excavations in the tombs, or approaching them while we are working in them.

Fifth and last Tomb within the Acropolis.

As usual, the bottom of the tomb was strewn with a layer of pebbles, in which I found the mortal remains of only one person, with the head turned towards the east, which, like all the other bodies, had been burned on the precise spot where it lay. This was proved by the calcined pebbles below and around the corpse, as well as by the undisturbed masses of ashes with which it was covered, and finally by the marks of the funeral fire on the walls of rock. Around the skull, which was unfortunately too fragile to be saved, was a golden diadem similar to those already represented, with an ornamentation in repoussé-work, showing in the middle three shield-like circles, with flowers or a wheel in rotation; the remaining space being filled up with beautiful spirals.

On the right side of the body I found a lance-head with a ring on either side; also two small bronze swords, and two long knives of the same metal. On its left was found a gold drinking-cup. The handle is fastened with four nails to the rim and the body of the goblet. With the swords were found small rags of beautifully-woven linen, which, doubtless, belonged to the sheaths of these weapons.

The Body Found in the First Tomb.

The color resembled very much that of an Egyptian mummy. The forehead was ornamented with a plain round leaf of gold, and a still larger one was lying on the right eye.

The news that the tolerably well-preserved body of a man of the mythic heroic age had been found covered with golden ornaments spread like wildfire through the Argolid, and people came by thousands from Argos, Nauplia, and the villages to see the wonder.

The now nearly mummified body was decorated with a golden shoulder-belt, four feet long and one and three-quarter inches broad, which for some cause or other was not in its place, for it now lay across the loins of the body, and extended in a straight line far to the right of it. In its midst is suspended and firmly attached the fragment of a double-edged bronze sword; and to this latter was accidentally attached a beautifully polished perforated object of rock-crystal, in form of a jar, with two silver handles. It is pierced in its entire length by a silver pin.

To the right of the body lay two bronze swords, The handle of the upper sword is of bronze, but thickly plated with gold, which is covered all over with a magnificent intaglio-work of the most varied description.

My firm faith in the traditions made me undertake my late excavations in the Acropolis, and led me to the discovery of the five tombs with their immense treasures. Although I have found in these tombs a civilization very high from a technical point of view, yet, as in Ilium [Troy], I found there only handmade or most ancient wheel-made pottery, and no iron. Further: writing was known in Troy, for I found there a number of short inscriptions in very ancient Cypriote characters, and, so far as we can judge, in a language which is essentially the same as Greek; whereas we have the certainty now that the alphabet was unknown in Mycena. Had it been known, the Mycenaean goldsmiths, who were always endeavoring to invent some new ornamentation, would have joyfully availed themselves of the novelty to introduce the strange characters in their decoration. Besides, in the remote antiquity to which the Homeric rhapsodies and the traditions of the Mycenæan tombs refer, there was as yet no commercial intercourse. Nobody travelled except on warlike or piratical expeditions. Thus there may have been a very high civilization at Mycenæ, while at the very same time the arts were only in the first dawn in Troy, and writing with Cypriote characters may have been in use in Troy more than a thousand years before any alphabet was known in Greece.

The five tombs of Mycenæ, or at least three of them, contained such enormous treasures, that they cannot but have belonged to members of the royal family. But the period of the kings of Mycena belongs to a very remote antiquity. Royalty ceased there at the Dorian invasion, the date of which has always been fixed at 1104 B.C. Thucydides says that it took place eighty years after the war of Troy, which has been hitherto supposed to have ended in 1184 B.C. But, in agree

ment with all archeologists, I hold to the conclusion that, on the evidence of the monuments of Troy, the capture and the destruction of that city, and consequently also the Dorian invasion, must have occurred at a much earlier date.

Mycena: A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycence and Tiryns

(1877).

FAMOUS PASSAGES FROM ANCIENT GREEK POETS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF DR. SCHLIEMANN'S DISCOVERIES AT MYCENE.

1. From the " Agamemnon" of the Greek Tragic Poet Eschylus (b. B.C. 525).

The translation is by John Stuart Blackie, late Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh (b. 1809).

[The opening scene of the "Agamemnon" is laid by Eschylus at Argos, the great maritime city of Agamemnon's kingdom. After ten weary years of siege Troy has at last fallen, and the leader of the victorious Greek forces is now impatiently ploughing his way homewards across the Ægean. The old sentinel, faithful when so many have proved false, watches anxiously for the first flash of the signal torch announcing the fall of Troy.]

I pray the gods a respite from these toils,

This long year's watch that, dog-like, I have kept
High on the Atrīdan's* battlements, beholding
The nightly council of the stars, the circling
Of the celestial signs, and those bright regents,
High swung in ether, that bring mortal men
Summer and winter. Here I watch the torch,
The appointed flame that wings a voice from Troy,
Telling of capture; thus I serve her hopes,
The masculine-minded who is sovereign here.
And when night-wandering shades encompass round
My dew-sprent dreamless couch (for fear doth sit
In slumber's chair, and holds my lids apart),
I chant some dolorous ditty, making song,
Sleep's substitute, surgeon my nightly care,
And the misfortunes of this house I weep,
Not now, as erst, by prudent counsels swayed.
Oh! soon may the wished-for sign relieve my toils,
Thrice-welcome herald, gleaming through the night!

[The beacon is seen shining.]

All hail, thou cresset of the dark! fair gleam
Of day through midnight shed, all hail! bright father
Of joy and dance in Argos, hail! all hail!

Hillo! Hilloa!

I will go tell the wife of Agamemnon

To shake dull sleep away, and lift high-voiced
The jubilant shout well-omened, to salute
This welcome beacon; if, indeed, old Troy

Hath fallen-as flames this courier torch to tell.

* Agamemnon was the grandson of Atreus.

Myself will dance the prelude to this joy.
My master's house hath had a lucky throw,
And thrice six falls to me, thanks to the flame!
Soon may
he see his home; and soon may I
Carry my dear loved master's hand in mine!
The rest I whisper not, for on my tongue

Is laid a seal. These walls, if they could speak,
Would say strange things. Myself to those that know
Am free of speech; to whoso knows not, dumb.

2. Ulysses' Interview with the Spirit of Agamemnon.

HOMER: Odyssey, book xi. Translated by George Chapman (1557 ?-1634). ["Chapman's translations of the Iliad and Odyssey are masterpieces, and cannot die."-A. LANG.]

He knew me instantly, and forth a flood

Of springing tears gushed; out he thrust his hands
With will t' embrace me, but their old commands
Flowed not about him, nor their weakest part.
I wept to see, and moaned him from my heart,
And asked: "O Agamemnon! king of men!
What sort of cruel death hath rendered slain
Thy royal person? Neptune in thy fleet,
Heaven and his hellish billows making meet,
Rousing the winds? Or have thy men by land
Done thee this ill, for using thy command,
Past their consents, in diminution

Of those full shares their worths by lot had won
Of sheep or oxen? Or of any town,

In covetous strife, to make their rights their own
In men or women prisoners?" He replied:

"By none of these in any right † I died,
But by Ægisthus and my murderous wife
(Bid to a banquet at his house) my life
Hath thus been reft me, to my slaughter led
Like to an ox pretended to be fed.
So miserably fell I, and with me

My friends lay massacred, as when you see
At any rich man's nuptials, shot,‡ or feast,
About his kitchen white-toothed swine lie drest.
The slaughters of a world of men thine eyes
Have personally witnessed; but this one
Would all thy parts have broken into moan,
To see how strewed about our cups and cates,
As tables set with feast, so we with fates,

* For using thy prerogative in demanding a king's share of the spoils, and so diminishing the shares which the other chieftains obtained by lot.

+ Way.

Joint-entertainment; pic-nic.

All gashed and slain lay, all the floor embrued
With blood and brain. But that which most I rued
Flew from the heavy voice that Priam's seed,
Cassandra, breathed, whom, she that wit doth feed
With baneful crafts, false Clytemnestra, slew,
Close sitting by me: up my hands I threw
From earth to heaven, and tumbling on my sword
Gave wretched life up; when the most abhorred,
By all her sex's shame, forsook the room,

Nor deigned, though then so near this heavy home,
To shut my lips, or close my broken eyes.*

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S "HOMER."
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821).

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

THE ODYSSEY.

ANDREW LANG.

[This sonnet Mr. Lang prefixes to the fine prose rendering of the Odyssey which he has executed in conjunction with Mr. S. H. Butcher.]

As one that for a weary space has lain,

Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine,
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,+
Where that an isle forgets the main,

* In his preface to Schliemann's "Mycenæ," Mr. Gladstone calls attention to the still open mouth and eye of the body found in the royal tomb. + In the Greek myth, Pluto carried off Proserpine (trisyllable) from the plain of Enna in Sicily. Eæa, the island which Homer describes as the home of the enchantress Circë (dissyllable), was by later poets placed in the Sicilian strait.