by Homer
When great-in-heart Agenor saw, he made his javelin sing
To the others' labour; and along as he the trunk did wrest,
His side (at which he bore his shield) in bowing of his breast
Lay naked and received the lance that made him lose his hold
And life together; which, in hope of that he lost, he sold.
But for his sake the fight grew fierce, the Trojans and their foes
Like wolves on one another rushed, and man for man it goes.
The next of name, that served his fate, great Ajax Telamon
Preferred so sadly. He was heir to old Anthemion,
And decked with all the flower of youth, the fruit of which yet fled
Before the honoured nuptial torch could light him to his bed.
His name was Simoisius; for, some few years before,
His mother walking down the hill of Ida, by the shore
Of silver Simois, to see her parents' flocks, with them
She, feeling suddenly the pains of childbirth, by the stream
Of that bright river brought him forth; and so (of Simois)
They called him Simoisius. Sweet was that birth of his
To his kind parents, and his growth did all their care employ;
And yet those rites of piety, that should have been his joy
To pay their honoured years again in as affectionate sort,
He could not graciously perform, his- sweet life was so short,
Cut off with mighty Ajax' lance; for, as his spirit put on,
He struck him at his breast's right pap, quite through his shoulder-bone,
And in the dust of earth he fell that was the fruitful soil
Of his friends' hopes; but where he sowed he buried all his toil.
And as a poplar shot aloft, set by a river side,
In moist edge of a mighty fen, his head in curls implied,
But all his body plain and smooth, to which a wheelwright puts
The sharp edge of his shining axe, and his soft timber cuts
From his innative root, in hope to hew out of his bole
The fell'ffs, or out-parts of a wheel, that compass in the whole,
To serve some goodly chariot, but being big and sad,
And to be haled home through the bogs, the useful hope he had
Sticks there, and there the goodly plant lies withering out his grace;
So lay, by Jove-bred Ajax' hand, Anthemion's forward race,
Nor could through that vast fen of toils be drawn to serve the ends
Intended by his body's pow'rs, nor cheer his aged friends.
But now the gay-armed Antiphus, a son of Priam threw
His lance at Ajax through the press, which went by him, and flew
On Leucus, wise Ulysses' friend; his groin it smote, as fain
He would have drawn into his spoil the carcass of the slain,
By which he fell, and that by him; it vexed Ulysses' heart,
Who thrust into the face of fight, well armed at every part,
Came close, and looked about to find an object worth his lance;
Which when the Trojans saw him shake, and he so near advance,
All shrunk, he threw, and forth it shined, nor fell but where it felled,
His friends' grief gave it angry power, and deadly way it held
Upon Democoon, who was sprung of Priam's wanton force,
Came from Abydus, and was made the master of his horse.
Through both his temples struck the dart, the wood of one side showed
The pile out of the other looked, and so the earth he strewed
With much, sound of his weighty arms. Then back the foremost went;
Even Hector yielded; then the Greeks gave worthy clamours vent,
Effecting then their first-dumb powers; some drew the dead, and spoiled;
Some followed, that, in open flight, Troy might confess it foiled;
Apollo, angry at the sight, from top of Ilion cried :
“Turn head, ye well-rode peers of Troy, feed not the Grecian's pride,
They are not charmed against your points, of steel, nor iron, framed;
Nor fights the fair-haired Thetis' son, but sits at fleet inflamed."
So spake the dreadful God from Troy. The Greeks Jove's noblest seed
Encouraged to keep O11 the chase, and, where fit spirit did need,
She gave it, marching in the midst. Then flew the fatal hour
Back on Diores, in return of Ilion's sun-burned pow'r;
Diores Amaryncides, whose right leg's ankle-bone,
And both the sinews, with a sharp and handful-charging stone
Pirus Imbrasides did break, that led the Thracian bands
And came from yEnos; down he fell, and up he held his hands
To his loved friends; his spirit winged to fly out of his breast;
With which not satisfied, again Imbrasides addressed
His javelin at him, and so ripped his navel, that the wound,
As endlessly it shut his eyes, so, opened, on the ground
It poured his entrails. As his foe went then sufficed away,
Thoas iEtolius threw a dart that did his pile convey,
Above his nipple, through his lungs; when, quitting his stern part,
He closed with him, and, from his breast first drawing out his dart,
His sword flew in, and by the midst it wiped his belly out;
So took his life, but left his arms : his friends so flocked about,
And thrust forth lances of such length before their slaughtered king,
Which, though their foe were big and strong, and often brake the ring
Forged of their lances, yet (enforced) he left th' affected prise.
The Thracian and Epeian dukes, laid close with closed eyes
By either other, drowned in dust, and round about the plain
All hid with slaughtered carcasses, yet still did hotly reign
The martial planet, whose effects had any eye beheld,
Free and unwounded (and were led by Pallas through the field,
To keep off javelins, and suggest the least fault could be found)
He could not reprehend the fight, so many strewed the ground.
BOOK V.
ARGUMENT.
King Diomed (by Pallas' spirit inspired
With will and power) is for his acts admired.
Mere men, and men derived from, Deities,
And Deities themselves, he terrifies.
Adds wounds to terrors. His inflamed lance
Draws blood from, Mars and Venus. In a trance
He casts dSneas, with a weighty stone;
Apollo quickens him, and gets him gone.
Mars is recured by Pceon, but by Jove
Rebuked for authoring breach of human love.
ANOTHER ARGUMENT.
In Epsilon, Heaven's blood is shed
By sacred rage of Diomed.
THEN Pallas breathed in Tydeus' son, to render whom supreme,
To all the Greeks, at all his parts, she cast a hotter beam
On his high mind, his body filled with much superior might,
And made his complete armour cast a far more complete light.
From his bright helm and shield did burn a most unwearied fire,
Like rich Autumnus' golden lamp, whose brightness men admire
Past all the other host of stars, when, with his cheerful face
Fresh washed in lofty ocean waves, he doth the skies enchase.
To let whose glory lose no sight, still Pallas made him turn
Where tumult most express'd his power, and where the fight did burn.
An honest and a wealthy man inhabited in Troy,
Dares the Priest of Mulciber, who two 'sons did enjoy,
Idseus, and bold Phegeus, well seen in every fight.
These (singled from their troops, and horsed) assailed Minerva's knight,
Who ranged from fight to fight on foot. All hasting mut
ual charge,
And now drawn near, first Phegeus threw a javelin swift and large,
Whose head the king's left shoulder took, but did no harm at all.
Then rushed he out a lance at him, that had no idle fall,
But in his breast stuck 'twixt the paps and struck him from his horse.
Which stern sight when Idseus saw, distrustful of his force
To save his slaughtered brother's spoil, it made him headlong leap
From his fair chariot, and leave all, yet had not 'scaped the heap
Of heavy funeral, if the God, great president of fire,
Had not in sudden clouds of smoke, and pity of his sire
To leave him utterly unheired, given safe, pass to his feet.
He gone, Tydides sent the horse and chariot to the fleet.
The Trojans seeing Dares' sons, one slain, the other fled,
Were strook amazed. The blue-eyed Maid, to grace her Diomed
In giving free way to his power, made this so ruthful fact
A fit advantage to remove the War-god out of act,
Who raged so on the llion side. She griped his hand, and said:
“Mars, Mars, thou ruiner of men, that in the dust hast laid
So many cities, and with blood thy godhead dost distain,
Now shall we cease to show our breasts as passionate" as men,
And leave the mixture of our hands, resigning Jove his right,
As Eector of the Gods, to give the glory of the fight
Where he affecteth, lest he force what we should freely yield? "
He held it fit, and went with her from the tumultuous field,
Who set him in a herby seat on broad Scamander's shore,
He gone, all Troy was gone with him; the Greeks drave all before,
And every leader slew a man; but first the king of men
Deserved the honour of his name, and led the slaughter then,
And slew a leader, one more huge than any man he led,
Great Odius, duke-of Halizons; quite from his chariot's head
He strook him with a lance to earth, at first he flight addressed;
It took his forward-turned back, and looked out of his breast;
His huge trunk sounded, and his arms did echo the resound.
Idomenasus to the death did noble Phsestus wound,
The son of Meon-Borus, that from cloddy Terna came;
Who, taking chariot, took his wound, and tumbled with the same
From his attempted seat; the lance through his right shoulder strook,
And horrid darkness strook through him; the spoil his soldiers took.
Atrides-Menelaus slew, as he before him fled,
Scamandrius, son of Strophius, that was a huntsman bred;
A skilful huntsman, for his skill Diana's self did teach,
And made him able with his dart infallibly to reach,
All sorts of subtlest savages, which many a woody hill
Bred for him, and he much preserved, and all to show his skill.
Yet not the dart-delighting Queen taught him to shun this dart,
Nor all his hitting so far off, the mastery of his art;
His back received it, and he fell upon his breast withal;
His body's ruin, and his arms, so sounded in his fall,
That his affrighted horse flew off, and left him, like his life.
Meriones slew Phereclus, whom she that ne'er was wife,
Yet Goddess of good housewives, held in excellent respect
For knowing all the witty things that grace an architect,
And having power to give it all the cunning use of hand.
Harmonides, his sire, built ships, and made him understand,
"With all the practice it required, the frame of all that skill.
He built all Alexander's ships, that authored all the ill
Of all the Trojans and his own, because he did not know
The oracles advising Troy, for fear of overthrow,
To meddle with no sea affair, but live by tilling land.
This man Meriones surprised, and drave his deadly hand
Through his right hip; the lance's head ran through the region
About the bladder, underneath th' in-muscles and the bone;
He, sighing, bowed his knees to death, and sacrificed to earth.
Phylides stayed Pedseus' flight, Antenor's bastard birth,
Whom virtuous Theano his wife, to please her husband, kept
As tenderly as those she loved. Phylides near him stepped,
And in the fountain of his nerves did drench his fervent lance,
At his head's back-part; and so far the sharp head did advance,
It cleft the organ of his speech, and th' iron, cold as death,
He took betwixt his grinning teeth, and gave the air his breath.
Eurypylus, the much renowned, and great Evemon's son,
Divine Hypsenor slew, begot by stout Dolopion,
And consecrate Scamander's priest; he had a God's regard
Amongst the people; his hard flight the Grecian followed hard,
Rushed in so close, that with his sword he on his shoulder laid
A blow that his arm's brawn cut off; nor there his vigour stayed,
But drave down, and from off his wrist it hewed his holy hand
That gushed out blood, and down it dropped upon the blushing sand;
Death, with his purple finger, shut, and violent fate, his eyes.
Thus fought these, but distinguished well. Tydides so implies
His fury that you could not know whose side had interest
In his free labours, Greece or Troy; but as a flood increased
By violent and sudden showers, let down from hills, like hills
Lives any that exceeds thyself. Come, lift thy hands to Jove,
And send an arrow at this man — if but a man he prove,
That wins such god-like victories, and now affects our host
With so much sorrow, since so much of our best blood is lost
By his high valour. I have fear some God in him doth threat,
Incensed for want of sacrifice; the wrath of God is great."
Lycaon's famous son replied : " Great counsellor of Troy,
This man, so excellent in arms, I think is Tydeus' joy;
I know him by his fiery shield, by his bright three-plumed casque,
And by his horse; nor can I say, if or some God doth mask
In his appearance, or he be whom I named Tydeus' son,
But without God the things he does for certain are not done.
Some great Immortal, that conveys his shoulders in a cloud,
Goes by and puts by every dart at his bold breast bestowed,
Or lets it take with little hurt; for I myself let fly
A shaft that shot him through his arms, but had as good gone by,
Yet which I gloriously affirmed had driven him down to hell.
Some God is angry, and with me, for far hence, where I dwell,
My horse and chariots idle stand, with which some other way
I might repair this shameful miss. Eleven fair chariots stay
In old Lycaon's court, new made, new trimmed to have been gone,
Curtained, and arrast under foot; two horse to every one.
That eat white barley and black oats, and do no good at all;
And these Lycaon (that well knew how these affairs would fall)
Charged, when I set down this design, I should command with here,
And gave me many lessons more, all which much better were
Than any I took forth myself. The reason I laid down
Was but the sparing of my horse, since in a sieged town
I thought our horse-meat would be scant, when they were used to have
Their manger fall; so I left them, and like a lackey slave
Am come to Ilion, confident in nothing but my bow
That nothing profits me. Two shafts I vainly did besto
w
At two great princes, but of both my arrows neither slew;
Nor this, nor Atreus' younger son; a little blood I drew,
That served but to incense them more. In an unhappy star
I therefore from my armoury have drawn those tools of war
That day, when, for great Hector's sake, to amiable Troy
I came to lead the Trojan bands. But if I ever joy,
In safe return, my country's sight, my wife's, my lofty towers,
Let any stranger take this head, if to the fiery Powers
This bow, these shafts, in pieces burst, by these hands be not thrown;
Idle companions that they are to me and my renown."
iEneas said : " Use no such words; for, any other way
Than this, they shall not now be used. We first will both assay
This man with horse and chariot. Come then, ascend to me,
That thou may'st try our Trojan horse, how skilled in field they be,
And in pursuing those that fly, or flying, being pursued,
How excellent they are of foot; and these, if Jove conclude
The 'scape of Tydeus again, and grace him with our flight,
Shall serve to bring us safely off. Come, I'll be first shall fight,
Take thou these fair reins and this scourge; or, if thou wilt, fight thou.
And leave the horses' care to me." He answered : " I will now
Descend to fight; keep thou the reins, and guide thyself thy horse,
Who with their wonted manager will better wield the force
Of the impulsive chariot, if we be driven to fly,
Than with a stranger, under whom they will be much more shy;
And, fearing my voice, wishing thine grow resty, nor go on
To bear us off, but leave engaged for mighty Tydeus' son
Themselves and us. Then be thy part thy one-hoofed horses' guide,
I'll make the fight, and with a dart receive his utmost pride."
With this the gorgeous chariot both, thus prepared, ascend,
And make full way at Diomed; which, noted by his friend,
“Mine own most-loved mind," said he," two mighty men of war
I see come with a purposed charge; one's he that hits so far
With bow and shaft, Lycaon's son, the other fames the brood
Of great Anchises and the Queen that rules in amorous blood;
(iEneas, excellent in arms) come up, and use your steeds,
And look not war so in the face, lest that desire that feeds
Thy great mind be the bane of it." This did with anger sting
The blood of Diomed, to see his friend, that chid the king