Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/97

420—468 The warlike Sthenelus attends his side;

To whom with stern reproach the monarch cried:

"O son of Tydeus!" (he whose strength could tame

The bounding steed, in arms a mighty name,)

"Canst thou, remote, the mingling hosts descry,

With hands inactive, and a careless eye?

Not thus thy sire the fierce encounter feared;

Still first in front the matchless prince appeared:

What glorious toils, what wonders they recite,

Who viewed him labouring through the ranks of fight!

I saw him once, when, gathering martial powers,

A peaceful guest he sought Mycenæ's towers;

Armies he asked, and armies had been given,

Not we denied, but Jove forbade from heaven;

While dreadful comets glaring from afar

Forewarned the horrors of the Theban war.

Next, sent by Greece from where Asopus flows,

A fearless envoy, he approached the foes;

Thebes' hostile walls, unguarded and alone,

Dauntless he enters and demands the throne.

The tyrant, feasting with his chiefs he found,

And dared to combat all those chiefs around;

Dared and subdued, before their haughty lord;

For Pallas strung his arm, and edged his sword.

Stung with the shame, within the winding way,

To bar his passage fifty warriors lay;

Two heroes led the secret squadron on,

Mæon the fierce, and hardy Lycophon;

Those fifty slaughtered in the gloomy vale,

He spared but one to bear the dreadful tale.

Such Tydeus was, and such his martial fire;

Gods! how the son degenerates from the sire!"

No words the godlike Diomed returned,

But heard respectful, and in secret burned:

Not so fierce Capaneus' undaunted son;

Stern as his sire, the boaster thus begun:

"What needs, O monarch, this invidious praise,

Ourselves to lessen, while our sires you raise?

Dare to be just, Atrides! and confess

Our valour equal, though our fury less.

With fewer troops we stormed the Theban wall,

And, happier, saw the sevenfold city fall.

In impious acts the guilty fathers died;

The sons subdued, for heaven was on their side.

Far more than heirs of all our parents' fame,

Our glories darken their diminished name."

To him Tydides thus: "My friend, forbear,

Suppress thy passion, and the king revere:

His high concern may well excuse this rage,