| Slay me; demolish Troy: for these shall be |
| Long time my monuments, my children these, |
| My nuptials and my glory.” |
This sentiment marks woman, when she loves enough to feel what a creature of glory and beauty a true man would be, as much in our own time as that of Euripides. Cooper makes the weak Hetty say to her beautiful sister:
“Of course, I don't compare you with Harry. A handsome man is always far handsomer than any woman.” True, it was the sentiment of the age. but it was the first time Iphigenia had felt it. In Agamemnon she saw her father, to him she could prefer her claim. In Achilles she saw a man, the crown of creation, enough to fill the world with his presence, were all other beings blotted from its spaces.[1]
The reply of Achilles is as noble. Here is his bride, he feels it now, and all his vain vauntings are hushed.
| “ | Daughter of Agamemnon, highly blessed |
| Some god would make me, if I might attain | |
| Thy nuptials. Greece in thee I happy deem, | |
| And thee in Greece.** | |
| ***in thy thought | |
| Revolve this well; death is a dreadful thing.” |
How sweet is her reply, and then the tender modesty with which she addresses him here and elsewhere as “stranger.”
| “ | Reflecting not on any, thus I speak: |
| Enough of wars and slaughters from the charms |
- ↑ Men do not often reciprocate this pure love.
“ Her prentice han' she tried on man, And then she made the lasses o',” Is a fancy, not a feeling, in their more frequently passionate and strong, than noble or tender natures.
