The Iliad of Homer

All to Achilles' sable ship repair,
Frequent and full, the genial feast to share.
Now from the well–fed swine black smokes aspire,
The bristly victims hissing o'er the fire:

The huge ox bellowing falls; with feebler cries
Expires the goat; the sheep in silence dies.
Around the hero's prostrate body flow'd,
In one promiscuous stream, the reeking blood.

And now a band of Argive monarchs brings
The glorious victor to the king of kings.
From his dead friend the pensive warrior went,
With steps unwilling, to the regal tent.

The attending heralds, as by office bound,
With kindled flames the tripod–vase surround:
To cleanse his conquering hands from hostile gore,
They urged in vain; the chief refused, and swore:^[282]

"No drop shall touch me, by almighty Jove!
The first and greatest of the gods above!
Till on the pyre I place thee; till I rear
The grassy mound, and clip thy sacred hair.

Some ease at least those pious rites may give,
And soothe my sorrows, while I bear to live.
Howe'er, reluctant as I am, I stay
And share your feast; but with the dawn of day,

(O king of men!) it claims thy royal care,
That Greece the warrior's funeral pile prepare,
And bid the forests falclass="underline" (such rites are paid
To heroes slumbering in eternal shade:)

Then, when his earthly part shall mount in fire,
Let the leagued squadrons to their posts retire."
He spoke: they hear him, and the word obey;
The rage of hunger and of thirst allay,
Then ease in sleep the labours of the day.

But great Pelides, stretch'd along the shore,
Where, dash'd on rocks, the broken billows roar,
Lies inly groaning; while on either hand
The martial Myrmidons confusedly stand.

Along the grass his languid members fall,
Tired with his chase around the Trojan wall;
Hush'd by the murmurs of the rolling deep,
At length he sinks in the soft arms of sleep.

When lo! the shade, before his closing eyes,
Of sad Patroclus rose, or seem'd to rise:
In the same robe he living wore, he came:
In stature, voice, and pleasing look, the same.

The form familiar hover'd o'er his head,
"And sleeps Achilles? (thus the phantom said:)
Sleeps my Achilles, his Patroclus dead?
Living, I seem'd his dearest, tenderest care,
But now forgot, I wander in the air.

Let my pale corse the rites of burial know,
And give me entrance in the realms below:
Till then the spirit finds no resting–place,
But here and there the unbodied spectres chase

The vagrant dead around the dark abode,
Forbid to cross the irremeable flood.
Now give thy hand; for to the farther shore
When once we pass, the soul returns no more:

When once the last funereal flames ascend,
No more shall meet Achilles and his friend;
No more our thoughts to those we loved make known;
Or quit the dearest, to converse alone.

Me fate has sever'd from the sons of earth,
The fate fore–doom'd that waited from my birth:
Thee too it waits; before the Trojan wall
Even great and godlike thou art doom'd to fall.

Hear then; and as in fate and love we join,
Ah suffer that my bones may rest with thine!
Together have we lived; together bred,
One house received us, and one table fed;

That golden urn, thy goddess–mother gave,
May mix our ashes in one common grave."
"And is it thou? (he answers) To my sight^[283]
Once more return'st thou from the realms of night?

O more than brother! Think each office paid,
Whate'er can rest a discontented shade;
But grant one last embrace, unhappy boy!
Afford at least that melancholy joy."

He said, and with his longing arms essay'd
In vain to grasp the visionary shade!
Like a thin smoke he sees the spirit fly,^[284]
And hears a feeble, lamentable cry.

Confused he wakes; amazement breaks the bands
Of golden sleep, and starting from the sands,
Pensive he muses with uplifted hands:
"'Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains
Part of himself; the immortal mind remains:

The form subsists without the body's aid,
Aerial semblance, and an empty shade!
This night my friend, so late in battle lost,
Stood at my side, a pensive, plaintive ghost:

Even now familiar, as in life, he came;
Alas! how different! yet how like the same!"
Thus while he spoke, each eye grew big with tears:
And now the rosy–finger'd morn appears,

Shows every mournful face with tears o'erspread,
And glares on the pale visage of the dead.
But Agamemnon, as the rites demand,
With mules and waggons sends a chosen band

To load the timber, and the pile to rear;
A charge consign'd to Merion's faithful care.
With proper instruments they take the road,
Axes to cut, and ropes to sling the load.

First march the heavy mules, securely slow,
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go:^[285]
Jumping, high o'er the shrubs of the rough ground,
Rattle the clattering cars, and the shock'd axles bound

But when arrived at Ida's spreading woods,^[286]
(Fair Ida, water'd with descending floods,)
Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes;
On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks

Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown;
Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.
The wood the Grecians cleave, prepared to burn;
And the slow mules the same rough road return

The sturdy woodmen equal burdens bore
(Such charge was given them) to the sandy shore;
There on the spot which great Achilles show'd,
They eased their shoulders, and disposed the load;

Circling around the place, where times to come
Shall view Patroclus' and Achilles' tomb.
The hero bids his martial troops appear
High on their cars in all the pomp of war;

Each in refulgent arms his limbs attires,
All mount their chariots, combatants and squires.
The chariots first proceed, a shining train;
Then clouds of foot that smoke along the plain;

282

—And swore. Literally, and called Orcus, the god of oaths, to witness. See Buttmann, Lexilog, p. 436.

283

"O, long expected by thy friends! from whence Art thou so late return'd for our defence? Do we behold thee, wearied as we are With length of labours, and with, toils of war? After so many funerals of thy own, Art thou restored to thy declining town? But say, what wounds are these? what new disgrace Deforms the manly features of thy face?"

Dryden, xi. 369.

284

—Like a thin smoke. Virgil, Georg. iv. 72.

"In vain I reach my feeble hands to join In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine! She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air."

Dryden.

285

So Milton:—

"So eagerly the fiend O'er bog, o'er steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."

"Paradise Lost," ii. 948.

286

"An ancient forest, for the work design'd (The shady covert of the savage kind). The Trojans found: the sounding axe is placed: Firs, pines, and pitch–trees, and the tow'ring pride Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke, And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak. High trunks of trees, fell'd from the steepy crown Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down."

Dryden's Virgil, vi. 261.