Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/392

390 The chief incensed: "Too partial god of day!

To check my conquest in the middle way:

How few in Ilion else had refuge found!

What gasping numbers now had bit the ground!

Thou robb'st me of a glory justly mine,

Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine:

Mean fame, alas! for one of heavenly strain,

To cheat a mortal who repines in vain."

Then to the city, terrible and strong,

With high and haughty steps he towered along:

So the proud courser, victor of the prize,

To the near goal with double ardour flies.

Him, as he blazing shot across the field,

The careful eyes of Priam first beheld:

Not half so dreadful rises to the sight,

Through the thick gloom of some tempestuous night,

Orion's dog, the year when autumn weighs,

And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays;

Terrific glory! for his burning breath

Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death.

So flamed his fiery mail. Then wept the sage:

He strikes his reverend head, now white with age;

He lifts his withered arms; obtests the skies;

He calls his much-loved son with feeble cries:

The son, resolved Achilles' force to dare,

Full at the Scæan gate expects the war:

While the sad father on the rampart stands,

And thus adjures him with extended hands:

"Ah, stay not, stay not! guardless and alone;

Hector, my loved, my dearest, bravest son!

Methinks already I behold thee slain,

And stretched beneath that fury of the plain.

Implacable Achilles! might'st thou be

To all the gods no dearer than to me!

Thee, vultures wild should scatter round the shore,

And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore!

How many valiant sons I late enjoyed,

Valiant in vain! by thy cursed arm destroyed:

Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles

To shameful bondage and unworthy toils.

Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore,

Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore

And loved Lycaon; now perhaps no more!

Oh! if in yonder hostile camp they live,

What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give!

Their grandsire's wealth, by right of birth their own,

Consigned his daughter with Lelegia's throne:

But if, which heaven forbid, already lost,

All pale they wander on the Stygian coast,