Blows following blows are heard re-echoing wide,
While crackling forests fall on every side.
Thus echo'd all the fields with loud alarms,
So fell the warriors, and so rung their arms,
Now great Sarpedon on the sandy shore,
His heavenly form defaced with dust and gore,
And stuck with darts by warring heroes shed,
Lies undistinguish'd from the vulgar dead.
His long-disputed corse the chiefs enclose,
On every side the busy combat grows;
Thick as beneath some she perd's thatch'd abode
(The pails high foaming with a milky flood)
The buzzing flies, a persevering train,
Incessant swarm, and chased return again.

Jove view'd the combat with a stern survey,
And eyes that flash'd intolerable day.

Fix'd on the field his sight, his breast debates
The vengeance due, and meditates the fates:
Whether to urge their prompt effect, and call
'The force of Hector to Patroclus' fall,
This instant see his short-lived trophies won,
And stretch him breathless on his slaughter'd son;
Or yet, with many a soul's untimely flight,
Augment the fame and horror of the tight.
To crown Achilles' valiant friend with praise
At length he dooms; and that his last of days
Shall set in glory; bids him drive the foe;
Nor unattended see the shades below.

Then Hector's mind he fills with dire dismay
He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away:
Sunk with Troy's heavy fates, he sees decline
The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine.
Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled,
And left their monarch with the common dead:
Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall
Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall.

(So Jove decreed!) At length the Greeks obtain
The prize contested, and despoil the slain.
The radiant arms are by Patroclus borne,
Patroclus' ships the glorious spoils adorn.

He tried the fourth: when, bursting from the cloud, 770 A more than mortal voice was heard aloud:

775

Patroclus! cease; this heaven-defended wall
Defies thy lance; not fated yet to fall;
Thy friend, thy greater far, it shall withstand,
Troy shall not stoop, e'en to Achilles' hand.

So spoke the god who darts celestial fires:
The Greek obeys him, and with awe retires:
While Hector, checking at the Scæan gates
His panting coursers, in his breast debates,
Or in the field his forces to employ,

780 Or draw the troops within the walls of Troy.
Thus while he thought, beside him Phoebus stood,
In Asius' shape, who reign'd by Sangar's flood;
(Thy brother, Hecuba! from Dymas sprung,
A valiant warrior, haughty, bold, and young :)
785 Thus he accosts him: What a shameful sight!
Gods is it Hector that forbears the fight?
Were thine my vigour, this successful spear
Should soon convince thee of so false a fear.
Turn then, ab turn thee to the field of fame,
790 And in Patroclus' blood efface thy shame.
Perhaps Apollo shall thy arms succeed,
And heaven ordains him by thy lance to bleed.

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So spoke the inspiring god: then took his flight, 885 And plunged amidst the tumult of the fight.

795 He bids Cebrion drive the rapid car;

The lash resounds, the coursers rush to war:
The god the Grecians' sinking souls depress'd.
And pour'd swift spirits through each Trojan breast.
Patroclus lights, impatient for the fight;

800 A spear his left, a stone employs his right:
With all his nerves he drives it at the foe;
Pointed above, and rough and gross below:
The falling ruin crush'd Cebrion's head,
The lawless offspring of king Priam's bed;

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Then thus to Phoebus, in the realms above, Spoke from his throne the cloud-compelling Jove: Descend, my Phoebus! on the Phrygian plain, And from the fight convey Sarpedon slain; Then bathe his body in the crystal flood; With dust dishonour'd, and deform'd with blood: O'er all his limbs ambrosial odours shed, And with celestial robes adorn the dead. Those rites discharged his sacred corse bequeath To the soft arms of silent Sleep and Death. They to his friends the mournful charge shall bear, His friends a tomb and pyramid shall rear; What honours mortals after death receive, Those unavailing honours we may give.

805 His front, brows, eyes, one undistinguish'd wound; The bursting balls drop sightless to the ground. The charioteer, while yet he held the rein, Struck from the car, falls headlong on the plain. To the dark shades the soul unwilling glides, 810 While the proud victor thus his fall derides:

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Good heavens! what active feats yon artist shews. What skilful divers are our Phrygian foes! Mark with what ease they sink into the sand! Pity, that all their practice is by land!

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Then rushing sudden on his prostrate prize, To spoil the carcass fierce Patroclus flies: Swift as a lion, terrible and bold,

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That sweeps the fields, depopulates the fold;
Pierced though the dauntless heart, then tumbles slain;
And from bis fatal courage finds his baue.
At once bold Hector leaping from his ear,
Defends the body, and provokes the war.

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Thus from some slaughter'd hind, with equal rage, 915 Two lordly rulers of the wood engage;

Apollo bows, and from mount Ida's height, Swift to the field precipitates his flight; Thence from the war the breathless hero bore, Veil'd in a cloud, to silver Simoïs' shore; There bathed his honourable wounds, and dress'd His manly members in the immortal vest; And with perfumes of sweet ambrosial dews, Restores his freshness, and his form renews. Then Sleep and Death, two twins of winged race, Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace, Received Sarpedon, at the god's command, And in a moment reach'd the Lycian land The corse amidst his weeping friends they laid, Where endless honours wait the sacred shade. Meanwhile Patroclus pours along the plains, With foaming coursers, and with loosen'd reins. Fierce on the Trojan and the Lycian crew, Ah blind to fate; thy headlong fury flew: Against what fate and powerful Jove ordain, Vain was thy friend's command, thy courage vain. For he, the god, whose counsels uncontroll'd, Dismay the mighty, and confound the bold;" The god who gives, resumes, and orders all, He urged thee on, and urged thee on to fall.

825 Stung with fierce hunger, each the prey invades, And echoing roars rebellow through the shades. Stern Hector fastens on the warrior's head, And by the foot Patroclus drags the dead. While all around, confusion, rage, and fright 830 Mix the contending host in mortal fight.

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So pent by hills, the wild winds roar aloud In the deep bosom of some gloomy wood; Leaves, arms, and trees, aloft in air are blown, The broad oaks crackle, and the Sylvans groan. 835 This way and that the rattling thicket bends, And the whole forest in one crash descends. Not with less noise, with less tumultuous rage, In dreadful shock the mingled hosts engage. Darts shower'd on darts, now round the carcass ring; Now flights of arrows bounding from the string: Stones follow stones; some clatter on the fields, Some hard, and heavy, shake the sounding shields. But where the rising whirlwind clouds the plains, 935 Sunk in soft dust the mighty chief remains,

845 And stretch'd in death, forgets the guiding reins!
Now flaming from the zenith, Sol had driven
His fervid orb through half the vault of heaven;
While on each host with equal tempest fell
The showering darts, and numbers sunk to hell.
But when his evening wheels o'erhung the main,
Glad conquest rested on the Grecian train.
Then from amidst the tumult and alarms,
They draw the conquer'd corse and radiant arms.
Then rash Patroclus with new fury glows,
And, breathing slaughter, pours amid the foes.
Thrice on the press like Mars himself he flew,
And thrice three heroes at each onset slew.
There ends thy glory! there the Fates untwine
The last black remnant of so bright a line;

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Apollo dreadful stops thy middle way;

Death calls, and Heaven allows no longer day!
For lo! the god in dusky clouds enshrined,
Approaching, dealt a staggering blow behind.
The weighty shock his neck and shoulders feel;
His eyes flash sparkles, his stunn'd senses reel
In giddy darkness: far to distance flung,
His bounding helmet on the champaign rung.
Achilles' plume is stain'd with dust and gore,
That plume, which never stoop'd to earth before;
Long used, untouch'd in fighting fields to shine,
And shade the temples of the man divine.
Jove dooms it now on Hector's helm to nod;
Not long for fate pursues him, and the god.
His spear in shivers falls; his ample shield
Drops from his arm: his baldric strews the field:
The corselet his astonish'd breast forsakes:
Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes.
Stupid he stares, and all-assistless stands :
Such is the force of more than mortal hands!

A Dardan youth there was, well known to fame,
From Panthus sprung, Euphorbus was his name;
Famed for the manage of the foaming horse,
Skill'd in the dart, and matchless in the course;
Full twenty knights he tumbled from the car,
While yet he learn'd his rudiments of war.
His venturons spear first drew the hero's gore;
He struck, he wounded, but he durst no more;
Nor, though disarm'd, Patroclus' fury stood:
But swift withdrew the long-protended wood,
And turn'd him short, and herded in the crowd.
Thus by an arm divine, and mortal spear,
Wounded at once, Patroclus yields to fear,
Retires for succour to his social train,

And flies the fate which Heaven decreed in vain.
Stern Hector, as the bleeding chief he views,
Breaks through the ranks, and his retreat pursues ;
The lancé arrests him with a mortal wound;
He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound.
With him all Greece was sunk; that moment all
Her yet surviving heroes seem'd to fall.

So, scorch'd with heat, along the desert shore,

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BOOK XVII.

ARGUMENT.

1045

The seventh Battle, for the Body of Patroclus: the Acts of Menelaus.

Menelaus, upon the death of Patroclus, defends his body from the enemy: Euphorbus who attempts it, is slain. Hector advancing, Menelaus retires; but soon returns with Ajax, and drives him off. This Glaucus objects to Hector as a flight, who thereupon puts on the armour he had won from Patroclus, and renews the battle. The Greeks give way, till Ajax rallies them: Eneas sustains the Trojans. Eneas and Hector attempt the chariot of Achilles, which is borne off by Automedon. The horses of Achilles deplore the loss of Patroclus: Jupiter covers his body with a thick darkness: the noble prayer of Ajax on that occasion. Menelaus sends Antilochus to Achilles, with the news of Patroclus' death: then returns to the fight, where though attacked with the utmost fury, he and Meriones, assisted by the Ajaxes, bear off the body to the ships.

The time is the evening of the eight-and-twentieth day. The scene lies in the fields before Troy.

The roaming lion meets a bristly boar,
Fast by the spring; they both dispute the flood,
With flaming eyes, and jaws besmear'd with blood;
At length the sovereign savage wins the strife,
And the torn boar resigns his thirst and life.
Patroclus thus, so many chiefs o'erthrown,
So many lives effused, expires his own.
As dying now at Hector's feet he lies,
He sternly views him, and triumphing cries:
Lie there, Patroclus! and with thee the joy,
Thy pride once promised, of subverting Troy;
The fancied scenes of Ilion wrapp'd in flames,
And thy soft pleasures served with captive dames!
Unthinking man! I fought those towers to free,
And guard that beauteous race from lords like thee:
But thou a prey to vultures shalt be made;
Thy own Achilles cannot lend thee aid;
Though much at parting that great chief might say,
And much enjoin thee, this important day:

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BOOK XVII.

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Return not, my brave friend,' (perhaps he said)
Without the bloody arms of Hector dead.'
He spoke, Patroclus march'd, and thus he sped.
Supine, and wildly gazing on the skies,
With faint, expiring breath, the chief replies:
Vain boaster! cease, and know the Powers divine:
Jove's and Apollo's is this deed, not thine :
To Heaven is owed whate'er your own you call,
And Heaven itself disarm'd me ere my fall.
Had twenty mortals, each thy match in might,
Opposed me fairly, they had sunk in fight:
By Fate and Phoebus was I first o'erthrown,
Euphorbus next; the third mean part thy own.
But thou, imperious! hear my latest breath;
The gods inspire it, and it sounds thy death.
Insulting man, thou shalt be soon as I;
Black fate hangs o'er thee, and thy hour draws nigh,
E'en now on life's last verge I see thee stand,
I see thee fall, and by Achilles' hand.

He faints; the soul unwilling wings her way
(The beauteous body left a load of clay),
Flits to the lone, uncomfortable coast;
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!
Then Hector pausing, as his eyes he fed

On the pale carcass, thus address'd the dead:

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Swift as the word the missile lance he flings;
The well-aim'd weapon on the buckler rings,
But blunted by the brass innoxious falls:
On Jove the father, great Atrides calls.
Nor flies the javelin from his arm in vain,

It pierced his throat, and bent him to the plain;
Wide though the neck appears the grisly wound,
Prone sinks the warrior, and his arms resound.
The shining circlets of his golden hair,
Which e'en the Graces inight be proud to wear,
Instarr'd with gems and gold, bestrew the shore,
With dust dishonour'd, and deform'd with gore.

As the young olive, in some sylvan scene,
Crown'd by fresh fountains with eterral green,
Lifts the gay head, in snowy flow'rets fair,
And plays and dances to the gentle air;

When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades
The tender plant, and withers all its shades;
It lies uprooted from its genial bed,
A lovely ruin now defaced and dead:
Thus young, thus beat.tiful, Euphorbus lay,
While the fierce Spartan tore his arms away.
Proud of his deed, ant glorious in the prize,
Affrighted Troy the towering victor flies:
Flies, as before some mountain-lion's ire
The village curs aud trembling swains retire;
When o'er the slaughter'd bull they hear him roar
And see his jaws distil with smoking gore.
All pale with fear, at distance seatter'd round,
They shout incessant, and the vales resound.

Meanwhile Apollo view'd with envious eyes.
And urged great Hector to dispute the prize
(In Mentes' shape, beneath whose martial care
The rough Ciconians learn'd the trade of war).
Forbear, he cried, with fruitless speed to chase
Achilles' coursers, of ethereal race;

They stoop not, these, to mortal man's cominand,
Or stoop to none but great Achilles' hand.
Too long amused with a pursuit so vain,
Turn, and behold the brave Euphorbus slain!
By Sparta slain! for ever now suppress d
The fire which burn'd in that undaunted breast!
Thus having spoke, Apollo wing'd his flight,
And mix'd with mortals in the toils of tight:
His words infix'd unutterable care
Deep in great Hector's soul: through all the war
He darts his anxious eye; and instart view'd
The breathless hero in his blood imbrued
Forth welling from the wound, as prone he lay),
And in the victor's hands the shining prey.
Sheath'd in bright arms, through cleaving ranks he
And sends his voice in thunder to the skies:
Fierce as a flood of flame by Vulcan sent,
It flew, and fired the nations as it went.
Atrides from the voice the storm divined,
And thus explored his own unconquer'd inind:
Then shall I quit Patroclus on the plain,
Slain in my cause, and for my honour slain?
Desert the arms, the relics of my friend?
Or, singly, Hector and his troops attend?
Sure where such partial favour Heaven bestow'd,
To brave the hero were to brave the god
Forgive me, Greece, if once I quit the field:
"Tis not to Hector, but to Heaven I yield.
Yet, nor the god, nor heaven, should give me fear
Did but the voice of Ajax reach my ear:
Still would we turn, still battle on the plains,
And give Achilles all that yet remains
Of his and our Patroclus.-This, no more,
The time allow'd: Troy thicken'd on the shore,
A sable scene! The terrors Hector led.
Slow he recedes, and sighing quits the dead.
So from the fold the unwilling lion parts,
Forced by loud clamours, and a storm of darts.
He flies indeed, but threatens as he flies,
With heart indignant and retorted eyes.
Now entered in the Spartan ranks, he turn'd
His manly breast, and with new fury burn'd;
O'er all the black battalions sent his view,
And through the cloud the godlike Ajax knew;
Where labouring on the left the warrior stood,
All grim in arms, and cover'd o'er with blood;
There breathing courage, where the god of day
Had sunk each heart with terror and dismay.

To him the king: Oh Ajax, oh my friend!
Haste, and Patroclus' loved remains defend
The body to Achilles to restore,

Demands our care; alas, we can no more!
For naked now, despoil'd of arms he lies;
And Hector glories in the dazzling prize.

45 He said, and touch'd his heart. The raging pair
Pierce the thick battle, and provoke the war.
Already had stern Hector seized his head.
And doom'd to Trojan dogs the unhappy dead;
But soon (as Ajax rear'd his tower-like shield)
50 Sprung to his car, and measured back the field
His train to Troy the radiant armour bear,
To stand a trophy of his fame in war.
Meanwhile great Ajax (his broad shield display'd)
Guards the dead hero with the dreadful shade;

55 And now before, and now behind he stood.
Thus in the centre of some gloomy wood,
With many a step the lioness surrounds
Her tawny young, beset by men and hounds;
Elate her heart, and rousing all her powers,

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60 Dark o'er the fiery balls each hanging eye-brow lowers.
Fast by his side, the generous Spartan glows
With great revenge, and feeds his inward woes.
But Glaucus, leader of the Lycian aids,
On Hector frowning, thus his flight upbraids:

151

65 Where now in Hector shall we Hector find?
A manly form, without a manly mind.
Is this, O chief! a hero's boasted fame?
How vain, without the merit, is the name?
Since battle is renounced, thy thoughts employ

70 What other methods may preserve thy Troy:
"Tis time to try if Ilion's state can stand
By thee alone, nor ask a foreign hand;
Mean, empty boast! but shall the Lycians stake
Their lives for you? those Lycians you forsake?
75 What from thy thankless arins can we expect?
Thy friend Sarpedon proves thy base neglect:
Say, shall our slanghter'd bodies guard your walls,
While unrevenged the great Sarpedon falls?
E'en where he died for Troy, you left him there,

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80 A feast for dogs, and all the fowls of air.
On my command if any Lycian wait,
Hence let him march, and give up Troy to fate.
Did such a spirit as the gods impart
Impel one Trojan hand or Trojan heart

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85 (Such as should buru in every soul that draws
The sword for glory and his country's cause);
E'en yet our mutual arms we might employ,
And drag you carcass to the walls of Troy.
Oh! were Patroclus ours, we might obtain
90 Sarpedon's arnis, and honour'd corse again!
Greece with Achilles' friend should be repaid,
And thus due honours purchased to his shade.
But words are vain-Let Ajax once appear,
And Hector trembles and recedes with fear;
Thou darest not meet the terrors of his eye;
And lo! already thou preparest to fly

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flies,

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The Trojan chief with fix'd resentment eyed The Lycian leader, and sedate replied:

Say, is it just (my friend) that Hector's ear

100 From such a warrior such a speech should hear? I deem'd thee once the wisest of thy kind, But ill this insult suits a prudent mind. I shun great Ajax? I desert my train? "Tis mine to prove the rash assertion vain ; 105 I joy to mingle where the battle bleeds,

190

And hear the thunder of the sounding steeds. But Jove's high will is ever uncontroll'd, The strong he withers, and confounds the bold: Now crowns with fame the mighty man, and now 110 Strikes the fresh garland from the victor's brow! Come, through yon squadrons let us hew the way, And thou be witness if I fear to-day; If yet a Greek the sight of Hector dread, Or yet their hero dare defend the dead.

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Then turning to the martial hosts, he cries: Ye Trojans, Dardans, Lycians, and allies! Be men (my friends) in action as in name, And yet be irindful of your ancient fame. Hector in proud Achilles' arms shall shine, 120 Torn from his friend, by right of conquest mine. He strode along the field as thus he said (The sable plumage nodded o'er his head): Swift through the spacious plain he sent a look One instant saw, one instant overtook 125 The distant band, that on the sandy shore

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