Iliad on Grief

Sighing he said: his grief the heroes join’d, Each stole a tear for what he left behind. Their mingled grief the sire of heaven survey’d, And thus with pity to his blue-eyed maid:

The mother first beheld with sad survey; She rent her tresses, venerable grey, And cast, far off, the regal veils away. With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, While the sad father answers groans with groans, Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o’erflow, And the whole city wears one face of woe: No less than if the rage of hostile fires, From her foundations curling to her spires, O’er the proud citadel at length should rise, And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies. The wretched monarch of the falling state, Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate. Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course, While strong affliction gives the feeble force: Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, In all the raging impotence of woe. At length he roll’d in dust, and thus begun, Imploring all, and naming one by one: “Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls; I, only I, will issue from your walls (Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none), And bow before the murderer of my son. My grief perhaps his pity may engage; Perhaps at least he may respect my age. He has a father too; a man like me; One, not exempt from age and misery (Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace Begot this pest of me, and all my race). How many valiant sons, in early bloom, Has that cursed hand sent headlong to the tomb! Thee, Hector! last: thy loss (divinely brave) Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave. O had thy gentle spirit pass’d in peace, The son expiring in the sire’s embrace, While both thy parents wept the fatal hour, And, bending o’er thee, mix’d the tender shower! Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, To melt in full satiety of grief!”

THE GRIEF OF ACHILLES, AND NEW ARMOUR MADE HIM BY VULCAN.

The son of Peleus ceased: the chiefs around In silence wrapt, in consternation drown’d, Attend the stern reply. Then Phœnix rose; (Down his white beard a stream of sorrow flows;) And while the fate of suffering Greece he mourn’d, With accent weak these tender words return’d.

Then parting from the pile he ceased to weep, And sank to quiet in the embrace of sleep, Exhausted with his grief: meanwhile the crowd Of thronging Grecians round Achilles stood; The tumult waked him: from his eyes he shook Unwilling slumber, and the chiefs bespoke:

He spoke, and from the warriors turn’d his face: Yet still the brother-kings of Atreus’ race. Nestor, Idomeneus, Ulysses sage, And Phœnix, strive to calm his grief and rage: His rage they calm not, nor his grief control; He groans, he raves, he sorrows from his soul.

While the long night extends her sable reign, Around Patroclus mourn’d the Grecian train. Stern in superior grief Pelides stood; Those slaughtering arms, so used to bathe in blood, Now clasp his clay-cold limbs: then gushing start The tears, and sighs burst from his swelling heart. The lion thus, with dreadful anguish stung, Roars through the desert, and demands his young; When the grim savage, to his rifled den Too late returning, snuffs the track of men, And o’er the vales and o’er the forest bounds; His clamorous grief the bellowing wood resounds. So grieves Achilles; and, impetuous, vents To all his Myrmidons his loud laments.

The Thunderer spoke: imperial Juno mourn’d, And, trembling, these submissive words return’d:

In thronging crowds they issue to the plains; Nor man nor woman in the walls remains; In every face the self-same grief is shown; And Troy sends forth one universal groan. At Scæa’s gates they meet the mourning wain, Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain. The wife and mother, frantic with despair, Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scatter’d hair: Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay; And there had sigh’d and sorrow’d out the day; But godlike Priam from the chariot rose: “Forbear (he cried) this violence of woes; First to the palace let the car proceed, Then pour your boundless sorrows o’er the dead.”

The youthful warrior heard with silent woe, From his fair eyes the tears began to flow: Big with the mighty grief, he strove to say What sorrow dictates, but no word found way. To brave Laodocus his arms he flung, Who, near him wheeling, drove his steeds along; Then ran the mournful message to impart, With tearful eyes, and with dejected heart.

“O first and greatest! God, by gods adored We own thy might, our father and our lord! But, ah! permit to pity human state: If not to help, at least lament their fate. From fields forbidden we submiss refrain, With arms unaiding mourn our Argives slain; Yet grant my counsels still their breasts may move, Or all must perish in the wrath of Jove.”

“Why sits great Hector from the field so far? What grief, what wound, withholds thee from the war?”

Thus joyful Troy maintain’d the watch of night; While fear, pale comrade of inglorious flight,[199] And heaven-bred horror, on the Grecian part, Sat on each face, and sadden’d every heart. As from its cloudy dungeon issuing forth, A double tempest of the west and north Swells o’er the sea, from Thracia’s frozen shore, Heaps waves on waves, and bids the Ægean roar: This way and that the boiling deeps are toss’d: Such various passions urged the troubled host, Great Agamemnon grieved above the rest; Superior sorrows swell’d his royal breast; Himself his orders to the heralds bears, To bid to council all the Grecian peers, But bid in whispers: these surround their chief, In solemn sadness and majestic grief. The king amidst the mournful circle rose: Down his wan cheek a briny torrent flows. So silent fountains, from a rock’s tall head, In sable streams soft-trickling waters shed. With more than vulgar grief he stood oppress’d; Words, mix’d with sighs, thus bursting from his breast:

“Brother, ’tis just, (replied the beauteous youth,) Thy free remonstrance proves thy worth and truth: Yet charge my absence less, O generous chief! On hate to Troy, than conscious shame and grief: Here, hid from human eyes, thy brother sate, And mourn’d, in secret, his and Ilion’s fate. ’Tis now enough; now glory spreads her charms, And beauteous Helen calls her chief to arms. Conquest to-day my happier sword may bless, ’Tis man’s to fight, but heaven’s to give success. But while I arm, contain thy ardent mind; Or go, and Paris shall not lag behind.”

“Before thy presence, father, I appear, With conscious shame and reverential fear. Ah! had I died, ere to these walls I fled, False to my country, and my nuptial bed; My brothers, friends, and daughter left behind, False to them all, to Paris only kind! For this I mourn, till grief or dire disease Shall waste the form whose fault it was to please! The king of kings, Atrides, you survey, Great in the war, and great in arts of sway: My brother once, before my days of shame! And oh! that still he bore a brother’s name!”

Juno and Pallas grieving hear the doom, But feast their souls on Ilion’s woes to come. Though secret anger swell’d Minerva’s breast, The prudent goddess yet her wrath repress’d; But Juno, impotent of rage, replies: “What hast thou said, O tyrant of the skies! Strength and omnipotence invest thy throne; ’Tis thine to punish; ours to grieve alone. For Greece we grieve, abandon’d by her fate To drink the dregs of thy unmeasured hate. From fields forbidden we submiss refrain, With arms unaiding see our Argives slain; Yet grant our counsels still their breasts may move, Lest all should perish in the rage of Jove.”

To whom the mournful mother thus replies: (The crystal drops stood trembling in her eyes:) “O Vulcan! say, was ever breast divine So pierced with sorrows, so o’erwhelm’d as mine? Of all the goddesses, did Jove prepare For Thetis only such a weight of care? I, only I, of all the watery race By force subjected to a man’s embrace, Who, sinking now with age and sorrow, pays The mighty fine imposed on length of days. Sprung from my bed, a godlike hero came, The bravest sure that ever bore the name; Like some fair plant beneath my careful hand He grew, he flourish’d, and adorn’d the land! To Troy I sent him! but his native shore Never, ah never, shall receive him more; (Even while he lives, he wastes with secret woe;) Nor I, a goddess, can retard the blow! Robb’d of the prize the Grecian suffrage gave, The king of nations forced his royal slave: For this he grieved; and, till the Greeks oppress’d Required his arm, he sorrow’d unredress’d. Large gifts they promise, and their elders send; In vain—he arms not, but permits his friend His arms, his steeds, his forces to employ: He marches, combats, almost conquers Troy: Then slain by Phœbus (Hector had the name) At once resigns his armour, life, and fame. But thou, in pity, by my prayer be won: Grace with immortal arms this short-lived son, And to the field in martial pomp restore, To shine with glory, till he shines no more!”

Her sister captives echoed groan for groan, Nor mourn’d Patroclus’ fortunes, but their own. The leaders press’d the chief on every side; Unmoved he heard them, and with sighs denied.

Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light, And drew behind the cloudy veil of night: The conquering Trojans mourn his beams decay’d; The Greeks rejoicing bless the friendly shade.

“If yet Achilles have a friend, whose care Is bent to please him, this request forbear; Till yonder sun descend, ah, let me pay To grief and anguish one abstemious day.”

But he who found not whom his soul desired, Whose virtue charm’d him as her beauty fired, Stood in the gates, and ask’d “what way she bent Her parting step? If to the fane she went, Where late the mourning matrons made resort; Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court?” “Not to the court, (replied the attendant train,) Nor mix’d with matrons to Minerva’s fane: To Ilion’s steepy tower she bent her way, To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day. Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword; She heard, and trembled for her absent lord: Distracted with surprise, she seem’d to fly, Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye. The nurse attended with her infant boy, The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy.”

“O prince! (Meriones replies) whose care Leads forth the embattled sons of Crete to war; This speaks my grief: this headless lance I wield; The rest lies rooted in a Trojan shield.”

Meantime the monarch of the watery main Observed the Thunderer, nor observed in vain. In Samothracia, on a mountain’s brow, Whose waving woods o’erhung the deeps below, He sat; and round him cast his azure eyes Where Ida’s misty tops confusedly rise; Below, fair Ilion’s glittering spires were seen; The crowded ships and sable seas between. There, from the crystal chambers of the main Emerged, he sat, and mourn’d his Argives slain. At Jove incensed, with grief and fury stung, Prone down the rocky steep he rush’d along; Fierce as he pass’d, the lofty mountains nod, The forest shakes; earth trembled as he trod, And felt the footsteps of the immortal god. From realm to realm three ample strides he took, And, at the fourth, the distant Ægae shook.

“Too long, O Hector! have I borne the sight Of this distress, and sorrow’d in thy flight: It fits us now a noble stand to make, And here, as brothers, equal fates partake.”

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears. Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears; Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries.

“Suppress, my son, this rage of grief, and know It was not man, but heaven, that gave the blow; Behold what arms by Vulcan are bestow’d, Arms worthy thee, or fit to grace a god.”

“Cursed by Althaea, to his wrath he yields, And in his wife’s embrace forgets the fields. (She from Marpessa sprung, divinely fair, And matchless Idas, more than man in war: The god of day adored the mother’s charms; Against the god the father bent his arms: The afflicted pair, their sorrows to proclaim, From Cleopatra changed their daughter’s name, And call’d Alcyone; a name to show The father’s grief, the mourning mother’s woe.) To her the chief retired from stern debate, But found no peace from fierce Althaea’s hate: Althaea’s hate the unhappy warrior drew, Whose luckless hand his royal uncle slew; She beat the ground, and call’d the powers beneath On her own son to wreak her brother’s death; Hell heard her curses from the realms profound, And the red fiends that walk the nightly round. In vain Ætolia her deliverer waits, War shakes her walls, and thunders at her gates. She sent ambassadors, a chosen band, Priests of the gods, and elders of the land; Besought the chief to save the sinking state: Their prayers were urgent, and their proffers great: (Full fifty acres of the richest ground, Half pasture green, and half with vineyards crown’d:) His suppliant father, aged Œneus, came; His sisters follow’d; even the vengeful dame, Althaea, sues; his friends before him fall: He stands relentless, and rejects them all. Meanwhile the victor’s shouts ascend the skies; The walls are scaled; the rolling flames arise; At length his wife (a form divine) appears, With piercing cries, and supplicating tears; She paints the horrors of a conquer’d town, The heroes slain, the palaces o’erthrown, The matrons ravish’d, the whole race enslaved: The warrior heard, he vanquish’d, and he saved. The Ætolians, long disdain’d, now took their turn, And left the chief their broken faith to mourn. Learn hence, betimes to curb pernicious ire, Nor stay till yonder fleets ascend in fire; Accept the presents; draw thy conquering sword; And be amongst our guardian gods adored.”

“Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had join’d[298] The mildest manners with the bravest mind, Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o’er Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore, (O had I perish’d, ere that form divine Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!) Yet was it ne’er my fate, from thee to find A deed ungentle, or a word unkind. When others cursed the authoress of their woe, Thy pity check’d my sorrows in their flow. If some proud brother eyed me with disdain, Or scornful sister with her sweeping train, Thy gentle accents soften’d all my pain. For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee, The wretched source of all this misery. The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan; Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone! Through Troy’s wide streets abandon’d shall I roam! In Troy deserted, as abhorr’d at home!”

He from whose lips divine persuasion flows, Grave Nestor, then, in graceful act arose; Thus to the kings he spoke: “What grief, what shame Attend on Greece, and all the Grecian name! How shall, alas! her hoary heroes mourn Their sons degenerate, and their race a scorn! What tears shall down thy silvery beard be roll’d, O Peleus, old in arms, in wisdom old! Once with what joy the generous prince would hear Of every chief who fought this glorious war, Participate their fame, and pleased inquire Each name, each action, and each hero’s sire! Gods! should he see our warriors trembling stand, And trembling all before one hostile hand; How would he lift his aged arms on high, Lament inglorious Greece, and beg to die! Oh! would to all the immortal powers above, Minerva, Phœbus, and almighty Jove! Years might again roll back, my youth renew, And give this arm the spring which once it knew When fierce in war, where Jardan’s waters fall, I led my troops to Phea’s trembling wall, And with the Arcadian spears my prowess tried, Where Celadon rolls down his rapid tide.[179] There Ereuthalion braved us in the field, Proud Areithous’ dreadful arms to wield; Great Areithous, known from shore to shore By the huge, knotted, iron mace he bore; No lance he shook, nor bent the twanging bow, But broke, with this, the battle of the foe. Him not by manly force Lycurgus slew, Whose guileful javelin from the thicket flew, Deep in a winding way his breast assailed, Nor aught the warrior’s thundering mace avail’d. Supine he fell: those arms which Mars before Had given the vanquish’d, now the victor bore: But when old age had dimm’d Lycurgus’ eyes, To Ereuthalion he consign’d the prize. Furious with this he crush’d our levell’d bands, And dared the trial of the strongest hands; Nor could the strongest hands his fury stay: All saw, and fear’d, his huge tempestuous sway Till I, the youngest of the host, appear’d, And, youngest, met whom all our army fear’d.

Heart-piercing anguish, at the haughty boast, Touch’d every Greek, but Nestor’s son the most. Grieved as he was, his pious arms attend, And his broad buckler shields his slaughter’d friend: Till sad Mecistheus and Alastor bore His honour’d body to the tented shore.

The Trojans being safe within the walls, Hector only stays to oppose Achilles. Priam is struck at his approach, and tries to persuade his son to re-enter the town. Hecuba joins her entreaties, but in vain. Hector consults within himself what measures to take; but at the advance of Achilles, his resolution fails him, and he flies. Achilles pursues him thrice round the walls of Troy. The gods debate concerning the fate of Hector; at length Minerva descends to the aid of Achilles. She deludes Hector in the shape of Deiphobus; he stands the combat, and is slain. Achilles drags the dead body at his chariot in the sight of Priam and Hecuba. Their lamentations, tears, and despair. Their cries reach the ears of Andromache, who, ignorant of this, was retired into the inner part of the palace: she mounts up to the walls, and beholds her dead husband. She swoons at the spectacle. Her excess of grief and lamentation. The thirtieth day still continues. The scene lies under the walls, and on the battlements of Troy.

The trembling priest along the shore return’d, And in the anguish of a father mourn’d. Disconsolate, not daring to complain, Silent he wander’d by the sounding main; Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays, The god who darts around the world his rays.

“Not yet, my brave companions of the war, Release your smoking coursers from the car; But, with his chariot each in order led, Perform due honours to Patroclus dead. Ere yet from rest or food we seek relief, Some rites remain, to glut our rage of grief.”

Fierce to the van of fight Patroclus came, And, like an eagle darting at his game, Sprung on the Trojan and the Lycian band. What grief thy heart, what fury urged thy hand, O generous Greek! when with full vigour thrown, At Sthenelaus flew the weighty stone, Which sunk him to the dead: when Troy, too near That arm, drew back; and Hector learn’d to fear. Far as an able hand a lance can throw, Or at the lists, or at the fighting foe; So far the Trojans from their lines retired; Till Glaucus, turning, all the rest inspired. Then Bathyclaeus fell beneath his rage, The only hope of Chalcon’s trembling age; Wide o’er the land was stretch’d his large domain, With stately seats, and riches blest in vain: Him, bold with youth, and eager to pursue The flying Lycians, Glaucus met and slew; Pierced through the bosom with a sudden wound, He fell, and falling made the fields resound. The Achaians sorrow for their heroes slain; With conquering shouts the Trojans shake the plain, And crowd to spoil the dead: the Greeks oppose; An iron circle round the carcase grows.

He added not: and Iris from the skies, Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies, Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps, Refulgent gliding o’er the sable deeps. Between where Samos wide his forests spreads, And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads, Down plunged the maid; (the parted waves resound;) She plunged and instant shot the dark profound. As bearing death in the fallacious bait, From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight; So pass’d the goddess through the closing wave, Where Thetis sorrow’d in her secret cave: There placed amidst her melancholy train (The blue-hair’d sisters of the sacred main) Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come, And wept her godlike son’s approaching doom. Then thus the goddess of the painted bow: “Arise, O Thetis! from thy seats below, ’Tis Jove that calls.”—“And why (the dame replies) Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies? Sad object as I am for heavenly sight! Ah may my sorrows ever shun the light! Howe’er, be heaven’s almighty sire obey’d—” She spake, and veil’d her head in sable shade, Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad; And forth she paced, majestically sad.

“O suffer not the foe to bear away My helpless corpse, an unassisted prey; If I, unbless’d, must see my son no more, My much-loved consort, and my native shore, Yet let me die in Ilion’s sacred wall; Troy, in whose cause I fell, shall mourn my fall.”

“O first of Greeks, (Ulysses thus rejoin’d,) The best and bravest of the warrior kind! Thy praise it is in dreadful camps to shine, But old experience and calm wisdom mine. Then hear my counsel, and to reason yield, The bravest soon are satiate of the field; Though vast the heaps that strow the crimson plain, The bloody harvest brings but little gain: The scale of conquest ever wavering lies, Great Jove but turns it, and the victor dies! The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall, And endless were the grief, to weep for all. Eternal sorrows what avails to shed? Greece honours not with solemn fasts the dead: Enough, when death demands the brave, to pay The tribute of a melancholy day. One chief with patience to the grave resign’d, Our care devolves on others left behind. Let generous food supplies of strength produce, Let rising spirits flow from sprightly juice, Let their warm heads with scenes of battle glow, And pour new furies on the feebler foe. Yet a short interval, and none shall dare Expect a second summons to the war; Who waits for that, the dire effects shall find, If trembling in the ships he lags behind. Embodied, to the battle let us bend, And all at once on haughty Troy descend.”

Then to the leader of the Lycian band The dying chief address’d his last command; “Glaucus, be bold; thy task be first to dare The glorious dangers of destructive war, To lead my troops, to combat at their head, Incite the living, and supply the dead. Tell them, I charged them with my latest breath Not unrevenged to bear Sarpedon’s death. What grief, what shame, must Glaucus undergo, If these spoil’d arms adorn a Grecian foe! Then as a friend, and as a warrior fight; Defend my body, conquer in my right: That, taught by great examples, all may try Like thee to vanquish, or like me to die.” He ceased; the Fates suppress’d his labouring breath, And his eyes darken’d with the shades of death. The insulting victor with disdain bestrode The prostrate prince, and on his bosom trod; Then drew the weapon from his panting heart, The reeking fibres clinging to the dart; From the wide wound gush’d out a stream of blood, And the soul issued in the purple flood. His flying steeds the Myrmidons detain, Unguided now, their mighty master slain. All-impotent of aid, transfix’d with grief, Unhappy Glaucus heard the dying chief: His painful arm, yet useless with the smart Inflicted late by Teucer’s deadly dart, Supported on his better hand he stay’d: To Phœbus then (’twas all he could) he pray’d:

Jove heard his prayer, and from the throne on high, Despatch’d his bird, celestial augury! The swift-wing’d chaser of the feather’d game, And known to gods by Percnos’ lofty name. Wide as appears some palace-gate display’d, So broad, his pinions stretch’d their ample shade, As stooping dexter with resounding wings The imperial bird descends in airy rings. A dawn of joy in every face appears: The mourning matron dries her timorous tears: Swift on his car the impatient monarch sprung; The brazen portal in his passage rung; The mules preceding draw the loaded wain, Charged with the gifts: Idæus holds the rein: The king himself his gentle steeds controls, And through surrounding friends the chariot rolls. On his slow wheels the following people wait, Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate; With hands uplifted eye him as he pass’d, And gaze upon him as they gazed their last. Now forward fares the father on his way, Through the lone fields, and back to Ilion they. Great Jove beheld him as he cross’d the plain, And felt the woes of miserable man. Then thus to Hermes: “Thou whose constant cares Still succour mortals, and attend their prayers; Behold an object to thy charge consign’d: If ever pity touch’d thee for mankind, Go, guard the sire: the observing foe prevent, And safe conduct him to Achilles’ tent.”

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye. Distressful beauty melts each stander-by. On all around the infectious sorrow grows; But Priam check’d the torrent as it rose: “Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require, And fell the forests for a funeral pyre; Twelve days, nor foes nor secret ambush dread; Achilles grants these honours to the dead.”[299]

His word the silver-footed queen attends, And from Olympus’ snowy tops descends. Arrived, she heard the voice of loud lament, And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent: His friends prepare the victim, and dispose Repast unheeded, while he vents his woes; The goddess seats her by her pensive son, She press’d his hand, and tender thus begun:

With hasty zeal the swift Talthybius flies; Through the thick files he darts his searching eyes, And finds Machaon, where sublime he stands[132] In arms incircled with his native bands. Then thus: “Machaon, to the king repair, His wounded brother claims thy timely care; Pierced by some Lycian or Dardanian bow, A grief to us, a triumph to the foe.”

“Trojans! your great Ilioneus behold! Haste, to his father let the tale be told: Let his high roofs resound with frantic woe, Such as the house of Promachus must know; Let doleful tidings greet his mother’s ear, Such as to Promachus’ sad spouse we bear, When we victorious shall to Greece return, And the pale matron in our triumphs mourn.”

Thus humbled in the dust, the pensive train Through the sad city mourn’d her hero slain. The body soil’d with dust, and black with gore, Lies on broad Hellespont’s resounding shore. The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand, All, but the martial Myrmidonian band: These yet assembled great Achilles holds, And the stern purpose of his mind unfolds:

Far from the deep recesses of the main, Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign, The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide; And like a mist she rose above the tide; Beheld him mourning on the naked shores, And thus the sorrows of his soul explores. “Why grieves my son? Thy anguish let me share; Reveal the cause, and trust a parent’s care.”

Full in the midst, high-towering o’er the rest, His limbs in arms divine Achilles dress’d; Arms which the father of the fire bestow’d, Forged on the eternal anvils of the god. Grief and revenge his furious heart inspire, His glowing eyeballs roll with living fire; He grinds his teeth, and furious with delay O’erlooks the embattled host, and hopes the bloody day.

To whom the king: “My brother and my friend, Thus, always thus, may Heaven thy life defend! Now seek some skilful hand, whose powerful art May stanch the effusion, and extract the dart. Herald, be swift, and bid Machaon bring His speedy succour to the Spartan king; Pierced with a winged shaft (the deed of Troy), The Grecian’s sorrow, and the Dardan’s joy.”

He spoke: each leader in his grief partook: Troy, at the loss, through all her legions shook. Transfix’d with deep regret, they view o’erthrown At once his country’s pillar, and their own; A chief, who led to Troy’s beleaguer’d wall A host of heroes, and outshined them all. Fired, they rush on; first Hector seeks the foes, And with superior vengeance greatly glows.

High on a turret hoary Priam stands, And marks the waste of his destructive hands; Views, from his arm, the Trojans’ scatter’d flight, And the near hero rising on his sight! No stop, no check, no aid! With feeble pace, And settled sorrow on his aged face, Fast as he could, he sighing quits the walls; And thus descending, on the guards he calls:

“Patroclus, say, what grief thy bosom bears, That flows so fast in these unmanly tears? No girl, no infant whom the mother keeps From her loved breast, with fonder passion weeps; Not more the mother’s soul, that infant warms, Clung to her knees, and reaching at her arms, Than thou hast mine! Oh tell me, to what end Thy melting sorrows thus pursue thy friend?

“Oh, dear as life! did I for this agree The solemn truce, a fatal truce to thee! Wert thou exposed to all the hostile train, To fight for Greece, and conquer, to be slain! The race of Trojans in thy ruin join, And faith is scorn’d by all the perjured line. Not thus our vows, confirm’d with wine and gore, Those hands we plighted, and those oaths we swore, Shall all be vain: when Heaven’s revenge is slow, Jove but prepares to strike the fiercer blow. The day shall come, that great avenging day, When Troy’s proud glories in the dust shall lay, When Priam’s powers and Priam’s self shall fall, And one prodigious ruin swallow all. I see the god, already, from the pole Bare his red arm, and bid the thunder roll; I see the Eternal all his fury shed, And shake his ægis o’er their guilty head. Such mighty woes on perjured princes wait; But thou, alas! deserv’st a happier fate. Still must I mourn the period of thy days, And only mourn, without my share of praise? Deprived of thee, the heartless Greeks no more Shall dream of conquests on the hostile shore; Troy seized of Helen, and our glory lost, Thy bones shall moulder on a foreign coast; While some proud Trojan thus insulting cries, (And spurns the dust where Menelaus lies,) ‘Such are the trophies Greece from Ilion brings, And such the conquest of her king of kings! Lo his proud vessels scatter’d o’er the main, And unrevenged, his mighty brother slain.’ Oh! ere that dire disgrace shall blast my fame, O’erwhelm me, earth! and hide a monarch’s shame.”

“Health to Achilles! happy are thy guests! Not those more honour’d whom Atrides feasts: Though generous plenty crown thy loaded boards, That, Agamemnon’s regal tent affords; But greater cares sit heavy on our souls, Nor eased by banquets or by flowing bowls. What scenes of slaughter in yon fields appear! The dead we mourn, and for the living fear; Greece on the brink of fate all doubtful stands, And owns no help but from thy saving hands: Troy and her aids for ready vengeance call; Their threatening tents already shade our wall: Hear how with shouts their conquest they proclaim, And point at every ship their vengeful flame! For them the father of the gods declares, Theirs are his omens, and his thunder theirs. See, full of Jove, avenging Hector rise! See! heaven and earth the raging chief defies; What fury in his breast, what lightning in his eyes! He waits but for the morn, to sink in flame The ships, the Greeks, and all the Grecian name. Heavens! how my country’s woes distract my mind, Lest Fate accomplish all his rage design’d! And must we, gods! our heads inglorious lay In Trojan dust, and this the fatal day? Return, Achilles: oh return, though late, To save thy Greeks, and stop the course of Fate; If in that heart or grief or courage lies, Rise to redeem; ah, yet to conquer, rise! The day may come, when, all our warriors slain, That heart shall melt, that courage rise in vain: Regard in time, O prince divinely brave! Those wholesome counsels which thy father gave. When Peleus in his aged arms embraced His parting son, these accents were his last:

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears: (A mourning princess, and a train in tears;) “Ah why has Heaven prolong’d this hated breath, Patient of horrors, to behold thy death? O Hector! late thy parents’ pride and joy, The boast of nations! the defence of Troy! To whom her safety and her fame she owed; Her chief, her hero, and almost her god! O fatal change! become in one sad day A senseless corse! inanimated clay!”

Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes His towery helmet, black with shading plumes. His princess parts with a prophetic sigh, Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye That stream’d at every look; then, moving slow, Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe. There, while her tears deplored the godlike man, Through all her train the soft infection ran; The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed, And mourn the living Hector, as the dead.

The waves of people at his word divide, Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide; Even to the palace the sad pomp they wait: They weep, and place him on the bed of state. A melancholy choir attend around, With plaintive sighs, and music’s solemn sound: Alternately they sing, alternate flow The obedient tears, melodious in their woe. While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, And nature speaks at every pause of art.

So raged Tydides, boundless in his ire, Drove armies back, and made all Troy retire. With grief the leader of the Lycian band Saw the wide waste of his destructive hand: His bended bow against the chief he drew; Swift to the mark the thirsty arrow flew, Whose forky point the hollow breastplate tore, Deep in his shoulder pierced, and drank the gore: The rushing stream his brazen armour dyed, While the proud archer thus exulting cried:

The carnage Juno from the skies survey’d, And touch’d with grief bespoke the blue-eyed maid: “Oh, sight accursed! Shall faithless Troy prevail, And shall our promise to our people fail? How vain the word to Menelaus given By Jove’s great daughter and the queen of heaven, Beneath his arms that Priam’s towers should fall, If warring gods for ever guard the wall! Mars, red with slaughter, aids our hated foes: Haste, let us arm, and force with force oppose!”

“At last is Hector stretch’d upon the plain, Who fear’d no vengeance for Patroclus slain: Then, prince! you should have fear’d, what now you feel; Achilles absent was Achilles still: Yet a short space the great avenger stayed, Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn’d, For ever honour’d, and for ever mourn’d: While cast to all the rage of hostile power, Thee birds shall mangle, and the gods devour.”

The heavy tidings grieved the godlike man: Swift to his succour through the ranks he ran. The dauntless king yet standing firm he found, And all the chiefs in deep concern around. Where to the steely point the reed was join’d, The shaft he drew, but left the head behind. Straight the broad belt with gay embroidery graced, He loosed; the corslet from his breast unbraced; Then suck’d the blood, and sovereign balm infused,[133] Which Chiron gave, and Æsculapius used.

To him the king: “Beloved of Jove! draw near, For sadder tidings never touch’d thy ear; Thy eyes have witness’d what a fatal turn! How Ilion triumphs, and the Achaians mourn. This is not all: Patroclus, on the shore Now pale and dead, shall succour Greece no more. Fly to the fleet, this instant fly, and tell The sad Achilles, how his loved-one fell: He too may haste the naked corse to gain: The arms are Hector’s, who despoil’d the slain.”