Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/99

518—566 Rush to the vales, and, poured along the plain,

Roar through a thousand channels to the main:

The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound:

So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.

The bold Antilochus the slaughter led,

The first who struck a valiant Trojan dead:

At great Echepolus the lance arrives,

Razed his high crest and through his helmet drives:

Warmed in the brain the brazen weapon lies,

And shades eternal settle o'er his eyes.

So sinks a tower that long assaults had stood

Of force and fire, its walls besmeared with blood.

Him, the bold leader of the Abantian throng

Seized to despoil, and dragged the corpse along:

But, while he strove to tug the inserted dart,

Agenor's javelin reached the hero's heart.

His flank, unguarded by his ample shield,

Admits the lance: he falls, and spurns the field;

The nerves unbraced support his limbs no more;

The soul comes floating in a tide of gore.

Trojans and Greeks now gather round the slain;

The war renews, the warriors bleed again;

As o'er their prey rapacious wolves engage,

Man dies on man, and all is blood and rage.

In blooming youth fair Simoïsius fell,

Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell:

Fair Simoïsius, whom his mother bore

Amid the flocks, on silver Simoïs' shore:

The nymph, descending from the hills of Ide,

To seek her parents on his flowery side,

Brought forth the babe, their common care and joy,

And thence from Simoïs named the lovely boy.

Short was his date! by dreadful Ajax slain

He falls, and renders all their cares in vain!

So falls a poplar, that in watery ground

Raised high the head, with stately branches crowned,

Felled by some artist with his shining steel,

To shape the circle of the bending wheel;

Cut down it lies, tall, smooth, and largely spread,

With all its beauteous honours on its head;

There, left a subject to the wind and rain,

And scorched by suns, it withers on the plain.

Thus, pierced by Ajax, Simoïsius lies

Stretched on the shore, and thus neglected dies.

At Ajax Antiphus his javelin threw:

The pointed lance with erring fury flew,

And Leucus, loved by wise Ulysses, slew.

He drops the corpse of Simoïsius slain,

And sinks a breathless carcass on the plain.