shore. When they had gone about a furlong from the island, a horrible
cry from the maiden reached their ears, and they saw Achilles tearing
her to pieces, rending her limb from limb.

In this brutal savage it is impossible to recognize Homer's chivalrous
hero, who sacrificed the success of a ten years' war, fought originally
for the recovery of one woman, to his grief at the loss of another, and
has thus made it possible to describe the _Iliad_ as the greatest
love-poem ever written. One cannot help feeling that Pindar's Isle of
the Blest, whither he was brought by Thetis, whose mother's prayer had
moved the Heart of Zeus, to dwell with Cadmus and Peleus, is Achilles'
true home; or the isle of the heroes of all time, described by Carducci,
where King Lear sits telling OEdipus of his sufferings, and Cordelia
calls to Antigone, "Come, my Greek sister! We will sing of peace to our
fathers." Helen and Iseult, silent and thoughtful, roam under the shade
of the myrtles, while the setting sun kisses their golden hair with its
reddening rays. Helen gazes across the sea, but King Mark opens his arms
to Iseult, and the fair head sinks on the mighty beard. Clytemnestra
stands by the shore with the Queen of Scots. They bathe their white arms
in the waves, but the waves recoil swollen with red blood, while the
wailing of the hapless women echoes along the rocky strand. Among these
heroic souls Shelley alone of modern poets--that Titan spirit in a
maiden's form--may find a place, according to Carducci, caught up by
Sophocles from the living embrace of Thetis.[43]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: _Ep._, vii. 27.]

[Footnote 31: Burton's _The Book-Hunter: Robert Wodrow_.]