And can ye see this righteous Chief atone, With guiltless blood, for vices not his own? To all the Gods his constant vows were paid;

Sure, tho' he wars for Troy, he claims our aid.

Fate wills not this; nor thus can Jove resign

The future father of the Dardan line: 350 The first great ancestor obtain'd his grace, And still his love descends on all the race. For Priam now, and Priam's faithless kind, At length are odious to th' all-seeing mind; On great Æneas shall devolve the reign, And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain.'

The great earth-shaker thus: to whom replies

Th' imperial Goddess with the radiant eyes: 'Good as he is, to immolate or spare The Dardan Prince, O Neptune, be thy

The weakest atheist-wretch all Heav'n defies,

But shrinks and shudders, when the thunder flies.

Nor from yon boaster shall your Chief retire,

Not tho' his heart were steel, his hands were fire;

That fire, that steel, your Hector should withstand,

And brave that vengeful heart, that dreadful hand.'

Thus (breathing rage thro' all) the hero said;

A wood of lances rises round his head, Clamours on clamours tempest all the air; They join, they throng, they thicken to the

Forc'd thro' his brazen helm its furious way,

460 Resistless drove the batter'd skull before, And dash'd and mingled all the brains with gore.

This sees Hippodamas, and, seiz'd with fright,

Deserts his chariot for a swifter flight:
The lance arrests him; an ignoble wound
The panting Trojan rivets to the ground.
He groans away his soul: not louder roars
At Neptune's shrine on Helicé's high shores
The victim bull; the rocks rebellow round,
And ocean listens to the grateful sound. 470
Then fell on Polydore his vengeful rage,
The youngest hope of Priam's stooping age
(Whose feet for swiftness in the race sur-
pass'd);

Of all his sons, the dearest and the last.
To the forbidden field he takes his flight
In the first folly of a youthful knight;
To vaunt his swiftness wheels around the

Far from Achilles wafts the winged death:
The bidden dart again to Hector flies,
And at the feet of its great master lies. 510
Achilles closes with his hated foe,
His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow:
But, present to his aid, Apollo shrouds
The favour'd hero in a veil of clouds.
Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart,
Thrice in impassive air he plunged the
dart:

The spear a fourth time buried in the cloud,
He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud:
'Wretch thou hast 'scaped again, once
more thy flight

Has saved thee, and the partial God of Light;

And golden rings the double back-plate

join'd.

Forth thro' the navel burst the thrilling

steel;

520

But long thou shalt not thy just Fate with

stand,

any Power assist 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 slain:

Then Dryops tumbled to th' ensanguin'd plain

Pierc'd thro' 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 soul an ample passage made. 530 Laogonus and Dardanus expire,

The valiant sons of an unhappy sire;

Both in one instant from the chariot hurl'd, Sunk in one instant to the nether world; This diff'rence only their sad fates afford, That one the spear destroy'd, and one the sword.

Nor less unpitied, young Alastor bleeds; In vain his youth, in vain his beauty pleads: In vain he begs thee, with a suppliant's

roars;

So sweeps the hero thro' the wasted shores: Around him wide immense destruction pours,

And earth is deluged with the sanguine showers.

As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er, And thick bestrown, lies Ceres' sacred floor,

When round and round, with never-wearied pain,

The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain:

580 So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,

Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes' souls.

Dash'd from their hoofs, while o'er the dead they fly,

Black, bloody drops the smoking chariot dye:

The spiky wheels thro' heaps of carnage tore;

And thick the groaning axles dropp'd with gore.

High o'er the scene of death Achilles

stood,

All grim with dust, all horrible in blood: Yet still insatiate, still with rage on flame; Such is the lust of never-dying Fame ! 590

BOOK XXI

THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER SCAMANDER

THE ARGUMENT.

The Trojans fly before Achilles, some towards the town, others to the river Scamander; he falls upon the latter with great slaughter, takes twelve captives alive, to sacrifice to the shade of Patroclus; and kills Lycaon and Asteropæus. Scamander attacks him with all his waves; Neptune and Pallas assist the hero; Simois joins Scamander; at length Vulcan, by the instigation of Juno. almost dries up the river. This combat ended, the other gods engage each other. Meanwhile Achilles continues the slaughter, and 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 shape, and while he pursues him in that disguise, gives the Trojans an opportunity of retiring into their city. The same day continues. The scene is on the banks and in the stream of Scamander.

20

His bloody lance the hero casts aside (Which spreading tam'risks on the margin hide),

Then, like a God, the rapid billows braves, Arm'd with his sword, high brandish'd o'er the waves;

Now down he plunges, now he whirls it round,

Deep groan the waters with the dying sound;

Repeated wounds the redd'ning river dyed, And the warm purple circled on the tide. Swift thro' the foamy flood the Trojans fly, And close in rocks or winding caverns lie: So the huge dolphin tempesting the main, 30 In shoals before him fly the scaly train; Confusedly heap'd, they seek their inmost