Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/333

757—805 He was, alas! but fate decreed his end,

In death a hero, as in life a friend!"

So parts the chief; from rank to rank he flew,

And round on all sides sent his piercing view.

As the bold bird, endued with sharpest eye

Of all that wing the mid aërial sky,

The sacred eagle, from his walks above

Looks down, and sees the distant thicket move;

Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare,

Snatches his life amid the clouds of air:

Not with less quickness his exerted sight

Passed this and that way, through the ranks of fight;

Till on the left the chief he sought, he found,

Cheering his men, and spreading deaths around.

To him the king: "Beloved of Jove, draw near,

For sadder tidings never touched thy ear.

Thy eyes have witnessed what a fatal turn!

How Ilion triumphs, and the Achaians mourn.

This is not all: Patroclus on the shore

Now pale and dead, shall succour Greece no more.

Fly to the fleet, this instant fly, and tell

The sad Achilles how his loved one fell:

He too may haste the naked corse to gain;

The arms are Hector's, who despoiled the slain."

The youthful warrior heard with silent woe,

From his fair eyes the tears began to flow;

Big with the mighty grief, he strove to say

What sorrow dictates, but no word found way.

To brave Laodocus his arms he flung,

Who, near him wheeling, drove his steeds along;

Then ran, the mournful message to impart,

With tearful eyes, and with dejected heart.

Swift fled the youth: nor Menelaüs stands,

Though sore distressed, to aid the Pylian bands;

But bids bold Thrasymede those troops sustain;

Himself returns to his Patroclus slain.

"Gone is Antilochus," the hero said,

"But hope not, warriors, for Achilles' aid:

Though fierce his rage, unbounded be his woe,

Unarmed he fights not with the Trojan foe.

'Tis in our hands alone our hopes remain,

'Tis our own vigour must the dead regain;

And save ourselves, while with impetuous hate

Troy pours along, and this way rolls our fate."

"'Tis well," said Ajax; "be it then thy care,

With Merion's aid, the weighty corse to rear;

Myself and my bold brother will sustain

The shock of Hector and his charging train:

Nor fear we armies, fighting side by side;