Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/199

459—507 Or art some wretch by hopes of plunder led

Through heaps of carnage to despoil the dead?"

Then thus pale Dolon with a fearful look:

Still as he spoke his limbs with horror shook:

"Hither I came, by Hector's words deceived:

Much did he promise, rashly I believed:

No less a bribe than great Achilles' car,

And those swift steeds that sweep the ranks of war,

Urged me, unwilling, this attempt to make;

To learn what counsels, what resolves, you take:

If now, subdued, you fix your hopes on flight,

And, tired with toils, neglect the watch of night?"

"Bold was thy aim, and glorious was the prize,"

Ulysses, with a scornful smile, replies;

"Far other rulers those proud steeds demand,

And scorn the guidance of a vulgar hand;

E'en great Achilles scarce their rage can tame,

Achilles sprung from an immortal dame.

But say, be faithful, and the truth recite:

Where lies encamped the Trojan chief to-night?

Where stand his coursers? in what quarter sleep

Their other princes? tell what watch they keep.

Say, since this conquest, what their counsels are;

Or here to combat, from their city far,

Or back to Ilion's walls transfer the war?"

Ulysses thus, and thus Eumedes' son:

"What Dolon knows, his faithful tongue shall own.

Hector, the peers assembling in his tent,

A council holds at Ilus' monument.

No certain guards the nightly watch partake:

Where'er yon fires ascend, the Trojans wake:

Anxious for Troy, the guard the natives keep:

Safe in their cares, the auxiliar forces sleep,

Whose wives and infants, from the danger far,

Discharge their souls of half the fears of war."

"Then sleep these aids among the Trojan train,"

Inquired the chief, "or scattered o'er the plain?"

To whom the spy: "Their powers they thus dispose:

The Pæons, dreadful with their bended bows,

The Carians, Gaucons, the Pelasgian host,

And Leleges, encamp along the coast.

Not distant far, lie higher on the land

The Lycian, Mysian, and Mæonian band,

And Phrygia's horse, by Thymbra's ancient wall;

The Thracians utmost, and apart from all.

These Troy but lately to her succour won,

Led on by Rhesus, great Eioneus' son:

I saw his coursers in proud triumph go,

Swift as the wind, and white as winter snow: