Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/382

380 And still indignant bounds above the waves.

Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil;

Washed from beneath him slides the slimy soil;

When thus, his eyes on heaven's expansion thrown,

Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan:

"Is there no god Achilles to befriend,

No power to avert his miserable end?

Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date,

And make my future life the sport of fate:

Of all heaven's oracles believed in vain,

But most of Thetis, must her son complain:

By Phoebus' darts she prophesied my fall,

In glorious arms before the Trojan wall.

Oh! had I died in fields of battle warm,

Stretched like a hero, by a hero's arm;

Might Hector's spear this dauntless bosom rend,

And my swift soul o'ertake my slaughtered friend!

Ah no! Achilles meets a shameful fate,

Oh how unworthy of the brave and great!

Like some vile swain, whom, on a rainy day,

Crossing a ford, the torrent sweeps away,

An unregarded carcass to the sea."

Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,

And thus in human form address the chief:

The Power of ocean first: "Forbear thy fear,

O son of Peleus! lo, thy gods appear!

Behold I from Jove descending to thy aid,

Propitious Neptune, and the blue-eyed Maid.

Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave:

'Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.

But thou the counsel heaven suggests attend;

Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,

Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all

Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:

Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,

And Hector's blood shall smoke upon thy lance;

Thine is the glory doomed." Thus spake the gods:

Then swift ascended to the bright abodes.

Stung with new ardour, thus by heaven impelled,

He springs impetuous, and invades the field:

O'er all the expanded plain the waters spread;

Heaved on the bounding billows danced the dead,

Floating 'midst scattered arms: while casques of gold,

And turned-up bucklers, glittered as they rolled.

High o'er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds,

He wades, and mounts; the parted wave resounds.

Now a whole river stops the hero's course,

While Pallas fills him with immortal force.

With equal rage indignant Xanthus roars,