Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/132

130 Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race.

Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old,

Œneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold;

Our ancient seat his honoured presence graced,

Where twenty days in genial rites he passed.

The parting heroes mutual presents left;

A golden goblet was thy grandsire's gift;

Œneus a belt of matchless work bestowed,

That rich with Tynan dye refulgent glowed.

This from his pledge I learned, which, safely stored

Among my treasures, still adorns my board:

For Tydeus left me young, when Thebé's wall

Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall.

Mindful of this, in friendship let us join;

If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline,

My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine.

Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield

In the full harvest of yon ample field;

Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore;

But thou and Diomed be foes no more.

Now change we arms, and prove to either host

We guard the friendship of the line we boast."

Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight,

Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight;

Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resigned;

Jove warmed his bosom and enlarged his mind;

For Diomed's brass arms, of mean device,

For which nine oxen paid, a vulgar price,

He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought;

A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought.

Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state,

Great Hector, entered at the Scæan gate.

Beneath the beech-trees' consecrated shades,

The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids

Around him flocked, all pressed with pious care

For husbands, brothers, sons, engaged in war.

He bids the train in long procession go,

And seek the gods, to avert the impending woe.

And now to Priam's stately courts he came,

Raised on arched columns of stupendous frame;

O'er these a range of marble structure runs;

The rich pavilions of his fifty sons,

In fifty chambers lodged: and rooms of state

Opposed to those, where Priam's daughters sat:

Twelve domes for them and their loved spouses shone,

Of equal beauty, and of polished stone.

Hither great Hector passed, nor passed unseen

Of royal Hecuba, his mother queen.

With her Laodicè, whose beauteous face