BOOK XI.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Third Battle, and the Acts of Agamemnon. Agamemnon having armed himself, leads the Grecians to bat tle: Hector prepares the Trojans to receive them; while Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, give the signals of war. Aga. memnun bears all before him; and Hector is commanded by Jupiter (who sends Iris for that purpose) to decline the engagement, till the king shall be wounded and retire from the held. He then makes a great slaughter of the enemy; Ulysses and Diomed put a stop to him for a time: but the lat ter being wounded by Paris, is obliged to desert his com panion, who is encompassed by the Trojans, wounded, and in the utmost danger, till Menelaus and Ajax rescue him. Hector comes against Ajax; but that hero alone opposes multitudes, and rallies the Greeks. In the mean time, Machaon, in the other wing of the army, is pierced with an ar row by Paris, and carried from the fight in Nestor's chariot. Achilles (who overlooked the action from his ship) sent Pa troclus to inquire which of the Greeks was wounded in that manner! Nestor entertains him in his tent with an account of the accidents of the day, and a long recital of some former wars which he remembered, tending to put Patroclus upon persuading Achilles to fight for his countrymen, or at least to permit him to do it, clad in Achilles' armour. Patroclus in his return meets Eurypylus also wounded, and assists him in that distress.

This book opens with the eight-and-twentieth day of the poem; and the same day, with its various actions and adventures, is extended through the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and part of the eighteenth books. The scene lies in the field, near the monument of Ilus.

THE saffron morn, with early blushes spread,
Now rose refulgent from Tithonius' bed;
With new-born day to gladden mortal sight,
And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light:
When baleful Eris, sent by Jove's command,
The torch of discord blazing in her hand,

Through the red skies her bloody sign extends,
And wrapt in tempests, o'er the fleet descends.
High on Ulysses' bark, her horrid stand

She took, and thunder'd through the seas and land.
E'en Ajax and Achilles heard the sound,

Whose ships, remote, the guarded navy bound. Thence the black Fury through the Grecian throng With horror sounds the loud Orthian song: The navy shakes, and at the dire alarms Each bosom boils, each warrior starts to arms. No more they sigh, inglorious to return, But breathe revenge, and for the combat burn. The king of men his hardy hosts inspires With loud command, with great example fires; Himself first rose, himself before the rest His mighty limbs in radiant armour drest. And first he cas'd his manly legs around In shining greaves, with silver buckles bound: The beaming cuirass next adorn'd his breast, The same which once king Cinyras possest: (The fame of Greece and her assembled host Had reach'd that monarch on the Cyprian coast, 'Twas then, the friendship of the chief to gain, This glorious gift he sent, nor sent in vain.) Ten rows of azure steel the work infold, Twice ten of tin, and twelve of ductile gold; Three glittering dragons to the gorget rise, Whose imitated scales, against the skies Reflected various light, and arching bow'd, Like colour'd rainbows o'er a show'ry cloud. (Jove's wondrous bow, of three celestial dyes, Plac'd as a sign to man amid the skies) A radiant baldrick o'er his shoulder tied, Sustain'd the sword that glitter'd at his side: Gold was the hilt, a silver sheath encas'd The shining blade, and golden hangers grac'd. His buckler's mighty orb was next display'd, That round the warrior cast a dreadful shade;

Ten zones of brass its ample brim surround,
And twice ten bosses the bright convex crown'd;
Tremendous Gorgon frown'd upon its field,
And circling terrors fill'd th' expressive shield:
Within its concave hung a silver thong,
On which a mimic serpent creeps along,
His azure length in easy waves extends,

Till in three heads th' embroider'd monster ends.
Last o'er his brows his fourfold hen he plac'd,
With nodding horse-hair formidably grac'd;
And in his hands two steely javelins wields,
That blaze to heaven, and lighten all the fields.
That instant Juno and the Martial maid
In happy thunders promis'd Greece their aid;
High over the chief they clash'd their arms in air,
And, leaning from the clouds, expect the war,
Close to the limits of the trench and mound,
The fiery coursers to their chariots bound

The squires restrain'd: the foot, with those who wield
The lighter arms, rush forward to the field.

To second these, in close array combin'd,

The squadrons spread their sable wings behind.
Now shouts and tumults wake the tardy sun,

As with the light the warrior's toils begun.

E'en Jove, whose thunder spoke his wrath, distill'd
Red drops of blood o'er all the fatal field;
The woes of men unwilling to survey,

And all the slaughters that must stain the day.
Near Ilus' tomb, in order rang'd around,

The Trojan lines possess'd the rising ground,
There wise Polydamus and Hector stood;
Æneas, honour'd as a guardian God;
Bold Polybus, Agenor the divine,
The brother warriors of Antenor's line;
With youthful Acamas, whose beauteous face
And fair proportion match'd th' ethereal race;
Great Hector, cover'd with his spacious shield,
Phes all the troops, and orders all the field.

As the red star now shows his sanguine fires
Through the dark clouds, and now in night retires;
Thus through the ranks appear'd the godlike man,
Plung'd in the rear, or blazing in the van;
While streamy sparkles, restless as he flies,
Flash from his arms as lightning from the skies.
As sweating reapers in some wealthy field,
Rang'd in two bands, their crooked weapons wield,
Bear down the furrows, till their labours meet;
Thick fall the heapy harvests at their feet:
So Greece and Troy the field of war divide,
And falling ranks are strow'd on every side.
None stoop'd a thought to base inglorious flight;
But horse to horse, and man to man they fight.
Not rabid wolves more fierce contest their prey;
Each wounds, each bleeds, but none resign the day.
Discord with joy the scene of death descries,
And drinks large slaughter at her sanguine eyes.
Discord alone of all th' immortal train
Swells the red horrors of this direful plain:
The Gods in peace their golden mansions fill,
Pang'd in bright order on th' Olympian hill;
But general murmurs told their griefs above,
And each accus'd the partial will of Jove.
Meanwhile apart, superior, and alone,

Th' eternal Monarch, on his awful throne,
Wrapt in the blaze of boundless glory, sat;
And, fix'd, fulfill'd the just decrees of fate.
On earth he turn'd his all-considering eyes,
And mark'd the spot where Ilion's towers arise;
The sea with ships, the fields with armies spread,
The victor's rage, the dying and the dead.

Thus while the morning-beams increasing bright
O'er heaven's pure azure spread the growing light,
Commutual death the fate of war confounds,
Each adverse battle gor'd with equal wounds.
But now (what time in some sequester'd vale
The weary woodsman spreads his sparing ineal,

When his tir'd arms refuse the axe to rear,
And claim a respite from the sylvan war;
But not till half the prostrate forests lay
Stretch'd in long ruin, and expos'd to day)
Then, nor till then, the Greeks' impulsive might
Pierc'd the black phalanx, and let in the light.
Great Agamemnon then the slaughter led,
And slew Bienor at his people's head:
Whose squire Oileus, with a sudden spring,
Leap'd from the chariot to revenge his king,
But in his front he felt the fatal wound,

Which pierc'd his brain, and stretch'd him on the ground.
Atrides spoil'd, and left them on the plain:
Vain was their youth, their glittering armour vain:
Now soil'd with dust, and naked to the sky,
Their snowy limbs and beauteous bodies lie.
Two sons of Priam next to battle move,
The product one of marriage, one of love;
In the same car the brother warriors ride,
This took the charge to combat, that to guide:
Far other task than when they wont to keep,
On Ida's tops, their father's fleecy sheep.
These on the mountains once Achilles found,
And captive led, with pliant osiers bound;
Then to their sire for ample sums restor'd;
But now to perish by Atrides' sword;

Pierc'd in the breast, the base-born Isus bleeds:
Cleft through the head, his brother's fate succeeds
Swift to the spoil the hasty victor falls,
And stript, their features to his mind recalls.
The Trojans see the youths untimely die,
But helpless tremble for themselves, and fly.
So when a lion, ranging o'er the lawns,
Finds on some grassy lair, the crouching fawns,
Their bones he cracks, their reeking vitals draws,
And grinds the quivering flesh with bloody jaws;
The frighted hind beholds, and dares not stay,
But swift through rustling thickets bursts her way: