Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/69

792—840 And Merion, dreadful as the god of war.

Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules,

Led nine swift vessels through the foamy seas;

From Rhodes, with everlasting sunshine bright,

Jalyssus, Lindus, and Camirus white.

His captive mother fierce Alcides bore

From Ephyr's walls, and Sellè's winding shore,

Where mighty towns in ruins spread the plain,

And saw their blooming warriors early slain.

The hero, when to manly years he grew,

Alcides' uncle, old Licymnius, slew;

For this, constrained to quit his native place,

And shun the vengeance of the Herculean race,

A fleet he built, and with a numerous train

Of willing exiles, wandered o'er the main;

Where, many seas and many sufferings past,

On happy Rhodes the chief arrived at last:

There in three tribes divides his native band,

And rules them peaceful in a foreign land;

Increased and prospered in their new abodes

By mighty Jove, the sire of men and gods;

With joy they saw the growing empire rise,

And showers of wealth descending from the skies.

Three ships with Nireus sought the Trojan shore,

Nireus, whom Agläe to Charopus bore,

Nireus, in faultless shape, and blooming grace,

The loveliest youth of all the Grecian race;

Pelides only matched his early charms;

But few his troops, and small his strength in arms.

Next thirty galleys cleave the liquid plain,

Of those Calydnæ's sea-girt isles contain;

With them the youth of Nisyrus repair,

Casus the strong, and Crapathus the fair;

Cos, where Eurypylus possessed the sway,

Till great Alcides made the realms obey:

These Antiphus and bold Phidippus bring,

Sprung from the god by Thessalus the king.

Now, Muse, recount Pelasgic Argos' powers,

From Arlos, Alopè, and Trechin's towers;

From Phthia's spacious vales; and Hellas, blessed

With female beauty far beyond the rest.

Full fifty ships beneath Achilles' care

The Achaians, Myrmidons, Hellenians bear;

Thessalians all, though various in their name,

The same their nation, and their chief the same.

But now inglorious, stretched along the shore,

They hear the brazen voice of war no more;

No more the foe they face in dire array:

Close in his fleet their angry leader lay;