"'You, lady? What, the Rhodian? Form and face, Victory's self upsoaring to receive The poet? Right they named you . . . some rich name, Vowel-buds thorned about with consonants, Fragrant, felicitous, rose-glow enriched By the Isle's unguent: some diminished end In _ion_' . . ." and trying to recall that name "in _ion_," he guesses two or three at random, seizing thus the occasion to express her effect on him: "'Phibalion, for the mouth split red-fig-wise, Korakinidion, for the coal-black hair, Nettarion, Phabion, for the darlingness?'" But none of these is right; "it was some fruit-flower"; and at last it comes: _Balaustion_, Wild-Pomegranate-Bloom, and he exclaims in ecstasy, "Thanks, Rhodes!"--for her fellow-countrymen had found this name for her, so apt in every way that her real name was forgotten, and as Balaustion she shall live and die. "Nettarion, Phabion, for the darlingness"; and for all her intellect and ardour, it is greatly _this_ that makes Balaustion queen--the lovely eager sweetness, the tenderness, the "darlingness": Aristophanes guessed almost right! + + + + + How did she win the name of Wild-Pomegranate-Flower? We learn it from herself in the _Adventure_. Let us hear: let us feign ourselves members of the little band of friends, all girls, with their charming, chiming names: "Petale, Phullis, Charope, Chrusion"--to whom she cries in the delightful opening: "About that strangest, saddest, sweetest song I, when a girl, heard in Kameiros once, And after, saved my life by? Oh, so glad To tell you the adventure!" Part of the adventure is historical. In the second stage of the Peloponnesian War (that famous contention between the Athenians and the inhabitants of Peloponnesus which began on May 7, 431 B.C. and lasted twenty-seven years), the Athenian General, Nikias, had suffered disaster at Syracuse, and had given himself up, with all his army, to the Sicilians. But the assurances of safety which he had received were quickly proved false. He was no sooner in the hands of the enemy than he was shamefully put to death with his naval ally, Demosthenes; and his troops were sent to the quarries, where the plague and the hard labour lessened their numbers and increased their miseries. When this bad news reached Rhodes, the islanders rose in revolt against the supremacy of Athens, and resolved to side with Sparta. Balaustion[96:1] was there, and she passionately protested against this decision, crying to "who would hear, and those who loved me at Kameiros"[96:2]: ". . . No! Never throw Athens off for Sparta's sake-- Never disloyal to the life and light Of the whole world worth calling world at all! * * * * * To Athens, all of us that have a soul, Follow me!"