one lying in the tomb, while the other walked the earth as a living man.  There too was Iphimedeia, mother of the giants Otus and Ephialtes, who at nine years of age were nine fathoms in height and nine cubits in breadth.  Haughty were they, and presumptuous in their youth; for they made war on the gods, and piled Ossa on Olympus, and Pelion on Ossa, that they might scale the sky.  But they perished in their impiety, shot down by the bolts of Apollo’s golden bow.  Last came Eriphyle, the false wife, who sold her husband’s life for a glittering bribe.

That dream of fair women melted away and another ghostly band succeeded, the souls of great captains and mighty men of war.  Foremost among these was seen one of regal port, around whom was gathered a choice company of veteran warriors, all gored and gashed with recent wounds.  He who seemed their leader stretched out his hands towards Odysseus with a piteous gesture, and tears such as spirits weep[1] gushed from his eyes.  Instantly Odysseus recognised in that stricken spirit his great commander Agamemnon, once the proud captain of a thousand ships, now wandering, forlorn and feeble, with all his glory faded.

[Footnote 1:  “Tears such as angels weep,” Milton, “Paradise Lost,” i. 619.]

“Royal son of Atreus,” he said, in a voice broken with weeping, “is it here that I find thee, great chieftain of the embattled Greeks?  Say, how comest thou hither, and what arm aimed the stroke which laid thee low?” “Not in honour’s field did I fall,” answered Agamemnon, “nor yet amid the waves.  It was a traitor’s hand that cut me off, the hand of AEgisthus, and the guile of my accursed wife.  He feasted me at his board, and slaughtered me as one slaughters a stalled ox; and all my company fell with me in that den of butchery.  It was pitiful to see all that brave band of veterans writhing in their death agony among the tables loaded with good cheer, and goblets brimming with wine.  But that which gave me my sorest pang was the dying shriek of Cassandra, daughter of Priam, who was struck down at my side by the dagger of Clytaemnestra.  Then the murderess turned away and left me with staring eyes and mouth gaping in death.  For naught is so vile, naught so cruel, as a woman who hath hardened her heart to tread the path of crime.  Even so did she break her marriage vows, and afterwards slew the husband of her youth.  I thought to have found far other welcome when I passed under the shadow of mine own roof-tree.  But this demon-wife imagined evil against me, and brought infamy on the very name of woman.”

“Strange ordinance of Zeus!” said Odysseus musingly, “which hath turned the choicest blessing of man’s life, the love of woman, into the bitterest of curses for thee and for thy house.  Yea, and upon all the land of Hellas hath woe been brought by the deed of a woman—­Helen, thy brother’s wife.”