A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long
lips.
—The Greek! he said again. _Kyrios!_ Shining word! The vowels the
Semite and the Saxon know not. _Kyrie!_ The radiance of the intellect.
I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. _Kyrie eleison!_
The closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit.
We are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered
at Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an _imperium,_ that
went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went
under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve
the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause.
He strode away from them towards the window.
—They went forth to battle, Mr O’Madden Burke said greyly, but they
always fell.
—Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received in
the latter half of the _matinée_. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!
He whispered then near Stephen’s ear: