The Classic and the Beautiful from the Literature of Three Thousand Years

THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES.

FORGED BY VULCAN AT THE REQUEST OF THETIS.

FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER.

HAT, goddess, this unusual | Now, since her presence glads our mansion,

favor draws?

All hail and welcome, what

soe'er the cause;

say

For such desert what service can I pay.
Vouchsafe, O Thetis! at our board to share

Till now a stranger, in a The genial rites and hospitable fare,
While I the labors of the forge forego
And bid the roaring bellows cease to blow."

happy hour
Approach and taste the dain-

ties of the bower."

High on a throne with stars

of silver graced,
And various artifice, the
queen she placed,

A footstool at her feet, then, calling, said,

Then from his anvil the lame artist rose;
Wide with distorted legs oblique he goes,
And stills the bellows, and, in order laid,
Locks in their chests his instruments of trade;
Then with a sponge the sooty workman dressed
His brawny arms embrowned and hairy

breast.

With his huge sceptre graced, and red attire,

"Thetis," replied the god, "our powers may Came halting forth the sovereign of the fire; The monarch's steps two female forms uphold,

claim

An ever-dear, an ever-honored name.

When my proud mother hurled me from the That moved and breathed in animated gold, skyTo whom was voice and sense and science given

My awkward form, it seems, displeased her

eye

She and Eurynome my griefs redressed

And soft received me on their silver breast.

Even then these arts employed my infant thought:

Of works divine: such wonders are in
heaven!

On these supported, with unequal gait
He reached the throne where pensive Thetis

sate;

Chains, bracelets, pendants, all their toys, I There placed beside her on the shining frame, He thus addressed the silver-footed dame:

wrought.

Nine
years kept secret in the dark abode
Secure I lay, concealed from man and god:
Deep in a caverned rock my days were led ;
The rushing ocean murmured o'er my head.

"Thee welcome, goddess! What occasion calls

So long a stranger-to these honored walls?

'Tis thine, fair Thetis, the command to lay, And Vulcan's joy and duty to obey."

To whom the mournful mother thus replies (The crystal drops stood trembling in her eyes):

"O Vulcan say, was ever breast divine
So pierced with sorrows, so o'erwhelmed, as
mine?

Of all the goddesses, did Jove prepare
For Thetis only such a weight of care-
I, only I, of all the watery race,
By force subjected to a man's embrace,
Who, sinking now with age and sorrow, pays
The mighty fine imposed on length of days?
Sprung from my bed, a godlike hero came-
The bravest, sure, that ever bore the name;
Like some fair plant beneath my careful
hand

But thou, in-pity, by my prayer be won: Grace with immortal arms this short-lived

son,

And to the field in martial pomp restore,
To shine with glory till he shines no more."

To her the artist-god: "Thy griefs resign,
Secure what Vulcan can is ever thine.
Oh, could I hide him from the Fates as well,
Or with these hands the cruel stroke repel,
As I shall forge most envied the gaze
Of wondering ages and the world's amaze !'

Thus having said, the father of the fires
To the black labors of his forge retires.
Soon as he bade them blow the bellows turned
Their iron mouths, and where the furnace
burned

Resounding breathed; at once the blast expires,

And twenty forges catch at once the fires. Just as the god directs, now loud, now low, They raise a tempest or they gently blow; In hissing flames huge silver bars are rolled, And stubborn brass and tin and solid gold; Before, deep-fixed, the eternal anvils stand; The ponderous hammer loads his better hand, His left with tongs turns the vexed metal round,

And thick, strong strokes the doubling vaults rebound.

Then first he formed the immense and solid. shield.

Rich various artifice emblazed the field;
Its utmost verge a threefold circle bound;
A silver chain suspends the massy round;
Five ample plates the broad expanse com-

pose,

And godlike labors on the surface rose..

There shone the image of the master-mind; There earth, there heaven, there ocean, he designed;

The unwearied sun, the moon completely round;

Two golden talents lay amidst in sight, The prize of him who best adjudged the right.

Another part-a prospect differing far—

The starry lights that heaven's high convex Glowed with refulgent arms and horrid war:

crowned;

The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team,
And great Orion's more refulgent beam,
To which, around the axle of the sky,
The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye,
Still shines exalted on the ethereal plain,
Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the
main.

Two cities radiant on the shield appear-
The image one of peace, and one of war;
Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,
And solemn dance and hymeneal rite;
Along the street the new-made brides are led,
With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed;
The youthful dancers in a circle bound
To the soft flute and cithern's silver sound;
Through the fair streets the matrons in a

row

Stand in their porches and enjoy the show.

There in the forum swarm a numerous train,
The subject of debate a townsman slain :
One pleads the fine discharged, which one
denied,

And bade the public and the laws decide;
The witness is produced on either hand :
For this or that the partial people stand;
The appointed heralds still the noisy bands
And form a ring with sceptres in their hands;
On seats of stone, within the sacred place,
The reverend elders nodded o'er the case;
Alternate each the attesting sceptre took,
And, rising solemn, each his sentence spoke;

Two mighty hosts a leaguered town embrace, And one would pillage, one would burn, the place.

Meantime, the townsmen, armed with silent

care,

A secret ambush on the foe prepare; Their wives, their children and the watchful band

Of trembling parents on the turrets stand; They march, by Pallas and by Mars made bold.

Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold,

And gold their armor: these the squadron led,

August, divine, superior, by the head;

A place for ambush fit they found, and stood, Covered with shields, beside a silver flood; Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful

seem

If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream; Soon the white flocks proceeded o'er the plains,

And steers slow-moving, and two shepherdswains;

Behind them piping on their reeds they go,
Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.
In arms the glittering squadron, rising round,
Rush sudden hills of slaughter heap the
ground;

Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains,

And all amidst them, dead, the shepherdswains;

The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear;
They rise, take horse, approach and meet the

war;

They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood:
The waving silver seemed to blush with blood.
There Tumult, there Contention, stood con-
fessed:

With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands;

The gatherers follow and collect in bands; And last the children, in whose arms are borne

Too short to gripe them—the brown sheaves
of corn;

One reared a dagger at a captive's breast;
One held a living foe that freshly bled
With new-made wounds; another dragged a A ready banquet on the turf is laid

The rustic monarch of the field descries
With silent glee the heaps around him rise;

dead;

Now here, now there, the carcases they tore:
Fate stalked amidst them grim with human

gore;

Beneath an ample oak's expanded shade;
The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare,
The reaper's due repast, the women's care.

And the whole war came out and met the Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines, Bent with the ponderous harvest of its

eye,

And each bold figure seemed to live or die.

A field deep-furrowed next the god designed,
The third time labored by the sweating hind;
The shining shares full many ploughmen
guide,

And turn their crooked yokes on every side;
Still as at either end they wheel around,
The master meets them with his goblet
crowned;

The hearty draught rewards, renews their
toil,

vines;

A deeper dye the dangling clusters show,
And curled on silver
And curled on silver props in order glow;
A darker metal mixed intrenched the place,
And pales of glittering tin the enclosure

grace:

To this, one pathway, gently winding, leads, Where march a train with baskets on their heads

Fair maids and blooming youths that smiling bear

The purple product of the autumnal year; Then back the turning ploughshares cleave To these a youth awakes the warbling strings,

the soil;

Whose tender lay the fate of Linus sings;
In measured dance behind him move the

train,

Tune soft the voice and answer to the strain.

Here herds of oxen march, erect and bold, Rear high their horns and seem to low in gold,

And speed to meadows on whose sounding shores

A rapid torrent through the rushes roars;

Four golden herdsmen as their guardians | So whirls a wheel in giddy circle tossed,

stand,

And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band;
Two lions rushing from the wood appeared,
And seized a bull, the master of the herd;

He roared in vain the dogs, the men, with-
stood;

And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are
lost;

The gazing multitudes admire around
Two active tumblers in the centre bound;
Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they
bend,

They tore his flesh and drank his sable And general songs the sprightly revel end.

blood;

The dogs oft cheered in vain desert the prey,
Dread the grim terrors and at distance bay.

Next this the eye the art of Vulcan leads Deep through fair forests and a length of meads,

And stalls and folds and scattered cots between,

And fleecy flocks that whiten all the scene.

A figured dance succeeds-such one was

seen

In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen,
Formed by Dædalean art-a comely band
Of youths and maidens bounding hand in
hand,

The maids in soft simars of linen dressed,
The youths all graceful in the glossy vest;
Of those the locks with flowery wreath in-
rolled,

Of these the sides adorned with swords of

gold,

That, glittering gay, from silver belts de

pend;

Now all at once they rise, at once descend,

Thus the broad shield complete the artist crowned

With his last hand, and poured the ocean

round:

In living silver seemed the waves to roll, And beat the buckler's verge and bound the whole.

This done, whate'er a warrior's use requires He forged-the cuirass that outshone the fires,

The greaves of ductile tin, the helm im-
pressed

With various sculpture and the golden crest.
At Thetis' feet the finished labor lay :
She as a falcon cuts the aërial way,
Swift from Olympus' snowy summit flies,
And bears the blazing present through the
skies.

Translation of ALEXANDER FOPE.

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.

With well-taught feet now shape in oblique claim the Arctic came the sun

ways,

Confusedly regular, the moving maze;
Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they
spring,

And undistinguished blend the flying ring:

With banners of the burning zone:
Unrolled upon their airy spars,
They froze beneath the light of stars;
And there they float, those streamers old,
Those Northern lights, for ever cold.

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.

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