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dors. Their intimations of some unimaginable horror I know not what-impending over myself, should I fail to induce you to accept their terms, have strongly moved your sympathies in my behalf. Another appeal, which I would you might have been spared, has lent force to their suit. A wife and children, threatened with widowhood and orphanage, weeping and despairing, have knelt at your feet, on the very threshold of the Senate-chamber. -- Conscript Fathers! Shall not Regulus be saved? Must he return to Carthage to meet the cruelties which the Ambassadors brandish before our eyes? With one voice you answer, No!-Countrymen! Friends! For all that I have suffered for all that I may have to suffer-I am repaid in the compensation of this moment! Unfortunate, you may hold me but, O, not undeserving! Your confidence in my honor survives all the ruin that adverse fortune could inflict. You have not forgotten the past. Republics are not ungrateful! May the thanks I cannot utter bring down blessings from the Gods on you and Rome!

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Conscript Fathers! There is but one course to be pursued. Abandon all thought of peace. Reject the overtures of Carthage! Reject them wholly and unconditionally! What! Give back to her a thousand able-bodied men, and receive in return this one attenuated, war-worn, fever-wasted frame, this weed, whitened in a dungeon's darkness, pale and sapless, which no kindness of the sun, no softness of the summer breeze, can ever restore to health and vigor? It must not it shall not be! O! were Regulus what he was once, before captivity had unstrung his sinews and enervated his limbs, he might pause, he might proudly think he were well worth a thousand of the foe; - he might say, "Make the exchange! Rome shall not lose by it!" But now alas! now 't is gone, - that impetuosity of strength, which could once make him a leader indeed, to penetrate a phalanx or guide a pursuit. His very armor would be a burthen now. His battle-cry would be drowned in the din of the onset. His sword would fall harmless on his opponent's shield. But, if he cannot live, he can at least die, for his country! Do not deny him this supreme consolation. Consider every indignity, every torture, which Carthage shall heap on his dying hours, will be better than a trumpet's call to your armies. They will remember only Regulus, their fellow-soldier and their leader. They will forget his defeats. They will regard only his services to the Republic. Tunis, Sardinia, Sicily, every well-fought field, won by his blood and theirs, will flash on their remembrance, and kindle their avenging wrath. And so shall Regulus, though dead, fight as he never fought before against the foe.

Conscript Fathers! There is another theme. My family-forgive the thought! To you, and to Rome, I confide them. I leave them no legacy but my name, no testament but my example. Ambassadors of Carthage! I have spoken; though not as you expected. I am your captive. Lead me back to whatever fate may await me. Doubt not that you shall find, to Roman hearts, country is dearer than life, and integrity more precious than freedom!

4. LEONIDAS TO HIS THREE HUNDRED. - Original Translation from Pichat.

YE men of Sparta, listen to the hope with which the Gods inspire Leonidas! Consider how largely our death may redound to the glory and benefit of our country. Against this barbarian King, who, in his battle array, reckons as many nations as our ranks do soldiers, what could united Greece effect? In this emergency there is need that some unexpected power should interpose itself;- that a valor and devotion, unknown hitherto, even to Sparta, should strike, amaze, confound, this ambitious Despot! From our blood, here freely shed to-day, shall this moral power, this sublime lesson of patriotism, proceed. To Greece it shall teach the secret of her strength; to the Persians, the certainty of their weakness. Before our scarred and bleeding bodies, we shall see the great King grow pale at his own victory, and recoil affrighted. Or, should he succeed in forcing the pass of Thermopyla, he will tremble to learn, that, in marching upon our cities, he will find ten thousand, after us, equally prepared for death. Ten thousand, do I say? O, the swift contagion of a generous enthusiasm! Our example shall make Greece all fertile in heroes. An avenging cry shall follow the cry of her affliction. Country! Independence! From the Messenian hills to the Hellespont, every heart shall respond; and a hundred thousand heroes, with one sacred accord, shall arm themselves, in emulation of our unanimous death. These rocks shall give back the echo of their oaths. Then shall our little band, the brave three hundred, from the world of shades, revisit the scene; behold the haughty Xerxes, a fugitive, re-cross the Hellespont in a frail bark; while Greece, after eclipsing the most glorious of her exploits, shall hallow a new Olympus in the mound that covers our tombs.

Yes, fellow-soldiers, history and posterity shall consecrate our ashes. Wherever courage is honored, through all time, shall Thermopylæ and the Spartan three hundred be remembered. Ours shall be an immortality such as no human glory has yet attained. And when ages shall have swept by, and Sparta's last hour shall have come, then, even in her ruins, shall she be eloquent. Tyrants shall turn away from them, appalled; but the heroes of liberty the poets, the sages, the historians of all time. shall invoke and bless the memory of the gallant three hundred of Leonidas!

5. BRUTUS OVER THE DEAD LUCRETIA. — Original and Compiled. You are amazed, O Romans! even amid the general horror at Lucretia's death, that Brutus, whom you have known hitherto only as the fool, should all at once assume the language and bearing of a man! Did not the Sibyl say, a fool should set Rome free? I am that fool! Brutus bids Rome be free! If he has played the fool, it was to seize the wise man's opportunity. Here he throws off the mask of madness. 'Tis Lucius Junius now, your countryman, who calls upon you, by this innocent blood, to swear eternal vengeance against kings!

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Look, Romans! turn your eyes on this sad spectacle! daughter of Lucretius, Collatinus' wife! By her own hand she died! See there a noble lady, whom the ruffian lust of a Tarquin reduced to the necessity of being her own executioner, to attest her innocence! Hospitably entertained by her as her husband's kinsman, Sextus, the perfidious guest, became her brutal ravisher. The chaste, the generous Lucretia, could not survive the outrage. Heroic matron! But once only treated as a slave, life was no longer endurable! And if she, with her soft woman's nature, disdained a life, that depended on a tyrant's will, shall we shall men, with such an example before their eyes, and after five-and-twenty years of ignominious servitude shall we, through a fear of death, delay one moment to assert our freedom? No, Romans! The favorable moment is come. The time is now! Fear not that the army will take the part of their Generals, rather than of the People. The love of liberty is natural to all; and your fellow-citizens in the Camp feel the weight of oppression as sensibly as you. Doubt not they will as eagerly seize the opportunity of throwing off their yoke.

Courage, Romans! The Gods are for us! those Gods whose temples and altars the impious Tarquin has profaned. By the blood of the wronged Lucretia, I swear, - hear me, ye Powers Supreme! - by this blood, which was once so pure, and which nothing but royal villany could have polluted, I swear that I will pursue, to the death, these Tarquins, with fire and sword; nor will I ever suffer any one of that family, or of any other family whatsoever, to be King in Rome! On to the Forum! Bear the body hence, high in the public view, through all the streets! On, Romans, on! The fool shall set you free!

6. REPLY OF ACHILLES TO THE ENVOYS OF AGAMEMNON, SOLICITING A RECONCILIATION.-Couper's Homer.

I MUST with plainness speak my fixed resolve;
For I abhor the man, not more the gates
Of hell itself! - whose words belie his heart.
So shall not mine! My judgment undisguised
Is this that neither Agamemnon me
Nor all the Greeks shall move!
Wins here no thanks; one recompense awaits
The sedentary and the most alert!

For ceaseless toil

The brave and base in equal honor stand, -
And drones and heroes fall unwept alike!

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I, after all my labors, who exposed
My life continual in the field, have earned
No
very sumptuous prize! As the poor
bird
Gives to her unfledged brood a morsel gained
After long search, though wanting it herself,
So I have worn out many sleepless nights,
And waded deep through many a bloody day,

In battle for their wives. I have destroyed
Twelve cities with my fleet; and twelve, save one
On foot contending, in the fields of Troy.
From all these cities precious spoil I took
Abundant, and to Agamemnon's hand
Gave all the treasure. He within his ships
Abode the while, and, having all received,
Little distributed, and much retained.
He gave, however, to the Kings and Chiefs
A portion, and they keep it. Me alone,
Of all the Grecian host, hath he despoiled!
My bride, my soul's delight, is in his hands!
Tell him my reply:

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And tell it him aloud, that other Greeks
May indignation feel like me, if, armed
Always in impudence, he seek to wrong
Them also. Let him not henceforth presume
Canine and hard in aspect though he be-
To look me in the face. I will not share
His counsels, neither will I aid his works.
Let it suffice him, that he wronged me once,
Deceived me once; - henceforth his glozing arts
Are lost on me! But, let him rot in peace,
Crazed as he is, and, by the stroke of Jove,
Infatuate! I detest his gifts!—and him
So honor as the thing which most I scorn!
And would he give me twenty times the worth
Of this his offer, all the treasured heaps
Which he possesses, or shall yet possess,
All that Orchomĕnos within her walls,
And all that opulent Egyptian Thebes
Receives, the city with a hundred gates,
Whence twenty thousand chariots rush to war,
And would he give me riches as the sands,
And as the dust of earth,- no gifts from him
Should soothe me, till my soul were first avenged
For all the offensive license of his tongue.
I will not wed the daughter of your Chief, -
Of Agamemnon. Could she vie in charms
With golden Venus, — had she all the skill
Of blue-eyed Pallas,-even so endowed,
She were no bride for me!

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mine answer back.

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7 HECTOR'S REBUKE TO POLYDĂMAS.—Cowper's Homer. Abridged.

POLYDAMAS to dauntless Hector spake:
Ofttimes in council, Hector, thou art wont

To censure me, although advising well;
Yet hear my best opinion once again:
Proceed we not in our attempt against
The Grecian fleet. The omens we have seen
All urge against it.
When the eagle flew,

Clutching the spotted snake, then dropping it
Into the open space between the hosts,

Troy's host was on the left. Was this propitious?
No. Many a Trojan shall we leave behind,
Slain by the Grecians in their fleet's defence.
An
augur skilled in omens would expound
This omen thus, and faith would win from all.
To whom dark-louring Hector thus replied:
Polydamas! I like not thy advice;
Thou couldst have framed far better; but if this
Be thy deliberate judgment, then the Gods
Make thy deliberate judgment nothing worth,
Who bidd 'st me disregard the Thunderer's firm
Assurance to myself announced, and make
The wild inhabitants of air my guides,
Which I alike despise, speed they their course
With right-hand flight toward the ruddy East,
Or leftward down into the shades of eve!
Consider we the will of Jove alone,

Sovereign of Heaven and Earth. Omens abound;
But the best omen is our country's cause.*
Wherefore should fiery war thy soul alarm?
For were we slaughtered, one and all, around
The fleet of Greece, thou need'st not fear to die,
Whose courage never will thy flight retard.

But if thou shrink thyself, or by smooth speech
Seduce one other from a soldier's part,

Pierced by this spear incontinent thou diest!

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8. HECTOR'S EXPLOIT AT THE BARRIERS OF THE GRECIAN FLEET.-Idem.

So hung the war in balance,

Till Jove himself, superior fame, at length,

To Priameian Hector gave, who sprang

First through the wall. In lofty sounds that reached

Their utmost ranks, he called on all his host:

Now press them! now, ye Trojans, steed-renowned,
Rush on! break through the Grecian rampart! hurl
At once devouring flames into the fleet!

Such was his exhortation. They, his voice

The nobleness of this reply may have been paralleled, but not surpassed, by patriots of succeeding times.

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