And maidens danced with lightsome feet
To the jocund measures sweet,
And every home was blazing bright,
As the glowing festal light
Its rich and ruddy splendour streamed,
Where high and full the mantling wine-cup beamed.
*******
All at once the cry of slaughter,
Through the startled city ran;
The cowering infants on their mother's breasts
Folded their trembling hands within her vests;
Forth stalked the ambushed Mars, and his fell work began."
"Sad," said the aged Manoah in 'Samson Agonistes,'—
"Sad, but thou knowest to Israelites not saddest,
The desolation of a hostile city,' "
and probably Athenians, who had laid waste many cities, were not displeased by a representation of the destruction of Troy. With great skill, indeed, Euripides has shown that the victors are scarcely less deserving of pity than the vanquished. In every Grecian state during the ten years' siege—and what was true of the Trojan was true also of the Peloponnesian war—many had been made widows and orphans. While the Achæan kings and heroes were encamped on the Trojan strand, their wives have been false to them, usurpers have occupied their thrones, or suitors to their queens have been faring sumptuously at their cost. The prophecies of Cassandra point to further calamities. A bloody bath awaits Agamemnon; some, like Idomeneus and Diomedes, must take refuge on alien shores;
