40 Have I, for this, fhook Ilion with alarms, Th' immortal courfers fcarce the labour bore. At length ripe vengeance o'er their heads impends, But Jove himself the faithlefs race defends: Not all the Gods are partial and unjust. 45 The Sire whofe thunder fhakes the cloudy skies, Sighs from his inmoft foul, and thus replies; Oh lafting rancour! oh infatiate hate To Phrygia's Monarch, and the Phrygian state! What high offence has fir'd the wife of Jove, 50 Can wretched mortals harm the pow'rs above? That Troy and Troy's whole race thou wou'dft con[found, And yon' fair ftructures level with the ground? Hafte, leave the fkies, fulfil thy ftern defire, Burft all her gates, and wrap her walls in fire! 55 Let Priam bleed! if yet thou thirst for more, Bleed all his fons, and Ilion float with gore, Το . 55. Let Priam bleed, &c] We find in Perfius's fatyrs the name of Labeo, as an ill poet who made a miferable tranflation of the Iliad; one of thofe verfes is ftill preserv'd, and happens to be that of this place. Crudum manduces Priamum, Priamique pifinnos. To boundless vengeance the wide realm be giv'n, 60 When heav'n no longer hears the name of Troy. Remember Troy, and give the vengeance way. 65For know, of all the num'rous towns that rise Beneath the rolling fun, and ftarry skies, Which Gods have rais'd, or earth-born men enjoy: None ftands fo dear to Jove as facred Troy. It may feem from this, that his translation was fervilely litesal (as the old Scholiaft on Perfius obferves.) And one cannot but take notice that Ogilby's and Hobbes's in this place are nos unlike Labeo's. .61. But should this arm prepare to wreak our hate On thy lov'd realms Homer in this place has made Jupiter to prophefy the deftru tion of Mycena the favour'd city of Jano, which happen'd a little before the time of our author. Strab. 1. 8. The Trojan war being over, and the kingdom of Agamemnon deftroy'd, Mycena daily decreas'd after the return of the Heraclide: For thefe becoming masters of Peloponnefus, caft out the old inhabitants; so that they who poffefs'd Argos overcame Mycena alfo, and contracted both into one body. A short time after, Mycena was destroy'd by the Argives, and not the least remains of it are now to be found. No No mortals merit more diftinguifh'd grace 70 Than god-like Priam, or than Priam's race. Still to our name their hecatombs expire, And altars blaze with unextinguish'd fire. 75 At this the Goddess rolf'd her radiant eyes, These thou may'st raze, nor I forbid their fall: 80 The crime's fufficient that they share my love. Yet fome distinction June might require, Sprung with thy felf from one celestial Sire, 85 A Goddess born to fhare the realms above, And ftyr'd the confort of the thund'ring Jove; Nor thou a wife and fifter's right deny; Let both confent, and both by turns comply; So fhall the Gods our joint decrees obey, 90 And heav'n fhall act as we direct the way. See ready Pallas waits thy high commands, To raife in arms the Greek and Phrygian bands; 0 4 Their Their fudden friendship by her arts may ceafe, . 96. Th' advice approv'd.] This is one of the places for which Homer is blamed by Plato, who introduces Socrates reprehending it in his dialogue of the republick. And indeed if it were granted that the Trojans had no right to break this treaty, the prefent machine where Juno is made to propofe perjury, Jupiter to allow it, and Minerva to be commiffion'd to haften the execution of it, would be one of the hardest to be reconciled to reafon in the whole Poem. Unless even then one might imagine, that Homer's heaven is fometimes no more than an ideal world of abftra&ted beings; and fo every motion which rifes in the mind of man is attributed to the quality to which it belongs, with the name of the Deity who is fuppos'd to prefide over that quality fuperadded to it. In this fenfe the prefent allegory is eafy enough. Pandarus thinks it prudence to gain honour and wealth at the hands of the Trojans by destroying Menelaus. This fentiment is alfo incited by a notion of glory, of which uno is represented as Goddefs. Jupiter who is fuppos'd to know the thoughts of men, permits the action which he is not author of; but fends a prodigy at the fame time to give warning of a coming mifchief, and accordingly we find both armies defcanting upon the fight of it in the following lines. (A fatal (A fatal fign to armies on the plain, And shakes the fparkles from its blazing hair: Shot the bright Goddess in a trail of light. With eyes erect the gazing hosts admire 110 The pow'r defcending, and the heav'ns on fire! The Gods (they cry'd) the Gods this fignal fent, And fate now labours with fome vaft event: Jove feals the league, or bloodier fcenes prepares; Jove, the great Arbiter of peace and wars! 115 They faid, while Pallas tho' the Trojan throng. 120 The warlike Pandarus, for ftrength renown'd; : Whofe . 120. Pandarus for ftrength renown'd.] Homer, fays Plutarch in his treatise of the Pythian Oracle makes not the Gods to. ufe all perfons indifferently as their fecond agents, but each. according to the powers he is endu'd with by art or nature. For a proof of this, he puts as in mind how Minerva when fhe would perfuade the Greeks, feeks for Vlyffes; when the would break the truce, for Pandarus; and when he would conquer, for Diomed. If we confult the Scholia upon this in ftance, |