He said: and Merion to th' appointed place,
Fierce as the god of battles, urged his pace.
Soon as the foe the shining chiefs beheld
Rush like a fiery torrent o'er the field,
Their force embodied in a tide they pour;
The rising combat sounds along the shore.
As warring winds, in Sirius' sultry reign,
From different quarters sweep the sandy plain;
On every side the dusty whirlwinds rise,
And the dry fields are lifted to the skies:
Thus by despair, hope, rage, together driven,
Met the black hosts, and, meeting, darken'd heaven.
All dreadful glared the iron face of war,
Bristled with upright spears, that flash'd afar;
Dire was the gleam of breastplates, helms, and shields,
And polish'd arms emblazed the flaming fields:
Tremendous scene! that general horror gave,
But touch'd with joy the bosoms of the brave.
Saturn's great sons in fierce contention vied,
And crowds of heroes in their anger died.
The sire of earth and heaven, by Thetis won
To crown with glory Peleus' godlike son,
Will'd not destruction to the Grecian powers,
But spared awhile the destined Trojan towers;
While Neptune, rising from his azure main,
Warr'd on the king of heaven with stern disdain,
And breathed revenge, and fired the Grecian train.
Gods of one source, of one ethereal race,
Alike divine, and heaven their native place;
But Jove the greater; first–born of the skies,
And more than men, or gods, supremely wise.
For this, of Jove's superior might afraid,
Neptune in human form conceal'd his aid.
These powers enfold the Greek and Trojan train
In war and discord's adamantine chain,
Indissolubly strong: the fatal tie
Is stretch'd on both, and close compell'd they die.
Dreadful in arms, and grown in combats grey,
The bold Idomeneus controls the day.
First by his hand Othryoneus was slain,
Swell'd with false hopes, with mad ambition vain;
Call'd by the voice of war to martial fame,
From high Cabesus' distant walls he came;
Cassandra's love he sought, with boasts of power,
And promised conquest was the proffer'd dower.
The king consented, by his vaunts abused;
The king consented, but the fates refused.
Proud of himself, and of the imagined bride,
The field he measured with a larger stride.
Him as he stalk'd, the Cretan javelin found;
Vain was his breastplate to repel the wound:
His dream of glory lost, he plunged to hell;
His arms resounded as the boaster fell.
The great Idomeneus bestrides the dead;
"And thus (he cries) behold thy promise sped!
Such is the help thy arms to Ilion bring,
And such the contract of the Phrygian king!
Our offers now, illustrious prince! receive;
For such an aid what will not Argos give?
To conquer Troy, with ours thy forces join,
And count Atrides' fairest daughter thine.
Meantime, on further methods to advise,
Come, follow to the fleet thy new allies;
There hear what Greece has on her part to say."
He spoke, and dragg'd the gory corse away.
This Asius view'd, unable to contain,
Before his chariot warring on the plain:
(His crowded coursers, to his squire consign'd,
Impatient panted on his neck behind:)
To vengeance rising with a sudden spring,
He hoped the conquest of the Cretan king.
The wary Cretan, as his foe drew near,
Full on his throat discharged the forceful spear:
Beneath the chin the point was seen to glide,
And glitter'd, extant at the further side.
As when the mountain–oak, or poplar tall,
Or pine, fit mast for some great admiral,
Groans to the oft–heaved axe, with many a wound,
Then spreads a length of ruin o'er the ground:
So sunk proud Asius in that dreadful day,
And stretch'd before his much–loved coursers lay.
He grinds the dust distain'd with streaming gore,
And, fierce in death, lies foaming on the shore.
Deprived of motion, stiff with stupid fear,
Stands all aghast his trembling charioteer,
Nor shuns the foe, nor turns the steeds away,
But falls transfix'd, an unresisting prey:
Pierced by Antilochus, he pants beneath
The stately car, and labours out his breath.
Thus Asius' steeds (their mighty master gone)
Remain the prize of Nestor's youthful son.
Stabb'd at the sight, Deiphobus drew nigh,
And made, with force, the vengeful weapon fly.
The Cretan saw; and, stooping, caused to glance
From his slope shield the disappointed lance.
Beneath the spacious targe, (a blazing round,
Thick with bull–hides and brazen orbits bound,
On his raised arm by two strong braces stay'd,)
He lay collected in defensive shade.
O'er his safe head the javelin idly sung,
And on the tinkling verge more faintly rung.
Even then the spear the vigorous arm confess'd,
And pierced, obliquely, king Hypsenor's breast:
Warm'd in his liver, to the ground it bore
The chief, his people's guardian now no more!
"Not unattended (the proud Trojan cries)
Nor unrevenged, lamented Asius lies:
For thee, through hell's black portals stand display'd,
This mate shall joy thy melancholy shade."
Heart–piercing anguish, at the haughty boast,
Touch'd every Greek, but Nestor's son the most.
Grieved as he was, his pious arms attend,
And his broad buckler shields his slaughter'd friend:
Till sad Mecistheus and Alastor bore
His honour'd body to the tented shore.
Nor yet from fight Idomeneus withdraws;
Resolved to perish in his country's cause,
Or find some foe, whom heaven and he shall doom
To wail his fate in death's eternal gloom.
He sees Alcathous in the front aspire:
Great Æsyetes was the hero's sire;
His spouse Hippodame, divinely fair,
Anchises' eldest hope, and darling care:
Who charm'd her parents' and her husband's heart
With beauty, sense, and every work of art:
He once of Ilion's youth the loveliest boy,
The fairest she of all the fair of Troy.
By Neptune now the hapless hero dies,
Who covers with a cloud those beauteous eyes,