Touch’d with the dear remembrance of his sire.

Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay)

The old man’s cheek he gently turn’d away.

Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe;

And now the mingled tides together flow:

This low on earth, that gently bending o’er;

A father one, and one a son deplore:

But great Achilles different passions rend,

And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend.

The infectious softness through the heroes ran;

One universal solemn shower began;

They bore as heroes, but they felt as man.

Satiate at length with unavailing woes,

From the high throne divine Achilles rose;

The reverend monarch by the hand he raised;

On his white beard and form majestic gazed,

Not unrelenting; then serene began

With words to soothe the miserable man:

“Alas, what weight of anguish hast thou known,

Unhappy prince! thus guardless and alone

Two pass through foes, and thus undaunted face

The man whose fury has destroy’d thy race!

Heaven sure has arm’d thee with a heart of steel,

A strength proportion’d to the woes you feel.

Rise, then: let reason mitigate your care:

To mourn avails not: man is born to bear.

Such is, alas! the gods’ severe decree:

They, only they are blest, and only free.

Two urns by Jove’s high throne have ever stood,

The source of evil one, and one of good;

From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,

Blessings to these, to those distributes ill;

To most he mingles both: the wretch decreed

To taste the bad unmix’d, is cursed indeed;

Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven,

He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven.

The happiest taste not happiness sincere;

But find the cordial draught is dash’d with care.

Who more than Peleus shone in wealth and power

What stars concurring bless’d his natal hour!

A realm, a goddess, to his wishes given;

Graced by the gods with all the gifts of heaven.

One evil yet o’ertakes his latest day:

No race succeeding to imperial sway;

An only son; and he, alas! ordain’d

To fall untimely in a foreign land.

See him, in Troy, the pious care decline

Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine!

Thou too, old man, hast happier days beheld;

In riches once, in children once excell’d;

Extended Phrygia own’d thy ample reign,

And all fair Lesbos’ blissful seats contain,

And all wide Hellespont’s unmeasured main.

But since the god his hand has pleased to turn,

And fill thy measure from his bitter urn,

What sees the sun, but hapless heroes’ falls?

War, and the blood of men, surround thy walls!

What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed

These unavailing sorrows o’er the dead;

Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore,

But thou, alas! may’st live to suffer more!”

To whom the king: “O favour’d of the skies!

Here let me grow to earth! since Hector lies

On the bare beach deprived of obsequies.

O give me Hector! to my eyes restore

His corse, and take the gifts: I ask no more.

Thou, as thou may’st, these boundless stores enjoy;

Safe may’st thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy;

So shall thy pity and forbearance give

A weak old man to see the light and live!”

“Move me no more, (Achilles thus replies,

While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes,)

Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend:

To yield thy Hector I myself intend:

For know, from Jove my goddess-mother came,

(Old Ocean’s daughter, silver-footed dame,)

Nor comest thou but by heaven; nor comest alone,

Some god impels with courage not thy own:

No human hand the weighty gates unbarr’d,

Nor could the boldest of our youth have dared

To pass our outworks, or elude the guard.

Cease; lest, neglectful of high Jove’s command,

I show thee, king! thou tread’st on hostile land;

Release my knees, thy suppliant arts give o’er,

And shake the purpose of my soul no more.”

The sire obey’d him, trembling and o’eraw’d.

Achilles, like a lion, rush’d abroad:

Automedon and Alcimus attend,

(Whom most he honour’d, since he lost his friend,)

These to unyoke the mules and horses went,

And led the hoary herald to the tent;

Next, heap’d on high, the numerous presents bear,

(Great Hector’s ransom,) from the polish’d car.

Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread,

They leave: to cover and enwrap the dead.

Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil

To wash the body and anoint with oil,

Apart from Priam: lest the unhappy sire,

Provoked to passion, once more rouse to ire

The stern Pelides; and nor sacred age,

Nor Jove’s command, should check the rising rage.

This done, the garments o’er the corse they spread;

Achilles lifts it to the funeral bed:

Then, while the body on the car they laid,

He groans, and calls on loved Patroclus’ shade:

“If, in that gloom which never light must know,

The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below,

O friend! forgive me, that I thus fulfil

(Restoring Hector) heaven’s unquestion’d will.

The gifts the father gave, be ever thine,

To grace thy manes, and adorn thy shrine.”²⁹⁶

He said, and, entering, took his seat of state;

Where full before him reverend Priam sate;

To whom, composed, the godlike chief begun:

“Lo! to thy prayer restored, thy breathless son;

Extended on the funeral couch he lies;

And soon as morning paints the eastern skies,

The sight is granted to thy longing eyes:

But now the peaceful hours of sacred night

Demand reflection, and to rest invite:

Nor thou, O father! thus consumed with woe,

The common cares that nourish life forego.

Not thus did Niobe, of form divine,

A parent once, whose sorrows equall’d thine:

Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids,

In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades;

Those by Apollo’s silver bow were slain,

These, Cynthia’s arrows stretch’d upon the plain:

So was her pride chastised by wrath divine,

Who match’d her own with bright Latona’s line;

But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy’d;

Those boasted twelve, the avenging two destroy’d.

Steep’d in their blood, and in the dust outspread,

Nine days, neglected, lay exposed the dead;

None by to weep them, to inhume them none;

(For Jove had turn’d the nation all to stone.)

The gods themselves, at length relenting gave

The unhappy race the honours of a grave.

Herself a rock (for such was heaven’s high will)

Through deserts wild now pours a weeping rill;

Where round the bed whence Achelous springs,

The watery fairies dance in mazy rings;

There high on Sipylus’s shaggy brow,

She stands, her own sad monument of woe;

The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow.

“Such griefs, O king! have other parents known;

Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own.

The care of heaven thy Hector has appear’d,

Nor shall he lie unwept, and uninterr’d;

Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown’d,

And all the eyes of Ilion stream around.”

He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe

With silver fleece, which his attendants slew.

The limbs they sever from the reeking hide,

With skill prepare them, and in parts divide:

Each on the coals the separate morsels lays,

And, hasty, snatches from the rising blaze.

With bread the glittering canisters they load,

Which round the board Automedon bestow’d.

The chief himself to each his portion placed,

And each indulging shared in sweet repast.

When now the rage of hunger was repress’d,

The wondering hero eyes his royal guest:

No less the royal guest the hero eyes,

His godlike aspect and majestic size;

Here, youthful grace and noble fire engage;

And there, the mild benevolence of age.

Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke,

(A solemn scene!) at length the father spoke:

“Permit me now, beloved of Jove! to steep

My careful temples in the dew of sleep:

For, since the day that number’d with the dead

My hapless son, the dust has been my bed;

Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes;

My only food, my sorrows and my sighs!

Till now, encouraged by the grace you give,

I share thy banquet, and consent to live.”

With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed,

With purple soft and shaggy carpets spread;

Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way,

And place the couches, and the coverings lay.

Then he: “Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here;

Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear,

Lest any Argive, at this hour awake,

To ask our counsel, or our orders take,

Approaching sudden to our open’d tent,

Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent.

Should such report thy honour’d person here,

The king of men the ransom might defer;

But say with speed, if aught of thy desire

Remains unask’d; what time the rites require

To inter thy Hector? For, so long we stay

Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey.”

“If then thy will permit (the monarch said)

To finish all due honours to the dead,

This of thy grace accord: to thee are known

The fears of Ilion, closed within her town;

And at what distance from our walls aspire

The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire.

Nine days to vent our sorrows I request,

The tenth shall see the funeral and the feast;

The next, to raise his monument be given;

The twelfth we war, if war be doom’d by heaven!”

“This thy request (replied the chief) enjoy:

Till then our arms suspend the fall of Troy.”

Then gave his hand at parting, to prevent

The old man’s fears, and turn’d within the tent;

Where fair Briseis, bright in blooming charms,

Expects her hero with desiring arms.

But in the porch the king and herald rest;

Sad dreams of care yet wandering in their breast.

Now gods and men the gifts of sleep partake;

Industrious Hermes only was awake,

The king’s return revolving in his mind,

To pass the ramparts, and the watch to blind.

The power descending hover’d o’er his head:

“And sleep’st thou, father! (thus the vision said:)

Now dost thou sleep, when Hector is restored?

Nor fear the Grecian foes, or Grecian lord?

Thy presence here should stern Atrides see,

Thy still surviving sons may sue for thee;

May offer all thy treasures yet contain,

To spare thy age; and offer all in vain.”

Waked with the word the trembling sire arose,

And raised his friend: the god before him goes:

He joins the mules, directs them with his hand,

And moves in silence through the hostile land.

When now to Xanthus’ yellow stream they drove,

(Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove,)

The winged deity forsook their view,

And in a moment to Olympus flew.

Now shed Aurora round her saffron ray,

Sprang through the gates of light, and gave the day:

Charged with the mournful load, to Ilion go

The sage and king, majestically slow.

Cassandra first beholds, from Ilion’s spire,

The sad procession of her hoary sire;

Then, as the pensive pomp advanced more near,

(Her breathless brother stretched upon the bier,)

A shower of tears o’erflows her beauteous eyes,

Alarming thus all Ilion with her cries:

“Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ,

Ye wretched daughters, and ye sons of Troy!

If e’er ye rush’d in crowds, with vast delight,

To hail your hero glorious from the fight,

Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow;

Your common triumph, and your common woe.”

In thronging crowds they issue to the plains;

Nor man nor woman in the walls remains;

In every face the self-same grief is shown;

And Troy sends forth one universal groan.

At Scaea’s gates they meet the mourning wain,

Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain.

The wife and mother, frantic with despair,

Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scatter’d hair:

Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay;

And there had sigh’d and sorrow’d out the day;

But godlike Priam from the chariot rose:

“Forbear (he cried) this violence of woes;

First to the palace let the car proceed,

Then pour your boundless sorrows o’er the dead.”

The waves of people at his word divide,

Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide;

Even to the palace the sad pomp they wait:

They weep, and place him on the bed of state.

A melancholy choir attend around,

With plaintive sighs, and music’s solemn sound:

Alternately they sing, alternate flow

The obedient tears, melodious in their woe.

While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart,

And nature speaks at every pause of art.

First to the corse the weeping consort flew;

Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,

“And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)

Snatch’d in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!

Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!

And I abandon’d, desolate, alone!

An only son, once comfort of our pains,

Sad product now of hapless love, remains!

Never to manly age that son shall rise,

Or with increasing graces glad my eyes:

For Ilion now (her great defender slain)

Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.

Who now protects her wives with guardian care?

Who saves her infants from the rage of war?

Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o’er

(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:

Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shall go,

The sad companion of thy mother’s woe;

Driven hence a slave before the victor’s sword

Condemn’d to toil for some inhuman lord:

Or else some Greek whose father press’d the plain,

Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,

In Hector’s blood his vengeance shall enjoy,

And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy.²⁹⁷

For thy stern father never spared a foe:

Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe!

Thence many evils his sad parents bore,

His parents many, but his consort more.

Why gav’st thou not to me thy dying hand?

And why received not I thy last command?

Some word thou would’st have spoke, which, sadly dear,

My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;

Which never, never could be lost in air,

Fix’d in my heart, and oft repeated there!”

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan,

Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan.

The mournful mother next sustains her part:

“O thou, the best, the dearest to my heart!

Of all my race thou most by heaven approved,

And by the immortals even in death beloved!

While all my other sons in barbarous bands

Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands,

This felt no chains, but went a glorious ghost,

Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast.

Sentenced, ’tis true, by his inhuman doom,

Thy noble corse was dragg’d around the tomb;

(The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain;)

Ungenerous insult, impotent and vain!

Yet glow’st thou fresh with every living grace;

No mark of pain, or violence of face:

Rosy and fair! as Phoebus’ silver bow

Dismiss’d thee gently to the shades below.”

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears.

Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears;

Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes

Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries.

“Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had join’d²⁹⁸

Tne mildest manners with the bravest mind,

Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o’er

Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore,

(O had I perish’d, ere that form divine

Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!)

Yet was it ne’er my fate, from thee to find

A deed ungentle, or a word unkind.

When others cursed the authoress of their woe,

Thy pity check’d my sorrows in their flow.

If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,

Or scornful sister with her sweeping train,

Thy gentle accents soften’d all my pain.

For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee,

The wretched source of all this misery.

The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan;

Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!

Through Troy’s wide streets abandon’d shall I roam!

In Troy deserted, as abhorr’d at home!”

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye.

Distressful beauty melts each stander-by.

On all around the infectious sorrow grows;

But Priam check’d the torrent as it rose:

“Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require,

And fell the forests for a funeral pyre;

Twelve days, nor foes nor secret ambush dread;

Achilles grants these honours to the dead.”²⁹⁹

FUNERAL OF HECTOR.

He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train

Their mules and oxen harness to the wain,

Pour through the gates, and fell’d from Ida’s crown,

Roll back the gather’d forests to the town.

These toils continue nine succeeding days,

And high in air a sylvan structure raise.

But when the tenth fair morn began to shine,

Forth to the pile was borne the man divine,

And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes,

Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise.

Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,

With rosy lustre streak’d the dewy lawn,

Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre,

And quench with wine the yet remaining fire.

The snowy bones his friends and brothers place

(With tears collected) in a golden vase;

The golden vase in purple palls they roll’d,

Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold.

Last o’er the urn the sacred earth they spread,

And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead.

(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done,

Watch’d from the rising to the setting sun.)

All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again,

A solemn, silent, melancholy train:

Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,

And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.

Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.