She hates Achilles as fervently as Kleist in dark hours must have hated and cursed the destiny which forbade his winning the highest fame. She kills him in an access of detestation, as Kleist, in an access of desperation, destroyed his beloved work, his _Guiscard_. Yet she loves him, loves him helplessly, with a consuming passion.[6] When Achilles has wounded her in battle, she complains in words which seem to refer to the poet himself:-- "Mir diesen Busen zu zerschmettern, Prothoe! Die Brust, so voll Gesang, Asteria! Ein Lied, jedweder Saitengriff auf ihn!"[7] When she is on the point of giving up everything, she says, as Kleist did in so many of his letters to his sister:-- "Das Aeusserste, das Menschenkräfte leisten Hab ich gethan, Unmögliches versucht, Mein Alles hab ich an den Wurf gesetzt; Der Würfel, der entscheidet, liegt, er liegt: Begreifen muss ich's--und dass ich verlor!"[8] We can readily understand how it was that Pfuel, Kleist's faithful friend, found him sitting weeping after writing the description of Penthesilea's death. Indeed, the poet himself wrote of the play to a friend: "It is true; you have divined it with the glance of a seer; my inmost self is in it, my soul in its glory and its anguish." Yet this personal element does not preclude Romantic mysticism; the story is impregnated with it. Penthesilea's love expresses itself in such words as the following:-- "Hetzt alle Hund' auf ihn! mit Feuerbranden Die Elephanten peitschet auf ihn los! Mit Sichelwagen schmettert auf ihn ein Und mähet seine üpp'gen Glieder ab!"[9] This last repulsive wish, to see Achilles' limbs mowed off by the scythes of the chariots, is, as we learn at the conclusion of the play, no feigned desire. The Amazons are defeated, and their wearied and wounded queen falls into Achilles' hands. He loves her, and, to keep her from grieving and despairing, he attempts to make her believe that she has been victorious, and that he is her captive. She soon, however, discovers the truth. Then Achilles challenges her to single combat, with the intention of allowing her to defeat him, and in this manner becoming her husband. When Penthesilea receives the challenge, she does not understand its meaning. She is seized by a sort of Berserker fury, throws herself upon her horse, cries to her hounds, and dashes off. He sees her coming and is afraid. She bends her bow "till the ends kiss," takes aim, and sends an arrow through his neck. He falls, but, with the death rattle in his throat, struggles to rise again; then she urges on her hounds to tear him to pieces, and, following their example, sets her teeth in his breast and bites until the blood drips from her mouth and hands.