No More Learning

When others cursed the authoress of their woe,
Thy pity check'd my sorrows in their flow.
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
Or scornful sister with her sweeping train,
Thy gentle accents soften'd all my pain.
For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee,
The wretched source of all this misery.
The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan;
Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!
Through Troy's wide streets abandon'd shall I roam!
In Troy deserted, as abhorr'd at home! "

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye.
Distressful beauty melts each stander-by.
On all around the infectious sorrow grows;
But Priam check'd the torrent as it rose:
"Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require,
And fell the forests for a funeral pyre;
Twelve days, nor foes nor secret ambush dread;
Achilles grants these honours to the dead. "(299)

[Illustration: FUNERAL OF HECTOR. ]

FUNERAL OF HECTOR.


He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain,
Pour through the gates, and fell'd from Ida's crown,
Roll back the gather'd forests to the town.
These toils continue nine succeeding days,
And high in air a sylvan structure raise.
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine,
Forth to the pile was borne the man divine,
And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes,
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise.
Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn,
Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre,
And quench with wine the yet remaining fire.
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place
(With tears collected) in a golden vase;
The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd,
Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold.
Last o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread,
And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead.
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done,
Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun. )
All Troy then moves to Priam's court again,
A solemn, silent, melancholy train:
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,
And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.
Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. (300)





CONCLUDING NOTE.


We have now passed through the Iliad, and seen the anger of Achilles, and
the terrible effects of it, at an end, as that only was the subject of the
poem, and the nature of epic poetry would not permit our author to proceed
to the event of the war, it perhaps may be acceptable to the common reader
to give a short account of what happened to Troy and the chief actors in
this poem after the conclusion of it.

I need not mention that Troy was taken soon after the death of Hector by
the stratagem of the wooden horse, the particulars of which are described
by Virgil in the second book of the ? neid.

Achilles fell before Troy, by the hand of Paris, by the shot of an arrow
in his heel, as Hector had prophesied at his death, lib. xxii.

The unfortunate Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles.

Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the
armour of Vulcan, but being defeated in his aim, he slew himself through
indignation.

Helen, after the death of Paris, married Deiphobus his brother, and at the
taking of Troy betrayed him, in order to reconcile herself to Menelaus her
first husband, who received her again into favour.

Agamemnon at his return was barbarously murdered by ?