The Iliad of Homer

One to the bold Boeotians ever dear,
And one Menestheus' friend and famed compeer.
Medon and Iasus, Æneas sped;
This sprang from Phelus, and the Athenians led;

But hapless Medon from Oileus came;
Him Ajax honour'd with a brother's name,
Though born of lawless love: from home expell'd,
A banish'd man, in Phylace he dwell'd,

Press'd by the vengeance of an angry wife;
Troy ends at last his labours and his life.
Mecystes next Polydamas o'erthrew;
And thee, brave Clonius, great Agenor slew.

By Paris, Deiochus inglorious dies,
Pierced through the shoulder as he basely flies.
Polites' arm laid Echius on the plain;
Stretch'd on one heap, the victors spoil the slain.

The Greeks dismay'd, confused, disperse or fall,
Some seek the trench, some skulk behind the wall.
While these fly trembling, others pant for breath,
And o'er the slaughter stalks gigantic death.

On rush'd bold Hector, gloomy as the night;
Forbids to plunder, animates the fight,
Points to the fleet: "For, by the gods! who flies,^[240]
Who dares but linger, by this hand he dies;

No weeping sister his cold eye shall close,
No friendly hand his funeral pyre compose.
Who stops to plunder at this signal hour,
The birds shall tear him, and the dogs devour."

Furious he said; the smarting scourge resounds;
The coursers fly; the smoking chariot bounds;
The hosts rush on; loud clamours shake the shore;
The horses thunder, earth and ocean roar!

Apollo, planted at the trench's bound,
Push'd at the bank: down sank the enormous mound:
Roll'd in the ditch the heapy ruin lay;
A sudden road! a long and ample way.

O'er the dread fosse (a late impervious space)
Now steeds, and men, and cars tumultuous pass.
The wondering crowds the downward level trod;
Before them flamed the shield, and march'd the god.

Then with his hand he shook the mighty wall;
And lo! the turrets nod, the bulwarks falclass="underline"
Easy as when ashore an infant stands,
And draws imagined houses in the sands;

The sportive wanton, pleased with some new play,
Sweeps the slight works and fashion'd domes away:
Thus vanish'd at thy touch, the towers and walls;
The toil of thousands in a moment falls.

The Grecians gaze around with wild despair,
Confused, and weary all the powers with prayer:
Exhort their men, with praises, threats, commands;
And urge the gods, with voices, eyes, and hands.

Experienced Nestor chief obtests the skies,
And weeps his country with a father's eyes.
"O Jove! if ever, on his native shore,
One Greek enrich'd thy shrine with offer'd gore;

If e'er, in hope our country to behold,
We paid the fattest firstlings of the fold;
If e'er thou sign'st our wishes with thy nod:
Perform the promise of a gracious god!

This day preserve our navies from the flame,
And save the relics of the Grecian name."
Thus prayed the sage: the eternal gave consent,
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.

Presumptuous Troy mistook the accepting sign,
And catch'd new fury at the voice divine.
As, when black tempests mix the seas and skies,
The roaring deeps in watery mountains rise,

Above the sides of some tall ship ascend,
Its womb they deluge, and its ribs they rend:
Thus loudly roaring, and o'erpowering all,
Mount the thick Trojans up the Grecian wall;

Legions on legions from each side arise:
Thick sound the keels; the storm of arrows flies.
Fierce on the ships above, the cars below,
These wield the mace, and those the javelin throw.

While thus the thunder of the battle raged,
And labouring armies round the works engaged,
Still in the tent Patroclus sat to tend
The good Eurypylus, his wounded friend.

He sprinkles healing balms, to anguish kind,
And adds discourse, the medicine of the mind.
But when he saw, ascending up the fleet,
Victorious Troy; then, starting from his seat,

With bitter groans his sorrows he express'd,
He wrings his hands, he beats his manly breast.
"Though yet thy state require redress (he cries)
Depart I must: what horrors strike my eyes!

Charged with Achilles' high command I go,
A mournful witness of this scene of woe;
I haste to urge him by his country's care
To rise in arms, and shine again in war.

Perhaps some favouring god his soul may bend;
The voice is powerful of a faithful friend."
He spoke; and, speaking, swifter than the wind
Sprung from the tent, and left the war behind.

The embodied Greeks the fierce attack sustain,
But strive, though numerous, to repulse in vain:
Nor could the Trojans, through that firm array,
Force to the fleet and tents the impervious way.

As when a shipwright, with Palladian art,
Smooths the rough wood, and levels every part;
With equal hand he guides his whole design,
By the just rule, and the directing line:

The martial leaders, with like skill and care,
Preserved their line, and equal kept the war.
Brave deeds of arms through all the ranks were tried,
And every ship sustained an equal tide.

At one proud bark, high–towering o'er the fleet,
Ajax the great, and godlike Hector meet;
For one bright prize the matchless chiefs contend,
Nor this the ships can fire, nor that defend:

One kept the shore, and one the vessel trod;
That fix'd as fate, this acted by a god.
The son of Clytius in his daring hand,
The deck approaching, shakes a flaming brand;

But, pierced by Telamon's huge lance, expires:
Thundering he falls, and drops the extinguish'd fires.
Great Hector view'd him with a sad survey,
As stretch'd in dust before the stern he lay.

"Oh! all of Trojan, all of Lycian race!
Stand to your arms, maintain this arduous space:
Lo! where the son of royal Clytius lies;
Ah, save his arms, secure his obsequies!"

This said, his eager javelin sought the foe:
But Ajax shunn'd the meditated blow.
Not vainly yet the forceful lance was thrown;
It stretch'd in dust unhappy Lycophron:

240

—For, by the gods! who flies. Observe the bold ellipsis of "he cries," and the transition from the direct to the oblique construction. So in Milton:—

"Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood, Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, And starry pole.—Thou also mad'st the night, Maker omnipotent, and thou the day."

Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book iv.