Hence a denial of the rites essential to the soul's admission into the more favoured regions of the lower world was a cruel punishment to the wanderer on the dreary shores of the infernal river.

The complaint of the ghost of Patroclus to Achilles, of but a brief postponement of his own obsequies, shows how efficacious their refusal to the remains of his destroyer must have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, which, even after death, was supposed to torment the dwellers in Hades.
Hence before yielding up the body of Hector to Priam, Achilles asks pardon of Patroclus for even this partial cession of his just rights of retribution."-- Mure, vol.i.

289.
297 Such was the fate of Astyanax, when Troy was taken.
"Here, from the tow'r by stern Ulysses thrown, Andromache bewail'd her infant son." Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v.

675.
298 The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gallant and interesting view of Helen's character-- "Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen.

She is through the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech, noble in her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which higher powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate towards those with whom that fault had committed her.