Nay, nay! There are not. Fling the tale away,
The ancient lie by human folly bred!
Base not your judgment on these words of mine—
Use but your eyes.
Bellerophon ascended to Heaven on his winged steed Pegasus in order to remonstrate with Zeus. This idea is used farcically in Aristophanes’ Peace, where Trygæus ascends on a monstrous beetle.
Erechtheus was a beautiful picture of patriotism. Athens being attacked by the Eleusinians and Thracians, King Erechtheus was told by the Delphic oracle that he could secure victory for Athens by sacrificing his daughter. His wife Praxithea, in a speech of passionate patriotism, consented to give up her child; Swinburne has used this fragment in his own Erechtheus. Another long fragment contains the advice which Erechtheus gives to his son, and which in its dry precision curiously resembles the farewell of Polonius to Laertes. While the issue of battle remains uncertain, the chorus of old Athenians sing a lyric which charmingly renders their yearning for peace:
Along my spear, at last laid by,
May spiders weave their shining thread;
May peace and music, ere I die,