Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/285

459—507 He wrings his hands, he beats his manly breast.

"Though yet thy state require redress," he cries,

"Depart I must: what horrors strike my eyes!

Charged with Achilles' high commands I go,

A mournful witness of this scene of woe:

I haste to urge him, by his country's care,

To rise in arms, and shine again in war.

Perhaps some favouring god his soul may bend:

The voice is powerful of a faithful friend"

He spoke; and, speaking, swifter than the wind

Sprung from the tent, and left the war behind.

The embodied Greeks the fierce attack sustain,

But strive, though numerous, to repulse in vain:

Nor could the Trojans, through that firm array,

Force, to the fleet and tents, the impervious way.

As when a shipwright, with Palladian art,

Smoothes the rough wood, and levels every part:

With equal hand he guides his whole design

By the just rule, and the directing line:

The martial leaders, with like skill and care,

Preserved their line, and equal kept the war.

Brave deeds of arms through all the ranks were tried,

And every ship sustained an equal tide.

At one proud bark, high-towering o'er the fleet,

Ajax the great and godlike Hector meet:

For one bright prize the matchless chiefs contend,

Nor this the ships can fire, nor that defend;

One kept the shore, and one the vessel trod;

That fixed as fate, this acted by a god.

The son of Clytius in his daring hand,

The deck approaching, shakes a flaming brand;

But pierced by Telamon's huge lance expires;

Thundering he falls, and drops the extinguished fires.

Great Hector viewed him with a sad survey,

As stretched in dust before the stern he lay.

"Oh! all of Trojan, all of Lycian race!

Stand to your arms, maintain this arduous space.

Lo! where the son of royal Glytius lies,

Ah save his arms, secure his obsequies!"

This said, his eager javelin sought the foe:

But Ajax shunned the meditated blow.

Not vainly yet the forceful lance was thrown;

It stretched in dust unhappy Lycophron:

An exile long, sustained at Ajax' board,

A faithful servant to a foreign lord;

In peace, in war, for ever at his side,

Near his loved master, as he lived, he died.

From the high poop he tumbles on the sand,

And lies, a lifeless load, along the land.