[Illustration: ] VENUS
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“What lay does he want?” groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in which he had again been burying himself.
“Oh, I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage.”
“I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor’s sake. I am told that pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics.”
When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.
“Before thy presence, father, I appear, With conscious shame and reverential fear. Ah! had I died, ere to these walls I fled, False to my country, and my nuptial bed; My brothers, friends, and daughter left behind, False to them all, to Paris only kind! For this I mourn, till grief or dire disease Shall waste the form whose fault it was to please! The king of kings, Atrides, you survey, Great in the war, and great in arts of sway: My brother once, before my days of shame! And oh! that still he bore a brother’s name!”
The Iliad — Chapter 7: ARGUMENT. (part 1/2)
“I fear you are right,” answered Mr. Erskine. “I myself used to have literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. And now, my dear young friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you really meant all that you said to us at lunch?”
“Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something.”
The Iliad — Chapter 7: ARGUMENT. (part 1/2)
Antenor took the word, and thus began:[115] “Myself, O king! have seen that wondrous man When, trusting Jove and hospitable laws, To Troy he came, to plead the Grecian cause; (Great Menelaus urged the same request;) My house was honour’d with each royal guest: I knew their persons, and admired their parts, Both brave in arms, and both approved in arts. Erect, the Spartan most engaged our view; Ulysses seated, greater reverence drew. When Atreus’ son harangued the listening train, Just was his sense, and his expression plain, His words succinct, yet full, without a fault; He spoke no more than just the thing he ought. But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound,[116] His modest eyes he fix’d upon the ground; As one unskill’d or dumb, he seem’d to stand, Nor raised his head, nor stretch’d his sceptred hand; But, when he speaks, what elocution flows! Soft as the fleeces of descending snows,[117] The copious accents fall, with easy art; Melting they fall, and sink into the heart! Wondering we hear, and fix’d in deep surprise, Our ears refute the censure of our eyes.”
“I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s height, or rather taller.”
“But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel,” continued Lady Agatha.
“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.”
Thus fell two heroes; one the pride of Thrace, And one the leader of the Epeian race; Death’s sable shade at once o’ercast their eyes, In dust the vanquish’d and the victor lies. With copious slaughter all the fields are red, And heap’d with growing mountains of the dead.
“Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?”
Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet closed, To armour armour, lance to lance opposed, Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew, The sounding darts in iron tempests flew, Victors and vanquish’d join’d promiscuous cries, And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise; With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed, And slaughter’d heroes swell the dreadful tide.
Now with full force the yielding horn he bends, Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends; Close to his breast he strains the nerve below, Till the barb’d points approach the circling bow; The impatient weapon whizzes on the wing; Sounds the tough horn, and twangs the quivering string.
“Then commit them over again,” he said gravely. “To get back one’s youth, one has merely to repeat one’s follies.”
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.