The Iliad of Homer

These lightly skimming, when they swept the plain,
Nor plied the grass, nor bent the tender grain;
And when along the level seas they flew,^[265]
Scarce on the surface curl'd the briny dew.

Such Erichthonius was: from him there came
The sacred Tros, of whom the Trojan name.
Three sons renown'd adorn'd his nuptial bed,
Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymed:

The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair,
Whom heaven, enamour'd, snatch'd to upper air,
To bear the cup of Jove (ethereal guest,
The grace and glory of the ambrosial feast).

The two remaining sons the line divide:
First rose Laomedon from Ilus' side;
From him Tithonus, now in cares grown old,
And Priam, bless'd with Hector, brave and bold;

Clytius and Lampus, ever–honour'd pair;
And Hicetaon, thunderbolt of war.
From great Assaracus sprang Capys, he
Begat Anchises, and Anchises me.

Such is our race: 'tis fortune gives us birth,
But Jove alone endues the soul with worth:
He, source of power and might! with boundless sway,
All human courage gives, or takes away.

Long in the field of words we may contend,
Reproach is infinite, and knows no end,
Arm'd or with truth or falsehood, right or wrong;
So voluble a weapon is the tongue;

Wounded, we wound; and neither side can fail,
For every man has equal strength to raiclass="underline"
Women alone, when in the streets they jar,
Perhaps excel us in this wordy war;

Like us they stand, encompass'd with the crowd,
And vent their anger impotent and loud.
Cease then—Our business in the field of fight
Is not to question, but to prove our might.

To all those insults thou hast offer'd here,
Receive this answer: 'tis my flying spear."
He spoke. With all his force the javelin flung,
Fix'd deep, and loudly in the buckler rung.

Far on his outstretch'd arm, Pelides held
(To meet the thundering lance) his dreadful shield,
That trembled as it stuck; nor void of fear
Saw, ere it fell, the immeasurable spear.

His fears were vain; impenetrable charms
Secured the temper of the ethereal arms.
Through two strong plates the point its passage held,
But stopp'd, and rested, by the third repell'd.

Five plates of various metal, various mould,
Composed the shield; of brass each outward fold,
Of tin each inward, and the middle gold:
There stuck the lance. Then rising ere he threw,
The forceful spear of great Achilles flew,

And pierced the Dardan shield's extremest bound,
Where the shrill brass return'd a sharper sound:
Through the thin verge the Pelean weapon glides,
And the slight covering of expanded hides.

Æneas his contracted body bends,
And o'er him high the riven targe extends,
Sees, through its parting plates, the upper air,
And at his back perceives the quivering spear:

A fate so near him, chills his soul with fright;
And swims before his eyes the many–colour'd light.
Achilles, rushing in with dreadful cries,
Draws his broad blade, and at Æneas flies:

Æneas rousing as the foe came on,
With force collected, heaves a mighty stone:
A mass enormous! which in modern days
No two of earth's degenerate sons could raise.

But ocean's god, whose earthquakes rock the ground.
Saw the distress, and moved the powers around:
"Lo! on the brink of fate Æneas stands,
An instant victim to Achilles' hands;

By Phoebus urged; but Phoebus has bestow'd
His aid in vain: the man o'erpowers the god.
And can ye see this righteous chief atone
With guiltless blood for vices not his own?

To all the gods his constant vows were paid;
Sure, though he wars for Troy, he claims our aid.
Fate wills not this; nor thus can Jove resign
The future father of the Dardan line:^[266]

The first great ancestor obtain'd his grace,
And still his love descends on all the race:
For Priam now, and Priam's faithless kind,
At length are odious to the all–seeing mind;

On great Æneas shall devolve the reign,
And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain."
The great earth–shaker thus: to whom replies
The imperial goddess with the radiant eyes:

"Good as he is, to immolate or spare
The Dardan prince, O Neptune! be thy care;
Pallas and I, by all that gods can bind,
Have sworn destruction to the Trojan kind;

Not even an instant to protract their fate,
Or save one member of the sinking state;
Till her last flame be quench'd with her last gore,
And even her crumbling ruins are no more."

The king of ocean to the fight descends,
Through all the whistling darts his course he bends,
Swift interposed between the warrior flies,
And casts thick darkness o'er Achilles' eyes.^[267]

From great Æneas' shield the spear he drew,
And at his master's feet the weapon threw.
That done, with force divine he snatch'd on high
The Dardan prince, and bore him through the sky,

Smooth–gliding without step, above the heads
Of warring heroes, and of bounding steeds:
Till at the battle's utmost verge they light,
Where the slow Caucans close the rear of fight.

The godhead there (his heavenly form confess'd)
With words like these the panting chief address'd:
"What power, O prince! with force inferior far,
Urged thee to meet Achilles' arm in war?

Henceforth beware, nor antedate thy doom,
Defrauding fate of all thy fame to come.
But when the day decreed (for come it must)
Shall lay this dreadful hero in the dust,

Let then the furies of that arm be known,
Secure no Grecian force transcends thy own."
With that, he left him wondering as he lay,
Then from Achilles chased the mist away:

Sudden, returning with a stream of light,
The scene of war came rushing on his sight.
Then thus, amazed; "What wonders strike my mind!
My spear, that parted on the wings of wind,

Laid here before me! and the Dardan lord,
That fell this instant, vanish'd from my sword!
I thought alone with mortals to contend,
But powers celestial sure this foe defend.

265

—Along the level seas. Compare Virgil's description of Camilla, who

"Outstripp'd the winds in speed upon the plain, Flew o'er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain: She swept the seas, and, as she skimm'd along, Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung."

Dryden, vii. 1100.

266

—The future father. "Æneas and Antenor stand distinguished from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam, and a sympathy with the Greeks, which is by Sophocles and others construed as treacherous collusion,—a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though emphatically repelled, in the Æneas of Virgil."—Grote, i. p. 427.

267

Neptune thus recounts his services to Æneas:

"When your Æneas fought, but fought with odds Of force unequal, and unequal gods: I spread a cloud before the victor's sight, Sustain'd the vanquish'd, and secured his flight— Even then secured him, when I sought with joy The vow'd destruction of ungrateful Troy."

Dryden's Virgil, v. 1058.