by Homer
Worthy thy ruth, O Jove's beloved. First hour my miseries
Fell into any hand, 'twas thine. I tasted all my bread
By tby gift since, O since that hour that thy surprisal led
From forth the fair wood my sad feet, far from my loved allies,
To famous Lemnos, where I found a hundred oxen's prize
To make my ransom; for which now I thrice the worth will raise.
This day makes twelve since I arrived in Ilion, many days
Being spent before in sufferance; and now a cruel fate
Thrusts me again into thy hands. I should haunt Jove with hate,
That with such set malignity gives thee my life again.
There were but two of us for whom Laothoe suffered pain,
Laothoe, old Alte's seed; Alte, whose palace stood
In height of upper Pedasus, near Satnius' silver flood,
And ruled the warlike Lelegi. Whose seed, as many more,
King Priam married, and begot the God-like Polydore,
And me accursed. Thou slaughter'dst him, and now thy hand on me
Will prove as mortal. I did think, when here I met with thee,
I could not 'scape thee; yet give ear, and add thy mind to it:
I told my birth to intimate, though one sire did beget,
Yet one womb brought not into light Hector that slew thy friend,
And me. O do not kill me then, but let the wretched end
Of Polydore excuse my life. For half our being bred
Brothers to Hector, he (half) paid, no more is forfeited."
Thus sued he humbly; but he heard, with this austere reply:
“Fool, urge not ruth nor price to me, till that solemnity
Resolved on for Patroclus' death pay all his rites to fate.
Till his death I did grace to Troy, and many lives did rate
At price of ransom, but none now of all the brood of Troy
(Whoever Jove throws to my hands) shall any breath enjoy
That death can beat out, specially that touch at Priam's race.
Die, die, my friend. What tears are these? What sad looks spoil thy face
Patroclus died, that, far passed thee. Nay, seest thou not beside
Myself, even I, a fair young man, and rarely magnified,
And, to my father being a king, a mother have that sits
In rank with Goddesses, and yet, when thou hast spent thy spirits,
Death and as violent a fate must overtake even me,
By twilight, morn-light, day, high noon, whenever destiny
Sets on her man to hurl a lance, or knit out of his string
An arrow that must reach my life." This said, a languishing
Lycaon's heart bent like his knees, yet left him strength t' advance
Both hands for mercy as he kneeled. His foe yet leaves his lance,
And forth his sword flies, which he hid in farrow of a wound
Driven through the jointure of his neck; flat fell he on the ground,
Stretched with death's pangs, and all the earth imbrued with timeless blood.
Then gript Aeacides his heel, and to the lofty flood
Flung, swinging, his unpitied corse, to see it swim, and toss
Upon the rough waves, and said : " Go, feed fat the fish with loss
Of thy left blood, they clean will suck thy green wounds, and this saves
Thy mother tears upon thy bed. Deep Xanthus on his waves
Shall hoise thee bravely to a tomb that in her burly breast
The sea shall open, where great fish may keep thy funeral feast
With thy white fat, and on the waves dance at thy wedding fate,
Clad in black horror, keeping close inaccessible state.
So perish Ilians, till we pluck the brows of Ilion
Down to her feet, you flying still, I flying still upon
Thus in the rear, and (as my brows were forked with rabid horns)
Toss ye together. This brave-flood that strengthens and adorns
Your city with his silver gulfs, to whom so many bulls
Your zeal hath offered, with blind zeal his sacred current gulls,
With casting chariots and horse quick to his prayed-for aid,
Shall nothing profit. Perish then, till cruell'st death hath laid
All at the red feet of Revenge for my slain friend, and all
With whom the absence of my hands made yours a festival."
This speech great Xanthus more enraged, and made his spirit contend
For means to shut up the oped vein against him, and defend
The Trojans in it from his plague. In mean time Peleus' son,
And now with that long lance he hid, for more blood set upon
Asteropseus, the descent of Pelegon, and he
Of broad-streamed Axius, and the dame, of first nativity
To all the daughters that renowned Acesamenus' seed,
Bright Peribcea, whom the flood, armed thick with lofty reed,
Compressed. At her grandchild now went Thetis' great son, whose foe
Stood armed with two darts, being set on by Xanthus angered so
For those youths' blood shed in his stream by vengeful Thetis' son
Without all mercy. Both being near, great Thetides begun
With this high question : " Of what race art thou that dar'st oppose
Thy pow'r to mine thus? Cursed wombs they ever did disclose
That stood my anger." He replied : " What makes thy fury's heat
Talk, and seek pedigrees? Far hence lies my innative seat,
In rich Pgeonia. My race from broad-streamed Axius runs;
Axius, that gives earth purest drink, of all the wat'ry sons
Of great Oceanus, and got the famous for his spear,
Pelegonus, that fathered me; and these Pseonians here,
Armed with long lances, here I lead; and here th' eleventh fair light
Shines on us since we entered Troy. Come now, brave man, let's fight."
Thus spake he, threat'ning; and to him Pelides made reply
With shaken Pelias; but his foe with two at once let fly,
For both his hands were dexterous. One javelin struck the shield
Of Thetis' son, hut struck not through; the gold, God's gift, repelled
The eager point; the other lance fell lightly on the part
Of his fair right hand's cubit; forth the black blood spun; the dart
Glanced over, fastening on the earth, and there his spleen was spent
That wished the body. .With which wish Achilles his lance sent,
That quite missed, and infixed itself fast in the steep-up shore;
Even to the midst it entered it. Himself then fiercely bore
Upon his enemy with his sword. His foe was tugging hard
To get his lance out; thrice he plucked, and thrice sure Pelias barred
His wished evulsion; the fourth pluck, he bowed and meant to break
The ashen plant, but, ere that act, Achilles' sword did check
His bent pow'r, and brake out his soul. Full in the navel-stead
He ripped his belly up, and out his entrails fell, and dead
His breathless body; whence his arms Achilles drew, and said :
“Lie there, and prove it dangerous to lift up adverse head
Against Jove's sons; although a flood were ancestor to thee.
Thy vaunts urged him, but I may vaunt a higher pedigree,
From Jove himself. King Peleus was son to iEacus,
Infernal iEacus to Jove, and I to Peleus.
> Thunder-voiced Jove far passeth floods, that only murmurs raise
With earth and water as they run with tribute to the seas;
And his seed theirs exceeds as far. A flood, a mighty flood,
Raged near thee now, but with no aid; Jove must not be withstood.
King Achelous yields to him, and great Oceanus,
Whence all floods, all the sea, all founts, wells, all deeps humorous,
> Fetch their beginnings; yet even he fears Jove's flash, and the crack
His thunder gives, when out of heaven it tears atwo his rack."
Thus plucked he from the shore his lance, and left the waves to wash
The wave-sprung entrails, about which fausens and other fish
Did shoal, to nibble at the fat which his sweet kidneys hid.
This for himself. Now to his men, the well-rode Paeons, did
His rage contend, all which cold fear shook into flight, to see
Their captain slain. At whose mazed flight, as much enraged, flew he,
And then fell all these, Thrasius, My don, Astypylus,
Great Ophelestes, iEnius, Mnesus, Thersilochus.
And on these many more had fall'n, unless the angry flood
Had took the figure of a man, and in a whirlpit stood,
Thus speaking to Aeacides : " Past all, pow'r feeds thy will,
Thou great-grandchild of iEacus, and, past all, th' #rt in ill,
And Gods themselves confederates, and Jove, the best of Gods,
All deaths gives thee, all places not. Make my shores periods
To all shore service. In the field let thy field-acts ran high,
Not in my waters. My sweet streams choke with mortality
Of men slain by thee. Carcasses so glut me, that I fail
To pour into the sacred sea my waves; yet still assail
Thy cruel forces. Cease, amaze affects me with thy rage,
Prince of the people." He replied : " Shall thy command assuage,
Gulf-fed Scamander, my free wrath? I'll never leave pursued
Proud Ilion's slaughters, till this hand in her filed walls conclude
Her flying forces, and hath tried in single fight the chance
Of war with Hector, whose event with stark death shall advance
One of our conquests." Thus again he like a fury flew
Upon the Trojans; when the flood his sad plaint did pursue
To bright Apollo, telling him he" was too negligent
Of Jove's high charge, importuning by all means vehement
His help of Troy till latest even should her black shadows pour
On Earth's broad breast. In all his worst, Achilles yet from shore
Leaped to his midst. Then swelled his waves, then raged, then boiled again
Against Achilles. Up flew all, and all the bodies slain
In all his deeps, of which the heaps made bridges to his waves,
He belched out, roaring like a bull. The unslain yet he saves
In his black whirlpits vast and deep. A horrid billow stood
About Achilles. On his shield the violence of the flood
Beat so, it drave him back, and took his feet up, his fair palm
Enforced to catch into his stay a broad and lofty elm,
Whose roots he tossed up with his hold, and tore up all the shore.
With this then he repelled the waves, and those thick arms it bore
He made a bridge to bear him off, for all fell in, when he
Forth from the channel threw himself. The rage did terrify
Even his great spirit, and made him add wings to his swiftest feet,
And tread the land. And yet not there the flood left his retreat,
But thrust his billows after him, and blacked them all at top,
To make him fear, and fly his charge, and set the broad field ope
For Troy to 'scape in. He sprung out a dart's cast, but came on
Again with a redoubled force. As when the swiftest flown,
And strong'st of all fowls, Jove's black hawk, the huntress, stoops upon
A much loved quarry; so charged he; his arms with horror rung
Against the black waves. Yet again he was so urged, he flung
His body from the flood, find fled; and after him again
The waves flew roaring. As a man that finds a water-vein,
And from some black fount is to bring his streams through plants and groves,
Goes with his mattock, and all checks set to his course removes;
When that runs freely, under it the pebbles all give way,
And, where it finds a fall,' runs swift, nor can the leader stay
His current then, before himself full paced it murmurs on;
So of Achilles evermore the strong flood vantage won;
Though most deliver, Gods are still above the pow'rs of men.
As oft as th' able God-like man endeavoured to maintain
His charge on them that kept the flood, and charged as he would try
If all the Gods inhabiting the broad unreached sky
Gould daunt his spirit, so oft still the rude waves charged him round,
Rampt on his shoulders, from whose depth his strength and spirit would bound
Up to the free air, vexed in soul. And now the vehement flood
Made faint his knees; so overthwart his waves were, they withstood
All the denied dust, which he wished, and now was fain to cry,
Casting his eyes to that broad heaven that late he longed to try,
And said : " O Jove, how am I left! No God vouchsafes to free
Me, miserable man. Help now, and after torture me
With any outrage. Would to heaven, Hector, the mightiest
Bred in this region, had imbrued his javelin in my breast,
That strong may fall by strong! Where now weak water's luxury
Must make my death blush, one, heaven-born, shall like a hog-herd die,
Drowned in a dirty torrent's rage. Yet none of you in heaven
I blame for this, but she alone by whom this life was given
That now must die thus. She would still delude me with her tales,
Affirming Phoebus' shafts should end within the Trojan walls
My cursed beginning." In this strait, Neptune and Pallas flew
To fetch him off. In men's shapes both close to his danger drew,
And, taking both both hands, thus spake the shaker of the world :
“Pelides, do not stir a foot, nor these waves, proudly curled
Against thy bold breast, fear a jot; thou hast us two thy friends,
Neptune and Pallas, Jove himself approving th' aid we lend.
'Tis nothing as thou fear'st with fate, she will not see thee drowned.
This height shall soon down, thine own eyes shall see it set aground.
Be ruled then, we'll advise thee well; take not thy hand away
From putting all, indifferently, to all that it can lay
Upon the Trojans, till the walls of haughty Ilion
Conclude all in a desperate flight. And when thou hast set gone
The soul of Hector, turn to fleet; our hands shall plant a wreath
Of endless glory on thy brows." Thus to the free from death
Both made retreat. He, much impelled by charge the Godheads gave,
The field, that now was overcome with many a boundless wave,
He overcame. On their wild breasts they tossed the carcasses
And arms of many a slaughtered man. And now the winged knees
Of this great captain bore aloft; against the flood he flies
With full assault; nor could that God make shrink his rescued thighs.
Nor shrunk the Flood, but, as his foe grew powerful, he grew mad,
Thrust up a billow to the sky, and crystal Simois bad
To his assistance : " Simois, ho, brother," out he cried,
“Come, add thy current, and resist this man half deified,
Or Ilion he will pull down straight; the Trojans cannot stand
A minute longer. Come, assist, and instantly command
All fountains in thy rule to rise, all torrents to make in,
And stuff thy billows, with whose height engender such a din,
With trees torn up and justling stones, as so immane a man
May shrink beneath us; whose pow'r thrives do my pow'r all it can;
He dares
things fitter for a God. But, nor his form, nor force,
Nor glorious arms shall profit it; all which, and his dead corse,
I vow to roll up in my sands, nay, bury in my mud,
Nay, in the very sinks of Troy, that, poured into my flood,
Shall make him drowning work enough; and, being drowned, I'll set
A fort of such strong filth on him, that Greece shall never get
His bones from it. There, there shall stand Achilles' sepulchre,
And save a burial for his friends." This fury did transfer
His high-ridged billows on the prince, roaring with blood and foam
And carcasses. The crimson stream did snatch into her womb
Surprised Achilles, and her height stood, held up by the hand
Of Jove himself. Then Juno cried, and called, to countermand
This wat'ry Deity, the God that holds command in fire,
Afraid lest that gulf-stomached flood would satiate his desire
On great Achilles : " Mulciber, my best loved son!" she cried,
“Rouse thee, for all the Gods conceive this flood thus amplified
Is raised at thee, and shows as if his waves would drown the sky,
And put out all the sphere of fire. Haste, help thy empery.
Light flames deep as his pits. Ourself the west wind and the south
Will call out of the sea, and breathe in either's full-charged mouth
A storm t' enrage thy fires 'gainst Troy; which shall (in one exhaled)
Blow flames of sweat about their brows, and make their armours scald.
Go thou then, and, 'gainst these winds rise, make work on Xanthus' shore,
With setting all his trees on fire, and in his own breast pour
A fervour that shall make it burn; nor let fair words or threats
Avert thy fury till I speak, and then subdue the heats
Of all thy blazes." Mulciber prepared a mighty fire,
First in the field used, burning up the bodies that the ire
Of great Achilles reft of souls; the quite-drowned field it dried,
And shrunk the flood up. And as fields that have been long time cloyed
With catching weather, when their corn lies on the gavel heap,
Are with a constant north wind dried, with which for comfort leap
Their hearts that sowed them; so this field was dried, the bodies burned
And even the flood into a fire as bright as day was turned.
Elms, willows, tam'risks, were enflamed; the.lote trees, sea-grass reeds,
And rushes, with the galingale roots, of which abundance breeds
About the sweet flood, all were fired; the gliding fishes flew
