Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/79

171—220 The Trojan wars she weaved, herself the prize;

And the dire triumphs of her fatal eyes.

To whom the goddess of the painted bow:

"Approach, and view the wondrous scene below!

Each hardy Greek, and valiant Trojan knight,

So dreadful late, and furious for the fight,

Now rest their spears, or lean upon their shields;

Ceased is the war, and silent all the fields.

Paris alone and Sparta's king advance,

In single fight to toss the beamy lance;

Each met in arms the fate of combat tries,

Thy love the motive, and thy charms the prize."

This said, the many-coloured maid inspires

Her husband's love, and wakes her former fires;

Her country, parents, all at once were dear,

Rush to her thought, and force a tender tear.

O'er her fair face a snowy veil she threw,

And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew.

Her handmaids, Clymenè and Æthra, wait

Her silent footsteps to the Scæan gate.

There sat the seniors of the Trojan race,

Old Priam's chiefs, and most in Priam's grace;

The king the first; Thymœtes at his side;

Lampus and Clytius, long in council tried;

Panthus, and Hicetäon, once the strong;

And next the wisest of the reverend throng,

Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon,

Leaned on the walls, and basked before the sun.

Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage,

But, wise through time, and narrative with age,

In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice,

A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.

These, when the Spartan queen approached the tower,

In secret owned resistless Beauty's power:

They cried, "No wonder, such celestial charms

For nine long years have set the world in arms!

What winning graces! what majestic mien!

She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.

Yet hence, O heaven! convey that fatal face,

And from destruction save the Trojan race."

The good old Priam welcomed her, and cried:

"Approach, my child, and grace thy father's side.

See on the plain thy Grecian spouse appears,

The friends and kindred of thy former years.

No crime of thine our present sufferings draws,

Not thou, but heaven's disposing will, the cause;

The gods these armies and this force employ,

The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy.

But lift thine eyes, and say, what Greek is he,

Far as from hence these aged orbs can see,