National Epics Part 7

Which Arjuna heard, Weeping to see them fall; and that stout son Of Pandu, that destroyer of his foes, That Prince, who drove through crimson waves of war, In old days, with his milk-white chariot-steeds, Him, the arch hero, sank! Beholding this,-- The yielding of that soul unconquerable,

Fearless, divine, from Sakra's self derived, Arjuna's--Bhima cried aloud: "O King!

This man was surely perfect. Never once, Not even in slumber, when the lips are loosed, Spake he one word that was not true as truth.

Ah, heart of gold! why art thou broke? O King!

Whence falleth he?"

And Yudhi-sthira said, Not pausing: "Once he lied, a lordly lie!

He bragged--our brother--that a single day Should see him utterly consume, alone, All those his enemies,--which could not be.

Yet from a great heart sprang the unmeasured speech, Howbeit a finished hero should not shame Himself in such a wise, nor his enemy, If he will faultless fight and blameless die: This was Arjuna's sin. Follow thou me!"

So the King still went on. But Bhima next Fainted, and stayed upon the way, and sank; But, sinking, cried behind the steadfast Prince: "Ah, Brother, see! I die! Look upon me, Thy well beloved! Wherefore falter I, Who strove to stand?"

And Yudhi-sthira said: "More than was well the goodly things of earth Pleased thee, my pleasant brother! Light the offence And large thy spirit; but the o'erfed soul Plumed itself over others. Pritha's son, For this thou fallest, who so near didst gain."

Thenceforth alone the long-armed monarch strode, Not looking back,--nay, not for Bhima's sake,-- But walking with his face set for the Mount; And the hound followed him,--only the hound.

After the deathly sands, the Mount! and lo!

Sakra shone forth,--the G.o.d,--filling the earth And Heavens with the thunders of his chariot wheels.

"Ascend," he said, "with me, Pritha's great son!"

But Yudhi-sthira answered, sore at heart For those his kinsfolk, fallen on the way: "O Thousand-eyed, O Lord of all the G.o.ds, Give that my brothers come with me, who fell!

Not without them is Swarga sweet to me.

She too, the dear and kind and queenly,--she Whose perfect virtue Paradise must crown,-- Grant her to come with us! Dost thou grant this?"

The G.o.d replied: "In Heaven thou shalt see Thy kinsmen and the Queen--these will attain-- And Krishna. Grieve no longer for thy dead, Thou chief of men! their mortal coverings stripped, These have their places; but to thee, the G.o.ds Allow an unknown grace: thou shalt go up, Living and in thy form, to the immortal homes."

But the King answered: "O thou wisest One, Who know'st what was, and is, and is to be, Still one more grace! This hound hath ate with me, Followed me, loved me; must I leave him now?"

"Monarch," spake Indra, "thou art now as we,-- Deathless, divine; thou art become a G.o.d; Glory and power and gifts celestial, And all the joys of heaven are thine for aye: What hath a beast with these? Leave here thy hound."

Yet Yudhi-sthira answered: "O Most High, O Thousand-Eyed and Wisest! can it be That one exalted should seem pitiless?

Nay, let me lose such glory: for its sake I cannot leave one living thing I loved."

Then sternly Indra spake: "He is unclean, And into Swarga such shall enter not.

The Krodhavasha's wrath destroys the fruits Of sacrifice, if dog defile the fire.

Bethink thee, Dharmaraj; quit now this beast!

That which is seemly is not hard of heart."

Still he replied: "'Tis written that to spurn A suppliant equals in offence to slay A twice-born; wherefore, not for Swarga's bliss Quit I, Mahendra, this poor clinging dog,-- So without any hope or friend save me.

So wistful, fawning for my faithfulness; So agonized to die, unless I help Who among men was called steadfast and just."

Quoth Indra: "Nay, the altar flame is foul Where a dog pa.s.seth; angry angels sweep The ascending smoke aside, and all the fruits Of offering, and the merit of the prayer Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here!

He that will enter Heaven must enter pure.

Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way, And Krishna, and the dear-loved Draupadi, Attaining firm and glorious to this Mount Through perfect deeds, to linger for a brute?

Hath Yudhi-sthira vanquished self, to melt With one pure pa.s.sion at the door of bliss?

Stay'st thou for this, who did not stay for them,-- Draupadi, Bhima?"

But the King yet spake: "'T is known that none can hurt or help the dead.

They, the delightful ones, who sank and died.

Following my footsteps, could not live again Though I had turned--therefore I did not turn; But could help profit, I had stayed to help.

There be four sins, O Sakra, grievous sins: The first is making suppliants despair, The second is to slay a nursing wife, The third is spoiling Brahmans' goods by force, The fourth is injuring an ancient friend.

These four I deem not direr than the crime, If one, in coming forth from woe to weal, Abandon any meanest comrade then."

Straight as he spake, brightly great Indra smiled; Vanished the hound, and in its stead stood there The Lord of Death and Justice, Dharma's self!

Sweet were the words which fell from those dread lips, Precious the lovely praise: "O thou true King, Thou that dost bring to harvest the good seed Of Pandu's righteousness; thou that hast ruth As he before, on all which lives!--O Son!

"Hear thou my word! Because thou didst not mount This car divine, lest the poor hound be shent Who looked to thee, lo! there is none in heaven Shall sit above thee, King! Bharata's son!

Enter thou now to the eternal joys, Living and in thy form. Justice and Love Welcome thee, Monarch! thou shalt throne with us!"

ARNOLD: _Indian Idylls_.

THE ILIAD.

The Iliad, or story of the fall of Ilium (Troy), is supposed to have been written by Homer, about the tenth century B. C. The legendary history of Homer represents him as a schoolmaster and poet of Smyrna, who while visiting in Ithaca became blind, and afterwards spent his life travelling from place to place reciting his poems, until he died in Ios. Seven cities, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylos, Argos, and Athens, claimed to be his birthplace.

In 1795, Wolf, a German scholar, published his "Prolegomena," which set forth his theory that Homer was a fict.i.tious character, and that the Iliad was made up of originally unconnected poems, collected and combined by Pisistratus.

Though for a time the Wolfian theory had many advocates, it is now generally conceded that although the stories of the fall of Troy were current long before Homer, they were collected and recast into one poem by some great poet. That the Iliad is the work of one man is clearly shown by its unity, its sustained simplicity of style, and the centralization of interest in the character of Achilles.

The destruction of Troy, for a time regarded as a poetic fiction, is now believed by many scholars to be an actual historical event which took place about the time of the aeolian migration.

The whole story of the fall of Troy is not related in the Iliad, the poem opening nine years after the beginning of the war, and closing with the death of Hector.

The Iliad is divided into twenty-four books, and contains nineteen thousand four hundred and sixty-five lines.

As a work of art the Iliad has never been excelled; moreover, it possesses what all works of art do not,--"the touches of things human" that make it ours, although the centuries lie between us and its unknown author, who told his stirring story in such swift-moving verses, with such touches of pathos and humor, and with such evident joy of living. Another evidence of the perfection of Homer's art is that while his heroes are perfect types of Greeks and Trojans, they are also typical men, and for that reason, still keep their hold upon us. It is this human interest, simplicity of style, and grandeur of treatment that have rendered Homer immortal and his work imperishable.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ILIAD.

M. Arnold's Essay on Homer, 1876, pp. 284-425;

H. Bonitz's Origin of the Homeric Poems, tr. 1880;

R. C. Jebb's Introduction to Homer, 1887;

F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 7-17;

A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893;

W. Leaf's Companion to the Iliad for English Readers, 1892;

J. A. Symonds's Studies in Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893.