All dreadful in the crimson walks of war!

What mighty Trojan then, on yonder shore,

Expiring, pale, and terrible no more,

Shall feast the fowls, and glut the dogs with gore?”

She ceased, and Juno rein’d the steeds with care:

(Heaven’s awful empress, Saturn’s other heir:)

Pallas, meanwhile, her various veil unbound,

With flowers adorn’d, with art immortal crown’d;

The radiant robe her sacred fingers wove

Floats in rich waves, and spreads the court of Jove.

Her father’s arms her mighty limbs invest,

His cuirass blazes on her ample breast.

The vigorous power the trembling car ascends:

Shook by her arm, the massy javelin bends:

Huge, ponderous, strong! that when her fury burns

Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o’erturns.

Saturnia lends the lash; the coursers fly;

Smooth glides the chariot through the liquid sky.

Heaven’s gates spontaneous open to the powers,

Heaven’s golden gates, kept by the winged Hours.

Commission’d in alternate watch they stand,

The sun’s bright portals and the skies command;

Close, or unfold, the eternal gates of day

Bar heaven with clouds, or roll those clouds away.

The sounding hinges ring, the clouds divide.

Prone down the steep of heaven their course they guide.

But Jove, incensed, from Ida’s top survey’d,

And thus enjoin’d the many-colour’d maid.

“Thaumantia! mount the winds, and stop their car;

Against the highest who shall wage the war?

If furious yet they dare the vain debate,

Thus have I spoke, and what I speak is fate:

Their coursers crush’d beneath the wheels shall lie,

Their car in fragments, scatter’d o’er the sky:

My lightning these rebellious shall confound,

And hurl them flaming, headlong, to the ground,

Condemn’d for ten revolving years to weep

The wounds impress’d by burning thunder deep.

So shall Minerva learn to fear our ire,

Nor dare to combat hers and nature’s sire.

For Juno, headstrong and imperious still,

She claims some title to transgress our will.”

Swift as the wind, the various-colour’d maid

From Ida’s top her golden wings display’d;

To great Olympus’ shining gate she flies,

There meets the chariot rushing down the skies,

Restrains their progress from the bright abodes,

And speaks the mandate of the sire of gods.

“What frenzy goddesses! what rage can move

Celestial minds to tempt the wrath of Jove?

Desist, obedient to his high command:

This is his word; and know his word shall stand:

His lightning your rebellion shall confound,

And hurl ye headlong, flaming, to the ground;

Your horses crush’d beneath the wheels shall lie,

Your car in fragments scatter’d o’er the sky;

Yourselves condemn’d ten rolling years to weep

The wounds impress’d by burning thunder deep.

So shall Minerva learn to fear his ire,

Nor dare to combat hers and nature’s sire.

For Juno, headstrong and imperious still,

She claims some title to transgress his will:

But thee, what desperate insolence has driven

To lift thy lance against the king of heaven?”

Then, mounting on the pinions of the wind,

She flew; and Juno thus her rage resign’d:

“O daughter of that god, whose arm can wield

The avenging bolt, and shake the dreadful shield

No more let beings of superior birth

Contend with Jove for this low race of earth;

Triumphant now, now miserably slain,

They breathe or perish as the fates ordain:

But Jove’s high counsels full effect shall find;

And, ever constant, ever rule mankind.”

She spoke, and backward turn’d her steeds of light,

Adorn’d with manes of gold, and heavenly bright.

The Hours unloosed them, panting as they stood,

And heap’d their mangers with ambrosial food.

There tied, they rest in high celestial stalls;

The chariot propp’d against the crystal walls,

The pensive goddesses, abash’d, controll’d,

Mix with the gods, and fill their seats of gold.

And now the Thunderer meditates his flight

From Ida’s summits to the Olympian height.

Swifter than thought, the wheels instinctive fly,

Flame through the vast of air, and reach the sky.

’Twas Neptune’s charge his coursers to unbrace,

And fix the car on its immortal base;

There stood the chariot, beaming forth its rays,

Till with a snowy veil he screen’d the blaze.

He, whose all-conscious eyes the world behold,

The eternal Thunderer sat, enthroned in gold.

High heaven the footstool of his feet he makes,

And wide beneath him all Olympus shakes.

Trembling afar the offending powers appear’d,

Confused and silent, for his frown they fear’d.

He saw their soul, and thus his word imparts:

“Pallas and Juno! say, why heave your hearts?

Soon was your battle o’er: proud Troy retired

Before your face, and in your wrath expired.

But know, whoe’er almighty power withstand!

Unmatch’d our force, unconquer’d is our hand:

Who shall the sovereign of the skies control?

Not all the gods that crown the starry pole.

Your hearts shall tremble, if our arms we take,

And each immortal nerve with horror shake.

For thus I speak, and what I speak shall stand;

What power soe’er provokes our lifted hand,

On this our hill no more shall hold his place;

Cut off, and exiled from the ethereal race.”

Juno and Pallas grieving hear the doom,

But feast their souls on Ilion’s woes to come.

Though secret anger swell’d Minerva’s breast,

The prudent goddess yet her wrath repress’d;

But Juno, impotent of rage, replies:

“What hast thou said, O tyrant of the skies!

Strength and omnipotence invest thy throne;

’Tis thine to punish; ours to grieve alone.

For Greece we grieve, abandon’d by her fate

To drink the dregs of thy unmeasured hate.

From fields forbidden we submiss refrain,

With arms unaiding see our Argives slain;

Yet grant our counsels still their breasts may move,

Lest all should perish in the rage of Jove.”

The goddess thus; and thus the god replies,

Who swells the clouds, and blackens all the skies:

“The morning sun, awaked by loud alarms,

Shall see the almighty Thunderer in arms.

What heaps of Argives then shall load the plain,

Those radiant eyes shall view, and view in vain.

Nor shall great Hector cease the rage of fight,

The navy flaming, and thy Greeks in flight,

Even till the day when certain fates ordain

That stern Achilles (his Patroclus slain)

Shall rise in vengeance, and lay waste the plain.

For such is fate, nor canst thou turn its course

With all thy rage, with all thy rebel force.

Fly, if thy wilt, to earth’s remotest bound,

Where on her utmost verge the seas resound;

Where cursed Iapetus and Saturn dwell,

Fast by the brink, within the streams of hell;

No sun e’er gilds the gloomy horrors there;

No cheerful gales refresh the lazy air:

There arm once more the bold Titanian band;

And arm in vain; for what I will, shall stand.”

Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light,

And drew behind the cloudy veil of night:

The conquering Trojans mourn his beams decay’d;

The Greeks rejoicing bless the friendly shade.

The victors keep the field; and Hector calls

A martial council near the navy walls;

These to Scamander’s bank apart he led,

Where thinly scatter’d lay the heaps of dead.

The assembled chiefs, descending on the ground,

Attend his order, and their prince surround.

A massy spear he bore of mighty strength,

Of full ten cubits was the lance’s length;

The point was brass, refulgent to behold,

Fix’d to the wood with circling rings of gold:

The noble Hector on his lance reclined,

And, bending forward, thus reveal’d his mind:

“Ye valiant Trojans, with attention hear!

Ye Dardan bands, and generous aids, give ear!

This day, we hoped, would wrap in conquering flame

Greece with her ships, and crown our toils with fame.

But darkness now, to save the cowards, falls,

And guards them trembling in their wooden walls.

Obey the night, and use her peaceful hours

Our steeds to forage, and refresh our powers.

Straight from the town be sheep and oxen sought,

And strengthening bread and generous wine be brought

Wide o’er the field, high blazing to the sky,

Let numerous fires the absent sun supply,

The flaming piles with plenteous fuel raise,

Till the bright morn her purple beam displays;

Lest, in the silence and the shades of night,

Greece on her sable ships attempt her flight.

Not unmolested let the wretches gain

Their lofty decks, or safely cleave the main;

Some hostile wound let every dart bestow,

Some lasting token of the Phrygian foe,

Wounds, that long hence may ask their spouses’ care.

And warn their children from a Trojan war.

Now through the circuit of our Ilion wall,

Let sacred heralds sound the solemn call;

To bid the sires with hoary honours crown’d,

And beardless youths, our battlements surround.

Firm be the guard, while distant lie our powers,

And let the matrons hang with lights the towers;

Lest, under covert of the midnight shade,

The insidious foe the naked town invade.

Suffice, to-night, these orders to obey;

A nobler charge shall rouse the dawning day.

The gods, I trust, shall give to Hector’s hand

From these detested foes to free the land,

Who plough’d, with fates averse, the watery way:

For Trojan vultures a predestined prey.

Our common safety must be now the care;

But soon as morning paints the fields of air,

Sheathed in bright arms let every troop engage,

And the fired fleet behold the battle rage.

Then, then shall Hector and Tydides prove

Whose fates are heaviest in the scales of Jove.

To-morrow’s light (O haste the glorious morn!)

Shall see his bloody spoils in triumph borne,

With this keen javelin shall his breast be gored,

And prostrate heroes bleed around their lord.

Certain as this, oh! might my days endure,

From age inglorious, and black death secure;

So might my life and glory know no bound,

Like Pallas worshipp’d, like the sun renown’d!

As the next dawn, the last they shall enjoy,

Shall crush the Greeks, and end the woes of Troy.”

The leader spoke. From all his host around

Shouts of applause along the shores resound.

Each from the yoke the smoking steeds untied,

And fix’d their headstalls to his chariot-side.

Fat sheep and oxen from the town are led,

With generous wine, and all-sustaining bread,

Full hecatombs lay burning on the shore:

The winds to heaven the curling vapours bore.

Ungrateful offering to the immortal powers!¹⁹⁷

Whose wrath hung heavy o’er the Trojan towers:

Nor Priam nor his sons obtain’d their grace;

Proud Troy they hated, and her guilty race.

The troops exulting sat in order round,

And beaming fires illumined all the ground.

As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,¹⁹⁸

O’er heaven’s pure azure spreads her sacred light,

When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,

And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene,

Around her throne the vivid planets roll,

And stars unnumber’d gild the glowing pole,

O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,

And tip with silver every mountain’s head:

Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,

A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:

The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,

Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.

So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,

And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays.

The long reflections of the distant fires

Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.

A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,

And shoot a shady lustre o’er the field.

Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,

Whose umber’d arms, by fits, thick flashes send,

Loud neigh the coursers o’er their heaps of corn,

And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.