Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/121

901—949 And golden reins the immortal coursers hold.

Herself, impatient, to the ready car

The coursers joins, and breathes revenge and war.

Pallas disrobes; her radiant veil untied,

With flowers adorned, with art diversified,

(The laboured veil her heavenly fingers wove,)

Flows on the pavement of the court of Jove.

Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest,

Jove's cuirass blazes on her ample breast;

Decked in sad triumph for the mournful field,

O'er her broad shoulders hangs his horrid shield,

Dire, black, tremendous! round the margin rolled,

A fringe of serpents hissing guards the gold:

Here all the terrors of grim war appear,

Here rages Force, here tremble Flight and Fear,

Here stormed Contention, and here Fury frowned,

And the dire orb portentous Gorgon crowned.

The massy golden helm she next assumes,

That dreadful nods with four o'ershading plumes:

So vast, the broad circumference contains

A hundred armies on a hundred plains.

The goddess thus the imperial car ascends;

Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends,

Ponderous and huge; that, when her fury burns,

Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns.

Swift at the scourge the ethereal coursers fly,

While the smooth chariot cuts the liquid sky:

Heaven's gates spontaneous open to the Powers,

Heaven's golden gates, kept by the winged Hours;

Commissioned in alternate watch they stand,

The sun's bright portals and the skies command,

Involve in clouds the eternal gates of day,

Or the dark barrier roll with ease away.

The sounding hinges ring: on either side

The gloomy volumes, pierced with light, divide.

The chariot mounts, where deep in ambient skies

Confused, Olympus' hundred heads arise;

Where, far apart, the Thunderer fills his throne,

O'er all the gods, superior and alone.

There with her snowy hand the queen restrains

The fiery steeds, and thus to Jove complains:

"O sire! can no resentment touch thy soul?

Can Mars rebel, and does no thunder roll?

What lawless rage on yon forbidden plain!

What rash destruction! and what heroes slain!

Venus, and Phœbus with the dreadful bow,

Smile on the slaughter, and enjoy my woe.

Mad, furious Power! whose unrelenting mind

No god can govern, and no justice bind.