So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye. Distressful beauty melts each stander-by. On all around the infectious sorrow grows; But Priam check'd the torrent as it rose: "Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require, And fell the forests for a funeral pyre; Twelve days, nor foes nor secret ambush dread; Achilles grants these honours to the dead."(299) [Illustration: FUNERAL OF HECTOR.] FUNERAL OF HECTOR. He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train Their mules and oxen harness to the wain, Pour through the gates, and fell'd from Ida's crown, Roll back the gather'd forests to the town. These toils continue nine succeeding days, And high in air a sylvan structure raise. But when the tenth fair morn began to shine, Forth to the pile was borne the man divine, And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes, Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise. Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn, Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre, And quench with wine the yet remaining fire. The snowy bones his friends and brothers place (With tears collected) in a golden vase; The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd, Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold. Last o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread, And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead. (Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done, Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun.) All Troy then moves to Priam's court again, A solemn, silent, melancholy train: Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast. Such honours Ilion to her hero paid, And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade.(300) CONCLUDING NOTE. We have now passed through the Iliad, and seen the anger of Achilles, and the terrible effects of it, at an end, as that only was the subject of the poem, and the nature of epic poetry would not