"Wicked witch!" cried the boy, and threatened the picture with his fist. "But did she not at last find her master?"
"Oh yes," said Tausdorf, turning over the leaf. "On this Ulysses was depicted, holding his sword to the breast of the enchantress, without fear of her powerful wand, or of the devil-masks that surrounded him, grinning and menacing."
"Heaven be praised!" cried Henry; "there's a German subscription again. He read,
"Ulysses compels her to disenchant his companions."
"That's right!" he cried--"who was Ulysses?"
"A Greek hero," replied Tausdorf. "The heathen god, Mercury, had supplied him with a herb, called moy, that protected him against the enchantment."
"Or he too had been metamorphosed?" asked Henry with vexation.
"No doubt," replied the knight mournfully. "He, whom God does not uphold in the hour of temptation, falls, and falls deeply."
"But it is not all really true?" added the boy, after some reflection.
"There is a good wholesome truth in the story," returned Tausdorf; "only the painter has veiled it in images. The beautiful, wicked Circe is intended to prefigure the human passions, the impulse of the senses. Whoever empties her cup, she robs him of reason, and makes him like the beasts in the wood. Recollect, Henry, how you were wrath, not long ago, with your play-fellow for some trifle, and screamed, and struck about you, and would not be satisfied,--then you had become a little wild beast in your anger."