Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/327

Nor knew the fatal fortune of the day;
He, yet unconscious of Patroclus' fall,
In dust extended under Dion's wall,
Expects him glorious from the conquered plain,
And for his wished return prepares in vain;
Though well he knew, to make proud Ilion bend,
Was more than heaven had destined to his friend,
Perhaps to him : this Thetis had revealed;
The rest, in pity to her son, concealed.
Still raged the conflict round the hero dead,
And heaps on heaps by mutual wounds they bled.
"Cursed be the man," even private Greeks would say,
"Who dares desert this well-disputed day!
First may the cleaving earth before our eyes
Gape wide, and drink our blood for sacrifice!
First perish all, ere haughty Troy shall boast
We lost Patroclus, and our glory lost!"
Thus they. While with one voice the Trojan said,
"Grant this day, Jove! or heap us on the dead!"
Then clash their sounding arms; the clangours rise,
And shake the brazen concave of the skies.
Meantime, at distance from the scene of blood,
The pensive steeds of great Achilles stood;
Their godlike master slain before their eyes,
They wept, and shared in human miseries.
In vain Automedon now shakes the rein,
Now plies the lash, and soothes and threats in vain;
Nor to the light, nor Hellespont they go;
Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe:
Still as a tombstone, never to be moved,
On some good man or woman unreproved
Lays its eternal weight; or fixed as stands
A marble courser by the sculptor's hands,
Placed on the hero's grave. Along their face
The big round drops coursed down with silent pace,
Conglobing on the dust. Their manes, that late
Circled their arched necks, and waved in state,
Trailed on the dust beneath the yoke were spread,
And prone to earth was hung their languid head:
Nor Jove disdained to cast a pitying look,
While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke:
"Unhappy coursers of immortal strain!
Exempt from age, and deathless now in vain;
Did we your race on mortal man bestow,
Only, alas! to share in mortal woe?
For ah! what is there, of inferior birth,
That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth,
What wretched creature of what wretched kind,
Than man more weak, calamitous, and blind?