Troy taken at the same time-is so portrayed that no one, capable of an emotion, can be insensible to it. Andromache and Hecuba seek in turn to dissuade the hero from encountering the Destroyer. The mournful appeal of each, frantic with despair, fills the heart with anguish.

But the most affecting speech of all is that of the grayhaired, venerable King.

POPE.

"Then wept the sage,

He strikes his reverend head, now white with age;

He lifts his wither'd arms; obtests the skies,

He calls his much-lov'd son with feeble cries.
The son resolv'd Achilles' force to dare,
Full at the Scæan gates expects the war;
While the sad father on the rampart stands,
And thus abjures him with extended hands:

'Ah, stay not, stay not! guardless and alone;
Hector! my lov'd, my dearest, bravest son!
Methinks already I behold thee slain,
And stretched beneath that fury of the plain.
Save thy dear life; or if a soul so brave
Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save.
Pity, while yet I live, those silver hairs,
While yet thy father feels the woes he bears,
Yet curst with sense! a wretch whom, in his rage
(All trembling on the verge of helpless age),
Great Jove has plac'd, sad spectacle of pain!
The bitter dregs of fortune's cup to drain;
To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes,
And number all his days by miseries!
My heroes slain, my bridal-bed o'erturn'd
My daughters ravish'd and my city burn'd,
My bleeding infants dash'd against the floor;
These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more!
Perhaps even I, reserved by angry fate,
The last sad relic of my ruin'd state

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness!) must fall,
And stain the pavement of my regal hall;
Where famished dogs, late guardians of my door,
Shall lick their mangled master's spatter'd gore.
Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods! 'twas well,
Well have they perish'd, for in fight they fell.
Who dies in youth and vigor, dies the best,

Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast;

But when the fates, in fulness of their rage,

Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age,

In dust the reverend lineaments deform,

And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm.

This, this is misery; the last, the worst

That man can feel; man fated to be curst!'"

Hector was proof against all that would compromise his honor and endanger Troy. Though he well knows how ter

VOL. IV.-NO. VII.

2

rible is the antagonist so eager to encounter him, he resolves to meet him, let the result be what it may. As soon as Andromache is assured that he will, nay, must, fight, she shuts herself up in her palace, that the thick walls may deaden the horror breathed from the field. She fully understands his feelings, as she so gracefully shows at the parting, before the Scæan gate; when she smiles sadly through her tears, as their Astyanax shrinks back alarmed from the waving crest of his father. At all events, Homer understood human nature too well to give her prominence at such a time; he held the sorrow of a wife like Andromache to be far too sacred a thing to be trifled with, or exhibited to vulgar gaze; and accordingly he would not allow her to see so afflicting a sight. He knows that he needs not even mention herthat all will think of her in the solitude of her chamber; and who has not thought of her-nay, wept for her? But let the poet speak-in this instance we choose Cowper's version:

"Unmoved he stood,

Expecting vast Achilles now at hand.

As some huge serpent in a cave, that feeds
On baneful drugs, and swells with deadliest ire,
A traveller approaching, coils himself
Around his den, and hideous looks abroad,
So Hector, fill'd with confidence untamed,
Fled not, but placing his bright shield against
A buttress, with his noble heart conferr'd."

We now come to the difficult point in the character of Hector at least, the point that has caused most discussion between critics-we mean that at which, notwithstanding his former resolution, he runs away from Achilles. Some censure Homer for this; but they are by no means the best who do

Had the antagonists been equal in all but their strength, then, indeed, we might regard the flight of Hector as a blemish. But this was not the case. The son of Priam and Hecuba was not goddess-born, like the son of Thetis. From no mere mortal would the defender of his country have fled. He would not have receded an inch from Agamemnon, from Ajax, or from Diomed. While the son of Peleus stayed in wrath at "the hollow ships" refusing to fight for Agamemnon, no other warrior was able to withstand the onset of Hector. But in the presence of the spear of Achilles, no hero might abide; even the river-gods quailed as he strode along, and hid themselves," as the poet tells us, " among

their reedy banks." Far from its being an error, then, on the part of Homer, he acts in strict conformity with nature when he strikes Hector with a sudden, uncontrollable panic, so that he runs three times round the walls of Troy, while the aged king and queen shriek from the battlements. He need not have been permitted to go round the second time, or even once; since the whole army of the Greeks was present nearly under the walls, commanded by its bravest generals; but "The son of Peleus, as he ran, his brows Shaking, forbade the Grecians to dismiss A dart at Hector, lest a meaner hand

Should pierce him, and usurp the foremost praise.”

Once more Hector resolves to meet the Destroyer-though he had little, if any, hope of a favorable result. He announces his intention to Achilles; and seeks to make a covenant by which the victor would be bound to respect the remains of his fallen antagonist. But the enraged Peleus' son would have no covenant-no restraint on his sovereign will; but calls on him to summon his "every-kind of valor" (παντοίης αρετῆς μιμνησκει).

"Much now it behooves thee

To be a combatant and a doughty warrior."

As might have been expected, the combat, does not last long; and Hector, slain, weltering in his gore, implores that his remains shall not be dishonored. The dialogue that ensues is awfully tragical. No versified translation does justice to it; the following prose version, in which it is rendered line for line, without any ornament, will perhaps give the English reader a more correct idea of the original than any other rendering within our reach:

In the dust, therefore, he fell, and over him gloried the illustrious Achilles"Once wert thou wont to think, Hector, when despoiling the slain Patroclus

That thou should'st be safe, and nought stood'st in awe of me when absent. Fool! I, his avenger, mightier far than thou, apart

At the hollow ships, was left behind

And have unnerved thy limbs; thee, indeed, the dogs and birds of prey
Shall tear, unseemly; him shall the Greeks bury, with due funeral rites."
Him the waving plume-helm'd Hector, exhausted, addressed: -
"By thy life, by thy knees, and by thy parents, thee I supplicate;

Let not the dogs of the Greeks at the hollow ships tear and devour me.
Brass in abundance, and gold, do thou receive

As gifts which my father and my venerable mother will give thee;
But send home my body-that of funeral pyre, me,

When dead, the Trojans and Trojan matrons may make a partaker.
Him eyeing sternly, the swift-footed Achilles addressed :--

"Dog! me supplicate not, embracing my knees, by my knees, nor by my

parents.

Would that my rage and fury would, by any means, permit me

To chop and devour thy raw flesh, for what thou hast done to me.

No! not even if ten or twenty-fold usually great ransoms

Were they to bring hither and place in the balance, and promise others besides.

No! were he even to counterpoise thy body with gold,

Priam, the son of Dardanus, not even thus should thy venerable mother,
Having placed thee on thy bier, lament him whom she bore;
But dogs and birds of prey shall thoroughly devour thee."
Him, the waving plume-helm'd Hector, dying, addressed :-
"Knowing thee well, I foresaw, indeed, that never should I
Persuade thee; assuredly, within thee is a spirit of steel!

Beware! now, lest towards thee I become the subject of anger to the gods
On that day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo thee--

Brave though thou be-shall destroy in the Scæan gate."

Him, while thus speaking, the completion of death veil'd,

And his spirit, flying from his limbs, to Ades descended-

Its fate bewailing, in having left the robustness and vigor of youth.
Him, also, when dead, the illustrious Achilles addressed :-

"Die! fate will I then receive, whenever

Jove may wish to bring it about, and the other immortal gods.”

He said, and from the corpse he drew the brazen spear,

And placed it apart; and from his (Hector's) shoulders forced away his

armor.

Blood-stained, around him hastened the other sons of the Greeks,

Who gazed with wonder on the size and the grand form

Of Hector; nor did any approach, without inflicting a wound (on the corpse),

And each, as he looked to his neighbor, thus spoke:

"Ha! ha! assuredly, much more gentle in being handled

Is Hector, than when he fired the fleet with glowing flames."
Thus, indeed, spoke each, and, standing near, inflicted wounds.

Il. XXII., 330.

Few passages, even in Homer, have drawn more tears than this. No one can withhold his sympathy from the fallen hero, the devoted, uncompromising patriot; the dutiful and affectionate son; the tender husband, and the fond and indulgent father-when the common soldiers attack his corpse in turn, each inflicting a wound. How different is the spirit in which these indignities are committed on his body, from that in which he predicts, with his last breath, that Achilles, too, goddess-born though he is, will one day meet a similar fate, at the hands of Paris and Apollo. Homer well knew that it was cowardly and barbarous-a disgrace to his countrymenthus to stab and insult the lifeless body of noble Hector; but he allowed it, in order to render the conduct of his favorite hero less revolting, by suggesting that, since the thoughtless soldiers, who had experienced no personal injury from the fallen

hero, took a pride in mangling his corpse, it was no wonder that the passionate Achilles, furious to revenge the death of his beloved Patroclus, should even so far forget the dictates of humanity and decorum as to drag his slayer's corpse at his chariot wheels. But, in the midst of all this rage, Achilles had respect for the patriot-hero, who refused to pay any attention to omens, or auguries, as long as his country was in danger, and he was able to combat for it-the chieftain who, in a word, has left us the noble maxim:

Εις οιωνός αριστος αμυνεσθαι περι πατρης.

The one best omen is our country's cause.

Achilles well knew that, when Hector fell, the days of Troy were numbered. The only question with him now was, Would the Trojans yield at once? or, Would they attempt a brief and fruitless struggle, without Hector, against the obvious will of the gods?

SOTHEBY.

Princes and leaders, since by favoring heav'n,
To us, o'er such a foe, this victory giv'n,
This mighty man, whose force surpassing all,
Long injured Greece, and guarded Ilion's wall,
Come, with our battle gird in arms their towers,
So learn the purpose of their hostile powers,-
If they abandon Troy, its guardian slain,
Or the great Hector perish'd, dare remain?
But why this commune? still Patroclus lies
Unwept, ungraced with solemn obsequies.
Ne'er while I breathe, he sleeps by me forgot,
Ne'er while remembrance mine, remember not.
Even in the dark oblivion of the grave

My soul with thine, sweet friend, shall commune have.
Now youths! your pæans raise, now swell the song,
Lead to the navy, lead the corse along.

Great is our glory; Hector breathes no more,
Whom Ilion hailed and wont as god adore.

The two closing lines are a noble tribute. It does not appear that, when thus addressing the Greeks, he had any intention of outraging Hector's body. On the contrary, the whole tenor of his speech seemed to evince a feeling of commiseration, rather than any further vengeance. But all of a sudden he is seized with a revulsion of feeling. Being shown the mangled corpse of Patroclus, already in a forward state of decomposition, his rage returns in all its violence, and he asks, Will it indeed fare better with the body of Hector?