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anks are broken, and whole troops o’erthrown. This, while yet warm distill’d the purple flood; But when the wound grew stiff with clotted blood, Then grinding tortures his strong bosom rend, Less keen those darts the fierce Ilythiae send: (The powers that cause the teeming matron’s throes, Sad mothers of unutterable woes!) Stung with the smart, all-panting with the pain, He mounts the car, and gives his squire the rein; Then with a voice which fury made more strong, And pain augmented, thus exhorts the throng:

“O friends! O Greeks! assert your honours won; Proceed, and finish what this arm begun: Lo! angry Jove forbids your chief to stay, And envies half the glories of the day.”

He said: the driver whirls his lengthful thong; The horses fly; the chariot smokes along. Clouds from their nostrils the fierce coursers blow, And from their sides the foam descends in snow; Shot through the battle in a moment’s space, The wounded monarch at his tent they place.

No sooner Hector saw the king retired, But thus his Trojans and his aids he fired: “Hear, all ye Dardan, all ye Lycian race! Famed in close fight, and dreadful face to face: Now call to mind your ancient trophies won, Your great forefathers’ virtues, and your own. Behold, the general flies! deserts his powers! Lo, Jove himself declares the conquest ours! Now on yon ranks impel your foaming steeds; And, sure of glory, dare immortal deeds.”

With words like these the fiery chief alarms His fainting host, and every bosom warms. As the bold hunter cheers his hounds to tear The brindled lion, or the tusky bear: With voice and hand provokes their doubting heart, And springs the foremost with his lifted dart: So godlike Hector prompts his troops to dare; Nor prompts alone, but leads himself the war. On the black body of the foe he pours; As from the cloud’s deep bosom, swell’d with showers, A sudden storm the purple ocean sweeps, Drives the wild waves, and tosses all the deeps. Say, Muse! when Jove the Trojan’s glory crown’d, Beneath his arm what heroes bit the ground? Assaeus, Dolops, and Autonous died, Opites next was added to their side; Then brave Hipponous, famed in many a fight, Opheltius, Orus, sunk to endless night; Æsymnus, Agelaus; all chiefs of name; The rest were vulgar deaths unknown to fame. As when a western whirlwind, charged with storms, Dispels the gather’d clouds that Notus forms: The gust continued, violent and strong, Rolls sable clouds in heaps on heaps along; Now to the skies the foaming billows rears, Now breaks the surge, and wide the bottom bares: Thus, raging Hector, with resistless hands, O’erturns, confounds, and scatters all their bands. Now the last ruin the whole host appals; Now Greece had trembled in her wooden walls; But wise Ulysses call’d Tydides forth, His soul rekindled, and awaked his worth. “And stand we deedless, O eternal shame! Till Hector’s arm involve the ships in flame? Haste, let us join, and combat side by side.” The warrior thus, and thus the friend replied:

“No martial toil I shun, no danger fear; Let Hector come; I wait his fury here. But Jove with conquest crowns the Trojan train: And, Jove our foe, all human force is vain.”

He sigh’d; but, sighing, raised his vengeful steel, And from his car the proud Thymbraeus fell: Molion, the charioteer, pursued his lord, His death ennobled by Ulysses’ sword. There slain, they left them in eternal night, Then plunged amidst the thickest ranks of fight. So two wild boars outstrip the following hounds, Then swift revert, and wounds return for wounds. Stern Hector’s conquests in the middle plain Stood check’d awhile, and Greece respired again.

The sons of Merops shone amidst the war; Towering they rode in one refulgent car: In deep prophetic arts their father skill’d, Had warn’d his children from the Trojan field. Fate urged them on: the father warn’d in vain; They rush’d to fight, and perish’d on the plain; Their breasts no more the vital spirit warms; The stern Tydides strips their shining arms. Hypirochus by great Ulysses dies, And rich Hippodamus becomes his prize. Great Jove from Ide with slaughter fills his sight, And level hangs the doubtful scale of fight. By Tydeus’ lance Agastrophus was slain, The far-famed hero of Pæonian strain; Wing’d with his fears, on foot he strove to fly, His steeds too distant, and the foe too nigh: Through broken orders, swifter than the wind, He fled, but flying left his life behind. This Hector sees, as his experienced eyes Traverse the files, and to the rescue flies; Shouts, as he pass’d, the crystal regions rend, And moving armies on his march attend. Great Diomed himself was seized with fear, And thus bespoke his brother of the war:

“Mark how this way yon bending squadrons yield! The storm rolls on, and Hector rules the field: Here stand his utmost force.”—The warrior said; Swift at the word his ponderous javelin fled; Nor miss’d its aim, but where the plumage danced Razed the smooth cone, and thence obliquely glanced. Safe in his helm (the gift of Phœbus’ hands) Without a wound the Trojan hero stands; But yet so stunn’d, that, staggering on the plain. His arm and knee his sinking bulk sustain; O’er his dim sight the misty vapours rise, And a short darkness shades his swimming eyes. Tydides followed to regain his lance; While Hector rose, recover’d from the trance, Remounts his car, and herds amidst the crowd: The Greek pursues him, and exults aloud: “Once more thank Phœbus for thy forfeit breath, Or thank that swiftness which outstrips the death. Well by Apollo are thy prayers repaid, And oft that partial power has lent his aid. Thou shall not long the death deserved withstand, If any god assist Tydides’ hand. Fly then, inglorious! but thy flight, this day, Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay,”

Him, while he triumph’d, Paris eyed from far, (The spouse of Helen, the fair cause of war;) Around the fields his feather’d shafts he sent, From ancient Ilus’ ruin’d monument: Behind the column placed, he bent his bow, And wing’d an arrow at the unwary foe; Just as he stoop’d, Agastrophus’s crest To seize, and drew the corslet from his breast, The bowstring twang’d; nor flew the shaft in vain, But pierced his foot, and nail’d it to the plain. The laughing Trojan, with a joyful spring. Leaps from his ambush, and insults the king.

“He bleeds! (he cries) some god has sped my dart! Would the same god had fix’d it in his heart! So Troy, relieved from that wide-wasting hand, Should breathe from slaughter and in combat stand: Whose sons now tremble at his darted spear, As scatter’d lambs the rushing lion fear.”

He dauntless thus: “Thou conqueror of the fair, Thou woman-warrior with the curling hair; Vain archer! trusting to the distant dart, Unskill’d in arms to act a manly part! Thou hast but done what boys or women can; Such hands may wound, but not incense a man. Nor boast the scratch thy feeble arrow gave, A coward’s weapon never hurts the brave. Not so this dart, which thou may’st one day fee