The Iliad of Homer

No, wretch accurs'd!' relentless he replies,

(Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes,) Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer.

Could I myself the bloody banquet join! 3 'No-to the dogs that carcass I resign.

'Should Troy to bribe me bring forth all her store,
And, giving thousands, offer thousands more;
'Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame,
'Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame;
'Their Hector on the pile they should not see,
'Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee.'

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew:
Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew:
The Furies that relentless breast have steel'd,
'And curs'd thee with a heart that cannot yield.
'Yet think, a day will come, when Fate's decree
'And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee;
Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate,

397

435

440

445

450

'And stretch thee here, before this Scæan gate.'

He ceas'd: the fates suppress'd his labouring breath,

And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death;

To the dark realm the spirit wings its way,

455

(The manly body left a foad of clay,)

And plaintive glides along the dreary coast,
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!
Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes
O'er the dead hero, thus (unheard) replies:

460

'Die thou the first! when Jove and heaven ordain,

'I follow thee.' He said, and stripp'd the slain.

Then, forcing backward from the gaping wound

The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground.

The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes,
His manly beauty and superior size :

465

While some, ignobler, the great dead deface

With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace.

'How changed that Hector! who, like Jove, of late 'Sent lightning on our fleets and scatter'd fate!' High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands;

470

I would my fierceness of revenge were such
That I could carve and eat thee, to whose arms
Such griefs I owe! Cowper.

With sufficient fidelity to the original.

And thus aloud, while all the host attends :
'Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!
Since now at length the powerful will of heaven

The dire destroyer to our arm has given,

Is not Troy fall'n already? Haste, ye powers!
See if already their deserted towers

́ Are left unmann'd; or if they yet retain
'The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain ?
'But what is Troy, or glory what to me?

'Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, 'Divine Patroclus! death has seal'd his eyes; Unwept, unhonour'd, uninterr'd he lies!

'Can his dear image from my soul depart,
'Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?
'If, in the melancholy shades below,

The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow,
Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay'd,
'Burn on through death, and animate my shade.
Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring
The corse of Hector, and your Pæans sing.

'Be this the song, slow moving tow'rd the shore,
"Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.'

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred;
(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead ;)
The nervous ancles bor'd, his feet he bound
With thongs inserted through the double wound;
These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain,
His graceful head was trail'd along the plain.
Proud on his car th' insulting victor stood,
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.
He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.
Now lost is all that formidable air;
The face divine, and long-descending hair,
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;
Deform'd, dishonour'd, in his native land!
Given to the rage of an insulting throng!
And, in his parent's sight, now dragg'd along.
The mother first beheld with sad survey:
She rent her tresses, venerably grey,
And cast far off the regal veils away.

475

480

485

490

495

500

;

505

With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans,

While the sad father answers groans with groans;
Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow,
And the whole city wears one face of woe:
No less than if the rage of hostile fires,
From her foundations curling to her spires,

510

615

B. XXII.]

PRIAM'S LAMENTATION.

O'er the proud citadel at length should rise,
And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.
The wretched monarch of the falling state,
Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate:

Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course,
While strong affliction gives the feeble force:

399

620

525

Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,
In all the raging impotence of woe.

At length he roll'd in dust, and thus begun,
Imploring all, and naming one by one:
'Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls;
‘I, only I, will issue from your walls,

(Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none,)
And bow before the murderer of my son

'My grief perhaps his pity may engage ;
Perhaps at least he may respect my age.
"He has a father too; a man like me;
One, not exempt from age and misery :
(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace
Begot this pest of me, and all my race.)

530

535

'How many valiant sons, in early bloom,

540

Has that curs'd hand sent headlong to the tomb!

Thee, Hector! last; thy loss (divinely brave!)

'Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.

'Oh had thy gentle spirit pass'd in peace,

'The son expiring in the sire's embrace,

545

"While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour,

'And, bending o'er thee, mix'd the tender shower!
Some comfort that had been, some sad relief,
"To melt in full satiety of grief!'

Thus wail'd the father, groveling on the ground

550

And all the eyes of Ilion stream'd around.
Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears:

(A mourning princess, and a train in tears :)

Ah! why has heaven prolong'd this hated breath,
Patient of horrors, to behold thy death?

'O Hector! late thy parents' pride and joy,
'The boast of nations! the defence of Troy!
'To whom her safety and her fame she ow'd,
'Her chief, her hero, and almost her god!
'O fatal change! become in one sad day
'A senseless corse! inanimated clay !'

But not as yet the fatal news had spread
To fair Andromache, of Hector dead;
As yet no messenger had told his fate,
Nor e'en his stay without the Scæan gate.

555

560

565

Far in the close recesses of the dome
l'ensive she plied the melancholy loom;
A growing work employ'd her secret hours,
Confus'dly gay with intermingled flowers.
Her fair-hair'd handmaids heat the brazen urn,
The bath preparing for her lord's return :
In vain alas! her lord returns no more!
Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore!
Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear
And all her members shake with sudden fear;
Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls,

As thus, astonish'd, to her maids she calls:

'Ah, follow me!' (she cried ;) 'what plaintive noise
Invades my ear? 'Tis sure my mother's voice.
'My faltering knees their trembling frame desert,
A pulse unusual flutters at my heart.

'Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate
(Ye gods avert it!) threats the Trojan state.
Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest !
'But much I fear my Hector's dauntless breast
Confronts Achilles; chas'd along the plain,
'Shut from our walls! I fear, I fear him slain!
Safe in the crowd he ever scorn'd to wait,
'And sought for glory in the jaws of fate :
'Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath,
'Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death.