She snatch'd the reins, she lash'd with all her force,
And full on Mars impell'd the foaming horse:
But first to hide her heavenly visage spread
Black Orcus' helmet o'er her radiant head.
Just then gigantic Periphas lay slain,
The strongest warrior of th' Ætolian train;
The God, who slew him, leaves his prostrate prize
Stretch'd where he fell, and at Tydides flies.
Now rushing fierce, in equal arms appear,
The daring Greek; the dreadful God of war!
Full at the chief, above his courser's head,
From Mars's arm th' enormous weapon fled :
Pallas oppos'd her hand, and caus'd to glance
Far from the car, the strong immortal lance.
Then threw the force of Tydeus' warlike son;
The javelin hiss'd; the Goddess urg'd it on:
Where the broad cincture girt his armour round,
It pierc'd the God: his groin receiv'd the wound.
From the rent skin the warrior tugs again
The smoking steel. Mars bellows with the pain
Loud as the roar encountering armies yield,
When shouting millions shake the thundering field.
Both armies start, and trembling gaze around;
And earth and heaven rebellow to the sound.
As vapours blown by Auster's sultry breath,
Pregnant with plagues, and shedding seeds of death,
Beneath the rage of burning Sirius rise,
Choke the parch'd earth, and blacken all the skies;
In such a cloud the God from combat driven,
High o'er the dusty whirlwind scales the heaven.
Wild with his pain, he sought the bright abodes,
There sullen sat beneath the Sire of Gods,
Show'd the celestial blood, and with a groan,
Thus pour'd his plaints before th' immortal throne.
Can Jove, supine, flagitious facts survey,
And brook the furies of this daring day?
For mortal men celestial powers engage,
And Gods on Gods exert eternal rage.
From thee, O father! all these ill we bear,
And thy fell daughter with the shield and spear:
Thou gav'st that fury to the realms of light,
Pernicious, wild, regardless of the right.
All heaven beside reveres thy sovereign sway,
Thy voice we hear, and thy behests obey
'Tis her's t' offend, and e'en offending share
Thy breast, thy counsels, thy distinguish'd care:
So boundless she, and thou so partial grown,
Well may we deem the wondrous birth thy own.
Now frantic Diomed, at her command,
Against th' Immortals lifts his raging hand:
The heavenly Venus first his fury found,
Me next encountering, me he dar'd to wound;
Vanquish'd I fled: e'en I the God of fight,
From mortal madness scarce was sav'd by flight.
Else hadst thou seen me sink on yonder plain,
Heap'd round, and heaving under loads of slain.
Or, pierc'd with Grecian darts, for ages lie,
Condemn'd to pain, though fated not to die.
Him thus upbraiding, with a wrathful look
The Lord of thunders view'd, and stern bespoke.
To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain?
Of lawless force shall lawless Mars complain?
Of all the Gods who tread the spangled skies,
Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes!
Inhuman discord is thy dire delight,
The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight.
No bound, no law, thy fiery temper quells,
And all thy mother in thy soul rebels.
n vain our threats, in vain our power we use;
She gives th' example, and her son pursues.
et long the inflicted pangs thou shalt not mourn, Sprung since thou art from Jove, and heavenly born, Else, sing'd with lightning hadst thou hence been thrown,
Where chain'd on burning rocks the Titans groan.
Thus he who shakes Olympus with his nod;
Then gave to Pæon's care the bleeding God.
With gentle hand the balm he pour'd around,
And heal'd th' immortal flesh, and clos'd the wound.
As when the fig's prest juice, infus'd in cream,
To curds coagulates the liquid stream,
Sudden the fluids fix, the parts combin'd;
Such, and so soon, th' ethereal texture join'd.
Cleans'c from the dust and gore, fair Hebè drest
His mighty limbs in an immortal vest.
Glorious he sat, in majesty restor❜d,
Fast by the throne of heaven's superior Lord.
Juno and Pallas mount the blest abodes,
Their task perform'd, and mix among the Gods.
The Episodes of Glaucus and Diomed, and of Hector
and Andronache.
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 inter view between the two armies; where coming to the knowledge of the friendship and hospitality passed between their ancestors, they make exchange of arms. Hector having per formed the orders of Helenus, prevails upon Paris to return to the battle; and taking a tender leave of his wife Andronache, hastens again to the field.
Th scene is first in the field of battle, between the rivers Si mois and Scamander, and then changes to Troy.
Now heaven forsakes the fight: th' 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.
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 th' enormous giant to the ground;
His thundering arm a deadly stroke imprest
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 Arisba's walls (his native place)
He held his seat; a friend to human race.
Fast by the road, nis 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, dy'd.
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 strip'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.
Unblest 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;
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