Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/161

304—349 And fierce on Troy with double fury drive.

Tydides first, of all the Grecian force,

O'er the broad ditch impelled his foaming horse,

Pierced the deep ranks, their strongest battle tore,

And dyed his javelin red with Trojan gore.

Young Agelaüs—Phradmon was his sire—

With flying coursers shunned his dreadful ire:

Struck through the back the Phrygian fell oppressed;

The dart drove on, and issued at his breast:

Headlong he quits the car; his arms resound;

His ponderous buckler thunders on the ground.

Forth rush a tide of Greeks, the passage freed;

The Atridæ first, the Ajaces next succeed:

Meriones, like Mars in arms renowned.

And godlike Idomen, now passed the mound;

Evæmon's son next issues to the foe,

And last, young Teucer with his bended bow.

Secure behind the Telamonian shield

The skilful archer wide surveyed the field,

With every shaft some hostile victim slew,

Then close beneath the seven-fold orb withdrew:

The conscious infant so, when fear alarms,

Retires for safety to the mother's arms.

Thus Ajax guards his brother in the field,

Moves as he moves, and turns the shining shield.

Who first by Teucer's mortal arrows bled?

Orsilochus; then fell Ormenus dead:

The godlike Lycophon next pressed the plain,

With Chromius, Dætor, Ophelestes slain:

Bold Hamopaön breathless sunk to ground;

The bloody pile great Melanippus crowned,

Heaps fell on heaps, sad trophies of his art,

A Trojan ghost attending every dart.

Great Agamemnon views with joyful eye

The ranks grow thinner as his arrows fly:

"Oh youth for ever dear!" the monarch cried,

"Thus, always thus, thy early worth be tried;

Thy brave example shall retrieve our host,

Thy country's saviour, and thy father's boast!

Sprung from an alien's bed thy sire to grace,

The vigorous offspring of a stolen embrace.

Proud of his boy, he owned the generous flame,

And the brave son repays his cares with fame.

Now hear a monarch's vow: If heaven's high powers

Give me to raze Troy's long-defended towers;

Whatever treasures Greece for me design,