Too soon he saw that the roofs were smokeless, and all the court was
deep in weeds. Where the altar of Zeus had stood in the midst of the
court there was now no altar, but a great, grey mound, not of earth, but
of white dust mixed with black. Over this mound the coarse grass pricked
up scantily, like thin hair on a leprosy.
Then the Wanderer shuddered, for out of the grey mound peeped the
charred black bones of the dead. He drew near, and, lo! the whole heap
was of nothing else than the ashes of men and women. Death had been busy
here: here many people had perished of a pestilence. They had all been
consumed on one funeral fire, while they who laid them there must have
fled, for there was no sign of living man. The doors gaped open, and
none entered, and none came forth. The house was dead, like the people
who had dwelt in it.
Then the Wanderer paused where once the old hound Argos had welcomed him
and had died in that welcome. There, unwelcomed, he stood, leaning on
his staff. Then a sudden ray of the sun fell on something that glittered
in the heap, and he touched it with the end of the staff that he had in
his hand. It slid jingling from the heap; it was the bone of a forearm,
and that which glittered on it was a half-molten ring of gold. On the
gold lambda these characters were engraved:
IKMALIOS MEPOIESEN
(Icmalios made me.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25