Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/342

340 If but the morrow's sun behold us here,

That arm, those terrors, we shall feel, not fear;

And hearts that now disdain, shall leap with joy,

If heaven permits them then to enter Troy.

Let not my fatal prophecy be true,

Nor what I tremble but to think, ensue.

Whatever be our fate, yet let us try

What force of thought and reason can supply;

Let us on counsel for our guard depend;

The town, her gates and bulwarks shall defend.

When morning dawns, our well-appointed powers,

Arrayed in arms, shall line the lofty towers.

Let the fierce hero then, when fury calls,

Vent his mad vengeance on our rocky walls,

Or fetch a thousand circles round the plain,

Till his spent coursers seek the fleet again:

So may his rage be tired, and laboured down;

And dogs shall tear him ere he sack the town."

"Return?" said Hector, fired with stern disdain,

"What! coop whole armies in our walls again?

Was't not enough, ye valiant warriors, say,

Nine years imprisoned in those towers ye lay?

Wide o'er the world was Ilion famed of old

For brass exhaustless, and for mines of gold;

But while inglorious in her walls we stayed,

Sunk were her treasures, and her stores decayed;

The Phrygians now her scattered spoils enjoy,

And proud Mseonia wastes the fruits of Troy.

Great Jove at length my arms to conquest calls,

And shuts the Grecians in their wooden walls:

Barest thou dispirit whom the gods incite?

Flies any Trojan? I shall stop his flight.

To better counsel then attention lend;

Take due refreshment, and the watch attend.

If there be one whose riches cost him care,

Forth let him bring them for the troops to share;

'Tis better generously bestowed on those,

Then left the plunder of our country's foes.

Soon as the morn the purple orient warms,

Fierce on yon navy will we pour our arms.

If great Achilles rise in all his might,

His be the danger: I shall stand the fight.

Honour, ye gods! or let me gain, or give ;

And live he glorious, whosoe'er shall live!

Mars is our common lord, alike to all:

And oft the victor triumphs, but to fall."

The shouting host in loud applauses joined:

So Pallas robbed the many of their mind;

To their own sense condemned, and left to choose