Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/110

108 O'er the fallen trunk his ample shield displayed,

He hides the hero with his mighty shade,

And threats aloud: the Greeks with longing eyes

Behold at distance, but forbear the prize.

Then fierce Tydides stoops; and, from the fields

Heaved with vast force, a rocky fragment wields.

Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,

Such men as live in these degenerate days.

He swung it round; and, gathering strength to throw,

Discharged the ponderous ruin at the foe.

Where to the hip the inserted thigh unites,

Full on the bone the pointed marble lights;

Through both the tendons broke the rugged stone,

And stripped the skin, and cracked the solid bone.

Sunk on his knees, and staggering with his pains,

His falling bulk his bended arms sustains;

Lost in a dizzy mist the warrior lies;

A sudden cloud comes swimming o'er his eyes.

There the brave chief, who mighty numbers swayed,

Oppressed had sunk to death's eternal shade;

But heavenly Venus, mindful of the love

She bore Anchises in the Idæan grove,

His danger views with anguish and despair,

And guards her offspring with a mother's care.

About her much-loved son her arms she throws,

Her arms whose whiteness match the falling snows.

Screened from the foe behind her shining veil,

The swords wave harmless, and the javelins fail:

Safe through the rushing horse, and feathered flight

Of sounding shafts, she bears him from the fight.

Nor Sthenelus, with unassisting hands,

Remained unheedful of his lord's commands:

His panting steeds, removed from out the war,

He fixed with straitened traces to the car.

Next, rushing to the Dardan spoil, detains

The heavenly coursers with the flowing manes:

These, in proud triumph to the fleet conveyed,

No longer now a Trojan lord obeyed.

That charge to bold Deïpylus he gave,

Whom most he loved, as brave men love the brave.

Then, mounting on his car, resumed the rein,

And followed where Tydides swept the plain.

Meanwhile, his conquest ravished from his eyes,

The raging chief in chase of Venus flies:

No goddess she, commissioned to the field,

Like Pallas dreadful with her sable shield,

Or fierce Bellona thundering at the wall,

While flames ascend, and mighty ruins fall;

He knew soft combats suit the tender dame,