And when along the level seas they flew.
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,
Tus, Assaracus, and Ganymed:

The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair,
Whon 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 (blest with Hector brave and bold):
Clytius and Lampus, ever-honour'd pair:
And Hicetaon, thunderbolt of war.

Not e'en 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, 365
975 And e'en 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 warriors flies
And casts thick darkness o'er Achilles' eyes.

280 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 leads

370

375

255 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: 39
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.

290

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,

295

385

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 rail:
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 out-stretch'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.

With that he left him wondering as he lay,
Then from Achilles chased the mist away:
300 Sudden returning with the 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,

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895

310

305 That fell this instant, vanish'd from my sword!
I thought alone with mortals to contend,
But powers celestial sure this foe defend.
Great as he is our arms he scarce will try,
Content for once, with all his gods, to fly,
Now then let others bleed.-This said, aloud
He vents his fury, and inflames the crowd.
O Greeks! (he cries, and every rank alarms)
Join battle, man to man, and arms to arms!
"Tis not in me, thongh favour'd by the sky,
To mow whole troops, and make whole armies fly.
No god can singly such a host engage,
Not Mars himself, nor great Minerva's rage.
But whatsoe'er Achilles can inspire,

His fears were vain; impenetrable charms
Secured the temper of the ethereal arms.

315

400

405

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 hound,
Where the shrill brass return'd a sharper sound:
Through the thin verge the Pelian 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:
Aneas, rousing as the foe came on,

320

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340

Whate'er of active force or acting fire;
Whate'er this heart can prompt, or hand obey;
All, all Achilles, Greeks! is yours to day:
Through yon wide host this arm shall scatter fear,
And thin the squadrons with my single spear.
He said: nor less elate with martial joy,
325 The godlike Hector warm'd the troops of Troy
Trojans to war! think Hector leads you on;
Nor dread the vaunts of Peleus' haughty son.
Deeds must decide our fate. E'en those with words
Insult the brave who tremble at their swords:
The weakest atheist-wretch all heaven defies,
But shrieks and shudders when the thunder flies.
Nor from yon boaster shall your chief retire,
Not though his heart were steel, his hand were fire;
That fire, that steel, your Hector should withstand, 425
335 And brave that vengeful heart, that dreadful hand.
Thus (breathing rage through all) the hero said;
A wood of lances rises round his head,
Clamours on clamours tempest all the air,
They join, they throng, they thicken to the war.
But Phoebus warns him from high heaven to shun
The single fight with Thetis' godlike son;
More safe to combat in the mingled band,
Nor tempt too near the terrors of his hand.
He hears obedient to the god of light,

410

415

120

430

(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:
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 odions 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;

435

440

345 And plunged within the ranks awaits the fight.
Then fierce Achilles shouting to the skies,
On Troy's whole force with boundless fury flies.
First falls Iphytion at his army's head;
Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led;
350 From great Otrynteus he derived his blood:
His mother was a Naïs of the flood:
Beneath the shades of 'Tmolus crown'd with snow
Prom Hyde's walls he ruled the lands below.
Fierce as he springs the sword his head divides;
355 The parted visage falls on equal sides:
With loud-resounding arms he strikes the plain;
While thus Achilles glories o'er the slain:
Lie there, Otryntides! the Trojan earth
Receives thee dead, though Gyga boast thy birth:
360 Those beauteous fields where Hyllus' waves are roll'd,
And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold,

Part plunge into the stream: old Xanthus roars,
The flashing billows beat the whiten'd shores:
With cries promiscuous all the banks resound ;
And here and there in eddies whirling round,.
The flouncing steeds and shrieking warriors drown'd.
As the scorch'd locusts from their fields retire,
While fast behind them runs the blaze of fire;
Driven from the land before the smoky cloud,
The clustering legions rush into the flood:
So plunged in Xanthus by Achilles' force,
Roars the resounding surge with men and horse.
His bloody lance the hero casts aside
(Which spreading tamarisks on the margin hide);
Then, like a god the rapid billows braves,
Arm'd with his sword high-brandish'd o'er the waves:
Now down he plunges, now he whirls it round:
Deep groan'd the waters with the dying sound;
Repeated wounds the reddening river dyed,
And the warm purple circled on the tide.
Swift through the foamy flood the Trojans fly,
And close in rocks or winding caverns lie:
So the huge dolphin tempesting the main,
In shoals before him fly the scaly train,
Confusedly heap'd they seek their inmost eaves,
Or pant and heare beneath the floating waves.
Now tired with slaughter from the Trojan band
Twelve chosen youths he drags alive to land;
With their rich belts their captive arms constrains
(Late their proud ornaments, but now their chains).
These his attendants to the ships convey'd,
Sad victims! destined to Patroclus' shade.

Then, as once more he plunged amid the flood,
The young Lycaon in his passage stood;
The son of Priam, whom the hero's hand
But late made captive in his father's land
(As from a sycamore his sounding steel

Lopp'd the green arms to spoke a chariot wheel);
To Lemnos isle he sold the royal slave,
Where Jason's son the price demanded gave;
But kind Eëtion touching on the shore,
The ransom'd prince to fair Arisbe bore.
Ten days were past since in his father's reign
He felt the sweets of liberty again;

The next that God whom men in vain withstand,
Gives the same youth to the same conquering hand
Now never to return! and doom'd to go
A sadder journey to the shades below.
His well-known face when great Achilles eyed
(The helm and visor he had cast aside
With wild affright, and dropp'd upon the fielu
His useless lance and unavailing shield),
As trembling, panting, from the stream he fled,
And knock'd his faltering knees, the hero said:

Ye mighty gods! what wonders strike my view!
Is it in vain our conquering arms subdue?
Sure I shall see yon heaps of Trojans kill'd,
Rise from the shades and brave me on the field:
As now the captive, whom so late I bound
And sold to Lemnos, stalks on Trojan ground!
Not him the sea's unmeasured deeps detain,
That bar such numbers from their native plain:
Lo! he returns. Try then my flying spear!
Try if the grave can hold the wanderer;

Two sons (alas! unhappy sons) she bore;
10 For ah! one spear shall drink each brother's gore,
And I succeed to slaughter'd Polydore.
How from that arm of terror shall I fly?
Some demon urges ! 'tis my doom to die!
If ever yet soft pity touch'd thy mind,

15 Ah! think not me too much of Hector's kind!
Not the same mother gave thy suppliant breath,
With his who wrought thy loved Patroclus' death.
These words attended with a shower of tears,
The youth address'd to unrelenting ears.
20 Talk not of life, or ransom (he replies);
Patroclus dead, whoever meets me dies:
In vain a single Trojan sues for grace;
But least the sons of Priam's hateful race.
Die then, my friend! what boots it to deplore?
The great, the good Patroclus is no more!
He, far thy better was foredoom'd to die,
And thou, dost thou bewail mortality?
Seest thou not me, whom nature's gifts adorn,
Sprung from a hero, from a goddess born;

25

100

105

110

115

120

35

30 The day shall come (which nothing can avert)
When by the spear, the arrow, or the dart,
By night or day, by force or by design,
Impending death and certain fate are mine,
Die then-He said; and as the word he spoke.
The fainting stripling sunk before the stroke:
His hand forgot its grasp, and left the spear,
While all his trembling frame confess'd his fear;
Sudden Achilles his broad sword display'd,
And buried in his neck the reeking blade.

125

130

40 Prone-fell the youth; and panting on the land,
The gushing purple dyed the thirsty sand;
The victor to the stream the carcass gave,
And thus insuits him floating on the wave:
Lie there, Lycaon! let the fish surround
45 Thy bloated corse, and suck thy gory wound :
There no sad mother shall thy funerals weep,
But swift Scamander roll thee to the deep,
Whose every wave some watry monster brings.
To feast unpunish'd on the fat of kings.

135

140

50 So perish Troy and all the Trojan line!
Such ruin theirs, and such compassion mine.
What boots ye now Scamander's worshipp'd stream,
His earthly honours and immortal name?
In vain your immolated bulls are slain,

143

55 Your living coursers glut his gulfs in vaju :
Thus he rewards you with this bitter fate;
Thus till the Grecian vengeance is complete;
Thus is atoned Patroclus' honour'd shade.
And the short absence of Achilles paid.

150

60

These boastful worde provoke the raging god;
With fury swells the violated flood.
What means divine may yet the power employ,
To check Achilles, and to recue Troy
Meanwhile the hero springs in arms to dare
65 The great Asteropeus to mortal war
The son of Pelagon, whose lofty line
Flows from the source of Axius, stream divine!
(Fair Peribaa's love the god had crown'd,
With all his refluent waters circled round).
70 On him Achilles rush'd: he fearless stood,
And shook two spears advancing from the flood;
The flood impell'd him on Pelides' head
To avenge his waters choked with heaps of dead.
Near as they drew, Achilles thus began:

76

If earth at length this active prince can seize,
Earth whose strong grasp has held down Hercules.
Thus while he spake, the Trojan pale with fears
Approach'd, and sought his knees with suppliant tears;
Loath as he was to yield his youthful breath,
And his soul shivering at the approach of death.
Achilles raised the spear prepared to wound;
He kiss'd his feet extended on the ground:
And while above the spear suspended stood,
Longing to dip its thirsty point in blood,

One hand embraced them close, one stopp'd the dart,
While thus these melting words attempt his heart:
Thy well-known captive, great Achilles; see;
Once more Lycaon trembles at thy knee.
Some pity to a suppliant's name afford,
Who shared the gifts of Ceres at thy board;
Whom late thy conquering arm to Lemnos bore,
Far from his father, friends, and native shore;
A hundred oxen were his price that day,
Now sums immense thy mercy shall repay.
Scarce respited from woes I yet appear,

And scarce twelve morning suns have seen me here;
Lo! Jove again submits me to thy hands,

The foe thrice tugg'd and shook the rooted wood;
Repulsive of his might the weapon stood:

The fourth he tries to break the spear in vain ;
Bent as he stands he tumbles to the plain;
His belly open'd with a ghastly wound,
The reeking entrails pour upon the ground.
Beneath the hero's feet he panting lies,
And his eye darkens, and his spirit flies:
While the proud victor thus triumphing said,
His radiant armour tearing from the dead:

So ends thy glory! such the fates they prove
Who strive presumptuous with the sons of Jove.
Sprung from a river didst thou boast thy line?
But great Saturnius is the source of mine.
How durst thou vaunt thy watry_progeny?
Of Peleus, Æacus, and Jove, am I';

The race of these superior far to those,
As he that thunders to the stream that flows.
What rivers can, Scamander might have shewn ;
But Jove he dreads, nor wars against his son.
E'en Achelöus might contend in vain,
And all the roaring billows of the main.
The eternal ocean from whose fountains flow
The seas, the rivers, and the springs below,
The thundering voice of Jove abhors to hear,
And in his deep abysses shakes with fear.

He said; then from the bank his javelin tore,
And left the breathless warrior in his gore.
The floating tides the bloody carcass lave,
And beat against it, wave succeeding wave;
'Till roll'd between the banks, it lies the food
Of curling eels, and fishes of the flood.

All scatter'd round the stream (their mightiest slain)
The amazed Pæonians scour along the plain:
He vents his fury on the flying crew,
Thrasius, Astypylus, and Mnesus slew
Mydon, Thersilochus, with Enius fell;

And numbers more his lance had plunged to hell,
But from the bottom of his gulfs profound,
Scamander spoke; the shores return'd the sound:
O first of mortals! (for the gods are thine),

Ia valour matchless, and in force divine!
If Jove have given thee every Trojan head,
"Tis not on me thy rage should heap the dead.

Far as a spear can fly Achilles springs
At every bound; his clanging armour rings
Now here, now there, he turns on every side,
And winds his course before the following tide;

195 The waves flow after wheresoe'er he wheels,
And gather fast and murmur at his heels.
So when a peasant to his garden brings
Soft rills of water from the bubbling springs,
And calls the floods from high to bless his bowers,

285

290

200 And feed with pregnant streams the plants and flowers,
Soon as he clears whate'er their passage staid.
And marks the future current with his spade,
Swift o'er the rolling pebbles down the hills,
Louder and louder purl the falling rills:

205 Before him scattering they prevent his pains,
And shine in nazy wanderings o'er the plains.
Still flies Achilles, but before his eyes
Still swift Scamander rolls where'er be flies:
Not all his speed escapes the rapid floods;
210 The first of men, but not a match for gods.
Oft as he turn'd the torrent to oppose,
And bravely try if all the powers were foes;
So oft the surge in watry mountains spread,
Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head."
215 Yet dauntless still the adverse flood he braves,
And still indignant bounds above the waves.
Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
Wash'd from beneath him slides the slimy soil;
When thus (his eyes on heaven's expansion thrown)

220 Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan :

225

Is there no god Achilles to befriend,
No power to avert his miserable end?
Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date,
And make my future life the sport of Fate.
Of all Heaven's oracles believed in vain,
But most of Thetis must her son complain;
By Phoebus' darts she prophesied my fall,
In glorious arms before the Trojan wall.
O had I died in fields of battle warm,
230 Stretch'd like a hero by a hero's arm!

236

See! my choked streams no more their course can keep,
Nor roll their wonted tribute to the deep.
Turn then impetuous! from our injured flood;
Content thy slaughters could amaze a god.

In human form confess'd before his eyes,
The river thus; and thus the chief replies:
O sacred stream! thy word we shall obey;
But not till Troy the destined vengeance pay:
Not till within her towers the perjured train
Shall pant and tremble at our arms again;
Not till proud Hector, guardian of her wall,
Or stain this lance, or see Achilles fall.

He said; and drove with fury on the foe.
Then to the godhead of the silver bow
The yellow flood began: O son of Jove!
Was not the mandate of the sire above

Full and express? that Phoebus should employ
His sacred arrows in defence of Troy,
And make her conquer till Hyperion's fall

In awful darkness hide the face of all?

Might Hector's spear this dauntless bosom rend,
And my swift soul o'ertake my slaughter'd friend!
Ah no! Achilles meets a shameful fate,
Oh how unworthy of the brave and great!
Like some vile swain, whom on a rainy day,
Crossing a ford the torrent sweeps away,
An unregarded carcass to the sea.

Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,
And thus in human form address'd the chief :-
240 The power of ocean first: Forbear thy fear,
O son of Peleus! lo, thy gods appear!
Behold! from Jove descending to thy aid,
Propitious Neptune and the blue-eyed maid.
Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave:
245 Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.

But thou the counsel Heaven suggests attend;
Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,
Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all
Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:
250 Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,

255

And Hector's blood shall smoke upon thy lance.
Thine is the glory dooin'd. Thus spake the gods:
Then swift ascended to the bright abodes.
Stung by new ardour, thus by Heaven impell'd,
He springs impetuous, and invades the field:
O'er all the expanded plain the waters spread;
Heaved on the bounding billows danced the dead,
Floating 'midst scatter'd arms; while casques of gold
And turn'd-up bucklers glitter'd as they roll'd.
260 High o'er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds,
He wades and mounts; the parted wave resounds.
Not a whole river stops the hero's course,
While Pallas fills him with immortal force.
With equal rage indignant Xanthus roars,
265 And lifts his billows and o'erwhelms his shores.

He spoke in vain-the chief without dismay
Ploughs through the boiling surge his desperate way.
Then rising in his rage above the shores,
From all his deep the bellowing river roars,
Huge heaps of slain disgorges on the coast,
And round the banks the ghastly dead are toss'd;
While all before the billows ranged on high
(A watry bulwark), screen the bands who fly.
Now bursting on his head with thundering sound,
The falling deluge whelms the hero round:
His loaded shield bends to the rushing tide;
His feet upborn scarce the strong flood divide,
Sliddering and staggering. On the border stood
A spreading elin that overhung the flood;
He seized a bending bough his steps to stay;
The plant uprooted to his weight gave way,
Heaving the bank, and undermining all,
Loud flash the waters to the rushing fall
Of the thick foliage. The large trunk display'd
Bridged the rongh flood across: the hero stay'd
On this his weight, and raised upon his hand,
Leap'd from the channel and regain'd the land.
Then blacken'd the wild waves; the murmur rose ;
The god pursues, a huger billow throws,
And bursts the bank, ambitious to destroy
The man whose fury is the fate of Troy.
He, like the warlike eagle speeds his pace
'Swiftest and strongest of the aërial race).

295

300

305

310

315

320

325

330

335

340

345

275

270 Call then thy subject streams, and bid them roar,
From all thy fountains swell thy watry store,
With broken rocks, and with a load of dead
Charge the black surge, and pour it on his head.
Mark how resistless through the flood he goes,
And boldly bids the warring gods be foes!
But nor that force, nor form divine to sight,
Shall aught avail him if our rage unite:

365

Whelm'd under our dark gulfs those arms shall lie, 370
That blaze so dreadful in each Trojan eye

280 And deep beneath a sandy mountain hurl'd,
Immersed remain this terror of the world.

Such ponderous ruin shall confound the place,
No Greek shall e'en his perish'd relics grace,
No hand his bones shall gather or inhume;
These his cold rites, and this his watry tomb.
He said; and on the chief descends amain,
Increased with gore, and swelling with the slain.
Then murmuring from his beds, he boils, he raves,
And a foam whitens on the purple waves:
At every step before Achilles stood

The crimson surge, and deluged him with blood.
Fear touch'd the queen of heaven; she saw dismay'd,
She call'd aloud, and summon'd Vulcan's aid.
Rise to the war! the insulting flood requires
Thy wasteful arm: assemble all thy fires!
While to their aid, by our command enjoin'd,
Rush the swift eastern and the western wind:
These from old ocean at my word shall blow,
Pour the red torrent on the watry foe,
Corses and arms to one bright ruin turn,
And hissing rivers to their bottoms burn.
Go, mighty in thy rage! display thy power,
Drink the whole flood, the crackling treea devour,
Scorch all the banks! and (till our voice reclaim)
Exert the unwearied furies of the flame!

The power ignipotent her word obeys:
Wide o'er the plain he pours the boundless blaze;
At once consumes the dead and dries the soil;
And the shrunk waters in their channel boil.
As when autumnal Boreas sweeps the sky,
And instant blows the water'd gardens dry;
So look'd the field, so whiten'd was the ground,
While Vulcan breathed the fiery blast around.
Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys;
Along the margin winds the running blaze:
The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn,
The flowery lotos and the tamarisk burn,
Broad elin and cypress rising in a spire;
The watry willows hiss before the fire.
Now glow the waves, the fishes pant for breath,
The eels lie twisting in the pangs of death:
Now flounce aloft, now dive the scaly fry,
Or gasping turn their bellies to the sky.
At length the river rear'd his languid head,

And thus, short-panting to the god, he said:

Oh, Vulcan! oh! what power resists thy might?

I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight

I yield-Let Ilion fall; if fate decree-
Ah bend no more thy fiery arms on me!

He ceased: wide conflagration blazing round
The bubbling waters yield a hissing sound.
As when the flames beneath a caldron rise,
To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice,
Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires
The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires:
So boils the imprison'd flood forbid to flow,
And choked with vapours feels his bottom glow.
To Juno then, imperial queen of air,
The burning river sends his earnest prayer:
Ab, why Saturnia! must thy son engage
Me, only me, with all his wasteful rage?
On other gods his dreadful arm employ,
For mightier gods assert the cause of Troy.
Submissive I desist if thou commaud;
But, ah! withdraw this all-destroying hand.
Hear then my solemn oath to yield to fate
Unaided Ilion and her destined state,
Till Greece shall gird her with destructive flame,
And in one ruin sink the Trojan name.

His warm entreaty touch'd Saturnia's ear:
She bade the ignipotent his rage forbear,
Recall the flame, nor in a mortal cause
Infest a god: the obedient flame withdraws:
Again the branching streams begin to spread,
And soft re-murmur in their wonted bed.

While these by Juno's will the strife resign,
The warring gods in fierce contention join:
Re-kindling rage each heavenly breast alarms;
With horrid clangor shock the ethereal arms:
Heaven in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound;
And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.
Jove as his sport the dreadful scene descries,
And views contending gods with careless eyes.
The power of battles lifts his brazen spear,
And first assaults the radiant queen of war
What moved thy madness thus to disunite
Ethereal minds, and mix all heaven in fight?
What wonder this when in thy frantic mood
Thou drovest a mortal to insult a god!
Thy impious hand Tydides' javelin bore,
And madly bathed it in celestial gore.

He spoke and smote the long-resounding shield,
Which bears Jove's thunder on its dreadful field;

The adamantine ægis of her sire,

375 That turns the glancing bolt and forked fire.
Then heaved the goddess in her mighty hand
A stone, the limit of the neighbouring land,

There fix'd froin eldest times: black, craggy, vast: 470
This at the heavenly homicide she cast.

385

380 Thundering he falls a mass of monstrous size,
And seven broad acres covers as he lies.
The stunning stroke his stubborn nerves unbound:
Loud o'er the fields his ringing arms resound:
The scornful dane her conquest views with smiles,
And glorying, thus the prostrate god reviles :
Hast thou not yet, insatiate fury! knowr.
How far Minerva's force transcends thy own?
Juno, whom thou rebellious darest withstand,
Corrects thy folly thus by Pallas' hand;

475

480

390 Thus meets thy broken faith with just disgrace,
And partial aid to Troy's perfidious race.

The goddess spoke and turn'd her eyes awav,
That beaming round diffused celestial day.
Jove's Cyprian daughter stooping on the land,
395 Lent to the wounded god her tender hand:
Slowly he rises, scarcely breathes with pain,
And propt on her fair arm forsakes the plain.
This the bright empress of the heavens survey'd,
And scoffing thus to war's victorious maid:
Lo! what an aid on Mars's side is seen!
The smiles' and loves' unconquerable queen!
Mark with what insolence, in open view,
She moves: let Pallas, if she dares, pursue.
Minerva smiling heard, the pair o'ertook,

400

485

490

495

405 And slightly on her breast the wanton struck:
She unresisting fell, (her spirits fled);
On earth together lay the lovers spread.
And like these heroes be the fate of all
(Minerva cries) who guard the Trojan wall!
410 To Grecian gods such let the Phrygians be,
So dread, so fierce, as Venus is to me;
Then from the lowest stone shall Troy be moved.-
Thus she; and Juno with a smile approved.
Meantime to mix in more than mortal fight,

500

505

415 The god of ocean dares the god of light.
What sloth has seized us when the fields around
Ring with conflicting powers, and heaven returns the

sound?

425 And guard the race of proud Laomedon!
Hast thou forgot how, at the monarch's prayer
We shared the lengthen'd labours of a year?
Troy's walls I raised (for such were Jove's commands),
And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands: 520

430 Thy task it was to feed the bellowing droves
Along fair Ida's vales and pendent groves.
But when the circling seasons in their train
Brought back the grateful day that crown'd our pain,
With menace stern the fraudful king defied
435 Our latent godhead, and the prize denied:
Mad as he was he threaten'd servile bands,
And doom'd us exiles far in barbarous lands.
Incensed we heavenward fled with swiftest wing,
And destined vengeance on the perjured king
440 Dost thou for this afford proud Ilion grace,
And not like us infest the faithless race;
Like us, their present, future sons destroy,
And from its deep foundations heave their Troy?
Apollo thus: To combat for mankind,

525

455

465

450 To their own hands commit the frantic scene,
Nor mix immortals in a cause so mean.
Then turns his face far beaming heavenly fires,
And froin the senior power submiss retires:
Him, thus retreating, Artemis upbraids,
The quiver'd huntress of the sylvan shades:
And is it thus the youthful Phoebus flies,
And yields to ocean's hoary sire the prize?
How vain that martial pomp and dreadful show
Of pointed arrows and the silver bow!
460 Now boast no more in yon celestial bower,
Thy force can match the great earth-shaking power.
Silent he heard the queen of woods upbraid:
Not so Saturnia bore the vaunting maid:
But furious thus: What insolence has driven
Thy pride to face the majesty of heaven

545

550

555