Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/92

84 My flocks continual slaughter, and my beeves. For this cause, at thy knees suppliant, I beg That thou wouldst tell me his disastrous end, If either thou beheld'st with thine own eyes His death, or from some wand'rer of the Greeks Hast heard it; for no common woes, alas! Was he ordain'd to share ev'n from the womb. Neither through pity or o'erstrain'd respect Flatter me, but explicit all relate Which thou hast witness'd. If my noble Sire E'er gratified thee by performance just Of word or deed at Ilium, where ye fell So num'rous slain in fight, oh recollect Now his fidelity, and tell me true! Then Menelaus, sighing deep, replied. Gods! their ambition is to reach the bed Of a brave man, however base themselves. But as it chances, when the hart hath lay'd Her fawns new-yean'd and sucklings yet, to rest Within some dreadful lion's gloomy den, She roams the hills, and in the grassy vales Feeds heedless, till the lion, to his lair Return'd, destroys her and her little-ones, So them thy Sire shall terribly destroy. Jove, Pallas and Apollo! oh that such As erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove With Philomelides, and threw him flat, A sight at which Achaia's sons rejoic'd,