Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/245

312—360 But ours, the bravest have confessed in fight."

This said, he rushes where the combat burns;

Swift to his tent the Cretan king returns.

From thence, two javelins glittering in his hand,

And clad in arms that lightened all the strand,

Fierce on the foe the impetuous hero drove;

Like lightning bursting from the arm of Jove,

Which to pale man the wrath of heaven declares,

Or terrifies the offending world with wars;

In streamy sparkles, kindling all the skies,

From pole to pole the trail of glory flies.

Thus his bright armour o'er the dazzled throng

Gleamed dreadful as the monarch flashed along.

Him, near his tent, Meriones attends;

Whom thus he questions: "Ever best of friends!

O say, in every art of battle skilled,

What holds thy courage from so brave a field?

On some important message art thou bound,

Or bleeds my friend by some unhappy wound?

Inglorious here, my soul abhors to stay,

And glows with prospects of the approaching day."

"O prince!" Meriones replies, "whose care

Leads forth the embattled sons of Crete to war;

This speaks my grief: this headless lance I wield;

The rest lies rooted in a Trojan shield."

To whom the Cretan: "Enter, and receive

The wanted weapons; those my tent can give;

Spears I have store, and Trojan lances all,

That shed a lustre round the illumined wall.

Though I, disdainful of the distant war,

Nor trust the dart, nor aim the uncertain spear,

Yet hand to hand I fight, and spoil the slain;

And thence these trophies, and these arms I gain.

Enter, and see on heaps the helmets rolled,

And high-hung spears, and shields that flame with gold."

"Nor vain," said Merion, "are our martial toils;

We too can boast of no ignoble spoils,

But those my ship contains, whence distant far

fight conspicuous in the van of war.

What need I more? If any Greek there be

Who knows not Merion, I appeal to thee."

To this Idomeneus: "The fields of fight

Have proved thy valour, and unconquered might;

And were some ambush for the foes designed,

E'en there thy courage would not lag behind.

In that sharp service, singled from the rest,

The fear of each, or valour, stands confessed.

No force, no firmness, the pale coward shews;

He shifts his place; his colour comes and goes;