Chapter XXVII: Preface (27)

Then Eurymachus drew his sword and bade his comrades fight bravely for their lives; but again the clang of the bow was heard, and Eurymachus was stretched lifeless on the earth. So they fell, one after the other, until the floor of the hall was slippery with blood. But presently the arrows in the quiver of Odysseus were all spent, and laying his bow against the wall, he raised a great shield on his shoulder and placed a helmet on his head, and took two spears in his hand. Then Agelaus called to Melanthius, "Go up to the stair-door and shout to the people, that they may break into the hall and save us." But Melanthius said, "It can not be, for it is near the gate of the hall, and one man may guard it against a hundred. But I will bring you arms, for I know that Odysseus and his son have stowed them away in the inner chamber." Hastily he ran thither and brought forth shields and spears and helmets, and the heart of Odysseus failed him for fear as he saw the suitors donning their armor and brandishing the lances. "Who has done this?" he asked, and Telemachus answered, "It is my fault, my father. I left the door ajar, but Eumaius shall go and see whether some of the women have given this help to the suitors, or whether, as I think, it be Melanthius." So Eumaius and the cowherd placed themselves on one side of the chamber door, and when Melanthius came forth with more arms for the chieftains, they caught him, and binding him with stout cords they hoisted him up to the beams and left him dangling in the air. "Keep guard there, Melanthius, all night long in thy airy hammock, and when the golden Morning comes back from the stream of Ocean you will not fail to see her."

But in the hall the troop of suitors stood facing Odysseus and Telemachus in deadly rage, and presently Athene stood before them in the likeness of Mentor. Then all besought her help, and the suitors threatened her, and said, "Be not led astray, Mentor, by the words of Odysseus, for if you side with him, we will leave you neither house nor lands, wife nor children, when we have taken vengeance for the evil deeds of the son of Laertes." But the wrath of Athene was kindled more fiercely, and she said, "Where is thy strength, Odysseus? Many a year the Trojans fell beneath the stroke of thy sword, and by thy wisdom it was that the Achaians stormed the walls of breezy Ilion. And now dost thou stand trembling in thine own hall?" Then the form of Mentor vanished, and they saw a swallow fly away above the roof-tree. In great fear the suitors took council together, and six of them stood forth and hurled their spears at Odysseus and Telemachus. But all missed their mark except Amphimedon and Ktesippus, and these wounded Telemachus on the wrist and Eumaius on the shoulder.

But once again Athene came, and this time she held aloft her awful Ægis before the eyes of the suitors, and the hearts of all fainted for fear, so that they huddled together like cattle which have heard the lion's roar, and like cattle were they slain, and the floor of the hall was floated with blood.

So was the slaughter ended, and the house of Odysseus was hushed in a stillness more fearful than the din of battle, for the work of the great vengeance was accomplished.

But Penelope lay on her couch in a sweet slumber which Athene had sent to soothe her grief, and she heard not the footsteps of Eurykleia as she hastened joyously into the chamber. "Rise up, dear child, rise up. Thy heart's desire is come. Odysseus stands once more in his own home, the suitors are dead, and none are left to vex thee." But Penelope could not believe for joy and fear, even when Eurykleia told her of the mark of the boar's bite which Autolykus and his sons had healed. "Let us go, dear nurse," she said, "and see the bodies of the chieftains and the man who has slain them." So she went down into the hall, and sate down opposite to Odysseus, but she spake no word, and Odysseus also sat silent. And Telemachus said to his mother, "Hast thou no welcome for my father who has borne so many griefs since Zeus took him from his home twenty long years ago?"

And Penelope said, "My child, I can not speak, for my heart is as a stone within me; yet if it be indeed Odysseus, there are secret signs by which we shall know each other." But when she bade Eurykleia make ready the couch which lay outside the bridal chamber, Odysseus asked, hastily, "Who has moved the couch which I wrought with my own hands, when I made the chamber round the olive tree which stood in the courtyard? Scarcely could a mortal man move it, for it was heavy with gold and ivory and silver, and on it I spread a bull's hide gleaming with a purple dye."

Then Penelope wept for joy, as she sprang into his arms; for now she knew that it was indeed Odysseus who had come back in the twentieth year. Long time they wept in each other's arms; but the keen-eyed Athene kept back the bright and glistening horses of the morning, that the day might not return too soon.

Then the fair Eurynome anointed Odysseus, and clothed him in a royal robe; and Athene brought back all his ancient beauty as when he went forth in his youth to Ilion. So they sat together in the light of the blazing torches, and Penelope heard from Odysseus the story of his griefs and wanderings, and she told him of her own sorrows, while he was far away in Ilion avenging the wrongs and woes of Helen. But for all his deep joy and his calm peace, Odysseus knew that here was not the place of his rest.

"The time must come," he said, "when I must go to the land where there is no sea; but the seer who told me of the things that are to be, said that my last hour should be full of light, and that I should leave my people happy."

And Penelope said, "Yet we may rejoice, my husband, that the hateful chiefs are gone who darkened thy house and devoured thy substance, and that once again I hold thee in my arms. Twenty years has Zeus grudged me this deep happiness; but never has my heart swerved from thee, nor could aught stay thee from coming again to gladden my heart as in the morning of our life and joy."

SOLON.

(636 B.C.)

REMEMBRANCE AFTER DEATH.

Let not a death unwept, unhonor'd, be
The melancholy fate allotted me!
But those who loved me living, when I die
Still fondly keep some cherish'd memory.

TRUE HAPPINESS.

(_By Solon._)

The man that boasts of golden stores,
Of grain, that loads his groaning floors,
Of fields with freshening herbage green,
Where bounding steeds and herds are seen,
I call not happier than the swain,
Whose limbs are sound, whose food is plain,
Whose joys a blooming wife endears,
Whose hours a smiling offspring cheers.

SOPHOCLES.

Sophocles was born at Athens B.C. 495. His father, though a poor mechanic, had the discrimination as well as generosity to bestow an excellent education upon his son, whose great powers began early to unfold themselves, and to attract the notice of the first citizens of Athens. Before he had attained his twenty-fifth year he carried off the prize in a dramatic contest against his senior, Æschylus, and his subsequent career corresponded to this splendid beginning. He is said to have composed one hundred and twenty tragedies, to have gained the first prize twenty-four times, and on other occasions to have ranked second in the list of competing poets. So excellent was his conduct, so majestic his wisdom, so exquisite his poetical capacities, so rare his skill in all the fine arts, and so uninterrupted his prosperity, that the Greeks regarded him as the peculiar favorite of heaven. He lived in the first city of Greece, and throughout her best times, commanding an admiration and love amounting to reverence. He died in extreme old age, without disease and without suffering, and was mourned with such a sincerity and depth of grief as were manifested at the death of no other citizen of Athens.

HERODOTUS.

Scarcely more is known of the celebrated historian, Herodotus, than of the illustrious poet, Homer. He was born in Asia Minor about 484 B.C.

After being well educated he commenced that course of patient and observant travel which was to render his name illustrious as a philosophic tourist and historian. The shores of the Hellespont, Scythia, and the Euxine Sea; the Isles of the Ægæan; Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Colchis, the northern parts of Africa, Ecbatana, and even Babylon were the objects of his unwearied research. On his return from his travels, after about twenty years, he settled for some time at Samos, where he wrote the nine books of his travels in those countries.

The charm of Herodotus' writings consists in the earnestness of a man who describes countries as an eye-witness, and events as one accustomed to participate in them. The life, the raciness, the vigor of an adventurer and a wanderer, glow in every page. He has none of the defining disquisitions that are born of the closet. He paints history, rather than descants on it; he throws the colorings of a mind, unconsciously poetic, over all he describes. Now a soldier--now a priest--now a patriot--he is always a poet, if rarely a philosopher. He narrates like a witness, unlike Thucydides, who sums up like a judge. No writer ever made so beautiful an application of superstitions to truths. His very credulities have a philosophy of their own; and modern historians have acted unwisely in disdaining the occasional repetition even of his fables. For if his truths record the events--his fables paint the manners and the opinions of the time; and the last fill up the history, of which events are only the skeleton.

To account for his frequent use of dialogue, and his dramatic effects of narrative, we must remember the tribunal to which the work of Herodotus was subjected. Every author, unconsciously to himself, consults the tastes of those he addresses. No small coteries of scholars, no scrupulous and critical inquirers, made the ordeal Herodotus underwent. His chronicles were not dissertations to be coldly pondered over, and skeptically conned; they were read aloud at solemn festivals to listening thousands: they were to arrest the curiosity--to amuse the impatience--to stir the wonder of a lively and motley crowd. Thus the historian imbibed naturally the spirit of the tale-teller, as he was driven to embellish his history with the romantic legend--the awful superstition--the gossipy anecdote--which yet characterize the stories of the popular and oral fictionist in the bazaars of the Mussulman, or on the sea-sands of Sicily. Still it has been rightly said, that a judicious reader is not easily led astray by Herodotus in important particulars. His descriptions of localities, of manners and of customs, are singularly correct; and travelers can yet trace the vestiges of his fidelity.

Few enlightened tourists are there who can visit Egypt, Greece, and the regions of the East, without being struck by the accuracy, with the industry, with the patience of Herodotus. To record all the facts substantiated by travelers, illustrated by artists, and amplified by learned research, would be almost impossible; so abundant, so rich, has this golden mine been found, that the more its native treasures are explored, the more valuable do they appear. The oasis of Siwah, visited by Browne, Hornemann, Edmonstone, and Minutuoli; the engravings of the latter, demonstrating the co-identity of the god Ammon and the god of Thebes; the Egyptian mode of weaving, confirmed by the drawings of Wilkinson and Minutuoli; the fountain of the sun, visited by Belzoni; one of the stelæ or pillars of Sesostris, seen by Herodotus in Syria, and recognized on the road to Beyrout with the hieroglyphic of Remeses still legible; the kneading of dough, drawn from a sculpture in Thebes, by Wilkinson; the dress of the lower classes, by the same author; the prodigies of Egyptian architecture at Edfou; Caillaud's discovery of Meroe in the depths of Æthiopia; these, and a host of brilliant evidences, center their once divergent rays in one flood of light upon the temple of genius reared by Herodotus, and display the goddess of Truth enshrined within.

The following are the main subjects of his nine books, which were named after the nine muses:--