Several of the most valiant began to scramble over the benches up to him; and Philammon was congratulating himself on the near approach of a glorious martyrdom, when Hypatia's voice, calm and silvery, stifled the tumult in a moment.
'Let the youth listen, gentlemen.

He is but a monk and a plebeian, and knows no better; he has been taught thus.

Let him sit here quietly, and perhaps we may be able to teach him otherwise.' And without interrupting, even by a change of tone, the thread of her discourse, she continued-- 'Listen, then, to a passage from the sixth book of the _Iliad_, in which last night I seemed to see glimpses of some mighty mystery.

You know it well: yet I will read it to you; the very sound and pomp of that great verse may tune our souls to a fit key for the reception of lofty wisdom.
For well said Abamnon the Teacher, that "the soul consisted first of harmony and rhythm, and ere it gave itself to the body, had listened to the divine harmony.

Therefore it is that when, after having come into a body, it hears such melodies as most preserve the divine footstep of harmony, it embraces such, and recollects from them that divine harmony, and is impelled to it, and finds its home in it, and shares of it as much as it can share."' And therewith fell on Philammon's ear, for the first time, the mighty thunder-roll of Homer's verse-- So spoke the stewardess: but Hector rushed From the house, the same way back, down stately streets, Through the broad city, to the Scaian gates, Whereby he must go forth toward the plain, There running toward him came Andromache, His ample-dowered wife, Eetion's child-- Eetion the great-hearted, he who dwelt In Thebe under Placos, and the woods Of Placos, ruling over Kilic men.