Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/100

98 This saw Ulysses, and, with grief enraged,

Strode where the foremost of the foes engaged;

Armed with his spear, he meditates the wound,

In act to throw; but, cautious, looked around.

Struck at his sight the Trojans backward drew,

And trembling heard the javelin as it flew.

A chief stood nigh, who from Abydos came,

Old Priam's son, Democoön was his name;

The weapon entered close above his ear,

Gold through his temples glides the whizzing spear;

With piercing shrieks the youth resigns his breath,

His eyeballs darken with the shades of death;

Ponderous he falls; his clanging arms resound;

And his broad buckler rings against the ground.

Seized with affright the boldest foes appear;

E'en godlike Hector seems himself to fear;

Slow he gave way, the rest tumultuous fled;

The Greeks with shouts press on, and spoil the dead.

But Phœbus now from Ilion's towering height

Shines forth revealed, and animates the fight:

"Trojans be bold, and force with force oppose;

Your foaming steeds urge headlong on the foes!

Nor are their bodies rocks, nor ribbed with steel;

Your weapons enter, and your strokes they feel.

Have you forgot what seemed your dread before?

The great, the fierce Achilles fights no more."

Apollo thus from Ilion's lofty towers,

Arrayed in terrors, roused the Trojan powers:

While war's fierce goddess fires the Grecian foe,

And shouts and thunders in the field below.

Then great Diores fell, by doom divine;

In vain his valour and illustrious line.

A broken rock the force of Pirus threw,

Who from cold Ænus led the Thracian crew;

Full on his ankle dropped the ponderous stone,

Burst the strong nerves, and crashed the solid bone:

Supine he tumbles on the crimson sands,

Before his helpless friends, and native bands,

And spreads for aid his unravailing hands.

The foe rushed furious as he pants for breath,

And through his navel drove the pointed death:

His gushing entrails smoked upon the ground,

And the warm life came issuing from the wound.

His lance bold Thoas at the conqueror sent,

Deep in his breast above the pap it went,

Amid the lungs was fixed the winged wood,

And quivering in his heaving bosom stood,

Till from the dying chief, approaching near,

The Ætolian warrior tugged his weighty spear: