Imatges de pàgina
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Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope
Is flat despair; we must exasperate

Th' almighty victor to spend all his rage,

And that must end us; that must be our cure
To be no more.-Sad cure!-for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,-
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide tomb of uncreated night,

Devoid of sense and motion?-And who knows
(Let this be good) whether our angry foe
Can give it, or will ever? how he can,
Is doubtful; that he never will, is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence, or unawares,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves
To punish endless? Wherefore cease we then ?4
Say they, "who counsel war; we are decreed,
Reserv'd, and destin'd to eternal woe:
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse?" Is this then worst,
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What, when we fled amain, pursu'd and struck
With heav'n's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? this hell then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds! or when we lay
Chain'd on the burning lake? that sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awak'd, should blow them into sev❜nfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or, from above,
Should intermitted vengeance armi again
His red right hand to plague us? what if all
Her stores were open'd, and this firmament:
Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impending horrors, threat'ning hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we, perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurl'd
Each on his rock transfix'd, the sport and prey
Of wracking whirlwinds; or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains;
There to converse with overlasting gooans,

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Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev'd,

Ages of hopeless end?-this would be worse.
War, therefore, open or conceal'd, alike
My voice dissuades.

XXII. Old Nestor's speech, endeavouring to reconcile Achilles and Agamemnon.

YE gods! great sorrow falls on Greece to-day.
Priam, and Priam's sons, with all in Troy-
Oh how will they exult, what triumph feel,
Once hearing of this strife aris'n between
The prime of Greece in council and in arms.
But be persuaded; ye are younger both
Than I, and I was conversant of old
With princes your superiors, yet from them
No disrespect at any time received.
Their equals saw I never; never shall;
Pirithous, Dryas, godlike Polypheme,
Exadius, Caneus, and the hero son
Of Egeus, mighty Theseus; warriors, all,
In force superior to the race of man.

Brave chiefs they were, and with brave foes they fought,

With the rude dwellers on the mountain-heights

The Centaurs, whom with havock such as fame

Shall never cease to celebrate, they slew.
With these men I consorted erst, what time
From Pylus, though a land from theirs remote,
They call'd me forth, and such as was my strength,
With all that strength L serv'd them. Who is he?
What prince or chief of the degen'rate race
Now seen on earth, who might with these compare?
Yet even these would listen to my voice,

Which hear ye also for compliance proves a bro s
Ofttimes the safer and the manlier course. :3
Thou, Agamemnon, valiant as thou art,

Seize not the maid, his portion from the Greeks,
But leave her his ; nor thou, Achilles, strive
With our imperial chief; for never king.
Had equal honour at the hands of Jove
With Agamemnon, or was thron'd so high,r

Say thou art stronger, and art goddess-born.
How then? His territory passes thine,

And he is lord of thousands more than thou.
Cease therefore, Agamemnon; calm thy wrath;
And it shall be mine office to entreat
Achilles also to a calm, whose might
The chief munition is of all our host.

XXIII.

Agamemnon's artful speech, proposing a return, in order to try the disposition of the army.

FRIENDS, Grecian heroes, ministers of Mars!
Hard is my lot, entangled as I am

By unpropitious Jove. He promised once,
And with a sign, that Troy should be our own;
But now, (that promise void) he sends me back
To Greece, ashamed and with diminish'd pow'rs.
So stands his sov'reign pleasure, who hath laid
Many a proud citadel in dust, and more
Hereafter shall, resistless in his might.

That such a numerous host of Greeks as we,
Warring with fewer than ourselves, should find
No fruit of all our toil, (and none appears,)
Will make us vile with ages yet to come.

For should we now swear truce, till Greece and Troy
Might number each her own, and were the Greeks
Distributed in bands, ten Greeks in each,

Our banded decads should exceed so far
Their units, that all Troy could not supply.
For ev'ry ten, a man, to fill us wine;
So far the Grecians, in my thought, surpass
The native Trojans. But her walls include
Still others-men from various cities call'd,
Who much impede me, and defeat my wish
To desolate her streets with sword and fire.
Nine years have also pass'd, nine years complete;
Our ships are rotted, and our tackle marred,
And all our wives and little ones at home
Sit watching our return; meantime, the work
That brought us, is a work still unperform'd.
Accept ye then my counsel. Let us hence-

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Hence to our country-since in vain we wait
The fall of Troy, not yet to be subdu'd.

XXIV. Mutinous harangue of Thersites.

WHEREOF Complains, what wants Atrides now?
Thy tents are fill'd with treasure, and contain
The choicest damsels, giv'n thee by the Greeks,
And taken in the towns that we have won.
Or is more gold thy wish? A ransom brought
By some rich Trojan for his son's release,
Whom I, or other valiant Greek may bind?
Or yet some new Chryseïs, to be thine,
And thine for ever? Our Supreme, methinks,
Ought not have caus'd us that accursed plague.

Oh nerveless things! mere women as we are!
Why launch we not our barks, and leave him here
To brood his hoards alone, that he may learn
The value of a chief without his host?
For he hath dared to irritate a man
Far braver than himself, whose lovely prize
He even now detains. But as for him,
He sleeps; Achilles is an easy man

And gall hath none within him, or his hand
Would make this contumelious wrong thy last.

XXV. Ulysses' indignant rebuke of Thersites.

THERSITES! railer!-peace-nor deem thyself,
Although thus eloquent, alone excused

The def'rence due to kings. Thou, least of all
Atrides' followers, being, as thou art,

So far the worst of all, shouldst dare to sport
With royal names, or take them on thy lips.
Nor art thou worthier to appoint the Greeks
Their time to voyage home. How soon, how late,
With what success, at last, we shall return,

Is dark and doubtful to the wisest here.

And whence thy spleen? and wherefore from thy seat

Hast thou reviled the king? It is because
The Grecians nobly recompense his toils.
But mark me. If I find thee yet again
Raving and foaming at the lips as now,
May never man behold Ulysses' head

On these my shoulders more, and may my son
Prove the begotten of another sire,

If I not strip thee to that hide of thine

As bare as thou wast born, and whip thee hence
Home to thy galley, snivelling like a boy.

XXVI. Agamemnon's reply to Nestor, his generous confession, and his spirited address.

OLDEST, and worthiest of Achaia's sons
To be consulted! Oh I would to heav'n
That I had ten, in council wise as thou,
Then, soon should Priam's royal city fall,
And yield her spoils to our victorious hands.
But Jove afflicts me. From Saturnian Jove
My doom is altercation to no end;

Thence came, between Achilles and myself
That fiery clash of words, a girl the cause,
Myself aggressor. Once that breach repaird,
Troy's long reprieve thenceforth is at an end.
Go take refreshment now, that we may march
Forth to our enemies. Let each whet well
His spear, brace well his shield, well feed his brisk
High-mettled horses, well survey and search
His chariot on all sides, that no defect
Disgrace his bright habiliments of war.
So will we give the day from morn to eve
To dreadful battle. Pause there shall be none
Till night divide us.

Ev'ry buckler's thong

Shall sweat on the toil'd bosom, every hand
That shakes the spear shall ache, and every steed
Shall smoke that whirls the chariot o'er the plain.
Woe then to whom I shall discover here

Loitering among the tents; none such with ease
Shall 'scape due punishment. The vulture's maw
Shall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones.

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