So warr'd both armies on the ensanguined shore,
While the black vessels smoked with human gore.
Meantime Patroclus to Achilles flies;
The streaming tears fall copious from his eyes
Not faster, trickling to the plains below,
From the tall rock the sable waters flow.
Divine Pelides, with compassion moved.
Thus spoke, indulgent, to his best beloved:
"Patroclus, say, what grief thy bosom bears,
That flows so fast in these unmanly tears?
No girl, no infant whom the mother keeps
From her loved breast, with fonder passion weeps;
Not more the mother's soul, that infant warms,
Clung to her knees, and reaching at her arms,
Than thou hast mine! Oh tell me, to what end
Thy melting sorrows thus pursue thy friend?
"Griev'st thou for me, or for, my martial band?
Or come sad tidings from our native land?
Our fathers live (our first, most tender care),
Thy good Menoetius breathes the vital air,
And hoary Peleus yet extends his days;
Pleased in their age to hear their children's praise.
Or may some meaner cause thy pity claim?
Perhaps yon relics of the Grecian name,
Doom'd in their ships to sink by fire and sword,
And pay the forfeit of their haughty lord?
Whate'er the cause, reveal thy secret care,
And speak those sorrows which a friend would share."
A sigh that instant from his bosom broke,
Another follow'd, and Patroclus spoke:
"Let Greece at length with pity touch thy breast,
Thyself a Greek; and, once, of Greeks the best!
Lo! every chief that might her fate prevent,
Lies pierced with wounds, and bleeding in his tent:
Eurypylus, Tydides, Atreus' son,
And wise Ulysses, at the navy groan,
More for their country's wounds than for their own.
Their pain soft arts of pharmacy can ease,
Thy breast alone no lenitives appease.
May never rage like thine my soul enslave,
O great in vain! unprofitably brave!
Thy country slighted in her last distress,
What friend, what man, from thee shall hope redress?
No--men unborn, and ages yet behind,
Shall curse that fierce, that unforgiving mind.
"O man unpitying! if of man thy race;
But sure thou spring'st not from a soft embrace,
Nor ever amorous hero caused thy birth,
Nor ever tender goddess brought thee forth:
Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produced thee in a storm,
A soul well suiting that tempestuous kind,
So rough thy manners, so untamed thy mind.
"If some dire oracle thy breast alarm,
If aught from Jove, or Thetis, stop thy arm,
Some beam of comfort yet on Greece may shine,
If I but lead the Myrmidonian line:
Clad in thy dreadful arms if I appear,
Proud Troy shall tremble, and desert the war;
Without thy person Greece shall win the day,
And thy mere image chase her foes away.
Press'd by fresh forces, her o'erlabour'd train
Shall quit the ships, and Greece respire again."
Thus, blind to fate! with supplicating breath,
Thou begg'st his arms, and in his arms thy death.
Unfortunately good! a boding sigh
Thy friend return'd; and with it, this reply:
"Patroclus! thy Achilles knows no fears;
Nor words from Jove nor oracles he hears;
Nor aught a mother's caution can suggest;
The tyrant's pride lies rooted in my breast.
My wrongs, my wrongs, my constant thought engage,
Those, my sole oracles, inspire my rage:
I made him tyrant: gave him power to wrong
Even my: I felt it; and shall feel it long.
The maid, my black-eyed maid, he forced away,
Due to the toils of many a well-fought day;
Due to my conquest of her father's reign;
Due to the votes of all the Grecian train.
From me he forced her; me, the bold and brave,
Disgraced, dishonour'd, like the meanest slave.
But bear we this--the wrongs I grieve are past;
'Tis time our fury should relent at last:
I fix'd its date; the day I wish'd appears:
How Hector to my ships his battle bears,
The flames my eyes, the shouts invade my ears.
Go then, Patroclus! court fair honour's charms
In Troy's famed fields, and in Achilles' arms:
Lead forth my martial Myrmidons to fight,
Go save the fleets, and conquer in my right.
See the thin relics of their baffled band
At the last edge of yon deserted land!
Behold all Ilion on their ships descends;
How the cloud blackens, how the storm impends!
It was not thus, when, at my sight amazed,
Troy saw and trembled, as this helmet blazed:
Had not the injurious king our friendship lost,
Yon ample trench had buried half her host.
No camps, no bulwarks now the Trojans fear,
Those are not dreadful, no Achilles there;
No longer flames the lance of Tydeus' son;
No more your general calls his heroes on:
Hector, alone, I hear; his dreadful breath
Commands your slaughter, or proclaims your death.
Yet now, Patroclus, issue to the plain:
Now save the ships, the rising fires restrain,
And give the Greeks to visit Greece again.
But heed my words, and mark a friend's command,
Who trusts his fame and honours in thy hand,
And from thy deeds expects the Achaian host
Shall render back the beauteous maid he lost:
Rage uncontroll'd through all the hostile crew,
But touch not Hector, Hector is my due.
Though Jove in thunder should command the war,
Be just, consult my glory, and forbear.
The fleet once saved, desist from further chase,
Nor lead to Ilion's walls the Grecian race;
Some adverse god thy rashness may destroy;
Some god, like Phoebus, ever kind to Troy.
Let Greece, redeem'd from this destructive strait,
Do her own work; and leave the rest to fate.
O! would to all the immortal powers above,
Apollo, Pallas, and almighty Jove!
That not one Trojan might be left alive,
And not a Greek of all the race survive:
Might only we the vast destruction shun,
And only we destroy the accursed town!"
Such conference held the chiefs; while on the strand
Great Jove with conquest crown'd the Trojan band.
Ajax no more the sounding storm sustain'd,
So thick the darts an iron tempest rain'd:
On his tired arm the weighty buckler hung;
His hollow helm with falling javelins rung;
His breath, in quick short pantings, comes and goes;
And painful sweat from all his members flows.
Spent and o'erpower'd, he barely breathes at most;
Yet scarce an army stirs him from his post;
Dangers on dangers all around him glow,
And toil to toil, and woe succeeds to woe.
Say, Muses, throned above the starry frame,
How first the navy blazed with Trojan flame?
Stern Hector waved his sword, and standing near,
Where furious Ajax plied his ashen spear,
Full on the lance a stroke so justly sped,
That the broad falchion lopp'd its brazen head;
His pointless spear the warrior shakes in vain;
The brazen head falls sounding on the plain.
Great Ajax saw, and own'd the hand divine;
Confessing Jove, and trembling at the sign,
Warn'd he retreats. Then swift from all sides pour
The hissing brands; thick streams the fiery shower;
O'er the high stern the curling volumes rise,
And sheets of rolling smoke involve the skies.
Divine Achilles view'd the rising flames,
And smote his thigh, and thus aloud exclaims:
"Arm, arm, Patroclus! Lo, the blaze aspires!
The glowing ocean reddens with the fires.
Arm, ere our vessels catch the spreading flame;
Arm, ere the Grecians be no more a name;
I haste to bring the troops."--The hero said;
The friend with ardour and with joy obey'd.
He cased his limbs in brass; and first around
His manly legs, with silver buckles bound
The clasping greaves; then to his breast applies
The flaming cuirass of a thousand dyes;
Emblazed with studs of gold his falchion shone
In the rich belt, as in a starry zone:
Achilles' shield his ample shoulders spread,
Achilles' helmet nodded o'er his head:
Adorn'd in all his terrible array,
He flash'd around intolerable day.
Alone untouch'd, Pelides' javelin stands,
Not to be poised but by Pelides' hands:
From Pelion's shady brow the plant entire
Old Chiron rent, and shaped it for his sire;
Whose son's great arm alone the weapon wields,
The death of heroes, and the dread of fields.
The brave Automedon (an honour'd name,
The second to his lord in love and fame,
In peace his friend, and partner of the war)
The winged coursers harness'd to the car;
Xanthus and Balius, of immortal breed,
Sprung from the wind, and like the wind in speed.
Whom the wing'd harpy, swift Podarge, bore,
By Zephyr pregnant on the breezy shore:
Swift Pedasus was added to their side,
(Once great Aetion's, now Achilles' pride)
Who, like in strength, in swiftness, and in grace,
A mortal courser match'd the immortal race.
Achilles speeds from tent to tent, and warms
His hardy Myrmidons to blood and arms.
All breathing death, around the chief they stand,
A grim, terrific, formidable band:
Grim as voracious wolves, that seek the springs
When scalding thirst their burning bowels wrings;
When some tall stag, fresh-slaughtered in the wood,
Has drench'd their wide insatiate throats with blood,
To the black fount they rush, a hideous throng,
With paunch distended, and with lolling tongue,
Fire fills their eye, their black jaws belch the gore,
And gorged with slaughter still they thirst for more.
Like furious, rush'd the Myrmidonian crew,
Such their dread strength, and such their deathful view.
High in the midst the great Achilles stands,
Directs their order, and the war commands.
He, loved of Jove, had launch'd for Ilion's shores
Full fifty vessels, mann'd with fifty oars:
Five chosen leaders the fierce bands obey,
Himself supreme in valour, as in sway.
First march'd Menestheus, of celestial birth,
Derived from thee, whose waters wash the earth,
Divine Sperchius! Jove-descended flood!
A mortal mother mixing with a god.
Such was Menestheus, but miscall'd by fame
The son of Borus, that espoused the dame.
Eudorus next; whom Polymele the gay,
Famed in the graceful dance, produced to-day.
Her, sly Cellenius loved: on her would gaze,
As with swift step she form'd the running maze:
To her high chamber from Diana's quire,
The god pursued her, urged, and crown'd his fire.
The son confess'd his father's heavenly race,
And heir'd his mother's swiftness in the chase.
Strong Echecleus, bless'd in all those charms
That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms;
Not conscious of those loves, long hid from fame,
With gifts of price he sought and won the dame;
Her secret offspring to her sire she bare;
Her sire caress'd him with a parent's care.
Pisander follow'd; matchless in his art
To wing the spear, or aim the distant dart;
No hand so sure of all the Emathian line,
Or if a surer, great Patroclus! thine.
The fourth by Phoenix' grave command was graced,
Laerces' valiant offspring led the last.
Soon as Achilles with superior care
Had call'd the chiefs, and order'd all the war,
This stern remembrance to his troops he gave:
"Ye far-famed Myrmidons, ye fierce and brave!
Think with what threats you dared the Trojan throng,
Think what reproach these ears endured so long;
'Stern son of Peleus, (thus ye used to say,
While restless, raging, in your ships you lay)
Oh nursed with gall, unknowing how to yield;
Whose rage defrauds us of so famed a field:
If that dire fury must for ever burn,
What make we here? Return, ye chiefs, return!'
Such were your words--Now, warriors! grieve no more,
Lo there the Trojans; bathe your swords in gore!
This day shall give you all your soul demands,
Glut all your hearts, and weary all your hands!"
Thus while he roused the fire in every breast,
Close and more close the listening cohorts press'd;
Ranks wedged in ranks; of arms a steely ring
Still grows, and spreads, and thickens round the king.
As when a circling wall the builder forms,
Of strength defensive against wind and storms,
Compacted stones the thickening work compose,
And round him wide the rising structure grows:
So helm to helm, and crest to crest they throng,
Shield urged on shield, and man drove man along;
Thick, undistinguish'd plumes, together join'd,
Float in one sea, and wave before the wind.
Far o'er the rest in glittering pomp appear,
There bold Automedon, Patroclus here;
Brothers in arms, with equal fury fired;
Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspired.
But mindful of the gods, Achilles went
To the rich coffer in his shady tent;
There lay on heaps his various garments roll'd,
And costly furs, and carpets stiff with gold,
(The presents of the silver-footed dame)
From thence he took a bowl, of antique frame,
Which never man had stained with ruddy wine,
Nor raised in offerings to the power divine,
But Peleus' son; and Peleus' son to none
Had raised in offerings, but to Jove alone.
This tinged with sulphur, sacred first to flame,
He purged; and wash'd it in the running stream.
Then cleansed his hands; and fixing for a space
His eyes on heaven, his feet upon the place
Of sacrifice, the purple draught he pour'd
Forth in the midst; and thus the god implored:
"O thou supreme! high-throned all height above!
O great Pelasgic, Dodonaean Jove!
Who 'midst surrounding frosts, and vapours chill,
Presid'st on bleak Dodona's vocal hill:
(Whose groves the Selli, race austere! surround,
Their feet unwash'd, their slumbers on the ground;
Who hear, from rustling oaks, thy dark decrees;
And catch the fates, low-whispered in the breeze;)
Hear, as of old! Thou gav'st, at Thetis' prayer,
Glory to me, and to the Greeks despair.
Lo, to the dangers of the fighting field
The best, the dearest of my friends, I yield,
Though still determined, to my ships confined;
Patroclus gone, I stay but half behind.
Oh! be his guard thy providential care,
Confirm his heart, and string his arm to war:
Press'd by his single force let Hector see
His fame in arms not owing all to me.
But when the fleets are saved from foes and fire,
Let him with conquest and renown retire;
Preserve his arms, preserve his social train,
And safe return him to these eyes again!"
Great Jove consents to half the chief's request,
But heaven's eternal doom denies the rest;
To free the fleet was granted to his prayer;
His safe return, the winds dispersed in air.
Back to his tent the stern Achilles flies,
And waits the combat with impatient eyes.
Meanwhile the troops beneath Patroclus' care,
Invade the Trojans, and commence the war.
As wasps, provoked by children in their play,
Pour from their mansions by the broad highway,
In swarms the guiltless traveller engage,
Whet all their stings, and call forth all their rage:
All rise in arms, and, with a general cry,
Assert their waxen domes, and buzzing progeny.
Thus from the tents the fervent legion swarms,
So loud their clamours, and so keen their arms:
Their rising rage Patroclus' breath inspires,
Who thus inflames them with heroic fires:
"O warriors, partners of Achilles' praise!
Be mindful of your deeds in ancient days;
Your godlike master let your acts proclaim,
And add new glories to his mighty name.
Think your Achilles sees you fight: be brave,
And humble the proud monarch whom you save."
Joyful they heard, and kindling as he spoke,
Flew to the fleet, involved in fire and smoke.
From shore to shore the doubling shouts resound,
The hollow ships return a deeper sound.
The war stood still, and all around them gazed,
When great Achilles' shining armour blazed:
Troy saw, and thought the dread Achilles nigh,
At once they see, they tremble, and they fly.
Then first thy spear, divine Patroclus! flew,
Where the war raged, and where the tumult grew.
Close to the stern of that famed ship which bore
Unbless'd Protesilaus to Ilion's shore,
The great Paeonian, bold Pyrechmes stood;
(Who led his bands from Axius' winding flood;)
His shoulder-blade receives the fatal wound;
The groaning warrior pants upon the ground.
His troops, that see their country's glory slain,
Fly diverse, scatter'd o'er the distant plain.
Patroclus' arm forbids the spreading fires,
And from the half-burn'd ship proud Troy retires;
Clear'd from the smoke the joyful navy lies;
In heaps on heaps the foe tumultuous flies;
Triumphant Greece her rescued decks ascends,
And loud acclaim the starry region rends.
So when thick clouds enwrap the mountain's head,
O'er heaven's expanse like one black ceiling spread;
Sudden the Thunderer, with a flashing ray,
Bursts through the darkness, and lets down the day:
The hills shine out, the rocks in prospect rise,
And streams, and vales, and forests, strike the eyes;
The smiling scene wide opens to the sight,
And all the unmeasured ether flames with light.
But Troy repulsed, and scatter'd o'er the plains,
Forced from the navy, yet the fight maintains.
Now every Greek some hostile hero slew,
But still the foremost, bold Patroclus flew:
As Areilycus had turn'd him round,
Sharp in his thigh he felt the piercing wound;
The brazen-pointed spear, with vigour thrown,
The thigh transfix'd, and broke the brittle bone:
Headlong he fell. Next, Thoas was thy chance;
Thy breast, unarm'd, received the Spartan lance.
Phylides' dart (as Amphidus drew nigh)
His blow prevented, and transpierced his thigh,
Tore all the brawn, and rent the nerves away;
In darkness, and in death, the warrior lay.
In equal arms two sons of Nestor stand,
And two bold brothers of the Lycian band:
By great Antilochus, Atymnius dies,
Pierced in the flank, lamented youth! he lies,
Kind Maris, bleeding in his brother's wound,
Defends the breathless carcase on the ground;
Furious he flies, his murderer to engage:
But godlike Thrasimed prevents his rage,
Between his arm and shoulder aims a blow;
His arm falls spouting on the dust below:
He sinks, with endless darkness cover'd o'er:
And vents his soul, effused with gushing gore.
Slain by two brothers, thus two brothers bleed,
Sarpedon's friends, Amisodarus' seed;
Amisodarus, who, by Furies led,
The bane of men, abhorr'd Chimaera bred;
Skill'd in the dart in vain, his sons expire,
And pay the forfeit of their guilty sire.
Stopp'd in the tumult Cleobulus lies,
Beneath Oileus' arm, a living prize;
A living prize not long the Trojan stood;
The thirsty falchion drank his reeking blood:
Plunged in his throat the smoking weapon lies;
Black death, and fate unpitying, seal his eyes.
Amid the ranks, with mutual thirst of fame,
Lycon the brave, and fierce Peneleus came;
In vain their javelins at each other flew,
Now, met in arms, their eager swords they drew.
On the plumed crest of his Boeotian foe
The daring Lycon aim'd a noble blow;
The sword broke short; but his, Peneleus sped
Full on the juncture of the neck and head:
The head, divided by a stroke so just,
Hung by the skin; the body sunk to dust.
O'ertaken Neamas by Merion bleeds,
Pierced through the shoulder as he mounts his steeds;
Back from the car he tumbles to the ground:
His swimming eyes eternal shades surround.
Next Erymas was doom'd his fate to feel,
His open'd mouth received the Cretan steel:
Beneath the brain the point a passage tore,
Crash'd the thin bones, and drown'd the teeth in gore:
His mouth, his eyes, his nostrils, pour a flood;
He sobs his soul out in the gush of blood.
As when the flocks neglected by the swain,
Or kids, or lambs, lie scatter'd o'er the plain,
A troop of wolves the unguarded charge survey,
And rend the trembling, unresisting prey:
Thus on the foe the Greeks impetuous came;
Troy fled, unmindful of her former fame.
But still at Hector godlike Ajax aim'd,
Still, pointed at his breast, his javelin flamed.
The Trojan chief, experienced in the field,
O'er his broad shoulders spread the massy shield,
Observed the storm of darts the Grecians pour,
And on his buckler caught the ringing shower:
He sees for Greece the scale of conquest rise,
Yet stops, and turns, and saves his loved allies.
As when the hand of Jove a tempest forms,
And rolls the cloud to blacken heaven with storms,
Dark o'er the fields the ascending vapour flies,
And shades the sun, and blots the golden skies:
So from the ships, along the dusky plain,
Dire Flight and Terror drove the Trojan train.
Even Hector fled; through heads of disarray
The fiery coursers forced their lord away:
While far behind his Trojans fall confused;
Wedged in the trench, in one vast carnage bruised:
Chariots on chariots roll: the clashing spokes
Shock; while the madding steeds break short their yokes.
In vain they labour up the steepy mound;
Their charioteers lie foaming on the ground.
Fierce on the rear, with shouts Patroclus flies;
Tumultuous clamour fills the fields and skies;
Thick drifts of dust involve their rapid flight;
Clouds rise on clouds, and heaven is snatch'd from sight.
The affrighted steeds their dying lords cast down,
Scour o'er the fields, and stretch to reach the town.
Loud o'er the rout was heard the victor's cry,
Where the war bleeds, and where the thickest die,
Where horse and arms, and chariots he o'erthrown,
And bleeding heroes under axles groan.
No stop, no check, the steeds of Peleus knew:
From bank to bank the immortal coursers flew.
High-bounding o'er the fosse, the whirling car
Smokes through the ranks, o'ertakes the flying war,
And thunders after Hector; Hector flies,
Patroclus shakes his lance; but fate denies.
Not with less noise, with less impetuous force,
The tide of Trojans urge their desperate course,
Than when in autumn Jove his fury pours,
And earth is loaden with incessant showers;
(When guilty mortals break the eternal laws,
Or judges, bribed, betray the righteous cause;)
From their deep beds he bids the rivers rise,
And opens all the flood-gates of the skies:
The impetuous torrents from their hills obey,
Whole fields are drown'd, and mountains swept away;
Loud roars the deluge till it meets the main;
And trembling man sees all his labours vain!
And now the chief (the foremost troops repell'd)
Back to the ships his destined progress held,
Bore down half Troy in his resistless way,
And forced the routed ranks to stand the day.
Between the space where silver Simois flows,
Where lay the fleets, and where the rampires rose,
All grim in dust and blood Patroclus stands,
And turns the slaughter on the conquering bands.
First Pronous died beneath his fiery dart,
Which pierced below the shield his valiant heart.
Thestor was next, who saw the chief appear,
And fell the victim of his coward fear;
Shrunk up he sat, with wild and haggard eye,
Nor stood to combat, nor had force to fly;
Patroclus mark'd him as he shunn'd the war,
And with unmanly tremblings shook the car,
And dropp'd the flowing reins. Him 'twixt the jaws,
The javelin sticks, and from the chariot draws.
As on a rock that overhangs the main,
An angler, studious of the line and cane,
Some mighty fish draws panting to the shore:
Not with less ease the barbed javelin bore
The gaping dastard; as the spear was shook,
He fell, and life his heartless breast forsook.
Next on Eryalus he flies; a stone,
Large as a rock, was by his fury thrown:
Full on his crown the ponderous fragment flew,
And burst the helm, and cleft the head in two:
Prone to the ground the breathless warrior fell,
And death involved him with the shades of hell.
Then low in dust Epaltes, Echius, lie;
Ipheas, Evippus, Polymelus, die;
Amphoterus and Erymas succeed;
And last Tlepolemus and Pyres bleed.
Where'er he moves, the growing slaughters spread
In heaps on heaps a monument of dead.
When now Sarpedon his brave friends beheld
Grovelling in dust, and gasping on the field,
With this reproach his flying host he warms:
"Oh stain to honour! oh disgrace to arms!
Forsake, inglorious, the contended plain;
This hand unaided shall the war sustain:
The task be mine this hero's strength to try,
Who mows whole troops, and makes an army fly."
He spake: and, speaking, leaps from off the car:
Patroclus lights, and sternly waits the war.
As when two vultures on the mountain's height
Stoop with resounding pinions to the fight;
They cuff, they tear, they raise a screaming cry;
The desert echoes, and the rocks reply:
The warriors thus opposed in arms, engage
With equal clamours, and with equal rage.
Jove view'd the combat: whose event foreseen,
He thus bespoke his sister and his queen:
"The hour draws on; the destinies ordain,
My godlike son shall press the Phrygian plain:
Already on the verge of death he stands,
His life is owed to fierce Patroclus' hands,
What passions in a parent's breast debate!
Say, shall I snatch him from impending fate,
And send him safe to Lycia, distant far
From all the dangers and the toils of war;
Or to his doom my bravest offspring yield,
And fatten, with celestial blood, the field?"
Then thus the goddess with the radiant eyes:
"What words are these, O sovereign of the skies!
Short is the date prescribed to mortal man;
Shall Jove for one extend the narrow span,
Whose bounds were fix'd before his race began?
How many sons of gods, foredoom'd to death,
Before proud Ilion must resign their breath!
Were thine exempt, debate would rise above,
And murmuring powers condemn their partial Jove.
Give the bold chief a glorious fate in fight;
And when the ascending soul has wing'd her flight,
Let Sleep and Death convey, by thy command,
The breathless body to his native land.
His friends and people, to his future praise,
A marble tomb and pyramid shall raise,
And lasting honours to his ashes give;
His fame ('tis all the dead can have) shall live."
She said: the cloud-compeller, overcome,
Assents to fate, and ratifies the doom.
Then touch'd with grief, the weeping heavens distill'd
A shower of blood o'er all the fatal field:
The god, his eyes averting from the plain,
Laments his son, predestined to be slain,
Far from the Lycian shores, his happy native reign.
Now met in arms, the combatants appear;
Each heaved the shield, and poised the lifted spear;
From strong Patroclus' hand the javelin fled,
And pass'd the groin of valiant Thrasymed;
The nerves unbraced no more his bulk sustain,
He falls, and falling bites the bloody plain.
Two sounding darts the Lycian leader threw:
The first aloof with erring fury flew,
The next transpierced Achilles' mortal steed,
The generous Pedasus of Theban breed:
Fix'd in the shoulder's joint, he reel'd around,
Roll'd in the bloody dust, and paw'd the slippery ground.
His sudden fall the entangled harness broke;
Each axle crackled, and the chariot shook:
When bold Automedon, to disengage
The starting coursers, and restrain their rage,
Divides the traces with his sword, and freed
The encumbered chariot from the dying steed:
The rest move on, obedient to the rein:
The car rolls slowly o'er the dusty plain.
The towering chiefs to fiercer fight advance:
And first Sarpedon whirl'd his weighty lance,
Which o'er the warrior's shoulder took its course,
And spent in empty air its dying force.
Not so Patroclus' never-erring dart;
Aim'd at his breast it pierced a mortal part,
Where the strong fibres bind the solid heart.
Then as the mountain oak, or poplar tall,
Or pine (fit mast for some great admiral)
Nods to the axe, till with a groaning sound
It sinks, and spreads its honours on the ground,
Thus fell the king; and laid on earth supine,
Before his chariot stretch'd his form divine:
He grasp'd the dust distain'd with streaming gore,
And, pale in death, lay groaning on the shore.
So lies a bull beneath the lion's paws,
While the grim savage grinds with foamy jaws
The trembling limbs, and sucks the smoking blood;
Deep groans, and hollow roars, rebellow through the wood.
Then to the leader of the Lycian band
The dying chief address'd his last command;
"Glaucus, be bold; thy task be first to dare
The glorious dangers of destructive war,
To lead my troops, to combat at their head,
Incite the living, and supply the dead.
Tell them, I charged them with my latest breath
Not unrevenged to bear Sarpedon's death.
What grief, what shame, must Glaucus undergo,
If these spoil'd arms adorn a Grecian foe!
Then as a friend, and as a warrior fight;
Defend my body, conquer in my right:
That, taught by great examples, all may try
Like thee to vanquish, or like me to die."
He ceased; the Fates suppress'd his labouring breath,
And his eyes darken'd with the shades of death.
The insulting victor with disdain bestrode
The prostrate prince, and on his bosom trod;
Then drew the weapon from his panting heart,
The reeking fibres clinging to the dart;
From the wide wound gush'd out a stream of blood,
And the soul issued in the purple flood.
His flying steeds the Myrmidons detain,
Unguided now, their mighty master slain.
All-impotent of aid, transfix'd with grief,
Unhappy Glaucus heard the dying chief:
His painful arm, yet useless with the smart
Inflicted late by Teucer's deadly dart,
Supported on his better hand he stay'd:
To Phoebus then ('twas all he could) he pray'd:
"All-seeing monarch! whether Lycia's coast,
Or sacred Ilion, thy bright presence boast,
Powerful alike to ease the wretch's smart;
O hear me! god of every healing art!
Lo! stiff with clotted blood, and pierced with pain,
That thrills my arm, and shoots through every vein,
I stand unable to sustain the spear,
And sigh, at distance from the glorious war.
Low in the dust is great Sarpedon laid,
Nor Jove vouchsafed his hapless offspring aid;
But thou, O god of health! thy succour lend,
To guard the relics of my slaughter'd friend:
For thou, though distant, canst restore my might,
To head my Lycians, and support the fight."
Apollo heard; and, suppliant as he stood,
His heavenly hand restrain'd the flux of blood;
He drew the dolours from the wounded part,
And breathed a spirit in his rising heart.
Renew'd by art divine, the hero stands,
And owns the assistance of immortal hands.
First to the fight his native troops he warms,
Then loudly calls on Troy's vindictive arms;
With ample strides he stalks from place to place;
Now fires Agenor, now Polydamas:
Aeneas next, and Hector he accosts;
Inflaming thus the rage of all their hosts.
"What thoughts, regardless chief! thy breast employ?
Oh too forgetful of the friends of Troy!
Those generous friends, who, from their country far,
Breathe their brave souls out in another's war.
See! where in dust the great Sarpedon lies,
In action valiant, and in council wise,
Who guarded right, and kept his people free;
To all his Lycians lost, and lost to thee!
Stretch'd by Patroclus' arm on yonder plains,
O save from hostile rage his loved remains!
Ah let not Greece his conquer'd trophies boast,
Nor on his corse revenge her heroes lost!"
He spoke: each leader in his grief partook:
Troy, at the loss, through all her legions shook.
Transfix'd with deep regret, they view o'erthrown
At once his country's pillar, and their own;
A chief, who led to Troy's beleaguer'd wall
A host of heroes, and outshined them all.
Fired, they rush on; first Hector seeks the foes,
And with superior vengeance greatly glows.
But o'er the dead the fierce Patroclus stands,
And rousing Ajax, roused the listening bands:
"Heroes, be men; be what you were before;
Or weigh the great occasion, and be more.
The chief who taught our lofty walls to yield,
Lies pale in death, extended on the field.
To guard his body Troy in numbers flies;
Tis half the glory to maintain our prize.
Haste, strip his arms, the slaughter round him spread,
And send the living Lycians to the dead."
The heroes kindle at his fierce command;
The martial squadrons close on either hand:
Here Troy and Lycia charge with loud alarms,
Thessalia there, and Greece, oppose their arms.
With horrid shouts they circle round the slain;
The clash of armour rings o'er all the plain.
Great Jove, to swell the horrors of the fight,
O'er the fierce armies pours pernicious night,
And round his son confounds the warring hosts,
His fate ennobling with a crowd of ghosts.
Now Greece gives way, and great Epigeus falls;
Agacleus' son, from Budium's lofty walls;
Who chased for murder thence a suppliant came
To Peleus, and the silver-footed dame;
Now sent to Troy, Achilles' arms to aid,
He pays due vengeance to his kinsman's shade.
Soon as his luckless hand had touch'd the dead,
A rock's large fragment thunder'd on his head;
Hurl'd by Hectorean force it cleft in twain
His shatter'd helm, and stretch'd him o'er the slain.
Fierce to the van of fight Patroclus came,
And, like an eagle darting at his game,
Sprung on the Trojan and the Lycian band.
What grief thy heart, what fury urged thy hand,
O generous Greek! when with full vigour thrown,
At Sthenelaus flew the weighty stone,
Which sunk him to the dead: when Troy, too near
That arm, drew back; and Hector learn'd to fear.
Far as an able hand a lance can throw,
Or at the lists, or at the fighting foe;
So far the Trojans from their lines retired;
Till Glaucus, turning, all the rest inspired.
Then Bathyclaeus fell beneath his rage,
The only hope of Chalcon's trembling age;
Wide o'er the land was stretch'd his large domain,
With stately seats, and riches blest in vain:
Him, bold with youth, and eager to pursue
The flying Lycians, Glaucus met and slew;
Pierced through the bosom with a sudden wound,
He fell, and falling made the fields resound.
The Achaians sorrow for their heroes slain;
With conquering shouts the Trojans shake the plain,
And crowd to spoil the dead: the Greeks oppose;
An iron circle round the carcase grows.
Then brave Laogonus resign'd his breath,
Despatch'd by Merion to the shades of death:
On Ida's holy hill he made abode,
The priest of Jove, and honour'd like his god.
Between the jaw and ear the javelin went;
The soul, exhaling, issued at the vent.
His spear Aeneas at the victor threw,
Who stooping forward from the death withdrew;
The lance hiss'd harmless o'er his covering shield,
And trembling struck, and rooted in the field;
There yet scarce spent, it quivers on the plain,
Sent by the great Aeneas' arm in vain.
"Swift as thou art (the raging hero cries)
And skill'd in dancing to dispute the prize,
My spear, the destined passage had it found,
Had fix'd thy active vigour to the ground."
"O valiant leader of the Dardan host!
(Insulted Merion thus retorts the boast)
Strong as you are, 'tis mortal force you trust,
An arm as strong may stretch thee in the dust.
And if to this my lance thy fate be given,
Vain are thy vaunts; success is still from heaven:
This, instant, sends thee down to Pluto's coast;
Mine is the glory, his thy parting ghost."
"O friend (Menoetius' son this answer gave)
With words to combat, ill befits the brave;
Not empty boasts the sons of Troy repel,
Your swords must plunge them to the shades of hell.
To speak, beseems the council; but to dare
In glorious action, is the task of war."
This said, Patroclus to the battle flies;
Great Merion follows, and new shouts arise:
Shields, helmets rattle, as the warriors close;
And thick and heavy sounds the storm of blows.
As through the shrilling vale, or mountain ground,
The labours of the woodman's axe resound;
Blows following blows are heard re-echoing wide,
While crackling forests fall on every side:
Thus echoed all the fields with loud alarms,
So fell the warriors, and so rung their arms.
Now great Sarpedon on the sandy shore,
His heavenly form defaced with dust and gore,
And stuck with darts by warring heroes shed,
Lies undistinguish'd from the vulgar dead.
His long-disputed corse the chiefs enclose,
On every side the busy combat grows;
Thick as beneath some shepherd's thatch'd abode
(The pails high foaming with a milky flood)
The buzzing flies, a persevering train,
Incessant swarm, and chased return again.
Jove view'd the combat with a stern survey,
And eyes that flash'd intolerable day.
Fix'd on the field his sight, his breast debates
The vengeance due, and meditates the fates:
Whether to urge their prompt effect, and call
The force of Hector to Patroclus' fall,
This instant see his short-lived trophies won,
And stretch him breathless on his slaughter'd son;
Or yet, with many a soul's untimely flight,
Augment the fame and horror of the fight.
To crown Achilles' valiant friend with praise
At length he dooms; and, that his last of days
Shall set in glory, bids him drive the foe;
Nor unattended see the shades below.
Then Hector's mind he fills with dire dismay;
He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away;
Sunk with Troy's heavy fates, he sees decline
The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine.
Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled,
And left their monarch with the common dead:
Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall
Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall.
(So Jove decreed!) At length the Greeks obtain
The prize contested, and despoil the slain.
The radiant arms are by Patroclus borne;
Patroclus' ships the glorious spoils adorn.
Then thus to Phoebus, in the realms above,
Spoke from his throne the cloud-compelling Jove:
"Descend, my Phoebus! on the Phrygian plain,
And from the fight convey Sarpedon slain;
Then bathe his body in the crystal flood,
With dust dishonour'd, and deform'd with blood;
O'er all his limbs ambrosial odours shed,
And with celestial robes adorn the dead.
Those rites discharged, his sacred corse bequeath
To the soft arms of silent Sleep and Death.
They to his friends the immortal charge shall bear;
His friends a tomb and pyramid shall rear:
What honour mortals after death receive,
Those unavailing honours we may give!"
Apollo bows, and from mount Ida's height,
Swift to the field precipitates his flight;
Thence from the war the breathless hero bore,
Veil'd in a cloud, to silver Simois' shore;
There bathed his honourable wounds, and dress'd
His manly members in the immortal vest;
And with perfumes of sweet ambrosial dews
Restores his freshness, and his form renews.
Then Sleep and Death, two twins of winged race,
Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace,
Received Sarpedon, at the god's command,
And in a moment reach'd the Lycian land;
The corse amidst his weeping friends they laid,
Where endless honours wait the sacred shade.
Meanwhile Patroclus pours along the plains,
With foaming coursers, and with loosen'd reins.
Fierce on the Trojan and the Lycian crew,
Ah blind to fate! thy headlong fury flew
Against what fate and powerful Jove ordain,
Vain was thy friend's command, thy courage vain.
For he, the god, whose counsels uncontroll'd
Dismay the mighty, and confound the bold;
The god who gives, resumes, and orders all,
He urged thee on, and urged thee on to fall.
Who first, brave hero! by that arm was slain,
Who last beneath thy vengeance press'd the plain;
When heaven itself thy fatal fury led,
And call'd to fill the number of the dead?
Adrestus first; Autonous then succeeds;
Echeclus follows; next young Megas bleeds,
Epistor, Melanippus, bite the ground;
The slaughter, Elasus and Mulius crown'd:
Then sunk Pylartes to eternal night;
The rest, dispersing, trust their fates to flight.
Now Troy had stoop'd beneath his matchless power,
But flaming Phoebus kept the sacred tower
Thrice at the battlements Patroclus strook;
His blazing aegis thrice Apollo shook;
He tried the fourth; when, bursting from the cloud,
A more than mortal voice was heard aloud.
"Patroclus! cease; this heaven-defended wall
Defies thy lance; not fated yet to fall;
Thy friend, thy greater far, it shall withstand,
Troy shall not stoop even to Achilles' hand."
So spoke the god who darts celestial fires;
The Greek obeys him, and with awe retires.
While Hector, checking at the Scaean gates
His panting coursers, in his breast debates,
Or in the field his forces to employ,
Or draw the troops within the walls of Troy.
Thus while he thought, beside him Phoebus stood,
In Asius' shape, who reigned by Sangar's flood;
(Thy brother, Hecuba! from Dymas sprung,
A valiant warrior, haughty, bold, and young;)
Thus he accosts him. "What a shameful sight!
God! is it Hector that forbears the fight?
Were thine my vigour this successful spear
Should soon convince thee of so false a fear.
Turn thee, ah turn thee to the field of fame,
And in Patroclus' blood efface thy shame.
Perhaps Apollo shall thy arms succeed,
And heaven ordains him by thy lance to bleed."
So spoke the inspiring god; then took his flight,
And plunged amidst the tumult of the fight.
He bids Cebrion drive the rapid car;
The lash resounds, the coursers rush to war.
The god the Grecians' sinking souls depress'd,
And pour'd swift spirits through each Trojan breast.
Patroclus lights, impatient for the fight;
A spear his left, a stone employs his right:
With all his nerves he drives it at the foe.
Pointed above, and rough and gross below:
The falling ruin crush'd Cebrion's head,
The lawless offspring of king Priam's bed;
His front, brows, eyes, one undistinguish'd wound:
The bursting balls drop sightless to the ground.
The charioteer, while yet he held the rein,
Struck from the car, falls headlong on the plain.
To the dark shades the soul unwilling glides,
While the proud victor thus his fall derides.
"Good heaven! what active feats yon artist shows!
What skilful divers are our Phrygian foes!
Mark with what ease they sink into the sand!
Pity that all their practice is by land!"
Then rushing sudden on his prostrate prize,
To spoil the carcase fierce Patroclus flies:
Swift as a lion, terrible and bold,
That sweeps the field, depopulates the fold;
Pierced through the dauntless heart, then tumbles slain,
And from his fatal courage finds his bane.
At once bold Hector leaping from his car,
Defends the body, and provokes the war.
Thus for some slaughter'd hind, with equal rage,
Two lordly rulers of the wood engage;
Stung with fierce hunger, each the prey invades,
And echoing roars rebellow through the shades.
Stern Hector fastens on the warrior's head,
And by the foot Patroclus drags the dead:
While all around, confusion, rage, and fright,
Mix the contending hosts in mortal fight.
So pent by hills, the wild winds roar aloud
In the deep bosom of some gloomy wood;
Leaves, arms, and trees, aloft in air are blown,
The broad oaks crackle, and the Sylvans groan;
This way and that, the rattling thicket bends,
And the whole forest in one crash descends.
Not with less noise, with less tumultuous rage,
In dreadful shock the mingled hosts engage.
Darts shower'd on darts, now round the carcase ring;
Now flights of arrows bounding from the string:
Stones follow stones; some clatter on the fields,
Some hard, and heavy, shake the sounding shields.
But where the rising whirlwind clouds the plains,
Sunk in soft dust the mighty chief remains,
And, stretch'd in death, forgets the guiding reins!
Now flaming from the zenith, Sol had driven
His fervid orb through half the vault of heaven;
While on each host with equal tempests fell
The showering darts, and numbers sank to hell.
But when his evening wheels o'erhung the main,
Glad conquest rested on the Grecian train.
Then from amidst the tumult and alarms,
They draw the conquer'd corse and radiant arms.
Then rash Patroclus with new fury glows,
And breathing slaughter, pours amid the foes.
Thrice on the press like Mars himself he flew,
And thrice three heroes at each onset slew.
There ends thy glory! there the Fates untwine
The last, black remnant of so bright a line:
Apollo dreadful stops thy middle way;
Death calls, and heaven allows no longer day!
For lo! the god in dusky clouds enshrined,
Approaching dealt a staggering blow behind.
The weighty shock his neck and shoulders feel;
His eyes flash sparkles, his stunn'd senses reel
In giddy darkness; far to distance flung,
His bounding helmet on the champaign rung.
Achilles' plume is stain'd with dust and gore;
That plume which never stoop'd to earth before;
Long used, untouch'd, in fighting fields to shine,
And shade the temples of the mad divine.
Jove dooms it now on Hector's helm to nod;
Not long--for fate pursues him, and the god.
His spear in shivers falls; his ample shield
Drops from his arm: his baldric strows the field:
The corslet his astonish'd breast forsakes:
Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes;
Stupid he stares, and all-assistless stands:
Such is the force of more than mortal hands!
A Dardan youth there was, well known to fame,
From Panthus sprung, Euphorbus was his name;
Famed for the manage of the foaming horse,
Skill'd in the dart, and matchless in the course:
Full twenty knights he tumbled from the car,
While yet he learn'd his rudiments of war.
His venturous spear first drew the hero's gore;
He struck, he wounded, but he durst no more.
Nor, though disarm'd, Patroclus' fury stood:
But swift withdrew the long-protended wood.
And turn'd him short, and herded in the crowd.
Thus, by an arm divine, and mortal spear,
Wounded, at once, Patroclus yields to fear,
Retires for succour to his social train,
And flies the fate, which heaven decreed, in vain.
Stern Hector, as the bleeding chief he views,
Breaks through the ranks, and his retreat pursues:
The lance arrests him with a mortal wound;
He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound.
With him all Greece was sunk; that moment all
Her yet-surviving heroes seem'd to fall.
So, scorch'd with heat, along the desert score,
The roaming lion meets a bristly boar,
Fast by the spring; they both dispute the flood,
With flaming eyes, and jaws besmear'd with blood;
At length the sovereign savage wins the strife;
And the torn boar resigns his thirst and life.
Patroclus thus, so many chiefs o'erthrown,
So many lives effused, expires his own.
As dying now at Hector's feet he lies,
He sternly views him, and triumphant cries:
"Lie there, Patroclus! and with thee, the joy
Thy pride once promised, of subverting Troy;
The fancied scenes of Ilion wrapt in flames,
And thy soft pleasures served with captive dames.
Unthinking man! I fought those towers to free,
And guard that beauteous race from lords like thee:
But thou a prey to vultures shalt be made;
Thy own Achilles cannot lend thee aid;
Though much at parting that great chief might say,
And much enjoin thee, this important day.
'Return not, my brave friend (perhaps he said),
Without the bloody arms of Hector dead.'
He spoke, Patroclus march'd, and thus he sped."
Supine, and wildly gazing on the skies,
With faint, expiring breath, the chief replies:
"Vain boaster! cease, and know the powers divine!
Jove's and Apollo's is this deed, not thine;
To heaven is owed whate'er your own you call,
And heaven itself disarm'd me ere my fall.
Had twenty mortals, each thy match in might,
Opposed me fairly, they had sunk in fight:
By fate and Phoebus was I first o'erthrown,
Euphorbus next; the third mean part thy own.
But thou, imperious! hear my latest breath;
The gods inspire it, and it sounds thy death:
Insulting man, thou shalt be soon as I;
Black fate o'erhangs thee, and thy hour draws nigh;
Even now on life's last verge I see thee stand,
I see thee fall, and by Achilles' hand."
He faints: the soul unwilling wings her way,
(The beauteous body left a load of clay)
Flits to the lone, uncomfortable coast;
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!
Then Hector pausing, as his eyes he fed
On the pale carcase, thus address'd the dead:
"From whence this boding speech, the stern decree
Of death denounced, or why denounced to me?
Why not as well Achilles' fate be given
To Hector's lance? Who knows the will of heaven?"
Pensive he said; then pressing as he lay
His breathless bosom, tore the lance away;
And upwards cast the corse: the reeking spear
He shakes, and charges the bold charioteer.
But swift Automedon with loosen'd reins
Rapt in the chariot o'er the distant plains,
Far from his rage the immortal coursers drove;
The immortal coursers were the gift of Jove.
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;)
"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:
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.
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,
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,
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?
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;
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,
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)
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,
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.
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.
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,
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.
