by Homer
Amongst the slaughtered carcasses. Dolon came on amain,
Suspecting nothing; but once past, as far as mules outdraw
Oxen at plough, being both put on, neither admitted law,
To plough a deep-soiled furrow forth, so far was Dolon past.
Then they pursued, which he perceived, and stayed his speedless haste,
Subtly supposing Hector sent to countermand his spy;
But, in a javelin's throw or less, he knew them enemy.
Then laid he on his nimble knees, and they pursued like wind.
As when a brace of greyhounds are laid in with hare or hind,
Close-mouthed and skilled to make the best of their industrious course,
Serve either's turn, and, set on hard, lose neither ground nor force;
So constantly did Tydeus' son, and his town-razing peer,
Pursue this spy, still turning him, as he was winding near
His covert, till he almost mixed with their out-courts of guard.
Then Pallas prompted Diomed, lest his due worth's reward
Should be impaired if any mau did vaunt he first did sheath
His sword in him, and he be called but second in his death.
Then spake he, threat'ning with his lance : " Or stay, or this comes on,
And long thou canst not run before thou be by death outgone."
This said, he threw his javelin forth; which missed as Diomed would,
Above his right arm making way, the pile stuck in the mould.
He stayed and trembled, and his teeth did chatter in his head.
They came in blowing, seized him fast; he, weeping, offered
A wealthy ransom for his life, and told them he had brass,
Much gold, and iron, that fit for use in many labours was,
From whose rich heaps his father would a wondrous portion give,
If, at the great Achaian fleet, he heard his son did live.
Ulysses bade him cheer his heart. "Think not of death," said he,
“But tell us true, why runn'st thou forth when others sleeping be?
Is it to spoil the carcasses? Or art thou choicely sent
T' explore our drifts? Or of thyself seek'st thou some wished event?"
He trembling answered: "Much reward did Hector's oath propose
And urged me, much against my will, t' endeavour to disclose
If you determined still to stay, or bent your course for flight,
As all dismayed with your late foil, and wearied with the fight.
For which exploit, Pelides' horse and chariot he did swear,
I only ever should enjoy." Ulysses smiled to hear
So base a swain have any hope so high a prize t' aspire,
And said, his labours did affect a great and precious hire,
And that the horse Pelides reined no mortal hand could use
But he himself, whose matchless life a Goddess did produce.
“But tell us, and report but truth, where left'st thou Hector now?
Where are his arms? His famous horse? On whom doth he bestow
The watch's charge? Where sleep the kings? Intend they still to lie
Thus near encamped, or turn sufficed with their late victory? "
“All this," said he, " I'll tell most true. At Ilus' monument
Hector with all our princes sits, t' advise of this event, .
Who choose that place removed to shun the rude confused sounds
The common soldiers throw about. But, for our watch, and rounds,
Whereof, brave lord, thou mak'st demand, none orderly we keep.
The Trojans, that have roofs to save, only abandon sleep,
And privately without command each other they exhort
To make prevention of the worst; and in this slender sort
Is watch and guard maintained with us. Th' auxiliary bands
Sleep soundly, and commit their cares into the Trojans' hands.
For they have neither wives with them, nor children to protect;
The less they need to care, the more they succour dull neglect."
“But tell me," said wise Ithacus, " are all these foreign powers
Appointed quarters by themselves, or else commixed with yours? "
“And this," said Dolon, " too, my lords, I'll seriously unfold.
The Pasons with the crooked bows, and Cares, quarters hold
Next to the sea, the Leleges, and Caucons, joined with them,
And brave Pelasgians. Thymber's mead, removed more from the stream,
Is quarter to the Lycians, the lofty Mysian force,
The Phrygians and Meonians, that fight with armed horse.
But what need these particulars? If ye intend surprise
Of any in our Trojan camps, the Thracian quarter lies
Utmost of all, and uncommixed with Trojan regiments,
That keep the voluntary watch. New pitched are all their tents.
King Rhesus, Eioneus' son commands them, who hath steeds-
More white than snow, huge, and well-shaped, their fiery pace exceeds
The winds in swiftness; these I saw; his chariot is with gold
And pallid silver richly framed, and wondrous to behold;
His great and golden armour is not fit a man should wear
But for immortal shoulders framed. Come then, and quickly bear
Your happy prisoner to your fleet; or leave him here fast bound
Till your well-urged and rich return prove my relation sound."
Tydides dreadfully replied : " Think not of passage thus,
Though of right acceptable news thou hast advertised us,
Our hands are holds more strict than so; and should we set thee free
For offered ransom, for this 'scape thou still wouldst scouting be
About our ships, or do us scathe, in plain opposed arms,
But, if I take thy life, no way can we repent thy harms."
With this, as Dolon reached his hand to use a suppliant's part
And stroke the beard of Diomed, he struck his neck athwart
With his forced sword, and both the nerves he did in sunder wound,
And suddenly his head, deceived, fell speaking on the ground.
His weasel's helm they took, his bow, his wolfs skin, and his lance,
Which to Minerva Ithacus did zealously advance,
With lifted arm into the air; and to her thus he spake :
“Goddess, triumph in thine own spoils; to thee we first will make
Our invocations, of all powers throned on th' Olympian hill;
Now to the Thracians, and their horse, and beds, conduct us still."
With this he hung them up aloft upon a tamrick bough
As eyeful trophies, and the sprigs that did about it grow
He proined from the leafy arms, to make- it easier viewed
When they should hastily retire, and be perhaps pursued.
•Forth weut they through black blood and arms, and presently aspired
The guardless Thracian regiment, fast bound with sleep, and tired;
Their arms lay by, and triple ranks they, as they slept, did keep,
As tliey should watch and guard their king, who, in a fatal sleep,
Lay in the midst; their chariot horse, as they coachfellows were,
Fed by them; and the famous steeds, that did their general bear,
Stood next him, to the hinder part of his rich chariot tied.
Ulysses saw them first, and said, " Tydides, I have spied
The horse that Dolon, whom we slew, assured us we should see.
Now use thy strength; now idle arms are most unfit for thee;
Prize thou the horse; or kill the guard, and leave the horse to me."
Minerva, with the azure eyes, breathed strength into her king,
Who filled the tent with mixed death. The souls, he set on wing,
Issued in groans, and made air swell into her stormy flood.
Horror and slaughter
had one power; the earth did blush with blood.
As when a hungry lion flies, with purpose to devour,
On flocks unkept, and on their lives doth freely use his power;
So Tydeus' son assailed the foe; twelve souls before him flew;
Ulysses waited on his sword, and ever as he slew,
He drew them by their strengthless heels out of the horses' sight,
That, when he was to lead them forth, they should not with affright
Boggle, nor snore, in treading on the bloody carcasses;
For being new come, they were unused to such stern sights as these.
Through four ranks now did Diomed the king himself attain,
Who, snoring in his sweetest sleep, was like his soldiers slain.
An ill dream by Minerva sent that night stood by his head,
Which was Oenides' royal son, unconquered Diomed.
Meanwhile Ulysses loosed his horse, took all their reins in hand,
And led them forth; but Tydeus' son did in contention stand
With his great mind to do some deed of more audacity,
If he should take the chariot, where his rich arms did lie,
And draw it by the beam away, or bear it on his back,
Or if, of more dull Thracian lives, he should their bosoms sack.
In this contention with himself, Minerva did suggest
And bade him think of his retreat, lest from their tempted rest
Some other God should stir the foe, and send him back dismayed.
He knew the voice, took horse, and fled. The Trojans' heavenly aid,
Apollo with the silver bow, stood no blind sentinel
To their secure and drowsy host, but did discover well
Minerva following Diomed; and, angry with his act,
The mighty host of Ilion he entered, and awaked
The cousin-german of the king, a counsellor of Thrace,
Hippocoon; who when he rose, and saw the desert place,
Where Rhesus' horse did use to stand, and th' other dismal harms,
Men struggling with the pangs of death, he shrieked out thick alarms,
Called " Rhesus! Rhesus!" but in vain; then still, " Arm! Arm! " he cried.
The noise and tumult was extreme on every startled side
Of Troy's huge host; from whence in throngs all gathered, and admired
Who could perform such harmful facts, and yet be safe retired.
Now, coming where they slew the scout, Ulysses stayed the steeds,
Tydides lighted, and the spoils, hung on the tamrick reeds,
He took and gave to Ithacus, and up he got again.
Then flew they joyful to their fleet. Nestor did first attain
The sounds the horse-hoofs struck through air, and said : " My royal peers!
Do I but dote, or say I true? Methinks about mine ears
The sounds of running horses beat. O would to God they were
Our friends thus soon returned with spoils! But I have hearty fear,
Lest this high tumult of the foe doth their distress intend."
He scarce had spoke, when they were come. Both did from horse desccml.
All, with embraces and sweet words, to heaven their worth did raise.
Then Nestor spake : " Great Ithacus, even heaped with Grecian praise,
How have you made these hor-e your prize? Pierced you the dangerous host,
Where such gems stand? Or did some God your high attempts accost,
And honoured you with this reward? Why, they be like the rays
The sun effuseth. I have mixed with Trojans all my days;
And now, I hope you will not say, I always lie aboard,
Though an old soldier I confers; yet did all Troy afford
Never the like to any sense that ever I possessed.
But some good God, no doubt, hath m^t, and your high valours blessed,
For he that shadows heaven with clouds loves both as his delights,
And she that supplies earth with blood eannot fqpbear your sights."
Ulysses answered : " Honoured sire, the willing Gods can give
Horse much more worth than these men yield, since in more power they li
These horse are of the Thracian breed; their king Tydides slew,
And twelve of his most trusted guard, and of that meaner crew
A scout for thirteenth man we killed, from Hector sent to spy
The whole estate of our designs, if bent to fight or fly."
Thus, followed with whole troops of friends, they with applauses passed
The spacious dike, and in the tent of Diomed they placed
The horse without contention, as his deserving's meed,
Which, with his other horse set up,, on yellow wheat did feed.
Poor Dolon's spoils Ulysses had; who shrined them on his stern,
As trophies vowed to her that sent the good-aboding hern.
Then entered they the mere main sea, to cleanse their honoured sweat
From off their feet, their thighs and necks; and, when their vehement heat
Was calmed, and their swoln hearts refreshed, more curious baths they used,
Where odorous and dissolving oils they through their limbs diffused.
Then, taking breakfast, a big bowl filled with the purest wine
They offered to the Maiden Queen that hath the azure eyne.
BOOK XI.
ARGUMENT.
Atrides and his other peers of name
Lead forth their men; whom, Eris doth inflame.
Hector (by Iris' charge) takes deedless breath,
Whiles Agamemnon plies the work of death,
Who with the first bears his imperial head.
Himself, Ulysses, and king Diomed,
Eurypylus, and AEsculapius' son,
(Enforced with wounds) the furious skirmish shun.
Which martial sight when great Achilles views,
A little his desire of fight renews;
And forth he sends his friend, to bring him word
From old Neleides, what wounded lord
He in his chariot from the skirmish brought;
Which was Machaon. Nestor then besought
He would persuade his friend to wrreak their harms,
Or come himself, decked in his dreadful arms.
ANOTHER ARGUMENT.
Lambda presents the General,
In fight the worthiest man of all.
AURORA out of restful bed did from bright Tithon rise,
To bring each deathless Essence light, and use to mortal eyes;
When Jove sent Eris to the Greeks, sustaining in her hand
Stern signs of her designs for war. She took her horrid stand
Upon Ulysses' huge black bark that did at anchor ride
Amidst the fleet, from whence her sounds might ring on every side,
Both to the tents of Telamon, and th' author of their smarts,
Who held, for fortitude and force, the navy's utmost parts.
The red-eyed Goddess, seated there, thundered th' Orthian song,
High, and with horror, through the ears of all the Grecian throng.
Her verse with spirits invincible did all their breasts inspire,
Divine Agenor, Polybus, unmarried Acamos
Proportioned like the States of heaven. In front of all the field,
Troy's great Priamides did bear his all-ways-equal shield,
Still plying th' ordering of his power. And as amidst the sky
We sometimes see an ominous star blaze clear and dreadfully,
Then run his golden head in clouds, and straight appear again;
So Hector otherwhiles did grace the vaunt-guard, shining plain,
Then in the rear-guard hid himself, and laboured everywhere
To order and encourage all; his armour was so clear,
And he applied each place so fast, that, like a lightning thrown
Out of the shield of Jupiter, in every eye he shone.
And as upon a rich man's crop of barley or of wheat,
Opposed for swiftness at their work, a sort of reapers sweat,
Bear down the furrows speedily, and thick their handfuls fall;
So at the joining of the hosts ran slaughter through them all,
None stooped to any fainting thought of foul inglorious flight,
But equal bore they up their heads, and fared like wolves in fight.
Stern Eris, with such weeping sights, rejoiced to feed her eyes,
Who only showed herself in field of all the Deities;
The other in Olympus' tops sat silent, and repined
That Jove to do the Trojans grace should bear so fixed a mind.
He cared not, but, enthroned apart, triumphant sat in sway
Of his free power, and from his seat took pleasure to display
The city so adorned with towers, the sea with vessels filled,
The' splendour of refulgent arms, the killer and the killed.
As long as bright Aurora ruled, and sacred day increased,
So long their darts made mutual wounds, and neither had the best;
But when in hill-environed vales the timber-feller takes
A sharp set stomach to his meat, and dinner ready makes,
His sinews fainting, and his spirits become surcharged and dull,
Time of accustomed ease arrived, his hands with labour full,
Then by their valours Greeks brake through the Trojan ranks, and cheered
Their general squadrons-through the host, then first of all appeared
The person of the king himself, and then the Trojans lost
Bianor by his royal charge, a leader in the host.
Who being slain, his charioteer, Oileus, did alight,
And stood in skirmish with the king; the king did deadly smite
His forehead with his eager lance, and through his helm it ran,
Enforcing passage to his brain quite through the hard'ned pan,
His brain mixed with his clottered blood, his body strewed the ground.
There left he them, and presently he other objects found;
Isus and Antiphus, two sons king Priam did beget,
One lawful, th' other wantonly. Both in one chariot met
Their royal foe; the baser born, Isus, was charioteer,
And famous Antiphus did fight; both which king Peleus' heir,
Whilome in Ida keeping flocks, did deprehend and bind
With pliant osiers, and, for price, them to their sire resigned.
Atrides with his well-aimed lance smote Isus on the breast