"O suffer not the foe to bear away
My helpless corpse, an unassisted prey;
If I, unbless'd, must see my son no more,
My much-loved consort, and my native shore,
Yet let me die in Ilion's sacred wall;
Troy, in whose cause I fell, shall mourn my fall.”
He said, nor Hector to the chief replies,
But shakes his plume, and fierce to combat flies;
Swift as a whirlwind, drives the scattering foes;
And dyes the ground with purple as he goes.
Beneath a beech, Jove's consecrated shade,
His mournful friends divine Sarpedon laid:
Brave Pelagon, his favourite chief, was nigh,
Who wrench'd the javelin from his sinewy thigh.
The fainting soul stood ready wing'd for flight,
And o'er his eye-balls swam the shades of night;
But Boreas rising fresh, with gentle breath,
Recall'd his spirit from the gates of death.
The generous Greeks recede with tardy pace,
Though Mars and Hector thunder in their face;
None turn their backs to mean ignoble flight,
Slow they retreat, and even retreating fight.
Who first, who last, by Mars and Hector's hand,
Stretch'd in their blood, lay gasping on the sand?
Tenthras the great, Orestes the renown'd
For managed steeds, and Trechus press'd the ground;
Next Enomaus, and Enops' offspring died;
Oresbius last fell groaning at their side:
Oresbius, in his painted mitre gay,
In fat Boeotia held his wealthy sway,
Where lakes surround low Hyle's watery plain;
A prince and people studious of their gain.
The carnage Juno from the skies survey'd,
And touch'd with grief bespoke the blue-eyed maid:
Oh, sight accursed! Shall faithless Troy prevail,
And shall our promise to our people fail?
How vain the word to Menelaüs given
By Jove's great daughter and the queen of heaven,
Beneath his arms that Priam's towers should fall,
If warring gods for ever guard the wall!
Mars, red with slaughter, aids our hated foes:
Haste, let us arm, and force with force oppose!"
She spoke; Minerva burns to meet the war:
And now heaven's empress calls her blazing car.
At her command rush forth the steeds divine;
Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine.
Bright Hebe waits; by Hebè, ever young,
The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung.
On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel
Of sounding brass; the polish'd axle steel.
Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame;
The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame,
Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold
Two brazen rings of work divine were roll'd.
The bossy naves of solid silver shone;
Braces of gold suspend the moving throne:
The car, behind, an arching figure bore;
The bending concave form'd an arch before.
Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold,
And golden reins the immortal coursers hold.
Herself, impatient, to the ready car
The coursers joins, and breathes revenge and war.
Pallas disrobes; her radiant veil untied,
With flowers adorn'd, with art diversified,
(The labour'd veil her heavenly fingers wove,)
Flows on the pavement of the court of Jove.
Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest,
Jove's cuirass blazes on her ample breast;
Deck'd in sad triumph for the mournful field,
O'er her broad shoulders hangs his horrid shield,
Dire, black, tremendous! Round the margin roll'd,
A fringe of serpents hissing guards the gold:
Here all the terrors of grim War appear,
Here rages Force, here tremble Flight and Fear,
Here storm'd Contention, and here Fury frown'd,
And the dire orb portentous Gorgon crown'd.
The massy golden helm she next assumes,
That dreadful nods with four o'ershading plumes;
So vast, the broad circumference contains
A hundred armies on a hundred plains.
The goddess thus the imperial car ascends
Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends,
Ponderous and huge; that when her fury burns,
Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns.
Swift at the scourge the ethereal coursers fly,
While the smooth chariot cuts the liquid sky.
Heaven's gates spontaneous open to the powers, 13
Heaven's golden gates, kept by the winged Hours;
Commission'd in alternate watch they stand,
The sun's bright portals and the skies command,
Involve in clouds the eternal gates of day,
Or the dark barrier roll with ease away.
The sounding hinges ring: on either side
The gloomy volumes, pierced with light, divide.
The chariot mounts, where deep in ambient skies,
Confused, Olympus' hundred heads arise;
Where far apart the Thunderer fills his throne,
O'er all the gods superior and alone.
There with her snowy hand the queen restrains
The fiery steeds, and thus to Jove complains:
“O sire! can no resentment touch thy soul?
Can Mars rebel, and does no thunder roll?
What lawless rage on yon forbidden plain,
What rash destruction! and what heroes slain!
Venus, and Phoebus with the dreadful bow,
Smile on the slaughter, and enjoy my woe.
Mad, furious power! whose unrelenting mind
No god can govern, and no justice bind.
Say, mighty father! shall we scourge his pride,
And drive from fight the impetuous homicide ?”
To whom assenting, thus the Thunderer said:
"Go! and the great Minerva be thy aid.
To tame the monster-god Minerva knows,
And oft afflicts his brutal breast with woes."
"Veil'd with his gorgeous wings, upspringing light
Flew through the midst of Heaven; th' angelic quires,
On each hand parting, to his speed gave way
Through all th' empyreal road; till at the gate
Of Heaven arriv'd, the gate self-open'd wide,
On golden hinges turning."-Par. Lost, v. 250.
Wak'd by the circling hours, with rosy hand
Unbarr'd the gates of light."-Par. Lost, vi. 2.
He said; Saturnia, ardent to obey,
Lash'd her white steeds along the aërial way.
Swift down the steep of heaven the chariot rolls,
Between the expanded earth and starry poles.
Far as a shepherd, from some point on high,15
O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye;
Through such a space of air, with thundering sound,
At every leap the immortal coursers bound:
Troy now they reach'd and touch'd those banks divine,
Where silver Simoïs and Scamander join.
There Juno stopp'd, and (her fair steeds unloosed)
Of air condensed a vapour circumfused :
For these, impregnate with celestial dew,
On Simoïs' brink ambrosial herbage grew.
Thence to relieve the fainting Argive throng,
Smooth as the sailing doves they glide along.
The best and bravest of the Grecian band
(A warlike circle) round Tydides stand.
Such was their look as lions bathed in blood,
Or foaming boars, the terror of the wood.
Heaven's empress mingles with the mortal crowd,
And shouts, in Stentor's sounding voice, aloud :
Stentor the strong, endued with brazen lungs,1
Whose throat surpass'd the force of fifty tongues.
Inglorious Argives! to your race a shame,
And only men in figure and in name!
Once from the walls your timorous foes engaged,
While fierce in war divine Achilles raged;
15 Far as a shepherd. With what majesty and pomp does Homer exalt his deities! He here measures the leap of the horses by the extent of the world. And who is there, that, considering the exceeding greatness of the space, would not with reason cry out, that 'If the steeds of the Deity were to take a second leap, the world would want room for it?"-Longinus, § 8.
16 "No trumpets, or any other instruments of sound, are used in the Homeric action itself; but the trumpet was known, and is introduced for the purpose of illustration as employed in war. Hence arose the value of a loud voice in a commander; Stentor was an indispensable officer. . . . . In the early Saracen campaigns frequent mention is made of the service rendered by men of uncommonly strong voices; the battle of Honain was restored by the shouts and menaces of Abbas, the uncle of Mohammed," &c. Coleridge, p. 213.
Now issuing fearless they possess the plain,
Now win the shores, and scarce the seas remain."
Her speech new fury to their hearts convey'd ;
While near Tydides stood the Athenian maid;
The king beside his panting steeds she found,
O'erspent with toil, reposing on the ground:
To cool his glowing wound he sat apart,
(The wound inflicted by the Lycian dart,)
Large drops of sweat from all his limbs descend,
Beneath his ponderous shield his sinews bend,
Whose ample belt, that o'er his shoulder lay,
He eased; and wash'd the clotted gore away.
The goddess leaning o'er the bending yoke,
Beside his coursers, thus her silence broke:
"Degenerate prince! and not of Tydeus' kind,
Whose little body lodged a mighty mind;
Foremost he press'd in glorious toils to share,
And scarce refrain'd when I forbade the war.
Alone, unguarded, once he dared to go,
And feast, encircled by the Theban foe;
There braved, and vanquish'd, many a hardy knight;
Such nerves I gave him, and such force in fight.
Thou too no less hast been my constant care;
Thy hands I arm'd, and sent thee forth to war:
But thee or fear deters, or sloth detains;
No drop of all thy father warms thy veins."
The chief thus answered mild: "Immortal maid!
I own thy presence, and confess thy aid.
Not fear, thou know'st, withholds me from the plains,
Nor sloth hath seized me, but thy word restrains :
From warring gods thou bad'st me turn my spear,
And Venus only found resistance here.
Hence, goddess! heedful of thy high commands,
Loth I gave way, and warn'd our Argive bands:
For Mars, the homicide, these eyes beheld,
With slaughter red, and raging round the field."
Then thus Minerva :-" Brave Tydides, hear!
Not Mars himself, nor aught immortal, fear.
Full on the god impel thy foaming horse:
Pallas commands, and Pallas lends thee force.
Rash, furious, blind, from these to those he flies,
And every side of wavering combat tries;
|