So not by treachery; for his single strength
Were scarce a match, I trow, for all our crew.
Still, having shared thine errand, I were loath
To seem a recreant now; yet would I rather
Fail through fair deeds than win a foul success."
The reader wants little more to put him in possession of the character of Neoptolemus. Gallant and impetuous, open and chivalrous, he is the true son of the ideal knight of Greek romance, the great Achilles, who had declared, in Homer's words—which we can see, from the brief passing allusion, were in the mind of the dramatist, as he knew they surely would be in those of his audience—
"Who dares think one thing and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of hell."[1]
Not so Ulysses. The crafty man of the world sneers at the youthful enthusiast for honesty and straightforwardness. Such things are very well—in their time and place. He himself had tried them:—
"Son of a gallant sire, I was young once,
And used my tongue not much, my hand full promptly;
But now, schooled by experience, I can see
That in all mortal dealings 'tis the tongue
And not the hand that wins the mastery."
After a brief parley, the plausible counsels of Ulysses prevail over the better feelings of his comrade. The argument which the latter cannot resist is, that without these arrows of Hercules he will lose the
