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THE DEATH OF ARTEMIDORA. [From Pericles and Aspasia (1836): Letter 85, Cleone to Aspasia

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Hellenics XII (1847)]

We are losing, day by day, one friend or other. Artemidora of Ephesus was betrothed to Elpenor, and their nuptials, it was believed, were at hand. How gladly would Artemidora have survived Elpenor. I pitied her almost as much as if she had. I must ever love true lovers on the ь eve of separation. These indeed were little known to me until a short time before. We became friends when our fates had made us relatives. On these occasions there are always many verses, but not always so true in feeling and in fact as those which I shall now transcribe for you.

'Artemidora! Gods invisible,

10 While thou art lying faint along the couch,
Have tied the sandal to thy veined feet,
And stand beside thee, ready to convey
Thy weary steps where other rivers flow.
Refreshing shades will waft thy weariness
16 Away, and voices like thine own come nigh,
Soliciting, nor vainly, thy embrace.'

Artemidora sigh'd, and would have press'd
The hand now pressing hers, but was too weak.
Fate's shears were over her dark hair unseen
20 While thus Elpenor spake: he look'd into
Eyes that had given light and life erewhile
To those above them, those now dim with tears
And watchfulness. Again he spake of joy
Eternal. At that word, that sad word, joy,
25 Faithful and fond her bosom heav'd once more,
Her head fell back: one sob, one loud deep sob
Swell'd through the darken'd chamber; 'twas not hers:

With her that old boat incorruptible,
Unwearied, undiverted in its course,

BO Had plash'd the water up the farther strand.

DIRCE.

[From Pericles and Aspasia (1836): Letter 230, Aspasia to Cleone)

Stand close around, ye Stygian set,

With Dirce in one boat convey'd!

Or Charon, seeing, may forget
That he is old, and she a shade.

IPHIGENEIA.

[From Hellenics XI (1847)]

Iphigeneia, when she heard her doom At Aulis, and when all beside the king Had gone away, took his right hand, and said, 'O father! I am young and very happy. 6 I do not think the pious Calchas heard Distinctly what the Goddess spake. Old age Obscures the senses. If my nurse, who knew My voice so well, sometimes misunderstood, While I was resting on her knee both arms 10 And hitting it to make her mind my words, And looking in her face, and she in mine, Might not he also hear one word amiss, Spoken from so far off, even from Olympus?' The father placed his cheek upon her head, 15 And tears dropt down it, but the king of men Replied not. Then the maiden spake once more. 'O father! sayst thou nothing? Hear'st thou not Me, whom thou ever hast, until this hour, Listen'd to fondly, and awaken'd me

20 To hear my voice amid the voice of birds, When it was inarticulate as theirs,

And the down deadened it within the nest?' He moved her gently from him, silent still, And this, and this alone, brought tears from her, 25 Altho' she saw fate nearer: then with sighs, 'I thought to have laid down my hair before Benignant Artemis, and not have dimm'd Her polisht altar with my virgin blood; I thought to have selected the white flowers 30 To please the Nymphs, and to have askt of each By name, and with no sorrowful regret,

Whether, since both my parents will'd the change, I might at Hymen's feet bend my clipt brow;

And (after these who mind us girls the most)
85 Adore our own Athena, that she would
Regard me mildly with her azure eyes.
But, father! to see you no more, and see
Your love, O father! go ere I am gone!'
Gently he moved her off, and drew her back,
40 Bending his lofty head far over her's,

And the dark depths of nature heaved and burst.
He turn'd away; not far, but silent still.
She now first shudder'd; for in him, so nigh,
So long a silence seem'd the approach of death,
45 And like it. Once again she rais'd her voice.
'O father! if the ships are now detain'd,

And all your vows move not the Gods above,
When the knife strikes me there will be one prayer
The less to them: and purer can there be

50 Any, or more fervent than the daughter's prayer
For her dear father's safety and success?'
A groan that shook him shook not his resolve.
An aged man now enter'd, and without
One word, stept slowly on, and took the wrist
55 Of the pale maiden. She lookt up, and saw
The fillet of the priest and calm cold eyes.
Then turn'd she where her parent stood, and cried
'O father! grieve no more: the ships can sail.'

CHARLES LAMB.

HARLES LAMB (1775-1834) was born

CHAR

in London, where his father was clerk to one of the Benchers of the Inner Temple. From Christ's Hospital, where he was a school-fellow of Coleridge, he passed as a clerk into the South Sea House (1789), and, three years later, was promoted to a clerkship in the East India House, a post, which he held for 33 years. After his office-hours, his pen used to be busy at home, writing poetry and essays for the magazines, often in collaboration with his sister Mary, who was his lifelong companion. For Mary Lamb (1764— 1847), who, in an attack of temporary insanity, had stabbed her mother, in 1796, was put under the guardianship of her brother, who discharged this trust with devoted care and for her sake renounced all hope of marrying Miss Ann Simmons (afterwards Mrs. Bartram). After his resignation from office (1825) he lived at Enfield and, from 1833, at Edmonton, where he died from the consequences of a fall.

Lamb's first success was a children's book, the well-known Tales from Shakspere (1807), which he composed in conjunction with his sister, she making the versions of the comedies. His Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808), which exhibit him as a subtle and sympathetic critic, bear a large part in the revival of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. But his peculiar genius was most fully displayed in a series of delightful essays which, from 1820, he contributed to the London Magazine' under the signature of 'Elia' and then collected under the title Essays of Elia (1823). They enjoy an immense popularity for their perfect naturalness, their quaint kindly humour, blended with delicate pathos, and for that indescribable charm with which Lamb could invest the common things of everyday life and especially the familiar sights of London. The same qualities are to be found in his Letters, which are among the best in the language. Of his poems only a few, among them The Old Familiar Faces (1798), have stood the trials of time.

DREAM-CHILDREN:

A REVERIE.

[From Essays of Elia (1823)]

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary 5 great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived 10 in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country

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of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel 20 uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down 25 to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I 30 went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great 35 house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more 40 fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the 45 great house in a sort while she lived,

Herrig-Forster, British Authors.

which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked 50 as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, 55 as much as to say, 'that would be foolish, indeed.' foolish, indeed.' And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the 60 gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew 65 all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grand- 70 mother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted 75

the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make so them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; 85 and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said 'those inno- 90

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cents would do her no harm;' and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never 95 half so good or religious as she and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to 100 all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the Twelve Cæsars, that 105 had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that 110 huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out - sometimes in the spacious 115 old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon 120 the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then,

and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old 125 melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at or in lying about upon the fresh grass, 130 with all the fine garden smells around me or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth 135 or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent

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state, as if it mocked at their im- 140 pertinent friskings, I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children. Here 145 John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for 150 the present as irrelevant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner 155 she might be said to love their uncle, John L――, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, 166 like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, 165 and join the hunters when there were any out and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries - 170 and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially; and how he 176 used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy for he was a good bit older than me many a mile when I could not walk for pain; and how in after-life 180 he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had 185 been to me when I was lame-footed; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed

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