Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/41

255–303 That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword,

Force thro' the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord;

This whispers soft, his vengeance to control,

And calm the rising tempest of his soul.

Just as in anguish of suspense he stayed,

While half unsheathed appeared the glittering blade,

Minerva swift descended from above,

Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove;

For both the princes claimed her equal care;

Behind she stood, and by the golden hair

Achilles seized, to him alone confessed;

A sable cloud concealed her from the rest.

He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries,

Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes:

"Descends Minerva, in her guardian care,

A heavenly witness of the wrongs I bear

From Atreus' son? Then let those eyes that view

The daring crime, behold the vengeance too."

"Forbear!" the progeny of Jove replies,

"To calm thy fury I forsake the skies:

Let great Achilles, to the gods resigned,

To reason yield the empire o'er his mind.

By awful Juno this command is given;

The king and you are both the care of Heaven.

The force of keen reproaches let him feel,

But sheathe, obedient, thy revenging steel.

For I pronounce—and trust a heavenly Power—

Thy injured honour has its fated hour,

When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore,

And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store.

Then let revenge no longer bear the sway,

Command thy passions, and the gods obey."

To her Pelides: "With regardful ear,

'Tis just, O goddess! I thy dictates hear.

Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress:

Those who revere the gods, the gods will bless,"

He said, observant of the blue-eyed Maid;

Then in the sheath returned the shining blade.

The goddess swift to high Olympus flies,

And joins the sacred senate of the skies.

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,

Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke:

"O monster! mixed of insolence and fear,

Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer!

When wert thou known in ambushed fights to dare,

Or nobly face the horrid front of war?

'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try,

Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die.

So much 'tis safer through the camp to go,