Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/352

350 He turns the radiant gift, and feeds his mind

On all the immortal artist had designed.

"Goddess," he cried, "these glorious arms, that shine

With matchless art, confess the hand divine.

Now to the bloody battle let me bend:

But ah I the relics of my slaughtered friend!

In those wide wounds through which his spirit fled,

Shall flies and worms obscene pollute the dead?"

"That unavailing care be laid aside"

The azure goddess to her son replied;

"Whole years untouched, uninjured shall remain,

Fresh as in life, the carcass of the slain.

But go, Achilles, as affairs require,

Before the Grecian peers renounce thine ire;

Then uncontrolled in boundless war engage,

And heaven with strength supply the mighty rage!"

Then in the nostrils of the slain she poured

Nectareous drops, and rich ambrosia showered

O'er all the corse : the flies forbid their prey,

Untouched it rests, and sacred from decay.

Achilles to the strand obedient went;

The shores resounded with the voice he sent.

The heroes heard, and all the naval train

That tend the ships, or guide them o'er the main,

Alarmed, transported, at the well-known sound,

Frequent and full, the great assembly crowned;

Studious to see that terror of the plain,

Long lost to battle, shine in arms again.

Tydides and Ulysses first appear,

Lame with their wounds, and leaning on the spear:

These on the sacred seats of council placed,

The king of men, Atrides, came the last,

He too sore wounded by Agenor's son.

Achilles, rising in the midst, begun:

"Oh monarch! better far had been the fate

Of thee, of me, of all the Grecian state,

If, ere the day when, by mad passion swayed,

Rash we contended for the black-eyed maid,

Preventing Dian had despatched her dart,

And shot the shining mischief to the heart

Then many a hero had not pressed the shore,

Nor Troy's glad fields been fattened with our gore:

Long, long shall Greece the woes we caused bewail,

And sad posterity repeat the tale.

But this, no more the subject of debate,

Is past, forgotten, and resigned to fate:

Why should, alas I a mortal man, as I,

Burn with a fury that can never die?

Here, then, my anger ends: let war succeed,