ce broken with weeping, "is it
here that I find thee, great chieftain of the embattled Greeks? Say,
how comest thou hither, and what arm aimed the stroke which laid thee
low?" "Not in honour's field did I fall," answered Agamemnon, "nor yet
amid the waves. It was a traitor's hand that cut me off, the hand of
AEgisthus, and the guile of my accursed wife. He feasted me at his
board, and slaughtered me as one slaughters a stalled ox; and all my
company fell with me in that den of butchery. It was pitiful to see
all that brave band of veterans writhing in their death agony among
the tables loaded with good cheer, and goblets brimming with wine. But
that which gave me my sorest pang was the dying shriek of Cassandra,
daughter of Priam, who was struck down at my side by the dagger of
Clytaemnestra. Then the murderess turned away and left me with staring
eyes and mouth gaping in death. For naught is so vile, naught so
cruel, as a woman who hath hardened her heart to tread the path of
crime. Even so did she break her marriage vows, and afterwards slew
the husband of her youth. I thought to have found far other welcome
when I passed under the shadow of mine own roof-tree. But this
demon-wife imagined evil against me, and brought infamy on the very
name of woman."

"Strange ordinance of Zeus!" said Odysseus musingly, "which hath
turned the choicest blessing of man's life, the love of woman, into
the bitterest of curses for thee and for thy house. Yea, and upon all
the land of Hellas hath woe been brought by the deed of a
woman--Helen, thy brother's wife."

"Ay, trust them not," replied Agamemnon bitterly, "Never give thy
heart into a woman's keeping; she will rifle thy very soul's flower,
and then laugh thee to scorn. But why do I speak thus to thee? Thou
hast indeed a treasure in thy wife; no wiser head, no truer heart,
than hers. Happy art thou, and sweet the refuge which is prepared for
thee after all thy toils, Well I remember the day when we set sail
from Greece, and how fondly thou spakest of her, thy young bride, with
her babe at her breast. Now he will be a tall youth, and with what joy
will he look into the eyes of his father, whom he was then too young
to know!"

After that Odysseus was silent, his mind full of sweet and anxious
thoughts. Meanwhile other familiar forms had drawn near, the spirits
of warriors renowned, whose very names were as a battle-cry when they
dwelt on earth: Achilles, Patroclus, and Antilochus