Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/120

118 Beneath a beech, Jove's consecrated shade,

His mournful friends divine Sarpedon laid:

Brave Pelagon, his favourite chief, was nigh,

Who wrenched the javelin from his sinewy thigh.

The fainting soul stood ready winged for flight,

And o'er his eyeballs swam the shades of night.

But Boreas rising fresh, with gentle breath,

Recalled his spirit from the gates of death.

The generous Greeks recede with tardy pace,

Though Mars and Hector thunder in their face;

None turn their backs to mean ignoble flight,

Slow they retreat, and, e'en retreating, fight.

Who first, who last, by Mars' and Hector's hand,

Stretched in their blood, lay gasping on the sand?

Teuthras the great, Orestes the renowned

For managed steeds, and Trechus, pressed the ground;

Next Œnomaus, and Œnops' offspring died;

Oresbius last fell groaning at their side:

Oresbius, in his painted mitre gay,

In fat Bœotia held his wealthy sway,

Where lakes surround low Hylé's watery plain;

A prince and people studious of their gain.

The carnage Juno from the skies surveyed,

And, touched with grief, bespoke the blue-eyed Maid:

"O sight accursed! shall faithless Troy prevail,

And shall our promise to our people fail?

How vain the word to Menelaüs 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!"

She spoke; Minerva burns to meet the war:

And now heaven's empress calls her blazing car.

At her command rush forth the steeds divine;

Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine.

Bright Hebé waits; by Hebé, ever young,

The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung.

On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel

Of sounding brass; the polished axle steel;

Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame;

The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame,

Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold

Two brazen rings of work divine were rolled.

The bossy naves of solid silver shone;

Braces of gold suspend the moving throne:

The car behind an arching figure bore;

The bending concave formed an arch before,

Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold,