The Iliad of Homer

New ting'd with Tyrian dye: in dust below,
Shorn from the crest, the purple honours glow.
Meantime their fight the Spartan king survey'd,
And stood by Meges' side a sudden aid.

Through Dolops' shoulder urged his forceful dart,
Which held its passage through the panting heart,
And issued at his breast. With thundering sound
The warrior falls, extended on the ground.

In rush the conquering Greeks to spoil the slain:
But Hector's voice excites his kindred train;
The hero most, from Hicetaon sprung,
Fierce Melanippus, gallant, brave, and young.

He (ere to Troy the Grecians cross'd the main)
Fed his large oxen on Percote's plain;
But when oppress'd, his country claim'd his care,
Return'd to Ilion, and excell'd in war;

For this, in Priam's court, he held his place,
Beloved no less than Priam's royal race.
Him Hector singled, as his troops he led,
And thus inflamed him, pointing to the dead.

"Lo, Melanippus! lo, where Dolops lies;
And is it thus our royal kinsman dies?
O'ermatch'd he falls; to two at once a prey,
And lo! they bear the bloody arms away!

Come on—a distant war no longer wage,
But hand to hand thy country's foes engage:
Till Greece at once, and all her glory end;
Or Ilion from her towery height descend,

Heaved from the lowest stone; and bury all
In one sad sepulchre, one common fall."
Hector (this said) rush'd forward on the foes:
With equal ardour Melanippus glows:

Then Ajax thus—"O Greeks! respect your fame,
Respect yourselves, and learn an honest shame:
Let mutual reverence mutual warmth inspire,
And catch from breast to breast the noble fire,

On valour's side the odds of combat lie;
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch that trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame."

His generous sense he not in vain imparts;
It sunk, and rooted in the Grecian hearts:
They join, they throng, they thicken at his call,
And flank the navy with a brazen wall;

Shields touching shields, in order blaze above,
And stop the Trojans, though impell'd by Jove.
The fiery Spartan first, with loud applause.
Warms the bold son of Nestor in his cause.

"Is there (he said) in arms a youth like you,
So strong to fight, so active to pursue?
Why stand you distant, nor attempt a deed?
Lift the bold lance, and make some Trojan bleed."

He said; and backward to the lines retired;
Forth rush'd the youth with martial fury fired,
Beyond the foremost ranks; his lance he threw,
And round the black battalions cast his view.

The troops of Troy recede with sudden fear,
While the swift javelin hiss'd along in air.
Advancing Melanippus met the dart
With his bold breast, and felt it in his heart:

Thundering he falls; his falling arms resound,
And his broad buckler rings against the ground.
The victor leaps upon his prostrate prize:
Thus on a roe the well–breath'd beagle flies,

And rends his side, fresh–bleeding with the dart
The distant hunter sent into his heart.
Observing Hector to the rescue flew;
Bold as he was, Antilochus withdrew.

So when a savage, ranging o'er the plain,
Has torn the shepherd's dog, or shepherd's swain,
While conscious of the deed, he glares around,
And hears the gathering multitude resound,

Timely he flies the yet–untasted food,
And gains the friendly shelter of the wood:
So fears the youth; all Troy with shouts pursue,
While stones and darts in mingled tempest flew;

But enter'd in the Grecian ranks, he turns
His manly breast, and with new fury burns.
Now on the fleet the tides of Trojans drove,
Fierce to fulfil the stern decrees of Jove:

The sire of gods, confirming Thetis' prayer,
The Grecian ardour quench'd in deep despair;
But lifts to glory Troy's prevailing bands,
Swells all their hearts, and strengthens all their hands.

On Ida's top he waits with longing eyes,
To view the navy blazing to the skies;
Then, nor till then, the scale of war shall turn,
The Trojans fly, and conquer'd Ilion burn.

These fates revolved in his almighty mind,
He raises Hector to the work design'd,
Bids him with more than mortal fury glow,
And drives him, like a lightning, on the foe.

So Mars, when human crimes for vengeance call,
Shakes his huge javelin, and whole armies fall.
Not with more rage a conflagration rolls,
Wraps the vast mountains, and involves the poles.

He foams with wrath; beneath his gloomy brow
Like fiery meteors his red eye–balls glow:
The radiant helmet on his temple burns,
Waves when he nods, and lightens as he turns:

For Jove his splendour round the chief had thrown,
And cast the blaze of both the hosts on one.
Unhappy glories! for his fate was near,
Due to stern Pallas, and Pelides' spear:

Yet Jove deferr'd the death he was to pay,
And gave what fate allow'd, the honours of a day!
Now all on fire for fame, his breast, his eyes
Burn at each foe, and single every prize;

Still at the closest ranks, the thickest fight,
He points his ardour, and exerts his might.
The Grecian phalanx, moveless as a tower,
On all sides batter'd, yet resists his power:

So some tall rock o'erhangs the hoary main,^[241]
By winds assail'd, by billows beat in vain,
Unmoved it hears, above, the tempest blow,
And sees the watery mountains break below.

Girt in surrounding flames, he seems to fall
Like fire from Jove, and bursts upon them alclass="underline"
Bursts as a wave that from the cloud impends,
And, swell'd with tempests, on the ship descends;

White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
Pale, trembling, tired, the sailors freeze with fears;
And instant death on every wave appears.

So pale the Greeks the eyes of Hector meet,
The chief so thunders, and so shakes the fleet.
As when a lion, rushing from his den,
Amidst the plain of some wide–water'd fen,

241

—So some tall rock.

"But like a rock unmov'd, a rock that braves The raging tempest, and the rising waves— Propp'd on himself he stands: his solid sides Wash off the sea–weeds, and the sounding tides."

Dryden's Virgil, vii. 809.