Punch (71.1876)

28 i

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 30, 1876.

MEDITATIONS ON MYCEN>€.

Not four years since,* some scholars, in their zeal,
Proposed the rifling of the Troad's mounds,
Where, within buried Ilium's doubtful bounds,
Great Hector lay by great Achilles' heel.

That heel, at which he whilom had been swept
Thrice round the weeping walls of windy Troy,
When white-haired Priam through the watch-fires crept,
To beg, with tears, the body of his boy.

Little the long-haired Greeks then dreamed that heel
Would for the fatal arrow find a way,
That cut Achilles' thread with vengeful steel,
And stretched him beside Hector—clay by clay.

But stern Bob Lowe, guard of the public purse,
Flung scorn on Homer's topographic truth,
To Hector and Achilles showed no ruth,
Exploding both, as solar myths, or worse.

So they in their grave-mounds were left to sleep,
XJnrifled and unverified, while Bob

* See Punch for April, 5, 1873.

Chuckled at savants who, the grave to rob,
Would rob the Exchequer it was his to keep.

Since that date simple Schliema^n's venturous spade
Has brought Troy, layer by layer, to light of day ;
And, if not Hector's and Achilles' clay.
Raised owls from eggs Athene never laid.

Thence kindled, German zeal now Hellas delves,
The Altis first, round great Olympia's fane,
Making Patjsanias clear, and Stkabo plain,
And with maimed statues filling Elian shelves.

Next Schliemann at his ghoulish work again,
All former Resurrection-men o'er-rides, _
Rifling the tomb-banks where Mycenae hides_
The treasure sought by Ancient Greece in vain.

For still it glimmered through traditions dim,
That called Mycenae ' rich' *, and her one vault,
Of massive stones that had braved Time's assault.
Christened the ' Treasury '—watched by Lions grim.
* " Argos, ditesque Mycenas."—Horace, Book I., Ode vii.