Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/298

296 Oh! would to all the immortal Powers above,

Apollo, Pallas, and almighty Jove,

That not one Trojan might be left alive,

And not a Greek of all the race survive;

Might only we the vast destruction shun,

And only we destroy the accursed town!"

Such conference held the chiefs, while, on the strand,

Great Jove with conquest crowned the Trojan band.

Ajax no more the sounding storm sustained,

So thick the darts an iron tempest rained:

On his tired arm the weighty buckler hung;

His hollow helm with falling javelins rung:

His breath, in quick short pantings, comes and goes,

And painful sweat from all his members flows.

Spent and o'erpowered, he barely breathes at most;

Yet scarce an army stirs him from his post:

Dangers on dangers all around him grow,

And toil to toil, and woe succeeds to woe.

Say, Muses, throned above the starry frame,

How first the navy blazed with Trojan flame?

Stern Hector waved his sword, and, standing near

Where furious Ajax plied his ashen spear,

Full on the lance a stroke so justly sped,

That the broad faulchion lopped its brazen head:

His pointless spear the warrior shakes in vain;

The brazen head falls sounding on the plain.

Great Ajax saw, and owned the hand divine,

Confessing Jove, and trembling at the sign;

Warned he retreats. Then swift from all sides pour

The hissing brands; thick streams the fiery shower;

O'er the high stern the curling volumes rise,

And sheets of rolling smoke involve the skies.

Divine Achilles viewed the rising flames,

And smote his thigh, and thus aloud exclaims:

"Arm, arm, Patroclus! lo, the blaze aspires!

The glowing ocean reddens with the fires;

Arm, ere our vessels catch the spreading flame;

Arm, ere the Grecians be no more a name;

I haste to bring the troops." The hero said;

The friend with ardour and with joy obeyed.

He cased his limbs in brass; and first around

His manly legs with silver buckles bound

The clasping greaves: then to his breast applies

The flaming cuirass, of a thousand dyes;

Emblazed with studs of gold, his faulchion shone

In the rich belt, as in a starry zone.

Achilles' shield his ample shoulders spread,

Achilles' helmet nodded o'er his head.

Adorned in all his terrible array,