the favourite of Artemis. And Calchas, the seer, read the omen thus: "Troy will fall before the sons of Atreus, but a shade hangs over their proud array, for Artemis is angry at the eagles' feast;" and though the prophet prayed that the omen might be averted, yet the gloomy burden peals out startlingly:—
"Ring out the dolorous hymn, yet triumph still the good!"
Calchas prayed that the injured goddess might not in anger delay the fleet, and force upon the chiefs
"That other sacrifice—
That darker sacrifice, unblest
By music or by jocund feast:
Whence sad domestic strife shall rise,
And, dreadless of her lord, fierce woman's hate;
Whose child-avenging wrath in sullen state
Broods, wily housewife, in her chamber's gloom,
Over that unforgotten doom.
Such were the words that Calchas clanged abroad,
When crossed those ominous birds the onward road
Of that twice royal brotherhood:
A mingled doom
Of glory and of gloom.
Ring out the dolorous hymn, yet triumph still the good!"
Ominous, indeed, is the starting; and the mind, oppressed with apprehension, turns to think of the holy powers that govern all these things. Zeus it is who rules unrivalled. Two dynasties of gods have fallen before him; and still his lesson to mortals is, "Learning through Sorrow." Dark and sad it all seems
