| [11] | So says Phanodemus, quoted by Plutarch. The commentators upon the tragedy of Æschylus on this subject, say it was a “silver chair,” and that it “was afterwards placed in the Temple of Minerva, at Athens, with the golden-hilted cimeter of Mardonius.” |
| [12] | Langhorne says in his note on Plutarch, “There is the genuine attic salt in most of the retorts and observations of themselves. His wit seems to have been equal to his military and political capacity.” |
LETTER XXVII.
Mytilene—The Tomb of Achilles—Turkish Burying Ground—Lost Reputation of the Scamander—Asiatic Sunsets—Visit to a Turkish Bey—The Castles of the Dardanelles—Turkish Bath and its consequences.
Lesbos to windward. A caique, crowded with people, is running across our bow, all hands singing a wild chorus (perhaps the “Lesboum Carmen,”) most merrily. The island is now called Mytilene, said to be the greenest and most fertile of the Mediterranean. The Lesbian wine is still good, but they have had no poetesses since Sappho. Cause and effect have quarrelled, one would think.
Tenedos on the lee. The tomb of Achilles is distinguishable with the glass on the coast of Asia. The column which Alexander “crowned and anointed and danced around naked,” in honour of the hero’s ghost, stands above it no longer. The Macedonian wept over Achilles, says the school-book, and envied him the blind bard who had sung his deeds. He would have dried his tears if he had known that his pas seul would be remembered as long.
Tenedos seems a pretty island as we near it. It was here that the Greeks hid, to persuade the Trojans that they had abandoned the siege, while the wooden horse was wheeled into Troy. The site of the city of Priam is visible as we get nearer the coast of Asia. Mount Ida and the marshy valley of the Scamander are appearing beyond Cape Sigæum, and we shall anchor in an hour between Europe and Asia, in the mouth of the rapid Dardanelles. The wind is not strong enough to stem the current that sets down like a mill-race from the Sea of Marmora.
Went ashore on the Asian side for a ramble. We landed at the strong Turkish castle that, with another on the European side, defends the Strait, and passing under their bristling batteries, entered the small Turkish town in the rear. Our appearance excited a great deal of curiosity. The Turks, who were sitting cross-legged on the broad benches extending like a tailor’s board, in front of the cafés, stopped smoking as we passed, and the women, wrapping up their own faces more closely, approached the ladies of our party, and lifted their veils to look at them with the freedom of our friends at Eleusis. We came unaware upon two squalid wretches of women in turning a corner, who pulled their ragged shawls over their heads with looks of the greatest resentment at having exposed their faces to us.