by Homer
(The manly body left a load of clay),
And plaintive glides along the dreary coast,
A naked, wand’ring, melancholy ghost!
Achilles, musing as he roll’d his eyes
O’er the dead hero, thus (unheard) replies: 460
‘Die thou the first! when Jove and Heav’n ordain,
I follow thee.’ He said, and stripp’d the slain.
Then, forcing backward from the gaping wound
The reeking jav’lin, cast it on the ground.
The thronging Greeks behold with wond’ring eyes 465
His manly beauty and superior size:
While some, ignobler, the great dead deface
With wounds ungen’rous, or with taunts disgrace.
‘How changed that Hector! who, like Jove, of late
Sent lightning on our fleets and scatter’d Fate!’ 470
High o’er the slain the great Achilles stands,
Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands;
And thus aloud, while all the host attends:
‘Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!
Since now at length the powerful will of Heav’n 475
The dire destroyer to our arm has giv’n,
Is not Troy fall’n already? Haste, ye Powers!
See if already their deserted towers
Are left unmann’d; or if they yet retain
The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain? 480
But what is Troy, or glory what to me?
Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee,
Divine Patroclus! Death has seal’d his eyes;
Unwept, unhonour’d, uninterr’d he lies!
Can his dear image from my soul depart, 485
Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?
If, in the melancholy shades below,
The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow,
Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay’d,
Burn on thro’ death, and animate my shade. 490
Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring
The corse of Hector, and your Pæans sing.
Be this the song, slow moving tow’rd the shore,
“Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.” ‘
Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred 495
(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead);
The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound
With thongs inserted thro’ the double wound;
These fix’d up high behind the rolling wain,
His graceful head was trail’d along the plain. 500
Proud on his car th’ insulting victor stood,
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.
He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies;
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.
Now lost is all that formidable air; 505
The face divine, and long-descending hair,
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;
Deform’d, dishonour’d, in his native land!
Giv’n to the rage of an insulting throng!
And, in his parents’ sight, now dragg’d along. 510
The mother first beheld with sad survey;
She rent her tresses, venerably grey,
And cast far off the regal veils away.
With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans,
While the sad father answers groans with groans; 515
Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o’erflow,
And the whole city wears one face of woe:
No less than if the rage of hostile fires,
From her foundations curling to her spires,
O’er the proud citadel at length should rise, 520
And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.
The wretched Monarch of the falling state,
Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate:
Scarce the whole people stop his desp’rate course,
While strong affliction gives the feeble force: 525
Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,
In all the raging impotence of woe.
At length he roll’d in dust, and thus begun,
Imploring all, and naming one by one:
‘Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls; 530
I, only I, will issue from your walls
(Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none),
And bow before the murd’rer, of my son:
My grief perhaps his pity may engage;
Perhaps at least he may respect my age. 535
He has a father too; a man like me;
One not exempt from age and misery
(Vig’rous no more, as when his young embrace
Begot this pest of me, and all my race).
How many valiant sons, in early bloom, 540
Has that curs’d hand sent headlong to the tomb!
Thee, Hector! last; thy loss (divinely brave)!
Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.
Oh had thy gentle spirit pass’d in peace,
The son expiring in the sire’s embrace, 545
While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour,
And, bending o’er thee, mix’d the tender shower!
Some comfort that had been, some sad relief,
To melt in full satiety of grief!’
Thus wail’d the father, grov’ling on the ground, 550
And all the eyes of Ilion stream’d around.
Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears
(A mourning Princess, and a train in tears):
‘Ah! why has Heav’n prolong’d this hated breath,
Patient of horrors, to behold thy death? 555
O Hector! late thy parents’ pride and joy,
The boast of nations! the defence of Troy!
To whom her safety and her fame she owed,
Her Chief, her hero, and almost her God!
O fatal change! become in one sad day 560
A senseless corse! inanimated clay!’
But not as yet the fatal news had spread
To fair Andromache, of Hector dead;
As yet no messenger had told his Fate,
Nor ev’n his stay without the Scæan gate. 565
Far in the close recesses of the dome
Pensive she plied the melancholy loom;
A growing work employ’d her secret hours,
Confusedly gay with intermingled flowers.
Her fair-hair’d handmaids heat the brazen urn, 570
The bath preparing for her lord’s return:
In vain: alas! her lord returns no more!
Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore!
Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear
And all her members shake with sudden fear; 575
Forth from her iv’ry hand the shuttle falls,
As thus, astonish’d, to her maids she calls:
‘Ah, follow me’ (she cried)! ‘what plaintive noise
Invades my ear? ‘T is sure my mother’s voice.
My falt’ring knees their trembling frame desert, 580
A pulse unusual flutters at my heart.
Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate
(Ye Gods avert it!) threats the Trojan state.
Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest!
But much I fear my Hector’s dauntless breast 585
Confronts Achilles; chased along the plain,
Shut from our walls! I fear, I fear him slain!
Safe in the crowd he ever scorn’d to wait,
And sought for glory in the jaws of Fate:
Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath, 590
Now quench’d for ever in the arms of death.’
She spoke; and, furious, with distracted pace,
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face,
Flies thro’ the dome (the maids her step pursue),
And mounts the walls, and sends around her view. 5
95
Too soon her eyes the killing object found,
The godlike Hector dragg’d along the ground.
A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes:
She faints, she falls; her breath, her colour, flies.
Her hair’s fair ornaments, the braids that bound, 600
The net that held them, and the wreath that crown’d,
The veil and diadem, flew far away
(The gift of Venus on her bridal day).
Around, a train of weeping sisters stands,
To raise her sinking with assistant hands. 605
Scarce from the verge of death recall’d, again
She faints, or but recovers to complain:
‘O wretched husband of a wretched wife!
Born with one fate, to one unhappy life!
For sure one star its baneful beam display’d 610
On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade.
From diff’rent parents, diff’rent climes, we came,
At diff’rent periods, yet our fate the same!
Why was my birth to great Eëtion owed,
And why was all that tender care bestow’d? 615
Would I had never been! — Oh thou, the ghost
Of my dead husband! miserably lost!
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!
And I abandon’d, desolate, alone!
An only child, once comfort of my pains, 620
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
No more to smile upon his sire! no friend
To help him now! no father to defend!
For should he ‘scape the sword, the common doom,
What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come! 625
Ev’n from his own paternal roof expell’d,
Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field.
The day that to the shades the father sends,
Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends:
He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears 630
For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears;
Amongst the happy, unregarded he
Hangs on the robe or trembles at the knee;
While those his father’s former bounty fed,
Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread: 635
The kindest but his present wants allay,
To leave him wretched the succeeding day.
Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast
Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost,
Shall cry, Begone! thy father feasts not here: 640
The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear.
Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears,
To my sad soul Astyanax appears!
Forc’d by repeated insults to return,
And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn. 645
He who, with tender delicacy bred,
With Princes sported, and on dainties fed,
And, when still ev’ning gave him up to rest,
Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast,
Must — ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls 650
Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,
Is now that name no more, unhappy boy!
Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.
But thou, my Hector! liest exposed in air,
Far from thy parents’ and thy consort’s care, 655
Whose hand in vain, directed by her love,
The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove.
Now to devouring flames be these a prey,
Useless to thee, from this accursed day!
Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, 660
An honour to the living, not the dead!’
So spake the mournful dame: her matrons hear,
Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Priam Begs Achilles for Hector’s Corpse. Book XXIV
Translated by William Cowper
Watch’d, while the ancient King into the tent
Proceeded of Achilles dear to Jove.
Him there he found, and sitting found apart
His fellow-warriors, of whom two alone
Served at his side, Alcimus, branch of Mars
And brave Automedon; he had himself
Supp’d newly, and the board stood unremoved.
Unseen of all huge Priam enter’d, stood
Near to Achilles, clasp’d his knees, and kiss’d
Those terrible and homicidal hands
That had destroy’d so many of his sons.
As when a fugitive for blood the house
Of some chief enters in a foreign land,
All gaze, astonish’d at the sudden guest,
So gazed Achilles seeing Priam there,
And so stood all astonish’d, each his eyes
In silence fastening on his fellow’s face.
But Priam kneel’d, and suppliant thus began.
Think, oh Achilles, semblance of the Gods!
On thy own father full of days like me,
And trembling on the gloomy verge of life.
Some neighbor chief, it may be, even now
Oppresses him, and there is none at hand,
No friend to suocor him in his distress.
Yet, doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives,
He still rejoices, hoping, day by day,
That one day he shall see the face again
Of his own son from distant Troy return’d.
But me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons,
So late the flower of Ilium, all are slain.
When Greece came hither, I had fifty sons;
Nineteen were children of one bed, the rest
Born of my concubines. A numerous house!
But fiery Mars hath thinn’d it. One I had,
One, more than all my sons the strength of Troy,
Whom standing for his country thou hast slain —
Hector — his body to redeem I come
Into Achaia’s fleet, bringing, myself,
Ransom inestimable to thy tent.
Reverence the Gods, Achilles! recollect
Thy father; for his sake compassion show
To me more pitiable still, who draw
Home to my lips (humiliation yet
Unseen on earth) his hand who slew my son.
So saying, he waken’d in his soul regret
Of his own sire; softly he placed his hand
On Priam’s hand, and push’d him gently away.
Remembrance melted both. Rolling before
Achilles’ feet, Priam his son deplored
Wide-slaughtering Hector, and Achilles wept
By turns his father, and by turns his friend
Patroclus; sounds of sorrow fill’d the tent.
But when, at length satiate, Achilles felt
His heart from grief, and all his frame relieved,
Upstarting from his seat, with pity moved
Of Priam’s silver locks and silver beard,
He raised the ancient father by his hand,
Whom in wing’d accents kind he thus bespake.
Wretched indeed! ah what must thou have felt!
How hast thou dared to seek alone the fleet
Of the Achaians, and his face by whom
So many of thy valiant sons have fallen?
Thou hast a heart of iron, terror-proof.
Come — sit beside me — let us, if we may,
Great mourners both, bid sorrow sleep awhile.
There is no profit of our sighs and tears;
For thus, exempt from care themselves, the Gods
Ordain man’s miserable race to mourn.
Fast by the threshold of Jove’s courts are placed
Two casks, one stored with evil, one with good,
From which the God dispenses as he wills.
For whom the glorious Thunderer mingles both,
Alternate; but to whom he gives unmixt
The bitter cup, he makes that man a curse,
His name becomes a by-word of reproach,
His strength is hunger-bitten, and he walks
The blessed earth, unblest, go where he may.
So was my father Peleus at his birth
Nobly endow’d with plenty and with wealth
Distinguish’d by the Gods past all mankind,
Lord of the Myrmidons, and, though a man,
Yet match’d from heaven with an immortal bride.
But even him the Gods afflict, a son
Refusing him, who might possess his throne
Hereafter; for myself, his only heir,
Pass as a dream, and while I live, instead
Of solacing his age, here sit, before
Your distant walls, the scourge of thee and thine.
Thee also, ancient Priam, we have heard
Reported, once possessor of such wealth
As neither Lesbos, seat of Macar, owns,
Nor eastern Phrygia, nor yet all the ports
Of Hellespont, but thou didst pass them all
In riches, and in number of thy sons.
But since the Powers of heaven brought on thy land
This fatal war, battle and deeds of death
Always surround the city where thou reign’st.
Cease, therefore, from unprofitable tears,
Which, ere they raise thy son to life again
Shall, doubtless, find fresh cause for which to flow.
To whom the ancient King godlike replied.
Hero, forbear. No seat is here for me,
While Hector lies unburied in your camp.
Loose him, and loose him now, that with these eyes
I may behold my son; accept a price
Magnificent, which may’st thou long enjoy,
And, since my life was precious in thy sight,
May’st thou revisit safe thy native shore!
To whom Achilles, lowering, and in wrath.
Urge me no longer, at a time like this,
With that harsh note; I am already inclin’d
To loose him. Thetis, my own mother came
Herself on that same errand, sent from Jove.
Priam! I understand thee well. I know
That, by some God conducted, thou hast reach’d
Achaia’s fleet; for, without aid divine,
No mortal even in his prime of youth,
Had dared the attempt; guards vigilant as ours
He should not easily elude, such gates,
So massy, should not easily unbar.
Thou, therefore, vex me not in my distress,
Lest I abhor to see thee in my tent,
And, borne beyond all limits, set at nought