Book XVII

ARGUMENT.

THE SEVENTH BATTLE, FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS.—THE ACTS OF MENELAUS.

Menelaus, upon the death of Patroclus, defends his body from the enemy: Euphorbus, who attempts it, is slain. Hector advancing, Menelaus retires; but soon returns with Ajax, and drives him off. This, Glaucus objects to Hector as a flight, who thereupon puts on the armour he had won from Patroclus, and renews the battle. The Greeks give way, till Ajax rallies them: Aeneas sustains the Trojans. Aeneas and Hector Attempt the chariot of Achilles, which is borne off by Automedon. The horses of Achilles deplore the loss of Patroclus: Jupiter covers his body with a thick darkness: the noble prayer of Ajax on that occasion. Menelaus sends Antilochus to Achilles, with the news of Patroclus’ death: then returns to the fight, where, though attacked with the utmost fury, he and Meriones, assisted by the Ajaces, bear off the body to the ships.

The time is the evening of the eight-and-twentieth day. The scene lies in the fields before Troy.

On the cold earth divine Patroclus spread,

Lies pierced with wounds among the vulgar dead.

Great Menelaus, touch’d with generous woe,

Springs to the front, and guards him from the foe.

Thus round her new-fallen young the heifer moves,

Fruit of her throes, and first-born of her loves;

And anxious (helpless as he lies, and bare)

Turns, and re-turns her, with a mother’s care,

Opposed to each that near the carcase came,

His broad shield glimmers, and his lances flame.

The son of Panthus, skill’d the dart to send,

Eyes the dead hero, and insults the friend.

“This hand, Atrides, laid Patroclus low;

Warrior! desist, nor tempt an equal blow:

To me the spoils my prowess won, resign:

Depart with life, and leave the glory mine”

The Trojan thus: the Spartan monarch burn’d

With generous anguish, and in scorn return’d:

“Laugh’st thou not, Jove! from thy superior throne,

When mortals boast of prowess not their own?

Not thus the lion glories in his might,

Nor panther braves his spotted foe in fight,

Nor thus the boar (those terrors of the plain;)

Man only vaunts his force, and vaunts in vain.

But far the vainest of the boastful kind,

These sons of Panthus vent their haughty mind.

Yet ’twas but late, beneath my conquering steel

This boaster’s brother, Hyperenor, fell;

Against our arm which rashly he defied,

Vain was his vigour, and as vain his pride.

These eyes beheld him on the dust expire,

No more to cheer his spouse, or glad his sire.

Presumptuous youth! like his shall be thy doom,

Go, wait thy brother to the Stygian gloom;

Or, while thou may’st, avoid the threaten’d fate;

Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late.”

Unmoved, Euphorbus thus: “That action known,

Come, for my brother’s blood repay thy own.

His weeping father claims thy destined head,

And spouse, a widow in her bridal bed.

On these thy conquer’d spoils I shall bestow,

To soothe a consort’s and a parent’s woe.

No longer then defer the glorious strife,

Let heaven decide our fortune, fame, and life.”

Swift as the word the missile lance he flings;

The well-aim’d weapon on the buckler rings,

But blunted by the brass, innoxious falls.

On Jove the father great Atrides calls,

Nor flies the javelin from his arm in vain,

It pierced his throat, and bent him to the plain;

Wide through the neck appears the grisly wound,

Prone sinks the warrior, and his arms resound.

The shining circlets of his golden hair,

Which even the Graces might be proud to wear,

Instarr’d with gems and gold, bestrow the shore,

With dust dishonour’d, and deform’d with gore.

As the young olive, in some sylvan scene,

Crown’d by fresh fountains with eternal green,

Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair,

And plays and dances to the gentle air;

When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades

The tender plant, and withers all its shades;

It lies uprooted from its genial bed,

A lovely ruin now defaced and dead:

Thus young, thus beautiful, Euphorbus lay,

While the fierce Spartan tore his arms away.

Proud of his deed, and glorious in the prize,

Affrighted Troy the towering victor flies:

Flies, as before some mountain lion’s ire

The village curs and trembling swains retire,

When o’er the slaughter’d bull they hear him roar,

And see his jaws distil with smoking gore:

All pale with fear, at distance scatter’d round,

They shout incessant, and the vales resound.

Meanwhile Apollo view’d with envious eyes,

And urged great Hector to dispute the prize;

(In Mentes’ shape, beneath whose martial care

The rough Ciconians learn’d the trade of war;)²⁴⁷

“Forbear (he cried) with fruitless speed to chase

Achilles’ coursers, of ethereal race;

They stoop not, these, to mortal man’s command,

Or stoop to none but great Achilles’ hand.

Too long amused with a pursuit so vain,

Turn, and behold the brave Euphorbus slain;

By Sparta slain! for ever now suppress’d

The fire which burn’d in that undaunted breast!”

Thus having spoke, Apollo wing’d his flight,

And mix’d with mortals in the toils of fight:

His words infix’d unutterable care

Deep in great Hector’s soul: through all the war

He darts his anxious eye; and, instant, view’d

The breathless hero in his blood imbued,

(Forth welling from the wound, as prone he lay)

And in the victor’s hands the shining prey.

Sheath’d in bright arms, through cleaving ranks he flies,

And sends his voice in thunder to the skies:

Fierce as a flood of flame by Vulcan sent,

It flew, and fired the nations as it went.

Atrides from the voice the storm divined,

And thus explored his own unconquer’d mind:

“Then shall I quit Patroclus on the plain,

Slain in my cause, and for my honour slain!

Desert the arms, the relics, of my friend?

Or singly, Hector and his troops attend?

Sure where such partial favour heaven bestow’d,

To brave the hero were to brave the god:

Forgive me, Greece, if once I quit the field;

’Tis not to Hector, but to heaven I yield.

Yet, nor the god, nor heaven, should give me fear,

Did but the voice of Ajax reach my ear:

Still would we turn, still battle on the plains,

And give Achilles all that yet remains

Of his and our Patroclus—” This, no more

The time allow’d: Troy thicken’d on the shore.

A sable scene! The terrors Hector led.

Slow he recedes, and sighing quits the dead.

So from the fold the unwilling lion parts,

Forced by loud clamours, and a storm of darts;

He flies indeed, but threatens as he flies,

With heart indignant and retorted eyes.

Now enter’d in the Spartan ranks, he turn’d

His manly breast, and with new fury burn’d;

O’er all the black battalions sent his view,

And through the cloud the godlike Ajax knew;

Where labouring on the left the warrior stood,

All grim in arms, and cover’d o’er with blood;

There breathing courage, where the god of day

Had sunk each heart with terror and dismay.

To him the king: “Oh Ajax, oh my friend!

Haste, and Patroclus’ loved remains defend:

The body to Achilles to restore

Demands our care; alas, we can no more!

For naked now, despoiled of arms, he lies;

And Hector glories in the dazzling prize.”

He said, and touch’d his heart. The raging pair

Pierced the thick battle, and provoke the war.

Already had stern Hector seized his head,

And doom’d to Trojan gods the unhappy dead;

But soon as Ajax rear’d his tower-like shield,

Sprung to his car, and measured back the field,

His train to Troy the radiant armour bear,

To stand a trophy of his fame in war.

Meanwhile great Ajax (his broad shield display’d)

Guards the dead hero with the dreadful shade;

And now before, and now behind he stood:

Thus in the centre of some gloomy wood,

With many a step, the lioness surrounds

Her tawny young, beset by men and hounds;

Elate her heart, and rousing all her powers,

Dark o’er the fiery balls each hanging eyebrow lours.

Fast by his side the generous Spartan glows

With great revenge, and feeds his inward woes.

But Glaucus, leader of the Lycian aids,

On Hector frowning, thus his flight upbraids:

“Where now in Hector shall we Hector find?

A manly form, without a manly mind.

Is this, O chief! a hero’s boasted fame?

How vain, without the merit, is the name!

Since battle is renounced, thy thoughts employ

What other methods may preserve thy Troy:

’Tis time to try if Ilion’s state can stand

By thee alone, nor ask a foreign hand:

Mean, empty boast! but shall the Lycians stake

Their lives for you? those Lycians you forsake?

What from thy thankless arms can we expect?

Thy friend Sarpedon proves thy base neglect;

Say, shall our slaughter’d bodies guard your walls,

While unreveng’d the great Sarpedon falls?

Even where he died for Troy, you left him there,

A feast for dogs, and all the fowls of air.

On my command if any Lycian wait,

Hence let him march, and give up Troy to fate.

Did such a spirit as the gods impart

Impel one Trojan hand or Trojan heart,

(Such as should burn in every soul that draws

The sword for glory, and his country’s cause)

Even yet our mutual arms we might employ,

And drag yon carcase to the walls of Troy.

Oh! were Patroclus ours, we might obtain

Sarpedon’s arms and honour’d corse again!

Greece with Achilles’ friend should be repaid,

And thus due honours purchased to his shade.

But words are vain—Let Ajax once appear,

And Hector trembles and recedes with fear;

Thou dar’st not meet the terrors of his eye;

And lo! already thou prepar’st to fly.”

The Trojan chief with fix’d resentment eyed

The Lycian leader, and sedate replied:

“Say, is it just, my friend, that Hector’s ear

From such a warrior such a speech should hear?

I deem’d thee once the wisest of thy kind,

But ill this insult suits a prudent mind.

I shun great Ajax? I desert my train?

’Tis mine to prove the rash assertion vain;

I joy to mingle where the battle bleeds,

And hear the thunder of the sounding steeds.

But Jove’s high will is ever uncontroll’d,

The strong he withers, and confounds the bold;

Now crowns with fame the mighty man, and now

Strikes the fresh garland from the victor’s brow!

Come, through yon squadrons let us hew the way,

And thou be witness, if I fear to-day;

If yet a Greek the sight of Hector dread,

Or yet their hero dare defend the dead.”

Then turning to the martial hosts, he cries:

“Ye Trojans, Dardans, Lycians, and allies!

Be men, my friends, in action as in name,

And yet be mindful of your ancient fame.

Hector in proud Achilles’ arms shall shine,

Torn from his friend, by right of conquest mine.”

He strode along the field, as thus he said:

(The sable plumage nodded o’er his head:)

Swift through the spacious plain he sent a look;

One instant saw, one instant overtook

The distant band, that on the sandy shore

The radiant spoils to sacred Ilion bore.

There his own mail unbraced the field bestrow’d;

His train to Troy convey’d the massy load.

Now blazing in the immortal arms he stands;

The work and present of celestial hands;

By aged Peleus to Achilles given,

As first to Peleus by the court of heaven:

His father’s arms not long Achilles wears,

Forbid by fate to reach his father’s years.

Him, proud in triumph, glittering from afar,

The god whose thunder rends the troubled air

Beheld with pity; as apart he sat,

And, conscious, look’d through all the scene of fate.

He shook the sacred honours of his head;

Olympus trembled, and the godhead said;

“Ah, wretched man! unmindful of thy end!

A moment’s glory; and what fates attend!

In heavenly panoply divinely bright

Thou stand’st, and armies tremble at thy sight,

As at Achilles’ self! beneath thy dart

Lies slain the great Achilles’ dearer part.

Thou from the mighty dead those arms hast torn,

Which once the greatest of mankind had worn.

Yet live! I give thee one illustrious day,

A blaze of glory ere thou fad’st away.

For ah! no more Andromache shall come

With joyful tears to welcome Hector home;

No more officious, with endearing charms,

From thy tired limbs unbrace Pelides’ arms!”

Then with his sable brow he gave the nod

That seals his word; the sanction of the god.

The stubborn arms (by Jove’s command disposed)

Conform’d spontaneous, and around him closed:

Fill’d with the god, enlarged his members grew,

Through all his veins a sudden vigour flew,

The blood in brisker tides began to roll,

And Mars himself came rushing on his soul.

Exhorting loud through all the field he strode,

And look’d, and moved, Achilles, or a god.

Now Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon, he inspires,

Now Phorcys, Chromius, and Hippothous fires;

The great Thersilochus like fury found,

Asteropaeus kindled at the sound,

And Ennomus, in augury renown’d.

“Hear, all ye hosts, and hear, unnumber’d bands

Of neighbouring nations, or of distant lands!

’Twas not for state we summon’d you so far,

To boast our numbers, and the pomp of war:

Ye came to fight; a valiant foe to chase,

To save our present, and our future race.

Tor this, our wealth, our products, you enjoy,

And glean the relics of exhausted Troy.

Now then, to conquer or to die prepare;

To die or conquer are the terms of war.

Whatever hand shall win Patroclus slain,

Whoe’er shall drag him to the Trojan train,

With Hector’s self shall equal honours claim;

With Hector part the spoil, and share the fame.”

Fired by his words, the troops dismiss their fears,

They join, they thicken, they protend their spears;

Full on the Greeks they drive in firm array,

And each from Ajax hopes the glorious prey:

Vain hope! what numbers shall the field o’erspread,

What victims perish round the mighty dead!

Great Ajax mark’d the growing storm from far,

And thus bespoke his brother of the war:

“Our fatal day, alas! is come, my friend;

And all our wars and glories at an end!

’Tis not this corse alone we guard in vain,

Condemn’d to vultures on the Trojan plain;

We too must yield: the same sad fate must fall

On thee, on me, perhaps, my friend, on all.

See what a tempest direful Hector spreads,

And lo! it bursts, it thunders on our heads!

Call on our Greeks, if any hear the call,

The bravest Greeks: this hour demands them all.”

The warrior raised his voice, and wide around

The field re-echoed the distressful sound.

“O chiefs! O princes, to whose hand is given

The rule of men; whose glory is from heaven!

Whom with due honours both Atrides grace:

Ye guides and guardians of our Argive race!

All, whom this well-known voice shall reach from far,

All, whom I see not through this cloud of war;

Come all! let generous rage your arms employ,

And save Patroclus from the dogs of Troy.”

Oilean Ajax first the voice obey’d,

Swift was his pace, and ready was his aid:

Next him Idomeneus, more slow with age,

And Merion, burning with a hero’s rage.

The long-succeeding numbers who can name?

But all were Greeks, and eager all for fame.

Fierce to the charge great Hector led the throng;

Whole Troy embodied rush’d with shouts along.

Thus, when a mountain billow foams and raves,

Where some swoln river disembogues his waves,

Full in the mouth is stopp’d the rushing tide,

The boiling ocean works from side to side,

The river trembles to his utmost shore,

And distant rocks re-bellow to the roar.

Nor less resolved, the firm Achaian band

With brazen shields in horrid circle stand.

Jove, pouring darkness o’er the mingled fight,

Conceals the warriors’ shining helms in night:

To him, the chief for whom the hosts contend

Had lived not hateful, for he lived a friend:

Dead he protects him with superior care.

Nor dooms his carcase to the birds of air.

The first attack the Grecians scarce sustain,

Repulsed, they yield; the Trojans seize the slain.

Then fierce they rally, to revenge led on

By the swift rage of Ajax Telamon.

(Ajax to Peleus’ son the second name,

In graceful stature next, and next in fame)

With headlong force the foremost ranks he tore;

So through the thicket bursts the mountain boar,

And rudely scatters, for a distance round,

The frighted hunter and the baying hound.

The son of Lethus, brave Pelasgus’ heir,

Hippothous, dragg’d the carcase through the war;

The sinewy ankles bored, the feet he bound

With thongs inserted through the double wound:

Inevitable fate o’ertakes the deed;

Doom’d by great Ajax’ vengeful lance to bleed:

It cleft the helmet’s brazen cheeks in twain;

The shatter’d crest and horse-hair strow the plain:

With nerves relax’d he tumbles to the ground:

The brain comes gushing through the ghastly wound:

He drops Patroclus’ foot, and o’er him spread,

Now lies a sad companion of the dead:

Far from Larissa lies, his native air,

And ill requites his parents’ tender care.

Lamented youth! in life’s first bloom he fell,

Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell.

Once more at Ajax Hector’s javelin flies;

The Grecian marking, as it cut the skies,

Shunn’d the descending death; which hissing on,

Stretch’d in the dust the great Iphytus’ son,

Schedius the brave, of all the Phocian kind

The boldest warrior and the noblest mind:

In little Panope, for strength renown’d,

He held his seat, and ruled the realms around.

Plunged in his throat, the weapon drank his blood,

And deep transpiercing through the shoulder stood;

In clanging arms the hero fell and all

The fields resounded with his weighty fall.

Phorcys, as slain Hippothous he defends,

The Telamonian lance his belly rends;

The hollow armour burst before the stroke,

And through the wound the rushing entrails broke:

In strong convulsions panting on the sands

He lies, and grasps the dust with dying hands.

Struck at the sight, recede the Trojan train:

The shouting Argives strip the heroes slain.

And now had Troy, by Greece compell’d to yield,

Fled to her ramparts, and resign’d the field;

Greece, in her native fortitude elate,

With Jove averse, had turn’d the scale of fate:

But Phoebus urged Æneas to the fight;

He seem’d like aged Periphas to sight:

(A herald in Anchises’ love grown old,

Revered for prudence, and with prudence bold.)

Thus he—“What methods yet, O chief! remain,

To save your Troy, though heaven its fall ordain?

There have been heroes, who, by virtuous care,

By valour, numbers, and by arts of war,

Have forced the powers to spare a sinking state,

And gain’d at length the glorious odds of fate:

But you, when fortune smiles, when Jove declares

His partial favour, and assists your wars,

Your shameful efforts ’gainst yourselves employ,

And force the unwilling god to ruin Troy.”

Æneas through the form assumed descries

The power conceal’d, and thus to Hector cries:

“Oh lasting shame! to our own fears a prey,

We seek our ramparts, and desert the day.

A god, nor is he less, my bosom warms,

And tells me, Jove asserts the Trojan arms.”

He spoke, and foremost to the combat flew:

The bold example all his hosts pursue.

Then, first, Leocritus beneath him bled,

In vain beloved by valiant Lycomede;

Who view’d his fall, and, grieving at the chance,

Swift to revenge it sent his angry lance;

The whirling lance, with vigorous force address’d,

Descends, and pants in Apisaon’s breast;

From rich Paeonia’s vales the warrior came,

Next thee, Asteropeus! in place and fame.

Asteropeus with grief beheld the slain,

And rush’d to combat, but he rush’d in vain:

Indissolubly firm, around the dead,

Rank within rank, on buckler buckler spread,

And hemm’d with bristled spears, the Grecians stood,

A brazen bulwark, and an iron wood.

Great Ajax eyes them with incessant care,

And in an orb contracts the crowded war,

Close in their ranks commands to fight or fall,

And stands the centre and the soul of all:

Fix’d on the spot they war, and wounded, wound

A sanguine torrent steeps the reeking ground:

On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled,

And, thickening round them, rise the hills of dead.

Greece, in close order, and collected might,

Yet suffers least, and sways the wavering fight;

Fierce as conflicting fires the combat burns,

And now it rises, now it sinks by turns.

In one thick darkness all the fight was lost;

The sun, the moon, and all the ethereal host

Seem’d as extinct: day ravish’d from their eyes,

And all heaven’s splendours blotted from the skies.

Such o’er Patroclus’ body hung the night,

The rest in sunshine fought, and open light;

Unclouded there, the aerial azure spread,

No vapour rested on the mountain’s head,

The golden sun pour’d forth a stronger ray,

And all the broad expansion flamed with day.

Dispersed around the plain, by fits they fight,

And here and there their scatter’d arrows light:

But death and darkness o’er the carcase spread,

There burn’d the war, and there the mighty bled.

Meanwhile the sons of Nestor, in the rear,

(Their fellows routed,) toss the distant spear,

And skirmish wide: so Nestor gave command,

When from the ships he sent the Pylian band.

The youthful brothers thus for fame contend,

Nor knew the fortune of Achilles’ friend;

In thought they view’d him still, with martial joy,

Glorious in arms, and dealing death to Troy.

But round the corse the heroes pant for breath,

And thick and heavy grows the work of death:

O’erlabour’d now, with dust, and sweat, and gore,

Their knees, their legs, their feet, are covered o’er;

Drops follow drops, the clouds on clouds arise,

And carnage clogs their hands, and darkness fills their eyes.

As when a slaughter’d bull’s yet reeking hide,

Strain’d with full force, and tugg’d from side to side,

The brawny curriers stretch; and labour o’er

The extended surface, drunk with fat and gore:

So tugging round the corse both armies stood;

The mangled body bathed in sweat and blood;

While Greeks and Ilians equal strength employ,

Now to the ships to force it, now to Troy.

Not Pallas’ self, her breast when fury warms,

Nor he whose anger sets the world in arms,

Could blame this scene; such rage, such horror reign’d;

Such, Jove to honour the great dead ordain’d.

Achilles in his ships at distance lay,

Nor knew the fatal fortune of the day;

He, yet unconscious of Patroclus’ fall,

In dust extended under Ilion’s wall,

Expects him glorious from the conquered plain,

And for his wish’d return prepares in vain;

Though well he knew, to make proud Ilion bend

Was more than heaven had destined to his friend.

Perhaps to him: this Thetis had reveal’d;

The rest, in pity to her son, conceal’d.

Still raged the conflict round the hero dead,

And heaps on heaps by mutual wounds they bled.

“Cursed be the man (even private Greeks would say)

Who dares desert this well-disputed day!

First may the cleaving earth before our eyes

Gape wide, and drink our blood for sacrifice;

First perish all, ere haughty Troy shall boast

We lost Patroclus, and our glory lost!”

Thus they: while with one voice the Trojans said,

“Grant this day, Jove! or heap us on the dead!”

Then clash their sounding arms; the clangours rise,

And shake the brazen concave of the skies.

Meantime, at distance from the scene of blood,

The pensive steeds of great Achilles stood:

Their godlike master slain before their eyes,

They wept, and shared in human miseries.

In vain Automedon now shakes the rein,

Now plies the lash, and soothes and threats in vain;

Nor to the fight nor Hellespont they go,

Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe:

Still as a tombstone, never to be moved,

On some good man or woman unreproved

Lays its eternal weight; or fix’d, as stands

A marble courser by the sculptor’s hands,

Placed on the hero’s grave. Along their face

The big round drops coursed down with silent pace,

Conglobing on the dust. Their manes, that late

Circled their arched necks, and waved in state,

Trail’d on the dust beneath the yoke were spread,

And prone to earth was hung their languid head:

Nor Jove disdain’d to cast a pitying look,

While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke:

“Unhappy coursers of immortal strain,

Exempt from age, and deathless, now in vain;

Did we your race on mortal man bestow,

Only, alas! to share in mortal woe?

For ah! what is there of inferior birth,

That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth;

What wretched creature of what wretched kind,

Than man more weak, calamitous, and blind?

A miserable race! but cease to mourn:

For not by you shall Priam’s son be borne

High on the splendid car: one glorious prize

He rashly boasts: the rest our will denies.

Ourself will swiftness to your nerves impart,

Ourself with rising spirits swell your heart.

Automedon your rapid flight shall bear

Safe to the navy through the storm of war.

For yet ’tis given to Troy to ravage o’er

The field, and spread her slaughters to the shore;

The sun shall see her conquer, till his fall

With sacred darkness shades the face of all.”

He said; and breathing in the immortal horse

Excessive spirit, urged them to the course;

From their high manes they shake the dust, and bear

The kindling chariot through the parted war:

So flies a vulture through the clamorous train

Of geese, that scream, and scatter round the plain.

From danger now with swiftest speed they flew,

And now to conquest with like speed pursue;

Sole in the seat the charioteer remains,

Now plies the javelin, now directs the reins:

Him brave Alcimedon beheld distress’d,

Approach’d the chariot, and the chief address’d:

“What god provokes thee rashly thus to dare,

Alone, unaided, in the thickest war?

Alas! thy friend is slain, and Hector wields

Achilles’ arms triumphant in the fields.”

“In happy time (the charioteer replies)

The bold Alcimedon now greets my eyes;

No Greek like him the heavenly steeds restrains,

Or holds their fury in suspended reins:

Patroclus, while he lived, their rage could tame,

But now Patroclus is an empty name!

To thee I yield the seat, to thee resign

The ruling charge: the task of fight be mine.”

He said. Alcimedon, with active heat,

Snatches the reins, and vaults into the seat.

His friend descends. The chief of Troy descried,

And call’d Æneas fighting near his side.

“Lo, to my sight, beyond our hope restored,

Achilles’ car, deserted of its lord!

The glorious steeds our ready arms invite,

Scarce their weak drivers guide them through the fight.

Can such opponents stand when we assail?

Unite thy force, my friend, and we prevail.”

The son of Venus to the counsel yields;

Then o’er their backs they spread their solid shields:

With brass refulgent the broad surface shined,

And thick bull-hides the spacious concave lined.

Them Chromius follows, Aretus succeeds;

Each hopes the conquest of the lofty steeds:

In vain, brave youths, with glorious hopes ye burn,

In vain advance! not fated to return.

Unmov’d, Automedon attends the fight,

Implores the Eternal, and collects his might.

Then turning to his friend, with dauntless mind:

“Oh keep the foaming coursers close behind!

Full on my shoulders let their nostrils blow,

For hard the fight, determined is the foe;

’Tis Hector comes: and when he seeks the prize,

War knows no mean; he wins it or he dies.”

Then through the field he sends his voice aloud,

And calls the Ajaces from the warring crowd,

With great Atrides. “Hither turn, (he said,)

Turn where distress demands immediate aid;

The dead, encircled by his friends, forego,

And save the living from a fiercer foe.

Unhelp’d we stand, unequal to engage

The force of Hector, and Æneas’ rage:

Yet mighty as they are, my force to prove

Is only mine: the event belongs to Jove.”

He spoke, and high the sounding javelin flung,

Which pass’d the shield of Aretus the young:

It pierced his belt, emboss’d with curious art,

Then in the lower belly struck the dart.

As when a ponderous axe, descending full,

Cleaves the broad forehead of some brawny bull:²⁴⁹

Struck ’twixt the horns, he springs with many a bound,

Then tumbling rolls enormous on the ground:

Thus fell the youth; the air his soul received,

And the spear trembled as his entrails heaved.

Now at Automedon the Trojan foe

Discharged his lance; the meditated blow,

Stooping, he shunn’d; the javelin idly fled,

And hiss’d innoxious o’er the hero’s head;

Deep rooted in the ground, the forceful spear

In long vibrations spent its fury there.

With clashing falchions now the chiefs had closed,

But each brave Ajax heard, and interposed;

Nor longer Hector with his Trojans stood,

But left their slain companion in his blood:

His arms Automedon divests, and cries,

“Accept, Patroclus, this mean sacrifice:

Thus have I soothed my griefs, and thus have paid,

Poor as it is, some offering to thy shade.”

So looks the lion o’er a mangled boar,

All grim with rage, and horrible with gore;

High on the chariot at one bound he sprung,

And o’er his seat the bloody trophies hung.

And now Minerva from the realms of air

Descends impetuous, and renews the war;

For, pleased at length the Grecian arms to aid,

The lord of thunders sent the blue-eyed maid.

As when high Jove denouncing future woe,

O’er the dark clouds extends his purple bow,

(In sign of tempests from the troubled air,

Or from the rage of man, destructive war,)

The drooping cattle dread the impending skies,

And from his half-till’d field the labourer flies:

In such a form the goddess round her drew

A livid cloud, and to the battle flew.

Assuming Phoenix’ shape on earth she falls,

And in his well-known voice to Sparta calls:

“And lies Achilles’ friend, beloved by all,

A prey to dogs beneath the Trojan wall?

What shame ‘o Greece for future times to tell,

To thee the greatest in whose cause he fell!”

“O chief, O father! (Atreus’ son replies)

O full of days! by long experience wise!

What more desires my soul, than here unmoved

To guard the body of the man I loved?

Ah, would Minerva send me strength to rear

This wearied arm, and ward the storm of war!

But Hector, like the rage of fire, we dread,

And Jove’s own glories blaze around his head!”

Pleased to be first of all the powers address’d,

She breathes new vigour in her hero’s breast,

And fills with keen revenge, with fell despite,

Desire of blood, and rage, and lust of fight.

So burns the vengeful hornet (soul all o’er),

Repulsed in vain, and thirsty still of gore;

(Bold son of air and heat) on angry wings

Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings.

Fired with like ardour fierce Atrides flew,

And sent his soul with every lance he threw.

There stood a Trojan, not unknown to fame,

Aetion’s son, and Podes was his name:

With riches honour’d, and with courage bless’d,

By Hector loved, his comrade, and his guest;

Through his broad belt the spear a passage found,

And, ponderous as he falls, his arms resound.

Sudden at Hector’s side Apollo stood,

Like Phaenops, Asius’ son, appear’d the god;

(Asius the great, who held his wealthy reign

In fair Abydos, by the rolling main.)

“Oh prince! (he cried) Oh foremost once in fame!

What Grecian now shall tremble at thy name?

Dost thou at length to Menelaus yield,

A chief once thought no terror of the field?

Yet singly, now, the long-disputed prize

He bears victorious, while our army flies:

By the same arm illustrious Podes bled;

The friend of Hector, unrevenged, is dead!”

This heard, o’er Hector spreads a cloud of woe,

Rage lifts his lance, and drives him on the foe.

But now the Eternal shook his sable shield,

That shaded Ide and all the subject field

Beneath its ample verge. A rolling cloud

Involved the mount; the thunder roar’d aloud;

The affrighted hills from their foundations nod,

And blaze beneath the lightnings of the god:

At one regard of his all-seeing eye

The vanquish’d triumph, and the victors fly.

Then trembled Greece: the flight Peneleus led;

For as the brave Boeotian turn’d his head

To face the foe, Polydamas drew near,

And razed his shoulder with a shorten’d spear:

By Hector wounded, Leitus quits the plain,

Pierced through the wrist; and raging with the pain,

Grasps his once formidable lance in vain.

As Hector follow’d, Idomen address’d

The flaming javelin to his manly breast;

The brittle point before his corslet yields;

Exulting Troy with clamour fills the fields:

High on his chariots the Cretan stood,

The son of Priam whirl’d the massive wood.

But erring from its aim, the impetuous spear

Struck to the dust the squire and charioteer

Of martial Merion: Coeranus his name,

Who left fair Lyctus for the fields of fame.

On foot bold Merion fought; and now laid low,

Had graced the triumphs of his Trojan foe,

But the brave squire the ready coursers brought,

And with his life his master’s safety bought.

Between his cheek and ear the weapon went,

The teeth it shatter’d, and the tongue it rent.

Prone from the seat he tumbles to the plain;

His dying hand forgets the falling rein:

This Merion reaches, bending from the car,

And urges to desert the hopeless war:

Idomeneus consents; the lash applies;

And the swift chariot to the navy flies.

Not Ajax less the will of heaven descried,

And conquest shifting to the Trojan side,

Turn’d by the hand of Jove. Then thus begun,

To Atreus’s seed, the godlike Telamon:

“Alas! who sees not Jove’s almighty hand

Transfers the glory to the Trojan band?

Whether the weak or strong discharge the dart,

He guides each arrow to a Grecian heart:

Not so our spears; incessant though they rain,

He suffers every lance to fall in vain.

Deserted of the god, yet let us try

What human strength and prudence can supply;

If yet this honour’d corse, in triumph borne,

May glad the fleets that hope not our return,

Who tremble yet, scarce rescued from their fates,

And still hear Hector thundering at their gates.

Some hero too must be despatch’d to bear

The mournful message to Pelides’ ear;

For sure he knows not, distant on the shore,

His friend, his loved Patroclus, is no more.

But such a chief I spy not through the host:

The men, the steeds, the armies, all are lost

In general darkness—Lord of earth and air!

Oh king! Oh father! hear my humble prayer:

Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore;

Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more:

If Greece must perish, we thy will obey,

But let us perish in the face of day!”

With tears the hero spoke, and at his prayer

The god relenting clear’d the clouded air;

Forth burst the sun with all-enlightening ray;

The blaze of armour flash’d against the day.

“Now, now, Atrides! cast around thy sight;

If yet Antilochus survives the fight,

Let him to great Achilles’ ear convey

The fatal news”—Atrides hastes away.

So turns the lion from the nightly fold,

Though high in courage, and with hunger bold,

Long gall’d by herdsmen, and long vex’d by hounds,

Stiff with fatigue, and fretted sore with wounds;

The darts fly round him from a hundred hands,

And the red terrors of the blazing brands:

Till late, reluctant, at the dawn of day

Sour he departs, and quits the untasted prey,

So moved Atrides from his dangerous place

With weary limbs, but with unwilling pace;

The foe, he fear’d, might yet Patroclus gain,

And much admonish’d, much adjured his train:

“O guard these relics to your charge consign’d,

And bear the merits of the dead in mind;

How skill’d he was in each obliging art;

The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart:

He was, alas! but fate decreed his end,

In death a hero, as in life a friend!”

So parts the chief; from rank to rank he flew,

And round on all sides sent his piercing view.

As the bold bird, endued with sharpest eye

Of all that wings the mid aerial sky,

The sacred eagle, from his walks above

Looks down, and sees the distant thicket move;

Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare,

Snatches his life amid the clouds of air.

Not with less quickness, his exerted sight

Pass’d this and that way, through the ranks of fight:

Till on the left the chief he sought, he found,

Cheering his men, and spreading deaths around:

To him the king: “Beloved of Jove! draw near,

For sadder tidings never touch’d thy ear;

Thy eyes have witness’d what a fatal turn!

How Ilion triumphs, and the Achaians mourn.

This is not all: Patroclus, on the shore

Now pale and dead, shall succour Greece no more.

Fly to the fleet, this instant fly, and tell

The sad Achilles, how his loved-one fell:

He too may haste the naked corse to gain:

The arms are Hector’s, who despoil’d the slain.”

The youthful warrior heard with silent woe,

From his fair eyes the tears began to flow:

Big with the mighty grief, he strove to say

What sorrow dictates, but no word found way.

To brave Laodocus his arms he flung,

Who, near him wheeling, drove his steeds along;

Then ran the mournful message to impart,

With tearful eyes, and with dejected heart.

Swift fled the youth: nor Menelaus stands

(Though sore distress’d) to aid the Pylian bands;

But bids bold Thrasymede those troops sustain;

Himself returns to his Patroclus slain.

“Gone is Antilochus (the hero said);

But hope not, warriors, for Achilles’ aid:

Though fierce his rage, unbounded be his woe,

Unarm’d, he fights not with the Trojan foe.

’Tis in our hands alone our hopes remain,

’Tis our own vigour must the dead regain,

And save ourselves, while with impetuous hate

Troy pours along, and this way rolls our fate.”

“’Tis well (said Ajax), be it then thy care,

With Merion’s aid, the weighty corse to rear;

Myself, and my bold brother will sustain

The shock of Hector and his charging train:

Nor fear we armies, fighting side by side;

What Troy can dare, we have already tried,

Have tried it, and have stood.” The hero said.

High from the ground the warriors heave the dead.

A general clamour rises at the sight:

Loud shout the Trojans, and renew the fight.

Not fiercer rush along the gloomy wood,

With rage insatiate, and with thirst of blood,

Voracious hounds, that many a length before

Their furious hunters, drive the wounded boar;

But if the savage turns his glaring eye,

They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.

Thus on retreating Greece the Trojans pour,

Wave their thick falchions, and their javelins shower:

But Ajax turning, to their fears they yield,

All pale they tremble and forsake the field.

While thus aloft the hero’s corse they bear,

Behind them rages all the storm of war:

Confusion, tumult, horror, o’er the throng

Of men, steeds, chariots, urged the rout along:

Less fierce the winds with rising flames conspire

To whelm some city under waves of fire;

Now sink in gloomy clouds the proud abodes,

Now crack the blazing temples of the gods;

The rumbling torrent through the ruin rolls,

And sheets of smoke mount heavy to the poles.

The heroes sweat beneath their honour’d load:

As when two mules, along the rugged road,

From the steep mountain with exerted strength

Drag some vast beam, or mast’s unwieldy length;

Inly they groan, big drops of sweat distil,

The enormous timber lumbering down the hill:

So these—Behind, the bulk of Ajax stands,

And breaks the torrent of the rushing bands.

Thus when a river swell’d with sudden rains

Spreads his broad waters o’er the level plains,

Some interposing hill the stream divides.

And breaks its force, and turns the winding tides.

Still close they follow, close the rear engage;

Aeneas storms, and Hector foams with rage:

While Greece a heavy, thick retreat maintains,

Wedged in one body, like a flight of cranes,

That shriek incessant, while the falcon, hung

High on poised pinions, threats their callow young.

So from the Trojan chiefs the Grecians fly,

Such the wild terror, and the mingled cry:

Within, without the trench, and all the way,

Strow’d in bright heaps, their arms and armour lay;

Such horror Jove impress’d! yet still proceeds

The work of death, and still the battle bleeds.

Book XVIII

ARGUMENT.

THE GRIEF OF ACHILLES, AND NEW ARMOUR MADE HIM BY VULCAN.

The news of the death of Patroclus is brought to Achilles by Antilochus. Thetis, hearing his lamentations, comes with all her sea- nymphs to comfort him. The speeches of the mother and son on this occasion. Iris appears to Achilles by the command of Juno, and orders him to show himself at the head of the intrenchments. The sight of him turns the fortunes of the day, and the body of Patroclus is carried off by the Greeks. The Trojans call a council, where Hector and Polydamas disagree in their opinions: but the advice of the former prevails, to remain encamped in the field. The grief of Achilles over the body of Patroclus.

Thetis goes to the palace of Vulcan to obtain new arms for her son. The description of the wonderful works of Vulcan: and, lastly, that noble one of the shield of Achilles.

The latter part of the nine-and-twentieth day, and the night ensuing, take up this book: the scene is at Achilles’ tent on the sea-shore, from whence it changes to the palace of Vulcan.

Thus like the rage of fire the combat burns,²⁵⁰

And now it rises, now it sinks by turns.

Meanwhile, where Hellespont’s broad waters flow,

Stood Nestor’s son, the messenger of woe:

There sat Achilles, shaded by his sails,

On hoisted yards extended to the gales;

Pensive he sat; for all that fate design’d

Rose in sad prospect to his boding mind.

Thus to his soul he said: “Ah! what constrains

The Greeks, late victors, now to quit the plains?

Is this the day, which heaven so long ago

Ordain’d, to sink me with the weight of woe?

(So Thetis warn’d;) when by a Trojan hand

The bravest of the Myrmidonian band

Should lose the light! Fulfilled is that decree;

Fallen is the warrior, and Patroclus he!

In vain I charged him soon to quit the plain,

And warn’d to shun Hectorean force in vain!”

Thus while he thinks, Antilochus appears,

And tells the melancholy tale with tears.

“Sad tidings, son of Peleus! thou must hear;

And wretched I, the unwilling messenger!

Dead is Patroclus! For his corse they fight;

His naked corse: his arms are Hector’s right.”

A sudden horror shot through all the chief,

And wrapp’d his senses in the cloud of grief;

Cast on the ground, with furious hands he spread

The scorching ashes o’er his graceful head;

His purple garments, and his golden hairs,

Those he deforms with dust, and these he tears;

On the hard soil his groaning breast he threw,

And roll’d and grovell’d, as to earth he grew.

The virgin captives, with disorder’d charms,

(Won by his own, or by Patroclus’ arms,)

Rush’d from their tents with cries; and gathering round,

Beat their white breasts, and fainted on the ground:

While Nestor’s son sustains a manlier part,

And mourns the warrior with a warrior’s heart;

Hangs on his arms, amidst his frantic woe,

And oft prevents the meditated blow.

Far in the deep abysses of the main,²⁵¹

With hoary Nereus, and the watery train,

The mother-goddess from her crystal throne

Heard his loud cries, and answer’d groan for groan.

The circling Nereids with their mistress weep,

And all the sea-green sisters of the deep.

Thalia, Glauce (every watery name),

Nesaea mild, and silver Spio came:

Cymothoe and Cymodoce were nigh,

And the blue languish of soft Alia’s eye.

Their locks Actaea and Limnoria rear,

Then Proto, Doris, Panope appear,

Thoa, Pherusa, Doto, Melita;

Agave gentle, and Amphithoe gay:

Next Callianira, Callianassa show

Their sister looks; Dexamene the slow,

And swift Dynamene, now cut the tides:

Iaera now the verdant wave divides:

Nemertes with Apseudes lifts the head,

Bright Galatea quits her pearly bed;

These Orythia, Clymene, attend,

Maera, Amphinome, the train extend;

And black Janira, and Janassa fair,

And Amatheia with her amber hair.

All these, and all that deep in ocean held

Their sacred seats, the glimmering grotto fill’d;

Each beat her ivory breast with silent woe,

Till Thetis’ sorrows thus began to flow:

“Hear me, and judge, ye sisters of the main!

How just a cause has Thetis to complain!

How wretched, were I mortal, were my fate!

How more than wretched in the immortal state!

Sprung from my bed a godlike hero came,

The bravest far that ever bore the name;

Like some fair olive, by my careful hand

He grew, he flourish’d and adorn’d the land

To Troy I sent him: but the fates ordain

He never, never must return again.

So short a space the light of heaven to view,

So short, alas! and fill’d with anguish too!

Hear how his sorrows echo through the shore!

I cannot ease them, but I must deplore;

I go at least to bear a tender part,

And mourn my loved-one with a mother’s heart.”

She said, and left the caverns of the main,

All bathed in tears; the melancholy train

Attend her way. Wide-opening part the tides,

While the long pomp the silver wave divides.

Approaching now, they touch’d the Trojan land;

Then, two by two, ascended up the strand.

The immortal mother, standing close beside

Her mournful offspring, to his sighs replied;

Along the coast their mingled clamours ran,

And thus the silver-footed dame began:

“Why mourns my son? thy late preferr’d request

The god has granted, and the Greeks distress’d:

Why mourns my son? thy anguish let me share,

Reveal the cause, and trust a parent’s care.”

He, deeply groaning—“To this cureless grief,

Not even the Thunderer’s favour brings relief.

Patroclus—Ah!—say, goddess, can I boast

A pleasure now? revenge itself is lost;

Patroclus, loved of all my martial train,

Beyond mankind, beyond myself is slain!

Lost are those arms the gods themselves bestow’d

On Peleus; Hector bears the glorious load.

Cursed be that day, when all the powers above

Thy charms submitted to a mortal love:

O hadst thou still, a sister of the main,

Pursued the pleasures of the watery reign:

And happier Peleus, less ambitious, led

A mortal beauty to his equal bed!

Ere the sad fruit of thy unhappy womb

Had caused such sorrows past, and woes to come.

For soon, alas! that wretched offspring slain,

New woes, new sorrows, shall create again.

’Tis not in fate the alternate now to give;

Patroclus dead, Achilles hates to live.

Let me revenge it on proud Hector’s heart,

Let his last spirit smoke upon my dart;

On these conditions will I breathe: till then,

I blush to walk among the race of men.”

A flood of tears, at this, the goddess shed:

“Ah then, I see thee dying, see thee dead!

When Hector falls, thou diest.”—“Let Hector die,

And let me fall! (Achilles made reply)

Far lies Patroclus from his native plain!

He fell, and falling, wish’d my aid in vain.

Ah then, since from this miserable day

I cast all hope of my return away;

Since, unrevenged, a hundred ghosts demand

The fate of Hector from Achilles’ hand;

Since here, for brutal courage far renown’d,

I live an idle burden to the ground,

(Others in council famed for nobler skill,

More useful to preserve, than I to kill,)

Let me—But oh! ye gracious powers above!

Wrath and revenge from men and gods remove:

Far, far too dear to every mortal breast,

Sweet to the soul, as honey to the taste:

Gathering like vapours of a noxious kind

From fiery blood, and darkening all the mind.

Me Agamemnon urged to deadly hate;

’Tis past—I quell it; I resign to fate.

Yes—I will meet the murderer of my friend;

Or (if the gods ordain it) meet my end.

The stroke of fate the strongest cannot shun:

The great Alcides, Jove’s unequall’d son,

To Juno’s hate, at length resign’d his breath,

And sunk the victim of all-conquering death.

So shall Achilles fall! stretch’d pale and dead,

No more the Grecian hope, or Trojan dread!

Let me, this instant, rush into the fields,

And reap what glory life’s short harvest yields.

Shall I not force some widow’d dame to tear

With frantic hands her long dishevell’d hair?

Shall I not force her breast to heave with sighs,

And the soft tears to trickle from her eyes?

Yes, I shall give the fair those mournful charms—

In vain you hold me—Hence! my arms! my arms!—

Soon shall the sanguine torrent spread so wide,

That all shall know Achilles swells the tide.”

“My son (coerulean Thetis made reply,

To fate submitting with a secret sigh,)

The host to succour, and thy friends to save,

Is worthy thee; the duty of the brave.

But canst thou, naked, issue to the plains?

Thy radiant arms the Trojan foe detains.

Insulting Hector bears the spoils on high,

But vainly glories, for his fate is nigh.

Yet, yet awhile thy generous ardour stay;

Assured, I meet thee at the dawn of day,

Charged with refulgent arms (a glorious load),

Vulcanian arms, the labour of a god.”

Then turning to the daughters of the main,

The goddess thus dismiss’d her azure train:

“Ye sister Nereids! to your deeps descend;

Haste, and our father’s sacred seat attend;

I go to find the architect divine,

Where vast Olympus’ starry summits shine:

So tell our hoary sire”—This charge she gave:

The sea-green sisters plunge beneath the wave:

Thetis once more ascends the bless’d abodes,

And treads the brazen threshold of the gods.

And now the Greeks from furious Hector’s force,

Urge to broad Hellespont their headlong course;

Nor yet their chiefs Patroclus’ body bore

Safe through the tempest to the tented shore.

The horse, the foot, with equal fury join’d,

Pour’d on the rear, and thunder’d close behind:

And like a flame through fields of ripen’d corn,

The rage of Hector o’er the ranks was borne.

Thrice the slain hero by the foot he drew;

Thrice to the skies the Trojan clamours flew:

As oft the Ajaces his assault sustain;

But check’d, he turns; repuls’d, attacks again.

With fiercer shouts his lingering troops he fires,

Nor yields a step, nor from his post retires:

So watchful shepherds strive to force, in vain,

The hungry lion from a carcase slain.

Even yet Patroclus had he borne away,

And all the glories of the extended day,

Had not high Juno from the realms of air,

Secret, despatch’d her trusty messenger.

The various goddess of the showery bow,

Shot in a whirlwind to the shore below;

To great Achilles at his ships she came,

And thus began the many-colour’d dame:

“Rise, son of Peleus! rise, divinely brave!

Assist the combat, and Patroclus save:

For him the slaughter to the fleet they spread,

And fall by mutual wounds around the dead.

To drag him back to Troy the foe contends:

Nor with his death the rage of Hector ends:

A prey to dogs he dooms the corse to lie,

And marks the place to fix his head on high.

Rise, and prevent (if yet you think of fame)

Thy friend’s disgrace, thy own eternal shame!”

“Who sends thee, goddess, from the ethereal skies?”

Achilles thus. And Iris thus replies:

“I come, Pelides! from the queen of Jove,

The immortal empress of the realms above;

Unknown to him who sits remote on high,

Unknown to all the synod of the sky.”

“Thou comest in vain (he cries, with fury warm’d);

Arms I have none, and can I fight unarm’d?

Unwilling as I am, of force I stay,

Till Thetis bring me at the dawn of day

Vulcanian arms: what other can I wield,

Except the mighty Telamonian shield?

That, in my friend’s defence, has Ajax spread,

While his strong lance around him heaps the dead:

The gallant chief defends Menoetius’ son,

And does what his Achilles should have done.”

“Thy want of arms (said Iris) well we know;

But though unarm’d, yet clad in terrors, go!

Let but Achilles o’er yon trench appear,

Proud Troy shall tremble, and consent to fear;

Greece from one glance of that tremendous eye

Shall take new courage, and disdain to fly.”

She spoke, and pass’d in air. The hero rose:

Her aegis Pallas o’er his shoulder throws;

Around his brows a golden cloud she spread;

A stream of glory flamed above his head.

As when from some beleaguer’d town arise

The smokes, high curling to the shaded skies;

(Seen from some island, o’er the main afar,

When men distress’d hang out the sign of war;)

Soon as the sun in ocean hides his rays,

Thick on the hills the flaming beacons blaze;

With long-projected beams the seas are bright,

And heaven’s high arch reflects the ruddy light:

So from Achilles’ head the splendours rise,

Reflecting blaze on blaze against the skies.

Forth march’d the chief, and distant from the crowd,

High on the rampart raised his voice aloud;

With her own shout Minerva swells the sound;

Troy starts astonish’d, and the shores rebound.

As the loud trumpet’s brazen mouth from far

With shrilling clangour sounds the alarm of war,

Struck from the walls, the echoes float on high,

And the round bulwarks and thick towers reply;

So high his brazen voice the hero rear’d:

Hosts dropp’d their arms, and trembled as they heard:

And back the chariots roll, and coursers bound,

And steeds and men lie mingled on the ground.

Aghast they see the living lightnings play,

And turn their eyeballs from the flashing ray.

Thrice from the trench his dreadful voice he raised,

And thrice they fled, confounded and amazed.

Twelve in the tumult wedged, untimely rush’d

On their own spears, by their own chariots crush’d:

While, shielded from the darts, the Greeks obtain

The long-contended carcase of the slain.

A lofty bier the breathless warrior bears:

Around, his sad companions melt in tears.

But chief Achilles, bending down his head,

Pours unavailing sorrows o’er the dead,

Whom late triumphant, with his steeds and car,

He sent refulgent to the field of war;

(Unhappy change!) now senseless, pale, he found,

Stretch’d forth, and gash’d with many a gaping wound.

Meantime, unwearied with his heavenly way,

In ocean’s waves the unwilling light of day

Quench’d his red orb, at Juno’s high command,

And from their labours eased the Achaian band.

The frighted Trojans (panting from the war,

Their steeds unharness’d from the weary car)

A sudden council call’d: each chief appear’d

In haste, and standing; for to sit they fear’d.

’Twas now no season for prolong’d debate;

They saw Achilles, and in him their fate.

Silent they stood: Polydamas at last,

Skill’d to discern the future by the past,

The son of Panthus, thus express’d his fears

(The friend of Hector, and of equal years;

The self-same night to both a being gave,

One wise in council, one in action brave):

“In free debate, my friends, your sentence speak;

For me, I move, before the morning break,

To raise our camp: too dangerous here our post,

Far from Troy walls, and on a naked coast.

I deem’d not Greece so dreadful, while engaged

In mutual feuds her king and hero raged;

Then, while we hoped our armies might prevail

We boldly camp’d beside a thousand sail.

I dread Pelides now: his rage of mind

Not long continues to the shores confined,

Nor to the fields, where long in equal fray

Contending nations won and lost the day;

For Troy, for Troy, shall henceforth be the strife,

And the hard contest not for fame, but life.

Haste then to Ilion, while the favouring night

Detains these terrors, keeps that arm from fight.

If but the morrow’s sun behold us here,

That arm, those terrors, we shall feel, not fear;

And hearts that now disdain, shall leap with joy,

If heaven permit them then to enter Troy.

Let not my fatal prophecy be true,

Nor what I tremble but to think, ensue.

Whatever be our fate, yet let us try

What force of thought and reason can supply;

Let us on counsel for our guard depend;

The town her gates and bulwarks shall defend.

When morning dawns, our well-appointed powers,

Array’d in arms, shall line the lofty towers.

Let the fierce hero, then, when fury calls,

Vent his mad vengeance on our rocky walls,

Or fetch a thousand circles round the plain,

Till his spent coursers seek the fleet again:

So may his rage be tired, and labour’d down!

And dogs shall tear him ere he sack the town.”

“Return! (said Hector, fired with stern disdain)

What! coop whole armies in our walls again?

Was’t not enough, ye valiant warriors, say,

Nine years imprison’d in those towers ye lay?

Wide o’er the world was Ilion famed of old

For brass exhaustless, and for mines of gold:

But while inglorious in her walls we stay’d,

Sunk were her treasures, and her stores decay’d;

The Phrygians now her scatter’d spoils enjoy,

And proud Maeonia wastes the fruits of Troy.

Great Jove at length my arms to conquest calls,

And shuts the Grecians in their wooden walls,

Darest thou dispirit whom the gods incite?

Flies any Trojan? I shall stop his flight.

To better counsel then attention lend;

Take due refreshment, and the watch attend.

If there be one whose riches cost him care,

Forth let him bring them for the troops to share;

’Tis better generously bestow’d on those,

Than left the plunder of our country’s foes.

Soon as the morn the purple orient warms,

Fierce on yon navy will we pour our arms.

If great Achilles rise in all his might,

His be the danger: I shall stand the fight.

Honour, ye gods! or let me gain or give;

And live he glorious, whosoe’er shall live!

Mars is our common lord, alike to all;

And oft the victor triumphs, but to fall.”

The shouting host in loud applauses join’d;

So Pallas robb’d the many of their mind;

To their own sense condemn’d, and left to choose

The worst advice, the better to refuse.

While the long night extends her sable reign,

Around Patroclus mourn’d the Grecian train.

Stern in superior grief Pelides stood;

Those slaughtering arms, so used to bathe in blood,

Now clasp his clay-cold limbs: then gushing start

The tears, and sighs burst from his swelling heart.

The lion thus, with dreadful anguish stung,

Roars through the desert, and demands his young;

When the grim savage, to his rifled den

Too late returning, snuffs the track of men,

And o’er the vales and o’er the forest bounds;

His clamorous grief the bellowing wood resounds.

So grieves Achilles; and, impetuous, vents

To all his Myrmidons his loud laments.

“In what vain promise, gods! did I engage,

When to console Menoetius’ feeble age,

I vowed his much-loved offspring to restore,

Charged with rich spoils, to fair Opuntia’s shore?²⁵²

But mighty Jove cuts short, with just disdain,

The long, long views of poor designing man!

One fate the warrior and the friend shall strike,

And Troy’s black sands must drink our blood alike:

Me too a wretched mother shall deplore,

An aged father never see me more!

Yet, my Patroclus! yet a space I stay,

Then swift pursue thee on the darksome way.

Ere thy dear relics in the grave are laid,

Shall Hector’s head be offer’d to thy shade;

That, with his arms, shall hang before thy shrine;

And twelve, the noblest of the Trojan line,

Sacred to vengeance, by this hand expire;

Their lives effused around thy flaming pyre.

Thus let me lie till then! thus, closely press’d,

Bathe thy cold face, and sob upon thy breast!

While Trojan captives here thy mourners stay,

Weep all the night and murmur all the day:

Spoils of my arms, and thine; when, wasting wide,

Our swords kept time, and conquer’d side by side.”

He spoke, and bade the sad attendants round

Cleanse the pale corse, and wash each honour’d wound.

A massy caldron of stupendous frame

They brought, and placed it o’er the rising flame:

Then heap’d the lighted wood; the flame divides

Beneath the vase, and climbs around the sides:

In its wide womb they pour the rushing stream;

The boiling water bubbles to the brim.

The body then they bathe with pious toil,

Embalm the wounds, anoint the limbs with oil,

High on a bed of state extended laid,

And decent cover’d with a linen shade;

Last o’er the dead the milk-white veil they threw;

That done, their sorrows and their sighs renew.

Meanwhile to Juno, in the realms above,

(His wife and sister,) spoke almighty Jove.

“At last thy will prevails: great Peleus’ son

Rises in arms: such grace thy Greeks have won.

Say (for I know not), is their race divine,

And thou the mother of that martial line?”

“What words are these? (the imperial dame replies,

While anger flash’d from her majestic eyes)

Succour like this a mortal arm might lend,

And such success mere human wit attend:

And shall not I, the second power above,

Heaven’s queen, and consort of the thundering Jove,

Say, shall not I one nation’s fate command,

Not wreak my vengeance on one guilty land?”

So they. Meanwhile the silver-footed dame

Reach’d the Vulcanian dome, eternal frame!

High-eminent amid the works divine,

Where heaven’s far-beaming brazen mansions shine.

There the lame architect the goddess found,

Obscure in smoke, his forges flaming round,

While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew;

And puffing loud, the roaring billows blew.

That day no common task his labour claim’d:

Full twenty tripods for his hall he framed,

That placed on living wheels of massy gold,

(Wondrous to tell,) instinct with spirit roll’d

From place to place, around the bless’d abodes

Self-moved, obedient to the beck of gods:

For their fair handles now, o’erwrought with flowers,

In moulds prepared, the glowing ore he pours.

Just as responsive to his thought the frame

Stood prompt to move, the azure goddess came:

Charis, his spouse, a grace divinely fair,

(With purple fillets round her braided hair,)

Observed her entering; her soft hand she press’d,

And, smiling, thus the watery queen address’d:

“What, goddess! this unusual favour draws?

All hail, and welcome! whatsoe’er the cause;

Till now a stranger, in a happy hour

Approach, and taste the dainties of the bower.”

High on a throne, with stars of silver graced,

And various artifice, the queen she placed;

A footstool at her feet: then calling, said,

“Vulcan, draw near, ’tis Thetis asks your aid.”

“Thetis (replied the god) our powers may claim,

An ever-dear, an ever-honour’d name!

When my proud mother hurl’d me from the sky,

(My awkward form, it seems, displeased her eye,)

She, and Eurynome, my griefs redress’d,

And soft received me on their silver breast.

Even then these arts employ’d my infant thought:

Chains, bracelets, pendants, all their toys, I wrought.

Nine years kept secret in the dark abode,

Secure I lay, conceal’d from man and god:

Deep in a cavern’d rock my days were led;

The rushing ocean murmur’d o’er my head.

Now, since her presence glads our mansion, say,

For such desert what service can I pay?

Vouchsafe, O Thetis! at our board to share

The genial rites, and hospitable fare;

While I the labours of the forge forego,

And bid the roaring bellows cease to blow.”

Then from his anvil the lame artist rose;

Wide with distorted legs oblique he goes,

And stills the bellows, and (in order laid)

Locks in their chests his instruments of trade.

Then with a sponge the sooty workman dress’d

His brawny arms embrown’d, and hairy breast.

With his huge sceptre graced, and red attire,

Came halting forth the sovereign of the fire:

The monarch’s steps two female forms uphold,

That moved and breathed in animated gold;

To whom was voice, and sense, and science given

Of works divine (such wonders are in heaven!)

On these supported, with unequal gait,

He reach’d the throne where pensive Thetis sate;

There placed beside her on the shining frame,

He thus address’d the silver-footed dame:

“Thee, welcome, goddess! what occasion calls

(So long a stranger) to these honour’d walls?

’Tis thine, fair Thetis, the command to lay,

And Vulcan’s joy and duty to obey.”

To whom the mournful mother thus replies:

(The crystal drops stood trembling in her eyes:)

“O Vulcan! say, was ever breast divine

So pierced with sorrows, so o’erwhelm’d as mine?

Of all the goddesses, did Jove prepare

For Thetis only such a weight of care?

I, only I, of all the watery race

By force subjected to a man’s embrace,

Who, sinking now with age and sorrow, pays

The mighty fine imposed on length of days.

Sprung from my bed, a godlike hero came,

The bravest sure that ever bore the name;

Like some fair plant beneath my careful hand

He grew, he flourish’d, and he graced the land:

To Troy I sent him! but his native shore

Never, ah never, shall receive him more;

(Even while he lives, he wastes with secret woe;)

Nor I, a goddess, can retard the blow!

Robb’d of the prize the Grecian suffrage gave,

The king of nations forced his royal slave:

For this he grieved; and, till the Greeks oppress’d

Required his arm, he sorrow’d unredress’d.

Large gifts they promise, and their elders send;

In vain—he arms not, but permits his friend

His arms, his steeds, his forces to employ:

He marches, combats, almost conquers Troy:

Then slain by Phoebus (Hector had the name)

At once resigns his armour, life, and fame.

But thou, in pity, by my prayer be won:

Grace with immortal arms this short-lived son,

And to the field in martial pomp restore,

To shine with glory, till he shines no more!”

To her the artist-god: “Thy griefs resign,

Secure, what Vulcan can, is ever thine.

O could I hide him from the Fates, as well,

Or with these hands the cruel stroke repel,

As I shall forge most envied arms, the gaze

Of wondering ages, and the world’s amaze!”

Thus having said, the father of the fires

To the black labours of his forge retires.

Soon as he bade them blow, the bellows turn’d

Their iron mouths; and where the furnace burn’d,

Resounding breathed: at once the blast expires,

And twenty forges catch at once the fires;

Just as the god directs, now loud, now low,

They raise a tempest, or they gently blow;

In hissing flames huge silver bars are roll’d,

And stubborn brass, and tin, and solid gold;

Before, deep fix’d, the eternal anvils stand;

The ponderous hammer loads his better hand,

His left with tongs turns the vex’d metal round,

And thick, strong strokes, the doubling vaults rebound.

Then first he form’d the immense and solid shield;

Rich various artifice emblazed the field;

Its utmost verge a threefold circle bound;²⁵³

A silver chain suspends the massy round;

Five ample plates the broad expanse compose,

And godlike labours on the surface rose.

There shone the image of the master-mind:

There earth, there heaven, there ocean he design’d;

The unwearied sun, the moon completely round;

The starry lights that heaven’s high convex crown’d;

The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team;

And great Orion’s more refulgent beam;

To which, around the axle of the sky,

The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye,

Still shines exalted on the ethereal plain,

Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main.

Two cities radiant on the shield appear,

The image one of peace, and one of war.

Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,

And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite;

Along the street the new-made brides are led,

With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed:

The youthful dancers in a circle bound

To the soft flute, and cithern’s silver sound:

Through the fair streets the matrons in a row

Stand in their porches, and enjoy the show.

There in the forum swarm a numerous train;

The subject of debate, a townsman slain:

One pleads the fine discharged, which one denied,

And bade the public and the laws decide:

The witness is produced on either hand:

For this, or that, the partial people stand:

The appointed heralds still the noisy bands,

And form a ring, with sceptres in their hands:

On seats of stone, within the sacred place,²⁵⁴

The reverend elders nodded o’er the case;

Alternate, each the attesting sceptre took,

And rising solemn, each his sentence spoke

Two golden talents lay amidst, in sight,

The prize of him who best adjudged the right.

Another part (a prospect differing far)²⁵⁵

Glow’d with refulgent arms, and horrid war.

Two mighty hosts a leaguer’d town embrace,

And one would pillage, one would burn the place.

Meantime the townsmen, arm’d with silent care,

A secret ambush on the foe prepare:

Their wives, their children, and the watchful band

Of trembling parents, on the turrets stand.

They march; by Pallas and by Mars made bold:

Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold,

And gold their armour: these the squadron led,

August, divine, superior by the head!

A place for ambush fit they found, and stood,

Cover’d with shields, beside a silver flood.

Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful seem

If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream.

Soon the white flocks proceeded o’er the plains,

And steers slow-moving, and two shepherd swains;

Behind them piping on their reeds they go,

Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.

In arms the glittering squadron rising round

Rush sudden; hills of slaughter heap the ground;

Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains,

And, all amidst them, dead, the shepherd swains!

The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear;

They rise, take horse, approach, and meet the war,

They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood;

The waving silver seem’d to blush with blood.

There Tumult, there Contention stood confess’d;

One rear’d a dagger at a captive’s breast;

One held a living foe, that freshly bled

With new-made wounds; another dragg’d a dead;

Now here, now there, the carcases they tore:

Fate stalk’d amidst them, grim with human gore.

And the whole war came out, and met the eye;

And each bold figure seem’d to live or die.

A field deep furrow’d next the god design’d,²⁵⁶

The third time labour’d by the sweating hind;

The shining shares full many ploughmen guide,

And turn their crooked yokes on every side.

Still as at either end they wheel around,

The master meets them with his goblet crown’d;

The hearty draught rewards, renews their toil,

Then back the turning ploughshares cleave the soil:

Behind, the rising earth in ridges roll’d;

And sable look’d, though form’d of molten gold.

Another field rose high with waving grain;

With bended sickles stand the reaper train:

Here stretched in ranks the levell’d swarths are found,

Sheaves heap’d on sheaves here thicken up the ground.

With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands;

The gatherers follow, and collect in bands;

And last the children, in whose arms are borne

(Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn.

The rustic monarch of the field descries,

With silent glee, the heaps around him rise.

A ready banquet on the turf is laid,

Beneath an ample oak’s expanded shade.

The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare;

The reaper’s due repast, the woman’s care.

Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines,

Bent with the ponderous harvest of its vines;

A deeper dye the dangling clusters show,

And curl’d on silver props, in order glow:

A darker metal mix’d intrench’d the place;

And pales of glittering tin the inclosure grace.

To this, one pathway gently winding leads,

Where march a train with baskets on their heads,

(Fair maids and blooming youths,) that smiling bear

The purple product of the autumnal year.

To these a youth awakes the warbling strings,

Whose tender lay the fate of Linus sings;

In measured dance behind him move the train,

Tune soft the voice, and answer to the strain.

Here herds of oxen march, erect and bold,

Rear high their horns, and seem to low in gold,

And speed to meadows on whose sounding shores

A rapid torrent through the rushes roars:

Four golden herdsmen as their guardians stand,

And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band.

Two lions rushing from the wood appear’d;

And seized a bull, the master of the herd:

He roar’d: in vain the dogs, the men withstood;

They tore his flesh, and drank his sable blood.

The dogs (oft cheer’d in vain) desert the prey,

Dread the grim terrors, and at distance bay.

Next this, the eye the art of Vulcan leads

Deep through fair forests, and a length of meads,

And stalls, and folds, and scatter’d cots between;

And fleecy flocks, that whiten all the scene.

A figured dance succeeds; such once was seen

In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen,

Form’d by Daedalean art; a comely band

Of youths and maidens, bounding hand in hand.

The maids in soft simars of linen dress’d;

The youths all graceful in the glossy vest:

Of those the locks with flowery wreath inroll’d;

Of these the sides adorn’d with swords of gold,

That glittering gay, from silver belts depend.

Now all at once they rise, at once descend,

With well-taught feet: now shape in oblique ways,

Confusedly regular, the moving maze:

Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring,

And undistinguish’d blend the flying ring:

So whirls a wheel, in giddy circle toss’d,

And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are lost.

The gazing multitudes admire around:

Two active tumblers in the centre bound;

Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend:

And general songs the sprightly revel end.

Thus the broad shield complete the artist crown’d

With his last hand, and pour’d the ocean round:

In living silver seem’d the waves to roll,

And beat the buckler’s verge, and bound the whole.

This done, whate’er a warrior’s use requires

He forged; the cuirass that outshone the fires,

The greaves of ductile tin, the helm impress’d

With various sculpture, and the golden crest.

At Thetis’ feet the finished labour lay:

She, as a falcon cuts the aerial way,

Swift from Olympus’ snowy summit flies,

And bears the blazing present through the skies.

Book XIX

ARGUMENT.

THE RECONCILIATION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON.

Thetis brings to her son the armour made by Vulcan. She preserves the body of his friend from corruption, and commands him to assemble the army, to declare his resentment at an end. Agamemnon and Achilles are solemnly reconciled: the speeches, presents, and ceremonies on that occasion. Achilles is with great difficulty persuaded to refrain from the battle till the troops have refreshed themselves by the advice of Ulysses. The presents are conveyed to the tent of Achilles, where Briseis laments over the body of Patroclus. The hero obstinately refuses all repast, and gives himself up to lamentations for his friend. Minerva descends to strengthen him, by the order of Jupiter. He arms for the fight: his appearance described. He addresses himself to his horses, and reproaches them with the death of Patroclus. One of them is miraculously endued with voice, and inspired to prophesy his fate: but the hero, not astonished by that prodigy, rushes with fury to the combat.

The thirteenth day. The scene is on the sea-shore.

Soon as Aurora heaved her Orient head

Above the waves, that blush’d with early red,

(With new-born day to gladden mortal sight,

And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light,)

The immortal arms the goddess-mother bears

Swift to her son: her son she finds in tears

Stretch’d o’er Patroclus’ corse; while all the rest

Their sovereign’s sorrows in their own express’d.

A ray divine her heavenly presence shed,

And thus, his hand soft touching, Thetis said:

“Suppress, my son, this rage of grief, and know

It was not man, but heaven, that gave the blow;

Behold what arms by Vulcan are bestow’d,

Arms worthy thee, or fit to grace a god.”

Then drops the radiant burden on the ground;

Clang the strong arms, and ring the shores around;

Back shrink the Myrmidons with dread surprise,

And from the broad effulgence turn their eyes.

Unmoved the hero kindles at the show,

And feels with rage divine his bosom glow;

From his fierce eyeballs living flames expire,

And flash incessant like a stream of fire:

He turns the radiant gift: and feeds his mind

On all the immortal artist had design’d.

“Goddess! (he cried,) these glorious arms, that shine

With matchless art, confess the hand divine.

Now to the bloody battle let me bend:

But ah! the relics of my slaughter’d friend!

In those wide wounds through which his spirit fled,

Shall flies, and worms obscene, pollute the dead?”

“That unavailing care be laid aside,

(The azure goddess to her son replied,)

Whole years untouch’d, uninjured shall remain,

Fresh as in life, the carcase of the slain.

But go, Achilles, as affairs require,

Before the Grecian peers renounce thine ire:

Then uncontroll’d in boundless war engage,

And heaven with strength supply the mighty rage!”

Then in the nostrils of the slain she pour’d

Nectareous drops, and rich ambrosia shower’d

O’er all the corse. The flies forbid their prey,

Untouch’d it rests, and sacred from decay.

Achilles to the strand obedient went:

The shores resounded with the voice he sent.

The heroes heard, and all the naval train

That tend the ships, or guide them o’er the main,

Alarm’d, transported, at the well-known sound,

Frequent and full, the great assembly crown’d;

Studious to see the terror of the plain,

Long lost to battle, shine in arms again.

Tydides and Ulysses first appear,

Lame with their wounds, and leaning on the spear;

These on the sacred seats of council placed,

The king of men, Atrides, came the last:

He too sore wounded by Agenor’s son.

Achilles (rising in the midst) begun:

“O monarch! better far had been the fate

Of thee, of me, of all the Grecian state,

If (ere the day when by mad passion sway’d,

Rash we contended for the black-eyed maid)

Preventing Dian had despatch’d her dart,

And shot the shining mischief to the heart!

Then many a hero had not press’d the shore,

Nor Troy’s glad fields been fatten’d with our gore.

Long, long shall Greece the woes we caused bewail,

And sad posterity repeat the tale.

But this, no more the subject of debate,

Is past, forgotten, and resign’d to fate.

Why should, alas, a mortal man, as I,

Burn with a fury that can never die?

Here then my anger ends: let war succeed,

And even as Greece has bled, let Ilion bleed.

Now call the hosts, and try if in our sight

Troy yet shall dare to camp a second night!

I deem, their mightiest, when this arm he knows,

Shall ’scape with transport, and with joy repose.”

He said: his finish’d wrath with loud acclaim

The Greeks accept, and shout Pelides’ name.

When thus, not rising from his lofty throne,

In state unmoved, the king of men begun:

“Hear me, ye sons of Greece! with silence hear!

And grant your monarch an impartial ear:

Awhile your loud, untimely joy suspend,

And let your rash, injurious clamours end:

Unruly murmurs, or ill-timed applause,

Wrong the best speaker, and the justest cause.

Nor charge on me, ye Greeks, the dire debate:

Know, angry Jove, and all-compelling Fate,

With fell Erinnys, urged my wrath that day

When from Achilles’ arms I forced the prey.

What then could I against the will of heaven?

Not by myself, but vengeful Ate driven;

She, Jove’s dread daughter, fated to infest

The race of mortals, enter’d in my breast.

Not on the ground that haughty fury treads,

But prints her lofty footsteps on the heads

Of mighty men; inflicting as she goes

Long-festering wounds, inextricable woes!

Of old, she stalk’d amid the bright abodes;

And Jove himself, the sire of men and gods,

The world’s great ruler, felt her venom’d dart;

Deceived by Juno’s wiles, and female art:

For when Alcmena’s nine long months were run,

And Jove expected his immortal son,

To gods and goddesses the unruly joy

He show’d, and vaunted of his matchless boy:

‘From us, (he said) this day an infant springs,

Fated to rule, and born a king of kings.’

Saturnia ask’d an oath, to vouch the truth,

And fix dominion on the favour’d youth.

The Thunderer, unsuspicious of the fraud,

Pronounced those solemn words that bind a god.

The joyful goddess, from Olympus’ height,

Swift to Achaian Argos bent her flight:

Scarce seven moons gone, lay Sthenelus’s wife;

She push’d her lingering infant into life:

Her charms Alcmena’s coming labours stay,

And stop the babe, just issuing to the day.

Then bids Saturnius bear his oath in mind;

‘A youth (said she) of Jove’s immortal kind

Is this day born: from Sthenelus he springs,

And claims thy promise to be king of kings.’

Grief seized the Thunderer, by his oath engaged;

Stung to the soul, he sorrow’d, and he raged.

From his ambrosial head, where perch’d she sate,

He snatch’d the fury-goddess of debate,

The dread, the irrevocable oath he swore,

The immortal seats should ne’er behold her more;

And whirl’d her headlong down, for ever driven

From bright Olympus and the starry heaven:

Thence on the nether world the fury fell;

Ordain’d with man’s contentious race to dwell.

Full oft the god his son’s hard toils bemoan’d,

Cursed the dire fury, and in secret groan’d.²⁵⁸

Even thus, like Jove himself, was I misled,

While raging Hector heap’d our camps with dead.

What can the errors of my rage atone?

My martial troops, my treasures are thy own:

This instant from the navy shall be sent

Whate’er Ulysses promised at thy tent:

But thou! appeased, propitious to our prayer,

Resume thy arms, and shine again in war.”

“O king of nations! whose superior sway

(Returns Achilles) all our hosts obey!

To keep or send the presents, be thy care;

To us, ’tis equal: all we ask is war.

While yet we talk, or but an instant shun

The fight, our glorious work remains undone.

Let every Greek, who sees my spear confound

The Trojan ranks, and deal destruction round,

With emulation, what I act survey,

And learn from thence the business of the day.

The son of Peleus thus; and thus replies

The great in councils, Ithacus the wise:

“Though, godlike, thou art by no toils oppress’d,

At least our armies claim repast and rest:

Long and laborious must the combat be,

When by the gods inspired, and led by thee.

Strength is derived from spirits and from blood,

And those augment by generous wine and food:

What boastful son of war, without that stay,

Can last a hero through a single day?

Courage may prompt; but, ebbing out his strength,

Mere unsupported man must yield at length;

Shrunk with dry famine, and with toils declined,

The drooping body will desert the mind:

But built anew with strength-conferring fare,

With limbs and soul untamed, he tires a war.

Dismiss the people, then, and give command.

With strong repast to hearten every band;

But let the presents to Achilles made,

In full assembly of all Greece be laid.

The king of men shall rise in public sight,

And solemn swear (observant of the rite)

That, spotless, as she came, the maid removes,

Pure from his arms, and guiltless of his loves.

That done, a sumptuous banquet shall be made,

And the full price of injured honour paid.

Stretch not henceforth, O prince.! thy sovereign might

Beyond the bounds of reason and of right;

’Tis the chief praise that e’er to kings belong’d,

To right with justice whom with power they wrong’d.”

To him the monarch: “Just is thy decree,

Thy words give joy, and wisdom breathes in thee.

Each due atonement gladly I prepare;

And heaven regard me as I justly swear!

Here then awhile let Greece assembled stay,

Nor great Achilles grudge this short delay.

Till from the fleet our presents be convey’d,

And Jove attesting, the firm compact made.

A train of noble youths the charge shall bear;

These to select, Ulysses, be thy care:

In order rank’d let all our gifts appear,

And the fair train of captives close the rear:

Talthybius shall the victim boar convey,

Sacred to Jove, and yon bright orb of day.”

“For this (the stern Æacides replies)

Some less important season may suffice,

When the stern fury of the war is o’er,

And wrath, extinguish’d, burns my breast no more.

By Hector slain, their faces to the sky,

All grim with gaping wounds, our heroes lie:

Those call to war! and might my voice incite,

Now, now, this instant, shall commence the fight:

Then, when the day’s complete, let generous bowls,

And copious banquets, glad your weary souls.

Let not my palate know the taste of food,

Till my insatiate rage be cloy’d with blood:

Pale lies my friend, with wounds disfigured o’er,

And his cold feet are pointed to the door.

Revenge is all my soul! no meaner care,

Interest, or thought, has room to harbour there;

Destruction be my feast, and mortal wounds,

And scenes of blood, and agonizing sounds.”

“O first of Greeks, (Ulysses thus rejoin’d,)

The best and bravest of the warrior kind!

Thy praise it is in dreadful camps to shine,

But old experience and calm wisdom mine.

Then hear my counsel, and to reason yield,

The bravest soon are satiate of the field;

Though vast the heaps that strow the crimson plain,

The bloody harvest brings but little gain:

The scale of conquest ever wavering lies,

Great Jove but turns it, and the victor dies!

The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall,

And endless were the grief, to weep for all.

Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?

Greece honours not with solemn fasts the dead:

Enough, when death demands the brave, to pay

The tribute of a melancholy day.

One chief with patience to the grave resign’d,

Our care devolves on others left behind.

Let generous food supplies of strength produce,

Let rising spirits flow from sprightly juice,

Let their warm heads with scenes of battle glow,

And pour new furies on the feebler foe.

Yet a short interval, and none shall dare

Expect a second summons to the war;

Who waits for that, the dire effects shall find,

If trembling in the ships he lags behind.

Embodied, to the battle let us bend,

And all at once on haughty Troy descend.”

And now the delegates Ulysses sent,

To bear the presents from the royal tent:

The sons of Nestor, Phyleus’ valiant heir,

Thias and Merion, thunderbolts of war,

With Lycomedes of Creiontian strain,

And Melanippus, form’d the chosen train.

Swift as the word was given, the youths obey’d:

Twice ten bright vases in the midst they laid;

A row of six fair tripods then succeeds;

And twice the number of high-bounding steeds:

Seven captives next a lovely line compose;

The eighth Briseis, like the blooming rose,

Closed the bright band: great Ithacus, before,

First of the train, the golden talents bore:

The rest in public view the chiefs dispose,

A splendid scene! then Agamemnon rose:

The boar Talthybius held: the Grecian lord

Drew the broad cutlass sheath’d beside his sword:

The stubborn bristles from the victim’s brow

He crops, and offering meditates his vow.

His hands uplifted to the attesting skies,

On heaven’s broad marble roof were fixed his eyes.

The solemn words a deep attention draw,

And Greece around sat thrill’d with sacred awe.

“Witness thou first! thou greatest power above,

All-good, all-wise, and all-surveying Jove!

And mother-earth, and heaven’s revolving light,

And ye, fell furies of the realms of night,

Who rule the dead, and horrid woes prepare

For perjured kings, and all who falsely swear!

The black-eyed maid inviolate removes,

Pure and unconscious of my manly loves.

If this be false, heaven all its vengeance shed,

And levell’d thunder strike my guilty head!”

With that, his weapon deep inflicts the wound;

The bleeding savage tumbles to the ground;

The sacred herald rolls the victim slain

(A feast for fish) into the foaming main.

Then thus Achilles: “Hear, ye Greeks! and know

Whate’er we feel, ’tis Jove inflicts the woe;

Not else Atrides could our rage inflame,

Nor from my arms, unwilling, force the dame.

’Twas Jove’s high will alone, o’erruling all,

That doom’d our strife, and doom’d the Greeks to fall.

Go then, ye chiefs! indulge the genial rite;

Achilles waits ye, and expects the fight.”

The speedy council at his word adjourn’d:

To their black vessels all the Greeks return’d.

Achilles sought his tent. His train before

March’d onward, bending with the gifts they bore.

Those in the tents the squires industrious spread:

The foaming coursers to the stalls they led;

To their new seats the female captives move

Briseis, radiant as the queen of love,

Slow as she pass’d, beheld with sad survey

Where, gash’d with cruel wounds, Patroclus lay.

Prone on the body fell the heavenly fair,

Beat her sad breast, and tore her golden hair;

All beautiful in grief, her humid eyes

Shining with tears she lifts, and thus she cries:

“Ah, youth for ever dear, for ever kind,

Once tender friend of my distracted mind!

I left thee fresh in life, in beauty gay;

Now find thee cold, inanimated clay!

What woes my wretched race of life attend!

Sorrows on sorrows, never doom’d to end!

The first loved consort of my virgin bed

Before these eyes in fatal battle bled:

My three brave brothers in one mournful day

All trod the dark, irremeable way:

Thy friendly hand uprear’d me from the plain,

And dried my sorrows for a husband slain;

Achilles’ care you promised I should prove,

The first, the dearest partner of his love;

That rites divine should ratify the band,

And make me empress in his native land.

Accept these grateful tears! for thee they flow,

For thee, that ever felt another’s woe!”

Her sister captives echoed groan for groan,

Nor mourn’d Patroclus’ fortunes, but their own.

The leaders press’d the chief on every side;

Unmoved he heard them, and with sighs denied.

“If yet Achilles have a friend, whose care

Is bent to please him, this request forbear;

Till yonder sun descend, ah, let me pay

To grief and anguish one abstemious day.”

He spoke, and from the warriors turn’d his face:

Yet still the brother-kings of Atreus’ race,

Nestor, Idomeneus, Ulysses sage,

And Phoenix, strive to calm his grief and rage:

His rage they calm not, nor his grief control;

He groans, he raves, he sorrows from his soul.

“Thou too, Patroclus! (thus his heart he vents)

Once spread the inviting banquet in our tents:

Thy sweet society, thy winning care,

Once stay’d Achilles, rushing to the war.

But now, alas! to death’s cold arms resign’d,

What banquet but revenge can glad my mind?

What greater sorrow could afflict my breast,

What more if hoary Peleus were deceased?

Who now, perhaps, in Phthia dreads to hear

His son’s sad fate, and drops a tender tear.

What more, should Neoptolemus the brave,

My only offspring, sink into the grave?

If yet that offspring lives; (I distant far,

Of all neglectful, wage a hateful war.)

I could not this, this cruel stroke attend;

Fate claim’d Achilles, but might spare his friend.

I hoped Patroclus might survive, to rear

My tender orphan with a parent’s care,

From Scyros’ isle conduct him o’er the main,

And glad his eyes with his paternal reign,

The lofty palace, and the large domain.

For Peleus breathes no more the vital air;

Or drags a wretched life of age and care,

But till the news of my sad fate invades

His hastening soul, and sinks him to the shades.”

Sighing he said: his grief the heroes join’d,

Each stole a tear for what he left behind.

Their mingled grief the sire of heaven survey’d,

And thus with pity to his blue-eyed maid:

“Is then Achilles now no more thy care,

And dost thou thus desert the great in war?

Lo, where yon sails their canvas wings extend,

All comfortless he sits, and wails his friend:

Ere thirst and want his forces have oppress’d,

Haste and infuse ambrosia in his breast.”

He spoke; and sudden, at the word of Jove,

Shot the descending goddess from above.

So swift through ether the shrill harpy springs,

The wide air floating to her ample wings,

To great Achilles she her flight address’d,

And pour’d divine ambrosia in his breast,²⁵⁹

With nectar sweet, (refection of the gods!)

Then, swift ascending, sought the bright abodes.

Now issued from the ships the warrior-train,

And like a deluge pour’d upon the plain.

As when the piercing blasts of Boreas blow,

And scatter o’er the fields the driving snow;

From dusky clouds the fleecy winter flies,

Whose dazzling lustre whitens all the skies:

So helms succeeding helms, so shields from shields,

Catch the quick beams, and brighten all the fields;

Broad glittering breastplates, spears with pointed rays,

Mix in one stream, reflecting blaze on blaze;

Thick beats the centre as the coursers bound;

With splendour flame the skies, and laugh the fields around,

Full in the midst, high-towering o’er the rest,

His limbs in arms divine Achilles dress’d;

Arms which the father of the fire bestow’d,

Forged on the eternal anvils of the god.

Grief and revenge his furious heart inspire,

His glowing eyeballs roll with living fire;

He grinds his teeth, and furious with delay

O’erlooks the embattled host, and hopes the bloody day.

The silver cuishes first his thighs infold;

Then o’er his breast was braced the hollow gold;

The brazen sword a various baldric tied,

That, starr’d with gems, hung glittering at his side;

And, like the moon, the broad refulgent shield

Blazed with long rays, and gleam’d athwart the field.

So to night-wandering sailors, pale with fears,

Wide o’er the watery waste, a light appears,

Which on the far-seen mountain blazing high,

Streams from some lonely watch-tower to the sky:

With mournful eyes they gaze, and gaze again;

Loud howls the storm, and drives them o’er the main.

Next, his high head the helmet graced; behind

The sweepy crest hung floating in the wind:

Like the red star, that from his flaming hair

Shakes down diseases, pestilence, and war;

So stream’d the golden honours from his head,

Trembled the sparkling plumes, and the loose glories shed.

The chief beholds himself with wondering eyes;

His arms he poises, and his motions tries;

Buoy’d by some inward force, he seems to swim,

And feels a pinion lifting every limb.

And now he shakes his great paternal spear,

Ponderous and huge, which not a Greek could rear,

From Pelion’s cloudy top an ash entire

Old Chiron fell’d, and shaped it for his sire;

A spear which stern Achilles only wields,

The death of heroes, and the dread of fields.

Automedon and Alcimus prepare

The immortal coursers, and the radiant car;

(The silver traces sweeping at their side;)

Their fiery mouths resplendent bridles tied;

The ivory-studded reins, return’d behind,

Waved o’er their backs, and to the chariot join’d.

The charioteer then whirl’d the lash around,

And swift ascended at one active bound.

All bright in heavenly arms, above his squire

Achilles mounts, and sets the field on fire;

Not brighter Phoebus in the ethereal way

Flames from his chariot, and restores the day.

High o’er the host, all terrible he stands,

And thunders to his steeds these dread commands:

“Xanthus and Balius! of Podarges’ strain,

(Unless ye boast that heavenly race in vain,)

Be swift, be mindful of the load ye bear,

And learn to make your master more your care:

Through falling squadrons bear my slaughtering sword,

Nor, as ye left Patroclus, leave your lord.”

The generous Xanthus, as the words he said,

Seem’d sensible of woe, and droop’d his head:

Trembling he stood before the golden wain,

And bow’d to dust the honours of his mane.

When, strange to tell! (so Juno will’d) he broke

Eternal silence, and portentous spoke.

“Achilles! yes! this day at least we bear

Thy rage in safety through the files of war:

But come it will, the fatal time must come,

Not ours the fault, but God decrees thy doom.

Not through our crime, or slowness in the course,

Fell thy Patroclus, but by heavenly force;

The bright far-shooting god who gilds the day

(Confess’d we saw him) tore his arms way.

No—could our swiftness o’er the winds prevail,

Or beat the pinions of the western gale,

All were in vain—the Fates thy death demand,

Due to a mortal and immortal hand.”

Then ceased for ever, by the Furies tied,

His fateful voice. The intrepid chief replied

With unabated rage—“So let it be!

Portents and prodigies are lost on me.

I know my fate: to die, to see no more

My much-loved parents, and my native shore—

Enough—when heaven ordains, I sink in night:

Now perish Troy!” He said, and rush’d to fight.

Book XX

ARGUMENT.

THE BATTLE OF THE GODS, AND THE ACTS OF ACHILLES.

Jupiter, upon Achilles’ return to the battle, calls a council of the gods, and permits them to assist either party. The terrors of the combat described, when the deities are engaged. Apollo encourages Æneas to meet Achilles. After a long conversation, these two heroes encounter; but Æneas is preserved by the assistance of Neptune. Achilles falls upon the rest of the Trojans, and is upon the point of killing Hector, but Apollo conveys him away in a cloud. Achilles pursues the Trojans with a great slaughter.

The same day continues. The scene is in the field before Troy.

Thus round Pelides breathing war and blood

Greece, sheathed in arms, beside her vessels stood;

While near impending from a neighbouring height,

Troy’s black battalions wait the shock of fight.

Then Jove to Themis gives command, to call

The gods to council in the starry hall:

Swift o’er Olympus’ hundred hills she flies,

And summons all the senate of the skies.

These shining on, in long procession come

To Jove’s eternal adamantine dome.

Not one was absent, not a rural power

That haunts the verdant gloom, or rosy bower;

Each fair-hair’d dryad of the shady wood,

Each azure sister of the silver flood;

All but old Ocean, hoary sire! who keeps

His ancient seat beneath the sacred deeps.

On marble thrones, with lucid columns crown’d,

(The work of Vulcan,) sat the powers around.

Even he whose trident sways the watery reign

Heard the loud summons, and forsook the main,

Assumed his throne amid the bright abodes,

And question’d thus the sire of men and gods:

“What moves the god who heaven and earth commands,

And grasps the thunder in his awful hands,

Thus to convene the whole ethereal state?

Is Greece and Troy the subject in debate?

Already met, the louring hosts appear,

And death stands ardent on the edge of war.”

“’Tis true (the cloud-compelling power replies)

This day we call the council of the skies

In care of human race; even Jove’s own eye

Sees with regret unhappy mortals die.

Far on Olympus’ top in secret state

Ourself will sit, and see the hand of fate

Work out our will. Celestial powers! descend,

And as your minds direct, your succour lend

To either host. Troy soon must lie o’erthrown,

If uncontroll’d Achilles fights alone:

Their troops but lately durst not meet his eyes;

What can they now, if in his rage he rise?

Assist them, gods! or Ilion’s sacred wall

May fall this day, though fate forbids the fall.”

He said, and fired their heavenly breasts with rage.

On adverse parts the warring gods engage:

Heaven’s awful queen; and he whose azure round

Girds the vast globe; the maid in arms renown’d;

Hermes, of profitable arts the sire;

And Vulcan, the black sovereign of the fire:

These to the fleet repair with instant flight;

The vessels tremble as the gods alight.

In aid of Troy, Latona, Phoebus came,

Mars fiery-helm’d, the laughter-loving dame,

Xanthus, whose streams in golden currents flow,

And the chaste huntress of the silver bow.

Ere yet the gods their various aid employ,

Each Argive bosom swell’d with manly joy,

While great Achilles (terror of the plain),

Long lost to battle, shone in arms again.

Dreadful he stood in front of all his host;

Pale Troy beheld, and seem’d already lost;

Her bravest heroes pant with inward fear,

And trembling see another god of war.

But when the powers descending swell’d the fight,

Then tumult rose: fierce rage and pale affright

Varied each face: then Discord sounds alarms,

Earth echoes, and the nations rush to arms.

Now through the trembling shores Minerva calls,

And now she thunders from the Grecian walls.

Mars hovering o’er his Troy, his terror shrouds

In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds:

Now through each Trojan heart he fury pours

With voice divine, from Ilion’s topmost towers:

Now shouts to Simois, from her beauteous hill;

The mountain shook, the rapid stream stood still.

Above, the sire of gods his thunder rolls,

And peals on peals redoubled rend the poles.

Beneath, stern Neptune shakes the solid ground;

The forests wave, the mountains nod around;

Through all their summits tremble Ida’s woods,

And from their sources boil her hundred floods.

Troy’s turrets totter on the rocking plain,

And the toss’d navies beat the heaving main.

Deep in the dismal regions of the dead,²⁶⁰

The infernal monarch rear’d his horrid head,

Leap’d from his throne, lest Neptune’s arm should lay

His dark dominions open to the day,

And pour in light on Pluto’s drear abodes,

Abhorr’d by men, and dreadful even to gods.²⁶¹

Such war the immortals wage; such horrors rend

The world’s vast concave, when the gods contend

First silver-shafted Phoebus took the plain

Against blue Neptune, monarch of the main.

The god of arms his giant bulk display’d,

Opposed to Pallas, war’s triumphant maid.

Against Latona march’d the son of May.

The quiver’d Dian, sister of the day,

(Her golden arrows sounding at her side,)

Saturnia, majesty of heaven, defied.

With fiery Vulcan last in battle stands

The sacred flood that rolls on golden sands;

Xanthus his name with those of heavenly birth,

But called Scamander by the sons of earth.

While thus the gods in various league engage,

Achilles glow’d with more than mortal rage:

Hector he sought; in search of Hector turn’d

His eyes around, for Hector only burn’d;

And burst like lightning through the ranks, and vow’d

To glut the god of battles with his blood.

Æneas was the first who dared to stay;

Apollo wedged him in the warrior’s way,

But swell’d his bosom with undaunted might,

Half-forced and half-persuaded to the fight.

Like young Lycaon, of the royal line,

In voice and aspect, seem’d the power divine;

And bade the chief reflect, how late with scorn

In distant threats he braved the goddess-born.

Then thus the hero of Anchises’ strain:

“To meet Pelides you persuade in vain:

Already have I met, nor void of fear

Observed the fury of his flying spear;

From Ida’s woods he chased us to the field,

Our force he scattered, and our herds he kill’d;

Lyrnessus, Pedasus in ashes lay;

But (Jove assisting) I survived the day:

Else had I sunk oppress’d in fatal fight

By fierce Achilles and Minerva’s might.

Where’er he moved, the goddess shone before,

And bathed his brazen lance in hostile gore.

What mortal man Achilles can sustain?

The immortals guard him through the dreadful plain,

And suffer not his dart to fall in vain.

Were God my aid, this arm should check his power,

Though strong in battle as a brazen tower.”

To whom the son of Jove: “That god implore,

And be what great Achilles was before.

From heavenly Venus thou deriv’st thy strain,

And he but from a sister of the main;

An aged sea-god father of his line;

But Jove himself the sacred source of thine.

Then lift thy weapon for a noble blow,

Nor fear the vaunting of a mortal foe.”

This said, and spirit breathed into his breast,

Through the thick troops the embolden’d hero press’d:

His venturous act the white-arm’d queen survey’d,

And thus, assembling all the powers, she said:

“Behold an action, gods! that claims your care,

Lo great Æneas rushing to the war!

Against Pelides he directs his course,

Phoebus impels, and Phoebus gives him force.

Restrain his bold career; at least, to attend

Our favour’d hero, let some power descend.

To guard his life, and add to his renown,

We, the great armament of heaven, came down.

Hereafter let him fall, as Fates design,

That spun so short his life’s illustrious line:²⁶²

But lest some adverse god now cross his way,

Give him to know what powers assist this day:

For how shall mortal stand the dire alarms,

When heaven’s refulgent host appear in arms?”²⁶³

Thus she; and thus the god whose force can make

The solid globe’s eternal basis shake:

“Against the might of man, so feeble known,

Why should celestial powers exert their own?

Suffice from yonder mount to view the scene,

And leave to war the fates of mortal men.

But if the armipotent, or god of light,

Obstruct Achilles, or commence the fight.

Thence on the gods of Troy we swift descend:

Full soon, I doubt not, shall the conflict end;

And these, in ruin and confusion hurl’d,

Yield to our conquering arms the lower world.”

Thus having said, the tyrant of the sea,

Coerulean Neptune, rose, and led the way.

Advanced upon the field there stood a mound

Of earth congested, wall’d, and trench’d around;

In elder times to guard Alcides made,

(The work of Trojans, with Minerva’s aid,)

What time a vengeful monster of the main

Swept the wide shore, and drove him to the plain.

Here Neptune and the gods of Greece repair,

With clouds encompass’d, and a veil of air:

The adverse powers, around Apollo laid,

Crown the fair hills that silver Simois shade.

In circle close each heavenly party sat,

Intent to form the future scheme of fate;

But mix not yet in fight, though Jove on high

Gives the loud signal, and the heavens reply.

Meanwhile the rushing armies hide the ground;

The trampled centre yields a hollow sound:

Steeds cased in mail, and chiefs in armour bright,

The gleaming champaign glows with brazen light.

Amid both hosts (a dreadful space) appear,

There great Achilles; bold Æneas, here.

With towering strides Aeneas first advanced;

The nodding plumage on his helmet danced:

Spread o’er his breast the fencing shield he bore,

And, so he moved, his javelin flamed before.

Not so Pelides; furious to engage,

He rush’d impetuous. Such the lion’s rage,

Who viewing first his foes with scornful eyes,

Though all in arms the peopled city rise,

Stalks careless on, with unregarding pride;

Till at the length, by some brave youth defied,

To his bold spear the savage turns alone,

He murmurs fury with a hollow groan;

He grins, he foams, he rolls his eyes around

Lash’d by his tail his heaving sides resound;

He calls up all his rage; he grinds his teeth,

Resolved on vengeance, or resolved on death.

So fierce Achilles on Æneas flies;

So stands Æneas, and his force defies.

Ere yet the stern encounter join’d, begun

The seed of Thetis thus to Venus’ son:

“Why comes Æneas through the ranks so far?

Seeks he to meet Achilles’ arm in war,

In hope the realms of Priam to enjoy,

And prove his merits to the throne of Troy?

Grant that beneath thy lance Achilles dies,

The partial monarch may refuse the prize;

Sons he has many; those thy pride may quell:

And ’tis his fault to love those sons too well,

Or, in reward of thy victorious hand,

Has Troy proposed some spacious tract of land

An ample forest, or a fair domain,

Of hills for vines, and arable for grain?

Even this, perhaps, will hardly prove thy lot.

But can Achilles be so soon forgot?

Once (as I think) you saw this brandish’d spear

And then the great Æneas seem’d to fear:

With hearty haste from Ida’s mount he fled,

Nor, till he reach’d Lyrnessus, turn’d his head.

Her lofty walls not long our progress stay’d;

Those, Pallas, Jove, and we, in ruins laid:

In Grecian chains her captive race were cast;

’Tis true, the great Aeneas fled too fast.

Defrauded of my conquest once before,

What then I lost, the gods this day restore.

Go; while thou may’st, avoid the threaten’d fate;

Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late.”

To this Anchises’ son: “Such words employ

To one that fears thee, some unwarlike boy;

Such we disdain; the best may be defied

With mean reproaches, and unmanly pride;

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!

Book XXI

ARGUMENT.

THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER SCAMANDER.

The Trojans fly before Achilles, some towards the town, others to the river Scamander: he falls upon the latter with great slaughter: takes twelve captives alive, to sacrifice to the shade of Patroclus; and kills Lycaon and Asteropeus. Scamander attacks him with all his waves: Neptune and Pallas assist the hero: Simois joins Scamander: at length Vulcan, by the instigation of Juno, almost dries up the river. This Combat ended, the other gods engage each other. Meanwhile Achilles continues the slaughter, drives the rest into Troy: Agenor only makes a stand, and is conveyed away in a cloud by Apollo; who (to delude Achilles) takes upon him Agenor’s shape, and while he pursues him in that disguise, gives the Trojans an opportunity of retiring into their city.

The same day continues. The scene is on the banks and in the stream of Scamander.

And now to Xanthus’ gliding stream they drove,

Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove.

The river here divides the flying train,

Part to the town fly diverse o’er the plain,

Where late their troops triumphant bore the fight,

Now chased, and trembling in ignoble flight:

(These with a gathered mist Saturnia shrouds,

And rolls behind the rout a heap of clouds:)

Part plunge into the stream: old Xanthus roars,

The flashing billows beat the whiten’d shores:

With cries promiscuous all the banks resound,

And here, and there, in eddies whirling round,

The flouncing steeds and shrieking warriors drown’d.

As the scorch’d locusts from their fields retire,

While fast behind them runs the blaze of fire;

Driven from the land before the smoky cloud,

The clustering legions rush into the flood:

So, plunged in Xanthus by Achilles’ force,

Roars the resounding surge with men and horse.

His bloody lance the hero casts aside,

(Which spreading tamarisks on the margin hide,)

Then, like a god, the rapid billows braves,

Arm’d with his sword, high brandish’d o’er the waves:

Now down he plunges, now he whirls it round,

Deep groan’d the waters with the dying sound;

Repeated wounds the reddening river dyed,

And the warm purple circled on the tide.

Swift through the foamy flood the Trojans fly,

And close in rocks or winding caverns lie:

So the huge dolphin tempesting the main,

In shoals before him fly the scaly train,

Confusedly heap’d they seek their inmost caves,

Or pant and heave beneath the floating waves.

Now, tired with slaughter, from the Trojan band

Twelve chosen youths he drags alive to land;

With their rich belts their captive arms restrains

(Late their proud ornaments, but now their chains).

These his attendants to the ships convey’d,

Sad victims destined to Patroclus’ shade;

Then, as once more he plunged amid the flood,

The young Lycaon in his passage stood;

The son of Priam; whom the hero’s hand

But late made captive in his father’s land

(As from a sycamore, his sounding steel

Lopp’d the green arms to spoke a chariot wheel)

To Lemnos’ isle he sold the royal slave,

Where Jason’s son the price demanded gave;

But kind Eetion, touching on the shore,

The ransom’d prince to fair Arisbe bore.

Ten days were past, since in his father’s reign

He felt the sweets of liberty again;

The next, that god whom men in vain withstand

Gives the same youth to the same conquering hand

Now never to return! and doom’d to go

A sadder journey to the shades below.

His well-known face when great Achilles eyed,

(The helm and visor he had cast aside

With wild affright, and dropp’d upon the field

His useless lance and unavailing shield,)

As trembling, panting, from the stream he fled,

And knock’d his faltering knees, the hero said.

“Ye mighty gods! what wonders strike my view!

Is it in vain our conquering arms subdue?

Sure I shall see yon heaps of Trojans kill’d

Rise from the shades, and brave me on the field;

As now the captive, whom so late I bound

And sold to Lemnos, stalks on Trojan ground!

Not him the sea’s unmeasured deeps detain,

That bar such numbers from their native plain;

Lo! he returns. Try, then, my flying spear!

Try, if the grave can hold the wanderer;

If earth, at length this active prince can seize,

Earth, whose strong grasp has held down Hercules.”

Thus while he spoke, the Trojan pale with fears

Approach’d, and sought his knees with suppliant tears

Loth as he was to yield his youthful breath,

And his soul shivering at the approach of death.

Achilles raised the spear, prepared to wound;

He kiss’d his feet, extended on the ground:

And while, above, the spear suspended stood,

Longing to dip its thirsty point in blood,

One hand embraced them close, one stopp’d the dart,

While thus these melting words attempt his heart:

“Thy well-known captive, great Achilles! see,

Once more Lycaon trembles at thy knee.

Some pity to a suppliant’s name afford,

Who shared the gifts of Ceres at thy board;

Whom late thy conquering arm to Lemnos bore,

Far from his father, friends, and native shore;

A hundred oxen were his price that day,

Now sums immense thy mercy shall repay.

Scarce respited from woes I yet appear,

And scarce twelve morning suns have seen me here;

Lo! Jove again submits me to thy hands,

Again, her victim cruel Fate demands!

I sprang from Priam, and Laothoe fair,

(Old Altes’ daughter, and Lelegia’s heir;

Who held in Pedasus his famed abode,

And ruled the fields where silver Satnio flow’d,)

Two sons (alas! unhappy sons) she bore;

For ah! one spear shall drink each brother’s gore,

And I succeed to slaughter’d Polydore.

How from that arm of terror shall I fly?

Some demon urges! ’tis my doom to die!

If ever yet soft pity touch’d thy mind,

Ah! think not me too much of Hector’s kind!

Not the same mother gave thy suppliant breath,

With his, who wrought thy loved Patroclus’ death.”

These words, attended with a shower of tears,

The youth address’d to unrelenting ears:

“Talk not of life, or ransom (he replies):

Patroclus dead, whoever meets me, dies:

In vain a single Trojan sues for grace;

But least, the sons of Priam’s hateful race.

Die then, my friend! what boots it to deplore?

The great, the good Patroclus is no more!

He, far thy better, was foredoom’d to die,

And thou, dost thou bewail mortality?

Seest thou not me, whom nature’s gifts adorn,

Sprung from a hero, from a goddess born?

The day shall come (which nothing can avert)

When by the spear, the arrow, or the dart,

By night, or day, by force, or by design,

Impending death and certain fate are mine!

Die then,”—He said; and as the word he spoke,

The fainting stripling sank before the stroke:

His hand forgot its grasp, and left the spear,

While all his trembling frame confess’d his fear:

Sudden, Achilles his broad sword display’d,

And buried in his neck the reeking blade.

Prone fell the youth; and panting on the land,

The gushing purple dyed the thirsty sand.

The victor to the stream the carcase gave,

And thus insults him, floating on the wave:

“Lie there, Lycaon! let the fish surround

Thy bloated corpse, and suck thy gory wound:

There no sad mother shall thy funerals weep,

But swift Scamander roll thee to the deep,

Whose every wave some watery monster brings,

To feast unpunish’d on the fat of kings.

So perish Troy, and all the Trojan line!

Such ruin theirs, and such compassion mine.

What boots ye now Scamander’s worshipp’d stream,

His earthly honours, and immortal name?

In vain your immolated bulls are slain,

Your living coursers glut his gulfs in vain!

Thus he rewards you, with this bitter fate;

Thus, till the Grecian vengeance is complete:

Thus is atoned Patroclus’ honour’d shade,

And the short absence of Achilles paid.”

These boastful words provoked the raging god;

With fury swells the violated flood.

What means divine may yet the power employ

To check Achilles, and to rescue Troy?

Meanwhile the hero springs in arms, to dare

The great Asteropeus to mortal war;

The son of Pelagon, whose lofty line

Flows from the source of Axius, stream divine!

(Fair Peribaea’s love the god had crown’d,

With all his refluent waters circled round:)

On him Achilles rush’d; he fearless stood,

And shook two spears, advancing from the flood;

The flood impell’d him, on Pelides’ head

To avenge his waters choked with heaps of dead.

Near as they drew, Achilles thus began:

“What art thou, boldest of the race of man?

Who, or from whence? Unhappy is the sire

Whose son encounters our resistless ire.”

“O son of Peleus! what avails to trace

(Replied the warrior) our illustrious race?

From rich Paeonia’s valleys I command,

Arm’d with protended spears, my native band;

Now shines the tenth bright morning since I came

In aid of Ilion to the fields of fame:

Axius, who swells with all the neighbouring rills,

And wide around the floated region fills,

Begot my sire, whose spear much glory won:

Now lift thy arm, and try that hero’s son!”

Threatening he said: the hostile chiefs advance;

At once Asteropeus discharged each lance,

(For both his dexterous hands the lance could wield,)

One struck, but pierced not, the Vulcanian shield;

One razed Achilles’ hand; the spouting blood

Spun forth; in earth the fasten’d weapon stood.

Like lightning next the Pelean javelin flies:

Its erring fury hiss’d along the skies;

Deep in the swelling bank was driven the spear,

Even to the middle earth; and quiver’d there.

Then from his side the sword Pelides drew,

And on his foe with double fury flew.

The foe thrice tugg’d, and shook the rooted wood;

Repulsive of his might the weapon stood:

The fourth, he tries to break the spear in vain;

Bent as he stands, he tumbles to the plain;

His belly open’d with a ghastly wound,

The reeking entrails pour upon the ground.

Beneath the hero’s feet he panting lies,

And his eye darkens, and his spirit flies;

While the proud victor thus triumphing said,

His radiant armour tearing from the dead:

“So ends thy glory! Such the fate they prove,

Who strive presumptuous with the sons of Jove!

Sprung from a river, didst thou boast thy line?

But great Saturnius is the source of mine.

How durst thou vaunt thy watery progeny?

Of Peleus, Æacus, and Jove, am I.

The race of these superior far to those,

As he that thunders to the stream that flows.

What rivers can, Scamander might have shown;

But Jove he dreads, nor wars against his son.

Even Achelous might contend in vain,

And all the roaring billows of the main.

The eternal ocean, from whose fountains flow

The seas, the rivers, and the springs below,

The thundering voice of Jove abhors to hear,

And in his deep abysses shakes with fear.”

He said: then from the bank his javelin tore,

And left the breathless warrior in his gore.

The floating tides the bloody carcase lave,

And beat against it, wave succeeding wave;

Till, roll’d between the banks, it lies the food

Of curling eels, and fishes of the flood.

All scatter’d round the stream (their mightiest slain)

The amazed Paeonians scour along the plain;

He vents his fury on the flying crew,

Thrasius, Astyplus, and Mnesus slew;

Mydon, Thersilochus, with Ænius, fell;

And numbers more his lance had plunged to hell,

But from the bottom of his gulfs profound

Scamander spoke; the shores return’d the sound.

“O first of mortals! (for the gods are thine)

In valour matchless, and in force divine!

If Jove have given thee every Trojan head,

’Tis not on me thy rage should heap the dead.

See! my choked streams no more their course can keep,

Nor roll their wonted tribute to the deep.

Turn then, impetuous! from our injured flood;

Content, thy slaughters could amaze a god.”

In human form, confess’d before his eyes,

The river thus; and thus the chief replies:

“O sacred stream! thy word we shall obey;

But not till Troy the destined vengeance pay,

Not till within her towers the perjured train

Shall pant, and tremble at our arms again;

Not till proud Hector, guardian of her wall,

Or stain this lance, or see Achilles fall.”

He said; and drove with fury on the foe.

Then to the godhead of the silver bow

The yellow flood began: “O son of Jove!

Was not the mandate of the sire above

Full and express, that Phoebus should employ

His sacred arrows in defence of Troy,

And make her conquer, till Hyperion’s fall

In awful darkness hide the face of all?”

He spoke in vain—The chief without dismay

Ploughs through the boiling surge his desperate way.

Then rising in his rage above the shores,

From all his deep the bellowing river roars,

Huge heaps of slain disgorges on the coast,

And round the banks the ghastly dead are toss’d.

While all before, the billows ranged on high,

(A watery bulwark,) screen the bands who fly.

Now bursting on his head with thundering sound,

The falling deluge whelms the hero round:

His loaded shield bends to the rushing tide;

His feet, upborne, scarce the strong flood divide,

Sliddering, and staggering. On the border stood

A spreading elm, that overhung the flood;

He seized a bending bough, his steps to stay;

The plant uprooted to his weight gave way.²⁷⁰

Heaving the bank, and undermining all;

Loud flash the waters to the rushing fall

Of the thick foliage. The large trunk display’d

Bridged the rough flood across: the hero stay’d

On this his weight, and raised upon his hand,

Leap’d from the channel, and regain’d the land.

Then blacken’d the wild waves: the murmur rose:

The god pursues, a huger billow throws,

And bursts the bank, ambitious to destroy

The man whose fury is the fate of Troy.

He like the warlike eagle speeds his pace

(Swiftest and strongest of the aerial race);

Far as a spear can fly, Achilles springs;

At every bound his clanging armour rings:

Now here, now there, he turns on every side,

And winds his course before the following tide;

The waves flow after, wheresoe’er he wheels,

And gather fast, and murmur at his heels.

So when a peasant to his garden brings

Soft rills of water from the bubbling springs,

And calls the floods from high, to bless his bowers,

And feed with pregnant streams the plants and flowers:

Soon as he clears whate’er their passage stay’d,

And marks the future current with his spade,

Swift o’er the rolling pebbles, down the hills,

Louder and louder purl the falling rills;

Before him scattering, they prevent his pains,

And shine in mazy wanderings o’er the plains.

Still flies Achilles, but before his eyes

Still swift Scamander rolls where’er he flies:

Not all his speed escapes the rapid floods;

The first of men, but not a match for gods.

Oft as he turn’d the torrent to oppose,

And bravely try if all the powers were foes;

So oft the surge, in watery mountains spread,

Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head.

Yet dauntless still the adverse flood he braves,

And still indignant bounds above the waves.

Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil;

Wash’d from beneath him slides the slimy soil;

When thus (his eyes on heaven’s expansion thrown)

Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan:

“Is there no god Achilles to befriend,

No power to avert his miserable end?

Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date,²⁷¹

And make my future life the sport of fate.

Of all heaven’s oracles believed in vain,

But most of Thetis must her son complain;

By Phoebus’ darts she prophesied my fall,

In glorious arms before the Trojan wall.

Oh! had I died in fields of battle warm,

Stretch’d like a hero, by a hero’s arm!

Might Hector’s spear this dauntless bosom rend,

And my swift soul o’ertake my slaughter’d friend.

Ah no! Achilles meets a shameful fate,

Oh how unworthy of the brave and great!

Like some vile swain, whom on a rainy day,

Crossing a ford, the torrent sweeps away,

An unregarded carcase to the sea.”

Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,

And thus in human form address’d the chief:

The power of ocean first: “Forbear thy fear,

O son of Peleus! Lo, thy gods appear!

Behold! from Jove descending to thy aid,

Propitious Neptune, and the blue-eyed maid.

Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave

’Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.

But thou, the counsel heaven suggests, attend!

Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,

Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all

Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:

Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,

And Hector’s blood shall smoke upon thy lance.

Thine is the glory doom’d.” Thus spake the gods:

Then swift ascended to the bright abodes.

Stung with new ardour, thus by heaven impell’d,

He springs impetuous, and invades the field:

O’er all the expanded plain the waters spread;

Heaved on the bounding billows danced the dead,

Floating ’midst scatter’d arms; while casques of gold

And turn’d-up bucklers glitter’d as they roll’d.

High o’er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds,

He wades, and mounts; the parted wave resounds.

Not a whole river stops the hero’s course,

While Pallas fills him with immortal force.

With equal rage, indignant Xanthus roars,

And lifts his billows, and o’erwhelms his shores.

Then thus to Simois! “Haste, my brother flood;

And check this mortal that controls a god;

Our bravest heroes else shall quit the fight,

And Ilion tumble from her towery height.

Call then thy subject streams, and bid them roar,

From all thy fountains swell thy watery store,

With broken rocks, and with a load of dead,

Charge the black surge, and pour it on his head.

Mark how resistless through the floods he goes,

And boldly bids the warring gods be foes!

But nor that force, nor form divine to sight,

Shall aught avail him, if our rage unite:

Whelm’d under our dark gulfs those arms shall lie,

That blaze so dreadful in each Trojan eye;

And deep beneath a sandy mountain hurl’d,

Immersed remain this terror of the world.

Such ponderous ruin shall confound the place,

No Greeks shall e’er his perish’d relics grace,

No hand his bones shall gather, or inhume;

These his cold rites, and this his watery tomb.”

He said; and on the chief descends amain,

Increased with gore, and swelling with the slain.

Then, murmuring from his beds, he boils, he raves,

And a foam whitens on the purple waves:

At every step, before Achilles stood

The crimson surge, and deluged him with blood.

Fear touch’d the queen of heaven: she saw dismay’d,

She call’d aloud, and summon’d Vulcan’s aid.

“Rise to the war! the insulting flood requires

Thy wasteful arm! assemble all thy fires!

While to their aid, by our command enjoin’d,

Rush the swift eastern and the western wind:

These from old ocean at my word shall blow,

Pour the red torrent on the watery foe,

Corses and arms to one bright ruin turn,

And hissing rivers to their bottoms burn.

Go, mighty in thy rage! display thy power,

Drink the whole flood, the crackling trees devour.

Scorch all the banks! and (till our voice reclaim)

Exert the unwearied furies of the flame!”

The power ignipotent her word obeys:

Wide o’er the plain he pours the boundless blaze;

At once consumes the dead, and dries the soil

And the shrunk waters in their channel boil.

As when autumnal Boreas sweeps the sky,

And instant blows the water’d gardens dry:

So look’d the field, so whiten’d was the ground,

While Vulcan breathed the fiery blast around.

Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys;

Along the margin winds the running blaze:

The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn,

The flowering lotos and the tamarisk burn,

Broad elm, and cypress rising in a spire;

The watery willows hiss before the fire.

Now glow the waves, the fishes pant for breath,

The eels lie twisting in the pangs of death:

Now flounce aloft, now dive the scaly fry,

Or, gasping, turn their bellies to the sky.

At length the river rear’d his languid head,

And thus, short-panting, to the god he said:

“Oh Vulcan! oh! what power resists thy might?

I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight—

I yield—Let Ilion fall; if fate decree—

Ah—bend no more thy fiery arms on me!”

He ceased; wide conflagration blazing round;

The bubbling waters yield a hissing sound.

As when the flames beneath a cauldron rise,²⁷²

To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice,

Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires

The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires:

So boils the imprison’d flood, forbid to flow,

And choked with vapours feels his bottom glow.

To Juno then, imperial queen of air,

The burning river sends his earnest prayer:

“Ah why, Saturnia; must thy son engage

Me, only me, with all his wasteful rage?

On other gods his dreadful arm employ,

For mightier gods assert the cause of Troy.

Submissive I desist, if thou command;

But ah! withdraw this all-destroying hand.

Hear then my solemn oath, to yield to fate

Unaided Ilion, and her destined state,

Till Greece shall gird her with destructive flame,

And in one ruin sink the Trojan name.”

His warm entreaty touch’d Saturnia’s ear:

She bade the ignipotent his rage forbear,

Recall the flame, nor in a mortal cause

Infest a god: the obedient flame withdraws:

Again the branching streams begin to spread,

And soft remurmur in their wonted bed.

While these by Juno’s will the strife resign,

The warring gods in fierce contention join:

Rekindling rage each heavenly breast alarms:

With horrid clangour shock the ethereal arms:

Heaven in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound;

And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.

Jove, as his sport, the dreadful scene descries,

And views contending gods with careless eyes.

The power of battles lifts his brazen spear,

And first assaults the radiant queen of war:

“What moved thy madness, thus to disunite

Ethereal minds, and mix all heaven in fight?

What wonder this, when in thy frantic mood

Thou drovest a mortal to insult a god?

Thy impious hand Tydides’ javelin bore,

And madly bathed it in celestial gore.”

He spoke, and smote the long-resounding shield,

Which bears Jove’s thunder on its dreadful field:

The adamantine aegis of her sire,

That turns the glancing bolt and forked fire.

Then heaved the goddess in her mighty hand

A stone, the limit of the neighbouring land,

There fix’d from eldest times; black, craggy, vast;

This at the heavenly homicide she cast.

Thundering he falls, a mass of monstrous size:

And seven broad acres covers as he lies.

The stunning stroke his stubborn nerves unbound:

Loud o’er the fields his ringing arms resound:

The scornful dame her conquest views with smiles,

And, glorying, thus the prostrate god reviles:

“Hast thou not yet, insatiate fury! known

How far Minerva’s force transcends thy own?

Juno, whom thou rebellious darest withstand,

Corrects thy folly thus by Pallas’ hand;

Thus meets thy broken faith with just disgrace,

And partial aid to Troy’s perfidious race.”

The goddess spoke, and turn’d her eyes away,

That, beaming round, diffused celestial day.

Jove’s Cyprian daughter, stooping on the land,

Lent to the wounded god her tender hand:

Slowly he rises, scarcely breathes with pain,

And, propp’d on her fair arm, forsakes the plain.

This the bright empress of the heavens survey’d,

And, scoffing, thus to war’s victorious maid:

“Lo! what an aid on Mars’s side is seen!

The smiles’ and loves’ unconquerable queen!

Mark with what insolence, in open view,

She moves: let Pallas, if she dares, pursue.”

Minerva smiling heard, the pair o’ertook,

And slightly on her breast the wanton strook:

She, unresisting, fell (her spirits fled);

On earth together lay the lovers spread.

“And like these heroes be the fate of all

(Minerva cries) who guard the Trojan wall!

To Grecian gods such let the Phrygian be,

So dread, so fierce, as Venus is to me;

Then from the lowest stone shall Troy be moved.”

Thus she, and Juno with a smile approved.

Meantime, to mix in more than mortal fight,

The god of ocean dares the god of light.

“What sloth has seized us, when the fields around

Ring with conflicting powers, and heaven returns the sound:

Shall, ignominious, we with shame retire,

No deed perform’d, to our Olympian sire?

Come, prove thy arm! for first the war to wage,

Suits not my greatness, or superior age:

Rash as thou art to prop the Trojan throne,

(Forgetful of my wrongs, and of thy own,)

And guard the race of proud Laomedon!

Hast thou forgot, how, at the monarch’s prayer,

We shared the lengthen’d labours of a year?

Troy walls I raised (for such were Jove’s commands),

And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands:

Thy task it was to feed the bellowing droves

Along fair Ida’s vales and pendant groves.

But when the circling seasons in their train

Brought back the grateful day that crown’d our pain,

With menace stern the fraudful king defied

Our latent godhead, and the prize denied:

Mad as he was, he threaten’d servile bands,

And doom’d us exiles far in barbarous lands.²⁷³

Incensed, we heavenward fled with swiftest wing,

And destined vengeance on the perjured king.

Dost thou, for this, afford proud Ilion grace,

And not, like us, infest the faithless race;

Like us, their present, future sons destroy,

And from its deep foundations heave their Troy?”

Apollo thus: “To combat for mankind

Ill suits the wisdom of celestial mind;

For what is man? Calamitous by birth,

They owe their life and nourishment to earth;

Like yearly leaves, that now, with beauty crown’d,

Smile on the sun; now, wither on the ground.

To their own hands commit the frantic scene,

Nor mix immortals in a cause so mean.”

Then turns his face, far-beaming heavenly fires,

And from the senior power submiss retires:

Him thus retreating, Artemis upbraids,

The quiver’d huntress of the sylvan shades:

“And is it thus the youthful Phoebus flies,

And yields to ocean’s hoary sire the prize?

How vain that martial pomp, and dreadful show

Of pointed arrows and the silver bow!

Now boast no more in yon celestial bower,

Thy force can match the great earth-shaking power.”

Silent he heard the queen of woods upbraid:

Not so Saturnia bore the vaunting maid:

But furious thus: “What insolence has driven

Thy pride to face the majesty of heaven?

What though by Jove the female plague design’d,

Fierce to the feeble race of womankind,

The wretched matron feels thy piercing dart;

Thy sex’s tyrant, with a tiger’s heart?

What though tremendous in the woodland chase

Thy certain arrows pierce the savage race?

How dares thy rashness on the powers divine

Employ those arms, or match thy force with mine?

Learn hence, no more unequal war to wage—”

She said, and seized her wrists with eager rage;

These in her left hand lock’d, her right untied

The bow, the quiver, and its plumy pride.

About her temples flies the busy bow;

Now here, now there, she winds her from the blow;

The scattering arrows, rattling from the case,

Drop round, and idly mark the dusty place.

Swift from the field the baffled huntress flies,

And scarce restrains the torrent in her eyes:

So, when the falcon wings her way above,

To the cleft cavern speeds the gentle dove;

(Not fated yet to die;) there safe retreats,

Yet still her heart against the marble beats.

To her Latona hastes with tender care;

Whom Hermes viewing, thus declines the war:

“How shall I face the dame, who gives delight

To him whose thunders blacken heaven with night?

Go, matchless goddess! triumph in the skies,

And boast my conquest, while I yield the prize.”

He spoke; and pass’d: Latona, stooping low,

Collects the scatter’d shafts and fallen bow,

That, glittering on the dust, lay here and there

Dishonour’d relics of Diana’s war:

Then swift pursued her to her blest abode,

Where, all confused, she sought the sovereign god;

Weeping, she grasp’d his knees: the ambrosial vest

Shook with her sighs, and panted on her breast.

The sire superior smiled, and bade her show

What heavenly hand had caused his daughter’s woe?

Abash’d, she names his own imperial spouse;

And the pale crescent fades upon her brows.

Thus they above: while, swiftly gliding down,

Apollo enters Ilion’s sacred town;

The guardian-god now trembled for her wall,

And fear’d the Greeks, though fate forbade her fall.

Back to Olympus, from the war’s alarms,

Return the shining bands of gods in arms;

Some proud in triumph, some with rage on fire;

And take their thrones around the ethereal sire.

Through blood, through death, Achilles still proceeds,

O’er slaughter’d heroes, and o’er rolling steeds.

As when avenging flames with fury driven

On guilty towns exert the wrath of heaven;

The pale inhabitants, some fall, some fly;

And the red vapours purple all the sky:

So raged Achilles: death and dire dismay,

And toils, and terrors, fill’d the dreadful day.

High on a turret hoary Priam stands,

And marks the waste of his destructive hands;

Views, from his arm, the Trojans’ scatter’d flight,

And the near hero rising on his sight!

No stop, no check, no aid! With feeble pace,

And settled sorrow on his aged face,

Fast as he could, he sighing quits the walls;

And thus descending, on the guards he calls:

“You to whose care our city-gates belong,

Set wide your portals to the flying throng:

For lo! he comes, with unresisted sway;

He comes, and desolation marks his way!

But when within the walls our troops take breath,

Lock fast the brazen bars, and shut out death.”

Thus charged the reverend monarch: wide were flung

The opening folds; the sounding hinges rung.

Phoebus rush’d forth, the flying bands to meet;

Struck slaughter back, and cover’d the retreat,

On heaps the Trojans crowd to gain the gate,

And gladsome see their last escape from fate.

Thither, all parch’d with thirst, a heartless train,

Hoary with dust, they beat the hollow plain:

And gasping, panting, fainting, labour on

With heavier strides, that lengthen toward the town.

Enraged Achilles follows with his spear;

Wild with revenge, insatiable of war.

Then had the Greeks eternal praise acquired,

And Troy inglorious to her walls retired;

But he, the god who darts ethereal flame,

Shot down to save her, and redeem her fame:

To young Agenor force divine he gave;

(Antenor’s offspring, haughty, bold, and brave;)

In aid of him, beside the beech he sate,

And wrapt in clouds, restrain’d the hand of fate.

When now the generous youth Achilles spies.

Thick beats his heart, the troubled motions rise.

(So, ere a storm, the waters heave and roll.)

He stops, and questions thus his mighty soul;

“What, shall I fly this terror of the plain!

Like others fly, and be like others slain?

Vain hope! to shun him by the self-same road

Yon line of slaughter’d Trojans lately trod.

No: with the common heap I scorn to fall—

What if they pass’d me to the Trojan wall,

While I decline to yonder path, that leads

To Ida’s forests and surrounding shades?

So may I reach, conceal’d, the cooling flood,

From my tired body wash the dirt and blood,

As soon as night her dusky veil extends,

Return in safety to my Trojan friends.

What if?—But wherefore all this vain debate?

Stand I to doubt, within the reach of fate?

Even now perhaps, ere yet I turn the wall,

The fierce Achilles sees me, and I fall:

Such is his swiftness, ’tis in vain to fly,

And such his valour, that who stands must die.

Howe’er ’tis better, fighting for the state,

Here, and in public view, to meet my fate.

Yet sure he too is mortal; he may feel

(Like all the sons of earth) the force of steel.

One only soul informs that dreadful frame:

And Jove’s sole favour gives him all his fame.”

He said, and stood, collected, in his might;

And all his beating bosom claim’d the fight.

So from some deep-grown wood a panther starts,

Roused from his thicket by a storm of darts:

Untaught to fear or fly, he hears the sounds

Of shouting hunters, and of clamorous hounds;

Though struck, though wounded, scarce perceives the pain;

And the barb’d javelin stings his breast in vain:

On their whole war, untamed, the savage flies;

And tears his hunter, or beneath him dies.

Not less resolved, Antenor’s valiant heir

Confronts Achilles, and awaits the war,

Disdainful of retreat: high held before,

His shield (a broad circumference) he bore;

Then graceful as he stood, in act to throw

The lifted javelin, thus bespoke the foe:

“How proud Achilles glories in his fame!

And hopes this day to sink the Trojan name

Beneath her ruins! Know, that hope is vain;

A thousand woes, a thousand toils remain.

Parents and children our just arms employ,

And strong and many are the sons of Troy.

Great as thou art, even thou may’st stain with gore

These Phrygian fields, and press a foreign shore.”

He said: with matchless force the javelin flung

Smote on his knee; the hollow cuishes rung

Beneath the pointed steel; but safe from harms

He stands impassive in the ethereal arms.

Then fiercely rushing on the daring foe,

His lifted arm prepares the fatal blow:

But, jealous of his fame, Apollo shrouds

The god-like Trojan in a veil of clouds.

Safe from pursuit, and shut from mortal view,

Dismiss’d with fame, the favoured youth withdrew.

Meanwhile the god, to cover their escape,

Assumes Agenor’s habit, voice and shape,

Flies from the furious chief in this disguise;

The furious chief still follows where he flies.

Now o’er the fields they stretch with lengthen’d strides,

Now urge the course where swift Scamander glides:

The god, now distant scarce a stride before,

Tempts his pursuit, and wheels about the shore;

While all the flying troops their speed employ,

And pour on heaps into the walls of Troy:

No stop, no stay; no thought to ask, or tell,

Who ’scaped by flight, or who by battle fell.

’Twas tumult all, and violence of flight;

And sudden joy confused, and mix’d affright.

Pale Troy against Achilles shuts her gate:

And nations breathe, deliver’d from their fate.

Book XXII

ARGUMENT.

THE DEATH OF HECTOR.

The Trojans being safe within the walls, Hector only stays to oppose Achilles. Priam is struck at his approach, and tries to persuade his son to re-enter the town. Hecuba joins her entreaties, but in vain. Hector consults within himself what measures to take; but at the advance of Achilles, his resolution fails him, and he flies. Achilles pursues him thrice round the walls of Troy. The gods debate concerning the fate of Hector; at length Minerva descends to the aid of Achilles. She deludes Hector in the shape of Deiphobus; he stands the combat, and is slain. Achilles drags the dead body at his chariot in the sight of Priam and Hecuba. Their lamentations, tears, and despair. Their cries reach the ears of Andromache, who, ignorant of this, was retired into the inner part of the palace: she mounts up to the walls, and beholds her dead husband. She swoons at the spectacle. Her excess of grief and lamentation.

The thirtieth day still continues. The scene lies under the walls, and on the battlements of Troy.

Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panic fear,

The herded Ilians rush like driven deer:

There safe they wipe the briny drops away,

And drown in bowls the labours of the day.

Close to the walls, advancing o’er the fields

Beneath one roof of well-compacted shields,

March, bending on, the Greeks’ embodied powers,

Far stretching in the shade of Trojan towers.

Great Hector singly stay’d: chain’d down by fate

There fix’d he stood before the Scaean gate;

Still his bold arms determined to employ,

The guardian still of long-defended Troy.

Apollo now to tired Achilles turns:

(The power confess’d in all his glory burns:)

“And what (he cries) has Peleus’ son in view,

With mortal speed a godhead to pursue?

For not to thee to know the gods is given,

Unskill’d to trace the latent marks of heaven.

What boots thee now, that Troy forsook the plain?

Vain thy past labour, and thy present vain:

Safe in their walls are now her troops bestow’d,

While here thy frantic rage attacks a god.”

The chief incensed—“Too partial god of day!

To check my conquests in the middle way:

How few in Ilion else had refuge found!

What gasping numbers now had bit the ground!

Thou robb’st me of a glory justly mine,

Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine:

Mean fame, alas! for one of heavenly strain,

To cheat a mortal who repines in vain.”

Then to the city, terrible and strong,

With high and haughty steps he tower’d along,

So the proud courser, victor of the prize,

To the near goal with double ardour flies.

Him, as he blazing shot across the field,

The careful eyes of Priam first beheld.

Not half so dreadful rises to the sight,²⁷⁴

Through the thick gloom of some tempestuous night,

Orion’s dog (the year when autumn weighs),

And o’er the feebler stars exerts his rays;

Terrific glory! for his burning breath

Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death.

So flamed his fiery mail. Then wept the sage:

He strikes his reverend head, now white with age;

He lifts his wither’d arms; obtests the skies;

He calls his much-loved son with feeble cries:

The son, resolved Achilles’ force to dare,

Full at the Scaean gates expects the war;

While the sad father on the rampart stands,

And thus adjures him with extended hands:

“Ah stay not, stay not! guardless and alone;

Hector! my loved, my dearest, bravest son!

Methinks already I behold thee slain,

And stretch’d beneath that fury of the plain.

Implacable Achilles! might’st thou be

To all the gods no dearer than to me!

Thee, vultures wild should scatter round the shore.

And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore.

How many valiant sons I late enjoy’d,

Valiant in vain! by thy cursed arm destroy’d:

Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles

To shameful bondage, and unworthy toils.

Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore,

Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore,

And loved Lycaon; now perhaps no more!

Oh! if in yonder hostile camp they live,

What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give!

(Their grandsire’s wealth, by right of birth their own,

Consign’d his daughter with Lelegia’s throne:)

But if (which Heaven forbid) already lost,

All pale they wander on the Stygian coast;

What sorrows then must their sad mother know,

What anguish I? unutterable woe!

Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me,

Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee.

Yet shun Achilles! enter yet the wall;

And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all!

Save thy dear life; or, if a soul so brave

Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save.

Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs;

While yet thy father feels the woes he bears,

Yet cursed with sense! a wretch, whom in his rage

(All trembling on the verge of helpless age)

Great Jove has placed, sad spectacle of pain!

The bitter dregs of fortune’s cup to drain:

To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes,

And number all his days by miseries!

My heroes slain, my bridal bed o’erturn’d,

My daughters ravish’d, and my city burn’d,

My bleeding infants dash’d against the floor;

These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more!

Perhaps even I, reserved by angry fate,

The last sad relic of my ruin’d state,

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness!) must fall,

And stain the pavement of my regal hall;

Where famish’d dogs, late guardians of my door,

Shall lick their mangled master’s spatter’d gore.

Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods! ’tis well;

Well have they perish’d, for in fight they fell.

Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best,

Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast.

But when the fates, in fulness of their rage,

Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age,

In dust the reverend lineaments deform,

And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm:

This, this is misery! the last, the worse,

That man can feel! man, fated to be cursed!”

He said, and acting what no words could say,

Rent from his head the silver locks away.

With him the mournful mother bears a part;

Yet all her sorrows turn not Hector’s heart.

The zone unbraced, her bosom she display’d;

And thus, fast-falling the salt tears, she said:

“Have mercy on me, O my son! revere

The words of age; attend a parent’s prayer!

If ever thee in these fond arms I press’d,

Or still’d thy infant clamours at this breast;

Ah do not thus our helpless years forego,

But, by our walls secured, repel the foe.

Against his rage if singly thou proceed,

Should’st thou, (but Heaven avert it!) should’st thou bleed,

Nor must thy corse lie honour’d on the bier,

Nor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear!

Far from our pious rites those dear remains

Must feast the vultures on the naked plains.”

So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll;

But fix’d remains the purpose of his soul;

Resolved he stands, and with a fiery glance

Expects the hero’s terrible advance.

So, roll’d up in his den, the swelling snake

Beholds the traveller approach the brake;

When fed with noxious herbs his turgid veins

Have gather’d half the poisons of the plains;

He burns, he stiffens with collected ire,

And his red eyeballs glare with living fire.

Beneath a turret, on his shield reclined,

He stood, and question’d thus his mighty mind:²⁷⁵

“Where lies my way? to enter in the wall?

Honour and shame the ungenerous thought recall:

Shall proud Polydamas before the gate

Proclaim, his counsels are obey’d too late,

Which timely follow’d but the former night,

What numbers had been saved by Hector’s flight?

That wise advice rejected with disdain,

I feel my folly in my people slain.

Methinks my suffering country’s voice I hear,

But most her worthless sons insult my ear,

On my rash courage charge the chance of war,

And blame those virtues which they cannot share.

No—if I e’er return, return I must

Glorious, my country’s terror laid in dust:

Or if I perish, let her see me fall

In field at least, and fighting for her wall.

And yet suppose these measures I forego,

Approach unarm’d, and parley with the foe,

The warrior-shield, the helm, and lance, lay down.

And treat on terms of peace to save the town:

The wife withheld, the treasure ill-detain’d

(Cause of the war, and grievance of the land)

With honourable justice to restore:

And add half Ilion’s yet remaining store,

Which Troy shall, sworn, produce; that injured Greece

May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace.

But why this thought? Unarm’d if I should go,

What hope of mercy from this vengeful foe,

But woman-like to fall, and fall without a blow?

We greet not here, as man conversing man,

Met at an oak, or journeying o’er a plain;

No season now for calm familiar talk,

Like youths and maidens in an evening walk:

War is our business, but to whom is given

To die, or triumph, that, determine Heaven!”

Thus pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh;

His dreadful plumage nodded from on high;

The Pelian javelin, in his better hand,

Shot trembling rays that glitter’d o’er the land;

And on his breast the beamy splendour shone,

Like Jove’s own lightning, or the rising sun.

As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise,

Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies.

He leaves the gates, he leaves the wall behind:

Achilles follows like the winged wind.

Thus at the panting dove a falcon flies

(The swiftest racer of the liquid skies),

Just when he holds, or thinks he holds his prey,

Obliquely wheeling through the aerial way,

With open beak and shrilling cries he springs,

And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings:

No less fore-right the rapid chase they held,

One urged by fury, one by fear impell’d:

Now circling round the walls their course maintain,

Where the high watch-tower overlooks the plain;

Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad,

(A wider compass,) smoke along the road.

Next by Scamander’s double source they bound,

Where two famed fountains burst the parted ground;

This hot through scorching clefts is seen to rise,

With exhalations steaming to the skies;

That the green banks in summer’s heat o’erflows,

Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows:

Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills,

Whose polish’d bed receives the falling rills;

Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm’d by Greece)

Wash’d their fair garments in the days of peace.²⁷⁶

By these they pass’d, one chasing, one in flight:

(The mighty fled, pursued by stronger might:)

Swift was the course; no vulgar prize they play,

No vulgar victim must reward the day:

(Such as in races crown the speedy strife:)

The prize contended was great Hector’s life.

As when some hero’s funerals are decreed

In grateful honour of the mighty dead;

Where high rewards the vigorous youth inflame

(Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame)

The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal,

And with them turns the raised spectator’s soul:

Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly.

The gazing gods lean forward from the sky;

To whom, while eager on the chase they look,

The sire of mortals and immortals spoke:

“Unworthy sight! the man beloved of heaven,

Behold, inglorious round yon city driven!

My heart partakes the generous Hector’s pain;

Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain,

Whose grateful fumes the gods received with joy,

From Ida’s summits, and the towers of Troy:

Now see him flying; to his fears resign’d,

And fate, and fierce Achilles, close behind.

Consult, ye powers! (’tis worthy your debate)

Whether to snatch him from impending fate,

Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain,

(Good as he is) the lot imposed on man.”

Then Pallas thus: “Shall he whose vengeance forms

The forky bolt, and blackens heaven with storms,

Shall he prolong one Trojan’s forfeit breath?

A man, a mortal, pre-ordain’d to death!

And will no murmurs fill the courts above?

No gods indignant blame their partial Jove?”

“Go then (return’d the sire) without delay,

Exert thy will: I give the Fates their way.

Swift at the mandate pleased Tritonia flies,

And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies.

As through the forest, o’er the vale and lawn,

The well-breath’d beagle drives the flying fawn,

In vain he tries the covert of the brakes,

Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes;

Sure of the vapour in the tainted dews,

The certain hound his various maze pursues.

Thus step by step, where’er the Trojan wheel’d,

There swift Achilles compass’d round the field.

Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends,

And hopes the assistance of his pitying friends,

(Whose showering arrows, as he coursed below,

From the high turrets might oppress the foe,)

So oft Achilles turns him to the plain:

He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain.

As men in slumbers seem with speedy pace,

One to pursue, and one to lead the chase,

Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake,

Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake:

No less the labouring heroes pant and strain:

While that but flies, and this pursues in vain.

What god, O muse, assisted Hector’s force

With fate itself so long to hold the course?

Phoebus it was; who, in his latest hour,

Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power:

And great Achilles, lest some Greek’s advance

Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance,

Sign’d to the troops to yield his foe the way,

And leave untouch’d the honours of the day.

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show

The fates of mortal men, and things below:

Here each contending hero’s lot he tries,

And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies.

Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector’s fate;

Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight.

Then Phoebus left him. Fierce Minerva flies

To stern Pelides, and triumphing, cries:

“O loved of Jove! this day our labours cease,

And conquest blazes with full beams on Greece.

Great Hector falls; that Hector famed so far,

Drunk with renown, insatiable of war,

Falls by thy hand, and mine! nor force, nor flight,

Shall more avail him, nor his god of light.

See, where in vain he supplicates above,

Roll’d at the feet of unrelenting Jove;

Rest here: myself will lead the Trojan on,

And urge to meet the fate he cannot shun.”

Her voice divine the chief with joyful mind

Obey’d; and rested, on his lance reclined

While like Deiphobus the martial dame

(Her face, her gesture, and her arms the same),

In show an aid, by hapless Hector’s side

Approach’d, and greets him thus with voice belied:

“Too long, O Hector! have I borne the sight

Of this distress, and sorrow’d in thy flight:

It fits us now a noble stand to make,

And here, as brothers, equal fates partake.”

Then he: “O prince! allied in blood and fame,

Dearer than all that own a brother’s name;

Of all that Hecuba to Priam bore,

Long tried, long loved: much loved, but honoured more!

Since you, of all our numerous race alone

Defend my life, regardless of your own.”

Again the goddess: “Much my father’s prayer,

And much my mother’s, press’d me to forbear:

My friends embraced my knees, adjured my stay,

But stronger love impell’d, and I obey.

Come then, the glorious conflict let us try,

Let the steel sparkle, and the javelin fly;

Or let us stretch Achilles on the field,

Or to his arm our bloody trophies yield.”

Fraudful she said; then swiftly march’d before:

The Dardan hero shuns his foe no more.

Sternly they met. The silence Hector broke:

His dreadful plumage nodded as he spoke:

“Enough, O son of Peleus! Troy has view’d

Her walls thrice circled, and her chief pursued.

But now some god within me bids me try

Thine, or my fate: I kill thee, or I die.

Yet on the verge of battle let us stay,

And for a moment’s space suspend the day;

Let Heaven’s high powers be call’d to arbitrate

The just conditions of this stern debate,

(Eternal witnesses of all below,

And faithful guardians of the treasured vow!)

To them I swear; if, victor in the strife,

Jove by these hands shall shed thy noble life,

No vile dishonour shall thy corse pursue;

Stripp’d of its arms alone (the conqueror’s due)

The rest to Greece uninjured I’ll restore:

Now plight thy mutual oath, I ask no more.”

“Talk not of oaths (the dreadful chief replies,

While anger flash’d from his disdainful eyes),

Detested as thou art, and ought to be,

Nor oath nor pact Achilles plights with thee:

Such pacts as lambs and rabid wolves combine,

Such leagues as men and furious lions join,

To such I call the gods! one constant state

Of lasting rancour and eternal hate:

No thought but rage, and never-ceasing strife,

Till death extinguish rage, and thought, and life.

Rouse then thy forces this important hour,

Collect thy soul, and call forth all thy power.

No further subterfuge, no further chance;

’Tis Pallas, Pallas gives thee to my lance.

Each Grecian ghost, by thee deprived of breath,

Now hovers round, and calls thee to thy death.”

He spoke, and launch’d his javelin at the foe;

But Hector shunn’d the meditated blow:

He stoop’d, while o’er his head the flying spear

Sang innocent, and spent its force in air.

Minerva watch’d it falling on the land,

Then drew, and gave to great Achilles’ hand,

Unseen of Hector, who, elate with joy,

Now shakes his lance, and braves the dread of Troy.

“The life you boasted to that javelin given,

Prince! you have miss’d. My fate depends on Heaven,

To thee, presumptuous as thou art, unknown,

Or what must prove my fortune, or thy own.

Boasting is but an art, our fears to blind,

And with false terrors sink another’s mind.

But know, whatever fate I am to try,

By no dishonest wound shall Hector die.

I shall not fall a fugitive at least,

My soul shall bravely issue from my breast.

But first, try thou my arm; and may this dart

End all my country’s woes, deep buried in thy heart.”

The weapon flew, its course unerring held,

Unerring, but the heavenly shield repell’d

The mortal dart; resulting with a bound

From off the ringing orb, it struck the ground.

Hector beheld his javelin fall in vain,

Nor other lance, nor other hope remain;

He calls Deiphobus, demands a spear—

In vain, for no Deiphobus was there.

All comfortless he stands: then, with a sigh;

“’Tis so—Heaven wills it, and my hour is nigh!

I deem’d Deiphobus had heard my call,

But he secure lies guarded in the wall.

A god deceived me; Pallas, ’twas thy deed,

Death and black fate approach! ’tis I must bleed.

No refuge now, no succour from above,

Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove,

Propitious once, and kind! Then welcome fate!

’Tis true I perish, yet I perish great:

Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire,

Let future ages hear it, and admire!”

Fierce, at the word, his weighty sword he drew,

And, all collected, on Achilles flew.

So Jove’s bold bird, high balanced in the air,

Stoops from the clouds to truss the quivering hare.

Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares:

Before his breast the flaming shield he bears,

Refulgent orb! above his fourfold cone

The gilded horse-hair sparkled in the sun.

Nodding at every step: (Vulcanian frame!)

And as he moved, his figure seem’d on flame.

As radiant Hesper shines with keener light,²⁷⁷

Far-beaming o’er the silver host of night,

When all the starry train emblaze the sphere:

So shone the point of great Achilles’ spear.

In his right hand he waves the weapon round,

Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound;

But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore

Securely cased the warrior’s body o’er.

One space at length he spies, to let in fate,

Where ’twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate

Gave entrance: through that penetrable part

Furious he drove the well-directed dart:

Nor pierced the windpipe yet, nor took the power

Of speech, unhappy! from thy dying hour.

Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies,

While, thus triumphing, stern Achilles cries:

“At last is Hector stretch’d upon the plain,

Who fear’d no vengeance for Patroclus slain:

Then, prince! you should have fear’d, what now you feel;

Achilles absent was Achilles still:

Yet a short space the great avenger stayed,

Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid.

Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn’d,

For ever honour’d, and for ever mourn’d:

While cast to all the rage of hostile power,

Thee birds shall mangle, and the gods devour.”

Then Hector, fainting at the approach of death:

“By thy own soul! by those who gave thee breath!

By all the sacred prevalence of prayer;

Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear!

The common rites of sepulture bestow,

To soothe a father’s and a mother’s woe:

Let their large gifts procure an urn at least,

And Hector’s ashes in his country rest.”

“No, wretch accursed! relentless he replies;

(Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes;)

Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare,

Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer.

Could I myself the bloody banquet join!

No—to the dogs that carcase I resign.

Should Troy, to bribe me, bring forth all her store,

And giving thousands, offer thousands more;

Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame,

Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame:

Their Hector on the pile they should not see,

Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee.”

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew:

“Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew:

The Furies that relentless breast have steel’d,

And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield.

Yet think, a day will come, when fate’s decree

And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee;

Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate,

And stretch thee here before the Scaean gate.”²⁷⁸

He ceased. The Fates suppress’d his labouring breath,

And his eyes stiffen’d at the hand of death;

To the dark realm the spirit wings its way,

(The manly body left a load of clay,)

And plaintive glides along the dreary coast,

A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!

Achilles, musing as he roll’d his eyes

O’er the dead hero, thus unheard, replies:

“Die thou the first! When Jove and heaven ordain,

I follow thee”—He said, and stripp’d the slain.

Then forcing backward from the gaping wound

The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground.

The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes

His manly beauty and superior size;

While some, ignobler, the great dead deface

With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace:

“How changed that Hector, who like Jove of late

Sent lightning on our fleets, and scatter’d fate!”

High o’er the slain the great Achilles stands,

Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands;

And thus aloud, while all the host attends:

“Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!

Since now at length the powerful will of heaven

The dire destroyer to our arm has given,

Is not Troy fallen already? Haste, ye powers!

See, if already their deserted towers

Are left unmann’d; or if they yet retain

The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain.

But what is Troy, or glory what to me?

Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee,

Divine Patroclus! Death hath seal’d his eyes;

Unwept, unhonour’d, uninterr’d he lies!

Can his dear image from my soul depart,

Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?

If in the melancholy shades below,

The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow,

Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay’d,

Burn on through death, and animate my shade.

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring

The corpse of Hector, and your paeans sing.

Be this the song, slow-moving toward the shore,

“Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.”

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred;

(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead;)

The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound

With thongs inserted through the double wound;

These fix’d up high behind the rolling wain,

His graceful head was trail’d along the plain.

Proud on his car the insulting victor stood,

And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.

He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies;

The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.

Now lost is all that formidable air;

The face divine, and long-descending hair,

Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;

Deform’d, dishonour’d, in his native land,

Given to the rage of an insulting throng,

And, in his parents’ sight, now dragg’d along!

The mother first beheld with sad survey;

She rent her tresses, venerable grey,

And cast, far off, the regal veils away.

With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans,

While the sad father answers groans with groans

Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o’erflow,

And the whole city wears one face of woe:

No less than if the rage of hostile fires.

From her foundations curling to her spires,

O’er the proud citadel at length should rise,

And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.

The wretched monarch of the falling state,

Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate.

Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course,

While strong affliction gives the feeble force:

Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,

In all the raging impotence of woe.

At length he roll’d in dust, and thus begun,

Imploring all, and naming one by one:

“Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls;

I, only I, will issue from your walls

(Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none),

And bow before the murderer of my son.

My grief perhaps his pity may engage;

Perhaps at least he may respect my age.

He has a father too; a man like me;

One, not exempt from age and misery

(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace

Begot this pest of me, and all my race).

How many valiant sons, in early bloom,

Has that cursed hand send headlong to the tomb!

Thee, Hector! last: thy loss (divinely brave)

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.

O had thy gentle spirit pass’d in peace,

The son expiring in the sire’s embrace,

While both thy parents wept the fatal hour,

And, bending o’er thee, mix’d the tender shower!

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief,

To melt in full satiety of grief!”

Thus wail’d the father, grovelling on the ground,

And all the eyes of Ilion stream’d around.

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears:

(A mourning princess, and a train in tears;)

“Ah why has Heaven prolong’d this hated breath,

Patient of horrors, to behold thy death?

O Hector! late thy parents’ pride and joy,

The boast of nations! the defence of Troy!

To whom her safety and her fame she owed;

Her chief, her hero, and almost her god!

O fatal change! become in one sad day

A senseless corse! inanimated clay!”

But not as yet the fatal news had spread

To fair Andromache, of Hector dead;

As yet no messenger had told his fate,

Not e’en his stay without the Scaean gate.

Far in the close recesses of the dome,

Pensive she plied the melancholy loom;

A growing work employ’d her secret hours,

Confusedly gay with intermingled flowers.

Her fair-haired handmaids heat the brazen urn,

The bath preparing for her lord’s return

In vain; alas! her lord returns no more;

Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore!

Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear,

And all her members shake with sudden fear:

Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls,

And thus, astonish’d, to her maids she calls:

“Ah follow me! (she cried) what plaintive noise

Invades my ear? ’Tis sure my mother’s voice.

My faltering knees their trembling frame desert,

A pulse unusual flutters at my heart;

Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate

(Ye gods avert it!) threats the Trojan state.

Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest!

But much I fear my Hector’s dauntless breast

Confronts Achilles; chased along the plain,

Shut from our walls! I fear, I fear him slain!

Safe in the crowd he ever scorn’d to wait,

And sought for glory in the jaws of fate:

Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath,

Now quench’d for ever in the arms of death.”

She spoke: and furious, with distracted pace,

Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face,

Flies through the dome (the maids her steps pursue),

And mounts the walls, and sends around her view.

Too soon her eyes the killing object found,

The godlike Hector dragg’d along the ground.

A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes:

She faints, she falls; her breath, her colour flies.

Her hair’s fair ornaments, the braids that bound,

The net that held them, and the wreath that crown’d,

The veil and diadem flew far away

(The gift of Venus on her bridal day).

Around a train of weeping sisters stands,

To raise her sinking with assistant hands.

Scarce from the verge of death recall’d, again

She faints, or but recovers to complain.

“O wretched husband of a wretched wife!

Born with one fate, to one unhappy life!

For sure one star its baneful beam display’d

On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade.

From different parents, different climes we came.

At different periods, yet our fate the same!

Why was my birth to great Aetion owed,

And why was all that tender care bestow’d?

Would I had never been!—O thou, the ghost

Of my dead husband! miserably lost!

Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!

And I abandon’d, desolate, alone!

An only child, once comfort of my pains,

Sad product now of hapless love, remains!

No more to smile upon his sire; no friend

To help him now! no father to defend!

For should he ’scape the sword, the common doom,

What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come!

Even from his own paternal roof expell’d,

Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field.

The day, that to the shades the father sends,

Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends:

He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears

For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears;

Amongst the happy, unregarded, he

Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee,

While those his father’s former bounty fed

Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread:

The kindest but his present wants allay,

To leave him wretched the succeeding day.

Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast

Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost,

Shall cry, ‘Begone! thy father feasts not here:’

The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear.

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears,

To my sad soul Astyanax appears!

Forced by repeated insults to return,

And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn:

He, who, with tender delicacy bred,

With princes sported, and on dainties fed,

And when still evening gave him up to rest,

Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast,

Must—ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls

Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,²⁷⁹

Is now that name no more, unhappy boy!

Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.

But thou, my Hector, liest exposed in air,

Far from thy parents’ and thy consort’s care;

Whose hand in vain, directed by her love,

The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove.

Now to devouring flames be these a prey,

Useless to thee, from this accursed day!

Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid,

An honour to the living, not the dead!”

So spake the mournful dame: her matrons hear,

Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear.

Book XXIII

ARGUMENT.

FUNERAL GAMES IN HONOUR OF PATROCLUS.

Achilles and the Myrmidons do honours to the body of Patroclus. After the funeral feast he retires to the sea-shore, where, falling asleep, the ghost of his friend appears to him, and demands the rites of burial; the next morning the soldiers are sent with mules and waggons to fetch wood for the pyre. The funeral procession, and the offering their hair to the dead. Achilles sacrifices several animals, and lastly twelve Trojan captives, at the pile; then sets fire to it. He pays libations to the Winds, which (at the instance of Iris) rise, and raise the flames. When the pile has burned all night, they gather the bones, place them in an urn of gold, and raise the tomb. Achilles institutes the funeral games: the chariot-race, the fight of the caestus, the wrestling, the foot-race, the single combat, the discus, the shooting with arrows, the darting the javelin: the various descriptions of which, and the various success of the several antagonists, make the greatest part of the book.

In this book ends the thirtieth day. The night following, the ghost of Patroclus appears to Achilles: the one-and-thirtieth day is employed in felling the timber for the pile: the two-and-thirtieth in burning it; and the three-and-thirtieth in the games. The scene is generally on the sea-shore.

Thus humbled in the dust, the pensive train

Through the sad city mourn’d her hero slain.

The body soil’d with dust, and black with gore,

Lies on broad Hellespont’s resounding shore.

The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand,

All, but the martial Myrmidonian band:

These yet assembled great Achilles holds,

And the stern purpose of his mind unfolds:

“Not yet, my brave companions of the war,

Release your smoking coursers from the car;

But, with his chariot each in order led,

Perform due honours to Patroclus dead.

Ere yet from rest or food we seek relief,

Some rites remain, to glut our rage of grief.”

The troops obey’d; and thrice in order led²⁸¹

(Achilles first) their coursers round the dead;

And thrice their sorrows and laments renew;

Tears bathe their arms, and tears the sands bedew.

For such a warrior Thetis aids their woe,

Melts their strong hearts, and bids their eyes to flow.

But chief, Pelides: thick-succeeding sighs

Burst from his heart, and torrents from his eyes:

His slaughtering hands, yet red with blood, he laid

On his dead friend’s cold breast, and thus he said:

“All hail, Patroclus! let thy honour’d ghost

Hear, and rejoice on Pluto’s dreary coast;

Behold! Achilles’ promise is complete;

The bloody Hector stretch’d before thy feet.

Lo! to the dogs his carcase I resign;

And twelve sad victims, of the Trojan line,

Sacred to vengeance, instant shall expire;

Their lives effused around thy funeral pyre.”

Gloomy he said, and (horrible to view)

Before the bier the bleeding Hector threw,

Prone on the dust. The Myrmidons around

Unbraced their armour, and the steeds unbound.

All to Achilles’ sable ship repair,

Frequent and full, the genial feast to share.

Now from the well-fed swine black smokes aspire,

The bristly victims hissing o’er the fire:

The huge ox bellowing falls; with feebler cries

Expires the goat; the sheep in silence dies.

Around the hero’s prostrate body flow’d,

In one promiscuous stream, the reeking blood.

And now a band of Argive monarchs brings

The glorious victor to the king of kings.

From his dead friend the pensive warrior went,

With steps unwilling, to the regal tent.

The attending heralds, as by office bound,

With kindled flames the tripod-vase surround:

To cleanse his conquering hands from hostile gore,

They urged in vain; the chief refused, and swore:²⁸²

“No drop shall touch me, by almighty Jove!

The first and greatest of the gods above!

Till on the pyre I place thee; till I rear

The grassy mound, and clip thy sacred hair.

Some ease at least those pious rites may give,

And soothe my sorrows, while I bear to live.

Howe’er, reluctant as I am, I stay

And share your feast; but with the dawn of day,

(O king of men!) it claims thy royal care,

That Greece the warrior’s funeral pile prepare,

And bid the forests fall: (such rites are paid

To heroes slumbering in eternal shade:)

Then, when his earthly part shall mount in fire,

Let the leagued squadrons to their posts retire.”

He spoke: they hear him, and the word obey;

The rage of hunger and of thirst allay,

Then ease in sleep the labours of the day.

But great Pelides, stretch’d along the shore,

Where, dash’d on rocks, the broken billows roar,

Lies inly groaning; while on either hand

The martial Myrmidons confusedly stand.

Along the grass his languid members fall,

Tired with his chase around the Trojan wall;

Hush’d by the murmurs of the rolling deep,

At length he sinks in the soft arms of sleep.

When lo! the shade, before his closing eyes,

Of sad Patroclus rose, or seem’d to rise:

In the same robe he living wore, he came:

In stature, voice, and pleasing look, the same.

The form familiar hover’d o’er his head,

“And sleeps Achilles? (thus the phantom said:)

Sleeps my Achilles, his Patroclus dead?

Living, I seem’d his dearest, tenderest care,

But now forgot, I wander in the air.

Let my pale corse the rites of burial know,

And give me entrance in the realms below:

Till then the spirit finds no resting-place,

But here and there the unbodied spectres chase

The vagrant dead around the dark abode,

Forbid to cross the irremeable flood.

Now give thy hand; for to the farther shore

When once we pass, the soul returns no more:

When once the last funereal flames ascend,

No more shall meet Achilles and his friend;

No more our thoughts to those we loved make known;

Or quit the dearest, to converse alone.

Me fate has sever’d from the sons of earth,

The fate fore-doom’d that waited from my birth:

Thee too it waits; before the Trojan wall

Even great and godlike thou art doom’d to fall.

Hear then; and as in fate and love we join,

Ah suffer that my bones may rest with thine!

Together have we lived; together bred,

One house received us, and one table fed;

That golden urn, thy goddess-mother gave,

May mix our ashes in one common grave.”

“And is it thou? (he answers) To my sight²⁸³

Once more return’st thou from the realms of night?

O more than brother! Think each office paid,

Whate’er can rest a discontented shade;

But grant one last embrace, unhappy boy!

Afford at least that melancholy joy.”

He said, and with his longing arms essay’d

In vain to grasp the visionary shade!

Like a thin smoke he sees the spirit fly,²⁸⁴

And hears a feeble, lamentable cry.

Confused he wakes; amazement breaks the bands

Of golden sleep, and starting from the sands,

Pensive he muses with uplifted hands:

“’Tis true, ’tis certain; man, though dead, retains

Part of himself; the immortal mind remains:

The form subsists without the body’s aid,

Aerial semblance, and an empty shade!

This night my friend, so late in battle lost,

Stood at my side, a pensive, plaintive ghost:

Even now familiar, as in life, he came;

Alas! how different! yet how like the same!”

Thus while he spoke, each eye grew big with tears:

And now the rosy-finger’d morn appears,

Shows every mournful face with tears o’erspread,

And glares on the pale visage of the dead.

But Agamemnon, as the rites demand,

With mules and waggons sends a chosen band

To load the timber, and the pile to rear;

A charge consign’d to Merion’s faithful care.

With proper instruments they take the road,

Axes to cut, and ropes to sling the load.

First march the heavy mules, securely slow,

O’er hills, o’er dales, o’er crags, o’er rocks they go:²⁸⁵

Jumping, high o’er the shrubs of the rough ground,

Rattle the clattering cars, and the shock’d axles bound

But when arrived at Ida’s spreading woods,²⁸⁶

(Fair Ida, water’d with descending floods,)

Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes;

On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks

Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown;

Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.

The wood the Grecians cleave, prepared to burn;

And the slow mules the same rough road return

The sturdy woodmen equal burdens bore

(Such charge was given them) to the sandy shore;

There on the spot which great Achilles show’d,

They eased their shoulders, and disposed the load;

Circling around the place, where times to come

Shall view Patroclus’ and Achilles’ tomb.

The hero bids his martial troops appear

High on their cars in all the pomp of war;

Each in refulgent arms his limbs attires,

All mount their chariots, combatants and squires.

The chariots first proceed, a shining train;

Then clouds of foot that smoke along the plain;

Next these the melancholy band appear;

Amidst, lay dead Patroclus on the bier;

O’er all the corse their scattered locks they throw;

Achilles next, oppress’d with mighty woe,

Supporting with his hands the hero’s head,

Bends o’er the extended body of the dead.

Patroclus decent on the appointed ground

They place, and heap the sylvan pile around.

But great Achilles stands apart in prayer,

And from his head divides the yellow hair;

Those curling locks which from his youth he vow’d,²⁸⁷

And sacred grew, to Sperchius’ honour’d flood:

Then sighing, to the deep his locks he cast,

And roll’d his eyes around the watery waste:

“Sperchius! whose waves in mazy errors lost

Delightful roll along my native coast!

To whom we vainly vow’d, at our return,

These locks to fall, and hecatombs to burn:

Full fifty rams to bleed in sacrifice,

Where to the day thy silver fountains rise,

And where in shade of consecrated bowers

Thy altars stand, perfumed with native flowers!

So vow’d my father, but he vow’d in vain;

No more Achilles sees his native plain;

In that vain hope these hairs no longer grow,

Patroclus bears them to the shades below.”

Thus o’er Patroclus while the hero pray’d,

On his cold hand the sacred lock he laid.

Once more afresh the Grecian sorrows flow:

And now the sun had set upon their woe;

But to the king of men thus spoke the chief:

“Enough, Atrides! give the troops relief:

Permit the mourning legions to retire,

And let the chiefs alone attend the pyre;

The pious care be ours, the dead to burn—”

He said: the people to their ships return:

While those deputed to inter the slain

Heap with a rising pyramid the plain.²⁸⁸

A hundred foot in length, a hundred wide,

The growing structure spreads on every side;

High on the top the manly corse they lay,

And well-fed sheep and sable oxen slay:

Achilles covered with their fat the dead,

And the piled victims round the body spread;

Then jars of honey, and of fragrant oil,

Suspends around, low-bending o’er the pile.

Four sprightly coursers, with a deadly groan

Pour forth their lives, and on the pyre are thrown.

Of nine large dogs, domestic at his board,

Fall two, selected to attend their lord,

Then last of all, and horrible to tell,

Sad sacrifice! twelve Trojan captives fell.²⁸⁹

On these the rage of fire victorious preys,

Involves and joins them in one common blaze.

Smear’d with the bloody rites, he stands on high,

And calls the spirit with a dreadful cry:²⁹⁰

“All hail, Patroclus! let thy vengeful ghost

Hear, and exult, on Pluto’s dreary coast.

Behold Achilles’ promise fully paid,

Twelve Trojan heroes offer’d to thy shade;

But heavier fates on Hector’s corse attend,

Saved from the flames, for hungry dogs to rend.”

So spake he, threatening: but the gods made vain

His threat, and guard inviolate the slain:

Celestial Venus hover’d o’er his head,

And roseate unguents, heavenly fragrance! shed:

She watch’d him all the night and all the day,

And drove the bloodhounds from their destined prey.

Nor sacred Phoebus less employ’d his care;

He pour’d around a veil of gather’d air,

And kept the nerves undried, the flesh entire,

Against the solar beam and Sirian fire.

Nor yet the pile, where dead Patroclus lies,

Smokes, nor as yet the sullen flames arise;

But, fast beside, Achilles stood in prayer,

Invoked the gods whose spirit moves the air,

And victims promised, and libations cast,

To gentle Zephyr and the Boreal blast:

He call’d the aerial powers, along the skies

To breathe, and whisper to the fires to rise.

The winged Iris heard the hero’s call,

And instant hasten’d to their airy hall,

Where in old Zephyr’s open courts on high,

Sat all the blustering brethren of the sky.

She shone amidst them, on her painted bow;

The rocky pavement glitter’d with the show.

All from the banquet rise, and each invites

The various goddess to partake the rites.

“Not so (the dame replied), I haste to go

To sacred Ocean, and the floods below:

Even now our solemn hecatombs attend,

And heaven is feasting on the world’s green end

With righteous Ethiops (uncorrupted train!)

Far on the extremest limits of the main.

But Peleus’ son entreats, with sacrifice,

The western spirit, and the north, to rise!

Let on Patroclus’ pile your blast be driven,

And bear the blazing honours high to heaven.”

Swift as the word she vanish’d from their view;

Swift as the word the winds tumultuous flew;

Forth burst the stormy band with thundering roar,

And heaps on heaps the clouds are toss’d before.

To the wide main then stooping from the skies,

The heaving deeps in watery mountains rise:

Troy feels the blast along her shaking walls,

Till on the pile the gather’d tempest falls.

The structure crackles in the roaring fires,

And all the night the plenteous flame aspires.

All night Achilles hails Patroclus’ soul,

With large libations from the golden bowl.

As a poor father, helpless and undone,

Mourns o’er the ashes of an only son,

Takes a sad pleasure the last bones to burn,

And pours in tears, ere yet they close the urn:

So stay’d Achilles, circling round the shore,

So watch’d the flames, till now they flame no more.

’Twas when, emerging through the shades of night.

The morning planet told the approach of light;

And, fast behind, Aurora’s warmer ray

O’er the broad ocean pour’d the golden day:

Then sank the blaze, the pile no longer burn’d,

And to their caves the whistling winds return’d:

Across the Thracian seas their course they bore;

The ruffled seas beneath their passage roar.

Then parting from the pile he ceased to weep,

And sank to quiet in the embrace of sleep,

Exhausted with his grief: meanwhile the crowd

Of thronging Grecians round Achilles stood;

The tumult waked him: from his eyes he shook

Unwilling slumber, and the chiefs bespoke:

“Ye kings and princes of the Achaian name!

First let us quench the yet remaining flame

With sable wine; then, as the rites direct,

The hero’s bones with careful view select:

(Apart, and easy to be known they lie

Amidst the heap, and obvious to the eye:

The rest around the margin will be seen

Promiscuous, steeds and immolated men:)

These wrapp’d in double cauls of fat, prepare;

And in the golden vase dispose with care;

There let them rest with decent honour laid,

Till I shall follow to the infernal shade.

Meantime erect the tomb with pious hands,

A common structure on the humble sands:

Hereafter Greece some nobler work may raise,

And late posterity record our praise!”

The Greeks obey; where yet the embers glow,

Wide o’er the pile the sable wine they throw,

And deep subsides the ashy heap below.

Next the white bones his sad companions place,

With tears collected, in the golden vase.

The sacred relics to the tent they bore;

The urn a veil of linen covered o’er.

That done, they bid the sepulchre aspire,

And cast the deep foundations round the pyre;

High in the midst they heap the swelling bed

Of rising earth, memorial of the dead.

The swarming populace the chief detains,

And leads amidst a wide extent of plains;

There placed them round: then from the ships proceeds

A train of oxen, mules, and stately steeds,

Vases and tripods (for the funeral games),

Resplendent brass, and more resplendent dames.

First stood the prizes to reward the force

Of rapid racers in the dusty course:

A woman for the first, in beauty’s bloom,

Skill’d in the needle, and the labouring loom;

And a large vase, where two bright handles rise,

Of twenty measures its capacious size.

The second victor claims a mare unbroke,

Big with a mule, unknowing of the yoke:

The third, a charger yet untouch’d by flame;

Four ample measures held the shining frame:

Two golden talents for the fourth were placed:

An ample double bowl contents the last.

These in fair order ranged upon the plain,

The hero, rising, thus address’d the train:

“Behold the prizes, valiant Greeks! decreed

To the brave rulers of the racing steed;

Prizes which none beside ourself could gain,

Should our immortal coursers take the plain;

(A race unrivall’d, which from ocean’s god

Peleus received, and on his son bestow’d.)

But this no time our vigour to display;

Nor suit, with them, the games of this sad day:

Lost is Patroclus now, that wont to deck

Their flowing manes, and sleek their glossy neck.

Sad, as they shared in human grief, they stand,

And trail those graceful honours on the sand!

Let others for the noble task prepare,

Who trust the courser and the flying car.”

Fired at his word the rival racers rise;

But far the first Eumelus hopes the prize,

Famed though Pieria for the fleetest breed,

And skill’d to manage the high-bounding steed.

With equal ardour bold Tydides swell’d,

The steeds of Tros beneath his yoke compell’d

(Which late obey’d the Dardan chiefs command,

When scarce a god redeem’d him from his hand).

Then Menelaus his Podargus brings,

And the famed courser of the king of kings:

Whom rich Echepolus (more rich than brave),

To ’scape the wars, to Agamemnon gave,

(Æthe her name) at home to end his days;

Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.

Next him Antilochus demands the course

With beating heart, and cheers his Pylian horse.

Experienced Nestor gives his son the reins,

Directs his judgment, and his heat restrains;

Nor idly warns the hoary sire, nor hears

The prudent son with unattending ears.

“My son! though youthful ardour fire thy breast,

The gods have loved thee, and with arts have bless’d;

Neptune and Jove on thee conferr’d the skill

Swift round the goal to turn the flying wheel.

To guide thy conduct little precept needs;

But slow, and past their vigour, are my steeds.

Fear not thy rivals, though for swiftness known;

Compare those rivals’ judgment and thy own:

It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,

And to be swift is less than to be wise.

’Tis more by art than force of numerous strokes

The dexterous woodman shapes the stubborn oaks;

By art the pilot, through the boiling deep

And howling tempest, steers the fearless ship;

And ’tis the artist wins the glorious course;

Not those who trust in chariots and in horse.

In vain, unskilful to the goal they strive,

And short, or wide, the ungovern’d courser drive:

While with sure skill, though with inferior steeds,

The knowing racer to his end proceeds;

Fix’d on the goal his eye foreruns the course,

His hand unerring steers the steady horse,

And now contracts, or now extends the rein,

Observing still the foremost on the plain.

Mark then the goal, ’tis easy to be found;

Yon aged trunk, a cubit from the ground;

Of some once stately oak the last remains,

Or hardy fir, unperish’d with the rains:

Inclosed with stones, conspicuous from afar;

And round, a circle for the wheeling car.

(Some tomb perhaps of old, the dead to grace;

Or then, as now, the limit of a race.)

Bear close to this, and warily proceed,

A little bending to the left-hand steed;

But urge the right, and give him all the reins;

While thy strict hand his fellow’s head restrains,

And turns him short; till, doubling as they roll,

The wheel’s round naves appear to brush the goal.

Yet (not to break the car, or lame the horse)

Clear of the stony heap direct the course;

Lest through incaution failing, thou mayst be

A joy to others, a reproach to me.

So shalt thou pass the goal, secure of mind,

And leave unskilful swiftness far behind:

Though thy fierce rival drove the matchless steed

Which bore Adrastus, of celestial breed;

Or the famed race, through all the regions known,

That whirl’d the car of proud Laomedon.”

Thus (nought unsaid) the much-advising sage

Concludes; then sat, stiff with unwieldy age.

Next bold Meriones was seen to rise,

The last, but not least ardent for the prize.

They mount their seats; the lots their place dispose

(Roll’d in his helmet, these Achilles throws).

Young Nestor leads the race: Eumelus then;

And next the brother of the king of men:

Thy lot, Meriones, the fourth was cast;

And, far the bravest, Diomed, was last.

They stand in order, an impatient train:

Pelides points the barrier on the plain,

And sends before old Phoenix to the place,

To mark the racers, and to judge the race.

At once the coursers from the barrier bound;

The lifted scourges all at once resound;

Their heart, their eyes, their voice, they send before;

And up the champaign thunder from the shore:

Thick, where they drive, the dusty clouds arise,

And the lost courser in the whirlwind flies;

Loose on their shoulders the long manes reclined,

Float in their speed, and dance upon the wind:

The smoking chariots, rapid as they bound,

Now seem to touch the sky, and now the ground.

While hot for fame, and conquest all their care,

(Each o’er his flying courser hung in air,)

Erect with ardour, poised upon the rein,

They pant, they stretch, they shout along the plain.

Now (the last compass fetch’d around the goal)

At the near prize each gathers all his soul,

Each burns with double hope, with double pain,

Tears up the shore, and thunders toward the main.

First flew Eumelus on Pheretian steeds;

With those of Tros bold Diomed succeeds:

Close on Eumelus’ back they puff the wind,

And seem just mounting on his car behind;

Full on his neck he feels the sultry breeze,

And, hovering o’er, their stretching shadows sees.

Then had he lost, or left a doubtful prize;

But angry Phoebus to Tydides flies,

Strikes from his hand the scourge, and renders vain

His matchless horses’ labour on the plain.

Rage fills his eye with anguish, to survey

Snatch’d from his hope the glories of the day.

The fraud celestial Pallas sees with pain,

Springs to her knight, and gives the scourge again,

And fills his steeds with vigour. At a stroke

She breaks his rival’s chariot from the yoke:

No more their way the startled horses held;

The car reversed came rattling on the field;

Shot headlong from his seat, beside the wheel,

Prone on the dust the unhappy master fell;

His batter’d face and elbows strike the ground;

Nose, mouth, and front, one undistinguish’d wound:

Grief stops his voice, a torrent drowns his eyes:

Before him far the glad Tydides flies;

Minerva’s spirit drives his matchless pace,

And crowns him victor of the labour’d race.

The next, though distant, Menelaus succeeds;

While thus young Nestor animates his steeds:

“Now, now, my generous pair, exert your force;

Not that we hope to match Tydides’ horse,

Since great Minerva wings their rapid way,

And gives their lord the honours of the day;

But reach Atrides! shall his mare outgo

Your swiftness? vanquish’d by a female foe?

Through your neglect, if lagging on the plain

The last ignoble gift be all we gain,

No more shall Nestor’s hand your food supply,

The old man’s fury rises, and ye die.

Haste then: yon narrow road, before our sight,

Presents the occasion, could we use it right.”

Thus he. The coursers at their master’s threat

With quicker steps the sounding champaign beat.

And now Antilochus with nice survey

Observes the compass of the hollow way.

’Twas where, by force of wintry torrents torn,

Fast by the road a precipice was worn:

Here, where but one could pass, to shun the throng

The Spartan hero’s chariot smoked along.

Close up the venturous youth resolves to keep,

Still edging near, and bears him toward the steep.

Atrides, trembling, casts his eye below,

And wonders at the rashness of his foe.

“Hold, stay your steeds—What madness thus to ride

This narrow way! take larger field (he cried),

Or both must fall.”—Atrides cried in vain;

He flies more fast, and throws up all the rein.

Far as an able arm the disk can send,

When youthful rivals their full force extend,

So far, Antilochus! thy chariot flew

Before the king: he, cautious, backward drew

His horse compell’d; foreboding in his fears

The rattling ruin of the clashing cars,

The floundering coursers rolling on the plain,

And conquest lost through frantic haste to gain.

But thus upbraids his rival as he flies:

“Go, furious youth! ungenerous and unwise!

Go, but expect not I’ll the prize resign;

Add perjury to fraud, and make it thine—”

Then to his steeds with all his force he cries,

“Be swift, be vigorous, and regain the prize!

Your rivals, destitute of youthful force,

With fainting knees shall labour in the course,

And yield the glory yours.”—The steeds obey;

Already at their heels they wing their way,

And seem already to retrieve the day.

Meantime the Grecians in a ring beheld

The coursers bounding o’er the dusty field.

The first who mark’d them was the Cretan king;

High on a rising ground, above the ring,

The monarch sat: from whence with sure survey

He well observed the chief who led the way,

And heard from far his animating cries,

And saw the foremost steed with sharpen’d eyes;

On whose broad front a blaze of shining white,

Like the full moon, stood obvious to the sight.

He saw; and rising, to the Greeks begun:

“Are yonder horse discern’d by me alone?

Or can ye, all, another chief survey,

And other steeds than lately led the way?

Those, though the swiftest, by some god withheld,

Lie sure disabled in the middle field:

For, since the goal they doubled, round the plain

I search to find them, but I search in vain.

Perchance the reins forsook the driver’s hand,

And, turn’d too short, he tumbled on the strand,

Shot from the chariot; while his coursers stray

With frantic fury from the destined way.

Rise then some other, and inform my sight,

For these dim eyes, perhaps, discern not right;

Yet sure he seems, to judge by shape and air,

The great Ætolian chief, renown’d in war.”

“Old man! (Oileus rashly thus replies)

Thy tongue too hastily confers the prize;

Of those who view the course, nor sharpest eyed,

Nor youngest, yet the readiest to decide.

Eumelus’ steeds, high bounding in the chase,

Still, as at first, unrivall’d lead the race:

I well discern him, as he shakes the rein,

And hear his shouts victorious o’er the plain.”

Thus he. Idomeneus, incensed, rejoin’d:

“Barbarous of words! and arrogant of mind!

Contentious prince, of all the Greeks beside

The last in merit, as the first in pride!

To vile reproach what answer can we make?

A goblet or a tripod let us stake,

And be the king the judge. The most unwise

Will learn their rashness, when they pay the price.”

He said: and Ajax, by mad passion borne,

Stern had replied; fierce scorn enhancing scorn

To fell extremes. But Thetis’ godlike son

Awful amidst them rose, and thus begun:

“Forbear, ye chiefs! reproachful to contend;

Much would ye blame, should others thus offend:

And lo! the approaching steeds your contest end.”

No sooner had he spoke, but thundering near,

Drives, through a stream of dust, the charioteer.

High o’er his head the circling lash he wields:

His bounding horses scarcely touch the fields:

His car amidst the dusty whirlwind roll’d,

Bright with the mingled blaze of tin and gold,

Refulgent through the cloud: no eye could find

The track his flying wheels had left behind:

And the fierce coursers urged their rapid pace

So swift, it seem’d a flight, and not a race.

Now victor at the goal Tydides stands,

Quits his bright car, and springs upon the sands;

From the hot steeds the sweaty torrents stream;

The well-plied whip is hung athwart the beam:

With joy brave Sthenelus receives the prize,

The tripod-vase, and dame with radiant eyes:

These to the ships his train triumphant leads,

The chief himself unyokes the panting steeds.

Young Nestor follows (who by art, not force,

O’erpass’d Atrides) second in the course.

Behind, Atrides urged the race, more near

Than to the courser in his swift career

The following car, just touching with his heel

And brushing with his tail the whirling wheel:

Such, and so narrow now the space between

The rivals, late so distant on the green;

So soon swift Æthe her lost ground regain’d,

One length, one moment, had the race obtain’d.

Merion pursued, at greater distance still,

With tardier coursers, and inferior skill.

Last came, Admetus! thy unhappy son;

Slow dragged the steeds his batter’d chariot on:

Achilles saw, and pitying thus begun:

“Behold! the man whose matchless art surpass’d

The sons of Greece! the ablest, yet the last!

Fortune denies, but justice bids us pay

(Since great Tydides bears the first away)

To him the second honours of the day.”

The Greeks consent with loud-applauding cries,

And then Eumelus had received the prize,

But youthful Nestor, jealous of his fame,

The award opposes, and asserts his claim.

“Think not (he cries) I tamely will resign,

O Peleus’ son! the mare so justly mine.

What if the gods, the skilful to confound,

Have thrown the horse and horseman to the ground?

Perhaps he sought not heaven by sacrifice,

And vows omitted forfeited the prize.

If yet (distinction to thy friend to show,

And please a soul desirous to bestow)

Some gift must grace Eumelus, view thy store

Of beauteous handmaids, steeds, and shining ore;

An ample present let him thence receive,

And Greece shall praise thy generous thirst to give.

But this my prize I never shall forego;

This, who but touches, warriors! is my foe.”

Thus spake the youth; nor did his words offend;

Pleased with the well-turn’d flattery of a friend,

Achilles smiled: “The gift proposed (he cried),

Antilochus! we shall ourself provide.

With plates of brass the corslet cover’d o’er,

(The same renown’d Asteropaeus wore,)

Whose glittering margins raised with silver shine,

(No vulgar gift,) Eumelus! shall be thine.”

He said: Automedon at his command

The corslet brought, and gave it to his hand.

Distinguish’d by his friend, his bosom glows

With generous joy: then Menelaus rose;

The herald placed the sceptre in his hands,

And still’d the clamour of the shouting bands.

Not without cause incensed at Nestor’s son,

And inly grieving, thus the king begun:

“The praise of wisdom, in thy youth obtain’d,

An act so rash, Antilochus! has stain’d.

Robb’d of my glory and my just reward,

To you, O Grecians! be my wrong declared:

So not a leader shall our conduct blame,

Or judge me envious of a rival’s fame.

But shall not we, ourselves, the truth maintain?

What needs appealing in a fact so plain?

What Greek shall blame me, if I bid thee rise,

And vindicate by oath th’ ill-gotten prize?

Rise if thou darest, before thy chariot stand,

The driving scourge high-lifted in thy hand;

And touch thy steeds, and swear thy whole intent

Was but to conquer, not to circumvent.

Swear by that god whose liquid arms surround

The globe, and whose dread earthquakes heave the ground!”

The prudent chief with calm attention heard;

Then mildly thus: “Excuse, if youth have err’d;

Superior as thou art, forgive the offence,

Nor I thy equal, or in years, or sense.

Thou know’st the errors of unripen’d age,

Weak are its counsels, headlong is its rage.

The prize I quit, if thou thy wrath resign;

The mare, or aught thou ask’st, be freely thine

Ere I become (from thy dear friendship torn)

Hateful to thee, and to the gods forsworn.”

So spoke Antilochus; and at the word

The mare contested to the king restored.

Joy swells his soul: as when the vernal grain

Lifts the green ear above the springing plain,

The fields their vegetable life renew,

And laugh and glitter with the morning dew;

Such joy the Spartan’s shining face o’erspread,

And lifted his gay heart, while thus he said:

“Still may our souls, O generous youth! agree

’Tis now Atrides’ turn to yield to thee.

Rash heat perhaps a moment might control,

Not break, the settled temper of thy soul.

Not but (my friend) ’tis still the wiser way

To waive contention with superior sway;

For ah! how few, who should like thee offend,

Like thee, have talents to regain the friend!

To plead indulgence, and thy fault atone,

Suffice thy father’s merit and thy own:

Generous alike, for me, the sire and son

Have greatly suffer’d, and have greatly done.

I yield; that all may know, my soul can bend,

Nor is my pride preferr’d before my friend.”

He said; and pleased his passion to command,

Resign’d the courser to Noemon’s hand,

Friend of the youthful chief: himself content,

The shining charger to his vessel sent.

The golden talents Merion next obtain’d;

The fifth reward, the double bowl, remain’d.

Achilles this to reverend Nestor bears.

And thus the purpose of his gift declares:

“Accept thou this, O sacred sire! (he said)

In dear memorial of Patroclus dead;

Dead and for ever lost Patroclus lies,

For ever snatch’d from our desiring eyes!

Take thou this token of a grateful heart,

Though ’tis not thine to hurl the distant dart,

The quoit to toss, the ponderous mace to wield,

Or urge the race, or wrestle on the field:

Thy pristine vigour age has overthrown,

But left the glory of the past thy own.”

He said, and placed the goblet at his side;

With joy the venerable king replied:

“Wisely and well, my son, thy words have proved

A senior honour’d, and a friend beloved!

Too true it is, deserted of my strength,

These wither’d arms and limbs have fail’d at length.

Oh! had I now that force I felt of yore,

Known through Buprasium and the Pylian shore!

Victorious then in every solemn game,

Ordain’d to Amarynces’ mighty name;

The brave Epeians gave my glory way,

Ætolians, Pylians, all resign’d the day.

I quell’d Clytomedes in fights of hand,

And backward hurl’d Ancaeus on the sand,

Surpass’d Iphyclus in the swift career,

Phyleus and Polydorus with the spear.

The sons of Actor won the prize of horse,

But won by numbers, not by art or force:

For the famed twins, impatient to survey

Prize after prize by Nestor borne away,

Sprung to their car; and with united pains

One lash’d the coursers, while one ruled the reins.

Such once I was! Now to these tasks succeeds

A younger race, that emulate our deeds:

I yield, alas! (to age who must not yield?)

Though once the foremost hero of the field.

Go thou, my son! by generous friendship led,

With martial honours decorate the dead:

While pleased I take the gift thy hands present,

(Pledge of benevolence, and kind intent,)

Rejoiced, of all the numerous Greeks, to see

Not one but honours sacred age and me:

Those due distinctions thou so well canst pay,

May the just gods return another day!”

Proud of the gift, thus spake the full of days:

Achilles heard him, prouder of the praise.

The prizes next are order’d to the field,

For the bold champions who the caestus wield.

A stately mule, as yet by toils unbroke,

Of six years’ age, unconscious of the yoke,

Is to the circus led, and firmly bound;

Next stands a goblet, massy, large, and round.

Achilles rising, thus: “Let Greece excite

Two heroes equal to this hardy fight;

Who dare the foe with lifted arms provoke,

And rush beneath the long-descending stroke.

On whom Apollo shall the palm bestow,

And whom the Greeks supreme by conquest know,

This mule his dauntless labours shall repay,

The vanquish’d bear the massy bowl away.”

This dreadful combat great Epeus chose;²⁹¹

High o’er the crowd, enormous bulk! he rose,

And seized the beast, and thus began to say:

“Stand forth some man, to bear the bowl away!

(Price of his ruin: for who dares deny

This mule my right; the undoubted victor I)

Others, ’tis own’d, in fields of battle shine,

But the first honours of this fight are mine;

For who excels in all? Then let my foe

Draw near, but first his certain fortune know;

Secure this hand shall his whole frame confound,

Mash all his bones, and all his body pound:

So let his friends be nigh, a needful train,

To heave the batter’d carcase off the plain.”

The giant spoke; and in a stupid gaze

The host beheld him, silent with amaze!

’Twas thou, Euryalus! who durst aspire

To meet his might, and emulate thy sire,

The great Mecistheus; who in days of yore

In Theban games the noblest trophy bore,

(The games ordain’d dead OEdipus to grace,)

And singly vanquish the Cadmean race.

Him great Tydides urges to contend,

Warm with the hopes of conquest for his friend;

Officious with the cincture girds him round;

And to his wrist the gloves of death are bound.

Amid the circle now each champion stands,

And poises high in air his iron hands;

With clashing gauntlets now they fiercely close,

Their crackling jaws re-echo to the blows,

And painful sweat from all their members flows.

At length Epeus dealt a weighty blow

Full on the cheek of his unwary foe;

Beneath that ponderous arm’s resistless sway

Down dropp’d he, nerveless, and extended lay.

As a large fish, when winds and waters roar,

By some huge billow dash’d against the shore,

Lies panting; not less batter’d with his wound,

The bleeding hero pants upon the ground.

To rear his fallen foe, the victor lends,

Scornful, his hand; and gives him to his friends;

Whose arms support him, reeling through the throng,

And dragging his disabled legs along;

Nodding, his head hangs down his shoulder o’er;

His mouth and nostrils pour the clotted gore;²⁹²

Wrapp’d round in mists he lies, and lost to thought;

His friends receive the bowl, too dearly bought.

The third bold game Achilles next demands,

And calls the wrestlers to the level sands:

A massy tripod for the victor lies,

Of twice six oxen its reputed price;

And next, the loser’s spirits to restore,

A female captive, valued but at four.

Scarce did the chief the vigorous strife prop

When tower-like Ajax and Ulysses rose.

Amid the ring each nervous rival stands,

Embracing rigid with implicit hands.

Close lock’d above, their heads and arms are mix’d:

Below, their planted feet at distance fix’d;

Like two strong rafters which the builder forms,

Proof to the wintry winds and howling storms,

Their tops connected, but at wider space

Fix’d on the centre stands their solid base.

Now to the grasp each manly body bends;

The humid sweat from every pore descends;

Their bones resound with blows: sides, shoulders, thighs

Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rise.

Nor could Ulysses, for his art renown’d,

O’erturn the strength of Ajax on the ground;

Nor could the strength of Ajax overthrow

The watchful caution of his artful foe.

While the long strife even tired the lookers on,

Thus to Ulysses spoke great Telamon:

“Or let me lift thee, chief, or lift thou me:

Prove we our force, and Jove the rest decree.”

He said; and, straining, heaved him off the ground

With matchless strength; that time Ulysses found

The strength to evade, and where the nerves combine

His ankle struck: the giant fell supine;

Ulysses, following, on his bosom lies;

Shouts of applause run rattling through the skies.

Ajax to lift Ulysses next essays;

He barely stirr’d him, but he could not raise:

His knee lock’d fast, the foe’s attempt denied;

And grappling close, they tumbled side by side.

Defiled with honourable dust they roll,

Still breathing strife, and unsubdued of soul:

Again they rage, again to combat rise;

When great Achilles thus divides the prize:

“Your noble vigour, O my friends, restrain;

Nor weary out your generous strength in vain.

Ye both have won: let others who excel,

Now prove that prowess you have proved so well.”

The hero’s words the willing chiefs obey,

From their tired bodies wipe the dust away,

And, clothed anew, the following games survey.

And now succeed the gifts ordain’d to grace

The youths contending in the rapid race:

A silver urn that full six measures held,

By none in weight or workmanship excell’d:

Sidonian artists taught the frame to shine,

Elaborate, with artifice divine;

Whence Tyrian sailors did the prize transport,

And gave to Thoas at the Lemnian port:

From him descended, good Eunaeus heir’d

The glorious gift; and, for Lycaon spared,

To brave Patroclus gave the rich reward:

Now, the same hero’s funeral rites to grace,

It stands the prize of swiftness in the race.

A well-fed ox was for the second placed;

And half a talent must content the last.

Achilles rising then bespoke the train:

“Who hope the palm of swiftness to obtain,

Stand forth, and bear these prizes from the plain.”

The hero said, and starting from his place,

Oilean Ajax rises to the race;

Ulysses next; and he whose speed surpass’d

His youthful equals, Nestor’s son, the last.

Ranged in a line the ready racers stand;

Pelides points the barrier with his hand;

All start at once; Oileus led the race;

The next Ulysses, measuring pace with pace;

Behind him, diligently close, he sped,

As closely following as the running thread

The spindle follows, and displays the charms

Of the fair spinster’s breast and moving arms:

Graceful in motion thus, his foe he plies,

And treads each footstep ere the dust can rise;

His glowing breath upon his shoulders plays:

The admiring Greeks loud acclamations raise:

To him they give their wishes, hearts, and eyes,

And send their souls before him as he flies.

Now three times turn’d in prospect of the goal,

The panting chief to Pallas lifts his soul:

“Assist, O goddess!” thus in thought he pray’d!

And present at his thought descends the maid.

Buoy’d by her heavenly force, he seems to swim,

And feels a pinion lifting every limb.

All fierce, and ready now the prize to gain,

Unhappy Ajax stumbles on the plain

(O’erturn’d by Pallas), where the slippery shore

Was clogg’d with slimy dung and mingled gore.

(The self-same place beside Patroclus’ pyre,

Where late the slaughter’d victims fed the fire.)

Besmear’d with filth, and blotted o’er with clay,

Obscene to sight, the rueful racer lay;

The well-fed bull (the second prize) he shared,

And left the urn Ulysses’ rich reward.

Then, grasping by the horn the mighty beast,

The baffled hero thus the Greeks address’d:

“Accursed fate! the conquest I forego;

A mortal I, a goddess was my foe;

She urged her favourite on the rapid way,

And Pallas, not Ulysses, won the day.”

Thus sourly wail’d he, sputtering dirt and gore;

A burst of laughter echoed through the shore.

Antilochus, more humorous than the rest,

Takes the last prize, and takes it with a jest:

“Why with our wiser elders should we strive?

The gods still love them, and they always thrive.

Ye see, to Ajax I must yield the prize:

He to Ulysses, still more aged and wise;

(A green old age unconscious of decays,

That proves the hero born in better days!)

Behold his vigour in this active race!

Achilles only boasts a swifter pace:

For who can match Achilles? He who can,

Must yet be more than hero, more than man.”

The effect succeeds the speech. Pelides cries,

“Thy artful praise deserves a better prize.

Nor Greece in vain shall hear thy friend extoll’d;

Receive a talent of the purest gold.”

The youth departs content. The host admire

The son of Nestor, worthy of his sire.

Next these a buckler, spear, and helm, he brings;

Cast on the plain, the brazen burden rings:

Arms which of late divine Sarpedon wore,

And great Patroclus in short triumph bore.

“Stand forth the bravest of our host! (he cries)

Whoever dares deserve so rich a prize,

Now grace the lists before our army’s sight,

And sheathed in steel, provoke his foe to fight.

Who first the jointed armour shall explore,

And stain his rival’s mail with issuing gore,

The sword Asteropaeus possess’d of old,

(A Thracian blade, distinct with studs of gold,)

Shall pay the stroke, and grace the striker’s side:

These arms in common let the chiefs divide:

For each brave champion, when the combat ends,

A sumptuous banquet at our tents attends.”

Fierce at the word uprose great Tydeus’ son,

And the huge bulk of Ajax Telamon.

Clad in refulgent steel, on either hand,

The dreadful chiefs amid the circle stand;

Louring they meet, tremendous to the sight;

Each Argive bosom beats with fierce delight.

Opposed in arms not long they idly stood,

But thrice they closed, and thrice the charge renew’d.

A furious pass the spear of Ajax made

Through the broad shield, but at the corslet stay’d.

Not thus the foe: his javelin aim’d above

The buckler’s margin, at the neck he drove.

But Greece, now trembling for her hero’s life,

Bade share the honours, and surcease the strife.

Yet still the victor’s due Tydides gains,

With him the sword and studded belt remains.

Then hurl’d the hero, thundering on the ground,

A mass of iron (an enormous round),

Whose weight and size the circling Greeks admire,

Rude from the furnace, and but shaped by fire.

This mighty quoit Aetion wont to rear,

And from his whirling arm dismiss in air;

The giant by Achilles slain, he stow’d

Among his spoils this memorable load.

For this, he bids those nervous artists vie,

That teach the disk to sound along the sky.

“Let him, whose might can hurl this bowl, arise;

Who farthest hurls it, take it as his prize;

If he be one enrich’d with large domain

Of downs for flocks, and arable for grain,

Small stock of iron needs that man provide;

His hinds and swains whole years shall be supplied

From hence; nor ask the neighbouring city’s aid

For ploughshares, wheels, and all the rural trade.”

Stern Polypoetes stepp’d before the throng,

And great Leonteus, more than mortal strong;

Whose force with rival forces to oppose,

Uprose great Ajax; up Epeus rose.

Each stood in order: first Epeus threw;

High o’er the wondering crowds the whirling circle flew.

Leonteus next a little space surpass’d;

And third, the strength of godlike Ajax cast.

O’er both their marks it flew; till fiercely flung

From Polypoetes’ arm the discus sung:

Far as a swain his whirling sheephook throws,

That distant falls among the grazing cows,

So past them all the rapid circle flies:

His friends, while loud applauses shake the skies,

With force conjoin’d heave off the weighty prize.

Those, who in skilful archery contend,

He next invites the twanging bow to bend;

And twice ten axes casts amidst the round,

Ten double-edged, and ten that singly wound

The mast, which late a first-rate galley bore,

The hero fixes in the sandy shore;

To the tall top a milk-white dove they tie,

The trembling mark at which their arrows fly.

“Whose weapon strikes yon fluttering bird, shall bear

These two-edged axes, terrible in war;

The single, he whose shaft divides the cord.”

He said: experienced Merion took the word;

And skilful Teucer: in the helm they threw

Their lots inscribed, and forth the latter flew.

Swift from the string the sounding arrow flies;

But flies unbless’d! No grateful sacrifice,

No firstling lambs, unheedful! didst thou vow

To Phoebus, patron of the shaft and bow.

For this, thy well-aim’d arrow turn’d aside,

Err’d from the dove, yet cut the cord that tied:

Adown the mainmast fell the parted string,

And the free bird to heaven displays her wing:

Sea, shores, and skies, with loud applause resound,

And Merion eager meditates the wound:

He takes the bow, directs the shaft above,

And following with his eye the soaring dove,

Implores the god to speed it through the skies,

With vows of firstling lambs, and grateful sacrific

The dove, in airy circles as she wheels,

Amid the clouds the piercing arrow feels;

Quite through and through the point its passage found,

And at his feet fell bloody to the ground.

The wounded bird, ere yet she breathed her last,

With flagging wings alighted on the mast,

A moment hung, and spread her pinions there,

Then sudden dropp’d, and left her life in air.

From the pleased crowd new peals of thunder rise,

And to the ships brave Merion bears the prize.

To close the funeral games, Achilles last

A massy spear amid the circle placed,

And ample charger of unsullied frame,

With flowers high-wrought, not blacken’d yet by flame.

For these he bids the heroes prove their art,

Whose dexterous skill directs the flying dart.

Here too great Merion hopes the noble prize;

Nor here disdain’d the king of men to rise.

With joy Pelides saw the honour paid,

Rose to the monarch, and respectful said:

“Thee first in virtue, as in power supreme,

O king of nations! all thy Greeks proclaim;

In every martial game thy worth attest,

And know thee both their greatest and their best.

Take then the prize, but let brave Merion bear

This beamy javelin in thy brother’s war.”

Pleased from the hero’s lips his praise to hear,

The king to Merion gives the brazen spear:

But, set apart for sacred use, commands

The glittering charger to Talthybius’ hands.

Book XXIV

ARGUMENT.

THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OF HECTOR.

The gods deliberate about the redemption of Hector’s body. Jupiter sends Thetis to Achilles, to dispose him for the restoring it, and Iris to Priam, to encourage him to go in person and treat for it. The old king, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his queen, makes ready for the journey, to which he is encouraged by an omen from Jupiter. He sets forth in his chariot, with a waggon loaded with presents, under the charge of Idaeus the herald. Mercury descends in the shape of a young man, and conducts him to the pavilion of Achilles. Their conversation on the way. Priam finds Achilles at his table, casts himself at his feet, and begs for the body of his son: Achilles, moved with compassion, grants his request, detains him one night in his tent, and the next morning sends him home with the body: the Trojans run out to meet him. The lamentations of Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen, with the solemnities of the funeral.

The time of twelve days is employed in this book, while the body of Hector lies in the tent of Achilles; and as many more are spent in the truce allowed for his interment. The scene is partly in Achilles’ camp, and partly in Troy.

Now from the finish’d games the Grecian band

Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand,

All stretch’d at ease the genial banquet share,

And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care.

Not so Achilles: he, to grief resign’d,

His friend’s dear image present to his mind,

Takes his sad couch, more unobserved to weep;

Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep.

Restless he roll’d around his weary bed,

And all his soul on his Patroclus fed:

The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind,

That youthful vigour, and that manly mind,

What toils they shared, what martial works they wrought,

What seas they measured, and what fields they fought;

All pass’d before him in remembrance dear,

Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear.

And now supine, now prone, the hero lay,

Now shifts his side, impatient for the day:

Then starting up, disconsolate he goes

Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes.

There as the solitary mourner raves,

The ruddy morning rises o’er the waves:

Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join’d!

The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind.

And thrice, Patroclus! round thy monument

Was Hector dragg’d, then hurried to the tent.

There sleep at last o’ercomes the hero’s eyes;

While foul in dust the unhonour’d carcase lies,

But not deserted by the pitying skies:

For Phoebus watch’d it with superior care,

Preserved from gaping wounds and tainting air;

And, ignominious as it swept the field,

Spread o’er the sacred corse his golden shield.

All heaven was moved, and Hermes will’d to go

By stealth to snatch him from the insulting foe:

But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies,

And th’ unrelenting empress of the skies,

E’er since that day implacable to Troy,

What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy,

Won by destructive lust (reward obscene),

Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen.

But when the tenth celestial morning broke,

To heaven assembled, thus Apollo spoke:

“Unpitying powers! how oft each holy fane

Has Hector tinged with blood of victims slain?

And can ye still his cold remains pursue?

Still grudge his body to the Trojans’ view?

Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire,

The last sad honours of a funeral fire?

Is then the dire Achilles all your care?

That iron heart, inflexibly severe;

A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide,

In strength of rage, and impotence of pride;

Who hastes to murder with a savage joy,

Invades around, and breathes but to destroy!

Shame is not of his soul; nor understood,

The greatest evil and the greatest good.

Still for one loss he rages unresign’d,

Repugnant to the lot of all mankind;

To lose a friend, a brother, or a son,

Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done:

Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care;

Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear.

But this insatiate, the commission given

By fate exceeds, and tempts the wrath of heaven:

Lo, how his rage dishonest drags along

Hector’s dead earth, insensible of wrong!

Brave though he be, yet by no reason awed,

He violates the laws of man and god.”

“If equal honours by the partial skies

Are doom’d both heroes, (Juno thus replies,)

If Thetis’ son must no distinction know,

Then hear, ye gods! the patron of the bow.

But Hector only boasts a mortal claim,

His birth deriving from a mortal dame:

Achilles, of your own ethereal race,

Springs from a goddess by a man’s embrace

(A goddess by ourself to Peleus given,

A man divine, and chosen friend of heaven)

To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode

Yourselves were present; where this minstrel-god,

Well pleased to share the feast, amid the quire

Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre.”

Then thus the Thunderer checks the imperial dame:

“Let not thy wrath the court of heaven inflame;

Their merits, nor their honours, are the same.

But mine, and every god’s peculiar grace

Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race:

Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay,

(The only honours men to gods can pay,)

Nor ever from our smoking altar ceased

The pure libation, and the holy feast:

Howe’er by stealth to snatch the corse away,

We will not: Thetis guards it night and day.

But haste, and summon to our courts above

The azure queen; let her persuasion move

Her furious son from Priam to receive

The proffer’d ransom, and the corse to leave.”

He added not: and Iris from the skies,

Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies,

Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps,

Refulgent gliding o’er the sable deeps.

Between where Samos wide his forests spreads,

And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads,

Down plunged the maid; (the parted waves resound;)

She plunged and instant shot the dark profound.

As bearing death in the fallacious bait,

From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight;

So pass’d the goddess through the closing wave,

Where Thetis sorrow’d in her secret cave:

There placed amidst her melancholy train

(The blue-hair’d sisters of the sacred main)

Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come,

And wept her godlike son’s approaching doom.

Then thus the goddess of the painted bow:

“Arise, O Thetis! from thy seats below,

’Tis Jove that calls.”—“And why (the dame replies)

Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies?

Sad object as I am for heavenly sight!

Ah may my sorrows ever shun the light!

Howe’er, be heaven’s almighty sire obey’d—”

She spake, and veil’d her head in sable shade,

Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad;

And forth she paced, majestically sad.

Then through the world of waters they repair

(The way fair Iris led) to upper air.

The deeps dividing, o’er the coast they rise,

And touch with momentary flight the skies.

There in the lightning’s blaze the sire they found,

And all the gods in shining synod round.

Thetis approach’d with anguish in her face,

(Minerva rising, gave the mourner place,)

Even Juno sought her sorrows to console,

And offer’d from her hand the nectar-bowl:

She tasted, and resign’d it: then began

The sacred sire of gods and mortal man:

“Thou comest, fair Thetis, but with grief o’ercast;

Maternal sorrows; long, ah, long to last!

Suffice, we know and we partake thy cares;

But yield to fate, and hear what Jove declares

Nine days are past since all the court above

In Hector’s cause have moved the ear of Jove;

’Twas voted, Hermes from his godlike foe

By stealth should bear him, but we will’d not so:

We will, thy son himself the corse restore,

And to his conquest add this glory more.

Then hie thee to him, and our mandate bear:

Tell him he tempts the wrath of heaven too far;

Nor let him more (our anger if he dread)

Vent his mad vengeance on the sacred dead;

But yield to ransom and the father’s prayer;

The mournful father, Iris shall prepare

With gifts to sue; and offer to his hands

Whate’er his honour asks, or heart demands.”

His word the silver-footed queen attends,

And from Olympus’ snowy tops descends.

Arrived, she heard the voice of loud lament,

And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent:

His friends prepare the victim, and dispose

Repast unheeded, while he vents his woes;

The goddess seats her by her pensive son,

She press’d his hand, and tender thus begun:

“How long, unhappy! shall thy sorrows flow,

And thy heart waste with life-consuming woe:

Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign

Soothes weary life, and softens human pain?

O snatch the moments yet within thy power;

Not long to live, indulge the amorous hour!

Lo! Jove himself (for Jove’s command I bear)

Forbids to tempt the wrath of heaven too far.

No longer then (his fury if thou dread)

Detain the relics of great Hector dead;

Nor vent on senseless earth thy vengeance vain,

But yield to ransom, and restore the slain.”

To whom Achilles: “Be the ransom given,

And we submit, since such the will of heaven.”

While thus they communed, from the Olympian bowers

Jove orders Iris to the Trojan towers:

“Haste, winged goddess! to the sacred town,

And urge her monarch to redeem his son.

Alone the Ilian ramparts let him leave,

And bear what stern Achilles may receive:

Alone, for so we will; no Trojan near

Except, to place the dead with decent care,

Some aged herald, who with gentle hand

May the slow mules and funeral car command.

Nor let him death, nor let him danger dread,

Safe through the foe by our protection led:

Him Hermes to Achilles shall convey,

Guard of his life, and partner of his way.

Fierce as he is, Achilles’ self shall spare

His age, nor touch one venerable hair:

Some thought there must be in a soul so brave,

Some sense of duty, some desire to save.”

Then down her bow the winged Iris drives,

And swift at Priam’s mournful court arrives:

Where the sad sons beside their father’s throne

Sat bathed in tears, and answer’d groan with groan.

And all amidst them lay the hoary sire,

(Sad scene of woe!) his face his wrapp’d attire

Conceal’d from sight; with frantic hands he spread

A shower of ashes o’er his neck and head.

From room to room his pensive daughters roam;

Whose shrieks and clamours fill the vaulted dome;

Mindful of those, who late their pride and joy,

Lie pale and breathless round the fields of Troy!

Before the king Jove’s messenger appears,

And thus in whispers greets his trembling ears:

“Fear not, O father! no ill news I bear;

From Jove I come, Jove makes thee still his care;

For Hector’s sake these walls he bids thee leave,

And bear what stern Achilles may receive;

Alone, for so he wills; no Trojan near,

Except, to place the dead with decent care,

Some aged herald, who with gentle hand

May the slow mules and funeral car command.

Nor shalt thou death, nor shall thou danger dread:

Safe through the foe by his protection led:

Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey,

Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way.

Fierce as he is, Achilles’ self shall spare

Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair;

Some thought there must be in a soul so brave,

Some sense of duty, some desire to save.”

She spoke, and vanish’d. Priam bids prepare

His gentle mules and harness to the car;

There, for the gifts, a polish’d casket lay:

His pious sons the king’s command obey.

Then pass’d the monarch to his bridal-room,

Where cedar-beams the lofty roofs perfume,

And where the treasures of his empire lay;

Then call’d his queen, and thus began to say:

“Unhappy consort of a king distress’d!

Partake the troubles of thy husband’s breast:

I saw descend the messenger of Jove,

Who bids me try Achilles’ mind to move;

Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain

The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain.

Tell me thy thought: my heart impels to go

Through hostile camps, and bears me to the foe.”

The hoary monarch thus. Her piercing cries

Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies:

“Ah! whither wanders thy distemper’d mind?

And where the prudence now that awed mankind?

Through Phrygia once and foreign regions known;

Now all confused, distracted, overthrown!

Singly to pass through hosts of foes! to face

(O heart of steel!) the murderer of thy race!

To view that deathful eye, and wander o’er

Those hands yet red with Hector’s noble gore!

Alas! my lord! he knows not how to spare.

And what his mercy, thy slain sons declare;

So brave! so many fallen! To claim his rage

Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age.

No—pent in this sad palace, let us give

To grief the wretched days we have to live.

Still, still for Hector let our sorrows flow,

Born to his own, and to his parents’ woe!

Doom’d from the hour his luckless life begun,

To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus’ son!

Oh! in his dearest blood might I allay

My rage, and these barbarities repay!

For ah! could Hector merit thus, whose breath

Expired not meanly, in unactive death?

He poured his latest blood in manly fight,

And fell a hero in his country’s right.”

“Seek not to stay me, nor my soul affright

With words of omen, like a bird of night,

(Replied unmoved the venerable man;)

’Tis heaven commands me, and you urge in vain.

Had any mortal voice the injunction laid,

Nor augur, priest, nor seer, had been obey’d.

A present goddess brought the high command,

I saw, I heard her, and the word shall stand.

I go, ye gods! obedient to your call:

If in yon camp your powers have doom’d my fall,

Content—By the same hand let me expire!

Add to the slaughter’d son the wretched sire!

One cold embrace at least may be allow’d,

And my last tears flow mingled with his blood!”

From forth his open’d stores, this said, he drew

Twelve costly carpets of refulgent hue,

As many vests, as many mantles told,

And twelve fair veils, and garments stiff with gold,

Two tripods next, and twice two chargers shine,

With ten pure talents from the richest mine;

And last a large well-labour’d bowl had place,

(The pledge of treaties once with friendly Thrace:)

Seem’d all too mean the stores he could employ,

For one last look to buy him back to Troy!

Lo! the sad father, frantic with his pain,

Around him furious drives his menial train:

In vain each slave with duteous care attends,

Each office hurts him, and each face offends.

“What make ye here, officious crowds! (he cries).

Hence! nor obtrude your anguish on my eyes.

Have ye no griefs at home, to fix ye there:

Am I the only object of despair?

Am I become my people’s common show,

Set up by Jove your spectacle of woe?

No, you must feel him too; yourselves must fall;

The same stern god to ruin gives you all:

Nor is great Hector lost by me alone;

Your sole defence, your guardian power is gone!

I see your blood the fields of Phrygia drown,

I see the ruins of your smoking town!

O send me, gods! ere that sad day shall come,

A willing ghost to Pluto’s dreary dome!”

He said, and feebly drives his friends away:

The sorrowing friends his frantic rage obey.

Next on his sons his erring fury falls,

Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls;

His threats Deiphobus and Dius hear,

Hippothous, Pammon, Helenes the seer,

And generous Antiphon: for yet these nine

Survived, sad relics of his numerous line.

“Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire!

Why did not all in Hector’s cause expire?

Wretch that I am! my bravest offspring slain.

You, the disgrace of Priam’s house, remain!

Mestor the brave, renown’d in ranks of war,

With Troilus, dreadful on his rushing car,²⁹³

And last great Hector, more than man divine,

For sure he seem’d not of terrestrial line!

All those relentless Mars untimely slew,

And left me these, a soft and servile crew,

Whose days the feast and wanton dance employ,

Gluttons and flatterers, the contempt of Troy!

Why teach ye not my rapid wheels to run,

And speed my journey to redeem my son?”

The sons their father’s wretched age revere,

Forgive his anger, and produce the car.

High on the seat the cabinet they bind:

The new-made car with solid beauty shined;

Box was the yoke, emboss’d with costly pains,

And hung with ringlets to receive the reins;

Nine cubits long, the traces swept the ground:

These to the chariot’s polish’d pole they bound.

Then fix’d a ring the running reins to guide,

And close beneath the gather’d ends were tied.

Next with the gifts (the price of Hector slain)

The sad attendants load the groaning wain:

Last to the yoke the well-matched mules they bring,

(The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king.)

But the fair horses, long his darling care,

Himself received, and harness’d to his car:

Grieved as he was, he not this task denied;

The hoary herald help’d him, at his side.

While careful these the gentle coursers join’d,

Sad Hecuba approach’d with anxious mind;

A golden bowl that foam’d with fragrant wine,

(Libation destined to the power divine,)

Held in her right, before the steed she stands,

And thus consigns it to the monarch’s hands:

“Take this, and pour to Jove; that safe from harms

His grace restore thee to our roof and arms.

Since victor of thy fears, and slighting mine,

Heaven, or thy soul, inspires this bold design;

Pray to that god, who high on Ida’s brow

Surveys thy desolated realms below,

His winged messenger to send from high,

And lead thy way with heavenly augury:

Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race

Tower on the right of yon ethereal space.

That sign beheld, and strengthen’d from above,

Boldly pursue the journey mark’d by Jove:

But if the god his augury denies,

Suppress thy impulse, nor reject advice.”

“’Tis just (said Priam) to the sire above

To raise our hands; for who so good as Jove?”

He spoke, and bade the attendant handmaid bring

The purest water of the living spring:

(Her ready hands the ewer and bason held:)

Then took the golden cup his queen had fill’d;

On the mid pavement pours the rosy wine,

Uplifts his eyes, and calls the power divine:

“O first and greatest! heaven’s imperial lord!

On lofty Ida’s holy hill adored!

To stern Achilles now direct my ways,

And teach him mercy when a father prays.

If such thy will, despatch from yonder sky

Thy sacred bird, celestial augury!

Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race

Tower on the right of yon ethereal space;

So shall thy suppliant, strengthen’d from above,

Fearless pursue the journey mark’d by Jove.”

Jove heard his prayer, and from the throne on high,

Despatch’d his bird, celestial augury!

The swift-wing’d chaser of the feather’d game,

And known to gods by Percnos’ lofty name.

Wide as appears some palace-gate display’d.

So broad, his pinions stretch’d their ample shade,

As stooping dexter with resounding wings

The imperial bird descends in airy rings.

A dawn of joy in every face appears:

The mourning matron dries her timorous tears:

Swift on his car the impatient monarch sprung;

The brazen portal in his passage rung;

The mules preceding draw the loaded wain,

Charged with the gifts: Idaeus holds the rein:

The king himself his gentle steeds controls,

And through surrounding friends the chariot rolls.

On his slow wheels the following people wait,

Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate;

With hands uplifted eye him as he pass’d,

And gaze upon him as they gazed their last.

Now forward fares the father on his way,

Through the lone fields, and back to Ilion they.

Great Jove beheld him as he cross’d the plain,

And felt the woes of miserable man.

Then thus to Hermes: “Thou whose constant cares

Still succour mortals, and attend their prayers;

Behold an object to thy charge consign’d:

If ever pity touch’d thee for mankind,

Go, guard the sire: the observing foe prevent,

And safe conduct him to Achilles’ tent.”

The god obeys, his golden pinions binds,²⁹⁴

And mounts incumbent on the wings of winds,

That high, through fields of air, his flight sustain,

O’er the wide earth, and o’er the boundless main;

Then grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly,

Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye:

Thus arm’d, swift Hermes steers his airy way,

And stoops on Hellespont’s resounding sea.

A beauteous youth, majestic and divine,

He seem’d; fair offspring of some princely line!

Now twilight veil’d the glaring face of day,

And clad the dusky fields in sober grey;

What time the herald and the hoary king

(Their chariots stopping at the silver spring,

That circling Ilus’ ancient marble flows)

Allow’d their mules and steeds a short repose,

Through the dim shade the herald first espies

A man’s approach, and thus to Priam cries:

“I mark some foe’s advance: O king! beware;

This hard adventure claims thy utmost care!

For much I fear destruction hovers nigh:

Our state asks counsel; is it best to fly?

Or old and helpless, at his feet to fall,

Two wretched suppliants, and for mercy call?”

The afflicted monarch shiver’d with despair;

Pale grew his face, and upright stood his hair;

Sunk was his heart; his colour went and came;

A sudden trembling shook his aged frame:

When Hermes, greeting, touch’d his royal hand,

And, gentle, thus accosts with kind demand:

“Say whither, father! when each mortal sight

Is seal’d in sleep, thou wanderest through the night?

Why roam thy mules and steeds the plains along,

Through Grecian foes, so numerous and so strong?

What couldst thou hope, should these thy treasures view;

These, who with endless hate thy race pursue?

For what defence, alas! could’st thou provide;

Thyself not young, a weak old man thy guide?

Yet suffer not thy soul to sink with dread;

From me no harm shall touch thy reverend head;

From Greece I’ll guard thee too; for in those lines

The living image of my father shines.”

“Thy words, that speak benevolence of mind,

Are true, my son! (the godlike sire rejoin’d:)

Great are my hazards; but the gods survey

My steps, and send thee, guardian of my way.

Hail, and be bless’d! For scarce of mortal kind

Appear thy form, thy feature, and thy mind.”

“Nor true are all thy words, nor erring wide;

(The sacred messenger of heaven replied;)

But say, convey’st thou through the lonely plains

What yet most precious of thy store remains,

To lodge in safety with some friendly hand:

Prepared, perchance, to leave thy native land?

Or fliest thou now?—What hopes can Troy retain,

Thy matchless son, her guard and glory, slain?”

The king, alarm’d: “Say what, and whence thou art

Who search the sorrows of a parent’s heart,

And know so well how godlike Hector died?”

Thus Priam spoke, and Hermes thus replied:

“You tempt me, father, and with pity touch:

On this sad subject you inquire too much.

Oft have these eyes that godlike Hector view’d

In glorious fight, with Grecian blood embrued:

I saw him when, like Jove, his flames he toss’d

On thousand ships, and wither’d half a host:

I saw, but help’d not: stern Achilles’ ire

Forbade assistance, and enjoy’d the fire.

For him I serve, of Myrmidonian race;

One ship convey’d us from our native place;

Polyctor is my sire, an honour’d name,

Old like thyself, and not unknown to fame;

Of seven his sons, by whom the lot was cast

To serve our prince, it fell on me, the last.

To watch this quarter, my adventure falls:

For with the morn the Greeks attack your walls;

Sleepless they sit, impatient to engage,

And scarce their rulers check their martial rage.”

“If then thou art of stern Pelides’ train,

(The mournful monarch thus rejoin’d again,)

Ah tell me truly, where, oh! where are laid

My son’s dear relics? what befals him dead?

Have dogs dismember’d (on the naked plains),

Or yet unmangled rest, his cold remains?”

“O favour’d of the skies! (thus answered then

The power that mediates between god and men)

Nor dogs nor vultures have thy Hector rent,

But whole he lies, neglected in the tent:

This the twelfth evening since he rested there,

Untouch’d by worms, untainted by the air.

Still as Aurora’s ruddy beam is spread,

Round his friend’s tomb Achilles drags the dead:

Yet undisfigured, or in limb or face,

All fresh he lies, with every living grace,

Majestical in death! No stains are found

O’er all the corse, and closed is every wound,

Though many a wound they gave. Some heavenly care,

Some hand divine, preserves him ever fair:

Or all the host of heaven, to whom he led

A life so grateful, still regard him dead.”

Thus spoke to Priam the celestial guide,

And joyful thus the royal sire replied:

“Blest is the man who pays the gods above

The constant tribute of respect and love!

Those who inhabit the Olympian bower

My son forgot not, in exalted power;

And heaven, that every virtue bears in mind,

Even to the ashes of the just is kind.

But thou, O generous youth! this goblet take,

A pledge of gratitude for Hector’s sake;

And while the favouring gods our steps survey,

Safe to Pelides’ tent conduct my way.”

To whom the latent god: “O king, forbear

To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to err.

But can I, absent from my prince’s sight,

Take gifts in secret, that must shun the light?

What from our master’s interest thus we draw,

Is but a licensed theft that ’scapes the law.

Respecting him, my soul abjures the offence;

And as the crime, I dread the consequence.

Thee, far as Argos, pleased I could convey;

Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way:

On thee attend, thy safety to maintain,

O’er pathless forests, or the roaring main.”

He said, then took the chariot at a bound,

And snatch’d the reins, and whirl’d the lash around:

Before the inspiring god that urged them on,

The coursers fly with spirit not their own.

And now they reach’d the naval walls, and found

The guards repasting, while the bowls go round;

On these the virtue of his wand he tries,

And pours deep slumber on their watchful eyes:

Then heaved the massy gates, removed the bars,

And o’er the trenches led the rolling cars.

Unseen, through all the hostile camp they went,

And now approach’d Pelides’ lofty tent.

On firs the roof was raised, and cover’d o’er

With reeds collected from the marshy shore;

And, fenced with palisades, a hall of state,

(The work of soldiers,) where the hero sat.

Large was the door, whose well-compacted strength

A solid pine-tree barr’d of wondrous length:

Scarce three strong Greeks could lift its mighty weight,

But great Achilles singly closed the gate.

This Hermes (such the power of gods) set wide;

Then swift alighted the celestial guide,

And thus reveal’d—”Hear, prince! and understand

Thou ow’st thy guidance to no mortal hand:

Hermes I am, descended from above,

The king of arts, the messenger of Jove,

Farewell: to shun Achilles’ sight I fly;

Uncommon are such favours of the sky,

Nor stand confess’d to frail mortality.

Now fearless enter, and prefer thy prayers;

Adjure him by his father’s silver hairs,

His son, his mother! urge him to bestow

Whatever pity that stern heart can know.”

Thus having said, he vanish’d from his eyes,

And in a moment shot into the skies:

The king, confirm’d from heaven, alighted there,

And left his aged herald on the car,

With solemn pace through various rooms he went,

And found Achilles in his inner tent:

There sat the hero: Alcimus the brave,

And great Automedon, attendance gave:

These served his person at the royal feast;

Around, at awful distance, stood the rest.

Unseen by these, the king his entry made:

And, prostrate now before Achilles laid,

Sudden (a venerable sight!) appears;

Embraced his knees, and bathed his hands in tears;

Those direful hands his kisses press’d, embrued

Even with the best, the dearest of his blood!

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime,

Pursued for murder, flies his native clime)

Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amazed,

All gaze, all wonder: thus Achilles gazed:

Thus stood the attendants stupid with surprise:

All mute, yet seem’d to question with their eyes:

Each look’d on other, none the silence broke,

Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke:

“Ah think, thou favour’d of the powers divine!²⁹⁵

Think of thy father’s age, and pity mine!

In me that father’s reverend image trace,

Those silver hairs, that venerable face;

His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see!

In all my equal, but in misery!

Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate

Expels him helpless from his peaceful state;

Think, from some powerful foe thou seest him fly,

And beg protection with a feeble cry.

Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise;

He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes,

And, hearing, still may hope a better day

May send him thee, to chase that foe away.

No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain,

The best, the bravest, of my sons are slain!

Yet what a race! ere Greece to Ilion came,

The pledge of many a loved and loving dame:

Nineteen one mother bore—Dead, all are dead!

How oft, alas! has wretched Priam bled!

Still one was left their loss to recompense;

His father’s hope, his country’s last defence.

Him too thy rage has slain! beneath thy steel,

Unhappy in his country’s cause he fell!

“For him through hostile camps I bent my way,

For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay;

Large gifts proportion’d to thy wrath I bear;

O hear the wretched, and the gods revere!

“Think of thy father, and this face behold!

See him in me, as helpless and as old!

Though not so wretched: there he yields to me,

The first of men in sovereign misery!

Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace

The scourge and ruin of my realm and race;

Suppliant my children’s murderer to implore,

And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore!”

These words soft pity in the chief inspire,

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.

Concluding Note

We have now passed through the Iliad, and seen the anger of Achilles, and the terrible effects of it, at an end, as that only was the subject of the poem, and the nature of epic poetry would not permit our author to proceed to the event of the war, it perhaps may be acceptable to the common reader to give a short account of what happened to Troy and the chief actors in this poem after the conclusion of it.

I need not mention that Troy was taken soon after the death of Hector by the stratagem of the wooden horse, the particulars of which are described by Virgil in the second book of the Æneid.

Achilles fell before Troy, by the hand of Paris, by the shot of an arrow in his heel, as Hector had prophesied at his death, lib. xxii.

The unfortunate Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles.

Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the armour of Vulcan, but being defeated in his aim, he slew himself through indignation.

Helen, after the death of Paris, married Deiphobus his brother, and at the taking of Troy betrayed him, in order to reconcile herself to Menelaus her first husband, who received her again into favour.

Agamemnon at his return was barbarously murdered by Ægysthus, at the instigation of Clytemnestra his wife, who in his absence had dishonoured his bed with Ægysthus.

Diomed, after the fall of Troy, was expelled his own country, and scarce escaped with his life from his adulterous wife Ægiale; but at last was received by Daunus in Apulia, and shared his kingdom; it is uncertain how he died.

Nestor lived in peace with his children, in Pylos, his native country.

Ulysses also, after innumerable troubles by sea and land, at last returned in safety to Ithaca, which is the subject of Homer’s Odyssey.

For what remains, I beg to be excused from the ceremonies of taking leave at the end of my work, and from embarrassing myself, or others, with any defences or apologies about it. But instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, of the merits or difficulties of it (which must be left to the world, to truth, and to posterity), let me leave behind me a memorial of my friendship with one of the most valuable of men, as well as finest writers, of my age and country, one who has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer, and one whom (I am sure) sincerely rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of placing together, in this manner, the names of Mr. CONGREVE, and of

March 25, 1720

A. POPE

Ton theon de eupoiia—to mae epi pleon me procophai en poiaetikn kai allois epitaeoeimasi en ois isos a kateschethaen, ei aesthomaen emautan euodos proionta.

M. AUREL ANTON de Seipso, lib. i. Section 17.

END OF THE ILLIAD