Priam, to whom the story was unknown,
As dead, deplored his metamorphosed son.
A cenotaph his name and title kept,
And Hector round the tomb, with all his brothers, wept.

This pious office Paris did not share,
Absent alone, and author of the war,
Which, for the Spartan queen, the Grecians drew
To avenge the rape, and Asia to subdue.

A thousand ships were mann’d to sail the sea;
Nor had their just resentments found delay,
Had not the winds and waves opposed their way.
At Aulis, with united powers, they meet;
But there, cross winds or calms detain’d the fleet.
Now, while they raise an altar on the shore,
And Jove with solemn sacrifice adore,
A boding sign the priests and people see:
A snake of size immense ascends a tree,
And in the leafy summit spied a nest,
Which o’er her callow young a sparrow press’d;
Eight were the birds, unfledged; their mother flew
And hover’d round her care, but still in view,
Till the fierce reptile first devour’d the brood;
Then seized the fluttering dam, and drank her blood.
This dire ostent the fearful people view;
Calchas alone, by Phoebus taught, foreknew
What heaven decreed; and with a smiling glance,
Thus gratulates to Greece her happy chance:
“Oh Argives, we shall conquer; Troy is ours,
But long delays shall first afflict our powers;
Nine years of labour the nine birds portend,
The tenth shall in the town’s destruction end.”

The serpent, which his maw obscene had fill’d,
The branches in his curl’d embraces held;
But, as in spires he stood, he turn’d to stone;
The stony snake retain’d the figure still his own.

Yet, not for this, the wind-bound navy weigh’d,
Slack were their sails, and Neptune disobey’d.
Some thought him loth the town should be destroy’d,
Whose building had his hands divine employ’d:
Not so the seer, who knew, and known foreshow’d,
The virgin Phoebe, with a virgin’s blood
Must first be reconciled. The common cause
Prevail’d, and pity yielding to the laws,
Fair Iphigenia, the devoted maid,
Was, by the weeping priests, in linen robes array’d.
All mourn her fate, but no relief appear’d;
The royal victim bound, the knife already rear’d
When that offended power, who caused their wo,
Relenting ceased her wrath, and stopp’d the coming blow.
A mist before the ministers she cast,
And, in the virgin’s room, a hind she placed.
The oblation slain, and Phoebe reconciled,
The storm was hush’d, and dimpled ocean smiled:
A favourable gale arose from shore,
Which to the port desired the Grecian galleys bore.

Full in the midst of this created space,
Between heaven, earth, and skies, there stands a place,
Confining on all three, with triple bound,
Whence all things, though remote, are view’d around,
And thither bring their undulating sound.
The palace of loud Fame, her seat of power,
Placed on the summit of a lofty tower;
A thousand winding entries long and wide
Receive of fresh reports a flowing tide.
A thousand crannies in the walls are made,
Nor gate, nor bars, exclude the busy trade:
’Tis built of brass, the better to diffuse
The spreading sounds, and multiply the news;
Where echoes in repeated echoes play;
A mart for ever full, and open night and day.
Nor silence is within, nor voice express,
But a deaf noise of sounds, that never cease.
Confused, and chiding, like the hollow roar
Of tides receding from the insulted shore;
Or like the broken thunder heard from far,
When Jove to distance drives the rolling war.
The courts are fill’d with a tumultuous din
Of crowds, or issuing forth, or entering in;
A thoroughfare of news, where some devise
Things never heard, some mingle truth with lies;
The troubled air with empty sounds they beat,
Intent to hear, and eager to repeat;
Error sits brooding there, with added train
Of vain credulity, and joys as vain:
Suspicion, with sedition join’d, are near,
And rumours raised, and murmurs mix’d, and panic fear.
Fame sits aloft, and sees the subject ground,
And seas about, and skies above; inquiring all around.

The goddess gives the alarm, and soon is known
The Grecian fleet descending on the town.
Fix’d on defence, the Trojans are not slow
To guard their shore from an expected foe.
They meet in fight. By Hector’s fatal hand
Protesilaus falls, and bites the strand;
Which with expense of blood the Grecians won,
And proved the strength unknown of Priam’s son:
And to their cost the Trojan leaders felt
The Grecian heroes, and what deaths they dealt.

From these first onsets, the Sigaean shore
Was strew’d with carcasses, and stain’d with gore.
Neptunian Cycnus troops of Greeks had slain;
Achilles in his car had scoured the plain,
And clear’d the Trojan ranks; where’er he fought,
Cycnus, or Hector, through the fields he sought.
Cycnus he found; on him his force essay’d;
For Hector was to the tenth year delay’d.
His white maned steeds, that bow’d beneath the yoke,
He cheer’d to courage, with a gentle stroke,
Then urged his fiery chariot on the foe,
And rising shook his lance, in act to throw.
But first, he cried, “Oh youth, be proud to bear
Thy death, ennobled by Pelides’ spear.”
The lance pursued the voice without delay,
Nor did the whizzing weapon miss the way,
But pierced his cuirass, with such fury sent,
And sign’d his bosom with a purple dint.
At this the seed of Neptune: “Goddess born,
For ornament, not use, these arms are worn;
This helm, and heavy buckler, I can spare,
As only decorations of the war;
So Mars is arm’d for glory, not for need.
’Tis somewhat more from Neptune to proceed,
Than from a daughter of the sea to spring;
Thy sire is mortal, mine is ocean’s king.
Secure of death, I should contemn thy dart,
Though naked, and impassable depart.”
He said, and threw; the trembling weapon pass’d
Through nine bull hides, each under other placed,
On his broad shield, and stuck within the last.
Achilles wrench’d it out, and sent again
The hostile gift: the hostile gift was vain.
He tried a third, a tough, well-chosen spear,
The inviolable body stood sincere,
Though Cycnus then did no defence provide,
But scornful offer’d his unshielded side.

Not otherwise the impatient hero fared,
Than as a bull encompass’d with a guard,
Amid the circus roars, provoked from far
By sight of scarlet and a sanguine war:
They quit their ground; his bended horns elude;
In vain pursuing, and in vain pursued.

Before to further fight he would advance,
He stood considering, and survey’d his lance;
Doubts if he wielded not a wooden spear
Without a point: he look’d; the point was there.
“This is my hand, and this my lance,” he said,
“By which so many thousand foes are dead;
Oh whither is their usual virtue fled!
I had it once; and the Lyrnessian wall,
And Tenedos, confess’d it in their fall.
Thy streams, Caicus, rolled a crimson flood;
And Thebes ran red with her own natives’ blood
Twice Telephus employ’d their piercing steel,
To wound him first, and afterward to heal.
The vigour of this arm was never vain:
And that my wonted prowess I retain,
Witness these heaps of slaughter on the plain.”
He said; and, doubtful of his former deeds,
So some new trial of his force proceeds.
He chose Menaetes from among the rest;
At him he launch’d his spear, and pierced his breast
On the hard earth the Lycian knock’d his head,
And lay supine, and forth the spirit fled.

Then thus the hero: “Neither can I blame
The hand or javelin; both are still the same:
The same I will employ against this foe,
And wish but with the same success to throw.”
So spoke the chief; and while he spoke he threw;
The weapon with unerring fury flew,
At his left shoulder aim’d: nor entrance found;
But back, as from a rock, with swift rebound,
Harmless return’d: a bloody mark appear’d,
Which, with false joy, the flatter’d hero cheer’d:
Wound there was none; the blood that was in view,
The lance before from slain Menaetes drew.

Headlong he leaps from off his lofty car,
And in close fight on foot renews the war:
Raging with high disdain, repeats his blows:
Nor shield nor armour can their force oppose:
Huge cantlets of his buckler strew the ground,
And no defence in his bored arms is found:
But on his flesh no wound or blood is seen;
The sword itself is blunted on the skin.

This vain attempt the chief no longer bears,
But round his hollow temples and his ears
His buckler beats: the son of Neptune, stunn’d
With these repeated buffets, quits his ground;
A sickly sweat succeeds, and shades of night;
Inverted nature swims before his sight:
The insulting victor presses on the more,
And treads the steps the vanquished trod before,
Nor rest nor respite gives. A stone there lay
Behind his trembling foe, and stopp’d his way:
Achilles took the advantage which he found,
O’erturn’d, and push’d him backward on the ground.
His buckler held him under, while he press’d
With both his knees above his panting breast:
Unlaced his helm: about his chin the twist
He tied; and soon the strangled soul dismiss’d.

With eager haste he went to strip the dead:
The vanish’d body from his arms was fled:
His sea-god sire, to immortalize his frame,
Had turn’d it to the bird that bears his name.

A truce succeeds the labours of this day,
And arms suspended with a long delay.
While Trojan walls are kept with watch and ward,
The Greeks before their trenches mount the guard:
The feast approach’d, when to the blue-eyed maid
His vows for Cycnus slain the victor paid,
And a white heifer on her altar laid;
The reeking entrails on the fire they threw,
And to the gods the grateful odour flew:
Heaven had its part in sacrifice; the rest
Was broil’d and roasted for the future feast.
The chief invited guests were set around;
And, hunger first assuaged, the bowls were crown’d,
Which in deep draughts their cares and labours drown’d.
The mellow harp did not their ears employ;
And mute was all the warlike symphony:
Discourse, the food of souls, was their delight,
And pleasing chat prolong’d the summer’s night;
The subject, deeds of arms, and valour shown,
Or on the Trojan side, or on their own:
Of dangers undertaken, fame achieved,
They talk’d by turns⁠—the talk by turns relieved.
What things but these could fierce Achilles tell;
Or what could fierce Achilles hear so well?
The last great act perform’d, of Cycnus slain,
Did most the martial audience entertain;
Wondering to find a body free by fate
From steel, and which could ev’n that steel rebate
Amazed, their admiration they renew;
And scarce Pelides could believe it true.

Then Nestor thus: “What once this age has known
In fated Cycnus, and in him alone,
These eyes have seen in Caeneus long before,
Whose body not a thousand swords could bore,
Caeneus in courage and in strength excell’d;
And still his Othrys with his fame is fill’d:
But what did most his martial deeds adorn⁠—
Though since he changed his sex, a woman born.”

A novelty so strange, and full of fate,
His listening audience ask’d him to relate.
Achilles thus commends their common suit:
“Oh father, first for prudence in repute,
Tell, with that eloquence so much thy own,
What thou hast heard, or what of Caeneus known:
What was he; whence his change of sex begun:
What trophies, join’d in wars with thee, he won:
Who conquer’d him; and in what fatal strife
The youth, without a wound, could lose his life?”

Neleides then: “Though tardy age and time
Have shrunk my sinews and decay’d my prime;
Though much I have forgotten of my store,
Yet, not exhausted, I remember more.
Of all that arms achieved, or peace design’d,
That action still is fresher in my mind
Than aught beside. If reverend age can give
To faith a sanction, in my third I live.

“ ’Twas in my second century I survey’d
Young Caenis, then a fair Thessalian maid:
Caenis the bright, was born to high command;
A princess, and a native of thy land,
Divine Achilles: every tongue proclaim’d
Her beauty, and her eyes all hearts inflamed.
Peleus, thy sire, perhaps had sought her bed,
Among the rest; but he had either led
Thy mother then, or was by promise tied:
But she to him, and all, alike her love denied.

“It was her fortune once to take her way
Along the sandy margin of the sea:
The power of ocean view’d her as she pass’d,
And, loved as soon as seen, by force embraced:
Then thus, transported, to the nymph he cried:
‘Ask what thou wilt, no prayer shall be denied:’
This also fame relates. The haughty fair,
Who not the rape ev’n of a god could bear,
This answer, proud, return’d: ‘To mighty wrongs
A mighty recompense, of right, belongs:
Give me no more to suffer such a shame,
But change the woman for a better name;
One gift for all:’ she said; and while she spoke,
A stern, majestic, manly tone she took:
A man she was: and, as the godhead swore,
To Caeneus turn’d, who Caenis was before.

“To this the lover adds, without request,
No force of steel should violate his breast.
Glad of the gift, the new-made warrior goes,
And arms among the Greeks, and longs for equal foes.

“Now brave Pirithous, bold Ixion’s son,
The love of fair Hippodame had won.
The cloud begotten race, half men, half beast,
Invited, came to grace the nuptial feast:
In a cool cave’s recess the treat was made,
Whose entrance trees with spreading boughs o’ershade.
They sat; and, summon’d by the bridegroom, came,
To mix with those the Lapithaean name:
Nor wanted I. The roofs with joy resound;
And, ‘Hymen, Io Hymen,’ rung around.
Raised altars shone with holy fires: the bride,
Lovely herself, (and lovely, by her side,
A bevy of bright nymphs, with sober grace,)
Came glittering like a star, and took her place:
Her heavenly form beheld, all wish’d her joy;
And little wanted; but in vain their wishes all employ:

“For one, most brutal of the brutal brood,
Or whether wine or beauty fired his blood,
Or both at once, beheld with joyful eyes
The bride, at once resolved to make his prize.
Down went the board; and, fastening on her hair,
He seized with sudden force the frighted fair.
’Twas Eurytus began: his bestial kind
His crime pursued; and each, as pleased his mind,
Or her whom chance presented, took: the feast
An image of a taken town express’d.

“The cave resounds with female shrieks; we rise,
Mad with revenge, to make a swift reprise:
And Theseus first: ‘What frenzy has possess’d,
Oh Eurytus,’ he cried, ‘thy brutal breast,
To wrong Pirithous, and not him alone,
But while I live, two friends conjoin’d in one?’

“To justify his threat, he thrusts aside
The crowd of centaurs, and redeems the bride.
The monster naught replied; for words were vain,
And deeds could only deeds unjust maintain;
But answers with his hand, and forward press’d,
With blows redoubled, on his face and breast.
An ample goblet stood, of antique mould,
And rough with figures of the rising gold;
The hero snatch’d it up, and toss’d in air
Full at the front of the foul ravisher:
He falls, and falling, vomits forth a flood
Of wine, and foam, and brains, and mingled blood.
Half roaring, and half neighing, through the hall,
‘Arms! arms!’ the double-form’d with fury call;
To wreak their brother’s death: a medley flight
Of bowls and jars at first supply the fight;
Once instruments of feasts, but now of fate:
Wine animates their rage, and arms their hate.

“Bold Amycus from the robb’d vestry brings
The chalices of heaven, and holy things
Of precious weight: a sconce that hung on high,
With tapers fill’d, to light the sacristy,
Torn from the cord, with his unhallow’d hand,
He threw amid the Lapithaean band.
On Celadon the ruin fell, and left
His face of feature, and of form bereft:
So, when some brawny sacrificer knocks,
Before an altar led, an offer’d ox,
His eyeballs, rooted out, are thrown to ground;
His nose, dismantled, in his mouth is found;
His jaws, cheeks, front, one undistinguished wound.

“This Belates, the avenger, could not brook,
But, by the foot, a maple board he took,
And hurl’d at Amycus: his chin it bent
Against his chest, and down the centaur sent;
Whom, sputtering bloody teeth, the second blow
Of his drawn sword despatch’d to shades below.

“Grineus was near, and cast a furious look
On the side altar, censed with sacred smoke,
And bright with flaming fires: ‘The gods,’ he cried,
‘Have with their holy trade our hands supplied:
Why use we not their gifts?’ Then from the floor
An altar stone he heaved, with all the load it bore:
Altar, and altar’s freight, together flew,
Where thickest throng’d the Lapithaean crew,
And at once Broteas and Oryus slew.
Oryus’ mother, Mycale, was known
Down from her sphere to draw the labouring moon.

“Exadius cried: ‘Unpunish’d shall not go,
This fact, if arms are found against the foe.
He look’d about, where on a pine were spread
The votive horns of a stag’s branching head:
At Grineus these he throws; so just they fly,
That the sharp antlers stuck in either eye:
Breathless and blind he fell, with blood besmear’d;
His eyeballs, beaten out, hung dangling on his beard.
Fierce Rhaetus from the hearth a burning brand
Selects, and whirling waves, till from his hand
The fire took flame, then dash’d it on the right,
On fair Charaxus’ temples, near the sight:
The whistling pest came on, and pierced the bone,
And caught the yellow hair, that shrivell’d while it shone:
Caught, like dry stubble fired, or like seerwood;
Yet from the wound ensued no purple flood,
But look’d a bubbling mass of frying blood.
His blazing locks sent forth a crackling sound,
And hiss’d, like red-hot iron within the smithy drown’d.
The wounded warrior shook his flaming hair;
Then (what a team of horse could hardly rear)
He heaves the threshold stone, but could not throw;
The weight itself forbad the threaten’d blow;
Which, dropping from his lifted arms, came down
Full on Cometes’ head, and crush’d his crown.
Nor Rhaetus then restrained his joy, but said:
‘So by their fellows may our foes be sped:’
Then with redoubled strokes he plies his head:
The burning lever not deludes his pains;
But drives the batter’d scull within the brains.

“Thus flush’d, the conqueror, with force renew’d,
Evagrus, Dryas, Corythus, pursued.
First Corythus, with downy cheeks, he slew,
Whose fall when fierce Evagrus had in view,
He cried: ‘What palm is from a beardless prey?’
Rhaetus prevents what more he had to say,
And drove within his mouth the fiery death,
Which enter’d hissing in, and choked his breath.
At Dryas next he flew: but weary chance
No longer would the same success advance;
For while he whirl’d in fiery circles round
The brand, a sharpen’d stake strong Dryas found,
And in the shoulder’s joint inflicts the wound.
The weapon stuck, which, roaring out with pain,
He drew; nor longer durst the fight maintain,
But turn’d his back, for fear, and fled amain.
With him fled Orneus, with like dread possess’d;
Thaumas, and Medon, wounded in the breast;
And Mermeros, in the late race renown’d,
Now limping ran, and tardy, with his wound.
Pholus and Melaneous from fight withdrew,
And Abas maim’d, who boars encountering slew:
And Augur Astylos, whose art in vain
From fight dissuaded the four-footed train,
Now beat the hoof with Nessus on the plain,
But to his fellow cried: ‘Be safely slow;
Thy death deferr’d is due to great Alcides’ bow.’

“Meantime strong Dryas urged his chance so well,
That Lycidas, Areos, Imbreus, fell,
All one by one, and fighting face to face:
Crenaeus fled, to fall with more disgrace;
For, fearful, while he look’d behind, he bore,
Between his nose and front, the blow before.
Amid the noise and tumult of the fray,
Snoring, and drunk with wine, Aphidas lay;
Ev’n then the bowl within his hand he kept,
And on a bear’s rough hide securely slept:
Him Phorbas with his flying dart transfix’d:
‘Take thy next draught with Stygian waters mix’d,
And sleep thy fill,’ the insulting victor cried:
Surprised with death unfelt, the centaur died:
The ruddy vomit, as he breathed his soul,
Repass’d his throat, and fill’d his empty bowl.

“I saw Petraeus’ arms employ’d around
A well-grown oak, to root it from the ground:
This way and that he wrench’d the fibrous bands;
The trunk was like a sapling in his hands,
And still obey’d the bent: while thus he stood,
Pirithous’ dart drove on, and nail’d him to the wood:
Lycus and Chromis fell, by him oppress’d:
Helops and Dictys added to the rest
A nobler palm: Helops through either ear,
Transfix’d, received the penetrating spear:
This Dictys saw, and, seized with sudden fright,
Leap’d headlong from the hill of steepy height,
And crush’d an ash beneath, that could not bear his weight:
The shatter’d tree receives his fall, and strikes
Within his full-blown paunch the sharpen’d spikes.
Strong Aphareus had heaved a mighty stone,
The fragment of a rock, and would have thrown;
But Theseus, with a club of harden’d oak,
The cubit-bone of the bold centaur broke,
And left him maim’d; nor seconded the stroke:
Then leap’d on tall Bianor’s back; (who bore
No mortal burden but his own before;)
Press’d with his knees his sides: the double man,
His speed with spurs increased, unwilling ran.
One hand the hero fasten’d on his locks;
His other plied him with repeated strokes;
The club rang round his ears and batter’d brows:
He falls, and, lashing up his heels, his rider throws.

“The same Herculean arms Nedymnus wound,
And lay by him Lycotas on the ground;
And Hippasus, whose beard his breast invades;
And Ripheus, hunter of the woodland shades;
And Tereus, used with mountain bears to strive,
And from their dens to draw the indignant beasts alive.

“Demoleon could not bear this hateful sight,
Or the long fortune of the Athenian knight,
But pull’d with all his force, to disengage
From earth a pine, the product of an age:
The root stuck fast: the broken trunk he sent
At Theseus: Theseus frustrates his intent,
And leaps aside; by Pallas warn’d the blow
To shun: (for so he said, and we believed it so.)
Yet not in vain the enormous weight was cast,
Which Crantor’s body sunder’d at the waist;
Thy father’s ’squire, Achilles, and his care,
Whom, conquer’d in the Pelopeian war,
Their king, his present ruin to prevent,
A pledge of peace implored, to Peleus sent.

“Thy sire, with grieving eyes, beheld his fate,
And cried, ‘Not long, loved Crantor, shalt thou wait
Thy vow’d revenge.’ At once he said, and threw
His ashen spear, which quiver’d as it flew;
With all his force and all his soul applied,
The sharp point enter’d in the centaur’s side:
Both hands to wrench it out the monster join’d,
And wrench’d it output left the steel behind;
Stuck in his lungs it stood: enraged he rears
His hoofs, and down to ground thy father bears.
Thus trampled under foot, his shield defends
His head; his other hand the lance portends:
Ev’n while he lay extended on the dust,
He sped the centaur with one single thrust:
Two more his lance before transfix’d from far;
And two his sword had slain in closer war.
To these was added Dorylas, who spread
A bull’s two goring horns round his head:
With these he push’d: in blood already died,
Him fearless I approach’d, and thus defied:
‘Now, monster, now by proof it shall appear
Whether thy horns are sharper, or my spear.’
At this, I threw: for want of other ward,
He lifted up his hand, his front to guard:
His hand it pass’d, and fix’d it to his brow:
Loud shouts of ours attend the lucky blow.
Him Peleus finish’d, with a second wound,
Which through the navel pierced: he reel’d around,
And dragg’d his dangling bowels on the ground;
Trod what he dragg’d, and what he trod, he crush’d,
And to his mother earth with empty belly rush’d.”

“Nor could thy form, oh Cyllarus, foreslow
Thy fate: (if form to monsters men allow:)
Just bloom’d thy beard; thy beard of golden hue:
Thy locks in golden waves about thy shoulders flew:
Sprightly thy look! Thy shapes in every part
So clean, as might instruct the sculptor’s art,
As far as man extended: where began
The beast, the beast was equal to the man:
Add but a horse’s head and neck, and he,
Oh Castor, was a courser worthy thee:
So was his back proportion’d for the seat;
So rose his brawny chest; so swiftly moved his feet:
Coal black his colour, but like jet it shone;
His legs and flowing tail were white alone:
Beloved by many maidens of his kind;
But fair Hylonome possess’d his mind;
Hylonome, for features, and for face,
Excelling all the nymphs of double race:
Nor less her blandishments than beauty move;
At once both living, and confessing love.
For him she dress’d; for him, with female care,
She comb’d, and set in curl her auburn hair:
Of roses, violets, and lilies mix’d,
And sprigs of flowing rosemary betwixt,
She form’d the chaplet that adorn’d her front:
In waters of the Pegasaean fount,
And in the streams that from the fountain play,
She wash’d her face, and bathed her twice a day.
The scarf of furs, that hung below her side,
Was ermine, or the panther’s spotted pride:
Spoils of no common beast. With equal flame
They loved: their sylvan pleasures were the same.

“Uncertain from what hand, a flying dart
At Cyllarus was sent, which pierced his heart.
The javelin drawn from out the mortal wound,
He faints with stagg’ring steps, and seeks the ground:
The fair within her arms received his fall,
And strove his wandering spirits to recall;
And while her hand the streaming blood opposed,
Join’d face to face, his lips with hers she closed.
Stifled with kisses, a sweet death he dies:
She fills the fields with undistinguish’d cries;
At last her words were in her clamour drown’d;
For my stunn’d ears received no vocal sound.
In madness of her grief, she seized the dart
New drawn, and reeking from her lover’s heart;
To her bare bosom the sharp point applied,
And wounded fell; and falling by his side,
Embraced him in her arms; and thus embracing died.

“Ev’n still methinks I see Phaeocomes;
Strange was his habit, and as odd his dress:
Six lions’ hides, with thongs together fast,
His upper part defended to his waist:
And where man ended, the continued vest,
Spread on his back, the houss and trappings of a beast.
A stump too heavy for a team to draw,
(It seems a fable, though the fact I saw,)
He threw at Pholon; the descending blow
Divides the scull, and cleaves his head in two.
The brains, from nose, and mouth, and either ear,
Came issuing out, as through a colander
The curdled milk, or from the press the whey,
Driven down by weights above, is drain’d away.

“But him, while stooping down to spoil the slain,
Pierced through the paunch, I tumbled on the plain.
Then Chthonius and Teleboas I slew:
A fork the former arm’d; a dart his fellow threw.
The javelin wounded me; (behold the scar:
Then was my time to seek the Trojan war;
Then I was Hector’s match in open field;
But he was then unborn, at least a child:
Now I am nothing.) I forbear to tell
By Periphantas how Pyretus fell;
The centaur by the knight: nor will I stay
On Amphyx, or what deaths he dealt that day:
What honour, with a pointless lance, he won,
Stuck in the front of a four-footed man:
What fame young Macareus obtain’d in fight;
Or dwell on Nessus, now return’d from flight:
How Prophet Mopsus not alone divined,
Whose valour equall’d his foreseeing mind.”

“Already Caeneus, with his conquering hand,
Had slaughter’d five, the boldest of their band,
Pyrachmus, Helymus, Antimachus,
Bromus the brave, and stronger Stiphelus.
Their names I number’d, and remember well,
No trace remaining, by what wounds they fell.

“Latreus, the bulkiest of the double race,
Whom the spoil’d arms of slain Halesus grace;
In years retaining still his youthful might,
Though his black hairs were interspersed with white,
Between the embattled ranks began to prance,
Proud of his helm, and Macedonian lance,
And rode the ring around, that either host
Might hear him, while he made this empty boast:
‘And from a female shall we suffer shame?
For Caenis still, not Caeneus, is thy name;
And still the native softness of thy kind
Prevails, and leaves the woman in thy mind:
Remember what thou wert; what price was paid
To change thy sex; to make thee not a maid
And but a man in show: go, card and spin,
And leave the business of the war to men.’

“While thus the boaster exercised his pride,
The fatal spear of Caeneus reach’d his side;
Just in the mixture of the kinds it ran,
Between the nether beast and upper man:
The monster, mad with rage, and stung with smart,
His lance directed at the hero’s heart:
It struck; but bounded from his hardened breast,
Like hail from tiles, which the safe house invest:
Nor seem’d the stroke with more effect to come,
Than a small pebble falling on a drum.
He next his falchion tried, in closer fight;
But the keen falchion had no power to bite:
He thrust; the blunted point return’d again;
‘Since downright blows,’ he cried, ‘and thrusts are vain,
I’ll prove his side:’ in strong embraces held,
He proved his side; his side the sword repell’d:
His hollow belly echoed to the stroke,
Untouch’d his body as a solid rock:
Aim’d at his neck, at last the blade in shivers broke.

“The impassive knight stood idle, to deride
His rage, and offer’d oft his naked side:
At length, ‘Now, monster, in thy turn,’ he cried,
‘Try thou the strength of Caeneus:’ at the word
He thrust, and in his shoulder plunged the sword;
Then writhed his hand; and as he drove it down,
Deep in his breast, made many wounds in one.

“The centaurs saw, enraged, the unhoped success,
And rushing on in crowds, together press;
At him, and him alone, their darts they threw:
Repulsed they from his fated body flew.
Amazed they stood, till Monichus began:
‘Oh shame, a nation conquer’d by a man!
A woman-man! yet more a man is he
Than all our race; and what he was, are we.
Now what avail our nerves? the united force
Of two the strongest creatures, man and horse:
Nor goddess-born, nor of Ixion’s seed
We seem, (a lover built for Juno’s bed,)
Master’d by this half-man. Whole mountains throw
With woods at once, and bury him below.
This only way remains: nor need we doubt
To choke the soul within, though not to force it out;
Heap weights instead of wounds.’ He chanced to see
Where southern storms had rooted up a tree;
This, raised from earth, against the foe he threw,
The example shown, his fellow-brutes pursue.
With forest loads the warrior they invade
Othrys and Pelion soon were void of shad
And spreading groves were naked mountains made.
Press’d with the burden, Caeneus pants for breath,
And on his shoulders bears the wooden death:
To heave the intolerable weight he tries;
At length it rose above his mouth and eyes:
Yet still he heaves; and struggling with despair,
Shakes all aside, and gains a gulp of air:
A short relief, which but prolongs his pain;
He faints by fits; and then respires again.
At last the burden only nods above,
As when an earthquake stirs the Idaean grove:
Doubtful his death: he suffocated seem’d
To most; but otherwise our Nopsus deem’d;
Who said he saw a yellow bird arise
From out the piles, and cleave the liquid skies:
I saw it too, with golden feathers bright,
Nor ere before beheld so strange a sight:
Whom Mopsus viewing, as it soar’d around
Our troop, and heard the pinion’s rattling sound
‘All hail,’ he cried, ‘thy country’s grace and love!
Once first of men below, now first of birds above.’
Its author to the story gave belief:
For us, our courage was increased by grief:
Ashamed to see a single man, pursued
With odds, to sink beneath a multitude,
We push’d the foe; and forced to shameful flight;
Part fell, and part escaped by favour of the night.”

This tale, by Nestor told, did much displease
Tlepolemus, the seed of Hercules;
For often he had heard his father say
That he himself was present at the fray,
And more than shared the glories of the day.

“Old Chronicle,” he said, “among the rest,
You might have named Alcides at the least:
Is he not worth your praise?” The Pylian prince
Sigh’d ere he spoke, then made this proud defence:
“My former woes, in long oblivion drown’d,
I would have lost; but you renew the wound:
Better to pass him o’er, than to relate
The cause I have your mighty sire to hate:
His fame has fill’d the world, and reach’d the sky,
(Which, oh I wish, with truth, I could deny!)
We praise not Hector, though his name, we know,
Is great in arms: ’tis hard to praise a foe.

“He, your great father, levell’d to the ground
Messenia’s towers; nor better fortune found
Elis and Pylos: that a neighbouring state,
And this my own; both guiltless of their fate.

“To pass the rest; twelve, wanting one, he slew,
My brethren, who their birth from Neleus drew;
All youths of early promise, had they lived;
By him they perish’d: I alone survived:
The rest were easy conquest: but the fate
Of Periclymenos is wondrous to relate:
To him our common grandsire of the main
Had given to change his form, and changed, resume again.
Varied at pleasure, every shape he tried,
And in all beasts Alcides still defied:
Vanquish’d on earth, at length he soar’d above,
Changed to the bird that bears the bolt of Jove.
The new-dissembled eagle, now endued
With beak and pounces, Hercules pursued,
And cuff’d his manly cheeks, and tore his face,
Then safe retired, and tower’d in empty space.
Alcides bore not long his flying foe,
But bending his inevitable bow,
Reach’d him in air, suspended as he stood,
And in his pinion fix’d the feather’d wood.
Light was the wound; but in the sinew hung
The point, and his disabled wing unstrung.
He wheel’d in air, and stretch’d his vans in vain;
His vans no longer could his flight sustain;
For while one gather’d wind, one unsupplied
Hung drooping down, nor poised his other side.
He fell: the shaft that slightly was impress’d,
Now from his heavy fall, with weight increased,
Drove through his neck aslant; he spurns the ground,
And the soul issues through the windpipe’s wound.

“Now, brave commander of the Rhodian seas,
What praise is due from me to Hercules?
Silence is all the vengeance I decree
For my slain brothers; but ’tis peace with thee.”

Thus, with a flowing tongue, old Nestor spoke;
Then to full bowls each other they provoke:
At length, with weariness and wine oppress’d,
They rise from table, and withdraw to rest.

The sire of Cycnus, monarch of the main,
Meantime laments his son in battle slain,
And vows the victor’s death; nor vows in vain.
For nine long years the smother’d pain he bore:
(Achilles was not ripe for fate before:)
Then when he saw the promised hour was near,
He thus bespoke the god that guides the year:
“Immortal offspring of my brother Jove,
My brightest nephew, and whom best I love,
Whose hands were join’d with mine, to raise the wall
Of tottering Troy, now nodding to her fall,
Dost thou not mourn our power employ’d in vain,
And the defenders of our city slain?
To pass the rest, could noble Hector lie
Unpitied, dragg’d around his native Troy?
And yet the murderer lives: himself by far
A greater plague than all the wasteful war:
He lives, the proud Pelides lives, to boast
Our town destroy’d, our common labour lost.
Oh, could I meet him! but I wish too late:
To prove my trident is not in his fate!
But let him try (for that’s allow’d) thy dart,
And pierce his only penetrable part.”

Apollo bows to the superior throne,
And to his uncle’s anger adds his own;
Then, in a cloud involved, he takes his flight,
Where Greeks and Trojans mix’d in mortal fight,
And found out Paris, lurking where he stood,
And stain’d his arrows with plebeian blood:
Phoebus to him alone the god confess’d,
Then to the recreant knight he thus address’d:
“Dost thou not blush, to spend thy shafts in vain
On a degenerate and ignoble train?
If fame or better vengeance be thy care,
There aim; and with one arrow end the war.”

He said; and show’d from far the blazing shield
And sword, which, but Achilles, none could wield,
And how he moved a god, and mow’d the standing field.
The deity himself directs aright
The envenom’d shaft, and wings the fatal flight.

Thus fell the foremost of the Grecian name,
And he, the base adulterer, boasts the fame;
A spectacle to glad the Trojan train,
And please old Priam, after Hector slain.
If by a female hand he had foreseen
He was to die, his wish had rather been
The lance and double axe of the fair warrior queen.
And now the terror of the Trojan field,
The Grecian honour, ornament, and shield,
High on a pile the unconquer’d chief is placed;
The god that arm’d him first, consumed at last.
Of all the mighty man, the small remains
A little urn, and scarcely fill’d, contains.
Yet great in Homer, still Achilles lives,
And equal to himself, himself survives.

His buckler owns its former lord, and brings
New cause of strife between contending kings;
Who worthiest after him his sword to wield,
Or wear his armour, or sustain his shield.
Ev’n Diomede sat mute, with downcast eyes,
Conscious of wonted worth to win the prize;
Nor Menelaus presumed these arms to claim;
Nor he, the king of men, a greater name:
Two rivals only rose: Laertes’ son,
And the vast bulk of Ajax Telamon.
The king, who cherish’d each with equal love,
And from himself all envy would remove,
Left both to be determined by the laws,
And to the Grecian chiefs transferr’d the cause.