Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/81

269—317 Great Menelaüs urged the same request:

My house was honoured with each royal guest:

I knew their persons, and admired their parts,

Both brave in arms, and both approved in arts.

Erect, the Spartan most engaged our view;

Ulysses seated greater reverence drew.

When Atreus' son harangued the listening train,

Just was his sense, and his expression plain,

His words succinct, yet full, without a fault;

He spoke no more than just the thing he ought.

But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound,

His modest eyes he fixed upon the ground;

As one unskilled or dumb, he seemed to stand,

Nor raised his head, nor stretched his sceptred hand;

But when he speaks, what elocution flows!

Soft as the fleeces of descending snows,

The copious accents fall, with easy art;

Melting they fall, and sink into the heart:

Wondering we hear, and, fixed in deep surprise,

Our ears refute the censure of our eyes."

The king then asked, as yet the camp he viewed,

"What chief is that, with giant strength endued,

Whose brawny shoulders, and whose swelling chest,

And lofty stature, far exceed the rest?"

"Ajax the great," the beauteous queen replied,

"Himself a host: the Grecian strength and pride.

See! bold Idomeneus superior towers

Amidst yon circle of his Cretan powers,

Great as a god! I saw him once before,

With Menelaüs on the Spartan shore.

The rest I know, and could in order name;

All valiant chiefs, and men of mighty fame.

Yet two are wanting of the numerous train,

Whom long my eyes have sought, but sought in vain;

Castor and Pollux, first in martial force,

One bold on foot, and one renowned for horse.

My brothers these; the same our native shore,

One house contained us, as one mother bore.

Perhaps the chiefs, from warlike toils at ease,

For distant Troy refused to sail the seas:

Perhaps their sword some nobler quarrel draws,

Ashamed to combat in their sister's cause."

So spoke the fair, nor knew her brothers' doom,

Wrapt in the cold embraces of the tomb;

Adorned with honours in their native shore,

Silent they slept, and heard of wars no more.

Meantime, the heralds, through the crowded town,

Bring the rich wine and destined victims down.

Idæus' arms the golden goblets pressed,