Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/212

210 Sad mothers of unutterable woes!

Stung with the smart, all panting with the pain,

He mounts the car, and gives his squire the rein:

Then with a voice which fury made more strong,

And pain augmented, thus exhorts the throng:

"O friends! O Greeks! assert your honours won;

Proceed, and finish what this arm begun:

Lo! angry Jove forbids your chief to stay,

And envies half the glories of the day."

He said, the driver whirls his lengthful thong;

The horses fly, the chariot smokes along:

Clouds from their nostrils the fierce coursers blow,

And from their sides the foam descends in snow;

Shot through the battle in a moment's space,

The wounded monarch at his tent they place.

No sooner Hector saw the king retired,

But thus his Trojans and his aids he fired:

"Hear, all ye Dardan, all ye Lycian race!

Famed in close fight, and dreadful face to face;

Now call to mind your ancient trophies won,

Your great forefathers' virtues, and your own.

Behold, the general flies, deserts his powers!

Lo, Jove himself declares the conquest ours!

Now on yon ranks impel your foaming steeds;

And, sure of glory, dare immortal deeds."

With words like these the fiery chief alarms

His fainting host, and every bosom warms.

As the bold hunter cheers his hounds to tear

The brindled lion, or the tusky bear,

With voice and hand provokes their doubting heart,

And springs the foremost with his lifted dart:

So godlike Hector prompts his troops to dare,

Nor prompts alone, but leads himself the war.

On the black body of the foe he pours;

As from the cloud's deep bosom, swelled with showers,

A sudden storm the purple ocean sweeps,

Drives the wild waves, and tosses all the deeps.

Say, Muse! when Jove the Trojan's glory crowned,

Beneath his arm what heroes bit the ground?

Assæus, Dolops, and Autonoüs died,

Opites next was added to their side,

Then brave Hipponoüs, famed in many a fight,

Opheltius, Orus, sunk to endless night,

Æsymnus, Agelaüs; all chiefs of name:

The rest were vulgar deaths, unknown to fame.

As when a western whirlwind, charged with storms,

Dispels the gathered clouds that Notus forms;

The gust continued, violent, and strong,

Rolls sable clouds in heaps on heaps along;