Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/249

508—556 Remain the prize of Nestor's youthful son.

Stabbed at the sight, Deïphobus drew nigh,

And made, with force, the vengeful weapon fly:

The Cretan saw; and, stooping, caused to glance,

From his slope shield, the disappointed lance.

Beneath the spacious targe, a blazing round,

Thick with bull-hides, and brazen orbits bound,

On his raised arm by two strong braces stayed,

He lay collected in defensive shade;

O'er his safe head the javelin idly sung,

And on the tinkling verge more faintly rung.

E'en then, the spear the vigorous arm confessed,

And pierced, obliquely, king Hypsenor's breast;

Warmed in his liver, to the ground it bore

The chief, his people's guardian now no more!

"Not unattended," the proud Trojan cries,

"Nor unrevenged, lamented Asius lies:

For thee, though hell's black portals stand displayed,

This mate shall joy thy melancholy shade."

Heart-piercing anguish, at the haughty boast,

Touched every Greek, but Nestor's son the most:

Grieved as he was, his pious arms attend,

And his broad buckler shields his slaughtered friend,

Till sad Mecistheus and Alastor bore

His honoured body to the tented shore.

Nor yet from fight Idomeneus withdraws,

Resolved to perish in his country's cause,

Or find some foe, whom heaven and he shall doom

To wail his fate in death's eternal gloom.

He sees Alcathoüs in the front aspire:

Great Æsyetes was the hero's sire:

His spouse Hippodamé, divinely fair,

Anchises' eldest hope, and darling care:

Who charmed her parent's and her husband's heart

With beauty, sense, and every work of art:

He, once, of Ilion's youth the loveliest boy,

The fairest she, of all the fair of Troy,

By Neptune now the hapless hero dies,

Who covers with a cloud those beauteous eyes,

And fetters every limb; yet bent to meet

His fate, he stands; nor shuns the lance of Crete.

Fixed as some column, or deep-rooted oak,

While the winds sleep, his breast received the stroke;

Before the ponderous stroke his corselet yields,

Long used to ward the death in fighting fields.

The riven armour sends a jarring sound:

His labouring heart heaves with so strong a bound,

The long lance shakes, and vibrates in the wound:

Fast flowing from its source, as prone he lay,