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Lives of the Greek Heroines by Louisa Menzies [1880]

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Author Topic: Lives of the Greek Heroines by Louisa Menzies [1880]  (Read 4862 times)
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Mishe Vanatta
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« Reply #375 on: December 21, 2009, 01:18:49 am »

At this response of the oracle a chill ran through the assembled chiefs; all the manhood of the Achaeans trembled. Achilles himself turned pale. He knew that he must die early. He had chosen a short and glorious life. Was this the glory, to give his life for the host before he had looked upon the god-built walls of Troy---before he had changed a blow with Hektor, the slayer of men--to die, leaping from his ship on to

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Mishe Vanatta
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« Reply #376 on: December 21, 2009, 01:19:05 am »

the shore? He had looked death in the face many a time in the chase, in the foray, by flood and field, but to go calmly to certain death, deliberately to choose to die, was beyond the virtue of the beautiful and passionate son of Thetis. Odysseus pondered the words, but felt they were not for him. He must live to counsel the chiefs and bring them home again. If he flung away his life as the purchase-money of the landing of the host, how would it fare with all the gallant armament left to the guidance of the rash and haughty Agamemnon? And how would it fare with the little Telemachus, with Penelope, with his parents Laertes and Antikleia, and with his beloved Ithake? Odysseus shook his head. The fate was a glorious one, but it was not for him to covet. Diomedes and Ajax pondered the words, each in his own way. Not a king, not a man of note in all the host who did not hear them ringing in his ears when he laid him down to sleep and when he rose in the morning; but when the grey old city lay before them, its battlements crowded with eager old men, women, and children, and the whole shore flashing with helmets and breastplates and bristling with spears, the Achaean armament paused. The black galleys lay still on the waters, for the sails were taken down and the oars were lifted in the air; then one galley pushed stoutly on, and one chief in flashing armour leapt upon the shore, with a shout that rung from Ilion to Tenedos. Then ship after ship was driven upon the beach, and the crews leapt eagerly into the sea

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Mishe Vanatta
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« Reply #377 on: December 21, 2009, 01:19:21 am »

and fought hand to hand with the Trojans, secure of victory, for the price had been paid. But it was not until the Trojans had shut themselves up in their walls and the Achaeans had leisure to repose, that the word passed from mouth to mouth that he who had won the day for them was the gallant Protesilaus, king of Phylake, to whom life might be supposed to be as sweet as to any in the host.
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« Reply #378 on: December 21, 2009, 01:19:40 am »

Tidings were sent by the council of the chiefs to the widowed queen of the devotion of her husband, and she drank in with thirsty ears every word of the messenger, proud of his virtue, though smitten to the heart by the loss of him.

"He was too noble, alas! he was too noble," she cried; "but the gods are merciful, and it is not possible but that they will take pity on me. It was they who put it into his heart to make this sacrifice. What woman was ever so bereft as I? Fatherless, mother-less, and childless; there is no one on whom I can pour out the treasure of my love. The gods below hearkened to Orpheus when he sought his Eurydice. Was Admetus worthy to receive from the hand of Herakles the wife whom he had allowed to perish for him; and shall it not be given to me once again to behold my husband?"
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« Reply #379 on: December 21, 2009, 01:20:05 am »

Then with sacrifice by night and day, with prayers to gods above and gods below, the poor lady wrestled with her fate, until Proserpina pitied, and Zeus permitted Hermes, the kindly interpreter between gods

p. 167

and men, to conduct Protesilaus once again to his home. There for three hours of agony and joy Laodameia once more beheld him she loved, but he who had passed the Styx and dwelt in Elysium, was so purged of earthly passion, that the impetuous love of his queen saddened instead of gladdened him, his etherealized form escaped her arms when she would have embraced him, and with high reasoning and pure counsel, he strove to win her to a patient submission to the will of the gods. Laodameia listened and strove to obey; but when the fated time was come, and Hermes returned to conduct the hero back to the shadowy realms which were now his home, all reason and self-control vanished in an agony of grief; Laodameia shrieked aloud as the two passed into the darkness, and, when her attendants came hurrying at her cry, they lifted from the floor a lifeless woman.
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« Reply #380 on: December 21, 2009, 01:20:22 am »

But she whose life had been shortened by her unreasoning passion, and who, having enjoyed the rare honour of a husband altogether noble, had been unable to bear the loss of his bodily presence with her, was not permitted at once to join him in the happy fields. Proserpina decreed that she must first learn self-control and resignation apart, and not until the years allotted by the Moirae to her mortal life were passed, was Hermes permitted to conduct her to the happy fields, to dwell for ever with Protesilaus, and all good men and women who have earned that peaceful home by their virtue.

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« Reply #381 on: December 21, 2009, 01:20:33 am »

The Achaeans buried their champion on the shore of the Hellespont, and men showed a mighty mound of earth from which grew a knot of trees, and they called it the tomb and the grove of Protesilaus, in memory of whom those trees, as they said, showed a strange half human sympathy.

"For ever when such height they had attain’d, 11
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits wither’d at the sight,
A constant interchange of growth and blight."
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Mishe Vanatta
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« Reply #382 on: December 21, 2009, 01:20:48 am »

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« Reply #383 on: December 21, 2009, 01:21:49 am »

NOTES.

NOTE 1.

Delos received Latona when she was persecuted by Hera, and no other land would give her shelter. Phoebus Apollo and Artemis, the twin deities, were born in the hospitable little island which was henceforth one of the principal seats of the worship of Phoebus, who is frequently called the Delian God.

See KEIGHTLEY'S Mythology, pp. 102, 103.

NOTE 2.

Moirae. Goddesses whose office it was to assign their lot in life to men. They are called daughters of Zeus and Themis (law), but even Zeus himself was bound by their decrees.

See KEIGHTLEY'S Mythology, p. 172.

NOTE 3.

Daphne, daughter of the Peneus, delighted in the life of a huntress; she unhappily attracted the love of Phoebus, who would fain have made her his wife; the frightened maid, unable to escape his pursuit, called on her father for help, and the river god changed her into a laurel, henceforth the sacred tree of Phoebus. The legend is very prettily told by Ovid.

Metamorphoses, Book i. 1. 452.

p. 170

NOTE 4.

Thanatos is represented by Euripides as coming in person to claim Alcestis. He appears to have been represented as a beautiful dusky youth, with none of the grotesque horrors of the later ideas: he is twin brother to Sleep.

See KEIGHTLEY'S Mythology, p. 17 7.

NOTE 5.

Zeus Zenius. Zeus, who guarded the Zenos, the guest-friend, i.e. the foreigner. The relation of Zenia was as sacred among the Achaeans as among the Hebrews; the conduct of Admetus to Herakles is a beautiful illustration of the honour paid to the stranger; Achaean and Hellenic story abounds in similar instances.

NOTE 6.

Thamyris.

"And Dorian where the Muses met,
With Thamyris of Thrace and made him cease
From song as from Oechalia he came,
Leaving the court of Eurylus, for he
Boasting, declared that he would conquer all,
Yea, though the Muses sang with him themselves,
Daughters of Aegis-bearing Jove, in wrath;
They made him blind and took away his song,
And caused him to forget his minstrelsy."
                                   HOMER, L. II. 595-600.

 

NOTE 7.

Apian land, the name given by Homer to the Peloponnese.

NOTE 8.

Até (mischief), inevitable evil that pursues certain men or houses to their ruin.

p. 171

NOTE 9.

The Clashers, literal translation of Sumplēgadĕs, the rocks at the entrance of the Black Sea, now called the Pavorane, which from their appearing more or less open or confined, according to the course of the vessel, were said by the poets to open and shut upon the ships which entered, and crush them to pieces.

MAJOR'S notes to Medeia.

NOTE 10.

Zeus Sōter, the saviour or deliverer.

NOTE 11.

These are the closing lines of Wordsworth's beautiful poem, "Laodamia."

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________
CHISWICK PRESS: C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.

 

 
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