whom, out of pure love of mischief, would have been glad if Perseus had met with some ill hap in his encounter with the Gorgons. If there were any better people in the island (as I really hope there may have been, although the story tells nothing about any such), they stayed quietly at home, minding their own business and taking care of their little children. Most of the inhabitants, at all events, ran as fast as they could to the palace, and shoved and pushed and elbowed one another in their eagerness to get near a balcony on which Perseus showed himself holding the embroidered wallet in his hand.

On a platform within full view of the balcony sat the mighty King Polydectes, amid his evil counselors and with his flattering courtiers in a semicircle round about him. Monarch, counselors, courtiers, and subjects all gazed eagerly toward Perseus.

"Show us the head! Show us the head!" shouted the people; and there was a fierceness in their cry, as if they would tear Perseus to pieces unless he should satisfy them with what he had to show. "Show us the head of Medusa with the snaky locks!"

A feeling of sorrow and pity came over the youthful Perseus. "O King Polydectes,” cried he, "and ye many people, I am very loath to show you the Gorgon's head."

66

Ah, the villain and coward!" yelled the people, more fiercely than before. "He is making game of us! He has no Gorgon's head! Show us the head if you have it, or we will take your own head for a football!"

The evil counselors whispered bad advice in the king's ear; the courtiers murmured, with one consent, that Perseus had shown disrespect to their royal lord and master; and the great King Polydectes himself waved his hand and ordered him, with the stern, deep voice of authority, on his peril to produce the head:

"Show me the Gorgon's head or I will cut off your own!" And Perseus sighed.

"This instant," repeated Polydectes, "or you die!"

"Behold it, then!" cried Perseus, in a voice like the blast of a trumpet.

And suddenly holding up the head, not an eyelid had time to wink before the wicked King Polydectes, his evil counselors, and all his fierce subjects were no longer anything but the mere images of a monarch and his people. They were all fixed forever in the look and attitude of that moment. At the first

glimpse of the terrible head of Medusa they whitened into marble. And Perseus thrust the head back into his wallet, and went to tell his dear mother that she need no longer be afraid of the wicked King Polydectes.

THE PRAYER OF THE SWINE TO CIRCE.1

BY AUSTIN DOBSON.

[HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON: English poet and biographer; born at Plymouth, England, January 18, 1840. He was educated as a civil engineer, but since 1856 has held a position in the Board of Trade, devoting his leisure hours to literary work. He domesticated the old French stanza form in English verse, and has done much to revive an interest in English art and literature of the eighteenth century. "Vignettes in Rhyme," "At the Sign of the Lyre," and "Proverbs in Porcelain" constitute his chief poetical works. In prose he has written biographies of Bewick, Walpole, Hogarth, Steele, and Goldsmith; "EighteenthCentury Vignettes," etc.]

HUDDLING they came, with shag sides caked of mire,
With hoofs fresh sullied from the troughs o'erturned,
With wrinkling snouts,-yet eyes in which desire
Of some strange thing unutterably burned,
Unquenchable; and still where'er She turned
They rose about her, striving each o'er each,
With restless, fierce impórtuning that yearned

Through those brute masks some piteous tale to teach,
Yet lacked the words thereto, denied the power of speech.

For these Eurylochus alone escaping

In truth, that small exploring band had been,
Whom wise Odysseus, dim precaution shaping,
Ever at heart, of peril unforeseen,

Had sent inland; -whom then the islet Queen,-
The fair disastrous daughter of the Sun,-
Had turned to likeness of the beast unclean,
With evil wand transforming one by one,

To shapes of loathly swine, imbruted and undone.

But "the men's minds remained," and these forever
Made hungry suppliance through the fire-red eyes;
Still searching aye, with impotent endeavor,

To find, if yet, in any look, there lies

A saving hope, or if they might surprise

1 From "Collected Poems." By permission of Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner & Co. 8vo., price 68.

In that cold face soft pity's spark concealed,
Which she, still scorning, evermore denies;
Nor was there in her any ruth revealed

To whom with such mute speech and dumb words they appealed.

What hope is ours· what hope! To find no mercy
After much war, and many travails done? -
Ah, kinder far than thy fell philters, Circe,
The ravening Cyclops and the Læstrigon!
And O, thrice cursèd be Laertes' son,

By whom, at last, we watch the days decline
With no fair ending of the quest begun,
Condemned in sties to weary and to pine

And with men's hearts to beat through this foul front of swine!

For us not now,—for us, alas! no more
The old green glamour of the glancing sea;
For us not now the laughter of the oar,-
The strong-ribbed keel wherein our comrades be;
Not now, at even, any more shall we,

By low-browed banks and reedy river places,
Watch the beast hurry and the wild fowl flee;

Or steering shoreward, in the upland spaces,
Have sight of curling smoke and fair-skinned foreign faces.

Alas for us!-for whom the columned houses
We left aforetime, cheerless must abide;
Cheerless the hearth where now no guest carouses,·
No minstrel raises song at eventide;
And O, more cheerless than aught else beside,
The wistful hearts with heavy longing full;·
The wife that watched us on the waning tide,-
The sire whose eyes with weariness are dull, -
The mother whose slow tears fall on the carded wool.

If swine we be, if we indeed be swine,
Daughter of Persé, make us swine indeed,
Well-pleased on litter straw to lie supine,
Well-pleased on mast and acorn shales to feed,
Stirred by all instincts of the bestial breed;
But O Unmerciful! O Pitiless!

Leave us not thus with sick men's hearts to bleed! —
To waste long days in yearning, dumb distress
And memory of things gone, and utter hopelessness!

Leave us at least, if not the things we were,

At least consentient to the thing we be;

Not hapless doomed to loathe the forms we bear,

And senseful roll in senseless savagery;

For surely cursed above all cursed are we,
And surely this the bitterest of ill;·

To feel the old aspirings fair and free,
Become blind motions of a powerless will

Through swinelike frames dispersed to swinelike issues still.

But make us men again, for that thou mayst!
Yea, make us men, Enchantress, and restore
These groveling shapes, degraded and debased,
To fair embodiments of men once more;·
Yea, by all men that ever woman bore;
Yea, e'en by him hereafter born in pain,
Shall draw sustainment from thy bosom's core,
O'er whom thy face yet kindly shall remain,
And find its like therein, make thou us men again!

Make thou us men again,

– if men but groping

That dark Hereafter which th' Olympians keep,
Make thou us men again,

if men but hoping

Behind death's doors security of sleep;
For yet to laugh is somewhat, and to weep;·
To feel delight of living, and to plow
The salt-blown acres of the shoreless deep;
Better, yea better far all these than bow
Foul faces to foul earth, and yearn·

as we do now!

So they in speech unsyllabled. But She,
The fair-tressed Goddess, born to be their bane,
Uplifting straight her wand of ivory,
Compelled them groaning to the sties again;
Where they in hopeless bitterness were fain

To rend the oaken woodwork as before,
And tear the troughs in impotence of pain,-
Not knowing, they, that even at the door

Divine Odysseus stood, as Hermes told of yore.

THE OLYMPIC GAMES.1

BY GEORG EBERS.

(From "An Egyptian Princess.")

[GEORG MORITZ EBERS: German Egyptologist and novelist; born at Berlin, March 1, 1837. He was educated at Göttingen and Berlin, and lectured for a while at Jena. In 1870 he became professor of Egyptian archæology at Leipsic, resigning in 1889 on account of ill health. Besides several important works on Egyptology, he has published a series of historical novels treating of ancient Egyptian life, which have enjoyed extraordinary popularity not only in Germany but in other countries. The best known are: "An Egyptian Princess," "Uarda,” "Homo Sum," "The Sisters," "Serapis," "The Bride of the Nile," and "Cleopatra." Also popular are: "In the Fire of the Forge," "The Burgomaster's Wife," and "Gred."]

HERE Aristomachus interrupted the Athenian, and cried : "Enough of praise, friend Phanes. Spartan tongues are awkward, but if you need my help, I will answer you with deeds, that will hit the right nail on the head."

Rhodopis smiled approvingly at the two men. Then she gave her hand to each, and said: "Unfortunately, dear Phanes, your story has shown me that you can no longer remain in this land. I will not reproach you for your folly, but you might have known that you were braving great dangers for small results. A really prudent and courageous man will undertake a bold deed only when the benefit which might accrue to him. is greater than the disadvantages. Rashness is just as foolish, though not, perhaps, as reprehensible, as cowardice, for though both may injure a man, the latter alone disgraces him. This time your carelessness nearly cost you your life, a life which is dear to many, and which you ought to preserve for a better end than to fall a victim to folly. We may not try to keep you with us, for we could not help you, and should certainly harm ourselves. This noble Spartan shall in future take your place, and as captain of the Greeks represent our nation at court, protect it from the encroachments of the priests, and try to preserve the king's favor for it. I hold your hand, Aristomachus, and will not let it go, till you promise to act as Phanes did before you, and to protect, as far as it is in your power, even the lowest Greek from the arrogance of the Egyptians ; to resign your post rather than let the most trivial crime against a Greek escape punishment. We are but a few thousands among By permission of Geo. Bell & Sons. (Price 38. 6d)