The flight now follows of the Amazon hosts. When the two combatants meet
in the shock of lances, the Queen falls in the dust; her pallor is
reflected in Achilles' face. Leaping from his horse, he bends o'er her,
calls her by names, and woos life back into her frame. Her faithful
maids, whom she has forbidden to harm Achilles, lead her away. And here
begins the seeming madness of the Queen when she confesses her love. For
a moment she yields to her people's demands, but the sight of the
rose-wreaths kindles her rage anew. Prothoe defends her in these lines:
"Of life the highest blessing she attempted.
Grazing she almost grasped. Her hands now fail her
For any other lesser goal to reach."
In the last part of the scene the Queen falls more and deeper into
madness. It is only in a too literal spirit that one will find an
oblique meaning,--by too great readiness to discover it. In reality
there seems to be an intense conflict of opposite emotions in the
heroine: the pure woman's love, without sense of self; and the wild
overpowering greed of achievement. Between these grinding stones she
wears her heart away. A false interpretation of decadent theme comes
from regarding the two emotions as mingled, instead of alternating in a
struggle.
Achilles advances, having flung away his armor. Prothoe persuades him to
leave the Queen, when she awakes, in the delusion that she has conquered
and that he is the captive.
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