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He said: nor less elate with martial joy,
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: 420
The weakest atheist-wretch all heaven defies,
But shrinks 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,
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. 430
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,
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;

490

The rushing entrails, pour'd upon the ground,
His hands collect; and darkness wraps him round.
When Hector view'd, all ghastly in his gore,
Thus sadly slain, the unhappy Polydore,
A cloud of sorrow overcast his sight,
His soul no longer brook'd the distant fight;
Full in Achilles' dreadful front he came,
And shook his javelin like a waving flame.
The son of Peleus sees with joy possess'd,
His heart high-bounding in his rising breast:
And, lo! the man on whom black fates attend,
The man that slew Achilles in his friend!
No more shall Hector's and Pelides' spear
Turn from each other in the walks of war-
Then with revengeful eyes he scann'd him o'er :
Come and receive thy fate! he spake no more.

Hector undaunted thus: Such words employ
To one that dreads thee, some unwarlike boy: 500
Such we could give, defying, and defied,
Mean intercourse of obloquy and pride!
I know thy force to mine superior far;
But Heaven alone confers success in war:
Mean as I am, the gods may guide my dart,
And give it entrance in a braver heart.
Then parts the lance: but Pallas' heavenly breath

Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led; 440 Far from Achilles wafts the winged death:

From great Otrynteus he derived his blood:
His mother was a Naïs of the flood:

Beneath the shades of Tmolus crown'd with snow,
From Hyde's walls he ruled the lands below.
Fierce as he springs the sword his head divides;
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; 450
Those beauteous fields where Hyllus' waves are roll'd,
And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold,
Are thine no more.-The insulting hero said,
And left him sleeping in eternal shade.
The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore,
And dash'd their axles with no vulgar gore.

Demoleon next, Antenor's offspring, laid
Breathless in dust, the price of rashness paid.
The impatient steel with full descending sway
Forced through his brazen helm its furious way,
Resistless drove the batter'd skull before,
And dash'd and mingled all the brains with gore.
This sees Hippodamas, and seized with fright,
Deserts his chariot for a swifter flight:
The lance arrests him: an ignoble wound
The panting Trojan rivets to the ground.
He groans away his soul; not louder roars
At Neptune's shrine on Helice's high shores
The victim bull: the rocks rebellow round,
And Ocean listens to the grateful sound.

Then fell on Polydore his vengeful rage,
The youngest hope of Priam's stooping age,
(Whose feet for swiftness in the race surpass'd ;)
Of all his sons the dearest and the last.
To the forbidden field he takes his flight
In the first folly of a youthful knight:
To vaunt his swiftness wheels around the plain,
But vaunts not long, with all his swiftness slain.
Struck where the crossing belts unite behind,
And golden rings the double back-plate join'd.
Forth through the navel burst the thrilling steel,
And on his knees with piercing shrieks he fell;

510

The bidden dart again to Hector flies,
And at the feet of its great master lies.
Achilles closes with his hated foe,
His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow:
But present to his aid, Apollo shrouds
The favour'd hero in a veil of clouds.
Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart,
Thrice in impassive air he plunged the dart:
The spear a fourth time buried in the cloud;
He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud:
Wretch! thou hast 'scaped again; once more thy
flight

Has saved thee, and the partial god of light.
But long thou shalt not thy just fate withstand,
If any power assist Achilles' hand.
Fly then inglorious! but thy flight this day
Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay.

520

With that he gluts his rage on numbers slain:
Then Dryops tumbled to the ensanguined plain,
460 Pierced through the neck: he left him panting there,
And stopp'd Demuchus, great Philetor's heir,
Gigantic chief! deep gash'd the enormous blade,
And for the soul an ample passage made.
Laogonus and Dardanus expire,

470

480

530

The valiant sons of an unhappy sire;
Both in one instant from the chariot hurl'd,
Sunk in one instant to the nether world;
This difference only their sad fates afford,
That one the spear destroy'd, and one the sword.
Nor less unpitied young Alastor bleeds:
In vain his youth, in vain his beauty pleads;
In vain he begs thee with a suppliant's moan,
To spare a form, an age, so like thy own!
Unhappy boy! no prayer, no moving art,
E'er bent that fierce inexorable heart!
While yet he trembled at his knees and cried,
The ruthless falchion oped his tender side;
The panting liver pours a flood of gore
That drowns his bosom till he pants no more.
Through Mulius' head then drove the impetuous

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540

Thy life, Echeclus! next the sword bereaves,
Deep through the front the ponderous falchion cleaves;
Warm'd in the brain the smoking weapon lies, 551
The purple death comes floating o'er his eyes.
Then brave Deucalion died: the dart was flung
Where the knit nerves the pliant elbow strung;
He dropp'd his arm, an unassisting weight,
And stood all impotent, expecting fate:
Full on his neck the falling falchion sped,
From his broad shoulders hew'd his crested head;
Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies,
And sunk in dust the corpse extended lies.
Rhigmus, whose race from fruitful Thracia came,
(The son of Pireus, an illustrious name,)
Succeeds to fate: the spear his belly rends;
Prone from his car the thundering chief descends:
The squire who saw expiring on the ground
His prostrate master, rein'd the steeds around:
His back scarce turn'd the Pelian javelin gored,
And stretch'd the servant o'er his dying lord.
As when a flame the winding valley fills,

560

And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills; 570
Then o'er the stubble up the mountain flies,
Fires the high woods and blazes to the skies,
This way and that the spreading torrent roars;
So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores:
Around him wide immense destruction pours,
And earth is deluged with the sanguine showers.
As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,
And thick bestrown lies Ceres' sacred floor,
When round and round with never-wearied pain,
The trampling steers beat out the unnumber'd grain,
So the fierce coursers as the chariot rolls, 581
Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes' souls.
Dash'd from their hoofs while o'er the dead they fly,
Black bloody drops the smoking chariot dye:
The spiky wheels through heaps of carnage tore;
And thick the groaning axles dropp'd with gore.
High o'er the scene of death Achilles stood,
All grim with dust, all horrible in blood:
Yet still insatiate, still with rage on flame;
Such is the lust of never-dying fame!

BOOK XXI.

ARGUMENT.

10

The river here divides the flying train,
Part to the town fly diverse o'er the plain,
Where late their troops triumphant bore the fight:
Now chased and trembling in ignoble flight:
(These with a gather'd mist Saturnia shrouds,
And rolls behind the rout a heap of clouds.)
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 cast aside,
20
(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 caves,
Or pant and heave 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, 40
The young Lycaon in his passage stood;
The son of Priam, whom the hero's hand
590 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 Eetion 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

The Battle of the River Scamander.
The Trojans fly before Achilles, some toward the town,
others to the river Scamander: he falls upon the latter
with great slaughter, takes twelve captives alive, to
sacrifice to the shade of Patroclus; and kills Lycaon
and Asteropeus. Scamander attacks him with all his
waves; Neptune and Pallas assist the hero; Simois A sadder journey to the shades below.
joins Scamander: at length Vulcan, by the instigation His well-known face when great Achilles eyed
of Juno, almost dries up the river. This combat
(The helm and visor he had cast aside
ended, the other gods engage each other. Meanwhile
Achilles continues the slaughter, drives the rest into With wild affright, and dropp'd upon the field
Troy: Agenor only makes a stand, and is conveyed His useless lance and unavailing shield,)
away in a cloud by Apollo; who to delude Achilles) As trembling, panting, from the streams he fled,
takes upon him Agenor's shape, and while he pursues And knock'd his faltering knees, the hero said:
him in that disguise, gives the Trojans an opportunity

of retiring into their city.

Ye mighty gods! what wonders strike my view! Is it in vain our conquering arms subdue?

The same day continues. The scene is on the banks Sure I shall see yon heaps of Trojans kill'd,

and in the stream of Scamander.

BOOK XXI.

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!

AND now to Xanthus' gliding stream they drove, Not him the sea's unmeasured deeps detain, Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove.

That bars such numbers froin their native plain:

50

60

Lo! he returns. Try then my flying spear!
Try if the grave can hold the wanderer;
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;

140

70 There no sad mother shall thy funerals weep,
But swift Scamander roll thee to the deep,
Whose every wave some watery monster brings
To feast unpunish'd on the fat of kings.
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,
Your living coursers glut his gulfs in vain :
Thus he rewards you with his bitter fate!

80 Thus till the Grecian vengeance is complete ;
Thus is atoned Patroclus' honour'd shade,
And the short absence of Achilles paid.

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,

These boastful words provoke the raging god;
With fury swells the violated flood.
What means divine may yet the power employ,
To check Achilles, and to rescue Troy?
Meanwhile the hero springs in arms to dare
The great Asteropeus to mortal war.
The son of Pelagon, whose lofty line

90 Flows from the source of Axius, stream divine!
(Fair Peribaa's love the god had crown'd,
With all nis refluent waters circled round.)

And scarce twelve morning suns have seen me here; On him Achilles rush'd; he fearless stood,

Lo! Jove again submits me to thy hands,

Again her victim cruel Fate demands !

I sprung from Priam and Laothöe fair;

(Old Altè's daughter, and Lelegia's heir;

Who held in Pedasus his famed abode,

And ruled the fields where silver Satnio flow'd;)
Two sons (alas! unhappy sons) she bore;
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 dæmon urges! 'tis my doom to die!

If ever yet soft pity touch'd thy mind,

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.
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?
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.
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 insults him floating on the wave:
Lie there, Lycaon! let the fish surround
Thy bloated corse, and suck thy gory wound:

100

110

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:

What art thou, boldest of the race of man?
Who or from whence? Unhappy is the sire
Whose son encounters our resistless ire.

150

160

O son of Peleus! what avails to trace
(Replied the warrior) our illustrious race?
From rich Pæonia's valleys I command,
Arm'd with protended spears, my native band;
Now shines the tenth bright morning since I came
In aid of Ilion to the fields of fame:

Axius, who swells with all the neighbouring rills,
And wide around the floated region fills,
Begot my sire, whose spear such glory won:
Now lift thy arm and try that hero's son!

170

Threatening he said: the hostile chiefs advance;
At once Asteropeus discharged each lance: 180
(For both his dextrous hands the lance could wield :)
One struck, but pierced not the Vulcanian shield;
One razed Achilles' hand; the spouting blood
Spun forth, in earth the fasten'd weapon stood.
Like lightning next the Pelian javelin flies:
Its erring fury hiss'd along the skies;
Deep in the swelling bank was driven the spear
120 E'en to the middle earth'd; and quiver'd there.
Then from his side the sword Pelides drew,
And on his foe with doubled fury flew.
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,
130 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.

190

200

How durst thou vaunt thy watery progeny?
Of Peleus, Eacus, 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 shown;
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.

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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.

280

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 rough flood across: the hero stay'd
On this his weight, and raised upon his hand,
210 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 :)
Far as a spear can fly Achilles springs
At every bound; his clanging armour rings;
Now here, now there, he turns on every side,
220 And winds his course before the following tide;
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,
And feed with pregnant streams the plants and
flowers,

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 Ænius 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: 230
O first of mortals! (for the gods are thine,)
In valour matchless, and in force divine!
If Jove have given thee every Trojan head,
"Tis not on me thy rage should heap the dead.

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 Achille 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 Phœbus 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?

290

300

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;
Before him scattering they prevent his pains,
And shine in mazy wanderings o'er the plains.
Still flies Achilles, but before his eyes
Still swift Scamander rolls where'er he flies:
Not all his speed escapes the rapid floods;
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 watery mountains spread,
240 Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head.
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; 310
When thus (his eyes on heaven's expansion thrown)
Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan:
Is there no god Achilles to befriend,
No power to avert his miserable end?
Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date,
250 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,
Stretch'd like a hero by a hero's arm!
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!
260 Like some vile swain, whom on a rainy day,
Crossing a ford the torrent sweeps away,
An unregarded carcass to the sea.

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 watery 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, upborne, scarce the strong flood divide,
Sliddering and staggering. On the border stood
A spreading elm that overhung the flood;
He seized a bending bough his steps to stay;
The plant uprooted to his weight gave way,

Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,
And thus, in human form, address'd the chief:
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:
270 'Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.

320

330

Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys; Along the margin winds the running blaze; 340 The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn,

But thou the counsel Heaven suggests attend;
Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,
Till Troy receives her flying sons, till all
Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:
Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,
And Hector's blood shall smoke upon thy lance.
Thine is the glory doom'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. 351
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,
And lifts his billows and o'erwhelms his shores.
Then thus to Simoïs: Haste, my brother flood!
And check this mortal that controuls a god: .
Our bravest heroes else shall quit the fight,
And Ilion tumble from her towery height.
Call then thy subject streams, and bid them roar,
From all thy fountains swell thy watery 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 not that force, nor form divine to sight,
Shall aught avail him if our rage unite:

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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:
360 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:

Ah, 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 command:
But, ah! withdraw this all-destroying hand.

Whelm'd under our dark gulfs those arms shall lie, Hear then my solemn oath to yield to Fate

That blaze so dreadful in each Trojan eye.
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 watery 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

371

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.

Unaided Ilion and her destined state,

420

430

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While these by Juno's will the strife resign,
381 The warring gods in fierce contention join:
Re-kindling rage each heavenly breast alarms; 450
With horrid clangour 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,

390

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 watery 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 trees 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.

400

And madly bathed it in celestial gore.

460

He spoke; and smote the long-resounding shield,
Which bears Jove's thunder on its dreadful field;
The adamantine ægis of her sire,

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 from eldest times: black, craggy, vast:
This at the heavenly homicide she cast.
Thundering he falls a mass of monstrous size,
And seven broad acres covers as he lies.

471

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