rolling the clouds before them. And swiftly they came blowing over the
sea, and the wave rose beneath their shrill blast; and they came to
deep-soiled Troy, and fell upon the pile, and loudly roared the mighty
fire. So all night drave they the flame of the pyre together, blowing
shrill; and all night fleet Achilles, holding a two-handled cup, drew
wine from a golden bowl, and poured it forth and drenched the earth,
calling upon the spirit of hapless Patroclos. As a father waileth when
he burneth the bones of his son, new-married, whose death is woe to his
hapless parents, so wailed Achilles as he burnt the bones of his
comrade, going heavily round the burning pile, with many moans.

"But at the hour when the Morning Star goeth forth to herald light upon
the earth, the star that saffron-mantled Dawn cometh after, and
spreadeth over the salt sea, then grew the burning faint, and the flame
died down. And the Winds went back again to betake them home over the
Thracian main, and it roared with a violent swell. Then the son of
Peleus turned away from the burning and lay down wearied, and sweet
sleep leapt on him." [Footnote: Iliad xxiii. p. 193.--Translated by
Lang, Leaf and Myers.]

The exquisite beauty of this passage, even in translation, will escape
no lover of poetry. And it is a beauty which depends on the character of
the Greek religion; on the fact that all that is unintelligible in the
world, all that is alien to man, has been drawn, as it were, from its
dark retreat, clothed in radiant form, and presented to the mind as a
glorified image of itself. Every phenomenon of nature, night and "rosy-
fingered" dawn, earth and sun, winds, rivers, and seas, sleep and
death,--all have been transformed into divine and conscious agents, to
be propitiated by prayer, interpreted by divination, and comprehended by
passions and desires identical with those which stir and control