B. XXIV.

ACHILIES' VENGEANCE ON HECTOR'S BODY.

All stretch'd at ease the genial banquet share,
And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care.
Not so Achilles: he, to grief resign'd,
His friend's dear image present to his mind,
Takes his sad couch, more unobserv'd to weep,
Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep;
Restless he roll'd around his weary bed,
And all his soul on his Patroclus fed:

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The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind,

That youthful vigour, and that manly mind,

What toils they shar'd, what martial works they wrought,

What seas they measur'd, and what fields they fought;

All pass'd before him in remembrance dear,

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Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear.
And now supine, now prone, the hero lay,
Now shifts his side, impatient for the day;
Then starting up, disconsolate he goes
Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes.
There as the solitary mourner raves,
The ruddy morning rises o'er the waves:
Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join'd;
The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind.
And thrice, Patroclus! round thy monument
Was Hector dragg'd, then hurried to the tent.
There sleep at last o'ercomes the hero's eyes;
While foul in dust th' unhonour'd carcass lies,
But not deserted by the pitying skies.
For Phoebus watch'd it with superior care,
Preserv'd from gaping wounds, and tainting air;
And, ignominious as it swept the field,
Spread o'er the sacred corse his golden shield.
All heaven was mov'd, and Hermes will'd to go
By stealth to snatch him from th' insulting foe:
But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies,
And th' unrelenting empress of the skies:
E'er since that day implacable to Troy,
What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy,
Won by destructive lust (reward obscene)
Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen.
But when the tenth celestial morning broke,
To heaven assembled, thus Apollo spoke :

Unpitying powers! how oft each holy fane

Has Hector ting'd with blood of victims slain? 'And can ye still his cold remains pursue ? 'Still grudge his body to the Trojans' view? Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire, "The last sad honours of a funeral fire?

Is then the dire Achilles all your care? •That iron heart, inflexibly severe; 'A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide 'In strength of rage and impotence of pride, "Who hastes to murder with a savage joy, 'Invades around, and breathes but to destroy. 'Shame is not of his soul; nor understood,

The greatest evil and the greatest good.'
Still for one loss he rages unresign'd,
Repugnant to the lot of all mankind;
To lose a friend, a brother, or a son,

'Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done :

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'Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care;

'Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear.

But this insatiate the commission given

'By fate, exceeds; and tempts the wrath of heaven:
'Lo how his rage dishonest drags along
Hector's dead earth, insensible of wrong!

'Brave though he be, yet by no reason aw'd,

'He violates the laws of man and God!'

If equal honours by the partial skies

Are doom'd both heroes,' (Juno thus replies,) 'If Thetis' son must no distinction know,

'Then hear, ye gods! the patron of the bow. 'But Hector only boasts a mortal claim,

His birth deriving from a mortal dame:

'Achilles of your own ethereal race

Springs from a goddess, by a man's embrace:

'(A goddess by ourself to Peleus given,

A man divine, and chosen friend of heaven :)

" To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode

'Yourselves were present; where this minstrel-god (Well-pleas'd to share the feast) amid the quire

Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre.'

Then thus the Thunderer checks the imperial dame :

'Let not thy wrath the court of heaven inflame;

Their merits, nor their honours, are the same.

But mine, and every god's peculiar grace

'Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race:

'Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay, "(The only honours men to gods can pay,)

1 Shame, as Cowper gives it, is "man's blessing or his curse;" "his blessing," says his note on the passage, "if he is properly influenced by it; his curse in its consequences, if he is deaf to its dictates." Hesiod borrowe Homer's words in his Works and Days, B. i. 316.