The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (20 page)

The rank-rode Cadmeans, much incens’d with their so foul disgrace,

Lodg’d ambuscados for their foe, in some well-chosen place,

By which he was to make return. Twice five-and-twenty men,

And two of them great captains too, the ambush did contain.

The names of those two men of rule were Maeon, Haemon’s son,

And Lycophontes, Keep-field call’d, the heir of Autophon,

By all men honour’d like the gods: yet these and all their friends

Were sent to hell by Tydeus’ hand, and had untimely ends,

He trusting to the aid of gods, reveal’d by augury;

Obeying which one chief he sav’d, and did his life apply

To be the heavy messenger of all the others’ deaths;

And that sad message, with his life, to Maeon he bequeaths.

So brave a knight was Tydeus: of whom a son is sprung,

Inferior far in martial deeds, though higher in his tongue.’

All this Tydides silent heard, aw’d by the reverend king;

Which stung hot Sthenelus with wrath, who thus put forth his sting:

‘Atrides, when thou know’st the truth, speak what thy knowledge is,

And do not lie so; for I know, and I will brag in this,

That we are far more able men than both our fathers were;

We took the seven-fold ported Thebes, when yet we had not there

So great help as our fathers had, and fought beneath a wall

(Sacred to Mars) by help of Jove, and trusting to the fall

Of happy signs from other gods; by whom we took the town

Untouch’d, our fathers perishing there by follies of their own:

And therefore never more compare our fathers’ worth with ours.’

Tydides frown’d at this, and said: ‘Suppress thine anger’s pow’rs,

Good friend, and hear why I refrain’d: thou seest I am not mov’d

Against our general, since he did but what his place behov’d,

Admonishing all Greeks to fight; for if Troy prove our prize,

The honour and the joy is his: if here our ruin lies,

The shame and grief for that as much is his in greatest kinds;

As he then his charge, weigh we ours: which is our dauntless minds.’

Thus, from his chariot, amply arm’d, he jump’d down to the ground:

The armour of the angry king so horribly did sound,

It might have made his bravest foe let fear take down his braves.

And as when with the west wind’s flaws the sea thrusts up her waves,

One after other, thick and high, upon the groaning shores;

First in herself loud, but oppos’d with banks and rocks, she roars,

And, all her back in bristles set, spits every way her foam:

So after Diomed instantly the field was overcome

With thick impressions of the Greeks, and all the noise that grew

(Ordering and cheering up their men) from only leaders flew.

The rest went silently away, you could not hear a voice,

Nor would have thought in all their breasts they had one in their choice,

Their silence uttering their awe of them that them controll’d;

Which made each man keep bright his arms, march, fight still where he should.

The Trojans, like a sort of ewes penn’d in a rich man’s fold,

Close at his door, till all be milk’d, and never baaing hold,

Hearing the bleating of their lambs, did all their wide host fill

With shouts and clamours; nor observ’d one voice, one baaing still

But show’d mix’d tongues from many a land of men call’d to their aid.

Rude Mars had th’ ordering of their spirits; of Greeks, the learned Maid.

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 oppos’d

To darts and shields; strength answer’d strength; then swords and targets clos’d

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 show’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 man,

Whom on his hair-plum’d helmet’s crest the dart first smote, then ran

Into his forehead, and there stuck, the steel pile making way

Quite through his skull; a hasty night shut up his latest day.

His fall was like a light-rac’d tow’r, like which lying there dispread,

King Elephenor (who was son to Chalcodon, and led

The valiant Abants), covetous that he might first possess

His arms, laid hands upon his feet, and hal’d him from the press

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 receiv’d 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 serv’d his fate great Ajax Telamon

Preferr’d so sadly; he was heir to old Anthemion,

And deck’d with all the flow’r of youth, the fruit of which yet fled,

Before the honour’d nuptial torch could light him to his bed;

His name was Symoisius: for some few years before,

His mother walking down the hill of Ida, by the shore

Of silver Symois, to see her parents’ flocks, with them

She feeling suddenly the pains of child-birth, by the stream

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

They call’d him Symoisius. 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,

Cut off with mighty Ajax’ lance. For as his spirit put on,

He struck 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

The fell’ffs, or out-parts of a wheel, that compass in the whole,

To serve some goodly chariot; but being big and sad,

And to be hal’d home through the bogs, the useful hope he had

Sticks there; and there the goodly plant lies withering out his grace:

So lay by Jove-bred Ajax’ hand Anthemion’s forward race,

Nor could through that vast fen of toils be drawn to serve the ends

Intended by his body’s pow’rs, 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; it vex’d Ulysses’ heart,

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 shin’d, nor fell but where it fell’d:

His friend’s grief gave it angry pow’r, and deadly way it held

Upon Democoön, who was sprung of Priam’s wanton force,

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

Through both his temples struck 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,

Ev’n Hector yielded; then the Greeks gave worthy clamours vent,

Effecting then their first dumb pow’rs; 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;

They are not charm’d against your points, of steel nor iron fram’d;

Nor lights the fair-hair’d Thetis’ son, but sits at fleet inflam’d.’

So spake the dreadful god from Troy. The Greeks, Jove’s noblest seed

Encourag’d to keep on the chace: and where fit spirit did need,

She gave it, marching in the midst. Then flew the fatal hour

Back on Diores, in return of Ilion’s sun-burn’d pow’r,

Diores Amarincides, whose right leg’s ankle-bone

And both the sinews, with a sharp and handful-charging stone,

Pirus Imbrasides did break, that led the Thracian bands,

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

To his lov’d friends; his spirit wing’d to fly out of his breast,

With which not satisfied, again Imbrasides address’d

His javelin at him, and so ripp’d his navel, that the wound,

As endlessly it shut his eyes, so open’d on the ground,

It pour’d his entrails. As his foe went then suffic’d away,

Thoas Aetolius threw a dart that did his pile convey

Above his nipple, through his lungs; when (quitting his stern part)

He clos’d with him, and from his breast first drawing out his dart,

His sword flew in, and by the midst it wip’d 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

Forg’d of their lances, yet (enforc’d) he left th’ affected prize;

The Thracian and Epeian dukes laid close with closed eyes,

By either other, drown’d in dust; and round about the plain

All hid with slaughter’d carcasses, yet still did hotly reign

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

Book 5

The Argument

King Diomed (by Pallas’ spirit inspir’d

With will and power) is for his acts admir’d:

Mere men, and men deriv’d from deities,

And deities themselves, he terrifies;

Add wounds to terrors; his inflamed lance

Draws blood from Mars, and Venus; in a trance

He casts Aeneas with a weighty stone;

Apollo quickens him, and gets him gone:

Mars is recur’d by Paeon, but by Jove

Rebuk’d, for authoring breach of human love.

Another Argument

In
Epsilon
, heav’n’s blood is shed

By sacred rage of Diomed.

Book 5

Then Pallas breath’d 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,

Idaeus and bold Phegeus, well seen in every fight:

These (singled from their troops, and hors’d) assail’d Minerva’s knight,

Who rang’d from fight to fight, on foot; all hasting mutual charge

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

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 struck him from his horse.

Which stern sight when Idaeus 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 ’scap’d 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) giv’n 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 struck-amaz’d: the blue-ey’d 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 rag’d so on the Ilion side; she grip’t 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 passionate as men,

And leave the mixture of our hands, resigning Jove his right –

As rector of the gods – to give the glory of the fight

Where he affecteth, lest he force what we should freely yield?

He held it fit, and went with her from the tumultuous field,

Who set him in an herby seat, on broad Scamander’s shore.

He gone, all Troy was gone with him; the Greeks drave all before,

And every leader slew a man; but first the king of men

Deserv’d the honour of his name, and led the slaughter then,

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

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

He struck him with a lance to earth, as first he flight address’d;

It took his forward-turned back, and look’d out of his breast:

His huge trunk sounded, and his arms did echo the resound.

Idomenaeus to the death did noble Phaestus wound,

The son of Maeon Borus, that from cloddy Terna came:

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 struck 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,

And made him able with his dart, infallibly to reach

All sorts of subtlest savages, which many a woody hill

Bred for him, and he much preserv’d – and all to show his skill.

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

Nor all his hitting so far off (the mast’ry of his art):

His back receiv’d 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 pow’r to give it all the cunning use of hand:

Harmonides his sire built ships, and made him understand

(With all the practice it requir’d) 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,

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

This man Meriones surpris’d, and drave his deadly hand

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

About the bladder, underneath th’ in-muscles, and the bone;

He (sighing) bow’d his knees to death, and sacrific’d to earth.

Phylides stay’d Pedaeus’ flight, Antenor’s bastard birth,

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

As tenderly as those she lov’d. 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,

It cleft the organ of his speech, and th’ iron, cold as death,

He took betwixt his grinning teeth, and gave the air his breath.

Eurypilus the much renown’d, and great Evemon’s son,

Divine Hypsenor slew, begot by stout Dolopion

And consecrate Scamander’s priest; he had a god’s regard

Amongst the people: his hard flight the Grecian follow’d hard,

Rush’d in so close, that with his sword he on his shoulder laid

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 increas’d

By violent and sudden show’rs, 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 brav’d, and yet his violent shaft

Struck short with all his violence; Tydides life was sav’d;

Who yet withdrew himself behind his chariot and steeds,

And call’d to Sthenelus: ‘Come, friend, my wounded shoulder needs

Thy hand to ease it of this shaft.’ He 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 Aegiochus thou most unconquer’d Maid,

If ever in the cruel field thou hast assistful stood

Or to my father or myself, now love, and do me good;

Give him into my lance’s reach that thus hath giv’n 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 remov’d those erring mists that made it lately blind,

That thou may’st difference gods from men, and therefore use thy skill

Against the tempting deities, if any have a will

To try if thou presum’st of that as thine, that flows from them,

And so assum’st above thy right. Where thou discern’st a beam

Of any other heavenly power than she that rules in love,

That calls thee to the change of blows, resist not, but remove;

But if that goddess be so bold (since she first stirr’d this war),

Assault and mark her from the rest, with some infamous scar.’

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 appay’d

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

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

His flocks left guardless; which amaz’d, shake and shrink up in heaps;

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

So sprightly, fierce, victorious, the great heroë flew

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

Hypenor 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. These left, he rush’d upon

Abbas and Polyëidus, of old Eurydamas

The hapless sons; who could by dreams 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, Phenops’ sons, born to him in his age;

The good old man even pin’d 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

Of all his labours; what he heap’d, to make his issue great,

Authority heir’d, and with her seed fill’d his forgotten seat.

Then snatch’d he up two Priamists that in one chariot stood,

Echemon and fair Chromius; as feeding in a wood

Oxen or steers are, one of which a lion leaps upon,

Tears down, and wrings in two his neck: so sternly Tydeus’ son

Threw from their chariot both these hopes of old Dardanides,

Then took their arms, and sent their horse to those that ride the seas.

Aeneas, seeing the troops thus toss’d, broke through the heat of fight

And all the whizzing of the darts, to find the Lycian knight,

Lycaon’s son; whom having found, he thus bespake the peer:

‘O Pandarus! Where’s now thy bow? Thy deathful arrows, where?

In which no one in all our host but gives the palm to thee;

Nor in the sun-lov’d Lycian greens, that breed our archery,

Lives any that exceeds thyself. Come, lift thy hands to Jove,

And send an arrow at this man, if but a man he prove,

That wins such god-like victories, and now affects our host

With so much sorrow: since so much of our best blood is lost

By his high valour, I have fear some god in him doth threat,

Incens’d for want of sacrifice; the wrath of god is great.’

Lycaon’s famous son replied: ‘Great counsellor of Troy,

This man so excellent in arms, I think is Tydeus’ joy;

I know him by his fiery shield, by his bright three-plum’d casque,

And by his horse; nor can I say, if or some god doth mask

In his appearance, or he be whom I nam’d Tydeus’ son:

But without god the things he does for certain are not done.

Some great immortal, that conveys his shoulders in a cloud,

Goes by and puts by every dart at his bold breast bestow’d,

Or lets it take with little hurt; for I myself let fly

A shaft that shot him through his arms, but had as good gone by:

Yet which I gloriously affirm’d, had driven him down to hell.

Some god is angry, and with me; for far hence, where I dwell,

My horse and chariots idle stand, with which some other way

I might repair this shameful miss: eleven fair chariots stay

In old Lycaon’s court, new made, new trimm’d to have been gone,

Curtain’d and arrast under foot, two horse to every one,

That eat white barley and black oats, and do no good at all:

And these Lycaon (that well knew how these affairs would fall)

Charg’d, when I set down this design, I should command with here;

And gave me many lessons more, all which much better were

Than any I took forth myself. The reason I laid down

Was but the sparing of my horse, since in a sieged town

I thought our horse-meat would be scant, when they were us’d to have

Their manger full; so I left them, and like a lackey slave

Am come to Ilion, confident in nothing but my bow,

That nothing profits me; two shafts I vainly did bestow

At two great princes, but of both, my arrows neither slew;