--and Athens was saved through Euripides, "Through Euthukles, through--more than ever--me, Balaustion, me, who, Wild-Pomegranate-Flower, Felt my fruit triumph, and fade proudly so!" * * * * * But next day, Sparta woke from the spell. Harsh Lysander decreed that though Athens might be saved, the Piraeus should not. Comedy should destroy the Long Walls: the flute-girls should lead off in the dance, should time the strokes of spade and pickaxe, till the pride of the Violet-Crowned lay in the dust. "Done that day!" mourns Balaustion: "The very day Euripides was born." But _they_ would not see the passing of Athenai; they would go, fleeing the sights and sounds, "And press to other earth, new heaven, by sea That somehow ever prompts to 'scape despair" --and wonderfully, at the harbour-side they found that old grey mariner, whose ship she had saved in the first Adventure! The ship was still weather-wise: it should "'Convey Balaustion back to Rhodes, for sake Of her and her Euripides!' laughed he," --and they embarked. It should be Rhodes indeed: to Rhodes they now are sailing. Euripides lies buried in the little valley "laughed and moaned about by streams," "Boiling and freezing, like the love and hate Which helped or harmed him through his earthly course. They mix in Arethusa by his grave." But, just as she had known, this revocation _has_ consoled her. Now she will be able to forget. Never again will her eyes behold Athenai, nor in imagination see "the ghastly mirth that mocked her overthrow"; but she and Euthukles are exiles from the dead, not from the living, Athens: "That's in the cloud there, with the new-born star!" There is no despair, there can be none; for does not the soul anticipate its heaven here on earth: "Above all crowding, crystal silentness, Above all noise, a silver solitude . . . Hatred and cark and care, what place have they In yon blue liberality of heaven? How the sea helps! How rose-smit earth will rise Breast-high thence, some bright morning, and be Rhodes!" They are entering Rhodes now, and every wave and wind seems singing out the same: "All in one chorus--what the master-word They take up? Hark! 'There are no gods, no gods! Glory to GOD--who saves Euripides!'" . . . There she is, Wild-Pomegranate-Flower, Balaustion--and Triumphant Woman. What other man has given us this?--and even Browning only here. Nearly always, for man's homage, woman must in some sort be victim: she must suffer ere he can adore. But Balaustion triumphs, and we hail her--and we hail her poet too, who dared to make her great not only in her love, but in her own deep-hearted, ardent self. "This mortal shall put on individuality." Of all men Browning most wished women to do that. FOOTNOTES: [94:1] I follow Browning's spellings throughout.