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pleasure in remembrance.” Nor were the old man’s words an empty presage, for they say that from their comradeship in wounds grew such loyalty as Theseus showed when he shared extremest peril with wanton^[1] Pirithous, or Pylades when he rescued distraught Orestes from the fury of Megaera.^[2] So then, yielding their savage hearts to the king’s soothing words—even as waters that winds have made their battleground sink to rest, and yet on the drooping sails one surviving breath is long in dying—even so submissive they entered the palace.

Here first he has leisure to let his glance pass o’er the heroes’ dress and mighty weapons. On Polynices’ back he spies a lion flayed, all rough with uncombed mane, like to that one which in the Teumesian^[3] glades Amphitryon’s son laid low in his boyish years and clothed himself withal, before the battle with the monster of Cleonae.^[4] Tydeus’ broad shoulders the proud spoils of Calydon, grim with bristles and curved fang, strive to enfold. Aghast and motionless stands the old king at so dire an omen, calling to mind the divine oracles of Phoebus and the warning uttered from the inspired cell. His countenance is fixed in frozen silence, while through his limbs ran a thrill of joy; he felt that they had come, led by heaven’s clear prompting, whom prophetic Apollo in riddling obscurities had foreshown to be his destined sons-in-law, under the feigned guise of beasts. Then stretching forth his hands to the stars, “O Night,” he cries, “who castest thy mantle over toiling earth and heaven, and sendest the fiery stars on their divers roaming courses,