That fire, that steel, your Hector should withstand,

And brave that vengeful heart, that dreadful hand."
Thus (breathing rage through all) the hero said;
A wood of lances rises round his head,
Clamours on clamours tempest all the air,
They join, they throng, they thicken to the war.
But Phoebus warns him from high Heaven to shun
The single fight with Thetis' godlike son;
More safe to combat in the mingled band,
Nor tempt too near the terrours of his hand.
He hears obedient to the god of light,
And, plung'd within the ranks, awaits the fight.
Then fierce Achilles, shouting to the skies,
On Troy's whole force with boundless fury flies.
First falls Iphition, at his army's head;
Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led ;
From great Otrynteus he deriv'd his blood,
His mother was a Nais of the flood;
Beneath the shades of Tmolus, crown'd with snow,
From Hyde's walls he rul'd the lands below.
Fierce as he springs, the sword his head divides;
The parted visage falls on equal sides:
With loud-resounding arms he strikes the plain;
While thus Achilles glories o'er the slain :

"Lie there, Otryntides! the Trojan earth Receives thee dead, though Gyga boast thy birth; Those beauteous fields where Hyllus' waves are

roll'd,

And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold,
Are thine no more"-th' insulting hero said,
And left him sleeping in eternal shade;
The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore,
And dash'd their axles with no vulgar gore.
Demoleon next, Antenor's offspring, laid
Breathless in dust, the price of rashness paid.
Ta' impatient steel, with full-descending sway,
Fore'd through his brazen helm its furious way;
Resistless drove the batter'd skull before,
And dash'd and mingled all the brains with gore.
Thus sees Hippodamas, and, seiz'd with fright,
Deserts his chariot for a swifter flight:
The lance arrests him: an ignoble wound
The panting Trojan rivets to the ground,
He groans away his soul: not louder roars,
At Neptune's shrine on Helicè's high shores,
The victim bull: the rocks rebellow round,
And Ocean listens to the grateful sound.

Then fell on Polydore, his vengeful rage,
The youngest hope of Priam's stooping age
(Whose feet for swiftness in the race surpast);
Of all his sons, the dearest, and the last.
To the forbidden field he takes his flight
In the first folly of a youthful knight,
To vaunt his swiftness, wheels around the plain,
But vaunts not long, with all his swiftness slain.
Struck where the crossing belts unite behind,
And golden rings the double back-plate join'd:
Forth through the navel burst the thrilling steel;
And on his knees with piercing shrieks he fell;
The rushing entrails, pour'd upon the ground,
His hands collect; and darkness wraps him round.
When Hector view'd, all-ghastly in his gore,
Thus sadly slain, th' unhappy Polydore,
A cloud of sorrow overcast his sight;
His soul no longer brook'd the distant fight,
Fail in Achilles' dreadful front he came,
And shook his javelin like a waving flame.
The son of Peleus sees, with joy possest,
His heart high-bounding in his rising breast:

And, lo! the man, on whom black fates attend } The man, that slew Achilles, in his friend! No more shall Hector's and Pelides' spear Turn from each other in the walks of war"Then with revengeful eyes he scann'd him o'er : "Coine, and receive thy fate!" He spake no more.

Hector, undaunted, thus: "Such words employ
To one that dreads thee, some unwarlike boy:
Such we could give, defying and defy'd,
Mean intercourse of obloquy and pride!
I know thy force to mine superior far;
But Heaven alone confers success in war:
Mean as I am, the gods may guide my dart,
And give it entrance in a braver heart."
Then parts the lance: but Pallas' heavenly breath
Far from Achilles wafts the winged death;
The bidden dart again to Hector flies,
And at the feet of its great master lies.
Achilles closes with his hated foe,

His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow:
But, present to his aid, Apollo shrouds,
The favour'd hero in a veil of clouds.
Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart,
Thrice in impassive air he plung'd the dart:
The spear a fourth time bury'd in the cloud;
He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud:
"Wretch! thou hast 'scap'd again, once more
thy flight

Has sav'd thee, and the partial god of light.
But long thou shalt not thy just fate withstand,
If any power assist Achilles' hand.

Fly then, inglorious! but thy flight this day
Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay."

With that, he gluts his rage on numbers slain:
Then Dryops tumbled to th' ensanguin'd plain,
Pierc'd through the neck: he left him panting there,
And stopp'd Demuchus, great Philetor's heir,
Gigantic chief! deep gash'd th' enormous blade,
And for the soul an ample passage made.
Laogonus and Dardanus expire,
The valiant sons of an unhappy sire;
Both in one instant from the chariot hurl'd,
Sunk in one instant to the nether world;
This difference only their sad fates afford,
That one the spear destroy'd, and one the sword,
Nor less unpity'd young Alastor bleeds,
In vain his youth, in vain his beauty, pleads:
In vain he begs thee with a supplient's moan,
To spare a form, an age, so like thy own!
Unhappy boy! no prayer, no moving art,
E'er bent that fierce, inexorable heart!
While yet he trembled at his knees, and cry'd,
The ruthless falchion op'd his tender side;
The panting liver pours a flood of gore,
That drowns his bosom till he pants no more.

Through Mulius' head then drove th' impetuous The warrior falls, transfix'd from ear to ear. [spear, Thy life, Echcelus! uext the sword bereaves, Deep through the front the ponderous falchion cleaves;

Warm'd in the brain the smoking weapon lies,
The purple death comes floating o'er his eyes.
Then brave Deucalion dy'd: the dart was s flung
Where the kait nerves the pliant elbow strung;
He dropt his arm, an unassisting weight,
And stood all impotent, expecting fate:
Full on his neck the falling falchion sped,
From his broad shoulders hew'd his crested head:
Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies,
And sunk in dust the corpse extended lies.

Rhigmus, whose race from fruitful Thracia came,
(The son of Pireus, an illustrious name)
Succeeds to fate: the spear his belly rends;
Prone from his car the thundering chief descends:
The squire, who saw expiring on the ground
His prostrate master, rein'd the steeds around:
His back scarce turn'd, the Pelian javelin gor'd,
And stretch'd the servant o'er his dying lord.
As when a flame the winding valley fills,
And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills;
Then o'er the stubble up the mountain flics,
Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,
This way and that the spreading torrent roars;
So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores:
Around him wide, immense destruction pours,
And earth is delug'd with the sanguine showers.
As, with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,
And thick bestrown, lies Ceres' sacred floor;
When round and round, with never-weary'd pain,
The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain:
So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,
Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes'
souls.
[fly,
Dash'd from their hoofs, while o'er the dead they
Black, bloody drops the smoking chariot dye:
The spiky wheels through heaps of carnage tore;
And thick the groaning axles dropp'd with gore.
High o'er the scene of death Achilles stood,
All grim with dust, all horrible in blood:
Yet still insatiate, still with rage on flame;
Such is the lust of never-dying fame!

THE ILIAD.

BOOK XXI.

ARGUMENT.

THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER SCAMANDER.

THE Trojans fly before Achilles, some towards the town, others to the river Scamander: he falls upon the latter with great slaughter; takes twelve captives alive, to sacrifice to the shade of Patroclus, and kills Lycaon and Asteropeus. Scamander attacks him with all his waves; Neptune and Pallas assist the hero; Simoïs joins Scamander; at length Vulcan, by the instigation of Juno, almost dries up the river. This combat ended, the other gods engage each. other. Meanwhile Achilles continues the slaughter. drives the rest into Troy: Agenor only makes a stand, and is conveyed away in a cloud by Apollo; who (to delude Achilles) takes upon him Agenor's shape, and, while he pursues him in that disguise, gives the Trojans an opportunity of retiring into their city.

The same day continues. The scene is on the banks and in the stream of Scamander.

AND now to Xanthus' gliding stream they drove, Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove.

The river here divides the flying train,
Part to the town fly diverse o'er the plain,
Where late their troops triumphant bore the fight:
Now chas'd, and trembling in ignoble flight
(These with a gather'd mist Saturnia shrouds,
And rolls behind the rout a heap of clouds).
Part plunge into the stream: old Xanthus roars,
The flashing billows beat the whiten'd shores:
With cries promiscuous all the banks resound:
And here, and there, in eddies whirling round,
The flouncing steeds and shrieking warriors drown'd.
As the scorch'd locusts from their fields retire,
While fast behind them runs the blaze of fire;
Driv'n from the land before the smoky cloud,
The clustering legions rush into the flood:
So, plung'd in Xanthus by Achilles' force,
Roars the resounding surge with men and horse.
His bloody lance the hero.casts aside
(Which spreading tamarisks on the margin hide);
Then, like a god, the rapid billows braves,
Arm'd with his sword high-brandish'd o'er the

waves:

Now down he plunges, now he whirls it round,
Deep groan'd the waters with the dying sound;
Repeated wounds the reddening river dy'd,
And the warm purple circled on the tide.
Swift through the foamy flood the Trojans fly,
And close in rocks or winding caverns lie:.
So, the huge dolphin tempesting the main,
In shoals before him fly the scaly train,
Confus'dly heap'd they seek their inmost caves,
Or pant and heave beneath the floating waves.
Now, tir'd with slaughter, from the Trojan band
Twelve chosen youths he drags alive to land;
With their rich belts their captive arms constrains
(Late their proud ornaments, but now their chains).
These his attendants to the ships convey'd,
Sad victims! destin'd to Patroclus' shade.

Then, as once more he plung'd amid the flood,
The young Lycaon in his passage stood,
The son of Priam; whom the hero's hand
But late made captive in his father's land,
(As from a sycamore, his sounding steel
Lopp'd the green arms to spoke a chariot wheel);
To Lemnos' isle he sold the royal slave,
Where Jason's son the price demanded gave;
But kind Fetion touching on the shore,
The ransom'd prince to fair Arisbe bore.
Ten days were past, since in his father's reign
He felt the sweets of liberty again;
The next, that god whom men in vain withstand,
Gives the same youth to the same conquering hand;
Now never to return! and doom'd to go
A sadder journey to the shades below.
His well-known face when great Achilles ey'd
(The helm and visor he had cast aside
With wild affright, and dropp'd upon the field
His useless lance and unavailing shield)
As, trembling, panting, from the stream he fled,
And knock'd, his faultering knees, the hero said:

"Ye mighty gods! what wonders strike my view! Is it in vain our conquering arms subdue? Sure I shall see yon heaps of Trojans kill'd, Rise from the shades, and brave me on the field: As now the captive, whom so late I bound And sold to Lemnos, stalks on Trojan ground! Not him the sea's unmeasur'd deeps detain, That bar such numbers from their native plain: Lo! he returns. Try, then, my flying spear! Try, if the grave can hold the wanderer;

What rivers can, Scamander might have shown;
But Jove he dreads, nor wars against his son,
Ev'n Achelous might contend in vain,
And all the roaring billows of the main.
Th' eternal Ocean, from whose fountains flow
The seas, the rivers, and the springs below,
The thundering voice of Jove abhors to hear,
And in his deep abysses shakes with fear."

He said; then from the bank his javelin tore,
And left the breathless warrior in his gore.
The floating tides the bloody carcase lave,
And beat against it, wave succeeding wave;
Till, roll'd between the banks, it lies the food
Of curling eels, and fishes of the flood.

All scatter'd round the stream (their mightiest slain)

Th' amaz'd Pæonians scour along the plain :
He vents his fury on the flying crew,
Thrasius, Astypylus, and Mnesius slew;
Mydon, Thersilochus, with Ænius fell;
And numbers more his lance had plung'd to Hell;
But from the bottom of his gulphs profound,
Scamander spoke; the shores return'd the sound:
"O first of mortals! (for the gods are thine)
In valour matchless, and in force divine!
If Jove have given thee every Trojan head,
'Tis not on me thy rage should heap the dead.
See! my chok'd streams no more their course can
keep,

Nor roll their wonted tribute to the deep.
Turn, then, impetuous! from our injur'd flood;
Content, thy slaughters could amaze a god.”

In human form confess'd before his eyes,
The river thus; and thus the chief replies:
"O sacred stream! thy word we shall obey;
But not till Troy the destin'd vengeance pay:
Not till within her towers the perjur'd train
Shall pant, and tremble at our arms again:
Not till proud Hector, guardian of her wall,
Or stain this lance, or see Achilles fall."

He said; and drove with fury on the foe.
Then to the godhead of the silver bow
The yellow flood began: "O son of Jove!
Was not the mandate of the sire above
Full and express? that Phoebus should employ
His sacred arrows in defence of Troy,
And make her conquer, till Hyperion's fall
In awful darkness hide the face of all?"

[way.

He spoke in vain-the chicf without dismay,
Ploughs through the boiling surge his desperate
Then, rising in his rage above the shores,
From all his deep the bellowing river roars,
Huge heaps of slain disgorges on the coast,
And round the banks the ghastly dead are tost.
While all before, the billows rang'd on high
(A watery bulwark) skreen the bands who fly.
Now bursting on his head with thundering sound,
The falling deluge whelms the hero round:
His loaded shield bends to the rushing tide;
His feet, upborn, scarce the strong flood divide,
Sliddering, and staggering. On the border stood
A spreading elm, that overhung the flood;

He seiz'd a bending bough, his steps to stay ;
The plant, uprooted, to his weight gave way,
Heaving the bank, and undermining all;
Loud flash the waters to the rushing fall
Of the thick foliage. The large trunk display'd
Bridg'd the rough flood across: the hero stay'd
On this his weight, and, rais'd upon his hand,
Leap'd from the channel, and regain'd the land.

Then blacken'd the wild waves; "the murmur rose.;
The god pursues, a huger billow throws,
And bursts the bank, ambitious to destroy
The man whose fury is the fate of Troy.
He, like the warlike eagle, speeds his pace
(Swiftest and strongest of th' aerial race)
Far as a spear can fly; Achilles springs
At every bound; his clanging armour rings:
Now here, now there, he turns on every side,
And winds his course before the following tide;
The waves flow after, wheresoe'er he wheels,
And gather fast, and murmur at his heels.
So when a peasant to his garden brings
Soft rills of water from the bubbling springs,
And calls the floods from high, to bless his bowerą,
And feed with pregnant streams the plants and
flowers;

Soon as he clears whate'er their passage staid,
And marks the future current with his spade,
Swift o'er the rolling pebbles, down the hills,
Louder and louder purl the falling rills;
Before him scattering, they prevent his pains,
And shine in mazy wanderings o'er the plains.
Still flies Achilles, but before his eyes
Still swift Scamander rolls where'er he flies;
Not all his speed escapes the rapid floods;
The first of men, but not a match for gods.
Oft as he turn'd the torrent to oppose,
And bravely try if all the powers were foes;
So oft the surge, in watery mountains spread,
Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head.
Yet dauntless still the adverse flood he braves,
And still indignant bounds above the waves.
Tir'd by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
Wash'd from beneath him slides the slimy soil:
When thus (his eyes on Heaven's expansion thrown)
Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan:

"Is there no god Achilles to befriend,
No power t' avert his miserable end?
Prevent, oh Jove! this ignominious date,
And make my future life the sport of Fate.
Of all Heaven's oracles believ'd in vain,
But most of Thetis, must her son complain;
By Phoebus' darts she prophesied my fall,
In glorious arms before the Trojan wall.
Oh! had I died in fields of battle warm,
Stretch'd like a hero, by a hero's arm!

Might Hector's spear this dauntless bosom rend,
And my swift soul o'ertake my slaughter'd friend !
Ah, no! Achilles meets a shameful fate,
Oh! how unworthy of the brave and great!
Like some vile swain, whom on a rainy day,
Crossing a ford, the torrent sweeps away,
An unregarded carcase, to the sea."

Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,
And thus in human form address the chief.
The power of Ocean first: "Forbear thy fear,
O son of Peleus! Lo, thy gods appear!
Behold! from Jove descending to thy aid,
Propitious Neptune, and the blue-ey'd maid.
Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave:
'Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.

But thou, the counsel Heaven suggests, attend!
Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,
Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all
Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:
Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,
And Hector's blood shall sinoke upon thy lance.
Thine is the glory doom'd." Thus spake the gods;
Then swift ascended to the bright abodes.