Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/231

223—271 Iämenus, Orestes, Menon, bled;

And round him rose a monument of dead.

Meantime, the bravest of the Trojan crew

Bold Hector and Polydamas pursue;

Fierce with impatience on the works to fall,

And wrap in rolling flames the fleet and wall.

These on the farther bank now stood and gazed,

By heaven alarmed, by prodigies amazed:

A signal omen stopped the passing host,

Their martial fury in their wonder lost,

Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies;

A bleeding serpent of enormous size

His talons trussed; alive, and curling round,

He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound:

Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey,

In airy circle wings his painful way,

Floats on the winds, and rends the heaven with cries;

Amidst the host the fallen serpent lies:

They, pale with terror, mark its spires unrolled,

And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold.

Then first Polydamas the silence broke,

Long weighed the signal, and to Hector spoke:

"How oft, my brother, thy reproach I bear,

For words well meant, and sentiments sincere?

True to those counsels which I judge the best,

I tell the faithful dictates of my breast.

To speak his thoughts is every freeman's right,

In peace and war, in council and in fight;

And all I move, deferring to thy sway,

But tends to raise that power which I obey.

Then hear my words, nor may my words be vain;

Seek not, this day, the Grecian ships to gain,

For sure to warn us Jove his omen sent,

And thus my mind explains its clear event.

The victor eagle, whose sinister flight

Retards our host, and fills our hearts with fright,

Dismissed his conquest in the middle skies,

Allowed to seize, but not possess, the prize;

Thus, though we gird with fires the Grecian fleet,

Though these proud bulwarks tumble at our feet,

Toils unforeseen, and fiercer, are decreed;

More woes shall follow, and more heroes bleed.

So bodes my soul, and bids me thus advise;

For thus a skilful seer would read the skies."

To him then Hector with disdain returned:

Fierce as he spoke, his eyes with fury burned:

"Are these the faithful counsels of thy tongue?

Thy will is partial, not thy reason wrong:

Or if the purpose of thy heart thou vent,