“When is she Sibyl Vane?”
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“How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!”
“Lizzy,” cried her mother, “remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.”
“You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me everything you do.”
“Permit thy daughter, gracious Jove! to tell How this mischance the Cyprian queen befell, As late she tried with passion to inflame The tender bosom of a Grecian dame; Allured the fair, with moving thoughts of joy, To quit her country for some youth of Troy; The clasping zone, with golden buckles bound, Razed her soft hand with this lamented wound.”
The sire whose thunder shakes the cloudy skies, Sighs from his inmost soul, and thus replies: “Oh lasting rancour! oh insatiate hate To Phrygia’s monarch, and the Phrygian state! What high offence has fired the wife of Jove? Can wretched mortals harm the powers above, That Troy, and Troy’s whole race thou wouldst confound, And yon fair structures level with the ground! Haste, leave the skies, fulfil thy stern desire, Burst all her gates, and wrap her walls in fire! Let Priam bleed! if yet you thirst for more, Bleed all his sons, and Ilion float with gore: To boundless vengeance the wide realm be given, Till vast destruction glut the queen of heaven! So let it be, and Jove his peace enjoy,[126] When heaven no longer hears the name of Troy. But should this arm prepare to wreak our hate On thy loved realms, whose guilt demands their fate; Presume not thou the lifted bolt to stay, Remember Troy, and give the vengeance way. For know, of all the numerous towns that rise Beneath the rolling sun and starry skies, Which gods have raised, or earth-born men enjoy, None stands so dear to Jove as sacred Troy. No mortals merit more distinguish’d grace Than godlike Priam, or than Priam’s race. Still to our name their hecatombs expire, And altars blaze with unextinguish’d fire.”
As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.
On this the gods gathered to the house of Vulcan. Earth-encircling Neptune came, and Mercury the bringer of luck, and King Apollo, but the goddesses staid at home all of them for shame. Then the givers of all good things stood in the doorway, and the blessed gods roared with inextinguishable laughter, as they saw how cunning Vulcan had been, whereon one would turn towards his neighbour saying:
These thou mayst raze, nor I forbid their fall: ’Tis not in me the vengeance to remove; The crime’s sufficient that they share my love. Of power superior why should I complain? Resent I may, but must resent in vain. Yet some distinction Juno might require, Sprung with thyself from one celestial sire, A goddess born, to share the realms above, And styled the consort of the thundering Jove; Nor thou a wife and sister’s right deny;[128] Let both consent, and both by terms comply; So shall the gods our joint decrees obey, And heaven shall act as we direct the way. See ready Pallas waits thy high commands To raise in arms the Greek and Phrygian bands; Their sudden friendship by her arts may cease, And the proud Trojans first infringe the peace.”
“What brings this Lycian counsellor so far, To tremble at our arms, not mix in war! Know thy vain self, nor let their flattery move, Who style thee son of cloud-compelling Jove. How far unlike those chiefs of race divine, How vast the difference of their deeds and thine! Jove got such heroes as my sire, whose soul No fear could daunt, nor earth nor hell control. Troy felt his arm, and yon proud ramparts stand Raised on the ruins of his vengeful hand: With six small ships, and but a slender train, He left the town a wide-deserted plain. But what art thou, who deedless look’st around, While unrevenged thy Lycians bite the ground! Small aid to Troy thy feeble force can be; But wert thou greater, thou must yield to me. Pierced by my spear, to endless darkness go! I make this present to the shades below.”
Lord Henry laughed and rose. “I am going to the park,” he cried.
“No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius.”
“My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas.”
Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.
He glanced quickly round and rose to his feet. “I beg your pardon. I thought—”
Apollo thus from Ilion’s lofty towers, Array’d in terrors, roused the Trojan powers: While war’s fierce goddess fires the Grecian foe, And shouts and thunders in the fields below. Then great Diores fell, by doom divine, In vain his valour and illustrious line. A broken rock the force of Pyrus threw, (Who from cold Ænus led the Thracian crew,)[142] Full on his ankle dropp’d the ponderous stone, Burst the strong nerves, and crash’d the solid bone. Supine he tumbles on the crimson sands, Before his helpless friends, and native bands, And spreads for aid his unavailing hands. The foe rush’d furious as he pants for breath, And through his navel drove the pointed death: His gushing entrails smoked upon the ground, And the warm life came issuing from the wound.
He said, nor Hector to the chief replies, But shakes his plume, and fierce to combat flies; Swift as a whirlwind, drives the scattering foes; And dyes the ground with purple as he goes.
“Do tell, now,” cried Bildad, “is this Philistine a regular member of Deacon Deuteronomy’s meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass it every Lord’s day.”
While thus they strive, Tlepolemus the great,[153] Urged by the force of unresisted fate, Burns with desire Sarpedon’s strength to prove; Alcides’ offspring meets the son of Jove. Sheathed in bright arms each adverse chief came on. Jove’s great descendant, and his greater son. Prepared for combat, ere the lance he toss’d, The daring Rhodian vents his haughty boast:
“Not seventeen, Lady Henry?”