Full hecatombs lay burning on the shore:
The winds to heaven the curlirg vapors bore.
Ungrateful offering to the immortal powers !
Whose wrath hung heavy o'er the Trojan towers:
Nor Priam nor his sons obtain'd their grace;
Proud Troy they hated, and her guilty race.

The troops exulting sat in order round,
And beaming fires illumined all the ground.
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, †
O'er heaven's pure azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene,
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head :
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies :
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays.
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field.
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose umber'd arms, by fits, thick flashes send,
Loud neigh the coursers o'e their heaps of corn,
And ardent warriors wait tne rising morn.

* Ungrateful, because the cause in which they were engaged was unjust.

“ Struck by the lab’ring priests' uplifted hands

The victims fall : to heaven they make their pray’r,
The curling vapors load the ambient air.
But vain their toil: the pow’rs who rule the skies
Averse beheld the ungrateful sacrifice.”

Merrick's Tryphiodorus, vi. 527, scq. † "As when about the silver moon, when aire is free from winde,

And stars shine cleare, to whose sweet beams high prospects on the brows
Of all steepe hills and pinnacles thrust

up

themselves for shows,
And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight;
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seene, that glad the shepherd's heart

Chaman.

BOOK IX.

ARGUMENT.

THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES.

Agamemnon, after the last day's defeat, proposes to the Greeks to quit the siege, and

return to their country: Diomed opposes this, and Nestor seconds him, praising
his wisdom and resolution. He orders the guard to be strengthened, and a council
summoned to deliberate what measures are to be followed in this emergency.
Agamemnon pursues this advice, and Nestor further prevails upon him to send
ambassadors to Achilles, in order to move him to a reconciliation. Ulysses and
Ajax are made choice of, who are accompanied by old Phenix. They make, each
of them, very moving and pressing speeches, but are rejected with roughness by
Achilles, who notwithstanding retains Phænix in his tent. The ambassadors re-
turn unsuccessfully to the camp, and the troops betake themselves to sleep.
This book, and the

next following, take up the space of one night, which is the twenty-seventh from the beginning of the poem. The scene lies on the sea-shore, the station of the Grecian ships.

Thus joyful Troy maintain’d the watch of night;
While fear, pale comrade of inglorious flight,*
And heaven-bred horror, on the Grecian part,
Sat on each face, and sadden'd every heart.
As from its cloudy dungeon issuing forth,
A double tempest of the west and north
Swells o'er the sea, from Thracia's frozen shore,
Heaps waves on waves, and bids the Ægean roar:
This way and that the boiling deeps are toss'd :
Such various passions urged the troubled host,
Great Agamemnon grieved above the rest;
Superior sorrows swellid his royal breast;
Himself his orders to the heralds bears,
To bid to council all the Grecian peers,
But bid in whispers: these surround their chief,
In solemn sadness, and majestic grief.
The king amidst the mournful circle rose :
Down his wan cheek a briny torrent flows.
So silent fountains, from a rock's tall head,
In sable streams soft-trickling waters shed.
With more than vulgar grief he stood oppress’d;

natural flight caused by the gods, but a great and general one, caused by Hector

* This flight of the Greeks, according to Buttmann, Lexil, p. 358, was not a superior and the Trojans, but with the approval of Jove.”

رز

Words, mix'd with sighs, thus bursting from his breast:

Ye sons of Greece! partake your leader's care ;
Fellows in arms and princes of the war!
Of partial Jove too justly we complain,
And heavenly oracles believed in vain.
A safe return was promised to our toils,
With conquest honor'd and enrich'd with spoils :
Now shameful flight alone can save the host;
Our wealth, our people, and our glory lost.
So Jove decrees, almighty lord of all!
Jove, at whose nod whole empires rise or fall,
Who shakes the feeble props of human trust,
And towers and armies humbles to the dust.
Haste then, forever quit these fatal fields,
Haste to the joys our native country yields;
Spread all your canvas, all your oars employ,
Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy."

He said : deep silence held the Grecian band:
Silent, unmov’d in dire dismay they stand;
A pensive scene! till Tydeus' warlike son
Rolld on the king his eyes, and thus begun :
“ When kings advise us to renounce our fame,
First let him speak who first has suffer'd shame.
If I oppose thee, prince! thy wrath withhold,
The laws of council bid my tongue be bold.
Thou first, and thou alone, in fields of fight,
Durst brand my courage, and defame my might:
Nor from a friend the unkind reproach appear’d,
The Greeks stood witness, all our army heard.
The gods, O chief! from whom our honors spring,
The gods have made thee but by halves a king:
They gave thee sceptres, and a wide command;
They gave dominion o'er the seas and land;
The noblest power that might the world control
They gave thee not-a brave and virtuous soul.
Is this a general's voice, that would suggest
Fears like his own to every Grecian breast ?
Confiding in our want of worth, he stands;
And if we fly, 'tis what our king commands.
Go thou, inglorious! from the embattled plain;
Ships thou hast store, and nearest to the main;
A noble care the Grecians shall employ,
To combat, conquer, and extirpate Troy.
Here Greece shall stay; or, if all Greece retire,
Myself shall stay, till Troy or I expire;
Myself, and Sthenelus, will fight for fame ;
God bade us fight, and 'twas with God we came.

66

He ceased; the Greeks loud acclamations raise,
And voice to voice resounds Tydides praise.
Wise Nestor then his reverend figure rear'd;
He spoke : the host in still attention heard. *

"O truly great! in whom the gods have join'd
Such strength of body with such force of mind :
In conduct, as in courage, you excel,
Still first to act what you advise so well.
These wholesome counsels which thy wisdom moves,
Applauding Greece with common voice approves.
Kings thou canst blame; a bold but prudent youth:
And blame even kings with praise, because with truth.
And yet those years that since thy birth have run
Would hardly style thee Nestor's youngest son.
Then let me add what yet remains behind,
A thought unfinish'd in that generous mind;
Age bids me speak! nor shall the advice I bring
Distaste the people, or offend the king:

“Cursed the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule, or private care,
That wretch, that monster, who delights in war;
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy,
To tear his country, and his kind destroy !
This night, refresh and fortify thy train ;
Between the trench and wall let guards remain :
Be that the duty of the young and bold;
But thou, O king, to council call the old ;
Great is thy sway, and weighty are thy cares ;
Thy high commands must spirit all our wars.
With Thracian wines recruit thy honor'd guests,
For happy counsels flow from sober feasts.
Wise, weighty counsels aid a state distress'd,
And such a monarch as can choose the best.
See what a blaze from hostile tents aspires,
How near our fleet approach the Trojan fires !
Who can, unmoved, behold the dreadful light ?
What eye beholds them, and can close to-night?
This dreadful interval determines all;
To-morrow, Troy must flame, or Greece must fall.”

Thus spoke the hoary sage : the rest obey;
Swift through the gates the guards direct their way.
His son was first to pass the lofty mound,

Grote, vol. ii. p. 91, after noticing the modest calmness and respect with which Nestor addresses Agamemnon, observes, " The Homeric Council is a purely consultative body, assembled not with any power of peremptorily arresting miscinievous re-olves of the king, but solely for his information and guidance."

The generous Thrasymed, in arms renown'd:
Next him, Ascalaphus, lälmen stood,
The double offspring of the warrior-god:
Deïpyrus, Aphareus, Merion join,
And Lycomed of Creon's noble line.
Seven were the leaders of the nightly bands,
And each bold chief a hundred spears commands.
The fires they light, to short repasts they fall,
Some line the trench, and others man the wall.

The king of men, on public counsels bent,
Convened the princes in his ample tent;
Each seized a portion of the kingly feast,
But stay'd his hand when thirst and hunger ceased.
Then Nestor spoke, for wisdom long approved,
And slowly rising, thus the council moved.

Monarch of nations ! whose superior sway
Assembled states, and lords of earth obey,
The laws and sceptres to thy hand are given,
And millions own the care of thee and Heaven.
O king! the counsels of my age attend :
With thee my cares begin, with thee must end :
Thee, prince ! it fits alike to speak and hear,
Pronounce with judgment, with regard give ear,
To see no wholesome motion be withstood,
And ratify the best for public good :
Nor, though a meaner give advice, repine,
But follow it, and make the wisdom thine.
Hear then a thought, not now conceived in haste,
At once my present judgment and my past,
When from Pelides' tent you forced the maid,
I first opposed, and faithful, durst dissuade;
But bold of soul, when headlong fury fired,
You wronged the man, by men and gods admired:
Now seek some means his fatal wrath to end,
With prayers to move him, or with gifts to bend.”

To whom the king. “ With justice hast thou shown
A prince's faults, and I with reason own.
That happy man, whom Jove still honors most,
Is more than armies, and himself a host.
Bless'd in his love, this wondrous hero stands;
Heaven fights his war, and humbles all our bands.
Fain would my heart, which 'err'd through frantic rage
The wrathful chief and angry gods assuage.

If gifts immense his mighty soul can bow, * In the heroic times, it is not unfrequent for the king to receive presents to purchase freedom from his wrath, or immunity from his exactions. Such gifts gradually became regular, and formed the income of the German (Tacit. Germ. § 15), Persian