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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of National Epics, by Kate Milner Rabb
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: National Epics
+
+Author: Kate Milner Rabb
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2005  [EBook #8072]
+This file was first posted on June 11, 2003
+Last Updated: June 5, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATIONAL EPICS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, S.R. Ellison, and the Online
+Distributed Proofing Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NATIONAL EPICS
+
+By Kate Milner Rabb
+
+1896
+
+
+
+TO MY MOTHER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+This volume is intended for an introduction to the study of the epics.
+While the simplicity and directness of the epic style seem to make such a
+book unnecessary, the fact that to many persons of literary tastes some of
+these great poems are inaccessible, and that to many more the pleasure of
+exploring for themselves "the realms of gold" is rendered impossible by
+the cares of business, has seemed sufficient excuse for its being. Though
+the beauty of the original is of necessity lost in a condensation of this
+kind, an endeavor has been made to preserve the characteristic epithets,
+and to retain what Mr. Arnold called "the simple truth about the matter of
+the poem." It is believed that the sketch prefacing each story, giving
+briefly the length, versification, and history of the poem, will have its
+value to those readers who have not access to the epics, and that the
+selections following the story, each recounting a complete incident, will
+give a better idea of the epic than could be formed from passages
+scattered through the text.
+
+The epic originated among tribes of barbarians, who deified departed
+heroes and recited legends in praise of their deeds. As the hymn
+developed, the chorus and strophe were dropped, and the narrative only was
+preserved. The word "epic" was used simply to distinguish the narrative
+poem, which was recited, from the lyric, which was sung, and from the
+dramatic, which was acted.
+
+As the nation passed from childhood to youth, the legends of the hero that
+each wandering minstrel had changed to suit his fancy, were collected and
+fused into one by some great poet, who by his power of unification made
+this written epic his own.
+
+This is the origin of the Hindu epics, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," the
+"Kalevala," the "Shah-Nameh," "Beowulf," the "Nibelungen Lied," the "Cid,"
+and the "Song of Roland."
+
+The conditions for the production of the primitive epic exist but once in
+a nation's growth. Its later epics must be written on subjects of national
+importance, chosen by the poet, who arranges and embellishes his material
+according to the rules of the primitive epic. To this class belong the
+"Aeneid," the "Jerusalem Delivered," and the "Lusiad." Dante's poem is
+broader, for it is the epic of mediaeval Christianity. Milton likewise
+sought "higher argument" than
+
+  "Wars, hitherto the only argument
+      Heroic deemed,"
+
+and crystallized the religious beliefs of his time in "Paradise Lost."
+
+The characteristics both of the primitive and the modern epic are their
+uniform metre, simplicity of construction, concentration of action into a
+short time, and the use of episode and dialogue. The main difference lies
+in the impersonality of the primitive epic, whose author has so skillfully
+hidden himself behind his work that, as some one has said of Homer, "his
+heroes are immortal, but his own existence is doubtful."
+
+Although the historical events chronicled in the epics have in every case
+been so distorted by the fancy of the poets that they cannot be accepted
+as history, the epics are storehouses of information concerning ancient
+manners and customs, religious beliefs, forms of government, treatment of
+women, and habits of feeling.
+
+Constructed upon the noblest principles of art, and pervaded by the
+eternal calm of the immortals, these poems have an especial value to us,
+who have scarcely yet realized that poetry is an art, and are feverish
+from the unrest of our time. If by the help of this volume any reader be
+enabled to find a portion of the wisdom that is hidden in these mines, its
+purpose will have been accomplished.
+
+My thanks are due to Mr. John A. Wilstach for the use of selections from
+his translation of the "Divine Comedy;" to Prof. J. M. Crawford, for the
+use of selections from his translation of the "Kalevala;" to Henry Holt &
+Co., for the use of selections from Rabillon's translation of "La Chanson
+de Roland;" to Roberts Brothers, for the use of selections from Edwin
+Arnold's "Indian Idylls;" to Prof. J. C. Hall, for the use of selections
+from his translation of "Beowulf;" and to A. C. Armstrong & Son, for the
+use of selections from Conington's Translation of the "Aeneid." The
+selections from the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are used with the permission
+of and by special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of
+Bryant's translations of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." Special thanks are
+due to Miss Eliza G. Browning of the Public Library of Indianapolis, to
+Miss Florence Hughes of the Library of Indiana University, and to Miss
+Charity Dye, of Indianapolis.
+
+K. M. R.
+
+INDIANAPOLIS, IND., September, 1896.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+THE HINDU EPIC: THE RAMÂYÂNA
+
+THE HINDU EPIC: THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA
+
+THE GREEK EPIC: THE ILIAD
+
+THE GREEK EPIC: THE ODYSSEY
+
+THE FINNISH EPIC: THE KALEVALA
+
+THE ROMAN EPIC: THE AENEID
+
+THE SAXON EPIC: BEOWULF
+
+THE GERMAN EPIC: THE NIBELUNGEN LIED
+
+THE FRENCH EPIC: THE SONG OF ROLAND
+
+THE PERSIAN EPIC: THE SHAH-NAMEH
+
+THE SPANISH EPIC: THE POEM OF THE CID
+
+THE ITALIAN EPIC: THE DIVINE COMEDY
+
+THE ITALIAN EPIC: THE ORLANDO FURIOSO
+
+THE PORTUGUESE EPIC: THE LUSIAD
+
+THE ITALIAN EPIC: THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED
+
+THE ENGLISH EPIC: PARADISE LOST
+
+THE ENGLISH EPIC: PARADISE REGAINED
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS.
+
+
+FROM THE RÂMÂYANA:                        TRANSLATOR
+  The Descent of the Ganges ...          _Milman_
+  The Death of Yajnadatta ...                "
+
+FROM THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA:
+  Sâvitrî; or, Love and Death ...        _Arnold_
+  The Great Journey ...                      "
+
+FROM THE ILIAD:
+  Helen at the Scaean Gates ...          _Bryant_
+  The Parting of Hector and Andromache ...   "
+
+FROM THE ODYSSEY:
+  The Palace of Alcinoüs ...             _Bryant_
+  The Bending of the Bow ...                 "
+
+FROM THE KALEVALA:
+  Ilmarinen's Wedding Feast ...          _Crawford_
+  The Birth of the Harp ...                  "
+
+FROM THE AENEID:
+  Nisus and Euryalus ...                 _Conington_
+
+FROM BEOWULF:
+  Grendel's Mother ...                   _Hall_
+
+FROM THE NIBELUNGEN LIED:
+  How Brunhild was received at Worms ... _Lettsom_
+  How Margrave Rüdeger was slain  ...        "
+
+FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND:
+  The Horn ...                           _Rabillon_
+  Roland's Death  ...                        "
+
+FROM THE SHAH-NAMEH:
+  The Rajah of India sends a Chessboard
+  to Nushirvan                           _Robinson_
+  Zal and Rudabeh                            "
+
+FROM THE POEM OF THE CID:
+  Count Raymond and My Cid               _Ormsby_
+  My Cid's Triumph                           "
+
+FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY:
+  Count Ugolino                          _Wilstach_
+  Buonconte di Montefeltro                   "
+  Beatrice descending from Heaven            "
+  The Exquisite Beauty of Beatrice           "
+
+FROM THE ORLANDO FURIOSO:
+  The Death of Zerbino                   _Rose_
+
+FROM THE LUSIAD:
+  Inez de Castro                         _Mickle_
+  The Spirit of the Cape                     "
+
+FROM THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED:
+  Sophronia and Olindo                   _Wiffen_
+
+FROM PARADISE LOST:
+  Satan
+  Apostrophe to Light
+
+FROM PARADISE REGAINED:
+  The Temptation of the Vision of the Kingdoms of the Earth
+
+
+
+
+NATIONAL EPICS.
+
+
+
+THE RÂMÂYANA.
+
+
+  "He who sings and hears this poem continually has attained to the
+  highest state of enjoyment, and will finally be equal to the gods."
+
+
+The Râmâyana, the Hindu Iliad, is variously ascribed to the fifth, third,
+and first centuries B.C., its many interpolations making it almost
+impossible to determine its age by internal evidence. Its authorship is
+unknown, but according to legend it was sung by Kuça and Lava, the sons of
+Rama, to whom it was taught by Valmiki. Of the three versions now extant,
+one is attributed to Valmiki, another to Tuli Das, and a third to Vyasa.
+
+Its historical basis, almost lost in the innumerable episodes and
+grotesque imaginings of the Hindu, is probably the conquest of southern
+India and Ceylon by the Aryans.
+
+The Râmâyana is written in the Sanskrit language, is divided into seven
+books, or sections, and contains fifty thousand lines, the English
+translation of which, by Griffith, occupies five volumes.
+
+The hero, Rama, is still an object of worship in India, the route of his
+wanderings being, each year, trodden by devout pilgrims. The poem is not a
+mere literary monument,--it is a part of the actual religion of the Hindu,
+and is held in such reverence that the mere reading or hearing of it, or
+certain passages of it, is believed to free from sin and grant his every
+desire to the reader or hearer.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE RÂMÂYANA.
+
+
+G. W. Cox's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;
+
+John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion,
+Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;
+
+Sir William Jones on the Literature of the Hindus (in his Works, vol. iv.);
+
+Maj.-Gen. Vans Kennedy's Researches into Hindu Mythology, 1831;
+
+James Mill's History of British India, 1840, vol. ii., pp. 47-123;
+
+F. Max Müller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 1859;
+
+E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, 1891, pp. 153-271;
+
+Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature, 1878, pp. 191-195;
+
+J. T. Wheeler's History of India, 4 vols., 1876, vol. ii.;
+
+Sir Monier Williams's Indian Wisdom, 1863, Indian Epic Poetry, 1863;
+
+Article on Sanskrit Literature in Encyclopćdia Britannica;
+
+R. M. Gust's The Râmâyana: a Sanskrit Epic (in his Linguistic and Oriental
+Essays, 1880, p. 56);
+
+T. Goldstuecker's Râmâyana (in his Literary Remains, 1879, vol. i.,
+p. 155);
+
+C. J. Stone's Cradleland of Arts and Creeds, 1880, pp. 11-21;
+
+Albrecht Weber's On the Râmâyana, 1870; Westminster Review,
+1849, vol. 1., p. 34;
+
+J. C. Oman's Great Indian Epics, 1874, pp. 13-81.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE RÂMÂYANA.
+
+
+The Râmâyana, Tr. by R. T. H. Griffith, 5 vols., 1870-1874 (Follows Bombay
+ed., Translated into metre of "Lady of the Lake");
+
+Extracts from the Râmâyana, Tr. by Sir William Jones (in his Works,
+vol. 13);
+
+Iliad of the East, F. Richardson, 1873 (Popular translations of a set of
+legends from the Râmâyana);
+
+The Râmâyana translated into English Prose, edited and published by
+Naumatha Nath Dutt, 7 vols., Calcutta, 1890-1894.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE RÂMÂYANA.
+
+
+Brahma, creator of the universe, though all powerful, could not revoke a
+promise once made. For this reason, Ravana, the demon god of Ceylon, stood
+on his head in the midst of five fires for ten thousand years, and at the
+end of that time boldly demanded of Brahma as a reward that he should not
+be slain by gods, demons, or genii. He also requested the gift of nine
+other heads and eighteen additional arms and hands.
+
+These having been granted, he began by the aid of his evil spirits, the
+Rakshasas, to lay waste the earth and to do violence to the good,
+especially to the priests.
+
+At the time when Ravana's outrages were spreading terror throughout the
+land, and Brahma, looking down from his throne, shuddered to see the
+monster he had gifted with such fell power, there reigned in Ayodhya, now
+the city of Oude, a good and wise raja, Dasaratha, who had reigned over
+the splendid city for nine thousand years without once growing weary. He
+had but one grief,--that he was childless,--and at the opening of the
+story he was preparing to make the great sacrifice, Asva-medha, to
+propitiate the gods, that they might give him a son.
+
+The gods, well pleased, bore his request to Brahma in person, and
+incidentally preferred a request that he provide some means of destroying
+the monster Ravana that was working such woe among their priests, and
+disturbing their sacrifices.
+
+Brahma granted the first request, and, cudgeling his brains for a device
+to destroy Ravana, bethought himself that while he had promised that
+neither gods, genii, nor demons should slay him, he had said nothing of
+man. He accordingly led the appealing gods to Vishnu, who proclaimed that
+the monster should be slain by men and monkeys, and that he would himself
+be re-incarnated as the eldest son of Dasaratha and in this form compass
+the death of Ravana.
+
+In course of time, as a reward for his performance of the great sacrifice,
+four sons were born to Dasaratha, Rama by Kausalya, his oldest wife,
+Bharata, whose mother was Kaikeyi, and twin sons, Lakshmana and Satrughna,
+whose mother was Sumitra.
+
+Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu, destined to destroy Ravana, grew daily in
+grace, beauty, and strength. When he was but sixteen years old, having
+been sent for by a sage to destroy the demons who were disturbing the
+forest hermits in their religious rites, he departed unattended, save by
+his brother Lakshmana and a guide, into the pathless forests, where he
+successfully overcame the terrible Rakshasa, Tarika, and conveyed her body
+to the grateful sage.
+
+While he was journeying through the forests, destroying countless
+Rakshasas, he chanced to pass near the kingdom of Mithila and heard that
+its king, Janaka, had offered his peerless daughter, Sita, in marriage to
+the man who could bend the mighty bow of Siva the destroyer, which, since
+its owner's death, had been kept at Janaka's court.
+
+Rama at once determined to accomplish the feat, which had been essayed in
+vain by so many suitors. When he presented himself at court Janaka was at
+once won by his youth and beauty; and when the mighty bow, resting upon an
+eight-wheeled car, was drawn in by five thousand men, and Rama without
+apparent effort bent it until it broke, he gladly gave him his beautiful
+daughter, and after the splendid wedding ceremonies were over, loaded the
+happy pair with presents to carry back to Ayodhya.
+
+When Dasaratha, who had attended the marriage of his son at Mithila,
+returned home, he began to feel weary of reigning, and bethought himself
+of the ancient Hindu custom of making the eldest son and heir apparent a
+Yuva-Raja,--that is appointing him assistant king. Rama deserved this
+honor, and would, moreover, be of great assistance to him.
+
+His happy people received the announcement of his intention with delight;
+the priests approved of it as well, and the whole city was in the midst of
+the most splendid preparations for the ceremony, when it occurred to
+Dasaratha that all he lacked was the congratulations of his youngest and
+favorite wife, Kaikeyi, on this great event. The well-watered streets and
+the garlanded houses had already aroused the suspicions of
+Kaikeyi,--suspicions speedily confirmed by the report of her maid. Angered
+and jealous because the son of Kausalya and not her darling Bharata, at
+that time absent from the city, was to be made Yuva-Raja, she fled to the
+"Chamber of Sorrows," and was there found by the old Raja.
+
+Though Kaikeyi was his youngest and most beautiful wife, her tears,
+threats, and entreaties would have been of no avail had she not recalled
+that, months before, the old Raja, in gratitude for her devoted nursing
+during his illness, had granted her two promises. She now demanded the
+fulfilment of these before she would consent to smile upon him, and the
+consent won, she required him, first, to appoint Bharata Yuva-Raja; and,
+second, to exile Rama for fourteen years to the terrible forest of
+Dandaka.
+
+The promise of a Hindu, once given, cannot be revoked. In spite of the
+grief of the old Raja, of Kausalya, his old wife, and of all the people,
+who were at the point of revolt at the sudden disgrace of their favorite
+prince, the terrible news was announced to Rama, and he declared himself
+ready to go, to save his father from dishonor.
+
+He purposed to go alone, but Sita would not suffer herself to be thus
+deserted. Life without him, she pleaded, was worse than death; and so
+eloquent was her grief at the thought of parting that she was at last
+permitted to don the rough garment of bark provided by the malicious
+Kaikeyi.
+
+The people of Ayodhya, determined to share the fate of their favorites,
+accompanied them from the city, their tears laying the dust raised by
+Rama's chariot wheels. But when sleep overcame them, Rama, Sita, and
+Lakshmana escaped from them, dismissed their charioteer, and, crossing the
+Ganges, made their way to the mountain of Citra-kuta, where they took up
+their abode.
+
+No more beautiful place could be imagined. Flowers of every kind,
+delicious fruits, and on every side the most pleasing prospects, together
+with perfect love, made their hermitage a paradise on earth. Here the
+exiles led an idyllic existence until sought out by Bharata, who, learning
+from his mother on his return home the ruin she had wrought in the Raj,
+had indignantly spurned her, and hastened to Dandaka. The old Raja had
+died from grief soon after the departure of the exiles, and Bharata now
+demanded that Rama should return to Ayodhya and become Raja, as was his
+right, as eldest son.
+
+When Rama refused to do this until the end of his fourteen years of exile,
+Bharata vowed that for fourteen years he would wear the garb of a devotee
+and live outside the city, committing the management of the Raj to a pair
+of golden sandals which he took from Rama's feet. All the affairs of state
+would be transacted under the authority of the sandals, and Bharata, while
+ruling the Raj, would pay homage to them.
+
+Soon after the departure of Bharata the exiles were warned to depart from
+their home on Citra-kuta and seek a safer hermitage, for terrible
+rakshasas filled this part of the forest. They accordingly sought the
+abode of Atri the hermit, whose wife Anasuya was so pleased with Sita's
+piety and devotion to her husband that she bestowed upon her the crown of
+immortal youth and beauty. They soon found a new abode in the forest of
+Pancarati, on the banks of the river Godavari, where Lakshmana erected a
+spacious bamboo house.
+
+Their happiness in this elysian spot was destined to be short-lived. Near
+them dwelt a horrible rakshasa, Surpanakha by name, who fell in love with
+Rama. When she found that he did not admire the beautiful form she assumed
+to win him, and that both he and Lakshmana laughed at her advances, she
+attempted to destroy Sita, only to receive in the attempt a disfiguring
+wound from the watchful Lakshmana. Desiring revenge for her disfigured
+countenance and her scorned love, she hastened to the court of her brother
+Ravana, in Ceylon, and in order to induce him to avenge her wrongs, dwelt
+upon the charms of the beautiful wife of Rama.
+
+Some days after, Sita espied a golden fawn, flecked with silver, among the
+trees near their home. Its shining body, its jewel-like horns, so
+captivated her fancy that she implored Rama, if possible, to take it alive
+for her; if not, at least to bring her its skin for a couch. As Rama
+departed, he warned Lakshmana not to leave Sita for one moment; he would
+surely return, since no weapon could harm him. In the depths of the forest
+the fawn fell by his arrow, crying as it fell, "O Sita! O Lakshmana!" in
+Rama's very tones.
+
+When Sita heard the cry she reproached Lakshmana for not going to his
+brother's aid, until he left her to escape her bitter words. He had no
+sooner disappeared in the direction of the cry than a hermit appeared and
+asked her to minister unto his wants.
+
+Sita carried him food, bathed his feet, and conversed with him until, able
+no longer to conceal his admiration for her, he revealed himself in his
+true form as the demon god of Ceylon.
+
+When she indignantly repulsed him he seized her, and mounting his chariot
+drove rapidly towards Ceylon.
+
+When Rama and Lakshmana returned home, soon after, they found the house
+empty. As they searched through the forest for traces of her they found a
+giant vulture dying from wounds received while endeavoring to rescue the
+shrieking Sita. Going farther, they encountered the monkey king Sugriva
+and his chiefs, among whom Sita had dropped from the chariot her scarf and
+ornaments.
+
+Sugriva had been deposed from his kingdom by his brother Bali, who had
+also taken his wife from him. Rama agreed to conquer Bali if Sugriva would
+assist in the search for Sita; and, the agreement made, they at once
+marched upon Kishkindha, together slew Bali, and gained possession of the
+wealthy city and the queen Tara. They were now ready to search for the
+lost Sita.
+
+In his quest through every land, Hanuman, the monkey general, learned from
+the king of the vultures that she had been carried to Ceylon. He
+immediately set out for the coast with his army, only to find a bridgeless
+ocean stretching between them and the island. Commanding his soldiers to
+remain where they were, Hanuman expanded his body to enormous proportions,
+leaped the vast expanse of water, and alighted upon a mountain, from which
+he could look down upon Lanka, the capital city of Ceylon. Perceiving the
+city to be closely guarded, he assumed the form of a cat, and thus,
+unsuspected, crept through the barriers and examined the city. He found
+the demon god in his apartments, surrounded by beautiful women, but Sita
+was not among them. Continuing his search, he at last discovered her, her
+beauty dimmed by grief, seated under a tree in a beautiful asoka grove,
+guarded by hideous rakshasas with the faces of buffaloes, dogs, and swine.
+
+Assuming the form of a tiny monkey, Hanuman crept down the tree, and
+giving her the ring of Rama, took one from her. He offered to carry her
+away with him, but Sita declared that Rama must himself come to her
+rescue. While they were talking together, the demon god appeared, and,
+after fruitless wooing, announced that if Sita did not yield herself to
+him in two months he would have her guards "mince her limbs with steel"
+for his morning repast.
+
+In his rage, Hanuman destroyed a mango grove and was captured by the
+demon's guards, who were ordered to set his tail on fire. As soon as this
+was done, Hanuman made himself so small that he slipped from his bonds,
+and, jumping upon the roofs, spread a conflagration through the city of
+Lanka.
+
+He leaped back to the mainland, conveyed the news of Sita's captivity to
+Rama and Sugriva, and was soon engaged in active preparations for the
+campaign.
+
+As long as the ocean was unbridged it was impossible for any one save
+Hanuman to cross it. In his anger at being so thwarted, Rama turned his
+weapons against it, until from the terrified waves rose the god of the
+ocean, who promised him that if Nala built a bridge, the waves should
+support the materials as firmly as though it were built on land.
+
+Terror reigned in Lanka at the news of the approach of Rama. Vibishana,
+Ravana's brother, deserted to Rama, because of the demon's rage when he
+advised him to make peace with Rama. Fiercely fought battles ensued, in
+which even the gods took part, Vishnu and Indra taking sides with Rama,
+and the evil spirits fighting with Ravana.
+
+After the war had been carried on for some time, with varying results, it
+was decided to determine it by single combat between Ravana and Rama. Then
+even the gods were terrified at the fierceness of the conflict. At each
+shot Rama's mighty bow cut off a head of the demon, which at once grew
+back, and the hero was in despair until he remembered the all-powerful
+arrow given him by Brahma.
+
+As the demon fell by this weapon, flowers rained from heaven upon the
+happy victor, and his ears were ravished with celestial music.
+
+Touched by the grief of Ravana's widows, Rama ordered his foe a splendid
+funeral, and then sought the conquered city.
+
+Sita was led forth, beaming with happiness at finding herself re-united to
+her husband; but her happiness was destined to be of short duration. Rama
+received her with coldness and with downcast eyes, saying that she could
+no longer be his wife, after having dwelt in the zenana of the demon. Sita
+assured him of her innocence; but on his continuing to revile her, she
+ordered her funeral pyre to be built, since she would rather die by fire
+than live despised by Rama. The sympathy of all the bystanders was with
+Sita, but Rama saw her enter the flames without a tremor. Soon Agni, the
+god of fire, appeared, bearing the uninjured Sita in his arms. Her
+innocence thus publicly proved by the trial by fire, she was welcomed by
+Rama, whose treatment she tenderly forgave.
+
+The conquest made, the demon destroyed, and Sita restored, Rama returned
+in triumph to Ayodhya, and assumed the government. The city was
+prosperous, the people were happy, and for a time all went well. It was
+not long, however, before whispers concerning Sita's long abode in Ceylon
+spread abroad, and some one whispered to Rama that a famine in the country
+was due to the guilt of Sita, who had suffered the caresses of the demon
+while in captivity in Ceylon. Forgetful of the trial by fire, forgetful of
+Sita's devotion to him through weal and woe, the ungrateful Rama
+immediately ordered her to the forest in which they had spent together the
+happy years of their exile.
+
+Without a murmur the unhappy Sita, alone and unbefriended, dragged herself
+to the forest, and, torn with grief of body and spirit, found the
+hermitage of Valmiki, where she gave birth to twin sons, Lava and Kuça.
+Here she reared them, with the assistance of the hermit, who was their
+teacher, and under whose care they grew to manhood, handsome and strong.
+
+It chanced about the time the youths were twenty years old, that Rama, who
+had grown peevish and disagreeable with age, began to think the gods were
+angered with him because he had killed Ravana, who was the son of a
+Brahman. Determined to propitiate them by means of the great sacrifice, he
+caused a horse to be turned loose in the forest. When his men went to
+retake it, at the end of the year, it was caught by two strong and
+beautiful youths who resisted all efforts to capture them. In his rage
+Rama went to the forest in person, only to learn that the youths were his
+twin sons, Lava and Kuça. Struck with remorse, Rama recalled the
+sufferings of his wife Sita, and on learning that she was at the hermitage
+of Valmiki, ordered her to come to him, that he might take her to him
+again, having first caused her to endure the trial by fire to prove her
+innocence to all his court.
+
+Sita had had time to recover from the love of her youth, and the prospect
+of life with Rama, without the _couleur de rose_ of youthful love, was
+not altogether pleasant. At first, she even refused to see him; but
+finally, moved by the appeals of Valmiki and his wife, she clad herself in
+her richest robes, and, young and beautiful as when first won by Rama, she
+stood before him. Not deigning to look in his face, she appealed to the
+earth. If she had never loved any man but Rama, if her truth and purity
+were known to the earth, let it open its bosom and take her to it. While
+the armies stood trembling with horror, the earth opened, a gorgeous
+throne appeared, and the goddess of earth, seated upon it, took Sita
+beside her and conveyed her to the realms of eternal happiness, leaving
+the too late repentant Rama to wear out his remaining years in shame and
+penitence.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE RÂMÂYANA.
+
+THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES.
+
+
+Sagara, an early king of Ayodhya, had sixty thousand sons, whom he sent
+out one day to recover a horse that had been designed for the great
+sacrifice, but had been stolen by a rakshasa. Having searched the earth
+unsuccessfully, they proceeded to dig into the lower regions.
+
+  Cloven with shovel and with hoe, pierced by axes and by spades,
+  Shrieked the earth in frantic woe; rose from out the yawning shades
+  Yells of anguish, hideous roars from the expiring brood of hell,--
+  Serpents, giants, and asoors, in the deep abyss that dwell.
+  Sixty thousand leagues in length, all unweary, full of wrath,
+  Through the centre, in their strength, clove they down their hellward
+    path.
+  And downward dug they many a rood, and downward till they saw aghast,
+  Where the earth-bearing elephant stood, ev'n like a mountain tall and
+    vast.
+  'T is he whose head aloft sustains the broad earth's forest-clothed
+    round,
+  With all its vast and spreading plains, and many a stately city crowned.
+  If underneath the o'erbearing load bows down his weary head, 't is then
+  The mighty earthquakes are abroad, and shaking down the abodes of men.
+  Around earth's pillar moved they slowly, and thus in humble accents
+    blest
+  Him the lofty and the holy, that bears the region of the East.
+  And southward dug they many a rood, until before their shuddering sight
+  The next earth-bearing elephant stood, huge Mahapadmas' mountain height.
+  Upon his head earth's southern bound, all full of wonder, saw they rest.
+  Slow and awe-struck paced they round, and him, earth's southern
+    pillar, blest.
+  Westward then their work they urge, king Sagara's six myriad race,
+  Unto the vast earth's western verge, and there in his appointed place
+  The next earth-bearing elephant stood, huge Saumanasa's mountain crest;
+  Around they paced in humble mood, and in like courteous phrase addrest,
+  And still their weary toil endure, and onward dig until they see
+  Last earth-bearing Himapandure, glorying in his majesty.
+
+_At last they reach the place where Vishnu appears with the horse. A flame
+issues from the mouth of the indignant deity and destroys the six myriad
+sons of Sagara, The adventure devolves on their brother Ansuman, who
+achieves it with perfect success. He is permitted to lead away the horse,
+but the ashes of his brothers cannot be purified by earthly water; the
+goddess Ganga must first be brought to earth, and having undergone
+lustration from that holy flood, the race of Sagara are to ascend to
+heaven. Brahma at last gives his permission to Ganga to descend. King
+Bhagiratha takes his stand on the top of Gokarna, the sacred peak of
+Himavan (the Himalaya), and here_--
+
+  Stands with arms outstretch'd on high, amid five blazing fires, the one
+  Towards each quarter of the sky, the fifth the full meridian sun.
+  Mid fiercest frosts on snow he slept, the dry and withered leaves his
+    food,
+  Mid rains his roofless vigil kept, the soul and sense alike subdued.
+  High on the top of Himavan the mighty Mashawara stood;
+  And "Descend," he gave the word to the heaven-meandering water--
+  Full of wrath the mandate heard Himavan's majestic daughter.
+  To a giant's stature soaring and intolerable speed,
+  From heaven's height down rushed she, pouring upon Siva's sacred head,
+  Him the goddess thought in scorn with her resistless might to sweep
+  By her fierce waves overborne, down to hell's remotest deep.
+
+  Down on Sankara's holy head, down the holy fell, and there,
+  Amid the entangling meshes spread, of his loose and flowing hair,
+  Vast and boundless as the woods upon the Himalaya's brow,
+  Nor ever may the struggling floods rush headlong to the earth below.
+  Opening, egress was not there, amid those winding, long meanders.
+  Within that labyrinthine hair, for many an age, the goddess wanders.
+
+_By the penances of the king, Siva is propitiated, and the stream, by
+seven channels, finds its way to the plains of India_.
+
+  Up the Raja at the sign upon his glittering chariot leaps,
+  Instant Ganga the divine follows his majestic steps.
+  From the high heaven burst she forth first on Siva's lofty crown,
+  Headlong then, and prone to earth thundering rushed the cataract down,
+  Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing; turtles, dolphins in their
+    mirth,
+  Fallen or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth.
+  And all the host of heaven came down, spirits and genii, in amaze,
+  And each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to gaze.
+  On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and coursers
+    rode,
+  Or on soft swinging palanquin, lay wondering each observant god.
+  As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jewell'd vestures'
+    rays,
+  The coruscating aether glow'd, as with a hundred suns ablaze.
+  And with the fish and dolphins gleaming, and scaly crocodiles and
+    snakes,
+  Glanc'd the air, as when fast streaming the blue lightning shoots and
+    breaks:
+  And in ten thousand sparkles bright went flashing up the cloudy spray,
+  The snowy flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists at
+    play.
+  And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets
+    wound,
+  Then lake-like spread all bright and broad, then gently, gently flowed
+    around,
+  Then 'neath the caverned earth descending, then spouted up the boiling
+    tide,
+  Then stream with stream harmonious blending, swell bubbling up and
+    smooth subside.
+  By that heaven-welling water's breast, the genii and the sages stood,
+  Its sanctifying dews they blest, and plung'd within the lustral flood.
+  Whoe'er beneath the curse of heaven from that immaculate world had fled,
+  To th' impure earth in exile driven, to that all-holy baptism sped;
+  And purified from every sin, to the bright spirit's bliss restor'd,
+  Th' ethereal sphere they entered in, and through th' empyreal mansions
+    soar'd.
+  The world in solemn jubilee beheld those heavenly waves draw near,
+  From sin and dark pollution free, bathed in the blameless waters clear.
+  Swift king Bhagiratha drave upon his lofty glittering car,
+  And swift with her obeisant wave bright Ganga followed him afar.
+                                        _Milman's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH OF YAJNADATTA.
+
+
+The Raja Dasaratha was compelled to banish his favorite son Rama,
+immediately after his marriage to Sita, because his banishment was
+demanded by the Raja's wife Kaikeyi, to whom he had once promised to grant
+any request she might make. His grief at the loss of his son is described
+in this selection.
+
+  Scarce Rama to the wilderness had with his younger brother gone,
+  Abandoned to his deep distress, king Dasaratha sate alone.
+  Upon his sons to exile driven when thought that king, as Indra bright,
+  Darkness came o'er him, as in heaven when pales th' eclipsed sun his
+    light.
+  Six days he sate, and mourned and pined for Rama all that weary time.
+  At midnight on his wandering mind rose up his old forgotten crime.
+  His queen, Kausalya, the divine, addressed he, as she rested near:
+  "Kausalya, if thou wakest, incline to thy lord's speech thy ready ear.
+  Whatever deed, or good or ill, by man, O blessed queen, is wrought.
+  Its proper fruit he gathers still, by time to slow perfection brought.
+  He who the opposing counsel's weight compares not in his judgment cool,
+  Or misery or bliss his fate, among the sage is deemed a fool.
+  As one that quits the Amra bower, the bright Palasa's pride to gain
+  Mocked by the promise of its flower, seeks its unripening fruit in vain,
+  So I the lovely Amra left for the Palasa's barren bloom,
+  Through mine own fatal error 'reft of banished Rama, mourn in gloom.
+  Kausalya! in my early youth by my keen arrow, at his mark
+  Aimed with too sure and deadly truth, was wrought a deed most fell and
+    dark.
+  At length, the evil that I did, hath fallen upon my fated head,
+  As when on subtle poison hid an unsuspecting child hath fed;
+  Even as that child unwittingly hath made the poisonous fare his food,
+  Even so, in ignorance by me was wrought that deed of guilt and blood.
+  Unwed wert thou in virgin bloom, and I in youth's delicious prime,
+  The season of the rains had come,--that soft and love enkindling time.
+  Earth's moisture all absorbed, the sun through all the world its warmth
+    had spread,
+  Turned from the north, its course begun, where haunt the spirits of the
+    dead:
+  Gathering o'er all the horizon's bound on high the welcome clouds
+    appeared,
+  Exulting, all the birds flew round,--cranes, cuckoos, peacocks, flew and
+    veered.
+  And all down each wide-watered shore the troubled, yet still limpid
+    floods,
+  Over their banks began to pour, as o'er them hung the bursting clouds.
+  And, saturate with cloud-born dew, the glittering verdant-mantled earth,
+  The cuckoos and the peacocks flew, disputing as in drunken mirth.--
+
+  "In such a time, so soft, so bland, oh beautiful! I chanced to go.
+  With quiver and with bow in hand, where clear Sarayu's waters flow,
+  If haply to the river's brink at night the buffalo might stray,
+  Or elephant, the stream to drink,--intent my savage game to slay.
+  Then of a water cruse, as slow it filled, the gurgling sound I heard,
+  Nought saw I, but the sullen low of elephant that sound appeared.
+  The swift well-feathered arrow I upon the bowstring fitting straight,
+  Towards the sound the shaft let fly, ah, cruelly deceived by fate!
+  The winged arrow scarce had flown, and scarce had reached its destined
+    aim,
+  'Ah me, I'm slain,' a feeble moan in trembling human accents came.
+  'Ah, whence hath come this fatal shaft against a poor recluse like me,
+  Who shot that bolt with deadly craft,--alas! what cruel man is he?
+  At the lone midnight had I come to draw the river's limpid flood,
+  And here am struck to death, by whom? ah whose this wrongful deed of
+    blood?
+  Alas! and in my parents' heart, the old, the blind, and hardly fed,
+  In the wild wood, hath pierced the dart, that here hath struck their
+    offspring dead.
+  Ah, deed most profitless as worst, a deed of wanton useless guilt:
+  As though a pupil's hand accurs'd his holy master's blood had spilt.
+  But not mine own untimely fate,--it is not that which I deplore.
+  My blind, my aged parents' state--'tis their distress afflicts me more.
+  That sightless pair, for many a day, from me their scanty food have
+    earned;
+  What lot is theirs when I'm away, to the five elements returned?
+  Alike, all wretched they, as I--ah, whose this triple deed of blood?
+  For who the herbs will now supply,--the roots, the fruit, their
+    blameless food?'
+  My troubled soul, that plaintive moan no sooner heard, so faint and low,
+  Trembled to look on what I'd done, fell from my shuddering hand my bow.
+  Swift I rushed up, I saw him there, heart-pierced, and fallen the stream
+    beside,
+  The hermit boy with knotted hair,--his clothing was the black deer's
+    hide.
+  On me most piteous turned his look, his wounded breast could scarce
+    respire,
+  And these the words, O queen, he spoke, as to consume me in his ire:
+  'What wrong, O Kshatriya, have I done, to be thy deathful arrow's aim,
+  The forest's solitary son, to draw the limpid stream I came.
+  Both wretched and both blind they lie, in the wildwood all destitute,
+  My parents, listening anxiously to hear my home-returning foot.
+  By this, thy fatal shaft, this one, three miserable victims fall,
+  The sire, the mother, and the son--ah why? and unoffending all.
+  How vain my father's life austere, the Veda's studied page how vain,
+  He knew not with prophetic fear his son would fall untimely slain.
+  But had he known, to one as he, so weak, so blind, 't were bootless all,
+  No tree can save another tree by the sharp hatchet marked to fall.
+  But to my father's dwelling haste, O Raghu's son, lest in his ire
+  Thy head with burning curse he blast, as the dry forest tree the fire.
+  Thee to my father's lone retreat will quickly lead yon onward path,
+  Oh, haste his pardon to entreat, or ere he curse thee in his wrath.
+  Yet first that gently I may die, draw forth the barbed steel from hence,
+  Allay thy fears, no Brahmin I, not thine of Brahmin blood the offence.
+  My sire, a Brahmin hermit he, my mother was of Sudra race.'
+  So spake the wounded boy, on me while turned his unreproaching face.
+  As from his palpitating breast I gently drew the mortal dart,
+  He saw me trembling stand, and blest that boy's pure spirit seemed to
+    part.
+  As died that holy hermit's son, from me my glory seemed to go,
+  With troubled mind I stood, cast down t' inevitable endless woe.
+  That shaft that seemed his life to burn like serpent venom, thus drawn
+    out,
+  I, taking up his fallen urn, t' his father's dwelling took my route.
+  There miserable, blind, and old, of their sole helpmate thus forlorn,
+  His parents did these eyes behold, like two sad birds with pinions
+    shorn.
+  Of him in fond discourse they sate, lone, thinking only of their son,
+  For his return so long, so late, impatient, oh by me undone.
+  My footsteps' sound he seemed to know, and thus the aged hermit said,
+  'O Yajnadatta, why so slow?--haste, let the cooling draught be shed.
+  Long on the river's cooling brink hast thou been sporting in thy joy.
+  Thy mother's fainting spirits sink in fear for thee; but thou, my boy,
+  If aught to grieve thy gentle heart thy mother or thy sire do wrong,
+  Bear with us, nor, when next we part, on the slow way thus linger long,
+  The feet of those that cannot move, of those that cannot see the eye,
+  Our spirits live but in thy love,--oh wherefore, dearest, no reply?'
+
+  "My throat thick swollen with bursting tears, my power of speech that
+    seemed to choke,
+  With hands above my head, my fears breaking my quivering voice, I spoke:
+  The Kshatriya Dasaratha I, O hermit sage, 't is not thy son!
+  Most holy ones, unknowingly a deed of awful guilt I've done.
+  With bow in hand I took my way along Sarayu's pleasant brink,
+  The savage buffalo to slay, or elephant come down to drink.
+
+  "A sound came murmuring to my ear,--'twas of the urn that slowly filled,
+  I deemed some savage wild-beast near,--my erring shaft thy son had
+    killed.
+  A feeble groan I heard, his breast was pierced by that dire arrow keen:
+  All trembling to the spot I pressed, lo there thy hermit boy was seen.
+  Flew to the sound my arrow, meant the wandering elephant to slay,
+  Toward the river brink it went,--and there thy son expiring lay.
+  The fatal shaft when forth I drew, to heaven his parting spirit soared,
+  Dying he only thought of you, long, long, your lonely lot deplored.
+  Thus ignorantly did I slay your child beloved, O hermit sage!
+  Turn thou on me, whose fated day is come, thy all-consuming rage!'
+  He heard my dreadful tale at length, he stood all lifeless, motionless;
+  Then deep he groaned, and gathering strength, me the meek suppliant did
+    address.
+  'Kshatriya, 't is well that thou hast turned, thy deed of murder to
+    rehearse,
+  Else over all thy land had burned the fire of my wide-wasting curse.
+  If with premeditated crime the unoffending blood thou 'dst spilt,
+  The Thunderer on his throne sublime had shaken at such tremendous guilt.
+  Against the anchorite's sacred head, hadst, knowing, aimed thy shaft
+    accursed,
+  In th' holy Vedas deeply read, thy skull in seven wide rents had burst.
+  But since, unwitting, thou hast wrought that deed of death, thou livest
+    still,
+  O son of Taghu, from thy thought dismiss all dread of instant ill.
+  Oh lead me to that doleful spot where my poor boy expiring lay,
+  Beneath the shaft thy fell hand shot, of my blind age the staff, the
+    stay.
+  On the cold earth 'twere yet a joy to touch my perished child again,
+  (So long if I may live) my boy in one last fond embrace to strain
+  His body all bedewed with gore, his locks in loose disorder thrown,
+  Let me, let her but touch once more, to the dread realm of Yama gone.'
+  Then to that fatal place I brought alone that miserable pair;
+  His sightless hands and hers I taught to touch their boy that slumbered
+    there.
+  Nor sooner did they feel him lie, on the moist herbage coldly thrown,
+  But with a shrill and feeble cry upon the body cast them down.
+  The mother as she lay and groaned, addressed her boy with quivering
+    tongue,
+  And like a heifer sadly moaned, just plundered of her new-dropped young:
+
+  "'Was not thy mother once, my son, than life itself more dear to thee?
+  Why the long way thou hast begun, without one gentle word to me?
+  One last embrace, and then, beloved, upon thy lonely journey go!
+  Alas! with anger art thou moved, that not a word thou wilt bestow?'
+
+  "The miserable father now with gentle touch each cold limb pressed,
+  And to the dead his words of woe, as to his living son addressed:
+  'I too, my son, am I not here?--thy sire with thy sad mother stands;
+  Awake, arise, my child, draw near, and clasp each neck with loving
+    hands.
+  Who now, 'neath the dark wood by night, a pious reader shall be heard?
+  Whose honeyed voice my ear delight with th' holy Veda's living word?
+  The evening prayer, th' ablution done, the fire adored with worship
+    meet,
+  Who now shall soothe like thee, my son, with fondling hand, my aged
+    feet?
+  And who the herb, the wholesome root, or wild fruit from the wood shall
+    bring?
+  To us the blind, the destitute, with helpless hunger perishing?
+  Thy blind old mother, heaven-resigned, within our hermit-dwelling lone,
+  How shall I tend, myself as blind, now all my strength of life is gone?
+  Oh, stay, my child, oh. Part not yet, to Yama's dwelling go not now,
+  To-morrow forth we all will set,--thy mother and myself and thou:
+  For both, in grief for thee, and both so helpless, ere another day,
+  From this dark world, but little loath, shall we depart, death's easy
+    prey!
+  And I myself, by Yama's seat, companion of thy darksome way,
+  The guerdon to thy virtues meet from that great Judge of men will pray.
+  Because, my boy, in innocence, by wicked deed thou hast been slain,
+  Rise, where the heroes dwell, who thence ne'er stoop to this dark world
+  again.
+  Those that to earth return no more, the sense-subdued, the hermits wise,
+  Priests their sage masters that adore, to their eternal seats arise.
+  Those that have studied to the last the Veda's, the Vedanga's page,
+  Where saintly kings of earth have passed, Nahusa and Yayati sage;
+  The sires of holy families, the true to wedlock's sacred vow;
+  And those that cattle, gold, or rice, or lands, with liberal hands
+    bestow;
+  That ope th' asylum to th' oppressed, that ever love, and speak the
+    truth;
+  Up to the dwellings of the blest, th' eternal, soar thou, best-loved
+    youth.
+  For none of such a holy race within the lowest seat may dwell;
+  But that will be his fatal place by whom my only offspring fell.'
+
+  "So groaning deep, that wretched pair, the hermit and his wife, essayed
+  The meet ablution to prepare, their hands their last faint effort made.
+  Divine, with glorious body bright, in splendid car of heaven elate,
+  Before them stood their son in light, and thus consoled their helpless
+    state:
+  'Meed of my duteous filial care, I've reached the wished for realms of
+    joy;
+  And ye, in those glad realms, prepare to meet full soon your dear-loved
+    boy.
+  My parents, weep no more for me, yon warrior monarch slew me not,
+  My death was thus ordained to be, predestined was the shaft he shot.'
+  Thus as he spoke, the anchorite's son soared up the glowing heaven afar,
+  In air his heavenly body shone, while stood he in his gorgeous car.
+  But they, of that lost boy so dear the last ablution meetly made,
+  Thus spoke to me that holy seer, with folded hands above his head.
+  'Albeit by thy unknowing dart my blameless boy untimely fell,
+  A curse I lay upon thy heart, whose fearful pain I know too well.
+  As sorrowing for my son I bow, and yield up my unwilling breath,
+  So, sorrowing for thy son shalt thou at life's last close repose in
+    death.'
+  That curse dread sounding in mine ear, to mine own city forth I set,
+  Nor long survived that hermit seer, to mourn his child in lone regret.
+  This day that Brahmin curse fulfilled hath fallen on my devoted head,
+  In anguish for my parted child have all my sinking spirits fled.
+  No more my darkened eyes can see, my clouded memory is o'ercast,
+  Dark Yama's heralds summon me to his deep, dreary realm to haste.
+  Mine eye no more my Rama sees, and grief-o'erborne, my spirits sink,
+  As the swoln stream sweeps down the trees that grow upon the crumbling
+    brink.
+  Oh, felt I Rama's touch, or spake one word his home-returning voice,
+  Again to life I should awake, as quaffing nectar draughts, rejoice,
+  But what so sad could e'er have been, celestial partner of my heart,
+  As Rama's beauteous face unseen, from life untimely to depart?
+  His exile in the forest o'er, him home returned to Oude's high town,
+  Oh happy those, that see once more, like Indra from the sky come down.
+  No mortal men, but gods I deem,--moonlike, before whose wondering sight
+  My Rama's glorious face shall beam, from the dark forest bursting
+    bright.
+  Happy that gaze on Rama's face with beauteous teeth and smile of love,
+  Like the blue lotus in its grace, and like the starry king above.
+  Like to the full autumnal moon, and like the lotus in its bloom,
+  That youth who sees returning soon,--how blest shall be that mortal's
+    doom."
+  Dwelling in that sweet memory, on his last bed the monarch lay,
+  And slowly, softly seemed to die, as fades the moon at dawn away.
+  "Ah, Rama! ah, my son!" thus said, or scarcely said, the king of men,
+  His gentle hapless spirit fled in sorrow for his Rama then,
+  The shepherd of his people old at midnight on his bed of death,
+  The tale of his son's exile told, and breathed away his dying breath.
+                                         _Milman's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+
+
+"It is a deep and noble forest, abounding in delicious fruits and fragrant
+flowers, shaded and watered by perennial springs."
+
+Though parts of the Mahâ-Bhârata, or story of the great war, are of great
+antiquity, the entire poem was undoubtedly collected and re-written in the
+first or second century A. D. Tradition ascribes the Mahâ-Bhârata to the
+Brahman Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa.
+
+The Mahâ-Bhârata, unlike the Râmâyana, is not the story of some great
+event, but consists of countless episodes, legends, and philosophical
+treatises, strung upon the thread of a single story. These episodes are
+called Upakhyanani, and the five most beautiful are called, in India, the
+five precious stones.
+
+Its historical basis is the strife between the Aryan invaders of India and
+the original inhabitants, illustrated in the strife between the sons of
+the Raja Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhrita-rashtra, which forms the main
+story of the poem.
+
+Though marred by the exaggerations peculiar to the Hindu, the poem is a
+great treasure house of Indian history, and from it the Indian poets,
+historical writers, and philosophers have drawn much of their material.
+
+The Mahâ-Bhârata is written in the Sanskrit language; it is the longest
+poem ever written, its eighteen cantos containing two hundred thousand
+lines.
+
+It is held in even higher regard than the Râmâyana, and the reading of it
+is supposed to confer upon the happy reader every good and perfect gift.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+
+
+G.W. Cox's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;
+
+John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion,
+Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;
+
+F. Max Müller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 1859 (Introduction);
+
+E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, 1891, pp. 272-352;
+
+Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature, 1878, pp. 184-191;
+
+J. T. Wheeler's History of India, 4 vols., 1876, vol. ii.;
+
+J. C. Oman's Great Indian Epics, 1874, pp. 87-231;
+
+T. Goldstuecker's Hindu Epic Poetry; the Mahâ-Bhârata Literary Remains,
+1879, (vol. ii., pp. 86-145);
+
+M. Macmillan's Globe-trotter in India, 1815, p. 193;
+
+J. Peile's Notes on the Tales of Nala, 1882;
+
+C. J. Stone's Cradle-land of Arts and Creeds, 1880, pp. 36-49;
+
+H. H. Wilson's Introduction to the Mahâ-Bhârata and a Translation of three
+Extracts (in his Works, vol. iii., p. 277); Westminster Review, 1868, vol.
+xxxiii., p. 380.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+
+
+The Mahâ-Bhârata, Selections from the Tr. by Sir Edwin Arnold, in his
+Indian Poetry, 1886; in his Indian Idylls, 1883;
+
+Nala and Damayanti and other Poems, Tr. from the Mahâ-Bhârata by
+H. H. Milman, (his translation of the Story of Nala is edited with notes by
+Monier Williams, 1879);
+
+Metrical translations from Sanskrit writers by John Muir, 1879, pp. 13-37;
+
+Last Days of Krishna, Tr. from the Mahâ-Bhârata Price (Oriental
+Translation Fund: Miscellaneous Translations);
+
+The Mahâ-Bhârata, an English Prose Translation with notes, by Protap
+Chandra Roy, Published in one hundred parts, 1883-1890;
+
+Asiatic Researches, Tr. by H. H. Wilson, from the Mahâ-Bhârata vol. xv.,
+p. 101;
+
+Translations of episodes from the Mahâ-Bhârata, in Scribner's Monthly,
+1874, vol. vii., p. 385;
+
+International Review, vol. x., pp. 36, 297; Oriental Magazine, Dec., 1824,
+March, Sept., 1825, Sept., 1826.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+
+
+Long ago there dwelt in India two great Rajas who were brothers, the Raja
+Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhritarashtra. The former had five noble sons
+called the Pandavas, the eldest of whom was Yudhi-sthira, the second
+Bhima, the third Arjuna, and the youngest, twin sons, Nakalu and Sahadeva.
+All were girted in every way, but Arjuna was especially noble in form and
+feature.
+
+The blind Raja had a family of one hundred sons, called the Kauravas from
+their ancestor, Kura. The oldest of these was Duryodhana, and the bravest,
+Dhusasana.
+
+Before the birth of Pandu's sons, he had left his kingdom in charge of
+Dhrita-rashtra, that he might spend his time in hunting in the forests on
+the slopes of the Himalayas. After his death Dhrita-rashtra continued to
+rule the kingdom; but on account of their claim to the throne, he invited
+the Pandavas and their mother to his court, where they were trained,
+together with his sons, in every knightly exercise.
+
+There was probably jealousy between the cousins from the beginning, and
+when their teacher, Drona, openly expressed his pride in the wonderful
+archery of Arjuna, the hatred of the Kauravas was made manifest. No
+disturbance occurred, however, until the day when Drona made a public
+tournament to display the prowess of his pupils.
+
+The contests were in archery and the use of the noose and of clubs. Bhima,
+who had been endowed by the serpent king with the strength of ten thousand
+elephants, especially excelled in the use of the club, Nakalu was most
+skillful in taming and driving the horse, and the others in the use of the
+sword and spear. When Arjuna made use of the bow and the noose the
+plaudits with which the spectators greeted his skill so enraged the
+Kauravas that they turned the contest of clubs, which was to have been a
+friendly one, into a degrading and blood-shedding battle. The spectators
+left the splendid lists in sorrow, and the blind Raja determined to
+separate the unfriendly cousins before further harm could come from their
+rivalry.
+
+Before this could be done, another event increased their hostility. Drona
+had agreed to impart to the Kauravas and the Pandavas his skill in
+warfare, on condition that they would conquer for him his old enemy, the
+Raja of Panchala. On account of their quarrel the cousins would not fight
+together, and the Kauravas, marching against the Raja, were defeated. On
+their return, the Pandavas went to Panchala, and took the Raja prisoner.
+
+After Yudhi-sthira had been appointed Yuva-Raja, a step Dhrita-rashtra was
+compelled by the people of Hastinapur to take, the Kauravas declared that
+they could no longer remain in the same city with their cousins.
+
+A plot was laid to destroy the Pandavas, the Raja's conscience having been
+quieted by the assurances of his Brahman counsellor that it was entirely
+proper to slay one's foe, be he father, brother, or friend, openly or by
+secret means. The Raja accordingly pretended to send his nephews on a
+pleasure-trip to a distant province, where he had prepared for their
+reception a "house of lac," rendered more combustible by soaking in
+clarified butter, in which he had arranged to have them burned as if by
+accident, as soon as possible after their arrival.
+
+All Hastinapur mourned at the departure of the Pandavas, and the princes
+themselves were sad, for they had been warned by a friend that
+Dhrita-rashtra had plotted for their destruction. They took up their abode
+in the house of lac, to which they prudently constructed a subterranean
+outlet, and one evening, when a woman with five sons attended a feast of
+their mother's, uninvited, and fell into a drunken sleep, they made fast
+the doors, set fire to the house, and escaped to the forest. The bodies of
+the five men and their mother were found next day, and the assurance was
+borne to Hastinapur that the Pandavas and their mother Kunti had perished
+by fire.
+
+The five princes, with their mother, disguised as Brahmans, spent several
+years wandering through the forests, having many strange adventures and
+slaying many demons. While visiting Ekachakra, which city they freed from
+a frightful rakshasa, they were informed by the sage Vyasa that Draupadi,
+the lovely daughter of the Raja Draupada of Panchala, was going to hold a
+Svayamvara in order to select a husband. The suitors of a princess
+frequently attended a meeting of this sort and took part in various
+athletic contests, at the end of which the princess signified who was most
+pleasing to her, usually the victor in the games, by hanging around his
+neck a garland of flowers.
+
+Vyasa's description of the lovely princess, whose black eyes were large as
+lotus leaves, whose skin was dusky, and her locks dark and curling, so
+excited the curiosity of the Pandavas that they determined to attend the
+Svayamvara. They found the city full of princes and kings who had come to
+take part in the contest for the most beautiful woman in the world. The
+great amphitheatre in which the games were to take place was surrounded by
+gold and jewelled palaces for the accommodation of the princes, and with
+platforms for the convenience of the spectators.
+
+After music, dancing, and various entertainments, which occupied sixteen
+days, the contest of skill began. On the top of a tall pole, erected in
+the plain, was placed a golden fish, below which revolved a large wheel.
+He who sent his arrow through the spokes of the wheel and pierced the eye
+of the golden fish was to be the accepted suitor of Draupadi.
+
+When the princes saw the difficulty of the contest, many of them refused
+to enter it; as many tried it only to fail, among them, the Kaurava
+Duryodhana. At last Arjuna, still in his disguise, stepped forward, drew
+his bow, and sent his arrow through the wheel into the eye of the golden
+fish.
+
+Immediately a great uproar arose among the spectators because a Brahman
+had entered a contest limited to members of the Kshatriya, or warrior
+class. In the struggle which ensued, however, Arjuna, assisted by his
+brothers, especially Bhima, succeeded in carrying off the princess, whose
+father did not demur.
+
+When the princes returned to their hut they went into the inner room and
+informed their mother that they had brought home a prize. Supposing that
+it was some game, she told them it would be well to share it equally. The
+mother's word was law, but would the gods permit them to share Draupadi?
+Their troubled minds were set at rest by Vyasa, who assured them that
+Draupadi had five different times in former existences besought Siva for a
+good husband. He had refused her requests then, but would now allow her
+five husbands at once. The princes were well satisfied, and when the Raja
+Draupada learned that the Brahmans were great princes in disguise, he
+caused the five weddings to be celebrated in great state.
+
+Not satisfied with this, the Raja at once endeavored to make peace between
+the Pandavas and their hostile cousins, and succeeded far enough to induce
+Dhrita-rashtra to cede to his nephews a tract of land in the farthest part
+of his kingdom, on the river Jumna, where they set about founding a most
+splendid city, Indra-prastha.
+
+Here they lived happily with Draupadi, conquering so many kingdoms and
+accumulating so much wealth that they once more aroused the jealousy of
+their old enemies, the Kauravas. The latter, knowing that it would be
+impossible to gain the advantage of them by fair means, determined to
+conquer them by artifice, and accordingly erected a large and magnificent
+hall and invited their cousins thither, with a great show of friendliness,
+to a gambling match.
+
+The Pandavas knew they would not be treated fairly, but as such an
+invitation could not be honorably declined by a Kshatriya, they went to
+Hastinapur. Yudhi-sthira's opponent was Shakuni, the queen's brother, an
+unprincipled man, by whom he was defeated in every game.
+
+Yudhi-sthira staked successively his money, his jewels, and his slaves;
+and when these were exhausted, he continued to play, staking his kingdom,
+his brothers, and last of all his peerless wife, Draupadi.
+
+At this point, when the excitement was intense, the brutal Dhusasana
+commanded Draupadi to be brought into the hall, and insulted her in every
+way, to the great rage of the helpless Pandavas, until Dhrita-rashtra,
+affrighted by the evil omens by which the gods signified their
+disapproval, rebuked Dhusasana for his conduct, and giving Draupadi her
+wish, released her husbands and herself and sent them back to their
+kingdom.
+
+To prevent the Pandavas from gaining time to avenge their insult, the
+Kauravas induced their father to invite their cousins to court to play a
+final game, this time the conditions being that the losing party should go
+into exile for thirteen years, spending twelve years in the forest and the
+thirteenth in some city. If their disguise was penetrated by their enemies
+during the thirteenth year, the exile was to be extended for another
+thirteen years.
+
+Though they knew the outcome, the Pandavas accepted the second invitation,
+and in consequence again sought the forest, not departing without the most
+terrible threats against their cousins.
+
+In the forest of Kamyaka, Yudhi-sthira studied the science of dice that he
+might not again be defeated so disastrously, and journeyed pleasantly from
+one point of interest to another with Draupadi and his brothers, with the
+exception of Arjuna, who had sought the Himalayas to gain favor with the
+god Siva, that he might procure from him a terrible weapon for the
+destruction of his cousins.
+
+After he had obtained the weapon he was lifted into the heaven of the god
+Indra, where he spent five happy years. When he rejoined his wife and
+brothers, they were visited by the god Krishna and by the sage Markandeya,
+who told them the story of the creation and destruction of the universe,
+of the flood, and of the doctrine of Karma, which instructs one that man's
+sufferings here below are due to his actions in former and forgotten
+existences. He also related to them the beautiful story of how the
+Princess Sâvitrî had wedded the Prince Satyavan, knowing that the gods had
+decreed that he should die within a year; how on the day set for his death
+she had accompanied him to the forest, had there followed Yama, the awful
+god of death, entreating him until, for very pity of her sorrow and
+admiration of her courage and devotion, he yielded to her her husband's
+soul.
+
+Near the close of the twelfth year of their exile, the princes, fatigued
+from a hunt, sent Nakalu to get some water from a lake which one had
+discovered from a tree-top. As the prince approached the lake he was
+warned by a voice not to touch it, but thirst overcoming fear, he drank
+and fell dead. The same penalty was paid by Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhima,
+who in turn followed him. Yudhi-sthira, who went last, obeyed the voice,
+which, assuming a terrible form, asked the king questions on many subjects
+concerning the universe. These being answered satisfactorily, the being
+declared himself to be Dharma, the god of justice, Yudhi-sthira's father,
+and in token of his affection for his son, restored the princes to life,
+and granted them the boon of being unrecognizable during the remaining
+year of their exile.
+
+The thirteenth year of their exile they spent in the city of Virata, where
+they entered the service of the Raja,--Yudhi-sthira as teacher of
+dice-playing, Bhima as superintendent of the cooks, Arjuna as a teacher of
+music and dancing to the ladies, Nakalu as master of horse, and Sahadeva
+as superintendent of the cattle. Draupadi, who entered the service of the
+queen, was so attractive, even in disguise, that Bhima was forced to kill
+the queen's brother, Kechaka, for insulting her. This would have caused
+the Pandavas' exile from Virata had not their services been needed in a
+battle between Virata and the king of the Trigartas.
+
+The Kauravas assisted the Trigartas in this battle, and the recognition,
+among the victors, of their cousins, whose thirteenth year of exile was
+now ended, added to the bitterness of their defeat.
+
+Their exile over, the Pandavas were free to make preparations for the
+great war which they had determined to wage against the Kauravas. Both
+parties, anxious to enlist the services of Krishna, sent envoys to him at
+the same time. When Krishna gave them the choice of himself or his armies,
+Arjuna was shrewd enough to choose the god, leaving his hundreds of
+millions of soldiers to swell the forces of the Kauravas.
+
+When their preparations were completed, and the time had come to wreak
+vengeance on their cousins, the Pandavas were loath to begin the conflict.
+They seemed to understand that, war once declared, there could be no
+compromise, but that it must be a war for extinction. But the Kauravas
+received their proposals of peace with taunts, and heaped insults upon
+their emissary.
+
+When the Pandavas found that there was no hope of peace, they endeavored
+to win to their side Karna, who was really a son of Kunti, and hence their
+half-brother, though this fact had not been made known to him until he had
+long been allied with the Kauravas. In anticipation of this war, the gods,
+by a bit of trickery, had robbed Karna of his god-given armor and weapons.
+However, neither celestial artifice, the arguments of Krishna, nor the
+entreaties of Kunti were able to move Karna from what he considered the
+path of duty, though he promised that while he would fight with all his
+strength, he would not slay Yudhi-sthira, Bhima, and the twins.
+
+The forces of the two armies were drawn up on the plain of Kuruk-shetra.
+The army of the Kauravas was under the command of the terrible Bhishma,
+the uncle of Pandu and Dhrita-rashtra, who had governed the country during
+the minority of Pandu.
+
+Each side was provided with billions and billions of infantry, cavalry,
+and elephants; the warriors were supplied with weapons of the most
+dangerous sort. The army of the Kauravas was surrounded by a deep trench
+fortified by towers, and further protected by fireballs and jars full of
+scorpions to be thrown at the assailants.
+
+As night fell, before the battle, the moon's face was stained with blood,
+earthquakes shook the land, and the images of the gods fell from their
+places.
+
+The next morning, when Arjuna, from his chariot, beheld the immense army,
+he was appalled at the thought of the bloodshed to follow, and hesitated
+to advance. Krishna insisted that it was unnecessary for him to lament,
+setting forth his reasons in what is known as the Bhagavat-gita, the
+divine song, in which he said it was no sin to slay a foe, since death is
+but a transmigration from one form to another. The soul can never cease to
+be; who then can destroy it? Therefore, when Arjuna slew his cousins he
+would merely remove their offensive bodies; their souls, unable to be
+destroyed, would seek other habitations. To further impress Arjuna,
+Krishna boasted of himself as embodying everything, and as having passed
+through many forms. Faith in Krishna was indispensable, for the god placed
+faith above either works or contemplation. He next exhibited himself in
+his divine form to Arjuna, and the warrior was horror-stricken at the
+terrible divinity with countless arms, hands, and heads, touching the
+skies. Having been thus instructed by Krishna, Arjuna went forth, and the
+eighteen days' battle began.
+
+The slaughter was wholesale; no quarter was asked or given, since each
+side was determined to exterminate the other. Flights of arrows were
+stopped in mid-air by flights of arrows from the other side. Great maces
+were cut in pieces by well-directed darts. Bhima, wielding his great club
+with his prodigious strength, wiped out thousands of the enemy at one
+stroke, and Arjuna did the same with his swift arrows. Nor were the
+Kauravas to be despised. Hundreds of thousands of the Pandavas' followers
+fell, and the heroic brothers were themselves struck by many arrows.
+
+Early in the battle the old Bhishma was pierced by so many arrows that,
+falling from his chariot, he rested upon their points as on a couch, and
+lay there living by his own desire, until long after the battle.
+
+After eighteen days of slaughter, during which the field reeked with blood
+and night was made horrible by the cries of the jackals and other beasts
+of prey that devoured the bodies of the dead, the Kauravas were all slain,
+and the five Pandavas, reconciled to the blind Raja, accompanied him back
+to Hastinapur, where Yudhi-sthira was crowned Raja, although the Raj was
+still nominally under the rule of his old uncle.
+
+Yudhi-sthira celebrated his accession to the throne by the performance of
+the great sacrifice, which was celebrated with the utmost splendor. After
+several years the unhappy Dhrita-rashtra retired with his wife to a jungle
+on the banks of the Ganges, leaving Yudhi-sthira in possession of the
+kingdom. There the Pandavas visited him, and talked over the friends who
+had fallen in the great war. One evening the sage Vyasa instructed them to
+bathe in the Ganges and then stand on the banks of the river. He then went
+into the water and prayed, and coming out stood by Yudhi-sthira and called
+the names of all those persons who had been slain at Kuruk-shetra.
+Immediately the water began to foam and boil, and to the great surprise
+and terror of all, the warriors lost in the great battle appeared in their
+chariots, at perfect peace with one another, and cleansed of all earthly
+stain. Then the living were happy with the dead; long separated families
+were once more united, and the hearts that had been desolate for fifteen
+long years were again filled with joy. The night sped quickly by in tender
+conversation, and when morning came, all the dead mounted into their
+chariots and disappeared. Those who had come to meet them prepared to
+leave the river, but with the permission of Vyasa, the widows drowned
+themselves that they might rejoin their husbands.
+
+Not long after his return to Hastinapur, Yudhi-sthira heard that the old
+Raja and his wife had lost their lives in a jungle-fire; and soon after
+this, tidings came to him of the destruction of the city of the Yadavas,
+the capital of Krishna, in punishment for the dissipation of its
+inhabitants.
+
+Yudhi-sthira's reign of thirty-six years had been a succession of gloomy
+events, and he began to grow weary of earth and to long for the blessings
+promised above. He therefore determined to make the long and weary
+pilgrimage to Heaven without waiting for death. According to the
+Mahâ-Bhârata, the earth was divided into seven concentric rings, each of
+which was surrounded by an ocean or belt separating it from the next
+annular continent. The first ocean was of salt water; the second, of the
+juice of the sugar-cane; the third, of wine; the fourth, of clarified
+butter; the fifth, of curdled milk; the sixth, of sweet milk; the seventh,
+of fresh water. In the centre of this vast annular system Mount Meru rose
+to the height of sixty-four thousand miles.
+
+Upon this mountain was supposed to rest the heaven of the Hindus, and
+thither Yudhi-sthira proposed to make his pilgrimage. His brothers and
+their wife Draupadi insisted on going with him, for all were equally weary
+of the world. Their people would fain have accompanied them, but the
+princes sent them back and went unaccompanied save by their faithful dog.
+They kept on, fired by their high resolves, until they reached the long
+and dreary waste of sand that stretched before Mount Meru. There Draupadi
+fell and yielded up her life, and Yudhi-sthira, never turning to look
+back, told the questioning Bhima that she died because she loved her
+husbands better than all else, better than heaven. Next Sahadeva fell,
+then Nakalu, and afterwards Arjuna and Bhima. Yudhi-sthira, still striding
+on, informed Bhima that pride had slain the first, self-love the second,
+the sin of Arjuna was a lie, and Bhima had loved too well the good things
+of earth.
+
+Followed by the dog, Yudhi-sthira pushed across the barren sand until he
+reached the mount and stood in the presence of the god. Well pleased with
+his perseverance, the god promised him the reward of entering into heaven
+in his own form, but he refused to go unless the dog could accompany him.
+After vainly attempting to dissuade him, the god allowed the dog to assume
+its proper form, and lo! it was Dharma, the god of justice, and the two
+entered heaven together.
+
+But where were Draupadi and the gallant princes, her husbands?
+Yudhi-sthira could see them nowhere, and he questioned only to learn that
+they were in hell. His determination was quickly taken. There could be no
+heaven for him unless his brothers and their wife could share it with him.
+He demanded to be shown the path to hell, to enter which he walked over
+razors, and trod under foot mangled human forms. But joy of joys! The
+lotus-eyed Draupadi called to him, and his brothers cried that his
+presence in hell brought a soothing breeze that gave relief to all the
+tortured souls.
+
+Yudhi-sthira's self-sacrifice sufficiently tested, the gods proclaimed
+that it was all but an illusion shown to make him enjoy the more, by
+contrast, the blisses of heaven. The king Yudhi-sthira then bathed in the
+great river flowing through three worlds, and, washed from all sins and
+soils, went up, hand in hand with the gods, to his brothers, the Pandavas,
+and
+
+  "Lotus-eyed and loveliest Draupadi,
+   Waiting to greet him, gladdening and glad."
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+
+SÂVITRI, OR LOVE AND DEATH.
+
+
+The beautiful princess Sâvitri of her own choice wedded the prince
+Satyavan, son of a blind and exiled king, although she knew that he was
+doomed by the gods to die within a year. When the year was almost gone,
+she sat for several days beneath a great tree, abstaining from food and
+drink, and imploring the gods to save him from death. On the fateful day
+she accompanied him to the forest to gather the sacred wood for the
+evening sacrifice. As he struck the tree with the axe he reeled in pain,
+and exclaiming, "I cannot work!" fell fainting.
+
+  Thereon that noble lady, hastening near.
+  Stayed him that would have fallen, with quick arms;
+  And, sitting on the earth, laid her lord's head
+  Tenderly in her lap. So bent she, mute,
+  Fanning his face, and thinking 't was the day--
+  The hour--which Narad named--the sure fixed date
+  Of dreadful end--when, lo! before her rose
+  A shade majestic. Red his garments were,
+  His body vast and dark; like fiery suns
+  The eyes which burned beneath his forehead-cloth;
+  Armed was he with a noose, awful of mien.
+  This Form tremendous stood by Satyavan,
+  Fixing its gaze upon him. At the sight
+  The fearful Princess started to her feet.
+  Heedfully laying on the grass his head,
+
+  Up started she, with beating heart, and joined
+  Her palms for supplication, and spake thus
+  In accents tremulous: "Thou seem'st some God;
+  Thy mien is more than mortal; make me know
+  What god thou art, and what thy purpose here."
+
+  And Yama said (the dreadful god of death):
+  "Thou art a faithful wife, O Sâvitrî,
+  True to thy vows, pious, and dutiful;
+  Therefore I answer thee. Yama I am!
+  This Prince thy lord lieth at point to die;
+  Him will I straightway bind and bear from life;
+  This is my office, and for this I come."
+
+  Then Sâvitrî spake sadly: "It is taught
+  Thy messengers are sent to fetch the dying;
+  Why is it, Mightiest, thou art come thyself?"
+
+  In pity of her love, the Pityless
+  Answered--the King of all the Dead replied:
+  "This was a Prince unparalleled, thy lord;
+  Virtuous as fair, a sea of goodly gifts,
+  Not to be summoned by a meaner voice
+  Than Yama's own: therefore is Yama come."
+
+  With that the gloomy God fitted his noose
+  And forced forth from the Prince the soul of him--
+  Subtile, a thumb in length--which being reft,
+  Breath stayed, blood stopped, the body's grace was gone,
+  And all life's warmth to stony coldness turned.
+  Then, binding it, the Silent Presence bore
+  Satyavan's soul away toward the South.
+
+  But Sâvitrî the Princess followed him;
+  Being so bold in wifely purity,
+  So holy by her love; and so upheld,
+  She followed him.
+
+                     Presently Yama turned.
+  "Go back," quoth he. "Pay for him funeral dues.
+  Enough, O Sâvitrî, is wrought for love;
+  Go back! Too far already hast thou come."
+
+  Then Sâvitrî made answer: "I must go
+  Where my lord goes, or where my lord is borne;
+  Naught other is my duty. Nay, I think,
+  By reason of my vows, my services,
+  Done to the Gurus, and my faultless love,
+  Grant but thy grace, I shall unhindered go.
+  The sages teach that to walk seven steps
+  One with another, maketh good men friends;
+  Beseech thee, let me say a verse to thee:--
+
+  _"Be master of thyself, if thou wilt be
+  Servant of Duty. Such as thou shall see
+  Not self-subduing, do no deeds of good
+  In youth or age, in household or in wood.
+  But wise men know that virtue is best bliss,
+  And all by some one way may reach to this.
+  It needs not men should pass through orders four
+  To come to knowledge: doing right is more
+  Than any learning; therefore sages say
+  Best and most excellent is Virtue's way."_
+
+  Spake Yama then: "Return! yet I am moved
+  By those soft words; justly their accents fell,
+  And sweet and reasonable was their sense.
+  See now, thou faultless one. Except this life
+  I bear away, ask any boon from me;
+  It shall not be denied."
+
+                              Sâvitrî said:
+  "Let, then, the King, my husband's father, have
+  His eyesight back, and be his strength restored,
+  And let him live anew, strong as the sun."
+
+  "I give this gift," Yama replied. "Thy wish,
+  Blameless, shall be fulfilled. But now go back;
+  Already art thou wearied, and our road
+  Is hard and long. Turn back, lest thou, too, die."
+
+  The Princess answered: "Weary am I not,
+  So I walk near my lord. Where he is borne,
+  Thither wend I. Most mighty of the Gods,
+  I follow wheresoe'er thou takest him.
+  A verse is writ on this, if thou wouldst hear:--
+
+  _"There is naught better than to be
+  With noble souls in company:
+  There is naught better than to wend
+  With good friends faithful to the end.
+  This is the love whose fruit is sweet,
+  Therefore to bide within is meet."_
+
+  Spake Yama, smiling: "Beautiful! thy words
+  Delight me; they are excellent, and teach
+  Wisdom unto the wise, singing soft truth.
+  Look, now! Except the life of Satyavan,
+  Ask yet another--any--boon from me."
+
+  Sâvitrî said: "Let, then, the pious King,
+  My husband's father, who hath lost his throne,
+  Have back the Raj; and let him rule his realm
+  In happy righteousness. This boon I ask."
+
+  "He shall have back the throne," Yama replied,
+  "And he shall reign in righteousness: these things
+  Will surely fall. But thou, gaining thy wish,
+  Return anon; so shalt thou 'scape sore ill."
+
+  "Ah, awful God! who hold'st the world in leash,"
+  The Princess said, "restraining evil men,
+  And leading good men--even unconscious--there,
+  Where they attain, hear yet those famous words:--
+
+  _"The constant virtues of the good are tenderness and love
+  To all that lives--in earth, air, sea--great, small--below, above;
+  Compassionate of heart, they keep a gentle thought for each,
+  Kind in their actions, mild in will, and pitiful of speech;
+  Who pitieth not, he hath not faith; full many an one so lives,
+  But when an enemy seeks help, a good man gladly gives."_
+
+  "As water to the thirsty," Yama said,
+  "Princess, thy words melodious are to me.
+  Except the life of Satyavan, thy lord,
+  Ask one boon yet again, for I will grant."
+
+  Answer made Sâvitrî: "The King, my sire,
+  Hath no male child. Let him see many sons
+  Begotten of his body, who may keep
+  The royal line long regnant. This I ask."
+
+  "So shall it be," the Lord of Death replied;
+  "A hundred fair preservers of his race
+  Thy sire shall boast. But this wish being won,
+  Return, dear Princess; thou hast come too far."
+
+  "It is not far for me," quoth Sâvitrî,
+  "Since I am near my husband; nay, my heart
+  Is set to go as far as to the end;
+  But hear these other verses, if thou wilt:--
+
+  _"By that sunlit name thou bearest,
+  Thou, Vaivaswata! art dearest;
+  Those that as their Lord proclaim thee,
+  King of Righteousness do name thee:
+  Better than themselves the wise
+  Trust the righteous. Each relies
+  Most upon the good, and makes
+  Friendship with them. Friendship takes
+  Fear from hearts; yet friends betray,
+  In good men we may trust alway."_
+
+  "Sweet lady," Yama said, "never were words
+  Spoke better; never truer heard by ear;
+  Lo! I am pleased with thee. Except this soul,
+  Ask one gift yet again, and get thee home."
+
+  "I ask thee then," quickly the Princess cried,
+  "Sons, many sons, born of my body; boys;
+  Satyavan's children; lovely, valiant, strong;
+  Continuers of their line. Grant this, kind God."
+
+  "I grant it," Yama answered; "thou shalt bear
+  These sons thy heart desireth, valiant, strong.
+  Therefore go back, that years be given thee.
+  Too long a path thou treadest, dark and rough."
+
+  But sweeter than before, the Princess sang:--
+
+  _"In paths of peace and virtue
+  Always the good remain;
+  And sorrow shall not stay with them,
+  Nor long access of pain;
+  At meeting or at parting
+  Joys to their bosom strike;
+  For good to good is friendly,
+  And virtue loves her like.
+  The great sun goes his journey
+  By their strong truth impelled;
+  By their pure lives and penances
+  Is earth itself upheld;
+  Of all which live and shall live
+  Upon its hills and fields,
+  Pure hearts are the protectors,
+  For virtue saves and shields.
+
+  "Never are noble spirits
+  Poor while their like survive;
+  True love has gems to render,
+  And virtue wealth to give.
+  Never is lost or wasted
+  The goodness of the good;
+  Never against a mercy,
+  Against a right, it stood;
+  And seeing this, that virtue
+  Is always friend to all,
+  The virtuous and true-hearted,
+  Men their protectors call."_
+
+  "Line for line, Princess, as thou sangest so,"
+  Quoth Yama, "all that lovely praise of good,
+  Grateful to hallowed minds, lofty in sound,
+  And couched in dulcet numbers--word by word--
+  Dearer thou grew'st to me. O thou great heart,
+  Perfect and firm! ask any boon from me,--
+  Ask an incomparable boon!"
+
+                              She cried
+  Swiftly, no longer stayed: "Not Heaven I crave,
+  Nor heavenly joys, nor bliss incomparable,
+  Hard to be granted, even by thee; but him,
+  My sweet lord's life, without which I am dead;
+  Give me that gift of gifts! I will not take
+  Aught less without him,--not one boon--no praise,
+  No splendors, no rewards,--not even those sons
+  Whom thou didst promise. Ah, thou wilt not now
+  Bear hence the father of them and my hope!
+  Make thy free word good; give me Satyavan
+  Alive once more."
+
+  And thereupon the God--
+  The Lord of Justice, high Vaivaswata--
+  Loosened the noose and freed the Prince's soul,
+  And gave it to the lady, saying this,
+  With eyes grown tender: "See, thou sweetest queen
+  Of women, brightest jewel of thy kind!
+  Here is thy husband. He shall live and reign
+  Side by side with thee, saved by thee,--in peace
+  And fame and wealth, and health, many long years,
+  For pious sacrifices world-renowned.
+  Boys shalt thou bear to him, as I did grant,--
+  Kshatriya kings, fathers of kings to be,
+  Sustainers of thy line. Also thy sire
+  Shall see his name upheld by sons of sons,
+  Like the immortals, valiant, Mâlavas."
+
+                          ARNOLD: _Indian Idylls._
+
+
+
+
+FROM "THE GREAT JOURNEY."
+
+
+The shadow of the Great War hung over King Yudhi-sthira, whose reign was
+one long succession of gloomy events, culminating in the death of the
+blind Raja and his wife in a jungle fire, and the destruction of the
+capital city of Krishna because of the dissipation of its inhabitants.
+
+  On tidings of the wreck of Vrishni's race,
+  King Yudhi-sthira of the Pandavas
+  Was minded to be done with earthly things,
+  And to Arjuna spake: "O noble prince,
+  Time endeth all; we linger, noose on neck,
+  Till the last day tightens the line, and kills.
+  Let us go forth to die, being yet alive."
+  And Kunti's son, the great Arjuna, said:
+  "Let us go forth! Time slayeth all.
+  We will find Death, who seeketh other men."
+  And Bhimasena, hearing, answered: "Yea,
+  We will find Death!" and Sahadev cried: "Yea!"
+  And his twin brother Nakalu; whereat
+  The princes set their faces for the Mount.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  So ordering ere he went, the righteous King
+  Made offering of white water, heedfully,
+  To Vasudev, to Rama, and the rest,--
+  All funeral rites performing; next he spread
+  A funeral feast....
+
+  And all the people cried, "Stay with us, Lord!"
+  But Yudhi-sthira knew his time was come,
+  Knew that life passes and that virtue lasts,
+  And put aside their love....
+
+  So, with farewells
+  Tenderly took of lieges and of lords,
+  Girt he for travel with his princely kin,
+  Great Yudhi-sthira, Dharma's royal son.
+  Crest-gem and belt and ornaments he stripped
+  From off his body, and for broidered robe
+  A rough dress donned, woven of jungle bark;
+  And what he did--O Lord of men!--so did
+  Arjuna, Bhima, and the twin-born pair,
+  Nakalu with Sahadev, and she,--in grace
+  The peerless,--Draupadi. Lastly those six,--
+  Thou son of Bharata!--in solemn form
+  Made the high sacrifice of Naishtiki,
+  Quenching their flames in water at the close;
+  And so set forth, midst wailing of all folk
+  And tears of women, weeping most to see
+  The Princess Draupadi--that lovely prize
+  Of the great gaming, Draupadi the Bright--
+  Journeying afoot; but she and all the five
+  Rejoiced because their way lay heavenward.
+
+  Seven were they, setting forth,--Princess and King,
+  The King's four brothers and a faithful dog.
+  Those left Hastinapur; but many a man,
+  And all the palace household, followed them
+  The first sad stage: and ofttimes prayed to part,
+
+  Put parting off for love and pity, still
+  Sighing, "A little farther!" till day waned;
+  Then one by one they turned.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+                                 Thus wended they,
+  Pandu's five sons and loveliest Draupadi,
+  Taking no meat and journeying due east,
+  On righteousness their high hearts fed, to heaven
+  Their souls assigned; and steadfast trod their feet--
+  By faith upborne--past nullah ran, and wood,
+  River and jheel and plain. King Yudhi-sthir
+  Walked foremost, Bhima followed, after him
+  Arjuna, and the twin-born brethren next,
+  Nakalu with Sahadev; in whose still steps--
+  O Best of Bharat's offspring!--Draupadi,
+  That gem of women paced, with soft dark face,--
+  Clear-edged like lotus petals; last the dog
+  Following the Pandavas.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+                      While yet those heroes walked,
+  Now to the northward banding, where long coasts
+  Shut in the sea of salt, now to the north,
+  Accomplishing all quarters, journeyed they;
+  The earth their altar of high sacrifice,
+  Which these most patient feet did pace around
+  Till Meru rose.
+
+                    At last it rose! These Six,
+  Their senses subjugate, their spirits pure,
+  Wending along, came into sight--far off
+  In the eastern sky--of awful Himavat;
+  And midway in the peaks of Himavat,
+  Meru, the mountain of all mountains, rose,
+  Whose head is heaven; and under Himavat
+  Glared a wide waste of sand, dreadful as death.
+
+  Then, as they hastened o'er the deathly waste,
+  Aiming for Meru, having thoughts at soul
+  Infinite, eager,--lo! Draupadi reeled,
+  With faltering heart and feet; and Bhima turned,
+  Gazing upon her; and that hero spake
+  To Yudhi-sthira: "Master, Brother, King!
+  Why doth she fail? For never all her life
+  Wrought our sweet lady one thing wrong, I think.
+  Thou knowest; make us know, why hath she failed?"
+
+  Then Yudhi-sthira answered: "Yea, one thing.
+  She loved our brothers better than all else,--
+  Better than Heaven: that was her tender sin,
+  Fault of a faultless soul: she pays for that."
+
+  So spake the monarch, turning not his eyes,
+  Though Draupadi lay dead,--striding straight on
+  For Meru, heart-full of the things of Heaven,
+  Perfect and firm. But yet a little space
+  And Sahadev fell down; which Bhima seeing,
+  Cried once again: "O King, great Madri's son
+  Stumbles and sinks. Why hath he sunk?--so true,
+  So brave and steadfast, and so free from pride!"
+
+  "He was not free," with countenance still fixed,
+  Quoth Yudhi-sthira; "he was true and fast
+  And wise; yet wisdom made him proud; he hid
+  One little hurt of soul, but now it kills."
+
+  So saying, he strode on, Kunti's strong son,
+  And Bhima; and Arjuna followed him,
+  And Nakalu and the hound; leaving behind
+  Sahadev in the sands. But Nakalu,
+  Weakened and grieved to see Sahadev fall--
+  His dear-loved brother--lagged and stayed; and then
+  Prone on his face he fell, that noble face
+  Which had no match for beauty in the land,--
+  Glorious and godlike Nakalu! Then sighed
+  Bhima anew: "Brother and Lord! the man
+  Who never erred from virtue, never broke
+  Our fellowship, and never in the world
+  Was matched for goodly perfectness of form
+  Or gracious feature,--Nakalu has fallen!"
+
+  But Yudhi-sthira, holding fixed his eyes,--
+  That changeless, faithful, all-wise king,--replied:
+  "Yea, but he erred! The god-like form he wore
+  Beguiled him to believe none like to him,
+  And he alone desirable, and things
+  Unlovely, to be slighted. Self-love slays
+  Our noble brother. Bhima, follow! Each
+  Pays what his debt was."
+
+                            Which Arjuna heard,
+  Weeping to see them fall; and that stout son
+  Of Pandu, that destroyer of his foes,
+  That Prince, who drove through crimson waves of war,
+  In old days, with his milk-white chariot-steeds,
+  Him, the arch hero, sank! Beholding this,--
+  The yielding of that soul unconquerable,
+
+  Fearless, divine, from Sakra's self derived,
+  Arjuna's--Bhima cried aloud: "O King!
+  This man was surely perfect. Never once,
+  Not even in slumber, when the lips are loosed,
+  Spake he one word that was not true as truth.
+  Ah, heart of gold! why art thou broke? O King!
+  Whence falleth he?"
+
+                        And Yudhi-sthira said,
+  Not pausing: "Once he lied, a lordly lie!
+  He bragged--our brother--that a single day
+  Should see him utterly consume, alone,
+  All those his enemies,--which could not be.
+  Yet from a great heart sprang the unmeasured speech,
+  Howbeit a finished hero should not shame
+  Himself in such a wise, nor his enemy,
+  If he will faultless fight and blameless die:
+  This was Arjuna's sin. Follow thou me!"
+
+  So the King still went on. But Bhima next
+  Fainted, and stayed upon the way, and sank;
+  But, sinking, cried behind the steadfast Prince:
+  "Ah, Brother, see! I die! Look upon me,
+  Thy well beloved! Wherefore falter I,
+  Who strove to stand?"
+
+                          And Yudhi-sthira said:
+  "More than was well the goodly things of earth
+  Pleased thee, my pleasant brother! Light the offence
+  And large thy spirit; but the o'erfed soul
+  Plumed itself over others. Pritha's son,
+  For this thou fallest, who so near didst gain."
+
+  Thenceforth alone the long-armed monarch strode,
+  Not looking back,--nay, not for Bhima's sake,--
+  But walking with his face set for the Mount;
+  And the hound followed him,--only the hound.
+
+  After the deathly sands, the Mount! and lo!
+  Sakra shone forth,--the God,--filling the earth
+  And Heavens with the thunders of his chariot wheels.
+  "Ascend," he said, "with me, Pritha's great son!"
+  But Yudhi-sthira answered, sore at heart
+  For those his kinsfolk, fallen on the way:
+  "O Thousand-eyed, O Lord of all the gods,
+  Give that my brothers come with me, who fell!
+  Not without them is Swarga sweet to me.
+  She too, the dear and kind and queenly,--she
+  Whose perfect virtue Paradise must crown,--
+  Grant her to come with us! Dost thou grant this?"
+
+  The God replied: "In Heaven thou shalt see
+  Thy kinsmen and the Queen--these will attain--
+  And Krishna. Grieve no longer for thy dead,
+  Thou chief of men! their mortal coverings stripped,
+  These have their places; but to thee, the gods
+  Allow an unknown grace: thou shalt go up,
+  Living and in thy form, to the immortal homes."
+
+  But the King answered: "O thou wisest One,
+  Who know'st what was, and is, and is to be,
+  Still one more grace! This hound hath ate with me,
+  Followed me, loved me; must I leave him now?"
+
+  "Monarch," spake Indra, "thou art now as we,--
+  Deathless, divine; thou art become a god;
+  Glory and power and gifts celestial,
+  And all the joys of heaven are thine for aye:
+  What hath a beast with these? Leave here thy hound."
+
+  Yet Yudhi-sthira answered: "O Most High,
+  O Thousand-Eyed and Wisest! can it be
+  That one exalted should seem pitiless?
+  Nay, let me lose such glory: for its sake
+  I cannot leave one living thing I loved."
+
+  Then sternly Indra spake: "He is unclean,
+  And into Swarga such shall enter not.
+  The Krodhavasha's wrath destroys the fruits
+  Of sacrifice, if dog defile the fire.
+  Bethink thee, Dharmaraj; quit now this beast!
+  That which is seemly is not hard of heart."
+
+  Still he replied: "'Tis written that to spurn
+  A suppliant equals in offence to slay
+  A twice-born; wherefore, not for Swarga's bliss
+  Quit I, Mahendra, this poor clinging dog,--
+  So without any hope or friend save me.
+  So wistful, fawning for my faithfulness;
+  So agonized to die, unless I help
+  Who among men was called steadfast and just."
+
+  Quoth Indra: "Nay, the altar flame is foul
+  Where a dog passeth; angry angels sweep
+  The ascending smoke aside, and all the fruits
+  Of offering, and the merit of the prayer
+  Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here!
+  He that will enter Heaven must enter pure.
+  Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way,
+  And Krishna, and the dear-loved Draupadi,
+  Attaining firm and glorious to this Mount
+  Through perfect deeds, to linger for a brute?
+  Hath Yudhi-sthira vanquished self, to melt
+  With one pure passion at the door of bliss?
+  Stay'st thou for this, who did not stay for them,--
+  Draupadi, Bhima?"
+
+                     But the King yet spake:
+  "'T is known that none can hurt or help the dead.
+  They, the delightful ones, who sank and died.
+  Following my footsteps, could not live again
+  Though I had turned--therefore I did not turn;
+  But could help profit, I had stayed to help.
+  There be four sins, O Sakra, grievous sins:
+  The first is making suppliants despair,
+  The second is to slay a nursing wife,
+  The third is spoiling Brahmans' goods by force,
+  The fourth is injuring an ancient friend.
+  These four I deem not direr than the crime,
+  If one, in coming forth from woe to weal,
+  Abandon any meanest comrade then."
+
+  Straight as he spake, brightly great Indra smiled;
+  Vanished the hound, and in its stead stood there
+  The Lord of Death and Justice, Dharma's self!
+  Sweet were the words which fell from those dread lips,
+  Precious the lovely praise: "O thou true King,
+  Thou that dost bring to harvest the good seed
+  Of Pandu's righteousness; thou that hast ruth
+  As he before, on all which lives!--O Son!
+
+  "Hear thou my word! Because thou didst not mount
+  This car divine, lest the poor hound be shent
+  Who looked to thee, lo! there is none in heaven
+  Shall sit above thee, King! Bharata's son!
+  Enter thou now to the eternal joys,
+  Living and in thy form. Justice and Love
+  Welcome thee, Monarch! thou shalt throne with us!"
+                         ARNOLD: _Indian Idylls_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ILIAD.
+
+
+The Iliad, or story of the fall of Ilium (Troy), is supposed to have been
+written by Homer, about the tenth century B. C. The legendary history of
+Homer represents him as a schoolmaster and poet of Smyrna, who while
+visiting in Ithaca became blind, and afterwards spent his life travelling
+from place to place reciting his poems, until he died in Ios. Seven
+cities, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylos, Argos, and Athens, claimed
+to be his birthplace.
+
+In 1795, Wolf, a German scholar, published his "Prolegomena," which set
+forth his theory that Homer was a fictitious character, and that the Iliad
+was made up of originally unconnected poems, collected and combined by
+Pisistratus.
+
+Though for a time the Wolfian theory had many advocates, it is now
+generally conceded that although the stories of the fall of Troy were
+current long before Homer, they were collected and recast into one poem by
+some great poet. That the Iliad is the work of one man is clearly shown by
+its unity, its sustained simplicity of style, and the centralization of
+interest in the character of Achilles.
+
+The destruction of Troy, for a time regarded as a poetic fiction, is now
+believed by many scholars to be an actual historical event which took
+place about the time of the Ćolian migration.
+
+The whole story of the fall of Troy is not related in the Iliad, the poem
+opening nine years after the beginning of the war, and closing with the
+death of Hector.
+
+The Iliad is divided into twenty-four books, and contains nineteen
+thousand four hundred and sixty-five lines.
+
+As a work of art the Iliad has never been excelled; moreover, it possesses
+what all works of art do not,--"the touches of things human" that make it
+ours, although the centuries lie between us and its unknown author, who
+told his stirring story in such swift-moving verses, with such touches of
+pathos and humor, and with such evident joy of living. Another evidence of
+the perfection of Homer's art is that while his heroes are perfect types
+of Greeks and Trojans, they are also typical men, and for that reason,
+still keep their hold upon us. It is this human interest, simplicity of
+style, and grandeur of treatment that have rendered Homer immortal and his
+work imperishable.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ILIAD.
+
+M. Arnold's Essay on Homer, 1876, pp. 284-425;
+
+H. Bonitz's Origin of the Homeric Poems, tr. 1880;
+
+R. C. Jebb's Introduction to Homer, 1887;
+
+F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 7-17;
+
+A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893;
+
+W. Leaf's Companion to the Iliad for English Readers, 1892;
+
+J. A. Symonds's Studies in Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ILIAD.
+
+The Iliad, Tr. into English blank verse by W. C. Bryant, 2 vols., 1871
+(Primitive in spirit, like Homer. Union of literalness with simplicity);
+
+The Iliad, Tr. according to the Greek with introduction and notes by
+George Chapman [1615], Ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874 (Written in verse. Pope says a
+daring and fiery spirit animates this translation, something like that in
+which one might imagine Homer would have written before he came to years
+of discretion);
+
+The Iliad, Tr. by William Cowper (Very literal and inattentive to melody,
+but has more of simple majesty and manner of Homer than Pope);
+
+The Iliad, rendered into English blank verse by the Earl of Derby, 2
+vols., 1864;
+
+The Iliad, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by the Rev. T. W. A. Buckley,
+n. d. (Written in couplets. Highly ornamented paraphrase).
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ILIAD.
+
+
+For nine years a fleet of one thousand one hundred and eighty-six ships
+and an army of more than one hundred thousand Greeks, under the command of
+Agamemnon, lay before King Priam's city of Troy to avenge the wrongs of
+Menelaus, King of Sparta, and to reclaim Helen, his wife, who had been
+carried away by Priam's son Paris, at the instigation of Venus.
+
+Though they had not succeeded in taking Troy, the Greeks had conquered
+many of the surrounding cities. From one of these, Agamemnon had taken as
+his share of the booty Chryseis, the beautiful daughter of the priest
+Chryses; and when her father had come to ransom her, he had been insulted
+and driven away by the king. Chryses had prayed to Apollo for revenge, and
+the god had sent upon the Greeks a pestilence which was slaying so many
+thousands that a meeting was called to consult upon what to do to check
+the plague and conciliate the god.
+
+Calchas the seer had declared that the plague was sent because of the
+detention of Chryseis, and Agamemnon, though indignant with the priest,
+announced that he would send her back to save his army from destruction.
+"Note, however," said he, "that I have now given up my booty. See that I
+am recompensed for what I lose."
+
+Then rose the leader of the Myrmidons, swift-footed Achilles, in his
+wrath, and denounced Agamemnon for his greediness.
+
+"Thou hast ever had thy share and more of all the booty, and thou knowest
+well that there is now no common store from which to give thee spoil. But
+wait until Troy town is sacked, and we will gladly give thee three and
+fourfold thy recompense."
+
+The angry Agamemnon declared that if he were not given the worth of what
+he had lost he would seize the maidens of Ajax and Ulysses, or Achilles'
+maid, Briseis.
+
+Achilles was beside himself with rage. He had not come to Troy to
+contribute to Agamemnon's glory. He and his followers had long borne the
+brunt of battle only to see the largest share of booty given to Agamemnon,
+who lay idle in his ships. Sooner than endure longer such indignity he
+would return home to Phthia.
+
+"Go!" replied Agamemnon. "I detest thee and thy ways. Go back over the sea
+and rule over thy Myrmidons. But since Phoebus has taken away my maid, I
+will carry off thy prize, thy rosy-cheeked Briseis, that thou may'st learn
+that I am indeed king."
+
+Warned by Pallas Athene, Achilles took his hand from his sword hilt, and
+contented himself with telling Agamemnon that he would see the day when he
+would fret to think he had driven Achilles from the Grecian ranks.
+
+Though the persuasive orator, Nestor, endeavored to make peace between the
+chiefs, Agamemnon could not be softened. As soon as the black ship bearing
+Chryseis set sail, he sent his unwilling men to where Achilles sat by his
+tent, beside the barren deep, to take the fair Briseis, whom Achilles
+ordered to be led forth to them. Then the long days dragged by in the tent
+where the chief sat eating his heart out in idleness, while his men
+engaged in athletic sports, and the rest of the Greeks fought before Troy.
+
+Both armies, worn out with indecisive battles, gladly hailed Hector's
+proposal that a combat between Paris and Menelaus should decide the war.
+
+As the armies stood in silence, watching the preparations for the combat,
+Helen, summoned by Iris, left her room in Priam's palace, where she was
+weaving among her maidens, and, robed and veiled in white, and shedding
+tears at the recollection of her former home and husband, went down to the
+Scaean gates, where sat Priam and the men too old for war. When they saw
+bright-haired Helen they whispered among themselves that it was little
+wonder that men warred for her sake, so fair was she, so like unto the
+deathless goddesses.
+
+In response to Priam's tender greeting she seated herself beside him and
+pointed out the Greek heroes,--Agamemnon, ruler over wide lands, crafty
+Ulysses, and the mighty Ajax; but she strained her eyes in vain for a
+sight of her dearly loved brothers, Castor and Pollux, not knowing that
+they already lay dead in pleasant Lacedaemon.
+
+In the single combat between Paris and Menelaus, the spear of the Greek
+was fixed in Paris's buckler, and his sword was shivered on his helmet
+without injury to the Trojan. But, determined to overcome his hateful foe,
+Menelaus seized Paris by the helm and dragged him towards the Grecian
+ranks. Great glory would have been his had not the watchful Venus loosed
+the helm and snatched away the god-like Paris in a cloud. While the Greeks
+demanded Helen and her wealth as the price of Menelaus's victory,
+Pandarus, prompted by Pallas, broke the truce by a shot aimed at Menelaus,
+and the battle soon raged with greater fury than before.
+
+Diomed, having received new strength and courage from Pallas, rushed madly
+over the field, falling upon the affrighted Trojans like a lion in the
+sheepfold; then, made more presumptuous by his success, and forgetful of
+the few years promised the man who dares to meet the gods in battle, the
+arrogant warrior struck at Venus and wounded her in the wrist, so that,
+shrieking with pain, she yielded Ćneas to Apollo, and fled to Olympus.
+
+Perceiving that the Trojans were unable to withstand the fury of Diomed,
+assisted as he was by Pallas and Juno, Hector hastened homeward to order a
+sacrifice to Pallas that she might look with more favor upon their cause.
+
+Having instructed his mother to lay her richest robe on Pallas's shrine,
+Hector sought his wife, the white-armed Andromache, and their babe,
+Astyanax. Andromache entreated Hector to go forth no more to battle, to
+lose his life and leave their babe fatherless; but Hector, upon whom the
+cares of war sat heavily, bade her a tender farewell, and kissing the
+babe, returned with Paris to the field.
+
+Incited by Pallas and Apollo, Helenus suggested to his brother Hector that
+he should challenge the bravest of the Greeks to single combat. The lot
+fell to Ajax the Greater, and the two mighty heroes contested with spears
+and stones until twilight fell, and they were parted by a herald.
+
+That night the Greeks feasted, and when, the next morning, a Trojan
+messenger offered them the treasures of Helen if they would withdraw from
+Troy, and proposed a truce, they indignantly rejected the offer, declaring
+that they would not even accept Helen herself, but agreed upon a truce in
+which to bury the dead.
+
+When the battle was renewed, Jupiter forbade the gods to take part.
+Opposed by no celestial foes, the Trojans were this day successful, and
+having pursued the Greeks to the ships, sat all night, full of hope,
+around their thousand watch fires, waiting for the morn.
+
+In the Grecian camp, however, a different scene was being enacted.
+Disheartened by their defeat, Agamemnon proposed that the armies give up
+the siege and return to Greece.
+
+Angry at his weakness, Diomed thus reproached him:--
+
+"The gods have granted thee high rank and rule, but thou hast no
+fortitude. Return if thou desirest. Still enough long-haired Achaians will
+remain to take the city. If they desire to go as well, at least Sthenelus
+and I will remain until Troy is ours. We have the gods with us."
+
+At the suggestion of Nestor a banquet was spread, and after the hunger of
+all was appeased, the peril of the Greeks was discussed in the Council of
+the Elders. Here Nestor showed Agamemnon that the trouble began at the
+hour when he drove Achilles from their ranks by appropriating Briseis.
+
+Ill fortune had humbled the haughty Agamemnon, and he confessed that he
+had done wrong. "For this wrong, however," said he, "I am ready to make
+ample amends. Priceless gifts I will send to Achilles: seven tripods, six
+talents of pure gold, twenty shining caldrons, twelve steeds, seven
+damsels, among them Briseis; not only this, when Priam's citadel falls, he
+shall be the first to load his galley down with gold and silver and with
+Trojan maidens. Better yet, I will unite him to me by the ties of
+marriage. I will give him my daughter for a wife, and with her for a dower
+will go seven cities near the sea, rich in flocks and herds. Then let him
+yield, and join us in taking Troy."
+
+Joyfully the messengers--Ajax, Ulysses, and the aged Phoenix, carefully
+instructed by Nestor--set forth on their embassy. As they neared the tents
+of the Myrmidons their ears were struck by the notes of a silver harp
+touched by Achilles to solace him in his loneliness. His friend Patroclus
+sat beside him in silence. Achilles and Patroclus greeted the messengers
+warmly, mingled the pure wine, and spread a feast for them. This over,
+Ulysses, at a nod from Ajax, drank to Achilles' health, and then told him
+of the sore need of the Greeks, pressed by the Trojans. If he did not come
+to their aid, he whose very name frightened the enemy, the time would
+surely come when he would greatly lament his idleness.
+
+Achilles' passion, the greater for its fifteen days' repression, burst
+forth in his reply: "I will say what I have in my heart," he cried, "since
+concealment is hateful to me. What thanks does the victor in countless
+battles gain? He and the idler are equally honored, and die the same
+death. Many nights' slumber have I lost on the battle field; many cities
+have I conquered, abroad and here upon the Trojan coast, and of the spoil,
+the greater part has gone to Agamemnon, who sat idle in his fleet; yet
+from me, who suffered much in fighting, he took my prize, my dearly loved
+Briseis; now let him keep her. Let him learn for himself how to conquer
+Hector,--this Hector, who, when I went out against him, was afraid to
+leave the shelter of the Scaean gates. To-morrow, if you but watch, you
+will see my galleys sailing upon the Hellespont on our return to Phthia.
+Evil was the hour in which I left its fertile coasts for this barren
+shore, where my mother Thetis foretold I should win deathless renown but
+bitter death.
+
+"Tell Agamemnon that I will never wed a child of his. On my return to
+Phthia my father will select a bride for me with whom, on his broad
+fields, I can live the life I have dreamed of."
+
+The entreaties of the aged Phoenix, who had helped to rear Achilles, and
+his arguments against his mercilessness, were of no avail; neither were
+the words of Ajax. However, he at last sent the message that he would
+remain by the sea watching the course of the war, and that he would
+encounter Hector whenever he approached to set fire to the galleys of the
+Myrmidons.
+
+That night sleep did not visit the eyes of Agamemnon. Long he reflected on
+the reply of Achilles, and wondered at the watch fires on the plain before
+Troy. The other chiefs were likewise full of anxiety, and when Nestor
+offered a reward to any one who would go as a spy to the Trojan camp,
+Diomed quickly volunteered. Selecting the wary Ulysses as his companion,
+he stole forth to where the Trojans sat around their camp fires. The pair
+intercepted and slew Dolon the spy, and finding Rhesus and his Thracian
+band wrapped in slumber, slew the king with twelve of his chiefs, and
+carried away his chariot and horses.
+
+Encouraged by this bold deed, the Greeks went forth to battle the next
+morning. Fortune still favored the Trojans, however, and many Greeks fell
+by the hand of Hector, until he was checked by Ulysses and Diomed. In the
+fight, Agamemnon was wounded, and Diomed, Ulysses, and Machaon. And when
+Achilles from his tent saw the physician borne back from battle wounded,
+in the chariot of Nestor, he sent Patroclus to inquire of his injury.
+Nestor sent word that Ulysses, Agamemnon, Diomed, Machaon, and Eurypylus
+were wounded; perhaps these tidings would induce Achilles to forget his
+grievances, and once more go forth to battle. If not, he urged Patroclus
+to beseech Achilles to permit him, Patroclus, to go forth with the
+Myrmidons, clad in Achilles' armor, and strike terror to the hearts of the
+Trojans.
+
+The Trojans, encouraged by their success, pushed forward to the trench
+which the Greeks had dug around the wall thrown up before the ships, and,
+leaving their chariots on the brink, went on foot to the gates. After a
+long struggle,--because the Trojans could not break down the wall and the
+Greeks could not drive back the Trojans,--Hector seized a mighty stone, so
+large that two men could scarcely lift it, and bearing it in one hand,
+battered the bolted gates until they gave way with a crash; and the
+Trojans sprang within, pursuing the affrighted Greeks to the ships.
+
+From the heights of Olympus the gods kept a strict watch on the battle;
+and as soon as Neptune discovered that Jove, secure in the belief that no
+deity would interfere with the successful Trojans, had turned away his
+eyes, he went to the aid of the Greeks. Juno, also, furious at the sight
+of the Greeks who had fallen before the mighty Hector, determined to turn
+the attention of Jove until Neptune had had an opportunity to assist the
+Greeks. Jove sat upon the peaks of Mount Ida, and thither went Juno, after
+rendering herself irresistible by borrowing the cestus of Venus. Jove,
+delighted with the appearance of his wife, and still further won by her
+tender words and caresses, thought no longer of the armies fighting at the
+Grecian wall.
+
+Great was his anger when, after a time, he again looked towards Troy and
+saw that Neptune had employed his time in aiding the Greeks, and that
+Hector had been wounded by Ajax. By his orders Neptune was quickly
+recalled, Hector was healed by Apollo, and the Trojans, strengthened again
+by Jupiter, drove back the Greeks to the ships, and attempted to set fire
+to the fleet.
+
+Seeing the Greeks in such desperate straits, Achilles at last gave his
+consent that Patroclus should put on his armor, take his Myrmidons, and
+drive the Trojans from the ships, stipulating, however, that he should
+return when this was done, and not follow the Trojans in their flight to
+Troy.
+
+The appearance of the supposed Achilles struck fear to the hearts of the
+Trojans, and Patroclus succeeded in driving them from the fleet and in
+slaying Sarpedon. Intoxicated by his success, he forgot Achilles' warning,
+and pursued the fleeing Trojans to the walls of Troy. The strength of the
+Trojans was not sufficient to cope with that of Patroclus; and Troy would
+have been taken had not Apollo stood upon a tower to thrust him down each
+time he attempted to scale the walls. At last Hector and Patroclus
+encountered each other, and fought furiously. Seeing the peril of Hector,
+Apollo smote Patroclus's helmet off, broke his spear, and loosed his
+buckler. Still undaunted, the hero fought until he fell, and died with the
+boasting words of Hector in his ears.
+
+Speedily the swift-footed Antilochus conveyed to Achilles the tidings of
+his friend's death. Enveloped in "a black cloud of sorrow," Achilles
+rolled in the dust and lamented for his friend until warned by Iris that
+the enemy were about to secure Patroclus's body. Then, without armor,--for
+Hector had secured that of Patroclus and put it on,--he hastened to the
+trench, apart from the other Greeks, and shouted thrice, until the men of
+Troy, panic-stricken, fell back in disorder, and the body of his friend
+was carried away by the triumphant Greeks.
+
+Through the long night the Achaians wept over Patroclus; but deeper than
+their grief was the sorrow of Achilles, for he had promised Menoetius to
+bring back his son in honor, laden with spoils, and now the barren coast
+of Troy would hold the ashes of both. Then Achilles made a solemn vow not
+to celebrate the funeral rites of Patroclus until he brought to him the
+head and arms of Hector, and had captured on the field twelve Trojan
+youths to slaughter on his funeral pile. The hated Hector slain and
+Patroclus's funeral rites celebrated, he cared not for the future. The
+fate his mother had foretold did not daunt him. Since, by his own folly,
+his dearest friend had been taken from him, the sooner their ashes rested
+together the better. If he was not to see the rich fields of Phthia, his
+was to be, at least, a deathless renown.
+
+To take the place of the arms which Hector had taken from Patroclus,
+Vulcan, at Thetis's request, had fashioned for Achilles the most beautiful
+armor ever worn by man. Brass, tin, silver, and gold composed the bright
+corselet, the solid helm, and the wondrous shield, adorned with such
+pictures as no mortal artist ever wrought.
+
+After having feasted his eyes on this beautiful armor, whose clanking
+struck terror even to the hearts of the Myrmidons, Achilles sought out the
+Greeks and Agamemnon, and in the assembly acknowledged his fault. "Let
+these things belong to the dead past," said he. "My wrath is done. Let us
+now stir the long-haired Greeks to war."
+
+"Fate, not I, was the cause of our trouble," replied Agamemnon. "The
+goddess of discord created the dissension, that Até who troubled even the
+gods on Olympus until expelled by Jupiter. But I will make amends with
+liberal gifts."
+
+Peace having been made between the chiefs, Achilles returned to his tent
+without partaking of the banquet spread by Agamemnon, as he had vowed not
+to break his fast until he had avenged his friend. Agamemnon's gifts were
+carried to the tents of Achilles by the Myrmidons, and with them went
+Briseis, who, when she saw the body of Patroclus, threw herself upon it
+and wept long for the one whose kindness to her--whose lot had been sorrow
+upon sorrow--she could never forget. All the women mourned, seemingly for
+Patroclus, really for their own griefs. Achilles likewise wept, until,
+strengthened by Pallas, he hastened to put his armor on and urge the
+Greeks to battle.
+
+As he mounted his chariot he spoke thus to his fleet steeds, Xanthus and
+Balius: "Bring me back when the battle is over, I charge you, my noble
+steeds. Leave me not on the field, as you left Patroclus."
+
+Then Xanthus, with the long-flowing mane, endowed with power of speech by
+Juno, thus spake: "This day, at least, we will bring thee home, Achilles;
+but the hour of thy death is nigh, and, since the fates have decreed it,
+we could not save thee, were we swift as the winged winds. Nor was it
+through fault of ours that Patroclus fell."
+
+Angry at the reminder of his doom, Achilles drove hurriedly to the field,
+determined to fight until he had made the Trojans sick of war.
+
+Knowing that the war was drawing rapidly to a close, Jupiter gave
+permission to the gods to take part in it, and a terrible combat ensued.
+Juno, Pallas, Neptune, Hermes, and Vulcan went to the fleet of the Greeks,
+while Mars, Apollo, Diana, Latona, Venus, and Xanthus arrayed themselves
+with the Trojans. When the gods joined in the combat and Neptune shook the
+earth and Jupiter thundered from above, there was such tumult in the air
+that even the dark god of the underworld was terrified. In the battle of
+the gods, Apollo encountered Neptune, Pallas fought against Mars, Diana
+and Juno opposed each other, Hermes was pitted against Latona, and Xanthus
+or Scamander, the river god, strove against Vulcan. It was not long before
+Jupiter's fear was realized, and the mortals needed the aid of the gods.
+Ćneas, encouraged by Apollo to confront Achilles, was rescued only by the
+intervention of Neptune, who, remembering that it was the will of fate
+that Ćneas should be spared to perpetuate the Dardan race, snatched him
+away in a cloud, although he was himself aiding the Greeks.
+
+Mad with rage and spattered with blood, Achilles pursued the flying
+Trojans about the plain, sparing none except the twelve youths who were to
+be butchered on the funeral pile of Patroclus. He stood in the river,
+filling it with slaughtered bodies until, indignant at the insults offered
+him, the river god Scamander caused his waters to rush after Achilles so
+that he fled for his life. Far across the plain it chased him, and was
+only stopped by the fires of Vulcan, summoned by Juno.
+
+By an artifice of Apollo, Achilles was decoyed away from the gates of Troy
+long enough to allow the Trojans to enter. Hector, however, stayed
+without, unmoved by the prayers of Priam and Hecuba. Too late he saw his
+error in not heeding the advice of Polydamas to keep within the walls
+after the re-appearance of Achilles; he feared the reproaches of the
+Trojan warriors and dames, and determined to meet his fate, whatever it
+might be. Even death at the hands of Achilles would be preferable to the
+insults and reproaches that might await him within the walls.
+
+When he saw Achilles approach in his god-given armor, fear seized the
+noble Hector, and he fled from his enemy. Thrice around the walls he fled,
+Achilles pursuing, and the gods looked down from heaven in sorrow, for,
+according to the decrees of fate, Hector must fall this day by the hand of
+Achilles. To hasten the combat, Pallas assumed the form of Hector's
+brother Deiphobus, and stood by his side, encouraging him to turn and meet
+his foe.
+
+Hector soon perceived the deception, but boldly faced Achilles, who sprang
+at him, brandishing his awful spear. Quickly stooping, Hector avoided the
+weapon and hurled his spear at Achilles. It was an unequal conflict. The
+armor of Achilles was weapon proof, and Pallas stood at his elbow to
+return to him his weapons. Achilles knew well the weak spots in his old
+armor worn by Hector, and selecting a seam unguarded by the shield, he
+gave Hector a mortal wound, and insulted him as he lay dying at his feet.
+
+Tears and wailing filled the city as the Trojans watched the combat; and
+despair fell upon them when they saw the body of Hector fastened to the
+chariot of Achilles and dragged thrice around the Trojan walls. From her
+chamber where she sat weaving, unaware of the mortal combat waged before
+the walls, Andromache came forth to see great Hector fallen and his corpse
+insulted by his enemy.
+
+While Priam sat in his palace with dust strewn on his head, and the
+wailings of the women filled the streets of Troy, the Greeks were
+hastening to their camps to celebrate the funeral rites of Patroclus,
+whose body had been saved from corruption by Thetis. A massive funeral
+pile was constructed of wood brought from the forests on Mount Ida. The
+chiefs in their chariots and thousands of men on foot followed the body of
+Patroclus. The comrades of the dead warrior cut off their long hair and
+strewed it on the dead, and Achilles sheared his yellow hair and placed
+the locks in Patroclus's hands. He had suffered the flowing curls to grow
+long because of a vow made by his father to the river Sperchius that he
+would sacrifice these locks to him on his son's return home, a useless
+vow, since now he was to lose his life by this dark blue sea.
+
+Next the sacrifice was offered, many fatlings of the flock, and countless
+oxen, noble steeds, dogs, jars of honey, and lastly the bodies of the
+twelve Trojan youths were heaped upon the fire.
+
+After the flames had consumed the pile, Achilles and his friends quenched
+the ashes with red wine, and gathered the bones of Patroclus in a golden
+vase which Achilles commanded his friends not to bury until he, too, fell
+before Troy, that their ashes might be mingled and buried under one mound
+by the remaining Greeks.
+
+After the funeral rites were celebrated, the funeral games were held, in
+which the warriors vied with each other in chariot racing, boxing,
+wrestling, foot racing, throwing the spear, and archery.
+
+So ended the funeral of Patroclus, and the gods, looking down from heaven,
+sorrowed for Hector, whose corpse Achilles was treating with such
+indignity, intending that the dogs should destroy it. The gods had kept
+the body unstained, and now they determined to soften Achilles' heart,
+that he might restore it to Priam.
+
+Iris descended from heaven, and standing at the side of Priam as he sat
+with dust-strewn head, in his palace halls, gave him Jove's command that
+he should take gifts and visit Achilles, to ransom Hector's body. Heeding
+not the prayers of Hecuba, Priam gathered together whatever was most
+choice, talents of pure gold, beautiful goblets, handsome robes and
+tunics, and seating himself in his polished car, drawn by strong-hoofed
+mules, set forth unaccompanied save by an aged herald. Above him soared
+Jove's eagle, in token of the god's protection.
+
+Priam had not gone far when he met Mercury in the guise of a Greek youth,
+who guided him unseen through the slumbering Greek lines to the tent of
+Achilles.
+
+The hero was just finishing his repast when the old king entered, fell on
+his knees, kissed the cruel hands that had slain so many of his sons, and
+prayed him to give up the body of his loved Hector in return for the
+ransom he had brought with him. Achilles, recognizing the fact that Priam
+had made his way there uninjured only by the assistance and protection of
+some god, and touched by the thought of his own aged father, whom he
+should never again gladden by his return to Phthia, granted the request,
+and bade Priam seat himself at the table and banquet with him. He also
+granted a twelve days' truce for the celebration of the funeral rites of
+Hector, and then invited Priam to pass the night in his tent. Warned by
+Mercury, Priam rose early in the morning, and, unseen by the Greeks,
+conveyed Hector's body back to Troy.
+
+When the polished car of Priam entered the city of Troy, great were the
+lamentations and wailings over the body of Hector. Hecuba and Andromache
+vied with each other in the bitterness of their grief, and Helen lamented
+because the only friend she had in Troy had departed, and no one who
+remained would be kind to her.
+
+During the twelve days granted as a truce, wood was brought from Ida, and
+the funeral rites of Hector were celebrated as befitted the son of a great
+king.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE ILIAD.
+
+HELEN AT THE SCAEAN GATES.
+
+
+Paris, moved by the reproaches of Hector, proposed that the nine years'
+indecisive war be settled by single combat between himself and Menelaus,
+the victor to take Helen and the treasure. Greeks and Trojans agreed to
+this proposition, and the tidings of the approaching combat were borne to
+Helen by Iris.
+
+  In the heart of Helen woke
+  Dear recollections of her former spouse
+  And of her home and kindred. Instantly
+  She left her chamber, robed and veiled in white,
+  And shedding tender tears; yet not alone,
+  For with her went two maidens,--Aethra, child
+  Of Pitheus, and the large-eyed Clymene.
+  Straight to the Scaean gates they walked, by which
+  Panthoüs, Priam, and Thymoetes sat,
+  Lampus and Clytius, Hicetaon sprung
+  From Mars, Antenor and Ucalegon,
+  Two sages,--elders of the people all.
+  Beside the gates they sat, unapt, through age,
+  For tasks of war, but men of fluent speech,
+  Like the cicadas that within the wood
+  Sit on the trees and utter delicate sounds.
+  Such were the nobles of the Trojan race
+  Who sat upon the tower. But when they marked
+  The approach of Helen, to each other thus
+  With winged words, but in low tones, they said:--
+
+  "Small blame is theirs, if both the Trojan knights
+  And brazen-mailed Achaians have endured
+  So long so many evils for the sake
+  Of that one woman. She is wholly like
+  In feature to the deathless goddesses.
+  So be it: let her, peerless as she is,
+  Return on board the fleet, nor stay to bring
+  Disaster upon us and all our race."
+
+  So spake the elders. Priam meantime called
+  To Helen: "Come, dear daughter, sit by me.
+  Thou canst behold thy former husband hence,
+  Thy kindred and thy friends. I blame thee not;
+  The blame is with the immortals who have sent
+  These pestilent Greeks against me. Sit and name
+  For me this mighty man, the Grecian chief,
+  Gallant and tall. True, there are taller men;
+  But of such noble form and dignity
+  I never saw: in truth, a kingly man."
+
+  And Helen, fairest among women, thus
+  Answered: "Dear second father, whom at once
+  I fear and honor, would that cruel death
+  Had overtaken me before I left,
+  To wander with thy son, my marriage bed,
+  And my dear daughter, and the company
+  Of friends I loved. But that was not to be;
+  And now I pine and weep. Yet will I tell
+  What thou dost ask. The hero whom thou seest
+  Is the wide-ruling Agamemnon, son
+  Of Atreus, and is both a gracious king
+  And a most dreaded warrior. He was once
+  Brother-in-law to me, if I may speak--
+  Lost as I am to shame--of such a tie."
+
+  She said, the aged man admired, and then
+  He spake again: "O son of Atreus, born
+  Under a happy fate, and fortunate
+  Among the sons of men! A mighty host
+  Of Grecian youths obey thy rule. I went
+  To Phrygia once,--that land of vines,--and there
+  Saw many Phrygians, heroes on fleet steeds,
+  The troops of Otreus, and of Mygdon, shaped
+  Like one of the immortals. They encamped
+  By the Sangarius. I was an ally;
+  My troops were ranked with theirs upon the day
+  When came the unsexed Amazons to war.
+  Yet even there I saw not such a host
+  As this of black-eyed Greeks who muster here."
+  Then Priam saw Ulysses, and inquired:--
+  "Dear daughter, tell me also who is that,
+  Less tall than Agamemnon, yet more broad
+  In chest and shoulders. On the teeming earth
+  His armor lies, but he, from place to place,
+  Walks round among the ranks of soldiery,
+  As when the thick-fleeced father of the flocks
+  Moves through the multitude of his white sheep."
+  And Jove-descended Helen answered thus:--
+  "That is Ulysses, man of many arts,
+  Son of Laertes, reared in Ithaca,
+  That rugged isle, and skilled in every form
+  Of shrewd device and action wisely planned."
+  Then spake the sage Antenor: "Thou hast said
+  The truth, O lady. This Ulysses once
+  Came on an embassy, concerning thee,
+  To Troy with Menelaus, great in war;
+  And I received them as my guests, and they
+  Were lodged within my palace, and I learned
+  The temper and the qualities of both.
+  When both were standing 'mid the men of Troy,
+  I marked that Menelaus's broad chest
+  Made him the more conspicuous, but when both
+  Were seated, greater was the dignity
+  Seen in Ulysses. When they both addressed
+  The council, Menelaus briefly spake
+  In pleasing tones, though with few words,--as one
+  Not given to loose and wandering speech,--although
+  The younger. When the wise Ulysses rose,
+  He stood with eyes cast down, and fixed on earth,
+  And neither swayed his sceptre to the right
+  Nor to the left, but held it motionless,
+  Like one unused to public speech. He seemed
+  An idiot out of humor. But when forth
+  He sent from his full lungs his mighty voice,
+  And words came like a fall of winter snow,
+  No mortal then would dare to strive with him
+  For mastery in speech. We less admired
+  The aspect of Ulysses than his words."
+  Beholding Ajax then, the aged king
+  Asked yet again: "Who is that other chief
+  Of the Achaians, tall, and large of limb,--
+  Taller and broader-chested than the rest?"
+  Helen, the beautiful and richly-robed,
+  Answered: "Thou seest the might Ajax there,
+  The bulwark of the Greeks. On the other side,
+  Among his Cretans, stands Idomeneus,
+  Of godlike aspect, near to whom are grouped
+  The leaders of the Cretans. Oftentimes
+  The warlike Menelaus welcomed him
+  Within our palace, when he came from Crete.
+  I could point out and name the other chiefs
+  Of the dark-eyed Achaians. Two alone,
+  Princes among their people, are not seen,--
+  Castor the fearless horseman, and the skilled
+  In boxing, Pollux,--twins; one mother bore
+  Both them and me. Came they not with the rest
+  From pleasant Lacedaemon to the war?
+  Or, having crossed the deep in their goodships,
+  Shun they to fight among the valiant ones
+  Of Greece, because of my reproach and shame?"
+  She spake; but they already lay in earth
+  In Lacedaemon, their dear native land.
+
+                            _Bryants Translation, Book III._
+
+
+
+
+THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
+
+
+The single combat between Paris and Menelaus broke up in a general battle
+unfavorable to the Trojans, and Hector returned to Troy to order the
+Trojan matrons to sacrifice to Pallas. He then sought his dwelling to
+greet his wife and child, but learned from one of the maids that
+Andromache, on hearing that the Greeks were victorious, had hastened to
+the city walls with the child and its nurse,
+
+  Hector left in haste
+  The mansion, and retraced his way between
+  The rows of stately dwellings, traversing
+  The mighty city. When at length he reached
+  The Scaean gates, that issue on the field,
+  His spouse, the nobly-dowered Andromache,
+  Came forth to meet him,--daughter of the prince
+  Eëtion, who among the woody slopes
+  Of Placos, in the Hypoplacian town
+  Of Thebč, ruled Cilicia and her sons,
+  And gave his child to Hector great in arms.
+  She came attended by a maid, who bore
+  A tender child--a babe too young to speak--
+  Upon her bosom,--Hector's only son,
+  Beautiful as a star, whom Hector called
+  Scamandrius, but all else Astyanax,--
+  The city's lord,--since Hector stood the sole
+  Defence of Troy. The father on his child
+  Looked with a silent smile. Andromache
+  Pressed to his side meanwhile, and, all in tears,
+  Clung to his hand, and, thus beginning, said:--
+
+  "Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death.
+  Thou hast no pity on thy tender child
+  Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be
+  Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee
+  To take thy life. A happier lot were mine,
+  If I must lose thee, to go down to earth,
+  For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,--
+  Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none,
+  And no dear mother. Great Achilles slew
+  My father when he sacked the populous town
+  Of the Cilicians,--Thebč with high gates.
+  'T was there he smote Eëtion, yet forbore
+  To make his arms a spoil; he dared not that,
+  But burned the dead with his bright armor on,
+  And raised a mound above him. Mountain-nymphs,
+  Daughters of aegis-bearing Jupiter,
+  Came to the spot and planted it with elms.
+  Seven brothers had I in my father's house,
+  And all went down to Hades in one day.
+  Achilles the swift-footed slew them all
+  Among their slow-paced bullocks and white sheep.
+  My mother, princess on the woody slopes
+  Of Placos, with his spoils he bore away,
+  And only for large ransom gave her back.
+  But her Diana, archer-queen, struck down
+  Within her father's palace. Hector, thou
+  Art father and dear mother now to me,
+  And brother and my youthful spouse besides.
+  In pity keep within the fortress here,
+  Nor make thy child an orphan nor thy wife
+  A widow. Post thine army near the place
+  Of the wild fig-tree, where the city-walls
+  Are low and may be scaled. Thrice in war
+  The boldest of the foe have tried the spot,--
+  The Ajaces and the famed Idomeneus,
+  The two chiefs born to Atreus, and the brave
+  Tydides, whether counselled by some seer
+  Or prompted to the attempt by their own minds."
+
+  Then answered Hector, great in war: "All this
+  I bear in mind, dear wife; but I should stand
+  Ashamed before the men and long-robed dames
+  Of Troy, were I to keep aloof and shun
+  The conflict, coward-like. Not thus my heart
+  Prompts me, for greatly have I learned to dare
+  And strike among the foremost sons of Troy,
+  Upholding my great father's fame and mine;
+  Yet well in my undoubting mind I know
+  The day shall come in which our sacred Troy,
+  And Priam, and the people over whom
+  Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.
+  But not the sorrows of the Trojan race,
+  Nor those of Hecuba herself, nor those
+  Of royal Priam, nor the woes that wait
+  My brothers many and brave,--who all at last,
+  Slain by the pitiless foe, shall lie in dust,--
+  Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek
+  Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee
+  Thy day of freedom. Thou in Argos then
+  Shalt at another's bidding ply the loom,
+  And from the fountain of Messeis draw
+  Water, or from the Hypereian spring,
+  Constrained unwilling by thy cruel lot.
+  And then shall some one say who sees thee weep,
+  'This was the wife of Hector, most renowned
+  Of the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought
+  Around their city.' So shall some one say,
+  And thou shalt grieve the more, lamenting him
+  Who haply might have kept afar the day
+  Of thy captivity. O let the earth
+  Be heaped above my head in death before
+  I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!"
+  So speaking, mighty Hector stretched his arms
+  To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back
+  To his fair nurse's bosom, scared to see
+  His father helmeted in glittering brass,
+  And eying with affright the horsehair plume
+  That grimly nodded from the lofty crest.
+  At this both parents in their fondness laughed;
+  And hastily the mighty Hector took
+  The helmet from his brow and laid it down
+  Gleaming upon the ground, and, having kissed
+  His darling son and tossed him up in play,
+  Prayed thus to Jove and all the gods of heaven:--
+  "O Jupiter and all ye deities,
+  Vouchsafe that this my son may yet become
+  Among the Trojans eminent like me,
+  And nobly rule in Ilium. May they say,
+  'This man is greater than his father was!'
+  When they behold him from the battle-field
+  Bring back the bloody spoil of the slain foe,--
+  That so his mother may be glad at heart."
+  So speaking, to the arms of his dear spouse
+  He gave the boy; she on her fragrant breast
+  Received him, weeping as she smiled. The chief
+  Beheld, and, moved with tender pity, smoothed
+  Her forehead gently with his hand, and said:--
+  "Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me.
+  No living man can send me to the shades
+  Before my time; no man of woman born,
+  Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
+
+  But go thou home, and tend thy labors there,--
+  The web, the distaff,--and command thy maids
+  To speed the work. The cares of war pertain
+  To all men born in Troy, and most to me."
+  Thus speaking, mighty Hector took again
+  His helmet, shadowed with the horsehair plume,
+  While homeward his beloved consort went,
+  Oft looking back, and shedding many tears.
+  Soon was she in the spacious palace-halls
+  Of the man-queller Hector. There she found
+  A troop of maidens,--with them all she shared
+  Her grief; and all in his own house bewailed
+  The living Hector, whom they thought no more
+  To see returning from the battle-field,
+  Safe from the rage and weapons of the Greeks.
+                          _Bryant's Translation, Book VI._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ODYSSEY.
+
+  "The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."
+
+
+The Odyssey relates the adventures of Ulysses on his return to Ithaca
+after the Trojan war.
+
+It consists of twenty-four books, the first four of which are sometimes
+known as the Telemachia, because Telemachus is the principal figure.
+
+The difference in style of the Iliad and Odyssey has caused some critics
+to assert that the latter is not the work of Homer; this is accounted for,
+however, by the difference of subject, and it is probable that the
+Odyssey, though of a later date, is the work of the same hand, "the work
+of Homer's old age,--an epic bathed in a mellow light of sunset."
+
+If the Odyssey alone had come down to us, its authorship would have passed
+unquestioned, for the poem is so compact, its plot so carefully planned
+and so skilfully carried out, that there can be no doubt that it is the
+work of one hand.
+
+The Odyssey is as great a work of art as the Iliad, and is even more
+popular; for the Odyssey is a domestic romance, and as such appeals to a
+larger audience than a tale of war alone,--the romance of the wandering
+Ulysses and the faithful Penelope. Interwoven with it are the ever-popular
+fairy tales of Ulysses's wanderings and descriptions of home life. It is
+marked by the same pagan enjoyment of life, the same freshness and charm
+that lend enchantment to the Iliad.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ODYSSEY.
+
+
+F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 17-25;
+
+A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893, chaps. 8-13;
+
+J. A. Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893;
+
+J. E. Harrison's Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature, 1882;
+
+W. J. Stillman's On the Track of Ulysses, 1888;
+
+F. W. Newman's The Authorship of the Odyssey (in his Miscellanies, vol.
+v.);
+
+J. Spence's Essay on Pope's Translation of the Odyssey, 1837.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ODYSSEY.
+
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. into English blank verse by W. C. Bryant, 2 vols., 1871;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. according to the Greek, with introduction and notes by
+George Chapman, ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by William Cowper;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by G. H. Palmer, 1894 (prose);
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by Rev. T. W. A. Buckley,
+n. d.;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang, 1879 (prose).
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY.
+
+
+After the fall of Troy, Agamemnon returned to Argos, where he was
+treacherously slain by Aegisthus, the corrupter of his wife; Menelaus
+reached Sparta in safety, laden with spoil and reunited to the beautiful
+Helen; Nestor resumed the rule of Pylos, but Ulysses remained absent from
+Ithaca, where his wife Penelope still grieved for him, though steadfast in
+her belief that he would return. One hundred and fourteen suitors, princes
+from Dulichium, Samos, Zacynthus, and Ithaca, determined to wed Penelope
+that they might obtain the rich possessions of Ulysses, spent their time
+in revelling in his halls and wasting his wealth, thinking in this way to
+force Penelope to wed some one of them.
+
+Penelope, as rich in resources as was her crafty husband, announced to
+them that she would wed when she had woven a funeral garment for Laertes,
+the father of Ulysses. During the day she wove industriously, but at night
+she unravelled what she had done that day, so that to the expectant
+suitors the task seemed interminable. After four years her artifice was
+revealed to the suitors by one of her maids, and she was forced to find
+other excuses to postpone her marriage. In the mean time, her son
+Telemachus, now grown to manhood, disregarded by the suitors on account of
+his youth, and treated as a child by his mother, was forced to sit
+helpless in his halls, hearing the insults of the suitors and seeing his
+rich possessions wasted.
+
+Having induced Jove to end the sufferings of Ulysses, Pallas caused Hermes
+to be dispatched to Calypso's isle to release the hero, while she herself
+descended to Ithaca in the guise of Mentes. There she was received
+courteously by the youth, who sat unhappy among the revellers. At a table
+apart from the others, Telemachus told the inquiring stranger who they
+were who thus wasted his patrimony.
+
+"Something must needs be done speedily," said Mentes, "and I shall tell
+thee how to thrust them from thy palace gates. Take a ship and go to Pylos
+to inquire of the aged and wise Nestor what he knows of thy father's fate.
+Thence go to Menelaus, in Sparta; he was the last of all the mailed Greeks
+to return home. If thou hear encouraging tidings, wait patiently for a
+year. At the end of that time, if thy father come not, celebrate his
+funeral rites, let thy mother wed again, and take immediate steps for the
+destruction of the suitor band. Thou art no longer a child; the time has
+come for thee to assert thyself and be a man."
+
+Telemachus, long weary of inactivity, was pleased with this advice, and at
+once announced to the incredulous suitors his intention of going to learn
+the fate of his father. A boat was procured and provided with a crew by
+the aid of Pallas, and provisioned from the secret store-room guarded by
+the old and faithful servant Eurycleia. From among the treasures of
+Ulysses--garments, heaps of gold and brass, and old and delicate
+wines--Telemachus took sweet wine and meal to be conveyed to the ship at
+night, and instructing Eurycleia not to tell his mother of his absence
+until twelve days had passed, he departed as soon as sleep had overcome
+the suitors. Pallas, in the guise of Mentor, accompanied him.
+
+His courage failed him, however, as they approached the shore of Pylos,
+where Nestor and his people were engaged in making a great sacrifice to
+Neptune. "How shall I approach the chief?" he asked. "Ill am I trained in
+courtly speech."
+
+But, encouraged by Pallas, he greeted the aged Nestor, and after he and
+his companion had assisted in the sacrifice and partaken of the banquet
+that followed, he revealed his name and asked for tidings of his, father,
+boldly and confidently, as befitted the son of Ulysses. The old king could
+tell him nothing, however. After Troy had fallen, a dissension had rent
+the camp, and part of the Greeks had remained with Agamemnon, part had
+sailed with Menelaus. Sailing with Menelaus, Nestor had parted with Diomed
+at Argos, and had sailed on to Pylos. Since his return he had heard of the
+death of Agamemnon, and of the more recent return of Menelaus, but had
+heard no tidings of Ulysses, who had remained with Agamemnon.
+To Menelaus he advised Telemachus to go, warning him, however, not to
+remain long away from Ithaca, leaving his home in the possession of rude
+and lawless men.
+
+In a car provided by Nestor and driven by his son, Pisistratus, Telemachus
+reached Sparta after a day and a night's rapid travel, and found Menelaus
+celebrating the nuptial feast of his daughter Hermione, betrothed at Troy
+to the son of Achilles, and his son Megapenthes, wedded to the daughter of
+Alector. The two young men were warmly welcomed, and were invited to
+partake of the banquet without being asked their names. After the feast
+they wondered at the splendor of the halls of gold, amber, and ivory, the
+polished baths, and the fleecy garments in which they had been arrayed;
+but Menelaus assured them that all his wealth was small compensation to
+him for the loss of the warriors who had fallen before Troy, and above
+all, of the great Ulysses, whose fate he knew not. Though Telemachus's
+tears fell at his father's name, Menelaus did not guess to whom he spoke,
+until Helen, entering from her perfumed chamber, saw the likeness between
+the stranger and the babe whom Ulysses had left when he went to Troy, and
+greeted their guest as Telemachus.
+
+Then they sat in the splendid hall and talked of Troy,--Menelaus broken by
+his many toils, Helen beautiful as when she was rapt away by Paris,
+weaving with her golden distaff wound with violet wool, and the two young
+men, who said little, but listened to the wondrous tale of the wanderings
+of Menelaus. And they spoke of Ulysses: of the times when he had proved
+his prudence as well as his craft; of his entering Troy as a beggar and
+revealing the Achaian plots to Helen; of how he had prevented their
+breaking out of the wooden horse too soon. Then the king told of his
+interview with the Ancient of the Deep, in which he had learned the fate
+of his comrades; of Agamemnon's death, and of the detention of Ulysses on
+Calypso's isle, where he languished, weeping bitterly, because he had no
+means of escape.
+
+This information gained, Telemachus was anxious to return home; but his
+host detained him until he and Helen had descended to their fragrant
+treasure-chamber and brought forth rich gifts,--a double cup of silver and
+gold wrought by Vulcan, a shining silver beaker, and an embroidered robe
+for his future bride.
+
+Mercury, dispatched by Jove, descended to the distant isle of Calypso, and
+warned the bright-haired nymph, whom he found weaving in her charmed
+grotto, that she must let her mortal lover go or brave the wrath of the
+gods. The nymph, though loath to part with her lover, sought out the
+melancholy Ulysses, where he sat weeping beside the deep, and giving him
+tools, led him to the forest and showed him where to fell trees with which
+to construct a raft. His labor finished, she provided the hero with
+perfumed garments, a full store of provisions, and saw him set forth
+joyfully upon the unknown deep.
+
+For seventeen days his journey was a prosperous one; but on the eighteenth
+day, just as the land of the Phćacians came in sight. Neptune returned
+from Ethiopia, and angry at what the gods had contrived to do in his
+absence, determined to make the hero suffer as much as possible before he
+attained the promised end of his troubles.
+
+Soon a great storm arose and washed Ulysses from the raft. Clinging to its
+edge, buffeted here and there by the angry waves, he would have suffered
+death had not a kind sea nymph urged him to lay aside his heavy garments,
+leave the raft, and binding a veil that she gave him about his chest, swim
+to the land of the Phćacians. The coast was steep and rocky, but he found
+at last a little river, and swimming up it, landed, and fell asleep among
+some warm heaps of dried leaves.
+
+The Phćacians were a people closely allied to the gods, to whom they were
+very dear. They had at one time been neighbors of the Cyclops, from whose
+rudeness they had suffered so much that they were compelled to seek a
+distant home. They were a civilized people, who had achieved great results
+as sailors, having remarkably swift and well-equipped ships.
+
+To the Princess Nausicaa, beautiful as a goddess, Pallas appeared in a
+dream the night that Ulysses lay sleeping on the isle, warning her that
+since her wedding day was near at hand, when all would need fresh
+garments, it was fitting that she should ask her father's permission to
+take the garments of the household to the river side to wash them.
+
+Nausicaa's father willingly granted his permission, and ordered the strong
+car in which to carry away the soiled garments. A hamper of food and a
+skin of wine were added by her mother, as the princess climbed into the
+chariot and drove towards the river, followed by her maids.
+
+When the garments had been washed in the lavers hollowed out by the river
+side, and the lunch had been eaten, the maids joined in a game of ball.
+Joyous they laughed and frolicked, like Dian's nymphs, until they roused
+the sleeper under the olive-trees on the hillside.
+
+All save Nausicaa fled affrighted as he came forth to speak to them,
+covered with sea foam, his nakedness hidden only by a leafy branch woven
+round his waist; but she, strengthened by the goddess, heard his story,
+and provided him with clothing and materials for the bath. When he
+appeared, cleansed from the sea foam, and made more handsome by the art of
+Pallas, Nausicaa's pity was changed to admiration, and she wished that she
+might have a husband like him.
+
+Food and wine were set before the hero, and while he refreshed himself the
+dried clothes were folded and placed in the cart. As the princess prepared
+to go she advised the stranger to follow the party until they reached a
+grove outside the city, and to remain there until she had time to reach
+her father's palace, lest some gossip should connect Nausicaa's name with
+that of a stranger. She told him how to find her father's palace, and
+instructed him to win the favor of her mother, that he might be received
+with honor and assisted on his homeward way.
+
+Ulysses obeyed, and when he reached the city gates was met by Pallas, in
+the guise of a virgin with an urn. She answered his questions, directed
+him to the palace, and told him to throw himself first at the feet of
+Queen Arete, who was looked on by the people as if she were a goddess.
+Wrapped in a cloud by Pallas, the unseen Ulysses admired the spacious
+halls of Alcinoüs. Walls of brass supported blue steel cornices, golden
+doors guarded by gold and silver mastiffs opened into the vast hall, along
+which were ranged thrones covered with delicately woven mantles, for which
+the Phćacian women were famous.
+
+Around the palace lay a spacious garden filled with pear, pomegranate,
+fig, and apple trees, that knew no change of season, but blossomed and
+bore fruit throughout the year. Perennially blooming plants scattered
+perfume through the garden kept fresh by water from two sparkling
+fountains.
+
+As Ulysses knelt at the feet of Arete, the cloud enveloping him fell away,
+and all were astonished at the sight of the stranger imploring protection.
+Arete received Ulysses with favor, and Alcinoüs was so pleased with him
+that he offered him his daughter in marriage, if he was unmarried, a
+palace and riches if he would remain on the island, and a safe passage
+home if he desired to leave them. The king then invited the chiefs of the
+isle to a great banquet in honor of his guest. At this banquet Demodocus,
+the blind minstrel, sang so touchingly of the heroes of the Trojan war
+that Ulysses was moved to tears, a fact observed by the king alone. After
+the feast the guests displayed their strength in athletic games; and
+Ulysses, provoked by the taunts of the ill-bred Euryalus, cast a broader,
+heavier quoit than had yet been used far beyond the mark. The Phćacians
+were amazed, and the king confessed that his people were weak in athletic
+sports but excelled in the dance,--a statement to which Ulysses readily
+agreed when he saw the beautiful and graceful dance of the princes
+Laodamas and Halius to the music of Demodocus's silver harp.
+
+When the games were over, all the chiefs presented Ulysses with garments
+and with talents of gold, for the reception of which Arete gave a
+beautiful chest. As he corded up the chest, and stepped forth to the
+banquet, refreshed from the bath, Nausicaa, standing beside a pillar, bade
+him farewell.
+
+"Remember, in thy native land, O stranger, that thou owest thy life to
+me."
+
+When they sat again in the banqueting hall, Ulysses besought Demodocus to
+sing again of the fall of Troy; but when the minstrel sang of the strategy
+of the wooden horse which wrought the downfall of Troy, the hero was again
+melted to tears,--and this time his host, unable to repress his curiosity,
+asked him to reveal his name and history.
+
+"Thou hast spoken, O king, and I proceed to tell the story of my
+calamitous voyage from Troy; for I am Ulysses, widely known among men for
+my cunning devices. Our first stop was among the Ciconians, whose city we
+laid waste. Here, in spite of my warning, my men tarried to drink red wine
+until the Ciconians had had time to recruit their forces, and, attacking
+us, slew six men from each galley. When we who survived reached the land
+of the lotus-eaters, some of my men ate of the sweet plant, after which a
+man thinks never more of wife, or friends, or home; and it was with the
+utmost difficulty that we succeeded in dragging them to the ships.
+
+"At the Cyclopean land I myself, with a few of my men, disembarked, and
+went up to seek the inhabitants and conciliate them with gifts of food and
+wine. The Cyclops were huge one-eyed giants who did not cultivate the
+land, had no government, and cared nought for the gods. The first cave to
+which we came was empty, and we went in to await the arrival of the owner,
+appeasing our appetites, meanwhile, with some of his cheeses. Presently he
+arrived, and after he had closed up the entrance of the cave with a huge
+stone, and had milked his goats, he questioned us as to who we were. Our
+story told, he seized two of my companions, dashed their heads against the
+rocks, and devoured them. The next morning, after devouring two others, he
+drove out his flocks, leaving us shut up in the huge cave. All that day I
+revolved plans for his destruction and our escape; and at last, drawing
+lots with my companions to determine who should assist me, I determined,
+with their aid, to bore out his great eye with a huge olive-wood stick
+that I found in the cave. We spent the day sharpening it and hardening it
+in the fire, and at night hid it under a heap of litter. Two more of my
+men made his evening meal, after which I plied him with the wine I had
+brought, until, softened by the liquor, he inquired my name, assuring me
+that as return for my gift, he would devour me last. My name, I told him,
+was Noman.
+
+"As soon as he had fallen into a drunken slumber I put the stake to heat,
+and, strengthening the courage of my men, I drew it forth and plunged it
+into his eye. Steadily we spun it round until the monster, screaming with
+pain, drew it forth, crying to the other Cyclops to come to his aid. When
+they, from without, questioned who hurt him, he replied, 'Noman destroyeth
+me by guile.' 'If it is "Noman,"' said they, departing, 'it must be Jove.
+Then pray to Neptune.'
+
+"During the night I tied together the rams, three and three with osier
+twigs, and instructed my comrades, as he drove them out, to cling under
+the middle one. I hid myself under the fleecy belly of a huge ram, the
+finest of the flock. He touched their backs as he drove them out, but he
+did not penetrate my cunning, and we all escaped. After we had driven the
+flock on board, however, and had pushed out our galley, I could not
+forbear a taunting shout, at which he hurled a huge fragment of rock after
+us, just missing our galley.
+
+"With Aeolus, King of the Winds, we remained a month, reciting the events
+connected with the fall of Troy. So pleased was the king with my story,
+that on our departure he presented me with a bag tied up with a silver
+cord, which contained the adverse winds. One day, as I slumbered, my
+unhappy sailors, suspecting some treasure concealed therein, opened it,
+and we were immediately blown back to Aeolus's isle, from which he,
+enraged at our folly, indignantly drove us.
+
+"At the land of the Laestrygonians all our galleys were lost and our men
+devoured by the cannibal inhabitants, with the exception of my own ship,
+which by good fortune I had moored without the harbor. Overcome with
+grief, we rowed wearily along until we arrived at the land of Circe. With
+caution born of experience, we drew lots to see who should venture into
+the unknown isle. The lot fell to Eurylochus, who, with twenty-two brave
+men, went forward to the fair palace of Circe, around which fawned tamed
+mountain lions and wolves. Within sat the bright haired goddess, singing
+while she threw her shuttle through the beautiful web she was weaving.
+
+"All the men entered the palace at her invitation but Eurylochus, who,
+suspecting some guile, remained without. He saw his comrades led within,
+seated upon thrones and banqueted; but no sooner was the feast over, than
+she touched them with her wand, and transformed them into swine that she
+drove scornfully to their cells.
+
+"Eurylochus hastened back to our ships with the sorrowful tidings. As soon
+as grief had permitted him to tell the story, I flung my sword over my
+shoulders and hastened away to the palace. As I entered the valley, not
+far from the palace, I was met by a youth, none save the Argus-queller
+himself, who revealed to me Circe's guile, and presented me with a plant,
+the moly, which would enable me to withstand her charms.
+
+"The goddess received me kindly, seated me upon a throne, and invited me
+to feast with her. After the feast she struck me with her wand, as she had
+done my comrades, ordering me to go to my sty; but when I remained
+unchanged, she perceived that her guest was Ulysses, whose coming had long
+been foretold to her.
+
+"Softened by her entreaties, I sheathed my sword, after having made her
+promise to release my friends and do us no further harm. Then the others
+were called from the ships, and we banqueted together.
+
+"Time passed so happily on Circe's isle that we lingered a whole year,
+until, roused by the words of my friends, I announced my intended
+departure, and was told by Circe that I must first go to the land of the
+dead to get instructions as to my future course from Tiresias. Provided
+with the proper sacrifices by Circe, we set sail for the land of the
+Cimmerians, on the confines of Oceanus. The sacrifices having been duly
+performed, the spirits appeared,--Elpenor, my yet unburied comrade, whose
+body lay on Circe's isle, my own dead mother, and the Theban seer,
+Tiresias, with his golden wand. 'Neptune is wroth with thee,' he said,
+'but thou mayst yet return if thou and thy comrades leave undisturbed the
+cattle of the Sun. If thou do not, destruction awaits thee. If thou escape
+and return home it will be after long journeyings and much suffering, and
+there thou wilt slay the insolent suitor crew that destroy thy substance
+and wrong thy household.' After Tiresias had spoken I lingered to speak
+with other spirits,--my mother, Ajax, Antiope, Agamemnon, Achilles,
+Patroclus, and Antilochus. Having conversed with all these, we set sail
+for Circe's isle, and thence started again on our homeward voyage.
+
+"Circe had instructed me to stop the ears of my men with wax as we
+approached the isle of the Sirens, and to have myself tied to the boat
+that I might not leap into the ocean to go to the beautiful maidens who
+sang so entrancingly. We therefore escaped without adding our bones to
+those on the isle of the Sirens, and came next to Scylla and Charybdis.
+Charybdis is a frightful whirlpool. The sailor who steers too far away in
+his anxiety to escape it, is seized by the six arms of the monster Scylla
+and lifted to her cavern to be devoured. We avoided Charybdis; but as we
+looked down into the abyss, pale with fear, six of my comrades were seized
+by Scylla and snatched up to her cave.
+
+"As we neared the Island of the Sun I told my comrades again of the
+warning of Tiresias, and begged them to sail past without stopping. I was
+met, however, by the bitterest reproaches, and at last consented to a
+landing if they would bind themselves by a solemn oath not to touch the
+cattle of the Sun. They promised, but when adverse winds prolonged our
+stay and food became scarce, fools, madmen, they slew the herds, and in
+spite of the terrible omens, the meat lowing on the spits, the skins
+crawling, they feasted for six days. When, on the seventh, the tempest
+ceased and we sailed away, we went to our destruction. I alone was saved,
+clinging to the floating timbers for nine long days, until on the tenth I
+reached Calypso's isle, Ogygia, where, out of love for me, the mighty
+goddess cherished me for seven years."
+
+The Phćacians were entranced by this recital, and in addition to their
+former gifts, heaped other treasures upon the "master of stratagems" that
+he might return home a wealthy man. The swift ship was filled with his
+treasures, and after the proper sacrifices and long farewells, the
+chieftain embarked. It was morn when the ship arrived in Ithaca, and
+Ulysses, worn out from his long labors, was still asleep. Stopping at the
+little port of Phorcys, where the steep shores stretch inward and a
+spreading olive-tree o'ershadows the grotto of the nymphs, the sailors
+lifted out Ulysses, laid him on the ground, and piling up his gifts under
+the olive-tree, set sail for Phćacia. But the angry Neptune smote the
+ship as it neared the town and changed it to a rock, thus fulfilling an
+ancient prophecy that Neptune would some day wreak his displeasure on the
+Phćacians for giving to every man who came to them safe escort home.
+
+When Ulysses awoke he did not recognize the harbor, and thinking that he
+had been treated with deceit, he wept bitterly. Thus Pallas, in the guise
+of a young shepherd, found him, and showed him that it was indeed his own
+dear land. She helped him to conceal his treasures in the grotto, and told
+him that Telemachus was even now away on a voyage of inquiry concerning
+him, and his wife was weeping over his absence and the insolence of the
+suitors. But he must act with caution. To give him an opportunity to lay
+his plans for the destruction of these men without being recognized, she
+changed him to a beggar, wrinkled and old, and clad in ragged, soiled
+garments. Then directing him to the home of his old herdsman, she hastened
+to warn Telemachus to avoid the ship the suitors had stationed to destroy
+him on his way home.
+
+The old Eumaeus was sitting in his lodge without whose hedge lay the many
+sties of swine that were his care. He greeted the beggar kindly, and
+spread food before him, lamenting all the while the absence of his noble
+master and the wickedness of the suitors. Ulysses told him that he was a
+wanderer who had heard of his master, and could speak surely of his
+return. Though Eumaeus regarded this as an idle speech spoken to gain food
+and clothing, he continued in his kindness to his guest.
+
+To this lodge came Telemachus after the landing of his ship, that he might
+first hear from Eumaeus the news from the palace,--Telemachus, who had
+grown into sudden manliness from his experience among other men. He also
+was kind to the beggar, and heard his story. While he remained with the
+beggar, Eumaeus having gone to acquaint Penelope of her son's return,
+Pallas appearing, touched the beggar with her golden wand, and Ulysses,
+with the presence of a god, stood before his awed and wondering son.
+
+Long and passionate was their weeping as the father told the son of his
+sufferings, and the son told of the arrogance of the one hundred and
+fourteen suitors.
+
+"There are we two with Pallas and her father Jove against them," replied
+his father. "Thinkest thou we need to fear with two such allies?"
+
+On the day after Telemachus's return, Ulysses, accompanied by Eumaeus,
+visited the palace. No one recognized him except his old dog, Argus, long
+neglected and devoured by vermin, who, at the sound of his master's voice,
+drew near, wagged his tail, and fell dead.
+
+According to their carefully laid plans, Telemachus feigned not to know
+his father, but sent to the beggar some food. Ulysses asked the same of
+the suitors, but was repulsed with taunts and insults, Antinoüs, the most
+insolent, striking him with a footstool.
+
+To Penelope, weaving in her chamber, was carried the story of the beggar
+at whom the abhorred Antinoüs had thrown a stool, and she sent for him to
+ask if he had tidings of Ulysses. He refused to go to her, however, until
+the suitors had withdrawn for the night; and as he sat among the
+revellers, he caught the first glimpse of his wife, as she came down among
+her maids, to reproach her son for exposing himself to danger among the
+suitors, and for allowing the beggar to be injured.
+
+When darkness fell and the hall was deserted, Telemachus, with the
+assistance of his father, removed all the weapons from the walls. After
+Telemachus had retired to his chamber, Penelope came down, and sitting
+upon her ivory throne conversed with the beggar, questioning him about his
+story until he was driven to invent tales that seemed like truth, and
+asking about her husband while the tears ran down her fair cheeks. By a
+great effort Ulysses kept his tears from falling as he beheld his wife
+weeping over him; he assured her that her husband would soon return, but
+he would accept no clothing as a reward for his tidings. The aged
+Eurycleia, who was called forth to wash his feet, came near betraying her
+master when she recognized a scar made by a wild boar's tusk, but he
+threatened her into silence. Soon after, Penelope and her maids withdrew,
+and left Ulysses to meditate vengeance through the night.
+
+The next morning, when the suitors again sat in the banquet-hall, Penelope
+descended to them and declared that she had determined to give her hand to
+the one of the suitors who could draw the great bow of Ulysses and send
+the arrow through twelve rings set on stakes planted in the ground. Up to
+the polished treasure-chamber she went, and took down the great bow given
+to Ulysses by Iphitus. As she took it from its case her tears fell, but
+she dried them and carried it and the steel rings into the hall. Gladly
+Ulysses hailed this hour, for he knew the time had come when he should
+destroy the suitor band. That morn many omens had warned him, and he had
+revealed himself to his faithful men, Eumaeus, and Philoetius the
+master-herdsman, that they might assist him. Telemachus, though astonished
+at his mother's decision, first took the bow; if he succeeded in bending
+it, his mother would not have to leave her home. He would have bent the
+bow at the fourth attempt had not his father's glance warned him to yield
+it to the suitors.
+
+Although the bow was rubbed and softened with oil, all failed in their
+attempts to draw it; and when the beggar asked to be allowed to try, their
+wrath burst forth. What shame would be theirs if the beggar succeeded in
+doing that in which they had failed! But Telemachus, who asserted his
+rights more day by day, insisted that the beggar should try to bend the
+bow, if he so desired. Sending his mother and her maids to their bower, he
+watched his father as he easily bent the mighty bow, snapped the cord with
+a sound at which the suitors grew pale, and sent the arrow through the
+rings. Then casting aside his rags, the supposed beggar sprang upon the
+threshold, and knowing that by his orders, Eumaeus, Philoetius, and
+Eurycleia had secured the portals so that escape was impossible, he sent
+his next shaft through the throat of Antinoüs. "Dogs! ye thought I never
+would return! Ye dreaded not the gods while ye devoured my substance and
+pursued my wife! Now vengeance is mine! Destruction awaits you all!"
+
+Too late Eurymachus sprang up and besought the monarch to grant them their
+lives if they made good their waste and returned to their homes. Ulysses
+had brooded too long over his injuries; his wife and son had suffered too
+many years from their persecutions for him to think of mercy. Eurymachus
+fell by the next brass-tipped shaft, and for every arrow in the quiver a
+suitor lay dead until the quiver was empty. Then Telemachus, Philoetius,
+and Eumaeus, provided with weapons and armor, stood forth with Ulysses,
+and withstood the suitors until all were slain, save Medon the herald and
+Phemius the minstrel, for both of whom Telemachus pleaded, since they had
+been coerced by the others. Giving the destruction of the false
+serving-maids to his three assistants, Ulysses ordered the hall to be
+cleansed, and after greeting his faithful servants and weeping with them,
+sent Eurycleia up to the bower to tell Penelope that her master had at
+last arrived.
+
+Penelope was too fearful of deceit to believe instantly that the beggar
+sitting beside the lofty column was her husband, though as she looked at
+him wonderingly, she sometimes fancied that she saw Ulysses, and again
+could not believe that it was he. So long was she silent that Telemachus
+reproached her for her hardness of heart; but Ulysses, better guessing the
+difficulty, ordered that all should take the bath and array themselves in
+fresh garments while the harper played gay melodies, that those passing
+should not guess the slaughter that had occurred, but should fancy that a
+wedding was being celebrated. When Ulysses again appeared, refreshed and
+handsomely attired, Penelope, still uncertain, determined to test his
+knowledge of her chamber. "Bear out the bed made by his own hands," she
+commanded Eurycleia, "that he may rest for the night."
+
+"Who has dared move my bed?" cried Ulysses; "the couch framed upon the
+stump of an olive-tree, round which I built a stone chamber! I myself
+cunningly fitted it together, and adorned it with gold, silver, and
+ivory."
+
+Then Penelope, who knew that no one save herself, Ulysses, and one
+handmaiden had ever seen the interior of that chamber, fell on his neck
+and welcomed the wanderer home. "Pray, be not angry with me, my husband.
+Many times my heart has trembled lest some fraud be practised on me, and I
+should receive a stranger to my heart."
+
+Welcome as land to the shipwrecked mariner was Ulysses to Penelope. Both
+wept as he held her in his arms, and the rosy-fingered morn would have
+found them thus, weeping, with her fair, white arms encircling his neck,
+had not Pallas prolonged the night that he might relate to her the story
+of his wanderings. Then, happy in their reunion, the years of sorrow all
+forgotten, sleep overcame them. At dawn, bidding a brief farewell to his
+wife, Ulysses went forth to visit his father, and settle as best he might
+the strife which he knew would result from the slaughter of the suitors.
+
+After Ulysses' mother had died of grief at the prolonged absence of her
+son, Laertes passed his days wretchedly in a little habitation remote from
+the palace. There Ulysses found him and made himself known; and there he,
+Laertes, Telemachus, the aged Dolius, and his six sons faced the people
+who had been roused to battle by the speech of Eupeithes, whose son
+Antinoüs had been the first of the suitors to fall by the hand of Ulysses.
+Not heeding the warning of the herald Medon that the suitors had been
+slain justly, they attacked Ulysses and his handful of followers.
+
+Eupeithes fell first by the spear of Laertes, and a great slaughter would
+have ensued, had not the combatants been silenced by the voice of Pallas,
+who commanded all strife to cease. Frightened by this divine command, the
+enemy fled; and Pallas, descending in the form of Mentor, plighted a
+covenant between them that Ulysses might live peacefully among them the
+remainder of his life.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY.
+
+THE PALACE OF ALCINOÜS.
+
+
+Ulysses, having been directed by Nausicaa, reached the gate of the city,
+and was there met by Pallas in the guise of a maiden with an urn, who
+instructed him how to approach the king and queen. He passed through the
+town, wrapped in a cloud by Pallas, and paused on the threshold of
+Alcinoüs's palace.
+
+            For on every side beneath
+  The lofty roof of that magnanimous king
+  A glory shone as of the sun or moon.
+  There from the threshold, on each side, were walls
+  Of brass that led towards the inner rooms,
+  With blue steel cornices. The doors within
+  The massive building were of gold, and posts
+  Of silver on the brazen threshold stood,
+  And silver was the lintel, and above
+  Its architrave was gold; and on each side
+  Stood gold and silver mastiffs, the rare work
+  Of Vulcan's practised skill, placed there to guard
+  The house of great Alcinoüs, and endowed
+  With deathless life, that knows no touch of age.
+  Along the walls within, on either side,
+  And from the threshold to the inner rooms,
+  Were firmly planted thrones on which were laid
+  Delicate mantles, woven by the hands
+  Of women. The Phćacian princes here
+  Were seated; here they ate and drank, and held
+  Perpetual banquet. Slender forms of boys
+  In gold upon the shapely altars stood,
+  With blazing torches in their hands to light
+  At eve the palace guests; while fifty maids
+  Waited within the halls, where some in querns
+  Ground small the yellow grain; some wove the web
+  Or twirled the spindle, sitting, with a quick
+  Light motion, like the aspen's glancing leaves.
+  The well-wrought tissues glistened as with oil.
+  As far as the Phćacian race excel
+  In guiding their swift galleys o'er the deep,
+  So far the women in their woven work
+  Surpass all others. Pallas gives them skill
+  In handiwork and beautiful design.
+  Without the palace-court and near the gate,
+  A spacious garden of four acres lay.
+  A hedge enclosed it round, and lofty trees
+  Flourished in generous growth within,--the pear
+  And the pomegranate, and the apple-tree
+  With its fair fruitage, and the luscious fig
+  And olive always green. The fruit they bear
+  Falls not, nor ever fails in winter time
+  Nor summer, but is yielded all the year.
+  The ever-blowing west-wind causes some
+  To swell and some to ripen; pear succeeds
+  To pear; to apple, apple, grape to grape,
+  Fig ripens after fig. A fruitful field
+  Of vines was planted near; in part it lay
+  Open and basking in the sun, which dried
+  The soil, and here men gathered in the grapes,
+  And there they trod the wine-press. Farther on
+  Were grapes unripened yet, which just had cast
+  The flower, and others still which just began
+  To redden. At the garden's furthest bound
+  Were beds of many plants that all the year
+  Bore flowers. There gushed two fountains: one of them
+  Ran wandering through the field; the other flowed
+  Beneath the threshold to the palace-court,
+  And all the people filled their vessels there.
+  Such were the blessings which the gracious gods
+  Bestowed on King Alcinoüs and his house.
+           _Bryant's Translation, Book VII._
+
+
+
+
+THE BENDING OF THE BOW.
+
+
+Penelope, weary of the importunities of the suitors, determined to end the
+contest by giving them the bow of Ulysses and allowing the one who could
+successfully send the arrow through the steel rings to become her husband.
+Having announced her intention, she ascended the stairs to the treasure
+chamber, where the bow was kept.
+
+  Now when the glorious lady reached the room,
+  And stood upon the threshold, wrought of oak
+  And polished by the workman's cunning hand,
+  Who stretched the line upon it, and set up
+  Its posts, and hung its shining doors, she loosed
+  With a quick touch the thong that held the ring,
+  Put in the key, and with a careful aim
+  Struck back the sounding bolts. As when a bull
+  Roars in the field, such sound the beautiful doors,
+  Struck with the key, gave forth, and instantly
+  They opened to her. Up the lofty floor
+  She stepped, where stood the coffer that contained
+  The perfumed garments. Reaching forth her hand,
+  The queen took down the bow, that hung within
+  Its shining case, and sat her down, and laid
+  The case upon her knees, and, drawing forth
+  The monarch's bow, she wept aloud. As soon
+  As that new gush of tears had ceased to fall,
+  Back to the hall she went, and that proud throng
+  Of suitors, bearing in her hand the bow
+  Unstrung, and quiver, where the arrows lay
+  Many and deadly. Her attendant maids
+  Brought also down a coffer, where were laid
+  Much brass and steel, provided by the king
+  For games like these. The glorious lady then,
+  In presence of the suitors, stood beside
+  The columns that upheld the stately roof.
+  She held a lustrous veil before her cheeks,
+  And while on either side of her a maid
+  Stood modestly, bespake the suitors thus:--
+
+  "Hear, noble suitors! ye who throng these halls,
+  And eat and drink from day to day, while long
+  My husband has been gone; your sole excuse
+  For all this lawlessness the claim ye make
+  That I become a bride. Come then, for now
+  A contest is proposed. I bring to you
+  The mighty bow that great Ulysses bore.
+  Whoe'er among you he may be whose hand
+  Shall bend this bow, and send through these twelve rings
+  An arrow, him I follow hence, and leave
+  This beautiful abode of my young years,
+  With all its plenty,--though its memory,
+  I think, will haunt me even in my dreams."
+
+  She spake, and bade the master of the swine,
+  The good Eumaeus, place the bow and rings
+  Of hoary steel before the suitor train.
+  In tears he bore the bow and laid it down.
+  The herdsman also wept to see again
+  His master's bow.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  He (Telemachus) spake and, rising, from his shoulders took
+  The purple cloak, and laid the trenchant sword
+  Aside; and first he placed the rings of steel
+  In order, opening for them in the ground
+  A long trench by a line, and stamping close
+  The earth around them. All admired the skill
+  With which he ranged them, never having seen
+  The game before. And then he took his place
+  Upon the threshold, and essayed the bow;
+  And thrice he made the attempt, and thrice gave o'er,
+  Yet hoping still to draw the cord, and send
+  An arrow through the rings. He would have drawn
+  The bow at the fourth trial, but a nod
+  Given by his father caused him to forbear,
+  Though eager for the attempt.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+         ... And then Eupeithes' son,
+  Antinoüs, to the crowd of suitors said:--
+
+  "Rise one by one, my friends, from right to left.
+  Begin where he begins who pours the wine."
+  So spake Antinoüs, and the rest approved.
+  Then rose Leiodes, son of Oenops, first.
+  He was their seer, and always had his seat
+  Beside the ample bowl. From deeds of wrong
+  He shrank with hatred, and was sore incensed
+  Against the suitors all. He took the bow
+  And shaft, and, going to the threshold, stood
+  And tried the bow, yet bent it not; it galled
+  His hands, for they were soft, and all unused
+  To such a task.
+
+          ... The swineherd went
+  Forward along the hall, and, drawing near
+  The wise Ulysses, gave into his hands
+  The bow.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+          ... but when the wary chief
+  Had poised and shrewdly scanned the mighty bow,
+  Then, as a singer, skilled to play the harp,
+  Stretches with ease on its new fastenings
+  A string, the twisted entrails of a sheep,
+  Made fast at either end, so easily
+  Ulysses bent that mighty bow. He took
+  And drew the cord with his right hand; it twanged
+  With a clear sound as when a swallow screams.
+  The suitors were dismayed, and all grew pale.
+  Jove in loud thunder gave a sign from heaven.
+  The much-enduring chief, Ulysses, heard
+  With joy the friendly omen, which the son
+  Of crafty Saturn sent him. He took up
+  A winged arrow, that before him lay
+  Upon a table drawn; the others still
+  Were in the quiver's womb; the Greeks were yet
+  To feel them. This he set with care against
+  The middle of the bow, and toward him drew
+  The cord and arrow-notch, just where he sat,
+  And aiming opposite, let fly the shaft.
+  He missed no ring of all; from first to last
+  The brass-tipped arrow threaded every one.
+  Then to Telemachus Ulysses said:--
+
+  "Telemachus, the stranger sitting here
+  Hath not disgraced thee. I have neither missed
+  The rings, nor found it hard to bend the bow;
+  Nor has my manly strength decayed, as these
+  Who seek to bring me to contempt pretend;
+  And now the hour is come when we prepare
+  A supper for the Achaians, while the day
+  Yet lasts, and after supper the delights
+  Of song and harp, which nobly grace a feast."
+
+  He spake, and nodded to Telemachus,
+  His well-beloved son, who girded on
+  His trenchant sword, and took in hand his spear,
+  And, armed with glittering brass for battle, came
+  And took his station by his father's seat.
+
+  Then did Ulysses cast his rags aside,
+  And, leaping to the threshold, took his stand
+  On its broad space, with bow and quiver filled
+  With arrows. At his feet the hero poured
+  The winged shafts, and to the suitors called:--
+
+  "That difficult strife is ended. Now I take
+  Another mark, which no man yet has hit.
+  Now I shall see if I attain my aim,
+  And, by the aid of Phoebus, win renown."
+
+  He spake; and, turning, at Antinoüs aimed
+  The bitter shaft--Antinoüs, who just then
+  Had grasped a beautiful two-eared cup of gold,
+  About to drink the wine. He little thought
+  Of wounds and death; for who, when banqueting
+  Among his fellows, could suspect that one
+  Alone against so many men would dare,
+  However bold, to plan his death, and bring
+  On him the doom of fate? Ulysses struck
+  The suitor with the arrow at the throat.
+  The point came through the tender neck behind,
+  Sideways he sank to earth; his hand let fall
+  The cup; the dark blood in a thick warm stream
+  Gushed from the nostrils of the smitten man.
+  He spurned the table with his feet, and spilled
+  The viands; bread and roasted meats were flung
+  To lie polluted on the floor. Then rose
+  The suitors in a tumult, when they saw
+  The fallen man; from all their seats they rose
+  Throughout the hall, and to the massive walls
+  Looked eagerly; there hung no buckler there,
+  No sturdy lance for them to wield. They called
+  Then to Ulysses with indignant words:--
+
+  "Stranger! in evil hour hast thou presumed
+  To aim at men; and thou shalt henceforth bear
+  Part in no other contest. Even now
+  Is thy destruction close to thee. Thy hand
+  Hath slain the noblest youth in Ithaca.
+  The vultures shall devour thy flesh for this."
+
+  So each one said; they deemed he had not slain
+  The suitor wittingly; nor did they see,
+  Blind that they were, the doom which in that hour
+  Was closing round them all. Then with a frown
+  The wise Ulysses looked on them, and said:--
+
+  "Dogs! ye had thought I never would come back
+  From Ilium's coast, and therefore ye devoured
+  My substance here, and offered violence
+  To my maid-servants, and pursued my wife
+  As lovers, while I lived. Ye dreaded not
+  The gods who dwell in the great heaven, nor feared
+  Vengeance hereafter from the hands of men;
+  And now destruction overhangs you all."
+
+  He spake, and all were pale with fear, and each
+  Looked round for some escape from death.
+
+    _Bryant's Translation, Books XXI., XXII_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE KALEVALA.
+
+"Songs preserved from distant ages."
+
+
+The national epic of Finland, the Kalevala, or Place of Heroes, stands
+midway between the purely epical structure, as exemplified in Homer, and
+the epic songs of certain nations.
+
+It is a purely pagan epic, and from its complete silence as to Finland's
+neighbors, the Russians, Germans, and Swedes, it is supposed to date back
+at least three thousand years.
+
+The first attempt to collect Finnish folk-song was made in the seventeenth
+century by Palmsköld and Peter Bäng. In 1733, Maxenius published a volume
+on Finnish national poetry, and in 1745 Juslenius began a collection of
+national poems. Although scholars saw that these collected poems were
+evidently fragments of a Finnish epic, it remained for two physicians,
+Zacharias Topelius and Elias Lönnrot, to collect the entire poem.
+Topelius, though confined to his bed by illness for eleven years, took
+down the songs from travelling merchants brought to his bedside. His
+collections were published in 1822 and 1831. Lönnrot travelled over
+Finland, collecting the songs, which he published, arranged in epical
+form, in 1835. A revised edition was published in 1849.
+
+The Kalevala consists of fifty parts, or runes, containing twenty-two
+thousand seven hundred and ninety-three lines. Its historical foundation
+is the contests between the Finns and the Lapps.
+
+Its metre is the "eight syllabled trochaic with the part-line echo,"
+alliteration also being used, a metre familiar to us through Longfellow's
+"Hiawatha."
+
+The labors of a Wolf are not necessary to show that the Kalevala is
+composed of various runes or lays, arranged by a compiler. Topelius and
+Lönnrot were conscientious collectors and compilers, but they were no
+Homers, who could fuse these disconnected runes into one great poem. The
+Kalevala recites many events in the lives of different heroes who are not
+types of men, like Rama, or Achilles, or Ulysses, but the rude gods of an
+almost savage people, or rather, men in the process of apotheosis, all
+alike, save in the varying degrees of magic power possessed by each.
+
+The Finnish lays are interesting to us because they are the popular songs
+of a people handed down with few changes from one generation to another;
+because they would have formed the material for a national epic if a great
+poet had arisen; because of their pictures of ancient customs, and
+particularly the description of the condition of women, and because of
+their frequently beautiful descriptions of nature. But because they are
+simply runes "loosely stitched together" we can regard them only with
+interest and curiosity, not with admiration.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE KALEVALA.
+
+
+Andrew Lang's Homer and the Epic, pp. 412-419;
+
+Andrew Lang's Kalevala, or the Finnish National Epic (in his Custom and
+Myth), 1885, pp. 156-179;
+
+C. J. Billson's Folk-songs, comprised in the Finnish Kalevala, Folk-Lore,
+1895, vi. pp. 317-352;
+
+F. C. Cook's Kalevala, Contemporary, 1885, xlvii., pp. 683-702;
+
+Preface of J. M. Crawford's Translation of the Kalevala, 1891.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE KALEVALA.
+
+
+The Kalevala, Tr. by J. M. Crawford, 2 vols., 1891;
+
+The Kalevala, Tr. by W. F. Kirby, through the German translation of
+Schiefner;
+
+Selections from the Kalevala, Tr. from a German version by J. A. Porter,
+with an introduction and analysis of the Poem, 1868.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE KALEVALA.
+
+
+Wainamoinen was born upon the ocean after his mother, Ilmatar, daughter of
+the illimitable Ether, had floated upon its surface for more than seven
+hundred years. During this time Ilmatar had created the islands, the
+rocks, and the continents. After eight years of swimming through the
+ocean, studying his surroundings, Wainamoinen left the waters and swam to
+a barren promontory, where he could rest himself on dry land and study the
+sun, the moon, and the starry skies. At last he called to him
+Pellerwoinen, that the slender youth might scatter seeds broadcast upon
+the island, sowing in their proper places the birch, the alder, the
+linden, the willow, the mountain ash, and the juniper. It was not long
+until the eyes of the sower were gladdened by the sight of trees rising
+above the hitherto barren soil.
+
+But as Wainamoinen cast his eyes over the place he perceived that the oak,
+the tree of heaven, was wanting. The acorn planted in the sterile soil
+developed not until Tursas, the giant, arose from the ocean, burned some
+meadow grasses, and raking together the ashes, planted therein the acorn,
+from which soon sprang up a mighty oak-tree whose branches hid the sun
+rays and the starlight.
+
+The oak-tree must be felled if the land was to prosper, but who could fell
+it? "Help me, Kapé, daughter of the Ether, help me, my ancient mother, to
+uproot this terrible tree that shuts out the sunshine," cried Wainamoinen.
+
+Straightway arose from the ocean a little being clad in copper,--cap,
+boots, gloves, and belt. He was no longer than a man's forefinger, and the
+blade of the hatchet at his belt was but a finger's breadth. "Art thou
+divine, or human?" queried Wainamoinen. "Tell me who thou art. Thou surely
+hast the bearing of a hero, though so small. But thou must be of the race
+of the pygmies, and therefore useless."
+
+"I came here to fell the oak," replied the pygmy. "I am a god and a hero
+from the tribes that rule the ocean."
+
+"Never canst thou lop the branches of this mighty tree," replied
+Wainamoinen.
+
+As he spoke, the pygmy became a giant; with one step he left the ocean,
+and stood piercing the clouds with his head. He whetted his hatchet on the
+great rocks, and with three steps reached the tree; with four blows felled
+it. The trunk fell eastward, its tops westward, the leaves to the south,
+the hundred branches to the north. Full of magic power were the parts of
+this tree, and happy was he who possessed himself of some part of it.
+
+Then vegetation flourished, the birds sang happily in the trees, and all
+was well except that barley was wanting. On the ocean strand Wainamoinen
+discovered the barley seed; and, advised by the birds how to plant it, was
+soon gratified by the sight of the growing barley. His next act was to
+clear the forest; but he left the slender birch for the birds to nest in,
+thus winning the gratitude of the silver-voiced singers.
+
+In the land of Kalevala, Wainamoinen passed many happy years, and the fame
+of his wonderful songs of wit and wisdom spread even to the land of the
+Lapps, in the dismal north, where lived Youkahainen, a young minstrel.
+Against the advice of his parents, the youth, filled with jealousy,
+visited Kalevala, to hold a singing contest with Wainamoinen.
+
+He proudly displayed his wisdom to the old minstrel, who laughed at it as
+"women's tales and children's wisdom," and when Youkahainen declared in
+song that he was present at the creation, Wainamoinen called him the
+prince of liars, and himself began to sing. As he sang, the copper-bearing
+mountains, the massive rocks and ledges, trembled, the hills re-echoed,
+and the very ocean heaved with rapture. The boaster stood speechless,
+seeing his sledge transformed into reed grass and willows, his beautiful
+steed changed to a statue, his dog to a block of stone, and he himself
+fast sinking in a quicksand. Then comprehending his folly, he begged his
+tormentor to free him. Each precious gift he offered for a ransom was
+refused, until he named his beautiful sister Aino. Wainamoinen, happy in
+the promise of Aino for a wife, freed the luckless youth from his
+enchantment, and sent him home.
+
+Aino's mother was rejoiced to hear that her daughter had been promised to
+the renowned Wainamoinen; but when the beautiful girl learned that she was
+tied by her brother's folly to an old man, she wandered weeping through
+the fields. In vain her mother and father sought to console her; she wept
+for her vanished childhood, for all her happiness and hope and pleasure
+forever gone. To console her daughter, the mother told her of a store of
+beautiful ornaments that she herself had worn in girlhood; they had been
+given her by the daughters of the Moon and Sun,--gold, ribbons, and
+jewels. Beautifully arrayed in these long-concealed ornaments, Aino
+wandered through the fields for many days, bewailing her sad fate. On the
+fourth day, she laid her garments on the sea shore, and swam out to the
+standing rock, a little distance from the shore. No sooner had she
+clambered on the rainbow-colored rock than it turned and fell to the
+bottom of the sea, carrying with it the weeping maiden, chanting a
+farewell to her family. The fleet and haughty hare bore the news of her
+death to the household, where her unfortunate mother sat weeping, urging
+other mothers never to force their daughters to wed against their choice.
+The tears that rolled down her cheeks formed three streamlets, that,
+growing larger, became torrents with foaming cataracts. From the cataracts
+towered three pillared rocks upon which rose three hillocks, and upon each
+hillock sprang a birch-tree. On the summit of each tree sat a golden bird
+singing; and the first sang, for three moons, his song of "Love! O Love!"
+the second called for six moons, "Suitor! Suitor!" but the third bird sang
+forever his sad song of "Consolation! Consolation!"
+
+Wainamoinen was deeply grieved when he heard of the fate of the lovely
+Aino, and he at once went to angle in the deep where dwelt the mermaids,
+the daughters of Wellamo.
+
+After he had fished many days in vain, he caught a wondrous salmon, larger
+and more beautiful than he had ever before caught. But as he took out his
+silver knife to cut it, the fish sprang from his hand into the deep,
+telling him that it was Aino who had thus come to him, and whom he had now
+lost forever by his stupidity. Then indeed the song of the golden bird
+seemed sad to Wainamoinen, and he was disconsolate until his mother spoke
+to him from her grave: "My son, go north and seek thy wife. Take not a
+silly Lapp, but choose one of the daughters of Suomi."
+
+Quickly Wainamoinen prepared for his journey, and mounted his magic steed,
+that galloped over the plains of Kalevala and crossed the waste of blue
+sea-water as though it were land.
+
+But the envious Youkahainen was informed of the journey, and had prepared
+a cruel cross-bow and three poisoned arrows. In spite of the protests of
+his mother, he waited for the hero and shot at him three times. The third
+arrow struck Wainamoinen's horse, which sank to the bottom of the ocean,
+leaving the hapless rider struggling in the water. "Seven summers must he
+tread the waves," chuckled Youkahainen; "eight years ride the billows."
+
+For six days Wainamoinen floated on the waters; then he was rescued by a
+huge eagle that carried him on its back to Pohyola, the dismal Sariola,
+and left him on a barren promontory, where he bemoaned his unhappy fate.
+Here he was found by Louhi, the toothless dame of Pohyola, who took him
+home and fed him. Then she promised to provide him with a sledge that he
+might journey safely home if he would forge for her the Sampo, a magical
+jewel that gave success to its possessor. If he could make her this, she
+would also give him her daughter in marriage. "I cannot forge the Sampo,
+but if thou wilt help me to my distant country I will send thee my brother
+Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, who can forge for thee the magic Sampo, and win
+thy beautiful daughter."
+
+Louhi provided a sledge and horse, and as Wainamoinen seated himself she
+warned him, as he journeyed, not to look upward before nightfall, or some
+great misfortune would befall him.
+
+The maiden of the Rainbow, beautiful daughter of Pohyola, was sitting on
+the rainbow weaving, and Wainamoinen, hearing the whizzing of the loom,
+forgot the warning, and, looking up, was filled with love for the maiden.
+
+"Come to me," he cried.
+
+"The birds have told me," she replied, "that a maiden's life, as compared
+to a married woman's, is as summer to coldest winter. Wives are as dogs
+enchained in kennels."
+
+When Wainamoinen further besought her, she told him that she would
+consider him a hero when he had split a golden hair with edgeless knives
+and snared a bird's egg with an invisible snare. When he had done these
+things without difficulty, she demanded that he should peel the sandstone,
+and cut her a whipstick from the ice without making a splinter. This done,
+she commanded that he should build her a boat from the fragments of her
+distaff, and set it floating without the use of his knee, arm, hand, or
+foot to propel it.
+
+While Wainamoinen was engaged in this task, Hisi, the god of evil, caused
+him to cut his knee with the axe. None of his charms availed to stanch the
+blood, so he dragged himself to his sledge and sought the nearest village.
+In the third cottage he found a graybeard, who caused two maids to dip up
+some of the flowing blood, and then commanded Wainamoinen to sing the
+origin of iron. The daughters of Ukko the Creator had sprinkled the
+mountains with black, white, and red milk,--from this was formed iron.
+Fire caught the iron and carried it to its furnace, and later Ilmarinen
+worked the unwilling metal into various articles. As he sought something
+to harden it, Hisi's bird, the hornet, dropped poison into the water; and
+the iron dipped into it, formed the hard steel, which, angry because it
+could not be broken, cut its brother, and vowed that it would ever cause
+man's blood to flow in torrents.
+
+The old man then addressed the crimson stream flowing from the wound, and
+prayed to mighty Ukko to stop it.
+
+When it ceased to flow at his prayer, he sent forth his son to gather
+various charmed plants, steep them, and make a magic balsam. After many
+attempts the son was successful; and the balsam, applied to Wainamoinen's
+wound, healed it immediately.
+
+Wainamoinen returned home and sought Ilmarinen, who refused to go north to
+forge the Sampo. Inducing his brother to climb a lofty fir-tree to bring
+down the Moon and the Bear he had conjured there, the wizard caused a
+great storm-wind to arise and blow Ilmarinen to the woodlands of Pohyola.
+
+There the blacksmith at once set up a forge, and after four days' work saw
+the Sampo rising from the furnace, its many colored lid rocking and
+grinding, every day, many measures of meal.
+
+Joyfully Louhi received the magic Sampo and locked it in a secret chamber
+under the copper-bearing mountains. But when Ilmarinen asked for the hand
+of the Rainbow Maid, he was refused. "Never shall I, in my lifetime, say
+farewell to maiden freedom." So the blacksmith was compelled to return
+alone to Wainola.
+
+While Ilmarinen was forging the Sampo and Wainamoinen was building the
+magic boat, Lemminkainen, or Ahti, the reckless wizard, king of the
+islands, was longing for a bride from Ehstland. In spite of his mother's
+entreaties, Lemminkainen went to Ehstland, and when he found it was
+impossible to gain the favor of Kylliki, the Sahri maid of beauty, he
+carried her off by force in his sledge. She became reconciled to him when
+he promised that he would never go to battle, and she in turn vowed that
+she would not visit the village dances. They lived happily together until
+Lemminkainen tarried late at the fishing one evening, and Kylliki went to
+the village dance. When Lemminkainen returned, his sister told him of
+Kylliki's broken vow; and in spite of the prayers of his mother and wife,
+the hero declared that he would break his promise and go to war. To the
+Northland he would go, and win another wife. "When my brush bleeds, then
+you may know that misfortune has overtaken me," he said angrily, flinging
+his hairbrush at the wall.
+
+Through many dangers he passed unscathed by the aid of his magic, until he
+stood in the halls of Louhi and asked for her daughter, the Rainbow
+Maiden.
+
+"First bring me the wild moose from the Hisi-fields and forests," said
+Louhi.
+
+From Kauppi, able smith, Lemminkainen procured the wondrous snow-shoes;
+but Hisi, who heard the boasts of the hero, fashioned a wild moose that
+ran so rapidly that Lemminkainen could not overtake it, but broke his
+snow-shoes in the race. He besought Ukko and the mistress of the forest
+and her king, and at last, with their aid, the moose was captured and led
+home to Louhi.
+
+"Now bridle the flaming horse of Hisi," said she.
+
+The mighty stallion stood on the Hisi mountain, breathing fire and smoke.
+When the hero saw him he prayed to Ukko, "Let the hail and icy rain fall
+upon him." His prayer was granted; and, going forward, Lemminkainen prayed
+the steed to put its head into the golden head-stall, promising to treat
+it with all gentleness. Then he led it to the courts of Sariola.
+
+"Now kill for me the swan that swims in Tuoni, the black death-river. One
+shot only canst thou have. If thou succeed, then mayst thou claim thy
+bride."
+
+When Lemminkainen entered Pohyola he had slain all his opponents but one
+blind shepherd, whom he spared because he despised his helplessness. This
+object of his scorn was waiting for him, and when Lemminkainen approached
+the river he fell by a shot from the enemy, regretting, as he died, that
+he had not asked his mother's advice before attempting to reach Tuoni.
+
+Nasshut, the shepherd, threw the hero's body into the river, where it was
+seized and cut in pieces by the son of Tuoni.
+
+At home the mother and wife awaited anxiously tidings of their hero. When
+they saw blood trickling from the brush, the mother could wait no longer,
+but at once set out for the dreary Northland. After repeated threats, she
+wrested from Louhi the fact that her son had gone to Tuoni; from the Sun
+she learned his fate.
+
+Quickly seeking Ilmarinen, the mother bade him forge for her a mighty
+rake. With this she raked the deep death-river, collected the pieces of
+the hero, bound them together with the aid of the goddess Suonetar, and
+making a balsam, the materials for which were brought her by the bee, she
+healed her hero son, comforted him, and led him back to Kalevala.
+
+In the mean time, Wainamoinen, who was building his boat for the Rainbow
+Maid, found that he had forgotten three magic words with which to fasten
+in the ledges and complete the boat's forecastle.
+
+After examining in vain the mouths of the wild animals, he sought the dead
+hero Wipunen, forced open his jaws, and accidentally fell into his mouth.
+Wipunen quickly swallowed him; but Wainamoinen, setting up a forge in his
+body, caused him such discomfort that the giant was glad to give his
+information, and get rid of his unwelcome visitor. Having thus learned the
+secrets of the ages, and among them the three magic words, Wainamoinen
+hastened home and finished his boat.
+
+The boat builded, he at once set out for the Northland to woo the Rainbow
+Maid. The boat was bedecked with silver and gold, and the linen sails were
+blue, white, and scarlet. The sails were merely for ornament, however, for
+the boat moved over the ocean without the aid of oars or sails.
+Wainamoinen's departure from Kalevala was observed by Anniki, the sister
+of Ilmarinen, who at once told her brother. With her assistance, Ilmarinen
+cleansed the black from his ruddy countenance, and jumping into his
+sledge, was soon on the way to Sariola. The approach of the heroes was
+perceived by Louhi. "Daughter," said she, "the old man brings thee a boat
+full of treasures; take him. Do not wed the empty-handed youth."
+
+"Thy advice is good, but I will not take it. The young man shall be my
+husband."
+
+When Wainamoinen was refused in spite of his gifts, Louhi addressed
+herself to Ilmarinen, and set him, in turn, three tasks: to plough the
+serpent field of Hisi, to muzzle Tuoni's bear, and to catch the pike of
+Mana, in the river of Tuoni.
+
+With the help of his sweetheart, Ilmarinen accomplished these tasks, and
+the wedding day was set. Old Wainamoinen, heavy hearted, journeyed
+homeward, and sent the edict to his people that in the future old men
+should not go wooing, or strive with younger men.
+
+Great preparations were made for the wedding feast; the mighty ox of
+Karjala was slain, and for the first time, beer was brewed in Pohyola.
+Invitations were sent to all the people of Pohyola and the tribes of
+Kalevala, to all save Lemminkainen.
+
+When Ilmarinen returned for his bride, he was received with honor, and the
+wedding feast was merry. But when the time came to take the bride away,
+the Rainbow Maid was unwilling, she who before had been so ready to go
+with him. Many times had she been told of the miseries of the wife: her
+husband's slave, her whole life one of service, one long endeavor to
+please her husband's mother and father. After her lament, Osmatar, the
+Bride-adviser, instructed her how to please her husband's family, and
+admonished Ilmarinen to guard well his Bride of Beauty. Then the two set
+forth together, the Rainbow Maid shedding many tears at parting with her
+loved ones.
+
+The bride and groom were received with joy by Ilmarinen's family, and old
+Wainamoinen himself sang at the wedding feast.
+
+But Lemminkainen was angry because he had received no invitation to the
+wedding, and in spite of his mother's advice, set out to make war against
+the Lapps. He successfully overcame all the terrors that beset him, and
+reached Sariola, but was so coldly received there that, enraged at such
+treatment, he slew his host, the landlord of Pohyola, and fled homeward to
+escape the hosts whom Louhi called to defend her.
+
+His mother sent him to the isle of refuge to escape the northern hosts. In
+the centre of the tenth ocean it rose, the refuge of his father; there he
+must abide three years, and must take a vow not to fight again for sixty
+summers.
+
+The three years passed speedily on the happy isle, where dwelt many
+maidens who admired the reckless hero, and he departed just in time to
+escape the swords of the jealous heroes of the isle. His ancient home was
+in ashes when he returned, his mother missing; but while he mourned for
+her, he chanced upon her, hiding from the Lapps in the forest. Again he
+determined to seek out his enemies and be revenged on them. Taking with
+him his friend Tiera he sought the north, but was met by the Frost-Fiend
+and compelled to return.
+
+To the house of Ilmarinen the blacksmith, was sold by Untamoinen a slave,
+Kullervo. He was a giant who had done naught but evil, until in despair
+his master sold him to the blacksmith. Kullervo, or Kullerwoinen, was made
+a shepherd and sent forth with the flocks. But rage at the blacksmith's
+wife, who baked a stone in his bread on which he broke the magic knife of
+his people, caused him to transform the flocks into wolves, who tore the
+Rainbow Wife to pieces when she went to milk them.
+
+Then Kullerwoinen fled from the blacksmith, and set out to find his
+tribe-people, but on the way unknowingly corrupted his sister, and in
+despair at his evil deeds, destroyed himself.
+
+Ilmarinen was full of grief at the loss of his wife. Unhappy and restless,
+he forged for himself a bride of gold; but the image failed to satisfy
+him, and Wainamoinen, reproving him, forbade his people in the future to
+worship any graven image. Then the blacksmith again sought the north to
+win the sister of his former bride, but was met with bitter reproaches for
+the sorrow he had brought upon the family. Nevertheless, he seized the
+maiden to carry her away, but she was so angry and so unhappy that he
+changed her to a seagull and came home wifeless and sad.
+
+Wainamoinen and Ilmarinen soon conceived the idea of going to the
+Northland to win back the Sampo. On the way they allied to themselves the
+wizard Lemminkainen. As they approached the whirlpool near Pohyola, their
+vessel stuck on the shoulders of a great pike. When neither Lemminkainen
+nor Ilmarinen could slay it, Wainamoinen impaled it on his fire-sword, and
+the three banqueted on the great fish. From its bones, Wainamoinen framed
+the first harp. No one could win music from it but its creator; but when
+he touched its strings and sang, the very trees danced about him, wild
+animals lay in peace at his feet, and the hearts of men were ravished. As
+his listeners wept at the strains, Wainamoinen's tears rolled down into
+the ocean. Thence the duck brought them, changed to pearls, receiving for
+a reward its beautiful coat. Such was the origin of sea-pearls.
+
+When Wainamoinen had put the inhabitants of Pohyola to sleep with his
+magic music, the heroes found the Sampo with little difficulty, and bore
+it away from the copper mountain. But as they hastened home, the
+discordant voice of Lemminkainen, who sang for joy of their capture,
+caused the crane to screech, and the bird's cry roused the people of
+Pohyola. Louhi speedily discovered her loss, and started in pursuit of the
+heroes. In various ways she attacked them,--with war ships that were
+stopped by a reef conjured up by Wainamoinen, by a terrible storm, and by
+a giant eagle that perched on their boat. In their struggle with her the
+Sampo was broken and its fragments scattered on the ocean. Louhi left
+them, uttering dire threats; and Wainamoinen, gathering up what fragments
+of the Sampo he could find, buried them where they would bring prosperity
+to his people.
+
+Now Wainamoinen longed to sing to his harp to rejoice the hearts of his
+people, but the magic instrument had been lost in the storm conjured by
+Louhi. After raking the sea for it in vain, he constructed a new harp from
+the birch-tree, and delighted the people with his songs.
+
+In revenge for the theft of the Sampo, Louhi sent nine diseases upon
+Wainamoinen's people,--colic, pleurisy, fever, ulcer, plague, consumption,
+gout, sterility, and cancer, the offspring of the fell Lowyatar; but by
+the use of vapor baths and balsams Wainamoinen healed his people. Then
+Louhi sent Otso the Bear, the honey-eater, but he was slain by the hero,
+who made a banquet of his flesh for the people. Enraged at her failures,
+she stole the sun, moon, and fire, and left Kalevala in darkness. Ukko,
+taking pity on his people, struck lightning from his fire-sword and gave
+the fire-child to a virgin to be cared for. In an unguarded moment it
+sprang earthward, fell into the sea, and was swallowed by a fish, that, in
+the agonies of torment, was swallowed by another. Wainamoinen went fishing
+with Ilmarinen, and at last caught the gray pike,--found in it the trout,
+found in the trout the whiting, and in the whiting the fireball. When he
+attempted to seize the fireball he burned his fingers, and dropped it.
+Ilmarinen did likewise. Then the ball rolled rapidly away until
+Wainamoinen caught it in an elm-tree, and took it home to gladden his
+people. Still they were cheerless without the sun and moon, and
+Wainamoinen was obliged to go to Louhi and compel her to give up the sun
+and moon. When he returned there was joy in Kalevala.
+
+In the Northland dwelt a happy maiden, Mariatta, who, eating of the magic
+berry, as she wandered one day in the fields, bore by it a child which she
+called Flower. Her parents cast her off, and as no one would take her in,
+she was compelled to go to the flaming steed of Hisi, in whose manger the
+child was born. Once when she slumbered the child vanished, and she sought
+for it in vain, until told by the sun that it was in Wainola, sleeping
+among the reeds and rushes.
+
+The child grew in grace and beauty, but no priest would baptize him, all
+saying that he was a wizard. Wainamoinen, too, counselled that he be
+destroyed; but when the two weeks old babe lifted its head and reproached
+him, saying that he had committed many follies but had been spared by his
+people, Wainamoinen baptized him, and gave him the right to grow a hero
+and become a mighty ruler over Karyala.
+
+As Wainamoinen grew feeble with the passing years, he built himself a boat
+of copper, and singing a plaintive song in which he said the people of
+Suomi would look forward to his return as a time of peace and plenty, he
+set forth, sailing through the dusk of evening to the fiery sunset, and
+anchored in the purple horizon, leaving behind him for an heritage his
+harp, his wondrous songs, and his wisdom sayings.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE KALEVALA.
+
+ILMARINEN'S WEDDING FEAST.
+
+
+Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, visited the Northland, won the Rainbow Maid,
+and successfully performed the tasks set by her mother Louhi. Great
+preparations were made in Pohyola for the wedding, and the coming of the
+bridegroom was anxiously expected.
+
+  Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
+  Ancient dame of Sariola,
+  While at work within her dwelling,
+  Heard the whips crack on the fenlands,
+  Heard the rattle of the sledges;
+  To the northward turned her glances,
+  Turned her vision to the sunlight,
+  And her thoughts ran on as follow:
+  "Who are these in bright apparel,
+  On the banks of Pohya-waters,
+  Are they friends or hostile armies?"
+
+  Then the hostess of the Northland
+  Looked again and well considered,
+  Drew much nearer to examine,
+  Found they were not hostile armies,
+  Found that they were friends and suitors;
+  In the midst was Ilmarinen,
+  Son in-law to ancient Louhi.
+
+  When the hostess of Pohyola
+  Saw the son-in-law approaching,
+  She addressed the words that follow:
+
+  "I had thought the winds were raging,
+  That the piles of wood were falling,
+  Thought the pebbles in commotion,
+  Or perchance the ocean roaring;
+  Then I hastened nearer, nearer,
+  Drew still nearer and examined,
+  Found the winds were not in battle,
+  Found the piles of wood unshaken,
+  Found the ocean was not roaring,
+  Nor the pebbles in commotion;
+  Found my son-in-law was coming
+  With his heroes and attendants,
+  Heroes counted by the hundreds.
+
+  "Should you ask of me the question,
+  How I recognized the bridegroom
+  Mid the host of men and heroes,
+  I should answer, I should tell you:
+  'As the hazel-bush in copses,
+  As the oak-tree in the forest,
+  As the moon among the planets;
+  Drives the groom a coal-black courser,
+  Running like a famished black-dog,
+  Flying like the hungry raven,
+  Graceful as the lark at morning,
+  Golden cuckoos, six in number,
+  Twitter on the birchen cross-bow;
+  There are seven blue-birds singing
+  On the racer's hame and collar.'"
+
+  Noises hear they in the court-yard,
+  On the highway hear the sledges.
+  To the court comes Ilmarinen,
+  With his body-guard of heroes;
+  In the midst the chosen suitor,
+  Not too far in front of others,
+  Not too far behind his fellows.
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Hie ye hither, men and heroes,
+  Haste, ye watchers, to the stables,
+  There unhitch the suitor's stallion,
+  Lower well the racer's breast-plate,
+  There undo the straps and buckles,
+  Loosen well the shafts and traces,
+  And conduct the suitor hither,
+  Give my son-in-law good welcome!"
+
+  Ilmarinen turned his racer
+  Into Louhi's yard and stables,
+  And descended from his snow-sledge
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Come, thou servant of my bidding,
+  Best of all my trusted servants,
+  Take at once the bridegroom's courser
+  From the shafts adorned with silver,
+  From the curving arch of willow,
+  Lift the harness trimmed in copper,
+  Tie the white-face to the manger,
+  Treat the suitor's steed with kindness,
+  Lead him carefully to shelter
+  By his soft and shining bridle,
+  By his halter tipped with silver;
+  Let him roll among the sand-hills,
+  On the bottoms soft and even,
+  On the borders of the snow-banks,
+  In the fields of milky color.
+  Lead the hero's steed to water,
+  Lead him to the Pohya-fountains,
+  Where the living streams are flowing,
+  Sweet as milk of human kindness,
+  From the roots of silvery birches,
+  Underneath the shade of aspens.
+
+  "Feed the courser of the suitor,
+  With the sweetest corn and barley,
+  With the summer-wheat and clover,
+  In the caldron steeped in sweetness;
+  Feed him at the golden manger,
+  In the boxes lined with copper,
+  At my manger richly furnished,
+  In the warmest of the hurdles;
+  Tie him with a silk-like halter,
+  To the golden rings and staples,
+  To the hooks of purest silver,
+  Set in beams of birch and oak-wood;
+  Feed him on the hay the sweetest,
+  Feed him on the grains nutritious,
+  Give the best my barns can furnish.
+
+  "Curry well the suitor's courser
+  With the curry-comb of fish-bone,
+  Brush his hair with silken brushes,
+  Put his mane and tail in order,
+  Cover well with silken blankets,
+  Blankets wrought in gold and silver,
+  Buckles forged from shining copper.
+
+  "Come, ye small lads of the village,
+  Lead the suitor to my chambers,
+  With your auburn locks uncovered,
+  From your hands remove your mittens,
+  See if ye can lead the hero
+  Through the door without his stooping,
+  Lifting not the upper cross-bar,
+  Sinking not the oaken threshold,
+  Moving not the oaken casings,
+  Great the hero who must enter.
+
+  "Ilmarinen is too stately,
+  Cannot enter through the portals,
+  Not the son-in-law and bridegroom,
+  Till the portals have been lengthened;
+  Taller by a head the suitor
+  Than the doorways of the mansion."
+  Quick the servants of Pohyola
+  Tore away the upper cross-bar,
+  That his cap might not be lifted;
+  Made the oaken threshold lower
+  That the hero might not stumble;
+  Made the birch-wood portals wider,
+  Opened full the door of welcome,
+  Easy entrance for the suitor.
+
+  Speaks the hostess of the Northland
+  As the bridegroom freely passes
+  Through the doorway of her dwelling:
+
+  "Thanks are due to thee, O Ukko,
+  That my son-in-law has entered!
+  Let me now my halls examine;
+  Make the bridal chambers ready,
+  Finest linen on my tables,
+  Softest furs upon my benches,
+  Birchen flooring scrubbed to whiteness,
+  All my rooms in perfect order."
+
+  Then the hostess of Pohyola
+  Visited her spacious dwelling,
+  Did not recognize her chambers;
+  Every room had been remodelled,
+  Changed by force of mighty magic;
+  All the halls were newly burnished,
+  Hedgehog bones were used for ceilings,
+  Bones of reindeer for foundations,
+  Bones of wolverine for door-sills,
+  For the cross-bars bones of roebuck,
+  Apple-wood were all the rafters,
+  Alder-wood, the window casings,
+  Scales of trout adorned the windows,
+  And the fires were set in flowers.
+  All the seats were made of silver,
+  All the floors of copper-tiling,
+  Gold-adorned were all the tables,
+  On the floor were silken mattings,
+  Every fire-place set in copper,
+  Every hearth-stone cut from marble,
+  On each shelf were colored sea-shells,
+  Kalew's tree was their protection.
+
+  To the court-room came the hero,
+  Chosen suitor from Wainola,
+  These the words of Ilmarinen:
+
+  "Send, O Ukko, health and pleasure
+  To this ancient home and dwelling,
+  To this mansion richly fashioned!"
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Let thy coming be auspicious
+  To these halls of thee unworthy,
+  To the home of thy affianced,
+  To this dwelling lowly fashioned,
+  Mid the lindens and the aspens.
+
+  "Come, ye maidens that should serve me,
+  Come, ye fellows from the village,
+  Bring me fire upon the birch-bark,
+  Light the fagots of the fir-tree,
+  That I may behold the bridegroom,
+  Chosen suitor of my daughter,
+  Fairy Maiden of the Rainbow,
+  See the color of his eyeballs,
+  Whether they are blue or sable,
+  See if they are warm and faithful."
+
+  Quick the young lads from the village
+  Brought the fire upon the birch-bark,
+  Brought it on the tips of pine-wood;
+  And the fire and smoke commingled
+  Roll and roar about the hero,
+  Blackening the suitor's visage,
+  And the hostess speaks as follows:
+
+  "Bring the fire upon a taper,
+  On the waxen tapers bring it!"
+
+  Then the maidens did as bidden,
+  Quickly brought the lighted tapers,
+  Made the suitor's eyeballs glisten,
+  Made his cheeks look fresh and ruddy;
+  Eyes were neither blue nor sable,
+  Sparkled like the foam of waters,
+  Like the reed-grass on the margin,
+  Colored as the ocean-jewels,
+  Iridescent as the rainbow.
+
+  "Come, ye fellows from the hamlets,
+  Lead my son-in-law and hero
+  To the highest seat at table,
+  To the seat of greatest honor,
+  With his back upon the blue-wall,
+  Looking on my bounteous tables,
+  Facing all the guests of Northland."
+
+  Then the hostess of Pohyola
+  Served her guests in great abundance,
+  Richest drinks and rarest viands,
+  First of all she served the bridegroom;
+  On his platters honeyed biscuit,
+  And the sweetest river-salmon,
+  Seasoned butter, roasted bacon,
+  All the dainties of Pohyola.
+  Then the servants served the others,
+  Filled the plates of all invited
+  With the varied food of Northland.
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Come, ye maidens from the village,
+  Hither bring the beer in pitchers,
+  In the urns with double handles,
+  To the many guests in-gathered.
+  Ere all others, serve the bridegroom."
+
+  Thereupon the merry maidens
+  Brought the beer in silver pitchers
+  From the copper-banded vessels,
+  For the wedding guests assembled;
+  And the beer, fermenting, sparkled
+  On the beard of Ilmarinen,
+  On the beards of many heroes.
+
+  When the guests had all partaken
+  Of the wondrous beer of barley,
+  Spake the drink in merry accents
+  Through the tongues of the magicians,
+  Through the tongue of many a hero,
+  Through the tongue of Wainamoinen,
+  Famed to be the sweetest singer
+  Of the Northland bards and minstrels.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Grant, O Ukko, my Creator,
+  God of love, and truth, and justice,
+  Grant thy blessing on our feasting,
+  Bless this company assembled,
+  For the good of Sariola,
+  For the happiness of Northland!
+  May this bread and beer bring joyance,
+  May they come in rich abundance,
+  May they carry full contentment
+  To the people of Pohyola,
+  To the cabin and the mansion;
+  May the hours we spend in singing,
+  In the morning, in the evening,
+  Fill our hearts with joy and gladness!
+  Hear us in our supplications,
+  Grant to us thy needed blessings,
+  Send enjoyment, health, and comfort,
+  To the people here assembled,
+  To the host and to the hostess,
+  To the bride and to the bridegroom,
+  To the sons upon the waters,
+  To the daughters at their weavings,
+  To the hunters on the mountains,
+  To the shepherds in the fenlands,
+  That our lives may end in honor,
+  That we may recall with pleasure
+  Ilmarinen's magic marriage
+  To the Maiden of the Rainbow,
+  Snow-white virgin of the Northland."
+
+      _Crawford's Translation, Rune XXI._
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE HARP.
+
+
+Wainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and the wizard Lemminkainen started to the
+Northland to win back the Sampo forged for Louhi by Ilmarinen. On the way
+their boat stuck on the shoulders of a great pike, which was killed by
+Wainamoinen. The three then landed, ordered the pike to be cooked by the
+maidens, and feasted until nothing remained of the fish but a heap of
+bones.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Looked upon the pile of fragments,
+  On the fish-bones looked and pondered,
+  Spake these words in meditation:
+
+  "Wondrous things might be constructed
+  From the relics of this monster,
+  Were they in the blacksmith's furnace,
+  In the hands of the magician,
+  In the hands of Ilmarinen."
+
+  Spake the blacksmith of Wainola:
+
+  "Nothing fine can be constructed
+  From the bones and teeth of fishes
+  By the skilful forger-artist,
+  By the hands of the magician."
+  These the words of Wainamoinen:
+
+  "Something wondrous might be builded
+  From these jaws, and teeth, and fish-bones;
+  Might a magic harp be fashioned,
+  Could an artist be discovered
+  That could shape them to my wishes."
+
+  But he found no fish-bone artist
+  That could shape the harp of joyance
+  From the relics of their feasting,
+  From the jaw-bones of the monster,
+  To the will of the magician.
+  Thereupon wise Wainamoinen
+  Set himself at work designing;
+  Quick became a fish-bone artist,
+  Made a harp of wondrous beauty,
+  Lasting joy and pride of Suomi.
+  Whence the harp's enchanting arches?
+  From the jaw-bones of the monster.
+  Whence the necessary harp-pins?
+  From the pike-teeth, firmly fastened.
+  Whence the sweetly singing harp-strings?
+  From the tail of Lempo's stallion.
+  Thus was born the harp of magic
+  From the mighty pike of Northland,
+  From the relics from the feasting
+  Of the heroes of Wainola.
+  All the young men came to view it,
+  All the aged with their children,
+  Mothers with their beauteous daughters,
+  Maidens with their golden tresses;
+  All the people on the islands
+  Came to view the harp of joyance,
+  Pride and beauty of the Northland.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Let the aged try the harp-strings,
+  Gave it to the young magicians,
+  To the dames and to their daughters,
+  To the maidens, silver-tinselled,
+  To the singers of Wainola.
+  When the young men touched the harp-strings,
+  Then arose the notes of discord;
+  When the aged played upon it,
+  Dissonance their only music.
+  Spake the wizard, Lemminkainen:
+
+  "O ye witless, worthless children,
+  O ye senseless, useless maidens,
+  O ye wisdom-lacking heroes,
+  Cannot play this harp of magic,
+  Cannot touch the notes of concord!
+  Give to me this thing of beauty,
+  Hither bring the harp of fish-bones,
+  Let me try my skillful fingers."
+  Lemminkainen touched the harp-strings,
+  Carefully the strings adjusted,
+  Turned the harp in all directions,
+  Fingered all the strings in sequence,
+  Played the instrument of wonder,
+  But it did not speak in concord,
+  Did not sing the notes of joyance.
+  Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
+
+  "There is none among these maidens,
+  None among these youthful heroes,
+  None among the old magicians,
+  That can play the harp of magic,
+  Touch the notes of joy and pleasure.
+  Let us take the harp to Pohya,
+  There to find a skillful player
+  That can touch the strings in concord."
+
+  Then they sailed to Sariola,
+  To Pohyola took the wonder,
+  There to find the harp a master.
+  All the heroes of Pohyola,
+  All the boys and all the maidens,
+  Ancient dames and bearded minstrels,
+  Vainly touched the harp of beauty.
+
+  Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
+  Took the harp-strings in her fingers;
+  All the youth of Sariola,
+  Youth of every tribe and station,
+  Vainly touched the harp of fish-bone;
+  Could not find the notes of joyance,
+  Dissonance their only pleasure;
+  Shrieked the harp-strings like the whirlwinds,
+  All the tones were harsh and frightful.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  The eternal wisdom-singer,
+  Laves his hands to snowy whiteness,
+  Sits upon the rock of joyance,
+  On the stone of song he settles,
+  On the mount of song he settles,
+  On the mount of silver clearness,
+  On the summit, golden colored,
+  Takes the harp by him created,
+  In his hands the harp of fish-bone,
+  With his knee the arch supporting,
+  Takes the harp-strings in his fingers,
+  Speaks these words to those assembled:
+
+  "Hither come, ye Northland people,
+  Come and listen to my playing,--
+  To the harp's entrancing measures,
+  To my songs of joy and gladness."
+
+  Then the singer of Wainola
+  Took the harp of his creation,
+  Quick adjusting, sweetly tuning,
+  Deftly plied his skillful fingers
+  To the strings that he had fashioned.
+  Now was gladness rolled on gladness,
+  And the harmony of pleasure
+  Echoed from the hills and mountains;
+  Added singing to his playing,
+  Out of joy did joy come welling,
+  Now resounded marvellous music,
+  All of Northland stopped and listened.
+  Every creature in the forest,
+  All the beasts that haunt the woodlands
+  On their nimble feet came bounding,
+  Came to listen to his playing,
+  Came to hear his songs of joyance.
+  Leaped the squirrels from the branches,
+  Merrily from birch to aspen;
+  Climbed the ermines on the fences,
+  O'er the plains the elk deer bounded,
+  And the lynxes purred with pleasure;
+  Wolves awoke in far-off swamp-lands,
+  Bounded o'er the marsh and heather,
+  And the bear his den deserted,
+  Left his lair within the pine-wood,
+  Settled by a fence to listen,
+  Leaned against the listening gate-posts,
+  But the gate-posts yield beneath him;
+  Now he climbs the fir-tree branches
+  That he may enjoy and wonder,
+  Climbs and listens to the music
+  Of the harp of Wainamoinen.
+
+  Tapiola's wisest senior,
+  Metsola's most noble landlord,
+  And of Tapio, the people,
+  Young and aged, men and maidens,
+  Flew like red-deer up the mountains
+  There to listen to the playing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Tapiola's wisest mistress,
+  Hostess of the glen and forest,
+  Robed herself in blue and scarlet,
+  Bound her limbs with silken ribbons,
+  Sat upon the woodland summit,
+  On the branches of a birch-tree,
+  There to listen to the playing,
+  To the high-born hero's harping,
+  To the songs of Wainamoinen.
+
+  All the birds that fly in mid-air
+  Fell like snow-flakes from the heavens,
+  Flew to hear the minstrel's playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Eagles in their lofty eyrie
+  Heard the songs of the enchanter;
+  Swift they left their unfledged young ones,
+  Flew and perched around the minstrel.
+  From the heights the hawks descended,
+  From the clouds down swooped the falcon,
+  Ducks arose from inland waters,
+  Swans came gliding from the marshes;
+  Tiny finches, green and golden,
+  Flew in flocks that darkened sunlight,
+  Came in myriads to listen,
+  Perched upon the head and shoulders
+  Of the charming Wainamoinen,
+  Sweetly singing to the playing
+  Of the ancient bard and minstrel.
+  And the daughters of the welkin,
+  Nature's well-beloved daughters,
+  Listened all in rapt attention;
+  Some were seated on the rainbow,
+  Some upon the crimson cloudlets,
+  Some upon the dome of heaven.
+
+  In their hands the Moon's fair daughters
+  Held their weaving-combs of silver;
+  In their hands the Sun's sweet maidens
+  Grasped the handles of their distaffs,
+  Weaving with their golden shuttles,
+  Spinning from their silver spindles,
+  On the red rims of the cloudlets,
+  On the bow of many colors.
+  As they hear the minstrel playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
+  Quick they drop their combs of silver,
+  Drop the spindles from their fingers,
+  And the golden threads are broken,
+  Broken are the threads of silver.
+
+  All the fish in Suomi-waters
+  Heard the songs of the magician,
+  Came on flying fins to listen
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Came the trout with graceful motions,
+  Water-dogs with awkward movements,
+  From the water-cliffs the salmon,
+  From the sea-caves came the whiting,
+  From the deeper caves the bill-fish;
+  Came the pike from beds of sea-fern,
+  Little fish with eyes of scarlet,
+  Leaning on the reeds and rushes,
+  With their heads above the surface;
+  Came to hear the harp of joyance,
+  Hear the songs of the enchanter.
+
+  Ahto, king of all the waters,
+  Ancient king with beard of sea-grass,
+  Raised his head above the billows,
+  In a boat of water-lilies,
+  Glided to the coast in silence,
+  Listened to the wondrous singing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  These the words the sea-king uttered:
+
+  "Never have I heard such playing,
+  Never heard such strains of music,
+  Never since the sea was fashioned,
+  As the songs of this enchanter,
+  This sweet singer, Wainamoinen."
+
+  Satko's daughters from the blue-deep,
+  Sisters of the wave-washed ledges,
+  On the colored strands were sitting,
+  Smoothing out their sea-green tresses
+  With the combs of molten silver,
+  With their silver-handled brushes,
+  Brushes forged with golden bristles.
+  When they hear the magic playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
+  Fall their brushes on the billows,
+  Fall their combs with silver handles
+  To the bottom of the waters,
+  Unadorned their heads remaining,
+  And uncombed their sea-green tresses.
+
+  Came the hostess of the waters,
+  Ancient hostess robed in flowers,
+  Rising from her deep sea-castle,
+  Swimming to the shore in wonder,
+  Listened to the minstrel's playing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  As the magic tones re-echoed,
+  As the singer's song outcircled,
+  Sank the hostess into slumber,
+  On the rocks of many colors,
+  On her watery couch of joyance,
+  Deep the sleep that settled o'er her.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Played one day and then a second,
+  Played the third from morn to even.
+  There was neither man nor hero,
+  Neither ancient dame nor maiden,
+  Not in Metsola a daughter,
+  Whom he did not touch to weeping;
+  Wept the young and wept the aged,
+  Wept the mothers, wept the daughters,
+  At the music of his playing,
+  At the songs of the magician.
+      _Crawford's Translation, Runes XL.-XLI._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AENEID.
+
+
+The Aeneid was written by Publius Vergilius Maro, commonly known as
+Vergil, who was born at Andes, near Mantua, Oct. 15, 70 B. C., and died at
+Brundusium, Sept. 22, 19 B.C.
+
+He was educated at Cremona, Milan, Naples, and Rome. When the lands near
+Cremona and Mantua were assigned by Octavianus to his soldiers after the
+battle of Philippi, Vergil lost his estates; but they were afterwards
+restored to him through Asinius Pollio.
+
+He became a favorite of Augustus, and spent part of his time in Rome, near
+his patron, Maecenas, the emperor's minister.
+
+Vergil's first work was the Bucolics, in imitation of Theocritus. His
+second work, the Georgics, treats of husbandry. The Aeneid relates the
+adventures of Aeneas, the legendary ancestor of the Romans.
+
+The Aeneid is in twelve books, of which the first six describe the
+wanderings of Aeneas, and the last six his wars in Italy. Its metre is the
+dactyllic hexameter.
+
+Vergil worked for eleven years on the poem, and considered it incomplete
+at his death.
+
+The Aeneid tells the story of the flight of Aeneas from burning Troy to
+Italy, and makes him an ancestor of the Romans. With the story of his
+wanderings are interwoven praises of the Caesars and the glory of Rome.
+
+It is claimed that because Vergil was essentially a poet of rural life, he
+was especially fitted to be the national poet, since the Roman life was
+founded on the agricultural country life. He also chose a theme which
+particularly appealed to the patriotism of the Romans. For this reason,
+the poem was immediately received into popular favor, and was made a
+text-book of the Roman youths. It is often said of Vergil by way of
+reproach, that his work was an imitation of Homer, and the first six books
+of the Aeneid are compared to the Odyssey, the last six to the Iliad. But
+while Vergil may be accused of imitation of subject matter, his style is
+his own, and is entirely different from that of Homer. There is a tender
+grace in the Roman writer which the Greek does not possess. Vergil also
+lacks that purely pagan enjoyment of life; in its place there is a tender
+melancholy that suggests the passing of the golden age. This difference of
+treatment, this added grace and charm, which are always mentioned as
+peculiarly Vergil's own, united with his poetical feeling, and skill in
+versification, are sufficient to absolve him from the reproach of a mere
+imitator.
+
+The Aeneid was greatly admired and imitated during the Middle Ages, and
+still retains its high place in literature.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE AENEID.
+
+R. W. Brown's History of Roman Classical Literature, n. d., pp. 257-265;
+
+John Alfred Church's Story of the Aeneid, 1886;
+
+Domenico Comparetti's Virgil in the Middle Ages, Tr. by Benecke, 1895;
+
+C. T. Cruttwell's Virgil (see his History of Roman Literature, n. d. pp.
+252-375);
+
+John Davis's Observations on the poems of Homer and Virgil, out of the
+French, 1672;
+
+James Henry's Aeneidea: or Critical, Exegetical, and Aesthetical Remarks
+on the Aeneis, 1873;
+
+James Henry's Notes of Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery in the first six
+Books of the Aeneid, 1853;
+
+J. W. Mackail's Virgil (see his Latin Literature, 1895, pp. 91-106);
+
+H. Nettleship's The Aeneid (see his Vergil, 1880, pp. 45-74);
+
+H. T. Peck and R. Arrowsmith's Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse, 1894,
+pp. 68-70;
+
+Leonhard Schmitz's History of Latin Literature, 1877, pp. 106-108;
+
+W. Y. Sellar's Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, Vergil, Ed. 2, 1883;
+
+W. S. Teuffel's Aeneis (see his History of Roman Literature, 1891, pp.
+434-439);
+
+J. S. Tunison's Master Virgil, the author of the Aeneid, as he seemed in
+the Middle Ages, 1888;
+
+Robert Y. Tyrrell's Virgil (see his Latin Poetry, 1895, pp. 126-161);
+
+A Forgotten Virtue, Macmillan, 1895, xii. 51-56, an article on the Aeneid,
+"the epic of piety;"
+
+Scene of the last six books of the Aeneid, Blackwood, 1832, xxxii. 76-87;
+
+A. A. Knight's The Year in the Aeneid, Education, 1886, vi. 612-616;
+
+William C. Cawton's The Underworld in Homer, Virgil, and Dante, Atlantic,
+1884, liv. 99-110.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE AENEID.
+
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by J. Conington, 1887;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by C. P. Cranch, 1872;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by John Dryden (1697), 1884;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by William Morris, 1882;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by W. S. Thornhill, 1886;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by J. A. Wilstach, 1884;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by J. W. Mackail, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE AENEID.
+
+
+For many years the heroic Aeneas, who escaped from falling Troy to seek the
+shores of Italy, there to found the lofty walls of Rome, was tossed upon
+the sea by the wrath of cruel Juno.
+
+The fates foretold that these future Romans would overthrow a city dearer
+to her than Samos,--Carthage, founded by the Tyrians, opposite Italy, and
+far from the Tiberine mouths. For this rich city Juno desired boundless
+rule,--hence her hatred of the Trojans. Moreover, she had not forgotten
+the judgment of Paris, her slighted charms, and the supplanting of Hebe by
+Ganymede.
+
+After having tossed the unhappy hero and his men over many seas, Juno,
+observing their approach to Italy, hastened to Aeolia, where King Aeolus
+ruled over the struggling winds and tempests, chained in vast caves.
+
+Bribed by Juno, Aeolus sent forth a tempest that scattered the ships of
+Aeneas, and would have destroyed them had it not been for the interposition
+of Neptune.
+
+Suspecting his sister's treachery, Neptune angrily dismissed the winds,
+and hastened to the relief of the Trojans. Cymothoë and Triton pushed the
+ships from the rocks, he himself assisting with his trident. Then, driving
+over the rough waves in his chariot, he soothed the frenzy of the sea.
+
+The wearied Aeneans speedily sought a harbor on the Libyan shore, a long
+and deep recess bordered by a dense grove. In the cliffs was a cave, with
+sweet waters and seats carved from the living rock,--the abode of the
+nymphs. Gathering here the seven ships that survived the fury of the
+storm, Aeneas landed, and feasted with his comrades.
+
+The next morning Aeneas, accompanied by his friend Achates, sallied forth
+from the camp at dawn, to learn, if possible, something of the land on
+which they had been thrown. They had gone but a little way in the depths
+of the forest when they met Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the guise of a
+Spartan maid, her bow hung from her shoulders, her hair flowing to the
+wind.
+
+"Hast thou seen my sister?" she inquired, "hunting the boar, wrapped in a
+spotted lynx hide, her quiver at her back?"
+
+"Nay, we have seen no one," replied Aeneas. "But what shall I call thee,
+maiden? A goddess, a nymph? Be kind, I pray thee, and tell us among what
+people we have fallen, that before thy altars we may sacrifice many a
+victim."
+
+"I am unworthy of such honors," Venus answered. "This land is Libya, but
+the town is Tyrian, founded by Dido, who fled hither from her brother
+Pygmalion, who had secretly murdered her husband, Sichaeus, for his gold.
+To Dido, sleeping, appeared the wraith of Sichaeus, pallid, his breast
+pierced with the impious wound, and revealed to her her brother's crime,
+showed where a hoard of gold was concealed, and advised her to leave the
+country.
+
+"Gathering together a company of those who wished to flee from the tyrant,
+Dido seized the ships, loaded them with the gold, and fled to Libya, where
+she is now erecting the walls and towers of New Carthage. I would advise
+thee to hasten forward and seek our queen. If augury fail me not, I read
+from yonder flight of swans the return of thy missing ships and comrades."
+
+As she turned to go, her neck shone with a rosy refulgence, ambrosial
+fragrance breathed from her, her robe flowed down about her feet and
+revealed the goddess. As she vanished, her son stretched longing hands
+after her. "Ah, mother, why dost thou thus trifle with me? Why may not I
+clasp thy loved hands and exchange true words with thee?"
+
+Wrapped in a cloud by Venus, Aeneas and Achates mounted a hill that
+overlooked the city, and looked down wondering on the broad roofs and the
+paved streets of Carthage. The busy Tyrians worked like the bees in early
+summer: some moving the immense masses of stone, some founding the
+citadel, others laying off the sites for the law courts and sacred Senate
+House. "O happy ye whose walls now rise!" exclaimed Aeneas, as he and
+Achates mingled with the crowd, still cloud-wrapped, and entered the vast
+temple built to Juno. Here Aeneas's fear fell from him; for as he waited
+for the queen's coming, he saw pictured on the walls the fall of his own
+dear city, and wept as he gazed upon the white tents of Rhesus, and
+Hector's disfigured body.
+
+As he wept, the beautiful Dido entered, joyously intent on her great work,
+and, seating herself on her throne, proceeded to give laws to the Tyrians,
+and assign their work to them.
+
+Suddenly, to the amazement of Aeneas and Achates, in burst their lost
+comrades, Antheus, Sergestus, Gyas, Cloanthus, and other Trojans,
+demanding of Dido a reason for their rough reception. To whom the queen
+replied:--
+
+"Let fear desert your hearts; I, too, have suffered, and know how to aid
+the unfortunate. And whither hath not the fame of Troy penetrated? I will
+aid you in leaving this coast, or give you a home with me, treating you as
+I treat my Tyrians. Would only that Aeneas's self stood with you!"
+
+Then burst Aeneas forth from his cloud-wrapping, made more beautiful by
+Venus, the purple bloom of youth on his face, joy in his eyes. "Here am I,
+Trojan Aeneas, to render thanks to thee, divine Dido."
+
+Dido, charmed with the hero, prepared a banquet for him in her splendid
+hall, curtained with rich drapery, and adorned with costly plate, whereon
+were pictured the proud deeds of her ancestors. Hither came the Trojans
+with gifts for Dido,--a rich robe stiff with gold embroidery, a veil
+embroidered with the yellow acanthus, ornaments of Helen, the sceptre of
+Ilione, a pearl and gold necklace, and a double crown of gems and gold.
+
+Beside Achates tripped Cupid, for Venus, suspecting the craft of the
+Tyrians, had hidden Ascanius on Mount Ida, and sent her own son in his
+guise, to complete Aeneas's conquest of Dido.
+
+After the feast was over, the great beakers were brought in and crowned
+with garlands. Dido called for the beaker used by Belus and all his
+descendants, and pouring a libation, drank to the happiness of the Trojan
+wanderers, and passed the cup around the board. Iopas, the long-haired
+minstrel, sang, and the night passed by in various discourse. Dido,
+forgetting Sichaeus, hung on the words of Aeneas, questioning him of Priam
+and Hector, and at last demanding the story of his wanderings.
+
+"Thou orderest me, O queen, to renew my grief, the destruction of Troy by
+the Greeks, which deeds I have seen, and a part of which I have been.
+
+"Despairing of conquering Troy, the Greeks attempted to take it by
+stratagem. By the art of Pallas, they framed a heaven-high horse, within
+which were concealed picked men for our destruction. Leaving this behind
+them, they sailed, ostensibly for home, in reality for Tenedos.
+
+"When we supposed them gone we joyfully went forth to examine the deserted
+camp and the giant horse. As we wondered at it, and Laocoön, priest of
+Neptune, urged us to destroy it, a crowd of shepherds approached with a
+youth whom they had found hiding in the sedges. His name was Sinon. He was
+a Greek, but he was hated by Ulysses, and had fled to save his life. The
+Greeks had sailed home, he assured us, leaving the horse as a votive
+offering to Pallas. They had hoped that its great bulk would prevent the
+Trojans from taking it inside their walls, for once within the city, Troy
+could never be taken.
+
+"We Trojans were credulous, and Sinon's tale was plausible. To increase
+our belief in it, while Laocoön was sacrificing a bull to Neptune, we saw
+coming over the sea from Tenedos two huge serpents, their crimson crests
+towering high, their breasts erect among the waves, their long folds
+sweeping over the foaming sea. As we fled affrighted, they seized the two
+sons of Laocoön, twining their coils around the wretched boys; and when
+their father hastened to their aid, caught him in their huge coils,
+staining his fillets with black blood. 'Laocoön suffered for his crime,'
+we said, when, the priest slain, the serpents crept to Pallas's altar, and
+curled themselves around the feet of the goddess. Then joyfully we made a
+breach in the walls, put rollers under the horse, and, with music and
+dancing, dragged it within the walls.
+
+"That night as we lay sleeping after revelry and feasting, Sinon crept
+down, opened the horse, and freed the men, who were soon joined by the
+other Greeks, returned from Tenedos.
+
+"In a dream Hector's shade appeared to me, and, weeping, bade me fly.
+'Troy falls. Do thou go forth and save her household deities!' As I woke,
+sounds of battle penetrated to my palace halls, removed somewhat from the
+city, and embowered in trees; and I rushed forth, forgetful of Hector's
+warning. I saw the streets swimming in Trojan blood, Trojan women and
+children led captive, Cassandra dragged from her shrine. Enraged, I
+gathered a band and slew many Greeks. But when I saw the impious Pyrrhus
+enter the palace and slay Priam at the altar, I recognized the uselessness
+of my struggle, and turned to my home.
+
+"Taking my old father Anchises on my back, and leading Iulus by the hand,
+I set forth, followed by my wife Creusa. But when I looked behind me at
+the city gates, my wife was gone. Mad with despair, I rushed back to the
+citadel, crying, 'Creusa! Creusa!' Our homestead was in flames, the
+streets filled with Greeks; but as I roamed through the town, I met her
+pallid shape. 'O husband, rage not against heaven's decrees! Happy days
+will come for thee on the banks of the Tiber. Farewell, and love with me
+our boy!'
+
+"Without the gates I was joined by other fugitives; and after the
+departure of the Greeks we built ships from the timbers of Mount Ida, and
+loading these with our household gods and a few spoils from the city, we
+departed to seek new homes.
+
+"In Thrace, our first stopping-place, I learned that Polydore, Priam's
+son, who had been entrusted to the care of the Thracian king, had been
+slain by him for his gold, when the fortunes of Troy fell. We hastened to
+leave this accursed land, and sought Delos, only to be instructed by
+Apollo that we must seek the home from which our forefathers had come.
+Anchises, who remembered the legends of our race, thought this must be
+Crete; so to Crete we sailed, and there laid the foundations of a city,
+only to be driven thence by a plague and a threatened famine.
+
+"In a dream my household gods instructed me that Dardanus, the founder of
+our race, had come from Hesperia, and thither we must bend our course.
+Tempests drove us about the sea for three suns, until, on the fourth, we
+landed at the isle of the Harpies,--loathsome monsters, half woman, half
+bird, who foul everything they touch. When we had slain the cattle and
+prepared to banquet, they drove us from the tables; and when attacked by
+us, uttered dire threats of future famine.
+
+"At Epirus we heard that Andromache had wed Prince Helenus, who had
+succeeded to the rule of Pyrrhus, two Trojans thus being united. As I
+landed here, anxious to prove the truth of the rumor, I met Andromache
+herself in a grove near the town, sacrificing at an empty tomb dedicated
+to Hector. Pyrrhus had made her his slave after the fall of Troy, but
+after he wedded Hermione, he had given her to Helenus, himself a slave.
+When Pyrrhus died, part of his realm fell to Helenus, and here the two had
+set up a little Troy.
+
+"Helenus received us kindly, instructed us as to our route, and gave us
+rich gifts; and Andromache, remembering her dead Astyanax, wept over lulus
+as she parted with him.
+
+"As we passed Sicily we took up a Greek, Achemenides, a companion of
+Ulysses, who had been left behind, and had since been hiding in deadly
+terror from the Cyclops. We ourselves caught sight of the monster
+Polyphemus, feeling his way to the shore to bathe his wounded eye.
+
+"Instructed by Helenus, we avoided Scylla and Charybdis, and reached
+Sicily, where my father died. We were just leaving the island when the
+storm arose that brought us hither. The rest thou knowest."
+
+The guests departed from the banquet hall; but the unhappy Dido, consumed
+with love, imparted her secret to her sister Anna.
+
+"Why shouldst thou weep, sister dear? Why regret that thou hast at last
+forgotten Sichaeus? Contend not against love, but strive to unite Trojan
+and Tyrian. Winter comes on, and thou canst detain him while the sea rages
+and the winds are fierce and the rains icy."
+
+Her ambitious plans for her city forgotten, Dido wandered through the
+streets, mad with love and unable to conceal her passion. She led Ćneas
+among the walls and towers, made feasts for him, and begged again and
+again to hear the story of his wandering. At other times she fondled
+Ascanius, leaving her youths undrilled, and the city works abandoned.
+
+Perceiving that Aeneas, well content, seemed to forget that his goal was
+Hesperia, Mercury was dispatched by Jupiter to warn him to depart from
+Carthage.
+
+"Why stoppest thou here?" questioned the herald of the gods. "If thou
+carest not for thyself, think of Ascanius, thine heir. His must be the
+Italian realms, the Roman world."
+
+The horror-stricken Aeneas stood senseless with fear. He longed to escape,
+but how leave the unhappy Dido? Quickly calling his comrades, he commanded
+them to fit out the fleet in silence, hoping to find a time when he could
+break the news to Dido gently.
+
+But who can deceive a lover? Rumor bore the report to Dido, who, mad with
+grief, reproached Aeneas. "Perfidious one! didst thou think to escape from
+me? Does not our love restrain thee, and the thought that I shall surely
+die when thou art gone? I have sacrificed all to thee; now leave me not
+lonely in my empty palace."
+
+Aeneas remained untouched. He would ever retain the kindest memories of his
+stay in Carthage. He had never held out the hope of wedlock to her. A
+higher power called him, and, bidden by Jove, he must depart, for
+Ascanius's sake, to Italy.
+
+The fainting Dido was carried to her palace, whence she could watch the
+hurried preparations for the departure. As she watched, life became
+intolerable to her. Pretending to her sister that she was preparing to
+perform a magic spell to release her from the bonds of love, she reared a
+mighty pyre in her court, wreathed it with funereal garlands, and placed
+thereon Aeneas's couch, garments, and sword. With her hair dishevelled, she
+then invoked Hecate, and sprinkling Avernian water and poisons on it, and
+casting thereon various love charms, she called the gods to witness that
+she was determined to die. As the ships left the harbor, she tore her
+hair, one moment accusing herself because she had not torn Aeneas to pieces
+when in her power, at another vowing to follow him. Then, anxious to
+forget her grief, she mounted, the pyre, and threw herself on the sword of
+her faithless, lover.
+
+Far out at sea, the Aeneans, looking back, dimly guessed the meaning of the
+flames that brightened the stormy skies.
+
+Contrary winds compelled Aeneas to seek harbor in Sicily. Its king,
+Acestes, was his friend, and there he had buried his father Anchises. A
+year had elapsed since his death, and in honor of the anniversary, Aeneas
+instituted funeral games, in which there were trials of skill in rowing,
+foot-racing, archery, and boxing.
+
+While the spectators were applauding the feats of skill, the Trojan women,
+at the instigation of Juno, set fire to the ships, that they might compel
+Aeneas to remain in Sicily. By Jupiter's aid, some of the vessels were
+saved, and Aeneas, acting on the advice of Nautes, allowed the women and
+those Trojans who so desired, to remain in Sicily, and himself marked out
+for them the foundations of their city.
+
+While here Aeneas was urged by Anchises in a dream to visit the Cumaean
+Sibyl, that, with her assistance, he might visit Elysium and talk with
+him.
+
+In the lofty temple, the Sibyl, inspired by the god, encouraged the hero.
+"Success will at last be thine, and Juno will be won over to thee. But
+great labors must thou undergo."
+
+To visit the underworld was no easy task, she assured him. "The gates of
+Dis stand open night and day; small trouble it is to descend thereto, but
+to retrace one's steps, and regain the upper air, there lies the toil."
+Aeneas must first possess a golden branch to present to Proserpina, and
+celebrate the funeral rites of his friend, Misenus, who yet lay unburied.
+
+While Aeneas worked in the forest, felling trees for Misenus's bier, the
+doves of Venus descended and aided him to find the tree, from which he
+plucked the gleaming branch.
+
+Across the Styx, past the dread Cerberus, Aeneas and the Sibyl went,
+through the abode of babes and those who died for deeds they did not do,
+and into the mourning fields, where the disappointed in love were hedged
+in with myrtle sprays. Here Aeneas descried Dido dimly through the clouds,
+and wept to see her fresh wound. Many were his protestations of his
+faithfulness, and strong his declaration that he left her only at the
+command of the gods. But without raising her eyes, Dido turned coldly away
+to where her former husband returned her love for love. Past the chamber
+of torture, beyond Phlegethon, guarded by Tisiphone and Tartarus, in whose
+depths the wicked were punished, they went, and entered the beautiful
+fields of Elysium, where Aeneas found his father.
+
+To his son, Anchises explained that the souls that visited the underworld
+were punished according to their deserts, and then sent into Elysium.
+Cleansed there of all impurities, and with the memories of the past washed
+from them by Lethe, they again visited the world in another form. Pointing
+out a crowd that passed them, he indicated to Aeneas the illustrious men
+who would make his race famous in Italy. First his son Silvius, born of
+Lavinia, his Italian wife to be; Numitor, Romulus, the founder of Rome,
+Caesar, and greatest of all, Augustus Caesar, who would usher in the
+golden age.
+
+Comforted by the prophecies of Anchises, Aeneas sought the upper world, and
+collecting his companions, set sail for the mouth of the Tiber.
+
+Latinus the king welcomed Aeneas, and received his proposals for his
+daughter Lavinia's hand with favor, remembering an ancient prophecy that
+Lavinia was to wed a foreign prince. But queen Amata, aroused by Juno,
+insisted that Lavinia should be espoused to Turnus, chief of the
+Rutulians. Stung by the fury Alecto, she stirred up the people until they
+demanded that Latinus declare war against Aeneas; and when he hesitated,
+Juno herself threw open the gates of the temple of Janus.
+
+Leaving part of his forces in Latium with Ascanius, Aeneas, instructed in a
+dream by father Tiber, sailed up the river to Pallanteum, the future site
+of Rome, to gain the alliance of Evander, an Arcadian king unfriendly to
+Turnus.
+
+Evander, who was celebrating a solemn feast to Hercules, together with his
+only son Pallas, and his senate, welcomed the warriors to his modest home,
+promised his alliance, and sent forth with Aeneas his son Pallas and four
+hundred knights. He also advised him to go to Argylla, whose people were
+stirred up against Turnus because he protected their tyrant king
+Mezentius.
+
+While Aeneas was thus seeking allies, his troops in Latium had been
+attacked and besieged by Turnus, and were greatly in need of the hero's
+aid. While the hosts of Turnus were sleeping after their drunken revelry,
+Nisus proposed to his beloved Euryalus that they steal through the Latin
+line with messages to Aeneas. Their proposal was applauded by the elders,
+and Iulus, weeping, promised to cherish them forever for their courage.
+
+As the youths passed among the sleeping Latins, the desire for slaughter
+overcame them, and they slew Rhamnes, as he lay upon his gorgeous rugs,
+Lamus, and many others, Euryalus taking Rhamnes's golden-studded belt and
+Messapus's helmet as booty. Unfortunately they had delayed too long in
+slaughter; as they neared the camp of Turnus, Volscens, returning with
+reinforcements, caught sight of the shining helmet of Euryalus. The youth,
+flying, became separated from Nisus, and was captured by the enemy. Nisus,
+who returned to rescue his friend, sent weapon after weapon from his
+retreat, and when he saw Euryalus about to suffer death from Volscens,
+rushed forth to save him, only to fall dead upon the body of his
+slaughtered friend.
+
+Angry at the slaughter committed by Nisus and Euryalus, Turnus, on his
+return, attempted to scale the intrenchments. The fight raged fiercely
+around the walls and towers; but just as the victory seemed to be with
+Turnus, Aeneas returned with his Tuscan allies, effected a landing, and
+began to put the enemy to flight, slaying the tyrant Mezentius and his
+son.
+
+Turnus, hearing of the danger of his friend Lausus, at the hands of
+Pallas, who had already wrought great slaughter, sought him out, amazing
+the young warrior by his great size. Pallas faced him bravely; but while
+his spear only grazed the shoulder of Turnus, the spear of the Rutulian
+crushed the folds of iron, bronze, and hides, the corselet's rings of
+steel, and buried itself in Pallas's breast.
+
+Turnus took the sword-belt from Pallas's body; but because of the merit of
+the young warrior, yielded his body to the Arcadians to be carried to King
+Evander.
+
+Enraged at the death of his friend, Aeneas fought more fiercely. Especially
+anxious was he to meet Turnus; but Juno, determined, if possible, to save
+her favorite, decoyed Turnus off the battle-field by assuming the guise of
+Aeneas.
+
+After a truce, during which the armies buried their dead, and the body of
+Pallas was sent home to his father, the armies again came together, the
+Latins being reinforced by the Amazons, under the leadership of Camilla.
+Camilla had been reared by her father, the exile Metabus, and, early
+trained to warlike pursuits, had consecrated herself to Diana. Beautiful
+as a goddess was she, and so light of foot that she could fly over the
+tops of the tallest wheat without harming the ears.
+
+Within the walls of Latium there was quarrelling between the parties,
+Drances, leader of the peace party, accusing Turnus of bringing on and
+continuing the hostilities. The approach of Aeneas brought these disputes
+to an abrupt conclusion, and Camilla, with Turnus, hastened to battle.
+Many victims fell by Camilla's hand that day, as she rode about the field,
+her breast bare, her hand clasping her double battle-axe, before Aruns
+struck her down and fled, frightened at his victory.
+
+In Latium the unhappiness increased, and Turnus, enraged at the reproaches
+heaped upon him, declared that he would decide the war by single combat
+with Aeneas. Latinus made no secret of his regret at having been compelled
+to break his compact with Aeneas; but Amata, still furious, raged against
+Aeneas, and declared that she would die if he were made her son-in-law.
+
+The preparations were made for the single combat, the sacrifices at the
+altars, the crowds assembled to witness the combat; but just as the kings
+were solemnizing the agreement, Turnus's sister, Juturna, a river goddess,
+beloved of Jupiter, renewed the hostilities that Turnus might be saved. A
+weapon hurled from the Latin ranks caused the indignant Trojans to rise in
+arms, forgetful of the treaty, and the fight raged more fiercely than
+before.
+
+Juturna, fearful from Juno's words of the fate of Turnus, assumed the
+guise of Metiscus, his charioteer, and drove her brother over the field
+far from the angry Aeneas, who, weary of waiting for Turnus, turned towards
+Latium. The frightened people rushed hither and thither, and the queen,
+seeing the approaching foe, the roofs in flames, and no troops of Turnus
+in sight, supposed the Rutulian dead, and hanged herself.
+
+In the mean time, Turnus, remote from the fight, reproached his sister.
+"Think'st thou not I recognized thee? Thy deceit is in vain. Is to die so
+wretched a thing? Let us go to the battle. At least, I will die not
+unworthy of my ancestry."
+
+As he spoke, Saces, wounded and bleeding, rushed to him, imploring:
+"Turnus, have pity on us; come to our rescue! The Latins call thee, the
+queen is dead, the phalanxes crowd thick around the gates, while thou
+drivest idly here."
+
+Turnus, amazed, confused, and shamed, saw flames consuming the towers of
+Latium.
+
+"Now, sister, the fates control. Desist! It is too late, I will be shamed
+no more!" Leaping from his chariot, he rushed forward, demanding that war
+cease in order that he and Aeneas might decide the battle in single combat.
+
+When Turnus's sword broke on the helmet of Aeneas,--the sword of his
+charioteer, that he had seized by mistake instead of his own Styx-hardened
+blade,--he turned and fled, Aeneas pursuing.
+
+Above, in Olympus, Jupiter and Juno quarrelled, as they watched the heroes
+circling over the yellow sand.
+
+"Give over thy enmity," said the omnipotent father. "Thou hast caused the
+treaty to be violated; even now thou hast made Juturna return the lost
+sword to Turnus--in vain. Grieve no more, and goad no longer these
+suffering men of Troy."
+
+Then Juno yielded, stipulating only that the Trojans lay aside their
+ancient name, that Latium remain Latium, and the future growth Roman.
+
+Juturna, warned by Jove's messenger, a bird of evil omen, tore her locks
+and beat her breast, regretting the gift of immortality conferred on her
+by Jove. Then wrapping her gray veil about her, she fled to her watery
+throne that she might not see the death of her brother. The frightened
+Turnus, still fleeing from Aeneas, abandoned his sword and took up instead
+a mighty rock, a landmark such as scarce six men could uplift.
+
+Hurling this at Aeneas, he stood, his blood running chill, his eyes cast
+towards the Rutuli, the town, and the spear of Aeneas, that, shrieking
+through the air, doom laden, wrecked his heavy shield and pierced his
+thigh.
+
+"Mercy!" he prayed. "Fate hath given thee the advantage. Think, thou
+duteous son, of my old father, Daunus."
+
+As Aeneas stood, softened, and ready to grant the request, the sword-belt
+of Pallas caught his eye.
+
+"Shalt thou escape, decked out with Pallas's spoils? No, not I slay thee,
+but Pallas! His hand immolates thee!" As he spoke he plunged his sword in
+Turnus's breast.
+
+Chilly death came, and the warrior's spirit fled, groaning to the shades.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE AENEID.
+
+NISUS AND EURYALUS.
+
+
+While Aeneas, finding the Latins hostile to him, sailed up the Tiber in
+search of allies, the troops he left behind under Ascanius were attacked
+by Turnus, and their slight fortifications besieged. They were sorely
+pressed, and longed to be able to inform Aeneas of their need.
+
+  Nisus was guardian of the gate,
+  No bolder heart in war's debate,
+  The son of Hyrtacus, whom Ide
+  Sent, with his quiver at his side,
+  From hunting beasts in mountain brake
+  To follow in Aeneas' wake:
+  With him Euryalus, fair boy;
+  None fairer donned the arms of Troy;
+  His tender cheek as yet unshorn
+  And blossoming with youth new-born.
+  Love made them one in every thought:
+  In battle side by side they fought;
+  And now in duty at the gate
+  The twain in common station wait.
+  "Can it be Heaven," said Nisus then,
+  "That lends such warmth to hearts of men,
+  Or passion surging past control
+  That plays the god to each one's soul?
+  Long time, impatient of repose,
+  My swelling heart within me glows,
+  And yearns its energy to fling
+  On war, or some yet grander thing.
+  See there the foe, with vain hope flushed!
+  Their lights are scant, their stations hushed:
+  Unnerved by slumber and by wine
+  Their bravest chiefs are stretched supine.
+  Now to my doubting thought give heed
+  And listen where its motions lead.
+  Our Trojan comrades, one and all,
+  Cry loud, Aeneas to recall,
+  And where, they say, the men to go
+  And let him of our peril know?
+  Now if the meed I ask they swear
+  To give you--nay, I claim no share,
+  Content with bare renown--
+  Meseems, beside yon grassy heap
+  The way I well might find and keep,
+  To Pallanteum's town."
+  The youth returns, while thirst of praise
+  Infects him with a strange amaze:
+  "Can Nisus aim at heights so great,
+  Nor take his friend to share his fate?
+  Shall I look on, and let you go
+  Alone to venture 'mid the foe?
+  Not thus my sire Opheltes, versed
+  In war's rude toil, my childhood nursed,
+  When Argive terror filled the air
+  And Troy was battling with despair:
+  Nor such the lot my youth has tried,
+  In hardship ever at your side,
+  Since, great Aeneas' liegeman sworn,
+  I followed Fortune to her bourne:
+  Here, here within this bosom burns
+  A soul that mere existence spurns,
+  And holds the fame you seek to reap,
+  Though bought with life, were bought full cheap."
+
+  "Not mine the thought," brave Nisus said,
+  "To wound you with so base a dread:
+  So may great Jove, or whosoe'er
+  Marks with just eyes how mortals fare,
+  Protect me going, and restore
+  In triumph to your arms once more.
+  But if--for many a chance, you wis,
+  Besets an enterprise like this--
+  If accident or power divine
+  The scheme to adverse end incline,
+  Your life at least I would prolong:
+  Death does your years a deeper wrong.
+  Leave me a friend to tomb my clay,
+  Rescued or ransomed, which you may;
+  Or, e'en that boon should chance refuse,
+  To pay the absent funeral dues.
+  Nor let me cause so dire a smart
+  To that devoted mother's heart,
+  Who, sole of all the matron train,
+  Attends her darling o'er the main,
+  Nor cares like others to sit down
+  An inmate of Acestes' town."
+  He answers brief: "Your pleas are naught:
+  Firm stands the purpose of my thought:
+  Come, stir we: why so slow?"
+  Then calls the guards to take their place,
+  Moves on by Nisus, pace with pace,
+  And to the prince they go.
+  All other creatures wheresoe'er
+  Were stretched in sleep, forgetting care:
+  Troy's chosen chiefs in high debate
+  Were pondering o'er the reeling state,
+  What means to try, or whom to speed
+  To show Aeneas of their need.
+  There stand they, midway in the field,
+  Still hold the spear, still grasp the shield:
+  When Nisus and his comrade brave
+  With eager tones admittance crave;
+  The matter high; though time be lost,
+  The occasion well were worth the cost,
+  Iulus hails the impatient pair,
+  Bids Nisus what they wish declare.
+  Then spoke the youth: "Chiefs I lend your ears,
+  Nor judge our proffer by our years.
+  The Rutules, sunk in wine and sleep,
+  Have ceased their former watch to keep:
+  A stealthy passage have we spied
+  Where on the sea the gate opes wide:
+  The line of fires is scant and broke,
+  And thick and murky rolls the smoke.
+  Give leave to seek, in these dark hours,
+  Aeneas at Evander's towers,
+  Soon will you see us here again
+  Decked with the spoils of slaughtered men.
+  Nor strange the road: ourselves have seen
+  The city, hid by valleys green,
+  Just dimly dawning, and explored
+  In hunting all the river-board."
+  Out spoke Aletes, old and gray:
+  "Ye gods, who still are Ilium's stay,
+  No, no, ye mean not to destroy
+  Down to the ground the race of Troy,
+  When such the spirit of her youth,
+  And such the might of patriot truth."
+  Then, as the tears roll down his face,
+  He clasps them both in strict embrace:
+  "Brave warriors! what rewards so great,
+  For worth like yours to compensate?
+  From Heaven and from your own true heart
+  Expect the largest, fairest part:
+  The rest, and at no distant day,
+  The good Aeneas shall repay,
+  Nor he, the royal youth, forget
+  Through all his life the mighty debt."
+  "Nay, hear me too," Ascanius cried,
+  "Whose life is with my father's tied:
+  O Nisus! by the home-god powers
+  We jointly reverence, yours and ours,
+  The god of ancient Capys' line,
+  And Vesta's venerable shrine,
+  By these dread sanctions I appeal
+  To you, the masters of my weal;
+  Oh, bring me back my sire again!
+  Restore him, and I feel no pain.
+  Two massy goblets will I give;
+  Rich sculptures on the silver live;
+  The plunder of my sire,
+  What time he took Arisba's hold;
+  Two chargers, talents twain of gold,
+  A bowl beside of antique mould
+  By Dido brought from Tyre.
+  Then, too, if ours the lot to reign
+  O'er Italy by conquest ta'en,
+  And each man's spoil assign,--
+  Saw ye how Turnus rode yestreen,
+  His horse and arms of golden sheen?
+  That horse, that shield and glowing crest
+  I separate, Nisus, from the rest
+  And count already thine.
+  Twelve female slaves, at your desire,
+  Twelve captives with their arms entire,
+  My sire shall give you, and the plain
+  That forms Latinus' own domain.
+  But you, dear youth, of worth divine,
+  Whose blooming years are nearer mine,
+  Here to my heart I take, and choose
+  My comrade for whate'er ensues.
+  No glory will I e'er pursue,
+  Unmotived by the thought of you:
+  Let peace or war my state befall,
+  Thought, word, and deed, you share them all."
+  The youth replied: "No after day
+  This hour's fair promise shall betray,
+  Be fate but kind. Yet let me claim
+  One favor, more than all you name:
+  A mother in the camp is mine,
+  Derived from Priam's ancient line:
+  No home in Sicily or Troy
+  Has kept her from her darling boy.
+  She knows not, she, the paths I tread;
+  I leave her now, no farewell said;
+  By night and this your hand I swear,
+  A parent's tears I could not bear.
+  Vouchsafe your pity, and engage
+  To solace her unchilded age:
+  And I shall meet whate'er betide
+  By such assurance fortified."
+  With sympathy and tender grief
+  All melt in tears, Iulus chief,
+  As filial love in other shown
+  Recalled the semblance of his own:
+  And, "Tell your doubting heart," he cries,
+  "All blessings wait your high emprise:
+  I take your mother for my own,
+  Creusa, save in name alone,
+  Nor lightly deem the affection due
+  To her who bore a child like you.
+  Come what come may, I plight my troth
+  By this my head, my father's oath,
+  The bounty to yourself decreed
+  Should favoring gods your journey speed,
+  The same shall in your line endure,
+  To parent and to kin made sure."
+  He spoke, and weeping still, untied
+  A gilded falchion from his side,
+  Lycaon's work, the man of Crete,
+  With sheath of ivory complete:
+  Brave Mnestheus gives for Nisus' wear
+  A lion's hide with shaggy hair;
+  Aletes, old in danger grown,
+  His helmet takes, and gives his own.
+  Then to the gates, as forth they fare,
+  The band of chiefs with many a prayer
+  The gallant twain attends:
+  Iulus, manlier than his years,
+  Oft whispering, for his father's ears
+  Full many a message sends:
+  But be it message, be it prayer,
+  Alike 'tis lost, dispersed in air.
+
+  The trenches past, through night's deep gloom
+  The hostile camp they near:
+  Yet many a foe shall meet his doom
+  Or ere that hour appear.
+  There see they bodies stretched supine,
+  O'ercome with slumber and with wine;
+  The cars, unhorsed, are drawn up high;
+  'Twixt wheels and harness warriors lie,
+  With arms and goblets on the grass
+  In undistinguishable mass.
+  "Now," Nisus cried, "for hearts and hands:
+  This, this the hour our force demands.
+  Here pass we: yours the rear to mind,
+  Lest hostile arm be raised behind;
+  Myself will go before and slay,
+  While carnage opes a broad highway."
+  So whispers he with bated breath,
+  And straight begins the work of death
+  On Rhamnes, haughty lord;
+  On rugs he lay, in gorgeous heap,
+  From all his bosom breathing sleep,
+  A royal seer by Turnus loved:
+  But all too weak his seer-craft proved
+  To stay the rushing sword.
+  Three servants next the weapon found
+  Stretched 'mid their armor on the ground:
+  Then Remus' charioteer he spies
+  Beneath the coursers as he lies,
+  And lops his downdropt head;
+  The ill-starred master next he leaves,
+  A headless trunk, that gasps and heaves:
+  Forth spouts the blood from every vein,
+  And deluges with crimson rain,
+  Green earth and broidered bed.
+  Then Lamyrus and Lamus died,
+  Serranus, too, in youth's fair pride:
+  That night had seen him long at play:
+  Now by the dream-god tamed he lay:
+  Ah, had his play but matched the night,
+  Nor ended till the dawn of light!
+  So famished lion uncontrolled
+  Makes havoc through the teeming fold,
+  As frantic hunger craves;
+  Mangling and harrying far and near
+  The meek, mild victims, mute with fear,
+  With gory jaws he raves.
+  Nor less Euryalus performs:
+  The thirst of blood his bosom warms;
+  'Mid nameless multitudes he storms,
+  Herbesus, Fadus, Abaris kills
+  Slumbering and witless of their ills,
+  While Rhoetus wakes and sees the whole,
+  But hides behind a massy bowl.
+  There, as to rise the trembler strove,
+  Deep in his breast the sword he drove,
+  And bathed in death withdrew.
+  The lips disgorge the life's red flood,
+  A mingled stream of wine and blood:
+  He plies his blade anew.
+  Now turns he to Messapus' band,
+  For there the fires he sees
+  Burnt out, while coursers hard at hand
+  Are browsing at their ease,
+  When Nisus marks the excess of zeal,
+  The maddening fever of the steel,
+  And checks him thus with brief appeal:
+  "Forbear we now; 't will soon be day:
+  Our wrath is slaked, and hewn our way."
+  Full many a spoil they leave behind
+  Of solid silver thrice refined,
+  Armor and bowls of costliest mould
+  And rugs in rich confusion rolled.
+  A belt Euryalus puts on
+  With golden knobs, from Rhamnes won,
+  Of old by Caedicus 't was sent,
+  An absent friendship to cement,
+  To Remulus, fair Tibur's lord,
+  Who, dying, to his grandson left
+  The shining prize: the Rutule sword
+  In after days the trophy reft.
+  Athwart his manly chest in vain
+  He binds these trappings of the slain;
+  Then 'neath his chin in triumph laced
+  Messapus' helm, with plumage graced,
+  The camp at length they leave behind,
+  And round the lake securely wind.
+
+  Meanwhile a troop is on its way,
+  From Latium's city sped,
+  An offshoot from the host that lay
+  Along the host in close array,
+  Three hundred horsemen, sent to bring
+  A message back to Turnus, king,
+  With Volscens at their head.
+  Now to the camp they draw them nigh,
+  Beneath the rampart's height,
+  When from afar the twain they spy,
+  Still steering from the right;
+  The helmet through the glimmering shade
+  At once the unwary boy betrayed,
+  Seen in the moon's full light.
+  Not lost the sight on jealous eyes:
+  "Ho! stand! who are ye?" Volscens cries,
+  "Whence come, or whither tend?"
+  No movement deign they of reply,
+  But swifter to the forest fly,
+  And make the night their friend.
+  With fatal speed the mounted foes
+  Each avenue as with network close,
+  And every outlet bar.
+  It was a forest bristling grim
+  With shade of ilex, dense and dim:
+  Thick brushwood all the ground o'ergrew:
+  The tangled ways a path ran through,
+  Faint glimmering like a star.
+  The darkling boughs, the cumbering prey
+  Euryalus's flight delay:
+  His courage fails, his footsteps stray:
+  But Nisus onward flees;
+  No thought he takes, till now at last
+  The enemy is all o'erpast,
+  E'en at the grove, since Alban called,
+  Where then Latinus' herds were stalled:
+  Sudden he pauses, looks behind
+  In eager hope his friend to find:
+  In vain: no friend he sees.
+  "Euryalus, my chiefest care,
+  Where left I you, unhappy? where?
+  What clue may guide my erring tread
+  This leafy labyrinth back to thread?"
+  Then, noting each remembered track,
+  He thrids the wood, dim-seen and black.
+  Listening, he hears the horse-hoofs' beat,
+  The clatter of pursuing feet.
+  A little moment--shouts arise,
+  And lo! Euryalus he spies,
+  Whom now the foemen's gathered throng
+  Is hurrying helplessly along.
+  While vain resistance he essays,
+  Trapped by false night and treacherous ways.
+  What should he do? what force employ
+  To rescue the beloved boy?
+  Plunge through the spears that line the wood,
+  And death and glory win with blood?
+  Not unresolved, he poises soon
+  A javelin, looking to the Moon:
+  "Grant, goddess, grant thy present aid,
+  Queen of the stars, Latonian maid,
+  The greenwood's guardian power;
+  If, grateful for success of mine,
+  With gifts my sire has graced thy shrine,
+  If e'er myself have brought thee spoil,
+  The tribute of my hunter's toil,
+  To ornament thy roof divine,
+  Or glitter on thy tower,
+  These masses give me to confound,
+  And guide through air my random wound."
+  He spoke, and hurled with all his might;
+  The swift spear hurtles through the night:
+  Stout Sulmo's back the stroke receives:
+  The wood, though snapped, the midriff cleaves.
+  He falls, disgorging life's warm tide,
+  And long-drawn sobs distend his side.
+  All gaze around: another spear
+  The avenger levels from his ear,
+  And launches on the sky.
+  Tagus lies pierced through temples twain,
+  The dart deep buried in his brain.
+  Fierce Volscens storms, yet finds no foe,
+  Nor sees the hand that dealt the blow,
+  Nor knows on whom to fly.
+  "Your heart's warm blood for both shall pay,"
+  He cries, and on his beauteous prey
+  With naked sword he sprang.
+  Scared, maddened, Nisus shrieks aloud:
+  No more he hides in night's dark shroud,
+  Nor bears the o'erwhelming pang:
+  "Me, guilty me, make me your aim,
+  O Rutules! mine is all the blame;
+  He did no wrong, nor e'er could do;
+  That sky, those stars attest 't is true;
+  Love for his friend too freely shown,
+  This was his crime, and this alone."
+  In vain he spoke: the sword, fierce driven,
+  That alabaster breast had riven.
+  Down falls Euryalus, and lies
+  In death's enthralling agonies:
+  Blood trickles o'er his limbs of snow;
+  "His head sinks gradually low":
+  Thus, severed by the ruthless plough,
+  Dim fades a purple flower:
+  Their weary necks so poppies bow,
+  O'erladen by the shower.
+  But Nisus on the midmost flies,
+  With Volscens, Volscens in his eyes:
+  In clouds the warriors round him rise,
+  Thick hailing blow on blow:
+  Yet on he bears, no stint, no stay,
+  Like thunderbolt his falchion's sway:
+  Till as for aid the Rutule shrieks
+  Plunged in his throat the weapon reeks:
+  The dying hand has reft away
+  The life-blood of its foe.
+  Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell
+  On the dead breast he loved so well.
+
+  Blest pair! if aught my verse avail,
+  No day shall make your memory fail
+  From off the heart of time,
+  While Capitol abides in place,
+  The mansion of the Aeneian race,
+  And throned upon that moveless base
+  Rome's father sits sublime.
+      _Conington's Translation, Book IX_.
+
+
+
+
+
+BEOWULF.
+
+
+Beowulf, the only Anglo-Saxon epic preserved entire, was composed in
+southwest Sweden probably before the eighth century, and taken to England,
+where it was worked over and Christianized by the Northumbrian poets.
+
+It is variously attributed to the fifth, seventh, and eighth centuries;
+but the seventh is most probably correct, since the Higelac of the poem
+has been identified with Chocilaicus of the "Gesta Regum Francorum," a
+Danish king who invaded Gaul in the days of Theuderic, son of Clovis, and
+died near the close of the sixth century.
+
+The only manuscript of the poem in existence is thought to be of the tenth
+century. It is preserved in the British Museum. Since 1837 much interest
+has been manifested in the poem, and many editions of it have been given
+to the public.
+
+Beowulf contains three thousand one hundred and eighty-four lines. It is
+written in alliterative verse. The lines are written in pairs, and each
+perfect line contains three alliterating words,--two in the first part,
+and one in the second.
+
+The unknown writer of Beowulf cannot be praised for his skill in
+composition; the verse is rude, as was the language in which it was
+written. But it is of the greatest interest to us because of the pictures
+it gives of the everyday lives of the people whose heroic deeds it
+relates,--the drinking in the mead-halls, the relation of the king to his
+warriors, the description of the armor, the ships, and the halls. The
+heroes are true Anglo-Saxon types,--bold, fearless, ready to go to the
+assistance of any one in trouble, no matter how great the risk to
+themselves; and as ready to drink mead and boast of their valor after the
+peril is over. In spite of the attempt to Christianize the poem, it is
+purely pagan; the most careless reader can discover the priestly
+interpolations. And it has the greater value to us because it refused to
+be moulded by priestly hands, but remained the rude but heroic monument of
+our Saxon ancestors.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, BEOWULF.
+
+
+B. Ten Brink's Early English Literature, Tr. by Kennedy;
+
+S. A. Brooke's History of Early English Literature, 1892, p. 12;
+
+W. F. Collier's History of English Literature, p. 19;
+
+G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, 1871, pp.
+382-398; in 1880 ed. pp. 189-201;
+
+Isaac Disraeli's Amenities of Literature, i. 65-73;
+
+J. Earle's Anglo-Saxon Literature;
+
+T. W. Hunt's Ethical Teaching in Beowulf (in his Ethical Teachings in Old
+English Literature, 1892, pp. 66-77);
+
+H. Morley's English Writers, 1887, pp. 276-354;
+
+H. A. Taine's History of English Literature, 1886, i. 62;
+
+S. Turner's Anglo-Saxons, iii. 326; in ed. 3, i. 456;
+
+J. Harrison's Old Teutonic Life in Beowulf (in the Overland Monthly, July,
+1894);
+
+F. A. March's The World of Beowulf (in Proceedings of American
+Philological Association, 1882).
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, BEOWULF.
+
+
+Beowulf, edition with English translation, notes and glossary by Thomas
+Arnold, 1876;
+
+The Deeds of Beowulf, 1892;
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Garnett, 1882 (translated line for line);
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by J. L. Hall, 1892, metrical translation;
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Kemble, with copious glossary, preface, and
+philological notes, 2 vols., 1833-37;
+
+Beowulf translated into modern rhymes, by H. W. Lumsden, 1881;
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by Benjamin Thorpe, Literal translation, notes and glossary,
+1875.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF BEOWULF.
+
+
+A mighty man was Scyld, ruler of the Gar-Danes. From far across the
+whale-path men paid him tribute and bore witness to his power. Beowulf was
+his son, a youth endowed with glory, whose fame spread far and wide
+through all the Danish land.
+
+When the time came for Scyld to die he ordered his thanes to prepare the
+ring-stemmed ship, laden with treasures, battle-weed, and swords, and
+place him in the death-chamber. Laden with his people's gifts, and sailing
+under a golden banner, he passed from sight, none knew whither.
+
+After him ruled Beowulf, and after him Healfdene,--brave warriors and kind
+monarchs. When, after Healfdene's death, his son Hrothgar succeeded him,
+his fame in war inclined all his kinsmen towards him, and he, too, became
+a mighty monarch.
+
+To the mind of Hrothgar it came to build a lordly mead-hall where he and
+his men could find pleasure in feasting, drinking mead, and hearing the
+songs of the minstrels. Heorot it was called, and when its high spires
+rose glistening in the air, all hailed it with delight.
+
+But, alas! The joy in hall, the melody of the harp, and the shouts of the
+warriors penetrated to the dismal fen where lay concealed the monster
+Grendel, descendant of sin-cursed Cain. At night came Grendel to the hall,
+found sleeping the troop of warriors, and bore away in his foul hands
+thirty of the honored thanes. Great was the sorrow in Heorot when in the
+morning twilight the deed of Grendel became known.
+
+For twelve long winters did this sorrow continue; for so long a time was
+Hrothgar plunged in grief; for so many years did this beautiful mead-hall,
+destined for joyful things, stand idle.
+
+While thus the grief-stricken lord of the Scyldings brooded over his
+wrongs, and the people besought their idols vainly for aid, the tidings of
+Grendel's ravages were conveyed to the court of the Gothic king, Higelac,
+and thus reached the ears of a highborn thane, Beowulf. A strong man was
+he, his grasp equal to that of thirty men.
+
+Straightway commanded he a goodly ship to be made ready, chose fifteen of
+his bravest Goths, and swiftly they sailed over the swan-path to the great
+headlands and bright sea-cliffs of the Scyldings.
+
+High on the promontory stood the guard of Hrothgar. "What men be ye who
+hither come?" cried he. "Not foes, surely. Ye know no pass word, yet
+surely ye come on no evil errand. Ne'er saw I a greater lord than he who
+leads the band. Who are ye?"
+
+"Higelac's man am I," answered the leader. "Ecgtheow, my sire; my name,
+Beowulf. Lead me, I pray thee, to thy lord, for I have come over seas to
+free him forever from his secret foe, and to lift the cloud that hangs
+over the stately mead-hall."
+
+Over the stone-paved streets the warder led the warriors, their armor
+clanking, their boar-tipped helmets sparkling, to the goodly hall, Heorot.
+There were they warmly welcomed, for Hrothgar had known Beowulf's sire;
+the fame of the young man's strength had also reached him, and he trusted
+that in his strong grasp Grendel should die.
+
+All took their seats on the mead-benches, and a thane passed from warrior
+to warrior, bearing the chased wine-cup. Sweet was the minstrel's song,
+and the warriors were happy in Heorot.
+
+But Hunferd sat at the banquet, and envious of Beowulf's fame, taunted him
+with his swimming match with Breca. "Seven days and nights thou didst swim
+with Breca; but he was stronger, and he won. Worse will befall thee, if
+thou dar'st this night await Grendel!"
+
+"Easy it is to brag of Breca's deeds when drunk with beer, friend
+Hunferd!" replied Beowulf. "Seven days and nights I swam through the
+sea-water, slaying the monsters of the deep. Rough was the wave, terrible
+were the water beasts; but I reached the Finnish land. Wert thou as brave
+as thou claim'st to be, Grendel would ne'er have wrought such havoc in thy
+monarch's land."
+
+Decked with gold, Queen Waltheow passed through the hall, greeted the
+warriors, and proffered the mead-cup to Beowulf, thanking God that she had
+found an earl who would deliver them from their enemy.
+
+When dusky night fell over Heorot, the king uprose. "To no other man have
+I ever entrusted this hall of gold. Have now and keep it! Great reward
+shall be thine if thou come forth alive!"
+
+The knights left in the lordly hall composed themselves for slumber, all
+save Beowulf, who, unarmed, awaited the coming of Grendel.
+
+He came, with wrathful step and eyes aflame, bursting open the iron bolts
+of the great door, and laughing at the goodly array of men sleeping before
+him. On one he laid hands and drank his blood; then he clutched the
+watchful Beowulf.
+
+Ne'er had he found a foe like this! Fearful, he turned to flee to his home
+in the fen, but the grip of Beowulf forbade flight. Strongly was Heorot
+builded, but many a gilded mead-bench was torn from the walls as the two
+combated within the hall. The sword blade was of no avail, and him must
+Beowulf bring to death by the strength of his grip alone. At last, with a
+scream that struck terror to every Dane's heart, the monster sprang from
+Beowulf and fled, leaving in the warrior's grasp his arm and shoulder.
+Great was Beowulf's joy, for he knew that the wound meant death.
+
+When the king and queen came forth in the morning with their nobles and
+maids, and saw the grisly arm of Grendel fastened upon the roof of Heorot,
+they gave themselves up to rejoicing. Gifts were heaped upon Beowulf,--a
+golden crest, a banner bright, a great and goodly sword and helm and
+corselet, eight steeds with headstalls ornamented with gold plate, and a
+richly decorated saddle. Nor were his comrades forgotten, but to each were
+given rich gifts.
+
+When the mead-hall had been cleansed and refitted, they gathered therein
+and listened to the song of the bard who told how Healfdene's knight,
+Hnćf, smote Finn. The song over, the queen, crowned with gold, gave gifts
+to Beowulf, the liberator from the horrors of Grendel,--two armlets, a
+necklace, raiment, and rings. When the drinking and feasting were over,
+the king and Beowulf withdrew, leaving many earls to keep the hall. Little
+guessed they that one of them was that night doomed to die!
+
+The haunt of Grendel was a mile-wide mere. Around it were wolf-haunted
+cliffs, windy promontories, mist-covered mountains. Close around the mere
+hung the woods, shrouding the water, which, horrible sight, was each night
+covered with fire. It was a place accursed; near it no man might dwell;
+the deer that plunged therein straightway died.
+
+In a palace under the mere dwelt Grendel and his mother; she, a foul
+sprite, whom the peasants had sometimes seen walking with her son over the
+meadows. From her dwelling-place she now came forth to avenge the death of
+her son, and snatched away from the group of sleeping Ring-Danes the good
+Ćschere, dearest of all his thanes to Hrothgar.
+
+Loud was Hrothgar's wailing when at morning Beowulf came forth from his
+bower.
+
+"Sorrow not, O wise man," spake Beowulf. "I fear not. I will seek out this
+monster and destroy her. If I come not back it will at least be better
+than to have lost my glory. She can never hide from me. I ween that I will
+this day rid thee of thine enemy."
+
+Accompanied by Hrothgar, some of the Ring-Danes and his Goths, Beowulf
+sought the dismal mere, on whose brink they found the head of Ćschere.
+Among the bloody waves swam horrible shapes, Nicors and sea-drakes, that
+fled at a blast of the war-horn. Beowulf slew one of the monsters, and
+while his companions were marvelling at the grisly form, he prepared
+himself for the combat. His breast was guarded by a coat of mail woven
+most cunningly; upon his head shone the gold-adorned helmet, and in his
+hand was Hunferd's sword, Hrunting, made of iron steeped in twigs of
+bitter poison, annealed in battle blood, and fearful to every foe.
+
+"Hearken unto me, O Hrothgar," cried the hero. "If I return not, treat
+well my comrades and send my gifts to Higelac, that he may see the deed I
+have accomplished, and the generous ring-lord I have gained among the
+Scyldings." And without waiting for a reply, he leaped into the waves and
+was lost to sight.
+
+There was the monster waiting for him; and catching him in her grip, which
+bruised him not because of his strong mail-coat, she dragged him to her
+cave, in whose lighted hall he could see the horrible features of the
+woman of the mere. Strong was Hrunting, but of no avail was its mighty
+blade against her. Soon he threw it down, and gripped her, reckless of
+peril. Once he threw her on the ground, but the second time she threw him,
+and drew her glaive to pierce his breast. Strong was the linked mail, and
+Beowulf was safe. Then his quick eye lighted on a sword,--a magic, giant
+sword; few men could wield it. Quickly he grasped it, and smote the neck
+of the sea-woman. Broken were the bone-rings, and down she fell dead. Then
+Ecgtheow's son looked around the hall and saw the body of the dead
+Grendel. Thirsting to take his revenge, he smote him with his sword. Off
+flew the head; but when the red drops of blood touched the magic blade it
+melted, leaving but the massive golden hilt in the hands of the hero.
+Beowulf took no treasure from the cave, but rose through the waves,
+carrying only the head of the monster and the hilt of the sword.
+
+When Hrothgar and his men saw the mere red and boiling with blood they
+deemed that Beowulf was dead, and departed to their citadel. Sorrowful sat
+the comrades of Beowulf, waiting and hoping against hope for his
+reappearance. Up sprang they when they saw him, joyfully greeted him,
+relieved him of his bloody armor, and conducted him to Hrothgar,
+bearing--a heavy task--the head of Grendel.
+
+When Hrothgar saw the hideous head and the mighty sword-hilt, whose
+history he read from its Runic inscriptions, he hailed Beowulf with joy,
+and proclaimed him the mightiest of men. "But ever temper thy might with
+wisdom," advised the king, "that thou suffer not the end of Heremod, or be
+punished as I have been, in this my spacious mead-hall."
+
+After a night's rest, Beowulf prepared to return to his country. Returning
+Hrunting to Hunferd, he praised the sword, saying nothing of its failure
+in the fight. Then to Hrothgar: "Farewell. If e'er thou art harried by
+foes, but let me know,--a thousand fighting men I'll bring. Higelac, well
+I know, will urge me on to honor thee. If e'er thy son seeks Gothic halls,
+I will intercede and win friends for him."
+
+The old king, weeping, bade Beowulf farewell. "Peace be forever between
+the Goths and the Gar-Danes; in common their treasures! May gifts be
+interchanged between them!"
+
+The bark was filled with the gifts heaped upon Beowulf and his men; and
+the warder, who had hailed them so proudly at their coming, now bade them
+an affectionate farewell. Over the swan-path sailed they, and soon reached
+the Gothic coast, and landed their treasures.
+
+Then went Beowulf before Higelac and told him of his adventures. Higelac
+was a mighty king; lofty his house and hall, and fair and gentle was his
+wife, Hygd. To him, after he had related his adventures, Beowulf presented
+the boar-head crest, the battle-mail and sword, four of the steeds, and
+much treasure, and upon the wise and modest Hygd bestowed he the wondrous
+necklace given him by Waltheow. So should a good thane ever do!
+
+There had been a time when Beowulf was accounted a sluggish knight, but
+now the land rang with his glory.
+
+When Higelac died and Hardred was slain, Beowulf succeeded to the throne,
+and for fifty years ruled the people gloriously.
+
+At this time a great fire-drake cherished a vast hoard in a cave on a high
+cliff, difficult of access, and known to few men. Thither one day fled a
+thrall from his master's wrath, and saw the hoard buried by some weary
+warrior, and now guarded by the dragon. While the drake slept, the thrall
+crept in and stole a cup as a peace-offering to his master.
+
+When the drake awoke, he scented the foot-prints of the foe, and
+discovered his loss. When even was come, he hastened to wreak his revenge
+on the people, spewing out flames of fire, and laying waste the land.
+
+Far and near were the lands of the Goths devastated, and ere long, tidings
+were borne to Beowulf that his great hall, his gift seat, was destroyed by
+fire. Saddened, and fearing that he had in some way angered God, he turned
+his mind to vengeance, and girded on his armor. A stout shield of iron he
+took, knowing that the dragon's fiery breath would melt the wood, and with
+foreboding of his fate, bade farewell to his hearth-mates. "Many times
+have I battled, great deeds have I done with sword and with hand-grip; now
+must I go forth and battle with hand and sword against the hoard-keeper."
+
+Commanding the men who had accompanied him to remain upon the hillside,
+leaving him to combat with the dragon alone, Beowulf went proudly forward,
+shouting his battle-cry. Out rushed the dragon, full of deadly hate. His
+fiery breath was stronger than the king had deemed it. Stroke upon stroke
+he gave his enemy, who continued to cast forth his death-fire, so that
+Beowulf stood girt with flames.
+
+From afar, among the watching thanes, Wiglaf saw his monarch's peril.
+"Comrades," he cried, "do you remember our promises to our king? Was it
+for this he stirred us up to glorious deeds? Was it for this he heaped
+gifts upon us? Let us go to his rescue. It is not right that we should see
+our lord fall, and bear away our shields untouched!"
+
+Rushing forward, he cried, "Beowulf, here am I! Now strike for thy life!
+Thou hast said that thou never wouldst let thy fame depart from thee!"
+
+Again the dragon came forth; again it enveloped its foeman in flames. The
+linden shield of Wiglaf burned in his hands, and he sought shelter behind
+Beowulf's shield of iron. Again and again Wiglaf smote the monster, and
+when the flames burnt low, Beowulf seized his dirk and pierced the dragon
+so that he fell dead.
+
+The dragon lay dead, but Beowulf felt the poison in his wounds and knew
+that he had not long to live. He commanded Wiglaf to bring forth the
+treasure that he might gaze upon the hoard,--jewel work and twisted
+gold,--that he had wrested from the fire-drake.
+
+The den was filled with rings of gold, cups, banners, jewels, dishes, and
+the arms of the old owner of the treasure. All these did Wiglaf bear forth
+to his lord, who surveyed them, and uttered thanks to his Maker, that he
+could win such a treasure. Then, turning to Wiglaf, he said, "Now I die.
+Build for me upon the lofty shore a bright mound that shall ever remind my
+people of me. Far in the distance their ships shall descry it, and they
+shall call it Beowulf's mound." Then, giving his arms to Wiglaf, he bade
+him enjoy them. "Thou art the last of our race. All save us, fate-driven,
+are gone to doom. Thither go I too."
+
+Bitterly did Wiglaf denounce his comrades when he saw them steal from
+their hiding-places. "Well may it be said of you that he who gave you your
+arms threw them away. No thanks deserve ye for the slaughter of the
+dragon! I did my little, but it was not in my power to save my kinsman.
+Too few helpers stood about him! Now shall your kin be wanting in gifts.
+Void are ye of land-rights! Better is it for an earl to die than to live
+with a blasted name!"
+
+Sorrowful were the people when they heard of the death of Beowulf. Full
+well they knew with what joy the tidings would be hailed by their enemies,
+who would hasten to harry the land, now that their great leader was gone.
+The Frisians, the Merovingians, the Franks, the Swedes,--all had their
+grievances, which they would hasten to wreak on the Goths when they
+learned that the dreaded king was gone. Dreary would be the land of the
+Goths; on its battle-fields the wolves would batten; the ravens would call
+to the eagles as they feasted on the slain.
+
+Straight to the Eagle's Nest went the band, and found their dead monarch;
+there, too, lay the loathsome fire-drake, full fifty feet long, and
+between them the great hoard, rust-eaten from long dwelling in the earth.
+Ever had that hoard brought ill with it.
+
+Down from the cliff they thrust the dragon into the deep, and carried
+their chief to Hronesness. There they built a lofty pile, decked it with
+his armor, and burned thereon the body of their glorious ruler. According
+to his wish, they reared on the cliff a broad, high barrow, surrounded it
+with a wall, and laid within it the treasure. There yet it lies, of little
+worth to men!
+
+Then around the barrow rode twelve of the bravest, boldest nobles,
+mourning their king, singing his praises, chanting a dirge, telling of his
+glorious deeds, while over the broad land the Gothic folk lamented the
+death of their tender prince, their noble king, Beowulf.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM BEOWULF.
+
+GRENDEL'S MOTHER.
+
+
+There was great rejoicing in Heorot when Beowulf slew Grendel, and at
+night the earls again slept in the hall as they had not dared to do since
+the coming of the fiend. But Grendel's mother came to avenge her son's
+death and slew Ćschere, a favorite liegeman of Hrothgar's. In the morning,
+Beowulf, who had slept in another part of the palace, was sent for and
+greeted Hrothgar, unaware of his loss.
+
+  Hrothgar rejoined, helm of the Scyldings:
+  "Ask not of joyance! Grief is renewed to
+  The folk of the Danemen. Dead is Ćschere,
+  Yrmenlaf's brother, older than he,
+  My true-hearted counsellor, trusty adviser,
+  Shoulder-companion, when fighting in battle
+  Our heads we protected, when troopers were clashing,
+  And heroes were dashing; such an earl should be ever,
+  An erst-worthy atheling, as Ćschere proved him.
+  The flickering death-spirit became in Heorot
+  His hand-to-hand murderer; I cannot tell whither
+  The cruel one turned, in the carcass exulting,
+  By cramming discovered. The quarrel she wreaked then,
+  The last night igone Grendel thou killedst
+  In grewsomest manner, with grim-holding clutches,
+  Since too long he had lessened my liege-troop and wasted
+  My folk-men so foully. He fell in the battle
+  With forfeit of life, and another has followed,
+  A mighty crime-worker, her kinsman avenging,
+  And henceforth hath 'stablished her hatred unyielding,
+  As it well may appear to many a liegeman,
+  Who mourneth in spirit the treasure-bestower,
+  Her heavy heart-sorrow; the hand is now lifeless
+  Which availed yon in every wish that you cherished.
+  Land-people heard I, liegemen, this saying,
+  Dwellers in halls, they had seen very often
+  A pair of such mighty march-striding creatures,
+  Far-dwelling spirits, holding the moorlands:
+  One of them wore, as well they might notice,
+  The image of woman, the other one wretched
+  In guise of a man wandered in exile,
+  Except that he was huger than any of earthmen;
+  Earth-dwelling people entitled him Grendel
+  In days of yore; they knew not their father,
+  Whe'r ill-going spirits any were borne him
+  Ever before. They guard the wolf-coverts,
+  Lands inaccessible, wind-beaten nesses,
+  Fearfullest fen-deeps, where a flood from the mountains
+  'Neath mists of the nesses netherward rattles,
+  The stream under earth: not far is it henceward
+  Measured by mile-lengths that the mere-water standeth,
+  Which forests hang over, with frost-whiting covered,
+  A firm-rooted forest, the floods overshadow.
+  There ever at night one an ill-meaning portent
+  A fire-flood may see; 'mong children of men
+  None liveth so wise that wot of the bottom;
+  Though harassed by hounds the heath-stepper seek for,
+  Fly to the forest, firm-antlered he-deer,
+  Spurred from afar, his spirit he yieldeth,
+  His life on the shore, ere in he will venture
+  To cover his head. Uncanny the place is:
+  Thence upward ascendeth the surging of waters,
+  Wan to the welkin, when the wind is stirring
+  The weathers unpleasing, till the air groweth gloomy,
+  And the heavens lower. Now is help to be gotten
+  From thee and thee only! The abode thou know'st not,
+  The dangerous place where thou'rt able to meet with
+  The sin-laden hero: seek if thou darest!
+  For the feud I will fully fee thee with money,
+  With old-time treasure, as erstwhile I did thee,
+  With well-twisted jewels, if away thou shalt get thee."
+
+  Beowulf answered, Ecgtheow's son:
+  "Grieve not, O wise one! for each it is better,
+  His friend to avenge than with vehemence wail him;
+  Each of us must the end-day abide of
+  His earthly existence; who is able accomplish
+  Glory ere death! To battle-thane noble
+  Lifeless lying, 't is at last most fitting.
+  Arise, O king, quick let us hasten
+  To look at the footprint of the kinsman of Grendel!
+  I promise thee this now: to his place he'll escape not,
+  To embrace of the earth, nor to mountainous forest,
+  Nor to depths of the ocean, wherever he wanders.
+  Practice thou now patient endurance
+  Of each of thy sorrows, as I hope for thee soothly!"
+  Then up sprang the old one, the All-Wielder thanked he,
+  Ruler Almighty, that the man had outspoken.
+  Then for Hrothgar a war-horse was decked with a bridle,
+  Curly-maned courser. The clever folk-leader
+  Stately proceeded: stepped then an earl-troop
+  Of linden-wood bearers. Her foot-prints were seen then
+  Widely in wood-paths, her way o'er the bottoms,
+  Where she far-away fared o'er fen-country murky,
+  Bore away breathless the best of retainers
+  Who pondered with Hrothgar the welfare of country.
+  The son of the athelings then went o'er the stony,
+  Declivitous cliffs, the close-covered passes,
+  Narrow passages, paths unfrequented,
+  Nesses abrupt, nicker-haunts many;
+  One of a few of wise-mooded heroes,
+  He onward advanced to view the surroundings,
+  Till he found unawares woods of the mountain
+  O'er hoar-stones hanging, holt-wood unjoyful;
+  The water stood under, welling and gory.
+  'T was irksome in spirit to all of the Danemen,
+  Friends of the Scyldings, to many a liegeman
+  Sad to be suffered, a sorrow unlittle
+  To each of the earlmen, when to Ćschere's head they
+  Came on the cliff. The current was seething
+  With blood and with gore (the troopers gazed on it).
+  The horn anon sang the battle-song ready.
+  The troop were all seated; they saw 'long the water then
+  Many a serpent, mere-dragons wondrous
+  Trying the waters, nickers a-lying
+  On the cliffs of the nesses, which at noonday full often
+  Go on the sea-deeps their sorrowful journey,
+  Wild-beasts and worm-kind; away then they hastened
+  Hot-mooded, hateful, they heard the great clamor,
+  The war-trumpet winding. One did the Geat-prince
+  Sunder from earth-joys, with arrow from bowstring,
+  From his sea-struggle tore him, that the trusty war-missile
+  Pierced to his vitals; he proved in the currents
+  Less doughty at swimming whom death had off-carried.
+  Soon in the waters the wonderful swimmer
+  Was straitened most sorely and pulled to the cliff-edge;
+  The liegemen then looked on the loath-fashioned stranger.
+  Beowulf donned then his battle-equipments,
+  Cared little for life; inlaid and most ample,
+  The hand-woven corselet which could cover his body,
+  Must the wave-deeps explore, that war might be powerless
+  To harm the great hero, and the hating one's grasp might
+  Not peril his safety; his head was protected
+  By the light-flashing helmet that should mix with the bottoms,
+  Trying the eddies, treasure-emblazoned,
+  Encircled with jewels, as in seasons long past
+  The weapon-smith worked it, wondrously made it,
+  With swine-bodies fashioned it, that thenceforward no longer
+  Brand might bite it, and battle-sword hurt it.
+  And that was not least of helpers in prowess
+  That Hrothgar's spokesman had lent him when straitened;
+  And the hilted hand-sword was Hrunting entitled,
+  Old and most excellent 'mong all of the treasures;
+  Its blade was of iron, blotted with poison,
+  Hardened with gore; it failed not in battle
+  Any hero under heaven in hand who it brandished,
+  Who ventured to take the terrible journeys,
+  The battle-field sought; not the earliest occasion
+  That deeds of daring 't was destined to 'complish.
+  Ecglaf's kinsman minded not soothly,
+  Exulting in strength, what erst he had spoken
+  Drunken with wine, when the weapon he lent to
+  A sword-hero bolder; himself did not venture
+  'Neath the strife of the currents his life to endanger,
+  To fame-deeds perform; there he forfeited glory,
+  Repute for his strength. Not so with the other
+  When he, clad in his corselet, had equipped him for battle.
+
+  Beowulf spoke, Ecgtheow's son:
+  "Recall now, oh, famous kinsman of Healfdene,
+  Prince very prudent, now to part I am ready,
+  Gold-friend of earl-men, what erst we agreed on,
+  Should I lay down my life in lending thee assistance,
+  When my earth-joys were over, thou wouldst evermore serve me
+  In stead of a father; my faithful thanemen,
+  My trusty retainers, protect thou and care for,
+  Fall I in battle: and, Hrothgar belovčd,
+  Send unto Higelac the high-valued jewels
+  Thou to me hast allotted. The lord of the Geatmen
+  May perceive from the gold, the Hrethling may see it
+  When he looks on the jewels, that a gem-giver found I
+  Good over-measure, enjoyed him while able.
+  And the ancient heirloom Unferth permit thou,
+  The famed one to have, the heavy-sword splendid,
+  The hard-edged weapon; with Hrunting to aid me,
+  I shall gain me glory, or grim death shall take me."
+  The atheling of Geatmen uttered these words and
+  Heroic did hasten, not any rejoinder
+  Was willing to wait for; the wave-current swallowed
+  The doughty-in-battle. Then a day's-length elapsed ere
+  He was able to see the sea at its bottom.
+  Early she found then who fifty of winters
+  The course of the currents kept in her fury,
+  Grisly and greedy, that the grim one's dominion
+  Some one of men from above was exploring.
+  Forth did she grab them, grappled the warrior
+  With horrible clutches; yet no sooner she injured
+  His body unscathed: the burnie out-guarded,
+  That she proved but powerless to pierce through the armor,
+  The limb-mail locked, with loath-grabbing fingers.
+  The sea-wolf bare then, when bottomward came she,
+  The ring-prince homeward, that he after was powerless.
+  (He had daring to do it) to deal with his weapons,
+  But many a mere-beast tormented him swimming,
+  Flood-beasts no few with fierce-biting tusks did
+  Break through his burnie, the brave one pursued they.
+  The earl then discovered he was down in some cavern
+  Where no water whatever anywise harmed him,
+  And the clutch of the current could not come anear him,
+  Since the roofed-hall prevented; brightness a-gleaming
+  Fire-light he saw, flashing, resplendent.
+  The good one saw then the sea-bottom's monster,
+  The mighty mere-woman; he made a great onset
+  With weapon-of-battle, his hand not desisted
+  From striking, that war-blade struck on her head then
+  A battle-song greedy. The stranger perceived then
+  The sword would not bite, her life would not injure,
+  But the falchion failed the folk prince when straitened:
+  Erst had it often onsets encountered,
+  Oft cloven the helmet, the fated one's armor:
+  'T was the first time that ever the excellent jewel
+  Had failed of its fame. Firm-mooded after,
+  Not heedless of valor, but mindful of glory,
+  Was Higelac's kinsman; the hero-chief angry
+  Cast then his carved-sword covered with jewels
+  That it lay on earth, hard and steel-pointed;
+  He hoped in his strength, his hand-grapple sturdy.
+  So any must act whenever he thinketh
+  To gain him in battle glory unending,
+  And is reckless of living. The lord of the War-Geats
+  (He shrank not from battle) seized by the shoulder
+  The mother of Grendel; then mighty in struggle
+  Swung he his enemy, since his anger was kindled,
+  That she fell to the floor. With furious grapple
+  She gave him requital early thereafter,
+  And stretched out to grab him; the strongest of warriors
+  Faint-mooded stumbled, till he fell in his traces,
+  Foot-going champion. Then she sat on the hall-guest
+  And wielded her war-knife wide-bladed, flashing,
+  For her son would take vengeance, her one only bairn.
+  His breast-armor woven bode on his shoulder;
+  It guarded his life, the entrance defended
+  'Gainst sword-point and edges. Ecgtheow's son there
+  Had fatally journeyed, champion of Geatmen,
+  In the arms of the ocean, had the armor not given,
+  Close-woven corselet, comfort and succor,
+  And had God most holy not awarded the victory,
+  All-knowing Lord; easily did heaven's
+  Ruler most righteous arrange it with justice;
+  Uprose he erect ready for battle.
+
+  Then he saw 'mid the war-gems a weapon of victory,
+  An ancient giant-sword, of edges a-doughty,
+  Glory of warriors: of weapons 't was choicest,
+  Only 't was larger than any man else was
+  Able to bear in the battle-encounter,
+  The good and splendid work of the giants.
+  He grasped then the sword-hilt, knight of the Scyldings,
+  Bold and battle-grim, brandished his ring-sword,
+  Hopeless of living, hotly he smote her,
+  That the fiend-woman's neck firmly it grappled,
+  Broke through her bone-joints, the bill fully pierced her
+  Fate-cursčd body, she fell to the ground then:
+  The hand-sword was bloody, the hero exulted.
+  The brand was brilliant, brightly it glimmered,
+  Just as from heaven gemlike shineth
+  The torch of the firmament. He glanced 'long the building,
+  And turned by the wall then, Higelac's vassal
+  Raging and wrathful raised his battle-sword
+  Strong by the handle. The edge was not useless
+  To the hero-in-battle, but he speedily wished to
+  Give Grendel requital for the many assaults he
+  Had worked on the West-Danes not once, but often,
+  When he slew in slumber the subjects of Hrothgar,
+  Swallowed down fifteen sleeping retainers
+  Of the folk of the Danemen, and fully as many
+  Carried away, a horrible prey.
+  He gave him requital, grim-raging champion,
+  When he saw on his rest-place weary of conflict
+  Grendel lying, of life-joys bereavčd,
+  As the battle at Heorot erstwhile had scathed him;
+  His body far bounded, a blow when he suffered,
+  Death having seized him, sword-smiting heavy,
+  And he cut off his head then. Early this noticed
+  The clever carles who as comrades of Hrothgar
+  Gazed on the sea-deeps, that the surging wave-currents
+  Were mightily mingled, the mere-flood was gory:
+  Of the good one the gray-haired together held converse,
+  The hoary of head, that they hoped not to see again
+  The atheling ever, that exulting in victory
+  He'd return there to visit the distinguished folk-ruler:
+  Then many concluded the mere-wolf had killed him.
+  The ninth hour came then. From the ness-edge departed
+  The bold-mooded Scyldings; the gold-friend of heroes
+  Homeward betook him. The strangers sat down then
+  Soul-sick, sorrowful, the sea-waves regarding:
+  They wished and yet weened not their well-loved friend-lord
+  To see any more. The sword-blade began then,
+  The blood having touched it, contracting and shrivelling
+  With battle-icicles; 't was a wonderful marvel
+  That it melted entirely, likest to ice when
+  The Father unbindeth the bond of the frost and
+  Unwindeth the wave-bands, He who wieldeth dominion
+  Of time and of tides: a truth-firm Creator.
+  Nor took he of jewels more in the dwelling,
+  Lord of the Weders, though they lay all around him,
+  Than the head and the handle handsome with jewels;
+  The brand early melted, burnt was the weapon:
+  So hot was the blood, the strange-spirit poisonous
+  That in it did perish. He early swam off then
+  Who had bided in combat the carnage of haters,
+  Went up through the ocean; the eddies were cleansed,
+  The spacious expanses, when the spirit from farland
+  His life put aside and this short-lived existence.
+  The seamen's defender came swimming to land then
+  Doughty of spirit, rejoiced in his sea-gift,
+  The bulky burden which he bore in his keeping.
+  The excellent vassals advanced then to meet him,
+  To God they were grateful, were glad in their chieftain,
+  That to see him safe and sound was granted them.
+  From the high-minded hero, then, helmet and burnie
+  Were speedily loosened: the ocean was putrid,
+  The water 'neath welkin weltered with gore.
+  Forth did they fare, then, their footsteps retracing,
+  Merry and mirthful, measured the earth-way,
+  To highway familiar: men very daring
+  Bare then the head from the sea-cliff, burdening
+  Each of the earlmen, excellent-valiant.
+  Four of them had to carry with labor
+  The head of Grendel to the high towering gold-hall
+  Upstuck on the spear, till fourteen most-valiant
+  And battle-brave Geatmen came there going
+  Straight to the palace: the prince of the people
+  Measured the mead-ways, their mood-brave companion,
+  The atheling of earlmen entered the building,
+  Deed-valiant man, adorned with distinction,
+  Doughty shield-warrior, to address King Hrothgar:
+  Then hung by the hair, the head of Grendel
+  Was borne to the building, where beer-thanes were drinking,
+  Loth before earlmen and eke 'fore the lady:
+  The warriors beheld then a wonderful sight.
+         _J. L. Hall's Translation, Parts XXI.-XXIV._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+
+The Nibelungen Lied, or Song of the Nibelungen, was written about the
+beginning of the thirteenth century, though the events it chronicles
+belong to the sixth or seventh century. The manuscript poem was discovered
+about the middle of the eighteenth century.
+
+Lachmann asserts that the Nibelungen Lied consists of twenty songs of
+various dates and authorship; other scholars, while agreeing that it is
+the work of a single author, ascribe it variously to Conrad von
+Kurenburger, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Walther
+von der Vogelweide.
+
+Whoever was its author, he was only a compiler of legends that were the
+property of the people for centuries, and are found in many other of the
+popular German epics of the Middle Ages.
+
+The poem consists of thirty-nine adventures, containing two thousand four
+hundred and fifty-nine stanzas of four lines each. The action covers
+thirty years. It is based on material obtained from four sources: (1) The
+Frankish saga-cycle, whose hero is Siegfried; (2) the saga-cycle of
+Burgundy, whose heroes are Günther, king of Worms, and his two brothers;
+(3) the Ostrogothic saga-cycle, whose hero is Dietrich of Bern; and (4)
+the saga-cycle of Etzel, king of the Huns, with his allies and vassals.
+
+Dietrich of Bern is supposed to be Theodoric of Italy, in exile at the
+Hunnish court. Etzel is Attila the Hun, and Günther, Gunducarius, king of
+the Burgundians, who was destroyed by the Huns with his followers in the
+year 436.
+
+The Nibelungen Lied very much resembles the Iliad, not only in the
+uncertainty of its origin and the impersonality of its author, but also in
+its objectivity, its realism, the primitive passions of its heroes, and
+the wondrous acts of valor performed by them. It contains many passages of
+wonderful beauty, and gives a striking picture of the social customs and
+the religious belief of the time.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+
+Mary Elizabeth Burt's Story of the German Iliad, 1892;
+
+Thomas Carlyle's Nibelungen Lied (see his Miscellaneous Essays, 1869, vol.
+iii., pp. 111-162);
+
+Sir G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Nibelungen Lied (see their Tales of the
+Teutonic Lands, 1872, pp. 79-132);
+
+G. T. Dippold's Nibelungenlied (see his Great Epics of Mediaeval Germany,
+1882, pp. 1-117);
+
+William T. Dobson's Nibelungenlied Epitomized (see his Classic Poets,
+1878);
+
+Auber Forestier's Echoes from Mistland, or the Nibelungen Lay Revealed,
+Tr. by A. A. Woodward, 1877;
+
+Joseph Gostwick's and Robert Harrison's Nibelungenlied (see their Outlines
+of German Literature, n. d., pp. 16-24);
+
+Hugh Reginald Haweis's Nibelungenlied (see his Musical Memories, 1887, pp.
+225-250);
+
+Frederick Henry Hedge's Nibelungenlied (see his Hours with the German
+Classics, 1887, pp. 25-55);
+
+James K. Hosmer's Nibelungen Lied (see his Short History of German
+Literature, 1891, pp. 23-77);
+
+J. P. Jackson's Ring of the Nibelung, Cosmopolitan, 1888, vol. vi. pp.
+415-433;
+
+Henry W. Longfellow's Nibelungenlied (see his Poets and Poetry of Europe,
+new ed., enlarged, 1882, pp. 217-227);
+
+J. M. F. Ludlow's Lay and Lament of the Niblungs (see his Popular Epics of
+the Middle Ages, 1865, pp. 105-183);
+
+E. Magnusson and William Morris's Völsungs Saga, story of the Völsungs and
+Niblungs, 1870;
+
+William Morris's Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs,
+1887;
+
+F. Max Müller's Das Nibelungenlied (see his German Classics, new ed.,
+1893, vol. i., pp. 112-136);
+
+Ernst Raupach's Nibelungen Treasure, a tragedy from the German with
+remarks, 1847;
+
+A. M. Richey's Teutonic and the Celtic Epic, Fraser's Magazine, 1874, vol.
+lxxxix., pp. 336-354;
+
+Wilhelm Scherer's Nibelungenlied (see his History of German Literature,
+1893, vol. i., pp. 101-115);
+
+Leda M. Schoonamaker's Nibelungen Lied, Harper's Magazine, 1877, vol. lv.,
+pp. 38-51;
+
+Bayard Taylor's Nibelungen Lied (see his Studies in German Literature,
+1893, pp. 101-134);
+
+Wilhelm Wagner's Nibelungenlied (see his Epics and Romances of the Middle
+Ages, 1883, pp. 229-306);
+
+Henry Weber's The Song of the Nibelungen (see Weber and Jamieson,
+Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, 1874, pp. 167-213).
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE NIBELUNGEN.
+
+
+The Nibelungen Lied, Tr. by Alfred G. Foster Barham, 1887;
+
+The Lay of the Nibelungers, Tr. into English text after Lachman's text by
+Jonathan Birch, ed. 3, 1887;
+
+The Nibelungenlied, Tr. by Joseph Gostwick (see his Spirit of German
+Poetry, 1843);
+
+The Fall of the Nibelungers, Tr. by William Nanson Lettsom, ed. 2, 1874.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+
+In the beautiful city of Worms, in Burgundy, dwelt the maiden Kriemhild,
+surpassing all others in beauty. Her father, long since dead, was Dancrat;
+her mother, Uta, and her three brothers,--Günther, Gernot, and
+Giselher,--puissant princes whose pride it was to guard their lovely
+sister. Among the noble lords their liegemen were Hagan of Trony,
+Dankwart, his brother, Ortwine of Metz, Eckewart, Gary, Folker, Rumolt the
+steward, Sindolt the butler, and Humolt the chamberlain.
+
+The peace of the beautiful Kriemhild was one night disturbed by a dream,
+in which she saw a young falcon that she had long reared with tender care
+torn to pieces by two fierce eagles. When she confided this dream to her
+mother, the wise Uta declared that it meant that she would one day wed a
+fair prince threatened with a dreadful doom.
+
+"Then I will never wed!" cried Kriemhild. "Better to forego the bliss thou
+tellest me attends only the wedded state than to taste the anguish
+foretold by my dream." Alas! little could she guess of what the future
+held in store for her.
+
+In the wide country of the Netherlands, in the city of Xanten, dwelt the
+great prince Siegmund and his wife Sieglind. Their kingdom was wide, their
+wealth great, but nothing gave them so much happiness as the renown of
+their glorious son Siegfried. Such mighty deeds of valor had he performed
+that his fame was already world-wide, though he was but a youth. To Xanten
+the fame of the peerless princess Kriemhild had penetrated, and the young
+prince declared to his parents his intention of seeking her out in
+Burgundy, and wooing her for his wife. All entreaties were in vain; with
+but twelve companions, each fitted out with the most gorgeous vestments,
+by the care of the queen mother, the haughty prince advanced into
+Burgundy.
+
+King Günther, surprised at the sight of the splendidly attired strangers,
+called one after another of his knights to inform him who they were. None
+knew, until Hagan was at last called because he was familiar with the
+warriors of every land. He did not know them. "But," said he, "though I
+have never set eyes on him, I'll wager that is the noble Siegfried, the
+mighty warrior who slew the Nibelungers. Once, so I have heard the story,
+when he was riding alone, he saw the two kings Nibelung and Shilbung
+dividing the treasure of the Niblungs. They had just brought it out from
+the cavern where it was guarded by the dwarf Albric, and they called
+Siegfried to come and divide it for them. The task was so great that he
+did not finish it, and when the angry kings set upon him he slew them
+both, their giant champions and chiefs, and then overcame the dwarf
+Albric, and possessed himself of his wondrous cloud-cloak. So he is now
+lord of the Nibelungers and owner of the mighty treasure. Not only this,
+my king; he once slew a poison-spitting dragon and bathed in its blood, so
+that his skin is invulnerable. Treat the young prince with respect. It
+would be ill-advised to arouse his hatred."
+
+While the king and his counsellors were admiring his haughty bearing,
+Siegfried and his followers advanced to the hall and were fittingly
+welcomed. Siegfried haughtily declared that he had come to learn if
+Günther's renown for knighthood was correct, and wished to fight with him,
+with their respective kingdoms as stakes. Günther had no desire to fight
+with such a doughty warrior, and he hastened to soothe Siegfried's wrath
+with gentle words, inviting him to remain as his guest.
+
+So happy was Siegfried in the tourneys and games enjoyed by Günther's
+court, that he remained in Worms for a year, and in all that time never
+set eyes on Kriemhild. How enraptured would he have been had he known that
+the gentle maiden watched for him daily at her lattice, and came to long
+for a glimpse of the handsome stranger!
+
+At the end of the year tidings were brought to Worms that the Saxons, led
+by King Lüdeger, and Lüdegast, king of Denmark, were marching against
+Burgundy. The Burgundians were terrified at the news; but Siegfried,
+delighted at the thought of war, begged Günther to give him but a thousand
+Burgundians, in addition to the twelve comrades he had brought with him,
+and he would pledge himself to defeat, unaided, the presumptuous enemy.
+Many were the camps of the foe; full forty thousand were there mustered
+out to fight, but Siegfried quickly scattered them, slew many thousands,
+and took the two kings prisoners.
+
+How joyful the melancholy Kriemhild became when the messenger bore to her
+the glad tidings! Ruddy gold and costly garments he gained for his good
+news.
+
+On Siegfried's return he first met and loved Kriemhild. More blooming than
+May, sweeter than summer's pride, she stood by the gallant warrior, who
+dared not yet to woo her. The twelve days of revel in celebration of the
+victory were one long dream of bliss to the happy lovers.
+
+While Siegfried was still lingering at Günther's court, tidings were
+brought thither of the beauty, prowess, and great strength of Brunhild,
+Queen of Issland, and Günther determined to go thither and woo her.
+Siegfried implored him not to go.
+
+"Thou knowest not what thou must undertake," he said. "Thou must take part
+in her contests, throw the javelin, throw the stone and jump after it, and
+if thou fail in even one of these three games thou must lose thy life and
+that of thy companions."
+
+When Siegfried found that he could not move Günther, he promised to go
+with him and assist him, on condition that on their return Günther would
+give him the beautiful Kriemhild for his wife.
+
+Attired in the most splendid raiment, prepared by the willing fingers of
+Kriemhild and her maids, Günther, with only three companions, Siegfried,
+Hagan, and Dankwart, set forth to Issland. Siegfried requested his
+companions to inform Brunhild that he was Günther's man; and when she
+welcomed him first, he himself told her to speak first to his master.
+The little party was greatly impressed with the splendor of Brunhild's
+three turreted palaces, and with the beauty and prodigious strength of the
+queen. When they saw her huge golden shield, steel-studded, beneath whose
+weight four chamberlains staggered, and the immense javelin of the
+war-like maid, the warriors trembled for their lives, all save Siegfried,
+who, wrapped in his cloud-cloak, invisible to all, stood behind the
+bewildered Günther.
+
+"Give me thy buckler," he whispered. "Now make but the motions, and I will
+hurl both spear and stone. But keep this a secret if thou wouldst save
+both our lives."
+
+To the surprise of every one Günther won the games, and Brunhild,
+surprised and mortified, ordered her followers to bow to her better, and
+returned to the castle to make ready for the journey to Worms.
+
+Siegfried carried the tidings to Worms, and the bridal party was met and
+welcomed at the banks of the Rhine by the Queen Uta, Kriemhild, and a
+large following. During the wedding feast, Siegfried reminded Günther of
+his promise, and the king, calling Kriemhild to him, affianced the two in
+the presence of the company.
+
+When the suspicious Brunhild saw Siegfried sitting at the table of the
+king, she was angered, for she had been told that he was a vassal.
+Although she could get no satisfaction from Günther, she suspected some
+secret. When she and Günther retired for the night she conquered him, tied
+him hand and foot with her magic girdle, and hung him on the wall until
+morning. Günther, overcome with wrath and vexation, told his humiliation
+to Siegfried the next morning at the minster. "Be comforted," said
+Siegfried. "Tonight I will steal into thy chamber wrapped in my
+mist-cloak, and when the lights are extinguished I will wrestle with her
+until I deprive her of the magic ring and girdle."
+
+After some hesitation, Günther assented, and Brunhild, supposing she was
+conquered by Günther, yielded herself willingly to her husband and lost
+all her former strength. Siegfried carried away her girdle and ring and
+gave them to his wife, little suspecting what harm they would do him in
+the years to come.
+
+The wedding festivities over, Siegfried took his bride home to the
+Netherlands, where their arrival was celebrated with the greatest
+festivities. Siegmund placed the crown on his son's head, and Siegfried
+and Kriemhild ruled happily over the kingdom for ten years, during which
+time a son was born to them, christened Günther for his uncle.
+
+During these years Brunhild had been fretting that the supposed vassal,
+Siegfried, had never come to pay homage to his king. At last, affecting a
+great longing to see Kriemhild once more, she induced Günther to invite
+his sister and her husband to visit them. This he did gladly, and on their
+arrival many days were spent in feasting, merrymaking, and the tourney.
+
+But one day, when the two queens were watching the tilting in the castle
+court, Kriemhild, excited by the victories of her husband, declared that
+Siegfried, because of his might, ought to be ruler of Burgundy. This
+angered Brunhild, who reproached the wife of a vassal for such
+presumption.
+
+"My husband a vassal!" exclaimed the indignant Kriemhild. "He, ruler of
+the Netherlands, who holds a higher place than my brother Günther! I
+cannot endure thy insolence longer."
+
+"I will see," said Brunhild, "this very day whether thou receivest the
+public respect and honor paid to me."
+
+"I am ready for the test," responded Kriemhild, "and I will show thee
+to-day, before our following, that I dare to enter the church before
+Günther's queen."
+
+When the two queens met on the minster steps, and Brunhild declared that
+no vassaless should enter before her, Kriemhild reproached her for being
+the leman of Siegfried, and displayed in proof the ring and girdle he had
+taken from Brunhild. Rage and fury rendered Brunhild speechless. The kings
+were summoned, and both denied the truth of Kriemhild's words. But the two
+queens were now bitter enemies, and the followers of Brunhild, among them
+the gloomy Hagan of Trony, were deeply angered at Siegfried and his queen.
+Hagan laid a plot to destroy Siegfried, and Günther, though at first
+unwilling, was at last induced to enter it.
+
+Pretended messengers came to announce to Günther that the Saxons again
+threatened war against him. Siegfried proposed to take part in the war,
+and preparations were at once begun. Hagan, with pretended tenderness,
+told Kriemhild of the coming danger, and asked her if her lord had a weak
+place, that he might know and guard it for him. Kriemhild confided to him
+her husband's secret. When Siegfried was bathing in the dragon's blood, a
+leaf fell between his shoulders, and that spot was vulnerable. There she
+would embroider a cross on his vesture that Hagan might protect him in the
+shock of battle.
+
+The war was now abandoned and a great hunt undertaken. Gernot and
+Giselher, though they did not see fit to warn Siegfried, refused to take
+part in the plot and go to the hunt. Many a lion, elk, and boar fell by
+Siegfried's hand that day before the hunters were called together to the
+royal breakfast; when they at last sat down in the flowery meadow the wine
+was wanting, and the warriors were compelled to quench their thirst at a
+brooklet near by.
+
+"A race!" cried the hero; and he, Hagan, and Günther ran for the brook,
+Siegfried gaining it first. After the king had quenched his thirst,
+Siegfried threw down his arms and stooped to drink. Then Hagan, picking up
+his ashen spear, threw it at the embroidered cross, and Siegfried fell in
+the agonies of death, reproaching his traitorous friends whom he had
+served so faithfully.
+
+To add cruelty to cruelty, the vindictive Hagan placed the body of
+Siegfried outside Kriemhild's chamber door, where she would stumble over
+it as she went out to early mass next morning. Down she fell fainting when
+she recognized her husband, and reviving, shrieked in her anguish,
+"Brunhild planned it; Hagan struck the blow!"
+
+Her grief was terrible to see. One moment the unhappy queen was accusing
+herself for revealing her husband's secret; again she was vowing revenge
+against Hagan, and at another time she reviled the traitorous Günther.
+
+When her father-in-law Siegmund returned home, she would not go with him,
+but remained near the body of her husband, under the protection of her
+brothers Gernot and Giselher and in the company of her mother.
+
+Kriemhild, living in joyless state in her lonely palace, was at last
+induced to speak to Günther and pardon him. The pardon granted, Günther
+and Hagan at once plotted to have the Nibelungen hoard, Siegfried's
+morning-gift to Kriemhild, brought to Worms. Never before was such a
+treasure seen. Twelve huge wagons, journeying thrice a day, required four
+nights and days to carry it from the mountain to the bay. It consisted of
+nothing but precious stones and gold, and with it was the magic
+wishing-rod. It filled Kriemhild's towers and chambers to overflowing, and
+won many friends for the queen, who distributed it liberally.
+
+When the envious Hagan could not induce Günther to take the treasure from
+Kriemhild, he selected a time when the king and his brothers were away
+from home, and seizing the treasure, cast it into the Rhine, hoping to get
+it again. In this he failed, so the great treasure was forever lost.
+
+Thus ends the first part of the Lay of the Nibelungen. The second part is
+sometimes called the Need or Fall of the Nibelungen.
+
+While Kriemhild was bewailing her loss and revolving plans for revenge,
+Etzel, King of the Huns, who had heard of the charms of Siegfried's widow,
+sent the noble Margrave Rüdeger into Burgundy with proposals for her hand.
+
+Günther and his brothers begged Kriemhild to accept the offer; their
+counsellors advised it; only the sage Hagan protested. He knew too well
+how Kriemhild longed for revenge. "When once she gets among the Huns, she
+will make us rue the day," said he.
+
+But the others laughed at Hagan's scruples. The land of the Huns was far
+away, and they need never set foot in it. Moreover, it was their duty to
+make Kriemhild happy.
+
+Moved by the eloquence of Rüdeger, Kriemhild consented to wed Etzel, and
+set out in great state to meet the king.
+
+She was splendidly entertained along the way, tarried a short time at the
+home of the Margrave Rüdeger, and at Tulna met the great monarch Etzel,
+riding to meet her, among his hosts of Russians, Polacks, Greeks, and
+Wallachians.
+
+The splendid wedding-feast was held at Vienna. Kriemhild was received with
+the greatest honor, and so lavish was she of the gold and jewels she had
+brought with her, and so gracious to the attendant Huns, that every one
+loved her, and willingly worked her will.
+
+For seven long years she and Attila lived happy together, and to them was
+given a son whom they christened Ortlieb. Then Kriemhild, still
+remembering her loss and the cruelties of her Burgundian relatives and
+friends, bethought herself of her revenge.
+
+Feigning a great desire to see her brothers, she entreated Etzel to invite
+them to visit her; and the king, not suspecting her fell purpose, and glad
+of an opportunity to welcome her friends, at once despatched messengers
+with the invitation.
+
+This time other counsellors besides Hagan mistrusted the queen, and
+advised King Günther and his brothers to decline the invitation. But the
+princes grew angry at their advice; and Hagan, who could not endure to be
+laughed at, set forth with them, accompanied with a great train of
+warriors.
+
+The Rhine was too swollen to ford, and Hagan was sent up the stream to
+find a ferryman. As he looked for the boatman, he spied some mermaids
+bathing, and seizing their garments, would not restore them until they
+told him what would befall the Burgundians in Hungary.
+
+"Safe will you ride to Etzel's court, and safe return," said one, as he
+returned the garments. But as he turned to go, another called: "My aunt
+has lied to thee that she might get back her raiment. Turn now, or you
+will never live to see Burgundy. None save the chaplain will return in
+safety."
+
+Hagan went on gloomily and found the ferryman, who, proud and sullen,
+refused to take the party across. Hagan slew him, and, returning with the
+boat, threw the unfortunate chaplain into the river, thinking by drowning
+him to prove the mermaid's prophecy untrue. But the chaplain escaped to
+the other side, and walked back to Burgundy. Then Hagan told the party of
+the prophecy and they resolved to go on together, though they realized
+that they were going to their doom.
+
+Because of the slaughter of the ferryman, they were attacked by Gelfrat,
+the ruler of the land; but he was overcome and slain by Dankwart.
+
+The Margrave Rüdeger received the travellers hospitably, and betrothed his
+fair daughter to Giselher. He then accompanied the Burgundians to Etzel's
+court.
+
+The Burgundians suspected Kriemhild from the first. Giselher was the only
+one of her brothers whom she kissed, and she and Hagan quarrelled over the
+treasure at their first meeting.
+
+They were warned by Eckewart, who had accompanied Kriemhild from Burgundy,
+and by Dietrich of Bern, an exile at the court of Etzel, who told them
+that every morning since her stay in Hunland she had moaned and wailed for
+Siegfried. By Hagan's advice they all kept on their armor, telling Etzel
+that it was the custom in their country to wear it for the first three
+days.
+
+Kriemhild's design was to destroy Hagan and spare her brothers. But Hagan,
+on his guard, drove her warriors away from his room at night, and saved
+himself at church from the jostling Hunnish lords, never, in the mean
+time, sparing his insults to Kriemhild.
+
+The Huns, who were devoted to their queen, were not slow in showing their
+anger at Hagan's treatment of her, and the ill feeling between the
+warriors increased as the days passed by.
+
+As the Burgundians sat at the banquet with Etzel and his wife, in burst
+Dankwart, exclaiming that he had been attacked by Bloedel, who had slain
+all his followers.
+
+"Be stirring, brother Hagan!" he cried. "Help me to avenge my wrongs!"
+
+At this moment the little prince Ortlieb had been brought into the hall
+and passed around among the guests.
+
+"Let us drink to friendship with moody Kriemhild in king's wine!" cried
+Hagan, and with one blow of the sword sent the child's head in his
+mother's lap. Then arose a fearful clamor. Spear rang against shield, and
+the cries of the fierce Huns mingled with the defiant shouts of the
+Burgundians.
+
+Dietrich of Bern, leaping upon a bench, asked King Günther, that, as a
+friend to both parties, he might be permitted to withdraw from the hall
+with his friends. When the Burgundians assented, he led forth the king and
+queen. The same privilege was accorded to Rüdeger.
+
+Then, while the terrible Folker guarded the door with his fiddle bow, one
+side of which was a trenchant sword, the battle began. The Burgundians
+taunted the Huns with their weakness and cowardice until they ventured
+into the hall and were cut down by Hagan and his desperate men. When
+evening fell the thousand and four who had entered the hall all lay dead
+by the hands of the Burgundians.
+
+When Kriemhild's offer to give her brothers their lives if they would
+surrender Hagan was refused, she ordered fire to be set to the four
+corners of the hall, thinking thus to drive them forth. But the burning
+rafters fell into the rivers of blood and were quenched, and the
+Burgundians derived new courage and strength from huge draughts of blood
+from their fallen foes.
+
+Then Kriemhild and Etzel, seeing how their Hunnish men had fallen, and
+perceiving that the Burgundians were in no wise injured by the fire,
+reproached the Margrave Rüdeger that he did not enter the fight. In vain
+he told them of his friendship with the princes; of the betrothal of his
+daughter and Giselher. Kriemhild persisted in reminding him of the promise
+he had made to serve her to her dying day. At last he reluctantly summoned
+his men, and bidding farewell to his cruel king and queen, he entered the
+hall. Gladly was he welcomed by the Burgundians, who could not believe
+that he came to do battle with them. He explained how he was forced to
+fight them, and amid the tears of both sides, he exchanged shields with
+Hagan, whose buckler was broken. Then was the grim Hagan moved to tears,
+and he vowed not to touch Rüdeger in the fight. Fearful was the clatter of
+shield and blade as Rüdeger fought with Gernot, and fell at last by the
+blade he had himself given the prince.
+
+Great was the wailing of the Huns when they saw the lifeless body of
+Rüdeger, and deeply did Etzel regret the loss of the valiant and true
+margrave.
+
+Dietrich of Bern, who sat afar off, sent some of his best warriors under
+his man Hildebrand, to inquire of the truth of the report of Rüdeger's
+death. These fiery men disobeyed the orders of their master, and fought
+with the Burgundians until none remained save Günther and Hagan on one
+side, and Hildebrand on the other.
+
+When Dietrich heard of the slaughter of his followers, he was overcome
+with sorrow, and himself sought the hall. He promised Günther and Hagan
+that if they would surrender, he would himself lead them back in safety to
+Burgundy; but to this they would not consent. By this time they were so
+worn out, however, from the long battle, that Dietrich easily overpowered
+them and led them captive before Kriemhild, who promised to show them fair
+treatment.
+
+But Kriemhild's mind had become so warped by her desire for revenge, that
+she could not think of mercy. She cast her prisoners into separate
+dungeons, and visiting Hagan first, demanded her treasure. "But give it to
+me again, and thou shalt return living into Burgundy."
+
+"Pray not to me, haughty queen," replied Hagan. "I swore that while my
+lords were living I would ne'er tell where it lies. Thy prayer is thrown
+away."
+
+Straightway the savage Kriemhild ordered the head of Günther to be struck
+off, and bearing it by the hair, she displayed it to Hagan, asking him now
+to tell her the secret.
+
+"Now that all my lords are dead," said he, "no one shall know, thou least
+of all, she-fiend!"
+
+Kriemhild, beside herself with grief and rage, snatched from him the sword
+Balmung that he had taken from Siegfried, and ever since carried, and
+raising it high with both hands, struck off the head of her hated enemy.
+
+At this the grief of Etzel broke forth, and the aged Hildebrand, enraged
+to see a woman do such deeds, sprang upon Kriemhild and smote her to death
+with his sword.
+
+Bitterly wept King Etzel and Dietrich as they gazed on the corpses
+scattered round, and the disfigured body of the fair queen. Nothing
+remained for the Hunnish people but grief and woe.
+
+Here on earth pain ever follows in the steps of pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+HOW BRUNHILD WAS RECEIVED AT WORMS.
+
+
+Brunhild, queen of Issland, was won by Günther of Worms with the aid of
+Siegfried, whom Günther sent forward to Worms to announce the coming of
+the royal pair. Queen Uta and Princess Kriemhild, with many followers from
+the Burgundian court, went forward to the Rhine to meet and welcome the
+royal bridal party.
+
+  Beyond the Rhine King Günther, with many a well-arm'd rank
+  And all his guests about him, rode towards the river's bank;
+  You might see by the bridle led forward many a maid.
+  Those, who were to receive them, were ready all array'd.
+
+  Soon as the men of Issland came to the shallops down,
+  And eke the Nibelungers, lieges of Siegfried's crown,
+  To th' other shore they hasten'd (busy was every hand)
+  Where them the friends of Günther awaited on the strand.
+
+  Now hear, by wealthy Uta what a device was wrought.
+  Down with her from the castle a virgin train she brought,
+  That rode where she was riding in that procession bright;
+  So many a maid acquainted became with many a knight.
+
+  Kriemhild by the bridle the Margrave Gary led,
+  But only from the castle; then forward Siegfried sped,
+  And did that gentle service; fair was the blushing maid;
+  Full well for that thereafter the warrior she repaid.
+
+  Ortwine, the fearless champion, rode by Dame Uta's rein;
+  Knights and maids together follow'd, a social train.
+  At such a stately meeting, all must confess, I ween,
+  So many lovely ladies were ne'er together seen.
+
+  Full many a famous champion careering you might spy
+  (Ill there was sloth and idlesse) beneath fair Kriemhild's eye
+  E'en to the place of landing; by knights of fair renown
+  There many a high-born lady from steed was lifted down.
+
+  The king was now come over, and many a worthy guest.
+  Ah, before the ladies what spears were laid in rest!
+  How many went in shivers at every hurtling close!
+  Buckler clashed with buckler; ah, what a din arose!
+
+  Now might you see the ladies fast by the haven stand.
+  With his guests King Günther debark'd upon the strand,
+  In his hand soft leading the martial maiden fair.
+  Then each on each flash'd radiance, rich robes and jewels rare.
+
+  With that the smiling Kriemhild forth stepp'd a little space,
+  And Brunhild and her meiny greeted with gentle grace,
+  Each with snowy fingers back her headband drew,
+  And either kiss'd the other lovingly and true.
+
+  Then spoke in courteous manner Kriemhild the fair and free,
+  "In this our land, dear Brunhild, ever welcome be
+  To me and to my mother and all by us allow'd
+  For faithful friends and liegemen." Then each to th' other bow'd.
+
+  Next to greet Dame Brunhild approach'd Dame Uta too;
+  Oft she and oft her daughter their arms about her threw,
+  And on her sweet mouth lavish'd many a loving kiss.
+  Never was known a welcome so kind and frank as this.
+
+  Soon as Brunhild's women were all come to the strand,
+  Many a courtly warrior took by her lily hand
+  A lady fair, and gently her mincing steps upstay'd,
+  Now before Dame Brunhild stood many a noble maid.
+
+  'T was long before the greeting had gone through all the list.
+  On either part in plenty rosy mouths were kiss'd.
+  Still the two fair princesses were standing side by side,
+  A pair with love and rapture by longing warriors ey'd.
+
+  What erst had been but rumour, was now made clear to sight,
+  That nought had yet been witness'd so beautiful and bright
+  As those two lovely damsels; 't was plain to every eye;
+  None the slightest blemish in either form could spy.
+
+  Whoever look'd on women with but the sight for guide,
+  Such for her faultless beauty praised Günther's, stately bride;
+  But those whose thoughts went deeper, and div'd into the mind,
+  Maintain'd that gentle Kriemhild left Brunhild far behind.
+
+  Now met the dames and damsels in friendly converse free;
+  Fair robes and fairer beauties were there in store to see;
+  Many a silk pavilion and many a gorgeous tent
+  The plain before the city fill'd in its whole extent.
+
+  King Günther's kinsmen ceas'd not to press to that fair show.
+  And now was begg'd each princess from the sun to go
+  Close by, with their attendants, where shade was overhead.
+  By bold Burgundian warriors thither were they led.
+
+  Then clomb to horse the heroes, and scour'd the sounding field;
+  Many a joust was practis'd with order'd spear and shield;
+  Right well were prov'd the champions, and o'er the trampled plain,
+  As though the land were burning, the dust curl'd up amain.
+
+  So all before the ladies display'd their skill and force,
+  Nor doubt I that Sir Siegfried rode many a knightly course
+  Before the rich pavilions, and ever as he sped,
+  His thousand Nibelungers, a stately squadron, led.
+
+  Then came the knight of Trony by the good king's command;
+  In friendly wise he parted the jousters on the strand,
+  For fear the dust, now thick'ning, the ladies might molest.
+  Him with ready reverence obey'd each gentle guest.
+
+  Then spake the noble Gernot, "Let each now rest his steed
+  Till the air be cooler, 't will then be ours to lead
+  These lovely ladies homeward e'en to the palace wide.
+  So keep yourselves all ready till it please the king to ride."
+
+  Thus ended was the tourney, and now the warriors went
+  To join the dames and damsels beneath each lofty tent,
+  And there in gentle converse their grace and favor sought;
+  So flew the hours in pastime till of riding home they thought.
+
+  Now as drew on the twilight, when cooler grew the air
+  And the sun was setting, they would not linger there,
+  But up rose lords and ladies to seek the castle high;
+  Many a fair dame was cherish'd by many a love-lit eye.
+
+  So on the fair they waited as from good knights is due.
+  Then hardy squires, hot spurring before the nobles' view,
+  After the country's custom rode for the prize of weed
+  As far as to the palace, where sprung the king from steed.
+
+  There too the proud queens parted, each taking thence her way.
+  Dame Uta and her daughter with their handmaids gay
+  Into a spacious chamber both together went.
+  There might you see on all sides the sound of merriment.
+
+  In hall the seats were order'd; the king would instant hie
+  With all his guests to table; beside him you might spy
+  His lovely bride, Queen Brunhild; her royal crown she wore
+  There in King Günther's country; so rich was none before.
+
+  Seats were there plac'd unnumber'd with tables broad and good,
+  As is to us reported, full heap'd with costly food.
+  How little there was wanted that passes for the best!
+  There with the king was seated full many a noble guest.
+
+  The chamberlains of Günther in ewers of ruddy gold
+  Brought to the guests the water; should you be ever told
+  That at a prince's table service was better done,
+  'T were labor lost to say so, 't would be believ'd by none.
+
+  Then, ere the lord of Rhineland touch'd the water bright,
+  Up to him, as befitted, went Siegfried the good knight,
+  And brought to his remembrance the promise made him there,
+  Ere yet afar in Issland he look'd on Brunhild fair.
+
+  Said he, "You must remember what swore to me your hand,
+  That soon as Lady Brunhild were come into this land,
+  To me you 'd give your sister, your oaths now where are they?
+  On me throughout your journey much toil and travail lay."
+
+  "Well did you to remind me," the noble king replied,
+  "By what my hand has promis'd, I ever will abide,
+  And in this thing to serve you will do my best, my all."
+  Then sent he to beg Kriemhild to come into the hall.
+
+  Straight to the hall came Kriemhild begirt with many a maid,
+  When from the lofty staircase young Giselher thus said,
+  "Send back your maidens, Kriemhild, this bus'ness is your own;
+  On this the king, our brother, would speak with you alone."
+
+  Then forward led was Kriemhild, as Günther gave command,
+  Where stood the king, and round him from many a prince's land
+  Were noble knights unnumber'd; at once all silence kept;
+  At that same instant Brunhild had just to table stepp'd.
+
+  Thence came it she knew nothing of what was to be done.
+  Then to his gather'd kinsmen spoke Dancrat's royal son,
+  "Help me to move my sister Siegfried for lord to take."
+  "Such match," they all made answer, "with honour she may make."
+
+  Then spoke the king to Kriemhild, "Sister, I ask of thee
+  From an oath to set me by thy kindness free.
+  Thee to a knight I promis'd; if thou become his bride,
+  Thou 'lt do the will of Günther, and show thy love beside."
+
+  Then spake the noble maiden, "Dearest brother mine,
+  It needed not to ask me; whate'er command be thine,
+  I'll willingly perform it; so now, for thy sake,
+  Whom thou for husband giv'st me, fain I, my lord, will take."
+
+  With love and eke with pleasure redden'd Siegfried's hue;
+  At once to Lady Kriemhild he pledg'd his service true.
+  They bade them stand together in the courtly circle bright,
+  And ask'd her if for husband she took that lofty knight.
+
+  In modest maiden fashion she blush'd a little space,
+  But such was Siegfried's fortune and his earnest grace.
+  That not altogether could she deny her hand.
+  Then her for wife acknowledg'd the noble king of Netherland.
+
+  He thus to her affianc'd, and to him the maid,
+  Straight round the long-sought damsel in blushing grace array'd
+  His arms with soft emotion th' enamour'd warrior threw,
+  And kiss'd the high-born princess before that glitt'ring crew.
+                  _Lettsom's Translation, Tenth Adventure._
+
+
+
+
+HOW MARGRAVE RÜDEGER WAS SLAIN.
+
+
+The Margrave Rüdeger did not take part in the battle fought in Etzel's
+hall between the Burgundians visiting the Hunnish court and the Huns,
+because of his friendship for the Burgundians, and the betrothal of his
+daughter to Prince Giselher. Because of this, he was taunted by a Hun, who
+said to the queen that although Rüdeger had accepted many favors from
+Etzel he did not fight for him. When the Hun fell dead under Rüdeger's
+blow, Etzel reproached him for slaying one of his followers when he had
+need of so many.
+
+  Then came the fair Queen Kriemhild; she too had seen full well
+  What from the hero's anger the luckless Hun befell;
+  And she too mourn'd it deeply; with tears her eyes were wet.
+  Thus spake she to Rüdeger, "How have we ever yet
+
+  "Deserv'd that you, good Rüdeger, should make our anguish more?
+  Now sure to me and Etzel you've promised o'er and o'er,
+  That you both life and honour would risk to do us right.
+  That you 're the flower of knighthood is own'd by every knight.
+
+  "Now think upon the homage that once to me you swore,
+  When to the Rhine, good warrior, King Etzel's suit you bore,
+  That you would serve me ever to either's dying day.
+  Ne'er can I need so deeply, that you that vow should pay."
+
+  "'T is true, right noble lady; in this we 're not at strife;
+  I pledg'd, to do you service, my honour and my life,
+  But my soul to hazard never did I vow.
+  I brought the princes hither, and must not harm them now."
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  With that, to beg and pray him the king began as well;
+  King and queen together both at his feet they fell.
+  Then might you the good margrave have seen full ill bestead,
+  And thus in bitterest anguish the faithful hero said:--
+
+  "Woe's me the heaven-abandon'd, that I have liv'd to this!
+  Farewell to all my honours! woe for my first amiss!
+  My truth--my God-giv'n innocence--must they be both forgot?
+  Woe's me, O God in heaven! that death relieves me not!"
+
+  Then thus bespake him Kriemhild, "Right noble Rüdeger,
+  Take pity on our anguish; thou see'st us kneeling here,
+  The king and me before thee; both clasp thy honour'd knees.
+  Sure never host yet feasted such fatal guests as these."
+
+  With that the noble margrave thus to the queen 'gan say,
+  "Sure must the life of Rüdeger for all the kindness pay,
+  That you to me, my lady, and my lord the king have done.
+  For this I'm doomed to perish, and that ere set of sun.
+
+  "Full well I know, this morning my castles and my land
+  Both will to you fall vacant by stroke of foeman's hand,
+  And so my wife and daughter I to your grace commend,
+  And all at Bechelaren, each trusty homeless friend."
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  So to war the margrave under helmet strode;
+  Sharpest swords his meiny brandished as they rode;
+  Each in hand, bright-flashing, held his shield before.
+  That saw the dauntless minstrel, and seeing sorrow'd sore.
+
+  Then too was by young Giselher his lady's father seen
+  With helm laced as for battle. "What," thought he, "can he mean?
+  But nought can mean the margrave but what is just and right."
+  At the thought full joyous wax'd the youthful knight.
+
+  "I know not what you trust in;" thus the stern minstrel spake;
+  "Where saw you warriors ever for reconcilement's sake
+  With helmets laced advancing, and naked swords in hand?
+  On us will earn Sir Rüdeger his castles and his land."
+
+  Scarcely the valiant minstrel his words had utter'd all,
+  When the noble Rüdeger was close before the hall.
+  His shield, well proved in battle, before his feet he laid,
+  But neither proffered service, nor friendly greeting made.
+
+  To those within he shouted, "Look not for succor hence;
+  Ye valiant Nibelungers, now stand on your defence.
+  I'd fain have been your comrade; your foe I now must be.
+  We once were friends together; now from that bond I'm free."
+
+  "Now God forbid," said Günther, "that such a knight as you
+  To the faith wherein we trusted, should ever prove untrue,
+  And turn upon his comrades in such an hour as this.
+  Ne'er can I think that Rüdeger can do so much amiss."
+
+  "I can't go back," said Rüdeger, "the deadly die is cast;
+  I must with you do battle; to that my word is pass'd.
+  So each of you defend him as he loves his life.
+  I must perform my promise; so wills King Etzel's wife."
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Tarry yet a little, right noble Rüdeger!
+  I and my lords a moment would yet with you confer;
+  Thereto hard need compels us, and danger gathering nigh;
+  What boot were it to Etzel though here forlorn we die?
+
+  "I'm now," pursued Sir Hagan, "beset with grievous care;
+  The shield that Lady Gotelind gave me late to bear,
+  Is hewn, and all-to broken by many a Hunnish brand.
+  I brought it fair and friendly hither to Etzel's land.
+
+  "Ah! that to me this favour heaven would be pleas'd to yield,
+  That I might to defend me bear so well-prov'd a shield
+  As that, right noble Rüdeger, before thee now display'd!
+  No more should I in battle need then the hauberk's aid."
+
+  "Fain with the same I'd serve thee to th' height of thy desire,
+  But that I fear such proffer might waken Kriemhild's ire.
+  Still, take it to thee, Hagan, and wield it well in hand.
+  Ah! might'st thou bring it with thee to thy Burgundian land!"
+
+  While thus with words so courteous so fair a gift he sped,
+  The eyes of many a champion with scalding tears were red,
+  'T was the last gift, that buckler, e'er given to comrade dear
+  By the lord of Bechelaren, the blameless Rüdeger.
+
+  However stern was Hagan, and of unyielding mood,
+  Still at the gift he melted, which one so great and good
+  Gave in his last few moments, e'en on the eve of fight,
+  And with the stubborn warrior mourn'd many a noble knight.
+
+  "Now God in heaven, good Rüdeger, thy recompenser be!
+  Your like on earth, I'm certain, we never more shall see,
+  Who gifts so good and gorgeous to homeless wanderers give.
+  May God protect your virtue, that it may ever live!
+
+  "Alas! this bloody bus'ness!" Sir Hagan then went on,
+  "We have had to bear much sorrow, and more shall have anon.
+  Must friend with friend do battle, nor heaven the conflict part?"
+  The noble margrave answer'd, "That wounds my inmost heart."
+
+  "Now for thy gift I'll quit thee, right noble Rüdeger!
+  What e'er may chance between thee and my bold comrades here,
+  My hand shall touch thee never amidst the heady fight,
+  Not e'en if thou shouldst slaughter every Burgundian knight."
+
+  For that to him bow'd courteous the blameless Rüdeger.
+  Then all around were weeping for grief and doleful drear,
+  Since none th' approaching mischief had hope to turn aside.
+  The father of all virtue in that good margrave died.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  What a fearful clatter of clashing blades there rang!
+  From shields beneath the buffets how the plates they sprang,
+  And precious stones unnumber'd rain'd down into the gore!
+  They fought so fell and furious as man will never more.
+
+  The lord of Bechelaren went slashing here and there,
+  As one who well in battle knew how himself to bear.
+  Well prov'd the noble Rüdeger in that day's bloody fight,
+  That never handled weapon a more redoubted knight.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Loud o'er the din of battle stout Gernot shouted then,
+  "How now, right noble Rüdeger? not one of all my men
+  Thou 'lt leave me here unwounded; in sooth it grieves me sore
+  To see my friends thus slaughter'd; bear it can I no more.
+
+  "Now must thy gift too surely the giver harm to-day,
+  Since of my friends so many thy strength has swept away.
+  So turn about and face me, thou bold and high-born man!
+  Thy goodly gift to merit, I'll do the best I can."
+
+  Ere through the press the margrave could come Sir Gernot nigh,
+  Full many a glittering mail-coat was stain'd a bloody die.
+  Then those fame-greedy champions each fierce on th' other leapt,
+  And deadly wounds at distance with wary ward they kept.
+
+  So sharp were both their broadswords, resistless was their dint,
+  Sudden the good Sir Rüdeger through th' helmet hard as flint
+  So struck the noble Gernot, that forth the blood it broke;
+  With death the stern Burgundian repaid the deadly stroke.
+
+  He heaved the gift of Rüdeger with both his hands on high,
+  And to the death though wounded, a stroke at him let fly
+  Right through both shield and morion; deep was the gash and wide.
+  At once the lord of Gotelind beneath the swordcut died.
+
+  In sooth a gift so goodly was worse requited ne'er.
+  Down dead dropp'd both together, Gernot and Rüdeger.
+  Each slain by th' other's manhood, then prov'd, alas! too well.
+  Thereat first Sir Hagan furious wax'd and fell.
+
+  Then cried the knight of Trony, "Sure we with ills are cross'd;
+  Their country and their people in both these chiefs have lost
+  More than they'll e'er recover;--woe worth this fatal day!
+  We have here the margrave's meiny, and they for all shall pay!"
+
+  All struck at one another, none would a foeman spare.
+  Full many a one, unwounded, down was smitten there,
+  Who else might have 'scap'd harmless, but now, though whole and sound,
+  In the thick press was trampled, or in the blood was drown'd.
+
+  "Alas! my luckless brother who here in death lies low!
+  How every hour I'm living brings some fresh tale of woe!
+  And ever must I sorrow for the good margrave too.
+  On both sides dire destruction and mortal ills we rue."
+
+  Soon as the youthful Giselher beheld his brother dead,
+  Who yet within were lingering by sudden doom were sped.
+  Death, his pale meiny choosing, dealt each his dreary dole.
+  Of those of Bechelaren 'scaped not one living soul.
+
+  King Günther and young Giselher, and fearless Hagan too,
+  Dankwart as well as Folker, the noble knights and true,
+  Went where they found together out-stretched the valiant twain.
+  There wept th' assembled warriors in anguish o'er the slain.
+
+  "Death fearfully despoils us," said youthful Giselher,
+  "But now give over wailing, and haste to th' open air
+  To cool our heated hauberks, faint as we are with strife.
+  God, methinks, no longer, will here vouchsafe us life."
+
+  This sitting, that reclining, was seen full many a knight;
+  They took repose in quiet; around (a fearful sight!)
+  Lay Rüdeger's dead comrades; all was hush'd and still;
+  From that long dreary silence King Etzel augur'd ill.
+
+  "Alas for this half friendship!" thus Kriemhild frowning spake,
+  "If it were true and steadfast, Sir Rüdeger would take
+  Vengeance wide and sweeping on yonder murderous band;
+  Now back he'll bring them safely to their Burgundian land.
+
+  "What boot our gifts, King Etzel? was it, my lord, for this
+  We gave him all he asked us? The chief has done amiss.
+  He, who should have reveng'd us, will now a treaty make."
+  Thereto in answer Folker, the gallant minstrel, spake,
+
+  "Not so the truth is, lady! the more the pity too!
+  If one the lie might venture to give a dame like you,
+  Most foully against the margrave you've lied, right noble queen!
+  Sore trick'd in that same treaty he and his men have been.
+
+  "With such good will the margrave his king's commands obey'd,
+  That he and all his meiny dead on this floor are laid.
+  Now look about you, Kriemhild! for servants seek anew;
+  Well were you served by Rüdeger; he to the death was true.
+
+  "The fact if still you're doubting, before your eyes we'll bring."
+  'T was done e'en of set purpose her heart the more to wring.
+  They brought the mangled margrave, where Etzel saw him well.
+  Th' assembled knights of Hungary such utter anguish ne'er befell.
+
+  When thus held high before them they saw the margrave dead,
+  Sure by the choicest writer could ne'er be penn'd nor said
+  The woeful burst of wailing from woman and eke from man,
+  That from the heart's deep sorrow to strike all ears began.
+
+  Above his weeping people King Etzel sorrow'd sore;
+  His deep-voic'd wail resounded loud as the lion's roar
+  In the night-shaded desert; the like did Kriemhild too;
+  They mourn'd in heart for Rüdeger, the valiant and the true.
+
+       _Lettsom's Translation, Thirty-seventh Adventure._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+The Song of Roland is one of the many mediaeval romances that celebrate
+the deeds of Charlemagne.
+
+The oldest text now in existence was written about 1096, but the poem was
+current in other forms long before this.
+
+The author was a Norman, for the poem is written in the Norman dialect;
+but it is uncertain whether the Turoldus or Théroulde named in the last
+line of the poem, "Thus endeth here the geste Turoldus sang," was the
+author, a copyist, or a _jongleur_.
+
+It is said that Taillefer, the minstrel of Normandy, sang the Song of
+Roland at the battle of Hastings. "Taillefer, who right well sang, mounted
+on his rapid steed, went before them singing of Charlemagne, and of
+Roland, and Olivier, and of the vassals who died in Roncesvalles."
+
+The only text of the poem now in existence is one of the thirteenth
+century, preserved in the Bodleian library at Oxford.
+
+On the fifteenth of August, 778, in the valley of Roncesvalles, in the
+Pyrenees, Charlemagne's rear guard, left under the command of Roland,
+Prefect of the Marches of Brittany, was attacked and slaughtered by a
+large army of Gascons.
+
+This incident forms the historical basis of the poem; but the imagination
+of the poet has made of Charlemagne, then a young man, the old emperor,
+with "beard all blossom white," and transformed his Gascon foes to
+Saracens.
+
+The Song of Roland is written in the heroic pentameter; it is divided into
+"laisses," or stanzas, of irregular length, and contains about three
+thousand seven hundred and eight lines. It is written in the assonant, or
+vowel rhyme, that was universal among European nations in the early stage
+of their civilization.
+
+Each stanza ends with the word "aoi," for which no satisfactory
+translation has yet been offered, although "away" and "it is done" have
+been suggested.
+
+The author of the Song of Roland undertook, like Homer, to sing of one
+great event about which all the interest of the poem centres; but unlike
+Homer, his poem is out of all proportion, the long-drawn out revenge being
+in the nature of an anti-climax. The Song of Roland is a fair exponent of
+the people among whom it originated. It contains no ornament; it is a
+straightforward relation of facts; it lacks passion, and while it
+describes fearful slaughter, it never appeals to the emotions. Though the
+French army shed many tears, and fell swooning to the ground at the sight
+of the fearful slaughter at Roncesvalles, we are rather moved to smile at
+the violence of their emotion than to weep over the dead, so little power
+has the poet to touch the springs of feeling. However, there are passages
+in which the poem rises to sublimity, and which have been pronounced
+Homeric by its admirers.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+J. Banquier's Bibliographie de la Chanson de Roland, 1877;
+
+T. Bulfinch's Legends of Charlemagne, 1863;
+
+Sir G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, 1871,
+pp. 320-347;
+
+Léon Gautier's Les épopées françaises, vol. i., 1878;
+
+J. Malcolm Ludlow's Story of Roland (see his Popular Epics of the Middle
+Ages, 1865, vol. i., pp. 362-427);
+
+Gaston Paris's La poésie épique (see his Histoire poétique de Charlemagne,
+1865, pp. 1-33);
+
+Gaston Paris's Les Chansons de Gestes françaises (see his Histoire
+poétique de Charlemagne, 1865, pp. 69-72);
+
+George Saintsbury's The Chansons de Gestes (see his Short History of
+French Literature, 1892, pp. 10-25);
+
+Henri Van Laun's The Carlovingian Cycle (see his History of French
+Literature, 1876, vol. i., pp. 141-148);
+
+Ancient Literature of France, Quarterly Review, 1866, cxx. 283-323;
+
+The Chanson de Roland, Westminster Review, 1873, c. 32-44;
+
+M. Hayden's The Chansons de Geste, Dublin Review, 1894, cxiv. 346-357;
+
+Charles Francis Keary's The Chansons de Geste:
+the Song of Roland, Fraser's Magazine, 1881, civ. 777-789;
+
+J. M. L.'s The Song of Roland, Macmillan's Magazine, 1862, vi. 486-501;
+
+Agnes Lambert's The oldest epic of Christendom, Nineteenth Century, 1882,
+xi. 77-101;
+
+Andrew Lang's The Song of Roland and the Iliad, National Review, 1892, xx.
+195-205;
+
+Legend of Roland, Encyclopćdia Britannica, vol. xx.;
+
+Gustave Masson's The Chanson de Roland, Leisure Hour, 1877, xxvi. 618-620;
+
+The Song of Roland, Catholic World, 1873 and 1874, xviii. 378-388,
+488-500;
+
+The Song of Roland, Harper's Monthly, 1882, lxiv. 505-515;
+
+The Month, 1880, xl. 515-527; Temple Bar, 1886, lxxviii. 534-540.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+The Song of Roland, as chanted before the Battle of Hastings by the
+Minstrel Taillefer, Tr. from the French translation of Vitet by Mrs. Anne
+Caldwell Marsh, 1854;
+
+The Song of Roland, Tr. into English verse by John O'Hagan, ed. 2, 1883;
+
+La Chanson de Roland, Tr. from the seventh ed. of Léon Gautier, by Leonce
+Rabillon, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+For full seven years had Charlemagne tarried in Spain, and all the land
+lay conquered save the city of Saragossa. There, in an orchard, upon a
+terrace paved with blue marble, sat its king, Marsile, taking counsel with
+his lords.
+
+"No army have I," said the king; "no people to array against the hosts of
+the great emperor. Advise me, my lords, what I shall do to save ourselves
+from disgrace and shame."
+
+The wily Blancandrin, wisest and greatest among the pagans, advanced
+before him. "Where might cannot prevail, often craft gains the day. My
+lord, send gifts to mighty Carle. Drive forth a long train of camels; heap
+many mules with gold; send chariots filled with precious gifts. Advise him
+that on the day of Saint Michael's feast you will seek him at Aix, and
+there become a Christian, and his vassal. Yea, even send hostages; my own
+son shall go, even though he lose his head. Then will Carle depart for
+France. The day set by you will come, but he will hear naught from us. The
+hostages' heads will fall. What of it? Better this than for us to lose
+forever Spain the fair."
+
+The king, pleased with the craft of Blancandrin, dismissed his council,
+and ordered ten of his fiercest barons to seek Charlemagne at Cordova,
+bearing the olive-branch, and make the offer suggested by Blancandrin.
+
+Cordova, filled with rich spoils, had been taken, and its surviving
+inhabitants given the choice of the sword or Christian baptism. Therefore
+the happy emperor sat at his ease in a wide-spreading orchard. Around him
+stood Roland, Olivier, Samsun the duke, Anseis, Gefrei d'Anjou, and
+Gerier. At least fifteen thousand French knights were diverting themselves
+with different games in the beautiful orchard, where, under a pine-tree,
+the great King of France sat upon a golden chair. His white hair and
+flowing white beard added majesty to his already majestic figure, so that
+the olive-bearing messengers needed not to have great Carle pointed out to
+them.
+
+The emperor heard the message of Marsile in silence, and dismissing the
+pagans for the night to a pavilion, called together in council his wisest
+barons, Duke Ogier, Archbishop Turpin, Gerier, Roland, Olivier, a thousand
+Franks, among them Ganelon, the step-father of Roland, and laid before
+them the message of Marsile.
+
+"Rich gifts he offers me, but he demands that I return to France; thither
+will he follow me, and at Aix will become a Christian and a vassal. A fair
+promise, but what is in his heart I cannot tell."
+
+After a moment's silence Roland stood forth.
+
+"Sire, have no faith in the words of Marsile. When have we found aught but
+treachery in the Saracen? For seven years I have been winning victories
+for you here in Spain. Once before you yielded to such a message as this,
+from this same Marsile, and lost, in consequence, the heads of your Counts
+Bazan and Bazile. War on as you have begun. Besiege his city! subdue
+Saragossa!"
+
+Then strode forth the angry Ganelon. "My king, this young hot-head is a
+fool; hearken not unto him. Accept the offer of Marsile, and lose no more
+lives by the foolhardiness of one who cares more for his own glory than
+for human life."
+
+The voice of the others, among them Duke Naimes, Charlemagne's wisest
+counsellor and truest vassal, was with Ganelon. The emperor stroked his
+white beard. "My lords, whom shall we send to meet Marsile at Saragossa?"
+
+"I will go," said Duke Naimes.
+
+"Nay, I cannot spare you from my councils," replied the king.
+
+"I am here!" cried Roland.
+
+"Not you! You are too hot-headed to venture into the court of the enemy!"
+cried his friend Olivier. "Let me go instead, sire!"
+
+"Nay!" cried the king. "Silence! Not one of the twelve peers sets his foot
+in the kingdom of the Moors."
+
+"Then let my step-father go," suggested Roland. "No wiser man than he can
+be found."
+
+"Come forward," said the king, as the Franks murmured assent, "and receive
+the staff and glove. The Franks have chosen you."
+
+Ganelon rose, wrathful, casting off his fur robe. His eyes were gray, his
+face fierce, his form noble.
+
+"This is Roland's work. I shall hate him forever, and Olivier, and the
+twelve peers, because they love him. Ne'er shall I return; full well I
+know it. If e'er I do, it will be to wreak vengeance on my enemy."
+
+"Go!" said the king. "You have said enough!"
+
+As Ganelon went forward, full of rage, to receive the king's glove, it
+fell ere he touched it. "A bad omen!" exclaimed the French.
+
+"Sirs, ye shall hear of this!" said Ganelon.
+
+On his way to Saragossa with the legates of Marsile, Ganelon laid the
+impious plot that was to result in the destruction of Roland and the
+peers. It saved his life at Saragossa, where Marsile threatened to kill
+him on reading Charlemagne's message. He explained carefully to the
+Saracens how the rear guard, left at Roncesvalles under the command of
+Roland and the twelve peers, could be destroyed by the pagan forces before
+the knowledge of the battle could reach Charlemagne, and that, with these
+props of his kingdom gone, the king's power would be so diminished that
+Marsile could easily hold out against him. Then the traitor hastened back
+to Cordova, laden with rich gifts.
+
+When Ganelon rode back, the emperor was preparing to return to sweet
+France. "Barons," said Carle, "whom shall I leave in charge of these deep
+defiles and narrow passes?"
+
+"My step-son Roland is well able to take the command," said Ganelon; "he
+your nephew, whom you prize most of all your knights."
+
+Rage filled the hearts of both Roland and Carle; but the word was spoken,
+and Roland must remain. With him remained the twelve peers, his friends,
+Olivier, his devoted comrade, the gallant Archbishop Turpin, and twenty
+thousand valiant knights.
+
+While Charlemagne's army toiled over the terrible gorges and high
+mountains into Gascony, the emperor, ever grieving over the untimely death
+his nephew might meet in the defiles of Spain, down came the pagans, who
+had been gathering on the high mountains and in the murky valleys,--emirs,
+sons of noble counts were they, brave as the followers of Charlemagne.
+
+When Olivier descried the pagan horde he at once exclaimed,--
+
+"This is the work of Ganelon!"
+
+"Hush!" replied Roland. "He is my step-father. Say no more."
+
+Then Olivier, when from the hill he saw the one hundred thousand Saracens,
+their helmets bedecked with gold, their shields shining in the sun,
+besought his friend to sound his horn, the olifant, and summon the king to
+their aid.
+
+"Never will I so disgrace myself!" exclaimed Roland. "Never shall sweet
+France be so dishonored. One hundred thousand blows shall I give with my
+sword, my Durendal, and the Moors will fall and die!"
+
+When Olivier found his pleading vain, he mounted his steed and rode with
+Roland to the front of the lines.
+
+Long was the fight and terrible. If gallantry and strength sat with the
+twelve peers and their followers, they were with their opponents as well.
+No sooner had Roland, or Olivier, or Turpin, or Engelier cleft the body of
+a Moorish knight down to the saddle, than down fell a Christian, his
+helmet broken, his hauberk torn by the lance of his dreaded foe. The
+nephew of Marsile fell by the hand of Roland, who taunted him as he lay in
+death; Olivier struck down Marsile's brother. "A noble stroke!" cried
+Roland.
+
+"A baron's stroke!" exclaimed the archbishop, as Samsun pierced the
+Almazour with his lance and he fell dead. Olivier spurred over the field,
+crushing the pagans and beating them down with his broken lance.
+
+"Comrade, where is thy sword, thy Halteclere?" called Roland to his
+friend.
+
+"Here, but I lack time to draw it," replied the doughty Olivier.
+
+More than a thousand blows struck Turpin; the pagans fell by hundreds and
+by thousands, and over the field lay scattered those who would nevermore
+see sweet France.
+
+Meanwhile, in France, hail fell and rain; the sky was vivid with lightning
+bolts. The earth shook, and the land lay in darkness at noonday. None
+understood the portent. Alas! it was Nature's grief at the death of Count
+Roland.
+
+When Roland perceived that in spite of their mighty efforts the passes
+were still filled with heathen knights, and the French ranks were fast
+thinning, he said to Olivier, "What think you if we call the king?"
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Olivier. "Better death now than shame!"
+
+"If I blow, Carle will hear it now and return. I shall blow my olifant,"
+cried Roland.
+
+"When I begged you to blow it," said Olivier, "you refused, when you could
+have saved the lives of all of us. You will show no valor if you blow it
+now."
+
+"Great is the strife," said Roland. "I will blow that Carle may come."
+
+"Then," said Olivier, "if I return to France, I pledge you my word my
+sister Aude shall never be your wife. Your rashness has been the cause of
+our destruction. Now you shall die here, and here ends our friendship."
+
+Across the field the archbishop spurred to reconcile the friends. "Carle
+will come too late to save our lives," said he, "but he will reach the
+field in time to preserve our mangled bodies and wreak vengeance on our
+foes."
+
+Roland put his horn to his lips and blew with such force that his temples
+burst and the crimson blood poured forth from his mouth. Three times he
+sounded his horn, and each time the sound brought anguish to the heart of
+Carle, who heard it, riding thirty leagues away. "Our men make battle!"
+cried he; but this Ganelon hastened to deny, insisting that Roland was but
+hunting and blowing the horn, taking sport among the peers. But Duke
+Naimes exclaimed, "Your nephew is in sore distress. He who would deceive
+you is a traitor. Haste! Shout your war-cry, and let us return to the
+battle-field. You yourself hear plainly his call for help!"
+
+Commanding Ganelon to be seized and given to the scullions of his house to
+be kept for punishment until his return, Carle ordered his men to arm and
+return to Roncesvalles, that they might, if possible, save the lives of
+the noble peers. All the army wept aloud as they thought of the doom of
+Roland. High were the mountains, deep the valleys, swift the rushing
+streams. The French rode on, answering the sound of the olifant; the
+emperor rode, filled with grief and rage; the barons spurred their horses,
+but in vain.
+
+After Roland had sounded the horn he again grasped Durendal, and, mounted
+on his horse Veillantif, scoured the battle-field, cutting down the
+heathen. But still their troops pressed him, and when he saw the Ethiopian
+band led by the uncle of Marsile, he knew his doom had come. Olivier,
+riding forth to meet the accursed band, received his death-wound from the
+Kalif, but lived to cut his enemy down, and call Roland to him. Alas!
+sight had forsaken his eyes, and as he sat on his steed he lifted his
+bright sword Halteclere, and struck Roland a fearful blow that clove his
+crest but did not touch his head. "Was the blow meant for me, my comrade?"
+asked Roland softly. "Nay, I can see no more. God pity me! Pardon me, my
+friend!" and as the two embraced each other, Olivier fell dead.
+
+Then, in the agony of his grief, Roland fainted, sitting firm in his
+saddle, and again recovering consciousness, became aware of the terrible
+losses of the French. Only himself, the archbishop, and the gallant
+Gaultier de l'Hum were left to defend the honor of the French. After
+Gaultier fell, Roland, unassisted save by Turpin, who fought transfixed by
+four spear shafts, put the enemy to flight. Feeling his death wounds,
+Roland besought Turpin to let him bring together the bodies of his fallen
+comrades that they might receive the blessing of the archbishop. Weak and
+trembling from loss of blood, Roland passed to and fro over the
+corpse-bestrewn field, and gathered together his comrades: here, Gerin and
+Gerier, Berengier and Otun; there, Anseis, Samsun, and Gerard de
+Roussillon, and last of all, his beloved Olivier, and placing them before
+the knees of Turpin, he saw them receive his blessing.
+
+In his great grief at the sight of the dead Olivier, Roland again fainted,
+and Turpin hastened to a little brook near by for water to revive him. But
+the strain was too great for his already weakened body, and, when Roland
+revived, it was to find the archbishop dead.
+
+Then Roland, realizing that his hour, too, had come, sought out a place in
+which to die. Upon a hill between two lofty trees, where was a marble
+terrace, he placed himself with his head towards the enemy's country; and
+there a Saracen, who had feigned death to escape it, tried to wrest from
+him his beloved Durendal.
+
+Roland crushed the pagan's head with his olifant, but now he was troubled,
+for he feared that his sword would fall into other than Christian hands.
+Ill could he bear to be parted from his beloved sword. Its golden hilt
+contained rare relics,--a tooth of Saint Peter, blood, hair, and bones of
+other saints, and by the strength of these holy relics it had conquered
+vast realms. Ten and more mighty blows he struck with Durendal upon the
+hard rock of the terrace, in the endeavor to break it; but it neither
+broke nor blunted. Then, counting over his great victories, he placed it
+and the olifant beneath him, and committed his soul to the Father, who
+sent down his angels to bear it to Paradise.
+
+When the French army, led by Charlemagne, found the passes heaped high
+with the bodies of the dead and no living soul to tell the story of the
+slaughter, they wept, and many fell swooning to the earth. But the enraged
+Charlemagne, unwilling then to give time for mourning, spurred on his
+soldiers, overtook the fleeing enemy, and drove them into the Ebro, so
+that those who survived the sword, perished by the wave. Then, returning
+to the field of Roncesvalles, he wept over his beloved Roland and the
+peers.
+
+Great was his grief; handfuls of hair he tore from his head, and many
+times wished that his soul were in Paradise, and his body beside that of
+Roland. He commanded that the hearts of Roland, Olivier, and Turpin be
+taken from their bodies, wrapped, and inurned, and the bodies borne home
+in chariots. The bodies of the others were gathered together in one tomb,
+and assoiled and blessed by the priests who accompanied the army.
+
+As Charlemagne prepared to start for France, he saw a new army
+approaching. The aged Emir Baligant, from Babylon, who had long ago been
+summoned by Marsile, had just arrived in Saragossa, and hastened forth to
+meet Charlemagne. The emir's army was countless, and Charlemagne's was
+weakened by its great loss. But the thought of the slaughtered peers
+spurred on the French, and with great Carle for their leader, they quickly
+put the pagans to flight.
+
+The Franks pursued the enemy to Saragossa, where the wounded Marsile
+expired on hearing of his defeat. The city was taken, its inhabitants
+either slain, or converted and baptized, and Queen Bramimunde taken to
+France to be won to the true faith by gentler means.
+
+When Charlemagne entered his stately palace at Aix, he was met by the fair
+lady Aude.
+
+"Where is Roland, my betrothed?"
+
+Carle wept, tearing his white beard.
+
+"Thou askest of one who is no more. But in his place I will give thee my
+son. I can do no better."
+
+"Nay, God forbid that I should live if Roland is dead;" and so saying,
+Aude, the beautiful, fell dead at the feet of the emperor.
+
+From all his lands Carle summoned men to Aix for the trial of Ganelon.
+
+"Judge him according to the law, my barons," said the king. "He lost me
+twenty thousand of my Franks. My nephew Roland, Olivier, my twelve peers,
+he sold."
+
+"My king," pleaded Ganelon, "call it not treason. I was ever loyal to you.
+I thought not of gain, but of revenge against my rebellious and haughty
+step-son."
+
+The sentiment of many was with Ganelon, and Pinabel offered to fight for
+him against Thierri, the champion of the king. Thirty knights of his kin
+gave themselves as legal sureties of his pledge, and the combat began.
+Pinabel was conquered and slain, and Ganelon was condemned to be torn to
+pieces by wild horses. His thirty sureties were also compelled to suffer
+death.
+
+Ganelon was punished; Bramimunde was made a Christian, and the emperor
+thought at last to have peace. But as night fell and he sought rest in his
+lofty room, Gabriel appeared to him.
+
+"Summon thy hosts and march into Bire to succor King Vivien. The
+Christians look to thee for help."
+
+The king wept and tore his beard. "So troubled is my life!" said he.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+THE HORN.
+
+
+The Rear Guard of the French army, left behind at Roncesvalles, under
+Roland, was attacked by a great host of Moors. In the beginning of the
+battle Olivier besought Roland to recall the emperor by blowing the
+olifant, whose sound could be heard for many leagues, but Roland refused.
+But when he saw the overwhelming forces of the Moors, and the field strewn
+with the corpses of the French, he resolved to blow the horn.
+
+  Seeing so many warriors fall'n around,
+  Rollánd unto his comrade Olivier
+  Spoke thus: "Companion fair and dear, for God
+  Whose blessing rests on you, those vassals true
+  And brave lie corses on the battle-field:
+  Look! We must mourn for France so sweet and fair,
+  From henceforth widowed of such valiant knights.
+  Carle, 'would you were amongst us, King and friend!
+  What can we do, say, brother Olivier,
+  To bring him news of this sore strait of ours!"
+  Olivier answers: "I know not; but this
+  I know; for us is better death than shame."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd says: "I will blow mine olifant,
+  And Carle will hear it from the pass. I pledge
+  My word the French at once retrace their steps."
+  Said Olivier: "This a great shame would be,
+  One which to all your kindred would bequeathe
+  A lifetime's stain. When this I asked of you,
+  You answered nay, and would do naught. Well, now
+  With my consent you shall not;--if you blow
+  Your horn, of valor true you show no proof.
+  Already, both your arms are drenched with blood."
+  Responds the count: "These arms have nobly struck."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  "The strife is rude," Rollánd says; "I will blow
+  My horn, that Carle may hear."--Said Olivier:
+  "This would not courage be. What I desired,
+  Companion, you disdained. Were the king here,
+  Safe would we be, but yon brave men are not
+  To blame."--"By this my beard," said Olivier,
+  "I swear, if ever I see again sweet Aude,
+  My sister, in her arms you ne'er shall lie."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd asked Olivier--"Why show to me
+  Your anger, friend?"--"Companion, yours the fault;
+  True courage means not folly. Better far
+  Is prudence than your valiant rage. Our French
+  Their lives have lost, your rashness is the cause.
+  And now our arms can never more give Carle
+  Their service good. Had you believed your friend,
+  Amongst us would he be, and ours the field,
+  The King Marsile, a captive or a corse.
+  Rollánd, your valor brought ill fortune, nor
+  Shall Carle the great e'er more our help receive,
+  A man unequalled till God's judgment-day.
+  Here shall you die, and dying, humble France, . . .
+  This day our loyal friendship ends--ere falls
+  The Vesper-eve, dolorously we part!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The archbishop heard their strife. In haste he drives
+  Into his horse his spurs of purest gold,
+  And quick beside them rides. Then chiding them,
+  Says: "Sire Rollánd, and you, Sire Olivier,
+  In God's name be no feud between you two;
+  No more your horn shall save us; nathless't were
+  Far better Carle should come and soon avenge
+  Our deaths. So joyous then these Spanish foes
+  Would not return. But as our Franks alight,
+  Find us, or slain or mangled on the field,
+  They will our bodies on their chargers' backs
+  Lift in their shrouds with grief and pity, all
+  In tears, and bury us in holy ground:
+  And neither wolves, nor swine, nor curs shall feed
+  On us--" Replied Rollánd: "Well have you said."
+
+  Rollánd raised to his lips the olifant,
+  Drew a deep breath, and blew with all his force.
+  High are the mountains, and from peak to peak
+  The sound re-echoes; thirty leagues away
+  'T was heard by Carle and all his brave compeers.
+  Cried the king: "Our men make battle!" Ganelon
+  Retorts in haste: "If thus another dared
+  To speak, we should denounce it as a lie."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rollánd in his great anguish blows
+  His olifant so mightily, with such
+  Despairing agony, his mouth pours forth
+  The crimson blood, and his swol'n temples burst.
+  Yea, but so far the ringing blast resounds;
+  Carle hears it, marching through the pass, Naimes harks,
+  The French all listen with attentive ear.
+  "That is Rollánd's horn!" Carle cried, "which ne'er yet
+  Was, save in battle, blown!" But Ganelon
+  Replies: "No fight is there! you, sire, are old,
+  Your hair and beard are all bestrewn with gray,
+  And as a child your speech. Well do you know
+  Rollánd's great pride. 'Tis marvellous God bears
+  With him so long. Already took he Noble
+  Without your leave. The pagans left their walls
+  And fought Rollánd, your brave knight, in the field;
+  With his good blade he slew them all, and then
+  Washed all the plain with water, that no trace
+  Of blood was left--yea, oftentimes he runs
+  After a hare all day and blows his horn.
+  Doubtless he takes his sport now with his peers;
+  And who 'neath Heav'n would dare attack Rollánd?
+  None, as I deem. Nay, sire, ride on apace;
+  Why do you halt? Still far is the Great Land."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd with bleeding mouth and temples burst,
+  Still, in his anguish, blows his olifant;
+  Carle hears it, and his Franks. The king exclaims:
+  "That horn has a long breath!" Duke Naimes replies:
+  "Rollánd it is, and in a sore distress,
+  Upon my faith a battle rages there!
+  A traitor he who would deceive you now.
+  To arms! Your war-cry shout, your kinsman save!
+  Plainly enough you hear his call for help."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Carle orders all the trumpeters to sound
+  The march. The French alight. They arm themselves
+  With helmets, hauberks and gold-hilted swords,
+  Bright bucklers, long sharp spears, with pennons white
+  And red and blue. The barons of the host
+  Leap on their steeds, all spurring on; while through
+  The pass they march, each to the other says:
+  "Could we but reach Rollánd before he dies,
+  What deadly blows, with his, our swords would strike!"
+  But what avails? Too late they will arrive.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The ev'n is clear, the sun its radiant beams
+  Reflects upon the marching legions, spears,
+  Hauberks and helms, shields painted with bright flowers,
+  Gold pennons all ablaze with glitt'ring hues.
+  Burning with wrath the emperor rides on;
+  The French with sad and angered looks. None there
+  But weeps aloud. All tremble for Rollánd.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The king commands Count Ganelon be seized
+  And given to the scullions of his house.
+  Their chief, named Bčgue, he calls and bids: "Guard well
+  This man as one who all my kin betrayed."
+  Him Bčgue received, and set upon the count
+  One hundred of his kitchen comrades--best
+  And worst; they pluck his beard on lip and cheek;
+  Each deals him with his fist four blows, and falls
+  On him with lash and stick; they chain his neck
+  As they would chain a bear, and he is thrown
+  For more dishonor on a sumpter mule,
+  There guarded so until to Carle brought back.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  High are the mountains, gloomy, terrible,
+  The valleys deep, and swift the rushing streams.
+  In van, in rear, the brazen trumpets blow,
+  Answering the olifant. With angry look
+  Rides on the emp'ror; filled with wrath and grief,
+  Follow the French, each sobbing, each in tears,
+  Praying that God may guard Rollánd, until
+  They reach the battle-field. With him what blows
+  Will they not strike! Alas? what boots it now?
+  Too late they are and cannot come in time.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Carle in great anger rides--his snow-white beard
+  O'erspreads his breast-plate. Hard the barons spur,
+  For never one but inwardly doth rage
+  That he is far from their great chief, Rollánd,
+  Who combats now the Saracens of Spain:
+  If wounded he, will one of his survive?
+  O God! What knights those sixty left by him!
+  Nor king nor captain better ever had....
+                        Aoi.
+                 _Rabillon's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+ROLAND'S DEATH.
+
+
+When all the French lay dead upon the field except Roland and the
+Archbishop Turpin, Roland gathered together the bodies of his dead
+comrades, the peers, that they might receive the archbishop's blessing. He
+then fell fainting from grief, and aroused himself to find the archbishop
+dead also.
+
+  Rollánd now feels his death is drawing nigh:
+  From both his ears the brain is oozing fast.
+  For all his peers he prays that God may call
+  Their souls to him; to the Angel Gabriel
+  He recommends his spirit. In one hand
+  He takes the olifant, that no reproach
+  May rest upon him; in the other grasps
+  Durendal, his good sword. Forward he goes,
+  Far as an arblast sends a shaft, across
+  A new-tilled ground and toward the land of Spain.
+  Upon a hill, beneath two lofty trees,
+  Four terraces of marble spread;--he falls
+  Prone fainting on the green, for death draws near.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  High are the mounts, and lofty are the trees.
+  Four terraces are there, of marble bright:
+  There Count Rollánd lies senseless on the grass.
+  Him at this moment spies a Saracen
+  Who lies among the corpses, feigning death,
+  His face and body all besmeared with blood.
+  Sudden he rises to his feet, and bounds
+  Upon the baron. Handsome, brave, and strong
+  He was, but from his pride sprang mortal rage.
+  He seized the body of Rollánd, and grasped
+  His arms, exclaiming thus: "Here vanquished Carle's
+  Great nephew lies! This sword to Araby
+  I'll bear." He drew it; this aroused the count.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd perceived an alien hand would rob
+  Him of his sword; his eyes he oped; one word
+  He spoke: "I trow, not one of us art thou!"
+  Then with his olifant from which he parts
+  Never, he smites the golden studded helm,
+  Crushing the steel, the head, the bones; both eyes
+  Are from their sockets beaten out--o'erthrown
+  Dead at the baron's feet he falls;--"O wretch,"
+  He cries, "how durst thou, or for good or ill,
+  Lay hands upon Rollánd? Who hears of this
+  Will call thee fool. Mine olifant is cleft,
+  Its gems and gold all scattered by the blow."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Now feels Rollánd that death is near at hand
+  And struggles up with all his force; his face
+  Grows livid; Durendal, his naked sword,
+  He holds; beside him rises a gray rock
+  On which he strikes ten mighty blows through grief
+  And rage. The steel but grinds; it breaks not, nor
+  Is notched; then cried the count: "Saint Mary, help!
+  O Durendal! Good sword! ill starred art thou!
+  Though we two part, I care not less for thee.
+  What victories together thou and I
+  Have gained, what kingdoms conquered, which now holds
+  White-bearded Carle! No coward's hand shall grasp
+  Thy hilt: a valiant knight has borne thee long,
+  Such as none shall e'er bear in France the Free!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd smites hard the rock of Sardonix;
+  The steel but grinds, it breaks not, nor grows blunt;
+  Then seeing that he cannot break his sword,
+  Thus to himself he mourns for Durendal:
+  "O good my sword, how bright and pure! Against
+  The sun what flashing light thy blade reflects!
+  When Carle passed through the valley of Moriane,
+  The God of Heaven by his Angel sent
+  Command that he should give thee to a count,
+  A valiant captain; it was then the great
+  And gentle king did gird thee to my side.
+  With thee I won for him Anjou--Bretaigne;
+  For him with thee I won Poitou, le Maine
+  And Normandie the free; I won Provence
+  And Aquitaine, and Lumbardie, and all
+  The Romanie; I won for him Baviere,
+  All Flandre--Buguerie--all Puillanie,
+  Costentinnoble which allegiance paid,
+  And Saxonie submitted to his power;
+  For him I won Escoce and Galle, Irlande,
+  And Engleterre he made his royal seat;
+  With thee I conquered all the lands and realms
+  Which Carle, the hoary-bearded monarch, rules.
+  Now for this sword I mourn. . . . Far better die
+  Than in the hands of pagans let it fall!
+  May God, Our Father, save sweet France this shame!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Upon the gray rock mightily he smites,
+  Shattering it more than I can tell; the sword
+  But grinds. It breaks not--nor receives a notch,
+  And upward springs more dazzling in the air.
+  When sees the Count Rollánd his sword can never break,
+  Softly within himself its fate he mourns:
+  "O Durendal, how fair and holy thou!
+  In thy gold-hilt are relics rare; a tooth
+  Of great Saint Pierre--some blood of Saint Basile,
+  A lock of hair of Monseigneur Saint Denis,
+  A fragment of the robe of Sainte-Marie.
+  It is not right that pagans should own thee;
+  By Christian hand alone be held. Vast realms
+  I shall have conquered once that now are ruled
+  By Carle, the king with beard all blossom-white,
+  And by them made great emperor and lord.
+  May thou ne'er fall into a cowardly hand."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rollánd feels through his limbs the grasp
+  Of death, and from his head ev'n to his heart
+  A mortal chill descends. Unto a pine
+  He hastens, and falls stretched upon the grass.
+  Beneath him lie his sword and olifant,
+  And toward the Heathen land he turns his head,
+  That Carle and all his knightly host may say:
+  "The gentle count a conqueror has died. . . ."
+  Then asking pardon for his sins, or great
+  Or small, he offers up his glove to God.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rollánd feels now his end approach.
+  Against a pointed rock, and facing Spain,
+  He lies. Three times he beats his breast, and says:
+  "Mea culpa! Oh, my God, may through thy grace,
+  Be pardoned all my sins, or great or small,
+  Until this hour committed since my birth!"
+  Then his right glove he offers up to God,
+  And toward him angels from high Heav'n descend.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Beneath a pine Rollánd doth lie, and looks
+  Toward Spain. He broods on many things of yore:
+  On all the lands he conquered, on sweet France,
+  On all his kinsmen, on great Carle his lord
+  Who nurtured him;--he sighs, nor can restrain
+  His tears, but cannot yet himself forget;
+  Recalls his sins, and for the grace of God
+  He prays: "Our Father, never yet untrue,
+  Who Saint-Lazare raised from the dead, and saved
+  Thy Daniel from the lions' claws,--oh, free
+  My soul from peril, from my whole life's sins!"
+  His right hand glove he offered up to God;
+  Saint Gabriel took the glove.--With head reclined
+  Upon his arm, with hands devoutly joined
+  He breathed his last. God sent his cherubim,
+  Saint-Raphael, _Saint Michiel del Peril_.
+  Together with them Gabriel came. All bring
+  The soul of Count Rollánd to Paradise.
+                        Aoi.
+                _Rabillon's Translation_
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+The monarchs of ancient Persia made several attempts to collect the
+historic annals of their country, but both people and traditions were
+scattered by the Arabian conquest. The manuscript annals were carried to
+Abyssinia, thence to India, and were taken back to Persia just when the
+weakness of the conquerors was beginning to show itself. The various
+members of the Persian line, who had declared themselves independent of
+their conquerors, determined to rouse the patriotism of their countrymen
+by the recital of the stirring deeds of the warriors of old Persia.
+
+The fame of Abul Kasin Mansur, born at Thus, in Khorasan, A. D. 920,
+reached Mahmoud of Ghaznin, who was searching for a poet to re-cast the
+annals of Persia. He called the poet to his court, and, on hearing him
+improvise, called him Firdusi (the paradisiacal). The poet was intrusted
+with the preparation of the Shah-Nameh, or Epic of Kings, for every one
+thousand distichs of which he was to receive a thousand pieces of gold. It
+had been the dream of the poet's life to build a bridge and otherwise
+improve his native town. He therefore asked that the payment be deferred
+until the completion of his work, that he might apply the entire sum to
+these improvements. But when the poem was completed, after thirty years'
+labor, the king, instigated by the slanders of the jealous prime minister,
+sent to the poet sixty thousand silver instead of gold dirhems. The
+enraged poet threw the silver to his attendants and fled from the country,
+leaving behind him an insulting poem to the sultan. He spent the remainder
+of his life at Mazinderan and Bagdad, where he was received with honor,
+and in his old age returned to Thus to die. Tradition relates that Mahmoud
+at last discovered the villainy of his minister, and sent the gold to
+Thus. But the old poet was dead, and his daughter indignantly refused the
+money. Mahmoud then applied the sum to the improvements of the town so
+long desired by Firdusi.
+
+The Shah-Nameh is written in the pure old Persian, that Mohammed declared
+would be the language of Paradise. In its sixty thousand couplets are
+related the deeds of the Persian kings from the foundation of the world to
+the invasion by the Mohammedans; but it is of very little value as a
+historical record, the facts it purports to relate being almost lost among
+the Oriental exaggerations of the deeds of its heroes.
+
+The only complete translation in a foreign language is the elaborate
+French translation of Julius Mohl.
+
+The Shah-Nameh is still popular in Persia, where it is said that even the
+camel drivers are able to repeat long portions of it. Firdusi is sometimes
+called the Homer of the East, because he describes rude heroic times and
+men, as did Homer; but he is also compared to Ariosto, because of his
+wealth of imagery. His heroes are very different from those to whom we
+have been wont to pay our allegiance; but they fight for the same
+principles and worship as lovely maids, to judge from the hyperbole
+employed in their description. The condensation of the Shah-Nameh reads
+like a dry chronicle; but in its entirety it reminds one of nothing so
+much as a gorgeous Persian web, so light and varied, so brightened is it
+by its wealth of episode.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+Samuel Johnson's The Shah-Nameh, or Book of Kings (in his Oriental
+Religion, Persia, 1885, pp. 711-782);
+
+E. B. Cowell's Persian Literature, Firdusi (in Oxford Essays, 1885, pp.
+164-166);
+
+Elizabeth A. Reed's Persian Literature, Ancient and Modern, 1893, pp.
+214-283.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+The Shah-Nameh, Tr. and abridged in prose and verse with notes and
+illustrations, by James Atkinson, 1832;
+
+Abbreviated version taken from a Persian abridgment, half prose, half
+verse; The Epic of Kings, Stories re-told from Firdusi, by Helen
+Zimmern, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+Kaiumers was the first King of Persia, and against him Ahriman, the evil,
+through jealousy of his greatness, sent forth a mighty Deev to conquer
+him. By this Deev, Saiamuk, the son of Kaiumers, was slain, and the king
+himself died of grief at the loss of his son.
+
+Husheng, his grandson, who succeeded Kaiumers, was a great and wise king,
+who gave fire to his people, taught them irrigation, instructed them how
+to till and sow, and gave names to the beasts. His son and successor,
+Tahumers, taught his people the arts of spinning, weaving, and writing,
+and when he died left his throne to his son Jemschid.
+
+Jemschid was a mighty monarch, who divided men into classes, and the years
+into periods, and builded mighty walls and cities; but his heart grew
+proud at the thought of his power, and he was driven away from his land by
+his people, who called Zohak to the throne of Iran.
+
+Zohak, who came from the deserts of Arabia, was a good and wise young man
+who had fallen into the power of a Deev. This Deev, in the guise of a
+skillful servant, asked permission one day to kiss his monarch between the
+shoulders, as a reward for an unusually fine bit of cookery. From the spot
+he kissed sprang two black serpents, whose only nourishment was the brains
+of the king's subjects.
+
+The serpent king, as Zohak was now called, was much feared by his
+subjects, who saw their numbers daily lessen by the demands of the
+serpents. But when the children of the blacksmith Kawah were demanded as
+food for the serpents, the blacksmith defied Zohak, and raising his
+leathern apron as a standard,--a banner ever since honored in Persia,--he
+called the people to him, and set off in search of Feridoun, an heir of
+Jemschid. Under the young leader the oppressed people defeated the tyrant,
+and placed Feridoun on the throne.
+
+Feridoun had three sons, Irij, Tur, and Silim. Having tested their
+bravery, he divided the kingdom among them, giving to Irij the kingdom of
+Iran. Although the other brothers had received equal shares of the
+kingdom, they were enraged because Iran was not their portion, and when
+their complaints to their father were not heeded, they slew their brother.
+Irij left a son, a babe named Minuchihr, who was reared carefully by
+Feridoun. In time he avenged his father, by defeating the armies of his
+uncles and slaying them both. Soon after this, Feridoun died, intrusting
+his grandson to Saum, his favorite pehliva, or vassal, who ruled over
+Seistan.
+
+Saum was a childless monarch, and when at last a son was born to him he
+was very happy until he learned that while the child was perfect in every
+other way, it had the silver hair of an old man. Fearing the talk of his
+enemies, Saum exposed the child on a mountain top to die. There it was
+found by the Simurgh, a remarkable animal, part bird, part human, that,
+touched by the cries of the helpless infant, carried him to her great nest
+of aloes and sandal-wood, and reared him with her little ones.
+
+Saum, who had lived to regret his foolish and wicked act, was told in a
+dream that his son still lived, and was being cared for by the Simurgh. He
+accordingly sought the nest, and carried his son away with great
+thanksgiving. The Simurgh parted tenderly with the little Zal, and
+presented him with a feather from her wing, telling him that whenever he
+was in danger, he had only to throw it on the fire and she would instantly
+come to his aid.
+
+Saum first presented his son at the court of Minuchihr, and then took him
+home to Zaboulistan, where he was carefully instructed in every art and
+science.
+
+At one time, while his father was invading a neighboring province, Zal
+travelled over the kingdom and stopped at the court of Mihrab, a tributary
+of Saum, who ruled at Kabul. Though a descendant of the serpent king,
+Mihrab was good, just, and wise, and he received the young warrior with
+hospitality. Zal had not been long in Kabul before he heard of the
+beauties of Rudabeh, the daughter of Mihrab, and she, in turn, of the
+great exploits of Zal. By an artifice of the princess they met and vowed
+to love one another forever, though they knew their love would meet with
+opposition. Saum and Zal both pleaded Zal's cause before Minuchihr, who
+relented when he heard from the astrologers that a good and mighty warrior
+would come of the union. Rudabeh's mother won the consent of Mihrab, so
+that the young people were soon married with great pomp. To them a son was
+born named Rustem, who, when one day old, was as large as a year-old
+child. When three years old he could ride a horse, and at eight years was
+as powerful as any hero of the time.
+
+Nauder succeeded the good Minuchihr, and under him Persia was defeated by
+the Turanians, and Afrasiyab occupied the Persian throne. But Zal, whose
+father, Saum, had died, overthrew him and placed Zew upon the throne.
+Zew's reign was short, and Garshasp, his son, succeeded him. When he was
+threatened by the Turanians, his people went for aid to Zal, who, because
+he was growing old, referred them to Rustem, yet of tender age. Rustem
+responded gladly, and his father commanded that all the horses from
+Zaboulistan to Kabul be brought forth that his son might select a steed
+therefrom. Every horse bent beneath his grasp until he came to the colt
+Rakush, which responded to Rustem's voice, and suffered him to mount it.
+From that day to his death, this steed was his faithful companion and
+preserver.
+
+Garshasp was too weak to rule over the kingdom, and Zal despatched Rustem
+to Mt. Alberz, where he had been told in a dream a youth dwelt called
+Kai-Kobad, descended from Feridoun. Kai-Kobad welcomed Rustem, and the
+two, with the noblest of the kingdom, defeated the power of Turan.
+
+After a reign of a hundred years, the wise Kai-Kobad died, and was
+succeeded by his son, the foolish Kai-Kaus, who, not satisfied with the
+wealth and extent of his kingdom, determined to conquer the kingdom of
+Mazinderan, ruled by the Deevs. Zal's remonstrances were of no avail: the
+headstrong Kai-Kaus marched into Mazinderan, and, together with his whole
+army, was conquered, imprisoned, and blinded by the power of the White
+Deev.
+
+When the news of the monarch's misfortune came to Iran, Rustem immediately
+saddled Rakush, and, choosing the shortest and most peril-beset route, set
+forth, unaccompanied, for Mazinderan. If he survived the dangers that
+lurked by the way, he would reach Mazinderan in seven days.
+
+While sleeping in a forest, after his first day's journey, he was saved
+from a fierce lion by Rakush, who stood at his head.
+
+On the second day, just as he believed himself perishing of thirst, he was
+saved by a sheep that he followed to a fountain of water; on the third
+night, Rakush, whom he had angrily forbidden to attack any animal without
+waking him, twice warned him of the approach of a dragon. The first time
+the dragon disappeared when Rustem awoke, and he spoke severely to his
+faithful horse. The second time he slew the dragon, and morning having
+dawned, proceeded through a desert, where he was offered food and wine by
+a sorceress. Not recognizing her, and grateful for the food, he offered
+her a cup of wine in the name of God, and she was immediately converted
+into a black fiend, whom he slew.
+
+He was next opposed by Aulad, whom he defeated, and promised to make ruler
+of Mazinderan if he would guide him to the caves of the White Deev. A
+stony desert and a wide stream lay between him and the demon; but the
+undaunted Rustem passed over them, and choosing the middle of the day, at
+which time Aulad told him the Deevs slept, he slew the guards, entered the
+cavern, and after a terrible struggle, overcame and slew the great Deev.
+
+He then released Kai-Kaus and his army, and restored their sight by
+touching their eyes with the blood from the Deev's heart.
+
+Kai-Kaus, not satisfied with this adventure, committed many other follies,
+from which it taxed his warrior sorely to rescue him.
+
+Once he was imprisoned by the King of Hamaveran after he had espoused his
+daughter; again he followed the advice of a wicked Deev, and tried to
+search the heavens in a flying-machine, that descended and left him in a
+desert waste. It was only after this last humiliation that he humbled
+himself, lay in the dust many days, and at last became worthy of the
+throne of his fathers.
+
+At one time Rustem was hunting near the borders of Turan, and, falling
+asleep, left Rakush to graze in the forest, where he was espied by the men
+of Turan and at once captured. When Rustem awoke he followed his steed by
+the traces of its hoofs, until he came to the city of Samengan. The king
+received him kindly, and promised to restore the horse if it could be
+found. While his messengers went in search of it, he feasted his guest,
+and led him for the night to a perfumed couch.
+
+In the middle of the night Rustem awoke, to see a beautiful young woman
+enter the room, accompanied by a maid. She proved to be the princess, who
+had fallen in love with Rustem. She pleaded with him to return her love,
+promising, if he did so, to restore his cherished horse. Rustem longed for
+his steed; moreover, the maiden was irresistibly beautiful. He accordingly
+yielded to her proposals, and the two were wedded the next day, the king
+having given his consent.
+
+After tarrying some time in Samengan, Rustem was forced to return to Iran.
+Bidding his bride an affectionate farewell, he presented her with a
+bracelet.
+
+"If thou art given a daughter, place this amulet in her hair to guard her
+from harm. If a son, bind it on his arm, that he may possess the valor of
+Nariman."
+
+In the course of time, the princess bore a boy, who was like his father in
+beauty and boldness, whom she christened Sohrab. But for fear that she
+would be deprived of him, she wrote to Rustem that a daughter had been
+born to her. To her son she declared the secret of his birth, and urged
+him to be like his father in all things; but she warned him not to
+disclose the secret, for she feared that if it came to the ears of
+Afrasiyab, he would destroy him because of his hatred of Rustem.
+
+Sohrab, who had already cherished dreams of conquest, was elated at the
+knowledge of his parentage. "Mother," exclaimed he, "I shall gather an
+army of Turks, conquer Iran, dethrone Kai-Kaus, and place my father on the
+throne; then both of us will conquer Afrasiyab, and I will mount the
+throne of Turan."
+
+The mother, pleased with her son's valor, gave him for a horse a foal
+sprung from Rakush, and fondly watched his preparations for war.
+
+The wicked Afrasiyab well knew that Sohrab was the son of Rustem. He was
+also aware that it was very dangerous to have two such mighty warriors
+alive, since if they became known to each other, they would form an
+alliance. He planned, therefore, to aid Sohrab in the war, keeping him in
+ignorance of his father, and to manage in some way to have the two meet in
+battle, that one or both might be slain.
+
+The armies met and the great battle began. Sohrab asked to have Rustem
+pointed out to him, but the soldiers on his side were all instructed to
+keep him in ignorance. By some strange mischance the two men whom his
+mother had sent to enlighten him, were both slain. Rustem was moved at the
+sight of the brave young warrior, but remembering that Tahmineh's
+offspring was a daughter, thought nothing more of the thrill he felt at
+sight of him. At last Sohrab and Rustem met in single combat. Sohrab was
+moved with tenderness for his unknown opponent, and besought him to tell
+him if he was Rustem, but Rustem declared that he was only a servant of
+that chief. For three days they fought bitterly, and on the fourth day
+Rustem overthrew his son. When Sohrab felt that the end had come he
+threatened his unknown opponent. "Whoever thou art, know that I came not
+out for empty glory but to find my father, and that though I have found
+him not, when he hears that thou hast slain his son he will search thee
+out and avenge me, no matter where thou hidest thyself. For my father is
+the great Rustem."
+
+Rustem fell down in agony when he heard his son's words, and realized that
+his guile had prevented him from being made known the day before. He
+examined the onyx bracelet on Sohrab's arm; it was the same he had given
+Tahmineh. Bethinking himself of a magic ointment possessed by Kai-Kaus, he
+sent for it that he might heal his dying son; but the foolish king,
+jealous of his prowess, refused to send it, and Sohrab expired in the arms
+of his father.
+
+Rustem's heart was broken. He heaped up his armor, his tent, his
+trappings, his treasures, and flung them into a great fire. The house of
+Zal was filled with mourning, and when the news was conveyed to Samengan,
+he tore his garments, and his daughter grieved herself to death before a
+year had passed away.
+
+To Kai-Kaus and a wife of the race of Feridoun was born a son called
+Saiawush, who was beautiful, noble, and virtuous. But his foolish father
+allowed himself to be prejudiced against the youth by slanderous tongues,
+so that Saiawush fled from the court and sought shelter with Afrasiyab in
+Turan. There he speedily became popular, and took unto himself for a wife
+the daughter of Afrasiyab. But when he and Ferandis his wife built a
+beautiful city, the hatred and jealousy of Gersiwaz was aroused, so that
+he lied to Afrasiyab and said that Saiawush was puffed up with pride, and
+at last induced Afrasiyab to slay his son-in-law.
+
+Saiawush had a son, Kai-Khosrau, who was saved by Piran, a kind-hearted
+nobleman, and given into the care of a goatherd. When Afrasiyab learned of
+his existence he summoned him to his presence, but the youth, instructed
+by Piran, assumed the manners of an imbecile, and was accordingly freed by
+Afrasiyab, who feared no harm from him.
+
+When the news of the death of Saiawush was conveyed to Iran there was
+great mourning, and war was immediately declared against Turan. For seven
+years the contest was carried on, always without success, and at the end
+of that time Gudarz dreamed that a son of Saiawush was living called
+Kai-Khosrau, and that until he was sought out and placed at the head of
+the army, deliverance could not come to Iran. Kai-Khosrau was discovered,
+and led the armies on to victory; and when Kai-Kaus found that his
+grandson was not only a great warrior, skilled in magic, but also
+possessed wisdom beyond his years, he resigned the throne and made
+Kai-Khosrau ruler over Iran.
+
+Kai-Khosrau ruled many long years, in which time he brought peace and
+happiness to his kingdom, avenged the murder of his father, and compassed
+the death of the wicked Afrasiyab. Then, fearing that he might become
+puffed up with pride like Jemschid, he longed to depart from this world,
+and prayed Ormuzd to take him to his bosom.
+
+The king; after many prayers to Ormuzd, dreamed that his wish would be
+granted if he set the affairs of his kingdom in order and appointed his
+successor. Rejoiced, he called his nobles together, divided his treasure
+among them, and appointed his successor, Lohurasp, whom he commanded to be
+the woof and warp of justice. Accompanied by a few of his faithful
+friends, he set out on the long journey to the crest of the mountains. At
+his entreaties, some of his friends turned back; those who stayed over
+night, in spite of his warnings, found on waking that they were covered by
+a heavy fall of snow, and were soon frozen. Afterwards their bodies were
+found and received a royal burial.
+
+Lohurasp had a son Gushtasp who greatly desired to rule, and was a just
+monarch, when he succeeded to the throne. Gushtasp, however, was jealous
+of his son, Isfendiyar, who was a great warrior. When Gushtasp was about
+to be overcome by the forces of Turan, he promised Isfendiyar the throne,
+if he would destroy the enemy; but when the hosts were scattered, and
+Isfendiyar reminded his father of his promise, he was cast into a dungeon,
+there to remain until his services were again needed. When he had again
+gained a victory, he was told that the throne should be his when he had
+rescued his sisters from the brazen fortress of Arjasp, where they had
+been carried and imprisoned.
+
+On his way to this tower Isfendiyar met with as many terrible foes as
+Rustem had encountered on his way to the White Deev, and as successfully
+overcame them. Wolves, lions, enchantresses, and dragons barred the way to
+the impregnable fortress, which rose three farsangs high and forty wide,
+and was constructed entirely of brass and iron. But Isfendiyar, assuming
+the guise of a merchant and concealing his warriors in chests, won his way
+into the castle, gained the favor of its inmates, and made them drunk with
+wine. This done, he freed his sisters, slew the guards, and struck down
+Arjasp.
+
+Instead of keeping his promise, Gushtasp hastened to set his son another
+task. Rustem was his Pehliva, but it pleased him to send forth Isfendiyar
+against him, commanding him to bring home the mighty warrior in chains.
+Isfendiyar pleaded in vain with his father. Then he explained the
+situation to Rustem, and begged that he would accompany him home in peace
+to gratify his father. Rustem refused to go in chains, so the two heroes
+reluctantly began the hardest battle of their lives.
+
+At the end of the first day, Rustem and Rakush were severely wounded, and
+on his return home Rustem happened to think of the Simurgh. Called by the
+burning of the feather, the kind bird healed the wounds of the hero and of
+Rakush, and instructed Rustem how to slay his foe. "Seek thou the tamarisk
+tree, and make thereof an arrow. Aim at his eye, and there thou canst
+blind and slay him."
+
+Rustem followed the directions, and laid low the gallant youth. Isfendiyar
+died exclaiming, "My father has slain me, not thou, Rustem. I die, the
+victim of my father's hate; do thou keep for me and rear my son!"
+
+Rustem, who had lived so long and accomplished such great deeds, died at
+last by the hand of his half-brother. This brother, Shugdad, stirred up
+the king of Kabul, in whose court he was reared, to slay Rustem because he
+exacted tribute from Kabul.
+
+Rustem was called into Kabul by Shugdad, who claimed that the king
+mistreated him. When he arrived, the matter was settled amicably, and the
+brothers set out for a hunt with the king. The hunters were led to a spot
+where the false king had caused pits to be dug lined with sharp weapons.
+Rustem, pleased with his kind reception and suspecting no harm, beat
+Rakush severely when he paused and would go no further. Stung by the
+blows, the gallant horse sprang forward, and fell into the pit. As he rose
+from this, he fell into another, until, clambering from the seventh pit,
+he and Rustem fell swooning with pain.
+
+"False brother!" cried Rustem; "what hast thou done? Was it for thee to
+slay thy father's son? Exult now; but thou wilt yet suffer for this
+crime!" Then altering his tone, he said gently: "But give me, I pray thee,
+my bow and arrows, that I may have it by my side to slay any wild beast
+that may try to devour me."
+
+Shugdad gave him the bow; and when he saw the gleam in Rustem's eyes,
+concealed himself behind a tree. But the angry Rustem, grasping the bow
+with something of his former strength, sent the arrow through tree and
+man, transfixing both. Then thanking his Creator that he had been given
+the opportunity to slay his murderer, he breathed his last.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+THE RAJA OF INDIA SENDS A CHESSBOARD TO NUSHIRVAN.
+
+
+"This account of the game of chess, written by Ferdusi more than eight
+hundred years ago, is curious as showing the antiquity of the game, its
+resemblance to it as now played, and the tradition that it was invented in
+India, and came originally from that country."
+
+  A Mubid related, how one day the king
+  Suspended his crown over the ivory throne,
+  All aloes-wood and ivory, and all ivory and aloes;
+  Every pavilion a court, and every court a royal one;
+  All the Hall of Audience crowned with soldiers;
+  Every pavilion filled with Mubids and Wardens of the Marches,
+  From Balkh, and Bokhara, and from every frontier--
+  For the King of the world had received advices
+  From his vigilant and active emissaries,
+  That an Ambassador had arrived from a King of India,
+  With the parasol, and elephants, and cavalry of Sind,
+  And, accompanied by a thousand laden camels,
+  Was on his way to visit the Great King.
+  When the circumspect Monarch heard this news,
+  Immediately he despatched an escort to receive him.
+  And when the illustrious and dignified Ambassador
+  Came into the presence of the Great King,
+  According to the manner of the great, he pronounced a benediction,
+  And uttered the praise of the Creator of the world.
+  Then he scattered before him abundance of jewels,
+  And presented the parasol, the elephants, and the ear-rings;
+  The Indian parasol embroidered with gold,
+  And inwoven with all kinds of precious stones.
+  Then he opened the packages in the midst of the court,
+  And displayed each one, article by article, before the King.
+  Within the chest was much silver, and gold,
+  And musk, and amber, and fresh wood of aloes,
+  Of rubies, and diamonds, and Indian swords.
+  Each Indian sword was beautifully damascened;
+  Everything which is produced in Kanuj and Mai
+  Hand and foot were busy to put in its place.
+  They placed the whole together in front of the throne,
+  And the Chief, the favored of wakeful Fortune,
+  Surveyed all that the Raja had painstakingly collected,
+  And then commanded that it should be sent to his treasury.
+  Then the Ambassador presented, written on silk,
+  The letter which the Raja had addressed to Nushirvan;
+  And a chessboard, wrought with such exceeding labor,
+  That the pains bestowed upon it might have emptied a treasury.
+  And the Indian delivered a message from the Raja:
+  "So long as the heavens revolve, may thou be established in thy place!
+  All who have taken pains to excel in knowledge,
+  Command to place this chessboard before them,
+  And to exert their utmost ingenuity
+  To discover the secret of this noble game.
+  Let them learn the name of every piece.
+  Its proper position, and what is its movement.
+  Let them make out the foot-soldier of the army,
+  The elephant, the rook, and the horseman,
+  The march of the vizier and the procession of the King.
+  If they discover the science of this noble game,
+  They will have surpassed the most able in science.
+  Then the tribute and taxes which the King hath demanded
+  I will cheerfully send all to his court.
+  But if the congregated sages, men of Iran,
+  Should prove themselves completely at fault in this science,
+  Then, since they are not strong enough to compete with us in knowledge,
+  Neither should they desire taxes or tribute from this land and country:
+  Rather ought we to receive tribute from you,
+  Since knowledge hath a title beyond all else."
+
+  Khosru gave heart and ear to the speaker,
+  And impressed on his memory the words which he heard.
+  They placed the chessboard before the King,
+  Who gazed attentively at the pieces a considerable time.
+  Half the pieces on the board were of brilliant ivory,
+  The other half of finely imaged teak-wood.
+  The nicely-observant King questioned him much
+  About the figures of the pieces and the beautiful board.
+  The Indian said in answer: "O thou great Monarch,
+  All the modes and customs of war thou wilt see,
+  When thou shalt have found out the way to the game;
+  The plans, the marches, the array of the battle-field."
+  He replied: "I shall require the space of seven days;
+  On the eighth we will encounter thee with a glad mind."
+  They furnished forthwith a pleasant apartment,
+  And assigned it to the Ambassador as his dwelling.
+
+  Then the Mubid and the skilful to point out the way
+  Repaired with one purpose to the presence of the King.
+  They placed the chessboard before them,
+  And observed it attentively, time without measure.
+  They sought out and tried every method,
+  And played against one another in all possible ways.
+  One spoke and questioned, and another listened,
+  But no one succeeded in making out the game.
+  They departed, each one with wrinkles on his brow;
+  And Buzarchamahar went forthwith to the king.
+
+  He perceived that he was ruffled and stern about this matter,
+  And in its beginning foresaw an evil ending.
+  Then he said to Khosru: "O Sovereign,
+  Master of the world, vigilant, and worthy to command,
+  I will reduce to practice this noble game;
+  All my intelligence will I exert to point out the way."
+  Then the king said: "This affair is thine affair;
+  Go thou about it with a clear mind and a sound body,
+  Otherwise the Raja of Kanuj would say,
+  'He hath not one man who can search out the road,'
+  And this would bring foul disgrace on my Mubids,
+  On my court, on my throne, and on all my wise men."
+  Then Buzarchmahar made them place the chessboard before him,
+  And seated himself, full of thought, and expanded his countenance.
+  He sought out various ways, and moved the pieces to the right hand and
+    to the left,
+  In order that he might discover the position of every piece.
+  When after a whole day and a whole night, he had found out the game,
+  He hurried from his own pavilion to that of the King,
+  And exclaimed: "O King, whom Fortune crowneth with victory,
+  At last I have made out these figures and this chessboard,
+  By a happy chance, and by the favor of the Ruler of the world,
+  The mystery of this game hath found its solution.
+  Call before thee the Ambassador and all who care about it;
+  But the King of kings ought to be the first to behold it.
+  You would say at once without hesitation,
+  It is the exact image of a battle-field."
+  The King was right glad to hear the news;
+  He pronounced him the Fortunate, and the bearer of good tidings.
+  He commanded that the Mubids, and other counsellors,
+  And all who were renowned for their wisdom should be assembled;
+  And ordered that the Ambassador should be summoned to the Presence,
+  And that he should be placed on a splendid throne.
+
+  Then Buzarchamahar, addressing him, said:
+  "O Mubid, bright in council as the sun,
+  Tell us, what said the King about these pieces,
+  So may intelligence be coupled with thee forever!"
+
+  And this was his answer: "My Master, prosperous in his undertakings,
+  When I was summoned and appeared before him,
+  Said to me: 'These pieces of teak and ivory
+  Place before the throne of him who weareth the crown,
+  And say to him: Assemble thy Mubids and counsellors,
+  And seat them, and place the pieces before them.
+  If they succeed in making out the noble game,
+  They will win applause and augment enjoyment:
+  Then slaves and money and tribute and taxes,
+  I will send to him as far as I have the means;
+  For a monarch is to be esteemed for his wisdom,
+  Not for his treasure, or his men, or his lofty throne.
+  But if the King and his counsellors are not able to do all this
+  And their minds are not bright enough to comprehend it,
+  He ought not to desire from us tribute or treasure,
+  And his wise soul, alas! must come to grief;
+  And when he seeth our minds and genius to be subtler than theirs.
+  Rather will he send them to us in greater abundance.'"
+
+  Then Buzarchamahar brought the chess-men and board,
+  And placed them before the throne of the watchful King,
+  And said to the Mubids and counsellors:
+  "O ye illustrious and pure-hearted sages,
+  Give ear all of you to the words he hath uttered,
+  And to the observations of his prudent chief."
+
+  Then the knowing-man arranged a battle-field,
+  Giving to the King the place in the centre;
+  Right and left he drew up the army,
+  Placing the foot-soldiers in front of the battle.
+  A prudent vizier he stationed beside the King,
+  To give him advice on the plan of the engagement;
+  On each side he set the elephants of war [our bishops],
+  To support one another in the midst of the combat.
+  Further on he assigned their position to the war-steeds [our knights],
+  Placing upon each a horseman eager for battle.
+  Lastly, right and left, at the extremities of the field,
+  He stationed the heroes [the rooks] as rivals to each other.
+  When Buzarchamahar had thus drawn up the army,
+  The whole assembly was lost in astonishment;
+  But the Indian Ambassador was exceedingly grieved,
+  And stood motionless at the sagacity of that Fortune-favored man;
+  Stupefied with amazement, he looked upon him as a magician,
+  And his whole soul was absorbed in his reflections.
+  "For never hath he seen," he said, "a chessboard before,
+  Nor ever hath he heard about it from the experienced men of India.
+  I have told him nothing of the action of these pieces,
+  Not a word have I said about this arrangement and purpose.
+  How then hath the revelation come down upon him?
+  No one in the world will ever take his place!"
+
+  And Khosru was so proud of Buzarchamahar,
+  Thou mightest say that he was looking Fortune in the face.
+  He was gladdened at his heart, and loaded him with caresses,
+  And ordered him a more than ordinary dress of honor,
+  And commanded him to be given a royal cup
+  Filled to the brim with princely jewels,
+  And a quantity of money, and a charger and a saddle,
+  And dismissed him from the Presence overwhelmed with praises.
+         _Robinson's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+ZAL AND RUDABEH.
+
+
+"Zal, recovered from the care of the Simurgh and arrived at manhood, is
+sent to govern the frontier province of Zabul; the adjoining province of
+Kabul, though tributary to the Persian emperor, being governed by its own
+king, called Mihrab. This episode commences with a visit which Mihrab pays
+to Zal, who receives him with distinguished honor, entertains him at a
+sumptuous banquet, and they separate with mutual respect."
+
+  Then a chief of the great ones around him
+  Said: "O thou, the hero of the world,
+  This Mihrab hath a daughter behind the veil,
+  Whose face is more resplendent than the sun;
+  From head to foot pure as ivory,
+  With a cheek like the spring, and in stature like the teak-tree.
+  Upon her silver shoulders descend two musky tresses,
+  Which, like nooses, fetter the captive;
+  Her lip is like the pomegranate, and her cheek like its flower;
+  Her eyes resemble the narcissus in the garden;
+  Her eyelashes have borrowed the blackness of the raven;
+  Her eyebrows are arched like a fringed bow.
+  Wouldst thou behold the mild radiance of the moon? Look upon her
+    countenance!
+  Wouldst thou inhale delightful odors? She is all fragrance!
+  She is altogether a paradise of sweets,
+  Decked with all grace, all music, all thou canst desire!
+  She would be fitting for thee, O warrior of the world;
+  She is as the heavens above to such as we are."
+
+  When Zal heard this description,
+  His love leaped to the lovely maiden:
+  His heart boiled over with the heat of passion,
+  So that understanding and rest departed from him.
+  Night came, but he sat groaning, and buried in thought,
+  And a prey to sorrow for the not-yet-seen.
+
+_On returning from a second visit, Mihrab describes Zal to his wife and
+his daughter Rudabeh._
+
+  "O beautiful silver-bosomed cypress,
+  In the wide world not one of the heroes
+  Will come up to the measure of Zal!
+  In the pictured palace men will never behold the image
+  Of a warrior so strong, or so firm in the saddle.
+  He hath the heart of a lion, the power of an elephant,
+  And the strength of his arm is as the rush of the Nile.
+  When he sitteth on the throne, he scattereth gold before him;
+  In the battle, the heads of his enemies.
+  His cheek is as ruddy as the flower of the arghavan;
+  Young in years, all alive, and the favorite of fortune;
+  And though his hair is white as though with age,
+  Yet in his bravery he could tear to pieces the water-serpent.
+
+  "He rageth in the conflict with the fury of the crocodile,
+  He fighteth in the saddle like a sharp-fanged dragon.
+  In his wrath he staineth the earth with blood,
+  As he wieldeth his bright scimitar around him.
+  And though his hair is as white as is a fawn's,
+  In vain would the fault-finder seek another defect!
+  Nay, the whiteness of his hair even becometh him;
+  Thou wouldst say that he is born to beguile all hearts!"
+
+  When Rudabeh heard this description,
+  Her heart was set on fire, and her cheek crimsoned like the pomegranate.
+  Her whole soul was filled with the love of Zal,
+  And food, and peace, and quietude were driven far from her.
+
+_After a time Rudabeh resolves to reveal her passion to her attendants._
+
+  Then she said to her prudent slaves:
+  "I will discover what I have hitherto concealed;
+  Ye are each of you the depositaries of my secrets,
+  My attendants, and the partners of my griefs.
+  I am agitated with love like the raging ocean,
+  Whose billows are heaved to the sky.
+  My once bright heart is filled with the love of Zal;
+  My sleep is broken with thoughts of him.
+  My soul is perpetually filled with my passion;
+  Night and day my thoughts dwell upon his countenance.
+
+  "Not one except yourselves knoweth my secret;
+  Ye, my affectionate and faithful servants,
+  What remedy can ye now devise for my ease?
+  What will ye do for me? What promise will ye give me?
+  Some remedy ye must devise,
+  To free my heart and soul from this unhappiness."
+
+  Astonishment seized the slaves,
+  That dishonor should come nigh the daughter of kings.
+  In the anxiety of their hearts they started from their seats,
+  And all gave answer with one voice:
+  "O crown of the ladies of the earth!
+  Maiden pre-eminent amongst the pre-eminent!
+  Whose praise is spread abroad from Hindustan to China;
+  The resplendent ring in the circle of the harem;
+  Whose stature surpasseth every cypress in the garden;
+  Whose cheek rivalleth the lustre of the Pleiades;
+  Whose picture is sent by the ruler of Kanuj
+  Even to the distant monarchs of the West--
+  Have you ceased to be modest in your own eyes?
+  Have you lost all reverence for your father,
+  That whom his own parent cast from his bosom,
+  Him will you receive into yours?
+  A man who was nurtured by a bird in the mountains!
+  A man who was a by-word amongst the people!
+  You--with your roseate countenance and musky tresses--
+  Seek a man whose hair is already white with age!
+  You--who have filled the world with admiration,
+  Whose portrait hangeth in every palace,
+  And whose beauty, and ringlets, and stature are such
+  That you might draw down a husband from the skies!"
+
+_To this remonstrance she makes the following indignant answer:_
+
+  When Rudabeh heard their reply,
+  Her heart blazed up like fire before the wind.
+  She raised her voice in anger against them,
+  Her face flushed, but she cast down her eyes.
+  After a time, grief and anger mingled in her countenance,
+  And knitting her brows with passion, she exclaimed:
+  "O unadvised and worthless counsellors,
+  It was not becoming in me to ask your advice!
+  Were my eye dazzled by a star,
+  How could it rejoice to gaze even upon the moon?
+  He who is formed of worthless clay will not regard the rose,
+  Although the rose is in nature more estimable than clay!
+  I wish not for Caesar, nor Emperor of China,
+  Nor for any one of the tiara-crowned monarchs of Iran;
+  The son of Saum, Zal, alone is my equal,
+  With his lion-like limbs, and arms, and shoulders.
+  You may call him, as you please, an old man, or a young;
+  To me, he is in the room of heart and of soul.
+  Except him never shall any one have a place in my heart;
+  Mention not to me any one except him.
+  Him hath my love chosen unseen,
+  Yea, hath chosen him only from description.
+  For him is my affection, not for face or hair;
+  And I have sought his love in the way of honor."
+
+_The slaves speak_.
+
+  "May hundreds of thousands such as we are be a sacrifice for thee;
+  May the wisdom of the creation be thy worthy portion;
+  May thy dark narcissus-eye be ever full of modesty;
+  May thy cheek be ever tinged with bashfulness!
+  If it be necessary to learn the art of the magician,
+  To sew up the eyes with the bands of enchantment,
+  We will fly till we surpass the enchanter's bird,
+  We will run like the deer in search of a remedy.
+  Perchance we may draw the King nigh unto his moon,
+  And place him securely at thy side."
+
+  The vermil lip of Rudabeh was filled with smiles;
+  She turned her saffron-tinted countenance toward the slave, and said:
+  "If thou shalt bring this matter to a happy issue,
+  Thou hast planted for thyself a stately and fruitful tree,
+  Which every day shall bear rubies for its fruit,
+  And shall pour that fruit into thy lap."
+
+_The slaves arrange an interview between the lovers_.
+
+  Then said the elegant cypress-formed lady to her maidens:
+  "Other than this were once your words and your counsel!
+  Is this then the Zal, the nursling of a bird?
+  This the old man, white-haired and withered?
+  Now his cheek is ruddy as the flower of the arghavan;
+  His stature is tall, his face beautiful, his presence lordly!
+  Ye have exalted my charms before him;
+  Ye have spoken and made me a bargain!"
+  She said, and her lips were full of smiles,
+  But her cheek crimsoned like the bloom of pomegranate.
+
+_The interview takes place in a private pavilion of the princess._
+
+  When from a distance the son of the valiant Saum
+  Became visible to the illustrious maiden,
+  She opened her gem-like lips, and exclaimed:
+  "Welcome, thou brave and happy youth!
+  The blessing of the Creator of the world be upon thee;
+  On him who is the father of a son like thee!
+  May destiny ever favor thy wishes!
+  May the vault of heaven be the ground thou walkest on!
+  The dark night is turned into day by thy countenance;
+  The world is soul-enlivened by the fragrance of thy presence!
+  Thou hast travelled hither on foot from thy palace;
+  Thou hast pained, to behold me, thy royal footsteps!"
+
+  When the hero heard the voice from the battlement,
+  He looked up and beheld a face resplendent as the sun,
+  Irradiating the terrace like a flashing jewel,
+  And brightening the ground like a naming ruby.
+
+  Then he replied: "O thou who sheddest the mild radiance of the moon,
+  The blessing of Heaven, and mine, be upon thee!
+  How many nights hath cold Arcturus beholden me,
+  Uttering my cry to God, the Pure,
+  And beseeching the Lord of the universe,
+  That he would vouchsafe to unveil thy countenance before me!
+  Now I am made joyful in hearing thy voice,
+  In listening to thy rich and gracious accents.
+  But seek, I pray thee, some way to thy presence;
+  For what converse can we hold, I on the ground, and thou on the
+    terrace?"
+
+  The Peri-faced maiden heard the words of the hero;
+  Quickly she unbound her auburn locks,
+  Coil upon coil, and serpent upon serpent;
+  And she stooped and dropped down the tresses from the battlement,
+  And cried: "O hero, child of heroes,
+  Take now these tresses, they belong to thee,
+  And I have cherished them that they might prove an aid to my beloved."
+
+  And Zal gazed upward at the lovely maiden,
+  And stood amazed at the beauty of her hair and of her countenance;
+  He covered the musky ringlets with his kisses,
+  And his bride heard the kisses from above.
+  Then he exclaimed: "That would not be right--
+  May the bright sun never shine on such a day!
+  It were to lay my hand on the life of one already distracted;
+  It were to plunge the arrow-point into my own wounded bosom."
+  Then he took his noose from his boy, and made a running knot,
+  And threw it, and caught it on the battlement,
+  And held his breath, and at one bound
+  Sprang from the ground, and reached the summit.
+
+  As soon as the hero stood upon the terrace,
+  The Peri-faced maiden ran to greet him,
+  And took the hand of the hero in her own,
+  And they went like those who are overcome with wine.
+
+  Then he descended from the lofty gallery,
+  His hand in the hand of the tall princess,
+  And came to the door of the gold-painted pavilion,
+  And entered that royal assembly,
+  Which blazed with light like the bowers of Paradise;
+  And the slaves stood like houris before them:
+  And Zal gazed in astonishment
+  On her face, and her hair, and her stately form, and on all that
+    splendor.
+
+  And Zal was seated in royal pomp
+  Opposite that mildly-radiant beauty;
+  And Rudabeh could not rest from looking towards him,
+  And gazing upon him with all her eyes;
+  On that arm, and shoulder, and that splendid figure,
+  On the brightness of that soul-enlightening countenance;
+  So that the more and more she looked
+  The more and more was her heart inflamed.
+
+  Then he kissed and embraced her, renewing his vows--
+  Can the lion help pursuing the wild ass?--
+  And said: "O sweet and graceful silver-bosomed maiden,
+  It may not be, that, both of noble lineage,
+  We should do aught unbecoming our birth;
+  For from Saum Nariman I received an admonition.
+  To do no unworthy deed, lest evil should come of it;
+  For better is the seemly than the unseemly,
+  That which is lawful than that which is forbidden.
+  And I fear that Manuchahar, when he shall hear of this affair,
+  Will not be inclined to give it his approval;
+  I fear, too, that Saum will exclaim against it,
+  And will boil over with passion, and lay his hand upon me.
+  Yet, though soul and body are precious to all men,
+  Life will I resign, and clothe myself with a shroud--
+  And this I swear by the righteous God--
+  Ere I will break the faith which I have pledged thee.
+  I will bow myself before Him, and offer my adoration,
+  And supplicate Him as those who worship Him in truth,
+  That He will cleanse the heart of Saum, king of the earth,
+  From opposition, and rage, and rancor.
+  Perhaps the Creator of the world may listen to my prayer,
+  And thou mayest yet be publicly proclaimed my wife."
+
+  And Rudabeh said: "And I also, in the presence of the righteous God,
+  Take the same pledge, and swear to thee my faith;
+  And He who created the world be witness to my words,
+  That no one but the hero of the world,
+  The throned, the crowned, the far-famed Zal,
+  Will I ever permit to be sovereign over me."
+
+  So their love every moment became greater;
+  Prudence was afar, and passion was predominant,
+  Till the gray dawn began to show itself,
+  And the drum to be heard from the royal pavilion.
+  Then Zal bade adieu to the fair one;
+  His soul was darkened, and his bosom on fire,
+  And the eyes of both were filled with tears;
+  And they lifted up their voices against the sun:
+  "O glory of the universe, why come so quick?
+  Couldst thou not wait one little moment"
+
+  Then Zal cast his noose on a pinnacle,
+  And descended from those happy battlements,
+  As the sun was rising redly above the mountains,
+  And the bands of warriors were gathering in their ranks.
+        _Robinson's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+
+Rodrigo Ruy Diaz, El Cid Campeador, was born near Burgos, in Spain, about
+1040. The name Cid was given him by the Moors, and means lord. Campeador
+means champion.
+
+Ruy Diaz was the trusty lord of Sancho, King of Castile, who at his death
+divided his kingdom among his children. He then espoused the cause of the
+eldest son, Sancho, and assisted him in wresting their portion of the
+kingdom from his brothers Garcia and Alfonso. Sancho having been
+treacherously slain while besieging his sister Urraca's town of Zamora,
+the Cid attached himself to Alfonso, humiliating him, however, by making
+him and his chief lords swear that they had had no hand in Sancho's death.
+For this, Alfonso revenged himself by exiling the Cid on the slightest
+pretexts, recalling him only when his services were needed in the defence
+of the country.
+
+This much, and the Cid's victories over the Moors, his occupation of
+Valencia, and his army's departure therefrom in 1102, led by his corpse
+seated on horseback, "clothed in his habit as he lived", are historical
+facts.
+
+A great mass of romances, among them the story of his slaying Count Don
+Gomez because he had insulted his father, Diego Laynez; of Don Gomez's
+daughter Ximena wooing and wedding him; of his assisting the leper and
+having his future success foretold by him, and of his embalmed body
+sitting many years in the cathedral at Toledo, are related in the
+"Chronicle of the Cid" and the "Ballads."
+
+The Poem of the Cid narrates only a portion of his career, and "if it had
+been named," says Ormsby, "would have been called 'The Triumph of the
+Cid.'"
+
+The Poem of the Cid was written about 1200 A. D. Its authorship is
+unknown.
+
+It contains three thousand seven hundred and forty-five lines, and is
+divided into two cantares. The versification is careless; when rhyme
+hampered the poet he dropped it, and used instead the assonant rhyme.
+
+The Poem of the Cid is of peculiar interest because it belongs to the very
+dawn of our modern literature, and because its hero was evidently a real
+personage, a portion of whose history was recorded in this epic not long
+after the events took place. The Cid is one of the most simple and natural
+of the epic heroes; he has all a man's weaknesses, and it is difficult to
+repress a smile at the perfectly natural manner in which, while he
+slaughters enough Moors to secure himself a place in the heavenly kingdom,
+he takes good care to lay up gold for the enjoyment of life on earth. The
+poem is told with the greatest simplicity, naturalness, and directness, as
+well as with much poetic fire.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE CID.
+
+
+Robert Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. . . . Appendix contains Poetry of
+the Cid by J. H. Frere, 1808, new ed., 1845;
+
+Matthew Arnold's Poem of the Cid, MacMillan, 1871, vol. xxiv., pp.
+471-485;
+
+George Dennio's The Cid: A short Chronicle founded on the early Poetry of
+Spain, 1845;
+
+Butler Clarke's The Cid (in his Spanish Literature, 1893, pp. 46-53);
+E. E. Hale and Susan Hale's The Cid (in their Story of Spain, 1893, pp.
+248-261);
+
+Stanley Lane Poole's The Cid (in his Story of the Moors in Spain, 1891,
+pp. 191-213);
+
+Sismondi's Poem of the Cid (in his Literature of the South of Europe,
+1884, vol. ii., pp. 95-140);
+
+George Ticknor's Poem of the Cid (in his History of Spanish Literature,
+ed. 6, 1893, vol. i., pp. 12-26);
+
+W. T. Dobson's Classic Poets, (1879, pp. 35-138);
+
+J. G. von Herder's Der Cid, nach spanischen Romanzen besungen (in his
+works, 1852, vol. xiv.), translated.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+
+The Poem of the Cid, Tr. by John Ormsby, 1879;
+
+Translations from the Poem of the Cid by John Hookam Frere (in his works,
+1872, vol. ii., p. 409);
+
+Ballads of the Cid, Tr. by Lewis Gerard, 1883;
+
+Ancient Spanish Ballads, Tr. by John Gibson Lockhart, 1823.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+
+Tears stood in the eyes of the Cid as he looked at his pillaged castle.
+The coffers were empty, even the falcons were gone from their perches.
+"Cruel wrong do I suffer from mine enemy!" he exclaimed as they rode into
+Burgos. "Alvar Fanez, of a truth we are banished men."
+
+From the windows of Burgos town the burghers and their dames looked down
+with tearful eyes upon the Cid and his sixty lances. "Would that his lord
+were worthy of him," said they.
+
+He rode up to the gates of his house in Burgos; the king's seal was upon
+them. "My lord," cried a damsel from an upper casement, "thy goods are
+forfeited to the king, and he has forbidden that we open door or shelter
+thee upon pain of forfeiture of our goods, yea, even of our sight!"
+
+Little hope then had the Cid of mercy from King Alfonso; and sooner than
+bring suffering on his beloved people of Burgos he betook himself without
+the city and sat him down to think of what to do. "Martin Antolinez," said
+he, "I have no money with which to pay my troops. Thou must help me to get
+it, and if I live I will repay thee double."
+
+Then the two together fashioned two stout chests covered with red leather
+and studded with gilt nails, and these they filled with sand. Then Martin
+Antolinez without delay sought out the money lenders, Rachel and Vidas,
+and bargained with them to lend the Cid six hundred marks, and take in
+pawn for them the two chests filled with treasure that he dared not at
+that time take away with him. For a year they were to keep the chests and
+pledge themselves not to look in them. Glad were the hearts of the money
+lenders as they lifted the heavy chests, and happy was the Cid when he saw
+the six hundred marks counted out before him.
+
+Seeking the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena, the Cid embraced his wife
+Ximena and his two daughters, and left them in the protection of the
+abbot, to whom he promised recompense. Hard was the pain of parting as
+when the finger nail is torn away from the flesh, but a banished man has
+no choice. And as they passed the night at Higeruela a sweet vision
+promising success comforted the Cid in his slumbers; and many from
+Castile, who heard of the departure of the hero, sought his banners to
+better their fortune.
+
+Next day the Cid and his men took Castejon and sold the spoil to the Moors
+of Hita and Guadalajara, and then my Cid passed on and planted himself
+upon a lofty and strong hill opposite Alcocer, and levied tribute upon the
+neighboring peoples. When he had so besieged Alcocer for fifteen weeks he
+took it by stratagem, and Pero Bermuez, the slow of speech, planted his
+standard on the highest part. When the King of Valencia heard of this, he
+determined to capture my Cid, and accordingly sent three thousand Moors to
+lay siege to Alcocer.
+
+When the water was cut off and bread became scarce, the six hundred
+Spanish men, acting upon the advice of Minaya, took the field against the
+three thousand Moors; and such was the valor of him that in a good hour
+was born, and of his standard bearer, Pero Bermuez, and of the good
+Minaya, that the Moors fell to the ground three hundred at a time, their
+shields shivered, their mail riven, their white pennons red with blood.
+
+"Thanks be to God for victory!" said the Cid. In the Moorish king's camp
+was found great spoil,--shields, arms, and horses. Greatly the Christians
+rejoiced, for to them fell much spoil, and but fifteen of their men were
+missing. Even to the Moors my Cid gave some of his spoil, and from his
+share of one hundred horses he sent by Minaya thirty, saddled and bridled,
+with as many swords hung at the saddle bows, to King Alfonso. Also he sent
+by him a wallet of gold and silver for his wife and daughters, and to pay
+for a thousand Masses at Burgos.
+
+Alfonso was well pleased to receive this token. "It is too soon to take
+him into favor, but I will accept his present, and I am glad he won the
+victory. Minaya, I pardon thee; go to the Cid and say that I will permit
+any valiant man who so desires to follow him."
+
+Upon the hill now called the hill of the Cid, he who girt on the sword in
+a good hour, took up his abode and levied tribute on the people for
+fifteen weeks. But when he saw that Minaya's return was delayed, he went
+even unto Saragossa, levying tribute and doing much damage, insomuch that
+the Count of Barcelona, Raymond de Berenger, was provoked into making an
+assault upon him in the Pine Wood of Bivar, where he was ingloriously
+defeated and taken prisoner. The count was the more shamed at this because
+my Cid had sent him a friendly message, saying that he did not want to
+fight him, since he owed him no grudge. When Count Raymond had given up
+his precious sword, the great Colada, the good one of Bivar endeavored to
+make friends with his prisoner, but to no avail. The count refused meat
+and drink, and was determined to die, until the Cid assured him that as
+soon as he ate a hearty meal he should go free. Then he departed joyfully
+from the camp, fearing even to the last lest the Cid should change his
+mind, a thing the perfect one never would have done.
+
+Cheered by this conquest, the Cid turned to Valencia, and met a great
+Moorish army, which was speedily defeated, the Cid's numbers having been
+greatly increased by men who flocked to him from Spain. Two Moorish kings
+were slain, and the survivors were pursued even to Valencia. Then my Cid
+sat down before the city for nine months, and in the tenth month Valencia
+surrendered. The spoil--who could count it? All were rich who accompanied
+the Cid, and his fifth was thirty thousand marks in money, besides much
+other spoil. And my Cid's renown spread throughout Spain. Wonderful was he
+to look upon, for his beard had grown very long. For the love of King
+Alfonso, who had banished him, he said it should never be cut, nor a hair
+of it be plucked, and it should be famous among Moors and Christians. Then
+he again called Minaya to him, and to King Alfonso sent a hundred horses,
+with the request that his wife and daughters might be allowed to join him.
+Also he sent him word that he had been joined by a good bishop, Don
+Jerome, and had created for him a bishopric.
+
+Now were the enemies of the good one of Bivar incensed in proportion as
+the king was pleased with this noble gift. And when the king silenced the
+envious ones, and ordered an escort for Ximena and her daughters, and
+treated Minaya with consideration, the Infantes of Carrion talked
+together, commenting on the growing importance of my Cid. "It would better
+our fortunes to marry his daughters, but they are below us in rank." And
+so saying they sent their salutations to the Cid.
+
+The Cid met his wife and daughters on his new horse, Babieca, the wonder
+of all Spain, and great was his joy to clasp them again in his arms. And
+he took them up in the highest part of Valencia, and their bright eyes
+looked over the city and the sea, and they all thanked God for giving them
+so fair a prize.
+
+When winter was past and spring had come, the King of Morocco crossed the
+sea to Valencia with fifty thousand men, and pitched his tents before the
+city. Then the Cid took his wife and daughters up in the Alcazar, and
+showed them the vast army. "They bring a gift for us, a dowry against the
+marriage of our daughters. Because ye are here, with God's help, I shall
+win the battle."
+
+He went forth on the good Babieca; four thousand less thirty followed him
+to attack the fifty thousand Moors. The Cid's arms dripped with blood to
+the elbow; the Moors he slew could not be counted. King Yucef himself he
+smote three times, and only the swiftness of the horse he rode saved the
+king from death. All fled who were not slain, leaving the spoil behind.
+Three thousand marks of gold and silver were found there, and the other
+spoil was countless. Then my Cid ordered Minaya and Pero Bermuez to take
+to Alfonso the great tent of the King of Morocco, and two hundred horses.
+And the king was greatly pleased, and the Infantes of Carrion, counselling
+together, said, "The fame of the Cid grows greater; let us ask his
+daughters in marriage." And the king gave their request to Minaya and
+Bermuez, who were to bear it to the Cid.
+
+Said my Cid, when he heard the proposal: "The Infantes of Carrion are
+haughty, and have a faction in court. I have no taste for the match; but
+since my king desires it, I will be silent."
+
+When the king heard his answer, he appointed a meeting, and when he that
+in a good hour was born saw his king, he fell at his feet to pay him
+homage. But the king said: "Here do I pardon you, and grant you my love
+from this day forth."
+
+The next day when the king presented to the Cid the offer of the Infantes,
+my Cid replied: "My daughters are not of marriageable age, but I and they
+are in your hands. Give them as it pleases you." Then the king
+commissioned Alvar Fanez to act for him and give the daughters of my Cid
+to the Infantes.
+
+The Cid hastened home to prepare for the wedding. The palace was
+beautifully decorated with hangings of purple and samite. Rich were the
+garments of the Infantes, and meek their behavior in the presence of my
+Cid. The couples were wedded by the Bishop Don Jerome, and the wedding
+festivities lasted for fifteen days. And for wellnigh two years the Cid
+and his sons-in-law abode happily in Valencia.
+
+One day while my Cid was lying asleep in his palace, a lion broke loose
+from its cage, and all the court were sore afraid. The Cid's followers
+gathered around his couch to protect him; but Ferran Gonzalez crept
+beneath the couch, crying from fear, and Diego ran into the court and
+threw himself across a wine-press beam, so that he soiled his mantle. The
+Cid, awakened by the noise, arose, took the lion by the mane, and dragged
+him to his cage, to the astonishment of all present. Then my Cid asked for
+his sons-in-law, and when they were found, pale and frightened, the whole
+court laughed at them until my Cid bade them cease. And the Infantes were
+deeply insulted.
+
+While they were still sulking over their injuries, King Bucar of Morocco
+beleagured Valencia with fifty thousand tents. The Cid and his barons
+rejoiced at the thought of battle; but the Infantes were sore afraid, for
+they were cowards, and feared to be slain in battle. The Cid told them to
+remain in Valencia; but stung by shame they went forth with Bermuez, who
+reported that both had fleshed their swords in battle with the Moor.
+
+Great was the slaughter of the Moors on that field. Alvar Fanez, Minaya,
+and the fighting bishop came back dripping with gore, and as for my Cid,
+he slew King Bucar himself, and brought home the famous sword, Tizon,
+worth full a thousand marks in gold.
+
+The Infantes, still wrathful at their humiliation, talked apart: "Let us
+take our wealth and our wives and return to Carrion. Once away from the
+Campeador, we will punish his daughters, so that we shall hear no more of
+the affair of the lion. With the wealth we have gained from the Cid we can
+now wed whom we please."
+
+Sore was the heart of the Cid when he heard of their determination; but he
+gave them rich gifts, and also the priceless swords Colada and Tizon. "I
+won them in knightly fashion," said he, "and I give them to you, for ye
+are my sons, since I gave you my daughters; in them ye take the core of my
+heart." He ordered Feliz Muńoz, his nephew, to accompany them as an
+escort, and sent them by way of Molina to salute his friend, Abengalvon
+the Moor.
+
+The Moor received them in great state, and escorted them as far as the
+Salon; but when he overheard the Infantes plotting to destroy him, and
+seize his substance, he left them in anger. At night the Infantes pitched
+their tents in an oak forest full of tall trees, among which roamed fierce
+beasts. During the night they made a great show of love to their wives,
+and the next morning ordered the escort to go on, saying that they would
+follow alone. As soon as they were alone they stripped the daughters of
+the Cid of their garments, beat them with their saddle-girths and spurs,
+and left them for dead in the wild forest. "Now we are avenged for the
+dishonor of the lion," said they, as they departed for Carrion. But Feliz
+Muńoz, who had suspected the Infantes, had gone forward but a little way,
+and then crept back, so that from a thicket he perceived the sufferings of
+his cousins. Straightway he went to their rescue, found them clothes, and
+helped them home again.
+
+When the Cid heard of this insult to himself and his daughters, he grasped
+his beard and swore a mighty oath that the Infantes would rue the day when
+they had thus offended him. All of the Cid's friends strove to comfort the
+ladies Elvira and Sol, and Abengalvon the Moor made them a rich supper for
+love of the Cid.
+
+At the request of my Cid, King Alfonso summoned a Cortes at Toledo, to try
+the cause of the Cid and the Infantes. Thither went the Cid, richly clad,
+so that all men wondered at his rich garments, his long hair in a scarlet
+and gold coif, and his uncut beard bound up with cords. He and his hundred
+men wore bright hauberks under their ermines, and trenchant swords under
+their mantles, for they feared treachery.
+
+The king appointed some of his counts as judges, and announced that he
+held this, the third Cortes of his reign, for the love of the Cid. Then my
+Cid stood forth.
+
+"I am not dishonored because the Infantes deserted my daughters," said the
+Cid, "for the king gave them away, not I; but I demand my swords, Colada
+and Tizon. When my lords of Carrion gave up my daughters they relinquished
+all claims to my property."
+
+The Infantes, well pleased that he demanded no more, returned the swords;
+and when the blades were unsheathed and placed in the hands of the king,
+the eyes of the court were dazzled by their brightness.
+
+The Cid presented Tizon to his nephew and Colada to Martin Antolinez.
+"Now, my king, I have another grievance. I now demand that the Infantes
+restore the three thousand marks in gold and silver they carried from
+Valencia. When they ceased to be my sons-in-law they ceased to own my
+gold." Then the Infantes were troubled, for they had spent the money; but
+the judges gave them no relief, and they were forced to pay it out of
+their heritage of Carrion.
+
+"So please your grace," said the Cid, "still another grievance, the
+greatest of all, I have yet to state. I hold myself dishonored by the
+Infantes. Redress by combat they must yield, for I will take no other."
+
+The Count Garcia ridiculed the Cid's claim. "The noble lords of Carrion
+are of princely birth; your daughters are not fitting mates for them."
+Then, while his enemies were taunting him and the court broke into an
+uproar, the Cid called on Pero Bermuez, "Dumb Peter," to speak.
+
+When Pero spoke he made himself clear. For the first time he told how like
+a craven Ferrando had demeaned himself in battle, and how he himself had
+slain the Moor on whom the prince had turned his back. He also reminded
+Ferrando of the affair of the lion. When Diego attempted to speak, he was
+silenced by Martin Antolinez, who told of the figure he cut when he clung
+to the wine-press beam in an agony of fear, on the day the lion came forth
+from its cage. Then the king, commanding silence, gave them permission to
+fight. Martin Antolinez engaged to meet Diego, Pero Bermuez was to combat
+with Ferrando, and Muno Gustioz challenged the brawler, Assur Gonzalez. It
+was agreed that the combat should be held at the end of three weeks in the
+vega of Carrion.
+
+When all had been arranged to his satisfaction, the Cid took off his coif,
+and released his beard, and all the court wondered at him. Then he offered
+some of his wealth to all present, and, kissing the king's hand, besought
+him to take Babieca. But this the king refused to do: "Babieca is for the
+like of you to keep the Moors off with. If I took him he would not have so
+good a lord."
+
+When the day for the combat arrived, the king himself went to Carrion to
+see that no treachery was used, and he said to the Infantes: "Ye have need
+to fight like men. If ye come out successful, ye will receive great honor.
+If ye are vanquished, the fault will be on your own heads. Seek to do no
+wrong; woe betide him who attempts it!"
+
+Then the marshals placed the contestants in the lists and left them face
+to face. Each with his gaze fixed on the other, they rushed together and
+met midway of the lists.
+
+At the thrust of Pero's Lance, Ferrando fell from his horse and yielded,
+as he saw the dread Tizon held over him. At the same time Diego fled from
+the sword of Martin Antolinez, and Muńo Gustioz's lance pierced Assur
+Gonzalez, who begged him to hold his hand, since the Infantes were
+vanquished.
+
+Thus the battle was won, and Don Roderick's champions gained the victory.
+Great was the sorrow in the house of Carrion; but he who wrongs a noble
+lady deserves such suffering.
+
+Rejoiced were they of Valencia when the champions brought home these
+tidings, and ere long, favored by Alfonso himself, the princes of Navarre
+and Aragon wooed my Cid's daughters, and were married to them with the
+most splendid nuptials. Now was the Cid happy, and happier still he grew
+as his honor increased, until upon the feast of Pentecost he passed away.
+The grace of Christ be upon him!
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+COUNT RAYMOND AND MY CID.
+
+
+After one of the victories over the Moors won by the Cid after his
+banishment by King Alfonso, he despatched a messenger to the king with a
+gift of thirty horses, and while awaiting his return, encamped in the
+Pine-wood of Tebar and levied tribute on the surrounding country. This
+information was conveyed to the Count of Barcelona, Raymond Berenger, who
+prepared to march against the intruder.
+
+  Great mustering there is of Moors and Christians through the land,
+  A mighty host of men-at-arms he hath at his command.
+  Two days, three nights, they march to seek the Good One of Bivar,
+  To snare him where he harbors in the Pine-wood of Tebar;
+  And such the speed of their advance, that, cumbered with his spoils,
+  And unaware, my Cid wellnigh was taken in the toils.
+  The tidings reached my Cid as down the sierra side he went,
+  Then straightway to Count Raymond be a friendly message sent:
+  "Say to the count that he, meseems, to me no grudge doth owe:
+  Of him I take no spoil, with him in peace I fain would go."
+  "Nay," said the count, "for all his deeds he hath to make amends:
+  This outlaw must be made to know whose honor he offends."
+  With utmost speed the messenger Count Raymond's answer brought;
+  Then of a surety knew my Cid a battle must be fought.
+  "Now, cavaliers," quoth he, "make safe the booty we have won.
+  Look to your weapons, gentlemen; with speed your armor don.
+  On battle bent Count Raymond comes; a mighty host hath he
+  Of Moors and Christians; fight we must if hence we would go free.
+  Here let us fight our battle out, since fight we must perforce.
+  On with your harness, cavaliers, quick saddle, and to horse!
+  Yonder they come, the linen breeks, all down the mountain side,
+  For saddles they have Moorish pads, with slackened girths they ride:
+  Our saddles are Galician make, our leggings tough and stout:
+  A hundred of us gentlemen should scatter such a rout.
+  Before they gain the level plain, home with the lance charge we,
+  And then, for every blow we strike, we empty saddles three.
+  Count Raymond Berenger shall know with whom he has to do;
+  And dearly in Tebar to-day his raid on me shall rue."
+  In serried squadron while he speaks they form around my Cid.
+  Each grasps his lance, and firm and square each sits upon his steed.
+  Over against them down the hill they watch the Franks descend,
+  On to the level ground below, where plain and mountain blend.
+  Then gives my Cid the word to charge--with a good will they go:
+  Fast ply the lances; some they pierce, and some they overthrow.
+  And he that in a good hour was born soon hath he won the field;
+  And the Count Raymond Berenger he hath compelled to yield;
+  And reaping honor for his beard a noble prize hath made:
+  A thousand marks of silver worth, the great Colada blade.
+
+  Unto his quarters under guard the captive count he sent,
+  While his men haste to gather in their spoils in high content.
+  Then for my Cid Don Roderick a banquet they prepare;
+  But little doth Count Raymond now for feast or banquet care.
+  They bring him meat and drink, but he repels them with disdain.
+  "No morsel will I touch," said he, "for all the wealth of Spain.
+  Let soul and body perish now; life why should I prolong,
+  Conquered and captive at the hands of such an ill-breeched throng?"
+  "Nay," said my Cid; "take bread and wine; eat, and thou goest free;
+  If not, thy realms in Christendom thou never more shalt see."
+  "Go thou, Don Roderick," said the Count, "eat if thou wilt, but I
+  Have no more lust for meat and drink: I only crave to die."
+  Three days, while they the booty share, for all that they entreat,
+  The Count his purpose holds unchanged, refusing still to eat.
+  Then said my Cid, "I pray thee, Count, take food and trust to me;
+  Thyself and two knights of thy train I promise to set free."
+  Glad was Count Raymond in his heart when he the promise heard--
+  "A marvel that will be, my Cid, if thou dost keep thy word."
+  "Then, Count, take food, and when I see thy hunger satisfied,
+  My word is pledged to let thee go, thyself and two beside.
+  But understand, one farthing's worth I render not again
+  Of what has been in battle lost and won on yonder plain.
+  I give not back the lawful spoils I fairly win in fight;
+  But for mine own and vassals' wants I hold them as my right.
+  My followers are needy men; I cannot if I would;
+  For spoil from thee and others won is all our livelihood.
+  And such, while God's good will it is, must be our daily life,
+  As outcasts forced to wander, with an angry king at strife."
+  With lighter heart Count Raymond called for water for his hands,
+  And then with his two gentlemen, sent by the Cid's commands,
+  He blithely sat him down to meat: God! with what gust ate he!
+  And glad was the Campeador such heartiness to see.
+  Quoth he, "Until thou eat thy fill we part not, Count, to-day."
+  "Nor loth am I," Count Raymond said, "such bidding to obey."
+  So he and his two cavaliers a hearty meal they made:
+  It pleased my Cid to watch his hands, how lustily they played.
+  "Now if thou wilt," Count Raymond said, "that we are satisfied,
+  Bid them to lead the horses forth, that we may mount and ride.
+  Never since I have been a Count have I yet broken fast
+  With such a relish; long shall I remember this repast."
+  Three palfreys with caparisons of costly sort they bring,
+  And on the saddles robes of fur and mantles rich they fling.
+  Thus, with a knight on either hand, away Count Raymond rides;
+  While to the outposts of the camp his guests the Champion guides.
+  "Now speed thee, Count; ride on," quoth he, "a free Frank as thou art.
+  For the brave spoil thou leavest me I thank thee from my heart;
+  And if to win it back again perchance thou hast a mind,
+  Come thou and seek me when thou wilt; I am not far to find.
+  But if it be not to thy taste to try another day,
+  Still, somewhat, be it mine or thine, thou carriest away."
+  "Nay! go in peace for me, my Cid: no more I seek of thee;
+  And thou, I think, for one year's space hast won enough of me."
+  He spurred his steed, but, as he rode, a backward glance he bent,
+  Still fearing to the last my Cid his promise would repent:
+  A thing, the world itself to win, my Cid would not have done:
+  No perfidy was ever found in him, the Perfect One.
+                  _Ormsby's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+MY CID'S TRIUMPH.
+
+
+In the Cortes called by the King of Spain to hear the cause of the Cid,
+whose daughters had been shamefully treated and deserted by their
+husbands, the Infantes of Carrion, Ferran and Diego Gonzalez, the Cid
+demanded the restitution of his swords and of three thousand marks of gold
+and silver he had given the Infantes. These being granted, the Cid spoke
+again:--
+
+  "So please your grace! once more upon your clemency I call;
+  A grievance yet remains untold, the greatest grief of all.
+  And let the court give ear, and weigh the wrong that hath been done.
+  I hold myself dishonored by the lords of Carrion.
+  Redress by combat they must yield; none other will I take.
+  How now, Infantes! what excuse, what answer do ye make?
+  Why have ye laid my heartstrings bare? In jest or earnest, say,
+  Have I offended you? and I will make amends to-day.
+  My daughters in your hands I placed the day that forth ye went,
+  And rich in wealth and honors from Valencia were you sent.
+  Why did you carry with you brides ye loved not, treacherous curs?
+  Why tear their flesh in Corpes wood with saddle-girths and spurs,
+  And leave them to the beasts of prey? Villains throughout were ye!
+  What answer ye can make to this 't is for the court to see."
+  The Count Garcia was the first that rose to make reply.
+  "So please ye, gracious king, of all the kings of Spain most high;
+  Strange is the guise in which my Cid before you hath appeared;
+  To grace your summoned court he comes, with that long straggling beard;
+  With awe struck dumb, methinks, are some; some look as though they
+    feared.
+  The noble lords of Carrion of princely race are born;
+  To take the daughters of my Cid for lemans they should scorn;
+  Much more for brides of equal birth: in casting them aside--
+  We care not for his blustering talk--we hold them justified."
+  Upstood the Champion, stroked his beard, and grasped it in his hands.
+  "Thanks be to God above," he cried, "who heaven and earth commands,
+  A long and lordly growth it is, my pleasure and my pride;
+  In this my beard, Garcia, say, what find you to deride?
+  Its nurture since it graced my chin hath ever been my care;
+  No son of woman born hath dared to lay a finger there;
+  No son of Christian or of Moor hath ever plucked a hair.
+  Remember Cabra, Count! of thine the same thou canst not say:
+  On both thy castle and thy beard I laid my hand that day:
+  Nay! not a groom was there but he his handful plucked away.
+  Look, where my hand hath been, my lords, all ragged yet it grows!"
+  With noisy protest breaking in Ferran Gonzalez rose:
+  "Cid, let there be an end of this; your gifts you have again,
+  And now no pretext for dispute between us doth remain.
+  Princes of Carrion are we, with fitting brides we mate;
+  Daughters of emperors or kings, not squires of low estate:
+  We brook not such alliances, and yours we rightly spurned."
+  My Cid, Ruy Diaz, at the word, quick to Bermuez turned.
+  "Now is the time, Dumb Peter, speak, O man that sittest mute!
+  My daughters' and thy cousins' name and fame are in dispute;
+  To me they speak, to thee they look to answer every word.
+  If I am left to answer now, thou canst not draw thy sword."
+  Tongue-tied Bermuez stood, awhile he strove for words in vain,
+  But, look you, when he once began he made his meaning plain.
+  "Cid, first I have a word for you: you always are the same,
+  In Cortes ever jibing me, 'Dumb Peter' is the name:
+  It never was a gift of mine, and that long since you knew;
+  But have you found me fail in aught that fell to me to do?
+  You lie, Ferrando; lie in all you say upon that score.
+  The honor was to you, not him, the Cid Campeador;
+  For I know something of your worth, and somewhat I can tell.
+  That day beneath Valencia wall--you recollect it well--
+  You prayed the Cid to place you in the forefront of the fray;
+  You spied a Moor, and valiantly you went that Moor to slay;
+  And then you turned and fled--for his approach, you would not stay.
+  Right soon he would have taught you 't was a sorry game to play,
+  Had I not been in battle there to take your place that day.
+  I slew him at the first onfall; I gave his steed to you;
+  To no man have I told the tale from that hour hitherto.
+  Before the Cid and all his men you got yourself a name,
+  How you in single combat slew a Moor--a deed of fame;
+  And all believed in your exploit; they wist not of your shame.
+  You are a craven at the core; tall, handsome, as you stand:
+  How dare you talk as now you talk, you tongue without a hand?
+  Again, Ferrando, call to mind--another tale for you--
+  That matter of the lion; it was at Valencia too.
+  My Cid lay sleeping when you saw the unchained lion near;
+  What did you do, Ferrando, then, in your agony of fear?
+  Low did you crouch behind the couch whereon the Champion lay:
+  You did, Ferrando, and by that we rate your worth to-day.
+  We gathered round to guard our lord, Valencia's conqueror.
+  He rose, and to the lion went, the brave Campeador;
+  The lion fawned before his feet and let him grasp its mane;
+  He thrust it back into its cage; he turned to us again:
+  His trusty vassals to a man he saw around him there;
+  Where were his sons-in-law? he asked, and none could tell him where.
+  Now take thou my defiance as a traitor, trothless knight:
+  Upon this plea before our King Alfonso will I fight;
+  The daughters of my lord are wronged, their wrong is mine to right.
+  That ye those ladies did desert, the baser are ye then;
+  For what are they?--weak women; and what are ye?--strong men.
+  On every count I deem their cause to be the holier,
+  And I will make thee own it when we meet in battle here.
+  Traitor thou shalt confess thyself, so help me God on high,
+  And all that I have said to-day my sword shall verify."
+
+  Thus far these two. Diego rose, and spoke as ye shall hear:
+  "Counts by our birth are we, of stain our lineage is clear.
+  In this alliance with my Cid there was no parity.
+  If we his daughters cast aside, no cause for shame we see.
+  And little need we care if they in mourning pass their lives,
+  Enduring the reproach that clings to scorned rejected wives.
+  In leaving them we but upheld our honor and our right,
+  And ready to the death am I, maintaining this, to fight."
+  Here Martin Antolinez sprang upon his feet: "False hound!
+  Will you not silent keep that mouth where truth was never found?
+  For you to boast! the lion scare have you forgotten too?
+  How through the open door you rushed, across the court-yard flew;
+  How sprawling in your terror on the wine-press beam you lay?
+  Ay! never more, I trow, you wore the mantle of that day.
+  There is no choice; the issue now the sword alone can try;
+  The daughters of my Cid ye spurned; that must ye justify.
+  On every count I here declare their cause the cause of right,
+  And thou shall own the treachery the day we join in fight."
+  He ceased, and striding up the hall Assur Gonzalez passed;
+  His cheek was flushed with wine, for he had stayed to break his fast;
+  Ungirt his robe, and trailing low his ermine mantle hung;
+  Rude was his bearing to the court, and reckless was his tongue.
+  "What a to-do is here, my lords! was the like ever seen?
+  What talk is this about my Cid--him of Bivar, I mean?
+  To Riodouirna let him go to take his millers' rent,
+  And keep his mills agoing there, as once he was content.
+  He, forsooth, mate his daughters with the Counts of Carrion!"
+  Up started Muńo Gustioz: "False, foul-mouthed knave, have done!
+  Thou glutton, wont to break thy fast without a thought of prayer,
+  Whose heart is plotting mischief when thy lips are speaking fair;
+  Whose plighted word to friend or lord hath ever proved a lie;
+  False always to thy fellow-man, falser to God on high.
+  No share in thy good will I seek; one only boon I pray,
+  The chance to make thee own thyself the villain that I say."
+  Then spoke the king: "Enough of words: ye have my leave to fight,
+  The challenged and the challengers; and God defend the right."
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+  The marshals leave them face to face and from the lists are gone;
+  Here stand the champions of my Cid, there those of Carrion;
+  Each with his gaze intent and fixed upon his chosen foe,
+  Their bucklers braced before their breasts, their lances pointing low,
+  Their heads bent down, as each man leans above his saddle-bow.
+  Then with one impulse every spur is in the charger's side,
+  And earth itself is felt to shake beneath their furious stride;
+  Till, midway meeting, three with three, in struggle fierce they lock,
+  While all account them dead who hear the echo of the shock.
+  Ferrando and his challenger, Pero Bermuez, close;
+  Firm are the lances held, and fair the shields receive the blows.
+  Through Pero's shield Ferrando drove his lance, a bloodless stroke;
+  The point stopped short in empty space, the shaft in splinters broke.
+  But on Bermuez, firm of seat, the shock fell all in vain;
+  And while he took Ferrando's thrust he paid it back again.
+  The armored buckler shattering, right home his lance he pressed,
+  Driving the point through boss and plate against his foeman's breast.
+  Three folds of mail Ferrando wore, they stood him in good stead;
+  Two yielded to the lance's point, the third held fast the head.
+  But forced into the flesh it sank a hand's breadth deep or more,
+  Till bursting from the gasping lips in torrents gushed the gore.
+  Then, the girths breaking, o'er the croup borne rudely to the ground,
+  He lay, a dying man it seemed to all who stood around.
+  Bermuez cast his lance aside, and sword in hand came on;
+  Ferrando saw the blade he bore, he knew it was Tizon:
+  Quick ere the dreaded brand could fall, "I yield me," came the cry.
+  Vanquished the marshals granted him, and Pero let him lie.
+
+  And Martin Antolinez and Diego--fair and true
+  Each struck upon the other's shield, and wide the splinters flew.
+  Then Antolinez seized his sword, and as he drew the blade,
+  A dazzling gleam of burnished steel across the meadow played;
+  And at Diego striking full, athwart the helmet's crown,
+  Sheer through the steel plates of the casque he drove the falchion down,
+  Through coif and scarf, till from the scalp the locks it razed away,
+  And half shorn off and half upheld the shattered head-piece lay.
+  Reeling beneath the blow that proved Colada's cruel might,
+  Diego saw no chance but one, no safety save in flight:
+  He wheeled and fled, but close behind him Antolinez drew;
+  With the flat blade a hasty blow he dealt him as he flew;
+  But idle was Diego's sword; he shrieked to Heaven for aid:
+  "O God of glory, give me help! save me from yonder blade!"
+  Unreined, his good steed bore him safe and swept him past the bound,
+  And Martin Antolinez stood alone upon the ground.
+  "Come hither," said the king; "thus far the conquerors are ye."
+  And fairly fought and won the field the marshals both agree.
+  So much for these, and how they fought: remains to tell you yet
+  How meanwhile Muńo Gustioz Assur Gonzalez met.
+  With a strong arm and steady aim each struck the other's shield,
+  And under Assur's sturdy thrusts the plates of Muńo's yield;
+  But harmless passed the lance's point, and spent its force in air.
+  Not so Don Muńo's; on the shield of Assur striking fair,
+  Through plate and boss and foeman's breast his pennoned lance he sent,
+  Till out between the shoulder blades a fathom's length it went.
+  Then, as the lance he plucked away, clear from the saddle swung,
+  With one strong wrench of Muno's wrist to earth was Assur flung;
+  And back it came, shaft, pennon, blade, all stained a gory red;
+  Nor was there one of all the crowd but counted Assur sped,
+  While o'er him Muńo Gustioz stood with uplifted brand.
+  Then cried Gonzalo Assurez: "In God's name hold thy hand!
+  Already have ye won the field; no more is needed now."
+  And said the marshals, "It is just, and we the claim allow."
+  And then the King Alfonso gave command to clear the ground,
+  And gather in the relics of the battle strewed around.
+  And from the field in honor went Don Roderick's champions three.
+  Thanks be to God, the Lord of all, that gave the victory.
+
+  But fearing treachery, that night upon their way they went,
+  As King Alfonso's honored guests in safety homeward sent,
+  And to Valencia city day and night they journeyed on,
+  To tell my Cid Campeador that his behest was done.
+  But in the lands of Carrion it was a day of woe,
+  And on the lords of Carrion it fell a heavy blow.
+  He who a noble lady wrongs and casts aside--may he
+  Meet like requital for his deeds, or worse, if worse there be.
+  But let us leave them where they lie--their meed is all men's scorn.
+
+  Turn we to speak of him that in a happy hour was born.
+  Valencia the Great was glad, rejoiced at heart to see
+  The honored champions of her lord return in victory:
+  And Ruy Diaz grasped his beard: "Thanks be to God," said he,
+  "Of part or lot in Carrion now are my daughters free;
+  Now may I give them without shame whoe'er the suitors be."
+  And favored by the king himself, Alfonso of Leon,
+  Prosperous was the wooing of Navarre and Aragon,
+  The bridals of Elvira and of Sol in splendor passed;
+  Stately the former nuptials were, but statelier far the _hast_.
+  And he that in a good hour was born, behold how he _hath_ sped!
+  His daughters now to higher rank and greater honor wed:
+  Sought by Navarre and Aragon for queens his daughters twain;
+  And monarchs of his blood to-day upon the thrones of Spain.
+  And so his honor in the land grows greater day by day.
+  Upon the feast of Pentecost from life he passed away.
+  For him and all of us the Grace of Christ let us implore.
+  And here ye have the story of my Cid Campeador.
+  _Ormsby's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+ "This Poem of the earth and air,
+  This mediaeval miracle of song."
+
+
+Dante Alighieri was born at Florence, in May, 1265. His family belonged to
+the Guelph, or Papal faction, and he early took part in the struggle
+between the parties. In 1274 he first saw Beatrice Portinari, and he says
+of this meeting in the "Vita Nuova," "I say that thenceforward Love swayed
+my soul, which was even then espoused to him." Beatrice died in 1290, and
+Dante married Gemma Donati, between 1291 and 1294. In 1295 he joined the
+Art of Druggists, in order to become a member of the Administrative
+Council. In 1300 he was made Prior, and in 1301, when the Neri entered
+Florence, he was exiled, his property confiscated, and himself sentenced
+to be burned, if found within the republic. After this he became a
+Ghibeline, and took up arms against the city with his fellow-exiles, but
+withdrew from their council at last because of disagreements, and
+separating from them, spent his time at Verona, Padua, Sunigianda, and in
+the monastery of Gubbio. In 1316 the government of Florence issued a
+decree allowing the exiles to return on payment of a fine; but Dante
+indignantly refused to acknowledge thus that he had been in the wrong. He
+was in Ravenna in 1320, and died there Sept. 14, 1321, on his return from
+an embassy to Venice.
+
+The "Commedia" was written during Dante's nineteen years of exile. The
+three parts, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, are emblematic of the
+threefold state of man,--sin, grace, and beatitude. The thirty-three
+cantos into which each part is divided, are in allusion to the years of
+the Saviour's life, and the triple rhyme suggests the Trinity.
+
+The Divine Comedy is written in the _terza rima_, which consists of three
+verses arranged in such a way that the middle line of each triplet rhymes
+with the first or third verse of the succeeding triplet.
+
+The entire time occupied in the "Commedia" is eleven days, from March 25
+to April 5, 1300.
+
+Dante called the poem a comedy because of its prosperous ending. The
+prefix "divine" was given it later by its admirers.
+
+The Divine Comedy is sometimes called the epic of mediaevalism, and again,
+the epic of man. Dante himself said: "The subject of the whole work, then,
+taken literally, is the state of the soul after death, regarded as a
+matter of fact; for the action of the whole work deals with this and is
+about this. But if the work be taken allegorically, its subject is man, in
+so far as by merit or demerit in the exercise of free will, he is exposed
+to the rewards or punishment of justice."
+
+For a time the Divine Comedy was neglected, and even in comparatively
+recent times the Inferno was the only portion read; but of late years
+there has been a re-awakening of interest in regard to the whole poem.
+
+In no other of the epics has the author put so much of himself as Dante
+has in the "Commedia." It was he himself who saw this vision; he himself,
+proud, tortured, who carried the sense of his wrongs with him through Hell
+and Purgatory, even into Paradise. We learn the history of his times, all
+the crimes committed by men in high position, and we also learn the
+history of the unhappy Florentine, of whose poem it has been said, "none
+other in the world is so deeply and universally sorrowful."
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+
+J. Colomb de Batines's Bibliografia Dantesca, 2 vols., 1846;
+
+William Coolidge Lane's The Dante collections in the Harvard College and
+Boston Public Libraries (Bibliographical contributions of the library of
+Harvard University, 1885);
+
+William Coolidge Lane's Additions to the Dante collection in the Harvard
+Library (see the Annual Reports of the Dante Society of Cambridge, Mass.,
+1887);
+
+Brother Azarius's Spiritual Sense of the Divina Commedia (in his Phases of
+Thought and Criticism, 1892, pp. 125-182);
+
+Henry Clark Barlow's Critical Contributions to the Study of the Divine
+Comedy, 1865;
+
+Herbert Baynes's Dante and his Ideal, 1891;
+
+Vincenzo Botta's Introduction to the Study of Dante, 1887;
+
+Oscar Browning's Dante, his Life and Writing, 1890, pp. 70-104;
+
+A. J. Butler's Dante, his Time and Work, 1895;
+
+Richard William Church's Dante and Other Essays, 1888, pp. 1-191;
+
+J. Farrazzi's Manuale Dantesco, 5 vols., 1865-77;
+
+William Torrey Harris's Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia, 1890;
+
+Francis Hettinger's Dante's Divina Commedia, its Scope and Value, Tr. by
+H. S. Bowden, 1887 (Roman Catholic standpoint);
+
+J. R. Lowell's Essay on Dante (in his Among my Books, 1876);
+
+Lewis E. Mott's Dante and Beatrice, an Essay on Interpretation, 1892;
+
+Giovanni Andrea Scartazzini's A Companion to Dante, from the German, by A.
+J. Butler, 1892;
+
+Denton J. Snider's Dante's Inferno: a Commentary, 1892;
+
+Augustus Hopkins Strong's Dante and the Divine Comedy (in his Philosophy
+and Religion, 1888, pp. 501-524);
+
+John Addington Symonds's An Introduction to the Study of Dante, Ed. 2,
+1890;
+
+Paget Toynbee's Dictionary of the Divina Commedia, 2 parts;
+
+William Warren Vernon's Readings on the Purgatorio of Dante, chiefly based
+on the Commentary of Benvenuto da Imola; Intro. by the Dean of St. Paul's,
+2 vols., 1889;
+
+Dr. Edward Moore's Time References in the Divina Commedia, London, 1887;
+
+Dr. E. Moore's Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina
+Commedia, Cambridge, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+
+The Divine Comedy, the Inferno, a literal prose translation with the text
+of the original collated from the best editions, with explanatory notes by
+J. A. Carlyle, Ed. 6, 1891 (contains valuable chapters on manuscripts,
+translations, etc.);
+
+Divina Commedia, edited with translation and notes by A. J. Butler, 1892;
+
+Vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, Tr. by H. F. Cary, 1888;
+
+The Divine Comedy, Tr. by H. W. Longfellow, 1887;
+
+The Divine Comedy, Tr. by C. E. Norton, 1891-92 (rhythmical prose
+translation);
+
+The Divine Comedy, Tr. of the Commedia and Lanzoniere, notes, essays, and
+biographical introduction by E. H. Plumptre, 1887;
+
+Divina Commedia, Tr. into English verse with notes and illustrations by J.
+A. Wilstach, 2 vols., 1888.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE HELL.
+
+
+The Hell conceived by Dante was made by the falling of Lucifer to the
+centre of the earth. It was directly under Jerusalem. The earth, displaced
+by Lucifer's fall, made the Mount of Purgatory, which was the antipodes of
+Jerusalem.
+
+The unbarred entrance gate, over which stands the inscription, "Leave hope
+behind, all ye who enter here," leads into a Vestibule, or Ante-Hell, a
+dark plain separated from Hell proper by the river Acheron. Hell proper
+then falls into three great divisions for the punishment of the sins of
+Incontinence, Bestiality, and Malice, which are punished in nine circles,
+each circle sub-divided. Circle One is the Limbo of the Unbaptized.
+Circles Two, Three, Four, and Five are reserved for the punishment of the
+sins of Incontinence, Lasciviousness, Gluttony, Avarice with Prodigality,
+and Anger with Melancholy. In Circle Six is punished the sin of
+Bestiality, under which fall Infidelity and Heresiarchy, Bestiality having
+here its Italian meaning of folly. In Circles Seven and Eight is punished
+Malice, subdivided into Violence and Fraud. There are three divisions of
+Violence,--the Violent against their neighbors (Tyrants, Murderers, etc.);
+the Violent against themselves (Suicides); and the violent against God
+(Blasphemers, etc.); and ten divisions of Circle Eight,--Fraud, _i.e._,
+Seducers, Flatterers, Simoniacs, Soothsayers, Barrators, Hypocrites,
+Thieves, False Counsellors, Schismatics, and Forgers and Falsifiers. Below
+these ten pits yawns the well of the giants, above which the giants tower
+so that half their persons is visible. Within this well in Circle Nine is
+Cocytus, a lake of ice divided into four belts,--Caina, Antenora,
+Ptolemaea, and Judecca, where are punished, respectively, the Betrayers of
+their kindred, of their country, of their friends and guests, and of their
+benefactors. At the bottom of the pit is Lucifer, half above the ice and
+half below it, the centre of his body being the centre of gravity.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE HELL.
+
+
+The poet Dante, in the thirty-fifth year of his life, this being the year
+1300 A. D., on New Year's day of the old reckoning, lost his way in a
+rough and thorny forest, and when he attempted to regain it by mounting a
+hill that rose before him resplendent in sunshine, encountered a leopard,
+a lion, and a wolf. Driven back by these, and utterly despairing of
+rescue, he met one who declared himself to be that Vergil who had sung the
+fall of Troy and the flight of Aeneas, and who promised to take him through
+the lower world and Purgatory, even unto Paradise. Dante questioned why it
+was permitted to him to take the journey denied to so many others, and was
+told that Vergil had been sent to his rescue by the beauteous Beatrice,
+long since in Paradise. When the poet, trembling with fear, heard that the
+shining eyes of Beatrice had wept over his danger in the forest, and that
+she had sought the gates of hell to effect his rescue, his strength was
+renewed, even as the flowers, chilled by the frosts of night, uplift
+themselves in the bright light of the morning sun; and he entered without
+fear on the deep and savage way.
+
+This allegory, being interpreted, probably means that the poet, entangled
+in the dark forest of political anarchy, was driven from the hill of civil
+order by the Leopard of Pleasure (Florence), the Lion of Ambition
+(France), and the Wolf of Avarice (Rome), and was by divine grace granted
+a vision of the three worlds that he might realize what comes after death,
+and be the more firmly established in the right political
+faith,--Ghibellinism.
+
+"Through me is the way into the sorrowful city; into eternal dole among
+the lost people. Justice incited my sublime Creator. Divine Omnipotence,
+the highest wisdom, and the Primal Love created me. Before me, there were
+no created things. Only eternal, and I eternal, last. Abandon hope, all ye
+who enter here!"
+
+Such was the inscription over the doorway, after the reading of which
+Dante's ears were assailed by words of agony and heart-rending cries.
+"This," said Vergil, "is the home of those melancholy souls who lived
+without infamy and without praise. Cowards and selfish in life, they are
+denied even entrance to hell." As they looked, a long train passed by,
+stung by gadflies and following a whirling standard.
+
+Charon, about whose eyes were wheels of flame, endeavored to drive the
+poet and his guide away as they stood among the weary and naked souls that
+gathered shivering on the margin of Acheron; but as a blast of wind and a
+burst of crimson light caused a deep sleep to fall on the poet, he was
+wafted across the river, and awaking he found himself in the Limbo of the
+Unbaptized, the first of the nine circles of hell, where were the souls of
+many men, women, and infants, whose only punishment was, without hope, to
+live on in desire. Here was no torment, only the sadness caused by the
+ever-unsatisfied longing for the ever-denied divine grace. This was
+Vergil's abode, and in the noble castles set among the green enamelled
+meadows dwelt Homer, Horace, and Ovid, Electra, Hector, and Camilla.
+
+Passing down a narrow walk into a region of semi-darkness, they entered
+the second circle, where Minos stood, judging the sinners and girding
+himself with his tail as many times as was the number of the circle to
+which the spirit was to go. Here in darkness and storm were the carnal
+sinners, whose punishment was to be beaten hither and thither by the
+winds,--Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Paris, Tristan, and all those who had
+sinned for love, and here Dante conversed with the spirit of Francesca da
+Rimini, whom he had known in life, and her lover Paolo, slain for their
+sin by her husband. Though there is no greater sorrow than to be mindful
+of the happy time in misery, she assured Dante that the sorrows of Hell
+were lightened by the presence of Paolo.
+
+At the sight of Paolo's grief Dante fell swooning with pity, and awoke to
+find himself in the circle where a cold rain fell forever on the gluttons.
+Cerberus guarded the entrance, and now and again devoured the unhappy ones
+who lay prone on their faces in the murk and mire. Here Ciacco of Florence
+recognized and spoke with Dante, falling back in the mire as the poet
+passed on, to rise no more until the Day of Judgment.
+
+Plutus guarded the fourth circle, where were confined the avaricious and
+prodigal, who, divided into two bands, rolled weights against each other,
+uttering wretched insults. Down the sloping banks to the marsh of the Styx
+the poets went, past the sullen and angry, who in life refused the comfort
+of the sweet air and gladdening sun, and were in consequence doomed
+forever to remain buried in the sullen mire. As Dante and Vergil passed
+over the Styx in the boat of the vile Phlegyas, Dante was saluted by the
+spirit of the once haughty and arrogant Philippo Argenti, whom he
+repulsed, and gladly saw set upon and torn by the people of the mire.
+
+Then appeared to him the mosques of the city of Dis, within the valley,
+vermilion-hued from the fire eternal. Deep were the moats; the walls
+appeared to be of iron. Upon the flaming summit sat the Furies, stained
+with blood, begirt with Hydras. Here even Vergil trembled as they waited
+the arrival of one sent from Heaven to open the gate and admit them.
+
+Within, over the plain, were scattered sepulchres heated red hot, with
+uplifted coverings, from which issued forth dire laments from the Infidels
+and Heresiarchs tormented within. To Farinata degli Uberti, who rose from
+his tomb to ask the news of Florence, Dante spoke, observing in the mean
+time a shade that, on hearing the Tuscan tongue, rose next Uberti,
+questioning, "Where is my son, my Guido?" Fancying from the poet's delay
+in answering, and his use of the past tense, that his beloved child no
+longer enjoyed the sweet light, Cavalcante fell back and appeared no more.
+
+Leaving the dismal plain, whose countless tombs would remain open until
+the Judgment Day, the poets entered upon the next and seventh circle,
+composed of three smaller circles in which were punished the Violent
+against their neighbors, against nature, and against God. The steep banks
+of the ravine were guarded by the huge Minotaur, from which Dante and
+Vergil escaped only by running.
+
+Within Phlegethon, the boiling river of blood, stood the tyrants, among
+whom were Dionysius, Azzolin, and Attila, uttering loud laments. If they
+ventured to stir from their place of torment they were pierced by the
+arrows of the Centaurs that guarded the banks. The Centaur Nessus conveyed
+Dante across the river into the second circle, the dolorous forest, where
+the Violent against nature, the Suicides, were transformed into closely
+set, twisted thorn-trees, infested with harpies that fed on their leaves,
+inflicting perpetual pain; thence into the third circle, where the Violent
+against God, chief among whom was the arrogant Capaneus, dwelt in a sandy
+plain surrounded by the dolorous forest. Upon the naked souls, some of
+whom were lying supine, some crouching, others moving about continually,
+fell a perpetual shower of flakes of fire.
+
+Picking their way along the edge of the forest, not daring to step on the
+sand waste, the poets came upon a little blood-red rivulet quenching the
+flames above it, Phlegethon again, formed by the rivers Acheron and Styx,
+whose source is the tears of Time. As they skirted the forest they saw a
+troop of spirits hastening past, one of whom, after a sharp look, grasped
+Dante's garment exclaiming, "What a wonder!" The baked countenance, the
+ghastly face, was that of his old teacher Ser Brunetto, who not daring to
+stop for fear of increasing his punishment, followed him, questioning him
+on his appearance below, and comforting him by the assurance of his future
+greatness. Deep were the burns in the limbs of the other Florentines Dante
+met below, to whom he gave tidings of the state of affairs in their former
+home.
+
+Mounting on the shoulders of the hideous monster Geryon, the poets were
+carried into a fearful abyss whose sides were Alp-like in steepness. This
+was the eighth circle, Malebolge, or Evil pits, consisting of ten
+concentric bolge, or ditches of stone with dikes between and rough bridges
+running across them to the centre.
+
+In the first pit Jason and other deceivers of women were being lashed by
+horned demons. In pit two, a Florentine friend of Dante's was submerged
+with others in filth as a punishment for flattery. In pit three the
+Simoniacs were placed head down in purses in the earth, their projecting
+feet tortured with flames. The poets crossed the bridge, and Vergil
+carried Dante down the sloping bank so that he could speak to one who
+proved to be the unhappy Nicholas III., who accused Boniface for his evil
+deeds and expressed a longing for his arrival in this place of torture.
+From the next bridge-top Dante dimly perceived the slow procession of
+weeping soothsayers with heads reversed on their shoulders. There walked
+Amphiarus, Tiresias, Manto, and Michael Scott. So great was Dante's sorrow
+on beholding the misery of these men who had once been held in such great
+esteem, that he leaned against a crag and wept until reproved by Vergil as
+a reprobate for feeling compassion at the doom divine. Through the
+semi-darkness the poets looked down into pit five, where devils with
+fantastic names pitched barrators into a lake of boiling pitch and speared
+those who dared to raise their heads above the surface. From these Evil
+Claws Dante and Vergil escaped only by running into the sixth pit, where
+walked the hypocrites in richly gilded mantles. When Dante wondered at
+their weary faces and their tears, he was told by two of the Frati
+Gaudenti (Jolly Friars) of Florence who suffered here, that the cloaks and
+hoods were of heaviest lead, a load that grew more irksome with the ages.
+Caiaphas, Annas, and the members of the council that condemned Christ lay
+on the ground transfixed with stakes, and over their bodies passed the
+slow moving train of the hypocrites. The next bridge lay in ruins as a
+result of the earthquake at the Crucifixion, and Vergil experienced the
+utmost difficulty in conveying Dante up the crags to a point where he
+could look down into the dark dungeon of thieves, where the naked throng
+were entwined with serpents and at their bite changed from man to serpent
+and back again. Some burned and fell into ashes at the venomous bite, only
+to rise again and suffer new tortures. Here Dante spoke with Vanni Fucci
+of Pistoja, who robbed the sacristy of Florence, and whose face "was
+painted with a melancholy shame" at being seen in his misery. The eighth
+pit was brightly lighted by the flames that moved back and forth, each
+concealing within an evil counsellor. Ulysses and Diomed walked together
+in a flame cleft at the top, for the crime of robbing Deidamia of
+Achilles, of stealing the Palladium, and of fabricating the Trojan horse.
+As Dante looked into pit nine he saw a troop compelled to pass continually
+by a demon with a sharp sword who mutilated each one each time he made the
+round of the circle, so that the wounds never healed. These were the evil
+counsellors. Mahomet was there; there too was Ali. But ghastliest of
+sights was that of a headless trunk walking through the grim plain,
+holding its severed head by the hair like a lantern, and exclaiming "O
+me!" This was the notorious Bertrand de Born, the Troubadour, who had
+caused dissension between Henry II. of England and his son. Among this
+throng Dante recognized his kinsman Geri del Bello, who gave him a
+disdainful look because he had not yet avenged his death. From the tenth
+and last pit of Malebolge came a stench as great as though it came from
+all the hospitals of Valdichiana, Maremma, and Sardinia, between July and
+September. All the loathsome diseases were gathered into this moat to
+afflict the forgers and falsifiers. Here Dante saw Athamas, mad king of
+Thebes, the mad Gianni Schicchi, and Messer Adam of Brescia, the false
+coiner, who, distorted with dropsy, was perishing of thirst, and thinking
+constantly of the cool rivulets that descended from the verdant hills of
+Casentino.
+
+As Dante and his guide turned their backs on the wretched valley and
+ascended the bank that surrounded it, the blare of a loud horn fell upon
+their ears, louder than Roland's blast at Roncesvalles. This came from the
+plain of the giants between Malebolge and the mouth of the infernal pit.
+All around the pit, or well, were set the giants with half their bodies
+fixed in earth. Nimrod, as a punishment for building the tower of Babel,
+could speak no language, but babbled some gibberish. Ephialtes, Briareus,
+and Antaeus were here, all horrible in aspect; Antaeus, less savage than
+the others, lifted the two poets, and stooping set them down in the pit
+below. This was the last and ninth circle, a dismal pit for the punishment
+of traitors, who were frozen in the vast lake that Cocytus formed here. In
+Caina were the brothers Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, mutual
+fratricides, their heads frozen together. In Antenora was that Guelph
+Bocca who had caused his party's defeat; but the most horrible sight they
+encountered was in Ptolemaea, where Count Ugolino, who had been shut up
+with his sons and grandsons in a tower to starve by the Archbishop
+Ruggieri, was now revenging himself in their place of torture by
+continually gnawing the archbishop's head, frozen in the ice next his own.
+Farther down they walked among those who, when they shed tears over their
+woe had their teardrops frozen, so that even this solace was soon denied
+them. Dante promised to break the frozen veil from the eyes of one who
+prayed for aid, but when he learned that it was the Friar Alberigo, whose
+body was still on earth, and whose soul was already undergoing punishment,
+he refused, "for to be rude to him was courtesy."
+
+In the fourth and last division of the ninth circle, the Judecca, a strong
+wind was blowing. Then Dante saw the emperor of the kingdom frozen in the
+ice, a mighty giant foul to look upon, with three faces, vermilion, white
+and yellow, and black. The waving of his two featherless wings caused the
+great winds that froze Cocytus. Teardrops fell from his six eyes; in each
+mouth he was crunching a sinner, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius.
+
+Being warned by Vergil that it was time to depart, Dante clasped his guide
+around his neck, and Vergil began to climb down the huge monster until
+they reached his middle, the centre of gravity, where with much difficulty
+they turned and climbed upward along the subterranean course of Lethe,
+until they again beheld the stars.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PURGATORY.
+
+
+The Purgatory of Dante is situated on a mountain top on the opposite side
+of the earth from Jerusalem, and is surrounded by the western ocean. The
+souls of those who go there collect on the banks of the Tiber, and are
+taken to the mountain in a boat by an angel pilot. The shores of the
+island are covered with the reeds of humility. Around the base of the
+mount dwell the souls that, repenting late, must "expiate each year of
+deferred penitence with thirty years of deferred Purgatory" unless the
+time be shortened by the prayers of their friends on earth. There are
+three stages of this Ante-Purgatory: the first, for those who put off
+conversion through negligence; the second, for those who died by violence
+and repented while dying; the third, for those monarchs who were too much
+absorbed in earthly greatness to give much thought to the world to come.
+The ascent of the terraces, as also those of Purgatory proper, is very
+difficult, and is not allowed to be made after sunset. The gate of St.
+Peter separates Ante-Purgatory from Purgatory proper. Three steps, the
+first of polished white marble, the second of purple, rough and cracked,
+and the third of blood-red porphyry, signifying confession, contrition,
+and penance, lead to the gate where sits the angel clad in a penitential
+robe, with the gold and silver keys with which to unlock the outer and
+inner gates. Purgatory proper consists of seven terraces, in each of which
+one of the seven capital sins, Pride, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and
+Lasciviousness are punished; Pride first, because no other sin can be
+purged from the body until this deepest sin is eliminated. The soul,
+cleansed of these sins, mounts to the terrestrial paradise, which, above
+the sphere of air, crowns the Mount of Purgatory.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PURGATORY.
+
+
+As morning dawned and the poets slowly climbed out of the infernal region
+and stepped upon the isle from which the Mount of Purgatory rises, they
+were accosted by an old man with long white hair and beard, Cato of Utica,
+who demanded the reason of their coming, and only permitted them to remain
+when he heard that a lady from Heaven had given the command. Then he
+ordered Vergil to lave the smoke of Hell from Dante's face in the waves of
+the sea, and to gird him with the reed of humility. As the sun rose a
+radiant angel, guiding a boat laden with souls, appeared, and the poets
+fell on their knees until he departed.
+
+As the newly-landed spirits questioned Vergil of the way up the mountain,
+Dante recognized among them his beloved friend Casella, the musician, and
+tried in vain to embrace his spirit body. At Dante's request, Casella
+began to sing, and the enchanted spirits were scattered only by the
+chiding voice of Cato.
+
+Vergil surveyed the insurmountable height before them, and hastened with
+Dante to inquire the way of a troop of souls coming towards them. As they
+talked, Dante recognized one, blond and smiling, with a gash over one
+eyebrow and another over his heart. It was Manfredi, King of Apulia and
+Sicily, who was slain at Benevento by Charles of Anjou, and, being under
+excommunication, was not allowed Christian burial. He asked Dante to make
+him happy by telling his daughter that by faith he was saved from eternal
+destruction, but because of his sins he must spend thirty times the time
+that his presumption had endured at the foot of the mount, unless his time
+was shortened by the righteous prayers of his friends on earth.
+
+It was with the greatest difficulty that the poets clambered up the steep
+and narrow path to the next terrace, and only the assurance that the
+ascent would grow easier as he neared the summit sustained Dante. As
+Vergil explained to him while resting on the next terrace that the sun
+appeared on his left because Purgatory and Jerusalem were in different
+hemispheres, some one spoke, and turning they saw a group of persons in an
+attitude of indolence, among them a Florentine acquaintance, Belacqua, a
+maker of musical instruments, who sat waiting the length of another
+lifetime for admission above because he had postponed conversion from time
+to time, through negligence.
+
+Proceeding, the poets met a concourse of souls who had suffered violent
+death, chanting the Miserere, who perceiving Dante to be living, sent
+messages to their friends on earth. Among these were Giacopo del Cassero
+and Buonconte di Montefeltro, son of Dante's friend, Guido di Montefeltro,
+who fell in the battle of Campaldino, in which Dante had taken part.
+Wounded in the neck, he fell, and had just time to breathe a prayer to
+Mary, thus saving his soul from the Evil One, who was so incensed that,
+raising a great storm, he caused the rivers to overflow and sweep away the
+lifeless body, tearing from it the cross he had made with his arms in his
+last agony, and burying it in the mire of the Arno. The third shade bade
+him think of her when, returned home, he sang of his journey. She was Pia,
+born at Sienna, who died at Maremma, by the hand of her husband.
+
+Dante at last managed to escape from these shades, who implored him to ask
+for prayers for them on earth, and moved on with Vergil until they met the
+haughty shade of Sordello, who clasped Vergil in his arms when he learned
+he was a Mantuan. Touched by this expression of love for his native land,
+Dante launched into an apostrophe to degenerate Italy, to that German
+Albert who refused to save the country groaning under oppression, and to
+lost Florence, torn by internecine wars.
+
+When Sordello learned that the Mantuan shade was Vergil, he humbled
+himself before him, and paid him reverence, asking eagerly in what part of
+the underworld he dwelt. The sun was sinking, and as the poets could not
+ascend by night, he urged them to pass the night with him. Leading them to
+a vale carpeted with emerald grass and brilliant with flowers, he pointed
+out the shades singing "Salve Regina" as the Emperor Rudolph,--he who made
+an effort to heal sick Italy,--Philip III. of France, Charles I. of
+Naples, and Henry III. of England. As the hour of twilight approached,
+that hour in which the sailor thinks of home, and the pilgrim thrills at
+the sound of vesper bells, Dante beheld a shade arise, and lifting its
+palms begin to sing the vesper hymn. Soon two radiant angels clad in
+delicate green descended from Heaven, holding flaming swords. These,
+Sordello explained, were to keep off the serpent that threatened this fair
+vale at night.
+
+As the hour of night approached in which the swallow laments its woes,
+Dante fell asleep on the grass and dreamed that he was Ganymede snatched
+from Mt. Ida by Jove's eagle. Awaking, he found himself alone with Vergil
+in a strange place, with the sun two hours high. Lucia, symbolical of the
+enlightening grace of Heaven, had conveyed him to the spot and pointed out
+to Vergil the gate of Purgatory. Cheered and confident, he rose, and they
+went together to the portal and mounted the three steps, the first of
+shining white marble, the second of purple stone, cracked and burnt, and
+the third of flaming red porphyry. There, on the diamond threshold, sat an
+angel with a naked sword, clad in a robe of ashen gray, whose face was too
+bright to look upon. When Dante fell on his knees and implored entrance,
+the angel imprinted on his forehead seven "P"'s for the seven sins
+(Peccata), and opening the gate with the gold and silver keys, ushered
+them into the mighty portals. "From Peter I have these keys. Me he
+instructed to err rather in opening than in keeping shut. But see that ye
+look not behind, or ye will at once return."
+
+With much difficulty the two poets ascended the steep and winding path,
+and paused to view the wonderful sculptures on the embankment, that would
+put Nature herself to shame, so natural were they. Many examples of
+Humility were there portrayed,--the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ark, drawn by
+oxen, the Psalmist dancing before the Lord, while Michal looked forth in
+scorn from her palace window, and Trajan, yielding to the widow's prayer.
+As they stood there, the souls came in sight. "Reader, attend not to the
+fashion of the torment, but think of what follows." The unhappy ones crept
+around the terrace, bowed under a heavy burden of stones, and the most
+patient, as he bent under his burden, exclaimed, with tears, "I can do no
+more!" As they walked they repeated the Lord's Prayer, and kept their eyes
+fixed on the life-like sculptures on the floor of those who had suffered
+before them for the sins of pride: Lucifer, falling from Heaven; Briareus
+and Nimrod overcome by the bolts of Jove; Niobe, weeping among her dead
+children; Cyrus's head taunted by Tomyris; Troy humbled in ashes.
+
+As Vergil approached the penitents to inquire the way to the next terrace,
+he and Dante were invited to join the procession and talk with one who
+could not lift his face enough to see them. This was Omberto, who had been
+slain by the Siennese for his unbearable pride. Dante also talked with his
+friend Oderigi, an illuminator of manuscript, who now humbly acknowledged
+that he was far surpassed by Franco Bolognese. "What is mundane glory?" he
+exclaimed, as he pointed out Provenzano Salvani, with whose fame Tuscany
+once rang, but who barely escaped Hell by his voluntary humiliation for a
+friend. "Lift up thy face!" commanded Vergil, as Dante walked with his
+head bowed, absorbed in the floor-sculptures; and as he looked, the
+white-robed angel whose face was like "a tremulous flame" approached, and
+struck Dante's forehead with his wings. Dante marvelled at the ease with
+which he mounted, until his master explained that the heaviest sin, the
+sin that underlies all others, had fallen from him when the angel struck
+the "P" from his forehead, and that the ascent would grow still lighter
+from terrace to terrace. "Blessed are the poor in spirit!" sung by sweet
+voices, greeted the mounting poets.
+
+The second terrace was of livid stone unrelieved by any sculpture. The air
+was full of voices inculcating charity and self-denial, and others
+lamenting the sin of envy. Here envy was punished, and here the sharpest
+pain pierced Dante's heart as he saw the penitents sit shoulder to
+shoulder against the cliff, robed in sackcloth of the same livid color,
+their eyelids, through which bitter tears trickled, sewed together with
+wire. Sapia of Sienna first greeted Dante and entreated him to pray for
+her. When she had told how, after having been banished from her city, she
+had prayed that her townsman might be defeated by the Florentines, Dante
+passed on and spoke with Guido of Duca, who launched into an invective
+against Florence to his companion Rinieri. "The whole valley of the Arno
+is so vile that its very name should die. Wonder not at my tears, Tuscan,
+when I recall the great names of the past, and compare them with the curs
+who have fallen heir to them. Those counts are happiest who have left no
+families." Guido himself was punished on this terrace because of his envy
+of every joyous man, and the spirit with whom he talked was Rinieri, whose
+line had once been highly honored. "Go, Tuscan," exclaimed Guido, "better
+now I love my grief than speech." As the poets passed on, the air was
+filled with the lamentations of sinful but now repentant spirits.
+
+Dazzled by the Angel's splendor, the poets passed up the stairs to the
+third terrace, Dante in the mean time asking an explanation of Guido's
+words on joint resolve and trust.
+
+"The less one thinks of another's possessions," replied his guide, "and
+the more he speaks of 'our' instead of 'my,' the more of the Infinite Good
+flows towards him. If you thirst for further instruction, await the coming
+of Beatrice."
+
+As they attained the next height, Dante, rapt in vision, saw the sweet
+Mother questioning her Son in the Temple, saw Pisistratus, his queen, and
+the martyred Stephen blessing his enemies in death. As he awoke, they
+passed on, to become involved in a thick cloud of smoke, through which it
+was impossible to distinguish any object, and whose purpose was to purge
+away anger, the sin-cloud that veils the mortal eye.
+
+As they passed from the thick smoke into the sunset, Dante fell into a
+trance, and saw Itys, Haman, and other notable examples of unbridled
+angers, and as the visions faded away, was blinded by the splendor of the
+angel guide who directed them to the fourth terrace. As they waited for
+the dawn, Vergil answered Dante's eager questions. "Love," he said, "is
+the seed of every virtue, and also of every act for which God punished
+man. Natural love is without error; but if it is bent on evil aims, if it
+lacks sufficiency, or if it overleaps its bounds and refuses to be
+governed by wise laws, it causes those sins that are punished on this
+mount. The defective love which manifests itself as slothfulness is
+punished on this terrace."
+
+A troop of spirits rushed past them as morning broke, making up by their
+haste for the sloth that had marked their lives on earth. As they hurried
+on they urged themselves to diligence by cries of "In haste the mountains
+blessed Mary won!" "Caesar flew to Spain!" "Haste! Grace grows best in
+those who ardor feel!" As the poet meditated on their words, he lapsed
+into a dream in which he saw the Siren who drew brave mariners from their
+courses; and even as he listened to her melodious song, he beheld her
+exposed by a saint-like lady, Lucia, or Illuminating Grace. Day dawned,
+the Angel fanned the fourth "P" from his forehead, and the poet ascended
+to the fifth terrace, where lay the shades of the avaricious, prostrate on
+the earth, weeping over their sins. They who in life had resolutely turned
+their gaze from Heaven and fixed it on the things of the earth, must now
+grovel in the dust, denouncing avarice, and extolling the poor and liberal
+until the years have worn away their sin.
+
+Bending over Pope Adrian the Fifth, Dante heard his confession that he was
+converted while he held the Roman shepherd's staff. Then he learned how
+false a dream was life, but too late, alas! to escape this punishment. As
+Dante spoke with the shade of Capet the elder, a mighty trembling shook
+the mountain, which chilled his heart until he learned from the shade of
+Statius, whom they next met, that it was caused by the moving upward of a
+purified soul, his own, that had been undergoing purgation on this terrace
+five hundred years and more. "Statius was I," said the shade, "and my
+inspiration came from that bright fountain of heavenly fire, the Aeneid;
+it was my mother; to it I owe my fame. Gladly would I have added a year to
+my banishment here, could I have known the Mantuan." Vergil's glance said
+"Be mute!" but Dante's smile betrayed the secret, and Statius fell at
+Vergil's feet adoring. Statius had suffered for the sin of prodigality,
+which was punished, together with avarice, on this terrace.
+
+The three proceeded upward to the sixth terrace, the ascent growing easier
+on the disappearance of the "P" of avarice from Dante's forehead. Vergil
+and Statius moved on in loving conversation, Dante reverently following.
+"Your Pollio led me to Christianity," said Statius, "but my cowardice
+caused me long to conceal it. Prodigality brought me hither."
+
+On the sixth terrace two trees stood in opposite parts of the pathway that
+the gluttons were compelled to tread, the first with branches broad at the
+top and tapering downward, so that it was impossible to mount it; upon it
+fell a fount of limpid water. From its branches a voice cried, "Of this
+food ye shall have a scarcity. In the primal age, acorns furnished sweet
+food and each rivulet seemed nectar." Towards the next tree, grown from a
+twig of the tree of knowledge, the gluttons stretched eager hands, but a
+voice cried, "Pass on; approach not!" Such desire for food was excited by
+these tempting fruits, that the gluttons were emaciated beyond
+recognition. By his voice alone did Dante recognize his kinsman Forese,
+whose time in Purgatory had been shortened by the prayers of his wife
+Nella. Forese talked with Dante for a while on the affairs of Florence,
+and predicted the fall of his brother Corso Donati.
+
+The dazzling splendor of the angel of the seventh terrace warned them of
+his approach, and, lightened of one more "P," Dante and his companions
+climbed to where two bands of spirits, lascivious on earth, moved through
+paths of purifying flames, stopping as they passed to greet each other,
+and singing penitential hymns. Here, Statius explained to Dante why the
+shades of the sixth terrace were lean from want of food when they
+possessed no longer their physical bodies. "After death the soul keeps its
+memory, intelligence, and will more active than before, and as soon as it
+reaches either the banks of Acheron or the Tiber, a shade form is attached
+to it which acquires the soul's semblance, and has every sense given it,
+even that of sight."
+
+Guido Guinicelli, from out the flame-furnace, explained to Dante the
+punishments of the terrace: "Thus are our base appetites burned out that
+we may enjoy future happiness," and Arnaud the Troubadour, hating his past
+follies, weeping and singing, implored Dante's prayers. It was only by
+telling him that the fire lay between him and Beatrice that Vergil
+prevailed on Dante to walk into the flames, which, though they tortured
+him by the intensity of their heat, did not consume even his garments. As
+they left the fire, the sun was setting, and they passed the night on the
+steps of the next terrace, Statius and Vergil watching Dante as the
+goatherds watch their flocks. In a dream the sleeping poet saw Leah,
+symbolical of the active life, in contrast to her sister Rachel, of
+contemplative life. On waking, Vergil told him that he would accompany him
+further, but not as a guide; henceforth his own free will must lead him.
+"Crowned, mitred, now thyself thou 'lt rule aright."
+
+Dense green were the heavenly woodlands of the terrestrial paradise; sweet
+were the bird songs, as sweet the songs of the whispering foliage; and on
+the pleasant mead, beyond the dimpling waters of a stream so small that
+three paces would span it, walked a beautiful lady, Matilda, gathering
+flowers and singing an enchanting melody. At Dante's request, she came
+nearer, and explained to him that God had created the terrestrial paradise
+from which man was banished by his fault alone. To vex him it was raised
+to this height. Its atmosphere was not that of the earth below, but given
+it from the free sphere of ether. Here every plant had its origin; here
+each river had its virtue; Lethe destroyed the memory of sin; Eunoë
+restored to the mind the memory of things good.
+
+As they talked, Hosannas were heard, and in the greatest splendor appeared
+the Car of the Church Triumphant. First came the seven golden
+candlesticks; following them, many people in resplendent white garments;
+next, the four and twenty elders, lily crowned--the twenty-four books of
+the Old Testament--singing to Beatrice "O blessed Thou!" Then four
+six-winged, many-eyed living creatures described both by Ezekiel and John
+surrounded the massive car drawn by the Gryphon, emblem of our Lord in his
+divine and human nature, white, gold, and vermilion-hued, part lion, part
+eagle, whose wings pierced the heavens.
+
+Three maidens, red, emerald, and white, the Theological Virtues, Faith,
+Hope, and Charity, danced at the right wheel of the car; four clad in
+purple, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, walked at the left
+wheel. With them came two old men, Luke and Paul; then four together,
+James, Peter, John, and Jude, and last an aged man walking in slumber,
+Saint John, writer of the Revelation. These last were crowned with red
+roses and other tinted flowers. With a crash as of thunder, the car
+stopped before Dante, and a hundred angels, chanting, showered on it roses
+and lilies. In the midst of the shower, Beatrice descended, clad in a
+crimson robe, with a green mantle and a white veil, and crowned with an
+olive wreath. Thrilling with his ancient love, Dante turned to Vergil to
+sustain him, but Vergil was gone. As he looked again, her eyes, less
+severe from the veil that enveloped her, were fixed on him as she rebuked
+him, and he was sustained only by the compassion in the sweet voices of
+the angels, which soothed him until the tears rained down his cheeks.
+
+After her death, when she had arisen from flesh to spirit, Beatrice
+complained that her influence was dimmed, and that he had sought such
+depths that she had been compelled to go to the gates of hell to implore
+Vergil to bring him hither that he might learn his future sufferings if he
+did not repent. As he answered her, blaming the things that had led him
+aside with joys deceitful, he tried to gaze into her eyes, but stung with
+penitential thorns, fell senseless to the ground. Matilda, who stood by,
+seized him and plunged him into the river Lethe, that he might forget his
+past sin. Dripping, he was given to the four lovely maidens, who led him
+before Beatrice that he might look into her eyes, fixed on the Gryphon. A
+thousand longings held him fast while, "weary from ten years' thirsting,"
+he gazed upon her lovely eyes, now unveiled in their full splendor.
+Reproached at last by the seven virtues for his too intent gaze, Dante
+watched the car move on to the Tree of Knowledge, to which its pole was
+attached by the Gryphon. Dante, lulled to sleep by the hymn, was aroused
+by Matilda, who pointed out to him the radiant Beatrice, sitting under a
+tree surrounded by the bright forms of her attendants. The other
+attendants of the car had followed the Gryphon to the skies.
+
+"Observe the car," said Beatrice, "and write what thou hast seen when thou
+returnest home." As she spoke, the car was attacked in turn by the eagle
+of persecution, the fox of heresy, and the dragon of Islamism; these
+driven away, it was disturbed by inward dissensions, the alliance between
+Boniface and Philip the Fair.
+
+Rising, Beatrice called Dante, Statius, and Matilda to her, and as they
+walked upon that pleasant mead, she asked Dante the meaning of his
+continued silence. She explained the attacks on the chariot to him, but he
+declared that he could not understand her language. Then, at Beatrice's
+nod, Matilda called him and Statius, and plunged them into Eunoë, whence
+he rose regenerate, and prepared to mount to the stars.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PARADISE.
+
+
+The Paradise of Dante consists of nine heavens, each a revolving
+crystalline sphere, enclosed in another; without them, the boundless
+Empyrean. The first or innermost heaven, of the Moon, revolved by the
+angels, is the habitat of wills imperfect through instability. The second,
+of Mercury, revolved by the Archangels, is the abode of wills imperfect
+through love of fame. The third, of Venus, revolved by the Principalities,
+is the abode of wills imperfect through excess of human love. The fourth,
+of the Sun, revolved by the Powers, is the abode of the great intellectual
+lights, the doctors of the Church. The fifth heaven, of Mars, revolved by
+the Virtues, is the abode of the martyrs, warriors, and confessors, and is
+sacred to the Faith. The sixth, of Jupiter, revolved by the Dominations,
+is inhabited by just rulers. The seventh, of Saturn, revolved by the
+Thrones, is inhabited by monks and hermits. The eighth, of the Fixed
+Stars, revolved by the Cherubim, is inhabited by the apostles and saints.
+The ninth, or Primum Mobile, revolved by the Seraphim, is the abode of the
+moral philosophers. These abodes, however, are not real, but
+representative, to illustrate the differences in glory of the inhabitants
+of Paradise, for the real seat of each is in the Rose of the Blessed. In
+the heavens, the saints appear swathed in cocoons of light; in the Rose
+they are seen in their own forms. They know all because they behold God
+continually. In the Empyrean is the Rose of the Blessed, whose myriad
+leaves form the thrones of the spirits, and whose centre of light is the
+Father himself. Dividing the Rose horizontally, the lower thrones are held
+by those who died in infancy; among them are varying degrees of glory.
+Above it, are those who died adults. Supposing a vertical division, the
+thrones to the left are for those who looked forward to Christ's coming;
+those to the right, not yet all occupied, by those who died after Christ's
+coming. Along the division lines are the holy women, the Virgin, Eve,
+Rachel, Beatrice, Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth, Saint Anne and Saint
+Lucia, and the saints, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Adam, Moses,
+Saint Francis, Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine, Saint Peter, and in the
+midst, the Everlasting Glory of the Universe, whose light so fills the
+Rose that "naught can form an obstacle against it."
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PARADISE.
+
+
+The ascent to Paradise was accomplished by a fixed gaze into Beatrice's
+eyes, by which Dante, like Glaucus, was made divine, and by which he was
+lifted, with incredible swiftness, through the heavens. As soon as he had
+fixed his eyes on Beatrice's, who in turn looked towards heaven, they
+found themselves in the Heaven of the Moon, whose luminous yet pearl-like
+light enfolded them. While Beatrice was explaining to him that the spots
+on the moon were not caused by the varying degrees of atmospheric density,
+as he had supposed, but by the Divine Virtue infused in divine measure
+through the angelic dwellers in the first heaven, he met Piccarda, his
+sister-in-law, whose brother, Corso Donati, had torn her from her convent
+to wed her to Rosselin della Tosa, soon after which she died. Here also
+was Costanza, daughter of Roger I. of Sicily, grandmother of that Manfredi
+whom he had seen in Purgatory. Here Beatrice instructed Dante as to the
+imperfection of those wills that held not to their vows, but allowed
+violence to thwart them.
+
+Another look into the smiling eyes, and the two were in the Heaven of
+Mercury, where those wills abide in whom love of fame partly extinguished
+love of God. One of the thousand splendors that advanced towards them was
+the soul of the Emperor Justinian, who reviewed the Empire, the Church,
+condemning severely the behavior of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and told
+of the spirits who inhabited the little planet, whose lives were sweetened
+by living justice, and whose ears were gladdened by the sweetest
+harmonies.
+
+Dante was unaware of his ascent into, Venus, where dwelt those souls who
+were lovers on earth, until he perceived Beatrice's added beauty. Amid
+revolving lights Charles Martel of Hungary appeared, denounced his brother
+Robert of Sicily, and instructed Dante on the subjects of heredity and
+degeneracy; that "sweet seed can come bitter" because the influence of the
+star under which the child is born can counteract that of the parent, and
+because his state is not always adapted to him by his parents and
+advisers.
+
+In the sphere of the Sun, consecrated to the great doctors of divinity,
+Beatrice became still more beautiful; but so absorbed was the poet in the
+love for the Eternal Source of all this splendor that for the first time
+he forgot her. Out of the whirling lights, shining like precious jewels,
+came Saint Thomas Aquinas, who pointed out to Dante his noted companions,
+Gratian, Peter Lombard, Solomon, Dionysius, Boethius, and Baeda. Thomas
+then related the story of Saint Francis of Assisi and the founding of his
+order of the Franciscans, upon which Saint Bonaventura of the Franciscans,
+from the next flame garland, told of Saint Dominic and the Dominican
+order. Alas! while both orders were great in the beginning, both narrators
+had to censure their present corruption.
+
+The array of brilliant lights, dividing itself, formed into two disks
+which, revolving oppositely, sang the praises of the Trinity. The song of
+praise finished, Saint Thomas explained that Solomon was elevated to this
+sphere for his wisdom and his regal prudence, and warned Dante against the
+error of rash judgment.
+
+The splendor of Mars was almost blinding; it was ruddier than the others,
+and in it dwelt the souls of the crusaders and martyrs. While Dante's ears
+were ravished by exquisite music, his eyes were dazzled by the lights,
+which had arranged themselves in the form of a cross. From out the
+splendor, one star saluted Dante. It was the soul of his ancestor
+Cacciaguida, who had waited long for the coming of his descendant. He
+related to Dante the story of his life, commenting on the difference
+between the simple life of the Florentines of his day and the corrupt
+practices of Dante's time, and broke to the poet what had already been
+darkly hinted to him in Hell and Purgatory,--his banishment; how he must
+depart from Florence and learn how salt is the bread of charity, how
+wearisome the stairs in the abode of the stranger.
+
+As Cacciaguida ceased and pointed out the other well-known dwellers in
+Mars, each one on the cross flashed as his name was called,--Joshua, Judas
+Maccabeus, Charlemagne and Roland, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert Guiscard,
+and others.
+
+In Jupiter, whose whiteness contrasted with the ruddiness of Mars, dwelt
+the souls of great rulers, certain of whom arranged themselves first to
+form the golden letters of _Diligite Justitiam qui judicatis terram_
+("Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth"), and then formed
+themselves into the Roman eagle and sang of the justice and mercy that
+caused their elevation to this position, and of events about to occur in
+history.
+
+Had Beatrice smiled as they ascended to Saturn, Dante would have perished
+as did Semele, from excess of light. In Saturn dwelt the spirits of the
+contemplative, the monks and hermits, and here was Jacob's ladder, up and
+down whose bars of gold sparkled the spirits of the saints, silent for the
+same reason that Beatrice smiled not. By divine election, Saint Peter
+Damian descended and spoke with Dante, accusing the churchmen of the time
+of worldliness and luxury. "Cephas and our Lord came on earth barefoot and
+poorly clad, but these men are covered with gorgeous raiment and ride upon
+sleek palfreys." As he closed, a thunder cry of approval went up from the
+other saints.
+
+Up the wonderful ladder passed Dante and his lady into the eighth heaven
+of the Fixed Stars, and looking down saw the little earth and the starry
+heavens through which they had passed. Then, as Beatrice paused with her
+face all aflame, and her eyes full of ecstasy, down came the hosts of
+Christ's triumphal march, and within the living light, which dazzled
+Dante's eyes until he could not see, also appeared Mary, mother of God,
+crowned by Gabriel, rising into the Empyrean. Of those who remained
+behind, Beatrice asked that Dante be sprinkled with the waters of the
+living Fountain; and while they gave their consent, Saint Peter appeared
+as a fire whirling ecstatically, and singing a divine song. He examined
+the trembling poet on faith, and his questions being answered
+satisfactorily, encircled him thrice with his light. Saint James, who next
+came forth, was likewise pleased with his response on Hope, and he was
+then blinded by the effulgence of John, so that for a time he could not
+see the face of his lady.
+
+Of Love he spoke with John, and then talked with Adam. As he listened to
+the strains of richest melody, he noticed one of the lights--Saint
+Peter--change from white to red, and then, as silence fell, speak, enraged
+at the worldliness of the Holy See. "My cemetery has been made a sewer of
+blood and stench. When thou returnest to earth, reveal what thou hast
+heard. Do not thou conceal what I have not concealed."
+
+Commanded by Beatrice, Dante looked back at earth once more, and as he
+looked, was carried up into the heaven of the Primum Mobile, where dwelt
+the moral philosophers. Here the angelic spirits circled round the point
+of intense light, the divine centre. The nearer God was the circle, the
+greater virtue it possessed. This order was inverse to that of the
+heavens, but Dante learned from Beatrice that the orbs revolved through
+narrow paths or wide according to the virtue of their parts, and that a
+strict agreement of harmony prevailed between the great and the small. The
+angel and the heavens were created simultaneously, and, as direct
+emanations from God, know no decay. Of this and many things concerning the
+Creation, did Beatrice enlighten Dante before the beauty of her smile told
+him that they were in the Empyrean. "Now shall thou look upon the mighty
+hosts of Paradise."
+
+The poet's dazzled eyes saw then a river of light from which issued living
+sparks sunk down into the flowers like rubies set in gold. Instructed by
+Beatrice he drank of the stream and the river changed into a lake; then he
+saw the Courts of Heaven made manifest, and the splendor of God. The ample
+Rose unfolded its leaves before him, breathing praise and perfume, and as
+he gazed into it Beatrice pointed out the radiant spirits and the thronged
+seats, one of which was reserved for the Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, from
+whom Dante expected so much, and who died before aught was accomplished.
+As Dante gazed, the hosts with wings of gold and faces of living flame,
+singing anthems, alternately sank into the Rose, like a swarm of bees
+sinking into summer flowers, and rose again to view the Divine splendor.
+Turning to question Beatrice again, Dante found in her place Saint Bernard
+of Clairvaux, an old man full of the tenderest pity, who pointed out to
+him Beatrice in her own place, the third round of the first rank. As from
+afar, Dante pleaded with the beautiful lady who had left her place in
+heaven to go even unto the gates of hell for his sake, to aid him still;
+she seemed to smile upon him before she again turned her gaze upon the
+Eternal Fountain of Light. Saint Bernard explained to the poet the
+divisions of the Rose and the seats of the saints, and then addressed a
+prayer to the Virgin, asking that Dante be permitted to look upon the
+Almighty Father. As he prayed, Beatrice and all the blessed ones clasped
+their hands to her who likes so well prayers of divine fervor. At a
+gesture from Bernard, the poet looked upward. Then what a radiant vision
+met his eyes! Three circles he saw of threefold color and one dimension.
+As he looked, one seemed to take our image, and again was lost in the
+infinite glory of the Light Divine. As he tried to describe it,
+imagination failed him, though his will remained, moving on with the even
+motion of the sun and stars.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+COUNT UGOLINO.
+
+
+In the frozen lake of Cocytus in the ninth circle of the Inferno, where
+were punished the traitors to kindred, country, friends, or benefactors,
+the poets beheld Count Ugolino, a Guelph, who, because of his treachery,
+was taken prisoner by the people with his sons and grandsons and thrust
+into a tower, where they were left to starve. Ugolino was frozen in the
+ice, where he forever gnawed the head of the Archbishop Ruggieri, his
+enemy. At the request of Dante he stopped to tell his story.
+
+                 "Thy will 'tis I renew
+    A desperate sorrow that doth crush my heart
+    Even before my lips its tale impart.
+  But if my words may be a seed that, sowed,
+    Shall fruit of infamy to this traitor bear,
+    Then, though I weep, speech too shall be my care.
+
+  "Who thou may'st be I know not, nor what mode
+    Hath brought thee here below, but then I glean,
+    From words of thine, thou art a Florentine.
+  That I Count Ugolino was, know thou,
+    And this the Archbishop Ruggieri. Why
+    I will thee tell we are such neighbors nigh.
+  Needs not to say that him I did allow
+    A friend's own trusts, but so his treachery wrought;
+    That first my liberty, then my life, it sought.
+
+  "But that which thou canst not have hitherto learned
+    That is, how cruel was my death, I thee
+    Will tell; judge thou if he offended me.
+  Within the Mew, a tower which well hath earned
+    From me its name of Famine, and where wrath
+    Yet others waits, a narrow opening hath,
+  Through which of several moons the broken light
+    Had strayed, when unto me in sleep was sent
+    A dream whereby the future's veil was rent.
+
+  "This ill dream me this man set forth in might:
+    He wolf and whelps upon those mounts pursued
+    Which Pisa 'twixt and Lucca's domes obtrude.
+  Hounds had he with him, lank and shrewd and keen,
+    And in their front Gualandi's sword had place,
+    Sismondi's lash and sour Lanfranchi's mace.
+  Father and sons' undoing soon was seen;
+    Methought the sharp fangs on them closed, and tore
+    Their flanks, which now the hue of crimson wore.
+
+  "Before the dawn I woke and heard my sons,
+    The helpless children with me, in their sleep,
+    Cry out for bread, cries pushed from sobbings deep.
+  Right cruel art thou, if not e'en now runs
+    To tears thy grief at what my heart forbode,
+    If tears of thine at misery's tale e'er flowed.
+  And then they woke, and came the hour around
+    Which had been wont our scanty meal to bring;
+    But from our dreams dumb terrors seemed to spring;
+
+  "When from below we heard the dreadful sound
+    Of nails; the horrible tower was closed; all dumb
+    I let my gaze into my sons' eyes come.
+  Weep I did not, like stone my feelings lay.
+    They wept, and spoke my little Anselm: 'Pray
+    Why lookest so? Father, what ails thee, say?'
+  Shed I no tear, nor answered all that day
+    Nor the next night, until another sun
+    His journey through the wide world had begun.
+
+  "Then came a small ray into our sad, sad den,
+    And when in their four faces I beheld
+    That carking grief which mine own visage held,
+  Mine hands for grief I bit, and they, who then
+    Deemed that I did it from desire to eat,
+    Stood up each one at once upon his feet,
+  And said: 'Father, 'twill give us much less pain
+    If thou wilt eat of us: of thee was born
+    This hapless flesh, and be it by thee torn.'
+
+  "Myself I calmed that they might not so grieve;
+    Mute that day and the next we were; O thou
+    Most cruel earth, that didst not open now!
+  When we the fourth day's agony did receive
+    Stretched at my feet himself my Gaddo threw,
+    And said: 'My father, canst thou nothing do?'
+  There died he, and, as now sees me thy sight,
+    The three I saw fall one by one; first died
+    One on the fifth; deaths two the sixth me tried.
+
+  "Then blind, I groped o'er them to left and right,
+    And for three days called on their spirits dead;
+    Then grief before the power of fasting fled."
+             _Wilstach's Translation, Inferno. Canto XXXIII._
+
+
+
+
+BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO.
+
+
+On the second terrace of the Ante-Purgatory, on the Purgatorial Mount,
+were the spirits of those whose lives were ended by violence. Among those
+who here addressed Dante was Buonconte di Montefeltro, who was slain in
+the battle of Campaldino, and whose body was never found.
+
+  Another then: "Ah, be thy cherished aim
+    Attained that to the lofty Mount thee draws,
+    As thou with pity shalt advance my cause.
+  Of Montefeltro I Buonconte am;
+    Giovanna, and she only, for me cares;
+    Hence among those am I whom waiting wears."
+
+  "What violence or what chance led thee so wide
+    From Campaldino," I of him inquired,
+    "That's still unknown thy burial-place retired?"
+  "Oh, Casentino's foot," he thus replied,
+    "Archiano's stream o'erflows, which hath its rise
+    Above the Hermitage under Apennine skies.
+  There where its name is lost did I arrive,
+    Pierced through and through the throat, in flight,
+    Upon the plain made with my life-blood bright;
+
+  "There sight I lost, and did for speech long strive;
+    At last I uttered Mary's name, and fell
+    A lifeless form, mine empty flesh a shell.
+  Truth will I speak, below do thou it hymn;
+    Took me God's Angel up, and he of Hell
+    Cried out: 'O thou from Heaven, thou doest well
+  To rob from me the eternal part of him
+    For one poor tear, that me of him deprives;
+    In other style I'll deal with other lives!'
+
+  "Well know'st thou how in air is gathered dim
+    That humid vapor which to water turns
+    Soon as the cold its rising progress learns.
+  The fiend that ill-will joined (which aye seeks ill)
+    To intellectual power, which mist and wind
+    Moved by control which faculties such can find,
+  And afterwards, when the day was spent, did fill
+    The space from Protomagno to where tower
+    The Mounts with fog; and high Heaven's covering power
+
+  "The pregnant atmosphere moist to water changed.
+    Down fell the rain, and to the ditches fled,
+    Whate'er of it the soil's thirst had not sped;
+  And, as it with the mingling torrents ranged
+    Towards the royal river, so it flowed
+    That over every obstacle wild it rode.
+  The robust river found my stiffened frame
+    Near to its outlet, and it gave a toss
+    To Arno, loosening from my breast the cross
+
+  "I made of me when agony me o'ercame;
+    Along his banks and bottoms he me lapped,
+    Then in his muddy spoils he me enwrapped."
+           _Wilstach's Translation, Purgatorio, Canto V._
+
+
+
+
+BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN.
+
+
+Dante and Vergil mounted to the Terrestial Paradise, where, while they
+talked with Matilda, the Car of the Church Triumphant appeared in the
+greatest splendor. As it stopped before Dante it was enveloped in a shower
+of roses from the hands of a hundred angels.
+
+  I have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale,
+    The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen,
+    And all the opposite heaven one gem serene,
+  And the uprising sun, beneath such powers
+    Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye
+    For a long space its fiery shield could try:
+
+  E'en so, embosomed in a cloud of flowers,
+    Which from those hands angelical upward played,
+    And roseate all the car triumphal made,
+  And showered a snow-white veil with olive bound,
+    Appeared a Lady, green her mantle, name
+    Could not describe her robe unless 't were flame.
+  And mine own spirit, which the past had found
+    Often within her presence, free from awe,
+    And which could never from me trembling draw,
+  And sight no knowledge giving me at this time,
+    Through hidden virtue which from her came forth,
+    Of ancient love felt now the potent worth.
+  As soon as on my vision smote sublime
+    The heavenly influence that, ere boyhood's days
+    Had fled, had thrilled me and awoke my praise,
+  Unto the leftward turned I, with that trust
+    Wherewith a little child his mother seeks,
+    When fear his steps controls, and tear-stained cheeks,
+
+  To say to Vergil: "All my blood such gust
+    Of feeling moves as doth man's bravery tame;
+    I feel the traces of the ancient flame."
+            _Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._
+
+
+
+
+THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF BEATRICE.
+
+
+While Dante and Beatrice rose from the Heaven of Primal Motion to the
+Empyrean, the poet turned his dazzled eyes from the heavens, whose sight
+he could no longer bear, to the contemplation of Beatrice.
+
+    Wherefore my love, and loss of other view,
+    Me back to Beatrice and her homage drew.
+  If what of her hath been already said
+    Were in one single eulogy grouped, 't would ill
+    Her meed of merit at this moment fill.
+
+  The beauty which in her I now beheld
+    B'yond mortals goes; her Maker, I believe,
+    Hath power alone its fulness to receive.
+  Myself I own by obstacles stronger spelled
+    Than in his labored theme was ever bard
+    Whose verses, light or grave, brought problems hard;
+  For, as of eyes quelled by the sun's bright burst,
+    E'en so the exquisite memory of that smile
+    Doth me of words and forming mind beguile.
+
+  Not from that day when on this earth I first
+    Her face beheld, up to this moment, song
+    Have I e'er failed to strew her path along,
+  But now I own my limping numbers lame;
+    An artist sometimes finds his powers surpassed,
+    And mine succumbs to beauty's lance at last.
+  And I must leave her to a greater fame
+    Than any that my trumpet gives, which sounds,
+    Now, hastening notes, which mark this labor's bounds.
+            _Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+Ludovico Ariosto, author of the Orlando Furioso was born in Reggio, Italy,
+Sept. 8, 1474. In 1503 he was taken into the service of the Cardinal
+Hippolito d'Este, and soon after began the composition of the Orlando
+Furioso, which occupied him for eleven years. It was published in 1516,
+and brought him immediate fame. Ariosto was so unkindly treated by his
+patron that he left him and entered the service of the cardinal's brother,
+Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. By him he was appointed governor of a province,
+in which position he repressed the banditti by whom it was infested, and
+after a successful administration of three years, returned to Ferrara to
+reside. The latter part of his life was spent in writing comedies and
+satires, and in revising the Orlando Furioso. He died in Ferrara, June 6,
+1533.
+
+The Orlando Furioso is a sequel to Boiardo's Orlando Innamorata, Ariosto
+taking up the story at the end of that poem. Its historical basis is the
+wars of Charlemagne with the Moors, which were probably confused with
+those of Charles Martel. As the Orlando of the poem is the same Roland
+whose fall at Roncesvalles in 778 is celebrated in the Song of Roland, its
+events must have occurred before that time.
+
+Although the poem is called Orlando Furioso, Orlando's madness occupies a
+very small part of it, the principal threads of the story being Orlando's
+love for Angelica and his consequent madness, the wars of Charlemagne, and
+the loves of Bradamant and Rogero. From this Rogero the family of Este
+claimed to be derived, and for this reason Ariosto made Rogero the real
+hero of the poem, and took occasion to lavish the most extravagant praises
+upon his patron and his family.
+
+With these principal threads are interwoven innumerable episodes which are
+not out of place in the epic, and lend variety to a story which would
+otherwise have become tiresome. The lightness of treatment, sometimes
+approaching ridicule, the rapidity of movement, the grace of style, and
+the clearness of language, the atmosphere created by the poet which so
+successfully harmonizes all his tales of magic and his occasional
+inconsistencies, and the excellent descriptions, have all contributed to
+the popularity of the poem, which is said to be the most widely read of
+the epics. These descriptions outweigh its faults,--the taking up the
+story of Boiardo without an explanation of the situation, the lack of
+unity, and the failure to depict character; for with the exception of
+Bradamant and Rogero, Ariosto's heroes and heroines are very much alike,
+and their conversation is exceedingly tiresome.
+
+The Furioso is written in the octave stanza, and originally consisted of
+forty cantos, afterwards increased to forty-six.
+
+The poem is the work of a practical poet, one who could govern a province.
+It is marred by an over-profusion of ornament, and contains no such lofty
+flights of fancy as are to be found in the Jerusalem Delivered. To this,
+no doubt, it owes, in part at least, its great popularity, for the poet's
+poem is never the people's poem.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+Dublin University Magazine, 1845, xxvi., 187-201, 581-601, xxvii., 90-104;
+
+Retrospective Review, 1823, viii., 145-170, ix., 263-291;
+
+William T. Dobson's Classic Poets, 1879, pp. 186-238;
+
+Leigh Hunt's Stories from the Italian Poets, n. d. vol. ii., pp. 134-151;
+
+William Hickling Prescott's Italian Narrative Poetry. (See his
+Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, 1873, pp. 441-454);
+
+M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
+Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 1835, pp. 239-255. (In Lardner's Cabinet
+Cyclopedia, vol. i.);
+
+John Addington Symonds's Italian Literature, 1888, vol. i., pp. 493-522,
+vol. ii. pp. 1-50.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+Orlando Furioso, Tr. from the Italian by Sir James Harrington, 1724;
+
+Orlando Furioso, Tr. by John Hoole, 1819;
+
+Orlando Furioso, Tr. into English verse by W. S. Rose, 2 vols., 1864-5.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+The Emperor Charlemagne was at war with the Moors and had camped near the
+Pyrenees with his host, determined to conquer their leaders, Marsilius of
+Spain and Agramant of Africa. To his camp came Orlando, the great paladin,
+with the beautiful Angelica, princess of Cathay, in search of whom he had
+roamed the world over. Orlando's cousin, Rinaldo, another of the great
+lords of Charlemagne, also loved Angelica, for he had seen her immediately
+after drinking of the Fountain of Love in the forest of Arden, and
+Charlemagne, fearing trouble between the cousins on her account, took
+Angelica from Orlando's tent and placed her in the care of Duke Namus of
+Bavaria.
+
+Angelica did not like Orlando and she loathed Rinaldo, for he had been the
+first to meet her after she had tasted the waters of the Fountain of Hate.
+So when the Christian forces were one day routed in battle and the tents
+forsaken, she leaped on her palfrey and fled into the forest. Here the
+first person she met was the hated Rinaldo; and fleeing from him she
+encountered the fierce Moor Ferrau, who, being also in love with her, drew
+his sword and attacked the pursuing paladin. But when the two discovered
+that Angelica had taken advantage of their duel to flee, they made peace
+and went in search of her.
+
+As she fled, Angelica met Sacripant, an eastern lover who had followed her
+to France, and put herself under his protection. But when Sacripant was
+first defeated by Bradamant and then engaged in battle with the pursuing
+Rinaldo, she deemed herself safer without him and fled; and presently a
+page appeared, a shade conjured there by a hermit magician whom Angelica
+had met, and announced to the warriors that Orlando had appeared and
+carried the maid to Paris.
+
+Rinaldo immediately hastened to Paris, to find Orlando absent and
+Charlemagne, defeated by the Moors, entrenching himself in the city and
+preparing to send to England for aid. Rinaldo must be his ambassador, and
+that without a day's delay.
+
+Frantic with jealousy, Rinaldo leaped into a ship in the midst of a storm,
+and hastened on his errand. Driven upon the coast of Scotland, he won the
+king's gratitude by saving his daughter Ginevra from shame and death, and
+secured from him a promise of all the horsemen and arms that could be
+spared. He was equally successful in England, and was soon reviewing the
+troops preparatory to their embarkation.
+
+The warrior maid, Bradamant, sister of Rinaldo, after overthrowing
+Sacripant, pursued her way through the forest in search of Rogero the
+pagan. They had met once in battle and had loved, and since then she had
+ever roamed through the land in search of him. In the forest she found
+Pinabel, lamenting because his beloved lady had been snatched from him by
+a wizard on a winged steed, and carried to an impregnable castle. Thither
+he had seen many warriors conveyed, among them Rogero and Gradasso,
+conquered first by the lance and then thrown into profound slumber by the
+glare of a magic shield carried by the wizard.
+
+Bradamant, anxious to save Rogero, offered to rescue Pinabel's lady if he
+would guide her to the castle. But when the treacherous knight learned
+that she was Bradamant, between whose house and his there was a deadly
+feud, he planned to slay her, and soon, by his treachery, managed to hurl
+her down a precipice.
+
+Bradamant was only stunned by the fall, however, and soon awoke, to find
+herself at the entrance of a cave, which was the tomb of Merlin. Melissa,
+the prophetess maid, welcomed her, assured her that Rogero should be her
+spouse, and showed her their phantom descendants, brave princes and
+beautiful princesses of the house of Este. She then told her that
+Brunello, a knight of King Agramant, was hastening to the castle to
+release the prisoners by means of a magic ring, formerly the property of
+Angelica, which when put in the mouth would render one invisible, and,
+worn on the finger, made one proof against magic spells. Bradamant must
+overcome Brunello, wrest the ring from him, and herself free Rogero.
+
+Following Melissa's advice, Bradamant overtook Brunello, seized the ring,
+and hastening to the castle, challenged Atlantes to battle. When he
+displayed the shield she pretended to become unconscious; but when he ran
+up to bind her she sprang up and seized him. He declared that he had
+imprisoned Rogero, his nephew, only to save him from the fate foretold by
+the stars, death by treachery at the hands of the Christians, and had
+brought the other knights and ladies there for his entertainment. Then
+Atlantes broke the spell and disappeared, together with the castle, and
+the prisoners trooped forth, Rogero among them.
+
+Bradamant was happy, but alas! only for a moment; for as she and Rogero
+went down the mountain together he thoughtlessly leaped on the hippogrif,
+which alighted near him, and the winged steed, refusing his control, rose
+in the air, leaving the tearful Bradamant behind. The hippogrif flew
+rapidly over land and sea until it was directly above a small island, upon
+which it descended. Rogero sprang from its back, tied it to a myrtle tree,
+and, weary from his three thousand mile ride in heavy armor, prepared to
+drink from a rippling spring. The groves were of cedar, laurel, palm, and
+myrtle; roses and lilies filled the air with their perfume, and the wild
+stag and timid hare ran fearlessly through the groves. As he stooped to
+drink he heard a voice issuing from the myrtle to which he had tied the
+hippogrif. It was that of Astolpho, the English knight, who told him that
+the greater part of the island was under the control of Alcina the
+enchantress, who had left only a small portion to her sister Logistilla,
+to whom it all rightfully belonged. He himself had been enticed thither by
+Alcina, who had loved him for a few weeks, and then, serving him as she
+did all her lovers, had transformed him to a tree.
+
+Rogero determined to profit by this advice; but when he was driven from
+the narrow path to Logistilla's domain and met Alcina he fell under the
+power of her beauty, and thought Astolpho a traducer. The days passed so
+gayly in her beautiful home that Rogero forgot the pagan cause, forgot his
+duty, forgot Bradamant, and was roused from his lethargy only by Melissa,
+to whom Bradamant had given the magic ring to enable her to find and
+rescue her lover. Melissa found the young knight when apart from Alcina,
+and gave him the ring that he might with it be enabled to see the
+enchantress in her true form. She then instructed him how to escape and
+seek the kingdom of Logistilla. Rogero was disgusted when the beautiful
+enchantress appeared as a hideous, wrinkled old woman, but concealing his
+change of feeling, waited until the opportunity presented itself to get
+his armor, take a steed, and pass by the warders of the gate. With great
+difficulty he reached a stream which separated Alcina's lands from those
+of Logistilla, and while ferrying across was overtaken by the boats of
+Alcina. With the help of Atlantes' shield, they were overcome, and Alcina
+was forced to depart, weeping, with only one boat, while Rogero entered
+the castle of the fairy Logistilla, from whom he learned many noble
+lessons.
+
+Here came the other knights freed from Alcina's enchantment by Melissa,
+and Melissa herself with Astolpho, on the hippogrif, which she had learned
+to control. Astolpho was in his own armor and bore his wondrous spear,
+which had the power of overthrowing every one whom it so much as touched.
+
+After a short rest among the pleasant gardens of Logistilla, Rogero
+departed on the hippogrif, and although anxious to see his Bradamant
+again, took the opportunity to pass over all the known world by this novel
+method of travel. He saw the troops in England gathering to go to the aid
+of Charlemagne, and rescued the beautiful Angelica, who had been taken by
+pirates and sold to the people of Ebuda, who chained her upon a rock as a
+victim for the orc. Rogero put the orc to sleep with his magic shield,
+giving Angelica the ring that the sight of the shield might not affect her
+as well. But when, charmed by the maid, he became too lover-like in his
+attentions, she put the ring in her mouth and disappeared. The angry
+Rogero turned, only to find that his hippogrif had broken its rein and was
+gone. Hastening through the forest, vexed with himself and the maiden, he
+fancied he saw 'Bradamant carried off by a giant, and following her,
+entered a magic castle of Atlantes, where he spent his days vainly trying
+to overtake his beloved and her captor.
+
+Orlando could think only of his lost Angelica; and forgetful of the fact
+that his uncle Charlemagne was sorely pressed by the heathen, he stole
+from the camp one night in disguise, and went in search of her. Passing
+the isle of Ebuda he slew the ore, rescued Olympia, who was exposed as its
+victim, avenged her wrongs, and continued on his way until he reached the
+castle of Atlantes, and, fancying he saw Angelica, entered, and began the
+mad round of pursuit with many other Christian and pagan knights who were
+rendered unconscious of one another's presence by the magic of the wizard.
+
+Hither came Angelica, invisible by means of the ring, to find a knight to
+protect her on her way to Cathay. Unfortunately as she showed herself to
+Sacripant, she was seen by Ferrau and Orlando, and all three pursued her
+from the castle. When they were sufficiently removed from it Angelica
+slipped the ring in her mouth and disappeared, and Ferrau and Orlando
+began to quarrel about Orlando's helmet, which the Moor was determined to
+win and wear. As Ferrau wore no helm until he could win Orlando's, that
+paladin hung his on a tree while they fought. Unseen by them, Angelica
+took it down, intending to restore it to Orlando later, and slipped away.
+When the knights discovered her absence they went in search of her, and
+Ferrau, coming upon her, took the helmet as she disappeared in fright.
+Orlando, assuming another crest, which he did not need, as his body was
+charmed and could not be hurt by any weapon, went forward, still in search
+of his love, and on the way encountered and almost totally destroyed two
+squadrons of Moors, and rescued from a robber's cave the beautiful Isabel,
+betrothed of Zerbino.
+
+Melissa returned to Bradamant with the news that while Rogero was freed
+from the enchantment of Aleina, he was imprisoned in Atlantes' castle,
+from which she herself could rescue him by slaying the wizard, who would
+appear to her in the form of her lover. Bradamant resolved to do so; but
+when she saw the seeming Rogero set upon by two giants, she forgot her
+resolution, believed Melissa to be false, and spurring after him, became a
+prisoner in that wondrous castle, through which day and night she pursued
+her ever-fleeing lover.
+
+When the Moors discovered the destruction of the two squadrons,
+Mandricardo, the Tartar king, determined to seek and do battle with the
+knight (unknown to him by name) who had wrought such destruction. The
+Tartar wore the arms of Hector save the sword, which was the property of
+Orlando, and until he gained it, he bore no weapon save the lance. With
+this, however, he stormed through the battlefield, striking terror to the
+hearts of all. With it alone, he destroyed a band of men conveying to
+Rodomont, the Saracen chief, his betrothed bride, Doralice, and won the
+maid for himself.
+
+Outside Paris raged the infidel, chief among them the giant King Rodomont.
+Smiting those of his troops who hesitated to mount the scaling ladders, he
+waded through the wet moat, scaled the first wall, leaped the dry ditch,
+mounted the second wall, and ran alone through the city, spreading terror,
+death, and fire, while Charlemagne, ignorant of his presence, was busied
+in the defence of one of the gates against Agramant.
+
+Now Rinaldo's army approached, unsuspected by the heathen, because of the
+aid of Silence, summoned by Saint Michael. Through these, welcomed by
+Charlemagne, Rodomont cut his way, hewing down fifteen or twenty foes at
+once, and, casting himself into the Seine, escaped, angry that he had not
+succeeded in destroying the city.
+
+Discord, also summoned by Michael to the aid of the Christians, informed
+Rodomont on his return to the camp of the capture of Doralice, and the
+chief set forth raging, in search of Mandricardo, thoughtlessly abandoning
+King Agramant, struggling against the English re-inforcements. As night
+fell on a furious battle, the Moors were driven back, and Charlemagne
+pitched his tents without the city, opposite those of the Moors.
+
+In the Moorish camp were two youths who loved one another with a love
+passing wonderful, Medoro and Cloridan. Both served Dardinello, and had
+crossed the sea with him. As they stood on guard that night they talked of
+their lord's death on the field that day, and Medoro suggested that they
+go in search of his body and bury it. Cloridan agreed, and they crept
+through the sleeping lines of the Christians, slaughtering many, found the
+body, and were hurrying into the forest when they heard the troops of
+Zerbino. Cloridan fled, fancying that Medoro would do the same, but on
+finding himself unaccompanied, retraced his footsteps, only to see his
+friend surrounded by a troop of horsemen. From his ambush he shot his
+arrows at the foe, until Zerbino in wrath seized Medoro by the throat,
+exclaiming, "Thou shall die for this!" But when Medoro prayed to be
+allowed first to bury his lord, pity touched Zerbino, and he freed the
+youth, who fell, however, wounded by a thrust from a churlish horseman, in
+pursuit of whom Zerbino at once fled. Cloridan sprang in among the
+horsemen and fell dead by their thrusts at the side of the unconscious
+Medoro.
+
+The bleeding youth was found by Angelica, who passed by, clad in rustic
+raiment; and the maid, struck with his beauty, recalled her knowledge of
+chirturgery and revived him. After Dardinello was buried, she and a
+shepherd assisted Medoro to a neighboring cottage, where she attended him
+until his wound was healed. But as he grew well, Angelica, who had scorned
+the suit of the proudest knights, fell sick of love for the humble youth,
+and resolved to take him with her to Cathay.
+
+When Astolpho left the castle of Logistilla he carried with him as her
+gift a book from which he could learn to overcome all magic cheats, and a
+horn whose sound would put the boldest man to flight. Following her
+directions, he sailed past Scythia and India into the Persian Gulf, and
+there disembarking, passed through Arabia and along the Red Sea. There he
+overcame the giant Caligorantes, slew Orillo, who guarded the outlet of
+the Nile, and met there the brother knights Gryphon and Aquilant. Gryphon,
+led astray by an unworthy love, stole away from his brother, but was found
+again after many adventures, and the three, together with Sansonet and
+Marphisa, a warlike virgin, embarked for France. A great storm arose, and
+the vessel was forced to land in Syria. This was the land of the Amazons,
+and the troop escaped only by the warning and assistance of Guido, the
+savage, who was a bondsman in the land.
+
+Astolpho became separated from the rest of the party and reached Europe
+alone. One day, while he was stooping to drink at a spring in the forest,
+a rustic sprang from a thicket, and leaping upon Rabican, rode him away.
+Astolpho, hastening after him, entered the enchanted castle of Atlantes,
+and soon recognized it as a house of magic. He broke the spell by the aid
+of his book, freed the captive knights, and finding the hippogrif, which
+he had learned to guide from Melissa, mounted it and rode away.
+
+When the castle was destroyed, Rogero recognized Bradamant and clasped her
+in his arms, rejoicing to find her again. The maid, anxious to avoid
+further separation, promised to wed him if he would become a Christian,
+and demand her of her father, Duke Aymon. Rogero gladly promised to do so.
+and the two were hastening to Vallombrosa that he might be baptized when
+they encountered a maid, who prayed them to hasten to the relief of a
+youth doomed to death by fire. They hurried on, but paused to free Guido
+the savage, Gryphon. Aquilant, and Sansonet, who had been imprisoned by
+Pinabel, and Bradamant, pursuing Pinabel into the forest, slew him. But
+there, unfortunately, she lost her way, and while she was wandering about,
+Rogero, ignorant of her whereabouts, pushed on and freed the youth, who
+proved to be Bradamant's brother.
+
+As Bradamant wandered through the forest she found Astolpho, who had just
+made a bridle for the hippogrif, and recognizing him, took his horse and
+spear in charge. A long time she wandered forlorn. She did not know the
+way to Vallombrosa; she did not know the whereabouts of Rogero. Her home
+was in sight, but if her mother saw her she would not again be suffered to
+depart. As she stood debating with herself, she was recognized by one of
+her brothers, and was forced to accompany him home. Thence she secretly
+sent her maid Hippalca to Vallombrosa with Rogero's horse Frontino, and a
+message explaining her absence.
+
+After the capture of Doralice, Mandricardo hastened on, and overtook
+Orlando just as he had freed Zerbino and united him to Isabel. Recognizing
+Orlando by his crest as the chief who had destroyed the squadrons, the
+Tartar challenged him to combat. In courtesy to his foe, who would bear no
+sword until he could have Durindana, Orlando hung the blade on a tree, and
+the two knights spurred their steeds and broke their lances together. Then
+grappling, each endeavored to unhorse the other. The breaking of Orlando's
+saddle girth caused his fall just as he had slipped the bridle from the
+head of his enemy's horse, and the frightened steed, freed from its rein,
+ran madly through the wood, followed by Doralice.
+
+Orlando told Zerbino to inform Mandricardo if he overtook him that he
+would wait in that spot three days for him to return and renew the combat,
+and bade the lovers farewell. As he wandered through the region while
+waiting, he found a peaceful little spot where a limpid rill rippled
+through a meadow dotted here and there with trees. Here the weary warrior
+sought repose; but as he looked about him he espied the name of Angelica
+carved on the trees, entwined with that of Medoro. Persuading himself that
+this was a fanciful name by which the maid intended to signify himself, he
+entered a little ivy-covered grotto, arching over a fountain, and there
+discovered on the rocky wall some verses in which Medoro celebrated his
+union with Angelica. For a moment he stood as if turned to stone. Unable
+to weep, he again mounted his horse and sought a peasant's house to pass
+the night. There he heard the story of Angelica's infatuation, and saw the
+bracelet she had left them in return for their hospitality. The unhappy
+Orlando passed a sleepless night, weeping and groaning, and the next
+morning hastened to the forest that he might give way to his grief
+unobserved. There madness came upon him, and he uprooted the hateful
+trees, cut the solid stone of the grotto with his sword, making a
+desolation of the beautiful spot, and, casting off his armor, ran naked
+through the country, pillaging, burning, and slaying.
+
+Zerbino and Isabel sought the spot in a few days to learn if Mandricardo
+had returned, found the scattered armor, and heard of Orlando's madness
+from a shepherd. Lamenting over their protector's misfortune, they
+gathered up the armor, hung it on a sapling, and wrote thereon Orlando's
+name. But while they were thus engaged, Mandricardo arrived, took the long
+coveted sword, and gave Zerbino, who attempted to prevent the theft, a
+mortal wound. The unhappy Isabel, intent on self-destruction, was
+comforted by a hermit, who promised to take her to a monastery near
+Marseilles.
+
+Mandricardo had had but a few moments for repose after this combat with
+Zerbino, when the furious Rodomont overtook him and a terrible combat
+between the two began, the beautiful cause of it looking on with interest.
+But so strong were the champions that the struggle might have been
+prolonged indefinitely had not a messenger announced to the knights that
+they must postpone their private quarrels for a moment and hasten to the
+relief of King Agramant.
+
+After Rogero had freed Richardetto, Bradamant's brother, and had attempted
+in vain to find Bradamant, he was troubled by the thought of King
+Agramant. He was determined to wed the warrior maid and become a
+Christian, but first came his vow to the pagan king. He therefore wrote
+her a note, saying that honor required his presence with Agramant for at
+least fifteen or twenty days, but after that time he would find means to
+justify himself with Agramant and would meet her at Vallombrosa to be
+baptized.
+
+He, with Richardetto, Aldigier, and Marphisa, whom they met on her way to
+the pagan camp, rode on together, and freed Vivian and Malagigi from the
+Moors and Manganese. While they rested at a little fountain, Hippalca rode
+up, and told them that she had just met Rodomont, who took Frontino from
+her. She also managed secretly to give Rogero Bradamant's message and
+receive his letter in return.
+
+While the party still remained at the fountain, Rodomont came up with
+Mandricardo and Doralice, and all engaged in a fierce battle, which was at
+last interrupted by Malagigi, who, versed in wizard arts, conjured a demon
+into Doralice's horse so that it ran away; and Rodomont and Mandricardo,
+frightened by her screams, started in pursuit.
+
+With the assistance of Rogero, Marphisa, Rodomont, and Mandricardo,
+Agramant was enabled to drive Charlemagne back into Paris, where he was
+saved only by the interposition of Discord, who stirred up the old
+quarrels between Rodomont, Mandricardo, Rogero, and Gradasso over weapons,
+bearings, and horses, until Agramant announced that they should settle
+their difficulties by single combat, drawing lots to see who should first
+engage in battle. But when they were ready for the lists, fresh quarrels
+broke out, until the king despaired of ever having peace in his ranks.
+Finally, at his command, Doralice publicly declared Mandricardo her
+choice, and the furious Rodomont fled from the camp. On his way to Africa
+he found a little abandoned church between France and Spain, and decided
+to remain there instead of returning home. From this spot he saw Isabel on
+her way to Marseilles, and falling in love with her, he slew the hermit,
+dragged her to his retreat, and tried to win her. But she, loathing him
+and faithful to Zerbino, caused him to slay her, pretending that she was
+rendered invulnerable by an ointment which she had prepared, and the
+secret of which she would impart to him. The unhappy Rodomont walled up
+the church to form her tomb, and threw a narrow bridge across the stream.
+On this bridge he met every knight who came thither, and having overthrown
+him, took his arms to deck the tomb, on which he determined to hang a
+thousand such trophies. If the vanquished knight was a Moor he was set
+free without his arms; if a Christian he was imprisoned. Thither came the
+mad Orlando, and wrestled with Rodomont on the bridge until both fell into
+the stream. The madman then passed on through the country and met Medoro
+and Angelica on their way to India. They escaped with difficulty, Medoro's
+horse falling a victim to the madman, who continued to lay waste the land
+until he reached Zizera on the bay of Gibraltar, and, plunging into the
+sea, swam to Africa.
+
+After Doralice had decided the quarrel between Mandricardo and Rodomont,
+Rogero and the Tartar met in the lists to decide their quarrel over their
+bearings. The battle was fearful, and when both fell to the ground it was
+supposed that Mandricardo was the victor. But when the crowd rushed to the
+lists they found the Tartar dead and Rogero only wounded. But the cheers
+of the crowd gave little pleasure to the hero, who grieved that he must
+lie on a sick-bed instead of seeking Bradamant, according to his promise.
+Bradamant too, who had looked forward so eagerly to the day he had set,
+wept when it came without her lover. Soon she heard that Rogero's coming
+was prevented by his wounds; but when she also heard that he was attended
+by the warrior maid Marphisa, and that their names were frequently coupled
+in the pagan camp, she at once felt the pangs of jealousy. Unable to
+endure it longer, she armed herself, changing her usual vest for one whose
+colors denoted her desperation and desire to die, and set forth to meet
+and slay Marphisa, taking with her the spear left her by Astolpho, whose
+magic properties she did not know. With this she overthrew Rodomont and
+caused him to depart from his tomb and free his captives, and then,
+proceeding to Aries, challenged Rogero, who was sadly puzzled, not
+recognizing his challenger on account of her changed vest. Several knights
+attacked her before Rogero came forth, only to be overthrown by the spear,
+and then Marphisa, who had rushed forth before Rogero could arm, met her,
+and the two women fought like tigers. When Rogero at last went forth he
+recognized Bradamant's voice, and suspecting the cause of her hostility,
+implored her to withdraw with him to a wood near by to hear his
+explanation. Marphisa followed them and attacked Bradamant so fiercely
+that Rogero was forced to her rescue, and lifting his sword would have
+struck the maid had he not been stopped by a voice from a tomb near by. It
+was that of Atlatites, who announced to Rogero and Marphisa that they were
+brother and sister, children of Rogero of Pisa and Galiciella; that Rogero
+had been treacherously slain and his town betrayed to Almontes, who cast
+Galiciella adrift on the sea. Atlantes rescued her, and took her children
+when she died; but Marphisa was stolen from him by a band of Arabs.
+
+From this speech it was plainly the duty of Rogero and Marphisa to espouse
+the cause of Charlemagne and take arms against Agramant, who was their
+enemy. Bradamant and Marphisa then embraced, bade Rogero farewell, and
+proceeded to Charlemagne's camp, where Marphisa was received with honor
+and baptized, while Rogero promised to follow them as soon as he could
+find an excuse to leave Agramant.
+
+When Astolpho left Bradamant in the forest, he quickly rose in the air and
+passed rapidly over the kingdoms of the world, Aragon, Navarre, Cadiz,
+Egypt, Morocco, Fez, over the sandy desert until he reached the kingdom of
+Nubia, whose king he rescued from the harpies by the sound of his magic
+horn. Then, mounted on his hippogrif again, he rose to the terrestrial
+Paradise, where he was welcomed by John, who informed him that he was sent
+thither by the grace of God that he might get instruction how to furnish
+aid to Charles and the Church, who were sorely in need of it. With John he
+rose in a chariot to the Heaven of the Moon, where, after seeing many
+strange things, he was given the wits of Orlando enclosed in a vial. They
+had been taken from him as a punishment for his loving a pagan, but were
+now to be restored to him that he might aid Charlemagne in conquering the
+Moors. Astolpho then descended to Nubia, restored sight to its king, and
+asking for his forces, went with them into Africa and attacked Biserta,
+the city of Agramant.
+
+When these tidings were borne to Agramant he was greatly troubled, and
+desiring to end the war in Europe and hasten to his own country, he
+proposed to Charlemagne that the war be decided by single combat between
+two champions. Great was the agony of Rogero, the pagan champion, when he
+recognized in his opponent Rinaldo, the brother of Bradamant. He would
+never dare to slay him, so he parried the blows rained upon him, and
+struck back so feebly that the spectators, not understanding his motives,
+deemed him unable to cope with Rinaldo. But Melissa, determined that
+Merlin's prophecy should come true, appeared to Agramant in the guise of
+Rodomont, and urged him to break the compact and fall upon the Christians.
+Delighted to have the mighty king with him again, Agramant did not scruple
+to break his word, and rushed upon the Christian forces, breaking up the
+combat. After a sharp conflict, the Saracens were put to flight and
+Agramant hastened into Africa.
+
+His people in Biserta, their strength drained by the long war, were unable
+to withstand the Christian foe, soon re-enforced by a powerful enemy. One
+day, as Astolpho and his friends were standing on the beach, a madman came
+raging towards them, whom Astolpho recognized as Orlando. The warriors
+attempted in vain to hold him until Astolpho ordered the ship's hawsers to
+be brought, and knotting them flung them at the count's limbs, and so
+threw him down and tied him. Then, after having had his body cleansed from
+mud and filth, he stopped his mouth with herbs so that he could breathe
+only through his nostrils, and holding the vial there, the lost senses
+were quickly inhaled, and Orlando was himself again, astonished and
+delighted to find himself with his friends.
+
+With Orlando's help, Biserta was soon taken, and Agramant, who had met the
+Christian fleet under the leadership of Dudon and had barely escaped with
+his life, saw from afar the flames devouring his beloved city.
+
+Landing with Sobrino upon a little isle, he found there King Sericane, who
+advised him to challenge the Christians to single combat in order to
+decide the outcome of the war, he, Gradasso, and Sobrino to stand in the
+lists against three Christian champions. Orlando agreed to do so, and
+selected for his companions in the fight Brandimart and Olivier. But the
+pagans were no match for Orlando, whom no weapon could injure, and
+Agramant and Gradasso soon fell, while Sobrino was wounded. But the joy
+over the Christian victory was not unalloyed by sorrow, for Olivier was
+severely wounded and the beloved Brandimart was slain.
+
+The champions were now joined by Rinaldo, who after the breaking of the
+pact by Agramant, had set off for India in search of Angelica, whom he
+still madly loved. But Disdain guided his steps to the Fountain of Hate,
+one draught of which changed his love to loathing, so that he abandoned
+his undertaking and hastened to join the Christian forces in Africa.
+
+Olivier's wound proved slow to heal, and when at last the warriors heard
+of a hermit on a lonely isle who could help him, they hastened to take
+their wounded comrade thither. There they found Rogero, who had been
+shipwrecked while sailing to Africa, and had been baptized by the hermit,
+who was warned in a dream of his coming. The Christian warriors gladly
+welcomed Rogero to their ranks, for they knew of his valor; and Rinaldo,
+who had learned how the young hero had saved the life of Richardetto and
+had preserved Vivian and Malagigi, embraced him, and at the suggestion of
+the hermit, plighted him to his sister. Before they left the isle, Sobrino
+was converted by the pious hermit, and Olivier's wound was healed.
+
+The knights were received with the greatest honor by Charlemagne,
+especially Rogero, the new convert. But what unhappiness awaited him! In
+his absence Bradamant's father had promised the maid to Leo, the son of
+the Greek emperor, Constantine, in spite of her prayers and entreaties.
+
+Although Bradamant declared that she would die sooner than wed another,
+the heart-broken Rogero hastily departed for Constantinople to slay his
+rival. In his absence, Bradamant besought Charlemagne not to compel her to
+marry Leo unless he could defeat her in single combat; and her angry
+parents, on learning of this, took her from the court and shut her up in
+the tower of Rocca Forte. Rogero, in the mean time, reached Leo's realms
+just as the Greeks engaged in battle with the Bulgarians. Because of his
+hatred for Leo, he fought with the Bulgarians, and when their king fell he
+rallied their scattered troops and put the Greeks to flight. Rogero then
+followed the fleeing Greeks unaccompanied, and being recognized, was taken
+captive that night as he slept in a hostelry. At the entreaty of a
+kinswoman whose son Rogero had slain that day, the emperor surrendered his
+captive to her, and he was thrust into a gloomy dungeon, where he suffered
+agonies from hunger and cold. But Leo, who had admired his valor in battle
+and had longed to know him, rescued him, recovered his horse and armor,
+and by his generosity compelled Rogero to admire him as much as he had
+before hated him. The news of Charlemagne's decree now reached Leo, and
+he, fearing to fight Bradamant, asked the unknown knight of the unicorn to
+take his place. Rogero's heart sank within him, but he dared not refuse.
+His life was Leo's, and he must sacrifice himself for him, must either
+slay Bradamant, or be slain by her for his deliverer's sake. He
+accompanied Leo to France, and feigning a cheerfulness he did not feel,
+changed armor and steed that he might not be known, and, while Leo
+remained in his tent outside the city, entered the lists and encountered
+Bradamant, who was determined to slay her hated suitor. Rogero was equally
+determined not to slay her nor to allow himself to be conquered. When
+twilight fell and king and court saw that while the young knight had not
+overcome the maid, he had not allowed himself to be overcome, they
+declared that the couple were well matched and that they should wed.
+
+The hopeless Rogero hastened back to Leo's camp, changed armor and steed,
+and during the night stole away from the hateful place to the greenwood
+that he might die there, since he could never possess his beloved. At the
+same time, Bradamant gave way to her grief in such a manner that Marphisa,
+already indignant at the treatment of her brother, appeared before the
+king in his behalf. She declared that Rogero and Bradamant had already
+exchanged all the vows of those who marry and therefore she was not free
+to wed another. She then suggested that since the matter had gone so far,
+Leo and Rogero should meet in the lists to decide to whom the lady
+belonged.
+
+Leo at once set out in search of his knight of the unicorn, who he
+believed would defend him from all peril, and found him in the forest,
+almost fainting from fasting and sleeplessness. The Greek embraced Rogero
+tenderly and implored him to betray the cause of his grief, and so tender
+were his words and so gracious his manner that Rogero could not but
+unbosom himself. And when Leo learned that his unknown champion was no
+other than Rogero himself he declared that he would gladly forego
+Bradamant for him, and would rather have forfeited his life than caused
+such grief to such a faithful friend.
+
+Joy filled the court when the story of Rogero's fidelity was made known,
+and the joy was increased when ambassadors came from Bulgaria, seeking the
+unknown knight of the unicorn that they might offer their throne to him.
+Duke Aymon and his wife were reconciled when they found that Rogero was to
+be a king, and the wedding was celebrated with the greatest splendor,
+Charlemagne providing for Bradamant as though she were his daughter.
+
+In the midst of the celebrations Rodomont appeared to defy Rogero, and
+that knight, nothing loath, met him in the lists. The Moor fell under
+Rogero's blows, and all the Christian court rejoiced to see the last of
+the pagan knights fall by the hand of their champion.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+THE DEATH OF ZERBINO.
+
+
+As Orlando talked with Zerbino, whose life he had saved and to whom he had
+given his lady Isabel, also rescued by him, Mandricardo the Tartar king
+came up and challenged Orlando to single combat. While they fought,
+Mandricardo's steed, from which Orlando had slipped the rein, became
+unmanageable, and fled with its rider. Orlando asked Zerbino and Isabel to
+tell Mandricardo, if they overtook him, that he would wait for him in that
+place for three days to renew the battle. But while waiting, Orlando
+learned of Angelica's love for Medoro, and losing his senses from grief,
+threw away his armor, and went wandering through France. Zerbino and
+Isabel returned to the place to see if Mandricardo had returned, and there
+learned of Orlando's condition.
+
+  Far off, he [Zerbino] saw that something shining lay,
+   And spied Orlando's corselet on the ground;
+   And next his helm; but not that head-piece gay
+   Which whilem African Almontes crowned:
+   He in the thicket heard a courser neigh,
+   And, lifting up his visage at the sound,
+   Saw Brigliadoro the green herbage browse,
+   With rein yet hanging at his saddle-bows,
+
+  For Durindane, he sought the greenwood, round,
+   Which separate from the scabbard met his view;
+   And next the surcoat, but in tatters, found;
+   That, in a hundred rags, the champaign strew,
+   Zerbino and Isabel, in grief profound,
+   Stood looking on, nor what to think they knew:
+   They of all matters else might think, besides
+   The fury which the wretched count misguides.
+
+  Had but the lovers seen a drop of blood,
+   They might have well believed Orlando dead:
+   This while the pair, beside the neighboring flood,
+   Beheld a shepherd coming, pale with dread.
+   He just before, as on a rock he stood,
+   Had seen the wretch's fury; how he shed
+   His arms about the forest, tore his clothes,
+   Slew hinds, and caused a thousand other woes.
+
+  Questioned by good Zerbino, him the swain
+    Of all which there had chanced, informed aright.
+    Zerbino marvelled, and believed with pain,
+    Although the proofs were clear: This as it might,
+    He from his horse dismounted on the plain,
+    Full of compassion, in afflicted plight;
+    And went about, collecting from the ground
+    The various relics which were scattered round.
+
+  Isabel lights as well; and, where they lie
+    Dispersed, the various arms uniting goes.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Here Prince Zerbino all the arms unites,
+    And hangs like a fair trophy, on a pine.
+    And, to preserve them safe from errant knights,
+    Natives or foreigners, in one short line
+    Upon the sapling's verdant surface writes,
+    ORLANDO'S ARMS, KING CHARLES'S PALADINE.
+    As he would say, "Let none this harness move,
+    Who cannot with its lord his prowess prove!"
+
+  Zerbino having done the pious deed,
+    Is bowning him to climb his horse; when, lo!
+    The Tartar king arrives upon the mead.
+    He at the trophied pine-tree's gorgeous show,
+    Beseeches him the cause of this to read;
+    Who lets him (as rehearsed) the story know.
+    When, without further pause, the paynim lord
+    Hastes gladly to the pine, and takes the sword.
+
+  "None can (he said) the action reprehend,
+    Nor first I make the faulchion mine to-day;
+    And to its just possession I pretend
+    Where'er I find it, be it where it may.
+    Orlando, this not daring to defend,
+    Has feigned him mad, and cast the sword away;
+    But if the champion so excuse his shame,
+    This is no cause I should forego my claim."
+
+   "Take it not thence," to him Zerbino cried,
+    "Nor think to make it thine without a fight:
+    If so thou tookest Hector's arms of pride,
+    By theft thou hadst them, rather than by right."
+    Without more parley spurred upon each side,
+    Well matched in soul and valor, either knight.
+    Already echoed are a thousand blows;
+    Nor yet well entered are the encountering foes.
+
+  In 'scaping Durindane, a flame in show
+    (He shifts so swiftly), is the Scottish lord.
+    He leaps about his courser like a doe,
+    Where'er the road best footing does afford.
+    And well it is that he should not forego
+    An inch of vantage; who, if once that sword
+    Smite him, will join the enamored ghosts, which rove
+    Amid the mazes of the myrtle grove.
+
+  As the swift-footed dog, who does espy
+    Swine severed from his fellows, hunts him hard,
+    And circles round about; but he lies by
+    Till once the restless foe neglect his guard;
+    So, while the sword descends, or hangs on high,
+    Zerbino stands, attentive how to ward,
+    How to save life and honor from surprise;
+    And keeps a wary eye, and smites and flies.
+
+  On the other side, where'er the foe is seen
+    To threaten stroke in vain, or make it good,
+    He seems an Alpine wind, two hills between,
+    That in the month of March shakes leafy wood;
+    Which to the ground now bends the forest green,
+    Now whirls the broken boughs, at random strewed.
+    Although the prince wards many, in the end
+    One mighty stroke he cannot 'scape or fend.
+
+  In the end he cannot 'scape one downright blow,
+    Which enters, between sword and shield, his breast.
+    As perfect was the plate and corselet, so
+    Thick was the steel wherein his paunch was drest:
+    But the destructive weapon, falling low,
+    Equally opened either iron vest;
+    And cleft whate'er it swept in its descent,
+    And to the saddle-bow, through cuirass, went.
+
+  And, but that somewhat short the blow descends
+    It would Zerbino like a cane divide;
+    But him so little in the quick offends,
+    This scarce beyond the skin is scarified.
+    More than a span in length the wound extends;
+    Of little depth: of blood a tepid tide
+    To his feet descending, with a crimson line,
+    Stains the bright arms which on the warrior shine.
+
+  'T is so, I sometimes have been wont to view
+    A hand more white than alabaster, part
+    The silver cloth with ribbon red of hue;
+    A hand I often feel divide my heart.
+    Here little vantage young Zerbino drew
+    From strength and greater daring, and from art;
+    For in the temper of his arms and might,
+    Too much the Tartar king excelled the knight.
+
+  The fearful stroke was mightier in show,
+    Than in effect, by which the prince was prest;
+    So that poor Isabel, distraught with woe,
+    Felt her heart severed in her frozen breast.
+    The Scottish prince, all over in a glow,
+    With anger and resentment was possest,
+    And putting all his strength in either hand,
+    Smote full the Tartar's helmet with his brand.
+
+  Almost on his steed's neck the Tartar fell,
+    Bent by the weighty blow Zerbino sped;
+    And, had the helmet been unfenced by spell
+    The biting faulchion would have cleft his head.
+    The king, without delay, avenged him well,
+    "Nor I for you till other season," said,
+    "Will keep this gift;" and levelled at his crest,
+    Hoping to part Zerbino to the chest.
+
+  Zerbino, on the watch, whose eager eye
+    Waits on his wit, wheels quickly to the right;
+    But not withal so quickly, as to fly
+    The trenchant sword, which smote the shield outright,
+    And cleft from top to bottom equally;
+    Shearing the sleeve beneath it, and the knight
+    Smote on his arm; and next the harness rended,
+    And even to the champion's thigh descended.
+
+  Zerbino, here and there, seeks every way
+    By which to wound, nor yet his end obtains;
+    For, while he smites upon that armor gay,
+    Not even a feeble dint the coat retains.
+    On the other hand, the Tartar in the fray
+    Such vantage o'er the Scottish prince obtains,
+    Him he has wounded in seven parts or eight,
+    And reft his shield and half his helmet's plate.
+
+  He ever wastes his blood; his energies
+    Fail, though he feels it not, as't would appear;
+    Unharmed, the vigorous heart new force supplies
+    To the weak body of the cavalier.
+    His lady, during this, whose crimson dyes
+    Were chased by dread, to Doralice drew near,
+    And for the love of Heaven, the damsel wooed
+    To stop that evil and disastrous feud.
+
+    Doralice, who as courteous was as fair,
+    And ill-assured withal, how it would end,
+    Willingly granted Isabella's prayer,
+    And straight to truce and peace disposed her friend.
+    As well Zerbino, by the other's care,
+    Was brought his vengeful anger to suspend;
+    And, wending where she willed, the Scottish lord,
+    Left unachieved the adventure of the sword.
+
+  For to leave Durindana such misdeed
+    To him appeared, it past all other woes;
+    Though he could hardly sit upon his steed,
+    Through mighty loss of life-blood, which yet flows.
+    Now, when his anger and his heat secede,
+    After short interval, his anguish grows;
+    His anguish grows, with such impetuous pains,
+    He feels that life is ebbing from his veins.
+
+  For weakness can the prince no further hie,
+    And so beside a fount is forced to stay:
+    Him to assist the pitying maid would try,
+    But knows not what to do, nor what to say.
+    For lack of comfort she beholds him die;
+    Since every city is too far away,
+    Where in this need she could resort to leech,
+    Whose succor she might purchase or beseech.
+
+  She, blaming fortune, and the cruel sky,
+    Can only utter fond complaints and vain.
+    "Why sank I not in ocean," (was her cry),
+    "When first I reared my sail upon the main?"
+    Zerbino, who on her his languid eye
+    Had fixt, as she bemoaned her, felt more pain
+    Than that enduring and strong anguish bred,
+    Through which the suffering youth was well-nigh dead.
+
+  "So be thou pleased, my heart," (Zerbino cried),
+    "To love me yet, when I am dead and gone,
+    As to abandon thee without a guide,
+    And not to die, distresses me alone.
+    For did it me in place secure betide
+    To end my days, this earthly journey done,
+    I cheerful, and content, and fully blest
+    Would die, since I should die upon thy breast
+
+  "But since to abandon thee, to whom a prize
+    I know not, my sad fate compels, I swear,
+    My Isabella, by that mouth, those eyes,
+    By what enchained me first, that lovely hair;
+    My spirit, troubled and despairing, hies
+    Into hell's deep and gloomy bottom; where
+    To think, thou wert abandoned so by me,
+    Of all its woes the heaviest pain will be."
+
+  At this the sorrowing Isabel, declining
+    Her mournful face, which with her tears o'erflows,
+    Towards the sufferer, and her mouth conjoining
+    To her Zerbino's, languid as a rose;
+    Rose gathered out of season, and which, pining
+    Fades where it on the shadowy hedgerow grows,
+    Exclaims, "Without me think not so, my heart,
+    On this your last, long journey to depart.
+
+  "Of this, my heart, conceive not any fear.
+    For I will follow thee to heaven or hell;
+    It fits our souls together quit this sphere,
+    Together go, for aye together dwell.
+    No sooner closed thine eyelids shall appear,
+    Than either me internal grief will quell,
+    Or, has it not such power, I here protest,
+    I with this sword to-day will pierce my breast.
+
+  "I of our bodies cherish hope not light,
+    That they shall have a happier fate when dead;
+    Together to entomb them, may some wight,
+    Haply by pity moved, be hither led."
+    She the poor remnants of his vital sprite
+    Went on collecting, as these words she said;
+    And while yet aught remains, with mournful lips,
+    The last faint breath of life devoutly sips.
+
+  'T was here his feeble voice Zerbino manned,
+    Crying, "My deity, I beg and pray,
+    By that love witnessed, when thy father's land
+    Thou quittedst for my sake; and, if I may
+    In anything command thee, I command,
+    That, with God's pleasure, thou live-out thy day;
+    Nor ever banish from thy memory,
+    That, well as man can love, have I loved thee.
+
+  "God haply will provide thee with good aid,
+    To free thee from each churlish deed I fear;
+    As when in the dark cavern thou wast stayed,
+    He sent, to rescue thee. Andante's peer;
+    So he (grammercy!) succored thee dismayed
+    At sea, and from the wicked Biscayneer.
+    And, if thou must choose death, in place of worse,
+    Then only choose it as a leaser curse."
+
+  I think not these last words of Scotland's knight
+    Were so exprest, that he was understood:
+    With these, he finished, like a feeble light,
+    Which needs supply of wax, or other food.
+    --Who is there, that has power to tell aright
+    The gentle Isabella's doleful mood?
+    When stiff, her loved Zerbino, with pale face,
+    And cold as ice, remained in her embrace.
+
+  On the ensanguined corse, in sorrow drowned,
+    The damsel throws herself, in her despair,
+    And shrieks so loud that wood and plain resound
+    For many miles about; nor does she spare
+    Bosom or cheek; but still, with cruel wound,
+    One and the other smites the afflicted fair;
+    And wrongs her curling locks of golden grain,
+    Aye calling on the well-loved youth in vain.
+
+  She with such rage, such fury, was possest,
+    That, in her transport, she Zerbino's glaive
+    Would easily have turned against her breast,
+    Ill keeping the command her lover gave;
+    But that a hermit, from his neighboring rest,
+    Accustomed oft to seek the fountain-wave,
+    His flagon at the cooling stream to fill,
+    Opposed him to the damsel's evil will.
+
+  The reverend father, who with natural sense
+    Abundant goodness happily combined,
+    And, with ensamples fraught and eloquence,
+    Was full of charity towards mankind,
+    With efficacious reasons her did fence,
+    And to endurance Isabel inclined;
+    Placing, from ancient Testament and new,
+    Women, as in a mirror, for her view.
+
+  The holy man next made the damsel see,
+    That save in God there was no true content,
+    And proved all other hope was transitory,
+    Fleeting, of little worth, and quickly spent;
+    And urged withal so earnestly his plea,
+    He changed her ill and obstinate intent;
+    And made her, for the rest of life, desire
+    To live devoted to her heavenly sire.
+
+  Not that she would her mighty love forbear
+    For her dead lord, nor yet his relics slight;
+    These, did she halt or journey, everywhere
+    Would Isabel have with her, day and night.
+    The hermit therefore seconding her care,
+    Who, for his age, was sound and full of might,
+    They on his mournful horse Zerbino placed,
+    And traversed many a day that woodland waste.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+  He thought to bear her to Provence, where, near
+    The city of Marseilles, a borough stood,
+    Which had a sumptuous monastery; here
+    Of ladies was a holy sisterhood.
+
+          _Rose's Translation, Canto XXIV_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LUSIAD.
+
+
+"The discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calcutta has been sung by
+Camoens, whose poem has something of the charm of the Odyssey and of the
+magnificence of the Aeneid."
+
+MONTESQUIEU.
+
+
+The Portuguese epic, the Lusiad, so-called from Lusitania, the Latin name
+for Portugal, was written by Luis de Camoens.
+
+He was born in Lisbon in 1524, lost his father by shipwreck in infancy,
+and was educated by his mother at the University of Coimbra. On leaving
+the university he appeared at court, where his graces of person and mind
+soon rendered him a favorite. Here a love affair with the Donna Catarina
+de Atayde, whom the king also loved, caused his banishment to Santarem. At
+this place he began the Lusiad, and continued it on the expedition against
+the Moors in Africa sent out by John III., an expedition on which he
+displayed much valor and lost an eye. He was recalled to court, but
+jealousies soon drove him thence to India, whither he sailed in 1553,
+exclaiming, "Ungrateful country, thou shall not possess my bones." In
+India his bravery and accomplishments won him friends, but his imprudences
+soon caused his exile to China, where he accumulated a small fortune and
+finished his poem. Happier circumstances permitted him to return to Goa;
+but on the way the ship laden with his fortune sank, and he escaped,
+saving only his poem. After sixteen years of misfortune abroad, Camoens
+returned to Lisbon in 1569. The pestilence that was then raging delayed
+the publication of the Lusiad until 1572. The poem received little
+attention; a small pension was bestowed on the poet, but was soon
+withdrawn, and the unfortunate Camoens was left to die in an almshouse. On
+his death-bed he deplored the impending fate of his country, which he
+alone could see. "I have loved my country. I have returned not only to die
+on her bosom, but to die with her."
+
+The Lusiad tells the story of the voyage of Vasco da Gama. The sailors of
+Prince Henry of Portugal, commander of the Portuguese forces in Africa,
+had passed Cape Nam and discovered the Cape of Storms, which the prince
+renamed the Cape of Good Hope. His successor Emmanuel, determined to carry
+out the work of his predecessor by sending out da Gama to undertake the
+discovery of the southern passage to India. The Portuguese were generally
+hostile to the undertaking, but da Gama, his brother, and his friend
+Coello gathered a company, part of which consisted of malefactors whose
+sentence of death was reversed on condition that they undertake the
+voyage, and reached India.
+
+The Lusiad is divided into ten cantos, containing one thousand one hundred
+and two stanzas. Its metre is the heroic iambic, in rhymed octave stanzas.
+
+The Lusiad is marred by its mythological allusions in imitation of Homer
+and Virgil, but these are forgotten when the poet sings in impassioned
+strains of his country's past glory.
+
+The Lusiad is simple in style; its subject is prosaic; it is a constant
+wonder that out of such unpromising materials Camoens could construct a
+poem of such interest. He could not have done so had he not been so great
+a poet, so impassioned a patriot.
+
+Camoens was in one sense of the word a practical man, like Ariosto; he had
+governed a province, and governed it successfully. But he had also taken
+up arms for his country, and after suffering all the slights that could be
+put upon him by an ungrateful and forgetful monarch, still loved his
+native land, loved it the more, perhaps, that he had suffered for it and
+was by it neglected. He foresaw, also, as did no one else, the future ruin
+of his country, and loved it the more intensely, as a parent lavishes the
+fondest, most despairing affection on a child he knows doomed to early
+death.
+
+The Lusiad is sometimes called the epic of commerce; it could be called
+far more appropriately the epic of patriotism.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE LUSIAD.
+
+
+J. Adamson's Memoirs of Life and Writing of Camoens, 2 vols., 1820 (vol.
+2, account of works of Camoens in Portuguese and other languages, and of
+the works founded on his life or suggested by his writings);
+
+R. F. Burton's Camoens, his Life and his Lusiad, 2 vols., 1881;
+
+M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
+Italy, Spain, and Portugal, vol. 3;
+
+F. Bouterwek's History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature, 1823 (Tr. by
+T. Ross);
+
+Chambers's Repository, no. 32, Spirit of Camoens's Lusiad;
+W. T. Dobson's Classic Poets, pp. 240-278;
+
+Montgomery's Men of Italy, iii., 295;
+
+Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, ii., 475-528;
+
+Southey's Sketch of Portuguese Literature in vol. i. of Quarterly Review,
+1809;
+
+Fortnightly Review, i., 184;
+
+Quarterly, i., 235;
+
+Monthly Review, clx., 505;
+
+Edinburgh Review, 1805, vi., 43;
+
+New England Magazine, liii., 542;
+
+Revue de Deux Mondes, 1832, vi., 145.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE LUSIAD. The Lusiad, Tr. by J. J.
+
+
+Aubertin, 2 vols., 1881 (Portuguese text and English Tr., in verse);
+
+The Lusiad, Englished by R. F. Burton, 2 vols., 1881;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. into Spenserian verse by R. F. Duff, 1880;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1655;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by W. J. Mickle, 3 vols., Ed. 5, 1807;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by T. M. Musgrave (blank verse), 1826;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by Edward Quillinan, with notes by John Adamson, 1853.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE LUSIAD.
+
+
+When Jupiter, looking down from Olympus, saw the Lusitanian fleet sailing
+over the heretofore untravelled seas, he called the gods together, and
+reviewing the past glory of the Portuguese, their victories over the
+Castilians, their stand against the Romans, under their shepherd-hero
+Viriatus, and their conquest of Africa, he foretold their future glories
+and their discovery and conquest of India.
+
+Bacchus, who had long since made conquests in India, fearful lest his
+ancient honors should be forgotten, bitterly opposed the scheme of the
+Portuguese; Venus, however, was favorable to them, and Mars interceded,
+counselling Jove not to heed Bacchus, but to permit the Lusitanians to
+reach India's shore in safety.
+
+When the council of the gods was dismissed, Mercury was sent to guide the
+Armada, which made its first landing at Mozambique. Canoes with curious
+palm-leaf sails, laden with dark-skinned natives, swarmed round the ships
+and were hailed with joy by Gama and his men, who invited them on board. A
+feast was spread for them, and to them Gama declared his intention of
+seeking India. Among them was a Moor who had at first thought the
+Portuguese Moors, on account of their dark skins. Feigning cordiality
+while plotting their ruin, he offered them a pilot to Quiloa, where, he
+assured them, they would find a Christian colony. He and his friends also
+laid a plot to place some soldiers in ambush to attack Gama's men when
+they landed next day to get water; in this way many would be destroyed,
+and certain death awaited the survivors at Quiloa, whither the promised
+pilot would conduct them. But the Moors had not counted on the strength of
+the Portuguese. Gama's vengeance was swift and certain. The thunder of his
+guns terrified the Moors, and the regent implored his pardon, and with
+make-believe tears insisted on his receiving at his hands the promised
+pilot.
+
+Many questions were asked by Gama concerning the spicy shores of India, of
+the African coasts, and of the island to the north. "Quiloa, that,"
+replied the Moor, "where from ancient times, the natives have worshipped
+the blood-stained image of the Christ." He knew how the Moorish
+inhabitants hated the Christians, and was secretly delighted when Gama
+directed him to steer thither.
+
+A storm swept the fleet past Quiloa, but the pilot, still determined on
+revenge, pointed out the island town of Mombaça, as a stronghold of the
+Christians, and steering the fleet thither, anchored just outside the bar.
+Bacchus, now intent on the destruction of the Lusitanians, assumed the
+character of a priest to deceive the heralds sent ashore by Gama, who
+assured their commander that they saw a Christian priest performing divine
+rites at an altar above which fluttered the banner of the Holy Ghost. In a
+few moments the Christian fleet would have been at the mercy of the Moors,
+but Cytherea, beholding from above the peril of her favorites, hastily
+descended, gathered together her nymphs, and formed an obstruction, past
+which the vessels strove in vain to pass. As Gama, standing high on the
+poop, saw the huge rock in the channel, he cried out, and the Moorish
+pilots, thinking their treason discovered, leaped into the waves.
+
+Warned in a dream by Mercury that the Moors were preparing to cut his
+cables, De Gama roused his fleet and set sail for Melinda, whose monarch,
+Mercury had told him, was both powerful and good.
+
+The fleet, decorated with purple streamers and gold and scarlet tapestry
+in honor of Ascension Day sailed with drums beating and trumpets sounding,
+into the harbor of Melinda, where they were welcomed by the kind and
+truthful people. The fame of the Lusitanians had reached Melinda, and the
+monarch gladly welcomed them to his land. His herald entreated them to
+remain with him, and brought them sheep, fowls, and the fruits of the
+earth, welcome gifts to the mariners. Gama had vowed not to leave the ship
+until he could step on Indian ground, so the next day the king and the
+commander, clad in their most splendid vestments, met in barges, and the
+monarch of Melinda asked Gama to tell him of the Lusian race, its origin
+and climate, and of all his adventures up to the time of his arrival at
+Melinda.
+
+"O king," said Gama, "between the zones of endless winter and eternal
+summer lies beautiful Europe, surrounded by the sea. To the north are the
+bold Swede, the Prussian, and the Dane; on her south-eastern line dwelt
+the Grecian heroes, world-renowned, and farther south are the ruins of
+proud Rome. Among the beauteous landscapes of Italy lies proud Venice,
+queen of the sea, and north of her tower the lofty Alps. The olive groves
+and vineyards of fair Gallia next greet the eye, and then the valorous
+fields of Spain, Aragon, Granada, and--the pride of Spain--Castile. On the
+west, a crown to it, lies Lusitania, on whom last smiles the setting
+sun,--against whose shores roll the waves of the western sea.
+
+"Noble are the heroes of my country. They were the first to rise against
+the Moors and expel them from the kingdom. The forces of Rome were routed
+by our shepherd-hero, Viriatus. After his death our country languished
+until Alonzo of Spain arose, whose renown spread far and wide because of
+his battles against the Moors.
+
+"Alonzo rewarded generously the heroes who fought under him, and to Prince
+Henry of Hungaria he gave the fields through which the Tagus flows and the
+hand of his daughter. To them was born a son, Alfonso, the founder of the
+Lusian throne. After the death of his father Henry, Alfonso's mother
+became regent, and ere long wedded her minister Perez and plotted to
+deprive her young son of his inheritance. The eighteen year old son arose,
+won the nobility to his side, and defeated his guilty mother and her
+husband in the battle of Guimaraens. Forgetful of the reverence due to
+parents, he cruelly imprisoned his mother, whose father, the king of
+Spain, indignant at such treatment of his daughter, now marched against
+the young prince and defeated him. As he lay in prison, his faithful
+guardian Egas knelt before the king, and vowed that his master, if
+released, would pay homage to him. Well he knew that his master would
+never bow his proud head to pay homage to Castile. So when the day
+arrived, Egas, and all his family, clad in gowns of white like sentenced
+felons, with unshod feet, and with the halter around their necks, sought
+Castile. 'O king, take us as a sacrifice for my perjured honor. Turn in
+friendship to the prince thy grandson, and wreak thy vengeance on us
+alone.'
+
+"Fortunately Alonzo was noble enough to release the self-sacrificing Egas,
+and to forgive his grandson.
+
+"The young Alfonso, pardoned by his grandfather, proceeded to Ourique,
+whither marched five Moorish kings. Over his head appeared the sacred
+cross; but he prayed heaven to show it to his army instead, that they
+might be inspired with the hope of victory. Filled with joy at the token,
+the Portuguese defeated the Moors, and on the bloody battle-field Alfonso
+was proclaimed King of Portugal, and from that day placed on his hitherto
+unadorned buckler five azure shields, arranged as a cross. He continued
+the wars with the Moors until, wounded and taken prisoner at Badajoz, he
+resigned the throne to his son, Don Sancho, who in turn won many
+victories. Alfonso II., Sancho II., Alfonso III., and Alfonso the Brave
+succeeded him. At the court of the latter was a beautiful maiden, Inez de
+Castro, whom Alfonso's son Don Pedro had married secretly. The courtiers,
+fearful lest Pedro should show favor to the Castilians because Inez was
+the daughter of a Castilian, told the king of his son's amour. In the
+absence of Pedro, Inez was led before the king, bringing with her her
+children, to help her to plead for mercy. But the king was merciless, his
+counsellors, brutal, and at his signal they stabbed her. Pedro never
+recovered from the shock given him by the fate of his beautiful wife, and
+after his succession to the throne, as a partial atonement for her
+suffering, he had her body taken from the grave and crowned Queen of
+Portugal.
+
+"The weak Fernando, who took his wife Eleanora from her lawful husband,
+succeeded Pedro, and their daughter Beatrice not being recognized by the
+Portuguese, at his death Don John, a natural brother, came to the throne.
+In the mean time a Spanish prince had married Beatrice and invaded
+Portugal, claiming it as his right. The Portuguese were divided until Nuńo
+Alvarez Pereyra came forward. 'Has one weak reign so corrupted you?' he
+cried. 'Have you so soon forgotten our brave sires? Fernando was weak, but
+John, our godlike king, is strong. Come, follow him! Or, if you stay, I
+myself will go alone; never will I yield to a vassal's yoke; my native
+land shall remain unconquered, and my monarch's foes, Castilian or
+Portuguese, shall heap the plain!'
+
+"Inspired by Nuńo's eloquence the Lusians took the field and defeated the
+Spanish in the battle of Aljubarota. Still dissatisfied, Nuńo pressed into
+Spain and dictated the terms of peace at Seville. Having established
+himself upon the throne of Portugal, John carried the war into Africa,
+which wars were continued after his death by his son Edward. While laying
+siege to Tangier, Edward and his brother Fernando were taken prisoners,
+and were allowed to return home only on promise to surrender Ceuta. Don
+Fernando remained as the hostage they demanded. The Portuguese would not
+agree to surrender Ceuta, and Don Fernando was forced to languish in
+captivity, since the Moors would accept no other ransom. He was a
+patriotic prince than whom were none greater in the annals of Lusitania.
+
+"Alfonso V., victorious over the Moors, dreamed of conquering Castile, but
+was defeated, and on his death was succeeded by John II., who designed to
+gain immortal fame in a way tried by no other king. His sailors sought a
+path to India, but 'though enriched with knowledge' they perished at the
+mouth of the Indus. To his successor, Emmanuel, in a dream appeared the
+rivers Ganges and Indus, hoary fathers, rustic in aspect, yet with a
+majestic grace of bearing, their long, uncombed beards dripping with
+water, their heads wreathed with strange flowers, and proclaimed to him
+that their countries were ordained by fate to yield to him; that the fight
+would be great, and the fields would stream with blood, but that at last
+their shoulders would bend beneath the yoke. Overjoyed at this dream,
+Emmanuel proclaimed it to his people. I, O king, felt my bosom burn, for
+long had I aspired to this work. Me the king singled out, to me the dread
+toil he gave of seeking unknown seas. Such zeal felt I and my youths as
+inspired the Mynian youths when they ventured into unknown seas in the
+Argo, in search of the golden fleece.
+
+"On the shore was reared a sacred fane, and there at the holy shrine my
+comrades and I knelt and joined in the solemn rites. Prostrate we lay
+before the shrine until morning dawned; then, accompanied by the 'woful,
+weeping, melancholy throng' that came pressing from the gates of the city,
+we sought our ships.
+
+"Then began the tears to flow; then the shrieks of mothers, sisters, and
+wives rent the air, and as we waved farewell an ancient man cried out to
+us on the thirst for honor and for fame that led us to undertake such a
+voyage.
+
+"Soon our native mountains mingled with the skies, and the last dim speck
+of land having faded, we set our eyes to scan the waste of sea before us.
+From Madeira's fair groves we passed barren Masilia, the Cape of Green,
+the Happy Isles, Jago, Jalofo, and vast Mandinga, the hated shore of the
+Gorgades, the jutting cape called by us the Cape of Palms, and southward
+sailed through the wild waves until the stars changed and we saw
+Callisto's star no longer, but fixed our eyes on another pole star that
+rises nightly over the waves. The shining cross we beheld each night in
+the heavens was to us a good omen.
+
+"While thus struggling through the untried waves, and battling with the
+tempests, now viewing with terror the waterspouts, and the frightful
+lightnings, now comforted by the sight of mysterious fire upon our masts,
+we came in sight of land, and gave to the trembling negro who came to us
+some brass and bells. Five days after this event, as we sailed through the
+unknown seas, a sudden darkness o'erspread the sky, unlighted by moon or
+star. Questioning what this portent might mean, I saw a mighty phantom
+rise through the air. His aspect was sullen, his cheeks were pale, his
+withered hair stood erect, his yellow teeth gnashed; his whole aspect
+spoke of revenge and horror.
+
+"'Bold are you,' cried he, 'to venture hither, but you shall suffer for
+it. The next proud fleet that comes this way shall perish on my coast, and
+he who first beheld me shall float on the tide a corpse. Often, O Lusus,
+shall your children mourn because of me!' 'Who art thou?' I cried. 'The
+Spirit of the Cape,' he replied, 'oft called the Cape of Tempests.'"
+
+The king of Melinda interrupted Gama. He had often heard traditions among
+his people of the Spirit of the Cape. He was one of the race of Titans who
+loved Thetis, and was punished by Jove by being transformed into this
+promontory.
+
+Gama continued: "Again we set forth, and stopped at a pleasant coast to
+clean our barks of the shell-fish. At this place we left behind many
+victims of the scurvy in their lonely graves. Of the treason we met with
+at Mozambique and the miracle that saved us at Quiloa and Mombas, you know
+already, as well as of your own bounty."
+
+Charmed with the recital of Gama, the King of Melinda had forgotten how
+the hours passed away. After the story was told the company whiled away
+the hours with dance, song, the chase, and the banquet, until Gama
+declared that he must go on to India, and was furnished with a pilot by
+the friendly king.
+
+Bacchus, enraged at seeing the voyage so nearly completed, descended to
+the palace of Neptune, with crystal towers, lofty turrets, roofs of gold,
+and beautiful pillars inwrought with pearls. The sculptured walls were
+adorned with old Chaos's troubled face, the four fair elements, and many
+scenes in the history of the earth. Roused by Bacchus, the gods of the sea
+consented to let loose the winds and the waves against the Portuguese.
+
+During the night, the Lusians spent the time in relating stories of their
+country. As they talked, the storm came upon them, and the vessels rose
+upon the giant waves, so that the sailors saw the bottom of the sea swept
+almost bare by the violence of the storm. But the watchful Venus perceived
+the peril of her Lusians, and calling her nymphs together, beguiled the
+storm gods until the storm ceased. While the sailors congratulated
+themselves on the returning calm, the cry of "Land!" was heard, and the
+pilot announced to Gama that Calicut was near.
+
+Hail to the Lusian heroes who have won such honors, who have forced their
+way through untravelled seas to the shores of India! Other nations of
+Europe have wasted their time in a vain search for luxury and fame instead
+of reclaiming to the faith its enemies! Italy, how fallen, how lost art
+thou! and England and Gaul, miscalled "most Christian!" While ye have
+slept, the Lusians, though their realms are small, have crushed the
+Moslems and made their name resound throughout Africa, even to the shores
+of Asia.
+
+At dawn Gama sent a herald to the monarch; in the mean time, a friendly
+Moor, Monçaide, boarded the vessel, delighted to hear his own tongue once
+more. Born at Tangiers, he considered himself a neighbor of the Lusians;
+well he knew their valorous deeds, and although a Moor, he now allied
+himself to them as a friend. He described India to the eager Gama: its
+religions, its idolaters, the Mohammedans, the Buddhists, the Brahmins. At
+Calicut, queen of India, lived the Zamorin, lord of India, to whom all
+subject kings paid their tribute.
+
+His arrival having been announced, Gama, adorned in his most splendid
+garments, and accompanied by his train, also in bright array, entered the
+gilded barges and rowed to the shore, where stood the Catual, the
+Zamorin's minister. Monçaide acted as an interpreter. The company passed
+through a temple on their way to the palace, in which the Christians were
+horrified at the graven images there worshipped. On the palace walls were
+the most splendid pictures, relating the history of India. One wall,
+however, bore no sculptures; the Brahmins had foretold that a foreign foe
+would at some time conquer India, and that space was reserved for scenes
+from those wars.
+
+Into the splendid hall adorned with tapestries of cloth of gold and
+carpets of velvet, Gama passed, and stood before the couch on which sat
+the mighty monarch. The room blazed with gems and gold; the monarch's
+mantle was of cloth of gold, and his turban shone with gems. His manner
+was majestic and dignified; he received Gama in silence, only nodding to
+him to tell his story.
+
+Gama proclaimed that he came in friendship from a valorous nation that
+wished to unite its shores with his by commerce. The monarch responded
+that he and his council would weigh the proposal, and in the mean time
+Gama should remain and feast with them.
+
+The next day the Indians visited the fleet, and after the banquet Gama
+displayed to his guests a series of banners on which were told the history
+of Portugal and her heroes. First came Lusus, the friend of Bacchus, the
+hero-shepherd Viriatus, the first Alonzo, the self-sacrificing Egas, the
+valiant Fuaz, every hero who had strengthened Lusitania and driven out her
+foes, down to the gallant Pedro and the glorious Henry.
+
+Awed and wondering at the deeds of the mighty heroes, the Indians returned
+home. In the night Bacchus appeared to the king, warning him against the
+Lusians and urging him to destroy them while in his power. The Moors
+bought the Catual with their gold. They also told the king that they would
+leave his city as soon as he allied himself with the odious strangers.
+When Gama was next summoned before the king he was received with a frown.
+
+"You are a pirate! Your first words were lies. Confess it; then you may
+stay with me and be my captain."
+
+"I know the Moors," replied Gama. "I know their lies that have poisoned
+your ears. Am I mad that I should voluntarily leave my pleasant home and
+dare the terrors of an unknown sea? Ah, monarch, you know not the Lusian
+race! Bold, dauntless, the king commands, and we obey. Past the dread Cape
+of Storms have I ventured, bearing no gift save friendly peace, and that
+noblest gift of all, the friendship of my king. I have spoken the truth.
+Truth is everlasting!"
+
+A day passed and still Gama was detained by the power of the Catual, who
+ordered him to call his fleets ashore if his voyage was really one of
+friendship.
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Gama. "My fleet is free, though I am chained, and they
+shall carry to Lisbon the news of my discovery."
+
+As he spoke, at a sign from the Catual, hostile ships were seen
+surrounding the Lusian vessels. "Not one shall tell on Lisbon's shores
+your fate."
+
+Gama smiled scornfully, as the fleet swept on towards his vessels. Loud
+sounded the drums, shrill the trumpets. The next moment sudden lightning
+flashed from Gama's ships and the skies echoed with the thunder of the
+guns.
+
+No word fell from Gama's lips as, the battle over, they saw the sea
+covered with the torn hulks and floating masts; but the populace raged
+around the palace gates, demanding justice to the strangers.
+
+The troubled king sought to make peace with Gama.
+
+"My orders have been given. To-day, when the sun reaches its meridian,
+India shall bleed and Calicut shall fall. The time is almost here. I make
+no terms. You have deceived me once."
+
+The Moors fell fainting on the floor; the monarch trembled. "What can save
+us?" he cried.
+
+"Convey me and my train to the fleet. Command at once; it is even now
+noon."
+
+Once more safe within his ship, with him the faithful Monçaide, who had
+kept him informed of the treason of the Moors, his ships laden with
+cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and gems, proofs of his visit, Gama, rejoicing,
+set sail for home.
+
+Venus saw the fleet setting out, and planned a resting-place for the weary
+sailors, a floating isle with golden sands, bowers of laurel and myrtle,
+beautiful flowers and luscious fruits. Here the sea nymphs gathered,
+Thetis, the most beautiful, being reserved for Gama, and here days were
+spent in joyance.
+
+At the banquet the nymphs sang the future glories of the Lusians, and
+taking Gama by the hand, led him and his men to a mountain height, whence
+they could look upon a wondrous globe, the universe. The crystal spheres
+whirled swiftly, making sweet music, and as they listened to this, they
+saw the sun go by, the stars, Apollo, the Queen of Love, Diana, and the
+"yellow earth, the centre of the whole." Asia and Africa were unrolled to
+their sight, and the future of India, conquered by the Lusians, Cochin
+China, China, Japan, Sumatra,--all these countries given to the world by
+their voyage around the terrible cape.
+
+"Spread thy sails!" cried the nymphs; "the time has come to go!"
+
+The ships departed on their homeward way, and the heroes were received
+with the wildest welcome by the dwellers on Tago's bosom.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE LUSIAD.
+
+INEZ DE CASTRO.
+
+
+During the reign of Alfonso the Brave, his son Don Pedro secretly wedded
+a beautiful maiden of the court, Inez de Castro. The courtiers, jealous
+because Inez was a Castilian, betrayed Pedro's secret to the king, who, in
+the absence of his son, had Inez brought before him and slain by hired
+ruffians.
+
+  While glory, thus, Alonzo's name adorn'd,
+  To Lisbon's shores the happy chief return'd,
+  In glorious peace and well-deserv'd repose,
+  His course of fame, and honor'd age to close.
+  When now, O king, a damsel's fate severe,
+  A fate which ever claims the woful tear,
+  Disgraced his honors--On the nymph's 'lorn head
+  Relentless rage its bitterest rancor shed:
+  Yet, such the zeal her princely lover bore,
+  Her breathless corse the crown of Lisbon wore.
+  'Twas thou, O Love, whose dreaded shafts control
+  The hind's rude heart, and tear the hero's soul;
+  Thou, ruthless power, with bloodshed never cloy'd,
+  'Twas thou thy lovely votary destroy'd.
+  Thy thirst still burning for a deeper woe,
+  In vain to thee the tears of beauty flow;
+  The breast that feels thy purest flames divine,
+  With spouting gore must bathe thy cruel shrine.
+  Such thy dire triumphs!--Thou, O nymph, the while,
+  Prophetic of the god's unpitying guile,
+  In tender scenes by love-sick fancy wrought,
+  By fear oft shifted, as by fancy brought,
+  In sweet Mondego's ever-verdant bowers,
+  Languish'd away the slow and lonely hours:
+  While now, as terror wak'd thy boding fears,
+  The conscious stream receiv'd thy pearly tears;
+  And now, as hope reviv'd the brighter flame,
+  Each echo sigh'd thy princely lover's name.
+  Nor less could absence from thy prince remove
+  The dear remembrance of his distant love:
+  Thy looks, thy smiles, before him ever glow,
+  And o'er his melting heart endearing flow:
+  By night his slumbers bring thee to his arms,
+  By day his thoughts still wander o'er thy charms:
+  By night, by day, each thought thy loves employ,
+  Each thought the memory, or the hope, of joy.
+  Though fairest princely dames invok'd his love,
+  No princely dame his constant faith could move:
+  For thee, alone, his constant passion burn'd,
+  For thee the proffer'd royal maids he scorn'd.
+  Ah, hope of bliss too high--the princely dames
+  Refus'd, dread rage the father's breast inflames;
+  He, with an old man's wintry eye, surveys
+  The youth's fond love, and coldly with it weighs
+  The people's murmurs of his son's delay
+  To bless the nation with his nuptial day.
+  (Alas, the nuptial day was past unknown,
+  Which, but when crown'd, the prince could dare to own.)
+  And, with the fair one's blood, the vengeful sire
+  Resolves to quench his Pedro's faithful fire.
+  Oh, thou dread sword, oft stain'd with heroes' gore,
+  Thou awful terror of the prostrate Moor,
+  What rage could aim thee at a female breast,
+  Unarm'd, by softness and by love possess'd!
+
+  Dragg'd from her bower, by murd'rous ruffian hands,
+  Before the frowning king fair Inez stands;
+  Her tears of artless innocence, her air
+  So mild, so lovely, and her face so fair,
+  Mov'd the stern monarch; when, with eager zeal,
+  Her fierce destroyers urg'd the public weal;
+  Dread rage again the tyrant's soul possess'd,
+  And his dark brow his cruel thoughts confess'd;
+  O'er her fair face a sudden paleness spread,
+  Her throbbing heart with gen'rous anguish bled,
+  Anguish to view her lover's hopeless woes,
+
+  And all the mother in her bosom rose.
+  Her beauteous eyes, in trembling tear-drops drown'd,
+  To heaven she lifted (for her hands were bound);
+  Then, on her infants turn'd the piteous glance,
+  The look of bleeding woe; the babes advance,
+  Smiling in innocence of infant age,
+  Unaw'd, unconscious of their grandsire's rage;
+  To whom, as bursting sorrow gave the flow,
+  The native heart-sprung eloquence of woe,
+  The lovely captive thus:--"O monarch, hear,
+  If e'er to thee the name of man was dear,
+  If prowling tigers, or the wolf's wild brood
+  (Inspired by nature with the lust of blood),
+  Have yet been mov'd the weeping babe to spare,
+  Nor left, but tended with a nurse's care,
+  As Rome's great founders to the world were given;
+  Shall thou, who wear'st the sacred stamp of Heaven
+  The human form divine, shalt thou deny
+  That aid, that pity, which e'en beasts supply!
+  Oh, that thy heart were, as thy looks declare,
+  Of human mould, superfluous were my prayer;
+  Thou couldst not, then, a helpless damsel slay,
+  Whose sole offence in fond affection lay,
+  In faith to him who first his love confess'd,
+  Who first to love allur'd her virgin breast.
+  In these my babes shalt thou thine image see,
+  And, still tremendous, hurl thy rage on me?
+  Me, for their sakes, if yet thou wilt not spare,
+  Oh, let these infants prove thy pious care!
+  Yet, Pity's lenient current ever flows
+  From that brave breast where genuine valor glows;
+  That thou art brave, let vanquish'd Afric tell,
+  Then let thy pity o'er my anguish swell;
+  Ah, let my woes, unconscious of a crime,
+  Procure mine exile to some barb'rous clime:
+  Give me to wander o'er the burning plains
+  Of Libya's deserts, or the wild domains
+  Of Scythia's snow-clad rocks, and frozen shore;
+  There let me, hopeless of return, deplore:
+  Where ghastly horror fills the dreary vale,
+  Where shrieks and howlings die on every gale,
+  The lion's roaring, and the tiger's yell,
+  There with my infant race, consigned to dwell,
+  There let me try that piety to find,
+  In vain by me implor'd from human kind:
+  There, in some dreary cavern's rocky womb,
+  Amid the horrors of sepulchral gloom,
+  For him whose love I mourn, my love shall glow,
+  The sigh shall murmur, and the tear shall flow:
+  All my fond wish, and all my hope, to rear
+  These infant pledges of a love so dear,
+  Amidst my griefs a soothing glad employ,
+  Amidst my fears a woful, hopeless joy."
+
+  In tears she utter'd--as the frozen snow
+  Touch'd by the spring's mild ray, begins to flow,
+  So just began to melt his stubborn soul,
+  As mild-ray'd Pity o'er the tyrant stole;
+  But destiny forbade: with eager zeal
+  (Again pretended for the public weal),
+  Her fierce accusers urg'd her speedy doom;
+  Again, dark rage diffus'd its horrid gloom
+  O'er stern Alonzo's brow: swift at the sign,
+  Their swords, unsheath'd, around her brandish'd shine.
+  O foul disgrace, of knighthood lasting stain,
+  By men of arms a helpless lady slain!
+
+  Thus Pyrrhus, burning with unmanly ire,
+  Fulfilled the mandate of his furious sire;
+  Disdainful of the frantic matron's prayer,
+  On fair Polyxena, her last fond care,
+  He rush'd, his blade yet warm with Priam's gore,
+  And dash'd the daughter on the sacred floor;
+  While mildly she her raving mother eyed,
+  Resigned her bosom to the sword, and died.
+  Thus Inez, while her eyes to heaven appeal,
+  Resigns her bosom to the murd'ring steel:
+  That snowy neck, whose matchless form sustain'd
+  The loveliest face, where all the graces reign'd,
+  Whose charms so long the gallant prince enflam'd,
+  That her pale corse was Lisbon's queen proclaim'd,
+  That snowy neck was stain'd with spouting gore,
+  Another sword her lovely bosom tore.
+  The flowers that glisten'd with her tears bedew'd,
+  Now shrunk and languished with her blood embru'd.
+  As when a rose ere-while of bloom so gay,
+  Thrown from the careless virgin's breast away,
+  Lies faded on the plain, the living red,
+  The snowy white, and all its fragrance fled;
+  So from her cheeks the roses died away,
+  And pale in death the beauteous Inez lay:
+  With dreadful smiles, and crimson'd with her blood,
+  Round the wan victim the stern murd'rers stood,
+  Unmindful of the sure, though future hour,
+  Sacred to vengeance and her lover's power.
+
+  O Sun, couldst thou so foul a crime behold,
+  Nor veil thine head in darkness, as of old
+  A sudden night unwonted horror cast
+  O'er that dire banquet, where the sire's repast
+  The son's torn limbs supplied!--Yet you, ye vales!
+  Ye distant forests, and ye flow'ry dales!
+  When pale and sinking to the dreadful fall,
+  You heard her quiv'ring lips on Pedro call;
+  Your faithful echoes caught the parting sound,
+  And Pedro! Pedro! mournful, sigh'd around.
+  Nor less the wood-nymphs of Mondego's groves
+  Bewail'd the memory of her hapless loves:
+  Her griefs they wept, and, to a plaintive rill
+  Transform'd their tears, which weeps and murmurs still.
+  To give immortal pity to her woe
+  They taught the riv'let through her bowers to flow,
+  And still, through violet-beds, the fountain pours
+  Its plaintive wailing, and is named Amours.
+  Nor long her blood for vengeance cried in vain:
+  Her gallant lord begins his awful reign,
+  In vain her murderers for refuge fly,
+  Spain's wildest hills no place of rest supply.
+  The injur'd lover's and the monarch's ire,
+  And stern-brow'd Justice in their doom conspire:
+  In hissing flames they die, and yield their souls in fire.
+      _Mickle's Translation, Canto III._
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF THE CAPE.
+
+
+Vasco de Gama relates the incidents of his voyage from Portugal to the
+King of Melinda. The southern cross had appeared in the heavens and the
+fleet was approaching the southern point of Africa. While at anchor in a
+bay the Portuguese aroused the hostility of the savages, and hastily set
+sail.
+
+  "Now, prosp'rous gales the bending canvas swell'd;
+  From these rude shores our fearless course we held:
+  Beneath the glist'ning wave the god of day
+  Had now five times withdrawn the parting ray,
+  When o'er the prow a sudden darkness spread,
+  And, slowly floating o'er the mast's tall head
+  A black cloud hover'd: nor appear'd from far
+  The moon's pale glimpse, nor faintly twinkling star;
+  So deep a gloom the low'ring vapor cast,
+  Transfix'd with awe the bravest stood aghast.
+  Meanwhile, a hollow bursting roar resounds,
+  As when hoarse surges lash their rocky mounds;
+  Nor had the black'ning wave nor frowning heav'n
+  The wonted signs of gath'ring tempest giv'n.
+  Amazed we stood. 'O thou, our fortune's guide,
+  Avert this omen, mighty God!' I cried;
+  'Or, through forbidden climes adventurous stray'd,
+  Have we the secrets of the deep survey'd,
+  Which these wide solitudes of seas and sky
+  Were doom'd to hide from man's unhallow'd eye?
+  Whate'er this prodigy, it threatens more
+  Than midnight tempests, and the mingled roar,
+  When sea and sky combine to rock the marble shore.'
+
+  "I spoke, when rising through the darken'd air,
+  Appall'd, we saw a hideous phantom glare;
+  High and enormous o'er the flood he tower'd,
+  And 'thwart our way with sullen aspect lower'd:
+  An earthy paleness o'er his cheeks was spread,
+  Erect uprose his hairs of wither'd red;
+  Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
+  Sharp and disjoin'd, his gnashing teeth's blue rows;
+  His haggard beard flow'd quiv'ring on the wind,
+  Revenge and horror in his mien combin'd;
+  His clouded front, by with'ring lightnings scar'd,
+  The inward anguish of his soul declar'd.
+  His red eyes, glowing from their dusky caves,
+  Shot livid fires: far echoing o'er the waves
+  His voice resounded, as the cavern'd shore
+  With hollow groan repeats the tempest's roar.
+  Cold gliding horrors thrill'd each hero's breast,
+  Our bristling hair and tott'ring knees confess'd
+  Wild dread, the while with visage ghastly wan,
+  His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began:--
+
+  "'O you, the boldest of the nations, fir'd
+  By daring pride, by lust of fame inspir'd,
+  Who, scornful of the bow'rs of sweet repose,
+  Through these my waves advance your fearless prows,
+  Regardless of the length'ning wat'ry way,
+  And all the storms that own my sov'reign sway,
+  Who, mid surrounding rocks and shelves explore
+  Where never hero brav'd my rage before;
+  Ye sons of Lusus, who with eyes profane
+  Have view'd the secrets of my awful reign,
+  Have passed the bounds which jealous Nature drew
+  To veil her secret shrine from mortal view;
+  Hear from my lips what direful woes attend,
+  And, bursting soon, shall o'er your race descend.
+
+  "'With every bounding keel that dares my rage,
+  Eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage,
+  The next proud fleet that through my drear domain,
+  With daring search shall hoist the streaming vane,
+  That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds toss'd,
+  And raging seas, shall perish on my coast:
+  Then he, who first my secret reign descried,
+  A naked corpse, wide floating o'er the tide,
+  Shall drive--Unless my heart's full raptures fail,
+  O Lusus! oft shall thou thy children wail;
+  Each year thy shipwreck'd sons thou shalt deplore,
+  Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore.
+
+  "'With trophies plum'd behold a hero come,
+  Ye dreary wilds, prepare his yawning tomb.
+  Though smiling fortune bless'd his youthful morn,
+  Though glory's rays his laurell'd brows adorn,
+  Full oft though he beheld with sparkling eye
+  The Turkish moons in wild confusion fly,
+  While he, proud victor, thunder'd in the rear,
+  All, all his mighty fame shall vanish here.
+  Quiloa's sons, and thine, Mombaz, shall see
+  Their conqueror bend his laurell'd head to me;
+  While, proudly mingling with the tempest's sound,
+  Their shouts of joy from every cliff rebound.
+
+  "'The howling blast, ye slumb'ring storms prepare,
+  A youthful lover and his beauteous fair
+  Triumphant sail from India's ravag'd land;
+  His evil angel leads him to my strand.
+  Through the torn hulk the dashing waves shall roar,
+  The shatter'd wrecks shall blacken all my shore.
+  Themselves escaped, despoil'd by savage hands,
+  Shall, naked, wander o'er the burning sands,
+  Spar'd by the waves far deeper woes to bear,
+  Woes, e'en by me, acknowledg'd with a tear.
+  Their infant race, the promis'd heirs of joy,
+  Shall now, no more, a hundred hands employ;
+  By cruel want, beneath the parents' eye,
+  In these wide wastes their infant race shall die;
+  Through dreary wilds, where never pilgrim trod
+  Where caverns yawn, and rocky fragments nod,
+  The hapless lover and his bride shall stray,
+  By night unshelter'd, and forlorn by day.
+  In vain the lover o'er the trackless plain
+  Shall dart his eyes, and cheer his spouse in vain.
+  Her tender limbs, and breast of mountain snow,
+  Where, ne'er before, intruding blast might blow,
+  Parch'd by the sun, and shrivell'd by the cold
+  Of dewy night, shall he, fond man, behold.
+  Thus, wand'ring wide, a thousand ills o'er past,
+  In fond embraces they shall sink at last;
+  While pitying tears their dying eyes o'erflow,
+  And the last sigh shall wail each other's woe.
+
+  "'Some few, the sad companions of their fate,
+  Shall yet survive, protected by my hate,
+  On Tagus' banks the dismal tale to tell,
+  How, blasted by my frown, your heroes fell.'
+
+  "He paus'd, in act still further to disclose
+  A long, a dreary prophecy of woes:
+  When springing onward, loud my voice resounds,
+  And midst his rage the threat'ning shade confounds.
+
+  "'What art thou, horrid form that rid'st the air?
+  By Heaven's eternal light, stern fiend, declare.'
+  His lips he writhes, his eyes far round he throws,
+  And, from his breast, deep hollow groans arose,
+  Sternly askance he stood: with wounded pride
+  And anguish torn, 'In me, behold,' he cried,
+  While dark-red sparkles from his eyeballs roll'd,
+  'In me the Spirit of the Cape behold,
+  That rock, by you the Cape of Tempests nam'd,
+  By Neptune's rage, in horrid earthquakes fram'd,
+  When Jove's red bolts o'er Titan's offspring flam'd.
+  With wide-stretch'd piles I guard the pathless strand,
+  And Afric's southern mound, unmov'd, I stand:
+  Nor Roman prow, nor daring Tyrian oar
+  Ere dash'd the white wave foaming to my shore;
+  Nor Greece nor Carthage ever spread the sail
+  On these my seas, to catch the trading gale.
+  You, you alone have dar'd to plough my main,
+  And with the human voice disturb my lonesome reign."
+
+  "He spoke, and deep a lengthen'd sigh he drew,
+  A doleful sound, and vanish'd from the view:
+  The frighten'd billows gave a rolling swell,
+  And, distant far, prolong'd the dismal yell,
+  Faint and more faint the howling echoes die,
+  And the black cloud dispersing, leaves the sky.
+  High to the angel-host, whose guardian care
+  Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear,
+  And Heaven's dread King implore: 'As o'er our head
+  The fiend dissolv'd, an empty shadow fled;
+  So may his curses, by the winds of heav'n,
+  Far o'er the deep, their idle sport, be driv'n!'"
+
+  With sacred horror thrill'd, Melinda's lord
+  Held up the eager hand, and caught the word.
+  "Oh, wondrous faith of ancient days," he cries,
+  "Concealed in mystic lore and dark disguise!
+  Taught by their sires, our hoary fathers tell,
+  On these rude shores a giant spectre fell,
+  What time from heaven the rebel band were thrown:
+  And oft the wand'ring swain has heard his moan.
+  While o'er the wave the clouded moon appears
+  To hide her weeping face, his voice he rears
+  O'er the wild storm. Deep in the days of yore,
+  A holy pilgrim trod the nightly shore;
+  Stern groans he heard; by ghostly spells controll'd,
+  His fate, mysterious, thus the spectre told:
+
+  "'By forceful Titan's warm embrace compress'd,
+  The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd:
+  The hundred-handed giant at a birth,
+  And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth;
+  My heart avow'd my sire's ethereal flame;
+  Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name.
+  In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged,
+  Tremendous war against the gods I waged:
+  Yet, not to reach the throne of heaven I try,
+  With mountain pil'd on mountain to the sky;
+  To me the conquest of the seas befell,
+  In his green realm the second Jove to quell.
+  Nor did ambition all my passions hold,
+  'Twas love that prompted an attempt so bold.
+  Ah me, one summer in the cool of day,
+  I saw the Nereids on the sandy bay,
+  With lovely Thetis from the wave advance
+  In mirthful frolic, and the naked dance.
+  In all her charms reveal'd the goddess trod,
+  With fiercest fires my struggling bosom glow'd;
+  Yet, yet I feel them burning in my heart,
+  And hopeless, languish with the raging smart.
+  For her, each goddess of the heavens I scorn'd,
+  For her alone my fervent ardor burn'd.
+  In vain I woo'd her to the lover's bed,
+  From my grim form, with horror, mute she fled.
+  Madd'ning with love, by force I ween to gain
+  The silver goddess of the blue domain;
+  To the hoar mother of the Nereid band
+  I tell my purpose, and her aid command:
+  By fear impell'd, old Doris tried to move,
+  And win the spouse of Peleus to my love.
+  The silver goddess with a smile replies,
+  'What nymph can yield her charms a giant's prize!
+  Yet, from the horrors of a war to save,
+  And guard in peace our empire of the wave,
+  Whate'er with honor he may hope to gain,
+  That, let him hope his wish shall soon attain.'
+  The promis'd grace infus'd a bolder fire,
+  And shook my mighty limbs with fierce desire.
+  But ah, what error spreads its dreadful night,
+  What phantoms hover o'er the lover's sight!
+
+  "The war resign'd, my steps by Doris led,
+  While gentle eve her shadowy mantle spread,
+  Before my steps the snowy Thetis shone
+  In all her charms, all naked, and alone.
+  Swift as the wind with open arms I sprung,
+  And, round her waist with joy delirious clung:
+  In all the transports of the warm embrace,
+  A hundred kisses on her angel face,
+  On all its various charms my rage bestows,
+  And, on her cheek, my cheek enraptur'd glows.
+  When oh, what anguish while my shame I tell!
+  What fix'd despair, what rage my bosom swell!
+  Here was no goddess, here no heavenly charms,
+  A rugged mountain fill'd my eager arms,
+  Whose rocky top, o'erhung with matted brier,
+  Received the kisses of my am'rous fire.
+  Wak'd from my dream, cold horror freez'd my blood;
+  Fix'd as a rock, before the rock I stood;
+  'O fairest goddess of the ocean train,
+  Behold the triumph of thy proud disdain;
+  Yet why,' I cried, 'with all I wish'd decoy,
+  And, when exulting in the dream of joy,
+  A horrid mountain to mine arms convey?'
+  Madd'ning I spoke, and furious sprung away.
+  Far to the south I sought the world unknown,
+  Where I, unheard, unscorn'd, might wail alone,
+  My foul dishonor, and my tears to hide,
+  And shun the triumph of the goddess' pride.
+  My brothers, now, by Jove's red arm o'erthrown,
+  Beneath huge mountains pil'd on mountains groan;
+  And I, who taught each echo to deplore,
+  And tell my sorrows to the desert shore,
+  I felt the hand of Jove my crimes pursue,
+  My stiff'ning flesh to earthy ridges grew,
+  And my huge bones, no more by marrow warm'd,
+  To horrid piles, and ribs of rock transform'd,
+  Yon dark-brow'd cape of monstrous size became,
+  Where, round me still, in triumph o'er my shame,
+  The silv'ry Thetis bids her surges roar,
+  And waft my groans along the dreary shore.'"
+
+         _Mickle's Translation, Canto V_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+The Gerusalemme Liberata, or Jerusalem Delivered, was written by Torquato
+Tasso, who was born at Sorrento, March 11, 1544. He was educated at
+Naples, Urbino, Rome, Venice, Padua, and Bologna. In 1572 he attached
+himself to the court of Ferrara, which he had visited in 1565 in the suite
+of the Cardinal d'Este, and by whose duke he had been treated with great
+consideration. Here his pastoral drama "Aminta" was written and performed,
+and here he began to write his epic. The duke, angry because of Tasso's
+affection for his sister Eleanora, and fearful lest the poet should
+dedicate his poem to the Medicis, whom he visited in 1575, and into whose
+service he was asked to enter, kept him under strict surveillance, and
+pretended to regard him as insane. Feigning sympathy and a desire to
+restore his mind, he had the unfortunate poet confined in a mad-house.
+Tasso escaped several times, but each time returned in the hope of a
+reconciliation with the duke. During his confinement his poem was
+published without his permission: first in 1580, a very imperfect version;
+in 1581, a genuine one. This at once brought him great fame; but while its
+publishers made a fortune, Tasso received nothing. Neither did the duke
+relent, although powerful influences were brought to bear on him. Tasso
+was not released until 1586, and then, broken in health, he passed the
+rest of his life in Rome and Naples, living on charity, though treated
+with great honor. He died in Rome, April 25, 1595, just before he was to
+have been crowned at the capitol.
+
+The Jerusalem Delivered has for its subject the first Crusade, and the
+events recorded in its twenty cantos comprise the happenings in the camp
+of the Crusaders during forty days of the campaign of 1099. Its metre is
+the _octava rima_, the eight lined rhymed stanza.
+
+Tasso was not so successful in the delineation of character and in the
+description of actions as in the interpretation of feeling, being by
+nature a lyric rather than an epic poet. But his happy choice of
+subject,--for the Crusades were still fresh in the memory of the people,
+and chivalry was a thing of the present--his zeal for the Christian cause,
+his impassioned delineations of love, and his exquisitely poetical
+treatment of his whole theme, rendered his epic irresistible.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+J. Black's Life of Tasso (with a historical and critical account of his
+writings), 2 vols. 1810;
+
+E. J. Hasell's Tasso, 1882;
+
+Rev. Robert Milman's Life of Tasso, 2 vols. 1850;
+
+Dennistown's Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 1851, iii., 292-316;
+
+Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and
+17th Centuries, 1839, ii., 192-199;
+
+Leigh Hunt's Stories from Italian Poets, 1888, ii., 289-474;
+
+Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe, 1845, pp. 568-577;
+
+Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, Ed. 2, 1846, i., 359-391;
+
+J. A. Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, 1886, vol. 2, chapters 7-8;
+
+Edin. Rev., Oct. 1850, xcii., 294-302;
+
+Blackwood, 1845, lvii., 401-414;
+
+Quarterly Review, Jan. 1857, ci., 59-68.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. from the Italian by John Hoole. First American
+from Eighth London Edition, 2 vols., 1810;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. into English Spenserian verse with life of the
+author by J. H. Wiffen. New ed., 1883;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. by Sir John Kingston James, 2 vols., 1884;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. into the metre of the original by C. L. Smith,
+1876-79;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. by Sir Edward Fairfax and edited by Prof. Henry
+Morley, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+The Eternal Father looked down from His lofty throne upon the Christian
+powers in Syria. In the six years they had spent in the East they had
+taken Nice and Antioch. Now, while inactive in winter quarters, Bohemond
+was strengthening himself in Antioch, and the other chiefs were thinking
+of glory or love; but Godfrey, to whom renown was the meanest of glories,
+was burning to win Jerusalem and restore it to the faith. Inspired by
+Gabriel, despatched by the Eternal Father, Godfrey called a council, and
+with an eloquence and fire more than mortal, roused the Christians to
+action. "We came not here to raise empires; the period has come when all
+the world is waiting for our next step. Now is the propitious moment. If
+we delay longer, Egypt will step in to the aid of our Syrian foe!"
+
+Godfrey was unanimously elected chief, and immediate arrangements were
+made for the setting out to Jerusalem. Godfrey first reviewed the army. A
+thousand men marched under the lilied banner of Clotharius; a thousand
+more from the Norman meads under Robert; from Orange and Puy, troops came
+under the priests William and Ademar. Baldwin led his own and Godfrey's
+bands, and Guelpho, allied to the house of Este, brought his strong
+Carinthians. Other troops of horse and foot were led by William of
+England. After him came the young Tancred, the flower of chivalry,
+blighted now, alas! by unrequited love. He had seen by chance the pagan
+maid Clorinda, the Amazon, drinking at a pool in the forest, and had
+forgot all else in his love for her. After him came the small Greek force
+under Tatine; next, the invincible Adventurers under Dudon, bravest of
+men. Following these were Otho, Edward and his sweet bride Gildippe, who,
+unwilling to be separated from her husband, fought at his side, and,
+excellent above all others, the young Rinaldo, whose glorious deeds were
+yet but a promise of his great future. While but a boy he had escaped from
+the care of his foster mother, Queen Matilda, and hastened to join the
+Crusaders. The review was closed by the array of foot soldiers led by
+Raymond, Stephen of Amboise, Alcasto, and Camillus. The pageant having
+passed by, Godfrey despatched a messenger to summon Sweno the Dane, who
+with his forces was still tarrying in Greece, and at once set out for
+Jerusalem.
+
+Swift rumor had conveyed the tidings of his approach to Aladine, King of
+Jerusalem, a merciless tyrant, who, enraged, immediately laid heavier
+taxes upon the unfortunate Christians in his city. Ismeno, a sorcerer,
+once a Christian, but now a pagan who practised all black arts, penetrated
+to the presence of the king and advised him to steal from the temple of
+the Christians an image of the Virgin and put it in his mosque, assuring
+him that he would thus render his city impregnable. This was done, and
+Ismeno wrought his spells about the image, but the next morning it had
+disappeared. After a fruitless search for the image and the offender, the
+angry king sentenced all the Franks to death. The beautiful maid
+Sophronia, determined to save her people, assumed the guilt, and was
+sentenced to be burned. As she stood chained to the stake, her lover,
+Olindo, to whom she had ever been cold, saw her, and in agony at her
+sacrifice, declared to the king that Sophronia had lied and that he was
+the purloiner of the image. The cruel monarch ordered him also to be tied
+to the stake, that they might die together; and the flames had just been
+applied when the two were saved by the Amazon Clorinda, who convinced the
+king that the Christians were innocent and that Allah himself, incensed at
+the desecration, had snatched away the image.
+
+To the camp of Godfrey at Emmaus came two ambassadors from the king of
+Egypt, Alethes, a supple crafty courtier of low lineage, and Argantes, a
+haughty and powerful warrior. But their efforts to keep Godfrey from
+Jerusalem, first by persuasion, and then by threats, were in vain.
+They were dismissed from the camp, and the army proceeded on its way.
+
+When the walls and towers of the city where Messias died came in sight,
+the Christian army, crying "All Hail, Jerusalem!" laid aside their
+casques, and, shedding tears, trod barefoot the consecrated way.
+
+At sight of the Franks, the pagans hastened to strengthen the
+fortifications of their city, and Aladine from a lofty tower watched
+Clorinda attack a band of Franks returning from a foray. At his side was
+the lovely Erminia, daughter of the King of Antioch, who had sought
+Jerusalem after the downfall of her city.
+
+Erminia instructed Aladine of the various crusaders, and when she pointed
+out the noble Tancred, who had treated her with such consideration in
+Antioch, she felt her love for him revive, though she pretended to the
+king to hate him for his cruelty. Tancred recognized among the leaders of
+the pagans Clorinda, bereft of her helmet, and for love of her, refused to
+fight her. The pagans, driven back by the Christians, were rallied by
+Argantes, but only to be met by the matchless Adventurers under Dudon.
+When Dudon fell, the troops under Rinaldo, burning for revenge,
+reluctantly obeyed Godfrey's summons to return.
+
+The funeral rites over, the artificers were sent to the forest to fell the
+trees, that engines might be fabricated for the destruction of the city
+walls.
+
+Angry at the success of the Franks, Satan stirred up the infernal regions,
+and set loose his friends to work destruction to the Christians. One he
+despatched to the wizard Idraotes, at Damascus, who conceived the scheme
+of sending his beautiful niece Armida to ensnare the Christians. In a few
+days Armida appeared among the white pavilions of the Franks, attracting
+the attention and winning the love of all who saw her. Her golden locks
+appeared through her veil as the sunshine gleams through the stormy skies;
+her charms were sufficiently hidden to make them the more alluring. So
+attired, modestly seeking the camp of Godfrey, she was met by Eustace, his
+young brother, and taken to the prince.
+
+With many tears and sighs, she told her pitiful story. She had been driven
+from her kingdom, an orphan, by the envy and wickedness of her uncle, and
+had come to ask the Christians to aid her in regaining her rights.
+Unfortunately for her success, she and her uncle had not calculated on
+Godfrey's absorption in his divine undertaking. He was proof against her
+charms, and was determined not to be delayed longer in laying siege to the
+city. It required the utmost persuasion of Eustace to induce him to permit
+ten of the Adventurers to accompany her. Armida, though disappointed in
+Godfrey's lack of susceptibility, employed her time so well while in camp
+that when she departed with the ten Adventurers chosen by lot, she was
+followed secretly by Eustace and many others who had not been chosen, but
+who were madly in love with her.
+
+Before his departure, Eustace, jealous of Rinaldo, whom he was fearful
+Armida might admire, had persuaded him to aspire to the place of Dudon, to
+whom a successor must be elected. Gernando of Norway desired the same
+place, and, angry that the popular Rinaldo should be his rival, scattered
+through the camp rumors disparaging to his character: Rinaldo was vain and
+arrogant; Rinaldo was rash, not brave; Rinaldo's virtues were all vices.
+At last, stung past endurance by his taunts and insinuations, Rinaldo gave
+the lie to his traducer, and slew him in fair fight. False reports were
+taken to Godfrey by Rinaldo's enemies; and the ruler determined to punish
+the youth severely; but he, warned by his friends, escaped from camp and
+fled to Antioch. To Godfrey, deprived thus of Rinaldo and many of his
+brave Adventurers, was brought the tidings that the Egyptian expedition
+was on its way, and that a ship laden with provisions had been intercepted
+on its way to his camp.
+
+The bold Argantes, weary of the restraint of the siege, sent a challenge
+to the Christians, saying he would meet any Frank, high-born or low, in
+single combat, the conditions being that the vanquished should serve the
+victor. A thousand knights burned to accept the challenge, but Godfrey
+named Tancred, who proudly buckled on his armor and called for his steed.
+As he approached the field, he saw among the pagan hosts, who stood around
+to view the combat, the fair face of Clorinda, and stood gazing at her,
+forgetful of all else. Otho, seeing his delay, spurred on his horse, and
+fought till vanquished. Then Tancred woke from his stupor, and, burning
+with shame, rushed forward. The battle raged until night fell, and the
+weary warriors ceased, pledging themselves to return on the morrow.
+
+Erminia, shut up in Jerusalem, mourned over the wounds of Tancred. She
+knew many healing balms, by which, were she with him, she might heal him
+and make him ready for the morrow's fight; but she was forced to
+administer them to his enemy instead. Unable to endure the suspense
+longer, she put on her friend Clorinda's armor and fled to the Christian
+camp to find her beloved. The Franks, who spied her, supposed her
+Clorinda, and pursued her; but she succeeded in reaching a woodland
+retreat, where she determined to remain with the kind old shepherd and his
+wife who had fled from the disappointments of the court and had here
+sought and found peace in their humble home. When Tancred heard from his
+followers that they had driven Clorinda from the camps, he determined to
+pursue and speak with her. Rising from his bed he sought the forest only
+to fall into the wiles of Armida, and be lured into a castle, in whose
+dungeon he lay, consumed with shame at the thought of his unexplained
+absence from the morrow's combat.
+
+When morning dawned and Tancred did not appear, the good old Count Raymond
+went forth to meet Argantes. When he was about to overcome his antagonist,
+an arrow shot from the pagan ranks brought on a general conflict, in which
+the Christians were successful until a storm, summoned by the powers of
+darkness, put an end to the battle. The next morning a knight came to the
+camp of Godfrey to tell of Sweno's defeat and slaughter. He, the sole
+survivor of the band, had been commissioned by some supernatural visitants
+to bring Sweno's sword to Rinaldo.
+
+While Godfrey's heart was wrung by this disaster, the camp of Italians,
+led to suppose by some bloody armor found in a wood that Rinaldo had been
+treacherously slain with the connivance of Godfrey, accused the chief and
+stirred up the camp to revolt; but Godfrey, praying to Heaven for strength
+to meet his enemies, walked through the camp firmly and unfalteringly,
+unarmed and with head bare, his face still bright with the heavenly light
+left there by spiritual communion, and silenced the tumult by a few
+well-chosen words. His arch-accuser Argillan he sentenced to death; the
+others crept back to their tents in shame.
+
+The Soldan Solyman, driven from Nice at its capture, had joined the Turks,
+and, spurred on by hate and fury, made a night attack on the Frankish
+camp. The Franks, saved only by the interposition of the angel Michael,
+and by the troops just returned, released from Armida's enchantment,
+fought fiercely, and at dawn put Solyman to flight. By the arts of Ismeno
+he was conveyed to Jerusalem by a secret way, where he cheered the
+discouraged Aladine.
+
+Before attempting to storm the city, the Christian troops, by the advice
+of Peter the Hermit, walked in a long procession to Mt. Olivet, filling
+the heavens with melody, and there partook of the communion administered
+by the warrior priests, William and Ademar. The next morning, Godfrey, in
+the light armor of a foot-soldier, appeared with his barons, prepared for
+the storm. The troops were arranged carefully, the huge engines were moved
+forward, and the Franks made a bold attempt against the walls, from the
+top of which Clorinda aimed her arrows, wounding and slaying many men.
+Godfrey himself was wounded, but was healed by divine aid, and immediately
+returned to the field to rally his troops. Night fell, and the contest was
+deferred until another day.
+
+Clorinda, burning to distinguish herself, determined to fire the huge
+towers of the Christians. Her eunuch tried to dissuade her because he had
+been warned in a dream that she would this night meet her death. He told
+her her history. Her mother was a Christian who had been compelled to put
+her infant away from her. This eunuch had rescued her from death and
+brought her up, failing, however, to obey an angel's command to have her
+baptized a Christian.
+
+Clorinda would not heed his caution, but went forth and fired the Frankish
+machines. She and the fleeing pagans were pursued by the Christians; and
+while her companions reached the city in safety, she was accidentally shut
+out and met Tancred in mortal combat. She refused to tell her name until
+she felt her death-wound, and then she prayed her enemy to baptize her,
+that she might die a Christian. The broken-hearted Tancred fell fainting
+on her corpse, and was found there the next morning by the Franks. Neither
+his comrades, nor Godfrey and Peter the Hermit, were able to rouse him
+from his melancholy.
+
+Their machines destroyed, timbers were needed by the Franks to construct
+new ones. Knowing this, Ismeno laid spells on the forest, so that the
+warriors sent thither by Godfrey were frightened away by the sights they
+saw therein. Even Tancred was put to flight when one of the demons took
+the form of his beloved Clorinda. To add to the discomfort of the Franks,
+excessive heat overpowered them, and they suffered tortures from lack of
+water until the prayers of Godfrey moved the Ruler of the Earth with pity,
+and He sent down the longed-for showers.
+
+Delighted with the piety of Godfrey, the Great King sent him a dream by
+which he might know the will of Heaven. Lifted through the whirling
+spheres, his ears charmed with their music, his eyes dazzled by the
+brilliancy of the stars, he saw Duke Hugo, who told him that Rinaldo must
+be sought out before the conquest of Jerusalem could be accomplished. The
+same Power influenced the princes in council so that by the will of all,
+two knights, one of them him to whom Sweno's sword had been given, were
+despatched to seek Rinaldo. Instructed by Peter the Hermit, they sought
+the sea-coast, and found a wizard, who, after showing them the splendor of
+his underground abode beneath the river's bed, revealed to them the way in
+which they were to overcome the wiles of Armida.
+
+A beautiful maid with dove-like eyes and radiant smile received them in
+her small bark, and they were soon flying over the sea, marvelling at the
+rich cities and vast fleets by which they passed. Leaving rich Cadiz and
+the Pillars of Hercules, they sped out into the unknown sea, while the
+maiden told them of how some day Columbus would venture into unknown seas
+to find a new continent. On, on they flew, past the Happy Isles, the
+Fortunate, long the song of the poet; where the olive and honey made happy
+the land, and the rivers swept down from the mountains in silver
+streamlets; where every bird-song was heavenly music, a place so divine
+that there were placed of old the Elysian fields. To one of these islands
+the lady steered, and the knights disembarked, and started on their
+perilous journey up the mountain. Following the wizard's instructions,
+they waved the golden rod at the monstrous serpents hissing in their
+pathway, and they vanished; they steeled their hearts against the charms
+of the voluptuous maids bathing in the lake, and passed without tasting
+the fountain of laughter. Then the spacious palace met their eyes. Built
+round a garden, its marble courts and unnumbered galleries formed a
+trackless maze through which they could never have found their way without
+the aid of the wizard's map. As they trod the marble floors they paused
+many times to view the matchless carvings on the silver doors, which told
+anew the beautiful old stories of love triumphant.
+
+Once through the winding ways, they entered the wonderful garden which art
+and nature combined to render the most beautiful spot on earth. The same
+trees bore ripe fruit, buds, and blossoms; the birds sang joyfully in the
+green bowers; and the faint breezes echoed their song. One bird sang a
+song of love, and when the tender melody was done the other birds took it
+up and sang until the forest rang with melody, and all was love, love,
+love. Then the knights saw Rinaldo, lying in the grove, his head in the
+lap of the enchantress. His sword was gone from his side, and in its place
+hung a mirror in which he sometimes gazed at Armida's reflection. When
+Armida left him alone for a few hours, the knights surprised Rinaldo, and
+turned the wizard's diamond shield upon him. For the first time he saw
+himself as others saw him, and, blushing with shame, announced himself
+ready to return with them to rescue Jerusalem. Tearing off his ornaments,
+he hastened down the mountain, but not soon enough to escape Armida.
+Tears, prayers, threats she used in vain. She had captured him when he
+fled from the camp, intending to slay him; but moved by his beauty, she
+had spared him, and falling in love with him, had reared this palace that
+they might in it revel in love's pleasures. Now, miserable, she saw him
+desert her, and destroying the beautiful haunt, she drove her swift
+chariot across the seas to the camp of the Egyptian king, who was
+hastening towards Jerusalem. Intent on the slaughter of Rinaldo, her love
+for whom had changed to bitter hate, she offered the warriors of the
+Egyptian king, all of whom had fallen victims to her charms, her hand as a
+reward to the slayer of Rinaldo.
+
+When Rinaldo and his rescuers reached the abode of the wizard they found
+him waiting with new arms for the young hero. The sage reproached him
+gently for his dalliance, and then, seeing the blush of shame upon his
+countenance, showed him the shield, which bore the illustrious deeds of
+his ancestors of the house of Este. Great as were their past glories,
+still greater would be those of the family which he should found, greatest
+of whom would be the Duke Alphonso.
+
+Rinaldo, having told his story to Godfrey, and confessed his wrong-doing
+to Peter the Hermit, proceeded to the enchanted forest; and though as
+beauteous scenes, and as voluptuous sirens displayed themselves to him as
+dwelt in Armida's garden, yea, though one tree took the semblance of
+Armida herself, he boldly hacked the trunk and broke the magic spell.
+Joyfully the Franks set to work to fell the huge trees and construct
+vaster, stronger engines than before, under the direction of a master
+mechanic. At the same time, Vafrino, a cunning squire of Tancred, was
+commissioned to go forth in disguise and inspect the camp of the coming
+Egyptian king. Even before he departed, a carrier pigeon, driven back by a
+hawk, fell into Godfrey's hands, bearing a message to Aladine from Egypt,
+saying that in four or five days he would be with him in Jerusalem.
+
+Godfrey, determined to take the city before that day should come, made the
+utmost exertions to have the machines completed. In Jerusalem, also, great
+preparations were made, machines built, and a fearful fire concocted by
+Ismeno with which to drive the assaulters from the wall.
+
+Shriven by the priests, the Christian army went forth to battle. Godfrey
+took his stand against the northern gate; Raymond was assigned to the
+steep sharp crags at the southwest walls, and Guelph and the two Roberts
+were stationed on the track to Gaza to watch for the Egyptians.
+
+The pagans fought with great fury, bringing out new instruments to oppose
+the huge battering rams, raining down arrows, and throwing the suffocating
+fire. But Rinaldo, to whom all this work appeared too slow, urged on his
+bold Adventurers to form a tortoise, hastened to the wall, seized a
+scaling ladder, and, unmoved by any missile, mounted the wall and assisted
+his followers, in spite of the multitudes who surrounded him, attempting
+to hurl him down. But as Godfrey advanced, Ismeno launched his terrible
+fire-balls, more horrible than the flames of Mt. Etna; they affected even
+the vast tower, swelling and drying the heavy skins that covered its sides
+until protecting Heaven sent a breeze that drove the flames back to the
+city. Ismeno, accompanied by two witches, hurried to the wall, but was
+crushed by a stone that ground his and their bones to powder. Godfrey,
+inspired by a vision of the slain soldiery fighting in his ranks, leaped
+upon the wall and planted the red-cross flag. Raymond was also successful,
+and the Christians rushed over the walls into the town, following Aladine,
+who hastened to shut himself up in the citadel.
+
+While the battle was raging, but success was assured to the Christians,
+Tancred and the terrible Argantes met, and glad of an opportunity to
+settle their quarrel, withdrew to a glade in the forest. Tancred, stung by
+the taunts of cowardice for his former failure to keep his appointment,
+fought bitterly. He had not the sheer strength of his antagonist, but his
+sleight at last overcame, and Argantes fell. Weakened by pain and loss of
+blood, Tancred fell senseless, and was thus found by Erminia, who had met
+Vafrino the spy in the camp of the Egyptians and had fled with him. They
+revived Tancred, and carried him home to be nursed by the delighted
+Erminia.
+
+Vafrino had seen Armida in the camp and had learned through Erminia not
+only the princes' designs on Rinaldo, but also that they meant to assume
+the signs of the red-cross knights and thus reach the neighborhood of
+Godfrey and slay him. On this intelligence Godfrey changed the signs of
+his men that they might recognize the Egyptians on the following day and
+put them to death.
+
+Terrible to the Franks was the sight of the Egyptian army when they opened
+their eyes upon it next morning. Clouds of dust obscured all the heavens,
+hills, and valleys, so great was the coming host. But Godfrey, with an
+eloquence that fired each soul, told them of the helplessness of the
+enemy, of how many of them were slaves, scourged to the battle, and
+reminded them of the great undertaking before them, the saving of the
+Sepulchre, until fired with zeal, and burning to fight, they rushed into
+battle and dispersed the Egyptians. Many of the Christians fell by the
+sword of the terrible Soldan, among them Gildippe and her husband, united
+in death as in life. Rinaldo, hearing of their slaughter, speedily avenged
+it by laying the Soldan low on the battle-field.
+
+One after another of Armida's champions attacked Rinaldo, determined to
+win the prize, but his good sword sent them to earth, and Armida was left
+alone and unprotected. Rinaldo, having seen her fly away over the plain
+and knowing the victory achieved, followed and found her ready to put
+herself to death in a lonely glade. He snatched the sword from her hand
+and speedily changed back her hate to love. She fell upon his breast, and
+with the promise to become a Christian and give her life to him,
+accompanied him back to the city.
+
+During the battle, Aladine and those who were imprisoned in the citadel
+overpowered Count Raymond, and rushed out to battle, only to be overcome
+and slain. Prince Altamore, who, covered with blood, remained alone on the
+field, yielded himself to Godfrey, and was given his life and his kingdom.
+
+Then, from the field covered with spoil and floating with blood, the
+conquering troops, clad in their bloody armor, marched in solemn cavalcade
+to the Temple and paid their vowed devotions at the sacred tomb.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+SOPHRONIA AND OLINDO.
+
+
+At the instigation of the wizard Ismeno, Aladine, king of Jerusalem, stole
+an image of the Virgin from the temple of the Christians and put it in his
+mosque in order to render the city impregnable. When morning dawned the
+image was gone, and no search could reveal any clue to the theft.
+
+  In every temple, hermitage, and hall,
+  A long and eager search the monarch made,
+  And tortures or rewards decreed to all
+  Who screened the guilty, or the guilt betrayed;
+  Nor ceased the Sorcerer to employ in aid
+  Of the inquiry all his arts, but still
+  Without success; for whether Heaven conveyed
+  The prize away, or power of human will,
+  Heaven close the secret kept, and shamed his vaunted skill.
+
+  But when the king found all expedients vain
+  To trace th' offender, then, beyond disguise,
+  Flamed forth his hatred to the Christians; then,
+  Fed by wild jealousies and sharp surmise,
+  Immoderate fury sparkled in his eyes;
+  Follow what may, he will revenge the deed,
+  And wreak his rage: "Our wrath shall not," he cries,
+  "Fall void, but root up all th' accursed seed;
+  Thus in the general doom the guilty yet shall bleed!
+
+  "So that he 'scapes not, let the guiltless die!
+  But wherefore thus of guiltlessness debate?
+  Each guilty is, nor 'mongst them all know I
+  One, well-affected to the faith and state;
+  And what if some be unparticipate
+  In this new crime, new punishment shall pay
+  For old misdeeds; why longer do ye wait,
+  My faithful Mussulmans? up! up! away!
+  Hence with the torch and sword: seize, fire, lay waste, and slay!"
+
+  Thus to the crowd he spake, the mandate flew,
+  And in the bosoms of the Faithful shed
+  Astonishment and stupor; stupor threw
+  On every face the paleness of the dead;
+  None dared, none sought to make defence; none fled,
+  None used entreaty, none excuse; but there
+  They stood, like marble monuments of dread,
+  Irresolute,--but Heaven conceived their prayer,
+  And whence they least had hope, brought hope to their despair.
+
+  Of generous thoughts and principles sublime
+  Amongst them in the city lived a maid,
+  The flower of virgins in her ripest prime,
+  Supremely beautiful! but that she made
+  Never her care, or beauty only weighed
+  In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired
+  A deeper charm from blooming in the shade;
+  Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired,
+  But from their praises turned, and lived a life retired.
+
+  Yet could not this coy secrecy prevent
+  Th' admiring gaze and warm desires of one
+  Tutored by Love, nor yet would Love consent
+  To hide such lustrous beauty from the sun;
+  Love! that through every change delight'st to run,
+  The Proteus of the heart I who now dost blind,
+  Now roll the Argus eyes that nought can shun!
+  Thou through a thousand guards unseen dost wind,
+  And to the chastest maids familiar access find.
+
+  Sophronia hers, Olindo was his name;
+  Born in one town, by one pure faith illumed;
+  Modest--as she was beautiful, his flame
+  Feared much, hoped little, and in nought presumed;
+  He could not, or he durst not speak, but doomed
+  To voiceless thought his passion; him she slighted,
+  Saw not, or would not see; thus he consumed
+  Beneath the vivid fire her beauty lighted;
+  Either not seen ill known, or, known, but ill requited.
+
+  And thus it was, when like an omen drear
+  That summoned all her kindred to the grave,
+  The cruel mandate reached Sophronia's ear,
+  Who, brave as bashful, yet discreet as brave,
+  Mused how her people she from death might save;
+  Courage inspired, but virginal alarm
+  Repressed the thought, till maiden shyness gave
+  Place to resolve, or joined to share the harm;
+  Boldness awoke her shame, shame made her boldness charm.
+
+  Alone amidst the crowd the maid proceeds,
+  Nor seeks to hide her beauty, nor display;
+  Downcast her eyes, close veiled in simple weeds,
+  With coy and graceful steps she wins her way:
+  So negligently neat, one scarce can say
+  If she her charms disdains, or would improve,--
+  If chance or taste disposes her array;
+  Neglects like hers, if artifices, prove
+  Arts of the friendly Heavens, of Nature, and of Love.
+
+  All, as she passed unheeding, all, admire
+  The noble maid; before the king she stood;
+  Not for his angry frown did she retire,
+  But his indignant aspect coolly viewed:
+  "To give,"--she said, "but calm thy wrathful mood,
+  And check the tide of slaughter in its spring,--
+  To give account of that thou hast pursued
+  So long in vain, seek I thy face, O king!
+  The urged offence I own, the doomed offender bring!"
+
+  The modest warmth, the unexpected light
+  Of high and holy beauty, for a space
+  O'erpowered him,--conquered of his fell despite,
+  He stood, and of all fierceness lost the trace.
+  Were his a spirit, or were hers a face
+  Of less severity, the sweet surprise
+  Had melted him to love; but stubborn grace
+  Subdues not stubborn pride; Love's potent ties
+  Are flattering fond regards, kind looks, and smiling eyes.
+
+  If 't were not Love that touched his flinty soul,
+  Desire it was, 't was wonder, 't was delight:
+  "Safe be thy race!" he said, "reveal the whole,
+  And not a sword shall on thy people light."
+  Then she: "The guilty is before thy sight,--
+  The pious robbery was my deed; these hands
+  Bore the blest Image from its cell by night;
+  The criminal thou seek'st before thee stands,--
+  Justice from none but me her penalty demands."
+
+  Thus she prepares a public death to meet,
+  A people's ransom at a tyrant's shrine:
+  Oh glorious falsehood! beautiful deceit!
+  Can Truth's own light thy loveliness outshine?
+  To her bold speech misdoubting Aladine
+  With unaccustomed temper calm replied:
+  "If so it were, who planned the rash design,
+  Advised thee to it, or became thy guide?
+  Say, with thyself who else his ill-timed zeal allied?"
+
+  "Of this my glory not the slightest part
+  Would I," said she, "with one confederate share;
+  I needed no adviser; my full heart
+  Alone sufficed to counsel, guide and dare."
+  "If so," he cried, "then none but thou must bear
+  The weight of my resentment, and atone
+  For the misdeed." "Since it has been my care,"
+  She said, "the glory to enjoy alone,
+  'T is just none share the pain; it should be all mine own."
+
+  To this the tyrant, now incensed, returned,
+  "Where rests the Image?" and his face became
+  Dark with resentment: she replied, "I burned
+  The holy Image in the holy flame,
+  And deemed it glory; thus at least no shame
+  Can e'er again profane it--it is free
+  From farther violation: dost thou claim
+  The spoil or spoiler? this behold in me;
+  But that, whilst time rolls round, thou never more shall see.
+
+  "Albeit no spoiler I; it was no wrong
+  To repossess what was by force obtained:"
+  At this the tyrant loosed his threatening tongue,
+  Long-stifled passion raging unrestrained:
+  No longer hope that pardon may be gained,
+  Beautiful face, high spirit, bashful heart!
+  Vainly would Love, since mercy is disdained,
+  And Anger flings his most envenomed dart,
+  In aid of you his else protecting shield impart!
+
+  Doomed in tormenting fire to die, they lay
+  Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining.
+  Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away,
+  And the white veil that o'er her drooped declining:
+  This she endured in silence unrepining,
+  Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook;
+  And her warm cheek, Aurora's late outshining,
+  Waned into whiteness, and a color took,
+  Like that of the pale rose, or lily of the brook.
+
+  The crowd collect; the sentence is divulged;
+  With them Olindo comes, by pity swayed;
+  It might be that the youth the thought indulged,
+  What if his own Sophronia were the maid!
+  There stand the busy officers arrayed
+  For the last act, here swift the flames arise;
+  But when the pinioned beauty stands displayed
+  To the full gaze of his inquiring eyes,--
+  '_T is_ she! he bursts through all, the crowd before him flies.
+
+  Aloud he cries: "To her, oh not to her
+  The crime belongs, though frenzy may misplead!
+  She planned not, dared not, could not, king, incur
+  Sole and unskilled the guilt of such a deed!
+  How lull the guards, or by what process speed
+  The sacred Image from its vaulted cell?
+  The theft was mine! and 't is my right to bleed!"
+  Alas for him! how wildly and how well
+  He loved the unloving maid, let this avowal tell.
+
+  "I marked where your high Mosque receives the air
+  And light of heaven; I climbed the dizzy steep;
+  I reached a narrow opening; entered there,
+  And stole the Saint whilst all were hushed in sleep:
+  Mine was the crime, and shall another reap
+  The pain and glory? Grant not her desire!
+  The chains are mine; for me the guards may heap
+  Around the ready stake the penal fire;
+  For me the flames ascend; 't is mine, that funeral pyre!"
+
+  Sophronia raised to him her face,--her eye
+  Was filled with pity and a starting tear:
+  She spoke--the soul of sad humanity
+  Was in her voice, "What frenzy brings thee here,
+  Unhappy innocent! is death so dear,
+  Or am I so ill able to sustain
+  A mortal's wrath, that thou must needs appear?
+  I have a heart, too, that can death disdain,
+  Nor ask for life's last hour companionship in pain."
+
+  Thus she appeals to him; but scorning life,
+  His settled soul refuses to retreat:
+  Oh glorious scene, where in sublimest strife
+  High-minded Virtue and Affection meet!
+  Where death's the prize of conquest, and defeat
+  Seals its own safety, yet remains unblest!
+  But indignation at their fond deceit,
+  And rage, the more inflames the tyrant's breast,
+  The more this constant pair the palm of guilt contest.
+
+  He deems his power despised, and that in scorn
+  Of him they spurn the punishment assigned:
+  "Let," he exclaimed, "the fitting palm adorn
+  The brows of both! both pleas acceptance find!"
+  Beckoning he bids the prompt tormentors bind
+  Their galling chains around the youth--'t is done;
+  Both to one stake are, back to back, consigned,
+  Like sunflowers twisted from their worshipped sun,
+  Compelled the last fond looks of sympathy to shun.
+
+  Around them now the unctuous pyre was piled,
+  And the fanned flame was rising in the wind,
+  When, full of mournful thoughts, in accents wild,
+  The lover to his mate in death repined:
+  "Is this the bond, then, which I hoped should bind
+  Our lives in blissful marriage? this the fire
+  Of bridal faith, commingling mind with mind,
+  Which, I believed, should in our hearts inspire
+  Like warmth of sacred zeal and delicate desire?
+
+  "For other flames Love promised to impart,
+  Than those our envious planets here prepare;
+  Too, ah too long they kept our hands apart,
+  But harshly now they join them in despair!
+  Yet does it soothe, since by a mode so rare
+  Condemned to die, thy torments to partake,
+  Forbid by fate thy sweetnesses to share;
+  If tears I shed, 't is but for thy dear sake,
+  Not mine,--with thee beside, I bless the burning stake!
+
+  "And oh! this doom would be indeed most blest,
+  My sharpest sufferings blandishments divine,
+  Might I but be permitted, breast to breast,
+  On thy sweet lips my spirit to resign;
+  If thou too, panting toward one common shrine,
+  Wouldst the next happy instant parting spend
+  Thy latest sighs in sympathy on mine!"
+  Sorrowing he spake; she, when his plaints had end,
+  Did thus his fond discourse most sweetly reprehend.
+
+  "Far other aspirations, other plaints
+  Than these, dear friend, the solemn hour should claim.
+  Think what reward God offers to his saints;
+  Let meek repentance raise a loftier aim:
+  These torturing fires, if suffered in his name,
+  Will, bland as zephyrs, waft us to the blest;
+  Regard the sun, how beautiful his flame!
+  How fine a sky invites him to the west!
+  These seem to soothe our pangs, and summon us to rest."
+
+  The Pagans lifting up their voices, wept;
+  In stifled sorrow wept the Faithful too;
+  E'en the stern king was touched,--a softness crept
+  O'er his fierce heart, ennobling, pure, and new;
+  He felt, he scorned it, struggled to subdue,
+  And lest his wavering firmness should relent,
+  His eyes averted, and his steps withdrew;
+  Sophronia's spirit only was unbent;
+  She yet lamented not, for whom all else lament.
+
+  In midst of their distress, a knight behold,
+  (So would it seem) of princely port! whose vest
+  And arms of curious fashion, grained with gold,
+  Bespeak some foreign and distinguished guest;
+  The silver tigress on the helm impressed,
+  Which for a badge is borne, attracts all eyes,--
+  A noted cognizance, th' accustomed crest
+  Used by Clorinda, whence conjectures rise,
+  Herself the stranger is,--nor false is their surmise.
+
+  All feminine attractions, aims, and parts,
+  She from her childhood cared not to assume;
+  Her haughty hand disdained all servile arts,
+  The needle, distaff, and Arachne's loom;
+  Yet, though she left the gay and gilded room
+  For the free camp, kept spotless as the light
+  Her virgin fame, and proud of glory's plume,
+  With pride her aspect armed, she took delight
+  Stern to appear, and stern, she charmed the gazer's sight.
+
+  Whilst yet a girl, she with her little hand
+  Lashed and reined in the rapid steed she raced,
+  Tossed the huge javelin, wrestled on the sand,
+  And by gymnastic toils her sinews braced;
+  Then through the devious wood and mountain-waste
+  Tracked the struck lion to his entered den,
+  Or in fierce wars a nobler quarry chased;
+  And thus in fighting field and forest glen,
+  A man to savage beasts, a savage seemed to men.
+
+  From Persia now she comes, with all her skill
+  The Christians to resist, though oft has she
+  Strewed with their blood the field, till scarce a rill
+  Remained, that ran not purple to the sea.
+  Here now arrived, the dreadful pageantry
+  Of death presents itself,--the crowd--the pyre--
+  And the bound pair; solicitous to see,
+  And know what crime condemns them to the fire,
+  Forward she spurs her steed and hastens to inquire.
+
+  The throng falls back, and she awhile remains,
+  The fettered pair more closely to survey;
+  One she sees silent, one she sees complains,
+  The stronger spirit nerves the weaker prey;
+  She sees him mourn like one whom the sad sway
+  Of powerful pity doth to tears chastise,
+  Not grief, or grief not for himself; but aye
+  Mute kneels the maid, her blue beseeching eyes
+  So fixed on heaven, she seems in heaven ere yet she dies.
+
+  Clorinda melts, and with them both condoles;
+  Some tears she sheds, but greater tenderness
+  Feels for her grief who most her grief controls,--
+  The silence moves her much, the weeping less;
+  No longer now does she delay to press
+  For information; turning towards one
+  Of reverend years, she said with eagerness,
+  "Who are they? speak! and oh, what crime has won
+  This death? in Mercy's name, declare the deed they've done!"
+
+  Thus she entreats; a brief reply he gives,
+  But such as well explains the whole event:
+  Amazed she heard it, and as soon conceives
+  That they are both sincerely innocent;
+  Her heart is for them, she is wholly bent
+  To avert their fate, if either arms can aid,
+  Or earnest prayers secure the king's consent;
+  The fire she nears, commands it to be stayed,
+  That now approached them fast, and to th' attendants said:
+
+  "Let none of you presume to prosecute
+  Your barbarous office, till the king I see;
+  My word I pledge that at Clorinda's suit,
+  Your fault he will forgive, if fault it be."
+  Moved by her speech and queenlike dignity
+  The guards obey, and she departs in quest
+  Of the stern monarch, urgent of her plea:
+  Midway they met; the monarch she addressed
+  And in this skilful mode her generous purpose pressed.
+
+  "I am Clorinda; thou wilt know perchance
+  The name, from vague remembrance or renown;
+  And here I come to save with sword and lance
+  Our common Faith, and thy endangered crown,
+  Impose the labor, lay th' adventure down,
+  Sublime, I fear it not, nor low despise;
+  In open field or in the straitened town,
+  Prepared I stand for every enterprise,
+  Where'er the danger calls, where'er the labor lies!"
+
+  "'T would be assuredly a thing most rare,
+  If the reward the service should precede;
+  But of thy bounty confident, I dare
+  For future toils solicit, as my meed,
+  Yon lovers' pardon; since the charge indeed
+  Rests on no evidence, 't was hard to press
+  The point at all, but this I waive, nor plead
+  On those sure signs which, urged, thou must confess
+  Their hands quite free from crime, or own their guilt far less.
+
+  "Yet will I say, though here the common mind
+  Condemns the Christians of the theft, for me,
+  Sufficient reasons in mine own I find
+  To doubt, dispute, disparage the decree;
+  To set their idols in our sanctuary
+  Was an irreverence to our laws, howe'er
+  Urged by the sorcerer; should the Prophet see
+  E'en idols of our own established there?
+  Much less then those of men whose lips his faith forswear:
+
+  "The Christian statue ravished from your sight
+  To Allah therefore rather I impute,
+  In sign that he will let no foreign rite
+  Of superstition his pure place pollute:
+  Spells and enchantments may Ismeno suit,
+  Leave him to use such weapons at his will;
+  But shall we warriors by a wand dispute?
+  No! no! our talisman, our hope, our skill,
+  Lie in our swords alone, and they shall serve us still!"
+
+  She ceased; and he, though mercy could with pain
+  Subdue a heart so full of rage and pride,
+  Relents, her reasons move, her prayers constrain.--
+  Such intercessor must not be denied;
+  Thus, though reluctant, he at length complied:
+  "The plea for the fair pleader I receive;
+  I can refuse thee nothing; this," he cried,
+  "May justice be or mercy,--let them live;
+  Guiltless--I set them free, or guilty I forgive!"
+
+  Restored to life and liberty, how blest.
+  How truly blest was young Olindo's fate!
+  For sweet Sophronia's blushes might attest,
+  That Love at length has touched her delicate
+  And generous bosom; from the stake in state
+  They to the altar pass; severely tried,
+  In doom and love, already made his mate,
+  She now objects not to become his bride.
+  And grateful live with him who would for her have died.
+
+           _Wiffen's Translation, Canto_
+
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE LOST.
+
+
+Paradise Lost was written by John Milton, who was born in London, Dec. 9,
+1608, and died Nov. 8, 1674. After leaving college, he spent five years in
+study at home, during which time he wrote L'Allegro, Il Penseroso,
+Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas. In 1638 he travelled on the continent and in
+Italy, where he met Galileo. He hastened home in 1639 on account of the
+political disturbances in England, and espousing the Puritan cause,
+devoted the next twenty years of his life to the writing of pamphlets in
+its defence. In 1649 he was appointed Latin Secretary under Cromwell. In
+1652 he lost his sight in consequence of overwork. At the age of
+twenty-nine, Milton had decided to make an epic poem his life work, and
+had noted many historical subjects. By 1641 he had decided on a Biblical
+subject. He had probably conceived Paradise Lost at the age of thirty-two,
+although the poem was not composed until he was over fifty. It was written
+after his blindness and dictated in small portions to various persons, the
+work being collected and revised by Milton and Aubrey Phillips. It was
+completed, according to the authority of Phillips, in 1663, but on account
+of the Plague and the Great Fire, it was not published until 1667.
+
+Paradise Lost is divided into twelve books and is written, to use Milton's
+own words, "In English heroic verse without rhyme, as that of Homer in
+Greek and of Virgil in Latin, rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true
+ornament of poem or good verse."
+
+Paradise Lost was neglected until the time of the Whig supremacy in
+England. In 1688 Lord Somers, the Whig leader, published an _édition de
+luxe_ of the poem; Addison's papers on it, in 1712, increased its
+popularity, and through the influence of the Whigs a bust of the poet was
+placed in Westminster Abbey in 1737.
+
+There is no better proof of the greatness of Paradise Lost than the way in
+which it has survived hostile criticism. It has been criticised for the
+lengthy conversations and "arguments" of its characters; for its
+materialization of the Divine Being; because of its subject; because of
+Milton's vagueness of description of things awesome and terrible, in
+comparison with Dante's minute descriptions. But the earnest spirit in
+which it was conceived and written; the subject, giving it a "higher
+argument" than any merely national epic, even though many of Milton's, and
+his age's, special beliefs are things of the past, and its lofty and
+poetical style, have rendered unassailable its rank among the noblest of
+the epics.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE LOST.
+
+
+Joseph Addison's Notes upon the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost;
+by Albert S. Cook, 1892. (In the Spectator from Dec. 31, 1711-May 3,
+1712);
+
+Samuel Austin Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, 1891, vol. ii., pp.
+1301-1311;
+
+Matthew Arnold's A French Critic on Milton (see his Mixed Essays, 1880,
+pp. 260-273);
+
+Walter Bagehot's Literary Studies, by Richard Holt Hutton, 1879, vol. i.,
+202-219;
+
+Richard Bentley's Emendations on the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost, 1732;
+
+E. H. Bickersteth's Milton's Paradise Lost, 1876. (St. James Lectures, 2d
+series. Another edition, 1877);
+
+Hugh Blair's Paradise Lost (see his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles
+Lettres, 1783, vol. ii., 471-476);
+
+Miss Christian Cann's A Scriptural and Allegorical Glossary to Paradise
+Lost, 1828;
+
+Charles Dexter Cleveland's Complete Concordance to Milton's Poetical
+Works, 1867;
+
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and other
+English Poets collected by T. Ashe, 1893, pp. 518-529;
+
+William T. Dobson's The Classic Poets, their lives and times etc., 1879;
+
+Charles Eyre's Fall of Adam, from Milton's Paradise Lost, 1852;
+
+George Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 1852, pp. 17-25;
+
+S. Humphreys Gurteen's The Epic of the Fall of Man; a comparative Study of
+Caedmon, Dante, and Milton, 1896;
+
+William Hazlitt On the Character of Milton's Eve (see his Round Table ed.
+by W. Carew Hazlitt, 1889, pp. 150-158);
+
+William Hazlitt On Milton's Versification (see his Round Table, ed. by W.
+Carew Hazlitt, 1889, pp. 51-57);
+
+John A. Himes's Study of Milton's Paradise Lost, 1878;
+
+Samuel Johnson's Milton (see his Lives of the Poets; ed. by Mrs. Alexander
+Napier, 1890, vol. i.);
+
+Thomas Keightley's Introduction to Paradise Lost (see his An account of
+the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton, 1855, pp. 397-484);
+
+Walter Savage Landor's Imaginary Conversations, Southey and Landor, 1853,
+vol. ii., 57-74, 156-159;
+
+Thomas Babington Macaulay's Milton (see his Critical and Historical
+Essays, ed. 10, 1860, vol. i., pp. 1-61);
+
+William Massey's Remarks upon Milton's Paradise Lost, 1761;
+
+David Masson's Introduction to Paradise Lost (see his edition of Milton's
+Poetical Works, 1893, vol. ii., pp. 1-57);
+
+David Masson's Life of Milton, 1880, vol. vi., 505-558, 621-636;
+
+David Masson's Three Devils (Luther's, Goethe's, and Milton's), (see his
+Three Devils and other Essays, 1874);
+
+James Peterson's A complete Commentary on Paradise Lost, 1744;
+
+Jonathan Richardson's Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Paradise Lost,
+1734;
+
+Edmond Scherer's Milton and Paradise Lost (see his essays on English
+Literature; Tr. by George Saintsbury, 1891, pp. 134-149);
+
+John Robert Seeley's Milton (see his Roman Imperialism and other Lectures
+and Essays), 1871, pp. 142-152;
+
+First Edition of Paradise Lost, Book Lore, 1886, iii., 72-75;
+
+J. A. Himes's Cosmology of Paradise Lost, Lutheran Quarterly, 1876, vi.,
+187-204;
+
+J. A. Himes's Plan of Paradise Lost, New Englander, 1883, xlii., 196-211;
+
+Satan of Milton and the Lucifer of Byron compared, Knickerbocker, 1847,
+xxx., 150-155;
+
+Satan of Paradise Lost, Dublin University Magazine, 1876, lxxxviii.,
+707-714;
+
+Augustine Birrell's Obiter Dicta (2d series 1887, pp. 42-51);
+
+Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature;
+Bentley's Milton, 1867, pp. 138-139;
+
+Henry Hallam's Literary History of Europe, 1873, ed. 5, vol. iii., pp.
+475-483;
+
+Mark Pattison's John Milton, n. d. (English Men of Letters Series);
+
+H. A. Taine's History of English Literature; Tr. by H. Van Laun, 1877,
+vol. ii., pp. 106-124.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF PARADISE LOST.
+
+
+When that bright spirit, afterwards known as Satan, rose in rebellion
+against the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, presumptuously thinking
+himself equal to him in strength and following, he was overthrown by the
+Great Power and cast with his followers out of Heaven down to his future
+dwelling, flaming Hell.
+
+Nine days he and his horrid crew fell through Chaos into the flaming pit
+yawning to receive them, and there lay for nine days,--rendered still more
+miserable by the thought of their immortality and the eternal bliss they
+had forfeited. Then Satan, rousing himself from the stupor consequent upon
+the fall, half rose and addressed the next in power to himself, Beelzebub.
+
+"Thou art the same, yet not the same," said he; "changed, lost is some of
+thy former brightness. Yet why repine? While we live, while we have so
+large a following, all is not lost. Our hate still lives, and have we but
+strength enough, we may still revenge ourselves upon him who thrust us
+into this accursed place."
+
+Rising from the lake, his great shield slung over his shoulders, the
+unconquered archangel walked over the burning marl to the beach of that
+fiery sea, and there with chiding words addressed the legions strewn
+around him. The great army rose hastily at the voice of its chief and
+passed before him, spirits whose heavenly names were now forever lost, who
+later became the gods of the idolaters. There was mighty Moloch, Chemos,
+those who later went by the general names of Baalim and
+Ashtaroth,--Thammuz, Dagon, Rimmon, Osiris, Isis, Orus and their train,
+Belial, and last of all, the Ionian gods.
+
+His despair in part dissipated by the sight of this heroic array, their
+prince, towering high above all, addressed them. No one had foreseen the
+calamity that had overtaken them. Who could have guessed the power of the
+Almighty? But though overthrown they were not totally defeated. A rumor
+had long since been rife of the creation of another world with which they
+could interfere. At any rate, there must never be peace between them and
+the heavenly Powers. War there must be, war in secret, or war waged
+openly. As he ended, shield clashed against shield, and swords, quickly
+drawn, flashed before his eyes, and loud cries hurled defiance to Heaven.
+
+The legions, led by Mammon, who in Heaven had been an honored architect,
+sought a hill near by, and quickly emptying it of its rich store of gold
+and jewels, built a massive structure. Like a temple in form was it, and
+round about it stood Doric columns overlaid with gold. No king of any
+future state could boast of a grander hall than this palace of Pandemonium
+which was so quickly reared upon a hill in Hell, and to which the heralds'
+trumpets now summoned all the host.
+
+On the massive throne, blazing with jewels, sat the fallen spirit, and
+thus addressed his followers: "Our success is sure in whatever we
+undertake. We shall never be riven with internecine warfare, for surely no
+one will quarrel over precedence in Hell. Therefore, united, we can, sure
+of our success, debate of the way in which we shall take up our warfare
+with the powers that have overthrown us."
+
+Moloch, Belial, Mammon, and Beelzebub spoke. Moloch was in favor of open
+war, since nothing could be worse than Hell, and continued assault against
+the Most High would, in annoying him, be a sweet revenge. Belial, who
+though timorous and slothful, was a persuasive orator, denounced Moloch's
+plan. Since the ruler of Heaven was all-powerful, and they immortal, no
+one knew to what greater misery he could push them; perhaps he would bury
+them in boiling pitch to eternity, or inflict a thousand undreamed-of
+tortures. War, open and secret, he disliked, since it was impossible to
+conceal aught from the eye of the Most High. To make the best of Hell
+seemed all that was possible; in time they might become inured to its
+flames and better days might come, if they but accepted their doom
+patiently.
+
+Mammon also considered war impossible. They could never hope to overcome
+the Almighty; neither could they hope nor wish for a reconciliation, for
+how hateful would be an eternity spent in cringing to one whom they hated.
+The desert soil of Hell teemed with riches, they could find peaceful
+pursuits, and it was his advice to continue there in quiet, untroubled by
+any thoughts of revenge.
+
+Amid the murmur of applause that followed Mammon's speech, Beelzebub, than
+whom none towered higher save Satan, arose, his face grave, his attitude
+majestic. "Would you, Thrones and Imperial Powers," he cried, "think to
+build up a kingdom here, secure from the arm of Heaven? Have you so soon
+forgotten that this is not a kingdom ceded to you by the Most High, but a
+dungeon in which he has shut you for your everlasting punishment? Never
+will he forget that you are his prisoners; your lot will not be peace, but
+custody and stripes. What return can we make, then, but to think out some
+slow but sure and sweet revenge? It is not necessary to attempt to scale
+the walls of Heaven. Other things remain. There is this new world, his
+plaything. It may lie exposed, and we can at least make the attempt to
+seize it and lay it waste, and thus vex him." As he saw their eyes
+sparkle, he continued: "We may in this attempt come near to the steps of
+our old abode and breathe again its delicious airs instead of these
+hellish flames. But first we must find some one, strong, wary, and
+watchful, to send in search of it."
+
+Satan strode forth, his courage and his consciousness of it making his
+face shine with transcendent glory. "Long is the way and hard; its dangers
+unknown and terrible, but I should be a poor sovereign did I hesitate in
+the attempt to seek it out. I do not refuse the sovereignty, for I fear
+not to accept as great a share of hazard as of honor. Stay here; charm
+away your time, and I will seek deliverance abroad for all of us."
+
+As he spoke he rose to depart, fearful lest others might now offer to go
+and share the glory with him.
+
+The legions rose with a sound like thunder, bowed in deepest reverence and
+went forth, some, to explore their dismal abode, others to amuse
+themselves at games, others to discuss Free Will and Fate, while their
+leader pursued his way toward the gate of Hell.
+
+The nine-fold gates were of brass, iron, and adamantine rock, reaching
+high to the mighty roof, and most horrible were the Shapes that guarded
+it.
+
+On one side sat a creature, woman to the waist, below, a serpent,
+surrounded by a crew of hell hounds, forever barking and then seeking
+refuge within her. On the other, a Shape, black, fierce, terrible, crowned
+with the likeness of a kingly crown, and shaking in its hands a dreadful
+dart. As he strode, Hell trembled. Satan, undaunted, met him with fierce
+words. As the two stood, their lances pointed at each other, the woman
+shrieked and ran between them.
+
+"Father, rush not upon thy son! Son, raise not thy hand against thy
+father!" She then explained that she was Satan's daughter, Sin, who had
+sprung from his head full grown, and that she later became by him the
+mother of the creature called Death who sat with her to guard the gates.
+
+Satan at once unfolded to them his plan of seeking the new world and
+making a happy home for both Sin and Death, where they could forever find
+food to gratify their hideous cravings. Charmed by his highly-colored
+pictures, and forgetful of the commands from above, Sin opened the mighty
+doors, so that the flames of Hell spread far out into Chaos, but her
+strength failed her when she attempted to close them again.
+
+For a moment Satan looked out into the mixture of Hot and Cold and Moist
+and Dry that formed Chaos, and then started forth, now rising, now
+falling, his wings heavy with the dense masses, now wading, now creeping,
+until at last he reached the spot where was fixed the throne of Chaos and
+of Night. Here Satan learned of the situation of the new world and soon
+caught a glimpse of it, hanging like a star, by a golden chain, from
+Heaven.
+
+Sitting in Heaven, high throned above all, God, all-seeing, all-knowing,
+was conscious of Satan's escape from Hell and his approach to the new
+world. To his Son, sitting on his right hand, he pointed out the fallen
+spirit. "No prescribed bounds can shut our Adversary in; nor can the
+chains of hell hold him. To our new world he goes, and there, by no fault
+of mine, will pervert man, whom I have placed therein, with a free will;
+so to remain until he enthralls himself. Man will fall as did Satan, but
+as Satan was self-tempted, and man will be deceived by another, the latter
+shall find grace where his tempter did not."
+
+Great was the joy of the Son when he learned that man would receive mercy
+for his transgression. "Pardon and mercy he shall receive," declared the
+Father, "but some one must be willing to expiate his sin for him; the just
+must die for the unjust. Who in Heaven is willing to make the sacrifice?"
+
+For a moment all the Heavenly quire stood mute; then the Son of God spoke
+and implored his Father to let his anger fall on him, since he could not
+wholly die, but could arise from death and subdue his vanquisher.
+
+When his Father accepted the sacrifice, and named him Son of God and Man
+who should hereafter be Universal King, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, Heaven
+rang with the shouts of the Angels, who, casting down their amaranthine
+wreaths until the golden pavement was covered with the garlands, took
+their golden harps and sang the praises of the Father and the Son.
+
+While they sang, Satan walked over the vast globe on which he had
+alighted, through what in after years, when the world was peopled, was to
+be the Paradise of Fools, the spot to which the spirits of all things
+transitory and vain, of those who had worked for their reward in life
+instead of in Heaven, would come. He walked around the dark globe until,
+directed by a gleam of light, he found the spot where a ladder led up to
+Heaven. Just below it, down through the spheres, was the seat of Paradise
+to which he was bending his way.
+
+Down through the crystal spheres he bent his way toward the Sun, which
+attracted him by its superior splendor. Espying Uriel, the Angel of the
+Sun, he quickly took the form of a youthful Cherub, and, approaching
+Uriel, told him that having heard of the new world he had been seized by a
+longing to quit the bands of Cherubim and see for himself the wonderful
+work of the Creator.
+
+Directed by the unsuspecting Uriel, Satan sped downward and standing upon
+the top of Niphates, surveyed Eden.
+
+As he looked, his spirit was troubled. He had brought Hell with him, and
+his unhappy thoughts boiled and surged in his troubled mind. "Sun, I hate
+thee, because thy beams recall to me what I was and how I fell. The
+matchless King of Heaven deserved no such return from me. His service was
+easy. Had I only been created a lower Power!--But even then, might not
+some higher one have led me into temptation? What shall I do, whither
+shall I fly, to escape infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Hell is
+around me, I myself am Hell! There is no hope for me. Submission is the
+only way left, and I could not unsay what I have said; I could never
+bridge the gulf made by my revolt. Farewell to remorse! Good is forever
+lost to me, and I must now make Evil my good. I can at least divide the
+empire of the world with the King of Heaven."
+
+As he realized how his bitter thoughts had dimmed his countenance he
+smoothed it over with outward calm, but not before Uriel, from the Sun,
+had noted and wondered over his strange gestures.
+
+Leaping over the high natural walls of Paradise, Satan, in the form of a
+cormorant, perched himself on the Tree of Life. Beautiful was the scene
+before him. All the trees and plants were of the noblest kind. In the
+midst of them stood the Tree of Life with its golden fruit, and not far
+off the Tree of Knowledge. Southward through Eden ran a river, which,
+passing under a huge hill, emerged into four great streams wandering
+through many afterwards famous realms. Between the rows of trees stretched
+level lawns where grazed the happy flocks, and over the green mead were
+sprinkled flowers of every hue. No fairer scene ever met living eyes, and
+fairest of all were the two stately forms, in whose looks shone the
+divinity of their Maker. Hand in hand they passed through the garden,
+refreshed themselves with the delicious fruits, and were happy in each
+other.
+
+As he gazed on them while the animals fell asleep and the sun sank below
+the horizon, Satan, still torn with conflicting emotions, ruminated over
+the unhappiness he was to bring the lovely pair. He admired them, he could
+love them; they had not harmed him, but he must bring unhappiness upon
+them because of their likeness to their Creator. Through them only could
+he obtain his longed-for revenge.
+
+Anxious to learn where to attack them, he prowled about them, now as a
+lion, now as a tiger, listening to their conversation. They spoke of their
+garden, of the Tree of Life, and of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. "In
+the day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die," had been their warning. Eve
+recalled the day of her creation, when she had first fled from Adam, and
+then yielded to his embraces, and Satan, watching their caresses, envied
+and hardened his heart. "Live while ye may!" he muttered. "Soon will I
+return and offer you new woes for your present pleasures."
+
+In the mean time, Gabriel, warned by Uriel, who suspected that an evil
+spirit had crept into Paradise, had set watches around the garden.
+Ithuriel and Zephon, sent to search for him, spied Satan in the form of a
+toad, sitting near the ear of Eve, tainting her dreams with foul whispers.
+Touched by Ithuriel's spear, he was forced to resume his own shape and was
+taken to Gabriel. The angry Satan attempted to use force, but warned by a
+sign from Heaven that his strength was insufficient, fled, murmuring,
+through the night.
+
+When morning dawned on Eden, a morn of unimaginable beauty, Adam waked Eve
+from her restless slumbers, and heard her troubled dreams, in which she
+had been tempted to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. He
+comforted her, and after their morning hymn, in which they glorified their
+Creator, they set about their pleasant work of pruning the too luxuriant
+vines of their Paradise. In the mean time, the Father above, knowing the
+design of Satan, and determined that man should not fall without warning,
+sent Raphael down to Adam to tell him that he was threatened by an enemy,
+and that, as a free agent, if he fell, his sin would be upon his own head.
+
+Six-winged Raphael swept down through the spheres and stood in Paradise,
+welcomed by Adam. Eve hastened to set before their guest every delicacy
+that Eden knew, and while she was preparing these Adam listened to the
+Angel's warning.
+
+To emphasize the sin of disobedience, Raphael related to the pair the
+story of Satan's conspiracy with the other powers because the Father had
+proclaimed the power of his Son. The Father, knowing Satan's confidence in
+himself, had allowed him for two days to fight an equal number of his
+legions of angels, among whom was Abdiel who had fled, indignant, from
+Satan's ranks, and on the third day, when the legions of evil lay crushed
+beneath the mountains which the shining angels had heaped upon them, the
+Son of God drove forth in his chariot, and single-handed, forced them
+before him, terror-stricken, until, Heaven's wall having opened, they fell
+downward for nine days, in horror and confusion into the depths of Hell.
+The Messiah, returning home in triumph in his chariot, was welcomed by the
+bright orders into the home of his Father.
+
+Delighted by the recital of Raphael, Adam asked him to relate the story of
+the Creation, and explain to him the motion of the celestial bodies. He
+then told Raphael of his own creation; how he awoke as from a sleep and
+found the Sun above him and around him the pleasant groves of Paradise;
+how he named the animals as they passed before him, according to the will
+of God, and how he had pleaded with his Maker for a companion and equal,
+until the Creator, casting him into a sound sleep, took from his side a
+rib and formed from it his beauteous Eve. As Adam concluded, the setting
+sun warned Raphael to depart.
+
+Satan, after fleeing from Gabriel, had hidden in the dark parts of the
+earth, so that he could creep in at night unseen of Uriel. After the
+eighth night, he crept in past the watchful Cherubim, and stealing into
+Paradise, wrapped in the mist rising over the river that, shooting
+underground, rose up as a fountain near the Tree of Life, he crept, though
+not without loathing, into the serpent, in which form he could best evade
+the watchful eyes of the heavenly guards and accomplish his purpose.
+
+When morning dawned, Eve asked Adam for once to permit her to work alone,
+so that they might accomplish more. Adam, who constantly desired her
+presence, prayed her to remain, warning her of the enemy of whom Raphael
+had spoken, and telling her that they could resist temptation more easily
+together than when separated. But Eve was obdurate, and Adam finally
+consented that she should go alone to work.
+
+As she moved among the groves, tying up the drooping flowers, like to
+Pomona in her prime, or to Ceres, the sight of so much beauty, goodness,
+and innocence moved even the serpent, as he approached, intent on the
+destruction of her happiness. But as he looked, the thought of her joy but
+tortured him the more, since happiness was no longer possible for him.
+
+This was before the serpent had been compelled to crawl his whole length
+on the ground, and as he moved on, fold on fold, his head proudly reared,
+his scales brilliant in color, he was not an unpleasant object to look
+upon. He circled about Eve as though lost in admiration, until her
+attention was attracted, and then astounded her by addressing her in her
+own language. When she demanded by what means he had acquired speech, he
+told her by the plucking and eating of a certain tree in the garden, which
+he had no sooner tasted than he felt his inward powers to develop until he
+found himself capable of speech.
+
+Eve at once asked him to take her to the tree, but when she recognized the
+forbidden Tree of Knowledge, she demurred, assuring the serpent that God
+had commanded them not to touch it, for if they ate of it, they should
+surely die. "Am I not alive?" asked her tempter, "and have I not eaten of
+it? Is it not a rank injustice that you should be forbidden to taste it
+and to lack the Knowledge of Good and Evil which it would give you? Where
+can the offence lie? It must be envy that causes such a prohibition."
+
+His words, the sight of the fruit, and natural hunger all prevailed on
+Eve, and she plucked a branch from the tree and tasted the fruit. As she
+ate she saw Adam coming in search of her, holding a garland which he had
+been binding to crown her. To his reproaches, she replied with the
+arguments of her tempter, until Adam, in despair, determined to taste the
+apple that he might not lose Eve. Paradise without her would not be
+Paradise, and no new wife could make him forget her.
+
+After the first exhilaration of the food was past they began to reproach
+each other, mindful of their destiny, of which they had been warned by
+Raphael, and, engaged in this fruitless chiding, they were found by the
+Son, who, informed of their transgression by the angels, sought them out
+in their place of concealment. Adam and Eve he sentenced to a life of
+sorrow and labor, the serpent to go despised and ever at enmity with man.
+Then, pitying the unhappy pair, he clad them in skins and re-ascended to
+Heaven.
+
+While this was occurring in Eden, Sin and Death, feeling in some
+mysterious way the success of their parent, determined to leave Hell and
+seek their new home. Passing through Chaos, they pushed the heavy elements
+this way and that, cementing them with Death's mace until they constructed
+of them a bridge from the gates of Hell to the point on earth at which
+Satan had first alighted, and here met him, just returning, flushed with
+success, to Hell.
+
+All the followers of Satan were gathered in Pandemonium to hear the news
+of his success, which he related, overjoyed at having wrought the ruin of
+mankind and revenged himself on God by so small a thing as the eating of
+an apple. As he concluded and stood waiting their applause, he heard a
+universal hiss, and saw himself surrounded by serpents, and himself
+changing into an enormous dragon. The great hall was filled with the
+monsters, scorpions, asps, hydras, and those who stood waiting without
+with applause for their leader were likewise changed into loathsome
+reptiles. Without the hall a grove sprang up, loaded with tempting fruit,
+but when, tortured with thirst, they tried to eat, it turned in their
+mouths to bitter ashes. After a time they were permitted to take again
+their own shapes, but were compelled to resume this serpent-form for a
+certain number of days each year, to crush their pride.
+
+When God saw the entrance of Sin and Death into the world, he proclaimed
+to his Saints that their seeming victory was but temporary, and that
+eventually his Son would defeat Sin, Death, and the Grave, and seal up the
+mouth of Hell. Then, as the Halleluias rang out, he ordered the angels to
+make certain changes in the universe as a punishment to man. The Sun was
+so to move as to affect the earth alternately with a cold and heat almost
+unbearable; to the Moon were assigned her motions; the other planets were
+to join in various ways, often "unbenign." The winds were assigned their
+stations to torment the earth and sea, and the thunder was set to strike
+terror to the heart of man. The poles of the earth were pushed aslant, and
+soon the effects of the changes were felt in heat, cold, wind, and storm.
+
+Adam, though absorbed in his own misery and momentarily expecting Death,
+saw the changes, and bemoaned his woes the more. How would his mysterious
+progeny despise him, since he was the cause of their being brought into
+the world of woe! When Eve attempted to comfort him he drove her from him
+with harsh words, saying that in time to come women would be the unhappy
+cause of all man's misery, as she had been of his. At last, seeing the
+futility of his outcries Adam began to cheer his wife, recalling the
+promise that their offspring should crush the head of the serpent, and
+suggested to her that they go to their former place of prayer and pour
+forth to God their true contrition and repentance.
+
+The glad Son, presenting these prayers at his Father's throne, interceded
+with him for them, since their contrition now was worth more than their
+worship in a state of innocence. His intercession was accepted, but since
+they had lost the two gifts of Happiness and Immortality, they must leave
+the garden lest they be tempted to taste next of the Tree of Life and make
+their woe eternal.
+
+Michael was sent down to drive them from the garden, and if the pair
+seemed repentant and disconsolate he was ordered to comfort them with the
+promise of better days and to reveal to them somewhat of the future. In
+habit as a man Michael descended and declared to Adam and Eve that they
+could no longer abide in Paradise. When Adam, himself broken with grief,
+attempted to console the heart-broken Eve, the Angel comforted her also,
+and causing a sleep to fall upon her, led Adam to a hill-top, whence could
+be seen the hemisphere of the earth, soon to be covered by the seats of
+empires.
+
+Touching Adam's eyes with three drops from the well of life, the Angel
+showed him a long panorama, beginning with the crime of Cain, and showing
+the building of the Ark and its landing on Ararat. When he perceived that
+Adam's eyes were weary, he recited to him the story of Abraham, of the
+deliverance from Egypt, the wandering in the Wilderness, of the royal
+stock of David from which would spring the seed so often promised Adam,
+who should ascend the hereditary throne, and whose glory should be
+universal.
+
+Overjoyed, Adam inquired when would take place the final death stroke to
+Satan, the bruising with the Victor's heel. Michael responded that Satan
+was not to be destroyed, but his works in Adam and his seed, and that the
+sacrifice of the Son's life for man would forever crush the strength of
+Satan's progeny, Sin and Death. Then, to that Heaven to which he would
+reascend, the faithful would go when the time came for the world's
+dissolution, and there would be received into the bliss eternal.
+
+Strengthened and sustained, Adam went down from the mount and met Eve,
+just awaking from comforting dreams.
+
+The Cherubim descended, and, urged by the Angel, the two took their way
+into the wide world that lay before them, and looking back beheld the
+flaming swords of the Cherubim at the gates of their lost Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST.
+
+SATAN.
+
+
+After having been thrown out of Heaven with his crew, Satan lay nine days
+in the burning lake into which he fell. Then, rousing himself, he rose
+from the liquid flames, flew over the lake, and alighting upon the solid
+though burning land, thus addressed Beelzebub, who had accompanied him.
+
+  "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
+  Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
+  That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom
+  For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
+  Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
+  What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
+  Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
+  Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
+  Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
+  Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
+  Receive thy new possessor--one who brings
+  A mind not to be changed by place or time.
+  The mind is its own place, and in itself
+  Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+  What matter where, if I be still the same,
+  And what I should be, all but less than he
+  Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
+  We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
+  Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
+  Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
+  To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
+  Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
+  But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
+  The associates and co-partners of our loss,
+  Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,
+  And call them not to share with us their part
+  In this unhappy mansion, or once more
+  With rallied arms to try what may be yet
+  Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"
+
+  So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub
+  Thus answered:--"Leader of those armies bright
+  Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
+  If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
+  Of hope in fears and dangers--heard so oft
+  In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
+  Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
+  Their surest signal--they will soon resume
+  New courage and revive, though now they lie
+  Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
+  As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
+  No wonder, fallen from such pernicious highth!"
+
+  He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
+  Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
+  Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
+  Behind him cast. The broad circumference
+  Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
+  Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
+  At evening, from the top of Fesolč,
+  Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
+  Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
+  His spear--to equal which the tallest pine
+  Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
+  Of some great ammiral, were but a wand--
+  He walked with, to support uneasy steps
+  Over the burning marle, not like those steps
+  On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
+  Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
+  Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
+  Of that inflamčd sea he stood, and called
+  His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced
+  Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
+  In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
+  High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
+  Afloat, when the fierce winds Orion armed
+  Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
+  Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
+  While with perfidious hatred they pursued
+  The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
+  From the safe shore their floating carcases
+  And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrewn,
+  Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
+  Under amazement of their hideous change.
+  He called so loud that all the hollow deep
+  Of Hell resounded:--"Princes, Potentates,
+  Warriors, the Flower of Heaven--once yours; now lost,
+  If such astonishment as this can seize
+  Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
+  After the toil of battle to repose
+  Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
+  To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
+  Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
+  To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
+  Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
+  With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
+  His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
+  The advantage, and descending, tread us down
+  Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
+  Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?--
+  Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"
+          _Book I._, 240-330.
+
+
+APOSTROPHE TO LIGHT.
+
+This passage forms the beginning of Book III., in which the poet visits
+the realms of light after having described Hell and its inhabitants.
+
+  Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
+  Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
+  May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
+  And never but in unapproachčd light
+  Dwelt from eternity--dwelt then in thee,
+  Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
+  Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
+  Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
+  Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
+  Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
+  The rising World of waters dark and deep,
+  Won from the void and formless Infinite!
+  Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
+  Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained
+  In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
+  Through utter and through middle Darkness borne,
+  With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
+  I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
+  Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down
+  The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
+  Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
+  And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
+  Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
+  To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
+  So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
+  Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
+  Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
+  Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
+  Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
+  Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
+  That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
+  Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
+  Those other two equalled with me in fate,
+  So were I equalled with them in renown,
+  Blind Thamyris and blind Mćonides,
+  And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
+  Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
+  Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
+  Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
+  Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
+  Seasons return; but not to me returns
+  Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
+  Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
+  Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
+  But cloud instead and ever-during dark
+  Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
+  Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
+  Presented with a universal blank
+  Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
+  And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
+  So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
+  Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
+  Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
+  Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
+  Of things invisible to mortal sight.
+                       _Book III_
+
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+  "A cold and noble epic."--TAINE.
+
+
+Paradise regained was written by Milton, judging from a passage in the
+Autobiography of Thomas Ellwood, in the winter of 1665-6, but was not
+published until 1671. It was printed at Milton's expense in a small volume
+together with Samson Agonistes.
+
+Paradise Regained tells the story of Christ's temptation in the
+Wilderness, and the material was taken from the accounts of Matthew and
+Luke, which the poet, with great skill, expanded without essentially
+deviating from them.
+
+The title has been criticised on the ground that the poem should have
+extended over the whole of Christ's life on earth. But Paradise Regained
+was written as a sequel to Paradise Lost, and, as in the first poem the
+poet showed that Paradise was lost by the yielding of Adam and Eve to
+Satan, so in the second, he wished to show that Paradise was regained by
+the resistance of Christ to temptation, Satan's defeat signifying the
+regaining of Paradise for men by giving them the hope of Christ's second
+coming. Therefore the poem naturally ends with Satan's rebuff and his
+final abandonment of the attempt on the pinnacle of the Temple.
+
+The poem has been criticised for its shortness, some scholars even
+affecting to believe it unfinished; its lack of variety, in that it has
+but two characters, its lack of action, and the absence of figurative
+language.
+
+But with all these faults, it has a charm of its own, entirely different
+from that of Paradise Lost. Satan has degenerated during his years of
+"roaming up and down the earth;" he is no longer the fallen angel of
+Paradise Lost, who struggled with himself before making evil his good. He
+is openly given over to evil practices, and makes little effort to play
+the hypocrite. His temptations are worked up from that of hunger to that
+of the vision of the kingdoms of the earth with a wonderful power of
+description which makes up for the lack of action and the few actors. The
+pathless, rockbound desert, the old man, poorly clad, who accosts the
+Christ, the mountain-top from which all the earth was visible, the night
+of horror in the desert, and the sublime figure of the Savior, are all
+enduring pictures which compensate for any rigidity of treatment. If
+figurative language is omitted it is because the theme does not need it,
+and does not show that the poem is less carefully finished than Paradise
+Lost. Its lack of action and similarity of subject to the longer poem
+sufficiently account for its not meeting with popular favor. Johnson was
+correct when he said, "had this poem been written not by Milton, but by
+some imitator, it would have claimed and received universal praise."
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+
+H. C. Beeching, On the Prosody of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes,
+1889;
+
+Charles Dexter Cleveland's Complete Concordance to Milton's Poetical
+Works, 1867;
+
+William T. Dobson's The Classic Poets, their Lives and Times etc., 1879;
+
+George Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 1852, pp. 15-16;
+
+Samuel Johnson's Milton (see his Lives of the Poets, ed. by Mrs. Alexander
+Napier, 1890, vol. i.);
+
+Thomas Babington Macaulay's Milton (see his Critical and Historical
+Essays, ed, 10, 1860, vol. i.);
+
+David Masson's Introduction to Paradise Regained (see his ed. of Milton's
+Poetical works, 1893, vol. iii., pp. 1-14);
+
+David Masson's Life of Milton, 1880, vol. vi., 651-661;
+
+Richard Meadowcourt's Critique on Milton's Paradise Regained, 1732;
+
+A Critical Dissertation on Paradise Regained with Notes, 2d ed. 1748;
+
+John Robert Seeley's Milton (see his Roman Imperialism and other Lectures
+and Essays, 1871, pp. 152-157);
+
+Mark Pattison's John Milton (English Men of Letters Series), n. d.;
+
+H. A. Taine's History of English Literature, Tr. by H. Van Laun, 1877,
+vol. ii.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+
+After the expulsion from Paradise of Adam and Eve, Satan and his followers
+did not return to Hell, but remained on earth, the fallen angels becoming
+the evil gods of various idolatrous nations and Satan engaging in every
+kind of evildoing which he knew would vex the Powers of Heaven. All the
+time he was troubled by the thought of the heavenly foe who he had been
+told would one day appear on earth to crush him and his rebel angels.
+
+Now John had come out of the wilderness, proclaiming his mission, and
+among those who came to him to be baptized was one who was deemed the son
+of Joseph of Nazareth. John recognized in the obscure carpenter's son the
+one "mightier than he" whose coming he was to proclaim, and this fact was
+further made clear to the multitude and the observant Satan by the opening
+of the Heavens and the descent therefrom on Christ's head of the Dove,
+while a voice was heard declaring, "This is my beloved Son."
+
+Satan, enraged, fled to the council of the fiends to announce to them the
+presence on earth of their long-dreaded enemy. He was empowered by them to
+attempt his overthrow, and they were the more confident because of his
+success with Adam and Eve.
+
+Satan's purpose was known to the Eternal Father, who smiled to see him
+unwittingly fulfilling the plan so long foreordained for his destruction.
+
+After his baptism, the Father had sent his Son into the wilderness to gain
+strength for his struggle with Sin and Death, and there Satan, in the
+guise of an old, poorly clad rustic, found him. Although the Son of God
+had wandered through the rock-bound, pathless desert, among wild beasts,
+without food for forty days, he had no fear, believing that some impulse
+from above had guided him thither before he should go out among men to do
+his divinely appointed task.
+
+Then, when hunger came upon him as he wandered, thinking of past events
+and those to come, he met the aged man and was addressed by him.
+
+"Sir, how came you hither, where none who ventures alone escapes alive? I
+ask because you look not unlike the man I lately saw baptized by John and
+declared the Son of God."
+
+"I need no guide," replied the Son. "The Power who brought me here will
+bring me forth."
+
+"Not otherwise than by miracle. Here we subsist only upon dry roots and
+must often endure parching thirst. If thou art indeed the Son of God, save
+thyself and relieve us wretched people by changing these stones to bread."
+
+"Men live not by bread alone," replied the Son, "but by the word of God.
+Moses in the Mount was without food and drink for forty days. Elijah also
+wandered fasting in the wilderness. Thou knowest who I am as I know who
+thou art; why shouldest thou suggest distrust to me?"
+
+"'Tis true that I am that unfortunate spirit who fell from Heaven, but I
+have been permitted to roam around the earth and have not been altogether
+excluded from Heaven. God allowed me to test Job and prove his worth and
+to draw Ahab into fraud. Though I have lost much of my original brightness
+I can still admire all that is illustrious and good. The sons of men
+should not regard me as an enemy, for I have oft given them aid by
+oracles, dreams, and portents. My loss was not through them, so their
+restoration does not grieve me; only that fallen man will be restored and
+not I."
+
+"Thou deservest to grieve, tissue of lies that thou art!" exclaimed our
+Savior. "Thou boastest of being released from Hell and permitted to come
+into Heaven. No joy hast thou there! Thy own malice moved thee to torture
+Job. Brag not of thy lies, thy oracles for men. Henceforth oracles are
+dumb, since God has sent his living oracle into the world to teach the
+truth."
+
+Satan, though angry, still dissembled.
+
+"Accuse me, reprove me, if thou wilt. Fallen as I am, I still love to hear
+the truth fall from thy lips."
+
+Unmoved by his false words the Savior of men declared that he neither
+forbade nor invited his presence, and Satan, bowing low, disappeared as
+night fell over the desert.
+
+In the mean time, those at Bethabara who had rejoiced at the declaration
+of John and had talked with the Messiah, were deeply grieved to find him
+gone and with him their hope of deliverance. His mother, too, was troubled
+at his absence, but comforted herself with the thought of his former
+absences, afterwards explained.
+
+Satan, hastening from the desert, sought his troop of evil spirits to warn
+them that his undertaking was no easy one, and to summon them to his
+assistance.
+
+Night fell on the Son of God, still fasting, wondering what would be the
+end. In sleep he was visited by dreams of Elijah, raven-fed, and of the
+same prophet fed by the angel in the desert, and as he dreamed that he ate
+with them, the lark's song awoke him and he wandered into a pleasant
+grove. As he viewed it, charmed by its beauty, a man appeared before him,
+no rustic this time, but one attired in the apparel of city or court.
+
+"I have returned, wondering that thou still remainest here, hungering.
+Hagar once wandered here; the children of Israel, and the Prophet, but all
+these were fed by the hand of Heaven. Thou alone art forgotten and goest
+tormented by hunger."
+
+Though the Son of God declared that he had no need to eat, Satan invited
+his attention to a table, set under a spreading tree. Upon it was heaped
+every known delicacy; by it waited youths handsome as Ganymede, and among
+the trees tripped naiads and nymphs of Diana, with fruits and flowers.
+Exquisite music was heard, and the perfumes of Araby filled the air.
+
+"Why not sit and eat?" continued Satan. "These foods are not forbidden,
+and all these gentle ministers are ready to do thee homage."
+
+"What hast thou to do with my hunger?" demanded Jesus. "Should I receive
+as a gift from thee what I myself could command if I so desired? I too
+could bring a table here, and swift-winged angels to attend me. Thy gifts
+are but guiles."
+
+"I am forever suspected," responded Satan, as the table vanished. "Hunger
+cannot move thee, set on high designs. But what canst thou, a lowly
+carpenter's son, accomplish without aid? Where wilt thou find authority,
+where followers? First get riches; hearken to me, for fortune is in my
+hand. Wealth will win, while virtue, valor, and wisdom sit and wait in
+vain."
+
+"Yet what can wealth do without these?" replied Jesus patiently. "How can
+it gain dominion, and keep it when gained? Gideon, Jephtha, David, and
+among the heathen (for I am not ignorant of history) Quinctius, Fabricius,
+Curius, Regulus, all these have risen from the depths and achieved the
+highest deeds. Then, why may not I accomplish as much, even more, without
+wealth, which but cumbers the wise man, and slackens virtue, rather than
+prompts it to worthy deeds? Suppose I reject both riches and realms? Not
+because the regal diadem is a wreath of thorns and he who wears it bears
+each man's burden, for the king's chief praise is the manner in which he
+bears this burden for the public. But he who rules himself is greater than
+a king, and he who cannot do this should not aspire to royal power. But it
+is surely more kingly to lead nations blinded by error into the light of
+God's truth. This dominion is over the nobler part of man. And it has ever
+been thought greater and nobler to give a kingdom and to lay down
+authority than to assume it. Therefore thy riches are needless both in
+themselves, and to gain a kingdom which would better be missed than
+gained."
+
+Satan, though for a moment struck dumb by this answer to his arguments,
+soon collected himself and suggested that while the Savior knew so well
+what was best to know, say, and do, that if known he would be regarded as
+an oracle, still he did wrong to despise glory and deprive earth of his
+great deeds, citing as examples of more active spirits accomplishing much
+when younger than he, the young Alexander, Scipio, Pompey, and Caesar. But
+the Savior replied that the glory which consisted of the approval of the
+rabble was only to be despised. The true glory was that of the man who
+dared to be truly good, who though little known on earth, was famous in
+Heaven. Such men did not lay waste fields, sack, pillage, and slay, but by
+deeds of peace won the approval of the Father. Such was Job, oft tempted
+by Satan; such was Socrates, who suffered unjust death for teaching truth.
+And the Son of God had come upon earth not to win glory for himself as
+vain men do, but for Him who sent him.
+
+"Thy Father does not despise glory," sneered Satan. "He demands it from
+his angels, from men, even from us, his foes."
+
+"With reason," answered the Son, "since he created all things, though not
+for glory. And what slighter recompense could he expect from men who could
+return nothing else?"
+
+Satan, remembering his own ambition and his fall, was silent for a moment,
+and then spoke to remind the Savior that he was born to the throne of
+David, but that it must be wrested from the Roman by force of arms. It was
+his duty to do this and save his people from oppression.
+
+"All things in due time," replied the Savior. "If the Writ tells of my
+sufferings, my tribulations, of violence done unto me, it also tells of my
+reign without end. I can wait. He who suffers best, can do best; he who
+obeys first, reigns best; and why shouldest thou be so anxious to hasten
+my rule when it means thy destruction?"
+
+"When hope is gone, what is there left to fear? My punishment will come
+whether thou reign or no. I could hope that thy reign would stand between
+me and the anger of thy Father. And if I haste to the worst that can be,
+why shouldest thou go so slowly to the best? Perhaps thou fearest the
+dangerous enterprise, thou who, pent up in Galilean towns, hast seen so
+little."
+
+So saying, he took the Son up into a high mountain at the foot of which
+stretched a vast plain. Two rivers watered the fertile land. The hills
+were covered with flocks; vast cities could be seen, and here and there,
+so wide was the land, a barren desert. Then the Tempter pointed out the
+vast cities of Assyria, Nineveh, Babylon, Persepolis, Bactra, and the vast
+host of the Parthian king, even then marching against the Scythians. As
+they watched the great host of mailed warriors, accompanied by chariots,
+elephants, archers, engineers, Satan pursued his argument. Suppose the Son
+should take possession of his kingdom; how should he hope to keep it in
+peace between two such powerful enemies as the Parthians and the Romans?
+It would be better to conquer first the nearest, the Parthians, and this
+could be done with Satan's help. In doing this he would not only be able
+to occupy his throne but would deliver the offspring of the Ten Tribes of
+Israel, who, scattered among the Medes, still served as slaves.
+
+But the Savior, in response, only questioned Satan as to why he had
+suddenly become so solicitous for the salvation of the Tribes when he
+himself had once tempted David to number Israel and had thus brought
+pestilence upon them. And as to the Ten Tribes, they had brought their
+punishment upon themselves, and must serve the enemy and their idols until
+the Father should see fit to release them.
+
+Though embarrassed by the failure of his wiles, Satan could not yet yield.
+Turning to the western side of the mountain, he pointed out to the Savior
+a long, narrow plain, bordered on the south by the sea and protected from
+northern blasts by a mountain range. There, crowning the seven hills stood
+the imperial city adorned with porches, theatres, baths, aqueducts, and
+palaces. Satan pointed out the different objects of interest in splendid
+Rome, the Capitol, Mt. Palatine, crowned by the imperial palace, and the
+great gates, through which issued or entered a continuous stream of
+praetors, proconsuls, lictors, legions, embassies, on all the roads which
+led through the far-stretching empire, even to those of the Asian kings,
+and remote Britain. All the glory of the world, he argued, lay in Parthia
+and Rome, and Rome was greater. He who ruled her was indeed ruler of the
+world, and yet its present emperor was old, weak, lascivious, without
+heir, and lived at Capreae, his public cares entrusted to his favorite.
+How easily could the Son of God force from him the power and lift the yoke
+from his people!
+
+But the splendor of the scene allured neither the eye nor the mind of the
+Son. The gluttonies, the gorgeous feasts, the hollow compliments and lies
+of the people did not attract him. His mission, he told his Tempter, was
+not yet to free that people, once just and frugal, now debased by their
+insatiable ambition. When the time came for him to sit on David's throne,
+this with all other kingdoms of the earth would be shattered while his
+kingdom would be eternal.
+
+"Though thou despisest my offers," cried Satan, "thou knowest that I
+esteem them highly, and will not part with them for nought. This is the
+condition; Wilt thou fall down and worship me as thy superior lord?"
+
+"It is written, thou accursed one," responded the Savior in disdain, "that
+thou shouldst worship and serve the Lord thy God alone. Who gave thee the
+kingdoms of the earth if He did not? And what gratitude thou showest! Get
+thee behind me! Truly thou art Satan!"
+
+Satan, abashed but not silenced, pointed southwest toward Athens. Since
+the Savior seemed to prefer a contemplative life, why should he not seek
+that seat of learning? All wisdom was not contained in Moses' law and the
+writings of the prophets. Let him master the learning of the great
+Athenian teachers, philosophers and orators, and he would be a king within
+himself.
+
+But the Savior assured Satan that, having received light from above, he
+knew how false and fallacious were the boasted philosophies of the Greeks.
+Their philosophers, ignorant of themselves and of God, and arrogating all
+glory to themselves and ascribing none to Him, were unable to impart
+wisdom to any one. From Hebrew psalm and hymn, and captive harps in
+Babylon, the Greeks derived their arts, and the results, the odious
+praises of their vicious gods, could not compare with the songs of Sion in
+praise of the Father. Their orators, too, were far below the Hebrew
+prophets. "Stay in the wilderness, then," thundered Satan, wroth at this
+failure. "Since neither riches nor arms, nor power, nor yet the
+contemplative life please thee, it is for thee the fittest place! But the
+time will yet come when violence, stripes, and a cruel death will make
+thee long for me and my proffered power. Truly the stars promise thee a
+kingdom, but of what kind and when I cannot read."
+
+As he disappeared, darkness fell, and the Son of God, still hungry and
+cold, sought rest under a sheltering tree. But Satan watched near, and
+forbade rest. Thunder and lightning shook the Heavens; rain drenched the
+earth; the fury of the winds was loosed, and in their path the sturdiest
+trees were uprooted. Ghosts, furies, raved around the holy one, but,
+unshaken by fear, he endured all calmly, and came forth, as the bright sun
+shone upon the earth, to meet again the Prince of Darkness.
+
+Enraged that the terrors of the night had had no effect upon his enemy,
+Satan cried out that he still doubted that the wanderer in the wilderness
+was the Son of God in the true sense, and would therefore try him another
+way.
+
+So speaking, he caught him up and bore him through the air unto Jerusalem,
+and setting him on the highest pinnacle of the glorious Temple, said
+scornfully:--
+
+"Stand there, if thou canst; I have placed thee highest in thy Father's
+house. Now show if thou art indeed the Son of God. Cast thyself down, for
+it is written that He will command his angels concerning thee, so that
+they in their hands shall uplift thee."
+
+"It is also written," said Jesus, "'Tempt not the Lord thy God.'" And as
+he so spoke and stood, Satan, overcome with amazement, fell whence he had
+expected to see his conqueror fall, and, struck with dread and anguish at
+his certain defeat, fled to his rebel angels.
+
+Straightway, a "fiery globe" of angels received the Son on their pinions,
+bore him from the pinnacle into a flowery vale, and there refreshed him
+with ambrosial food and water from the Fount of Life, while all around him
+the angelic choir sang his praises for the conquest of his enemy, and
+encouraged him to go forth on his work of saving mankind. Thence, rested
+and refreshed, he arose, and went, unobserved, home to his mother's house.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+THE TEMPTATION OF THE VISION OF THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH.
+
+
+Satan, meeting the Savior in the wilderness, tempted him to change the
+stones to bread, and then, after endeavoring to awake in him a longing for
+wealth and power, appealed to his ambition by leading him to a mountain
+top, and displaying to him the kingdoms of the earth.
+
+  With that (such power was given him then), he [Satan] took
+  The Son of God up to a mountain high.
+  It was a mountain at whose verdant feet
+  A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide
+  Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
+  The one winding, the other straight, and left between
+  Fair champaign, with less rivers interveined,
+  Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea.
+  Fertile of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;
+  With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;
+  Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem
+  The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
+  The prospect was that here and there was room
+  For barren desert, fountainless and dry.
+  To this high mountain-top the Tempter brought
+  Our Saviour, and new train of words began:--
+
+  "Well have we speeded, and o'er hill and dale,
+  Forest, and field, and flood, temples and towers,
+  Cut shorter many a league. Here thou behold'st
+  Assyria, and her empire's ancient bounds,
+  Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
+  As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
+  And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
+  And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
+  Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
+  Several days' journey, built by Ninus old,
+  Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
+  And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
+  Israel in long captivity still mourns;
+  There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,
+  As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
+  Judah and all thy father David's house
+  Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
+  Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
+  His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
+  Ecbatana her structure vast there shows,
+  And Hecatompylos her hundred gates;
+  There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
+  The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
+  Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,
+  The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
+  Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
+  Turning with easy eye, thou may'st behold.
+  All these the Parthian (now some ages past
+  By great Arsaces led, who founded first
+  That empire) under his dominion holds,
+  From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
+  And just in time thou com'st to have a view
+  Of his great power; for now the Parthian king
+  In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host
+  Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
+  Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid
+  He marches now in haste. See though from far,
+  His thousands, in what martial equipage
+  They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,
+  Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit--
+  All horsemen, in which fight they most excel;
+  See how in warlike muster they appear,
+  In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings."
+
+  He looked, and saw what numbers numberless
+  The city gates outpoured, light-armed troops
+  In coats of mail and military pride.
+  In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
+  Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice
+  Of many provinces from bound to bound--
+  From Arachosia, from Candaor east,
+  And Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs
+  Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales;
+  From Atropatia, and the neighboring plains
+  Of Adiabene, Media, and the south
+  Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven.
+  He saw them in their forms of battle ranged,
+  How quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot
+  Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
+  Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight;
+  The field all iron cast a gleaming brown.
+  Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor, on each horn,
+  Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight,
+  Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers
+  Of archers; nor of labouring pioneers
+  A multitude, with spades and axes armed,
+  To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,
+  Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay
+  With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke:
+  Mules after these, camels and dromedaries,
+  And waggons fraught with utensils of war.
+  Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
+  When Agrican, with all his northern powers,
+  Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
+  The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win
+  The fairest of her sex, Angelica,
+  His daughter, sought by many prowest knights,
+  Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemain.
+  Such and so numerous was their chivalry.
+                         _Book III._
+
+  He brought our Saviour to the western side
+  Of that high mountain, whence he might behold
+  Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide,
+  Washed by the southern sea, and on the north
+  To equal length backed with a ridge of hills
+  That screened the fruits of the earth and seats of men
+  From cold Septentrion blasts; thence in the midst
+  Divided by a river, off whose banks
+  On each side an imperial city stood,
+  With towers and temples proudly elevate
+  On seven small hills, with palaces adorned,
+  Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,
+  Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
+  Gardens and groves, presented to his eyes
+  Above the highth of mountains interposed--
+  By what strange parallax, or optic skill
+  Of vision, multiplied through air, or glass
+  Of telescope, were curious to inquire.
+  And now the Tempter thus his silence broke:--
+  "The city which thou seest no other deem
+  Than great and glorious Rome Queen of the Earth
+  So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched
+  Of nations. There the Capitol thou seest,
+  Above the rest lifting his stately head
+  On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel
+  Impregnable; and there Mount Palatine,
+  The imperial palace, compass huge, and high
+  The structure, skill of noblest architects,
+  With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
+  Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires.
+  Many a fair edifice besides, more like
+  Houses of gods--so well have I disposed
+  My aery microscope--thou may'st behold,
+  Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs
+  Carved work, the hand of famed artificers
+  In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.
+  Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
+  What conflux issuing forth, or entering in:
+  Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces
+  Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
+  Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;
+  Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
+  Or embassies from regions far remote,
+  In various habits, on the Appian road,
+  Or on the Aemilian--some from farthest south,
+  Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
+  Meroe, Nilotic isle, and, more to west,
+  The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;
+  From the Asian kings (and Parthian among these),
+  From India and the Golden Chersoness,
+  And utmost Indian isle Taprobane,
+  Dusk faces with white silken turbants wreathed;
+  From Gallia, Gades, and the British west;
+  Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north
+  Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool.
+  All nations now to Rome obedience pay--
+  To Rome's great Emperor, whose wide domain,
+  In ample territory, wealth and power,
+  Civility of manners, arts and arms,
+  And long renown, thou justly may'st prefer
+  Before the Parthian. These two thrones except,
+  The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight,
+  Shared among petty kings too far removed;
+  These having shown thee, I have shown thee all
+  The kingdoms of the world, and all their glory".
+                                _Book IV._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of National Epics, by Kate Milner Rabb
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+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      National Epics, by Kate Milner Rabb
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    .side      { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em;
+               border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left;
+               text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;}
+    pre        {font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of National Epics, by Kate Milner Rabb
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: National Epics
+
+Author: Kate Milner Rabb
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2005  [EBook #8072]
+This file was first posted on June 11, 2003
+Last Updated: June 5, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATIONAL EPICS ***
+
+
+
+
+Text file produced by David Starner, S.R. Ellison, and the Online
+Distributed Proofing Team
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      NATIONAL EPICS
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Kate Milner Rabb
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      1896
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      TO MY MOTHER.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This volume is intended for an introduction to the study of the epics.
+      While the simplicity and directness of the epic style seem to make such a
+      book unnecessary, the fact that to many persons of literary tastes some of
+      these great poems are inaccessible, and that to many more the pleasure of
+      exploring for themselves "the realms of gold" is rendered impossible by
+      the cares of business, has seemed sufficient excuse for its being. Though
+      the beauty of the original is of necessity lost in a condensation of this
+      kind, an endeavor has been made to preserve the characteristic epithets,
+      and to retain what Mr. Arnold called "the simple truth about the matter of
+      the poem." It is believed that the sketch prefacing each story, giving
+      briefly the length, versification, and history of the poem, will have its
+      value to those readers who have not access to the epics, and that the
+      selections following the story, each recounting a complete incident, will
+      give a better idea of the epic than could be formed from passages
+      scattered through the text.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The epic originated among tribes of barbarians, who deified departed
+      heroes and recited legends in praise of their deeds. As the hymn
+      developed, the chorus and strophe were dropped, and the narrative only was
+      preserved. The word "epic" was used simply to distinguish the narrative
+      poem, which was recited, from the lyric, which was sung, and from the
+      dramatic, which was acted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the nation passed from childhood to youth, the legends of the hero that
+      each wandering minstrel had changed to suit his fancy, were collected and
+      fused into one by some great poet, who by his power of unification made
+      this written epic his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the origin of the Hindu epics, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," the
+      "Kalevala," the "Shah-Nameh," "Beowulf," the "Nibelungen Lied," the "Cid,"
+      and the "Song of Roland."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conditions for the production of the primitive epic exist but once in
+      a nation's growth. Its later epics must be written on subjects of national
+      importance, chosen by the poet, who arranges and embellishes his material
+      according to the rules of the primitive epic. To this class belong the
+      "Aeneid," the "Jerusalem Delivered," and the "Lusiad." Dante's poem is
+      broader, for it is the epic of mediaeval Christianity. Milton likewise
+      sought "higher argument" than
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "Wars, hitherto the only argument
+      Heroic deemed,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      and crystallized the religious beliefs of his time in "Paradise Lost."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The characteristics both of the primitive and the modern epic are their
+      uniform metre, simplicity of construction, concentration of action into a
+      short time, and the use of episode and dialogue. The main difference lies
+      in the impersonality of the primitive epic, whose author has so skillfully
+      hidden himself behind his work that, as some one has said of Homer, "his
+      heroes are immortal, but his own existence is doubtful."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although the historical events chronicled in the epics have in every case
+      been so distorted by the fancy of the poets that they cannot be accepted
+      as history, the epics are storehouses of information concerning ancient
+      manners and customs, religious beliefs, forms of government, treatment of
+      women, and habits of feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Constructed upon the noblest principles of art, and pervaded by the
+      eternal calm of the immortals, these poems have an especial value to us,
+      who have scarcely yet realized that poetry is an art, and are feverish
+      from the unrest of our time. If by the help of this volume any reader be
+      enabled to find a portion of the wisdom that is hidden in these mines, its
+      purpose will have been accomplished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My thanks are due to Mr. John A. Wilstach for the use of selections from
+      his translation of the "Divine Comedy;" to Prof. J. M. Crawford, for the
+      use of selections from his translation of the "Kalevala;" to Henry Holt
+      &amp; Co., for the use of selections from Rabillon's translation of "La
+      Chanson de Roland;" to Roberts Brothers, for the use of selections from
+      Edwin Arnold's "Indian Idylls;" to Prof. J. C. Hall, for the use of
+      selections from his translation of "Beowulf;" and to A. C. Armstrong &amp;
+      Son, for the use of selections from Conington's Translation of the
+      "Aeneid." The selections from the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are used with
+      the permission of and by special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin &amp;
+      Co., publishers of Bryant's translations of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey."
+      Special thanks are due to Miss Eliza G. Browning of the Public Library of
+      Indianapolis, to Miss Florence Hughes of the Library of Indiana
+      University, and to Miss Charity Dye, of Indianapolis.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      K. M. R.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      INDIANAPOLIS, IND., September, 1896.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> SELECTIONS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <b>NATIONAL EPICS.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#linkram"> <b>THE RÂMÂYANA.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL1"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE RÂMÂYANA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE RÂMÂYANA.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE STORY OF THE RÂMÂYANA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> SELECTIONS FROM THE RÂMÂYANA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE DEATH OF YAJNADATTA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> <b>THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL2"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> THE STORY OF THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> SELECTIONS FROM THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> FROM "THE GREAT JOURNEY." </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> <b>THE ILIAD.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL3"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ILIAD. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ILIAD. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE STORY OF THE ILIAD. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> SELECTIONS FROM THE ILIAD. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> <b>THE ODYSSEY.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL4"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ODYSSEY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ODYSSEY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> THE BENDING OF THE BOW. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> <b>THE KALEVALA.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL5"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE KALEVALA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE KALEVALA.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> THE STORY OF THE KALEVALA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> SELECTIONS FROM THE KALEVALA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> THE BIRTH OF THE HARP. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> <b>THE AENEID.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL6"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE AENEID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE AENEID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> THE STORY OF THE AENEID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> SELECTION FROM THE AENEID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> <b>BEOWULF.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL7"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, BEOWULF. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, BEOWULF. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> THE STORY OF BEOWULF. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> SELECTION FROM BEOWULF. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> <b>THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL8"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE NIBELUNGEN.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> THE STORY OF THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> SELECTIONS FROM THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> HOW MARGRAVE RÜDEGER WAS SLAIN. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> <b>THE SONG OF ROLAND.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL9"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SONG OF
+      ROLAND. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> THE STORY OF THE SONG OF ROLAND. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> SELECTIONS FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> ROLAND'S DEATH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0056"> <b>THE SHAH-NAMEH.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL10"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SHAH-NAMEH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0058"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0059"> THE STORY OF THE SHAH-NAMEH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0060"> SELECTIONS FROM THE SHAH-NAMEH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0061"> ZAL AND RUDABEH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0062"> <b>THE POEM OF THE CID.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL11"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE CID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0064"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE POEM OF THE
+      CID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0065"> THE STORY OF THE POEM OF THE CID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0066"> SELECTIONS FROM THE POEM OF THE CID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0067"> MY CID'S TRIUMPH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0068"> <b>THE DIVINE COMEDY.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL12"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0070"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE DIVINE
+      COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0071"> THE DIVINE COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0072"> THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0073"> THE DIVINE COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0074"> THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0075"> THE DIVINE COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0076"> THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0077"> SELECTIONS FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0078"> BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0079"> BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0080"> THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF BEATRICE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0081"> <b>THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL13"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0083"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ORLANDO
+      FURIOSO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0084"> THE STORY OF THE ORLANDO FURIOSO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0085"> SELECTION FROM THE ORLANDO FURIOSO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0086"> <b>THE LUSIAD.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL14"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE LUSIAD. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0088"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE LUSIAD. The
+      Lusiad, Tr. by J. J. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0089"> THE STORY OF THE LUSIAD. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0090"> SELECTIONS FROM THE LUSIAD. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0091"> THE SPIRIT OF THE CAPE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0092"> <b>THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL15"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE JERUSALEM
+      DELIVERED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0094"> STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE JERUSALEM
+      DELIVERED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0095"> THE STORY OF THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0096"> SELECTION FROM THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0097"> <b>PARADISE LOST.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL16"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE LOST. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0099"> THE STORY OF PARADISE LOST. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0100"> SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0101"> PARADISE REGAINED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_BIBL17"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE REGAINED.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0103"> THE STORY OF PARADISE REGAINED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0104"> SELECTION FROM PARADISE REGAINED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE RÂMÂYANA:                        TRANSLATOR
+  The Descent of the Ganges ...          <i>Milman</i>
+  The Death of Yajnadatta ...                "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA:
+  Sâvitrî; or, Love and Death ...        <i>Arnold</i>
+  The Great Journey ...                      "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE ILIAD:
+  Helen at the Scaean Gates ...          <i>Bryant</i>
+  The Parting of Hector and Andromache ...   "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE ODYSSEY:
+  The Palace of Alcinoüs ...             <i>Bryant</i>
+  The Bending of the Bow ...                 "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE KALEVALA:
+  Ilmarinen's Wedding Feast ...          <i>Crawford</i>
+  The Birth of the Harp ...                  "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE AENEID:
+  Nisus and Euryalus ...                 <i>Conington</i>
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM BEOWULF:
+  Grendel's Mother ...                   <i>Hall</i>
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE NIBELUNGEN LIED:
+  How Brunhild was received at Worms ... <i>Lettsom</i>
+  How Margrave Rüdeger was slain  ...        "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND:
+  The Horn ...                           <i>Rabillon</i>
+  Roland's Death  ...                        "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE SHAH-NAMEH:
+  The Rajah of India sends a Chessboard
+  to Nushirvan                           <i>Robinson</i>
+  Zal and Rudabeh                            "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE POEM OF THE CID:
+  Count Raymond and My Cid               <i>Ormsby</i>
+  My Cid's Triumph                           "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY:
+  Count Ugolino                          <i>Wilstach</i>
+  Buonconte di Montefeltro                   "
+  Beatrice descending from Heaven            "
+  The Exquisite Beauty of Beatrice           "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE ORLANDO FURIOSO:
+  The Death of Zerbino                   <i>Rose</i>
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE LUSIAD:
+  Inez de Castro                         <i>Mickle</i>
+  The Spirit of the Cape                     "
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED:
+  Sophronia and Olindo                   <i>Wiffen</i>
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM PARADISE LOST:
+  Satan
+  Apostrophe to Light
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FROM PARADISE REGAINED:
+  The Temptation of the Vision of the Kingdoms of the Earth
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      NATIONAL EPICS.
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkram" id="linkram"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE RÂMÂYANA.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "He who sings and hears this poem continually has attained to the
+  highest state of enjoyment, and will finally be equal to the gods."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Râmâyana, the Hindu Iliad, is variously ascribed to the fifth, third,
+      and first centuries B.C., its many interpolations making it almost
+      impossible to determine its age by internal evidence. Its authorship is
+      unknown, but according to legend it was sung by Kuça and Lava, the sons of
+      Rama, to whom it was taught by Valmiki. Of the three versions now extant,
+      one is attributed to Valmiki, another to Tuli Das, and a third to Vyasa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Its historical basis, almost lost in the innumerable episodes and
+      grotesque imaginings of the Hindu, is probably the conquest of southern
+      India and Ceylon by the Aryans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Râmâyana is written in the Sanskrit language, is divided into seven
+      books, or sections, and contains fifty thousand lines, the English
+      translation of which, by Griffith, occupies five volumes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hero, Rama, is still an object of worship in India, the route of his
+      wanderings being, each year, trodden by devout pilgrims. The poem is not a
+      mere literary monument,&mdash;it is a part of the actual religion of the
+      Hindu, and is held in such reverence that the mere reading or hearing of
+      it, or certain passages of it, is believed to free from sin and grant his
+      every desire to the reader or hearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL1" id="link2H_BIBL1"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE RÂMÂYANA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      G. W. Cox's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion,
+      Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir William Jones on the Literature of the Hindus (in his Works, vol.
+      iv.);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maj.-Gen. Vans Kennedy's Researches into Hindu Mythology, 1831;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      James Mill's History of British India, 1840, vol. ii., pp. 47-123;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. Max Müller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 1859;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, 1891, pp. 153-271;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature, 1878, pp. 191-195;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. T. Wheeler's History of India, 4 vols., 1876, vol. ii.;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Monier Williams's Indian Wisdom, 1863, Indian Epic Poetry, 1863;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Article on Sanskrit Literature in Encyclopćdia Britannica;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      R. M. Gust's The Râmâyana: a Sanskrit Epic (in his Linguistic and Oriental
+      Essays, 1880, p. 56);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      T. Goldstuecker's Râmâyana (in his Literary Remains, 1879, vol. i., p.
+      155);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      C. J. Stone's Cradleland of Arts and Creeds, 1880, pp. 11-21;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albrecht Weber's On the Râmâyana, 1870; Westminster Review, 1849, vol. 1.,
+      p. 34;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. C. Oman's Great Indian Epics, 1874, pp. 13-81.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE RÂMÂYANA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Râmâyana, Tr. by R. T. H. Griffith, 5 vols., 1870-1874 (Follows Bombay
+      ed., Translated into metre of "Lady of the Lake");
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Extracts from the Râmâyana, Tr. by Sir William Jones (in his Works, vol.
+      13);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Iliad of the East, F. Richardson, 1873 (Popular translations of a set of
+      legends from the Râmâyana);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Râmâyana translated into English Prose, edited and published by
+      Naumatha Nath Dutt, 7 vols., Calcutta, 1890-1894.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE RÂMÂYANA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Brahma, creator of the universe, though all powerful, could not revoke a
+      promise once made. For this reason, Ravana, the demon god of Ceylon, stood
+      on his head in the midst of five fires for ten thousand years, and at the
+      end of that time boldly demanded of Brahma as a reward that he should not
+      be slain by gods, demons, or genii. He also requested the gift of nine
+      other heads and eighteen additional arms and hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These having been granted, he began by the aid of his evil spirits, the
+      Rakshasas, to lay waste the earth and to do violence to the good,
+      especially to the priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time when Ravana's outrages were spreading terror throughout the
+      land, and Brahma, looking down from his throne, shuddered to see the
+      monster he had gifted with such fell power, there reigned in Ayodhya, now
+      the city of Oude, a good and wise raja, Dasaratha, who had reigned over
+      the splendid city for nine thousand years without once growing weary. He
+      had but one grief,&mdash;that he was childless,&mdash;and at the opening
+      of the story he was preparing to make the great sacrifice, Asva-medha, to
+      propitiate the gods, that they might give him a son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gods, well pleased, bore his request to Brahma in person, and
+      incidentally preferred a request that he provide some means of destroying
+      the monster Ravana that was working such woe among their priests, and
+      disturbing their sacrifices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brahma granted the first request, and, cudgeling his brains for a device
+      to destroy Ravana, bethought himself that while he had promised that
+      neither gods, genii, nor demons should slay him, he had said nothing of
+      man. He accordingly led the appealing gods to Vishnu, who proclaimed that
+      the monster should be slain by men and monkeys, and that he would himself
+      be re-incarnated as the eldest son of Dasaratha and in this form compass
+      the death of Ravana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In course of time, as a reward for his performance of the great sacrifice,
+      four sons were born to Dasaratha, Rama by Kausalya, his oldest wife,
+      Bharata, whose mother was Kaikeyi, and twin sons, Lakshmana and Satrughna,
+      whose mother was Sumitra.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu, destined to destroy Ravana, grew daily in
+      grace, beauty, and strength. When he was but sixteen years old, having
+      been sent for by a sage to destroy the demons who were disturbing the
+      forest hermits in their religious rites, he departed unattended, save by
+      his brother Lakshmana and a guide, into the pathless forests, where he
+      successfully overcame the terrible Rakshasa, Tarika, and conveyed her body
+      to the grateful sage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was journeying through the forests, destroying countless
+      Rakshasas, he chanced to pass near the kingdom of Mithila and heard that
+      its king, Janaka, had offered his peerless daughter, Sita, in marriage to
+      the man who could bend the mighty bow of Siva the destroyer, which, since
+      its owner's death, had been kept at Janaka's court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rama at once determined to accomplish the feat, which had been essayed in
+      vain by so many suitors. When he presented himself at court Janaka was at
+      once won by his youth and beauty; and when the mighty bow, resting upon an
+      eight-wheeled car, was drawn in by five thousand men, and Rama without
+      apparent effort bent it until it broke, he gladly gave him his beautiful
+      daughter, and after the splendid wedding ceremonies were over, loaded the
+      happy pair with presents to carry back to Ayodhya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dasaratha, who had attended the marriage of his son at Mithila,
+      returned home, he began to feel weary of reigning, and bethought himself
+      of the ancient Hindu custom of making the eldest son and heir apparent a
+      Yuva-Raja,&mdash;that is appointing him assistant king. Rama deserved this
+      honor, and would, moreover, be of great assistance to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His happy people received the announcement of his intention with delight;
+      the priests approved of it as well, and the whole city was in the midst of
+      the most splendid preparations for the ceremony, when it occurred to
+      Dasaratha that all he lacked was the congratulations of his youngest and
+      favorite wife, Kaikeyi, on this great event. The well-watered streets and
+      the garlanded houses had already aroused the suspicions of Kaikeyi,&mdash;suspicions
+      speedily confirmed by the report of her maid. Angered and jealous because
+      the son of Kausalya and not her darling Bharata, at that time absent from
+      the city, was to be made Yuva-Raja, she fled to the "Chamber of Sorrows,"
+      and was there found by the old Raja.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Kaikeyi was his youngest and most beautiful wife, her tears,
+      threats, and entreaties would have been of no avail had she not recalled
+      that, months before, the old Raja, in gratitude for her devoted nursing
+      during his illness, had granted her two promises. She now demanded the
+      fulfilment of these before she would consent to smile upon him, and the
+      consent won, she required him, first, to appoint Bharata Yuva-Raja; and,
+      second, to exile Rama for fourteen years to the terrible forest of
+      Dandaka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The promise of a Hindu, once given, cannot be revoked. In spite of the
+      grief of the old Raja, of Kausalya, his old wife, and of all the people,
+      who were at the point of revolt at the sudden disgrace of their favorite
+      prince, the terrible news was announced to Rama, and he declared himself
+      ready to go, to save his father from dishonor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He purposed to go alone, but Sita would not suffer herself to be thus
+      deserted. Life without him, she pleaded, was worse than death; and so
+      eloquent was her grief at the thought of parting that she was at last
+      permitted to don the rough garment of bark provided by the malicious
+      Kaikeyi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people of Ayodhya, determined to share the fate of their favorites,
+      accompanied them from the city, their tears laying the dust raised by
+      Rama's chariot wheels. But when sleep overcame them, Rama, Sita, and
+      Lakshmana escaped from them, dismissed their charioteer, and, crossing the
+      Ganges, made their way to the mountain of Citra-kuta, where they took up
+      their abode.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No more beautiful place could be imagined. Flowers of every kind,
+      delicious fruits, and on every side the most pleasing prospects, together
+      with perfect love, made their hermitage a paradise on earth. Here the
+      exiles led an idyllic existence until sought out by Bharata, who, learning
+      from his mother on his return home the ruin she had wrought in the Raj,
+      had indignantly spurned her, and hastened to Dandaka. The old Raja had
+      died from grief soon after the departure of the exiles, and Bharata now
+      demanded that Rama should return to Ayodhya and become Raja, as was his
+      right, as eldest son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Rama refused to do this until the end of his fourteen years of exile,
+      Bharata vowed that for fourteen years he would wear the garb of a devotee
+      and live outside the city, committing the management of the Raj to a pair
+      of golden sandals which he took from Rama's feet. All the affairs of state
+      would be transacted under the authority of the sandals, and Bharata, while
+      ruling the Raj, would pay homage to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after the departure of Bharata the exiles were warned to depart from
+      their home on Citra-kuta and seek a safer hermitage, for terrible
+      rakshasas filled this part of the forest. They accordingly sought the
+      abode of Atri the hermit, whose wife Anasuya was so pleased with Sita's
+      piety and devotion to her husband that she bestowed upon her the crown of
+      immortal youth and beauty. They soon found a new abode in the forest of
+      Pancarati, on the banks of the river Godavari, where Lakshmana erected a
+      spacious bamboo house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their happiness in this elysian spot was destined to be short-lived. Near
+      them dwelt a horrible rakshasa, Surpanakha by name, who fell in love with
+      Rama. When she found that he did not admire the beautiful form she assumed
+      to win him, and that both he and Lakshmana laughed at her advances, she
+      attempted to destroy Sita, only to receive in the attempt a disfiguring
+      wound from the watchful Lakshmana. Desiring revenge for her disfigured
+      countenance and her scorned love, she hastened to the court of her brother
+      Ravana, in Ceylon, and in order to induce him to avenge her wrongs, dwelt
+      upon the charms of the beautiful wife of Rama.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some days after, Sita espied a golden fawn, flecked with silver, among the
+      trees near their home. Its shining body, its jewel-like horns, so
+      captivated her fancy that she implored Rama, if possible, to take it alive
+      for her; if not, at least to bring her its skin for a couch. As Rama
+      departed, he warned Lakshmana not to leave Sita for one moment; he would
+      surely return, since no weapon could harm him. In the depths of the forest
+      the fawn fell by his arrow, crying as it fell, "O Sita! O Lakshmana!" in
+      Rama's very tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Sita heard the cry she reproached Lakshmana for not going to his
+      brother's aid, until he left her to escape her bitter words. He had no
+      sooner disappeared in the direction of the cry than a hermit appeared and
+      asked her to minister unto his wants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sita carried him food, bathed his feet, and conversed with him until, able
+      no longer to conceal his admiration for her, he revealed himself in his
+      true form as the demon god of Ceylon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she indignantly repulsed him he seized her, and mounting his chariot
+      drove rapidly towards Ceylon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Rama and Lakshmana returned home, soon after, they found the house
+      empty. As they searched through the forest for traces of her they found a
+      giant vulture dying from wounds received while endeavoring to rescue the
+      shrieking Sita. Going farther, they encountered the monkey king Sugriva
+      and his chiefs, among whom Sita had dropped from the chariot her scarf and
+      ornaments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sugriva had been deposed from his kingdom by his brother Bali, who had
+      also taken his wife from him. Rama agreed to conquer Bali if Sugriva would
+      assist in the search for Sita; and, the agreement made, they at once
+      marched upon Kishkindha, together slew Bali, and gained possession of the
+      wealthy city and the queen Tara. They were now ready to search for the
+      lost Sita.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his quest through every land, Hanuman, the monkey general, learned from
+      the king of the vultures that she had been carried to Ceylon. He
+      immediately set out for the coast with his army, only to find a bridgeless
+      ocean stretching between them and the island. Commanding his soldiers to
+      remain where they were, Hanuman expanded his body to enormous proportions,
+      leaped the vast expanse of water, and alighted upon a mountain, from which
+      he could look down upon Lanka, the capital city of Ceylon. Perceiving the
+      city to be closely guarded, he assumed the form of a cat, and thus,
+      unsuspected, crept through the barriers and examined the city. He found
+      the demon god in his apartments, surrounded by beautiful women, but Sita
+      was not among them. Continuing his search, he at last discovered her, her
+      beauty dimmed by grief, seated under a tree in a beautiful asoka grove,
+      guarded by hideous rakshasas with the faces of buffaloes, dogs, and swine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Assuming the form of a tiny monkey, Hanuman crept down the tree, and
+      giving her the ring of Rama, took one from her. He offered to carry her
+      away with him, but Sita declared that Rama must himself come to her
+      rescue. While they were talking together, the demon god appeared, and,
+      after fruitless wooing, announced that if Sita did not yield herself to
+      him in two months he would have her guards "mince her limbs with steel"
+      for his morning repast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his rage, Hanuman destroyed a mango grove and was captured by the
+      demon's guards, who were ordered to set his tail on fire. As soon as this
+      was done, Hanuman made himself so small that he slipped from his bonds,
+      and, jumping upon the roofs, spread a conflagration through the city of
+      Lanka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaped back to the mainland, conveyed the news of Sita's captivity to
+      Rama and Sugriva, and was soon engaged in active preparations for the
+      campaign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As long as the ocean was unbridged it was impossible for any one save
+      Hanuman to cross it. In his anger at being so thwarted, Rama turned his
+      weapons against it, until from the terrified waves rose the god of the
+      ocean, who promised him that if Nala built a bridge, the waves should
+      support the materials as firmly as though it were built on land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terror reigned in Lanka at the news of the approach of Rama. Vibishana,
+      Ravana's brother, deserted to Rama, because of the demon's rage when he
+      advised him to make peace with Rama. Fiercely fought battles ensued, in
+      which even the gods took part, Vishnu and Indra taking sides with Rama,
+      and the evil spirits fighting with Ravana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the war had been carried on for some time, with varying results, it
+      was decided to determine it by single combat between Ravana and Rama. Then
+      even the gods were terrified at the fierceness of the conflict. At each
+      shot Rama's mighty bow cut off a head of the demon, which at once grew
+      back, and the hero was in despair until he remembered the all-powerful
+      arrow given him by Brahma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the demon fell by this weapon, flowers rained from heaven upon the
+      happy victor, and his ears were ravished with celestial music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Touched by the grief of Ravana's widows, Rama ordered his foe a splendid
+      funeral, and then sought the conquered city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sita was led forth, beaming with happiness at finding herself re-united to
+      her husband; but her happiness was destined to be of short duration. Rama
+      received her with coldness and with downcast eyes, saying that she could
+      no longer be his wife, after having dwelt in the zenana of the demon. Sita
+      assured him of her innocence; but on his continuing to revile her, she
+      ordered her funeral pyre to be built, since she would rather die by fire
+      than live despised by Rama. The sympathy of all the bystanders was with
+      Sita, but Rama saw her enter the flames without a tremor. Soon Agni, the
+      god of fire, appeared, bearing the uninjured Sita in his arms. Her
+      innocence thus publicly proved by the trial by fire, she was welcomed by
+      Rama, whose treatment she tenderly forgave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquest made, the demon destroyed, and Sita restored, Rama returned
+      in triumph to Ayodhya, and assumed the government. The city was
+      prosperous, the people were happy, and for a time all went well. It was
+      not long, however, before whispers concerning Sita's long abode in Ceylon
+      spread abroad, and some one whispered to Rama that a famine in the country
+      was due to the guilt of Sita, who had suffered the caresses of the demon
+      while in captivity in Ceylon. Forgetful of the trial by fire, forgetful of
+      Sita's devotion to him through weal and woe, the ungrateful Rama
+      immediately ordered her to the forest in which they had spent together the
+      happy years of their exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a murmur the unhappy Sita, alone and unbefriended, dragged herself
+      to the forest, and, torn with grief of body and spirit, found the
+      hermitage of Valmiki, where she gave birth to twin sons, Lava and Kuça.
+      Here she reared them, with the assistance of the hermit, who was their
+      teacher, and under whose care they grew to manhood, handsome and strong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It chanced about the time the youths were twenty years old, that Rama, who
+      had grown peevish and disagreeable with age, began to think the gods were
+      angered with him because he had killed Ravana, who was the son of a
+      Brahman. Determined to propitiate them by means of the great sacrifice, he
+      caused a horse to be turned loose in the forest. When his men went to
+      retake it, at the end of the year, it was caught by two strong and
+      beautiful youths who resisted all efforts to capture them. In his rage
+      Rama went to the forest in person, only to learn that the youths were his
+      twin sons, Lava and Kuça. Struck with remorse, Rama recalled the
+      sufferings of his wife Sita, and on learning that she was at the hermitage
+      of Valmiki, ordered her to come to him, that he might take her to him
+      again, having first caused her to endure the trial by fire to prove her
+      innocence to all his court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sita had had time to recover from the love of her youth, and the prospect
+      of life with Rama, without the <i>couleur de rose</i> of youthful love,
+      was not altogether pleasant. At first, she even refused to see him; but
+      finally, moved by the appeals of Valmiki and his wife, she clad herself in
+      her richest robes, and, young and beautiful as when first won by Rama, she
+      stood before him. Not deigning to look in his face, she appealed to the
+      earth. If she had never loved any man but Rama, if her truth and purity
+      were known to the earth, let it open its bosom and take her to it. While
+      the armies stood trembling with horror, the earth opened, a gorgeous
+      throne appeared, and the goddess of earth, seated upon it, took Sita
+      beside her and conveyed her to the realms of eternal happiness, leaving
+      the too late repentant Rama to wear out his remaining years in shame and
+      penitence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE RÂMÂYANA.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Sagara, an early king of Ayodhya, had sixty thousand sons, whom he sent
+      out one day to recover a horse that had been designed for the great
+      sacrifice, but had been stolen by a rakshasa. Having searched the earth
+      unsuccessfully, they proceeded to dig into the lower regions.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Cloven with shovel and with hoe, pierced by axes and by spades,
+  Shrieked the earth in frantic woe; rose from out the yawning shades
+  Yells of anguish, hideous roars from the expiring brood of hell,&mdash;
+  Serpents, giants, and asoors, in the deep abyss that dwell.
+  Sixty thousand leagues in length, all unweary, full of wrath,
+  Through the centre, in their strength, clove they down their hellward
+    path.
+  And downward dug they many a rood, and downward till they saw aghast,
+  Where the earth-bearing elephant stood, ev'n like a mountain tall and
+    vast.
+  'T is he whose head aloft sustains the broad earth's forest-clothed
+    round,
+  With all its vast and spreading plains, and many a stately city crowned.
+  If underneath the o'erbearing load bows down his weary head, 't is then
+  The mighty earthquakes are abroad, and shaking down the abodes of men.
+  Around earth's pillar moved they slowly, and thus in humble accents
+    blest
+  Him the lofty and the holy, that bears the region of the East.
+  And southward dug they many a rood, until before their shuddering sight
+  The next earth-bearing elephant stood, huge Mahapadmas' mountain height.
+  Upon his head earth's southern bound, all full of wonder, saw they rest.
+  Slow and awe-struck paced they round, and him, earth's southern
+    pillar, blest.
+  Westward then their work they urge, king Sagara's six myriad race,
+  Unto the vast earth's western verge, and there in his appointed place
+  The next earth-bearing elephant stood, huge Saumanasa's mountain crest;
+  Around they paced in humble mood, and in like courteous phrase addrest,
+  And still their weary toil endure, and onward dig until they see
+  Last earth-bearing Himapandure, glorying in his majesty.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>At last they reach the place where Vishnu appears with the horse. A
+      flame issues from the mouth of the indignant deity and destroys the six
+      myriad sons of Sagara, The adventure devolves on their brother Ansuman,
+      who achieves it with perfect success. He is permitted to lead away the
+      horse, but the ashes of his brothers cannot be purified by earthly water;
+      the goddess Ganga must first be brought to earth, and having undergone
+      lustration from that holy flood, the race of Sagara are to ascend to
+      heaven. Brahma at last gives his permission to Ganga to descend. King
+      Bhagiratha takes his stand on the top of Gokarna, the sacred peak of
+      Himavan (the Himalaya), and here</i>&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Stands with arms outstretch'd on high, amid five blazing fires, the one
+  Towards each quarter of the sky, the fifth the full meridian sun.
+  Mid fiercest frosts on snow he slept, the dry and withered leaves his
+    food,
+  Mid rains his roofless vigil kept, the soul and sense alike subdued.
+  High on the top of Himavan the mighty Mashawara stood;
+  And "Descend," he gave the word to the heaven-meandering water&mdash;
+  Full of wrath the mandate heard Himavan's majestic daughter.
+  To a giant's stature soaring and intolerable speed,
+  From heaven's height down rushed she, pouring upon Siva's sacred head,
+  Him the goddess thought in scorn with her resistless might to sweep
+  By her fierce waves overborne, down to hell's remotest deep.
+
+  Down on Sankara's holy head, down the holy fell, and there,
+  Amid the entangling meshes spread, of his loose and flowing hair,
+  Vast and boundless as the woods upon the Himalaya's brow,
+  Nor ever may the struggling floods rush headlong to the earth below.
+  Opening, egress was not there, amid those winding, long meanders.
+  Within that labyrinthine hair, for many an age, the goddess wanders.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>By the penances of the king, Siva is propitiated, and the stream, by
+      seven channels, finds its way to the plains of India</i>.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Up the Raja at the sign upon his glittering chariot leaps,
+  Instant Ganga the divine follows his majestic steps.
+  From the high heaven burst she forth first on Siva's lofty crown,
+  Headlong then, and prone to earth thundering rushed the cataract down,
+  Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing; turtles, dolphins in their
+    mirth,
+  Fallen or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth.
+  And all the host of heaven came down, spirits and genii, in amaze,
+  And each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to gaze.
+  On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and coursers
+    rode,
+  Or on soft swinging palanquin, lay wondering each observant god.
+  As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jewell'd vestures'
+    rays,
+  The coruscating aether glow'd, as with a hundred suns ablaze.
+  And with the fish and dolphins gleaming, and scaly crocodiles and
+    snakes,
+  Glanc'd the air, as when fast streaming the blue lightning shoots and
+    breaks:
+  And in ten thousand sparkles bright went flashing up the cloudy spray,
+  The snowy flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists at
+    play.
+  And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets
+    wound,
+  Then lake-like spread all bright and broad, then gently, gently flowed
+    around,
+  Then 'neath the caverned earth descending, then spouted up the boiling
+    tide,
+  Then stream with stream harmonious blending, swell bubbling up and
+    smooth subside.
+  By that heaven-welling water's breast, the genii and the sages stood,
+  Its sanctifying dews they blest, and plung'd within the lustral flood.
+  Whoe'er beneath the curse of heaven from that immaculate world had fled,
+  To th' impure earth in exile driven, to that all-holy baptism sped;
+  And purified from every sin, to the bright spirit's bliss restor'd,
+  Th' ethereal sphere they entered in, and through th' empyreal mansions
+    soar'd.
+  The world in solemn jubilee beheld those heavenly waves draw near,
+  From sin and dark pollution free, bathed in the blameless waters clear.
+  Swift king Bhagiratha drave upon his lofty glittering car,
+  And swift with her obeisant wave bright Ganga followed him afar.
+                                        <i>Milman's Translation.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE DEATH OF YAJNADATTA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Raja Dasaratha was compelled to banish his favorite son Rama,
+      immediately after his marriage to Sita, because his banishment was
+      demanded by the Raja's wife Kaikeyi, to whom he had once promised to grant
+      any request she might make. His grief at the loss of his son is described
+      in this selection.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Scarce Rama to the wilderness had with his younger brother gone,
+  Abandoned to his deep distress, king Dasaratha sate alone.
+  Upon his sons to exile driven when thought that king, as Indra bright,
+  Darkness came o'er him, as in heaven when pales th' eclipsed sun his
+    light.
+  Six days he sate, and mourned and pined for Rama all that weary time.
+  At midnight on his wandering mind rose up his old forgotten crime.
+  His queen, Kausalya, the divine, addressed he, as she rested near:
+  "Kausalya, if thou wakest, incline to thy lord's speech thy ready ear.
+  Whatever deed, or good or ill, by man, O blessed queen, is wrought.
+  Its proper fruit he gathers still, by time to slow perfection brought.
+  He who the opposing counsel's weight compares not in his judgment cool,
+  Or misery or bliss his fate, among the sage is deemed a fool.
+  As one that quits the Amra bower, the bright Palasa's pride to gain
+  Mocked by the promise of its flower, seeks its unripening fruit in vain,
+  So I the lovely Amra left for the Palasa's barren bloom,
+  Through mine own fatal error 'reft of banished Rama, mourn in gloom.
+  Kausalya! in my early youth by my keen arrow, at his mark
+  Aimed with too sure and deadly truth, was wrought a deed most fell and
+    dark.
+  At length, the evil that I did, hath fallen upon my fated head,
+  As when on subtle poison hid an unsuspecting child hath fed;
+  Even as that child unwittingly hath made the poisonous fare his food,
+  Even so, in ignorance by me was wrought that deed of guilt and blood.
+  Unwed wert thou in virgin bloom, and I in youth's delicious prime,
+  The season of the rains had come,&mdash;that soft and love enkindling time.
+  Earth's moisture all absorbed, the sun through all the world its warmth
+    had spread,
+  Turned from the north, its course begun, where haunt the spirits of the
+    dead:
+  Gathering o'er all the horizon's bound on high the welcome clouds
+    appeared,
+  Exulting, all the birds flew round,&mdash;cranes, cuckoos, peacocks, flew and
+    veered.
+  And all down each wide-watered shore the troubled, yet still limpid
+    floods,
+  Over their banks began to pour, as o'er them hung the bursting clouds.
+  And, saturate with cloud-born dew, the glittering verdant-mantled earth,
+  The cuckoos and the peacocks flew, disputing as in drunken mirth.&mdash;
+
+  "In such a time, so soft, so bland, oh beautiful! I chanced to go.
+  With quiver and with bow in hand, where clear Sarayu's waters flow,
+  If haply to the river's brink at night the buffalo might stray,
+  Or elephant, the stream to drink,&mdash;intent my savage game to slay.
+  Then of a water cruse, as slow it filled, the gurgling sound I heard,
+  Nought saw I, but the sullen low of elephant that sound appeared.
+  The swift well-feathered arrow I upon the bowstring fitting straight,
+  Towards the sound the shaft let fly, ah, cruelly deceived by fate!
+  The winged arrow scarce had flown, and scarce had reached its destined
+    aim,
+  'Ah me, I'm slain,' a feeble moan in trembling human accents came.
+  'Ah, whence hath come this fatal shaft against a poor recluse like me,
+  Who shot that bolt with deadly craft,&mdash;alas! what cruel man is he?
+  At the lone midnight had I come to draw the river's limpid flood,
+  And here am struck to death, by whom? ah whose this wrongful deed of
+    blood?
+  Alas! and in my parents' heart, the old, the blind, and hardly fed,
+  In the wild wood, hath pierced the dart, that here hath struck their
+    offspring dead.
+  Ah, deed most profitless as worst, a deed of wanton useless guilt:
+  As though a pupil's hand accurs'd his holy master's blood had spilt.
+  But not mine own untimely fate,&mdash;it is not that which I deplore.
+  My blind, my aged parents' state&mdash;'tis their distress afflicts me more.
+  That sightless pair, for many a day, from me their scanty food have
+    earned;
+  What lot is theirs when I'm away, to the five elements returned?
+  Alike, all wretched they, as I&mdash;ah, whose this triple deed of blood?
+  For who the herbs will now supply,&mdash;the roots, the fruit, their
+    blameless food?'
+  My troubled soul, that plaintive moan no sooner heard, so faint and low,
+  Trembled to look on what I'd done, fell from my shuddering hand my bow.
+  Swift I rushed up, I saw him there, heart-pierced, and fallen the stream
+    beside,
+  The hermit boy with knotted hair,&mdash;his clothing was the black deer's
+    hide.
+  On me most piteous turned his look, his wounded breast could scarce
+    respire,
+  And these the words, O queen, he spoke, as to consume me in his ire:
+  'What wrong, O Kshatriya, have I done, to be thy deathful arrow's aim,
+  The forest's solitary son, to draw the limpid stream I came.
+  Both wretched and both blind they lie, in the wildwood all destitute,
+  My parents, listening anxiously to hear my home-returning foot.
+  By this, thy fatal shaft, this one, three miserable victims fall,
+  The sire, the mother, and the son&mdash;ah why? and unoffending all.
+  How vain my father's life austere, the Veda's studied page how vain,
+  He knew not with prophetic fear his son would fall untimely slain.
+  But had he known, to one as he, so weak, so blind, 't were bootless all,
+  No tree can save another tree by the sharp hatchet marked to fall.
+  But to my father's dwelling haste, O Raghu's son, lest in his ire
+  Thy head with burning curse he blast, as the dry forest tree the fire.
+  Thee to my father's lone retreat will quickly lead yon onward path,
+  Oh, haste his pardon to entreat, or ere he curse thee in his wrath.
+  Yet first that gently I may die, draw forth the barbed steel from hence,
+  Allay thy fears, no Brahmin I, not thine of Brahmin blood the offence.
+  My sire, a Brahmin hermit he, my mother was of Sudra race.'
+  So spake the wounded boy, on me while turned his unreproaching face.
+  As from his palpitating breast I gently drew the mortal dart,
+  He saw me trembling stand, and blest that boy's pure spirit seemed to
+    part.
+  As died that holy hermit's son, from me my glory seemed to go,
+  With troubled mind I stood, cast down t' inevitable endless woe.
+  That shaft that seemed his life to burn like serpent venom, thus drawn
+    out,
+  I, taking up his fallen urn, t' his father's dwelling took my route.
+  There miserable, blind, and old, of their sole helpmate thus forlorn,
+  His parents did these eyes behold, like two sad birds with pinions
+    shorn.
+  Of him in fond discourse they sate, lone, thinking only of their son,
+  For his return so long, so late, impatient, oh by me undone.
+  My footsteps' sound he seemed to know, and thus the aged hermit said,
+  'O Yajnadatta, why so slow?&mdash;haste, let the cooling draught be shed.
+  Long on the river's cooling brink hast thou been sporting in thy joy.
+  Thy mother's fainting spirits sink in fear for thee; but thou, my boy,
+  If aught to grieve thy gentle heart thy mother or thy sire do wrong,
+  Bear with us, nor, when next we part, on the slow way thus linger long,
+  The feet of those that cannot move, of those that cannot see the eye,
+  Our spirits live but in thy love,&mdash;oh wherefore, dearest, no reply?'
+
+  "My throat thick swollen with bursting tears, my power of speech that
+    seemed to choke,
+  With hands above my head, my fears breaking my quivering voice, I spoke:
+  The Kshatriya Dasaratha I, O hermit sage, 't is not thy son!
+  Most holy ones, unknowingly a deed of awful guilt I've done.
+  With bow in hand I took my way along Sarayu's pleasant brink,
+  The savage buffalo to slay, or elephant come down to drink.
+
+  "A sound came murmuring to my ear,&mdash;'twas of the urn that slowly filled,
+  I deemed some savage wild-beast near,&mdash;my erring shaft thy son had
+    killed.
+  A feeble groan I heard, his breast was pierced by that dire arrow keen:
+  All trembling to the spot I pressed, lo there thy hermit boy was seen.
+  Flew to the sound my arrow, meant the wandering elephant to slay,
+  Toward the river brink it went,&mdash;and there thy son expiring lay.
+  The fatal shaft when forth I drew, to heaven his parting spirit soared,
+  Dying he only thought of you, long, long, your lonely lot deplored.
+  Thus ignorantly did I slay your child beloved, O hermit sage!
+  Turn thou on me, whose fated day is come, thy all-consuming rage!'
+  He heard my dreadful tale at length, he stood all lifeless, motionless;
+  Then deep he groaned, and gathering strength, me the meek suppliant did
+    address.
+  'Kshatriya, 't is well that thou hast turned, thy deed of murder to
+    rehearse,
+  Else over all thy land had burned the fire of my wide-wasting curse.
+  If with premeditated crime the unoffending blood thou 'dst spilt,
+  The Thunderer on his throne sublime had shaken at such tremendous guilt.
+  Against the anchorite's sacred head, hadst, knowing, aimed thy shaft
+    accursed,
+  In th' holy Vedas deeply read, thy skull in seven wide rents had burst.
+  But since, unwitting, thou hast wrought that deed of death, thou livest
+    still,
+  O son of Taghu, from thy thought dismiss all dread of instant ill.
+  Oh lead me to that doleful spot where my poor boy expiring lay,
+  Beneath the shaft thy fell hand shot, of my blind age the staff, the
+    stay.
+  On the cold earth 'twere yet a joy to touch my perished child again,
+  (So long if I may live) my boy in one last fond embrace to strain
+  His body all bedewed with gore, his locks in loose disorder thrown,
+  Let me, let her but touch once more, to the dread realm of Yama gone.'
+  Then to that fatal place I brought alone that miserable pair;
+  His sightless hands and hers I taught to touch their boy that slumbered
+    there.
+  Nor sooner did they feel him lie, on the moist herbage coldly thrown,
+  But with a shrill and feeble cry upon the body cast them down.
+  The mother as she lay and groaned, addressed her boy with quivering
+    tongue,
+  And like a heifer sadly moaned, just plundered of her new-dropped young:
+
+  "'Was not thy mother once, my son, than life itself more dear to thee?
+  Why the long way thou hast begun, without one gentle word to me?
+  One last embrace, and then, beloved, upon thy lonely journey go!
+  Alas! with anger art thou moved, that not a word thou wilt bestow?'
+
+  "The miserable father now with gentle touch each cold limb pressed,
+  And to the dead his words of woe, as to his living son addressed:
+  'I too, my son, am I not here?&mdash;thy sire with thy sad mother stands;
+  Awake, arise, my child, draw near, and clasp each neck with loving
+    hands.
+  Who now, 'neath the dark wood by night, a pious reader shall be heard?
+  Whose honeyed voice my ear delight with th' holy Veda's living word?
+  The evening prayer, th' ablution done, the fire adored with worship
+    meet,
+  Who now shall soothe like thee, my son, with fondling hand, my aged
+    feet?
+  And who the herb, the wholesome root, or wild fruit from the wood shall
+    bring?
+  To us the blind, the destitute, with helpless hunger perishing?
+  Thy blind old mother, heaven-resigned, within our hermit-dwelling lone,
+  How shall I tend, myself as blind, now all my strength of life is gone?
+  Oh, stay, my child, oh. Part not yet, to Yama's dwelling go not now,
+  To-morrow forth we all will set,&mdash;thy mother and myself and thou:
+  For both, in grief for thee, and both so helpless, ere another day,
+  From this dark world, but little loath, shall we depart, death's easy
+    prey!
+  And I myself, by Yama's seat, companion of thy darksome way,
+  The guerdon to thy virtues meet from that great Judge of men will pray.
+  Because, my boy, in innocence, by wicked deed thou hast been slain,
+  Rise, where the heroes dwell, who thence ne'er stoop to this dark world
+  again.
+  Those that to earth return no more, the sense-subdued, the hermits wise,
+  Priests their sage masters that adore, to their eternal seats arise.
+  Those that have studied to the last the Veda's, the Vedanga's page,
+  Where saintly kings of earth have passed, Nahusa and Yayati sage;
+  The sires of holy families, the true to wedlock's sacred vow;
+  And those that cattle, gold, or rice, or lands, with liberal hands
+    bestow;
+  That ope th' asylum to th' oppressed, that ever love, and speak the
+    truth;
+  Up to the dwellings of the blest, th' eternal, soar thou, best-loved
+    youth.
+  For none of such a holy race within the lowest seat may dwell;
+  But that will be his fatal place by whom my only offspring fell.'
+
+  "So groaning deep, that wretched pair, the hermit and his wife, essayed
+  The meet ablution to prepare, their hands their last faint effort made.
+  Divine, with glorious body bright, in splendid car of heaven elate,
+  Before them stood their son in light, and thus consoled their helpless
+    state:
+  'Meed of my duteous filial care, I've reached the wished for realms of
+    joy;
+  And ye, in those glad realms, prepare to meet full soon your dear-loved
+    boy.
+  My parents, weep no more for me, yon warrior monarch slew me not,
+  My death was thus ordained to be, predestined was the shaft he shot.'
+  Thus as he spoke, the anchorite's son soared up the glowing heaven afar,
+  In air his heavenly body shone, while stood he in his gorgeous car.
+  But they, of that lost boy so dear the last ablution meetly made,
+  Thus spoke to me that holy seer, with folded hands above his head.
+  'Albeit by thy unknowing dart my blameless boy untimely fell,
+  A curse I lay upon thy heart, whose fearful pain I know too well.
+  As sorrowing for my son I bow, and yield up my unwilling breath,
+  So, sorrowing for thy son shalt thou at life's last close repose in
+    death.'
+  That curse dread sounding in mine ear, to mine own city forth I set,
+  Nor long survived that hermit seer, to mourn his child in lone regret.
+  This day that Brahmin curse fulfilled hath fallen on my devoted head,
+  In anguish for my parted child have all my sinking spirits fled.
+  No more my darkened eyes can see, my clouded memory is o'ercast,
+  Dark Yama's heralds summon me to his deep, dreary realm to haste.
+  Mine eye no more my Rama sees, and grief-o'erborne, my spirits sink,
+  As the swoln stream sweeps down the trees that grow upon the crumbling
+    brink.
+  Oh, felt I Rama's touch, or spake one word his home-returning voice,
+  Again to life I should awake, as quaffing nectar draughts, rejoice,
+  But what so sad could e'er have been, celestial partner of my heart,
+  As Rama's beauteous face unseen, from life untimely to depart?
+  His exile in the forest o'er, him home returned to Oude's high town,
+  Oh happy those, that see once more, like Indra from the sky come down.
+  No mortal men, but gods I deem,&mdash;moonlike, before whose wondering sight
+  My Rama's glorious face shall beam, from the dark forest bursting
+    bright.
+  Happy that gaze on Rama's face with beauteous teeth and smile of love,
+  Like the blue lotus in its grace, and like the starry king above.
+  Like to the full autumnal moon, and like the lotus in its bloom,
+  That youth who sees returning soon,&mdash;how blest shall be that mortal's
+    doom."
+  Dwelling in that sweet memory, on his last bed the monarch lay,
+  And slowly, softly seemed to die, as fades the moon at dawn away.
+  "Ah, Rama! ah, my son!" thus said, or scarcely said, the king of men,
+  His gentle hapless spirit fled in sorrow for his Rama then,
+  The shepherd of his people old at midnight on his bed of death,
+  The tale of his son's exile told, and breathed away his dying breath.
+                                         <i>Milman's Translation.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "It is a deep and noble forest, abounding in delicious fruits and fragrant
+      flowers, shaded and watered by perennial springs."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though parts of the Mahâ-Bhârata, or story of the great war, are of great
+      antiquity, the entire poem was undoubtedly collected and re-written in the
+      first or second century A. D. Tradition ascribes the Mahâ-Bhârata to the
+      Brahman Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mahâ-Bhârata, unlike the Râmâyana, is not the story of some great
+      event, but consists of countless episodes, legends, and philosophical
+      treatises, strung upon the thread of a single story. These episodes are
+      called Upakhyanani, and the five most beautiful are called, in India, the
+      five precious stones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Its historical basis is the strife between the Aryan invaders of India and
+      the original inhabitants, illustrated in the strife between the sons of
+      the Raja Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhrita-rashtra, which forms the main
+      story of the poem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though marred by the exaggerations peculiar to the Hindu, the poem is a
+      great treasure house of Indian history, and from it the Indian poets,
+      historical writers, and philosophers have drawn much of their material.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mahâ-Bhârata is written in the Sanskrit language; it is the longest
+      poem ever written, its eighteen cantos containing two hundred thousand
+      lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is held in even higher regard than the Râmâyana, and the reading of it
+      is supposed to confer upon the happy reader every good and perfect gift.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL2" id="link2H_BIBL2"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      G.W. Cox's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion,
+      Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. Max Müller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 1859 (Introduction);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, 1891, pp. 272-352;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature, 1878, pp. 184-191;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. T. Wheeler's History of India, 4 vols., 1876, vol. ii.;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. C. Oman's Great Indian Epics, 1874, pp. 87-231;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      T. Goldstuecker's Hindu Epic Poetry; the Mahâ-Bhârata Literary Remains,
+      1879, (vol. ii., pp. 86-145);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Macmillan's Globe-trotter in India, 1815, p. 193;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. Peile's Notes on the Tales of Nala, 1882;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      C. J. Stone's Cradle-land of Arts and Creeds, 1880, pp. 36-49;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      H. H. Wilson's Introduction to the Mahâ-Bhârata and a Translation of three
+      Extracts (in his Works, vol. iii., p. 277); Westminster Review, 1868, vol.
+      xxxiii., p. 380.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Mahâ-Bhârata, Selections from the Tr. by Sir Edwin Arnold, in his
+      Indian Poetry, 1886; in his Indian Idylls, 1883;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nala and Damayanti and other Poems, Tr. from the Mahâ-Bhârata by H. H.
+      Milman, (his translation of the Story of Nala is edited with notes by
+      Monier Williams, 1879);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Metrical translations from Sanskrit writers by John Muir, 1879, pp. 13-37;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Last Days of Krishna, Tr. from the Mahâ-Bhârata Price (Oriental
+      Translation Fund: Miscellaneous Translations);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mahâ-Bhârata, an English Prose Translation with notes, by Protap
+      Chandra Roy, Published in one hundred parts, 1883-1890;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Asiatic Researches, Tr. by H. H. Wilson, from the Mahâ-Bhârata vol. xv.,
+      p. 101;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Translations of episodes from the Mahâ-Bhârata, in Scribner's Monthly,
+      1874, vol. vii., p. 385;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      International Review, vol. x., pp. 36, 297; Oriental Magazine, Dec., 1824,
+      March, Sept., 1825, Sept., 1826.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Long ago there dwelt in India two great Rajas who were brothers, the Raja
+      Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhritarashtra. The former had five noble sons
+      called the Pandavas, the eldest of whom was Yudhi-sthira, the second
+      Bhima, the third Arjuna, and the youngest, twin sons, Nakalu and Sahadeva.
+      All were girted in every way, but Arjuna was especially noble in form and
+      feature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blind Raja had a family of one hundred sons, called the Kauravas from
+      their ancestor, Kura. The oldest of these was Duryodhana, and the bravest,
+      Dhusasana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the birth of Pandu's sons, he had left his kingdom in charge of
+      Dhrita-rashtra, that he might spend his time in hunting in the forests on
+      the slopes of the Himalayas. After his death Dhrita-rashtra continued to
+      rule the kingdom; but on account of their claim to the throne, he invited
+      the Pandavas and their mother to his court, where they were trained,
+      together with his sons, in every knightly exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was probably jealousy between the cousins from the beginning, and
+      when their teacher, Drona, openly expressed his pride in the wonderful
+      archery of Arjuna, the hatred of the Kauravas was made manifest. No
+      disturbance occurred, however, until the day when Drona made a public
+      tournament to display the prowess of his pupils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The contests were in archery and the use of the noose and of clubs. Bhima,
+      who had been endowed by the serpent king with the strength of ten thousand
+      elephants, especially excelled in the use of the club, Nakalu was most
+      skillful in taming and driving the horse, and the others in the use of the
+      sword and spear. When Arjuna made use of the bow and the noose the
+      plaudits with which the spectators greeted his skill so enraged the
+      Kauravas that they turned the contest of clubs, which was to have been a
+      friendly one, into a degrading and blood-shedding battle. The spectators
+      left the splendid lists in sorrow, and the blind Raja determined to
+      separate the unfriendly cousins before further harm could come from their
+      rivalry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before this could be done, another event increased their hostility. Drona
+      had agreed to impart to the Kauravas and the Pandavas his skill in
+      warfare, on condition that they would conquer for him his old enemy, the
+      Raja of Panchala. On account of their quarrel the cousins would not fight
+      together, and the Kauravas, marching against the Raja, were defeated. On
+      their return, the Pandavas went to Panchala, and took the Raja prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Yudhi-sthira had been appointed Yuva-Raja, a step Dhrita-rashtra was
+      compelled by the people of Hastinapur to take, the Kauravas declared that
+      they could no longer remain in the same city with their cousins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A plot was laid to destroy the Pandavas, the Raja's conscience having been
+      quieted by the assurances of his Brahman counsellor that it was entirely
+      proper to slay one's foe, be he father, brother, or friend, openly or by
+      secret means. The Raja accordingly pretended to send his nephews on a
+      pleasure-trip to a distant province, where he had prepared for their
+      reception a "house of lac," rendered more combustible by soaking in
+      clarified butter, in which he had arranged to have them burned as if by
+      accident, as soon as possible after their arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Hastinapur mourned at the departure of the Pandavas, and the princes
+      themselves were sad, for they had been warned by a friend that
+      Dhrita-rashtra had plotted for their destruction. They took up their abode
+      in the house of lac, to which they prudently constructed a subterranean
+      outlet, and one evening, when a woman with five sons attended a feast of
+      their mother's, uninvited, and fell into a drunken sleep, they made fast
+      the doors, set fire to the house, and escaped to the forest. The bodies of
+      the five men and their mother were found next day, and the assurance was
+      borne to Hastinapur that the Pandavas and their mother Kunti had perished
+      by fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The five princes, with their mother, disguised as Brahmans, spent several
+      years wandering through the forests, having many strange adventures and
+      slaying many demons. While visiting Ekachakra, which city they freed from
+      a frightful rakshasa, they were informed by the sage Vyasa that Draupadi,
+      the lovely daughter of the Raja Draupada of Panchala, was going to hold a
+      Svayamvara in order to select a husband. The suitors of a princess
+      frequently attended a meeting of this sort and took part in various
+      athletic contests, at the end of which the princess signified who was most
+      pleasing to her, usually the victor in the games, by hanging around his
+      neck a garland of flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vyasa's description of the lovely princess, whose black eyes were large as
+      lotus leaves, whose skin was dusky, and her locks dark and curling, so
+      excited the curiosity of the Pandavas that they determined to attend the
+      Svayamvara. They found the city full of princes and kings who had come to
+      take part in the contest for the most beautiful woman in the world. The
+      great amphitheatre in which the games were to take place was surrounded by
+      gold and jewelled palaces for the accommodation of the princes, and with
+      platforms for the convenience of the spectators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After music, dancing, and various entertainments, which occupied sixteen
+      days, the contest of skill began. On the top of a tall pole, erected in
+      the plain, was placed a golden fish, below which revolved a large wheel.
+      He who sent his arrow through the spokes of the wheel and pierced the eye
+      of the golden fish was to be the accepted suitor of Draupadi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the princes saw the difficulty of the contest, many of them refused
+      to enter it; as many tried it only to fail, among them, the Kaurava
+      Duryodhana. At last Arjuna, still in his disguise, stepped forward, drew
+      his bow, and sent his arrow through the wheel into the eye of the golden
+      fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately a great uproar arose among the spectators because a Brahman
+      had entered a contest limited to members of the Kshatriya, or warrior
+      class. In the struggle which ensued, however, Arjuna, assisted by his
+      brothers, especially Bhima, succeeded in carrying off the princess, whose
+      father did not demur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the princes returned to their hut they went into the inner room and
+      informed their mother that they had brought home a prize. Supposing that
+      it was some game, she told them it would be well to share it equally. The
+      mother's word was law, but would the gods permit them to share Draupadi?
+      Their troubled minds were set at rest by Vyasa, who assured them that
+      Draupadi had five different times in former existences besought Siva for a
+      good husband. He had refused her requests then, but would now allow her
+      five husbands at once. The princes were well satisfied, and when the Raja
+      Draupada learned that the Brahmans were great princes in disguise, he
+      caused the five weddings to be celebrated in great state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not satisfied with this, the Raja at once endeavored to make peace between
+      the Pandavas and their hostile cousins, and succeeded far enough to induce
+      Dhrita-rashtra to cede to his nephews a tract of land in the farthest part
+      of his kingdom, on the river Jumna, where they set about founding a most
+      splendid city, Indra-prastha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here they lived happily with Draupadi, conquering so many kingdoms and
+      accumulating so much wealth that they once more aroused the jealousy of
+      their old enemies, the Kauravas. The latter, knowing that it would be
+      impossible to gain the advantage of them by fair means, determined to
+      conquer them by artifice, and accordingly erected a large and magnificent
+      hall and invited their cousins thither, with a great show of friendliness,
+      to a gambling match.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pandavas knew they would not be treated fairly, but as such an
+      invitation could not be honorably declined by a Kshatriya, they went to
+      Hastinapur. Yudhi-sthira's opponent was Shakuni, the queen's brother, an
+      unprincipled man, by whom he was defeated in every game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yudhi-sthira staked successively his money, his jewels, and his slaves;
+      and when these were exhausted, he continued to play, staking his kingdom,
+      his brothers, and last of all his peerless wife, Draupadi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point, when the excitement was intense, the brutal Dhusasana
+      commanded Draupadi to be brought into the hall, and insulted her in every
+      way, to the great rage of the helpless Pandavas, until Dhrita-rashtra,
+      affrighted by the evil omens by which the gods signified their
+      disapproval, rebuked Dhusasana for his conduct, and giving Draupadi her
+      wish, released her husbands and herself and sent them back to their
+      kingdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To prevent the Pandavas from gaining time to avenge their insult, the
+      Kauravas induced their father to invite their cousins to court to play a
+      final game, this time the conditions being that the losing party should go
+      into exile for thirteen years, spending twelve years in the forest and the
+      thirteenth in some city. If their disguise was penetrated by their enemies
+      during the thirteenth year, the exile was to be extended for another
+      thirteen years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though they knew the outcome, the Pandavas accepted the second invitation,
+      and in consequence again sought the forest, not departing without the most
+      terrible threats against their cousins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the forest of Kamyaka, Yudhi-sthira studied the science of dice that he
+      might not again be defeated so disastrously, and journeyed pleasantly from
+      one point of interest to another with Draupadi and his brothers, with the
+      exception of Arjuna, who had sought the Himalayas to gain favor with the
+      god Siva, that he might procure from him a terrible weapon for the
+      destruction of his cousins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had obtained the weapon he was lifted into the heaven of the god
+      Indra, where he spent five happy years. When he rejoined his wife and
+      brothers, they were visited by the god Krishna and by the sage Markandeya,
+      who told them the story of the creation and destruction of the universe,
+      of the flood, and of the doctrine of Karma, which instructs one that man's
+      sufferings here below are due to his actions in former and forgotten
+      existences. He also related to them the beautiful story of how the
+      Princess Sâvitrî had wedded the Prince Satyavan, knowing that the gods had
+      decreed that he should die within a year; how on the day set for his death
+      she had accompanied him to the forest, had there followed Yama, the awful
+      god of death, entreating him until, for very pity of her sorrow and
+      admiration of her courage and devotion, he yielded to her her husband's
+      soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the close of the twelfth year of their exile, the princes, fatigued
+      from a hunt, sent Nakalu to get some water from a lake which one had
+      discovered from a tree-top. As the prince approached the lake he was
+      warned by a voice not to touch it, but thirst overcoming fear, he drank
+      and fell dead. The same penalty was paid by Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhima,
+      who in turn followed him. Yudhi-sthira, who went last, obeyed the voice,
+      which, assuming a terrible form, asked the king questions on many subjects
+      concerning the universe. These being answered satisfactorily, the being
+      declared himself to be Dharma, the god of justice, Yudhi-sthira's father,
+      and in token of his affection for his son, restored the princes to life,
+      and granted them the boon of being unrecognizable during the remaining
+      year of their exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thirteenth year of their exile they spent in the city of Virata, where
+      they entered the service of the Raja,&mdash;Yudhi-sthira as teacher of
+      dice-playing, Bhima as superintendent of the cooks, Arjuna as a teacher of
+      music and dancing to the ladies, Nakalu as master of horse, and Sahadeva
+      as superintendent of the cattle. Draupadi, who entered the service of the
+      queen, was so attractive, even in disguise, that Bhima was forced to kill
+      the queen's brother, Kechaka, for insulting her. This would have caused
+      the Pandavas' exile from Virata had not their services been needed in a
+      battle between Virata and the king of the Trigartas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kauravas assisted the Trigartas in this battle, and the recognition,
+      among the victors, of their cousins, whose thirteenth year of exile was
+      now ended, added to the bitterness of their defeat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their exile over, the Pandavas were free to make preparations for the
+      great war which they had determined to wage against the Kauravas. Both
+      parties, anxious to enlist the services of Krishna, sent envoys to him at
+      the same time. When Krishna gave them the choice of himself or his armies,
+      Arjuna was shrewd enough to choose the god, leaving his hundreds of
+      millions of soldiers to swell the forces of the Kauravas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When their preparations were completed, and the time had come to wreak
+      vengeance on their cousins, the Pandavas were loath to begin the conflict.
+      They seemed to understand that, war once declared, there could be no
+      compromise, but that it must be a war for extinction. But the Kauravas
+      received their proposals of peace with taunts, and heaped insults upon
+      their emissary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Pandavas found that there was no hope of peace, they endeavored
+      to win to their side Karna, who was really a son of Kunti, and hence their
+      half-brother, though this fact had not been made known to him until he had
+      long been allied with the Kauravas. In anticipation of this war, the gods,
+      by a bit of trickery, had robbed Karna of his god-given armor and weapons.
+      However, neither celestial artifice, the arguments of Krishna, nor the
+      entreaties of Kunti were able to move Karna from what he considered the
+      path of duty, though he promised that while he would fight with all his
+      strength, he would not slay Yudhi-sthira, Bhima, and the twins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The forces of the two armies were drawn up on the plain of Kuruk-shetra.
+      The army of the Kauravas was under the command of the terrible Bhishma,
+      the uncle of Pandu and Dhrita-rashtra, who had governed the country during
+      the minority of Pandu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each side was provided with billions and billions of infantry, cavalry,
+      and elephants; the warriors were supplied with weapons of the most
+      dangerous sort. The army of the Kauravas was surrounded by a deep trench
+      fortified by towers, and further protected by fireballs and jars full of
+      scorpions to be thrown at the assailants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As night fell, before the battle, the moon's face was stained with blood,
+      earthquakes shook the land, and the images of the gods fell from their
+      places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning, when Arjuna, from his chariot, beheld the immense army,
+      he was appalled at the thought of the bloodshed to follow, and hesitated
+      to advance. Krishna insisted that it was unnecessary for him to lament,
+      setting forth his reasons in what is known as the Bhagavat-gita, the
+      divine song, in which he said it was no sin to slay a foe, since death is
+      but a transmigration from one form to another. The soul can never cease to
+      be; who then can destroy it? Therefore, when Arjuna slew his cousins he
+      would merely remove their offensive bodies; their souls, unable to be
+      destroyed, would seek other habitations. To further impress Arjuna,
+      Krishna boasted of himself as embodying everything, and as having passed
+      through many forms. Faith in Krishna was indispensable, for the god placed
+      faith above either works or contemplation. He next exhibited himself in
+      his divine form to Arjuna, and the warrior was horror-stricken at the
+      terrible divinity with countless arms, hands, and heads, touching the
+      skies. Having been thus instructed by Krishna, Arjuna went forth, and the
+      eighteen days' battle began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The slaughter was wholesale; no quarter was asked or given, since each
+      side was determined to exterminate the other. Flights of arrows were
+      stopped in mid-air by flights of arrows from the other side. Great maces
+      were cut in pieces by well-directed darts. Bhima, wielding his great club
+      with his prodigious strength, wiped out thousands of the enemy at one
+      stroke, and Arjuna did the same with his swift arrows. Nor were the
+      Kauravas to be despised. Hundreds of thousands of the Pandavas' followers
+      fell, and the heroic brothers were themselves struck by many arrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in the battle the old Bhishma was pierced by so many arrows that,
+      falling from his chariot, he rested upon their points as on a couch, and
+      lay there living by his own desire, until long after the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After eighteen days of slaughter, during which the field reeked with blood
+      and night was made horrible by the cries of the jackals and other beasts
+      of prey that devoured the bodies of the dead, the Kauravas were all slain,
+      and the five Pandavas, reconciled to the blind Raja, accompanied him back
+      to Hastinapur, where Yudhi-sthira was crowned Raja, although the Raj was
+      still nominally under the rule of his old uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yudhi-sthira celebrated his accession to the throne by the performance of
+      the great sacrifice, which was celebrated with the utmost splendor. After
+      several years the unhappy Dhrita-rashtra retired with his wife to a jungle
+      on the banks of the Ganges, leaving Yudhi-sthira in possession of the
+      kingdom. There the Pandavas visited him, and talked over the friends who
+      had fallen in the great war. One evening the sage Vyasa instructed them to
+      bathe in the Ganges and then stand on the banks of the river. He then went
+      into the water and prayed, and coming out stood by Yudhi-sthira and called
+      the names of all those persons who had been slain at Kuruk-shetra.
+      Immediately the water began to foam and boil, and to the great surprise
+      and terror of all, the warriors lost in the great battle appeared in their
+      chariots, at perfect peace with one another, and cleansed of all earthly
+      stain. Then the living were happy with the dead; long separated families
+      were once more united, and the hearts that had been desolate for fifteen
+      long years were again filled with joy. The night sped quickly by in tender
+      conversation, and when morning came, all the dead mounted into their
+      chariots and disappeared. Those who had come to meet them prepared to
+      leave the river, but with the permission of Vyasa, the widows drowned
+      themselves that they might rejoin their husbands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long after his return to Hastinapur, Yudhi-sthira heard that the old
+      Raja and his wife had lost their lives in a jungle-fire; and soon after
+      this, tidings came to him of the destruction of the city of the Yadavas,
+      the capital of Krishna, in punishment for the dissipation of its
+      inhabitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yudhi-sthira's reign of thirty-six years had been a succession of gloomy
+      events, and he began to grow weary of earth and to long for the blessings
+      promised above. He therefore determined to make the long and weary
+      pilgrimage to Heaven without waiting for death. According to the
+      Mahâ-Bhârata, the earth was divided into seven concentric rings, each of
+      which was surrounded by an ocean or belt separating it from the next
+      annular continent. The first ocean was of salt water; the second, of the
+      juice of the sugar-cane; the third, of wine; the fourth, of clarified
+      butter; the fifth, of curdled milk; the sixth, of sweet milk; the seventh,
+      of fresh water. In the centre of this vast annular system Mount Meru rose
+      to the height of sixty-four thousand miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this mountain was supposed to rest the heaven of the Hindus, and
+      thither Yudhi-sthira proposed to make his pilgrimage. His brothers and
+      their wife Draupadi insisted on going with him, for all were equally weary
+      of the world. Their people would fain have accompanied them, but the
+      princes sent them back and went unaccompanied save by their faithful dog.
+      They kept on, fired by their high resolves, until they reached the long
+      and dreary waste of sand that stretched before Mount Meru. There Draupadi
+      fell and yielded up her life, and Yudhi-sthira, never turning to look
+      back, told the questioning Bhima that she died because she loved her
+      husbands better than all else, better than heaven. Next Sahadeva fell,
+      then Nakalu, and afterwards Arjuna and Bhima. Yudhi-sthira, still striding
+      on, informed Bhima that pride had slain the first, self-love the second,
+      the sin of Arjuna was a lie, and Bhima had loved too well the good things
+      of earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Followed by the dog, Yudhi-sthira pushed across the barren sand until he
+      reached the mount and stood in the presence of the god. Well pleased with
+      his perseverance, the god promised him the reward of entering into heaven
+      in his own form, but he refused to go unless the dog could accompany him.
+      After vainly attempting to dissuade him, the god allowed the dog to assume
+      its proper form, and lo! it was Dharma, the god of justice, and the two
+      entered heaven together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But where were Draupadi and the gallant princes, her husbands?
+      Yudhi-sthira could see them nowhere, and he questioned only to learn that
+      they were in hell. His determination was quickly taken. There could be no
+      heaven for him unless his brothers and their wife could share it with him.
+      He demanded to be shown the path to hell, to enter which he walked over
+      razors, and trod under foot mangled human forms. But joy of joys! The
+      lotus-eyed Draupadi called to him, and his brothers cried that his
+      presence in hell brought a soothing breeze that gave relief to all the
+      tortured souls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yudhi-sthira's self-sacrifice sufficiently tested, the gods proclaimed
+      that it was all but an illusion shown to make him enjoy the more, by
+      contrast, the blisses of heaven. The king Yudhi-sthira then bathed in the
+      great river flowing through three worlds, and, washed from all sins and
+      soils, went up, hand in hand with the gods, to his brothers, the Pandavas,
+      and
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "Lotus-eyed and loveliest Draupadi,
+   Waiting to greet him, gladdening and glad."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE MAHÂ-BHÂRATA.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      SÂVITRI, OR LOVE AND DEATH.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful princess Sâvitri of her own choice wedded the prince
+      Satyavan, son of a blind and exiled king, although she knew that he was
+      doomed by the gods to die within a year. When the year was almost gone,
+      she sat for several days beneath a great tree, abstaining from food and
+      drink, and imploring the gods to save him from death. On the fateful day
+      she accompanied him to the forest to gather the sacred wood for the
+      evening sacrifice. As he struck the tree with the axe he reeled in pain,
+      and exclaiming, "I cannot work!" fell fainting.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Thereon that noble lady, hastening near.
+  Stayed him that would have fallen, with quick arms;
+  And, sitting on the earth, laid her lord's head
+  Tenderly in her lap. So bent she, mute,
+  Fanning his face, and thinking 't was the day&mdash;
+  The hour&mdash;which Narad named&mdash;the sure fixed date
+  Of dreadful end&mdash;when, lo! before her rose
+  A shade majestic. Red his garments were,
+  His body vast and dark; like fiery suns
+  The eyes which burned beneath his forehead-cloth;
+  Armed was he with a noose, awful of mien.
+  This Form tremendous stood by Satyavan,
+  Fixing its gaze upon him. At the sight
+  The fearful Princess started to her feet.
+  Heedfully laying on the grass his head,
+
+  Up started she, with beating heart, and joined
+  Her palms for supplication, and spake thus
+  In accents tremulous: "Thou seem'st some God;
+  Thy mien is more than mortal; make me know
+  What god thou art, and what thy purpose here."
+
+  And Yama said (the dreadful god of death):
+  "Thou art a faithful wife, O Sâvitrî,
+  True to thy vows, pious, and dutiful;
+  Therefore I answer thee. Yama I am!
+  This Prince thy lord lieth at point to die;
+  Him will I straightway bind and bear from life;
+  This is my office, and for this I come."
+
+  Then Sâvitrî spake sadly: "It is taught
+  Thy messengers are sent to fetch the dying;
+  Why is it, Mightiest, thou art come thyself?"
+
+  In pity of her love, the Pityless
+  Answered&mdash;the King of all the Dead replied:
+  "This was a Prince unparalleled, thy lord;
+  Virtuous as fair, a sea of goodly gifts,
+  Not to be summoned by a meaner voice
+  Than Yama's own: therefore is Yama come."
+
+  With that the gloomy God fitted his noose
+  And forced forth from the Prince the soul of him&mdash;
+  Subtile, a thumb in length&mdash;which being reft,
+  Breath stayed, blood stopped, the body's grace was gone,
+  And all life's warmth to stony coldness turned.
+  Then, binding it, the Silent Presence bore
+  Satyavan's soul away toward the South.
+
+  But Sâvitrî the Princess followed him;
+  Being so bold in wifely purity,
+  So holy by her love; and so upheld,
+  She followed him.
+
+                     Presently Yama turned.
+  "Go back," quoth he. "Pay for him funeral dues.
+  Enough, O Sâvitrî, is wrought for love;
+  Go back! Too far already hast thou come."
+
+  Then Sâvitrî made answer: "I must go
+  Where my lord goes, or where my lord is borne;
+  Naught other is my duty. Nay, I think,
+  By reason of my vows, my services,
+  Done to the Gurus, and my faultless love,
+  Grant but thy grace, I shall unhindered go.
+  The sages teach that to walk seven steps
+  One with another, maketh good men friends;
+  Beseech thee, let me say a verse to thee:&mdash;
+
+  <i>"Be master of thyself, if thou wilt be
+  Servant of Duty. Such as thou shall see
+  Not self-subduing, do no deeds of good
+  In youth or age, in household or in wood.
+  But wise men know that virtue is best bliss,
+  And all by some one way may reach to this.
+  It needs not men should pass through orders four
+  To come to knowledge: doing right is more
+  Than any learning; therefore sages say
+  Best and most excellent is Virtue's way."</i>
+
+  Spake Yama then: "Return! yet I am moved
+  By those soft words; justly their accents fell,
+  And sweet and reasonable was their sense.
+  See now, thou faultless one. Except this life
+  I bear away, ask any boon from me;
+  It shall not be denied."
+
+                              Sâvitrî said:
+  "Let, then, the King, my husband's father, have
+  His eyesight back, and be his strength restored,
+  And let him live anew, strong as the sun."
+
+  "I give this gift," Yama replied. "Thy wish,
+  Blameless, shall be fulfilled. But now go back;
+  Already art thou wearied, and our road
+  Is hard and long. Turn back, lest thou, too, die."
+
+  The Princess answered: "Weary am I not,
+  So I walk near my lord. Where he is borne,
+  Thither wend I. Most mighty of the Gods,
+  I follow wheresoe'er thou takest him.
+  A verse is writ on this, if thou wouldst hear:&mdash;
+
+  <i>"There is naught better than to be
+  With noble souls in company:
+  There is naught better than to wend
+  With good friends faithful to the end.
+  This is the love whose fruit is sweet,
+  Therefore to bide within is meet."</i>
+
+  Spake Yama, smiling: "Beautiful! thy words
+  Delight me; they are excellent, and teach
+  Wisdom unto the wise, singing soft truth.
+  Look, now! Except the life of Satyavan,
+  Ask yet another&mdash;any&mdash;boon from me."
+
+  Sâvitrî said: "Let, then, the pious King,
+  My husband's father, who hath lost his throne,
+  Have back the Raj; and let him rule his realm
+  In happy righteousness. This boon I ask."
+
+  "He shall have back the throne," Yama replied,
+  "And he shall reign in righteousness: these things
+  Will surely fall. But thou, gaining thy wish,
+  Return anon; so shalt thou 'scape sore ill."
+
+  "Ah, awful God! who hold'st the world in leash,"
+  The Princess said, "restraining evil men,
+  And leading good men&mdash;even unconscious&mdash;there,
+  Where they attain, hear yet those famous words:&mdash;
+
+  <i>"The constant virtues of the good are tenderness and love
+  To all that lives&mdash;in earth, air, sea&mdash;great, small&mdash;below, above;
+  Compassionate of heart, they keep a gentle thought for each,
+  Kind in their actions, mild in will, and pitiful of speech;
+  Who pitieth not, he hath not faith; full many an one so lives,
+  But when an enemy seeks help, a good man gladly gives."</i>
+
+  "As water to the thirsty," Yama said,
+  "Princess, thy words melodious are to me.
+  Except the life of Satyavan, thy lord,
+  Ask one boon yet again, for I will grant."
+
+  Answer made Sâvitrî: "The King, my sire,
+  Hath no male child. Let him see many sons
+  Begotten of his body, who may keep
+  The royal line long regnant. This I ask."
+
+  "So shall it be," the Lord of Death replied;
+  "A hundred fair preservers of his race
+  Thy sire shall boast. But this wish being won,
+  Return, dear Princess; thou hast come too far."
+
+  "It is not far for me," quoth Sâvitrî,
+  "Since I am near my husband; nay, my heart
+  Is set to go as far as to the end;
+  But hear these other verses, if thou wilt:&mdash;
+
+  <i>"By that sunlit name thou bearest,
+  Thou, Vaivaswata! art dearest;
+  Those that as their Lord proclaim thee,
+  King of Righteousness do name thee:
+  Better than themselves the wise
+  Trust the righteous. Each relies
+  Most upon the good, and makes
+  Friendship with them. Friendship takes
+  Fear from hearts; yet friends betray,
+  In good men we may trust alway."</i>
+
+  "Sweet lady," Yama said, "never were words
+  Spoke better; never truer heard by ear;
+  Lo! I am pleased with thee. Except this soul,
+  Ask one gift yet again, and get thee home."
+
+  "I ask thee then," quickly the Princess cried,
+  "Sons, many sons, born of my body; boys;
+  Satyavan's children; lovely, valiant, strong;
+  Continuers of their line. Grant this, kind God."
+
+  "I grant it," Yama answered; "thou shalt bear
+  These sons thy heart desireth, valiant, strong.
+  Therefore go back, that years be given thee.
+  Too long a path thou treadest, dark and rough."
+
+  But sweeter than before, the Princess sang:&mdash;
+
+  <i>"In paths of peace and virtue
+  Always the good remain;
+  And sorrow shall not stay with them,
+  Nor long access of pain;
+  At meeting or at parting
+  Joys to their bosom strike;
+  For good to good is friendly,
+  And virtue loves her like.
+  The great sun goes his journey
+  By their strong truth impelled;
+  By their pure lives and penances
+  Is earth itself upheld;
+  Of all which live and shall live
+  Upon its hills and fields,
+  Pure hearts are the protectors,
+  For virtue saves and shields.
+
+  "Never are noble spirits
+  Poor while their like survive;
+  True love has gems to render,
+  And virtue wealth to give.
+  Never is lost or wasted
+  The goodness of the good;
+  Never against a mercy,
+  Against a right, it stood;
+  And seeing this, that virtue
+  Is always friend to all,
+  The virtuous and true-hearted,
+  Men their protectors call."</i>
+
+  "Line for line, Princess, as thou sangest so,"
+  Quoth Yama, "all that lovely praise of good,
+  Grateful to hallowed minds, lofty in sound,
+  And couched in dulcet numbers&mdash;word by word&mdash;
+  Dearer thou grew'st to me. O thou great heart,
+  Perfect and firm! ask any boon from me,&mdash;
+  Ask an incomparable boon!"
+
+                              She cried
+  Swiftly, no longer stayed: "Not Heaven I crave,
+  Nor heavenly joys, nor bliss incomparable,
+  Hard to be granted, even by thee; but him,
+  My sweet lord's life, without which I am dead;
+  Give me that gift of gifts! I will not take
+  Aught less without him,&mdash;not one boon&mdash;no praise,
+  No splendors, no rewards,&mdash;not even those sons
+  Whom thou didst promise. Ah, thou wilt not now
+  Bear hence the father of them and my hope!
+  Make thy free word good; give me Satyavan
+  Alive once more."
+
+  And thereupon the God&mdash;
+  The Lord of Justice, high Vaivaswata&mdash;
+  Loosened the noose and freed the Prince's soul,
+  And gave it to the lady, saying this,
+  With eyes grown tender: "See, thou sweetest queen
+  Of women, brightest jewel of thy kind!
+  Here is thy husband. He shall live and reign
+  Side by side with thee, saved by thee,&mdash;in peace
+  And fame and wealth, and health, many long years,
+  For pious sacrifices world-renowned.
+  Boys shalt thou bear to him, as I did grant,&mdash;
+  Kshatriya kings, fathers of kings to be,
+  Sustainers of thy line. Also thy sire
+  Shall see his name upheld by sons of sons,
+  Like the immortals, valiant, Mâlavas."
+
+                          ARNOLD: <i>Indian Idylls.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      FROM "THE GREAT JOURNEY."
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The shadow of the Great War hung over King Yudhi-sthira, whose reign was
+      one long succession of gloomy events, culminating in the death of the
+      blind Raja and his wife in a jungle fire, and the destruction of the
+      capital city of Krishna because of the dissipation of its inhabitants.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  On tidings of the wreck of Vrishni's race,
+  King Yudhi-sthira of the Pandavas
+  Was minded to be done with earthly things,
+  And to Arjuna spake: "O noble prince,
+  Time endeth all; we linger, noose on neck,
+  Till the last day tightens the line, and kills.
+  Let us go forth to die, being yet alive."
+  And Kunti's son, the great Arjuna, said:
+  "Let us go forth! Time slayeth all.
+  We will find Death, who seeketh other men."
+  And Bhimasena, hearing, answered: "Yea,
+  We will find Death!" and Sahadev cried: "Yea!"
+  And his twin brother Nakalu; whereat
+  The princes set their faces for the Mount.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  So ordering ere he went, the righteous King
+  Made offering of white water, heedfully,
+  To Vasudev, to Rama, and the rest,&mdash;
+  All funeral rites performing; next he spread
+  A funeral feast....
+
+  And all the people cried, "Stay with us, Lord!"
+  But Yudhi-sthira knew his time was come,
+  Knew that life passes and that virtue lasts,
+  And put aside their love....
+
+  So, with farewells
+  Tenderly took of lieges and of lords,
+  Girt he for travel with his princely kin,
+  Great Yudhi-sthira, Dharma's royal son.
+  Crest-gem and belt and ornaments he stripped
+  From off his body, and for broidered robe
+  A rough dress donned, woven of jungle bark;
+  And what he did&mdash;O Lord of men!&mdash;so did
+  Arjuna, Bhima, and the twin-born pair,
+  Nakalu with Sahadev, and she,&mdash;in grace
+  The peerless,&mdash;Draupadi. Lastly those six,&mdash;
+  Thou son of Bharata!&mdash;in solemn form
+  Made the high sacrifice of Naishtiki,
+  Quenching their flames in water at the close;
+  And so set forth, midst wailing of all folk
+  And tears of women, weeping most to see
+  The Princess Draupadi&mdash;that lovely prize
+  Of the great gaming, Draupadi the Bright&mdash;
+  Journeying afoot; but she and all the five
+  Rejoiced because their way lay heavenward.
+
+  Seven were they, setting forth,&mdash;Princess and King,
+  The King's four brothers and a faithful dog.
+  Those left Hastinapur; but many a man,
+  And all the palace household, followed them
+  The first sad stage: and ofttimes prayed to part,
+
+  Put parting off for love and pity, still
+  Sighing, "A little farther!" till day waned;
+  Then one by one they turned.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                                 Thus wended they,
+  Pandu's five sons and loveliest Draupadi,
+  Taking no meat and journeying due east,
+  On righteousness their high hearts fed, to heaven
+  Their souls assigned; and steadfast trod their feet&mdash;
+  By faith upborne&mdash;past nullah ran, and wood,
+  River and jheel and plain. King Yudhi-sthir
+  Walked foremost, Bhima followed, after him
+  Arjuna, and the twin-born brethren next,
+  Nakalu with Sahadev; in whose still steps&mdash;
+  O Best of Bharat's offspring!&mdash;Draupadi,
+  That gem of women paced, with soft dark face,&mdash;
+  Clear-edged like lotus petals; last the dog
+  Following the Pandavas.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                      While yet those heroes walked,
+  Now to the northward banding, where long coasts
+  Shut in the sea of salt, now to the north,
+  Accomplishing all quarters, journeyed they;
+  The earth their altar of high sacrifice,
+  Which these most patient feet did pace around
+  Till Meru rose.
+
+                    At last it rose! These Six,
+  Their senses subjugate, their spirits pure,
+  Wending along, came into sight&mdash;far off
+  In the eastern sky&mdash;of awful Himavat;
+  And midway in the peaks of Himavat,
+  Meru, the mountain of all mountains, rose,
+  Whose head is heaven; and under Himavat
+  Glared a wide waste of sand, dreadful as death.
+
+  Then, as they hastened o'er the deathly waste,
+  Aiming for Meru, having thoughts at soul
+  Infinite, eager,&mdash;lo! Draupadi reeled,
+  With faltering heart and feet; and Bhima turned,
+  Gazing upon her; and that hero spake
+  To Yudhi-sthira: "Master, Brother, King!
+  Why doth she fail? For never all her life
+  Wrought our sweet lady one thing wrong, I think.
+  Thou knowest; make us know, why hath she failed?"
+
+  Then Yudhi-sthira answered: "Yea, one thing.
+  She loved our brothers better than all else,&mdash;
+  Better than Heaven: that was her tender sin,
+  Fault of a faultless soul: she pays for that."
+
+  So spake the monarch, turning not his eyes,
+  Though Draupadi lay dead,&mdash;striding straight on
+  For Meru, heart-full of the things of Heaven,
+  Perfect and firm. But yet a little space
+  And Sahadev fell down; which Bhima seeing,
+  Cried once again: "O King, great Madri's son
+  Stumbles and sinks. Why hath he sunk?&mdash;so true,
+  So brave and steadfast, and so free from pride!"
+
+  "He was not free," with countenance still fixed,
+  Quoth Yudhi-sthira; "he was true and fast
+  And wise; yet wisdom made him proud; he hid
+  One little hurt of soul, but now it kills."
+
+  So saying, he strode on, Kunti's strong son,
+  And Bhima; and Arjuna followed him,
+  And Nakalu and the hound; leaving behind
+  Sahadev in the sands. But Nakalu,
+  Weakened and grieved to see Sahadev fall&mdash;
+  His dear-loved brother&mdash;lagged and stayed; and then
+  Prone on his face he fell, that noble face
+  Which had no match for beauty in the land,&mdash;
+  Glorious and godlike Nakalu! Then sighed
+  Bhima anew: "Brother and Lord! the man
+  Who never erred from virtue, never broke
+  Our fellowship, and never in the world
+  Was matched for goodly perfectness of form
+  Or gracious feature,&mdash;Nakalu has fallen!"
+
+  But Yudhi-sthira, holding fixed his eyes,&mdash;
+  That changeless, faithful, all-wise king,&mdash;replied:
+  "Yea, but he erred! The god-like form he wore
+  Beguiled him to believe none like to him,
+  And he alone desirable, and things
+  Unlovely, to be slighted. Self-love slays
+  Our noble brother. Bhima, follow! Each
+  Pays what his debt was."
+
+                            Which Arjuna heard,
+  Weeping to see them fall; and that stout son
+  Of Pandu, that destroyer of his foes,
+  That Prince, who drove through crimson waves of war,
+  In old days, with his milk-white chariot-steeds,
+  Him, the arch hero, sank! Beholding this,&mdash;
+  The yielding of that soul unconquerable,
+
+  Fearless, divine, from Sakra's self derived,
+  Arjuna's&mdash;Bhima cried aloud: "O King!
+  This man was surely perfect. Never once,
+  Not even in slumber, when the lips are loosed,
+  Spake he one word that was not true as truth.
+  Ah, heart of gold! why art thou broke? O King!
+  Whence falleth he?"
+
+                        And Yudhi-sthira said,
+  Not pausing: "Once he lied, a lordly lie!
+  He bragged&mdash;our brother&mdash;that a single day
+  Should see him utterly consume, alone,
+  All those his enemies,&mdash;which could not be.
+  Yet from a great heart sprang the unmeasured speech,
+  Howbeit a finished hero should not shame
+  Himself in such a wise, nor his enemy,
+  If he will faultless fight and blameless die:
+  This was Arjuna's sin. Follow thou me!"
+
+  So the King still went on. But Bhima next
+  Fainted, and stayed upon the way, and sank;
+  But, sinking, cried behind the steadfast Prince:
+  "Ah, Brother, see! I die! Look upon me,
+  Thy well beloved! Wherefore falter I,
+  Who strove to stand?"
+
+                          And Yudhi-sthira said:
+  "More than was well the goodly things of earth
+  Pleased thee, my pleasant brother! Light the offence
+  And large thy spirit; but the o'erfed soul
+  Plumed itself over others. Pritha's son,
+  For this thou fallest, who so near didst gain."
+
+  Thenceforth alone the long-armed monarch strode,
+  Not looking back,&mdash;nay, not for Bhima's sake,&mdash;
+  But walking with his face set for the Mount;
+  And the hound followed him,&mdash;only the hound.
+
+  After the deathly sands, the Mount! and lo!
+  Sakra shone forth,&mdash;the God,&mdash;filling the earth
+  And Heavens with the thunders of his chariot wheels.
+  "Ascend," he said, "with me, Pritha's great son!"
+  But Yudhi-sthira answered, sore at heart
+  For those his kinsfolk, fallen on the way:
+  "O Thousand-eyed, O Lord of all the gods,
+  Give that my brothers come with me, who fell!
+  Not without them is Swarga sweet to me.
+  She too, the dear and kind and queenly,&mdash;she
+  Whose perfect virtue Paradise must crown,&mdash;
+  Grant her to come with us! Dost thou grant this?"
+
+  The God replied: "In Heaven thou shalt see
+  Thy kinsmen and the Queen&mdash;these will attain&mdash;
+  And Krishna. Grieve no longer for thy dead,
+  Thou chief of men! their mortal coverings stripped,
+  These have their places; but to thee, the gods
+  Allow an unknown grace: thou shalt go up,
+  Living and in thy form, to the immortal homes."
+
+  But the King answered: "O thou wisest One,
+  Who know'st what was, and is, and is to be,
+  Still one more grace! This hound hath ate with me,
+  Followed me, loved me; must I leave him now?"
+
+  "Monarch," spake Indra, "thou art now as we,&mdash;
+  Deathless, divine; thou art become a god;
+  Glory and power and gifts celestial,
+  And all the joys of heaven are thine for aye:
+  What hath a beast with these? Leave here thy hound."
+
+  Yet Yudhi-sthira answered: "O Most High,
+  O Thousand-Eyed and Wisest! can it be
+  That one exalted should seem pitiless?
+  Nay, let me lose such glory: for its sake
+  I cannot leave one living thing I loved."
+
+  Then sternly Indra spake: "He is unclean,
+  And into Swarga such shall enter not.
+  The Krodhavasha's wrath destroys the fruits
+  Of sacrifice, if dog defile the fire.
+  Bethink thee, Dharmaraj; quit now this beast!
+  That which is seemly is not hard of heart."
+
+  Still he replied: "'Tis written that to spurn
+  A suppliant equals in offence to slay
+  A twice-born; wherefore, not for Swarga's bliss
+  Quit I, Mahendra, this poor clinging dog,&mdash;
+  So without any hope or friend save me.
+  So wistful, fawning for my faithfulness;
+  So agonized to die, unless I help
+  Who among men was called steadfast and just."
+
+  Quoth Indra: "Nay, the altar flame is foul
+  Where a dog passeth; angry angels sweep
+  The ascending smoke aside, and all the fruits
+  Of offering, and the merit of the prayer
+  Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here!
+  He that will enter Heaven must enter pure.
+  Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way,
+  And Krishna, and the dear-loved Draupadi,
+  Attaining firm and glorious to this Mount
+  Through perfect deeds, to linger for a brute?
+  Hath Yudhi-sthira vanquished self, to melt
+  With one pure passion at the door of bliss?
+  Stay'st thou for this, who did not stay for them,&mdash;
+  Draupadi, Bhima?"
+
+                     But the King yet spake:
+  "'T is known that none can hurt or help the dead.
+  They, the delightful ones, who sank and died.
+  Following my footsteps, could not live again
+  Though I had turned&mdash;therefore I did not turn;
+  But could help profit, I had stayed to help.
+  There be four sins, O Sakra, grievous sins:
+  The first is making suppliants despair,
+  The second is to slay a nursing wife,
+  The third is spoiling Brahmans' goods by force,
+  The fourth is injuring an ancient friend.
+  These four I deem not direr than the crime,
+  If one, in coming forth from woe to weal,
+  Abandon any meanest comrade then."
+
+  Straight as he spake, brightly great Indra smiled;
+  Vanished the hound, and in its stead stood there
+  The Lord of Death and Justice, Dharma's self!
+  Sweet were the words which fell from those dread lips,
+  Precious the lovely praise: "O thou true King,
+  Thou that dost bring to harvest the good seed
+  Of Pandu's righteousness; thou that hast ruth
+  As he before, on all which lives!&mdash;O Son!
+
+  "Hear thou my word! Because thou didst not mount
+  This car divine, lest the poor hound be shent
+  Who looked to thee, lo! there is none in heaven
+  Shall sit above thee, King! Bharata's son!
+  Enter thou now to the eternal joys,
+  Living and in thy form. Justice and Love
+  Welcome thee, Monarch! thou shalt throne with us!"
+                         ARNOLD: <i>Indian Idylls</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE ILIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Iliad, or story of the fall of Ilium (Troy), is supposed to have been
+      written by Homer, about the tenth century B. C. The legendary history of
+      Homer represents him as a schoolmaster and poet of Smyrna, who while
+      visiting in Ithaca became blind, and afterwards spent his life travelling
+      from place to place reciting his poems, until he died in Ios. Seven
+      cities, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylos, Argos, and Athens, claimed
+      to be his birthplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1795, Wolf, a German scholar, published his "Prolegomena," which set
+      forth his theory that Homer was a fictitious character, and that the Iliad
+      was made up of originally unconnected poems, collected and combined by
+      Pisistratus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though for a time the Wolfian theory had many advocates, it is now
+      generally conceded that although the stories of the fall of Troy were
+      current long before Homer, they were collected and recast into one poem by
+      some great poet. That the Iliad is the work of one man is clearly shown by
+      its unity, its sustained simplicity of style, and the centralization of
+      interest in the character of Achilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The destruction of Troy, for a time regarded as a poetic fiction, is now
+      believed by many scholars to be an actual historical event which took
+      place about the time of the Ćolian migration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole story of the fall of Troy is not related in the Iliad, the poem
+      opening nine years after the beginning of the war, and closing with the
+      death of Hector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iliad is divided into twenty-four books, and contains nineteen
+      thousand four hundred and sixty-five lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a work of art the Iliad has never been excelled; moreover, it possesses
+      what all works of art do not,&mdash;"the touches of things human" that
+      make it ours, although the centuries lie between us and its unknown
+      author, who told his stirring story in such swift-moving verses, with such
+      touches of pathos and humor, and with such evident joy of living. Another
+      evidence of the perfection of Homer's art is that while his heroes are
+      perfect types of Greeks and Trojans, they are also typical men, and for
+      that reason, still keep their hold upon us. It is this human interest,
+      simplicity of style, and grandeur of treatment that have rendered Homer
+      immortal and his work imperishable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL3" id="link2H_BIBL3"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ILIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      M. Arnold's Essay on Homer, 1876, pp. 284-425;
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      H. Bonitz's Origin of the Homeric Poems, tr. 1880;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      R. C. Jebb's Introduction to Homer, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 7-17;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. Leaf's Companion to the Iliad for English Readers, 1892;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. A. Symonds's Studies in Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ILIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Iliad, Tr. into English blank verse by W. C. Bryant, 2 vols., 1871
+      (Primitive in spirit, like Homer. Union of literalness with simplicity);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iliad, Tr. according to the Greek with introduction and notes by
+      George Chapman {1615}, Ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874 (Written in verse. Pope says a
+      daring and fiery spirit animates this translation, something like that in
+      which one might imagine Homer would have written before he came to years
+      of discretion);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iliad, Tr. by William Cowper (Very literal and inattentive to melody,
+      but has more of simple majesty and manner of Homer than Pope);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iliad, rendered into English blank verse by the Earl of Derby, 2
+      vols., 1864;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Iliad, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by the Rev. T. W. A. Buckley,
+      n. d. (Written in couplets. Highly ornamented paraphrase).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE ILIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For nine years a fleet of one thousand one hundred and eighty-six ships
+      and an army of more than one hundred thousand Greeks, under the command of
+      Agamemnon, lay before King Priam's city of Troy to avenge the wrongs of
+      Menelaus, King of Sparta, and to reclaim Helen, his wife, who had been
+      carried away by Priam's son Paris, at the instigation of Venus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though they had not succeeded in taking Troy, the Greeks had conquered
+      many of the surrounding cities. From one of these, Agamemnon had taken as
+      his share of the booty Chryseis, the beautiful daughter of the priest
+      Chryses; and when her father had come to ransom her, he had been insulted
+      and driven away by the king. Chryses had prayed to Apollo for revenge, and
+      the god had sent upon the Greeks a pestilence which was slaying so many
+      thousands that a meeting was called to consult upon what to do to check
+      the plague and conciliate the god.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Calchas the seer had declared that the plague was sent because of the
+      detention of Chryseis, and Agamemnon, though indignant with the priest,
+      announced that he would send her back to save his army from destruction.
+      "Note, however," said he, "that I have now given up my booty. See that I
+      am recompensed for what I lose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then rose the leader of the Myrmidons, swift-footed Achilles, in his
+      wrath, and denounced Agamemnon for his greediness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou hast ever had thy share and more of all the booty, and thou knowest
+      well that there is now no common store from which to give thee spoil. But
+      wait until Troy town is sacked, and we will gladly give thee three and
+      fourfold thy recompense."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The angry Agamemnon declared that if he were not given the worth of what
+      he had lost he would seize the maidens of Ajax and Ulysses, or Achilles'
+      maid, Briseis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Achilles was beside himself with rage. He had not come to Troy to
+      contribute to Agamemnon's glory. He and his followers had long borne the
+      brunt of battle only to see the largest share of booty given to Agamemnon,
+      who lay idle in his ships. Sooner than endure longer such indignity he
+      would return home to Phthia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go!" replied Agamemnon. "I detest thee and thy ways. Go back over the sea
+      and rule over thy Myrmidons. But since Phoebus has taken away my maid, I
+      will carry off thy prize, thy rosy-cheeked Briseis, that thou may'st learn
+      that I am indeed king."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Warned by Pallas Athene, Achilles took his hand from his sword hilt, and
+      contented himself with telling Agamemnon that he would see the day when he
+      would fret to think he had driven Achilles from the Grecian ranks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the persuasive orator, Nestor, endeavored to make peace between the
+      chiefs, Agamemnon could not be softened. As soon as the black ship bearing
+      Chryseis set sail, he sent his unwilling men to where Achilles sat by his
+      tent, beside the barren deep, to take the fair Briseis, whom Achilles
+      ordered to be led forth to them. Then the long days dragged by in the tent
+      where the chief sat eating his heart out in idleness, while his men
+      engaged in athletic sports, and the rest of the Greeks fought before Troy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both armies, worn out with indecisive battles, gladly hailed Hector's
+      proposal that a combat between Paris and Menelaus should decide the war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the armies stood in silence, watching the preparations for the combat,
+      Helen, summoned by Iris, left her room in Priam's palace, where she was
+      weaving among her maidens, and, robed and veiled in white, and shedding
+      tears at the recollection of her former home and husband, went down to the
+      Scaean gates, where sat Priam and the men too old for war. When they saw
+      bright-haired Helen they whispered among themselves that it was little
+      wonder that men warred for her sake, so fair was she, so like unto the
+      deathless goddesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In response to Priam's tender greeting she seated herself beside him and
+      pointed out the Greek heroes,&mdash;Agamemnon, ruler over wide lands,
+      crafty Ulysses, and the mighty Ajax; but she strained her eyes in vain for
+      a sight of her dearly loved brothers, Castor and Pollux, not knowing that
+      they already lay dead in pleasant Lacedaemon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the single combat between Paris and Menelaus, the spear of the Greek
+      was fixed in Paris's buckler, and his sword was shivered on his helmet
+      without injury to the Trojan. But, determined to overcome his hateful foe,
+      Menelaus seized Paris by the helm and dragged him towards the Grecian
+      ranks. Great glory would have been his had not the watchful Venus loosed
+      the helm and snatched away the god-like Paris in a cloud. While the Greeks
+      demanded Helen and her wealth as the price of Menelaus's victory,
+      Pandarus, prompted by Pallas, broke the truce by a shot aimed at Menelaus,
+      and the battle soon raged with greater fury than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diomed, having received new strength and courage from Pallas, rushed madly
+      over the field, falling upon the affrighted Trojans like a lion in the
+      sheepfold; then, made more presumptuous by his success, and forgetful of
+      the few years promised the man who dares to meet the gods in battle, the
+      arrogant warrior struck at Venus and wounded her in the wrist, so that,
+      shrieking with pain, she yielded Ćneas to Apollo, and fled to Olympus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perceiving that the Trojans were unable to withstand the fury of Diomed,
+      assisted as he was by Pallas and Juno, Hector hastened homeward to order a
+      sacrifice to Pallas that she might look with more favor upon their cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having instructed his mother to lay her richest robe on Pallas's shrine,
+      Hector sought his wife, the white-armed Andromache, and their babe,
+      Astyanax. Andromache entreated Hector to go forth no more to battle, to
+      lose his life and leave their babe fatherless; but Hector, upon whom the
+      cares of war sat heavily, bade her a tender farewell, and kissing the
+      babe, returned with Paris to the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Incited by Pallas and Apollo, Helenus suggested to his brother Hector that
+      he should challenge the bravest of the Greeks to single combat. The lot
+      fell to Ajax the Greater, and the two mighty heroes contested with spears
+      and stones until twilight fell, and they were parted by a herald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night the Greeks feasted, and when, the next morning, a Trojan
+      messenger offered them the treasures of Helen if they would withdraw from
+      Troy, and proposed a truce, they indignantly rejected the offer, declaring
+      that they would not even accept Helen herself, but agreed upon a truce in
+      which to bury the dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the battle was renewed, Jupiter forbade the gods to take part.
+      Opposed by no celestial foes, the Trojans were this day successful, and
+      having pursued the Greeks to the ships, sat all night, full of hope,
+      around their thousand watch fires, waiting for the morn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Grecian camp, however, a different scene was being enacted.
+      Disheartened by their defeat, Agamemnon proposed that the armies give up
+      the siege and return to Greece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angry at his weakness, Diomed thus reproached him:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The gods have granted thee high rank and rule, but thou hast no
+      fortitude. Return if thou desirest. Still enough long-haired Achaians will
+      remain to take the city. If they desire to go as well, at least Sthenelus
+      and I will remain until Troy is ours. We have the gods with us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the suggestion of Nestor a banquet was spread, and after the hunger of
+      all was appeased, the peril of the Greeks was discussed in the Council of
+      the Elders. Here Nestor showed Agamemnon that the trouble began at the
+      hour when he drove Achilles from their ranks by appropriating Briseis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ill fortune had humbled the haughty Agamemnon, and he confessed that he
+      had done wrong. "For this wrong, however," said he, "I am ready to make
+      ample amends. Priceless gifts I will send to Achilles: seven tripods, six
+      talents of pure gold, twenty shining caldrons, twelve steeds, seven
+      damsels, among them Briseis; not only this, when Priam's citadel falls, he
+      shall be the first to load his galley down with gold and silver and with
+      Trojan maidens. Better yet, I will unite him to me by the ties of
+      marriage. I will give him my daughter for a wife, and with her for a dower
+      will go seven cities near the sea, rich in flocks and herds. Then let him
+      yield, and join us in taking Troy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joyfully the messengers&mdash;Ajax, Ulysses, and the aged Phoenix,
+      carefully instructed by Nestor&mdash;set forth on their embassy. As they
+      neared the tents of the Myrmidons their ears were struck by the notes of a
+      silver harp touched by Achilles to solace him in his loneliness. His
+      friend Patroclus sat beside him in silence. Achilles and Patroclus greeted
+      the messengers warmly, mingled the pure wine, and spread a feast for them.
+      This over, Ulysses, at a nod from Ajax, drank to Achilles' health, and
+      then told him of the sore need of the Greeks, pressed by the Trojans. If
+      he did not come to their aid, he whose very name frightened the enemy, the
+      time would surely come when he would greatly lament his idleness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Achilles' passion, the greater for its fifteen days' repression, burst
+      forth in his reply: "I will say what I have in my heart," he cried, "since
+      concealment is hateful to me. What thanks does the victor in countless
+      battles gain? He and the idler are equally honored, and die the same
+      death. Many nights' slumber have I lost on the battle field; many cities
+      have I conquered, abroad and here upon the Trojan coast, and of the spoil,
+      the greater part has gone to Agamemnon, who sat idle in his fleet; yet
+      from me, who suffered much in fighting, he took my prize, my dearly loved
+      Briseis; now let him keep her. Let him learn for himself how to conquer
+      Hector,&mdash;this Hector, who, when I went out against him, was afraid to
+      leave the shelter of the Scaean gates. To-morrow, if you but watch, you
+      will see my galleys sailing upon the Hellespont on our return to Phthia.
+      Evil was the hour in which I left its fertile coasts for this barren
+      shore, where my mother Thetis foretold I should win deathless renown but
+      bitter death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Tell Agamemnon that I will never wed a child of his. On my return to
+      Phthia my father will select a bride for me with whom, on his broad
+      fields, I can live the life I have dreamed of."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The entreaties of the aged Phoenix, who had helped to rear Achilles, and
+      his arguments against his mercilessness, were of no avail; neither were
+      the words of Ajax. However, he at last sent the message that he would
+      remain by the sea watching the course of the war, and that he would
+      encounter Hector whenever he approached to set fire to the galleys of the
+      Myrmidons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night sleep did not visit the eyes of Agamemnon. Long he reflected on
+      the reply of Achilles, and wondered at the watch fires on the plain before
+      Troy. The other chiefs were likewise full of anxiety, and when Nestor
+      offered a reward to any one who would go as a spy to the Trojan camp,
+      Diomed quickly volunteered. Selecting the wary Ulysses as his companion,
+      he stole forth to where the Trojans sat around their camp fires. The pair
+      intercepted and slew Dolon the spy, and finding Rhesus and his Thracian
+      band wrapped in slumber, slew the king with twelve of his chiefs, and
+      carried away his chariot and horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Encouraged by this bold deed, the Greeks went forth to battle the next
+      morning. Fortune still favored the Trojans, however, and many Greeks fell
+      by the hand of Hector, until he was checked by Ulysses and Diomed. In the
+      fight, Agamemnon was wounded, and Diomed, Ulysses, and Machaon. And when
+      Achilles from his tent saw the physician borne back from battle wounded,
+      in the chariot of Nestor, he sent Patroclus to inquire of his injury.
+      Nestor sent word that Ulysses, Agamemnon, Diomed, Machaon, and Eurypylus
+      were wounded; perhaps these tidings would induce Achilles to forget his
+      grievances, and once more go forth to battle. If not, he urged Patroclus
+      to beseech Achilles to permit him, Patroclus, to go forth with the
+      Myrmidons, clad in Achilles' armor, and strike terror to the hearts of the
+      Trojans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Trojans, encouraged by their success, pushed forward to the trench
+      which the Greeks had dug around the wall thrown up before the ships, and,
+      leaving their chariots on the brink, went on foot to the gates. After a
+      long struggle,&mdash;because the Trojans could not break down the wall and
+      the Greeks could not drive back the Trojans,&mdash;Hector seized a mighty
+      stone, so large that two men could scarcely lift it, and bearing it in one
+      hand, battered the bolted gates until they gave way with a crash; and the
+      Trojans sprang within, pursuing the affrighted Greeks to the ships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the heights of Olympus the gods kept a strict watch on the battle;
+      and as soon as Neptune discovered that Jove, secure in the belief that no
+      deity would interfere with the successful Trojans, had turned away his
+      eyes, he went to the aid of the Greeks. Juno, also, furious at the sight
+      of the Greeks who had fallen before the mighty Hector, determined to turn
+      the attention of Jove until Neptune had had an opportunity to assist the
+      Greeks. Jove sat upon the peaks of Mount Ida, and thither went Juno, after
+      rendering herself irresistible by borrowing the cestus of Venus. Jove,
+      delighted with the appearance of his wife, and still further won by her
+      tender words and caresses, thought no longer of the armies fighting at the
+      Grecian wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great was his anger when, after a time, he again looked towards Troy and
+      saw that Neptune had employed his time in aiding the Greeks, and that
+      Hector had been wounded by Ajax. By his orders Neptune was quickly
+      recalled, Hector was healed by Apollo, and the Trojans, strengthened again
+      by Jupiter, drove back the Greeks to the ships, and attempted to set fire
+      to the fleet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing the Greeks in such desperate straits, Achilles at last gave his
+      consent that Patroclus should put on his armor, take his Myrmidons, and
+      drive the Trojans from the ships, stipulating, however, that he should
+      return when this was done, and not follow the Trojans in their flight to
+      Troy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The appearance of the supposed Achilles struck fear to the hearts of the
+      Trojans, and Patroclus succeeded in driving them from the fleet and in
+      slaying Sarpedon. Intoxicated by his success, he forgot Achilles' warning,
+      and pursued the fleeing Trojans to the walls of Troy. The strength of the
+      Trojans was not sufficient to cope with that of Patroclus; and Troy would
+      have been taken had not Apollo stood upon a tower to thrust him down each
+      time he attempted to scale the walls. At last Hector and Patroclus
+      encountered each other, and fought furiously. Seeing the peril of Hector,
+      Apollo smote Patroclus's helmet off, broke his spear, and loosed his
+      buckler. Still undaunted, the hero fought until he fell, and died with the
+      boasting words of Hector in his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Speedily the swift-footed Antilochus conveyed to Achilles the tidings of
+      his friend's death. Enveloped in "a black cloud of sorrow," Achilles
+      rolled in the dust and lamented for his friend until warned by Iris that
+      the enemy were about to secure Patroclus's body. Then, without armor,&mdash;for
+      Hector had secured that of Patroclus and put it on,&mdash;he hastened to
+      the trench, apart from the other Greeks, and shouted thrice, until the men
+      of Troy, panic-stricken, fell back in disorder, and the body of his friend
+      was carried away by the triumphant Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the long night the Achaians wept over Patroclus; but deeper than
+      their grief was the sorrow of Achilles, for he had promised Menoetius to
+      bring back his son in honor, laden with spoils, and now the barren coast
+      of Troy would hold the ashes of both. Then Achilles made a solemn vow not
+      to celebrate the funeral rites of Patroclus until he brought to him the
+      head and arms of Hector, and had captured on the field twelve Trojan
+      youths to slaughter on his funeral pile. The hated Hector slain and
+      Patroclus's funeral rites celebrated, he cared not for the future. The
+      fate his mother had foretold did not daunt him. Since, by his own folly,
+      his dearest friend had been taken from him, the sooner their ashes rested
+      together the better. If he was not to see the rich fields of Phthia, his
+      was to be, at least, a deathless renown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To take the place of the arms which Hector had taken from Patroclus,
+      Vulcan, at Thetis's request, had fashioned for Achilles the most beautiful
+      armor ever worn by man. Brass, tin, silver, and gold composed the bright
+      corselet, the solid helm, and the wondrous shield, adorned with such
+      pictures as no mortal artist ever wrought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After having feasted his eyes on this beautiful armor, whose clanking
+      struck terror even to the hearts of the Myrmidons, Achilles sought out the
+      Greeks and Agamemnon, and in the assembly acknowledged his fault. "Let
+      these things belong to the dead past," said he. "My wrath is done. Let us
+      now stir the long-haired Greeks to war."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fate, not I, was the cause of our trouble," replied Agamemnon. "The
+      goddess of discord created the dissension, that Até who troubled even the
+      gods on Olympus until expelled by Jupiter. But I will make amends with
+      liberal gifts."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace having been made between the chiefs, Achilles returned to his tent
+      without partaking of the banquet spread by Agamemnon, as he had vowed not
+      to break his fast until he had avenged his friend. Agamemnon's gifts were
+      carried to the tents of Achilles by the Myrmidons, and with them went
+      Briseis, who, when she saw the body of Patroclus, threw herself upon it
+      and wept long for the one whose kindness to her&mdash;whose lot had been
+      sorrow upon sorrow&mdash;she could never forget. All the women mourned,
+      seemingly for Patroclus, really for their own griefs. Achilles likewise
+      wept, until, strengthened by Pallas, he hastened to put his armor on and
+      urge the Greeks to battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he mounted his chariot he spoke thus to his fleet steeds, Xanthus and
+      Balius: "Bring me back when the battle is over, I charge you, my noble
+      steeds. Leave me not on the field, as you left Patroclus."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Xanthus, with the long-flowing mane, endowed with power of speech by
+      Juno, thus spake: "This day, at least, we will bring thee home, Achilles;
+      but the hour of thy death is nigh, and, since the fates have decreed it,
+      we could not save thee, were we swift as the winged winds. Nor was it
+      through fault of ours that Patroclus fell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angry at the reminder of his doom, Achilles drove hurriedly to the field,
+      determined to fight until he had made the Trojans sick of war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowing that the war was drawing rapidly to a close, Jupiter gave
+      permission to the gods to take part in it, and a terrible combat ensued.
+      Juno, Pallas, Neptune, Hermes, and Vulcan went to the fleet of the Greeks,
+      while Mars, Apollo, Diana, Latona, Venus, and Xanthus arrayed themselves
+      with the Trojans. When the gods joined in the combat and Neptune shook the
+      earth and Jupiter thundered from above, there was such tumult in the air
+      that even the dark god of the underworld was terrified. In the battle of
+      the gods, Apollo encountered Neptune, Pallas fought against Mars, Diana
+      and Juno opposed each other, Hermes was pitted against Latona, and Xanthus
+      or Scamander, the river god, strove against Vulcan. It was not long before
+      Jupiter's fear was realized, and the mortals needed the aid of the gods.
+      Ćneas, encouraged by Apollo to confront Achilles, was rescued only by the
+      intervention of Neptune, who, remembering that it was the will of fate
+      that Ćneas should be spared to perpetuate the Dardan race, snatched him
+      away in a cloud, although he was himself aiding the Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mad with rage and spattered with blood, Achilles pursued the flying
+      Trojans about the plain, sparing none except the twelve youths who were to
+      be butchered on the funeral pile of Patroclus. He stood in the river,
+      filling it with slaughtered bodies until, indignant at the insults offered
+      him, the river god Scamander caused his waters to rush after Achilles so
+      that he fled for his life. Far across the plain it chased him, and was
+      only stopped by the fires of Vulcan, summoned by Juno.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By an artifice of Apollo, Achilles was decoyed away from the gates of Troy
+      long enough to allow the Trojans to enter. Hector, however, stayed
+      without, unmoved by the prayers of Priam and Hecuba. Too late he saw his
+      error in not heeding the advice of Polydamas to keep within the walls
+      after the re-appearance of Achilles; he feared the reproaches of the
+      Trojan warriors and dames, and determined to meet his fate, whatever it
+      might be. Even death at the hands of Achilles would be preferable to the
+      insults and reproaches that might await him within the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he saw Achilles approach in his god-given armor, fear seized the
+      noble Hector, and he fled from his enemy. Thrice around the walls he fled,
+      Achilles pursuing, and the gods looked down from heaven in sorrow, for,
+      according to the decrees of fate, Hector must fall this day by the hand of
+      Achilles. To hasten the combat, Pallas assumed the form of Hector's
+      brother Deiphobus, and stood by his side, encouraging him to turn and meet
+      his foe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hector soon perceived the deception, but boldly faced Achilles, who sprang
+      at him, brandishing his awful spear. Quickly stooping, Hector avoided the
+      weapon and hurled his spear at Achilles. It was an unequal conflict. The
+      armor of Achilles was weapon proof, and Pallas stood at his elbow to
+      return to him his weapons. Achilles knew well the weak spots in his old
+      armor worn by Hector, and selecting a seam unguarded by the shield, he
+      gave Hector a mortal wound, and insulted him as he lay dying at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears and wailing filled the city as the Trojans watched the combat; and
+      despair fell upon them when they saw the body of Hector fastened to the
+      chariot of Achilles and dragged thrice around the Trojan walls. From her
+      chamber where she sat weaving, unaware of the mortal combat waged before
+      the walls, Andromache came forth to see great Hector fallen and his corpse
+      insulted by his enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Priam sat in his palace with dust strewn on his head, and the
+      wailings of the women filled the streets of Troy, the Greeks were
+      hastening to their camps to celebrate the funeral rites of Patroclus,
+      whose body had been saved from corruption by Thetis. A massive funeral
+      pile was constructed of wood brought from the forests on Mount Ida. The
+      chiefs in their chariots and thousands of men on foot followed the body of
+      Patroclus. The comrades of the dead warrior cut off their long hair and
+      strewed it on the dead, and Achilles sheared his yellow hair and placed
+      the locks in Patroclus's hands. He had suffered the flowing curls to grow
+      long because of a vow made by his father to the river Sperchius that he
+      would sacrifice these locks to him on his son's return home, a useless
+      vow, since now he was to lose his life by this dark blue sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next the sacrifice was offered, many fatlings of the flock, and countless
+      oxen, noble steeds, dogs, jars of honey, and lastly the bodies of the
+      twelve Trojan youths were heaped upon the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the flames had consumed the pile, Achilles and his friends quenched
+      the ashes with red wine, and gathered the bones of Patroclus in a golden
+      vase which Achilles commanded his friends not to bury until he, too, fell
+      before Troy, that their ashes might be mingled and buried under one mound
+      by the remaining Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the funeral rites were celebrated, the funeral games were held, in
+      which the warriors vied with each other in chariot racing, boxing,
+      wrestling, foot racing, throwing the spear, and archery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So ended the funeral of Patroclus, and the gods, looking down from heaven,
+      sorrowed for Hector, whose corpse Achilles was treating with such
+      indignity, intending that the dogs should destroy it. The gods had kept
+      the body unstained, and now they determined to soften Achilles' heart,
+      that he might restore it to Priam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Iris descended from heaven, and standing at the side of Priam as he sat
+      with dust-strewn head, in his palace halls, gave him Jove's command that
+      he should take gifts and visit Achilles, to ransom Hector's body. Heeding
+      not the prayers of Hecuba, Priam gathered together whatever was most
+      choice, talents of pure gold, beautiful goblets, handsome robes and
+      tunics, and seating himself in his polished car, drawn by strong-hoofed
+      mules, set forth unaccompanied save by an aged herald. Above him soared
+      Jove's eagle, in token of the god's protection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Priam had not gone far when he met Mercury in the guise of a Greek youth,
+      who guided him unseen through the slumbering Greek lines to the tent of
+      Achilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hero was just finishing his repast when the old king entered, fell on
+      his knees, kissed the cruel hands that had slain so many of his sons, and
+      prayed him to give up the body of his loved Hector in return for the
+      ransom he had brought with him. Achilles, recognizing the fact that Priam
+      had made his way there uninjured only by the assistance and protection of
+      some god, and touched by the thought of his own aged father, whom he
+      should never again gladden by his return to Phthia, granted the request,
+      and bade Priam seat himself at the table and banquet with him. He also
+      granted a twelve days' truce for the celebration of the funeral rites of
+      Hector, and then invited Priam to pass the night in his tent. Warned by
+      Mercury, Priam rose early in the morning, and, unseen by the Greeks,
+      conveyed Hector's body back to Troy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the polished car of Priam entered the city of Troy, great were the
+      lamentations and wailings over the body of Hector. Hecuba and Andromache
+      vied with each other in the bitterness of their grief, and Helen lamented
+      because the only friend she had in Troy had departed, and no one who
+      remained would be kind to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the twelve days granted as a truce, wood was brought from Ida, and
+      the funeral rites of Hector were celebrated as befitted the son of a great
+      king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE ILIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      HELEN AT THE SCAEAN GATES.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Paris, moved by the reproaches of Hector, proposed that the nine years'
+      indecisive war be settled by single combat between himself and Menelaus,
+      the victor to take Helen and the treasure. Greeks and Trojans agreed to
+      this proposition, and the tidings of the approaching combat were borne to
+      Helen by Iris.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  In the heart of Helen woke
+  Dear recollections of her former spouse
+  And of her home and kindred. Instantly
+  She left her chamber, robed and veiled in white,
+  And shedding tender tears; yet not alone,
+  For with her went two maidens,&mdash;Aethra, child
+  Of Pitheus, and the large-eyed Clymene.
+  Straight to the Scaean gates they walked, by which
+  Panthoüs, Priam, and Thymoetes sat,
+  Lampus and Clytius, Hicetaon sprung
+  From Mars, Antenor and Ucalegon,
+  Two sages,&mdash;elders of the people all.
+  Beside the gates they sat, unapt, through age,
+  For tasks of war, but men of fluent speech,
+  Like the cicadas that within the wood
+  Sit on the trees and utter delicate sounds.
+  Such were the nobles of the Trojan race
+  Who sat upon the tower. But when they marked
+  The approach of Helen, to each other thus
+  With winged words, but in low tones, they said:&mdash;
+
+  "Small blame is theirs, if both the Trojan knights
+  And brazen-mailed Achaians have endured
+  So long so many evils for the sake
+  Of that one woman. She is wholly like
+  In feature to the deathless goddesses.
+  So be it: let her, peerless as she is,
+  Return on board the fleet, nor stay to bring
+  Disaster upon us and all our race."
+
+  So spake the elders. Priam meantime called
+  To Helen: "Come, dear daughter, sit by me.
+  Thou canst behold thy former husband hence,
+  Thy kindred and thy friends. I blame thee not;
+  The blame is with the immortals who have sent
+  These pestilent Greeks against me. Sit and name
+  For me this mighty man, the Grecian chief,
+  Gallant and tall. True, there are taller men;
+  But of such noble form and dignity
+  I never saw: in truth, a kingly man."
+
+  And Helen, fairest among women, thus
+  Answered: "Dear second father, whom at once
+  I fear and honor, would that cruel death
+  Had overtaken me before I left,
+  To wander with thy son, my marriage bed,
+  And my dear daughter, and the company
+  Of friends I loved. But that was not to be;
+  And now I pine and weep. Yet will I tell
+  What thou dost ask. The hero whom thou seest
+  Is the wide-ruling Agamemnon, son
+  Of Atreus, and is both a gracious king
+  And a most dreaded warrior. He was once
+  Brother-in-law to me, if I may speak&mdash;
+  Lost as I am to shame&mdash;of such a tie."
+
+  She said, the aged man admired, and then
+  He spake again: "O son of Atreus, born
+  Under a happy fate, and fortunate
+  Among the sons of men! A mighty host
+  Of Grecian youths obey thy rule. I went
+  To Phrygia once,&mdash;that land of vines,&mdash;and there
+  Saw many Phrygians, heroes on fleet steeds,
+  The troops of Otreus, and of Mygdon, shaped
+  Like one of the immortals. They encamped
+  By the Sangarius. I was an ally;
+  My troops were ranked with theirs upon the day
+  When came the unsexed Amazons to war.
+  Yet even there I saw not such a host
+  As this of black-eyed Greeks who muster here."
+  Then Priam saw Ulysses, and inquired:&mdash;
+  "Dear daughter, tell me also who is that,
+  Less tall than Agamemnon, yet more broad
+  In chest and shoulders. On the teeming earth
+  His armor lies, but he, from place to place,
+  Walks round among the ranks of soldiery,
+  As when the thick-fleeced father of the flocks
+  Moves through the multitude of his white sheep."
+  And Jove-descended Helen answered thus:&mdash;
+  "That is Ulysses, man of many arts,
+  Son of Laertes, reared in Ithaca,
+  That rugged isle, and skilled in every form
+  Of shrewd device and action wisely planned."
+  Then spake the sage Antenor: "Thou hast said
+  The truth, O lady. This Ulysses once
+  Came on an embassy, concerning thee,
+  To Troy with Menelaus, great in war;
+  And I received them as my guests, and they
+  Were lodged within my palace, and I learned
+  The temper and the qualities of both.
+  When both were standing 'mid the men of Troy,
+  I marked that Menelaus's broad chest
+  Made him the more conspicuous, but when both
+  Were seated, greater was the dignity
+  Seen in Ulysses. When they both addressed
+  The council, Menelaus briefly spake
+  In pleasing tones, though with few words,&mdash;as one
+  Not given to loose and wandering speech,&mdash;although
+  The younger. When the wise Ulysses rose,
+  He stood with eyes cast down, and fixed on earth,
+  And neither swayed his sceptre to the right
+  Nor to the left, but held it motionless,
+  Like one unused to public speech. He seemed
+  An idiot out of humor. But when forth
+  He sent from his full lungs his mighty voice,
+  And words came like a fall of winter snow,
+  No mortal then would dare to strive with him
+  For mastery in speech. We less admired
+  The aspect of Ulysses than his words."
+  Beholding Ajax then, the aged king
+  Asked yet again: "Who is that other chief
+  Of the Achaians, tall, and large of limb,&mdash;
+  Taller and broader-chested than the rest?"
+  Helen, the beautiful and richly-robed,
+  Answered: "Thou seest the might Ajax there,
+  The bulwark of the Greeks. On the other side,
+  Among his Cretans, stands Idomeneus,
+  Of godlike aspect, near to whom are grouped
+  The leaders of the Cretans. Oftentimes
+  The warlike Menelaus welcomed him
+  Within our palace, when he came from Crete.
+  I could point out and name the other chiefs
+  Of the dark-eyed Achaians. Two alone,
+  Princes among their people, are not seen,&mdash;
+  Castor the fearless horseman, and the skilled
+  In boxing, Pollux,&mdash;twins; one mother bore
+  Both them and me. Came they not with the rest
+  From pleasant Lacedaemon to the war?
+  Or, having crossed the deep in their goodships,
+  Shun they to fight among the valiant ones
+  Of Greece, because of my reproach and shame?"
+  She spake; but they already lay in earth
+  In Lacedaemon, their dear native land.
+
+                            <i>Bryants Translation, Book III.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The single combat between Paris and Menelaus broke up in a general battle
+      unfavorable to the Trojans, and Hector returned to Troy to order the
+      Trojan matrons to sacrifice to Pallas. He then sought his dwelling to
+      greet his wife and child, but learned from one of the maids that
+      Andromache, on hearing that the Greeks were victorious, had hastened to
+      the city walls with the child and its nurse,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Hector left in haste
+  The mansion, and retraced his way between
+  The rows of stately dwellings, traversing
+  The mighty city. When at length he reached
+  The Scaean gates, that issue on the field,
+  His spouse, the nobly-dowered Andromache,
+  Came forth to meet him,&mdash;daughter of the prince
+  Eëtion, who among the woody slopes
+  Of Placos, in the Hypoplacian town
+  Of Thebč, ruled Cilicia and her sons,
+  And gave his child to Hector great in arms.
+  She came attended by a maid, who bore
+  A tender child&mdash;a babe too young to speak&mdash;
+  Upon her bosom,&mdash;Hector's only son,
+  Beautiful as a star, whom Hector called
+  Scamandrius, but all else Astyanax,&mdash;
+  The city's lord,&mdash;since Hector stood the sole
+  Defence of Troy. The father on his child
+  Looked with a silent smile. Andromache
+  Pressed to his side meanwhile, and, all in tears,
+  Clung to his hand, and, thus beginning, said:&mdash;
+
+  "Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death.
+  Thou hast no pity on thy tender child
+  Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be
+  Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee
+  To take thy life. A happier lot were mine,
+  If I must lose thee, to go down to earth,
+  For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,&mdash;
+  Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none,
+  And no dear mother. Great Achilles slew
+  My father when he sacked the populous town
+  Of the Cilicians,&mdash;Thebč with high gates.
+  'T was there he smote Eëtion, yet forbore
+  To make his arms a spoil; he dared not that,
+  But burned the dead with his bright armor on,
+  And raised a mound above him. Mountain-nymphs,
+  Daughters of aegis-bearing Jupiter,
+  Came to the spot and planted it with elms.
+  Seven brothers had I in my father's house,
+  And all went down to Hades in one day.
+  Achilles the swift-footed slew them all
+  Among their slow-paced bullocks and white sheep.
+  My mother, princess on the woody slopes
+  Of Placos, with his spoils he bore away,
+  And only for large ransom gave her back.
+  But her Diana, archer-queen, struck down
+  Within her father's palace. Hector, thou
+  Art father and dear mother now to me,
+  And brother and my youthful spouse besides.
+  In pity keep within the fortress here,
+  Nor make thy child an orphan nor thy wife
+  A widow. Post thine army near the place
+  Of the wild fig-tree, where the city-walls
+  Are low and may be scaled. Thrice in war
+  The boldest of the foe have tried the spot,&mdash;
+  The Ajaces and the famed Idomeneus,
+  The two chiefs born to Atreus, and the brave
+  Tydides, whether counselled by some seer
+  Or prompted to the attempt by their own minds."
+
+  Then answered Hector, great in war: "All this
+  I bear in mind, dear wife; but I should stand
+  Ashamed before the men and long-robed dames
+  Of Troy, were I to keep aloof and shun
+  The conflict, coward-like. Not thus my heart
+  Prompts me, for greatly have I learned to dare
+  And strike among the foremost sons of Troy,
+  Upholding my great father's fame and mine;
+  Yet well in my undoubting mind I know
+  The day shall come in which our sacred Troy,
+  And Priam, and the people over whom
+  Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.
+  But not the sorrows of the Trojan race,
+  Nor those of Hecuba herself, nor those
+  Of royal Priam, nor the woes that wait
+  My brothers many and brave,&mdash;who all at last,
+  Slain by the pitiless foe, shall lie in dust,&mdash;
+  Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek
+  Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee
+  Thy day of freedom. Thou in Argos then
+  Shalt at another's bidding ply the loom,
+  And from the fountain of Messeis draw
+  Water, or from the Hypereian spring,
+  Constrained unwilling by thy cruel lot.
+  And then shall some one say who sees thee weep,
+  'This was the wife of Hector, most renowned
+  Of the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought
+  Around their city.' So shall some one say,
+  And thou shalt grieve the more, lamenting him
+  Who haply might have kept afar the day
+  Of thy captivity. O let the earth
+  Be heaped above my head in death before
+  I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!"
+  So speaking, mighty Hector stretched his arms
+  To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back
+  To his fair nurse's bosom, scared to see
+  His father helmeted in glittering brass,
+  And eying with affright the horsehair plume
+  That grimly nodded from the lofty crest.
+  At this both parents in their fondness laughed;
+  And hastily the mighty Hector took
+  The helmet from his brow and laid it down
+  Gleaming upon the ground, and, having kissed
+  His darling son and tossed him up in play,
+  Prayed thus to Jove and all the gods of heaven:&mdash;
+  "O Jupiter and all ye deities,
+  Vouchsafe that this my son may yet become
+  Among the Trojans eminent like me,
+  And nobly rule in Ilium. May they say,
+  'This man is greater than his father was!'
+  When they behold him from the battle-field
+  Bring back the bloody spoil of the slain foe,&mdash;
+  That so his mother may be glad at heart."
+  So speaking, to the arms of his dear spouse
+  He gave the boy; she on her fragrant breast
+  Received him, weeping as she smiled. The chief
+  Beheld, and, moved with tender pity, smoothed
+  Her forehead gently with his hand, and said:&mdash;
+  "Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me.
+  No living man can send me to the shades
+  Before my time; no man of woman born,
+  Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
+
+  But go thou home, and tend thy labors there,&mdash;
+  The web, the distaff,&mdash;and command thy maids
+  To speed the work. The cares of war pertain
+  To all men born in Troy, and most to me."
+  Thus speaking, mighty Hector took again
+  His helmet, shadowed with the horsehair plume,
+  While homeward his beloved consort went,
+  Oft looking back, and shedding many tears.
+  Soon was she in the spacious palace-halls
+  Of the man-queller Hector. There she found
+  A troop of maidens,&mdash;with them all she shared
+  Her grief; and all in his own house bewailed
+  The living Hector, whom they thought no more
+  To see returning from the battle-field,
+  Safe from the rage and weapons of the Greeks.
+                          <i>Bryant's Translation, Book VI.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE ODYSSEY.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey relates the adventures of Ulysses on his return to Ithaca
+      after the Trojan war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It consists of twenty-four books, the first four of which are sometimes
+      known as the Telemachia, because Telemachus is the principal figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The difference in style of the Iliad and Odyssey has caused some critics
+      to assert that the latter is not the work of Homer; this is accounted for,
+      however, by the difference of subject, and it is probable that the
+      Odyssey, though of a later date, is the work of the same hand, "the work
+      of Homer's old age,&mdash;an epic bathed in a mellow light of sunset."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the Odyssey alone had come down to us, its authorship would have passed
+      unquestioned, for the poem is so compact, its plot so carefully planned
+      and so skilfully carried out, that there can be no doubt that it is the
+      work of one hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey is as great a work of art as the Iliad, and is even more
+      popular; for the Odyssey is a domestic romance, and as such appeals to a
+      larger audience than a tale of war alone,&mdash;the romance of the
+      wandering Ulysses and the faithful Penelope. Interwoven with it are the
+      ever-popular fairy tales of Ulysses's wanderings and descriptions of home
+      life. It is marked by the same pagan enjoyment of life, the same freshness
+      and charm that lend enchantment to the Iliad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL4" id="link2H_BIBL4"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ODYSSEY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 17-25;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893, chaps. 8-13;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. A. Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. E. Harrison's Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature, 1882;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. J. Stillman's On the Track of Ulysses, 1888;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. W. Newman's The Authorship of the Odyssey (in his Miscellanies, vol.
+      v.);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. Spence's Essay on Pope's Translation of the Odyssey, 1837.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ODYSSEY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey, Tr. into English blank verse by W. C. Bryant, 2 vols., 1871;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey, Tr. according to the Greek, with introduction and notes by
+      George Chapman, ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey, Tr. by William Cowper;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey, Tr. by G. H. Palmer, 1894 (prose);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by Rev. T. W. A. Buckley,
+      n. d.;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Odyssey, Tr. by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang, 1879 (prose).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      After the fall of Troy, Agamemnon returned to Argos, where he was
+      treacherously slain by Aegisthus, the corrupter of his wife; Menelaus
+      reached Sparta in safety, laden with spoil and reunited to the beautiful
+      Helen; Nestor resumed the rule of Pylos, but Ulysses remained absent from
+      Ithaca, where his wife Penelope still grieved for him, though steadfast in
+      her belief that he would return. One hundred and fourteen suitors, princes
+      from Dulichium, Samos, Zacynthus, and Ithaca, determined to wed Penelope
+      that they might obtain the rich possessions of Ulysses, spent their time
+      in revelling in his halls and wasting his wealth, thinking in this way to
+      force Penelope to wed some one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope, as rich in resources as was her crafty husband, announced to
+      them that she would wed when she had woven a funeral garment for Laertes,
+      the father of Ulysses. During the day she wove industriously, but at night
+      she unravelled what she had done that day, so that to the expectant
+      suitors the task seemed interminable. After four years her artifice was
+      revealed to the suitors by one of her maids, and she was forced to find
+      other excuses to postpone her marriage. In the mean time, her son
+      Telemachus, now grown to manhood, disregarded by the suitors on account of
+      his youth, and treated as a child by his mother, was forced to sit
+      helpless in his halls, hearing the insults of the suitors and seeing his
+      rich possessions wasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having induced Jove to end the sufferings of Ulysses, Pallas caused Hermes
+      to be dispatched to Calypso's isle to release the hero, while she herself
+      descended to Ithaca in the guise of Mentes. There she was received
+      courteously by the youth, who sat unhappy among the revellers. At a table
+      apart from the others, Telemachus told the inquiring stranger who they
+      were who thus wasted his patrimony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Something must needs be done speedily," said Mentes, "and I shall tell
+      thee how to thrust them from thy palace gates. Take a ship and go to Pylos
+      to inquire of the aged and wise Nestor what he knows of thy father's fate.
+      Thence go to Menelaus, in Sparta; he was the last of all the mailed Greeks
+      to return home. If thou hear encouraging tidings, wait patiently for a
+      year. At the end of that time, if thy father come not, celebrate his
+      funeral rites, let thy mother wed again, and take immediate steps for the
+      destruction of the suitor band. Thou art no longer a child; the time has
+      come for thee to assert thyself and be a man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Telemachus, long weary of inactivity, was pleased with this advice, and at
+      once announced to the incredulous suitors his intention of going to learn
+      the fate of his father. A boat was procured and provided with a crew by
+      the aid of Pallas, and provisioned from the secret store-room guarded by
+      the old and faithful servant Eurycleia. From among the treasures of
+      Ulysses&mdash;garments, heaps of gold and brass, and old and delicate
+      wines&mdash;Telemachus took sweet wine and meal to be conveyed to the ship
+      at night, and instructing Eurycleia not to tell his mother of his absence
+      until twelve days had passed, he departed as soon as sleep had overcome
+      the suitors. Pallas, in the guise of Mentor, accompanied him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His courage failed him, however, as they approached the shore of Pylos,
+      where Nestor and his people were engaged in making a great sacrifice to
+      Neptune. "How shall I approach the chief?" he asked. "Ill am I trained in
+      courtly speech."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, encouraged by Pallas, he greeted the aged Nestor, and after he and
+      his companion had assisted in the sacrifice and partaken of the banquet
+      that followed, he revealed his name and asked for tidings of his, father,
+      boldly and confidently, as befitted the son of Ulysses. The old king could
+      tell him nothing, however. After Troy had fallen, a dissension had rent
+      the camp, and part of the Greeks had remained with Agamemnon, part had
+      sailed with Menelaus. Sailing with Menelaus, Nestor had parted with Diomed
+      at Argos, and had sailed on to Pylos. Since his return he had heard of the
+      death of Agamemnon, and of the more recent return of Menelaus, but had
+      heard no tidings of Ulysses, who had remained with Agamemnon. To Menelaus
+      he advised Telemachus to go, warning him, however, not to remain long away
+      from Ithaca, leaving his home in the possession of rude and lawless men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a car provided by Nestor and driven by his son, Pisistratus, Telemachus
+      reached Sparta after a day and a night's rapid travel, and found Menelaus
+      celebrating the nuptial feast of his daughter Hermione, betrothed at Troy
+      to the son of Achilles, and his son Megapenthes, wedded to the daughter of
+      Alector. The two young men were warmly welcomed, and were invited to
+      partake of the banquet without being asked their names. After the feast
+      they wondered at the splendor of the halls of gold, amber, and ivory, the
+      polished baths, and the fleecy garments in which they had been arrayed;
+      but Menelaus assured them that all his wealth was small compensation to
+      him for the loss of the warriors who had fallen before Troy, and above
+      all, of the great Ulysses, whose fate he knew not. Though Telemachus's
+      tears fell at his father's name, Menelaus did not guess to whom he spoke,
+      until Helen, entering from her perfumed chamber, saw the likeness between
+      the stranger and the babe whom Ulysses had left when he went to Troy, and
+      greeted their guest as Telemachus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they sat in the splendid hall and talked of Troy,&mdash;Menelaus
+      broken by his many toils, Helen beautiful as when she was rapt away by
+      Paris, weaving with her golden distaff wound with violet wool, and the two
+      young men, who said little, but listened to the wondrous tale of the
+      wanderings of Menelaus. And they spoke of Ulysses: of the times when he
+      had proved his prudence as well as his craft; of his entering Troy as a
+      beggar and revealing the Achaian plots to Helen; of how he had prevented
+      their breaking out of the wooden horse too soon. Then the king told of his
+      interview with the Ancient of the Deep, in which he had learned the fate
+      of his comrades; of Agamemnon's death, and of the detention of Ulysses on
+      Calypso's isle, where he languished, weeping bitterly, because he had no
+      means of escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This information gained, Telemachus was anxious to return home; but his
+      host detained him until he and Helen had descended to their fragrant
+      treasure-chamber and brought forth rich gifts,&mdash;a double cup of
+      silver and gold wrought by Vulcan, a shining silver beaker, and an
+      embroidered robe for his future bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mercury, dispatched by Jove, descended to the distant isle of Calypso, and
+      warned the bright-haired nymph, whom he found weaving in her charmed
+      grotto, that she must let her mortal lover go or brave the wrath of the
+      gods. The nymph, though loath to part with her lover, sought out the
+      melancholy Ulysses, where he sat weeping beside the deep, and giving him
+      tools, led him to the forest and showed him where to fell trees with which
+      to construct a raft. His labor finished, she provided the hero with
+      perfumed garments, a full store of provisions, and saw him set forth
+      joyfully upon the unknown deep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For seventeen days his journey was a prosperous one; but on the eighteenth
+      day, just as the land of the Phćacians came in sight. Neptune returned
+      from Ethiopia, and angry at what the gods had contrived to do in his
+      absence, determined to make the hero suffer as much as possible before he
+      attained the promised end of his troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon a great storm arose and washed Ulysses from the raft. Clinging to its
+      edge, buffeted here and there by the angry waves, he would have suffered
+      death had not a kind sea nymph urged him to lay aside his heavy garments,
+      leave the raft, and binding a veil that she gave him about his chest, swim
+      to the land of the Phćacians. The coast was steep and rocky, but he found
+      at last a little river, and swimming up it, landed, and fell asleep among
+      some warm heaps of dried leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Phćacians were a people closely allied to the gods, to whom they were
+      very dear. They had at one time been neighbors of the Cyclops, from whose
+      rudeness they had suffered so much that they were compelled to seek a
+      distant home. They were a civilized people, who had achieved great results
+      as sailors, having remarkably swift and well-equipped ships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the Princess Nausicaa, beautiful as a goddess, Pallas appeared in a
+      dream the night that Ulysses lay sleeping on the isle, warning her that
+      since her wedding day was near at hand, when all would need fresh
+      garments, it was fitting that she should ask her father's permission to
+      take the garments of the household to the river side to wash them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nausicaa's father willingly granted his permission, and ordered the strong
+      car in which to carry away the soiled garments. A hamper of food and a
+      skin of wine were added by her mother, as the princess climbed into the
+      chariot and drove towards the river, followed by her maids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the garments had been washed in the lavers hollowed out by the river
+      side, and the lunch had been eaten, the maids joined in a game of ball.
+      Joyous they laughed and frolicked, like Dian's nymphs, until they roused
+      the sleeper under the olive-trees on the hillside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All save Nausicaa fled affrighted as he came forth to speak to them,
+      covered with sea foam, his nakedness hidden only by a leafy branch woven
+      round his waist; but she, strengthened by the goddess, heard his story,
+      and provided him with clothing and materials for the bath. When he
+      appeared, cleansed from the sea foam, and made more handsome by the art of
+      Pallas, Nausicaa's pity was changed to admiration, and she wished that she
+      might have a husband like him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Food and wine were set before the hero, and while he refreshed himself the
+      dried clothes were folded and placed in the cart. As the princess prepared
+      to go she advised the stranger to follow the party until they reached a
+      grove outside the city, and to remain there until she had time to reach
+      her father's palace, lest some gossip should connect Nausicaa's name with
+      that of a stranger. She told him how to find her father's palace, and
+      instructed him to win the favor of her mother, that he might be received
+      with honor and assisted on his homeward way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ulysses obeyed, and when he reached the city gates was met by Pallas, in
+      the guise of a virgin with an urn. She answered his questions, directed
+      him to the palace, and told him to throw himself first at the feet of
+      Queen Arete, who was looked on by the people as if she were a goddess.
+      Wrapped in a cloud by Pallas, the unseen Ulysses admired the spacious
+      halls of Alcinoüs. Walls of brass supported blue steel cornices, golden
+      doors guarded by gold and silver mastiffs opened into the vast hall, along
+      which were ranged thrones covered with delicately woven mantles, for which
+      the Phćacian women were famous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Around the palace lay a spacious garden filled with pear, pomegranate,
+      fig, and apple trees, that knew no change of season, but blossomed and
+      bore fruit throughout the year. Perennially blooming plants scattered
+      perfume through the garden kept fresh by water from two sparkling
+      fountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Ulysses knelt at the feet of Arete, the cloud enveloping him fell away,
+      and all were astonished at the sight of the stranger imploring protection.
+      Arete received Ulysses with favor, and Alcinoüs was so pleased with him
+      that he offered him his daughter in marriage, if he was unmarried, a
+      palace and riches if he would remain on the island, and a safe passage
+      home if he desired to leave them. The king then invited the chiefs of the
+      isle to a great banquet in honor of his guest. At this banquet Demodocus,
+      the blind minstrel, sang so touchingly of the heroes of the Trojan war
+      that Ulysses was moved to tears, a fact observed by the king alone. After
+      the feast the guests displayed their strength in athletic games; and
+      Ulysses, provoked by the taunts of the ill-bred Euryalus, cast a broader,
+      heavier quoit than had yet been used far beyond the mark. The Phćacians
+      were amazed, and the king confessed that his people were weak in athletic
+      sports but excelled in the dance,&mdash;a statement to which Ulysses
+      readily agreed when he saw the beautiful and graceful dance of the princes
+      Laodamas and Halius to the music of Demodocus's silver harp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the games were over, all the chiefs presented Ulysses with garments
+      and with talents of gold, for the reception of which Arete gave a
+      beautiful chest. As he corded up the chest, and stepped forth to the
+      banquet, refreshed from the bath, Nausicaa, standing beside a pillar, bade
+      him farewell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Remember, in thy native land, O stranger, that thou owest thy life to
+      me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they sat again in the banqueting hall, Ulysses besought Demodocus to
+      sing again of the fall of Troy; but when the minstrel sang of the strategy
+      of the wooden horse which wrought the downfall of Troy, the hero was again
+      melted to tears,&mdash;and this time his host, unable to repress his
+      curiosity, asked him to reveal his name and history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou hast spoken, O king, and I proceed to tell the story of my
+      calamitous voyage from Troy; for I am Ulysses, widely known among men for
+      my cunning devices. Our first stop was among the Ciconians, whose city we
+      laid waste. Here, in spite of my warning, my men tarried to drink red wine
+      until the Ciconians had had time to recruit their forces, and, attacking
+      us, slew six men from each galley. When we who survived reached the land
+      of the lotus-eaters, some of my men ate of the sweet plant, after which a
+      man thinks never more of wife, or friends, or home; and it was with the
+      utmost difficulty that we succeeded in dragging them to the ships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At the Cyclopean land I myself, with a few of my men, disembarked, and
+      went up to seek the inhabitants and conciliate them with gifts of food and
+      wine. The Cyclops were huge one-eyed giants who did not cultivate the
+      land, had no government, and cared nought for the gods. The first cave to
+      which we came was empty, and we went in to await the arrival of the owner,
+      appeasing our appetites, meanwhile, with some of his cheeses. Presently he
+      arrived, and after he had closed up the entrance of the cave with a huge
+      stone, and had milked his goats, he questioned us as to who we were. Our
+      story told, he seized two of my companions, dashed their heads against the
+      rocks, and devoured them. The next morning, after devouring two others, he
+      drove out his flocks, leaving us shut up in the huge cave. All that day I
+      revolved plans for his destruction and our escape; and at last, drawing
+      lots with my companions to determine who should assist me, I determined,
+      with their aid, to bore out his great eye with a huge olive-wood stick
+      that I found in the cave. We spent the day sharpening it and hardening it
+      in the fire, and at night hid it under a heap of litter. Two more of my
+      men made his evening meal, after which I plied him with the wine I had
+      brought, until, softened by the liquor, he inquired my name, assuring me
+      that as return for my gift, he would devour me last. My name, I told him,
+      was Noman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As soon as he had fallen into a drunken slumber I put the stake to heat,
+      and, strengthening the courage of my men, I drew it forth and plunged it
+      into his eye. Steadily we spun it round until the monster, screaming with
+      pain, drew it forth, crying to the other Cyclops to come to his aid. When
+      they, from without, questioned who hurt him, he replied, 'Noman destroyeth
+      me by guile.' 'If it is "Noman,"' said they, departing, 'it must be Jove.
+      Then pray to Neptune.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "During the night I tied together the rams, three and three with osier
+      twigs, and instructed my comrades, as he drove them out, to cling under
+      the middle one. I hid myself under the fleecy belly of a huge ram, the
+      finest of the flock. He touched their backs as he drove them out, but he
+      did not penetrate my cunning, and we all escaped. After we had driven the
+      flock on board, however, and had pushed out our galley, I could not
+      forbear a taunting shout, at which he hurled a huge fragment of rock after
+      us, just missing our galley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With Aeolus, King of the Winds, we remained a month, reciting the events
+      connected with the fall of Troy. So pleased was the king with my story,
+      that on our departure he presented me with a bag tied up with a silver
+      cord, which contained the adverse winds. One day, as I slumbered, my
+      unhappy sailors, suspecting some treasure concealed therein, opened it,
+      and we were immediately blown back to Aeolus's isle, from which he,
+      enraged at our folly, indignantly drove us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At the land of the Laestrygonians all our galleys were lost and our men
+      devoured by the cannibal inhabitants, with the exception of my own ship,
+      which by good fortune I had moored without the harbor. Overcome with
+      grief, we rowed wearily along until we arrived at the land of Circe. With
+      caution born of experience, we drew lots to see who should venture into
+      the unknown isle. The lot fell to Eurylochus, who, with twenty-two brave
+      men, went forward to the fair palace of Circe, around which fawned tamed
+      mountain lions and wolves. Within sat the bright haired goddess, singing
+      while she threw her shuttle through the beautiful web she was weaving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the men entered the palace at her invitation but Eurylochus, who,
+      suspecting some guile, remained without. He saw his comrades led within,
+      seated upon thrones and banqueted; but no sooner was the feast over, than
+      she touched them with her wand, and transformed them into swine that she
+      drove scornfully to their cells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Eurylochus hastened back to our ships with the sorrowful tidings. As soon
+      as grief had permitted him to tell the story, I flung my sword over my
+      shoulders and hastened away to the palace. As I entered the valley, not
+      far from the palace, I was met by a youth, none save the Argus-queller
+      himself, who revealed to me Circe's guile, and presented me with a plant,
+      the moly, which would enable me to withstand her charms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The goddess received me kindly, seated me upon a throne, and invited me
+      to feast with her. After the feast she struck me with her wand, as she had
+      done my comrades, ordering me to go to my sty; but when I remained
+      unchanged, she perceived that her guest was Ulysses, whose coming had long
+      been foretold to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Softened by her entreaties, I sheathed my sword, after having made her
+      promise to release my friends and do us no further harm. Then the others
+      were called from the ships, and we banqueted together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Time passed so happily on Circe's isle that we lingered a whole year,
+      until, roused by the words of my friends, I announced my intended
+      departure, and was told by Circe that I must first go to the land of the
+      dead to get instructions as to my future course from Tiresias. Provided
+      with the proper sacrifices by Circe, we set sail for the land of the
+      Cimmerians, on the confines of Oceanus. The sacrifices having been duly
+      performed, the spirits appeared,&mdash;Elpenor, my yet unburied comrade,
+      whose body lay on Circe's isle, my own dead mother, and the Theban seer,
+      Tiresias, with his golden wand. 'Neptune is wroth with thee,' he said,
+      'but thou mayst yet return if thou and thy comrades leave undisturbed the
+      cattle of the Sun. If thou do not, destruction awaits thee. If thou escape
+      and return home it will be after long journeyings and much suffering, and
+      there thou wilt slay the insolent suitor crew that destroy thy substance
+      and wrong thy household.' After Tiresias had spoken I lingered to speak
+      with other spirits,&mdash;my mother, Ajax, Antiope, Agamemnon, Achilles,
+      Patroclus, and Antilochus. Having conversed with all these, we set sail
+      for Circe's isle, and thence started again on our homeward voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Circe had instructed me to stop the ears of my men with wax as we
+      approached the isle of the Sirens, and to have myself tied to the boat
+      that I might not leap into the ocean to go to the beautiful maidens who
+      sang so entrancingly. We therefore escaped without adding our bones to
+      those on the isle of the Sirens, and came next to Scylla and Charybdis.
+      Charybdis is a frightful whirlpool. The sailor who steers too far away in
+      his anxiety to escape it, is seized by the six arms of the monster Scylla
+      and lifted to her cavern to be devoured. We avoided Charybdis; but as we
+      looked down into the abyss, pale with fear, six of my comrades were seized
+      by Scylla and snatched up to her cave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As we neared the Island of the Sun I told my comrades again of the
+      warning of Tiresias, and begged them to sail past without stopping. I was
+      met, however, by the bitterest reproaches, and at last consented to a
+      landing if they would bind themselves by a solemn oath not to touch the
+      cattle of the Sun. They promised, but when adverse winds prolonged our
+      stay and food became scarce, fools, madmen, they slew the herds, and in
+      spite of the terrible omens, the meat lowing on the spits, the skins
+      crawling, they feasted for six days. When, on the seventh, the tempest
+      ceased and we sailed away, we went to our destruction. I alone was saved,
+      clinging to the floating timbers for nine long days, until on the tenth I
+      reached Calypso's isle, Ogygia, where, out of love for me, the mighty
+      goddess cherished me for seven years."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Phćacians were entranced by this recital, and in addition to their
+      former gifts, heaped other treasures upon the "master of stratagems" that
+      he might return home a wealthy man. The swift ship was filled with his
+      treasures, and after the proper sacrifices and long farewells, the
+      chieftain embarked. It was morn when the ship arrived in Ithaca, and
+      Ulysses, worn out from his long labors, was still asleep. Stopping at the
+      little port of Phorcys, where the steep shores stretch inward and a
+      spreading olive-tree o'ershadows the grotto of the nymphs, the sailors
+      lifted out Ulysses, laid him on the ground, and piling up his gifts under
+      the olive-tree, set sail for Phćacia. But the angry Neptune smote the ship
+      as it neared the town and changed it to a rock, thus fulfilling an ancient
+      prophecy that Neptune would some day wreak his displeasure on the
+      Phćacians for giving to every man who came to them safe escort home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ulysses awoke he did not recognize the harbor, and thinking that he
+      had been treated with deceit, he wept bitterly. Thus Pallas, in the guise
+      of a young shepherd, found him, and showed him that it was indeed his own
+      dear land. She helped him to conceal his treasures in the grotto, and told
+      him that Telemachus was even now away on a voyage of inquiry concerning
+      him, and his wife was weeping over his absence and the insolence of the
+      suitors. But he must act with caution. To give him an opportunity to lay
+      his plans for the destruction of these men without being recognized, she
+      changed him to a beggar, wrinkled and old, and clad in ragged, soiled
+      garments. Then directing him to the home of his old herdsman, she hastened
+      to warn Telemachus to avoid the ship the suitors had stationed to destroy
+      him on his way home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Eumaeus was sitting in his lodge without whose hedge lay the many
+      sties of swine that were his care. He greeted the beggar kindly, and
+      spread food before him, lamenting all the while the absence of his noble
+      master and the wickedness of the suitors. Ulysses told him that he was a
+      wanderer who had heard of his master, and could speak surely of his
+      return. Though Eumaeus regarded this as an idle speech spoken to gain food
+      and clothing, he continued in his kindness to his guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this lodge came Telemachus after the landing of his ship, that he might
+      first hear from Eumaeus the news from the palace,&mdash;Telemachus, who
+      had grown into sudden manliness from his experience among other men. He
+      also was kind to the beggar, and heard his story. While he remained with
+      the beggar, Eumaeus having gone to acquaint Penelope of her son's return,
+      Pallas appearing, touched the beggar with her golden wand, and Ulysses,
+      with the presence of a god, stood before his awed and wondering son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long and passionate was their weeping as the father told the son of his
+      sufferings, and the son told of the arrogance of the one hundred and
+      fourteen suitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There are we two with Pallas and her father Jove against them," replied
+      his father. "Thinkest thou we need to fear with two such allies?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the day after Telemachus's return, Ulysses, accompanied by Eumaeus,
+      visited the palace. No one recognized him except his old dog, Argus, long
+      neglected and devoured by vermin, who, at the sound of his master's voice,
+      drew near, wagged his tail, and fell dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to their carefully laid plans, Telemachus feigned not to know
+      his father, but sent to the beggar some food. Ulysses asked the same of
+      the suitors, but was repulsed with taunts and insults, Antinoüs, the most
+      insolent, striking him with a footstool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Penelope, weaving in her chamber, was carried the story of the beggar
+      at whom the abhorred Antinoüs had thrown a stool, and she sent for him to
+      ask if he had tidings of Ulysses. He refused to go to her, however, until
+      the suitors had withdrawn for the night; and as he sat among the
+      revellers, he caught the first glimpse of his wife, as she came down among
+      her maids, to reproach her son for exposing himself to danger among the
+      suitors, and for allowing the beggar to be injured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When darkness fell and the hall was deserted, Telemachus, with the
+      assistance of his father, removed all the weapons from the walls. After
+      Telemachus had retired to his chamber, Penelope came down, and sitting
+      upon her ivory throne conversed with the beggar, questioning him about his
+      story until he was driven to invent tales that seemed like truth, and
+      asking about her husband while the tears ran down her fair cheeks. By a
+      great effort Ulysses kept his tears from falling as he beheld his wife
+      weeping over him; he assured her that her husband would soon return, but
+      he would accept no clothing as a reward for his tidings. The aged
+      Eurycleia, who was called forth to wash his feet, came near betraying her
+      master when she recognized a scar made by a wild boar's tusk, but he
+      threatened her into silence. Soon after, Penelope and her maids withdrew,
+      and left Ulysses to meditate vengeance through the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning, when the suitors again sat in the banquet-hall, Penelope
+      descended to them and declared that she had determined to give her hand to
+      the one of the suitors who could draw the great bow of Ulysses and send
+      the arrow through twelve rings set on stakes planted in the ground. Up to
+      the polished treasure-chamber she went, and took down the great bow given
+      to Ulysses by Iphitus. As she took it from its case her tears fell, but
+      she dried them and carried it and the steel rings into the hall. Gladly
+      Ulysses hailed this hour, for he knew the time had come when he should
+      destroy the suitor band. That morn many omens had warned him, and he had
+      revealed himself to his faithful men, Eumaeus, and Philoetius the
+      master-herdsman, that they might assist him. Telemachus, though astonished
+      at his mother's decision, first took the bow; if he succeeded in bending
+      it, his mother would not have to leave her home. He would have bent the
+      bow at the fourth attempt had not his father's glance warned him to yield
+      it to the suitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although the bow was rubbed and softened with oil, all failed in their
+      attempts to draw it; and when the beggar asked to be allowed to try, their
+      wrath burst forth. What shame would be theirs if the beggar succeeded in
+      doing that in which they had failed! But Telemachus, who asserted his
+      rights more day by day, insisted that the beggar should try to bend the
+      bow, if he so desired. Sending his mother and her maids to their bower, he
+      watched his father as he easily bent the mighty bow, snapped the cord with
+      a sound at which the suitors grew pale, and sent the arrow through the
+      rings. Then casting aside his rags, the supposed beggar sprang upon the
+      threshold, and knowing that by his orders, Eumaeus, Philoetius, and
+      Eurycleia had secured the portals so that escape was impossible, he sent
+      his next shaft through the throat of Antinoüs. "Dogs! ye thought I never
+      would return! Ye dreaded not the gods while ye devoured my substance and
+      pursued my wife! Now vengeance is mine! Destruction awaits you all!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too late Eurymachus sprang up and besought the monarch to grant them their
+      lives if they made good their waste and returned to their homes. Ulysses
+      had brooded too long over his injuries; his wife and son had suffered too
+      many years from their persecutions for him to think of mercy. Eurymachus
+      fell by the next brass-tipped shaft, and for every arrow in the quiver a
+      suitor lay dead until the quiver was empty. Then Telemachus, Philoetius,
+      and Eumaeus, provided with weapons and armor, stood forth with Ulysses,
+      and withstood the suitors until all were slain, save Medon the herald and
+      Phemius the minstrel, for both of whom Telemachus pleaded, since they had
+      been coerced by the others. Giving the destruction of the false
+      serving-maids to his three assistants, Ulysses ordered the hall to be
+      cleansed, and after greeting his faithful servants and weeping with them,
+      sent Eurycleia up to the bower to tell Penelope that her master had at
+      last arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope was too fearful of deceit to believe instantly that the beggar
+      sitting beside the lofty column was her husband, though as she looked at
+      him wonderingly, she sometimes fancied that she saw Ulysses, and again
+      could not believe that it was he. So long was she silent that Telemachus
+      reproached her for her hardness of heart; but Ulysses, better guessing the
+      difficulty, ordered that all should take the bath and array themselves in
+      fresh garments while the harper played gay melodies, that those passing
+      should not guess the slaughter that had occurred, but should fancy that a
+      wedding was being celebrated. When Ulysses again appeared, refreshed and
+      handsomely attired, Penelope, still uncertain, determined to test his
+      knowledge of her chamber. "Bear out the bed made by his own hands," she
+      commanded Eurycleia, "that he may rest for the night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who has dared move my bed?" cried Ulysses; "the couch framed upon the
+      stump of an olive-tree, round which I built a stone chamber! I myself
+      cunningly fitted it together, and adorned it with gold, silver, and
+      ivory."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Penelope, who knew that no one save herself, Ulysses, and one
+      handmaiden had ever seen the interior of that chamber, fell on his neck
+      and welcomed the wanderer home. "Pray, be not angry with me, my husband.
+      Many times my heart has trembled lest some fraud be practised on me, and I
+      should receive a stranger to my heart."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Welcome as land to the shipwrecked mariner was Ulysses to Penelope. Both
+      wept as he held her in his arms, and the rosy-fingered morn would have
+      found them thus, weeping, with her fair, white arms encircling his neck,
+      had not Pallas prolonged the night that he might relate to her the story
+      of his wanderings. Then, happy in their reunion, the years of sorrow all
+      forgotten, sleep overcame them. At dawn, bidding a brief farewell to his
+      wife, Ulysses went forth to visit his father, and settle as best he might
+      the strife which he knew would result from the slaughter of the suitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Ulysses' mother had died of grief at the prolonged absence of her
+      son, Laertes passed his days wretchedly in a little habitation remote from
+      the palace. There Ulysses found him and made himself known; and there he,
+      Laertes, Telemachus, the aged Dolius, and his six sons faced the people
+      who had been roused to battle by the speech of Eupeithes, whose son
+      Antinoüs had been the first of the suitors to fall by the hand of Ulysses.
+      Not heeding the warning of the herald Medon that the suitors had been
+      slain justly, they attacked Ulysses and his handful of followers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eupeithes fell first by the spear of Laertes, and a great slaughter would
+      have ensued, had not the combatants been silenced by the voice of Pallas,
+      who commanded all strife to cease. Frightened by this divine command, the
+      enemy fled; and Pallas, descending in the form of Mentor, plighted a
+      covenant between them that Ulysses might live peacefully among them the
+      remainder of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE PALACE OF ALCINOÜS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Ulysses, having been directed by Nausicaa, reached the gate of the city,
+      and was there met by Pallas in the guise of a maiden with an urn, who
+      instructed him how to approach the king and queen. He passed through the
+      town, wrapped in a cloud by Pallas, and paused on the threshold of
+      Alcinoüs's palace.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+            For on every side beneath
+  The lofty roof of that magnanimous king
+  A glory shone as of the sun or moon.
+  There from the threshold, on each side, were walls
+  Of brass that led towards the inner rooms,
+  With blue steel cornices. The doors within
+  The massive building were of gold, and posts
+  Of silver on the brazen threshold stood,
+  And silver was the lintel, and above
+  Its architrave was gold; and on each side
+  Stood gold and silver mastiffs, the rare work
+  Of Vulcan's practised skill, placed there to guard
+  The house of great Alcinoüs, and endowed
+  With deathless life, that knows no touch of age.
+  Along the walls within, on either side,
+  And from the threshold to the inner rooms,
+  Were firmly planted thrones on which were laid
+  Delicate mantles, woven by the hands
+  Of women. The Phćacian princes here
+  Were seated; here they ate and drank, and held
+  Perpetual banquet. Slender forms of boys
+  In gold upon the shapely altars stood,
+  With blazing torches in their hands to light
+  At eve the palace guests; while fifty maids
+  Waited within the halls, where some in querns
+  Ground small the yellow grain; some wove the web
+  Or twirled the spindle, sitting, with a quick
+  Light motion, like the aspen's glancing leaves.
+  The well-wrought tissues glistened as with oil.
+  As far as the Phćacian race excel
+  In guiding their swift galleys o'er the deep,
+  So far the women in their woven work
+  Surpass all others. Pallas gives them skill
+  In handiwork and beautiful design.
+  Without the palace-court and near the gate,
+  A spacious garden of four acres lay.
+  A hedge enclosed it round, and lofty trees
+  Flourished in generous growth within,&mdash;the pear
+  And the pomegranate, and the apple-tree
+  With its fair fruitage, and the luscious fig
+  And olive always green. The fruit they bear
+  Falls not, nor ever fails in winter time
+  Nor summer, but is yielded all the year.
+  The ever-blowing west-wind causes some
+  To swell and some to ripen; pear succeeds
+  To pear; to apple, apple, grape to grape,
+  Fig ripens after fig. A fruitful field
+  Of vines was planted near; in part it lay
+  Open and basking in the sun, which dried
+  The soil, and here men gathered in the grapes,
+  And there they trod the wine-press. Farther on
+  Were grapes unripened yet, which just had cast
+  The flower, and others still which just began
+  To redden. At the garden's furthest bound
+  Were beds of many plants that all the year
+  Bore flowers. There gushed two fountains: one of them
+  Ran wandering through the field; the other flowed
+  Beneath the threshold to the palace-court,
+  And all the people filled their vessels there.
+  Such were the blessings which the gracious gods
+  Bestowed on King Alcinoüs and his house.
+           <i>Bryant's Translation, Book VII.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE BENDING OF THE BOW.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Penelope, weary of the importunities of the suitors, determined to end the
+      contest by giving them the bow of Ulysses and allowing the one who could
+      successfully send the arrow through the steel rings to become her husband.
+      Having announced her intention, she ascended the stairs to the treasure
+      chamber, where the bow was kept.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Now when the glorious lady reached the room,
+  And stood upon the threshold, wrought of oak
+  And polished by the workman's cunning hand,
+  Who stretched the line upon it, and set up
+  Its posts, and hung its shining doors, she loosed
+  With a quick touch the thong that held the ring,
+  Put in the key, and with a careful aim
+  Struck back the sounding bolts. As when a bull
+  Roars in the field, such sound the beautiful doors,
+  Struck with the key, gave forth, and instantly
+  They opened to her. Up the lofty floor
+  She stepped, where stood the coffer that contained
+  The perfumed garments. Reaching forth her hand,
+  The queen took down the bow, that hung within
+  Its shining case, and sat her down, and laid
+  The case upon her knees, and, drawing forth
+  The monarch's bow, she wept aloud. As soon
+  As that new gush of tears had ceased to fall,
+  Back to the hall she went, and that proud throng
+  Of suitors, bearing in her hand the bow
+  Unstrung, and quiver, where the arrows lay
+  Many and deadly. Her attendant maids
+  Brought also down a coffer, where were laid
+  Much brass and steel, provided by the king
+  For games like these. The glorious lady then,
+  In presence of the suitors, stood beside
+  The columns that upheld the stately roof.
+  She held a lustrous veil before her cheeks,
+  And while on either side of her a maid
+  Stood modestly, bespake the suitors thus:&mdash;
+
+  "Hear, noble suitors! ye who throng these halls,
+  And eat and drink from day to day, while long
+  My husband has been gone; your sole excuse
+  For all this lawlessness the claim ye make
+  That I become a bride. Come then, for now
+  A contest is proposed. I bring to you
+  The mighty bow that great Ulysses bore.
+  Whoe'er among you he may be whose hand
+  Shall bend this bow, and send through these twelve rings
+  An arrow, him I follow hence, and leave
+  This beautiful abode of my young years,
+  With all its plenty,&mdash;though its memory,
+  I think, will haunt me even in my dreams."
+
+  She spake, and bade the master of the swine,
+  The good Eumaeus, place the bow and rings
+  Of hoary steel before the suitor train.
+  In tears he bore the bow and laid it down.
+  The herdsman also wept to see again
+  His master's bow.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  He (Telemachus) spake and, rising, from his shoulders took
+  The purple cloak, and laid the trenchant sword
+  Aside; and first he placed the rings of steel
+  In order, opening for them in the ground
+  A long trench by a line, and stamping close
+  The earth around them. All admired the skill
+  With which he ranged them, never having seen
+  The game before. And then he took his place
+  Upon the threshold, and essayed the bow;
+  And thrice he made the attempt, and thrice gave o'er,
+  Yet hoping still to draw the cord, and send
+  An arrow through the rings. He would have drawn
+  The bow at the fourth trial, but a nod
+  Given by his father caused him to forbear,
+  Though eager for the attempt.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+         ... And then Eupeithes' son,
+  Antinoüs, to the crowd of suitors said:&mdash;
+
+  "Rise one by one, my friends, from right to left.
+  Begin where he begins who pours the wine."
+  So spake Antinoüs, and the rest approved.
+  Then rose Leiodes, son of Oenops, first.
+  He was their seer, and always had his seat
+  Beside the ample bowl. From deeds of wrong
+  He shrank with hatred, and was sore incensed
+  Against the suitors all. He took the bow
+  And shaft, and, going to the threshold, stood
+  And tried the bow, yet bent it not; it galled
+  His hands, for they were soft, and all unused
+  To such a task.
+
+          ... The swineherd went
+  Forward along the hall, and, drawing near
+  The wise Ulysses, gave into his hands
+  The bow.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          ... but when the wary chief
+  Had poised and shrewdly scanned the mighty bow,
+  Then, as a singer, skilled to play the harp,
+  Stretches with ease on its new fastenings
+  A string, the twisted entrails of a sheep,
+  Made fast at either end, so easily
+  Ulysses bent that mighty bow. He took
+  And drew the cord with his right hand; it twanged
+  With a clear sound as when a swallow screams.
+  The suitors were dismayed, and all grew pale.
+  Jove in loud thunder gave a sign from heaven.
+  The much-enduring chief, Ulysses, heard
+  With joy the friendly omen, which the son
+  Of crafty Saturn sent him. He took up
+  A winged arrow, that before him lay
+  Upon a table drawn; the others still
+  Were in the quiver's womb; the Greeks were yet
+  To feel them. This he set with care against
+  The middle of the bow, and toward him drew
+  The cord and arrow-notch, just where he sat,
+  And aiming opposite, let fly the shaft.
+  He missed no ring of all; from first to last
+  The brass-tipped arrow threaded every one.
+  Then to Telemachus Ulysses said:&mdash;
+
+  "Telemachus, the stranger sitting here
+  Hath not disgraced thee. I have neither missed
+  The rings, nor found it hard to bend the bow;
+  Nor has my manly strength decayed, as these
+  Who seek to bring me to contempt pretend;
+  And now the hour is come when we prepare
+  A supper for the Achaians, while the day
+  Yet lasts, and after supper the delights
+  Of song and harp, which nobly grace a feast."
+
+  He spake, and nodded to Telemachus,
+  His well-beloved son, who girded on
+  His trenchant sword, and took in hand his spear,
+  And, armed with glittering brass for battle, came
+  And took his station by his father's seat.
+
+  Then did Ulysses cast his rags aside,
+  And, leaping to the threshold, took his stand
+  On its broad space, with bow and quiver filled
+  With arrows. At his feet the hero poured
+  The winged shafts, and to the suitors called:&mdash;
+
+  "That difficult strife is ended. Now I take
+  Another mark, which no man yet has hit.
+  Now I shall see if I attain my aim,
+  And, by the aid of Phoebus, win renown."
+
+  He spake; and, turning, at Antinoüs aimed
+  The bitter shaft&mdash;Antinoüs, who just then
+  Had grasped a beautiful two-eared cup of gold,
+  About to drink the wine. He little thought
+  Of wounds and death; for who, when banqueting
+  Among his fellows, could suspect that one
+  Alone against so many men would dare,
+  However bold, to plan his death, and bring
+  On him the doom of fate? Ulysses struck
+  The suitor with the arrow at the throat.
+  The point came through the tender neck behind,
+  Sideways he sank to earth; his hand let fall
+  The cup; the dark blood in a thick warm stream
+  Gushed from the nostrils of the smitten man.
+  He spurned the table with his feet, and spilled
+  The viands; bread and roasted meats were flung
+  To lie polluted on the floor. Then rose
+  The suitors in a tumult, when they saw
+  The fallen man; from all their seats they rose
+  Throughout the hall, and to the massive walls
+  Looked eagerly; there hung no buckler there,
+  No sturdy lance for them to wield. They called
+  Then to Ulysses with indignant words:&mdash;
+
+  "Stranger! in evil hour hast thou presumed
+  To aim at men; and thou shalt henceforth bear
+  Part in no other contest. Even now
+  Is thy destruction close to thee. Thy hand
+  Hath slain the noblest youth in Ithaca.
+  The vultures shall devour thy flesh for this."
+
+  So each one said; they deemed he had not slain
+  The suitor wittingly; nor did they see,
+  Blind that they were, the doom which in that hour
+  Was closing round them all. Then with a frown
+  The wise Ulysses looked on them, and said:&mdash;
+
+  "Dogs! ye had thought I never would come back
+  From Ilium's coast, and therefore ye devoured
+  My substance here, and offered violence
+  To my maid-servants, and pursued my wife
+  As lovers, while I lived. Ye dreaded not
+  The gods who dwell in the great heaven, nor feared
+  Vengeance hereafter from the hands of men;
+  And now destruction overhangs you all."
+
+  He spake, and all were pale with fear, and each
+  Looked round for some escape from death.
+
+    <i>Bryant's Translation, Books XXI., XXII</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE KALEVALA.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      "Songs preserved from distant ages."
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The national epic of Finland, the Kalevala, or Place of Heroes, stands
+      midway between the purely epical structure, as exemplified in Homer, and
+      the epic songs of certain nations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a purely pagan epic, and from its complete silence as to Finland's
+      neighbors, the Russians, Germans, and Swedes, it is supposed to date back
+      at least three thousand years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first attempt to collect Finnish folk-song was made in the seventeenth
+      century by Palmsköld and Peter Bäng. In 1733, Maxenius published a volume
+      on Finnish national poetry, and in 1745 Juslenius began a collection of
+      national poems. Although scholars saw that these collected poems were
+      evidently fragments of a Finnish epic, it remained for two physicians,
+      Zacharias Topelius and Elias Lönnrot, to collect the entire poem.
+      Topelius, though confined to his bed by illness for eleven years, took
+      down the songs from travelling merchants brought to his bedside. His
+      collections were published in 1822 and 1831. Lönnrot travelled over
+      Finland, collecting the songs, which he published, arranged in epical
+      form, in 1835. A revised edition was published in 1849.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kalevala consists of fifty parts, or runes, containing twenty-two
+      thousand seven hundred and ninety-three lines. Its historical foundation
+      is the contests between the Finns and the Lapps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Its metre is the "eight syllabled trochaic with the part-line echo,"
+      alliteration also being used, a metre familiar to us through Longfellow's
+      "Hiawatha."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The labors of a Wolf are not necessary to show that the Kalevala is
+      composed of various runes or lays, arranged by a compiler. Topelius and
+      Lönnrot were conscientious collectors and compilers, but they were no
+      Homers, who could fuse these disconnected runes into one great poem. The
+      Kalevala recites many events in the lives of different heroes who are not
+      types of men, like Rama, or Achilles, or Ulysses, but the rude gods of an
+      almost savage people, or rather, men in the process of apotheosis, all
+      alike, save in the varying degrees of magic power possessed by each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Finnish lays are interesting to us because they are the popular songs
+      of a people handed down with few changes from one generation to another;
+      because they would have formed the material for a national epic if a great
+      poet had arisen; because of their pictures of ancient customs, and
+      particularly the description of the condition of women, and because of
+      their frequently beautiful descriptions of nature. But because they are
+      simply runes "loosely stitched together" we can regard them only with
+      interest and curiosity, not with admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL5" id="link2H_BIBL5"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE KALEVALA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Andrew Lang's Homer and the Epic, pp. 412-419;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrew Lang's Kalevala, or the Finnish National Epic (in his Custom and
+      Myth), 1885, pp. 156-179;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      C. J. Billson's Folk-songs, comprised in the Finnish Kalevala, Folk-Lore,
+      1895, vi. pp. 317-352;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. C. Cook's Kalevala, Contemporary, 1885, xlvii., pp. 683-702;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Preface of J. M. Crawford's Translation of the Kalevala, 1891.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE KALEVALA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Kalevala, Tr. by J. M. Crawford, 2 vols., 1891;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kalevala, Tr. by W. F. Kirby, through the German translation of
+      Schiefner;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Selections from the Kalevala, Tr. from a German version by J. A. Porter,
+      with an introduction and analysis of the Poem, 1868.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE KALEVALA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Wainamoinen was born upon the ocean after his mother, Ilmatar, daughter of
+      the illimitable Ether, had floated upon its surface for more than seven
+      hundred years. During this time Ilmatar had created the islands, the
+      rocks, and the continents. After eight years of swimming through the
+      ocean, studying his surroundings, Wainamoinen left the waters and swam to
+      a barren promontory, where he could rest himself on dry land and study the
+      sun, the moon, and the starry skies. At last he called to him
+      Pellerwoinen, that the slender youth might scatter seeds broadcast upon
+      the island, sowing in their proper places the birch, the alder, the
+      linden, the willow, the mountain ash, and the juniper. It was not long
+      until the eyes of the sower were gladdened by the sight of trees rising
+      above the hitherto barren soil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as Wainamoinen cast his eyes over the place he perceived that the oak,
+      the tree of heaven, was wanting. The acorn planted in the sterile soil
+      developed not until Tursas, the giant, arose from the ocean, burned some
+      meadow grasses, and raking together the ashes, planted therein the acorn,
+      from which soon sprang up a mighty oak-tree whose branches hid the sun
+      rays and the starlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The oak-tree must be felled if the land was to prosper, but who could fell
+      it? "Help me, Kapé, daughter of the Ether, help me, my ancient mother, to
+      uproot this terrible tree that shuts out the sunshine," cried Wainamoinen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Straightway arose from the ocean a little being clad in copper,&mdash;cap,
+      boots, gloves, and belt. He was no longer than a man's forefinger, and the
+      blade of the hatchet at his belt was but a finger's breadth. "Art thou
+      divine, or human?" queried Wainamoinen. "Tell me who thou art. Thou surely
+      hast the bearing of a hero, though so small. But thou must be of the race
+      of the pygmies, and therefore useless."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I came here to fell the oak," replied the pygmy. "I am a god and a hero
+      from the tribes that rule the ocean."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never canst thou lop the branches of this mighty tree," replied
+      Wainamoinen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, the pygmy became a giant; with one step he left the ocean,
+      and stood piercing the clouds with his head. He whetted his hatchet on the
+      great rocks, and with three steps reached the tree; with four blows felled
+      it. The trunk fell eastward, its tops westward, the leaves to the south,
+      the hundred branches to the north. Full of magic power were the parts of
+      this tree, and happy was he who possessed himself of some part of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then vegetation flourished, the birds sang happily in the trees, and all
+      was well except that barley was wanting. On the ocean strand Wainamoinen
+      discovered the barley seed; and, advised by the birds how to plant it, was
+      soon gratified by the sight of the growing barley. His next act was to
+      clear the forest; but he left the slender birch for the birds to nest in,
+      thus winning the gratitude of the silver-voiced singers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the land of Kalevala, Wainamoinen passed many happy years, and the fame
+      of his wonderful songs of wit and wisdom spread even to the land of the
+      Lapps, in the dismal north, where lived Youkahainen, a young minstrel.
+      Against the advice of his parents, the youth, filled with jealousy,
+      visited Kalevala, to hold a singing contest with Wainamoinen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proudly displayed his wisdom to the old minstrel, who laughed at it as
+      "women's tales and children's wisdom," and when Youkahainen declared in
+      song that he was present at the creation, Wainamoinen called him the
+      prince of liars, and himself began to sing. As he sang, the copper-bearing
+      mountains, the massive rocks and ledges, trembled, the hills re-echoed,
+      and the very ocean heaved with rapture. The boaster stood speechless,
+      seeing his sledge transformed into reed grass and willows, his beautiful
+      steed changed to a statue, his dog to a block of stone, and he himself
+      fast sinking in a quicksand. Then comprehending his folly, he begged his
+      tormentor to free him. Each precious gift he offered for a ransom was
+      refused, until he named his beautiful sister Aino. Wainamoinen, happy in
+      the promise of Aino for a wife, freed the luckless youth from his
+      enchantment, and sent him home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aino's mother was rejoiced to hear that her daughter had been promised to
+      the renowned Wainamoinen; but when the beautiful girl learned that she was
+      tied by her brother's folly to an old man, she wandered weeping through
+      the fields. In vain her mother and father sought to console her; she wept
+      for her vanished childhood, for all her happiness and hope and pleasure
+      forever gone. To console her daughter, the mother told her of a store of
+      beautiful ornaments that she herself had worn in girlhood; they had been
+      given her by the daughters of the Moon and Sun,&mdash;gold, ribbons, and
+      jewels. Beautifully arrayed in these long-concealed ornaments, Aino
+      wandered through the fields for many days, bewailing her sad fate. On the
+      fourth day, she laid her garments on the sea shore, and swam out to the
+      standing rock, a little distance from the shore. No sooner had she
+      clambered on the rainbow-colored rock than it turned and fell to the
+      bottom of the sea, carrying with it the weeping maiden, chanting a
+      farewell to her family. The fleet and haughty hare bore the news of her
+      death to the household, where her unfortunate mother sat weeping, urging
+      other mothers never to force their daughters to wed against their choice.
+      The tears that rolled down her cheeks formed three streamlets, that,
+      growing larger, became torrents with foaming cataracts. From the cataracts
+      towered three pillared rocks upon which rose three hillocks, and upon each
+      hillock sprang a birch-tree. On the summit of each tree sat a golden bird
+      singing; and the first sang, for three moons, his song of "Love! O Love!"
+      the second called for six moons, "Suitor! Suitor!" but the third bird sang
+      forever his sad song of "Consolation! Consolation!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wainamoinen was deeply grieved when he heard of the fate of the lovely
+      Aino, and he at once went to angle in the deep where dwelt the mermaids,
+      the daughters of Wellamo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had fished many days in vain, he caught a wondrous salmon, larger
+      and more beautiful than he had ever before caught. But as he took out his
+      silver knife to cut it, the fish sprang from his hand into the deep,
+      telling him that it was Aino who had thus come to him, and whom he had now
+      lost forever by his stupidity. Then indeed the song of the golden bird
+      seemed sad to Wainamoinen, and he was disconsolate until his mother spoke
+      to him from her grave: "My son, go north and seek thy wife. Take not a
+      silly Lapp, but choose one of the daughters of Suomi."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quickly Wainamoinen prepared for his journey, and mounted his magic steed,
+      that galloped over the plains of Kalevala and crossed the waste of blue
+      sea-water as though it were land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the envious Youkahainen was informed of the journey, and had prepared
+      a cruel cross-bow and three poisoned arrows. In spite of the protests of
+      his mother, he waited for the hero and shot at him three times. The third
+      arrow struck Wainamoinen's horse, which sank to the bottom of the ocean,
+      leaving the hapless rider struggling in the water. "Seven summers must he
+      tread the waves," chuckled Youkahainen; "eight years ride the billows."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For six days Wainamoinen floated on the waters; then he was rescued by a
+      huge eagle that carried him on its back to Pohyola, the dismal Sariola,
+      and left him on a barren promontory, where he bemoaned his unhappy fate.
+      Here he was found by Louhi, the toothless dame of Pohyola, who took him
+      home and fed him. Then she promised to provide him with a sledge that he
+      might journey safely home if he would forge for her the Sampo, a magical
+      jewel that gave success to its possessor. If he could make her this, she
+      would also give him her daughter in marriage. "I cannot forge the Sampo,
+      but if thou wilt help me to my distant country I will send thee my brother
+      Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, who can forge for thee the magic Sampo, and win
+      thy beautiful daughter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louhi provided a sledge and horse, and as Wainamoinen seated himself she
+      warned him, as he journeyed, not to look upward before nightfall, or some
+      great misfortune would befall him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maiden of the Rainbow, beautiful daughter of Pohyola, was sitting on
+      the rainbow weaving, and Wainamoinen, hearing the whizzing of the loom,
+      forgot the warning, and, looking up, was filled with love for the maiden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come to me," he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The birds have told me," she replied, "that a maiden's life, as compared
+      to a married woman's, is as summer to coldest winter. Wives are as dogs
+      enchained in kennels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Wainamoinen further besought her, she told him that she would
+      consider him a hero when he had split a golden hair with edgeless knives
+      and snared a bird's egg with an invisible snare. When he had done these
+      things without difficulty, she demanded that he should peel the sandstone,
+      and cut her a whipstick from the ice without making a splinter. This done,
+      she commanded that he should build her a boat from the fragments of her
+      distaff, and set it floating without the use of his knee, arm, hand, or
+      foot to propel it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Wainamoinen was engaged in this task, Hisi, the god of evil, caused
+      him to cut his knee with the axe. None of his charms availed to stanch the
+      blood, so he dragged himself to his sledge and sought the nearest village.
+      In the third cottage he found a graybeard, who caused two maids to dip up
+      some of the flowing blood, and then commanded Wainamoinen to sing the
+      origin of iron. The daughters of Ukko the Creator had sprinkled the
+      mountains with black, white, and red milk,&mdash;from this was formed
+      iron. Fire caught the iron and carried it to its furnace, and later
+      Ilmarinen worked the unwilling metal into various articles. As he sought
+      something to harden it, Hisi's bird, the hornet, dropped poison into the
+      water; and the iron dipped into it, formed the hard steel, which, angry
+      because it could not be broken, cut its brother, and vowed that it would
+      ever cause man's blood to flow in torrents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man then addressed the crimson stream flowing from the wound, and
+      prayed to mighty Ukko to stop it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it ceased to flow at his prayer, he sent forth his son to gather
+      various charmed plants, steep them, and make a magic balsam. After many
+      attempts the son was successful; and the balsam, applied to Wainamoinen's
+      wound, healed it immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wainamoinen returned home and sought Ilmarinen, who refused to go north to
+      forge the Sampo. Inducing his brother to climb a lofty fir-tree to bring
+      down the Moon and the Bear he had conjured there, the wizard caused a
+      great storm-wind to arise and blow Ilmarinen to the woodlands of Pohyola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There the blacksmith at once set up a forge, and after four days' work saw
+      the Sampo rising from the furnace, its many colored lid rocking and
+      grinding, every day, many measures of meal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joyfully Louhi received the magic Sampo and locked it in a secret chamber
+      under the copper-bearing mountains. But when Ilmarinen asked for the hand
+      of the Rainbow Maid, he was refused. "Never shall I, in my lifetime, say
+      farewell to maiden freedom." So the blacksmith was compelled to return
+      alone to Wainola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Ilmarinen was forging the Sampo and Wainamoinen was building the
+      magic boat, Lemminkainen, or Ahti, the reckless wizard, king of the
+      islands, was longing for a bride from Ehstland. In spite of his mother's
+      entreaties, Lemminkainen went to Ehstland, and when he found it was
+      impossible to gain the favor of Kylliki, the Sahri maid of beauty, he
+      carried her off by force in his sledge. She became reconciled to him when
+      he promised that he would never go to battle, and she in turn vowed that
+      she would not visit the village dances. They lived happily together until
+      Lemminkainen tarried late at the fishing one evening, and Kylliki went to
+      the village dance. When Lemminkainen returned, his sister told him of
+      Kylliki's broken vow; and in spite of the prayers of his mother and wife,
+      the hero declared that he would break his promise and go to war. To the
+      Northland he would go, and win another wife. "When my brush bleeds, then
+      you may know that misfortune has overtaken me," he said angrily, flinging
+      his hairbrush at the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through many dangers he passed unscathed by the aid of his magic, until he
+      stood in the halls of Louhi and asked for her daughter, the Rainbow
+      Maiden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "First bring me the wild moose from the Hisi-fields and forests," said
+      Louhi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Kauppi, able smith, Lemminkainen procured the wondrous snow-shoes;
+      but Hisi, who heard the boasts of the hero, fashioned a wild moose that
+      ran so rapidly that Lemminkainen could not overtake it, but broke his
+      snow-shoes in the race. He besought Ukko and the mistress of the forest
+      and her king, and at last, with their aid, the moose was captured and led
+      home to Louhi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now bridle the flaming horse of Hisi," said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mighty stallion stood on the Hisi mountain, breathing fire and smoke.
+      When the hero saw him he prayed to Ukko, "Let the hail and icy rain fall
+      upon him." His prayer was granted; and, going forward, Lemminkainen prayed
+      the steed to put its head into the golden head-stall, promising to treat
+      it with all gentleness. Then he led it to the courts of Sariola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now kill for me the swan that swims in Tuoni, the black death-river. One
+      shot only canst thou have. If thou succeed, then mayst thou claim thy
+      bride."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Lemminkainen entered Pohyola he had slain all his opponents but one
+      blind shepherd, whom he spared because he despised his helplessness. This
+      object of his scorn was waiting for him, and when Lemminkainen approached
+      the river he fell by a shot from the enemy, regretting, as he died, that
+      he had not asked his mother's advice before attempting to reach Tuoni.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nasshut, the shepherd, threw the hero's body into the river, where it was
+      seized and cut in pieces by the son of Tuoni.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At home the mother and wife awaited anxiously tidings of their hero. When
+      they saw blood trickling from the brush, the mother could wait no longer,
+      but at once set out for the dreary Northland. After repeated threats, she
+      wrested from Louhi the fact that her son had gone to Tuoni; from the Sun
+      she learned his fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quickly seeking Ilmarinen, the mother bade him forge for her a mighty
+      rake. With this she raked the deep death-river, collected the pieces of
+      the hero, bound them together with the aid of the goddess Suonetar, and
+      making a balsam, the materials for which were brought her by the bee, she
+      healed her hero son, comforted him, and led him back to Kalevala.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, Wainamoinen, who was building his boat for the Rainbow
+      Maid, found that he had forgotten three magic words with which to fasten
+      in the ledges and complete the boat's forecastle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After examining in vain the mouths of the wild animals, he sought the dead
+      hero Wipunen, forced open his jaws, and accidentally fell into his mouth.
+      Wipunen quickly swallowed him; but Wainamoinen, setting up a forge in his
+      body, caused him such discomfort that the giant was glad to give his
+      information, and get rid of his unwelcome visitor. Having thus learned the
+      secrets of the ages, and among them the three magic words, Wainamoinen
+      hastened home and finished his boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat builded, he at once set out for the Northland to woo the Rainbow
+      Maid. The boat was bedecked with silver and gold, and the linen sails were
+      blue, white, and scarlet. The sails were merely for ornament, however, for
+      the boat moved over the ocean without the aid of oars or sails.
+      Wainamoinen's departure from Kalevala was observed by Anniki, the sister
+      of Ilmarinen, who at once told her brother. With her assistance, Ilmarinen
+      cleansed the black from his ruddy countenance, and jumping into his
+      sledge, was soon on the way to Sariola. The approach of the heroes was
+      perceived by Louhi. "Daughter," said she, "the old man brings thee a boat
+      full of treasures; take him. Do not wed the empty-handed youth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thy advice is good, but I will not take it. The young man shall be my
+      husband."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Wainamoinen was refused in spite of his gifts, Louhi addressed
+      herself to Ilmarinen, and set him, in turn, three tasks: to plough the
+      serpent field of Hisi, to muzzle Tuoni's bear, and to catch the pike of
+      Mana, in the river of Tuoni.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the help of his sweetheart, Ilmarinen accomplished these tasks, and
+      the wedding day was set. Old Wainamoinen, heavy hearted, journeyed
+      homeward, and sent the edict to his people that in the future old men
+      should not go wooing, or strive with younger men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great preparations were made for the wedding feast; the mighty ox of
+      Karjala was slain, and for the first time, beer was brewed in Pohyola.
+      Invitations were sent to all the people of Pohyola and the tribes of
+      Kalevala, to all save Lemminkainen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ilmarinen returned for his bride, he was received with honor, and the
+      wedding feast was merry. But when the time came to take the bride away,
+      the Rainbow Maid was unwilling, she who before had been so ready to go
+      with him. Many times had she been told of the miseries of the wife: her
+      husband's slave, her whole life one of service, one long endeavor to
+      please her husband's mother and father. After her lament, Osmatar, the
+      Bride-adviser, instructed her how to please her husband's family, and
+      admonished Ilmarinen to guard well his Bride of Beauty. Then the two set
+      forth together, the Rainbow Maid shedding many tears at parting with her
+      loved ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bride and groom were received with joy by Ilmarinen's family, and old
+      Wainamoinen himself sang at the wedding feast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Lemminkainen was angry because he had received no invitation to the
+      wedding, and in spite of his mother's advice, set out to make war against
+      the Lapps. He successfully overcame all the terrors that beset him, and
+      reached Sariola, but was so coldly received there that, enraged at such
+      treatment, he slew his host, the landlord of Pohyola, and fled homeward to
+      escape the hosts whom Louhi called to defend her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother sent him to the isle of refuge to escape the northern hosts. In
+      the centre of the tenth ocean it rose, the refuge of his father; there he
+      must abide three years, and must take a vow not to fight again for sixty
+      summers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three years passed speedily on the happy isle, where dwelt many
+      maidens who admired the reckless hero, and he departed just in time to
+      escape the swords of the jealous heroes of the isle. His ancient home was
+      in ashes when he returned, his mother missing; but while he mourned for
+      her, he chanced upon her, hiding from the Lapps in the forest. Again he
+      determined to seek out his enemies and be revenged on them. Taking with
+      him his friend Tiera he sought the north, but was met by the Frost-Fiend
+      and compelled to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the house of Ilmarinen the blacksmith, was sold by Untamoinen a slave,
+      Kullervo. He was a giant who had done naught but evil, until in despair
+      his master sold him to the blacksmith. Kullervo, or Kullerwoinen, was made
+      a shepherd and sent forth with the flocks. But rage at the blacksmith's
+      wife, who baked a stone in his bread on which he broke the magic knife of
+      his people, caused him to transform the flocks into wolves, who tore the
+      Rainbow Wife to pieces when she went to milk them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Kullerwoinen fled from the blacksmith, and set out to find his
+      tribe-people, but on the way unknowingly corrupted his sister, and in
+      despair at his evil deeds, destroyed himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ilmarinen was full of grief at the loss of his wife. Unhappy and restless,
+      he forged for himself a bride of gold; but the image failed to satisfy
+      him, and Wainamoinen, reproving him, forbade his people in the future to
+      worship any graven image. Then the blacksmith again sought the north to
+      win the sister of his former bride, but was met with bitter reproaches for
+      the sorrow he had brought upon the family. Nevertheless, he seized the
+      maiden to carry her away, but she was so angry and so unhappy that he
+      changed her to a seagull and came home wifeless and sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wainamoinen and Ilmarinen soon conceived the idea of going to the
+      Northland to win back the Sampo. On the way they allied to themselves the
+      wizard Lemminkainen. As they approached the whirlpool near Pohyola, their
+      vessel stuck on the shoulders of a great pike. When neither Lemminkainen
+      nor Ilmarinen could slay it, Wainamoinen impaled it on his fire-sword, and
+      the three banqueted on the great fish. From its bones, Wainamoinen framed
+      the first harp. No one could win music from it but its creator; but when
+      he touched its strings and sang, the very trees danced about him, wild
+      animals lay in peace at his feet, and the hearts of men were ravished. As
+      his listeners wept at the strains, Wainamoinen's tears rolled down into
+      the ocean. Thence the duck brought them, changed to pearls, receiving for
+      a reward its beautiful coat. Such was the origin of sea-pearls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Wainamoinen had put the inhabitants of Pohyola to sleep with his
+      magic music, the heroes found the Sampo with little difficulty, and bore
+      it away from the copper mountain. But as they hastened home, the
+      discordant voice of Lemminkainen, who sang for joy of their capture,
+      caused the crane to screech, and the bird's cry roused the people of
+      Pohyola. Louhi speedily discovered her loss, and started in pursuit of the
+      heroes. In various ways she attacked them,&mdash;with war ships that were
+      stopped by a reef conjured up by Wainamoinen, by a terrible storm, and by
+      a giant eagle that perched on their boat. In their struggle with her the
+      Sampo was broken and its fragments scattered on the ocean. Louhi left
+      them, uttering dire threats; and Wainamoinen, gathering up what fragments
+      of the Sampo he could find, buried them where they would bring prosperity
+      to his people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Wainamoinen longed to sing to his harp to rejoice the hearts of his
+      people, but the magic instrument had been lost in the storm conjured by
+      Louhi. After raking the sea for it in vain, he constructed a new harp from
+      the birch-tree, and delighted the people with his songs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In revenge for the theft of the Sampo, Louhi sent nine diseases upon
+      Wainamoinen's people,&mdash;colic, pleurisy, fever, ulcer, plague,
+      consumption, gout, sterility, and cancer, the offspring of the fell
+      Lowyatar; but by the use of vapor baths and balsams Wainamoinen healed his
+      people. Then Louhi sent Otso the Bear, the honey-eater, but he was slain
+      by the hero, who made a banquet of his flesh for the people. Enraged at
+      her failures, she stole the sun, moon, and fire, and left Kalevala in
+      darkness. Ukko, taking pity on his people, struck lightning from his
+      fire-sword and gave the fire-child to a virgin to be cared for. In an
+      unguarded moment it sprang earthward, fell into the sea, and was swallowed
+      by a fish, that, in the agonies of torment, was swallowed by another.
+      Wainamoinen went fishing with Ilmarinen, and at last caught the gray pike,&mdash;found
+      in it the trout, found in the trout the whiting, and in the whiting the
+      fireball. When he attempted to seize the fireball he burned his fingers,
+      and dropped it. Ilmarinen did likewise. Then the ball rolled rapidly away
+      until Wainamoinen caught it in an elm-tree, and took it home to gladden
+      his people. Still they were cheerless without the sun and moon, and
+      Wainamoinen was obliged to go to Louhi and compel her to give up the sun
+      and moon. When he returned there was joy in Kalevala.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Northland dwelt a happy maiden, Mariatta, who, eating of the magic
+      berry, as she wandered one day in the fields, bore by it a child which she
+      called Flower. Her parents cast her off, and as no one would take her in,
+      she was compelled to go to the flaming steed of Hisi, in whose manger the
+      child was born. Once when she slumbered the child vanished, and she sought
+      for it in vain, until told by the sun that it was in Wainola, sleeping
+      among the reeds and rushes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child grew in grace and beauty, but no priest would baptize him, all
+      saying that he was a wizard. Wainamoinen, too, counselled that he be
+      destroyed; but when the two weeks old babe lifted its head and reproached
+      him, saying that he had committed many follies but had been spared by his
+      people, Wainamoinen baptized him, and gave him the right to grow a hero
+      and become a mighty ruler over Karyala.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Wainamoinen grew feeble with the passing years, he built himself a boat
+      of copper, and singing a plaintive song in which he said the people of
+      Suomi would look forward to his return as a time of peace and plenty, he
+      set forth, sailing through the dusk of evening to the fiery sunset, and
+      anchored in the purple horizon, leaving behind him for an heritage his
+      harp, his wondrous songs, and his wisdom sayings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE KALEVALA.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      ILMARINEN'S WEDDING FEAST.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, visited the Northland, won the Rainbow Maid,
+      and successfully performed the tasks set by her mother Louhi. Great
+      preparations were made in Pohyola for the wedding, and the coming of the
+      bridegroom was anxiously expected.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
+  Ancient dame of Sariola,
+  While at work within her dwelling,
+  Heard the whips crack on the fenlands,
+  Heard the rattle of the sledges;
+  To the northward turned her glances,
+  Turned her vision to the sunlight,
+  And her thoughts ran on as follow:
+  "Who are these in bright apparel,
+  On the banks of Pohya-waters,
+  Are they friends or hostile armies?"
+
+  Then the hostess of the Northland
+  Looked again and well considered,
+  Drew much nearer to examine,
+  Found they were not hostile armies,
+  Found that they were friends and suitors;
+  In the midst was Ilmarinen,
+  Son in-law to ancient Louhi.
+
+  When the hostess of Pohyola
+  Saw the son-in-law approaching,
+  She addressed the words that follow:
+
+  "I had thought the winds were raging,
+  That the piles of wood were falling,
+  Thought the pebbles in commotion,
+  Or perchance the ocean roaring;
+  Then I hastened nearer, nearer,
+  Drew still nearer and examined,
+  Found the winds were not in battle,
+  Found the piles of wood unshaken,
+  Found the ocean was not roaring,
+  Nor the pebbles in commotion;
+  Found my son-in-law was coming
+  With his heroes and attendants,
+  Heroes counted by the hundreds.
+
+  "Should you ask of me the question,
+  How I recognized the bridegroom
+  Mid the host of men and heroes,
+  I should answer, I should tell you:
+  'As the hazel-bush in copses,
+  As the oak-tree in the forest,
+  As the moon among the planets;
+  Drives the groom a coal-black courser,
+  Running like a famished black-dog,
+  Flying like the hungry raven,
+  Graceful as the lark at morning,
+  Golden cuckoos, six in number,
+  Twitter on the birchen cross-bow;
+  There are seven blue-birds singing
+  On the racer's hame and collar.'"
+
+  Noises hear they in the court-yard,
+  On the highway hear the sledges.
+  To the court comes Ilmarinen,
+  With his body-guard of heroes;
+  In the midst the chosen suitor,
+  Not too far in front of others,
+  Not too far behind his fellows.
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Hie ye hither, men and heroes,
+  Haste, ye watchers, to the stables,
+  There unhitch the suitor's stallion,
+  Lower well the racer's breast-plate,
+  There undo the straps and buckles,
+  Loosen well the shafts and traces,
+  And conduct the suitor hither,
+  Give my son-in-law good welcome!"
+
+  Ilmarinen turned his racer
+  Into Louhi's yard and stables,
+  And descended from his snow-sledge
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Come, thou servant of my bidding,
+  Best of all my trusted servants,
+  Take at once the bridegroom's courser
+  From the shafts adorned with silver,
+  From the curving arch of willow,
+  Lift the harness trimmed in copper,
+  Tie the white-face to the manger,
+  Treat the suitor's steed with kindness,
+  Lead him carefully to shelter
+  By his soft and shining bridle,
+  By his halter tipped with silver;
+  Let him roll among the sand-hills,
+  On the bottoms soft and even,
+  On the borders of the snow-banks,
+  In the fields of milky color.
+  Lead the hero's steed to water,
+  Lead him to the Pohya-fountains,
+  Where the living streams are flowing,
+  Sweet as milk of human kindness,
+  From the roots of silvery birches,
+  Underneath the shade of aspens.
+
+  "Feed the courser of the suitor,
+  With the sweetest corn and barley,
+  With the summer-wheat and clover,
+  In the caldron steeped in sweetness;
+  Feed him at the golden manger,
+  In the boxes lined with copper,
+  At my manger richly furnished,
+  In the warmest of the hurdles;
+  Tie him with a silk-like halter,
+  To the golden rings and staples,
+  To the hooks of purest silver,
+  Set in beams of birch and oak-wood;
+  Feed him on the hay the sweetest,
+  Feed him on the grains nutritious,
+  Give the best my barns can furnish.
+
+  "Curry well the suitor's courser
+  With the curry-comb of fish-bone,
+  Brush his hair with silken brushes,
+  Put his mane and tail in order,
+  Cover well with silken blankets,
+  Blankets wrought in gold and silver,
+  Buckles forged from shining copper.
+
+  "Come, ye small lads of the village,
+  Lead the suitor to my chambers,
+  With your auburn locks uncovered,
+  From your hands remove your mittens,
+  See if ye can lead the hero
+  Through the door without his stooping,
+  Lifting not the upper cross-bar,
+  Sinking not the oaken threshold,
+  Moving not the oaken casings,
+  Great the hero who must enter.
+
+  "Ilmarinen is too stately,
+  Cannot enter through the portals,
+  Not the son-in-law and bridegroom,
+  Till the portals have been lengthened;
+  Taller by a head the suitor
+  Than the doorways of the mansion."
+  Quick the servants of Pohyola
+  Tore away the upper cross-bar,
+  That his cap might not be lifted;
+  Made the oaken threshold lower
+  That the hero might not stumble;
+  Made the birch-wood portals wider,
+  Opened full the door of welcome,
+  Easy entrance for the suitor.
+
+  Speaks the hostess of the Northland
+  As the bridegroom freely passes
+  Through the doorway of her dwelling:
+
+  "Thanks are due to thee, O Ukko,
+  That my son-in-law has entered!
+  Let me now my halls examine;
+  Make the bridal chambers ready,
+  Finest linen on my tables,
+  Softest furs upon my benches,
+  Birchen flooring scrubbed to whiteness,
+  All my rooms in perfect order."
+
+  Then the hostess of Pohyola
+  Visited her spacious dwelling,
+  Did not recognize her chambers;
+  Every room had been remodelled,
+  Changed by force of mighty magic;
+  All the halls were newly burnished,
+  Hedgehog bones were used for ceilings,
+  Bones of reindeer for foundations,
+  Bones of wolverine for door-sills,
+  For the cross-bars bones of roebuck,
+  Apple-wood were all the rafters,
+  Alder-wood, the window casings,
+  Scales of trout adorned the windows,
+  And the fires were set in flowers.
+  All the seats were made of silver,
+  All the floors of copper-tiling,
+  Gold-adorned were all the tables,
+  On the floor were silken mattings,
+  Every fire-place set in copper,
+  Every hearth-stone cut from marble,
+  On each shelf were colored sea-shells,
+  Kalew's tree was their protection.
+
+  To the court-room came the hero,
+  Chosen suitor from Wainola,
+  These the words of Ilmarinen:
+
+  "Send, O Ukko, health and pleasure
+  To this ancient home and dwelling,
+  To this mansion richly fashioned!"
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Let thy coming be auspicious
+  To these halls of thee unworthy,
+  To the home of thy affianced,
+  To this dwelling lowly fashioned,
+  Mid the lindens and the aspens.
+
+  "Come, ye maidens that should serve me,
+  Come, ye fellows from the village,
+  Bring me fire upon the birch-bark,
+  Light the fagots of the fir-tree,
+  That I may behold the bridegroom,
+  Chosen suitor of my daughter,
+  Fairy Maiden of the Rainbow,
+  See the color of his eyeballs,
+  Whether they are blue or sable,
+  See if they are warm and faithful."
+
+  Quick the young lads from the village
+  Brought the fire upon the birch-bark,
+  Brought it on the tips of pine-wood;
+  And the fire and smoke commingled
+  Roll and roar about the hero,
+  Blackening the suitor's visage,
+  And the hostess speaks as follows:
+
+  "Bring the fire upon a taper,
+  On the waxen tapers bring it!"
+
+  Then the maidens did as bidden,
+  Quickly brought the lighted tapers,
+  Made the suitor's eyeballs glisten,
+  Made his cheeks look fresh and ruddy;
+  Eyes were neither blue nor sable,
+  Sparkled like the foam of waters,
+  Like the reed-grass on the margin,
+  Colored as the ocean-jewels,
+  Iridescent as the rainbow.
+
+  "Come, ye fellows from the hamlets,
+  Lead my son-in-law and hero
+  To the highest seat at table,
+  To the seat of greatest honor,
+  With his back upon the blue-wall,
+  Looking on my bounteous tables,
+  Facing all the guests of Northland."
+
+  Then the hostess of Pohyola
+  Served her guests in great abundance,
+  Richest drinks and rarest viands,
+  First of all she served the bridegroom;
+  On his platters honeyed biscuit,
+  And the sweetest river-salmon,
+  Seasoned butter, roasted bacon,
+  All the dainties of Pohyola.
+  Then the servants served the others,
+  Filled the plates of all invited
+  With the varied food of Northland.
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Come, ye maidens from the village,
+  Hither bring the beer in pitchers,
+  In the urns with double handles,
+  To the many guests in-gathered.
+  Ere all others, serve the bridegroom."
+
+  Thereupon the merry maidens
+  Brought the beer in silver pitchers
+  From the copper-banded vessels,
+  For the wedding guests assembled;
+  And the beer, fermenting, sparkled
+  On the beard of Ilmarinen,
+  On the beards of many heroes.
+
+  When the guests had all partaken
+  Of the wondrous beer of barley,
+  Spake the drink in merry accents
+  Through the tongues of the magicians,
+  Through the tongue of many a hero,
+  Through the tongue of Wainamoinen,
+  Famed to be the sweetest singer
+  Of the Northland bards and minstrels.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "Grant, O Ukko, my Creator,
+  God of love, and truth, and justice,
+  Grant thy blessing on our feasting,
+  Bless this company assembled,
+  For the good of Sariola,
+  For the happiness of Northland!
+  May this bread and beer bring joyance,
+  May they come in rich abundance,
+  May they carry full contentment
+  To the people of Pohyola,
+  To the cabin and the mansion;
+  May the hours we spend in singing,
+  In the morning, in the evening,
+  Fill our hearts with joy and gladness!
+  Hear us in our supplications,
+  Grant to us thy needed blessings,
+  Send enjoyment, health, and comfort,
+  To the people here assembled,
+  To the host and to the hostess,
+  To the bride and to the bridegroom,
+  To the sons upon the waters,
+  To the daughters at their weavings,
+  To the hunters on the mountains,
+  To the shepherds in the fenlands,
+  That our lives may end in honor,
+  That we may recall with pleasure
+  Ilmarinen's magic marriage
+  To the Maiden of the Rainbow,
+  Snow-white virgin of the Northland."
+
+      <i>Crawford's Translation, Rune XXI.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE BIRTH OF THE HARP.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Wainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and the wizard Lemminkainen started to the
+      Northland to win back the Sampo forged for Louhi by Ilmarinen. On the way
+      their boat stuck on the shoulders of a great pike, which was killed by
+      Wainamoinen. The three then landed, ordered the pike to be cooked by the
+      maidens, and feasted until nothing remained of the fish but a heap of
+      bones.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Looked upon the pile of fragments,
+  On the fish-bones looked and pondered,
+  Spake these words in meditation:
+
+  "Wondrous things might be constructed
+  From the relics of this monster,
+  Were they in the blacksmith's furnace,
+  In the hands of the magician,
+  In the hands of Ilmarinen."
+
+  Spake the blacksmith of Wainola:
+
+  "Nothing fine can be constructed
+  From the bones and teeth of fishes
+  By the skilful forger-artist,
+  By the hands of the magician."
+  These the words of Wainamoinen:
+
+  "Something wondrous might be builded
+  From these jaws, and teeth, and fish-bones;
+  Might a magic harp be fashioned,
+  Could an artist be discovered
+  That could shape them to my wishes."
+
+  But he found no fish-bone artist
+  That could shape the harp of joyance
+  From the relics of their feasting,
+  From the jaw-bones of the monster,
+  To the will of the magician.
+  Thereupon wise Wainamoinen
+  Set himself at work designing;
+  Quick became a fish-bone artist,
+  Made a harp of wondrous beauty,
+  Lasting joy and pride of Suomi.
+  Whence the harp's enchanting arches?
+  From the jaw-bones of the monster.
+  Whence the necessary harp-pins?
+  From the pike-teeth, firmly fastened.
+  Whence the sweetly singing harp-strings?
+  From the tail of Lempo's stallion.
+  Thus was born the harp of magic
+  From the mighty pike of Northland,
+  From the relics from the feasting
+  Of the heroes of Wainola.
+  All the young men came to view it,
+  All the aged with their children,
+  Mothers with their beauteous daughters,
+  Maidens with their golden tresses;
+  All the people on the islands
+  Came to view the harp of joyance,
+  Pride and beauty of the Northland.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Let the aged try the harp-strings,
+  Gave it to the young magicians,
+  To the dames and to their daughters,
+  To the maidens, silver-tinselled,
+  To the singers of Wainola.
+  When the young men touched the harp-strings,
+  Then arose the notes of discord;
+  When the aged played upon it,
+  Dissonance their only music.
+  Spake the wizard, Lemminkainen:
+
+  "O ye witless, worthless children,
+  O ye senseless, useless maidens,
+  O ye wisdom-lacking heroes,
+  Cannot play this harp of magic,
+  Cannot touch the notes of concord!
+  Give to me this thing of beauty,
+  Hither bring the harp of fish-bones,
+  Let me try my skillful fingers."
+  Lemminkainen touched the harp-strings,
+  Carefully the strings adjusted,
+  Turned the harp in all directions,
+  Fingered all the strings in sequence,
+  Played the instrument of wonder,
+  But it did not speak in concord,
+  Did not sing the notes of joyance.
+  Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
+
+  "There is none among these maidens,
+  None among these youthful heroes,
+  None among the old magicians,
+  That can play the harp of magic,
+  Touch the notes of joy and pleasure.
+  Let us take the harp to Pohya,
+  There to find a skillful player
+  That can touch the strings in concord."
+
+  Then they sailed to Sariola,
+  To Pohyola took the wonder,
+  There to find the harp a master.
+  All the heroes of Pohyola,
+  All the boys and all the maidens,
+  Ancient dames and bearded minstrels,
+  Vainly touched the harp of beauty.
+
+  Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
+  Took the harp-strings in her fingers;
+  All the youth of Sariola,
+  Youth of every tribe and station,
+  Vainly touched the harp of fish-bone;
+  Could not find the notes of joyance,
+  Dissonance their only pleasure;
+  Shrieked the harp-strings like the whirlwinds,
+  All the tones were harsh and frightful.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  The eternal wisdom-singer,
+  Laves his hands to snowy whiteness,
+  Sits upon the rock of joyance,
+  On the stone of song he settles,
+  On the mount of song he settles,
+  On the mount of silver clearness,
+  On the summit, golden colored,
+  Takes the harp by him created,
+  In his hands the harp of fish-bone,
+  With his knee the arch supporting,
+  Takes the harp-strings in his fingers,
+  Speaks these words to those assembled:
+
+  "Hither come, ye Northland people,
+  Come and listen to my playing,&mdash;
+  To the harp's entrancing measures,
+  To my songs of joy and gladness."
+
+  Then the singer of Wainola
+  Took the harp of his creation,
+  Quick adjusting, sweetly tuning,
+  Deftly plied his skillful fingers
+  To the strings that he had fashioned.
+  Now was gladness rolled on gladness,
+  And the harmony of pleasure
+  Echoed from the hills and mountains;
+  Added singing to his playing,
+  Out of joy did joy come welling,
+  Now resounded marvellous music,
+  All of Northland stopped and listened.
+  Every creature in the forest,
+  All the beasts that haunt the woodlands
+  On their nimble feet came bounding,
+  Came to listen to his playing,
+  Came to hear his songs of joyance.
+  Leaped the squirrels from the branches,
+  Merrily from birch to aspen;
+  Climbed the ermines on the fences,
+  O'er the plains the elk deer bounded,
+  And the lynxes purred with pleasure;
+  Wolves awoke in far-off swamp-lands,
+  Bounded o'er the marsh and heather,
+  And the bear his den deserted,
+  Left his lair within the pine-wood,
+  Settled by a fence to listen,
+  Leaned against the listening gate-posts,
+  But the gate-posts yield beneath him;
+  Now he climbs the fir-tree branches
+  That he may enjoy and wonder,
+  Climbs and listens to the music
+  Of the harp of Wainamoinen.
+
+  Tapiola's wisest senior,
+  Metsola's most noble landlord,
+  And of Tapio, the people,
+  Young and aged, men and maidens,
+  Flew like red-deer up the mountains
+  There to listen to the playing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Tapiola's wisest mistress,
+  Hostess of the glen and forest,
+  Robed herself in blue and scarlet,
+  Bound her limbs with silken ribbons,
+  Sat upon the woodland summit,
+  On the branches of a birch-tree,
+  There to listen to the playing,
+  To the high-born hero's harping,
+  To the songs of Wainamoinen.
+
+  All the birds that fly in mid-air
+  Fell like snow-flakes from the heavens,
+  Flew to hear the minstrel's playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Eagles in their lofty eyrie
+  Heard the songs of the enchanter;
+  Swift they left their unfledged young ones,
+  Flew and perched around the minstrel.
+  From the heights the hawks descended,
+  From the clouds down swooped the falcon,
+  Ducks arose from inland waters,
+  Swans came gliding from the marshes;
+  Tiny finches, green and golden,
+  Flew in flocks that darkened sunlight,
+  Came in myriads to listen,
+  Perched upon the head and shoulders
+  Of the charming Wainamoinen,
+  Sweetly singing to the playing
+  Of the ancient bard and minstrel.
+  And the daughters of the welkin,
+  Nature's well-beloved daughters,
+  Listened all in rapt attention;
+  Some were seated on the rainbow,
+  Some upon the crimson cloudlets,
+  Some upon the dome of heaven.
+
+  In their hands the Moon's fair daughters
+  Held their weaving-combs of silver;
+  In their hands the Sun's sweet maidens
+  Grasped the handles of their distaffs,
+  Weaving with their golden shuttles,
+  Spinning from their silver spindles,
+  On the red rims of the cloudlets,
+  On the bow of many colors.
+  As they hear the minstrel playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
+  Quick they drop their combs of silver,
+  Drop the spindles from their fingers,
+  And the golden threads are broken,
+  Broken are the threads of silver.
+
+  All the fish in Suomi-waters
+  Heard the songs of the magician,
+  Came on flying fins to listen
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Came the trout with graceful motions,
+  Water-dogs with awkward movements,
+  From the water-cliffs the salmon,
+  From the sea-caves came the whiting,
+  From the deeper caves the bill-fish;
+  Came the pike from beds of sea-fern,
+  Little fish with eyes of scarlet,
+  Leaning on the reeds and rushes,
+  With their heads above the surface;
+  Came to hear the harp of joyance,
+  Hear the songs of the enchanter.
+
+  Ahto, king of all the waters,
+  Ancient king with beard of sea-grass,
+  Raised his head above the billows,
+  In a boat of water-lilies,
+  Glided to the coast in silence,
+  Listened to the wondrous singing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  These the words the sea-king uttered:
+
+  "Never have I heard such playing,
+  Never heard such strains of music,
+  Never since the sea was fashioned,
+  As the songs of this enchanter,
+  This sweet singer, Wainamoinen."
+
+  Satko's daughters from the blue-deep,
+  Sisters of the wave-washed ledges,
+  On the colored strands were sitting,
+  Smoothing out their sea-green tresses
+  With the combs of molten silver,
+  With their silver-handled brushes,
+  Brushes forged with golden bristles.
+  When they hear the magic playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
+  Fall their brushes on the billows,
+  Fall their combs with silver handles
+  To the bottom of the waters,
+  Unadorned their heads remaining,
+  And uncombed their sea-green tresses.
+
+  Came the hostess of the waters,
+  Ancient hostess robed in flowers,
+  Rising from her deep sea-castle,
+  Swimming to the shore in wonder,
+  Listened to the minstrel's playing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  As the magic tones re-echoed,
+  As the singer's song outcircled,
+  Sank the hostess into slumber,
+  On the rocks of many colors,
+  On her watery couch of joyance,
+  Deep the sleep that settled o'er her.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Played one day and then a second,
+  Played the third from morn to even.
+  There was neither man nor hero,
+  Neither ancient dame nor maiden,
+  Not in Metsola a daughter,
+  Whom he did not touch to weeping;
+  Wept the young and wept the aged,
+  Wept the mothers, wept the daughters,
+  At the music of his playing,
+  At the songs of the magician.
+      <i>Crawford's Translation, Runes XL.-XLI.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE AENEID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid was written by Publius Vergilius Maro, commonly known as
+      Vergil, who was born at Andes, near Mantua, Oct. 15, 70 B. C., and died at
+      Brundusium, Sept. 22, 19 B.C.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was educated at Cremona, Milan, Naples, and Rome. When the lands near
+      Cremona and Mantua were assigned by Octavianus to his soldiers after the
+      battle of Philippi, Vergil lost his estates; but they were afterwards
+      restored to him through Asinius Pollio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He became a favorite of Augustus, and spent part of his time in Rome, near
+      his patron, Maecenas, the emperor's minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vergil's first work was the Bucolics, in imitation of Theocritus. His
+      second work, the Georgics, treats of husbandry. The Aeneid relates the
+      adventures of Aeneas, the legendary ancestor of the Romans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid is in twelve books, of which the first six describe the
+      wanderings of Aeneas, and the last six his wars in Italy. Its metre is the
+      dactyllic hexameter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vergil worked for eleven years on the poem, and considered it incomplete
+      at his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid tells the story of the flight of Aeneas from burning Troy to
+      Italy, and makes him an ancestor of the Romans. With the story of his
+      wanderings are interwoven praises of the Caesars and the glory of Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is claimed that because Vergil was essentially a poet of rural life, he
+      was especially fitted to be the national poet, since the Roman life was
+      founded on the agricultural country life. He also chose a theme which
+      particularly appealed to the patriotism of the Romans. For this reason,
+      the poem was immediately received into popular favor, and was made a
+      text-book of the Roman youths. It is often said of Vergil by way of
+      reproach, that his work was an imitation of Homer, and the first six books
+      of the Aeneid are compared to the Odyssey, the last six to the Iliad. But
+      while Vergil may be accused of imitation of subject matter, his style is
+      his own, and is entirely different from that of Homer. There is a tender
+      grace in the Roman writer which the Greek does not possess. Vergil also
+      lacks that purely pagan enjoyment of life; in its place there is a tender
+      melancholy that suggests the passing of the golden age. This difference of
+      treatment, this added grace and charm, which are always mentioned as
+      peculiarly Vergil's own, united with his poetical feeling, and skill in
+      versification, are sufficient to absolve him from the reproach of a mere
+      imitator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid was greatly admired and imitated during the Middle Ages, and
+      still retains its high place in literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL6" id="link2H_BIBL6"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE AENEID.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      R. W. Brown's History of Roman Classical Literature, n. d., pp. 257-265;
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      John Alfred Church's Story of the Aeneid, 1886;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Domenico Comparetti's Virgil in the Middle Ages, Tr. by Benecke, 1895;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      C. T. Cruttwell's Virgil (see his History of Roman Literature, n. d. pp.
+      252-375);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Davis's Observations on the poems of Homer and Virgil, out of the
+      French, 1672;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      James Henry's Aeneidea: or Critical, Exegetical, and Aesthetical Remarks
+      on the Aeneis, 1873;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      James Henry's Notes of Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery in the first six
+      Books of the Aeneid, 1853;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. W. Mackail's Virgil (see his Latin Literature, 1895, pp. 91-106);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      H. Nettleship's The Aeneid (see his Vergil, 1880, pp. 45-74);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      H. T. Peck and R. Arrowsmith's Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse, 1894,
+      pp. 68-70;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonhard Schmitz's History of Latin Literature, 1877, pp. 106-108;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. Y. Sellar's Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, Vergil, Ed. 2, 1883;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. S. Teuffel's Aeneis (see his History of Roman Literature, 1891, pp.
+      434-439);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. S. Tunison's Master Virgil, the author of the Aeneid, as he seemed in
+      the Middle Ages, 1888;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert Y. Tyrrell's Virgil (see his Latin Poetry, 1895, pp. 126-161);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Forgotten Virtue, Macmillan, 1895, xii. 51-56, an article on the Aeneid,
+      "the epic of piety;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scene of the last six books of the Aeneid, Blackwood, 1832, xxxii. 76-87;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. A. Knight's The Year in the Aeneid, Education, 1886, vi. 612-616;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William C. Cawton's The Underworld in Homer, Virgil, and Dante, Atlantic,
+      1884, liv. 99-110.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE AENEID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid, Tr. by J. Conington, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid, Tr. by C. P. Cranch, 1872;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid, Tr. by John Dryden (1697), 1884;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid, Tr. by William Morris, 1882;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid, Tr. by W. S. Thornhill, 1886;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid, Tr. by J. A. Wilstach, 1884;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aeneid, Tr. by J. W. Mackail, 1890.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE AENEID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For many years the heroic Aeneas, who escaped from falling Troy to seek
+      the shores of Italy, there to found the lofty walls of Rome, was tossed
+      upon the sea by the wrath of cruel Juno.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fates foretold that these future Romans would overthrow a city dearer
+      to her than Samos,&mdash;Carthage, founded by the Tyrians, opposite Italy,
+      and far from the Tiberine mouths. For this rich city Juno desired
+      boundless rule,&mdash;hence her hatred of the Trojans. Moreover, she had
+      not forgotten the judgment of Paris, her slighted charms, and the
+      supplanting of Hebe by Ganymede.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After having tossed the unhappy hero and his men over many seas, Juno,
+      observing their approach to Italy, hastened to Aeolia, where King Aeolus
+      ruled over the struggling winds and tempests, chained in vast caves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bribed by Juno, Aeolus sent forth a tempest that scattered the ships of
+      Aeneas, and would have destroyed them had it not been for the
+      interposition of Neptune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suspecting his sister's treachery, Neptune angrily dismissed the winds,
+      and hastened to the relief of the Trojans. Cymothoë and Triton pushed the
+      ships from the rocks, he himself assisting with his trident. Then, driving
+      over the rough waves in his chariot, he soothed the frenzy of the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wearied Aeneans speedily sought a harbor on the Libyan shore, a long
+      and deep recess bordered by a dense grove. In the cliffs was a cave, with
+      sweet waters and seats carved from the living rock,&mdash;the abode of the
+      nymphs. Gathering here the seven ships that survived the fury of the
+      storm, Aeneas landed, and feasted with his comrades.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning Aeneas, accompanied by his friend Achates, sallied forth
+      from the camp at dawn, to learn, if possible, something of the land on
+      which they had been thrown. They had gone but a little way in the depths
+      of the forest when they met Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the guise of a
+      Spartan maid, her bow hung from her shoulders, her hair flowing to the
+      wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hast thou seen my sister?" she inquired, "hunting the boar, wrapped in a
+      spotted lynx hide, her quiver at her back?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nay, we have seen no one," replied Aeneas. "But what shall I call thee,
+      maiden? A goddess, a nymph? Be kind, I pray thee, and tell us among what
+      people we have fallen, that before thy altars we may sacrifice many a
+      victim."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am unworthy of such honors," Venus answered. "This land is Libya, but
+      the town is Tyrian, founded by Dido, who fled hither from her brother
+      Pygmalion, who had secretly murdered her husband, Sichaeus, for his gold.
+      To Dido, sleeping, appeared the wraith of Sichaeus, pallid, his breast
+      pierced with the impious wound, and revealed to her her brother's crime,
+      showed where a hoard of gold was concealed, and advised her to leave the
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gathering together a company of those who wished to flee from the tyrant,
+      Dido seized the ships, loaded them with the gold, and fled to Libya, where
+      she is now erecting the walls and towers of New Carthage. I would advise
+      thee to hasten forward and seek our queen. If augury fail me not, I read
+      from yonder flight of swans the return of thy missing ships and comrades."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she turned to go, her neck shone with a rosy refulgence, ambrosial
+      fragrance breathed from her, her robe flowed down about her feet and
+      revealed the goddess. As she vanished, her son stretched longing hands
+      after her. "Ah, mother, why dost thou thus trifle with me? Why may not I
+      clasp thy loved hands and exchange true words with thee?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrapped in a cloud by Venus, Aeneas and Achates mounted a hill that
+      overlooked the city, and looked down wondering on the broad roofs and the
+      paved streets of Carthage. The busy Tyrians worked like the bees in early
+      summer: some moving the immense masses of stone, some founding the
+      citadel, others laying off the sites for the law courts and sacred Senate
+      House. "O happy ye whose walls now rise!" exclaimed Aeneas, as he and
+      Achates mingled with the crowd, still cloud-wrapped, and entered the vast
+      temple built to Juno. Here Aeneas's fear fell from him; for as he waited
+      for the queen's coming, he saw pictured on the walls the fall of his own
+      dear city, and wept as he gazed upon the white tents of Rhesus, and
+      Hector's disfigured body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he wept, the beautiful Dido entered, joyously intent on her great work,
+      and, seating herself on her throne, proceeded to give laws to the Tyrians,
+      and assign their work to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, to the amazement of Aeneas and Achates, in burst their lost
+      comrades, Antheus, Sergestus, Gyas, Cloanthus, and other Trojans,
+      demanding of Dido a reason for their rough reception. To whom the queen
+      replied:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let fear desert your hearts; I, too, have suffered, and know how to aid
+      the unfortunate. And whither hath not the fame of Troy penetrated? I will
+      aid you in leaving this coast, or give you a home with me, treating you as
+      I treat my Tyrians. Would only that Aeneas's self stood with you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then burst Aeneas forth from his cloud-wrapping, made more beautiful by
+      Venus, the purple bloom of youth on his face, joy in his eyes. "Here am I,
+      Trojan Aeneas, to render thanks to thee, divine Dido."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dido, charmed with the hero, prepared a banquet for him in her splendid
+      hall, curtained with rich drapery, and adorned with costly plate, whereon
+      were pictured the proud deeds of her ancestors. Hither came the Trojans
+      with gifts for Dido,&mdash;a rich robe stiff with gold embroidery, a veil
+      embroidered with the yellow acanthus, ornaments of Helen, the sceptre of
+      Ilione, a pearl and gold necklace, and a double crown of gems and gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beside Achates tripped Cupid, for Venus, suspecting the craft of the
+      Tyrians, had hidden Ascanius on Mount Ida, and sent her own son in his
+      guise, to complete Aeneas's conquest of Dido.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the feast was over, the great beakers were brought in and crowned
+      with garlands. Dido called for the beaker used by Belus and all his
+      descendants, and pouring a libation, drank to the happiness of the Trojan
+      wanderers, and passed the cup around the board. Iopas, the long-haired
+      minstrel, sang, and the night passed by in various discourse. Dido,
+      forgetting Sichaeus, hung on the words of Aeneas, questioning him of Priam
+      and Hector, and at last demanding the story of his wanderings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou orderest me, O queen, to renew my grief, the destruction of Troy by
+      the Greeks, which deeds I have seen, and a part of which I have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Despairing of conquering Troy, the Greeks attempted to take it by
+      stratagem. By the art of Pallas, they framed a heaven-high horse, within
+      which were concealed picked men for our destruction. Leaving this behind
+      them, they sailed, ostensibly for home, in reality for Tenedos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When we supposed them gone we joyfully went forth to examine the deserted
+      camp and the giant horse. As we wondered at it, and Laocoön, priest of
+      Neptune, urged us to destroy it, a crowd of shepherds approached with a
+      youth whom they had found hiding in the sedges. His name was Sinon. He was
+      a Greek, but he was hated by Ulysses, and had fled to save his life. The
+      Greeks had sailed home, he assured us, leaving the horse as a votive
+      offering to Pallas. They had hoped that its great bulk would prevent the
+      Trojans from taking it inside their walls, for once within the city, Troy
+      could never be taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We Trojans were credulous, and Sinon's tale was plausible. To increase
+      our belief in it, while Laocoön was sacrificing a bull to Neptune, we saw
+      coming over the sea from Tenedos two huge serpents, their crimson crests
+      towering high, their breasts erect among the waves, their long folds
+      sweeping over the foaming sea. As we fled affrighted, they seized the two
+      sons of Laocoön, twining their coils around the wretched boys; and when
+      their father hastened to their aid, caught him in their huge coils,
+      staining his fillets with black blood. 'Laocoön suffered for his crime,'
+      we said, when, the priest slain, the serpents crept to Pallas's altar, and
+      curled themselves around the feet of the goddess. Then joyfully we made a
+      breach in the walls, put rollers under the horse, and, with music and
+      dancing, dragged it within the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That night as we lay sleeping after revelry and feasting, Sinon crept
+      down, opened the horse, and freed the men, who were soon joined by the
+      other Greeks, returned from Tenedos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In a dream Hector's shade appeared to me, and, weeping, bade me fly.
+      'Troy falls. Do thou go forth and save her household deities!' As I woke,
+      sounds of battle penetrated to my palace halls, removed somewhat from the
+      city, and embowered in trees; and I rushed forth, forgetful of Hector's
+      warning. I saw the streets swimming in Trojan blood, Trojan women and
+      children led captive, Cassandra dragged from her shrine. Enraged, I
+      gathered a band and slew many Greeks. But when I saw the impious Pyrrhus
+      enter the palace and slay Priam at the altar, I recognized the uselessness
+      of my struggle, and turned to my home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Taking my old father Anchises on my back, and leading Iulus by the hand,
+      I set forth, followed by my wife Creusa. But when I looked behind me at
+      the city gates, my wife was gone. Mad with despair, I rushed back to the
+      citadel, crying, 'Creusa! Creusa!' Our homestead was in flames, the
+      streets filled with Greeks; but as I roamed through the town, I met her
+      pallid shape. 'O husband, rage not against heaven's decrees! Happy days
+      will come for thee on the banks of the Tiber. Farewell, and love with me
+      our boy!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Without the gates I was joined by other fugitives; and after the
+      departure of the Greeks we built ships from the timbers of Mount Ida, and
+      loading these with our household gods and a few spoils from the city, we
+      departed to seek new homes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In Thrace, our first stopping-place, I learned that Polydore, Priam's
+      son, who had been entrusted to the care of the Thracian king, had been
+      slain by him for his gold, when the fortunes of Troy fell. We hastened to
+      leave this accursed land, and sought Delos, only to be instructed by
+      Apollo that we must seek the home from which our forefathers had come.
+      Anchises, who remembered the legends of our race, thought this must be
+      Crete; so to Crete we sailed, and there laid the foundations of a city,
+      only to be driven thence by a plague and a threatened famine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In a dream my household gods instructed me that Dardanus, the founder of
+      our race, had come from Hesperia, and thither we must bend our course.
+      Tempests drove us about the sea for three suns, until, on the fourth, we
+      landed at the isle of the Harpies,&mdash;loathsome monsters, half woman,
+      half bird, who foul everything they touch. When we had slain the cattle
+      and prepared to banquet, they drove us from the tables; and when attacked
+      by us, uttered dire threats of future famine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At Epirus we heard that Andromache had wed Prince Helenus, who had
+      succeeded to the rule of Pyrrhus, two Trojans thus being united. As I
+      landed here, anxious to prove the truth of the rumor, I met Andromache
+      herself in a grove near the town, sacrificing at an empty tomb dedicated
+      to Hector. Pyrrhus had made her his slave after the fall of Troy, but
+      after he wedded Hermione, he had given her to Helenus, himself a slave.
+      When Pyrrhus died, part of his realm fell to Helenus, and here the two had
+      set up a little Troy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Helenus received us kindly, instructed us as to our route, and gave us
+      rich gifts; and Andromache, remembering her dead Astyanax, wept over lulus
+      as she parted with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As we passed Sicily we took up a Greek, Achemenides, a companion of
+      Ulysses, who had been left behind, and had since been hiding in deadly
+      terror from the Cyclops. We ourselves caught sight of the monster
+      Polyphemus, feeling his way to the shore to bathe his wounded eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Instructed by Helenus, we avoided Scylla and Charybdis, and reached
+      Sicily, where my father died. We were just leaving the island when the
+      storm arose that brought us hither. The rest thou knowest."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guests departed from the banquet hall; but the unhappy Dido, consumed
+      with love, imparted her secret to her sister Anna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why shouldst thou weep, sister dear? Why regret that thou hast at last
+      forgotten Sichaeus? Contend not against love, but strive to unite Trojan
+      and Tyrian. Winter comes on, and thou canst detain him while the sea rages
+      and the winds are fierce and the rains icy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her ambitious plans for her city forgotten, Dido wandered through the
+      streets, mad with love and unable to conceal her passion. She led Ćneas
+      among the walls and towers, made feasts for him, and begged again and
+      again to hear the story of his wandering. At other times she fondled
+      Ascanius, leaving her youths undrilled, and the city works abandoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perceiving that Aeneas, well content, seemed to forget that his goal was
+      Hesperia, Mercury was dispatched by Jupiter to warn him to depart from
+      Carthage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why stoppest thou here?" questioned the herald of the gods. "If thou
+      carest not for thyself, think of Ascanius, thine heir. His must be the
+      Italian realms, the Roman world."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The horror-stricken Aeneas stood senseless with fear. He longed to escape,
+      but how leave the unhappy Dido? Quickly calling his comrades, he commanded
+      them to fit out the fleet in silence, hoping to find a time when he could
+      break the news to Dido gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But who can deceive a lover? Rumor bore the report to Dido, who, mad with
+      grief, reproached Aeneas. "Perfidious one! didst thou think to escape from
+      me? Does not our love restrain thee, and the thought that I shall surely
+      die when thou art gone? I have sacrificed all to thee; now leave me not
+      lonely in my empty palace."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aeneas remained untouched. He would ever retain the kindest memories of
+      his stay in Carthage. He had never held out the hope of wedlock to her. A
+      higher power called him, and, bidden by Jove, he must depart, for
+      Ascanius's sake, to Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fainting Dido was carried to her palace, whence she could watch the
+      hurried preparations for the departure. As she watched, life became
+      intolerable to her. Pretending to her sister that she was preparing to
+      perform a magic spell to release her from the bonds of love, she reared a
+      mighty pyre in her court, wreathed it with funereal garlands, and placed
+      thereon Aeneas's couch, garments, and sword. With her hair dishevelled,
+      she then invoked Hecate, and sprinkling Avernian water and poisons on it,
+      and casting thereon various love charms, she called the gods to witness
+      that she was determined to die. As the ships left the harbor, she tore her
+      hair, one moment accusing herself because she had not torn Aeneas to
+      pieces when in her power, at another vowing to follow him. Then, anxious
+      to forget her grief, she mounted, the pyre, and threw herself on the sword
+      of her faithless, lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far out at sea, the Aeneans, looking back, dimly guessed the meaning of
+      the flames that brightened the stormy skies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Contrary winds compelled Aeneas to seek harbor in Sicily. Its king,
+      Acestes, was his friend, and there he had buried his father Anchises. A
+      year had elapsed since his death, and in honor of the anniversary, Aeneas
+      instituted funeral games, in which there were trials of skill in rowing,
+      foot-racing, archery, and boxing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the spectators were applauding the feats of skill, the Trojan women,
+      at the instigation of Juno, set fire to the ships, that they might compel
+      Aeneas to remain in Sicily. By Jupiter's aid, some of the vessels were
+      saved, and Aeneas, acting on the advice of Nautes, allowed the women and
+      those Trojans who so desired, to remain in Sicily, and himself marked out
+      for them the foundations of their city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While here Aeneas was urged by Anchises in a dream to visit the Cumaean
+      Sibyl, that, with her assistance, he might visit Elysium and talk with
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the lofty temple, the Sibyl, inspired by the god, encouraged the hero.
+      "Success will at last be thine, and Juno will be won over to thee. But
+      great labors must thou undergo."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To visit the underworld was no easy task, she assured him. "The gates of
+      Dis stand open night and day; small trouble it is to descend thereto, but
+      to retrace one's steps, and regain the upper air, there lies the toil."
+      Aeneas must first possess a golden branch to present to Proserpina, and
+      celebrate the funeral rites of his friend, Misenus, who yet lay unburied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Aeneas worked in the forest, felling trees for Misenus's bier, the
+      doves of Venus descended and aided him to find the tree, from which he
+      plucked the gleaming branch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the Styx, past the dread Cerberus, Aeneas and the Sibyl went,
+      through the abode of babes and those who died for deeds they did not do,
+      and into the mourning fields, where the disappointed in love were hedged
+      in with myrtle sprays. Here Aeneas descried Dido dimly through the clouds,
+      and wept to see her fresh wound. Many were his protestations of his
+      faithfulness, and strong his declaration that he left her only at the
+      command of the gods. But without raising her eyes, Dido turned coldly away
+      to where her former husband returned her love for love. Past the chamber
+      of torture, beyond Phlegethon, guarded by Tisiphone and Tartarus, in whose
+      depths the wicked were punished, they went, and entered the beautiful
+      fields of Elysium, where Aeneas found his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To his son, Anchises explained that the souls that visited the underworld
+      were punished according to their deserts, and then sent into Elysium.
+      Cleansed there of all impurities, and with the memories of the past washed
+      from them by Lethe, they again visited the world in another form. Pointing
+      out a crowd that passed them, he indicated to Aeneas the illustrious men
+      who would make his race famous in Italy. First his son Silvius, born of
+      Lavinia, his Italian wife to be; Numitor, Romulus, the founder of Rome,
+      Caesar, and greatest of all, Augustus Caesar, who would usher in the
+      golden age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Comforted by the prophecies of Anchises, Aeneas sought the upper world,
+      and collecting his companions, set sail for the mouth of the Tiber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Latinus the king welcomed Aeneas, and received his proposals for his
+      daughter Lavinia's hand with favor, remembering an ancient prophecy that
+      Lavinia was to wed a foreign prince. But queen Amata, aroused by Juno,
+      insisted that Lavinia should be espoused to Turnus, chief of the
+      Rutulians. Stung by the fury Alecto, she stirred up the people until they
+      demanded that Latinus declare war against Aeneas; and when he hesitated,
+      Juno herself threw open the gates of the temple of Janus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving part of his forces in Latium with Ascanius, Aeneas, instructed in
+      a dream by father Tiber, sailed up the river to Pallanteum, the future
+      site of Rome, to gain the alliance of Evander, an Arcadian king unfriendly
+      to Turnus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evander, who was celebrating a solemn feast to Hercules, together with his
+      only son Pallas, and his senate, welcomed the warriors to his modest home,
+      promised his alliance, and sent forth with Aeneas his son Pallas and four
+      hundred knights. He also advised him to go to Argylla, whose people were
+      stirred up against Turnus because he protected their tyrant king
+      Mezentius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Aeneas was thus seeking allies, his troops in Latium had been
+      attacked and besieged by Turnus, and were greatly in need of the hero's
+      aid. While the hosts of Turnus were sleeping after their drunken revelry,
+      Nisus proposed to his beloved Euryalus that they steal through the Latin
+      line with messages to Aeneas. Their proposal was applauded by the elders,
+      and Iulus, weeping, promised to cherish them forever for their courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the youths passed among the sleeping Latins, the desire for slaughter
+      overcame them, and they slew Rhamnes, as he lay upon his gorgeous rugs,
+      Lamus, and many others, Euryalus taking Rhamnes's golden-studded belt and
+      Messapus's helmet as booty. Unfortunately they had delayed too long in
+      slaughter; as they neared the camp of Turnus, Volscens, returning with
+      reinforcements, caught sight of the shining helmet of Euryalus. The youth,
+      flying, became separated from Nisus, and was captured by the enemy. Nisus,
+      who returned to rescue his friend, sent weapon after weapon from his
+      retreat, and when he saw Euryalus about to suffer death from Volscens,
+      rushed forth to save him, only to fall dead upon the body of his
+      slaughtered friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angry at the slaughter committed by Nisus and Euryalus, Turnus, on his
+      return, attempted to scale the intrenchments. The fight raged fiercely
+      around the walls and towers; but just as the victory seemed to be with
+      Turnus, Aeneas returned with his Tuscan allies, effected a landing, and
+      began to put the enemy to flight, slaying the tyrant Mezentius and his
+      son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turnus, hearing of the danger of his friend Lausus, at the hands of
+      Pallas, who had already wrought great slaughter, sought him out, amazing
+      the young warrior by his great size. Pallas faced him bravely; but while
+      his spear only grazed the shoulder of Turnus, the spear of the Rutulian
+      crushed the folds of iron, bronze, and hides, the corselet's rings of
+      steel, and buried itself in Pallas's breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turnus took the sword-belt from Pallas's body; but because of the merit of
+      the young warrior, yielded his body to the Arcadians to be carried to King
+      Evander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enraged at the death of his friend, Aeneas fought more fiercely.
+      Especially anxious was he to meet Turnus; but Juno, determined, if
+      possible, to save her favorite, decoyed Turnus off the battle-field by
+      assuming the guise of Aeneas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a truce, during which the armies buried their dead, and the body of
+      Pallas was sent home to his father, the armies again came together, the
+      Latins being reinforced by the Amazons, under the leadership of Camilla.
+      Camilla had been reared by her father, the exile Metabus, and, early
+      trained to warlike pursuits, had consecrated herself to Diana. Beautiful
+      as a goddess was she, and so light of foot that she could fly over the
+      tops of the tallest wheat without harming the ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within the walls of Latium there was quarrelling between the parties,
+      Drances, leader of the peace party, accusing Turnus of bringing on and
+      continuing the hostilities. The approach of Aeneas brought these disputes
+      to an abrupt conclusion, and Camilla, with Turnus, hastened to battle.
+      Many victims fell by Camilla's hand that day, as she rode about the field,
+      her breast bare, her hand clasping her double battle-axe, before Aruns
+      struck her down and fled, frightened at his victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Latium the unhappiness increased, and Turnus, enraged at the reproaches
+      heaped upon him, declared that he would decide the war by single combat
+      with Aeneas. Latinus made no secret of his regret at having been compelled
+      to break his compact with Aeneas; but Amata, still furious, raged against
+      Aeneas, and declared that she would die if he were made her son-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The preparations were made for the single combat, the sacrifices at the
+      altars, the crowds assembled to witness the combat; but just as the kings
+      were solemnizing the agreement, Turnus's sister, Juturna, a river goddess,
+      beloved of Jupiter, renewed the hostilities that Turnus might be saved. A
+      weapon hurled from the Latin ranks caused the indignant Trojans to rise in
+      arms, forgetful of the treaty, and the fight raged more fiercely than
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Juturna, fearful from Juno's words of the fate of Turnus, assumed the
+      guise of Metiscus, his charioteer, and drove her brother over the field
+      far from the angry Aeneas, who, weary of waiting for Turnus, turned
+      towards Latium. The frightened people rushed hither and thither, and the
+      queen, seeing the approaching foe, the roofs in flames, and no troops of
+      Turnus in sight, supposed the Rutulian dead, and hanged herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, Turnus, remote from the fight, reproached his sister.
+      "Think'st thou not I recognized thee? Thy deceit is in vain. Is to die so
+      wretched a thing? Let us go to the battle. At least, I will die not
+      unworthy of my ancestry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, Saces, wounded and bleeding, rushed to him, imploring:
+      "Turnus, have pity on us; come to our rescue! The Latins call thee, the
+      queen is dead, the phalanxes crowd thick around the gates, while thou
+      drivest idly here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turnus, amazed, confused, and shamed, saw flames consuming the towers of
+      Latium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, sister, the fates control. Desist! It is too late, I will be shamed
+      no more!" Leaping from his chariot, he rushed forward, demanding that war
+      cease in order that he and Aeneas might decide the battle in single
+      combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Turnus's sword broke on the helmet of Aeneas,&mdash;the sword of his
+      charioteer, that he had seized by mistake instead of his own Styx-hardened
+      blade,&mdash;he turned and fled, Aeneas pursuing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above, in Olympus, Jupiter and Juno quarrelled, as they watched the heroes
+      circling over the yellow sand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Give over thy enmity," said the omnipotent father. "Thou hast caused the
+      treaty to be violated; even now thou hast made Juturna return the lost
+      sword to Turnus&mdash;in vain. Grieve no more, and goad no longer these
+      suffering men of Troy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Juno yielded, stipulating only that the Trojans lay aside their
+      ancient name, that Latium remain Latium, and the future growth Roman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Juturna, warned by Jove's messenger, a bird of evil omen, tore her locks
+      and beat her breast, regretting the gift of immortality conferred on her
+      by Jove. Then wrapping her gray veil about her, she fled to her watery
+      throne that she might not see the death of her brother. The frightened
+      Turnus, still fleeing from Aeneas, abandoned his sword and took up instead
+      a mighty rock, a landmark such as scarce six men could uplift.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hurling this at Aeneas, he stood, his blood running chill, his eyes cast
+      towards the Rutuli, the town, and the spear of Aeneas, that, shrieking
+      through the air, doom laden, wrecked his heavy shield and pierced his
+      thigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mercy!" he prayed. "Fate hath given thee the advantage. Think, thou
+      duteous son, of my old father, Daunus."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Aeneas stood, softened, and ready to grant the request, the sword-belt
+      of Pallas caught his eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shalt thou escape, decked out with Pallas's spoils? No, not I slay thee,
+      but Pallas! His hand immolates thee!" As he spoke he plunged his sword in
+      Turnus's breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chilly death came, and the warrior's spirit fled, groaning to the shades.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTION FROM THE AENEID.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      NISUS AND EURYALUS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      While Aeneas, finding the Latins hostile to him, sailed up the Tiber in
+      search of allies, the troops he left behind under Ascanius were attacked
+      by Turnus, and their slight fortifications besieged. They were sorely
+      pressed, and longed to be able to inform Aeneas of their need.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Nisus was guardian of the gate,
+  No bolder heart in war's debate,
+  The son of Hyrtacus, whom Ide
+  Sent, with his quiver at his side,
+  From hunting beasts in mountain brake
+  To follow in Aeneas' wake:
+  With him Euryalus, fair boy;
+  None fairer donned the arms of Troy;
+  His tender cheek as yet unshorn
+  And blossoming with youth new-born.
+  Love made them one in every thought:
+  In battle side by side they fought;
+  And now in duty at the gate
+  The twain in common station wait.
+  "Can it be Heaven," said Nisus then,
+  "That lends such warmth to hearts of men,
+  Or passion surging past control
+  That plays the god to each one's soul?
+  Long time, impatient of repose,
+  My swelling heart within me glows,
+  And yearns its energy to fling
+  On war, or some yet grander thing.
+  See there the foe, with vain hope flushed!
+  Their lights are scant, their stations hushed:
+  Unnerved by slumber and by wine
+  Their bravest chiefs are stretched supine.
+  Now to my doubting thought give heed
+  And listen where its motions lead.
+  Our Trojan comrades, one and all,
+  Cry loud, Aeneas to recall,
+  And where, they say, the men to go
+  And let him of our peril know?
+  Now if the meed I ask they swear
+  To give you&mdash;nay, I claim no share,
+  Content with bare renown&mdash;
+  Meseems, beside yon grassy heap
+  The way I well might find and keep,
+  To Pallanteum's town."
+  The youth returns, while thirst of praise
+  Infects him with a strange amaze:
+  "Can Nisus aim at heights so great,
+  Nor take his friend to share his fate?
+  Shall I look on, and let you go
+  Alone to venture 'mid the foe?
+  Not thus my sire Opheltes, versed
+  In war's rude toil, my childhood nursed,
+  When Argive terror filled the air
+  And Troy was battling with despair:
+  Nor such the lot my youth has tried,
+  In hardship ever at your side,
+  Since, great Aeneas' liegeman sworn,
+  I followed Fortune to her bourne:
+  Here, here within this bosom burns
+  A soul that mere existence spurns,
+  And holds the fame you seek to reap,
+  Though bought with life, were bought full cheap."
+
+  "Not mine the thought," brave Nisus said,
+  "To wound you with so base a dread:
+  So may great Jove, or whosoe'er
+  Marks with just eyes how mortals fare,
+  Protect me going, and restore
+  In triumph to your arms once more.
+  But if&mdash;for many a chance, you wis,
+  Besets an enterprise like this&mdash;
+  If accident or power divine
+  The scheme to adverse end incline,
+  Your life at least I would prolong:
+  Death does your years a deeper wrong.
+  Leave me a friend to tomb my clay,
+  Rescued or ransomed, which you may;
+  Or, e'en that boon should chance refuse,
+  To pay the absent funeral dues.
+  Nor let me cause so dire a smart
+  To that devoted mother's heart,
+  Who, sole of all the matron train,
+  Attends her darling o'er the main,
+  Nor cares like others to sit down
+  An inmate of Acestes' town."
+  He answers brief: "Your pleas are naught:
+  Firm stands the purpose of my thought:
+  Come, stir we: why so slow?"
+  Then calls the guards to take their place,
+  Moves on by Nisus, pace with pace,
+  And to the prince they go.
+  All other creatures wheresoe'er
+  Were stretched in sleep, forgetting care:
+  Troy's chosen chiefs in high debate
+  Were pondering o'er the reeling state,
+  What means to try, or whom to speed
+  To show Aeneas of their need.
+  There stand they, midway in the field,
+  Still hold the spear, still grasp the shield:
+  When Nisus and his comrade brave
+  With eager tones admittance crave;
+  The matter high; though time be lost,
+  The occasion well were worth the cost,
+  Iulus hails the impatient pair,
+  Bids Nisus what they wish declare.
+  Then spoke the youth: "Chiefs I lend your ears,
+  Nor judge our proffer by our years.
+  The Rutules, sunk in wine and sleep,
+  Have ceased their former watch to keep:
+  A stealthy passage have we spied
+  Where on the sea the gate opes wide:
+  The line of fires is scant and broke,
+  And thick and murky rolls the smoke.
+  Give leave to seek, in these dark hours,
+  Aeneas at Evander's towers,
+  Soon will you see us here again
+  Decked with the spoils of slaughtered men.
+  Nor strange the road: ourselves have seen
+  The city, hid by valleys green,
+  Just dimly dawning, and explored
+  In hunting all the river-board."
+  Out spoke Aletes, old and gray:
+  "Ye gods, who still are Ilium's stay,
+  No, no, ye mean not to destroy
+  Down to the ground the race of Troy,
+  When such the spirit of her youth,
+  And such the might of patriot truth."
+  Then, as the tears roll down his face,
+  He clasps them both in strict embrace:
+  "Brave warriors! what rewards so great,
+  For worth like yours to compensate?
+  From Heaven and from your own true heart
+  Expect the largest, fairest part:
+  The rest, and at no distant day,
+  The good Aeneas shall repay,
+  Nor he, the royal youth, forget
+  Through all his life the mighty debt."
+  "Nay, hear me too," Ascanius cried,
+  "Whose life is with my father's tied:
+  O Nisus! by the home-god powers
+  We jointly reverence, yours and ours,
+  The god of ancient Capys' line,
+  And Vesta's venerable shrine,
+  By these dread sanctions I appeal
+  To you, the masters of my weal;
+  Oh, bring me back my sire again!
+  Restore him, and I feel no pain.
+  Two massy goblets will I give;
+  Rich sculptures on the silver live;
+  The plunder of my sire,
+  What time he took Arisba's hold;
+  Two chargers, talents twain of gold,
+  A bowl beside of antique mould
+  By Dido brought from Tyre.
+  Then, too, if ours the lot to reign
+  O'er Italy by conquest ta'en,
+  And each man's spoil assign,&mdash;
+  Saw ye how Turnus rode yestreen,
+  His horse and arms of golden sheen?
+  That horse, that shield and glowing crest
+  I separate, Nisus, from the rest
+  And count already thine.
+  Twelve female slaves, at your desire,
+  Twelve captives with their arms entire,
+  My sire shall give you, and the plain
+  That forms Latinus' own domain.
+  But you, dear youth, of worth divine,
+  Whose blooming years are nearer mine,
+  Here to my heart I take, and choose
+  My comrade for whate'er ensues.
+  No glory will I e'er pursue,
+  Unmotived by the thought of you:
+  Let peace or war my state befall,
+  Thought, word, and deed, you share them all."
+  The youth replied: "No after day
+  This hour's fair promise shall betray,
+  Be fate but kind. Yet let me claim
+  One favor, more than all you name:
+  A mother in the camp is mine,
+  Derived from Priam's ancient line:
+  No home in Sicily or Troy
+  Has kept her from her darling boy.
+  She knows not, she, the paths I tread;
+  I leave her now, no farewell said;
+  By night and this your hand I swear,
+  A parent's tears I could not bear.
+  Vouchsafe your pity, and engage
+  To solace her unchilded age:
+  And I shall meet whate'er betide
+  By such assurance fortified."
+  With sympathy and tender grief
+  All melt in tears, Iulus chief,
+  As filial love in other shown
+  Recalled the semblance of his own:
+  And, "Tell your doubting heart," he cries,
+  "All blessings wait your high emprise:
+  I take your mother for my own,
+  Creusa, save in name alone,
+  Nor lightly deem the affection due
+  To her who bore a child like you.
+  Come what come may, I plight my troth
+  By this my head, my father's oath,
+  The bounty to yourself decreed
+  Should favoring gods your journey speed,
+  The same shall in your line endure,
+  To parent and to kin made sure."
+  He spoke, and weeping still, untied
+  A gilded falchion from his side,
+  Lycaon's work, the man of Crete,
+  With sheath of ivory complete:
+  Brave Mnestheus gives for Nisus' wear
+  A lion's hide with shaggy hair;
+  Aletes, old in danger grown,
+  His helmet takes, and gives his own.
+  Then to the gates, as forth they fare,
+  The band of chiefs with many a prayer
+  The gallant twain attends:
+  Iulus, manlier than his years,
+  Oft whispering, for his father's ears
+  Full many a message sends:
+  But be it message, be it prayer,
+  Alike 'tis lost, dispersed in air.
+
+  The trenches past, through night's deep gloom
+  The hostile camp they near:
+  Yet many a foe shall meet his doom
+  Or ere that hour appear.
+  There see they bodies stretched supine,
+  O'ercome with slumber and with wine;
+  The cars, unhorsed, are drawn up high;
+  'Twixt wheels and harness warriors lie,
+  With arms and goblets on the grass
+  In undistinguishable mass.
+  "Now," Nisus cried, "for hearts and hands:
+  This, this the hour our force demands.
+  Here pass we: yours the rear to mind,
+  Lest hostile arm be raised behind;
+  Myself will go before and slay,
+  While carnage opes a broad highway."
+  So whispers he with bated breath,
+  And straight begins the work of death
+  On Rhamnes, haughty lord;
+  On rugs he lay, in gorgeous heap,
+  From all his bosom breathing sleep,
+  A royal seer by Turnus loved:
+  But all too weak his seer-craft proved
+  To stay the rushing sword.
+  Three servants next the weapon found
+  Stretched 'mid their armor on the ground:
+  Then Remus' charioteer he spies
+  Beneath the coursers as he lies,
+  And lops his downdropt head;
+  The ill-starred master next he leaves,
+  A headless trunk, that gasps and heaves:
+  Forth spouts the blood from every vein,
+  And deluges with crimson rain,
+  Green earth and broidered bed.
+  Then Lamyrus and Lamus died,
+  Serranus, too, in youth's fair pride:
+  That night had seen him long at play:
+  Now by the dream-god tamed he lay:
+  Ah, had his play but matched the night,
+  Nor ended till the dawn of light!
+  So famished lion uncontrolled
+  Makes havoc through the teeming fold,
+  As frantic hunger craves;
+  Mangling and harrying far and near
+  The meek, mild victims, mute with fear,
+  With gory jaws he raves.
+  Nor less Euryalus performs:
+  The thirst of blood his bosom warms;
+  'Mid nameless multitudes he storms,
+  Herbesus, Fadus, Abaris kills
+  Slumbering and witless of their ills,
+  While Rhoetus wakes and sees the whole,
+  But hides behind a massy bowl.
+  There, as to rise the trembler strove,
+  Deep in his breast the sword he drove,
+  And bathed in death withdrew.
+  The lips disgorge the life's red flood,
+  A mingled stream of wine and blood:
+  He plies his blade anew.
+  Now turns he to Messapus' band,
+  For there the fires he sees
+  Burnt out, while coursers hard at hand
+  Are browsing at their ease,
+  When Nisus marks the excess of zeal,
+  The maddening fever of the steel,
+  And checks him thus with brief appeal:
+  "Forbear we now; 't will soon be day:
+  Our wrath is slaked, and hewn our way."
+  Full many a spoil they leave behind
+  Of solid silver thrice refined,
+  Armor and bowls of costliest mould
+  And rugs in rich confusion rolled.
+  A belt Euryalus puts on
+  With golden knobs, from Rhamnes won,
+  Of old by Caedicus 't was sent,
+  An absent friendship to cement,
+  To Remulus, fair Tibur's lord,
+  Who, dying, to his grandson left
+  The shining prize: the Rutule sword
+  In after days the trophy reft.
+  Athwart his manly chest in vain
+  He binds these trappings of the slain;
+  Then 'neath his chin in triumph laced
+  Messapus' helm, with plumage graced,
+  The camp at length they leave behind,
+  And round the lake securely wind.
+
+  Meanwhile a troop is on its way,
+  From Latium's city sped,
+  An offshoot from the host that lay
+  Along the host in close array,
+  Three hundred horsemen, sent to bring
+  A message back to Turnus, king,
+  With Volscens at their head.
+  Now to the camp they draw them nigh,
+  Beneath the rampart's height,
+  When from afar the twain they spy,
+  Still steering from the right;
+  The helmet through the glimmering shade
+  At once the unwary boy betrayed,
+  Seen in the moon's full light.
+  Not lost the sight on jealous eyes:
+  "Ho! stand! who are ye?" Volscens cries,
+  "Whence come, or whither tend?"
+  No movement deign they of reply,
+  But swifter to the forest fly,
+  And make the night their friend.
+  With fatal speed the mounted foes
+  Each avenue as with network close,
+  And every outlet bar.
+  It was a forest bristling grim
+  With shade of ilex, dense and dim:
+  Thick brushwood all the ground o'ergrew:
+  The tangled ways a path ran through,
+  Faint glimmering like a star.
+  The darkling boughs, the cumbering prey
+  Euryalus's flight delay:
+  His courage fails, his footsteps stray:
+  But Nisus onward flees;
+  No thought he takes, till now at last
+  The enemy is all o'erpast,
+  E'en at the grove, since Alban called,
+  Where then Latinus' herds were stalled:
+  Sudden he pauses, looks behind
+  In eager hope his friend to find:
+  In vain: no friend he sees.
+  "Euryalus, my chiefest care,
+  Where left I you, unhappy? where?
+  What clue may guide my erring tread
+  This leafy labyrinth back to thread?"
+  Then, noting each remembered track,
+  He thrids the wood, dim-seen and black.
+  Listening, he hears the horse-hoofs' beat,
+  The clatter of pursuing feet.
+  A little moment&mdash;shouts arise,
+  And lo! Euryalus he spies,
+  Whom now the foemen's gathered throng
+  Is hurrying helplessly along.
+  While vain resistance he essays,
+  Trapped by false night and treacherous ways.
+  What should he do? what force employ
+  To rescue the beloved boy?
+  Plunge through the spears that line the wood,
+  And death and glory win with blood?
+  Not unresolved, he poises soon
+  A javelin, looking to the Moon:
+  "Grant, goddess, grant thy present aid,
+  Queen of the stars, Latonian maid,
+  The greenwood's guardian power;
+  If, grateful for success of mine,
+  With gifts my sire has graced thy shrine,
+  If e'er myself have brought thee spoil,
+  The tribute of my hunter's toil,
+  To ornament thy roof divine,
+  Or glitter on thy tower,
+  These masses give me to confound,
+  And guide through air my random wound."
+  He spoke, and hurled with all his might;
+  The swift spear hurtles through the night:
+  Stout Sulmo's back the stroke receives:
+  The wood, though snapped, the midriff cleaves.
+  He falls, disgorging life's warm tide,
+  And long-drawn sobs distend his side.
+  All gaze around: another spear
+  The avenger levels from his ear,
+  And launches on the sky.
+  Tagus lies pierced through temples twain,
+  The dart deep buried in his brain.
+  Fierce Volscens storms, yet finds no foe,
+  Nor sees the hand that dealt the blow,
+  Nor knows on whom to fly.
+  "Your heart's warm blood for both shall pay,"
+  He cries, and on his beauteous prey
+  With naked sword he sprang.
+  Scared, maddened, Nisus shrieks aloud:
+  No more he hides in night's dark shroud,
+  Nor bears the o'erwhelming pang:
+  "Me, guilty me, make me your aim,
+  O Rutules! mine is all the blame;
+  He did no wrong, nor e'er could do;
+  That sky, those stars attest 't is true;
+  Love for his friend too freely shown,
+  This was his crime, and this alone."
+  In vain he spoke: the sword, fierce driven,
+  That alabaster breast had riven.
+  Down falls Euryalus, and lies
+  In death's enthralling agonies:
+  Blood trickles o'er his limbs of snow;
+  "His head sinks gradually low":
+  Thus, severed by the ruthless plough,
+  Dim fades a purple flower:
+  Their weary necks so poppies bow,
+  O'erladen by the shower.
+  But Nisus on the midmost flies,
+  With Volscens, Volscens in his eyes:
+  In clouds the warriors round him rise,
+  Thick hailing blow on blow:
+  Yet on he bears, no stint, no stay,
+  Like thunderbolt his falchion's sway:
+  Till as for aid the Rutule shrieks
+  Plunged in his throat the weapon reeks:
+  The dying hand has reft away
+  The life-blood of its foe.
+  Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell
+  On the dead breast he loved so well.
+
+  Blest pair! if aught my verse avail,
+  No day shall make your memory fail
+  From off the heart of time,
+  While Capitol abides in place,
+  The mansion of the Aeneian race,
+  And throned upon that moveless base
+  Rome's father sits sublime.
+      <i>Conington's Translation, Book IX</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BEOWULF.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf, the only Anglo-Saxon epic preserved entire, was composed in
+      southwest Sweden probably before the eighth century, and taken to England,
+      where it was worked over and Christianized by the Northumbrian poets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is variously attributed to the fifth, seventh, and eighth centuries;
+      but the seventh is most probably correct, since the Higelac of the poem
+      has been identified with Chocilaicus of the "Gesta Regum Francorum," a
+      Danish king who invaded Gaul in the days of Theuderic, son of Clovis, and
+      died near the close of the sixth century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only manuscript of the poem in existence is thought to be of the tenth
+      century. It is preserved in the British Museum. Since 1837 much interest
+      has been manifested in the poem, and many editions of it have been given
+      to the public.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf contains three thousand one hundred and eighty-four lines. It is
+      written in alliterative verse. The lines are written in pairs, and each
+      perfect line contains three alliterating words,&mdash;two in the first
+      part, and one in the second.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unknown writer of Beowulf cannot be praised for his skill in
+      composition; the verse is rude, as was the language in which it was
+      written. But it is of the greatest interest to us because of the pictures
+      it gives of the everyday lives of the people whose heroic deeds it
+      relates,&mdash;the drinking in the mead-halls, the relation of the king to
+      his warriors, the description of the armor, the ships, and the halls. The
+      heroes are true Anglo-Saxon types,&mdash;bold, fearless, ready to go to
+      the assistance of any one in trouble, no matter how great the risk to
+      themselves; and as ready to drink mead and boast of their valor after the
+      peril is over. In spite of the attempt to Christianize the poem, it is
+      purely pagan; the most careless reader can discover the priestly
+      interpolations. And it has the greater value to us because it refused to
+      be moulded by priestly hands, but remained the rude but heroic monument of
+      our Saxon ancestors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL7" id="link2H_BIBL7"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, BEOWULF.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      B. Ten Brink's Early English Literature, Tr. by Kennedy;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      S. A. Brooke's History of Early English Literature, 1892, p. 12;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. F. Collier's History of English Literature, p. 19;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, 1871, pp.
+      382-398; in 1880 ed. pp. 189-201;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isaac Disraeli's Amenities of Literature, i. 65-73;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. Earle's Anglo-Saxon Literature;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      T. W. Hunt's Ethical Teaching in Beowulf (in his Ethical Teachings in Old
+      English Literature, 1892, pp. 66-77);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      H. Morley's English Writers, 1887, pp. 276-354;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      H. A. Taine's History of English Literature, 1886, i. 62;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      S. Turner's Anglo-Saxons, iii. 326; in ed. 3, i. 456;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. Harrison's Old Teutonic Life in Beowulf (in the Overland Monthly, July,
+      1894);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. A. March's The World of Beowulf (in Proceedings of American
+      Philological Association, 1882).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, BEOWULF.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf, edition with English translation, notes and glossary by Thomas
+      Arnold, 1876;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Deeds of Beowulf, 1892;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Garnett, 1882 (translated line for line);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf, Tr. by J. L. Hall, 1892, metrical translation;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Kemble, with copious glossary, preface, and
+      philological notes, 2 vols., 1833-37;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf translated into modern rhymes, by H. W. Lumsden, 1881;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beowulf, Tr. by Benjamin Thorpe, Literal translation, notes and glossary,
+      1875.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF BEOWULF.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A mighty man was Scyld, ruler of the Gar-Danes. From far across the
+      whale-path men paid him tribute and bore witness to his power. Beowulf was
+      his son, a youth endowed with glory, whose fame spread far and wide
+      through all the Danish land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the time came for Scyld to die he ordered his thanes to prepare the
+      ring-stemmed ship, laden with treasures, battle-weed, and swords, and
+      place him in the death-chamber. Laden with his people's gifts, and sailing
+      under a golden banner, he passed from sight, none knew whither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After him ruled Beowulf, and after him Healfdene,&mdash;brave warriors and
+      kind monarchs. When, after Healfdene's death, his son Hrothgar succeeded
+      him, his fame in war inclined all his kinsmen towards him, and he, too,
+      became a mighty monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the mind of Hrothgar it came to build a lordly mead-hall where he and
+      his men could find pleasure in feasting, drinking mead, and hearing the
+      songs of the minstrels. Heorot it was called, and when its high spires
+      rose glistening in the air, all hailed it with delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, alas! The joy in hall, the melody of the harp, and the shouts of the
+      warriors penetrated to the dismal fen where lay concealed the monster
+      Grendel, descendant of sin-cursed Cain. At night came Grendel to the hall,
+      found sleeping the troop of warriors, and bore away in his foul hands
+      thirty of the honored thanes. Great was the sorrow in Heorot when in the
+      morning twilight the deed of Grendel became known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For twelve long winters did this sorrow continue; for so long a time was
+      Hrothgar plunged in grief; for so many years did this beautiful mead-hall,
+      destined for joyful things, stand idle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While thus the grief-stricken lord of the Scyldings brooded over his
+      wrongs, and the people besought their idols vainly for aid, the tidings of
+      Grendel's ravages were conveyed to the court of the Gothic king, Higelac,
+      and thus reached the ears of a highborn thane, Beowulf. A strong man was
+      he, his grasp equal to that of thirty men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Straightway commanded he a goodly ship to be made ready, chose fifteen of
+      his bravest Goths, and swiftly they sailed over the swan-path to the great
+      headlands and bright sea-cliffs of the Scyldings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      High on the promontory stood the guard of Hrothgar. "What men be ye who
+      hither come?" cried he. "Not foes, surely. Ye know no pass word, yet
+      surely ye come on no evil errand. Ne'er saw I a greater lord than he who
+      leads the band. Who are ye?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Higelac's man am I," answered the leader. "Ecgtheow, my sire; my name,
+      Beowulf. Lead me, I pray thee, to thy lord, for I have come over seas to
+      free him forever from his secret foe, and to lift the cloud that hangs
+      over the stately mead-hall."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over the stone-paved streets the warder led the warriors, their armor
+      clanking, their boar-tipped helmets sparkling, to the goodly hall, Heorot.
+      There were they warmly welcomed, for Hrothgar had known Beowulf's sire;
+      the fame of the young man's strength had also reached him, and he trusted
+      that in his strong grasp Grendel should die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All took their seats on the mead-benches, and a thane passed from warrior
+      to warrior, bearing the chased wine-cup. Sweet was the minstrel's song,
+      and the warriors were happy in Heorot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hunferd sat at the banquet, and envious of Beowulf's fame, taunted him
+      with his swimming match with Breca. "Seven days and nights thou didst swim
+      with Breca; but he was stronger, and he won. Worse will befall thee, if
+      thou dar'st this night await Grendel!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Easy it is to brag of Breca's deeds when drunk with beer, friend
+      Hunferd!" replied Beowulf. "Seven days and nights I swam through the
+      sea-water, slaying the monsters of the deep. Rough was the wave, terrible
+      were the water beasts; but I reached the Finnish land. Wert thou as brave
+      as thou claim'st to be, Grendel would ne'er have wrought such havoc in thy
+      monarch's land."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Decked with gold, Queen Waltheow passed through the hall, greeted the
+      warriors, and proffered the mead-cup to Beowulf, thanking God that she had
+      found an earl who would deliver them from their enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When dusky night fell over Heorot, the king uprose. "To no other man have
+      I ever entrusted this hall of gold. Have now and keep it! Great reward
+      shall be thine if thou come forth alive!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knights left in the lordly hall composed themselves for slumber, all
+      save Beowulf, who, unarmed, awaited the coming of Grendel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came, with wrathful step and eyes aflame, bursting open the iron bolts
+      of the great door, and laughing at the goodly array of men sleeping before
+      him. On one he laid hands and drank his blood; then he clutched the
+      watchful Beowulf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ne'er had he found a foe like this! Fearful, he turned to flee to his home
+      in the fen, but the grip of Beowulf forbade flight. Strongly was Heorot
+      builded, but many a gilded mead-bench was torn from the walls as the two
+      combated within the hall. The sword blade was of no avail, and him must
+      Beowulf bring to death by the strength of his grip alone. At last, with a
+      scream that struck terror to every Dane's heart, the monster sprang from
+      Beowulf and fled, leaving in the warrior's grasp his arm and shoulder.
+      Great was Beowulf's joy, for he knew that the wound meant death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the king and queen came forth in the morning with their nobles and
+      maids, and saw the grisly arm of Grendel fastened upon the roof of Heorot,
+      they gave themselves up to rejoicing. Gifts were heaped upon Beowulf,&mdash;a
+      golden crest, a banner bright, a great and goodly sword and helm and
+      corselet, eight steeds with headstalls ornamented with gold plate, and a
+      richly decorated saddle. Nor were his comrades forgotten, but to each were
+      given rich gifts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the mead-hall had been cleansed and refitted, they gathered therein
+      and listened to the song of the bard who told how Healfdene's knight,
+      Hnćf, smote Finn. The song over, the queen, crowned with gold, gave gifts
+      to Beowulf, the liberator from the horrors of Grendel,&mdash;two armlets,
+      a necklace, raiment, and rings. When the drinking and feasting were over,
+      the king and Beowulf withdrew, leaving many earls to keep the hall. Little
+      guessed they that one of them was that night doomed to die!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The haunt of Grendel was a mile-wide mere. Around it were wolf-haunted
+      cliffs, windy promontories, mist-covered mountains. Close around the mere
+      hung the woods, shrouding the water, which, horrible sight, was each night
+      covered with fire. It was a place accursed; near it no man might dwell;
+      the deer that plunged therein straightway died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a palace under the mere dwelt Grendel and his mother; she, a foul
+      sprite, whom the peasants had sometimes seen walking with her son over the
+      meadows. From her dwelling-place she now came forth to avenge the death of
+      her son, and snatched away from the group of sleeping Ring-Danes the good
+      Ćschere, dearest of all his thanes to Hrothgar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud was Hrothgar's wailing when at morning Beowulf came forth from his
+      bower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorrow not, O wise man," spake Beowulf. "I fear not. I will seek out this
+      monster and destroy her. If I come not back it will at least be better
+      than to have lost my glory. She can never hide from me. I ween that I will
+      this day rid thee of thine enemy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accompanied by Hrothgar, some of the Ring-Danes and his Goths, Beowulf
+      sought the dismal mere, on whose brink they found the head of Ćschere.
+      Among the bloody waves swam horrible shapes, Nicors and sea-drakes, that
+      fled at a blast of the war-horn. Beowulf slew one of the monsters, and
+      while his companions were marvelling at the grisly form, he prepared
+      himself for the combat. His breast was guarded by a coat of mail woven
+      most cunningly; upon his head shone the gold-adorned helmet, and in his
+      hand was Hunferd's sword, Hrunting, made of iron steeped in twigs of
+      bitter poison, annealed in battle blood, and fearful to every foe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hearken unto me, O Hrothgar," cried the hero. "If I return not, treat
+      well my comrades and send my gifts to Higelac, that he may see the deed I
+      have accomplished, and the generous ring-lord I have gained among the
+      Scyldings." And without waiting for a reply, he leaped into the waves and
+      was lost to sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was the monster waiting for him; and catching him in her grip, which
+      bruised him not because of his strong mail-coat, she dragged him to her
+      cave, in whose lighted hall he could see the horrible features of the
+      woman of the mere. Strong was Hrunting, but of no avail was its mighty
+      blade against her. Soon he threw it down, and gripped her, reckless of
+      peril. Once he threw her on the ground, but the second time she threw him,
+      and drew her glaive to pierce his breast. Strong was the linked mail, and
+      Beowulf was safe. Then his quick eye lighted on a sword,&mdash;a magic,
+      giant sword; few men could wield it. Quickly he grasped it, and smote the
+      neck of the sea-woman. Broken were the bone-rings, and down she fell dead.
+      Then Ecgtheow's son looked around the hall and saw the body of the dead
+      Grendel. Thirsting to take his revenge, he smote him with his sword. Off
+      flew the head; but when the red drops of blood touched the magic blade it
+      melted, leaving but the massive golden hilt in the hands of the hero.
+      Beowulf took no treasure from the cave, but rose through the waves,
+      carrying only the head of the monster and the hilt of the sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hrothgar and his men saw the mere red and boiling with blood they
+      deemed that Beowulf was dead, and departed to their citadel. Sorrowful sat
+      the comrades of Beowulf, waiting and hoping against hope for his
+      reappearance. Up sprang they when they saw him, joyfully greeted him,
+      relieved him of his bloody armor, and conducted him to Hrothgar, bearing&mdash;a
+      heavy task&mdash;the head of Grendel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hrothgar saw the hideous head and the mighty sword-hilt, whose
+      history he read from its Runic inscriptions, he hailed Beowulf with joy,
+      and proclaimed him the mightiest of men. "But ever temper thy might with
+      wisdom," advised the king, "that thou suffer not the end of Heremod, or be
+      punished as I have been, in this my spacious mead-hall."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a night's rest, Beowulf prepared to return to his country. Returning
+      Hrunting to Hunferd, he praised the sword, saying nothing of its failure
+      in the fight. Then to Hrothgar: "Farewell. If e'er thou art harried by
+      foes, but let me know,&mdash;a thousand fighting men I'll bring. Higelac,
+      well I know, will urge me on to honor thee. If e'er thy son seeks Gothic
+      halls, I will intercede and win friends for him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old king, weeping, bade Beowulf farewell. "Peace be forever between
+      the Goths and the Gar-Danes; in common their treasures! May gifts be
+      interchanged between them!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bark was filled with the gifts heaped upon Beowulf and his men; and
+      the warder, who had hailed them so proudly at their coming, now bade them
+      an affectionate farewell. Over the swan-path sailed they, and soon reached
+      the Gothic coast, and landed their treasures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then went Beowulf before Higelac and told him of his adventures. Higelac
+      was a mighty king; lofty his house and hall, and fair and gentle was his
+      wife, Hygd. To him, after he had related his adventures, Beowulf presented
+      the boar-head crest, the battle-mail and sword, four of the steeds, and
+      much treasure, and upon the wise and modest Hygd bestowed he the wondrous
+      necklace given him by Waltheow. So should a good thane ever do!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been a time when Beowulf was accounted a sluggish knight, but
+      now the land rang with his glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Higelac died and Hardred was slain, Beowulf succeeded to the throne,
+      and for fifty years ruled the people gloriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time a great fire-drake cherished a vast hoard in a cave on a high
+      cliff, difficult of access, and known to few men. Thither one day fled a
+      thrall from his master's wrath, and saw the hoard buried by some weary
+      warrior, and now guarded by the dragon. While the drake slept, the thrall
+      crept in and stole a cup as a peace-offering to his master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the drake awoke, he scented the foot-prints of the foe, and
+      discovered his loss. When even was come, he hastened to wreak his revenge
+      on the people, spewing out flames of fire, and laying waste the land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far and near were the lands of the Goths devastated, and ere long, tidings
+      were borne to Beowulf that his great hall, his gift seat, was destroyed by
+      fire. Saddened, and fearing that he had in some way angered God, he turned
+      his mind to vengeance, and girded on his armor. A stout shield of iron he
+      took, knowing that the dragon's fiery breath would melt the wood, and with
+      foreboding of his fate, bade farewell to his hearth-mates. "Many times
+      have I battled, great deeds have I done with sword and with hand-grip; now
+      must I go forth and battle with hand and sword against the hoard-keeper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commanding the men who had accompanied him to remain upon the hillside,
+      leaving him to combat with the dragon alone, Beowulf went proudly forward,
+      shouting his battle-cry. Out rushed the dragon, full of deadly hate. His
+      fiery breath was stronger than the king had deemed it. Stroke upon stroke
+      he gave his enemy, who continued to cast forth his death-fire, so that
+      Beowulf stood girt with flames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From afar, among the watching thanes, Wiglaf saw his monarch's peril.
+      "Comrades," he cried, "do you remember our promises to our king? Was it
+      for this he stirred us up to glorious deeds? Was it for this he heaped
+      gifts upon us? Let us go to his rescue. It is not right that we should see
+      our lord fall, and bear away our shields untouched!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rushing forward, he cried, "Beowulf, here am I! Now strike for thy life!
+      Thou hast said that thou never wouldst let thy fame depart from thee!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the dragon came forth; again it enveloped its foeman in flames. The
+      linden shield of Wiglaf burned in his hands, and he sought shelter behind
+      Beowulf's shield of iron. Again and again Wiglaf smote the monster, and
+      when the flames burnt low, Beowulf seized his dirk and pierced the dragon
+      so that he fell dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dragon lay dead, but Beowulf felt the poison in his wounds and knew
+      that he had not long to live. He commanded Wiglaf to bring forth the
+      treasure that he might gaze upon the hoard,&mdash;jewel work and twisted
+      gold,&mdash;that he had wrested from the fire-drake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The den was filled with rings of gold, cups, banners, jewels, dishes, and
+      the arms of the old owner of the treasure. All these did Wiglaf bear forth
+      to his lord, who surveyed them, and uttered thanks to his Maker, that he
+      could win such a treasure. Then, turning to Wiglaf, he said, "Now I die.
+      Build for me upon the lofty shore a bright mound that shall ever remind my
+      people of me. Far in the distance their ships shall descry it, and they
+      shall call it Beowulf's mound." Then, giving his arms to Wiglaf, he bade
+      him enjoy them. "Thou art the last of our race. All save us, fate-driven,
+      are gone to doom. Thither go I too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bitterly did Wiglaf denounce his comrades when he saw them steal from
+      their hiding-places. "Well may it be said of you that he who gave you your
+      arms threw them away. No thanks deserve ye for the slaughter of the
+      dragon! I did my little, but it was not in my power to save my kinsman.
+      Too few helpers stood about him! Now shall your kin be wanting in gifts.
+      Void are ye of land-rights! Better is it for an earl to die than to live
+      with a blasted name!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sorrowful were the people when they heard of the death of Beowulf. Full
+      well they knew with what joy the tidings would be hailed by their enemies,
+      who would hasten to harry the land, now that their great leader was gone.
+      The Frisians, the Merovingians, the Franks, the Swedes,&mdash;all had
+      their grievances, which they would hasten to wreak on the Goths when they
+      learned that the dreaded king was gone. Dreary would be the land of the
+      Goths; on its battle-fields the wolves would batten; the ravens would call
+      to the eagles as they feasted on the slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Straight to the Eagle's Nest went the band, and found their dead monarch;
+      there, too, lay the loathsome fire-drake, full fifty feet long, and
+      between them the great hoard, rust-eaten from long dwelling in the earth.
+      Ever had that hoard brought ill with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down from the cliff they thrust the dragon into the deep, and carried
+      their chief to Hronesness. There they built a lofty pile, decked it with
+      his armor, and burned thereon the body of their glorious ruler. According
+      to his wish, they reared on the cliff a broad, high barrow, surrounded it
+      with a wall, and laid within it the treasure. There yet it lies, of little
+      worth to men!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then around the barrow rode twelve of the bravest, boldest nobles,
+      mourning their king, singing his praises, chanting a dirge, telling of his
+      glorious deeds, while over the broad land the Gothic folk lamented the
+      death of their tender prince, their noble king, Beowulf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTION FROM BEOWULF.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      GRENDEL'S MOTHER.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      There was great rejoicing in Heorot when Beowulf slew Grendel, and at
+      night the earls again slept in the hall as they had not dared to do since
+      the coming of the fiend. But Grendel's mother came to avenge her son's
+      death and slew Ćschere, a favorite liegeman of Hrothgar's. In the morning,
+      Beowulf, who had slept in another part of the palace, was sent for and
+      greeted Hrothgar, unaware of his loss.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Hrothgar rejoined, helm of the Scyldings:
+  "Ask not of joyance! Grief is renewed to
+  The folk of the Danemen. Dead is Ćschere,
+  Yrmenlaf's brother, older than he,
+  My true-hearted counsellor, trusty adviser,
+  Shoulder-companion, when fighting in battle
+  Our heads we protected, when troopers were clashing,
+  And heroes were dashing; such an earl should be ever,
+  An erst-worthy atheling, as Ćschere proved him.
+  The flickering death-spirit became in Heorot
+  His hand-to-hand murderer; I cannot tell whither
+  The cruel one turned, in the carcass exulting,
+  By cramming discovered. The quarrel she wreaked then,
+  The last night igone Grendel thou killedst
+  In grewsomest manner, with grim-holding clutches,
+  Since too long he had lessened my liege-troop and wasted
+  My folk-men so foully. He fell in the battle
+  With forfeit of life, and another has followed,
+  A mighty crime-worker, her kinsman avenging,
+  And henceforth hath 'stablished her hatred unyielding,
+  As it well may appear to many a liegeman,
+  Who mourneth in spirit the treasure-bestower,
+  Her heavy heart-sorrow; the hand is now lifeless
+  Which availed yon in every wish that you cherished.
+  Land-people heard I, liegemen, this saying,
+  Dwellers in halls, they had seen very often
+  A pair of such mighty march-striding creatures,
+  Far-dwelling spirits, holding the moorlands:
+  One of them wore, as well they might notice,
+  The image of woman, the other one wretched
+  In guise of a man wandered in exile,
+  Except that he was huger than any of earthmen;
+  Earth-dwelling people entitled him Grendel
+  In days of yore; they knew not their father,
+  Whe'r ill-going spirits any were borne him
+  Ever before. They guard the wolf-coverts,
+  Lands inaccessible, wind-beaten nesses,
+  Fearfullest fen-deeps, where a flood from the mountains
+  'Neath mists of the nesses netherward rattles,
+  The stream under earth: not far is it henceward
+  Measured by mile-lengths that the mere-water standeth,
+  Which forests hang over, with frost-whiting covered,
+  A firm-rooted forest, the floods overshadow.
+  There ever at night one an ill-meaning portent
+  A fire-flood may see; 'mong children of men
+  None liveth so wise that wot of the bottom;
+  Though harassed by hounds the heath-stepper seek for,
+  Fly to the forest, firm-antlered he-deer,
+  Spurred from afar, his spirit he yieldeth,
+  His life on the shore, ere in he will venture
+  To cover his head. Uncanny the place is:
+  Thence upward ascendeth the surging of waters,
+  Wan to the welkin, when the wind is stirring
+  The weathers unpleasing, till the air groweth gloomy,
+  And the heavens lower. Now is help to be gotten
+  From thee and thee only! The abode thou know'st not,
+  The dangerous place where thou'rt able to meet with
+  The sin-laden hero: seek if thou darest!
+  For the feud I will fully fee thee with money,
+  With old-time treasure, as erstwhile I did thee,
+  With well-twisted jewels, if away thou shalt get thee."
+
+  Beowulf answered, Ecgtheow's son:
+  "Grieve not, O wise one! for each it is better,
+  His friend to avenge than with vehemence wail him;
+  Each of us must the end-day abide of
+  His earthly existence; who is able accomplish
+  Glory ere death! To battle-thane noble
+  Lifeless lying, 't is at last most fitting.
+  Arise, O king, quick let us hasten
+  To look at the footprint of the kinsman of Grendel!
+  I promise thee this now: to his place he'll escape not,
+  To embrace of the earth, nor to mountainous forest,
+  Nor to depths of the ocean, wherever he wanders.
+  Practice thou now patient endurance
+  Of each of thy sorrows, as I hope for thee soothly!"
+  Then up sprang the old one, the All-Wielder thanked he,
+  Ruler Almighty, that the man had outspoken.
+  Then for Hrothgar a war-horse was decked with a bridle,
+  Curly-maned courser. The clever folk-leader
+  Stately proceeded: stepped then an earl-troop
+  Of linden-wood bearers. Her foot-prints were seen then
+  Widely in wood-paths, her way o'er the bottoms,
+  Where she far-away fared o'er fen-country murky,
+  Bore away breathless the best of retainers
+  Who pondered with Hrothgar the welfare of country.
+  The son of the athelings then went o'er the stony,
+  Declivitous cliffs, the close-covered passes,
+  Narrow passages, paths unfrequented,
+  Nesses abrupt, nicker-haunts many;
+  One of a few of wise-mooded heroes,
+  He onward advanced to view the surroundings,
+  Till he found unawares woods of the mountain
+  O'er hoar-stones hanging, holt-wood unjoyful;
+  The water stood under, welling and gory.
+  'T was irksome in spirit to all of the Danemen,
+  Friends of the Scyldings, to many a liegeman
+  Sad to be suffered, a sorrow unlittle
+  To each of the earlmen, when to Ćschere's head they
+  Came on the cliff. The current was seething
+  With blood and with gore (the troopers gazed on it).
+  The horn anon sang the battle-song ready.
+  The troop were all seated; they saw 'long the water then
+  Many a serpent, mere-dragons wondrous
+  Trying the waters, nickers a-lying
+  On the cliffs of the nesses, which at noonday full often
+  Go on the sea-deeps their sorrowful journey,
+  Wild-beasts and worm-kind; away then they hastened
+  Hot-mooded, hateful, they heard the great clamor,
+  The war-trumpet winding. One did the Geat-prince
+  Sunder from earth-joys, with arrow from bowstring,
+  From his sea-struggle tore him, that the trusty war-missile
+  Pierced to his vitals; he proved in the currents
+  Less doughty at swimming whom death had off-carried.
+  Soon in the waters the wonderful swimmer
+  Was straitened most sorely and pulled to the cliff-edge;
+  The liegemen then looked on the loath-fashioned stranger.
+  Beowulf donned then his battle-equipments,
+  Cared little for life; inlaid and most ample,
+  The hand-woven corselet which could cover his body,
+  Must the wave-deeps explore, that war might be powerless
+  To harm the great hero, and the hating one's grasp might
+  Not peril his safety; his head was protected
+  By the light-flashing helmet that should mix with the bottoms,
+  Trying the eddies, treasure-emblazoned,
+  Encircled with jewels, as in seasons long past
+  The weapon-smith worked it, wondrously made it,
+  With swine-bodies fashioned it, that thenceforward no longer
+  Brand might bite it, and battle-sword hurt it.
+  And that was not least of helpers in prowess
+  That Hrothgar's spokesman had lent him when straitened;
+  And the hilted hand-sword was Hrunting entitled,
+  Old and most excellent 'mong all of the treasures;
+  Its blade was of iron, blotted with poison,
+  Hardened with gore; it failed not in battle
+  Any hero under heaven in hand who it brandished,
+  Who ventured to take the terrible journeys,
+  The battle-field sought; not the earliest occasion
+  That deeds of daring 't was destined to 'complish.
+  Ecglaf's kinsman minded not soothly,
+  Exulting in strength, what erst he had spoken
+  Drunken with wine, when the weapon he lent to
+  A sword-hero bolder; himself did not venture
+  'Neath the strife of the currents his life to endanger,
+  To fame-deeds perform; there he forfeited glory,
+  Repute for his strength. Not so with the other
+  When he, clad in his corselet, had equipped him for battle.
+
+  Beowulf spoke, Ecgtheow's son:
+  "Recall now, oh, famous kinsman of Healfdene,
+  Prince very prudent, now to part I am ready,
+  Gold-friend of earl-men, what erst we agreed on,
+  Should I lay down my life in lending thee assistance,
+  When my earth-joys were over, thou wouldst evermore serve me
+  In stead of a father; my faithful thanemen,
+  My trusty retainers, protect thou and care for,
+  Fall I in battle: and, Hrothgar belovčd,
+  Send unto Higelac the high-valued jewels
+  Thou to me hast allotted. The lord of the Geatmen
+  May perceive from the gold, the Hrethling may see it
+  When he looks on the jewels, that a gem-giver found I
+  Good over-measure, enjoyed him while able.
+  And the ancient heirloom Unferth permit thou,
+  The famed one to have, the heavy-sword splendid,
+  The hard-edged weapon; with Hrunting to aid me,
+  I shall gain me glory, or grim death shall take me."
+  The atheling of Geatmen uttered these words and
+  Heroic did hasten, not any rejoinder
+  Was willing to wait for; the wave-current swallowed
+  The doughty-in-battle. Then a day's-length elapsed ere
+  He was able to see the sea at its bottom.
+  Early she found then who fifty of winters
+  The course of the currents kept in her fury,
+  Grisly and greedy, that the grim one's dominion
+  Some one of men from above was exploring.
+  Forth did she grab them, grappled the warrior
+  With horrible clutches; yet no sooner she injured
+  His body unscathed: the burnie out-guarded,
+  That she proved but powerless to pierce through the armor,
+  The limb-mail locked, with loath-grabbing fingers.
+  The sea-wolf bare then, when bottomward came she,
+  The ring-prince homeward, that he after was powerless.
+  (He had daring to do it) to deal with his weapons,
+  But many a mere-beast tormented him swimming,
+  Flood-beasts no few with fierce-biting tusks did
+  Break through his burnie, the brave one pursued they.
+  The earl then discovered he was down in some cavern
+  Where no water whatever anywise harmed him,
+  And the clutch of the current could not come anear him,
+  Since the roofed-hall prevented; brightness a-gleaming
+  Fire-light he saw, flashing, resplendent.
+  The good one saw then the sea-bottom's monster,
+  The mighty mere-woman; he made a great onset
+  With weapon-of-battle, his hand not desisted
+  From striking, that war-blade struck on her head then
+  A battle-song greedy. The stranger perceived then
+  The sword would not bite, her life would not injure,
+  But the falchion failed the folk prince when straitened:
+  Erst had it often onsets encountered,
+  Oft cloven the helmet, the fated one's armor:
+  'T was the first time that ever the excellent jewel
+  Had failed of its fame. Firm-mooded after,
+  Not heedless of valor, but mindful of glory,
+  Was Higelac's kinsman; the hero-chief angry
+  Cast then his carved-sword covered with jewels
+  That it lay on earth, hard and steel-pointed;
+  He hoped in his strength, his hand-grapple sturdy.
+  So any must act whenever he thinketh
+  To gain him in battle glory unending,
+  And is reckless of living. The lord of the War-Geats
+  (He shrank not from battle) seized by the shoulder
+  The mother of Grendel; then mighty in struggle
+  Swung he his enemy, since his anger was kindled,
+  That she fell to the floor. With furious grapple
+  She gave him requital early thereafter,
+  And stretched out to grab him; the strongest of warriors
+  Faint-mooded stumbled, till he fell in his traces,
+  Foot-going champion. Then she sat on the hall-guest
+  And wielded her war-knife wide-bladed, flashing,
+  For her son would take vengeance, her one only bairn.
+  His breast-armor woven bode on his shoulder;
+  It guarded his life, the entrance defended
+  'Gainst sword-point and edges. Ecgtheow's son there
+  Had fatally journeyed, champion of Geatmen,
+  In the arms of the ocean, had the armor not given,
+  Close-woven corselet, comfort and succor,
+  And had God most holy not awarded the victory,
+  All-knowing Lord; easily did heaven's
+  Ruler most righteous arrange it with justice;
+  Uprose he erect ready for battle.
+
+  Then he saw 'mid the war-gems a weapon of victory,
+  An ancient giant-sword, of edges a-doughty,
+  Glory of warriors: of weapons 't was choicest,
+  Only 't was larger than any man else was
+  Able to bear in the battle-encounter,
+  The good and splendid work of the giants.
+  He grasped then the sword-hilt, knight of the Scyldings,
+  Bold and battle-grim, brandished his ring-sword,
+  Hopeless of living, hotly he smote her,
+  That the fiend-woman's neck firmly it grappled,
+  Broke through her bone-joints, the bill fully pierced her
+  Fate-cursčd body, she fell to the ground then:
+  The hand-sword was bloody, the hero exulted.
+  The brand was brilliant, brightly it glimmered,
+  Just as from heaven gemlike shineth
+  The torch of the firmament. He glanced 'long the building,
+  And turned by the wall then, Higelac's vassal
+  Raging and wrathful raised his battle-sword
+  Strong by the handle. The edge was not useless
+  To the hero-in-battle, but he speedily wished to
+  Give Grendel requital for the many assaults he
+  Had worked on the West-Danes not once, but often,
+  When he slew in slumber the subjects of Hrothgar,
+  Swallowed down fifteen sleeping retainers
+  Of the folk of the Danemen, and fully as many
+  Carried away, a horrible prey.
+  He gave him requital, grim-raging champion,
+  When he saw on his rest-place weary of conflict
+  Grendel lying, of life-joys bereavčd,
+  As the battle at Heorot erstwhile had scathed him;
+  His body far bounded, a blow when he suffered,
+  Death having seized him, sword-smiting heavy,
+  And he cut off his head then. Early this noticed
+  The clever carles who as comrades of Hrothgar
+  Gazed on the sea-deeps, that the surging wave-currents
+  Were mightily mingled, the mere-flood was gory:
+  Of the good one the gray-haired together held converse,
+  The hoary of head, that they hoped not to see again
+  The atheling ever, that exulting in victory
+  He'd return there to visit the distinguished folk-ruler:
+  Then many concluded the mere-wolf had killed him.
+  The ninth hour came then. From the ness-edge departed
+  The bold-mooded Scyldings; the gold-friend of heroes
+  Homeward betook him. The strangers sat down then
+  Soul-sick, sorrowful, the sea-waves regarding:
+  They wished and yet weened not their well-loved friend-lord
+  To see any more. The sword-blade began then,
+  The blood having touched it, contracting and shrivelling
+  With battle-icicles; 't was a wonderful marvel
+  That it melted entirely, likest to ice when
+  The Father unbindeth the bond of the frost and
+  Unwindeth the wave-bands, He who wieldeth dominion
+  Of time and of tides: a truth-firm Creator.
+  Nor took he of jewels more in the dwelling,
+  Lord of the Weders, though they lay all around him,
+  Than the head and the handle handsome with jewels;
+  The brand early melted, burnt was the weapon:
+  So hot was the blood, the strange-spirit poisonous
+  That in it did perish. He early swam off then
+  Who had bided in combat the carnage of haters,
+  Went up through the ocean; the eddies were cleansed,
+  The spacious expanses, when the spirit from farland
+  His life put aside and this short-lived existence.
+  The seamen's defender came swimming to land then
+  Doughty of spirit, rejoiced in his sea-gift,
+  The bulky burden which he bore in his keeping.
+  The excellent vassals advanced then to meet him,
+  To God they were grateful, were glad in their chieftain,
+  That to see him safe and sound was granted them.
+  From the high-minded hero, then, helmet and burnie
+  Were speedily loosened: the ocean was putrid,
+  The water 'neath welkin weltered with gore.
+  Forth did they fare, then, their footsteps retracing,
+  Merry and mirthful, measured the earth-way,
+  To highway familiar: men very daring
+  Bare then the head from the sea-cliff, burdening
+  Each of the earlmen, excellent-valiant.
+  Four of them had to carry with labor
+  The head of Grendel to the high towering gold-hall
+  Upstuck on the spear, till fourteen most-valiant
+  And battle-brave Geatmen came there going
+  Straight to the palace: the prince of the people
+  Measured the mead-ways, their mood-brave companion,
+  The atheling of earlmen entered the building,
+  Deed-valiant man, adorned with distinction,
+  Doughty shield-warrior, to address King Hrothgar:
+  Then hung by the hair, the head of Grendel
+  Was borne to the building, where beer-thanes were drinking,
+  Loth before earlmen and eke 'fore the lady:
+  The warriors beheld then a wonderful sight.
+         <i>J. L. Hall's Translation, Parts XXI.-XXIV.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Nibelungen Lied, or Song of the Nibelungen, was written about the
+      beginning of the thirteenth century, though the events it chronicles
+      belong to the sixth or seventh century. The manuscript poem was discovered
+      about the middle of the eighteenth century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lachmann asserts that the Nibelungen Lied consists of twenty songs of
+      various dates and authorship; other scholars, while agreeing that it is
+      the work of a single author, ascribe it variously to Conrad von
+      Kurenburger, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Walther
+      von der Vogelweide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whoever was its author, he was only a compiler of legends that were the
+      property of the people for centuries, and are found in many other of the
+      popular German epics of the Middle Ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poem consists of thirty-nine adventures, containing two thousand four
+      hundred and fifty-nine stanzas of four lines each. The action covers
+      thirty years. It is based on material obtained from four sources: (1) The
+      Frankish saga-cycle, whose hero is Siegfried; (2) the saga-cycle of
+      Burgundy, whose heroes are Günther, king of Worms, and his two brothers;
+      (3) the Ostrogothic saga-cycle, whose hero is Dietrich of Bern; and (4)
+      the saga-cycle of Etzel, king of the Huns, with his allies and vassals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dietrich of Bern is supposed to be Theodoric of Italy, in exile at the
+      Hunnish court. Etzel is Attila the Hun, and Günther, Gunducarius, king of
+      the Burgundians, who was destroyed by the Huns with his followers in the
+      year 436.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Nibelungen Lied very much resembles the Iliad, not only in the
+      uncertainty of its origin and the impersonality of its author, but also in
+      its objectivity, its realism, the primitive passions of its heroes, and
+      the wondrous acts of valor performed by them. It contains many passages of
+      wonderful beauty, and gives a striking picture of the social customs and
+      the religious belief of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL8" id="link2H_BIBL8"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mary Elizabeth Burt's Story of the German Iliad, 1892;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Carlyle's Nibelungen Lied (see his Miscellaneous Essays, 1869, vol.
+      iii., pp. 111-162);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Nibelungen Lied (see their Tales of the
+      Teutonic Lands, 1872, pp. 79-132);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      G. T. Dippold's Nibelungenlied (see his Great Epics of Mediaeval Germany,
+      1882, pp. 1-117);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William T. Dobson's Nibelungenlied Epitomized (see his Classic Poets,
+      1878);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Auber Forestier's Echoes from Mistland, or the Nibelungen Lay Revealed,
+      Tr. by A. A. Woodward, 1877;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph Gostwick's and Robert Harrison's Nibelungenlied (see their Outlines
+      of German Literature, n. d., pp. 16-24);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hugh Reginald Haweis's Nibelungenlied (see his Musical Memories, 1887, pp.
+      225-250);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick Henry Hedge's Nibelungenlied (see his Hours with the German
+      Classics, 1887, pp. 25-55);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      James K. Hosmer's Nibelungen Lied (see his Short History of German
+      Literature, 1891, pp. 23-77);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. P. Jackson's Ring of the Nibelung, Cosmopolitan, 1888, vol. vi. pp.
+      415-433;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry W. Longfellow's Nibelungenlied (see his Poets and Poetry of Europe,
+      new ed., enlarged, 1882, pp. 217-227);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. M. F. Ludlow's Lay and Lament of the Niblungs (see his Popular Epics of
+      the Middle Ages, 1865, pp. 105-183);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. Magnusson and William Morris's Völsungs Saga, story of the Völsungs and
+      Niblungs, 1870;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Morris's Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs,
+      1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. Max Müller's Das Nibelungenlied (see his German Classics, new ed.,
+      1893, vol. i., pp. 112-136);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ernst Raupach's Nibelungen Treasure, a tragedy from the German with
+      remarks, 1847;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. M. Richey's Teutonic and the Celtic Epic, Fraser's Magazine, 1874, vol.
+      lxxxix., pp. 336-354;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilhelm Scherer's Nibelungenlied (see his History of German Literature,
+      1893, vol. i., pp. 101-115);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leda M. Schoonamaker's Nibelungen Lied, Harper's Magazine, 1877, vol. lv.,
+      pp. 38-51;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayard Taylor's Nibelungen Lied (see his Studies in German Literature,
+      1893, pp. 101-134);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilhelm Wagner's Nibelungenlied (see his Epics and Romances of the Middle
+      Ages, 1883, pp. 229-306);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry Weber's The Song of the Nibelungen (see Weber and Jamieson,
+      Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, 1874, pp. 167-213).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE NIBELUNGEN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Nibelungen Lied, Tr. by Alfred G. Foster Barham, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lay of the Nibelungers, Tr. into English text after Lachman's text by
+      Jonathan Birch, ed. 3, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Nibelungenlied, Tr. by Joseph Gostwick (see his Spirit of German
+      Poetry, 1843);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Fall of the Nibelungers, Tr. by William Nanson Lettsom, ed. 2, 1874.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the beautiful city of Worms, in Burgundy, dwelt the maiden Kriemhild,
+      surpassing all others in beauty. Her father, long since dead, was Dancrat;
+      her mother, Uta, and her three brothers,&mdash;Günther, Gernot, and
+      Giselher,&mdash;puissant princes whose pride it was to guard their lovely
+      sister. Among the noble lords their liegemen were Hagan of Trony,
+      Dankwart, his brother, Ortwine of Metz, Eckewart, Gary, Folker, Rumolt the
+      steward, Sindolt the butler, and Humolt the chamberlain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The peace of the beautiful Kriemhild was one night disturbed by a dream,
+      in which she saw a young falcon that she had long reared with tender care
+      torn to pieces by two fierce eagles. When she confided this dream to her
+      mother, the wise Uta declared that it meant that she would one day wed a
+      fair prince threatened with a dreadful doom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I will never wed!" cried Kriemhild. "Better to forego the bliss thou
+      tellest me attends only the wedded state than to taste the anguish
+      foretold by my dream." Alas! little could she guess of what the future
+      held in store for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the wide country of the Netherlands, in the city of Xanten, dwelt the
+      great prince Siegmund and his wife Sieglind. Their kingdom was wide, their
+      wealth great, but nothing gave them so much happiness as the renown of
+      their glorious son Siegfried. Such mighty deeds of valor had he performed
+      that his fame was already world-wide, though he was but a youth. To Xanten
+      the fame of the peerless princess Kriemhild had penetrated, and the young
+      prince declared to his parents his intention of seeking her out in
+      Burgundy, and wooing her for his wife. All entreaties were in vain; with
+      but twelve companions, each fitted out with the most gorgeous vestments,
+      by the care of the queen mother, the haughty prince advanced into
+      Burgundy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      King Günther, surprised at the sight of the splendidly attired strangers,
+      called one after another of his knights to inform him who they were. None
+      knew, until Hagan was at last called because he was familiar with the
+      warriors of every land. He did not know them. "But," said he, "though I
+      have never set eyes on him, I'll wager that is the noble Siegfried, the
+      mighty warrior who slew the Nibelungers. Once, so I have heard the story,
+      when he was riding alone, he saw the two kings Nibelung and Shilbung
+      dividing the treasure of the Niblungs. They had just brought it out from
+      the cavern where it was guarded by the dwarf Albric, and they called
+      Siegfried to come and divide it for them. The task was so great that he
+      did not finish it, and when the angry kings set upon him he slew them
+      both, their giant champions and chiefs, and then overcame the dwarf
+      Albric, and possessed himself of his wondrous cloud-cloak. So he is now
+      lord of the Nibelungers and owner of the mighty treasure. Not only this,
+      my king; he once slew a poison-spitting dragon and bathed in its blood, so
+      that his skin is invulnerable. Treat the young prince with respect. It
+      would be ill-advised to arouse his hatred."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the king and his counsellors were admiring his haughty bearing,
+      Siegfried and his followers advanced to the hall and were fittingly
+      welcomed. Siegfried haughtily declared that he had come to learn if
+      Günther's renown for knighthood was correct, and wished to fight with him,
+      with their respective kingdoms as stakes. Günther had no desire to fight
+      with such a doughty warrior, and he hastened to soothe Siegfried's wrath
+      with gentle words, inviting him to remain as his guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So happy was Siegfried in the tourneys and games enjoyed by Günther's
+      court, that he remained in Worms for a year, and in all that time never
+      set eyes on Kriemhild. How enraptured would he have been had he known that
+      the gentle maiden watched for him daily at her lattice, and came to long
+      for a glimpse of the handsome stranger!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the year tidings were brought to Worms that the Saxons, led
+      by King Lüdeger, and Lüdegast, king of Denmark, were marching against
+      Burgundy. The Burgundians were terrified at the news; but Siegfried,
+      delighted at the thought of war, begged Günther to give him but a thousand
+      Burgundians, in addition to the twelve comrades he had brought with him,
+      and he would pledge himself to defeat, unaided, the presumptuous enemy.
+      Many were the camps of the foe; full forty thousand were there mustered
+      out to fight, but Siegfried quickly scattered them, slew many thousands,
+      and took the two kings prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How joyful the melancholy Kriemhild became when the messenger bore to her
+      the glad tidings! Ruddy gold and costly garments he gained for his good
+      news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Siegfried's return he first met and loved Kriemhild. More blooming than
+      May, sweeter than summer's pride, she stood by the gallant warrior, who
+      dared not yet to woo her. The twelve days of revel in celebration of the
+      victory were one long dream of bliss to the happy lovers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Siegfried was still lingering at Günther's court, tidings were
+      brought thither of the beauty, prowess, and great strength of Brunhild,
+      Queen of Issland, and Günther determined to go thither and woo her.
+      Siegfried implored him not to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou knowest not what thou must undertake," he said. "Thou must take part
+      in her contests, throw the javelin, throw the stone and jump after it, and
+      if thou fail in even one of these three games thou must lose thy life and
+      that of thy companions."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Siegfried found that he could not move Günther, he promised to go
+      with him and assist him, on condition that on their return Günther would
+      give him the beautiful Kriemhild for his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Attired in the most splendid raiment, prepared by the willing fingers of
+      Kriemhild and her maids, Günther, with only three companions, Siegfried,
+      Hagan, and Dankwart, set forth to Issland. Siegfried requested his
+      companions to inform Brunhild that he was Günther's man; and when she
+      welcomed him first, he himself told her to speak first to his master. The
+      little party was greatly impressed with the splendor of Brunhild's three
+      turreted palaces, and with the beauty and prodigious strength of the
+      queen. When they saw her huge golden shield, steel-studded, beneath whose
+      weight four chamberlains staggered, and the immense javelin of the
+      war-like maid, the warriors trembled for their lives, all save Siegfried,
+      who, wrapped in his cloud-cloak, invisible to all, stood behind the
+      bewildered Günther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Give me thy buckler," he whispered. "Now make but the motions, and I will
+      hurl both spear and stone. But keep this a secret if thou wouldst save
+      both our lives."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the surprise of every one Günther won the games, and Brunhild,
+      surprised and mortified, ordered her followers to bow to her better, and
+      returned to the castle to make ready for the journey to Worms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Siegfried carried the tidings to Worms, and the bridal party was met and
+      welcomed at the banks of the Rhine by the Queen Uta, Kriemhild, and a
+      large following. During the wedding feast, Siegfried reminded Günther of
+      his promise, and the king, calling Kriemhild to him, affianced the two in
+      the presence of the company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the suspicious Brunhild saw Siegfried sitting at the table of the
+      king, she was angered, for she had been told that he was a vassal.
+      Although she could get no satisfaction from Günther, she suspected some
+      secret. When she and Günther retired for the night she conquered him, tied
+      him hand and foot with her magic girdle, and hung him on the wall until
+      morning. Günther, overcome with wrath and vexation, told his humiliation
+      to Siegfried the next morning at the minster. "Be comforted," said
+      Siegfried. "Tonight I will steal into thy chamber wrapped in my
+      mist-cloak, and when the lights are extinguished I will wrestle with her
+      until I deprive her of the magic ring and girdle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After some hesitation, Günther assented, and Brunhild, supposing she was
+      conquered by Günther, yielded herself willingly to her husband and lost
+      all her former strength. Siegfried carried away her girdle and ring and
+      gave them to his wife, little suspecting what harm they would do him in
+      the years to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wedding festivities over, Siegfried took his bride home to the
+      Netherlands, where their arrival was celebrated with the greatest
+      festivities. Siegmund placed the crown on his son's head, and Siegfried
+      and Kriemhild ruled happily over the kingdom for ten years, during which
+      time a son was born to them, christened Günther for his uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these years Brunhild had been fretting that the supposed vassal,
+      Siegfried, had never come to pay homage to his king. At last, affecting a
+      great longing to see Kriemhild once more, she induced Günther to invite
+      his sister and her husband to visit them. This he did gladly, and on their
+      arrival many days were spent in feasting, merrymaking, and the tourney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one day, when the two queens were watching the tilting in the castle
+      court, Kriemhild, excited by the victories of her husband, declared that
+      Siegfried, because of his might, ought to be ruler of Burgundy. This
+      angered Brunhild, who reproached the wife of a vassal for such
+      presumption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My husband a vassal!" exclaimed the indignant Kriemhild. "He, ruler of
+      the Netherlands, who holds a higher place than my brother Günther! I
+      cannot endure thy insolence longer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will see," said Brunhild, "this very day whether thou receivest the
+      public respect and honor paid to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am ready for the test," responded Kriemhild, "and I will show thee
+      to-day, before our following, that I dare to enter the church before
+      Günther's queen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the two queens met on the minster steps, and Brunhild declared that
+      no vassaless should enter before her, Kriemhild reproached her for being
+      the leman of Siegfried, and displayed in proof the ring and girdle he had
+      taken from Brunhild. Rage and fury rendered Brunhild speechless. The kings
+      were summoned, and both denied the truth of Kriemhild's words. But the two
+      queens were now bitter enemies, and the followers of Brunhild, among them
+      the gloomy Hagan of Trony, were deeply angered at Siegfried and his queen.
+      Hagan laid a plot to destroy Siegfried, and Günther, though at first
+      unwilling, was at last induced to enter it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pretended messengers came to announce to Günther that the Saxons again
+      threatened war against him. Siegfried proposed to take part in the war,
+      and preparations were at once begun. Hagan, with pretended tenderness,
+      told Kriemhild of the coming danger, and asked her if her lord had a weak
+      place, that he might know and guard it for him. Kriemhild confided to him
+      her husband's secret. When Siegfried was bathing in the dragon's blood, a
+      leaf fell between his shoulders, and that spot was vulnerable. There she
+      would embroider a cross on his vesture that Hagan might protect him in the
+      shock of battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The war was now abandoned and a great hunt undertaken. Gernot and
+      Giselher, though they did not see fit to warn Siegfried, refused to take
+      part in the plot and go to the hunt. Many a lion, elk, and boar fell by
+      Siegfried's hand that day before the hunters were called together to the
+      royal breakfast; when they at last sat down in the flowery meadow the wine
+      was wanting, and the warriors were compelled to quench their thirst at a
+      brooklet near by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A race!" cried the hero; and he, Hagan, and Günther ran for the brook,
+      Siegfried gaining it first. After the king had quenched his thirst,
+      Siegfried threw down his arms and stooped to drink. Then Hagan, picking up
+      his ashen spear, threw it at the embroidered cross, and Siegfried fell in
+      the agonies of death, reproaching his traitorous friends whom he had
+      served so faithfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To add cruelty to cruelty, the vindictive Hagan placed the body of
+      Siegfried outside Kriemhild's chamber door, where she would stumble over
+      it as she went out to early mass next morning. Down she fell fainting when
+      she recognized her husband, and reviving, shrieked in her anguish,
+      "Brunhild planned it; Hagan struck the blow!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her grief was terrible to see. One moment the unhappy queen was accusing
+      herself for revealing her husband's secret; again she was vowing revenge
+      against Hagan, and at another time she reviled the traitorous Günther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When her father-in-law Siegmund returned home, she would not go with him,
+      but remained near the body of her husband, under the protection of her
+      brothers Gernot and Giselher and in the company of her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kriemhild, living in joyless state in her lonely palace, was at last
+      induced to speak to Günther and pardon him. The pardon granted, Günther
+      and Hagan at once plotted to have the Nibelungen hoard, Siegfried's
+      morning-gift to Kriemhild, brought to Worms. Never before was such a
+      treasure seen. Twelve huge wagons, journeying thrice a day, required four
+      nights and days to carry it from the mountain to the bay. It consisted of
+      nothing but precious stones and gold, and with it was the magic
+      wishing-rod. It filled Kriemhild's towers and chambers to overflowing, and
+      won many friends for the queen, who distributed it liberally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the envious Hagan could not induce Günther to take the treasure from
+      Kriemhild, he selected a time when the king and his brothers were away
+      from home, and seizing the treasure, cast it into the Rhine, hoping to get
+      it again. In this he failed, so the great treasure was forever lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus ends the first part of the Lay of the Nibelungen. The second part is
+      sometimes called the Need or Fall of the Nibelungen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Kriemhild was bewailing her loss and revolving plans for revenge,
+      Etzel, King of the Huns, who had heard of the charms of Siegfried's widow,
+      sent the noble Margrave Rüdeger into Burgundy with proposals for her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Günther and his brothers begged Kriemhild to accept the offer; their
+      counsellors advised it; only the sage Hagan protested. He knew too well
+      how Kriemhild longed for revenge. "When once she gets among the Huns, she
+      will make us rue the day," said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the others laughed at Hagan's scruples. The land of the Huns was far
+      away, and they need never set foot in it. Moreover, it was their duty to
+      make Kriemhild happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moved by the eloquence of Rüdeger, Kriemhild consented to wed Etzel, and
+      set out in great state to meet the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was splendidly entertained along the way, tarried a short time at the
+      home of the Margrave Rüdeger, and at Tulna met the great monarch Etzel,
+      riding to meet her, among his hosts of Russians, Polacks, Greeks, and
+      Wallachians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The splendid wedding-feast was held at Vienna. Kriemhild was received with
+      the greatest honor, and so lavish was she of the gold and jewels she had
+      brought with her, and so gracious to the attendant Huns, that every one
+      loved her, and willingly worked her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For seven long years she and Attila lived happy together, and to them was
+      given a son whom they christened Ortlieb. Then Kriemhild, still
+      remembering her loss and the cruelties of her Burgundian relatives and
+      friends, bethought herself of her revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feigning a great desire to see her brothers, she entreated Etzel to invite
+      them to visit her; and the king, not suspecting her fell purpose, and glad
+      of an opportunity to welcome her friends, at once despatched messengers
+      with the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time other counsellors besides Hagan mistrusted the queen, and
+      advised King Günther and his brothers to decline the invitation. But the
+      princes grew angry at their advice; and Hagan, who could not endure to be
+      laughed at, set forth with them, accompanied with a great train of
+      warriors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rhine was too swollen to ford, and Hagan was sent up the stream to
+      find a ferryman. As he looked for the boatman, he spied some mermaids
+      bathing, and seizing their garments, would not restore them until they
+      told him what would befall the Burgundians in Hungary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Safe will you ride to Etzel's court, and safe return," said one, as he
+      returned the garments. But as he turned to go, another called: "My aunt
+      has lied to thee that she might get back her raiment. Turn now, or you
+      will never live to see Burgundy. None save the chaplain will return in
+      safety."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hagan went on gloomily and found the ferryman, who, proud and sullen,
+      refused to take the party across. Hagan slew him, and, returning with the
+      boat, threw the unfortunate chaplain into the river, thinking by drowning
+      him to prove the mermaid's prophecy untrue. But the chaplain escaped to
+      the other side, and walked back to Burgundy. Then Hagan told the party of
+      the prophecy and they resolved to go on together, though they realized
+      that they were going to their doom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because of the slaughter of the ferryman, they were attacked by Gelfrat,
+      the ruler of the land; but he was overcome and slain by Dankwart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Margrave Rüdeger received the travellers hospitably, and betrothed his
+      fair daughter to Giselher. He then accompanied the Burgundians to Etzel's
+      court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Burgundians suspected Kriemhild from the first. Giselher was the only
+      one of her brothers whom she kissed, and she and Hagan quarrelled over the
+      treasure at their first meeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were warned by Eckewart, who had accompanied Kriemhild from Burgundy,
+      and by Dietrich of Bern, an exile at the court of Etzel, who told them
+      that every morning since her stay in Hunland she had moaned and wailed for
+      Siegfried. By Hagan's advice they all kept on their armor, telling Etzel
+      that it was the custom in their country to wear it for the first three
+      days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kriemhild's design was to destroy Hagan and spare her brothers. But Hagan,
+      on his guard, drove her warriors away from his room at night, and saved
+      himself at church from the jostling Hunnish lords, never, in the mean
+      time, sparing his insults to Kriemhild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Huns, who were devoted to their queen, were not slow in showing their
+      anger at Hagan's treatment of her, and the ill feeling between the
+      warriors increased as the days passed by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the Burgundians sat at the banquet with Etzel and his wife, in burst
+      Dankwart, exclaiming that he had been attacked by Bloedel, who had slain
+      all his followers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be stirring, brother Hagan!" he cried. "Help me to avenge my wrongs!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the little prince Ortlieb had been brought into the hall
+      and passed around among the guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us drink to friendship with moody Kriemhild in king's wine!" cried
+      Hagan, and with one blow of the sword sent the child's head in his
+      mother's lap. Then arose a fearful clamor. Spear rang against shield, and
+      the cries of the fierce Huns mingled with the defiant shouts of the
+      Burgundians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dietrich of Bern, leaping upon a bench, asked King Günther, that, as a
+      friend to both parties, he might be permitted to withdraw from the hall
+      with his friends. When the Burgundians assented, he led forth the king and
+      queen. The same privilege was accorded to Rüdeger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, while the terrible Folker guarded the door with his fiddle bow, one
+      side of which was a trenchant sword, the battle began. The Burgundians
+      taunted the Huns with their weakness and cowardice until they ventured
+      into the hall and were cut down by Hagan and his desperate men. When
+      evening fell the thousand and four who had entered the hall all lay dead
+      by the hands of the Burgundians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Kriemhild's offer to give her brothers their lives if they would
+      surrender Hagan was refused, she ordered fire to be set to the four
+      corners of the hall, thinking thus to drive them forth. But the burning
+      rafters fell into the rivers of blood and were quenched, and the
+      Burgundians derived new courage and strength from huge draughts of blood
+      from their fallen foes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Kriemhild and Etzel, seeing how their Hunnish men had fallen, and
+      perceiving that the Burgundians were in no wise injured by the fire,
+      reproached the Margrave Rüdeger that he did not enter the fight. In vain
+      he told them of his friendship with the princes; of the betrothal of his
+      daughter and Giselher. Kriemhild persisted in reminding him of the promise
+      he had made to serve her to her dying day. At last he reluctantly summoned
+      his men, and bidding farewell to his cruel king and queen, he entered the
+      hall. Gladly was he welcomed by the Burgundians, who could not believe
+      that he came to do battle with them. He explained how he was forced to
+      fight them, and amid the tears of both sides, he exchanged shields with
+      Hagan, whose buckler was broken. Then was the grim Hagan moved to tears,
+      and he vowed not to touch Rüdeger in the fight. Fearful was the clatter of
+      shield and blade as Rüdeger fought with Gernot, and fell at last by the
+      blade he had himself given the prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great was the wailing of the Huns when they saw the lifeless body of
+      Rüdeger, and deeply did Etzel regret the loss of the valiant and true
+      margrave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dietrich of Bern, who sat afar off, sent some of his best warriors under
+      his man Hildebrand, to inquire of the truth of the report of Rüdeger's
+      death. These fiery men disobeyed the orders of their master, and fought
+      with the Burgundians until none remained save Günther and Hagan on one
+      side, and Hildebrand on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dietrich heard of the slaughter of his followers, he was overcome
+      with sorrow, and himself sought the hall. He promised Günther and Hagan
+      that if they would surrender, he would himself lead them back in safety to
+      Burgundy; but to this they would not consent. By this time they were so
+      worn out, however, from the long battle, that Dietrich easily overpowered
+      them and led them captive before Kriemhild, who promised to show them fair
+      treatment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Kriemhild's mind had become so warped by her desire for revenge, that
+      she could not think of mercy. She cast her prisoners into separate
+      dungeons, and visiting Hagan first, demanded her treasure. "But give it to
+      me again, and thou shalt return living into Burgundy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pray not to me, haughty queen," replied Hagan. "I swore that while my
+      lords were living I would ne'er tell where it lies. Thy prayer is thrown
+      away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Straightway the savage Kriemhild ordered the head of Günther to be struck
+      off, and bearing it by the hair, she displayed it to Hagan, asking him now
+      to tell her the secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now that all my lords are dead," said he, "no one shall know, thou least
+      of all, she-fiend!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kriemhild, beside herself with grief and rage, snatched from him the sword
+      Balmung that he had taken from Siegfried, and ever since carried, and
+      raising it high with both hands, struck off the head of her hated enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this the grief of Etzel broke forth, and the aged Hildebrand, enraged
+      to see a woman do such deeds, sprang upon Kriemhild and smote her to death
+      with his sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bitterly wept King Etzel and Dietrich as they gazed on the corpses
+      scattered round, and the disfigured body of the fair queen. Nothing
+      remained for the Hunnish people but grief and woe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here on earth pain ever follows in the steps of pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      HOW BRUNHILD WAS RECEIVED AT WORMS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Brunhild, queen of Issland, was won by Günther of Worms with the aid of
+      Siegfried, whom Günther sent forward to Worms to announce the coming of
+      the royal pair. Queen Uta and Princess Kriemhild, with many followers from
+      the Burgundian court, went forward to the Rhine to meet and welcome the
+      royal bridal party.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Beyond the Rhine King Günther, with many a well-arm'd rank
+  And all his guests about him, rode towards the river's bank;
+  You might see by the bridle led forward many a maid.
+  Those, who were to receive them, were ready all array'd.
+
+  Soon as the men of Issland came to the shallops down,
+  And eke the Nibelungers, lieges of Siegfried's crown,
+  To th' other shore they hasten'd (busy was every hand)
+  Where them the friends of Günther awaited on the strand.
+
+  Now hear, by wealthy Uta what a device was wrought.
+  Down with her from the castle a virgin train she brought,
+  That rode where she was riding in that procession bright;
+  So many a maid acquainted became with many a knight.
+
+  Kriemhild by the bridle the Margrave Gary led,
+  But only from the castle; then forward Siegfried sped,
+  And did that gentle service; fair was the blushing maid;
+  Full well for that thereafter the warrior she repaid.
+
+  Ortwine, the fearless champion, rode by Dame Uta's rein;
+  Knights and maids together follow'd, a social train.
+  At such a stately meeting, all must confess, I ween,
+  So many lovely ladies were ne'er together seen.
+
+  Full many a famous champion careering you might spy
+  (Ill there was sloth and idlesse) beneath fair Kriemhild's eye
+  E'en to the place of landing; by knights of fair renown
+  There many a high-born lady from steed was lifted down.
+
+  The king was now come over, and many a worthy guest.
+  Ah, before the ladies what spears were laid in rest!
+  How many went in shivers at every hurtling close!
+  Buckler clashed with buckler; ah, what a din arose!
+
+  Now might you see the ladies fast by the haven stand.
+  With his guests King Günther debark'd upon the strand,
+  In his hand soft leading the martial maiden fair.
+  Then each on each flash'd radiance, rich robes and jewels rare.
+
+  With that the smiling Kriemhild forth stepp'd a little space,
+  And Brunhild and her meiny greeted with gentle grace,
+  Each with snowy fingers back her headband drew,
+  And either kiss'd the other lovingly and true.
+
+  Then spoke in courteous manner Kriemhild the fair and free,
+  "In this our land, dear Brunhild, ever welcome be
+  To me and to my mother and all by us allow'd
+  For faithful friends and liegemen." Then each to th' other bow'd.
+
+  Next to greet Dame Brunhild approach'd Dame Uta too;
+  Oft she and oft her daughter their arms about her threw,
+  And on her sweet mouth lavish'd many a loving kiss.
+  Never was known a welcome so kind and frank as this.
+
+  Soon as Brunhild's women were all come to the strand,
+  Many a courtly warrior took by her lily hand
+  A lady fair, and gently her mincing steps upstay'd,
+  Now before Dame Brunhild stood many a noble maid.
+
+  'T was long before the greeting had gone through all the list.
+  On either part in plenty rosy mouths were kiss'd.
+  Still the two fair princesses were standing side by side,
+  A pair with love and rapture by longing warriors ey'd.
+
+  What erst had been but rumour, was now made clear to sight,
+  That nought had yet been witness'd so beautiful and bright
+  As those two lovely damsels; 't was plain to every eye;
+  None the slightest blemish in either form could spy.
+
+  Whoever look'd on women with but the sight for guide,
+  Such for her faultless beauty praised Günther's, stately bride;
+  But those whose thoughts went deeper, and div'd into the mind,
+  Maintain'd that gentle Kriemhild left Brunhild far behind.
+
+  Now met the dames and damsels in friendly converse free;
+  Fair robes and fairer beauties were there in store to see;
+  Many a silk pavilion and many a gorgeous tent
+  The plain before the city fill'd in its whole extent.
+
+  King Günther's kinsmen ceas'd not to press to that fair show.
+  And now was begg'd each princess from the sun to go
+  Close by, with their attendants, where shade was overhead.
+  By bold Burgundian warriors thither were they led.
+
+  Then clomb to horse the heroes, and scour'd the sounding field;
+  Many a joust was practis'd with order'd spear and shield;
+  Right well were prov'd the champions, and o'er the trampled plain,
+  As though the land were burning, the dust curl'd up amain.
+
+  So all before the ladies display'd their skill and force,
+  Nor doubt I that Sir Siegfried rode many a knightly course
+  Before the rich pavilions, and ever as he sped,
+  His thousand Nibelungers, a stately squadron, led.
+
+  Then came the knight of Trony by the good king's command;
+  In friendly wise he parted the jousters on the strand,
+  For fear the dust, now thick'ning, the ladies might molest.
+  Him with ready reverence obey'd each gentle guest.
+
+  Then spake the noble Gernot, "Let each now rest his steed
+  Till the air be cooler, 't will then be ours to lead
+  These lovely ladies homeward e'en to the palace wide.
+  So keep yourselves all ready till it please the king to ride."
+
+  Thus ended was the tourney, and now the warriors went
+  To join the dames and damsels beneath each lofty tent,
+  And there in gentle converse their grace and favor sought;
+  So flew the hours in pastime till of riding home they thought.
+
+  Now as drew on the twilight, when cooler grew the air
+  And the sun was setting, they would not linger there,
+  But up rose lords and ladies to seek the castle high;
+  Many a fair dame was cherish'd by many a love-lit eye.
+
+  So on the fair they waited as from good knights is due.
+  Then hardy squires, hot spurring before the nobles' view,
+  After the country's custom rode for the prize of weed
+  As far as to the palace, where sprung the king from steed.
+
+  There too the proud queens parted, each taking thence her way.
+  Dame Uta and her daughter with their handmaids gay
+  Into a spacious chamber both together went.
+  There might you see on all sides the sound of merriment.
+
+  In hall the seats were order'd; the king would instant hie
+  With all his guests to table; beside him you might spy
+  His lovely bride, Queen Brunhild; her royal crown she wore
+  There in King Günther's country; so rich was none before.
+
+  Seats were there plac'd unnumber'd with tables broad and good,
+  As is to us reported, full heap'd with costly food.
+  How little there was wanted that passes for the best!
+  There with the king was seated full many a noble guest.
+
+  The chamberlains of Günther in ewers of ruddy gold
+  Brought to the guests the water; should you be ever told
+  That at a prince's table service was better done,
+  'T were labor lost to say so, 't would be believ'd by none.
+
+  Then, ere the lord of Rhineland touch'd the water bright,
+  Up to him, as befitted, went Siegfried the good knight,
+  And brought to his remembrance the promise made him there,
+  Ere yet afar in Issland he look'd on Brunhild fair.
+
+  Said he, "You must remember what swore to me your hand,
+  That soon as Lady Brunhild were come into this land,
+  To me you 'd give your sister, your oaths now where are they?
+  On me throughout your journey much toil and travail lay."
+
+  "Well did you to remind me," the noble king replied,
+  "By what my hand has promis'd, I ever will abide,
+  And in this thing to serve you will do my best, my all."
+  Then sent he to beg Kriemhild to come into the hall.
+
+  Straight to the hall came Kriemhild begirt with many a maid,
+  When from the lofty staircase young Giselher thus said,
+  "Send back your maidens, Kriemhild, this bus'ness is your own;
+  On this the king, our brother, would speak with you alone."
+
+  Then forward led was Kriemhild, as Günther gave command,
+  Where stood the king, and round him from many a prince's land
+  Were noble knights unnumber'd; at once all silence kept;
+  At that same instant Brunhild had just to table stepp'd.
+
+  Thence came it she knew nothing of what was to be done.
+  Then to his gather'd kinsmen spoke Dancrat's royal son,
+  "Help me to move my sister Siegfried for lord to take."
+  "Such match," they all made answer, "with honour she may make."
+
+  Then spoke the king to Kriemhild, "Sister, I ask of thee
+  From an oath to set me by thy kindness free.
+  Thee to a knight I promis'd; if thou become his bride,
+  Thou 'lt do the will of Günther, and show thy love beside."
+
+  Then spake the noble maiden, "Dearest brother mine,
+  It needed not to ask me; whate'er command be thine,
+  I'll willingly perform it; so now, for thy sake,
+  Whom thou for husband giv'st me, fain I, my lord, will take."
+
+  With love and eke with pleasure redden'd Siegfried's hue;
+  At once to Lady Kriemhild he pledg'd his service true.
+  They bade them stand together in the courtly circle bright,
+  And ask'd her if for husband she took that lofty knight.
+
+  In modest maiden fashion she blush'd a little space,
+  But such was Siegfried's fortune and his earnest grace.
+  That not altogether could she deny her hand.
+  Then her for wife acknowledg'd the noble king of Netherland.
+
+  He thus to her affianc'd, and to him the maid,
+  Straight round the long-sought damsel in blushing grace array'd
+  His arms with soft emotion th' enamour'd warrior threw,
+  And kiss'd the high-born princess before that glitt'ring crew.
+                  <i>Lettsom's Translation, Tenth Adventure.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      HOW MARGRAVE RÜDEGER WAS SLAIN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Margrave Rüdeger did not take part in the battle fought in Etzel's
+      hall between the Burgundians visiting the Hunnish court and the Huns,
+      because of his friendship for the Burgundians, and the betrothal of his
+      daughter to Prince Giselher. Because of this, he was taunted by a Hun, who
+      said to the queen that although Rüdeger had accepted many favors from
+      Etzel he did not fight for him. When the Hun fell dead under Rüdeger's
+      blow, Etzel reproached him for slaying one of his followers when he had
+      need of so many.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Then came the fair Queen Kriemhild; she too had seen full well
+  What from the hero's anger the luckless Hun befell;
+  And she too mourn'd it deeply; with tears her eyes were wet.
+  Thus spake she to Rüdeger, "How have we ever yet
+
+  "Deserv'd that you, good Rüdeger, should make our anguish more?
+  Now sure to me and Etzel you've promised o'er and o'er,
+  That you both life and honour would risk to do us right.
+  That you 're the flower of knighthood is own'd by every knight.
+
+  "Now think upon the homage that once to me you swore,
+  When to the Rhine, good warrior, King Etzel's suit you bore,
+  That you would serve me ever to either's dying day.
+  Ne'er can I need so deeply, that you that vow should pay."
+
+  "'T is true, right noble lady; in this we 're not at strife;
+  I pledg'd, to do you service, my honour and my life,
+  But my soul to hazard never did I vow.
+  I brought the princes hither, and must not harm them now."
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  With that, to beg and pray him the king began as well;
+  King and queen together both at his feet they fell.
+  Then might you the good margrave have seen full ill bestead,
+  And thus in bitterest anguish the faithful hero said:&mdash;
+
+  "Woe's me the heaven-abandon'd, that I have liv'd to this!
+  Farewell to all my honours! woe for my first amiss!
+  My truth&mdash;my God-giv'n innocence&mdash;must they be both forgot?
+  Woe's me, O God in heaven! that death relieves me not!"
+
+  Then thus bespake him Kriemhild, "Right noble Rüdeger,
+  Take pity on our anguish; thou see'st us kneeling here,
+  The king and me before thee; both clasp thy honour'd knees.
+  Sure never host yet feasted such fatal guests as these."
+
+  With that the noble margrave thus to the queen 'gan say,
+  "Sure must the life of Rüdeger for all the kindness pay,
+  That you to me, my lady, and my lord the king have done.
+  For this I'm doomed to perish, and that ere set of sun.
+
+  "Full well I know, this morning my castles and my land
+  Both will to you fall vacant by stroke of foeman's hand,
+  And so my wife and daughter I to your grace commend,
+  And all at Bechelaren, each trusty homeless friend."
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  So to war the margrave under helmet strode;
+  Sharpest swords his meiny brandished as they rode;
+  Each in hand, bright-flashing, held his shield before.
+  That saw the dauntless minstrel, and seeing sorrow'd sore.
+
+  Then too was by young Giselher his lady's father seen
+  With helm laced as for battle. "What," thought he, "can he mean?
+  But nought can mean the margrave but what is just and right."
+  At the thought full joyous wax'd the youthful knight.
+
+  "I know not what you trust in;" thus the stern minstrel spake;
+  "Where saw you warriors ever for reconcilement's sake
+  With helmets laced advancing, and naked swords in hand?
+  On us will earn Sir Rüdeger his castles and his land."
+
+  Scarcely the valiant minstrel his words had utter'd all,
+  When the noble Rüdeger was close before the hall.
+  His shield, well proved in battle, before his feet he laid,
+  But neither proffered service, nor friendly greeting made.
+
+  To those within he shouted, "Look not for succor hence;
+  Ye valiant Nibelungers, now stand on your defence.
+  I'd fain have been your comrade; your foe I now must be.
+  We once were friends together; now from that bond I'm free."
+
+  "Now God forbid," said Günther, "that such a knight as you
+  To the faith wherein we trusted, should ever prove untrue,
+  And turn upon his comrades in such an hour as this.
+  Ne'er can I think that Rüdeger can do so much amiss."
+
+  "I can't go back," said Rüdeger, "the deadly die is cast;
+  I must with you do battle; to that my word is pass'd.
+  So each of you defend him as he loves his life.
+  I must perform my promise; so wills King Etzel's wife."
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Tarry yet a little, right noble Rüdeger!
+  I and my lords a moment would yet with you confer;
+  Thereto hard need compels us, and danger gathering nigh;
+  What boot were it to Etzel though here forlorn we die?
+
+  "I'm now," pursued Sir Hagan, "beset with grievous care;
+  The shield that Lady Gotelind gave me late to bear,
+  Is hewn, and all-to broken by many a Hunnish brand.
+  I brought it fair and friendly hither to Etzel's land.
+
+  "Ah! that to me this favour heaven would be pleas'd to yield,
+  That I might to defend me bear so well-prov'd a shield
+  As that, right noble Rüdeger, before thee now display'd!
+  No more should I in battle need then the hauberk's aid."
+
+  "Fain with the same I'd serve thee to th' height of thy desire,
+  But that I fear such proffer might waken Kriemhild's ire.
+  Still, take it to thee, Hagan, and wield it well in hand.
+  Ah! might'st thou bring it with thee to thy Burgundian land!"
+
+  While thus with words so courteous so fair a gift he sped,
+  The eyes of many a champion with scalding tears were red,
+  'T was the last gift, that buckler, e'er given to comrade dear
+  By the lord of Bechelaren, the blameless Rüdeger.
+
+  However stern was Hagan, and of unyielding mood,
+  Still at the gift he melted, which one so great and good
+  Gave in his last few moments, e'en on the eve of fight,
+  And with the stubborn warrior mourn'd many a noble knight.
+
+  "Now God in heaven, good Rüdeger, thy recompenser be!
+  Your like on earth, I'm certain, we never more shall see,
+  Who gifts so good and gorgeous to homeless wanderers give.
+  May God protect your virtue, that it may ever live!
+
+  "Alas! this bloody bus'ness!" Sir Hagan then went on,
+  "We have had to bear much sorrow, and more shall have anon.
+  Must friend with friend do battle, nor heaven the conflict part?"
+  The noble margrave answer'd, "That wounds my inmost heart."
+
+  "Now for thy gift I'll quit thee, right noble Rüdeger!
+  What e'er may chance between thee and my bold comrades here,
+  My hand shall touch thee never amidst the heady fight,
+  Not e'en if thou shouldst slaughter every Burgundian knight."
+
+  For that to him bow'd courteous the blameless Rüdeger.
+  Then all around were weeping for grief and doleful drear,
+  Since none th' approaching mischief had hope to turn aside.
+  The father of all virtue in that good margrave died.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  What a fearful clatter of clashing blades there rang!
+  From shields beneath the buffets how the plates they sprang,
+  And precious stones unnumber'd rain'd down into the gore!
+  They fought so fell and furious as man will never more.
+
+  The lord of Bechelaren went slashing here and there,
+  As one who well in battle knew how himself to bear.
+  Well prov'd the noble Rüdeger in that day's bloody fight,
+  That never handled weapon a more redoubted knight.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Loud o'er the din of battle stout Gernot shouted then,
+  "How now, right noble Rüdeger? not one of all my men
+  Thou 'lt leave me here unwounded; in sooth it grieves me sore
+  To see my friends thus slaughter'd; bear it can I no more.
+
+  "Now must thy gift too surely the giver harm to-day,
+  Since of my friends so many thy strength has swept away.
+  So turn about and face me, thou bold and high-born man!
+  Thy goodly gift to merit, I'll do the best I can."
+
+  Ere through the press the margrave could come Sir Gernot nigh,
+  Full many a glittering mail-coat was stain'd a bloody die.
+  Then those fame-greedy champions each fierce on th' other leapt,
+  And deadly wounds at distance with wary ward they kept.
+
+  So sharp were both their broadswords, resistless was their dint,
+  Sudden the good Sir Rüdeger through th' helmet hard as flint
+  So struck the noble Gernot, that forth the blood it broke;
+  With death the stern Burgundian repaid the deadly stroke.
+
+  He heaved the gift of Rüdeger with both his hands on high,
+  And to the death though wounded, a stroke at him let fly
+  Right through both shield and morion; deep was the gash and wide.
+  At once the lord of Gotelind beneath the swordcut died.
+
+  In sooth a gift so goodly was worse requited ne'er.
+  Down dead dropp'd both together, Gernot and Rüdeger.
+  Each slain by th' other's manhood, then prov'd, alas! too well.
+  Thereat first Sir Hagan furious wax'd and fell.
+
+  Then cried the knight of Trony, "Sure we with ills are cross'd;
+  Their country and their people in both these chiefs have lost
+  More than they'll e'er recover;&mdash;woe worth this fatal day!
+  We have here the margrave's meiny, and they for all shall pay!"
+
+  All struck at one another, none would a foeman spare.
+  Full many a one, unwounded, down was smitten there,
+  Who else might have 'scap'd harmless, but now, though whole and sound,
+  In the thick press was trampled, or in the blood was drown'd.
+
+  "Alas! my luckless brother who here in death lies low!
+  How every hour I'm living brings some fresh tale of woe!
+  And ever must I sorrow for the good margrave too.
+  On both sides dire destruction and mortal ills we rue."
+
+  Soon as the youthful Giselher beheld his brother dead,
+  Who yet within were lingering by sudden doom were sped.
+  Death, his pale meiny choosing, dealt each his dreary dole.
+  Of those of Bechelaren 'scaped not one living soul.
+
+  King Günther and young Giselher, and fearless Hagan too,
+  Dankwart as well as Folker, the noble knights and true,
+  Went where they found together out-stretched the valiant twain.
+  There wept th' assembled warriors in anguish o'er the slain.
+
+  "Death fearfully despoils us," said youthful Giselher,
+  "But now give over wailing, and haste to th' open air
+  To cool our heated hauberks, faint as we are with strife.
+  God, methinks, no longer, will here vouchsafe us life."
+
+  This sitting, that reclining, was seen full many a knight;
+  They took repose in quiet; around (a fearful sight!)
+  Lay Rüdeger's dead comrades; all was hush'd and still;
+  From that long dreary silence King Etzel augur'd ill.
+
+  "Alas for this half friendship!" thus Kriemhild frowning spake,
+  "If it were true and steadfast, Sir Rüdeger would take
+  Vengeance wide and sweeping on yonder murderous band;
+  Now back he'll bring them safely to their Burgundian land.
+
+  "What boot our gifts, King Etzel? was it, my lord, for this
+  We gave him all he asked us? The chief has done amiss.
+  He, who should have reveng'd us, will now a treaty make."
+  Thereto in answer Folker, the gallant minstrel, spake,
+
+  "Not so the truth is, lady! the more the pity too!
+  If one the lie might venture to give a dame like you,
+  Most foully against the margrave you've lied, right noble queen!
+  Sore trick'd in that same treaty he and his men have been.
+
+  "With such good will the margrave his king's commands obey'd,
+  That he and all his meiny dead on this floor are laid.
+  Now look about you, Kriemhild! for servants seek anew;
+  Well were you served by Rüdeger; he to the death was true.
+
+  "The fact if still you're doubting, before your eyes we'll bring."
+  'T was done e'en of set purpose her heart the more to wring.
+  They brought the mangled margrave, where Etzel saw him well.
+  Th' assembled knights of Hungary such utter anguish ne'er befell.
+
+  When thus held high before them they saw the margrave dead,
+  Sure by the choicest writer could ne'er be penn'd nor said
+  The woeful burst of wailing from woman and eke from man,
+  That from the heart's deep sorrow to strike all ears began.
+
+  Above his weeping people King Etzel sorrow'd sore;
+  His deep-voic'd wail resounded loud as the lion's roar
+  In the night-shaded desert; the like did Kriemhild too;
+  They mourn'd in heart for Rüdeger, the valiant and the true.
+
+       <i>Lettsom's Translation, Thirty-seventh Adventure.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Song of Roland is one of the many mediaeval romances that celebrate
+      the deeds of Charlemagne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The oldest text now in existence was written about 1096, but the poem was
+      current in other forms long before this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author was a Norman, for the poem is written in the Norman dialect;
+      but it is uncertain whether the Turoldus or Théroulde named in the last
+      line of the poem, "Thus endeth here the geste Turoldus sang," was the
+      author, a copyist, or a <i>jongleur</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is said that Taillefer, the minstrel of Normandy, sang the Song of
+      Roland at the battle of Hastings. "Taillefer, who right well sang, mounted
+      on his rapid steed, went before them singing of Charlemagne, and of
+      Roland, and Olivier, and of the vassals who died in Roncesvalles."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only text of the poem now in existence is one of the thirteenth
+      century, preserved in the Bodleian library at Oxford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the fifteenth of August, 778, in the valley of Roncesvalles, in the
+      Pyrenees, Charlemagne's rear guard, left under the command of Roland,
+      Prefect of the Marches of Brittany, was attacked and slaughtered by a
+      large army of Gascons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This incident forms the historical basis of the poem; but the imagination
+      of the poet has made of Charlemagne, then a young man, the old emperor,
+      with "beard all blossom white," and transformed his Gascon foes to
+      Saracens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Song of Roland is written in the heroic pentameter; it is divided into
+      "laisses," or stanzas, of irregular length, and contains about three
+      thousand seven hundred and eight lines. It is written in the assonant, or
+      vowel rhyme, that was universal among European nations in the early stage
+      of their civilization.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each stanza ends with the word "aoi," for which no satisfactory
+      translation has yet been offered, although "away" and "it is done" have
+      been suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author of the Song of Roland undertook, like Homer, to sing of one
+      great event about which all the interest of the poem centres; but unlike
+      Homer, his poem is out of all proportion, the long-drawn out revenge being
+      in the nature of an anti-climax. The Song of Roland is a fair exponent of
+      the people among whom it originated. It contains no ornament; it is a
+      straightforward relation of facts; it lacks passion, and while it
+      describes fearful slaughter, it never appeals to the emotions. Though the
+      French army shed many tears, and fell swooning to the ground at the sight
+      of the fearful slaughter at Roncesvalles, we are rather moved to smile at
+      the violence of their emotion than to weep over the dead, so little power
+      has the poet to touch the springs of feeling. However, there are passages
+      in which the poem rises to sublimity, and which have been pronounced
+      Homeric by its admirers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL9" id="link2H_BIBL9"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      J. Banquier's Bibliographie de la Chanson de Roland, 1877;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      T. Bulfinch's Legends of Charlemagne, 1863;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, 1871,
+      pp. 320-347;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Léon Gautier's Les épopées françaises, vol. i., 1878;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. Malcolm Ludlow's Story of Roland (see his Popular Epics of the Middle
+      Ages, 1865, vol. i., pp. 362-427);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gaston Paris's La poésie épique (see his Histoire poétique de Charlemagne,
+      1865, pp. 1-33);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gaston Paris's Les Chansons de Gestes françaises (see his Histoire
+      poétique de Charlemagne, 1865, pp. 69-72);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George Saintsbury's The Chansons de Gestes (see his Short History of
+      French Literature, 1892, pp. 10-25);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri Van Laun's The Carlovingian Cycle (see his History of French
+      Literature, 1876, vol. i., pp. 141-148);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ancient Literature of France, Quarterly Review, 1866, cxx. 283-323;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chanson de Roland, Westminster Review, 1873, c. 32-44;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Hayden's The Chansons de Geste, Dublin Review, 1894, cxiv. 346-357;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles Francis Keary's The Chansons de Geste: the Song of Roland,
+      Fraser's Magazine, 1881, civ. 777-789;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. M. L.'s The Song of Roland, Macmillan's Magazine, 1862, vi. 486-501;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agnes Lambert's The oldest epic of Christendom, Nineteenth Century, 1882,
+      xi. 77-101;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Andrew Lang's The Song of Roland and the Iliad, National Review, 1892, xx.
+      195-205;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Legend of Roland, Encyclopćdia Britannica, vol. xx.;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustave Masson's The Chanson de Roland, Leisure Hour, 1877, xxvi. 618-620;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Song of Roland, Catholic World, 1873 and 1874, xviii. 378-388,
+      488-500;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Song of Roland, Harper's Monthly, 1882, lxiv. 505-515;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Month, 1880, xl. 515-527; Temple Bar, 1886, lxxviii. 534-540.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Song of Roland, as chanted before the Battle of Hastings by the
+      Minstrel Taillefer, Tr. from the French translation of Vitet by Mrs. Anne
+      Caldwell Marsh, 1854;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Song of Roland, Tr. into English verse by John O'Hagan, ed. 2, 1883;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      La Chanson de Roland, Tr. from the seventh ed. of Léon Gautier, by Leonce
+      Rabillon, 1885.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For full seven years had Charlemagne tarried in Spain, and all the land
+      lay conquered save the city of Saragossa. There, in an orchard, upon a
+      terrace paved with blue marble, sat its king, Marsile, taking counsel with
+      his lords.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No army have I," said the king; "no people to array against the hosts of
+      the great emperor. Advise me, my lords, what I shall do to save ourselves
+      from disgrace and shame."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wily Blancandrin, wisest and greatest among the pagans, advanced
+      before him. "Where might cannot prevail, often craft gains the day. My
+      lord, send gifts to mighty Carle. Drive forth a long train of camels; heap
+      many mules with gold; send chariots filled with precious gifts. Advise him
+      that on the day of Saint Michael's feast you will seek him at Aix, and
+      there become a Christian, and his vassal. Yea, even send hostages; my own
+      son shall go, even though he lose his head. Then will Carle depart for
+      France. The day set by you will come, but he will hear naught from us. The
+      hostages' heads will fall. What of it? Better this than for us to lose
+      forever Spain the fair."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king, pleased with the craft of Blancandrin, dismissed his council,
+      and ordered ten of his fiercest barons to seek Charlemagne at Cordova,
+      bearing the olive-branch, and make the offer suggested by Blancandrin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cordova, filled with rich spoils, had been taken, and its surviving
+      inhabitants given the choice of the sword or Christian baptism. Therefore
+      the happy emperor sat at his ease in a wide-spreading orchard. Around him
+      stood Roland, Olivier, Samsun the duke, Anseis, Gefrei d'Anjou, and
+      Gerier. At least fifteen thousand French knights were diverting themselves
+      with different games in the beautiful orchard, where, under a pine-tree,
+      the great King of France sat upon a golden chair. His white hair and
+      flowing white beard added majesty to his already majestic figure, so that
+      the olive-bearing messengers needed not to have great Carle pointed out to
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor heard the message of Marsile in silence, and dismissing the
+      pagans for the night to a pavilion, called together in council his wisest
+      barons, Duke Ogier, Archbishop Turpin, Gerier, Roland, Olivier, a thousand
+      Franks, among them Ganelon, the step-father of Roland, and laid before
+      them the message of Marsile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rich gifts he offers me, but he demands that I return to France; thither
+      will he follow me, and at Aix will become a Christian and a vassal. A fair
+      promise, but what is in his heart I cannot tell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment's silence Roland stood forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sire, have no faith in the words of Marsile. When have we found aught but
+      treachery in the Saracen? For seven years I have been winning victories
+      for you here in Spain. Once before you yielded to such a message as this,
+      from this same Marsile, and lost, in consequence, the heads of your Counts
+      Bazan and Bazile. War on as you have begun. Besiege his city! subdue
+      Saragossa!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then strode forth the angry Ganelon. "My king, this young hot-head is a
+      fool; hearken not unto him. Accept the offer of Marsile, and lose no more
+      lives by the foolhardiness of one who cares more for his own glory than
+      for human life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice of the others, among them Duke Naimes, Charlemagne's wisest
+      counsellor and truest vassal, was with Ganelon. The emperor stroked his
+      white beard. "My lords, whom shall we send to meet Marsile at Saragossa?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will go," said Duke Naimes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nay, I cannot spare you from my councils," replied the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am here!" cried Roland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not you! You are too hot-headed to venture into the court of the enemy!"
+      cried his friend Olivier. "Let me go instead, sire!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nay!" cried the king. "Silence! Not one of the twelve peers sets his foot
+      in the kingdom of the Moors."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then let my step-father go," suggested Roland. "No wiser man than he can
+      be found."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come forward," said the king, as the Franks murmured assent, "and receive
+      the staff and glove. The Franks have chosen you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ganelon rose, wrathful, casting off his fur robe. His eyes were gray, his
+      face fierce, his form noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is Roland's work. I shall hate him forever, and Olivier, and the
+      twelve peers, because they love him. Ne'er shall I return; full well I
+      know it. If e'er I do, it will be to wreak vengeance on my enemy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go!" said the king. "You have said enough!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Ganelon went forward, full of rage, to receive the king's glove, it
+      fell ere he touched it. "A bad omen!" exclaimed the French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sirs, ye shall hear of this!" said Ganelon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his way to Saragossa with the legates of Marsile, Ganelon laid the
+      impious plot that was to result in the destruction of Roland and the
+      peers. It saved his life at Saragossa, where Marsile threatened to kill
+      him on reading Charlemagne's message. He explained carefully to the
+      Saracens how the rear guard, left at Roncesvalles under the command of
+      Roland and the twelve peers, could be destroyed by the pagan forces before
+      the knowledge of the battle could reach Charlemagne, and that, with these
+      props of his kingdom gone, the king's power would be so diminished that
+      Marsile could easily hold out against him. Then the traitor hastened back
+      to Cordova, laden with rich gifts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ganelon rode back, the emperor was preparing to return to sweet
+      France. "Barons," said Carle, "whom shall I leave in charge of these deep
+      defiles and narrow passes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My step-son Roland is well able to take the command," said Ganelon; "he
+      your nephew, whom you prize most of all your knights."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rage filled the hearts of both Roland and Carle; but the word was spoken,
+      and Roland must remain. With him remained the twelve peers, his friends,
+      Olivier, his devoted comrade, the gallant Archbishop Turpin, and twenty
+      thousand valiant knights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Charlemagne's army toiled over the terrible gorges and high
+      mountains into Gascony, the emperor, ever grieving over the untimely death
+      his nephew might meet in the defiles of Spain, down came the pagans, who
+      had been gathering on the high mountains and in the murky valleys,&mdash;emirs,
+      sons of noble counts were they, brave as the followers of Charlemagne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Olivier descried the pagan horde he at once exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the work of Ganelon!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hush!" replied Roland. "He is my step-father. Say no more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Olivier, when from the hill he saw the one hundred thousand Saracens,
+      their helmets bedecked with gold, their shields shining in the sun,
+      besought his friend to sound his horn, the olifant, and summon the king to
+      their aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never will I so disgrace myself!" exclaimed Roland. "Never shall sweet
+      France be so dishonored. One hundred thousand blows shall I give with my
+      sword, my Durendal, and the Moors will fall and die!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Olivier found his pleading vain, he mounted his steed and rode with
+      Roland to the front of the lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long was the fight and terrible. If gallantry and strength sat with the
+      twelve peers and their followers, they were with their opponents as well.
+      No sooner had Roland, or Olivier, or Turpin, or Engelier cleft the body of
+      a Moorish knight down to the saddle, than down fell a Christian, his
+      helmet broken, his hauberk torn by the lance of his dreaded foe. The
+      nephew of Marsile fell by the hand of Roland, who taunted him as he lay in
+      death; Olivier struck down Marsile's brother. "A noble stroke!" cried
+      Roland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A baron's stroke!" exclaimed the archbishop, as Samsun pierced the
+      Almazour with his lance and he fell dead. Olivier spurred over the field,
+      crushing the pagans and beating them down with his broken lance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade, where is thy sword, thy Halteclere?" called Roland to his
+      friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here, but I lack time to draw it," replied the doughty Olivier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than a thousand blows struck Turpin; the pagans fell by hundreds and
+      by thousands, and over the field lay scattered those who would nevermore
+      see sweet France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, in France, hail fell and rain; the sky was vivid with lightning
+      bolts. The earth shook, and the land lay in darkness at noonday. None
+      understood the portent. Alas! it was Nature's grief at the death of Count
+      Roland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Roland perceived that in spite of their mighty efforts the passes
+      were still filled with heathen knights, and the French ranks were fast
+      thinning, he said to Olivier, "What think you if we call the king?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never!" exclaimed Olivier. "Better death now than shame!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I blow, Carle will hear it now and return. I shall blow my olifant,"
+      cried Roland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When I begged you to blow it," said Olivier, "you refused, when you could
+      have saved the lives of all of us. You will show no valor if you blow it
+      now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Great is the strife," said Roland. "I will blow that Carle may come."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then," said Olivier, "if I return to France, I pledge you my word my
+      sister Aude shall never be your wife. Your rashness has been the cause of
+      our destruction. Now you shall die here, and here ends our friendship."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the field the archbishop spurred to reconcile the friends. "Carle
+      will come too late to save our lives," said he, "but he will reach the
+      field in time to preserve our mangled bodies and wreak vengeance on our
+      foes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Roland put his horn to his lips and blew with such force that his temples
+      burst and the crimson blood poured forth from his mouth. Three times he
+      sounded his horn, and each time the sound brought anguish to the heart of
+      Carle, who heard it, riding thirty leagues away. "Our men make battle!"
+      cried he; but this Ganelon hastened to deny, insisting that Roland was but
+      hunting and blowing the horn, taking sport among the peers. But Duke
+      Naimes exclaimed, "Your nephew is in sore distress. He who would deceive
+      you is a traitor. Haste! Shout your war-cry, and let us return to the
+      battle-field. You yourself hear plainly his call for help!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commanding Ganelon to be seized and given to the scullions of his house to
+      be kept for punishment until his return, Carle ordered his men to arm and
+      return to Roncesvalles, that they might, if possible, save the lives of
+      the noble peers. All the army wept aloud as they thought of the doom of
+      Roland. High were the mountains, deep the valleys, swift the rushing
+      streams. The French rode on, answering the sound of the olifant; the
+      emperor rode, filled with grief and rage; the barons spurred their horses,
+      but in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Roland had sounded the horn he again grasped Durendal, and, mounted
+      on his horse Veillantif, scoured the battle-field, cutting down the
+      heathen. But still their troops pressed him, and when he saw the Ethiopian
+      band led by the uncle of Marsile, he knew his doom had come. Olivier,
+      riding forth to meet the accursed band, received his death-wound from the
+      Kalif, but lived to cut his enemy down, and call Roland to him. Alas!
+      sight had forsaken his eyes, and as he sat on his steed he lifted his
+      bright sword Halteclere, and struck Roland a fearful blow that clove his
+      crest but did not touch his head. "Was the blow meant for me, my comrade?"
+      asked Roland softly. "Nay, I can see no more. God pity me! Pardon me, my
+      friend!" and as the two embraced each other, Olivier fell dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, in the agony of his grief, Roland fainted, sitting firm in his
+      saddle, and again recovering consciousness, became aware of the terrible
+      losses of the French. Only himself, the archbishop, and the gallant
+      Gaultier de l'Hum were left to defend the honor of the French. After
+      Gaultier fell, Roland, unassisted save by Turpin, who fought transfixed by
+      four spear shafts, put the enemy to flight. Feeling his death wounds,
+      Roland besought Turpin to let him bring together the bodies of his fallen
+      comrades that they might receive the blessing of the archbishop. Weak and
+      trembling from loss of blood, Roland passed to and fro over the
+      corpse-bestrewn field, and gathered together his comrades: here, Gerin and
+      Gerier, Berengier and Otun; there, Anseis, Samsun, and Gerard de
+      Roussillon, and last of all, his beloved Olivier, and placing them before
+      the knees of Turpin, he saw them receive his blessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his great grief at the sight of the dead Olivier, Roland again fainted,
+      and Turpin hastened to a little brook near by for water to revive him. But
+      the strain was too great for his already weakened body, and, when Roland
+      revived, it was to find the archbishop dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Roland, realizing that his hour, too, had come, sought out a place in
+      which to die. Upon a hill between two lofty trees, where was a marble
+      terrace, he placed himself with his head towards the enemy's country; and
+      there a Saracen, who had feigned death to escape it, tried to wrest from
+      him his beloved Durendal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Roland crushed the pagan's head with his olifant, but now he was troubled,
+      for he feared that his sword would fall into other than Christian hands.
+      Ill could he bear to be parted from his beloved sword. Its golden hilt
+      contained rare relics,&mdash;a tooth of Saint Peter, blood, hair, and
+      bones of other saints, and by the strength of these holy relics it had
+      conquered vast realms. Ten and more mighty blows he struck with Durendal
+      upon the hard rock of the terrace, in the endeavor to break it; but it
+      neither broke nor blunted. Then, counting over his great victories, he
+      placed it and the olifant beneath him, and committed his soul to the
+      Father, who sent down his angels to bear it to Paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the French army, led by Charlemagne, found the passes heaped high
+      with the bodies of the dead and no living soul to tell the story of the
+      slaughter, they wept, and many fell swooning to the earth. But the enraged
+      Charlemagne, unwilling then to give time for mourning, spurred on his
+      soldiers, overtook the fleeing enemy, and drove them into the Ebro, so
+      that those who survived the sword, perished by the wave. Then, returning
+      to the field of Roncesvalles, he wept over his beloved Roland and the
+      peers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great was his grief; handfuls of hair he tore from his head, and many
+      times wished that his soul were in Paradise, and his body beside that of
+      Roland. He commanded that the hearts of Roland, Olivier, and Turpin be
+      taken from their bodies, wrapped, and inurned, and the bodies borne home
+      in chariots. The bodies of the others were gathered together in one tomb,
+      and assoiled and blessed by the priests who accompanied the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Charlemagne prepared to start for France, he saw a new army
+      approaching. The aged Emir Baligant, from Babylon, who had long ago been
+      summoned by Marsile, had just arrived in Saragossa, and hastened forth to
+      meet Charlemagne. The emir's army was countless, and Charlemagne's was
+      weakened by its great loss. But the thought of the slaughtered peers
+      spurred on the French, and with great Carle for their leader, they quickly
+      put the pagans to flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Franks pursued the enemy to Saragossa, where the wounded Marsile
+      expired on hearing of his defeat. The city was taken, its inhabitants
+      either slain, or converted and baptized, and Queen Bramimunde taken to
+      France to be won to the true faith by gentler means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Charlemagne entered his stately palace at Aix, he was met by the fair
+      lady Aude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is Roland, my betrothed?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carle wept, tearing his white beard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou askest of one who is no more. But in his place I will give thee my
+      son. I can do no better."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nay, God forbid that I should live if Roland is dead;" and so saying,
+      Aude, the beautiful, fell dead at the feet of the emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From all his lands Carle summoned men to Aix for the trial of Ganelon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Judge him according to the law, my barons," said the king. "He lost me
+      twenty thousand of my Franks. My nephew Roland, Olivier, my twelve peers,
+      he sold."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My king," pleaded Ganelon, "call it not treason. I was ever loyal to you.
+      I thought not of gain, but of revenge against my rebellious and haughty
+      step-son."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sentiment of many was with Ganelon, and Pinabel offered to fight for
+      him against Thierri, the champion of the king. Thirty knights of his kin
+      gave themselves as legal sureties of his pledge, and the combat began.
+      Pinabel was conquered and slain, and Ganelon was condemned to be torn to
+      pieces by wild horses. His thirty sureties were also compelled to suffer
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ganelon was punished; Bramimunde was made a Christian, and the emperor
+      thought at last to have peace. But as night fell and he sought rest in his
+      lofty room, Gabriel appeared to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Summon thy hosts and march into Bire to succor King Vivien. The
+      Christians look to thee for help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king wept and tore his beard. "So troubled is my life!" said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0054" id="link2H_4_0054"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE HORN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Rear Guard of the French army, left behind at Roncesvalles, under
+      Roland, was attacked by a great host of Moors. In the beginning of the
+      battle Olivier besought Roland to recall the emperor by blowing the
+      olifant, whose sound could be heard for many leagues, but Roland refused.
+      But when he saw the overwhelming forces of the Moors, and the field strewn
+      with the corpses of the French, he resolved to blow the horn.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Seeing so many warriors fall'n around,
+  Rollánd unto his comrade Olivier
+  Spoke thus: "Companion fair and dear, for God
+  Whose blessing rests on you, those vassals true
+  And brave lie corses on the battle-field:
+  Look! We must mourn for France so sweet and fair,
+  From henceforth widowed of such valiant knights.
+  Carle, 'would you were amongst us, King and friend!
+  What can we do, say, brother Olivier,
+  To bring him news of this sore strait of ours!"
+  Olivier answers: "I know not; but this
+  I know; for us is better death than shame."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd says: "I will blow mine olifant,
+  And Carle will hear it from the pass. I pledge
+  My word the French at once retrace their steps."
+  Said Olivier: "This a great shame would be,
+  One which to all your kindred would bequeathe
+  A lifetime's stain. When this I asked of you,
+  You answered nay, and would do naught. Well, now
+  With my consent you shall not;&mdash;if you blow
+  Your horn, of valor true you show no proof.
+  Already, both your arms are drenched with blood."
+  Responds the count: "These arms have nobly struck."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  "The strife is rude," Rollánd says; "I will blow
+  My horn, that Carle may hear."&mdash;Said Olivier:
+  "This would not courage be. What I desired,
+  Companion, you disdained. Were the king here,
+  Safe would we be, but yon brave men are not
+  To blame."&mdash;"By this my beard," said Olivier,
+  "I swear, if ever I see again sweet Aude,
+  My sister, in her arms you ne'er shall lie."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd asked Olivier&mdash;"Why show to me
+  Your anger, friend?"&mdash;"Companion, yours the fault;
+  True courage means not folly. Better far
+  Is prudence than your valiant rage. Our French
+  Their lives have lost, your rashness is the cause.
+  And now our arms can never more give Carle
+  Their service good. Had you believed your friend,
+  Amongst us would he be, and ours the field,
+  The King Marsile, a captive or a corse.
+  Rollánd, your valor brought ill fortune, nor
+  Shall Carle the great e'er more our help receive,
+  A man unequalled till God's judgment-day.
+  Here shall you die, and dying, humble France, . . .
+  This day our loyal friendship ends&mdash;ere falls
+  The Vesper-eve, dolorously we part!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The archbishop heard their strife. In haste he drives
+  Into his horse his spurs of purest gold,
+  And quick beside them rides. Then chiding them,
+  Says: "Sire Rollánd, and you, Sire Olivier,
+  In God's name be no feud between you two;
+  No more your horn shall save us; nathless't were
+  Far better Carle should come and soon avenge
+  Our deaths. So joyous then these Spanish foes
+  Would not return. But as our Franks alight,
+  Find us, or slain or mangled on the field,
+  They will our bodies on their chargers' backs
+  Lift in their shrouds with grief and pity, all
+  In tears, and bury us in holy ground:
+  And neither wolves, nor swine, nor curs shall feed
+  On us&mdash;" Replied Rollánd: "Well have you said."
+
+  Rollánd raised to his lips the olifant,
+  Drew a deep breath, and blew with all his force.
+  High are the mountains, and from peak to peak
+  The sound re-echoes; thirty leagues away
+  'T was heard by Carle and all his brave compeers.
+  Cried the king: "Our men make battle!" Ganelon
+  Retorts in haste: "If thus another dared
+  To speak, we should denounce it as a lie."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rollánd in his great anguish blows
+  His olifant so mightily, with such
+  Despairing agony, his mouth pours forth
+  The crimson blood, and his swol'n temples burst.
+  Yea, but so far the ringing blast resounds;
+  Carle hears it, marching through the pass, Naimes harks,
+  The French all listen with attentive ear.
+  "That is Rollánd's horn!" Carle cried, "which ne'er yet
+  Was, save in battle, blown!" But Ganelon
+  Replies: "No fight is there! you, sire, are old,
+  Your hair and beard are all bestrewn with gray,
+  And as a child your speech. Well do you know
+  Rollánd's great pride. 'Tis marvellous God bears
+  With him so long. Already took he Noble
+  Without your leave. The pagans left their walls
+  And fought Rollánd, your brave knight, in the field;
+  With his good blade he slew them all, and then
+  Washed all the plain with water, that no trace
+  Of blood was left&mdash;yea, oftentimes he runs
+  After a hare all day and blows his horn.
+  Doubtless he takes his sport now with his peers;
+  And who 'neath Heav'n would dare attack Rollánd?
+  None, as I deem. Nay, sire, ride on apace;
+  Why do you halt? Still far is the Great Land."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd with bleeding mouth and temples burst,
+  Still, in his anguish, blows his olifant;
+  Carle hears it, and his Franks. The king exclaims:
+  "That horn has a long breath!" Duke Naimes replies:
+  "Rollánd it is, and in a sore distress,
+  Upon my faith a battle rages there!
+  A traitor he who would deceive you now.
+  To arms! Your war-cry shout, your kinsman save!
+  Plainly enough you hear his call for help."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Carle orders all the trumpeters to sound
+  The march. The French alight. They arm themselves
+  With helmets, hauberks and gold-hilted swords,
+  Bright bucklers, long sharp spears, with pennons white
+  And red and blue. The barons of the host
+  Leap on their steeds, all spurring on; while through
+  The pass they march, each to the other says:
+  "Could we but reach Rollánd before he dies,
+  What deadly blows, with his, our swords would strike!"
+  But what avails? Too late they will arrive.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The ev'n is clear, the sun its radiant beams
+  Reflects upon the marching legions, spears,
+  Hauberks and helms, shields painted with bright flowers,
+  Gold pennons all ablaze with glitt'ring hues.
+  Burning with wrath the emperor rides on;
+  The French with sad and angered looks. None there
+  But weeps aloud. All tremble for Rollánd.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  The king commands Count Ganelon be seized
+  And given to the scullions of his house.
+  Their chief, named Bčgue, he calls and bids: "Guard well
+  This man as one who all my kin betrayed."
+  Him Bčgue received, and set upon the count
+  One hundred of his kitchen comrades&mdash;best
+  And worst; they pluck his beard on lip and cheek;
+  Each deals him with his fist four blows, and falls
+  On him with lash and stick; they chain his neck
+  As they would chain a bear, and he is thrown
+  For more dishonor on a sumpter mule,
+  There guarded so until to Carle brought back.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  High are the mountains, gloomy, terrible,
+  The valleys deep, and swift the rushing streams.
+  In van, in rear, the brazen trumpets blow,
+  Answering the olifant. With angry look
+  Rides on the emp'ror; filled with wrath and grief,
+  Follow the French, each sobbing, each in tears,
+  Praying that God may guard Rollánd, until
+  They reach the battle-field. With him what blows
+  Will they not strike! Alas? what boots it now?
+  Too late they are and cannot come in time.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Carle in great anger rides&mdash;his snow-white beard
+  O'erspreads his breast-plate. Hard the barons spur,
+  For never one but inwardly doth rage
+  That he is far from their great chief, Rollánd,
+  Who combats now the Saracens of Spain:
+  If wounded he, will one of his survive?
+  O God! What knights those sixty left by him!
+  Nor king nor captain better ever had....
+                        Aoi.
+                 <i>Rabillon's Translation.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ROLAND'S DEATH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When all the French lay dead upon the field except Roland and the
+      Archbishop Turpin, Roland gathered together the bodies of his dead
+      comrades, the peers, that they might receive the archbishop's blessing. He
+      then fell fainting from grief, and aroused himself to find the archbishop
+      dead also.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Rollánd now feels his death is drawing nigh:
+  From both his ears the brain is oozing fast.
+  For all his peers he prays that God may call
+  Their souls to him; to the Angel Gabriel
+  He recommends his spirit. In one hand
+  He takes the olifant, that no reproach
+  May rest upon him; in the other grasps
+  Durendal, his good sword. Forward he goes,
+  Far as an arblast sends a shaft, across
+  A new-tilled ground and toward the land of Spain.
+  Upon a hill, beneath two lofty trees,
+  Four terraces of marble spread;&mdash;he falls
+  Prone fainting on the green, for death draws near.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  High are the mounts, and lofty are the trees.
+  Four terraces are there, of marble bright:
+  There Count Rollánd lies senseless on the grass.
+  Him at this moment spies a Saracen
+  Who lies among the corpses, feigning death,
+  His face and body all besmeared with blood.
+  Sudden he rises to his feet, and bounds
+  Upon the baron. Handsome, brave, and strong
+  He was, but from his pride sprang mortal rage.
+  He seized the body of Rollánd, and grasped
+  His arms, exclaiming thus: "Here vanquished Carle's
+  Great nephew lies! This sword to Araby
+  I'll bear." He drew it; this aroused the count.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd perceived an alien hand would rob
+  Him of his sword; his eyes he oped; one word
+  He spoke: "I trow, not one of us art thou!"
+  Then with his olifant from which he parts
+  Never, he smites the golden studded helm,
+  Crushing the steel, the head, the bones; both eyes
+  Are from their sockets beaten out&mdash;o'erthrown
+  Dead at the baron's feet he falls;&mdash;"O wretch,"
+  He cries, "how durst thou, or for good or ill,
+  Lay hands upon Rollánd? Who hears of this
+  Will call thee fool. Mine olifant is cleft,
+  Its gems and gold all scattered by the blow."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Now feels Rollánd that death is near at hand
+  And struggles up with all his force; his face
+  Grows livid; Durendal, his naked sword,
+  He holds; beside him rises a gray rock
+  On which he strikes ten mighty blows through grief
+  And rage. The steel but grinds; it breaks not, nor
+  Is notched; then cried the count: "Saint Mary, help!
+  O Durendal! Good sword! ill starred art thou!
+  Though we two part, I care not less for thee.
+  What victories together thou and I
+  Have gained, what kingdoms conquered, which now holds
+  White-bearded Carle! No coward's hand shall grasp
+  Thy hilt: a valiant knight has borne thee long,
+  Such as none shall e'er bear in France the Free!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rollánd smites hard the rock of Sardonix;
+  The steel but grinds, it breaks not, nor grows blunt;
+  Then seeing that he cannot break his sword,
+  Thus to himself he mourns for Durendal:
+  "O good my sword, how bright and pure! Against
+  The sun what flashing light thy blade reflects!
+  When Carle passed through the valley of Moriane,
+  The God of Heaven by his Angel sent
+  Command that he should give thee to a count,
+  A valiant captain; it was then the great
+  And gentle king did gird thee to my side.
+  With thee I won for him Anjou&mdash;Bretaigne;
+  For him with thee I won Poitou, le Maine
+  And Normandie the free; I won Provence
+  And Aquitaine, and Lumbardie, and all
+  The Romanie; I won for him Baviere,
+  All Flandre&mdash;Buguerie&mdash;all Puillanie,
+  Costentinnoble which allegiance paid,
+  And Saxonie submitted to his power;
+  For him I won Escoce and Galle, Irlande,
+  And Engleterre he made his royal seat;
+  With thee I conquered all the lands and realms
+  Which Carle, the hoary-bearded monarch, rules.
+  Now for this sword I mourn. . . . Far better die
+  Than in the hands of pagans let it fall!
+  May God, Our Father, save sweet France this shame!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Upon the gray rock mightily he smites,
+  Shattering it more than I can tell; the sword
+  But grinds. It breaks not&mdash;nor receives a notch,
+  And upward springs more dazzling in the air.
+  When sees the Count Rollánd his sword can never break,
+  Softly within himself its fate he mourns:
+  "O Durendal, how fair and holy thou!
+  In thy gold-hilt are relics rare; a tooth
+  Of great Saint Pierre&mdash;some blood of Saint Basile,
+  A lock of hair of Monseigneur Saint Denis,
+  A fragment of the robe of Sainte-Marie.
+  It is not right that pagans should own thee;
+  By Christian hand alone be held. Vast realms
+  I shall have conquered once that now are ruled
+  By Carle, the king with beard all blossom-white,
+  And by them made great emperor and lord.
+  May thou ne'er fall into a cowardly hand."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rollánd feels through his limbs the grasp
+  Of death, and from his head ev'n to his heart
+  A mortal chill descends. Unto a pine
+  He hastens, and falls stretched upon the grass.
+  Beneath him lie his sword and olifant,
+  And toward the Heathen land he turns his head,
+  That Carle and all his knightly host may say:
+  "The gentle count a conqueror has died. . . ."
+  Then asking pardon for his sins, or great
+  Or small, he offers up his glove to God.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rollánd feels now his end approach.
+  Against a pointed rock, and facing Spain,
+  He lies. Three times he beats his breast, and says:
+  "Mea culpa! Oh, my God, may through thy grace,
+  Be pardoned all my sins, or great or small,
+  Until this hour committed since my birth!"
+  Then his right glove he offers up to God,
+  And toward him angels from high Heav'n descend.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Beneath a pine Rollánd doth lie, and looks
+  Toward Spain. He broods on many things of yore:
+  On all the lands he conquered, on sweet France,
+  On all his kinsmen, on great Carle his lord
+  Who nurtured him;&mdash;he sighs, nor can restrain
+  His tears, but cannot yet himself forget;
+  Recalls his sins, and for the grace of God
+  He prays: "Our Father, never yet untrue,
+  Who Saint-Lazare raised from the dead, and saved
+  Thy Daniel from the lions' claws,&mdash;oh, free
+  My soul from peril, from my whole life's sins!"
+  His right hand glove he offered up to God;
+  Saint Gabriel took the glove.&mdash;With head reclined
+  Upon his arm, with hands devoutly joined
+  He breathed his last. God sent his cherubim,
+  Saint-Raphael, <i>Saint Michiel del Peril</i>.
+  Together with them Gabriel came. All bring
+  The soul of Count Rollánd to Paradise.
+                        Aoi.
+                <i>Rabillon's Translation</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The monarchs of ancient Persia made several attempts to collect the
+      historic annals of their country, but both people and traditions were
+      scattered by the Arabian conquest. The manuscript annals were carried to
+      Abyssinia, thence to India, and were taken back to Persia just when the
+      weakness of the conquerors was beginning to show itself. The various
+      members of the Persian line, who had declared themselves independent of
+      their conquerors, determined to rouse the patriotism of their countrymen
+      by the recital of the stirring deeds of the warriors of old Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fame of Abul Kasin Mansur, born at Thus, in Khorasan, A. D. 920,
+      reached Mahmoud of Ghaznin, who was searching for a poet to re-cast the
+      annals of Persia. He called the poet to his court, and, on hearing him
+      improvise, called him Firdusi (the paradisiacal). The poet was intrusted
+      with the preparation of the Shah-Nameh, or Epic of Kings, for every one
+      thousand distichs of which he was to receive a thousand pieces of gold. It
+      had been the dream of the poet's life to build a bridge and otherwise
+      improve his native town. He therefore asked that the payment be deferred
+      until the completion of his work, that he might apply the entire sum to
+      these improvements. But when the poem was completed, after thirty years'
+      labor, the king, instigated by the slanders of the jealous prime minister,
+      sent to the poet sixty thousand silver instead of gold dirhems. The
+      enraged poet threw the silver to his attendants and fled from the country,
+      leaving behind him an insulting poem to the sultan. He spent the remainder
+      of his life at Mazinderan and Bagdad, where he was received with honor,
+      and in his old age returned to Thus to die. Tradition relates that Mahmoud
+      at last discovered the villainy of his minister, and sent the gold to
+      Thus. But the old poet was dead, and his daughter indignantly refused the
+      money. Mahmoud then applied the sum to the improvements of the town so
+      long desired by Firdusi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Shah-Nameh is written in the pure old Persian, that Mohammed declared
+      would be the language of Paradise. In its sixty thousand couplets are
+      related the deeds of the Persian kings from the foundation of the world to
+      the invasion by the Mohammedans; but it is of very little value as a
+      historical record, the facts it purports to relate being almost lost among
+      the Oriental exaggerations of the deeds of its heroes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only complete translation in a foreign language is the elaborate
+      French translation of Julius Mohl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Shah-Nameh is still popular in Persia, where it is said that even the
+      camel drivers are able to repeat long portions of it. Firdusi is sometimes
+      called the Homer of the East, because he describes rude heroic times and
+      men, as did Homer; but he is also compared to Ariosto, because of his
+      wealth of imagery. His heroes are very different from those to whom we
+      have been wont to pay our allegiance; but they fight for the same
+      principles and worship as lovely maids, to judge from the hyperbole
+      employed in their description. The condensation of the Shah-Nameh reads
+      like a dry chronicle; but in its entirety it reminds one of nothing so
+      much as a gorgeous Persian web, so light and varied, so brightened is it
+      by its wealth of episode.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL10" id="link2H_BIBL10"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Samuel Johnson's The Shah-Nameh, or Book of Kings (in his Oriental
+      Religion, Persia, 1885, pp. 711-782);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. B. Cowell's Persian Literature, Firdusi (in Oxford Essays, 1885, pp.
+      164-166);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elizabeth A. Reed's Persian Literature, Ancient and Modern, 1893, pp.
+      214-283.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0058" id="link2H_4_0058"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Shah-Nameh, Tr. and abridged in prose and verse with notes and
+      illustrations, by James Atkinson, 1832;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Abbreviated version taken from a Persian abridgment, half prose, half
+      verse; The Epic of Kings, Stories re-told from Firdusi, by Helen Zimmern,
+      1882.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0059" id="link2H_4_0059"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Kaiumers was the first King of Persia, and against him Ahriman, the evil,
+      through jealousy of his greatness, sent forth a mighty Deev to conquer
+      him. By this Deev, Saiamuk, the son of Kaiumers, was slain, and the king
+      himself died of grief at the loss of his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Husheng, his grandson, who succeeded Kaiumers, was a great and wise king,
+      who gave fire to his people, taught them irrigation, instructed them how
+      to till and sow, and gave names to the beasts. His son and successor,
+      Tahumers, taught his people the arts of spinning, weaving, and writing,
+      and when he died left his throne to his son Jemschid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jemschid was a mighty monarch, who divided men into classes, and the years
+      into periods, and builded mighty walls and cities; but his heart grew
+      proud at the thought of his power, and he was driven away from his land by
+      his people, who called Zohak to the throne of Iran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zohak, who came from the deserts of Arabia, was a good and wise young man
+      who had fallen into the power of a Deev. This Deev, in the guise of a
+      skillful servant, asked permission one day to kiss his monarch between the
+      shoulders, as a reward for an unusually fine bit of cookery. From the spot
+      he kissed sprang two black serpents, whose only nourishment was the brains
+      of the king's subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The serpent king, as Zohak was now called, was much feared by his
+      subjects, who saw their numbers daily lessen by the demands of the
+      serpents. But when the children of the blacksmith Kawah were demanded as
+      food for the serpents, the blacksmith defied Zohak, and raising his
+      leathern apron as a standard,&mdash;a banner ever since honored in Persia,&mdash;he
+      called the people to him, and set off in search of Feridoun, an heir of
+      Jemschid. Under the young leader the oppressed people defeated the tyrant,
+      and placed Feridoun on the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feridoun had three sons, Irij, Tur, and Silim. Having tested their
+      bravery, he divided the kingdom among them, giving to Irij the kingdom of
+      Iran. Although the other brothers had received equal shares of the
+      kingdom, they were enraged because Iran was not their portion, and when
+      their complaints to their father were not heeded, they slew their brother.
+      Irij left a son, a babe named Minuchihr, who was reared carefully by
+      Feridoun. In time he avenged his father, by defeating the armies of his
+      uncles and slaying them both. Soon after this, Feridoun died, intrusting
+      his grandson to Saum, his favorite pehliva, or vassal, who ruled over
+      Seistan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saum was a childless monarch, and when at last a son was born to him he
+      was very happy until he learned that while the child was perfect in every
+      other way, it had the silver hair of an old man. Fearing the talk of his
+      enemies, Saum exposed the child on a mountain top to die. There it was
+      found by the Simurgh, a remarkable animal, part bird, part human, that,
+      touched by the cries of the helpless infant, carried him to her great nest
+      of aloes and sandal-wood, and reared him with her little ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saum, who had lived to regret his foolish and wicked act, was told in a
+      dream that his son still lived, and was being cared for by the Simurgh. He
+      accordingly sought the nest, and carried his son away with great
+      thanksgiving. The Simurgh parted tenderly with the little Zal, and
+      presented him with a feather from her wing, telling him that whenever he
+      was in danger, he had only to throw it on the fire and she would instantly
+      come to his aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saum first presented his son at the court of Minuchihr, and then took him
+      home to Zaboulistan, where he was carefully instructed in every art and
+      science.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one time, while his father was invading a neighboring province, Zal
+      travelled over the kingdom and stopped at the court of Mihrab, a tributary
+      of Saum, who ruled at Kabul. Though a descendant of the serpent king,
+      Mihrab was good, just, and wise, and he received the young warrior with
+      hospitality. Zal had not been long in Kabul before he heard of the
+      beauties of Rudabeh, the daughter of Mihrab, and she, in turn, of the
+      great exploits of Zal. By an artifice of the princess they met and vowed
+      to love one another forever, though they knew their love would meet with
+      opposition. Saum and Zal both pleaded Zal's cause before Minuchihr, who
+      relented when he heard from the astrologers that a good and mighty warrior
+      would come of the union. Rudabeh's mother won the consent of Mihrab, so
+      that the young people were soon married with great pomp. To them a son was
+      born named Rustem, who, when one day old, was as large as a year-old
+      child. When three years old he could ride a horse, and at eight years was
+      as powerful as any hero of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nauder succeeded the good Minuchihr, and under him Persia was defeated by
+      the Turanians, and Afrasiyab occupied the Persian throne. But Zal, whose
+      father, Saum, had died, overthrew him and placed Zew upon the throne.
+      Zew's reign was short, and Garshasp, his son, succeeded him. When he was
+      threatened by the Turanians, his people went for aid to Zal, who, because
+      he was growing old, referred them to Rustem, yet of tender age. Rustem
+      responded gladly, and his father commanded that all the horses from
+      Zaboulistan to Kabul be brought forth that his son might select a steed
+      therefrom. Every horse bent beneath his grasp until he came to the colt
+      Rakush, which responded to Rustem's voice, and suffered him to mount it.
+      From that day to his death, this steed was his faithful companion and
+      preserver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Garshasp was too weak to rule over the kingdom, and Zal despatched Rustem
+      to Mt. Alberz, where he had been told in a dream a youth dwelt called
+      Kai-Kobad, descended from Feridoun. Kai-Kobad welcomed Rustem, and the
+      two, with the noblest of the kingdom, defeated the power of Turan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a reign of a hundred years, the wise Kai-Kobad died, and was
+      succeeded by his son, the foolish Kai-Kaus, who, not satisfied with the
+      wealth and extent of his kingdom, determined to conquer the kingdom of
+      Mazinderan, ruled by the Deevs. Zal's remonstrances were of no avail: the
+      headstrong Kai-Kaus marched into Mazinderan, and, together with his whole
+      army, was conquered, imprisoned, and blinded by the power of the White
+      Deev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the news of the monarch's misfortune came to Iran, Rustem immediately
+      saddled Rakush, and, choosing the shortest and most peril-beset route, set
+      forth, unaccompanied, for Mazinderan. If he survived the dangers that
+      lurked by the way, he would reach Mazinderan in seven days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While sleeping in a forest, after his first day's journey, he was saved
+      from a fierce lion by Rakush, who stood at his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the second day, just as he believed himself perishing of thirst, he was
+      saved by a sheep that he followed to a fountain of water; on the third
+      night, Rakush, whom he had angrily forbidden to attack any animal without
+      waking him, twice warned him of the approach of a dragon. The first time
+      the dragon disappeared when Rustem awoke, and he spoke severely to his
+      faithful horse. The second time he slew the dragon, and morning having
+      dawned, proceeded through a desert, where he was offered food and wine by
+      a sorceress. Not recognizing her, and grateful for the food, he offered
+      her a cup of wine in the name of God, and she was immediately converted
+      into a black fiend, whom he slew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was next opposed by Aulad, whom he defeated, and promised to make ruler
+      of Mazinderan if he would guide him to the caves of the White Deev. A
+      stony desert and a wide stream lay between him and the demon; but the
+      undaunted Rustem passed over them, and choosing the middle of the day, at
+      which time Aulad told him the Deevs slept, he slew the guards, entered the
+      cavern, and after a terrible struggle, overcame and slew the great Deev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then released Kai-Kaus and his army, and restored their sight by
+      touching their eyes with the blood from the Deev's heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kai-Kaus, not satisfied with this adventure, committed many other follies,
+      from which it taxed his warrior sorely to rescue him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once he was imprisoned by the King of Hamaveran after he had espoused his
+      daughter; again he followed the advice of a wicked Deev, and tried to
+      search the heavens in a flying-machine, that descended and left him in a
+      desert waste. It was only after this last humiliation that he humbled
+      himself, lay in the dust many days, and at last became worthy of the
+      throne of his fathers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one time Rustem was hunting near the borders of Turan, and, falling
+      asleep, left Rakush to graze in the forest, where he was espied by the men
+      of Turan and at once captured. When Rustem awoke he followed his steed by
+      the traces of its hoofs, until he came to the city of Samengan. The king
+      received him kindly, and promised to restore the horse if it could be
+      found. While his messengers went in search of it, he feasted his guest,
+      and led him for the night to a perfumed couch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the night Rustem awoke, to see a beautiful young woman
+      enter the room, accompanied by a maid. She proved to be the princess, who
+      had fallen in love with Rustem. She pleaded with him to return her love,
+      promising, if he did so, to restore his cherished horse. Rustem longed for
+      his steed; moreover, the maiden was irresistibly beautiful. He accordingly
+      yielded to her proposals, and the two were wedded the next day, the king
+      having given his consent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After tarrying some time in Samengan, Rustem was forced to return to Iran.
+      Bidding his bride an affectionate farewell, he presented her with a
+      bracelet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If thou art given a daughter, place this amulet in her hair to guard her
+      from harm. If a son, bind it on his arm, that he may possess the valor of
+      Nariman."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of time, the princess bore a boy, who was like his father in
+      beauty and boldness, whom she christened Sohrab. But for fear that she
+      would be deprived of him, she wrote to Rustem that a daughter had been
+      born to her. To her son she declared the secret of his birth, and urged
+      him to be like his father in all things; but she warned him not to
+      disclose the secret, for she feared that if it came to the ears of
+      Afrasiyab, he would destroy him because of his hatred of Rustem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sohrab, who had already cherished dreams of conquest, was elated at the
+      knowledge of his parentage. "Mother," exclaimed he, "I shall gather an
+      army of Turks, conquer Iran, dethrone Kai-Kaus, and place my father on the
+      throne; then both of us will conquer Afrasiyab, and I will mount the
+      throne of Turan."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother, pleased with her son's valor, gave him for a horse a foal
+      sprung from Rakush, and fondly watched his preparations for war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wicked Afrasiyab well knew that Sohrab was the son of Rustem. He was
+      also aware that it was very dangerous to have two such mighty warriors
+      alive, since if they became known to each other, they would form an
+      alliance. He planned, therefore, to aid Sohrab in the war, keeping him in
+      ignorance of his father, and to manage in some way to have the two meet in
+      battle, that one or both might be slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The armies met and the great battle began. Sohrab asked to have Rustem
+      pointed out to him, but the soldiers on his side were all instructed to
+      keep him in ignorance. By some strange mischance the two men whom his
+      mother had sent to enlighten him, were both slain. Rustem was moved at the
+      sight of the brave young warrior, but remembering that Tahmineh's
+      offspring was a daughter, thought nothing more of the thrill he felt at
+      sight of him. At last Sohrab and Rustem met in single combat. Sohrab was
+      moved with tenderness for his unknown opponent, and besought him to tell
+      him if he was Rustem, but Rustem declared that he was only a servant of
+      that chief. For three days they fought bitterly, and on the fourth day
+      Rustem overthrew his son. When Sohrab felt that the end had come he
+      threatened his unknown opponent. "Whoever thou art, know that I came not
+      out for empty glory but to find my father, and that though I have found
+      him not, when he hears that thou hast slain his son he will search thee
+      out and avenge me, no matter where thou hidest thyself. For my father is
+      the great Rustem."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rustem fell down in agony when he heard his son's words, and realized that
+      his guile had prevented him from being made known the day before. He
+      examined the onyx bracelet on Sohrab's arm; it was the same he had given
+      Tahmineh. Bethinking himself of a magic ointment possessed by Kai-Kaus, he
+      sent for it that he might heal his dying son; but the foolish king,
+      jealous of his prowess, refused to send it, and Sohrab expired in the arms
+      of his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rustem's heart was broken. He heaped up his armor, his tent, his
+      trappings, his treasures, and flung them into a great fire. The house of
+      Zal was filled with mourning, and when the news was conveyed to Samengan,
+      he tore his garments, and his daughter grieved herself to death before a
+      year had passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Kai-Kaus and a wife of the race of Feridoun was born a son called
+      Saiawush, who was beautiful, noble, and virtuous. But his foolish father
+      allowed himself to be prejudiced against the youth by slanderous tongues,
+      so that Saiawush fled from the court and sought shelter with Afrasiyab in
+      Turan. There he speedily became popular, and took unto himself for a wife
+      the daughter of Afrasiyab. But when he and Ferandis his wife built a
+      beautiful city, the hatred and jealousy of Gersiwaz was aroused, so that
+      he lied to Afrasiyab and said that Saiawush was puffed up with pride, and
+      at last induced Afrasiyab to slay his son-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saiawush had a son, Kai-Khosrau, who was saved by Piran, a kind-hearted
+      nobleman, and given into the care of a goatherd. When Afrasiyab learned of
+      his existence he summoned him to his presence, but the youth, instructed
+      by Piran, assumed the manners of an imbecile, and was accordingly freed by
+      Afrasiyab, who feared no harm from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the news of the death of Saiawush was conveyed to Iran there was
+      great mourning, and war was immediately declared against Turan. For seven
+      years the contest was carried on, always without success, and at the end
+      of that time Gudarz dreamed that a son of Saiawush was living called
+      Kai-Khosrau, and that until he was sought out and placed at the head of
+      the army, deliverance could not come to Iran. Kai-Khosrau was discovered,
+      and led the armies on to victory; and when Kai-Kaus found that his
+      grandson was not only a great warrior, skilled in magic, but also
+      possessed wisdom beyond his years, he resigned the throne and made
+      Kai-Khosrau ruler over Iran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kai-Khosrau ruled many long years, in which time he brought peace and
+      happiness to his kingdom, avenged the murder of his father, and compassed
+      the death of the wicked Afrasiyab. Then, fearing that he might become
+      puffed up with pride like Jemschid, he longed to depart from this world,
+      and prayed Ormuzd to take him to his bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king; after many prayers to Ormuzd, dreamed that his wish would be
+      granted if he set the affairs of his kingdom in order and appointed his
+      successor. Rejoiced, he called his nobles together, divided his treasure
+      among them, and appointed his successor, Lohurasp, whom he commanded to be
+      the woof and warp of justice. Accompanied by a few of his faithful
+      friends, he set out on the long journey to the crest of the mountains. At
+      his entreaties, some of his friends turned back; those who stayed over
+      night, in spite of his warnings, found on waking that they were covered by
+      a heavy fall of snow, and were soon frozen. Afterwards their bodies were
+      found and received a royal burial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lohurasp had a son Gushtasp who greatly desired to rule, and was a just
+      monarch, when he succeeded to the throne. Gushtasp, however, was jealous
+      of his son, Isfendiyar, who was a great warrior. When Gushtasp was about
+      to be overcome by the forces of Turan, he promised Isfendiyar the throne,
+      if he would destroy the enemy; but when the hosts were scattered, and
+      Isfendiyar reminded his father of his promise, he was cast into a dungeon,
+      there to remain until his services were again needed. When he had again
+      gained a victory, he was told that the throne should be his when he had
+      rescued his sisters from the brazen fortress of Arjasp, where they had
+      been carried and imprisoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his way to this tower Isfendiyar met with as many terrible foes as
+      Rustem had encountered on his way to the White Deev, and as successfully
+      overcame them. Wolves, lions, enchantresses, and dragons barred the way to
+      the impregnable fortress, which rose three farsangs high and forty wide,
+      and was constructed entirely of brass and iron. But Isfendiyar, assuming
+      the guise of a merchant and concealing his warriors in chests, won his way
+      into the castle, gained the favor of its inmates, and made them drunk with
+      wine. This done, he freed his sisters, slew the guards, and struck down
+      Arjasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of keeping his promise, Gushtasp hastened to set his son another
+      task. Rustem was his Pehliva, but it pleased him to send forth Isfendiyar
+      against him, commanding him to bring home the mighty warrior in chains.
+      Isfendiyar pleaded in vain with his father. Then he explained the
+      situation to Rustem, and begged that he would accompany him home in peace
+      to gratify his father. Rustem refused to go in chains, so the two heroes
+      reluctantly began the hardest battle of their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the first day, Rustem and Rakush were severely wounded, and
+      on his return home Rustem happened to think of the Simurgh. Called by the
+      burning of the feather, the kind bird healed the wounds of the hero and of
+      Rakush, and instructed Rustem how to slay his foe. "Seek thou the tamarisk
+      tree, and make thereof an arrow. Aim at his eye, and there thou canst
+      blind and slay him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rustem followed the directions, and laid low the gallant youth. Isfendiyar
+      died exclaiming, "My father has slain me, not thou, Rustem. I die, the
+      victim of my father's hate; do thou keep for me and rear my son!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rustem, who had lived so long and accomplished such great deeds, died at
+      last by the hand of his half-brother. This brother, Shugdad, stirred up
+      the king of Kabul, in whose court he was reared, to slay Rustem because he
+      exacted tribute from Kabul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rustem was called into Kabul by Shugdad, who claimed that the king
+      mistreated him. When he arrived, the matter was settled amicably, and the
+      brothers set out for a hunt with the king. The hunters were led to a spot
+      where the false king had caused pits to be dug lined with sharp weapons.
+      Rustem, pleased with his kind reception and suspecting no harm, beat
+      Rakush severely when he paused and would go no further. Stung by the
+      blows, the gallant horse sprang forward, and fell into the pit. As he rose
+      from this, he fell into another, until, clambering from the seventh pit,
+      he and Rustem fell swooning with pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "False brother!" cried Rustem; "what hast thou done? Was it for thee to
+      slay thy father's son? Exult now; but thou wilt yet suffer for this
+      crime!" Then altering his tone, he said gently: "But give me, I pray thee,
+      my bow and arrows, that I may have it by my side to slay any wild beast
+      that may try to devour me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shugdad gave him the bow; and when he saw the gleam in Rustem's eyes,
+      concealed himself behind a tree. But the angry Rustem, grasping the bow
+      with something of his former strength, sent the arrow through tree and
+      man, transfixing both. Then thanking his Creator that he had been given
+      the opportunity to slay his murderer, he breathed his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0060" id="link2H_4_0060"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE RAJA OF INDIA SENDS A CHESSBOARD TO NUSHIRVAN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "This account of the game of chess, written by Ferdusi more than eight
+      hundred years ago, is curious as showing the antiquity of the game, its
+      resemblance to it as now played, and the tradition that it was invented in
+      India, and came originally from that country."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  A Mubid related, how one day the king
+  Suspended his crown over the ivory throne,
+  All aloes-wood and ivory, and all ivory and aloes;
+  Every pavilion a court, and every court a royal one;
+  All the Hall of Audience crowned with soldiers;
+  Every pavilion filled with Mubids and Wardens of the Marches,
+  From Balkh, and Bokhara, and from every frontier&mdash;
+  For the King of the world had received advices
+  From his vigilant and active emissaries,
+  That an Ambassador had arrived from a King of India,
+  With the parasol, and elephants, and cavalry of Sind,
+  And, accompanied by a thousand laden camels,
+  Was on his way to visit the Great King.
+  When the circumspect Monarch heard this news,
+  Immediately he despatched an escort to receive him.
+  And when the illustrious and dignified Ambassador
+  Came into the presence of the Great King,
+  According to the manner of the great, he pronounced a benediction,
+  And uttered the praise of the Creator of the world.
+  Then he scattered before him abundance of jewels,
+  And presented the parasol, the elephants, and the ear-rings;
+  The Indian parasol embroidered with gold,
+  And inwoven with all kinds of precious stones.
+  Then he opened the packages in the midst of the court,
+  And displayed each one, article by article, before the King.
+  Within the chest was much silver, and gold,
+  And musk, and amber, and fresh wood of aloes,
+  Of rubies, and diamonds, and Indian swords.
+  Each Indian sword was beautifully damascened;
+  Everything which is produced in Kanuj and Mai
+  Hand and foot were busy to put in its place.
+  They placed the whole together in front of the throne,
+  And the Chief, the favored of wakeful Fortune,
+  Surveyed all that the Raja had painstakingly collected,
+  And then commanded that it should be sent to his treasury.
+  Then the Ambassador presented, written on silk,
+  The letter which the Raja had addressed to Nushirvan;
+  And a chessboard, wrought with such exceeding labor,
+  That the pains bestowed upon it might have emptied a treasury.
+  And the Indian delivered a message from the Raja:
+  "So long as the heavens revolve, may thou be established in thy place!
+  All who have taken pains to excel in knowledge,
+  Command to place this chessboard before them,
+  And to exert their utmost ingenuity
+  To discover the secret of this noble game.
+  Let them learn the name of every piece.
+  Its proper position, and what is its movement.
+  Let them make out the foot-soldier of the army,
+  The elephant, the rook, and the horseman,
+  The march of the vizier and the procession of the King.
+  If they discover the science of this noble game,
+  They will have surpassed the most able in science.
+  Then the tribute and taxes which the King hath demanded
+  I will cheerfully send all to his court.
+  But if the congregated sages, men of Iran,
+  Should prove themselves completely at fault in this science,
+  Then, since they are not strong enough to compete with us in knowledge,
+  Neither should they desire taxes or tribute from this land and country:
+  Rather ought we to receive tribute from you,
+  Since knowledge hath a title beyond all else."
+
+  Khosru gave heart and ear to the speaker,
+  And impressed on his memory the words which he heard.
+  They placed the chessboard before the King,
+  Who gazed attentively at the pieces a considerable time.
+  Half the pieces on the board were of brilliant ivory,
+  The other half of finely imaged teak-wood.
+  The nicely-observant King questioned him much
+  About the figures of the pieces and the beautiful board.
+  The Indian said in answer: "O thou great Monarch,
+  All the modes and customs of war thou wilt see,
+  When thou shalt have found out the way to the game;
+  The plans, the marches, the array of the battle-field."
+  He replied: "I shall require the space of seven days;
+  On the eighth we will encounter thee with a glad mind."
+  They furnished forthwith a pleasant apartment,
+  And assigned it to the Ambassador as his dwelling.
+
+  Then the Mubid and the skilful to point out the way
+  Repaired with one purpose to the presence of the King.
+  They placed the chessboard before them,
+  And observed it attentively, time without measure.
+  They sought out and tried every method,
+  And played against one another in all possible ways.
+  One spoke and questioned, and another listened,
+  But no one succeeded in making out the game.
+  They departed, each one with wrinkles on his brow;
+  And Buzarchamahar went forthwith to the king.
+
+  He perceived that he was ruffled and stern about this matter,
+  And in its beginning foresaw an evil ending.
+  Then he said to Khosru: "O Sovereign,
+  Master of the world, vigilant, and worthy to command,
+  I will reduce to practice this noble game;
+  All my intelligence will I exert to point out the way."
+  Then the king said: "This affair is thine affair;
+  Go thou about it with a clear mind and a sound body,
+  Otherwise the Raja of Kanuj would say,
+  'He hath not one man who can search out the road,'
+  And this would bring foul disgrace on my Mubids,
+  On my court, on my throne, and on all my wise men."
+  Then Buzarchmahar made them place the chessboard before him,
+  And seated himself, full of thought, and expanded his countenance.
+  He sought out various ways, and moved the pieces to the right hand and
+    to the left,
+  In order that he might discover the position of every piece.
+  When after a whole day and a whole night, he had found out the game,
+  He hurried from his own pavilion to that of the King,
+  And exclaimed: "O King, whom Fortune crowneth with victory,
+  At last I have made out these figures and this chessboard,
+  By a happy chance, and by the favor of the Ruler of the world,
+  The mystery of this game hath found its solution.
+  Call before thee the Ambassador and all who care about it;
+  But the King of kings ought to be the first to behold it.
+  You would say at once without hesitation,
+  It is the exact image of a battle-field."
+  The King was right glad to hear the news;
+  He pronounced him the Fortunate, and the bearer of good tidings.
+  He commanded that the Mubids, and other counsellors,
+  And all who were renowned for their wisdom should be assembled;
+  And ordered that the Ambassador should be summoned to the Presence,
+  And that he should be placed on a splendid throne.
+
+  Then Buzarchamahar, addressing him, said:
+  "O Mubid, bright in council as the sun,
+  Tell us, what said the King about these pieces,
+  So may intelligence be coupled with thee forever!"
+
+  And this was his answer: "My Master, prosperous in his undertakings,
+  When I was summoned and appeared before him,
+  Said to me: 'These pieces of teak and ivory
+  Place before the throne of him who weareth the crown,
+  And say to him: Assemble thy Mubids and counsellors,
+  And seat them, and place the pieces before them.
+  If they succeed in making out the noble game,
+  They will win applause and augment enjoyment:
+  Then slaves and money and tribute and taxes,
+  I will send to him as far as I have the means;
+  For a monarch is to be esteemed for his wisdom,
+  Not for his treasure, or his men, or his lofty throne.
+  But if the King and his counsellors are not able to do all this
+  And their minds are not bright enough to comprehend it,
+  He ought not to desire from us tribute or treasure,
+  And his wise soul, alas! must come to grief;
+  And when he seeth our minds and genius to be subtler than theirs.
+  Rather will he send them to us in greater abundance.'"
+
+  Then Buzarchamahar brought the chess-men and board,
+  And placed them before the throne of the watchful King,
+  And said to the Mubids and counsellors:
+  "O ye illustrious and pure-hearted sages,
+  Give ear all of you to the words he hath uttered,
+  And to the observations of his prudent chief."
+
+  Then the knowing-man arranged a battle-field,
+  Giving to the King the place in the centre;
+  Right and left he drew up the army,
+  Placing the foot-soldiers in front of the battle.
+  A prudent vizier he stationed beside the King,
+  To give him advice on the plan of the engagement;
+  On each side he set the elephants of war {our bishops},
+  To support one another in the midst of the combat.
+  Further on he assigned their position to the war-steeds {our knights},
+  Placing upon each a horseman eager for battle.
+  Lastly, right and left, at the extremities of the field,
+  He stationed the heroes {the rooks} as rivals to each other.
+  When Buzarchamahar had thus drawn up the army,
+  The whole assembly was lost in astonishment;
+  But the Indian Ambassador was exceedingly grieved,
+  And stood motionless at the sagacity of that Fortune-favored man;
+  Stupefied with amazement, he looked upon him as a magician,
+  And his whole soul was absorbed in his reflections.
+  "For never hath he seen," he said, "a chessboard before,
+  Nor ever hath he heard about it from the experienced men of India.
+  I have told him nothing of the action of these pieces,
+  Not a word have I said about this arrangement and purpose.
+  How then hath the revelation come down upon him?
+  No one in the world will ever take his place!"
+
+  And Khosru was so proud of Buzarchamahar,
+  Thou mightest say that he was looking Fortune in the face.
+  He was gladdened at his heart, and loaded him with caresses,
+  And ordered him a more than ordinary dress of honor,
+  And commanded him to be given a royal cup
+  Filled to the brim with princely jewels,
+  And a quantity of money, and a charger and a saddle,
+  And dismissed him from the Presence overwhelmed with praises.
+         <i>Robinson's Translation.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0061" id="link2H_4_0061"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ZAL AND RUDABEH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Zal, recovered from the care of the Simurgh and arrived at manhood, is
+      sent to govern the frontier province of Zabul; the adjoining province of
+      Kabul, though tributary to the Persian emperor, being governed by its own
+      king, called Mihrab. This episode commences with a visit which Mihrab pays
+      to Zal, who receives him with distinguished honor, entertains him at a
+      sumptuous banquet, and they separate with mutual respect."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Then a chief of the great ones around him
+  Said: "O thou, the hero of the world,
+  This Mihrab hath a daughter behind the veil,
+  Whose face is more resplendent than the sun;
+  From head to foot pure as ivory,
+  With a cheek like the spring, and in stature like the teak-tree.
+  Upon her silver shoulders descend two musky tresses,
+  Which, like nooses, fetter the captive;
+  Her lip is like the pomegranate, and her cheek like its flower;
+  Her eyes resemble the narcissus in the garden;
+  Her eyelashes have borrowed the blackness of the raven;
+  Her eyebrows are arched like a fringed bow.
+  Wouldst thou behold the mild radiance of the moon? Look upon her
+    countenance!
+  Wouldst thou inhale delightful odors? She is all fragrance!
+  She is altogether a paradise of sweets,
+  Decked with all grace, all music, all thou canst desire!
+  She would be fitting for thee, O warrior of the world;
+  She is as the heavens above to such as we are."
+
+  When Zal heard this description,
+  His love leaped to the lovely maiden:
+  His heart boiled over with the heat of passion,
+  So that understanding and rest departed from him.
+  Night came, but he sat groaning, and buried in thought,
+  And a prey to sorrow for the not-yet-seen.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>On returning from a second visit, Mihrab describes Zal to his wife and
+      his daughter Rudabeh.</i>
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "O beautiful silver-bosomed cypress,
+  In the wide world not one of the heroes
+  Will come up to the measure of Zal!
+  In the pictured palace men will never behold the image
+  Of a warrior so strong, or so firm in the saddle.
+  He hath the heart of a lion, the power of an elephant,
+  And the strength of his arm is as the rush of the Nile.
+  When he sitteth on the throne, he scattereth gold before him;
+  In the battle, the heads of his enemies.
+  His cheek is as ruddy as the flower of the arghavan;
+  Young in years, all alive, and the favorite of fortune;
+  And though his hair is white as though with age,
+  Yet in his bravery he could tear to pieces the water-serpent.
+
+  "He rageth in the conflict with the fury of the crocodile,
+  He fighteth in the saddle like a sharp-fanged dragon.
+  In his wrath he staineth the earth with blood,
+  As he wieldeth his bright scimitar around him.
+  And though his hair is as white as is a fawn's,
+  In vain would the fault-finder seek another defect!
+  Nay, the whiteness of his hair even becometh him;
+  Thou wouldst say that he is born to beguile all hearts!"
+
+  When Rudabeh heard this description,
+  Her heart was set on fire, and her cheek crimsoned like the pomegranate.
+  Her whole soul was filled with the love of Zal,
+  And food, and peace, and quietude were driven far from her.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>After a time Rudabeh resolves to reveal her passion to her attendants.</i>
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Then she said to her prudent slaves:
+  "I will discover what I have hitherto concealed;
+  Ye are each of you the depositaries of my secrets,
+  My attendants, and the partners of my griefs.
+  I am agitated with love like the raging ocean,
+  Whose billows are heaved to the sky.
+  My once bright heart is filled with the love of Zal;
+  My sleep is broken with thoughts of him.
+  My soul is perpetually filled with my passion;
+  Night and day my thoughts dwell upon his countenance.
+
+  "Not one except yourselves knoweth my secret;
+  Ye, my affectionate and faithful servants,
+  What remedy can ye now devise for my ease?
+  What will ye do for me? What promise will ye give me?
+  Some remedy ye must devise,
+  To free my heart and soul from this unhappiness."
+
+  Astonishment seized the slaves,
+  That dishonor should come nigh the daughter of kings.
+  In the anxiety of their hearts they started from their seats,
+  And all gave answer with one voice:
+  "O crown of the ladies of the earth!
+  Maiden pre-eminent amongst the pre-eminent!
+  Whose praise is spread abroad from Hindustan to China;
+  The resplendent ring in the circle of the harem;
+  Whose stature surpasseth every cypress in the garden;
+  Whose cheek rivalleth the lustre of the Pleiades;
+  Whose picture is sent by the ruler of Kanuj
+  Even to the distant monarchs of the West&mdash;
+  Have you ceased to be modest in your own eyes?
+  Have you lost all reverence for your father,
+  That whom his own parent cast from his bosom,
+  Him will you receive into yours?
+  A man who was nurtured by a bird in the mountains!
+  A man who was a by-word amongst the people!
+  You&mdash;with your roseate countenance and musky tresses&mdash;
+  Seek a man whose hair is already white with age!
+  You&mdash;who have filled the world with admiration,
+  Whose portrait hangeth in every palace,
+  And whose beauty, and ringlets, and stature are such
+  That you might draw down a husband from the skies!"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>To this remonstrance she makes the following indignant answer:</i>
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  When Rudabeh heard their reply,
+  Her heart blazed up like fire before the wind.
+  She raised her voice in anger against them,
+  Her face flushed, but she cast down her eyes.
+  After a time, grief and anger mingled in her countenance,
+  And knitting her brows with passion, she exclaimed:
+  "O unadvised and worthless counsellors,
+  It was not becoming in me to ask your advice!
+  Were my eye dazzled by a star,
+  How could it rejoice to gaze even upon the moon?
+  He who is formed of worthless clay will not regard the rose,
+  Although the rose is in nature more estimable than clay!
+  I wish not for Caesar, nor Emperor of China,
+  Nor for any one of the tiara-crowned monarchs of Iran;
+  The son of Saum, Zal, alone is my equal,
+  With his lion-like limbs, and arms, and shoulders.
+  You may call him, as you please, an old man, or a young;
+  To me, he is in the room of heart and of soul.
+  Except him never shall any one have a place in my heart;
+  Mention not to me any one except him.
+  Him hath my love chosen unseen,
+  Yea, hath chosen him only from description.
+  For him is my affection, not for face or hair;
+  And I have sought his love in the way of honor."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>The slaves speak</i>.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "May hundreds of thousands such as we are be a sacrifice for thee;
+  May the wisdom of the creation be thy worthy portion;
+  May thy dark narcissus-eye be ever full of modesty;
+  May thy cheek be ever tinged with bashfulness!
+  If it be necessary to learn the art of the magician,
+  To sew up the eyes with the bands of enchantment,
+  We will fly till we surpass the enchanter's bird,
+  We will run like the deer in search of a remedy.
+  Perchance we may draw the King nigh unto his moon,
+  And place him securely at thy side."
+
+  The vermil lip of Rudabeh was filled with smiles;
+  She turned her saffron-tinted countenance toward the slave, and said:
+  "If thou shalt bring this matter to a happy issue,
+  Thou hast planted for thyself a stately and fruitful tree,
+  Which every day shall bear rubies for its fruit,
+  And shall pour that fruit into thy lap."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>The slaves arrange an interview between the lovers</i>.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Then said the elegant cypress-formed lady to her maidens:
+  "Other than this were once your words and your counsel!
+  Is this then the Zal, the nursling of a bird?
+  This the old man, white-haired and withered?
+  Now his cheek is ruddy as the flower of the arghavan;
+  His stature is tall, his face beautiful, his presence lordly!
+  Ye have exalted my charms before him;
+  Ye have spoken and made me a bargain!"
+  She said, and her lips were full of smiles,
+  But her cheek crimsoned like the bloom of pomegranate.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <i>The interview takes place in a private pavilion of the princess.</i>
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  When from a distance the son of the valiant Saum
+  Became visible to the illustrious maiden,
+  She opened her gem-like lips, and exclaimed:
+  "Welcome, thou brave and happy youth!
+  The blessing of the Creator of the world be upon thee;
+  On him who is the father of a son like thee!
+  May destiny ever favor thy wishes!
+  May the vault of heaven be the ground thou walkest on!
+  The dark night is turned into day by thy countenance;
+  The world is soul-enlivened by the fragrance of thy presence!
+  Thou hast travelled hither on foot from thy palace;
+  Thou hast pained, to behold me, thy royal footsteps!"
+
+  When the hero heard the voice from the battlement,
+  He looked up and beheld a face resplendent as the sun,
+  Irradiating the terrace like a flashing jewel,
+  And brightening the ground like a naming ruby.
+
+  Then he replied: "O thou who sheddest the mild radiance of the moon,
+  The blessing of Heaven, and mine, be upon thee!
+  How many nights hath cold Arcturus beholden me,
+  Uttering my cry to God, the Pure,
+  And beseeching the Lord of the universe,
+  That he would vouchsafe to unveil thy countenance before me!
+  Now I am made joyful in hearing thy voice,
+  In listening to thy rich and gracious accents.
+  But seek, I pray thee, some way to thy presence;
+  For what converse can we hold, I on the ground, and thou on the
+    terrace?"
+
+  The Peri-faced maiden heard the words of the hero;
+  Quickly she unbound her auburn locks,
+  Coil upon coil, and serpent upon serpent;
+  And she stooped and dropped down the tresses from the battlement,
+  And cried: "O hero, child of heroes,
+  Take now these tresses, they belong to thee,
+  And I have cherished them that they might prove an aid to my beloved."
+
+  And Zal gazed upward at the lovely maiden,
+  And stood amazed at the beauty of her hair and of her countenance;
+  He covered the musky ringlets with his kisses,
+  And his bride heard the kisses from above.
+  Then he exclaimed: "That would not be right&mdash;
+  May the bright sun never shine on such a day!
+  It were to lay my hand on the life of one already distracted;
+  It were to plunge the arrow-point into my own wounded bosom."
+  Then he took his noose from his boy, and made a running knot,
+  And threw it, and caught it on the battlement,
+  And held his breath, and at one bound
+  Sprang from the ground, and reached the summit.
+
+  As soon as the hero stood upon the terrace,
+  The Peri-faced maiden ran to greet him,
+  And took the hand of the hero in her own,
+  And they went like those who are overcome with wine.
+
+  Then he descended from the lofty gallery,
+  His hand in the hand of the tall princess,
+  And came to the door of the gold-painted pavilion,
+  And entered that royal assembly,
+  Which blazed with light like the bowers of Paradise;
+  And the slaves stood like houris before them:
+  And Zal gazed in astonishment
+  On her face, and her hair, and her stately form, and on all that
+    splendor.
+
+  And Zal was seated in royal pomp
+  Opposite that mildly-radiant beauty;
+  And Rudabeh could not rest from looking towards him,
+  And gazing upon him with all her eyes;
+  On that arm, and shoulder, and that splendid figure,
+  On the brightness of that soul-enlightening countenance;
+  So that the more and more she looked
+  The more and more was her heart inflamed.
+
+  Then he kissed and embraced her, renewing his vows&mdash;
+  Can the lion help pursuing the wild ass?&mdash;
+  And said: "O sweet and graceful silver-bosomed maiden,
+  It may not be, that, both of noble lineage,
+  We should do aught unbecoming our birth;
+  For from Saum Nariman I received an admonition.
+  To do no unworthy deed, lest evil should come of it;
+  For better is the seemly than the unseemly,
+  That which is lawful than that which is forbidden.
+  And I fear that Manuchahar, when he shall hear of this affair,
+  Will not be inclined to give it his approval;
+  I fear, too, that Saum will exclaim against it,
+  And will boil over with passion, and lay his hand upon me.
+  Yet, though soul and body are precious to all men,
+  Life will I resign, and clothe myself with a shroud&mdash;
+  And this I swear by the righteous God&mdash;
+  Ere I will break the faith which I have pledged thee.
+  I will bow myself before Him, and offer my adoration,
+  And supplicate Him as those who worship Him in truth,
+  That He will cleanse the heart of Saum, king of the earth,
+  From opposition, and rage, and rancor.
+  Perhaps the Creator of the world may listen to my prayer,
+  And thou mayest yet be publicly proclaimed my wife."
+
+  And Rudabeh said: "And I also, in the presence of the righteous God,
+  Take the same pledge, and swear to thee my faith;
+  And He who created the world be witness to my words,
+  That no one but the hero of the world,
+  The throned, the crowned, the far-famed Zal,
+  Will I ever permit to be sovereign over me."
+
+  So their love every moment became greater;
+  Prudence was afar, and passion was predominant,
+  Till the gray dawn began to show itself,
+  And the drum to be heard from the royal pavilion.
+  Then Zal bade adieu to the fair one;
+  His soul was darkened, and his bosom on fire,
+  And the eyes of both were filled with tears;
+  And they lifted up their voices against the sun:
+  "O glory of the universe, why come so quick?
+  Couldst thou not wait one little moment"
+
+  Then Zal cast his noose on a pinnacle,
+  And descended from those happy battlements,
+  As the sun was rising redly above the mountains,
+  And the bands of warriors were gathering in their ranks.
+        <i>Robinson's Translation.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0062" id="link2H_4_0062"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE POEM OF THE CID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Rodrigo Ruy Diaz, El Cid Campeador, was born near Burgos, in Spain, about
+      1040. The name Cid was given him by the Moors, and means lord. Campeador
+      means champion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruy Diaz was the trusty lord of Sancho, King of Castile, who at his death
+      divided his kingdom among his children. He then espoused the cause of the
+      eldest son, Sancho, and assisted him in wresting their portion of the
+      kingdom from his brothers Garcia and Alfonso. Sancho having been
+      treacherously slain while besieging his sister Urraca's town of Zamora,
+      the Cid attached himself to Alfonso, humiliating him, however, by making
+      him and his chief lords swear that they had had no hand in Sancho's death.
+      For this, Alfonso revenged himself by exiling the Cid on the slightest
+      pretexts, recalling him only when his services were needed in the defence
+      of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This much, and the Cid's victories over the Moors, his occupation of
+      Valencia, and his army's departure therefrom in 1102, led by his corpse
+      seated on horseback, "clothed in his habit as he lived", are historical
+      facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great mass of romances, among them the story of his slaying Count Don
+      Gomez because he had insulted his father, Diego Laynez; of Don Gomez's
+      daughter Ximena wooing and wedding him; of his assisting the leper and
+      having his future success foretold by him, and of his embalmed body
+      sitting many years in the cathedral at Toledo, are related in the
+      "Chronicle of the Cid" and the "Ballads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Poem of the Cid narrates only a portion of his career, and "if it had
+      been named," says Ormsby, "would have been called 'The Triumph of the
+      Cid.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Poem of the Cid was written about 1200 A. D. Its authorship is
+      unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It contains three thousand seven hundred and forty-five lines, and is
+      divided into two cantares. The versification is careless; when rhyme
+      hampered the poet he dropped it, and used instead the assonant rhyme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Poem of the Cid is of peculiar interest because it belongs to the very
+      dawn of our modern literature, and because its hero was evidently a real
+      personage, a portion of whose history was recorded in this epic not long
+      after the events took place. The Cid is one of the most simple and natural
+      of the epic heroes; he has all a man's weaknesses, and it is difficult to
+      repress a smile at the perfectly natural manner in which, while he
+      slaughters enough Moors to secure himself a place in the heavenly kingdom,
+      he takes good care to lay up gold for the enjoyment of life on earth. The
+      poem is told with the greatest simplicity, naturalness, and directness, as
+      well as with much poetic fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL11" id="link2H_BIBL11"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE CID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Robert Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. . . . Appendix contains Poetry of
+      the Cid by J. H. Frere, 1808, new ed., 1845;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthew Arnold's Poem of the Cid, MacMillan, 1871, vol. xxiv., pp.
+      471-485;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George Dennio's The Cid: A short Chronicle founded on the early Poetry of
+      Spain, 1845;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Butler Clarke's The Cid (in his Spanish Literature, 1893, pp. 46-53); E.
+      E. Hale and Susan Hale's The Cid (in their Story of Spain, 1893, pp.
+      248-261);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stanley Lane Poole's The Cid (in his Story of the Moors in Spain, 1891,
+      pp. 191-213);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sismondi's Poem of the Cid (in his Literature of the South of Europe,
+      1884, vol. ii., pp. 95-140);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George Ticknor's Poem of the Cid (in his History of Spanish Literature,
+      ed. 6, 1893, vol. i., pp. 12-26);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. T. Dobson's Classic Poets, (1879, pp. 35-138);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. G. von Herder's Der Cid, nach spanischen Romanzen besungen (in his
+      works, 1852, vol. xiv.), translated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0064" id="link2H_4_0064"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE POEM OF THE CID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Poem of the Cid, Tr. by John Ormsby, 1879;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Translations from the Poem of the Cid by John Hookam Frere (in his works,
+      1872, vol. ii., p. 409);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ballads of the Cid, Tr. by Lewis Gerard, 1883;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ancient Spanish Ballads, Tr. by John Gibson Lockhart, 1823.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0065" id="link2H_4_0065"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE POEM OF THE CID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Tears stood in the eyes of the Cid as he looked at his pillaged castle.
+      The coffers were empty, even the falcons were gone from their perches.
+      "Cruel wrong do I suffer from mine enemy!" he exclaimed as they rode into
+      Burgos. "Alvar Fanez, of a truth we are banished men."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the windows of Burgos town the burghers and their dames looked down
+      with tearful eyes upon the Cid and his sixty lances. "Would that his lord
+      were worthy of him," said they.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rode up to the gates of his house in Burgos; the king's seal was upon
+      them. "My lord," cried a damsel from an upper casement, "thy goods are
+      forfeited to the king, and he has forbidden that we open door or shelter
+      thee upon pain of forfeiture of our goods, yea, even of our sight!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little hope then had the Cid of mercy from King Alfonso; and sooner than
+      bring suffering on his beloved people of Burgos he betook himself without
+      the city and sat him down to think of what to do. "Martin Antolinez," said
+      he, "I have no money with which to pay my troops. Thou must help me to get
+      it, and if I live I will repay thee double."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the two together fashioned two stout chests covered with red leather
+      and studded with gilt nails, and these they filled with sand. Then Martin
+      Antolinez without delay sought out the money lenders, Rachel and Vidas,
+      and bargained with them to lend the Cid six hundred marks, and take in
+      pawn for them the two chests filled with treasure that he dared not at
+      that time take away with him. For a year they were to keep the chests and
+      pledge themselves not to look in them. Glad were the hearts of the money
+      lenders as they lifted the heavy chests, and happy was the Cid when he saw
+      the six hundred marks counted out before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeking the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena, the Cid embraced his wife
+      Ximena and his two daughters, and left them in the protection of the
+      abbot, to whom he promised recompense. Hard was the pain of parting as
+      when the finger nail is torn away from the flesh, but a banished man has
+      no choice. And as they passed the night at Higeruela a sweet vision
+      promising success comforted the Cid in his slumbers; and many from
+      Castile, who heard of the departure of the hero, sought his banners to
+      better their fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day the Cid and his men took Castejon and sold the spoil to the Moors
+      of Hita and Guadalajara, and then my Cid passed on and planted himself
+      upon a lofty and strong hill opposite Alcocer, and levied tribute upon the
+      neighboring peoples. When he had so besieged Alcocer for fifteen weeks he
+      took it by stratagem, and Pero Bermuez, the slow of speech, planted his
+      standard on the highest part. When the King of Valencia heard of this, he
+      determined to capture my Cid, and accordingly sent three thousand Moors to
+      lay siege to Alcocer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the water was cut off and bread became scarce, the six hundred
+      Spanish men, acting upon the advice of Minaya, took the field against the
+      three thousand Moors; and such was the valor of him that in a good hour
+      was born, and of his standard bearer, Pero Bermuez, and of the good
+      Minaya, that the Moors fell to the ground three hundred at a time, their
+      shields shivered, their mail riven, their white pennons red with blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks be to God for victory!" said the Cid. In the Moorish king's camp
+      was found great spoil,&mdash;shields, arms, and horses. Greatly the
+      Christians rejoiced, for to them fell much spoil, and but fifteen of their
+      men were missing. Even to the Moors my Cid gave some of his spoil, and
+      from his share of one hundred horses he sent by Minaya thirty, saddled and
+      bridled, with as many swords hung at the saddle bows, to King Alfonso.
+      Also he sent by him a wallet of gold and silver for his wife and
+      daughters, and to pay for a thousand Masses at Burgos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alfonso was well pleased to receive this token. "It is too soon to take
+      him into favor, but I will accept his present, and I am glad he won the
+      victory. Minaya, I pardon thee; go to the Cid and say that I will permit
+      any valiant man who so desires to follow him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the hill now called the hill of the Cid, he who girt on the sword in
+      a good hour, took up his abode and levied tribute on the people for
+      fifteen weeks. But when he saw that Minaya's return was delayed, he went
+      even unto Saragossa, levying tribute and doing much damage, insomuch that
+      the Count of Barcelona, Raymond de Berenger, was provoked into making an
+      assault upon him in the Pine Wood of Bivar, where he was ingloriously
+      defeated and taken prisoner. The count was the more shamed at this because
+      my Cid had sent him a friendly message, saying that he did not want to
+      fight him, since he owed him no grudge. When Count Raymond had given up
+      his precious sword, the great Colada, the good one of Bivar endeavored to
+      make friends with his prisoner, but to no avail. The count refused meat
+      and drink, and was determined to die, until the Cid assured him that as
+      soon as he ate a hearty meal he should go free. Then he departed joyfully
+      from the camp, fearing even to the last lest the Cid should change his
+      mind, a thing the perfect one never would have done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cheered by this conquest, the Cid turned to Valencia, and met a great
+      Moorish army, which was speedily defeated, the Cid's numbers having been
+      greatly increased by men who flocked to him from Spain. Two Moorish kings
+      were slain, and the survivors were pursued even to Valencia. Then my Cid
+      sat down before the city for nine months, and in the tenth month Valencia
+      surrendered. The spoil&mdash;who could count it? All were rich who
+      accompanied the Cid, and his fifth was thirty thousand marks in money,
+      besides much other spoil. And my Cid's renown spread throughout Spain.
+      Wonderful was he to look upon, for his beard had grown very long. For the
+      love of King Alfonso, who had banished him, he said it should never be
+      cut, nor a hair of it be plucked, and it should be famous among Moors and
+      Christians. Then he again called Minaya to him, and to King Alfonso sent a
+      hundred horses, with the request that his wife and daughters might be
+      allowed to join him. Also he sent him word that he had been joined by a
+      good bishop, Don Jerome, and had created for him a bishopric.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now were the enemies of the good one of Bivar incensed in proportion as
+      the king was pleased with this noble gift. And when the king silenced the
+      envious ones, and ordered an escort for Ximena and her daughters, and
+      treated Minaya with consideration, the Infantes of Carrion talked
+      together, commenting on the growing importance of my Cid. "It would better
+      our fortunes to marry his daughters, but they are below us in rank." And
+      so saying they sent their salutations to the Cid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Cid met his wife and daughters on his new horse, Babieca, the wonder
+      of all Spain, and great was his joy to clasp them again in his arms. And
+      he took them up in the highest part of Valencia, and their bright eyes
+      looked over the city and the sea, and they all thanked God for giving them
+      so fair a prize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When winter was past and spring had come, the King of Morocco crossed the
+      sea to Valencia with fifty thousand men, and pitched his tents before the
+      city. Then the Cid took his wife and daughters up in the Alcazar, and
+      showed them the vast army. "They bring a gift for us, a dowry against the
+      marriage of our daughters. Because ye are here, with God's help, I shall
+      win the battle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went forth on the good Babieca; four thousand less thirty followed him
+      to attack the fifty thousand Moors. The Cid's arms dripped with blood to
+      the elbow; the Moors he slew could not be counted. King Yucef himself he
+      smote three times, and only the swiftness of the horse he rode saved the
+      king from death. All fled who were not slain, leaving the spoil behind.
+      Three thousand marks of gold and silver were found there, and the other
+      spoil was countless. Then my Cid ordered Minaya and Pero Bermuez to take
+      to Alfonso the great tent of the King of Morocco, and two hundred horses.
+      And the king was greatly pleased, and the Infantes of Carrion, counselling
+      together, said, "The fame of the Cid grows greater; let us ask his
+      daughters in marriage." And the king gave their request to Minaya and
+      Bermuez, who were to bear it to the Cid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said my Cid, when he heard the proposal: "The Infantes of Carrion are
+      haughty, and have a faction in court. I have no taste for the match; but
+      since my king desires it, I will be silent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the king heard his answer, he appointed a meeting, and when he that
+      in a good hour was born saw his king, he fell at his feet to pay him
+      homage. But the king said: "Here do I pardon you, and grant you my love
+      from this day forth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day when the king presented to the Cid the offer of the Infantes,
+      my Cid replied: "My daughters are not of marriageable age, but I and they
+      are in your hands. Give them as it pleases you." Then the king
+      commissioned Alvar Fanez to act for him and give the daughters of my Cid
+      to the Infantes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Cid hastened home to prepare for the wedding. The palace was
+      beautifully decorated with hangings of purple and samite. Rich were the
+      garments of the Infantes, and meek their behavior in the presence of my
+      Cid. The couples were wedded by the Bishop Don Jerome, and the wedding
+      festivities lasted for fifteen days. And for wellnigh two years the Cid
+      and his sons-in-law abode happily in Valencia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day while my Cid was lying asleep in his palace, a lion broke loose
+      from its cage, and all the court were sore afraid. The Cid's followers
+      gathered around his couch to protect him; but Ferran Gonzalez crept
+      beneath the couch, crying from fear, and Diego ran into the court and
+      threw himself across a wine-press beam, so that he soiled his mantle. The
+      Cid, awakened by the noise, arose, took the lion by the mane, and dragged
+      him to his cage, to the astonishment of all present. Then my Cid asked for
+      his sons-in-law, and when they were found, pale and frightened, the whole
+      court laughed at them until my Cid bade them cease. And the Infantes were
+      deeply insulted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were still sulking over their injuries, King Bucar of Morocco
+      beleagured Valencia with fifty thousand tents. The Cid and his barons
+      rejoiced at the thought of battle; but the Infantes were sore afraid, for
+      they were cowards, and feared to be slain in battle. The Cid told them to
+      remain in Valencia; but stung by shame they went forth with Bermuez, who
+      reported that both had fleshed their swords in battle with the Moor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great was the slaughter of the Moors on that field. Alvar Fanez, Minaya,
+      and the fighting bishop came back dripping with gore, and as for my Cid,
+      he slew King Bucar himself, and brought home the famous sword, Tizon,
+      worth full a thousand marks in gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Infantes, still wrathful at their humiliation, talked apart: "Let us
+      take our wealth and our wives and return to Carrion. Once away from the
+      Campeador, we will punish his daughters, so that we shall hear no more of
+      the affair of the lion. With the wealth we have gained from the Cid we can
+      now wed whom we please."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sore was the heart of the Cid when he heard of their determination; but he
+      gave them rich gifts, and also the priceless swords Colada and Tizon. "I
+      won them in knightly fashion," said he, "and I give them to you, for ye
+      are my sons, since I gave you my daughters; in them ye take the core of my
+      heart." He ordered Feliz Muńoz, his nephew, to accompany them as an
+      escort, and sent them by way of Molina to salute his friend, Abengalvon
+      the Moor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Moor received them in great state, and escorted them as far as the
+      Salon; but when he overheard the Infantes plotting to destroy him, and
+      seize his substance, he left them in anger. At night the Infantes pitched
+      their tents in an oak forest full of tall trees, among which roamed fierce
+      beasts. During the night they made a great show of love to their wives,
+      and the next morning ordered the escort to go on, saying that they would
+      follow alone. As soon as they were alone they stripped the daughters of
+      the Cid of their garments, beat them with their saddle-girths and spurs,
+      and left them for dead in the wild forest. "Now we are avenged for the
+      dishonor of the lion," said they, as they departed for Carrion. But Feliz
+      Muńoz, who had suspected the Infantes, had gone forward but a little way,
+      and then crept back, so that from a thicket he perceived the sufferings of
+      his cousins. Straightway he went to their rescue, found them clothes, and
+      helped them home again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Cid heard of this insult to himself and his daughters, he grasped
+      his beard and swore a mighty oath that the Infantes would rue the day when
+      they had thus offended him. All of the Cid's friends strove to comfort the
+      ladies Elvira and Sol, and Abengalvon the Moor made them a rich supper for
+      love of the Cid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the request of my Cid, King Alfonso summoned a Cortes at Toledo, to try
+      the cause of the Cid and the Infantes. Thither went the Cid, richly clad,
+      so that all men wondered at his rich garments, his long hair in a scarlet
+      and gold coif, and his uncut beard bound up with cords. He and his hundred
+      men wore bright hauberks under their ermines, and trenchant swords under
+      their mantles, for they feared treachery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king appointed some of his counts as judges, and announced that he
+      held this, the third Cortes of his reign, for the love of the Cid. Then my
+      Cid stood forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am not dishonored because the Infantes deserted my daughters," said the
+      Cid, "for the king gave them away, not I; but I demand my swords, Colada
+      and Tizon. When my lords of Carrion gave up my daughters they relinquished
+      all claims to my property."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Infantes, well pleased that he demanded no more, returned the swords;
+      and when the blades were unsheathed and placed in the hands of the king,
+      the eyes of the court were dazzled by their brightness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Cid presented Tizon to his nephew and Colada to Martin Antolinez.
+      "Now, my king, I have another grievance. I now demand that the Infantes
+      restore the three thousand marks in gold and silver they carried from
+      Valencia. When they ceased to be my sons-in-law they ceased to own my
+      gold." Then the Infantes were troubled, for they had spent the money; but
+      the judges gave them no relief, and they were forced to pay it out of
+      their heritage of Carrion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So please your grace," said the Cid, "still another grievance, the
+      greatest of all, I have yet to state. I hold myself dishonored by the
+      Infantes. Redress by combat they must yield, for I will take no other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count Garcia ridiculed the Cid's claim. "The noble lords of Carrion
+      are of princely birth; your daughters are not fitting mates for them."
+      Then, while his enemies were taunting him and the court broke into an
+      uproar, the Cid called on Pero Bermuez, "Dumb Peter," to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Pero spoke he made himself clear. For the first time he told how like
+      a craven Ferrando had demeaned himself in battle, and how he himself had
+      slain the Moor on whom the prince had turned his back. He also reminded
+      Ferrando of the affair of the lion. When Diego attempted to speak, he was
+      silenced by Martin Antolinez, who told of the figure he cut when he clung
+      to the wine-press beam in an agony of fear, on the day the lion came forth
+      from its cage. Then the king, commanding silence, gave them permission to
+      fight. Martin Antolinez engaged to meet Diego, Pero Bermuez was to combat
+      with Ferrando, and Muno Gustioz challenged the brawler, Assur Gonzalez. It
+      was agreed that the combat should be held at the end of three weeks in the
+      vega of Carrion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When all had been arranged to his satisfaction, the Cid took off his coif,
+      and released his beard, and all the court wondered at him. Then he offered
+      some of his wealth to all present, and, kissing the king's hand, besought
+      him to take Babieca. But this the king refused to do: "Babieca is for the
+      like of you to keep the Moors off with. If I took him he would not have so
+      good a lord."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the day for the combat arrived, the king himself went to Carrion to
+      see that no treachery was used, and he said to the Infantes: "Ye have need
+      to fight like men. If ye come out successful, ye will receive great honor.
+      If ye are vanquished, the fault will be on your own heads. Seek to do no
+      wrong; woe betide him who attempts it!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the marshals placed the contestants in the lists and left them face
+      to face. Each with his gaze fixed on the other, they rushed together and
+      met midway of the lists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the thrust of Pero's Lance, Ferrando fell from his horse and yielded,
+      as he saw the dread Tizon held over him. At the same time Diego fled from
+      the sword of Martin Antolinez, and Muńo Gustioz's lance pierced Assur
+      Gonzalez, who begged him to hold his hand, since the Infantes were
+      vanquished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the battle was won, and Don Roderick's champions gained the victory.
+      Great was the sorrow in the house of Carrion; but he who wrongs a noble
+      lady deserves such suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rejoiced were they of Valencia when the champions brought home these
+      tidings, and ere long, favored by Alfonso himself, the princes of Navarre
+      and Aragon wooed my Cid's daughters, and were married to them with the
+      most splendid nuptials. Now was the Cid happy, and happier still he grew
+      as his honor increased, until upon the feast of Pentecost he passed away.
+      The grace of Christ be upon him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0066" id="link2H_4_0066"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE POEM OF THE CID.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      COUNT RAYMOND AND MY CID.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      After one of the victories over the Moors won by the Cid after his
+      banishment by King Alfonso, he despatched a messenger to the king with a
+      gift of thirty horses, and while awaiting his return, encamped in the
+      Pine-wood of Tebar and levied tribute on the surrounding country. This
+      information was conveyed to the Count of Barcelona, Raymond Berenger, who
+      prepared to march against the intruder.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Great mustering there is of Moors and Christians through the land,
+  A mighty host of men-at-arms he hath at his command.
+  Two days, three nights, they march to seek the Good One of Bivar,
+  To snare him where he harbors in the Pine-wood of Tebar;
+  And such the speed of their advance, that, cumbered with his spoils,
+  And unaware, my Cid wellnigh was taken in the toils.
+  The tidings reached my Cid as down the sierra side he went,
+  Then straightway to Count Raymond be a friendly message sent:
+  "Say to the count that he, meseems, to me no grudge doth owe:
+  Of him I take no spoil, with him in peace I fain would go."
+  "Nay," said the count, "for all his deeds he hath to make amends:
+  This outlaw must be made to know whose honor he offends."
+  With utmost speed the messenger Count Raymond's answer brought;
+  Then of a surety knew my Cid a battle must be fought.
+  "Now, cavaliers," quoth he, "make safe the booty we have won.
+  Look to your weapons, gentlemen; with speed your armor don.
+  On battle bent Count Raymond comes; a mighty host hath he
+  Of Moors and Christians; fight we must if hence we would go free.
+  Here let us fight our battle out, since fight we must perforce.
+  On with your harness, cavaliers, quick saddle, and to horse!
+  Yonder they come, the linen breeks, all down the mountain side,
+  For saddles they have Moorish pads, with slackened girths they ride:
+  Our saddles are Galician make, our leggings tough and stout:
+  A hundred of us gentlemen should scatter such a rout.
+  Before they gain the level plain, home with the lance charge we,
+  And then, for every blow we strike, we empty saddles three.
+  Count Raymond Berenger shall know with whom he has to do;
+  And dearly in Tebar to-day his raid on me shall rue."
+  In serried squadron while he speaks they form around my Cid.
+  Each grasps his lance, and firm and square each sits upon his steed.
+  Over against them down the hill they watch the Franks descend,
+  On to the level ground below, where plain and mountain blend.
+  Then gives my Cid the word to charge&mdash;with a good will they go:
+  Fast ply the lances; some they pierce, and some they overthrow.
+  And he that in a good hour was born soon hath he won the field;
+  And the Count Raymond Berenger he hath compelled to yield;
+  And reaping honor for his beard a noble prize hath made:
+  A thousand marks of silver worth, the great Colada blade.
+
+  Unto his quarters under guard the captive count he sent,
+  While his men haste to gather in their spoils in high content.
+  Then for my Cid Don Roderick a banquet they prepare;
+  But little doth Count Raymond now for feast or banquet care.
+  They bring him meat and drink, but he repels them with disdain.
+  "No morsel will I touch," said he, "for all the wealth of Spain.
+  Let soul and body perish now; life why should I prolong,
+  Conquered and captive at the hands of such an ill-breeched throng?"
+  "Nay," said my Cid; "take bread and wine; eat, and thou goest free;
+  If not, thy realms in Christendom thou never more shalt see."
+  "Go thou, Don Roderick," said the Count, "eat if thou wilt, but I
+  Have no more lust for meat and drink: I only crave to die."
+  Three days, while they the booty share, for all that they entreat,
+  The Count his purpose holds unchanged, refusing still to eat.
+  Then said my Cid, "I pray thee, Count, take food and trust to me;
+  Thyself and two knights of thy train I promise to set free."
+  Glad was Count Raymond in his heart when he the promise heard&mdash;
+  "A marvel that will be, my Cid, if thou dost keep thy word."
+  "Then, Count, take food, and when I see thy hunger satisfied,
+  My word is pledged to let thee go, thyself and two beside.
+  But understand, one farthing's worth I render not again
+  Of what has been in battle lost and won on yonder plain.
+  I give not back the lawful spoils I fairly win in fight;
+  But for mine own and vassals' wants I hold them as my right.
+  My followers are needy men; I cannot if I would;
+  For spoil from thee and others won is all our livelihood.
+  And such, while God's good will it is, must be our daily life,
+  As outcasts forced to wander, with an angry king at strife."
+  With lighter heart Count Raymond called for water for his hands,
+  And then with his two gentlemen, sent by the Cid's commands,
+  He blithely sat him down to meat: God! with what gust ate he!
+  And glad was the Campeador such heartiness to see.
+  Quoth he, "Until thou eat thy fill we part not, Count, to-day."
+  "Nor loth am I," Count Raymond said, "such bidding to obey."
+  So he and his two cavaliers a hearty meal they made:
+  It pleased my Cid to watch his hands, how lustily they played.
+  "Now if thou wilt," Count Raymond said, "that we are satisfied,
+  Bid them to lead the horses forth, that we may mount and ride.
+  Never since I have been a Count have I yet broken fast
+  With such a relish; long shall I remember this repast."
+  Three palfreys with caparisons of costly sort they bring,
+  And on the saddles robes of fur and mantles rich they fling.
+  Thus, with a knight on either hand, away Count Raymond rides;
+  While to the outposts of the camp his guests the Champion guides.
+  "Now speed thee, Count; ride on," quoth he, "a free Frank as thou art.
+  For the brave spoil thou leavest me I thank thee from my heart;
+  And if to win it back again perchance thou hast a mind,
+  Come thou and seek me when thou wilt; I am not far to find.
+  But if it be not to thy taste to try another day,
+  Still, somewhat, be it mine or thine, thou carriest away."
+  "Nay! go in peace for me, my Cid: no more I seek of thee;
+  And thou, I think, for one year's space hast won enough of me."
+  He spurred his steed, but, as he rode, a backward glance he bent,
+  Still fearing to the last my Cid his promise would repent:
+  A thing, the world itself to win, my Cid would not have done:
+  No perfidy was ever found in him, the Perfect One.
+                  <i>Ormsby's Translation.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0067" id="link2H_4_0067"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      MY CID'S TRIUMPH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the Cortes called by the King of Spain to hear the cause of the Cid,
+      whose daughters had been shamefully treated and deserted by their
+      husbands, the Infantes of Carrion, Ferran and Diego Gonzalez, the Cid
+      demanded the restitution of his swords and of three thousand marks of gold
+      and silver he had given the Infantes. These being granted, the Cid spoke
+      again:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "So please your grace! once more upon your clemency I call;
+  A grievance yet remains untold, the greatest grief of all.
+  And let the court give ear, and weigh the wrong that hath been done.
+  I hold myself dishonored by the lords of Carrion.
+  Redress by combat they must yield; none other will I take.
+  How now, Infantes! what excuse, what answer do ye make?
+  Why have ye laid my heartstrings bare? In jest or earnest, say,
+  Have I offended you? and I will make amends to-day.
+  My daughters in your hands I placed the day that forth ye went,
+  And rich in wealth and honors from Valencia were you sent.
+  Why did you carry with you brides ye loved not, treacherous curs?
+  Why tear their flesh in Corpes wood with saddle-girths and spurs,
+  And leave them to the beasts of prey? Villains throughout were ye!
+  What answer ye can make to this 't is for the court to see."
+  The Count Garcia was the first that rose to make reply.
+  "So please ye, gracious king, of all the kings of Spain most high;
+  Strange is the guise in which my Cid before you hath appeared;
+  To grace your summoned court he comes, with that long straggling beard;
+  With awe struck dumb, methinks, are some; some look as though they
+    feared.
+  The noble lords of Carrion of princely race are born;
+  To take the daughters of my Cid for lemans they should scorn;
+  Much more for brides of equal birth: in casting them aside&mdash;
+  We care not for his blustering talk&mdash;we hold them justified."
+  Upstood the Champion, stroked his beard, and grasped it in his hands.
+  "Thanks be to God above," he cried, "who heaven and earth commands,
+  A long and lordly growth it is, my pleasure and my pride;
+  In this my beard, Garcia, say, what find you to deride?
+  Its nurture since it graced my chin hath ever been my care;
+  No son of woman born hath dared to lay a finger there;
+  No son of Christian or of Moor hath ever plucked a hair.
+  Remember Cabra, Count! of thine the same thou canst not say:
+  On both thy castle and thy beard I laid my hand that day:
+  Nay! not a groom was there but he his handful plucked away.
+  Look, where my hand hath been, my lords, all ragged yet it grows!"
+  With noisy protest breaking in Ferran Gonzalez rose:
+  "Cid, let there be an end of this; your gifts you have again,
+  And now no pretext for dispute between us doth remain.
+  Princes of Carrion are we, with fitting brides we mate;
+  Daughters of emperors or kings, not squires of low estate:
+  We brook not such alliances, and yours we rightly spurned."
+  My Cid, Ruy Diaz, at the word, quick to Bermuez turned.
+  "Now is the time, Dumb Peter, speak, O man that sittest mute!
+  My daughters' and thy cousins' name and fame are in dispute;
+  To me they speak, to thee they look to answer every word.
+  If I am left to answer now, thou canst not draw thy sword."
+  Tongue-tied Bermuez stood, awhile he strove for words in vain,
+  But, look you, when he once began he made his meaning plain.
+  "Cid, first I have a word for you: you always are the same,
+  In Cortes ever jibing me, 'Dumb Peter' is the name:
+  It never was a gift of mine, and that long since you knew;
+  But have you found me fail in aught that fell to me to do?
+  You lie, Ferrando; lie in all you say upon that score.
+  The honor was to you, not him, the Cid Campeador;
+  For I know something of your worth, and somewhat I can tell.
+  That day beneath Valencia wall&mdash;you recollect it well&mdash;
+  You prayed the Cid to place you in the forefront of the fray;
+  You spied a Moor, and valiantly you went that Moor to slay;
+  And then you turned and fled&mdash;for his approach, you would not stay.
+  Right soon he would have taught you 't was a sorry game to play,
+  Had I not been in battle there to take your place that day.
+  I slew him at the first onfall; I gave his steed to you;
+  To no man have I told the tale from that hour hitherto.
+  Before the Cid and all his men you got yourself a name,
+  How you in single combat slew a Moor&mdash;a deed of fame;
+  And all believed in your exploit; they wist not of your shame.
+  You are a craven at the core; tall, handsome, as you stand:
+  How dare you talk as now you talk, you tongue without a hand?
+  Again, Ferrando, call to mind&mdash;another tale for you&mdash;
+  That matter of the lion; it was at Valencia too.
+  My Cid lay sleeping when you saw the unchained lion near;
+  What did you do, Ferrando, then, in your agony of fear?
+  Low did you crouch behind the couch whereon the Champion lay:
+  You did, Ferrando, and by that we rate your worth to-day.
+  We gathered round to guard our lord, Valencia's conqueror.
+  He rose, and to the lion went, the brave Campeador;
+  The lion fawned before his feet and let him grasp its mane;
+  He thrust it back into its cage; he turned to us again:
+  His trusty vassals to a man he saw around him there;
+  Where were his sons-in-law? he asked, and none could tell him where.
+  Now take thou my defiance as a traitor, trothless knight:
+  Upon this plea before our King Alfonso will I fight;
+  The daughters of my lord are wronged, their wrong is mine to right.
+  That ye those ladies did desert, the baser are ye then;
+  For what are they?&mdash;weak women; and what are ye?&mdash;strong men.
+  On every count I deem their cause to be the holier,
+  And I will make thee own it when we meet in battle here.
+  Traitor thou shalt confess thyself, so help me God on high,
+  And all that I have said to-day my sword shall verify."
+
+  Thus far these two. Diego rose, and spoke as ye shall hear:
+  "Counts by our birth are we, of stain our lineage is clear.
+  In this alliance with my Cid there was no parity.
+  If we his daughters cast aside, no cause for shame we see.
+  And little need we care if they in mourning pass their lives,
+  Enduring the reproach that clings to scorned rejected wives.
+  In leaving them we but upheld our honor and our right,
+  And ready to the death am I, maintaining this, to fight."
+  Here Martin Antolinez sprang upon his feet: "False hound!
+  Will you not silent keep that mouth where truth was never found?
+  For you to boast! the lion scare have you forgotten too?
+  How through the open door you rushed, across the court-yard flew;
+  How sprawling in your terror on the wine-press beam you lay?
+  Ay! never more, I trow, you wore the mantle of that day.
+  There is no choice; the issue now the sword alone can try;
+  The daughters of my Cid ye spurned; that must ye justify.
+  On every count I here declare their cause the cause of right,
+  And thou shall own the treachery the day we join in fight."
+  He ceased, and striding up the hall Assur Gonzalez passed;
+  His cheek was flushed with wine, for he had stayed to break his fast;
+  Ungirt his robe, and trailing low his ermine mantle hung;
+  Rude was his bearing to the court, and reckless was his tongue.
+  "What a to-do is here, my lords! was the like ever seen?
+  What talk is this about my Cid&mdash;him of Bivar, I mean?
+  To Riodouirna let him go to take his millers' rent,
+  And keep his mills agoing there, as once he was content.
+  He, forsooth, mate his daughters with the Counts of Carrion!"
+  Up started Muńo Gustioz: "False, foul-mouthed knave, have done!
+  Thou glutton, wont to break thy fast without a thought of prayer,
+  Whose heart is plotting mischief when thy lips are speaking fair;
+  Whose plighted word to friend or lord hath ever proved a lie;
+  False always to thy fellow-man, falser to God on high.
+  No share in thy good will I seek; one only boon I pray,
+  The chance to make thee own thyself the villain that I say."
+  Then spoke the king: "Enough of words: ye have my leave to fight,
+  The challenged and the challengers; and God defend the right."
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  The marshals leave them face to face and from the lists are gone;
+  Here stand the champions of my Cid, there those of Carrion;
+  Each with his gaze intent and fixed upon his chosen foe,
+  Their bucklers braced before their breasts, their lances pointing low,
+  Their heads bent down, as each man leans above his saddle-bow.
+  Then with one impulse every spur is in the charger's side,
+  And earth itself is felt to shake beneath their furious stride;
+  Till, midway meeting, three with three, in struggle fierce they lock,
+  While all account them dead who hear the echo of the shock.
+  Ferrando and his challenger, Pero Bermuez, close;
+  Firm are the lances held, and fair the shields receive the blows.
+  Through Pero's shield Ferrando drove his lance, a bloodless stroke;
+  The point stopped short in empty space, the shaft in splinters broke.
+  But on Bermuez, firm of seat, the shock fell all in vain;
+  And while he took Ferrando's thrust he paid it back again.
+  The armored buckler shattering, right home his lance he pressed,
+  Driving the point through boss and plate against his foeman's breast.
+  Three folds of mail Ferrando wore, they stood him in good stead;
+  Two yielded to the lance's point, the third held fast the head.
+  But forced into the flesh it sank a hand's breadth deep or more,
+  Till bursting from the gasping lips in torrents gushed the gore.
+  Then, the girths breaking, o'er the croup borne rudely to the ground,
+  He lay, a dying man it seemed to all who stood around.
+  Bermuez cast his lance aside, and sword in hand came on;
+  Ferrando saw the blade he bore, he knew it was Tizon:
+  Quick ere the dreaded brand could fall, "I yield me," came the cry.
+  Vanquished the marshals granted him, and Pero let him lie.
+
+  And Martin Antolinez and Diego&mdash;fair and true
+  Each struck upon the other's shield, and wide the splinters flew.
+  Then Antolinez seized his sword, and as he drew the blade,
+  A dazzling gleam of burnished steel across the meadow played;
+  And at Diego striking full, athwart the helmet's crown,
+  Sheer through the steel plates of the casque he drove the falchion down,
+  Through coif and scarf, till from the scalp the locks it razed away,
+  And half shorn off and half upheld the shattered head-piece lay.
+  Reeling beneath the blow that proved Colada's cruel might,
+  Diego saw no chance but one, no safety save in flight:
+  He wheeled and fled, but close behind him Antolinez drew;
+  With the flat blade a hasty blow he dealt him as he flew;
+  But idle was Diego's sword; he shrieked to Heaven for aid:
+  "O God of glory, give me help! save me from yonder blade!"
+  Unreined, his good steed bore him safe and swept him past the bound,
+  And Martin Antolinez stood alone upon the ground.
+  "Come hither," said the king; "thus far the conquerors are ye."
+  And fairly fought and won the field the marshals both agree.
+  So much for these, and how they fought: remains to tell you yet
+  How meanwhile Muńo Gustioz Assur Gonzalez met.
+  With a strong arm and steady aim each struck the other's shield,
+  And under Assur's sturdy thrusts the plates of Muńo's yield;
+  But harmless passed the lance's point, and spent its force in air.
+  Not so Don Muńo's; on the shield of Assur striking fair,
+  Through plate and boss and foeman's breast his pennoned lance he sent,
+  Till out between the shoulder blades a fathom's length it went.
+  Then, as the lance he plucked away, clear from the saddle swung,
+  With one strong wrench of Muno's wrist to earth was Assur flung;
+  And back it came, shaft, pennon, blade, all stained a gory red;
+  Nor was there one of all the crowd but counted Assur sped,
+  While o'er him Muńo Gustioz stood with uplifted brand.
+  Then cried Gonzalo Assurez: "In God's name hold thy hand!
+  Already have ye won the field; no more is needed now."
+  And said the marshals, "It is just, and we the claim allow."
+  And then the King Alfonso gave command to clear the ground,
+  And gather in the relics of the battle strewed around.
+  And from the field in honor went Don Roderick's champions three.
+  Thanks be to God, the Lord of all, that gave the victory.
+
+  But fearing treachery, that night upon their way they went,
+  As King Alfonso's honored guests in safety homeward sent,
+  And to Valencia city day and night they journeyed on,
+  To tell my Cid Campeador that his behest was done.
+  But in the lands of Carrion it was a day of woe,
+  And on the lords of Carrion it fell a heavy blow.
+  He who a noble lady wrongs and casts aside&mdash;may he
+  Meet like requital for his deeds, or worse, if worse there be.
+  But let us leave them where they lie&mdash;their meed is all men's scorn.
+
+  Turn we to speak of him that in a happy hour was born.
+  Valencia the Great was glad, rejoiced at heart to see
+  The honored champions of her lord return in victory:
+  And Ruy Diaz grasped his beard: "Thanks be to God," said he,
+  "Of part or lot in Carrion now are my daughters free;
+  Now may I give them without shame whoe'er the suitors be."
+  And favored by the king himself, Alfonso of Leon,
+  Prosperous was the wooing of Navarre and Aragon,
+  The bridals of Elvira and of Sol in splendor passed;
+  Stately the former nuptials were, but statelier far the <i>hast</i>.
+  And he that in a good hour was born, behold how he <i>hath</i> sped!
+  His daughters now to higher rank and greater honor wed:
+  Sought by Navarre and Aragon for queens his daughters twain;
+  And monarchs of his blood to-day upon the thrones of Spain.
+  And so his honor in the land grows greater day by day.
+  Upon the feast of Pentecost from life he passed away.
+  For him and all of us the Grace of Christ let us implore.
+  And here ye have the story of my Cid Campeador.
+  <i>Ormsby's Translation.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0068" id="link2H_4_0068"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "This Poem of the earth and air,
+  This mediaeval miracle of song."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Dante Alighieri was born at Florence, in May, 1265. His family belonged to
+      the Guelph, or Papal faction, and he early took part in the struggle
+      between the parties. In 1274 he first saw Beatrice Portinari, and he says
+      of this meeting in the "Vita Nuova," "I say that thenceforward Love swayed
+      my soul, which was even then espoused to him." Beatrice died in 1290, and
+      Dante married Gemma Donati, between 1291 and 1294. In 1295 he joined the
+      Art of Druggists, in order to become a member of the Administrative
+      Council. In 1300 he was made Prior, and in 1301, when the Neri entered
+      Florence, he was exiled, his property confiscated, and himself sentenced
+      to be burned, if found within the republic. After this he became a
+      Ghibeline, and took up arms against the city with his fellow-exiles, but
+      withdrew from their council at last because of disagreements, and
+      separating from them, spent his time at Verona, Padua, Sunigianda, and in
+      the monastery of Gubbio. In 1316 the government of Florence issued a
+      decree allowing the exiles to return on payment of a fine; but Dante
+      indignantly refused to acknowledge thus that he had been in the wrong. He
+      was in Ravenna in 1320, and died there Sept. 14, 1321, on his return from
+      an embassy to Venice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The "Commedia" was written during Dante's nineteen years of exile. The
+      three parts, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, are emblematic of the
+      threefold state of man,&mdash;sin, grace, and beatitude. The thirty-three
+      cantos into which each part is divided, are in allusion to the years of
+      the Saviour's life, and the triple rhyme suggests the Trinity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Divine Comedy is written in the <i>terza rima</i>, which consists of
+      three verses arranged in such a way that the middle line of each triplet
+      rhymes with the first or third verse of the succeeding triplet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The entire time occupied in the "Commedia" is eleven days, from March 25
+      to April 5, 1300.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dante called the poem a comedy because of its prosperous ending. The
+      prefix "divine" was given it later by its admirers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Divine Comedy is sometimes called the epic of mediaevalism, and again,
+      the epic of man. Dante himself said: "The subject of the whole work, then,
+      taken literally, is the state of the soul after death, regarded as a
+      matter of fact; for the action of the whole work deals with this and is
+      about this. But if the work be taken allegorically, its subject is man, in
+      so far as by merit or demerit in the exercise of free will, he is exposed
+      to the rewards or punishment of justice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time the Divine Comedy was neglected, and even in comparatively
+      recent times the Inferno was the only portion read; but of late years
+      there has been a re-awakening of interest in regard to the whole poem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In no other of the epics has the author put so much of himself as Dante
+      has in the "Commedia." It was he himself who saw this vision; he himself,
+      proud, tortured, who carried the sense of his wrongs with him through Hell
+      and Purgatory, even into Paradise. We learn the history of his times, all
+      the crimes committed by men in high position, and we also learn the
+      history of the unhappy Florentine, of whose poem it has been said, "none
+      other in the world is so deeply and universally sorrowful."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL12" id="link2H_BIBL12"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      J. Colomb de Batines's Bibliografia Dantesca, 2 vols., 1846;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Coolidge Lane's The Dante collections in the Harvard College and
+      Boston Public Libraries (Bibliographical contributions of the library of
+      Harvard University, 1885);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Coolidge Lane's Additions to the Dante collection in the Harvard
+      Library (see the Annual Reports of the Dante Society of Cambridge, Mass.,
+      1887);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother Azarius's Spiritual Sense of the Divina Commedia (in his Phases of
+      Thought and Criticism, 1892, pp. 125-182);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry Clark Barlow's Critical Contributions to the Study of the Divine
+      Comedy, 1865;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Herbert Baynes's Dante and his Ideal, 1891;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vincenzo Botta's Introduction to the Study of Dante, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oscar Browning's Dante, his Life and Writing, 1890, pp. 70-104;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. J. Butler's Dante, his Time and Work, 1895;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard William Church's Dante and Other Essays, 1888, pp. 1-191;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. Farrazzi's Manuale Dantesco, 5 vols., 1865-77;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Torrey Harris's Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia, 1890;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Francis Hettinger's Dante's Divina Commedia, its Scope and Value, Tr. by
+      H. S. Bowden, 1887 (Roman Catholic standpoint);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. R. Lowell's Essay on Dante (in his Among my Books, 1876);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lewis E. Mott's Dante and Beatrice, an Essay on Interpretation, 1892;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giovanni Andrea Scartazzini's A Companion to Dante, from the German, by A.
+      J. Butler, 1892;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denton J. Snider's Dante's Inferno: a Commentary, 1892;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Augustus Hopkins Strong's Dante and the Divine Comedy (in his Philosophy
+      and Religion, 1888, pp. 501-524);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Addington Symonds's An Introduction to the Study of Dante, Ed. 2,
+      1890;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paget Toynbee's Dictionary of the Divina Commedia, 2 parts;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Warren Vernon's Readings on the Purgatorio of Dante, chiefly based
+      on the Commentary of Benvenuto da Imola; Intro. by the Dean of St. Paul's,
+      2 vols., 1889;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Edward Moore's Time References in the Divina Commedia, London, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. E. Moore's Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina
+      Commedia, Cambridge, 1889.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0070" id="link2H_4_0070"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Divine Comedy, the Inferno, a literal prose translation with the text
+      of the original collated from the best editions, with explanatory notes by
+      J. A. Carlyle, Ed. 6, 1891 (contains valuable chapters on manuscripts,
+      translations, etc.);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Divina Commedia, edited with translation and notes by A. J. Butler, 1892;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, Tr. by H. F. Cary, 1888;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Divine Comedy, Tr. by H. W. Longfellow, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Divine Comedy, Tr. by C. E. Norton, 1891-92 (rhythmical prose
+      translation);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Divine Comedy, Tr. of the Commedia and Lanzoniere, notes, essays, and
+      biographical introduction by E. H. Plumptre, 1887;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Divina Commedia, Tr. into English verse with notes and illustrations by J.
+      A. Wilstach, 2 vols., 1888.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0071" id="link2H_4_0071"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE HELL.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Hell conceived by Dante was made by the falling of Lucifer to the
+      centre of the earth. It was directly under Jerusalem. The earth, displaced
+      by Lucifer's fall, made the Mount of Purgatory, which was the antipodes of
+      Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unbarred entrance gate, over which stands the inscription, "Leave hope
+      behind, all ye who enter here," leads into a Vestibule, or Ante-Hell, a
+      dark plain separated from Hell proper by the river Acheron. Hell proper
+      then falls into three great divisions for the punishment of the sins of
+      Incontinence, Bestiality, and Malice, which are punished in nine circles,
+      each circle sub-divided. Circle One is the Limbo of the Unbaptized.
+      Circles Two, Three, Four, and Five are reserved for the punishment of the
+      sins of Incontinence, Lasciviousness, Gluttony, Avarice with Prodigality,
+      and Anger with Melancholy. In Circle Six is punished the sin of
+      Bestiality, under which fall Infidelity and Heresiarchy, Bestiality having
+      here its Italian meaning of folly. In Circles Seven and Eight is punished
+      Malice, subdivided into Violence and Fraud. There are three divisions of
+      Violence,&mdash;the Violent against their neighbors (Tyrants, Murderers,
+      etc.); the Violent against themselves (Suicides); and the violent against
+      God (Blasphemers, etc.); and ten divisions of Circle Eight,&mdash;Fraud,
+      <i>i.e.</i>, Seducers, Flatterers, Simoniacs, Soothsayers, Barrators,
+      Hypocrites, Thieves, False Counsellors, Schismatics, and Forgers and
+      Falsifiers. Below these ten pits yawns the well of the giants, above which
+      the giants tower so that half their persons is visible. Within this well
+      in Circle Nine is Cocytus, a lake of ice divided into four belts,&mdash;Caina,
+      Antenora, Ptolemaea, and Judecca, where are punished, respectively, the
+      Betrayers of their kindred, of their country, of their friends and guests,
+      and of their benefactors. At the bottom of the pit is Lucifer, half above
+      the ice and half below it, the centre of his body being the centre of
+      gravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0072" id="link2H_4_0072"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE HELL.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The poet Dante, in the thirty-fifth year of his life, this being the year
+      1300 A. D., on New Year's day of the old reckoning, lost his way in a
+      rough and thorny forest, and when he attempted to regain it by mounting a
+      hill that rose before him resplendent in sunshine, encountered a leopard,
+      a lion, and a wolf. Driven back by these, and utterly despairing of
+      rescue, he met one who declared himself to be that Vergil who had sung the
+      fall of Troy and the flight of Aeneas, and who promised to take him
+      through the lower world and Purgatory, even unto Paradise. Dante
+      questioned why it was permitted to him to take the journey denied to so
+      many others, and was told that Vergil had been sent to his rescue by the
+      beauteous Beatrice, long since in Paradise. When the poet, trembling with
+      fear, heard that the shining eyes of Beatrice had wept over his danger in
+      the forest, and that she had sought the gates of hell to effect his
+      rescue, his strength was renewed, even as the flowers, chilled by the
+      frosts of night, uplift themselves in the bright light of the morning sun;
+      and he entered without fear on the deep and savage way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This allegory, being interpreted, probably means that the poet, entangled
+      in the dark forest of political anarchy, was driven from the hill of civil
+      order by the Leopard of Pleasure (Florence), the Lion of Ambition
+      (France), and the Wolf of Avarice (Rome), and was by divine grace granted
+      a vision of the three worlds that he might realize what comes after death,
+      and be the more firmly established in the right political faith,&mdash;Ghibellinism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Through me is the way into the sorrowful city; into eternal dole among
+      the lost people. Justice incited my sublime Creator. Divine Omnipotence,
+      the highest wisdom, and the Primal Love created me. Before me, there were
+      no created things. Only eternal, and I eternal, last. Abandon hope, all ye
+      who enter here!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the inscription over the doorway, after the reading of which
+      Dante's ears were assailed by words of agony and heart-rending cries.
+      "This," said Vergil, "is the home of those melancholy souls who lived
+      without infamy and without praise. Cowards and selfish in life, they are
+      denied even entrance to hell." As they looked, a long train passed by,
+      stung by gadflies and following a whirling standard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charon, about whose eyes were wheels of flame, endeavored to drive the
+      poet and his guide away as they stood among the weary and naked souls that
+      gathered shivering on the margin of Acheron; but as a blast of wind and a
+      burst of crimson light caused a deep sleep to fall on the poet, he was
+      wafted across the river, and awaking he found himself in the Limbo of the
+      Unbaptized, the first of the nine circles of hell, where were the souls of
+      many men, women, and infants, whose only punishment was, without hope, to
+      live on in desire. Here was no torment, only the sadness caused by the
+      ever-unsatisfied longing for the ever-denied divine grace. This was
+      Vergil's abode, and in the noble castles set among the green enamelled
+      meadows dwelt Homer, Horace, and Ovid, Electra, Hector, and Camilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing down a narrow walk into a region of semi-darkness, they entered
+      the second circle, where Minos stood, judging the sinners and girding
+      himself with his tail as many times as was the number of the circle to
+      which the spirit was to go. Here in darkness and storm were the carnal
+      sinners, whose punishment was to be beaten hither and thither by the
+      winds,&mdash;Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Paris, Tristan, and all those who
+      had sinned for love, and here Dante conversed with the spirit of Francesca
+      da Rimini, whom he had known in life, and her lover Paolo, slain for their
+      sin by her husband. Though there is no greater sorrow than to be mindful
+      of the happy time in misery, she assured Dante that the sorrows of Hell
+      were lightened by the presence of Paolo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sight of Paolo's grief Dante fell swooning with pity, and awoke to
+      find himself in the circle where a cold rain fell forever on the gluttons.
+      Cerberus guarded the entrance, and now and again devoured the unhappy ones
+      who lay prone on their faces in the murk and mire. Here Ciacco of Florence
+      recognized and spoke with Dante, falling back in the mire as the poet
+      passed on, to rise no more until the Day of Judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Plutus guarded the fourth circle, where were confined the avaricious and
+      prodigal, who, divided into two bands, rolled weights against each other,
+      uttering wretched insults. Down the sloping banks to the marsh of the Styx
+      the poets went, past the sullen and angry, who in life refused the comfort
+      of the sweet air and gladdening sun, and were in consequence doomed
+      forever to remain buried in the sullen mire. As Dante and Vergil passed
+      over the Styx in the boat of the vile Phlegyas, Dante was saluted by the
+      spirit of the once haughty and arrogant Philippo Argenti, whom he
+      repulsed, and gladly saw set upon and torn by the people of the mire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then appeared to him the mosques of the city of Dis, within the valley,
+      vermilion-hued from the fire eternal. Deep were the moats; the walls
+      appeared to be of iron. Upon the flaming summit sat the Furies, stained
+      with blood, begirt with Hydras. Here even Vergil trembled as they waited
+      the arrival of one sent from Heaven to open the gate and admit them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within, over the plain, were scattered sepulchres heated red hot, with
+      uplifted coverings, from which issued forth dire laments from the Infidels
+      and Heresiarchs tormented within. To Farinata degli Uberti, who rose from
+      his tomb to ask the news of Florence, Dante spoke, observing in the mean
+      time a shade that, on hearing the Tuscan tongue, rose next Uberti,
+      questioning, "Where is my son, my Guido?" Fancying from the poet's delay
+      in answering, and his use of the past tense, that his beloved child no
+      longer enjoyed the sweet light, Cavalcante fell back and appeared no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving the dismal plain, whose countless tombs would remain open until
+      the Judgment Day, the poets entered upon the next and seventh circle,
+      composed of three smaller circles in which were punished the Violent
+      against their neighbors, against nature, and against God. The steep banks
+      of the ravine were guarded by the huge Minotaur, from which Dante and
+      Vergil escaped only by running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within Phlegethon, the boiling river of blood, stood the tyrants, among
+      whom were Dionysius, Azzolin, and Attila, uttering loud laments. If they
+      ventured to stir from their place of torment they were pierced by the
+      arrows of the Centaurs that guarded the banks. The Centaur Nessus conveyed
+      Dante across the river into the second circle, the dolorous forest, where
+      the Violent against nature, the Suicides, were transformed into closely
+      set, twisted thorn-trees, infested with harpies that fed on their leaves,
+      inflicting perpetual pain; thence into the third circle, where the Violent
+      against God, chief among whom was the arrogant Capaneus, dwelt in a sandy
+      plain surrounded by the dolorous forest. Upon the naked souls, some of
+      whom were lying supine, some crouching, others moving about continually,
+      fell a perpetual shower of flakes of fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Picking their way along the edge of the forest, not daring to step on the
+      sand waste, the poets came upon a little blood-red rivulet quenching the
+      flames above it, Phlegethon again, formed by the rivers Acheron and Styx,
+      whose source is the tears of Time. As they skirted the forest they saw a
+      troop of spirits hastening past, one of whom, after a sharp look, grasped
+      Dante's garment exclaiming, "What a wonder!" The baked countenance, the
+      ghastly face, was that of his old teacher Ser Brunetto, who not daring to
+      stop for fear of increasing his punishment, followed him, questioning him
+      on his appearance below, and comforting him by the assurance of his future
+      greatness. Deep were the burns in the limbs of the other Florentines Dante
+      met below, to whom he gave tidings of the state of affairs in their former
+      home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mounting on the shoulders of the hideous monster Geryon, the poets were
+      carried into a fearful abyss whose sides were Alp-like in steepness. This
+      was the eighth circle, Malebolge, or Evil pits, consisting of ten
+      concentric bolge, or ditches of stone with dikes between and rough bridges
+      running across them to the centre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first pit Jason and other deceivers of women were being lashed by
+      horned demons. In pit two, a Florentine friend of Dante's was submerged
+      with others in filth as a punishment for flattery. In pit three the
+      Simoniacs were placed head down in purses in the earth, their projecting
+      feet tortured with flames. The poets crossed the bridge, and Vergil
+      carried Dante down the sloping bank so that he could speak to one who
+      proved to be the unhappy Nicholas III., who accused Boniface for his evil
+      deeds and expressed a longing for his arrival in this place of torture.
+      From the next bridge-top Dante dimly perceived the slow procession of
+      weeping soothsayers with heads reversed on their shoulders. There walked
+      Amphiarus, Tiresias, Manto, and Michael Scott. So great was Dante's sorrow
+      on beholding the misery of these men who had once been held in such great
+      esteem, that he leaned against a crag and wept until reproved by Vergil as
+      a reprobate for feeling compassion at the doom divine. Through the
+      semi-darkness the poets looked down into pit five, where devils with
+      fantastic names pitched barrators into a lake of boiling pitch and speared
+      those who dared to raise their heads above the surface. From these Evil
+      Claws Dante and Vergil escaped only by running into the sixth pit, where
+      walked the hypocrites in richly gilded mantles. When Dante wondered at
+      their weary faces and their tears, he was told by two of the Frati
+      Gaudenti (Jolly Friars) of Florence who suffered here, that the cloaks and
+      hoods were of heaviest lead, a load that grew more irksome with the ages.
+      Caiaphas, Annas, and the members of the council that condemned Christ lay
+      on the ground transfixed with stakes, and over their bodies passed the
+      slow moving train of the hypocrites. The next bridge lay in ruins as a
+      result of the earthquake at the Crucifixion, and Vergil experienced the
+      utmost difficulty in conveying Dante up the crags to a point where he
+      could look down into the dark dungeon of thieves, where the naked throng
+      were entwined with serpents and at their bite changed from man to serpent
+      and back again. Some burned and fell into ashes at the venomous bite, only
+      to rise again and suffer new tortures. Here Dante spoke with Vanni Fucci
+      of Pistoja, who robbed the sacristy of Florence, and whose face "was
+      painted with a melancholy shame" at being seen in his misery. The eighth
+      pit was brightly lighted by the flames that moved back and forth, each
+      concealing within an evil counsellor. Ulysses and Diomed walked together
+      in a flame cleft at the top, for the crime of robbing Deidamia of
+      Achilles, of stealing the Palladium, and of fabricating the Trojan horse.
+      As Dante looked into pit nine he saw a troop compelled to pass continually
+      by a demon with a sharp sword who mutilated each one each time he made the
+      round of the circle, so that the wounds never healed. These were the evil
+      counsellors. Mahomet was there; there too was Ali. But ghastliest of
+      sights was that of a headless trunk walking through the grim plain,
+      holding its severed head by the hair like a lantern, and exclaiming "O
+      me!" This was the notorious Bertrand de Born, the Troubadour, who had
+      caused dissension between Henry II. of England and his son. Among this
+      throng Dante recognized his kinsman Geri del Bello, who gave him a
+      disdainful look because he had not yet avenged his death. From the tenth
+      and last pit of Malebolge came a stench as great as though it came from
+      all the hospitals of Valdichiana, Maremma, and Sardinia, between July and
+      September. All the loathsome diseases were gathered into this moat to
+      afflict the forgers and falsifiers. Here Dante saw Athamas, mad king of
+      Thebes, the mad Gianni Schicchi, and Messer Adam of Brescia, the false
+      coiner, who, distorted with dropsy, was perishing of thirst, and thinking
+      constantly of the cool rivulets that descended from the verdant hills of
+      Casentino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Dante and his guide turned their backs on the wretched valley and
+      ascended the bank that surrounded it, the blare of a loud horn fell upon
+      their ears, louder than Roland's blast at Roncesvalles. This came from the
+      plain of the giants between Malebolge and the mouth of the infernal pit.
+      All around the pit, or well, were set the giants with half their bodies
+      fixed in earth. Nimrod, as a punishment for building the tower of Babel,
+      could speak no language, but babbled some gibberish. Ephialtes, Briareus,
+      and Antaeus were here, all horrible in aspect; Antaeus, less savage than
+      the others, lifted the two poets, and stooping set them down in the pit
+      below. This was the last and ninth circle, a dismal pit for the punishment
+      of traitors, who were frozen in the vast lake that Cocytus formed here. In
+      Caina were the brothers Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, mutual
+      fratricides, their heads frozen together. In Antenora was that Guelph
+      Bocca who had caused his party's defeat; but the most horrible sight they
+      encountered was in Ptolemaea, where Count Ugolino, who had been shut up
+      with his sons and grandsons in a tower to starve by the Archbishop
+      Ruggieri, was now revenging himself in their place of torture by
+      continually gnawing the archbishop's head, frozen in the ice next his own.
+      Farther down they walked among those who, when they shed tears over their
+      woe had their teardrops frozen, so that even this solace was soon denied
+      them. Dante promised to break the frozen veil from the eyes of one who
+      prayed for aid, but when he learned that it was the Friar Alberigo, whose
+      body was still on earth, and whose soul was already undergoing punishment,
+      he refused, "for to be rude to him was courtesy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the fourth and last division of the ninth circle, the Judecca, a strong
+      wind was blowing. Then Dante saw the emperor of the kingdom frozen in the
+      ice, a mighty giant foul to look upon, with three faces, vermilion, white
+      and yellow, and black. The waving of his two featherless wings caused the
+      great winds that froze Cocytus. Teardrops fell from his six eyes; in each
+      mouth he was crunching a sinner, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being warned by Vergil that it was time to depart, Dante clasped his guide
+      around his neck, and Vergil began to climb down the huge monster until
+      they reached his middle, the centre of gravity, where with much difficulty
+      they turned and climbed upward along the subterranean course of Lethe,
+      until they again beheld the stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0073" id="link2H_4_0073"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE PURGATORY.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Purgatory of Dante is situated on a mountain top on the opposite side
+      of the earth from Jerusalem, and is surrounded by the western ocean. The
+      souls of those who go there collect on the banks of the Tiber, and are
+      taken to the mountain in a boat by an angel pilot. The shores of the
+      island are covered with the reeds of humility. Around the base of the
+      mount dwell the souls that, repenting late, must "expiate each year of
+      deferred penitence with thirty years of deferred Purgatory" unless the
+      time be shortened by the prayers of their friends on earth. There are
+      three stages of this Ante-Purgatory: the first, for those who put off
+      conversion through negligence; the second, for those who died by violence
+      and repented while dying; the third, for those monarchs who were too much
+      absorbed in earthly greatness to give much thought to the world to come.
+      The ascent of the terraces, as also those of Purgatory proper, is very
+      difficult, and is not allowed to be made after sunset. The gate of St.
+      Peter separates Ante-Purgatory from Purgatory proper. Three steps, the
+      first of polished white marble, the second of purple, rough and cracked,
+      and the third of blood-red porphyry, signifying confession, contrition,
+      and penance, lead to the gate where sits the angel clad in a penitential
+      robe, with the gold and silver keys with which to unlock the outer and
+      inner gates. Purgatory proper consists of seven terraces, in each of which
+      one of the seven capital sins, Pride, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and
+      Lasciviousness are punished; Pride first, because no other sin can be
+      purged from the body until this deepest sin is eliminated. The soul,
+      cleansed of these sins, mounts to the terrestrial paradise, which, above
+      the sphere of air, crowns the Mount of Purgatory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0074" id="link2H_4_0074"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE PURGATORY.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      As morning dawned and the poets slowly climbed out of the infernal region
+      and stepped upon the isle from which the Mount of Purgatory rises, they
+      were accosted by an old man with long white hair and beard, Cato of Utica,
+      who demanded the reason of their coming, and only permitted them to remain
+      when he heard that a lady from Heaven had given the command. Then he
+      ordered Vergil to lave the smoke of Hell from Dante's face in the waves of
+      the sea, and to gird him with the reed of humility. As the sun rose a
+      radiant angel, guiding a boat laden with souls, appeared, and the poets
+      fell on their knees until he departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the newly-landed spirits questioned Vergil of the way up the mountain,
+      Dante recognized among them his beloved friend Casella, the musician, and
+      tried in vain to embrace his spirit body. At Dante's request, Casella
+      began to sing, and the enchanted spirits were scattered only by the
+      chiding voice of Cato.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vergil surveyed the insurmountable height before them, and hastened with
+      Dante to inquire the way of a troop of souls coming towards them. As they
+      talked, Dante recognized one, blond and smiling, with a gash over one
+      eyebrow and another over his heart. It was Manfredi, King of Apulia and
+      Sicily, who was slain at Benevento by Charles of Anjou, and, being under
+      excommunication, was not allowed Christian burial. He asked Dante to make
+      him happy by telling his daughter that by faith he was saved from eternal
+      destruction, but because of his sins he must spend thirty times the time
+      that his presumption had endured at the foot of the mount, unless his time
+      was shortened by the righteous prayers of his friends on earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with the greatest difficulty that the poets clambered up the steep
+      and narrow path to the next terrace, and only the assurance that the
+      ascent would grow easier as he neared the summit sustained Dante. As
+      Vergil explained to him while resting on the next terrace that the sun
+      appeared on his left because Purgatory and Jerusalem were in different
+      hemispheres, some one spoke, and turning they saw a group of persons in an
+      attitude of indolence, among them a Florentine acquaintance, Belacqua, a
+      maker of musical instruments, who sat waiting the length of another
+      lifetime for admission above because he had postponed conversion from time
+      to time, through negligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Proceeding, the poets met a concourse of souls who had suffered violent
+      death, chanting the Miserere, who perceiving Dante to be living, sent
+      messages to their friends on earth. Among these were Giacopo del Cassero
+      and Buonconte di Montefeltro, son of Dante's friend, Guido di Montefeltro,
+      who fell in the battle of Campaldino, in which Dante had taken part.
+      Wounded in the neck, he fell, and had just time to breathe a prayer to
+      Mary, thus saving his soul from the Evil One, who was so incensed that,
+      raising a great storm, he caused the rivers to overflow and sweep away the
+      lifeless body, tearing from it the cross he had made with his arms in his
+      last agony, and burying it in the mire of the Arno. The third shade bade
+      him think of her when, returned home, he sang of his journey. She was Pia,
+      born at Sienna, who died at Maremma, by the hand of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dante at last managed to escape from these shades, who implored him to ask
+      for prayers for them on earth, and moved on with Vergil until they met the
+      haughty shade of Sordello, who clasped Vergil in his arms when he learned
+      he was a Mantuan. Touched by this expression of love for his native land,
+      Dante launched into an apostrophe to degenerate Italy, to that German
+      Albert who refused to save the country groaning under oppression, and to
+      lost Florence, torn by internecine wars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Sordello learned that the Mantuan shade was Vergil, he humbled
+      himself before him, and paid him reverence, asking eagerly in what part of
+      the underworld he dwelt. The sun was sinking, and as the poets could not
+      ascend by night, he urged them to pass the night with him. Leading them to
+      a vale carpeted with emerald grass and brilliant with flowers, he pointed
+      out the shades singing "Salve Regina" as the Emperor Rudolph,&mdash;he who
+      made an effort to heal sick Italy,&mdash;Philip III. of France, Charles I.
+      of Naples, and Henry III. of England. As the hour of twilight approached,
+      that hour in which the sailor thinks of home, and the pilgrim thrills at
+      the sound of vesper bells, Dante beheld a shade arise, and lifting its
+      palms begin to sing the vesper hymn. Soon two radiant angels clad in
+      delicate green descended from Heaven, holding flaming swords. These,
+      Sordello explained, were to keep off the serpent that threatened this fair
+      vale at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the hour of night approached in which the swallow laments its woes,
+      Dante fell asleep on the grass and dreamed that he was Ganymede snatched
+      from Mt. Ida by Jove's eagle. Awaking, he found himself alone with Vergil
+      in a strange place, with the sun two hours high. Lucia, symbolical of the
+      enlightening grace of Heaven, had conveyed him to the spot and pointed out
+      to Vergil the gate of Purgatory. Cheered and confident, he rose, and they
+      went together to the portal and mounted the three steps, the first of
+      shining white marble, the second of purple stone, cracked and burnt, and
+      the third of flaming red porphyry. There, on the diamond threshold, sat an
+      angel with a naked sword, clad in a robe of ashen gray, whose face was too
+      bright to look upon. When Dante fell on his knees and implored entrance,
+      the angel imprinted on his forehead seven "P"'s for the seven sins
+      (Peccata), and opening the gate with the gold and silver keys, ushered
+      them into the mighty portals. "From Peter I have these keys. Me he
+      instructed to err rather in opening than in keeping shut. But see that ye
+      look not behind, or ye will at once return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With much difficulty the two poets ascended the steep and winding path,
+      and paused to view the wonderful sculptures on the embankment, that would
+      put Nature herself to shame, so natural were they. Many examples of
+      Humility were there portrayed,&mdash;the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ark, drawn
+      by oxen, the Psalmist dancing before the Lord, while Michal looked forth
+      in scorn from her palace window, and Trajan, yielding to the widow's
+      prayer. As they stood there, the souls came in sight. "Reader, attend not
+      to the fashion of the torment, but think of what follows." The unhappy
+      ones crept around the terrace, bowed under a heavy burden of stones, and
+      the most patient, as he bent under his burden, exclaimed, with tears, "I
+      can do no more!" As they walked they repeated the Lord's Prayer, and kept
+      their eyes fixed on the life-like sculptures on the floor of those who had
+      suffered before them for the sins of pride: Lucifer, falling from Heaven;
+      Briareus and Nimrod overcome by the bolts of Jove; Niobe, weeping among
+      her dead children; Cyrus's head taunted by Tomyris; Troy humbled in ashes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Vergil approached the penitents to inquire the way to the next terrace,
+      he and Dante were invited to join the procession and talk with one who
+      could not lift his face enough to see them. This was Omberto, who had been
+      slain by the Siennese for his unbearable pride. Dante also talked with his
+      friend Oderigi, an illuminator of manuscript, who now humbly acknowledged
+      that he was far surpassed by Franco Bolognese. "What is mundane glory?" he
+      exclaimed, as he pointed out Provenzano Salvani, with whose fame Tuscany
+      once rang, but who barely escaped Hell by his voluntary humiliation for a
+      friend. "Lift up thy face!" commanded Vergil, as Dante walked with his
+      head bowed, absorbed in the floor-sculptures; and as he looked, the
+      white-robed angel whose face was like "a tremulous flame" approached, and
+      struck Dante's forehead with his wings. Dante marvelled at the ease with
+      which he mounted, until his master explained that the heaviest sin, the
+      sin that underlies all others, had fallen from him when the angel struck
+      the "P" from his forehead, and that the ascent would grow still lighter
+      from terrace to terrace. "Blessed are the poor in spirit!" sung by sweet
+      voices, greeted the mounting poets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second terrace was of livid stone unrelieved by any sculpture. The air
+      was full of voices inculcating charity and self-denial, and others
+      lamenting the sin of envy. Here envy was punished, and here the sharpest
+      pain pierced Dante's heart as he saw the penitents sit shoulder to
+      shoulder against the cliff, robed in sackcloth of the same livid color,
+      their eyelids, through which bitter tears trickled, sewed together with
+      wire. Sapia of Sienna first greeted Dante and entreated him to pray for
+      her. When she had told how, after having been banished from her city, she
+      had prayed that her townsman might be defeated by the Florentines, Dante
+      passed on and spoke with Guido of Duca, who launched into an invective
+      against Florence to his companion Rinieri. "The whole valley of the Arno
+      is so vile that its very name should die. Wonder not at my tears, Tuscan,
+      when I recall the great names of the past, and compare them with the curs
+      who have fallen heir to them. Those counts are happiest who have left no
+      families." Guido himself was punished on this terrace because of his envy
+      of every joyous man, and the spirit with whom he talked was Rinieri, whose
+      line had once been highly honored. "Go, Tuscan," exclaimed Guido, "better
+      now I love my grief than speech." As the poets passed on, the air was
+      filled with the lamentations of sinful but now repentant spirits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dazzled by the Angel's splendor, the poets passed up the stairs to the
+      third terrace, Dante in the mean time asking an explanation of Guido's
+      words on joint resolve and trust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The less one thinks of another's possessions," replied his guide, "and
+      the more he speaks of 'our' instead of 'my,' the more of the Infinite Good
+      flows towards him. If you thirst for further instruction, await the coming
+      of Beatrice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they attained the next height, Dante, rapt in vision, saw the sweet
+      Mother questioning her Son in the Temple, saw Pisistratus, his queen, and
+      the martyred Stephen blessing his enemies in death. As he awoke, they
+      passed on, to become involved in a thick cloud of smoke, through which it
+      was impossible to distinguish any object, and whose purpose was to purge
+      away anger, the sin-cloud that veils the mortal eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they passed from the thick smoke into the sunset, Dante fell into a
+      trance, and saw Itys, Haman, and other notable examples of unbridled
+      angers, and as the visions faded away, was blinded by the splendor of the
+      angel guide who directed them to the fourth terrace. As they waited for
+      the dawn, Vergil answered Dante's eager questions. "Love," he said, "is
+      the seed of every virtue, and also of every act for which God punished
+      man. Natural love is without error; but if it is bent on evil aims, if it
+      lacks sufficiency, or if it overleaps its bounds and refuses to be
+      governed by wise laws, it causes those sins that are punished on this
+      mount. The defective love which manifests itself as slothfulness is
+      punished on this terrace."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A troop of spirits rushed past them as morning broke, making up by their
+      haste for the sloth that had marked their lives on earth. As they hurried
+      on they urged themselves to diligence by cries of "In haste the mountains
+      blessed Mary won!" "Caesar flew to Spain!" "Haste! Grace grows best in
+      those who ardor feel!" As the poet meditated on their words, he lapsed
+      into a dream in which he saw the Siren who drew brave mariners from their
+      courses; and even as he listened to her melodious song, he beheld her
+      exposed by a saint-like lady, Lucia, or Illuminating Grace. Day dawned,
+      the Angel fanned the fourth "P" from his forehead, and the poet ascended
+      to the fifth terrace, where lay the shades of the avaricious, prostrate on
+      the earth, weeping over their sins. They who in life had resolutely turned
+      their gaze from Heaven and fixed it on the things of the earth, must now
+      grovel in the dust, denouncing avarice, and extolling the poor and liberal
+      until the years have worn away their sin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bending over Pope Adrian the Fifth, Dante heard his confession that he was
+      converted while he held the Roman shepherd's staff. Then he learned how
+      false a dream was life, but too late, alas! to escape this punishment. As
+      Dante spoke with the shade of Capet the elder, a mighty trembling shook
+      the mountain, which chilled his heart until he learned from the shade of
+      Statius, whom they next met, that it was caused by the moving upward of a
+      purified soul, his own, that had been undergoing purgation on this terrace
+      five hundred years and more. "Statius was I," said the shade, "and my
+      inspiration came from that bright fountain of heavenly fire, the Aeneid;
+      it was my mother; to it I owe my fame. Gladly would I have added a year to
+      my banishment here, could I have known the Mantuan." Vergil's glance said
+      "Be mute!" but Dante's smile betrayed the secret, and Statius fell at
+      Vergil's feet adoring. Statius had suffered for the sin of prodigality,
+      which was punished, together with avarice, on this terrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three proceeded upward to the sixth terrace, the ascent growing easier
+      on the disappearance of the "P" of avarice from Dante's forehead. Vergil
+      and Statius moved on in loving conversation, Dante reverently following.
+      "Your Pollio led me to Christianity," said Statius, "but my cowardice
+      caused me long to conceal it. Prodigality brought me hither."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the sixth terrace two trees stood in opposite parts of the pathway that
+      the gluttons were compelled to tread, the first with branches broad at the
+      top and tapering downward, so that it was impossible to mount it; upon it
+      fell a fount of limpid water. From its branches a voice cried, "Of this
+      food ye shall have a scarcity. In the primal age, acorns furnished sweet
+      food and each rivulet seemed nectar." Towards the next tree, grown from a
+      twig of the tree of knowledge, the gluttons stretched eager hands, but a
+      voice cried, "Pass on; approach not!" Such desire for food was excited by
+      these tempting fruits, that the gluttons were emaciated beyond
+      recognition. By his voice alone did Dante recognize his kinsman Forese,
+      whose time in Purgatory had been shortened by the prayers of his wife
+      Nella. Forese talked with Dante for a while on the affairs of Florence,
+      and predicted the fall of his brother Corso Donati.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dazzling splendor of the angel of the seventh terrace warned them of
+      his approach, and, lightened of one more "P," Dante and his companions
+      climbed to where two bands of spirits, lascivious on earth, moved through
+      paths of purifying flames, stopping as they passed to greet each other,
+      and singing penitential hymns. Here, Statius explained to Dante why the
+      shades of the sixth terrace were lean from want of food when they
+      possessed no longer their physical bodies. "After death the soul keeps its
+      memory, intelligence, and will more active than before, and as soon as it
+      reaches either the banks of Acheron or the Tiber, a shade form is attached
+      to it which acquires the soul's semblance, and has every sense given it,
+      even that of sight."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Guido Guinicelli, from out the flame-furnace, explained to Dante the
+      punishments of the terrace: "Thus are our base appetites burned out that
+      we may enjoy future happiness," and Arnaud the Troubadour, hating his past
+      follies, weeping and singing, implored Dante's prayers. It was only by
+      telling him that the fire lay between him and Beatrice that Vergil
+      prevailed on Dante to walk into the flames, which, though they tortured
+      him by the intensity of their heat, did not consume even his garments. As
+      they left the fire, the sun was setting, and they passed the night on the
+      steps of the next terrace, Statius and Vergil watching Dante as the
+      goatherds watch their flocks. In a dream the sleeping poet saw Leah,
+      symbolical of the active life, in contrast to her sister Rachel, of
+      contemplative life. On waking, Vergil told him that he would accompany him
+      further, but not as a guide; henceforth his own free will must lead him.
+      "Crowned, mitred, now thyself thou 'lt rule aright."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dense green were the heavenly woodlands of the terrestrial paradise; sweet
+      were the bird songs, as sweet the songs of the whispering foliage; and on
+      the pleasant mead, beyond the dimpling waters of a stream so small that
+      three paces would span it, walked a beautiful lady, Matilda, gathering
+      flowers and singing an enchanting melody. At Dante's request, she came
+      nearer, and explained to him that God had created the terrestrial paradise
+      from which man was banished by his fault alone. To vex him it was raised
+      to this height. Its atmosphere was not that of the earth below, but given
+      it from the free sphere of ether. Here every plant had its origin; here
+      each river had its virtue; Lethe destroyed the memory of sin; Eunoë
+      restored to the mind the memory of things good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they talked, Hosannas were heard, and in the greatest splendor appeared
+      the Car of the Church Triumphant. First came the seven golden
+      candlesticks; following them, many people in resplendent white garments;
+      next, the four and twenty elders, lily crowned&mdash;the twenty-four books
+      of the Old Testament&mdash;singing to Beatrice "O blessed Thou!" Then four
+      six-winged, many-eyed living creatures described both by Ezekiel and John
+      surrounded the massive car drawn by the Gryphon, emblem of our Lord in his
+      divine and human nature, white, gold, and vermilion-hued, part lion, part
+      eagle, whose wings pierced the heavens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three maidens, red, emerald, and white, the Theological Virtues, Faith,
+      Hope, and Charity, danced at the right wheel of the car; four clad in
+      purple, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, walked at the left
+      wheel. With them came two old men, Luke and Paul; then four together,
+      James, Peter, John, and Jude, and last an aged man walking in slumber,
+      Saint John, writer of the Revelation. These last were crowned with red
+      roses and other tinted flowers. With a crash as of thunder, the car
+      stopped before Dante, and a hundred angels, chanting, showered on it roses
+      and lilies. In the midst of the shower, Beatrice descended, clad in a
+      crimson robe, with a green mantle and a white veil, and crowned with an
+      olive wreath. Thrilling with his ancient love, Dante turned to Vergil to
+      sustain him, but Vergil was gone. As he looked again, her eyes, less
+      severe from the veil that enveloped her, were fixed on him as she rebuked
+      him, and he was sustained only by the compassion in the sweet voices of
+      the angels, which soothed him until the tears rained down his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After her death, when she had arisen from flesh to spirit, Beatrice
+      complained that her influence was dimmed, and that he had sought such
+      depths that she had been compelled to go to the gates of hell to implore
+      Vergil to bring him hither that he might learn his future sufferings if he
+      did not repent. As he answered her, blaming the things that had led him
+      aside with joys deceitful, he tried to gaze into her eyes, but stung with
+      penitential thorns, fell senseless to the ground. Matilda, who stood by,
+      seized him and plunged him into the river Lethe, that he might forget his
+      past sin. Dripping, he was given to the four lovely maidens, who led him
+      before Beatrice that he might look into her eyes, fixed on the Gryphon. A
+      thousand longings held him fast while, "weary from ten years' thirsting,"
+      he gazed upon her lovely eyes, now unveiled in their full splendor.
+      Reproached at last by the seven virtues for his too intent gaze, Dante
+      watched the car move on to the Tree of Knowledge, to which its pole was
+      attached by the Gryphon. Dante, lulled to sleep by the hymn, was aroused
+      by Matilda, who pointed out to him the radiant Beatrice, sitting under a
+      tree surrounded by the bright forms of her attendants. The other
+      attendants of the car had followed the Gryphon to the skies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Observe the car," said Beatrice, "and write what thou hast seen when thou
+      returnest home." As she spoke, the car was attacked in turn by the eagle
+      of persecution, the fox of heresy, and the dragon of Islamism; these
+      driven away, it was disturbed by inward dissensions, the alliance between
+      Boniface and Philip the Fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rising, Beatrice called Dante, Statius, and Matilda to her, and as they
+      walked upon that pleasant mead, she asked Dante the meaning of his
+      continued silence. She explained the attacks on the chariot to him, but he
+      declared that he could not understand her language. Then, at Beatrice's
+      nod, Matilda called him and Statius, and plunged them into Eunoë, whence
+      he rose regenerate, and prepared to mount to the stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0075" id="link2H_4_0075"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE PARADISE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Paradise of Dante consists of nine heavens, each a revolving
+      crystalline sphere, enclosed in another; without them, the boundless
+      Empyrean. The first or innermost heaven, of the Moon, revolved by the
+      angels, is the habitat of wills imperfect through instability. The second,
+      of Mercury, revolved by the Archangels, is the abode of wills imperfect
+      through love of fame. The third, of Venus, revolved by the Principalities,
+      is the abode of wills imperfect through excess of human love. The fourth,
+      of the Sun, revolved by the Powers, is the abode of the great intellectual
+      lights, the doctors of the Church. The fifth heaven, of Mars, revolved by
+      the Virtues, is the abode of the martyrs, warriors, and confessors, and is
+      sacred to the Faith. The sixth, of Jupiter, revolved by the Dominations,
+      is inhabited by just rulers. The seventh, of Saturn, revolved by the
+      Thrones, is inhabited by monks and hermits. The eighth, of the Fixed
+      Stars, revolved by the Cherubim, is inhabited by the apostles and saints.
+      The ninth, or Primum Mobile, revolved by the Seraphim, is the abode of the
+      moral philosophers. These abodes, however, are not real, but
+      representative, to illustrate the differences in glory of the inhabitants
+      of Paradise, for the real seat of each is in the Rose of the Blessed. In
+      the heavens, the saints appear swathed in cocoons of light; in the Rose
+      they are seen in their own forms. They know all because they behold God
+      continually. In the Empyrean is the Rose of the Blessed, whose myriad
+      leaves form the thrones of the spirits, and whose centre of light is the
+      Father himself. Dividing the Rose horizontally, the lower thrones are held
+      by those who died in infancy; among them are varying degrees of glory.
+      Above it, are those who died adults. Supposing a vertical division, the
+      thrones to the left are for those who looked forward to Christ's coming;
+      those to the right, not yet all occupied, by those who died after Christ's
+      coming. Along the division lines are the holy women, the Virgin, Eve,
+      Rachel, Beatrice, Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth, Saint Anne and Saint
+      Lucia, and the saints, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Adam, Moses,
+      Saint Francis, Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine, Saint Peter, and in the
+      midst, the Everlasting Glory of the Universe, whose light so fills the
+      Rose that "naught can form an obstacle against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0076" id="link2H_4_0076"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE PARADISE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The ascent to Paradise was accomplished by a fixed gaze into Beatrice's
+      eyes, by which Dante, like Glaucus, was made divine, and by which he was
+      lifted, with incredible swiftness, through the heavens. As soon as he had
+      fixed his eyes on Beatrice's, who in turn looked towards heaven, they
+      found themselves in the Heaven of the Moon, whose luminous yet pearl-like
+      light enfolded them. While Beatrice was explaining to him that the spots
+      on the moon were not caused by the varying degrees of atmospheric density,
+      as he had supposed, but by the Divine Virtue infused in divine measure
+      through the angelic dwellers in the first heaven, he met Piccarda, his
+      sister-in-law, whose brother, Corso Donati, had torn her from her convent
+      to wed her to Rosselin della Tosa, soon after which she died. Here also
+      was Costanza, daughter of Roger I. of Sicily, grandmother of that Manfredi
+      whom he had seen in Purgatory. Here Beatrice instructed Dante as to the
+      imperfection of those wills that held not to their vows, but allowed
+      violence to thwart them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another look into the smiling eyes, and the two were in the Heaven of
+      Mercury, where those wills abide in whom love of fame partly extinguished
+      love of God. One of the thousand splendors that advanced towards them was
+      the soul of the Emperor Justinian, who reviewed the Empire, the Church,
+      condemning severely the behavior of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and told
+      of the spirits who inhabited the little planet, whose lives were sweetened
+      by living justice, and whose ears were gladdened by the sweetest
+      harmonies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dante was unaware of his ascent into, Venus, where dwelt those souls who
+      were lovers on earth, until he perceived Beatrice's added beauty. Amid
+      revolving lights Charles Martel of Hungary appeared, denounced his brother
+      Robert of Sicily, and instructed Dante on the subjects of heredity and
+      degeneracy; that "sweet seed can come bitter" because the influence of the
+      star under which the child is born can counteract that of the parent, and
+      because his state is not always adapted to him by his parents and
+      advisers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the sphere of the Sun, consecrated to the great doctors of divinity,
+      Beatrice became still more beautiful; but so absorbed was the poet in the
+      love for the Eternal Source of all this splendor that for the first time
+      he forgot her. Out of the whirling lights, shining like precious jewels,
+      came Saint Thomas Aquinas, who pointed out to Dante his noted companions,
+      Gratian, Peter Lombard, Solomon, Dionysius, Boethius, and Baeda. Thomas
+      then related the story of Saint Francis of Assisi and the founding of his
+      order of the Franciscans, upon which Saint Bonaventura of the Franciscans,
+      from the next flame garland, told of Saint Dominic and the Dominican
+      order. Alas! while both orders were great in the beginning, both narrators
+      had to censure their present corruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The array of brilliant lights, dividing itself, formed into two disks
+      which, revolving oppositely, sang the praises of the Trinity. The song of
+      praise finished, Saint Thomas explained that Solomon was elevated to this
+      sphere for his wisdom and his regal prudence, and warned Dante against the
+      error of rash judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The splendor of Mars was almost blinding; it was ruddier than the others,
+      and in it dwelt the souls of the crusaders and martyrs. While Dante's ears
+      were ravished by exquisite music, his eyes were dazzled by the lights,
+      which had arranged themselves in the form of a cross. From out the
+      splendor, one star saluted Dante. It was the soul of his ancestor
+      Cacciaguida, who had waited long for the coming of his descendant. He
+      related to Dante the story of his life, commenting on the difference
+      between the simple life of the Florentines of his day and the corrupt
+      practices of Dante's time, and broke to the poet what had already been
+      darkly hinted to him in Hell and Purgatory,&mdash;his banishment; how he
+      must depart from Florence and learn how salt is the bread of charity, how
+      wearisome the stairs in the abode of the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Cacciaguida ceased and pointed out the other well-known dwellers in
+      Mars, each one on the cross flashed as his name was called,&mdash;Joshua,
+      Judas Maccabeus, Charlemagne and Roland, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert
+      Guiscard, and others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Jupiter, whose whiteness contrasted with the ruddiness of Mars, dwelt
+      the souls of great rulers, certain of whom arranged themselves first to
+      form the golden letters of <i>Diligite Justitiam qui judicatis terram</i>
+      ("Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth"), and then formed
+      themselves into the Roman eagle and sang of the justice and mercy that
+      caused their elevation to this position, and of events about to occur in
+      history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had Beatrice smiled as they ascended to Saturn, Dante would have perished
+      as did Semele, from excess of light. In Saturn dwelt the spirits of the
+      contemplative, the monks and hermits, and here was Jacob's ladder, up and
+      down whose bars of gold sparkled the spirits of the saints, silent for the
+      same reason that Beatrice smiled not. By divine election, Saint Peter
+      Damian descended and spoke with Dante, accusing the churchmen of the time
+      of worldliness and luxury. "Cephas and our Lord came on earth barefoot and
+      poorly clad, but these men are covered with gorgeous raiment and ride upon
+      sleek palfreys." As he closed, a thunder cry of approval went up from the
+      other saints.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up the wonderful ladder passed Dante and his lady into the eighth heaven
+      of the Fixed Stars, and looking down saw the little earth and the starry
+      heavens through which they had passed. Then, as Beatrice paused with her
+      face all aflame, and her eyes full of ecstasy, down came the hosts of
+      Christ's triumphal march, and within the living light, which dazzled
+      Dante's eyes until he could not see, also appeared Mary, mother of God,
+      crowned by Gabriel, rising into the Empyrean. Of those who remained
+      behind, Beatrice asked that Dante be sprinkled with the waters of the
+      living Fountain; and while they gave their consent, Saint Peter appeared
+      as a fire whirling ecstatically, and singing a divine song. He examined
+      the trembling poet on faith, and his questions being answered
+      satisfactorily, encircled him thrice with his light. Saint James, who next
+      came forth, was likewise pleased with his response on Hope, and he was
+      then blinded by the effulgence of John, so that for a time he could not
+      see the face of his lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of Love he spoke with John, and then talked with Adam. As he listened to
+      the strains of richest melody, he noticed one of the lights&mdash;Saint
+      Peter&mdash;change from white to red, and then, as silence fell, speak,
+      enraged at the worldliness of the Holy See. "My cemetery has been made a
+      sewer of blood and stench. When thou returnest to earth, reveal what thou
+      hast heard. Do not thou conceal what I have not concealed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commanded by Beatrice, Dante looked back at earth once more, and as he
+      looked, was carried up into the heaven of the Primum Mobile, where dwelt
+      the moral philosophers. Here the angelic spirits circled round the point
+      of intense light, the divine centre. The nearer God was the circle, the
+      greater virtue it possessed. This order was inverse to that of the
+      heavens, but Dante learned from Beatrice that the orbs revolved through
+      narrow paths or wide according to the virtue of their parts, and that a
+      strict agreement of harmony prevailed between the great and the small. The
+      angel and the heavens were created simultaneously, and, as direct
+      emanations from God, know no decay. Of this and many things concerning the
+      Creation, did Beatrice enlighten Dante before the beauty of her smile told
+      him that they were in the Empyrean. "Now shall thou look upon the mighty
+      hosts of Paradise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poet's dazzled eyes saw then a river of light from which issued living
+      sparks sunk down into the flowers like rubies set in gold. Instructed by
+      Beatrice he drank of the stream and the river changed into a lake; then he
+      saw the Courts of Heaven made manifest, and the splendor of God. The ample
+      Rose unfolded its leaves before him, breathing praise and perfume, and as
+      he gazed into it Beatrice pointed out the radiant spirits and the thronged
+      seats, one of which was reserved for the Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, from
+      whom Dante expected so much, and who died before aught was accomplished.
+      As Dante gazed, the hosts with wings of gold and faces of living flame,
+      singing anthems, alternately sank into the Rose, like a swarm of bees
+      sinking into summer flowers, and rose again to view the Divine splendor.
+      Turning to question Beatrice again, Dante found in her place Saint Bernard
+      of Clairvaux, an old man full of the tenderest pity, who pointed out to
+      him Beatrice in her own place, the third round of the first rank. As from
+      afar, Dante pleaded with the beautiful lady who had left her place in
+      heaven to go even unto the gates of hell for his sake, to aid him still;
+      she seemed to smile upon him before she again turned her gaze upon the
+      Eternal Fountain of Light. Saint Bernard explained to the poet the
+      divisions of the Rose and the seats of the saints, and then addressed a
+      prayer to the Virgin, asking that Dante be permitted to look upon the
+      Almighty Father. As he prayed, Beatrice and all the blessed ones clasped
+      their hands to her who likes so well prayers of divine fervor. At a
+      gesture from Bernard, the poet looked upward. Then what a radiant vision
+      met his eyes! Three circles he saw of threefold color and one dimension.
+      As he looked, one seemed to take our image, and again was lost in the
+      infinite glory of the Light Divine. As he tried to describe it,
+      imagination failed him, though his will remained, moving on with the even
+      motion of the sun and stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0077" id="link2H_4_0077"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      COUNT UGOLINO.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In the frozen lake of Cocytus in the ninth circle of the Inferno, where
+      were punished the traitors to kindred, country, friends, or benefactors,
+      the poets beheld Count Ugolino, a Guelph, who, because of his treachery,
+      was taken prisoner by the people with his sons and grandsons and thrust
+      into a tower, where they were left to starve. Ugolino was frozen in the
+      ice, where he forever gnawed the head of the Archbishop Ruggieri, his
+      enemy. At the request of Dante he stopped to tell his story.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                 "Thy will 'tis I renew
+    A desperate sorrow that doth crush my heart
+    Even before my lips its tale impart.
+  But if my words may be a seed that, sowed,
+    Shall fruit of infamy to this traitor bear,
+    Then, though I weep, speech too shall be my care.
+
+  "Who thou may'st be I know not, nor what mode
+    Hath brought thee here below, but then I glean,
+    From words of thine, thou art a Florentine.
+  That I Count Ugolino was, know thou,
+    And this the Archbishop Ruggieri. Why
+    I will thee tell we are such neighbors nigh.
+  Needs not to say that him I did allow
+    A friend's own trusts, but so his treachery wrought;
+    That first my liberty, then my life, it sought.
+
+  "But that which thou canst not have hitherto learned
+    That is, how cruel was my death, I thee
+    Will tell; judge thou if he offended me.
+  Within the Mew, a tower which well hath earned
+    From me its name of Famine, and where wrath
+    Yet others waits, a narrow opening hath,
+  Through which of several moons the broken light
+    Had strayed, when unto me in sleep was sent
+    A dream whereby the future's veil was rent.
+
+  "This ill dream me this man set forth in might:
+    He wolf and whelps upon those mounts pursued
+    Which Pisa 'twixt and Lucca's domes obtrude.
+  Hounds had he with him, lank and shrewd and keen,
+    And in their front Gualandi's sword had place,
+    Sismondi's lash and sour Lanfranchi's mace.
+  Father and sons' undoing soon was seen;
+    Methought the sharp fangs on them closed, and tore
+    Their flanks, which now the hue of crimson wore.
+
+  "Before the dawn I woke and heard my sons,
+    The helpless children with me, in their sleep,
+    Cry out for bread, cries pushed from sobbings deep.
+  Right cruel art thou, if not e'en now runs
+    To tears thy grief at what my heart forbode,
+    If tears of thine at misery's tale e'er flowed.
+  And then they woke, and came the hour around
+    Which had been wont our scanty meal to bring;
+    But from our dreams dumb terrors seemed to spring;
+
+  "When from below we heard the dreadful sound
+    Of nails; the horrible tower was closed; all dumb
+    I let my gaze into my sons' eyes come.
+  Weep I did not, like stone my feelings lay.
+    They wept, and spoke my little Anselm: 'Pray
+    Why lookest so? Father, what ails thee, say?'
+  Shed I no tear, nor answered all that day
+    Nor the next night, until another sun
+    His journey through the wide world had begun.
+
+  "Then came a small ray into our sad, sad den,
+    And when in their four faces I beheld
+    That carking grief which mine own visage held,
+  Mine hands for grief I bit, and they, who then
+    Deemed that I did it from desire to eat,
+    Stood up each one at once upon his feet,
+  And said: 'Father, 'twill give us much less pain
+    If thou wilt eat of us: of thee was born
+    This hapless flesh, and be it by thee torn.'
+
+  "Myself I calmed that they might not so grieve;
+    Mute that day and the next we were; O thou
+    Most cruel earth, that didst not open now!
+  When we the fourth day's agony did receive
+    Stretched at my feet himself my Gaddo threw,
+    And said: 'My father, canst thou nothing do?'
+  There died he, and, as now sees me thy sight,
+    The three I saw fall one by one; first died
+    One on the fifth; deaths two the sixth me tried.
+
+  "Then blind, I groped o'er them to left and right,
+    And for three days called on their spirits dead;
+    Then grief before the power of fasting fled."
+             <i>Wilstach's Translation, Inferno. Canto XXXIII.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0078" id="link2H_4_0078"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the second terrace of the Ante-Purgatory, on the Purgatorial Mount,
+      were the spirits of those whose lives were ended by violence. Among those
+      who here addressed Dante was Buonconte di Montefeltro, who was slain in
+      the battle of Campaldino, and whose body was never found.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Another then: "Ah, be thy cherished aim
+    Attained that to the lofty Mount thee draws,
+    As thou with pity shalt advance my cause.
+  Of Montefeltro I Buonconte am;
+    Giovanna, and she only, for me cares;
+    Hence among those am I whom waiting wears."
+
+  "What violence or what chance led thee so wide
+    From Campaldino," I of him inquired,
+    "That's still unknown thy burial-place retired?"
+  "Oh, Casentino's foot," he thus replied,
+    "Archiano's stream o'erflows, which hath its rise
+    Above the Hermitage under Apennine skies.
+  There where its name is lost did I arrive,
+    Pierced through and through the throat, in flight,
+    Upon the plain made with my life-blood bright;
+
+  "There sight I lost, and did for speech long strive;
+    At last I uttered Mary's name, and fell
+    A lifeless form, mine empty flesh a shell.
+  Truth will I speak, below do thou it hymn;
+    Took me God's Angel up, and he of Hell
+    Cried out: 'O thou from Heaven, thou doest well
+  To rob from me the eternal part of him
+    For one poor tear, that me of him deprives;
+    In other style I'll deal with other lives!'
+
+  "Well know'st thou how in air is gathered dim
+    That humid vapor which to water turns
+    Soon as the cold its rising progress learns.
+  The fiend that ill-will joined (which aye seeks ill)
+    To intellectual power, which mist and wind
+    Moved by control which faculties such can find,
+  And afterwards, when the day was spent, did fill
+    The space from Protomagno to where tower
+    The Mounts with fog; and high Heaven's covering power
+
+  "The pregnant atmosphere moist to water changed.
+    Down fell the rain, and to the ditches fled,
+    Whate'er of it the soil's thirst had not sped;
+  And, as it with the mingling torrents ranged
+    Towards the royal river, so it flowed
+    That over every obstacle wild it rode.
+  The robust river found my stiffened frame
+    Near to its outlet, and it gave a toss
+    To Arno, loosening from my breast the cross
+
+  "I made of me when agony me o'ercame;
+    Along his banks and bottoms he me lapped,
+    Then in his muddy spoils he me enwrapped."
+           <i>Wilstach's Translation, Purgatorio, Canto V.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0079" id="link2H_4_0079"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Dante and Vergil mounted to the Terrestial Paradise, where, while they
+      talked with Matilda, the Car of the Church Triumphant appeared in the
+      greatest splendor. As it stopped before Dante it was enveloped in a shower
+      of roses from the hands of a hundred angels.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  I have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale,
+    The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen,
+    And all the opposite heaven one gem serene,
+  And the uprising sun, beneath such powers
+    Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye
+    For a long space its fiery shield could try:
+
+  E'en so, embosomed in a cloud of flowers,
+    Which from those hands angelical upward played,
+    And roseate all the car triumphal made,
+  And showered a snow-white veil with olive bound,
+    Appeared a Lady, green her mantle, name
+    Could not describe her robe unless 't were flame.
+  And mine own spirit, which the past had found
+    Often within her presence, free from awe,
+    And which could never from me trembling draw,
+  And sight no knowledge giving me at this time,
+    Through hidden virtue which from her came forth,
+    Of ancient love felt now the potent worth.
+  As soon as on my vision smote sublime
+    The heavenly influence that, ere boyhood's days
+    Had fled, had thrilled me and awoke my praise,
+  Unto the leftward turned I, with that trust
+    Wherewith a little child his mother seeks,
+    When fear his steps controls, and tear-stained cheeks,
+
+  To say to Vergil: "All my blood such gust
+    Of feeling moves as doth man's bravery tame;
+    I feel the traces of the ancient flame."
+            <i>Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0080" id="link2H_4_0080"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF BEATRICE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While Dante and Beatrice rose from the Heaven of Primal Motion to the
+      Empyrean, the poet turned his dazzled eyes from the heavens, whose sight
+      he could no longer bear, to the contemplation of Beatrice.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    Wherefore my love, and loss of other view,
+    Me back to Beatrice and her homage drew.
+  If what of her hath been already said
+    Were in one single eulogy grouped, 't would ill
+    Her meed of merit at this moment fill.
+
+  The beauty which in her I now beheld
+    B'yond mortals goes; her Maker, I believe,
+    Hath power alone its fulness to receive.
+  Myself I own by obstacles stronger spelled
+    Than in his labored theme was ever bard
+    Whose verses, light or grave, brought problems hard;
+  For, as of eyes quelled by the sun's bright burst,
+    E'en so the exquisite memory of that smile
+    Doth me of words and forming mind beguile.
+
+  Not from that day when on this earth I first
+    Her face beheld, up to this moment, song
+    Have I e'er failed to strew her path along,
+  But now I own my limping numbers lame;
+    An artist sometimes finds his powers surpassed,
+    And mine succumbs to beauty's lance at last.
+  And I must leave her to a greater fame
+    Than any that my trumpet gives, which sounds,
+    Now, hastening notes, which mark this labor's bounds.
+            <i>Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0081" id="link2H_4_0081"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ludovico Ariosto, author of the Orlando Furioso was born in Reggio, Italy,
+      Sept. 8, 1474. In 1503 he was taken into the service of the Cardinal
+      Hippolito d'Este, and soon after began the composition of the Orlando
+      Furioso, which occupied him for eleven years. It was published in 1516,
+      and brought him immediate fame. Ariosto was so unkindly treated by his
+      patron that he left him and entered the service of the cardinal's brother,
+      Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. By him he was appointed governor of a province,
+      in which position he repressed the banditti by whom it was infested, and
+      after a successful administration of three years, returned to Ferrara to
+      reside. The latter part of his life was spent in writing comedies and
+      satires, and in revising the Orlando Furioso. He died in Ferrara, June 6,
+      1533.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Orlando Furioso is a sequel to Boiardo's Orlando Innamorata, Ariosto
+      taking up the story at the end of that poem. Its historical basis is the
+      wars of Charlemagne with the Moors, which were probably confused with
+      those of Charles Martel. As the Orlando of the poem is the same Roland
+      whose fall at Roncesvalles in 778 is celebrated in the Song of Roland, its
+      events must have occurred before that time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although the poem is called Orlando Furioso, Orlando's madness occupies a
+      very small part of it, the principal threads of the story being Orlando's
+      love for Angelica and his consequent madness, the wars of Charlemagne, and
+      the loves of Bradamant and Rogero. From this Rogero the family of Este
+      claimed to be derived, and for this reason Ariosto made Rogero the real
+      hero of the poem, and took occasion to lavish the most extravagant praises
+      upon his patron and his family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these principal threads are interwoven innumerable episodes which are
+      not out of place in the epic, and lend variety to a story which would
+      otherwise have become tiresome. The lightness of treatment, sometimes
+      approaching ridicule, the rapidity of movement, the grace of style, and
+      the clearness of language, the atmosphere created by the poet which so
+      successfully harmonizes all his tales of magic and his occasional
+      inconsistencies, and the excellent descriptions, have all contributed to
+      the popularity of the poem, which is said to be the most widely read of
+      the epics. These descriptions outweigh its faults,&mdash;the taking up the
+      story of Boiardo without an explanation of the situation, the lack of
+      unity, and the failure to depict character; for with the exception of
+      Bradamant and Rogero, Ariosto's heroes and heroines are very much alike,
+      and their conversation is exceedingly tiresome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Furioso is written in the octave stanza, and originally consisted of
+      forty cantos, afterwards increased to forty-six.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poem is the work of a practical poet, one who could govern a province.
+      It is marred by an over-profusion of ornament, and contains no such lofty
+      flights of fancy as are to be found in the Jerusalem Delivered. To this,
+      no doubt, it owes, in part at least, its great popularity, for the poet's
+      poem is never the people's poem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL13" id="link2H_BIBL13"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Dublin University Magazine, 1845, xxvi., 187-201, 581-601, xxvii., 90-104;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Retrospective Review, 1823, viii., 145-170, ix., 263-291;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William T. Dobson's Classic Poets, 1879, pp. 186-238;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leigh Hunt's Stories from the Italian Poets, n. d. vol. ii., pp. 134-151;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Hickling Prescott's Italian Narrative Poetry. (See his
+      Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, 1873, pp. 441-454);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
+      Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 1835, pp. 239-255. (In Lardner's Cabinet
+      Cyclopedia, vol. i.);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Addington Symonds's Italian Literature, 1888, vol. i., pp. 493-522,
+      vol. ii. pp. 1-50.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0083" id="link2H_4_0083"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Orlando Furioso, Tr. from the Italian by Sir James Harrington, 1724;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Orlando Furioso, Tr. by John Hoole, 1819;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Orlando Furioso, Tr. into English verse by W. S. Rose, 2 vols., 1864-5.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0084" id="link2H_4_0084"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Emperor Charlemagne was at war with the Moors and had camped near the
+      Pyrenees with his host, determined to conquer their leaders, Marsilius of
+      Spain and Agramant of Africa. To his camp came Orlando, the great paladin,
+      with the beautiful Angelica, princess of Cathay, in search of whom he had
+      roamed the world over. Orlando's cousin, Rinaldo, another of the great
+      lords of Charlemagne, also loved Angelica, for he had seen her immediately
+      after drinking of the Fountain of Love in the forest of Arden, and
+      Charlemagne, fearing trouble between the cousins on her account, took
+      Angelica from Orlando's tent and placed her in the care of Duke Namus of
+      Bavaria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angelica did not like Orlando and she loathed Rinaldo, for he had been the
+      first to meet her after she had tasted the waters of the Fountain of Hate.
+      So when the Christian forces were one day routed in battle and the tents
+      forsaken, she leaped on her palfrey and fled into the forest. Here the
+      first person she met was the hated Rinaldo; and fleeing from him she
+      encountered the fierce Moor Ferrau, who, being also in love with her, drew
+      his sword and attacked the pursuing paladin. But when the two discovered
+      that Angelica had taken advantage of their duel to flee, they made peace
+      and went in search of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she fled, Angelica met Sacripant, an eastern lover who had followed her
+      to France, and put herself under his protection. But when Sacripant was
+      first defeated by Bradamant and then engaged in battle with the pursuing
+      Rinaldo, she deemed herself safer without him and fled; and presently a
+      page appeared, a shade conjured there by a hermit magician whom Angelica
+      had met, and announced to the warriors that Orlando had appeared and
+      carried the maid to Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rinaldo immediately hastened to Paris, to find Orlando absent and
+      Charlemagne, defeated by the Moors, entrenching himself in the city and
+      preparing to send to England for aid. Rinaldo must be his ambassador, and
+      that without a day's delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frantic with jealousy, Rinaldo leaped into a ship in the midst of a storm,
+      and hastened on his errand. Driven upon the coast of Scotland, he won the
+      king's gratitude by saving his daughter Ginevra from shame and death, and
+      secured from him a promise of all the horsemen and arms that could be
+      spared. He was equally successful in England, and was soon reviewing the
+      troops preparatory to their embarkation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The warrior maid, Bradamant, sister of Rinaldo, after overthrowing
+      Sacripant, pursued her way through the forest in search of Rogero the
+      pagan. They had met once in battle and had loved, and since then she had
+      ever roamed through the land in search of him. In the forest she found
+      Pinabel, lamenting because his beloved lady had been snatched from him by
+      a wizard on a winged steed, and carried to an impregnable castle. Thither
+      he had seen many warriors conveyed, among them Rogero and Gradasso,
+      conquered first by the lance and then thrown into profound slumber by the
+      glare of a magic shield carried by the wizard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bradamant, anxious to save Rogero, offered to rescue Pinabel's lady if he
+      would guide her to the castle. But when the treacherous knight learned
+      that she was Bradamant, between whose house and his there was a deadly
+      feud, he planned to slay her, and soon, by his treachery, managed to hurl
+      her down a precipice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bradamant was only stunned by the fall, however, and soon awoke, to find
+      herself at the entrance of a cave, which was the tomb of Merlin. Melissa,
+      the prophetess maid, welcomed her, assured her that Rogero should be her
+      spouse, and showed her their phantom descendants, brave princes and
+      beautiful princesses of the house of Este. She then told her that
+      Brunello, a knight of King Agramant, was hastening to the castle to
+      release the prisoners by means of a magic ring, formerly the property of
+      Angelica, which when put in the mouth would render one invisible, and,
+      worn on the finger, made one proof against magic spells. Bradamant must
+      overcome Brunello, wrest the ring from him, and herself free Rogero.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Following Melissa's advice, Bradamant overtook Brunello, seized the ring,
+      and hastening to the castle, challenged Atlantes to battle. When he
+      displayed the shield she pretended to become unconscious; but when he ran
+      up to bind her she sprang up and seized him. He declared that he had
+      imprisoned Rogero, his nephew, only to save him from the fate foretold by
+      the stars, death by treachery at the hands of the Christians, and had
+      brought the other knights and ladies there for his entertainment. Then
+      Atlantes broke the spell and disappeared, together with the castle, and
+      the prisoners trooped forth, Rogero among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bradamant was happy, but alas! only for a moment; for as she and Rogero
+      went down the mountain together he thoughtlessly leaped on the hippogrif,
+      which alighted near him, and the winged steed, refusing his control, rose
+      in the air, leaving the tearful Bradamant behind. The hippogrif flew
+      rapidly over land and sea until it was directly above a small island, upon
+      which it descended. Rogero sprang from its back, tied it to a myrtle tree,
+      and, weary from his three thousand mile ride in heavy armor, prepared to
+      drink from a rippling spring. The groves were of cedar, laurel, palm, and
+      myrtle; roses and lilies filled the air with their perfume, and the wild
+      stag and timid hare ran fearlessly through the groves. As he stooped to
+      drink he heard a voice issuing from the myrtle to which he had tied the
+      hippogrif. It was that of Astolpho, the English knight, who told him that
+      the greater part of the island was under the control of Alcina the
+      enchantress, who had left only a small portion to her sister Logistilla,
+      to whom it all rightfully belonged. He himself had been enticed thither by
+      Alcina, who had loved him for a few weeks, and then, serving him as she
+      did all her lovers, had transformed him to a tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rogero determined to profit by this advice; but when he was driven from
+      the narrow path to Logistilla's domain and met Alcina he fell under the
+      power of her beauty, and thought Astolpho a traducer. The days passed so
+      gayly in her beautiful home that Rogero forgot the pagan cause, forgot his
+      duty, forgot Bradamant, and was roused from his lethargy only by Melissa,
+      to whom Bradamant had given the magic ring to enable her to find and
+      rescue her lover. Melissa found the young knight when apart from Alcina,
+      and gave him the ring that he might with it be enabled to see the
+      enchantress in her true form. She then instructed him how to escape and
+      seek the kingdom of Logistilla. Rogero was disgusted when the beautiful
+      enchantress appeared as a hideous, wrinkled old woman, but concealing his
+      change of feeling, waited until the opportunity presented itself to get
+      his armor, take a steed, and pass by the warders of the gate. With great
+      difficulty he reached a stream which separated Alcina's lands from those
+      of Logistilla, and while ferrying across was overtaken by the boats of
+      Alcina. With the help of Atlantes' shield, they were overcome, and Alcina
+      was forced to depart, weeping, with only one boat, while Rogero entered
+      the castle of the fairy Logistilla, from whom he learned many noble
+      lessons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here came the other knights freed from Alcina's enchantment by Melissa,
+      and Melissa herself with Astolpho, on the hippogrif, which she had learned
+      to control. Astolpho was in his own armor and bore his wondrous spear,
+      which had the power of overthrowing every one whom it so much as touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a short rest among the pleasant gardens of Logistilla, Rogero
+      departed on the hippogrif, and although anxious to see his Bradamant
+      again, took the opportunity to pass over all the known world by this novel
+      method of travel. He saw the troops in England gathering to go to the aid
+      of Charlemagne, and rescued the beautiful Angelica, who had been taken by
+      pirates and sold to the people of Ebuda, who chained her upon a rock as a
+      victim for the orc. Rogero put the orc to sleep with his magic shield,
+      giving Angelica the ring that the sight of the shield might not affect her
+      as well. But when, charmed by the maid, he became too lover-like in his
+      attentions, she put the ring in her mouth and disappeared. The angry
+      Rogero turned, only to find that his hippogrif had broken its rein and was
+      gone. Hastening through the forest, vexed with himself and the maiden, he
+      fancied he saw 'Bradamant carried off by a giant, and following her,
+      entered a magic castle of Atlantes, where he spent his days vainly trying
+      to overtake his beloved and her captor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Orlando could think only of his lost Angelica; and forgetful of the fact
+      that his uncle Charlemagne was sorely pressed by the heathen, he stole
+      from the camp one night in disguise, and went in search of her. Passing
+      the isle of Ebuda he slew the ore, rescued Olympia, who was exposed as its
+      victim, avenged her wrongs, and continued on his way until he reached the
+      castle of Atlantes, and, fancying he saw Angelica, entered, and began the
+      mad round of pursuit with many other Christian and pagan knights who were
+      rendered unconscious of one another's presence by the magic of the wizard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hither came Angelica, invisible by means of the ring, to find a knight to
+      protect her on her way to Cathay. Unfortunately as she showed herself to
+      Sacripant, she was seen by Ferrau and Orlando, and all three pursued her
+      from the castle. When they were sufficiently removed from it Angelica
+      slipped the ring in her mouth and disappeared, and Ferrau and Orlando
+      began to quarrel about Orlando's helmet, which the Moor was determined to
+      win and wear. As Ferrau wore no helm until he could win Orlando's, that
+      paladin hung his on a tree while they fought. Unseen by them, Angelica
+      took it down, intending to restore it to Orlando later, and slipped away.
+      When the knights discovered her absence they went in search of her, and
+      Ferrau, coming upon her, took the helmet as she disappeared in fright.
+      Orlando, assuming another crest, which he did not need, as his body was
+      charmed and could not be hurt by any weapon, went forward, still in search
+      of his love, and on the way encountered and almost totally destroyed two
+      squadrons of Moors, and rescued from a robber's cave the beautiful Isabel,
+      betrothed of Zerbino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Melissa returned to Bradamant with the news that while Rogero was freed
+      from the enchantment of Aleina, he was imprisoned in Atlantes' castle,
+      from which she herself could rescue him by slaying the wizard, who would
+      appear to her in the form of her lover. Bradamant resolved to do so; but
+      when she saw the seeming Rogero set upon by two giants, she forgot her
+      resolution, believed Melissa to be false, and spurring after him, became a
+      prisoner in that wondrous castle, through which day and night she pursued
+      her ever-fleeing lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Moors discovered the destruction of the two squadrons,
+      Mandricardo, the Tartar king, determined to seek and do battle with the
+      knight (unknown to him by name) who had wrought such destruction. The
+      Tartar wore the arms of Hector save the sword, which was the property of
+      Orlando, and until he gained it, he bore no weapon save the lance. With
+      this, however, he stormed through the battlefield, striking terror to the
+      hearts of all. With it alone, he destroyed a band of men conveying to
+      Rodomont, the Saracen chief, his betrothed bride, Doralice, and won the
+      maid for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside Paris raged the infidel, chief among them the giant King Rodomont.
+      Smiting those of his troops who hesitated to mount the scaling ladders, he
+      waded through the wet moat, scaled the first wall, leaped the dry ditch,
+      mounted the second wall, and ran alone through the city, spreading terror,
+      death, and fire, while Charlemagne, ignorant of his presence, was busied
+      in the defence of one of the gates against Agramant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Rinaldo's army approached, unsuspected by the heathen, because of the
+      aid of Silence, summoned by Saint Michael. Through these, welcomed by
+      Charlemagne, Rodomont cut his way, hewing down fifteen or twenty foes at
+      once, and, casting himself into the Seine, escaped, angry that he had not
+      succeeded in destroying the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Discord, also summoned by Michael to the aid of the Christians, informed
+      Rodomont on his return to the camp of the capture of Doralice, and the
+      chief set forth raging, in search of Mandricardo, thoughtlessly abandoning
+      King Agramant, struggling against the English re-inforcements. As night
+      fell on a furious battle, the Moors were driven back, and Charlemagne
+      pitched his tents without the city, opposite those of the Moors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Moorish camp were two youths who loved one another with a love
+      passing wonderful, Medoro and Cloridan. Both served Dardinello, and had
+      crossed the sea with him. As they stood on guard that night they talked of
+      their lord's death on the field that day, and Medoro suggested that they
+      go in search of his body and bury it. Cloridan agreed, and they crept
+      through the sleeping lines of the Christians, slaughtering many, found the
+      body, and were hurrying into the forest when they heard the troops of
+      Zerbino. Cloridan fled, fancying that Medoro would do the same, but on
+      finding himself unaccompanied, retraced his footsteps, only to see his
+      friend surrounded by a troop of horsemen. From his ambush he shot his
+      arrows at the foe, until Zerbino in wrath seized Medoro by the throat,
+      exclaiming, "Thou shall die for this!" But when Medoro prayed to be
+      allowed first to bury his lord, pity touched Zerbino, and he freed the
+      youth, who fell, however, wounded by a thrust from a churlish horseman, in
+      pursuit of whom Zerbino at once fled. Cloridan sprang in among the
+      horsemen and fell dead by their thrusts at the side of the unconscious
+      Medoro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bleeding youth was found by Angelica, who passed by, clad in rustic
+      raiment; and the maid, struck with his beauty, recalled her knowledge of
+      chirturgery and revived him. After Dardinello was buried, she and a
+      shepherd assisted Medoro to a neighboring cottage, where she attended him
+      until his wound was healed. But as he grew well, Angelica, who had scorned
+      the suit of the proudest knights, fell sick of love for the humble youth,
+      and resolved to take him with her to Cathay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Astolpho left the castle of Logistilla he carried with him as her
+      gift a book from which he could learn to overcome all magic cheats, and a
+      horn whose sound would put the boldest man to flight. Following her
+      directions, he sailed past Scythia and India into the Persian Gulf, and
+      there disembarking, passed through Arabia and along the Red Sea. There he
+      overcame the giant Caligorantes, slew Orillo, who guarded the outlet of
+      the Nile, and met there the brother knights Gryphon and Aquilant. Gryphon,
+      led astray by an unworthy love, stole away from his brother, but was found
+      again after many adventures, and the three, together with Sansonet and
+      Marphisa, a warlike virgin, embarked for France. A great storm arose, and
+      the vessel was forced to land in Syria. This was the land of the Amazons,
+      and the troop escaped only by the warning and assistance of Guido, the
+      savage, who was a bondsman in the land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Astolpho became separated from the rest of the party and reached Europe
+      alone. One day, while he was stooping to drink at a spring in the forest,
+      a rustic sprang from a thicket, and leaping upon Rabican, rode him away.
+      Astolpho, hastening after him, entered the enchanted castle of Atlantes,
+      and soon recognized it as a house of magic. He broke the spell by the aid
+      of his book, freed the captive knights, and finding the hippogrif, which
+      he had learned to guide from Melissa, mounted it and rode away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the castle was destroyed, Rogero recognized Bradamant and clasped her
+      in his arms, rejoicing to find her again. The maid, anxious to avoid
+      further separation, promised to wed him if he would become a Christian,
+      and demand her of her father, Duke Aymon. Rogero gladly promised to do so.
+      and the two were hastening to Vallombrosa that he might be baptized when
+      they encountered a maid, who prayed them to hasten to the relief of a
+      youth doomed to death by fire. They hurried on, but paused to free Guido
+      the savage, Gryphon. Aquilant, and Sansonet, who had been imprisoned by
+      Pinabel, and Bradamant, pursuing Pinabel into the forest, slew him. But
+      there, unfortunately, she lost her way, and while she was wandering about,
+      Rogero, ignorant of her whereabouts, pushed on and freed the youth, who
+      proved to be Bradamant's brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Bradamant wandered through the forest she found Astolpho, who had just
+      made a bridle for the hippogrif, and recognizing him, took his horse and
+      spear in charge. A long time she wandered forlorn. She did not know the
+      way to Vallombrosa; she did not know the whereabouts of Rogero. Her home
+      was in sight, but if her mother saw her she would not again be suffered to
+      depart. As she stood debating with herself, she was recognized by one of
+      her brothers, and was forced to accompany him home. Thence she secretly
+      sent her maid Hippalca to Vallombrosa with Rogero's horse Frontino, and a
+      message explaining her absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the capture of Doralice, Mandricardo hastened on, and overtook
+      Orlando just as he had freed Zerbino and united him to Isabel. Recognizing
+      Orlando by his crest as the chief who had destroyed the squadrons, the
+      Tartar challenged him to combat. In courtesy to his foe, who would bear no
+      sword until he could have Durindana, Orlando hung the blade on a tree, and
+      the two knights spurred their steeds and broke their lances together. Then
+      grappling, each endeavored to unhorse the other. The breaking of Orlando's
+      saddle girth caused his fall just as he had slipped the bridle from the
+      head of his enemy's horse, and the frightened steed, freed from its rein,
+      ran madly through the wood, followed by Doralice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Orlando told Zerbino to inform Mandricardo if he overtook him that he
+      would wait in that spot three days for him to return and renew the combat,
+      and bade the lovers farewell. As he wandered through the region while
+      waiting, he found a peaceful little spot where a limpid rill rippled
+      through a meadow dotted here and there with trees. Here the weary warrior
+      sought repose; but as he looked about him he espied the name of Angelica
+      carved on the trees, entwined with that of Medoro. Persuading himself that
+      this was a fanciful name by which the maid intended to signify himself, he
+      entered a little ivy-covered grotto, arching over a fountain, and there
+      discovered on the rocky wall some verses in which Medoro celebrated his
+      union with Angelica. For a moment he stood as if turned to stone. Unable
+      to weep, he again mounted his horse and sought a peasant's house to pass
+      the night. There he heard the story of Angelica's infatuation, and saw the
+      bracelet she had left them in return for their hospitality. The unhappy
+      Orlando passed a sleepless night, weeping and groaning, and the next
+      morning hastened to the forest that he might give way to his grief
+      unobserved. There madness came upon him, and he uprooted the hateful
+      trees, cut the solid stone of the grotto with his sword, making a
+      desolation of the beautiful spot, and, casting off his armor, ran naked
+      through the country, pillaging, burning, and slaying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zerbino and Isabel sought the spot in a few days to learn if Mandricardo
+      had returned, found the scattered armor, and heard of Orlando's madness
+      from a shepherd. Lamenting over their protector's misfortune, they
+      gathered up the armor, hung it on a sapling, and wrote thereon Orlando's
+      name. But while they were thus engaged, Mandricardo arrived, took the long
+      coveted sword, and gave Zerbino, who attempted to prevent the theft, a
+      mortal wound. The unhappy Isabel, intent on self-destruction, was
+      comforted by a hermit, who promised to take her to a monastery near
+      Marseilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mandricardo had had but a few moments for repose after this combat with
+      Zerbino, when the furious Rodomont overtook him and a terrible combat
+      between the two began, the beautiful cause of it looking on with interest.
+      But so strong were the champions that the struggle might have been
+      prolonged indefinitely had not a messenger announced to the knights that
+      they must postpone their private quarrels for a moment and hasten to the
+      relief of King Agramant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Rogero had freed Richardetto, Bradamant's brother, and had attempted
+      in vain to find Bradamant, he was troubled by the thought of King
+      Agramant. He was determined to wed the warrior maid and become a
+      Christian, but first came his vow to the pagan king. He therefore wrote
+      her a note, saying that honor required his presence with Agramant for at
+      least fifteen or twenty days, but after that time he would find means to
+      justify himself with Agramant and would meet her at Vallombrosa to be
+      baptized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, with Richardetto, Aldigier, and Marphisa, whom they met on her way to
+      the pagan camp, rode on together, and freed Vivian and Malagigi from the
+      Moors and Manganese. While they rested at a little fountain, Hippalca rode
+      up, and told them that she had just met Rodomont, who took Frontino from
+      her. She also managed secretly to give Rogero Bradamant's message and
+      receive his letter in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the party still remained at the fountain, Rodomont came up with
+      Mandricardo and Doralice, and all engaged in a fierce battle, which was at
+      last interrupted by Malagigi, who, versed in wizard arts, conjured a demon
+      into Doralice's horse so that it ran away; and Rodomont and Mandricardo,
+      frightened by her screams, started in pursuit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the assistance of Rogero, Marphisa, Rodomont, and Mandricardo,
+      Agramant was enabled to drive Charlemagne back into Paris, where he was
+      saved only by the interposition of Discord, who stirred up the old
+      quarrels between Rodomont, Mandricardo, Rogero, and Gradasso over weapons,
+      bearings, and horses, until Agramant announced that they should settle
+      their difficulties by single combat, drawing lots to see who should first
+      engage in battle. But when they were ready for the lists, fresh quarrels
+      broke out, until the king despaired of ever having peace in his ranks.
+      Finally, at his command, Doralice publicly declared Mandricardo her
+      choice, and the furious Rodomont fled from the camp. On his way to Africa
+      he found a little abandoned church between France and Spain, and decided
+      to remain there instead of returning home. From this spot he saw Isabel on
+      her way to Marseilles, and falling in love with her, he slew the hermit,
+      dragged her to his retreat, and tried to win her. But she, loathing him
+      and faithful to Zerbino, caused him to slay her, pretending that she was
+      rendered invulnerable by an ointment which she had prepared, and the
+      secret of which she would impart to him. The unhappy Rodomont walled up
+      the church to form her tomb, and threw a narrow bridge across the stream.
+      On this bridge he met every knight who came thither, and having overthrown
+      him, took his arms to deck the tomb, on which he determined to hang a
+      thousand such trophies. If the vanquished knight was a Moor he was set
+      free without his arms; if a Christian he was imprisoned. Thither came the
+      mad Orlando, and wrestled with Rodomont on the bridge until both fell into
+      the stream. The madman then passed on through the country and met Medoro
+      and Angelica on their way to India. They escaped with difficulty, Medoro's
+      horse falling a victim to the madman, who continued to lay waste the land
+      until he reached Zizera on the bay of Gibraltar, and, plunging into the
+      sea, swam to Africa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Doralice had decided the quarrel between Mandricardo and Rodomont,
+      Rogero and the Tartar met in the lists to decide their quarrel over their
+      bearings. The battle was fearful, and when both fell to the ground it was
+      supposed that Mandricardo was the victor. But when the crowd rushed to the
+      lists they found the Tartar dead and Rogero only wounded. But the cheers
+      of the crowd gave little pleasure to the hero, who grieved that he must
+      lie on a sick-bed instead of seeking Bradamant, according to his promise.
+      Bradamant too, who had looked forward so eagerly to the day he had set,
+      wept when it came without her lover. Soon she heard that Rogero's coming
+      was prevented by his wounds; but when she also heard that he was attended
+      by the warrior maid Marphisa, and that their names were frequently coupled
+      in the pagan camp, she at once felt the pangs of jealousy. Unable to
+      endure it longer, she armed herself, changing her usual vest for one whose
+      colors denoted her desperation and desire to die, and set forth to meet
+      and slay Marphisa, taking with her the spear left her by Astolpho, whose
+      magic properties she did not know. With this she overthrew Rodomont and
+      caused him to depart from his tomb and free his captives, and then,
+      proceeding to Aries, challenged Rogero, who was sadly puzzled, not
+      recognizing his challenger on account of her changed vest. Several knights
+      attacked her before Rogero came forth, only to be overthrown by the spear,
+      and then Marphisa, who had rushed forth before Rogero could arm, met her,
+      and the two women fought like tigers. When Rogero at last went forth he
+      recognized Bradamant's voice, and suspecting the cause of her hostility,
+      implored her to withdraw with him to a wood near by to hear his
+      explanation. Marphisa followed them and attacked Bradamant so fiercely
+      that Rogero was forced to her rescue, and lifting his sword would have
+      struck the maid had he not been stopped by a voice from a tomb near by. It
+      was that of Atlatites, who announced to Rogero and Marphisa that they were
+      brother and sister, children of Rogero of Pisa and Galiciella; that Rogero
+      had been treacherously slain and his town betrayed to Almontes, who cast
+      Galiciella adrift on the sea. Atlantes rescued her, and took her children
+      when she died; but Marphisa was stolen from him by a band of Arabs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this speech it was plainly the duty of Rogero and Marphisa to espouse
+      the cause of Charlemagne and take arms against Agramant, who was their
+      enemy. Bradamant and Marphisa then embraced, bade Rogero farewell, and
+      proceeded to Charlemagne's camp, where Marphisa was received with honor
+      and baptized, while Rogero promised to follow them as soon as he could
+      find an excuse to leave Agramant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Astolpho left Bradamant in the forest, he quickly rose in the air and
+      passed rapidly over the kingdoms of the world, Aragon, Navarre, Cadiz,
+      Egypt, Morocco, Fez, over the sandy desert until he reached the kingdom of
+      Nubia, whose king he rescued from the harpies by the sound of his magic
+      horn. Then, mounted on his hippogrif again, he rose to the terrestrial
+      Paradise, where he was welcomed by John, who informed him that he was sent
+      thither by the grace of God that he might get instruction how to furnish
+      aid to Charles and the Church, who were sorely in need of it. With John he
+      rose in a chariot to the Heaven of the Moon, where, after seeing many
+      strange things, he was given the wits of Orlando enclosed in a vial. They
+      had been taken from him as a punishment for his loving a pagan, but were
+      now to be restored to him that he might aid Charlemagne in conquering the
+      Moors. Astolpho then descended to Nubia, restored sight to its king, and
+      asking for his forces, went with them into Africa and attacked Biserta,
+      the city of Agramant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When these tidings were borne to Agramant he was greatly troubled, and
+      desiring to end the war in Europe and hasten to his own country, he
+      proposed to Charlemagne that the war be decided by single combat between
+      two champions. Great was the agony of Rogero, the pagan champion, when he
+      recognized in his opponent Rinaldo, the brother of Bradamant. He would
+      never dare to slay him, so he parried the blows rained upon him, and
+      struck back so feebly that the spectators, not understanding his motives,
+      deemed him unable to cope with Rinaldo. But Melissa, determined that
+      Merlin's prophecy should come true, appeared to Agramant in the guise of
+      Rodomont, and urged him to break the compact and fall upon the Christians.
+      Delighted to have the mighty king with him again, Agramant did not scruple
+      to break his word, and rushed upon the Christian forces, breaking up the
+      combat. After a sharp conflict, the Saracens were put to flight and
+      Agramant hastened into Africa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His people in Biserta, their strength drained by the long war, were unable
+      to withstand the Christian foe, soon re-enforced by a powerful enemy. One
+      day, as Astolpho and his friends were standing on the beach, a madman came
+      raging towards them, whom Astolpho recognized as Orlando. The warriors
+      attempted in vain to hold him until Astolpho ordered the ship's hawsers to
+      be brought, and knotting them flung them at the count's limbs, and so
+      threw him down and tied him. Then, after having had his body cleansed from
+      mud and filth, he stopped his mouth with herbs so that he could breathe
+      only through his nostrils, and holding the vial there, the lost senses
+      were quickly inhaled, and Orlando was himself again, astonished and
+      delighted to find himself with his friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With Orlando's help, Biserta was soon taken, and Agramant, who had met the
+      Christian fleet under the leadership of Dudon and had barely escaped with
+      his life, saw from afar the flames devouring his beloved city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Landing with Sobrino upon a little isle, he found there King Sericane, who
+      advised him to challenge the Christians to single combat in order to
+      decide the outcome of the war, he, Gradasso, and Sobrino to stand in the
+      lists against three Christian champions. Orlando agreed to do so, and
+      selected for his companions in the fight Brandimart and Olivier. But the
+      pagans were no match for Orlando, whom no weapon could injure, and
+      Agramant and Gradasso soon fell, while Sobrino was wounded. But the joy
+      over the Christian victory was not unalloyed by sorrow, for Olivier was
+      severely wounded and the beloved Brandimart was slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The champions were now joined by Rinaldo, who after the breaking of the
+      pact by Agramant, had set off for India in search of Angelica, whom he
+      still madly loved. But Disdain guided his steps to the Fountain of Hate,
+      one draught of which changed his love to loathing, so that he abandoned
+      his undertaking and hastened to join the Christian forces in Africa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Olivier's wound proved slow to heal, and when at last the warriors heard
+      of a hermit on a lonely isle who could help him, they hastened to take
+      their wounded comrade thither. There they found Rogero, who had been
+      shipwrecked while sailing to Africa, and had been baptized by the hermit,
+      who was warned in a dream of his coming. The Christian warriors gladly
+      welcomed Rogero to their ranks, for they knew of his valor; and Rinaldo,
+      who had learned how the young hero had saved the life of Richardetto and
+      had preserved Vivian and Malagigi, embraced him, and at the suggestion of
+      the hermit, plighted him to his sister. Before they left the isle, Sobrino
+      was converted by the pious hermit, and Olivier's wound was healed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knights were received with the greatest honor by Charlemagne,
+      especially Rogero, the new convert. But what unhappiness awaited him! In
+      his absence Bradamant's father had promised the maid to Leo, the son of
+      the Greek emperor, Constantine, in spite of her prayers and entreaties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although Bradamant declared that she would die sooner than wed another,
+      the heart-broken Rogero hastily departed for Constantinople to slay his
+      rival. In his absence, Bradamant besought Charlemagne not to compel her to
+      marry Leo unless he could defeat her in single combat; and her angry
+      parents, on learning of this, took her from the court and shut her up in
+      the tower of Rocca Forte. Rogero, in the mean time, reached Leo's realms
+      just as the Greeks engaged in battle with the Bulgarians. Because of his
+      hatred for Leo, he fought with the Bulgarians, and when their king fell he
+      rallied their scattered troops and put the Greeks to flight. Rogero then
+      followed the fleeing Greeks unaccompanied, and being recognized, was taken
+      captive that night as he slept in a hostelry. At the entreaty of a
+      kinswoman whose son Rogero had slain that day, the emperor surrendered his
+      captive to her, and he was thrust into a gloomy dungeon, where he suffered
+      agonies from hunger and cold. But Leo, who had admired his valor in battle
+      and had longed to know him, rescued him, recovered his horse and armor,
+      and by his generosity compelled Rogero to admire him as much as he had
+      before hated him. The news of Charlemagne's decree now reached Leo, and
+      he, fearing to fight Bradamant, asked the unknown knight of the unicorn to
+      take his place. Rogero's heart sank within him, but he dared not refuse.
+      His life was Leo's, and he must sacrifice himself for him, must either
+      slay Bradamant, or be slain by her for his deliverer's sake. He
+      accompanied Leo to France, and feigning a cheerfulness he did not feel,
+      changed armor and steed that he might not be known, and, while Leo
+      remained in his tent outside the city, entered the lists and encountered
+      Bradamant, who was determined to slay her hated suitor. Rogero was equally
+      determined not to slay her nor to allow himself to be conquered. When
+      twilight fell and king and court saw that while the young knight had not
+      overcome the maid, he had not allowed himself to be overcome, they
+      declared that the couple were well matched and that they should wed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hopeless Rogero hastened back to Leo's camp, changed armor and steed,
+      and during the night stole away from the hateful place to the greenwood
+      that he might die there, since he could never possess his beloved. At the
+      same time, Bradamant gave way to her grief in such a manner that Marphisa,
+      already indignant at the treatment of her brother, appeared before the
+      king in his behalf. She declared that Rogero and Bradamant had already
+      exchanged all the vows of those who marry and therefore she was not free
+      to wed another. She then suggested that since the matter had gone so far,
+      Leo and Rogero should meet in the lists to decide to whom the lady
+      belonged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leo at once set out in search of his knight of the unicorn, who he
+      believed would defend him from all peril, and found him in the forest,
+      almost fainting from fasting and sleeplessness. The Greek embraced Rogero
+      tenderly and implored him to betray the cause of his grief, and so tender
+      were his words and so gracious his manner that Rogero could not but
+      unbosom himself. And when Leo learned that his unknown champion was no
+      other than Rogero himself he declared that he would gladly forego
+      Bradamant for him, and would rather have forfeited his life than caused
+      such grief to such a faithful friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joy filled the court when the story of Rogero's fidelity was made known,
+      and the joy was increased when ambassadors came from Bulgaria, seeking the
+      unknown knight of the unicorn that they might offer their throne to him.
+      Duke Aymon and his wife were reconciled when they found that Rogero was to
+      be a king, and the wedding was celebrated with the greatest splendor,
+      Charlemagne providing for Bradamant as though she were his daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of the celebrations Rodomont appeared to defy Rogero, and
+      that knight, nothing loath, met him in the lists. The Moor fell under
+      Rogero's blows, and all the Christian court rejoiced to see the last of
+      the pagan knights fall by the hand of their champion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0085" id="link2H_4_0085"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTION FROM THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE DEATH OF ZERBINO.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      As Orlando talked with Zerbino, whose life he had saved and to whom he had
+      given his lady Isabel, also rescued by him, Mandricardo the Tartar king
+      came up and challenged Orlando to single combat. While they fought,
+      Mandricardo's steed, from which Orlando had slipped the rein, became
+      unmanageable, and fled with its rider. Orlando asked Zerbino and Isabel to
+      tell Mandricardo, if they overtook him, that he would wait for him in that
+      place for three days to renew the battle. But while waiting, Orlando
+      learned of Angelica's love for Medoro, and losing his senses from grief,
+      threw away his armor, and went wandering through France. Zerbino and
+      Isabel returned to the place to see if Mandricardo had returned, and there
+      learned of Orlando's condition.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Far off, he {Zerbino} saw that something shining lay,
+   And spied Orlando's corselet on the ground;
+   And next his helm; but not that head-piece gay
+   Which whilem African Almontes crowned:
+   He in the thicket heard a courser neigh,
+   And, lifting up his visage at the sound,
+   Saw Brigliadoro the green herbage browse,
+   With rein yet hanging at his saddle-bows,
+
+  For Durindane, he sought the greenwood, round,
+   Which separate from the scabbard met his view;
+   And next the surcoat, but in tatters, found;
+   That, in a hundred rags, the champaign strew,
+   Zerbino and Isabel, in grief profound,
+   Stood looking on, nor what to think they knew:
+   They of all matters else might think, besides
+   The fury which the wretched count misguides.
+
+  Had but the lovers seen a drop of blood,
+   They might have well believed Orlando dead:
+   This while the pair, beside the neighboring flood,
+   Beheld a shepherd coming, pale with dread.
+   He just before, as on a rock he stood,
+   Had seen the wretch's fury; how he shed
+   His arms about the forest, tore his clothes,
+   Slew hinds, and caused a thousand other woes.
+
+  Questioned by good Zerbino, him the swain
+    Of all which there had chanced, informed aright.
+    Zerbino marvelled, and believed with pain,
+    Although the proofs were clear: This as it might,
+    He from his horse dismounted on the plain,
+    Full of compassion, in afflicted plight;
+    And went about, collecting from the ground
+    The various relics which were scattered round.
+
+  Isabel lights as well; and, where they lie
+    Dispersed, the various arms uniting goes.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Here Prince Zerbino all the arms unites,
+    And hangs like a fair trophy, on a pine.
+    And, to preserve them safe from errant knights,
+    Natives or foreigners, in one short line
+    Upon the sapling's verdant surface writes,
+    ORLANDO'S ARMS, KING CHARLES'S PALADINE.
+    As he would say, "Let none this harness move,
+    Who cannot with its lord his prowess prove!"
+
+  Zerbino having done the pious deed,
+    Is bowning him to climb his horse; when, lo!
+    The Tartar king arrives upon the mead.
+    He at the trophied pine-tree's gorgeous show,
+    Beseeches him the cause of this to read;
+    Who lets him (as rehearsed) the story know.
+    When, without further pause, the paynim lord
+    Hastes gladly to the pine, and takes the sword.
+
+  "None can (he said) the action reprehend,
+    Nor first I make the faulchion mine to-day;
+    And to its just possession I pretend
+    Where'er I find it, be it where it may.
+    Orlando, this not daring to defend,
+    Has feigned him mad, and cast the sword away;
+    But if the champion so excuse his shame,
+    This is no cause I should forego my claim."
+
+   "Take it not thence," to him Zerbino cried,
+    "Nor think to make it thine without a fight:
+    If so thou tookest Hector's arms of pride,
+    By theft thou hadst them, rather than by right."
+    Without more parley spurred upon each side,
+    Well matched in soul and valor, either knight.
+    Already echoed are a thousand blows;
+    Nor yet well entered are the encountering foes.
+
+  In 'scaping Durindane, a flame in show
+    (He shifts so swiftly), is the Scottish lord.
+    He leaps about his courser like a doe,
+    Where'er the road best footing does afford.
+    And well it is that he should not forego
+    An inch of vantage; who, if once that sword
+    Smite him, will join the enamored ghosts, which rove
+    Amid the mazes of the myrtle grove.
+
+  As the swift-footed dog, who does espy
+    Swine severed from his fellows, hunts him hard,
+    And circles round about; but he lies by
+    Till once the restless foe neglect his guard;
+    So, while the sword descends, or hangs on high,
+    Zerbino stands, attentive how to ward,
+    How to save life and honor from surprise;
+    And keeps a wary eye, and smites and flies.
+
+  On the other side, where'er the foe is seen
+    To threaten stroke in vain, or make it good,
+    He seems an Alpine wind, two hills between,
+    That in the month of March shakes leafy wood;
+    Which to the ground now bends the forest green,
+    Now whirls the broken boughs, at random strewed.
+    Although the prince wards many, in the end
+    One mighty stroke he cannot 'scape or fend.
+
+  In the end he cannot 'scape one downright blow,
+    Which enters, between sword and shield, his breast.
+    As perfect was the plate and corselet, so
+    Thick was the steel wherein his paunch was drest:
+    But the destructive weapon, falling low,
+    Equally opened either iron vest;
+    And cleft whate'er it swept in its descent,
+    And to the saddle-bow, through cuirass, went.
+
+  And, but that somewhat short the blow descends
+    It would Zerbino like a cane divide;
+    But him so little in the quick offends,
+    This scarce beyond the skin is scarified.
+    More than a span in length the wound extends;
+    Of little depth: of blood a tepid tide
+    To his feet descending, with a crimson line,
+    Stains the bright arms which on the warrior shine.
+
+  'T is so, I sometimes have been wont to view
+    A hand more white than alabaster, part
+    The silver cloth with ribbon red of hue;
+    A hand I often feel divide my heart.
+    Here little vantage young Zerbino drew
+    From strength and greater daring, and from art;
+    For in the temper of his arms and might,
+    Too much the Tartar king excelled the knight.
+
+  The fearful stroke was mightier in show,
+    Than in effect, by which the prince was prest;
+    So that poor Isabel, distraught with woe,
+    Felt her heart severed in her frozen breast.
+    The Scottish prince, all over in a glow,
+    With anger and resentment was possest,
+    And putting all his strength in either hand,
+    Smote full the Tartar's helmet with his brand.
+
+  Almost on his steed's neck the Tartar fell,
+    Bent by the weighty blow Zerbino sped;
+    And, had the helmet been unfenced by spell
+    The biting faulchion would have cleft his head.
+    The king, without delay, avenged him well,
+    "Nor I for you till other season," said,
+    "Will keep this gift;" and levelled at his crest,
+    Hoping to part Zerbino to the chest.
+
+  Zerbino, on the watch, whose eager eye
+    Waits on his wit, wheels quickly to the right;
+    But not withal so quickly, as to fly
+    The trenchant sword, which smote the shield outright,
+    And cleft from top to bottom equally;
+    Shearing the sleeve beneath it, and the knight
+    Smote on his arm; and next the harness rended,
+    And even to the champion's thigh descended.
+
+  Zerbino, here and there, seeks every way
+    By which to wound, nor yet his end obtains;
+    For, while he smites upon that armor gay,
+    Not even a feeble dint the coat retains.
+    On the other hand, the Tartar in the fray
+    Such vantage o'er the Scottish prince obtains,
+    Him he has wounded in seven parts or eight,
+    And reft his shield and half his helmet's plate.
+
+  He ever wastes his blood; his energies
+    Fail, though he feels it not, as't would appear;
+    Unharmed, the vigorous heart new force supplies
+    To the weak body of the cavalier.
+    His lady, during this, whose crimson dyes
+    Were chased by dread, to Doralice drew near,
+    And for the love of Heaven, the damsel wooed
+    To stop that evil and disastrous feud.
+
+    Doralice, who as courteous was as fair,
+    And ill-assured withal, how it would end,
+    Willingly granted Isabella's prayer,
+    And straight to truce and peace disposed her friend.
+    As well Zerbino, by the other's care,
+    Was brought his vengeful anger to suspend;
+    And, wending where she willed, the Scottish lord,
+    Left unachieved the adventure of the sword.
+
+  For to leave Durindana such misdeed
+    To him appeared, it past all other woes;
+    Though he could hardly sit upon his steed,
+    Through mighty loss of life-blood, which yet flows.
+    Now, when his anger and his heat secede,
+    After short interval, his anguish grows;
+    His anguish grows, with such impetuous pains,
+    He feels that life is ebbing from his veins.
+
+  For weakness can the prince no further hie,
+    And so beside a fount is forced to stay:
+    Him to assist the pitying maid would try,
+    But knows not what to do, nor what to say.
+    For lack of comfort she beholds him die;
+    Since every city is too far away,
+    Where in this need she could resort to leech,
+    Whose succor she might purchase or beseech.
+
+  She, blaming fortune, and the cruel sky,
+    Can only utter fond complaints and vain.
+    "Why sank I not in ocean," (was her cry),
+    "When first I reared my sail upon the main?"
+    Zerbino, who on her his languid eye
+    Had fixt, as she bemoaned her, felt more pain
+    Than that enduring and strong anguish bred,
+    Through which the suffering youth was well-nigh dead.
+
+  "So be thou pleased, my heart," (Zerbino cried),
+    "To love me yet, when I am dead and gone,
+    As to abandon thee without a guide,
+    And not to die, distresses me alone.
+    For did it me in place secure betide
+    To end my days, this earthly journey done,
+    I cheerful, and content, and fully blest
+    Would die, since I should die upon thy breast
+
+  "But since to abandon thee, to whom a prize
+    I know not, my sad fate compels, I swear,
+    My Isabella, by that mouth, those eyes,
+    By what enchained me first, that lovely hair;
+    My spirit, troubled and despairing, hies
+    Into hell's deep and gloomy bottom; where
+    To think, thou wert abandoned so by me,
+    Of all its woes the heaviest pain will be."
+
+  At this the sorrowing Isabel, declining
+    Her mournful face, which with her tears o'erflows,
+    Towards the sufferer, and her mouth conjoining
+    To her Zerbino's, languid as a rose;
+    Rose gathered out of season, and which, pining
+    Fades where it on the shadowy hedgerow grows,
+    Exclaims, "Without me think not so, my heart,
+    On this your last, long journey to depart.
+
+  "Of this, my heart, conceive not any fear.
+    For I will follow thee to heaven or hell;
+    It fits our souls together quit this sphere,
+    Together go, for aye together dwell.
+    No sooner closed thine eyelids shall appear,
+    Than either me internal grief will quell,
+    Or, has it not such power, I here protest,
+    I with this sword to-day will pierce my breast.
+
+  "I of our bodies cherish hope not light,
+    That they shall have a happier fate when dead;
+    Together to entomb them, may some wight,
+    Haply by pity moved, be hither led."
+    She the poor remnants of his vital sprite
+    Went on collecting, as these words she said;
+    And while yet aught remains, with mournful lips,
+    The last faint breath of life devoutly sips.
+
+  'T was here his feeble voice Zerbino manned,
+    Crying, "My deity, I beg and pray,
+    By that love witnessed, when thy father's land
+    Thou quittedst for my sake; and, if I may
+    In anything command thee, I command,
+    That, with God's pleasure, thou live-out thy day;
+    Nor ever banish from thy memory,
+    That, well as man can love, have I loved thee.
+
+  "God haply will provide thee with good aid,
+    To free thee from each churlish deed I fear;
+    As when in the dark cavern thou wast stayed,
+    He sent, to rescue thee. Andante's peer;
+    So he (grammercy!) succored thee dismayed
+    At sea, and from the wicked Biscayneer.
+    And, if thou must choose death, in place of worse,
+    Then only choose it as a leaser curse."
+
+  I think not these last words of Scotland's knight
+    Were so exprest, that he was understood:
+    With these, he finished, like a feeble light,
+    Which needs supply of wax, or other food.
+    &mdash;Who is there, that has power to tell aright
+    The gentle Isabella's doleful mood?
+    When stiff, her loved Zerbino, with pale face,
+    And cold as ice, remained in her embrace.
+
+  On the ensanguined corse, in sorrow drowned,
+    The damsel throws herself, in her despair,
+    And shrieks so loud that wood and plain resound
+    For many miles about; nor does she spare
+    Bosom or cheek; but still, with cruel wound,
+    One and the other smites the afflicted fair;
+    And wrongs her curling locks of golden grain,
+    Aye calling on the well-loved youth in vain.
+
+  She with such rage, such fury, was possest,
+    That, in her transport, she Zerbino's glaive
+    Would easily have turned against her breast,
+    Ill keeping the command her lover gave;
+    But that a hermit, from his neighboring rest,
+    Accustomed oft to seek the fountain-wave,
+    His flagon at the cooling stream to fill,
+    Opposed him to the damsel's evil will.
+
+  The reverend father, who with natural sense
+    Abundant goodness happily combined,
+    And, with ensamples fraught and eloquence,
+    Was full of charity towards mankind,
+    With efficacious reasons her did fence,
+    And to endurance Isabel inclined;
+    Placing, from ancient Testament and new,
+    Women, as in a mirror, for her view.
+
+  The holy man next made the damsel see,
+    That save in God there was no true content,
+    And proved all other hope was transitory,
+    Fleeting, of little worth, and quickly spent;
+    And urged withal so earnestly his plea,
+    He changed her ill and obstinate intent;
+    And made her, for the rest of life, desire
+    To live devoted to her heavenly sire.
+
+  Not that she would her mighty love forbear
+    For her dead lord, nor yet his relics slight;
+    These, did she halt or journey, everywhere
+    Would Isabel have with her, day and night.
+    The hermit therefore seconding her care,
+    Who, for his age, was sound and full of might,
+    They on his mournful horse Zerbino placed,
+    And traversed many a day that woodland waste.
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  He thought to bear her to Provence, where, near
+    The city of Marseilles, a borough stood,
+    Which had a sumptuous monastery; here
+    Of ladies was a holy sisterhood.
+
+          <i>Rose's Translation, Canto XXIV</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0086" id="link2H_4_0086"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE LUSIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "The discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calcutta has been sung by
+      Camoens, whose poem has something of the charm of the Odyssey and of the
+      magnificence of the Aeneid."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      MONTESQUIEU.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Portuguese epic, the Lusiad, so-called from Lusitania, the Latin name
+      for Portugal, was written by Luis de Camoens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was born in Lisbon in 1524, lost his father by shipwreck in infancy,
+      and was educated by his mother at the University of Coimbra. On leaving
+      the university he appeared at court, where his graces of person and mind
+      soon rendered him a favorite. Here a love affair with the Donna Catarina
+      de Atayde, whom the king also loved, caused his banishment to Santarem. At
+      this place he began the Lusiad, and continued it on the expedition against
+      the Moors in Africa sent out by John III., an expedition on which he
+      displayed much valor and lost an eye. He was recalled to court, but
+      jealousies soon drove him thence to India, whither he sailed in 1553,
+      exclaiming, "Ungrateful country, thou shall not possess my bones." In
+      India his bravery and accomplishments won him friends, but his imprudences
+      soon caused his exile to China, where he accumulated a small fortune and
+      finished his poem. Happier circumstances permitted him to return to Goa;
+      but on the way the ship laden with his fortune sank, and he escaped,
+      saving only his poem. After sixteen years of misfortune abroad, Camoens
+      returned to Lisbon in 1569. The pestilence that was then raging delayed
+      the publication of the Lusiad until 1572. The poem received little
+      attention; a small pension was bestowed on the poet, but was soon
+      withdrawn, and the unfortunate Camoens was left to die in an almshouse. On
+      his death-bed he deplored the impending fate of his country, which he
+      alone could see. "I have loved my country. I have returned not only to die
+      on her bosom, but to die with her."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad tells the story of the voyage of Vasco da Gama. The sailors of
+      Prince Henry of Portugal, commander of the Portuguese forces in Africa,
+      had passed Cape Nam and discovered the Cape of Storms, which the prince
+      renamed the Cape of Good Hope. His successor Emmanuel, determined to carry
+      out the work of his predecessor by sending out da Gama to undertake the
+      discovery of the southern passage to India. The Portuguese were generally
+      hostile to the undertaking, but da Gama, his brother, and his friend
+      Coello gathered a company, part of which consisted of malefactors whose
+      sentence of death was reversed on condition that they undertake the
+      voyage, and reached India.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad is divided into ten cantos, containing one thousand one hundred
+      and two stanzas. Its metre is the heroic iambic, in rhymed octave stanzas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad is marred by its mythological allusions in imitation of Homer
+      and Virgil, but these are forgotten when the poet sings in impassioned
+      strains of his country's past glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad is simple in style; its subject is prosaic; it is a constant
+      wonder that out of such unpromising materials Camoens could construct a
+      poem of such interest. He could not have done so had he not been so great
+      a poet, so impassioned a patriot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Camoens was in one sense of the word a practical man, like Ariosto; he had
+      governed a province, and governed it successfully. But he had also taken
+      up arms for his country, and after suffering all the slights that could be
+      put upon him by an ungrateful and forgetful monarch, still loved his
+      native land, loved it the more, perhaps, that he had suffered for it and
+      was by it neglected. He foresaw, also, as did no one else, the future ruin
+      of his country, and loved it the more intensely, as a parent lavishes the
+      fondest, most despairing affection on a child he knows doomed to early
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad is sometimes called the epic of commerce; it could be called
+      far more appropriately the epic of patriotism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL14" id="link2H_BIBL14"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE LUSIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      J. Adamson's Memoirs of Life and Writing of Camoens, 2 vols., 1820 (vol.
+      2, account of works of Camoens in Portuguese and other languages, and of
+      the works founded on his life or suggested by his writings);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      R. F. Burton's Camoens, his Life and his Lusiad, 2 vols., 1881;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
+      Italy, Spain, and Portugal, vol. 3;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. Bouterwek's History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature, 1823 (Tr. by
+      T. Ross);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chambers's Repository, no. 32, Spirit of Camoens's Lusiad; W. T. Dobson's
+      Classic Poets, pp. 240-278;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montgomery's Men of Italy, iii., 295;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, ii., 475-528;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Southey's Sketch of Portuguese Literature in vol. i. of Quarterly Review,
+      1809;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortnightly Review, i., 184;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quarterly, i., 235;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monthly Review, clx., 505;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edinburgh Review, 1805, vi., 43;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      New England Magazine, liii., 542;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Revue de Deux Mondes, 1832, vi., 145.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0088" id="link2H_4_0088"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE LUSIAD. The Lusiad, Tr. by J. J.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Aubertin, 2 vols., 1881 (Portuguese text and English Tr., in verse);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad, Englished by R. F. Burton, 2 vols., 1881;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad, Tr. into Spenserian verse by R. F. Duff, 1880;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad, Tr. by Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1655;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad, Tr. by W. J. Mickle, 3 vols., Ed. 5, 1807;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad, Tr. by T. M. Musgrave (blank verse), 1826;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lusiad, Tr. by Edward Quillinan, with notes by John Adamson, 1853.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0089" id="link2H_4_0089"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE LUSIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Jupiter, looking down from Olympus, saw the Lusitanian fleet sailing
+      over the heretofore untravelled seas, he called the gods together, and
+      reviewing the past glory of the Portuguese, their victories over the
+      Castilians, their stand against the Romans, under their shepherd-hero
+      Viriatus, and their conquest of Africa, he foretold their future glories
+      and their discovery and conquest of India.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bacchus, who had long since made conquests in India, fearful lest his
+      ancient honors should be forgotten, bitterly opposed the scheme of the
+      Portuguese; Venus, however, was favorable to them, and Mars interceded,
+      counselling Jove not to heed Bacchus, but to permit the Lusitanians to
+      reach India's shore in safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the council of the gods was dismissed, Mercury was sent to guide the
+      Armada, which made its first landing at Mozambique. Canoes with curious
+      palm-leaf sails, laden with dark-skinned natives, swarmed round the ships
+      and were hailed with joy by Gama and his men, who invited them on board. A
+      feast was spread for them, and to them Gama declared his intention of
+      seeking India. Among them was a Moor who had at first thought the
+      Portuguese Moors, on account of their dark skins. Feigning cordiality
+      while plotting their ruin, he offered them a pilot to Quiloa, where, he
+      assured them, they would find a Christian colony. He and his friends also
+      laid a plot to place some soldiers in ambush to attack Gama's men when
+      they landed next day to get water; in this way many would be destroyed,
+      and certain death awaited the survivors at Quiloa, whither the promised
+      pilot would conduct them. But the Moors had not counted on the strength of
+      the Portuguese. Gama's vengeance was swift and certain. The thunder of his
+      guns terrified the Moors, and the regent implored his pardon, and with
+      make-believe tears insisted on his receiving at his hands the promised
+      pilot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many questions were asked by Gama concerning the spicy shores of India, of
+      the African coasts, and of the island to the north. "Quiloa, that,"
+      replied the Moor, "where from ancient times, the natives have worshipped
+      the blood-stained image of the Christ." He knew how the Moorish
+      inhabitants hated the Christians, and was secretly delighted when Gama
+      directed him to steer thither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A storm swept the fleet past Quiloa, but the pilot, still determined on
+      revenge, pointed out the island town of Mombaça, as a stronghold of the
+      Christians, and steering the fleet thither, anchored just outside the bar.
+      Bacchus, now intent on the destruction of the Lusitanians, assumed the
+      character of a priest to deceive the heralds sent ashore by Gama, who
+      assured their commander that they saw a Christian priest performing divine
+      rites at an altar above which fluttered the banner of the Holy Ghost. In a
+      few moments the Christian fleet would have been at the mercy of the Moors,
+      but Cytherea, beholding from above the peril of her favorites, hastily
+      descended, gathered together her nymphs, and formed an obstruction, past
+      which the vessels strove in vain to pass. As Gama, standing high on the
+      poop, saw the huge rock in the channel, he cried out, and the Moorish
+      pilots, thinking their treason discovered, leaped into the waves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Warned in a dream by Mercury that the Moors were preparing to cut his
+      cables, De Gama roused his fleet and set sail for Melinda, whose monarch,
+      Mercury had told him, was both powerful and good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fleet, decorated with purple streamers and gold and scarlet tapestry
+      in honor of Ascension Day sailed with drums beating and trumpets sounding,
+      into the harbor of Melinda, where they were welcomed by the kind and
+      truthful people. The fame of the Lusitanians had reached Melinda, and the
+      monarch gladly welcomed them to his land. His herald entreated them to
+      remain with him, and brought them sheep, fowls, and the fruits of the
+      earth, welcome gifts to the mariners. Gama had vowed not to leave the ship
+      until he could step on Indian ground, so the next day the king and the
+      commander, clad in their most splendid vestments, met in barges, and the
+      monarch of Melinda asked Gama to tell him of the Lusian race, its origin
+      and climate, and of all his adventures up to the time of his arrival at
+      Melinda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "O king," said Gama, "between the zones of endless winter and eternal
+      summer lies beautiful Europe, surrounded by the sea. To the north are the
+      bold Swede, the Prussian, and the Dane; on her south-eastern line dwelt
+      the Grecian heroes, world-renowned, and farther south are the ruins of
+      proud Rome. Among the beauteous landscapes of Italy lies proud Venice,
+      queen of the sea, and north of her tower the lofty Alps. The olive groves
+      and vineyards of fair Gallia next greet the eye, and then the valorous
+      fields of Spain, Aragon, Granada, and&mdash;the pride of Spain&mdash;Castile.
+      On the west, a crown to it, lies Lusitania, on whom last smiles the
+      setting sun,&mdash;against whose shores roll the waves of the western sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Noble are the heroes of my country. They were the first to rise against
+      the Moors and expel them from the kingdom. The forces of Rome were routed
+      by our shepherd-hero, Viriatus. After his death our country languished
+      until Alonzo of Spain arose, whose renown spread far and wide because of
+      his battles against the Moors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alonzo rewarded generously the heroes who fought under him, and to Prince
+      Henry of Hungaria he gave the fields through which the Tagus flows and the
+      hand of his daughter. To them was born a son, Alfonso, the founder of the
+      Lusian throne. After the death of his father Henry, Alfonso's mother
+      became regent, and ere long wedded her minister Perez and plotted to
+      deprive her young son of his inheritance. The eighteen year old son arose,
+      won the nobility to his side, and defeated his guilty mother and her
+      husband in the battle of Guimaraens. Forgetful of the reverence due to
+      parents, he cruelly imprisoned his mother, whose father, the king of
+      Spain, indignant at such treatment of his daughter, now marched against
+      the young prince and defeated him. As he lay in prison, his faithful
+      guardian Egas knelt before the king, and vowed that his master, if
+      released, would pay homage to him. Well he knew that his master would
+      never bow his proud head to pay homage to Castile. So when the day
+      arrived, Egas, and all his family, clad in gowns of white like sentenced
+      felons, with unshod feet, and with the halter around their necks, sought
+      Castile. 'O king, take us as a sacrifice for my perjured honor. Turn in
+      friendship to the prince thy grandson, and wreak thy vengeance on us
+      alone.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fortunately Alonzo was noble enough to release the self-sacrificing Egas,
+      and to forgive his grandson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The young Alfonso, pardoned by his grandfather, proceeded to Ourique,
+      whither marched five Moorish kings. Over his head appeared the sacred
+      cross; but he prayed heaven to show it to his army instead, that they
+      might be inspired with the hope of victory. Filled with joy at the token,
+      the Portuguese defeated the Moors, and on the bloody battle-field Alfonso
+      was proclaimed King of Portugal, and from that day placed on his hitherto
+      unadorned buckler five azure shields, arranged as a cross. He continued
+      the wars with the Moors until, wounded and taken prisoner at Badajoz, he
+      resigned the throne to his son, Don Sancho, who in turn won many
+      victories. Alfonso II., Sancho II., Alfonso III., and Alfonso the Brave
+      succeeded him. At the court of the latter was a beautiful maiden, Inez de
+      Castro, whom Alfonso's son Don Pedro had married secretly. The courtiers,
+      fearful lest Pedro should show favor to the Castilians because Inez was
+      the daughter of a Castilian, told the king of his son's amour. In the
+      absence of Pedro, Inez was led before the king, bringing with her her
+      children, to help her to plead for mercy. But the king was merciless, his
+      counsellors, brutal, and at his signal they stabbed her. Pedro never
+      recovered from the shock given him by the fate of his beautiful wife, and
+      after his succession to the throne, as a partial atonement for her
+      suffering, he had her body taken from the grave and crowned Queen of
+      Portugal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The weak Fernando, who took his wife Eleanora from her lawful husband,
+      succeeded Pedro, and their daughter Beatrice not being recognized by the
+      Portuguese, at his death Don John, a natural brother, came to the throne.
+      In the mean time a Spanish prince had married Beatrice and invaded
+      Portugal, claiming it as his right. The Portuguese were divided until Nuńo
+      Alvarez Pereyra came forward. 'Has one weak reign so corrupted you?' he
+      cried. 'Have you so soon forgotten our brave sires? Fernando was weak, but
+      John, our godlike king, is strong. Come, follow him! Or, if you stay, I
+      myself will go alone; never will I yield to a vassal's yoke; my native
+      land shall remain unconquered, and my monarch's foes, Castilian or
+      Portuguese, shall heap the plain!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Inspired by Nuńo's eloquence the Lusians took the field and defeated the
+      Spanish in the battle of Aljubarota. Still dissatisfied, Nuńo pressed into
+      Spain and dictated the terms of peace at Seville. Having established
+      himself upon the throne of Portugal, John carried the war into Africa,
+      which wars were continued after his death by his son Edward. While laying
+      siege to Tangier, Edward and his brother Fernando were taken prisoners,
+      and were allowed to return home only on promise to surrender Ceuta. Don
+      Fernando remained as the hostage they demanded. The Portuguese would not
+      agree to surrender Ceuta, and Don Fernando was forced to languish in
+      captivity, since the Moors would accept no other ransom. He was a
+      patriotic prince than whom were none greater in the annals of Lusitania.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alfonso V., victorious over the Moors, dreamed of conquering Castile, but
+      was defeated, and on his death was succeeded by John II., who designed to
+      gain immortal fame in a way tried by no other king. His sailors sought a
+      path to India, but 'though enriched with knowledge' they perished at the
+      mouth of the Indus. To his successor, Emmanuel, in a dream appeared the
+      rivers Ganges and Indus, hoary fathers, rustic in aspect, yet with a
+      majestic grace of bearing, their long, uncombed beards dripping with
+      water, their heads wreathed with strange flowers, and proclaimed to him
+      that their countries were ordained by fate to yield to him; that the fight
+      would be great, and the fields would stream with blood, but that at last
+      their shoulders would bend beneath the yoke. Overjoyed at this dream,
+      Emmanuel proclaimed it to his people. I, O king, felt my bosom burn, for
+      long had I aspired to this work. Me the king singled out, to me the dread
+      toil he gave of seeking unknown seas. Such zeal felt I and my youths as
+      inspired the Mynian youths when they ventured into unknown seas in the
+      Argo, in search of the golden fleece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the shore was reared a sacred fane, and there at the holy shrine my
+      comrades and I knelt and joined in the solemn rites. Prostrate we lay
+      before the shrine until morning dawned; then, accompanied by the 'woful,
+      weeping, melancholy throng' that came pressing from the gates of the city,
+      we sought our ships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then began the tears to flow; then the shrieks of mothers, sisters, and
+      wives rent the air, and as we waved farewell an ancient man cried out to
+      us on the thirst for honor and for fame that led us to undertake such a
+      voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soon our native mountains mingled with the skies, and the last dim speck
+      of land having faded, we set our eyes to scan the waste of sea before us.
+      From Madeira's fair groves we passed barren Masilia, the Cape of Green,
+      the Happy Isles, Jago, Jalofo, and vast Mandinga, the hated shore of the
+      Gorgades, the jutting cape called by us the Cape of Palms, and southward
+      sailed through the wild waves until the stars changed and we saw
+      Callisto's star no longer, but fixed our eyes on another pole star that
+      rises nightly over the waves. The shining cross we beheld each night in
+      the heavens was to us a good omen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "While thus struggling through the untried waves, and battling with the
+      tempests, now viewing with terror the waterspouts, and the frightful
+      lightnings, now comforted by the sight of mysterious fire upon our masts,
+      we came in sight of land, and gave to the trembling negro who came to us
+      some brass and bells. Five days after this event, as we sailed through the
+      unknown seas, a sudden darkness o'erspread the sky, unlighted by moon or
+      star. Questioning what this portent might mean, I saw a mighty phantom
+      rise through the air. His aspect was sullen, his cheeks were pale, his
+      withered hair stood erect, his yellow teeth gnashed; his whole aspect
+      spoke of revenge and horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Bold are you,' cried he, 'to venture hither, but you shall suffer for
+      it. The next proud fleet that comes this way shall perish on my coast, and
+      he who first beheld me shall float on the tide a corpse. Often, O Lusus,
+      shall your children mourn because of me!' 'Who art thou?' I cried. 'The
+      Spirit of the Cape,' he replied, 'oft called the Cape of Tempests.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king of Melinda interrupted Gama. He had often heard traditions among
+      his people of the Spirit of the Cape. He was one of the race of Titans who
+      loved Thetis, and was punished by Jove by being transformed into this
+      promontory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gama continued: "Again we set forth, and stopped at a pleasant coast to
+      clean our barks of the shell-fish. At this place we left behind many
+      victims of the scurvy in their lonely graves. Of the treason we met with
+      at Mozambique and the miracle that saved us at Quiloa and Mombas, you know
+      already, as well as of your own bounty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charmed with the recital of Gama, the King of Melinda had forgotten how
+      the hours passed away. After the story was told the company whiled away
+      the hours with dance, song, the chase, and the banquet, until Gama
+      declared that he must go on to India, and was furnished with a pilot by
+      the friendly king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bacchus, enraged at seeing the voyage so nearly completed, descended to
+      the palace of Neptune, with crystal towers, lofty turrets, roofs of gold,
+      and beautiful pillars inwrought with pearls. The sculptured walls were
+      adorned with old Chaos's troubled face, the four fair elements, and many
+      scenes in the history of the earth. Roused by Bacchus, the gods of the sea
+      consented to let loose the winds and the waves against the Portuguese.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the night, the Lusians spent the time in relating stories of their
+      country. As they talked, the storm came upon them, and the vessels rose
+      upon the giant waves, so that the sailors saw the bottom of the sea swept
+      almost bare by the violence of the storm. But the watchful Venus perceived
+      the peril of her Lusians, and calling her nymphs together, beguiled the
+      storm gods until the storm ceased. While the sailors congratulated
+      themselves on the returning calm, the cry of "Land!" was heard, and the
+      pilot announced to Gama that Calicut was near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hail to the Lusian heroes who have won such honors, who have forced their
+      way through untravelled seas to the shores of India! Other nations of
+      Europe have wasted their time in a vain search for luxury and fame instead
+      of reclaiming to the faith its enemies! Italy, how fallen, how lost art
+      thou! and England and Gaul, miscalled "most Christian!" While ye have
+      slept, the Lusians, though their realms are small, have crushed the
+      Moslems and made their name resound throughout Africa, even to the shores
+      of Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At dawn Gama sent a herald to the monarch; in the mean time, a friendly
+      Moor, Monçaide, boarded the vessel, delighted to hear his own tongue once
+      more. Born at Tangiers, he considered himself a neighbor of the Lusians;
+      well he knew their valorous deeds, and although a Moor, he now allied
+      himself to them as a friend. He described India to the eager Gama: its
+      religions, its idolaters, the Mohammedans, the Buddhists, the Brahmins. At
+      Calicut, queen of India, lived the Zamorin, lord of India, to whom all
+      subject kings paid their tribute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His arrival having been announced, Gama, adorned in his most splendid
+      garments, and accompanied by his train, also in bright array, entered the
+      gilded barges and rowed to the shore, where stood the Catual, the
+      Zamorin's minister. Monçaide acted as an interpreter. The company passed
+      through a temple on their way to the palace, in which the Christians were
+      horrified at the graven images there worshipped. On the palace walls were
+      the most splendid pictures, relating the history of India. One wall,
+      however, bore no sculptures; the Brahmins had foretold that a foreign foe
+      would at some time conquer India, and that space was reserved for scenes
+      from those wars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into the splendid hall adorned with tapestries of cloth of gold and
+      carpets of velvet, Gama passed, and stood before the couch on which sat
+      the mighty monarch. The room blazed with gems and gold; the monarch's
+      mantle was of cloth of gold, and his turban shone with gems. His manner
+      was majestic and dignified; he received Gama in silence, only nodding to
+      him to tell his story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gama proclaimed that he came in friendship from a valorous nation that
+      wished to unite its shores with his by commerce. The monarch responded
+      that he and his council would weigh the proposal, and in the mean time
+      Gama should remain and feast with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day the Indians visited the fleet, and after the banquet Gama
+      displayed to his guests a series of banners on which were told the history
+      of Portugal and her heroes. First came Lusus, the friend of Bacchus, the
+      hero-shepherd Viriatus, the first Alonzo, the self-sacrificing Egas, the
+      valiant Fuaz, every hero who had strengthened Lusitania and driven out her
+      foes, down to the gallant Pedro and the glorious Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Awed and wondering at the deeds of the mighty heroes, the Indians returned
+      home. In the night Bacchus appeared to the king, warning him against the
+      Lusians and urging him to destroy them while in his power. The Moors
+      bought the Catual with their gold. They also told the king that they would
+      leave his city as soon as he allied himself with the odious strangers.
+      When Gama was next summoned before the king he was received with a frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are a pirate! Your first words were lies. Confess it; then you may
+      stay with me and be my captain."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know the Moors," replied Gama. "I know their lies that have poisoned
+      your ears. Am I mad that I should voluntarily leave my pleasant home and
+      dare the terrors of an unknown sea? Ah, monarch, you know not the Lusian
+      race! Bold, dauntless, the king commands, and we obey. Past the dread Cape
+      of Storms have I ventured, bearing no gift save friendly peace, and that
+      noblest gift of all, the friendship of my king. I have spoken the truth.
+      Truth is everlasting!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A day passed and still Gama was detained by the power of the Catual, who
+      ordered him to call his fleets ashore if his voyage was really one of
+      friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never!" exclaimed Gama. "My fleet is free, though I am chained, and they
+      shall carry to Lisbon the news of my discovery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, at a sign from the Catual, hostile ships were seen
+      surrounding the Lusian vessels. "Not one shall tell on Lisbon's shores
+      your fate."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gama smiled scornfully, as the fleet swept on towards his vessels. Loud
+      sounded the drums, shrill the trumpets. The next moment sudden lightning
+      flashed from Gama's ships and the skies echoed with the thunder of the
+      guns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No word fell from Gama's lips as, the battle over, they saw the sea
+      covered with the torn hulks and floating masts; but the populace raged
+      around the palace gates, demanding justice to the strangers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The troubled king sought to make peace with Gama.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My orders have been given. To-day, when the sun reaches its meridian,
+      India shall bleed and Calicut shall fall. The time is almost here. I make
+      no terms. You have deceived me once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Moors fell fainting on the floor; the monarch trembled. "What can save
+      us?" he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Convey me and my train to the fleet. Command at once; it is even now
+      noon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more safe within his ship, with him the faithful Monçaide, who had
+      kept him informed of the treason of the Moors, his ships laden with
+      cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and gems, proofs of his visit, Gama, rejoicing,
+      set sail for home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Venus saw the fleet setting out, and planned a resting-place for the weary
+      sailors, a floating isle with golden sands, bowers of laurel and myrtle,
+      beautiful flowers and luscious fruits. Here the sea nymphs gathered,
+      Thetis, the most beautiful, being reserved for Gama, and here days were
+      spent in joyance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the banquet the nymphs sang the future glories of the Lusians, and
+      taking Gama by the hand, led him and his men to a mountain height, whence
+      they could look upon a wondrous globe, the universe. The crystal spheres
+      whirled swiftly, making sweet music, and as they listened to this, they
+      saw the sun go by, the stars, Apollo, the Queen of Love, Diana, and the
+      "yellow earth, the centre of the whole." Asia and Africa were unrolled to
+      their sight, and the future of India, conquered by the Lusians, Cochin
+      China, China, Japan, Sumatra,&mdash;all these countries given to the world
+      by their voyage around the terrible cape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spread thy sails!" cried the nymphs; "the time has come to go!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ships departed on their homeward way, and the heroes were received
+      with the wildest welcome by the dwellers on Tago's bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0090" id="link2H_4_0090"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM THE LUSIAD.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      INEZ DE CASTRO.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      During the reign of Alfonso the Brave, his son Don Pedro secretly wedded a
+      beautiful maiden of the court, Inez de Castro. The courtiers, jealous
+      because Inez was a Castilian, betrayed Pedro's secret to the king, who, in
+      the absence of his son, had Inez brought before him and slain by hired
+      ruffians.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  While glory, thus, Alonzo's name adorn'd,
+  To Lisbon's shores the happy chief return'd,
+  In glorious peace and well-deserv'd repose,
+  His course of fame, and honor'd age to close.
+  When now, O king, a damsel's fate severe,
+  A fate which ever claims the woful tear,
+  Disgraced his honors&mdash;On the nymph's 'lorn head
+  Relentless rage its bitterest rancor shed:
+  Yet, such the zeal her princely lover bore,
+  Her breathless corse the crown of Lisbon wore.
+  'Twas thou, O Love, whose dreaded shafts control
+  The hind's rude heart, and tear the hero's soul;
+  Thou, ruthless power, with bloodshed never cloy'd,
+  'Twas thou thy lovely votary destroy'd.
+  Thy thirst still burning for a deeper woe,
+  In vain to thee the tears of beauty flow;
+  The breast that feels thy purest flames divine,
+  With spouting gore must bathe thy cruel shrine.
+  Such thy dire triumphs!&mdash;Thou, O nymph, the while,
+  Prophetic of the god's unpitying guile,
+  In tender scenes by love-sick fancy wrought,
+  By fear oft shifted, as by fancy brought,
+  In sweet Mondego's ever-verdant bowers,
+  Languish'd away the slow and lonely hours:
+  While now, as terror wak'd thy boding fears,
+  The conscious stream receiv'd thy pearly tears;
+  And now, as hope reviv'd the brighter flame,
+  Each echo sigh'd thy princely lover's name.
+  Nor less could absence from thy prince remove
+  The dear remembrance of his distant love:
+  Thy looks, thy smiles, before him ever glow,
+  And o'er his melting heart endearing flow:
+  By night his slumbers bring thee to his arms,
+  By day his thoughts still wander o'er thy charms:
+  By night, by day, each thought thy loves employ,
+  Each thought the memory, or the hope, of joy.
+  Though fairest princely dames invok'd his love,
+  No princely dame his constant faith could move:
+  For thee, alone, his constant passion burn'd,
+  For thee the proffer'd royal maids he scorn'd.
+  Ah, hope of bliss too high&mdash;the princely dames
+  Refus'd, dread rage the father's breast inflames;
+  He, with an old man's wintry eye, surveys
+  The youth's fond love, and coldly with it weighs
+  The people's murmurs of his son's delay
+  To bless the nation with his nuptial day.
+  (Alas, the nuptial day was past unknown,
+  Which, but when crown'd, the prince could dare to own.)
+  And, with the fair one's blood, the vengeful sire
+  Resolves to quench his Pedro's faithful fire.
+  Oh, thou dread sword, oft stain'd with heroes' gore,
+  Thou awful terror of the prostrate Moor,
+  What rage could aim thee at a female breast,
+  Unarm'd, by softness and by love possess'd!
+
+  Dragg'd from her bower, by murd'rous ruffian hands,
+  Before the frowning king fair Inez stands;
+  Her tears of artless innocence, her air
+  So mild, so lovely, and her face so fair,
+  Mov'd the stern monarch; when, with eager zeal,
+  Her fierce destroyers urg'd the public weal;
+  Dread rage again the tyrant's soul possess'd,
+  And his dark brow his cruel thoughts confess'd;
+  O'er her fair face a sudden paleness spread,
+  Her throbbing heart with gen'rous anguish bled,
+  Anguish to view her lover's hopeless woes,
+
+  And all the mother in her bosom rose.
+  Her beauteous eyes, in trembling tear-drops drown'd,
+  To heaven she lifted (for her hands were bound);
+  Then, on her infants turn'd the piteous glance,
+  The look of bleeding woe; the babes advance,
+  Smiling in innocence of infant age,
+  Unaw'd, unconscious of their grandsire's rage;
+  To whom, as bursting sorrow gave the flow,
+  The native heart-sprung eloquence of woe,
+  The lovely captive thus:&mdash;"O monarch, hear,
+  If e'er to thee the name of man was dear,
+  If prowling tigers, or the wolf's wild brood
+  (Inspired by nature with the lust of blood),
+  Have yet been mov'd the weeping babe to spare,
+  Nor left, but tended with a nurse's care,
+  As Rome's great founders to the world were given;
+  Shall thou, who wear'st the sacred stamp of Heaven
+  The human form divine, shalt thou deny
+  That aid, that pity, which e'en beasts supply!
+  Oh, that thy heart were, as thy looks declare,
+  Of human mould, superfluous were my prayer;
+  Thou couldst not, then, a helpless damsel slay,
+  Whose sole offence in fond affection lay,
+  In faith to him who first his love confess'd,
+  Who first to love allur'd her virgin breast.
+  In these my babes shalt thou thine image see,
+  And, still tremendous, hurl thy rage on me?
+  Me, for their sakes, if yet thou wilt not spare,
+  Oh, let these infants prove thy pious care!
+  Yet, Pity's lenient current ever flows
+  From that brave breast where genuine valor glows;
+  That thou art brave, let vanquish'd Afric tell,
+  Then let thy pity o'er my anguish swell;
+  Ah, let my woes, unconscious of a crime,
+  Procure mine exile to some barb'rous clime:
+  Give me to wander o'er the burning plains
+  Of Libya's deserts, or the wild domains
+  Of Scythia's snow-clad rocks, and frozen shore;
+  There let me, hopeless of return, deplore:
+  Where ghastly horror fills the dreary vale,
+  Where shrieks and howlings die on every gale,
+  The lion's roaring, and the tiger's yell,
+  There with my infant race, consigned to dwell,
+  There let me try that piety to find,
+  In vain by me implor'd from human kind:
+  There, in some dreary cavern's rocky womb,
+  Amid the horrors of sepulchral gloom,
+  For him whose love I mourn, my love shall glow,
+  The sigh shall murmur, and the tear shall flow:
+  All my fond wish, and all my hope, to rear
+  These infant pledges of a love so dear,
+  Amidst my griefs a soothing glad employ,
+  Amidst my fears a woful, hopeless joy."
+
+  In tears she utter'd&mdash;as the frozen snow
+  Touch'd by the spring's mild ray, begins to flow,
+  So just began to melt his stubborn soul,
+  As mild-ray'd Pity o'er the tyrant stole;
+  But destiny forbade: with eager zeal
+  (Again pretended for the public weal),
+  Her fierce accusers urg'd her speedy doom;
+  Again, dark rage diffus'd its horrid gloom
+  O'er stern Alonzo's brow: swift at the sign,
+  Their swords, unsheath'd, around her brandish'd shine.
+  O foul disgrace, of knighthood lasting stain,
+  By men of arms a helpless lady slain!
+
+  Thus Pyrrhus, burning with unmanly ire,
+  Fulfilled the mandate of his furious sire;
+  Disdainful of the frantic matron's prayer,
+  On fair Polyxena, her last fond care,
+  He rush'd, his blade yet warm with Priam's gore,
+  And dash'd the daughter on the sacred floor;
+  While mildly she her raving mother eyed,
+  Resigned her bosom to the sword, and died.
+  Thus Inez, while her eyes to heaven appeal,
+  Resigns her bosom to the murd'ring steel:
+  That snowy neck, whose matchless form sustain'd
+  The loveliest face, where all the graces reign'd,
+  Whose charms so long the gallant prince enflam'd,
+  That her pale corse was Lisbon's queen proclaim'd,
+  That snowy neck was stain'd with spouting gore,
+  Another sword her lovely bosom tore.
+  The flowers that glisten'd with her tears bedew'd,
+  Now shrunk and languished with her blood embru'd.
+  As when a rose ere-while of bloom so gay,
+  Thrown from the careless virgin's breast away,
+  Lies faded on the plain, the living red,
+  The snowy white, and all its fragrance fled;
+  So from her cheeks the roses died away,
+  And pale in death the beauteous Inez lay:
+  With dreadful smiles, and crimson'd with her blood,
+  Round the wan victim the stern murd'rers stood,
+  Unmindful of the sure, though future hour,
+  Sacred to vengeance and her lover's power.
+
+  O Sun, couldst thou so foul a crime behold,
+  Nor veil thine head in darkness, as of old
+  A sudden night unwonted horror cast
+  O'er that dire banquet, where the sire's repast
+  The son's torn limbs supplied!&mdash;Yet you, ye vales!
+  Ye distant forests, and ye flow'ry dales!
+  When pale and sinking to the dreadful fall,
+  You heard her quiv'ring lips on Pedro call;
+  Your faithful echoes caught the parting sound,
+  And Pedro! Pedro! mournful, sigh'd around.
+  Nor less the wood-nymphs of Mondego's groves
+  Bewail'd the memory of her hapless loves:
+  Her griefs they wept, and, to a plaintive rill
+  Transform'd their tears, which weeps and murmurs still.
+  To give immortal pity to her woe
+  They taught the riv'let through her bowers to flow,
+  And still, through violet-beds, the fountain pours
+  Its plaintive wailing, and is named Amours.
+  Nor long her blood for vengeance cried in vain:
+  Her gallant lord begins his awful reign,
+  In vain her murderers for refuge fly,
+  Spain's wildest hills no place of rest supply.
+  The injur'd lover's and the monarch's ire,
+  And stern-brow'd Justice in their doom conspire:
+  In hissing flames they die, and yield their souls in fire.
+      <i>Mickle's Translation, Canto III.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0091" id="link2H_4_0091"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE SPIRIT OF THE CAPE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Vasco de Gama relates the incidents of his voyage from Portugal to the
+      King of Melinda. The southern cross had appeared in the heavens and the
+      fleet was approaching the southern point of Africa. While at anchor in a
+      bay the Portuguese aroused the hostility of the savages, and hastily set
+      sail.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "Now, prosp'rous gales the bending canvas swell'd;
+  From these rude shores our fearless course we held:
+  Beneath the glist'ning wave the god of day
+  Had now five times withdrawn the parting ray,
+  When o'er the prow a sudden darkness spread,
+  And, slowly floating o'er the mast's tall head
+  A black cloud hover'd: nor appear'd from far
+  The moon's pale glimpse, nor faintly twinkling star;
+  So deep a gloom the low'ring vapor cast,
+  Transfix'd with awe the bravest stood aghast.
+  Meanwhile, a hollow bursting roar resounds,
+  As when hoarse surges lash their rocky mounds;
+  Nor had the black'ning wave nor frowning heav'n
+  The wonted signs of gath'ring tempest giv'n.
+  Amazed we stood. 'O thou, our fortune's guide,
+  Avert this omen, mighty God!' I cried;
+  'Or, through forbidden climes adventurous stray'd,
+  Have we the secrets of the deep survey'd,
+  Which these wide solitudes of seas and sky
+  Were doom'd to hide from man's unhallow'd eye?
+  Whate'er this prodigy, it threatens more
+  Than midnight tempests, and the mingled roar,
+  When sea and sky combine to rock the marble shore.'
+
+  "I spoke, when rising through the darken'd air,
+  Appall'd, we saw a hideous phantom glare;
+  High and enormous o'er the flood he tower'd,
+  And 'thwart our way with sullen aspect lower'd:
+  An earthy paleness o'er his cheeks was spread,
+  Erect uprose his hairs of wither'd red;
+  Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
+  Sharp and disjoin'd, his gnashing teeth's blue rows;
+  His haggard beard flow'd quiv'ring on the wind,
+  Revenge and horror in his mien combin'd;
+  His clouded front, by with'ring lightnings scar'd,
+  The inward anguish of his soul declar'd.
+  His red eyes, glowing from their dusky caves,
+  Shot livid fires: far echoing o'er the waves
+  His voice resounded, as the cavern'd shore
+  With hollow groan repeats the tempest's roar.
+  Cold gliding horrors thrill'd each hero's breast,
+  Our bristling hair and tott'ring knees confess'd
+  Wild dread, the while with visage ghastly wan,
+  His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began:&mdash;
+
+  "'O you, the boldest of the nations, fir'd
+  By daring pride, by lust of fame inspir'd,
+  Who, scornful of the bow'rs of sweet repose,
+  Through these my waves advance your fearless prows,
+  Regardless of the length'ning wat'ry way,
+  And all the storms that own my sov'reign sway,
+  Who, mid surrounding rocks and shelves explore
+  Where never hero brav'd my rage before;
+  Ye sons of Lusus, who with eyes profane
+  Have view'd the secrets of my awful reign,
+  Have passed the bounds which jealous Nature drew
+  To veil her secret shrine from mortal view;
+  Hear from my lips what direful woes attend,
+  And, bursting soon, shall o'er your race descend.
+
+  "'With every bounding keel that dares my rage,
+  Eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage,
+  The next proud fleet that through my drear domain,
+  With daring search shall hoist the streaming vane,
+  That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds toss'd,
+  And raging seas, shall perish on my coast:
+  Then he, who first my secret reign descried,
+  A naked corpse, wide floating o'er the tide,
+  Shall drive&mdash;Unless my heart's full raptures fail,
+  O Lusus! oft shall thou thy children wail;
+  Each year thy shipwreck'd sons thou shalt deplore,
+  Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore.
+
+  "'With trophies plum'd behold a hero come,
+  Ye dreary wilds, prepare his yawning tomb.
+  Though smiling fortune bless'd his youthful morn,
+  Though glory's rays his laurell'd brows adorn,
+  Full oft though he beheld with sparkling eye
+  The Turkish moons in wild confusion fly,
+  While he, proud victor, thunder'd in the rear,
+  All, all his mighty fame shall vanish here.
+  Quiloa's sons, and thine, Mombaz, shall see
+  Their conqueror bend his laurell'd head to me;
+  While, proudly mingling with the tempest's sound,
+  Their shouts of joy from every cliff rebound.
+
+  "'The howling blast, ye slumb'ring storms prepare,
+  A youthful lover and his beauteous fair
+  Triumphant sail from India's ravag'd land;
+  His evil angel leads him to my strand.
+  Through the torn hulk the dashing waves shall roar,
+  The shatter'd wrecks shall blacken all my shore.
+  Themselves escaped, despoil'd by savage hands,
+  Shall, naked, wander o'er the burning sands,
+  Spar'd by the waves far deeper woes to bear,
+  Woes, e'en by me, acknowledg'd with a tear.
+  Their infant race, the promis'd heirs of joy,
+  Shall now, no more, a hundred hands employ;
+  By cruel want, beneath the parents' eye,
+  In these wide wastes their infant race shall die;
+  Through dreary wilds, where never pilgrim trod
+  Where caverns yawn, and rocky fragments nod,
+  The hapless lover and his bride shall stray,
+  By night unshelter'd, and forlorn by day.
+  In vain the lover o'er the trackless plain
+  Shall dart his eyes, and cheer his spouse in vain.
+  Her tender limbs, and breast of mountain snow,
+  Where, ne'er before, intruding blast might blow,
+  Parch'd by the sun, and shrivell'd by the cold
+  Of dewy night, shall he, fond man, behold.
+  Thus, wand'ring wide, a thousand ills o'er past,
+  In fond embraces they shall sink at last;
+  While pitying tears their dying eyes o'erflow,
+  And the last sigh shall wail each other's woe.
+
+  "'Some few, the sad companions of their fate,
+  Shall yet survive, protected by my hate,
+  On Tagus' banks the dismal tale to tell,
+  How, blasted by my frown, your heroes fell.'
+
+  "He paus'd, in act still further to disclose
+  A long, a dreary prophecy of woes:
+  When springing onward, loud my voice resounds,
+  And midst his rage the threat'ning shade confounds.
+
+  "'What art thou, horrid form that rid'st the air?
+  By Heaven's eternal light, stern fiend, declare.'
+  His lips he writhes, his eyes far round he throws,
+  And, from his breast, deep hollow groans arose,
+  Sternly askance he stood: with wounded pride
+  And anguish torn, 'In me, behold,' he cried,
+  While dark-red sparkles from his eyeballs roll'd,
+  'In me the Spirit of the Cape behold,
+  That rock, by you the Cape of Tempests nam'd,
+  By Neptune's rage, in horrid earthquakes fram'd,
+  When Jove's red bolts o'er Titan's offspring flam'd.
+  With wide-stretch'd piles I guard the pathless strand,
+  And Afric's southern mound, unmov'd, I stand:
+  Nor Roman prow, nor daring Tyrian oar
+  Ere dash'd the white wave foaming to my shore;
+  Nor Greece nor Carthage ever spread the sail
+  On these my seas, to catch the trading gale.
+  You, you alone have dar'd to plough my main,
+  And with the human voice disturb my lonesome reign."
+
+  "He spoke, and deep a lengthen'd sigh he drew,
+  A doleful sound, and vanish'd from the view:
+  The frighten'd billows gave a rolling swell,
+  And, distant far, prolong'd the dismal yell,
+  Faint and more faint the howling echoes die,
+  And the black cloud dispersing, leaves the sky.
+  High to the angel-host, whose guardian care
+  Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear,
+  And Heaven's dread King implore: 'As o'er our head
+  The fiend dissolv'd, an empty shadow fled;
+  So may his curses, by the winds of heav'n,
+  Far o'er the deep, their idle sport, be driv'n!'"
+
+  With sacred horror thrill'd, Melinda's lord
+  Held up the eager hand, and caught the word.
+  "Oh, wondrous faith of ancient days," he cries,
+  "Concealed in mystic lore and dark disguise!
+  Taught by their sires, our hoary fathers tell,
+  On these rude shores a giant spectre fell,
+  What time from heaven the rebel band were thrown:
+  And oft the wand'ring swain has heard his moan.
+  While o'er the wave the clouded moon appears
+  To hide her weeping face, his voice he rears
+  O'er the wild storm. Deep in the days of yore,
+  A holy pilgrim trod the nightly shore;
+  Stern groans he heard; by ghostly spells controll'd,
+  His fate, mysterious, thus the spectre told:
+
+  "'By forceful Titan's warm embrace compress'd,
+  The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd:
+  The hundred-handed giant at a birth,
+  And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth;
+  My heart avow'd my sire's ethereal flame;
+  Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name.
+  In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged,
+  Tremendous war against the gods I waged:
+  Yet, not to reach the throne of heaven I try,
+  With mountain pil'd on mountain to the sky;
+  To me the conquest of the seas befell,
+  In his green realm the second Jove to quell.
+  Nor did ambition all my passions hold,
+  'Twas love that prompted an attempt so bold.
+  Ah me, one summer in the cool of day,
+  I saw the Nereids on the sandy bay,
+  With lovely Thetis from the wave advance
+  In mirthful frolic, and the naked dance.
+  In all her charms reveal'd the goddess trod,
+  With fiercest fires my struggling bosom glow'd;
+  Yet, yet I feel them burning in my heart,
+  And hopeless, languish with the raging smart.
+  For her, each goddess of the heavens I scorn'd,
+  For her alone my fervent ardor burn'd.
+  In vain I woo'd her to the lover's bed,
+  From my grim form, with horror, mute she fled.
+  Madd'ning with love, by force I ween to gain
+  The silver goddess of the blue domain;
+  To the hoar mother of the Nereid band
+  I tell my purpose, and her aid command:
+  By fear impell'd, old Doris tried to move,
+  And win the spouse of Peleus to my love.
+  The silver goddess with a smile replies,
+  'What nymph can yield her charms a giant's prize!
+  Yet, from the horrors of a war to save,
+  And guard in peace our empire of the wave,
+  Whate'er with honor he may hope to gain,
+  That, let him hope his wish shall soon attain.'
+  The promis'd grace infus'd a bolder fire,
+  And shook my mighty limbs with fierce desire.
+  But ah, what error spreads its dreadful night,
+  What phantoms hover o'er the lover's sight!
+
+  "The war resign'd, my steps by Doris led,
+  While gentle eve her shadowy mantle spread,
+  Before my steps the snowy Thetis shone
+  In all her charms, all naked, and alone.
+  Swift as the wind with open arms I sprung,
+  And, round her waist with joy delirious clung:
+  In all the transports of the warm embrace,
+  A hundred kisses on her angel face,
+  On all its various charms my rage bestows,
+  And, on her cheek, my cheek enraptur'd glows.
+  When oh, what anguish while my shame I tell!
+  What fix'd despair, what rage my bosom swell!
+  Here was no goddess, here no heavenly charms,
+  A rugged mountain fill'd my eager arms,
+  Whose rocky top, o'erhung with matted brier,
+  Received the kisses of my am'rous fire.
+  Wak'd from my dream, cold horror freez'd my blood;
+  Fix'd as a rock, before the rock I stood;
+  'O fairest goddess of the ocean train,
+  Behold the triumph of thy proud disdain;
+  Yet why,' I cried, 'with all I wish'd decoy,
+  And, when exulting in the dream of joy,
+  A horrid mountain to mine arms convey?'
+  Madd'ning I spoke, and furious sprung away.
+  Far to the south I sought the world unknown,
+  Where I, unheard, unscorn'd, might wail alone,
+  My foul dishonor, and my tears to hide,
+  And shun the triumph of the goddess' pride.
+  My brothers, now, by Jove's red arm o'erthrown,
+  Beneath huge mountains pil'd on mountains groan;
+  And I, who taught each echo to deplore,
+  And tell my sorrows to the desert shore,
+  I felt the hand of Jove my crimes pursue,
+  My stiff'ning flesh to earthy ridges grew,
+  And my huge bones, no more by marrow warm'd,
+  To horrid piles, and ribs of rock transform'd,
+  Yon dark-brow'd cape of monstrous size became,
+  Where, round me still, in triumph o'er my shame,
+  The silv'ry Thetis bids her surges roar,
+  And waft my groans along the dreary shore.'"
+
+         <i>Mickle's Translation, Canto V</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0092" id="link2H_4_0092"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Gerusalemme Liberata, or Jerusalem Delivered, was written by Torquato
+      Tasso, who was born at Sorrento, March 11, 1544. He was educated at
+      Naples, Urbino, Rome, Venice, Padua, and Bologna. In 1572 he attached
+      himself to the court of Ferrara, which he had visited in 1565 in the suite
+      of the Cardinal d'Este, and by whose duke he had been treated with great
+      consideration. Here his pastoral drama "Aminta" was written and performed,
+      and here he began to write his epic. The duke, angry because of Tasso's
+      affection for his sister Eleanora, and fearful lest the poet should
+      dedicate his poem to the Medicis, whom he visited in 1575, and into whose
+      service he was asked to enter, kept him under strict surveillance, and
+      pretended to regard him as insane. Feigning sympathy and a desire to
+      restore his mind, he had the unfortunate poet confined in a mad-house.
+      Tasso escaped several times, but each time returned in the hope of a
+      reconciliation with the duke. During his confinement his poem was
+      published without his permission: first in 1580, a very imperfect version;
+      in 1581, a genuine one. This at once brought him great fame; but while its
+      publishers made a fortune, Tasso received nothing. Neither did the duke
+      relent, although powerful influences were brought to bear on him. Tasso
+      was not released until 1586, and then, broken in health, he passed the
+      rest of his life in Rome and Naples, living on charity, though treated
+      with great honor. He died in Rome, April 25, 1595, just before he was to
+      have been crowned at the capitol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Jerusalem Delivered has for its subject the first Crusade, and the
+      events recorded in its twenty cantos comprise the happenings in the camp
+      of the Crusaders during forty days of the campaign of 1099. Its metre is
+      the <i>octava rima</i>, the eight lined rhymed stanza.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tasso was not so successful in the delineation of character and in the
+      description of actions as in the interpretation of feeling, being by
+      nature a lyric rather than an epic poet. But his happy choice of subject,&mdash;for
+      the Crusades were still fresh in the memory of the people, and chivalry
+      was a thing of the present&mdash;his zeal for the Christian cause, his
+      impassioned delineations of love, and his exquisitely poetical treatment
+      of his whole theme, rendered his epic irresistible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL15" id="link2H_BIBL15"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      J. Black's Life of Tasso (with a historical and critical account of his
+      writings), 2 vols. 1810;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. J. Hasell's Tasso, 1882;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rev. Robert Milman's Life of Tasso, 2 vols. 1850;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dennistown's Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 1851, iii., 292-316;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and
+      17th Centuries, 1839, ii., 192-199;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leigh Hunt's Stories from Italian Poets, 1888, ii., 289-474;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe, 1845, pp. 568-577;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, Ed. 2, 1846, i., 359-391;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. A. Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, 1886, vol. 2, chapters 7-8;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edin. Rev., Oct. 1850, xcii., 294-302;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blackwood, 1845, lvii., 401-414;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quarterly Review, Jan. 1857, ci., 59-68.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0094" id="link2H_4_0094"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. from the Italian by John Hoole. First American
+      from Eighth London Edition, 2 vols., 1810;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. into English Spenserian verse with life of the
+      author by J. H. Wiffen. New ed., 1883;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. by Sir John Kingston James, 2 vols., 1884;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. into the metre of the original by C. L. Smith,
+      1876-79;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. by Sir Edward Fairfax and edited by Prof. Henry
+      Morley, 1889.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0095" id="link2H_4_0095"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Eternal Father looked down from His lofty throne upon the Christian
+      powers in Syria. In the six years they had spent in the East they had
+      taken Nice and Antioch. Now, while inactive in winter quarters, Bohemond
+      was strengthening himself in Antioch, and the other chiefs were thinking
+      of glory or love; but Godfrey, to whom renown was the meanest of glories,
+      was burning to win Jerusalem and restore it to the faith. Inspired by
+      Gabriel, despatched by the Eternal Father, Godfrey called a council, and
+      with an eloquence and fire more than mortal, roused the Christians to
+      action. "We came not here to raise empires; the period has come when all
+      the world is waiting for our next step. Now is the propitious moment. If
+      we delay longer, Egypt will step in to the aid of our Syrian foe!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Godfrey was unanimously elected chief, and immediate arrangements were
+      made for the setting out to Jerusalem. Godfrey first reviewed the army. A
+      thousand men marched under the lilied banner of Clotharius; a thousand
+      more from the Norman meads under Robert; from Orange and Puy, troops came
+      under the priests William and Ademar. Baldwin led his own and Godfrey's
+      bands, and Guelpho, allied to the house of Este, brought his strong
+      Carinthians. Other troops of horse and foot were led by William of
+      England. After him came the young Tancred, the flower of chivalry,
+      blighted now, alas! by unrequited love. He had seen by chance the pagan
+      maid Clorinda, the Amazon, drinking at a pool in the forest, and had
+      forgot all else in his love for her. After him came the small Greek force
+      under Tatine; next, the invincible Adventurers under Dudon, bravest of
+      men. Following these were Otho, Edward and his sweet bride Gildippe, who,
+      unwilling to be separated from her husband, fought at his side, and,
+      excellent above all others, the young Rinaldo, whose glorious deeds were
+      yet but a promise of his great future. While but a boy he had escaped from
+      the care of his foster mother, Queen Matilda, and hastened to join the
+      Crusaders. The review was closed by the array of foot soldiers led by
+      Raymond, Stephen of Amboise, Alcasto, and Camillus. The pageant having
+      passed by, Godfrey despatched a messenger to summon Sweno the Dane, who
+      with his forces was still tarrying in Greece, and at once set out for
+      Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Swift rumor had conveyed the tidings of his approach to Aladine, King of
+      Jerusalem, a merciless tyrant, who, enraged, immediately laid heavier
+      taxes upon the unfortunate Christians in his city. Ismeno, a sorcerer,
+      once a Christian, but now a pagan who practised all black arts, penetrated
+      to the presence of the king and advised him to steal from the temple of
+      the Christians an image of the Virgin and put it in his mosque, assuring
+      him that he would thus render his city impregnable. This was done, and
+      Ismeno wrought his spells about the image, but the next morning it had
+      disappeared. After a fruitless search for the image and the offender, the
+      angry king sentenced all the Franks to death. The beautiful maid
+      Sophronia, determined to save her people, assumed the guilt, and was
+      sentenced to be burned. As she stood chained to the stake, her lover,
+      Olindo, to whom she had ever been cold, saw her, and in agony at her
+      sacrifice, declared to the king that Sophronia had lied and that he was
+      the purloiner of the image. The cruel monarch ordered him also to be tied
+      to the stake, that they might die together; and the flames had just been
+      applied when the two were saved by the Amazon Clorinda, who convinced the
+      king that the Christians were innocent and that Allah himself, incensed at
+      the desecration, had snatched away the image.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the camp of Godfrey at Emmaus came two ambassadors from the king of
+      Egypt, Alethes, a supple crafty courtier of low lineage, and Argantes, a
+      haughty and powerful warrior. But their efforts to keep Godfrey from
+      Jerusalem, first by persuasion, and then by threats, were in vain. They
+      were dismissed from the camp, and the army proceeded on its way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the walls and towers of the city where Messias died came in sight,
+      the Christian army, crying "All Hail, Jerusalem!" laid aside their
+      casques, and, shedding tears, trod barefoot the consecrated way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At sight of the Franks, the pagans hastened to strengthen the
+      fortifications of their city, and Aladine from a lofty tower watched
+      Clorinda attack a band of Franks returning from a foray. At his side was
+      the lovely Erminia, daughter of the King of Antioch, who had sought
+      Jerusalem after the downfall of her city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Erminia instructed Aladine of the various crusaders, and when she pointed
+      out the noble Tancred, who had treated her with such consideration in
+      Antioch, she felt her love for him revive, though she pretended to the
+      king to hate him for his cruelty. Tancred recognized among the leaders of
+      the pagans Clorinda, bereft of her helmet, and for love of her, refused to
+      fight her. The pagans, driven back by the Christians, were rallied by
+      Argantes, but only to be met by the matchless Adventurers under Dudon.
+      When Dudon fell, the troops under Rinaldo, burning for revenge,
+      reluctantly obeyed Godfrey's summons to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The funeral rites over, the artificers were sent to the forest to fell the
+      trees, that engines might be fabricated for the destruction of the city
+      walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angry at the success of the Franks, Satan stirred up the infernal regions,
+      and set loose his friends to work destruction to the Christians. One he
+      despatched to the wizard Idraotes, at Damascus, who conceived the scheme
+      of sending his beautiful niece Armida to ensnare the Christians. In a few
+      days Armida appeared among the white pavilions of the Franks, attracting
+      the attention and winning the love of all who saw her. Her golden locks
+      appeared through her veil as the sunshine gleams through the stormy skies;
+      her charms were sufficiently hidden to make them the more alluring. So
+      attired, modestly seeking the camp of Godfrey, she was met by Eustace, his
+      young brother, and taken to the prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With many tears and sighs, she told her pitiful story. She had been driven
+      from her kingdom, an orphan, by the envy and wickedness of her uncle, and
+      had come to ask the Christians to aid her in regaining her rights.
+      Unfortunately for her success, she and her uncle had not calculated on
+      Godfrey's absorption in his divine undertaking. He was proof against her
+      charms, and was determined not to be delayed longer in laying siege to the
+      city. It required the utmost persuasion of Eustace to induce him to permit
+      ten of the Adventurers to accompany her. Armida, though disappointed in
+      Godfrey's lack of susceptibility, employed her time so well while in camp
+      that when she departed with the ten Adventurers chosen by lot, she was
+      followed secretly by Eustace and many others who had not been chosen, but
+      who were madly in love with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before his departure, Eustace, jealous of Rinaldo, whom he was fearful
+      Armida might admire, had persuaded him to aspire to the place of Dudon, to
+      whom a successor must be elected. Gernando of Norway desired the same
+      place, and, angry that the popular Rinaldo should be his rival, scattered
+      through the camp rumors disparaging to his character: Rinaldo was vain and
+      arrogant; Rinaldo was rash, not brave; Rinaldo's virtues were all vices.
+      At last, stung past endurance by his taunts and insinuations, Rinaldo gave
+      the lie to his traducer, and slew him in fair fight. False reports were
+      taken to Godfrey by Rinaldo's enemies; and the ruler determined to punish
+      the youth severely; but he, warned by his friends, escaped from camp and
+      fled to Antioch. To Godfrey, deprived thus of Rinaldo and many of his
+      brave Adventurers, was brought the tidings that the Egyptian expedition
+      was on its way, and that a ship laden with provisions had been intercepted
+      on its way to his camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bold Argantes, weary of the restraint of the siege, sent a challenge
+      to the Christians, saying he would meet any Frank, high-born or low, in
+      single combat, the conditions being that the vanquished should serve the
+      victor. A thousand knights burned to accept the challenge, but Godfrey
+      named Tancred, who proudly buckled on his armor and called for his steed.
+      As he approached the field, he saw among the pagan hosts, who stood around
+      to view the combat, the fair face of Clorinda, and stood gazing at her,
+      forgetful of all else. Otho, seeing his delay, spurred on his horse, and
+      fought till vanquished. Then Tancred woke from his stupor, and, burning
+      with shame, rushed forward. The battle raged until night fell, and the
+      weary warriors ceased, pledging themselves to return on the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Erminia, shut up in Jerusalem, mourned over the wounds of Tancred. She
+      knew many healing balms, by which, were she with him, she might heal him
+      and make him ready for the morrow's fight; but she was forced to
+      administer them to his enemy instead. Unable to endure the suspense
+      longer, she put on her friend Clorinda's armor and fled to the Christian
+      camp to find her beloved. The Franks, who spied her, supposed her
+      Clorinda, and pursued her; but she succeeded in reaching a woodland
+      retreat, where she determined to remain with the kind old shepherd and his
+      wife who had fled from the disappointments of the court and had here
+      sought and found peace in their humble home. When Tancred heard from his
+      followers that they had driven Clorinda from the camps, he determined to
+      pursue and speak with her. Rising from his bed he sought the forest only
+      to fall into the wiles of Armida, and be lured into a castle, in whose
+      dungeon he lay, consumed with shame at the thought of his unexplained
+      absence from the morrow's combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When morning dawned and Tancred did not appear, the good old Count Raymond
+      went forth to meet Argantes. When he was about to overcome his antagonist,
+      an arrow shot from the pagan ranks brought on a general conflict, in which
+      the Christians were successful until a storm, summoned by the powers of
+      darkness, put an end to the battle. The next morning a knight came to the
+      camp of Godfrey to tell of Sweno's defeat and slaughter. He, the sole
+      survivor of the band, had been commissioned by some supernatural visitants
+      to bring Sweno's sword to Rinaldo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Godfrey's heart was wrung by this disaster, the camp of Italians,
+      led to suppose by some bloody armor found in a wood that Rinaldo had been
+      treacherously slain with the connivance of Godfrey, accused the chief and
+      stirred up the camp to revolt; but Godfrey, praying to Heaven for strength
+      to meet his enemies, walked through the camp firmly and unfalteringly,
+      unarmed and with head bare, his face still bright with the heavenly light
+      left there by spiritual communion, and silenced the tumult by a few
+      well-chosen words. His arch-accuser Argillan he sentenced to death; the
+      others crept back to their tents in shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Soldan Solyman, driven from Nice at its capture, had joined the Turks,
+      and, spurred on by hate and fury, made a night attack on the Frankish
+      camp. The Franks, saved only by the interposition of the angel Michael,
+      and by the troops just returned, released from Armida's enchantment,
+      fought fiercely, and at dawn put Solyman to flight. By the arts of Ismeno
+      he was conveyed to Jerusalem by a secret way, where he cheered the
+      discouraged Aladine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before attempting to storm the city, the Christian troops, by the advice
+      of Peter the Hermit, walked in a long procession to Mt. Olivet, filling
+      the heavens with melody, and there partook of the communion administered
+      by the warrior priests, William and Ademar. The next morning, Godfrey, in
+      the light armor of a foot-soldier, appeared with his barons, prepared for
+      the storm. The troops were arranged carefully, the huge engines were moved
+      forward, and the Franks made a bold attempt against the walls, from the
+      top of which Clorinda aimed her arrows, wounding and slaying many men.
+      Godfrey himself was wounded, but was healed by divine aid, and immediately
+      returned to the field to rally his troops. Night fell, and the contest was
+      deferred until another day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clorinda, burning to distinguish herself, determined to fire the huge
+      towers of the Christians. Her eunuch tried to dissuade her because he had
+      been warned in a dream that she would this night meet her death. He told
+      her her history. Her mother was a Christian who had been compelled to put
+      her infant away from her. This eunuch had rescued her from death and
+      brought her up, failing, however, to obey an angel's command to have her
+      baptized a Christian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clorinda would not heed his caution, but went forth and fired the Frankish
+      machines. She and the fleeing pagans were pursued by the Christians; and
+      while her companions reached the city in safety, she was accidentally shut
+      out and met Tancred in mortal combat. She refused to tell her name until
+      she felt her death-wound, and then she prayed her enemy to baptize her,
+      that she might die a Christian. The broken-hearted Tancred fell fainting
+      on her corpse, and was found there the next morning by the Franks. Neither
+      his comrades, nor Godfrey and Peter the Hermit, were able to rouse him
+      from his melancholy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their machines destroyed, timbers were needed by the Franks to construct
+      new ones. Knowing this, Ismeno laid spells on the forest, so that the
+      warriors sent thither by Godfrey were frightened away by the sights they
+      saw therein. Even Tancred was put to flight when one of the demons took
+      the form of his beloved Clorinda. To add to the discomfort of the Franks,
+      excessive heat overpowered them, and they suffered tortures from lack of
+      water until the prayers of Godfrey moved the Ruler of the Earth with pity,
+      and He sent down the longed-for showers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Delighted with the piety of Godfrey, the Great King sent him a dream by
+      which he might know the will of Heaven. Lifted through the whirling
+      spheres, his ears charmed with their music, his eyes dazzled by the
+      brilliancy of the stars, he saw Duke Hugo, who told him that Rinaldo must
+      be sought out before the conquest of Jerusalem could be accomplished. The
+      same Power influenced the princes in council so that by the will of all,
+      two knights, one of them him to whom Sweno's sword had been given, were
+      despatched to seek Rinaldo. Instructed by Peter the Hermit, they sought
+      the sea-coast, and found a wizard, who, after showing them the splendor of
+      his underground abode beneath the river's bed, revealed to them the way in
+      which they were to overcome the wiles of Armida.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A beautiful maid with dove-like eyes and radiant smile received them in
+      her small bark, and they were soon flying over the sea, marvelling at the
+      rich cities and vast fleets by which they passed. Leaving rich Cadiz and
+      the Pillars of Hercules, they sped out into the unknown sea, while the
+      maiden told them of how some day Columbus would venture into unknown seas
+      to find a new continent. On, on they flew, past the Happy Isles, the
+      Fortunate, long the song of the poet; where the olive and honey made happy
+      the land, and the rivers swept down from the mountains in silver
+      streamlets; where every bird-song was heavenly music, a place so divine
+      that there were placed of old the Elysian fields. To one of these islands
+      the lady steered, and the knights disembarked, and started on their
+      perilous journey up the mountain. Following the wizard's instructions,
+      they waved the golden rod at the monstrous serpents hissing in their
+      pathway, and they vanished; they steeled their hearts against the charms
+      of the voluptuous maids bathing in the lake, and passed without tasting
+      the fountain of laughter. Then the spacious palace met their eyes. Built
+      round a garden, its marble courts and unnumbered galleries formed a
+      trackless maze through which they could never have found their way without
+      the aid of the wizard's map. As they trod the marble floors they paused
+      many times to view the matchless carvings on the silver doors, which told
+      anew the beautiful old stories of love triumphant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once through the winding ways, they entered the wonderful garden which art
+      and nature combined to render the most beautiful spot on earth. The same
+      trees bore ripe fruit, buds, and blossoms; the birds sang joyfully in the
+      green bowers; and the faint breezes echoed their song. One bird sang a
+      song of love, and when the tender melody was done the other birds took it
+      up and sang until the forest rang with melody, and all was love, love,
+      love. Then the knights saw Rinaldo, lying in the grove, his head in the
+      lap of the enchantress. His sword was gone from his side, and in its place
+      hung a mirror in which he sometimes gazed at Armida's reflection. When
+      Armida left him alone for a few hours, the knights surprised Rinaldo, and
+      turned the wizard's diamond shield upon him. For the first time he saw
+      himself as others saw him, and, blushing with shame, announced himself
+      ready to return with them to rescue Jerusalem. Tearing off his ornaments,
+      he hastened down the mountain, but not soon enough to escape Armida.
+      Tears, prayers, threats she used in vain. She had captured him when he
+      fled from the camp, intending to slay him; but moved by his beauty, she
+      had spared him, and falling in love with him, had reared this palace that
+      they might in it revel in love's pleasures. Now, miserable, she saw him
+      desert her, and destroying the beautiful haunt, she drove her swift
+      chariot across the seas to the camp of the Egyptian king, who was
+      hastening towards Jerusalem. Intent on the slaughter of Rinaldo, her love
+      for whom had changed to bitter hate, she offered the warriors of the
+      Egyptian king, all of whom had fallen victims to her charms, her hand as a
+      reward to the slayer of Rinaldo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Rinaldo and his rescuers reached the abode of the wizard they found
+      him waiting with new arms for the young hero. The sage reproached him
+      gently for his dalliance, and then, seeing the blush of shame upon his
+      countenance, showed him the shield, which bore the illustrious deeds of
+      his ancestors of the house of Este. Great as were their past glories,
+      still greater would be those of the family which he should found, greatest
+      of whom would be the Duke Alphonso.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rinaldo, having told his story to Godfrey, and confessed his wrong-doing
+      to Peter the Hermit, proceeded to the enchanted forest; and though as
+      beauteous scenes, and as voluptuous sirens displayed themselves to him as
+      dwelt in Armida's garden, yea, though one tree took the semblance of
+      Armida herself, he boldly hacked the trunk and broke the magic spell.
+      Joyfully the Franks set to work to fell the huge trees and construct
+      vaster, stronger engines than before, under the direction of a master
+      mechanic. At the same time, Vafrino, a cunning squire of Tancred, was
+      commissioned to go forth in disguise and inspect the camp of the coming
+      Egyptian king. Even before he departed, a carrier pigeon, driven back by a
+      hawk, fell into Godfrey's hands, bearing a message to Aladine from Egypt,
+      saying that in four or five days he would be with him in Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Godfrey, determined to take the city before that day should come, made the
+      utmost exertions to have the machines completed. In Jerusalem, also, great
+      preparations were made, machines built, and a fearful fire concocted by
+      Ismeno with which to drive the assaulters from the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shriven by the priests, the Christian army went forth to battle. Godfrey
+      took his stand against the northern gate; Raymond was assigned to the
+      steep sharp crags at the southwest walls, and Guelph and the two Roberts
+      were stationed on the track to Gaza to watch for the Egyptians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pagans fought with great fury, bringing out new instruments to oppose
+      the huge battering rams, raining down arrows, and throwing the suffocating
+      fire. But Rinaldo, to whom all this work appeared too slow, urged on his
+      bold Adventurers to form a tortoise, hastened to the wall, seized a
+      scaling ladder, and, unmoved by any missile, mounted the wall and assisted
+      his followers, in spite of the multitudes who surrounded him, attempting
+      to hurl him down. But as Godfrey advanced, Ismeno launched his terrible
+      fire-balls, more horrible than the flames of Mt. Etna; they affected even
+      the vast tower, swelling and drying the heavy skins that covered its sides
+      until protecting Heaven sent a breeze that drove the flames back to the
+      city. Ismeno, accompanied by two witches, hurried to the wall, but was
+      crushed by a stone that ground his and their bones to powder. Godfrey,
+      inspired by a vision of the slain soldiery fighting in his ranks, leaped
+      upon the wall and planted the red-cross flag. Raymond was also successful,
+      and the Christians rushed over the walls into the town, following Aladine,
+      who hastened to shut himself up in the citadel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the battle was raging, but success was assured to the Christians,
+      Tancred and the terrible Argantes met, and glad of an opportunity to
+      settle their quarrel, withdrew to a glade in the forest. Tancred, stung by
+      the taunts of cowardice for his former failure to keep his appointment,
+      fought bitterly. He had not the sheer strength of his antagonist, but his
+      sleight at last overcame, and Argantes fell. Weakened by pain and loss of
+      blood, Tancred fell senseless, and was thus found by Erminia, who had met
+      Vafrino the spy in the camp of the Egyptians and had fled with him. They
+      revived Tancred, and carried him home to be nursed by the delighted
+      Erminia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vafrino had seen Armida in the camp and had learned through Erminia not
+      only the princes' designs on Rinaldo, but also that they meant to assume
+      the signs of the red-cross knights and thus reach the neighborhood of
+      Godfrey and slay him. On this intelligence Godfrey changed the signs of
+      his men that they might recognize the Egyptians on the following day and
+      put them to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrible to the Franks was the sight of the Egyptian army when they opened
+      their eyes upon it next morning. Clouds of dust obscured all the heavens,
+      hills, and valleys, so great was the coming host. But Godfrey, with an
+      eloquence that fired each soul, told them of the helplessness of the
+      enemy, of how many of them were slaves, scourged to the battle, and
+      reminded them of the great undertaking before them, the saving of the
+      Sepulchre, until fired with zeal, and burning to fight, they rushed into
+      battle and dispersed the Egyptians. Many of the Christians fell by the
+      sword of the terrible Soldan, among them Gildippe and her husband, united
+      in death as in life. Rinaldo, hearing of their slaughter, speedily avenged
+      it by laying the Soldan low on the battle-field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One after another of Armida's champions attacked Rinaldo, determined to
+      win the prize, but his good sword sent them to earth, and Armida was left
+      alone and unprotected. Rinaldo, having seen her fly away over the plain
+      and knowing the victory achieved, followed and found her ready to put
+      herself to death in a lonely glade. He snatched the sword from her hand
+      and speedily changed back her hate to love. She fell upon his breast, and
+      with the promise to become a Christian and give her life to him,
+      accompanied him back to the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the battle, Aladine and those who were imprisoned in the citadel
+      overpowered Count Raymond, and rushed out to battle, only to be overcome
+      and slain. Prince Altamore, who, covered with blood, remained alone on the
+      field, yielded himself to Godfrey, and was given his life and his kingdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, from the field covered with spoil and floating with blood, the
+      conquering troops, clad in their bloody armor, marched in solemn cavalcade
+      to the Temple and paid their vowed devotions at the sacred tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0096" id="link2H_4_0096"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTION FROM THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      SOPHRONIA AND OLINDO.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      At the instigation of the wizard Ismeno, Aladine, king of Jerusalem, stole
+      an image of the Virgin from the temple of the Christians and put it in his
+      mosque in order to render the city impregnable. When morning dawned the
+      image was gone, and no search could reveal any clue to the theft.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  In every temple, hermitage, and hall,
+  A long and eager search the monarch made,
+  And tortures or rewards decreed to all
+  Who screened the guilty, or the guilt betrayed;
+  Nor ceased the Sorcerer to employ in aid
+  Of the inquiry all his arts, but still
+  Without success; for whether Heaven conveyed
+  The prize away, or power of human will,
+  Heaven close the secret kept, and shamed his vaunted skill.
+
+  But when the king found all expedients vain
+  To trace th' offender, then, beyond disguise,
+  Flamed forth his hatred to the Christians; then,
+  Fed by wild jealousies and sharp surmise,
+  Immoderate fury sparkled in his eyes;
+  Follow what may, he will revenge the deed,
+  And wreak his rage: "Our wrath shall not," he cries,
+  "Fall void, but root up all th' accursed seed;
+  Thus in the general doom the guilty yet shall bleed!
+
+  "So that he 'scapes not, let the guiltless die!
+  But wherefore thus of guiltlessness debate?
+  Each guilty is, nor 'mongst them all know I
+  One, well-affected to the faith and state;
+  And what if some be unparticipate
+  In this new crime, new punishment shall pay
+  For old misdeeds; why longer do ye wait,
+  My faithful Mussulmans? up! up! away!
+  Hence with the torch and sword: seize, fire, lay waste, and slay!"
+
+  Thus to the crowd he spake, the mandate flew,
+  And in the bosoms of the Faithful shed
+  Astonishment and stupor; stupor threw
+  On every face the paleness of the dead;
+  None dared, none sought to make defence; none fled,
+  None used entreaty, none excuse; but there
+  They stood, like marble monuments of dread,
+  Irresolute,&mdash;but Heaven conceived their prayer,
+  And whence they least had hope, brought hope to their despair.
+
+  Of generous thoughts and principles sublime
+  Amongst them in the city lived a maid,
+  The flower of virgins in her ripest prime,
+  Supremely beautiful! but that she made
+  Never her care, or beauty only weighed
+  In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired
+  A deeper charm from blooming in the shade;
+  Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired,
+  But from their praises turned, and lived a life retired.
+
+  Yet could not this coy secrecy prevent
+  Th' admiring gaze and warm desires of one
+  Tutored by Love, nor yet would Love consent
+  To hide such lustrous beauty from the sun;
+  Love! that through every change delight'st to run,
+  The Proteus of the heart I who now dost blind,
+  Now roll the Argus eyes that nought can shun!
+  Thou through a thousand guards unseen dost wind,
+  And to the chastest maids familiar access find.
+
+  Sophronia hers, Olindo was his name;
+  Born in one town, by one pure faith illumed;
+  Modest&mdash;as she was beautiful, his flame
+  Feared much, hoped little, and in nought presumed;
+  He could not, or he durst not speak, but doomed
+  To voiceless thought his passion; him she slighted,
+  Saw not, or would not see; thus he consumed
+  Beneath the vivid fire her beauty lighted;
+  Either not seen ill known, or, known, but ill requited.
+
+  And thus it was, when like an omen drear
+  That summoned all her kindred to the grave,
+  The cruel mandate reached Sophronia's ear,
+  Who, brave as bashful, yet discreet as brave,
+  Mused how her people she from death might save;
+  Courage inspired, but virginal alarm
+  Repressed the thought, till maiden shyness gave
+  Place to resolve, or joined to share the harm;
+  Boldness awoke her shame, shame made her boldness charm.
+
+  Alone amidst the crowd the maid proceeds,
+  Nor seeks to hide her beauty, nor display;
+  Downcast her eyes, close veiled in simple weeds,
+  With coy and graceful steps she wins her way:
+  So negligently neat, one scarce can say
+  If she her charms disdains, or would improve,&mdash;
+  If chance or taste disposes her array;
+  Neglects like hers, if artifices, prove
+  Arts of the friendly Heavens, of Nature, and of Love.
+
+  All, as she passed unheeding, all, admire
+  The noble maid; before the king she stood;
+  Not for his angry frown did she retire,
+  But his indignant aspect coolly viewed:
+  "To give,"&mdash;she said, "but calm thy wrathful mood,
+  And check the tide of slaughter in its spring,&mdash;
+  To give account of that thou hast pursued
+  So long in vain, seek I thy face, O king!
+  The urged offence I own, the doomed offender bring!"
+
+  The modest warmth, the unexpected light
+  Of high and holy beauty, for a space
+  O'erpowered him,&mdash;conquered of his fell despite,
+  He stood, and of all fierceness lost the trace.
+  Were his a spirit, or were hers a face
+  Of less severity, the sweet surprise
+  Had melted him to love; but stubborn grace
+  Subdues not stubborn pride; Love's potent ties
+  Are flattering fond regards, kind looks, and smiling eyes.
+
+  If 't were not Love that touched his flinty soul,
+  Desire it was, 't was wonder, 't was delight:
+  "Safe be thy race!" he said, "reveal the whole,
+  And not a sword shall on thy people light."
+  Then she: "The guilty is before thy sight,&mdash;
+  The pious robbery was my deed; these hands
+  Bore the blest Image from its cell by night;
+  The criminal thou seek'st before thee stands,&mdash;
+  Justice from none but me her penalty demands."
+
+  Thus she prepares a public death to meet,
+  A people's ransom at a tyrant's shrine:
+  Oh glorious falsehood! beautiful deceit!
+  Can Truth's own light thy loveliness outshine?
+  To her bold speech misdoubting Aladine
+  With unaccustomed temper calm replied:
+  "If so it were, who planned the rash design,
+  Advised thee to it, or became thy guide?
+  Say, with thyself who else his ill-timed zeal allied?"
+
+  "Of this my glory not the slightest part
+  Would I," said she, "with one confederate share;
+  I needed no adviser; my full heart
+  Alone sufficed to counsel, guide and dare."
+  "If so," he cried, "then none but thou must bear
+  The weight of my resentment, and atone
+  For the misdeed." "Since it has been my care,"
+  She said, "the glory to enjoy alone,
+  'T is just none share the pain; it should be all mine own."
+
+  To this the tyrant, now incensed, returned,
+  "Where rests the Image?" and his face became
+  Dark with resentment: she replied, "I burned
+  The holy Image in the holy flame,
+  And deemed it glory; thus at least no shame
+  Can e'er again profane it&mdash;it is free
+  From farther violation: dost thou claim
+  The spoil or spoiler? this behold in me;
+  But that, whilst time rolls round, thou never more shall see.
+
+  "Albeit no spoiler I; it was no wrong
+  To repossess what was by force obtained:"
+  At this the tyrant loosed his threatening tongue,
+  Long-stifled passion raging unrestrained:
+  No longer hope that pardon may be gained,
+  Beautiful face, high spirit, bashful heart!
+  Vainly would Love, since mercy is disdained,
+  And Anger flings his most envenomed dart,
+  In aid of you his else protecting shield impart!
+
+  Doomed in tormenting fire to die, they lay
+  Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining.
+  Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away,
+  And the white veil that o'er her drooped declining:
+  This she endured in silence unrepining,
+  Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook;
+  And her warm cheek, Aurora's late outshining,
+  Waned into whiteness, and a color took,
+  Like that of the pale rose, or lily of the brook.
+
+  The crowd collect; the sentence is divulged;
+  With them Olindo comes, by pity swayed;
+  It might be that the youth the thought indulged,
+  What if his own Sophronia were the maid!
+  There stand the busy officers arrayed
+  For the last act, here swift the flames arise;
+  But when the pinioned beauty stands displayed
+  To the full gaze of his inquiring eyes,&mdash;
+  '<i>T is</i> she! he bursts through all, the crowd before him flies.
+
+  Aloud he cries: "To her, oh not to her
+  The crime belongs, though frenzy may misplead!
+  She planned not, dared not, could not, king, incur
+  Sole and unskilled the guilt of such a deed!
+  How lull the guards, or by what process speed
+  The sacred Image from its vaulted cell?
+  The theft was mine! and 't is my right to bleed!"
+  Alas for him! how wildly and how well
+  He loved the unloving maid, let this avowal tell.
+
+  "I marked where your high Mosque receives the air
+  And light of heaven; I climbed the dizzy steep;
+  I reached a narrow opening; entered there,
+  And stole the Saint whilst all were hushed in sleep:
+  Mine was the crime, and shall another reap
+  The pain and glory? Grant not her desire!
+  The chains are mine; for me the guards may heap
+  Around the ready stake the penal fire;
+  For me the flames ascend; 't is mine, that funeral pyre!"
+
+  Sophronia raised to him her face,&mdash;her eye
+  Was filled with pity and a starting tear:
+  She spoke&mdash;the soul of sad humanity
+  Was in her voice, "What frenzy brings thee here,
+  Unhappy innocent! is death so dear,
+  Or am I so ill able to sustain
+  A mortal's wrath, that thou must needs appear?
+  I have a heart, too, that can death disdain,
+  Nor ask for life's last hour companionship in pain."
+
+  Thus she appeals to him; but scorning life,
+  His settled soul refuses to retreat:
+  Oh glorious scene, where in sublimest strife
+  High-minded Virtue and Affection meet!
+  Where death's the prize of conquest, and defeat
+  Seals its own safety, yet remains unblest!
+  But indignation at their fond deceit,
+  And rage, the more inflames the tyrant's breast,
+  The more this constant pair the palm of guilt contest.
+
+  He deems his power despised, and that in scorn
+  Of him they spurn the punishment assigned:
+  "Let," he exclaimed, "the fitting palm adorn
+  The brows of both! both pleas acceptance find!"
+  Beckoning he bids the prompt tormentors bind
+  Their galling chains around the youth&mdash;'t is done;
+  Both to one stake are, back to back, consigned,
+  Like sunflowers twisted from their worshipped sun,
+  Compelled the last fond looks of sympathy to shun.
+
+  Around them now the unctuous pyre was piled,
+  And the fanned flame was rising in the wind,
+  When, full of mournful thoughts, in accents wild,
+  The lover to his mate in death repined:
+  "Is this the bond, then, which I hoped should bind
+  Our lives in blissful marriage? this the fire
+  Of bridal faith, commingling mind with mind,
+  Which, I believed, should in our hearts inspire
+  Like warmth of sacred zeal and delicate desire?
+
+  "For other flames Love promised to impart,
+  Than those our envious planets here prepare;
+  Too, ah too long they kept our hands apart,
+  But harshly now they join them in despair!
+  Yet does it soothe, since by a mode so rare
+  Condemned to die, thy torments to partake,
+  Forbid by fate thy sweetnesses to share;
+  If tears I shed, 't is but for thy dear sake,
+  Not mine,&mdash;with thee beside, I bless the burning stake!
+
+  "And oh! this doom would be indeed most blest,
+  My sharpest sufferings blandishments divine,
+  Might I but be permitted, breast to breast,
+  On thy sweet lips my spirit to resign;
+  If thou too, panting toward one common shrine,
+  Wouldst the next happy instant parting spend
+  Thy latest sighs in sympathy on mine!"
+  Sorrowing he spake; she, when his plaints had end,
+  Did thus his fond discourse most sweetly reprehend.
+
+  "Far other aspirations, other plaints
+  Than these, dear friend, the solemn hour should claim.
+  Think what reward God offers to his saints;
+  Let meek repentance raise a loftier aim:
+  These torturing fires, if suffered in his name,
+  Will, bland as zephyrs, waft us to the blest;
+  Regard the sun, how beautiful his flame!
+  How fine a sky invites him to the west!
+  These seem to soothe our pangs, and summon us to rest."
+
+  The Pagans lifting up their voices, wept;
+  In stifled sorrow wept the Faithful too;
+  E'en the stern king was touched,&mdash;a softness crept
+  O'er his fierce heart, ennobling, pure, and new;
+  He felt, he scorned it, struggled to subdue,
+  And lest his wavering firmness should relent,
+  His eyes averted, and his steps withdrew;
+  Sophronia's spirit only was unbent;
+  She yet lamented not, for whom all else lament.
+
+  In midst of their distress, a knight behold,
+  (So would it seem) of princely port! whose vest
+  And arms of curious fashion, grained with gold,
+  Bespeak some foreign and distinguished guest;
+  The silver tigress on the helm impressed,
+  Which for a badge is borne, attracts all eyes,&mdash;
+  A noted cognizance, th' accustomed crest
+  Used by Clorinda, whence conjectures rise,
+  Herself the stranger is,&mdash;nor false is their surmise.
+
+  All feminine attractions, aims, and parts,
+  She from her childhood cared not to assume;
+  Her haughty hand disdained all servile arts,
+  The needle, distaff, and Arachne's loom;
+  Yet, though she left the gay and gilded room
+  For the free camp, kept spotless as the light
+  Her virgin fame, and proud of glory's plume,
+  With pride her aspect armed, she took delight
+  Stern to appear, and stern, she charmed the gazer's sight.
+
+  Whilst yet a girl, she with her little hand
+  Lashed and reined in the rapid steed she raced,
+  Tossed the huge javelin, wrestled on the sand,
+  And by gymnastic toils her sinews braced;
+  Then through the devious wood and mountain-waste
+  Tracked the struck lion to his entered den,
+  Or in fierce wars a nobler quarry chased;
+  And thus in fighting field and forest glen,
+  A man to savage beasts, a savage seemed to men.
+
+  From Persia now she comes, with all her skill
+  The Christians to resist, though oft has she
+  Strewed with their blood the field, till scarce a rill
+  Remained, that ran not purple to the sea.
+  Here now arrived, the dreadful pageantry
+  Of death presents itself,&mdash;the crowd&mdash;the pyre&mdash;
+  And the bound pair; solicitous to see,
+  And know what crime condemns them to the fire,
+  Forward she spurs her steed and hastens to inquire.
+
+  The throng falls back, and she awhile remains,
+  The fettered pair more closely to survey;
+  One she sees silent, one she sees complains,
+  The stronger spirit nerves the weaker prey;
+  She sees him mourn like one whom the sad sway
+  Of powerful pity doth to tears chastise,
+  Not grief, or grief not for himself; but aye
+  Mute kneels the maid, her blue beseeching eyes
+  So fixed on heaven, she seems in heaven ere yet she dies.
+
+  Clorinda melts, and with them both condoles;
+  Some tears she sheds, but greater tenderness
+  Feels for her grief who most her grief controls,&mdash;
+  The silence moves her much, the weeping less;
+  No longer now does she delay to press
+  For information; turning towards one
+  Of reverend years, she said with eagerness,
+  "Who are they? speak! and oh, what crime has won
+  This death? in Mercy's name, declare the deed they've done!"
+
+  Thus she entreats; a brief reply he gives,
+  But such as well explains the whole event:
+  Amazed she heard it, and as soon conceives
+  That they are both sincerely innocent;
+  Her heart is for them, she is wholly bent
+  To avert their fate, if either arms can aid,
+  Or earnest prayers secure the king's consent;
+  The fire she nears, commands it to be stayed,
+  That now approached them fast, and to th' attendants said:
+
+  "Let none of you presume to prosecute
+  Your barbarous office, till the king I see;
+  My word I pledge that at Clorinda's suit,
+  Your fault he will forgive, if fault it be."
+  Moved by her speech and queenlike dignity
+  The guards obey, and she departs in quest
+  Of the stern monarch, urgent of her plea:
+  Midway they met; the monarch she addressed
+  And in this skilful mode her generous purpose pressed.
+
+  "I am Clorinda; thou wilt know perchance
+  The name, from vague remembrance or renown;
+  And here I come to save with sword and lance
+  Our common Faith, and thy endangered crown,
+  Impose the labor, lay th' adventure down,
+  Sublime, I fear it not, nor low despise;
+  In open field or in the straitened town,
+  Prepared I stand for every enterprise,
+  Where'er the danger calls, where'er the labor lies!"
+
+  "'T would be assuredly a thing most rare,
+  If the reward the service should precede;
+  But of thy bounty confident, I dare
+  For future toils solicit, as my meed,
+  Yon lovers' pardon; since the charge indeed
+  Rests on no evidence, 't was hard to press
+  The point at all, but this I waive, nor plead
+  On those sure signs which, urged, thou must confess
+  Their hands quite free from crime, or own their guilt far less.
+
+  "Yet will I say, though here the common mind
+  Condemns the Christians of the theft, for me,
+  Sufficient reasons in mine own I find
+  To doubt, dispute, disparage the decree;
+  To set their idols in our sanctuary
+  Was an irreverence to our laws, howe'er
+  Urged by the sorcerer; should the Prophet see
+  E'en idols of our own established there?
+  Much less then those of men whose lips his faith forswear:
+
+  "The Christian statue ravished from your sight
+  To Allah therefore rather I impute,
+  In sign that he will let no foreign rite
+  Of superstition his pure place pollute:
+  Spells and enchantments may Ismeno suit,
+  Leave him to use such weapons at his will;
+  But shall we warriors by a wand dispute?
+  No! no! our talisman, our hope, our skill,
+  Lie in our swords alone, and they shall serve us still!"
+
+  She ceased; and he, though mercy could with pain
+  Subdue a heart so full of rage and pride,
+  Relents, her reasons move, her prayers constrain.&mdash;
+  Such intercessor must not be denied;
+  Thus, though reluctant, he at length complied:
+  "The plea for the fair pleader I receive;
+  I can refuse thee nothing; this," he cried,
+  "May justice be or mercy,&mdash;let them live;
+  Guiltless&mdash;I set them free, or guilty I forgive!"
+
+  Restored to life and liberty, how blest.
+  How truly blest was young Olindo's fate!
+  For sweet Sophronia's blushes might attest,
+  That Love at length has touched her delicate
+  And generous bosom; from the stake in state
+  They to the altar pass; severely tried,
+  In doom and love, already made his mate,
+  She now objects not to become his bride.
+  And grateful live with him who would for her have died.
+
+           <i>Wiffen's Translation, Canto</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0097" id="link2H_4_0097"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PARADISE LOST.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Paradise Lost was written by John Milton, who was born in London, Dec. 9,
+      1608, and died Nov. 8, 1674. After leaving college, he spent five years in
+      study at home, during which time he wrote L'Allegro, Il Penseroso,
+      Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas. In 1638 he travelled on the continent and in
+      Italy, where he met Galileo. He hastened home in 1639 on account of the
+      political disturbances in England, and espousing the Puritan cause,
+      devoted the next twenty years of his life to the writing of pamphlets in
+      its defence. In 1649 he was appointed Latin Secretary under Cromwell. In
+      1652 he lost his sight in consequence of overwork. At the age of
+      twenty-nine, Milton had decided to make an epic poem his life work, and
+      had noted many historical subjects. By 1641 he had decided on a Biblical
+      subject. He had probably conceived Paradise Lost at the age of thirty-two,
+      although the poem was not composed until he was over fifty. It was written
+      after his blindness and dictated in small portions to various persons, the
+      work being collected and revised by Milton and Aubrey Phillips. It was
+      completed, according to the authority of Phillips, in 1663, but on account
+      of the Plague and the Great Fire, it was not published until 1667.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paradise Lost is divided into twelve books and is written, to use Milton's
+      own words, "In English heroic verse without rhyme, as that of Homer in
+      Greek and of Virgil in Latin, rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true
+      ornament of poem or good verse."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paradise Lost was neglected until the time of the Whig supremacy in
+      England. In 1688 Lord Somers, the Whig leader, published an <i>édition de
+      luxe</i> of the poem; Addison's papers on it, in 1712, increased its
+      popularity, and through the influence of the Whigs a bust of the poet was
+      placed in Westminster Abbey in 1737.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no better proof of the greatness of Paradise Lost than the way in
+      which it has survived hostile criticism. It has been criticised for the
+      lengthy conversations and "arguments" of its characters; for its
+      materialization of the Divine Being; because of its subject; because of
+      Milton's vagueness of description of things awesome and terrible, in
+      comparison with Dante's minute descriptions. But the earnest spirit in
+      which it was conceived and written; the subject, giving it a "higher
+      argument" than any merely national epic, even though many of Milton's, and
+      his age's, special beliefs are things of the past, and its lofty and
+      poetical style, have rendered unassailable its rank among the noblest of
+      the epics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL16" id="link2H_BIBL16"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE LOST.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Joseph Addison's Notes upon the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost; by Albert
+      S. Cook, 1892. (In the Spectator from Dec. 31, 1711-May 3, 1712);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samuel Austin Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, 1891, vol. ii., pp.
+      1301-1311;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthew Arnold's A French Critic on Milton (see his Mixed Essays, 1880,
+      pp. 260-273);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walter Bagehot's Literary Studies, by Richard Holt Hutton, 1879, vol. i.,
+      202-219;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Bentley's Emendations on the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost, 1732;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. H. Bickersteth's Milton's Paradise Lost, 1876. (St. James Lectures, 2d
+      series. Another edition, 1877);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hugh Blair's Paradise Lost (see his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles
+      Lettres, 1783, vol. ii., 471-476);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Christian Cann's A Scriptural and Allegorical Glossary to Paradise
+      Lost, 1828;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles Dexter Cleveland's Complete Concordance to Milton's Poetical
+      Works, 1867;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and other
+      English Poets collected by T. Ashe, 1893, pp. 518-529;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William T. Dobson's The Classic Poets, their lives and times etc., 1879;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles Eyre's Fall of Adam, from Milton's Paradise Lost, 1852;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 1852, pp. 17-25;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      S. Humphreys Gurteen's The Epic of the Fall of Man; a comparative Study of
+      Caedmon, Dante, and Milton, 1896;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Hazlitt On the Character of Milton's Eve (see his Round Table ed.
+      by W. Carew Hazlitt, 1889, pp. 150-158);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Hazlitt On Milton's Versification (see his Round Table, ed. by W.
+      Carew Hazlitt, 1889, pp. 51-57);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John A. Himes's Study of Milton's Paradise Lost, 1878;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samuel Johnson's Milton (see his Lives of the Poets; ed. by Mrs. Alexander
+      Napier, 1890, vol. i.);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Keightley's Introduction to Paradise Lost (see his An account of
+      the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton, 1855, pp. 397-484);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walter Savage Landor's Imaginary Conversations, Southey and Landor, 1853,
+      vol. ii., 57-74, 156-159;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Babington Macaulay's Milton (see his Critical and Historical
+      Essays, ed. 10, 1860, vol. i., pp. 1-61);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Massey's Remarks upon Milton's Paradise Lost, 1761;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David Masson's Introduction to Paradise Lost (see his edition of Milton's
+      Poetical Works, 1893, vol. ii., pp. 1-57);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David Masson's Life of Milton, 1880, vol. vi., 505-558, 621-636;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David Masson's Three Devils (Luther's, Goethe's, and Milton's), (see his
+      Three Devils and other Essays, 1874);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      James Peterson's A complete Commentary on Paradise Lost, 1744;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jonathan Richardson's Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Paradise Lost,
+      1734;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmond Scherer's Milton and Paradise Lost (see his essays on English
+      Literature; Tr. by George Saintsbury, 1891, pp. 134-149);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Robert Seeley's Milton (see his Roman Imperialism and other Lectures
+      and Essays), 1871, pp. 142-152;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First Edition of Paradise Lost, Book Lore, 1886, iii., 72-75;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. A. Himes's Cosmology of Paradise Lost, Lutheran Quarterly, 1876, vi.,
+      187-204;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J. A. Himes's Plan of Paradise Lost, New Englander, 1883, xlii., 196-211;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan of Milton and the Lucifer of Byron compared, Knickerbocker, 1847,
+      xxx., 150-155;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan of Paradise Lost, Dublin University Magazine, 1876, lxxxviii.,
+      707-714;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Augustine Birrell's Obiter Dicta (2d series 1887, pp. 42-51);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature; Bentley's Milton, 1867, pp.
+      138-139;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry Hallam's Literary History of Europe, 1873, ed. 5, vol. iii., pp.
+      475-483;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Pattison's John Milton, n. d. (English Men of Letters Series);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      H. A. Taine's History of English Literature; Tr. by H. Van Laun, 1877,
+      vol. ii., pp. 106-124.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0099" id="link2H_4_0099"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF PARADISE LOST.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When that bright spirit, afterwards known as Satan, rose in rebellion
+      against the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, presumptuously thinking
+      himself equal to him in strength and following, he was overthrown by the
+      Great Power and cast with his followers out of Heaven down to his future
+      dwelling, flaming Hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nine days he and his horrid crew fell through Chaos into the flaming pit
+      yawning to receive them, and there lay for nine days,&mdash;rendered still
+      more miserable by the thought of their immortality and the eternal bliss
+      they had forfeited. Then Satan, rousing himself from the stupor consequent
+      upon the fall, half rose and addressed the next in power to himself,
+      Beelzebub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou art the same, yet not the same," said he; "changed, lost is some of
+      thy former brightness. Yet why repine? While we live, while we have so
+      large a following, all is not lost. Our hate still lives, and have we but
+      strength enough, we may still revenge ourselves upon him who thrust us
+      into this accursed place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rising from the lake, his great shield slung over his shoulders, the
+      unconquered archangel walked over the burning marl to the beach of that
+      fiery sea, and there with chiding words addressed the legions strewn
+      around him. The great army rose hastily at the voice of its chief and
+      passed before him, spirits whose heavenly names were now forever lost, who
+      later became the gods of the idolaters. There was mighty Moloch, Chemos,
+      those who later went by the general names of Baalim and Ashtaroth,&mdash;Thammuz,
+      Dagon, Rimmon, Osiris, Isis, Orus and their train, Belial, and last of
+      all, the Ionian gods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His despair in part dissipated by the sight of this heroic array, their
+      prince, towering high above all, addressed them. No one had foreseen the
+      calamity that had overtaken them. Who could have guessed the power of the
+      Almighty? But though overthrown they were not totally defeated. A rumor
+      had long since been rife of the creation of another world with which they
+      could interfere. At any rate, there must never be peace between them and
+      the heavenly Powers. War there must be, war in secret, or war waged
+      openly. As he ended, shield clashed against shield, and swords, quickly
+      drawn, flashed before his eyes, and loud cries hurled defiance to Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The legions, led by Mammon, who in Heaven had been an honored architect,
+      sought a hill near by, and quickly emptying it of its rich store of gold
+      and jewels, built a massive structure. Like a temple in form was it, and
+      round about it stood Doric columns overlaid with gold. No king of any
+      future state could boast of a grander hall than this palace of Pandemonium
+      which was so quickly reared upon a hill in Hell, and to which the heralds'
+      trumpets now summoned all the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the massive throne, blazing with jewels, sat the fallen spirit, and
+      thus addressed his followers: "Our success is sure in whatever we
+      undertake. We shall never be riven with internecine warfare, for surely no
+      one will quarrel over precedence in Hell. Therefore, united, we can, sure
+      of our success, debate of the way in which we shall take up our warfare
+      with the powers that have overthrown us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moloch, Belial, Mammon, and Beelzebub spoke. Moloch was in favor of open
+      war, since nothing could be worse than Hell, and continued assault against
+      the Most High would, in annoying him, be a sweet revenge. Belial, who
+      though timorous and slothful, was a persuasive orator, denounced Moloch's
+      plan. Since the ruler of Heaven was all-powerful, and they immortal, no
+      one knew to what greater misery he could push them; perhaps he would bury
+      them in boiling pitch to eternity, or inflict a thousand undreamed-of
+      tortures. War, open and secret, he disliked, since it was impossible to
+      conceal aught from the eye of the Most High. To make the best of Hell
+      seemed all that was possible; in time they might become inured to its
+      flames and better days might come, if they but accepted their doom
+      patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mammon also considered war impossible. They could never hope to overcome
+      the Almighty; neither could they hope nor wish for a reconciliation, for
+      how hateful would be an eternity spent in cringing to one whom they hated.
+      The desert soil of Hell teemed with riches, they could find peaceful
+      pursuits, and it was his advice to continue there in quiet, untroubled by
+      any thoughts of revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the murmur of applause that followed Mammon's speech, Beelzebub, than
+      whom none towered higher save Satan, arose, his face grave, his attitude
+      majestic. "Would you, Thrones and Imperial Powers," he cried, "think to
+      build up a kingdom here, secure from the arm of Heaven? Have you so soon
+      forgotten that this is not a kingdom ceded to you by the Most High, but a
+      dungeon in which he has shut you for your everlasting punishment? Never
+      will he forget that you are his prisoners; your lot will not be peace, but
+      custody and stripes. What return can we make, then, but to think out some
+      slow but sure and sweet revenge? It is not necessary to attempt to scale
+      the walls of Heaven. Other things remain. There is this new world, his
+      plaything. It may lie exposed, and we can at least make the attempt to
+      seize it and lay it waste, and thus vex him." As he saw their eyes
+      sparkle, he continued: "We may in this attempt come near to the steps of
+      our old abode and breathe again its delicious airs instead of these
+      hellish flames. But first we must find some one, strong, wary, and
+      watchful, to send in search of it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan strode forth, his courage and his consciousness of it making his
+      face shine with transcendent glory. "Long is the way and hard; its dangers
+      unknown and terrible, but I should be a poor sovereign did I hesitate in
+      the attempt to seek it out. I do not refuse the sovereignty, for I fear
+      not to accept as great a share of hazard as of honor. Stay here; charm
+      away your time, and I will seek deliverance abroad for all of us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke he rose to depart, fearful lest others might now offer to go
+      and share the glory with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The legions rose with a sound like thunder, bowed in deepest reverence and
+      went forth, some, to explore their dismal abode, others to amuse
+      themselves at games, others to discuss Free Will and Fate, while their
+      leader pursued his way toward the gate of Hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nine-fold gates were of brass, iron, and adamantine rock, reaching
+      high to the mighty roof, and most horrible were the Shapes that guarded
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On one side sat a creature, woman to the waist, below, a serpent,
+      surrounded by a crew of hell hounds, forever barking and then seeking
+      refuge within her. On the other, a Shape, black, fierce, terrible, crowned
+      with the likeness of a kingly crown, and shaking in its hands a dreadful
+      dart. As he strode, Hell trembled. Satan, undaunted, met him with fierce
+      words. As the two stood, their lances pointed at each other, the woman
+      shrieked and ran between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Father, rush not upon thy son! Son, raise not thy hand against thy
+      father!" She then explained that she was Satan's daughter, Sin, who had
+      sprung from his head full grown, and that she later became by him the
+      mother of the creature called Death who sat with her to guard the gates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan at once unfolded to them his plan of seeking the new world and
+      making a happy home for both Sin and Death, where they could forever find
+      food to gratify their hideous cravings. Charmed by his highly-colored
+      pictures, and forgetful of the commands from above, Sin opened the mighty
+      doors, so that the flames of Hell spread far out into Chaos, but her
+      strength failed her when she attempted to close them again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment Satan looked out into the mixture of Hot and Cold and Moist
+      and Dry that formed Chaos, and then started forth, now rising, now
+      falling, his wings heavy with the dense masses, now wading, now creeping,
+      until at last he reached the spot where was fixed the throne of Chaos and
+      of Night. Here Satan learned of the situation of the new world and soon
+      caught a glimpse of it, hanging like a star, by a golden chain, from
+      Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting in Heaven, high throned above all, God, all-seeing, all-knowing,
+      was conscious of Satan's escape from Hell and his approach to the new
+      world. To his Son, sitting on his right hand, he pointed out the fallen
+      spirit. "No prescribed bounds can shut our Adversary in; nor can the
+      chains of hell hold him. To our new world he goes, and there, by no fault
+      of mine, will pervert man, whom I have placed therein, with a free will;
+      so to remain until he enthralls himself. Man will fall as did Satan, but
+      as Satan was self-tempted, and man will be deceived by another, the latter
+      shall find grace where his tempter did not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great was the joy of the Son when he learned that man would receive mercy
+      for his transgression. "Pardon and mercy he shall receive," declared the
+      Father, "but some one must be willing to expiate his sin for him; the just
+      must die for the unjust. Who in Heaven is willing to make the sacrifice?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment all the Heavenly quire stood mute; then the Son of God spoke
+      and implored his Father to let his anger fall on him, since he could not
+      wholly die, but could arise from death and subdue his vanquisher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When his Father accepted the sacrifice, and named him Son of God and Man
+      who should hereafter be Universal King, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, Heaven
+      rang with the shouts of the Angels, who, casting down their amaranthine
+      wreaths until the golden pavement was covered with the garlands, took
+      their golden harps and sang the praises of the Father and the Son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they sang, Satan walked over the vast globe on which he had
+      alighted, through what in after years, when the world was peopled, was to
+      be the Paradise of Fools, the spot to which the spirits of all things
+      transitory and vain, of those who had worked for their reward in life
+      instead of in Heaven, would come. He walked around the dark globe until,
+      directed by a gleam of light, he found the spot where a ladder led up to
+      Heaven. Just below it, down through the spheres, was the seat of Paradise
+      to which he was bending his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down through the crystal spheres he bent his way toward the Sun, which
+      attracted him by its superior splendor. Espying Uriel, the Angel of the
+      Sun, he quickly took the form of a youthful Cherub, and, approaching
+      Uriel, told him that having heard of the new world he had been seized by a
+      longing to quit the bands of Cherubim and see for himself the wonderful
+      work of the Creator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Directed by the unsuspecting Uriel, Satan sped downward and standing upon
+      the top of Niphates, surveyed Eden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he looked, his spirit was troubled. He had brought Hell with him, and
+      his unhappy thoughts boiled and surged in his troubled mind. "Sun, I hate
+      thee, because thy beams recall to me what I was and how I fell. The
+      matchless King of Heaven deserved no such return from me. His service was
+      easy. Had I only been created a lower Power!&mdash;But even then, might
+      not some higher one have led me into temptation? What shall I do, whither
+      shall I fly, to escape infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Hell is
+      around me, I myself am Hell! There is no hope for me. Submission is the
+      only way left, and I could not unsay what I have said; I could never
+      bridge the gulf made by my revolt. Farewell to remorse! Good is forever
+      lost to me, and I must now make Evil my good. I can at least divide the
+      empire of the world with the King of Heaven."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he realized how his bitter thoughts had dimmed his countenance he
+      smoothed it over with outward calm, but not before Uriel, from the Sun,
+      had noted and wondered over his strange gestures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaping over the high natural walls of Paradise, Satan, in the form of a
+      cormorant, perched himself on the Tree of Life. Beautiful was the scene
+      before him. All the trees and plants were of the noblest kind. In the
+      midst of them stood the Tree of Life with its golden fruit, and not far
+      off the Tree of Knowledge. Southward through Eden ran a river, which,
+      passing under a huge hill, emerged into four great streams wandering
+      through many afterwards famous realms. Between the rows of trees stretched
+      level lawns where grazed the happy flocks, and over the green mead were
+      sprinkled flowers of every hue. No fairer scene ever met living eyes, and
+      fairest of all were the two stately forms, in whose looks shone the
+      divinity of their Maker. Hand in hand they passed through the garden,
+      refreshed themselves with the delicious fruits, and were happy in each
+      other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he gazed on them while the animals fell asleep and the sun sank below
+      the horizon, Satan, still torn with conflicting emotions, ruminated over
+      the unhappiness he was to bring the lovely pair. He admired them, he could
+      love them; they had not harmed him, but he must bring unhappiness upon
+      them because of their likeness to their Creator. Through them only could
+      he obtain his longed-for revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anxious to learn where to attack them, he prowled about them, now as a
+      lion, now as a tiger, listening to their conversation. They spoke of their
+      garden, of the Tree of Life, and of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. "In
+      the day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die," had been their warning. Eve
+      recalled the day of her creation, when she had first fled from Adam, and
+      then yielded to his embraces, and Satan, watching their caresses, envied
+      and hardened his heart. "Live while ye may!" he muttered. "Soon will I
+      return and offer you new woes for your present pleasures."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, Gabriel, warned by Uriel, who suspected that an evil
+      spirit had crept into Paradise, had set watches around the garden.
+      Ithuriel and Zephon, sent to search for him, spied Satan in the form of a
+      toad, sitting near the ear of Eve, tainting her dreams with foul whispers.
+      Touched by Ithuriel's spear, he was forced to resume his own shape and was
+      taken to Gabriel. The angry Satan attempted to use force, but warned by a
+      sign from Heaven that his strength was insufficient, fled, murmuring,
+      through the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When morning dawned on Eden, a morn of unimaginable beauty, Adam waked Eve
+      from her restless slumbers, and heard her troubled dreams, in which she
+      had been tempted to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. He
+      comforted her, and after their morning hymn, in which they glorified their
+      Creator, they set about their pleasant work of pruning the too luxuriant
+      vines of their Paradise. In the mean time, the Father above, knowing the
+      design of Satan, and determined that man should not fall without warning,
+      sent Raphael down to Adam to tell him that he was threatened by an enemy,
+      and that, as a free agent, if he fell, his sin would be upon his own head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Six-winged Raphael swept down through the spheres and stood in Paradise,
+      welcomed by Adam. Eve hastened to set before their guest every delicacy
+      that Eden knew, and while she was preparing these Adam listened to the
+      Angel's warning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To emphasize the sin of disobedience, Raphael related to the pair the
+      story of Satan's conspiracy with the other powers because the Father had
+      proclaimed the power of his Son. The Father, knowing Satan's confidence in
+      himself, had allowed him for two days to fight an equal number of his
+      legions of angels, among whom was Abdiel who had fled, indignant, from
+      Satan's ranks, and on the third day, when the legions of evil lay crushed
+      beneath the mountains which the shining angels had heaped upon them, the
+      Son of God drove forth in his chariot, and single-handed, forced them
+      before him, terror-stricken, until, Heaven's wall having opened, they fell
+      downward for nine days, in horror and confusion into the depths of Hell.
+      The Messiah, returning home in triumph in his chariot, was welcomed by the
+      bright orders into the home of his Father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Delighted by the recital of Raphael, Adam asked him to relate the story of
+      the Creation, and explain to him the motion of the celestial bodies. He
+      then told Raphael of his own creation; how he awoke as from a sleep and
+      found the Sun above him and around him the pleasant groves of Paradise;
+      how he named the animals as they passed before him, according to the will
+      of God, and how he had pleaded with his Maker for a companion and equal,
+      until the Creator, casting him into a sound sleep, took from his side a
+      rib and formed from it his beauteous Eve. As Adam concluded, the setting
+      sun warned Raphael to depart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan, after fleeing from Gabriel, had hidden in the dark parts of the
+      earth, so that he could creep in at night unseen of Uriel. After the
+      eighth night, he crept in past the watchful Cherubim, and stealing into
+      Paradise, wrapped in the mist rising over the river that, shooting
+      underground, rose up as a fountain near the Tree of Life, he crept, though
+      not without loathing, into the serpent, in which form he could best evade
+      the watchful eyes of the heavenly guards and accomplish his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When morning dawned, Eve asked Adam for once to permit her to work alone,
+      so that they might accomplish more. Adam, who constantly desired her
+      presence, prayed her to remain, warning her of the enemy of whom Raphael
+      had spoken, and telling her that they could resist temptation more easily
+      together than when separated. But Eve was obdurate, and Adam finally
+      consented that she should go alone to work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she moved among the groves, tying up the drooping flowers, like to
+      Pomona in her prime, or to Ceres, the sight of so much beauty, goodness,
+      and innocence moved even the serpent, as he approached, intent on the
+      destruction of her happiness. But as he looked, the thought of her joy but
+      tortured him the more, since happiness was no longer possible for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was before the serpent had been compelled to crawl his whole length
+      on the ground, and as he moved on, fold on fold, his head proudly reared,
+      his scales brilliant in color, he was not an unpleasant object to look
+      upon. He circled about Eve as though lost in admiration, until her
+      attention was attracted, and then astounded her by addressing her in her
+      own language. When she demanded by what means he had acquired speech, he
+      told her by the plucking and eating of a certain tree in the garden, which
+      he had no sooner tasted than he felt his inward powers to develop until he
+      found himself capable of speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eve at once asked him to take her to the tree, but when she recognized the
+      forbidden Tree of Knowledge, she demurred, assuring the serpent that God
+      had commanded them not to touch it, for if they ate of it, they should
+      surely die. "Am I not alive?" asked her tempter, "and have I not eaten of
+      it? Is it not a rank injustice that you should be forbidden to taste it
+      and to lack the Knowledge of Good and Evil which it would give you? Where
+      can the offence lie? It must be envy that causes such a prohibition."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His words, the sight of the fruit, and natural hunger all prevailed on
+      Eve, and she plucked a branch from the tree and tasted the fruit. As she
+      ate she saw Adam coming in search of her, holding a garland which he had
+      been binding to crown her. To his reproaches, she replied with the
+      arguments of her tempter, until Adam, in despair, determined to taste the
+      apple that he might not lose Eve. Paradise without her would not be
+      Paradise, and no new wife could make him forget her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first exhilaration of the food was past they began to reproach
+      each other, mindful of their destiny, of which they had been warned by
+      Raphael, and, engaged in this fruitless chiding, they were found by the
+      Son, who, informed of their transgression by the angels, sought them out
+      in their place of concealment. Adam and Eve he sentenced to a life of
+      sorrow and labor, the serpent to go despised and ever at enmity with man.
+      Then, pitying the unhappy pair, he clad them in skins and re-ascended to
+      Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While this was occurring in Eden, Sin and Death, feeling in some
+      mysterious way the success of their parent, determined to leave Hell and
+      seek their new home. Passing through Chaos, they pushed the heavy elements
+      this way and that, cementing them with Death's mace until they constructed
+      of them a bridge from the gates of Hell to the point on earth at which
+      Satan had first alighted, and here met him, just returning, flushed with
+      success, to Hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the followers of Satan were gathered in Pandemonium to hear the news
+      of his success, which he related, overjoyed at having wrought the ruin of
+      mankind and revenged himself on God by so small a thing as the eating of
+      an apple. As he concluded and stood waiting their applause, he heard a
+      universal hiss, and saw himself surrounded by serpents, and himself
+      changing into an enormous dragon. The great hall was filled with the
+      monsters, scorpions, asps, hydras, and those who stood waiting without
+      with applause for their leader were likewise changed into loathsome
+      reptiles. Without the hall a grove sprang up, loaded with tempting fruit,
+      but when, tortured with thirst, they tried to eat, it turned in their
+      mouths to bitter ashes. After a time they were permitted to take again
+      their own shapes, but were compelled to resume this serpent-form for a
+      certain number of days each year, to crush their pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When God saw the entrance of Sin and Death into the world, he proclaimed
+      to his Saints that their seeming victory was but temporary, and that
+      eventually his Son would defeat Sin, Death, and the Grave, and seal up the
+      mouth of Hell. Then, as the Halleluias rang out, he ordered the angels to
+      make certain changes in the universe as a punishment to man. The Sun was
+      so to move as to affect the earth alternately with a cold and heat almost
+      unbearable; to the Moon were assigned her motions; the other planets were
+      to join in various ways, often "unbenign." The winds were assigned their
+      stations to torment the earth and sea, and the thunder was set to strike
+      terror to the heart of man. The poles of the earth were pushed aslant, and
+      soon the effects of the changes were felt in heat, cold, wind, and storm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam, though absorbed in his own misery and momentarily expecting Death,
+      saw the changes, and bemoaned his woes the more. How would his mysterious
+      progeny despise him, since he was the cause of their being brought into
+      the world of woe! When Eve attempted to comfort him he drove her from him
+      with harsh words, saying that in time to come women would be the unhappy
+      cause of all man's misery, as she had been of his. At last, seeing the
+      futility of his outcries Adam began to cheer his wife, recalling the
+      promise that their offspring should crush the head of the serpent, and
+      suggested to her that they go to their former place of prayer and pour
+      forth to God their true contrition and repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The glad Son, presenting these prayers at his Father's throne, interceded
+      with him for them, since their contrition now was worth more than their
+      worship in a state of innocence. His intercession was accepted, but since
+      they had lost the two gifts of Happiness and Immortality, they must leave
+      the garden lest they be tempted to taste next of the Tree of Life and make
+      their woe eternal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michael was sent down to drive them from the garden, and if the pair
+      seemed repentant and disconsolate he was ordered to comfort them with the
+      promise of better days and to reveal to them somewhat of the future. In
+      habit as a man Michael descended and declared to Adam and Eve that they
+      could no longer abide in Paradise. When Adam, himself broken with grief,
+      attempted to console the heart-broken Eve, the Angel comforted her also,
+      and causing a sleep to fall upon her, led Adam to a hill-top, whence could
+      be seen the hemisphere of the earth, soon to be covered by the seats of
+      empires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Touching Adam's eyes with three drops from the well of life, the Angel
+      showed him a long panorama, beginning with the crime of Cain, and showing
+      the building of the Ark and its landing on Ararat. When he perceived that
+      Adam's eyes were weary, he recited to him the story of Abraham, of the
+      deliverance from Egypt, the wandering in the Wilderness, of the royal
+      stock of David from which would spring the seed so often promised Adam,
+      who should ascend the hereditary throne, and whose glory should be
+      universal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Overjoyed, Adam inquired when would take place the final death stroke to
+      Satan, the bruising with the Victor's heel. Michael responded that Satan
+      was not to be destroyed, but his works in Adam and his seed, and that the
+      sacrifice of the Son's life for man would forever crush the strength of
+      Satan's progeny, Sin and Death. Then, to that Heaven to which he would
+      reascend, the faithful would go when the time came for the world's
+      dissolution, and there would be received into the bliss eternal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strengthened and sustained, Adam went down from the mount and met Eve,
+      just awaking from comforting dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Cherubim descended, and, urged by the Angel, the two took their way
+      into the wide world that lay before them, and looking back beheld the
+      flaming swords of the Cherubim at the gates of their lost Paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0100" id="link2H_4_0100"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      SATAN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      After having been thrown out of Heaven with his crew, Satan lay nine days
+      in the burning lake into which he fell. Then, rousing himself, he rose
+      from the liquid flames, flew over the lake, and alighting upon the solid
+      though burning land, thus addressed Beelzebub, who had accompanied him.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
+  Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
+  That we must change for Heaven?&mdash;this mournful gloom
+  For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
+  Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
+  What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
+  Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
+  Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
+  Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
+  Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
+  Receive thy new possessor&mdash;one who brings
+  A mind not to be changed by place or time.
+  The mind is its own place, and in itself
+  Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+  What matter where, if I be still the same,
+  And what I should be, all but less than he
+  Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
+  We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
+  Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
+  Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
+  To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
+  Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
+  But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
+  The associates and co-partners of our loss,
+  Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,
+  And call them not to share with us their part
+  In this unhappy mansion, or once more
+  With rallied arms to try what may be yet
+  Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"
+
+  So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub
+  Thus answered:&mdash;"Leader of those armies bright
+  Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
+  If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
+  Of hope in fears and dangers&mdash;heard so oft
+  In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
+  Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
+  Their surest signal&mdash;they will soon resume
+  New courage and revive, though now they lie
+  Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
+  As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
+  No wonder, fallen from such pernicious highth!"
+
+  He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
+  Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
+  Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
+  Behind him cast. The broad circumference
+  Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
+  Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
+  At evening, from the top of Fesolč,
+  Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
+  Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
+  His spear&mdash;to equal which the tallest pine
+  Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
+  Of some great ammiral, were but a wand&mdash;
+  He walked with, to support uneasy steps
+  Over the burning marle, not like those steps
+  On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
+  Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
+  Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
+  Of that inflamčd sea he stood, and called
+  His legions&mdash;Angel Forms, who lay entranced
+  Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
+  In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
+  High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
+  Afloat, when the fierce winds Orion armed
+  Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
+  Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
+  While with perfidious hatred they pursued
+  The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
+  From the safe shore their floating carcases
+  And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrewn,
+  Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
+  Under amazement of their hideous change.
+  He called so loud that all the hollow deep
+  Of Hell resounded:&mdash;"Princes, Potentates,
+  Warriors, the Flower of Heaven&mdash;once yours; now lost,
+  If such astonishment as this can seize
+  Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
+  After the toil of battle to repose
+  Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
+  To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
+  Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
+  To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
+  Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
+  With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
+  His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
+  The advantage, and descending, tread us down
+  Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
+  Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?&mdash;
+  Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"
+          <i>Book I.</i>, 240-330.
+</pre>
+    <h3>
+      APOSTROPHE TO LIGHT.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      This passage forms the beginning of Book III., in which the poet visits
+      the realms of light after having described Hell and its inhabitants.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
+  Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
+  May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
+  And never but in unapproachčd light
+  Dwelt from eternity&mdash;dwelt then in thee,
+  Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
+  Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
+  Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
+  Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
+  Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
+  The rising World of waters dark and deep,
+  Won from the void and formless Infinite!
+  Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
+  Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained
+  In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
+  Through utter and through middle Darkness borne,
+  With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
+  I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
+  Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down
+  The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
+  Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
+  And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
+  Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
+  To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
+  So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
+  Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
+  Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
+  Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
+  Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
+  Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
+  That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
+  Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
+  Those other two equalled with me in fate,
+  So were I equalled with them in renown,
+  Blind Thamyris and blind Mćonides,
+  And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
+  Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
+  Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
+  Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
+  Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
+  Seasons return; but not to me returns
+  Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
+  Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
+  Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
+  But cloud instead and ever-during dark
+  Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
+  Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
+  Presented with a universal blank
+  Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
+  And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
+  So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
+  Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
+  Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
+  Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
+  Of things invisible to mortal sight.
+                       <i>Book III</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0101" id="link2H_4_0101"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PARADISE REGAINED.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "A cold and noble epic."&mdash;TAINE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Paradise regained was written by Milton, judging from a passage in the
+      Autobiography of Thomas Ellwood, in the winter of 1665-6, but was not
+      published until 1671. It was printed at Milton's expense in a small volume
+      together with Samson Agonistes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paradise Regained tells the story of Christ's temptation in the
+      Wilderness, and the material was taken from the accounts of Matthew and
+      Luke, which the poet, with great skill, expanded without essentially
+      deviating from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The title has been criticised on the ground that the poem should have
+      extended over the whole of Christ's life on earth. But Paradise Regained
+      was written as a sequel to Paradise Lost, and, as in the first poem the
+      poet showed that Paradise was lost by the yielding of Adam and Eve to
+      Satan, so in the second, he wished to show that Paradise was regained by
+      the resistance of Christ to temptation, Satan's defeat signifying the
+      regaining of Paradise for men by giving them the hope of Christ's second
+      coming. Therefore the poem naturally ends with Satan's rebuff and his
+      final abandonment of the attempt on the pinnacle of the Temple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poem has been criticised for its shortness, some scholars even
+      affecting to believe it unfinished; its lack of variety, in that it has
+      but two characters, its lack of action, and the absence of figurative
+      language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But with all these faults, it has a charm of its own, entirely different
+      from that of Paradise Lost. Satan has degenerated during his years of
+      "roaming up and down the earth;" he is no longer the fallen angel of
+      Paradise Lost, who struggled with himself before making evil his good. He
+      is openly given over to evil practices, and makes little effort to play
+      the hypocrite. His temptations are worked up from that of hunger to that
+      of the vision of the kingdoms of the earth with a wonderful power of
+      description which makes up for the lack of action and the few actors. The
+      pathless, rockbound desert, the old man, poorly clad, who accosts the
+      Christ, the mountain-top from which all the earth was visible, the night
+      of horror in the desert, and the sublime figure of the Savior, are all
+      enduring pictures which compensate for any rigidity of treatment. If
+      figurative language is omitted it is because the theme does not need it,
+      and does not show that the poem is less carefully finished than Paradise
+      Lost. Its lack of action and similarity of subject to the longer poem
+      sufficiently account for its not meeting with popular favor. Johnson was
+      correct when he said, "had this poem been written not by Milton, but by
+      some imitator, it would have claimed and received universal praise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_BIBL17" id="link2H_BIBL17"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE REGAINED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      H. C. Beeching, On the Prosody of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes,
+      1889;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles Dexter Cleveland's Complete Concordance to Milton's Poetical
+      Works, 1867;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William T. Dobson's The Classic Poets, their Lives and Times etc., 1879;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 1852, pp. 15-16;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samuel Johnson's Milton (see his Lives of the Poets, ed. by Mrs. Alexander
+      Napier, 1890, vol. i.);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Babington Macaulay's Milton (see his Critical and Historical
+      Essays, ed, 10, 1860, vol. i.);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David Masson's Introduction to Paradise Regained (see his ed. of Milton's
+      Poetical works, 1893, vol. iii., pp. 1-14);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David Masson's Life of Milton, 1880, vol. vi., 651-661;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Meadowcourt's Critique on Milton's Paradise Regained, 1732;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Critical Dissertation on Paradise Regained with Notes, 2d ed. 1748;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Robert Seeley's Milton (see his Roman Imperialism and other Lectures
+      and Essays, 1871, pp. 152-157);
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark Pattison's John Milton (English Men of Letters Series), n. d.;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      H. A. Taine's History of English Literature, Tr. by H. Van Laun, 1877,
+      vol. ii.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0103" id="link2H_4_0103"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE STORY OF PARADISE REGAINED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      After the expulsion from Paradise of Adam and Eve, Satan and his followers
+      did not return to Hell, but remained on earth, the fallen angels becoming
+      the evil gods of various idolatrous nations and Satan engaging in every
+      kind of evildoing which he knew would vex the Powers of Heaven. All the
+      time he was troubled by the thought of the heavenly foe who he had been
+      told would one day appear on earth to crush him and his rebel angels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now John had come out of the wilderness, proclaiming his mission, and
+      among those who came to him to be baptized was one who was deemed the son
+      of Joseph of Nazareth. John recognized in the obscure carpenter's son the
+      one "mightier than he" whose coming he was to proclaim, and this fact was
+      further made clear to the multitude and the observant Satan by the opening
+      of the Heavens and the descent therefrom on Christ's head of the Dove,
+      while a voice was heard declaring, "This is my beloved Son."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan, enraged, fled to the council of the fiends to announce to them the
+      presence on earth of their long-dreaded enemy. He was empowered by them to
+      attempt his overthrow, and they were the more confident because of his
+      success with Adam and Eve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan's purpose was known to the Eternal Father, who smiled to see him
+      unwittingly fulfilling the plan so long foreordained for his destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his baptism, the Father had sent his Son into the wilderness to gain
+      strength for his struggle with Sin and Death, and there Satan, in the
+      guise of an old, poorly clad rustic, found him. Although the Son of God
+      had wandered through the rock-bound, pathless desert, among wild beasts,
+      without food for forty days, he had no fear, believing that some impulse
+      from above had guided him thither before he should go out among men to do
+      his divinely appointed task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, when hunger came upon him as he wandered, thinking of past events
+      and those to come, he met the aged man and was addressed by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, how came you hither, where none who ventures alone escapes alive? I
+      ask because you look not unlike the man I lately saw baptized by John and
+      declared the Son of God."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I need no guide," replied the Son. "The Power who brought me here will
+      bring me forth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not otherwise than by miracle. Here we subsist only upon dry roots and
+      must often endure parching thirst. If thou art indeed the Son of God, save
+      thyself and relieve us wretched people by changing these stones to bread."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Men live not by bread alone," replied the Son, "but by the word of God.
+      Moses in the Mount was without food and drink for forty days. Elijah also
+      wandered fasting in the wilderness. Thou knowest who I am as I know who
+      thou art; why shouldest thou suggest distrust to me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Tis true that I am that unfortunate spirit who fell from Heaven, but I
+      have been permitted to roam around the earth and have not been altogether
+      excluded from Heaven. God allowed me to test Job and prove his worth and
+      to draw Ahab into fraud. Though I have lost much of my original brightness
+      I can still admire all that is illustrious and good. The sons of men
+      should not regard me as an enemy, for I have oft given them aid by
+      oracles, dreams, and portents. My loss was not through them, so their
+      restoration does not grieve me; only that fallen man will be restored and
+      not I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou deservest to grieve, tissue of lies that thou art!" exclaimed our
+      Savior. "Thou boastest of being released from Hell and permitted to come
+      into Heaven. No joy hast thou there! Thy own malice moved thee to torture
+      Job. Brag not of thy lies, thy oracles for men. Henceforth oracles are
+      dumb, since God has sent his living oracle into the world to teach the
+      truth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan, though angry, still dissembled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Accuse me, reprove me, if thou wilt. Fallen as I am, I still love to hear
+      the truth fall from thy lips."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unmoved by his false words the Savior of men declared that he neither
+      forbade nor invited his presence, and Satan, bowing low, disappeared as
+      night fell over the desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, those at Bethabara who had rejoiced at the declaration
+      of John and had talked with the Messiah, were deeply grieved to find him
+      gone and with him their hope of deliverance. His mother, too, was troubled
+      at his absence, but comforted herself with the thought of his former
+      absences, afterwards explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan, hastening from the desert, sought his troop of evil spirits to warn
+      them that his undertaking was no easy one, and to summon them to his
+      assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Night fell on the Son of God, still fasting, wondering what would be the
+      end. In sleep he was visited by dreams of Elijah, raven-fed, and of the
+      same prophet fed by the angel in the desert, and as he dreamed that he ate
+      with them, the lark's song awoke him and he wandered into a pleasant
+      grove. As he viewed it, charmed by its beauty, a man appeared before him,
+      no rustic this time, but one attired in the apparel of city or court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have returned, wondering that thou still remainest here, hungering.
+      Hagar once wandered here; the children of Israel, and the Prophet, but all
+      these were fed by the hand of Heaven. Thou alone art forgotten and goest
+      tormented by hunger."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Son of God declared that he had no need to eat, Satan invited
+      his attention to a table, set under a spreading tree. Upon it was heaped
+      every known delicacy; by it waited youths handsome as Ganymede, and among
+      the trees tripped naiads and nymphs of Diana, with fruits and flowers.
+      Exquisite music was heard, and the perfumes of Araby filled the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why not sit and eat?" continued Satan. "These foods are not forbidden,
+      and all these gentle ministers are ready to do thee homage."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What hast thou to do with my hunger?" demanded Jesus. "Should I receive
+      as a gift from thee what I myself could command if I so desired? I too
+      could bring a table here, and swift-winged angels to attend me. Thy gifts
+      are but guiles."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am forever suspected," responded Satan, as the table vanished. "Hunger
+      cannot move thee, set on high designs. But what canst thou, a lowly
+      carpenter's son, accomplish without aid? Where wilt thou find authority,
+      where followers? First get riches; hearken to me, for fortune is in my
+      hand. Wealth will win, while virtue, valor, and wisdom sit and wait in
+      vain."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yet what can wealth do without these?" replied Jesus patiently. "How can
+      it gain dominion, and keep it when gained? Gideon, Jephtha, David, and
+      among the heathen (for I am not ignorant of history) Quinctius, Fabricius,
+      Curius, Regulus, all these have risen from the depths and achieved the
+      highest deeds. Then, why may not I accomplish as much, even more, without
+      wealth, which but cumbers the wise man, and slackens virtue, rather than
+      prompts it to worthy deeds? Suppose I reject both riches and realms? Not
+      because the regal diadem is a wreath of thorns and he who wears it bears
+      each man's burden, for the king's chief praise is the manner in which he
+      bears this burden for the public. But he who rules himself is greater than
+      a king, and he who cannot do this should not aspire to royal power. But it
+      is surely more kingly to lead nations blinded by error into the light of
+      God's truth. This dominion is over the nobler part of man. And it has ever
+      been thought greater and nobler to give a kingdom and to lay down
+      authority than to assume it. Therefore thy riches are needless both in
+      themselves, and to gain a kingdom which would better be missed than
+      gained."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan, though for a moment struck dumb by this answer to his arguments,
+      soon collected himself and suggested that while the Savior knew so well
+      what was best to know, say, and do, that if known he would be regarded as
+      an oracle, still he did wrong to despise glory and deprive earth of his
+      great deeds, citing as examples of more active spirits accomplishing much
+      when younger than he, the young Alexander, Scipio, Pompey, and Caesar. But
+      the Savior replied that the glory which consisted of the approval of the
+      rabble was only to be despised. The true glory was that of the man who
+      dared to be truly good, who though little known on earth, was famous in
+      Heaven. Such men did not lay waste fields, sack, pillage, and slay, but by
+      deeds of peace won the approval of the Father. Such was Job, oft tempted
+      by Satan; such was Socrates, who suffered unjust death for teaching truth.
+      And the Son of God had come upon earth not to win glory for himself as
+      vain men do, but for Him who sent him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thy Father does not despise glory," sneered Satan. "He demands it from
+      his angels, from men, even from us, his foes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With reason," answered the Son, "since he created all things, though not
+      for glory. And what slighter recompense could he expect from men who could
+      return nothing else?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan, remembering his own ambition and his fall, was silent for a moment,
+      and then spoke to remind the Savior that he was born to the throne of
+      David, but that it must be wrested from the Roman by force of arms. It was
+      his duty to do this and save his people from oppression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All things in due time," replied the Savior. "If the Writ tells of my
+      sufferings, my tribulations, of violence done unto me, it also tells of my
+      reign without end. I can wait. He who suffers best, can do best; he who
+      obeys first, reigns best; and why shouldest thou be so anxious to hasten
+      my rule when it means thy destruction?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When hope is gone, what is there left to fear? My punishment will come
+      whether thou reign or no. I could hope that thy reign would stand between
+      me and the anger of thy Father. And if I haste to the worst that can be,
+      why shouldest thou go so slowly to the best? Perhaps thou fearest the
+      dangerous enterprise, thou who, pent up in Galilean towns, hast seen so
+      little."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he took the Son up into a high mountain at the foot of which
+      stretched a vast plain. Two rivers watered the fertile land. The hills
+      were covered with flocks; vast cities could be seen, and here and there,
+      so wide was the land, a barren desert. Then the Tempter pointed out the
+      vast cities of Assyria, Nineveh, Babylon, Persepolis, Bactra, and the vast
+      host of the Parthian king, even then marching against the Scythians. As
+      they watched the great host of mailed warriors, accompanied by chariots,
+      elephants, archers, engineers, Satan pursued his argument. Suppose the Son
+      should take possession of his kingdom; how should he hope to keep it in
+      peace between two such powerful enemies as the Parthians and the Romans?
+      It would be better to conquer first the nearest, the Parthians, and this
+      could be done with Satan's help. In doing this he would not only be able
+      to occupy his throne but would deliver the offspring of the Ten Tribes of
+      Israel, who, scattered among the Medes, still served as slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Savior, in response, only questioned Satan as to why he had
+      suddenly become so solicitous for the salvation of the Tribes when he
+      himself had once tempted David to number Israel and had thus brought
+      pestilence upon them. And as to the Ten Tribes, they had brought their
+      punishment upon themselves, and must serve the enemy and their idols until
+      the Father should see fit to release them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though embarrassed by the failure of his wiles, Satan could not yet yield.
+      Turning to the western side of the mountain, he pointed out to the Savior
+      a long, narrow plain, bordered on the south by the sea and protected from
+      northern blasts by a mountain range. There, crowning the seven hills stood
+      the imperial city adorned with porches, theatres, baths, aqueducts, and
+      palaces. Satan pointed out the different objects of interest in splendid
+      Rome, the Capitol, Mt. Palatine, crowned by the imperial palace, and the
+      great gates, through which issued or entered a continuous stream of
+      praetors, proconsuls, lictors, legions, embassies, on all the roads which
+      led through the far-stretching empire, even to those of the Asian kings,
+      and remote Britain. All the glory of the world, he argued, lay in Parthia
+      and Rome, and Rome was greater. He who ruled her was indeed ruler of the
+      world, and yet its present emperor was old, weak, lascivious, without
+      heir, and lived at Capreae, his public cares entrusted to his favorite.
+      How easily could the Son of God force from him the power and lift the yoke
+      from his people!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the splendor of the scene allured neither the eye nor the mind of the
+      Son. The gluttonies, the gorgeous feasts, the hollow compliments and lies
+      of the people did not attract him. His mission, he told his Tempter, was
+      not yet to free that people, once just and frugal, now debased by their
+      insatiable ambition. When the time came for him to sit on David's throne,
+      this with all other kingdoms of the earth would be shattered while his
+      kingdom would be eternal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Though thou despisest my offers," cried Satan, "thou knowest that I
+      esteem them highly, and will not part with them for nought. This is the
+      condition; Wilt thou fall down and worship me as thy superior lord?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is written, thou accursed one," responded the Savior in disdain, "that
+      thou shouldst worship and serve the Lord thy God alone. Who gave thee the
+      kingdoms of the earth if He did not? And what gratitude thou showest! Get
+      thee behind me! Truly thou art Satan!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Satan, abashed but not silenced, pointed southwest toward Athens. Since
+      the Savior seemed to prefer a contemplative life, why should he not seek
+      that seat of learning? All wisdom was not contained in Moses' law and the
+      writings of the prophets. Let him master the learning of the great
+      Athenian teachers, philosophers and orators, and he would be a king within
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Savior assured Satan that, having received light from above, he
+      knew how false and fallacious were the boasted philosophies of the Greeks.
+      Their philosophers, ignorant of themselves and of God, and arrogating all
+      glory to themselves and ascribing none to Him, were unable to impart
+      wisdom to any one. From Hebrew psalm and hymn, and captive harps in
+      Babylon, the Greeks derived their arts, and the results, the odious
+      praises of their vicious gods, could not compare with the songs of Sion in
+      praise of the Father. Their orators, too, were far below the Hebrew
+      prophets. "Stay in the wilderness, then," thundered Satan, wroth at this
+      failure. "Since neither riches nor arms, nor power, nor yet the
+      contemplative life please thee, it is for thee the fittest place! But the
+      time will yet come when violence, stripes, and a cruel death will make
+      thee long for me and my proffered power. Truly the stars promise thee a
+      kingdom, but of what kind and when I cannot read."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he disappeared, darkness fell, and the Son of God, still hungry and
+      cold, sought rest under a sheltering tree. But Satan watched near, and
+      forbade rest. Thunder and lightning shook the Heavens; rain drenched the
+      earth; the fury of the winds was loosed, and in their path the sturdiest
+      trees were uprooted. Ghosts, furies, raved around the holy one, but,
+      unshaken by fear, he endured all calmly, and came forth, as the bright sun
+      shone upon the earth, to meet again the Prince of Darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enraged that the terrors of the night had had no effect upon his enemy,
+      Satan cried out that he still doubted that the wanderer in the wilderness
+      was the Son of God in the true sense, and would therefore try him another
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So speaking, he caught him up and bore him through the air unto Jerusalem,
+      and setting him on the highest pinnacle of the glorious Temple, said
+      scornfully:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stand there, if thou canst; I have placed thee highest in thy Father's
+      house. Now show if thou art indeed the Son of God. Cast thyself down, for
+      it is written that He will command his angels concerning thee, so that
+      they in their hands shall uplift thee."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is also written," said Jesus, "'Tempt not the Lord thy God.'" And as
+      he so spoke and stood, Satan, overcome with amazement, fell whence he had
+      expected to see his conqueror fall, and, struck with dread and anguish at
+      his certain defeat, fled to his rebel angels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Straightway, a "fiery globe" of angels received the Son on their pinions,
+      bore him from the pinnacle into a flowery vale, and there refreshed him
+      with ambrosial food and water from the Fount of Life, while all around him
+      the angelic choir sang his praises for the conquest of his enemy, and
+      encouraged him to go forth on his work of saving mankind. Thence, rested
+      and refreshed, he arose, and went, unobserved, home to his mother's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0104" id="link2H_4_0104"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      SELECTION FROM PARADISE REGAINED.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE TEMPTATION OF THE VISION OF THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Satan, meeting the Savior in the wilderness, tempted him to change the
+      stones to bread, and then, after endeavoring to awake in him a longing for
+      wealth and power, appealed to his ambition by leading him to a mountain
+      top, and displaying to him the kingdoms of the earth.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  With that (such power was given him then), he {Satan} took
+  The Son of God up to a mountain high.
+  It was a mountain at whose verdant feet
+  A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide
+  Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
+  The one winding, the other straight, and left between
+  Fair champaign, with less rivers interveined,
+  Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea.
+  Fertile of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;
+  With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;
+  Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem
+  The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
+  The prospect was that here and there was room
+  For barren desert, fountainless and dry.
+  To this high mountain-top the Tempter brought
+  Our Saviour, and new train of words began:&mdash;
+
+  "Well have we speeded, and o'er hill and dale,
+  Forest, and field, and flood, temples and towers,
+  Cut shorter many a league. Here thou behold'st
+  Assyria, and her empire's ancient bounds,
+  Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
+  As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
+  And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
+  And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
+  Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
+  Several days' journey, built by Ninus old,
+  Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
+  And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
+  Israel in long captivity still mourns;
+  There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,
+  As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
+  Judah and all thy father David's house
+  Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
+  Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
+  His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
+  Ecbatana her structure vast there shows,
+  And Hecatompylos her hundred gates;
+  There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
+  The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
+  Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,
+  The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
+  Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
+  Turning with easy eye, thou may'st behold.
+  All these the Parthian (now some ages past
+  By great Arsaces led, who founded first
+  That empire) under his dominion holds,
+  From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
+  And just in time thou com'st to have a view
+  Of his great power; for now the Parthian king
+  In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host
+  Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
+  Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid
+  He marches now in haste. See though from far,
+  His thousands, in what martial equipage
+  They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,
+  Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit&mdash;
+  All horsemen, in which fight they most excel;
+  See how in warlike muster they appear,
+  In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings."
+
+  He looked, and saw what numbers numberless
+  The city gates outpoured, light-armed troops
+  In coats of mail and military pride.
+  In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
+  Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice
+  Of many provinces from bound to bound&mdash;
+  From Arachosia, from Candaor east,
+  And Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs
+  Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales;
+  From Atropatia, and the neighboring plains
+  Of Adiabene, Media, and the south
+  Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven.
+  He saw them in their forms of battle ranged,
+  How quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot
+  Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
+  Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight;
+  The field all iron cast a gleaming brown.
+  Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor, on each horn,
+  Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight,
+  Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers
+  Of archers; nor of labouring pioneers
+  A multitude, with spades and axes armed,
+  To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,
+  Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay
+  With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke:
+  Mules after these, camels and dromedaries,
+  And waggons fraught with utensils of war.
+  Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
+  When Agrican, with all his northern powers,
+  Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
+  The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win
+  The fairest of her sex, Angelica,
+  His daughter, sought by many prowest knights,
+  Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemain.
+  Such and so numerous was their chivalry.
+                         <i>Book III.</i>
+
+  He brought our Saviour to the western side
+  Of that high mountain, whence he might behold
+  Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide,
+  Washed by the southern sea, and on the north
+  To equal length backed with a ridge of hills
+  That screened the fruits of the earth and seats of men
+  From cold Septentrion blasts; thence in the midst
+  Divided by a river, off whose banks
+  On each side an imperial city stood,
+  With towers and temples proudly elevate
+  On seven small hills, with palaces adorned,
+  Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,
+  Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
+  Gardens and groves, presented to his eyes
+  Above the highth of mountains interposed&mdash;
+  By what strange parallax, or optic skill
+  Of vision, multiplied through air, or glass
+  Of telescope, were curious to inquire.
+  And now the Tempter thus his silence broke:&mdash;
+  "The city which thou seest no other deem
+  Than great and glorious Rome Queen of the Earth
+  So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched
+  Of nations. There the Capitol thou seest,
+  Above the rest lifting his stately head
+  On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel
+  Impregnable; and there Mount Palatine,
+  The imperial palace, compass huge, and high
+  The structure, skill of noblest architects,
+  With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
+  Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires.
+  Many a fair edifice besides, more like
+  Houses of gods&mdash;so well have I disposed
+  My aery microscope&mdash;thou may'st behold,
+  Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs
+  Carved work, the hand of famed artificers
+  In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.
+  Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
+  What conflux issuing forth, or entering in:
+  Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces
+  Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
+  Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;
+  Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
+  Or embassies from regions far remote,
+  In various habits, on the Appian road,
+  Or on the Aemilian&mdash;some from farthest south,
+  Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
+  Meroe, Nilotic isle, and, more to west,
+  The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;
+  From the Asian kings (and Parthian among these),
+  From India and the Golden Chersoness,
+  And utmost Indian isle Taprobane,
+  Dusk faces with white silken turbants wreathed;
+  From Gallia, Gades, and the British west;
+  Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north
+  Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool.
+  All nations now to Rome obedience pay&mdash;
+  To Rome's great Emperor, whose wide domain,
+  In ample territory, wealth and power,
+  Civility of manners, arts and arms,
+  And long renown, thou justly may'st prefer
+  Before the Parthian. These two thrones except,
+  The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight,
+  Shared among petty kings too far removed;
+  These having shown thee, I have shown thee all
+  The kingdoms of the world, and all their glory".
+                                <i>Book IV.</i>
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of National Epics, by Kate Milner Rabb
+
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+</html>
diff --git a/8072.txt b/8072.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of National Epics, by Kate Milner Rabb
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: National Epics
+
+Author: Kate Milner Rabb
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2005  [EBook #8072]
+This file was first posted on June 11, 2003
+Last Updated: June 5, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATIONAL EPICS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, S.R. Ellison, and the Online
+Distributed Proofing Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NATIONAL EPICS
+
+By Kate Milner Rabb
+
+1896
+
+
+
+TO MY MOTHER.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+This volume is intended for an introduction to the study of the epics.
+While the simplicity and directness of the epic style seem to make such a
+book unnecessary, the fact that to many persons of literary tastes some of
+these great poems are inaccessible, and that to many more the pleasure of
+exploring for themselves "the realms of gold" is rendered impossible by
+the cares of business, has seemed sufficient excuse for its being. Though
+the beauty of the original is of necessity lost in a condensation of this
+kind, an endeavor has been made to preserve the characteristic epithets,
+and to retain what Mr. Arnold called "the simple truth about the matter of
+the poem." It is believed that the sketch prefacing each story, giving
+briefly the length, versification, and history of the poem, will have its
+value to those readers who have not access to the epics, and that the
+selections following the story, each recounting a complete incident, will
+give a better idea of the epic than could be formed from passages
+scattered through the text.
+
+The epic originated among tribes of barbarians, who deified departed
+heroes and recited legends in praise of their deeds. As the hymn
+developed, the chorus and strophe were dropped, and the narrative only was
+preserved. The word "epic" was used simply to distinguish the narrative
+poem, which was recited, from the lyric, which was sung, and from the
+dramatic, which was acted.
+
+As the nation passed from childhood to youth, the legends of the hero that
+each wandering minstrel had changed to suit his fancy, were collected and
+fused into one by some great poet, who by his power of unification made
+this written epic his own.
+
+This is the origin of the Hindu epics, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," the
+"Kalevala," the "Shah-Nameh," "Beowulf," the "Nibelungen Lied," the "Cid,"
+and the "Song of Roland."
+
+The conditions for the production of the primitive epic exist but once in
+a nation's growth. Its later epics must be written on subjects of national
+importance, chosen by the poet, who arranges and embellishes his material
+according to the rules of the primitive epic. To this class belong the
+"Aeneid," the "Jerusalem Delivered," and the "Lusiad." Dante's poem is
+broader, for it is the epic of mediaeval Christianity. Milton likewise
+sought "higher argument" than
+
+  "Wars, hitherto the only argument
+      Heroic deemed,"
+
+and crystallized the religious beliefs of his time in "Paradise Lost."
+
+The characteristics both of the primitive and the modern epic are their
+uniform metre, simplicity of construction, concentration of action into a
+short time, and the use of episode and dialogue. The main difference lies
+in the impersonality of the primitive epic, whose author has so skillfully
+hidden himself behind his work that, as some one has said of Homer, "his
+heroes are immortal, but his own existence is doubtful."
+
+Although the historical events chronicled in the epics have in every case
+been so distorted by the fancy of the poets that they cannot be accepted
+as history, the epics are storehouses of information concerning ancient
+manners and customs, religious beliefs, forms of government, treatment of
+women, and habits of feeling.
+
+Constructed upon the noblest principles of art, and pervaded by the
+eternal calm of the immortals, these poems have an especial value to us,
+who have scarcely yet realized that poetry is an art, and are feverish
+from the unrest of our time. If by the help of this volume any reader be
+enabled to find a portion of the wisdom that is hidden in these mines, its
+purpose will have been accomplished.
+
+My thanks are due to Mr. John A. Wilstach for the use of selections from
+his translation of the "Divine Comedy;" to Prof. J. M. Crawford, for the
+use of selections from his translation of the "Kalevala;" to Henry Holt &
+Co., for the use of selections from Rabillon's translation of "La Chanson
+de Roland;" to Roberts Brothers, for the use of selections from Edwin
+Arnold's "Indian Idylls;" to Prof. J. C. Hall, for the use of selections
+from his translation of "Beowulf;" and to A. C. Armstrong & Son, for the
+use of selections from Conington's Translation of the "Aeneid." The
+selections from the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are used with the permission
+of and by special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of
+Bryant's translations of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." Special thanks are
+due to Miss Eliza G. Browning of the Public Library of Indianapolis, to
+Miss Florence Hughes of the Library of Indiana University, and to Miss
+Charity Dye, of Indianapolis.
+
+K. M. R.
+
+INDIANAPOLIS, IND., September, 1896.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+THE HINDU EPIC: THE RAMAYANA
+
+THE HINDU EPIC: THE MAHA-BHARATA
+
+THE GREEK EPIC: THE ILIAD
+
+THE GREEK EPIC: THE ODYSSEY
+
+THE FINNISH EPIC: THE KALEVALA
+
+THE ROMAN EPIC: THE AENEID
+
+THE SAXON EPIC: BEOWULF
+
+THE GERMAN EPIC: THE NIBELUNGEN LIED
+
+THE FRENCH EPIC: THE SONG OF ROLAND
+
+THE PERSIAN EPIC: THE SHAH-NAMEH
+
+THE SPANISH EPIC: THE POEM OF THE CID
+
+THE ITALIAN EPIC: THE DIVINE COMEDY
+
+THE ITALIAN EPIC: THE ORLANDO FURIOSO
+
+THE PORTUGUESE EPIC: THE LUSIAD
+
+THE ITALIAN EPIC: THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED
+
+THE ENGLISH EPIC: PARADISE LOST
+
+THE ENGLISH EPIC: PARADISE REGAINED
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS.
+
+
+FROM THE RAMAYANA:                        TRANSLATOR
+  The Descent of the Ganges ...          _Milman_
+  The Death of Yajnadatta ...                "
+
+FROM THE MAHA-BHARATA:
+  Savitri; or, Love and Death ...        _Arnold_
+  The Great Journey ...                      "
+
+FROM THE ILIAD:
+  Helen at the Scaean Gates ...          _Bryant_
+  The Parting of Hector and Andromache ...   "
+
+FROM THE ODYSSEY:
+  The Palace of Alcinoues ...             _Bryant_
+  The Bending of the Bow ...                 "
+
+FROM THE KALEVALA:
+  Ilmarinen's Wedding Feast ...          _Crawford_
+  The Birth of the Harp ...                  "
+
+FROM THE AENEID:
+  Nisus and Euryalus ...                 _Conington_
+
+FROM BEOWULF:
+  Grendel's Mother ...                   _Hall_
+
+FROM THE NIBELUNGEN LIED:
+  How Brunhild was received at Worms ... _Lettsom_
+  How Margrave Ruedeger was slain  ...        "
+
+FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND:
+  The Horn ...                           _Rabillon_
+  Roland's Death  ...                        "
+
+FROM THE SHAH-NAMEH:
+  The Rajah of India sends a Chessboard
+  to Nushirvan                           _Robinson_
+  Zal and Rudabeh                            "
+
+FROM THE POEM OF THE CID:
+  Count Raymond and My Cid               _Ormsby_
+  My Cid's Triumph                           "
+
+FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY:
+  Count Ugolino                          _Wilstach_
+  Buonconte di Montefeltro                   "
+  Beatrice descending from Heaven            "
+  The Exquisite Beauty of Beatrice           "
+
+FROM THE ORLANDO FURIOSO:
+  The Death of Zerbino                   _Rose_
+
+FROM THE LUSIAD:
+  Inez de Castro                         _Mickle_
+  The Spirit of the Cape                     "
+
+FROM THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED:
+  Sophronia and Olindo                   _Wiffen_
+
+FROM PARADISE LOST:
+  Satan
+  Apostrophe to Light
+
+FROM PARADISE REGAINED:
+  The Temptation of the Vision of the Kingdoms of the Earth
+
+
+
+
+NATIONAL EPICS.
+
+
+
+THE RAMAYANA.
+
+
+  "He who sings and hears this poem continually has attained to the
+  highest state of enjoyment, and will finally be equal to the gods."
+
+
+The Ramayana, the Hindu Iliad, is variously ascribed to the fifth, third,
+and first centuries B.C., its many interpolations making it almost
+impossible to determine its age by internal evidence. Its authorship is
+unknown, but according to legend it was sung by Kuca and Lava, the sons of
+Rama, to whom it was taught by Valmiki. Of the three versions now extant,
+one is attributed to Valmiki, another to Tuli Das, and a third to Vyasa.
+
+Its historical basis, almost lost in the innumerable episodes and
+grotesque imaginings of the Hindu, is probably the conquest of southern
+India and Ceylon by the Aryans.
+
+The Ramayana is written in the Sanskrit language, is divided into seven
+books, or sections, and contains fifty thousand lines, the English
+translation of which, by Griffith, occupies five volumes.
+
+The hero, Rama, is still an object of worship in India, the route of his
+wanderings being, each year, trodden by devout pilgrims. The poem is not a
+mere literary monument,--it is a part of the actual religion of the Hindu,
+and is held in such reverence that the mere reading or hearing of it, or
+certain passages of it, is believed to free from sin and grant his every
+desire to the reader or hearer.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE RAMAYANA.
+
+
+G. W. Cox's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;
+
+John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion,
+Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;
+
+Sir William Jones on the Literature of the Hindus (in his Works, vol. iv.);
+
+Maj.-Gen. Vans Kennedy's Researches into Hindu Mythology, 1831;
+
+James Mill's History of British India, 1840, vol. ii., pp. 47-123;
+
+F. Max Mueller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 1859;
+
+E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, 1891, pp. 153-271;
+
+Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature, 1878, pp. 191-195;
+
+J. T. Wheeler's History of India, 4 vols., 1876, vol. ii.;
+
+Sir Monier Williams's Indian Wisdom, 1863, Indian Epic Poetry, 1863;
+
+Article on Sanskrit Literature in Encyclopaedia Britannica;
+
+R. M. Gust's The Ramayana: a Sanskrit Epic (in his Linguistic and Oriental
+Essays, 1880, p. 56);
+
+T. Goldstuecker's Ramayana (in his Literary Remains, 1879, vol. i.,
+p. 155);
+
+C. J. Stone's Cradleland of Arts and Creeds, 1880, pp. 11-21;
+
+Albrecht Weber's On the Ramayana, 1870; Westminster Review,
+1849, vol. 1., p. 34;
+
+J. C. Oman's Great Indian Epics, 1874, pp. 13-81.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE RAMAYANA.
+
+
+The Ramayana, Tr. by R. T. H. Griffith, 5 vols., 1870-1874 (Follows Bombay
+ed., Translated into metre of "Lady of the Lake");
+
+Extracts from the Ramayana, Tr. by Sir William Jones (in his Works,
+vol. 13);
+
+Iliad of the East, F. Richardson, 1873 (Popular translations of a set of
+legends from the Ramayana);
+
+The Ramayana translated into English Prose, edited and published by
+Naumatha Nath Dutt, 7 vols., Calcutta, 1890-1894.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE RAMAYANA.
+
+
+Brahma, creator of the universe, though all powerful, could not revoke a
+promise once made. For this reason, Ravana, the demon god of Ceylon, stood
+on his head in the midst of five fires for ten thousand years, and at the
+end of that time boldly demanded of Brahma as a reward that he should not
+be slain by gods, demons, or genii. He also requested the gift of nine
+other heads and eighteen additional arms and hands.
+
+These having been granted, he began by the aid of his evil spirits, the
+Rakshasas, to lay waste the earth and to do violence to the good,
+especially to the priests.
+
+At the time when Ravana's outrages were spreading terror throughout the
+land, and Brahma, looking down from his throne, shuddered to see the
+monster he had gifted with such fell power, there reigned in Ayodhya, now
+the city of Oude, a good and wise raja, Dasaratha, who had reigned over
+the splendid city for nine thousand years without once growing weary. He
+had but one grief,--that he was childless,--and at the opening of the
+story he was preparing to make the great sacrifice, Asva-medha, to
+propitiate the gods, that they might give him a son.
+
+The gods, well pleased, bore his request to Brahma in person, and
+incidentally preferred a request that he provide some means of destroying
+the monster Ravana that was working such woe among their priests, and
+disturbing their sacrifices.
+
+Brahma granted the first request, and, cudgeling his brains for a device
+to destroy Ravana, bethought himself that while he had promised that
+neither gods, genii, nor demons should slay him, he had said nothing of
+man. He accordingly led the appealing gods to Vishnu, who proclaimed that
+the monster should be slain by men and monkeys, and that he would himself
+be re-incarnated as the eldest son of Dasaratha and in this form compass
+the death of Ravana.
+
+In course of time, as a reward for his performance of the great sacrifice,
+four sons were born to Dasaratha, Rama by Kausalya, his oldest wife,
+Bharata, whose mother was Kaikeyi, and twin sons, Lakshmana and Satrughna,
+whose mother was Sumitra.
+
+Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu, destined to destroy Ravana, grew daily in
+grace, beauty, and strength. When he was but sixteen years old, having
+been sent for by a sage to destroy the demons who were disturbing the
+forest hermits in their religious rites, he departed unattended, save by
+his brother Lakshmana and a guide, into the pathless forests, where he
+successfully overcame the terrible Rakshasa, Tarika, and conveyed her body
+to the grateful sage.
+
+While he was journeying through the forests, destroying countless
+Rakshasas, he chanced to pass near the kingdom of Mithila and heard that
+its king, Janaka, had offered his peerless daughter, Sita, in marriage to
+the man who could bend the mighty bow of Siva the destroyer, which, since
+its owner's death, had been kept at Janaka's court.
+
+Rama at once determined to accomplish the feat, which had been essayed in
+vain by so many suitors. When he presented himself at court Janaka was at
+once won by his youth and beauty; and when the mighty bow, resting upon an
+eight-wheeled car, was drawn in by five thousand men, and Rama without
+apparent effort bent it until it broke, he gladly gave him his beautiful
+daughter, and after the splendid wedding ceremonies were over, loaded the
+happy pair with presents to carry back to Ayodhya.
+
+When Dasaratha, who had attended the marriage of his son at Mithila,
+returned home, he began to feel weary of reigning, and bethought himself
+of the ancient Hindu custom of making the eldest son and heir apparent a
+Yuva-Raja,--that is appointing him assistant king. Rama deserved this
+honor, and would, moreover, be of great assistance to him.
+
+His happy people received the announcement of his intention with delight;
+the priests approved of it as well, and the whole city was in the midst of
+the most splendid preparations for the ceremony, when it occurred to
+Dasaratha that all he lacked was the congratulations of his youngest and
+favorite wife, Kaikeyi, on this great event. The well-watered streets and
+the garlanded houses had already aroused the suspicions of
+Kaikeyi,--suspicions speedily confirmed by the report of her maid. Angered
+and jealous because the son of Kausalya and not her darling Bharata, at
+that time absent from the city, was to be made Yuva-Raja, she fled to the
+"Chamber of Sorrows," and was there found by the old Raja.
+
+Though Kaikeyi was his youngest and most beautiful wife, her tears,
+threats, and entreaties would have been of no avail had she not recalled
+that, months before, the old Raja, in gratitude for her devoted nursing
+during his illness, had granted her two promises. She now demanded the
+fulfilment of these before she would consent to smile upon him, and the
+consent won, she required him, first, to appoint Bharata Yuva-Raja; and,
+second, to exile Rama for fourteen years to the terrible forest of
+Dandaka.
+
+The promise of a Hindu, once given, cannot be revoked. In spite of the
+grief of the old Raja, of Kausalya, his old wife, and of all the people,
+who were at the point of revolt at the sudden disgrace of their favorite
+prince, the terrible news was announced to Rama, and he declared himself
+ready to go, to save his father from dishonor.
+
+He purposed to go alone, but Sita would not suffer herself to be thus
+deserted. Life without him, she pleaded, was worse than death; and so
+eloquent was her grief at the thought of parting that she was at last
+permitted to don the rough garment of bark provided by the malicious
+Kaikeyi.
+
+The people of Ayodhya, determined to share the fate of their favorites,
+accompanied them from the city, their tears laying the dust raised by
+Rama's chariot wheels. But when sleep overcame them, Rama, Sita, and
+Lakshmana escaped from them, dismissed their charioteer, and, crossing the
+Ganges, made their way to the mountain of Citra-kuta, where they took up
+their abode.
+
+No more beautiful place could be imagined. Flowers of every kind,
+delicious fruits, and on every side the most pleasing prospects, together
+with perfect love, made their hermitage a paradise on earth. Here the
+exiles led an idyllic existence until sought out by Bharata, who, learning
+from his mother on his return home the ruin she had wrought in the Raj,
+had indignantly spurned her, and hastened to Dandaka. The old Raja had
+died from grief soon after the departure of the exiles, and Bharata now
+demanded that Rama should return to Ayodhya and become Raja, as was his
+right, as eldest son.
+
+When Rama refused to do this until the end of his fourteen years of exile,
+Bharata vowed that for fourteen years he would wear the garb of a devotee
+and live outside the city, committing the management of the Raj to a pair
+of golden sandals which he took from Rama's feet. All the affairs of state
+would be transacted under the authority of the sandals, and Bharata, while
+ruling the Raj, would pay homage to them.
+
+Soon after the departure of Bharata the exiles were warned to depart from
+their home on Citra-kuta and seek a safer hermitage, for terrible
+rakshasas filled this part of the forest. They accordingly sought the
+abode of Atri the hermit, whose wife Anasuya was so pleased with Sita's
+piety and devotion to her husband that she bestowed upon her the crown of
+immortal youth and beauty. They soon found a new abode in the forest of
+Pancarati, on the banks of the river Godavari, where Lakshmana erected a
+spacious bamboo house.
+
+Their happiness in this elysian spot was destined to be short-lived. Near
+them dwelt a horrible rakshasa, Surpanakha by name, who fell in love with
+Rama. When she found that he did not admire the beautiful form she assumed
+to win him, and that both he and Lakshmana laughed at her advances, she
+attempted to destroy Sita, only to receive in the attempt a disfiguring
+wound from the watchful Lakshmana. Desiring revenge for her disfigured
+countenance and her scorned love, she hastened to the court of her brother
+Ravana, in Ceylon, and in order to induce him to avenge her wrongs, dwelt
+upon the charms of the beautiful wife of Rama.
+
+Some days after, Sita espied a golden fawn, flecked with silver, among the
+trees near their home. Its shining body, its jewel-like horns, so
+captivated her fancy that she implored Rama, if possible, to take it alive
+for her; if not, at least to bring her its skin for a couch. As Rama
+departed, he warned Lakshmana not to leave Sita for one moment; he would
+surely return, since no weapon could harm him. In the depths of the forest
+the fawn fell by his arrow, crying as it fell, "O Sita! O Lakshmana!" in
+Rama's very tones.
+
+When Sita heard the cry she reproached Lakshmana for not going to his
+brother's aid, until he left her to escape her bitter words. He had no
+sooner disappeared in the direction of the cry than a hermit appeared and
+asked her to minister unto his wants.
+
+Sita carried him food, bathed his feet, and conversed with him until, able
+no longer to conceal his admiration for her, he revealed himself in his
+true form as the demon god of Ceylon.
+
+When she indignantly repulsed him he seized her, and mounting his chariot
+drove rapidly towards Ceylon.
+
+When Rama and Lakshmana returned home, soon after, they found the house
+empty. As they searched through the forest for traces of her they found a
+giant vulture dying from wounds received while endeavoring to rescue the
+shrieking Sita. Going farther, they encountered the monkey king Sugriva
+and his chiefs, among whom Sita had dropped from the chariot her scarf and
+ornaments.
+
+Sugriva had been deposed from his kingdom by his brother Bali, who had
+also taken his wife from him. Rama agreed to conquer Bali if Sugriva would
+assist in the search for Sita; and, the agreement made, they at once
+marched upon Kishkindha, together slew Bali, and gained possession of the
+wealthy city and the queen Tara. They were now ready to search for the
+lost Sita.
+
+In his quest through every land, Hanuman, the monkey general, learned from
+the king of the vultures that she had been carried to Ceylon. He
+immediately set out for the coast with his army, only to find a bridgeless
+ocean stretching between them and the island. Commanding his soldiers to
+remain where they were, Hanuman expanded his body to enormous proportions,
+leaped the vast expanse of water, and alighted upon a mountain, from which
+he could look down upon Lanka, the capital city of Ceylon. Perceiving the
+city to be closely guarded, he assumed the form of a cat, and thus,
+unsuspected, crept through the barriers and examined the city. He found
+the demon god in his apartments, surrounded by beautiful women, but Sita
+was not among them. Continuing his search, he at last discovered her, her
+beauty dimmed by grief, seated under a tree in a beautiful asoka grove,
+guarded by hideous rakshasas with the faces of buffaloes, dogs, and swine.
+
+Assuming the form of a tiny monkey, Hanuman crept down the tree, and
+giving her the ring of Rama, took one from her. He offered to carry her
+away with him, but Sita declared that Rama must himself come to her
+rescue. While they were talking together, the demon god appeared, and,
+after fruitless wooing, announced that if Sita did not yield herself to
+him in two months he would have her guards "mince her limbs with steel"
+for his morning repast.
+
+In his rage, Hanuman destroyed a mango grove and was captured by the
+demon's guards, who were ordered to set his tail on fire. As soon as this
+was done, Hanuman made himself so small that he slipped from his bonds,
+and, jumping upon the roofs, spread a conflagration through the city of
+Lanka.
+
+He leaped back to the mainland, conveyed the news of Sita's captivity to
+Rama and Sugriva, and was soon engaged in active preparations for the
+campaign.
+
+As long as the ocean was unbridged it was impossible for any one save
+Hanuman to cross it. In his anger at being so thwarted, Rama turned his
+weapons against it, until from the terrified waves rose the god of the
+ocean, who promised him that if Nala built a bridge, the waves should
+support the materials as firmly as though it were built on land.
+
+Terror reigned in Lanka at the news of the approach of Rama. Vibishana,
+Ravana's brother, deserted to Rama, because of the demon's rage when he
+advised him to make peace with Rama. Fiercely fought battles ensued, in
+which even the gods took part, Vishnu and Indra taking sides with Rama,
+and the evil spirits fighting with Ravana.
+
+After the war had been carried on for some time, with varying results, it
+was decided to determine it by single combat between Ravana and Rama. Then
+even the gods were terrified at the fierceness of the conflict. At each
+shot Rama's mighty bow cut off a head of the demon, which at once grew
+back, and the hero was in despair until he remembered the all-powerful
+arrow given him by Brahma.
+
+As the demon fell by this weapon, flowers rained from heaven upon the
+happy victor, and his ears were ravished with celestial music.
+
+Touched by the grief of Ravana's widows, Rama ordered his foe a splendid
+funeral, and then sought the conquered city.
+
+Sita was led forth, beaming with happiness at finding herself re-united to
+her husband; but her happiness was destined to be of short duration. Rama
+received her with coldness and with downcast eyes, saying that she could
+no longer be his wife, after having dwelt in the zenana of the demon. Sita
+assured him of her innocence; but on his continuing to revile her, she
+ordered her funeral pyre to be built, since she would rather die by fire
+than live despised by Rama. The sympathy of all the bystanders was with
+Sita, but Rama saw her enter the flames without a tremor. Soon Agni, the
+god of fire, appeared, bearing the uninjured Sita in his arms. Her
+innocence thus publicly proved by the trial by fire, she was welcomed by
+Rama, whose treatment she tenderly forgave.
+
+The conquest made, the demon destroyed, and Sita restored, Rama returned
+in triumph to Ayodhya, and assumed the government. The city was
+prosperous, the people were happy, and for a time all went well. It was
+not long, however, before whispers concerning Sita's long abode in Ceylon
+spread abroad, and some one whispered to Rama that a famine in the country
+was due to the guilt of Sita, who had suffered the caresses of the demon
+while in captivity in Ceylon. Forgetful of the trial by fire, forgetful of
+Sita's devotion to him through weal and woe, the ungrateful Rama
+immediately ordered her to the forest in which they had spent together the
+happy years of their exile.
+
+Without a murmur the unhappy Sita, alone and unbefriended, dragged herself
+to the forest, and, torn with grief of body and spirit, found the
+hermitage of Valmiki, where she gave birth to twin sons, Lava and Kuca.
+Here she reared them, with the assistance of the hermit, who was their
+teacher, and under whose care they grew to manhood, handsome and strong.
+
+It chanced about the time the youths were twenty years old, that Rama, who
+had grown peevish and disagreeable with age, began to think the gods were
+angered with him because he had killed Ravana, who was the son of a
+Brahman. Determined to propitiate them by means of the great sacrifice, he
+caused a horse to be turned loose in the forest. When his men went to
+retake it, at the end of the year, it was caught by two strong and
+beautiful youths who resisted all efforts to capture them. In his rage
+Rama went to the forest in person, only to learn that the youths were his
+twin sons, Lava and Kuca. Struck with remorse, Rama recalled the
+sufferings of his wife Sita, and on learning that she was at the hermitage
+of Valmiki, ordered her to come to him, that he might take her to him
+again, having first caused her to endure the trial by fire to prove her
+innocence to all his court.
+
+Sita had had time to recover from the love of her youth, and the prospect
+of life with Rama, without the _couleur de rose_ of youthful love, was
+not altogether pleasant. At first, she even refused to see him; but
+finally, moved by the appeals of Valmiki and his wife, she clad herself in
+her richest robes, and, young and beautiful as when first won by Rama, she
+stood before him. Not deigning to look in his face, she appealed to the
+earth. If she had never loved any man but Rama, if her truth and purity
+were known to the earth, let it open its bosom and take her to it. While
+the armies stood trembling with horror, the earth opened, a gorgeous
+throne appeared, and the goddess of earth, seated upon it, took Sita
+beside her and conveyed her to the realms of eternal happiness, leaving
+the too late repentant Rama to wear out his remaining years in shame and
+penitence.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE RAMAYANA.
+
+THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES.
+
+
+Sagara, an early king of Ayodhya, had sixty thousand sons, whom he sent
+out one day to recover a horse that had been designed for the great
+sacrifice, but had been stolen by a rakshasa. Having searched the earth
+unsuccessfully, they proceeded to dig into the lower regions.
+
+  Cloven with shovel and with hoe, pierced by axes and by spades,
+  Shrieked the earth in frantic woe; rose from out the yawning shades
+  Yells of anguish, hideous roars from the expiring brood of hell,--
+  Serpents, giants, and asoors, in the deep abyss that dwell.
+  Sixty thousand leagues in length, all unweary, full of wrath,
+  Through the centre, in their strength, clove they down their hellward
+    path.
+  And downward dug they many a rood, and downward till they saw aghast,
+  Where the earth-bearing elephant stood, ev'n like a mountain tall and
+    vast.
+  'T is he whose head aloft sustains the broad earth's forest-clothed
+    round,
+  With all its vast and spreading plains, and many a stately city crowned.
+  If underneath the o'erbearing load bows down his weary head, 't is then
+  The mighty earthquakes are abroad, and shaking down the abodes of men.
+  Around earth's pillar moved they slowly, and thus in humble accents
+    blest
+  Him the lofty and the holy, that bears the region of the East.
+  And southward dug they many a rood, until before their shuddering sight
+  The next earth-bearing elephant stood, huge Mahapadmas' mountain height.
+  Upon his head earth's southern bound, all full of wonder, saw they rest.
+  Slow and awe-struck paced they round, and him, earth's southern
+    pillar, blest.
+  Westward then their work they urge, king Sagara's six myriad race,
+  Unto the vast earth's western verge, and there in his appointed place
+  The next earth-bearing elephant stood, huge Saumanasa's mountain crest;
+  Around they paced in humble mood, and in like courteous phrase addrest,
+  And still their weary toil endure, and onward dig until they see
+  Last earth-bearing Himapandure, glorying in his majesty.
+
+_At last they reach the place where Vishnu appears with the horse. A flame
+issues from the mouth of the indignant deity and destroys the six myriad
+sons of Sagara, The adventure devolves on their brother Ansuman, who
+achieves it with perfect success. He is permitted to lead away the horse,
+but the ashes of his brothers cannot be purified by earthly water; the
+goddess Ganga must first be brought to earth, and having undergone
+lustration from that holy flood, the race of Sagara are to ascend to
+heaven. Brahma at last gives his permission to Ganga to descend. King
+Bhagiratha takes his stand on the top of Gokarna, the sacred peak of
+Himavan (the Himalaya), and here_--
+
+  Stands with arms outstretch'd on high, amid five blazing fires, the one
+  Towards each quarter of the sky, the fifth the full meridian sun.
+  Mid fiercest frosts on snow he slept, the dry and withered leaves his
+    food,
+  Mid rains his roofless vigil kept, the soul and sense alike subdued.
+  High on the top of Himavan the mighty Mashawara stood;
+  And "Descend," he gave the word to the heaven-meandering water--
+  Full of wrath the mandate heard Himavan's majestic daughter.
+  To a giant's stature soaring and intolerable speed,
+  From heaven's height down rushed she, pouring upon Siva's sacred head,
+  Him the goddess thought in scorn with her resistless might to sweep
+  By her fierce waves overborne, down to hell's remotest deep.
+
+  Down on Sankara's holy head, down the holy fell, and there,
+  Amid the entangling meshes spread, of his loose and flowing hair,
+  Vast and boundless as the woods upon the Himalaya's brow,
+  Nor ever may the struggling floods rush headlong to the earth below.
+  Opening, egress was not there, amid those winding, long meanders.
+  Within that labyrinthine hair, for many an age, the goddess wanders.
+
+_By the penances of the king, Siva is propitiated, and the stream, by
+seven channels, finds its way to the plains of India_.
+
+  Up the Raja at the sign upon his glittering chariot leaps,
+  Instant Ganga the divine follows his majestic steps.
+  From the high heaven burst she forth first on Siva's lofty crown,
+  Headlong then, and prone to earth thundering rushed the cataract down,
+  Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing; turtles, dolphins in their
+    mirth,
+  Fallen or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth.
+  And all the host of heaven came down, spirits and genii, in amaze,
+  And each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to gaze.
+  On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and coursers
+    rode,
+  Or on soft swinging palanquin, lay wondering each observant god.
+  As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jewell'd vestures'
+    rays,
+  The coruscating aether glow'd, as with a hundred suns ablaze.
+  And with the fish and dolphins gleaming, and scaly crocodiles and
+    snakes,
+  Glanc'd the air, as when fast streaming the blue lightning shoots and
+    breaks:
+  And in ten thousand sparkles bright went flashing up the cloudy spray,
+  The snowy flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists at
+    play.
+  And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets
+    wound,
+  Then lake-like spread all bright and broad, then gently, gently flowed
+    around,
+  Then 'neath the caverned earth descending, then spouted up the boiling
+    tide,
+  Then stream with stream harmonious blending, swell bubbling up and
+    smooth subside.
+  By that heaven-welling water's breast, the genii and the sages stood,
+  Its sanctifying dews they blest, and plung'd within the lustral flood.
+  Whoe'er beneath the curse of heaven from that immaculate world had fled,
+  To th' impure earth in exile driven, to that all-holy baptism sped;
+  And purified from every sin, to the bright spirit's bliss restor'd,
+  Th' ethereal sphere they entered in, and through th' empyreal mansions
+    soar'd.
+  The world in solemn jubilee beheld those heavenly waves draw near,
+  From sin and dark pollution free, bathed in the blameless waters clear.
+  Swift king Bhagiratha drave upon his lofty glittering car,
+  And swift with her obeisant wave bright Ganga followed him afar.
+                                        _Milman's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH OF YAJNADATTA.
+
+
+The Raja Dasaratha was compelled to banish his favorite son Rama,
+immediately after his marriage to Sita, because his banishment was
+demanded by the Raja's wife Kaikeyi, to whom he had once promised to grant
+any request she might make. His grief at the loss of his son is described
+in this selection.
+
+  Scarce Rama to the wilderness had with his younger brother gone,
+  Abandoned to his deep distress, king Dasaratha sate alone.
+  Upon his sons to exile driven when thought that king, as Indra bright,
+  Darkness came o'er him, as in heaven when pales th' eclipsed sun his
+    light.
+  Six days he sate, and mourned and pined for Rama all that weary time.
+  At midnight on his wandering mind rose up his old forgotten crime.
+  His queen, Kausalya, the divine, addressed he, as she rested near:
+  "Kausalya, if thou wakest, incline to thy lord's speech thy ready ear.
+  Whatever deed, or good or ill, by man, O blessed queen, is wrought.
+  Its proper fruit he gathers still, by time to slow perfection brought.
+  He who the opposing counsel's weight compares not in his judgment cool,
+  Or misery or bliss his fate, among the sage is deemed a fool.
+  As one that quits the Amra bower, the bright Palasa's pride to gain
+  Mocked by the promise of its flower, seeks its unripening fruit in vain,
+  So I the lovely Amra left for the Palasa's barren bloom,
+  Through mine own fatal error 'reft of banished Rama, mourn in gloom.
+  Kausalya! in my early youth by my keen arrow, at his mark
+  Aimed with too sure and deadly truth, was wrought a deed most fell and
+    dark.
+  At length, the evil that I did, hath fallen upon my fated head,
+  As when on subtle poison hid an unsuspecting child hath fed;
+  Even as that child unwittingly hath made the poisonous fare his food,
+  Even so, in ignorance by me was wrought that deed of guilt and blood.
+  Unwed wert thou in virgin bloom, and I in youth's delicious prime,
+  The season of the rains had come,--that soft and love enkindling time.
+  Earth's moisture all absorbed, the sun through all the world its warmth
+    had spread,
+  Turned from the north, its course begun, where haunt the spirits of the
+    dead:
+  Gathering o'er all the horizon's bound on high the welcome clouds
+    appeared,
+  Exulting, all the birds flew round,--cranes, cuckoos, peacocks, flew and
+    veered.
+  And all down each wide-watered shore the troubled, yet still limpid
+    floods,
+  Over their banks began to pour, as o'er them hung the bursting clouds.
+  And, saturate with cloud-born dew, the glittering verdant-mantled earth,
+  The cuckoos and the peacocks flew, disputing as in drunken mirth.--
+
+  "In such a time, so soft, so bland, oh beautiful! I chanced to go.
+  With quiver and with bow in hand, where clear Sarayu's waters flow,
+  If haply to the river's brink at night the buffalo might stray,
+  Or elephant, the stream to drink,--intent my savage game to slay.
+  Then of a water cruse, as slow it filled, the gurgling sound I heard,
+  Nought saw I, but the sullen low of elephant that sound appeared.
+  The swift well-feathered arrow I upon the bowstring fitting straight,
+  Towards the sound the shaft let fly, ah, cruelly deceived by fate!
+  The winged arrow scarce had flown, and scarce had reached its destined
+    aim,
+  'Ah me, I'm slain,' a feeble moan in trembling human accents came.
+  'Ah, whence hath come this fatal shaft against a poor recluse like me,
+  Who shot that bolt with deadly craft,--alas! what cruel man is he?
+  At the lone midnight had I come to draw the river's limpid flood,
+  And here am struck to death, by whom? ah whose this wrongful deed of
+    blood?
+  Alas! and in my parents' heart, the old, the blind, and hardly fed,
+  In the wild wood, hath pierced the dart, that here hath struck their
+    offspring dead.
+  Ah, deed most profitless as worst, a deed of wanton useless guilt:
+  As though a pupil's hand accurs'd his holy master's blood had spilt.
+  But not mine own untimely fate,--it is not that which I deplore.
+  My blind, my aged parents' state--'tis their distress afflicts me more.
+  That sightless pair, for many a day, from me their scanty food have
+    earned;
+  What lot is theirs when I'm away, to the five elements returned?
+  Alike, all wretched they, as I--ah, whose this triple deed of blood?
+  For who the herbs will now supply,--the roots, the fruit, their
+    blameless food?'
+  My troubled soul, that plaintive moan no sooner heard, so faint and low,
+  Trembled to look on what I'd done, fell from my shuddering hand my bow.
+  Swift I rushed up, I saw him there, heart-pierced, and fallen the stream
+    beside,
+  The hermit boy with knotted hair,--his clothing was the black deer's
+    hide.
+  On me most piteous turned his look, his wounded breast could scarce
+    respire,
+  And these the words, O queen, he spoke, as to consume me in his ire:
+  'What wrong, O Kshatriya, have I done, to be thy deathful arrow's aim,
+  The forest's solitary son, to draw the limpid stream I came.
+  Both wretched and both blind they lie, in the wildwood all destitute,
+  My parents, listening anxiously to hear my home-returning foot.
+  By this, thy fatal shaft, this one, three miserable victims fall,
+  The sire, the mother, and the son--ah why? and unoffending all.
+  How vain my father's life austere, the Veda's studied page how vain,
+  He knew not with prophetic fear his son would fall untimely slain.
+  But had he known, to one as he, so weak, so blind, 't were bootless all,
+  No tree can save another tree by the sharp hatchet marked to fall.
+  But to my father's dwelling haste, O Raghu's son, lest in his ire
+  Thy head with burning curse he blast, as the dry forest tree the fire.
+  Thee to my father's lone retreat will quickly lead yon onward path,
+  Oh, haste his pardon to entreat, or ere he curse thee in his wrath.
+  Yet first that gently I may die, draw forth the barbed steel from hence,
+  Allay thy fears, no Brahmin I, not thine of Brahmin blood the offence.
+  My sire, a Brahmin hermit he, my mother was of Sudra race.'
+  So spake the wounded boy, on me while turned his unreproaching face.
+  As from his palpitating breast I gently drew the mortal dart,
+  He saw me trembling stand, and blest that boy's pure spirit seemed to
+    part.
+  As died that holy hermit's son, from me my glory seemed to go,
+  With troubled mind I stood, cast down t' inevitable endless woe.
+  That shaft that seemed his life to burn like serpent venom, thus drawn
+    out,
+  I, taking up his fallen urn, t' his father's dwelling took my route.
+  There miserable, blind, and old, of their sole helpmate thus forlorn,
+  His parents did these eyes behold, like two sad birds with pinions
+    shorn.
+  Of him in fond discourse they sate, lone, thinking only of their son,
+  For his return so long, so late, impatient, oh by me undone.
+  My footsteps' sound he seemed to know, and thus the aged hermit said,
+  'O Yajnadatta, why so slow?--haste, let the cooling draught be shed.
+  Long on the river's cooling brink hast thou been sporting in thy joy.
+  Thy mother's fainting spirits sink in fear for thee; but thou, my boy,
+  If aught to grieve thy gentle heart thy mother or thy sire do wrong,
+  Bear with us, nor, when next we part, on the slow way thus linger long,
+  The feet of those that cannot move, of those that cannot see the eye,
+  Our spirits live but in thy love,--oh wherefore, dearest, no reply?'
+
+  "My throat thick swollen with bursting tears, my power of speech that
+    seemed to choke,
+  With hands above my head, my fears breaking my quivering voice, I spoke:
+  The Kshatriya Dasaratha I, O hermit sage, 't is not thy son!
+  Most holy ones, unknowingly a deed of awful guilt I've done.
+  With bow in hand I took my way along Sarayu's pleasant brink,
+  The savage buffalo to slay, or elephant come down to drink.
+
+  "A sound came murmuring to my ear,--'twas of the urn that slowly filled,
+  I deemed some savage wild-beast near,--my erring shaft thy son had
+    killed.
+  A feeble groan I heard, his breast was pierced by that dire arrow keen:
+  All trembling to the spot I pressed, lo there thy hermit boy was seen.
+  Flew to the sound my arrow, meant the wandering elephant to slay,
+  Toward the river brink it went,--and there thy son expiring lay.
+  The fatal shaft when forth I drew, to heaven his parting spirit soared,
+  Dying he only thought of you, long, long, your lonely lot deplored.
+  Thus ignorantly did I slay your child beloved, O hermit sage!
+  Turn thou on me, whose fated day is come, thy all-consuming rage!'
+  He heard my dreadful tale at length, he stood all lifeless, motionless;
+  Then deep he groaned, and gathering strength, me the meek suppliant did
+    address.
+  'Kshatriya, 't is well that thou hast turned, thy deed of murder to
+    rehearse,
+  Else over all thy land had burned the fire of my wide-wasting curse.
+  If with premeditated crime the unoffending blood thou 'dst spilt,
+  The Thunderer on his throne sublime had shaken at such tremendous guilt.
+  Against the anchorite's sacred head, hadst, knowing, aimed thy shaft
+    accursed,
+  In th' holy Vedas deeply read, thy skull in seven wide rents had burst.
+  But since, unwitting, thou hast wrought that deed of death, thou livest
+    still,
+  O son of Taghu, from thy thought dismiss all dread of instant ill.
+  Oh lead me to that doleful spot where my poor boy expiring lay,
+  Beneath the shaft thy fell hand shot, of my blind age the staff, the
+    stay.
+  On the cold earth 'twere yet a joy to touch my perished child again,
+  (So long if I may live) my boy in one last fond embrace to strain
+  His body all bedewed with gore, his locks in loose disorder thrown,
+  Let me, let her but touch once more, to the dread realm of Yama gone.'
+  Then to that fatal place I brought alone that miserable pair;
+  His sightless hands and hers I taught to touch their boy that slumbered
+    there.
+  Nor sooner did they feel him lie, on the moist herbage coldly thrown,
+  But with a shrill and feeble cry upon the body cast them down.
+  The mother as she lay and groaned, addressed her boy with quivering
+    tongue,
+  And like a heifer sadly moaned, just plundered of her new-dropped young:
+
+  "'Was not thy mother once, my son, than life itself more dear to thee?
+  Why the long way thou hast begun, without one gentle word to me?
+  One last embrace, and then, beloved, upon thy lonely journey go!
+  Alas! with anger art thou moved, that not a word thou wilt bestow?'
+
+  "The miserable father now with gentle touch each cold limb pressed,
+  And to the dead his words of woe, as to his living son addressed:
+  'I too, my son, am I not here?--thy sire with thy sad mother stands;
+  Awake, arise, my child, draw near, and clasp each neck with loving
+    hands.
+  Who now, 'neath the dark wood by night, a pious reader shall be heard?
+  Whose honeyed voice my ear delight with th' holy Veda's living word?
+  The evening prayer, th' ablution done, the fire adored with worship
+    meet,
+  Who now shall soothe like thee, my son, with fondling hand, my aged
+    feet?
+  And who the herb, the wholesome root, or wild fruit from the wood shall
+    bring?
+  To us the blind, the destitute, with helpless hunger perishing?
+  Thy blind old mother, heaven-resigned, within our hermit-dwelling lone,
+  How shall I tend, myself as blind, now all my strength of life is gone?
+  Oh, stay, my child, oh. Part not yet, to Yama's dwelling go not now,
+  To-morrow forth we all will set,--thy mother and myself and thou:
+  For both, in grief for thee, and both so helpless, ere another day,
+  From this dark world, but little loath, shall we depart, death's easy
+    prey!
+  And I myself, by Yama's seat, companion of thy darksome way,
+  The guerdon to thy virtues meet from that great Judge of men will pray.
+  Because, my boy, in innocence, by wicked deed thou hast been slain,
+  Rise, where the heroes dwell, who thence ne'er stoop to this dark world
+  again.
+  Those that to earth return no more, the sense-subdued, the hermits wise,
+  Priests their sage masters that adore, to their eternal seats arise.
+  Those that have studied to the last the Veda's, the Vedanga's page,
+  Where saintly kings of earth have passed, Nahusa and Yayati sage;
+  The sires of holy families, the true to wedlock's sacred vow;
+  And those that cattle, gold, or rice, or lands, with liberal hands
+    bestow;
+  That ope th' asylum to th' oppressed, that ever love, and speak the
+    truth;
+  Up to the dwellings of the blest, th' eternal, soar thou, best-loved
+    youth.
+  For none of such a holy race within the lowest seat may dwell;
+  But that will be his fatal place by whom my only offspring fell.'
+
+  "So groaning deep, that wretched pair, the hermit and his wife, essayed
+  The meet ablution to prepare, their hands their last faint effort made.
+  Divine, with glorious body bright, in splendid car of heaven elate,
+  Before them stood their son in light, and thus consoled their helpless
+    state:
+  'Meed of my duteous filial care, I've reached the wished for realms of
+    joy;
+  And ye, in those glad realms, prepare to meet full soon your dear-loved
+    boy.
+  My parents, weep no more for me, yon warrior monarch slew me not,
+  My death was thus ordained to be, predestined was the shaft he shot.'
+  Thus as he spoke, the anchorite's son soared up the glowing heaven afar,
+  In air his heavenly body shone, while stood he in his gorgeous car.
+  But they, of that lost boy so dear the last ablution meetly made,
+  Thus spoke to me that holy seer, with folded hands above his head.
+  'Albeit by thy unknowing dart my blameless boy untimely fell,
+  A curse I lay upon thy heart, whose fearful pain I know too well.
+  As sorrowing for my son I bow, and yield up my unwilling breath,
+  So, sorrowing for thy son shalt thou at life's last close repose in
+    death.'
+  That curse dread sounding in mine ear, to mine own city forth I set,
+  Nor long survived that hermit seer, to mourn his child in lone regret.
+  This day that Brahmin curse fulfilled hath fallen on my devoted head,
+  In anguish for my parted child have all my sinking spirits fled.
+  No more my darkened eyes can see, my clouded memory is o'ercast,
+  Dark Yama's heralds summon me to his deep, dreary realm to haste.
+  Mine eye no more my Rama sees, and grief-o'erborne, my spirits sink,
+  As the swoln stream sweeps down the trees that grow upon the crumbling
+    brink.
+  Oh, felt I Rama's touch, or spake one word his home-returning voice,
+  Again to life I should awake, as quaffing nectar draughts, rejoice,
+  But what so sad could e'er have been, celestial partner of my heart,
+  As Rama's beauteous face unseen, from life untimely to depart?
+  His exile in the forest o'er, him home returned to Oude's high town,
+  Oh happy those, that see once more, like Indra from the sky come down.
+  No mortal men, but gods I deem,--moonlike, before whose wondering sight
+  My Rama's glorious face shall beam, from the dark forest bursting
+    bright.
+  Happy that gaze on Rama's face with beauteous teeth and smile of love,
+  Like the blue lotus in its grace, and like the starry king above.
+  Like to the full autumnal moon, and like the lotus in its bloom,
+  That youth who sees returning soon,--how blest shall be that mortal's
+    doom."
+  Dwelling in that sweet memory, on his last bed the monarch lay,
+  And slowly, softly seemed to die, as fades the moon at dawn away.
+  "Ah, Rama! ah, my son!" thus said, or scarcely said, the king of men,
+  His gentle hapless spirit fled in sorrow for his Rama then,
+  The shepherd of his people old at midnight on his bed of death,
+  The tale of his son's exile told, and breathed away his dying breath.
+                                         _Milman's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAHA-BHARATA.
+
+
+"It is a deep and noble forest, abounding in delicious fruits and fragrant
+flowers, shaded and watered by perennial springs."
+
+Though parts of the Maha-Bharata, or story of the great war, are of great
+antiquity, the entire poem was undoubtedly collected and re-written in the
+first or second century A. D. Tradition ascribes the Maha-Bharata to the
+Brahman Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa.
+
+The Maha-Bharata, unlike the Ramayana, is not the story of some great
+event, but consists of countless episodes, legends, and philosophical
+treatises, strung upon the thread of a single story. These episodes are
+called Upakhyanani, and the five most beautiful are called, in India, the
+five precious stones.
+
+Its historical basis is the strife between the Aryan invaders of India and
+the original inhabitants, illustrated in the strife between the sons of
+the Raja Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhrita-rashtra, which forms the main
+story of the poem.
+
+Though marred by the exaggerations peculiar to the Hindu, the poem is a
+great treasure house of Indian history, and from it the Indian poets,
+historical writers, and philosophers have drawn much of their material.
+
+The Maha-Bharata is written in the Sanskrit language; it is the longest
+poem ever written, its eighteen cantos containing two hundred thousand
+lines.
+
+It is held in even higher regard than the Ramayana, and the reading of it
+is supposed to confer upon the happy reader every good and perfect gift.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE MAHA-BHARATA.
+
+
+G.W. Cox's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;
+
+John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion,
+Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;
+
+F. Max Mueller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 1859 (Introduction);
+
+E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, 1891, pp. 272-352;
+
+Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature, 1878, pp. 184-191;
+
+J. T. Wheeler's History of India, 4 vols., 1876, vol. ii.;
+
+J. C. Oman's Great Indian Epics, 1874, pp. 87-231;
+
+T. Goldstuecker's Hindu Epic Poetry; the Maha-Bharata Literary Remains,
+1879, (vol. ii., pp. 86-145);
+
+M. Macmillan's Globe-trotter in India, 1815, p. 193;
+
+J. Peile's Notes on the Tales of Nala, 1882;
+
+C. J. Stone's Cradle-land of Arts and Creeds, 1880, pp. 36-49;
+
+H. H. Wilson's Introduction to the Maha-Bharata and a Translation of three
+Extracts (in his Works, vol. iii., p. 277); Westminster Review, 1868, vol.
+xxxiii., p. 380.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE MAHA-BHARATA.
+
+
+The Maha-Bharata, Selections from the Tr. by Sir Edwin Arnold, in his
+Indian Poetry, 1886; in his Indian Idylls, 1883;
+
+Nala and Damayanti and other Poems, Tr. from the Maha-Bharata by
+H. H. Milman, (his translation of the Story of Nala is edited with notes by
+Monier Williams, 1879);
+
+Metrical translations from Sanskrit writers by John Muir, 1879, pp. 13-37;
+
+Last Days of Krishna, Tr. from the Maha-Bharata Price (Oriental
+Translation Fund: Miscellaneous Translations);
+
+The Maha-Bharata, an English Prose Translation with notes, by Protap
+Chandra Roy, Published in one hundred parts, 1883-1890;
+
+Asiatic Researches, Tr. by H. H. Wilson, from the Maha-Bharata vol. xv.,
+p. 101;
+
+Translations of episodes from the Maha-Bharata, in Scribner's Monthly,
+1874, vol. vii., p. 385;
+
+International Review, vol. x., pp. 36, 297; Oriental Magazine, Dec., 1824,
+March, Sept., 1825, Sept., 1826.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE MAHA-BHARATA.
+
+
+Long ago there dwelt in India two great Rajas who were brothers, the Raja
+Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhritarashtra. The former had five noble sons
+called the Pandavas, the eldest of whom was Yudhi-sthira, the second
+Bhima, the third Arjuna, and the youngest, twin sons, Nakalu and Sahadeva.
+All were girted in every way, but Arjuna was especially noble in form and
+feature.
+
+The blind Raja had a family of one hundred sons, called the Kauravas from
+their ancestor, Kura. The oldest of these was Duryodhana, and the bravest,
+Dhusasana.
+
+Before the birth of Pandu's sons, he had left his kingdom in charge of
+Dhrita-rashtra, that he might spend his time in hunting in the forests on
+the slopes of the Himalayas. After his death Dhrita-rashtra continued to
+rule the kingdom; but on account of their claim to the throne, he invited
+the Pandavas and their mother to his court, where they were trained,
+together with his sons, in every knightly exercise.
+
+There was probably jealousy between the cousins from the beginning, and
+when their teacher, Drona, openly expressed his pride in the wonderful
+archery of Arjuna, the hatred of the Kauravas was made manifest. No
+disturbance occurred, however, until the day when Drona made a public
+tournament to display the prowess of his pupils.
+
+The contests were in archery and the use of the noose and of clubs. Bhima,
+who had been endowed by the serpent king with the strength of ten thousand
+elephants, especially excelled in the use of the club, Nakalu was most
+skillful in taming and driving the horse, and the others in the use of the
+sword and spear. When Arjuna made use of the bow and the noose the
+plaudits with which the spectators greeted his skill so enraged the
+Kauravas that they turned the contest of clubs, which was to have been a
+friendly one, into a degrading and blood-shedding battle. The spectators
+left the splendid lists in sorrow, and the blind Raja determined to
+separate the unfriendly cousins before further harm could come from their
+rivalry.
+
+Before this could be done, another event increased their hostility. Drona
+had agreed to impart to the Kauravas and the Pandavas his skill in
+warfare, on condition that they would conquer for him his old enemy, the
+Raja of Panchala. On account of their quarrel the cousins would not fight
+together, and the Kauravas, marching against the Raja, were defeated. On
+their return, the Pandavas went to Panchala, and took the Raja prisoner.
+
+After Yudhi-sthira had been appointed Yuva-Raja, a step Dhrita-rashtra was
+compelled by the people of Hastinapur to take, the Kauravas declared that
+they could no longer remain in the same city with their cousins.
+
+A plot was laid to destroy the Pandavas, the Raja's conscience having been
+quieted by the assurances of his Brahman counsellor that it was entirely
+proper to slay one's foe, be he father, brother, or friend, openly or by
+secret means. The Raja accordingly pretended to send his nephews on a
+pleasure-trip to a distant province, where he had prepared for their
+reception a "house of lac," rendered more combustible by soaking in
+clarified butter, in which he had arranged to have them burned as if by
+accident, as soon as possible after their arrival.
+
+All Hastinapur mourned at the departure of the Pandavas, and the princes
+themselves were sad, for they had been warned by a friend that
+Dhrita-rashtra had plotted for their destruction. They took up their abode
+in the house of lac, to which they prudently constructed a subterranean
+outlet, and one evening, when a woman with five sons attended a feast of
+their mother's, uninvited, and fell into a drunken sleep, they made fast
+the doors, set fire to the house, and escaped to the forest. The bodies of
+the five men and their mother were found next day, and the assurance was
+borne to Hastinapur that the Pandavas and their mother Kunti had perished
+by fire.
+
+The five princes, with their mother, disguised as Brahmans, spent several
+years wandering through the forests, having many strange adventures and
+slaying many demons. While visiting Ekachakra, which city they freed from
+a frightful rakshasa, they were informed by the sage Vyasa that Draupadi,
+the lovely daughter of the Raja Draupada of Panchala, was going to hold a
+Svayamvara in order to select a husband. The suitors of a princess
+frequently attended a meeting of this sort and took part in various
+athletic contests, at the end of which the princess signified who was most
+pleasing to her, usually the victor in the games, by hanging around his
+neck a garland of flowers.
+
+Vyasa's description of the lovely princess, whose black eyes were large as
+lotus leaves, whose skin was dusky, and her locks dark and curling, so
+excited the curiosity of the Pandavas that they determined to attend the
+Svayamvara. They found the city full of princes and kings who had come to
+take part in the contest for the most beautiful woman in the world. The
+great amphitheatre in which the games were to take place was surrounded by
+gold and jewelled palaces for the accommodation of the princes, and with
+platforms for the convenience of the spectators.
+
+After music, dancing, and various entertainments, which occupied sixteen
+days, the contest of skill began. On the top of a tall pole, erected in
+the plain, was placed a golden fish, below which revolved a large wheel.
+He who sent his arrow through the spokes of the wheel and pierced the eye
+of the golden fish was to be the accepted suitor of Draupadi.
+
+When the princes saw the difficulty of the contest, many of them refused
+to enter it; as many tried it only to fail, among them, the Kaurava
+Duryodhana. At last Arjuna, still in his disguise, stepped forward, drew
+his bow, and sent his arrow through the wheel into the eye of the golden
+fish.
+
+Immediately a great uproar arose among the spectators because a Brahman
+had entered a contest limited to members of the Kshatriya, or warrior
+class. In the struggle which ensued, however, Arjuna, assisted by his
+brothers, especially Bhima, succeeded in carrying off the princess, whose
+father did not demur.
+
+When the princes returned to their hut they went into the inner room and
+informed their mother that they had brought home a prize. Supposing that
+it was some game, she told them it would be well to share it equally. The
+mother's word was law, but would the gods permit them to share Draupadi?
+Their troubled minds were set at rest by Vyasa, who assured them that
+Draupadi had five different times in former existences besought Siva for a
+good husband. He had refused her requests then, but would now allow her
+five husbands at once. The princes were well satisfied, and when the Raja
+Draupada learned that the Brahmans were great princes in disguise, he
+caused the five weddings to be celebrated in great state.
+
+Not satisfied with this, the Raja at once endeavored to make peace between
+the Pandavas and their hostile cousins, and succeeded far enough to induce
+Dhrita-rashtra to cede to his nephews a tract of land in the farthest part
+of his kingdom, on the river Jumna, where they set about founding a most
+splendid city, Indra-prastha.
+
+Here they lived happily with Draupadi, conquering so many kingdoms and
+accumulating so much wealth that they once more aroused the jealousy of
+their old enemies, the Kauravas. The latter, knowing that it would be
+impossible to gain the advantage of them by fair means, determined to
+conquer them by artifice, and accordingly erected a large and magnificent
+hall and invited their cousins thither, with a great show of friendliness,
+to a gambling match.
+
+The Pandavas knew they would not be treated fairly, but as such an
+invitation could not be honorably declined by a Kshatriya, they went to
+Hastinapur. Yudhi-sthira's opponent was Shakuni, the queen's brother, an
+unprincipled man, by whom he was defeated in every game.
+
+Yudhi-sthira staked successively his money, his jewels, and his slaves;
+and when these were exhausted, he continued to play, staking his kingdom,
+his brothers, and last of all his peerless wife, Draupadi.
+
+At this point, when the excitement was intense, the brutal Dhusasana
+commanded Draupadi to be brought into the hall, and insulted her in every
+way, to the great rage of the helpless Pandavas, until Dhrita-rashtra,
+affrighted by the evil omens by which the gods signified their
+disapproval, rebuked Dhusasana for his conduct, and giving Draupadi her
+wish, released her husbands and herself and sent them back to their
+kingdom.
+
+To prevent the Pandavas from gaining time to avenge their insult, the
+Kauravas induced their father to invite their cousins to court to play a
+final game, this time the conditions being that the losing party should go
+into exile for thirteen years, spending twelve years in the forest and the
+thirteenth in some city. If their disguise was penetrated by their enemies
+during the thirteenth year, the exile was to be extended for another
+thirteen years.
+
+Though they knew the outcome, the Pandavas accepted the second invitation,
+and in consequence again sought the forest, not departing without the most
+terrible threats against their cousins.
+
+In the forest of Kamyaka, Yudhi-sthira studied the science of dice that he
+might not again be defeated so disastrously, and journeyed pleasantly from
+one point of interest to another with Draupadi and his brothers, with the
+exception of Arjuna, who had sought the Himalayas to gain favor with the
+god Siva, that he might procure from him a terrible weapon for the
+destruction of his cousins.
+
+After he had obtained the weapon he was lifted into the heaven of the god
+Indra, where he spent five happy years. When he rejoined his wife and
+brothers, they were visited by the god Krishna and by the sage Markandeya,
+who told them the story of the creation and destruction of the universe,
+of the flood, and of the doctrine of Karma, which instructs one that man's
+sufferings here below are due to his actions in former and forgotten
+existences. He also related to them the beautiful story of how the
+Princess Savitri had wedded the Prince Satyavan, knowing that the gods had
+decreed that he should die within a year; how on the day set for his death
+she had accompanied him to the forest, had there followed Yama, the awful
+god of death, entreating him until, for very pity of her sorrow and
+admiration of her courage and devotion, he yielded to her her husband's
+soul.
+
+Near the close of the twelfth year of their exile, the princes, fatigued
+from a hunt, sent Nakalu to get some water from a lake which one had
+discovered from a tree-top. As the prince approached the lake he was
+warned by a voice not to touch it, but thirst overcoming fear, he drank
+and fell dead. The same penalty was paid by Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhima,
+who in turn followed him. Yudhi-sthira, who went last, obeyed the voice,
+which, assuming a terrible form, asked the king questions on many subjects
+concerning the universe. These being answered satisfactorily, the being
+declared himself to be Dharma, the god of justice, Yudhi-sthira's father,
+and in token of his affection for his son, restored the princes to life,
+and granted them the boon of being unrecognizable during the remaining
+year of their exile.
+
+The thirteenth year of their exile they spent in the city of Virata, where
+they entered the service of the Raja,--Yudhi-sthira as teacher of
+dice-playing, Bhima as superintendent of the cooks, Arjuna as a teacher of
+music and dancing to the ladies, Nakalu as master of horse, and Sahadeva
+as superintendent of the cattle. Draupadi, who entered the service of the
+queen, was so attractive, even in disguise, that Bhima was forced to kill
+the queen's brother, Kechaka, for insulting her. This would have caused
+the Pandavas' exile from Virata had not their services been needed in a
+battle between Virata and the king of the Trigartas.
+
+The Kauravas assisted the Trigartas in this battle, and the recognition,
+among the victors, of their cousins, whose thirteenth year of exile was
+now ended, added to the bitterness of their defeat.
+
+Their exile over, the Pandavas were free to make preparations for the
+great war which they had determined to wage against the Kauravas. Both
+parties, anxious to enlist the services of Krishna, sent envoys to him at
+the same time. When Krishna gave them the choice of himself or his armies,
+Arjuna was shrewd enough to choose the god, leaving his hundreds of
+millions of soldiers to swell the forces of the Kauravas.
+
+When their preparations were completed, and the time had come to wreak
+vengeance on their cousins, the Pandavas were loath to begin the conflict.
+They seemed to understand that, war once declared, there could be no
+compromise, but that it must be a war for extinction. But the Kauravas
+received their proposals of peace with taunts, and heaped insults upon
+their emissary.
+
+When the Pandavas found that there was no hope of peace, they endeavored
+to win to their side Karna, who was really a son of Kunti, and hence their
+half-brother, though this fact had not been made known to him until he had
+long been allied with the Kauravas. In anticipation of this war, the gods,
+by a bit of trickery, had robbed Karna of his god-given armor and weapons.
+However, neither celestial artifice, the arguments of Krishna, nor the
+entreaties of Kunti were able to move Karna from what he considered the
+path of duty, though he promised that while he would fight with all his
+strength, he would not slay Yudhi-sthira, Bhima, and the twins.
+
+The forces of the two armies were drawn up on the plain of Kuruk-shetra.
+The army of the Kauravas was under the command of the terrible Bhishma,
+the uncle of Pandu and Dhrita-rashtra, who had governed the country during
+the minority of Pandu.
+
+Each side was provided with billions and billions of infantry, cavalry,
+and elephants; the warriors were supplied with weapons of the most
+dangerous sort. The army of the Kauravas was surrounded by a deep trench
+fortified by towers, and further protected by fireballs and jars full of
+scorpions to be thrown at the assailants.
+
+As night fell, before the battle, the moon's face was stained with blood,
+earthquakes shook the land, and the images of the gods fell from their
+places.
+
+The next morning, when Arjuna, from his chariot, beheld the immense army,
+he was appalled at the thought of the bloodshed to follow, and hesitated
+to advance. Krishna insisted that it was unnecessary for him to lament,
+setting forth his reasons in what is known as the Bhagavat-gita, the
+divine song, in which he said it was no sin to slay a foe, since death is
+but a transmigration from one form to another. The soul can never cease to
+be; who then can destroy it? Therefore, when Arjuna slew his cousins he
+would merely remove their offensive bodies; their souls, unable to be
+destroyed, would seek other habitations. To further impress Arjuna,
+Krishna boasted of himself as embodying everything, and as having passed
+through many forms. Faith in Krishna was indispensable, for the god placed
+faith above either works or contemplation. He next exhibited himself in
+his divine form to Arjuna, and the warrior was horror-stricken at the
+terrible divinity with countless arms, hands, and heads, touching the
+skies. Having been thus instructed by Krishna, Arjuna went forth, and the
+eighteen days' battle began.
+
+The slaughter was wholesale; no quarter was asked or given, since each
+side was determined to exterminate the other. Flights of arrows were
+stopped in mid-air by flights of arrows from the other side. Great maces
+were cut in pieces by well-directed darts. Bhima, wielding his great club
+with his prodigious strength, wiped out thousands of the enemy at one
+stroke, and Arjuna did the same with his swift arrows. Nor were the
+Kauravas to be despised. Hundreds of thousands of the Pandavas' followers
+fell, and the heroic brothers were themselves struck by many arrows.
+
+Early in the battle the old Bhishma was pierced by so many arrows that,
+falling from his chariot, he rested upon their points as on a couch, and
+lay there living by his own desire, until long after the battle.
+
+After eighteen days of slaughter, during which the field reeked with blood
+and night was made horrible by the cries of the jackals and other beasts
+of prey that devoured the bodies of the dead, the Kauravas were all slain,
+and the five Pandavas, reconciled to the blind Raja, accompanied him back
+to Hastinapur, where Yudhi-sthira was crowned Raja, although the Raj was
+still nominally under the rule of his old uncle.
+
+Yudhi-sthira celebrated his accession to the throne by the performance of
+the great sacrifice, which was celebrated with the utmost splendor. After
+several years the unhappy Dhrita-rashtra retired with his wife to a jungle
+on the banks of the Ganges, leaving Yudhi-sthira in possession of the
+kingdom. There the Pandavas visited him, and talked over the friends who
+had fallen in the great war. One evening the sage Vyasa instructed them to
+bathe in the Ganges and then stand on the banks of the river. He then went
+into the water and prayed, and coming out stood by Yudhi-sthira and called
+the names of all those persons who had been slain at Kuruk-shetra.
+Immediately the water began to foam and boil, and to the great surprise
+and terror of all, the warriors lost in the great battle appeared in their
+chariots, at perfect peace with one another, and cleansed of all earthly
+stain. Then the living were happy with the dead; long separated families
+were once more united, and the hearts that had been desolate for fifteen
+long years were again filled with joy. The night sped quickly by in tender
+conversation, and when morning came, all the dead mounted into their
+chariots and disappeared. Those who had come to meet them prepared to
+leave the river, but with the permission of Vyasa, the widows drowned
+themselves that they might rejoin their husbands.
+
+Not long after his return to Hastinapur, Yudhi-sthira heard that the old
+Raja and his wife had lost their lives in a jungle-fire; and soon after
+this, tidings came to him of the destruction of the city of the Yadavas,
+the capital of Krishna, in punishment for the dissipation of its
+inhabitants.
+
+Yudhi-sthira's reign of thirty-six years had been a succession of gloomy
+events, and he began to grow weary of earth and to long for the blessings
+promised above. He therefore determined to make the long and weary
+pilgrimage to Heaven without waiting for death. According to the
+Maha-Bharata, the earth was divided into seven concentric rings, each of
+which was surrounded by an ocean or belt separating it from the next
+annular continent. The first ocean was of salt water; the second, of the
+juice of the sugar-cane; the third, of wine; the fourth, of clarified
+butter; the fifth, of curdled milk; the sixth, of sweet milk; the seventh,
+of fresh water. In the centre of this vast annular system Mount Meru rose
+to the height of sixty-four thousand miles.
+
+Upon this mountain was supposed to rest the heaven of the Hindus, and
+thither Yudhi-sthira proposed to make his pilgrimage. His brothers and
+their wife Draupadi insisted on going with him, for all were equally weary
+of the world. Their people would fain have accompanied them, but the
+princes sent them back and went unaccompanied save by their faithful dog.
+They kept on, fired by their high resolves, until they reached the long
+and dreary waste of sand that stretched before Mount Meru. There Draupadi
+fell and yielded up her life, and Yudhi-sthira, never turning to look
+back, told the questioning Bhima that she died because she loved her
+husbands better than all else, better than heaven. Next Sahadeva fell,
+then Nakalu, and afterwards Arjuna and Bhima. Yudhi-sthira, still striding
+on, informed Bhima that pride had slain the first, self-love the second,
+the sin of Arjuna was a lie, and Bhima had loved too well the good things
+of earth.
+
+Followed by the dog, Yudhi-sthira pushed across the barren sand until he
+reached the mount and stood in the presence of the god. Well pleased with
+his perseverance, the god promised him the reward of entering into heaven
+in his own form, but he refused to go unless the dog could accompany him.
+After vainly attempting to dissuade him, the god allowed the dog to assume
+its proper form, and lo! it was Dharma, the god of justice, and the two
+entered heaven together.
+
+But where were Draupadi and the gallant princes, her husbands?
+Yudhi-sthira could see them nowhere, and he questioned only to learn that
+they were in hell. His determination was quickly taken. There could be no
+heaven for him unless his brothers and their wife could share it with him.
+He demanded to be shown the path to hell, to enter which he walked over
+razors, and trod under foot mangled human forms. But joy of joys! The
+lotus-eyed Draupadi called to him, and his brothers cried that his
+presence in hell brought a soothing breeze that gave relief to all the
+tortured souls.
+
+Yudhi-sthira's self-sacrifice sufficiently tested, the gods proclaimed
+that it was all but an illusion shown to make him enjoy the more, by
+contrast, the blisses of heaven. The king Yudhi-sthira then bathed in the
+great river flowing through three worlds, and, washed from all sins and
+soils, went up, hand in hand with the gods, to his brothers, the Pandavas,
+and
+
+  "Lotus-eyed and loveliest Draupadi,
+   Waiting to greet him, gladdening and glad."
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE MAHA-BHARATA.
+
+SAVITRI, OR LOVE AND DEATH.
+
+
+The beautiful princess Savitri of her own choice wedded the prince
+Satyavan, son of a blind and exiled king, although she knew that he was
+doomed by the gods to die within a year. When the year was almost gone,
+she sat for several days beneath a great tree, abstaining from food and
+drink, and imploring the gods to save him from death. On the fateful day
+she accompanied him to the forest to gather the sacred wood for the
+evening sacrifice. As he struck the tree with the axe he reeled in pain,
+and exclaiming, "I cannot work!" fell fainting.
+
+  Thereon that noble lady, hastening near.
+  Stayed him that would have fallen, with quick arms;
+  And, sitting on the earth, laid her lord's head
+  Tenderly in her lap. So bent she, mute,
+  Fanning his face, and thinking 't was the day--
+  The hour--which Narad named--the sure fixed date
+  Of dreadful end--when, lo! before her rose
+  A shade majestic. Red his garments were,
+  His body vast and dark; like fiery suns
+  The eyes which burned beneath his forehead-cloth;
+  Armed was he with a noose, awful of mien.
+  This Form tremendous stood by Satyavan,
+  Fixing its gaze upon him. At the sight
+  The fearful Princess started to her feet.
+  Heedfully laying on the grass his head,
+
+  Up started she, with beating heart, and joined
+  Her palms for supplication, and spake thus
+  In accents tremulous: "Thou seem'st some God;
+  Thy mien is more than mortal; make me know
+  What god thou art, and what thy purpose here."
+
+  And Yama said (the dreadful god of death):
+  "Thou art a faithful wife, O Savitri,
+  True to thy vows, pious, and dutiful;
+  Therefore I answer thee. Yama I am!
+  This Prince thy lord lieth at point to die;
+  Him will I straightway bind and bear from life;
+  This is my office, and for this I come."
+
+  Then Savitri spake sadly: "It is taught
+  Thy messengers are sent to fetch the dying;
+  Why is it, Mightiest, thou art come thyself?"
+
+  In pity of her love, the Pityless
+  Answered--the King of all the Dead replied:
+  "This was a Prince unparalleled, thy lord;
+  Virtuous as fair, a sea of goodly gifts,
+  Not to be summoned by a meaner voice
+  Than Yama's own: therefore is Yama come."
+
+  With that the gloomy God fitted his noose
+  And forced forth from the Prince the soul of him--
+  Subtile, a thumb in length--which being reft,
+  Breath stayed, blood stopped, the body's grace was gone,
+  And all life's warmth to stony coldness turned.
+  Then, binding it, the Silent Presence bore
+  Satyavan's soul away toward the South.
+
+  But Savitri the Princess followed him;
+  Being so bold in wifely purity,
+  So holy by her love; and so upheld,
+  She followed him.
+
+                     Presently Yama turned.
+  "Go back," quoth he. "Pay for him funeral dues.
+  Enough, O Savitri, is wrought for love;
+  Go back! Too far already hast thou come."
+
+  Then Savitri made answer: "I must go
+  Where my lord goes, or where my lord is borne;
+  Naught other is my duty. Nay, I think,
+  By reason of my vows, my services,
+  Done to the Gurus, and my faultless love,
+  Grant but thy grace, I shall unhindered go.
+  The sages teach that to walk seven steps
+  One with another, maketh good men friends;
+  Beseech thee, let me say a verse to thee:--
+
+  _"Be master of thyself, if thou wilt be
+  Servant of Duty. Such as thou shall see
+  Not self-subduing, do no deeds of good
+  In youth or age, in household or in wood.
+  But wise men know that virtue is best bliss,
+  And all by some one way may reach to this.
+  It needs not men should pass through orders four
+  To come to knowledge: doing right is more
+  Than any learning; therefore sages say
+  Best and most excellent is Virtue's way."_
+
+  Spake Yama then: "Return! yet I am moved
+  By those soft words; justly their accents fell,
+  And sweet and reasonable was their sense.
+  See now, thou faultless one. Except this life
+  I bear away, ask any boon from me;
+  It shall not be denied."
+
+                              Savitri said:
+  "Let, then, the King, my husband's father, have
+  His eyesight back, and be his strength restored,
+  And let him live anew, strong as the sun."
+
+  "I give this gift," Yama replied. "Thy wish,
+  Blameless, shall be fulfilled. But now go back;
+  Already art thou wearied, and our road
+  Is hard and long. Turn back, lest thou, too, die."
+
+  The Princess answered: "Weary am I not,
+  So I walk near my lord. Where he is borne,
+  Thither wend I. Most mighty of the Gods,
+  I follow wheresoe'er thou takest him.
+  A verse is writ on this, if thou wouldst hear:--
+
+  _"There is naught better than to be
+  With noble souls in company:
+  There is naught better than to wend
+  With good friends faithful to the end.
+  This is the love whose fruit is sweet,
+  Therefore to bide within is meet."_
+
+  Spake Yama, smiling: "Beautiful! thy words
+  Delight me; they are excellent, and teach
+  Wisdom unto the wise, singing soft truth.
+  Look, now! Except the life of Satyavan,
+  Ask yet another--any--boon from me."
+
+  Savitri said: "Let, then, the pious King,
+  My husband's father, who hath lost his throne,
+  Have back the Raj; and let him rule his realm
+  In happy righteousness. This boon I ask."
+
+  "He shall have back the throne," Yama replied,
+  "And he shall reign in righteousness: these things
+  Will surely fall. But thou, gaining thy wish,
+  Return anon; so shalt thou 'scape sore ill."
+
+  "Ah, awful God! who hold'st the world in leash,"
+  The Princess said, "restraining evil men,
+  And leading good men--even unconscious--there,
+  Where they attain, hear yet those famous words:--
+
+  _"The constant virtues of the good are tenderness and love
+  To all that lives--in earth, air, sea--great, small--below, above;
+  Compassionate of heart, they keep a gentle thought for each,
+  Kind in their actions, mild in will, and pitiful of speech;
+  Who pitieth not, he hath not faith; full many an one so lives,
+  But when an enemy seeks help, a good man gladly gives."_
+
+  "As water to the thirsty," Yama said,
+  "Princess, thy words melodious are to me.
+  Except the life of Satyavan, thy lord,
+  Ask one boon yet again, for I will grant."
+
+  Answer made Savitri: "The King, my sire,
+  Hath no male child. Let him see many sons
+  Begotten of his body, who may keep
+  The royal line long regnant. This I ask."
+
+  "So shall it be," the Lord of Death replied;
+  "A hundred fair preservers of his race
+  Thy sire shall boast. But this wish being won,
+  Return, dear Princess; thou hast come too far."
+
+  "It is not far for me," quoth Savitri,
+  "Since I am near my husband; nay, my heart
+  Is set to go as far as to the end;
+  But hear these other verses, if thou wilt:--
+
+  _"By that sunlit name thou bearest,
+  Thou, Vaivaswata! art dearest;
+  Those that as their Lord proclaim thee,
+  King of Righteousness do name thee:
+  Better than themselves the wise
+  Trust the righteous. Each relies
+  Most upon the good, and makes
+  Friendship with them. Friendship takes
+  Fear from hearts; yet friends betray,
+  In good men we may trust alway."_
+
+  "Sweet lady," Yama said, "never were words
+  Spoke better; never truer heard by ear;
+  Lo! I am pleased with thee. Except this soul,
+  Ask one gift yet again, and get thee home."
+
+  "I ask thee then," quickly the Princess cried,
+  "Sons, many sons, born of my body; boys;
+  Satyavan's children; lovely, valiant, strong;
+  Continuers of their line. Grant this, kind God."
+
+  "I grant it," Yama answered; "thou shalt bear
+  These sons thy heart desireth, valiant, strong.
+  Therefore go back, that years be given thee.
+  Too long a path thou treadest, dark and rough."
+
+  But sweeter than before, the Princess sang:--
+
+  _"In paths of peace and virtue
+  Always the good remain;
+  And sorrow shall not stay with them,
+  Nor long access of pain;
+  At meeting or at parting
+  Joys to their bosom strike;
+  For good to good is friendly,
+  And virtue loves her like.
+  The great sun goes his journey
+  By their strong truth impelled;
+  By their pure lives and penances
+  Is earth itself upheld;
+  Of all which live and shall live
+  Upon its hills and fields,
+  Pure hearts are the protectors,
+  For virtue saves and shields.
+
+  "Never are noble spirits
+  Poor while their like survive;
+  True love has gems to render,
+  And virtue wealth to give.
+  Never is lost or wasted
+  The goodness of the good;
+  Never against a mercy,
+  Against a right, it stood;
+  And seeing this, that virtue
+  Is always friend to all,
+  The virtuous and true-hearted,
+  Men their protectors call."_
+
+  "Line for line, Princess, as thou sangest so,"
+  Quoth Yama, "all that lovely praise of good,
+  Grateful to hallowed minds, lofty in sound,
+  And couched in dulcet numbers--word by word--
+  Dearer thou grew'st to me. O thou great heart,
+  Perfect and firm! ask any boon from me,--
+  Ask an incomparable boon!"
+
+                              She cried
+  Swiftly, no longer stayed: "Not Heaven I crave,
+  Nor heavenly joys, nor bliss incomparable,
+  Hard to be granted, even by thee; but him,
+  My sweet lord's life, without which I am dead;
+  Give me that gift of gifts! I will not take
+  Aught less without him,--not one boon--no praise,
+  No splendors, no rewards,--not even those sons
+  Whom thou didst promise. Ah, thou wilt not now
+  Bear hence the father of them and my hope!
+  Make thy free word good; give me Satyavan
+  Alive once more."
+
+  And thereupon the God--
+  The Lord of Justice, high Vaivaswata--
+  Loosened the noose and freed the Prince's soul,
+  And gave it to the lady, saying this,
+  With eyes grown tender: "See, thou sweetest queen
+  Of women, brightest jewel of thy kind!
+  Here is thy husband. He shall live and reign
+  Side by side with thee, saved by thee,--in peace
+  And fame and wealth, and health, many long years,
+  For pious sacrifices world-renowned.
+  Boys shalt thou bear to him, as I did grant,--
+  Kshatriya kings, fathers of kings to be,
+  Sustainers of thy line. Also thy sire
+  Shall see his name upheld by sons of sons,
+  Like the immortals, valiant, Malavas."
+
+                          ARNOLD: _Indian Idylls._
+
+
+
+
+FROM "THE GREAT JOURNEY."
+
+
+The shadow of the Great War hung over King Yudhi-sthira, whose reign was
+one long succession of gloomy events, culminating in the death of the
+blind Raja and his wife in a jungle fire, and the destruction of the
+capital city of Krishna because of the dissipation of its inhabitants.
+
+  On tidings of the wreck of Vrishni's race,
+  King Yudhi-sthira of the Pandavas
+  Was minded to be done with earthly things,
+  And to Arjuna spake: "O noble prince,
+  Time endeth all; we linger, noose on neck,
+  Till the last day tightens the line, and kills.
+  Let us go forth to die, being yet alive."
+  And Kunti's son, the great Arjuna, said:
+  "Let us go forth! Time slayeth all.
+  We will find Death, who seeketh other men."
+  And Bhimasena, hearing, answered: "Yea,
+  We will find Death!" and Sahadev cried: "Yea!"
+  And his twin brother Nakalu; whereat
+  The princes set their faces for the Mount.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  So ordering ere he went, the righteous King
+  Made offering of white water, heedfully,
+  To Vasudev, to Rama, and the rest,--
+  All funeral rites performing; next he spread
+  A funeral feast....
+
+  And all the people cried, "Stay with us, Lord!"
+  But Yudhi-sthira knew his time was come,
+  Knew that life passes and that virtue lasts,
+  And put aside their love....
+
+  So, with farewells
+  Tenderly took of lieges and of lords,
+  Girt he for travel with his princely kin,
+  Great Yudhi-sthira, Dharma's royal son.
+  Crest-gem and belt and ornaments he stripped
+  From off his body, and for broidered robe
+  A rough dress donned, woven of jungle bark;
+  And what he did--O Lord of men!--so did
+  Arjuna, Bhima, and the twin-born pair,
+  Nakalu with Sahadev, and she,--in grace
+  The peerless,--Draupadi. Lastly those six,--
+  Thou son of Bharata!--in solemn form
+  Made the high sacrifice of Naishtiki,
+  Quenching their flames in water at the close;
+  And so set forth, midst wailing of all folk
+  And tears of women, weeping most to see
+  The Princess Draupadi--that lovely prize
+  Of the great gaming, Draupadi the Bright--
+  Journeying afoot; but she and all the five
+  Rejoiced because their way lay heavenward.
+
+  Seven were they, setting forth,--Princess and King,
+  The King's four brothers and a faithful dog.
+  Those left Hastinapur; but many a man,
+  And all the palace household, followed them
+  The first sad stage: and ofttimes prayed to part,
+
+  Put parting off for love and pity, still
+  Sighing, "A little farther!" till day waned;
+  Then one by one they turned.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+                                 Thus wended they,
+  Pandu's five sons and loveliest Draupadi,
+  Taking no meat and journeying due east,
+  On righteousness their high hearts fed, to heaven
+  Their souls assigned; and steadfast trod their feet--
+  By faith upborne--past nullah ran, and wood,
+  River and jheel and plain. King Yudhi-sthir
+  Walked foremost, Bhima followed, after him
+  Arjuna, and the twin-born brethren next,
+  Nakalu with Sahadev; in whose still steps--
+  O Best of Bharat's offspring!--Draupadi,
+  That gem of women paced, with soft dark face,--
+  Clear-edged like lotus petals; last the dog
+  Following the Pandavas.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+                      While yet those heroes walked,
+  Now to the northward banding, where long coasts
+  Shut in the sea of salt, now to the north,
+  Accomplishing all quarters, journeyed they;
+  The earth their altar of high sacrifice,
+  Which these most patient feet did pace around
+  Till Meru rose.
+
+                    At last it rose! These Six,
+  Their senses subjugate, their spirits pure,
+  Wending along, came into sight--far off
+  In the eastern sky--of awful Himavat;
+  And midway in the peaks of Himavat,
+  Meru, the mountain of all mountains, rose,
+  Whose head is heaven; and under Himavat
+  Glared a wide waste of sand, dreadful as death.
+
+  Then, as they hastened o'er the deathly waste,
+  Aiming for Meru, having thoughts at soul
+  Infinite, eager,--lo! Draupadi reeled,
+  With faltering heart and feet; and Bhima turned,
+  Gazing upon her; and that hero spake
+  To Yudhi-sthira: "Master, Brother, King!
+  Why doth she fail? For never all her life
+  Wrought our sweet lady one thing wrong, I think.
+  Thou knowest; make us know, why hath she failed?"
+
+  Then Yudhi-sthira answered: "Yea, one thing.
+  She loved our brothers better than all else,--
+  Better than Heaven: that was her tender sin,
+  Fault of a faultless soul: she pays for that."
+
+  So spake the monarch, turning not his eyes,
+  Though Draupadi lay dead,--striding straight on
+  For Meru, heart-full of the things of Heaven,
+  Perfect and firm. But yet a little space
+  And Sahadev fell down; which Bhima seeing,
+  Cried once again: "O King, great Madri's son
+  Stumbles and sinks. Why hath he sunk?--so true,
+  So brave and steadfast, and so free from pride!"
+
+  "He was not free," with countenance still fixed,
+  Quoth Yudhi-sthira; "he was true and fast
+  And wise; yet wisdom made him proud; he hid
+  One little hurt of soul, but now it kills."
+
+  So saying, he strode on, Kunti's strong son,
+  And Bhima; and Arjuna followed him,
+  And Nakalu and the hound; leaving behind
+  Sahadev in the sands. But Nakalu,
+  Weakened and grieved to see Sahadev fall--
+  His dear-loved brother--lagged and stayed; and then
+  Prone on his face he fell, that noble face
+  Which had no match for beauty in the land,--
+  Glorious and godlike Nakalu! Then sighed
+  Bhima anew: "Brother and Lord! the man
+  Who never erred from virtue, never broke
+  Our fellowship, and never in the world
+  Was matched for goodly perfectness of form
+  Or gracious feature,--Nakalu has fallen!"
+
+  But Yudhi-sthira, holding fixed his eyes,--
+  That changeless, faithful, all-wise king,--replied:
+  "Yea, but he erred! The god-like form he wore
+  Beguiled him to believe none like to him,
+  And he alone desirable, and things
+  Unlovely, to be slighted. Self-love slays
+  Our noble brother. Bhima, follow! Each
+  Pays what his debt was."
+
+                            Which Arjuna heard,
+  Weeping to see them fall; and that stout son
+  Of Pandu, that destroyer of his foes,
+  That Prince, who drove through crimson waves of war,
+  In old days, with his milk-white chariot-steeds,
+  Him, the arch hero, sank! Beholding this,--
+  The yielding of that soul unconquerable,
+
+  Fearless, divine, from Sakra's self derived,
+  Arjuna's--Bhima cried aloud: "O King!
+  This man was surely perfect. Never once,
+  Not even in slumber, when the lips are loosed,
+  Spake he one word that was not true as truth.
+  Ah, heart of gold! why art thou broke? O King!
+  Whence falleth he?"
+
+                        And Yudhi-sthira said,
+  Not pausing: "Once he lied, a lordly lie!
+  He bragged--our brother--that a single day
+  Should see him utterly consume, alone,
+  All those his enemies,--which could not be.
+  Yet from a great heart sprang the unmeasured speech,
+  Howbeit a finished hero should not shame
+  Himself in such a wise, nor his enemy,
+  If he will faultless fight and blameless die:
+  This was Arjuna's sin. Follow thou me!"
+
+  So the King still went on. But Bhima next
+  Fainted, and stayed upon the way, and sank;
+  But, sinking, cried behind the steadfast Prince:
+  "Ah, Brother, see! I die! Look upon me,
+  Thy well beloved! Wherefore falter I,
+  Who strove to stand?"
+
+                          And Yudhi-sthira said:
+  "More than was well the goodly things of earth
+  Pleased thee, my pleasant brother! Light the offence
+  And large thy spirit; but the o'erfed soul
+  Plumed itself over others. Pritha's son,
+  For this thou fallest, who so near didst gain."
+
+  Thenceforth alone the long-armed monarch strode,
+  Not looking back,--nay, not for Bhima's sake,--
+  But walking with his face set for the Mount;
+  And the hound followed him,--only the hound.
+
+  After the deathly sands, the Mount! and lo!
+  Sakra shone forth,--the God,--filling the earth
+  And Heavens with the thunders of his chariot wheels.
+  "Ascend," he said, "with me, Pritha's great son!"
+  But Yudhi-sthira answered, sore at heart
+  For those his kinsfolk, fallen on the way:
+  "O Thousand-eyed, O Lord of all the gods,
+  Give that my brothers come with me, who fell!
+  Not without them is Swarga sweet to me.
+  She too, the dear and kind and queenly,--she
+  Whose perfect virtue Paradise must crown,--
+  Grant her to come with us! Dost thou grant this?"
+
+  The God replied: "In Heaven thou shalt see
+  Thy kinsmen and the Queen--these will attain--
+  And Krishna. Grieve no longer for thy dead,
+  Thou chief of men! their mortal coverings stripped,
+  These have their places; but to thee, the gods
+  Allow an unknown grace: thou shalt go up,
+  Living and in thy form, to the immortal homes."
+
+  But the King answered: "O thou wisest One,
+  Who know'st what was, and is, and is to be,
+  Still one more grace! This hound hath ate with me,
+  Followed me, loved me; must I leave him now?"
+
+  "Monarch," spake Indra, "thou art now as we,--
+  Deathless, divine; thou art become a god;
+  Glory and power and gifts celestial,
+  And all the joys of heaven are thine for aye:
+  What hath a beast with these? Leave here thy hound."
+
+  Yet Yudhi-sthira answered: "O Most High,
+  O Thousand-Eyed and Wisest! can it be
+  That one exalted should seem pitiless?
+  Nay, let me lose such glory: for its sake
+  I cannot leave one living thing I loved."
+
+  Then sternly Indra spake: "He is unclean,
+  And into Swarga such shall enter not.
+  The Krodhavasha's wrath destroys the fruits
+  Of sacrifice, if dog defile the fire.
+  Bethink thee, Dharmaraj; quit now this beast!
+  That which is seemly is not hard of heart."
+
+  Still he replied: "'Tis written that to spurn
+  A suppliant equals in offence to slay
+  A twice-born; wherefore, not for Swarga's bliss
+  Quit I, Mahendra, this poor clinging dog,--
+  So without any hope or friend save me.
+  So wistful, fawning for my faithfulness;
+  So agonized to die, unless I help
+  Who among men was called steadfast and just."
+
+  Quoth Indra: "Nay, the altar flame is foul
+  Where a dog passeth; angry angels sweep
+  The ascending smoke aside, and all the fruits
+  Of offering, and the merit of the prayer
+  Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here!
+  He that will enter Heaven must enter pure.
+  Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way,
+  And Krishna, and the dear-loved Draupadi,
+  Attaining firm and glorious to this Mount
+  Through perfect deeds, to linger for a brute?
+  Hath Yudhi-sthira vanquished self, to melt
+  With one pure passion at the door of bliss?
+  Stay'st thou for this, who did not stay for them,--
+  Draupadi, Bhima?"
+
+                     But the King yet spake:
+  "'T is known that none can hurt or help the dead.
+  They, the delightful ones, who sank and died.
+  Following my footsteps, could not live again
+  Though I had turned--therefore I did not turn;
+  But could help profit, I had stayed to help.
+  There be four sins, O Sakra, grievous sins:
+  The first is making suppliants despair,
+  The second is to slay a nursing wife,
+  The third is spoiling Brahmans' goods by force,
+  The fourth is injuring an ancient friend.
+  These four I deem not direr than the crime,
+  If one, in coming forth from woe to weal,
+  Abandon any meanest comrade then."
+
+  Straight as he spake, brightly great Indra smiled;
+  Vanished the hound, and in its stead stood there
+  The Lord of Death and Justice, Dharma's self!
+  Sweet were the words which fell from those dread lips,
+  Precious the lovely praise: "O thou true King,
+  Thou that dost bring to harvest the good seed
+  Of Pandu's righteousness; thou that hast ruth
+  As he before, on all which lives!--O Son!
+
+  "Hear thou my word! Because thou didst not mount
+  This car divine, lest the poor hound be shent
+  Who looked to thee, lo! there is none in heaven
+  Shall sit above thee, King! Bharata's son!
+  Enter thou now to the eternal joys,
+  Living and in thy form. Justice and Love
+  Welcome thee, Monarch! thou shalt throne with us!"
+                         ARNOLD: _Indian Idylls_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ILIAD.
+
+
+The Iliad, or story of the fall of Ilium (Troy), is supposed to have been
+written by Homer, about the tenth century B. C. The legendary history of
+Homer represents him as a schoolmaster and poet of Smyrna, who while
+visiting in Ithaca became blind, and afterwards spent his life travelling
+from place to place reciting his poems, until he died in Ios. Seven
+cities, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylos, Argos, and Athens, claimed
+to be his birthplace.
+
+In 1795, Wolf, a German scholar, published his "Prolegomena," which set
+forth his theory that Homer was a fictitious character, and that the Iliad
+was made up of originally unconnected poems, collected and combined by
+Pisistratus.
+
+Though for a time the Wolfian theory had many advocates, it is now
+generally conceded that although the stories of the fall of Troy were
+current long before Homer, they were collected and recast into one poem by
+some great poet. That the Iliad is the work of one man is clearly shown by
+its unity, its sustained simplicity of style, and the centralization of
+interest in the character of Achilles.
+
+The destruction of Troy, for a time regarded as a poetic fiction, is now
+believed by many scholars to be an actual historical event which took
+place about the time of the AEolian migration.
+
+The whole story of the fall of Troy is not related in the Iliad, the poem
+opening nine years after the beginning of the war, and closing with the
+death of Hector.
+
+The Iliad is divided into twenty-four books, and contains nineteen
+thousand four hundred and sixty-five lines.
+
+As a work of art the Iliad has never been excelled; moreover, it possesses
+what all works of art do not,--"the touches of things human" that make it
+ours, although the centuries lie between us and its unknown author, who
+told his stirring story in such swift-moving verses, with such touches of
+pathos and humor, and with such evident joy of living. Another evidence of
+the perfection of Homer's art is that while his heroes are perfect types
+of Greeks and Trojans, they are also typical men, and for that reason,
+still keep their hold upon us. It is this human interest, simplicity of
+style, and grandeur of treatment that have rendered Homer immortal and his
+work imperishable.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ILIAD.
+
+M. Arnold's Essay on Homer, 1876, pp. 284-425;
+
+H. Bonitz's Origin of the Homeric Poems, tr. 1880;
+
+R. C. Jebb's Introduction to Homer, 1887;
+
+F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 7-17;
+
+A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893;
+
+W. Leaf's Companion to the Iliad for English Readers, 1892;
+
+J. A. Symonds's Studies in Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ILIAD.
+
+The Iliad, Tr. into English blank verse by W. C. Bryant, 2 vols., 1871
+(Primitive in spirit, like Homer. Union of literalness with simplicity);
+
+The Iliad, Tr. according to the Greek with introduction and notes by
+George Chapman [1615], Ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874 (Written in verse. Pope says a
+daring and fiery spirit animates this translation, something like that in
+which one might imagine Homer would have written before he came to years
+of discretion);
+
+The Iliad, Tr. by William Cowper (Very literal and inattentive to melody,
+but has more of simple majesty and manner of Homer than Pope);
+
+The Iliad, rendered into English blank verse by the Earl of Derby, 2
+vols., 1864;
+
+The Iliad, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by the Rev. T. W. A. Buckley,
+n. d. (Written in couplets. Highly ornamented paraphrase).
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ILIAD.
+
+
+For nine years a fleet of one thousand one hundred and eighty-six ships
+and an army of more than one hundred thousand Greeks, under the command of
+Agamemnon, lay before King Priam's city of Troy to avenge the wrongs of
+Menelaus, King of Sparta, and to reclaim Helen, his wife, who had been
+carried away by Priam's son Paris, at the instigation of Venus.
+
+Though they had not succeeded in taking Troy, the Greeks had conquered
+many of the surrounding cities. From one of these, Agamemnon had taken as
+his share of the booty Chryseis, the beautiful daughter of the priest
+Chryses; and when her father had come to ransom her, he had been insulted
+and driven away by the king. Chryses had prayed to Apollo for revenge, and
+the god had sent upon the Greeks a pestilence which was slaying so many
+thousands that a meeting was called to consult upon what to do to check
+the plague and conciliate the god.
+
+Calchas the seer had declared that the plague was sent because of the
+detention of Chryseis, and Agamemnon, though indignant with the priest,
+announced that he would send her back to save his army from destruction.
+"Note, however," said he, "that I have now given up my booty. See that I
+am recompensed for what I lose."
+
+Then rose the leader of the Myrmidons, swift-footed Achilles, in his
+wrath, and denounced Agamemnon for his greediness.
+
+"Thou hast ever had thy share and more of all the booty, and thou knowest
+well that there is now no common store from which to give thee spoil. But
+wait until Troy town is sacked, and we will gladly give thee three and
+fourfold thy recompense."
+
+The angry Agamemnon declared that if he were not given the worth of what
+he had lost he would seize the maidens of Ajax and Ulysses, or Achilles'
+maid, Briseis.
+
+Achilles was beside himself with rage. He had not come to Troy to
+contribute to Agamemnon's glory. He and his followers had long borne the
+brunt of battle only to see the largest share of booty given to Agamemnon,
+who lay idle in his ships. Sooner than endure longer such indignity he
+would return home to Phthia.
+
+"Go!" replied Agamemnon. "I detest thee and thy ways. Go back over the sea
+and rule over thy Myrmidons. But since Phoebus has taken away my maid, I
+will carry off thy prize, thy rosy-cheeked Briseis, that thou may'st learn
+that I am indeed king."
+
+Warned by Pallas Athene, Achilles took his hand from his sword hilt, and
+contented himself with telling Agamemnon that he would see the day when he
+would fret to think he had driven Achilles from the Grecian ranks.
+
+Though the persuasive orator, Nestor, endeavored to make peace between the
+chiefs, Agamemnon could not be softened. As soon as the black ship bearing
+Chryseis set sail, he sent his unwilling men to where Achilles sat by his
+tent, beside the barren deep, to take the fair Briseis, whom Achilles
+ordered to be led forth to them. Then the long days dragged by in the tent
+where the chief sat eating his heart out in idleness, while his men
+engaged in athletic sports, and the rest of the Greeks fought before Troy.
+
+Both armies, worn out with indecisive battles, gladly hailed Hector's
+proposal that a combat between Paris and Menelaus should decide the war.
+
+As the armies stood in silence, watching the preparations for the combat,
+Helen, summoned by Iris, left her room in Priam's palace, where she was
+weaving among her maidens, and, robed and veiled in white, and shedding
+tears at the recollection of her former home and husband, went down to the
+Scaean gates, where sat Priam and the men too old for war. When they saw
+bright-haired Helen they whispered among themselves that it was little
+wonder that men warred for her sake, so fair was she, so like unto the
+deathless goddesses.
+
+In response to Priam's tender greeting she seated herself beside him and
+pointed out the Greek heroes,--Agamemnon, ruler over wide lands, crafty
+Ulysses, and the mighty Ajax; but she strained her eyes in vain for a
+sight of her dearly loved brothers, Castor and Pollux, not knowing that
+they already lay dead in pleasant Lacedaemon.
+
+In the single combat between Paris and Menelaus, the spear of the Greek
+was fixed in Paris's buckler, and his sword was shivered on his helmet
+without injury to the Trojan. But, determined to overcome his hateful foe,
+Menelaus seized Paris by the helm and dragged him towards the Grecian
+ranks. Great glory would have been his had not the watchful Venus loosed
+the helm and snatched away the god-like Paris in a cloud. While the Greeks
+demanded Helen and her wealth as the price of Menelaus's victory,
+Pandarus, prompted by Pallas, broke the truce by a shot aimed at Menelaus,
+and the battle soon raged with greater fury than before.
+
+Diomed, having received new strength and courage from Pallas, rushed madly
+over the field, falling upon the affrighted Trojans like a lion in the
+sheepfold; then, made more presumptuous by his success, and forgetful of
+the few years promised the man who dares to meet the gods in battle, the
+arrogant warrior struck at Venus and wounded her in the wrist, so that,
+shrieking with pain, she yielded AEneas to Apollo, and fled to Olympus.
+
+Perceiving that the Trojans were unable to withstand the fury of Diomed,
+assisted as he was by Pallas and Juno, Hector hastened homeward to order a
+sacrifice to Pallas that she might look with more favor upon their cause.
+
+Having instructed his mother to lay her richest robe on Pallas's shrine,
+Hector sought his wife, the white-armed Andromache, and their babe,
+Astyanax. Andromache entreated Hector to go forth no more to battle, to
+lose his life and leave their babe fatherless; but Hector, upon whom the
+cares of war sat heavily, bade her a tender farewell, and kissing the
+babe, returned with Paris to the field.
+
+Incited by Pallas and Apollo, Helenus suggested to his brother Hector that
+he should challenge the bravest of the Greeks to single combat. The lot
+fell to Ajax the Greater, and the two mighty heroes contested with spears
+and stones until twilight fell, and they were parted by a herald.
+
+That night the Greeks feasted, and when, the next morning, a Trojan
+messenger offered them the treasures of Helen if they would withdraw from
+Troy, and proposed a truce, they indignantly rejected the offer, declaring
+that they would not even accept Helen herself, but agreed upon a truce in
+which to bury the dead.
+
+When the battle was renewed, Jupiter forbade the gods to take part.
+Opposed by no celestial foes, the Trojans were this day successful, and
+having pursued the Greeks to the ships, sat all night, full of hope,
+around their thousand watch fires, waiting for the morn.
+
+In the Grecian camp, however, a different scene was being enacted.
+Disheartened by their defeat, Agamemnon proposed that the armies give up
+the siege and return to Greece.
+
+Angry at his weakness, Diomed thus reproached him:--
+
+"The gods have granted thee high rank and rule, but thou hast no
+fortitude. Return if thou desirest. Still enough long-haired Achaians will
+remain to take the city. If they desire to go as well, at least Sthenelus
+and I will remain until Troy is ours. We have the gods with us."
+
+At the suggestion of Nestor a banquet was spread, and after the hunger of
+all was appeased, the peril of the Greeks was discussed in the Council of
+the Elders. Here Nestor showed Agamemnon that the trouble began at the
+hour when he drove Achilles from their ranks by appropriating Briseis.
+
+Ill fortune had humbled the haughty Agamemnon, and he confessed that he
+had done wrong. "For this wrong, however," said he, "I am ready to make
+ample amends. Priceless gifts I will send to Achilles: seven tripods, six
+talents of pure gold, twenty shining caldrons, twelve steeds, seven
+damsels, among them Briseis; not only this, when Priam's citadel falls, he
+shall be the first to load his galley down with gold and silver and with
+Trojan maidens. Better yet, I will unite him to me by the ties of
+marriage. I will give him my daughter for a wife, and with her for a dower
+will go seven cities near the sea, rich in flocks and herds. Then let him
+yield, and join us in taking Troy."
+
+Joyfully the messengers--Ajax, Ulysses, and the aged Phoenix, carefully
+instructed by Nestor--set forth on their embassy. As they neared the tents
+of the Myrmidons their ears were struck by the notes of a silver harp
+touched by Achilles to solace him in his loneliness. His friend Patroclus
+sat beside him in silence. Achilles and Patroclus greeted the messengers
+warmly, mingled the pure wine, and spread a feast for them. This over,
+Ulysses, at a nod from Ajax, drank to Achilles' health, and then told him
+of the sore need of the Greeks, pressed by the Trojans. If he did not come
+to their aid, he whose very name frightened the enemy, the time would
+surely come when he would greatly lament his idleness.
+
+Achilles' passion, the greater for its fifteen days' repression, burst
+forth in his reply: "I will say what I have in my heart," he cried, "since
+concealment is hateful to me. What thanks does the victor in countless
+battles gain? He and the idler are equally honored, and die the same
+death. Many nights' slumber have I lost on the battle field; many cities
+have I conquered, abroad and here upon the Trojan coast, and of the spoil,
+the greater part has gone to Agamemnon, who sat idle in his fleet; yet
+from me, who suffered much in fighting, he took my prize, my dearly loved
+Briseis; now let him keep her. Let him learn for himself how to conquer
+Hector,--this Hector, who, when I went out against him, was afraid to
+leave the shelter of the Scaean gates. To-morrow, if you but watch, you
+will see my galleys sailing upon the Hellespont on our return to Phthia.
+Evil was the hour in which I left its fertile coasts for this barren
+shore, where my mother Thetis foretold I should win deathless renown but
+bitter death.
+
+"Tell Agamemnon that I will never wed a child of his. On my return to
+Phthia my father will select a bride for me with whom, on his broad
+fields, I can live the life I have dreamed of."
+
+The entreaties of the aged Phoenix, who had helped to rear Achilles, and
+his arguments against his mercilessness, were of no avail; neither were
+the words of Ajax. However, he at last sent the message that he would
+remain by the sea watching the course of the war, and that he would
+encounter Hector whenever he approached to set fire to the galleys of the
+Myrmidons.
+
+That night sleep did not visit the eyes of Agamemnon. Long he reflected on
+the reply of Achilles, and wondered at the watch fires on the plain before
+Troy. The other chiefs were likewise full of anxiety, and when Nestor
+offered a reward to any one who would go as a spy to the Trojan camp,
+Diomed quickly volunteered. Selecting the wary Ulysses as his companion,
+he stole forth to where the Trojans sat around their camp fires. The pair
+intercepted and slew Dolon the spy, and finding Rhesus and his Thracian
+band wrapped in slumber, slew the king with twelve of his chiefs, and
+carried away his chariot and horses.
+
+Encouraged by this bold deed, the Greeks went forth to battle the next
+morning. Fortune still favored the Trojans, however, and many Greeks fell
+by the hand of Hector, until he was checked by Ulysses and Diomed. In the
+fight, Agamemnon was wounded, and Diomed, Ulysses, and Machaon. And when
+Achilles from his tent saw the physician borne back from battle wounded,
+in the chariot of Nestor, he sent Patroclus to inquire of his injury.
+Nestor sent word that Ulysses, Agamemnon, Diomed, Machaon, and Eurypylus
+were wounded; perhaps these tidings would induce Achilles to forget his
+grievances, and once more go forth to battle. If not, he urged Patroclus
+to beseech Achilles to permit him, Patroclus, to go forth with the
+Myrmidons, clad in Achilles' armor, and strike terror to the hearts of the
+Trojans.
+
+The Trojans, encouraged by their success, pushed forward to the trench
+which the Greeks had dug around the wall thrown up before the ships, and,
+leaving their chariots on the brink, went on foot to the gates. After a
+long struggle,--because the Trojans could not break down the wall and the
+Greeks could not drive back the Trojans,--Hector seized a mighty stone, so
+large that two men could scarcely lift it, and bearing it in one hand,
+battered the bolted gates until they gave way with a crash; and the
+Trojans sprang within, pursuing the affrighted Greeks to the ships.
+
+From the heights of Olympus the gods kept a strict watch on the battle;
+and as soon as Neptune discovered that Jove, secure in the belief that no
+deity would interfere with the successful Trojans, had turned away his
+eyes, he went to the aid of the Greeks. Juno, also, furious at the sight
+of the Greeks who had fallen before the mighty Hector, determined to turn
+the attention of Jove until Neptune had had an opportunity to assist the
+Greeks. Jove sat upon the peaks of Mount Ida, and thither went Juno, after
+rendering herself irresistible by borrowing the cestus of Venus. Jove,
+delighted with the appearance of his wife, and still further won by her
+tender words and caresses, thought no longer of the armies fighting at the
+Grecian wall.
+
+Great was his anger when, after a time, he again looked towards Troy and
+saw that Neptune had employed his time in aiding the Greeks, and that
+Hector had been wounded by Ajax. By his orders Neptune was quickly
+recalled, Hector was healed by Apollo, and the Trojans, strengthened again
+by Jupiter, drove back the Greeks to the ships, and attempted to set fire
+to the fleet.
+
+Seeing the Greeks in such desperate straits, Achilles at last gave his
+consent that Patroclus should put on his armor, take his Myrmidons, and
+drive the Trojans from the ships, stipulating, however, that he should
+return when this was done, and not follow the Trojans in their flight to
+Troy.
+
+The appearance of the supposed Achilles struck fear to the hearts of the
+Trojans, and Patroclus succeeded in driving them from the fleet and in
+slaying Sarpedon. Intoxicated by his success, he forgot Achilles' warning,
+and pursued the fleeing Trojans to the walls of Troy. The strength of the
+Trojans was not sufficient to cope with that of Patroclus; and Troy would
+have been taken had not Apollo stood upon a tower to thrust him down each
+time he attempted to scale the walls. At last Hector and Patroclus
+encountered each other, and fought furiously. Seeing the peril of Hector,
+Apollo smote Patroclus's helmet off, broke his spear, and loosed his
+buckler. Still undaunted, the hero fought until he fell, and died with the
+boasting words of Hector in his ears.
+
+Speedily the swift-footed Antilochus conveyed to Achilles the tidings of
+his friend's death. Enveloped in "a black cloud of sorrow," Achilles
+rolled in the dust and lamented for his friend until warned by Iris that
+the enemy were about to secure Patroclus's body. Then, without armor,--for
+Hector had secured that of Patroclus and put it on,--he hastened to the
+trench, apart from the other Greeks, and shouted thrice, until the men of
+Troy, panic-stricken, fell back in disorder, and the body of his friend
+was carried away by the triumphant Greeks.
+
+Through the long night the Achaians wept over Patroclus; but deeper than
+their grief was the sorrow of Achilles, for he had promised Menoetius to
+bring back his son in honor, laden with spoils, and now the barren coast
+of Troy would hold the ashes of both. Then Achilles made a solemn vow not
+to celebrate the funeral rites of Patroclus until he brought to him the
+head and arms of Hector, and had captured on the field twelve Trojan
+youths to slaughter on his funeral pile. The hated Hector slain and
+Patroclus's funeral rites celebrated, he cared not for the future. The
+fate his mother had foretold did not daunt him. Since, by his own folly,
+his dearest friend had been taken from him, the sooner their ashes rested
+together the better. If he was not to see the rich fields of Phthia, his
+was to be, at least, a deathless renown.
+
+To take the place of the arms which Hector had taken from Patroclus,
+Vulcan, at Thetis's request, had fashioned for Achilles the most beautiful
+armor ever worn by man. Brass, tin, silver, and gold composed the bright
+corselet, the solid helm, and the wondrous shield, adorned with such
+pictures as no mortal artist ever wrought.
+
+After having feasted his eyes on this beautiful armor, whose clanking
+struck terror even to the hearts of the Myrmidons, Achilles sought out the
+Greeks and Agamemnon, and in the assembly acknowledged his fault. "Let
+these things belong to the dead past," said he. "My wrath is done. Let us
+now stir the long-haired Greeks to war."
+
+"Fate, not I, was the cause of our trouble," replied Agamemnon. "The
+goddess of discord created the dissension, that Ate who troubled even the
+gods on Olympus until expelled by Jupiter. But I will make amends with
+liberal gifts."
+
+Peace having been made between the chiefs, Achilles returned to his tent
+without partaking of the banquet spread by Agamemnon, as he had vowed not
+to break his fast until he had avenged his friend. Agamemnon's gifts were
+carried to the tents of Achilles by the Myrmidons, and with them went
+Briseis, who, when she saw the body of Patroclus, threw herself upon it
+and wept long for the one whose kindness to her--whose lot had been sorrow
+upon sorrow--she could never forget. All the women mourned, seemingly for
+Patroclus, really for their own griefs. Achilles likewise wept, until,
+strengthened by Pallas, he hastened to put his armor on and urge the
+Greeks to battle.
+
+As he mounted his chariot he spoke thus to his fleet steeds, Xanthus and
+Balius: "Bring me back when the battle is over, I charge you, my noble
+steeds. Leave me not on the field, as you left Patroclus."
+
+Then Xanthus, with the long-flowing mane, endowed with power of speech by
+Juno, thus spake: "This day, at least, we will bring thee home, Achilles;
+but the hour of thy death is nigh, and, since the fates have decreed it,
+we could not save thee, were we swift as the winged winds. Nor was it
+through fault of ours that Patroclus fell."
+
+Angry at the reminder of his doom, Achilles drove hurriedly to the field,
+determined to fight until he had made the Trojans sick of war.
+
+Knowing that the war was drawing rapidly to a close, Jupiter gave
+permission to the gods to take part in it, and a terrible combat ensued.
+Juno, Pallas, Neptune, Hermes, and Vulcan went to the fleet of the Greeks,
+while Mars, Apollo, Diana, Latona, Venus, and Xanthus arrayed themselves
+with the Trojans. When the gods joined in the combat and Neptune shook the
+earth and Jupiter thundered from above, there was such tumult in the air
+that even the dark god of the underworld was terrified. In the battle of
+the gods, Apollo encountered Neptune, Pallas fought against Mars, Diana
+and Juno opposed each other, Hermes was pitted against Latona, and Xanthus
+or Scamander, the river god, strove against Vulcan. It was not long before
+Jupiter's fear was realized, and the mortals needed the aid of the gods.
+AEneas, encouraged by Apollo to confront Achilles, was rescued only by the
+intervention of Neptune, who, remembering that it was the will of fate
+that AEneas should be spared to perpetuate the Dardan race, snatched him
+away in a cloud, although he was himself aiding the Greeks.
+
+Mad with rage and spattered with blood, Achilles pursued the flying
+Trojans about the plain, sparing none except the twelve youths who were to
+be butchered on the funeral pile of Patroclus. He stood in the river,
+filling it with slaughtered bodies until, indignant at the insults offered
+him, the river god Scamander caused his waters to rush after Achilles so
+that he fled for his life. Far across the plain it chased him, and was
+only stopped by the fires of Vulcan, summoned by Juno.
+
+By an artifice of Apollo, Achilles was decoyed away from the gates of Troy
+long enough to allow the Trojans to enter. Hector, however, stayed
+without, unmoved by the prayers of Priam and Hecuba. Too late he saw his
+error in not heeding the advice of Polydamas to keep within the walls
+after the re-appearance of Achilles; he feared the reproaches of the
+Trojan warriors and dames, and determined to meet his fate, whatever it
+might be. Even death at the hands of Achilles would be preferable to the
+insults and reproaches that might await him within the walls.
+
+When he saw Achilles approach in his god-given armor, fear seized the
+noble Hector, and he fled from his enemy. Thrice around the walls he fled,
+Achilles pursuing, and the gods looked down from heaven in sorrow, for,
+according to the decrees of fate, Hector must fall this day by the hand of
+Achilles. To hasten the combat, Pallas assumed the form of Hector's
+brother Deiphobus, and stood by his side, encouraging him to turn and meet
+his foe.
+
+Hector soon perceived the deception, but boldly faced Achilles, who sprang
+at him, brandishing his awful spear. Quickly stooping, Hector avoided the
+weapon and hurled his spear at Achilles. It was an unequal conflict. The
+armor of Achilles was weapon proof, and Pallas stood at his elbow to
+return to him his weapons. Achilles knew well the weak spots in his old
+armor worn by Hector, and selecting a seam unguarded by the shield, he
+gave Hector a mortal wound, and insulted him as he lay dying at his feet.
+
+Tears and wailing filled the city as the Trojans watched the combat; and
+despair fell upon them when they saw the body of Hector fastened to the
+chariot of Achilles and dragged thrice around the Trojan walls. From her
+chamber where she sat weaving, unaware of the mortal combat waged before
+the walls, Andromache came forth to see great Hector fallen and his corpse
+insulted by his enemy.
+
+While Priam sat in his palace with dust strewn on his head, and the
+wailings of the women filled the streets of Troy, the Greeks were
+hastening to their camps to celebrate the funeral rites of Patroclus,
+whose body had been saved from corruption by Thetis. A massive funeral
+pile was constructed of wood brought from the forests on Mount Ida. The
+chiefs in their chariots and thousands of men on foot followed the body of
+Patroclus. The comrades of the dead warrior cut off their long hair and
+strewed it on the dead, and Achilles sheared his yellow hair and placed
+the locks in Patroclus's hands. He had suffered the flowing curls to grow
+long because of a vow made by his father to the river Sperchius that he
+would sacrifice these locks to him on his son's return home, a useless
+vow, since now he was to lose his life by this dark blue sea.
+
+Next the sacrifice was offered, many fatlings of the flock, and countless
+oxen, noble steeds, dogs, jars of honey, and lastly the bodies of the
+twelve Trojan youths were heaped upon the fire.
+
+After the flames had consumed the pile, Achilles and his friends quenched
+the ashes with red wine, and gathered the bones of Patroclus in a golden
+vase which Achilles commanded his friends not to bury until he, too, fell
+before Troy, that their ashes might be mingled and buried under one mound
+by the remaining Greeks.
+
+After the funeral rites were celebrated, the funeral games were held, in
+which the warriors vied with each other in chariot racing, boxing,
+wrestling, foot racing, throwing the spear, and archery.
+
+So ended the funeral of Patroclus, and the gods, looking down from heaven,
+sorrowed for Hector, whose corpse Achilles was treating with such
+indignity, intending that the dogs should destroy it. The gods had kept
+the body unstained, and now they determined to soften Achilles' heart,
+that he might restore it to Priam.
+
+Iris descended from heaven, and standing at the side of Priam as he sat
+with dust-strewn head, in his palace halls, gave him Jove's command that
+he should take gifts and visit Achilles, to ransom Hector's body. Heeding
+not the prayers of Hecuba, Priam gathered together whatever was most
+choice, talents of pure gold, beautiful goblets, handsome robes and
+tunics, and seating himself in his polished car, drawn by strong-hoofed
+mules, set forth unaccompanied save by an aged herald. Above him soared
+Jove's eagle, in token of the god's protection.
+
+Priam had not gone far when he met Mercury in the guise of a Greek youth,
+who guided him unseen through the slumbering Greek lines to the tent of
+Achilles.
+
+The hero was just finishing his repast when the old king entered, fell on
+his knees, kissed the cruel hands that had slain so many of his sons, and
+prayed him to give up the body of his loved Hector in return for the
+ransom he had brought with him. Achilles, recognizing the fact that Priam
+had made his way there uninjured only by the assistance and protection of
+some god, and touched by the thought of his own aged father, whom he
+should never again gladden by his return to Phthia, granted the request,
+and bade Priam seat himself at the table and banquet with him. He also
+granted a twelve days' truce for the celebration of the funeral rites of
+Hector, and then invited Priam to pass the night in his tent. Warned by
+Mercury, Priam rose early in the morning, and, unseen by the Greeks,
+conveyed Hector's body back to Troy.
+
+When the polished car of Priam entered the city of Troy, great were the
+lamentations and wailings over the body of Hector. Hecuba and Andromache
+vied with each other in the bitterness of their grief, and Helen lamented
+because the only friend she had in Troy had departed, and no one who
+remained would be kind to her.
+
+During the twelve days granted as a truce, wood was brought from Ida, and
+the funeral rites of Hector were celebrated as befitted the son of a great
+king.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE ILIAD.
+
+HELEN AT THE SCAEAN GATES.
+
+
+Paris, moved by the reproaches of Hector, proposed that the nine years'
+indecisive war be settled by single combat between himself and Menelaus,
+the victor to take Helen and the treasure. Greeks and Trojans agreed to
+this proposition, and the tidings of the approaching combat were borne to
+Helen by Iris.
+
+  In the heart of Helen woke
+  Dear recollections of her former spouse
+  And of her home and kindred. Instantly
+  She left her chamber, robed and veiled in white,
+  And shedding tender tears; yet not alone,
+  For with her went two maidens,--Aethra, child
+  Of Pitheus, and the large-eyed Clymene.
+  Straight to the Scaean gates they walked, by which
+  Panthoues, Priam, and Thymoetes sat,
+  Lampus and Clytius, Hicetaon sprung
+  From Mars, Antenor and Ucalegon,
+  Two sages,--elders of the people all.
+  Beside the gates they sat, unapt, through age,
+  For tasks of war, but men of fluent speech,
+  Like the cicadas that within the wood
+  Sit on the trees and utter delicate sounds.
+  Such were the nobles of the Trojan race
+  Who sat upon the tower. But when they marked
+  The approach of Helen, to each other thus
+  With winged words, but in low tones, they said:--
+
+  "Small blame is theirs, if both the Trojan knights
+  And brazen-mailed Achaians have endured
+  So long so many evils for the sake
+  Of that one woman. She is wholly like
+  In feature to the deathless goddesses.
+  So be it: let her, peerless as she is,
+  Return on board the fleet, nor stay to bring
+  Disaster upon us and all our race."
+
+  So spake the elders. Priam meantime called
+  To Helen: "Come, dear daughter, sit by me.
+  Thou canst behold thy former husband hence,
+  Thy kindred and thy friends. I blame thee not;
+  The blame is with the immortals who have sent
+  These pestilent Greeks against me. Sit and name
+  For me this mighty man, the Grecian chief,
+  Gallant and tall. True, there are taller men;
+  But of such noble form and dignity
+  I never saw: in truth, a kingly man."
+
+  And Helen, fairest among women, thus
+  Answered: "Dear second father, whom at once
+  I fear and honor, would that cruel death
+  Had overtaken me before I left,
+  To wander with thy son, my marriage bed,
+  And my dear daughter, and the company
+  Of friends I loved. But that was not to be;
+  And now I pine and weep. Yet will I tell
+  What thou dost ask. The hero whom thou seest
+  Is the wide-ruling Agamemnon, son
+  Of Atreus, and is both a gracious king
+  And a most dreaded warrior. He was once
+  Brother-in-law to me, if I may speak--
+  Lost as I am to shame--of such a tie."
+
+  She said, the aged man admired, and then
+  He spake again: "O son of Atreus, born
+  Under a happy fate, and fortunate
+  Among the sons of men! A mighty host
+  Of Grecian youths obey thy rule. I went
+  To Phrygia once,--that land of vines,--and there
+  Saw many Phrygians, heroes on fleet steeds,
+  The troops of Otreus, and of Mygdon, shaped
+  Like one of the immortals. They encamped
+  By the Sangarius. I was an ally;
+  My troops were ranked with theirs upon the day
+  When came the unsexed Amazons to war.
+  Yet even there I saw not such a host
+  As this of black-eyed Greeks who muster here."
+  Then Priam saw Ulysses, and inquired:--
+  "Dear daughter, tell me also who is that,
+  Less tall than Agamemnon, yet more broad
+  In chest and shoulders. On the teeming earth
+  His armor lies, but he, from place to place,
+  Walks round among the ranks of soldiery,
+  As when the thick-fleeced father of the flocks
+  Moves through the multitude of his white sheep."
+  And Jove-descended Helen answered thus:--
+  "That is Ulysses, man of many arts,
+  Son of Laertes, reared in Ithaca,
+  That rugged isle, and skilled in every form
+  Of shrewd device and action wisely planned."
+  Then spake the sage Antenor: "Thou hast said
+  The truth, O lady. This Ulysses once
+  Came on an embassy, concerning thee,
+  To Troy with Menelaus, great in war;
+  And I received them as my guests, and they
+  Were lodged within my palace, and I learned
+  The temper and the qualities of both.
+  When both were standing 'mid the men of Troy,
+  I marked that Menelaus's broad chest
+  Made him the more conspicuous, but when both
+  Were seated, greater was the dignity
+  Seen in Ulysses. When they both addressed
+  The council, Menelaus briefly spake
+  In pleasing tones, though with few words,--as one
+  Not given to loose and wandering speech,--although
+  The younger. When the wise Ulysses rose,
+  He stood with eyes cast down, and fixed on earth,
+  And neither swayed his sceptre to the right
+  Nor to the left, but held it motionless,
+  Like one unused to public speech. He seemed
+  An idiot out of humor. But when forth
+  He sent from his full lungs his mighty voice,
+  And words came like a fall of winter snow,
+  No mortal then would dare to strive with him
+  For mastery in speech. We less admired
+  The aspect of Ulysses than his words."
+  Beholding Ajax then, the aged king
+  Asked yet again: "Who is that other chief
+  Of the Achaians, tall, and large of limb,--
+  Taller and broader-chested than the rest?"
+  Helen, the beautiful and richly-robed,
+  Answered: "Thou seest the might Ajax there,
+  The bulwark of the Greeks. On the other side,
+  Among his Cretans, stands Idomeneus,
+  Of godlike aspect, near to whom are grouped
+  The leaders of the Cretans. Oftentimes
+  The warlike Menelaus welcomed him
+  Within our palace, when he came from Crete.
+  I could point out and name the other chiefs
+  Of the dark-eyed Achaians. Two alone,
+  Princes among their people, are not seen,--
+  Castor the fearless horseman, and the skilled
+  In boxing, Pollux,--twins; one mother bore
+  Both them and me. Came they not with the rest
+  From pleasant Lacedaemon to the war?
+  Or, having crossed the deep in their goodships,
+  Shun they to fight among the valiant ones
+  Of Greece, because of my reproach and shame?"
+  She spake; but they already lay in earth
+  In Lacedaemon, their dear native land.
+
+                            _Bryants Translation, Book III._
+
+
+
+
+THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
+
+
+The single combat between Paris and Menelaus broke up in a general battle
+unfavorable to the Trojans, and Hector returned to Troy to order the
+Trojan matrons to sacrifice to Pallas. He then sought his dwelling to
+greet his wife and child, but learned from one of the maids that
+Andromache, on hearing that the Greeks were victorious, had hastened to
+the city walls with the child and its nurse,
+
+  Hector left in haste
+  The mansion, and retraced his way between
+  The rows of stately dwellings, traversing
+  The mighty city. When at length he reached
+  The Scaean gates, that issue on the field,
+  His spouse, the nobly-dowered Andromache,
+  Came forth to meet him,--daughter of the prince
+  Eetion, who among the woody slopes
+  Of Placos, in the Hypoplacian town
+  Of Thebe, ruled Cilicia and her sons,
+  And gave his child to Hector great in arms.
+  She came attended by a maid, who bore
+  A tender child--a babe too young to speak--
+  Upon her bosom,--Hector's only son,
+  Beautiful as a star, whom Hector called
+  Scamandrius, but all else Astyanax,--
+  The city's lord,--since Hector stood the sole
+  Defence of Troy. The father on his child
+  Looked with a silent smile. Andromache
+  Pressed to his side meanwhile, and, all in tears,
+  Clung to his hand, and, thus beginning, said:--
+
+  "Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death.
+  Thou hast no pity on thy tender child
+  Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be
+  Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee
+  To take thy life. A happier lot were mine,
+  If I must lose thee, to go down to earth,
+  For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,--
+  Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none,
+  And no dear mother. Great Achilles slew
+  My father when he sacked the populous town
+  Of the Cilicians,--Thebe with high gates.
+  'T was there he smote Eetion, yet forbore
+  To make his arms a spoil; he dared not that,
+  But burned the dead with his bright armor on,
+  And raised a mound above him. Mountain-nymphs,
+  Daughters of aegis-bearing Jupiter,
+  Came to the spot and planted it with elms.
+  Seven brothers had I in my father's house,
+  And all went down to Hades in one day.
+  Achilles the swift-footed slew them all
+  Among their slow-paced bullocks and white sheep.
+  My mother, princess on the woody slopes
+  Of Placos, with his spoils he bore away,
+  And only for large ransom gave her back.
+  But her Diana, archer-queen, struck down
+  Within her father's palace. Hector, thou
+  Art father and dear mother now to me,
+  And brother and my youthful spouse besides.
+  In pity keep within the fortress here,
+  Nor make thy child an orphan nor thy wife
+  A widow. Post thine army near the place
+  Of the wild fig-tree, where the city-walls
+  Are low and may be scaled. Thrice in war
+  The boldest of the foe have tried the spot,--
+  The Ajaces and the famed Idomeneus,
+  The two chiefs born to Atreus, and the brave
+  Tydides, whether counselled by some seer
+  Or prompted to the attempt by their own minds."
+
+  Then answered Hector, great in war: "All this
+  I bear in mind, dear wife; but I should stand
+  Ashamed before the men and long-robed dames
+  Of Troy, were I to keep aloof and shun
+  The conflict, coward-like. Not thus my heart
+  Prompts me, for greatly have I learned to dare
+  And strike among the foremost sons of Troy,
+  Upholding my great father's fame and mine;
+  Yet well in my undoubting mind I know
+  The day shall come in which our sacred Troy,
+  And Priam, and the people over whom
+  Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.
+  But not the sorrows of the Trojan race,
+  Nor those of Hecuba herself, nor those
+  Of royal Priam, nor the woes that wait
+  My brothers many and brave,--who all at last,
+  Slain by the pitiless foe, shall lie in dust,--
+  Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek
+  Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee
+  Thy day of freedom. Thou in Argos then
+  Shalt at another's bidding ply the loom,
+  And from the fountain of Messeis draw
+  Water, or from the Hypereian spring,
+  Constrained unwilling by thy cruel lot.
+  And then shall some one say who sees thee weep,
+  'This was the wife of Hector, most renowned
+  Of the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought
+  Around their city.' So shall some one say,
+  And thou shalt grieve the more, lamenting him
+  Who haply might have kept afar the day
+  Of thy captivity. O let the earth
+  Be heaped above my head in death before
+  I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!"
+  So speaking, mighty Hector stretched his arms
+  To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back
+  To his fair nurse's bosom, scared to see
+  His father helmeted in glittering brass,
+  And eying with affright the horsehair plume
+  That grimly nodded from the lofty crest.
+  At this both parents in their fondness laughed;
+  And hastily the mighty Hector took
+  The helmet from his brow and laid it down
+  Gleaming upon the ground, and, having kissed
+  His darling son and tossed him up in play,
+  Prayed thus to Jove and all the gods of heaven:--
+  "O Jupiter and all ye deities,
+  Vouchsafe that this my son may yet become
+  Among the Trojans eminent like me,
+  And nobly rule in Ilium. May they say,
+  'This man is greater than his father was!'
+  When they behold him from the battle-field
+  Bring back the bloody spoil of the slain foe,--
+  That so his mother may be glad at heart."
+  So speaking, to the arms of his dear spouse
+  He gave the boy; she on her fragrant breast
+  Received him, weeping as she smiled. The chief
+  Beheld, and, moved with tender pity, smoothed
+  Her forehead gently with his hand, and said:--
+  "Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me.
+  No living man can send me to the shades
+  Before my time; no man of woman born,
+  Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
+
+  But go thou home, and tend thy labors there,--
+  The web, the distaff,--and command thy maids
+  To speed the work. The cares of war pertain
+  To all men born in Troy, and most to me."
+  Thus speaking, mighty Hector took again
+  His helmet, shadowed with the horsehair plume,
+  While homeward his beloved consort went,
+  Oft looking back, and shedding many tears.
+  Soon was she in the spacious palace-halls
+  Of the man-queller Hector. There she found
+  A troop of maidens,--with them all she shared
+  Her grief; and all in his own house bewailed
+  The living Hector, whom they thought no more
+  To see returning from the battle-field,
+  Safe from the rage and weapons of the Greeks.
+                          _Bryant's Translation, Book VI._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ODYSSEY.
+
+  "The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."
+
+
+The Odyssey relates the adventures of Ulysses on his return to Ithaca
+after the Trojan war.
+
+It consists of twenty-four books, the first four of which are sometimes
+known as the Telemachia, because Telemachus is the principal figure.
+
+The difference in style of the Iliad and Odyssey has caused some critics
+to assert that the latter is not the work of Homer; this is accounted for,
+however, by the difference of subject, and it is probable that the
+Odyssey, though of a later date, is the work of the same hand, "the work
+of Homer's old age,--an epic bathed in a mellow light of sunset."
+
+If the Odyssey alone had come down to us, its authorship would have passed
+unquestioned, for the poem is so compact, its plot so carefully planned
+and so skilfully carried out, that there can be no doubt that it is the
+work of one hand.
+
+The Odyssey is as great a work of art as the Iliad, and is even more
+popular; for the Odyssey is a domestic romance, and as such appeals to a
+larger audience than a tale of war alone,--the romance of the wandering
+Ulysses and the faithful Penelope. Interwoven with it are the ever-popular
+fairy tales of Ulysses's wanderings and descriptions of home life. It is
+marked by the same pagan enjoyment of life, the same freshness and charm
+that lend enchantment to the Iliad.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ODYSSEY.
+
+
+F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 17-25;
+
+A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893, chaps. 8-13;
+
+J. A. Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893;
+
+J. E. Harrison's Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature, 1882;
+
+W. J. Stillman's On the Track of Ulysses, 1888;
+
+F. W. Newman's The Authorship of the Odyssey (in his Miscellanies, vol.
+v.);
+
+J. Spence's Essay on Pope's Translation of the Odyssey, 1837.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ODYSSEY.
+
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. into English blank verse by W. C. Bryant, 2 vols., 1871;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. according to the Greek, with introduction and notes by
+George Chapman, ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by William Cowper;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by G. H. Palmer, 1894 (prose);
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by Rev. T. W. A. Buckley,
+n. d.;
+
+The Odyssey, Tr. by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang, 1879 (prose).
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY.
+
+
+After the fall of Troy, Agamemnon returned to Argos, where he was
+treacherously slain by Aegisthus, the corrupter of his wife; Menelaus
+reached Sparta in safety, laden with spoil and reunited to the beautiful
+Helen; Nestor resumed the rule of Pylos, but Ulysses remained absent from
+Ithaca, where his wife Penelope still grieved for him, though steadfast in
+her belief that he would return. One hundred and fourteen suitors, princes
+from Dulichium, Samos, Zacynthus, and Ithaca, determined to wed Penelope
+that they might obtain the rich possessions of Ulysses, spent their time
+in revelling in his halls and wasting his wealth, thinking in this way to
+force Penelope to wed some one of them.
+
+Penelope, as rich in resources as was her crafty husband, announced to
+them that she would wed when she had woven a funeral garment for Laertes,
+the father of Ulysses. During the day she wove industriously, but at night
+she unravelled what she had done that day, so that to the expectant
+suitors the task seemed interminable. After four years her artifice was
+revealed to the suitors by one of her maids, and she was forced to find
+other excuses to postpone her marriage. In the mean time, her son
+Telemachus, now grown to manhood, disregarded by the suitors on account of
+his youth, and treated as a child by his mother, was forced to sit
+helpless in his halls, hearing the insults of the suitors and seeing his
+rich possessions wasted.
+
+Having induced Jove to end the sufferings of Ulysses, Pallas caused Hermes
+to be dispatched to Calypso's isle to release the hero, while she herself
+descended to Ithaca in the guise of Mentes. There she was received
+courteously by the youth, who sat unhappy among the revellers. At a table
+apart from the others, Telemachus told the inquiring stranger who they
+were who thus wasted his patrimony.
+
+"Something must needs be done speedily," said Mentes, "and I shall tell
+thee how to thrust them from thy palace gates. Take a ship and go to Pylos
+to inquire of the aged and wise Nestor what he knows of thy father's fate.
+Thence go to Menelaus, in Sparta; he was the last of all the mailed Greeks
+to return home. If thou hear encouraging tidings, wait patiently for a
+year. At the end of that time, if thy father come not, celebrate his
+funeral rites, let thy mother wed again, and take immediate steps for the
+destruction of the suitor band. Thou art no longer a child; the time has
+come for thee to assert thyself and be a man."
+
+Telemachus, long weary of inactivity, was pleased with this advice, and at
+once announced to the incredulous suitors his intention of going to learn
+the fate of his father. A boat was procured and provided with a crew by
+the aid of Pallas, and provisioned from the secret store-room guarded by
+the old and faithful servant Eurycleia. From among the treasures of
+Ulysses--garments, heaps of gold and brass, and old and delicate
+wines--Telemachus took sweet wine and meal to be conveyed to the ship at
+night, and instructing Eurycleia not to tell his mother of his absence
+until twelve days had passed, he departed as soon as sleep had overcome
+the suitors. Pallas, in the guise of Mentor, accompanied him.
+
+His courage failed him, however, as they approached the shore of Pylos,
+where Nestor and his people were engaged in making a great sacrifice to
+Neptune. "How shall I approach the chief?" he asked. "Ill am I trained in
+courtly speech."
+
+But, encouraged by Pallas, he greeted the aged Nestor, and after he and
+his companion had assisted in the sacrifice and partaken of the banquet
+that followed, he revealed his name and asked for tidings of his, father,
+boldly and confidently, as befitted the son of Ulysses. The old king could
+tell him nothing, however. After Troy had fallen, a dissension had rent
+the camp, and part of the Greeks had remained with Agamemnon, part had
+sailed with Menelaus. Sailing with Menelaus, Nestor had parted with Diomed
+at Argos, and had sailed on to Pylos. Since his return he had heard of the
+death of Agamemnon, and of the more recent return of Menelaus, but had
+heard no tidings of Ulysses, who had remained with Agamemnon.
+To Menelaus he advised Telemachus to go, warning him, however, not to
+remain long away from Ithaca, leaving his home in the possession of rude
+and lawless men.
+
+In a car provided by Nestor and driven by his son, Pisistratus, Telemachus
+reached Sparta after a day and a night's rapid travel, and found Menelaus
+celebrating the nuptial feast of his daughter Hermione, betrothed at Troy
+to the son of Achilles, and his son Megapenthes, wedded to the daughter of
+Alector. The two young men were warmly welcomed, and were invited to
+partake of the banquet without being asked their names. After the feast
+they wondered at the splendor of the halls of gold, amber, and ivory, the
+polished baths, and the fleecy garments in which they had been arrayed;
+but Menelaus assured them that all his wealth was small compensation to
+him for the loss of the warriors who had fallen before Troy, and above
+all, of the great Ulysses, whose fate he knew not. Though Telemachus's
+tears fell at his father's name, Menelaus did not guess to whom he spoke,
+until Helen, entering from her perfumed chamber, saw the likeness between
+the stranger and the babe whom Ulysses had left when he went to Troy, and
+greeted their guest as Telemachus.
+
+Then they sat in the splendid hall and talked of Troy,--Menelaus broken by
+his many toils, Helen beautiful as when she was rapt away by Paris,
+weaving with her golden distaff wound with violet wool, and the two young
+men, who said little, but listened to the wondrous tale of the wanderings
+of Menelaus. And they spoke of Ulysses: of the times when he had proved
+his prudence as well as his craft; of his entering Troy as a beggar and
+revealing the Achaian plots to Helen; of how he had prevented their
+breaking out of the wooden horse too soon. Then the king told of his
+interview with the Ancient of the Deep, in which he had learned the fate
+of his comrades; of Agamemnon's death, and of the detention of Ulysses on
+Calypso's isle, where he languished, weeping bitterly, because he had no
+means of escape.
+
+This information gained, Telemachus was anxious to return home; but his
+host detained him until he and Helen had descended to their fragrant
+treasure-chamber and brought forth rich gifts,--a double cup of silver and
+gold wrought by Vulcan, a shining silver beaker, and an embroidered robe
+for his future bride.
+
+Mercury, dispatched by Jove, descended to the distant isle of Calypso, and
+warned the bright-haired nymph, whom he found weaving in her charmed
+grotto, that she must let her mortal lover go or brave the wrath of the
+gods. The nymph, though loath to part with her lover, sought out the
+melancholy Ulysses, where he sat weeping beside the deep, and giving him
+tools, led him to the forest and showed him where to fell trees with which
+to construct a raft. His labor finished, she provided the hero with
+perfumed garments, a full store of provisions, and saw him set forth
+joyfully upon the unknown deep.
+
+For seventeen days his journey was a prosperous one; but on the eighteenth
+day, just as the land of the Phaeacians came in sight. Neptune returned
+from Ethiopia, and angry at what the gods had contrived to do in his
+absence, determined to make the hero suffer as much as possible before he
+attained the promised end of his troubles.
+
+Soon a great storm arose and washed Ulysses from the raft. Clinging to its
+edge, buffeted here and there by the angry waves, he would have suffered
+death had not a kind sea nymph urged him to lay aside his heavy garments,
+leave the raft, and binding a veil that she gave him about his chest, swim
+to the land of the Phaeacians. The coast was steep and rocky, but he found
+at last a little river, and swimming up it, landed, and fell asleep among
+some warm heaps of dried leaves.
+
+The Phaeacians were a people closely allied to the gods, to whom they were
+very dear. They had at one time been neighbors of the Cyclops, from whose
+rudeness they had suffered so much that they were compelled to seek a
+distant home. They were a civilized people, who had achieved great results
+as sailors, having remarkably swift and well-equipped ships.
+
+To the Princess Nausicaa, beautiful as a goddess, Pallas appeared in a
+dream the night that Ulysses lay sleeping on the isle, warning her that
+since her wedding day was near at hand, when all would need fresh
+garments, it was fitting that she should ask her father's permission to
+take the garments of the household to the river side to wash them.
+
+Nausicaa's father willingly granted his permission, and ordered the strong
+car in which to carry away the soiled garments. A hamper of food and a
+skin of wine were added by her mother, as the princess climbed into the
+chariot and drove towards the river, followed by her maids.
+
+When the garments had been washed in the lavers hollowed out by the river
+side, and the lunch had been eaten, the maids joined in a game of ball.
+Joyous they laughed and frolicked, like Dian's nymphs, until they roused
+the sleeper under the olive-trees on the hillside.
+
+All save Nausicaa fled affrighted as he came forth to speak to them,
+covered with sea foam, his nakedness hidden only by a leafy branch woven
+round his waist; but she, strengthened by the goddess, heard his story,
+and provided him with clothing and materials for the bath. When he
+appeared, cleansed from the sea foam, and made more handsome by the art of
+Pallas, Nausicaa's pity was changed to admiration, and she wished that she
+might have a husband like him.
+
+Food and wine were set before the hero, and while he refreshed himself the
+dried clothes were folded and placed in the cart. As the princess prepared
+to go she advised the stranger to follow the party until they reached a
+grove outside the city, and to remain there until she had time to reach
+her father's palace, lest some gossip should connect Nausicaa's name with
+that of a stranger. She told him how to find her father's palace, and
+instructed him to win the favor of her mother, that he might be received
+with honor and assisted on his homeward way.
+
+Ulysses obeyed, and when he reached the city gates was met by Pallas, in
+the guise of a virgin with an urn. She answered his questions, directed
+him to the palace, and told him to throw himself first at the feet of
+Queen Arete, who was looked on by the people as if she were a goddess.
+Wrapped in a cloud by Pallas, the unseen Ulysses admired the spacious
+halls of Alcinoues. Walls of brass supported blue steel cornices, golden
+doors guarded by gold and silver mastiffs opened into the vast hall, along
+which were ranged thrones covered with delicately woven mantles, for which
+the Phaeacian women were famous.
+
+Around the palace lay a spacious garden filled with pear, pomegranate,
+fig, and apple trees, that knew no change of season, but blossomed and
+bore fruit throughout the year. Perennially blooming plants scattered
+perfume through the garden kept fresh by water from two sparkling
+fountains.
+
+As Ulysses knelt at the feet of Arete, the cloud enveloping him fell away,
+and all were astonished at the sight of the stranger imploring protection.
+Arete received Ulysses with favor, and Alcinoues was so pleased with him
+that he offered him his daughter in marriage, if he was unmarried, a
+palace and riches if he would remain on the island, and a safe passage
+home if he desired to leave them. The king then invited the chiefs of the
+isle to a great banquet in honor of his guest. At this banquet Demodocus,
+the blind minstrel, sang so touchingly of the heroes of the Trojan war
+that Ulysses was moved to tears, a fact observed by the king alone. After
+the feast the guests displayed their strength in athletic games; and
+Ulysses, provoked by the taunts of the ill-bred Euryalus, cast a broader,
+heavier quoit than had yet been used far beyond the mark. The Phaeacians
+were amazed, and the king confessed that his people were weak in athletic
+sports but excelled in the dance,--a statement to which Ulysses readily
+agreed when he saw the beautiful and graceful dance of the princes
+Laodamas and Halius to the music of Demodocus's silver harp.
+
+When the games were over, all the chiefs presented Ulysses with garments
+and with talents of gold, for the reception of which Arete gave a
+beautiful chest. As he corded up the chest, and stepped forth to the
+banquet, refreshed from the bath, Nausicaa, standing beside a pillar, bade
+him farewell.
+
+"Remember, in thy native land, O stranger, that thou owest thy life to
+me."
+
+When they sat again in the banqueting hall, Ulysses besought Demodocus to
+sing again of the fall of Troy; but when the minstrel sang of the strategy
+of the wooden horse which wrought the downfall of Troy, the hero was again
+melted to tears,--and this time his host, unable to repress his curiosity,
+asked him to reveal his name and history.
+
+"Thou hast spoken, O king, and I proceed to tell the story of my
+calamitous voyage from Troy; for I am Ulysses, widely known among men for
+my cunning devices. Our first stop was among the Ciconians, whose city we
+laid waste. Here, in spite of my warning, my men tarried to drink red wine
+until the Ciconians had had time to recruit their forces, and, attacking
+us, slew six men from each galley. When we who survived reached the land
+of the lotus-eaters, some of my men ate of the sweet plant, after which a
+man thinks never more of wife, or friends, or home; and it was with the
+utmost difficulty that we succeeded in dragging them to the ships.
+
+"At the Cyclopean land I myself, with a few of my men, disembarked, and
+went up to seek the inhabitants and conciliate them with gifts of food and
+wine. The Cyclops were huge one-eyed giants who did not cultivate the
+land, had no government, and cared nought for the gods. The first cave to
+which we came was empty, and we went in to await the arrival of the owner,
+appeasing our appetites, meanwhile, with some of his cheeses. Presently he
+arrived, and after he had closed up the entrance of the cave with a huge
+stone, and had milked his goats, he questioned us as to who we were. Our
+story told, he seized two of my companions, dashed their heads against the
+rocks, and devoured them. The next morning, after devouring two others, he
+drove out his flocks, leaving us shut up in the huge cave. All that day I
+revolved plans for his destruction and our escape; and at last, drawing
+lots with my companions to determine who should assist me, I determined,
+with their aid, to bore out his great eye with a huge olive-wood stick
+that I found in the cave. We spent the day sharpening it and hardening it
+in the fire, and at night hid it under a heap of litter. Two more of my
+men made his evening meal, after which I plied him with the wine I had
+brought, until, softened by the liquor, he inquired my name, assuring me
+that as return for my gift, he would devour me last. My name, I told him,
+was Noman.
+
+"As soon as he had fallen into a drunken slumber I put the stake to heat,
+and, strengthening the courage of my men, I drew it forth and plunged it
+into his eye. Steadily we spun it round until the monster, screaming with
+pain, drew it forth, crying to the other Cyclops to come to his aid. When
+they, from without, questioned who hurt him, he replied, 'Noman destroyeth
+me by guile.' 'If it is "Noman,"' said they, departing, 'it must be Jove.
+Then pray to Neptune.'
+
+"During the night I tied together the rams, three and three with osier
+twigs, and instructed my comrades, as he drove them out, to cling under
+the middle one. I hid myself under the fleecy belly of a huge ram, the
+finest of the flock. He touched their backs as he drove them out, but he
+did not penetrate my cunning, and we all escaped. After we had driven the
+flock on board, however, and had pushed out our galley, I could not
+forbear a taunting shout, at which he hurled a huge fragment of rock after
+us, just missing our galley.
+
+"With Aeolus, King of the Winds, we remained a month, reciting the events
+connected with the fall of Troy. So pleased was the king with my story,
+that on our departure he presented me with a bag tied up with a silver
+cord, which contained the adverse winds. One day, as I slumbered, my
+unhappy sailors, suspecting some treasure concealed therein, opened it,
+and we were immediately blown back to Aeolus's isle, from which he,
+enraged at our folly, indignantly drove us.
+
+"At the land of the Laestrygonians all our galleys were lost and our men
+devoured by the cannibal inhabitants, with the exception of my own ship,
+which by good fortune I had moored without the harbor. Overcome with
+grief, we rowed wearily along until we arrived at the land of Circe. With
+caution born of experience, we drew lots to see who should venture into
+the unknown isle. The lot fell to Eurylochus, who, with twenty-two brave
+men, went forward to the fair palace of Circe, around which fawned tamed
+mountain lions and wolves. Within sat the bright haired goddess, singing
+while she threw her shuttle through the beautiful web she was weaving.
+
+"All the men entered the palace at her invitation but Eurylochus, who,
+suspecting some guile, remained without. He saw his comrades led within,
+seated upon thrones and banqueted; but no sooner was the feast over, than
+she touched them with her wand, and transformed them into swine that she
+drove scornfully to their cells.
+
+"Eurylochus hastened back to our ships with the sorrowful tidings. As soon
+as grief had permitted him to tell the story, I flung my sword over my
+shoulders and hastened away to the palace. As I entered the valley, not
+far from the palace, I was met by a youth, none save the Argus-queller
+himself, who revealed to me Circe's guile, and presented me with a plant,
+the moly, which would enable me to withstand her charms.
+
+"The goddess received me kindly, seated me upon a throne, and invited me
+to feast with her. After the feast she struck me with her wand, as she had
+done my comrades, ordering me to go to my sty; but when I remained
+unchanged, she perceived that her guest was Ulysses, whose coming had long
+been foretold to her.
+
+"Softened by her entreaties, I sheathed my sword, after having made her
+promise to release my friends and do us no further harm. Then the others
+were called from the ships, and we banqueted together.
+
+"Time passed so happily on Circe's isle that we lingered a whole year,
+until, roused by the words of my friends, I announced my intended
+departure, and was told by Circe that I must first go to the land of the
+dead to get instructions as to my future course from Tiresias. Provided
+with the proper sacrifices by Circe, we set sail for the land of the
+Cimmerians, on the confines of Oceanus. The sacrifices having been duly
+performed, the spirits appeared,--Elpenor, my yet unburied comrade, whose
+body lay on Circe's isle, my own dead mother, and the Theban seer,
+Tiresias, with his golden wand. 'Neptune is wroth with thee,' he said,
+'but thou mayst yet return if thou and thy comrades leave undisturbed the
+cattle of the Sun. If thou do not, destruction awaits thee. If thou escape
+and return home it will be after long journeyings and much suffering, and
+there thou wilt slay the insolent suitor crew that destroy thy substance
+and wrong thy household.' After Tiresias had spoken I lingered to speak
+with other spirits,--my mother, Ajax, Antiope, Agamemnon, Achilles,
+Patroclus, and Antilochus. Having conversed with all these, we set sail
+for Circe's isle, and thence started again on our homeward voyage.
+
+"Circe had instructed me to stop the ears of my men with wax as we
+approached the isle of the Sirens, and to have myself tied to the boat
+that I might not leap into the ocean to go to the beautiful maidens who
+sang so entrancingly. We therefore escaped without adding our bones to
+those on the isle of the Sirens, and came next to Scylla and Charybdis.
+Charybdis is a frightful whirlpool. The sailor who steers too far away in
+his anxiety to escape it, is seized by the six arms of the monster Scylla
+and lifted to her cavern to be devoured. We avoided Charybdis; but as we
+looked down into the abyss, pale with fear, six of my comrades were seized
+by Scylla and snatched up to her cave.
+
+"As we neared the Island of the Sun I told my comrades again of the
+warning of Tiresias, and begged them to sail past without stopping. I was
+met, however, by the bitterest reproaches, and at last consented to a
+landing if they would bind themselves by a solemn oath not to touch the
+cattle of the Sun. They promised, but when adverse winds prolonged our
+stay and food became scarce, fools, madmen, they slew the herds, and in
+spite of the terrible omens, the meat lowing on the spits, the skins
+crawling, they feasted for six days. When, on the seventh, the tempest
+ceased and we sailed away, we went to our destruction. I alone was saved,
+clinging to the floating timbers for nine long days, until on the tenth I
+reached Calypso's isle, Ogygia, where, out of love for me, the mighty
+goddess cherished me for seven years."
+
+The Phaeacians were entranced by this recital, and in addition to their
+former gifts, heaped other treasures upon the "master of stratagems" that
+he might return home a wealthy man. The swift ship was filled with his
+treasures, and after the proper sacrifices and long farewells, the
+chieftain embarked. It was morn when the ship arrived in Ithaca, and
+Ulysses, worn out from his long labors, was still asleep. Stopping at the
+little port of Phorcys, where the steep shores stretch inward and a
+spreading olive-tree o'ershadows the grotto of the nymphs, the sailors
+lifted out Ulysses, laid him on the ground, and piling up his gifts under
+the olive-tree, set sail for Phaeacia. But the angry Neptune smote the
+ship as it neared the town and changed it to a rock, thus fulfilling an
+ancient prophecy that Neptune would some day wreak his displeasure on the
+Phaeacians for giving to every man who came to them safe escort home.
+
+When Ulysses awoke he did not recognize the harbor, and thinking that he
+had been treated with deceit, he wept bitterly. Thus Pallas, in the guise
+of a young shepherd, found him, and showed him that it was indeed his own
+dear land. She helped him to conceal his treasures in the grotto, and told
+him that Telemachus was even now away on a voyage of inquiry concerning
+him, and his wife was weeping over his absence and the insolence of the
+suitors. But he must act with caution. To give him an opportunity to lay
+his plans for the destruction of these men without being recognized, she
+changed him to a beggar, wrinkled and old, and clad in ragged, soiled
+garments. Then directing him to the home of his old herdsman, she hastened
+to warn Telemachus to avoid the ship the suitors had stationed to destroy
+him on his way home.
+
+The old Eumaeus was sitting in his lodge without whose hedge lay the many
+sties of swine that were his care. He greeted the beggar kindly, and
+spread food before him, lamenting all the while the absence of his noble
+master and the wickedness of the suitors. Ulysses told him that he was a
+wanderer who had heard of his master, and could speak surely of his
+return. Though Eumaeus regarded this as an idle speech spoken to gain food
+and clothing, he continued in his kindness to his guest.
+
+To this lodge came Telemachus after the landing of his ship, that he might
+first hear from Eumaeus the news from the palace,--Telemachus, who had
+grown into sudden manliness from his experience among other men. He also
+was kind to the beggar, and heard his story. While he remained with the
+beggar, Eumaeus having gone to acquaint Penelope of her son's return,
+Pallas appearing, touched the beggar with her golden wand, and Ulysses,
+with the presence of a god, stood before his awed and wondering son.
+
+Long and passionate was their weeping as the father told the son of his
+sufferings, and the son told of the arrogance of the one hundred and
+fourteen suitors.
+
+"There are we two with Pallas and her father Jove against them," replied
+his father. "Thinkest thou we need to fear with two such allies?"
+
+On the day after Telemachus's return, Ulysses, accompanied by Eumaeus,
+visited the palace. No one recognized him except his old dog, Argus, long
+neglected and devoured by vermin, who, at the sound of his master's voice,
+drew near, wagged his tail, and fell dead.
+
+According to their carefully laid plans, Telemachus feigned not to know
+his father, but sent to the beggar some food. Ulysses asked the same of
+the suitors, but was repulsed with taunts and insults, Antinoues, the most
+insolent, striking him with a footstool.
+
+To Penelope, weaving in her chamber, was carried the story of the beggar
+at whom the abhorred Antinoues had thrown a stool, and she sent for him to
+ask if he had tidings of Ulysses. He refused to go to her, however, until
+the suitors had withdrawn for the night; and as he sat among the
+revellers, he caught the first glimpse of his wife, as she came down among
+her maids, to reproach her son for exposing himself to danger among the
+suitors, and for allowing the beggar to be injured.
+
+When darkness fell and the hall was deserted, Telemachus, with the
+assistance of his father, removed all the weapons from the walls. After
+Telemachus had retired to his chamber, Penelope came down, and sitting
+upon her ivory throne conversed with the beggar, questioning him about his
+story until he was driven to invent tales that seemed like truth, and
+asking about her husband while the tears ran down her fair cheeks. By a
+great effort Ulysses kept his tears from falling as he beheld his wife
+weeping over him; he assured her that her husband would soon return, but
+he would accept no clothing as a reward for his tidings. The aged
+Eurycleia, who was called forth to wash his feet, came near betraying her
+master when she recognized a scar made by a wild boar's tusk, but he
+threatened her into silence. Soon after, Penelope and her maids withdrew,
+and left Ulysses to meditate vengeance through the night.
+
+The next morning, when the suitors again sat in the banquet-hall, Penelope
+descended to them and declared that she had determined to give her hand to
+the one of the suitors who could draw the great bow of Ulysses and send
+the arrow through twelve rings set on stakes planted in the ground. Up to
+the polished treasure-chamber she went, and took down the great bow given
+to Ulysses by Iphitus. As she took it from its case her tears fell, but
+she dried them and carried it and the steel rings into the hall. Gladly
+Ulysses hailed this hour, for he knew the time had come when he should
+destroy the suitor band. That morn many omens had warned him, and he had
+revealed himself to his faithful men, Eumaeus, and Philoetius the
+master-herdsman, that they might assist him. Telemachus, though astonished
+at his mother's decision, first took the bow; if he succeeded in bending
+it, his mother would not have to leave her home. He would have bent the
+bow at the fourth attempt had not his father's glance warned him to yield
+it to the suitors.
+
+Although the bow was rubbed and softened with oil, all failed in their
+attempts to draw it; and when the beggar asked to be allowed to try, their
+wrath burst forth. What shame would be theirs if the beggar succeeded in
+doing that in which they had failed! But Telemachus, who asserted his
+rights more day by day, insisted that the beggar should try to bend the
+bow, if he so desired. Sending his mother and her maids to their bower, he
+watched his father as he easily bent the mighty bow, snapped the cord with
+a sound at which the suitors grew pale, and sent the arrow through the
+rings. Then casting aside his rags, the supposed beggar sprang upon the
+threshold, and knowing that by his orders, Eumaeus, Philoetius, and
+Eurycleia had secured the portals so that escape was impossible, he sent
+his next shaft through the throat of Antinoues. "Dogs! ye thought I never
+would return! Ye dreaded not the gods while ye devoured my substance and
+pursued my wife! Now vengeance is mine! Destruction awaits you all!"
+
+Too late Eurymachus sprang up and besought the monarch to grant them their
+lives if they made good their waste and returned to their homes. Ulysses
+had brooded too long over his injuries; his wife and son had suffered too
+many years from their persecutions for him to think of mercy. Eurymachus
+fell by the next brass-tipped shaft, and for every arrow in the quiver a
+suitor lay dead until the quiver was empty. Then Telemachus, Philoetius,
+and Eumaeus, provided with weapons and armor, stood forth with Ulysses,
+and withstood the suitors until all were slain, save Medon the herald and
+Phemius the minstrel, for both of whom Telemachus pleaded, since they had
+been coerced by the others. Giving the destruction of the false
+serving-maids to his three assistants, Ulysses ordered the hall to be
+cleansed, and after greeting his faithful servants and weeping with them,
+sent Eurycleia up to the bower to tell Penelope that her master had at
+last arrived.
+
+Penelope was too fearful of deceit to believe instantly that the beggar
+sitting beside the lofty column was her husband, though as she looked at
+him wonderingly, she sometimes fancied that she saw Ulysses, and again
+could not believe that it was he. So long was she silent that Telemachus
+reproached her for her hardness of heart; but Ulysses, better guessing the
+difficulty, ordered that all should take the bath and array themselves in
+fresh garments while the harper played gay melodies, that those passing
+should not guess the slaughter that had occurred, but should fancy that a
+wedding was being celebrated. When Ulysses again appeared, refreshed and
+handsomely attired, Penelope, still uncertain, determined to test his
+knowledge of her chamber. "Bear out the bed made by his own hands," she
+commanded Eurycleia, "that he may rest for the night."
+
+"Who has dared move my bed?" cried Ulysses; "the couch framed upon the
+stump of an olive-tree, round which I built a stone chamber! I myself
+cunningly fitted it together, and adorned it with gold, silver, and
+ivory."
+
+Then Penelope, who knew that no one save herself, Ulysses, and one
+handmaiden had ever seen the interior of that chamber, fell on his neck
+and welcomed the wanderer home. "Pray, be not angry with me, my husband.
+Many times my heart has trembled lest some fraud be practised on me, and I
+should receive a stranger to my heart."
+
+Welcome as land to the shipwrecked mariner was Ulysses to Penelope. Both
+wept as he held her in his arms, and the rosy-fingered morn would have
+found them thus, weeping, with her fair, white arms encircling his neck,
+had not Pallas prolonged the night that he might relate to her the story
+of his wanderings. Then, happy in their reunion, the years of sorrow all
+forgotten, sleep overcame them. At dawn, bidding a brief farewell to his
+wife, Ulysses went forth to visit his father, and settle as best he might
+the strife which he knew would result from the slaughter of the suitors.
+
+After Ulysses' mother had died of grief at the prolonged absence of her
+son, Laertes passed his days wretchedly in a little habitation remote from
+the palace. There Ulysses found him and made himself known; and there he,
+Laertes, Telemachus, the aged Dolius, and his six sons faced the people
+who had been roused to battle by the speech of Eupeithes, whose son
+Antinoues had been the first of the suitors to fall by the hand of Ulysses.
+Not heeding the warning of the herald Medon that the suitors had been
+slain justly, they attacked Ulysses and his handful of followers.
+
+Eupeithes fell first by the spear of Laertes, and a great slaughter would
+have ensued, had not the combatants been silenced by the voice of Pallas,
+who commanded all strife to cease. Frightened by this divine command, the
+enemy fled; and Pallas, descending in the form of Mentor, plighted a
+covenant between them that Ulysses might live peacefully among them the
+remainder of his life.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY.
+
+THE PALACE OF ALCINOUeS.
+
+
+Ulysses, having been directed by Nausicaa, reached the gate of the city,
+and was there met by Pallas in the guise of a maiden with an urn, who
+instructed him how to approach the king and queen. He passed through the
+town, wrapped in a cloud by Pallas, and paused on the threshold of
+Alcinoues's palace.
+
+            For on every side beneath
+  The lofty roof of that magnanimous king
+  A glory shone as of the sun or moon.
+  There from the threshold, on each side, were walls
+  Of brass that led towards the inner rooms,
+  With blue steel cornices. The doors within
+  The massive building were of gold, and posts
+  Of silver on the brazen threshold stood,
+  And silver was the lintel, and above
+  Its architrave was gold; and on each side
+  Stood gold and silver mastiffs, the rare work
+  Of Vulcan's practised skill, placed there to guard
+  The house of great Alcinoues, and endowed
+  With deathless life, that knows no touch of age.
+  Along the walls within, on either side,
+  And from the threshold to the inner rooms,
+  Were firmly planted thrones on which were laid
+  Delicate mantles, woven by the hands
+  Of women. The Phaeacian princes here
+  Were seated; here they ate and drank, and held
+  Perpetual banquet. Slender forms of boys
+  In gold upon the shapely altars stood,
+  With blazing torches in their hands to light
+  At eve the palace guests; while fifty maids
+  Waited within the halls, where some in querns
+  Ground small the yellow grain; some wove the web
+  Or twirled the spindle, sitting, with a quick
+  Light motion, like the aspen's glancing leaves.
+  The well-wrought tissues glistened as with oil.
+  As far as the Phaeacian race excel
+  In guiding their swift galleys o'er the deep,
+  So far the women in their woven work
+  Surpass all others. Pallas gives them skill
+  In handiwork and beautiful design.
+  Without the palace-court and near the gate,
+  A spacious garden of four acres lay.
+  A hedge enclosed it round, and lofty trees
+  Flourished in generous growth within,--the pear
+  And the pomegranate, and the apple-tree
+  With its fair fruitage, and the luscious fig
+  And olive always green. The fruit they bear
+  Falls not, nor ever fails in winter time
+  Nor summer, but is yielded all the year.
+  The ever-blowing west-wind causes some
+  To swell and some to ripen; pear succeeds
+  To pear; to apple, apple, grape to grape,
+  Fig ripens after fig. A fruitful field
+  Of vines was planted near; in part it lay
+  Open and basking in the sun, which dried
+  The soil, and here men gathered in the grapes,
+  And there they trod the wine-press. Farther on
+  Were grapes unripened yet, which just had cast
+  The flower, and others still which just began
+  To redden. At the garden's furthest bound
+  Were beds of many plants that all the year
+  Bore flowers. There gushed two fountains: one of them
+  Ran wandering through the field; the other flowed
+  Beneath the threshold to the palace-court,
+  And all the people filled their vessels there.
+  Such were the blessings which the gracious gods
+  Bestowed on King Alcinoues and his house.
+           _Bryant's Translation, Book VII._
+
+
+
+
+THE BENDING OF THE BOW.
+
+
+Penelope, weary of the importunities of the suitors, determined to end the
+contest by giving them the bow of Ulysses and allowing the one who could
+successfully send the arrow through the steel rings to become her husband.
+Having announced her intention, she ascended the stairs to the treasure
+chamber, where the bow was kept.
+
+  Now when the glorious lady reached the room,
+  And stood upon the threshold, wrought of oak
+  And polished by the workman's cunning hand,
+  Who stretched the line upon it, and set up
+  Its posts, and hung its shining doors, she loosed
+  With a quick touch the thong that held the ring,
+  Put in the key, and with a careful aim
+  Struck back the sounding bolts. As when a bull
+  Roars in the field, such sound the beautiful doors,
+  Struck with the key, gave forth, and instantly
+  They opened to her. Up the lofty floor
+  She stepped, where stood the coffer that contained
+  The perfumed garments. Reaching forth her hand,
+  The queen took down the bow, that hung within
+  Its shining case, and sat her down, and laid
+  The case upon her knees, and, drawing forth
+  The monarch's bow, she wept aloud. As soon
+  As that new gush of tears had ceased to fall,
+  Back to the hall she went, and that proud throng
+  Of suitors, bearing in her hand the bow
+  Unstrung, and quiver, where the arrows lay
+  Many and deadly. Her attendant maids
+  Brought also down a coffer, where were laid
+  Much brass and steel, provided by the king
+  For games like these. The glorious lady then,
+  In presence of the suitors, stood beside
+  The columns that upheld the stately roof.
+  She held a lustrous veil before her cheeks,
+  And while on either side of her a maid
+  Stood modestly, bespake the suitors thus:--
+
+  "Hear, noble suitors! ye who throng these halls,
+  And eat and drink from day to day, while long
+  My husband has been gone; your sole excuse
+  For all this lawlessness the claim ye make
+  That I become a bride. Come then, for now
+  A contest is proposed. I bring to you
+  The mighty bow that great Ulysses bore.
+  Whoe'er among you he may be whose hand
+  Shall bend this bow, and send through these twelve rings
+  An arrow, him I follow hence, and leave
+  This beautiful abode of my young years,
+  With all its plenty,--though its memory,
+  I think, will haunt me even in my dreams."
+
+  She spake, and bade the master of the swine,
+  The good Eumaeus, place the bow and rings
+  Of hoary steel before the suitor train.
+  In tears he bore the bow and laid it down.
+  The herdsman also wept to see again
+  His master's bow.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  He (Telemachus) spake and, rising, from his shoulders took
+  The purple cloak, and laid the trenchant sword
+  Aside; and first he placed the rings of steel
+  In order, opening for them in the ground
+  A long trench by a line, and stamping close
+  The earth around them. All admired the skill
+  With which he ranged them, never having seen
+  The game before. And then he took his place
+  Upon the threshold, and essayed the bow;
+  And thrice he made the attempt, and thrice gave o'er,
+  Yet hoping still to draw the cord, and send
+  An arrow through the rings. He would have drawn
+  The bow at the fourth trial, but a nod
+  Given by his father caused him to forbear,
+  Though eager for the attempt.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+         ... And then Eupeithes' son,
+  Antinoues, to the crowd of suitors said:--
+
+  "Rise one by one, my friends, from right to left.
+  Begin where he begins who pours the wine."
+  So spake Antinoues, and the rest approved.
+  Then rose Leiodes, son of Oenops, first.
+  He was their seer, and always had his seat
+  Beside the ample bowl. From deeds of wrong
+  He shrank with hatred, and was sore incensed
+  Against the suitors all. He took the bow
+  And shaft, and, going to the threshold, stood
+  And tried the bow, yet bent it not; it galled
+  His hands, for they were soft, and all unused
+  To such a task.
+
+          ... The swineherd went
+  Forward along the hall, and, drawing near
+  The wise Ulysses, gave into his hands
+  The bow.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+          ... but when the wary chief
+  Had poised and shrewdly scanned the mighty bow,
+  Then, as a singer, skilled to play the harp,
+  Stretches with ease on its new fastenings
+  A string, the twisted entrails of a sheep,
+  Made fast at either end, so easily
+  Ulysses bent that mighty bow. He took
+  And drew the cord with his right hand; it twanged
+  With a clear sound as when a swallow screams.
+  The suitors were dismayed, and all grew pale.
+  Jove in loud thunder gave a sign from heaven.
+  The much-enduring chief, Ulysses, heard
+  With joy the friendly omen, which the son
+  Of crafty Saturn sent him. He took up
+  A winged arrow, that before him lay
+  Upon a table drawn; the others still
+  Were in the quiver's womb; the Greeks were yet
+  To feel them. This he set with care against
+  The middle of the bow, and toward him drew
+  The cord and arrow-notch, just where he sat,
+  And aiming opposite, let fly the shaft.
+  He missed no ring of all; from first to last
+  The brass-tipped arrow threaded every one.
+  Then to Telemachus Ulysses said:--
+
+  "Telemachus, the stranger sitting here
+  Hath not disgraced thee. I have neither missed
+  The rings, nor found it hard to bend the bow;
+  Nor has my manly strength decayed, as these
+  Who seek to bring me to contempt pretend;
+  And now the hour is come when we prepare
+  A supper for the Achaians, while the day
+  Yet lasts, and after supper the delights
+  Of song and harp, which nobly grace a feast."
+
+  He spake, and nodded to Telemachus,
+  His well-beloved son, who girded on
+  His trenchant sword, and took in hand his spear,
+  And, armed with glittering brass for battle, came
+  And took his station by his father's seat.
+
+  Then did Ulysses cast his rags aside,
+  And, leaping to the threshold, took his stand
+  On its broad space, with bow and quiver filled
+  With arrows. At his feet the hero poured
+  The winged shafts, and to the suitors called:--
+
+  "That difficult strife is ended. Now I take
+  Another mark, which no man yet has hit.
+  Now I shall see if I attain my aim,
+  And, by the aid of Phoebus, win renown."
+
+  He spake; and, turning, at Antinoues aimed
+  The bitter shaft--Antinoues, who just then
+  Had grasped a beautiful two-eared cup of gold,
+  About to drink the wine. He little thought
+  Of wounds and death; for who, when banqueting
+  Among his fellows, could suspect that one
+  Alone against so many men would dare,
+  However bold, to plan his death, and bring
+  On him the doom of fate? Ulysses struck
+  The suitor with the arrow at the throat.
+  The point came through the tender neck behind,
+  Sideways he sank to earth; his hand let fall
+  The cup; the dark blood in a thick warm stream
+  Gushed from the nostrils of the smitten man.
+  He spurned the table with his feet, and spilled
+  The viands; bread and roasted meats were flung
+  To lie polluted on the floor. Then rose
+  The suitors in a tumult, when they saw
+  The fallen man; from all their seats they rose
+  Throughout the hall, and to the massive walls
+  Looked eagerly; there hung no buckler there,
+  No sturdy lance for them to wield. They called
+  Then to Ulysses with indignant words:--
+
+  "Stranger! in evil hour hast thou presumed
+  To aim at men; and thou shalt henceforth bear
+  Part in no other contest. Even now
+  Is thy destruction close to thee. Thy hand
+  Hath slain the noblest youth in Ithaca.
+  The vultures shall devour thy flesh for this."
+
+  So each one said; they deemed he had not slain
+  The suitor wittingly; nor did they see,
+  Blind that they were, the doom which in that hour
+  Was closing round them all. Then with a frown
+  The wise Ulysses looked on them, and said:--
+
+  "Dogs! ye had thought I never would come back
+  From Ilium's coast, and therefore ye devoured
+  My substance here, and offered violence
+  To my maid-servants, and pursued my wife
+  As lovers, while I lived. Ye dreaded not
+  The gods who dwell in the great heaven, nor feared
+  Vengeance hereafter from the hands of men;
+  And now destruction overhangs you all."
+
+  He spake, and all were pale with fear, and each
+  Looked round for some escape from death.
+
+    _Bryant's Translation, Books XXI., XXII_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE KALEVALA.
+
+"Songs preserved from distant ages."
+
+
+The national epic of Finland, the Kalevala, or Place of Heroes, stands
+midway between the purely epical structure, as exemplified in Homer, and
+the epic songs of certain nations.
+
+It is a purely pagan epic, and from its complete silence as to Finland's
+neighbors, the Russians, Germans, and Swedes, it is supposed to date back
+at least three thousand years.
+
+The first attempt to collect Finnish folk-song was made in the seventeenth
+century by Palmskoeld and Peter Baeng. In 1733, Maxenius published a volume
+on Finnish national poetry, and in 1745 Juslenius began a collection of
+national poems. Although scholars saw that these collected poems were
+evidently fragments of a Finnish epic, it remained for two physicians,
+Zacharias Topelius and Elias Loennrot, to collect the entire poem.
+Topelius, though confined to his bed by illness for eleven years, took
+down the songs from travelling merchants brought to his bedside. His
+collections were published in 1822 and 1831. Loennrot travelled over
+Finland, collecting the songs, which he published, arranged in epical
+form, in 1835. A revised edition was published in 1849.
+
+The Kalevala consists of fifty parts, or runes, containing twenty-two
+thousand seven hundred and ninety-three lines. Its historical foundation
+is the contests between the Finns and the Lapps.
+
+Its metre is the "eight syllabled trochaic with the part-line echo,"
+alliteration also being used, a metre familiar to us through Longfellow's
+"Hiawatha."
+
+The labors of a Wolf are not necessary to show that the Kalevala is
+composed of various runes or lays, arranged by a compiler. Topelius and
+Loennrot were conscientious collectors and compilers, but they were no
+Homers, who could fuse these disconnected runes into one great poem. The
+Kalevala recites many events in the lives of different heroes who are not
+types of men, like Rama, or Achilles, or Ulysses, but the rude gods of an
+almost savage people, or rather, men in the process of apotheosis, all
+alike, save in the varying degrees of magic power possessed by each.
+
+The Finnish lays are interesting to us because they are the popular songs
+of a people handed down with few changes from one generation to another;
+because they would have formed the material for a national epic if a great
+poet had arisen; because of their pictures of ancient customs, and
+particularly the description of the condition of women, and because of
+their frequently beautiful descriptions of nature. But because they are
+simply runes "loosely stitched together" we can regard them only with
+interest and curiosity, not with admiration.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE KALEVALA.
+
+
+Andrew Lang's Homer and the Epic, pp. 412-419;
+
+Andrew Lang's Kalevala, or the Finnish National Epic (in his Custom and
+Myth), 1885, pp. 156-179;
+
+C. J. Billson's Folk-songs, comprised in the Finnish Kalevala, Folk-Lore,
+1895, vi. pp. 317-352;
+
+F. C. Cook's Kalevala, Contemporary, 1885, xlvii., pp. 683-702;
+
+Preface of J. M. Crawford's Translation of the Kalevala, 1891.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE KALEVALA.
+
+
+The Kalevala, Tr. by J. M. Crawford, 2 vols., 1891;
+
+The Kalevala, Tr. by W. F. Kirby, through the German translation of
+Schiefner;
+
+Selections from the Kalevala, Tr. from a German version by J. A. Porter,
+with an introduction and analysis of the Poem, 1868.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE KALEVALA.
+
+
+Wainamoinen was born upon the ocean after his mother, Ilmatar, daughter of
+the illimitable Ether, had floated upon its surface for more than seven
+hundred years. During this time Ilmatar had created the islands, the
+rocks, and the continents. After eight years of swimming through the
+ocean, studying his surroundings, Wainamoinen left the waters and swam to
+a barren promontory, where he could rest himself on dry land and study the
+sun, the moon, and the starry skies. At last he called to him
+Pellerwoinen, that the slender youth might scatter seeds broadcast upon
+the island, sowing in their proper places the birch, the alder, the
+linden, the willow, the mountain ash, and the juniper. It was not long
+until the eyes of the sower were gladdened by the sight of trees rising
+above the hitherto barren soil.
+
+But as Wainamoinen cast his eyes over the place he perceived that the oak,
+the tree of heaven, was wanting. The acorn planted in the sterile soil
+developed not until Tursas, the giant, arose from the ocean, burned some
+meadow grasses, and raking together the ashes, planted therein the acorn,
+from which soon sprang up a mighty oak-tree whose branches hid the sun
+rays and the starlight.
+
+The oak-tree must be felled if the land was to prosper, but who could fell
+it? "Help me, Kape, daughter of the Ether, help me, my ancient mother, to
+uproot this terrible tree that shuts out the sunshine," cried Wainamoinen.
+
+Straightway arose from the ocean a little being clad in copper,--cap,
+boots, gloves, and belt. He was no longer than a man's forefinger, and the
+blade of the hatchet at his belt was but a finger's breadth. "Art thou
+divine, or human?" queried Wainamoinen. "Tell me who thou art. Thou surely
+hast the bearing of a hero, though so small. But thou must be of the race
+of the pygmies, and therefore useless."
+
+"I came here to fell the oak," replied the pygmy. "I am a god and a hero
+from the tribes that rule the ocean."
+
+"Never canst thou lop the branches of this mighty tree," replied
+Wainamoinen.
+
+As he spoke, the pygmy became a giant; with one step he left the ocean,
+and stood piercing the clouds with his head. He whetted his hatchet on the
+great rocks, and with three steps reached the tree; with four blows felled
+it. The trunk fell eastward, its tops westward, the leaves to the south,
+the hundred branches to the north. Full of magic power were the parts of
+this tree, and happy was he who possessed himself of some part of it.
+
+Then vegetation flourished, the birds sang happily in the trees, and all
+was well except that barley was wanting. On the ocean strand Wainamoinen
+discovered the barley seed; and, advised by the birds how to plant it, was
+soon gratified by the sight of the growing barley. His next act was to
+clear the forest; but he left the slender birch for the birds to nest in,
+thus winning the gratitude of the silver-voiced singers.
+
+In the land of Kalevala, Wainamoinen passed many happy years, and the fame
+of his wonderful songs of wit and wisdom spread even to the land of the
+Lapps, in the dismal north, where lived Youkahainen, a young minstrel.
+Against the advice of his parents, the youth, filled with jealousy,
+visited Kalevala, to hold a singing contest with Wainamoinen.
+
+He proudly displayed his wisdom to the old minstrel, who laughed at it as
+"women's tales and children's wisdom," and when Youkahainen declared in
+song that he was present at the creation, Wainamoinen called him the
+prince of liars, and himself began to sing. As he sang, the copper-bearing
+mountains, the massive rocks and ledges, trembled, the hills re-echoed,
+and the very ocean heaved with rapture. The boaster stood speechless,
+seeing his sledge transformed into reed grass and willows, his beautiful
+steed changed to a statue, his dog to a block of stone, and he himself
+fast sinking in a quicksand. Then comprehending his folly, he begged his
+tormentor to free him. Each precious gift he offered for a ransom was
+refused, until he named his beautiful sister Aino. Wainamoinen, happy in
+the promise of Aino for a wife, freed the luckless youth from his
+enchantment, and sent him home.
+
+Aino's mother was rejoiced to hear that her daughter had been promised to
+the renowned Wainamoinen; but when the beautiful girl learned that she was
+tied by her brother's folly to an old man, she wandered weeping through
+the fields. In vain her mother and father sought to console her; she wept
+for her vanished childhood, for all her happiness and hope and pleasure
+forever gone. To console her daughter, the mother told her of a store of
+beautiful ornaments that she herself had worn in girlhood; they had been
+given her by the daughters of the Moon and Sun,--gold, ribbons, and
+jewels. Beautifully arrayed in these long-concealed ornaments, Aino
+wandered through the fields for many days, bewailing her sad fate. On the
+fourth day, she laid her garments on the sea shore, and swam out to the
+standing rock, a little distance from the shore. No sooner had she
+clambered on the rainbow-colored rock than it turned and fell to the
+bottom of the sea, carrying with it the weeping maiden, chanting a
+farewell to her family. The fleet and haughty hare bore the news of her
+death to the household, where her unfortunate mother sat weeping, urging
+other mothers never to force their daughters to wed against their choice.
+The tears that rolled down her cheeks formed three streamlets, that,
+growing larger, became torrents with foaming cataracts. From the cataracts
+towered three pillared rocks upon which rose three hillocks, and upon each
+hillock sprang a birch-tree. On the summit of each tree sat a golden bird
+singing; and the first sang, for three moons, his song of "Love! O Love!"
+the second called for six moons, "Suitor! Suitor!" but the third bird sang
+forever his sad song of "Consolation! Consolation!"
+
+Wainamoinen was deeply grieved when he heard of the fate of the lovely
+Aino, and he at once went to angle in the deep where dwelt the mermaids,
+the daughters of Wellamo.
+
+After he had fished many days in vain, he caught a wondrous salmon, larger
+and more beautiful than he had ever before caught. But as he took out his
+silver knife to cut it, the fish sprang from his hand into the deep,
+telling him that it was Aino who had thus come to him, and whom he had now
+lost forever by his stupidity. Then indeed the song of the golden bird
+seemed sad to Wainamoinen, and he was disconsolate until his mother spoke
+to him from her grave: "My son, go north and seek thy wife. Take not a
+silly Lapp, but choose one of the daughters of Suomi."
+
+Quickly Wainamoinen prepared for his journey, and mounted his magic steed,
+that galloped over the plains of Kalevala and crossed the waste of blue
+sea-water as though it were land.
+
+But the envious Youkahainen was informed of the journey, and had prepared
+a cruel cross-bow and three poisoned arrows. In spite of the protests of
+his mother, he waited for the hero and shot at him three times. The third
+arrow struck Wainamoinen's horse, which sank to the bottom of the ocean,
+leaving the hapless rider struggling in the water. "Seven summers must he
+tread the waves," chuckled Youkahainen; "eight years ride the billows."
+
+For six days Wainamoinen floated on the waters; then he was rescued by a
+huge eagle that carried him on its back to Pohyola, the dismal Sariola,
+and left him on a barren promontory, where he bemoaned his unhappy fate.
+Here he was found by Louhi, the toothless dame of Pohyola, who took him
+home and fed him. Then she promised to provide him with a sledge that he
+might journey safely home if he would forge for her the Sampo, a magical
+jewel that gave success to its possessor. If he could make her this, she
+would also give him her daughter in marriage. "I cannot forge the Sampo,
+but if thou wilt help me to my distant country I will send thee my brother
+Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, who can forge for thee the magic Sampo, and win
+thy beautiful daughter."
+
+Louhi provided a sledge and horse, and as Wainamoinen seated himself she
+warned him, as he journeyed, not to look upward before nightfall, or some
+great misfortune would befall him.
+
+The maiden of the Rainbow, beautiful daughter of Pohyola, was sitting on
+the rainbow weaving, and Wainamoinen, hearing the whizzing of the loom,
+forgot the warning, and, looking up, was filled with love for the maiden.
+
+"Come to me," he cried.
+
+"The birds have told me," she replied, "that a maiden's life, as compared
+to a married woman's, is as summer to coldest winter. Wives are as dogs
+enchained in kennels."
+
+When Wainamoinen further besought her, she told him that she would
+consider him a hero when he had split a golden hair with edgeless knives
+and snared a bird's egg with an invisible snare. When he had done these
+things without difficulty, she demanded that he should peel the sandstone,
+and cut her a whipstick from the ice without making a splinter. This done,
+she commanded that he should build her a boat from the fragments of her
+distaff, and set it floating without the use of his knee, arm, hand, or
+foot to propel it.
+
+While Wainamoinen was engaged in this task, Hisi, the god of evil, caused
+him to cut his knee with the axe. None of his charms availed to stanch the
+blood, so he dragged himself to his sledge and sought the nearest village.
+In the third cottage he found a graybeard, who caused two maids to dip up
+some of the flowing blood, and then commanded Wainamoinen to sing the
+origin of iron. The daughters of Ukko the Creator had sprinkled the
+mountains with black, white, and red milk,--from this was formed iron.
+Fire caught the iron and carried it to its furnace, and later Ilmarinen
+worked the unwilling metal into various articles. As he sought something
+to harden it, Hisi's bird, the hornet, dropped poison into the water; and
+the iron dipped into it, formed the hard steel, which, angry because it
+could not be broken, cut its brother, and vowed that it would ever cause
+man's blood to flow in torrents.
+
+The old man then addressed the crimson stream flowing from the wound, and
+prayed to mighty Ukko to stop it.
+
+When it ceased to flow at his prayer, he sent forth his son to gather
+various charmed plants, steep them, and make a magic balsam. After many
+attempts the son was successful; and the balsam, applied to Wainamoinen's
+wound, healed it immediately.
+
+Wainamoinen returned home and sought Ilmarinen, who refused to go north to
+forge the Sampo. Inducing his brother to climb a lofty fir-tree to bring
+down the Moon and the Bear he had conjured there, the wizard caused a
+great storm-wind to arise and blow Ilmarinen to the woodlands of Pohyola.
+
+There the blacksmith at once set up a forge, and after four days' work saw
+the Sampo rising from the furnace, its many colored lid rocking and
+grinding, every day, many measures of meal.
+
+Joyfully Louhi received the magic Sampo and locked it in a secret chamber
+under the copper-bearing mountains. But when Ilmarinen asked for the hand
+of the Rainbow Maid, he was refused. "Never shall I, in my lifetime, say
+farewell to maiden freedom." So the blacksmith was compelled to return
+alone to Wainola.
+
+While Ilmarinen was forging the Sampo and Wainamoinen was building the
+magic boat, Lemminkainen, or Ahti, the reckless wizard, king of the
+islands, was longing for a bride from Ehstland. In spite of his mother's
+entreaties, Lemminkainen went to Ehstland, and when he found it was
+impossible to gain the favor of Kylliki, the Sahri maid of beauty, he
+carried her off by force in his sledge. She became reconciled to him when
+he promised that he would never go to battle, and she in turn vowed that
+she would not visit the village dances. They lived happily together until
+Lemminkainen tarried late at the fishing one evening, and Kylliki went to
+the village dance. When Lemminkainen returned, his sister told him of
+Kylliki's broken vow; and in spite of the prayers of his mother and wife,
+the hero declared that he would break his promise and go to war. To the
+Northland he would go, and win another wife. "When my brush bleeds, then
+you may know that misfortune has overtaken me," he said angrily, flinging
+his hairbrush at the wall.
+
+Through many dangers he passed unscathed by the aid of his magic, until he
+stood in the halls of Louhi and asked for her daughter, the Rainbow
+Maiden.
+
+"First bring me the wild moose from the Hisi-fields and forests," said
+Louhi.
+
+From Kauppi, able smith, Lemminkainen procured the wondrous snow-shoes;
+but Hisi, who heard the boasts of the hero, fashioned a wild moose that
+ran so rapidly that Lemminkainen could not overtake it, but broke his
+snow-shoes in the race. He besought Ukko and the mistress of the forest
+and her king, and at last, with their aid, the moose was captured and led
+home to Louhi.
+
+"Now bridle the flaming horse of Hisi," said she.
+
+The mighty stallion stood on the Hisi mountain, breathing fire and smoke.
+When the hero saw him he prayed to Ukko, "Let the hail and icy rain fall
+upon him." His prayer was granted; and, going forward, Lemminkainen prayed
+the steed to put its head into the golden head-stall, promising to treat
+it with all gentleness. Then he led it to the courts of Sariola.
+
+"Now kill for me the swan that swims in Tuoni, the black death-river. One
+shot only canst thou have. If thou succeed, then mayst thou claim thy
+bride."
+
+When Lemminkainen entered Pohyola he had slain all his opponents but one
+blind shepherd, whom he spared because he despised his helplessness. This
+object of his scorn was waiting for him, and when Lemminkainen approached
+the river he fell by a shot from the enemy, regretting, as he died, that
+he had not asked his mother's advice before attempting to reach Tuoni.
+
+Nasshut, the shepherd, threw the hero's body into the river, where it was
+seized and cut in pieces by the son of Tuoni.
+
+At home the mother and wife awaited anxiously tidings of their hero. When
+they saw blood trickling from the brush, the mother could wait no longer,
+but at once set out for the dreary Northland. After repeated threats, she
+wrested from Louhi the fact that her son had gone to Tuoni; from the Sun
+she learned his fate.
+
+Quickly seeking Ilmarinen, the mother bade him forge for her a mighty
+rake. With this she raked the deep death-river, collected the pieces of
+the hero, bound them together with the aid of the goddess Suonetar, and
+making a balsam, the materials for which were brought her by the bee, she
+healed her hero son, comforted him, and led him back to Kalevala.
+
+In the mean time, Wainamoinen, who was building his boat for the Rainbow
+Maid, found that he had forgotten three magic words with which to fasten
+in the ledges and complete the boat's forecastle.
+
+After examining in vain the mouths of the wild animals, he sought the dead
+hero Wipunen, forced open his jaws, and accidentally fell into his mouth.
+Wipunen quickly swallowed him; but Wainamoinen, setting up a forge in his
+body, caused him such discomfort that the giant was glad to give his
+information, and get rid of his unwelcome visitor. Having thus learned the
+secrets of the ages, and among them the three magic words, Wainamoinen
+hastened home and finished his boat.
+
+The boat builded, he at once set out for the Northland to woo the Rainbow
+Maid. The boat was bedecked with silver and gold, and the linen sails were
+blue, white, and scarlet. The sails were merely for ornament, however, for
+the boat moved over the ocean without the aid of oars or sails.
+Wainamoinen's departure from Kalevala was observed by Anniki, the sister
+of Ilmarinen, who at once told her brother. With her assistance, Ilmarinen
+cleansed the black from his ruddy countenance, and jumping into his
+sledge, was soon on the way to Sariola. The approach of the heroes was
+perceived by Louhi. "Daughter," said she, "the old man brings thee a boat
+full of treasures; take him. Do not wed the empty-handed youth."
+
+"Thy advice is good, but I will not take it. The young man shall be my
+husband."
+
+When Wainamoinen was refused in spite of his gifts, Louhi addressed
+herself to Ilmarinen, and set him, in turn, three tasks: to plough the
+serpent field of Hisi, to muzzle Tuoni's bear, and to catch the pike of
+Mana, in the river of Tuoni.
+
+With the help of his sweetheart, Ilmarinen accomplished these tasks, and
+the wedding day was set. Old Wainamoinen, heavy hearted, journeyed
+homeward, and sent the edict to his people that in the future old men
+should not go wooing, or strive with younger men.
+
+Great preparations were made for the wedding feast; the mighty ox of
+Karjala was slain, and for the first time, beer was brewed in Pohyola.
+Invitations were sent to all the people of Pohyola and the tribes of
+Kalevala, to all save Lemminkainen.
+
+When Ilmarinen returned for his bride, he was received with honor, and the
+wedding feast was merry. But when the time came to take the bride away,
+the Rainbow Maid was unwilling, she who before had been so ready to go
+with him. Many times had she been told of the miseries of the wife: her
+husband's slave, her whole life one of service, one long endeavor to
+please her husband's mother and father. After her lament, Osmatar, the
+Bride-adviser, instructed her how to please her husband's family, and
+admonished Ilmarinen to guard well his Bride of Beauty. Then the two set
+forth together, the Rainbow Maid shedding many tears at parting with her
+loved ones.
+
+The bride and groom were received with joy by Ilmarinen's family, and old
+Wainamoinen himself sang at the wedding feast.
+
+But Lemminkainen was angry because he had received no invitation to the
+wedding, and in spite of his mother's advice, set out to make war against
+the Lapps. He successfully overcame all the terrors that beset him, and
+reached Sariola, but was so coldly received there that, enraged at such
+treatment, he slew his host, the landlord of Pohyola, and fled homeward to
+escape the hosts whom Louhi called to defend her.
+
+His mother sent him to the isle of refuge to escape the northern hosts. In
+the centre of the tenth ocean it rose, the refuge of his father; there he
+must abide three years, and must take a vow not to fight again for sixty
+summers.
+
+The three years passed speedily on the happy isle, where dwelt many
+maidens who admired the reckless hero, and he departed just in time to
+escape the swords of the jealous heroes of the isle. His ancient home was
+in ashes when he returned, his mother missing; but while he mourned for
+her, he chanced upon her, hiding from the Lapps in the forest. Again he
+determined to seek out his enemies and be revenged on them. Taking with
+him his friend Tiera he sought the north, but was met by the Frost-Fiend
+and compelled to return.
+
+To the house of Ilmarinen the blacksmith, was sold by Untamoinen a slave,
+Kullervo. He was a giant who had done naught but evil, until in despair
+his master sold him to the blacksmith. Kullervo, or Kullerwoinen, was made
+a shepherd and sent forth with the flocks. But rage at the blacksmith's
+wife, who baked a stone in his bread on which he broke the magic knife of
+his people, caused him to transform the flocks into wolves, who tore the
+Rainbow Wife to pieces when she went to milk them.
+
+Then Kullerwoinen fled from the blacksmith, and set out to find his
+tribe-people, but on the way unknowingly corrupted his sister, and in
+despair at his evil deeds, destroyed himself.
+
+Ilmarinen was full of grief at the loss of his wife. Unhappy and restless,
+he forged for himself a bride of gold; but the image failed to satisfy
+him, and Wainamoinen, reproving him, forbade his people in the future to
+worship any graven image. Then the blacksmith again sought the north to
+win the sister of his former bride, but was met with bitter reproaches for
+the sorrow he had brought upon the family. Nevertheless, he seized the
+maiden to carry her away, but she was so angry and so unhappy that he
+changed her to a seagull and came home wifeless and sad.
+
+Wainamoinen and Ilmarinen soon conceived the idea of going to the
+Northland to win back the Sampo. On the way they allied to themselves the
+wizard Lemminkainen. As they approached the whirlpool near Pohyola, their
+vessel stuck on the shoulders of a great pike. When neither Lemminkainen
+nor Ilmarinen could slay it, Wainamoinen impaled it on his fire-sword, and
+the three banqueted on the great fish. From its bones, Wainamoinen framed
+the first harp. No one could win music from it but its creator; but when
+he touched its strings and sang, the very trees danced about him, wild
+animals lay in peace at his feet, and the hearts of men were ravished. As
+his listeners wept at the strains, Wainamoinen's tears rolled down into
+the ocean. Thence the duck brought them, changed to pearls, receiving for
+a reward its beautiful coat. Such was the origin of sea-pearls.
+
+When Wainamoinen had put the inhabitants of Pohyola to sleep with his
+magic music, the heroes found the Sampo with little difficulty, and bore
+it away from the copper mountain. But as they hastened home, the
+discordant voice of Lemminkainen, who sang for joy of their capture,
+caused the crane to screech, and the bird's cry roused the people of
+Pohyola. Louhi speedily discovered her loss, and started in pursuit of the
+heroes. In various ways she attacked them,--with war ships that were
+stopped by a reef conjured up by Wainamoinen, by a terrible storm, and by
+a giant eagle that perched on their boat. In their struggle with her the
+Sampo was broken and its fragments scattered on the ocean. Louhi left
+them, uttering dire threats; and Wainamoinen, gathering up what fragments
+of the Sampo he could find, buried them where they would bring prosperity
+to his people.
+
+Now Wainamoinen longed to sing to his harp to rejoice the hearts of his
+people, but the magic instrument had been lost in the storm conjured by
+Louhi. After raking the sea for it in vain, he constructed a new harp from
+the birch-tree, and delighted the people with his songs.
+
+In revenge for the theft of the Sampo, Louhi sent nine diseases upon
+Wainamoinen's people,--colic, pleurisy, fever, ulcer, plague, consumption,
+gout, sterility, and cancer, the offspring of the fell Lowyatar; but by
+the use of vapor baths and balsams Wainamoinen healed his people. Then
+Louhi sent Otso the Bear, the honey-eater, but he was slain by the hero,
+who made a banquet of his flesh for the people. Enraged at her failures,
+she stole the sun, moon, and fire, and left Kalevala in darkness. Ukko,
+taking pity on his people, struck lightning from his fire-sword and gave
+the fire-child to a virgin to be cared for. In an unguarded moment it
+sprang earthward, fell into the sea, and was swallowed by a fish, that, in
+the agonies of torment, was swallowed by another. Wainamoinen went fishing
+with Ilmarinen, and at last caught the gray pike,--found in it the trout,
+found in the trout the whiting, and in the whiting the fireball. When he
+attempted to seize the fireball he burned his fingers, and dropped it.
+Ilmarinen did likewise. Then the ball rolled rapidly away until
+Wainamoinen caught it in an elm-tree, and took it home to gladden his
+people. Still they were cheerless without the sun and moon, and
+Wainamoinen was obliged to go to Louhi and compel her to give up the sun
+and moon. When he returned there was joy in Kalevala.
+
+In the Northland dwelt a happy maiden, Mariatta, who, eating of the magic
+berry, as she wandered one day in the fields, bore by it a child which she
+called Flower. Her parents cast her off, and as no one would take her in,
+she was compelled to go to the flaming steed of Hisi, in whose manger the
+child was born. Once when she slumbered the child vanished, and she sought
+for it in vain, until told by the sun that it was in Wainola, sleeping
+among the reeds and rushes.
+
+The child grew in grace and beauty, but no priest would baptize him, all
+saying that he was a wizard. Wainamoinen, too, counselled that he be
+destroyed; but when the two weeks old babe lifted its head and reproached
+him, saying that he had committed many follies but had been spared by his
+people, Wainamoinen baptized him, and gave him the right to grow a hero
+and become a mighty ruler over Karyala.
+
+As Wainamoinen grew feeble with the passing years, he built himself a boat
+of copper, and singing a plaintive song in which he said the people of
+Suomi would look forward to his return as a time of peace and plenty, he
+set forth, sailing through the dusk of evening to the fiery sunset, and
+anchored in the purple horizon, leaving behind him for an heritage his
+harp, his wondrous songs, and his wisdom sayings.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE KALEVALA.
+
+ILMARINEN'S WEDDING FEAST.
+
+
+Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, visited the Northland, won the Rainbow Maid,
+and successfully performed the tasks set by her mother Louhi. Great
+preparations were made in Pohyola for the wedding, and the coming of the
+bridegroom was anxiously expected.
+
+  Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
+  Ancient dame of Sariola,
+  While at work within her dwelling,
+  Heard the whips crack on the fenlands,
+  Heard the rattle of the sledges;
+  To the northward turned her glances,
+  Turned her vision to the sunlight,
+  And her thoughts ran on as follow:
+  "Who are these in bright apparel,
+  On the banks of Pohya-waters,
+  Are they friends or hostile armies?"
+
+  Then the hostess of the Northland
+  Looked again and well considered,
+  Drew much nearer to examine,
+  Found they were not hostile armies,
+  Found that they were friends and suitors;
+  In the midst was Ilmarinen,
+  Son in-law to ancient Louhi.
+
+  When the hostess of Pohyola
+  Saw the son-in-law approaching,
+  She addressed the words that follow:
+
+  "I had thought the winds were raging,
+  That the piles of wood were falling,
+  Thought the pebbles in commotion,
+  Or perchance the ocean roaring;
+  Then I hastened nearer, nearer,
+  Drew still nearer and examined,
+  Found the winds were not in battle,
+  Found the piles of wood unshaken,
+  Found the ocean was not roaring,
+  Nor the pebbles in commotion;
+  Found my son-in-law was coming
+  With his heroes and attendants,
+  Heroes counted by the hundreds.
+
+  "Should you ask of me the question,
+  How I recognized the bridegroom
+  Mid the host of men and heroes,
+  I should answer, I should tell you:
+  'As the hazel-bush in copses,
+  As the oak-tree in the forest,
+  As the moon among the planets;
+  Drives the groom a coal-black courser,
+  Running like a famished black-dog,
+  Flying like the hungry raven,
+  Graceful as the lark at morning,
+  Golden cuckoos, six in number,
+  Twitter on the birchen cross-bow;
+  There are seven blue-birds singing
+  On the racer's hame and collar.'"
+
+  Noises hear they in the court-yard,
+  On the highway hear the sledges.
+  To the court comes Ilmarinen,
+  With his body-guard of heroes;
+  In the midst the chosen suitor,
+  Not too far in front of others,
+  Not too far behind his fellows.
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Hie ye hither, men and heroes,
+  Haste, ye watchers, to the stables,
+  There unhitch the suitor's stallion,
+  Lower well the racer's breast-plate,
+  There undo the straps and buckles,
+  Loosen well the shafts and traces,
+  And conduct the suitor hither,
+  Give my son-in-law good welcome!"
+
+  Ilmarinen turned his racer
+  Into Louhi's yard and stables,
+  And descended from his snow-sledge
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Come, thou servant of my bidding,
+  Best of all my trusted servants,
+  Take at once the bridegroom's courser
+  From the shafts adorned with silver,
+  From the curving arch of willow,
+  Lift the harness trimmed in copper,
+  Tie the white-face to the manger,
+  Treat the suitor's steed with kindness,
+  Lead him carefully to shelter
+  By his soft and shining bridle,
+  By his halter tipped with silver;
+  Let him roll among the sand-hills,
+  On the bottoms soft and even,
+  On the borders of the snow-banks,
+  In the fields of milky color.
+  Lead the hero's steed to water,
+  Lead him to the Pohya-fountains,
+  Where the living streams are flowing,
+  Sweet as milk of human kindness,
+  From the roots of silvery birches,
+  Underneath the shade of aspens.
+
+  "Feed the courser of the suitor,
+  With the sweetest corn and barley,
+  With the summer-wheat and clover,
+  In the caldron steeped in sweetness;
+  Feed him at the golden manger,
+  In the boxes lined with copper,
+  At my manger richly furnished,
+  In the warmest of the hurdles;
+  Tie him with a silk-like halter,
+  To the golden rings and staples,
+  To the hooks of purest silver,
+  Set in beams of birch and oak-wood;
+  Feed him on the hay the sweetest,
+  Feed him on the grains nutritious,
+  Give the best my barns can furnish.
+
+  "Curry well the suitor's courser
+  With the curry-comb of fish-bone,
+  Brush his hair with silken brushes,
+  Put his mane and tail in order,
+  Cover well with silken blankets,
+  Blankets wrought in gold and silver,
+  Buckles forged from shining copper.
+
+  "Come, ye small lads of the village,
+  Lead the suitor to my chambers,
+  With your auburn locks uncovered,
+  From your hands remove your mittens,
+  See if ye can lead the hero
+  Through the door without his stooping,
+  Lifting not the upper cross-bar,
+  Sinking not the oaken threshold,
+  Moving not the oaken casings,
+  Great the hero who must enter.
+
+  "Ilmarinen is too stately,
+  Cannot enter through the portals,
+  Not the son-in-law and bridegroom,
+  Till the portals have been lengthened;
+  Taller by a head the suitor
+  Than the doorways of the mansion."
+  Quick the servants of Pohyola
+  Tore away the upper cross-bar,
+  That his cap might not be lifted;
+  Made the oaken threshold lower
+  That the hero might not stumble;
+  Made the birch-wood portals wider,
+  Opened full the door of welcome,
+  Easy entrance for the suitor.
+
+  Speaks the hostess of the Northland
+  As the bridegroom freely passes
+  Through the doorway of her dwelling:
+
+  "Thanks are due to thee, O Ukko,
+  That my son-in-law has entered!
+  Let me now my halls examine;
+  Make the bridal chambers ready,
+  Finest linen on my tables,
+  Softest furs upon my benches,
+  Birchen flooring scrubbed to whiteness,
+  All my rooms in perfect order."
+
+  Then the hostess of Pohyola
+  Visited her spacious dwelling,
+  Did not recognize her chambers;
+  Every room had been remodelled,
+  Changed by force of mighty magic;
+  All the halls were newly burnished,
+  Hedgehog bones were used for ceilings,
+  Bones of reindeer for foundations,
+  Bones of wolverine for door-sills,
+  For the cross-bars bones of roebuck,
+  Apple-wood were all the rafters,
+  Alder-wood, the window casings,
+  Scales of trout adorned the windows,
+  And the fires were set in flowers.
+  All the seats were made of silver,
+  All the floors of copper-tiling,
+  Gold-adorned were all the tables,
+  On the floor were silken mattings,
+  Every fire-place set in copper,
+  Every hearth-stone cut from marble,
+  On each shelf were colored sea-shells,
+  Kalew's tree was their protection.
+
+  To the court-room came the hero,
+  Chosen suitor from Wainola,
+  These the words of Ilmarinen:
+
+  "Send, O Ukko, health and pleasure
+  To this ancient home and dwelling,
+  To this mansion richly fashioned!"
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Let thy coming be auspicious
+  To these halls of thee unworthy,
+  To the home of thy affianced,
+  To this dwelling lowly fashioned,
+  Mid the lindens and the aspens.
+
+  "Come, ye maidens that should serve me,
+  Come, ye fellows from the village,
+  Bring me fire upon the birch-bark,
+  Light the fagots of the fir-tree,
+  That I may behold the bridegroom,
+  Chosen suitor of my daughter,
+  Fairy Maiden of the Rainbow,
+  See the color of his eyeballs,
+  Whether they are blue or sable,
+  See if they are warm and faithful."
+
+  Quick the young lads from the village
+  Brought the fire upon the birch-bark,
+  Brought it on the tips of pine-wood;
+  And the fire and smoke commingled
+  Roll and roar about the hero,
+  Blackening the suitor's visage,
+  And the hostess speaks as follows:
+
+  "Bring the fire upon a taper,
+  On the waxen tapers bring it!"
+
+  Then the maidens did as bidden,
+  Quickly brought the lighted tapers,
+  Made the suitor's eyeballs glisten,
+  Made his cheeks look fresh and ruddy;
+  Eyes were neither blue nor sable,
+  Sparkled like the foam of waters,
+  Like the reed-grass on the margin,
+  Colored as the ocean-jewels,
+  Iridescent as the rainbow.
+
+  "Come, ye fellows from the hamlets,
+  Lead my son-in-law and hero
+  To the highest seat at table,
+  To the seat of greatest honor,
+  With his back upon the blue-wall,
+  Looking on my bounteous tables,
+  Facing all the guests of Northland."
+
+  Then the hostess of Pohyola
+  Served her guests in great abundance,
+  Richest drinks and rarest viands,
+  First of all she served the bridegroom;
+  On his platters honeyed biscuit,
+  And the sweetest river-salmon,
+  Seasoned butter, roasted bacon,
+  All the dainties of Pohyola.
+  Then the servants served the others,
+  Filled the plates of all invited
+  With the varied food of Northland.
+  Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
+
+  "Come, ye maidens from the village,
+  Hither bring the beer in pitchers,
+  In the urns with double handles,
+  To the many guests in-gathered.
+  Ere all others, serve the bridegroom."
+
+  Thereupon the merry maidens
+  Brought the beer in silver pitchers
+  From the copper-banded vessels,
+  For the wedding guests assembled;
+  And the beer, fermenting, sparkled
+  On the beard of Ilmarinen,
+  On the beards of many heroes.
+
+  When the guests had all partaken
+  Of the wondrous beer of barley,
+  Spake the drink in merry accents
+  Through the tongues of the magicians,
+  Through the tongue of many a hero,
+  Through the tongue of Wainamoinen,
+  Famed to be the sweetest singer
+  Of the Northland bards and minstrels.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Grant, O Ukko, my Creator,
+  God of love, and truth, and justice,
+  Grant thy blessing on our feasting,
+  Bless this company assembled,
+  For the good of Sariola,
+  For the happiness of Northland!
+  May this bread and beer bring joyance,
+  May they come in rich abundance,
+  May they carry full contentment
+  To the people of Pohyola,
+  To the cabin and the mansion;
+  May the hours we spend in singing,
+  In the morning, in the evening,
+  Fill our hearts with joy and gladness!
+  Hear us in our supplications,
+  Grant to us thy needed blessings,
+  Send enjoyment, health, and comfort,
+  To the people here assembled,
+  To the host and to the hostess,
+  To the bride and to the bridegroom,
+  To the sons upon the waters,
+  To the daughters at their weavings,
+  To the hunters on the mountains,
+  To the shepherds in the fenlands,
+  That our lives may end in honor,
+  That we may recall with pleasure
+  Ilmarinen's magic marriage
+  To the Maiden of the Rainbow,
+  Snow-white virgin of the Northland."
+
+      _Crawford's Translation, Rune XXI._
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE HARP.
+
+
+Wainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and the wizard Lemminkainen started to the
+Northland to win back the Sampo forged for Louhi by Ilmarinen. On the way
+their boat stuck on the shoulders of a great pike, which was killed by
+Wainamoinen. The three then landed, ordered the pike to be cooked by the
+maidens, and feasted until nothing remained of the fish but a heap of
+bones.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Looked upon the pile of fragments,
+  On the fish-bones looked and pondered,
+  Spake these words in meditation:
+
+  "Wondrous things might be constructed
+  From the relics of this monster,
+  Were they in the blacksmith's furnace,
+  In the hands of the magician,
+  In the hands of Ilmarinen."
+
+  Spake the blacksmith of Wainola:
+
+  "Nothing fine can be constructed
+  From the bones and teeth of fishes
+  By the skilful forger-artist,
+  By the hands of the magician."
+  These the words of Wainamoinen:
+
+  "Something wondrous might be builded
+  From these jaws, and teeth, and fish-bones;
+  Might a magic harp be fashioned,
+  Could an artist be discovered
+  That could shape them to my wishes."
+
+  But he found no fish-bone artist
+  That could shape the harp of joyance
+  From the relics of their feasting,
+  From the jaw-bones of the monster,
+  To the will of the magician.
+  Thereupon wise Wainamoinen
+  Set himself at work designing;
+  Quick became a fish-bone artist,
+  Made a harp of wondrous beauty,
+  Lasting joy and pride of Suomi.
+  Whence the harp's enchanting arches?
+  From the jaw-bones of the monster.
+  Whence the necessary harp-pins?
+  From the pike-teeth, firmly fastened.
+  Whence the sweetly singing harp-strings?
+  From the tail of Lempo's stallion.
+  Thus was born the harp of magic
+  From the mighty pike of Northland,
+  From the relics from the feasting
+  Of the heroes of Wainola.
+  All the young men came to view it,
+  All the aged with their children,
+  Mothers with their beauteous daughters,
+  Maidens with their golden tresses;
+  All the people on the islands
+  Came to view the harp of joyance,
+  Pride and beauty of the Northland.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Let the aged try the harp-strings,
+  Gave it to the young magicians,
+  To the dames and to their daughters,
+  To the maidens, silver-tinselled,
+  To the singers of Wainola.
+  When the young men touched the harp-strings,
+  Then arose the notes of discord;
+  When the aged played upon it,
+  Dissonance their only music.
+  Spake the wizard, Lemminkainen:
+
+  "O ye witless, worthless children,
+  O ye senseless, useless maidens,
+  O ye wisdom-lacking heroes,
+  Cannot play this harp of magic,
+  Cannot touch the notes of concord!
+  Give to me this thing of beauty,
+  Hither bring the harp of fish-bones,
+  Let me try my skillful fingers."
+  Lemminkainen touched the harp-strings,
+  Carefully the strings adjusted,
+  Turned the harp in all directions,
+  Fingered all the strings in sequence,
+  Played the instrument of wonder,
+  But it did not speak in concord,
+  Did not sing the notes of joyance.
+  Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
+
+  "There is none among these maidens,
+  None among these youthful heroes,
+  None among the old magicians,
+  That can play the harp of magic,
+  Touch the notes of joy and pleasure.
+  Let us take the harp to Pohya,
+  There to find a skillful player
+  That can touch the strings in concord."
+
+  Then they sailed to Sariola,
+  To Pohyola took the wonder,
+  There to find the harp a master.
+  All the heroes of Pohyola,
+  All the boys and all the maidens,
+  Ancient dames and bearded minstrels,
+  Vainly touched the harp of beauty.
+
+  Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
+  Took the harp-strings in her fingers;
+  All the youth of Sariola,
+  Youth of every tribe and station,
+  Vainly touched the harp of fish-bone;
+  Could not find the notes of joyance,
+  Dissonance their only pleasure;
+  Shrieked the harp-strings like the whirlwinds,
+  All the tones were harsh and frightful.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  The eternal wisdom-singer,
+  Laves his hands to snowy whiteness,
+  Sits upon the rock of joyance,
+  On the stone of song he settles,
+  On the mount of song he settles,
+  On the mount of silver clearness,
+  On the summit, golden colored,
+  Takes the harp by him created,
+  In his hands the harp of fish-bone,
+  With his knee the arch supporting,
+  Takes the harp-strings in his fingers,
+  Speaks these words to those assembled:
+
+  "Hither come, ye Northland people,
+  Come and listen to my playing,--
+  To the harp's entrancing measures,
+  To my songs of joy and gladness."
+
+  Then the singer of Wainola
+  Took the harp of his creation,
+  Quick adjusting, sweetly tuning,
+  Deftly plied his skillful fingers
+  To the strings that he had fashioned.
+  Now was gladness rolled on gladness,
+  And the harmony of pleasure
+  Echoed from the hills and mountains;
+  Added singing to his playing,
+  Out of joy did joy come welling,
+  Now resounded marvellous music,
+  All of Northland stopped and listened.
+  Every creature in the forest,
+  All the beasts that haunt the woodlands
+  On their nimble feet came bounding,
+  Came to listen to his playing,
+  Came to hear his songs of joyance.
+  Leaped the squirrels from the branches,
+  Merrily from birch to aspen;
+  Climbed the ermines on the fences,
+  O'er the plains the elk deer bounded,
+  And the lynxes purred with pleasure;
+  Wolves awoke in far-off swamp-lands,
+  Bounded o'er the marsh and heather,
+  And the bear his den deserted,
+  Left his lair within the pine-wood,
+  Settled by a fence to listen,
+  Leaned against the listening gate-posts,
+  But the gate-posts yield beneath him;
+  Now he climbs the fir-tree branches
+  That he may enjoy and wonder,
+  Climbs and listens to the music
+  Of the harp of Wainamoinen.
+
+  Tapiola's wisest senior,
+  Metsola's most noble landlord,
+  And of Tapio, the people,
+  Young and aged, men and maidens,
+  Flew like red-deer up the mountains
+  There to listen to the playing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Tapiola's wisest mistress,
+  Hostess of the glen and forest,
+  Robed herself in blue and scarlet,
+  Bound her limbs with silken ribbons,
+  Sat upon the woodland summit,
+  On the branches of a birch-tree,
+  There to listen to the playing,
+  To the high-born hero's harping,
+  To the songs of Wainamoinen.
+
+  All the birds that fly in mid-air
+  Fell like snow-flakes from the heavens,
+  Flew to hear the minstrel's playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Eagles in their lofty eyrie
+  Heard the songs of the enchanter;
+  Swift they left their unfledged young ones,
+  Flew and perched around the minstrel.
+  From the heights the hawks descended,
+  From the clouds down swooped the falcon,
+  Ducks arose from inland waters,
+  Swans came gliding from the marshes;
+  Tiny finches, green and golden,
+  Flew in flocks that darkened sunlight,
+  Came in myriads to listen,
+  Perched upon the head and shoulders
+  Of the charming Wainamoinen,
+  Sweetly singing to the playing
+  Of the ancient bard and minstrel.
+  And the daughters of the welkin,
+  Nature's well-beloved daughters,
+  Listened all in rapt attention;
+  Some were seated on the rainbow,
+  Some upon the crimson cloudlets,
+  Some upon the dome of heaven.
+
+  In their hands the Moon's fair daughters
+  Held their weaving-combs of silver;
+  In their hands the Sun's sweet maidens
+  Grasped the handles of their distaffs,
+  Weaving with their golden shuttles,
+  Spinning from their silver spindles,
+  On the red rims of the cloudlets,
+  On the bow of many colors.
+  As they hear the minstrel playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
+  Quick they drop their combs of silver,
+  Drop the spindles from their fingers,
+  And the golden threads are broken,
+  Broken are the threads of silver.
+
+  All the fish in Suomi-waters
+  Heard the songs of the magician,
+  Came on flying fins to listen
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  Came the trout with graceful motions,
+  Water-dogs with awkward movements,
+  From the water-cliffs the salmon,
+  From the sea-caves came the whiting,
+  From the deeper caves the bill-fish;
+  Came the pike from beds of sea-fern,
+  Little fish with eyes of scarlet,
+  Leaning on the reeds and rushes,
+  With their heads above the surface;
+  Came to hear the harp of joyance,
+  Hear the songs of the enchanter.
+
+  Ahto, king of all the waters,
+  Ancient king with beard of sea-grass,
+  Raised his head above the billows,
+  In a boat of water-lilies,
+  Glided to the coast in silence,
+  Listened to the wondrous singing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  These the words the sea-king uttered:
+
+  "Never have I heard such playing,
+  Never heard such strains of music,
+  Never since the sea was fashioned,
+  As the songs of this enchanter,
+  This sweet singer, Wainamoinen."
+
+  Satko's daughters from the blue-deep,
+  Sisters of the wave-washed ledges,
+  On the colored strands were sitting,
+  Smoothing out their sea-green tresses
+  With the combs of molten silver,
+  With their silver-handled brushes,
+  Brushes forged with golden bristles.
+  When they hear the magic playing,
+  Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
+  Fall their brushes on the billows,
+  Fall their combs with silver handles
+  To the bottom of the waters,
+  Unadorned their heads remaining,
+  And uncombed their sea-green tresses.
+
+  Came the hostess of the waters,
+  Ancient hostess robed in flowers,
+  Rising from her deep sea-castle,
+  Swimming to the shore in wonder,
+  Listened to the minstrel's playing,
+  To the harp of Wainamoinen.
+  As the magic tones re-echoed,
+  As the singer's song outcircled,
+  Sank the hostess into slumber,
+  On the rocks of many colors,
+  On her watery couch of joyance,
+  Deep the sleep that settled o'er her.
+
+  Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
+  Played one day and then a second,
+  Played the third from morn to even.
+  There was neither man nor hero,
+  Neither ancient dame nor maiden,
+  Not in Metsola a daughter,
+  Whom he did not touch to weeping;
+  Wept the young and wept the aged,
+  Wept the mothers, wept the daughters,
+  At the music of his playing,
+  At the songs of the magician.
+      _Crawford's Translation, Runes XL.-XLI._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AENEID.
+
+
+The Aeneid was written by Publius Vergilius Maro, commonly known as
+Vergil, who was born at Andes, near Mantua, Oct. 15, 70 B. C., and died at
+Brundusium, Sept. 22, 19 B.C.
+
+He was educated at Cremona, Milan, Naples, and Rome. When the lands near
+Cremona and Mantua were assigned by Octavianus to his soldiers after the
+battle of Philippi, Vergil lost his estates; but they were afterwards
+restored to him through Asinius Pollio.
+
+He became a favorite of Augustus, and spent part of his time in Rome, near
+his patron, Maecenas, the emperor's minister.
+
+Vergil's first work was the Bucolics, in imitation of Theocritus. His
+second work, the Georgics, treats of husbandry. The Aeneid relates the
+adventures of Aeneas, the legendary ancestor of the Romans.
+
+The Aeneid is in twelve books, of which the first six describe the
+wanderings of Aeneas, and the last six his wars in Italy. Its metre is the
+dactyllic hexameter.
+
+Vergil worked for eleven years on the poem, and considered it incomplete
+at his death.
+
+The Aeneid tells the story of the flight of Aeneas from burning Troy to
+Italy, and makes him an ancestor of the Romans. With the story of his
+wanderings are interwoven praises of the Caesars and the glory of Rome.
+
+It is claimed that because Vergil was essentially a poet of rural life, he
+was especially fitted to be the national poet, since the Roman life was
+founded on the agricultural country life. He also chose a theme which
+particularly appealed to the patriotism of the Romans. For this reason,
+the poem was immediately received into popular favor, and was made a
+text-book of the Roman youths. It is often said of Vergil by way of
+reproach, that his work was an imitation of Homer, and the first six books
+of the Aeneid are compared to the Odyssey, the last six to the Iliad. But
+while Vergil may be accused of imitation of subject matter, his style is
+his own, and is entirely different from that of Homer. There is a tender
+grace in the Roman writer which the Greek does not possess. Vergil also
+lacks that purely pagan enjoyment of life; in its place there is a tender
+melancholy that suggests the passing of the golden age. This difference of
+treatment, this added grace and charm, which are always mentioned as
+peculiarly Vergil's own, united with his poetical feeling, and skill in
+versification, are sufficient to absolve him from the reproach of a mere
+imitator.
+
+The Aeneid was greatly admired and imitated during the Middle Ages, and
+still retains its high place in literature.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE AENEID.
+
+R. W. Brown's History of Roman Classical Literature, n. d., pp. 257-265;
+
+John Alfred Church's Story of the Aeneid, 1886;
+
+Domenico Comparetti's Virgil in the Middle Ages, Tr. by Benecke, 1895;
+
+C. T. Cruttwell's Virgil (see his History of Roman Literature, n. d. pp.
+252-375);
+
+John Davis's Observations on the poems of Homer and Virgil, out of the
+French, 1672;
+
+James Henry's Aeneidea: or Critical, Exegetical, and Aesthetical Remarks
+on the Aeneis, 1873;
+
+James Henry's Notes of Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery in the first six
+Books of the Aeneid, 1853;
+
+J. W. Mackail's Virgil (see his Latin Literature, 1895, pp. 91-106);
+
+H. Nettleship's The Aeneid (see his Vergil, 1880, pp. 45-74);
+
+H. T. Peck and R. Arrowsmith's Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse, 1894,
+pp. 68-70;
+
+Leonhard Schmitz's History of Latin Literature, 1877, pp. 106-108;
+
+W. Y. Sellar's Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, Vergil, Ed. 2, 1883;
+
+W. S. Teuffel's Aeneis (see his History of Roman Literature, 1891, pp.
+434-439);
+
+J. S. Tunison's Master Virgil, the author of the Aeneid, as he seemed in
+the Middle Ages, 1888;
+
+Robert Y. Tyrrell's Virgil (see his Latin Poetry, 1895, pp. 126-161);
+
+A Forgotten Virtue, Macmillan, 1895, xii. 51-56, an article on the Aeneid,
+"the epic of piety;"
+
+Scene of the last six books of the Aeneid, Blackwood, 1832, xxxii. 76-87;
+
+A. A. Knight's The Year in the Aeneid, Education, 1886, vi. 612-616;
+
+William C. Cawton's The Underworld in Homer, Virgil, and Dante, Atlantic,
+1884, liv. 99-110.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE AENEID.
+
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by J. Conington, 1887;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by C. P. Cranch, 1872;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by John Dryden (1697), 1884;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by William Morris, 1882;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by W. S. Thornhill, 1886;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by J. A. Wilstach, 1884;
+
+The Aeneid, Tr. by J. W. Mackail, 1890.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE AENEID.
+
+
+For many years the heroic Aeneas, who escaped from falling Troy to seek the
+shores of Italy, there to found the lofty walls of Rome, was tossed upon
+the sea by the wrath of cruel Juno.
+
+The fates foretold that these future Romans would overthrow a city dearer
+to her than Samos,--Carthage, founded by the Tyrians, opposite Italy, and
+far from the Tiberine mouths. For this rich city Juno desired boundless
+rule,--hence her hatred of the Trojans. Moreover, she had not forgotten
+the judgment of Paris, her slighted charms, and the supplanting of Hebe by
+Ganymede.
+
+After having tossed the unhappy hero and his men over many seas, Juno,
+observing their approach to Italy, hastened to Aeolia, where King Aeolus
+ruled over the struggling winds and tempests, chained in vast caves.
+
+Bribed by Juno, Aeolus sent forth a tempest that scattered the ships of
+Aeneas, and would have destroyed them had it not been for the interposition
+of Neptune.
+
+Suspecting his sister's treachery, Neptune angrily dismissed the winds,
+and hastened to the relief of the Trojans. Cymothoe and Triton pushed the
+ships from the rocks, he himself assisting with his trident. Then, driving
+over the rough waves in his chariot, he soothed the frenzy of the sea.
+
+The wearied Aeneans speedily sought a harbor on the Libyan shore, a long
+and deep recess bordered by a dense grove. In the cliffs was a cave, with
+sweet waters and seats carved from the living rock,--the abode of the
+nymphs. Gathering here the seven ships that survived the fury of the
+storm, Aeneas landed, and feasted with his comrades.
+
+The next morning Aeneas, accompanied by his friend Achates, sallied forth
+from the camp at dawn, to learn, if possible, something of the land on
+which they had been thrown. They had gone but a little way in the depths
+of the forest when they met Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the guise of a
+Spartan maid, her bow hung from her shoulders, her hair flowing to the
+wind.
+
+"Hast thou seen my sister?" she inquired, "hunting the boar, wrapped in a
+spotted lynx hide, her quiver at her back?"
+
+"Nay, we have seen no one," replied Aeneas. "But what shall I call thee,
+maiden? A goddess, a nymph? Be kind, I pray thee, and tell us among what
+people we have fallen, that before thy altars we may sacrifice many a
+victim."
+
+"I am unworthy of such honors," Venus answered. "This land is Libya, but
+the town is Tyrian, founded by Dido, who fled hither from her brother
+Pygmalion, who had secretly murdered her husband, Sichaeus, for his gold.
+To Dido, sleeping, appeared the wraith of Sichaeus, pallid, his breast
+pierced with the impious wound, and revealed to her her brother's crime,
+showed where a hoard of gold was concealed, and advised her to leave the
+country.
+
+"Gathering together a company of those who wished to flee from the tyrant,
+Dido seized the ships, loaded them with the gold, and fled to Libya, where
+she is now erecting the walls and towers of New Carthage. I would advise
+thee to hasten forward and seek our queen. If augury fail me not, I read
+from yonder flight of swans the return of thy missing ships and comrades."
+
+As she turned to go, her neck shone with a rosy refulgence, ambrosial
+fragrance breathed from her, her robe flowed down about her feet and
+revealed the goddess. As she vanished, her son stretched longing hands
+after her. "Ah, mother, why dost thou thus trifle with me? Why may not I
+clasp thy loved hands and exchange true words with thee?"
+
+Wrapped in a cloud by Venus, Aeneas and Achates mounted a hill that
+overlooked the city, and looked down wondering on the broad roofs and the
+paved streets of Carthage. The busy Tyrians worked like the bees in early
+summer: some moving the immense masses of stone, some founding the
+citadel, others laying off the sites for the law courts and sacred Senate
+House. "O happy ye whose walls now rise!" exclaimed Aeneas, as he and
+Achates mingled with the crowd, still cloud-wrapped, and entered the vast
+temple built to Juno. Here Aeneas's fear fell from him; for as he waited
+for the queen's coming, he saw pictured on the walls the fall of his own
+dear city, and wept as he gazed upon the white tents of Rhesus, and
+Hector's disfigured body.
+
+As he wept, the beautiful Dido entered, joyously intent on her great work,
+and, seating herself on her throne, proceeded to give laws to the Tyrians,
+and assign their work to them.
+
+Suddenly, to the amazement of Aeneas and Achates, in burst their lost
+comrades, Antheus, Sergestus, Gyas, Cloanthus, and other Trojans,
+demanding of Dido a reason for their rough reception. To whom the queen
+replied:--
+
+"Let fear desert your hearts; I, too, have suffered, and know how to aid
+the unfortunate. And whither hath not the fame of Troy penetrated? I will
+aid you in leaving this coast, or give you a home with me, treating you as
+I treat my Tyrians. Would only that Aeneas's self stood with you!"
+
+Then burst Aeneas forth from his cloud-wrapping, made more beautiful by
+Venus, the purple bloom of youth on his face, joy in his eyes. "Here am I,
+Trojan Aeneas, to render thanks to thee, divine Dido."
+
+Dido, charmed with the hero, prepared a banquet for him in her splendid
+hall, curtained with rich drapery, and adorned with costly plate, whereon
+were pictured the proud deeds of her ancestors. Hither came the Trojans
+with gifts for Dido,--a rich robe stiff with gold embroidery, a veil
+embroidered with the yellow acanthus, ornaments of Helen, the sceptre of
+Ilione, a pearl and gold necklace, and a double crown of gems and gold.
+
+Beside Achates tripped Cupid, for Venus, suspecting the craft of the
+Tyrians, had hidden Ascanius on Mount Ida, and sent her own son in his
+guise, to complete Aeneas's conquest of Dido.
+
+After the feast was over, the great beakers were brought in and crowned
+with garlands. Dido called for the beaker used by Belus and all his
+descendants, and pouring a libation, drank to the happiness of the Trojan
+wanderers, and passed the cup around the board. Iopas, the long-haired
+minstrel, sang, and the night passed by in various discourse. Dido,
+forgetting Sichaeus, hung on the words of Aeneas, questioning him of Priam
+and Hector, and at last demanding the story of his wanderings.
+
+"Thou orderest me, O queen, to renew my grief, the destruction of Troy by
+the Greeks, which deeds I have seen, and a part of which I have been.
+
+"Despairing of conquering Troy, the Greeks attempted to take it by
+stratagem. By the art of Pallas, they framed a heaven-high horse, within
+which were concealed picked men for our destruction. Leaving this behind
+them, they sailed, ostensibly for home, in reality for Tenedos.
+
+"When we supposed them gone we joyfully went forth to examine the deserted
+camp and the giant horse. As we wondered at it, and Laocooen, priest of
+Neptune, urged us to destroy it, a crowd of shepherds approached with a
+youth whom they had found hiding in the sedges. His name was Sinon. He was
+a Greek, but he was hated by Ulysses, and had fled to save his life. The
+Greeks had sailed home, he assured us, leaving the horse as a votive
+offering to Pallas. They had hoped that its great bulk would prevent the
+Trojans from taking it inside their walls, for once within the city, Troy
+could never be taken.
+
+"We Trojans were credulous, and Sinon's tale was plausible. To increase
+our belief in it, while Laocooen was sacrificing a bull to Neptune, we saw
+coming over the sea from Tenedos two huge serpents, their crimson crests
+towering high, their breasts erect among the waves, their long folds
+sweeping over the foaming sea. As we fled affrighted, they seized the two
+sons of Laocooen, twining their coils around the wretched boys; and when
+their father hastened to their aid, caught him in their huge coils,
+staining his fillets with black blood. 'Laocooen suffered for his crime,'
+we said, when, the priest slain, the serpents crept to Pallas's altar, and
+curled themselves around the feet of the goddess. Then joyfully we made a
+breach in the walls, put rollers under the horse, and, with music and
+dancing, dragged it within the walls.
+
+"That night as we lay sleeping after revelry and feasting, Sinon crept
+down, opened the horse, and freed the men, who were soon joined by the
+other Greeks, returned from Tenedos.
+
+"In a dream Hector's shade appeared to me, and, weeping, bade me fly.
+'Troy falls. Do thou go forth and save her household deities!' As I woke,
+sounds of battle penetrated to my palace halls, removed somewhat from the
+city, and embowered in trees; and I rushed forth, forgetful of Hector's
+warning. I saw the streets swimming in Trojan blood, Trojan women and
+children led captive, Cassandra dragged from her shrine. Enraged, I
+gathered a band and slew many Greeks. But when I saw the impious Pyrrhus
+enter the palace and slay Priam at the altar, I recognized the uselessness
+of my struggle, and turned to my home.
+
+"Taking my old father Anchises on my back, and leading Iulus by the hand,
+I set forth, followed by my wife Creusa. But when I looked behind me at
+the city gates, my wife was gone. Mad with despair, I rushed back to the
+citadel, crying, 'Creusa! Creusa!' Our homestead was in flames, the
+streets filled with Greeks; but as I roamed through the town, I met her
+pallid shape. 'O husband, rage not against heaven's decrees! Happy days
+will come for thee on the banks of the Tiber. Farewell, and love with me
+our boy!'
+
+"Without the gates I was joined by other fugitives; and after the
+departure of the Greeks we built ships from the timbers of Mount Ida, and
+loading these with our household gods and a few spoils from the city, we
+departed to seek new homes.
+
+"In Thrace, our first stopping-place, I learned that Polydore, Priam's
+son, who had been entrusted to the care of the Thracian king, had been
+slain by him for his gold, when the fortunes of Troy fell. We hastened to
+leave this accursed land, and sought Delos, only to be instructed by
+Apollo that we must seek the home from which our forefathers had come.
+Anchises, who remembered the legends of our race, thought this must be
+Crete; so to Crete we sailed, and there laid the foundations of a city,
+only to be driven thence by a plague and a threatened famine.
+
+"In a dream my household gods instructed me that Dardanus, the founder of
+our race, had come from Hesperia, and thither we must bend our course.
+Tempests drove us about the sea for three suns, until, on the fourth, we
+landed at the isle of the Harpies,--loathsome monsters, half woman, half
+bird, who foul everything they touch. When we had slain the cattle and
+prepared to banquet, they drove us from the tables; and when attacked by
+us, uttered dire threats of future famine.
+
+"At Epirus we heard that Andromache had wed Prince Helenus, who had
+succeeded to the rule of Pyrrhus, two Trojans thus being united. As I
+landed here, anxious to prove the truth of the rumor, I met Andromache
+herself in a grove near the town, sacrificing at an empty tomb dedicated
+to Hector. Pyrrhus had made her his slave after the fall of Troy, but
+after he wedded Hermione, he had given her to Helenus, himself a slave.
+When Pyrrhus died, part of his realm fell to Helenus, and here the two had
+set up a little Troy.
+
+"Helenus received us kindly, instructed us as to our route, and gave us
+rich gifts; and Andromache, remembering her dead Astyanax, wept over lulus
+as she parted with him.
+
+"As we passed Sicily we took up a Greek, Achemenides, a companion of
+Ulysses, who had been left behind, and had since been hiding in deadly
+terror from the Cyclops. We ourselves caught sight of the monster
+Polyphemus, feeling his way to the shore to bathe his wounded eye.
+
+"Instructed by Helenus, we avoided Scylla and Charybdis, and reached
+Sicily, where my father died. We were just leaving the island when the
+storm arose that brought us hither. The rest thou knowest."
+
+The guests departed from the banquet hall; but the unhappy Dido, consumed
+with love, imparted her secret to her sister Anna.
+
+"Why shouldst thou weep, sister dear? Why regret that thou hast at last
+forgotten Sichaeus? Contend not against love, but strive to unite Trojan
+and Tyrian. Winter comes on, and thou canst detain him while the sea rages
+and the winds are fierce and the rains icy."
+
+Her ambitious plans for her city forgotten, Dido wandered through the
+streets, mad with love and unable to conceal her passion. She led AEneas
+among the walls and towers, made feasts for him, and begged again and
+again to hear the story of his wandering. At other times she fondled
+Ascanius, leaving her youths undrilled, and the city works abandoned.
+
+Perceiving that Aeneas, well content, seemed to forget that his goal was
+Hesperia, Mercury was dispatched by Jupiter to warn him to depart from
+Carthage.
+
+"Why stoppest thou here?" questioned the herald of the gods. "If thou
+carest not for thyself, think of Ascanius, thine heir. His must be the
+Italian realms, the Roman world."
+
+The horror-stricken Aeneas stood senseless with fear. He longed to escape,
+but how leave the unhappy Dido? Quickly calling his comrades, he commanded
+them to fit out the fleet in silence, hoping to find a time when he could
+break the news to Dido gently.
+
+But who can deceive a lover? Rumor bore the report to Dido, who, mad with
+grief, reproached Aeneas. "Perfidious one! didst thou think to escape from
+me? Does not our love restrain thee, and the thought that I shall surely
+die when thou art gone? I have sacrificed all to thee; now leave me not
+lonely in my empty palace."
+
+Aeneas remained untouched. He would ever retain the kindest memories of his
+stay in Carthage. He had never held out the hope of wedlock to her. A
+higher power called him, and, bidden by Jove, he must depart, for
+Ascanius's sake, to Italy.
+
+The fainting Dido was carried to her palace, whence she could watch the
+hurried preparations for the departure. As she watched, life became
+intolerable to her. Pretending to her sister that she was preparing to
+perform a magic spell to release her from the bonds of love, she reared a
+mighty pyre in her court, wreathed it with funereal garlands, and placed
+thereon Aeneas's couch, garments, and sword. With her hair dishevelled, she
+then invoked Hecate, and sprinkling Avernian water and poisons on it, and
+casting thereon various love charms, she called the gods to witness that
+she was determined to die. As the ships left the harbor, she tore her
+hair, one moment accusing herself because she had not torn Aeneas to pieces
+when in her power, at another vowing to follow him. Then, anxious to
+forget her grief, she mounted, the pyre, and threw herself on the sword of
+her faithless, lover.
+
+Far out at sea, the Aeneans, looking back, dimly guessed the meaning of the
+flames that brightened the stormy skies.
+
+Contrary winds compelled Aeneas to seek harbor in Sicily. Its king,
+Acestes, was his friend, and there he had buried his father Anchises. A
+year had elapsed since his death, and in honor of the anniversary, Aeneas
+instituted funeral games, in which there were trials of skill in rowing,
+foot-racing, archery, and boxing.
+
+While the spectators were applauding the feats of skill, the Trojan women,
+at the instigation of Juno, set fire to the ships, that they might compel
+Aeneas to remain in Sicily. By Jupiter's aid, some of the vessels were
+saved, and Aeneas, acting on the advice of Nautes, allowed the women and
+those Trojans who so desired, to remain in Sicily, and himself marked out
+for them the foundations of their city.
+
+While here Aeneas was urged by Anchises in a dream to visit the Cumaean
+Sibyl, that, with her assistance, he might visit Elysium and talk with
+him.
+
+In the lofty temple, the Sibyl, inspired by the god, encouraged the hero.
+"Success will at last be thine, and Juno will be won over to thee. But
+great labors must thou undergo."
+
+To visit the underworld was no easy task, she assured him. "The gates of
+Dis stand open night and day; small trouble it is to descend thereto, but
+to retrace one's steps, and regain the upper air, there lies the toil."
+Aeneas must first possess a golden branch to present to Proserpina, and
+celebrate the funeral rites of his friend, Misenus, who yet lay unburied.
+
+While Aeneas worked in the forest, felling trees for Misenus's bier, the
+doves of Venus descended and aided him to find the tree, from which he
+plucked the gleaming branch.
+
+Across the Styx, past the dread Cerberus, Aeneas and the Sibyl went,
+through the abode of babes and those who died for deeds they did not do,
+and into the mourning fields, where the disappointed in love were hedged
+in with myrtle sprays. Here Aeneas descried Dido dimly through the clouds,
+and wept to see her fresh wound. Many were his protestations of his
+faithfulness, and strong his declaration that he left her only at the
+command of the gods. But without raising her eyes, Dido turned coldly away
+to where her former husband returned her love for love. Past the chamber
+of torture, beyond Phlegethon, guarded by Tisiphone and Tartarus, in whose
+depths the wicked were punished, they went, and entered the beautiful
+fields of Elysium, where Aeneas found his father.
+
+To his son, Anchises explained that the souls that visited the underworld
+were punished according to their deserts, and then sent into Elysium.
+Cleansed there of all impurities, and with the memories of the past washed
+from them by Lethe, they again visited the world in another form. Pointing
+out a crowd that passed them, he indicated to Aeneas the illustrious men
+who would make his race famous in Italy. First his son Silvius, born of
+Lavinia, his Italian wife to be; Numitor, Romulus, the founder of Rome,
+Caesar, and greatest of all, Augustus Caesar, who would usher in the
+golden age.
+
+Comforted by the prophecies of Anchises, Aeneas sought the upper world, and
+collecting his companions, set sail for the mouth of the Tiber.
+
+Latinus the king welcomed Aeneas, and received his proposals for his
+daughter Lavinia's hand with favor, remembering an ancient prophecy that
+Lavinia was to wed a foreign prince. But queen Amata, aroused by Juno,
+insisted that Lavinia should be espoused to Turnus, chief of the
+Rutulians. Stung by the fury Alecto, she stirred up the people until they
+demanded that Latinus declare war against Aeneas; and when he hesitated,
+Juno herself threw open the gates of the temple of Janus.
+
+Leaving part of his forces in Latium with Ascanius, Aeneas, instructed in a
+dream by father Tiber, sailed up the river to Pallanteum, the future site
+of Rome, to gain the alliance of Evander, an Arcadian king unfriendly to
+Turnus.
+
+Evander, who was celebrating a solemn feast to Hercules, together with his
+only son Pallas, and his senate, welcomed the warriors to his modest home,
+promised his alliance, and sent forth with Aeneas his son Pallas and four
+hundred knights. He also advised him to go to Argylla, whose people were
+stirred up against Turnus because he protected their tyrant king
+Mezentius.
+
+While Aeneas was thus seeking allies, his troops in Latium had been
+attacked and besieged by Turnus, and were greatly in need of the hero's
+aid. While the hosts of Turnus were sleeping after their drunken revelry,
+Nisus proposed to his beloved Euryalus that they steal through the Latin
+line with messages to Aeneas. Their proposal was applauded by the elders,
+and Iulus, weeping, promised to cherish them forever for their courage.
+
+As the youths passed among the sleeping Latins, the desire for slaughter
+overcame them, and they slew Rhamnes, as he lay upon his gorgeous rugs,
+Lamus, and many others, Euryalus taking Rhamnes's golden-studded belt and
+Messapus's helmet as booty. Unfortunately they had delayed too long in
+slaughter; as they neared the camp of Turnus, Volscens, returning with
+reinforcements, caught sight of the shining helmet of Euryalus. The youth,
+flying, became separated from Nisus, and was captured by the enemy. Nisus,
+who returned to rescue his friend, sent weapon after weapon from his
+retreat, and when he saw Euryalus about to suffer death from Volscens,
+rushed forth to save him, only to fall dead upon the body of his
+slaughtered friend.
+
+Angry at the slaughter committed by Nisus and Euryalus, Turnus, on his
+return, attempted to scale the intrenchments. The fight raged fiercely
+around the walls and towers; but just as the victory seemed to be with
+Turnus, Aeneas returned with his Tuscan allies, effected a landing, and
+began to put the enemy to flight, slaying the tyrant Mezentius and his
+son.
+
+Turnus, hearing of the danger of his friend Lausus, at the hands of
+Pallas, who had already wrought great slaughter, sought him out, amazing
+the young warrior by his great size. Pallas faced him bravely; but while
+his spear only grazed the shoulder of Turnus, the spear of the Rutulian
+crushed the folds of iron, bronze, and hides, the corselet's rings of
+steel, and buried itself in Pallas's breast.
+
+Turnus took the sword-belt from Pallas's body; but because of the merit of
+the young warrior, yielded his body to the Arcadians to be carried to King
+Evander.
+
+Enraged at the death of his friend, Aeneas fought more fiercely. Especially
+anxious was he to meet Turnus; but Juno, determined, if possible, to save
+her favorite, decoyed Turnus off the battle-field by assuming the guise of
+Aeneas.
+
+After a truce, during which the armies buried their dead, and the body of
+Pallas was sent home to his father, the armies again came together, the
+Latins being reinforced by the Amazons, under the leadership of Camilla.
+Camilla had been reared by her father, the exile Metabus, and, early
+trained to warlike pursuits, had consecrated herself to Diana. Beautiful
+as a goddess was she, and so light of foot that she could fly over the
+tops of the tallest wheat without harming the ears.
+
+Within the walls of Latium there was quarrelling between the parties,
+Drances, leader of the peace party, accusing Turnus of bringing on and
+continuing the hostilities. The approach of Aeneas brought these disputes
+to an abrupt conclusion, and Camilla, with Turnus, hastened to battle.
+Many victims fell by Camilla's hand that day, as she rode about the field,
+her breast bare, her hand clasping her double battle-axe, before Aruns
+struck her down and fled, frightened at his victory.
+
+In Latium the unhappiness increased, and Turnus, enraged at the reproaches
+heaped upon him, declared that he would decide the war by single combat
+with Aeneas. Latinus made no secret of his regret at having been compelled
+to break his compact with Aeneas; but Amata, still furious, raged against
+Aeneas, and declared that she would die if he were made her son-in-law.
+
+The preparations were made for the single combat, the sacrifices at the
+altars, the crowds assembled to witness the combat; but just as the kings
+were solemnizing the agreement, Turnus's sister, Juturna, a river goddess,
+beloved of Jupiter, renewed the hostilities that Turnus might be saved. A
+weapon hurled from the Latin ranks caused the indignant Trojans to rise in
+arms, forgetful of the treaty, and the fight raged more fiercely than
+before.
+
+Juturna, fearful from Juno's words of the fate of Turnus, assumed the
+guise of Metiscus, his charioteer, and drove her brother over the field
+far from the angry Aeneas, who, weary of waiting for Turnus, turned towards
+Latium. The frightened people rushed hither and thither, and the queen,
+seeing the approaching foe, the roofs in flames, and no troops of Turnus
+in sight, supposed the Rutulian dead, and hanged herself.
+
+In the mean time, Turnus, remote from the fight, reproached his sister.
+"Think'st thou not I recognized thee? Thy deceit is in vain. Is to die so
+wretched a thing? Let us go to the battle. At least, I will die not
+unworthy of my ancestry."
+
+As he spoke, Saces, wounded and bleeding, rushed to him, imploring:
+"Turnus, have pity on us; come to our rescue! The Latins call thee, the
+queen is dead, the phalanxes crowd thick around the gates, while thou
+drivest idly here."
+
+Turnus, amazed, confused, and shamed, saw flames consuming the towers of
+Latium.
+
+"Now, sister, the fates control. Desist! It is too late, I will be shamed
+no more!" Leaping from his chariot, he rushed forward, demanding that war
+cease in order that he and Aeneas might decide the battle in single combat.
+
+When Turnus's sword broke on the helmet of Aeneas,--the sword of his
+charioteer, that he had seized by mistake instead of his own Styx-hardened
+blade,--he turned and fled, Aeneas pursuing.
+
+Above, in Olympus, Jupiter and Juno quarrelled, as they watched the heroes
+circling over the yellow sand.
+
+"Give over thy enmity," said the omnipotent father. "Thou hast caused the
+treaty to be violated; even now thou hast made Juturna return the lost
+sword to Turnus--in vain. Grieve no more, and goad no longer these
+suffering men of Troy."
+
+Then Juno yielded, stipulating only that the Trojans lay aside their
+ancient name, that Latium remain Latium, and the future growth Roman.
+
+Juturna, warned by Jove's messenger, a bird of evil omen, tore her locks
+and beat her breast, regretting the gift of immortality conferred on her
+by Jove. Then wrapping her gray veil about her, she fled to her watery
+throne that she might not see the death of her brother. The frightened
+Turnus, still fleeing from Aeneas, abandoned his sword and took up instead
+a mighty rock, a landmark such as scarce six men could uplift.
+
+Hurling this at Aeneas, he stood, his blood running chill, his eyes cast
+towards the Rutuli, the town, and the spear of Aeneas, that, shrieking
+through the air, doom laden, wrecked his heavy shield and pierced his
+thigh.
+
+"Mercy!" he prayed. "Fate hath given thee the advantage. Think, thou
+duteous son, of my old father, Daunus."
+
+As Aeneas stood, softened, and ready to grant the request, the sword-belt
+of Pallas caught his eye.
+
+"Shalt thou escape, decked out with Pallas's spoils? No, not I slay thee,
+but Pallas! His hand immolates thee!" As he spoke he plunged his sword in
+Turnus's breast.
+
+Chilly death came, and the warrior's spirit fled, groaning to the shades.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE AENEID.
+
+NISUS AND EURYALUS.
+
+
+While Aeneas, finding the Latins hostile to him, sailed up the Tiber in
+search of allies, the troops he left behind under Ascanius were attacked
+by Turnus, and their slight fortifications besieged. They were sorely
+pressed, and longed to be able to inform Aeneas of their need.
+
+  Nisus was guardian of the gate,
+  No bolder heart in war's debate,
+  The son of Hyrtacus, whom Ide
+  Sent, with his quiver at his side,
+  From hunting beasts in mountain brake
+  To follow in Aeneas' wake:
+  With him Euryalus, fair boy;
+  None fairer donned the arms of Troy;
+  His tender cheek as yet unshorn
+  And blossoming with youth new-born.
+  Love made them one in every thought:
+  In battle side by side they fought;
+  And now in duty at the gate
+  The twain in common station wait.
+  "Can it be Heaven," said Nisus then,
+  "That lends such warmth to hearts of men,
+  Or passion surging past control
+  That plays the god to each one's soul?
+  Long time, impatient of repose,
+  My swelling heart within me glows,
+  And yearns its energy to fling
+  On war, or some yet grander thing.
+  See there the foe, with vain hope flushed!
+  Their lights are scant, their stations hushed:
+  Unnerved by slumber and by wine
+  Their bravest chiefs are stretched supine.
+  Now to my doubting thought give heed
+  And listen where its motions lead.
+  Our Trojan comrades, one and all,
+  Cry loud, Aeneas to recall,
+  And where, they say, the men to go
+  And let him of our peril know?
+  Now if the meed I ask they swear
+  To give you--nay, I claim no share,
+  Content with bare renown--
+  Meseems, beside yon grassy heap
+  The way I well might find and keep,
+  To Pallanteum's town."
+  The youth returns, while thirst of praise
+  Infects him with a strange amaze:
+  "Can Nisus aim at heights so great,
+  Nor take his friend to share his fate?
+  Shall I look on, and let you go
+  Alone to venture 'mid the foe?
+  Not thus my sire Opheltes, versed
+  In war's rude toil, my childhood nursed,
+  When Argive terror filled the air
+  And Troy was battling with despair:
+  Nor such the lot my youth has tried,
+  In hardship ever at your side,
+  Since, great Aeneas' liegeman sworn,
+  I followed Fortune to her bourne:
+  Here, here within this bosom burns
+  A soul that mere existence spurns,
+  And holds the fame you seek to reap,
+  Though bought with life, were bought full cheap."
+
+  "Not mine the thought," brave Nisus said,
+  "To wound you with so base a dread:
+  So may great Jove, or whosoe'er
+  Marks with just eyes how mortals fare,
+  Protect me going, and restore
+  In triumph to your arms once more.
+  But if--for many a chance, you wis,
+  Besets an enterprise like this--
+  If accident or power divine
+  The scheme to adverse end incline,
+  Your life at least I would prolong:
+  Death does your years a deeper wrong.
+  Leave me a friend to tomb my clay,
+  Rescued or ransomed, which you may;
+  Or, e'en that boon should chance refuse,
+  To pay the absent funeral dues.
+  Nor let me cause so dire a smart
+  To that devoted mother's heart,
+  Who, sole of all the matron train,
+  Attends her darling o'er the main,
+  Nor cares like others to sit down
+  An inmate of Acestes' town."
+  He answers brief: "Your pleas are naught:
+  Firm stands the purpose of my thought:
+  Come, stir we: why so slow?"
+  Then calls the guards to take their place,
+  Moves on by Nisus, pace with pace,
+  And to the prince they go.
+  All other creatures wheresoe'er
+  Were stretched in sleep, forgetting care:
+  Troy's chosen chiefs in high debate
+  Were pondering o'er the reeling state,
+  What means to try, or whom to speed
+  To show Aeneas of their need.
+  There stand they, midway in the field,
+  Still hold the spear, still grasp the shield:
+  When Nisus and his comrade brave
+  With eager tones admittance crave;
+  The matter high; though time be lost,
+  The occasion well were worth the cost,
+  Iulus hails the impatient pair,
+  Bids Nisus what they wish declare.
+  Then spoke the youth: "Chiefs I lend your ears,
+  Nor judge our proffer by our years.
+  The Rutules, sunk in wine and sleep,
+  Have ceased their former watch to keep:
+  A stealthy passage have we spied
+  Where on the sea the gate opes wide:
+  The line of fires is scant and broke,
+  And thick and murky rolls the smoke.
+  Give leave to seek, in these dark hours,
+  Aeneas at Evander's towers,
+  Soon will you see us here again
+  Decked with the spoils of slaughtered men.
+  Nor strange the road: ourselves have seen
+  The city, hid by valleys green,
+  Just dimly dawning, and explored
+  In hunting all the river-board."
+  Out spoke Aletes, old and gray:
+  "Ye gods, who still are Ilium's stay,
+  No, no, ye mean not to destroy
+  Down to the ground the race of Troy,
+  When such the spirit of her youth,
+  And such the might of patriot truth."
+  Then, as the tears roll down his face,
+  He clasps them both in strict embrace:
+  "Brave warriors! what rewards so great,
+  For worth like yours to compensate?
+  From Heaven and from your own true heart
+  Expect the largest, fairest part:
+  The rest, and at no distant day,
+  The good Aeneas shall repay,
+  Nor he, the royal youth, forget
+  Through all his life the mighty debt."
+  "Nay, hear me too," Ascanius cried,
+  "Whose life is with my father's tied:
+  O Nisus! by the home-god powers
+  We jointly reverence, yours and ours,
+  The god of ancient Capys' line,
+  And Vesta's venerable shrine,
+  By these dread sanctions I appeal
+  To you, the masters of my weal;
+  Oh, bring me back my sire again!
+  Restore him, and I feel no pain.
+  Two massy goblets will I give;
+  Rich sculptures on the silver live;
+  The plunder of my sire,
+  What time he took Arisba's hold;
+  Two chargers, talents twain of gold,
+  A bowl beside of antique mould
+  By Dido brought from Tyre.
+  Then, too, if ours the lot to reign
+  O'er Italy by conquest ta'en,
+  And each man's spoil assign,--
+  Saw ye how Turnus rode yestreen,
+  His horse and arms of golden sheen?
+  That horse, that shield and glowing crest
+  I separate, Nisus, from the rest
+  And count already thine.
+  Twelve female slaves, at your desire,
+  Twelve captives with their arms entire,
+  My sire shall give you, and the plain
+  That forms Latinus' own domain.
+  But you, dear youth, of worth divine,
+  Whose blooming years are nearer mine,
+  Here to my heart I take, and choose
+  My comrade for whate'er ensues.
+  No glory will I e'er pursue,
+  Unmotived by the thought of you:
+  Let peace or war my state befall,
+  Thought, word, and deed, you share them all."
+  The youth replied: "No after day
+  This hour's fair promise shall betray,
+  Be fate but kind. Yet let me claim
+  One favor, more than all you name:
+  A mother in the camp is mine,
+  Derived from Priam's ancient line:
+  No home in Sicily or Troy
+  Has kept her from her darling boy.
+  She knows not, she, the paths I tread;
+  I leave her now, no farewell said;
+  By night and this your hand I swear,
+  A parent's tears I could not bear.
+  Vouchsafe your pity, and engage
+  To solace her unchilded age:
+  And I shall meet whate'er betide
+  By such assurance fortified."
+  With sympathy and tender grief
+  All melt in tears, Iulus chief,
+  As filial love in other shown
+  Recalled the semblance of his own:
+  And, "Tell your doubting heart," he cries,
+  "All blessings wait your high emprise:
+  I take your mother for my own,
+  Creusa, save in name alone,
+  Nor lightly deem the affection due
+  To her who bore a child like you.
+  Come what come may, I plight my troth
+  By this my head, my father's oath,
+  The bounty to yourself decreed
+  Should favoring gods your journey speed,
+  The same shall in your line endure,
+  To parent and to kin made sure."
+  He spoke, and weeping still, untied
+  A gilded falchion from his side,
+  Lycaon's work, the man of Crete,
+  With sheath of ivory complete:
+  Brave Mnestheus gives for Nisus' wear
+  A lion's hide with shaggy hair;
+  Aletes, old in danger grown,
+  His helmet takes, and gives his own.
+  Then to the gates, as forth they fare,
+  The band of chiefs with many a prayer
+  The gallant twain attends:
+  Iulus, manlier than his years,
+  Oft whispering, for his father's ears
+  Full many a message sends:
+  But be it message, be it prayer,
+  Alike 'tis lost, dispersed in air.
+
+  The trenches past, through night's deep gloom
+  The hostile camp they near:
+  Yet many a foe shall meet his doom
+  Or ere that hour appear.
+  There see they bodies stretched supine,
+  O'ercome with slumber and with wine;
+  The cars, unhorsed, are drawn up high;
+  'Twixt wheels and harness warriors lie,
+  With arms and goblets on the grass
+  In undistinguishable mass.
+  "Now," Nisus cried, "for hearts and hands:
+  This, this the hour our force demands.
+  Here pass we: yours the rear to mind,
+  Lest hostile arm be raised behind;
+  Myself will go before and slay,
+  While carnage opes a broad highway."
+  So whispers he with bated breath,
+  And straight begins the work of death
+  On Rhamnes, haughty lord;
+  On rugs he lay, in gorgeous heap,
+  From all his bosom breathing sleep,
+  A royal seer by Turnus loved:
+  But all too weak his seer-craft proved
+  To stay the rushing sword.
+  Three servants next the weapon found
+  Stretched 'mid their armor on the ground:
+  Then Remus' charioteer he spies
+  Beneath the coursers as he lies,
+  And lops his downdropt head;
+  The ill-starred master next he leaves,
+  A headless trunk, that gasps and heaves:
+  Forth spouts the blood from every vein,
+  And deluges with crimson rain,
+  Green earth and broidered bed.
+  Then Lamyrus and Lamus died,
+  Serranus, too, in youth's fair pride:
+  That night had seen him long at play:
+  Now by the dream-god tamed he lay:
+  Ah, had his play but matched the night,
+  Nor ended till the dawn of light!
+  So famished lion uncontrolled
+  Makes havoc through the teeming fold,
+  As frantic hunger craves;
+  Mangling and harrying far and near
+  The meek, mild victims, mute with fear,
+  With gory jaws he raves.
+  Nor less Euryalus performs:
+  The thirst of blood his bosom warms;
+  'Mid nameless multitudes he storms,
+  Herbesus, Fadus, Abaris kills
+  Slumbering and witless of their ills,
+  While Rhoetus wakes and sees the whole,
+  But hides behind a massy bowl.
+  There, as to rise the trembler strove,
+  Deep in his breast the sword he drove,
+  And bathed in death withdrew.
+  The lips disgorge the life's red flood,
+  A mingled stream of wine and blood:
+  He plies his blade anew.
+  Now turns he to Messapus' band,
+  For there the fires he sees
+  Burnt out, while coursers hard at hand
+  Are browsing at their ease,
+  When Nisus marks the excess of zeal,
+  The maddening fever of the steel,
+  And checks him thus with brief appeal:
+  "Forbear we now; 't will soon be day:
+  Our wrath is slaked, and hewn our way."
+  Full many a spoil they leave behind
+  Of solid silver thrice refined,
+  Armor and bowls of costliest mould
+  And rugs in rich confusion rolled.
+  A belt Euryalus puts on
+  With golden knobs, from Rhamnes won,
+  Of old by Caedicus 't was sent,
+  An absent friendship to cement,
+  To Remulus, fair Tibur's lord,
+  Who, dying, to his grandson left
+  The shining prize: the Rutule sword
+  In after days the trophy reft.
+  Athwart his manly chest in vain
+  He binds these trappings of the slain;
+  Then 'neath his chin in triumph laced
+  Messapus' helm, with plumage graced,
+  The camp at length they leave behind,
+  And round the lake securely wind.
+
+  Meanwhile a troop is on its way,
+  From Latium's city sped,
+  An offshoot from the host that lay
+  Along the host in close array,
+  Three hundred horsemen, sent to bring
+  A message back to Turnus, king,
+  With Volscens at their head.
+  Now to the camp they draw them nigh,
+  Beneath the rampart's height,
+  When from afar the twain they spy,
+  Still steering from the right;
+  The helmet through the glimmering shade
+  At once the unwary boy betrayed,
+  Seen in the moon's full light.
+  Not lost the sight on jealous eyes:
+  "Ho! stand! who are ye?" Volscens cries,
+  "Whence come, or whither tend?"
+  No movement deign they of reply,
+  But swifter to the forest fly,
+  And make the night their friend.
+  With fatal speed the mounted foes
+  Each avenue as with network close,
+  And every outlet bar.
+  It was a forest bristling grim
+  With shade of ilex, dense and dim:
+  Thick brushwood all the ground o'ergrew:
+  The tangled ways a path ran through,
+  Faint glimmering like a star.
+  The darkling boughs, the cumbering prey
+  Euryalus's flight delay:
+  His courage fails, his footsteps stray:
+  But Nisus onward flees;
+  No thought he takes, till now at last
+  The enemy is all o'erpast,
+  E'en at the grove, since Alban called,
+  Where then Latinus' herds were stalled:
+  Sudden he pauses, looks behind
+  In eager hope his friend to find:
+  In vain: no friend he sees.
+  "Euryalus, my chiefest care,
+  Where left I you, unhappy? where?
+  What clue may guide my erring tread
+  This leafy labyrinth back to thread?"
+  Then, noting each remembered track,
+  He thrids the wood, dim-seen and black.
+  Listening, he hears the horse-hoofs' beat,
+  The clatter of pursuing feet.
+  A little moment--shouts arise,
+  And lo! Euryalus he spies,
+  Whom now the foemen's gathered throng
+  Is hurrying helplessly along.
+  While vain resistance he essays,
+  Trapped by false night and treacherous ways.
+  What should he do? what force employ
+  To rescue the beloved boy?
+  Plunge through the spears that line the wood,
+  And death and glory win with blood?
+  Not unresolved, he poises soon
+  A javelin, looking to the Moon:
+  "Grant, goddess, grant thy present aid,
+  Queen of the stars, Latonian maid,
+  The greenwood's guardian power;
+  If, grateful for success of mine,
+  With gifts my sire has graced thy shrine,
+  If e'er myself have brought thee spoil,
+  The tribute of my hunter's toil,
+  To ornament thy roof divine,
+  Or glitter on thy tower,
+  These masses give me to confound,
+  And guide through air my random wound."
+  He spoke, and hurled with all his might;
+  The swift spear hurtles through the night:
+  Stout Sulmo's back the stroke receives:
+  The wood, though snapped, the midriff cleaves.
+  He falls, disgorging life's warm tide,
+  And long-drawn sobs distend his side.
+  All gaze around: another spear
+  The avenger levels from his ear,
+  And launches on the sky.
+  Tagus lies pierced through temples twain,
+  The dart deep buried in his brain.
+  Fierce Volscens storms, yet finds no foe,
+  Nor sees the hand that dealt the blow,
+  Nor knows on whom to fly.
+  "Your heart's warm blood for both shall pay,"
+  He cries, and on his beauteous prey
+  With naked sword he sprang.
+  Scared, maddened, Nisus shrieks aloud:
+  No more he hides in night's dark shroud,
+  Nor bears the o'erwhelming pang:
+  "Me, guilty me, make me your aim,
+  O Rutules! mine is all the blame;
+  He did no wrong, nor e'er could do;
+  That sky, those stars attest 't is true;
+  Love for his friend too freely shown,
+  This was his crime, and this alone."
+  In vain he spoke: the sword, fierce driven,
+  That alabaster breast had riven.
+  Down falls Euryalus, and lies
+  In death's enthralling agonies:
+  Blood trickles o'er his limbs of snow;
+  "His head sinks gradually low":
+  Thus, severed by the ruthless plough,
+  Dim fades a purple flower:
+  Their weary necks so poppies bow,
+  O'erladen by the shower.
+  But Nisus on the midmost flies,
+  With Volscens, Volscens in his eyes:
+  In clouds the warriors round him rise,
+  Thick hailing blow on blow:
+  Yet on he bears, no stint, no stay,
+  Like thunderbolt his falchion's sway:
+  Till as for aid the Rutule shrieks
+  Plunged in his throat the weapon reeks:
+  The dying hand has reft away
+  The life-blood of its foe.
+  Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell
+  On the dead breast he loved so well.
+
+  Blest pair! if aught my verse avail,
+  No day shall make your memory fail
+  From off the heart of time,
+  While Capitol abides in place,
+  The mansion of the Aeneian race,
+  And throned upon that moveless base
+  Rome's father sits sublime.
+      _Conington's Translation, Book IX_.
+
+
+
+
+
+BEOWULF.
+
+
+Beowulf, the only Anglo-Saxon epic preserved entire, was composed in
+southwest Sweden probably before the eighth century, and taken to England,
+where it was worked over and Christianized by the Northumbrian poets.
+
+It is variously attributed to the fifth, seventh, and eighth centuries;
+but the seventh is most probably correct, since the Higelac of the poem
+has been identified with Chocilaicus of the "Gesta Regum Francorum," a
+Danish king who invaded Gaul in the days of Theuderic, son of Clovis, and
+died near the close of the sixth century.
+
+The only manuscript of the poem in existence is thought to be of the tenth
+century. It is preserved in the British Museum. Since 1837 much interest
+has been manifested in the poem, and many editions of it have been given
+to the public.
+
+Beowulf contains three thousand one hundred and eighty-four lines. It is
+written in alliterative verse. The lines are written in pairs, and each
+perfect line contains three alliterating words,--two in the first part,
+and one in the second.
+
+The unknown writer of Beowulf cannot be praised for his skill in
+composition; the verse is rude, as was the language in which it was
+written. But it is of the greatest interest to us because of the pictures
+it gives of the everyday lives of the people whose heroic deeds it
+relates,--the drinking in the mead-halls, the relation of the king to his
+warriors, the description of the armor, the ships, and the halls. The
+heroes are true Anglo-Saxon types,--bold, fearless, ready to go to the
+assistance of any one in trouble, no matter how great the risk to
+themselves; and as ready to drink mead and boast of their valor after the
+peril is over. In spite of the attempt to Christianize the poem, it is
+purely pagan; the most careless reader can discover the priestly
+interpolations. And it has the greater value to us because it refused to
+be moulded by priestly hands, but remained the rude but heroic monument of
+our Saxon ancestors.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, BEOWULF.
+
+
+B. Ten Brink's Early English Literature, Tr. by Kennedy;
+
+S. A. Brooke's History of Early English Literature, 1892, p. 12;
+
+W. F. Collier's History of English Literature, p. 19;
+
+G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, 1871, pp.
+382-398; in 1880 ed. pp. 189-201;
+
+Isaac Disraeli's Amenities of Literature, i. 65-73;
+
+J. Earle's Anglo-Saxon Literature;
+
+T. W. Hunt's Ethical Teaching in Beowulf (in his Ethical Teachings in Old
+English Literature, 1892, pp. 66-77);
+
+H. Morley's English Writers, 1887, pp. 276-354;
+
+H. A. Taine's History of English Literature, 1886, i. 62;
+
+S. Turner's Anglo-Saxons, iii. 326; in ed. 3, i. 456;
+
+J. Harrison's Old Teutonic Life in Beowulf (in the Overland Monthly, July,
+1894);
+
+F. A. March's The World of Beowulf (in Proceedings of American
+Philological Association, 1882).
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, BEOWULF.
+
+
+Beowulf, edition with English translation, notes and glossary by Thomas
+Arnold, 1876;
+
+The Deeds of Beowulf, 1892;
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Garnett, 1882 (translated line for line);
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by J. L. Hall, 1892, metrical translation;
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by J. M. Kemble, with copious glossary, preface, and
+philological notes, 2 vols., 1833-37;
+
+Beowulf translated into modern rhymes, by H. W. Lumsden, 1881;
+
+Beowulf, Tr. by Benjamin Thorpe, Literal translation, notes and glossary,
+1875.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF BEOWULF.
+
+
+A mighty man was Scyld, ruler of the Gar-Danes. From far across the
+whale-path men paid him tribute and bore witness to his power. Beowulf was
+his son, a youth endowed with glory, whose fame spread far and wide
+through all the Danish land.
+
+When the time came for Scyld to die he ordered his thanes to prepare the
+ring-stemmed ship, laden with treasures, battle-weed, and swords, and
+place him in the death-chamber. Laden with his people's gifts, and sailing
+under a golden banner, he passed from sight, none knew whither.
+
+After him ruled Beowulf, and after him Healfdene,--brave warriors and kind
+monarchs. When, after Healfdene's death, his son Hrothgar succeeded him,
+his fame in war inclined all his kinsmen towards him, and he, too, became
+a mighty monarch.
+
+To the mind of Hrothgar it came to build a lordly mead-hall where he and
+his men could find pleasure in feasting, drinking mead, and hearing the
+songs of the minstrels. Heorot it was called, and when its high spires
+rose glistening in the air, all hailed it with delight.
+
+But, alas! The joy in hall, the melody of the harp, and the shouts of the
+warriors penetrated to the dismal fen where lay concealed the monster
+Grendel, descendant of sin-cursed Cain. At night came Grendel to the hall,
+found sleeping the troop of warriors, and bore away in his foul hands
+thirty of the honored thanes. Great was the sorrow in Heorot when in the
+morning twilight the deed of Grendel became known.
+
+For twelve long winters did this sorrow continue; for so long a time was
+Hrothgar plunged in grief; for so many years did this beautiful mead-hall,
+destined for joyful things, stand idle.
+
+While thus the grief-stricken lord of the Scyldings brooded over his
+wrongs, and the people besought their idols vainly for aid, the tidings of
+Grendel's ravages were conveyed to the court of the Gothic king, Higelac,
+and thus reached the ears of a highborn thane, Beowulf. A strong man was
+he, his grasp equal to that of thirty men.
+
+Straightway commanded he a goodly ship to be made ready, chose fifteen of
+his bravest Goths, and swiftly they sailed over the swan-path to the great
+headlands and bright sea-cliffs of the Scyldings.
+
+High on the promontory stood the guard of Hrothgar. "What men be ye who
+hither come?" cried he. "Not foes, surely. Ye know no pass word, yet
+surely ye come on no evil errand. Ne'er saw I a greater lord than he who
+leads the band. Who are ye?"
+
+"Higelac's man am I," answered the leader. "Ecgtheow, my sire; my name,
+Beowulf. Lead me, I pray thee, to thy lord, for I have come over seas to
+free him forever from his secret foe, and to lift the cloud that hangs
+over the stately mead-hall."
+
+Over the stone-paved streets the warder led the warriors, their armor
+clanking, their boar-tipped helmets sparkling, to the goodly hall, Heorot.
+There were they warmly welcomed, for Hrothgar had known Beowulf's sire;
+the fame of the young man's strength had also reached him, and he trusted
+that in his strong grasp Grendel should die.
+
+All took their seats on the mead-benches, and a thane passed from warrior
+to warrior, bearing the chased wine-cup. Sweet was the minstrel's song,
+and the warriors were happy in Heorot.
+
+But Hunferd sat at the banquet, and envious of Beowulf's fame, taunted him
+with his swimming match with Breca. "Seven days and nights thou didst swim
+with Breca; but he was stronger, and he won. Worse will befall thee, if
+thou dar'st this night await Grendel!"
+
+"Easy it is to brag of Breca's deeds when drunk with beer, friend
+Hunferd!" replied Beowulf. "Seven days and nights I swam through the
+sea-water, slaying the monsters of the deep. Rough was the wave, terrible
+were the water beasts; but I reached the Finnish land. Wert thou as brave
+as thou claim'st to be, Grendel would ne'er have wrought such havoc in thy
+monarch's land."
+
+Decked with gold, Queen Waltheow passed through the hall, greeted the
+warriors, and proffered the mead-cup to Beowulf, thanking God that she had
+found an earl who would deliver them from their enemy.
+
+When dusky night fell over Heorot, the king uprose. "To no other man have
+I ever entrusted this hall of gold. Have now and keep it! Great reward
+shall be thine if thou come forth alive!"
+
+The knights left in the lordly hall composed themselves for slumber, all
+save Beowulf, who, unarmed, awaited the coming of Grendel.
+
+He came, with wrathful step and eyes aflame, bursting open the iron bolts
+of the great door, and laughing at the goodly array of men sleeping before
+him. On one he laid hands and drank his blood; then he clutched the
+watchful Beowulf.
+
+Ne'er had he found a foe like this! Fearful, he turned to flee to his home
+in the fen, but the grip of Beowulf forbade flight. Strongly was Heorot
+builded, but many a gilded mead-bench was torn from the walls as the two
+combated within the hall. The sword blade was of no avail, and him must
+Beowulf bring to death by the strength of his grip alone. At last, with a
+scream that struck terror to every Dane's heart, the monster sprang from
+Beowulf and fled, leaving in the warrior's grasp his arm and shoulder.
+Great was Beowulf's joy, for he knew that the wound meant death.
+
+When the king and queen came forth in the morning with their nobles and
+maids, and saw the grisly arm of Grendel fastened upon the roof of Heorot,
+they gave themselves up to rejoicing. Gifts were heaped upon Beowulf,--a
+golden crest, a banner bright, a great and goodly sword and helm and
+corselet, eight steeds with headstalls ornamented with gold plate, and a
+richly decorated saddle. Nor were his comrades forgotten, but to each were
+given rich gifts.
+
+When the mead-hall had been cleansed and refitted, they gathered therein
+and listened to the song of the bard who told how Healfdene's knight,
+Hnaef, smote Finn. The song over, the queen, crowned with gold, gave gifts
+to Beowulf, the liberator from the horrors of Grendel,--two armlets, a
+necklace, raiment, and rings. When the drinking and feasting were over,
+the king and Beowulf withdrew, leaving many earls to keep the hall. Little
+guessed they that one of them was that night doomed to die!
+
+The haunt of Grendel was a mile-wide mere. Around it were wolf-haunted
+cliffs, windy promontories, mist-covered mountains. Close around the mere
+hung the woods, shrouding the water, which, horrible sight, was each night
+covered with fire. It was a place accursed; near it no man might dwell;
+the deer that plunged therein straightway died.
+
+In a palace under the mere dwelt Grendel and his mother; she, a foul
+sprite, whom the peasants had sometimes seen walking with her son over the
+meadows. From her dwelling-place she now came forth to avenge the death of
+her son, and snatched away from the group of sleeping Ring-Danes the good
+AEschere, dearest of all his thanes to Hrothgar.
+
+Loud was Hrothgar's wailing when at morning Beowulf came forth from his
+bower.
+
+"Sorrow not, O wise man," spake Beowulf. "I fear not. I will seek out this
+monster and destroy her. If I come not back it will at least be better
+than to have lost my glory. She can never hide from me. I ween that I will
+this day rid thee of thine enemy."
+
+Accompanied by Hrothgar, some of the Ring-Danes and his Goths, Beowulf
+sought the dismal mere, on whose brink they found the head of AEschere.
+Among the bloody waves swam horrible shapes, Nicors and sea-drakes, that
+fled at a blast of the war-horn. Beowulf slew one of the monsters, and
+while his companions were marvelling at the grisly form, he prepared
+himself for the combat. His breast was guarded by a coat of mail woven
+most cunningly; upon his head shone the gold-adorned helmet, and in his
+hand was Hunferd's sword, Hrunting, made of iron steeped in twigs of
+bitter poison, annealed in battle blood, and fearful to every foe.
+
+"Hearken unto me, O Hrothgar," cried the hero. "If I return not, treat
+well my comrades and send my gifts to Higelac, that he may see the deed I
+have accomplished, and the generous ring-lord I have gained among the
+Scyldings." And without waiting for a reply, he leaped into the waves and
+was lost to sight.
+
+There was the monster waiting for him; and catching him in her grip, which
+bruised him not because of his strong mail-coat, she dragged him to her
+cave, in whose lighted hall he could see the horrible features of the
+woman of the mere. Strong was Hrunting, but of no avail was its mighty
+blade against her. Soon he threw it down, and gripped her, reckless of
+peril. Once he threw her on the ground, but the second time she threw him,
+and drew her glaive to pierce his breast. Strong was the linked mail, and
+Beowulf was safe. Then his quick eye lighted on a sword,--a magic, giant
+sword; few men could wield it. Quickly he grasped it, and smote the neck
+of the sea-woman. Broken were the bone-rings, and down she fell dead. Then
+Ecgtheow's son looked around the hall and saw the body of the dead
+Grendel. Thirsting to take his revenge, he smote him with his sword. Off
+flew the head; but when the red drops of blood touched the magic blade it
+melted, leaving but the massive golden hilt in the hands of the hero.
+Beowulf took no treasure from the cave, but rose through the waves,
+carrying only the head of the monster and the hilt of the sword.
+
+When Hrothgar and his men saw the mere red and boiling with blood they
+deemed that Beowulf was dead, and departed to their citadel. Sorrowful sat
+the comrades of Beowulf, waiting and hoping against hope for his
+reappearance. Up sprang they when they saw him, joyfully greeted him,
+relieved him of his bloody armor, and conducted him to Hrothgar,
+bearing--a heavy task--the head of Grendel.
+
+When Hrothgar saw the hideous head and the mighty sword-hilt, whose
+history he read from its Runic inscriptions, he hailed Beowulf with joy,
+and proclaimed him the mightiest of men. "But ever temper thy might with
+wisdom," advised the king, "that thou suffer not the end of Heremod, or be
+punished as I have been, in this my spacious mead-hall."
+
+After a night's rest, Beowulf prepared to return to his country. Returning
+Hrunting to Hunferd, he praised the sword, saying nothing of its failure
+in the fight. Then to Hrothgar: "Farewell. If e'er thou art harried by
+foes, but let me know,--a thousand fighting men I'll bring. Higelac, well
+I know, will urge me on to honor thee. If e'er thy son seeks Gothic halls,
+I will intercede and win friends for him."
+
+The old king, weeping, bade Beowulf farewell. "Peace be forever between
+the Goths and the Gar-Danes; in common their treasures! May gifts be
+interchanged between them!"
+
+The bark was filled with the gifts heaped upon Beowulf and his men; and
+the warder, who had hailed them so proudly at their coming, now bade them
+an affectionate farewell. Over the swan-path sailed they, and soon reached
+the Gothic coast, and landed their treasures.
+
+Then went Beowulf before Higelac and told him of his adventures. Higelac
+was a mighty king; lofty his house and hall, and fair and gentle was his
+wife, Hygd. To him, after he had related his adventures, Beowulf presented
+the boar-head crest, the battle-mail and sword, four of the steeds, and
+much treasure, and upon the wise and modest Hygd bestowed he the wondrous
+necklace given him by Waltheow. So should a good thane ever do!
+
+There had been a time when Beowulf was accounted a sluggish knight, but
+now the land rang with his glory.
+
+When Higelac died and Hardred was slain, Beowulf succeeded to the throne,
+and for fifty years ruled the people gloriously.
+
+At this time a great fire-drake cherished a vast hoard in a cave on a high
+cliff, difficult of access, and known to few men. Thither one day fled a
+thrall from his master's wrath, and saw the hoard buried by some weary
+warrior, and now guarded by the dragon. While the drake slept, the thrall
+crept in and stole a cup as a peace-offering to his master.
+
+When the drake awoke, he scented the foot-prints of the foe, and
+discovered his loss. When even was come, he hastened to wreak his revenge
+on the people, spewing out flames of fire, and laying waste the land.
+
+Far and near were the lands of the Goths devastated, and ere long, tidings
+were borne to Beowulf that his great hall, his gift seat, was destroyed by
+fire. Saddened, and fearing that he had in some way angered God, he turned
+his mind to vengeance, and girded on his armor. A stout shield of iron he
+took, knowing that the dragon's fiery breath would melt the wood, and with
+foreboding of his fate, bade farewell to his hearth-mates. "Many times
+have I battled, great deeds have I done with sword and with hand-grip; now
+must I go forth and battle with hand and sword against the hoard-keeper."
+
+Commanding the men who had accompanied him to remain upon the hillside,
+leaving him to combat with the dragon alone, Beowulf went proudly forward,
+shouting his battle-cry. Out rushed the dragon, full of deadly hate. His
+fiery breath was stronger than the king had deemed it. Stroke upon stroke
+he gave his enemy, who continued to cast forth his death-fire, so that
+Beowulf stood girt with flames.
+
+From afar, among the watching thanes, Wiglaf saw his monarch's peril.
+"Comrades," he cried, "do you remember our promises to our king? Was it
+for this he stirred us up to glorious deeds? Was it for this he heaped
+gifts upon us? Let us go to his rescue. It is not right that we should see
+our lord fall, and bear away our shields untouched!"
+
+Rushing forward, he cried, "Beowulf, here am I! Now strike for thy life!
+Thou hast said that thou never wouldst let thy fame depart from thee!"
+
+Again the dragon came forth; again it enveloped its foeman in flames. The
+linden shield of Wiglaf burned in his hands, and he sought shelter behind
+Beowulf's shield of iron. Again and again Wiglaf smote the monster, and
+when the flames burnt low, Beowulf seized his dirk and pierced the dragon
+so that he fell dead.
+
+The dragon lay dead, but Beowulf felt the poison in his wounds and knew
+that he had not long to live. He commanded Wiglaf to bring forth the
+treasure that he might gaze upon the hoard,--jewel work and twisted
+gold,--that he had wrested from the fire-drake.
+
+The den was filled with rings of gold, cups, banners, jewels, dishes, and
+the arms of the old owner of the treasure. All these did Wiglaf bear forth
+to his lord, who surveyed them, and uttered thanks to his Maker, that he
+could win such a treasure. Then, turning to Wiglaf, he said, "Now I die.
+Build for me upon the lofty shore a bright mound that shall ever remind my
+people of me. Far in the distance their ships shall descry it, and they
+shall call it Beowulf's mound." Then, giving his arms to Wiglaf, he bade
+him enjoy them. "Thou art the last of our race. All save us, fate-driven,
+are gone to doom. Thither go I too."
+
+Bitterly did Wiglaf denounce his comrades when he saw them steal from
+their hiding-places. "Well may it be said of you that he who gave you your
+arms threw them away. No thanks deserve ye for the slaughter of the
+dragon! I did my little, but it was not in my power to save my kinsman.
+Too few helpers stood about him! Now shall your kin be wanting in gifts.
+Void are ye of land-rights! Better is it for an earl to die than to live
+with a blasted name!"
+
+Sorrowful were the people when they heard of the death of Beowulf. Full
+well they knew with what joy the tidings would be hailed by their enemies,
+who would hasten to harry the land, now that their great leader was gone.
+The Frisians, the Merovingians, the Franks, the Swedes,--all had their
+grievances, which they would hasten to wreak on the Goths when they
+learned that the dreaded king was gone. Dreary would be the land of the
+Goths; on its battle-fields the wolves would batten; the ravens would call
+to the eagles as they feasted on the slain.
+
+Straight to the Eagle's Nest went the band, and found their dead monarch;
+there, too, lay the loathsome fire-drake, full fifty feet long, and
+between them the great hoard, rust-eaten from long dwelling in the earth.
+Ever had that hoard brought ill with it.
+
+Down from the cliff they thrust the dragon into the deep, and carried
+their chief to Hronesness. There they built a lofty pile, decked it with
+his armor, and burned thereon the body of their glorious ruler. According
+to his wish, they reared on the cliff a broad, high barrow, surrounded it
+with a wall, and laid within it the treasure. There yet it lies, of little
+worth to men!
+
+Then around the barrow rode twelve of the bravest, boldest nobles,
+mourning their king, singing his praises, chanting a dirge, telling of his
+glorious deeds, while over the broad land the Gothic folk lamented the
+death of their tender prince, their noble king, Beowulf.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM BEOWULF.
+
+GRENDEL'S MOTHER.
+
+
+There was great rejoicing in Heorot when Beowulf slew Grendel, and at
+night the earls again slept in the hall as they had not dared to do since
+the coming of the fiend. But Grendel's mother came to avenge her son's
+death and slew AEschere, a favorite liegeman of Hrothgar's. In the morning,
+Beowulf, who had slept in another part of the palace, was sent for and
+greeted Hrothgar, unaware of his loss.
+
+  Hrothgar rejoined, helm of the Scyldings:
+  "Ask not of joyance! Grief is renewed to
+  The folk of the Danemen. Dead is AEschere,
+  Yrmenlaf's brother, older than he,
+  My true-hearted counsellor, trusty adviser,
+  Shoulder-companion, when fighting in battle
+  Our heads we protected, when troopers were clashing,
+  And heroes were dashing; such an earl should be ever,
+  An erst-worthy atheling, as AEschere proved him.
+  The flickering death-spirit became in Heorot
+  His hand-to-hand murderer; I cannot tell whither
+  The cruel one turned, in the carcass exulting,
+  By cramming discovered. The quarrel she wreaked then,
+  The last night igone Grendel thou killedst
+  In grewsomest manner, with grim-holding clutches,
+  Since too long he had lessened my liege-troop and wasted
+  My folk-men so foully. He fell in the battle
+  With forfeit of life, and another has followed,
+  A mighty crime-worker, her kinsman avenging,
+  And henceforth hath 'stablished her hatred unyielding,
+  As it well may appear to many a liegeman,
+  Who mourneth in spirit the treasure-bestower,
+  Her heavy heart-sorrow; the hand is now lifeless
+  Which availed yon in every wish that you cherished.
+  Land-people heard I, liegemen, this saying,
+  Dwellers in halls, they had seen very often
+  A pair of such mighty march-striding creatures,
+  Far-dwelling spirits, holding the moorlands:
+  One of them wore, as well they might notice,
+  The image of woman, the other one wretched
+  In guise of a man wandered in exile,
+  Except that he was huger than any of earthmen;
+  Earth-dwelling people entitled him Grendel
+  In days of yore; they knew not their father,
+  Whe'r ill-going spirits any were borne him
+  Ever before. They guard the wolf-coverts,
+  Lands inaccessible, wind-beaten nesses,
+  Fearfullest fen-deeps, where a flood from the mountains
+  'Neath mists of the nesses netherward rattles,
+  The stream under earth: not far is it henceward
+  Measured by mile-lengths that the mere-water standeth,
+  Which forests hang over, with frost-whiting covered,
+  A firm-rooted forest, the floods overshadow.
+  There ever at night one an ill-meaning portent
+  A fire-flood may see; 'mong children of men
+  None liveth so wise that wot of the bottom;
+  Though harassed by hounds the heath-stepper seek for,
+  Fly to the forest, firm-antlered he-deer,
+  Spurred from afar, his spirit he yieldeth,
+  His life on the shore, ere in he will venture
+  To cover his head. Uncanny the place is:
+  Thence upward ascendeth the surging of waters,
+  Wan to the welkin, when the wind is stirring
+  The weathers unpleasing, till the air groweth gloomy,
+  And the heavens lower. Now is help to be gotten
+  From thee and thee only! The abode thou know'st not,
+  The dangerous place where thou'rt able to meet with
+  The sin-laden hero: seek if thou darest!
+  For the feud I will fully fee thee with money,
+  With old-time treasure, as erstwhile I did thee,
+  With well-twisted jewels, if away thou shalt get thee."
+
+  Beowulf answered, Ecgtheow's son:
+  "Grieve not, O wise one! for each it is better,
+  His friend to avenge than with vehemence wail him;
+  Each of us must the end-day abide of
+  His earthly existence; who is able accomplish
+  Glory ere death! To battle-thane noble
+  Lifeless lying, 't is at last most fitting.
+  Arise, O king, quick let us hasten
+  To look at the footprint of the kinsman of Grendel!
+  I promise thee this now: to his place he'll escape not,
+  To embrace of the earth, nor to mountainous forest,
+  Nor to depths of the ocean, wherever he wanders.
+  Practice thou now patient endurance
+  Of each of thy sorrows, as I hope for thee soothly!"
+  Then up sprang the old one, the All-Wielder thanked he,
+  Ruler Almighty, that the man had outspoken.
+  Then for Hrothgar a war-horse was decked with a bridle,
+  Curly-maned courser. The clever folk-leader
+  Stately proceeded: stepped then an earl-troop
+  Of linden-wood bearers. Her foot-prints were seen then
+  Widely in wood-paths, her way o'er the bottoms,
+  Where she far-away fared o'er fen-country murky,
+  Bore away breathless the best of retainers
+  Who pondered with Hrothgar the welfare of country.
+  The son of the athelings then went o'er the stony,
+  Declivitous cliffs, the close-covered passes,
+  Narrow passages, paths unfrequented,
+  Nesses abrupt, nicker-haunts many;
+  One of a few of wise-mooded heroes,
+  He onward advanced to view the surroundings,
+  Till he found unawares woods of the mountain
+  O'er hoar-stones hanging, holt-wood unjoyful;
+  The water stood under, welling and gory.
+  'T was irksome in spirit to all of the Danemen,
+  Friends of the Scyldings, to many a liegeman
+  Sad to be suffered, a sorrow unlittle
+  To each of the earlmen, when to AEschere's head they
+  Came on the cliff. The current was seething
+  With blood and with gore (the troopers gazed on it).
+  The horn anon sang the battle-song ready.
+  The troop were all seated; they saw 'long the water then
+  Many a serpent, mere-dragons wondrous
+  Trying the waters, nickers a-lying
+  On the cliffs of the nesses, which at noonday full often
+  Go on the sea-deeps their sorrowful journey,
+  Wild-beasts and worm-kind; away then they hastened
+  Hot-mooded, hateful, they heard the great clamor,
+  The war-trumpet winding. One did the Geat-prince
+  Sunder from earth-joys, with arrow from bowstring,
+  From his sea-struggle tore him, that the trusty war-missile
+  Pierced to his vitals; he proved in the currents
+  Less doughty at swimming whom death had off-carried.
+  Soon in the waters the wonderful swimmer
+  Was straitened most sorely and pulled to the cliff-edge;
+  The liegemen then looked on the loath-fashioned stranger.
+  Beowulf donned then his battle-equipments,
+  Cared little for life; inlaid and most ample,
+  The hand-woven corselet which could cover his body,
+  Must the wave-deeps explore, that war might be powerless
+  To harm the great hero, and the hating one's grasp might
+  Not peril his safety; his head was protected
+  By the light-flashing helmet that should mix with the bottoms,
+  Trying the eddies, treasure-emblazoned,
+  Encircled with jewels, as in seasons long past
+  The weapon-smith worked it, wondrously made it,
+  With swine-bodies fashioned it, that thenceforward no longer
+  Brand might bite it, and battle-sword hurt it.
+  And that was not least of helpers in prowess
+  That Hrothgar's spokesman had lent him when straitened;
+  And the hilted hand-sword was Hrunting entitled,
+  Old and most excellent 'mong all of the treasures;
+  Its blade was of iron, blotted with poison,
+  Hardened with gore; it failed not in battle
+  Any hero under heaven in hand who it brandished,
+  Who ventured to take the terrible journeys,
+  The battle-field sought; not the earliest occasion
+  That deeds of daring 't was destined to 'complish.
+  Ecglaf's kinsman minded not soothly,
+  Exulting in strength, what erst he had spoken
+  Drunken with wine, when the weapon he lent to
+  A sword-hero bolder; himself did not venture
+  'Neath the strife of the currents his life to endanger,
+  To fame-deeds perform; there he forfeited glory,
+  Repute for his strength. Not so with the other
+  When he, clad in his corselet, had equipped him for battle.
+
+  Beowulf spoke, Ecgtheow's son:
+  "Recall now, oh, famous kinsman of Healfdene,
+  Prince very prudent, now to part I am ready,
+  Gold-friend of earl-men, what erst we agreed on,
+  Should I lay down my life in lending thee assistance,
+  When my earth-joys were over, thou wouldst evermore serve me
+  In stead of a father; my faithful thanemen,
+  My trusty retainers, protect thou and care for,
+  Fall I in battle: and, Hrothgar beloved,
+  Send unto Higelac the high-valued jewels
+  Thou to me hast allotted. The lord of the Geatmen
+  May perceive from the gold, the Hrethling may see it
+  When he looks on the jewels, that a gem-giver found I
+  Good over-measure, enjoyed him while able.
+  And the ancient heirloom Unferth permit thou,
+  The famed one to have, the heavy-sword splendid,
+  The hard-edged weapon; with Hrunting to aid me,
+  I shall gain me glory, or grim death shall take me."
+  The atheling of Geatmen uttered these words and
+  Heroic did hasten, not any rejoinder
+  Was willing to wait for; the wave-current swallowed
+  The doughty-in-battle. Then a day's-length elapsed ere
+  He was able to see the sea at its bottom.
+  Early she found then who fifty of winters
+  The course of the currents kept in her fury,
+  Grisly and greedy, that the grim one's dominion
+  Some one of men from above was exploring.
+  Forth did she grab them, grappled the warrior
+  With horrible clutches; yet no sooner she injured
+  His body unscathed: the burnie out-guarded,
+  That she proved but powerless to pierce through the armor,
+  The limb-mail locked, with loath-grabbing fingers.
+  The sea-wolf bare then, when bottomward came she,
+  The ring-prince homeward, that he after was powerless.
+  (He had daring to do it) to deal with his weapons,
+  But many a mere-beast tormented him swimming,
+  Flood-beasts no few with fierce-biting tusks did
+  Break through his burnie, the brave one pursued they.
+  The earl then discovered he was down in some cavern
+  Where no water whatever anywise harmed him,
+  And the clutch of the current could not come anear him,
+  Since the roofed-hall prevented; brightness a-gleaming
+  Fire-light he saw, flashing, resplendent.
+  The good one saw then the sea-bottom's monster,
+  The mighty mere-woman; he made a great onset
+  With weapon-of-battle, his hand not desisted
+  From striking, that war-blade struck on her head then
+  A battle-song greedy. The stranger perceived then
+  The sword would not bite, her life would not injure,
+  But the falchion failed the folk prince when straitened:
+  Erst had it often onsets encountered,
+  Oft cloven the helmet, the fated one's armor:
+  'T was the first time that ever the excellent jewel
+  Had failed of its fame. Firm-mooded after,
+  Not heedless of valor, but mindful of glory,
+  Was Higelac's kinsman; the hero-chief angry
+  Cast then his carved-sword covered with jewels
+  That it lay on earth, hard and steel-pointed;
+  He hoped in his strength, his hand-grapple sturdy.
+  So any must act whenever he thinketh
+  To gain him in battle glory unending,
+  And is reckless of living. The lord of the War-Geats
+  (He shrank not from battle) seized by the shoulder
+  The mother of Grendel; then mighty in struggle
+  Swung he his enemy, since his anger was kindled,
+  That she fell to the floor. With furious grapple
+  She gave him requital early thereafter,
+  And stretched out to grab him; the strongest of warriors
+  Faint-mooded stumbled, till he fell in his traces,
+  Foot-going champion. Then she sat on the hall-guest
+  And wielded her war-knife wide-bladed, flashing,
+  For her son would take vengeance, her one only bairn.
+  His breast-armor woven bode on his shoulder;
+  It guarded his life, the entrance defended
+  'Gainst sword-point and edges. Ecgtheow's son there
+  Had fatally journeyed, champion of Geatmen,
+  In the arms of the ocean, had the armor not given,
+  Close-woven corselet, comfort and succor,
+  And had God most holy not awarded the victory,
+  All-knowing Lord; easily did heaven's
+  Ruler most righteous arrange it with justice;
+  Uprose he erect ready for battle.
+
+  Then he saw 'mid the war-gems a weapon of victory,
+  An ancient giant-sword, of edges a-doughty,
+  Glory of warriors: of weapons 't was choicest,
+  Only 't was larger than any man else was
+  Able to bear in the battle-encounter,
+  The good and splendid work of the giants.
+  He grasped then the sword-hilt, knight of the Scyldings,
+  Bold and battle-grim, brandished his ring-sword,
+  Hopeless of living, hotly he smote her,
+  That the fiend-woman's neck firmly it grappled,
+  Broke through her bone-joints, the bill fully pierced her
+  Fate-cursed body, she fell to the ground then:
+  The hand-sword was bloody, the hero exulted.
+  The brand was brilliant, brightly it glimmered,
+  Just as from heaven gemlike shineth
+  The torch of the firmament. He glanced 'long the building,
+  And turned by the wall then, Higelac's vassal
+  Raging and wrathful raised his battle-sword
+  Strong by the handle. The edge was not useless
+  To the hero-in-battle, but he speedily wished to
+  Give Grendel requital for the many assaults he
+  Had worked on the West-Danes not once, but often,
+  When he slew in slumber the subjects of Hrothgar,
+  Swallowed down fifteen sleeping retainers
+  Of the folk of the Danemen, and fully as many
+  Carried away, a horrible prey.
+  He gave him requital, grim-raging champion,
+  When he saw on his rest-place weary of conflict
+  Grendel lying, of life-joys bereaved,
+  As the battle at Heorot erstwhile had scathed him;
+  His body far bounded, a blow when he suffered,
+  Death having seized him, sword-smiting heavy,
+  And he cut off his head then. Early this noticed
+  The clever carles who as comrades of Hrothgar
+  Gazed on the sea-deeps, that the surging wave-currents
+  Were mightily mingled, the mere-flood was gory:
+  Of the good one the gray-haired together held converse,
+  The hoary of head, that they hoped not to see again
+  The atheling ever, that exulting in victory
+  He'd return there to visit the distinguished folk-ruler:
+  Then many concluded the mere-wolf had killed him.
+  The ninth hour came then. From the ness-edge departed
+  The bold-mooded Scyldings; the gold-friend of heroes
+  Homeward betook him. The strangers sat down then
+  Soul-sick, sorrowful, the sea-waves regarding:
+  They wished and yet weened not their well-loved friend-lord
+  To see any more. The sword-blade began then,
+  The blood having touched it, contracting and shrivelling
+  With battle-icicles; 't was a wonderful marvel
+  That it melted entirely, likest to ice when
+  The Father unbindeth the bond of the frost and
+  Unwindeth the wave-bands, He who wieldeth dominion
+  Of time and of tides: a truth-firm Creator.
+  Nor took he of jewels more in the dwelling,
+  Lord of the Weders, though they lay all around him,
+  Than the head and the handle handsome with jewels;
+  The brand early melted, burnt was the weapon:
+  So hot was the blood, the strange-spirit poisonous
+  That in it did perish. He early swam off then
+  Who had bided in combat the carnage of haters,
+  Went up through the ocean; the eddies were cleansed,
+  The spacious expanses, when the spirit from farland
+  His life put aside and this short-lived existence.
+  The seamen's defender came swimming to land then
+  Doughty of spirit, rejoiced in his sea-gift,
+  The bulky burden which he bore in his keeping.
+  The excellent vassals advanced then to meet him,
+  To God they were grateful, were glad in their chieftain,
+  That to see him safe and sound was granted them.
+  From the high-minded hero, then, helmet and burnie
+  Were speedily loosened: the ocean was putrid,
+  The water 'neath welkin weltered with gore.
+  Forth did they fare, then, their footsteps retracing,
+  Merry and mirthful, measured the earth-way,
+  To highway familiar: men very daring
+  Bare then the head from the sea-cliff, burdening
+  Each of the earlmen, excellent-valiant.
+  Four of them had to carry with labor
+  The head of Grendel to the high towering gold-hall
+  Upstuck on the spear, till fourteen most-valiant
+  And battle-brave Geatmen came there going
+  Straight to the palace: the prince of the people
+  Measured the mead-ways, their mood-brave companion,
+  The atheling of earlmen entered the building,
+  Deed-valiant man, adorned with distinction,
+  Doughty shield-warrior, to address King Hrothgar:
+  Then hung by the hair, the head of Grendel
+  Was borne to the building, where beer-thanes were drinking,
+  Loth before earlmen and eke 'fore the lady:
+  The warriors beheld then a wonderful sight.
+         _J. L. Hall's Translation, Parts XXI.-XXIV._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+
+The Nibelungen Lied, or Song of the Nibelungen, was written about the
+beginning of the thirteenth century, though the events it chronicles
+belong to the sixth or seventh century. The manuscript poem was discovered
+about the middle of the eighteenth century.
+
+Lachmann asserts that the Nibelungen Lied consists of twenty songs of
+various dates and authorship; other scholars, while agreeing that it is
+the work of a single author, ascribe it variously to Conrad von
+Kurenburger, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Walther
+von der Vogelweide.
+
+Whoever was its author, he was only a compiler of legends that were the
+property of the people for centuries, and are found in many other of the
+popular German epics of the Middle Ages.
+
+The poem consists of thirty-nine adventures, containing two thousand four
+hundred and fifty-nine stanzas of four lines each. The action covers
+thirty years. It is based on material obtained from four sources: (1) The
+Frankish saga-cycle, whose hero is Siegfried; (2) the saga-cycle of
+Burgundy, whose heroes are Guenther, king of Worms, and his two brothers;
+(3) the Ostrogothic saga-cycle, whose hero is Dietrich of Bern; and (4)
+the saga-cycle of Etzel, king of the Huns, with his allies and vassals.
+
+Dietrich of Bern is supposed to be Theodoric of Italy, in exile at the
+Hunnish court. Etzel is Attila the Hun, and Guenther, Gunducarius, king of
+the Burgundians, who was destroyed by the Huns with his followers in the
+year 436.
+
+The Nibelungen Lied very much resembles the Iliad, not only in the
+uncertainty of its origin and the impersonality of its author, but also in
+its objectivity, its realism, the primitive passions of its heroes, and
+the wondrous acts of valor performed by them. It contains many passages of
+wonderful beauty, and gives a striking picture of the social customs and
+the religious belief of the time.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+
+Mary Elizabeth Burt's Story of the German Iliad, 1892;
+
+Thomas Carlyle's Nibelungen Lied (see his Miscellaneous Essays, 1869, vol.
+iii., pp. 111-162);
+
+Sir G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Nibelungen Lied (see their Tales of the
+Teutonic Lands, 1872, pp. 79-132);
+
+G. T. Dippold's Nibelungenlied (see his Great Epics of Mediaeval Germany,
+1882, pp. 1-117);
+
+William T. Dobson's Nibelungenlied Epitomized (see his Classic Poets,
+1878);
+
+Auber Forestier's Echoes from Mistland, or the Nibelungen Lay Revealed,
+Tr. by A. A. Woodward, 1877;
+
+Joseph Gostwick's and Robert Harrison's Nibelungenlied (see their Outlines
+of German Literature, n. d., pp. 16-24);
+
+Hugh Reginald Haweis's Nibelungenlied (see his Musical Memories, 1887, pp.
+225-250);
+
+Frederick Henry Hedge's Nibelungenlied (see his Hours with the German
+Classics, 1887, pp. 25-55);
+
+James K. Hosmer's Nibelungen Lied (see his Short History of German
+Literature, 1891, pp. 23-77);
+
+J. P. Jackson's Ring of the Nibelung, Cosmopolitan, 1888, vol. vi. pp.
+415-433;
+
+Henry W. Longfellow's Nibelungenlied (see his Poets and Poetry of Europe,
+new ed., enlarged, 1882, pp. 217-227);
+
+J. M. F. Ludlow's Lay and Lament of the Niblungs (see his Popular Epics of
+the Middle Ages, 1865, pp. 105-183);
+
+E. Magnusson and William Morris's Voelsungs Saga, story of the Voelsungs and
+Niblungs, 1870;
+
+William Morris's Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs,
+1887;
+
+F. Max Mueller's Das Nibelungenlied (see his German Classics, new ed.,
+1893, vol. i., pp. 112-136);
+
+Ernst Raupach's Nibelungen Treasure, a tragedy from the German with
+remarks, 1847;
+
+A. M. Richey's Teutonic and the Celtic Epic, Fraser's Magazine, 1874, vol.
+lxxxix., pp. 336-354;
+
+Wilhelm Scherer's Nibelungenlied (see his History of German Literature,
+1893, vol. i., pp. 101-115);
+
+Leda M. Schoonamaker's Nibelungen Lied, Harper's Magazine, 1877, vol. lv.,
+pp. 38-51;
+
+Bayard Taylor's Nibelungen Lied (see his Studies in German Literature,
+1893, pp. 101-134);
+
+Wilhelm Wagner's Nibelungenlied (see his Epics and Romances of the Middle
+Ages, 1883, pp. 229-306);
+
+Henry Weber's The Song of the Nibelungen (see Weber and Jamieson,
+Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, 1874, pp. 167-213).
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE NIBELUNGEN.
+
+
+The Nibelungen Lied, Tr. by Alfred G. Foster Barham, 1887;
+
+The Lay of the Nibelungers, Tr. into English text after Lachman's text by
+Jonathan Birch, ed. 3, 1887;
+
+The Nibelungenlied, Tr. by Joseph Gostwick (see his Spirit of German
+Poetry, 1843);
+
+The Fall of the Nibelungers, Tr. by William Nanson Lettsom, ed. 2, 1874.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+
+In the beautiful city of Worms, in Burgundy, dwelt the maiden Kriemhild,
+surpassing all others in beauty. Her father, long since dead, was Dancrat;
+her mother, Uta, and her three brothers,--Guenther, Gernot, and
+Giselher,--puissant princes whose pride it was to guard their lovely
+sister. Among the noble lords their liegemen were Hagan of Trony,
+Dankwart, his brother, Ortwine of Metz, Eckewart, Gary, Folker, Rumolt the
+steward, Sindolt the butler, and Humolt the chamberlain.
+
+The peace of the beautiful Kriemhild was one night disturbed by a dream,
+in which she saw a young falcon that she had long reared with tender care
+torn to pieces by two fierce eagles. When she confided this dream to her
+mother, the wise Uta declared that it meant that she would one day wed a
+fair prince threatened with a dreadful doom.
+
+"Then I will never wed!" cried Kriemhild. "Better to forego the bliss thou
+tellest me attends only the wedded state than to taste the anguish
+foretold by my dream." Alas! little could she guess of what the future
+held in store for her.
+
+In the wide country of the Netherlands, in the city of Xanten, dwelt the
+great prince Siegmund and his wife Sieglind. Their kingdom was wide, their
+wealth great, but nothing gave them so much happiness as the renown of
+their glorious son Siegfried. Such mighty deeds of valor had he performed
+that his fame was already world-wide, though he was but a youth. To Xanten
+the fame of the peerless princess Kriemhild had penetrated, and the young
+prince declared to his parents his intention of seeking her out in
+Burgundy, and wooing her for his wife. All entreaties were in vain; with
+but twelve companions, each fitted out with the most gorgeous vestments,
+by the care of the queen mother, the haughty prince advanced into
+Burgundy.
+
+King Guenther, surprised at the sight of the splendidly attired strangers,
+called one after another of his knights to inform him who they were. None
+knew, until Hagan was at last called because he was familiar with the
+warriors of every land. He did not know them. "But," said he, "though I
+have never set eyes on him, I'll wager that is the noble Siegfried, the
+mighty warrior who slew the Nibelungers. Once, so I have heard the story,
+when he was riding alone, he saw the two kings Nibelung and Shilbung
+dividing the treasure of the Niblungs. They had just brought it out from
+the cavern where it was guarded by the dwarf Albric, and they called
+Siegfried to come and divide it for them. The task was so great that he
+did not finish it, and when the angry kings set upon him he slew them
+both, their giant champions and chiefs, and then overcame the dwarf
+Albric, and possessed himself of his wondrous cloud-cloak. So he is now
+lord of the Nibelungers and owner of the mighty treasure. Not only this,
+my king; he once slew a poison-spitting dragon and bathed in its blood, so
+that his skin is invulnerable. Treat the young prince with respect. It
+would be ill-advised to arouse his hatred."
+
+While the king and his counsellors were admiring his haughty bearing,
+Siegfried and his followers advanced to the hall and were fittingly
+welcomed. Siegfried haughtily declared that he had come to learn if
+Guenther's renown for knighthood was correct, and wished to fight with him,
+with their respective kingdoms as stakes. Guenther had no desire to fight
+with such a doughty warrior, and he hastened to soothe Siegfried's wrath
+with gentle words, inviting him to remain as his guest.
+
+So happy was Siegfried in the tourneys and games enjoyed by Guenther's
+court, that he remained in Worms for a year, and in all that time never
+set eyes on Kriemhild. How enraptured would he have been had he known that
+the gentle maiden watched for him daily at her lattice, and came to long
+for a glimpse of the handsome stranger!
+
+At the end of the year tidings were brought to Worms that the Saxons, led
+by King Luedeger, and Luedegast, king of Denmark, were marching against
+Burgundy. The Burgundians were terrified at the news; but Siegfried,
+delighted at the thought of war, begged Guenther to give him but a thousand
+Burgundians, in addition to the twelve comrades he had brought with him,
+and he would pledge himself to defeat, unaided, the presumptuous enemy.
+Many were the camps of the foe; full forty thousand were there mustered
+out to fight, but Siegfried quickly scattered them, slew many thousands,
+and took the two kings prisoners.
+
+How joyful the melancholy Kriemhild became when the messenger bore to her
+the glad tidings! Ruddy gold and costly garments he gained for his good
+news.
+
+On Siegfried's return he first met and loved Kriemhild. More blooming than
+May, sweeter than summer's pride, she stood by the gallant warrior, who
+dared not yet to woo her. The twelve days of revel in celebration of the
+victory were one long dream of bliss to the happy lovers.
+
+While Siegfried was still lingering at Guenther's court, tidings were
+brought thither of the beauty, prowess, and great strength of Brunhild,
+Queen of Issland, and Guenther determined to go thither and woo her.
+Siegfried implored him not to go.
+
+"Thou knowest not what thou must undertake," he said. "Thou must take part
+in her contests, throw the javelin, throw the stone and jump after it, and
+if thou fail in even one of these three games thou must lose thy life and
+that of thy companions."
+
+When Siegfried found that he could not move Guenther, he promised to go
+with him and assist him, on condition that on their return Guenther would
+give him the beautiful Kriemhild for his wife.
+
+Attired in the most splendid raiment, prepared by the willing fingers of
+Kriemhild and her maids, Guenther, with only three companions, Siegfried,
+Hagan, and Dankwart, set forth to Issland. Siegfried requested his
+companions to inform Brunhild that he was Guenther's man; and when she
+welcomed him first, he himself told her to speak first to his master.
+The little party was greatly impressed with the splendor of Brunhild's
+three turreted palaces, and with the beauty and prodigious strength of the
+queen. When they saw her huge golden shield, steel-studded, beneath whose
+weight four chamberlains staggered, and the immense javelin of the
+war-like maid, the warriors trembled for their lives, all save Siegfried,
+who, wrapped in his cloud-cloak, invisible to all, stood behind the
+bewildered Guenther.
+
+"Give me thy buckler," he whispered. "Now make but the motions, and I will
+hurl both spear and stone. But keep this a secret if thou wouldst save
+both our lives."
+
+To the surprise of every one Guenther won the games, and Brunhild,
+surprised and mortified, ordered her followers to bow to her better, and
+returned to the castle to make ready for the journey to Worms.
+
+Siegfried carried the tidings to Worms, and the bridal party was met and
+welcomed at the banks of the Rhine by the Queen Uta, Kriemhild, and a
+large following. During the wedding feast, Siegfried reminded Guenther of
+his promise, and the king, calling Kriemhild to him, affianced the two in
+the presence of the company.
+
+When the suspicious Brunhild saw Siegfried sitting at the table of the
+king, she was angered, for she had been told that he was a vassal.
+Although she could get no satisfaction from Guenther, she suspected some
+secret. When she and Guenther retired for the night she conquered him, tied
+him hand and foot with her magic girdle, and hung him on the wall until
+morning. Guenther, overcome with wrath and vexation, told his humiliation
+to Siegfried the next morning at the minster. "Be comforted," said
+Siegfried. "Tonight I will steal into thy chamber wrapped in my
+mist-cloak, and when the lights are extinguished I will wrestle with her
+until I deprive her of the magic ring and girdle."
+
+After some hesitation, Guenther assented, and Brunhild, supposing she was
+conquered by Guenther, yielded herself willingly to her husband and lost
+all her former strength. Siegfried carried away her girdle and ring and
+gave them to his wife, little suspecting what harm they would do him in
+the years to come.
+
+The wedding festivities over, Siegfried took his bride home to the
+Netherlands, where their arrival was celebrated with the greatest
+festivities. Siegmund placed the crown on his son's head, and Siegfried
+and Kriemhild ruled happily over the kingdom for ten years, during which
+time a son was born to them, christened Guenther for his uncle.
+
+During these years Brunhild had been fretting that the supposed vassal,
+Siegfried, had never come to pay homage to his king. At last, affecting a
+great longing to see Kriemhild once more, she induced Guenther to invite
+his sister and her husband to visit them. This he did gladly, and on their
+arrival many days were spent in feasting, merrymaking, and the tourney.
+
+But one day, when the two queens were watching the tilting in the castle
+court, Kriemhild, excited by the victories of her husband, declared that
+Siegfried, because of his might, ought to be ruler of Burgundy. This
+angered Brunhild, who reproached the wife of a vassal for such
+presumption.
+
+"My husband a vassal!" exclaimed the indignant Kriemhild. "He, ruler of
+the Netherlands, who holds a higher place than my brother Guenther! I
+cannot endure thy insolence longer."
+
+"I will see," said Brunhild, "this very day whether thou receivest the
+public respect and honor paid to me."
+
+"I am ready for the test," responded Kriemhild, "and I will show thee
+to-day, before our following, that I dare to enter the church before
+Guenther's queen."
+
+When the two queens met on the minster steps, and Brunhild declared that
+no vassaless should enter before her, Kriemhild reproached her for being
+the leman of Siegfried, and displayed in proof the ring and girdle he had
+taken from Brunhild. Rage and fury rendered Brunhild speechless. The kings
+were summoned, and both denied the truth of Kriemhild's words. But the two
+queens were now bitter enemies, and the followers of Brunhild, among them
+the gloomy Hagan of Trony, were deeply angered at Siegfried and his queen.
+Hagan laid a plot to destroy Siegfried, and Guenther, though at first
+unwilling, was at last induced to enter it.
+
+Pretended messengers came to announce to Guenther that the Saxons again
+threatened war against him. Siegfried proposed to take part in the war,
+and preparations were at once begun. Hagan, with pretended tenderness,
+told Kriemhild of the coming danger, and asked her if her lord had a weak
+place, that he might know and guard it for him. Kriemhild confided to him
+her husband's secret. When Siegfried was bathing in the dragon's blood, a
+leaf fell between his shoulders, and that spot was vulnerable. There she
+would embroider a cross on his vesture that Hagan might protect him in the
+shock of battle.
+
+The war was now abandoned and a great hunt undertaken. Gernot and
+Giselher, though they did not see fit to warn Siegfried, refused to take
+part in the plot and go to the hunt. Many a lion, elk, and boar fell by
+Siegfried's hand that day before the hunters were called together to the
+royal breakfast; when they at last sat down in the flowery meadow the wine
+was wanting, and the warriors were compelled to quench their thirst at a
+brooklet near by.
+
+"A race!" cried the hero; and he, Hagan, and Guenther ran for the brook,
+Siegfried gaining it first. After the king had quenched his thirst,
+Siegfried threw down his arms and stooped to drink. Then Hagan, picking up
+his ashen spear, threw it at the embroidered cross, and Siegfried fell in
+the agonies of death, reproaching his traitorous friends whom he had
+served so faithfully.
+
+To add cruelty to cruelty, the vindictive Hagan placed the body of
+Siegfried outside Kriemhild's chamber door, where she would stumble over
+it as she went out to early mass next morning. Down she fell fainting when
+she recognized her husband, and reviving, shrieked in her anguish,
+"Brunhild planned it; Hagan struck the blow!"
+
+Her grief was terrible to see. One moment the unhappy queen was accusing
+herself for revealing her husband's secret; again she was vowing revenge
+against Hagan, and at another time she reviled the traitorous Guenther.
+
+When her father-in-law Siegmund returned home, she would not go with him,
+but remained near the body of her husband, under the protection of her
+brothers Gernot and Giselher and in the company of her mother.
+
+Kriemhild, living in joyless state in her lonely palace, was at last
+induced to speak to Guenther and pardon him. The pardon granted, Guenther
+and Hagan at once plotted to have the Nibelungen hoard, Siegfried's
+morning-gift to Kriemhild, brought to Worms. Never before was such a
+treasure seen. Twelve huge wagons, journeying thrice a day, required four
+nights and days to carry it from the mountain to the bay. It consisted of
+nothing but precious stones and gold, and with it was the magic
+wishing-rod. It filled Kriemhild's towers and chambers to overflowing, and
+won many friends for the queen, who distributed it liberally.
+
+When the envious Hagan could not induce Guenther to take the treasure from
+Kriemhild, he selected a time when the king and his brothers were away
+from home, and seizing the treasure, cast it into the Rhine, hoping to get
+it again. In this he failed, so the great treasure was forever lost.
+
+Thus ends the first part of the Lay of the Nibelungen. The second part is
+sometimes called the Need or Fall of the Nibelungen.
+
+While Kriemhild was bewailing her loss and revolving plans for revenge,
+Etzel, King of the Huns, who had heard of the charms of Siegfried's widow,
+sent the noble Margrave Ruedeger into Burgundy with proposals for her hand.
+
+Guenther and his brothers begged Kriemhild to accept the offer; their
+counsellors advised it; only the sage Hagan protested. He knew too well
+how Kriemhild longed for revenge. "When once she gets among the Huns, she
+will make us rue the day," said he.
+
+But the others laughed at Hagan's scruples. The land of the Huns was far
+away, and they need never set foot in it. Moreover, it was their duty to
+make Kriemhild happy.
+
+Moved by the eloquence of Ruedeger, Kriemhild consented to wed Etzel, and
+set out in great state to meet the king.
+
+She was splendidly entertained along the way, tarried a short time at the
+home of the Margrave Ruedeger, and at Tulna met the great monarch Etzel,
+riding to meet her, among his hosts of Russians, Polacks, Greeks, and
+Wallachians.
+
+The splendid wedding-feast was held at Vienna. Kriemhild was received with
+the greatest honor, and so lavish was she of the gold and jewels she had
+brought with her, and so gracious to the attendant Huns, that every one
+loved her, and willingly worked her will.
+
+For seven long years she and Attila lived happy together, and to them was
+given a son whom they christened Ortlieb. Then Kriemhild, still
+remembering her loss and the cruelties of her Burgundian relatives and
+friends, bethought herself of her revenge.
+
+Feigning a great desire to see her brothers, she entreated Etzel to invite
+them to visit her; and the king, not suspecting her fell purpose, and glad
+of an opportunity to welcome her friends, at once despatched messengers
+with the invitation.
+
+This time other counsellors besides Hagan mistrusted the queen, and
+advised King Guenther and his brothers to decline the invitation. But the
+princes grew angry at their advice; and Hagan, who could not endure to be
+laughed at, set forth with them, accompanied with a great train of
+warriors.
+
+The Rhine was too swollen to ford, and Hagan was sent up the stream to
+find a ferryman. As he looked for the boatman, he spied some mermaids
+bathing, and seizing their garments, would not restore them until they
+told him what would befall the Burgundians in Hungary.
+
+"Safe will you ride to Etzel's court, and safe return," said one, as he
+returned the garments. But as he turned to go, another called: "My aunt
+has lied to thee that she might get back her raiment. Turn now, or you
+will never live to see Burgundy. None save the chaplain will return in
+safety."
+
+Hagan went on gloomily and found the ferryman, who, proud and sullen,
+refused to take the party across. Hagan slew him, and, returning with the
+boat, threw the unfortunate chaplain into the river, thinking by drowning
+him to prove the mermaid's prophecy untrue. But the chaplain escaped to
+the other side, and walked back to Burgundy. Then Hagan told the party of
+the prophecy and they resolved to go on together, though they realized
+that they were going to their doom.
+
+Because of the slaughter of the ferryman, they were attacked by Gelfrat,
+the ruler of the land; but he was overcome and slain by Dankwart.
+
+The Margrave Ruedeger received the travellers hospitably, and betrothed his
+fair daughter to Giselher. He then accompanied the Burgundians to Etzel's
+court.
+
+The Burgundians suspected Kriemhild from the first. Giselher was the only
+one of her brothers whom she kissed, and she and Hagan quarrelled over the
+treasure at their first meeting.
+
+They were warned by Eckewart, who had accompanied Kriemhild from Burgundy,
+and by Dietrich of Bern, an exile at the court of Etzel, who told them
+that every morning since her stay in Hunland she had moaned and wailed for
+Siegfried. By Hagan's advice they all kept on their armor, telling Etzel
+that it was the custom in their country to wear it for the first three
+days.
+
+Kriemhild's design was to destroy Hagan and spare her brothers. But Hagan,
+on his guard, drove her warriors away from his room at night, and saved
+himself at church from the jostling Hunnish lords, never, in the mean
+time, sparing his insults to Kriemhild.
+
+The Huns, who were devoted to their queen, were not slow in showing their
+anger at Hagan's treatment of her, and the ill feeling between the
+warriors increased as the days passed by.
+
+As the Burgundians sat at the banquet with Etzel and his wife, in burst
+Dankwart, exclaiming that he had been attacked by Bloedel, who had slain
+all his followers.
+
+"Be stirring, brother Hagan!" he cried. "Help me to avenge my wrongs!"
+
+At this moment the little prince Ortlieb had been brought into the hall
+and passed around among the guests.
+
+"Let us drink to friendship with moody Kriemhild in king's wine!" cried
+Hagan, and with one blow of the sword sent the child's head in his
+mother's lap. Then arose a fearful clamor. Spear rang against shield, and
+the cries of the fierce Huns mingled with the defiant shouts of the
+Burgundians.
+
+Dietrich of Bern, leaping upon a bench, asked King Guenther, that, as a
+friend to both parties, he might be permitted to withdraw from the hall
+with his friends. When the Burgundians assented, he led forth the king and
+queen. The same privilege was accorded to Ruedeger.
+
+Then, while the terrible Folker guarded the door with his fiddle bow, one
+side of which was a trenchant sword, the battle began. The Burgundians
+taunted the Huns with their weakness and cowardice until they ventured
+into the hall and were cut down by Hagan and his desperate men. When
+evening fell the thousand and four who had entered the hall all lay dead
+by the hands of the Burgundians.
+
+When Kriemhild's offer to give her brothers their lives if they would
+surrender Hagan was refused, she ordered fire to be set to the four
+corners of the hall, thinking thus to drive them forth. But the burning
+rafters fell into the rivers of blood and were quenched, and the
+Burgundians derived new courage and strength from huge draughts of blood
+from their fallen foes.
+
+Then Kriemhild and Etzel, seeing how their Hunnish men had fallen, and
+perceiving that the Burgundians were in no wise injured by the fire,
+reproached the Margrave Ruedeger that he did not enter the fight. In vain
+he told them of his friendship with the princes; of the betrothal of his
+daughter and Giselher. Kriemhild persisted in reminding him of the promise
+he had made to serve her to her dying day. At last he reluctantly summoned
+his men, and bidding farewell to his cruel king and queen, he entered the
+hall. Gladly was he welcomed by the Burgundians, who could not believe
+that he came to do battle with them. He explained how he was forced to
+fight them, and amid the tears of both sides, he exchanged shields with
+Hagan, whose buckler was broken. Then was the grim Hagan moved to tears,
+and he vowed not to touch Ruedeger in the fight. Fearful was the clatter of
+shield and blade as Ruedeger fought with Gernot, and fell at last by the
+blade he had himself given the prince.
+
+Great was the wailing of the Huns when they saw the lifeless body of
+Ruedeger, and deeply did Etzel regret the loss of the valiant and true
+margrave.
+
+Dietrich of Bern, who sat afar off, sent some of his best warriors under
+his man Hildebrand, to inquire of the truth of the report of Ruedeger's
+death. These fiery men disobeyed the orders of their master, and fought
+with the Burgundians until none remained save Guenther and Hagan on one
+side, and Hildebrand on the other.
+
+When Dietrich heard of the slaughter of his followers, he was overcome
+with sorrow, and himself sought the hall. He promised Guenther and Hagan
+that if they would surrender, he would himself lead them back in safety to
+Burgundy; but to this they would not consent. By this time they were so
+worn out, however, from the long battle, that Dietrich easily overpowered
+them and led them captive before Kriemhild, who promised to show them fair
+treatment.
+
+But Kriemhild's mind had become so warped by her desire for revenge, that
+she could not think of mercy. She cast her prisoners into separate
+dungeons, and visiting Hagan first, demanded her treasure. "But give it to
+me again, and thou shalt return living into Burgundy."
+
+"Pray not to me, haughty queen," replied Hagan. "I swore that while my
+lords were living I would ne'er tell where it lies. Thy prayer is thrown
+away."
+
+Straightway the savage Kriemhild ordered the head of Guenther to be struck
+off, and bearing it by the hair, she displayed it to Hagan, asking him now
+to tell her the secret.
+
+"Now that all my lords are dead," said he, "no one shall know, thou least
+of all, she-fiend!"
+
+Kriemhild, beside herself with grief and rage, snatched from him the sword
+Balmung that he had taken from Siegfried, and ever since carried, and
+raising it high with both hands, struck off the head of her hated enemy.
+
+At this the grief of Etzel broke forth, and the aged Hildebrand, enraged
+to see a woman do such deeds, sprang upon Kriemhild and smote her to death
+with his sword.
+
+Bitterly wept King Etzel and Dietrich as they gazed on the corpses
+scattered round, and the disfigured body of the fair queen. Nothing
+remained for the Hunnish people but grief and woe.
+
+Here on earth pain ever follows in the steps of pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
+
+HOW BRUNHILD WAS RECEIVED AT WORMS.
+
+
+Brunhild, queen of Issland, was won by Guenther of Worms with the aid of
+Siegfried, whom Guenther sent forward to Worms to announce the coming of
+the royal pair. Queen Uta and Princess Kriemhild, with many followers from
+the Burgundian court, went forward to the Rhine to meet and welcome the
+royal bridal party.
+
+  Beyond the Rhine King Guenther, with many a well-arm'd rank
+  And all his guests about him, rode towards the river's bank;
+  You might see by the bridle led forward many a maid.
+  Those, who were to receive them, were ready all array'd.
+
+  Soon as the men of Issland came to the shallops down,
+  And eke the Nibelungers, lieges of Siegfried's crown,
+  To th' other shore they hasten'd (busy was every hand)
+  Where them the friends of Guenther awaited on the strand.
+
+  Now hear, by wealthy Uta what a device was wrought.
+  Down with her from the castle a virgin train she brought,
+  That rode where she was riding in that procession bright;
+  So many a maid acquainted became with many a knight.
+
+  Kriemhild by the bridle the Margrave Gary led,
+  But only from the castle; then forward Siegfried sped,
+  And did that gentle service; fair was the blushing maid;
+  Full well for that thereafter the warrior she repaid.
+
+  Ortwine, the fearless champion, rode by Dame Uta's rein;
+  Knights and maids together follow'd, a social train.
+  At such a stately meeting, all must confess, I ween,
+  So many lovely ladies were ne'er together seen.
+
+  Full many a famous champion careering you might spy
+  (Ill there was sloth and idlesse) beneath fair Kriemhild's eye
+  E'en to the place of landing; by knights of fair renown
+  There many a high-born lady from steed was lifted down.
+
+  The king was now come over, and many a worthy guest.
+  Ah, before the ladies what spears were laid in rest!
+  How many went in shivers at every hurtling close!
+  Buckler clashed with buckler; ah, what a din arose!
+
+  Now might you see the ladies fast by the haven stand.
+  With his guests King Guenther debark'd upon the strand,
+  In his hand soft leading the martial maiden fair.
+  Then each on each flash'd radiance, rich robes and jewels rare.
+
+  With that the smiling Kriemhild forth stepp'd a little space,
+  And Brunhild and her meiny greeted with gentle grace,
+  Each with snowy fingers back her headband drew,
+  And either kiss'd the other lovingly and true.
+
+  Then spoke in courteous manner Kriemhild the fair and free,
+  "In this our land, dear Brunhild, ever welcome be
+  To me and to my mother and all by us allow'd
+  For faithful friends and liegemen." Then each to th' other bow'd.
+
+  Next to greet Dame Brunhild approach'd Dame Uta too;
+  Oft she and oft her daughter their arms about her threw,
+  And on her sweet mouth lavish'd many a loving kiss.
+  Never was known a welcome so kind and frank as this.
+
+  Soon as Brunhild's women were all come to the strand,
+  Many a courtly warrior took by her lily hand
+  A lady fair, and gently her mincing steps upstay'd,
+  Now before Dame Brunhild stood many a noble maid.
+
+  'T was long before the greeting had gone through all the list.
+  On either part in plenty rosy mouths were kiss'd.
+  Still the two fair princesses were standing side by side,
+  A pair with love and rapture by longing warriors ey'd.
+
+  What erst had been but rumour, was now made clear to sight,
+  That nought had yet been witness'd so beautiful and bright
+  As those two lovely damsels; 't was plain to every eye;
+  None the slightest blemish in either form could spy.
+
+  Whoever look'd on women with but the sight for guide,
+  Such for her faultless beauty praised Guenther's, stately bride;
+  But those whose thoughts went deeper, and div'd into the mind,
+  Maintain'd that gentle Kriemhild left Brunhild far behind.
+
+  Now met the dames and damsels in friendly converse free;
+  Fair robes and fairer beauties were there in store to see;
+  Many a silk pavilion and many a gorgeous tent
+  The plain before the city fill'd in its whole extent.
+
+  King Guenther's kinsmen ceas'd not to press to that fair show.
+  And now was begg'd each princess from the sun to go
+  Close by, with their attendants, where shade was overhead.
+  By bold Burgundian warriors thither were they led.
+
+  Then clomb to horse the heroes, and scour'd the sounding field;
+  Many a joust was practis'd with order'd spear and shield;
+  Right well were prov'd the champions, and o'er the trampled plain,
+  As though the land were burning, the dust curl'd up amain.
+
+  So all before the ladies display'd their skill and force,
+  Nor doubt I that Sir Siegfried rode many a knightly course
+  Before the rich pavilions, and ever as he sped,
+  His thousand Nibelungers, a stately squadron, led.
+
+  Then came the knight of Trony by the good king's command;
+  In friendly wise he parted the jousters on the strand,
+  For fear the dust, now thick'ning, the ladies might molest.
+  Him with ready reverence obey'd each gentle guest.
+
+  Then spake the noble Gernot, "Let each now rest his steed
+  Till the air be cooler, 't will then be ours to lead
+  These lovely ladies homeward e'en to the palace wide.
+  So keep yourselves all ready till it please the king to ride."
+
+  Thus ended was the tourney, and now the warriors went
+  To join the dames and damsels beneath each lofty tent,
+  And there in gentle converse their grace and favor sought;
+  So flew the hours in pastime till of riding home they thought.
+
+  Now as drew on the twilight, when cooler grew the air
+  And the sun was setting, they would not linger there,
+  But up rose lords and ladies to seek the castle high;
+  Many a fair dame was cherish'd by many a love-lit eye.
+
+  So on the fair they waited as from good knights is due.
+  Then hardy squires, hot spurring before the nobles' view,
+  After the country's custom rode for the prize of weed
+  As far as to the palace, where sprung the king from steed.
+
+  There too the proud queens parted, each taking thence her way.
+  Dame Uta and her daughter with their handmaids gay
+  Into a spacious chamber both together went.
+  There might you see on all sides the sound of merriment.
+
+  In hall the seats were order'd; the king would instant hie
+  With all his guests to table; beside him you might spy
+  His lovely bride, Queen Brunhild; her royal crown she wore
+  There in King Guenther's country; so rich was none before.
+
+  Seats were there plac'd unnumber'd with tables broad and good,
+  As is to us reported, full heap'd with costly food.
+  How little there was wanted that passes for the best!
+  There with the king was seated full many a noble guest.
+
+  The chamberlains of Guenther in ewers of ruddy gold
+  Brought to the guests the water; should you be ever told
+  That at a prince's table service was better done,
+  'T were labor lost to say so, 't would be believ'd by none.
+
+  Then, ere the lord of Rhineland touch'd the water bright,
+  Up to him, as befitted, went Siegfried the good knight,
+  And brought to his remembrance the promise made him there,
+  Ere yet afar in Issland he look'd on Brunhild fair.
+
+  Said he, "You must remember what swore to me your hand,
+  That soon as Lady Brunhild were come into this land,
+  To me you 'd give your sister, your oaths now where are they?
+  On me throughout your journey much toil and travail lay."
+
+  "Well did you to remind me," the noble king replied,
+  "By what my hand has promis'd, I ever will abide,
+  And in this thing to serve you will do my best, my all."
+  Then sent he to beg Kriemhild to come into the hall.
+
+  Straight to the hall came Kriemhild begirt with many a maid,
+  When from the lofty staircase young Giselher thus said,
+  "Send back your maidens, Kriemhild, this bus'ness is your own;
+  On this the king, our brother, would speak with you alone."
+
+  Then forward led was Kriemhild, as Guenther gave command,
+  Where stood the king, and round him from many a prince's land
+  Were noble knights unnumber'd; at once all silence kept;
+  At that same instant Brunhild had just to table stepp'd.
+
+  Thence came it she knew nothing of what was to be done.
+  Then to his gather'd kinsmen spoke Dancrat's royal son,
+  "Help me to move my sister Siegfried for lord to take."
+  "Such match," they all made answer, "with honour she may make."
+
+  Then spoke the king to Kriemhild, "Sister, I ask of thee
+  From an oath to set me by thy kindness free.
+  Thee to a knight I promis'd; if thou become his bride,
+  Thou 'lt do the will of Guenther, and show thy love beside."
+
+  Then spake the noble maiden, "Dearest brother mine,
+  It needed not to ask me; whate'er command be thine,
+  I'll willingly perform it; so now, for thy sake,
+  Whom thou for husband giv'st me, fain I, my lord, will take."
+
+  With love and eke with pleasure redden'd Siegfried's hue;
+  At once to Lady Kriemhild he pledg'd his service true.
+  They bade them stand together in the courtly circle bright,
+  And ask'd her if for husband she took that lofty knight.
+
+  In modest maiden fashion she blush'd a little space,
+  But such was Siegfried's fortune and his earnest grace.
+  That not altogether could she deny her hand.
+  Then her for wife acknowledg'd the noble king of Netherland.
+
+  He thus to her affianc'd, and to him the maid,
+  Straight round the long-sought damsel in blushing grace array'd
+  His arms with soft emotion th' enamour'd warrior threw,
+  And kiss'd the high-born princess before that glitt'ring crew.
+                  _Lettsom's Translation, Tenth Adventure._
+
+
+
+
+HOW MARGRAVE RUeDEGER WAS SLAIN.
+
+
+The Margrave Ruedeger did not take part in the battle fought in Etzel's
+hall between the Burgundians visiting the Hunnish court and the Huns,
+because of his friendship for the Burgundians, and the betrothal of his
+daughter to Prince Giselher. Because of this, he was taunted by a Hun, who
+said to the queen that although Ruedeger had accepted many favors from
+Etzel he did not fight for him. When the Hun fell dead under Ruedeger's
+blow, Etzel reproached him for slaying one of his followers when he had
+need of so many.
+
+  Then came the fair Queen Kriemhild; she too had seen full well
+  What from the hero's anger the luckless Hun befell;
+  And she too mourn'd it deeply; with tears her eyes were wet.
+  Thus spake she to Ruedeger, "How have we ever yet
+
+  "Deserv'd that you, good Ruedeger, should make our anguish more?
+  Now sure to me and Etzel you've promised o'er and o'er,
+  That you both life and honour would risk to do us right.
+  That you 're the flower of knighthood is own'd by every knight.
+
+  "Now think upon the homage that once to me you swore,
+  When to the Rhine, good warrior, King Etzel's suit you bore,
+  That you would serve me ever to either's dying day.
+  Ne'er can I need so deeply, that you that vow should pay."
+
+  "'T is true, right noble lady; in this we 're not at strife;
+  I pledg'd, to do you service, my honour and my life,
+  But my soul to hazard never did I vow.
+  I brought the princes hither, and must not harm them now."
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  With that, to beg and pray him the king began as well;
+  King and queen together both at his feet they fell.
+  Then might you the good margrave have seen full ill bestead,
+  And thus in bitterest anguish the faithful hero said:--
+
+  "Woe's me the heaven-abandon'd, that I have liv'd to this!
+  Farewell to all my honours! woe for my first amiss!
+  My truth--my God-giv'n innocence--must they be both forgot?
+  Woe's me, O God in heaven! that death relieves me not!"
+
+  Then thus bespake him Kriemhild, "Right noble Ruedeger,
+  Take pity on our anguish; thou see'st us kneeling here,
+  The king and me before thee; both clasp thy honour'd knees.
+  Sure never host yet feasted such fatal guests as these."
+
+  With that the noble margrave thus to the queen 'gan say,
+  "Sure must the life of Ruedeger for all the kindness pay,
+  That you to me, my lady, and my lord the king have done.
+  For this I'm doomed to perish, and that ere set of sun.
+
+  "Full well I know, this morning my castles and my land
+  Both will to you fall vacant by stroke of foeman's hand,
+  And so my wife and daughter I to your grace commend,
+  And all at Bechelaren, each trusty homeless friend."
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  So to war the margrave under helmet strode;
+  Sharpest swords his meiny brandished as they rode;
+  Each in hand, bright-flashing, held his shield before.
+  That saw the dauntless minstrel, and seeing sorrow'd sore.
+
+  Then too was by young Giselher his lady's father seen
+  With helm laced as for battle. "What," thought he, "can he mean?
+  But nought can mean the margrave but what is just and right."
+  At the thought full joyous wax'd the youthful knight.
+
+  "I know not what you trust in;" thus the stern minstrel spake;
+  "Where saw you warriors ever for reconcilement's sake
+  With helmets laced advancing, and naked swords in hand?
+  On us will earn Sir Ruedeger his castles and his land."
+
+  Scarcely the valiant minstrel his words had utter'd all,
+  When the noble Ruedeger was close before the hall.
+  His shield, well proved in battle, before his feet he laid,
+  But neither proffered service, nor friendly greeting made.
+
+  To those within he shouted, "Look not for succor hence;
+  Ye valiant Nibelungers, now stand on your defence.
+  I'd fain have been your comrade; your foe I now must be.
+  We once were friends together; now from that bond I'm free."
+
+  "Now God forbid," said Guenther, "that such a knight as you
+  To the faith wherein we trusted, should ever prove untrue,
+  And turn upon his comrades in such an hour as this.
+  Ne'er can I think that Ruedeger can do so much amiss."
+
+  "I can't go back," said Ruedeger, "the deadly die is cast;
+  I must with you do battle; to that my word is pass'd.
+  So each of you defend him as he loves his life.
+  I must perform my promise; so wills King Etzel's wife."
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Tarry yet a little, right noble Ruedeger!
+  I and my lords a moment would yet with you confer;
+  Thereto hard need compels us, and danger gathering nigh;
+  What boot were it to Etzel though here forlorn we die?
+
+  "I'm now," pursued Sir Hagan, "beset with grievous care;
+  The shield that Lady Gotelind gave me late to bear,
+  Is hewn, and all-to broken by many a Hunnish brand.
+  I brought it fair and friendly hither to Etzel's land.
+
+  "Ah! that to me this favour heaven would be pleas'd to yield,
+  That I might to defend me bear so well-prov'd a shield
+  As that, right noble Ruedeger, before thee now display'd!
+  No more should I in battle need then the hauberk's aid."
+
+  "Fain with the same I'd serve thee to th' height of thy desire,
+  But that I fear such proffer might waken Kriemhild's ire.
+  Still, take it to thee, Hagan, and wield it well in hand.
+  Ah! might'st thou bring it with thee to thy Burgundian land!"
+
+  While thus with words so courteous so fair a gift he sped,
+  The eyes of many a champion with scalding tears were red,
+  'T was the last gift, that buckler, e'er given to comrade dear
+  By the lord of Bechelaren, the blameless Ruedeger.
+
+  However stern was Hagan, and of unyielding mood,
+  Still at the gift he melted, which one so great and good
+  Gave in his last few moments, e'en on the eve of fight,
+  And with the stubborn warrior mourn'd many a noble knight.
+
+  "Now God in heaven, good Ruedeger, thy recompenser be!
+  Your like on earth, I'm certain, we never more shall see,
+  Who gifts so good and gorgeous to homeless wanderers give.
+  May God protect your virtue, that it may ever live!
+
+  "Alas! this bloody bus'ness!" Sir Hagan then went on,
+  "We have had to bear much sorrow, and more shall have anon.
+  Must friend with friend do battle, nor heaven the conflict part?"
+  The noble margrave answer'd, "That wounds my inmost heart."
+
+  "Now for thy gift I'll quit thee, right noble Ruedeger!
+  What e'er may chance between thee and my bold comrades here,
+  My hand shall touch thee never amidst the heady fight,
+  Not e'en if thou shouldst slaughter every Burgundian knight."
+
+  For that to him bow'd courteous the blameless Ruedeger.
+  Then all around were weeping for grief and doleful drear,
+  Since none th' approaching mischief had hope to turn aside.
+  The father of all virtue in that good margrave died.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  What a fearful clatter of clashing blades there rang!
+  From shields beneath the buffets how the plates they sprang,
+  And precious stones unnumber'd rain'd down into the gore!
+  They fought so fell and furious as man will never more.
+
+  The lord of Bechelaren went slashing here and there,
+  As one who well in battle knew how himself to bear.
+  Well prov'd the noble Ruedeger in that day's bloody fight,
+  That never handled weapon a more redoubted knight.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Loud o'er the din of battle stout Gernot shouted then,
+  "How now, right noble Ruedeger? not one of all my men
+  Thou 'lt leave me here unwounded; in sooth it grieves me sore
+  To see my friends thus slaughter'd; bear it can I no more.
+
+  "Now must thy gift too surely the giver harm to-day,
+  Since of my friends so many thy strength has swept away.
+  So turn about and face me, thou bold and high-born man!
+  Thy goodly gift to merit, I'll do the best I can."
+
+  Ere through the press the margrave could come Sir Gernot nigh,
+  Full many a glittering mail-coat was stain'd a bloody die.
+  Then those fame-greedy champions each fierce on th' other leapt,
+  And deadly wounds at distance with wary ward they kept.
+
+  So sharp were both their broadswords, resistless was their dint,
+  Sudden the good Sir Ruedeger through th' helmet hard as flint
+  So struck the noble Gernot, that forth the blood it broke;
+  With death the stern Burgundian repaid the deadly stroke.
+
+  He heaved the gift of Ruedeger with both his hands on high,
+  And to the death though wounded, a stroke at him let fly
+  Right through both shield and morion; deep was the gash and wide.
+  At once the lord of Gotelind beneath the swordcut died.
+
+  In sooth a gift so goodly was worse requited ne'er.
+  Down dead dropp'd both together, Gernot and Ruedeger.
+  Each slain by th' other's manhood, then prov'd, alas! too well.
+  Thereat first Sir Hagan furious wax'd and fell.
+
+  Then cried the knight of Trony, "Sure we with ills are cross'd;
+  Their country and their people in both these chiefs have lost
+  More than they'll e'er recover;--woe worth this fatal day!
+  We have here the margrave's meiny, and they for all shall pay!"
+
+  All struck at one another, none would a foeman spare.
+  Full many a one, unwounded, down was smitten there,
+  Who else might have 'scap'd harmless, but now, though whole and sound,
+  In the thick press was trampled, or in the blood was drown'd.
+
+  "Alas! my luckless brother who here in death lies low!
+  How every hour I'm living brings some fresh tale of woe!
+  And ever must I sorrow for the good margrave too.
+  On both sides dire destruction and mortal ills we rue."
+
+  Soon as the youthful Giselher beheld his brother dead,
+  Who yet within were lingering by sudden doom were sped.
+  Death, his pale meiny choosing, dealt each his dreary dole.
+  Of those of Bechelaren 'scaped not one living soul.
+
+  King Guenther and young Giselher, and fearless Hagan too,
+  Dankwart as well as Folker, the noble knights and true,
+  Went where they found together out-stretched the valiant twain.
+  There wept th' assembled warriors in anguish o'er the slain.
+
+  "Death fearfully despoils us," said youthful Giselher,
+  "But now give over wailing, and haste to th' open air
+  To cool our heated hauberks, faint as we are with strife.
+  God, methinks, no longer, will here vouchsafe us life."
+
+  This sitting, that reclining, was seen full many a knight;
+  They took repose in quiet; around (a fearful sight!)
+  Lay Ruedeger's dead comrades; all was hush'd and still;
+  From that long dreary silence King Etzel augur'd ill.
+
+  "Alas for this half friendship!" thus Kriemhild frowning spake,
+  "If it were true and steadfast, Sir Ruedeger would take
+  Vengeance wide and sweeping on yonder murderous band;
+  Now back he'll bring them safely to their Burgundian land.
+
+  "What boot our gifts, King Etzel? was it, my lord, for this
+  We gave him all he asked us? The chief has done amiss.
+  He, who should have reveng'd us, will now a treaty make."
+  Thereto in answer Folker, the gallant minstrel, spake,
+
+  "Not so the truth is, lady! the more the pity too!
+  If one the lie might venture to give a dame like you,
+  Most foully against the margrave you've lied, right noble queen!
+  Sore trick'd in that same treaty he and his men have been.
+
+  "With such good will the margrave his king's commands obey'd,
+  That he and all his meiny dead on this floor are laid.
+  Now look about you, Kriemhild! for servants seek anew;
+  Well were you served by Ruedeger; he to the death was true.
+
+  "The fact if still you're doubting, before your eyes we'll bring."
+  'T was done e'en of set purpose her heart the more to wring.
+  They brought the mangled margrave, where Etzel saw him well.
+  Th' assembled knights of Hungary such utter anguish ne'er befell.
+
+  When thus held high before them they saw the margrave dead,
+  Sure by the choicest writer could ne'er be penn'd nor said
+  The woeful burst of wailing from woman and eke from man,
+  That from the heart's deep sorrow to strike all ears began.
+
+  Above his weeping people King Etzel sorrow'd sore;
+  His deep-voic'd wail resounded loud as the lion's roar
+  In the night-shaded desert; the like did Kriemhild too;
+  They mourn'd in heart for Ruedeger, the valiant and the true.
+
+       _Lettsom's Translation, Thirty-seventh Adventure._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+The Song of Roland is one of the many mediaeval romances that celebrate
+the deeds of Charlemagne.
+
+The oldest text now in existence was written about 1096, but the poem was
+current in other forms long before this.
+
+The author was a Norman, for the poem is written in the Norman dialect;
+but it is uncertain whether the Turoldus or Theroulde named in the last
+line of the poem, "Thus endeth here the geste Turoldus sang," was the
+author, a copyist, or a _jongleur_.
+
+It is said that Taillefer, the minstrel of Normandy, sang the Song of
+Roland at the battle of Hastings. "Taillefer, who right well sang, mounted
+on his rapid steed, went before them singing of Charlemagne, and of
+Roland, and Olivier, and of the vassals who died in Roncesvalles."
+
+The only text of the poem now in existence is one of the thirteenth
+century, preserved in the Bodleian library at Oxford.
+
+On the fifteenth of August, 778, in the valley of Roncesvalles, in the
+Pyrenees, Charlemagne's rear guard, left under the command of Roland,
+Prefect of the Marches of Brittany, was attacked and slaughtered by a
+large army of Gascons.
+
+This incident forms the historical basis of the poem; but the imagination
+of the poet has made of Charlemagne, then a young man, the old emperor,
+with "beard all blossom white," and transformed his Gascon foes to
+Saracens.
+
+The Song of Roland is written in the heroic pentameter; it is divided into
+"laisses," or stanzas, of irregular length, and contains about three
+thousand seven hundred and eight lines. It is written in the assonant, or
+vowel rhyme, that was universal among European nations in the early stage
+of their civilization.
+
+Each stanza ends with the word "aoi," for which no satisfactory
+translation has yet been offered, although "away" and "it is done" have
+been suggested.
+
+The author of the Song of Roland undertook, like Homer, to sing of one
+great event about which all the interest of the poem centres; but unlike
+Homer, his poem is out of all proportion, the long-drawn out revenge being
+in the nature of an anti-climax. The Song of Roland is a fair exponent of
+the people among whom it originated. It contains no ornament; it is a
+straightforward relation of facts; it lacks passion, and while it
+describes fearful slaughter, it never appeals to the emotions. Though the
+French army shed many tears, and fell swooning to the ground at the sight
+of the fearful slaughter at Roncesvalles, we are rather moved to smile at
+the violence of their emotion than to weep over the dead, so little power
+has the poet to touch the springs of feeling. However, there are passages
+in which the poem rises to sublimity, and which have been pronounced
+Homeric by its admirers.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+J. Banquier's Bibliographie de la Chanson de Roland, 1877;
+
+T. Bulfinch's Legends of Charlemagne, 1863;
+
+Sir G. W. Cox and E. H. Jones's Popular Romances of the Middle Ages, 1871,
+pp. 320-347;
+
+Leon Gautier's Les epopees francaises, vol. i., 1878;
+
+J. Malcolm Ludlow's Story of Roland (see his Popular Epics of the Middle
+Ages, 1865, vol. i., pp. 362-427);
+
+Gaston Paris's La poesie epique (see his Histoire poetique de Charlemagne,
+1865, pp. 1-33);
+
+Gaston Paris's Les Chansons de Gestes francaises (see his Histoire
+poetique de Charlemagne, 1865, pp. 69-72);
+
+George Saintsbury's The Chansons de Gestes (see his Short History of
+French Literature, 1892, pp. 10-25);
+
+Henri Van Laun's The Carlovingian Cycle (see his History of French
+Literature, 1876, vol. i., pp. 141-148);
+
+Ancient Literature of France, Quarterly Review, 1866, cxx. 283-323;
+
+The Chanson de Roland, Westminster Review, 1873, c. 32-44;
+
+M. Hayden's The Chansons de Geste, Dublin Review, 1894, cxiv. 346-357;
+
+Charles Francis Keary's The Chansons de Geste:
+the Song of Roland, Fraser's Magazine, 1881, civ. 777-789;
+
+J. M. L.'s The Song of Roland, Macmillan's Magazine, 1862, vi. 486-501;
+
+Agnes Lambert's The oldest epic of Christendom, Nineteenth Century, 1882,
+xi. 77-101;
+
+Andrew Lang's The Song of Roland and the Iliad, National Review, 1892, xx.
+195-205;
+
+Legend of Roland, Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xx.;
+
+Gustave Masson's The Chanson de Roland, Leisure Hour, 1877, xxvi. 618-620;
+
+The Song of Roland, Catholic World, 1873 and 1874, xviii. 378-388,
+488-500;
+
+The Song of Roland, Harper's Monthly, 1882, lxiv. 505-515;
+
+The Month, 1880, xl. 515-527; Temple Bar, 1886, lxxviii. 534-540.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+The Song of Roland, as chanted before the Battle of Hastings by the
+Minstrel Taillefer, Tr. from the French translation of Vitet by Mrs. Anne
+Caldwell Marsh, 1854;
+
+The Song of Roland, Tr. into English verse by John O'Hagan, ed. 2, 1883;
+
+La Chanson de Roland, Tr. from the seventh ed. of Leon Gautier, by Leonce
+Rabillon, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+
+For full seven years had Charlemagne tarried in Spain, and all the land
+lay conquered save the city of Saragossa. There, in an orchard, upon a
+terrace paved with blue marble, sat its king, Marsile, taking counsel with
+his lords.
+
+"No army have I," said the king; "no people to array against the hosts of
+the great emperor. Advise me, my lords, what I shall do to save ourselves
+from disgrace and shame."
+
+The wily Blancandrin, wisest and greatest among the pagans, advanced
+before him. "Where might cannot prevail, often craft gains the day. My
+lord, send gifts to mighty Carle. Drive forth a long train of camels; heap
+many mules with gold; send chariots filled with precious gifts. Advise him
+that on the day of Saint Michael's feast you will seek him at Aix, and
+there become a Christian, and his vassal. Yea, even send hostages; my own
+son shall go, even though he lose his head. Then will Carle depart for
+France. The day set by you will come, but he will hear naught from us. The
+hostages' heads will fall. What of it? Better this than for us to lose
+forever Spain the fair."
+
+The king, pleased with the craft of Blancandrin, dismissed his council,
+and ordered ten of his fiercest barons to seek Charlemagne at Cordova,
+bearing the olive-branch, and make the offer suggested by Blancandrin.
+
+Cordova, filled with rich spoils, had been taken, and its surviving
+inhabitants given the choice of the sword or Christian baptism. Therefore
+the happy emperor sat at his ease in a wide-spreading orchard. Around him
+stood Roland, Olivier, Samsun the duke, Anseis, Gefrei d'Anjou, and
+Gerier. At least fifteen thousand French knights were diverting themselves
+with different games in the beautiful orchard, where, under a pine-tree,
+the great King of France sat upon a golden chair. His white hair and
+flowing white beard added majesty to his already majestic figure, so that
+the olive-bearing messengers needed not to have great Carle pointed out to
+them.
+
+The emperor heard the message of Marsile in silence, and dismissing the
+pagans for the night to a pavilion, called together in council his wisest
+barons, Duke Ogier, Archbishop Turpin, Gerier, Roland, Olivier, a thousand
+Franks, among them Ganelon, the step-father of Roland, and laid before
+them the message of Marsile.
+
+"Rich gifts he offers me, but he demands that I return to France; thither
+will he follow me, and at Aix will become a Christian and a vassal. A fair
+promise, but what is in his heart I cannot tell."
+
+After a moment's silence Roland stood forth.
+
+"Sire, have no faith in the words of Marsile. When have we found aught but
+treachery in the Saracen? For seven years I have been winning victories
+for you here in Spain. Once before you yielded to such a message as this,
+from this same Marsile, and lost, in consequence, the heads of your Counts
+Bazan and Bazile. War on as you have begun. Besiege his city! subdue
+Saragossa!"
+
+Then strode forth the angry Ganelon. "My king, this young hot-head is a
+fool; hearken not unto him. Accept the offer of Marsile, and lose no more
+lives by the foolhardiness of one who cares more for his own glory than
+for human life."
+
+The voice of the others, among them Duke Naimes, Charlemagne's wisest
+counsellor and truest vassal, was with Ganelon. The emperor stroked his
+white beard. "My lords, whom shall we send to meet Marsile at Saragossa?"
+
+"I will go," said Duke Naimes.
+
+"Nay, I cannot spare you from my councils," replied the king.
+
+"I am here!" cried Roland.
+
+"Not you! You are too hot-headed to venture into the court of the enemy!"
+cried his friend Olivier. "Let me go instead, sire!"
+
+"Nay!" cried the king. "Silence! Not one of the twelve peers sets his foot
+in the kingdom of the Moors."
+
+"Then let my step-father go," suggested Roland. "No wiser man than he can
+be found."
+
+"Come forward," said the king, as the Franks murmured assent, "and receive
+the staff and glove. The Franks have chosen you."
+
+Ganelon rose, wrathful, casting off his fur robe. His eyes were gray, his
+face fierce, his form noble.
+
+"This is Roland's work. I shall hate him forever, and Olivier, and the
+twelve peers, because they love him. Ne'er shall I return; full well I
+know it. If e'er I do, it will be to wreak vengeance on my enemy."
+
+"Go!" said the king. "You have said enough!"
+
+As Ganelon went forward, full of rage, to receive the king's glove, it
+fell ere he touched it. "A bad omen!" exclaimed the French.
+
+"Sirs, ye shall hear of this!" said Ganelon.
+
+On his way to Saragossa with the legates of Marsile, Ganelon laid the
+impious plot that was to result in the destruction of Roland and the
+peers. It saved his life at Saragossa, where Marsile threatened to kill
+him on reading Charlemagne's message. He explained carefully to the
+Saracens how the rear guard, left at Roncesvalles under the command of
+Roland and the twelve peers, could be destroyed by the pagan forces before
+the knowledge of the battle could reach Charlemagne, and that, with these
+props of his kingdom gone, the king's power would be so diminished that
+Marsile could easily hold out against him. Then the traitor hastened back
+to Cordova, laden with rich gifts.
+
+When Ganelon rode back, the emperor was preparing to return to sweet
+France. "Barons," said Carle, "whom shall I leave in charge of these deep
+defiles and narrow passes?"
+
+"My step-son Roland is well able to take the command," said Ganelon; "he
+your nephew, whom you prize most of all your knights."
+
+Rage filled the hearts of both Roland and Carle; but the word was spoken,
+and Roland must remain. With him remained the twelve peers, his friends,
+Olivier, his devoted comrade, the gallant Archbishop Turpin, and twenty
+thousand valiant knights.
+
+While Charlemagne's army toiled over the terrible gorges and high
+mountains into Gascony, the emperor, ever grieving over the untimely death
+his nephew might meet in the defiles of Spain, down came the pagans, who
+had been gathering on the high mountains and in the murky valleys,--emirs,
+sons of noble counts were they, brave as the followers of Charlemagne.
+
+When Olivier descried the pagan horde he at once exclaimed,--
+
+"This is the work of Ganelon!"
+
+"Hush!" replied Roland. "He is my step-father. Say no more."
+
+Then Olivier, when from the hill he saw the one hundred thousand Saracens,
+their helmets bedecked with gold, their shields shining in the sun,
+besought his friend to sound his horn, the olifant, and summon the king to
+their aid.
+
+"Never will I so disgrace myself!" exclaimed Roland. "Never shall sweet
+France be so dishonored. One hundred thousand blows shall I give with my
+sword, my Durendal, and the Moors will fall and die!"
+
+When Olivier found his pleading vain, he mounted his steed and rode with
+Roland to the front of the lines.
+
+Long was the fight and terrible. If gallantry and strength sat with the
+twelve peers and their followers, they were with their opponents as well.
+No sooner had Roland, or Olivier, or Turpin, or Engelier cleft the body of
+a Moorish knight down to the saddle, than down fell a Christian, his
+helmet broken, his hauberk torn by the lance of his dreaded foe. The
+nephew of Marsile fell by the hand of Roland, who taunted him as he lay in
+death; Olivier struck down Marsile's brother. "A noble stroke!" cried
+Roland.
+
+"A baron's stroke!" exclaimed the archbishop, as Samsun pierced the
+Almazour with his lance and he fell dead. Olivier spurred over the field,
+crushing the pagans and beating them down with his broken lance.
+
+"Comrade, where is thy sword, thy Halteclere?" called Roland to his
+friend.
+
+"Here, but I lack time to draw it," replied the doughty Olivier.
+
+More than a thousand blows struck Turpin; the pagans fell by hundreds and
+by thousands, and over the field lay scattered those who would nevermore
+see sweet France.
+
+Meanwhile, in France, hail fell and rain; the sky was vivid with lightning
+bolts. The earth shook, and the land lay in darkness at noonday. None
+understood the portent. Alas! it was Nature's grief at the death of Count
+Roland.
+
+When Roland perceived that in spite of their mighty efforts the passes
+were still filled with heathen knights, and the French ranks were fast
+thinning, he said to Olivier, "What think you if we call the king?"
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Olivier. "Better death now than shame!"
+
+"If I blow, Carle will hear it now and return. I shall blow my olifant,"
+cried Roland.
+
+"When I begged you to blow it," said Olivier, "you refused, when you could
+have saved the lives of all of us. You will show no valor if you blow it
+now."
+
+"Great is the strife," said Roland. "I will blow that Carle may come."
+
+"Then," said Olivier, "if I return to France, I pledge you my word my
+sister Aude shall never be your wife. Your rashness has been the cause of
+our destruction. Now you shall die here, and here ends our friendship."
+
+Across the field the archbishop spurred to reconcile the friends. "Carle
+will come too late to save our lives," said he, "but he will reach the
+field in time to preserve our mangled bodies and wreak vengeance on our
+foes."
+
+Roland put his horn to his lips and blew with such force that his temples
+burst and the crimson blood poured forth from his mouth. Three times he
+sounded his horn, and each time the sound brought anguish to the heart of
+Carle, who heard it, riding thirty leagues away. "Our men make battle!"
+cried he; but this Ganelon hastened to deny, insisting that Roland was but
+hunting and blowing the horn, taking sport among the peers. But Duke
+Naimes exclaimed, "Your nephew is in sore distress. He who would deceive
+you is a traitor. Haste! Shout your war-cry, and let us return to the
+battle-field. You yourself hear plainly his call for help!"
+
+Commanding Ganelon to be seized and given to the scullions of his house to
+be kept for punishment until his return, Carle ordered his men to arm and
+return to Roncesvalles, that they might, if possible, save the lives of
+the noble peers. All the army wept aloud as they thought of the doom of
+Roland. High were the mountains, deep the valleys, swift the rushing
+streams. The French rode on, answering the sound of the olifant; the
+emperor rode, filled with grief and rage; the barons spurred their horses,
+but in vain.
+
+After Roland had sounded the horn he again grasped Durendal, and, mounted
+on his horse Veillantif, scoured the battle-field, cutting down the
+heathen. But still their troops pressed him, and when he saw the Ethiopian
+band led by the uncle of Marsile, he knew his doom had come. Olivier,
+riding forth to meet the accursed band, received his death-wound from the
+Kalif, but lived to cut his enemy down, and call Roland to him. Alas!
+sight had forsaken his eyes, and as he sat on his steed he lifted his
+bright sword Halteclere, and struck Roland a fearful blow that clove his
+crest but did not touch his head. "Was the blow meant for me, my comrade?"
+asked Roland softly. "Nay, I can see no more. God pity me! Pardon me, my
+friend!" and as the two embraced each other, Olivier fell dead.
+
+Then, in the agony of his grief, Roland fainted, sitting firm in his
+saddle, and again recovering consciousness, became aware of the terrible
+losses of the French. Only himself, the archbishop, and the gallant
+Gaultier de l'Hum were left to defend the honor of the French. After
+Gaultier fell, Roland, unassisted save by Turpin, who fought transfixed by
+four spear shafts, put the enemy to flight. Feeling his death wounds,
+Roland besought Turpin to let him bring together the bodies of his fallen
+comrades that they might receive the blessing of the archbishop. Weak and
+trembling from loss of blood, Roland passed to and fro over the
+corpse-bestrewn field, and gathered together his comrades: here, Gerin and
+Gerier, Berengier and Otun; there, Anseis, Samsun, and Gerard de
+Roussillon, and last of all, his beloved Olivier, and placing them before
+the knees of Turpin, he saw them receive his blessing.
+
+In his great grief at the sight of the dead Olivier, Roland again fainted,
+and Turpin hastened to a little brook near by for water to revive him. But
+the strain was too great for his already weakened body, and, when Roland
+revived, it was to find the archbishop dead.
+
+Then Roland, realizing that his hour, too, had come, sought out a place in
+which to die. Upon a hill between two lofty trees, where was a marble
+terrace, he placed himself with his head towards the enemy's country; and
+there a Saracen, who had feigned death to escape it, tried to wrest from
+him his beloved Durendal.
+
+Roland crushed the pagan's head with his olifant, but now he was troubled,
+for he feared that his sword would fall into other than Christian hands.
+Ill could he bear to be parted from his beloved sword. Its golden hilt
+contained rare relics,--a tooth of Saint Peter, blood, hair, and bones of
+other saints, and by the strength of these holy relics it had conquered
+vast realms. Ten and more mighty blows he struck with Durendal upon the
+hard rock of the terrace, in the endeavor to break it; but it neither
+broke nor blunted. Then, counting over his great victories, he placed it
+and the olifant beneath him, and committed his soul to the Father, who
+sent down his angels to bear it to Paradise.
+
+When the French army, led by Charlemagne, found the passes heaped high
+with the bodies of the dead and no living soul to tell the story of the
+slaughter, they wept, and many fell swooning to the earth. But the enraged
+Charlemagne, unwilling then to give time for mourning, spurred on his
+soldiers, overtook the fleeing enemy, and drove them into the Ebro, so
+that those who survived the sword, perished by the wave. Then, returning
+to the field of Roncesvalles, he wept over his beloved Roland and the
+peers.
+
+Great was his grief; handfuls of hair he tore from his head, and many
+times wished that his soul were in Paradise, and his body beside that of
+Roland. He commanded that the hearts of Roland, Olivier, and Turpin be
+taken from their bodies, wrapped, and inurned, and the bodies borne home
+in chariots. The bodies of the others were gathered together in one tomb,
+and assoiled and blessed by the priests who accompanied the army.
+
+As Charlemagne prepared to start for France, he saw a new army
+approaching. The aged Emir Baligant, from Babylon, who had long ago been
+summoned by Marsile, had just arrived in Saragossa, and hastened forth to
+meet Charlemagne. The emir's army was countless, and Charlemagne's was
+weakened by its great loss. But the thought of the slaughtered peers
+spurred on the French, and with great Carle for their leader, they quickly
+put the pagans to flight.
+
+The Franks pursued the enemy to Saragossa, where the wounded Marsile
+expired on hearing of his defeat. The city was taken, its inhabitants
+either slain, or converted and baptized, and Queen Bramimunde taken to
+France to be won to the true faith by gentler means.
+
+When Charlemagne entered his stately palace at Aix, he was met by the fair
+lady Aude.
+
+"Where is Roland, my betrothed?"
+
+Carle wept, tearing his white beard.
+
+"Thou askest of one who is no more. But in his place I will give thee my
+son. I can do no better."
+
+"Nay, God forbid that I should live if Roland is dead;" and so saying,
+Aude, the beautiful, fell dead at the feet of the emperor.
+
+From all his lands Carle summoned men to Aix for the trial of Ganelon.
+
+"Judge him according to the law, my barons," said the king. "He lost me
+twenty thousand of my Franks. My nephew Roland, Olivier, my twelve peers,
+he sold."
+
+"My king," pleaded Ganelon, "call it not treason. I was ever loyal to you.
+I thought not of gain, but of revenge against my rebellious and haughty
+step-son."
+
+The sentiment of many was with Ganelon, and Pinabel offered to fight for
+him against Thierri, the champion of the king. Thirty knights of his kin
+gave themselves as legal sureties of his pledge, and the combat began.
+Pinabel was conquered and slain, and Ganelon was condemned to be torn to
+pieces by wild horses. His thirty sureties were also compelled to suffer
+death.
+
+Ganelon was punished; Bramimunde was made a Christian, and the emperor
+thought at last to have peace. But as night fell and he sought rest in his
+lofty room, Gabriel appeared to him.
+
+"Summon thy hosts and march into Bire to succor King Vivien. The
+Christians look to thee for help."
+
+The king wept and tore his beard. "So troubled is my life!" said he.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND.
+
+THE HORN.
+
+
+The Rear Guard of the French army, left behind at Roncesvalles, under
+Roland, was attacked by a great host of Moors. In the beginning of the
+battle Olivier besought Roland to recall the emperor by blowing the
+olifant, whose sound could be heard for many leagues, but Roland refused.
+But when he saw the overwhelming forces of the Moors, and the field strewn
+with the corpses of the French, he resolved to blow the horn.
+
+  Seeing so many warriors fall'n around,
+  Rolland unto his comrade Olivier
+  Spoke thus: "Companion fair and dear, for God
+  Whose blessing rests on you, those vassals true
+  And brave lie corses on the battle-field:
+  Look! We must mourn for France so sweet and fair,
+  From henceforth widowed of such valiant knights.
+  Carle, 'would you were amongst us, King and friend!
+  What can we do, say, brother Olivier,
+  To bring him news of this sore strait of ours!"
+  Olivier answers: "I know not; but this
+  I know; for us is better death than shame."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rolland says: "I will blow mine olifant,
+  And Carle will hear it from the pass. I pledge
+  My word the French at once retrace their steps."
+  Said Olivier: "This a great shame would be,
+  One which to all your kindred would bequeathe
+  A lifetime's stain. When this I asked of you,
+  You answered nay, and would do naught. Well, now
+  With my consent you shall not;--if you blow
+  Your horn, of valor true you show no proof.
+  Already, both your arms are drenched with blood."
+  Responds the count: "These arms have nobly struck."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  "The strife is rude," Rolland says; "I will blow
+  My horn, that Carle may hear."--Said Olivier:
+  "This would not courage be. What I desired,
+  Companion, you disdained. Were the king here,
+  Safe would we be, but yon brave men are not
+  To blame."--"By this my beard," said Olivier,
+  "I swear, if ever I see again sweet Aude,
+  My sister, in her arms you ne'er shall lie."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rolland asked Olivier--"Why show to me
+  Your anger, friend?"--"Companion, yours the fault;
+  True courage means not folly. Better far
+  Is prudence than your valiant rage. Our French
+  Their lives have lost, your rashness is the cause.
+  And now our arms can never more give Carle
+  Their service good. Had you believed your friend,
+  Amongst us would he be, and ours the field,
+  The King Marsile, a captive or a corse.
+  Rolland, your valor brought ill fortune, nor
+  Shall Carle the great e'er more our help receive,
+  A man unequalled till God's judgment-day.
+  Here shall you die, and dying, humble France, . . .
+  This day our loyal friendship ends--ere falls
+  The Vesper-eve, dolorously we part!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The archbishop heard their strife. In haste he drives
+  Into his horse his spurs of purest gold,
+  And quick beside them rides. Then chiding them,
+  Says: "Sire Rolland, and you, Sire Olivier,
+  In God's name be no feud between you two;
+  No more your horn shall save us; nathless't were
+  Far better Carle should come and soon avenge
+  Our deaths. So joyous then these Spanish foes
+  Would not return. But as our Franks alight,
+  Find us, or slain or mangled on the field,
+  They will our bodies on their chargers' backs
+  Lift in their shrouds with grief and pity, all
+  In tears, and bury us in holy ground:
+  And neither wolves, nor swine, nor curs shall feed
+  On us--" Replied Rolland: "Well have you said."
+
+  Rolland raised to his lips the olifant,
+  Drew a deep breath, and blew with all his force.
+  High are the mountains, and from peak to peak
+  The sound re-echoes; thirty leagues away
+  'T was heard by Carle and all his brave compeers.
+  Cried the king: "Our men make battle!" Ganelon
+  Retorts in haste: "If thus another dared
+  To speak, we should denounce it as a lie."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rolland in his great anguish blows
+  His olifant so mightily, with such
+  Despairing agony, his mouth pours forth
+  The crimson blood, and his swol'n temples burst.
+  Yea, but so far the ringing blast resounds;
+  Carle hears it, marching through the pass, Naimes harks,
+  The French all listen with attentive ear.
+  "That is Rolland's horn!" Carle cried, "which ne'er yet
+  Was, save in battle, blown!" But Ganelon
+  Replies: "No fight is there! you, sire, are old,
+  Your hair and beard are all bestrewn with gray,
+  And as a child your speech. Well do you know
+  Rolland's great pride. 'Tis marvellous God bears
+  With him so long. Already took he Noble
+  Without your leave. The pagans left their walls
+  And fought Rolland, your brave knight, in the field;
+  With his good blade he slew them all, and then
+  Washed all the plain with water, that no trace
+  Of blood was left--yea, oftentimes he runs
+  After a hare all day and blows his horn.
+  Doubtless he takes his sport now with his peers;
+  And who 'neath Heav'n would dare attack Rolland?
+  None, as I deem. Nay, sire, ride on apace;
+  Why do you halt? Still far is the Great Land."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rolland with bleeding mouth and temples burst,
+  Still, in his anguish, blows his olifant;
+  Carle hears it, and his Franks. The king exclaims:
+  "That horn has a long breath!" Duke Naimes replies:
+  "Rolland it is, and in a sore distress,
+  Upon my faith a battle rages there!
+  A traitor he who would deceive you now.
+  To arms! Your war-cry shout, your kinsman save!
+  Plainly enough you hear his call for help."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Carle orders all the trumpeters to sound
+  The march. The French alight. They arm themselves
+  With helmets, hauberks and gold-hilted swords,
+  Bright bucklers, long sharp spears, with pennons white
+  And red and blue. The barons of the host
+  Leap on their steeds, all spurring on; while through
+  The pass they march, each to the other says:
+  "Could we but reach Rolland before he dies,
+  What deadly blows, with his, our swords would strike!"
+  But what avails? Too late they will arrive.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The ev'n is clear, the sun its radiant beams
+  Reflects upon the marching legions, spears,
+  Hauberks and helms, shields painted with bright flowers,
+  Gold pennons all ablaze with glitt'ring hues.
+  Burning with wrath the emperor rides on;
+  The French with sad and angered looks. None there
+  But weeps aloud. All tremble for Rolland.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The king commands Count Ganelon be seized
+  And given to the scullions of his house.
+  Their chief, named Begue, he calls and bids: "Guard well
+  This man as one who all my kin betrayed."
+  Him Begue received, and set upon the count
+  One hundred of his kitchen comrades--best
+  And worst; they pluck his beard on lip and cheek;
+  Each deals him with his fist four blows, and falls
+  On him with lash and stick; they chain his neck
+  As they would chain a bear, and he is thrown
+  For more dishonor on a sumpter mule,
+  There guarded so until to Carle brought back.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  High are the mountains, gloomy, terrible,
+  The valleys deep, and swift the rushing streams.
+  In van, in rear, the brazen trumpets blow,
+  Answering the olifant. With angry look
+  Rides on the emp'ror; filled with wrath and grief,
+  Follow the French, each sobbing, each in tears,
+  Praying that God may guard Rolland, until
+  They reach the battle-field. With him what blows
+  Will they not strike! Alas? what boots it now?
+  Too late they are and cannot come in time.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Carle in great anger rides--his snow-white beard
+  O'erspreads his breast-plate. Hard the barons spur,
+  For never one but inwardly doth rage
+  That he is far from their great chief, Rolland,
+  Who combats now the Saracens of Spain:
+  If wounded he, will one of his survive?
+  O God! What knights those sixty left by him!
+  Nor king nor captain better ever had....
+                        Aoi.
+                 _Rabillon's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+ROLAND'S DEATH.
+
+
+When all the French lay dead upon the field except Roland and the
+Archbishop Turpin, Roland gathered together the bodies of his dead
+comrades, the peers, that they might receive the archbishop's blessing. He
+then fell fainting from grief, and aroused himself to find the archbishop
+dead also.
+
+  Rolland now feels his death is drawing nigh:
+  From both his ears the brain is oozing fast.
+  For all his peers he prays that God may call
+  Their souls to him; to the Angel Gabriel
+  He recommends his spirit. In one hand
+  He takes the olifant, that no reproach
+  May rest upon him; in the other grasps
+  Durendal, his good sword. Forward he goes,
+  Far as an arblast sends a shaft, across
+  A new-tilled ground and toward the land of Spain.
+  Upon a hill, beneath two lofty trees,
+  Four terraces of marble spread;--he falls
+  Prone fainting on the green, for death draws near.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  High are the mounts, and lofty are the trees.
+  Four terraces are there, of marble bright:
+  There Count Rolland lies senseless on the grass.
+  Him at this moment spies a Saracen
+  Who lies among the corpses, feigning death,
+  His face and body all besmeared with blood.
+  Sudden he rises to his feet, and bounds
+  Upon the baron. Handsome, brave, and strong
+  He was, but from his pride sprang mortal rage.
+  He seized the body of Rolland, and grasped
+  His arms, exclaiming thus: "Here vanquished Carle's
+  Great nephew lies! This sword to Araby
+  I'll bear." He drew it; this aroused the count.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rolland perceived an alien hand would rob
+  Him of his sword; his eyes he oped; one word
+  He spoke: "I trow, not one of us art thou!"
+  Then with his olifant from which he parts
+  Never, he smites the golden studded helm,
+  Crushing the steel, the head, the bones; both eyes
+  Are from their sockets beaten out--o'erthrown
+  Dead at the baron's feet he falls;--"O wretch,"
+  He cries, "how durst thou, or for good or ill,
+  Lay hands upon Rolland? Who hears of this
+  Will call thee fool. Mine olifant is cleft,
+  Its gems and gold all scattered by the blow."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Now feels Rolland that death is near at hand
+  And struggles up with all his force; his face
+  Grows livid; Durendal, his naked sword,
+  He holds; beside him rises a gray rock
+  On which he strikes ten mighty blows through grief
+  And rage. The steel but grinds; it breaks not, nor
+  Is notched; then cried the count: "Saint Mary, help!
+  O Durendal! Good sword! ill starred art thou!
+  Though we two part, I care not less for thee.
+  What victories together thou and I
+  Have gained, what kingdoms conquered, which now holds
+  White-bearded Carle! No coward's hand shall grasp
+  Thy hilt: a valiant knight has borne thee long,
+  Such as none shall e'er bear in France the Free!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Rolland smites hard the rock of Sardonix;
+  The steel but grinds, it breaks not, nor grows blunt;
+  Then seeing that he cannot break his sword,
+  Thus to himself he mourns for Durendal:
+  "O good my sword, how bright and pure! Against
+  The sun what flashing light thy blade reflects!
+  When Carle passed through the valley of Moriane,
+  The God of Heaven by his Angel sent
+  Command that he should give thee to a count,
+  A valiant captain; it was then the great
+  And gentle king did gird thee to my side.
+  With thee I won for him Anjou--Bretaigne;
+  For him with thee I won Poitou, le Maine
+  And Normandie the free; I won Provence
+  And Aquitaine, and Lumbardie, and all
+  The Romanie; I won for him Baviere,
+  All Flandre--Buguerie--all Puillanie,
+  Costentinnoble which allegiance paid,
+  And Saxonie submitted to his power;
+  For him I won Escoce and Galle, Irlande,
+  And Engleterre he made his royal seat;
+  With thee I conquered all the lands and realms
+  Which Carle, the hoary-bearded monarch, rules.
+  Now for this sword I mourn. . . . Far better die
+  Than in the hands of pagans let it fall!
+  May God, Our Father, save sweet France this shame!"
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Upon the gray rock mightily he smites,
+  Shattering it more than I can tell; the sword
+  But grinds. It breaks not--nor receives a notch,
+  And upward springs more dazzling in the air.
+  When sees the Count Rolland his sword can never break,
+  Softly within himself its fate he mourns:
+  "O Durendal, how fair and holy thou!
+  In thy gold-hilt are relics rare; a tooth
+  Of great Saint Pierre--some blood of Saint Basile,
+  A lock of hair of Monseigneur Saint Denis,
+  A fragment of the robe of Sainte-Marie.
+  It is not right that pagans should own thee;
+  By Christian hand alone be held. Vast realms
+  I shall have conquered once that now are ruled
+  By Carle, the king with beard all blossom-white,
+  And by them made great emperor and lord.
+  May thou ne'er fall into a cowardly hand."
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rolland feels through his limbs the grasp
+  Of death, and from his head ev'n to his heart
+  A mortal chill descends. Unto a pine
+  He hastens, and falls stretched upon the grass.
+  Beneath him lie his sword and olifant,
+  And toward the Heathen land he turns his head,
+  That Carle and all his knightly host may say:
+  "The gentle count a conqueror has died. . . ."
+  Then asking pardon for his sins, or great
+  Or small, he offers up his glove to God.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  The Count Rolland feels now his end approach.
+  Against a pointed rock, and facing Spain,
+  He lies. Three times he beats his breast, and says:
+  "Mea culpa! Oh, my God, may through thy grace,
+  Be pardoned all my sins, or great or small,
+  Until this hour committed since my birth!"
+  Then his right glove he offers up to God,
+  And toward him angels from high Heav'n descend.
+                        Aoi.
+
+  Beneath a pine Rolland doth lie, and looks
+  Toward Spain. He broods on many things of yore:
+  On all the lands he conquered, on sweet France,
+  On all his kinsmen, on great Carle his lord
+  Who nurtured him;--he sighs, nor can restrain
+  His tears, but cannot yet himself forget;
+  Recalls his sins, and for the grace of God
+  He prays: "Our Father, never yet untrue,
+  Who Saint-Lazare raised from the dead, and saved
+  Thy Daniel from the lions' claws,--oh, free
+  My soul from peril, from my whole life's sins!"
+  His right hand glove he offered up to God;
+  Saint Gabriel took the glove.--With head reclined
+  Upon his arm, with hands devoutly joined
+  He breathed his last. God sent his cherubim,
+  Saint-Raphael, _Saint Michiel del Peril_.
+  Together with them Gabriel came. All bring
+  The soul of Count Rolland to Paradise.
+                        Aoi.
+                _Rabillon's Translation_
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+The monarchs of ancient Persia made several attempts to collect the
+historic annals of their country, but both people and traditions were
+scattered by the Arabian conquest. The manuscript annals were carried to
+Abyssinia, thence to India, and were taken back to Persia just when the
+weakness of the conquerors was beginning to show itself. The various
+members of the Persian line, who had declared themselves independent of
+their conquerors, determined to rouse the patriotism of their countrymen
+by the recital of the stirring deeds of the warriors of old Persia.
+
+The fame of Abul Kasin Mansur, born at Thus, in Khorasan, A. D. 920,
+reached Mahmoud of Ghaznin, who was searching for a poet to re-cast the
+annals of Persia. He called the poet to his court, and, on hearing him
+improvise, called him Firdusi (the paradisiacal). The poet was intrusted
+with the preparation of the Shah-Nameh, or Epic of Kings, for every one
+thousand distichs of which he was to receive a thousand pieces of gold. It
+had been the dream of the poet's life to build a bridge and otherwise
+improve his native town. He therefore asked that the payment be deferred
+until the completion of his work, that he might apply the entire sum to
+these improvements. But when the poem was completed, after thirty years'
+labor, the king, instigated by the slanders of the jealous prime minister,
+sent to the poet sixty thousand silver instead of gold dirhems. The
+enraged poet threw the silver to his attendants and fled from the country,
+leaving behind him an insulting poem to the sultan. He spent the remainder
+of his life at Mazinderan and Bagdad, where he was received with honor,
+and in his old age returned to Thus to die. Tradition relates that Mahmoud
+at last discovered the villainy of his minister, and sent the gold to
+Thus. But the old poet was dead, and his daughter indignantly refused the
+money. Mahmoud then applied the sum to the improvements of the town so
+long desired by Firdusi.
+
+The Shah-Nameh is written in the pure old Persian, that Mohammed declared
+would be the language of Paradise. In its sixty thousand couplets are
+related the deeds of the Persian kings from the foundation of the world to
+the invasion by the Mohammedans; but it is of very little value as a
+historical record, the facts it purports to relate being almost lost among
+the Oriental exaggerations of the deeds of its heroes.
+
+The only complete translation in a foreign language is the elaborate
+French translation of Julius Mohl.
+
+The Shah-Nameh is still popular in Persia, where it is said that even the
+camel drivers are able to repeat long portions of it. Firdusi is sometimes
+called the Homer of the East, because he describes rude heroic times and
+men, as did Homer; but he is also compared to Ariosto, because of his
+wealth of imagery. His heroes are very different from those to whom we
+have been wont to pay our allegiance; but they fight for the same
+principles and worship as lovely maids, to judge from the hyperbole
+employed in their description. The condensation of the Shah-Nameh reads
+like a dry chronicle; but in its entirety it reminds one of nothing so
+much as a gorgeous Persian web, so light and varied, so brightened is it
+by its wealth of episode.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+Samuel Johnson's The Shah-Nameh, or Book of Kings (in his Oriental
+Religion, Persia, 1885, pp. 711-782);
+
+E. B. Cowell's Persian Literature, Firdusi (in Oxford Essays, 1885, pp.
+164-166);
+
+Elizabeth A. Reed's Persian Literature, Ancient and Modern, 1893, pp.
+214-283.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+The Shah-Nameh, Tr. and abridged in prose and verse with notes and
+illustrations, by James Atkinson, 1832;
+
+Abbreviated version taken from a Persian abridgment, half prose, half
+verse; The Epic of Kings, Stories re-told from Firdusi, by Helen
+Zimmern, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+
+Kaiumers was the first King of Persia, and against him Ahriman, the evil,
+through jealousy of his greatness, sent forth a mighty Deev to conquer
+him. By this Deev, Saiamuk, the son of Kaiumers, was slain, and the king
+himself died of grief at the loss of his son.
+
+Husheng, his grandson, who succeeded Kaiumers, was a great and wise king,
+who gave fire to his people, taught them irrigation, instructed them how
+to till and sow, and gave names to the beasts. His son and successor,
+Tahumers, taught his people the arts of spinning, weaving, and writing,
+and when he died left his throne to his son Jemschid.
+
+Jemschid was a mighty monarch, who divided men into classes, and the years
+into periods, and builded mighty walls and cities; but his heart grew
+proud at the thought of his power, and he was driven away from his land by
+his people, who called Zohak to the throne of Iran.
+
+Zohak, who came from the deserts of Arabia, was a good and wise young man
+who had fallen into the power of a Deev. This Deev, in the guise of a
+skillful servant, asked permission one day to kiss his monarch between the
+shoulders, as a reward for an unusually fine bit of cookery. From the spot
+he kissed sprang two black serpents, whose only nourishment was the brains
+of the king's subjects.
+
+The serpent king, as Zohak was now called, was much feared by his
+subjects, who saw their numbers daily lessen by the demands of the
+serpents. But when the children of the blacksmith Kawah were demanded as
+food for the serpents, the blacksmith defied Zohak, and raising his
+leathern apron as a standard,--a banner ever since honored in Persia,--he
+called the people to him, and set off in search of Feridoun, an heir of
+Jemschid. Under the young leader the oppressed people defeated the tyrant,
+and placed Feridoun on the throne.
+
+Feridoun had three sons, Irij, Tur, and Silim. Having tested their
+bravery, he divided the kingdom among them, giving to Irij the kingdom of
+Iran. Although the other brothers had received equal shares of the
+kingdom, they were enraged because Iran was not their portion, and when
+their complaints to their father were not heeded, they slew their brother.
+Irij left a son, a babe named Minuchihr, who was reared carefully by
+Feridoun. In time he avenged his father, by defeating the armies of his
+uncles and slaying them both. Soon after this, Feridoun died, intrusting
+his grandson to Saum, his favorite pehliva, or vassal, who ruled over
+Seistan.
+
+Saum was a childless monarch, and when at last a son was born to him he
+was very happy until he learned that while the child was perfect in every
+other way, it had the silver hair of an old man. Fearing the talk of his
+enemies, Saum exposed the child on a mountain top to die. There it was
+found by the Simurgh, a remarkable animal, part bird, part human, that,
+touched by the cries of the helpless infant, carried him to her great nest
+of aloes and sandal-wood, and reared him with her little ones.
+
+Saum, who had lived to regret his foolish and wicked act, was told in a
+dream that his son still lived, and was being cared for by the Simurgh. He
+accordingly sought the nest, and carried his son away with great
+thanksgiving. The Simurgh parted tenderly with the little Zal, and
+presented him with a feather from her wing, telling him that whenever he
+was in danger, he had only to throw it on the fire and she would instantly
+come to his aid.
+
+Saum first presented his son at the court of Minuchihr, and then took him
+home to Zaboulistan, where he was carefully instructed in every art and
+science.
+
+At one time, while his father was invading a neighboring province, Zal
+travelled over the kingdom and stopped at the court of Mihrab, a tributary
+of Saum, who ruled at Kabul. Though a descendant of the serpent king,
+Mihrab was good, just, and wise, and he received the young warrior with
+hospitality. Zal had not been long in Kabul before he heard of the
+beauties of Rudabeh, the daughter of Mihrab, and she, in turn, of the
+great exploits of Zal. By an artifice of the princess they met and vowed
+to love one another forever, though they knew their love would meet with
+opposition. Saum and Zal both pleaded Zal's cause before Minuchihr, who
+relented when he heard from the astrologers that a good and mighty warrior
+would come of the union. Rudabeh's mother won the consent of Mihrab, so
+that the young people were soon married with great pomp. To them a son was
+born named Rustem, who, when one day old, was as large as a year-old
+child. When three years old he could ride a horse, and at eight years was
+as powerful as any hero of the time.
+
+Nauder succeeded the good Minuchihr, and under him Persia was defeated by
+the Turanians, and Afrasiyab occupied the Persian throne. But Zal, whose
+father, Saum, had died, overthrew him and placed Zew upon the throne.
+Zew's reign was short, and Garshasp, his son, succeeded him. When he was
+threatened by the Turanians, his people went for aid to Zal, who, because
+he was growing old, referred them to Rustem, yet of tender age. Rustem
+responded gladly, and his father commanded that all the horses from
+Zaboulistan to Kabul be brought forth that his son might select a steed
+therefrom. Every horse bent beneath his grasp until he came to the colt
+Rakush, which responded to Rustem's voice, and suffered him to mount it.
+From that day to his death, this steed was his faithful companion and
+preserver.
+
+Garshasp was too weak to rule over the kingdom, and Zal despatched Rustem
+to Mt. Alberz, where he had been told in a dream a youth dwelt called
+Kai-Kobad, descended from Feridoun. Kai-Kobad welcomed Rustem, and the
+two, with the noblest of the kingdom, defeated the power of Turan.
+
+After a reign of a hundred years, the wise Kai-Kobad died, and was
+succeeded by his son, the foolish Kai-Kaus, who, not satisfied with the
+wealth and extent of his kingdom, determined to conquer the kingdom of
+Mazinderan, ruled by the Deevs. Zal's remonstrances were of no avail: the
+headstrong Kai-Kaus marched into Mazinderan, and, together with his whole
+army, was conquered, imprisoned, and blinded by the power of the White
+Deev.
+
+When the news of the monarch's misfortune came to Iran, Rustem immediately
+saddled Rakush, and, choosing the shortest and most peril-beset route, set
+forth, unaccompanied, for Mazinderan. If he survived the dangers that
+lurked by the way, he would reach Mazinderan in seven days.
+
+While sleeping in a forest, after his first day's journey, he was saved
+from a fierce lion by Rakush, who stood at his head.
+
+On the second day, just as he believed himself perishing of thirst, he was
+saved by a sheep that he followed to a fountain of water; on the third
+night, Rakush, whom he had angrily forbidden to attack any animal without
+waking him, twice warned him of the approach of a dragon. The first time
+the dragon disappeared when Rustem awoke, and he spoke severely to his
+faithful horse. The second time he slew the dragon, and morning having
+dawned, proceeded through a desert, where he was offered food and wine by
+a sorceress. Not recognizing her, and grateful for the food, he offered
+her a cup of wine in the name of God, and she was immediately converted
+into a black fiend, whom he slew.
+
+He was next opposed by Aulad, whom he defeated, and promised to make ruler
+of Mazinderan if he would guide him to the caves of the White Deev. A
+stony desert and a wide stream lay between him and the demon; but the
+undaunted Rustem passed over them, and choosing the middle of the day, at
+which time Aulad told him the Deevs slept, he slew the guards, entered the
+cavern, and after a terrible struggle, overcame and slew the great Deev.
+
+He then released Kai-Kaus and his army, and restored their sight by
+touching their eyes with the blood from the Deev's heart.
+
+Kai-Kaus, not satisfied with this adventure, committed many other follies,
+from which it taxed his warrior sorely to rescue him.
+
+Once he was imprisoned by the King of Hamaveran after he had espoused his
+daughter; again he followed the advice of a wicked Deev, and tried to
+search the heavens in a flying-machine, that descended and left him in a
+desert waste. It was only after this last humiliation that he humbled
+himself, lay in the dust many days, and at last became worthy of the
+throne of his fathers.
+
+At one time Rustem was hunting near the borders of Turan, and, falling
+asleep, left Rakush to graze in the forest, where he was espied by the men
+of Turan and at once captured. When Rustem awoke he followed his steed by
+the traces of its hoofs, until he came to the city of Samengan. The king
+received him kindly, and promised to restore the horse if it could be
+found. While his messengers went in search of it, he feasted his guest,
+and led him for the night to a perfumed couch.
+
+In the middle of the night Rustem awoke, to see a beautiful young woman
+enter the room, accompanied by a maid. She proved to be the princess, who
+had fallen in love with Rustem. She pleaded with him to return her love,
+promising, if he did so, to restore his cherished horse. Rustem longed for
+his steed; moreover, the maiden was irresistibly beautiful. He accordingly
+yielded to her proposals, and the two were wedded the next day, the king
+having given his consent.
+
+After tarrying some time in Samengan, Rustem was forced to return to Iran.
+Bidding his bride an affectionate farewell, he presented her with a
+bracelet.
+
+"If thou art given a daughter, place this amulet in her hair to guard her
+from harm. If a son, bind it on his arm, that he may possess the valor of
+Nariman."
+
+In the course of time, the princess bore a boy, who was like his father in
+beauty and boldness, whom she christened Sohrab. But for fear that she
+would be deprived of him, she wrote to Rustem that a daughter had been
+born to her. To her son she declared the secret of his birth, and urged
+him to be like his father in all things; but she warned him not to
+disclose the secret, for she feared that if it came to the ears of
+Afrasiyab, he would destroy him because of his hatred of Rustem.
+
+Sohrab, who had already cherished dreams of conquest, was elated at the
+knowledge of his parentage. "Mother," exclaimed he, "I shall gather an
+army of Turks, conquer Iran, dethrone Kai-Kaus, and place my father on the
+throne; then both of us will conquer Afrasiyab, and I will mount the
+throne of Turan."
+
+The mother, pleased with her son's valor, gave him for a horse a foal
+sprung from Rakush, and fondly watched his preparations for war.
+
+The wicked Afrasiyab well knew that Sohrab was the son of Rustem. He was
+also aware that it was very dangerous to have two such mighty warriors
+alive, since if they became known to each other, they would form an
+alliance. He planned, therefore, to aid Sohrab in the war, keeping him in
+ignorance of his father, and to manage in some way to have the two meet in
+battle, that one or both might be slain.
+
+The armies met and the great battle began. Sohrab asked to have Rustem
+pointed out to him, but the soldiers on his side were all instructed to
+keep him in ignorance. By some strange mischance the two men whom his
+mother had sent to enlighten him, were both slain. Rustem was moved at the
+sight of the brave young warrior, but remembering that Tahmineh's
+offspring was a daughter, thought nothing more of the thrill he felt at
+sight of him. At last Sohrab and Rustem met in single combat. Sohrab was
+moved with tenderness for his unknown opponent, and besought him to tell
+him if he was Rustem, but Rustem declared that he was only a servant of
+that chief. For three days they fought bitterly, and on the fourth day
+Rustem overthrew his son. When Sohrab felt that the end had come he
+threatened his unknown opponent. "Whoever thou art, know that I came not
+out for empty glory but to find my father, and that though I have found
+him not, when he hears that thou hast slain his son he will search thee
+out and avenge me, no matter where thou hidest thyself. For my father is
+the great Rustem."
+
+Rustem fell down in agony when he heard his son's words, and realized that
+his guile had prevented him from being made known the day before. He
+examined the onyx bracelet on Sohrab's arm; it was the same he had given
+Tahmineh. Bethinking himself of a magic ointment possessed by Kai-Kaus, he
+sent for it that he might heal his dying son; but the foolish king,
+jealous of his prowess, refused to send it, and Sohrab expired in the arms
+of his father.
+
+Rustem's heart was broken. He heaped up his armor, his tent, his
+trappings, his treasures, and flung them into a great fire. The house of
+Zal was filled with mourning, and when the news was conveyed to Samengan,
+he tore his garments, and his daughter grieved herself to death before a
+year had passed away.
+
+To Kai-Kaus and a wife of the race of Feridoun was born a son called
+Saiawush, who was beautiful, noble, and virtuous. But his foolish father
+allowed himself to be prejudiced against the youth by slanderous tongues,
+so that Saiawush fled from the court and sought shelter with Afrasiyab in
+Turan. There he speedily became popular, and took unto himself for a wife
+the daughter of Afrasiyab. But when he and Ferandis his wife built a
+beautiful city, the hatred and jealousy of Gersiwaz was aroused, so that
+he lied to Afrasiyab and said that Saiawush was puffed up with pride, and
+at last induced Afrasiyab to slay his son-in-law.
+
+Saiawush had a son, Kai-Khosrau, who was saved by Piran, a kind-hearted
+nobleman, and given into the care of a goatherd. When Afrasiyab learned of
+his existence he summoned him to his presence, but the youth, instructed
+by Piran, assumed the manners of an imbecile, and was accordingly freed by
+Afrasiyab, who feared no harm from him.
+
+When the news of the death of Saiawush was conveyed to Iran there was
+great mourning, and war was immediately declared against Turan. For seven
+years the contest was carried on, always without success, and at the end
+of that time Gudarz dreamed that a son of Saiawush was living called
+Kai-Khosrau, and that until he was sought out and placed at the head of
+the army, deliverance could not come to Iran. Kai-Khosrau was discovered,
+and led the armies on to victory; and when Kai-Kaus found that his
+grandson was not only a great warrior, skilled in magic, but also
+possessed wisdom beyond his years, he resigned the throne and made
+Kai-Khosrau ruler over Iran.
+
+Kai-Khosrau ruled many long years, in which time he brought peace and
+happiness to his kingdom, avenged the murder of his father, and compassed
+the death of the wicked Afrasiyab. Then, fearing that he might become
+puffed up with pride like Jemschid, he longed to depart from this world,
+and prayed Ormuzd to take him to his bosom.
+
+The king; after many prayers to Ormuzd, dreamed that his wish would be
+granted if he set the affairs of his kingdom in order and appointed his
+successor. Rejoiced, he called his nobles together, divided his treasure
+among them, and appointed his successor, Lohurasp, whom he commanded to be
+the woof and warp of justice. Accompanied by a few of his faithful
+friends, he set out on the long journey to the crest of the mountains. At
+his entreaties, some of his friends turned back; those who stayed over
+night, in spite of his warnings, found on waking that they were covered by
+a heavy fall of snow, and were soon frozen. Afterwards their bodies were
+found and received a royal burial.
+
+Lohurasp had a son Gushtasp who greatly desired to rule, and was a just
+monarch, when he succeeded to the throne. Gushtasp, however, was jealous
+of his son, Isfendiyar, who was a great warrior. When Gushtasp was about
+to be overcome by the forces of Turan, he promised Isfendiyar the throne,
+if he would destroy the enemy; but when the hosts were scattered, and
+Isfendiyar reminded his father of his promise, he was cast into a dungeon,
+there to remain until his services were again needed. When he had again
+gained a victory, he was told that the throne should be his when he had
+rescued his sisters from the brazen fortress of Arjasp, where they had
+been carried and imprisoned.
+
+On his way to this tower Isfendiyar met with as many terrible foes as
+Rustem had encountered on his way to the White Deev, and as successfully
+overcame them. Wolves, lions, enchantresses, and dragons barred the way to
+the impregnable fortress, which rose three farsangs high and forty wide,
+and was constructed entirely of brass and iron. But Isfendiyar, assuming
+the guise of a merchant and concealing his warriors in chests, won his way
+into the castle, gained the favor of its inmates, and made them drunk with
+wine. This done, he freed his sisters, slew the guards, and struck down
+Arjasp.
+
+Instead of keeping his promise, Gushtasp hastened to set his son another
+task. Rustem was his Pehliva, but it pleased him to send forth Isfendiyar
+against him, commanding him to bring home the mighty warrior in chains.
+Isfendiyar pleaded in vain with his father. Then he explained the
+situation to Rustem, and begged that he would accompany him home in peace
+to gratify his father. Rustem refused to go in chains, so the two heroes
+reluctantly began the hardest battle of their lives.
+
+At the end of the first day, Rustem and Rakush were severely wounded, and
+on his return home Rustem happened to think of the Simurgh. Called by the
+burning of the feather, the kind bird healed the wounds of the hero and of
+Rakush, and instructed Rustem how to slay his foe. "Seek thou the tamarisk
+tree, and make thereof an arrow. Aim at his eye, and there thou canst
+blind and slay him."
+
+Rustem followed the directions, and laid low the gallant youth. Isfendiyar
+died exclaiming, "My father has slain me, not thou, Rustem. I die, the
+victim of my father's hate; do thou keep for me and rear my son!"
+
+Rustem, who had lived so long and accomplished such great deeds, died at
+last by the hand of his half-brother. This brother, Shugdad, stirred up
+the king of Kabul, in whose court he was reared, to slay Rustem because he
+exacted tribute from Kabul.
+
+Rustem was called into Kabul by Shugdad, who claimed that the king
+mistreated him. When he arrived, the matter was settled amicably, and the
+brothers set out for a hunt with the king. The hunters were led to a spot
+where the false king had caused pits to be dug lined with sharp weapons.
+Rustem, pleased with his kind reception and suspecting no harm, beat
+Rakush severely when he paused and would go no further. Stung by the
+blows, the gallant horse sprang forward, and fell into the pit. As he rose
+from this, he fell into another, until, clambering from the seventh pit,
+he and Rustem fell swooning with pain.
+
+"False brother!" cried Rustem; "what hast thou done? Was it for thee to
+slay thy father's son? Exult now; but thou wilt yet suffer for this
+crime!" Then altering his tone, he said gently: "But give me, I pray thee,
+my bow and arrows, that I may have it by my side to slay any wild beast
+that may try to devour me."
+
+Shugdad gave him the bow; and when he saw the gleam in Rustem's eyes,
+concealed himself behind a tree. But the angry Rustem, grasping the bow
+with something of his former strength, sent the arrow through tree and
+man, transfixing both. Then thanking his Creator that he had been given
+the opportunity to slay his murderer, he breathed his last.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE SHAH-NAMEH.
+
+THE RAJA OF INDIA SENDS A CHESSBOARD TO NUSHIRVAN.
+
+
+"This account of the game of chess, written by Ferdusi more than eight
+hundred years ago, is curious as showing the antiquity of the game, its
+resemblance to it as now played, and the tradition that it was invented in
+India, and came originally from that country."
+
+  A Mubid related, how one day the king
+  Suspended his crown over the ivory throne,
+  All aloes-wood and ivory, and all ivory and aloes;
+  Every pavilion a court, and every court a royal one;
+  All the Hall of Audience crowned with soldiers;
+  Every pavilion filled with Mubids and Wardens of the Marches,
+  From Balkh, and Bokhara, and from every frontier--
+  For the King of the world had received advices
+  From his vigilant and active emissaries,
+  That an Ambassador had arrived from a King of India,
+  With the parasol, and elephants, and cavalry of Sind,
+  And, accompanied by a thousand laden camels,
+  Was on his way to visit the Great King.
+  When the circumspect Monarch heard this news,
+  Immediately he despatched an escort to receive him.
+  And when the illustrious and dignified Ambassador
+  Came into the presence of the Great King,
+  According to the manner of the great, he pronounced a benediction,
+  And uttered the praise of the Creator of the world.
+  Then he scattered before him abundance of jewels,
+  And presented the parasol, the elephants, and the ear-rings;
+  The Indian parasol embroidered with gold,
+  And inwoven with all kinds of precious stones.
+  Then he opened the packages in the midst of the court,
+  And displayed each one, article by article, before the King.
+  Within the chest was much silver, and gold,
+  And musk, and amber, and fresh wood of aloes,
+  Of rubies, and diamonds, and Indian swords.
+  Each Indian sword was beautifully damascened;
+  Everything which is produced in Kanuj and Mai
+  Hand and foot were busy to put in its place.
+  They placed the whole together in front of the throne,
+  And the Chief, the favored of wakeful Fortune,
+  Surveyed all that the Raja had painstakingly collected,
+  And then commanded that it should be sent to his treasury.
+  Then the Ambassador presented, written on silk,
+  The letter which the Raja had addressed to Nushirvan;
+  And a chessboard, wrought with such exceeding labor,
+  That the pains bestowed upon it might have emptied a treasury.
+  And the Indian delivered a message from the Raja:
+  "So long as the heavens revolve, may thou be established in thy place!
+  All who have taken pains to excel in knowledge,
+  Command to place this chessboard before them,
+  And to exert their utmost ingenuity
+  To discover the secret of this noble game.
+  Let them learn the name of every piece.
+  Its proper position, and what is its movement.
+  Let them make out the foot-soldier of the army,
+  The elephant, the rook, and the horseman,
+  The march of the vizier and the procession of the King.
+  If they discover the science of this noble game,
+  They will have surpassed the most able in science.
+  Then the tribute and taxes which the King hath demanded
+  I will cheerfully send all to his court.
+  But if the congregated sages, men of Iran,
+  Should prove themselves completely at fault in this science,
+  Then, since they are not strong enough to compete with us in knowledge,
+  Neither should they desire taxes or tribute from this land and country:
+  Rather ought we to receive tribute from you,
+  Since knowledge hath a title beyond all else."
+
+  Khosru gave heart and ear to the speaker,
+  And impressed on his memory the words which he heard.
+  They placed the chessboard before the King,
+  Who gazed attentively at the pieces a considerable time.
+  Half the pieces on the board were of brilliant ivory,
+  The other half of finely imaged teak-wood.
+  The nicely-observant King questioned him much
+  About the figures of the pieces and the beautiful board.
+  The Indian said in answer: "O thou great Monarch,
+  All the modes and customs of war thou wilt see,
+  When thou shalt have found out the way to the game;
+  The plans, the marches, the array of the battle-field."
+  He replied: "I shall require the space of seven days;
+  On the eighth we will encounter thee with a glad mind."
+  They furnished forthwith a pleasant apartment,
+  And assigned it to the Ambassador as his dwelling.
+
+  Then the Mubid and the skilful to point out the way
+  Repaired with one purpose to the presence of the King.
+  They placed the chessboard before them,
+  And observed it attentively, time without measure.
+  They sought out and tried every method,
+  And played against one another in all possible ways.
+  One spoke and questioned, and another listened,
+  But no one succeeded in making out the game.
+  They departed, each one with wrinkles on his brow;
+  And Buzarchamahar went forthwith to the king.
+
+  He perceived that he was ruffled and stern about this matter,
+  And in its beginning foresaw an evil ending.
+  Then he said to Khosru: "O Sovereign,
+  Master of the world, vigilant, and worthy to command,
+  I will reduce to practice this noble game;
+  All my intelligence will I exert to point out the way."
+  Then the king said: "This affair is thine affair;
+  Go thou about it with a clear mind and a sound body,
+  Otherwise the Raja of Kanuj would say,
+  'He hath not one man who can search out the road,'
+  And this would bring foul disgrace on my Mubids,
+  On my court, on my throne, and on all my wise men."
+  Then Buzarchmahar made them place the chessboard before him,
+  And seated himself, full of thought, and expanded his countenance.
+  He sought out various ways, and moved the pieces to the right hand and
+    to the left,
+  In order that he might discover the position of every piece.
+  When after a whole day and a whole night, he had found out the game,
+  He hurried from his own pavilion to that of the King,
+  And exclaimed: "O King, whom Fortune crowneth with victory,
+  At last I have made out these figures and this chessboard,
+  By a happy chance, and by the favor of the Ruler of the world,
+  The mystery of this game hath found its solution.
+  Call before thee the Ambassador and all who care about it;
+  But the King of kings ought to be the first to behold it.
+  You would say at once without hesitation,
+  It is the exact image of a battle-field."
+  The King was right glad to hear the news;
+  He pronounced him the Fortunate, and the bearer of good tidings.
+  He commanded that the Mubids, and other counsellors,
+  And all who were renowned for their wisdom should be assembled;
+  And ordered that the Ambassador should be summoned to the Presence,
+  And that he should be placed on a splendid throne.
+
+  Then Buzarchamahar, addressing him, said:
+  "O Mubid, bright in council as the sun,
+  Tell us, what said the King about these pieces,
+  So may intelligence be coupled with thee forever!"
+
+  And this was his answer: "My Master, prosperous in his undertakings,
+  When I was summoned and appeared before him,
+  Said to me: 'These pieces of teak and ivory
+  Place before the throne of him who weareth the crown,
+  And say to him: Assemble thy Mubids and counsellors,
+  And seat them, and place the pieces before them.
+  If they succeed in making out the noble game,
+  They will win applause and augment enjoyment:
+  Then slaves and money and tribute and taxes,
+  I will send to him as far as I have the means;
+  For a monarch is to be esteemed for his wisdom,
+  Not for his treasure, or his men, or his lofty throne.
+  But if the King and his counsellors are not able to do all this
+  And their minds are not bright enough to comprehend it,
+  He ought not to desire from us tribute or treasure,
+  And his wise soul, alas! must come to grief;
+  And when he seeth our minds and genius to be subtler than theirs.
+  Rather will he send them to us in greater abundance.'"
+
+  Then Buzarchamahar brought the chess-men and board,
+  And placed them before the throne of the watchful King,
+  And said to the Mubids and counsellors:
+  "O ye illustrious and pure-hearted sages,
+  Give ear all of you to the words he hath uttered,
+  And to the observations of his prudent chief."
+
+  Then the knowing-man arranged a battle-field,
+  Giving to the King the place in the centre;
+  Right and left he drew up the army,
+  Placing the foot-soldiers in front of the battle.
+  A prudent vizier he stationed beside the King,
+  To give him advice on the plan of the engagement;
+  On each side he set the elephants of war [our bishops],
+  To support one another in the midst of the combat.
+  Further on he assigned their position to the war-steeds [our knights],
+  Placing upon each a horseman eager for battle.
+  Lastly, right and left, at the extremities of the field,
+  He stationed the heroes [the rooks] as rivals to each other.
+  When Buzarchamahar had thus drawn up the army,
+  The whole assembly was lost in astonishment;
+  But the Indian Ambassador was exceedingly grieved,
+  And stood motionless at the sagacity of that Fortune-favored man;
+  Stupefied with amazement, he looked upon him as a magician,
+  And his whole soul was absorbed in his reflections.
+  "For never hath he seen," he said, "a chessboard before,
+  Nor ever hath he heard about it from the experienced men of India.
+  I have told him nothing of the action of these pieces,
+  Not a word have I said about this arrangement and purpose.
+  How then hath the revelation come down upon him?
+  No one in the world will ever take his place!"
+
+  And Khosru was so proud of Buzarchamahar,
+  Thou mightest say that he was looking Fortune in the face.
+  He was gladdened at his heart, and loaded him with caresses,
+  And ordered him a more than ordinary dress of honor,
+  And commanded him to be given a royal cup
+  Filled to the brim with princely jewels,
+  And a quantity of money, and a charger and a saddle,
+  And dismissed him from the Presence overwhelmed with praises.
+         _Robinson's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+ZAL AND RUDABEH.
+
+
+"Zal, recovered from the care of the Simurgh and arrived at manhood, is
+sent to govern the frontier province of Zabul; the adjoining province of
+Kabul, though tributary to the Persian emperor, being governed by its own
+king, called Mihrab. This episode commences with a visit which Mihrab pays
+to Zal, who receives him with distinguished honor, entertains him at a
+sumptuous banquet, and they separate with mutual respect."
+
+  Then a chief of the great ones around him
+  Said: "O thou, the hero of the world,
+  This Mihrab hath a daughter behind the veil,
+  Whose face is more resplendent than the sun;
+  From head to foot pure as ivory,
+  With a cheek like the spring, and in stature like the teak-tree.
+  Upon her silver shoulders descend two musky tresses,
+  Which, like nooses, fetter the captive;
+  Her lip is like the pomegranate, and her cheek like its flower;
+  Her eyes resemble the narcissus in the garden;
+  Her eyelashes have borrowed the blackness of the raven;
+  Her eyebrows are arched like a fringed bow.
+  Wouldst thou behold the mild radiance of the moon? Look upon her
+    countenance!
+  Wouldst thou inhale delightful odors? She is all fragrance!
+  She is altogether a paradise of sweets,
+  Decked with all grace, all music, all thou canst desire!
+  She would be fitting for thee, O warrior of the world;
+  She is as the heavens above to such as we are."
+
+  When Zal heard this description,
+  His love leaped to the lovely maiden:
+  His heart boiled over with the heat of passion,
+  So that understanding and rest departed from him.
+  Night came, but he sat groaning, and buried in thought,
+  And a prey to sorrow for the not-yet-seen.
+
+_On returning from a second visit, Mihrab describes Zal to his wife and
+his daughter Rudabeh._
+
+  "O beautiful silver-bosomed cypress,
+  In the wide world not one of the heroes
+  Will come up to the measure of Zal!
+  In the pictured palace men will never behold the image
+  Of a warrior so strong, or so firm in the saddle.
+  He hath the heart of a lion, the power of an elephant,
+  And the strength of his arm is as the rush of the Nile.
+  When he sitteth on the throne, he scattereth gold before him;
+  In the battle, the heads of his enemies.
+  His cheek is as ruddy as the flower of the arghavan;
+  Young in years, all alive, and the favorite of fortune;
+  And though his hair is white as though with age,
+  Yet in his bravery he could tear to pieces the water-serpent.
+
+  "He rageth in the conflict with the fury of the crocodile,
+  He fighteth in the saddle like a sharp-fanged dragon.
+  In his wrath he staineth the earth with blood,
+  As he wieldeth his bright scimitar around him.
+  And though his hair is as white as is a fawn's,
+  In vain would the fault-finder seek another defect!
+  Nay, the whiteness of his hair even becometh him;
+  Thou wouldst say that he is born to beguile all hearts!"
+
+  When Rudabeh heard this description,
+  Her heart was set on fire, and her cheek crimsoned like the pomegranate.
+  Her whole soul was filled with the love of Zal,
+  And food, and peace, and quietude were driven far from her.
+
+_After a time Rudabeh resolves to reveal her passion to her attendants._
+
+  Then she said to her prudent slaves:
+  "I will discover what I have hitherto concealed;
+  Ye are each of you the depositaries of my secrets,
+  My attendants, and the partners of my griefs.
+  I am agitated with love like the raging ocean,
+  Whose billows are heaved to the sky.
+  My once bright heart is filled with the love of Zal;
+  My sleep is broken with thoughts of him.
+  My soul is perpetually filled with my passion;
+  Night and day my thoughts dwell upon his countenance.
+
+  "Not one except yourselves knoweth my secret;
+  Ye, my affectionate and faithful servants,
+  What remedy can ye now devise for my ease?
+  What will ye do for me? What promise will ye give me?
+  Some remedy ye must devise,
+  To free my heart and soul from this unhappiness."
+
+  Astonishment seized the slaves,
+  That dishonor should come nigh the daughter of kings.
+  In the anxiety of their hearts they started from their seats,
+  And all gave answer with one voice:
+  "O crown of the ladies of the earth!
+  Maiden pre-eminent amongst the pre-eminent!
+  Whose praise is spread abroad from Hindustan to China;
+  The resplendent ring in the circle of the harem;
+  Whose stature surpasseth every cypress in the garden;
+  Whose cheek rivalleth the lustre of the Pleiades;
+  Whose picture is sent by the ruler of Kanuj
+  Even to the distant monarchs of the West--
+  Have you ceased to be modest in your own eyes?
+  Have you lost all reverence for your father,
+  That whom his own parent cast from his bosom,
+  Him will you receive into yours?
+  A man who was nurtured by a bird in the mountains!
+  A man who was a by-word amongst the people!
+  You--with your roseate countenance and musky tresses--
+  Seek a man whose hair is already white with age!
+  You--who have filled the world with admiration,
+  Whose portrait hangeth in every palace,
+  And whose beauty, and ringlets, and stature are such
+  That you might draw down a husband from the skies!"
+
+_To this remonstrance she makes the following indignant answer:_
+
+  When Rudabeh heard their reply,
+  Her heart blazed up like fire before the wind.
+  She raised her voice in anger against them,
+  Her face flushed, but she cast down her eyes.
+  After a time, grief and anger mingled in her countenance,
+  And knitting her brows with passion, she exclaimed:
+  "O unadvised and worthless counsellors,
+  It was not becoming in me to ask your advice!
+  Were my eye dazzled by a star,
+  How could it rejoice to gaze even upon the moon?
+  He who is formed of worthless clay will not regard the rose,
+  Although the rose is in nature more estimable than clay!
+  I wish not for Caesar, nor Emperor of China,
+  Nor for any one of the tiara-crowned monarchs of Iran;
+  The son of Saum, Zal, alone is my equal,
+  With his lion-like limbs, and arms, and shoulders.
+  You may call him, as you please, an old man, or a young;
+  To me, he is in the room of heart and of soul.
+  Except him never shall any one have a place in my heart;
+  Mention not to me any one except him.
+  Him hath my love chosen unseen,
+  Yea, hath chosen him only from description.
+  For him is my affection, not for face or hair;
+  And I have sought his love in the way of honor."
+
+_The slaves speak_.
+
+  "May hundreds of thousands such as we are be a sacrifice for thee;
+  May the wisdom of the creation be thy worthy portion;
+  May thy dark narcissus-eye be ever full of modesty;
+  May thy cheek be ever tinged with bashfulness!
+  If it be necessary to learn the art of the magician,
+  To sew up the eyes with the bands of enchantment,
+  We will fly till we surpass the enchanter's bird,
+  We will run like the deer in search of a remedy.
+  Perchance we may draw the King nigh unto his moon,
+  And place him securely at thy side."
+
+  The vermil lip of Rudabeh was filled with smiles;
+  She turned her saffron-tinted countenance toward the slave, and said:
+  "If thou shalt bring this matter to a happy issue,
+  Thou hast planted for thyself a stately and fruitful tree,
+  Which every day shall bear rubies for its fruit,
+  And shall pour that fruit into thy lap."
+
+_The slaves arrange an interview between the lovers_.
+
+  Then said the elegant cypress-formed lady to her maidens:
+  "Other than this were once your words and your counsel!
+  Is this then the Zal, the nursling of a bird?
+  This the old man, white-haired and withered?
+  Now his cheek is ruddy as the flower of the arghavan;
+  His stature is tall, his face beautiful, his presence lordly!
+  Ye have exalted my charms before him;
+  Ye have spoken and made me a bargain!"
+  She said, and her lips were full of smiles,
+  But her cheek crimsoned like the bloom of pomegranate.
+
+_The interview takes place in a private pavilion of the princess._
+
+  When from a distance the son of the valiant Saum
+  Became visible to the illustrious maiden,
+  She opened her gem-like lips, and exclaimed:
+  "Welcome, thou brave and happy youth!
+  The blessing of the Creator of the world be upon thee;
+  On him who is the father of a son like thee!
+  May destiny ever favor thy wishes!
+  May the vault of heaven be the ground thou walkest on!
+  The dark night is turned into day by thy countenance;
+  The world is soul-enlivened by the fragrance of thy presence!
+  Thou hast travelled hither on foot from thy palace;
+  Thou hast pained, to behold me, thy royal footsteps!"
+
+  When the hero heard the voice from the battlement,
+  He looked up and beheld a face resplendent as the sun,
+  Irradiating the terrace like a flashing jewel,
+  And brightening the ground like a naming ruby.
+
+  Then he replied: "O thou who sheddest the mild radiance of the moon,
+  The blessing of Heaven, and mine, be upon thee!
+  How many nights hath cold Arcturus beholden me,
+  Uttering my cry to God, the Pure,
+  And beseeching the Lord of the universe,
+  That he would vouchsafe to unveil thy countenance before me!
+  Now I am made joyful in hearing thy voice,
+  In listening to thy rich and gracious accents.
+  But seek, I pray thee, some way to thy presence;
+  For what converse can we hold, I on the ground, and thou on the
+    terrace?"
+
+  The Peri-faced maiden heard the words of the hero;
+  Quickly she unbound her auburn locks,
+  Coil upon coil, and serpent upon serpent;
+  And she stooped and dropped down the tresses from the battlement,
+  And cried: "O hero, child of heroes,
+  Take now these tresses, they belong to thee,
+  And I have cherished them that they might prove an aid to my beloved."
+
+  And Zal gazed upward at the lovely maiden,
+  And stood amazed at the beauty of her hair and of her countenance;
+  He covered the musky ringlets with his kisses,
+  And his bride heard the kisses from above.
+  Then he exclaimed: "That would not be right--
+  May the bright sun never shine on such a day!
+  It were to lay my hand on the life of one already distracted;
+  It were to plunge the arrow-point into my own wounded bosom."
+  Then he took his noose from his boy, and made a running knot,
+  And threw it, and caught it on the battlement,
+  And held his breath, and at one bound
+  Sprang from the ground, and reached the summit.
+
+  As soon as the hero stood upon the terrace,
+  The Peri-faced maiden ran to greet him,
+  And took the hand of the hero in her own,
+  And they went like those who are overcome with wine.
+
+  Then he descended from the lofty gallery,
+  His hand in the hand of the tall princess,
+  And came to the door of the gold-painted pavilion,
+  And entered that royal assembly,
+  Which blazed with light like the bowers of Paradise;
+  And the slaves stood like houris before them:
+  And Zal gazed in astonishment
+  On her face, and her hair, and her stately form, and on all that
+    splendor.
+
+  And Zal was seated in royal pomp
+  Opposite that mildly-radiant beauty;
+  And Rudabeh could not rest from looking towards him,
+  And gazing upon him with all her eyes;
+  On that arm, and shoulder, and that splendid figure,
+  On the brightness of that soul-enlightening countenance;
+  So that the more and more she looked
+  The more and more was her heart inflamed.
+
+  Then he kissed and embraced her, renewing his vows--
+  Can the lion help pursuing the wild ass?--
+  And said: "O sweet and graceful silver-bosomed maiden,
+  It may not be, that, both of noble lineage,
+  We should do aught unbecoming our birth;
+  For from Saum Nariman I received an admonition.
+  To do no unworthy deed, lest evil should come of it;
+  For better is the seemly than the unseemly,
+  That which is lawful than that which is forbidden.
+  And I fear that Manuchahar, when he shall hear of this affair,
+  Will not be inclined to give it his approval;
+  I fear, too, that Saum will exclaim against it,
+  And will boil over with passion, and lay his hand upon me.
+  Yet, though soul and body are precious to all men,
+  Life will I resign, and clothe myself with a shroud--
+  And this I swear by the righteous God--
+  Ere I will break the faith which I have pledged thee.
+  I will bow myself before Him, and offer my adoration,
+  And supplicate Him as those who worship Him in truth,
+  That He will cleanse the heart of Saum, king of the earth,
+  From opposition, and rage, and rancor.
+  Perhaps the Creator of the world may listen to my prayer,
+  And thou mayest yet be publicly proclaimed my wife."
+
+  And Rudabeh said: "And I also, in the presence of the righteous God,
+  Take the same pledge, and swear to thee my faith;
+  And He who created the world be witness to my words,
+  That no one but the hero of the world,
+  The throned, the crowned, the far-famed Zal,
+  Will I ever permit to be sovereign over me."
+
+  So their love every moment became greater;
+  Prudence was afar, and passion was predominant,
+  Till the gray dawn began to show itself,
+  And the drum to be heard from the royal pavilion.
+  Then Zal bade adieu to the fair one;
+  His soul was darkened, and his bosom on fire,
+  And the eyes of both were filled with tears;
+  And they lifted up their voices against the sun:
+  "O glory of the universe, why come so quick?
+  Couldst thou not wait one little moment"
+
+  Then Zal cast his noose on a pinnacle,
+  And descended from those happy battlements,
+  As the sun was rising redly above the mountains,
+  And the bands of warriors were gathering in their ranks.
+        _Robinson's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+
+Rodrigo Ruy Diaz, El Cid Campeador, was born near Burgos, in Spain, about
+1040. The name Cid was given him by the Moors, and means lord. Campeador
+means champion.
+
+Ruy Diaz was the trusty lord of Sancho, King of Castile, who at his death
+divided his kingdom among his children. He then espoused the cause of the
+eldest son, Sancho, and assisted him in wresting their portion of the
+kingdom from his brothers Garcia and Alfonso. Sancho having been
+treacherously slain while besieging his sister Urraca's town of Zamora,
+the Cid attached himself to Alfonso, humiliating him, however, by making
+him and his chief lords swear that they had had no hand in Sancho's death.
+For this, Alfonso revenged himself by exiling the Cid on the slightest
+pretexts, recalling him only when his services were needed in the defence
+of the country.
+
+This much, and the Cid's victories over the Moors, his occupation of
+Valencia, and his army's departure therefrom in 1102, led by his corpse
+seated on horseback, "clothed in his habit as he lived", are historical
+facts.
+
+A great mass of romances, among them the story of his slaying Count Don
+Gomez because he had insulted his father, Diego Laynez; of Don Gomez's
+daughter Ximena wooing and wedding him; of his assisting the leper and
+having his future success foretold by him, and of his embalmed body
+sitting many years in the cathedral at Toledo, are related in the
+"Chronicle of the Cid" and the "Ballads."
+
+The Poem of the Cid narrates only a portion of his career, and "if it had
+been named," says Ormsby, "would have been called 'The Triumph of the
+Cid.'"
+
+The Poem of the Cid was written about 1200 A. D. Its authorship is
+unknown.
+
+It contains three thousand seven hundred and forty-five lines, and is
+divided into two cantares. The versification is careless; when rhyme
+hampered the poet he dropped it, and used instead the assonant rhyme.
+
+The Poem of the Cid is of peculiar interest because it belongs to the very
+dawn of our modern literature, and because its hero was evidently a real
+personage, a portion of whose history was recorded in this epic not long
+after the events took place. The Cid is one of the most simple and natural
+of the epic heroes; he has all a man's weaknesses, and it is difficult to
+repress a smile at the perfectly natural manner in which, while he
+slaughters enough Moors to secure himself a place in the heavenly kingdom,
+he takes good care to lay up gold for the enjoyment of life on earth. The
+poem is told with the greatest simplicity, naturalness, and directness, as
+well as with much poetic fire.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE CID.
+
+
+Robert Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. . . . Appendix contains Poetry of
+the Cid by J. H. Frere, 1808, new ed., 1845;
+
+Matthew Arnold's Poem of the Cid, MacMillan, 1871, vol. xxiv., pp.
+471-485;
+
+George Dennio's The Cid: A short Chronicle founded on the early Poetry of
+Spain, 1845;
+
+Butler Clarke's The Cid (in his Spanish Literature, 1893, pp. 46-53);
+E. E. Hale and Susan Hale's The Cid (in their Story of Spain, 1893, pp.
+248-261);
+
+Stanley Lane Poole's The Cid (in his Story of the Moors in Spain, 1891,
+pp. 191-213);
+
+Sismondi's Poem of the Cid (in his Literature of the South of Europe,
+1884, vol. ii., pp. 95-140);
+
+George Ticknor's Poem of the Cid (in his History of Spanish Literature,
+ed. 6, 1893, vol. i., pp. 12-26);
+
+W. T. Dobson's Classic Poets, (1879, pp. 35-138);
+
+J. G. von Herder's Der Cid, nach spanischen Romanzen besungen (in his
+works, 1852, vol. xiv.), translated.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+
+The Poem of the Cid, Tr. by John Ormsby, 1879;
+
+Translations from the Poem of the Cid by John Hookam Frere (in his works,
+1872, vol. ii., p. 409);
+
+Ballads of the Cid, Tr. by Lewis Gerard, 1883;
+
+Ancient Spanish Ballads, Tr. by John Gibson Lockhart, 1823.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+
+Tears stood in the eyes of the Cid as he looked at his pillaged castle.
+The coffers were empty, even the falcons were gone from their perches.
+"Cruel wrong do I suffer from mine enemy!" he exclaimed as they rode into
+Burgos. "Alvar Fanez, of a truth we are banished men."
+
+From the windows of Burgos town the burghers and their dames looked down
+with tearful eyes upon the Cid and his sixty lances. "Would that his lord
+were worthy of him," said they.
+
+He rode up to the gates of his house in Burgos; the king's seal was upon
+them. "My lord," cried a damsel from an upper casement, "thy goods are
+forfeited to the king, and he has forbidden that we open door or shelter
+thee upon pain of forfeiture of our goods, yea, even of our sight!"
+
+Little hope then had the Cid of mercy from King Alfonso; and sooner than
+bring suffering on his beloved people of Burgos he betook himself without
+the city and sat him down to think of what to do. "Martin Antolinez," said
+he, "I have no money with which to pay my troops. Thou must help me to get
+it, and if I live I will repay thee double."
+
+Then the two together fashioned two stout chests covered with red leather
+and studded with gilt nails, and these they filled with sand. Then Martin
+Antolinez without delay sought out the money lenders, Rachel and Vidas,
+and bargained with them to lend the Cid six hundred marks, and take in
+pawn for them the two chests filled with treasure that he dared not at
+that time take away with him. For a year they were to keep the chests and
+pledge themselves not to look in them. Glad were the hearts of the money
+lenders as they lifted the heavy chests, and happy was the Cid when he saw
+the six hundred marks counted out before him.
+
+Seeking the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena, the Cid embraced his wife
+Ximena and his two daughters, and left them in the protection of the
+abbot, to whom he promised recompense. Hard was the pain of parting as
+when the finger nail is torn away from the flesh, but a banished man has
+no choice. And as they passed the night at Higeruela a sweet vision
+promising success comforted the Cid in his slumbers; and many from
+Castile, who heard of the departure of the hero, sought his banners to
+better their fortune.
+
+Next day the Cid and his men took Castejon and sold the spoil to the Moors
+of Hita and Guadalajara, and then my Cid passed on and planted himself
+upon a lofty and strong hill opposite Alcocer, and levied tribute upon the
+neighboring peoples. When he had so besieged Alcocer for fifteen weeks he
+took it by stratagem, and Pero Bermuez, the slow of speech, planted his
+standard on the highest part. When the King of Valencia heard of this, he
+determined to capture my Cid, and accordingly sent three thousand Moors to
+lay siege to Alcocer.
+
+When the water was cut off and bread became scarce, the six hundred
+Spanish men, acting upon the advice of Minaya, took the field against the
+three thousand Moors; and such was the valor of him that in a good hour
+was born, and of his standard bearer, Pero Bermuez, and of the good
+Minaya, that the Moors fell to the ground three hundred at a time, their
+shields shivered, their mail riven, their white pennons red with blood.
+
+"Thanks be to God for victory!" said the Cid. In the Moorish king's camp
+was found great spoil,--shields, arms, and horses. Greatly the Christians
+rejoiced, for to them fell much spoil, and but fifteen of their men were
+missing. Even to the Moors my Cid gave some of his spoil, and from his
+share of one hundred horses he sent by Minaya thirty, saddled and bridled,
+with as many swords hung at the saddle bows, to King Alfonso. Also he sent
+by him a wallet of gold and silver for his wife and daughters, and to pay
+for a thousand Masses at Burgos.
+
+Alfonso was well pleased to receive this token. "It is too soon to take
+him into favor, but I will accept his present, and I am glad he won the
+victory. Minaya, I pardon thee; go to the Cid and say that I will permit
+any valiant man who so desires to follow him."
+
+Upon the hill now called the hill of the Cid, he who girt on the sword in
+a good hour, took up his abode and levied tribute on the people for
+fifteen weeks. But when he saw that Minaya's return was delayed, he went
+even unto Saragossa, levying tribute and doing much damage, insomuch that
+the Count of Barcelona, Raymond de Berenger, was provoked into making an
+assault upon him in the Pine Wood of Bivar, where he was ingloriously
+defeated and taken prisoner. The count was the more shamed at this because
+my Cid had sent him a friendly message, saying that he did not want to
+fight him, since he owed him no grudge. When Count Raymond had given up
+his precious sword, the great Colada, the good one of Bivar endeavored to
+make friends with his prisoner, but to no avail. The count refused meat
+and drink, and was determined to die, until the Cid assured him that as
+soon as he ate a hearty meal he should go free. Then he departed joyfully
+from the camp, fearing even to the last lest the Cid should change his
+mind, a thing the perfect one never would have done.
+
+Cheered by this conquest, the Cid turned to Valencia, and met a great
+Moorish army, which was speedily defeated, the Cid's numbers having been
+greatly increased by men who flocked to him from Spain. Two Moorish kings
+were slain, and the survivors were pursued even to Valencia. Then my Cid
+sat down before the city for nine months, and in the tenth month Valencia
+surrendered. The spoil--who could count it? All were rich who accompanied
+the Cid, and his fifth was thirty thousand marks in money, besides much
+other spoil. And my Cid's renown spread throughout Spain. Wonderful was he
+to look upon, for his beard had grown very long. For the love of King
+Alfonso, who had banished him, he said it should never be cut, nor a hair
+of it be plucked, and it should be famous among Moors and Christians. Then
+he again called Minaya to him, and to King Alfonso sent a hundred horses,
+with the request that his wife and daughters might be allowed to join him.
+Also he sent him word that he had been joined by a good bishop, Don
+Jerome, and had created for him a bishopric.
+
+Now were the enemies of the good one of Bivar incensed in proportion as
+the king was pleased with this noble gift. And when the king silenced the
+envious ones, and ordered an escort for Ximena and her daughters, and
+treated Minaya with consideration, the Infantes of Carrion talked
+together, commenting on the growing importance of my Cid. "It would better
+our fortunes to marry his daughters, but they are below us in rank." And
+so saying they sent their salutations to the Cid.
+
+The Cid met his wife and daughters on his new horse, Babieca, the wonder
+of all Spain, and great was his joy to clasp them again in his arms. And
+he took them up in the highest part of Valencia, and their bright eyes
+looked over the city and the sea, and they all thanked God for giving them
+so fair a prize.
+
+When winter was past and spring had come, the King of Morocco crossed the
+sea to Valencia with fifty thousand men, and pitched his tents before the
+city. Then the Cid took his wife and daughters up in the Alcazar, and
+showed them the vast army. "They bring a gift for us, a dowry against the
+marriage of our daughters. Because ye are here, with God's help, I shall
+win the battle."
+
+He went forth on the good Babieca; four thousand less thirty followed him
+to attack the fifty thousand Moors. The Cid's arms dripped with blood to
+the elbow; the Moors he slew could not be counted. King Yucef himself he
+smote three times, and only the swiftness of the horse he rode saved the
+king from death. All fled who were not slain, leaving the spoil behind.
+Three thousand marks of gold and silver were found there, and the other
+spoil was countless. Then my Cid ordered Minaya and Pero Bermuez to take
+to Alfonso the great tent of the King of Morocco, and two hundred horses.
+And the king was greatly pleased, and the Infantes of Carrion, counselling
+together, said, "The fame of the Cid grows greater; let us ask his
+daughters in marriage." And the king gave their request to Minaya and
+Bermuez, who were to bear it to the Cid.
+
+Said my Cid, when he heard the proposal: "The Infantes of Carrion are
+haughty, and have a faction in court. I have no taste for the match; but
+since my king desires it, I will be silent."
+
+When the king heard his answer, he appointed a meeting, and when he that
+in a good hour was born saw his king, he fell at his feet to pay him
+homage. But the king said: "Here do I pardon you, and grant you my love
+from this day forth."
+
+The next day when the king presented to the Cid the offer of the Infantes,
+my Cid replied: "My daughters are not of marriageable age, but I and they
+are in your hands. Give them as it pleases you." Then the king
+commissioned Alvar Fanez to act for him and give the daughters of my Cid
+to the Infantes.
+
+The Cid hastened home to prepare for the wedding. The palace was
+beautifully decorated with hangings of purple and samite. Rich were the
+garments of the Infantes, and meek their behavior in the presence of my
+Cid. The couples were wedded by the Bishop Don Jerome, and the wedding
+festivities lasted for fifteen days. And for wellnigh two years the Cid
+and his sons-in-law abode happily in Valencia.
+
+One day while my Cid was lying asleep in his palace, a lion broke loose
+from its cage, and all the court were sore afraid. The Cid's followers
+gathered around his couch to protect him; but Ferran Gonzalez crept
+beneath the couch, crying from fear, and Diego ran into the court and
+threw himself across a wine-press beam, so that he soiled his mantle. The
+Cid, awakened by the noise, arose, took the lion by the mane, and dragged
+him to his cage, to the astonishment of all present. Then my Cid asked for
+his sons-in-law, and when they were found, pale and frightened, the whole
+court laughed at them until my Cid bade them cease. And the Infantes were
+deeply insulted.
+
+While they were still sulking over their injuries, King Bucar of Morocco
+beleagured Valencia with fifty thousand tents. The Cid and his barons
+rejoiced at the thought of battle; but the Infantes were sore afraid, for
+they were cowards, and feared to be slain in battle. The Cid told them to
+remain in Valencia; but stung by shame they went forth with Bermuez, who
+reported that both had fleshed their swords in battle with the Moor.
+
+Great was the slaughter of the Moors on that field. Alvar Fanez, Minaya,
+and the fighting bishop came back dripping with gore, and as for my Cid,
+he slew King Bucar himself, and brought home the famous sword, Tizon,
+worth full a thousand marks in gold.
+
+The Infantes, still wrathful at their humiliation, talked apart: "Let us
+take our wealth and our wives and return to Carrion. Once away from the
+Campeador, we will punish his daughters, so that we shall hear no more of
+the affair of the lion. With the wealth we have gained from the Cid we can
+now wed whom we please."
+
+Sore was the heart of the Cid when he heard of their determination; but he
+gave them rich gifts, and also the priceless swords Colada and Tizon. "I
+won them in knightly fashion," said he, "and I give them to you, for ye
+are my sons, since I gave you my daughters; in them ye take the core of my
+heart." He ordered Feliz Munoz, his nephew, to accompany them as an
+escort, and sent them by way of Molina to salute his friend, Abengalvon
+the Moor.
+
+The Moor received them in great state, and escorted them as far as the
+Salon; but when he overheard the Infantes plotting to destroy him, and
+seize his substance, he left them in anger. At night the Infantes pitched
+their tents in an oak forest full of tall trees, among which roamed fierce
+beasts. During the night they made a great show of love to their wives,
+and the next morning ordered the escort to go on, saying that they would
+follow alone. As soon as they were alone they stripped the daughters of
+the Cid of their garments, beat them with their saddle-girths and spurs,
+and left them for dead in the wild forest. "Now we are avenged for the
+dishonor of the lion," said they, as they departed for Carrion. But Feliz
+Munoz, who had suspected the Infantes, had gone forward but a little way,
+and then crept back, so that from a thicket he perceived the sufferings of
+his cousins. Straightway he went to their rescue, found them clothes, and
+helped them home again.
+
+When the Cid heard of this insult to himself and his daughters, he grasped
+his beard and swore a mighty oath that the Infantes would rue the day when
+they had thus offended him. All of the Cid's friends strove to comfort the
+ladies Elvira and Sol, and Abengalvon the Moor made them a rich supper for
+love of the Cid.
+
+At the request of my Cid, King Alfonso summoned a Cortes at Toledo, to try
+the cause of the Cid and the Infantes. Thither went the Cid, richly clad,
+so that all men wondered at his rich garments, his long hair in a scarlet
+and gold coif, and his uncut beard bound up with cords. He and his hundred
+men wore bright hauberks under their ermines, and trenchant swords under
+their mantles, for they feared treachery.
+
+The king appointed some of his counts as judges, and announced that he
+held this, the third Cortes of his reign, for the love of the Cid. Then my
+Cid stood forth.
+
+"I am not dishonored because the Infantes deserted my daughters," said the
+Cid, "for the king gave them away, not I; but I demand my swords, Colada
+and Tizon. When my lords of Carrion gave up my daughters they relinquished
+all claims to my property."
+
+The Infantes, well pleased that he demanded no more, returned the swords;
+and when the blades were unsheathed and placed in the hands of the king,
+the eyes of the court were dazzled by their brightness.
+
+The Cid presented Tizon to his nephew and Colada to Martin Antolinez.
+"Now, my king, I have another grievance. I now demand that the Infantes
+restore the three thousand marks in gold and silver they carried from
+Valencia. When they ceased to be my sons-in-law they ceased to own my
+gold." Then the Infantes were troubled, for they had spent the money; but
+the judges gave them no relief, and they were forced to pay it out of
+their heritage of Carrion.
+
+"So please your grace," said the Cid, "still another grievance, the
+greatest of all, I have yet to state. I hold myself dishonored by the
+Infantes. Redress by combat they must yield, for I will take no other."
+
+The Count Garcia ridiculed the Cid's claim. "The noble lords of Carrion
+are of princely birth; your daughters are not fitting mates for them."
+Then, while his enemies were taunting him and the court broke into an
+uproar, the Cid called on Pero Bermuez, "Dumb Peter," to speak.
+
+When Pero spoke he made himself clear. For the first time he told how like
+a craven Ferrando had demeaned himself in battle, and how he himself had
+slain the Moor on whom the prince had turned his back. He also reminded
+Ferrando of the affair of the lion. When Diego attempted to speak, he was
+silenced by Martin Antolinez, who told of the figure he cut when he clung
+to the wine-press beam in an agony of fear, on the day the lion came forth
+from its cage. Then the king, commanding silence, gave them permission to
+fight. Martin Antolinez engaged to meet Diego, Pero Bermuez was to combat
+with Ferrando, and Muno Gustioz challenged the brawler, Assur Gonzalez. It
+was agreed that the combat should be held at the end of three weeks in the
+vega of Carrion.
+
+When all had been arranged to his satisfaction, the Cid took off his coif,
+and released his beard, and all the court wondered at him. Then he offered
+some of his wealth to all present, and, kissing the king's hand, besought
+him to take Babieca. But this the king refused to do: "Babieca is for the
+like of you to keep the Moors off with. If I took him he would not have so
+good a lord."
+
+When the day for the combat arrived, the king himself went to Carrion to
+see that no treachery was used, and he said to the Infantes: "Ye have need
+to fight like men. If ye come out successful, ye will receive great honor.
+If ye are vanquished, the fault will be on your own heads. Seek to do no
+wrong; woe betide him who attempts it!"
+
+Then the marshals placed the contestants in the lists and left them face
+to face. Each with his gaze fixed on the other, they rushed together and
+met midway of the lists.
+
+At the thrust of Pero's Lance, Ferrando fell from his horse and yielded,
+as he saw the dread Tizon held over him. At the same time Diego fled from
+the sword of Martin Antolinez, and Muno Gustioz's lance pierced Assur
+Gonzalez, who begged him to hold his hand, since the Infantes were
+vanquished.
+
+Thus the battle was won, and Don Roderick's champions gained the victory.
+Great was the sorrow in the house of Carrion; but he who wrongs a noble
+lady deserves such suffering.
+
+Rejoiced were they of Valencia when the champions brought home these
+tidings, and ere long, favored by Alfonso himself, the princes of Navarre
+and Aragon wooed my Cid's daughters, and were married to them with the
+most splendid nuptials. Now was the Cid happy, and happier still he grew
+as his honor increased, until upon the feast of Pentecost he passed away.
+The grace of Christ be upon him!
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE POEM OF THE CID.
+
+COUNT RAYMOND AND MY CID.
+
+
+After one of the victories over the Moors won by the Cid after his
+banishment by King Alfonso, he despatched a messenger to the king with a
+gift of thirty horses, and while awaiting his return, encamped in the
+Pine-wood of Tebar and levied tribute on the surrounding country. This
+information was conveyed to the Count of Barcelona, Raymond Berenger, who
+prepared to march against the intruder.
+
+  Great mustering there is of Moors and Christians through the land,
+  A mighty host of men-at-arms he hath at his command.
+  Two days, three nights, they march to seek the Good One of Bivar,
+  To snare him where he harbors in the Pine-wood of Tebar;
+  And such the speed of their advance, that, cumbered with his spoils,
+  And unaware, my Cid wellnigh was taken in the toils.
+  The tidings reached my Cid as down the sierra side he went,
+  Then straightway to Count Raymond be a friendly message sent:
+  "Say to the count that he, meseems, to me no grudge doth owe:
+  Of him I take no spoil, with him in peace I fain would go."
+  "Nay," said the count, "for all his deeds he hath to make amends:
+  This outlaw must be made to know whose honor he offends."
+  With utmost speed the messenger Count Raymond's answer brought;
+  Then of a surety knew my Cid a battle must be fought.
+  "Now, cavaliers," quoth he, "make safe the booty we have won.
+  Look to your weapons, gentlemen; with speed your armor don.
+  On battle bent Count Raymond comes; a mighty host hath he
+  Of Moors and Christians; fight we must if hence we would go free.
+  Here let us fight our battle out, since fight we must perforce.
+  On with your harness, cavaliers, quick saddle, and to horse!
+  Yonder they come, the linen breeks, all down the mountain side,
+  For saddles they have Moorish pads, with slackened girths they ride:
+  Our saddles are Galician make, our leggings tough and stout:
+  A hundred of us gentlemen should scatter such a rout.
+  Before they gain the level plain, home with the lance charge we,
+  And then, for every blow we strike, we empty saddles three.
+  Count Raymond Berenger shall know with whom he has to do;
+  And dearly in Tebar to-day his raid on me shall rue."
+  In serried squadron while he speaks they form around my Cid.
+  Each grasps his lance, and firm and square each sits upon his steed.
+  Over against them down the hill they watch the Franks descend,
+  On to the level ground below, where plain and mountain blend.
+  Then gives my Cid the word to charge--with a good will they go:
+  Fast ply the lances; some they pierce, and some they overthrow.
+  And he that in a good hour was born soon hath he won the field;
+  And the Count Raymond Berenger he hath compelled to yield;
+  And reaping honor for his beard a noble prize hath made:
+  A thousand marks of silver worth, the great Colada blade.
+
+  Unto his quarters under guard the captive count he sent,
+  While his men haste to gather in their spoils in high content.
+  Then for my Cid Don Roderick a banquet they prepare;
+  But little doth Count Raymond now for feast or banquet care.
+  They bring him meat and drink, but he repels them with disdain.
+  "No morsel will I touch," said he, "for all the wealth of Spain.
+  Let soul and body perish now; life why should I prolong,
+  Conquered and captive at the hands of such an ill-breeched throng?"
+  "Nay," said my Cid; "take bread and wine; eat, and thou goest free;
+  If not, thy realms in Christendom thou never more shalt see."
+  "Go thou, Don Roderick," said the Count, "eat if thou wilt, but I
+  Have no more lust for meat and drink: I only crave to die."
+  Three days, while they the booty share, for all that they entreat,
+  The Count his purpose holds unchanged, refusing still to eat.
+  Then said my Cid, "I pray thee, Count, take food and trust to me;
+  Thyself and two knights of thy train I promise to set free."
+  Glad was Count Raymond in his heart when he the promise heard--
+  "A marvel that will be, my Cid, if thou dost keep thy word."
+  "Then, Count, take food, and when I see thy hunger satisfied,
+  My word is pledged to let thee go, thyself and two beside.
+  But understand, one farthing's worth I render not again
+  Of what has been in battle lost and won on yonder plain.
+  I give not back the lawful spoils I fairly win in fight;
+  But for mine own and vassals' wants I hold them as my right.
+  My followers are needy men; I cannot if I would;
+  For spoil from thee and others won is all our livelihood.
+  And such, while God's good will it is, must be our daily life,
+  As outcasts forced to wander, with an angry king at strife."
+  With lighter heart Count Raymond called for water for his hands,
+  And then with his two gentlemen, sent by the Cid's commands,
+  He blithely sat him down to meat: God! with what gust ate he!
+  And glad was the Campeador such heartiness to see.
+  Quoth he, "Until thou eat thy fill we part not, Count, to-day."
+  "Nor loth am I," Count Raymond said, "such bidding to obey."
+  So he and his two cavaliers a hearty meal they made:
+  It pleased my Cid to watch his hands, how lustily they played.
+  "Now if thou wilt," Count Raymond said, "that we are satisfied,
+  Bid them to lead the horses forth, that we may mount and ride.
+  Never since I have been a Count have I yet broken fast
+  With such a relish; long shall I remember this repast."
+  Three palfreys with caparisons of costly sort they bring,
+  And on the saddles robes of fur and mantles rich they fling.
+  Thus, with a knight on either hand, away Count Raymond rides;
+  While to the outposts of the camp his guests the Champion guides.
+  "Now speed thee, Count; ride on," quoth he, "a free Frank as thou art.
+  For the brave spoil thou leavest me I thank thee from my heart;
+  And if to win it back again perchance thou hast a mind,
+  Come thou and seek me when thou wilt; I am not far to find.
+  But if it be not to thy taste to try another day,
+  Still, somewhat, be it mine or thine, thou carriest away."
+  "Nay! go in peace for me, my Cid: no more I seek of thee;
+  And thou, I think, for one year's space hast won enough of me."
+  He spurred his steed, but, as he rode, a backward glance he bent,
+  Still fearing to the last my Cid his promise would repent:
+  A thing, the world itself to win, my Cid would not have done:
+  No perfidy was ever found in him, the Perfect One.
+                  _Ormsby's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+MY CID'S TRIUMPH.
+
+
+In the Cortes called by the King of Spain to hear the cause of the Cid,
+whose daughters had been shamefully treated and deserted by their
+husbands, the Infantes of Carrion, Ferran and Diego Gonzalez, the Cid
+demanded the restitution of his swords and of three thousand marks of gold
+and silver he had given the Infantes. These being granted, the Cid spoke
+again:--
+
+  "So please your grace! once more upon your clemency I call;
+  A grievance yet remains untold, the greatest grief of all.
+  And let the court give ear, and weigh the wrong that hath been done.
+  I hold myself dishonored by the lords of Carrion.
+  Redress by combat they must yield; none other will I take.
+  How now, Infantes! what excuse, what answer do ye make?
+  Why have ye laid my heartstrings bare? In jest or earnest, say,
+  Have I offended you? and I will make amends to-day.
+  My daughters in your hands I placed the day that forth ye went,
+  And rich in wealth and honors from Valencia were you sent.
+  Why did you carry with you brides ye loved not, treacherous curs?
+  Why tear their flesh in Corpes wood with saddle-girths and spurs,
+  And leave them to the beasts of prey? Villains throughout were ye!
+  What answer ye can make to this 't is for the court to see."
+  The Count Garcia was the first that rose to make reply.
+  "So please ye, gracious king, of all the kings of Spain most high;
+  Strange is the guise in which my Cid before you hath appeared;
+  To grace your summoned court he comes, with that long straggling beard;
+  With awe struck dumb, methinks, are some; some look as though they
+    feared.
+  The noble lords of Carrion of princely race are born;
+  To take the daughters of my Cid for lemans they should scorn;
+  Much more for brides of equal birth: in casting them aside--
+  We care not for his blustering talk--we hold them justified."
+  Upstood the Champion, stroked his beard, and grasped it in his hands.
+  "Thanks be to God above," he cried, "who heaven and earth commands,
+  A long and lordly growth it is, my pleasure and my pride;
+  In this my beard, Garcia, say, what find you to deride?
+  Its nurture since it graced my chin hath ever been my care;
+  No son of woman born hath dared to lay a finger there;
+  No son of Christian or of Moor hath ever plucked a hair.
+  Remember Cabra, Count! of thine the same thou canst not say:
+  On both thy castle and thy beard I laid my hand that day:
+  Nay! not a groom was there but he his handful plucked away.
+  Look, where my hand hath been, my lords, all ragged yet it grows!"
+  With noisy protest breaking in Ferran Gonzalez rose:
+  "Cid, let there be an end of this; your gifts you have again,
+  And now no pretext for dispute between us doth remain.
+  Princes of Carrion are we, with fitting brides we mate;
+  Daughters of emperors or kings, not squires of low estate:
+  We brook not such alliances, and yours we rightly spurned."
+  My Cid, Ruy Diaz, at the word, quick to Bermuez turned.
+  "Now is the time, Dumb Peter, speak, O man that sittest mute!
+  My daughters' and thy cousins' name and fame are in dispute;
+  To me they speak, to thee they look to answer every word.
+  If I am left to answer now, thou canst not draw thy sword."
+  Tongue-tied Bermuez stood, awhile he strove for words in vain,
+  But, look you, when he once began he made his meaning plain.
+  "Cid, first I have a word for you: you always are the same,
+  In Cortes ever jibing me, 'Dumb Peter' is the name:
+  It never was a gift of mine, and that long since you knew;
+  But have you found me fail in aught that fell to me to do?
+  You lie, Ferrando; lie in all you say upon that score.
+  The honor was to you, not him, the Cid Campeador;
+  For I know something of your worth, and somewhat I can tell.
+  That day beneath Valencia wall--you recollect it well--
+  You prayed the Cid to place you in the forefront of the fray;
+  You spied a Moor, and valiantly you went that Moor to slay;
+  And then you turned and fled--for his approach, you would not stay.
+  Right soon he would have taught you 't was a sorry game to play,
+  Had I not been in battle there to take your place that day.
+  I slew him at the first onfall; I gave his steed to you;
+  To no man have I told the tale from that hour hitherto.
+  Before the Cid and all his men you got yourself a name,
+  How you in single combat slew a Moor--a deed of fame;
+  And all believed in your exploit; they wist not of your shame.
+  You are a craven at the core; tall, handsome, as you stand:
+  How dare you talk as now you talk, you tongue without a hand?
+  Again, Ferrando, call to mind--another tale for you--
+  That matter of the lion; it was at Valencia too.
+  My Cid lay sleeping when you saw the unchained lion near;
+  What did you do, Ferrando, then, in your agony of fear?
+  Low did you crouch behind the couch whereon the Champion lay:
+  You did, Ferrando, and by that we rate your worth to-day.
+  We gathered round to guard our lord, Valencia's conqueror.
+  He rose, and to the lion went, the brave Campeador;
+  The lion fawned before his feet and let him grasp its mane;
+  He thrust it back into its cage; he turned to us again:
+  His trusty vassals to a man he saw around him there;
+  Where were his sons-in-law? he asked, and none could tell him where.
+  Now take thou my defiance as a traitor, trothless knight:
+  Upon this plea before our King Alfonso will I fight;
+  The daughters of my lord are wronged, their wrong is mine to right.
+  That ye those ladies did desert, the baser are ye then;
+  For what are they?--weak women; and what are ye?--strong men.
+  On every count I deem their cause to be the holier,
+  And I will make thee own it when we meet in battle here.
+  Traitor thou shalt confess thyself, so help me God on high,
+  And all that I have said to-day my sword shall verify."
+
+  Thus far these two. Diego rose, and spoke as ye shall hear:
+  "Counts by our birth are we, of stain our lineage is clear.
+  In this alliance with my Cid there was no parity.
+  If we his daughters cast aside, no cause for shame we see.
+  And little need we care if they in mourning pass their lives,
+  Enduring the reproach that clings to scorned rejected wives.
+  In leaving them we but upheld our honor and our right,
+  And ready to the death am I, maintaining this, to fight."
+  Here Martin Antolinez sprang upon his feet: "False hound!
+  Will you not silent keep that mouth where truth was never found?
+  For you to boast! the lion scare have you forgotten too?
+  How through the open door you rushed, across the court-yard flew;
+  How sprawling in your terror on the wine-press beam you lay?
+  Ay! never more, I trow, you wore the mantle of that day.
+  There is no choice; the issue now the sword alone can try;
+  The daughters of my Cid ye spurned; that must ye justify.
+  On every count I here declare their cause the cause of right,
+  And thou shall own the treachery the day we join in fight."
+  He ceased, and striding up the hall Assur Gonzalez passed;
+  His cheek was flushed with wine, for he had stayed to break his fast;
+  Ungirt his robe, and trailing low his ermine mantle hung;
+  Rude was his bearing to the court, and reckless was his tongue.
+  "What a to-do is here, my lords! was the like ever seen?
+  What talk is this about my Cid--him of Bivar, I mean?
+  To Riodouirna let him go to take his millers' rent,
+  And keep his mills agoing there, as once he was content.
+  He, forsooth, mate his daughters with the Counts of Carrion!"
+  Up started Muno Gustioz: "False, foul-mouthed knave, have done!
+  Thou glutton, wont to break thy fast without a thought of prayer,
+  Whose heart is plotting mischief when thy lips are speaking fair;
+  Whose plighted word to friend or lord hath ever proved a lie;
+  False always to thy fellow-man, falser to God on high.
+  No share in thy good will I seek; one only boon I pray,
+  The chance to make thee own thyself the villain that I say."
+  Then spoke the king: "Enough of words: ye have my leave to fight,
+  The challenged and the challengers; and God defend the right."
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+  The marshals leave them face to face and from the lists are gone;
+  Here stand the champions of my Cid, there those of Carrion;
+  Each with his gaze intent and fixed upon his chosen foe,
+  Their bucklers braced before their breasts, their lances pointing low,
+  Their heads bent down, as each man leans above his saddle-bow.
+  Then with one impulse every spur is in the charger's side,
+  And earth itself is felt to shake beneath their furious stride;
+  Till, midway meeting, three with three, in struggle fierce they lock,
+  While all account them dead who hear the echo of the shock.
+  Ferrando and his challenger, Pero Bermuez, close;
+  Firm are the lances held, and fair the shields receive the blows.
+  Through Pero's shield Ferrando drove his lance, a bloodless stroke;
+  The point stopped short in empty space, the shaft in splinters broke.
+  But on Bermuez, firm of seat, the shock fell all in vain;
+  And while he took Ferrando's thrust he paid it back again.
+  The armored buckler shattering, right home his lance he pressed,
+  Driving the point through boss and plate against his foeman's breast.
+  Three folds of mail Ferrando wore, they stood him in good stead;
+  Two yielded to the lance's point, the third held fast the head.
+  But forced into the flesh it sank a hand's breadth deep or more,
+  Till bursting from the gasping lips in torrents gushed the gore.
+  Then, the girths breaking, o'er the croup borne rudely to the ground,
+  He lay, a dying man it seemed to all who stood around.
+  Bermuez cast his lance aside, and sword in hand came on;
+  Ferrando saw the blade he bore, he knew it was Tizon:
+  Quick ere the dreaded brand could fall, "I yield me," came the cry.
+  Vanquished the marshals granted him, and Pero let him lie.
+
+  And Martin Antolinez and Diego--fair and true
+  Each struck upon the other's shield, and wide the splinters flew.
+  Then Antolinez seized his sword, and as he drew the blade,
+  A dazzling gleam of burnished steel across the meadow played;
+  And at Diego striking full, athwart the helmet's crown,
+  Sheer through the steel plates of the casque he drove the falchion down,
+  Through coif and scarf, till from the scalp the locks it razed away,
+  And half shorn off and half upheld the shattered head-piece lay.
+  Reeling beneath the blow that proved Colada's cruel might,
+  Diego saw no chance but one, no safety save in flight:
+  He wheeled and fled, but close behind him Antolinez drew;
+  With the flat blade a hasty blow he dealt him as he flew;
+  But idle was Diego's sword; he shrieked to Heaven for aid:
+  "O God of glory, give me help! save me from yonder blade!"
+  Unreined, his good steed bore him safe and swept him past the bound,
+  And Martin Antolinez stood alone upon the ground.
+  "Come hither," said the king; "thus far the conquerors are ye."
+  And fairly fought and won the field the marshals both agree.
+  So much for these, and how they fought: remains to tell you yet
+  How meanwhile Muno Gustioz Assur Gonzalez met.
+  With a strong arm and steady aim each struck the other's shield,
+  And under Assur's sturdy thrusts the plates of Muno's yield;
+  But harmless passed the lance's point, and spent its force in air.
+  Not so Don Muno's; on the shield of Assur striking fair,
+  Through plate and boss and foeman's breast his pennoned lance he sent,
+  Till out between the shoulder blades a fathom's length it went.
+  Then, as the lance he plucked away, clear from the saddle swung,
+  With one strong wrench of Muno's wrist to earth was Assur flung;
+  And back it came, shaft, pennon, blade, all stained a gory red;
+  Nor was there one of all the crowd but counted Assur sped,
+  While o'er him Muno Gustioz stood with uplifted brand.
+  Then cried Gonzalo Assurez: "In God's name hold thy hand!
+  Already have ye won the field; no more is needed now."
+  And said the marshals, "It is just, and we the claim allow."
+  And then the King Alfonso gave command to clear the ground,
+  And gather in the relics of the battle strewed around.
+  And from the field in honor went Don Roderick's champions three.
+  Thanks be to God, the Lord of all, that gave the victory.
+
+  But fearing treachery, that night upon their way they went,
+  As King Alfonso's honored guests in safety homeward sent,
+  And to Valencia city day and night they journeyed on,
+  To tell my Cid Campeador that his behest was done.
+  But in the lands of Carrion it was a day of woe,
+  And on the lords of Carrion it fell a heavy blow.
+  He who a noble lady wrongs and casts aside--may he
+  Meet like requital for his deeds, or worse, if worse there be.
+  But let us leave them where they lie--their meed is all men's scorn.
+
+  Turn we to speak of him that in a happy hour was born.
+  Valencia the Great was glad, rejoiced at heart to see
+  The honored champions of her lord return in victory:
+  And Ruy Diaz grasped his beard: "Thanks be to God," said he,
+  "Of part or lot in Carrion now are my daughters free;
+  Now may I give them without shame whoe'er the suitors be."
+  And favored by the king himself, Alfonso of Leon,
+  Prosperous was the wooing of Navarre and Aragon,
+  The bridals of Elvira and of Sol in splendor passed;
+  Stately the former nuptials were, but statelier far the _hast_.
+  And he that in a good hour was born, behold how he _hath_ sped!
+  His daughters now to higher rank and greater honor wed:
+  Sought by Navarre and Aragon for queens his daughters twain;
+  And monarchs of his blood to-day upon the thrones of Spain.
+  And so his honor in the land grows greater day by day.
+  Upon the feast of Pentecost from life he passed away.
+  For him and all of us the Grace of Christ let us implore.
+  And here ye have the story of my Cid Campeador.
+  _Ormsby's Translation._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+ "This Poem of the earth and air,
+  This mediaeval miracle of song."
+
+
+Dante Alighieri was born at Florence, in May, 1265. His family belonged to
+the Guelph, or Papal faction, and he early took part in the struggle
+between the parties. In 1274 he first saw Beatrice Portinari, and he says
+of this meeting in the "Vita Nuova," "I say that thenceforward Love swayed
+my soul, which was even then espoused to him." Beatrice died in 1290, and
+Dante married Gemma Donati, between 1291 and 1294. In 1295 he joined the
+Art of Druggists, in order to become a member of the Administrative
+Council. In 1300 he was made Prior, and in 1301, when the Neri entered
+Florence, he was exiled, his property confiscated, and himself sentenced
+to be burned, if found within the republic. After this he became a
+Ghibeline, and took up arms against the city with his fellow-exiles, but
+withdrew from their council at last because of disagreements, and
+separating from them, spent his time at Verona, Padua, Sunigianda, and in
+the monastery of Gubbio. In 1316 the government of Florence issued a
+decree allowing the exiles to return on payment of a fine; but Dante
+indignantly refused to acknowledge thus that he had been in the wrong. He
+was in Ravenna in 1320, and died there Sept. 14, 1321, on his return from
+an embassy to Venice.
+
+The "Commedia" was written during Dante's nineteen years of exile. The
+three parts, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, are emblematic of the
+threefold state of man,--sin, grace, and beatitude. The thirty-three
+cantos into which each part is divided, are in allusion to the years of
+the Saviour's life, and the triple rhyme suggests the Trinity.
+
+The Divine Comedy is written in the _terza rima_, which consists of three
+verses arranged in such a way that the middle line of each triplet rhymes
+with the first or third verse of the succeeding triplet.
+
+The entire time occupied in the "Commedia" is eleven days, from March 25
+to April 5, 1300.
+
+Dante called the poem a comedy because of its prosperous ending. The
+prefix "divine" was given it later by its admirers.
+
+The Divine Comedy is sometimes called the epic of mediaevalism, and again,
+the epic of man. Dante himself said: "The subject of the whole work, then,
+taken literally, is the state of the soul after death, regarded as a
+matter of fact; for the action of the whole work deals with this and is
+about this. But if the work be taken allegorically, its subject is man, in
+so far as by merit or demerit in the exercise of free will, he is exposed
+to the rewards or punishment of justice."
+
+For a time the Divine Comedy was neglected, and even in comparatively
+recent times the Inferno was the only portion read; but of late years
+there has been a re-awakening of interest in regard to the whole poem.
+
+In no other of the epics has the author put so much of himself as Dante
+has in the "Commedia." It was he himself who saw this vision; he himself,
+proud, tortured, who carried the sense of his wrongs with him through Hell
+and Purgatory, even into Paradise. We learn the history of his times, all
+the crimes committed by men in high position, and we also learn the
+history of the unhappy Florentine, of whose poem it has been said, "none
+other in the world is so deeply and universally sorrowful."
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+
+J. Colomb de Batines's Bibliografia Dantesca, 2 vols., 1846;
+
+William Coolidge Lane's The Dante collections in the Harvard College and
+Boston Public Libraries (Bibliographical contributions of the library of
+Harvard University, 1885);
+
+William Coolidge Lane's Additions to the Dante collection in the Harvard
+Library (see the Annual Reports of the Dante Society of Cambridge, Mass.,
+1887);
+
+Brother Azarius's Spiritual Sense of the Divina Commedia (in his Phases of
+Thought and Criticism, 1892, pp. 125-182);
+
+Henry Clark Barlow's Critical Contributions to the Study of the Divine
+Comedy, 1865;
+
+Herbert Baynes's Dante and his Ideal, 1891;
+
+Vincenzo Botta's Introduction to the Study of Dante, 1887;
+
+Oscar Browning's Dante, his Life and Writing, 1890, pp. 70-104;
+
+A. J. Butler's Dante, his Time and Work, 1895;
+
+Richard William Church's Dante and Other Essays, 1888, pp. 1-191;
+
+J. Farrazzi's Manuale Dantesco, 5 vols., 1865-77;
+
+William Torrey Harris's Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia, 1890;
+
+Francis Hettinger's Dante's Divina Commedia, its Scope and Value, Tr. by
+H. S. Bowden, 1887 (Roman Catholic standpoint);
+
+J. R. Lowell's Essay on Dante (in his Among my Books, 1876);
+
+Lewis E. Mott's Dante and Beatrice, an Essay on Interpretation, 1892;
+
+Giovanni Andrea Scartazzini's A Companion to Dante, from the German, by A.
+J. Butler, 1892;
+
+Denton J. Snider's Dante's Inferno: a Commentary, 1892;
+
+Augustus Hopkins Strong's Dante and the Divine Comedy (in his Philosophy
+and Religion, 1888, pp. 501-524);
+
+John Addington Symonds's An Introduction to the Study of Dante, Ed. 2,
+1890;
+
+Paget Toynbee's Dictionary of the Divina Commedia, 2 parts;
+
+William Warren Vernon's Readings on the Purgatorio of Dante, chiefly based
+on the Commentary of Benvenuto da Imola; Intro. by the Dean of St. Paul's,
+2 vols., 1889;
+
+Dr. Edward Moore's Time References in the Divina Commedia, London, 1887;
+
+Dr. E. Moore's Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina
+Commedia, Cambridge, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+
+The Divine Comedy, the Inferno, a literal prose translation with the text
+of the original collated from the best editions, with explanatory notes by
+J. A. Carlyle, Ed. 6, 1891 (contains valuable chapters on manuscripts,
+translations, etc.);
+
+Divina Commedia, edited with translation and notes by A. J. Butler, 1892;
+
+Vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, Tr. by H. F. Cary, 1888;
+
+The Divine Comedy, Tr. by H. W. Longfellow, 1887;
+
+The Divine Comedy, Tr. by C. E. Norton, 1891-92 (rhythmical prose
+translation);
+
+The Divine Comedy, Tr. of the Commedia and Lanzoniere, notes, essays, and
+biographical introduction by E. H. Plumptre, 1887;
+
+Divina Commedia, Tr. into English verse with notes and illustrations by J.
+A. Wilstach, 2 vols., 1888.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE HELL.
+
+
+The Hell conceived by Dante was made by the falling of Lucifer to the
+centre of the earth. It was directly under Jerusalem. The earth, displaced
+by Lucifer's fall, made the Mount of Purgatory, which was the antipodes of
+Jerusalem.
+
+The unbarred entrance gate, over which stands the inscription, "Leave hope
+behind, all ye who enter here," leads into a Vestibule, or Ante-Hell, a
+dark plain separated from Hell proper by the river Acheron. Hell proper
+then falls into three great divisions for the punishment of the sins of
+Incontinence, Bestiality, and Malice, which are punished in nine circles,
+each circle sub-divided. Circle One is the Limbo of the Unbaptized.
+Circles Two, Three, Four, and Five are reserved for the punishment of the
+sins of Incontinence, Lasciviousness, Gluttony, Avarice with Prodigality,
+and Anger with Melancholy. In Circle Six is punished the sin of
+Bestiality, under which fall Infidelity and Heresiarchy, Bestiality having
+here its Italian meaning of folly. In Circles Seven and Eight is punished
+Malice, subdivided into Violence and Fraud. There are three divisions of
+Violence,--the Violent against their neighbors (Tyrants, Murderers, etc.);
+the Violent against themselves (Suicides); and the violent against God
+(Blasphemers, etc.); and ten divisions of Circle Eight,--Fraud, _i.e._,
+Seducers, Flatterers, Simoniacs, Soothsayers, Barrators, Hypocrites,
+Thieves, False Counsellors, Schismatics, and Forgers and Falsifiers. Below
+these ten pits yawns the well of the giants, above which the giants tower
+so that half their persons is visible. Within this well in Circle Nine is
+Cocytus, a lake of ice divided into four belts,--Caina, Antenora,
+Ptolemaea, and Judecca, where are punished, respectively, the Betrayers of
+their kindred, of their country, of their friends and guests, and of their
+benefactors. At the bottom of the pit is Lucifer, half above the ice and
+half below it, the centre of his body being the centre of gravity.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE HELL.
+
+
+The poet Dante, in the thirty-fifth year of his life, this being the year
+1300 A. D., on New Year's day of the old reckoning, lost his way in a
+rough and thorny forest, and when he attempted to regain it by mounting a
+hill that rose before him resplendent in sunshine, encountered a leopard,
+a lion, and a wolf. Driven back by these, and utterly despairing of
+rescue, he met one who declared himself to be that Vergil who had sung the
+fall of Troy and the flight of Aeneas, and who promised to take him through
+the lower world and Purgatory, even unto Paradise. Dante questioned why it
+was permitted to him to take the journey denied to so many others, and was
+told that Vergil had been sent to his rescue by the beauteous Beatrice,
+long since in Paradise. When the poet, trembling with fear, heard that the
+shining eyes of Beatrice had wept over his danger in the forest, and that
+she had sought the gates of hell to effect his rescue, his strength was
+renewed, even as the flowers, chilled by the frosts of night, uplift
+themselves in the bright light of the morning sun; and he entered without
+fear on the deep and savage way.
+
+This allegory, being interpreted, probably means that the poet, entangled
+in the dark forest of political anarchy, was driven from the hill of civil
+order by the Leopard of Pleasure (Florence), the Lion of Ambition
+(France), and the Wolf of Avarice (Rome), and was by divine grace granted
+a vision of the three worlds that he might realize what comes after death,
+and be the more firmly established in the right political
+faith,--Ghibellinism.
+
+"Through me is the way into the sorrowful city; into eternal dole among
+the lost people. Justice incited my sublime Creator. Divine Omnipotence,
+the highest wisdom, and the Primal Love created me. Before me, there were
+no created things. Only eternal, and I eternal, last. Abandon hope, all ye
+who enter here!"
+
+Such was the inscription over the doorway, after the reading of which
+Dante's ears were assailed by words of agony and heart-rending cries.
+"This," said Vergil, "is the home of those melancholy souls who lived
+without infamy and without praise. Cowards and selfish in life, they are
+denied even entrance to hell." As they looked, a long train passed by,
+stung by gadflies and following a whirling standard.
+
+Charon, about whose eyes were wheels of flame, endeavored to drive the
+poet and his guide away as they stood among the weary and naked souls that
+gathered shivering on the margin of Acheron; but as a blast of wind and a
+burst of crimson light caused a deep sleep to fall on the poet, he was
+wafted across the river, and awaking he found himself in the Limbo of the
+Unbaptized, the first of the nine circles of hell, where were the souls of
+many men, women, and infants, whose only punishment was, without hope, to
+live on in desire. Here was no torment, only the sadness caused by the
+ever-unsatisfied longing for the ever-denied divine grace. This was
+Vergil's abode, and in the noble castles set among the green enamelled
+meadows dwelt Homer, Horace, and Ovid, Electra, Hector, and Camilla.
+
+Passing down a narrow walk into a region of semi-darkness, they entered
+the second circle, where Minos stood, judging the sinners and girding
+himself with his tail as many times as was the number of the circle to
+which the spirit was to go. Here in darkness and storm were the carnal
+sinners, whose punishment was to be beaten hither and thither by the
+winds,--Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Paris, Tristan, and all those who had
+sinned for love, and here Dante conversed with the spirit of Francesca da
+Rimini, whom he had known in life, and her lover Paolo, slain for their
+sin by her husband. Though there is no greater sorrow than to be mindful
+of the happy time in misery, she assured Dante that the sorrows of Hell
+were lightened by the presence of Paolo.
+
+At the sight of Paolo's grief Dante fell swooning with pity, and awoke to
+find himself in the circle where a cold rain fell forever on the gluttons.
+Cerberus guarded the entrance, and now and again devoured the unhappy ones
+who lay prone on their faces in the murk and mire. Here Ciacco of Florence
+recognized and spoke with Dante, falling back in the mire as the poet
+passed on, to rise no more until the Day of Judgment.
+
+Plutus guarded the fourth circle, where were confined the avaricious and
+prodigal, who, divided into two bands, rolled weights against each other,
+uttering wretched insults. Down the sloping banks to the marsh of the Styx
+the poets went, past the sullen and angry, who in life refused the comfort
+of the sweet air and gladdening sun, and were in consequence doomed
+forever to remain buried in the sullen mire. As Dante and Vergil passed
+over the Styx in the boat of the vile Phlegyas, Dante was saluted by the
+spirit of the once haughty and arrogant Philippo Argenti, whom he
+repulsed, and gladly saw set upon and torn by the people of the mire.
+
+Then appeared to him the mosques of the city of Dis, within the valley,
+vermilion-hued from the fire eternal. Deep were the moats; the walls
+appeared to be of iron. Upon the flaming summit sat the Furies, stained
+with blood, begirt with Hydras. Here even Vergil trembled as they waited
+the arrival of one sent from Heaven to open the gate and admit them.
+
+Within, over the plain, were scattered sepulchres heated red hot, with
+uplifted coverings, from which issued forth dire laments from the Infidels
+and Heresiarchs tormented within. To Farinata degli Uberti, who rose from
+his tomb to ask the news of Florence, Dante spoke, observing in the mean
+time a shade that, on hearing the Tuscan tongue, rose next Uberti,
+questioning, "Where is my son, my Guido?" Fancying from the poet's delay
+in answering, and his use of the past tense, that his beloved child no
+longer enjoyed the sweet light, Cavalcante fell back and appeared no more.
+
+Leaving the dismal plain, whose countless tombs would remain open until
+the Judgment Day, the poets entered upon the next and seventh circle,
+composed of three smaller circles in which were punished the Violent
+against their neighbors, against nature, and against God. The steep banks
+of the ravine were guarded by the huge Minotaur, from which Dante and
+Vergil escaped only by running.
+
+Within Phlegethon, the boiling river of blood, stood the tyrants, among
+whom were Dionysius, Azzolin, and Attila, uttering loud laments. If they
+ventured to stir from their place of torment they were pierced by the
+arrows of the Centaurs that guarded the banks. The Centaur Nessus conveyed
+Dante across the river into the second circle, the dolorous forest, where
+the Violent against nature, the Suicides, were transformed into closely
+set, twisted thorn-trees, infested with harpies that fed on their leaves,
+inflicting perpetual pain; thence into the third circle, where the Violent
+against God, chief among whom was the arrogant Capaneus, dwelt in a sandy
+plain surrounded by the dolorous forest. Upon the naked souls, some of
+whom were lying supine, some crouching, others moving about continually,
+fell a perpetual shower of flakes of fire.
+
+Picking their way along the edge of the forest, not daring to step on the
+sand waste, the poets came upon a little blood-red rivulet quenching the
+flames above it, Phlegethon again, formed by the rivers Acheron and Styx,
+whose source is the tears of Time. As they skirted the forest they saw a
+troop of spirits hastening past, one of whom, after a sharp look, grasped
+Dante's garment exclaiming, "What a wonder!" The baked countenance, the
+ghastly face, was that of his old teacher Ser Brunetto, who not daring to
+stop for fear of increasing his punishment, followed him, questioning him
+on his appearance below, and comforting him by the assurance of his future
+greatness. Deep were the burns in the limbs of the other Florentines Dante
+met below, to whom he gave tidings of the state of affairs in their former
+home.
+
+Mounting on the shoulders of the hideous monster Geryon, the poets were
+carried into a fearful abyss whose sides were Alp-like in steepness. This
+was the eighth circle, Malebolge, or Evil pits, consisting of ten
+concentric bolge, or ditches of stone with dikes between and rough bridges
+running across them to the centre.
+
+In the first pit Jason and other deceivers of women were being lashed by
+horned demons. In pit two, a Florentine friend of Dante's was submerged
+with others in filth as a punishment for flattery. In pit three the
+Simoniacs were placed head down in purses in the earth, their projecting
+feet tortured with flames. The poets crossed the bridge, and Vergil
+carried Dante down the sloping bank so that he could speak to one who
+proved to be the unhappy Nicholas III., who accused Boniface for his evil
+deeds and expressed a longing for his arrival in this place of torture.
+From the next bridge-top Dante dimly perceived the slow procession of
+weeping soothsayers with heads reversed on their shoulders. There walked
+Amphiarus, Tiresias, Manto, and Michael Scott. So great was Dante's sorrow
+on beholding the misery of these men who had once been held in such great
+esteem, that he leaned against a crag and wept until reproved by Vergil as
+a reprobate for feeling compassion at the doom divine. Through the
+semi-darkness the poets looked down into pit five, where devils with
+fantastic names pitched barrators into a lake of boiling pitch and speared
+those who dared to raise their heads above the surface. From these Evil
+Claws Dante and Vergil escaped only by running into the sixth pit, where
+walked the hypocrites in richly gilded mantles. When Dante wondered at
+their weary faces and their tears, he was told by two of the Frati
+Gaudenti (Jolly Friars) of Florence who suffered here, that the cloaks and
+hoods were of heaviest lead, a load that grew more irksome with the ages.
+Caiaphas, Annas, and the members of the council that condemned Christ lay
+on the ground transfixed with stakes, and over their bodies passed the
+slow moving train of the hypocrites. The next bridge lay in ruins as a
+result of the earthquake at the Crucifixion, and Vergil experienced the
+utmost difficulty in conveying Dante up the crags to a point where he
+could look down into the dark dungeon of thieves, where the naked throng
+were entwined with serpents and at their bite changed from man to serpent
+and back again. Some burned and fell into ashes at the venomous bite, only
+to rise again and suffer new tortures. Here Dante spoke with Vanni Fucci
+of Pistoja, who robbed the sacristy of Florence, and whose face "was
+painted with a melancholy shame" at being seen in his misery. The eighth
+pit was brightly lighted by the flames that moved back and forth, each
+concealing within an evil counsellor. Ulysses and Diomed walked together
+in a flame cleft at the top, for the crime of robbing Deidamia of
+Achilles, of stealing the Palladium, and of fabricating the Trojan horse.
+As Dante looked into pit nine he saw a troop compelled to pass continually
+by a demon with a sharp sword who mutilated each one each time he made the
+round of the circle, so that the wounds never healed. These were the evil
+counsellors. Mahomet was there; there too was Ali. But ghastliest of
+sights was that of a headless trunk walking through the grim plain,
+holding its severed head by the hair like a lantern, and exclaiming "O
+me!" This was the notorious Bertrand de Born, the Troubadour, who had
+caused dissension between Henry II. of England and his son. Among this
+throng Dante recognized his kinsman Geri del Bello, who gave him a
+disdainful look because he had not yet avenged his death. From the tenth
+and last pit of Malebolge came a stench as great as though it came from
+all the hospitals of Valdichiana, Maremma, and Sardinia, between July and
+September. All the loathsome diseases were gathered into this moat to
+afflict the forgers and falsifiers. Here Dante saw Athamas, mad king of
+Thebes, the mad Gianni Schicchi, and Messer Adam of Brescia, the false
+coiner, who, distorted with dropsy, was perishing of thirst, and thinking
+constantly of the cool rivulets that descended from the verdant hills of
+Casentino.
+
+As Dante and his guide turned their backs on the wretched valley and
+ascended the bank that surrounded it, the blare of a loud horn fell upon
+their ears, louder than Roland's blast at Roncesvalles. This came from the
+plain of the giants between Malebolge and the mouth of the infernal pit.
+All around the pit, or well, were set the giants with half their bodies
+fixed in earth. Nimrod, as a punishment for building the tower of Babel,
+could speak no language, but babbled some gibberish. Ephialtes, Briareus,
+and Antaeus were here, all horrible in aspect; Antaeus, less savage than
+the others, lifted the two poets, and stooping set them down in the pit
+below. This was the last and ninth circle, a dismal pit for the punishment
+of traitors, who were frozen in the vast lake that Cocytus formed here. In
+Caina were the brothers Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, mutual
+fratricides, their heads frozen together. In Antenora was that Guelph
+Bocca who had caused his party's defeat; but the most horrible sight they
+encountered was in Ptolemaea, where Count Ugolino, who had been shut up
+with his sons and grandsons in a tower to starve by the Archbishop
+Ruggieri, was now revenging himself in their place of torture by
+continually gnawing the archbishop's head, frozen in the ice next his own.
+Farther down they walked among those who, when they shed tears over their
+woe had their teardrops frozen, so that even this solace was soon denied
+them. Dante promised to break the frozen veil from the eyes of one who
+prayed for aid, but when he learned that it was the Friar Alberigo, whose
+body was still on earth, and whose soul was already undergoing punishment,
+he refused, "for to be rude to him was courtesy."
+
+In the fourth and last division of the ninth circle, the Judecca, a strong
+wind was blowing. Then Dante saw the emperor of the kingdom frozen in the
+ice, a mighty giant foul to look upon, with three faces, vermilion, white
+and yellow, and black. The waving of his two featherless wings caused the
+great winds that froze Cocytus. Teardrops fell from his six eyes; in each
+mouth he was crunching a sinner, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius.
+
+Being warned by Vergil that it was time to depart, Dante clasped his guide
+around his neck, and Vergil began to climb down the huge monster until
+they reached his middle, the centre of gravity, where with much difficulty
+they turned and climbed upward along the subterranean course of Lethe,
+until they again beheld the stars.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PURGATORY.
+
+
+The Purgatory of Dante is situated on a mountain top on the opposite side
+of the earth from Jerusalem, and is surrounded by the western ocean. The
+souls of those who go there collect on the banks of the Tiber, and are
+taken to the mountain in a boat by an angel pilot. The shores of the
+island are covered with the reeds of humility. Around the base of the
+mount dwell the souls that, repenting late, must "expiate each year of
+deferred penitence with thirty years of deferred Purgatory" unless the
+time be shortened by the prayers of their friends on earth. There are
+three stages of this Ante-Purgatory: the first, for those who put off
+conversion through negligence; the second, for those who died by violence
+and repented while dying; the third, for those monarchs who were too much
+absorbed in earthly greatness to give much thought to the world to come.
+The ascent of the terraces, as also those of Purgatory proper, is very
+difficult, and is not allowed to be made after sunset. The gate of St.
+Peter separates Ante-Purgatory from Purgatory proper. Three steps, the
+first of polished white marble, the second of purple, rough and cracked,
+and the third of blood-red porphyry, signifying confession, contrition,
+and penance, lead to the gate where sits the angel clad in a penitential
+robe, with the gold and silver keys with which to unlock the outer and
+inner gates. Purgatory proper consists of seven terraces, in each of which
+one of the seven capital sins, Pride, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and
+Lasciviousness are punished; Pride first, because no other sin can be
+purged from the body until this deepest sin is eliminated. The soul,
+cleansed of these sins, mounts to the terrestrial paradise, which, above
+the sphere of air, crowns the Mount of Purgatory.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PURGATORY.
+
+
+As morning dawned and the poets slowly climbed out of the infernal region
+and stepped upon the isle from which the Mount of Purgatory rises, they
+were accosted by an old man with long white hair and beard, Cato of Utica,
+who demanded the reason of their coming, and only permitted them to remain
+when he heard that a lady from Heaven had given the command. Then he
+ordered Vergil to lave the smoke of Hell from Dante's face in the waves of
+the sea, and to gird him with the reed of humility. As the sun rose a
+radiant angel, guiding a boat laden with souls, appeared, and the poets
+fell on their knees until he departed.
+
+As the newly-landed spirits questioned Vergil of the way up the mountain,
+Dante recognized among them his beloved friend Casella, the musician, and
+tried in vain to embrace his spirit body. At Dante's request, Casella
+began to sing, and the enchanted spirits were scattered only by the
+chiding voice of Cato.
+
+Vergil surveyed the insurmountable height before them, and hastened with
+Dante to inquire the way of a troop of souls coming towards them. As they
+talked, Dante recognized one, blond and smiling, with a gash over one
+eyebrow and another over his heart. It was Manfredi, King of Apulia and
+Sicily, who was slain at Benevento by Charles of Anjou, and, being under
+excommunication, was not allowed Christian burial. He asked Dante to make
+him happy by telling his daughter that by faith he was saved from eternal
+destruction, but because of his sins he must spend thirty times the time
+that his presumption had endured at the foot of the mount, unless his time
+was shortened by the righteous prayers of his friends on earth.
+
+It was with the greatest difficulty that the poets clambered up the steep
+and narrow path to the next terrace, and only the assurance that the
+ascent would grow easier as he neared the summit sustained Dante. As
+Vergil explained to him while resting on the next terrace that the sun
+appeared on his left because Purgatory and Jerusalem were in different
+hemispheres, some one spoke, and turning they saw a group of persons in an
+attitude of indolence, among them a Florentine acquaintance, Belacqua, a
+maker of musical instruments, who sat waiting the length of another
+lifetime for admission above because he had postponed conversion from time
+to time, through negligence.
+
+Proceeding, the poets met a concourse of souls who had suffered violent
+death, chanting the Miserere, who perceiving Dante to be living, sent
+messages to their friends on earth. Among these were Giacopo del Cassero
+and Buonconte di Montefeltro, son of Dante's friend, Guido di Montefeltro,
+who fell in the battle of Campaldino, in which Dante had taken part.
+Wounded in the neck, he fell, and had just time to breathe a prayer to
+Mary, thus saving his soul from the Evil One, who was so incensed that,
+raising a great storm, he caused the rivers to overflow and sweep away the
+lifeless body, tearing from it the cross he had made with his arms in his
+last agony, and burying it in the mire of the Arno. The third shade bade
+him think of her when, returned home, he sang of his journey. She was Pia,
+born at Sienna, who died at Maremma, by the hand of her husband.
+
+Dante at last managed to escape from these shades, who implored him to ask
+for prayers for them on earth, and moved on with Vergil until they met the
+haughty shade of Sordello, who clasped Vergil in his arms when he learned
+he was a Mantuan. Touched by this expression of love for his native land,
+Dante launched into an apostrophe to degenerate Italy, to that German
+Albert who refused to save the country groaning under oppression, and to
+lost Florence, torn by internecine wars.
+
+When Sordello learned that the Mantuan shade was Vergil, he humbled
+himself before him, and paid him reverence, asking eagerly in what part of
+the underworld he dwelt. The sun was sinking, and as the poets could not
+ascend by night, he urged them to pass the night with him. Leading them to
+a vale carpeted with emerald grass and brilliant with flowers, he pointed
+out the shades singing "Salve Regina" as the Emperor Rudolph,--he who made
+an effort to heal sick Italy,--Philip III. of France, Charles I. of
+Naples, and Henry III. of England. As the hour of twilight approached,
+that hour in which the sailor thinks of home, and the pilgrim thrills at
+the sound of vesper bells, Dante beheld a shade arise, and lifting its
+palms begin to sing the vesper hymn. Soon two radiant angels clad in
+delicate green descended from Heaven, holding flaming swords. These,
+Sordello explained, were to keep off the serpent that threatened this fair
+vale at night.
+
+As the hour of night approached in which the swallow laments its woes,
+Dante fell asleep on the grass and dreamed that he was Ganymede snatched
+from Mt. Ida by Jove's eagle. Awaking, he found himself alone with Vergil
+in a strange place, with the sun two hours high. Lucia, symbolical of the
+enlightening grace of Heaven, had conveyed him to the spot and pointed out
+to Vergil the gate of Purgatory. Cheered and confident, he rose, and they
+went together to the portal and mounted the three steps, the first of
+shining white marble, the second of purple stone, cracked and burnt, and
+the third of flaming red porphyry. There, on the diamond threshold, sat an
+angel with a naked sword, clad in a robe of ashen gray, whose face was too
+bright to look upon. When Dante fell on his knees and implored entrance,
+the angel imprinted on his forehead seven "P"'s for the seven sins
+(Peccata), and opening the gate with the gold and silver keys, ushered
+them into the mighty portals. "From Peter I have these keys. Me he
+instructed to err rather in opening than in keeping shut. But see that ye
+look not behind, or ye will at once return."
+
+With much difficulty the two poets ascended the steep and winding path,
+and paused to view the wonderful sculptures on the embankment, that would
+put Nature herself to shame, so natural were they. Many examples of
+Humility were there portrayed,--the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ark, drawn by
+oxen, the Psalmist dancing before the Lord, while Michal looked forth in
+scorn from her palace window, and Trajan, yielding to the widow's prayer.
+As they stood there, the souls came in sight. "Reader, attend not to the
+fashion of the torment, but think of what follows." The unhappy ones crept
+around the terrace, bowed under a heavy burden of stones, and the most
+patient, as he bent under his burden, exclaimed, with tears, "I can do no
+more!" As they walked they repeated the Lord's Prayer, and kept their eyes
+fixed on the life-like sculptures on the floor of those who had suffered
+before them for the sins of pride: Lucifer, falling from Heaven; Briareus
+and Nimrod overcome by the bolts of Jove; Niobe, weeping among her dead
+children; Cyrus's head taunted by Tomyris; Troy humbled in ashes.
+
+As Vergil approached the penitents to inquire the way to the next terrace,
+he and Dante were invited to join the procession and talk with one who
+could not lift his face enough to see them. This was Omberto, who had been
+slain by the Siennese for his unbearable pride. Dante also talked with his
+friend Oderigi, an illuminator of manuscript, who now humbly acknowledged
+that he was far surpassed by Franco Bolognese. "What is mundane glory?" he
+exclaimed, as he pointed out Provenzano Salvani, with whose fame Tuscany
+once rang, but who barely escaped Hell by his voluntary humiliation for a
+friend. "Lift up thy face!" commanded Vergil, as Dante walked with his
+head bowed, absorbed in the floor-sculptures; and as he looked, the
+white-robed angel whose face was like "a tremulous flame" approached, and
+struck Dante's forehead with his wings. Dante marvelled at the ease with
+which he mounted, until his master explained that the heaviest sin, the
+sin that underlies all others, had fallen from him when the angel struck
+the "P" from his forehead, and that the ascent would grow still lighter
+from terrace to terrace. "Blessed are the poor in spirit!" sung by sweet
+voices, greeted the mounting poets.
+
+The second terrace was of livid stone unrelieved by any sculpture. The air
+was full of voices inculcating charity and self-denial, and others
+lamenting the sin of envy. Here envy was punished, and here the sharpest
+pain pierced Dante's heart as he saw the penitents sit shoulder to
+shoulder against the cliff, robed in sackcloth of the same livid color,
+their eyelids, through which bitter tears trickled, sewed together with
+wire. Sapia of Sienna first greeted Dante and entreated him to pray for
+her. When she had told how, after having been banished from her city, she
+had prayed that her townsman might be defeated by the Florentines, Dante
+passed on and spoke with Guido of Duca, who launched into an invective
+against Florence to his companion Rinieri. "The whole valley of the Arno
+is so vile that its very name should die. Wonder not at my tears, Tuscan,
+when I recall the great names of the past, and compare them with the curs
+who have fallen heir to them. Those counts are happiest who have left no
+families." Guido himself was punished on this terrace because of his envy
+of every joyous man, and the spirit with whom he talked was Rinieri, whose
+line had once been highly honored. "Go, Tuscan," exclaimed Guido, "better
+now I love my grief than speech." As the poets passed on, the air was
+filled with the lamentations of sinful but now repentant spirits.
+
+Dazzled by the Angel's splendor, the poets passed up the stairs to the
+third terrace, Dante in the mean time asking an explanation of Guido's
+words on joint resolve and trust.
+
+"The less one thinks of another's possessions," replied his guide, "and
+the more he speaks of 'our' instead of 'my,' the more of the Infinite Good
+flows towards him. If you thirst for further instruction, await the coming
+of Beatrice."
+
+As they attained the next height, Dante, rapt in vision, saw the sweet
+Mother questioning her Son in the Temple, saw Pisistratus, his queen, and
+the martyred Stephen blessing his enemies in death. As he awoke, they
+passed on, to become involved in a thick cloud of smoke, through which it
+was impossible to distinguish any object, and whose purpose was to purge
+away anger, the sin-cloud that veils the mortal eye.
+
+As they passed from the thick smoke into the sunset, Dante fell into a
+trance, and saw Itys, Haman, and other notable examples of unbridled
+angers, and as the visions faded away, was blinded by the splendor of the
+angel guide who directed them to the fourth terrace. As they waited for
+the dawn, Vergil answered Dante's eager questions. "Love," he said, "is
+the seed of every virtue, and also of every act for which God punished
+man. Natural love is without error; but if it is bent on evil aims, if it
+lacks sufficiency, or if it overleaps its bounds and refuses to be
+governed by wise laws, it causes those sins that are punished on this
+mount. The defective love which manifests itself as slothfulness is
+punished on this terrace."
+
+A troop of spirits rushed past them as morning broke, making up by their
+haste for the sloth that had marked their lives on earth. As they hurried
+on they urged themselves to diligence by cries of "In haste the mountains
+blessed Mary won!" "Caesar flew to Spain!" "Haste! Grace grows best in
+those who ardor feel!" As the poet meditated on their words, he lapsed
+into a dream in which he saw the Siren who drew brave mariners from their
+courses; and even as he listened to her melodious song, he beheld her
+exposed by a saint-like lady, Lucia, or Illuminating Grace. Day dawned,
+the Angel fanned the fourth "P" from his forehead, and the poet ascended
+to the fifth terrace, where lay the shades of the avaricious, prostrate on
+the earth, weeping over their sins. They who in life had resolutely turned
+their gaze from Heaven and fixed it on the things of the earth, must now
+grovel in the dust, denouncing avarice, and extolling the poor and liberal
+until the years have worn away their sin.
+
+Bending over Pope Adrian the Fifth, Dante heard his confession that he was
+converted while he held the Roman shepherd's staff. Then he learned how
+false a dream was life, but too late, alas! to escape this punishment. As
+Dante spoke with the shade of Capet the elder, a mighty trembling shook
+the mountain, which chilled his heart until he learned from the shade of
+Statius, whom they next met, that it was caused by the moving upward of a
+purified soul, his own, that had been undergoing purgation on this terrace
+five hundred years and more. "Statius was I," said the shade, "and my
+inspiration came from that bright fountain of heavenly fire, the Aeneid;
+it was my mother; to it I owe my fame. Gladly would I have added a year to
+my banishment here, could I have known the Mantuan." Vergil's glance said
+"Be mute!" but Dante's smile betrayed the secret, and Statius fell at
+Vergil's feet adoring. Statius had suffered for the sin of prodigality,
+which was punished, together with avarice, on this terrace.
+
+The three proceeded upward to the sixth terrace, the ascent growing easier
+on the disappearance of the "P" of avarice from Dante's forehead. Vergil
+and Statius moved on in loving conversation, Dante reverently following.
+"Your Pollio led me to Christianity," said Statius, "but my cowardice
+caused me long to conceal it. Prodigality brought me hither."
+
+On the sixth terrace two trees stood in opposite parts of the pathway that
+the gluttons were compelled to tread, the first with branches broad at the
+top and tapering downward, so that it was impossible to mount it; upon it
+fell a fount of limpid water. From its branches a voice cried, "Of this
+food ye shall have a scarcity. In the primal age, acorns furnished sweet
+food and each rivulet seemed nectar." Towards the next tree, grown from a
+twig of the tree of knowledge, the gluttons stretched eager hands, but a
+voice cried, "Pass on; approach not!" Such desire for food was excited by
+these tempting fruits, that the gluttons were emaciated beyond
+recognition. By his voice alone did Dante recognize his kinsman Forese,
+whose time in Purgatory had been shortened by the prayers of his wife
+Nella. Forese talked with Dante for a while on the affairs of Florence,
+and predicted the fall of his brother Corso Donati.
+
+The dazzling splendor of the angel of the seventh terrace warned them of
+his approach, and, lightened of one more "P," Dante and his companions
+climbed to where two bands of spirits, lascivious on earth, moved through
+paths of purifying flames, stopping as they passed to greet each other,
+and singing penitential hymns. Here, Statius explained to Dante why the
+shades of the sixth terrace were lean from want of food when they
+possessed no longer their physical bodies. "After death the soul keeps its
+memory, intelligence, and will more active than before, and as soon as it
+reaches either the banks of Acheron or the Tiber, a shade form is attached
+to it which acquires the soul's semblance, and has every sense given it,
+even that of sight."
+
+Guido Guinicelli, from out the flame-furnace, explained to Dante the
+punishments of the terrace: "Thus are our base appetites burned out that
+we may enjoy future happiness," and Arnaud the Troubadour, hating his past
+follies, weeping and singing, implored Dante's prayers. It was only by
+telling him that the fire lay between him and Beatrice that Vergil
+prevailed on Dante to walk into the flames, which, though they tortured
+him by the intensity of their heat, did not consume even his garments. As
+they left the fire, the sun was setting, and they passed the night on the
+steps of the next terrace, Statius and Vergil watching Dante as the
+goatherds watch their flocks. In a dream the sleeping poet saw Leah,
+symbolical of the active life, in contrast to her sister Rachel, of
+contemplative life. On waking, Vergil told him that he would accompany him
+further, but not as a guide; henceforth his own free will must lead him.
+"Crowned, mitred, now thyself thou 'lt rule aright."
+
+Dense green were the heavenly woodlands of the terrestrial paradise; sweet
+were the bird songs, as sweet the songs of the whispering foliage; and on
+the pleasant mead, beyond the dimpling waters of a stream so small that
+three paces would span it, walked a beautiful lady, Matilda, gathering
+flowers and singing an enchanting melody. At Dante's request, she came
+nearer, and explained to him that God had created the terrestrial paradise
+from which man was banished by his fault alone. To vex him it was raised
+to this height. Its atmosphere was not that of the earth below, but given
+it from the free sphere of ether. Here every plant had its origin; here
+each river had its virtue; Lethe destroyed the memory of sin; Eunoe
+restored to the mind the memory of things good.
+
+As they talked, Hosannas were heard, and in the greatest splendor appeared
+the Car of the Church Triumphant. First came the seven golden
+candlesticks; following them, many people in resplendent white garments;
+next, the four and twenty elders, lily crowned--the twenty-four books of
+the Old Testament--singing to Beatrice "O blessed Thou!" Then four
+six-winged, many-eyed living creatures described both by Ezekiel and John
+surrounded the massive car drawn by the Gryphon, emblem of our Lord in his
+divine and human nature, white, gold, and vermilion-hued, part lion, part
+eagle, whose wings pierced the heavens.
+
+Three maidens, red, emerald, and white, the Theological Virtues, Faith,
+Hope, and Charity, danced at the right wheel of the car; four clad in
+purple, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, walked at the left
+wheel. With them came two old men, Luke and Paul; then four together,
+James, Peter, John, and Jude, and last an aged man walking in slumber,
+Saint John, writer of the Revelation. These last were crowned with red
+roses and other tinted flowers. With a crash as of thunder, the car
+stopped before Dante, and a hundred angels, chanting, showered on it roses
+and lilies. In the midst of the shower, Beatrice descended, clad in a
+crimson robe, with a green mantle and a white veil, and crowned with an
+olive wreath. Thrilling with his ancient love, Dante turned to Vergil to
+sustain him, but Vergil was gone. As he looked again, her eyes, less
+severe from the veil that enveloped her, were fixed on him as she rebuked
+him, and he was sustained only by the compassion in the sweet voices of
+the angels, which soothed him until the tears rained down his cheeks.
+
+After her death, when she had arisen from flesh to spirit, Beatrice
+complained that her influence was dimmed, and that he had sought such
+depths that she had been compelled to go to the gates of hell to implore
+Vergil to bring him hither that he might learn his future sufferings if he
+did not repent. As he answered her, blaming the things that had led him
+aside with joys deceitful, he tried to gaze into her eyes, but stung with
+penitential thorns, fell senseless to the ground. Matilda, who stood by,
+seized him and plunged him into the river Lethe, that he might forget his
+past sin. Dripping, he was given to the four lovely maidens, who led him
+before Beatrice that he might look into her eyes, fixed on the Gryphon. A
+thousand longings held him fast while, "weary from ten years' thirsting,"
+he gazed upon her lovely eyes, now unveiled in their full splendor.
+Reproached at last by the seven virtues for his too intent gaze, Dante
+watched the car move on to the Tree of Knowledge, to which its pole was
+attached by the Gryphon. Dante, lulled to sleep by the hymn, was aroused
+by Matilda, who pointed out to him the radiant Beatrice, sitting under a
+tree surrounded by the bright forms of her attendants. The other
+attendants of the car had followed the Gryphon to the skies.
+
+"Observe the car," said Beatrice, "and write what thou hast seen when thou
+returnest home." As she spoke, the car was attacked in turn by the eagle
+of persecution, the fox of heresy, and the dragon of Islamism; these
+driven away, it was disturbed by inward dissensions, the alliance between
+Boniface and Philip the Fair.
+
+Rising, Beatrice called Dante, Statius, and Matilda to her, and as they
+walked upon that pleasant mead, she asked Dante the meaning of his
+continued silence. She explained the attacks on the chariot to him, but he
+declared that he could not understand her language. Then, at Beatrice's
+nod, Matilda called him and Statius, and plunged them into Eunoe, whence
+he rose regenerate, and prepared to mount to the stars.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PARADISE.
+
+
+The Paradise of Dante consists of nine heavens, each a revolving
+crystalline sphere, enclosed in another; without them, the boundless
+Empyrean. The first or innermost heaven, of the Moon, revolved by the
+angels, is the habitat of wills imperfect through instability. The second,
+of Mercury, revolved by the Archangels, is the abode of wills imperfect
+through love of fame. The third, of Venus, revolved by the Principalities,
+is the abode of wills imperfect through excess of human love. The fourth,
+of the Sun, revolved by the Powers, is the abode of the great intellectual
+lights, the doctors of the Church. The fifth heaven, of Mars, revolved by
+the Virtues, is the abode of the martyrs, warriors, and confessors, and is
+sacred to the Faith. The sixth, of Jupiter, revolved by the Dominations,
+is inhabited by just rulers. The seventh, of Saturn, revolved by the
+Thrones, is inhabited by monks and hermits. The eighth, of the Fixed
+Stars, revolved by the Cherubim, is inhabited by the apostles and saints.
+The ninth, or Primum Mobile, revolved by the Seraphim, is the abode of the
+moral philosophers. These abodes, however, are not real, but
+representative, to illustrate the differences in glory of the inhabitants
+of Paradise, for the real seat of each is in the Rose of the Blessed. In
+the heavens, the saints appear swathed in cocoons of light; in the Rose
+they are seen in their own forms. They know all because they behold God
+continually. In the Empyrean is the Rose of the Blessed, whose myriad
+leaves form the thrones of the spirits, and whose centre of light is the
+Father himself. Dividing the Rose horizontally, the lower thrones are held
+by those who died in infancy; among them are varying degrees of glory.
+Above it, are those who died adults. Supposing a vertical division, the
+thrones to the left are for those who looked forward to Christ's coming;
+those to the right, not yet all occupied, by those who died after Christ's
+coming. Along the division lines are the holy women, the Virgin, Eve,
+Rachel, Beatrice, Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth, Saint Anne and Saint
+Lucia, and the saints, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Adam, Moses,
+Saint Francis, Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine, Saint Peter, and in the
+midst, the Everlasting Glory of the Universe, whose light so fills the
+Rose that "naught can form an obstacle against it."
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+THE PARADISE.
+
+
+The ascent to Paradise was accomplished by a fixed gaze into Beatrice's
+eyes, by which Dante, like Glaucus, was made divine, and by which he was
+lifted, with incredible swiftness, through the heavens. As soon as he had
+fixed his eyes on Beatrice's, who in turn looked towards heaven, they
+found themselves in the Heaven of the Moon, whose luminous yet pearl-like
+light enfolded them. While Beatrice was explaining to him that the spots
+on the moon were not caused by the varying degrees of atmospheric density,
+as he had supposed, but by the Divine Virtue infused in divine measure
+through the angelic dwellers in the first heaven, he met Piccarda, his
+sister-in-law, whose brother, Corso Donati, had torn her from her convent
+to wed her to Rosselin della Tosa, soon after which she died. Here also
+was Costanza, daughter of Roger I. of Sicily, grandmother of that Manfredi
+whom he had seen in Purgatory. Here Beatrice instructed Dante as to the
+imperfection of those wills that held not to their vows, but allowed
+violence to thwart them.
+
+Another look into the smiling eyes, and the two were in the Heaven of
+Mercury, where those wills abide in whom love of fame partly extinguished
+love of God. One of the thousand splendors that advanced towards them was
+the soul of the Emperor Justinian, who reviewed the Empire, the Church,
+condemning severely the behavior of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and told
+of the spirits who inhabited the little planet, whose lives were sweetened
+by living justice, and whose ears were gladdened by the sweetest
+harmonies.
+
+Dante was unaware of his ascent into, Venus, where dwelt those souls who
+were lovers on earth, until he perceived Beatrice's added beauty. Amid
+revolving lights Charles Martel of Hungary appeared, denounced his brother
+Robert of Sicily, and instructed Dante on the subjects of heredity and
+degeneracy; that "sweet seed can come bitter" because the influence of the
+star under which the child is born can counteract that of the parent, and
+because his state is not always adapted to him by his parents and
+advisers.
+
+In the sphere of the Sun, consecrated to the great doctors of divinity,
+Beatrice became still more beautiful; but so absorbed was the poet in the
+love for the Eternal Source of all this splendor that for the first time
+he forgot her. Out of the whirling lights, shining like precious jewels,
+came Saint Thomas Aquinas, who pointed out to Dante his noted companions,
+Gratian, Peter Lombard, Solomon, Dionysius, Boethius, and Baeda. Thomas
+then related the story of Saint Francis of Assisi and the founding of his
+order of the Franciscans, upon which Saint Bonaventura of the Franciscans,
+from the next flame garland, told of Saint Dominic and the Dominican
+order. Alas! while both orders were great in the beginning, both narrators
+had to censure their present corruption.
+
+The array of brilliant lights, dividing itself, formed into two disks
+which, revolving oppositely, sang the praises of the Trinity. The song of
+praise finished, Saint Thomas explained that Solomon was elevated to this
+sphere for his wisdom and his regal prudence, and warned Dante against the
+error of rash judgment.
+
+The splendor of Mars was almost blinding; it was ruddier than the others,
+and in it dwelt the souls of the crusaders and martyrs. While Dante's ears
+were ravished by exquisite music, his eyes were dazzled by the lights,
+which had arranged themselves in the form of a cross. From out the
+splendor, one star saluted Dante. It was the soul of his ancestor
+Cacciaguida, who had waited long for the coming of his descendant. He
+related to Dante the story of his life, commenting on the difference
+between the simple life of the Florentines of his day and the corrupt
+practices of Dante's time, and broke to the poet what had already been
+darkly hinted to him in Hell and Purgatory,--his banishment; how he must
+depart from Florence and learn how salt is the bread of charity, how
+wearisome the stairs in the abode of the stranger.
+
+As Cacciaguida ceased and pointed out the other well-known dwellers in
+Mars, each one on the cross flashed as his name was called,--Joshua, Judas
+Maccabeus, Charlemagne and Roland, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert Guiscard,
+and others.
+
+In Jupiter, whose whiteness contrasted with the ruddiness of Mars, dwelt
+the souls of great rulers, certain of whom arranged themselves first to
+form the golden letters of _Diligite Justitiam qui judicatis terram_
+("Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth"), and then formed
+themselves into the Roman eagle and sang of the justice and mercy that
+caused their elevation to this position, and of events about to occur in
+history.
+
+Had Beatrice smiled as they ascended to Saturn, Dante would have perished
+as did Semele, from excess of light. In Saturn dwelt the spirits of the
+contemplative, the monks and hermits, and here was Jacob's ladder, up and
+down whose bars of gold sparkled the spirits of the saints, silent for the
+same reason that Beatrice smiled not. By divine election, Saint Peter
+Damian descended and spoke with Dante, accusing the churchmen of the time
+of worldliness and luxury. "Cephas and our Lord came on earth barefoot and
+poorly clad, but these men are covered with gorgeous raiment and ride upon
+sleek palfreys." As he closed, a thunder cry of approval went up from the
+other saints.
+
+Up the wonderful ladder passed Dante and his lady into the eighth heaven
+of the Fixed Stars, and looking down saw the little earth and the starry
+heavens through which they had passed. Then, as Beatrice paused with her
+face all aflame, and her eyes full of ecstasy, down came the hosts of
+Christ's triumphal march, and within the living light, which dazzled
+Dante's eyes until he could not see, also appeared Mary, mother of God,
+crowned by Gabriel, rising into the Empyrean. Of those who remained
+behind, Beatrice asked that Dante be sprinkled with the waters of the
+living Fountain; and while they gave their consent, Saint Peter appeared
+as a fire whirling ecstatically, and singing a divine song. He examined
+the trembling poet on faith, and his questions being answered
+satisfactorily, encircled him thrice with his light. Saint James, who next
+came forth, was likewise pleased with his response on Hope, and he was
+then blinded by the effulgence of John, so that for a time he could not
+see the face of his lady.
+
+Of Love he spoke with John, and then talked with Adam. As he listened to
+the strains of richest melody, he noticed one of the lights--Saint
+Peter--change from white to red, and then, as silence fell, speak, enraged
+at the worldliness of the Holy See. "My cemetery has been made a sewer of
+blood and stench. When thou returnest to earth, reveal what thou hast
+heard. Do not thou conceal what I have not concealed."
+
+Commanded by Beatrice, Dante looked back at earth once more, and as he
+looked, was carried up into the heaven of the Primum Mobile, where dwelt
+the moral philosophers. Here the angelic spirits circled round the point
+of intense light, the divine centre. The nearer God was the circle, the
+greater virtue it possessed. This order was inverse to that of the
+heavens, but Dante learned from Beatrice that the orbs revolved through
+narrow paths or wide according to the virtue of their parts, and that a
+strict agreement of harmony prevailed between the great and the small. The
+angel and the heavens were created simultaneously, and, as direct
+emanations from God, know no decay. Of this and many things concerning the
+Creation, did Beatrice enlighten Dante before the beauty of her smile told
+him that they were in the Empyrean. "Now shall thou look upon the mighty
+hosts of Paradise."
+
+The poet's dazzled eyes saw then a river of light from which issued living
+sparks sunk down into the flowers like rubies set in gold. Instructed by
+Beatrice he drank of the stream and the river changed into a lake; then he
+saw the Courts of Heaven made manifest, and the splendor of God. The ample
+Rose unfolded its leaves before him, breathing praise and perfume, and as
+he gazed into it Beatrice pointed out the radiant spirits and the thronged
+seats, one of which was reserved for the Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, from
+whom Dante expected so much, and who died before aught was accomplished.
+As Dante gazed, the hosts with wings of gold and faces of living flame,
+singing anthems, alternately sank into the Rose, like a swarm of bees
+sinking into summer flowers, and rose again to view the Divine splendor.
+Turning to question Beatrice again, Dante found in her place Saint Bernard
+of Clairvaux, an old man full of the tenderest pity, who pointed out to
+him Beatrice in her own place, the third round of the first rank. As from
+afar, Dante pleaded with the beautiful lady who had left her place in
+heaven to go even unto the gates of hell for his sake, to aid him still;
+she seemed to smile upon him before she again turned her gaze upon the
+Eternal Fountain of Light. Saint Bernard explained to the poet the
+divisions of the Rose and the seats of the saints, and then addressed a
+prayer to the Virgin, asking that Dante be permitted to look upon the
+Almighty Father. As he prayed, Beatrice and all the blessed ones clasped
+their hands to her who likes so well prayers of divine fervor. At a
+gesture from Bernard, the poet looked upward. Then what a radiant vision
+met his eyes! Three circles he saw of threefold color and one dimension.
+As he looked, one seemed to take our image, and again was lost in the
+infinite glory of the Light Divine. As he tried to describe it,
+imagination failed him, though his will remained, moving on with the even
+motion of the sun and stars.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+
+COUNT UGOLINO.
+
+
+In the frozen lake of Cocytus in the ninth circle of the Inferno, where
+were punished the traitors to kindred, country, friends, or benefactors,
+the poets beheld Count Ugolino, a Guelph, who, because of his treachery,
+was taken prisoner by the people with his sons and grandsons and thrust
+into a tower, where they were left to starve. Ugolino was frozen in the
+ice, where he forever gnawed the head of the Archbishop Ruggieri, his
+enemy. At the request of Dante he stopped to tell his story.
+
+                 "Thy will 'tis I renew
+    A desperate sorrow that doth crush my heart
+    Even before my lips its tale impart.
+  But if my words may be a seed that, sowed,
+    Shall fruit of infamy to this traitor bear,
+    Then, though I weep, speech too shall be my care.
+
+  "Who thou may'st be I know not, nor what mode
+    Hath brought thee here below, but then I glean,
+    From words of thine, thou art a Florentine.
+  That I Count Ugolino was, know thou,
+    And this the Archbishop Ruggieri. Why
+    I will thee tell we are such neighbors nigh.
+  Needs not to say that him I did allow
+    A friend's own trusts, but so his treachery wrought;
+    That first my liberty, then my life, it sought.
+
+  "But that which thou canst not have hitherto learned
+    That is, how cruel was my death, I thee
+    Will tell; judge thou if he offended me.
+  Within the Mew, a tower which well hath earned
+    From me its name of Famine, and where wrath
+    Yet others waits, a narrow opening hath,
+  Through which of several moons the broken light
+    Had strayed, when unto me in sleep was sent
+    A dream whereby the future's veil was rent.
+
+  "This ill dream me this man set forth in might:
+    He wolf and whelps upon those mounts pursued
+    Which Pisa 'twixt and Lucca's domes obtrude.
+  Hounds had he with him, lank and shrewd and keen,
+    And in their front Gualandi's sword had place,
+    Sismondi's lash and sour Lanfranchi's mace.
+  Father and sons' undoing soon was seen;
+    Methought the sharp fangs on them closed, and tore
+    Their flanks, which now the hue of crimson wore.
+
+  "Before the dawn I woke and heard my sons,
+    The helpless children with me, in their sleep,
+    Cry out for bread, cries pushed from sobbings deep.
+  Right cruel art thou, if not e'en now runs
+    To tears thy grief at what my heart forbode,
+    If tears of thine at misery's tale e'er flowed.
+  And then they woke, and came the hour around
+    Which had been wont our scanty meal to bring;
+    But from our dreams dumb terrors seemed to spring;
+
+  "When from below we heard the dreadful sound
+    Of nails; the horrible tower was closed; all dumb
+    I let my gaze into my sons' eyes come.
+  Weep I did not, like stone my feelings lay.
+    They wept, and spoke my little Anselm: 'Pray
+    Why lookest so? Father, what ails thee, say?'
+  Shed I no tear, nor answered all that day
+    Nor the next night, until another sun
+    His journey through the wide world had begun.
+
+  "Then came a small ray into our sad, sad den,
+    And when in their four faces I beheld
+    That carking grief which mine own visage held,
+  Mine hands for grief I bit, and they, who then
+    Deemed that I did it from desire to eat,
+    Stood up each one at once upon his feet,
+  And said: 'Father, 'twill give us much less pain
+    If thou wilt eat of us: of thee was born
+    This hapless flesh, and be it by thee torn.'
+
+  "Myself I calmed that they might not so grieve;
+    Mute that day and the next we were; O thou
+    Most cruel earth, that didst not open now!
+  When we the fourth day's agony did receive
+    Stretched at my feet himself my Gaddo threw,
+    And said: 'My father, canst thou nothing do?'
+  There died he, and, as now sees me thy sight,
+    The three I saw fall one by one; first died
+    One on the fifth; deaths two the sixth me tried.
+
+  "Then blind, I groped o'er them to left and right,
+    And for three days called on their spirits dead;
+    Then grief before the power of fasting fled."
+             _Wilstach's Translation, Inferno. Canto XXXIII._
+
+
+
+
+BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO.
+
+
+On the second terrace of the Ante-Purgatory, on the Purgatorial Mount,
+were the spirits of those whose lives were ended by violence. Among those
+who here addressed Dante was Buonconte di Montefeltro, who was slain in
+the battle of Campaldino, and whose body was never found.
+
+  Another then: "Ah, be thy cherished aim
+    Attained that to the lofty Mount thee draws,
+    As thou with pity shalt advance my cause.
+  Of Montefeltro I Buonconte am;
+    Giovanna, and she only, for me cares;
+    Hence among those am I whom waiting wears."
+
+  "What violence or what chance led thee so wide
+    From Campaldino," I of him inquired,
+    "That's still unknown thy burial-place retired?"
+  "Oh, Casentino's foot," he thus replied,
+    "Archiano's stream o'erflows, which hath its rise
+    Above the Hermitage under Apennine skies.
+  There where its name is lost did I arrive,
+    Pierced through and through the throat, in flight,
+    Upon the plain made with my life-blood bright;
+
+  "There sight I lost, and did for speech long strive;
+    At last I uttered Mary's name, and fell
+    A lifeless form, mine empty flesh a shell.
+  Truth will I speak, below do thou it hymn;
+    Took me God's Angel up, and he of Hell
+    Cried out: 'O thou from Heaven, thou doest well
+  To rob from me the eternal part of him
+    For one poor tear, that me of him deprives;
+    In other style I'll deal with other lives!'
+
+  "Well know'st thou how in air is gathered dim
+    That humid vapor which to water turns
+    Soon as the cold its rising progress learns.
+  The fiend that ill-will joined (which aye seeks ill)
+    To intellectual power, which mist and wind
+    Moved by control which faculties such can find,
+  And afterwards, when the day was spent, did fill
+    The space from Protomagno to where tower
+    The Mounts with fog; and high Heaven's covering power
+
+  "The pregnant atmosphere moist to water changed.
+    Down fell the rain, and to the ditches fled,
+    Whate'er of it the soil's thirst had not sped;
+  And, as it with the mingling torrents ranged
+    Towards the royal river, so it flowed
+    That over every obstacle wild it rode.
+  The robust river found my stiffened frame
+    Near to its outlet, and it gave a toss
+    To Arno, loosening from my breast the cross
+
+  "I made of me when agony me o'ercame;
+    Along his banks and bottoms he me lapped,
+    Then in his muddy spoils he me enwrapped."
+           _Wilstach's Translation, Purgatorio, Canto V._
+
+
+
+
+BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN.
+
+
+Dante and Vergil mounted to the Terrestial Paradise, where, while they
+talked with Matilda, the Car of the Church Triumphant appeared in the
+greatest splendor. As it stopped before Dante it was enveloped in a shower
+of roses from the hands of a hundred angels.
+
+  I have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale,
+    The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen,
+    And all the opposite heaven one gem serene,
+  And the uprising sun, beneath such powers
+    Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye
+    For a long space its fiery shield could try:
+
+  E'en so, embosomed in a cloud of flowers,
+    Which from those hands angelical upward played,
+    And roseate all the car triumphal made,
+  And showered a snow-white veil with olive bound,
+    Appeared a Lady, green her mantle, name
+    Could not describe her robe unless 't were flame.
+  And mine own spirit, which the past had found
+    Often within her presence, free from awe,
+    And which could never from me trembling draw,
+  And sight no knowledge giving me at this time,
+    Through hidden virtue which from her came forth,
+    Of ancient love felt now the potent worth.
+  As soon as on my vision smote sublime
+    The heavenly influence that, ere boyhood's days
+    Had fled, had thrilled me and awoke my praise,
+  Unto the leftward turned I, with that trust
+    Wherewith a little child his mother seeks,
+    When fear his steps controls, and tear-stained cheeks,
+
+  To say to Vergil: "All my blood such gust
+    Of feeling moves as doth man's bravery tame;
+    I feel the traces of the ancient flame."
+            _Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._
+
+
+
+
+THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF BEATRICE.
+
+
+While Dante and Beatrice rose from the Heaven of Primal Motion to the
+Empyrean, the poet turned his dazzled eyes from the heavens, whose sight
+he could no longer bear, to the contemplation of Beatrice.
+
+    Wherefore my love, and loss of other view,
+    Me back to Beatrice and her homage drew.
+  If what of her hath been already said
+    Were in one single eulogy grouped, 't would ill
+    Her meed of merit at this moment fill.
+
+  The beauty which in her I now beheld
+    B'yond mortals goes; her Maker, I believe,
+    Hath power alone its fulness to receive.
+  Myself I own by obstacles stronger spelled
+    Than in his labored theme was ever bard
+    Whose verses, light or grave, brought problems hard;
+  For, as of eyes quelled by the sun's bright burst,
+    E'en so the exquisite memory of that smile
+    Doth me of words and forming mind beguile.
+
+  Not from that day when on this earth I first
+    Her face beheld, up to this moment, song
+    Have I e'er failed to strew her path along,
+  But now I own my limping numbers lame;
+    An artist sometimes finds his powers surpassed,
+    And mine succumbs to beauty's lance at last.
+  And I must leave her to a greater fame
+    Than any that my trumpet gives, which sounds,
+    Now, hastening notes, which mark this labor's bounds.
+            _Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+Ludovico Ariosto, author of the Orlando Furioso was born in Reggio, Italy,
+Sept. 8, 1474. In 1503 he was taken into the service of the Cardinal
+Hippolito d'Este, and soon after began the composition of the Orlando
+Furioso, which occupied him for eleven years. It was published in 1516,
+and brought him immediate fame. Ariosto was so unkindly treated by his
+patron that he left him and entered the service of the cardinal's brother,
+Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. By him he was appointed governor of a province,
+in which position he repressed the banditti by whom it was infested, and
+after a successful administration of three years, returned to Ferrara to
+reside. The latter part of his life was spent in writing comedies and
+satires, and in revising the Orlando Furioso. He died in Ferrara, June 6,
+1533.
+
+The Orlando Furioso is a sequel to Boiardo's Orlando Innamorata, Ariosto
+taking up the story at the end of that poem. Its historical basis is the
+wars of Charlemagne with the Moors, which were probably confused with
+those of Charles Martel. As the Orlando of the poem is the same Roland
+whose fall at Roncesvalles in 778 is celebrated in the Song of Roland, its
+events must have occurred before that time.
+
+Although the poem is called Orlando Furioso, Orlando's madness occupies a
+very small part of it, the principal threads of the story being Orlando's
+love for Angelica and his consequent madness, the wars of Charlemagne, and
+the loves of Bradamant and Rogero. From this Rogero the family of Este
+claimed to be derived, and for this reason Ariosto made Rogero the real
+hero of the poem, and took occasion to lavish the most extravagant praises
+upon his patron and his family.
+
+With these principal threads are interwoven innumerable episodes which are
+not out of place in the epic, and lend variety to a story which would
+otherwise have become tiresome. The lightness of treatment, sometimes
+approaching ridicule, the rapidity of movement, the grace of style, and
+the clearness of language, the atmosphere created by the poet which so
+successfully harmonizes all his tales of magic and his occasional
+inconsistencies, and the excellent descriptions, have all contributed to
+the popularity of the poem, which is said to be the most widely read of
+the epics. These descriptions outweigh its faults,--the taking up the
+story of Boiardo without an explanation of the situation, the lack of
+unity, and the failure to depict character; for with the exception of
+Bradamant and Rogero, Ariosto's heroes and heroines are very much alike,
+and their conversation is exceedingly tiresome.
+
+The Furioso is written in the octave stanza, and originally consisted of
+forty cantos, afterwards increased to forty-six.
+
+The poem is the work of a practical poet, one who could govern a province.
+It is marred by an over-profusion of ornament, and contains no such lofty
+flights of fancy as are to be found in the Jerusalem Delivered. To this,
+no doubt, it owes, in part at least, its great popularity, for the poet's
+poem is never the people's poem.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+Dublin University Magazine, 1845, xxvi., 187-201, 581-601, xxvii., 90-104;
+
+Retrospective Review, 1823, viii., 145-170, ix., 263-291;
+
+William T. Dobson's Classic Poets, 1879, pp. 186-238;
+
+Leigh Hunt's Stories from the Italian Poets, n. d. vol. ii., pp. 134-151;
+
+William Hickling Prescott's Italian Narrative Poetry. (See his
+Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, 1873, pp. 441-454);
+
+M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
+Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 1835, pp. 239-255. (In Lardner's Cabinet
+Cyclopedia, vol. i.);
+
+John Addington Symonds's Italian Literature, 1888, vol. i., pp. 493-522,
+vol. ii. pp. 1-50.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+Orlando Furioso, Tr. from the Italian by Sir James Harrington, 1724;
+
+Orlando Furioso, Tr. by John Hoole, 1819;
+
+Orlando Furioso, Tr. into English verse by W. S. Rose, 2 vols., 1864-5.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+
+The Emperor Charlemagne was at war with the Moors and had camped near the
+Pyrenees with his host, determined to conquer their leaders, Marsilius of
+Spain and Agramant of Africa. To his camp came Orlando, the great paladin,
+with the beautiful Angelica, princess of Cathay, in search of whom he had
+roamed the world over. Orlando's cousin, Rinaldo, another of the great
+lords of Charlemagne, also loved Angelica, for he had seen her immediately
+after drinking of the Fountain of Love in the forest of Arden, and
+Charlemagne, fearing trouble between the cousins on her account, took
+Angelica from Orlando's tent and placed her in the care of Duke Namus of
+Bavaria.
+
+Angelica did not like Orlando and she loathed Rinaldo, for he had been the
+first to meet her after she had tasted the waters of the Fountain of Hate.
+So when the Christian forces were one day routed in battle and the tents
+forsaken, she leaped on her palfrey and fled into the forest. Here the
+first person she met was the hated Rinaldo; and fleeing from him she
+encountered the fierce Moor Ferrau, who, being also in love with her, drew
+his sword and attacked the pursuing paladin. But when the two discovered
+that Angelica had taken advantage of their duel to flee, they made peace
+and went in search of her.
+
+As she fled, Angelica met Sacripant, an eastern lover who had followed her
+to France, and put herself under his protection. But when Sacripant was
+first defeated by Bradamant and then engaged in battle with the pursuing
+Rinaldo, she deemed herself safer without him and fled; and presently a
+page appeared, a shade conjured there by a hermit magician whom Angelica
+had met, and announced to the warriors that Orlando had appeared and
+carried the maid to Paris.
+
+Rinaldo immediately hastened to Paris, to find Orlando absent and
+Charlemagne, defeated by the Moors, entrenching himself in the city and
+preparing to send to England for aid. Rinaldo must be his ambassador, and
+that without a day's delay.
+
+Frantic with jealousy, Rinaldo leaped into a ship in the midst of a storm,
+and hastened on his errand. Driven upon the coast of Scotland, he won the
+king's gratitude by saving his daughter Ginevra from shame and death, and
+secured from him a promise of all the horsemen and arms that could be
+spared. He was equally successful in England, and was soon reviewing the
+troops preparatory to their embarkation.
+
+The warrior maid, Bradamant, sister of Rinaldo, after overthrowing
+Sacripant, pursued her way through the forest in search of Rogero the
+pagan. They had met once in battle and had loved, and since then she had
+ever roamed through the land in search of him. In the forest she found
+Pinabel, lamenting because his beloved lady had been snatched from him by
+a wizard on a winged steed, and carried to an impregnable castle. Thither
+he had seen many warriors conveyed, among them Rogero and Gradasso,
+conquered first by the lance and then thrown into profound slumber by the
+glare of a magic shield carried by the wizard.
+
+Bradamant, anxious to save Rogero, offered to rescue Pinabel's lady if he
+would guide her to the castle. But when the treacherous knight learned
+that she was Bradamant, between whose house and his there was a deadly
+feud, he planned to slay her, and soon, by his treachery, managed to hurl
+her down a precipice.
+
+Bradamant was only stunned by the fall, however, and soon awoke, to find
+herself at the entrance of a cave, which was the tomb of Merlin. Melissa,
+the prophetess maid, welcomed her, assured her that Rogero should be her
+spouse, and showed her their phantom descendants, brave princes and
+beautiful princesses of the house of Este. She then told her that
+Brunello, a knight of King Agramant, was hastening to the castle to
+release the prisoners by means of a magic ring, formerly the property of
+Angelica, which when put in the mouth would render one invisible, and,
+worn on the finger, made one proof against magic spells. Bradamant must
+overcome Brunello, wrest the ring from him, and herself free Rogero.
+
+Following Melissa's advice, Bradamant overtook Brunello, seized the ring,
+and hastening to the castle, challenged Atlantes to battle. When he
+displayed the shield she pretended to become unconscious; but when he ran
+up to bind her she sprang up and seized him. He declared that he had
+imprisoned Rogero, his nephew, only to save him from the fate foretold by
+the stars, death by treachery at the hands of the Christians, and had
+brought the other knights and ladies there for his entertainment. Then
+Atlantes broke the spell and disappeared, together with the castle, and
+the prisoners trooped forth, Rogero among them.
+
+Bradamant was happy, but alas! only for a moment; for as she and Rogero
+went down the mountain together he thoughtlessly leaped on the hippogrif,
+which alighted near him, and the winged steed, refusing his control, rose
+in the air, leaving the tearful Bradamant behind. The hippogrif flew
+rapidly over land and sea until it was directly above a small island, upon
+which it descended. Rogero sprang from its back, tied it to a myrtle tree,
+and, weary from his three thousand mile ride in heavy armor, prepared to
+drink from a rippling spring. The groves were of cedar, laurel, palm, and
+myrtle; roses and lilies filled the air with their perfume, and the wild
+stag and timid hare ran fearlessly through the groves. As he stooped to
+drink he heard a voice issuing from the myrtle to which he had tied the
+hippogrif. It was that of Astolpho, the English knight, who told him that
+the greater part of the island was under the control of Alcina the
+enchantress, who had left only a small portion to her sister Logistilla,
+to whom it all rightfully belonged. He himself had been enticed thither by
+Alcina, who had loved him for a few weeks, and then, serving him as she
+did all her lovers, had transformed him to a tree.
+
+Rogero determined to profit by this advice; but when he was driven from
+the narrow path to Logistilla's domain and met Alcina he fell under the
+power of her beauty, and thought Astolpho a traducer. The days passed so
+gayly in her beautiful home that Rogero forgot the pagan cause, forgot his
+duty, forgot Bradamant, and was roused from his lethargy only by Melissa,
+to whom Bradamant had given the magic ring to enable her to find and
+rescue her lover. Melissa found the young knight when apart from Alcina,
+and gave him the ring that he might with it be enabled to see the
+enchantress in her true form. She then instructed him how to escape and
+seek the kingdom of Logistilla. Rogero was disgusted when the beautiful
+enchantress appeared as a hideous, wrinkled old woman, but concealing his
+change of feeling, waited until the opportunity presented itself to get
+his armor, take a steed, and pass by the warders of the gate. With great
+difficulty he reached a stream which separated Alcina's lands from those
+of Logistilla, and while ferrying across was overtaken by the boats of
+Alcina. With the help of Atlantes' shield, they were overcome, and Alcina
+was forced to depart, weeping, with only one boat, while Rogero entered
+the castle of the fairy Logistilla, from whom he learned many noble
+lessons.
+
+Here came the other knights freed from Alcina's enchantment by Melissa,
+and Melissa herself with Astolpho, on the hippogrif, which she had learned
+to control. Astolpho was in his own armor and bore his wondrous spear,
+which had the power of overthrowing every one whom it so much as touched.
+
+After a short rest among the pleasant gardens of Logistilla, Rogero
+departed on the hippogrif, and although anxious to see his Bradamant
+again, took the opportunity to pass over all the known world by this novel
+method of travel. He saw the troops in England gathering to go to the aid
+of Charlemagne, and rescued the beautiful Angelica, who had been taken by
+pirates and sold to the people of Ebuda, who chained her upon a rock as a
+victim for the orc. Rogero put the orc to sleep with his magic shield,
+giving Angelica the ring that the sight of the shield might not affect her
+as well. But when, charmed by the maid, he became too lover-like in his
+attentions, she put the ring in her mouth and disappeared. The angry
+Rogero turned, only to find that his hippogrif had broken its rein and was
+gone. Hastening through the forest, vexed with himself and the maiden, he
+fancied he saw 'Bradamant carried off by a giant, and following her,
+entered a magic castle of Atlantes, where he spent his days vainly trying
+to overtake his beloved and her captor.
+
+Orlando could think only of his lost Angelica; and forgetful of the fact
+that his uncle Charlemagne was sorely pressed by the heathen, he stole
+from the camp one night in disguise, and went in search of her. Passing
+the isle of Ebuda he slew the ore, rescued Olympia, who was exposed as its
+victim, avenged her wrongs, and continued on his way until he reached the
+castle of Atlantes, and, fancying he saw Angelica, entered, and began the
+mad round of pursuit with many other Christian and pagan knights who were
+rendered unconscious of one another's presence by the magic of the wizard.
+
+Hither came Angelica, invisible by means of the ring, to find a knight to
+protect her on her way to Cathay. Unfortunately as she showed herself to
+Sacripant, she was seen by Ferrau and Orlando, and all three pursued her
+from the castle. When they were sufficiently removed from it Angelica
+slipped the ring in her mouth and disappeared, and Ferrau and Orlando
+began to quarrel about Orlando's helmet, which the Moor was determined to
+win and wear. As Ferrau wore no helm until he could win Orlando's, that
+paladin hung his on a tree while they fought. Unseen by them, Angelica
+took it down, intending to restore it to Orlando later, and slipped away.
+When the knights discovered her absence they went in search of her, and
+Ferrau, coming upon her, took the helmet as she disappeared in fright.
+Orlando, assuming another crest, which he did not need, as his body was
+charmed and could not be hurt by any weapon, went forward, still in search
+of his love, and on the way encountered and almost totally destroyed two
+squadrons of Moors, and rescued from a robber's cave the beautiful Isabel,
+betrothed of Zerbino.
+
+Melissa returned to Bradamant with the news that while Rogero was freed
+from the enchantment of Aleina, he was imprisoned in Atlantes' castle,
+from which she herself could rescue him by slaying the wizard, who would
+appear to her in the form of her lover. Bradamant resolved to do so; but
+when she saw the seeming Rogero set upon by two giants, she forgot her
+resolution, believed Melissa to be false, and spurring after him, became a
+prisoner in that wondrous castle, through which day and night she pursued
+her ever-fleeing lover.
+
+When the Moors discovered the destruction of the two squadrons,
+Mandricardo, the Tartar king, determined to seek and do battle with the
+knight (unknown to him by name) who had wrought such destruction. The
+Tartar wore the arms of Hector save the sword, which was the property of
+Orlando, and until he gained it, he bore no weapon save the lance. With
+this, however, he stormed through the battlefield, striking terror to the
+hearts of all. With it alone, he destroyed a band of men conveying to
+Rodomont, the Saracen chief, his betrothed bride, Doralice, and won the
+maid for himself.
+
+Outside Paris raged the infidel, chief among them the giant King Rodomont.
+Smiting those of his troops who hesitated to mount the scaling ladders, he
+waded through the wet moat, scaled the first wall, leaped the dry ditch,
+mounted the second wall, and ran alone through the city, spreading terror,
+death, and fire, while Charlemagne, ignorant of his presence, was busied
+in the defence of one of the gates against Agramant.
+
+Now Rinaldo's army approached, unsuspected by the heathen, because of the
+aid of Silence, summoned by Saint Michael. Through these, welcomed by
+Charlemagne, Rodomont cut his way, hewing down fifteen or twenty foes at
+once, and, casting himself into the Seine, escaped, angry that he had not
+succeeded in destroying the city.
+
+Discord, also summoned by Michael to the aid of the Christians, informed
+Rodomont on his return to the camp of the capture of Doralice, and the
+chief set forth raging, in search of Mandricardo, thoughtlessly abandoning
+King Agramant, struggling against the English re-inforcements. As night
+fell on a furious battle, the Moors were driven back, and Charlemagne
+pitched his tents without the city, opposite those of the Moors.
+
+In the Moorish camp were two youths who loved one another with a love
+passing wonderful, Medoro and Cloridan. Both served Dardinello, and had
+crossed the sea with him. As they stood on guard that night they talked of
+their lord's death on the field that day, and Medoro suggested that they
+go in search of his body and bury it. Cloridan agreed, and they crept
+through the sleeping lines of the Christians, slaughtering many, found the
+body, and were hurrying into the forest when they heard the troops of
+Zerbino. Cloridan fled, fancying that Medoro would do the same, but on
+finding himself unaccompanied, retraced his footsteps, only to see his
+friend surrounded by a troop of horsemen. From his ambush he shot his
+arrows at the foe, until Zerbino in wrath seized Medoro by the throat,
+exclaiming, "Thou shall die for this!" But when Medoro prayed to be
+allowed first to bury his lord, pity touched Zerbino, and he freed the
+youth, who fell, however, wounded by a thrust from a churlish horseman, in
+pursuit of whom Zerbino at once fled. Cloridan sprang in among the
+horsemen and fell dead by their thrusts at the side of the unconscious
+Medoro.
+
+The bleeding youth was found by Angelica, who passed by, clad in rustic
+raiment; and the maid, struck with his beauty, recalled her knowledge of
+chirturgery and revived him. After Dardinello was buried, she and a
+shepherd assisted Medoro to a neighboring cottage, where she attended him
+until his wound was healed. But as he grew well, Angelica, who had scorned
+the suit of the proudest knights, fell sick of love for the humble youth,
+and resolved to take him with her to Cathay.
+
+When Astolpho left the castle of Logistilla he carried with him as her
+gift a book from which he could learn to overcome all magic cheats, and a
+horn whose sound would put the boldest man to flight. Following her
+directions, he sailed past Scythia and India into the Persian Gulf, and
+there disembarking, passed through Arabia and along the Red Sea. There he
+overcame the giant Caligorantes, slew Orillo, who guarded the outlet of
+the Nile, and met there the brother knights Gryphon and Aquilant. Gryphon,
+led astray by an unworthy love, stole away from his brother, but was found
+again after many adventures, and the three, together with Sansonet and
+Marphisa, a warlike virgin, embarked for France. A great storm arose, and
+the vessel was forced to land in Syria. This was the land of the Amazons,
+and the troop escaped only by the warning and assistance of Guido, the
+savage, who was a bondsman in the land.
+
+Astolpho became separated from the rest of the party and reached Europe
+alone. One day, while he was stooping to drink at a spring in the forest,
+a rustic sprang from a thicket, and leaping upon Rabican, rode him away.
+Astolpho, hastening after him, entered the enchanted castle of Atlantes,
+and soon recognized it as a house of magic. He broke the spell by the aid
+of his book, freed the captive knights, and finding the hippogrif, which
+he had learned to guide from Melissa, mounted it and rode away.
+
+When the castle was destroyed, Rogero recognized Bradamant and clasped her
+in his arms, rejoicing to find her again. The maid, anxious to avoid
+further separation, promised to wed him if he would become a Christian,
+and demand her of her father, Duke Aymon. Rogero gladly promised to do so.
+and the two were hastening to Vallombrosa that he might be baptized when
+they encountered a maid, who prayed them to hasten to the relief of a
+youth doomed to death by fire. They hurried on, but paused to free Guido
+the savage, Gryphon. Aquilant, and Sansonet, who had been imprisoned by
+Pinabel, and Bradamant, pursuing Pinabel into the forest, slew him. But
+there, unfortunately, she lost her way, and while she was wandering about,
+Rogero, ignorant of her whereabouts, pushed on and freed the youth, who
+proved to be Bradamant's brother.
+
+As Bradamant wandered through the forest she found Astolpho, who had just
+made a bridle for the hippogrif, and recognizing him, took his horse and
+spear in charge. A long time she wandered forlorn. She did not know the
+way to Vallombrosa; she did not know the whereabouts of Rogero. Her home
+was in sight, but if her mother saw her she would not again be suffered to
+depart. As she stood debating with herself, she was recognized by one of
+her brothers, and was forced to accompany him home. Thence she secretly
+sent her maid Hippalca to Vallombrosa with Rogero's horse Frontino, and a
+message explaining her absence.
+
+After the capture of Doralice, Mandricardo hastened on, and overtook
+Orlando just as he had freed Zerbino and united him to Isabel. Recognizing
+Orlando by his crest as the chief who had destroyed the squadrons, the
+Tartar challenged him to combat. In courtesy to his foe, who would bear no
+sword until he could have Durindana, Orlando hung the blade on a tree, and
+the two knights spurred their steeds and broke their lances together. Then
+grappling, each endeavored to unhorse the other. The breaking of Orlando's
+saddle girth caused his fall just as he had slipped the bridle from the
+head of his enemy's horse, and the frightened steed, freed from its rein,
+ran madly through the wood, followed by Doralice.
+
+Orlando told Zerbino to inform Mandricardo if he overtook him that he
+would wait in that spot three days for him to return and renew the combat,
+and bade the lovers farewell. As he wandered through the region while
+waiting, he found a peaceful little spot where a limpid rill rippled
+through a meadow dotted here and there with trees. Here the weary warrior
+sought repose; but as he looked about him he espied the name of Angelica
+carved on the trees, entwined with that of Medoro. Persuading himself that
+this was a fanciful name by which the maid intended to signify himself, he
+entered a little ivy-covered grotto, arching over a fountain, and there
+discovered on the rocky wall some verses in which Medoro celebrated his
+union with Angelica. For a moment he stood as if turned to stone. Unable
+to weep, he again mounted his horse and sought a peasant's house to pass
+the night. There he heard the story of Angelica's infatuation, and saw the
+bracelet she had left them in return for their hospitality. The unhappy
+Orlando passed a sleepless night, weeping and groaning, and the next
+morning hastened to the forest that he might give way to his grief
+unobserved. There madness came upon him, and he uprooted the hateful
+trees, cut the solid stone of the grotto with his sword, making a
+desolation of the beautiful spot, and, casting off his armor, ran naked
+through the country, pillaging, burning, and slaying.
+
+Zerbino and Isabel sought the spot in a few days to learn if Mandricardo
+had returned, found the scattered armor, and heard of Orlando's madness
+from a shepherd. Lamenting over their protector's misfortune, they
+gathered up the armor, hung it on a sapling, and wrote thereon Orlando's
+name. But while they were thus engaged, Mandricardo arrived, took the long
+coveted sword, and gave Zerbino, who attempted to prevent the theft, a
+mortal wound. The unhappy Isabel, intent on self-destruction, was
+comforted by a hermit, who promised to take her to a monastery near
+Marseilles.
+
+Mandricardo had had but a few moments for repose after this combat with
+Zerbino, when the furious Rodomont overtook him and a terrible combat
+between the two began, the beautiful cause of it looking on with interest.
+But so strong were the champions that the struggle might have been
+prolonged indefinitely had not a messenger announced to the knights that
+they must postpone their private quarrels for a moment and hasten to the
+relief of King Agramant.
+
+After Rogero had freed Richardetto, Bradamant's brother, and had attempted
+in vain to find Bradamant, he was troubled by the thought of King
+Agramant. He was determined to wed the warrior maid and become a
+Christian, but first came his vow to the pagan king. He therefore wrote
+her a note, saying that honor required his presence with Agramant for at
+least fifteen or twenty days, but after that time he would find means to
+justify himself with Agramant and would meet her at Vallombrosa to be
+baptized.
+
+He, with Richardetto, Aldigier, and Marphisa, whom they met on her way to
+the pagan camp, rode on together, and freed Vivian and Malagigi from the
+Moors and Manganese. While they rested at a little fountain, Hippalca rode
+up, and told them that she had just met Rodomont, who took Frontino from
+her. She also managed secretly to give Rogero Bradamant's message and
+receive his letter in return.
+
+While the party still remained at the fountain, Rodomont came up with
+Mandricardo and Doralice, and all engaged in a fierce battle, which was at
+last interrupted by Malagigi, who, versed in wizard arts, conjured a demon
+into Doralice's horse so that it ran away; and Rodomont and Mandricardo,
+frightened by her screams, started in pursuit.
+
+With the assistance of Rogero, Marphisa, Rodomont, and Mandricardo,
+Agramant was enabled to drive Charlemagne back into Paris, where he was
+saved only by the interposition of Discord, who stirred up the old
+quarrels between Rodomont, Mandricardo, Rogero, and Gradasso over weapons,
+bearings, and horses, until Agramant announced that they should settle
+their difficulties by single combat, drawing lots to see who should first
+engage in battle. But when they were ready for the lists, fresh quarrels
+broke out, until the king despaired of ever having peace in his ranks.
+Finally, at his command, Doralice publicly declared Mandricardo her
+choice, and the furious Rodomont fled from the camp. On his way to Africa
+he found a little abandoned church between France and Spain, and decided
+to remain there instead of returning home. From this spot he saw Isabel on
+her way to Marseilles, and falling in love with her, he slew the hermit,
+dragged her to his retreat, and tried to win her. But she, loathing him
+and faithful to Zerbino, caused him to slay her, pretending that she was
+rendered invulnerable by an ointment which she had prepared, and the
+secret of which she would impart to him. The unhappy Rodomont walled up
+the church to form her tomb, and threw a narrow bridge across the stream.
+On this bridge he met every knight who came thither, and having overthrown
+him, took his arms to deck the tomb, on which he determined to hang a
+thousand such trophies. If the vanquished knight was a Moor he was set
+free without his arms; if a Christian he was imprisoned. Thither came the
+mad Orlando, and wrestled with Rodomont on the bridge until both fell into
+the stream. The madman then passed on through the country and met Medoro
+and Angelica on their way to India. They escaped with difficulty, Medoro's
+horse falling a victim to the madman, who continued to lay waste the land
+until he reached Zizera on the bay of Gibraltar, and, plunging into the
+sea, swam to Africa.
+
+After Doralice had decided the quarrel between Mandricardo and Rodomont,
+Rogero and the Tartar met in the lists to decide their quarrel over their
+bearings. The battle was fearful, and when both fell to the ground it was
+supposed that Mandricardo was the victor. But when the crowd rushed to the
+lists they found the Tartar dead and Rogero only wounded. But the cheers
+of the crowd gave little pleasure to the hero, who grieved that he must
+lie on a sick-bed instead of seeking Bradamant, according to his promise.
+Bradamant too, who had looked forward so eagerly to the day he had set,
+wept when it came without her lover. Soon she heard that Rogero's coming
+was prevented by his wounds; but when she also heard that he was attended
+by the warrior maid Marphisa, and that their names were frequently coupled
+in the pagan camp, she at once felt the pangs of jealousy. Unable to
+endure it longer, she armed herself, changing her usual vest for one whose
+colors denoted her desperation and desire to die, and set forth to meet
+and slay Marphisa, taking with her the spear left her by Astolpho, whose
+magic properties she did not know. With this she overthrew Rodomont and
+caused him to depart from his tomb and free his captives, and then,
+proceeding to Aries, challenged Rogero, who was sadly puzzled, not
+recognizing his challenger on account of her changed vest. Several knights
+attacked her before Rogero came forth, only to be overthrown by the spear,
+and then Marphisa, who had rushed forth before Rogero could arm, met her,
+and the two women fought like tigers. When Rogero at last went forth he
+recognized Bradamant's voice, and suspecting the cause of her hostility,
+implored her to withdraw with him to a wood near by to hear his
+explanation. Marphisa followed them and attacked Bradamant so fiercely
+that Rogero was forced to her rescue, and lifting his sword would have
+struck the maid had he not been stopped by a voice from a tomb near by. It
+was that of Atlatites, who announced to Rogero and Marphisa that they were
+brother and sister, children of Rogero of Pisa and Galiciella; that Rogero
+had been treacherously slain and his town betrayed to Almontes, who cast
+Galiciella adrift on the sea. Atlantes rescued her, and took her children
+when she died; but Marphisa was stolen from him by a band of Arabs.
+
+From this speech it was plainly the duty of Rogero and Marphisa to espouse
+the cause of Charlemagne and take arms against Agramant, who was their
+enemy. Bradamant and Marphisa then embraced, bade Rogero farewell, and
+proceeded to Charlemagne's camp, where Marphisa was received with honor
+and baptized, while Rogero promised to follow them as soon as he could
+find an excuse to leave Agramant.
+
+When Astolpho left Bradamant in the forest, he quickly rose in the air and
+passed rapidly over the kingdoms of the world, Aragon, Navarre, Cadiz,
+Egypt, Morocco, Fez, over the sandy desert until he reached the kingdom of
+Nubia, whose king he rescued from the harpies by the sound of his magic
+horn. Then, mounted on his hippogrif again, he rose to the terrestrial
+Paradise, where he was welcomed by John, who informed him that he was sent
+thither by the grace of God that he might get instruction how to furnish
+aid to Charles and the Church, who were sorely in need of it. With John he
+rose in a chariot to the Heaven of the Moon, where, after seeing many
+strange things, he was given the wits of Orlando enclosed in a vial. They
+had been taken from him as a punishment for his loving a pagan, but were
+now to be restored to him that he might aid Charlemagne in conquering the
+Moors. Astolpho then descended to Nubia, restored sight to its king, and
+asking for his forces, went with them into Africa and attacked Biserta,
+the city of Agramant.
+
+When these tidings were borne to Agramant he was greatly troubled, and
+desiring to end the war in Europe and hasten to his own country, he
+proposed to Charlemagne that the war be decided by single combat between
+two champions. Great was the agony of Rogero, the pagan champion, when he
+recognized in his opponent Rinaldo, the brother of Bradamant. He would
+never dare to slay him, so he parried the blows rained upon him, and
+struck back so feebly that the spectators, not understanding his motives,
+deemed him unable to cope with Rinaldo. But Melissa, determined that
+Merlin's prophecy should come true, appeared to Agramant in the guise of
+Rodomont, and urged him to break the compact and fall upon the Christians.
+Delighted to have the mighty king with him again, Agramant did not scruple
+to break his word, and rushed upon the Christian forces, breaking up the
+combat. After a sharp conflict, the Saracens were put to flight and
+Agramant hastened into Africa.
+
+His people in Biserta, their strength drained by the long war, were unable
+to withstand the Christian foe, soon re-enforced by a powerful enemy. One
+day, as Astolpho and his friends were standing on the beach, a madman came
+raging towards them, whom Astolpho recognized as Orlando. The warriors
+attempted in vain to hold him until Astolpho ordered the ship's hawsers to
+be brought, and knotting them flung them at the count's limbs, and so
+threw him down and tied him. Then, after having had his body cleansed from
+mud and filth, he stopped his mouth with herbs so that he could breathe
+only through his nostrils, and holding the vial there, the lost senses
+were quickly inhaled, and Orlando was himself again, astonished and
+delighted to find himself with his friends.
+
+With Orlando's help, Biserta was soon taken, and Agramant, who had met the
+Christian fleet under the leadership of Dudon and had barely escaped with
+his life, saw from afar the flames devouring his beloved city.
+
+Landing with Sobrino upon a little isle, he found there King Sericane, who
+advised him to challenge the Christians to single combat in order to
+decide the outcome of the war, he, Gradasso, and Sobrino to stand in the
+lists against three Christian champions. Orlando agreed to do so, and
+selected for his companions in the fight Brandimart and Olivier. But the
+pagans were no match for Orlando, whom no weapon could injure, and
+Agramant and Gradasso soon fell, while Sobrino was wounded. But the joy
+over the Christian victory was not unalloyed by sorrow, for Olivier was
+severely wounded and the beloved Brandimart was slain.
+
+The champions were now joined by Rinaldo, who after the breaking of the
+pact by Agramant, had set off for India in search of Angelica, whom he
+still madly loved. But Disdain guided his steps to the Fountain of Hate,
+one draught of which changed his love to loathing, so that he abandoned
+his undertaking and hastened to join the Christian forces in Africa.
+
+Olivier's wound proved slow to heal, and when at last the warriors heard
+of a hermit on a lonely isle who could help him, they hastened to take
+their wounded comrade thither. There they found Rogero, who had been
+shipwrecked while sailing to Africa, and had been baptized by the hermit,
+who was warned in a dream of his coming. The Christian warriors gladly
+welcomed Rogero to their ranks, for they knew of his valor; and Rinaldo,
+who had learned how the young hero had saved the life of Richardetto and
+had preserved Vivian and Malagigi, embraced him, and at the suggestion of
+the hermit, plighted him to his sister. Before they left the isle, Sobrino
+was converted by the pious hermit, and Olivier's wound was healed.
+
+The knights were received with the greatest honor by Charlemagne,
+especially Rogero, the new convert. But what unhappiness awaited him! In
+his absence Bradamant's father had promised the maid to Leo, the son of
+the Greek emperor, Constantine, in spite of her prayers and entreaties.
+
+Although Bradamant declared that she would die sooner than wed another,
+the heart-broken Rogero hastily departed for Constantinople to slay his
+rival. In his absence, Bradamant besought Charlemagne not to compel her to
+marry Leo unless he could defeat her in single combat; and her angry
+parents, on learning of this, took her from the court and shut her up in
+the tower of Rocca Forte. Rogero, in the mean time, reached Leo's realms
+just as the Greeks engaged in battle with the Bulgarians. Because of his
+hatred for Leo, he fought with the Bulgarians, and when their king fell he
+rallied their scattered troops and put the Greeks to flight. Rogero then
+followed the fleeing Greeks unaccompanied, and being recognized, was taken
+captive that night as he slept in a hostelry. At the entreaty of a
+kinswoman whose son Rogero had slain that day, the emperor surrendered his
+captive to her, and he was thrust into a gloomy dungeon, where he suffered
+agonies from hunger and cold. But Leo, who had admired his valor in battle
+and had longed to know him, rescued him, recovered his horse and armor,
+and by his generosity compelled Rogero to admire him as much as he had
+before hated him. The news of Charlemagne's decree now reached Leo, and
+he, fearing to fight Bradamant, asked the unknown knight of the unicorn to
+take his place. Rogero's heart sank within him, but he dared not refuse.
+His life was Leo's, and he must sacrifice himself for him, must either
+slay Bradamant, or be slain by her for his deliverer's sake. He
+accompanied Leo to France, and feigning a cheerfulness he did not feel,
+changed armor and steed that he might not be known, and, while Leo
+remained in his tent outside the city, entered the lists and encountered
+Bradamant, who was determined to slay her hated suitor. Rogero was equally
+determined not to slay her nor to allow himself to be conquered. When
+twilight fell and king and court saw that while the young knight had not
+overcome the maid, he had not allowed himself to be overcome, they
+declared that the couple were well matched and that they should wed.
+
+The hopeless Rogero hastened back to Leo's camp, changed armor and steed,
+and during the night stole away from the hateful place to the greenwood
+that he might die there, since he could never possess his beloved. At the
+same time, Bradamant gave way to her grief in such a manner that Marphisa,
+already indignant at the treatment of her brother, appeared before the
+king in his behalf. She declared that Rogero and Bradamant had already
+exchanged all the vows of those who marry and therefore she was not free
+to wed another. She then suggested that since the matter had gone so far,
+Leo and Rogero should meet in the lists to decide to whom the lady
+belonged.
+
+Leo at once set out in search of his knight of the unicorn, who he
+believed would defend him from all peril, and found him in the forest,
+almost fainting from fasting and sleeplessness. The Greek embraced Rogero
+tenderly and implored him to betray the cause of his grief, and so tender
+were his words and so gracious his manner that Rogero could not but
+unbosom himself. And when Leo learned that his unknown champion was no
+other than Rogero himself he declared that he would gladly forego
+Bradamant for him, and would rather have forfeited his life than caused
+such grief to such a faithful friend.
+
+Joy filled the court when the story of Rogero's fidelity was made known,
+and the joy was increased when ambassadors came from Bulgaria, seeking the
+unknown knight of the unicorn that they might offer their throne to him.
+Duke Aymon and his wife were reconciled when they found that Rogero was to
+be a king, and the wedding was celebrated with the greatest splendor,
+Charlemagne providing for Bradamant as though she were his daughter.
+
+In the midst of the celebrations Rodomont appeared to defy Rogero, and
+that knight, nothing loath, met him in the lists. The Moor fell under
+Rogero's blows, and all the Christian court rejoiced to see the last of
+the pagan knights fall by the hand of their champion.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
+
+THE DEATH OF ZERBINO.
+
+
+As Orlando talked with Zerbino, whose life he had saved and to whom he had
+given his lady Isabel, also rescued by him, Mandricardo the Tartar king
+came up and challenged Orlando to single combat. While they fought,
+Mandricardo's steed, from which Orlando had slipped the rein, became
+unmanageable, and fled with its rider. Orlando asked Zerbino and Isabel to
+tell Mandricardo, if they overtook him, that he would wait for him in that
+place for three days to renew the battle. But while waiting, Orlando
+learned of Angelica's love for Medoro, and losing his senses from grief,
+threw away his armor, and went wandering through France. Zerbino and
+Isabel returned to the place to see if Mandricardo had returned, and there
+learned of Orlando's condition.
+
+  Far off, he [Zerbino] saw that something shining lay,
+   And spied Orlando's corselet on the ground;
+   And next his helm; but not that head-piece gay
+   Which whilem African Almontes crowned:
+   He in the thicket heard a courser neigh,
+   And, lifting up his visage at the sound,
+   Saw Brigliadoro the green herbage browse,
+   With rein yet hanging at his saddle-bows,
+
+  For Durindane, he sought the greenwood, round,
+   Which separate from the scabbard met his view;
+   And next the surcoat, but in tatters, found;
+   That, in a hundred rags, the champaign strew,
+   Zerbino and Isabel, in grief profound,
+   Stood looking on, nor what to think they knew:
+   They of all matters else might think, besides
+   The fury which the wretched count misguides.
+
+  Had but the lovers seen a drop of blood,
+   They might have well believed Orlando dead:
+   This while the pair, beside the neighboring flood,
+   Beheld a shepherd coming, pale with dread.
+   He just before, as on a rock he stood,
+   Had seen the wretch's fury; how he shed
+   His arms about the forest, tore his clothes,
+   Slew hinds, and caused a thousand other woes.
+
+  Questioned by good Zerbino, him the swain
+    Of all which there had chanced, informed aright.
+    Zerbino marvelled, and believed with pain,
+    Although the proofs were clear: This as it might,
+    He from his horse dismounted on the plain,
+    Full of compassion, in afflicted plight;
+    And went about, collecting from the ground
+    The various relics which were scattered round.
+
+  Isabel lights as well; and, where they lie
+    Dispersed, the various arms uniting goes.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Here Prince Zerbino all the arms unites,
+    And hangs like a fair trophy, on a pine.
+    And, to preserve them safe from errant knights,
+    Natives or foreigners, in one short line
+    Upon the sapling's verdant surface writes,
+    ORLANDO'S ARMS, KING CHARLES'S PALADINE.
+    As he would say, "Let none this harness move,
+    Who cannot with its lord his prowess prove!"
+
+  Zerbino having done the pious deed,
+    Is bowning him to climb his horse; when, lo!
+    The Tartar king arrives upon the mead.
+    He at the trophied pine-tree's gorgeous show,
+    Beseeches him the cause of this to read;
+    Who lets him (as rehearsed) the story know.
+    When, without further pause, the paynim lord
+    Hastes gladly to the pine, and takes the sword.
+
+  "None can (he said) the action reprehend,
+    Nor first I make the faulchion mine to-day;
+    And to its just possession I pretend
+    Where'er I find it, be it where it may.
+    Orlando, this not daring to defend,
+    Has feigned him mad, and cast the sword away;
+    But if the champion so excuse his shame,
+    This is no cause I should forego my claim."
+
+   "Take it not thence," to him Zerbino cried,
+    "Nor think to make it thine without a fight:
+    If so thou tookest Hector's arms of pride,
+    By theft thou hadst them, rather than by right."
+    Without more parley spurred upon each side,
+    Well matched in soul and valor, either knight.
+    Already echoed are a thousand blows;
+    Nor yet well entered are the encountering foes.
+
+  In 'scaping Durindane, a flame in show
+    (He shifts so swiftly), is the Scottish lord.
+    He leaps about his courser like a doe,
+    Where'er the road best footing does afford.
+    And well it is that he should not forego
+    An inch of vantage; who, if once that sword
+    Smite him, will join the enamored ghosts, which rove
+    Amid the mazes of the myrtle grove.
+
+  As the swift-footed dog, who does espy
+    Swine severed from his fellows, hunts him hard,
+    And circles round about; but he lies by
+    Till once the restless foe neglect his guard;
+    So, while the sword descends, or hangs on high,
+    Zerbino stands, attentive how to ward,
+    How to save life and honor from surprise;
+    And keeps a wary eye, and smites and flies.
+
+  On the other side, where'er the foe is seen
+    To threaten stroke in vain, or make it good,
+    He seems an Alpine wind, two hills between,
+    That in the month of March shakes leafy wood;
+    Which to the ground now bends the forest green,
+    Now whirls the broken boughs, at random strewed.
+    Although the prince wards many, in the end
+    One mighty stroke he cannot 'scape or fend.
+
+  In the end he cannot 'scape one downright blow,
+    Which enters, between sword and shield, his breast.
+    As perfect was the plate and corselet, so
+    Thick was the steel wherein his paunch was drest:
+    But the destructive weapon, falling low,
+    Equally opened either iron vest;
+    And cleft whate'er it swept in its descent,
+    And to the saddle-bow, through cuirass, went.
+
+  And, but that somewhat short the blow descends
+    It would Zerbino like a cane divide;
+    But him so little in the quick offends,
+    This scarce beyond the skin is scarified.
+    More than a span in length the wound extends;
+    Of little depth: of blood a tepid tide
+    To his feet descending, with a crimson line,
+    Stains the bright arms which on the warrior shine.
+
+  'T is so, I sometimes have been wont to view
+    A hand more white than alabaster, part
+    The silver cloth with ribbon red of hue;
+    A hand I often feel divide my heart.
+    Here little vantage young Zerbino drew
+    From strength and greater daring, and from art;
+    For in the temper of his arms and might,
+    Too much the Tartar king excelled the knight.
+
+  The fearful stroke was mightier in show,
+    Than in effect, by which the prince was prest;
+    So that poor Isabel, distraught with woe,
+    Felt her heart severed in her frozen breast.
+    The Scottish prince, all over in a glow,
+    With anger and resentment was possest,
+    And putting all his strength in either hand,
+    Smote full the Tartar's helmet with his brand.
+
+  Almost on his steed's neck the Tartar fell,
+    Bent by the weighty blow Zerbino sped;
+    And, had the helmet been unfenced by spell
+    The biting faulchion would have cleft his head.
+    The king, without delay, avenged him well,
+    "Nor I for you till other season," said,
+    "Will keep this gift;" and levelled at his crest,
+    Hoping to part Zerbino to the chest.
+
+  Zerbino, on the watch, whose eager eye
+    Waits on his wit, wheels quickly to the right;
+    But not withal so quickly, as to fly
+    The trenchant sword, which smote the shield outright,
+    And cleft from top to bottom equally;
+    Shearing the sleeve beneath it, and the knight
+    Smote on his arm; and next the harness rended,
+    And even to the champion's thigh descended.
+
+  Zerbino, here and there, seeks every way
+    By which to wound, nor yet his end obtains;
+    For, while he smites upon that armor gay,
+    Not even a feeble dint the coat retains.
+    On the other hand, the Tartar in the fray
+    Such vantage o'er the Scottish prince obtains,
+    Him he has wounded in seven parts or eight,
+    And reft his shield and half his helmet's plate.
+
+  He ever wastes his blood; his energies
+    Fail, though he feels it not, as't would appear;
+    Unharmed, the vigorous heart new force supplies
+    To the weak body of the cavalier.
+    His lady, during this, whose crimson dyes
+    Were chased by dread, to Doralice drew near,
+    And for the love of Heaven, the damsel wooed
+    To stop that evil and disastrous feud.
+
+    Doralice, who as courteous was as fair,
+    And ill-assured withal, how it would end,
+    Willingly granted Isabella's prayer,
+    And straight to truce and peace disposed her friend.
+    As well Zerbino, by the other's care,
+    Was brought his vengeful anger to suspend;
+    And, wending where she willed, the Scottish lord,
+    Left unachieved the adventure of the sword.
+
+  For to leave Durindana such misdeed
+    To him appeared, it past all other woes;
+    Though he could hardly sit upon his steed,
+    Through mighty loss of life-blood, which yet flows.
+    Now, when his anger and his heat secede,
+    After short interval, his anguish grows;
+    His anguish grows, with such impetuous pains,
+    He feels that life is ebbing from his veins.
+
+  For weakness can the prince no further hie,
+    And so beside a fount is forced to stay:
+    Him to assist the pitying maid would try,
+    But knows not what to do, nor what to say.
+    For lack of comfort she beholds him die;
+    Since every city is too far away,
+    Where in this need she could resort to leech,
+    Whose succor she might purchase or beseech.
+
+  She, blaming fortune, and the cruel sky,
+    Can only utter fond complaints and vain.
+    "Why sank I not in ocean," (was her cry),
+    "When first I reared my sail upon the main?"
+    Zerbino, who on her his languid eye
+    Had fixt, as she bemoaned her, felt more pain
+    Than that enduring and strong anguish bred,
+    Through which the suffering youth was well-nigh dead.
+
+  "So be thou pleased, my heart," (Zerbino cried),
+    "To love me yet, when I am dead and gone,
+    As to abandon thee without a guide,
+    And not to die, distresses me alone.
+    For did it me in place secure betide
+    To end my days, this earthly journey done,
+    I cheerful, and content, and fully blest
+    Would die, since I should die upon thy breast
+
+  "But since to abandon thee, to whom a prize
+    I know not, my sad fate compels, I swear,
+    My Isabella, by that mouth, those eyes,
+    By what enchained me first, that lovely hair;
+    My spirit, troubled and despairing, hies
+    Into hell's deep and gloomy bottom; where
+    To think, thou wert abandoned so by me,
+    Of all its woes the heaviest pain will be."
+
+  At this the sorrowing Isabel, declining
+    Her mournful face, which with her tears o'erflows,
+    Towards the sufferer, and her mouth conjoining
+    To her Zerbino's, languid as a rose;
+    Rose gathered out of season, and which, pining
+    Fades where it on the shadowy hedgerow grows,
+    Exclaims, "Without me think not so, my heart,
+    On this your last, long journey to depart.
+
+  "Of this, my heart, conceive not any fear.
+    For I will follow thee to heaven or hell;
+    It fits our souls together quit this sphere,
+    Together go, for aye together dwell.
+    No sooner closed thine eyelids shall appear,
+    Than either me internal grief will quell,
+    Or, has it not such power, I here protest,
+    I with this sword to-day will pierce my breast.
+
+  "I of our bodies cherish hope not light,
+    That they shall have a happier fate when dead;
+    Together to entomb them, may some wight,
+    Haply by pity moved, be hither led."
+    She the poor remnants of his vital sprite
+    Went on collecting, as these words she said;
+    And while yet aught remains, with mournful lips,
+    The last faint breath of life devoutly sips.
+
+  'T was here his feeble voice Zerbino manned,
+    Crying, "My deity, I beg and pray,
+    By that love witnessed, when thy father's land
+    Thou quittedst for my sake; and, if I may
+    In anything command thee, I command,
+    That, with God's pleasure, thou live-out thy day;
+    Nor ever banish from thy memory,
+    That, well as man can love, have I loved thee.
+
+  "God haply will provide thee with good aid,
+    To free thee from each churlish deed I fear;
+    As when in the dark cavern thou wast stayed,
+    He sent, to rescue thee. Andante's peer;
+    So he (grammercy!) succored thee dismayed
+    At sea, and from the wicked Biscayneer.
+    And, if thou must choose death, in place of worse,
+    Then only choose it as a leaser curse."
+
+  I think not these last words of Scotland's knight
+    Were so exprest, that he was understood:
+    With these, he finished, like a feeble light,
+    Which needs supply of wax, or other food.
+    --Who is there, that has power to tell aright
+    The gentle Isabella's doleful mood?
+    When stiff, her loved Zerbino, with pale face,
+    And cold as ice, remained in her embrace.
+
+  On the ensanguined corse, in sorrow drowned,
+    The damsel throws herself, in her despair,
+    And shrieks so loud that wood and plain resound
+    For many miles about; nor does she spare
+    Bosom or cheek; but still, with cruel wound,
+    One and the other smites the afflicted fair;
+    And wrongs her curling locks of golden grain,
+    Aye calling on the well-loved youth in vain.
+
+  She with such rage, such fury, was possest,
+    That, in her transport, she Zerbino's glaive
+    Would easily have turned against her breast,
+    Ill keeping the command her lover gave;
+    But that a hermit, from his neighboring rest,
+    Accustomed oft to seek the fountain-wave,
+    His flagon at the cooling stream to fill,
+    Opposed him to the damsel's evil will.
+
+  The reverend father, who with natural sense
+    Abundant goodness happily combined,
+    And, with ensamples fraught and eloquence,
+    Was full of charity towards mankind,
+    With efficacious reasons her did fence,
+    And to endurance Isabel inclined;
+    Placing, from ancient Testament and new,
+    Women, as in a mirror, for her view.
+
+  The holy man next made the damsel see,
+    That save in God there was no true content,
+    And proved all other hope was transitory,
+    Fleeting, of little worth, and quickly spent;
+    And urged withal so earnestly his plea,
+    He changed her ill and obstinate intent;
+    And made her, for the rest of life, desire
+    To live devoted to her heavenly sire.
+
+  Not that she would her mighty love forbear
+    For her dead lord, nor yet his relics slight;
+    These, did she halt or journey, everywhere
+    Would Isabel have with her, day and night.
+    The hermit therefore seconding her care,
+    Who, for his age, was sound and full of might,
+    They on his mournful horse Zerbino placed,
+    And traversed many a day that woodland waste.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+  He thought to bear her to Provence, where, near
+    The city of Marseilles, a borough stood,
+    Which had a sumptuous monastery; here
+    Of ladies was a holy sisterhood.
+
+          _Rose's Translation, Canto XXIV_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LUSIAD.
+
+
+"The discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calcutta has been sung by
+Camoens, whose poem has something of the charm of the Odyssey and of the
+magnificence of the Aeneid."
+
+MONTESQUIEU.
+
+
+The Portuguese epic, the Lusiad, so-called from Lusitania, the Latin name
+for Portugal, was written by Luis de Camoens.
+
+He was born in Lisbon in 1524, lost his father by shipwreck in infancy,
+and was educated by his mother at the University of Coimbra. On leaving
+the university he appeared at court, where his graces of person and mind
+soon rendered him a favorite. Here a love affair with the Donna Catarina
+de Atayde, whom the king also loved, caused his banishment to Santarem. At
+this place he began the Lusiad, and continued it on the expedition against
+the Moors in Africa sent out by John III., an expedition on which he
+displayed much valor and lost an eye. He was recalled to court, but
+jealousies soon drove him thence to India, whither he sailed in 1553,
+exclaiming, "Ungrateful country, thou shall not possess my bones." In
+India his bravery and accomplishments won him friends, but his imprudences
+soon caused his exile to China, where he accumulated a small fortune and
+finished his poem. Happier circumstances permitted him to return to Goa;
+but on the way the ship laden with his fortune sank, and he escaped,
+saving only his poem. After sixteen years of misfortune abroad, Camoens
+returned to Lisbon in 1569. The pestilence that was then raging delayed
+the publication of the Lusiad until 1572. The poem received little
+attention; a small pension was bestowed on the poet, but was soon
+withdrawn, and the unfortunate Camoens was left to die in an almshouse. On
+his death-bed he deplored the impending fate of his country, which he
+alone could see. "I have loved my country. I have returned not only to die
+on her bosom, but to die with her."
+
+The Lusiad tells the story of the voyage of Vasco da Gama. The sailors of
+Prince Henry of Portugal, commander of the Portuguese forces in Africa,
+had passed Cape Nam and discovered the Cape of Storms, which the prince
+renamed the Cape of Good Hope. His successor Emmanuel, determined to carry
+out the work of his predecessor by sending out da Gama to undertake the
+discovery of the southern passage to India. The Portuguese were generally
+hostile to the undertaking, but da Gama, his brother, and his friend
+Coello gathered a company, part of which consisted of malefactors whose
+sentence of death was reversed on condition that they undertake the
+voyage, and reached India.
+
+The Lusiad is divided into ten cantos, containing one thousand one hundred
+and two stanzas. Its metre is the heroic iambic, in rhymed octave stanzas.
+
+The Lusiad is marred by its mythological allusions in imitation of Homer
+and Virgil, but these are forgotten when the poet sings in impassioned
+strains of his country's past glory.
+
+The Lusiad is simple in style; its subject is prosaic; it is a constant
+wonder that out of such unpromising materials Camoens could construct a
+poem of such interest. He could not have done so had he not been so great
+a poet, so impassioned a patriot.
+
+Camoens was in one sense of the word a practical man, like Ariosto; he had
+governed a province, and governed it successfully. But he had also taken
+up arms for his country, and after suffering all the slights that could be
+put upon him by an ungrateful and forgetful monarch, still loved his
+native land, loved it the more, perhaps, that he had suffered for it and
+was by it neglected. He foresaw, also, as did no one else, the future ruin
+of his country, and loved it the more intensely, as a parent lavishes the
+fondest, most despairing affection on a child he knows doomed to early
+death.
+
+The Lusiad is sometimes called the epic of commerce; it could be called
+far more appropriately the epic of patriotism.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE LUSIAD.
+
+
+J. Adamson's Memoirs of Life and Writing of Camoens, 2 vols., 1820 (vol.
+2, account of works of Camoens in Portuguese and other languages, and of
+the works founded on his life or suggested by his writings);
+
+R. F. Burton's Camoens, his Life and his Lusiad, 2 vols., 1881;
+
+M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
+Italy, Spain, and Portugal, vol. 3;
+
+F. Bouterwek's History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature, 1823 (Tr. by
+T. Ross);
+
+Chambers's Repository, no. 32, Spirit of Camoens's Lusiad;
+W. T. Dobson's Classic Poets, pp. 240-278;
+
+Montgomery's Men of Italy, iii., 295;
+
+Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, ii., 475-528;
+
+Southey's Sketch of Portuguese Literature in vol. i. of Quarterly Review,
+1809;
+
+Fortnightly Review, i., 184;
+
+Quarterly, i., 235;
+
+Monthly Review, clx., 505;
+
+Edinburgh Review, 1805, vi., 43;
+
+New England Magazine, liii., 542;
+
+Revue de Deux Mondes, 1832, vi., 145.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE LUSIAD. The Lusiad, Tr. by J. J.
+
+
+Aubertin, 2 vols., 1881 (Portuguese text and English Tr., in verse);
+
+The Lusiad, Englished by R. F. Burton, 2 vols., 1881;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. into Spenserian verse by R. F. Duff, 1880;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1655;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by W. J. Mickle, 3 vols., Ed. 5, 1807;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by T. M. Musgrave (blank verse), 1826;
+
+The Lusiad, Tr. by Edward Quillinan, with notes by John Adamson, 1853.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE LUSIAD.
+
+
+When Jupiter, looking down from Olympus, saw the Lusitanian fleet sailing
+over the heretofore untravelled seas, he called the gods together, and
+reviewing the past glory of the Portuguese, their victories over the
+Castilians, their stand against the Romans, under their shepherd-hero
+Viriatus, and their conquest of Africa, he foretold their future glories
+and their discovery and conquest of India.
+
+Bacchus, who had long since made conquests in India, fearful lest his
+ancient honors should be forgotten, bitterly opposed the scheme of the
+Portuguese; Venus, however, was favorable to them, and Mars interceded,
+counselling Jove not to heed Bacchus, but to permit the Lusitanians to
+reach India's shore in safety.
+
+When the council of the gods was dismissed, Mercury was sent to guide the
+Armada, which made its first landing at Mozambique. Canoes with curious
+palm-leaf sails, laden with dark-skinned natives, swarmed round the ships
+and were hailed with joy by Gama and his men, who invited them on board. A
+feast was spread for them, and to them Gama declared his intention of
+seeking India. Among them was a Moor who had at first thought the
+Portuguese Moors, on account of their dark skins. Feigning cordiality
+while plotting their ruin, he offered them a pilot to Quiloa, where, he
+assured them, they would find a Christian colony. He and his friends also
+laid a plot to place some soldiers in ambush to attack Gama's men when
+they landed next day to get water; in this way many would be destroyed,
+and certain death awaited the survivors at Quiloa, whither the promised
+pilot would conduct them. But the Moors had not counted on the strength of
+the Portuguese. Gama's vengeance was swift and certain. The thunder of his
+guns terrified the Moors, and the regent implored his pardon, and with
+make-believe tears insisted on his receiving at his hands the promised
+pilot.
+
+Many questions were asked by Gama concerning the spicy shores of India, of
+the African coasts, and of the island to the north. "Quiloa, that,"
+replied the Moor, "where from ancient times, the natives have worshipped
+the blood-stained image of the Christ." He knew how the Moorish
+inhabitants hated the Christians, and was secretly delighted when Gama
+directed him to steer thither.
+
+A storm swept the fleet past Quiloa, but the pilot, still determined on
+revenge, pointed out the island town of Mombaca, as a stronghold of the
+Christians, and steering the fleet thither, anchored just outside the bar.
+Bacchus, now intent on the destruction of the Lusitanians, assumed the
+character of a priest to deceive the heralds sent ashore by Gama, who
+assured their commander that they saw a Christian priest performing divine
+rites at an altar above which fluttered the banner of the Holy Ghost. In a
+few moments the Christian fleet would have been at the mercy of the Moors,
+but Cytherea, beholding from above the peril of her favorites, hastily
+descended, gathered together her nymphs, and formed an obstruction, past
+which the vessels strove in vain to pass. As Gama, standing high on the
+poop, saw the huge rock in the channel, he cried out, and the Moorish
+pilots, thinking their treason discovered, leaped into the waves.
+
+Warned in a dream by Mercury that the Moors were preparing to cut his
+cables, De Gama roused his fleet and set sail for Melinda, whose monarch,
+Mercury had told him, was both powerful and good.
+
+The fleet, decorated with purple streamers and gold and scarlet tapestry
+in honor of Ascension Day sailed with drums beating and trumpets sounding,
+into the harbor of Melinda, where they were welcomed by the kind and
+truthful people. The fame of the Lusitanians had reached Melinda, and the
+monarch gladly welcomed them to his land. His herald entreated them to
+remain with him, and brought them sheep, fowls, and the fruits of the
+earth, welcome gifts to the mariners. Gama had vowed not to leave the ship
+until he could step on Indian ground, so the next day the king and the
+commander, clad in their most splendid vestments, met in barges, and the
+monarch of Melinda asked Gama to tell him of the Lusian race, its origin
+and climate, and of all his adventures up to the time of his arrival at
+Melinda.
+
+"O king," said Gama, "between the zones of endless winter and eternal
+summer lies beautiful Europe, surrounded by the sea. To the north are the
+bold Swede, the Prussian, and the Dane; on her south-eastern line dwelt
+the Grecian heroes, world-renowned, and farther south are the ruins of
+proud Rome. Among the beauteous landscapes of Italy lies proud Venice,
+queen of the sea, and north of her tower the lofty Alps. The olive groves
+and vineyards of fair Gallia next greet the eye, and then the valorous
+fields of Spain, Aragon, Granada, and--the pride of Spain--Castile. On the
+west, a crown to it, lies Lusitania, on whom last smiles the setting
+sun,--against whose shores roll the waves of the western sea.
+
+"Noble are the heroes of my country. They were the first to rise against
+the Moors and expel them from the kingdom. The forces of Rome were routed
+by our shepherd-hero, Viriatus. After his death our country languished
+until Alonzo of Spain arose, whose renown spread far and wide because of
+his battles against the Moors.
+
+"Alonzo rewarded generously the heroes who fought under him, and to Prince
+Henry of Hungaria he gave the fields through which the Tagus flows and the
+hand of his daughter. To them was born a son, Alfonso, the founder of the
+Lusian throne. After the death of his father Henry, Alfonso's mother
+became regent, and ere long wedded her minister Perez and plotted to
+deprive her young son of his inheritance. The eighteen year old son arose,
+won the nobility to his side, and defeated his guilty mother and her
+husband in the battle of Guimaraens. Forgetful of the reverence due to
+parents, he cruelly imprisoned his mother, whose father, the king of
+Spain, indignant at such treatment of his daughter, now marched against
+the young prince and defeated him. As he lay in prison, his faithful
+guardian Egas knelt before the king, and vowed that his master, if
+released, would pay homage to him. Well he knew that his master would
+never bow his proud head to pay homage to Castile. So when the day
+arrived, Egas, and all his family, clad in gowns of white like sentenced
+felons, with unshod feet, and with the halter around their necks, sought
+Castile. 'O king, take us as a sacrifice for my perjured honor. Turn in
+friendship to the prince thy grandson, and wreak thy vengeance on us
+alone.'
+
+"Fortunately Alonzo was noble enough to release the self-sacrificing Egas,
+and to forgive his grandson.
+
+"The young Alfonso, pardoned by his grandfather, proceeded to Ourique,
+whither marched five Moorish kings. Over his head appeared the sacred
+cross; but he prayed heaven to show it to his army instead, that they
+might be inspired with the hope of victory. Filled with joy at the token,
+the Portuguese defeated the Moors, and on the bloody battle-field Alfonso
+was proclaimed King of Portugal, and from that day placed on his hitherto
+unadorned buckler five azure shields, arranged as a cross. He continued
+the wars with the Moors until, wounded and taken prisoner at Badajoz, he
+resigned the throne to his son, Don Sancho, who in turn won many
+victories. Alfonso II., Sancho II., Alfonso III., and Alfonso the Brave
+succeeded him. At the court of the latter was a beautiful maiden, Inez de
+Castro, whom Alfonso's son Don Pedro had married secretly. The courtiers,
+fearful lest Pedro should show favor to the Castilians because Inez was
+the daughter of a Castilian, told the king of his son's amour. In the
+absence of Pedro, Inez was led before the king, bringing with her her
+children, to help her to plead for mercy. But the king was merciless, his
+counsellors, brutal, and at his signal they stabbed her. Pedro never
+recovered from the shock given him by the fate of his beautiful wife, and
+after his succession to the throne, as a partial atonement for her
+suffering, he had her body taken from the grave and crowned Queen of
+Portugal.
+
+"The weak Fernando, who took his wife Eleanora from her lawful husband,
+succeeded Pedro, and their daughter Beatrice not being recognized by the
+Portuguese, at his death Don John, a natural brother, came to the throne.
+In the mean time a Spanish prince had married Beatrice and invaded
+Portugal, claiming it as his right. The Portuguese were divided until Nuno
+Alvarez Pereyra came forward. 'Has one weak reign so corrupted you?' he
+cried. 'Have you so soon forgotten our brave sires? Fernando was weak, but
+John, our godlike king, is strong. Come, follow him! Or, if you stay, I
+myself will go alone; never will I yield to a vassal's yoke; my native
+land shall remain unconquered, and my monarch's foes, Castilian or
+Portuguese, shall heap the plain!'
+
+"Inspired by Nuno's eloquence the Lusians took the field and defeated the
+Spanish in the battle of Aljubarota. Still dissatisfied, Nuno pressed into
+Spain and dictated the terms of peace at Seville. Having established
+himself upon the throne of Portugal, John carried the war into Africa,
+which wars were continued after his death by his son Edward. While laying
+siege to Tangier, Edward and his brother Fernando were taken prisoners,
+and were allowed to return home only on promise to surrender Ceuta. Don
+Fernando remained as the hostage they demanded. The Portuguese would not
+agree to surrender Ceuta, and Don Fernando was forced to languish in
+captivity, since the Moors would accept no other ransom. He was a
+patriotic prince than whom were none greater in the annals of Lusitania.
+
+"Alfonso V., victorious over the Moors, dreamed of conquering Castile, but
+was defeated, and on his death was succeeded by John II., who designed to
+gain immortal fame in a way tried by no other king. His sailors sought a
+path to India, but 'though enriched with knowledge' they perished at the
+mouth of the Indus. To his successor, Emmanuel, in a dream appeared the
+rivers Ganges and Indus, hoary fathers, rustic in aspect, yet with a
+majestic grace of bearing, their long, uncombed beards dripping with
+water, their heads wreathed with strange flowers, and proclaimed to him
+that their countries were ordained by fate to yield to him; that the fight
+would be great, and the fields would stream with blood, but that at last
+their shoulders would bend beneath the yoke. Overjoyed at this dream,
+Emmanuel proclaimed it to his people. I, O king, felt my bosom burn, for
+long had I aspired to this work. Me the king singled out, to me the dread
+toil he gave of seeking unknown seas. Such zeal felt I and my youths as
+inspired the Mynian youths when they ventured into unknown seas in the
+Argo, in search of the golden fleece.
+
+"On the shore was reared a sacred fane, and there at the holy shrine my
+comrades and I knelt and joined in the solemn rites. Prostrate we lay
+before the shrine until morning dawned; then, accompanied by the 'woful,
+weeping, melancholy throng' that came pressing from the gates of the city,
+we sought our ships.
+
+"Then began the tears to flow; then the shrieks of mothers, sisters, and
+wives rent the air, and as we waved farewell an ancient man cried out to
+us on the thirst for honor and for fame that led us to undertake such a
+voyage.
+
+"Soon our native mountains mingled with the skies, and the last dim speck
+of land having faded, we set our eyes to scan the waste of sea before us.
+From Madeira's fair groves we passed barren Masilia, the Cape of Green,
+the Happy Isles, Jago, Jalofo, and vast Mandinga, the hated shore of the
+Gorgades, the jutting cape called by us the Cape of Palms, and southward
+sailed through the wild waves until the stars changed and we saw
+Callisto's star no longer, but fixed our eyes on another pole star that
+rises nightly over the waves. The shining cross we beheld each night in
+the heavens was to us a good omen.
+
+"While thus struggling through the untried waves, and battling with the
+tempests, now viewing with terror the waterspouts, and the frightful
+lightnings, now comforted by the sight of mysterious fire upon our masts,
+we came in sight of land, and gave to the trembling negro who came to us
+some brass and bells. Five days after this event, as we sailed through the
+unknown seas, a sudden darkness o'erspread the sky, unlighted by moon or
+star. Questioning what this portent might mean, I saw a mighty phantom
+rise through the air. His aspect was sullen, his cheeks were pale, his
+withered hair stood erect, his yellow teeth gnashed; his whole aspect
+spoke of revenge and horror.
+
+"'Bold are you,' cried he, 'to venture hither, but you shall suffer for
+it. The next proud fleet that comes this way shall perish on my coast, and
+he who first beheld me shall float on the tide a corpse. Often, O Lusus,
+shall your children mourn because of me!' 'Who art thou?' I cried. 'The
+Spirit of the Cape,' he replied, 'oft called the Cape of Tempests.'"
+
+The king of Melinda interrupted Gama. He had often heard traditions among
+his people of the Spirit of the Cape. He was one of the race of Titans who
+loved Thetis, and was punished by Jove by being transformed into this
+promontory.
+
+Gama continued: "Again we set forth, and stopped at a pleasant coast to
+clean our barks of the shell-fish. At this place we left behind many
+victims of the scurvy in their lonely graves. Of the treason we met with
+at Mozambique and the miracle that saved us at Quiloa and Mombas, you know
+already, as well as of your own bounty."
+
+Charmed with the recital of Gama, the King of Melinda had forgotten how
+the hours passed away. After the story was told the company whiled away
+the hours with dance, song, the chase, and the banquet, until Gama
+declared that he must go on to India, and was furnished with a pilot by
+the friendly king.
+
+Bacchus, enraged at seeing the voyage so nearly completed, descended to
+the palace of Neptune, with crystal towers, lofty turrets, roofs of gold,
+and beautiful pillars inwrought with pearls. The sculptured walls were
+adorned with old Chaos's troubled face, the four fair elements, and many
+scenes in the history of the earth. Roused by Bacchus, the gods of the sea
+consented to let loose the winds and the waves against the Portuguese.
+
+During the night, the Lusians spent the time in relating stories of their
+country. As they talked, the storm came upon them, and the vessels rose
+upon the giant waves, so that the sailors saw the bottom of the sea swept
+almost bare by the violence of the storm. But the watchful Venus perceived
+the peril of her Lusians, and calling her nymphs together, beguiled the
+storm gods until the storm ceased. While the sailors congratulated
+themselves on the returning calm, the cry of "Land!" was heard, and the
+pilot announced to Gama that Calicut was near.
+
+Hail to the Lusian heroes who have won such honors, who have forced their
+way through untravelled seas to the shores of India! Other nations of
+Europe have wasted their time in a vain search for luxury and fame instead
+of reclaiming to the faith its enemies! Italy, how fallen, how lost art
+thou! and England and Gaul, miscalled "most Christian!" While ye have
+slept, the Lusians, though their realms are small, have crushed the
+Moslems and made their name resound throughout Africa, even to the shores
+of Asia.
+
+At dawn Gama sent a herald to the monarch; in the mean time, a friendly
+Moor, Moncaide, boarded the vessel, delighted to hear his own tongue once
+more. Born at Tangiers, he considered himself a neighbor of the Lusians;
+well he knew their valorous deeds, and although a Moor, he now allied
+himself to them as a friend. He described India to the eager Gama: its
+religions, its idolaters, the Mohammedans, the Buddhists, the Brahmins. At
+Calicut, queen of India, lived the Zamorin, lord of India, to whom all
+subject kings paid their tribute.
+
+His arrival having been announced, Gama, adorned in his most splendid
+garments, and accompanied by his train, also in bright array, entered the
+gilded barges and rowed to the shore, where stood the Catual, the
+Zamorin's minister. Moncaide acted as an interpreter. The company passed
+through a temple on their way to the palace, in which the Christians were
+horrified at the graven images there worshipped. On the palace walls were
+the most splendid pictures, relating the history of India. One wall,
+however, bore no sculptures; the Brahmins had foretold that a foreign foe
+would at some time conquer India, and that space was reserved for scenes
+from those wars.
+
+Into the splendid hall adorned with tapestries of cloth of gold and
+carpets of velvet, Gama passed, and stood before the couch on which sat
+the mighty monarch. The room blazed with gems and gold; the monarch's
+mantle was of cloth of gold, and his turban shone with gems. His manner
+was majestic and dignified; he received Gama in silence, only nodding to
+him to tell his story.
+
+Gama proclaimed that he came in friendship from a valorous nation that
+wished to unite its shores with his by commerce. The monarch responded
+that he and his council would weigh the proposal, and in the mean time
+Gama should remain and feast with them.
+
+The next day the Indians visited the fleet, and after the banquet Gama
+displayed to his guests a series of banners on which were told the history
+of Portugal and her heroes. First came Lusus, the friend of Bacchus, the
+hero-shepherd Viriatus, the first Alonzo, the self-sacrificing Egas, the
+valiant Fuaz, every hero who had strengthened Lusitania and driven out her
+foes, down to the gallant Pedro and the glorious Henry.
+
+Awed and wondering at the deeds of the mighty heroes, the Indians returned
+home. In the night Bacchus appeared to the king, warning him against the
+Lusians and urging him to destroy them while in his power. The Moors
+bought the Catual with their gold. They also told the king that they would
+leave his city as soon as he allied himself with the odious strangers.
+When Gama was next summoned before the king he was received with a frown.
+
+"You are a pirate! Your first words were lies. Confess it; then you may
+stay with me and be my captain."
+
+"I know the Moors," replied Gama. "I know their lies that have poisoned
+your ears. Am I mad that I should voluntarily leave my pleasant home and
+dare the terrors of an unknown sea? Ah, monarch, you know not the Lusian
+race! Bold, dauntless, the king commands, and we obey. Past the dread Cape
+of Storms have I ventured, bearing no gift save friendly peace, and that
+noblest gift of all, the friendship of my king. I have spoken the truth.
+Truth is everlasting!"
+
+A day passed and still Gama was detained by the power of the Catual, who
+ordered him to call his fleets ashore if his voyage was really one of
+friendship.
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Gama. "My fleet is free, though I am chained, and they
+shall carry to Lisbon the news of my discovery."
+
+As he spoke, at a sign from the Catual, hostile ships were seen
+surrounding the Lusian vessels. "Not one shall tell on Lisbon's shores
+your fate."
+
+Gama smiled scornfully, as the fleet swept on towards his vessels. Loud
+sounded the drums, shrill the trumpets. The next moment sudden lightning
+flashed from Gama's ships and the skies echoed with the thunder of the
+guns.
+
+No word fell from Gama's lips as, the battle over, they saw the sea
+covered with the torn hulks and floating masts; but the populace raged
+around the palace gates, demanding justice to the strangers.
+
+The troubled king sought to make peace with Gama.
+
+"My orders have been given. To-day, when the sun reaches its meridian,
+India shall bleed and Calicut shall fall. The time is almost here. I make
+no terms. You have deceived me once."
+
+The Moors fell fainting on the floor; the monarch trembled. "What can save
+us?" he cried.
+
+"Convey me and my train to the fleet. Command at once; it is even now
+noon."
+
+Once more safe within his ship, with him the faithful Moncaide, who had
+kept him informed of the treason of the Moors, his ships laden with
+cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and gems, proofs of his visit, Gama, rejoicing,
+set sail for home.
+
+Venus saw the fleet setting out, and planned a resting-place for the weary
+sailors, a floating isle with golden sands, bowers of laurel and myrtle,
+beautiful flowers and luscious fruits. Here the sea nymphs gathered,
+Thetis, the most beautiful, being reserved for Gama, and here days were
+spent in joyance.
+
+At the banquet the nymphs sang the future glories of the Lusians, and
+taking Gama by the hand, led him and his men to a mountain height, whence
+they could look upon a wondrous globe, the universe. The crystal spheres
+whirled swiftly, making sweet music, and as they listened to this, they
+saw the sun go by, the stars, Apollo, the Queen of Love, Diana, and the
+"yellow earth, the centre of the whole." Asia and Africa were unrolled to
+their sight, and the future of India, conquered by the Lusians, Cochin
+China, China, Japan, Sumatra,--all these countries given to the world by
+their voyage around the terrible cape.
+
+"Spread thy sails!" cried the nymphs; "the time has come to go!"
+
+The ships departed on their homeward way, and the heroes were received
+with the wildest welcome by the dwellers on Tago's bosom.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE LUSIAD.
+
+INEZ DE CASTRO.
+
+
+During the reign of Alfonso the Brave, his son Don Pedro secretly wedded
+a beautiful maiden of the court, Inez de Castro. The courtiers, jealous
+because Inez was a Castilian, betrayed Pedro's secret to the king, who, in
+the absence of his son, had Inez brought before him and slain by hired
+ruffians.
+
+  While glory, thus, Alonzo's name adorn'd,
+  To Lisbon's shores the happy chief return'd,
+  In glorious peace and well-deserv'd repose,
+  His course of fame, and honor'd age to close.
+  When now, O king, a damsel's fate severe,
+  A fate which ever claims the woful tear,
+  Disgraced his honors--On the nymph's 'lorn head
+  Relentless rage its bitterest rancor shed:
+  Yet, such the zeal her princely lover bore,
+  Her breathless corse the crown of Lisbon wore.
+  'Twas thou, O Love, whose dreaded shafts control
+  The hind's rude heart, and tear the hero's soul;
+  Thou, ruthless power, with bloodshed never cloy'd,
+  'Twas thou thy lovely votary destroy'd.
+  Thy thirst still burning for a deeper woe,
+  In vain to thee the tears of beauty flow;
+  The breast that feels thy purest flames divine,
+  With spouting gore must bathe thy cruel shrine.
+  Such thy dire triumphs!--Thou, O nymph, the while,
+  Prophetic of the god's unpitying guile,
+  In tender scenes by love-sick fancy wrought,
+  By fear oft shifted, as by fancy brought,
+  In sweet Mondego's ever-verdant bowers,
+  Languish'd away the slow and lonely hours:
+  While now, as terror wak'd thy boding fears,
+  The conscious stream receiv'd thy pearly tears;
+  And now, as hope reviv'd the brighter flame,
+  Each echo sigh'd thy princely lover's name.
+  Nor less could absence from thy prince remove
+  The dear remembrance of his distant love:
+  Thy looks, thy smiles, before him ever glow,
+  And o'er his melting heart endearing flow:
+  By night his slumbers bring thee to his arms,
+  By day his thoughts still wander o'er thy charms:
+  By night, by day, each thought thy loves employ,
+  Each thought the memory, or the hope, of joy.
+  Though fairest princely dames invok'd his love,
+  No princely dame his constant faith could move:
+  For thee, alone, his constant passion burn'd,
+  For thee the proffer'd royal maids he scorn'd.
+  Ah, hope of bliss too high--the princely dames
+  Refus'd, dread rage the father's breast inflames;
+  He, with an old man's wintry eye, surveys
+  The youth's fond love, and coldly with it weighs
+  The people's murmurs of his son's delay
+  To bless the nation with his nuptial day.
+  (Alas, the nuptial day was past unknown,
+  Which, but when crown'd, the prince could dare to own.)
+  And, with the fair one's blood, the vengeful sire
+  Resolves to quench his Pedro's faithful fire.
+  Oh, thou dread sword, oft stain'd with heroes' gore,
+  Thou awful terror of the prostrate Moor,
+  What rage could aim thee at a female breast,
+  Unarm'd, by softness and by love possess'd!
+
+  Dragg'd from her bower, by murd'rous ruffian hands,
+  Before the frowning king fair Inez stands;
+  Her tears of artless innocence, her air
+  So mild, so lovely, and her face so fair,
+  Mov'd the stern monarch; when, with eager zeal,
+  Her fierce destroyers urg'd the public weal;
+  Dread rage again the tyrant's soul possess'd,
+  And his dark brow his cruel thoughts confess'd;
+  O'er her fair face a sudden paleness spread,
+  Her throbbing heart with gen'rous anguish bled,
+  Anguish to view her lover's hopeless woes,
+
+  And all the mother in her bosom rose.
+  Her beauteous eyes, in trembling tear-drops drown'd,
+  To heaven she lifted (for her hands were bound);
+  Then, on her infants turn'd the piteous glance,
+  The look of bleeding woe; the babes advance,
+  Smiling in innocence of infant age,
+  Unaw'd, unconscious of their grandsire's rage;
+  To whom, as bursting sorrow gave the flow,
+  The native heart-sprung eloquence of woe,
+  The lovely captive thus:--"O monarch, hear,
+  If e'er to thee the name of man was dear,
+  If prowling tigers, or the wolf's wild brood
+  (Inspired by nature with the lust of blood),
+  Have yet been mov'd the weeping babe to spare,
+  Nor left, but tended with a nurse's care,
+  As Rome's great founders to the world were given;
+  Shall thou, who wear'st the sacred stamp of Heaven
+  The human form divine, shalt thou deny
+  That aid, that pity, which e'en beasts supply!
+  Oh, that thy heart were, as thy looks declare,
+  Of human mould, superfluous were my prayer;
+  Thou couldst not, then, a helpless damsel slay,
+  Whose sole offence in fond affection lay,
+  In faith to him who first his love confess'd,
+  Who first to love allur'd her virgin breast.
+  In these my babes shalt thou thine image see,
+  And, still tremendous, hurl thy rage on me?
+  Me, for their sakes, if yet thou wilt not spare,
+  Oh, let these infants prove thy pious care!
+  Yet, Pity's lenient current ever flows
+  From that brave breast where genuine valor glows;
+  That thou art brave, let vanquish'd Afric tell,
+  Then let thy pity o'er my anguish swell;
+  Ah, let my woes, unconscious of a crime,
+  Procure mine exile to some barb'rous clime:
+  Give me to wander o'er the burning plains
+  Of Libya's deserts, or the wild domains
+  Of Scythia's snow-clad rocks, and frozen shore;
+  There let me, hopeless of return, deplore:
+  Where ghastly horror fills the dreary vale,
+  Where shrieks and howlings die on every gale,
+  The lion's roaring, and the tiger's yell,
+  There with my infant race, consigned to dwell,
+  There let me try that piety to find,
+  In vain by me implor'd from human kind:
+  There, in some dreary cavern's rocky womb,
+  Amid the horrors of sepulchral gloom,
+  For him whose love I mourn, my love shall glow,
+  The sigh shall murmur, and the tear shall flow:
+  All my fond wish, and all my hope, to rear
+  These infant pledges of a love so dear,
+  Amidst my griefs a soothing glad employ,
+  Amidst my fears a woful, hopeless joy."
+
+  In tears she utter'd--as the frozen snow
+  Touch'd by the spring's mild ray, begins to flow,
+  So just began to melt his stubborn soul,
+  As mild-ray'd Pity o'er the tyrant stole;
+  But destiny forbade: with eager zeal
+  (Again pretended for the public weal),
+  Her fierce accusers urg'd her speedy doom;
+  Again, dark rage diffus'd its horrid gloom
+  O'er stern Alonzo's brow: swift at the sign,
+  Their swords, unsheath'd, around her brandish'd shine.
+  O foul disgrace, of knighthood lasting stain,
+  By men of arms a helpless lady slain!
+
+  Thus Pyrrhus, burning with unmanly ire,
+  Fulfilled the mandate of his furious sire;
+  Disdainful of the frantic matron's prayer,
+  On fair Polyxena, her last fond care,
+  He rush'd, his blade yet warm with Priam's gore,
+  And dash'd the daughter on the sacred floor;
+  While mildly she her raving mother eyed,
+  Resigned her bosom to the sword, and died.
+  Thus Inez, while her eyes to heaven appeal,
+  Resigns her bosom to the murd'ring steel:
+  That snowy neck, whose matchless form sustain'd
+  The loveliest face, where all the graces reign'd,
+  Whose charms so long the gallant prince enflam'd,
+  That her pale corse was Lisbon's queen proclaim'd,
+  That snowy neck was stain'd with spouting gore,
+  Another sword her lovely bosom tore.
+  The flowers that glisten'd with her tears bedew'd,
+  Now shrunk and languished with her blood embru'd.
+  As when a rose ere-while of bloom so gay,
+  Thrown from the careless virgin's breast away,
+  Lies faded on the plain, the living red,
+  The snowy white, and all its fragrance fled;
+  So from her cheeks the roses died away,
+  And pale in death the beauteous Inez lay:
+  With dreadful smiles, and crimson'd with her blood,
+  Round the wan victim the stern murd'rers stood,
+  Unmindful of the sure, though future hour,
+  Sacred to vengeance and her lover's power.
+
+  O Sun, couldst thou so foul a crime behold,
+  Nor veil thine head in darkness, as of old
+  A sudden night unwonted horror cast
+  O'er that dire banquet, where the sire's repast
+  The son's torn limbs supplied!--Yet you, ye vales!
+  Ye distant forests, and ye flow'ry dales!
+  When pale and sinking to the dreadful fall,
+  You heard her quiv'ring lips on Pedro call;
+  Your faithful echoes caught the parting sound,
+  And Pedro! Pedro! mournful, sigh'd around.
+  Nor less the wood-nymphs of Mondego's groves
+  Bewail'd the memory of her hapless loves:
+  Her griefs they wept, and, to a plaintive rill
+  Transform'd their tears, which weeps and murmurs still.
+  To give immortal pity to her woe
+  They taught the riv'let through her bowers to flow,
+  And still, through violet-beds, the fountain pours
+  Its plaintive wailing, and is named Amours.
+  Nor long her blood for vengeance cried in vain:
+  Her gallant lord begins his awful reign,
+  In vain her murderers for refuge fly,
+  Spain's wildest hills no place of rest supply.
+  The injur'd lover's and the monarch's ire,
+  And stern-brow'd Justice in their doom conspire:
+  In hissing flames they die, and yield their souls in fire.
+      _Mickle's Translation, Canto III._
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF THE CAPE.
+
+
+Vasco de Gama relates the incidents of his voyage from Portugal to the
+King of Melinda. The southern cross had appeared in the heavens and the
+fleet was approaching the southern point of Africa. While at anchor in a
+bay the Portuguese aroused the hostility of the savages, and hastily set
+sail.
+
+  "Now, prosp'rous gales the bending canvas swell'd;
+  From these rude shores our fearless course we held:
+  Beneath the glist'ning wave the god of day
+  Had now five times withdrawn the parting ray,
+  When o'er the prow a sudden darkness spread,
+  And, slowly floating o'er the mast's tall head
+  A black cloud hover'd: nor appear'd from far
+  The moon's pale glimpse, nor faintly twinkling star;
+  So deep a gloom the low'ring vapor cast,
+  Transfix'd with awe the bravest stood aghast.
+  Meanwhile, a hollow bursting roar resounds,
+  As when hoarse surges lash their rocky mounds;
+  Nor had the black'ning wave nor frowning heav'n
+  The wonted signs of gath'ring tempest giv'n.
+  Amazed we stood. 'O thou, our fortune's guide,
+  Avert this omen, mighty God!' I cried;
+  'Or, through forbidden climes adventurous stray'd,
+  Have we the secrets of the deep survey'd,
+  Which these wide solitudes of seas and sky
+  Were doom'd to hide from man's unhallow'd eye?
+  Whate'er this prodigy, it threatens more
+  Than midnight tempests, and the mingled roar,
+  When sea and sky combine to rock the marble shore.'
+
+  "I spoke, when rising through the darken'd air,
+  Appall'd, we saw a hideous phantom glare;
+  High and enormous o'er the flood he tower'd,
+  And 'thwart our way with sullen aspect lower'd:
+  An earthy paleness o'er his cheeks was spread,
+  Erect uprose his hairs of wither'd red;
+  Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
+  Sharp and disjoin'd, his gnashing teeth's blue rows;
+  His haggard beard flow'd quiv'ring on the wind,
+  Revenge and horror in his mien combin'd;
+  His clouded front, by with'ring lightnings scar'd,
+  The inward anguish of his soul declar'd.
+  His red eyes, glowing from their dusky caves,
+  Shot livid fires: far echoing o'er the waves
+  His voice resounded, as the cavern'd shore
+  With hollow groan repeats the tempest's roar.
+  Cold gliding horrors thrill'd each hero's breast,
+  Our bristling hair and tott'ring knees confess'd
+  Wild dread, the while with visage ghastly wan,
+  His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began:--
+
+  "'O you, the boldest of the nations, fir'd
+  By daring pride, by lust of fame inspir'd,
+  Who, scornful of the bow'rs of sweet repose,
+  Through these my waves advance your fearless prows,
+  Regardless of the length'ning wat'ry way,
+  And all the storms that own my sov'reign sway,
+  Who, mid surrounding rocks and shelves explore
+  Where never hero brav'd my rage before;
+  Ye sons of Lusus, who with eyes profane
+  Have view'd the secrets of my awful reign,
+  Have passed the bounds which jealous Nature drew
+  To veil her secret shrine from mortal view;
+  Hear from my lips what direful woes attend,
+  And, bursting soon, shall o'er your race descend.
+
+  "'With every bounding keel that dares my rage,
+  Eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage,
+  The next proud fleet that through my drear domain,
+  With daring search shall hoist the streaming vane,
+  That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds toss'd,
+  And raging seas, shall perish on my coast:
+  Then he, who first my secret reign descried,
+  A naked corpse, wide floating o'er the tide,
+  Shall drive--Unless my heart's full raptures fail,
+  O Lusus! oft shall thou thy children wail;
+  Each year thy shipwreck'd sons thou shalt deplore,
+  Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore.
+
+  "'With trophies plum'd behold a hero come,
+  Ye dreary wilds, prepare his yawning tomb.
+  Though smiling fortune bless'd his youthful morn,
+  Though glory's rays his laurell'd brows adorn,
+  Full oft though he beheld with sparkling eye
+  The Turkish moons in wild confusion fly,
+  While he, proud victor, thunder'd in the rear,
+  All, all his mighty fame shall vanish here.
+  Quiloa's sons, and thine, Mombaz, shall see
+  Their conqueror bend his laurell'd head to me;
+  While, proudly mingling with the tempest's sound,
+  Their shouts of joy from every cliff rebound.
+
+  "'The howling blast, ye slumb'ring storms prepare,
+  A youthful lover and his beauteous fair
+  Triumphant sail from India's ravag'd land;
+  His evil angel leads him to my strand.
+  Through the torn hulk the dashing waves shall roar,
+  The shatter'd wrecks shall blacken all my shore.
+  Themselves escaped, despoil'd by savage hands,
+  Shall, naked, wander o'er the burning sands,
+  Spar'd by the waves far deeper woes to bear,
+  Woes, e'en by me, acknowledg'd with a tear.
+  Their infant race, the promis'd heirs of joy,
+  Shall now, no more, a hundred hands employ;
+  By cruel want, beneath the parents' eye,
+  In these wide wastes their infant race shall die;
+  Through dreary wilds, where never pilgrim trod
+  Where caverns yawn, and rocky fragments nod,
+  The hapless lover and his bride shall stray,
+  By night unshelter'd, and forlorn by day.
+  In vain the lover o'er the trackless plain
+  Shall dart his eyes, and cheer his spouse in vain.
+  Her tender limbs, and breast of mountain snow,
+  Where, ne'er before, intruding blast might blow,
+  Parch'd by the sun, and shrivell'd by the cold
+  Of dewy night, shall he, fond man, behold.
+  Thus, wand'ring wide, a thousand ills o'er past,
+  In fond embraces they shall sink at last;
+  While pitying tears their dying eyes o'erflow,
+  And the last sigh shall wail each other's woe.
+
+  "'Some few, the sad companions of their fate,
+  Shall yet survive, protected by my hate,
+  On Tagus' banks the dismal tale to tell,
+  How, blasted by my frown, your heroes fell.'
+
+  "He paus'd, in act still further to disclose
+  A long, a dreary prophecy of woes:
+  When springing onward, loud my voice resounds,
+  And midst his rage the threat'ning shade confounds.
+
+  "'What art thou, horrid form that rid'st the air?
+  By Heaven's eternal light, stern fiend, declare.'
+  His lips he writhes, his eyes far round he throws,
+  And, from his breast, deep hollow groans arose,
+  Sternly askance he stood: with wounded pride
+  And anguish torn, 'In me, behold,' he cried,
+  While dark-red sparkles from his eyeballs roll'd,
+  'In me the Spirit of the Cape behold,
+  That rock, by you the Cape of Tempests nam'd,
+  By Neptune's rage, in horrid earthquakes fram'd,
+  When Jove's red bolts o'er Titan's offspring flam'd.
+  With wide-stretch'd piles I guard the pathless strand,
+  And Afric's southern mound, unmov'd, I stand:
+  Nor Roman prow, nor daring Tyrian oar
+  Ere dash'd the white wave foaming to my shore;
+  Nor Greece nor Carthage ever spread the sail
+  On these my seas, to catch the trading gale.
+  You, you alone have dar'd to plough my main,
+  And with the human voice disturb my lonesome reign."
+
+  "He spoke, and deep a lengthen'd sigh he drew,
+  A doleful sound, and vanish'd from the view:
+  The frighten'd billows gave a rolling swell,
+  And, distant far, prolong'd the dismal yell,
+  Faint and more faint the howling echoes die,
+  And the black cloud dispersing, leaves the sky.
+  High to the angel-host, whose guardian care
+  Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear,
+  And Heaven's dread King implore: 'As o'er our head
+  The fiend dissolv'd, an empty shadow fled;
+  So may his curses, by the winds of heav'n,
+  Far o'er the deep, their idle sport, be driv'n!'"
+
+  With sacred horror thrill'd, Melinda's lord
+  Held up the eager hand, and caught the word.
+  "Oh, wondrous faith of ancient days," he cries,
+  "Concealed in mystic lore and dark disguise!
+  Taught by their sires, our hoary fathers tell,
+  On these rude shores a giant spectre fell,
+  What time from heaven the rebel band were thrown:
+  And oft the wand'ring swain has heard his moan.
+  While o'er the wave the clouded moon appears
+  To hide her weeping face, his voice he rears
+  O'er the wild storm. Deep in the days of yore,
+  A holy pilgrim trod the nightly shore;
+  Stern groans he heard; by ghostly spells controll'd,
+  His fate, mysterious, thus the spectre told:
+
+  "'By forceful Titan's warm embrace compress'd,
+  The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd:
+  The hundred-handed giant at a birth,
+  And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth;
+  My heart avow'd my sire's ethereal flame;
+  Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name.
+  In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged,
+  Tremendous war against the gods I waged:
+  Yet, not to reach the throne of heaven I try,
+  With mountain pil'd on mountain to the sky;
+  To me the conquest of the seas befell,
+  In his green realm the second Jove to quell.
+  Nor did ambition all my passions hold,
+  'Twas love that prompted an attempt so bold.
+  Ah me, one summer in the cool of day,
+  I saw the Nereids on the sandy bay,
+  With lovely Thetis from the wave advance
+  In mirthful frolic, and the naked dance.
+  In all her charms reveal'd the goddess trod,
+  With fiercest fires my struggling bosom glow'd;
+  Yet, yet I feel them burning in my heart,
+  And hopeless, languish with the raging smart.
+  For her, each goddess of the heavens I scorn'd,
+  For her alone my fervent ardor burn'd.
+  In vain I woo'd her to the lover's bed,
+  From my grim form, with horror, mute she fled.
+  Madd'ning with love, by force I ween to gain
+  The silver goddess of the blue domain;
+  To the hoar mother of the Nereid band
+  I tell my purpose, and her aid command:
+  By fear impell'd, old Doris tried to move,
+  And win the spouse of Peleus to my love.
+  The silver goddess with a smile replies,
+  'What nymph can yield her charms a giant's prize!
+  Yet, from the horrors of a war to save,
+  And guard in peace our empire of the wave,
+  Whate'er with honor he may hope to gain,
+  That, let him hope his wish shall soon attain.'
+  The promis'd grace infus'd a bolder fire,
+  And shook my mighty limbs with fierce desire.
+  But ah, what error spreads its dreadful night,
+  What phantoms hover o'er the lover's sight!
+
+  "The war resign'd, my steps by Doris led,
+  While gentle eve her shadowy mantle spread,
+  Before my steps the snowy Thetis shone
+  In all her charms, all naked, and alone.
+  Swift as the wind with open arms I sprung,
+  And, round her waist with joy delirious clung:
+  In all the transports of the warm embrace,
+  A hundred kisses on her angel face,
+  On all its various charms my rage bestows,
+  And, on her cheek, my cheek enraptur'd glows.
+  When oh, what anguish while my shame I tell!
+  What fix'd despair, what rage my bosom swell!
+  Here was no goddess, here no heavenly charms,
+  A rugged mountain fill'd my eager arms,
+  Whose rocky top, o'erhung with matted brier,
+  Received the kisses of my am'rous fire.
+  Wak'd from my dream, cold horror freez'd my blood;
+  Fix'd as a rock, before the rock I stood;
+  'O fairest goddess of the ocean train,
+  Behold the triumph of thy proud disdain;
+  Yet why,' I cried, 'with all I wish'd decoy,
+  And, when exulting in the dream of joy,
+  A horrid mountain to mine arms convey?'
+  Madd'ning I spoke, and furious sprung away.
+  Far to the south I sought the world unknown,
+  Where I, unheard, unscorn'd, might wail alone,
+  My foul dishonor, and my tears to hide,
+  And shun the triumph of the goddess' pride.
+  My brothers, now, by Jove's red arm o'erthrown,
+  Beneath huge mountains pil'd on mountains groan;
+  And I, who taught each echo to deplore,
+  And tell my sorrows to the desert shore,
+  I felt the hand of Jove my crimes pursue,
+  My stiff'ning flesh to earthy ridges grew,
+  And my huge bones, no more by marrow warm'd,
+  To horrid piles, and ribs of rock transform'd,
+  Yon dark-brow'd cape of monstrous size became,
+  Where, round me still, in triumph o'er my shame,
+  The silv'ry Thetis bids her surges roar,
+  And waft my groans along the dreary shore.'"
+
+         _Mickle's Translation, Canto V_.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+The Gerusalemme Liberata, or Jerusalem Delivered, was written by Torquato
+Tasso, who was born at Sorrento, March 11, 1544. He was educated at
+Naples, Urbino, Rome, Venice, Padua, and Bologna. In 1572 he attached
+himself to the court of Ferrara, which he had visited in 1565 in the suite
+of the Cardinal d'Este, and by whose duke he had been treated with great
+consideration. Here his pastoral drama "Aminta" was written and performed,
+and here he began to write his epic. The duke, angry because of Tasso's
+affection for his sister Eleanora, and fearful lest the poet should
+dedicate his poem to the Medicis, whom he visited in 1575, and into whose
+service he was asked to enter, kept him under strict surveillance, and
+pretended to regard him as insane. Feigning sympathy and a desire to
+restore his mind, he had the unfortunate poet confined in a mad-house.
+Tasso escaped several times, but each time returned in the hope of a
+reconciliation with the duke. During his confinement his poem was
+published without his permission: first in 1580, a very imperfect version;
+in 1581, a genuine one. This at once brought him great fame; but while its
+publishers made a fortune, Tasso received nothing. Neither did the duke
+relent, although powerful influences were brought to bear on him. Tasso
+was not released until 1586, and then, broken in health, he passed the
+rest of his life in Rome and Naples, living on charity, though treated
+with great honor. He died in Rome, April 25, 1595, just before he was to
+have been crowned at the capitol.
+
+The Jerusalem Delivered has for its subject the first Crusade, and the
+events recorded in its twenty cantos comprise the happenings in the camp
+of the Crusaders during forty days of the campaign of 1099. Its metre is
+the _octava rima_, the eight lined rhymed stanza.
+
+Tasso was not so successful in the delineation of character and in the
+description of actions as in the interpretation of feeling, being by
+nature a lyric rather than an epic poet. But his happy choice of
+subject,--for the Crusades were still fresh in the memory of the people,
+and chivalry was a thing of the present--his zeal for the Christian cause,
+his impassioned delineations of love, and his exquisitely poetical
+treatment of his whole theme, rendered his epic irresistible.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+J. Black's Life of Tasso (with a historical and critical account of his
+writings), 2 vols. 1810;
+
+E. J. Hasell's Tasso, 1882;
+
+Rev. Robert Milman's Life of Tasso, 2 vols. 1850;
+
+Dennistown's Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, 1851, iii., 292-316;
+
+Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and
+17th Centuries, 1839, ii., 192-199;
+
+Leigh Hunt's Stories from Italian Poets, 1888, ii., 289-474;
+
+Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe, 1845, pp. 568-577;
+
+Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe, Ed. 2, 1846, i., 359-391;
+
+J. A. Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, 1886, vol. 2, chapters 7-8;
+
+Edin. Rev., Oct. 1850, xcii., 294-302;
+
+Blackwood, 1845, lvii., 401-414;
+
+Quarterly Review, Jan. 1857, ci., 59-68.
+
+
+
+
+STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. from the Italian by John Hoole. First American
+from Eighth London Edition, 2 vols., 1810;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. into English Spenserian verse with life of the
+author by J. H. Wiffen. New ed., 1883;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. by Sir John Kingston James, 2 vols., 1884;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. into the metre of the original by C. L. Smith,
+1876-79;
+
+Jerusalem Delivered, Tr. by Sir Edward Fairfax and edited by Prof. Henry
+Morley, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+
+The Eternal Father looked down from His lofty throne upon the Christian
+powers in Syria. In the six years they had spent in the East they had
+taken Nice and Antioch. Now, while inactive in winter quarters, Bohemond
+was strengthening himself in Antioch, and the other chiefs were thinking
+of glory or love; but Godfrey, to whom renown was the meanest of glories,
+was burning to win Jerusalem and restore it to the faith. Inspired by
+Gabriel, despatched by the Eternal Father, Godfrey called a council, and
+with an eloquence and fire more than mortal, roused the Christians to
+action. "We came not here to raise empires; the period has come when all
+the world is waiting for our next step. Now is the propitious moment. If
+we delay longer, Egypt will step in to the aid of our Syrian foe!"
+
+Godfrey was unanimously elected chief, and immediate arrangements were
+made for the setting out to Jerusalem. Godfrey first reviewed the army. A
+thousand men marched under the lilied banner of Clotharius; a thousand
+more from the Norman meads under Robert; from Orange and Puy, troops came
+under the priests William and Ademar. Baldwin led his own and Godfrey's
+bands, and Guelpho, allied to the house of Este, brought his strong
+Carinthians. Other troops of horse and foot were led by William of
+England. After him came the young Tancred, the flower of chivalry,
+blighted now, alas! by unrequited love. He had seen by chance the pagan
+maid Clorinda, the Amazon, drinking at a pool in the forest, and had
+forgot all else in his love for her. After him came the small Greek force
+under Tatine; next, the invincible Adventurers under Dudon, bravest of
+men. Following these were Otho, Edward and his sweet bride Gildippe, who,
+unwilling to be separated from her husband, fought at his side, and,
+excellent above all others, the young Rinaldo, whose glorious deeds were
+yet but a promise of his great future. While but a boy he had escaped from
+the care of his foster mother, Queen Matilda, and hastened to join the
+Crusaders. The review was closed by the array of foot soldiers led by
+Raymond, Stephen of Amboise, Alcasto, and Camillus. The pageant having
+passed by, Godfrey despatched a messenger to summon Sweno the Dane, who
+with his forces was still tarrying in Greece, and at once set out for
+Jerusalem.
+
+Swift rumor had conveyed the tidings of his approach to Aladine, King of
+Jerusalem, a merciless tyrant, who, enraged, immediately laid heavier
+taxes upon the unfortunate Christians in his city. Ismeno, a sorcerer,
+once a Christian, but now a pagan who practised all black arts, penetrated
+to the presence of the king and advised him to steal from the temple of
+the Christians an image of the Virgin and put it in his mosque, assuring
+him that he would thus render his city impregnable. This was done, and
+Ismeno wrought his spells about the image, but the next morning it had
+disappeared. After a fruitless search for the image and the offender, the
+angry king sentenced all the Franks to death. The beautiful maid
+Sophronia, determined to save her people, assumed the guilt, and was
+sentenced to be burned. As she stood chained to the stake, her lover,
+Olindo, to whom she had ever been cold, saw her, and in agony at her
+sacrifice, declared to the king that Sophronia had lied and that he was
+the purloiner of the image. The cruel monarch ordered him also to be tied
+to the stake, that they might die together; and the flames had just been
+applied when the two were saved by the Amazon Clorinda, who convinced the
+king that the Christians were innocent and that Allah himself, incensed at
+the desecration, had snatched away the image.
+
+To the camp of Godfrey at Emmaus came two ambassadors from the king of
+Egypt, Alethes, a supple crafty courtier of low lineage, and Argantes, a
+haughty and powerful warrior. But their efforts to keep Godfrey from
+Jerusalem, first by persuasion, and then by threats, were in vain.
+They were dismissed from the camp, and the army proceeded on its way.
+
+When the walls and towers of the city where Messias died came in sight,
+the Christian army, crying "All Hail, Jerusalem!" laid aside their
+casques, and, shedding tears, trod barefoot the consecrated way.
+
+At sight of the Franks, the pagans hastened to strengthen the
+fortifications of their city, and Aladine from a lofty tower watched
+Clorinda attack a band of Franks returning from a foray. At his side was
+the lovely Erminia, daughter of the King of Antioch, who had sought
+Jerusalem after the downfall of her city.
+
+Erminia instructed Aladine of the various crusaders, and when she pointed
+out the noble Tancred, who had treated her with such consideration in
+Antioch, she felt her love for him revive, though she pretended to the
+king to hate him for his cruelty. Tancred recognized among the leaders of
+the pagans Clorinda, bereft of her helmet, and for love of her, refused to
+fight her. The pagans, driven back by the Christians, were rallied by
+Argantes, but only to be met by the matchless Adventurers under Dudon.
+When Dudon fell, the troops under Rinaldo, burning for revenge,
+reluctantly obeyed Godfrey's summons to return.
+
+The funeral rites over, the artificers were sent to the forest to fell the
+trees, that engines might be fabricated for the destruction of the city
+walls.
+
+Angry at the success of the Franks, Satan stirred up the infernal regions,
+and set loose his friends to work destruction to the Christians. One he
+despatched to the wizard Idraotes, at Damascus, who conceived the scheme
+of sending his beautiful niece Armida to ensnare the Christians. In a few
+days Armida appeared among the white pavilions of the Franks, attracting
+the attention and winning the love of all who saw her. Her golden locks
+appeared through her veil as the sunshine gleams through the stormy skies;
+her charms were sufficiently hidden to make them the more alluring. So
+attired, modestly seeking the camp of Godfrey, she was met by Eustace, his
+young brother, and taken to the prince.
+
+With many tears and sighs, she told her pitiful story. She had been driven
+from her kingdom, an orphan, by the envy and wickedness of her uncle, and
+had come to ask the Christians to aid her in regaining her rights.
+Unfortunately for her success, she and her uncle had not calculated on
+Godfrey's absorption in his divine undertaking. He was proof against her
+charms, and was determined not to be delayed longer in laying siege to the
+city. It required the utmost persuasion of Eustace to induce him to permit
+ten of the Adventurers to accompany her. Armida, though disappointed in
+Godfrey's lack of susceptibility, employed her time so well while in camp
+that when she departed with the ten Adventurers chosen by lot, she was
+followed secretly by Eustace and many others who had not been chosen, but
+who were madly in love with her.
+
+Before his departure, Eustace, jealous of Rinaldo, whom he was fearful
+Armida might admire, had persuaded him to aspire to the place of Dudon, to
+whom a successor must be elected. Gernando of Norway desired the same
+place, and, angry that the popular Rinaldo should be his rival, scattered
+through the camp rumors disparaging to his character: Rinaldo was vain and
+arrogant; Rinaldo was rash, not brave; Rinaldo's virtues were all vices.
+At last, stung past endurance by his taunts and insinuations, Rinaldo gave
+the lie to his traducer, and slew him in fair fight. False reports were
+taken to Godfrey by Rinaldo's enemies; and the ruler determined to punish
+the youth severely; but he, warned by his friends, escaped from camp and
+fled to Antioch. To Godfrey, deprived thus of Rinaldo and many of his
+brave Adventurers, was brought the tidings that the Egyptian expedition
+was on its way, and that a ship laden with provisions had been intercepted
+on its way to his camp.
+
+The bold Argantes, weary of the restraint of the siege, sent a challenge
+to the Christians, saying he would meet any Frank, high-born or low, in
+single combat, the conditions being that the vanquished should serve the
+victor. A thousand knights burned to accept the challenge, but Godfrey
+named Tancred, who proudly buckled on his armor and called for his steed.
+As he approached the field, he saw among the pagan hosts, who stood around
+to view the combat, the fair face of Clorinda, and stood gazing at her,
+forgetful of all else. Otho, seeing his delay, spurred on his horse, and
+fought till vanquished. Then Tancred woke from his stupor, and, burning
+with shame, rushed forward. The battle raged until night fell, and the
+weary warriors ceased, pledging themselves to return on the morrow.
+
+Erminia, shut up in Jerusalem, mourned over the wounds of Tancred. She
+knew many healing balms, by which, were she with him, she might heal him
+and make him ready for the morrow's fight; but she was forced to
+administer them to his enemy instead. Unable to endure the suspense
+longer, she put on her friend Clorinda's armor and fled to the Christian
+camp to find her beloved. The Franks, who spied her, supposed her
+Clorinda, and pursued her; but she succeeded in reaching a woodland
+retreat, where she determined to remain with the kind old shepherd and his
+wife who had fled from the disappointments of the court and had here
+sought and found peace in their humble home. When Tancred heard from his
+followers that they had driven Clorinda from the camps, he determined to
+pursue and speak with her. Rising from his bed he sought the forest only
+to fall into the wiles of Armida, and be lured into a castle, in whose
+dungeon he lay, consumed with shame at the thought of his unexplained
+absence from the morrow's combat.
+
+When morning dawned and Tancred did not appear, the good old Count Raymond
+went forth to meet Argantes. When he was about to overcome his antagonist,
+an arrow shot from the pagan ranks brought on a general conflict, in which
+the Christians were successful until a storm, summoned by the powers of
+darkness, put an end to the battle. The next morning a knight came to the
+camp of Godfrey to tell of Sweno's defeat and slaughter. He, the sole
+survivor of the band, had been commissioned by some supernatural visitants
+to bring Sweno's sword to Rinaldo.
+
+While Godfrey's heart was wrung by this disaster, the camp of Italians,
+led to suppose by some bloody armor found in a wood that Rinaldo had been
+treacherously slain with the connivance of Godfrey, accused the chief and
+stirred up the camp to revolt; but Godfrey, praying to Heaven for strength
+to meet his enemies, walked through the camp firmly and unfalteringly,
+unarmed and with head bare, his face still bright with the heavenly light
+left there by spiritual communion, and silenced the tumult by a few
+well-chosen words. His arch-accuser Argillan he sentenced to death; the
+others crept back to their tents in shame.
+
+The Soldan Solyman, driven from Nice at its capture, had joined the Turks,
+and, spurred on by hate and fury, made a night attack on the Frankish
+camp. The Franks, saved only by the interposition of the angel Michael,
+and by the troops just returned, released from Armida's enchantment,
+fought fiercely, and at dawn put Solyman to flight. By the arts of Ismeno
+he was conveyed to Jerusalem by a secret way, where he cheered the
+discouraged Aladine.
+
+Before attempting to storm the city, the Christian troops, by the advice
+of Peter the Hermit, walked in a long procession to Mt. Olivet, filling
+the heavens with melody, and there partook of the communion administered
+by the warrior priests, William and Ademar. The next morning, Godfrey, in
+the light armor of a foot-soldier, appeared with his barons, prepared for
+the storm. The troops were arranged carefully, the huge engines were moved
+forward, and the Franks made a bold attempt against the walls, from the
+top of which Clorinda aimed her arrows, wounding and slaying many men.
+Godfrey himself was wounded, but was healed by divine aid, and immediately
+returned to the field to rally his troops. Night fell, and the contest was
+deferred until another day.
+
+Clorinda, burning to distinguish herself, determined to fire the huge
+towers of the Christians. Her eunuch tried to dissuade her because he had
+been warned in a dream that she would this night meet her death. He told
+her her history. Her mother was a Christian who had been compelled to put
+her infant away from her. This eunuch had rescued her from death and
+brought her up, failing, however, to obey an angel's command to have her
+baptized a Christian.
+
+Clorinda would not heed his caution, but went forth and fired the Frankish
+machines. She and the fleeing pagans were pursued by the Christians; and
+while her companions reached the city in safety, she was accidentally shut
+out and met Tancred in mortal combat. She refused to tell her name until
+she felt her death-wound, and then she prayed her enemy to baptize her,
+that she might die a Christian. The broken-hearted Tancred fell fainting
+on her corpse, and was found there the next morning by the Franks. Neither
+his comrades, nor Godfrey and Peter the Hermit, were able to rouse him
+from his melancholy.
+
+Their machines destroyed, timbers were needed by the Franks to construct
+new ones. Knowing this, Ismeno laid spells on the forest, so that the
+warriors sent thither by Godfrey were frightened away by the sights they
+saw therein. Even Tancred was put to flight when one of the demons took
+the form of his beloved Clorinda. To add to the discomfort of the Franks,
+excessive heat overpowered them, and they suffered tortures from lack of
+water until the prayers of Godfrey moved the Ruler of the Earth with pity,
+and He sent down the longed-for showers.
+
+Delighted with the piety of Godfrey, the Great King sent him a dream by
+which he might know the will of Heaven. Lifted through the whirling
+spheres, his ears charmed with their music, his eyes dazzled by the
+brilliancy of the stars, he saw Duke Hugo, who told him that Rinaldo must
+be sought out before the conquest of Jerusalem could be accomplished. The
+same Power influenced the princes in council so that by the will of all,
+two knights, one of them him to whom Sweno's sword had been given, were
+despatched to seek Rinaldo. Instructed by Peter the Hermit, they sought
+the sea-coast, and found a wizard, who, after showing them the splendor of
+his underground abode beneath the river's bed, revealed to them the way in
+which they were to overcome the wiles of Armida.
+
+A beautiful maid with dove-like eyes and radiant smile received them in
+her small bark, and they were soon flying over the sea, marvelling at the
+rich cities and vast fleets by which they passed. Leaving rich Cadiz and
+the Pillars of Hercules, they sped out into the unknown sea, while the
+maiden told them of how some day Columbus would venture into unknown seas
+to find a new continent. On, on they flew, past the Happy Isles, the
+Fortunate, long the song of the poet; where the olive and honey made happy
+the land, and the rivers swept down from the mountains in silver
+streamlets; where every bird-song was heavenly music, a place so divine
+that there were placed of old the Elysian fields. To one of these islands
+the lady steered, and the knights disembarked, and started on their
+perilous journey up the mountain. Following the wizard's instructions,
+they waved the golden rod at the monstrous serpents hissing in their
+pathway, and they vanished; they steeled their hearts against the charms
+of the voluptuous maids bathing in the lake, and passed without tasting
+the fountain of laughter. Then the spacious palace met their eyes. Built
+round a garden, its marble courts and unnumbered galleries formed a
+trackless maze through which they could never have found their way without
+the aid of the wizard's map. As they trod the marble floors they paused
+many times to view the matchless carvings on the silver doors, which told
+anew the beautiful old stories of love triumphant.
+
+Once through the winding ways, they entered the wonderful garden which art
+and nature combined to render the most beautiful spot on earth. The same
+trees bore ripe fruit, buds, and blossoms; the birds sang joyfully in the
+green bowers; and the faint breezes echoed their song. One bird sang a
+song of love, and when the tender melody was done the other birds took it
+up and sang until the forest rang with melody, and all was love, love,
+love. Then the knights saw Rinaldo, lying in the grove, his head in the
+lap of the enchantress. His sword was gone from his side, and in its place
+hung a mirror in which he sometimes gazed at Armida's reflection. When
+Armida left him alone for a few hours, the knights surprised Rinaldo, and
+turned the wizard's diamond shield upon him. For the first time he saw
+himself as others saw him, and, blushing with shame, announced himself
+ready to return with them to rescue Jerusalem. Tearing off his ornaments,
+he hastened down the mountain, but not soon enough to escape Armida.
+Tears, prayers, threats she used in vain. She had captured him when he
+fled from the camp, intending to slay him; but moved by his beauty, she
+had spared him, and falling in love with him, had reared this palace that
+they might in it revel in love's pleasures. Now, miserable, she saw him
+desert her, and destroying the beautiful haunt, she drove her swift
+chariot across the seas to the camp of the Egyptian king, who was
+hastening towards Jerusalem. Intent on the slaughter of Rinaldo, her love
+for whom had changed to bitter hate, she offered the warriors of the
+Egyptian king, all of whom had fallen victims to her charms, her hand as a
+reward to the slayer of Rinaldo.
+
+When Rinaldo and his rescuers reached the abode of the wizard they found
+him waiting with new arms for the young hero. The sage reproached him
+gently for his dalliance, and then, seeing the blush of shame upon his
+countenance, showed him the shield, which bore the illustrious deeds of
+his ancestors of the house of Este. Great as were their past glories,
+still greater would be those of the family which he should found, greatest
+of whom would be the Duke Alphonso.
+
+Rinaldo, having told his story to Godfrey, and confessed his wrong-doing
+to Peter the Hermit, proceeded to the enchanted forest; and though as
+beauteous scenes, and as voluptuous sirens displayed themselves to him as
+dwelt in Armida's garden, yea, though one tree took the semblance of
+Armida herself, he boldly hacked the trunk and broke the magic spell.
+Joyfully the Franks set to work to fell the huge trees and construct
+vaster, stronger engines than before, under the direction of a master
+mechanic. At the same time, Vafrino, a cunning squire of Tancred, was
+commissioned to go forth in disguise and inspect the camp of the coming
+Egyptian king. Even before he departed, a carrier pigeon, driven back by a
+hawk, fell into Godfrey's hands, bearing a message to Aladine from Egypt,
+saying that in four or five days he would be with him in Jerusalem.
+
+Godfrey, determined to take the city before that day should come, made the
+utmost exertions to have the machines completed. In Jerusalem, also, great
+preparations were made, machines built, and a fearful fire concocted by
+Ismeno with which to drive the assaulters from the wall.
+
+Shriven by the priests, the Christian army went forth to battle. Godfrey
+took his stand against the northern gate; Raymond was assigned to the
+steep sharp crags at the southwest walls, and Guelph and the two Roberts
+were stationed on the track to Gaza to watch for the Egyptians.
+
+The pagans fought with great fury, bringing out new instruments to oppose
+the huge battering rams, raining down arrows, and throwing the suffocating
+fire. But Rinaldo, to whom all this work appeared too slow, urged on his
+bold Adventurers to form a tortoise, hastened to the wall, seized a
+scaling ladder, and, unmoved by any missile, mounted the wall and assisted
+his followers, in spite of the multitudes who surrounded him, attempting
+to hurl him down. But as Godfrey advanced, Ismeno launched his terrible
+fire-balls, more horrible than the flames of Mt. Etna; they affected even
+the vast tower, swelling and drying the heavy skins that covered its sides
+until protecting Heaven sent a breeze that drove the flames back to the
+city. Ismeno, accompanied by two witches, hurried to the wall, but was
+crushed by a stone that ground his and their bones to powder. Godfrey,
+inspired by a vision of the slain soldiery fighting in his ranks, leaped
+upon the wall and planted the red-cross flag. Raymond was also successful,
+and the Christians rushed over the walls into the town, following Aladine,
+who hastened to shut himself up in the citadel.
+
+While the battle was raging, but success was assured to the Christians,
+Tancred and the terrible Argantes met, and glad of an opportunity to
+settle their quarrel, withdrew to a glade in the forest. Tancred, stung by
+the taunts of cowardice for his former failure to keep his appointment,
+fought bitterly. He had not the sheer strength of his antagonist, but his
+sleight at last overcame, and Argantes fell. Weakened by pain and loss of
+blood, Tancred fell senseless, and was thus found by Erminia, who had met
+Vafrino the spy in the camp of the Egyptians and had fled with him. They
+revived Tancred, and carried him home to be nursed by the delighted
+Erminia.
+
+Vafrino had seen Armida in the camp and had learned through Erminia not
+only the princes' designs on Rinaldo, but also that they meant to assume
+the signs of the red-cross knights and thus reach the neighborhood of
+Godfrey and slay him. On this intelligence Godfrey changed the signs of
+his men that they might recognize the Egyptians on the following day and
+put them to death.
+
+Terrible to the Franks was the sight of the Egyptian army when they opened
+their eyes upon it next morning. Clouds of dust obscured all the heavens,
+hills, and valleys, so great was the coming host. But Godfrey, with an
+eloquence that fired each soul, told them of the helplessness of the
+enemy, of how many of them were slaves, scourged to the battle, and
+reminded them of the great undertaking before them, the saving of the
+Sepulchre, until fired with zeal, and burning to fight, they rushed into
+battle and dispersed the Egyptians. Many of the Christians fell by the
+sword of the terrible Soldan, among them Gildippe and her husband, united
+in death as in life. Rinaldo, hearing of their slaughter, speedily avenged
+it by laying the Soldan low on the battle-field.
+
+One after another of Armida's champions attacked Rinaldo, determined to
+win the prize, but his good sword sent them to earth, and Armida was left
+alone and unprotected. Rinaldo, having seen her fly away over the plain
+and knowing the victory achieved, followed and found her ready to put
+herself to death in a lonely glade. He snatched the sword from her hand
+and speedily changed back her hate to love. She fell upon his breast, and
+with the promise to become a Christian and give her life to him,
+accompanied him back to the city.
+
+During the battle, Aladine and those who were imprisoned in the citadel
+overpowered Count Raymond, and rushed out to battle, only to be overcome
+and slain. Prince Altamore, who, covered with blood, remained alone on the
+field, yielded himself to Godfrey, and was given his life and his kingdom.
+
+Then, from the field covered with spoil and floating with blood, the
+conquering troops, clad in their bloody armor, marched in solemn cavalcade
+to the Temple and paid their vowed devotions at the sacred tomb.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE JERUSALEM DELIVERED.
+
+SOPHRONIA AND OLINDO.
+
+
+At the instigation of the wizard Ismeno, Aladine, king of Jerusalem, stole
+an image of the Virgin from the temple of the Christians and put it in his
+mosque in order to render the city impregnable. When morning dawned the
+image was gone, and no search could reveal any clue to the theft.
+
+  In every temple, hermitage, and hall,
+  A long and eager search the monarch made,
+  And tortures or rewards decreed to all
+  Who screened the guilty, or the guilt betrayed;
+  Nor ceased the Sorcerer to employ in aid
+  Of the inquiry all his arts, but still
+  Without success; for whether Heaven conveyed
+  The prize away, or power of human will,
+  Heaven close the secret kept, and shamed his vaunted skill.
+
+  But when the king found all expedients vain
+  To trace th' offender, then, beyond disguise,
+  Flamed forth his hatred to the Christians; then,
+  Fed by wild jealousies and sharp surmise,
+  Immoderate fury sparkled in his eyes;
+  Follow what may, he will revenge the deed,
+  And wreak his rage: "Our wrath shall not," he cries,
+  "Fall void, but root up all th' accursed seed;
+  Thus in the general doom the guilty yet shall bleed!
+
+  "So that he 'scapes not, let the guiltless die!
+  But wherefore thus of guiltlessness debate?
+  Each guilty is, nor 'mongst them all know I
+  One, well-affected to the faith and state;
+  And what if some be unparticipate
+  In this new crime, new punishment shall pay
+  For old misdeeds; why longer do ye wait,
+  My faithful Mussulmans? up! up! away!
+  Hence with the torch and sword: seize, fire, lay waste, and slay!"
+
+  Thus to the crowd he spake, the mandate flew,
+  And in the bosoms of the Faithful shed
+  Astonishment and stupor; stupor threw
+  On every face the paleness of the dead;
+  None dared, none sought to make defence; none fled,
+  None used entreaty, none excuse; but there
+  They stood, like marble monuments of dread,
+  Irresolute,--but Heaven conceived their prayer,
+  And whence they least had hope, brought hope to their despair.
+
+  Of generous thoughts and principles sublime
+  Amongst them in the city lived a maid,
+  The flower of virgins in her ripest prime,
+  Supremely beautiful! but that she made
+  Never her care, or beauty only weighed
+  In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired
+  A deeper charm from blooming in the shade;
+  Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired,
+  But from their praises turned, and lived a life retired.
+
+  Yet could not this coy secrecy prevent
+  Th' admiring gaze and warm desires of one
+  Tutored by Love, nor yet would Love consent
+  To hide such lustrous beauty from the sun;
+  Love! that through every change delight'st to run,
+  The Proteus of the heart I who now dost blind,
+  Now roll the Argus eyes that nought can shun!
+  Thou through a thousand guards unseen dost wind,
+  And to the chastest maids familiar access find.
+
+  Sophronia hers, Olindo was his name;
+  Born in one town, by one pure faith illumed;
+  Modest--as she was beautiful, his flame
+  Feared much, hoped little, and in nought presumed;
+  He could not, or he durst not speak, but doomed
+  To voiceless thought his passion; him she slighted,
+  Saw not, or would not see; thus he consumed
+  Beneath the vivid fire her beauty lighted;
+  Either not seen ill known, or, known, but ill requited.
+
+  And thus it was, when like an omen drear
+  That summoned all her kindred to the grave,
+  The cruel mandate reached Sophronia's ear,
+  Who, brave as bashful, yet discreet as brave,
+  Mused how her people she from death might save;
+  Courage inspired, but virginal alarm
+  Repressed the thought, till maiden shyness gave
+  Place to resolve, or joined to share the harm;
+  Boldness awoke her shame, shame made her boldness charm.
+
+  Alone amidst the crowd the maid proceeds,
+  Nor seeks to hide her beauty, nor display;
+  Downcast her eyes, close veiled in simple weeds,
+  With coy and graceful steps she wins her way:
+  So negligently neat, one scarce can say
+  If she her charms disdains, or would improve,--
+  If chance or taste disposes her array;
+  Neglects like hers, if artifices, prove
+  Arts of the friendly Heavens, of Nature, and of Love.
+
+  All, as she passed unheeding, all, admire
+  The noble maid; before the king she stood;
+  Not for his angry frown did she retire,
+  But his indignant aspect coolly viewed:
+  "To give,"--she said, "but calm thy wrathful mood,
+  And check the tide of slaughter in its spring,--
+  To give account of that thou hast pursued
+  So long in vain, seek I thy face, O king!
+  The urged offence I own, the doomed offender bring!"
+
+  The modest warmth, the unexpected light
+  Of high and holy beauty, for a space
+  O'erpowered him,--conquered of his fell despite,
+  He stood, and of all fierceness lost the trace.
+  Were his a spirit, or were hers a face
+  Of less severity, the sweet surprise
+  Had melted him to love; but stubborn grace
+  Subdues not stubborn pride; Love's potent ties
+  Are flattering fond regards, kind looks, and smiling eyes.
+
+  If 't were not Love that touched his flinty soul,
+  Desire it was, 't was wonder, 't was delight:
+  "Safe be thy race!" he said, "reveal the whole,
+  And not a sword shall on thy people light."
+  Then she: "The guilty is before thy sight,--
+  The pious robbery was my deed; these hands
+  Bore the blest Image from its cell by night;
+  The criminal thou seek'st before thee stands,--
+  Justice from none but me her penalty demands."
+
+  Thus she prepares a public death to meet,
+  A people's ransom at a tyrant's shrine:
+  Oh glorious falsehood! beautiful deceit!
+  Can Truth's own light thy loveliness outshine?
+  To her bold speech misdoubting Aladine
+  With unaccustomed temper calm replied:
+  "If so it were, who planned the rash design,
+  Advised thee to it, or became thy guide?
+  Say, with thyself who else his ill-timed zeal allied?"
+
+  "Of this my glory not the slightest part
+  Would I," said she, "with one confederate share;
+  I needed no adviser; my full heart
+  Alone sufficed to counsel, guide and dare."
+  "If so," he cried, "then none but thou must bear
+  The weight of my resentment, and atone
+  For the misdeed." "Since it has been my care,"
+  She said, "the glory to enjoy alone,
+  'T is just none share the pain; it should be all mine own."
+
+  To this the tyrant, now incensed, returned,
+  "Where rests the Image?" and his face became
+  Dark with resentment: she replied, "I burned
+  The holy Image in the holy flame,
+  And deemed it glory; thus at least no shame
+  Can e'er again profane it--it is free
+  From farther violation: dost thou claim
+  The spoil or spoiler? this behold in me;
+  But that, whilst time rolls round, thou never more shall see.
+
+  "Albeit no spoiler I; it was no wrong
+  To repossess what was by force obtained:"
+  At this the tyrant loosed his threatening tongue,
+  Long-stifled passion raging unrestrained:
+  No longer hope that pardon may be gained,
+  Beautiful face, high spirit, bashful heart!
+  Vainly would Love, since mercy is disdained,
+  And Anger flings his most envenomed dart,
+  In aid of you his else protecting shield impart!
+
+  Doomed in tormenting fire to die, they lay
+  Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining.
+  Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away,
+  And the white veil that o'er her drooped declining:
+  This she endured in silence unrepining,
+  Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook;
+  And her warm cheek, Aurora's late outshining,
+  Waned into whiteness, and a color took,
+  Like that of the pale rose, or lily of the brook.
+
+  The crowd collect; the sentence is divulged;
+  With them Olindo comes, by pity swayed;
+  It might be that the youth the thought indulged,
+  What if his own Sophronia were the maid!
+  There stand the busy officers arrayed
+  For the last act, here swift the flames arise;
+  But when the pinioned beauty stands displayed
+  To the full gaze of his inquiring eyes,--
+  '_T is_ she! he bursts through all, the crowd before him flies.
+
+  Aloud he cries: "To her, oh not to her
+  The crime belongs, though frenzy may misplead!
+  She planned not, dared not, could not, king, incur
+  Sole and unskilled the guilt of such a deed!
+  How lull the guards, or by what process speed
+  The sacred Image from its vaulted cell?
+  The theft was mine! and 't is my right to bleed!"
+  Alas for him! how wildly and how well
+  He loved the unloving maid, let this avowal tell.
+
+  "I marked where your high Mosque receives the air
+  And light of heaven; I climbed the dizzy steep;
+  I reached a narrow opening; entered there,
+  And stole the Saint whilst all were hushed in sleep:
+  Mine was the crime, and shall another reap
+  The pain and glory? Grant not her desire!
+  The chains are mine; for me the guards may heap
+  Around the ready stake the penal fire;
+  For me the flames ascend; 't is mine, that funeral pyre!"
+
+  Sophronia raised to him her face,--her eye
+  Was filled with pity and a starting tear:
+  She spoke--the soul of sad humanity
+  Was in her voice, "What frenzy brings thee here,
+  Unhappy innocent! is death so dear,
+  Or am I so ill able to sustain
+  A mortal's wrath, that thou must needs appear?
+  I have a heart, too, that can death disdain,
+  Nor ask for life's last hour companionship in pain."
+
+  Thus she appeals to him; but scorning life,
+  His settled soul refuses to retreat:
+  Oh glorious scene, where in sublimest strife
+  High-minded Virtue and Affection meet!
+  Where death's the prize of conquest, and defeat
+  Seals its own safety, yet remains unblest!
+  But indignation at their fond deceit,
+  And rage, the more inflames the tyrant's breast,
+  The more this constant pair the palm of guilt contest.
+
+  He deems his power despised, and that in scorn
+  Of him they spurn the punishment assigned:
+  "Let," he exclaimed, "the fitting palm adorn
+  The brows of both! both pleas acceptance find!"
+  Beckoning he bids the prompt tormentors bind
+  Their galling chains around the youth--'t is done;
+  Both to one stake are, back to back, consigned,
+  Like sunflowers twisted from their worshipped sun,
+  Compelled the last fond looks of sympathy to shun.
+
+  Around them now the unctuous pyre was piled,
+  And the fanned flame was rising in the wind,
+  When, full of mournful thoughts, in accents wild,
+  The lover to his mate in death repined:
+  "Is this the bond, then, which I hoped should bind
+  Our lives in blissful marriage? this the fire
+  Of bridal faith, commingling mind with mind,
+  Which, I believed, should in our hearts inspire
+  Like warmth of sacred zeal and delicate desire?
+
+  "For other flames Love promised to impart,
+  Than those our envious planets here prepare;
+  Too, ah too long they kept our hands apart,
+  But harshly now they join them in despair!
+  Yet does it soothe, since by a mode so rare
+  Condemned to die, thy torments to partake,
+  Forbid by fate thy sweetnesses to share;
+  If tears I shed, 't is but for thy dear sake,
+  Not mine,--with thee beside, I bless the burning stake!
+
+  "And oh! this doom would be indeed most blest,
+  My sharpest sufferings blandishments divine,
+  Might I but be permitted, breast to breast,
+  On thy sweet lips my spirit to resign;
+  If thou too, panting toward one common shrine,
+  Wouldst the next happy instant parting spend
+  Thy latest sighs in sympathy on mine!"
+  Sorrowing he spake; she, when his plaints had end,
+  Did thus his fond discourse most sweetly reprehend.
+
+  "Far other aspirations, other plaints
+  Than these, dear friend, the solemn hour should claim.
+  Think what reward God offers to his saints;
+  Let meek repentance raise a loftier aim:
+  These torturing fires, if suffered in his name,
+  Will, bland as zephyrs, waft us to the blest;
+  Regard the sun, how beautiful his flame!
+  How fine a sky invites him to the west!
+  These seem to soothe our pangs, and summon us to rest."
+
+  The Pagans lifting up their voices, wept;
+  In stifled sorrow wept the Faithful too;
+  E'en the stern king was touched,--a softness crept
+  O'er his fierce heart, ennobling, pure, and new;
+  He felt, he scorned it, struggled to subdue,
+  And lest his wavering firmness should relent,
+  His eyes averted, and his steps withdrew;
+  Sophronia's spirit only was unbent;
+  She yet lamented not, for whom all else lament.
+
+  In midst of their distress, a knight behold,
+  (So would it seem) of princely port! whose vest
+  And arms of curious fashion, grained with gold,
+  Bespeak some foreign and distinguished guest;
+  The silver tigress on the helm impressed,
+  Which for a badge is borne, attracts all eyes,--
+  A noted cognizance, th' accustomed crest
+  Used by Clorinda, whence conjectures rise,
+  Herself the stranger is,--nor false is their surmise.
+
+  All feminine attractions, aims, and parts,
+  She from her childhood cared not to assume;
+  Her haughty hand disdained all servile arts,
+  The needle, distaff, and Arachne's loom;
+  Yet, though she left the gay and gilded room
+  For the free camp, kept spotless as the light
+  Her virgin fame, and proud of glory's plume,
+  With pride her aspect armed, she took delight
+  Stern to appear, and stern, she charmed the gazer's sight.
+
+  Whilst yet a girl, she with her little hand
+  Lashed and reined in the rapid steed she raced,
+  Tossed the huge javelin, wrestled on the sand,
+  And by gymnastic toils her sinews braced;
+  Then through the devious wood and mountain-waste
+  Tracked the struck lion to his entered den,
+  Or in fierce wars a nobler quarry chased;
+  And thus in fighting field and forest glen,
+  A man to savage beasts, a savage seemed to men.
+
+  From Persia now she comes, with all her skill
+  The Christians to resist, though oft has she
+  Strewed with their blood the field, till scarce a rill
+  Remained, that ran not purple to the sea.
+  Here now arrived, the dreadful pageantry
+  Of death presents itself,--the crowd--the pyre--
+  And the bound pair; solicitous to see,
+  And know what crime condemns them to the fire,
+  Forward she spurs her steed and hastens to inquire.
+
+  The throng falls back, and she awhile remains,
+  The fettered pair more closely to survey;
+  One she sees silent, one she sees complains,
+  The stronger spirit nerves the weaker prey;
+  She sees him mourn like one whom the sad sway
+  Of powerful pity doth to tears chastise,
+  Not grief, or grief not for himself; but aye
+  Mute kneels the maid, her blue beseeching eyes
+  So fixed on heaven, she seems in heaven ere yet she dies.
+
+  Clorinda melts, and with them both condoles;
+  Some tears she sheds, but greater tenderness
+  Feels for her grief who most her grief controls,--
+  The silence moves her much, the weeping less;
+  No longer now does she delay to press
+  For information; turning towards one
+  Of reverend years, she said with eagerness,
+  "Who are they? speak! and oh, what crime has won
+  This death? in Mercy's name, declare the deed they've done!"
+
+  Thus she entreats; a brief reply he gives,
+  But such as well explains the whole event:
+  Amazed she heard it, and as soon conceives
+  That they are both sincerely innocent;
+  Her heart is for them, she is wholly bent
+  To avert their fate, if either arms can aid,
+  Or earnest prayers secure the king's consent;
+  The fire she nears, commands it to be stayed,
+  That now approached them fast, and to th' attendants said:
+
+  "Let none of you presume to prosecute
+  Your barbarous office, till the king I see;
+  My word I pledge that at Clorinda's suit,
+  Your fault he will forgive, if fault it be."
+  Moved by her speech and queenlike dignity
+  The guards obey, and she departs in quest
+  Of the stern monarch, urgent of her plea:
+  Midway they met; the monarch she addressed
+  And in this skilful mode her generous purpose pressed.
+
+  "I am Clorinda; thou wilt know perchance
+  The name, from vague remembrance or renown;
+  And here I come to save with sword and lance
+  Our common Faith, and thy endangered crown,
+  Impose the labor, lay th' adventure down,
+  Sublime, I fear it not, nor low despise;
+  In open field or in the straitened town,
+  Prepared I stand for every enterprise,
+  Where'er the danger calls, where'er the labor lies!"
+
+  "'T would be assuredly a thing most rare,
+  If the reward the service should precede;
+  But of thy bounty confident, I dare
+  For future toils solicit, as my meed,
+  Yon lovers' pardon; since the charge indeed
+  Rests on no evidence, 't was hard to press
+  The point at all, but this I waive, nor plead
+  On those sure signs which, urged, thou must confess
+  Their hands quite free from crime, or own their guilt far less.
+
+  "Yet will I say, though here the common mind
+  Condemns the Christians of the theft, for me,
+  Sufficient reasons in mine own I find
+  To doubt, dispute, disparage the decree;
+  To set their idols in our sanctuary
+  Was an irreverence to our laws, howe'er
+  Urged by the sorcerer; should the Prophet see
+  E'en idols of our own established there?
+  Much less then those of men whose lips his faith forswear:
+
+  "The Christian statue ravished from your sight
+  To Allah therefore rather I impute,
+  In sign that he will let no foreign rite
+  Of superstition his pure place pollute:
+  Spells and enchantments may Ismeno suit,
+  Leave him to use such weapons at his will;
+  But shall we warriors by a wand dispute?
+  No! no! our talisman, our hope, our skill,
+  Lie in our swords alone, and they shall serve us still!"
+
+  She ceased; and he, though mercy could with pain
+  Subdue a heart so full of rage and pride,
+  Relents, her reasons move, her prayers constrain.--
+  Such intercessor must not be denied;
+  Thus, though reluctant, he at length complied:
+  "The plea for the fair pleader I receive;
+  I can refuse thee nothing; this," he cried,
+  "May justice be or mercy,--let them live;
+  Guiltless--I set them free, or guilty I forgive!"
+
+  Restored to life and liberty, how blest.
+  How truly blest was young Olindo's fate!
+  For sweet Sophronia's blushes might attest,
+  That Love at length has touched her delicate
+  And generous bosom; from the stake in state
+  They to the altar pass; severely tried,
+  In doom and love, already made his mate,
+  She now objects not to become his bride.
+  And grateful live with him who would for her have died.
+
+           _Wiffen's Translation, Canto_
+
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE LOST.
+
+
+Paradise Lost was written by John Milton, who was born in London, Dec. 9,
+1608, and died Nov. 8, 1674. After leaving college, he spent five years in
+study at home, during which time he wrote L'Allegro, Il Penseroso,
+Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas. In 1638 he travelled on the continent and in
+Italy, where he met Galileo. He hastened home in 1639 on account of the
+political disturbances in England, and espousing the Puritan cause,
+devoted the next twenty years of his life to the writing of pamphlets in
+its defence. In 1649 he was appointed Latin Secretary under Cromwell. In
+1652 he lost his sight in consequence of overwork. At the age of
+twenty-nine, Milton had decided to make an epic poem his life work, and
+had noted many historical subjects. By 1641 he had decided on a Biblical
+subject. He had probably conceived Paradise Lost at the age of thirty-two,
+although the poem was not composed until he was over fifty. It was written
+after his blindness and dictated in small portions to various persons, the
+work being collected and revised by Milton and Aubrey Phillips. It was
+completed, according to the authority of Phillips, in 1663, but on account
+of the Plague and the Great Fire, it was not published until 1667.
+
+Paradise Lost is divided into twelve books and is written, to use Milton's
+own words, "In English heroic verse without rhyme, as that of Homer in
+Greek and of Virgil in Latin, rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true
+ornament of poem or good verse."
+
+Paradise Lost was neglected until the time of the Whig supremacy in
+England. In 1688 Lord Somers, the Whig leader, published an _edition de
+luxe_ of the poem; Addison's papers on it, in 1712, increased its
+popularity, and through the influence of the Whigs a bust of the poet was
+placed in Westminster Abbey in 1737.
+
+There is no better proof of the greatness of Paradise Lost than the way in
+which it has survived hostile criticism. It has been criticised for the
+lengthy conversations and "arguments" of its characters; for its
+materialization of the Divine Being; because of its subject; because of
+Milton's vagueness of description of things awesome and terrible, in
+comparison with Dante's minute descriptions. But the earnest spirit in
+which it was conceived and written; the subject, giving it a "higher
+argument" than any merely national epic, even though many of Milton's, and
+his age's, special beliefs are things of the past, and its lofty and
+poetical style, have rendered unassailable its rank among the noblest of
+the epics.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE LOST.
+
+
+Joseph Addison's Notes upon the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost;
+by Albert S. Cook, 1892. (In the Spectator from Dec. 31, 1711-May 3,
+1712);
+
+Samuel Austin Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, 1891, vol. ii., pp.
+1301-1311;
+
+Matthew Arnold's A French Critic on Milton (see his Mixed Essays, 1880,
+pp. 260-273);
+
+Walter Bagehot's Literary Studies, by Richard Holt Hutton, 1879, vol. i.,
+202-219;
+
+Richard Bentley's Emendations on the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost, 1732;
+
+E. H. Bickersteth's Milton's Paradise Lost, 1876. (St. James Lectures, 2d
+series. Another edition, 1877);
+
+Hugh Blair's Paradise Lost (see his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles
+Lettres, 1783, vol. ii., 471-476);
+
+Miss Christian Cann's A Scriptural and Allegorical Glossary to Paradise
+Lost, 1828;
+
+Charles Dexter Cleveland's Complete Concordance to Milton's Poetical
+Works, 1867;
+
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and other
+English Poets collected by T. Ashe, 1893, pp. 518-529;
+
+William T. Dobson's The Classic Poets, their lives and times etc., 1879;
+
+Charles Eyre's Fall of Adam, from Milton's Paradise Lost, 1852;
+
+George Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 1852, pp. 17-25;
+
+S. Humphreys Gurteen's The Epic of the Fall of Man; a comparative Study of
+Caedmon, Dante, and Milton, 1896;
+
+William Hazlitt On the Character of Milton's Eve (see his Round Table ed.
+by W. Carew Hazlitt, 1889, pp. 150-158);
+
+William Hazlitt On Milton's Versification (see his Round Table, ed. by W.
+Carew Hazlitt, 1889, pp. 51-57);
+
+John A. Himes's Study of Milton's Paradise Lost, 1878;
+
+Samuel Johnson's Milton (see his Lives of the Poets; ed. by Mrs. Alexander
+Napier, 1890, vol. i.);
+
+Thomas Keightley's Introduction to Paradise Lost (see his An account of
+the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton, 1855, pp. 397-484);
+
+Walter Savage Landor's Imaginary Conversations, Southey and Landor, 1853,
+vol. ii., 57-74, 156-159;
+
+Thomas Babington Macaulay's Milton (see his Critical and Historical
+Essays, ed. 10, 1860, vol. i., pp. 1-61);
+
+William Massey's Remarks upon Milton's Paradise Lost, 1761;
+
+David Masson's Introduction to Paradise Lost (see his edition of Milton's
+Poetical Works, 1893, vol. ii., pp. 1-57);
+
+David Masson's Life of Milton, 1880, vol. vi., 505-558, 621-636;
+
+David Masson's Three Devils (Luther's, Goethe's, and Milton's), (see his
+Three Devils and other Essays, 1874);
+
+James Peterson's A complete Commentary on Paradise Lost, 1744;
+
+Jonathan Richardson's Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Paradise Lost,
+1734;
+
+Edmond Scherer's Milton and Paradise Lost (see his essays on English
+Literature; Tr. by George Saintsbury, 1891, pp. 134-149);
+
+John Robert Seeley's Milton (see his Roman Imperialism and other Lectures
+and Essays), 1871, pp. 142-152;
+
+First Edition of Paradise Lost, Book Lore, 1886, iii., 72-75;
+
+J. A. Himes's Cosmology of Paradise Lost, Lutheran Quarterly, 1876, vi.,
+187-204;
+
+J. A. Himes's Plan of Paradise Lost, New Englander, 1883, xlii., 196-211;
+
+Satan of Milton and the Lucifer of Byron compared, Knickerbocker, 1847,
+xxx., 150-155;
+
+Satan of Paradise Lost, Dublin University Magazine, 1876, lxxxviii.,
+707-714;
+
+Augustine Birrell's Obiter Dicta (2d series 1887, pp. 42-51);
+
+Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature;
+Bentley's Milton, 1867, pp. 138-139;
+
+Henry Hallam's Literary History of Europe, 1873, ed. 5, vol. iii., pp.
+475-483;
+
+Mark Pattison's John Milton, n. d. (English Men of Letters Series);
+
+H. A. Taine's History of English Literature; Tr. by H. Van Laun, 1877,
+vol. ii., pp. 106-124.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF PARADISE LOST.
+
+
+When that bright spirit, afterwards known as Satan, rose in rebellion
+against the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, presumptuously thinking
+himself equal to him in strength and following, he was overthrown by the
+Great Power and cast with his followers out of Heaven down to his future
+dwelling, flaming Hell.
+
+Nine days he and his horrid crew fell through Chaos into the flaming pit
+yawning to receive them, and there lay for nine days,--rendered still more
+miserable by the thought of their immortality and the eternal bliss they
+had forfeited. Then Satan, rousing himself from the stupor consequent upon
+the fall, half rose and addressed the next in power to himself, Beelzebub.
+
+"Thou art the same, yet not the same," said he; "changed, lost is some of
+thy former brightness. Yet why repine? While we live, while we have so
+large a following, all is not lost. Our hate still lives, and have we but
+strength enough, we may still revenge ourselves upon him who thrust us
+into this accursed place."
+
+Rising from the lake, his great shield slung over his shoulders, the
+unconquered archangel walked over the burning marl to the beach of that
+fiery sea, and there with chiding words addressed the legions strewn
+around him. The great army rose hastily at the voice of its chief and
+passed before him, spirits whose heavenly names were now forever lost, who
+later became the gods of the idolaters. There was mighty Moloch, Chemos,
+those who later went by the general names of Baalim and
+Ashtaroth,--Thammuz, Dagon, Rimmon, Osiris, Isis, Orus and their train,
+Belial, and last of all, the Ionian gods.
+
+His despair in part dissipated by the sight of this heroic array, their
+prince, towering high above all, addressed them. No one had foreseen the
+calamity that had overtaken them. Who could have guessed the power of the
+Almighty? But though overthrown they were not totally defeated. A rumor
+had long since been rife of the creation of another world with which they
+could interfere. At any rate, there must never be peace between them and
+the heavenly Powers. War there must be, war in secret, or war waged
+openly. As he ended, shield clashed against shield, and swords, quickly
+drawn, flashed before his eyes, and loud cries hurled defiance to Heaven.
+
+The legions, led by Mammon, who in Heaven had been an honored architect,
+sought a hill near by, and quickly emptying it of its rich store of gold
+and jewels, built a massive structure. Like a temple in form was it, and
+round about it stood Doric columns overlaid with gold. No king of any
+future state could boast of a grander hall than this palace of Pandemonium
+which was so quickly reared upon a hill in Hell, and to which the heralds'
+trumpets now summoned all the host.
+
+On the massive throne, blazing with jewels, sat the fallen spirit, and
+thus addressed his followers: "Our success is sure in whatever we
+undertake. We shall never be riven with internecine warfare, for surely no
+one will quarrel over precedence in Hell. Therefore, united, we can, sure
+of our success, debate of the way in which we shall take up our warfare
+with the powers that have overthrown us."
+
+Moloch, Belial, Mammon, and Beelzebub spoke. Moloch was in favor of open
+war, since nothing could be worse than Hell, and continued assault against
+the Most High would, in annoying him, be a sweet revenge. Belial, who
+though timorous and slothful, was a persuasive orator, denounced Moloch's
+plan. Since the ruler of Heaven was all-powerful, and they immortal, no
+one knew to what greater misery he could push them; perhaps he would bury
+them in boiling pitch to eternity, or inflict a thousand undreamed-of
+tortures. War, open and secret, he disliked, since it was impossible to
+conceal aught from the eye of the Most High. To make the best of Hell
+seemed all that was possible; in time they might become inured to its
+flames and better days might come, if they but accepted their doom
+patiently.
+
+Mammon also considered war impossible. They could never hope to overcome
+the Almighty; neither could they hope nor wish for a reconciliation, for
+how hateful would be an eternity spent in cringing to one whom they hated.
+The desert soil of Hell teemed with riches, they could find peaceful
+pursuits, and it was his advice to continue there in quiet, untroubled by
+any thoughts of revenge.
+
+Amid the murmur of applause that followed Mammon's speech, Beelzebub, than
+whom none towered higher save Satan, arose, his face grave, his attitude
+majestic. "Would you, Thrones and Imperial Powers," he cried, "think to
+build up a kingdom here, secure from the arm of Heaven? Have you so soon
+forgotten that this is not a kingdom ceded to you by the Most High, but a
+dungeon in which he has shut you for your everlasting punishment? Never
+will he forget that you are his prisoners; your lot will not be peace, but
+custody and stripes. What return can we make, then, but to think out some
+slow but sure and sweet revenge? It is not necessary to attempt to scale
+the walls of Heaven. Other things remain. There is this new world, his
+plaything. It may lie exposed, and we can at least make the attempt to
+seize it and lay it waste, and thus vex him." As he saw their eyes
+sparkle, he continued: "We may in this attempt come near to the steps of
+our old abode and breathe again its delicious airs instead of these
+hellish flames. But first we must find some one, strong, wary, and
+watchful, to send in search of it."
+
+Satan strode forth, his courage and his consciousness of it making his
+face shine with transcendent glory. "Long is the way and hard; its dangers
+unknown and terrible, but I should be a poor sovereign did I hesitate in
+the attempt to seek it out. I do not refuse the sovereignty, for I fear
+not to accept as great a share of hazard as of honor. Stay here; charm
+away your time, and I will seek deliverance abroad for all of us."
+
+As he spoke he rose to depart, fearful lest others might now offer to go
+and share the glory with him.
+
+The legions rose with a sound like thunder, bowed in deepest reverence and
+went forth, some, to explore their dismal abode, others to amuse
+themselves at games, others to discuss Free Will and Fate, while their
+leader pursued his way toward the gate of Hell.
+
+The nine-fold gates were of brass, iron, and adamantine rock, reaching
+high to the mighty roof, and most horrible were the Shapes that guarded
+it.
+
+On one side sat a creature, woman to the waist, below, a serpent,
+surrounded by a crew of hell hounds, forever barking and then seeking
+refuge within her. On the other, a Shape, black, fierce, terrible, crowned
+with the likeness of a kingly crown, and shaking in its hands a dreadful
+dart. As he strode, Hell trembled. Satan, undaunted, met him with fierce
+words. As the two stood, their lances pointed at each other, the woman
+shrieked and ran between them.
+
+"Father, rush not upon thy son! Son, raise not thy hand against thy
+father!" She then explained that she was Satan's daughter, Sin, who had
+sprung from his head full grown, and that she later became by him the
+mother of the creature called Death who sat with her to guard the gates.
+
+Satan at once unfolded to them his plan of seeking the new world and
+making a happy home for both Sin and Death, where they could forever find
+food to gratify their hideous cravings. Charmed by his highly-colored
+pictures, and forgetful of the commands from above, Sin opened the mighty
+doors, so that the flames of Hell spread far out into Chaos, but her
+strength failed her when she attempted to close them again.
+
+For a moment Satan looked out into the mixture of Hot and Cold and Moist
+and Dry that formed Chaos, and then started forth, now rising, now
+falling, his wings heavy with the dense masses, now wading, now creeping,
+until at last he reached the spot where was fixed the throne of Chaos and
+of Night. Here Satan learned of the situation of the new world and soon
+caught a glimpse of it, hanging like a star, by a golden chain, from
+Heaven.
+
+Sitting in Heaven, high throned above all, God, all-seeing, all-knowing,
+was conscious of Satan's escape from Hell and his approach to the new
+world. To his Son, sitting on his right hand, he pointed out the fallen
+spirit. "No prescribed bounds can shut our Adversary in; nor can the
+chains of hell hold him. To our new world he goes, and there, by no fault
+of mine, will pervert man, whom I have placed therein, with a free will;
+so to remain until he enthralls himself. Man will fall as did Satan, but
+as Satan was self-tempted, and man will be deceived by another, the latter
+shall find grace where his tempter did not."
+
+Great was the joy of the Son when he learned that man would receive mercy
+for his transgression. "Pardon and mercy he shall receive," declared the
+Father, "but some one must be willing to expiate his sin for him; the just
+must die for the unjust. Who in Heaven is willing to make the sacrifice?"
+
+For a moment all the Heavenly quire stood mute; then the Son of God spoke
+and implored his Father to let his anger fall on him, since he could not
+wholly die, but could arise from death and subdue his vanquisher.
+
+When his Father accepted the sacrifice, and named him Son of God and Man
+who should hereafter be Universal King, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, Heaven
+rang with the shouts of the Angels, who, casting down their amaranthine
+wreaths until the golden pavement was covered with the garlands, took
+their golden harps and sang the praises of the Father and the Son.
+
+While they sang, Satan walked over the vast globe on which he had
+alighted, through what in after years, when the world was peopled, was to
+be the Paradise of Fools, the spot to which the spirits of all things
+transitory and vain, of those who had worked for their reward in life
+instead of in Heaven, would come. He walked around the dark globe until,
+directed by a gleam of light, he found the spot where a ladder led up to
+Heaven. Just below it, down through the spheres, was the seat of Paradise
+to which he was bending his way.
+
+Down through the crystal spheres he bent his way toward the Sun, which
+attracted him by its superior splendor. Espying Uriel, the Angel of the
+Sun, he quickly took the form of a youthful Cherub, and, approaching
+Uriel, told him that having heard of the new world he had been seized by a
+longing to quit the bands of Cherubim and see for himself the wonderful
+work of the Creator.
+
+Directed by the unsuspecting Uriel, Satan sped downward and standing upon
+the top of Niphates, surveyed Eden.
+
+As he looked, his spirit was troubled. He had brought Hell with him, and
+his unhappy thoughts boiled and surged in his troubled mind. "Sun, I hate
+thee, because thy beams recall to me what I was and how I fell. The
+matchless King of Heaven deserved no such return from me. His service was
+easy. Had I only been created a lower Power!--But even then, might not
+some higher one have led me into temptation? What shall I do, whither
+shall I fly, to escape infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Hell is
+around me, I myself am Hell! There is no hope for me. Submission is the
+only way left, and I could not unsay what I have said; I could never
+bridge the gulf made by my revolt. Farewell to remorse! Good is forever
+lost to me, and I must now make Evil my good. I can at least divide the
+empire of the world with the King of Heaven."
+
+As he realized how his bitter thoughts had dimmed his countenance he
+smoothed it over with outward calm, but not before Uriel, from the Sun,
+had noted and wondered over his strange gestures.
+
+Leaping over the high natural walls of Paradise, Satan, in the form of a
+cormorant, perched himself on the Tree of Life. Beautiful was the scene
+before him. All the trees and plants were of the noblest kind. In the
+midst of them stood the Tree of Life with its golden fruit, and not far
+off the Tree of Knowledge. Southward through Eden ran a river, which,
+passing under a huge hill, emerged into four great streams wandering
+through many afterwards famous realms. Between the rows of trees stretched
+level lawns where grazed the happy flocks, and over the green mead were
+sprinkled flowers of every hue. No fairer scene ever met living eyes, and
+fairest of all were the two stately forms, in whose looks shone the
+divinity of their Maker. Hand in hand they passed through the garden,
+refreshed themselves with the delicious fruits, and were happy in each
+other.
+
+As he gazed on them while the animals fell asleep and the sun sank below
+the horizon, Satan, still torn with conflicting emotions, ruminated over
+the unhappiness he was to bring the lovely pair. He admired them, he could
+love them; they had not harmed him, but he must bring unhappiness upon
+them because of their likeness to their Creator. Through them only could
+he obtain his longed-for revenge.
+
+Anxious to learn where to attack them, he prowled about them, now as a
+lion, now as a tiger, listening to their conversation. They spoke of their
+garden, of the Tree of Life, and of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. "In
+the day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die," had been their warning. Eve
+recalled the day of her creation, when she had first fled from Adam, and
+then yielded to his embraces, and Satan, watching their caresses, envied
+and hardened his heart. "Live while ye may!" he muttered. "Soon will I
+return and offer you new woes for your present pleasures."
+
+In the mean time, Gabriel, warned by Uriel, who suspected that an evil
+spirit had crept into Paradise, had set watches around the garden.
+Ithuriel and Zephon, sent to search for him, spied Satan in the form of a
+toad, sitting near the ear of Eve, tainting her dreams with foul whispers.
+Touched by Ithuriel's spear, he was forced to resume his own shape and was
+taken to Gabriel. The angry Satan attempted to use force, but warned by a
+sign from Heaven that his strength was insufficient, fled, murmuring,
+through the night.
+
+When morning dawned on Eden, a morn of unimaginable beauty, Adam waked Eve
+from her restless slumbers, and heard her troubled dreams, in which she
+had been tempted to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. He
+comforted her, and after their morning hymn, in which they glorified their
+Creator, they set about their pleasant work of pruning the too luxuriant
+vines of their Paradise. In the mean time, the Father above, knowing the
+design of Satan, and determined that man should not fall without warning,
+sent Raphael down to Adam to tell him that he was threatened by an enemy,
+and that, as a free agent, if he fell, his sin would be upon his own head.
+
+Six-winged Raphael swept down through the spheres and stood in Paradise,
+welcomed by Adam. Eve hastened to set before their guest every delicacy
+that Eden knew, and while she was preparing these Adam listened to the
+Angel's warning.
+
+To emphasize the sin of disobedience, Raphael related to the pair the
+story of Satan's conspiracy with the other powers because the Father had
+proclaimed the power of his Son. The Father, knowing Satan's confidence in
+himself, had allowed him for two days to fight an equal number of his
+legions of angels, among whom was Abdiel who had fled, indignant, from
+Satan's ranks, and on the third day, when the legions of evil lay crushed
+beneath the mountains which the shining angels had heaped upon them, the
+Son of God drove forth in his chariot, and single-handed, forced them
+before him, terror-stricken, until, Heaven's wall having opened, they fell
+downward for nine days, in horror and confusion into the depths of Hell.
+The Messiah, returning home in triumph in his chariot, was welcomed by the
+bright orders into the home of his Father.
+
+Delighted by the recital of Raphael, Adam asked him to relate the story of
+the Creation, and explain to him the motion of the celestial bodies. He
+then told Raphael of his own creation; how he awoke as from a sleep and
+found the Sun above him and around him the pleasant groves of Paradise;
+how he named the animals as they passed before him, according to the will
+of God, and how he had pleaded with his Maker for a companion and equal,
+until the Creator, casting him into a sound sleep, took from his side a
+rib and formed from it his beauteous Eve. As Adam concluded, the setting
+sun warned Raphael to depart.
+
+Satan, after fleeing from Gabriel, had hidden in the dark parts of the
+earth, so that he could creep in at night unseen of Uriel. After the
+eighth night, he crept in past the watchful Cherubim, and stealing into
+Paradise, wrapped in the mist rising over the river that, shooting
+underground, rose up as a fountain near the Tree of Life, he crept, though
+not without loathing, into the serpent, in which form he could best evade
+the watchful eyes of the heavenly guards and accomplish his purpose.
+
+When morning dawned, Eve asked Adam for once to permit her to work alone,
+so that they might accomplish more. Adam, who constantly desired her
+presence, prayed her to remain, warning her of the enemy of whom Raphael
+had spoken, and telling her that they could resist temptation more easily
+together than when separated. But Eve was obdurate, and Adam finally
+consented that she should go alone to work.
+
+As she moved among the groves, tying up the drooping flowers, like to
+Pomona in her prime, or to Ceres, the sight of so much beauty, goodness,
+and innocence moved even the serpent, as he approached, intent on the
+destruction of her happiness. But as he looked, the thought of her joy but
+tortured him the more, since happiness was no longer possible for him.
+
+This was before the serpent had been compelled to crawl his whole length
+on the ground, and as he moved on, fold on fold, his head proudly reared,
+his scales brilliant in color, he was not an unpleasant object to look
+upon. He circled about Eve as though lost in admiration, until her
+attention was attracted, and then astounded her by addressing her in her
+own language. When she demanded by what means he had acquired speech, he
+told her by the plucking and eating of a certain tree in the garden, which
+he had no sooner tasted than he felt his inward powers to develop until he
+found himself capable of speech.
+
+Eve at once asked him to take her to the tree, but when she recognized the
+forbidden Tree of Knowledge, she demurred, assuring the serpent that God
+had commanded them not to touch it, for if they ate of it, they should
+surely die. "Am I not alive?" asked her tempter, "and have I not eaten of
+it? Is it not a rank injustice that you should be forbidden to taste it
+and to lack the Knowledge of Good and Evil which it would give you? Where
+can the offence lie? It must be envy that causes such a prohibition."
+
+His words, the sight of the fruit, and natural hunger all prevailed on
+Eve, and she plucked a branch from the tree and tasted the fruit. As she
+ate she saw Adam coming in search of her, holding a garland which he had
+been binding to crown her. To his reproaches, she replied with the
+arguments of her tempter, until Adam, in despair, determined to taste the
+apple that he might not lose Eve. Paradise without her would not be
+Paradise, and no new wife could make him forget her.
+
+After the first exhilaration of the food was past they began to reproach
+each other, mindful of their destiny, of which they had been warned by
+Raphael, and, engaged in this fruitless chiding, they were found by the
+Son, who, informed of their transgression by the angels, sought them out
+in their place of concealment. Adam and Eve he sentenced to a life of
+sorrow and labor, the serpent to go despised and ever at enmity with man.
+Then, pitying the unhappy pair, he clad them in skins and re-ascended to
+Heaven.
+
+While this was occurring in Eden, Sin and Death, feeling in some
+mysterious way the success of their parent, determined to leave Hell and
+seek their new home. Passing through Chaos, they pushed the heavy elements
+this way and that, cementing them with Death's mace until they constructed
+of them a bridge from the gates of Hell to the point on earth at which
+Satan had first alighted, and here met him, just returning, flushed with
+success, to Hell.
+
+All the followers of Satan were gathered in Pandemonium to hear the news
+of his success, which he related, overjoyed at having wrought the ruin of
+mankind and revenged himself on God by so small a thing as the eating of
+an apple. As he concluded and stood waiting their applause, he heard a
+universal hiss, and saw himself surrounded by serpents, and himself
+changing into an enormous dragon. The great hall was filled with the
+monsters, scorpions, asps, hydras, and those who stood waiting without
+with applause for their leader were likewise changed into loathsome
+reptiles. Without the hall a grove sprang up, loaded with tempting fruit,
+but when, tortured with thirst, they tried to eat, it turned in their
+mouths to bitter ashes. After a time they were permitted to take again
+their own shapes, but were compelled to resume this serpent-form for a
+certain number of days each year, to crush their pride.
+
+When God saw the entrance of Sin and Death into the world, he proclaimed
+to his Saints that their seeming victory was but temporary, and that
+eventually his Son would defeat Sin, Death, and the Grave, and seal up the
+mouth of Hell. Then, as the Halleluias rang out, he ordered the angels to
+make certain changes in the universe as a punishment to man. The Sun was
+so to move as to affect the earth alternately with a cold and heat almost
+unbearable; to the Moon were assigned her motions; the other planets were
+to join in various ways, often "unbenign." The winds were assigned their
+stations to torment the earth and sea, and the thunder was set to strike
+terror to the heart of man. The poles of the earth were pushed aslant, and
+soon the effects of the changes were felt in heat, cold, wind, and storm.
+
+Adam, though absorbed in his own misery and momentarily expecting Death,
+saw the changes, and bemoaned his woes the more. How would his mysterious
+progeny despise him, since he was the cause of their being brought into
+the world of woe! When Eve attempted to comfort him he drove her from him
+with harsh words, saying that in time to come women would be the unhappy
+cause of all man's misery, as she had been of his. At last, seeing the
+futility of his outcries Adam began to cheer his wife, recalling the
+promise that their offspring should crush the head of the serpent, and
+suggested to her that they go to their former place of prayer and pour
+forth to God their true contrition and repentance.
+
+The glad Son, presenting these prayers at his Father's throne, interceded
+with him for them, since their contrition now was worth more than their
+worship in a state of innocence. His intercession was accepted, but since
+they had lost the two gifts of Happiness and Immortality, they must leave
+the garden lest they be tempted to taste next of the Tree of Life and make
+their woe eternal.
+
+Michael was sent down to drive them from the garden, and if the pair
+seemed repentant and disconsolate he was ordered to comfort them with the
+promise of better days and to reveal to them somewhat of the future. In
+habit as a man Michael descended and declared to Adam and Eve that they
+could no longer abide in Paradise. When Adam, himself broken with grief,
+attempted to console the heart-broken Eve, the Angel comforted her also,
+and causing a sleep to fall upon her, led Adam to a hill-top, whence could
+be seen the hemisphere of the earth, soon to be covered by the seats of
+empires.
+
+Touching Adam's eyes with three drops from the well of life, the Angel
+showed him a long panorama, beginning with the crime of Cain, and showing
+the building of the Ark and its landing on Ararat. When he perceived that
+Adam's eyes were weary, he recited to him the story of Abraham, of the
+deliverance from Egypt, the wandering in the Wilderness, of the royal
+stock of David from which would spring the seed so often promised Adam,
+who should ascend the hereditary throne, and whose glory should be
+universal.
+
+Overjoyed, Adam inquired when would take place the final death stroke to
+Satan, the bruising with the Victor's heel. Michael responded that Satan
+was not to be destroyed, but his works in Adam and his seed, and that the
+sacrifice of the Son's life for man would forever crush the strength of
+Satan's progeny, Sin and Death. Then, to that Heaven to which he would
+reascend, the faithful would go when the time came for the world's
+dissolution, and there would be received into the bliss eternal.
+
+Strengthened and sustained, Adam went down from the mount and met Eve,
+just awaking from comforting dreams.
+
+The Cherubim descended, and, urged by the Angel, the two took their way
+into the wide world that lay before them, and looking back beheld the
+flaming swords of the Cherubim at the gates of their lost Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST.
+
+SATAN.
+
+
+After having been thrown out of Heaven with his crew, Satan lay nine days
+in the burning lake into which he fell. Then, rousing himself, he rose
+from the liquid flames, flew over the lake, and alighting upon the solid
+though burning land, thus addressed Beelzebub, who had accompanied him.
+
+  "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
+  Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
+  That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom
+  For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
+  Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
+  What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
+  Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
+  Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
+  Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
+  Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
+  Receive thy new possessor--one who brings
+  A mind not to be changed by place or time.
+  The mind is its own place, and in itself
+  Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+  What matter where, if I be still the same,
+  And what I should be, all but less than he
+  Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
+  We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
+  Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
+  Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
+  To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
+  Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
+  But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
+  The associates and co-partners of our loss,
+  Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,
+  And call them not to share with us their part
+  In this unhappy mansion, or once more
+  With rallied arms to try what may be yet
+  Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"
+
+  So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub
+  Thus answered:--"Leader of those armies bright
+  Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
+  If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
+  Of hope in fears and dangers--heard so oft
+  In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
+  Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
+  Their surest signal--they will soon resume
+  New courage and revive, though now they lie
+  Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
+  As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
+  No wonder, fallen from such pernicious highth!"
+
+  He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
+  Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
+  Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
+  Behind him cast. The broad circumference
+  Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
+  Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
+  At evening, from the top of Fesole,
+  Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
+  Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
+  His spear--to equal which the tallest pine
+  Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
+  Of some great ammiral, were but a wand--
+  He walked with, to support uneasy steps
+  Over the burning marle, not like those steps
+  On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
+  Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
+  Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
+  Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
+  His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced
+  Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
+  In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
+  High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
+  Afloat, when the fierce winds Orion armed
+  Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
+  Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
+  While with perfidious hatred they pursued
+  The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
+  From the safe shore their floating carcases
+  And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrewn,
+  Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
+  Under amazement of their hideous change.
+  He called so loud that all the hollow deep
+  Of Hell resounded:--"Princes, Potentates,
+  Warriors, the Flower of Heaven--once yours; now lost,
+  If such astonishment as this can seize
+  Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
+  After the toil of battle to repose
+  Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
+  To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
+  Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
+  To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
+  Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
+  With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
+  His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
+  The advantage, and descending, tread us down
+  Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
+  Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?--
+  Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"
+          _Book I._, 240-330.
+
+
+APOSTROPHE TO LIGHT.
+
+This passage forms the beginning of Book III., in which the poet visits
+the realms of light after having described Hell and its inhabitants.
+
+  Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
+  Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
+  May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
+  And never but in unapproached light
+  Dwelt from eternity--dwelt then in thee,
+  Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
+  Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
+  Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
+  Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
+  Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
+  The rising World of waters dark and deep,
+  Won from the void and formless Infinite!
+  Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
+  Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained
+  In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
+  Through utter and through middle Darkness borne,
+  With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
+  I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
+  Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down
+  The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
+  Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
+  And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
+  Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
+  To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
+  So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
+  Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
+  Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
+  Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
+  Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
+  Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
+  That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
+  Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
+  Those other two equalled with me in fate,
+  So were I equalled with them in renown,
+  Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,
+  And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
+  Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
+  Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
+  Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
+  Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
+  Seasons return; but not to me returns
+  Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
+  Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
+  Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
+  But cloud instead and ever-during dark
+  Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
+  Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
+  Presented with a universal blank
+  Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
+  And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
+  So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
+  Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
+  Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
+  Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
+  Of things invisible to mortal sight.
+                       _Book III_
+
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+  "A cold and noble epic."--TAINE.
+
+
+Paradise regained was written by Milton, judging from a passage in the
+Autobiography of Thomas Ellwood, in the winter of 1665-6, but was not
+published until 1671. It was printed at Milton's expense in a small volume
+together with Samson Agonistes.
+
+Paradise Regained tells the story of Christ's temptation in the
+Wilderness, and the material was taken from the accounts of Matthew and
+Luke, which the poet, with great skill, expanded without essentially
+deviating from them.
+
+The title has been criticised on the ground that the poem should have
+extended over the whole of Christ's life on earth. But Paradise Regained
+was written as a sequel to Paradise Lost, and, as in the first poem the
+poet showed that Paradise was lost by the yielding of Adam and Eve to
+Satan, so in the second, he wished to show that Paradise was regained by
+the resistance of Christ to temptation, Satan's defeat signifying the
+regaining of Paradise for men by giving them the hope of Christ's second
+coming. Therefore the poem naturally ends with Satan's rebuff and his
+final abandonment of the attempt on the pinnacle of the Temple.
+
+The poem has been criticised for its shortness, some scholars even
+affecting to believe it unfinished; its lack of variety, in that it has
+but two characters, its lack of action, and the absence of figurative
+language.
+
+But with all these faults, it has a charm of its own, entirely different
+from that of Paradise Lost. Satan has degenerated during his years of
+"roaming up and down the earth;" he is no longer the fallen angel of
+Paradise Lost, who struggled with himself before making evil his good. He
+is openly given over to evil practices, and makes little effort to play
+the hypocrite. His temptations are worked up from that of hunger to that
+of the vision of the kingdoms of the earth with a wonderful power of
+description which makes up for the lack of action and the few actors. The
+pathless, rockbound desert, the old man, poorly clad, who accosts the
+Christ, the mountain-top from which all the earth was visible, the night
+of horror in the desert, and the sublime figure of the Savior, are all
+enduring pictures which compensate for any rigidity of treatment. If
+figurative language is omitted it is because the theme does not need it,
+and does not show that the poem is less carefully finished than Paradise
+Lost. Its lack of action and similarity of subject to the longer poem
+sufficiently account for its not meeting with popular favor. Johnson was
+correct when he said, "had this poem been written not by Milton, but by
+some imitator, it would have claimed and received universal praise."
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+
+H. C. Beeching, On the Prosody of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes,
+1889;
+
+Charles Dexter Cleveland's Complete Concordance to Milton's Poetical
+Works, 1867;
+
+William T. Dobson's The Classic Poets, their Lives and Times etc., 1879;
+
+George Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 1852, pp. 15-16;
+
+Samuel Johnson's Milton (see his Lives of the Poets, ed. by Mrs. Alexander
+Napier, 1890, vol. i.);
+
+Thomas Babington Macaulay's Milton (see his Critical and Historical
+Essays, ed, 10, 1860, vol. i.);
+
+David Masson's Introduction to Paradise Regained (see his ed. of Milton's
+Poetical works, 1893, vol. iii., pp. 1-14);
+
+David Masson's Life of Milton, 1880, vol. vi., 651-661;
+
+Richard Meadowcourt's Critique on Milton's Paradise Regained, 1732;
+
+A Critical Dissertation on Paradise Regained with Notes, 2d ed. 1748;
+
+John Robert Seeley's Milton (see his Roman Imperialism and other Lectures
+and Essays, 1871, pp. 152-157);
+
+Mark Pattison's John Milton (English Men of Letters Series), n. d.;
+
+H. A. Taine's History of English Literature, Tr. by H. Van Laun, 1877,
+vol. ii.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+
+After the expulsion from Paradise of Adam and Eve, Satan and his followers
+did not return to Hell, but remained on earth, the fallen angels becoming
+the evil gods of various idolatrous nations and Satan engaging in every
+kind of evildoing which he knew would vex the Powers of Heaven. All the
+time he was troubled by the thought of the heavenly foe who he had been
+told would one day appear on earth to crush him and his rebel angels.
+
+Now John had come out of the wilderness, proclaiming his mission, and
+among those who came to him to be baptized was one who was deemed the son
+of Joseph of Nazareth. John recognized in the obscure carpenter's son the
+one "mightier than he" whose coming he was to proclaim, and this fact was
+further made clear to the multitude and the observant Satan by the opening
+of the Heavens and the descent therefrom on Christ's head of the Dove,
+while a voice was heard declaring, "This is my beloved Son."
+
+Satan, enraged, fled to the council of the fiends to announce to them the
+presence on earth of their long-dreaded enemy. He was empowered by them to
+attempt his overthrow, and they were the more confident because of his
+success with Adam and Eve.
+
+Satan's purpose was known to the Eternal Father, who smiled to see him
+unwittingly fulfilling the plan so long foreordained for his destruction.
+
+After his baptism, the Father had sent his Son into the wilderness to gain
+strength for his struggle with Sin and Death, and there Satan, in the
+guise of an old, poorly clad rustic, found him. Although the Son of God
+had wandered through the rock-bound, pathless desert, among wild beasts,
+without food for forty days, he had no fear, believing that some impulse
+from above had guided him thither before he should go out among men to do
+his divinely appointed task.
+
+Then, when hunger came upon him as he wandered, thinking of past events
+and those to come, he met the aged man and was addressed by him.
+
+"Sir, how came you hither, where none who ventures alone escapes alive? I
+ask because you look not unlike the man I lately saw baptized by John and
+declared the Son of God."
+
+"I need no guide," replied the Son. "The Power who brought me here will
+bring me forth."
+
+"Not otherwise than by miracle. Here we subsist only upon dry roots and
+must often endure parching thirst. If thou art indeed the Son of God, save
+thyself and relieve us wretched people by changing these stones to bread."
+
+"Men live not by bread alone," replied the Son, "but by the word of God.
+Moses in the Mount was without food and drink for forty days. Elijah also
+wandered fasting in the wilderness. Thou knowest who I am as I know who
+thou art; why shouldest thou suggest distrust to me?"
+
+"'Tis true that I am that unfortunate spirit who fell from Heaven, but I
+have been permitted to roam around the earth and have not been altogether
+excluded from Heaven. God allowed me to test Job and prove his worth and
+to draw Ahab into fraud. Though I have lost much of my original brightness
+I can still admire all that is illustrious and good. The sons of men
+should not regard me as an enemy, for I have oft given them aid by
+oracles, dreams, and portents. My loss was not through them, so their
+restoration does not grieve me; only that fallen man will be restored and
+not I."
+
+"Thou deservest to grieve, tissue of lies that thou art!" exclaimed our
+Savior. "Thou boastest of being released from Hell and permitted to come
+into Heaven. No joy hast thou there! Thy own malice moved thee to torture
+Job. Brag not of thy lies, thy oracles for men. Henceforth oracles are
+dumb, since God has sent his living oracle into the world to teach the
+truth."
+
+Satan, though angry, still dissembled.
+
+"Accuse me, reprove me, if thou wilt. Fallen as I am, I still love to hear
+the truth fall from thy lips."
+
+Unmoved by his false words the Savior of men declared that he neither
+forbade nor invited his presence, and Satan, bowing low, disappeared as
+night fell over the desert.
+
+In the mean time, those at Bethabara who had rejoiced at the declaration
+of John and had talked with the Messiah, were deeply grieved to find him
+gone and with him their hope of deliverance. His mother, too, was troubled
+at his absence, but comforted herself with the thought of his former
+absences, afterwards explained.
+
+Satan, hastening from the desert, sought his troop of evil spirits to warn
+them that his undertaking was no easy one, and to summon them to his
+assistance.
+
+Night fell on the Son of God, still fasting, wondering what would be the
+end. In sleep he was visited by dreams of Elijah, raven-fed, and of the
+same prophet fed by the angel in the desert, and as he dreamed that he ate
+with them, the lark's song awoke him and he wandered into a pleasant
+grove. As he viewed it, charmed by its beauty, a man appeared before him,
+no rustic this time, but one attired in the apparel of city or court.
+
+"I have returned, wondering that thou still remainest here, hungering.
+Hagar once wandered here; the children of Israel, and the Prophet, but all
+these were fed by the hand of Heaven. Thou alone art forgotten and goest
+tormented by hunger."
+
+Though the Son of God declared that he had no need to eat, Satan invited
+his attention to a table, set under a spreading tree. Upon it was heaped
+every known delicacy; by it waited youths handsome as Ganymede, and among
+the trees tripped naiads and nymphs of Diana, with fruits and flowers.
+Exquisite music was heard, and the perfumes of Araby filled the air.
+
+"Why not sit and eat?" continued Satan. "These foods are not forbidden,
+and all these gentle ministers are ready to do thee homage."
+
+"What hast thou to do with my hunger?" demanded Jesus. "Should I receive
+as a gift from thee what I myself could command if I so desired? I too
+could bring a table here, and swift-winged angels to attend me. Thy gifts
+are but guiles."
+
+"I am forever suspected," responded Satan, as the table vanished. "Hunger
+cannot move thee, set on high designs. But what canst thou, a lowly
+carpenter's son, accomplish without aid? Where wilt thou find authority,
+where followers? First get riches; hearken to me, for fortune is in my
+hand. Wealth will win, while virtue, valor, and wisdom sit and wait in
+vain."
+
+"Yet what can wealth do without these?" replied Jesus patiently. "How can
+it gain dominion, and keep it when gained? Gideon, Jephtha, David, and
+among the heathen (for I am not ignorant of history) Quinctius, Fabricius,
+Curius, Regulus, all these have risen from the depths and achieved the
+highest deeds. Then, why may not I accomplish as much, even more, without
+wealth, which but cumbers the wise man, and slackens virtue, rather than
+prompts it to worthy deeds? Suppose I reject both riches and realms? Not
+because the regal diadem is a wreath of thorns and he who wears it bears
+each man's burden, for the king's chief praise is the manner in which he
+bears this burden for the public. But he who rules himself is greater than
+a king, and he who cannot do this should not aspire to royal power. But it
+is surely more kingly to lead nations blinded by error into the light of
+God's truth. This dominion is over the nobler part of man. And it has ever
+been thought greater and nobler to give a kingdom and to lay down
+authority than to assume it. Therefore thy riches are needless both in
+themselves, and to gain a kingdom which would better be missed than
+gained."
+
+Satan, though for a moment struck dumb by this answer to his arguments,
+soon collected himself and suggested that while the Savior knew so well
+what was best to know, say, and do, that if known he would be regarded as
+an oracle, still he did wrong to despise glory and deprive earth of his
+great deeds, citing as examples of more active spirits accomplishing much
+when younger than he, the young Alexander, Scipio, Pompey, and Caesar. But
+the Savior replied that the glory which consisted of the approval of the
+rabble was only to be despised. The true glory was that of the man who
+dared to be truly good, who though little known on earth, was famous in
+Heaven. Such men did not lay waste fields, sack, pillage, and slay, but by
+deeds of peace won the approval of the Father. Such was Job, oft tempted
+by Satan; such was Socrates, who suffered unjust death for teaching truth.
+And the Son of God had come upon earth not to win glory for himself as
+vain men do, but for Him who sent him.
+
+"Thy Father does not despise glory," sneered Satan. "He demands it from
+his angels, from men, even from us, his foes."
+
+"With reason," answered the Son, "since he created all things, though not
+for glory. And what slighter recompense could he expect from men who could
+return nothing else?"
+
+Satan, remembering his own ambition and his fall, was silent for a moment,
+and then spoke to remind the Savior that he was born to the throne of
+David, but that it must be wrested from the Roman by force of arms. It was
+his duty to do this and save his people from oppression.
+
+"All things in due time," replied the Savior. "If the Writ tells of my
+sufferings, my tribulations, of violence done unto me, it also tells of my
+reign without end. I can wait. He who suffers best, can do best; he who
+obeys first, reigns best; and why shouldest thou be so anxious to hasten
+my rule when it means thy destruction?"
+
+"When hope is gone, what is there left to fear? My punishment will come
+whether thou reign or no. I could hope that thy reign would stand between
+me and the anger of thy Father. And if I haste to the worst that can be,
+why shouldest thou go so slowly to the best? Perhaps thou fearest the
+dangerous enterprise, thou who, pent up in Galilean towns, hast seen so
+little."
+
+So saying, he took the Son up into a high mountain at the foot of which
+stretched a vast plain. Two rivers watered the fertile land. The hills
+were covered with flocks; vast cities could be seen, and here and there,
+so wide was the land, a barren desert. Then the Tempter pointed out the
+vast cities of Assyria, Nineveh, Babylon, Persepolis, Bactra, and the vast
+host of the Parthian king, even then marching against the Scythians. As
+they watched the great host of mailed warriors, accompanied by chariots,
+elephants, archers, engineers, Satan pursued his argument. Suppose the Son
+should take possession of his kingdom; how should he hope to keep it in
+peace between two such powerful enemies as the Parthians and the Romans?
+It would be better to conquer first the nearest, the Parthians, and this
+could be done with Satan's help. In doing this he would not only be able
+to occupy his throne but would deliver the offspring of the Ten Tribes of
+Israel, who, scattered among the Medes, still served as slaves.
+
+But the Savior, in response, only questioned Satan as to why he had
+suddenly become so solicitous for the salvation of the Tribes when he
+himself had once tempted David to number Israel and had thus brought
+pestilence upon them. And as to the Ten Tribes, they had brought their
+punishment upon themselves, and must serve the enemy and their idols until
+the Father should see fit to release them.
+
+Though embarrassed by the failure of his wiles, Satan could not yet yield.
+Turning to the western side of the mountain, he pointed out to the Savior
+a long, narrow plain, bordered on the south by the sea and protected from
+northern blasts by a mountain range. There, crowning the seven hills stood
+the imperial city adorned with porches, theatres, baths, aqueducts, and
+palaces. Satan pointed out the different objects of interest in splendid
+Rome, the Capitol, Mt. Palatine, crowned by the imperial palace, and the
+great gates, through which issued or entered a continuous stream of
+praetors, proconsuls, lictors, legions, embassies, on all the roads which
+led through the far-stretching empire, even to those of the Asian kings,
+and remote Britain. All the glory of the world, he argued, lay in Parthia
+and Rome, and Rome was greater. He who ruled her was indeed ruler of the
+world, and yet its present emperor was old, weak, lascivious, without
+heir, and lived at Capreae, his public cares entrusted to his favorite.
+How easily could the Son of God force from him the power and lift the yoke
+from his people!
+
+But the splendor of the scene allured neither the eye nor the mind of the
+Son. The gluttonies, the gorgeous feasts, the hollow compliments and lies
+of the people did not attract him. His mission, he told his Tempter, was
+not yet to free that people, once just and frugal, now debased by their
+insatiable ambition. When the time came for him to sit on David's throne,
+this with all other kingdoms of the earth would be shattered while his
+kingdom would be eternal.
+
+"Though thou despisest my offers," cried Satan, "thou knowest that I
+esteem them highly, and will not part with them for nought. This is the
+condition; Wilt thou fall down and worship me as thy superior lord?"
+
+"It is written, thou accursed one," responded the Savior in disdain, "that
+thou shouldst worship and serve the Lord thy God alone. Who gave thee the
+kingdoms of the earth if He did not? And what gratitude thou showest! Get
+thee behind me! Truly thou art Satan!"
+
+Satan, abashed but not silenced, pointed southwest toward Athens. Since
+the Savior seemed to prefer a contemplative life, why should he not seek
+that seat of learning? All wisdom was not contained in Moses' law and the
+writings of the prophets. Let him master the learning of the great
+Athenian teachers, philosophers and orators, and he would be a king within
+himself.
+
+But the Savior assured Satan that, having received light from above, he
+knew how false and fallacious were the boasted philosophies of the Greeks.
+Their philosophers, ignorant of themselves and of God, and arrogating all
+glory to themselves and ascribing none to Him, were unable to impart
+wisdom to any one. From Hebrew psalm and hymn, and captive harps in
+Babylon, the Greeks derived their arts, and the results, the odious
+praises of their vicious gods, could not compare with the songs of Sion in
+praise of the Father. Their orators, too, were far below the Hebrew
+prophets. "Stay in the wilderness, then," thundered Satan, wroth at this
+failure. "Since neither riches nor arms, nor power, nor yet the
+contemplative life please thee, it is for thee the fittest place! But the
+time will yet come when violence, stripes, and a cruel death will make
+thee long for me and my proffered power. Truly the stars promise thee a
+kingdom, but of what kind and when I cannot read."
+
+As he disappeared, darkness fell, and the Son of God, still hungry and
+cold, sought rest under a sheltering tree. But Satan watched near, and
+forbade rest. Thunder and lightning shook the Heavens; rain drenched the
+earth; the fury of the winds was loosed, and in their path the sturdiest
+trees were uprooted. Ghosts, furies, raved around the holy one, but,
+unshaken by fear, he endured all calmly, and came forth, as the bright sun
+shone upon the earth, to meet again the Prince of Darkness.
+
+Enraged that the terrors of the night had had no effect upon his enemy,
+Satan cried out that he still doubted that the wanderer in the wilderness
+was the Son of God in the true sense, and would therefore try him another
+way.
+
+So speaking, he caught him up and bore him through the air unto Jerusalem,
+and setting him on the highest pinnacle of the glorious Temple, said
+scornfully:--
+
+"Stand there, if thou canst; I have placed thee highest in thy Father's
+house. Now show if thou art indeed the Son of God. Cast thyself down, for
+it is written that He will command his angels concerning thee, so that
+they in their hands shall uplift thee."
+
+"It is also written," said Jesus, "'Tempt not the Lord thy God.'" And as
+he so spoke and stood, Satan, overcome with amazement, fell whence he had
+expected to see his conqueror fall, and, struck with dread and anguish at
+his certain defeat, fled to his rebel angels.
+
+Straightway, a "fiery globe" of angels received the Son on their pinions,
+bore him from the pinnacle into a flowery vale, and there refreshed him
+with ambrosial food and water from the Fount of Life, while all around him
+the angelic choir sang his praises for the conquest of his enemy, and
+encouraged him to go forth on his work of saving mankind. Thence, rested
+and refreshed, he arose, and went, unobserved, home to his mother's house.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM PARADISE REGAINED.
+
+THE TEMPTATION OF THE VISION OF THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH.
+
+
+Satan, meeting the Savior in the wilderness, tempted him to change the
+stones to bread, and then, after endeavoring to awake in him a longing for
+wealth and power, appealed to his ambition by leading him to a mountain
+top, and displaying to him the kingdoms of the earth.
+
+  With that (such power was given him then), he [Satan] took
+  The Son of God up to a mountain high.
+  It was a mountain at whose verdant feet
+  A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide
+  Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
+  The one winding, the other straight, and left between
+  Fair champaign, with less rivers interveined,
+  Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea.
+  Fertile of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;
+  With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;
+  Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem
+  The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
+  The prospect was that here and there was room
+  For barren desert, fountainless and dry.
+  To this high mountain-top the Tempter brought
+  Our Saviour, and new train of words began:--
+
+  "Well have we speeded, and o'er hill and dale,
+  Forest, and field, and flood, temples and towers,
+  Cut shorter many a league. Here thou behold'st
+  Assyria, and her empire's ancient bounds,
+  Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
+  As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
+  And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
+  And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
+  Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
+  Several days' journey, built by Ninus old,
+  Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
+  And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
+  Israel in long captivity still mourns;
+  There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,
+  As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
+  Judah and all thy father David's house
+  Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
+  Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
+  His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
+  Ecbatana her structure vast there shows,
+  And Hecatompylos her hundred gates;
+  There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
+  The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
+  Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,
+  The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
+  Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
+  Turning with easy eye, thou may'st behold.
+  All these the Parthian (now some ages past
+  By great Arsaces led, who founded first
+  That empire) under his dominion holds,
+  From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
+  And just in time thou com'st to have a view
+  Of his great power; for now the Parthian king
+  In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host
+  Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
+  Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid
+  He marches now in haste. See though from far,
+  His thousands, in what martial equipage
+  They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,
+  Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit--
+  All horsemen, in which fight they most excel;
+  See how in warlike muster they appear,
+  In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings."
+
+  He looked, and saw what numbers numberless
+  The city gates outpoured, light-armed troops
+  In coats of mail and military pride.
+  In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
+  Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice
+  Of many provinces from bound to bound--
+  From Arachosia, from Candaor east,
+  And Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs
+  Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales;
+  From Atropatia, and the neighboring plains
+  Of Adiabene, Media, and the south
+  Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven.
+  He saw them in their forms of battle ranged,
+  How quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot
+  Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
+  Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight;
+  The field all iron cast a gleaming brown.
+  Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor, on each horn,
+  Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight,
+  Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers
+  Of archers; nor of labouring pioneers
+  A multitude, with spades and axes armed,
+  To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,
+  Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay
+  With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke:
+  Mules after these, camels and dromedaries,
+  And waggons fraught with utensils of war.
+  Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
+  When Agrican, with all his northern powers,
+  Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
+  The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win
+  The fairest of her sex, Angelica,
+  His daughter, sought by many prowest knights,
+  Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemain.
+  Such and so numerous was their chivalry.
+                         _Book III._
+
+  He brought our Saviour to the western side
+  Of that high mountain, whence he might behold
+  Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide,
+  Washed by the southern sea, and on the north
+  To equal length backed with a ridge of hills
+  That screened the fruits of the earth and seats of men
+  From cold Septentrion blasts; thence in the midst
+  Divided by a river, off whose banks
+  On each side an imperial city stood,
+  With towers and temples proudly elevate
+  On seven small hills, with palaces adorned,
+  Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,
+  Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
+  Gardens and groves, presented to his eyes
+  Above the highth of mountains interposed--
+  By what strange parallax, or optic skill
+  Of vision, multiplied through air, or glass
+  Of telescope, were curious to inquire.
+  And now the Tempter thus his silence broke:--
+  "The city which thou seest no other deem
+  Than great and glorious Rome Queen of the Earth
+  So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched
+  Of nations. There the Capitol thou seest,
+  Above the rest lifting his stately head
+  On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel
+  Impregnable; and there Mount Palatine,
+  The imperial palace, compass huge, and high
+  The structure, skill of noblest architects,
+  With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
+  Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires.
+  Many a fair edifice besides, more like
+  Houses of gods--so well have I disposed
+  My aery microscope--thou may'st behold,
+  Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs
+  Carved work, the hand of famed artificers
+  In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.
+  Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
+  What conflux issuing forth, or entering in:
+  Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces
+  Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
+  Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;
+  Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
+  Or embassies from regions far remote,
+  In various habits, on the Appian road,
+  Or on the Aemilian--some from farthest south,
+  Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
+  Meroe, Nilotic isle, and, more to west,
+  The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;
+  From the Asian kings (and Parthian among these),
+  From India and the Golden Chersoness,
+  And utmost Indian isle Taprobane,
+  Dusk faces with white silken turbants wreathed;
+  From Gallia, Gades, and the British west;
+  Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north
+  Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool.
+  All nations now to Rome obedience pay--
+  To Rome's great Emperor, whose wide domain,
+  In ample territory, wealth and power,
+  Civility of manners, arts and arms,
+  And long renown, thou justly may'st prefer
+  Before the Parthian. These two thrones except,
+  The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight,
+  Shared among petty kings too far removed;
+  These having shown thee, I have shown thee all
+  The kingdoms of the world, and all their glory".
+                                _Book IV._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of National Epics, by Kate Milner Rabb
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