Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/237

Thus obstinate to death, they fight, they fall:
Nor these can keep, nor those can win, the wall.
Their manly breasts are pierced with many a wound,
Loud strokes are heard, and rattling arms resound;
The copious slaughter covers all the shore,
And the high ramparts drop with human gore.
As when two scales are charged with doubtful loads,
From side to side the trembling balance nods,
While some laborious matron, just and poor,
With nice exactness weighs her woolly store,
Till, poised aloft, the resting beam suspends
Each equal weight; nor this nor that descends:
So stood the war, till Hector's matchless might,
With fates prevailing, turned the scale of fight;
Fierce as a whirlwind up the walls he flies,
And fires his host with loud repeated cries:
"Advance, ye Trojans! lend your valiant hands,
Haste to the fleet, and toss the blazing brands!"
They hear, they run, and, gathering at his call,
Raise scaling engines, and ascend the wall:
Around the works a wood of glittering spears
Shoots up, and all the rising host appears.
A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved; to throw,
Pointed above, and rough and gross below:
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days.
Yet this, as easy as a swain could bear
The snowy fleece, he tossed and shook in air:
For Jove upheld, and lightened of its load
The unwieldy rock, the labour of a god.
Thus armed, before the folded gates he came,
Of massy substance and stupendous frame;
With iron bars and brazen hinges strong,
On lofty beams of solid timber hung:
Then thundering through the planks, with forceful sway,
Drives the sharp rock: the solid beams give way;
The folds are shattered; from the crackling door
Leap the resounding bars, the flying hinges roar.
Now, rushing in, the furious chief appears,
Gloomy as night, and shakes two shining spears:
A dreadful gleam from his bright armour came,
And from his eyeballs flashed the living flame;
He moves a god, resistless in his course,
And seems a match for more than mortal force.
Then, pouring after, through the gaping space,
A tide of Trojans flows, and fills the place;
The Greeks behold, they tremble, and they fly:
The shore is heaped with death, and tumult rends the sky.