such appearance to be highly effective), and stands before the mortal captains radiant in the glories of Olympus. Such a visitor is, after all, not a bolder appeal to the supernatural than the ghost in Hamlet; and perhaps the half-imaginative belief of the educated portion of an Athenian audience in the continual existence, in some higher state, of their national heroes, might correspond pretty nearly to the belief in ghosts which would have been found amongst the same class of Englishmen in Shakspeare's day. It would be sufficient—indeed, it is practically sufficient still—for the sentiment of the tragedy. The tableau on the stage was no doubt highly effective when Hercules, with a commanding gesture, arrests the steps of Philoctetes as he is moving off:—
"Not yet, O son of Pæas, ere once more
Our accents reach thine ear.
Know 'tis the voice of Hercules thou hearest,
His form thine eyes behold.
To watch thy fortunes I awhile have left
My own celestial seat,
That Jove's almighty mandate I may breathe,
And in his name forbid thy purposed course."
He tells his friend of the glory which yet awaits him,—how he shall be healed of his wound, shall slay Paris with one of the fateful arrows, and be judged the bravest of the Greek host. And when Troy has fallen by his hands and those of Neoptolemus, let them not forget, in the hour of their triumph, to reverence the gods; for that alone can bring lasting happiness to mortals.
