Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/156

154 Troy roused as soon; for on this dreadful day

The fate of fathers, wives, and infants lay.

The gates unfolding pour forth all their train;

Squadrons on squadrons cloud the dusky plain:

Men, steeds, and chariots shake the trembling ground,

The tumult thickens, and the skies resound.

And now with shouts the shocking armies closed,

To lances lances, shields to shields opposed;

Host against host with shadowy legions drew,

The sounding darts in iron tempests flew;

Victors and vanquished join promiscuous cries,

Triumphant shouts and dying groans arise;

With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed,

And slaughtered heroes swell the dreadful tide.

Long as the morning beams, increasing bright,

O'er heaven's clear azure spread the sacred light,

Commutual death the fate of war confounds,

Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds.

But when the sun the height of heaven ascends,

The sire of gods his golden scales suspends,

With equal hand; in these explored the fate

Of Greece and Troy, and poised the mighty weight.

Pressed with its load, the Grecian balance lies

Low sunk on earth, the Trojan strikes the skies.

Then Jove from Ida's top his horrors spreads;

The clouds burst dreadful o'er the Grecian heads;

Thick lightnings flash; the muttering thunder rolls;

Their strength he withers, and unmans their souls.

Before his wrath the trembling hosts retire,

The gods in terrors, and the skies on fire.

Nor great Idomeneus that sight could bear,

Nor each stern Ajax, thunderbolts of war;

Nor he, the king of men, the alarm sustained;

Nestor alone amidst the storm remained.

Unwilling he remained, for Paris' dart

Had pierced his courser in a mortal part;

Fixed in the forehead where the springing mane

Curled o'er the brow, it stung him to the brain;

Mad with his anguish, he begins to rear,

Paw with his hoofs aloft, and lash the air.

Scarce had his faulchion cut the reins, and freed

The incumbent chariot from the dying steed,

When dreadful Hector, thundering through the war,

Poured to the tumult on his whirling car.

That day had stretched beneath his matchless hand

The hoary monarch of the Pylian band,

But Diomed beheld; from forth the crowd

He rushed, and on Ulysses called aloud:

"Whither, oh whither does Ulysses run?