Mean as I am, the Gods may guide my dart,
And give it entrance in a braver heart.
Then parts the lance: but Pallas' heavenly breath Far from Achilles wafts the winged death
The bidden dart again to Hector flies,
And at the feet of its great mafter lies.
Achilles closes with his hated foe,
His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow :
But, prefent to his aid, Apollo shrouds
The favour'd hero in a veil of clouds.
Thrice ftruck Pelides with indignant heart,
Thrice in impaffive air he plung'd the dart :
The fpear a fourth time bury'd in the cloud;
He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud:
Wretch ! thou haft fcap'd again, once more thy flight
Has fav'd thee, and the partial God of Light.
But long thou shalt not thy just fate withstand,
If any Power affift Achilles' hand.
Fly then, inglorious! but thy flight this day
Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay.
With that, he gluts his rage on numbers flain: 525
Then Dryops tumbled to th' enfanguin'd plain,
Pierc'd through the neck: he left him panting there,
And stopp'd Demuchus, great Philetor's heir,
Gigantic chief! deep gash'd th' enormous blade,
And for the foul an ample passage made.
Laogonus and Dardanus expire,
The valiant fons of an unhappy fire
Both in one inftant from the chariot hurl'd,
Sunk in one inftant to the nether world;
This difference only their fad fates afford,
That one the spear destroy'd, and one the sword.
Nor lefs unpity'd young Alastor bleeds;
In vain his youth, in vain his beauty, pleads:
In vain he begs thee with a fuppliant's moan,
To fpare a form, an age, so like thy own!
Unhappy boy! no prayer, no moving art,
E'er bent that fierce, inexorable heart!
While yet he trembled at his knees, and cry'd,
The ruthlefs falchion ope'd his tender fide;
The panting liver pours a flood of gore,
That drowns his bofom till he pants no more.
Through Mulius' head then drove th' impetuous
The warriour falls, transfix'd from ear to ear. [spear,
Thy life, Echeclus! next the sword bereaves,
Deep through the front the ponderous falchion cleaves;
Warm'd in the brain the smoking weapon lies,
The purple death comes floating o'er his eyes.
Then brave Deucalion dy'd: the dart was flung
Where the knit nerves the pliant elbow strung;
He dropt his arm, an unaffifting weight,
And stood all impotent, expecting fate :
Full on his neck the falling falchion sped,
From his broad fhoulders hew'd his crefted head:
Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies,
And funk in duft the corpfe extended lies.
Rhigmus, whose race from fruitful Thracia came,
(The fon of Pireus, an illuftrious name)
Succeeds to fate: the fpear his belly rends;
Prone from his car the thundering chief defcends :
The fquire, who faw expiring on the ground
His proftrate mafter, rein'd the steeds around:
His back scarce turn'd, the Pelian javelin gor'd,
And ftretch'd the fervant o'er his dying lord.
As when a flame the winding valley fills,
And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills;
Then o'er the stubble up the mountain flies,
Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,
This way and that the spreading torrent roars;
So fweeps the hero through the wasted shores :
Around him wide, immenfe deftruction pours,
And earth is delug'd with the fanguine fhowers.
As, with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,
And thick beftrown, lies Ceres' facred floor;
When round and round, with never-weary'd pain,
The trampling fteers beat out th' unnumber'd grain :
So the fierce courfers, as the chariot rolls,
Tread down whole ranks, and crush out herces' fouls.
Dash'd from their hoofs, while o'er the dead they fly,
Black, bloody drops the fmoking chariot dye :
The fpiky wheels through heaps of carnage tore; 585
And thick the groaning axles dropp'd with gore.
High o'er the fcene of death Achilles ftood,
All grim with duft, all horrible in blood:
Yet still infatiate, still with rage on flame;
Such is the luft of never-dying fame!
The Battle in the River Scamander.
THE Trojans fly before Achilles, fome towards the town, others to the river Scamander: he falls upon the latter with great flaughter; takes twelve captives alive, to facrifice to the fhade of Patroclus; and kills Lycaon and Afteropæus. Scamander attacks him with all his waves; Neptune and Pallas affift the hero; Simoïs joins Scamander; at length Vulcan, by the inftigation of Juno, almost dries up the river. This combat ended, the other Gods engage each other. Meanwhile Achilles continues the flaughter, drives the rest into Troy: Agenor only makes a stand, and is conveyed away in a cloud by Apollo; who (to delude Achilles) takes upon him Agenor's fhape, and, while he purfues him in that difguife, gives the Trojans an opportunity of retiring into their city.
The fame day continues. The scene is on the banks and in the ftream of Scamander.
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