Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/341

266—314 And steeds and men lie mingled on the ground.

Aghast they see the living lightnings play,

And turn their eyeballs from the flashing ray.

Thrice from the trench his dreadful voice he raised;

And thrice they fled, confounded and amazed.

Twelve in the tumult wedged, untimely rushed

On their own spears, by their own chariots crushed;

While, shielded from the darts, the Greeks obtain

The long-contended carcass of the slain.

A lofty bier the breathless warrior bears:

Around, his sad companions melt in tears.

But chief Achilles, bending down his head,

Pours unavailing sorrows o'er the dead;

Whom late, triumphant with his steeds and car,

He sent refulgent to the field of war:

Unhappy change! now senseless, pale, he found,

Stretched forth, and gashed with many a gaping wound.

Meantime, unwearied with his heavenly way,

In ocean's waves the unwilling light of day

Quenched his red orb, at Juno's high command,

And from their labours eased the Achaian band.

The frighted Trojans, panting from the war,

Their steeds unharnessed from the weary car,

A sudden council called: each chief appeared

In haste, and standing; for to sit they feared.

'Twas now no season for prolonged debate;

They saw Achilles, and in him their fate.

Silent they stood: Polydamas at last,

Skilled to discern the future by the past,

The son of Panthus, thus expressed his fears:

The friend of Hector, and of equal years:

The self-same night to both a being gave,

One wise in council, one in action brave:

"In free debate, my friends, your sentence speak:

For me, I move, before the morning break,

To raise our camp : too dangerous here our post,

Far from Troy walls, and on a naked coast.

I deemed not Greece so dreadful, while engaged

In mutual feuds her king and hero raged;

Then, while we hoped our armies might prevail,

We boldly camped beside a thousand sail.

I dread Pelides now: his rage of mind

Not long continues to the shores confined,

Nor to the fields, where long in equal fray

Contending nations won and lost the day;

For Troy, for Troy, shall henceforth be the strife,

And the hard contest, not for fame, but life.

Haste then to Ilion, while the favouring night

Detains these terrors, keeps that arm from fight;