LESSON XLIX.

THE THREE HUNDRED SPARTANS.

II.

1. The Persians set out at nightfall, marching as silently as they could; but the night was very still, and the sound of their feet crunching over the dead leaves that strewed the path alarmed the Greeks posted there. Hydarnes paused, for he feared that they might be Spartans; but when the traitor Ephialtes assured him that they were not, he forced his way past them and soon reached in safety the southern side of the mountain.

2. At daybreak the sentinels on the heights brought word to Leonidas that the secret path had been discovered by the enemy. There was still time for him to retreat, but no true Spartan would think of that; so both he and his three hundred companions resolved to stay at their posts and resist to the last the invaders of their country. All the rest of the Greeks except the Thebans, who were supposed to favor the enemy, were allowed to retreat. But the Thespians preferred to remain and share the fate and the glory of the Spartans.

3. Early in the morning Xerxes once more ordered his troops to advance upon the pass. But Leonidas, now knowing that death was certain, rushed on his foes, overthrowing them as they advanced. Many of the Persians, crowded together, were trampled under foot; yet still more were driven up to the combat by the lashes of their officers. The brave Leonidas was killed, and a desperate fight took place over his body; and there were but

very few of the three hundred left alive. The spears of these were broken, and their swords blunted; and yet they fought as bravely as if they had felt confident of victory.

4. Suddenly the Greeks perceived that Hydarnes, with the king's bodyguard, had entered the pass behind them. The Thebans threw down their arms, and begged for their lives; but the Spartans, retiring behind the wall, drew up on a little hillock, where they were soon surrounded by their enemies and overwhelmed with showers of javelins, arrows, and stones, till the last of them lay dead.

5. Meanwhile Eurytus and Aristodemus, lying ill at Alpenus, had heard that the Persians were about to enter the pass, and that Leonidas and his brave band would be surrounded by their foes. Calling for his arms, and grasping his shield and spear, Eurytus told his servant to lead him into the battle. The man obeyed, and the half-blind hero, rushing upon the Persians, fell beneath their javelins.

6. Aristodemus, thinking it useless to go into the pass where he was sure to be killed, returned to Sparta with tidings of the battle. But his countrymen said that he had been false to his duty, and had forsaken his leader and his comrades. No one would speak to him, and he lived in miserable solitude until the next year, when there was another battle with the Persians at Platea. The unhappy man, wishing to regain the esteem of his countrymen, fought in the most daring and reckless manner, and was killed after having performed some of the bravest deeds. After the battle the Spartans declared that Aristodemus had excelled all others in daring; but believing that he had been moved by desperation rather than by true courage, they would award him no honors, although they no longer called him "The coward."

7. Shortly after this, the Persian fleet having been overcome and nearly destroyed at Salamis, Xerxes fled back to his own country, leaving his general, Mardonius, to carry on the war. But Mardonius was killed, his army was put to flight, and the Persians were all driven from Greece.

8. The memory of Leonidas and his three hundred brave men was long held dear by the Spartans. Festivals were had in their honor, hymns were sung in their praise, and a grand monument was built where they had fallen in the pass. The battle of Thermopyla was fought four hundred and eighty years before the beginning of the Christian Some remains of the monument may still be seen, and the fame of the brave men who died for their country will live forever.

era.

1. I come from haunts of coot and hern:
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley;

2. By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

3. Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river;

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

4. I chatter over stony ways
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles;

5. With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow;

6. I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river;

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

7. I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

8. And here and there a foamy flake,
Upon me as I travel,

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

9. And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river;

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

10. I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers;

11. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows;

12. I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses;

13. And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

1. Far out in the midst of the great desert of Arabia there is a small oasis, green and beautiful as an emerald in the vast ocean of sand. Around this oasis all is a lonely