Unworthy the high race from which we came

Proclaim’d so loudly by the voice of fame:

Each from illustrious fathers draws his line;

Each goddess-born; half human, half divine.

Thetis’ this day, or Venus’ offspring dies,

And tears shall trickle from celestial eyes:

For when two heroes, thus derived, contend,

’Tis not in words the glorious strife can end.

If yet thou further seek to learn my birth

(A tale resounded through the spacious earth)

Hear how the glorious origin we prove

From ancient Dardanus, the first from Jove:

Dardania’s walls he raised; for Ilion, then,

(The city since of many-languaged men,)

Was not. The natives were content to till

The shady foot of Ida’s fountful hill.²⁶⁴

From Dardanus great Erichthonius springs,

The richest, once, of Asia’s wealthy kings;

Three thousand mares his spacious pastures bred,

Three thousand foals beside their mothers fed.

Boreas, enamour’d of the sprightly train,

Conceal’d his godhead in a flowing mane,

With voice dissembled to his loves he neigh’d,

And coursed the dappled beauties o’er the mead:

Hence sprung twelve others of unrivall’d kind,

Swift as their mother mares, and father wind.

These lightly skimming, when they swept the plain,

Nor plied the grass, nor bent the tender grain;

And when along the level seas they flew,²⁶⁵

Scarce on the surface curl’d the briny dew.

Such Erichthonius was: from him there came

The sacred Tros, of whom the Trojan name.

Three sons renown’d adorn’d his nuptial bed,

Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymed:

The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair,

Whom heaven, enamour’d, snatch’d to upper air,

To bear the cup of Jove (ethereal guest,

The grace and glory of the ambrosial feast).

The two remaining sons the line divide:

First rose Laomedon from Ilus’ side;

From him Tithonus, now in cares grown old,

And Priam, bless’d with Hector, brave and bold;

Clytius and Lampus, ever-honour’d pair;

And Hicetaon, thunderbolt of war.

From great Assaracus sprang Capys, he

Begat Anchises, and Anchises me.

Such is our race: ’tis fortune gives us birth,

But Jove alone endues the soul with worth:

He, source of power and might! with boundless sway,

All human courage gives, or takes away.

Long in the field of words we may contend,

Reproach is infinite, and knows no end,

Arm’d or with truth or falsehood, right or wrong;

So voluble a weapon is the tongue;

Wounded, we wound; and neither side can fail,

For every man has equal strength to rail:

Women alone, when in the streets they jar,

Perhaps excel us in this wordy war;

Like us they stand, encompass’d with the crowd,

And vent their anger impotent and loud.

Cease then—Our business in the field of fight

Is not to question, but to prove our might.

To all those insults thou hast offer’d here,

Receive this answer: ’tis my flying spear.”

He spoke. With all his force the javelin flung,

Fix’d deep, and loudly in the buckler rung.

Far on his outstretch’d arm, Pelides held

(To meet the thundering lance) his dreadful shield,

That trembled as it stuck; nor void of fear

Saw, ere it fell, the immeasurable spear.

His fears were vain; impenetrable charms

Secured the temper of the ethereal arms.

Through two strong plates the point its passage held,

But stopp’d, and rested, by the third repell’d.

Five plates of various metal, various mould,

Composed the shield; of brass each outward fold,

Of tin each inward, and the middle gold:

There stuck the lance. Then rising ere he threw,

The forceful spear of great Achilles flew,

And pierced the Dardan shield’s extremest bound,

Where the shrill brass return’d a sharper sound:

Through the thin verge the Pelean weapon glides,

And the slight covering of expanded hides.

Æneas his contracted body bends,

And o’er him high the riven targe extends,

Sees, through its parting plates, the upper air,

And at his back perceives the quivering spear:

A fate so near him, chills his soul with fright;

And swims before his eyes the many-colour’d light.

Achilles, rushing in with dreadful cries,

Draws his broad blade, and at Æneas flies:

Æneas rousing as the foe came on,

With force collected, heaves a mighty stone:

A mass enormous! which in modern days

No two of earth’s degenerate sons could raise.

But ocean’s god, whose earthquakes rock the ground.

Saw the distress, and moved the powers around:

“Lo! on the brink of fate Æneas stands,

An instant victim to Achilles’ hands;

By Phoebus urged; but Phoebus has bestow’d

His aid in vain: the man o’erpowers the god.

And can ye see this righteous chief atone

With guiltless blood for vices not his own?

To all the gods his constant vows were paid;

Sure, though he wars for Troy, he claims our aid.

Fate wills not this; nor thus can Jove resign

The future father of the Dardan line:²⁶⁶

The first great ancestor obtain’d his grace,

And still his love descends on all the race:

For Priam now, and Priam’s faithless kind,

At length are odious to the all-seeing mind;

On great Æneas shall devolve the reign,

And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain.”

The great earth-shaker thus: to whom replies

The imperial goddess with the radiant eyes:

“Good as he is, to immolate or spare

The Dardan prince, O Neptune! be thy care;

Pallas and I, by all that gods can bind,

Have sworn destruction to the Trojan kind;

Not even an instant to protract their fate,

Or save one member of the sinking state;

Till her last flame be quench’d with her last gore,

And even her crumbling ruins are no more.”

The king of ocean to the fight descends,

Through all the whistling darts his course he bends,

Swift interposed between the warrior flies,

And casts thick darkness o’er Achilles’ eyes.²⁶⁷

From great Æneas’ shield the spear he drew,

And at his master’s feet the weapon threw.

That done, with force divine he snatch’d on high

The Dardan prince, and bore him through the sky,

Smooth-gliding without step, above the heads

Of warring heroes, and of bounding steeds:

Till at the battle’s utmost verge they light,

Where the slow Caucans close the rear of fight.

The godhead there (his heavenly form confess’d)

With words like these the panting chief address’d:

“What power, O prince! with force inferior far,

Urged thee to meet Achilles’ arm in war?

Henceforth beware, nor antedate thy doom,

Defrauding fate of all thy fame to come.

But when the day decreed (for come it must)

Shall lay this dreadful hero in the dust,

Let then the furies of that arm be known,

Secure no Grecian force transcends thy own.”

With that, he left him wondering as he lay,

Then from Achilles chased the mist away:

Sudden, returning with a stream of light,

The scene of war came rushing on his sight.

Then thus, amazed; “What wonders strike my mind!

My spear, that parted on the wings of wind,

Laid here before me! and the Dardan lord,

That fell this instant, vanish’d from my sword!

I thought alone with mortals to contend,

But powers celestial sure this foe defend.

Great as he is, our arms he scarce will try,

Content for once, with all his gods, to fly.

Now then let others bleed.” This said, aloud

He vents his fury and inflames the crowd:

“O Greeks! (he cries, and every rank alarms)

Join battle, man to man, and arms to arms!

’Tis not in me, though favour’d by the sky,

To mow whole troops, and make whole armies fly:

No god can singly such a host engage,

Not Mars himself, nor great Minerva’s rage.

But whatsoe’er Achilles can inspire,

Whate’er of active force, or acting fire;

Whate’er this heart can prompt, or hand obey;

All, all Achilles, Greeks! is yours to-day.

Through yon wide host this arm shall scatter fear,

And thin the squadrons with my single spear.”

He said: nor less elate with martial joy,

The godlike Hector warm’d the troops of Troy:

“Trojans, to war! Think, Hector leads you on;

Nor dread the vaunts of Peleus’ haughty son.

Deeds must decide our fate. E’en these with words

Insult the brave, who tremble at their swords:

The weakest atheist-wretch all heaven defies,

But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies.

Nor from yon boaster shall your chief retire,

Not though his heart were steel, his hands were fire;

That fire, that steel, your Hector should withstand,

And brave that vengeful heart, that dreadful hand.”

Thus (breathing rage through all) the hero said;

A wood of lances rises round his head,

Clamours on clamours tempest all the air,

They join, they throng, they thicken to the war.

But Phoebus warns him from high heaven to shun

The single fight with Thetis’ godlike son;

More safe to combat in the mingled band,

Nor tempt too near the terrors of his hand.

He hears, obedient to the god of light,

And, plunged within the ranks, awaits the fight.

Then fierce Achilles, shouting to the skies,

On Troy’s whole force with boundless fury flies.

First falls Iphytion, at his army’s head;

Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led;

From great Otrynteus he derived his blood,

His mother was a Nais, of the flood;

Beneath the shades of Tmolus, crown’d with snow,

From Hyde’s walls he ruled the lands below.

Fierce as he springs, the sword his head divides:

The parted visage falls on equal sides:

With loud-resounding arms he strikes the plain;

While thus Achilles glories o’er the slain:

“Lie there, Otryntides! the Trojan earth

Receives thee dead, though Gygae boast thy birth;

Those beauteous fields where Hyllus’ waves are roll’d,

And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold,

Are thine no more.”—The insulting hero said,

And left him sleeping in eternal shade.

The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore,

And dash’d their axles with no vulgar gore.

Demoleon next, Antenor’s offspring, laid

Breathless in dust, the price of rashness paid.

The impatient steel with full-descending sway

Forced through his brazen helm its furious way,

Resistless drove the batter’d skull before,

And dash’d and mingled all the brains with gore.

This sees Hippodamas, and seized with fright,

Deserts his chariot for a swifter flight:

The lance arrests him: an ignoble wound

The panting Trojan rivets to the ground.

He groans away his soul: not louder roars,

At Neptune’s shrine on Helice’s high shores,

The victim bull; the rocks re-bellow round,

And ocean listens to the grateful sound.

Then fell on Polydore his vengeful rage,²⁶⁸

The youngest hope of Priam’s stooping age:

(Whose feet for swiftness in the race surpass’d:)

Of all his sons, the dearest, and the last.

To the forbidden field he takes his flight,

In the first folly of a youthful knight,

To vaunt his swiftness wheels around the plain,

But vaunts not long, with all his swiftness slain:

Struck where the crossing belts unite behind,

And golden rings the double back-plate join’d

Forth through the navel burst the thrilling steel;

And on his knees with piercing shrieks he fell;

The rushing entrails pour’d upon the ground

His hands collect; and darkness wraps him round.

When Hector view’d, all ghastly in his gore,

Thus sadly slain the unhappy Polydore,

A cloud of sorrow overcast his sight,

His soul no longer brook’d the distant fight:

Full in Achilles’ dreadful front he came,

And shook his javelin like a waving flame.

The son of Peleus sees, with joy possess’d,

His heart high-bounding in his rising breast.

“And, lo! the man on whom black fates attend;

The man, that slew Achilles, is his friend!

No more shall Hector’s and Pelides’ spear

Turn from each other in the walks of war.”—

Then with revengeful eyes he scann’d him o’er:

“Come, and receive thy fate!” He spake no more.

Hector, undaunted, thus: “Such words employ

To one that dreads thee, some unwarlike boy:

Such we could give, defying and defied,

Mean intercourse of obloquy and pride!

I know thy force to mine superior far;

But heaven alone confers success in war:

Mean as I am, the gods may guide my dart,

And give it entrance in a braver heart.”

Then parts the lance: but Pallas’ heavenly breath

Far from Achilles wafts the winged death:

The bidden dart again to Hector flies,

And at the feet of its great master lies.

Achilles closes with his hated foe,

His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow:

But present to his aid, Apollo shrouds

The favour’d hero in a veil of clouds.

Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart,

Thrice in impassive air he plunged the dart;

The spear a fourth time buried in the cloud.

He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud:

“Wretch! thou hast ’scaped again; once more thy flight

Has saved thee, and the partial god of light.

But long thou shalt not thy just fate withstand,

If any power assist Achilles’ hand.

Fly then inglorious! but thy flight this day

Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay.”

With that, he gluts his rage on numbers slain:

Then Dryops tumbled to the ensanguined plain,

Pierced through the neck: he left him panting there,

And stopp’d Demuchus, great Philetor’s heir.

Gigantic chief! deep gash’d the enormous blade,

And for the soul an ample passage made.

Laoganus and Dardanus expire,

The valiant sons of an unhappy sire;

Both in one instant from the chariot hurl’d,

Sunk in one instant to the nether world:

This difference only their sad fates afford

That one the spear destroy’d, and one the sword.

Nor less unpitied, young Alastor bleeds;

In vain his youth, in vain his beauty pleads;

In vain he begs thee, with a suppliant’s moan,

To spare a form, an age so like thy own!

Unhappy boy! no prayer, no moving art,

E’er bent that fierce, inexorable heart!

While yet he trembled at his knees, and cried,

The ruthless falchion oped his tender side;

The panting liver pours a flood of gore

That drowns his bosom till he pants no more.

Through Mulius’ head then drove the impetuous spear:

The warrior falls, transfix’d from ear to ear.

Thy life, Echeclus! next the sword bereaves,

Deep though the front the ponderous falchion cleaves;

Warm’d in the brain the smoking weapon lies,

The purple death comes floating o’er his eyes.

Then brave Deucalion died: the dart was flung

Where the knit nerves the pliant elbow strung;

He dropp’d his arm, an unassisting weight,

And stood all impotent, expecting fate:

Full on his neck the falling falchion sped,

From his broad shoulders hew’d his crested head:

Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies,

And, sunk in dust, the corpse extended lies.

Rhigmas, whose race from fruitful Thracia came,

(The son of Pierus, an illustrious name,)

Succeeds to fate: the spear his belly rends;

Prone from his car the thundering chief descends.

The squire, who saw expiring on the ground

His prostrate master, rein’d the steeds around;

His back, scarce turn’d, the Pelian javelin gored,

And stretch’d the servant o’er his dying lord.

As when a flame the winding valley fills,

And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills;

Then o’er the stubble up the mountain flies,

Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,

This way and that, the spreading torrent roars:

So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores;

Around him wide, immense destruction pours

And earth is deluged with the sanguine showers

As with autumnal harvests cover’d o’er,

And thick bestrewn, lies Ceres’ sacred floor;

When round and round, with never-wearied pain,

The trampling steers beat out the unnumber’d grain:

So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,

Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes’ souls,

Dash’d from their hoofs while o’er the dead they fly,

Black, bloody drops the smoking chariot dye:

The spiky wheels through heaps of carnage tore;

And thick the groaning axles dropp’d with gore.

High o’er the scene of death Achilles stood,

All grim with dust, all horrible in blood:

Yet still insatiate, still with rage on flame;

Such is the lust of never-dying fame!