“With uplifted hands and tearful eyes, King Oineus and the elders of the city came to Meleager, and besought him to take the field again.  Rich gifts they offered him.  They bade him choose for his own the most fertile farm in Calydon—­at the least fifty acres, half for tillage and half for vines; but he would not listen to them.

“The din of battle thickened outside the gates; the towers shook with the thundering blows of the besiegers.  Old Oineus with trembling limbs climbed up the stairway to his son’s secluded chamber, and, weeping, prayed him to come down and save the city from fire and pillage.  Still he kept silent, and went not.  His sisters came, and his most trusted friends.  ‘Come, Meleager,’ they prayed, ’forget thy grief, and think only of our great need.  Aid thy people, or we shall all perish!’

“None of these prayers moved him.  The gates were beaten down; the enemy was within the walls; the tide of battle shook the very tower where Meleager sat; the doom of Calydon seemed to be sealed.  Then came the fair Cleopatra, and knelt before her husband, and besought him to withhold no longer the aid which he alone could give.  ‘O Meleager,’ she sobbed, ’none but thou can save us.  Wilt thou sit still, and see the city laid in ashes, thy dearest friends slaughtered, and thy wife and sweet babes dragged from their homes and sold into cruel slavery?’

“Then Meleager rose and girded on his armor.  To the streets he hastened, shouting his well-known battle cry.  Eagerly and hopefully did the Calydonian warriors rally around him.  Fiercely did they meet the foe.  Terrible was the bloodshed.  Back from the battered gates and the crumbling wall the Acarnanian hosts were driven.  A panic seized upon them.  They turned and fled, and not many of them escaped the swords of Meleager’s men.

“Again there was peace in Calydon, and the orchards of King Oineus blossomed and bore fruit as of old; but the gifts and large rewards which the elders had promised to Meleager were forgotten.  He had saved his country, but his countrymen were ungrateful.

“Meleager again laid aside his war gear, and sought the quiet of his own home and the cheering presence of fair Cleopatra.  For the remembrance of his mother’s curse and his country’s ingratitude weighed heavily on his mind, and he cared no longer to mingle with his fellow men.

“Then it was that Althea’s hatred of her son waxed stronger, and she thought of the half-burned brand which she had hidden, and of the words which the Fatal Sisters had spoken so many years before.

“‘He is no longer my son,’ said she, ’and why should I withhold the burning of the brand?  He can never again bring comfort to my heart; for the blood of my brothers, whom I loved, is upon his head.’

“And she took the charred billet from the place where she had hidden it, and cast it again into the flames.  And as it slowly burned away, so did the life of Meleager wane.  Lovingly he bade his wife farewell; softly he whispered a prayer to the unseen powers above; and as the flickering flames of the fatal brand died into darkness, he gently breathed his last.