So Jove's bold bird, high balanced in the air,
Stoops from the clouds to truss the quivering hare.
Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares;
Before his breast the flaming shield he bears,
Refulgent orb! above his fourfold cone
The gilded horse-hair sparkled in the sun,
Nodding at every step (Vulcanian frame!)
And as he moved his figure seem'd on flame.
As radiant Hesper shines with keener light,
Far beaming o'er the silver host of night,
When all the starry train emblaze the sphere:
So shone the point of great Achilles' spear.

In his right hand he waves the weapon round,
Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound:
But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore,
Securely cased the warrior's body o'er!
One place at length he spies to let in Fate,
Where 'twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate
Gave entrance: through that penetrable part
Furious he drove the well-directed dart:
Nor pierced the windpipe yet, nor took the power
Of speech, unhappy! from thy dying hour.
Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies,
While thus triumphing stern Achilles cries:

410

At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain,
Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain?
Then, prince, you should have fear'd what now
you feel;

I follow thee-He said, and stripp'd the slain.
Then forcing backward from the gaping wound
The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground.
The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes
His manly beauty and superior size:
While some ignobler the great dead deface
With wounds ungenerous, 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 Heaven
The dire destroyer to our arm has given,

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.
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,
420 Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?
If in the melancholy shades below,

Achilles absent was Achilles still.
Yet a short space the great avenger stay'd,
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid.
Peaceful he sleeps with all our rites adorn'd,
For ever honour'd, and for ever mourn'd:
While cast to all the rage of hostile power,
Thee birds shall mangle and the dogs devour.
Then Hector, fainting at the approach of death:
By thy own soul! by those who gave thee breath!
By all the sacred prevalence of prayer!
Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear!
The common rites of sepulture bestow,
To soothe a father's and a mother's woe;
Let their large gifts procure an urn at least,
And Hector's ashes in his country rest.

No, wretch accursed! relentless he replies
(Flames as he spoke shot flashing from his eyes,)
Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare,
Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer.
Could I myself the bloody banquet join!
No-to the dogs that carcass I resign.
Should Troy to bribe me bring forth all her store,
And giving thousands, offer thousands more;
Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame,
Drain the whole realm to buy one funeral flame:
Their Hector on the pile they should not see,
Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee.

440

480

The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow,
Yet mine shall sacred last; mine undecay'd
Burn on through 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 toward the shore,
'Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.'

500

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred
430 (Unworthy of himself and of the dead.)
The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound
With throngs inserted through the double wound;
These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain,
His graceful head was trail'd along the plain.
Proud on his car the 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;
The face divine, and long-descending hair,
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;
Deform'd, dishonour'd, in his native land,
Given to the rage of an insulting throng!
And in his parents' sight now dragg'd along!
The mother first beheld with sad survey:
She rent her tresses, venerably gray,
And cast far off the regal veils away.
With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans,
While the sad father answers groans with groans;
Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow,
And the whole city wears one face of woe:
Not less than if the rage of hostile fires,
From her foundations curling to her spires,
O'er the proud citadel at length should rise,
And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.
The wretched monarch of the falling state
Distracted presses to the Dardan gate.

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew:
Thy rage implacable too well I knew:
The Furies that relentless breast have steel'd,
And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield.
Yet think, a day will come, when Fate's decree
And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee; 450
Phœbus and Paris shall avenge my fate,
And stretch thee here before this Scæan gate.

He ceased. The Fates suppress'd his labouring
breath,

And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death;
To the dark realm the spirit wings its way
The manly body left a load of clay,)

510

520

She spoke; and furious with distracted pace,
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face,
Flies through the dome (the maids her steps pursue,)
And mounts the walls, and sends around her view.
Too soon her eyes the killing object found,
The godlike Hector dragg'd along the ground.
530 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

Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course,
While strong affliction gives the feeble force:
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;
I, only I, will issue from your walls
(Guide or companion, friends! I ask you none,)
And bow before the murderer of my son:
My grief perhaps his pity may engage;
Perhaps at least he may respect my age.
He has a father too; a man like me;
One not exempt from age and misery:
(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace
Begot this pest of me and all my race.)
How many valiant sons, in early bloom,
Has that cursed 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,
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!

540

(The gift of Venus on her bridal day,)
Around a train of weeping sisters stands,
To raise her sinking with assisting hands.
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 baleful beam display'd
On Priam's roof and Hippoplacia's shade.
From different parents, different climes, we came,
At different periods, yet our fate the same!
Why was my birth to great Aëtion owed,
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 dismal realms for ever gone!
551 And I abandon'd, desolate, alone!

Thus wail'd the father, grovelling on the ground,
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 heaven prolong'd this hated breath,
Patient of horrors, to behold thy death!
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
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 e'en his stay without the Scæan gate.
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,
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 frotn the walls the clamours reach her ear,
And all her members shake with sudden fear;
Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls,
And thus, astonish'd, to her maids she calls:

Ah! follow me! (she cried) what plaintive noise
Invades my ear? "Tis sure my mother's voice.
My faltering knees their trembling frame desert,
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
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,
Now quench'd for ever in the arms of death.

510

620

630

An only child, once comfort of my pains,
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!
E'en from his own paternal roof expell'd,
Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field.
560 The day that to the shades the father sends,
Robs the sad orphan of his father's friends:
He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears
For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears!
Among 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!
The kindest but his present wants allay,
To leave him wretched the succeeding day:
570 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!
Forced by repeated insults to return,
And to his widow'd mother vainly mourn.
He who, with tender delicacy bred,
With princes sported, and on dainties fed,
And when still evening gave him up to rest
Sunk soft in down upon his nurse's breast,
Must-ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls 650
Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,

580

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,
Whose hand in vain, directed by her love,
The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove.
590 Now to devouring flames be these a prey,
Useless to thee from this accursed day!

Funeral Games in honour of Patroclus. Achilles and the Myrmidons do honour to the body of Patroclus. After the funeral feast he retires to the sea-shore, where falling asleep, the ghost of his friend appears to him, and demands the rites of burial; the next morning the soldiers are sent with mules and waggons to fetch wood for the pyre. The funeral procession, and the offering their hair to the dead. Achilles sacrifices several animals, and lastly twelve Trojan captives at the pile, then sets fire to it. He pays libations to the winds, which, (at the instance of Iris) rise, and raise the flames. When the pile has burned all night, they gather the bones, place them in an urn of gold, and raise the tomb. Achilles insti

tutes the funeral games; the chariot-race, the fight of the cæstus, the wrestling, the foot-race, the single combat, the discus, the shooting with arrows, the darting the javelin: the various descriptions of which, and the various success of several antagonists, make the greatest part of the book.

Gloomy he said, and (horrible to view)
Before the bier the bleeding Hector threw,

Prone on the dust. The Myrmidons around
Unbraced their armour, and the steeds unbound.
All to Achilles' sable ship repair,

Frequent and full, the genial feast to share.
Now from the well-fed swine black smokes aspire.
The bristly victims hissing o'er the fire:
40
The huge ox bellowing falls; with feebler cries
Expires the goat; the sheep in silence dies.
Around the hero's prostrate body flow'd
In one promiscuous stream the reeking blood.
And now a band of Argive monarchs brings
The glorious victor to the king of kings.
From his dead friend the pensive warrior went,
With steps unwilling, to the regal tent.
The attending heralds, as by office bound,
With kindled flames the tripod-vase surround;
To cleanse his conquering hands from hostile gore,
They urged in vain; the chief refused, and swore:
No drop shall touch me, by almighty Jove!
The first and greatest of the gods above!
Till on the pyre I place thee; till I rear
The grassy mound, and clip thy sacred hair.
Some ease at least those pious rites may give,
And soothe my sorrows while I bear to live.
Howe'er, reluctant as I am, I stay

50

And share your feasts; but, with the dawn of day, 60 In this book ends the thirtieth day. The night follow-(O king of men!) it claims thy royal care, ing, the ghost of Patroclus appears to Achillès: the one-and-thirtieth day is employed in felling the timber for the pile; the two-and-thirtieth in burning it; and the three-and-thirtieth in the games. The scene is generally on the sea-shore.

BOOK XXIII.

THUS humbled in the dust, the pensive train
Through the sad city mourn'd her hero slain.
The body soil'd with dust, and black with gore,
Lies on broad Hellespont's resounding shore:
The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand,
All, but the martial Myrmidonian band;
These yet assembled great Achilles holds,
And the stern purpose of his mind unfolds :

That Greece the warrior's funeral pile prepare,
And bid the forests fall (such rites are paid
To heroes slumbering in eternal shade.)
Then, when his earthly part shall mount in fire,
Let the leagued squadrons to their posts retire.
He spoke; they hear him, and the word obey;
The rage of hunger and of thirst allay,
Then ease in sleep the labours of the day.
But great Pelides, stretch'd along the shore,
Where dash'd on rocks the broken billows roar,
Lies inly groaning; while on either hand
The martial Myrmidons confusedly stand.
Along the grass his languid members fall,
Tired with his chase around the Trojan wall:
Hush'd by the murmurs of the rolling deep,
At length he sinks in the soft arms of sleep.
10 When lo! the shades, before his closing eyes,
Of sad Patroclus rose, or seem'd to rise;
In the same robe he living wore, he came;
In stature, voice, and pleasing look, the same.
The form familiar hover'd o'er his head,-
And sleeps Achilles (thus the phantom said,)
Sleeps my Achilles, his Patroclus dead?
Living, I seem'd his dearest, tenderest care,
But now forgot I wander in the air.
Let my pale corse the rites of burial know,
And give me entrance in the realms below:
Till then the spirit finds no resting place,
But here and there the unbodied spectres chace
The vagrant dead around the dark abode,
Forbid to cross the irremeable flood.
Now give thy hand: for to the farther shore
When once we pass, the soul returns no more:
When once the last funereal flames ascend,

Not yet (my brave companions of the war)
Release your smoking coursers from the car;
But, with his chariot each in order led,
Perform due honours to Patroclus dead.
Ere yet from rest or food we seek relief,
Some rites remain to glut our rage of grief.
The troops obey'd; and thrice in order led
(Achilles first) their coursers round the dead;
And thrice their sorrows, and laments renew:
Tears bathe their arms, and tears the sands bedew.
For such a warrior Thetis aids their woe,
Melts their strong hearts, and bids their eyes to flow.
But chief, Pelides: thick-succeeding sighs 21
Burst from his heart, and torrents from his eyes:.
His slaughtering hands, yet red with blood, he laid
On his dead friend's cold breast, and thus he said:
All hail, Patroclus! let thy honour'd ghost
Hear, and rejoice on Pluto's dreary coast;
Behold! Achilles' promise is complete ;
The bloody Hector stretch'd before thy feet.
Lo! to the dogs his carcass I resign;
And twelve sad victims of the Trojan line,
Sacred to vengeance, instant, shall expire:
Their lives effused, around thy funeral pyre,

70

80

90

No more shall meet Achilles and his friend;
No more our thoughts to those we loved make known,

30 Or quit the dearest, to converse alone.

Me fate has sever'd from the sons of earth,
The fate foredoom'd that waited from my birth: 100

】

All hail, Patroclus! let thy vengeful ghost Hear and exult on Pluto's dreary coast. Behold, Achilles' promise fully paid, Twelve Trojan heroes offer'd to thy shade. But heavier fates on Hector's corse attend, Saved from the flames for hungry dogs to rend. So spake he, threatening! but the gods made vain His threat, and guard inviolate the slain; 160 Celestial Venus hover'd o'er his head, And roseate unguents, heavenly fragrance shed: She watch'd him all the night and all the day, And drove the bloodhounds from their destined prey, Nor sacred Phoebus less employ'd his care; He pour'd around a veil of gather'd air, And kept the nerves undried, the flesh entire, Against the solar beam and Sirian fire.

Nor yet the pile, where dead Patroclus lies,
Smokes, nor as yet the sullen flames arise;
But fast beside, Achilles stood in prayer,
Invoked the gods whose spirit moves the air,
And victims promised, and libations cast
To gentle Zephyr and the Boreal blast:
He call'd the aerial powers, along the skies
To breathe, and whisper to the fires to rise.
The winged Iris heard the hero's call,
And instant hasten'd to their airy hall,
Where, in old Zephyr's open courts on high,
Sat all the blustering brethren of the sky.
She shone amidst them, on her painted bow;
The rocky pavement glitter'd with the show.
All from the banquet rise, and each invites
The various goddess to partake the rites.
Not so (the dame replied,) I haste to go
To sacred Ocean and the floods below:
E'en now our solemn hecatombs attend,

And heaven is feasting, on the world's green end,
With righteous Æthiops (uncorrupted train!)
Far on the extremest limits of the main.
But Peleus' son entreats, with sacrifice,
The Western Spirit, and the North, to rise;
Let on Patroclus' pile your blast be driven,
And bear the blazing honours high to heaven.

There let them rest with decent honour laid,
Till I shall follow to the infernal shade.
Meantime erect the tomb with pious hands,
A common structure on the humble sands;
240 Hereafter Greece some nobler work may raise,
And late posterity record our praise.

The Greeks obey; where yet the embers glow 310
Wide o'er the pile the sable wine they'throw,
And deep subsides the ashy heap below.
Next the white bones his sad companions place,
With tears collected, in the golden vase.
The sacred relics to the tent they bore:
The urn a veil of linen cover'd o'er.
That done, they bid the sepulchre aspire,
250 And cast the deep foundations round the pyre;
High in the midst they heap the swelling bed
Of rising earth, memorial of the dead.

320

The swarming populace the chief detains,
And leads amidst a wide extent of plains;
There placed them round: then from the ships pro-
ceeds

A train of oxen, mules, and stately steeds,
Vases and tripods (for the funeral games,)
Resplendent brass, and more resplendent dames.
260 First stood the prizes to reward the force
Of rapid racers in the dusty course:

Swift as the word she vanish'd from their view;
Swift as the word the winds tumultuous flew ;
Forth burst the stormy band with thundering roar,
And heaps on heaps the clouds are toss'd before.
To the wide main then stooping from the skies,
The heaving deeps in watery mountains rise:
Troy feels the blast along her shaking walls,
Till on the pile the gather'd tempest falls.
The structure crackles in the roaring fires,

And all the night the plenteous flame aspires;

A woman for the first, in beauty's bloom
Skill'd in the needle and the labouring loom:
And a large vase, where two bright handles rise,
Of twenty measures its capacious size.
The second victor claims a mare unbroke,
Big with a mule, unknowing of the yoke;
The third a charger yet untouch'd by flame;
Four ample measures held the shining frame :
270 Two golden talents for the fourth were placed,
An ample double bowl contents the last.
These in fair order ranged upon the plain,
The hero, rising, thus address'd the train:

All night Achilles hails Patroclus' soul,
With large libations from the golden bowl.
As a poor father, helpless and undone,
Mourns o'er the ashes of an only son,
Takes a sad pleasure the last bones to burn,
And pour in tears, ere yet they close the urn:
So stay'd Achilles, circling round the shore,
So watch'd the flames, till now they flame no more.
"Twas then, emerging through the shades of night,
The morning planet told the approach of light; 281
And fast behind, Aurora's warmer ray,
O'er the broad ocean pour'd the golden day:'
Then sunk the blaze, the pile no longer burn'd,
And to their caves the whistling winds return'd;
Across the Thracian seas their course they bore;
The ruffled seas beneath their passage roar.

Then parting from the pile, he ceased to weep,
And sunk to quiet in the embrace of sleep.
Exhausted with his grief: meanwhile the crowd
Of thronging Grecians round Achilles stood;
The tumult waked him: from his eyes he shook
Unwilling slumber, and the chiefs bespoke:

Ye kings and princes of the Achaian name:
First let us quench the yet remaining flame
With sable wine; then (as the rites direct)
The hero's bones with careful view select :
(Apart, and easy to be known they lie
Amidst the heap, and obvious to the eye:
The rest around the margin will be seen
Promiscuous, steeds and immolated men.)
These, wrapp'd in double cawls of fat, prepare;
And in the golden vase dispose with care:

Behold the prizes, valiant Greeks! decreed
To the brave rulers of the racing steed;
Prizes which none beside ourself could gain,
Should our immortal coursers take the plain,
(A race unrivall'd, which from Ocean's god
Peleus received, and on his son bestow'd.)
But this no time our vigour to display;
Nor suit with them, the games of this sad day;
Lost is Patroclus now, that wont to deck
Their flowing manes, and sleek their glossy neck.
Sad as they shared in human grief, they stand,
And trail those graceful honours on the sand;
Let others for the nobler task prepare,
Who trust the courser and the flying car.

Fired at his word, the rival racers rise:
But far the first, Eumelus hopes the prize,
290 Famed through Pieria for the fleetest breed,

330

340

350

And skill'd to manage the high bounding steed
With equal ardour bold Tydides swell'd,
The steeds of Tros beneath his yoke compell'd, 360
(Which late obey'd the Dardan chief's command,
When scarce a god redeem'd him from his hand.)
Then Menelaus his Podargus brings,
And the famed courser of the king of kings:
Whom rich Echepolus (more rich than brave)
To 'scape the wars, to Agamemnon gave
300 (the her name,) at home to end his days;
Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.
Next him Antilochus demands the course,
With beating heart, and cheers his Pylian horse. 370