With joy the monarch march'd before, And found Menestheus on the dusty shore, With whom the firm Athenian phalanx stands; And next Ulysses, with his subject bands.
Remote their forces lay, nor knew so far The peace infringed, nor heard the sounds of war; The tumult late begun, they stood intent To watch the motion, dubious of the event.
The king, who saw their squadrons yet unmoved, With hasty ardour thus the chiefs reproved: "Can Peleus' son forget a warrior's part.
And fears Ulysses, skill'd in every art?
Why stand you distant, and the rest expect To mix in combat which yourselves neglect?
From you 'twas hoped among the first to dare The shock of armies, and commence the war; For this your names are call'd before the rest, To share the pleasures of the genial feast: And can you, chiefs! without a blush survey Whole troops before you labouring in the fray?
Say, is it thus those honours you requite?
The first in banquets, but the last in fight." Ulysses heard: the hero's warmth o'erspread His cheek with blushes: and severe, he said: "Take back the unjust reproach! Behold we stand Sheathed in bright arms, and but expect command.
If glorious deeds afford thy soul delight, Behold me plunging in the thickest fight.
Then give thy warrior-chief a warrior's due, Who dares to act whate'er thou dar'st to view." Struck with his generous wrath, the king replies: "O great in action, and in council wise! With ours, thy care and ardour are the same, Nor need I to commend, nor aught to blame.
Sage as thou art, and learn'd in human kind, Forgive the transport of a martial mind.
Haste to the fight, secure of just amends; The gods that make, shall keep the worthy, friends." He said, and pass'd where great Tydides lay, His steeds and chariots wedged in firm array; (The warlike Sthenelus attends his side;)( 135) To whom with stern reproach the monarch cried: "O son of Tydeus! (he, whose strength could tame The bounding steed, in arms a mighty name) Canst thou, remote, the mingling hosts descry, With hands unactive, and a careless eye?
Not thus thy sire the fierce encounter fear'd; Still first in front the matchless prince appear'd: What glorious toils, what wonders they recite, Who view'd him labouring through the ranks of fight?
I saw him once, when gathering martial powers, A peaceful guest, he sought Mycenae's towers; Armies he ask'd, and armies had been given, Not we denied, but Jove forbade from heaven; While dreadful comets glaring from afar, Forewarn'd the horrors of the Theban war.( 136) Next, sent by Greece from where Asopus flows, A fearless envoy, he approach'd the foes; Thebes' hostile walls unguarded and alone, Dauntless he enters, and demands the throne.
The tyrant feasting with his chiefs he found, And dared to combat all those chiefs around: Dared, and subdued before their haughty lord; For Pallas strung his arm and edged his sword.
Stung with the shame, within the winding way, To bar his passage fifty warriors lay; Two heroes led the secret squadron on, Mason the fierce, and hardy Lycophon; Those fifty slaughter'd in the gloomy vale.
He spared but one to bear the dreadful tale, Such Tydeus was, and such his martial fire; Gods! how the son degenerates from the sire!" No words the godlike Diomed return'd, But heard respectful, and in secret burn'd: Not so fierce Capaneus' undaunted son; Stern as his sire, the boaster thus begun: "What needs, O monarch! this invidious praise, Ourselves to lessen, while our sire you raise?
Dare to be just, Atrides! and confess Our value equal, though our fury less.
With fewer troops we storm'd the Theban wall, And happier saw the sevenfold city fall,( 137) In impious acts the guilty father died; The sons subdued, for Heaven was on their side.
Far more than heirs of all our parents' fame, Our glories darken their diminish'd name." To him Tydides thus: "My friend, forbear; Suppress thy passion, and the king revere: His high concern may well excuse this rage, Whose cause we follow, and whose war we wage: His the first praise, were Ilion's towers o'erthrown, And, if we fail, the chief disgrace his own.
Let him the Greeks to hardy toils excite, 'Tis ours to labour in the glorious fight." He spoke, and ardent, on the trembling ground Sprung from his car: his ringing arms resound.
Dire was the clang, and dreadful from afar, Of arm'd Tydides rushing to the war.
As when the winds, ascending by degrees,( 138) First move the whitening surface of the seas, The billows float in order to the shore, The wave behind rolls on the wave before; Till, with the growing storm, the deeps arise, Foam o'er the rocks, and thunder to the skies.
So to the fight the thick battalions throng, Shields urged on shields, and men drove men along Sedate and silent move the numerous bands; No sound, no whisper, but the chief's commands, Those only heard; with awe the rest obey, As if some god had snatch'd their voice away.
Not so the Trojans; from their host ascends A general shout that all the region rends.
As when the fleecy flocks unnumber'd stand In wealthy folds, and wait the milker's hand, The hollow vales incessant bleating fills, The lambs reply from all the neighbouring hills: Such clamours rose from various nations round, Mix'd was the murmur, and confused the sound.
Each host now joins, and each a god inspires, These Mars incites, and those Minerva fires, Pale flight around, and dreadful terror reign; And discord raging bathes the purple plain; Discord! dire sister of the slaughtering power, Small at her birth, but rising every hour, While scarce the skies her horrid head can bound, She stalks on earth, and shakes the world around;( 139) The nations bleed, where'er her steps she turns, The groan still deepens, and the combat burns.
Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet closed, To armour armour, lance to lance opposed, Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew, The sounding darts in iron tempests flew, Victors and vanquish'd join'd promiscuous cries, And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise; With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed, And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.
As torrents roll, increased by numerous rills, With rage impetuous, down their echoing hills Rush to the vales, and pour'd along the plain.
Roar through a thousand channels to the main: The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound; So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.
The bold Antilochus the slaughter led, The first who struck a valiant Trojan dead: At great Echepolus the lance arrives, Razed his high crest, and through his helmet drives; Warm'd in the brain the brazen weapon lies, And shades eternal settle o'er his eyes.
So sinks a tower, that long assaults had stood Of force and fire, its walls besmear'd with blood.
Him, the bold leader of the Abantian throng,( 140) Seized to despoil, and dragg'd the corpse along: But while he strove to tug the inserted dart, Agenor's javelin reach'd the hero's heart.
His flank, unguarded by his ample shield, Admits the lance: he falls, and spurns the field; The nerves, unbraced, support his limbs no more; The soul comes floating in a tide of gore.
Trojans and Greeks now gather round the slain; The war renews, the warriors bleed again: As o'er their prey rapacious wolves engage, Man dies on man, and all is blood and rage.
In blooming youth fair Simoisius fell, Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell; Fair Simoisius, whom his mother bore Amid the flocks on silver Simois' shore: The nymph descending from the hills of Ide, To seek her parents on his flowery side, Brought forth the babe, their common care and joy, And thence from Simois named the lovely boy.
Short was his date! by dreadful Ajax slain, He falls, and renders all their cares in vain! So falls a poplar, that in watery ground Raised high the head, with stately branches crown'd, (Fell'd by some artist with his shining steel, To shape the circle of the bending wheel,) Cut down it lies, tall, smooth, and largely spread, With all its beauteous honours on its head There, left a subject to the wind and rain, And scorch'd by suns, it withers on the plain Thus pierced by Ajax, Simoisius lies Stretch'd on the shore, and thus neglected dies.
At Ajax, Antiphus his javelin threw; The pointed lance with erring fury flew, And Leucus, loved by wise Ulysses, slew.
He drops the corpse of Simoisius slain, And sinks a breathless carcase on the plain.
This saw Ulysses, and with grief enraged, Strode where the foremost of the foes engaged; Arm'd with his spear, he meditates the wound, In act to throw; but cautious look'd around, Struck at his sight the Trojans backward drew, And trembling heard the javelin as it flew.
A chief stood nigh, who from Abydos came, Old Priam's son, Democoon was his name.
The weapon entered close above his ear, Cold through his temples glides the whizzing spear;( 141) With piercing shrieks the youth resigns his breath, His eye-balls darken with the shades of death; Ponderous he falls; his clanging arms resound, And his broad buckler rings against the ground.
Seized with affright the boldest foes appear; E'en godlike Hector seems himself to fear; Slow he gave way, the rest tumultuous fled; The Greeks with shouts press on, and spoil the dead: But Phoebus now from Ilion's towering height Shines forth reveal'd, and animates the fight.
"Trojans, be bold, and force with force oppose; Your foaming steeds urge headlong on the foes! Nor are their bodies rocks, nor ribb'd with steel; Your weapons enter, and your strokes they feel.
Have ye forgot what seem'd your dread before?
The great, the fierce Achilles fights no more." Apollo thus from Ilion's lofty towers, Array'd in terrors, roused the Trojan powers: While war's fierce goddess fires the Grecian foe, And shouts and thunders in the fields below.
Then great Diores fell, by doom divine, In vain his valour and illustrious line.
A broken rock the force of Pyrus threw, (Who from cold AEnus led the Thracian crew,)( 142) Full on his ankle dropp'd the ponderous stone, Burst the strong nerves, and crash'd the solid bone.
Supine he tumbles on the crimson sands, Before his helpless friends, and native bands, And spreads for aid his unavailing hands.
The foe rush'd furious as he pants for breath, And through his navel drove the pointed death: His gushing entrails smoked upon the ground, And the warm life came issuing from the wound.
His lance bold Thoas at the conqueror sent, Deep in his breast above the pap it went, Amid the lungs was fix'd the winged wood, And quivering in his heaving bosom stood: Till from the dying chief, approaching near, The AEtolian warrior tugg'd his weighty spear: Then sudden waved his flaming falchion round, And gash'd his belly with a ghastly wound; The corpse now breathless on the bloody plain, To spoil his arms the victor strove in vain; The Thracian bands against the victor press'd, A grove of lances glitter'd at his breast.
Stern Thoas, glaring with revengeful eyes, In sullen fury slowly quits the prize.
Thus fell two heroes; one the pride of Thrace, And one the leader of the Epeian race; Death's sable shade at once o'ercast their eyes, In dust the vanquish'd and the victor lies.
With copious slaughter all the fields are red, And heap'd with growing mountains of the dead.
Had some brave chief this martial scene beheld, By Pallas guarded through the dreadful field; Might darts be bid to turn their points away, And swords around him innocently play; The war's whole art with wonder had he seen, And counted heroes where he counted men.
So fought each host, with thirst of glory fired, And crowds on crowds triumphantly expired.
[Illustration: Map of the Plain of Troy.] Map of the Plain of Troy..