Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/262

260 Dire disarray! the tumult of the fight,

The wall in ruins, and the Greeks in flight.

As when old Ocean's silent surface sleeps,

The waves just heaving on the purple deeps,

While yet the expected tempest hangs on high,

Weighs down the cloud, and blackens in the sky,

The mass of waters will no wind obey;

Jove sends one gust, and bids them roll away.

While wavering counsels thus his mind engage,

Fluctuates in doubtful thought the Pylian sage,

To join the host, or to the general haste;

Debating long, he fixes on the last:

Yet, as he moves, the fight his bosom warms;

The field rings dreadful with the clang of arms;

The gleaming faulchions flash, the javelins fly;

Blows echo blows, and all or kill or die.

Him, in his march, the wounded princes meet,

By tardy steps ascending from the fleet,

The king of men, Ulysses the divine,

And who to Tydeus owes his noble line.

Their ships at distance from the battle stand,

In lines advanced along the shelving strand;

Whose bay the fleet unable to contain,

At length, beside the margin of the main,

Rank above rank, the crowded ships they moor:

Who landed first, lay highest on the shore.

Supported on their spears they took their way,

Unfit to fight, but anxious for the day.

Nestor's approach alarmed each Grecian breast,

Whom thus the general of the host addressed:

"O grace and glory of the Achaian name!

What drives thee, Nestor, from the field of fame?

Shall then proud Hector see his boast fulfilled,

Our fleets in ashes, and our heroes killed?

Such was his threat, ah! now too soon made good,

On many a Grecian bosom writ in blood.

Is every heart inflamed with equal rage

Against your king, nor will one chief engage?

And have I lived to see with mournful eyes

In every Greek a new Achilles rise?"

Gerenian Nestor then: "So fate has willed,

And all-confirming time has fate fulfilled;

Not he that thunders from the aërial bower,

Not Jove himself, upon the past has power.

The wall, our late inviolable bound,

And best defence, lies smoking on the ground:

E'en to the ships their conquering arms extend,

And groans of slaughtered Greeks to heaven ascend.

On speedy measures then employ your thought;