Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/289

"Lo, Melanippus! lo where Dolops lies;
And is it thus our royal kinsman dies?
O'ermatched he falls; to two at once a prey,
And lo, they bear the bloody arms away!
Come on—a distant war no longer wage,
But hand to hand thy country's foes engage;
Till Greece at once, and all her glory, end;
Or Ilion from her towery height descend,
Heaved from the lowest stone; and bury all
In one sad sepulchre, one common fall."
Hector, this said, rushed forward on the foes:
With equal ardour Melanippus glows:
Then Ajax thus: "O Greeks! respect your fame,
Respect yourselves, and learn an honest shame:
Let mutual reverence mutual warmth inspire,
And catch from breast to breast the noble fire.
On valour's side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch that trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame."
His generous sense he not in vain imparts;
It sunk, and rooted in the Grecian hearts,
They join, they throng, they thicken at his call,
And flank the navy with a brazen wall;
Shields touching shields, in order blaze above,
And stop the Trojans, though impelled by Jove
The fiery Spartan first, with loud applause,
Warms the bold son of Nestor in his cause.
"Is there," he said, "in arms a youth like you,
So strong to fight, so active to pursue?
Why stand you distant, nor attempt a deed?
Lift the bold lance, and make some Trojan bleed."
He said, and backwards to the lines retired;
Forth rushed the youth, with martial fury fired,
Beyond the foremost ranks; his lance he threw,
And round the black battalions cast his view.
The troops of Troy recede with sudden fear,
While the swift javelin hissed along in air.
Advancing Melanippus met the dart
With his bold breast, and felt it in his heart:
Thundering he falls; his falling arms resound,
And his broad buckler rings against the ground.
The victor leaps upon his prostrate prize;
Thus on a roe the well-breathed beagle flies,
And rends his side, fresh-bleeding with the dart
The distant hunter sent into his heart.
Observing Hector to the rescue flew;
Bold as he was, Antilochus withdrew:
So when a savage, ranging o'er the plain,