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,
Eetion'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 pond'rous as he falls, his arms resound.
Sudden at Hector's side Apollo stood,
Like Phænops, Asius' son, appear'd the god;
(Asins the great, who held his wealthy reign
In fair Abydos, by the rolling main.)
Nor Ajax less the will of heaven descried,
And conquest shifting to the Trojan side,
640 Turn'd by the hand of Jove. Then thus begun,
To Atreus' 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 darty
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;
650 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, 720
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
660 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 we obey,
But let us perish in the face of day
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 slightly, 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 Baotian 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 corselet yields,
Exulting Troy with clamour fills the fields:
High on his chariot as the Cretan stood,
The son of Priam whirl'd the missive wood;
But, erring from its aim, the impetuous spear
Struck to the dust the squire and charioteer
Of martial Merion: Caranus 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
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 haste 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:
Oh 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;
690 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 wing the mid aërial 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
700 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. 7%
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 llion 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 Menelauis stands (Though sore distress'd) to aid the Pylian bands; 790 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
[Some interposing hill the stream divides,
And breaks its force, and turns the winding tides.
Still close they follow, close the rear engage;
Eneas 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,
Strew'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.
The grief of Achilles, and new armeur made him by
Vulcan.
The news of the death of Patroclus is brought to Achilles
by Antilechus. Thetis hearing his lamentativas.
comes with all her sea-nymphs to comfort him. The
speeches of the mother and son on this occasion. Ins
appears to Achilles by the command of Juno, and
ders him to show himself at the head of the intrench-
ments. The sight of him turns the fortune of the day,
and the body of Patroclus is carried off by the Greeks
The Trojans call a council, where Hector and Polyda
mas 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 ar
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;
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,
820 On hoisted yards extended to the gales;
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 trembled, 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,
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? 10
Is this the day, which Heaven so long ago
Ordain'd, to sink me with the weight of wo.
(So Thetis warn'd,) when by a Trojan hand
The bravest of the Myrmidonian band
Should lose the light! Fulfill'd is that decree;
830 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,
$40 And wrapp'd his senses in the cloud of grief.
Why mourns my son? thy late preferred request The god has granted, and the Greeks distress'd: Why mourns my son? thy anguish let me share; 30 Reveal the cause, and trust a parent's care.
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 the 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,
With hoary Nereus, and the watery train,
He, deeply groaning-To this cureless grief
Not e'en 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
40 Thy charms submitted to a mortal love!
Oh 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;
50 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!
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, Glaucè (every watery name,)
Nesæa mild, and silver Spio came:
Cymothoë and Cymodocè were nigh,
And the blue languish of soft Alia's eye.
Their locks Actæa and Limnoria rear,
Then Proto, Doris, Panopè appear,
Thoa, Pherusa, Doto, Melita ;
Agavè gentle, and Amphithoë gay:
Next Callianira, Calianassa show
Their sister looks; Dexamené the slow,
And swift Dynamenè, now cut the tides:
lara now the verdant waves divides:
Nemertes with Apseudes lifts the head,
Bright Galatea quits her pearly bed;
These Orythia, Clymenè, attend,
Mera, Amphinomè, 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:
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:
60 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!
70 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 bravest cannot shun;
80 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,
90 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, 161
That all shall know Achilles swells the tide.
My son (cerulean 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,
That, in my friend's defence, has Ajax spread,
While his strong lance around him heaps the dead:
The gallant chief defends Menatius's 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,
170 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 passed in air. The hero rose;
Her ægis Pallas o'er his shoulders 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,
180 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, 260
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 drop 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 livid lightnings play,
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; repulsed, 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 carcass slain.
E'en 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:
200 And turn their eye-balls from the flashing ray.
Thrice from the trench his dreadful voice he raised;
And thrice they fled, confounded and amazed. 270
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 carcass of the slain.
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;
A lofty bier the breathless warrior bears:
Around, his sad companions melt in tears.
But chief Achilles, bending down his head,
210 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,
220 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,
230 One wise in council, one in action brave.)
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?
Stern in superior grief Pelides stood;
300 Those slaughtering arms so used to bathe in blood,
Now clasp'd his clay cold limbs: then gushing start
The tears, and sighs bursts 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 Menatius' feeble age,
In free debate, my friends, your sentence speak;
For 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 those 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
I vow'd his much-loved offspring to restore,
Charged with rich spoils, to fair Opuntia's shore?
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:
320 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. 390
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.
330 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 bid the sad attendants round
Cleanse the pale corse, and wash each honour'd
wound
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 e'er 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 Moonia wastes the fruits of Troy.
Great Jove at length my arms to conquest calls,
And shuts the Grecians in their wooden walls:
Dar'st 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,
A massy caldron of stupendous frame
They brought, and placed it o'er the rising flame
Then heap 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:
Forth let him bring them for the troops to share; 350 That done, their sorrows and their sighs renew.
'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.
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