. They, therefore, laving and anointing first The body, clothed it with a robe and vest ; Then, Peleus' son disposed it on the bier. Lifting it from the ground, and his two friends Together heaved it to the royal wain. William Cowper. ODYSSEY, I., 319-365. PENELOPE AND THE MINSTREL. Soon as Athenfe spoke the word, She took the likeness of a bird, And, skyward soaring, fled. The counsels of the heavenly guest Within Telemachus's breast New strength and spirit bred. His absent father to his thought Was by his wakened memory brought More freshly than of old : But when Athene's flight he saw, A feeling deep of reverend awe His inmost heart controlled. He knew the stranger was a god ; And hastening to his own abode, He joined the suitor train. A far-famed minstrel in the hall Sang to the peers, who listened all In silence to his strain. As subject of his lay he chose The mournful story of the woes Borne by the Achaean host, 66 HOMER. When, under Pallas' vengeful wrath, Homeward returning was their path Bent from the Trojan coast. The song Icarius' daughter * heard, And put together every word As from below it came ; Straight did she from her bower repair And hastened down the lofty stair, That great, wisehearted dame. Alone she went not — in her train She took with her handmaidens twain ; And when the peerless queen Came where the suitors sate, aloof Close by a post that propped the roof, She stood with face unseen. A veil concealed her cheeks from view, And by each side a handmaid true In seemly order stood ; With tears fast bursting from her eyne. Addressing thus the bard divine. She her discourse pursued : " Phemius ! for men's delight thy tongue Can many another flowing song In soothing measure frame ; Can tell of many a deed, which done By god or man in days bygone. Bards have consigned to fame. 1 Penelope, wife of the absent Ulysses. ODTSSMr. 67 " Choose one of these, and all around, Silent will hear the dulcet sound. E'en as they drink their wine ; But cease that melancholy lay That wears my very heart away — A heavy woe is mine ! " How can I check the tide of grief, Eemembering still that far-famed chief, Whose fame all HeUas fills ? " Answered her son, " O mother mine ! Why dost thou blame the bard divine, For singing as he wills ? " Blame not the poet — blame to Heaven, Which to poor struggling men has given What weight of woe it chose. How can we charge the bard with wrong, If the sad burden of his song Turns on the Danaan woes ? " Men, ever with delighted ear, The newest song desire to hear ; Then firmly to the strain Listen, which tells of perils done ; My sire is not the only one Who of the chiefs to Ilion gone Has not returned again. " For many, to that fatal shore Who sailed away, came back no more ; Thy business is at home, 68 BOMER. Thy servant-maidens to command, And ply with an industrious hand, The distaff and the loom. " To men the guiding power must be, At all times in these halls to me ; For here my will is law." The queen went homeward as he bade, And felt the words her son had said Inspire her soul with awe. Soon did she, with her handmaids twain. Her lofty seated chamber gain. And there, with many a tear, Until Athenfe came to steep Her weary lids in balmy sleep, Right sorrowfully did she weep Her absent husband dear ; While, seated stiU at festival, The suitors in the dusky hall Reveled with noisy cheer. William Maginn. ODYSSEY, IV., 121-230. HELEN AT THE BANQUET. Feom her perfumed chamber wending, Did the high-born Helen go ; Artemis she seemed descending. Lady of the golden bow ; Then Adrasta, bent on duty, Placed for her the regal chair ; ODYSSEY. 69 Carpet for the feet of beauty Spread Alcippe soft and fair. Phylo came the basket holding, Present of Alcandra's hand ; Fashioned was its silver moulding In old Egypt's wealthy land ; She, in famous Thebb living, Was of Polybus the spouse, He with soul of generous giving Shared the wealth that stored his house. Ten gold talents from his coffer, Lavers twain of silver wrought, "With two tripods as his offer, Had he to Atrides brought ; WhUe his lady came bestowing Gifts to Helen rich of price, Gave a distaff, golden, glowing. Gave this work of rare device. Shaped was it in fashion rounded. All of silver but the brim, "Where by skUlful hand 't was bounded, "With a golden-guarded rim. Now to Helen Phylo bore it, Of its well-spun labor full, And the distaff laid she o'er it, Wrapped in violet-tinted wool. ThronM, then, and thus attended, Helena the king addressed : 70 HOMER. " Menelaus, Jove-descended, Know'st thou who is here thy guest ? Shall I teU thee, as I ponder, What I think, or false or true ; Gazing now with eyes of wonder On the stranger whom I view ? " Shape of male or female creature. Like to bold Odysseus' son ; Young Telemachus in feature, As this youth I seen have none. From the boy his sire departed, And to Uion's coast he came. When to valiant war ye started, All for me — a thing of shame." And Atrides spake, replying, " Lady, so I think as thou. Such the glance from eyeball flying, Such his hands, his feet, his brow ; Such the locks his forehead gracing : And I marked how as I told Of Odysseus' deeds retracing, Down his cheek the tear-drop rolled, " While he wiped the current straying With his robe of purple hue." Nestor's son then answered, saying, — " What thou speakest, king, is true. He who at thy board is sitting Is of wise Odysseus sprung ; Modest thoughts, his age befitting. Hitherto have stilled his tongue. ODYSSEY. 71 " To address thee could he venture, While thy winning accents flowed, In our ravished ears to enter, As if uttered by a god ! At Gerenian Nestor's sending Comes beneath my guidance he, In the hope thy well intending To his guest of help may be. Many a son feels sorrow try him While his sire is far away, And no faithful comrade by him. In his danger prop or stay. So, my friend, now vainly sighing O'er his father absent long, Finds no hand, on which relying, He may meet attempted wrong." Kindly Menelaus spake him, Praised his sire in grateful strain, Told his whilom hope to take him As a partner in his reign ; AU were softened at his telling Of the days now past and gone ; Wept Telemachus, wept Helen, FeU the tears from Nestor's son. Gushing came they for his brother. Slain by Dawn-born Memnon's sword ; But his grief he strove to smother, As unfit for festal board. Ceased the tears for woe and slaughter. And again began the feast ; 72 BOMER. Eound Asphalion bore the water, Tendered to each noble guest.^ Then to banish gloomy thinking, Helen on gay fancy bent. In the wine her friends were drinking, Flung a famed medicament : Grief-dispeUing, wrath-restraining. Sweet oblivion of all woe ; He the bowl thus tempered draining Ne'er might feel a tear to flow. No, not e'en if she who bore him And his sire in death were laid ; Were his brother slain before him. Or his son with gory blade. In such drugs was Helen knowing ; Egypt had supplied her skiU, Where these potent herbs are growing, Some for good and some for ill. > Maginn. ODYSSEY, v., 55-75. HERMES AUEIVES AT CALYPSO'S GEOTTO. And now arriving at the isle, he springs Oblique, and landing with subsided wings Walks to the cavern 'mid the tall green rocks. Where dwelt the goddess with the lovely locks. 1 The translator has condensed into the two preceding stanzas the'sutstanoe of the lines from 168 to 218. He re- sumes at 219. ODYSSEY. 73 He paused ; and there came on him as he stood A smell of cedar and of citron wood, That threw a perfume all about the isle ; And she within sat spinning all the while, And sang a low sweet song that made him hark and smile. A sylvan nook it was, grown round with trees, Poplars, and elms, and odorous cypresses, In which all birds of ample wing, the owl And hawk had nests, and broad-tongued waterfowl. The cave in front was spread with a green vine, Whose dark round bunches almost burst with wine ; And from four springs, running a sprightly race. Four fountains clear and crisp refreshed the place ; WhUe all about a meadowy ground was seen. Of violets mingling with the parsley green. So that a stranger, though a god were he. Might well admire it, and stand there to see ; And so admiring there stood Mercury. Leigh Hunt. ODYSSEY, VII., 81-132. THE PALACE AND GARDENS OF KING ALCINOUS. Odysseus to Alcinoiis' halls paced on, And in his breast his stormy heart beat fast. He pausing, ere his feet the brazen threshold passed. For, like the sun's fire or the moon's, a light Far streaming through the high-roofed house did 74 BOMER. From the long basement to the topmost height. There on each side ran walls of flaming brass, Zoned on the summit with a blue bright mass Of cornice ; and the doors were framed of gold ; Where, underneath, the brazen floor doth glass Silver pilasters, which with grace uphold Lintel of silver framed ; the ring was burnished gold. And dogs on each side of the doors there stand. Silver and gold, the which in ancient day Hephaestus wrought with cunning brain and hand, And set for sentinels to hold the way. Death cannot tame them, nor the years decay. And from the shining threshold thrones were set, Skirting the walls in lustrous long array. On to the far room, where the women met. With many a rich robe strewn and woven coverlet. There the Phseacian chieftains eat and drink, WhUe golden youths on pedestals upbear Each in his outstretched hand a lighted link, Which nightly on the royal feast doth flare. And in the house are fifty handmaids fair ; Some in the mill the yellow corn grind small ; Some ply the looms, and shuttles twirl, which there Flash like the quivering leaves of aspen tall ; And from the close-spun weft the trickling oil wUl fall. For as Phseacian men surpass in skill All mortals that in Earth's wide kingdoms dwell ODYSSEY. 75 Through the waste ocean, wheresoe'er they will, The cleaving keel obedient to impel — So far their women at the loom excel ; Since all brave handiwork and mental grace Pallas Athen^ gave them to know well. Outside the courtyard stretched a planted space Of orchard, and a fence environed all the place. There in full prime the orchard-trees grow tall, Sweet fig, pomegranate, apple fruited fair, Pear and the healthful olive. Each and all Both summer droughts and chills of winter spare ; All the year round they flourish. Some the air Of Zephyr warms to Ufe, some doth mature. Apple grows old on apple, pear on pear, Fig follows fig, vintage doth vintage lure ; Thus the rich revolution doth for aye endure. With well-sunned floor for drying, there is seen The vineyard. Here the grapes they cull, there tread. Here falls the blossom from the clusters green ; There the first blushings by the suns are shed. Last, flowers forever fadeless — bed by bed ; Two streams ; one waters the whole garden fair ; One through the courtyard, near the house, is led; "Whereto with pitchers aU the folk repair. All these the god-sent gifts to king Alcinoiis were. Philip Stanhope Worsley. 76 EOMER. ODYSSEY, IX., 80-104. THE LOTUS-EATEES. Now me the current and fell Boreas whirled, Doubhng Malea's cape, and far astray Beyond the rude clifEs of Cythera hurled. So for nine days along the watery way. Teeming with monsters, me the winds affray And with destruction ever seem to whelm : But, on the afternoon of the tenth day, "We reached, borne downward with an easy helm, Land of the flowery food, the Lotus-eating realm. Anon we step forth on the dear mainland. And draw fresh water from the springs, and there, Seated at ease along the silent strand. Not far from the swift ships our meal prepare. Soon having tasted of the welcome fare, I with the herald brave companions twain Sent to explore what manner of men they were, Who, on the green earth couched beside the main, Seemed ever with sweet food their lips to entertain. Who, when they came on the delightful place Where those sat feeding by the barren wave, There mingled with the Lotus-eating race ; Who naught of ruin for our comrades brave Dreamed in their minds, but of the Lotus gave ; ODYSSEY. 77 And whoso tasted of their flowery meat Cared not with tidings to return, but clave Fast to that tribe, forever fain to eat, Reckless of home-return, the tender Lotus sweet. Those sorely weeping by main strength we bore Back to the hollow ships with all our speed. And thrust them bound with cords upon the floor. Under the benches : then the rest I lead On board and bid them to the work give heed. Lest others, eating of the Lotus, yearn Always to linger in that land, and feed. Careless forever of the home-return : Then, bending to the oars, the foamy deep they spurn. ODYSSEY,. X., 203-243. CIRCE TRANSFORMS THE COMPANIONS OF ULYSSES INTO SWINE. Then in two bauds I numbered all my train, Each with its chief. One to myself I took : One did to fair Eurylochus pertain. Then we the lots in steely helmet shook. And his leapt forth ; nor he the work forsook. But passed with twain-and-twenty ranged around. Weeping ; we after them yearned many a look Weeping. So in the woods the house they found Of Circe, stone well-hewn, and on conspicuous ground. 78 30MER. Wolves of the mountain all around the way, And lions, softened by the spells divine. As each her philters had partaken, lay. These cluster round the men's advancing line Fawning like dogs, who, when their lord doth dine, Wait till he issues from the banquet-hall, And for the choice gifts which his hands assign Fawn, for he ne'er forgets them — so these aU Fawn on our friends, whom much the unwonted sights appall. Soon at her vestibule they pause, and hear A voice of singing from a lovely place, Where Circe weaves her great web year by year. So shining, slender, and instinct with grace. As weave the daughters of immortal race. Then said Polites, nearest, first in worth Of all my friends : " Hark ! through the echoing space Floats a sweet music charming air and earth ! Call ! for some goddess bright or woman gave it birth." Thus spake he, and they lifted up their voice And called her. She the brilliant doors anon Unfolding bade them in her halls rejoice ; Who entered in not knowing, save alone Eurylochus, misdoubting fraud. FuU soon ODYSSEY. 79 Benches and chairs in fair array she set, And mixing meal and honey, poured thereon Strong Pramnian wine, and with the food they ate Beat up her baleful drugs, to make them quite for- get Their country. They receiving drank, unwise. Forthwith she smote them with her wand divine, And drave them out, and shut them close in styes. Where they the head, voice, form, and hair of swine Took, but the heart stayed sane, as ere the wine Confused them ; they thus to their lairs retreat ; She food, whereon the brutish herd might dine. Furnished, mast, acorns, their familiar meat. Such as earth-groveling swine are ever wont to eat. [Now Eurylochus, alone escaping the charm, returned to the ship. Then Ulysses must needs himself go to Circe if perchance he might deliver his comrades. And as he walked by the way, the god Hermes meeting him gave him the plant Moly l to he his help ; and coming to Circe's house he so prevailed with her that she restored his companions to their proper shape.] X., 388^37. I ended. Forthwith Circe, wand in hand. Moved from the hall, and opening wide the stye Forth drave them : who before the goddess stand ^ See note. 80 HOMER. Like swine . nine-seasoned. She, approaching nigh, Smeared over each a different drug, wherehy The hairs dropped from them which the former bane Had nurtured, and like men in majesty To their old semblance they returned again. But with new beauty dowered, a taller, younger train. Also they knew me and clasped eagerly My hand, and happy lamentation rose Of voices yearning as in agony. Till the wide arches seemed to ring with woes. She then herself, with pity pierced, bestows These words : " Divine Odysseus, hasten hence ! First draw thy bark aground, and deep inclose In the sea-caves thy tackling, and dispense Safely thy goods, then bring thy loyal comrades thence." So spake she, and my manly heart obeyed ; And to the ship descending and the shore I found my friends, with miseries o'erweighed, Shedding the frequent tear-drop evermore. As when a sort of country calves doth pour Thick round their grass-fiUed mothers, and with blare Of welcome urge their eager pastime, nor Can the close fences round about their lair Confine them, stung with joy, still leaping here and there, — ODTSSHr. 81 So when these saw me with their eyes, they pressed Not without tears around me, and their blood Stirred with such pulses in their yearning breast As on the much-desLred sweet earth they stood Of Ithaca's rough island crowned with wood. Their country-home, where they were born and bred. Mourning they spake : " At thy return such mood We feel, as far from sorrows we had sped To Ithaca : but haste, inform us of our dead ! " I in soft words made answer : " From the waves First hale we to the sandy continent Our bark, and shelter in the chambered cave For all our wealth and naval arms invent. Thence unto Circe's halls magnificent Move in my train, that ye your friends may find Eating and drinking, who nowise repent Their sojourn, such good cheer is there assigned ; Plenty untold they reap and all things to their mind." Worsley. ODYSSEY, XI., 385^56. ULYSSES, VISITING THE LOWER WORLD, HEARS FROM AGAMEMNON THE STORY OF HIS DEATH. Afterwakd, soon as the chaste Persephone hither and thither Now had scattered afar the slender shades of the women, 82 HOMER. Came the sorrowing ghost of Agamemnon Atreides ; Round whom thronged, besides, the souls of the others who also Died, and met their fate, with him in the house of Aigisthos. He, then, after he di'ank of the dark blood, instantly knew me ; Ay, and he wailed aloud, and plenteous tears was shedding. Toward me reaching hands and eagerly longing to touch me ; But he was shorn of strength, nor longer came at his bidding That great force which once abode in his pliant members. Seeing him thus, I wept, and my heart was laden with pity. And, uphfting my voice, in winged words I ad- dressed him : " King of men, Agamemnon, thou glorious son of Atreus, Say in what wise did the doom of prostrate death overcome thee ? Was it within thy ships thou wast subdued by Poseidon Eousing the dreadful blast of winds too hard to be mastered. Or on the firm-set land did banded foemen destroy thee Cutting their oxen off, and their flocks so fair, or it may be, While in a town's defense, or in that of women, con- tending ? " 0J}rS8£Y. 83 Thus I spake, and he, replying, said to me straightway : " Nobly-born and wise Odysseus, son of Laertes, Neither within my ships was I subdued by Poseidon Rousing the dreadful blast of winds too hard to be mastered, Nor on the firm-set land did banded f oemen destroy me; Nay, but death and my doom were well contrived by Aigisthos, Who, with my cursfed wife, at his own house bid- ding me welcome. Fed me, and slew me, as one might slay an ox at the manger ! So, by a death most wretched, I died ; and all my companions Bound me were slain o£B-hand, like white-toothed swine that are slaughtered Thus, when some lordly man, abounding in power and riches. Orders a wedding-feast, or a frolic, or mighty carousal. Thou indeed hast witnessed the slaughter of num- berless heroes Massacred, one by one, in the battle's heat; but with pity All thy hfeart had been full, if thou hadst seen what I tell thee, — How in the haU we lay among the wine-jars, and under Tables laden with food ; and how the pavement, on all sides. 34 HOMER. Swam with blood ! And I heard the dolorous cry of Kassandra, Priam's daughter, whom treacherous Klytaimnestra anear me Slew ; and upon the ground I fell in my death- throes, vainly Reaching out hands to my sword, while the shame- less woman departed ; Nor did she even stay to press her hands on my eyelids, No, nor to close my mouth, although I was passing to Hades. Oh, there is naught more dire, more insolent than a woman After the very thought of deeds like these has pos- sessed her, — One who would dare to devise an act so utterly shameless, Lying in wait to slay her wedded lord. I bethought me, Verily, home to my children and servants giving me welcome Safe to return ; but she has wrought for herself confusion. Plotting these grievous woes, and for other women hereafter. Even for those, in sooth, whose thoughts are set upon goodness." Thus he spake, and I, in turn replying, addressed him : " Heavens ! how from the first has Zeus the thun- derer hated. ODYSSEY. 86 All for the women's wiles, the brood of Atreus ! What numbers Perished in quest of Helen, — and Klytaimnestra, the meanwhile. Wrought in her soul this guile for thee afar on thy journey." Thus I spake, and he, replying, said to me straightway : " See that thou art not, then, like me too mUd to thy helpmeet ; Nor to her ear reveal each secret matter thou knowest ; TeU her the part, forsooth, and see that the rest shall be hidden. Nathless, not unto thee will come such murder, Odysseus, Dealt by a wife ; for wise indeed, and true in her purpose. Noble Penelope is, the child of Ikarios. Truly, She it was whom we left, a fair young bride, when we started Off for the wars ; and then an infant lay at her bosom. One who now, methinks, in the list of men must be seated. Blest indeed ! ah, yes, for his well-loved father, re- turning, Him shall behold, and the son shall clasp the sire, as is fitting. Not unto me to feast my eyes with the sight of my offspring Granted the wife of my bosom, but first of life she bereft me. 86 HOMER. Therefore I say, moreover, and charge thee well to remember. Unto thine own dear land steer thou thy vessel in secret, Not in the light ; since faith can be placed in woman no long^f." Edmund C. Stedman. ODYSSEY, XI., 582-600. THE PUNISHMENT OP TANTALUS AND SISYPHUS. There also Tantalus in anguish stood. Plunged in the stream of a translucent lake ; And to his chin welled ever the cold flood. But when he rushed, in fierce desire to break His torment, not one drop could he partake. For as the old man stooping seems to meet That water with his fiery lips and slake The frenzy of wild thirst, around his feet. Leaving the dark earth dry, the shuddering waves retreat. Also the thick-leaved arches overhead Fruit of all savor in profusion flung. And in his clasp rich clusters seemed to shed. There citrons waved, with shining fruitage hung, Pears and pomegranates, olive ever young And the sweet-mellowing fig : but whensoe'er The old man, fain to cool his burning tongue. Clutched with his fingers at the branches fair. Came a strong wind and whirled them skyward through the air. ODYBSEY. 87 And I saw Sisyphus in travail strong Shove with both hands a mighty sphere of stone. With feet and sinewy wrists he laboring long Just pushed the vast globe up, with many a groan ; But when he thought the huge mass to have thrown Clean o'er the summit, the enormous weight Back to the nether plain rolled tumbling down. He, straining, the great toil resumed, while sweat Bathed each laborious limb, and the brows smoked with heat. Worsley. ODYSSEY, XX., 66-78. THE DAUGHTERS OP PANDARUS. And so these daughters fair of Pandarus, The whirlwinds took. The gods had slain their kin; They were left orphans in their father's house. And Aphrodite came to comfort them With incense, luscious honey, and fragrant wine ; And Here gave them beauty of face and soul Beyond all women ; purest Artemis Endowed them with her stature and white grace ; And Pallas taught their hands to flash along Her famous looms. Then, bright with deity. Toward far Olympus, Aphrodite went To ask of Zeus (who has his thunder-joys And his full knowledge of man's mingled fate) How best to crown those other gifts with love And worthy marriage : but, what time she went, 88 HOMER. The ravishing Harpies snatched the maids away, And gave them up, for all their loving eyes, To serve the Furies who hate constantly. Mrs. Browning. ODYSSEY, XXII., 1-389. THE SLAYING OF THE SUITORS. Ulysses on his return to Ithaca makes his first appearance in the disguise of a beggar, in order the better to form his plans — revealing himself only to his son and a trusty ser- vant. When all is ready he suddenly throws o£B his disguise and makes himself known to the astonished suitors. Stbipt of his rags then leapt the godlike king On the great threshold, in his hand the how And quiver, filled with arrows of mortal sting. These with a rattle he rained down helow, Loose at his feet, and spake among them so : " See, at the last our matchless bout is o'er ! Now for another mark, that I may know If I can hit what none hath hit before, And if Apollo hear me in the prayers I pour ! " Thus did he speak, and aimed a bitter dart Against Antiuous. He the beauteous cup. Twin-eared and golden, carved with curious art. Was lifting in his hands and tilting up Close to his red hps, the sweet wine to sup. And in his mind of murder held no care. Who could beheve, 'mid feast and flowing cup. One of a crowd, though he far mightier were, Would for a guest black fate and evU death pre- pare? ODYSSEY. 89 Him with an arrow in his throat the king Shot. Through his delicate neck the barb made way. He, falling backward, made the pavement ring. Down clanged the cup, and where it clanged it lay. And, ere a man could wonder or gainsay. Blood from the nostrils the wide floor imbrued. He in a moment wildly kicked away The table with both feet, and spilt the food, And all the place with bread and broken flesh was strewed. And now, behold, the suitors a dire clang Stirred in the palace, when they marked him fall. And from the benches and the chairs they sprang. Pale and aghast within the shadowy hall. Peering about in terror from wall to wall. Nor, as they looked, could they discern within Spear, sword, nor shield, nor any arms at all. Scared as from sleep, and with a troublous din, They to divine Odysseus wrathful words begin : " Stranger, not well thou doest to aim at men. These are thy last lists ; thou shalt sm'ely die. See, by thy hand the bravest of our men, Flower of all Ithaca, doth murdered lie. Thy bones the vultures shall pick by and by." But each held back, averring that he slew By chance the man. How fatal and how nigh Death's snares were set, they foolish never knew ! Whom the king sternly eyed, and to the godless 90 HOMER. " Dogs, ye denied that I should e'er come back From Troia's people to my native land. Long in your pride my house ye rend and wrack, Yea, and ye force the women with violent hand, And my wife claim while I on earth yet stand. Nor fear the gods who rule in the wide sky, Nor lest a mortal on the earth demand Your price of guilt — and ye are like to die ! Round you death's fatal toils inextricably lie." He ceased, and all were taken with pale fear. Peering about in terror, if they might flee Black doom and ruin and destruction sheer. Then spake Eurymachus, and only he : " If thou the Ithacan Odysseus be. Now home returning to thy native land, Well hast thou spoken : Fqr I know that we Oft in thy town and fields with violent hand, And here within thy mansion, have much evil planned. " But now behold he lieth dead, the cause Of all our crime, Antinous. He alone Urged us to drink and revel and break the laws — He in his heart, it is a thing well known. Caring far less to make thy wife his own Than for a scheme, which Zeus doth bring to naught, That here the king's line might be overthrown ; Yea, for thy child a secret snare he wrought. And for himself in Ithaca the kingdom sought. ODYSSEY. 91 " Now hath he fallen by the doom of fate. But spare thy people who in after day Swear in this country on thy will to wait, And in thy palace the whole price to pay Of aU things drank and eaten, and to lay Each one before thy feet fines worth a score Of oxen, brass, and gold, whate'er we may. Till thy heart warms to view the countless store. Reason enough thou hast to feel enraged before." Him wise Odysseus sternly eyed, and spake : " Eurymachus, though ye the whole restore. And aU your own wealth and your fathers' take. And the earth ransack till ye add much more. Never these hands shall the dire work give o'er Ere your flown pride is to the fuU repaid. Choose now to fight, or if ye list explore Some byway, if escape may yet be made. But, as I think, Death's toils no longer ye evade." Then quailed their knees and heart, and thus again Eurymachus spake forth : " friends, the man Will not give over till we aU are slain. Quick draw your knives, and pile up as ye can Tables to cover us. It were best we ran AU in close voUey against him, firm to try And thrust him by the strength of aU our clan Down from the doors, and stir a public cry. Then quickly his last arrow wiU the man let fly.'' 92 HOMER. Then he his knife drew, and with terrible cry Sprang toward the king; who, aiming at the breast. Hard by the nipple, let the arrow fly ; And in his liver the keen barb found rest. Dropped from his hand the knife. He with prone chest Fell like a ruin, and threw down the meat And the rich wine-cup. His tall forehead's crest Knocked on the earth, he rattling with both feet The throne, and on his eyes the darkling death-rain beat. Then rushed Amphinomus onward with drawn knife, To thrust Odysseus from the doors, but lo ! First with the spear Telemachus reft his life. And 'twixt the shoulders made the iron go Clean through the lungs ; and with a clang the foe Knocked with his forehead on the earth. Back pressed Telemachus, the long spear leaving so, Lest, from the wound when he the spear would wrest. One cut him down unwares, or stab him breast to breast. And lo, the suitors their sharp spears once more Hurled ; but Athenfe sent the most part wide. ODYSSEY. 93 One hit the pillar, and one hit the door, And one fell heavy on the wall aside. Nathless Amphimedon with blood just dyed Skin of the wrist of brave Odysseus' son. Ctesippus, hurling o'er the tough buU's-hide, Smote on the swineherd's shoulder — so passed on The dart, and flew beyond him, and to earth fell down. Then did Odysseus and his friends renew Their hurling, and among the crowd shot thus, — Stormer of towns, the brave Odysseus, slew Eurydamas ; and young Telemachus, Amphimedon ; the swineherd, Polybus ; The herdsman hit Ctesippus in the breast, And cried : " No longer vaunt and fleer at us, But let the gods speak, who are far the best. This for the foot thou gavest to the suppliant guest." Also in close fight with his spear the king Tore Agelaus ; the young prince his spear Drave through Leiocritus. He ruining Clanged with his forehead. And Athenfe there Waved her man-murdering aegis in the air. Then, scared in spirit, through the hall they fled. As when the gadfly in the spring of the year, When the days lengthen, 'mid the kine makes head, And stings them into fury where at peace they fed. And as when eagles, curven-beaked and strong. Fly from the hills and the fleet birds assail ; 94 HOMER. These in the low plain flit and cower along, Pounced on with fury, nor can flight avail Nor courage, while good sport the fowlers hail — So 'mid the suitors hovering evermore. Turning about they smite them, and deal bale. Direly the heads crashed, and a hideous roar Sounded forever, and stiQ the bubbling earth ran gore. MeanwhUe the king pried busUy to and fro, Lest one alive yet lurk, avoiding bale. And all he found in bloody dust laid low. Strewn, like dumb fishes on the sandy graUe, Whom from the hoary deep the fisliers hale In many-windowed net. They on dry land. Sick for the sea, gasp dying ; nor doth fail Fierce noon to kill them on the burning sand — Thus lay the slain men heaped by his victorious hand. Warsley. ODYSSEY, XXIII., 3oa-343. ULYgSES TELLS HIS STORY TO PENELOPE. She told him of the scorn and wrong She long had suffered in her house, From the detested suitor throng, Each wooing her to be his spouse. How, for their feasts, her sheep and kine Were slaughtered, while they quaffed her wine In plentiful carouse. ODYSSEY. 95 And he, the noble wanderer, spoke Of many a deed of peril sore — Of men who fell beneath his stroke — Of all the sorrowing tasks he bore. She listened, with delighted ear, Sleep never came her eyelids near Tni all the tale was o'er. First told he how the Cicones He had subdued with valiant hand, And how he reached, across the seas, The Lotus-eaters' lovely land ; The crimes by Polyphemus done, And of the well-earned vengeance won, For slaughter of his band. Vengeance for gallant comrades slain. And by the Cyclops made a prey ; And how it was his lot to gain The isle where ^olus holds sway ; And how the Monarch of the wind Received him with a welcome kind. And would have sent away. Home to his native isle to sail ; But vainly against fate he strove, By whom unroused a desperate gale Over the fishy ocean drove. And sent him wandering once again. The toils and dangers of the main With many a groan to prove. 96 HOMER. And how he wandered to the coast Where dwells the distant Lsestrygon ; How there his ships and friends he lost, Escaping in his bark alone ; He spoke of Circe's magic guile, And told the art and deep-skiUed wile By the enchantress shown. Then how to Hades' grisly hall He went to seek the Theban seer, In his swift ship ; how there with all The partners of his long career He met ; and how his mother mild Who bore, and reared him from a child, He saw while wandering there. And how the dangerous strain he heard, Sung by the Sirens' thrilling tongue ; And how with dexterous skill he steered His course the justling rocks among ; How he, what none had done before, Unscathed through dread Charybdis bore. And Seylla sailed along. And how the oxen of the sun With impious hand his comrades slew ; And how high-thundering Jove upon Their flying bark his lightning threw. Till by the bolt, of life bereft, Perished his friends, he only left Remaining of the crew. ODYSSEY. 97 And how, in the Ogygian isle, He visited Calypso fair ; And how she sought with many a wile, To keep him still sojourning there : With fond desire 't was hers to crave, That he, within her hollow cave, Her nuptial bed should share. Each hospitable art she tried. His heart to win — his hopes to soothe ; She promised him, were she his bride. Immortal life and ceaseless youth. But all her promise, all her art. Changed not the temper of his heart. Nor shook his steadfast truth. How, after many a year of toil. When on Phaeacian land he trod. The king and people of the isle Hailed him with honors of a god ; And sent him full of presents fair, Of gold, and brass, and garments rare, Back to his own abode. So closed the tale. Then balmy sleep. The healer of all'human woes. Did their relaxing members steep In soft oblivion of repose. Maginn. HOMERIC HYMNS. TO HERMES. This Iiymn narrates the wonderful performances of the infant Hermes (Mercury) during the first day of his exist- ence. The poet tells us that within a few hours of his birth he creeps to the door of his caTem home, where he finds a tortoise, from whose shell he constructs a lyre, thus becom- ing the inventor of that musical instrument. Then follows the main story of the hymn. In the evening, — " Seized with a sudden fancy for freah meat," — he ranges mountain and valley in quest of the herds of Apollo. He slays two of the cattle, and discovering the secret of fire, burns the bodies to leave no trace behind. The passage given in the text takes up the story at this point, narrating the infant's return to his cradle and his charming defense when charged by Apollo with the theft. The poem is too long to be given entire. The remaining stanzas tell how Apollo takes the little culprit to Zeus for trial, and how the matter is finally settled by the gift of Hermes' newly in- vented lyre to Apollo, the latter first stipulating that Her- mes shall never steal from him the lyre or anything else. All night he worked in the serene moonshine ; But when the light of day was spread abroad He sought his natal mountain-peaks divine. On his long wandering, neither man nor god Had met him, since he killed Apollo's kine, Nor house-dog had barked at him on his road ; Now he obliquely through the keyhole passed, Like a thin mist, or an autumnal blast. TO HERMES. 99 Bight through the temple of the spacious cave He went with soft light feet — as if his tread Fell not on earth ; no sound their falling gave ; Then to his cradle he crept quick, and spread The swaddling-clothes ahout him ; and the knave Lay playing with the covering of the bed, With his left hand about his knees — the right Held his beloved tortoise-lyre tight. There he lay innocent as a new-born child, As gossips say ; but, though he was a god. The goddess, his fair mother, unbeguiled Knew all that he had done, being abroad ; " Whence come you, and from what adventure wild, You cunning rogue, and where have you abode All the long night, clothed in your impudence ? What have you done since you departed hence ? " Apollo soon will pass within this gate. And bind your tender body in a chain Inextricably tight, and fast as fate, Unless you can delude the god again, Even when within his arms — ah, runagate ! A pretty torment both for gods and men Your father made when he made you " — " Dear mother," Replied sly Hermes, " wherefore scold and bother ? " As if I were like other babes as old And understood nothing of what is what ; And cared at all to hear my mother scold. I in my subtle brain a scheme have got, 100 HOMERIC HYMNS. Which, while the sacred stars round Heaven are rolled, Will profit you and me — nor shall our lot Be as you counsel, without gifts or food To spend our lives in this obscure abode. " But we shall leave this shadow-peopled cave. And live among the gods and pass each day In high communion, sharing what they have Of profuse wealth and unexhausted prey ; And, from the portion which my father gave To Phoebus, I wUl snatch my share away. Which if my father will not — natheless I, Who am the king of robbers, can but try. " And if Latona's son should find me out, I '11 countermine him by a deeper plan ; I 'U pierce the Pythian temple-walls, though stout. And sack the fane of everything I can — Caldrons and tripods of great worth no doubt. Each golden cup and polished brazen pan. All the wrought tapestries and garments gay." • So they together talked ; — meanwhile the Day, Ethereal-born, arose out of the flood Of flowing Ocean, bearing light to men. Apollo passed toward the sacred wood. Which from the inmost depths of its green glen Echoes the voice of Neptune, — and there stood On the same spot in green Onchestus then That same old animal, the vine-dresser, Who was employed hedging his vineyard there. TO HERMES. 101 Latona's glorious son began : — "I pray Tell, ancient hedger of Onehestus green, Whether a drove of kine has passed this way, All heifers with crook'd horns ? for they have been Stolen from the herd in high Pieria Where a black buU was fed apart, between Two woody mountains in a neighboring glen, And four fierce dogs watched there, unanimous as men. " And, what is strange, the author of this theft Has stolen the fatted heifers every one, But the four dogs and the black bull are left : Stolen they were last night at set of sun, Of their soft beds and their sweet food bereft. Now tell me, man born ere the world begun, Have you seen any one pass with the cows ? " To whom the man of overhanging brows, — " My friend, it would require no common skill Justly to speak of everything I see : On various purposes of good or ill Many pass by my vineyard, — and to me 'T is difficult to know the invisible Thoughts, which in all those many minds may be. Thus much alone I certainly can say : I tilled these vines till the decline of day, " And then I thought I saw, but dare not speak With certainty of such a wondrous thing, A child, who could not have been bom a week, Those fair-homed cattle closely following. 102 HOMERIC HYMN 8. And In his hand he held a polished stick ; And, as on purpose, he walked wavering From one side to the other of the road, And with his face opposed the steps he trod." Apollo, hearing this, passed quickly on ; No wingbd omen could have shown more clear That the deceiver was his father's son. So the god wraps a purple atmosphere Around his shoulders, and like fire is gone To famous Pylos, seeking his kine there, And found their track and his, yet hardly cold, And cried — " What wonder do mine eyes hehold ! "Here are the footsteps of the hornfed herd Turned hack towards their fields of asphodel ; — But these are not the tracks of beast or bird, Gray wolf, or bear, or lion of the dell, Or manfed Centaur — sand was never stirred By man or woman thus ! Inexplicable ! Who with unwearied feet could e'er impress The sand with such enormous vestiges ? " That was most strange — but this is stranger still ! " Thus having said, Phoebus impetuously Sought high CyUene's forest-cinctured hiU, And the deep cavern where dark shadows lie, And where the ambrosial nymph with happy will Bore the Saturnian's love-child. Mercury ; And a delighted odor from the dew Of the hill pastures, at his coming flew. TO HERMES. 103 And Phoebus stooped under the craggy roof Arched over the dark cavern : Maia's child Perceived that he came angry, far aloof, About the cows of vrhich he had been beguiled. And over him the fine and fragrant woof Of his ambrosial swaddling-clothes he piled ; As among firebrands lies a burning spark Covered, beneath the ashes cold and dark. There, like an infant who had sucked his fill, And now was newly washed and put to bed, Awake, but courting sleep with weary will And gathered in a lump, hands, feet, and head, He lay ; and his beloved tortoise still He grasped and held under his shoulder-blade ; Phoebus the lovely mountain goddess knew, Not less her subtle, swindling baby, who Lay swathed in his sly wiles. Round every crook Of the ample cavern, for his kine Apollo Looked sharp ; and when he saw them not, he took The glittering key, and opened three great hollow Recesses in the rock — where many a nook Was filled with the sweet food immortals swallow, And mighty heaps of silver and of gold Were piled within — a wonder to behold ! And white and silver robes, all overwrought With cunning workmanship of tracery sweet — Except among the gods there can be naught In the wide world to be compared with it. 104 HOMERIC BYMNS. Latona's offspring, after having sought His herds in every corner, thus did greet Great Hermes : " Little cradled rogue, decla.re, Of my illustrious heifers, where they are ! " Speak quickly ! or a quarrel between us Must rise, and the event will be, that I Shall haul you into dismal Tartarus, In fiery gloom to dwell eternally ! Nor shall your father nor your mother loose The bars of that black dungeon — utterly You shall be cast out- from the light of day, To rule the ghosts of men, unblest as they." To whom thus Hermes slyly answered : " Son Of great Latona, what a speech is this ! Why come you here to ask me what is done With the wild oxen which it seems you miss ? I have not seen them, nor from any one Have heard a word of the whole business ; If you should promise an immense reward, I could not tell more than you now have heard. " An ox-stealer should be both tall and strong, And I am but a little new-born thing, Who yet, at least, can think of nothing wrong. My business is to suck, and sleep, and fling The cradle clothes about me aU day long ; Or, half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing. And to he washed in water clean and warm, And hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm. TO EEBMES. 105 " Oh, let not e'er this quarrel be averred ! The astounded gods would laugh at you, if e'er You should allege a story so absurd As that a new-born infant forth could fare Out of his home after a savage herd. I was born yesterday — my small feet are Too tender for the roads so hard and rough ; And if you think that this is not enough, " I swear a great oath, by my father's head, That I stole not your cows, and that I know Of no one else who might, or could, or did. Whatever things cows are I do not know. For I have only heard the name." This said. He winked as fast as could be, and his brow Was wrinkled, and a whistle loud gave he. Like one who hears some strange absurdity. Apollo gently smiled and said, " Ay, ay, You cimning little rascal, you will bore Many a rich man's house, and your array Of thieves will lay their siege before his door, Silent as night, in night ; and many a day In the wild glens rough shepherds will deplore That you or yours, having an appetite, Met with their cattle, comrade of the night ! " And this among the gods shall be your gift, — To be considered as the lord of those Who swindle, house-break, sheep-steal, and shop- lift; But now if you would not your last sleep doze, 106 HOMERIC HYMNS. Crawl out ! " — Thus saying, Phoebus did uplift The subtle infant in his swaddling-clothes. Percy Hysshe Shelley. TO MINERVA. I SING the glorious Power with azure eyes, Athenian Pallas ! tameless, chaste, and wise, Tritogenia, town-preserving maid. Revered and mighty ; from his awful head Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armor dressed. Golden, all radiant ! wonder strange possessed The everlasting gods that shape to see, Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously Rush from the crest of aegis-bearing Jove ; Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed ; Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide ; And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high In purple billows ; the tide suddenly Stood stUl, and great Hyperion's son long time Checked his swift steeds, tUl where she stood sub- lime, Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw The arms divine ; wise Jove rejoiced to view. ChUd of the ^gis-bearer, hail to thee ! JNor thine nor others' praise shall unremembered be. Shelley. HESIOD, 800 B. c. THEOGONY, 1-34. THE MUSES. Begin we from the Muses, O my song ! Whose mansion is the mountain vast and holy Of Helicon ; where aye with delicate feet Fast by Jove's altar and purpureal fount They tread the measured round : their tender limbs Laved in Permessian waters, or the stream Of blest Olmius, or pure Hippocrene, On the high top of Helicon they wont To lead the mazy measure, breathing grace, Enkindling love, and glance their quivering feet. Thence break they forth tumultuous, and enwrapped Wide with dim air, through silence of the night Shape their ethereal way, and send abroad A voice, in stilly darkness beautiful. Jove segis-armed they praise, in choral hymns Of adoration ; and of Argos named Majestic Juno, gliding on her way With golden-sandaled feet : and her whose eyes Glitter with azure light, Minerva born From Jove ; Apollo, sire of prophecy, And Dian, joyous in the sounding shaft ; Earth-shaker Neptune, earth-enclasping god ; And Themis, name adorable in heaven ; And Venus, lovely with her tremulous lids ; 108 BESIOD. And Hebe, who with golden fillet binds Her brow ; and fair Dione, and the Morn, And the great Sun, and the resplendent Moon ; Latona, and lapetus, and him Of mazy counsel, Saturn ; and the Earth, And the vast Ocean, and the sable Night ; And aU the holy race of deities Existing ever. They to Hesiod erst Have taught their stately song ; the whilst his flocks He fed beneath all-sacred Helicon. Thus first those goddesses their heavenly speech Addressed, the Olympian Muses born from Jove : " Night-watching shepherds ! beings of reproach ! Ye grosser natures, hear ! we know to speak Full many a fiction false, yet seeming-true, Or utter at our will the things of truth." So said they — daughters of the mighty Jove All-eloquent — and gave unto my hand Wondrous ! a verdant rod ; a laurel-branch Of bloom unwithering ; and a voice imbreathed Divine ; that I might utter forth in song The future and the past : and bade me sing The blessed race existing evermore. And first and last resound the Muses' praise. Charles Abraham. Elton. THEOGONY, 190-206. APHRODITE BORN FROM THE FOAM OF THE SEA. And now swift-circling a white foam arose From that immortal substance, and a nymph THE WORKS AND DAYS. 109 "Was nourished in the midst. The wafting waves First bore her to Cythera the divine : To wave-encircled Cyprus came she then, And forth emerged, a goddess, in the charms Of awful beauty. Where her delicate feet Had pressed the sands, green herbage flowering sprang. Her Aphrodite gods and mortals name, The foam-born goddess : and her name is known As Cytherea with the blooming wreath, For that she touched Cythera's flowery coast ; And Cjrpris, for that on the Cyprian shore She rose, amid the multitude of waves. Love tracked her steps and beautiful Desire Pursued ; while soon as born she bent her way Toward heaven's assembled gods ; her honors these From the beginning ; whether gods or men Her presence bless, to her the portion fell Of virgin whisperings, and alluring smiles, And smooth deceits, and gentle ecstasy, And dalliance, and the blandishments of love. Mtm. THE WORKS AND DAYS, 59-104. PANDORA AND HER CASKET. Creation of Pandora ( Woman). Her Casket with Hope at the Bottom. The Sire who rules the earth and sways the pole Had said, and laughter filled his secret soul : He bade the crippled ^ god his best obey, ^ Hephaestus (Vulcan). 110 HESIOD. And mould with tempering water plastic clay ; With human nerve and human voice invest The limbs elastic and the breathing breast ; Fair as the blooming goddesses above, A virgin's likeness with the looks of love. He bade Minerva teach the skiU that sheds A thousand colors in the gliding threads ; He called the magic of love's golden queen To breathe around a witchery of mien ; And eager passion's never-sated flame, And cares of dress that prey upon the frame ; Bade Hermes last endue with craft refined Of treacherous manners, and a shameless mind. He gives command, the inferior powers obey : The crippled artist moulds the tempered clay : By Jove's design arose the bashful maid ; The cestus Pallas clasped, the robe arrayed : Adored Persuasion and the Graces young Her tapered limbs with golden jewels hung : Round her fair brow the lovely-tressed Hours A garland twined of spring's purpureal flowers : The whole attire Minerva's graceful art Disposed, adjusted, formed to every part : And last the winged herald of the skies, Slayer of Argus, gave delusive lies ; Insidious manners, honeyed speech instiQed, And warbling accents, as the Thunderer willed ; Then by the feathered messenger of heaven The name Pandora to the maid was given ; For all the gods conferred a gifted grace To crown this mischief of the mortal race : The Sire commands the wingfed herald bear THE WORKS AND DAYS. Ill The finished nymph, the inextricable snare ; To Epimetheus was the present brought. Prometheus' warning vanished from his thought — That he disclaim each offering from the skies, And straight restore, lest ill to man arise. But he received ; and conscious knew too late The insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate. Whilom on earth the sons of men abode From evil free and labor's galling load ; Free from diseases that with racking rage Precipitate the pale decline of age. Now swift the days of manhood haste away. And misery's pressure turns the temples gray. The woman's hands an ample casket bear ; — She lifts the lid, — she scatters ills in air. Hope sole remained within, nor took her flight, Beneath the casket's verge concealed from sight. The unbroken cell with closing lid the maid Sealed, and the cloud-assembler's voice obeyed. Issued the rest in quick dispersion hurled, And woes innumerous roamed the breathing world : "With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea ; Diseases haunt our frail humanity ; Self-wandering through the noon, the night they glide, Voiceless — a voice the power all-wise denied. Know then this awful truth ; it is not given To elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven. Mton. EAELY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. CALLINUS, 690 B. c. EXHORTATION TO BATTLE. How long will ye slumber ? when will ye take heart And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand ? Fie ! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part, Whilst the sword and the arrow are wasting our land! Shame ! grasp the shield close ! cover well the bold breast ! Aloft raise the spear as ye march on the foe ! With no thought of retreat, with no terror con- fessed. Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow. Oh, 't is noble and glorious to fight for our aU, — For our country, our children, the wife of our love ! Death comes not the sooner ; no soldier shall fall. Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above. Once to die is man's doom ; rush, rush to the fight ! He cannot escape, though his blood were Jove's own. For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight ; Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone. Unlamented he dies ; — unregretted. Not so. When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave ; TTBT^Ua. 113 Thrice hallowed his name amongst all, high or low, As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave. Henry Ndson Coleridge. TYRT^US, 680 B. c. MAETIAL ELEGY. How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, In front of battle for their native land ! But oh ! what iUs await the vrretch that yields, A recreant outcast from his country's fields ! The mother whom he loves shall quit her home, An aged father at his side shall roam ; His little ones shall weeping with him go. And a young wife participate his woe ; While scorned and scowled upon by every face. They pine for food, and beg from place to place. Stain of his breed ! dishonoring manhood's form. All ills shall cleave to him : affliction's storm Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years. Till, lost to all but ignominious fears. He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name. And children, like himseK, inured to shame. But we will combat for our fathers' land. And we will drain the lifeblood where we stand, To save our children : — : fight ye side by side. And serried close, ye men of youthful pride. Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost Of life itself in glorious battle lost. 114 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight, Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might ; Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast Permit the man of age (a sight unblest) To welter in the combat's foremost thrust. His hoary head disheveled in the dust. And venerable bosom bleeding bare. But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair. And beautiful in death the boy appears, The hero boy, that dies in blooming years : In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears ; More sacred than in life, and lovelier far. For having perished in the front of war. Thomas Campbell. AECHILOCHUS, 670 b. c. EQUANIMITY. Tossed on a sea of troubles, Soul, my Soul, Thyself do thou control ; And to the weapons of advancing foes A stubborn breast oppose ; Undaunted 'mid the hostile might Of squadrons burning for the fight. Thine be no boasting when the victor's crown Wins thee deserved renown ; Thine no dejected sorrow, when defeat Would urge a base retreat : Rejoice in joyous things — nor overmuch Let grief thy bosom touch AL OMAN — MIMNEBM US. 115 'Midst evil, and still bear in mind, How changeful are the ways of humankind. William Hay. ALCMAN, 660 B. c. NATURE'S CALM. The mountain brows, the rocks, the peaks, are sleeping, Uplands and gorges hush ! The thousand moorland things are stillness keeping ; The beasts under each bush Crouch, and the hivfed bees Rest in their honeyed ease ; In the purple sea fish lie as they were dead, And each bird folds his wing over his head. Edwin Arnold. MIMNEEMUS, 620 b. c. YOUTH AND AGE. Ah ! fair and lovely bloom the flowers of youth ; On men and maids they beautifully smile : But soon comes doleful eld, who, void of ruth, Indifferently afflicts the fair and vile ; Then cares wear out the heart : old eyes forlorn Scarce reck the very sunshine to behold — Unloved by youths, of every maid the scorn — So hard a lot God lays upon the old. John Addington Symonds, M. D. 116 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. ALGOUS, 600 B. c. WINTER. The rain of Zeus descends, and from high heaven A storm is driven : And on the running water-hrooks the cold Lays icy hold : Then up ! heat down, the vrinter ; make the fire Blaze high and higher ; Mix wine as sweet as honey of the bee Abundantly ; Then drink with comfortable wool around Your temples bound. We must not yield our hearts to woe, or wear With wasting care ; For grief will profit us no whit, my friend, Nor nothing mend : But this is our best medicine, with wine fraught To cast out thought. John Addington Symonds. ODE IN IMITATION OF ALO^US. What constitutes a state ? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate ; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned ; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No ; men, high-minded men. SAPPBO. 117 "With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den. As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; Men who their duties know. But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : These constitute a state, And sovereign Law, that state's collected will O'er thrones and globes elate, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. Sir William Jones. SAPPHO, 600 b. o. ODE TO A LOVED ONE. Blest as the immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee, And hears and sees thee, all the while. Softly speak and sweetly smile. 'T was this deprived my soul of rest. And raised such tumults in my breast ; For, while I gazed, in transport tossed. My breath was gone, my voice was lost ; My bosom glowed ; the subtle flame Ban quick through all my vital frame ; O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung ; My ears with hollow murmurs rung ; In dewy damps my limbs were chUled ; My blood with gentle horrors thrilled : 118 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. My feeble pulse forgot to play ; I fainted, sunk, and died away. Ambrose Philips. HYMN TO APHRODITE. Throned in splendor, immortal Aphrodite ! Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee Slay me not in this distress and anguish, Lady of beauty. Hither come as once before thou earnest. When from afar thou heard'st my voice lamenting, Heard'st and camest, leaving thy glorious father's Palace golden. Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee ; Swift to the darksome earth their course directing, Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven Down through the ether. Quickly they came. Then thou, blessed goddess. All in smiUng wreathed thy face immortal, Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering. Why now I called thee ; What for my maddened heart I most was longing. "Whom," thou criest, " dost wish that sweet Per- suasion Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho ? Who is it wrongs thee ? " For, though now he flies, he soon shall foUow, Soon shall be giving gifts who now rejects them. SAPPHO. 119 Even though now he love not, soon shall he love thee Even though thou wouldst not." Come then now, dear goddess, and release me From my anguish. All my heart's desiring Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime, Be thou my ally. William Hyde Appleton. TO EVENING. O Hesperus ! Thou bringest all things home ; All that the garish day hath scattered wide ; The sheep, the goat, back to the welcome fold ; Thou bring'st the child, too, to his mother's side. Appleton. THE MAIDEN IN LOVE. Sweet mother, I can spin no more to-day. And all for a youth who has stolen my heart away. Appleton. TO ONE WHO LOVED NOT POETRY. Thou liest dead, and there wiU be no memory left behind Of thee or thine in all the earth, for never didst thou bind The roses of Pierian streams upon thy brow ; thy doom Is now to flit with unknown ghosts in cold and nameless gloom. Edwin Arnold. 120 EARLT LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. THE MOON. The stars about the lovely moon Fade back and vanish very soon, When, round and full, her silver face Swims into sight, and lights all space. Arnold. DEATH. To die must needs be sad, the gods do know it ; For were death sweet, they 'd die, and straightway show it. Arnold. SONG OF THE ROSE. If Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth, He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it ; For the rose, ho, the rose ! is the grace of the earth. Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it! For the rose, ho, the rose ! is the eye of the flowers. Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair, Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers On pale lovers that sit in the glow unaware. Ho, the rose breathes of love ! ho, the rose lifts the cup To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest ! Ho, the rose having curled its sweet leaves for the world ERINNA — THEOGNIS. 121 Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up, As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west. Mrs. Browning. ERINNA, 600 B. 0. EPITAPH ON HER FEIEND, BAUCIS. Pillars of death ! carved sirens ! tearful urn ! In whose sad keeping my poor dust is laid, To those who near my tomb their footsteps turn, Stranger or Greek, bid hail ! and say, a maid Rests in her bloom below ; her sire the name Of Baucis gave ; her birth and lineage high : And say her bosom-friend Erinna came. And on this marble graved her elegy. Elton. THEOGNIS, 540 B. 0. SONG. Muses and Graces ! daughters of high Jove, When erst you left your glorious seats above To bless the bridal of that wondrous pair, Cadmus and Harmonia fair. Ye chanted forth a divine air : " What is good and fair Shall ever be our care." Thus the burden of it rang : " That shall never be our care Which is neither good nor fair." Such were the words your lips immortal sang. J. A. Symonds, M. D. 122 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. FRAGMENTS FROM THEOGNIS. ENJOY THE PRESENT. Take thy deliglit, my soul ! another day Another race shall see, and I be breathless clay. Vain mortals, and unwise ! who mourn the hour Of death, not that of youth's departing flower. For all, whom once the earth hath covered o'er. Gone down to Erebus' unjoyous shore. Delight no more to hear the lyre's soft sound. Nor pass the jocund cups of Bacchus round. So thou, my soul, shall revel at thy will. While light is yet my hand, my head untrembling still. Henry Hart Milman. EDUCATION. To rear a child is easy, but to teach Morals and manners is beyond our reach ; To make the foolish wise, the wicked good. That science never yet was understood. The sons of ^sculapius, if their art Could remedy a perverse and wicked heart. Might earn enormous wages ! But, in fact. The mind is not compounded and compact Of precept and example ; human art In human nature has no share or part : Hatred of vice, the fear of shame and sin Are things of native growth, not grafted in : Else wise and worthy parents might correct In children's hearts each error and defect ; THE0GNI8. 123 Whereas, we see them disappointed still — No scheme nor artifice of human skill Can rectify the passions or the will. John Hookham Vrere, JOVE'S WAYS. Blessed, almighty Jove ! with deep amaze I view the world ; and marvel at thy ways ! All our devices, every subtle plan. Each secret act, and all the thoughts of man, Your boundless intellect can comprehend ! On your award our destinies depend. How can you reconcile it to your sense Of right and wrong, thus loosely to dispense Your bounties on the wicked and the good ? How can your laws be known or understood ? When we behold a man faithful and just, Humbly devout, true to his word and trust, Dejected and oppressed ; whilst the profane, And wicked, and unjust, in glory reign. Proudly triumphant, flushed with power and gain ; What inference can human reason draw ? How can we guess the secret of thy law. Or choose the path approved by power divine ? Frere. RESIGNATION. Entiee and perfect happiness is never Vouchsafed to man ; but nobler minds endeavor To keep their inward sorrows unrevealed. With meaner spirits nothing is concealed : Weak, and unable to conform to fortune. With rude rejoicing or complaint importune. 124 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. They vent their exultation or distress. Whate'er betides us — grief or happiness — The brave and wise will bear with steady mind, The allotment, unforeseen and undefined, Of good or evU, which the gods bestow, Promiscuously dealt to man below. Frere. KASH, ANGRY WOKDS. Rash, angry words, and spoken out of season, When passion has usurped the throne of rea.son. Have ruined many. Passion is unjust, And for an idle transitory gust Of gratified revenge dooms us to pay, With long repentance at a later day. Frere. THE POET'S DUTY. The servant of the Muse, gifted and graced With high preeminence of art and taste, Has an allotted duty to fulfill ; Bound to dispense the treasure of his skill. Without a selfish or invidious view ; Bound to recite, and to compose anew ; Not to reserve his talent for himself. In secret, like a miser with his pelf. Frere. SIMONIDES OF CEOS, 556-468 b. c. DANAE AND HER BABE ADRIFT. When, in the carven chest, The winds that blew and waves in wUd unrest Smote her with fear, she, not with cheeks unwet, Her arms of love round Perseus set, S1M0NIDE8 OF CEOS. 125 And said : O child, what grief is mine ! But thou dost slumber, and thy baby breast Is sunk in rest, Here in the cheerless brass-bound bark, Tossed amid starless night and pitchy dark. Nor dost thou heed the scudding brine Of waves that wash above thy curls so deep. Nor the shrill winds that sweep, — Lapped in thy purple robe's embrace, Fair little face ! But if this dread were dreadful too to thee. Then wouldst thou lend thy listening ear to me ; Therefore I cry, — Sleep, babe, and sea, be stiU, And slumber our unmeasured ill ! Oh, may some change of fate, sire Zeus, from thee Descend, our woes to end ! But if this prayer, too overbold, ofFend Thy justice, yet be merciful to me ! J. A. Symonds. MARATHON. At Marathon for Greece the Athenians fought ; And low the Medians' gilded power they brought. John Sterling. THEEMOPYL^. Of those who at Thermopylae were slain, Glorious the doom, and beautiful the lot ; Their tomb an altar : men from tears refrain To honor them, and praise, but mourn them not. Such sepulchre, nor drear decay Nor all-destroying time shall waste ; this right have they. 126 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. Within their grave the home-bred glory Of Greece was laid : this witness gives Leonidas the Spartan, in whose story A wreath of famous virtue ever lives. Sterling. EPITAPH FOR THE SPAKTANS "WHO FELL AT THEEMOPYLiE. Go, tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, That here obedient to their laws we lie. William Lisle Bowles. BACCHYLIDES, 450 e. c. PRAISE OF PEACE. To mortal men Peace giveth these good things : Wealth, and the flowers of honey-throated song ; The flame that springs On carven altars from fat sheep and kine, Slain to the gods in heaven ; and, all day long. Games for glad youths, and flutes, and wreaths, and circling wine. Then in the steely shield swart spiders weave Their web and dusky woof : Rust to the pointed spear and sword doth cleave ; The brazen trump sounds no alarms; Nor is sleep harried from our eyes aloof, But with sweet rest my bosom warms : The streets are thronged with lovely men and young. And hymns in praise of boys like flames to heaven are flung. J. A. Symonds. CALLISTRATUS — HTBRIAS. 127 CALLISTRATUS. PATRIOTIC SONG. I 'll wreathe my sword in myrtle bough, The sword that laid the tyrant low, When patriots, burning to be free, To Athens gave equality. Harmodius, hail ! though reft of breath, Thou ne'er shalt feel the stroke of death ! The heroes' happy isles shall be The bright abode allotted thee. I '11 wreathe my sword in myrtle bough, The sword that laid Hipparchus low. When at Athena's adverse fane He knelt, and never rose again. While Freedom's name is understood, Tou shall delight the wise and good ; You dared to set your country free, And gave her laws equality. Dr. Wellesley (Anthologia). HYBEIAS, THE CRETAN. SOLDIER'S SONG. The wealth I have is my sword and spear. And the fence I fight with, my buckler fair ; With these, the lord of all, I go ; With these I plough, with these I sow ; 128 EABLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. With these I tread the sweet red wine From grapes and vats that never were mine ; With these, albeit no varlets I fee, Wherever I come, men lackey me. For the knaves are afeard of sword and spear, And the fence I fight with, my buckler fair ; And so at my knees they humbly faU, Bringing me aU and giving me all ; And they fawn upon me because of my sword, And because of my spear they call me lord ; For wealth unbounded is sword and spear, And the fence I fight with, my buckler fair. Edwin Arnold. ANONYMOUS. SWALLOW'S SONG. She is here, she is here, the swallow ! Fair seasons bringing, fair years to follow ! Her belly is white. Her back black as night ! From your rich house Roll forth to us Tarts, wine, and cheese : Or if not these. Oatmeal and barley-cake The swallow deigns to take. What shall we have ? or must we hence away ? Thanks, if you give ; if not, we '11 make you pay ! The house-door hence we '11 carry ; Nor shall the lintel tarry ; ANONYMOUS. 129 From hearth and home your wife we '11 rob ; She is so small, To take her ofiE wiU be an easy job ! Whate'er you give, give largess free ! Up ! open, open to the swallow's call ! No grave old men, but merry children we ! J. A. Symonds. IF IT ONLY WERE RIGHT. If it only were right, how delightful 't would be, To open the breast of a friend ; And peep at his heart, and replace it again. And believe in him then without end. Arnold. DRINK FROM MY CUP. Dbihk from my cup. Dear ! live my life — be still Young with my youth ! have one heart, word, and will. One love for both ; let one wreath shade our eyes ; Be mad when I am — wise when I am wise. Arnold. VANITY OF LIFE. Vain' of mortal men the strength, His life of care a weary length. All his days so few and brief. Toil on toil, and grief on grief. And stiU, where'er his course he tends, Inevitable death impends ; And for the worst, and for the best. Is strewn the same dark couch of rest. Milman. 130 EARLY LYRIC AND ELEGIAC. THE BEST GIFTS. The best of gifts to mortal man is health ; The next the bloom of beauty's matchless flower ; The third is blameless and unfraudful wealth ; The fourth with friends to waste youth's joyous hour. Milman. ODE TO HEALTH. O THOU, the first and best Of the Immortal Blest ; O Health ! how gladly would I dwell with thee, Till my last sands are run, And my brief life is done. Come to my home, my willing guest to be ! If there be joy in wealth. Or soft parental love, Or the delicious stealth With which young Aphrodite winds Her nets around her captives' willing minds ; Or if aught else of joy the gods bestow, Or sweet cessation of our toil and woe : "With thee, O blessed Health, All bloom in one unending spring. And bliss where thou art not is ever on the wing. Milman. PINDAR, 522-443 B.C. SECOND OLYMPIAN ODE. FOR THERON, KING OF AGEIGENTUM, VICTOR IN THE CHARIOT-RACE. . ANTISTEOPHE HI. Alone in famed Olympia's sand The victor's chaplet Theron wore ; But with him on the Isthmian strand, On sweet Castalia's shore, The verdant crowns, the proud reward Of victory his brother shared. Copartner in immortal praise, As warmed with equal zeal The light-foot courser's generous breed to raise, And whirl around the goal the fervid wheel. The painful strife Olympia's wreath repays : But wealth with nobler virtue joined The means and fair occasions must procure ; In glory's chase must aid the mind. Expense and toil and danger to endure ; With mingling rays they feed each other's flame, And shine the brightest lamp in all the sphere of fame. 132 PINDAR. EPODE in. The happy mortal, who these treasures shares, Well knows what fate attends his generous cares ; Knows, that beyond the verge of life and light, In the sad regions of infernal night. The fierce, impracticable, churlish mind Avenging gods and penal woes shall find ; Where strict inquiring justice shall bewray The crimes committed in the realms of day. The impartial judge the rigid law declares. No more to be reversed by penitence or prayers. STROPHE rv^. But in the happy fields of light, Where Phoebus with an equal ray Illuminates the balmy night. And gilds the cloudless day, In peaceful, unmolested joy, The good their smiling hours employ. Them no uneasy wants constrain To vex the ungrateful soil. To tempt the dangers of the billowy main. And break their strength with unabating toil, A fraU disastrous being to maintain. But in their joyous calm abodes, The recompense of justice they receive ; And in the fellowship of gods, Without a tear, eternal ages live. While banished by the fates from joy and rest. Intolerable woes the impious soul infest. SECOND OLYMPIAN ODE. 133 ANTISTBOPHB IV. But they who, in true virtue strong, The third purgation can endure ; And keep their minds from fraudful wrong And guilt's contagion, pure ; They through the starry paths of Jove To Saturn's blissful seat remove : Where fragrant breezes, vernal airs, Sweet children of the main, Purge the blest island from corroding cares, And fan the bosom of each verdant plain : Whose fertile soil immortal fruitage bears ; Trees, from whose flaming branches flow, Arrayed in golden bloom, refulgent beams ; And flowers of golden hue, that blow On the fresh borders of their parent streams. These by the blest in solemn triumph worn, Their unpolluted hands and clustering locks adorn. Such is the righteous will, the high behest Of Rhadamanthus, ruler of the blest ; The just assessor of the throne divine. On which, high raised above all gods, recline, Linked in the golden bands of wedded love. The great progenitors of thundering Jove. There, in the number of the blest enrolled, Live Cadmus, Peleus, heroes famed of old ; And young Achilles, to those isles removed, Soon as, by Thetis won, relenting Jove approved. Oiliert West. 134 PINDAR. FOURTH OLYMPIAN ODE. FOE PSAUMIS OF CAMAKINA, VICTOR IN THE CHAEIOT-KACE. Oh, urging on the tireless speed Of Thunder's elemental steed, Lord of the world, Almighty Jove ! Since these thine Hours have sent me forth The witness of thy champions' worth, And prophet of thine olive gi-ove ; And since the good thy poet hear. And hold his tuneful message dear ; Saturnian Lord of ^tna hill ! Whose storm-cemented rocks encage The hundred-headed rebel's rage ; Accept with favorable will The Muses' gift of harmony ; The dance, the song, whose numbers high Forbid the hero's name to die, A crown of hfe abiding stUl ! Hark, round the car of victory, Where noble Psaumis sits on high, The cheering notes resound ; Who vows to swell with added fame His Camarina's ancient name ; With Pisan olive crowned. And thou, O father, hear his prayer ! For much I praise the knightly care That trains the warrior steed ; Nor less the hospitable hall FIRST PYTHIAN ODE. 136 Whose open doors the stranger call ; Yet, praise I Psaumis most of aU For wise and peaceful rede, And patriot love of liberty. What ? do we weave the glozing lie ? Then whoso list my truth to try, The proof be in the deed ! To Lemnos' laughing dames of yore, Such was the proof Ernicus bore. When, matchless in his speed, All brazen-armed the racer hoar. Victorious on the applauding shore. Sprang to the proffered meed ; Bowed to the queen his wreathfed head : " Thou seest my limbs are light," he said : " And lady, mayst thou know, That every joint is firmly strung. And hand and heart alike are young ; Though treacherous time my locks among Have strewed a summer snow ! " Reginald Heber. FIRST PYTHIAN ODE. POWER OF MUSIC. STROPHE I. Golden lyre, that Phoebus shares with the Muses violet-crowned ! Thee, when opes the joyous revel, our frolic feet obey. And minstrels wait upon the sound, 136 PINDAR. While thy chords ring out their preludes, and guide the dancers' way. Thou quenchest the bolted lightning's heat, And the eagle of Zeus on the sceptre sleeps, and closes his pinions fleet. ANTISTKOPHE I. King of birds ! His hooked head hath a darkling cloud o'ercast. Sealing soft his eyes. In slumber his rippling back he heaves. By thy sweet music fettered fast. Ruthless Ares' self the muster of bristling lances leaves, And gladdens awhile his soul with rest. For the shafts of the Muses and Leto's son can melt an immortal's breast. EPODE I. But, whom Zeus loves not, back in fear all senseless cower, as in their ear The sweet Pierian voices sound, in earth or mon- strous Ocean's round. So he. Heaven's foe that in Tartarus lies. The hundred-headed Typho, erst In famed Cilician cavern nurst, — Now, beyond Cumse, pent below Sea cHffs of Sicily, o'er his rough breast rise .Etna's pillars, skyward soaring, nurse of year- long snow ! F. D. Morice. FIFTH ISTHMIAN ODE. 137 FIFTH ISTHMIAN ODE. VISIT OF HERCULES TO TELAMON. ANTISTKOPHE II. 'T WAS at the Island-Chieftain's lordly feast The high heroic summons came — Stood in the portal high a godlike guest. No need to name his name Who wore the lion's hide, and brindled mane. With eager cheer, and welcome fain, Great Telamon the guest to greet Reached forth a bowl of nectar sweet, A bowl all beauteous to behold Foaming with wine, and rough with sculptured gold, And loudly bade the hero pour The rich libation on the sacred floor. His conquering hands he lifted high, And called the Sire, the Ruler of the sky. " If ever from my lips. Paternal Jove, Thou heardest vow in love. Grant me, my chief, my dearest prayer ! Be born of Eriboea a boy. His noble father's noble heir, And crown his happy lot with perfect joy ! His be the unconquered arm in fight, Might, like this lion's might. In Nemea's vale which my first prowess slew ; And as his might, his courage ! " — At the words, Swooped from the sky the king of birds. With keenest joy his father's will he knew. 138 PJNDAR. Then spake he in a prophet's solemn tone : " The son thou cravest shall be thine, And be his noble name, my Telamon, Called from yon bird divine. _ Wide as the eagle's be his monarch-sway ; Swoop he as the eagle on his prey." Bishop of Salisbury. FEAGMENTS FROM PINDAR. AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. Oh, why, thou Sun,- with thine all-seeing ray Beyond the range of mortal sight afar, Sovereign of every star, Robb'st thou the world, even at the noon of day ; And makest darkling man in vain desire The guiding light of thy intolerable fire ? Why, wandering down the dark unwonted way, In darkness drives thy car ? By greatest Jove I supphcate To Thebes' exalted state. Urge undisastrous thy fleet steeds divine ! O noblest ! O thou universal sign ! Some bloody war dost thou presage. Or withered harvest sad, or tempest's blasting rage ? Or cruel strife destroying wide ? Or inroad of the ocean-tide Over the peaceful plain ? Or wintry frosts, or summer rain In torrent deluge sweeping down the vale. To force from all our youth the wild and general wail? Milman. HAPPINESS OF THE DEPARTED. I39 HAPPINESS OF THE DEPARTED.^ FoK them the night all through, In that broad realm below, The splendor of the sun spreads endless light ; 'Mid rosy meadows bright, Their city of the tombs with incense-trees. And golden chalices Of flowers, and fruitage fair. Scenting the breezy air, Is laden. There with horses and with play. With games and lyres, they while the hours away. On every side around Pure happiness is found. With all the blooming beauty of the world ; There fragrant smoke, upcurled From altars where the blazing fire is dense With perfumed frankincense. Burned unto gods in heaven. Through all the land is driven. Making its pleasant places odorous With scented gales and sweet airs amorous. J. A. 1 Mr. Symonds speaks of the above as " the fragment of that mighty threnos of Pindar's which sounds like a trumpet- blast for immortality, and, trampling under feet the glories of this world, reveals the gladness of the souls who have attained Elysium." ^SCHYLUS, 525^56 B. c. AGAMEMNON, 1-39. THE WATCHMAN AT AEGOS. The Watchman on the Roof of Agamemnon' a Palace at Argos waiting for the Beacon Fire that shall signal the Fall of Troy. Gkant, O ye Gods ! a respite from this toil : Night after night, this livelong year, I 've sate Couched like a watch-dog on the palace roof Of Atreus' son, and viewed yon starry conclave, Those glorious dynasts of the sky, that hear Winter and summer round to mortal men. And still the signal lamp I watch, the fire That shall flame forth intelligence from Troy — The tidings of her capture. So commands Our Queen's unfeminine soul, with hope elate. And while vxy night - perturbed and dew - dank couch I keep, by gentle dreams unvisited, Fear still usurps the place of sleep, nor leaves My weary eyes to close in lasting slumber. Still as I strive to guile the unquiet night — Sad remedy ! with song or carol gay, I can but weep and mourn this fatal house. Not as of old with righteous wisdom ruled. Come thou, my toils release ! break forth, break forth AGAMEMNON. 141 From darkness, fiery messenger of joy ! [Sttddenli/ a beacon light is seen in the distance. All hail, thou glory of the night ! that blazest With noonday splendor, wakening Argos up To dance and song for this thrice-blest event ! What, ho ! what, ho ! Loud do I cry to Agamemnon's queen. Swift leaping from her bed, to shriek aloud Through all the palace her exultant hymn To this auspicious lamp, since Troy's proud walls Have fallen ! So teUs yon blazing beacon-fire. I the glad prelude wiU begin, and hail This best good fortune of our lord. The dice Could cast no luckier throw than yon bright beacon. Oh, that this hand may grasp the gracious hand , Of Argos' king, returning to his home ! But peace ! no more ! the seal is on my lips ! The palace self, could it but find a voice. Would speak from its dark walls ! To the under- standing I speak : to those who understand not — nothing. Milman. AGAMEMNON, 192-257. THE SACRIFICE OF IPHIGENIA.i Now long and long from wintry Strymon blew The weary, hungry, anchor-straining blasts, 1 See Note. 142 ^SCHYLUS. The winds that wandering seamen dearly rue, Nor spared the cables worn and groaning mast* ; And, lingering on, in indolent delay, Slow wasted all the strength of Greece away. But when the shrill-voiced prophet 'gau proclaim That remedy more dismal and more dread Than the drear weather blackening overhead, And spoke in Artemis' most awful name, The sons of Atreus, 'mid their armed peers. Their sceptres dashed to earth, and each broke out in tears. And thus the elder king began to say : " Dire doom ! to disobey the gods' commands ! More dire, my child, mine house's pride, to slay, Dabbling in virgin blood a father's hands. Alas ! alas ! which way to fly ? As base deserter quit the host, The pride and strength of our great league aU lost ? Should I the storm-appeasing rite deny, Will not their wrathf uUest wrath rage up and swell ? Exact the virgin's blood ? — oh, would 't were o'er and weU ! " So 'neath Necessity's stern yoke he passed, And his lost soul, with impious impulse veering, Surrendered to the accursed unholy blast. Warped to the dire extreme of human daring. The frenzy of affliction stiU Maddens, dire counselor, man's soul to ill. So he endured to be the priest In that child-slaughtering rite unblest. AGAMEMNON. 143 The first-fruit offering of that host In fatal war for a bad woman lost. The prayers, the mute appeal to her hard sire, Her youth, her virgin beauty, Naught heeded they, the chiefs for war on fire. So to the ministers of that dire duty (First having prayed) the father gave the sign, Like some soft kid, to lift her to the shrine. There lay she prone, Her graceful garments round her thrown ; But first her beauteous mouth around Their violent bonds they wound. With their rude inarticulate might. Lest her dread curse the fated house should smite. But she her saffron robe to earth let fall : The shaft of pity from her eye Transpierced that awful priesthood — one and all. Lovely as in a picture stood she by As she vrould speak. Thus at her father's feasts The virgin, 'mid the reveling guests. Was wont with her chaste voice to supplicate For her dear father an auspicious fate. I saw no more ! to speak more is not mine ; Not unfulfilled was Calchas' lore divine. Eternal justice still will bring Wisdom out of suffering. So to the fond desire farewell, The inevitable future to foretell ; 'T is but our woe to antedate ; 144 ^SCHYLUS. Joint knit with joint, expands the full-formed fate. Yet at the end of these dark days May prospering weal return at length ; Thus in his spirit prays He of the Apian land the sole remaining strength. Milman. AGAMEMNON, 281-316. THE BEACON FIRES. Clytemnestra describes the Progress of the Beacon Fires that carried the Tidings of the Fall of Troy. A GLEAM — a gleam — from Ida's height, By the Fire-god sent, it came ; From watch to watch it leapt, that light, As a rider rode the flame ! It shot through the startled sky. And the torch of that blazing glory Old Lemnos caught on high, On its holy promontory, And sent it on, the jocund sign. To Athos, Mount of Jove divine. Wildly the while, it rose from the isle, So that the might of the journeying Light Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine ! Farther and faster speeds it on, Till the watch that keep Macistus steep See it burst like a blazing Sun ! Doth Macistus sleep On his tower-clad steep ? No ! rapid and red doth the wild fii-e sweep ; AGAMEMNON. 145 It flashes afar on the wayward stream Of the wild Euripus, the rushing beam ! It rouses the light on Messapion's height, And they feed its breath with the withered heath. But it may not stay ! And away — away — It bounds in its freshening might. Silent and soon, Like a broadened moon, It passes in sheen, Asopus green, And bursts on Cithseron gray ! The warder wakes to the Signal-rays, And it swoops from the hill with a broader blaze. On, on the fiery Glory rode ; Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed ! To Megara's Mount it came ; They feed it again And it streams amain — A giant beard of Flame ! The headland cliffs that darkly down O'er the Saronic waters frown, Are passed with the Swift One's lurid stride, And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide. With mightier march and fiercer power It gained Arachne's neighboring tower ; Thence on our Argive roof its rest it won, Of Ida's fire the long-descended Son ! Bright Harbinger of glory and of joy ! So first and last with equal honor crowned. In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round. — And these my heralds ! — this my Sign of Peace ; 146 MSCHYLUS. Lo ! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece Stalk, in stern tumult, through the halls of Troy ! M. Btdwer-Lytton. AGAMEMNON, 405-4T4. THE WOE WKOUGHT BY HELEN. OHOKUS. And she, unto her country and her kin Leaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships. And bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower, And overbold in sin, Went fleetly through the gates, at midnight hour. Oft, from the prophets' lips, Moaned out the warning and the wail — Ah woe ! "Woe for the home, the home ! and for the chief- tains, woe ! Woe for the bride-bed warm Yet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form Of her who loved her lord awhile ago ! And woe for him who stands Shamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands That find her not, and sees, yet will not see, That she is far away ! And his sad fancy, yearning o'er the sea. Shall summon and recall Her wraith, once more to queen it in liis hall. And sad with many memories, The fair cold beauty of each sculptured face — And all to hatefulness is turned their grace, AGAMEMNON. 147 Seen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes ! And when the night is deep, Come visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain Of hopings vain — Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight Hath seen its old delight. When through the grasps of love that bid it stay It vanishes away On silent wings that roam adown the ways of Sleep ! Such are the sights, the sorrows fell, About our hearth — and worse, whereof I may not tell. But, all the wide town o'er, Each home that sent its master far away From Hellas' shore Feels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss to- day ; For, truth to say. The touch of bitter death is manifold ! Familiar was each face, and dear as life. That went unto the war ; But thither, whence a warrior went of old. Doth naught return — Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn ! For Ares, lord of strife. Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold, War's money-changer, giving dust for gold. Sends back, to hearts that held them dear. Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear. Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul ; Yea, fills the light urn full 148 JESCHTLUS. With what survived the flame — Death's dusty measure of a hero's frame ! " Alas ! " one cries, " and yet alas again ! Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear, And hath not left his peer ! " " Ah woe ! " another moans — " my spouse is slain. The death of honor, roUed in dust and blood. Slain for a woman's sin, a false wife's shame ! " Such muttered words of bitter mood Rise against those who went forth to reclaim ; Yea, jealous wrath creeps on, against the Atrides' name ! And others, far beneath the Ilian wall, Sleep their last sleep — the goodly chiefs and tail, Couched in the foeman's land, whereon they gave Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave ! Therefore, for each and aU, the city's breast Is heavy with a wrath suppressed, As deep and deadly as a curse more loud Flung by the common crowd: And, brooding deeply, doth my soul await Tidings of coming fate, Buried as yet in darkness' womb. For not forgetful is the high gods' doom. Against the sons of carnage : all too long Seems the unjust to prosper and be strong. Till the dark Furies come. And smite with stern reversal aU his home, Down into dim obstruction — he is gone. AGAMEMNON. 149 And help and hope among the lost is none. O'er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame Impends a woe condign ; The vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame, Sped from the hand divine. This bliss be mine, ungrudged of God to feel, To tread no city to the dust, Nor see my own life thrust Down to a slave's estate beneath another's heel ! E. D. A. Morshead. AGAMEMNON, 551-579. SUFFERINGS OF THE GREEKS DURING THE TROJAN WAR. 'T IS well ! aU well ! in the long range of time. One man may say, things turn out right, while others Heap them with blame. Who, but the gods in heaven, Lives through all ages without sin or woe ? If I should tell our toils and weary watchings, Rare landings, sleep snatched on the hard planks, what hour Had not its dreary lot of wretchedness ? On land worse sufferings than the worst at sea. Our beds were strewn under the hostile walls ; And from the skies, and from the fenny land. Came dripping the chill dews, rotting our clothes, Matting our hair, like hides of shaggy beasts. Our winters shall I tell, when the bleak cold 150 JESCHTLUS. Intolerable, down from Ida's snows Came rushing ; even the birds fell dead around us. Or summer heats, when on his midday couch Heavily fell the waveless sea, no breath Stirring the sultry air. Why grieve we now ? All is gone by ! the toils all o'er ! the dead — No thought have they of rising from their graves ! Why count the suffering of those who have fallen ? The living only, fickle fortune's wrath Afflicts with grief. I to calamity Have bid a long farewell. Of the Argive host To us, the few survivors, our rich gains Weigh down in the scale our poor uncounted losses. In the face of the noonday sun we make our boast, Flying abroad over the sea and land. That now the Argive host hath taken Troy ; And in the ancestral temples of their gods Have nailed the spoils for our eternal glory. Milman. AGAMEMNON, 782-974. AGAMEMNON'S RETURN HOME AFTER THE FALL OF TROY. Entering, He is welcomed by tlie Chorus {Elders of Argos) in Front of his Palace. OHOBCS. Hail, king of Atreus' race renowned. Who Troy has leveled with the ground ! How to address thee — how adore ; Nor with exceeding praise run o'er, AGAMEMNON. 151 Nor turning short, pass by too light The mark and standard of thy might ! Most men do justice' law transgress, Being than seeming honoring less. And every one is prompt of wiQ To groan over another's ill; So grief its prudent temperance keep, Nor sink into the heart too deep, As with mock sympathy to guile. Force on the face the unwilling smile. Who knows his sheep, the shepherd good, The eye of man wiU ne'er delude. Seeking his friend's blind heart to move With a faint, thin, and watery love. Thou when, for sake of Helen lost. Thou didst array that mighty host, Wert written (naught may I disguise), Within my books as most unwise. Handling with impulse rash and blind The helm of thy misguided mind. But no light-minded counselor now To that bold army seemest thou — The sagest and the truest friend. Who hast brought their toils to this proud end. For evermore will Time reveal Those who with prescient judgment wise. Nor missing golden opportunities. Administer for public good the public weal. AGAMEMNON. 'T is meet that Argos and my country's gods First I salute, gracious accomplices 152 ^SCHTLUS. In my return, and the just vengeance wrought On Priam's city. The great gods the cause Judge not from pleaders' subtle rhetoric, But cast their suffrage-balls with one consent Into the bloody urn, that doomed to ruin Uion, to one wide slaughter all her sons ; And in the opposite urn was only Hope Wild-grasping with her clenched and unfilled hands. Now captive Troy is one vast cloud of smoke ; Howls Atfe's hurricane, the dying embers Steam up with the fat reek of burning riches. For this our unforgetting thanks we pay To the great gods, since we our hunters' toils With one wide sweep have o'er the city cast. The Argivtf dragon, for that woman's sake, Hath utterly razed to earth once famous Troy. Foaled by the fatal horse, the shielded host. At the Pleiads' setting, leaped terrific forth ; The roaring lion rampant o'er the towers Sprang, glutting his fierce maw with kingly blood. Such is my prelude to the immortal gods. But for the rest my thoughts are as your thoughts. The same aver I, and do fuUy assent. Few, few are born with that great gift, to haU TJnenvying their friends' prosperity. Envy, slow poison gnawing at the heart. Doubles the anguish of the man diseased ; By his own woes weighed heavily down, he groans Gazing at the happiness before his doors. From sad experience of mankind I speak, To human life holding the mirror up. Even as the shadow of a shade I saw AGAMEMNON. 163 Those that once seemed my dearest, best of friends. Only Ulysses, who against his will Set sail, my one true yokemate, by my side Ran in the harness of the battle-car. But speak I of the living or the dead. Passes, alas ! my knowledge. For the city And for our gods holding our festal games In full assembly, take we counsel now ; Take counsel how what now stands well may stand Unshaken even unto the end of time ; And wheresoe'er needs healing remedy. By cautery or incision, skillful and keen, We will divert the growing slow disease. Enter we now our palace' hallowed hearths, Our gods propitiated, who to far lands Sent us, and brought us back ; and Victory, Who hath tracked our steps, abide with us forever ! Clytemitestba enters. CLTTBMNESTEA. Men ! Citizens ! Elders of Argos' state ! I blush not in your presence to pour forth All a wife's fondness for her lord beloved ; For timorous bashfulness soon dies away Before familiar faces. Not from others Learning, but only from mine own sad knowledge Will I describe my solitary life. While he was far away under Troy's walls. And first, what monstrous misery to sit, A desolate woman in a lonely house ! No man in the wide palace, listening still 154 ^SCHYLUS. To rumors strange, confused, and contrary. First comes a melancholy messenger, Another then, with tidings worse and worse. Shrieking their dreary tale through the lone cham- bers : And thus poured down the news upon the house — " The wounded man had had his body pierced With gaping holes as many as in a net ; " Then " he was dead," so swelled and grew the tale. A second triple-bodied Geryon, he (Of Geryon I speak living on earth. Not Geryon in the infernal realms below) Three deaths had suffered in his threefold form, And thence been wrapped in a winding sheet of earth. While these conflicting rumors thronged around, Others the desperate halter round my neck. By which I hung, loosening with friendly hand, Brought me with gentle violence back to life. And all the while our boy, as had been meet — He, seal and pledge of our affianced troth — Orestes, was not by me. Marvel not. That child, the Phocian Strophius, once our foe. Now our close friend, nurses within his palace. He the dark choice of evil that lay before me Showed, prophet-like — thy peril 'neath Ti'oy's walls. Or democratic anarchy at home, The senate overthrown, and the mad people, As wont with men, trampling upon the fallen. Such was the warning — warning that deceived not. To me the gushing fountains of my tears AGAMEMNON. 155 Were utterly dried up, no drop would fall. Mine eyes grew dim upon my late-sought bed, Weeping, and watching the neglected lamps Paling their feebler light ; and in my dreams I woke at the shrill buzzing of the gnats ; I saw thee suffering woes more long and sad Than could be crowded in my hours of sleep. I, that have borne all this with soul unblenched, May now address my lord in happier phrase. Thou, watchdog of the unattainted fold ! The mainstay that secures the straining ship ! The firm-based pillar, bearing the lofty roof! The only son to childless father born ! Land by the lost despairing sailor seen ! Day beaming beautiful after fierce storms ! Cool fountain to the thirsty traveler ! And, oh ! what bliss to be delivered thus From the hard bondage of necessity. None grudge us now our joy ! For woe enough We have endured. And now, O most beloved, Alight thou from thy chariot. \_As he is about to step down. Stay, nor set On the bare earth, O King, thy hallowed foot ; That which hath trampled upon ruined Troy. Why tarry ye, my damsels ? 'T is your ofiice To strew the path with gorgeous carpetings ; Like purple pavement rich be all his way ; That justice to his house may lead him in — The house he little dreamed of. All the rest Leave to my care that may not sleep. So please The gods, what 's justly destined shall be done. 156 jESCHylus. AGAMEMNON. Daughter of Leda, guardian of mine house ! Of my long absence thou hast spoken well, But hast been somewhat lavish of thy praise. Praise in due measure and discreet is well, Yet may that guerdon come from others best. Treat me not like a soft and delicate woman, Nor, gazing open-mouthed, grovelling on earth Like a barbarian, raise discordant cry ; Nor, strewing with bright tapestries my way, Make me an envy to aU-jealous Heaven. These are the proud prerogatives of the gods ; That mortals thus should walk on rich embroid- eries Beseems not : do it I cannot without awe. As a man honor me, not as a god ! Though she wipe not her feet on carpetings, Nor variegated garments fine. Fame lifts High her clear voice. To be of humble mind Is God's best gift. Blessed is only he Who in unbroken happiness ends his days. Still may I prosper, thus not overbold. CLYTEMNESTKA. Say ye not so ; nor cross my purpose thus. AGAMEMNON. Think not that I will change my fixed resolve. CLYTEMNESTKA. Hast thou thus sworn in awe of the great gods ? AGAMEMNON. 157 AGAMEMNON. If man e'er knew his purpose, know I mine. OLTTEMNESTRA. Had Priam conquered, what had Priam done ? AGAMEMNON. He would have trod on gorgeous carpetings. CLYTEMNBSTKA. So, cower not thou before the blame of men. AGAMEMNON. The people's voice bears with it mighty power. CLTTEMNESTRA. He that 's not envied never is admired. AGAMEMNON. 'T is not a woman's part to love a fray. OLTTEMNESTEA. The prosperous should condescend to yield. AGAMEMNON. WUt thou be conqueress in this gentle strife ? OLTTEMNESTEA. Be thou persuaded, yield of thy own free wiU ! AGAMEMNON. If thou wilt have it so, then let some slave Loose instantly the sandals from my feet, 158 ^SCHYLUS. Lest some dread god with jealous eye behold me "Walking like them upon the sea-dipped purple. It were great shame to pamper one's own body, Trampling on riches with proud prodigal feet, And tapestries with untold silver bought. So much for this. But thou this stranger maid ^ Lead in with gracious welcome. The high gods On him who rules his slaves with gentleness Look gracious : for to bear the yoke of slavery Is a sore trial to the struggling will. And she, of our rich spoils the chosen flower. The army's precious gift, follows me here. And since to yield to thee I am compelled. Walking on purple, enter I the palace. CLYTEMHESTKA. Who shall go quench the prodigal sea, that still Teems with bright purple, worth its weight in silver. The ever-fresh and never-fading dye That steeps our robes in everlasting colors ? Of these, O king, our house hath ample store — Our house that knows not vulgar poverty. Of many as rich the trampling in the dust I would have vowed, if the oracular shrine. At which I knelt, had uttered such decree. Working the ransom for thy precious life. Be the root sound, upsprings the full-leaved tree. Offering cool shade beneath the dog-star heat. So as thou cam'st to the domestic hearth, 'T was as a sunny warmth in winter time, ' His captive, the Trojan Cassandra. AGAMEMNON. 159 When Jove the sharp grape ripens to rich wine : And a delicious freshness fills the house, The prime of men moving through the long cham- bers. Jove ! Jove ! that all things perfectest, my prayers Bring to perfection ! to perfection bring What thou hast yet to do ! Be this thy care. Milman. AGAMEMNON, 1295-1517. THE MUKDER OF AGAMEMNON.^ CHORUS. O WOEEULLBST of women, wise as woeful ! Thy speech hath wandered far. But if in truth Thou dost foresee thy death, why, like a heifer, God-driven, to the altar dost thou boldly tread ? CASSAUBBA. There 's no escape. What gain I by delay ? CHOBUS. Who lingers still wins something by delay. CASSANDBA. My day is come ; flight were but little gain. OHOKUS. Thou 'It suffer more by being overbold. OASSANDEA. A glorious death is mortals' noblest grace. 1 See Note. 160 ^SCHYLUS. The happy speak not thus. That ne'er was heard. CASSANDKA. Oh ! Oh ! my father ! Oh thy valiant sons ! [Starting hack from thepalace door. CHOKUS. How now ! what terror makes thee thus start back ? CASSAITDKA. Foh ! f oh ! CHORUS. Why this foh, foh ! unless thou art sick at heart ? CASSAHDRA. Foh ! how the house smells with the reek of blood ! CHORUS. 'T is but the smell of the sacrificial fires ! CASSANDRA. It is the vapor oozing from a tomb. CHORUS. Sooth, 't is no smell of Syrian incense rich. CASSANDRA {at the portal). Well, then I go to shriek throughout the palace Mine own and Agamemnon's bloody fate. * Enough of life ! enough ! Strangers ! good stran- gers! AGAMEMNON. 161 I am not screaming like a timorous bird That hides itself behind the bush in vain ! To one about to die, bear ye this witness — When that a woman dies for me a woman, A man Hi-wedded for a murdered man, Kemember well the expiring stranger's words ! CHORUS. Sad one ! I pity thy foreboded fate. OASSANDBA. Yet once more would I speak in sober speech, Or ere I utter mine own funeral wail. And thee do I conjure, all-seeing Sun ! Gazing upon thy light for the last time ; Even fate as terrible, as dire as this, May my avengers on my murderers wreak ; On both the murderers of a dying slave, An easy victim in their mastering hand ! Oh, our poor mortal state ! the happiest A shadow turns to grief — the unfortunate ! A wet sponge with one touch washes all out The picture : far more pitiable these. [Enters the palace. Of the gifts that from good fortune fall Insatiate still are mortals all ; At whom all fingers point, the great — Who warns men from his palace gate. And says, " Thou mayst not enter here ; ' To him, the monarch standing near, 162 ^SCBYLUS. Did the blest gods the boon bestow, ^ Old Priam's city to o'erthrow. Of all the gods we saw him come Most honored to his native home. But if the forfeit he repays, For the foul crimes of ancient days, And vengeance for the olden dead Be heaped on his devoted head ; What mortal would not make his prayer That he were born beneath a lowlier star ? AGAMEMNON (within). Woe 's me, I 'm stabbed ! stabbed with a mortal blow ! CHOKUS. Silence ! who is he that 's shouting — stricken by a mortal stroke ? AGAMEMNOK. Woe 's me ! woe 's me ! again ! another blow ! From the groaning of the monarch seems it that the deed is done. Let us join in instant counsel what were safest to be done. [The scene opena, disclosing Clytemnestra standing ty the dead body of Agamemnon.] AGAMEMNON. 163 CLYTBMNBSTIIA. 'T was I that slew him ! Thus, thus, I did it — naught will I deny — That he could nor defend himself, nor 'scape. As round the fish the inextricable net Closes, in his rich garments' fatal wealth I wrapped him. Then once, twice, I smote him home. Twice groaned he, then stretched out his failing limbs ; And as he lay I added a third blow ; And unto Hades, the dark god below, "Warden of the dead, made my thanksgiving vow. So, fallen thus, he breathed out his proud life.^ CHOKUS. Alas ! alas ! My king ! my king ! how shall I mourn for thee ? How my fond heart speak all its agony ? There liest thou ; thy cold corpse around The subtle spider's web is wound ; Thy noble life thou didst outbreathe By a most impious and unholy death. OLYTEMKESTEA. And dar'st thou say the deed was mine ? Ill does thy erring speech divine. Say not 't was Agamemnon's wife That cut so short his fated life. ^ Compare the account of his death in the Odyssey, as told by himself. See page 81. 164 ^SGHTLUS. It was the Alastor, whose dread mien Took up the likeness of the queen. Of that dark house 't was he, 't was he, The curse and awful Destiny ; (Where, father of that race unblest. Old Atreus held his cannibal feast ;) Wreaking for that dread crime the vengeance due. The full-grown man for those poor babes he slew. SEMICHOKUS. Who shall absolve thee from the guilt Of that red blood so foully spUt ? How, how the Alastor wouldst thou name, Accomplice in that deed of shame ? Ancient hereditary foe Of all that house of guilt and woe, (Borne on the overwhelming flood, Rushing amain, of kindred blood Like clashing tides of meeting water,) Burst Ares forth, black god of slaughter ; On speeds he furious, o'er the rest. Melting the congealed gore of the child-devouring feast. CHORUS. Alas ! alas ! how shall I mourn for thee ? How my fond heart speak all its agony ? There liest thou ; thy cold corpse around The subtle spider's web is wound ; Thy noble life thou didst outbreathe By a most impious and unholy death. Milman. CHOEPHORI. 165 CHOEPHOEI,! 20-83. THE CHORUS MOURN THE FATE OF AGA- MEMNON. Obedient to my Queen's command, With pure libations in my hand, The regal halls I leave : The shredded robe, the oftdealt blow. The bleeding cheek, whose furrows show The handy-work of frantic woe, Bear witness how I grieve. Torn is the linen vest. That veiled my snowy breast ; And smiles around my lips no longer play ; My heart, with care oppressed, Is fed on agony from day to day. A cry the calm of midnight broke ; From the dark chambers Terror spoke ; Troubler of sleep ! — with ghastly stare. With breath of wrath, and bristling hair, And accent shrill that pierced the ear, Loud raved the dream-inspiring Seer ! Right heavily he sate, I ween, Above the chambers of the Queen. The interpreters, their troth who plight To speU the visions of the night. From God an answer gave : " Sent forth by murdered man," they said, " That form, to haunt the murderer's bed. Had issued from the grave." ^ Libation-Bearers. See Note. 166 ^SCHYLUS. The impious Queen in vain these offerings sends, To turn aside the ill that boding dream portends. Earth ! her graceless gifts I pour thee ! Earth, my mother ! I adore thee : Yet scarce my tongue thy power may dare To mock with ineffectual prayer : Can aught remove the murderer's guilt ? Can aught atone for life-blood spilt ? Halls, o'erwhelmed in ruin rude ! Hearth, where countless sorrows brood ! Round you, now my lord is slain, Sunless, hateful shadows reign ; Loyal Faith that once possessed Every listening subject's breast, Faith, whose firmness seemed to mock War and foul sedition's shock, Hath passed away ; — the cravens bow Their necks beneath usurpers now. Man to success stiU court will pay. Still honor Fortune's fickle sway. Exalt her to the blest abodes, A goddess and above the gods. But Justice holds her equal scales With ever-waking eye ; O'er some her vengeful might prevails, When their life's sun is high ; On some her vigorous judgments light. In that dread pause 'twixt day and night, Life's closing twilight hour ; Round some, ere yet they meet their doom, CHOEPHOBI. 167 Is shed the silence of the tomb, The eternal shadows lower ; But soon as once the genial plain Has drunk the life-blood of the slain. Indelible the spots remain, And aye for vengeance call, Till racking pangs of piercing pain Upon the guilty fall. What balm for him shall potent prove. Who breaks the ties of wedded love ? And though all streams united gave The treasures of their limpid wave, To purify from gore ; The hand, polluted once with blood. Though washed in every silver flood. Is foul for evermore ! Hard Fate is mine, since that dark day. Which girt my home with war's array, And bore me from my father's hall, To pine afar, a captive thrall ; Hard Fate ! to yield to Heaven's decree. And what I am not, seem to be ; Dissemble hatred, and control The bitter workings of the soul ; E'en to injustice feign consent ; Detest the wrong, but not prevent : Yet oft I veil my face, to weep For those who unavenged sleep ; Oft for vay slaughtered lord I mourn, ChUled by the frost of grief, with secret anguish torn ! Joseph Anstice. 168 ^SSCHYLUS. THE EUMENIDES, 307-396. SONG OF THE FURIES. Up and lead the danceof Fate ! Lift the song that mortals hate ! Tell what rights are ours on earth, Over aU of human birth. Swift of foot to avenge are we ! He whose hands are clean and pure, Naught our wrath to dread hath he ; Calm his cloudless days endure. But the man that seeks to hide Like him,-' his gore-bedewed hands, Witnesses to them that died, The blood avengers at his side. The Furies' troop forever stands. O'er our victim come begin ! Come, the incantation sing. Frantic aU and maddening. To the heart a brand of fire, The Furies' hymn, That which chains the senses dim. Tuneless to the gentle lyre. Withering the soul within. The pride of all of human birth. All glorious in the eye of day, Dishonored slowly melts away, Trod down and trampled to the earth, ^ Orestes. THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. 169 Whene'er our dark-stoled troop advances, Whene'er our feet lead on the dismal dances. For light our footsteps are, And perfect is our might, Awful remembrancers of guilt and crime. Implacable to mortal prayer. Far from the gods, unhonored, and heaven's light, We hold our voiceless dwellings dread. All unapproached by living or by dead. What mortal feels not awe, Nor trembles at our name. Hearing our fate-appointed power sublime, Fixed by the eternal law. For old our office, and our fame. Might never yet of its due honors fail, Though 'neath the earth our realm in unsunned regions pale. Milman. THE SEVEN AGAESTST THEBES, 848-860. LAMENT FOR THE TWO BROTHERS SLAIN BY EACH OTHER'S HAND. Now do our eyes behold The tidings which were told : Twin fallen kings, twin perished hopes to mourn. The slayer, the slain. The entangled doom forlorn And ruinous end of twain. Say, is not sorrow, is not sorrow's sum 170 ^SCHYLUS. On home and hearthstone come ? Oh, waft with sighs the sail from shore, Oh, smite the bosom, cadencing the oar That rows beyond the rueful stream for aye To the far strand, The ship of souls, the dark, The unreturning bark Whereon light never falls nor foot of Day, Even to the bourne of all, to the unbeholden land. A. E. Housman. PROMETHEUS, 1-435. PEOMETHEUS BOUND TO THE EOCK;. Strength and Force appear with Mephcestus drag- ging in Prometheus. They chain him to the Crag. Then the Sea Nymphs come to listen to his Story. STBENGTH. We reach the utmost limit of the earth, The Scythian track, the desert without man, And now, Hephsestus, thou must needs fulfill The mandate of our father, and with links Indissoluble of adamantine chains. Fasten against this beetling precipice This guilty god ! Because he filched away Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire, And gifted mortals with it, — such a sin It doth behove he expiate to the gods, Learning to accept the empery of Zeus, And leave off his old trick of loving man. PROMETHEUS. 171 HBPaESTUS. Strength and Force, for you our Zeus's will Presents a deed for doing. No more ! — but I, 1 lack your daring, up this storm-rent chasm To fix with violent hands a kindred god, Howbeit necessity compels me so That I must dare it, — and our Zeus commands With a most inevitable word. Ho thou ! High-thoughted son of Themis who is sage, Thee loath, I loath must rivet fast in chains Against this rocky height unclomb by man, Where never human voice nor face shall find Out thee who lov'st them ! — and thy beauty's flower, Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away. Night shall come up with garniture of stars To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun Disperse with retricked beams the morning frosts ; And through all changes, sense of present woe Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked From love of man ! for in that thou, a god. Didst brave the wrath of gods and give away Undue respect for mortals ; for that crime Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock, Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee. And many a cry and unavailing moan To utter on the air ! For Zeus is stern, And new-made kings are cruel. 172 ^SCHYLUS. PROMETHEUS {alone). holy ^ther, and swift-wingfed Winds, And Biver-wells, and laughter innumerous Of yon Sea-waves ! Earth, mother of us all, And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you ! — Behold me, a god, what I endure from gods ! Behold with throe on throe. How, wasted by this woe, 1 wrestle down the myriad years of time ! Behold, how fast around me, The new King of the happy ones sublime Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me ! Woe, woe, to-day's woe and the coming morrow's, I cover with one groan ! And where is found me A limit to these sorrows ? And yet what word do I say ? I have foreknown Clearly all things that should be — nothing done Comes sudden to my soul — and I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware Necessity doth front the universe With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse, Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave In silence or in speech. Because I gave Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul To this compelling fate ! Because I stole The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went Over the ferrule's brim, and manward sent Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment. That sin I expiate in this agony ; Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky ! \The Sea Nymphs draw near. PROMETHEUS. 173 Ah, ah me ! what a sound ! What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen Of a god or a mortal, or nature between. Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain. Lo ! a god in the anguish, a god in the chain ! The god Zeus hateth sore, And his gods hate again. As many as tread on his glorified floor. Because I loved mortals, too much evermore ! Alas me ! what a murmur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near ! And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings — And all life that approaches I wait for in fear. CHOKUS OF SEA NYMPHS. Fear nothing ! our troop Floats lovingly up With a quick-oaring stroke Of wings steered to the rock ; Having softened the soul of our father below ! For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound. And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow. Smote down the profound Of my caverns of old. And struck the red light in a blush from my brow, Till I sprang up unsandaled, in haste to behold. And rushed forth on my chariot of wings mani- fold. 174 JESCHYHTS. PBOMETHEXJS. Alas me ! Alas me ! Ye offspring of Tethys who bore at her breast Many children ; and eke of Oceanus, — he Coiling stiU around earth with perpetual unrest ; Behold me and see How transfixed with the fang Of a fetter I hang On the high jutting rocks of this fissure, and keep An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep. I behold thee, Prometheus — yet now, yet now, A terrible cloud whose rain is tears Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how Thy body appears Hung awaste on the rocks by infrangible chains ! For new is the hand, new the rudder that steers The ship of Olympus through surge and wind — And of old things passed, no track is behind. PROMETHEUS. Under earth, under Hades, Where the home of the shade is, All into the deep, deep Tartarus, I would he had hurled me adown ! I would he had plunged me, fastened thus In the knotted chain with the savage clang. All into the dark, where there should be none. Neither god nor another, to laugh and see ! But now the winds sing through and shake The hurtling chains wherein I hang — PROMETBEUS. 175 And I, in my naked sorrows, make Much mirth for my enemy. Universal Sympathy with Prometheus. CHORUS. I moan thy fate, I moan for thee, Prometheus ! From my eyes too tender, Drop after drop incessantly. The tears of my heart's pity render My cheeks wet from their fountains free — Because that Zeus, the stern and cold. Whose law is taken from his breast. Uplifts his sceptre manifest Over the gods of old. All the land is moaning With a murmured plaint to-day ! All the mortal nations, Having habitations In the holy Asia, Are a dirge intoning For thine honor and thy brothers'. Once majestic beyond others In the old belief — Now are groaning in the groaning Of thy deep-voiced grief. Mourn the maids inhabitant Of the Colchian land. Who with white, calm bosoms, stand In the battle's roar ! 176 ^SCHYLUS. Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt The verge of earth, Moeotis' shore. Yea ! Arabia's battle crown, And dwellers in the beetling town Mount Caucasus sublimely nears — An iron squadron, thundering down With the sharp-prowed spears. But one other before, have I seen to remain, By invincible pain Bound and vanquished — one Titan ! — 't was Atlas, who bears. In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own Which he evermore wears, The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone. While he sighs up the stars ! And the tides of the ocean waU bursting their bars — Murmurs still the profound — And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low In a pathos of woe. Mrs. Srowning. PEOMETHEUS, 436-506. BENEFITS CONFERRED ON MAN BY PROMETHEUS. PEOMETHEUS. Beseech you, think not I am silent thus Through pride or scorn ! I only gnaw my heart With meditation, seeing myself so wronged, PROMETHEUS. 177 For see — their honors to these new-made gods, What other gave but I — and dealt them out With distribution ? Ay — but here I am dumb ; For here I should repeat your knowledge to you, If I spake aught. List rather to the deeds I did for mortals, — how, being fools before, I made them wise and true in aim of soul. And let me teU you — not as taunting men, But teaching you the intention of my gifts ; How, first beholding, they beheld in vain. And hearing, heard not, but like shapes in dreams Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time, Nor knew to buUd a house against the sun With wicketed sides, nor any woodcraft knew, But lived like siUy ants, beneath the ground In hollow caves unsunned. There came to them No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit, But blindly and lawlessly they did all things. Until I taught them how the stars do rise And set in mystery ; and devised for them Number, the inducer of philosophies. The synthesis of Letters, and, beside, The artificer of all things. Memory, That sweet Muse-mother. I was first to yoke The servile beasts in couples, carrying An heirdom of men's burdens on their backs ! I joined to chariots, steeds, that love the bit They champ at — the chief pomp of golden ease ! And none but I originated ships. The seaman's chariots, wandering on the brine With linen wings ! And I — oh, miserable ! Who did devise for mortals all these arts. 178 JBSCUYLUS. Have no device left now to save myself From the woe I sufEer. Most unseemly woe Thou sufEerest and dost stagger from the sense, Bewildered ! Like a bad leech falling sick Thou art faint at soul, and canst not find the drugs Required to save thyself. PKOMETHEUS. Hearken the rest. And marvel further — what more arts and means I did invent, — this, greatest ! if a man Fell sick, there was no cure, nor esculent Nor chrism nor liquid, but for lack of drugs Men pined and wasted, till I showed them all Those mixtures of emollient remedies Whereby they might be rescued from disease. I fixed the various rules of mantic art. Discerned the vision from the common dream. Instructed them in vocal auguries Hard to interpret, and defined as plain The wayside omens, flights of crook-clawed birds. Showed which are by their nature fortunate, And which not so, and what the food of each, And what the hates, affections, social needs. Of all to one another, — taught what sign Of visceral lightness, colored to a shade. May charm the genial gods, and what fair spots Commend the lung and liver. Burning so The limbs encased in fat, and the long chine, I led my mortals on to an art abstruse, PROMETHEUS. 179 And cleaved their eyes to the image in the fire, Erst filmed in dark. Enough said now of this. For the other helps of man hid underground, The iron and the brass, silver and gold. Can any dare affirm he found them out Before me ? None, I know ! Unless he choose To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole ; That all arts come to mortals from Prometheus. Mrs. Browning. PKOMETHEUS, 887-906. THE CHORUS MORALIZES UPON THE FATE OF 10. STROPHE. Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he, Who first within his spirit knew And with his tongue declared it trufe. That love comes best that comes unto The equal of degree ! And that the poor and that the low Should seek no love from those above Whose souls are fluttered with the flow Of airs about their golden height. Or proud because they see arow Ancestral crowns of light ! ANTISTROPHE. Oh, never, never, may ye, Fates, Behold me with your awful eyes Lift mine too fondly up the skies Where Zeus upon the purple waits ! — Nor let me step too near — too near — To any suitor, bright from heaven ! 180 ^SCHYLUS. Because I see — because I fear This loveless maiden ^ vexed and laden By this fell curse of Here, driven On wanderings dread and drear ! Nay, grant an equal troth instead Of nuptial love to bind me by ! It will not hurt — I shall not dread To meet it in reply. But let not love from those above Revert and fix me, as I said, With that inevitable Eye ! I have no sword to fight that fight — I have no strength to tread that path — I know not if my nature hath The power to bear — I cannot see Whither, from Zeus's infinite, I have the power to flee. Mrs. Browning. PROMETHEUS, 1080-1093. PROMETHEUS AMID HURRICANE AND EARTH- QUAKE UTTERS HIS LAST WORDS. Eakth is rocking in space ! And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar. And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face. And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, — And the blasts of the winds universal leap free ' lo, who has been telling to Prometheus the story of her misfortunes. THE PERSIANS. 181 And blow each upon each, with a passion of sound, And aether goes mingling in storm with the sea ! Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread, From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along ! my mother's fair glory ! ^ther, enringing All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing. Dost see how I suffer this wrong ? Mrs. Browning. THE PERSIANS, 384-432. THE BATTLE OF SALAMK. The night was passing, and the Grecian host By no means sought to issue forth unseen. But when indeed the day with her white steeds Held all the earth, resplendent to behold, First from the Greeks the loud-resounding din Of song triumphant came; and shrill at once Echo responded from the island rock. Then upon all barbarians terror fell, Thus disappointed ; for not as for flight The Hellenes sang the holy paean then. But setting forth to battle valiantly. The bugle with its note inflamed them all ; And straightway with the dip of plashing oars They smote the deep sea water at command, And quickly all were plainly to be seen. Their right wing first in orderly array Led on, and second all the armament Followed them forth ; and meanwhile there was heard A mighty shout : 182 JESCHYLUS. " Come, O ye sons of Greeks, Make free your country, make your children free, Your wives, and fanes of your ancestral gods, And your sires' tombs ! For all we now contend ! " And from our side the rush of Persian speech Replied. No longer might the crisis wait. At once ship smote on ship with brazen beak ; A vessel of the Greeks began the attack. Crushing the stem of a Phoenician ship. Each on a different vessel turned his prow. At first the curi-ent of the Persian host Withstood ; but when within the strait the throng Of ships was gathered, and they could not aid Each other, but by their own brazen bows Were struck, they shattered all our naval host. The Grecian vessels not unskillfully Were smiting round about ; the hulls of ships Were overset ; the sea was hid from sight, Covered with wreckage and the de^th of men ; The reefs and headlands were with corpses fiUed, And in disordered flight each ship was rowed, As many as were of the Persian host. But they, like tunnies or some shoal of fish. With broken oars and fragments of the wrecks Struck us and clove us ; and at once a cry Of lamentation filled the briny sea. Till the black darkness' eye did rescue us. The number of our griefs, not though ten days I talked together, could I fully tell ; But this know well, that never in one day Perished so great a multitude of men. William Cranston Lawton. SOPHOCLES, 495^05 B. c. CEDIPUS THE KING, 151-215. PEAYBR FOE DELIVERANCE FKOM THE PESTILENCE. LoBD of the Pythian treasure,^ What meaneth the word thou hast spoken ? The strange and wondrous word, Which Thebes hath heard. Oh ! it hath shaken our hearts to a faltering measure ! A token; O Paian, a token ! What is thy boon to us ? Shall it come soon to us, Shall it be long e'er the circle bend Full round to the fatal end ? Answer us, daughter of Hope, Voice born Immortal of golden Hope ! First therefore thou be entreated. Divine unapproachable maiden,^ And Artemis with thee, our aid to be. In the mid mart of our city majestical seated. And Phcebus the archer death-laden ! 1 Apollo. ^ Athene. 184 SOPHOCLES. By your affinity Helpfullest trinity, Help us. And as in the time gone by Ye have bowed to our plaintive cry, Bowed to our misery sore : So come to us now as ye came before. Ah me ! it is a world, a world of woe, Plague upon the height and plague below ! And they mow us with murderous glaive. And never a shield to save ! Never a fruit of the earth comes to the birth. And in vain, in vain Is the cry and the labor of mothers, and all for a fruitless pain. Away, away, Ghost upon ghost they are wafted away : One with another they die, Swifter than flame do they fly From life, from light, from day. Ah me ! it is a world, a world of dead, Feverous and foul, with corpses spread : And they lie as they lie, unbefriended. Where are the mothers, and where are the wives ? They are fled, fled for their lives. To the altars to pray. There to lie, to sigh. And to pray, and to pray unattended, With choir and cry Lamentation and litany blended. And only, O Maiden, by thee may our marred estate be mended. (EDIPnS THE KING. 185 The fiend of plague, whose swordless hand Burns like battle through the land, With wild tempestuous wailing all about him, — O cross his track and turn him back O meet him, thou, and rout him ! Let him sink again Deep in the deepest main ! Let him mingle in horrible motion With the wildest ocean ! (For still what 'scapes the cruel night. Cruel day destroys it quite.) But oh ! with thunder-stroke Let our enemy and thine be broke, — O Zeus ! — Father ! — let him know thy wrath, thy wrath di- O God of light, from lightsome bow Cast abroad thy fiery snow. Like morsels cast thine arrowy, fiery snow ! And thou, mountain maiden pure, His sister, stand our champion sure, Stand and strow Arrows, as fire, below ! Thou too — thou art Theban — Bacchus, Xhou — art thou not Theban ? — Bacchus, In rosy bloom, elate and strong. Lead thy madding train along, Until thy fiery chase Hunt the demon from the place Afar, afar ! O follow, follow him far, afar ! A. W. Verrall. 186 SOPHOCLES. CEDIPUS THE KING, 863-910. THE HOLINESS OF LAW. Mine be it, mine to hold. With destiny to aid, the stainless sanctity In words and actions manifold. Whereof the laws do live and move on high, Set in eternal spheres. Born in the bright expanse of upper sky, Birth of the high God, not of mortal years, Nor unto dull oblivion a prey : Strong, ageless deity is theirs, and waneth not away. The child of earthly pride Is tyranny, when once man's life doth teem With wealth too great to profit or beseem. Up, by a path untried, Up to the crowning peak of bliss She climbs, then headlong down the sheer abyss Helpless she sinks to the unf ooted void ! Yet unto God I pray that he may ne'er annul Man's strife that man's estate be honored to the full. God is my help ; to him my faith clings unde- stroyed. But if a man, in deed or word. Walks o'er-informed with pride and might. (ED IP us THE KING. 187 By fear of justice undeterred, Scorning the seats of deity, HI doom, to that man drawing nigh, His ill-starred arrogance requite ! Unless toward his proper gain With uncorrupted hand he strain, Unless he loathe all filthiness — If with lewd hands he touch the grace of holi- ness ! Henceforth, if such things be, no mortal evermore Can from his life repel The darts of heaven and boast that foiled they fell: If he who walks such ways Deserve man's honor and his praise, Wherefore with holy dance should I the Gods adore ? Never again from Delphi's central hearth. The sacred spot inviolate of earth. Will I seek Phoebus' grace, Nor unto Abffi nor Olympia go. Unless these presages come forth. Clear, to the issue joined, for all to see and show. But unto thee we pray, Zeus, lord and king ! if so men call on thee aright — Deathless thou art, eternal, full of sway — Let not transgression 'scape thy sight ! Wrecks of a bygone day. The ancient oracles of Laius' line Are cast contemned away ! 188 SOPHOCLES. No more is glorified Apollo's shrine ; Death falls on things divine. E. D. A. Morshead. CEDIPUS THE KING, 1458-1480. THE BLIND CEDIPUS AND HIS CHILDREN. FOK my fate, let it pass ! My children, Creon ! My sons — nay, they the hitter wants of life May master ; they are men ! My girls — my darlings — Why, never sat I at my household hoard Without their blessed looks ; our very hread We brake together ; — thou 'It be kind to them For my sake, Creon — and, (0 latest prayer !) Let me but touch them — feel them with these hands, And pour such sorrows as may speak farewell O'er ills that must be theirs ! By thy pure luie — For thine is pure — do this, sweet prince. Me- thinks I should not miss these eyes, could I but touch them. What shall I say to move thee ? Sobs ! — And do I, Oh, do I hear my sweet ones ? Hast thou sent, In mercy sent, my children to my arms ? Speak — speak — I do not dream ! (EDIPUa TEE KING. 18.9 They are thy children. I would not shut thee from the dear delight In the old time they gave thee. Blessing on thee ! For this one mercy mayst thou find ahove A kinder God than I have. Ye — where are ye ? My children, come ! nearer and nearer yet. E. Bulwer-Lytton. CEDIPUS THE KING, 1524-1530. CHORUS MORALIZES ON THE FATE OF CEDIPUS. DwBLLEES in our native Thebfe, fix on CEdipus your eyes, Who resolved the dark enigma, noblest champion and most wise. Glorious, like a sun he mounted, envied of the popular throng ; Now he sinks in seas of anguish, plunged the lash- ing waves among. Therefore, with the old-world sages, waiting for the final day, I will call no mortal happy, while he holds his house of clay, Till without one pang of sorrow, all his hours have passed away. Lewis Campbell. 190 SOPHOCLES. CEDIPUS AT COLONUS, 1-116. THE ARRIVAL AT THE SACRED GROVE. The blind, outcast King, (Edipus, led by Antigone, is seen approaching Colonus, a Suburb of Ath- ens, where He has been told by the Oracle that his Life should find its End. (EDIPUS. Child of a blind old man, Antigone, To what place have we come, whose city this ? Who will receive the wanderer (Edipus But for to-day and with the scantiest gifts ? Little I ask, yet even less receive. And find that little stiQ sufficing me. For suffering and Time, my long companion, And my own noble soul teach me content. But, child, see'st anywhere a resting place. Or in the trodden way or sacred groves ? There lead and seat me down that we may ask Where now we are. Being strangers, we must learn From citizens, and what we hear perform. My father, woe-worn CEdipus, I see A city crowned with towers not far away ; But this place sure is holy — aU in bloom With laurel, olive, vine — while nightingales On crowding wing sing sweet within the groves. Here bend thy limbs to this unpolished stone ; For thou hast journeyed far for an old man. (EDIPUS AT COLONUS. 191