This said, the many-coloured maid inspires Her husband’s love, and wakes her former fires; Her country, parents, all that once were dear, Rush to her thought, and force a tender tear, O’er her fair face a snowy veil she threw, And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew. Her handmaids, Clymene and Æthra, wait Her silent footsteps to the Scæan gate.
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“Is this the chief, who, lost to sense of shame, Late fled the field, and yet survives his fame? O hadst thou died beneath the righteous sword Of that brave man whom once I call’d my lord! The boaster Paris oft desired the day With Sparta’s king to meet in single fray: Go now, once more thy rival’s rage excite, Provoke Atrides, and renew the fight: Yet Helen bids thee stay, lest thou unskill’d Shouldst fall an easy conquest on the field.”
“I do, sir.”
Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime.
“Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you,” she cried; “so mind you come”; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the other ladies.
“A great many, I fear,” she cried.
“Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments.”
Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous volume.
“Ay, that is because you have the right disposition. But that gentleman,” looking at Darcy, “seemed to think the country was nothing at all.”
The sons of Dares first the combat sought, A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault; In Vulcan’s fane the father’s days were led, The sons to toils of glorious battle bred; These singled from their troops the fight maintain, These, from their steeds, Tydides on the plain. Fierce for renown the brother-chiefs draw near, And first bold Phegeus cast his sounding spear, Which o’er the warrior’s shoulder took its course, And spent in empty air its erring force. Not so, Tydides, flew thy lance in vain, But pierced his breast, and stretch’d him on the plain. Seized with unusual fear, Idæus fled, Left the rich chariot, and his brother dead. And had not Vulcan lent celestial aid, He too had sunk to death’s eternal shade; But in a smoky cloud the god of fire Preserved the son, in pity to the sire. The steeds and chariot, to the navy led, Increased the spoils of gallant Diomed.
Then Helen thus: “Whom your discerning eyes Have singled out, is Ithacus the wise; A barren island boasts his glorious birth; His fame for wisdom fills the spacious earth.”
He heard, and madly at the motion pleased, His polish’d bow with hasty rashness seized. ’Twas form’d of horn, and smooth’d with artful toil: A mountain goat resign’d the shining spoil. Who pierced long since beneath his arrows bled; The stately quarry on the cliffs lay dead, And sixteen palms his brow’s large honours spread: The workmen join’d, and shaped the bended horns, And beaten gold each taper point adorns. This, by the Greeks unseen, the warrior bends, Screen’d by the shields of his surrounding friends: There meditates the mark; and couching low, Fits the sharp arrow to the well-strung bow. One from a hundred feather’d deaths he chose, Fated to wound, and cause of future woes; Then offers vows with hecatombs to crown Apollo’s altars in his native town.
“Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d’ye see; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye’ve been to sea before now; sure of that?”
“Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,” cried Peleg, “thou dost not want to swindle this young man! he must have more than that.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, “there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”
“No, Sir, I never have.”
Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the thing—though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrow—Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. “Why,” said I, “Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think. Didn’t the people laugh?”
Then thus incensed, the Paphian queen replies: “Obey the power from whom thy glories rise: Should Venus leave thee, every charm must fly, Fade from thy cheek, and languish in thy eye. Cease to provoke me, lest I make thee more The world’s aversion, than their love before; Now the bright prize for which mankind engage, Than, the sad victim, of the public rage.”
“O friend! two chiefs of force immense I see, Dreadful they come, and bend their rage on thee: Lo the brave heir of old Lycaon’s line, And great Æneas, sprung from race divine! Enough is given to fame. Ascend thy car! And save a life, the bulwark of our war.”
Thus they in heaven: while on the plain below The fierce Tydides charged his Dardan foe, Flush’d with celestial blood pursued his way, And fearless dared the threatening god of day; Already in his hopes he saw him kill’d, Though screen’d behind Apollo’s mighty shield. Thrice rushing furious, at the chief he strook; His blazing buckler thrice Apollo shook: He tried the fourth: when, breaking from the cloud, A more than mortal voice was heard aloud.