Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/401

460—508 O'er the dead hero, thus, unheard, replies:

"Die thou the first I when Jove and heaven ordain,

I follow thee." He said, and stripped the slain.

Then, forcing backward from the gaping wound

The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground.

The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes

His manly beauty and superior size:

While some, ignobler, the great dead deface

With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace.

"How changed that Hector I who, like Jove of late

Sent lightning on our fleets and scattered fate!"

High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands,

Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands;

And thus aloud, while all the host attends:

"Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!

Since now at length the powerful will of heaven

The dire destroyer to our arm has given,

Is not Troy fallen already? Haste, ye Powers!

See if already their deserted towers

Are left unmanned; or if they yet retain

The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain?

But what is Troy, or glory what to me?

Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee,

Divine Patroclus! Death has sealed his eyes;

Unwept, unhonoured, uninterred he lies!

Can his dear image from my soul depart,

Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?

If, in the melancholy shades below,

The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow,

Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecayed,

Burn on through death, and animate my shade.

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring

The corse of Hector, and your Pæans sing.

Be this the song, slow moving toward the shore,

'Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.'"

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred,

Unworthy of himself, and of the dead,

The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound

With thongs inserted through the double wound;

These fixed up high behind the rolling wain,

His graceful head was trailed along the plain.

Proud on his car the insulting victor stood,

And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.

He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies;

The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.

Now lost is all that formidable air;

The face divine, and long-descending hair,

Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;

Deformed, dishonoured, in his native land!