In considering the painting of the interior (Fig. 8), we move upwards another step. In its small compass, we consider it one of the finest paintings handed down to us from ancient times. It consoles us somewhat for the loss of so many masterpieces, and we cannot suppose that a potter, working alone in his workshop, invented this first _Mater dolorosa_, which is as touching as a Mantegna or a Roger Van der Weyden. Nowhere is a copy from a great painting more forcibly evident. Every one must be impressed by the striking resemblance of this Pagan and Greek creation to the emblem that has moved Christian souls for so many centuries. Eos, standing with outstretched and beating wings, bends toward the dead face of her son Memnon, her strained arms supporting his rigid body. The goddess, who represents the radiant morning and the promises of Nature awakening with the dawn, is here simply a despairing mother imprinting on her mind with one long look the beloved features she will see no more; the contrast is profoundly sad, and a creation worthy of a great poet. The body of the powerful prince of the Ethiopians, the ally of Priam, is entirely nude as it was taken up on the battlefield where his adversary Achilles had robbed him of his armour. The stiff legs are stretched out, the left foot still contracted with pain, the arms swing limply, the head drops, while the dishevelled hair, the delicate beard, and the closed eyes arouse an irresistible memory of the dead Christ. We have a true _Pietà_ before our eyes. What miracle in art, what unexpected chance unites Pagan and Christian art to express the same thought, in the same form? Is it not a proof that across the centuries great artists share the same thoughts, and to express the emotions of life create a universal language? Is it not this again which attracts us in Homer, in those never to be forgotten scenes, expressing so well the deep feelings of all men at all times; the farewell of Hector and Andromache, the return of Ulysses to Ithaca? Art soars above time and space, more than all else it embodies the solidarity of succeeding generations without any knowledge of one another.