Page:Homer The Iliad.djvu/158

144 which do not raise much regret for the loss of the remainder; but the leading events of which they treated are preserved in the works of the Greek dramatists and of Virgil. It may not be out of place here to sketch briefly the sequel to Homer's story.

Troy fell in that tenth year of the siege, though new and remarkable allies came to the aid of Priam. From the far north of Thrace came a band of Amazons—women-warriors who, in spite of their weaker sex, proved more than a match in battle for the men of Greece. Their queen Penthesilea was said to be the daughter of the War-god; and under her leading, once more the Trojans tried their fortune in the open field, not unsuccessfully, until she too fell by the spear of Achilles. Proceeding to possess himself of her helmet, as the conqueror's spoil, he was struck with her remarkable beauty, and stood entranced for some moments in sorrow and admiration. It is the scene from which Tasso borrows his story of Clorinda, and which Spenser had in his mind when he makes Sir Artegal, after having unhelmed the fair Britomart in combat, let fall his sword at the sight of her "angel-face"—

His powerless hand, benumbed with secret fear, From his revengefull purpose shronke abacke, And cruel sword out of his fingers slacke Fell down to ground, as if the steel had sence And felt some ruth, or sence his hand did lacke, Or both of them did think obedience To doe to so divine a Beautie's excellence." —B. IV. c. vi. st. 21.

Thersites—who had by this time forgotten the chastisement inflicted on him by Ulysses for his scurrilous tongue—ventured a jest upon Achilles' sensibility, and