第 105 节

lived a friend: Dead he protects him with superior care. Nor dooms his carcase to the birds of air.

[Illustration: ] FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS

The first attack the Grecians scarce sustain, Repulsed, they yield; the Trojans seize the slain. Then fierce they rally, to revenge led on By the swift rage of Ajax Telamon. (Ajax to Peleus’ son the second name, In graceful stature next, and next in fame.) With headlong force the foremost ranks he tore; So through the thicket bursts the mountain boar, And rudely scatters, for a distance round, The frighted hunter and the baying hound. The son of Lethus, brave Pelasgus’ heir, Hippothous, dragg’d the carcase through the war; The sinewy ankles bored, the feet he bound With thongs inserted through the double wound: Inevitable fate o’ertakes the deed; Doom’d by great Ajax’ vengeful lance to bleed: It cleft the helmet’s brazen cheeks in twain; The shatter’d crest and horse-hair strow the plain: With nerves relax’d he tumbles to the ground: The brain comes gushing through the ghastly wound: He drops Patroclus’ foot, and o’er him spread, Now lies a sad companion of the dead: Far from Larissa lies, his native air, And ill requites his parents’ tender care. Lamented youth! in life’s first bloom he fell, Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell.

Once more at Ajax Hector’s javelin flies; The Grecian marking, as it cut the skies, Shunn’d the descending death; which hissing on, Stretch’d in the dust the great Iphytus’ son, Schedius the brave, of all the Phocian kind The boldest warrior and the noblest mind: In little Panope, for strength renown’d, He held his seat, and ruled the realms around. Plunged in his throat, the weapon drank his blood, And deep transpiercing through the shoulder stood; In clanging arms the hero fell and all The fields resounded with his weighty fall.

Phorcys, as slain Hippothous he defends, The Telamonian lance his belly rends; The hollow armour burst before the stroke, And through the wound the rushing entrails broke: In strong convulsions panting on the sands He lies, and grasps the dust with dying hands.

Struck at the sight, recede the Trojan train: The shouting Argives strip the heroes slain. And now had Troy, by Greece compell’d to yield, Fled to her ramparts, and resign’d the field; Greece, in her native fortitude elate, With Jove averse, had turn’d the scale of fate: But Phœbus urged Æneas to the fight; He seem’d like aged Periphas to sight: (A herald in Anchises’ love grown old, Revered for prudence, and with prudence bold.)

Thus he—“What methods yet, O chief! remain, To save your Troy, though heaven its fall ordain? There have been heroes, who, by virtuous care, By valour, numbers, and by arts of war, Have forced the powers to spare a sinking state, And gain’d at length the glorious odds of fate: But you, when fortune smiles, when Jove declares His partial favour, and assists your wars, Your shameful efforts ’gainst yourselves employ, And force the unwilling god to ruin Troy.”

Æneas through the form assumed descries The power conceal’d, and thus to Hector cries: “Oh lasting shame! to our own fears a prey, We seek our ramparts, and desert the day. A god, nor is he less, my bosom warms, And tells me, Jove asserts the Trojan arms.”

He spoke, and foremost to the combat flew: The bold example all his hosts pursue. Then, first, Leocritus beneath him bled, In vain beloved by valiant Lycomede; Who view’d his fall, and, grieving at the chance, Swift to revenge it sent his angry lance; The whirling lance, with vigorous force address’d, Descends, and pants in Apisaon’s breast; From rich Paeonia’s vales the warrior came, Next thee, Asteropeus! in place and fame. Asteropeus with grief beheld the slain, And rush’d to combat, but he rush’d in vain: Indissolubly firm, around the dead, Rank within rank, on buckler buckler spread, And hemm’d with bristled spears, the Grecians stood, A brazen bulwark, and an iron wood. Great Ajax eyes them with incessant care, And in an orb contracts the crowded war, Close in their ranks commands to fight or fall, And stands the centre and the soul of all: Fix’d on the spot they war, and wounded, wound; A sanguine torrent steeps the reeking ground: On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled, And, thickening round them, rise the hills of dead.

Greece, in close order, and collected might, Yet suffers least, and sways the wavering fight; Fierce as conflicting fires the combat burns, And now it rises, now it sinks by turns. In one thick darkness all the fight was lost; The sun, the moon, and all the ethereal host Seem’d as extinct: day ravish’d from their eyes, And all heaven’s splendours blotted from the skies. Such o’er Patroclus’ body hung the night, The rest in sunshine fought, and open light; Unclouded there, the aerial azure spread, No vapour rested on the mountain’s head, The golden sun pour’d forth a stronger ray, And all the broad expansion flamed with day. Dispersed around the plain, by fits they fight, And here and there their scatter’d arrows light: But death and darkness o’er the carcase spread, There burn’d the war, and there the mighty bled.

Meanwhile the sons of Nestor, in the rear, (Their fellows routed,) toss the distant spear, And skirmish wide: so Nestor gave command, When from the ships he sent the Pylian band. The youthful brothers thus for fame contend, Nor knew the fortune of Achilles’ friend; In thought they view’d him still, with martial joy, Glorious in arms, and dealing death to Troy.

But round the corse the heroes pant for breath, And thick and heavy grows the work of death: O’erlabour’d now, with dust, and sweat, and gore, Their knees, their legs, their feet, are covered o’er; Drops follow drops, the clouds on clouds arise, And carnage clogs their hands, and darkness fills their eyes. As when a slaughter’d bull’s yet reeking hide, Strain’d with full force, and tugg’d from side to side, The brawny curriers stretch; and labour o’er The extended surface, drunk with fat and gore: So tugging round the corse both armies stood; The mangled body bathed in sweat and blood; While Greeks and Ilians equal strength employ, Now to the ships to force it, now to Troy. Not Pallas’ self, her breast when fury warms, Nor he whose anger sets the world in arms, Could blame this scene; such rage, such horror reign’d; Such, Jove to honour the great dead ordain’d.

Achilles in his ships at distance lay, Nor knew the fatal fortune of the day; He, yet unconscious of Patroclus’ fall, In dust extended under Ilion’s wall, Expects him glorious from the conquered plain, And for his wish’d return prepares in vain; Though well he knew, to make proud Ilion bend Was more than heaven had destined to his friend. Perhaps to him: this Thetis had reveal’d; The rest, in pity to her son, conceal’d.

Still raged the conflict round the hero dead, And heaps on heaps by mutual wounds they bled. “Cursed be the man (even private Greeks would say) Who dares desert this well-disputed day! First