Cl.—Dost thou think me but a child,
Thus and thus to be beguiled?
Ch.—How long, then, is it since proud Ilion fell?
Cl.—Since but the night that bore this morning’s light.
Ch.—And who this message hither brought so well?
Cl.—Hephæstus, sending forth his beacon bright
From Ida’s summit; then, from height to height
With blaze successive, beacon kindling beacon,
Bore us the tidings. Ida glanced it forth
To Lemnos, even to th’ Hermæan rock;
And next steep Athos, dear to Zeus, received
From Lemnos the bright flame, which, in its strength
Joyous, pursued its onward course, and flew
O’er the broad shoulders of Oceanus,
Giving its gleams all-golden, like the sun,
To those that on Makistos kept high watch.
Nor dallying he, nor won by ill-timed sleep,
Assumed his part of messenger; and far
Over Euripus speeds the signal flame,
Telling their tasks to the Messapian guards,
Who answered with a blaze that straightway lit
The heather on old Graia’s mountain-tops.
Then in full-gleaming strength, like a fair moon,
The beacon-light shot o’er Asopus plain,
And lit with answering fire Cithæron’s cliff,
Whose emulous watch made brighter still the blaze.
Thence darted on the fiery messenger
Over Gorgopis lake and up the sides
Of Ægiplanctus, whence (the waiting wards
Heaping no niggard pile), a beard-like flame
Streamed onward till it touched the cliff that spies
The billows of the blue Saronic sea;
But paused not in its course, until it reached
The heights of Arachnæum, over there.
And thence it strikes upon these palace-roofs,—
Far offspring of the light of fallen Troy.
PRIAM AND HELEN.
(Iliad iii. 161.)
Priam, the King, to the tower where he sat called the beautiful Helen:
“Hither, my daughter, approach and sit by me here on this tower,
Whence thou mayest see the spouse of thy youth, thy friends and thy kindred.
Thou knowest I never blamed thee; I blame the gods of Olympus,
Who excited this war of sorrows and tears without number.
Come, Helen, sit by my side, and tell me the name of yon hero,
Mighty and stately in mien. Though others around him are taller,
One of such beauty as his and of so majestic a bearing
I have never beheld. If he is not a king he is kingly.”
Then Helen, fairest of women, answered the King: “O my father,
Father of Paris, by me thou art loved and revered and respected!
Would that an evil death had been my lot when I followed
Hither thy son, Alexander, leaving my husband behind me,
Kinsmen, too, and sweet daughter, and friends that I knew since my childhood!
’Twas not allowed me to die—so I pine away slowly with weeping.
But thou awaitest reply: thou seest the great Agamemnon,
Wide-ruling king, as thou saidst, and a warrior valiant and skilful;
Once he was a brother to me—oh, shame!—in the days that have vanished!”
Then, as a hero a hero, the old man admired Agamemnon:
“Happy art thou, Atrides, in birth, and in name, and in fortune;
Many are under thy sway—the flower of the sons of Achæa.
Once into vine-bearing Phrygia I entered, and saw many Phrygians
Riding swift steeds, the forces of Otreus and Mygdon, the godlike,
Who, with me for an ally, encamped by the banks of the Sangar,
Waiting the march of their foes, the Amazons, warrior-women:
But few in number were they to those quick-eyed sons of Achæa.”
Next, perceiving Ulysses, the old man said, “My dear Helen,
Tell me who this is also—in stature less than Atrides,
Less by a head, it may be, but broader in chest and in shoulders.
Rest on the ground his arms; but he through the ranks of the army
Ranges about like a ram; to a thick-fleeced ram I compare him,
Wandering hither and thither through snow-white sheep in the pasture?”