This list may fitly be closed with the name of Nestor, "the clear-voiced orator, from whose lips flowed eloquence sweeter than honey." As becomes his age, he assumes the office of peacemaker between Agamemnon and Achilles; in spite of his eighty years, he still takes the field and fights in the van, though his arm is now of less value than his head. With regard to his eloquence, it can hardly be said, judging by the specimen preserved, that he is quite worthy of his reputation. He is, in fact, garrulous, rambling, and tedious--though in these qualities he is even surpassed by the aged Phœnix, who has played the part of male nurse to Achilles, and excels in a style of oratory dear to the professional guardians of childhood. The great champion of the Trojans is Hector, the son of Priam and Hecuba. His character is, in every respect, a contrast to that of Achilles. With him the claims of king and country ever come first, though he is not indifferent to personal distinction. He falls very far short of the ideal knight--without fear and without reproach. In these qualities he seems to be eclipsed by Glaucus and Sarpedon, the princes of Lycia, whose beautiful friendship finds its most illustrious record in the immortal lines of the twelfth book,[2] the finest exposition in the world of the principle involved in the words _noblesse oblige_. Hector, on the other hand, is full of weakness: at one time he is faint-hearted, and has to be recalled to the duties of his great position by the reproaches of those who serve under him; at another time he is overbold, and his rashness brings upon the Trojans overwhelming disaster. Yet with all this, his character is full of interest. In his greater moments he rises to sublime heights of heroism. He does not shrink from the consequences of his actions, but goes to certain death with the spirit of a patriot and martyr. He is the mirror of knightly courtesy, kind and gentle even to the guilty and the fallen; and his last meeting with Andromache is hardly to be matched for beauty and pathos in all literature. [2] See p. 107. A bare mention must suffice for Priam, the white-haired King, and the most tragic figure in the poem; Paris, the curled darling of Aphrodite, a mere beautiful animal, without soul or conscience, and the lovely passion-stricken Helen, whose strange story seems to have a closer affinity with mediæval romance than with classical antiquity. IV. THE SIMILES