darkness of night we had driven routed through the gloomthanks to our stratagem-and scattered the whole city over, rally again: they are the first to recognise the imposture of shield and weapon, and to mark the different sound of our speech. All is over-we are overwhelmed by numbers: first of all, Coroebus is stretched low; his slayer Peneleos, his place of death the altar of the Goddess of Arms; slain, too, is Rhipeus, the justest and most righteous man in Troybut heaven's will is not ours-down go Hypanis and Dymas both, shot by their friends; nor could all your acts of piety, good Panthus, shield you in your fall; no, nor the fillet of Apollo on your brow. Ye ashes of Ilion, and thou, funeral fire of those I loved, witness ye that in your day of doom I shrank from no Danaan dart, no hand-to-hand encounter ; nay, that had my fate been to fall, my hand had earned it well. We are parted from the rest, Iphitus, Pelias, and I. Iphitus, a man on whom years were already pressing; Pelias, crippled by a wound from Ulysses-all three summoned by the shouting to Priam's palace.

'Here, indeed, the conflict was gigantic-just as if the rest of the war were nowhere-as if none were dying in the whole city beside even such was the sight we saw-the war-god raging untamed, the Danaans streaming up to the roof, the door blockaded by a long penthouse of shields. The scaling ladders are clasping the walls; close to the very door men are climbing, with their left hands presenting the buckler to shelter them from darts, while with their right they are clasping the battlements. The Dardans, on their part, are tearing up from the palace turret and roof-such the weapons with which, in their dire extremity, in the last death-struggle, they make ready for their defence-gilded rafters, the stately ornaments of elder days, they are hurling down; while others, their swords drawn, are stationed at the doors at the bottom,

and guarding them in close array. The fire revived within me, to bring succour to the royal roof, and relieve those brave men, and breathe new daring into the vanquished.

'A door there was, a hidden entrance, a thoroughfare through Priam's palace, a postern which you leave in the rear; by it the hapless Andromache, while yet the throne was standing, used often to repair unattended to her husband's parents, and pull the boy Astyanax into his grandsire's presence. Through it I make my way to the summit of the roof, whence the wretched Teucrians were hurling darts without avail. There was a tower standing precipitous, its roof reared high to the stars, whence could be seen all Troy, and the Danaan fleet, and the Achæan camp; to this we applied our weapons, just where the lofty flooring made the joining insecure; we wrench it from its eminence, we have toppled it over- -down it falls at once, a huge crashing ruin, and tumbles far and wide over the Danaan ranks. But others fill their place; while stones and every kind of missile keep raining unabated.

'There in the entry, at the very gate, is Pyrrhus in his glory, gleaming with spear and sword, and with all the brilliance of steel. Even as against the daylight a serpent gorged with baleful herbage, whom winter's cold of late was keeping swollen underground, now, his skin shed, in new life and in the beauty of youth, rears his breast erect, and wreathes his shining scales, towering to the sun, and flashes in his mouth his three-forked tongue. With him gigantic Periphas and Automedon, his armour-bearer, once Achilles' charioteer, with him the whole chivalry of Scyros press to the walls, and hurl up fire to the roof. Himself among the foremost, a two-edged axe in hand, is bursting through the stubborn door and forcing from their hinges the valves coppersheathed; see! now he has cut out a plank and delved into

that stout heart of oak, and made a wide gaping window in the middle. There is seen the house within, and the long vista of the hall; there is seen the august retirement of Priam and the monarchs of past days, and armed warriors are disclosed standing in the entrance.

'But the palace within is a confused scene of shrieking and piteous disorder; the vaulted chambers wail from their hollow depths with female lamentation; the noise strikes the golden stars above. The terror-stricken matrons are running to and fro through the spacious courts, clinging claspingly to the gates and printing them with kisses. On presses Pyrrhus with all his father's might; neither barrier of oak nor yet living guard can resist him; the door gives way under the thick strokes of the battery, and the valves are torn from their hinges and brought down. Force finds its way; the Danaans burst a passage, rush in, and slaughter those they meet, and the whole wide space is flooded with soldiers. With far less fury, when the river, all foam, has broken the prison of its banks and streamed with triumphant tide over the barriers set to check it, down it comes tumbling along the corn-fields, and along the whole country sweeps away herd and stall. With my own eyes I saw Neoptolemus, mad with carnage, and the two Atride on the palace-floor. I saw Hecuba and her hundred daughters-in-law, and Priam at the altar, polluting with his blood the flames he had himself made holy. Those fifty inarriage-chambers, the splendid promise of children's children, doors gorgeous with barbaric gold and plundered treasure, all sank in dust. Where the fire flags, the Danaans are masters.

Perhaps, too, you may be curious to hear the fate of Priam. When he saw his city fallen and captured, the doors of his palace burst open, the foe in the heart of his home's sanctuary, poor old man! helplessly and hopelessly he puts about his shoulders, trembling with age, his armour, long disused, and

girds on his unavailing sword, and is going to his doom aniong the thick of the foe. In the midst of the palace, under the naked height of the sky, stood a great altar, and by it a bay tree of age untold, leaning over the altar and enfolding the household gods in its shade. Here about the altar Hecuba and her daughters, all helpless, like doves driven headlong down by a murky tempest, huddled together and clinging to the statues of the gods, were sitting. But when she saw Priam —yes, Priam-wearing the arms of his youth-"What monstrous thought," cries she, "my most wretched spouse, has moved you to gird on these weapons? or to what are you hurrying? It is not help like this, not protections like those you wear, that the crisis needs. No, not even if my lost Hector were now at our side. Come, join us here at last; this altar shall be a defence for us all, or we will die together." With these words she took him to where she was, and lodged his aged frame in the hallowed resting-place.

'But, see! here is Polites, one of Priam's sons escaped from Pyrrhus' murderous hand, through showers of darts and masses of foemen, flying down the long corridors and traversing the empty courts, sore and wounded, while Pyrrhus, all on fire, is pursuing him with a deadly stroke, his hand all but grasping him, his spear close upon him. Just as at last he won his way into the view and presence of his parents, down he fell and poured out his life in a gush of blood. Hereon Priam, though hemmed in by death on all sides, could not restrain himself, or control voice and passion. "Aye," cries he, "for a crime, for an outrage like this, may the gods, if there is any sense of right in heaven to take cognizance of such deeds, give you the full thanks you merit, and pay you your due reward; you, who have made me look with my own eyes on my son's death, and stained a father's presence with the sight of blood, But he whom your lying tongue calls your sire,

Achilles, dealt not thus with Priam his foe-he had a cheek that could crimson at a suppliant's rights, a suppliant's honour. Hector's lifeless body he gave back to the tomb, and sent me home to my realms in peace." So said the poor old man, and hurled at him a dart unwarlike, unwounding, which the ringing brass at once shook off, and left hanging helplessly from the end of the shield's boss. Pyrrhus retorts: "You shall take your complaint, then, and carry your news to my father, Pelides. Tell him about my shocking deeds, about his degenerate Neoptolemus, and do not forget. Now die." With these words he dragged him to the very altar, palsied and sliding in a pool of his son's blood, wreathed his left hand in his hair, and with his right flashed forth and sheathed in his side the sword to the hilt. Such was the end of Priam's fortunes, such the fatal lot that fell upon him, with Troy blazing and Pergamus in ruins before his eyesupon him, once the haughty ruler of those many nations and kingdoms, the sovereign lord of Asia! There he lies on the shore, a gigantic trunk, a head severed from the shoulders, a body without a name.

'Now, for the first time grim horror prisoned me roundI was wildered-there rose up the image of my dear father, as I saw the king, his fellow in age, breathing out his life through that ghastly wound. There rose up Creusa unprotected, my house, now plundered, and the chance to which I had left my little Iulus. I cast my eyes back and look about to see what strength there is round me. All had forsaken me, too tired to stay; they had leapt to the ground, or dropped helplessly into the flames. And now I was there. alone. When lodged in the temple of Vesta, and crouching mutely in its darkest recess, the daughter of Tyndareus meets my eye; the brilliant blaze gives light to my wandering feet and ranging glance. Yes, she in her guilty fears, dreading