The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10): Stories from the Classics
General
The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10): Stories from the Classics
Children's stories; Classical literature -- Adaptations
Also, on the shield, he sculptured two fair cities of articulate-speaking
men. In one of these were wedding-festivals; and, with a blaze of
torchlight, the brides were conducted from their chambers along the
streets; while the hymeneal song was loud, and the youths whirled round
and round in the giddy dance, to the music of flute and harp; while the
women stood at their doors, watching and admiring. In that city he also
fashioned an assembly of the people, in which a contention had arisen,
about the blood-fine or "were-geld" for a murdered man; the people, with
noisy shouts, cheered, on either side; but the heralds stilled the tumult,
holding their staves of office in their hands; and then the judges rose
up, to pronounce their verdict.
Around the other city lay two armies besieging it, with flashing arms. Two
plans were considered: either to destroy the town, or to divide the wealth
thereof with its citizens. But the beleaguered garrison had not yet
yielded, but armed themselves and set an ambush. Their dear wives and
children, and the old men, stood on the walls to defend it, while the
strong men went forth to fight. And they were led by Mars and Athene,
whose forms were fashioned in gold, with golden raiment; and, as gods, he
made them larger and more beautiful than the mortals around them.
The men in ambush set upon the herdsmen who were driving oxen to the
watering-place of the army, and making music with their pipes. They
carried off the cattle; but the besiegers, as they sat before the rostra,
heard the lowing of the oxen and drove up, with their high-stepping
horses, to repel the raid. Then a fierce conflict arose; and in it were
seen Strife, and Uproar, and Dire Fate; like living warriors, they rushed
on one another, and haled away the dead whom they slew.
In another part of the shield, he represented a rich, deep-soiled, fallow
field, thrice ploughed; and when the ploughers came to the end of the
furrow, a man would give to each of them a goblet of sweet wine. And the
ploughed ground grew black behind them, like real soil, although it was of
gold. Then there, too, was a rich field of corn, where reapers were
cutting the harvest with their sickles and it fell in rows; and others
were binding it with bands of straw; while the lord looked on, and was
glad at heart. And under a spreading oak a feast was being made ready for
the reapers.
And he fashioned therein a vineyard, rich with clusters of black grapes,
which the youths and maidens, in their glee, carried in baskets; while a
boy, in their midst, made sweet music on a clear-sounding harp; and he
sang the "Song of Linos," and the rest kept time with their feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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