of it? What is their object? Some religious offering, or

some engine of war?’ 35

“Thus Priam: the prisoner, with all his Pelasgian craft

and cunning about him, raised his unfettered hands to the

stars:—

“‘You, eternal fires, with your inviolable majesty, be

my witnesses; you, altars and impious swords, from which

I fled; and you, hallowed fillets, which I wore for the sacrifice!

I am free to break all the sacred ties that bound me

to the Greeks. I am free to treat them as my foes, and 5