III. THE HEROIC AGE.
The period from the time of the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly to the return of the Greeks from the expedition against Troy—a period of about two hundred years—is usually called the Heroic Age. It is a period abounding in splendid fictions of heroes and demi-gods, embracing, among others, the twelve wonderful labors of Hercules; the exploits of the Athenian king The'seus, and of Mi'nos, King of Crete, the founder of Grecian law and civilization; the events of the Argonautic expedition; the Theban and Argol'ic wars; the adventures of Beller'ophon, Per'seus, and many others; and concluding with the Trojan war and the supposed fall of Troy. These seem to have been the times which the archangel Michael foretold to Adam when he said,
For in those days might only shall be admired,
And valor and heroic virtue called:
To overcome in battle, and subdue
Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite
Manslaughter, shall be held the highest pitch
Of human glory; and, for glory done,
Of triumph to be styled great conquerors,
Patrons of mankind, gods, and sons of gods—
Destroyers rightly called, and plagues of men.
—Paradise Lost, B. XI.
THE LABORS OF HERCULES.
The twelve arduous labors of the celebrated hero Hercules, who was a son of Jupiter by the daughter of an early king of Mycenæ, are said to have been imposed upon him by an enemy—Eurys'theus—to whose will Jupiter, induced by a fraud of Juno and the fury-goddess A'te, and unwittingly bound by an oath, had made the hero subservient for twelve years. Jupiter grieved for his son, but, unable to recall the oath which he had sworn, he punished Ate by hurling her from Olympus down to the nether world.
Grief seized the Thunderer, by his oath engaged;
Stung to the soul, he sorrowed and he raged.
From his ambrosial head, where perched she sate,
He snatched the fury-goddess of debate:
The dread, the irrevocable oath he swore,
The immortal seats should ne'er behold her more;
And whirled her headlong down, forever driven
From bright Olympus and the starry heaven:
Thence on the nether world the fury fell,
Ordained with man's contentious race to dwell.
Full oft the god his son's hard toils bemoaned,
Cursed the dire folly, and in secret groaned.
—HOMER'S Iliad, B. XIX. POPE'S Trans.
The following, in brief, are the twelve labors attributed to Hercules: 1. He strangled the Ne'mean lion, and ever after wore his skin. 2. He destroyed the Lernæ'an hydra, which had nine heads, eight of them mortal and one immortal. 3. He brought into the presence of Eurystheus a stag famous for its incredible swiftness and golden horns. 4. He brought to Mycenæ the wild boar of Eryman'thus, and slew two of the Centaurs, monsters who were half men and half horses. 5. He cleansed the Auge'an stables in one day by changing the courses of the rivers Alphe'us and Pene'us. 6. He destroyed the carnivorous birds of the lake Stympha'lus, in Arcadia. 7. He brought into Peloponnesus the prodigious wild bull which ravaged Crete. 8. He brought from Thrace the mares of Diome'de, which fed on human flesh. 9. He obtained the famous girdle of Hippol'y-te, queen of the Amazons. 10. He slew the monster Ge'ry-on, who had the bodies of three men united. 11. He brought from the garden of the Hesper'i-des the golden apples, and slew the dragon which guarded them. 12. He went down to the lower regions and brought upon earth the three-headed dog Cer'berus.
The favor of the gods had completely armed Hercules for his undertakings, and his great strength enabled him to perform them. This entire fable of Hercules is generally believed to be merely a fanciful representation of the sun in its passage through the twelve signs of the zodiac, in accordance with Phoenician mythology, from which the legend is supposed to be derived. Thus Hercules is the sun-god. In the first month of the year the sun passes through the constellation Leo, the lion; and in his first labor the hero slays the Nemean lion. In the second month, when the sun enters the sign Virgo, the long-extended constellation of the Hydra sets—the stars of which, like so many heads, rise one after another; and, therefore, in his second labor, Hercules destroys the Lernæan hydra with its nine heads. In like manner the legend is explained throughout. Besides these twelve labors, however, Hercules is said to have achieved others on his own account; and one of these is told in the fable of Hercules and Antæ'us, in which the powers of art and nature are supposed to be personified.
FABLE OF HERCULES AND ANTÆUS.
Antæ'us—a son of Neptune and Terra, who reigned over Libya, or Africa, and dwelt in a forest cave—was so famed for his Titanic strength and skill in wrestling that he was emboldened to leave his woodland retreat and engage in a contest with the renowned hero Hercules. So long as Antæus stood upon the ground he could not be overcome, whereupon Hercules lifted him up in the air, and, having apparently squeezed him to death in his arms, threw him down; but when Antæus touched his mother Earth and lay at rest upon her bosom, renewed life and fresh power were given him.
In this fable Antæus, who personifies the woodland solitude and the desert African waste, is easily overcome by his adversary, who represents the river Nile, which, divided into a thousand arms, or irrigating canals, prevents the arid sand from being borne away and then back again by the winds to desolate the fertile valley. Thus the legend is nothing more than the triumph of art and labor, and their reclaiming power over the woodland solitudes and the encroaching sands of the desert. An English poet has very happily versified the spirit of the legend, to which he has appended a fitting moral, doubtless suggested by the warning of his own approaching sad fate.[Footnote: This gifted poet, Mortimer Collins, died in 1876, at the age of forty-nine, a victim to excessive literary labor and anxiety.]
Deep were the meanings of that fable. Men
Looked upon earth with clearer eyesight then,
Beheld in solitude the immortal Powers,
And marked the traces of the swift-winged Hours.
Because it never varies, all can bear
The burden of the circumambient air;
Because it never ceases, none can hear
The music of the ever-rolling sphere—
None, save the poet, who, in moor and wood,
Holds converse with the spirit of Solitude.
And I remember how Antæus heard,
Deep in great oak-woods, the mysterious word
Which said, "Go forth across the unshaven leas
To meet unconquerable Hercules."
Leaving his cavern by the cedar-glen,
This Titan of the primal race of men,
Whom the swart lions feared, and who could tear
Huge oaks asunder, to the combat bare
Courage undaunted. Full of giant grace,
Built up, as 'twere, from earth's own granite base.
Colossal, iron-sinewed, firm he trod
The lawns. How vain against a demi-god!
Oh, sorrow of defeat! He plunges far
Into his forests, where deep shadows are,
And the wind's murmur comes not, and the gloom
Of pine and cedar seems to make a tomb
For fallen ambition. Prone the mortal lies
Who dared mad warfare with the unpitying skies,
But lo! as buried in the waving ferns,
The baffled giant for oblivion yearns,
Cursing his human feebleness, he feels
A sudden impulse of new strength, which heals
His angry wounds; his vigor he regains—
His blood is dancing gayly through his veins.
Fresh power, fresh life is his who lay at rest
On bounteous Hertha's kind creative breast.
[Footnote: Hertha, a goddess of the ancient Germans,
the same as Terra, or the Earth. Her favorite retreat
was a sacred grove in an island of the ocean.]
Even so, O poet, by the world subdued,
Regain thy health 'mid perfect solitude.
In noisy cities, far from hills and trees,
The brawling demi-god, harsh Hercules,
Has power to hurt thy placid spirit—power
To crush thy joyous instincts every hour,
To weary thee with woes for mortals stored,
Red gold (coined hatred) and the tyrant's sword.
Then—then, O sad Antæus, wilt thou yearn
For dense green woodlands and the fragrant fern;
Then stretch thy form upon the sward, and rest
From worldly toil on Hertha's gracious breast;
Plunge in the foaming river, or divide
With happy arms gray ocean's murmuring tide,
And drinking thence each solitary hour
Immortal beauty and immortal power,
Thou may'st the buffets of the world efface
And live a Titan of earth's earliest race.
—MORTIMER COLLINS.
THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.
From what was probably a maritime adventure that plundered some wealthy country at a period when navigation was in its infancy among the Greeks, we get the fable of the Argonautic Expedition. The generally accepted story of this expedition is as follows: Pe'lias, a descendant of Æ'o-lus, the mystic progenitor of the Great Æol'ic race, had deprived his half-brother Æ'son of the kingdom of Iol'cus in Thessaly. When Jason, son of Æson, had attained to manhood, he appeared before his uncle and demanded the throne. Pelias consented only on condition that Jason should first capture and bring to him the golden fleece of the ram which had carried Phrix'us and Hel'le when they fled from their stepmother I'no. Helle dropped into the sea between Sigæ'um and the Cher'sonese, which was named from her Hellespon'tus; but Phrixus succeeded in reaching Col'chis, a country at the eastern extremity of the Euxine, or Black Sea. Here he sacrificed the ram, and nailed the fleece to an oak in the grove of Mars, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon.
Joined by the principal heroes of Greece, Hercules among the number, Jason set sail from Iolcus in the ship Argo, after first invoking the favor of Jupiter, the winds, and the waves, for the success of the expedition. The ceremony on this occasion, as descried by the poets, reads like an account of the "christening of the ship" in modern times, but we seem to have lost the full significance of the act.
And soon as by the vessel's bow
The anchor was hung up,
Then took the leader on the prow
In hands a golden cup,
And on great father Jove did call;
And on the winds and waters all
Swept by the hurrying blast,
And on the nights, and ocean ways,
And on the fair auspicious days,
And sweet return at last.
From out the clouds, in answer kind,
A voice of thunder came,
And, shook in glistening beams around,
Burst out the lightning flame.
The chiefs breathed free, and, at the sign,
Trusted in the power divine.
Hinting sweet hopes, the seer cried
Forthwith their oars to ply,
And swift went backward from rough hands
The rowing ceaselessly.
—PINDAR. Trans. by Rev. H. F. CARY.
After many adventures Jason reached Col'chis, where, by the aid of magic and supernatural arts, and through the favor of Me-de'a, daughter of the King of Colchis, he succeeded in capturing the fleece. After four months of continued danger and innumerable hardships, Jason returned to Iolcus with the prize, accompanied by Medea, whom he afterward deserted, and whose subsequent history is told by the poet Euripides in his celebrated tragedy entitled Medea.
Growing out of the Argonautic legend is one concerning the youth Hy'las, a member of the expedition, and a son of the King of Mys'ia, a country of Asia Minor. Hylas was greatly beloved by Hercules. On the coast of Mysia the Argonauts stopped to obtain a supply of water, and Hylas, having gone from the vessel alone with an urn for the same purpose, takes the opportunity to bathe in the river Scaman'der, under the shadows of Mount Ida. He throws his purple chlamys, or cloak, over the urn, and passes down into the water, where he is seized by the nymphs of the stream, and, in spite of his struggles and entreaties, he is borne by them "down from the noonday brightness to their dark caves in the depths below." Hercules went in search of Hylas, and the ship sailed from its anchorage without him. We have a faithful and beautiful reproduction of this Greek legend, both in theme and spirit, in a poem by BAYARD TAYLOR, from which the following extracts are taken:
Hylas.
Storm-wearied Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen: on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plains enamel;
Cool in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
"Why should I haste?" said young and rosy Hylas;
The seas are rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander."
He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glittering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped, and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his limbs, and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the river's cheek was pillowed;
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white, round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.
There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas!"
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas!"
He thought—"The voices are but ear-born music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley;
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea-waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph"—again the murmur, "Hylas!"
The sound that seemed to come from the lilies was the voice of the sea-nymphs, calling to him to go with them where they wander—
"Down beneath the green translucent ceiling—
Where, on the sandy bed of old Scamander,
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing."
To all their entreaties Hylas exclaims:
"Leave me, naiads!
Leave me!" he cried. "The day to me is dearer
Than all your caves deep-spread in ocean's quiet.
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters.
Let me return! the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours—I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being—
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!"
But the remonstrances and struggles of Hylas unavailing:
The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water
Pleading for help; but heaven's immortal archer;
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead;
And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant as he sank forever.
The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Blew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hercules, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him;
And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas!"
The empty echoes made him answer—"Hylas!"
THE TROJAN WAR.
Of all the events of the Heroic period, however, the Trojan war has been rendered the most celebrated, through the genius of Homer. The alleged causes of the war, briefly stated, are these: Helen, the most beautiful woman of the age, and the daughter of Tyn'darus, King of Sparta, was sought in marriage by all the Princes of Greece. Tyndarus, perplexed with the difficulty of choosing one of the suitors without displeasing all the rest, being advised by the sage Ulysses, bound all of them by an oath that they would approve of the uninfluenced choice of Helen, and would unite to restore her to her husband, and to avenge the outrage, if ever she was carried off. Menela'us became the choice of Helen, and soon after, on the death of Tyndarus, succeeded to the vacant throne of Sparta.
Three years subsequently, Paris, son of Priam, King of Ilium, or Troy, visited the court of Menelaus, where he was hospitably received; but during the temporary absence of the latter he corrupted the fidelity of Helen, and induced her to flee with him to Troy. When Menelaus returned he assembled the Grecian princes, and prepared to avenge the outrage. Combining their forces under the command of Agamem'non, King of Myce'næ, a brother of Menelaus, they sailed with a great army for Troy. The imagination of the poet EURIPIDES describes this armament as follows:
With eager haste
The sea-girt Aulis strand I paced,
Till to my view appeared the embattled train
Of Hellas, armed for mighty enterprise,
And galleys of majestic size,
To bear the heroes o'er the main;
A thousand ships for Ilion steer,
And round the two Atridæ's spear
The warriors swear fair Helen to regain.
After a siege of ten years Troy was taken by stratagem, and the fair Helen was recovered. On the fanciful etymology of the word Helen, from a Greek verb signifying to take or seize, the poet ÆCHYLUS indulges in the following reflections descriptive of the character and the history of this "spear-wooed maid of Greece:"
Who gave her a name
So true to her fame?
Does a Providence rule in the fate of a word?
Sways there in heaven a viewless power
O'er the chance of the tongue in the naming hour?
Who gave her a name,
This daughter of strife, this daughter of shame,
The spear-wooed maid of Greece!
Helen the taker! 'tis plain to see,
A taker of ships, a taker of men,
A taker of cities is she!
From the soft-curtained chamber of Hymen she fled,
By the breath of giant Zephyr sped,
And shield-bearing throngs in marshalled array
Hounded her flight o'er the printless way,
Where the swift-flashing oar
The fair booty bore
To swirling Sim'o-is' leafy shore,
And stirred the crimson fray.
—Trans. by BLACKIE.
According to Homer, the principal Greek heroes engaged in the siege of Troy, aside from Agamemnon, were Menelaus, Achilles, Ulysses, Ajax (the son of Tel'amon), Di'omed, Patro'clus, and Palame'des; while among the bravest of the defenders of Troy were Hector, Sarpe'don, and Æne'as.
The poet's story opens, in the tenth year of the siege, with an account of a contentious scene between two of the Grecian chiefs —Achilles and Agamemnon—which resulted in the withdrawal of Achilles and his forces from the Grecian army. The aid of the gods was invoked in behalf of Achilles, and Jupiter sent a deceitful vision to Agamemnon, seeking to persuade him to lead his forces to battle, in order that the Greeks might realize their need of Achilles. Agamemnon first desired to ascertain the feeling or disposition of the army regarding the expedition it had undertaken, and so proposed a return to Greece, which was unanimously and unexpectedly agreed to, and an advance was made toward the ships. But through the efforts of the valiant and sagacious Ulysses all discontent on the part of the troops was suppressed, and they returned to the plains of Troy.
Among those in the Grecian camp who had complained of their leaders, and of the folly of the expedition itself, was a brawling, turbulent, and tumultuous character named Thersi'tes, whose insolence Ulysses sternly and effectively rebuked. The following sketch of Thersites reads like a picture drawn from modern life; while the merited reproof administered by Ulysses is in the happiest vein of just and patriotic indignation:
Ulysses and Thersites.
Thersites only clamored in the throng,
Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue;
Awed by no shame, by no respect controlled,
In scandal busy, in reproaches bold;
With witty malice, studious to defame;
Scorn all his joy, and censure all his aim;
But chief he gloried, with licentious style,
To lash the great, and monarchs to revile.
His figure such as might his soul proclaim:
One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame;
His mountain shoulders half his breast o'erspread,
Thin hairs bestrew'd his long misshapen head;
Spleen to mankind his envious heart possessed,
And much he hated all—but most, the best.
Ulysses or Achilles still his theme;
But royal scandal his delight supreme.
Long had he lived the scorn of every Greek,
Vext when he spoke, yet still they heard him speak:
Sharp was his voice; which, in the shrillest tone,
Thus with injurious taunts attacked the throne.
Ulysses, in his tent, listens awhile to the complaints, and censures, and scandals against the chiefs, with which Thersites addresses the throng gathered around him, and at length—
With indignation sparkling in his eyes,
He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies:
"Peace, factious monster, born to vex the state
With wrangling talents formed for foul debate,
Curb that impetuous tongue, nor, rashly vain,
And singly mad, asperse the sovereign reign.
"Have we not known thee, slave! of all our host
The man who acts the least, upbraids the most?
Think not the Greeks to shameful flight to bring;
Nor let those lips profane the name of King.
For our return we trust the heavenly powers;
Be that their care; to fight like men be ours.
"But grant the host, with wealth our chieftain load;
Except detraction, what hast thou bestowed?
Suppose some hero should his spoil resign,
Art thou that hero? Could those spoils be thine?
Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore,
And let these eyes behold my son no more,
If on thy next offence this hand forbear
To strip those arms thou ill deserv'st to wear,
Expel the council where our princes meet,
And send thee scourged and howling through the fleet."
—B. II. POPE'S Trans.
COMBAT OF MENELAUS AND PARIS.
The opposing armies being ready to engage, a single combat is agreed upon between Menelaus, and Paris son of Priam, for the determination of the war. Paris is soon vanquished, but is rescued from death by Venus; and, according to the terms on which the combat took place, Agamemnon demands the restoration of Helen. But the gods declare that the war shall go on. So the conflict begins, and Diomed, assisted by the goddess Pallas (or Minerva), performs wonders in this day's battle, wounding and putting to flight Pan'darus, Æneas, and the goddess Venus, even wounding the war-god Mars, who had challenged him to combat, and sending him groaning back to heaven.
Hector, the eldest son of Priam King of Troy, and the chief hero of the Trojans, leaves the field for a brief space, to request prayers to Minerva for assistance, and especially for the removal of Diomed from the fight. This done, he seeks a momentary interview with his wife, the fair and virtuous Androm'a-che, whose touching appeal to him, and his reply, are both, perhaps, without a parallel in tender, natural solicitude.
Parting of Hector and Andromache.
"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 wrapp'd our walls in fire,
Laid The'be waste, and slew my warlike sire!
By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell;
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell.
My mother lived to bear the victor's bands,
The queen of Hippopla'cia's sylvan lands.
"Yet, while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all 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 skilful 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 Tydi'des, 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,
Nor that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd,
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!
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,
Must 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 brothel's 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 Hype'ria'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, wrapt 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,
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 brows 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 all 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 he laid,
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd.
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with the smile a tender tear.
The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd,
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,
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb.
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth;
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 of 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 stream'd 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.
—B. VI. POPE'S. Trans.
HECTOR'S EXPLOITS, AND DEATH OF PATRO'CLUS.
Hector hastened to the field, and there his exploits aroused the enthusiasm and courage of his countrymen; who drove back the Grecian hosts. Disheartened, the Greeks sent Ulysses and Ajax to Achilles to plead with that warrior for his return with his forces to the Grecian camp. But Achilles obstinately refused to take part in the conflict, which was continued with varying success, until the Trojans succeeded in breaking through the Grecian wall, and attempted to fire the Greek ships, which were saved by the valor of Ajax. In compliance with the request of the aged Nestor, however, of whom the poet YOUNG tells us that—
When Nestor spoke, none asked if he prevailed;
That god of sweet persuasion never failed—
Achilles now placed his own armor on Patroclus, and, giving him also his shield, sent him to the aid of the Greeks. The Trojans, supposing Patroclus to be the famous Achilles, became panic-stricken, and were pursued with great slaughter to the walls of Troy.
Apollo now goes to the aid of the Trojans, smites Patroclus, whose armor is strewn on the plain, and then the hero is killed by Hector, who proudly places the plume of Achilles on his own helmet.
His spear in shivers falls; his ample shield
Drops from his arm; his baldric strews the field;
The corslet his astonished breast forsakes;
Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes;
Stupid he stares, and all assistless stands:
Such is the force of more than mortal hands.
Achilles' plume is stained with dust and gore:
That plume which never stooped to earth before,
Long used, untouched, in fighting fields to shine,
And shade the temples of the mad divine.
Jove dooms it now on Hector's helm to nod;
Not long—for fate pursues him, and the god.
—B. XVI.
Then ensued a most terrific conflict for the body of the slain warrior, in which Ajax, Glaucus, Hector, Æneas, and Menelaus participated, the latter finally succeeding in bearing it off to the ships. The grief of Achilles over the body of his friend, and at the loss of his wonderful armor, is represented as being intense; and so great a blow to the Greeks was the loss of the armor considered, that Vulcan formed for Achilles a new one, and also a new shield. Homer's description of the latter piece of marvelous workmanship—which is often referred to as a truthful picture of the times, and especially of the advanced condition of some of the arts and sciences in the Heroic, or post-Heroic, age—is too long for insertion here entire; but we proceed to give sufficient extracts from it to show at least the magnificent conception of the poet.
How Vulcan Formed the Shield of Achilles.
He first a vast and massive buckler made;
There all the wonders of his work displayed,
With silver belt adorned, and triply wound,
Orb within orb, the border beaming round.
Five plates composed the shield; these Vulcan's art
Charged with his skilful mind each varied part.
There earth, there heaven appeared; there ocean flowed;
There the orbed moon and sun unwearied glowed;
There every star that gems the brow of night—
Ple'iads and Hy'ads, and O-ri'on's might;
The Bear, that, watchful in his ceaseless roll
Around the star whose light illumes the pole,
Still eyes Orion, nor e'er stoops to lave
His beams unconscious of the ocean wave.
There, by the god's creative power revealed,
Two stately cities filled with life the shield.
Here nuptials—solemn rites—and throngs of gay
Assembled guests; forth issuing filled the way.
Bright blazed the torches as they swept along
Through streets that rung with hymeneal song;
And while gay youths, swift circling round and round,
Danced to the pipe and harp's harmonious sound,
The women thronged, and wondering as they viewed,
Stood in each portal and the pomp pursued.
Next on the shield a forum met the view;
Two men, contending, there a concourse drew:
A citizen was slain; keen rose the strife—
'Twas compensation claim'd for loss of life.
This swore, the mulct for blood was strictly paid:
This, that the fine long due was yet delayed.
Both claim'd th' award and bade the laws decide;
And partial numbers, ranged on either side,
With eager clamors for decision call,
Till the feared heralds seat and silence all.
There the hoar elders, in their sacred place,
On seats of polished stone the circle grace;
Rise with a herald's sceptre, weigh the cause,
And speak in turn the sentence of the laws;
While, in the midst, for him to bear away
Who rightliest spoke, two golden talents lay.
The other city on the shield displayed
Two hosts that girt it, in bright mail arrayed;
Diverse their counsel: these to burn decide,
And those to seize, and all its wealth divide.
The town their summons scorned, resistance dared,
And secretly for ambush arms prepared.
Wife, grandsire, child, one soul alike in all,
Stand on the battlements and guard the wall.
Mars, Pallas, led their host: gold either god,
A golden radiance from their armor flowed.
Next, described as displayed on the shield, is a picture of spies at a distance, an ambuscade, and a battle; the scene then changes to ploughing and sowing, and the incidents connected with the gathering of a bountiful harvest; then are introduced a vineyard, the gathering of the grapes, and a merrymaking by the youths at the close of the day; then we have a wild outlying scene of herdsmen with their cattle, the latter attacked by two famished lions, and the tumult that followed. The description closes as follows:
Now the god's changeful artifice displayed
Fair flocks at pasture in a lovely glade;
And folds and sheltering stalls peeped up between,
And shepherd-huts diversified the scene.
Now on the shield a choir appear'd to move,
Whose flying feet the tuneful labyrinth wove;
Youths and fair girls there, hand in hand, advanced,
Timed to the song their steps, and gayly danced.
Round every maid light robes of linen flowed;
Round every youth a glossy tunic glowed;
Those wreathed with flowers, while from their partners hung
Swords that, all gold, from belts of silver swung.
Train'd by nice art each flexile limb to wind,
Their twinkling feet the measured maze entwined,
Fleet as the wheel whose use the potter tries,
When, twirl'd beneath his hand, its axle flies.
Now all at once their graceful ranks combine,
Each rang'd against the other, line with line.
The crowd flock'd round, and, wondering as they view'd,
Thro' every change the varying dance pursued;
The while two tumblers, as they led the song,
Turned in the midst and rolled themselves along.
Then, last, the god the force of Ocean bound,
And poured its waves the buckler's orb around.
—B. XVIII. SOTHEBY'S Trans.
Achilles Engages in the Fight.
Desire to avenge the death of Patroclus proves more powerful in the breast of Achilles than anger against Agamemnon, and, clad in his new armor, he is with difficulty restrained from rushing alone into the fight while his comrades are resting. Turning and addressing his horses, he reproaches them with the death of Patroclus. One of them is represented as being Miraculously endowed with voice, and, replying to Achilles, prophesies his death in the near future; but, with unabated rage, the intrepid chief replies:
"So let it be!
Portents and prodigies are lost on me.
I know my fate: 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.
Jupiter now assembles the gods in council, and permits them to assist either party. The poet vividly describes the terrors of the combat and the tumult that arose when "the powers descending swelled the fight." Achilles first encounters Æne'as, who is preserved by Neptune; he then meets Hector, whom he is on the point of killing, when Apollo rescues him and carries him away in a cloud. The Trojans, defeated with terrible slaughter, are driven into the river Scamander, where Achilles receives the aid of Neptune and Pallas.
This Death of Hector.
Vulcan having dried up the Scamander in aid of the Trojans, all those who survive, save Hector, seek refuge in Troy. This hero alone remains without the walls to oppose Achilles. At the latter's advance, however, Hector's resolution and courage fail him, and he flees, pursued by Achilles three times around the city; At length he turns upon his pursuer, determined to meet his fate; and the account of the meeting and contest with Achilles, as translated by BRYANT, is as follows:
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, all on fire with savage hate,
And holding his bright buckler, nobly wrought,
Before him. As in the still 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 Pe'leus' 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 collar-bones
Divide the shoulder from the neck, and there
Appeared the throat, the spot where life is most
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.
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 will 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 Achilles 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
Tenfold and twentyfold the offered gifts,
And promise others—not though Priam, sprung
From Dar'danus, 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 Scæ'an gates."
Thus Hector spake, and straightway o'er him closed
The light of death; the soul forsook his limbs,
And flew to Hades, grieving for its fate,
So soon divorced from youth and youthful might.
The great achievement of Achilles was followed by funeral games in honor of Patroclus, and by the institution of various other festivities. At their close Jupiter sends The'tis to Achilles to influence him to restore the dead body of Hector to his family, and sends Iris to Priam to encourage him to go in person to treat for it. Priam thereupon sets out upon his journey, and, having arrived at the camp of Achilles, thus appeals to his compassion:
Priam Begging for the Body of Hector.
"Think, O Achilles, semblance of the gods,
On thine 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.
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 flowers of Ilium, are all slain.
"When, Greece came hither I had fifty sons;
But fiery Mars hath thinned them. 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, bringing, myself,
Ransom inestimable to thy tent.
Rev'rence the gods, Achilles! recollect
Thy father; for his sake compassion show
To me, more pitiable still, who draw
Home to my lips (humiliation yet
Unseen on earth) his hand who slew my son!"
—COWPER'S Trans.
Achilles, moved with compassion, granted the request of the grief-stricken father, and sent him home with the body of his son. First to the corse the weeping Androm'ache flew, and thus spoke:
Lamentation of Andromache.
"And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)
Snatched in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms forever gone!
And I abandoned, desolate, alone!
An only son, once comfort of our pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
Never to manly age that son shall rise,
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes;
For Ilion now (her great defender slain)
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.
"Who now protects her wives with guardian care?
Who saves her infants from the rage of war?
Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er
(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:
Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shalt go,
The sad companion of thy mother's woe;
Or else some Greek whose father pressed the plain,
Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,
In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy,
And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy."
[Footnote: Such was the fate of Astyanax, Hector's
son, when Troy was taken:
"Here, from the tower by stem Ulysses thrown,
Andromache bewailed her infant son."
—MERRICK'S Tryphiodo'rus.]
The death of Hector was also lamented by Helen, and her lamentation is thus spoken of by COLERIDGE: "I have always thought the following speech, in which Helen laments Hector, and hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is another striking instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest."
Helen's Lamentation.
"Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had joined
The mildest manners with the bravest mind,
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore;
(Oh, had I perished ere that form divine
Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!)
Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind:
When others cursed the authoress of their woe,
Thy pity checked my sorrows in their flow:
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
Or scornful sister, with her sweeping train,
Thy gentle accents softened all my pain.
For thee I mourn; and mourn myself in thee,
The wretched source of all this misery.
The fate I caused forever I bemoan;
Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!
Through Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam!
In Troy deserted, as abhorred at home!"
—POPE'S Trans.
THE FATE OF TROY.
Homer's Iliad ends with the burial of Hector, and gives no account of the result of the war and the fate of the chief actors in the conflict. But in VIRGIL'S Æne'id, which gives an account of the escape of Æne'as, from the flames of Troy, and of his wanderings until he reaches the shores of Italy, the way in which Troy is taken, soon after the death of Hector, is told by Æneas to Dido, the Queen of Carthage. By the advice of Ulysses a huge wooden horse was constructed in the Greek camp, in which he and other Grecian warriors concealed themselves, while the remainder burned their tents and sailed away to the island of Ten'edos, behind which they secreted their vessels. Æneas begins his account as follows:
"By destiny compelled, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
And by Minerva's aid a fabric reared
Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared.
The sides were planked with pine: they feigned it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide;
With inward arms the dire machine they load,
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
"In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
(While Fortune did on Priam's empire smile)
Renowned for wealth; but since, a faithless bay,
Where ships exposed to wind and weather lay.
There was their fleet concealed. We thought for Greece
Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
The Trojans, cooped within their walls so long,
Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
Like swarming bees, and with delight survey
The camp deserted where the Grecians lay.
The quarters of the sev'ral chiefs they showed—
Here Phoenix, here Achilles, made abode;
Here joined the battles; there the navy rode.
"Part on the pile their wond'ring eyes employ—
The pile by Pallas raised to ruin Troy.
Thymoe'tes first ('tis doubtful whether hired,
Or so the Trojan destiny required)
Moved that the ramparts might be broken down
To lodge the monster fabric in the town.
But Ca'pys, and the rest of sounder mind,
The fatal present to the flames designed,
Or to the wat'ry deep; at least to bore
The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.
"The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
With noise say nothing, and in parts divide.
La-oc'o-on, followed by a num'rous crowd,
Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud:
'O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns?
What more than madness has possessed your brains?
Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?
And are Ulysses' arts no better known?
This hollow fabric either must enclose,
Within its blind recess, our hidden foes;
Or 'tis an engine raised above the town
T' o'erlook the walls, and then to batter down.
Somewhat is sure designed by fraud or force—
Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.'
"Thus having said, against the steed he threw
His forceful spear, which, hissing as it flew,
Pierced through the yielding planks of jointed wood,
And trembling in the hollow belly stood.
The sides, transpierced, return a rattling sound,
And groans of Greeks enclosed came issuing through the wound;
And, had not Heaven the fall of Troy designed,
Or had not men been fated to be blind,
Enough was said and done t' inspire a better mind.
Then had our lances pierced the treacherous wood,
And Ilion's towers and Priam's empire stood."
Deceived by the treachery of Sinon, a captive Greek, who represents that the wooden horse was built and dedicated to Minerva to secure the aid that the goddess had hitherto refused the Greeks, and that, if it were admitted within the walls of Troy, the Grecian hopes would be forever lost, the infatuated Trojans break down a portion of the city's wall, and, drawing in the horse, give themselves up to festivity and rejoicing. Æneas continues the story as follows:
"With such deceits he gained their easy hearts,
Too prone to credit his perfidious arts.
What Di'omed, nor Thetis' greater son,
A thousand ships, nor ten years' siege, had done—
False tears and fawning words the city won.
"A spacious breach is made; the town lies bare;
Some hoisting levers, some the wheels prepare,
And fasten to the horse's feet; the rest
With cables haul along th' unwieldy beast:
Each on his fellow for assistance calls.
At length the fatal fabric mounts the walls,
Big with destruction. Boys with chaplets crowned,
And choirs of virgins, sing and dance around.
Thus raised aloft, and then descending down,
It enters o'er our heads, and threats the town.
O sacred city, built by hands divine!
O valiant heroes of the Trojan line!
Four times he struck; as oft the clashing sound
Of arms was heard, and inward groans rebound.
Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate,
We haul along the horse in solemn state,
Then place the dire portent within the tower.
Cassandra cried and cursed th' unhappy hour,
Foretold our fate; but, by the gods' decree,
All heard, and none believed the prophecy.
With branches we the fane adorn, and waste
In jollity the day ordained to be the last."
—The Æneid. Book II.—DRYDEN.
In the dead of night Sinon unlocked the horse, the Greeks rushed out, opened the gates of the city, and raised torches as a signal to those at Tenedos, who returned, and Troy was soon captured and given over to fire and the sword. Then followed the rejoicings of the victors, and the weeping and wailing of the Trojan women about to be carried away captive into distant lands, according to the usages of war.
The stately walls of Troy had sunken,
Her towers and temples strewed the soil;
The sons of Hellas, victory-drunken,
Richly laden with the spoil,
Are on their lofty barks reclined
Along the Hellespontine strand;
A gleesome freight the favoring wind
Shall bear to Greece's glorious land;
And gleesome chant the choral strain,
As toward the household altars now
Each bark inclines the painted prow—
For Home shall smile again!
And there the Trojan women, weeping,
Sit ranged in many a length'ning row;
Their heedless locks, dishevelled, sweeping
Adown the wan cheeks worn with woe.
No festive sounds that peal along,
Their mournful dirge can overwhelm;
Through hymns of joy one sorrowing song,
Commingled, wails the ruined realm.
"Farewell, beloved shores!" it said:
"From home afar behold us torn,
By foreign lords as captives borne—
Ah, happy are the dead!"
—SCHILLER.
For ten long years the Greeks at Argos had watched nightly for the beacon fires, lighted from point to point, that should announce the doom of Troy. When, in the Agamemnon of ÆSCHYLUS, Clytemnes'tra declares that Troy has fallen, and the chorus, half incredulous, demands what messenger had brought the intelligence, she replies:
"A gleam—a gleam—from Ida's height
By the fire-god sent, it came;
From watch to watch it leaped, 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 Macis'tus steep
See it burst like a blazing sun!
Doth Macistus sleep
On his tower-clad steep?
No! rapid and red doth the wildfire sweep:
It flashes afar on the wayward stream
Of the wild Euri'pus, the rushing beam!
It rouses the light on Messa'pion's height,
And they feed its breath with the withered heath.
But it may not stay!
And away—away—
It bounds in its fresh'ning might.
"Silent and soon
Like a broadened moon
It passes in sheen Aso'pus green,
And bursts in Cithæ'ron gray.
The warden wakes to the signal rays,
And it swoops from the hills with a broader blaze:
On—on the fiery glory rode—
Thy lonely lake, Gorgo'pis, glowed—
To Meg'ara'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 Saron'ic 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 Arach'ne's neighboring tower—
Thence on our Ar'give 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!
Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece
Stalk, in stern tumult through the halls of Troy."
—Trans. by BULWER.
Such, in brief, is the commonly received account of the Trojan war, as we find it in Homer and other ancient writers. Concerning it the historian THIRLWALL remarks: "We consider it necessary to admit the reality of the Trojan war as a general fact, but beyond this we scarcely venture to proceed a single step. We find it impossible to adopt the poetical story of Helen, partly on account of its inherent improbability, and partly because we are convinced that Helen is a merely mythological person." GROTE says:[Footnote: "History of Greece." Chap. XV.] "In the eyes of modern inquiry the Trojan war is essentially a legend and nothing more. If we are asked if it be not a legend embodying portions of historical matter, and raised upon a basis of truth—whether there may not really have occurred at the foot of the hill of Ilium a war purely human and political, without gods, without heroes, without Helen, without Amazons, without Ethiopians under the beautiful son of Eos, without the wooden horse, without the characteristic and expressive features of the old epic war—if we are asked if there was not really some such historical Trojan war as this, our answer must be, that as the possibility of it cannot be denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed." In this connection it is interesting to note that the discoveries of the German explorer, Schliemann, upon the site of ancient Troy, indicate that Homer "followed actual occurrences more closely than an over-skeptical historical criticism was once willing to allow."
FATE OF THE CHIEF ACTORS IN THE CONFLICT.
Of the fate of some of the principal actors in the Trojan war it may be stated that, of the prominent Trojans, Æneas alone escaped. After many years of wanderings he landed in Italy with a small company of Trojans; and the Roman writers trace to him the origin of their nation. Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, during the burning of Troy; while Achilles himself fell some time before, shot with an arrow in the heel by Paris, as Hector had prophesied would be the manner of his death. Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the armor of the dead hero, but was unsuccessful, and died by his own hand. The poet EN'NIUS ascribes the following declaration to Tel'amon, the father of Ajax, when he heard of his son's death:
I knew, when I begat him, he must die,
And trained him to no other destiny—
Knew, when I sent him to the Trojan shore,
'Twas not to halls of feast, but fields of gore.
—Trans. by PETERS.
Agamemnon, on his return to Greece, was barbarously murdered by his unfaithful queen, Clytemnestra. Diomed was driven from Greece, and barely escaped with his life. It is uncertain where or how he died. Ulysses, after almost innumerable troubles and hardships by sea and land, at last returned in safety to Ithaca. His wanderings are the subject of Homer's Odyssey.
But it may be asked, what became of Helen, the primary cause of the Trojan war, disastrous alike to victors and vanquished? According to Virgil, [Footnote: Æneid, B. VI.] after the death of Paris she married the Trojan hero, De-iph'o-bus, and on the night after the city was taken betrayed him to Menela'us, to whom she became reconciled, and whom she accompanied, as Homer relates, [Footnote: Odyssey B. IV.] during the eight years of his wandering, on his return to Greece. LANDOR, in one of his Hellen'ics, represents Menelaus, after the fall of Troy, as pursuing Helen up the steps of the palace, and threatening her with death. He thus addresses her:
"Stand, traitress, on that stair—
Thou mountest not another, by the gods!
Now take the death thou meritest, the death,
Zeus, who presides over hospitality—
And every other god whom thou has left,
And every other who abandons thee
In this accursed city—sends at last.
Turn, vilest of vile slaves! turn, paramour
Of what all other women hate, of cowards;
Turn, lest this hand wrench back thy head, and toss
It and its odors to the dust and flames."
Helen penitently receives his reproaches, and welcomes the threatened death; and when he speaks of their daughter, Hermi'o-ne, whom, an infant, she had so cruelly deserted, she exclaims:
"O my child!
My only one! thou livest: 'tis enough;
Hate me, abhor me, curse me—these are duties—
Call me but mother in the shades of death!
She now is twelve years old, when the bud swells,
And the first colors of uncertain life
Begin to tinge it."
Menelaus turns aside to say,
"Can she think of home?
Hers once, mine yet, and sweet Hermione's!
Is there one spark that cheered my hearth, one left
For thee, my last of love?"
When she beseeches him to delay not her merited fate, her words greatly move him, and he exclaims (aside),
"Her voice is musical
As the young maids who sing to Artemis:
How glossy is that yellow braid my grasp
Seized and let loose! Ah, can ten years have passed
Since—but the children of the gods, like them,
Suffer not age.[Footnote: Jupiter was fabled to be
the father of Helen.]
(Then turning to Helen.) Helen! speak honestly,
And thus escape my vengeance—was it force
That bore thee off?"
Her words and grief move him to pity, if not to love, and he again turns aside to say,
"The true alone and loving sob like her.
Come, Helen!" (He takes her hand.)
Helen. Oh, let never Greek see this!
Hide me from Argos, from Amy'clæ [Footnote: A town
of Laconia, where was a temple of Apollo. It was a
short distance to the south-west of Sparta.] hide me,
Hide me from all.
Menelaus. Thy anguish is too strong
For me to strive with.
Helen. Leave it all to me.
Menelaus. Peace! peace! The wind, I hope, is fair for Sparta.
The intimation, by Landor and others who have sought to exculpate Helen, that she was unwillingly borne away by Paris, has been amplified, with much poetic skill and beauty, by a recent poet,[Footnote: A. Lang, in his "Helen of Troy.">[ into the story that the goddess Venus appeared to her, and, while Helen was shrinking with apprehension and fear of her power, told her that she should fall into a deep slumber, and on awaking should be oblivious of her past life, "ignorant of shame, and blameless of those evil deeds that the goddess should thrust upon her." Venus declares to her:
"Thou art the toy of gods, an instrument
Wherewith all mortals shall be plagued or blest,
Even at my pleasure; yea, thou shalt be bent
This way and that, howe'er it like me best:
And following thee, as tides the moon, the West
Shall flood the Eastern coasts with waves of war,
And thy vexed soul shall scarcely be at rest,
Even in the havens where the deathless are.
"The instruments of men are blind and dumb,
And this one gift I give thee, to be blind
And heedless of the thing that is to come,
And ignorant of that which is behind;
Bearing an innocent, forgetful mind
In each new fortune till I visit thee
And stir thy heart, as lightning and the wind
Bear fire and tumult through a sleeping sea.
"Thou shalt forget Hermione! forget,
Forget thy lord, thy lofty palace, and thy kin;
Thy hand within a stranger's shalt thou set,
And follow him, nor deem it any sin;
And many a strange land wand'ring shalt thou win;
And thou shalt come to an unhappy town,
And twenty long years shalt thou dwell therein,
Before the Argives mar its towery crown.
"And of thine end I speak not, but thy name—
Thy name which thou lamentest—that shall be
A song in all men's speech, a tongue of flame
Between the burning lips of Poesy;
And the nine daughters of Mnemos'y-ne,
With Prince Apollo, leader of the nine,
Shall make thee deathless in their minstrelsy!
Yea, for thou shalt outlive the race divine."
As the goddess had declared, so it came to pass, for when Helen awoke from her long slumber,
She had no memory of unhappy things,
She knew not of the evil days to come,
Forgotten were her ancient wanderings;
And as Lethæ'an waters wholly numb
The sense of spirits in Elysium,
That no remembrance may their bliss alloy,
Even so the rumor of her days was dumb,
And all her heart was ready for new joy.
The reconciliation of Menelaus with Helen is easily effected by the same kind of artifice; for when, on the taking of Troy, he meets her and draws his sword to slay her, the goddess, again appearing, throws her witching spell over him also:
Then fell the ruthless sword that never fell
When spear bit harness in the battle din,
For Aphrodi'te spake, and like a spell
Wrought her sweet voice persuasive, till within
His heart there lived no memory of sin;
No thirst for vengeance more, but all grew plain,
And wrath was molten in desire to win
The golden heart of Helen once again.
It is said that after the death of Menelaus Helen was driven from the Peloponnesus by the indignant Spartans.