of his rest.

"The time must come," he said, "when I must go to the land where there
is no sea; but the seer who told me of the things that are to be, said
that my last hour should be full of light, and that I should leave my
people happy."

And Penelope said, "Yet we may rejoice, my husband, that the hateful
chiefs are gone who darkened thy house and devoured thy substance, and
that once again I hold thee in my arms. Twenty years has Zeus grudged
me this deep happiness; but never has my heart swerved from thee, nor
could aught stay thee from coming again to gladden my heart as in the
morning of our life and joy."

SOLON.

(636 B.C.)

REMEMBRANCE AFTER DEATH.

Let not a death unwept, unhonor'd, be
The melancholy fate allotted me!
But those who loved me living, when I die
Still fondly keep some cherish'd memory.

TRUE HAPPINESS.

(_By Solon._)

The man that boasts of golden stores,
Of grain, that loads his groaning floors,
Of fields with freshening herbage green,
Where bounding steeds and herds are seen,
I call not happier than the swain,
Whose limbs are sound, whose food is plain,
Whose joys a blooming wife endears,
Whose hours a smiling offspring cheers.

SOPHOCLES.

Sophocles was born at Athens B.C. 495. His father, though a poor
mechanic, had the discrimination as well as generosity to bestow an
excellent education upon his son, whose great powers began early to
unfold themselves, and to attract the notice of the first citizens of
Athens. Before he had attained his twenty-fifth year he carried off
the prize in a dramatic contest against his senior, AEschylus, and his
subsequent career corresponded to this splendid beginning. He is said
to have composed one hundred and twenty tragedies, to have gained the
first prize twenty-four times, and on other occasions to have ranked
second in the list of competing poets. So excellent was his conduct,
so majestic his wisdom, so exquisite his poetical capacities, so rare
his skill in all the fine arts, and so uninterrupted his prosperity,
that the Greeks regarded him as the peculiar favorite of heaven. He
lived in the first city of Greece, and throughout her best times,
commanding an admiration and love amounting to reverence. He died in
extreme old age, without disease and without suffering, and was
mourned with such a sincerity and depth of grief as were manifested
at the death of no other citizen of A