Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/386

384 So dread, so fierce, as Venus is to me;

Then from the lowest stone shall Troy be moved:"

Thus she, and Juno with a smile approved.

Meantime, to mix in more than mortal fight,

The god of ocean dares the god of light.

"What sloth hath seized us, when the fields around

Ring with conflicting powers, and heaven returns the sound?

Shall, ignominious, we with shame retire,

No deed performed, to our Olympian sire?

Come, prove thy arm! for first the war to wage,

Suits not my greatness, or superior age;

Rash as thou art, to prop the Trojan throne,

Forgetful of my wrongs, and of thy own,

And guard the race of proud Laomedon!

Hast thou forgot, how, at the monarch's prayer,

We shared the lengthened labours of a year?

Troy's walls I raised, for such were Jove's commands,

And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands;

Thy task it was to feed the bellowing droves

Along fair Ida's vales, and pendent groves.

But when the circling seasons in their train

Brought back the grateful day that crowned our pain,

With menace stern the fraudful king defied

Our latent godhead, and the prize denied:

Mad as he was, he threatened servile bands,

And doomed us exiles far in barbarous lands.

Incensed, we heavenward fled with swiftest wing,

And destined vengeance on the perjured king.

Dost thou, for this, afford proud Ilion grace,

And not, like us, infest the faithless race?

Like us, their present, future sons destroy,

And from its deep foundations heave their Troy?"

Apollo thus: "To combat for mankind

Ill suits the wisdom of celestial mind:

For what is man? Calamitous by birth,

They owe their life and nourishment to earth:

Like yearly leaves, that now, with beauty crowned,

Smile on the sun; now wither on the ground;

To their own hands commit the frantic scene,

Nor mix immortals in a cause so mean."

Then turns his face, far beaming heavenly fires,

And from the senior power submiss retires;

Him, thus retreating, Artemis upbraids,

The quivered huntress of the sylvan shades:

"And is it thus the youthful Phœbus flies,

And yields to ocean's hoary sire the prize?

How vain that martial pomp, and dreadful show

Of pointed arrows, and the silver bow!