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Men will renew the battle on the plain To-morrow; red with blood will Xanthus be; Hector and Ajax will be there again, Helen will come upon the wall to see. Then we shall rust in shade or shine in strife, And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, And fancy that we put forth all our life, And never know how with the soul it fares.
His soul is as far from every thought of blood as the sun is from the moon. Oh! Hector, wilt thou go forevermore, Where fierce Achilles, on the blood-stained shore, Heaps countless victims o'er Patroclus' grave? Who then thy hapless orphan boy will rear, Teach him to praise the gods and hurl the spear, When thou art swallowed up in Xanthus' wave?
The queerest was that the machinery was tended, not by Tweel's people, but by some of the barrel-shaped creatures like the ones in Xanthus!" He gazed around at the faces of his auditors; there was no comment. "Get it?" he resumed. At their silence, he proceeded, "I see you don't. Leroy figured it out, but whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know.
And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many and various ways divert the streams of the golden Pactolus, the Numidians, faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery, the Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names.
Mercury then yoked their horses and mules, and drove them quickly through the host so that no man perceived them. When they came to the ford of eddying Xanthus, begotten of immortal Jove, Mercury went back to high Olympus, and dawn in robe of saffron began to break over all the land. Priam and Idaeus then drove on toward the city lamenting and making moan, and the mules drew the body of Hector.
"'No nothing, said I, and luckily he was called away at this moment to the further end of the stable. 'Oh, sighed I, 'for Xanthus, horse of Achilles! After all, the company was dwindling fast. I went back and consumed more sherry and biscuits. "By this six o'clock had gone, and no more than a dozen guests remained.
Here he was with Layard for a time, dreaming of the ancient Assyrians and their winged bulls. Hence he passed into the Lycian room, and saw something of the strange remains of the Xanthus of old; and then, probably, he went home to dream of these great marvels of the times gone by. But he came again; and this time hovered throughout the day amid the ruins of the arts of ancient Greece.
And then Apollo, he has his work cut out for him: with such a press of oracular business, it is much if he has any ears left to hear with: he is wanted at Delphi; the next minute, he must be off to Colophon; then away to Xanthus; then back at a trot to Clarus; then it is Delos, then Branchidae; in short, he is at the beck of every priestess who has taken her draught of holy water, munched her laurel-leaf, and made the tripod rock; it is now or never; if he is not there that minute to reel off the required oracle, his credit is gone.
The following variations appear in the first two verses of Hector's Farewell, as given in The Robbers, act ii. scene 2. ANDROMACHE. Wilt thou, Hector, leave me? leave me weeping, Where Achilles' murderous blade is heaping Bloody offerings on Patroclus' grave? Who, alas, will teach thine infant truly Spears to hurl, the gods to honor duly, When thou'rt buried 'neath dark Xanthus' wave?
The first of these are the relics of a Roman sarcophagus, discovered in a mausoleum, containing three other sarcophagi, at Xanthus. On the top have been reclining figures of a male and female, and at the sides combats of warriors.
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