carried his harp.

“What shall we have, gentlemen?” asked the host. “You will hardly find anything worth learning that Stephanos does not know.”

The guests had various tastes, so various that it seemed very difficult to make a choice. One wanted the story of the Cyclops, another the tale as told by Demodocus to Alcinous and the Phæacian princes, of the loves of Ares and Aphrodite. A third, of a more sober turn of mind, called for one of the didactic poems of Solon, and a fourth would have one of the martial elegies with which the old Athenian bard Tyrtaeus stirred, as was said, the spirits of the Spartan warriors.

“Let Callias, the bringer of good news, name it,” said Euctemon, after some dozen suggestions had been made.

The proposal was received with a murmur of approval.

The young man thought for a moment. Then a happy idea struck him. About a year before there had occurred an incident which had roused the deepest feeling in Athens.[Pg 73] The aged Sophocles, accused by his son Iophon before a court of his clansmen, of imbecility and incapacity for managing his affairs, had recited as a sufficient vindication of his powers, a noble chorus from a play which he was then composing, the last and ripest fruit of his genius—the “Œdipus in Colonus.” The verses had had a singular success, as indeed they deserved to have, in catching the popular fancy. They were exquisitely beautiful, and they were full of patriotic pride. Every one had them on his lips; and before they had time to grow hackneyed, the interest in them had been revived by the death of the veteran poet himself.

[Pg 73]

“Let us have the ‘Praises of Athens’ by Sophocles the son of Sophilus of Colonus.”

The choice met with a shout of applause. The minstrel played a brief prelude on his harp in the Dorian or martial mood,[31] and then began:[Pg 74]

[Pg 74]

 “Swell the song of praise again; Other boons demand my strain, Other blessings we inherit, Granted by the mighty spirit; On the sea and on the shore, Ours the bridle and the oar. Son of Chronos old whose sway Stormy winds and waves obey, Thine be heaven’s well-earned meed, Tamer of the champing steed; First he wore on Attic plain Bit of steel and curbing rein. Oft too, o’er the water blue, Athens strains thy laboring crew; Practiced hands the barks are plying, Oars are 

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