Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/400

Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies,
While thus, triumphing, stern Achilles cries:
"At last is Hector stretched upon the plain,
Who feared no vengeance for Patroclus slain:
Then, prince! you should have feared, what now you feel;
Achilles absent was Achilles still.
Yet a short space the great avenger stayed,
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid.
Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorned,
For ever honoured, and for ever mourned:
While, cast to all the rage of hostile power,
Thee birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour."
Then Hector, fainting at the approach of death:
"By thy own soul! by those who gave thee breath!
By all the sacred prevalence of prayer;
Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear!
The common rites of sepulture bestow,
To soothe a father's and a mother's woe;
Let their large gifts procure an urn at least,
And Hector's ashes in his country rest."
"No, wretch accursed!" relentless he replies,
Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes,
"Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare,
Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer.
Could I myself the bloody banquet join!
No—to the dogs that carcass I resign.
Should Troy to bribe me bring forth all her store,
And, giving thousands, offer thousands more;
Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame,
Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame;
Their Hector on the pile they should not see,
Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee."
Then thus the chief his dying accents drew:
"Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew:
The Furies that relentless breast have steeled,
And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield.
Yet think, a day will come, when Fate's decree
And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee;
Phœbus and Paris shall avenge my fate,
And stretch thee here, before this Scæan gate."
He ceased: the Fates suppressed his labouring breath,
And his eyes stiffened at the hand of death;
To the dark realm the spirit wings its way,
The manly body left a load of clay,
And plaintive glides along the dreary coast,
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!
Achilles, musing as he rolled his eyes