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So not by treachery; for his single strength

Were scarce a match, I trow, for all our crew.

Still, having shared thine errand, I were loath

To seem a recreant now; yet would I rather

Fail through fair deeds than win a foul success."

The reader wants little more to put him in possession of the character of Neoptolemus. Gallant and impetuous, open and chivalrous, he is the true son of the ideal knight of Greek romance, the great Achilles, who had declared, in Homer's words—which we can see, from the brief passing allusion, were in the mind of the dramatist, as he knew they surely would be in those of his audience—

Not so Ulysses. The crafty man of the world sneers at the youthful enthusiast for honesty and straightforwardness. Such things are very well—in their time and place. He himself had tried them:—

After a brief parley, the plausible counsels of Ulysses prevail over the better feelings of his comrade. The argument which the latter cannot resist is, that without these arrows of Hercules he will lose the