Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/384

382 Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys;

Along the margin winds the running blaze;

The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn,

The flowery lotos and the tamarisk burn,

Broad elm, and cypress rising in a spire;

The watery willows hiss before the fire.

Now glow the waves, the fishes pant for breath:

The eels lie twisting in the pangs of death:

Now flounce aloft, now dive the scaly fry,

Or gasping, turn their bellies to the sky.

At length the river reared his languid head,

And thus, short panting, to the god he said:

"O Vulcan 1 oh, what power resists thy might?

I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight

I yield—let Ilion fall; if fate decree

Ah, bend no more thy fiery arms on me!"

He ceased; while, conflagration blazing round,

The bubbling waters yield a hissing sound.

As when the flames beneath a caldron rise,

To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice,

Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires

The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires:

So boils the imprisoned flood, forbid to flow,

And, choked with vapours, feels his bottom glow.

To Juno then, imperial queen of air,

The burning river sends his earnest prayer:

"Ah why, Saturnia! must thy son engage

Me, only me, with all his wasteful rage?

On other gods his dreadful arm employ,

For mightier gods assert the cause of Troy.

Submissive I desist, if thou command,

But ah! withdraw this all-destroying hand.

Hear then my solemn oath, to yield to fate

Unaided Ilion, and her destined state,

Till Greece shall gird her with destructive flame,

And in one ruin sink the Trojan name."

His warm entreaty touched Saturnia's ear:

She bade the ignipotent his rage forbear,

Recall the flame, nor in a mortal cause

Infest a god: the obedient flame withdraws:

Again, the branching streams begin to spread,

And soft re-murmur in their wonted bed.

While these by Juno's will the strife resign,

The warring gods in fierce contention join:

Rekindling rage each heavenly breast alarms;

With horrid clangour shock the ethereal arms:

Heaven in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound;

And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.

Jove, as his soort, the dreadful scene descries,