THE ROMANCE OF DEATH.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3103, 28 January 1879, Page 1

THE ROMANCE OF DEATH.

It i« not a little singular tlwt ~ tJlfl Greeks hare scarcely e?er failed v* 1 make •the deathi of their literary heroes as L?* r" vellous as their life's. Homer, they tell us, died of a broken -heart, because he could not guess a riddle. As Horace had been warned by a witch that a chatterbox would be his death, so had Homer beea warned by an oracle that he .would be killed by a riddle., And his day came. Seeing—or rather hearing,- for the tradition of his blindness is too universal to be discredited—some young fishermen in ' a boat, he unfortunately asked them what sport they had had. To which they replied: "As many as 'we caught we left, as many as we could not catch we carry with us." This was too much for the author of "Iliad.' He guessed and guessed till he could guess no longer; and finally died of sb«er vexation. According to Gregory Nazianxen, Justin Martyr and fcustathius, Aristotle went off precisely the same way, because he could not understand a more interesting riddle set by nature—namely, the cause* of the ebbing and flowing of tue^ Euripus. "Since," he indignantlyJg^ claimed, "I cannot conceive the Edj^^H let the Euripus receive me.V!^|^^^^| the ingenious iarentor of y^^^^^^^B and " vailed " sophism, jl^^^^^^^^H his match in one Stilpo,^^^^^^^^H him with another sophisi^^^^^^^^^^H unable to solve, went hoi^^^^^^^^H about it and died of desp^^^^^^^^H