THE

SIXTH BOOK

OF THE

ILIAD.

THE ARGUMENT.

THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND. OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

THE gods having left the field, the Grecians prevail. Helenus, the chief augur of Troy, commands Hector to return to the city, in order to appoint a solemn procession of the queen and the Trojan matrons to the temple of Minerva, to entreat her to remove Diomed from the fight. The battle relaxing during the absence of Hector, Glaucus and Diomed have an interview between the two armies; where, coming to the knowledge of the friendship and hospitality passed between their ancestors, they make exchange of their arms. Hector having performed the orders of Helenus, prevailed upon Paris to return to the battle, and taken a tender leave of his wife Andromache, hastens again to the field.

The scene is first in the field of battle, between the river Simoïs and Scamander, and then changes to Troy.

THE

ILIAD.

BOOK VI.

Now heaven forsakes the fight: the'immortals yield,
To human force and human skill, the field:
Dark showers of javelins fly from foes to foes;
Now here, now there, the tide of combat flows;
While Troy's fam'd streams, that bound the deathful
On either side run purple to the main.

[plain

Great Ajax first to conquest led the way,
Broke the thick ranks, and turn'd the doubtful day.
The Thracian Acamas his falchion found,
And hew'd the' enormous giant to the ground;
His thundering arm a deadly stroke impress'd
Where the black horse-hair nodded o'er his crest;
Fix'd in his front the brazen weapon lies,
And seals in endless shades his swimming eyes.
Next Teuthras' son distain'd the sands with blood,
Axylus, hospitable, rich and good :

In fair Arisbe's walls (his native place)
He held his seat! a friend to human race,
Fast by the road, his ever-open door
Oblig'd the wealthy, and reliev'd the poor.
To stern Tydides now he falls a prey,
No friend to guard him in the dreadful day!

Breathless the good man fell, and by his side
His faithful servant, old Calesius died.

By great Euryalus was Dresus slain,
And next he laid Opheltius on the plain.
Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young,
From a fair naiad and Bucolion sprung:
(Laomedon's white flocks Bucolion fed,
That monarch's first-born by a foreign bed;
In secret woods he won the naiad's grace,
And two fair infants crown'd his strong embrace,)
Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms;
The ruthless victor stripp'd their shining arms.
Astyalus by Polypœtes fell;

Ulysses' spear Pidytes sent to hell;
By Teucer's shaft brave Aretaön bled,
And Nestor's son laid stern Ablerus dead;
Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave,
The mortal wound of rich Elatus gave,
Who held in Pedasus his proud abode,
And till'd the banks where silver Satnio flow'd.
Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain;
And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain.

Unbless'd Adrastus next at mercy lies
Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize,
Scar'd with the din and tumult of the fight,
His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight,
Rush'd on a tamarisk's strong trunk, and broke
The shatter'd chariot from the crooked yoke ;
Wide o'er the field, resistless as the wind,
For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind.
Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel:
Atrides o'er him shakes his vengeful steel;
The fallen chief in suppliant posture press'd
The victor's knees, and thus his prayer address'd: