Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/90

88 Mycenæ, Argos, and the Spartan wall;

These thou mayest raze, nor I forbid their fall:

'Tis not in me the vengeance to remove;

The crime's sufficient that they share my love.

Of power superior, why should I complain?

Resent I may, but must resent in vain.

Yet some distinction Juno might require,

Sprung with thyself from one celestial sire,

A goddess born to share the realms above,

And styled the consort of the thundering Jove:

Nor thou a wife and sister's right deny,

Let both consent, and both by turns comply;

So shall the gods our joint decrees obey,

And heaven shall act as we direct the way.

See ready Pallas waits thy high commands,

To raise in arms the Greek and Phrygian bands;

Their sudden friendship by her arts may cease,

And the proud Trojans first infringe the peace."

The sire of men, and monarch of the sky,

The advice approved, and bade Minerva fly,

Dissolve the league, and all her arts employ

To make the breach the faithless act of Troy.

Fired with the charge, she headlong urged her flight

And shot like lightning from Olympus' height.

As the red comet, from Saturnius sent

To fright the nations with a dire portent,

A fatal sign to armies on the plain,

Or trembling sailors on the wintry main,

With sweeping glories glides along in air,

And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair;

Between both armies thus, in open sight,

Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light.

With eyes erect, the gazing hosts admire

The Power descending, and the heavens on fire!

"The gods," they cried, "the gods this signal sent,

And fate now labours with some vast event:

Jove seals the league, or bloodier scenes prepares;

Jove, the great arbiter of peace and wars!"

They said, while Pallas through the Trojan throng,

In shape a mortal, passed disguised along.

Like bold Laodocus, her course she bent,

Who from Antenor traced his high descent.

Amidst the ranks Lycaon's son she found,

The warlike Pandarus, for strength renowned;

Whose squadrons, led from black Æsepus' flood,

With flaming shields in martial circle stood.

To him the goddess: "Phrygian! canst thou hear

A well-timed counsel with a willing ear?

What praise were thine, couldst thou direct thy dart,