e lamps of the room threw the court-yard into a sombre
relief. Overhead, in the dimming, violet arch of the sky, one or two
faint stars were beginning to twinkle.

"Play to life's end this wicked witless game
And you will win what knaves and fools call Fame!"

repeated the general, leaning out from the stone work of the
window-casing in order to catch the cool air of the court. "Yes, fame,
the fame of a Xerxes; perhaps the fame of a Hannibal--no, I wrong the
Carthaginian, for he at least struck for his country. And what is it
all worth, after all? Does Agamemnon feel that his glory makes the
realm of Hades more tolerable? Does not Homer set forth Achilles as a
warrior with renown imperishable? And yet, 'Mock me not,' he makes the
shade of Achilles say; 'Better to be the hireling of a stranger and
serve a man of mean estate, whose living is but small, than be the
monarch over all those dead and gone.'"

The general leaned yet farther out, and looked upward. "These were the
stars that twinkled over the Troy of Priam; these were the stars that
shone on Carthage when she sent forth her armies and her fleets, and
nigh drove the Greeks from Sicily; and these are the stars which will
shine when Rome is as Troy and Carthage. And I--I am an atom, a
creature of chance, thrown out of the infinite to flash like a
shooting star for a moment across a blackened firmament and then in
the infinite to expire. _Cui bono?_ Why should I care how I live my
life, since in a twinkling it will all be as if it had never been? And
if Cato and Domitius and Lentulus Crus have their way with me, what
matter? What matter if a stab in the dark, or open violence, or the
sham forms of justice end this poor comedy? I and all others play. All
comedy is tragedy, and at its merriest is but dolorous stuff. While
the curtain stays down[123] we are sorry actors with the whole world
for our audience, and the hoots mingle full often with the applause.
And when the curtain rises, that which is good, the painstaking
effort, the labour, is quickly forgotten; the blunders, the false
quantities in our lives, are treasured up to be flung against our
names. We play, but we do not know our parts; we are Oedipus, who has
committed unwitting sin, and yet must reap his reward; we are
Prometheus who is to be chained to the rock forever, for offending the
gods; we are Orestes whom the Eumenides pursue, chasing him down for
his guilt. And all the time we vainly imagine