Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/54

52 The assembly placed, the king of men expressed

The counsels labouring in his artful breast:

"Friends and confederates! with attentive ear

Receive my words, and credit what you hear.

Late as I slumbered in the shades of night,

A dream divine appeared before my sight;

Whose visionary form like Nestor came,

The same in habit, and in mien the same.

The heavenly phantom hovered o'er my head,

And, Dost thou sleep, O Atreus' son? he said,

Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides,

Directs in council, and in war presides,

To whom its safety a whole people owes,

To waste long nights in indolent repose.

Monarch, awake! 'tis Jove's command I bear,

Thou and thy glory claim his heavenly care;

In just array draw forth the embattled train,

And lead the Grecians to the dusty plain;

E'en now, O king! 'tis given thee to destroy

The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy;

For now no more the gods with fate contend,

At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end.

Destruction hangs o'er yon devoted wall,

And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall.

This hear observant, and the gods obey!

The vision spoke, and passed in air away.

Now, valiant chiefs! since heaven itself alarms,

Unite, and rouse the sons of Greece to arms.

But first, with caution, try what yet they dare,

Worn with nine years of unsuccessful war.

To move the troops to measure back the main,

Be mine; and yours the province to detain."

He spoke, and sat; when Nestor rising said,

Nestor, whom Pylos' sandy realms obeyed:

"Princes of Greece, your faithful ears incline,

Nor doubt the vision of the powers divine;

Sent by great Jove to him who rules the host,

Forbid it, heaven, this warning should be lost!

Then let us haste, obey the god's alarms,

And join to rouse the sons of Greece to arms."

Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay

Dissolve the council, and their chief obey:

The sceptred rulers lead; the following host,

Poured forth by thousands, darkens all the coast.

As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees

Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees,

Rolling and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms

With deeper murmurs and more hoarse alarms;

Dusky they spread, a close-embodied crowd,