Round the islands of the Blest."
Was the pledge for Menelaus only?
The boats came, the boats went, on the blue bay. But as the spring grew
warm, Hermione thought less of them, less almost of the last dread vision
of Glaucon.
* * * * * * *
The cloud of the Persian hung ever darkening over Athens. Continual
rumours made Xerxes's power terrible even beyond fact. It was hard to go
on eating, drinking, frequenting the jury or the gymnasium, when men knew
to a certainty the coming summer would bring Athens face to face with
slavery or destruction. Wise men grew silent. Fools took to carousing to
banish care. But one word not the frailest uttered--"submission." Worldly
prudence forbade that. The women would have stabbed the craven to death
with their bodkins. For the women were braver than the men. They knew the
fate of conquered Ionia: for the men only merciful death, for the women
the living death of the Persian harems and indignities words may not
utter. Whether Hellas forsook her or aided, Athens had chosen her fate.
Xerxes might annihilate her. Conquer her he could not.
Yet the early spring came back sweetly as ever. The warm breeze blew from
Egypt. Philomela sang in the olive groves. The snows on Pentelicus faded.
Around the city ran bands of children singing the "swallow's song," and
beseeching the spring donation of honey cakes:--
"She is here, she is here, the swallow;
Fair seasons bringing,--fair seasons to follow."
And many a housewife, as she rewarded the singers, dropped a silent tear,
wondering whether another spring would see the innocents anywhere save in
a Persian slave-pen, or, better fate, in Orchus.
Yet to one woman that spring there came consolation. On Hermippus's door
hung a glad olive wreath. Hermione had borne a son. "The fairest babe she
had ever seen," cried the midwife. "Phoenix," the mother called him, "for
in him shall Glaucon the Beautiful live again." Democrates sent a runner
every day to Eleusis to inquire for Hermione until all danger was passed.
On the "name-day," ten days after the birth, he was absent from the
gathering of friends and kinsmen, but sent a valuable statuette to
Hermione, who left it, however, to her father to thank him.
The day after Phoenix was born old Conon, Glaucon's father, died. The old
man had never recovered from the blow given by the dishonourable death of
the son with whom he had so lately quarrelled. He left a g
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