‘Is there no God Achilles to befriend,
No power t’ avert his miserable end?
Prevent, oh Jove! this ignominious date, 315
And make my future life the sport of Fate:
Of all Heav’n’s oracles believ’d in vain,
But most of Thetis, must her son complain:
By Phœbus’ darts she prophesied my fall,
In glorious arms before the Trojan wall. 320
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, 325
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 carcass to the sea.’
Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief, 330
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-eyed Maid. 335
Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave:
‘T is not thy fate to glut his angry wave.
But thou the counsel Heav’n suggests attend;
Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,
Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all 340
Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:
Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,
And Hector’s blood shall smoke upon thy lance;
Thine is the glory doom’d.’ Thus spake the Gods:
Then swift ascended to the bright abodes. 345
Stung with new ardour, thus by Heav’n impell’d,
He springs impetuous, and invades the field:
O’er all th’ expanded plain the waters spread;
Heav’d on the bounding billows danc’d the dead,
Floating ‘midst scatter’d arms: while casques of gold, 350
And turn’d-up bucklers, glitter’d as they roll’d.
High o’er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds,
He wades, and mounts; the parted wave resounds.
Not a whole river stops the hero’ course,
While Pallas fills him with immortal force. 355
With equal rage indignant Xanthus roars,
And lifts his billows, and o’erwhelms his shores.
Then thus to Sïmois: ‘Haste, my brother flood!
And check this mortal that controls a God:
Our bravest heroes else shall quit the fight, 360
And Ilion tumble from her tow’ry height.
Call then thy subject streams, and bid them roar;
From all thy fountains swell thy wat’ry store;
With broken rocks, and with a load of dead
Charge the black surge, and pour it on his head. 365
Mark how resistless thro’ the floods he goes,
And boldly bids the warring Gods be foes!
But nor that force, nor form divine to sight,
Shall aught avail him, if our rage unite:
Whelm’d under our dark gulfs those harms shall lie, 370
That blaze so dreadful in each Trojan eye;
And deep beneath a sandy mountain hurl’d,
Immers’d remain this terror of the world.
Such pond’rous ruin shall confound the place,
No Greeks shall e’er his perish’d relics grace, 375
No hand his bones shall gather or inhume;
These his cold rites, and this his wat’ry tomb.’
He said; and on the Chief descends amain,
Increas’d with gore, and swelling with the slain.
Then, murm’ring from his beds, he boils, he raves, 380
And a foam whitens on the purple waves:
At ev’ry step, before Achilles stood
The crimson surge, and deluged him with blood.
Fear touch’d the Queen of Heav’n: she saw dismay’d,
She call’d aloud, and summon’d Vulcan’s aid. 385
‘Rise to the war! th’ insulting Flood requires
Thy wasteful arm: assemble all thy fires!
While to their aid, by our command enjoin’d,
Rush the swift eastern and the western wind:
These from old ocean at my word shall blow, 390
Pour the red torrent on the wat’ry foe,
Corses and arms to one bright ruin turn,
And hissing rivers to their bottoms burn.
Go, mighty in thy rage! display thy power;
Drink the whole flood, the crackling trees devour; 395
Scorch all the banks! and (till our voice reclaim)
Exert th’ unwearied furies of the flame!’
The Power Ignipotent her word obeys:
Wide o’er the plain he pours the boundless blaze;
At once consumes the dead, and dries the soil; 400
And the shrunk waters in their channel boil.
As when autumnal Boreas sweeps the sky,
And instant blows the water’d gardens dry:
So look’d the field, so whiten’d was the ground,
While Vulcan breathed the fiery blast around. 405
Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys;
Along the margin winds the running blaze:
The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn,
The flow’ry lotos and the tam’risk burn,
Broad elm, and cypress rising in a spire; 410
The wat’ry willows hiss before the fire.
Now glow the waves, the fishes pant for breath:
The eels lie twisting in the pangs of death:
Now flounce aloft, now dive the scaly fry,
Or gasping, turn their bellies to the sky. 415
At length the River rear’d his languid head,
And thus, short panting, to the God he said:
‘Oh Vulcan! oh! what Power resists thy might?
I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight ——
I yield — let Ilion fall; if Fate decree —— 420
Ah bend no more thy fiery arms on me!’
He ceas’d; while, conflagration blazing round,
The bubbling waters yield a hissing sound.
As when the flames beneath a caldron rise,
To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice, 425
Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires
The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires:
So boils th’ imprison’d flood, forbid to flow,
And, choked with vapours, feels his bottom glow.
To Juno then, imperial Queen of Air, 430
The burning River sends his earnest prayer:
‘Ah why, Saturnia! must thy son engage
Me, only me, with all his wasteful rage?
On other Gods his dreadful arm employ,
For mightier Gods assert the cause of Troy. 435
Submissive I desist, if thou command,
But ah! withdraw this all-destroying hand.
Hear then my solemn oath, to yield to Fate
Unaided Ilion, and her destin’d state,
Till Greece shall gird her with destructive flame, 440
And in one ruin sink the Trojan name.’
His warm entreaty touch’d Saturnia’s ear:
She bade th’ Ignipotent his rage forbear,
Recall the flame, nor in a mortal cause
Infest a God: th’ obedient flame withdraws: 445
Again, the branching streams begin to spread,
And soft re-murmur in their wonted bed.
While these by Juno’s will the strife resign,
The warring Gods in fierce contention join:
Rekindling rage each heav’nly breast alarms; 450
With hor
rid clangour shock th’ ethereal arms:
Heav’n in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound;
And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.
Jove, as his sport, the dreadful scene descries,
And views contending Gods with careless eyes. 455
The Power of Battles lifts his brazen spear,
And first assaults the radiant Queen of War.
‘What mov’d thy madness, thus to disunite
Ethereal minds, and mix all Heav’n in fight?
What wonder this, when in thy frantic mood 460
Thou drovest a mortal to insult a God?
Thy impious hand Tydides’ jav’lin bore,
And madly bathed it in celestial gore.’
He spoke, and smote the loud-resounding shield,
Which bears Jove’s thunder on its dreadful field; 465
The adamantine ægis of her sire,
That turns the glancing bolt, and forked fire.
Then heav’d the Goddess in her mighty hand
A stone, the limit of the neighb’ring land,
There fix’d from eldest times; black, craggy, vast. 470
This at the heav’nly homicide she cast.
Thund’ring he falls; a mass of monstrous size,
And sev’n broad acres covers as he lies.
The stunning stroke his stubborn nerves unbound;
Loud o’er the fields his ringing arms resound: 475
The scornful Dame her conquest views with smiles,
And, glorying, thus the prostrate God reviles:
‘Hast thou not yet, insatiate fury! known
How far Minerva’s force transcends thy own?
Juno, whom thou rebellious dar’st withstand, 480
Corrects thy folly thus by Pallas’ hand;
Thus meets thy broken faith with just disgrace,
And partial aid to Troy’s perfidious race.’
The Goddess spoke, and turn’d her eyes away,
That, beaming round, diffused celestial day. 485
Jove’s Cyprian daughter, stooping on the land,
Lent to the wounded God her tender hand:
Slowly he rises, scarcely breathes with pain,
And propt on her fair arm forsakes the plain:
This the bright Empress of the Heav’ns survey’d, 490
And scoffing thus to War’s victorious Maid:
‘Lo, what an aid on Mars’s side is seen!
The smiles’ and loves’ unconquerable Queen!
Mark with what insolence, in open view,
She moves: let Pallas, if she dares, pursue.’ 495
Minerva smiling heard, the pair o’ertook,
And slightly on her breast the wanton struck:
She, unresisting, fell (her spirits fled);
On earth together lay the lovers spread.
‘And like these heroes, be the fate of all’ 500
(Minerva cries) ‘who guard the Trojan wall!
To Grecian Gods such let the Phrygian be,
So dread, so fierce, as Venus is to me;
Then from the lowest stone shall Troy be mov’d:’
Thus she, and Juno with a smile approv’d. 505
Meantime, to mix in more than mortal fight,
The God of Ocean dares the God of Light.
‘What sloth has seiz’d us, when the fields around
Ring with conflicting Powers, and Heav’n returns the sound?
Shall, ignominious, we with shame retire, 510
No deed perform’d, to our Olympian sire?
Come, prove thy arm! for first the war to wage,
Suits not my greatness, or superior age;
Rash as thou art, to prop the Trojan throne
(Forgetful of my wrongs, and of thy own), 515
And guard the race of proud Laomedon!
Hast thou forgot, how, at the Monarch’s prayer,
We shared the lengthen’d labours of a year?
Troy’s walls I rais’d (for such were Jove’s commands),
And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands; 520
Thy task it was to feed the bell’wing droves
Along fair Ida’s valves, and pendent groves.
But when the circling seasons in their train
Brought back the grateful day that crown’d our pain;
With menace stern the fraudful King defied 525
Our latent Godhead, and the prize denied:
Mad as he was, he threaten’d servile bands,
And doom’d us exiles far in barb’rous lands.
Incens’d, we heavenward fled with swiftest wing,
And destin’d vengeance on the perjur’d King. 530
Dost thou, for this, afford proud Ilion grace,
And not, like us, infest the faithless race?
Like us, their present, future sons destroy,
And from its deep foundations heave their Troy?’
Apollo thus: ‘To combat for mankind 535
Ill suits the wisdom of celestial mind:
For what is man? Calamitous by birth,
They owe their life and nourishment to earth:
Like yearly leaves, that now, with beauty crown’d,
Smile on the sun; now, wither on the ground; 540
To their own hands commit the frantic scene,
Nor mix Immortals in a cause so mean.’
Then turns his face, far beaming heav’nly fires,
And from the senior Power submiss retires;
Him, thus retreating, Artemis upbraids, 545
The quiver’d Huntress of the sylvan Shades:
‘And is it thus the youthful Phœbus flies,
And yields to Ocean’s hoary Sire the prize?
How vain that martial pomp, and dreadful show
Of pointed arrows, and the silver bow! 550
Now boast no more in yon celestial bower,
Thy force can match the great earth-shaking Power.’
Silent he heard the Queen of Woods upbraid:
Not so Saturnia bore the vaunting maid;
But furious thus: ‘What insolence has driv’n 555
Thy pride to face the Majesty of Heav’n?
What tho’ by Jove the female plague design’d,
Fierce to the feeble race of womankind,
The wretched matron feels thy piercing dart;
Thy sex’s tyrant, with a tiger’s heart? 560
What tho’, tremendous in the woodland chase,
Thy certain arrows pierce the savage race?
How dares thy rashness on the Powers divine
Employ those arms, or match thy force with mine?
Learn hence, no more unequal war to wage’ — 565
She said, and seiz’d her wrists with eager rage;
These in her left hand lock’d, her right untied
The bow, the quiver, and its plumy pride.
About her temples flies the busy bow;
Now here, now there, she winds her from the blow; 570
The scat’ring arrows, rattling from the case,
Drop round, and idly mark the dusty place.
Swift from the field the baffled huntress flies,
And scarce restrains the torrent in her eyes:
So when the falcon wings her way above 575
To the cleft cavern speeds the gentle dove
(Not fated yet to die), there safe retreats,
Yet still her heart against the marble beats.
To her Latona hastes with tender care;
Whom Hermes viewing thus declines the war: 580
‘How shall I face the Dame who gives delight
To him whose thunders blacken Heav’n with night?
Go, matchless Goddess! triumph in the skies,
And boast my conquest, while I yield the prize.’
He spoke, and pass’d: Latona, stooping low, 585
Collects the scatter’d shafts, and fallen bow,
That, glitt’ring on the dust, lay here and there;
Dishonour�
�d relics of Diana’s war.
Then swift pursued her to her blest abode,
Where, all confused, she sought the sov’reign God; 590
Weeping she grasp’d his knees: th’ ambrosial vest
Shook with her sighs, and panted on her breast.
The Sire superior smiled; and bade her shew
What heav’nly hand had caus’d his daughter’s woe?
Abash’d she names his own imperial spouse; 595
And the pale crescent fades upon her brows.
Thus they above; while, swiftly gliding down,
Apollo enters Ilion’s sacred town:
The guardian God now trembled for her wall,
And fear’d the Greeks, tho’ Fate forbade her fall. 600
Back to Olympus, from the war’s alarms,
Return the shining bands of Gods in arms;
Some proud in triumph, some with rage on fire;
And take their thrones around th’ ethereal Sire.
Thro’ blood, thro’ death, Achilles still proceeds, 605
O’er slaughter’d heroes, and o’er rolling steeds.
As when avenging flames, with fury driv’n,
On guilty towns exert the wrath of Heav’n;
The pale inhabitants, some fall, some fly;
And the red vapours purple all the sky: 610
So raged Achilles: death, and dire dismay,
And toils, and terror, fill’d the dreadful day.
High on a turret hoary Priam stands,
And marks the waste of his destructive hands;
Views, from his arm, the Trojans’ scatter’d flight, 615
And the near hero rising on his sight.
No stop, no check, no aid! With feeble pace,
And settled sorrow on his aged face,
Fast as he could, he sighing quits the walls!
And thus, descending, on the guards he calls: 620
‘You, to whose care our city gates belong,
Set wide your portals to the flying throng.
For lo! he comes, with unresisted sway;
He comes, and desolation marks his way!
But when within the walls our troops take breath, 625
Lock fast the brazen bars, and shut out death.’
Thus charged the rev’rend Monarch: wide were flung
The opening folds! the sounding hinges rung.
Phœbus rush’d forth, the flying bands to meet,
Struck slaughter back, and cover’d the retreat. 630
On heaps the Trojans crowd to gain the gate,
And gladsome see their last escape from Fate:
Thither, all parch’d with thirst, a heartless train,
Hoary with dust, they beat the hollow plain;
And gasping, panting, fainting, labour on 635
With heavier strides, that lengthen tow’rd the town.
Enraged Achilles follows with his spear;
Wild with revenge, insatiable of war.
Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series Page 113