Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/395

169—217 No season now for calm, familiar talk,

Like youths and maidens in an evening walk:

War is our business, but to whom is given

To die or triumph, that determine heaven!"

Thus pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh:

His dreadful plumage nodded from on high;

The Pelian javelin, in his better hand,

Shot trembling rays that glittered o'er the land;

And on his breast the beamy splendours shone

Like Jove's own lightning, or the rising sun.

As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise,

Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies:

He leaves the gates, he leaves the walls behind;

Achilles follows like the winged wind.

Thus at the panting dove the falcon flies;

The swiftest racer of the liquid skies;

Just when he holds, or thinks he holds, his prey,

Obliquely wheeling through the aerial way,

With open beak and shrilling cries he springs,

And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings:

No less fore-right the rapid chase they held,

One urged by fury, one by fear impelled;

Now circling round the walls their course maintain,

Where the high watch-tower overlooks the plain;

Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad,

A wider compass, smoke along the road.

Next by Scamander's double source they bound,

Where two famed fountains burst the parted ground:

This hot through scorching clefts is seen to rise,

With exhalations steaming to the skies;

That the green banks in summer's heat o'erflows,

Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows;

Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills,

Whose polished bed receives the falling rills;

Where Trojan dames, e'er yet alarmed by Greece,

Washed their fair garments in the days of peace;

By these they passed, one chasing, one in flight;

The mighty fled, pursued by stronger might;

Swift was the course; no vulgar prize they play,

No vulgar victim must reward the day;

Such as in races crown the speedy strife;

The prize contended was great Hector's life.

As when some hero's funerals are decreed,

In grateful honour of the mighty dead;

Where high rewards the vigorous youth Inflame,

Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame,

The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal,

And with them turns the raised spectator's soul:

Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly;