Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/127

24—72 His faithful servant, old Calesius, died.

By great Euryalus was Dresus slain,

And next he laid Opheltius on the plain.

Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young,

From a fair Naiad and Bucolion sprung:

Laomedon's white flocks Bucolion fed,

That monarch's first-born by a foreign bed;

In secret woods he won the Naiad's grace,

And two fair infants crowned his strong embrace:

Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms;

The ruthless victor stripped their shining arms.

Astyalus by Polypœtes fell;

Ulysses' spear Pidytes sent to hell;

By Teucer's shaft brave Aretaön bled,

And Nestor's son laid stern Ablerus dead;

Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave,

The mortal wound of rich Elatus gave,

Who held in Pedasus his proud abode,

And tilled the banks where silver Satnio flowed.

Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain;

And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain.

Unblessed Adrastus next at mercy lies

Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize.

Scared with the din and tumult of the fight,

His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight,

Rushed on a tamarisk's strong trunk, and broke

The shattered chariot from the crooked yoke:

Wide o'er the field, resistless as the wind,

For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind.

Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel:

Atrides o'er him shakes his vengeful steel;

The fallen chief in suppliant posture pressed

The victor's knees, and thus his prayer addressed:

"O spare my youth, and for the life I owe

Large gifts of price my father shall bestow:

When fame shall tell, that not in battle slain

Thy hollow ships his captive son detain,

Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told,

And steel well-tempered, and persuasive gold."

He said: compassion touched the hero's heart;

He stood suspended with the lifted dart:

As pity pleaded for his vanquished prize,

Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies,

And furious thus: "O impotent of mind!

Shall these, shall these, Atrides' mercy find?

Well hast thou known proud Troy's perfidious land,

And well her natives merit at thy hand!

Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age,

Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage: