he dull dark verdure of the bounteous tree,
Dethroning, in the Rosy Isle, the rose,
You shall find food, drink, odour, all at once;
Cool leaves to bind about an aching brow.
And, never much away, the nightingale.
Sing them a strophe, with the turn-again,
Down to the verse that ends all, proverb like.
And save us, thou Balaustion, bless the name"

And she answered: "I will recite the last play he wrote from first to
last--_Alkestis_--his strangest, saddest, sweetest song."

Then because Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts.
And poetry is power,--they all outbroke
In a great joyous laughter with much love:
"Thank Herakles for the good holiday!
Make for the harbour! Row, and let voice ring,
'In we row, bringing more Euripides!'"
All the crowd, as they lined the harbour now,
"More of Euripides!"--took up the cry.
We landed; the whole city, soon astir,
Came rushing out of gates in common joy
To the suburb temple; there they stationed me
O' the topmost step; and plain I told the play,
Just as I saw it; what the actors said,
And what I saw, or thought I saw the while,
At our Kameiros theatre, clean scooped
Out of a hill side, with the sky above
And sea before our seats in marble row:
Told it, and, two days more, repeated it
Until they sent us on our way again
With good words and great wishes.

So, we see Balaustion's slight figure under the blue sky, and the white
temple of Herakles from the steps of which she spoke; and among the
crowd, looking up to her with rapture, the wise and young Sicilian who
took ship with her when she was sent back to Athens, wooed her, and
found answer before they reached Piraeus. And there in Athens she and her
lover saw Euripides, and told the Master how his play had redeemed her
from captivity. Then they were married; and one day, with four of her
girl friends, under the grape-vines by the streamlet side, close to the
temple, Baccheion, in the cool afternoon, she tells the tale;
interweaving with the play (herself another chorus) what she thinks, how
she feels concerning its personages and their doings, and in the comment
discloses her character. The woman is built up in this way for us. The
very excuse she makes for her inserted words reveals one side of her
delightful nature--her love of poetry, her love of beauty, her seeing
eye, her delicate distinction, her mingled hu