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?"

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,

she

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,
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?"

66

"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.
Welcome thee, Monarch!

Justice and Love

thou shalt throne with us!"

ARNOLD: Indian Idylls.

THE

THE ILIAD.

HE 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 Eolian 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).