What gen'rous Greek, obedient to thy word,
Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword?
What cause have I to war at thy decree?
The distant Trojans never injured me :

To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led,
Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed;
Far hence removed, the hoarse-resounding main,
And walls of rock, secure my native reign,
Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace,
Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race.
Hither we sail'd, a voluntary throng,
T'avenge a private, not a public wrong:
What else to Troy th' assembled nations draws,
But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother's cause?
Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve,
Disgraced and injured by the man we serve?
And dar'st thou threat to snatch my prize away,
Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day?
A prize as small, O tyrant! matched with thine,
As thy own actions if compared to mine.
Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey,
Though mine the sweat and danger of the day.
Some trivial present to my ships I bear,

Or barren praises pay the wounds of war.

But know, proud monarch, I'm thy slave no more;
My fleet shall waft me to Thessalia's shore.
Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain,

What spoils, what conquests, shall Atrides gain?"
To this the king: "Fly, mighty warrior, fly;
Thy aid we need not, and thy threats defy.
There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight,
And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right.
Of all the kings (the gods' distinguished care)
To pow'r superior none such hatred bear :
Strife and debate thy restless soul employ,

And wars and horrors are thy savage joy.

If thou hast strength, 'twas Heav'n that strength bestow'd,

For know, vain man! thy valor is from God,

Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away;

Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway:

I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate,

Thy short-lived friendship, and thy groundless hate.
Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons ;-

(Pope's use of the word "Myrmidons" in this line has given. rise to a sense of the term in English which it never bore in Greek. "Myrmidons" was no epithet of reproach. It was, in fact, simply the proper name of the people over whom Achilles ruled as king. "Earth-born" is Pope's adjective here, not Homer's. It probably makes on modern readers the impression of opprobrium implied, somewhat as if it were, "base-born;" whereas, to the ancient Greek, it conveyed the compliment of a lineage imputed that went back to immemorial antiquity. Pope has, in effect, to the English mind misunderstanding him, curiously perverted his original. But enough of parenthesis.)

Go threat thy earth-born Myrmidons; but here
'Tis mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear.
Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand,
My bark shall waft her to her native land;
But then prepare, imperious prince! prepare,
Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair:
E'en in thy tent I'll seize the blooming prize,

Thy loved Briseis, with the radiant eyes.

Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour,
Thou stood'st a rival of imperial pow'r ;

And hence to all our host it shall be known,
That kings are subject to the gods alone."

Achilles heard, with grief and rage opprest,
His heart swell'd high and labor'd in his breast.
Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruled,
Now fired by wrath, and now by reason cool'd:
That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword,

Force through the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord;

This whispers soft, his vengeance to control,

And calm the rising tempest of his soul.

Just as in anguish of suspense he stay'd,

While half unsheath'd appear'd the glittering blade,

Minerva swift descended from above,

Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove,

(For both the princes claim'd her equal care ;)
Behind she stood, and by the golden hair

Achilles seized;

The to us somewhat singular way that Pallas took of calling Achilles's attention, namely, plucking him from behind by a lock of his hair, may serve to explain what very likely has puzzled some of our readers in the first, and, perhaps, the most beautiful, of Mrs. Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese," a series, so called by her in modest concealment of their really autobiographical character. The representation, A mystic Shape did move

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,

seems, unless you understand the classic allusion implied, a mar to the otherwise perfect finish of the sonnet. And Mrs. Browning, noble genius as she is, does not gratify us with perfection of outward form in her verse so often that we can afford to lose a single instance for want of knowing fully what she means. A somewhat similar classicism is Milton's in his

"Lycidas,"

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears.

We resume the text of Homer according to Pope:

to him alone confest ;

A sable cloud conceal'd her from the rest.

He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries,
(Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes ;)
"Descends Minerva, in her guardian care,

A heav'nly witness of the wrongs I bear

From Atreus' son? Then let those eyes that view

The daring crime, behold the vengeance too."

By awful Juno this command is giv'n;
The king and you are both the care of heaven.
The force of keen reproaches let him feel,
But sheath, obedient, thy revenging steel,
For I pronounce (and trust a heav'nly pow'r)
Thy injured honor has its fated hour,

When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore,
And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store.
Then let revenge no longer bear the sway,
Command thy passions, and the gods obey."
To her Pelides: "With regardful ear,
'Tis just, O goddess! I thy dictates hear:
Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress:
Those who revere the gods, the gods will bless."
He said, observant of the blue-eyed maid;
Then in the sheath returned the shining blade.
The goddess swift to high Olympus flies,
And joins the sacred senate of the skies.
Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,
Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke:

O monster! mixed of insolence and fear, Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer! When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare, Or nobly face the horrid front of war?

'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try,

Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die.

So much 'tis safer through the camp to go,
And rob a subject, than despoil a foe.
Scourge of thy people, violent and base!
Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race,
Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past,
Are tamed to wrongs, or this had been thy last.
Now by this sacred scepter hear me swear,
Which nevermore shall leaves or blossoms bear,
Which severed from the trunk (as I from thee)
On the bare mountain left its parent tree;
This scepter, formed by tempered steel to prove
An ensign of the delegates of Jove,

From whom the power of laws and justice springs, (Tremendous oath! inviolate to kings :)

By this I swear, when bleeding Greece again,
Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain.

When flushed with slaughter, Hector comes to spread
The purpled shore with mountains of the dead,
Then shalt thou mourn th' affront thy madness gave,

Forced to deplore, when impotent to save:

Then rage in bitterness of soul, to know

This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe."

He spoke; and furious hurl'd against the ground
His scepter starred with golden studs around,
Then sternly silent sat. With like disdain,
The raging king return'd his frowns again.

Nestor, a very aged chieftain from Pylos, intervenes at this point, vainly endeavoring to reconcile the two wranglers. Nestor is a striking figure in the Iliad. We give, going now to Bryant for the purpose, Homer's lines descriptive of Nestor, and then Nestor's well-meaning, garrulous, somewhat egotistic address. Readers will not fail to notice how exactly in character for an old man is what Nestor is represented as saying:

But now uprose

Nestor, the master of persuasive speech,

The clear-toned Pylian orator, whose tongue

Dropped words more sweet than honey. He had seen
Two generations that grew up and lived

With him on sacred Pylos pass away,

And now he ruled the third. With prudent words

He thus addressed the assembly of the chiefs:

Ye gods! what new misfortunes threaten Greece!

How Priam would exult and Priam's sons,

And how would all the Trojan race rejoice,

Were they to know how furiously ye strive,—

Ye who in council and in fight surpass

The other Greeks. Now hearken to my words,

Ye who are younger than myself-for I
Have lived with braver men than you, and yet
They held me not in light esteem. Such men

I never saw, nor shall I see again,-
Men like Pirithoüs and like Druas, lord