Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/91

126—174 Amidst his triumph, to the Spartan's heart?

What gifts from Troy, from Paris, wouldst thou gain,

Thy country's foe, the Grecian glory, slain?

Then seize the occasion, dare the mighty deed,

Aim at his breast, and may that aim succeed!

But first, to speed the shaft, address thy vow

To Lycian Phœbus with the silver bow,

And swear the firstlings of thy flock to pay

On Zelia's altars, to the god of day."

He heard, and madly at the notion pleased,

His polished bow with hasty rashness seized.

'Twas formed of horn, and smoothed with artful toil;

A mountain goat resigned the shining spoil,

Who pierced long since beneath his arrows bled;

The stately quarry on the cliffs lay dead,

And sixteen palms his brow's large honours spread:

The workman joined, and shaped the bended horns,

And beaten gold each taper point adorns.

This, by the Greeks unseen, the warrior bends,

Screened by the shields of his surrounding friends.

There meditates the mark, and, crouching low,

Fits the sharp arrow to the well-strung bow.

One, from a hundred feathered deaths he chose,

Fated to wound, and cause of future woes.

Then offers vows with hecatombs to crown

Apollo's altars in his native town.

Now with full force the yielding horn he bends,

Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends;

Close to his breast he strains the nerve below,

Till the barbed point, approach the circling bow;

The impatient weapon whizzes on the wing;

Sounds the tough horn, and twangs the quivering string.

But thee, Atrides! in that dangerous hour

The gods forget not, nor thy guardian Power.

Pallas assists, and, weakened in its force,

Diverts the weapon from its destined course:

So from her babe, when slumber seals his eye,

The watchful mother wafts the envenomed fly.

Just where his belt with golden buckles joined,

Where linen folds the double corselet lined,

She turned the shaft, which, hissing from above,

Passed the broad belt, and through the corselet drove;

The folds it pierced, the plaited linen tore,

And razed the skin, and drew the purple gore.

As when some stately trappings are decreed

To grace a monarch on his bounding steed,

A nymph, in Caria or Mæonia bred,

Stains the pure ivory with a lively red;

With equal lustre various colours vie,