Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/94

92 And her dead warriors strew the mournful plains."

Thus with new ardour he the brave inspires;

Or thus the fearful with reproaches fires:

"Shame to your country, scandal of your kind!

Born to the fate ye well deserve to find;

Why stand ye gazing round the dreadful plain,

Prepared for flight, but doomed to fly in vain?

Confused and panting thus, the hunted deer

Falls as he flies, a victim to his fear.

Still must ye wait the foes, and still retire,

Till yon tall vessels blaze with Trojan fire?

Or trust ye, Jove a valiant foe shall chase,

To save a trembling, heartless, dastard race?"

This said, he stalked with ample strides along,

To Crete's brave monarch and his martial throng;

High at their head he saw the chief appear,

And bold Meriones excite the rear.

At this the king his generous joy expressed,

And clasped the warrior to his armed breast:

"Divine Idomeneus! what thanks we owe

To worth like thine? what praise shall we bestow?

To thee the foremost honours are decreed,

First in the fight, and every graceful deed.

For this, in banquets, when the generous bowls

Restore our blood, and raise the warriors' souls,

Though all the rest with stated rules we bound,

Unmixed, unmeasured, are thy goblets crowned.

Be still thyself; in arms a mighty name;

Maintain thy honours, and enlarge thy fame."

To whom the Cretan thus his speech addressed:

"Secure of me, O king! exhort the rest:

Fixed to thy side, in every toil I share,

Thy firm associate in the day of war.

But let the signal be this moment given;

To mix in fight is all I ask of heaven.

The field shall prove how perjuries succeed,

And chains or death avenge their impious deed."

Charmed with this heat, the king his course pursues,

And next the troops of either Ajax views:

In one firm orb the bands were ranged around,

A cloud of heroes blackened all the ground.

Thus from the lofty promontory's brow

A swain surveys the gathering storm below;

Slow from the main the heavy vapours rise,

Spread in dim streams, and sail along the skies,

Till black as night the swelling tempest shews,

The cloud condensing as the west-wind blows:

He dreads the impending storm, and drives his flock

To the close covert of an arching rock.