Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/171

21—56 With more than vulgar grief he stood oppressed;

Words, mixed with sighs, thus bursting from his breast:

"Ye sons of Greece! partake your leader's care,

Fellows in arms, and princes of the war!

Of partial Jove too justly we complain,

And heavenly oracles believed in vain.

A safe return was promised to our toils,

With conquest honoured, and enriched with spoils:

Now shameful flight alone can save the host,

Our wealth, our people, and our glory, lost.

So Jove decrees, almighty lord of all!

Jove, at whose nod whole empires rise or fall,

Who shakes the feeble props of human trust,

And towers and armies humbles to the dust.

Haste then, for ever quit these fatal fields,

Haste to the joys our native country yields;

Spread all your canvas, all your oars employ,

Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy."

He said; deep silence held the Grecian band;

Silent, unmoved, in dire dismay they stand,

A pensive scene! till Tydeus' warlike son

Rolled on the king his eyes, and thus begun:

"When kings advise us to renounce our fame,

First let him speak, who first has suffered shame.

If I oppose thee, prince! thy wrath withhold;

The laws of council bid my tongue be bold.

Thou first, and thou alone, in fields of fight,

Durst brand my courage, and defame my might;

Nor from a friend the unkind reproach appeared,

The Greeks stood witness, all our army heard.

The gods, O chief! from whom our honours spring,

The gods have made thee but by halves a king:

They gave thee sceptres and a wide command,

They gave dominion o'er the seas and land;

The noblest power that might the world control

They gave thee not—a brave and virtuous soul.