Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/402

400 Given to the rage of an insulting throng!

And, in his parents' sight, now dragged along.

The mother first beheld with sad survey:

She rent her tresses, venerably grey,

And cast far off the regal veils away.

With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans,

While the sad father answers groans with groans;

Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow,

And the whole city wears one face of woe:

No less than if the rage of hostile fires,

From her foundations curling to her spires,

O'er the proud citadel at length should rise,

And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.

The wretched monarch of the falling state,

Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate:

Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course,

While strong affliction gives the feeble force:

Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,

In all the raging impotence of woe.

At length he rolled in dust, and thus begun,

Imploring all, and naming one by one;

"Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls;

I, only I, will issue from your walls—

Guide or companion, friends, I ask ye none—

And bow before the murderer of my son.

My grief perhaps his pity may engage;

Perhaps at least he may respect my age.

He has a father too; a man like me;

One, not exempt from age and misery:

Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace

Begot this pest of me, and all my race.

How many valiant sons, in early bloom,

Has that cursed hand sent headlong to the tomb'

Thee, Hector! last; thy loss, divinely brave,

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.

Oh, had thy gentle spirit passed in peace,

The son expiring in the sire's embrace,

While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour,

And, bending o'er thee, mixed the tender shower!

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief,

To melt in full satiety of grief!"

Thus wailed the father, grovelling on the ground,

And all the eyes of Ilion streamed around.

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears:

A mourning princess, and a train in tears:

"Ah I why has heaven prolonged this hated breath,

Patient of horrors, to behold thy death?

O Hector! late thy parents' pride and joy,

The boast of nations! the defence of Troy!