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But Terror follow'd both the hosts, and

Flight, and furious Strife

The sister, and the mate, of Mars, that spoil of human life;

And never is her rage at rest, at first she is but small,

Yet after (but a little fed) she grows so vast and tall,

That while her feet move here in earth, her forehead is in heaven.*

And this was she that made, even then,

both hosts so deadly given. Through every troop she stalk'd, and stirr'd rough sighs up as she went;

But when in one field both the foes her fury did content,

And both came under reach of darts, then darts and shields opposed To darts and shields; strength answer'd

strength; then swords and targets closed With swords and targets; both with pikes;

and then did tumult rise Up to her height; then conquerors' boasts mix'd with the conquer'd's cries; Earth flow'd with blood. And as from hills rain-waters headlong fall,

That all ways eat huge ruts, which, met in one bed, fill a vall

With such a confluence of streams, that on the mountain grounds

Far off, in frighted shepherds' ears, the bustling noise rebounds :

So grew their conflicts, and so shew'd their scuffling to the ear,

With flight and clamour still commix'd, and all effects of fear.

And first renown'd Antilochus slew (fighting, in the face

Of all Achaia's foremost bands, with an undaunted grace)

Echepolus Thalysiades; he was an armed

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Of darts and javelins hurl'd at him. The action of the king

When, great-in-heart, Agenor saw, he made his javelin sing

To th' other's labour; and along, as he the trunk did wrest,

His side (at which he bore his shield) in bowing of his breast

Lay naked, and received the lance; that made him lose his hold

And life together; which, in hope of that he lost, he sold.

But for his sake the fight grew fierce, the Trojans and their foes

Like wolves on one another rush'd, and man for man it goes.

The next of name, that served his fate, great Ajax Telamon

Preferr'd so sadly. He was heir to old Anthemion,

And deck'd with all the flower of youth; the fruit of which yet fled,

Before the honour'd nuptial torch could light him to his bed.

His name was Simoisius; for, some few years before, [by the shore His mother walking down the hill of Ida, Of silver Simois, to see her parents' flocks, with them

She, feeling suddenly the pains of childbirth, by the stream

Of that bright river brought him forth; and so (of Simois)

They call'd him Simoisius. Sweet was that birth of his

To his kind parents, and his growth did

all their care employ ;

And yet those rites of piety, that should have been his joy

To pay their honour'd years again in as affectionate sort,

He could not graciously perform, his sweet life was so short;

For, as

Cut off with mighty Ajax' lance. his spirit put on, He strook him at his breast's right pap, quite through his shoulder-bone, And in the dust of earth he fell, that was the fruitful soil

Of his friends' hopes; but where he sow'd, he buried all his toil.

And as a poplar shot aloft, set by a river side,

In moist edge of a mighty fen, his head in curls implied,

But all his body plain and smooth, to which a wheelwright puts

The sharp edge of his shining axe, and his soft timber cuts

From his innative root, in hope to hew out of his bole [compass in the whole, The fell'ffs, or out-parts of a wheel, that To serve some goodly chariot; (but, being big and sad, [the useful hope he had And to be haled home through the bogs) Sticks there, and there the goodly plant lies withering out his grace:

They are not charm'd against your points, of steel, nor iron, framed;

Nor fights the fair-hair'd Thetis' son, but sits at fleet inflamed."

So spake the dreadful God from Troy. The Greeks, Jove's noblest seed Encouraged to keep on the chase; and, where fit spirit did need,

So lay, by Jove-bred Ajax' hand, Anthe-She gave it, marching in the midst. Then mion's forward race,

flew the fatal hour [burn'd power;

Nor could through that vast fen of toils be Back on Diores, in return of Ilion's sun

drawn to serve the ends

Intended by his body's powers, nor cheer his aged friends.

But now the gay-arm'd Antiphus (a son of Priam) threw

His lance at Ajax through the press, which went by him, and flew

On Leucus, wise Ulysses' friend; his groin it smote, as fain

He would have drawn into his spoil the carcass of the slain,

By which he fell, and that by him vex'd Ulysses' heart,

Diores Amaryncides, whose right leg's

ankle-bone [handful-charging stone And both the sinews, with a sharp and Pirus Imbrasides did break, that led the Thracian bands,

And came from Ænos; down he fell, and up he held his hands

To his loved friends; his spirit wing'd to fly out of his breast; [address'd With which not satisfied, again Imbrasides His javelin at him, and so ripp'd his navel, it that the wound, [on the ground As endlessly it shut his eyes, so, open'd, It pour'd his entrails. As his foe went then sufficed away, [pile convey, Thoas Ætolius threw a dart, that did his Above his nipple, through his lungs;

Who thrust into the face of fight, well

arm'd at every part,

Came close, and look'd about to find an

object worth his lance; Which when the Trojans saw him shake, and he so near advance,

All shrunk; he threw, and forth it shined, nor fell but where it fell'd;

His friend's grief gave it angry power, and
deadly way it held
Upon Democoon, who was sprung of
Priam's wanton force,

Came from Abydus, and was made the master of his horse.

Through both his temples strook the dart, the wood of one side shew'd,

The pile out of the other look'd, and so the earth he strew'd With much sound of his weighty arms.

Then back the foremost went; Even Hector yielded; then the Greeks gave worthy clamours vent, Effecting then their first dumb powers; some drew the dead, and spoil'd; Some follow'd, that, in open flight, Troy might confess it foil'd.

Apollo, angry at the sight, from top of Ilion cried:

"Turn head, ye well-rode peers of Troy, feed not the Grecians' pride,

when, quitting his stern part,

He closed with him; and, from his breast first drawing out his dart,

His sword flew in, and by the midst it wiped his belly out;

So

took his life, but left his arms; his friends so flock'd about,

And thrust forth lances of such length before their slaughter'd king, Which, though their foe were big and strong, and often brake the ring Forged of their lances, yet (enforced) he left th' affected prise.

The Thracian and Epeian dukes, laid close with closed eyes

By either other, drown'd in dust; and

round about the plain, [did hotly reign All hid with slaughter'd carcasses, yet still The martial planet; whose effects had any eye beheld,

Free and unwounded (and were led by Pallas through the field,

To keep off javelins, and suggest, the least fault could be found)

He could not reprehend the fight, so many strew'd the ground.

THE END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

THE FIFTH BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIADS.

THE ARGUMENT.

KING DIOMED (by Pallas' spirit inspired
With will and power) is for his acts admired.
Mere men, and men derived from Deities,
And Deities themselves, he terrifics.
Adds wounds to terrors. His inflamed lance
Draws blood from Mars and Venus. In a trance
He casts Æneas, with a weighty stone;
Apollo quickens him, and gets him gone.
Mars is recured by Pæon; but by Jove
Rebuked for authoring breach of human love.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT.

In Epsilon Heaven's blood is shed By sacred rage of Diomed.

THEN Pallas breathed in Tydeus' son; to render whom supreme

To all the Greeks, at all his parts, she cast a hotter beam

On his high mind; his body fill'd with much superior might;

And made his complete armour cast a far more complete light.

From his bright helm and shield did burn a most unwearied fire,

Like rich Autumnus' golden lamp, whose brightness men admire

Past all the other host of stars, when, with his cheerful face

Fresh wash'd in lofty Ocean waves, he doth the skies enchase.

To let whose glory lose no sight, still Pallas made him turn

Where tumult most express'd his power, and where the fight did burn.

An honest and a wealthy man, inhabited in Troy ;

Dares, the priest of Mulciber, who two sons did enjoy,

Idaus, and bold Phegeus, well-seen in every fight:

These (singled from their troops, and

horsed) assail'd Minerva's knight, Who ranged from fight to fight on foot. All hasting mutual charge,

And now drawn near, first Phegeus threw a javelin swift and large,

* This simile likewise Virgil learns of him. VOL. III.

Whose head the king's left shoulder took,

but did no harm at all;

Then rush'd he out a lance at him, that had no idle fall,

But in his breast stuck 'twixt the paps, and strook him from his horse.

Which stern sight when Idæus saw, distrustful of his force

To save his slaughter'd brother's spoil, it made him headlong leap

From his fair chariot, and leave all; yet had not 'scaped the heap

Of heavy funeral, if the God, great president of fire,

Had not (in sudden clouds of smoke, and pity of his sire

To leave him utterly unheir'd) given safe pass to his feet.

He gone, Tydides sent the horse and chariot to the fleet.

The Trojans seeing Dares' sons, one slain, the other fled, Were strook amazed.

The blue-eyed Maid (to grace her Diomed

In giving free way to his power) made this so ruthful fact

A fit advantage to remove the War-god out of act,

Who raged so on the Ilion side;-she griped his hand, and said:

"Mars, Mars, thou ruiner of men, that in the dust hast laid

So many cities, and with blood thy godhead dost distain;

Now shall we cease to show our breasts as

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And slew a leader, one more huge than any man he led,

Great Odius, duke of Halizons ; quite from his chariot's head

He strook him with a lance to earth, as first he flight address'd;

To meddle with no sea affair, but live by tilling land.

This man Meriones surprised, and drave his deadly hand

Through his right hip; the lance's head ran through the region

It took his forward-turned back, and look'd About the bladder, underneath th' inout of his breast;

muscles and the bone;

His huge trunk sounded, and his arms did He, sighing, bow'd his knees to death, echo the resound.

Idomenæus to the death did noble Phæstus wound,

The son of Meon-Borus, that from cloddy Terna caine;

Who, taking chariot, took his wound, and tumbled with the same

From his attempted seat: the lance through his right shoulder strook, And horrid darkness strook through him; the spoil his soldiers took. Atrides-Menelaus slew, as he before him fled, Scamandrius, son of Strophius, that was a huntsman bred;

A skilful huntsman, for his skill Diana's self did teach, [to reach And made him able with his dart infallibly All sorts of subtlest savages, which many a woody hill

Bred for him, and he much preserved, and

all to shew his skill.

Yet not the dart-delighting Queen taught him to shun this dart,

Nor all his hitting so far off, the mastery of his art;

His back received it, and he fell upon his breast withal;

His body's ruin, and his arms, so sounded in his fall,

That his affrighted horse flew off, and left him, like his life.

Meriones slew Phereclus, whom she that ne'er was wife,

Yet Goddess of good housewives, held in excellent respect

For knowing all the witty things that grace an architect;

And having power to give it all, the cunning use of hand.

Harmonides, his sire, built ships, and made him understand,

With all the practice it required, the frame of all that skill.

He built all Alexander's ships, that author'd all the ill

Of all the Trojans and his own, because he did not know

The oracles advising Troy (for fear of overthrow)

and sacrificed to earth.

Phylides stay'd Pedaus' fight-Antenor's bastard birth

Whom virtuous Theano his wife, to please her husband, kept

As tenderly as those she loved. Phylides near him stept,

And in the fountain of the nerves did drench his fervent lance,

At his head's back-part; and so far the sharp head did advance,

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A

blow that his arm's brawn cut off; nor there his vigour stay'd,

But drave down, and from off his wrist it hew'd his holy hand,

That gush'd out blood, and down it dropp'd upon the blushing sand;

Death, with his purple finger, shut, and violent fate, his eyes.

Thus fought these, but distinguish'd well. Tydides so implies

His fury that you could not know whose side had interest

In his free labours, Greece or Troy ; but as a flood, increased

By violent and sudden showers, let down from hills, like hills

Melted in fury, swells and foams, and so he overfills

His natural channel; that besides both hedge and bridge resigns

To his rough confluence, far spread; and lusty flourishing vines

Drown'd in his outrage; Tydeus' son, so overran the field,

Strew'd such as flourish'd in his way, and made whole squadrons yield.

When Pandarus, Lycaon's son, beheld his ruining hand, With such resistless insolence, make lanes through every band,

He bent his gold-tipp'd bow of horn, and shot him rushing in,

At his right shoulder, where his arms were hollow; forth did spin

The blood, and down his curets ran; then Pandarus cried out : "Rank-riding Trojans, now rush in. Now, now, I make no doubt

Our bravest foe is mark'd for death; he

cannot long sustain

My violent shaft, if Jove's fair Son did worthily constrain

My foot from Lycia." Thus he braved,

and yet his violent shaft [life was saft; Strook short with all his violence, Tydide's Who yet withdrew himself behind his chariot and steeds,

"

He

And call'd to Sthenelus: 'Come friend, my wounded shoulder needs Thy hand to ease it of this shaft." hasted from his seat Before the coach, and drew the shaft; the

purple wound did sweat,

And drown his shirt of mail in blood, and as it bled he pray'd: "Hear me, of jove Ægiochus thou most unconquer'd maid,

If ever in the cruel field thou hast assistful stood, [do me good. Or to my father, or myself, now love, and Give him into my lance's reach, that thus

hath given a wound

To him thou guard'st, preventing me, and brags that never more

I shall behold the cheerful sun." Thus did the king implore.

The Goddess heard, came near, and took the weariness of fight

From all his nerves and lineaments, and made them fresh and light, And said

Be bold, O Diomed, in every

combat shine, The great shield-shaker Tydeus' strength (that knight, that sire of thine) By my infusion breathes in thee; and from thy knowing mind

I have removed those erring mists that made it lately blind, That thou may'st difference Gods from

men: and therefore use thy skill [a will Against the tempting Deities, if any have To try if thou presumest of that, as thine,

that flows from them;

And so assumest above thy right. Where thou discern'st a beam

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The blue-eyed Goddess vanished, and he was seen again

Amongst the foremost; who before, though he were prompt and fain

To fight against the Trojans' powers, now, on his spirits were call'd

With thrice the vigour ; lion-like, that hath been lately gall'd

By some bold shepherd in a field, where his curl'd flocks were laid,

Who took him as he leap'd the fold, not slain yet, but appaid,

With greater spirit, comes again, and then the shepherd hides

(The rather for the desolate place), and in his cote abides;

His flocks left guardless; which, amazed, shake and shrink up in heaps;

He, ruthless, freely takes his prey, and out again he leaps :

So

sprightly, fierce, victorous, the great heroe flew

Upon the Trojans; and, at once, he two commanders slew,

Hyppenor and Astynous; in one his lance he fix'd

Full at the nipple of his breast; the other smote betwixt

The neck and shoulder with his sword which was so well laid on

It swept his arm and shoulder off. Thes left, he rush'd upon

Abas and Polyeidus, of old Eurydamas The hapless sons; who could by dream tell what would come to pass: Yet, when his sons set forth to Troy, the old man could not read

By their dreams what would chance to them; for both were stricken dead By great Tydides. After these, he takes into his rage

Xanthus and Thoön, Phænops' sons, born to him in his age;

The good old man even pined with years, and had not one son more To heir his goods; yet Diomed took both, and left him store

Of tears and sorrows in their steads, since he could never see

His sons leave those hot wars alive; so this the end must be

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