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Too foon her eyes the killing object found,
The god-like Hector dragg'd along the ground.
A fudden darkness fhades her fwimming eyes :
She faints, the 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 fifters stands,
To raise her, finking, with affiftant hands.
Scarce from the verge of death recall'd, again
She faints, or but recovers to complain.

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O wretched husband of a wretched wife! Born with one fate, to one unhappy life!

For fure one ftar its baneful beam difplay'd

610

615

On Priam's roof and Hippoplacia's fhade.
From different parents, different climes, we came,
At different periods, yet our fates the fame!
Why was my birth to great Aëtion ow'd,
And why was all that tender care bestow'd?
Would I had never been !—O thou, the ghost
Of my dead husband! miserably lost ;
Thou, to the difmal realms for ever gone!
And I abandon'd, defolate, alone!
An only child, once comfort of my pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains. Į
No more to smile upon his fire, no friend
To help him now! no father to defend !
For fhould he 'scape the sword, the common doom,
What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come!

620

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 fad orphan of his father's friends:
He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears
For ever fad, for ever bath'd in tears!
Amongst the happy, unregarded he
Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee,
While thofe his father's former bounty fed,
Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread :
The kindeft but his prefent wants allay,
To leave him wretched the fucceeding day.
Frugal compaffion! Heedlefs, they who boast
Both parents ftill, nor feel what he has loft,
Shall cry,

630

635

"Be gone! thy father feasts not here;” 640 The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear.

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears,
To my fad foul Aftyanax appears!
Forc'd by repeated infults to return,
And to his widow'd mother vainly mourn.
He, who, with tender delicacy bred,
With princes fported, and on dainties fed,
And when still evening gave him up to rest,
Sunk in foft down upon the nurse's breast,

645

Must-ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls 650
Aftyanax, from her well- guarded walls,

Is now that name no more, unhappy boy!
Since now no more the father guards his Troy.
But thou, my Hector, ly'ft expos'd in air,
Far from thy parents' and thy confort's care,

655

Whofe

Whofe hand in vain, directed by her love,
The martial fearf and robe of triumph wove.
Now to devouring flames be thefe a prey,
Ufelefs to thee, from this accurfed day!
Yet let the facrifice at least be paid,
An honour to the living, not the dead.

So fpake the mournful dame: her matrons hear,

Sigh back her fighs, and answer tear with tear,

660

THE

THE

TWENTY-THIRD BOOK

OF THE

ILIA D.

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