here we only catch a last glimpse of Hector as he goes bravely to meet his fate, and with him all the sunlight seems to fade off Troy. The struggle becomes cruel and base on both sides. Paris arms himself again, but like a man in a nightmare.
Yea, like some man am I that lies and dreams
That he is dead, and turning round to wake
Is slain at once without a cry for help.
In what must be the most dolorous arming-song ever written he bids Helen a weary farewell. The lyric, in an altered shape and setting, is well known: recast, and with its sadness turned into a pensive tenderness, it occurs in the tale of "Ogier the Dane," as a song which Ogier hears sung early on a May morning by two young lovers. This is its original form:
Love, within the hawthorn brake
Pray you be merry for my sake,
While I last, for who knoweth
How near I may be my death?
Sweet, be long in growing old!
Life and love in age grow cold;
Hold fast to life, for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?
Trouble must be kept afar.
Therefore go I to the war:
Less trouble is there among spears
Than with hard words about your ears.
Love me then, my sweet and fair,
And curse the folk that drive me there.
Kiss me, sweet, for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?
Even in the Greek camp there is the same weariness and bitter languor. The homes they have left grow dim and strange:
