3.6. CHAPTER VI.
EVENTFUL winter passed; winter, the respite of our
ills. By degrees the sun, which with slant beams had
before yielded the more extended reign to night,
lengthened his diurnal journey, and mounted his highest
throne, at once the fosterer of earth's new beauty, and
her lover. We who, like flies that congregate upon a
dry rock at the ebbing of the tide, had played
wantonly with time, allowing our passions, our hopes,
and our mad desires to rule us, now heard the
approaching roar of the ocean of destruction, and
would have fled to some sheltered crevice, before the
first wave broke over us.
We resolved without delay,
to commence our journey to Switzerland; we became eager
to leave France. Under the icy vaults of the glaciers,
beneath the shadow of the pines, the swinging of whose
mighty branches was arrested by a load of snow; beside
the streams whose intense cold proclaimed their origin
to be from the slow-melting piles of congelated waters,
amidst frequent storms which might purify the air, we
should find health, if in truth health were not herself
diseased.
We began our preparations at first with alacrity. We
did not now bid adieu to our native country, to the
graves of those we loved, to the flowers, and streams,
and trees, which had lived beside us from infancy.
Small sorrow would be ours on leaving Paris. A scene
of shame, when we remembered our late contentions, and
thought that we left behind a flock of miserable,
deluded victims, bending under the tyranny of a selfish
impostor. Small pangs should we feel in leaving the
gardens,
woods, and halls of the palaces of the
Bourbons at Versailles, which we feared would soon be
tainted by the dead, when we looked forward to vallies
lovelier than any garden, to mighty forests and halls,
built not for mortal majesty, but palaces of nature's
own, with the Alp of marmoreal whiteness for their
walls, the sky for their roof.
Yet our spirits flagged, as the day drew near which we
had fixed for our departure. Dire visions and evil
auguries, if such things were, thickened around us, so
that in vain might men say—
These are their reasons, they are natural,[4]
we felt them to be ominous, and dreaded the future
event enchained to them. That the night owl should
screech before the noon-day sun, that the hard-winged
bat should wheel
around the bed of beauty, that
muttering thunder should in early spring startle the
cloudless air, that sudden and exterminating blight
should fall on the tree and shrub, were unaccustomed,
but physical events, less horrible than the mental
creations of almighty fear. Some had sight of funeral
processions, and faces all begrimed with tears, which
flitted through the long avenues of the gardens, and
drew aside the curtains of the sleepers at dead of
night. Some heard wailing and cries in the air; a
mournful chaunt would stream through the dark
atmosphere, as if spirits above sang the requiem of the
human race. What was there in all this, but that fear
created other senses within our frames, making us see,
hear, and feel what was not? What was this, but the
action of diseased imaginations and childish credulity?
So might it be; but what was most real, was the
existence of these very fears; the staring looks of
horror, the faces pale even to ghastliness, the voices
struck dumb with harrowing dread, of those
among us
who saw and heard these things. Of this number was
Adrian, who knew the delusion, yet could not cast off
the clinging terror. Even ignorant infancy appeared
with timorous shrieks and convulsions to acknowledge
the presence of unseen powers. We must go: in change
of scene, in occupation, and such security as we still
hoped to find, we should discover a cure for these
gathering horrors.
On mustering our company, we found them to consist of
fourteen hundred souls, men, women, and children. Until
now therefore, we were undiminished in numbers, except
by the desertion of those who had attached themselves
to the impostor-prophet, and remained behind in Paris.
About fifty French joined us. Our order of march was
easily arranged; the ill success which had attended our
division, determined Adrian to keep all in one body. I,
with an hundred men, went forward first as purveyor,
taking the road of the Cote d'Or, through Auxerre,
Dijon, Dole, over the Jura
to Geneva. I was to make
arrangements, at every ten miles, for the accommodation
of such numbers as I found the town or village would
receive, leaving behind a messenger with a written
order, signifying how many were to be quartered there.
The remainder of our tribe was then divided into bands
of fifty each, every division containing eighteen men,
and the remainder, consisting of women and children.
Each of these was headed by an officer, who carried
the roll of names, by which they were each day to be
mustered. If the numbers were divided at night, in the
morning those in the van waited for those in the rear.
At each of the large towns before mentioned, we were
all to assemble; and a conclave of the principal
officers would hold council for the general weal. I
went first, as I said; Adrian last. His mother, with
Clara and Evelyn under her protection, remained also
with him. Thus our order being determined, I departed.
My plan was to go at first no further than
Fontainebleau, where in a
few days I should be joined
by Adrian, before I took flight again further
eastward.
My friend accompanied me a few miles from Versailles.
He was sad; and, in a tone of unaccustomed despondency,
uttered a prayer for our speedy arrival among the Alps,
accompanied with an expression of vain regret that we
were not already there. "In that case," I observed, "we
can quicken our march; why adhere to a plan whose
dilatory proceeding you already disapprove?"
"Nay," replied he, "it is too late now. A month ago,
and we were masters of ourselves; now,—" he turned
his face from me; though gathering twilight had
already veiled its expression, he turned it yet more
away, as he added—"a man died of the plague last
night!"
He spoke in a smothered voice, then suddenly clasping
his hands, he exclaimed, "Swiftly, most swiftly
advances the last hour for us all; as the stars vanish
before the sun, so will his near approach destroy us. I
have done
my best; with grasping hands and impotent
strength, I have hung on the wheel of the chariot of
plague; but she drags me along with it, while, like
Juggernaut, she proceeds crushing out the being of all
who strew the high road of life. Would that it were
over—would that her procession achieved, we had all
entered the tomb together!"
Tears streamed from his eyes. "Again and again," he
continued, "will the tragedy be acted; again I must
hear the groans of the dying, the wailing of the
survivors; again witness the pangs, which, consummating
all, envelope an eternity in their evanescent
existence. Why am I reserved for this? Why the tainted
wether of the flock, am I not struck to earth among
the first? It is hard, very hard, for one of woman born
to endure all that I endure!"
Hitherto, with an undaunted spirit, and an high feeling
of duty and worth, Adrian had fulfilled his
self-imposed task. I had contemplated
him with
reverence, and a fruitless desire of imitation. I now
offered a few words of encouragement and sympathy. He
hid his face in his hands, and while he strove to calm
himself, he ejaculated, "For a few months, yet for a
few months more, let not, O God, my heart fail, or my
courage be bowed down; let not sights of intolerable
misery madden this half-crazed brain, or cause this
frail heart to beat against its prison-bound, so that
it burst. I have believed it to be my destiny to guide
and rule the last of the race of man, till death
extinguish my government; and to this destiny I submit.
"Pardon me, Verney, I pain you, but I will no longer
complain. Now I am myself again, or rather I am better
than myself. You have known how from my childhood
aspiring thoughts and high desires have warred with
inherent disease and overstrained sensitiveness, till
the latter became victors. You know how I placed
this
wasted feeble hand on the abandoned helm of human
government. I have been visited at times by intervals
of fluctuation; yet, until now, I have felt as if a
superior and indefatigable spirit had taken up its
abode within me or rather incorporated itself with my
weaker being. The holy visitant has for a time slept,
perhaps to show me how powerless I am without its
inspiration. Yet, stay for a while, O Power of goodness
and strength; disdain not yet this rent shrine of
fleshly mortality, O immortal Capability! While one
fellow creature remains to whom aid can be afforded,
stay by and prop your shattered, falling engine!"
His vehemence, and voice broken by irrepressible sighs,
sunk to my heart; his eyes gleamed in the gloom of
night like two earthly stars; and, his form dilating,
his countenance beaming, truly it almost seemed as if
at his eloquent appeal a more than mortal spirit
entered his frame, exalting him above humanity.
He turned quickly towards me, and held out his hand.
"Farewell, Verney," he cried, "brother of my love,
farewell; no other weak expression must cross these
lips, I am alive again: to our tasks, to our combats
with our unvanquishable foe, for to the last I will
struggle against her."
He grasped my hand, and bent a look on me, more fervent
and animated than any smile; then turning his horse's
head, he touched the animal with the spur, and was out
of sight in a moment.
A man last night had died of the plague. The quiver was
not emptied, nor the bow unstrung. We stood as marks,
while Parthian Pestilence aimed and shot, insatiated by
conquest, unobstructed by the heaps of slain. A
sickness of the soul, contagious even to my physical
mechanism, came over me. My knees knocked together, my
teeth chattered, the current of my blood, clotted by
sudden cold, painfully forced
its way from my heavy
heart. I did not fear for myself, but it was misery to
think that we could not even save this remnant. That
those I loved might in a few days be as clay-cold as
Idris in her antique tomb; nor could strength of body
or energy of mind ward off the blow. A sense of
degradation came over me. Did God create man, merely
in the end to become dead earth in the midst of
healthful vegetating nature? Was he of no more account
to his Maker, than a field of corn blighted in the ear?
Were our proud dreams thus to fade? Our name was
written "a little lower than the angels;" and, behold,
we were no better than ephemera. We had called
ourselves the "paragon of animals," and, lo! we were a
"quint-essence of dust." We repined that the pyramids
had outlasted the embalmed body of their builder. Alas!
the mere shepherd's hut of straw we passed on the road,
contained in its structure the principle of greater
longevity than
the whole race of man. How reconcile
this sad change to our past aspirations, to our
apparent powers!
Sudden an internal voice, articulate and clear, seemed
to say:—Thus from eternity, it was decreed: the
steeds that bear Time onwards had this hour and this
fulfilment enchained to them, since the void brought
forth its burthen. Would you read backwards the
unchangeable laws of Necessity?
Mother of the world! Servant of the Omnipotent!
eternal, changeless Necessity! who with busy fingers
sittest ever weaving the indissoluble chain of
events!—I will not murmur at thy acts. If my human
mind cannot acknowledge that all that is, is right;
yet since what is, must be, I will sit amidst the ruins
and smile. Truly we were not born to enjoy, but to
submit, and to hope.
Will not the reader tire, if I should minutely describe
our long-drawn journey from Paris to Geneva? If, day
by day, I should record, in the
form of a journal, the
thronging miseries of our lot, could my hand write, or
language afford words to express, the variety of our
woe; the hustling and crowding of one deplorable event
upon another? Patience, oh reader! whoever thou art,
wherever thou dwellest, whether of race spiritual, or,
sprung from some surviving pair, thy nature will be
human, thy habitation the earth; thou wilt here read
of the acts of the extinct race, and wilt ask
wonderingly, if they, who suffered what thou findest
recorded, were of frail flesh and soft organization
like thyself. Most true, they were—weep therefore; for
surely, solitary being, thou wilt be of gentle
disposition; shed compassionate tears; but the while
lend thy attention to the tale, and learn the deeds
and sufferings of thy predecessors.
Yet the last events that marked our progress through
France were so full of strange horror and gloomy
misery, that I dare not pause too long in the
narration. If I were to dissect each incident, every
small fragment of a second would
contain an harrowing
tale, whose minutest word would curdle the blood in thy
young veins. It is right that I should erect for thy
instruction this monument of the foregone race; but not
that I should drag thee through the wards of an
hospital, nor the secret chambers of the
charnel-house. This tale, therefore, shall be rapidly
unfolded. Images of destruction, pictures of despair,
the procession of the last triumph of death, shall be
drawn before thee, swift as the rack driven by the
north wind along the blotted splendour of the sky.
Weed-grown fields, desolate towns, the wild approach of
riderless horses had now become habitual to my eyes;
nay, sights far worse, of the unburied dead, and human
forms which were strewed on the road side, and on the
steps of once frequented habitations, where,
Through the flesh that wastes away
Beneath the parching sun, the whitening bones
Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust.[5]
Sights like these had become—ah, woe the while! so
familiar, that we had ceased to shudder, or spur our
stung horses to sudden speed, as we passed them.
France in its best days, at least that part of France
through which we travelled, had been a cultivated
desert, and the absence of enclosures, of cottages, and
even of peasantry, was saddening to a traveller from
sunny Italy, or busy England. Yet the towns were
frequent and lively, and the cordial politeness and
ready smile of the wooden-shoed peasant restored good
humour to the splenetic. Now, the old woman sat no more
at the door with her distaff—the lank beggar no longer
asked charity in courtier-like phrase; nor on holidays
did the peasantry thread with slow grace the mazes of
the dance. Silence, melancholy bride of death, went in
procession with him from town to town through the
spacious region.
We arrived at Fontainebleau, and speedily prepared for
the reception of our friends. On mustering our numbers
for the night, three were
found missing. When I
enquired for them, the man to whom I spoke, uttered the
word "plague," and fell at my feet in convulsions; he
also was infected. There were hard faces around me;
for among my troop were sailors who had crossed the
line times unnumbered, soldiers who, in Russia and far
America, had suffered famine, cold and danger, and men
still sterner-featured, once nightly depredators in our
over-grown metropolis; men bred from their cradle to
see the whole machine of society at work for their
destruction. I looked round, and saw upon the faces of
all horror and despair written in glaring characters.
We passed four days at Fontainebleau. Several sickened
and died, and in the mean time neither Adrian nor any
of our friends appeared. My own troop was in commotion;
to reach Switzerland, to plunge into rivers of snow,
and to dwell in caves of ice, became the mad desire of
all. Yet we had promised to wait for the Earl; and he
came not. My people demanded to be led
forward—rebellion, if so we might call what was the
mere casting away of straw-formed shackles, appeared
manifestly among them. They would away on the word
without a leader. The only chance of safety, the only
hope of preservation from every form of indescribable
suffering, was our keeping together. I told them this;
while the most determined among them answered with
sullenness, that they could take care of themselves,
and replied to my entreaties with scoffs and menaces.
At length, on the fifth day, a messenger arrived from
Adrian, bearing letters, which directed us to proceed
to Auxerre, and there await his arrival, which would
only be deferred for a few days. Such was the tenor of
his public letters. Those privately delivered to me,
detailed at length the difficulties of his situation,
and left the arrangement of my future plans to my own
discretion. His account of the state of affairs at
Versailles was brief, but the oral communications of
his messenger filled up his omissions,
and shewed me
that perils of the most frightful nature were gathering
around him. At first the re-awakening of the plague
had been concealed; but the number of deaths
encreasing, the secret was divulged, and the
destruction already achieved, was exaggerated by the
fears of the survivors. Some emissaries of the enemy
of mankind, the accursed Impostors. were among them
instilling their doctrine, that safety and life could
only be ensured by submission to their chief; and they
succeeded so well, that soon, instead of desiring to
proceed to Switzerland, the major part of the
multitude, weak-minded women, and dastardly men,
desired to return to Paris, and, by ranging themselves
under the banners of the so called prophet, and by a
cowardly worship of the principle of evil, to purchase
respite, as they hoped, from impending death. The
discord and tumult induced by these conflicting fears
and passions, detained Adrian. It required all his
ardour in pursuit of an object, and his patience under
difficulties, to calm and animate
such a number of his
followers, as might counterbalance the panic of the
rest, and lead them back to the means from which alone
safety could be derived. He had hoped immediately to
follow me; but, being defeated in this intention, he
sent his messenger urging me to secure my own troop at
such a distance from Versailles, as to prevent the
contagion of rebellion from reaching them; promising,
at the same time, to join me the moment a favourable
occasion should occur, by means of which he could
withdraw the main body of the emigrants from the evil
influence at present exercised over them.
I was thrown into a most painful state of uncertainty
by these communications. My first impulse was that we
should all return to Versailles, there to assist in
extricating our chief from his perils. I accordingly
assembled my troop, and proposed to them this
retrograde movement, instead of the continuation of
our journey to Auxerre. With one voice they refused to
comply. The notion circulated among
them was, that the
ravages of the plague alone detained the Protector;
they opposed his order to my request; they came to a
resolve to proceed without me, should I refuse to
accompany them. Argument and adjuration were lost on
these dastards. The continual diminution of their own
numbers, effected by pestilence, added a sting to
their dislike of delay; and my opposition only served
to bring their resolution to a crisis. That same
evening they departed towards Auxerre. Oaths, as from
soldiers to their general, had been taken by them:
these they broke. I also had engaged myself not to
desert them; it appeared to me inhuman to ground any
infraction of my word on theirs. The same spirit that
caused them to rebel against me, would impel them to
desert each other; and the most dreadful sufferings
would be the consequence of their journey in their
present unordered and chiefless array. These feelings
for a time were paramount; and, in obedience to them, I
accompanied the rest towards Auxerre.
We arrived the same night at Villeneuve-la-Guiard, a
town at the distance of four posts from Fontainebleau.
When my companions had retired to rest, and I was left
alone to revolve and ruminate upon the intelligence I
received of Adrian's situation, another view of the
subject presented itself to me. What was I doing, and
what was the object of my present movements?
Apparently I was to lead this troop of selfish and
lawless men towards Switzerland, leaving behind my
family and my selected friend, which, subject as they
were hourly to the death that threatened to all, I
might never see again. Was it not my first duty to
assist the Protector, setting an example of attachment
and duty? At a crisis, such as the one I had reached,
it is very difficult to balance nicely opposing
interests, and that towards which our inclinations
lead us, obstinately assumes the appearance of
selfishness, even when we meditate a sacrifice. We are
easily led at such times to make a compromise of the
question; and this was my present resource.
I resolved
that very night to ride to Versailles; if I found
affairs less desperate than I now deemed them, I would
return without delay to my troop; I had a vague idea
that my arrival at that town, would occasion some
sensation more or less strong, of which we might
profit, for the purpose of leading forward the
vacillating multitude—at least no time was to be
lost—I visited the stables, I saddled my favourite
horse, and vaulting on his back, without giving myself
time for further reflection or hesitation, quitted
Villeneuve-la-Guiard on my return to Versailles.
I was glad to escape from my rebellious troop, and to
lose sight for a time, of the strife of evil with
good, where the former for ever remained triumphant. I
was stung almost to madness by my uncertainty
concerning the fate of Adrian, and grew reckless of
any event, except what might lose or preserve my
unequalled friend. With an heavy heart, that sought
relief in the rapidity of my course, I rode through
the night to Versailles. I spurred
my horse, who
addressed his free limbs to speed, and tossed his
gallant head in pride. The constellations reeled
swiftly by, swiftly each tree and stone and landmark
fled past my onward career. I bared my head to the
rushing wind, which bathed my brow in delightful
coolness. As I lost sight of Villeneuve-la-Guiard, I
forgot the sad drama of human misery; methought it was
happiness enough to live, sensitive the while of the
beauty of the verdure-clad earth, the star-bespangled
sky, and the tameless wind that lent animation to the
whole. My horse grew tired—and I, forgetful of his
fatigue, still as he lagged, cheered him with my voice,
and urged him with the spur. He was a gallant animal,
and I did not wish to exchange him for any chance
beast I might light on, leaving him never to be
refound. All night we went forward; in the morning he
became sensible that we approached Versailles, to
reach which as his home, he mustered his flagging
strength. The distance we had come was not less than
fifty
miles, yet he shot down the long Boulevards
swift as an arrow; poor fellow, as I dismounted at the
gate of the castle, he sunk on his knees, his eyes were
covered with a film, he fell on his side, a few gasps
inflated his noble chest, and he died. I saw him
expire with an anguish, unaccountable even to myself,
the spasm was as the wrenching of some limb in
agonizing torture, but it was brief as it was
intolerable. I forgot him, as I swiftly darted through
the open portal, and up the majestic stairs of this
castle of victories—heard Adrian's voice—O fool! O
woman nurtured, effeminate and contemptible being—I
heard his voice, and answered it with convulsive
shrieks; I rushed into the Hall of Hercules, where he
stood surrounded by a crowd, whose eyes, turned in
wonder on me, reminded me that on the stage of the
world, a man must repress such girlish extacies. I
would have given worlds to have embraced him; I dared
not—Half in exhaustion, half voluntarily, I
threw
myself at my length on the ground—dare I disclose the
truth to the gentle offspring of solitude? I did so,
that I might kiss the dear and sacred earth he trod.
I found everything in a state of tumult. An emissary of
the leader of the elect, had been so worked up by his
chief, and by his own fanatical creed, as to make an
attempt on the life of the Protector and preserver of
lost mankind. His hand was arrested while in the act
of poignarding the Earl; this circumstance had caused
the clamour I heard on my arrival at the castle, and
the confused assembly of persons that I found assembled
in the Salle d'Hercule. Although superstition and
demoniac fury had crept among the emigrants, yet
several adhered with fidelity to their noble chieftain;
and many, whose faith and love had been unhinged by
fear, felt all their latent affection rekindled by
this detestable attempt. A phalanx of faithful breasts
closed round him; the wretch, who, although a prisoner
and in
bonds, vaunted his design, and madly claimed
the crown of martyrdom, would have been torn to
pieces, had not his intended victim interposed.
Adrian, springing forward, shielded him with his own
person, and commanded with energy the submission of his
infuriate friends—at this moment I had entered.
Discipline and peace were at length restored in the
castle; and then Adrian went from house to house, from
troop to troop, to soothe the disturbed minds of his
followers, and recall them to their ancient obedience.
But the fear of immediate death was still rife amongst
these survivors of a world's destruction; the horror
occasioned by the attempted assassination, past away;
each eye turned towards Paris. Men love a prop so well,
that they will lean on a pointed poisoned spear; and
such was he, the impostor, who, with fear of hell for
his scourge, most ravenous wolf, played the driver to
a credulous flock.
It was a moment of suspense, that shook even
the
resolution of the unyielding friend of man. Adrian for
one moment was about to give in, to cease the
struggle, and quit, with a few adherents, the deluded
crowd, leaving them a miserable prey to their passions,
and to the worse tyrant who excited them. But again,
after a brief fluctuation of purpose, he resumed his
courage and resolves, sustained by the singleness of
his purpose, and the untried spirit of benevolence
which animated him. At this moment, as an omen of
excellent import, his wretched enemy pulled destruction
on his head, destroying with his own hands the dominion
he had erected.
His grand hold upon the minds of men, took its rise
from the doctrine inculcated by him, that those who
believed in, and followed him, were the remnant to be
saved, while all the rest of mankind were marked out
for death. Now, at the time of the Flood, the
omnipotent repented him that he had created man, and as
then with water, now with the arrows of pestilence,
was about to annihilate all, except those who obeyed
his decrees, promulgated by the
ipse dixit
prophet. It is impossible to say on what foundations
this man built his hopes of being able to carry on such
an imposture. It is likely that he was fully aware of
the lie which murderous nature might give to his
assertions, and believed it to be the cast of a die,
whether he should in future ages be reverenced as an
inspired delegate from heaven, or be recognized as an
impostor by the present dying generation. At any rate
he resolved to keep up the drama to the last act. When,
on the first approach of summer, the fatal disease
again made its ravages among the followers of Adrian,
the impostor exultingly proclaimed the exemption of
his own congregation from the universal calamity. He
was believed; his followers, hitherto shut up in
Paris, now came to Versailles. Mingling with the
coward band there assembled, they reviled their
admirable leader, and asserted their own superiority
and exemption.
At length the plague, slow-footed, but sure in her
noiseless advance, destroyed the illusion, invading the
congregation of the elect, and showering promiscuous
death among them. Their leader endeavoured to conceal
this event; he had a few followers, who, admitted into
the arcana of his wickedness, could help him in the
execution of his nefarious designs. Those who sickened
were immediately and quietly withdrawn, the cord and a
midnight-grave disposed of them for ever; while some
plausible excuse was given for their absence. At last
a female, whose maternal vigilance subdued even the
effects of the narcotics administered to her, became a
witness of their murderous designs on her only child.
Mad with horror, she would have burst among her
deluded fellow-victims, and, wildly shrieking, have
awaked the dull ear of night with the history of the
fiend-like crime; when the Impostor, in his last act
of rage and desperation, plunged a poignard in her
bosom.
Thus wounded to death, her garments dripping
with her own life-blood, bearing her strangled infant
in her arms, beautiful and young as she was, Juliet,
(for it was she) denounced to the host of deceived
believers, the wickedness of their leader. He saw the
aghast looks of her auditors, changing from horror to
fury—the names of those already sacrificed were
echoed by their relatives, now assured of their loss.
The wretch with that energy of purpose, which had
borne him thus far in his guilty career, saw his
danger, and resolved to evade the worst forms of it—he
rushed on one of the foremost, seized a pistol from his
girdle, and his loud laugh of derision mingled with
the report of the weapon with which he destroyed
himself.
They left his miserable remains even where they lay;
they placed the corpse of poor Juliet and her babe
upon a bier, and all, with hearts subdued to saddest
regret, in long procession walked towards Versailles.
They met troops
of those who had quitted the kindly
protection of Adrian, and were journeying to join the
fanatics. The tale of horror was recounted—all turned
back; and thus at last, accompanied by the undiminished
numbers of surviving humanity, and preceded by the
mournful emblem of their recovered reason, they
appeared before Adrian, and again and for ever vowed
obedience to his commands, and fidelity to his cause.
[4]
Shakespeare—Julius Caesar.
[5]
Elton's Translation of Hesiod's "Shield of Hercules."