How long will ye slumber! when will ye take heart, And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand? Fie! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part, While the sword and the arrow are wasting our land! Shame! Grasp the shield close! cover well the bold breast! Aloft raise the spear as ye march on the foe! With no thought of retreat, with no terror confessed, Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow. Oh, 'tis noble and glorious to fight for our all-- For our country, our children, the wife of our love! Death comes not the sooner; no soldier shall fall Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above. Once to die is man's doom: rush, rush to the fight! He cannot escape though his blood were Jove's own. For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight; Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone. Unlamented he dies--unregretted? Not so When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave; Thrice hallowed his name among all, high or low, As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave. --Trans. by H. N. COLERIDGE. [Footnote: The "sisters" here alluded to were the Par'coe, or Fates--three goddesses who presided over the destinies of mortals: 1st, Clo'tho, who held the distaff; 2d, Lach'esis, who spun each one's portion of the thread of life; and, 3d, At'ropos, who cut off the thread with her scissors. Clotho and Lachesis, whose boundless sway, With Atropos, both men and gods obey. --HESIOD.] ARCHIL'OCHUS. Next in point of time comes Archilochus of Pa'ros, a satirist who flourished between 714 and 676 B.C. He is generally considered to be the first Greek poet who wrote in the Iambic measure; but there are evidences that this measure existed before his time. This poet was betrothed to the daughter of a noble of Paros; but the father, probably tempted by the alluring offers of a richer suitor, forbade the nuptials. Archilochus thereupon composed so bitter a lampoon upon the family that the daughters of the nobleman are said to have hanged themselves. Says SYMONDS, "He made Iambic metre his own, and sharpened it into a terrible weapon of attack. Each verse he wrote was polished, and pointed like an arrow-head. Each line was steeped in the poison of hideous charges against his sweetheart, her sisters, and her father." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets;" First Series, p. 108.]