Part 61 (1/2)

Here Neptune and the Gods of Greece repair, With clouds encompass'd, and a veil of air: The adverse powers, around Apollo laid, Crown the fair hills that silver Simois shade

In circle close each heavenly party sat, Intent to forh Jove on high Gives the loud signal, and the heavens reply

Meanwhile the rushi+ng arround; The trampled centre yields a hollow sound: Steeds cased in loith brazen light

Areat Achilles; bold aeneas, here

With towering strides Aeneas first advanced; The nodding plu shi+eld he bore, And, so he moved, his javelin flae, He rush'd i first his foes with scornful eyes, Though all in ar pride; Till at the length, by soe turns alone, He rins, he foa sides resound; He calls up all his rage; he grinds his teeth, Resolved on vengeance, or resolved on death

So fierce Achilles on aeneas flies; So stands aeneas, and his force defies

Ere yet the stern encounter join'd, begun The seed of Thetis thus to Venus' son:

”Why coh the ranks so far?

Seeks he to meet Achilles' arm in war, In hope the realms of Priam to enjoy, And prove his merits to the throne of Troy?

Grant that beneath thy lance Achilles dies, The partial monarch may refuse the prize; Sons he has many; those thy pride may quell: And 'tis his fault to love those sons too well, Or, in reward of thy victorious hand, Has Troy proposed some spacious tract of land An ample forest, or a fair dorain?

Even this, perhaps, will hardly prove thy lot

But can Achilles be so soon forgot?

Once (as I think) you saw this brandish'd spear And then the great aeneas seem'd to fear: With hearty haste from Ida's mount he fled, Nor, till he reach'd Lyrnessus, turn'd his head

Her lofty walls not long our progress stay'd; Those, Pallas, Jove, and we, in ruins laid: In Grecian chains her captive race were cast; 'Tis true, the great Aeneas fled too fast

Defrauded of my conquest once before, What then I lost, the Gods this day restore

Go; while thou may'st, avoid the threaten'd fate; Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late”

To this Anchises' son: ”Such words employ To one that fears thee, some unwarlike boy; Such we disdain; the best may be defied With h race from which we came Proclaim'd so loudly by the voice of fame: Each from illustrious fathers draws his line; Each Goddess-born; half hu dies, And tears shall trickle from celestial eyes: For when two heroes, thus derived, contend, 'Tis not in words the glorious strife can end

If yet thou further seek to learn h the spacious earth) Hear how the glorious origin we prove From ancient Dardanus, the first from Jove: Dardania's walls he raised; for Ilion, then, (The city since of ed men,) Was not The natives were content to till The shady foot of Ida's fountful hill(264) Fros, The richest, once, of Asia's wealthy kings; Three thousand mares his spacious pastures bred, Three thousand foals beside their htly train, Conceal'd his Godhead in a flowing h'd, And coursed the dappled beauties o'er thetwelve others of unrivall'd kind, Swift as their , when they swept the plain, Nor plied the grass, nor bent the tender grain; And when along the level seas they flew,(265) Scarce on the surface curl'd the briny dew

Such Erichthonius was: from him there came The sacred Tros, of whom the Trojan name

Three sons renown'd adorn'd his nuptial bed, Ilus, assaracus, and Ganymed: The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair, Whom heaven, enamour'd, snatch'd to upper air, To bear the cup of Jove (ethereal guest, The grace and glory of the a sons the line divide: First rose Laorown old, And Priam, bless'd with Hector, brave and bold; Clytius and Lampus, ever-honour'd pair; And Hicetaon, thunderbolt of war

Froat Anchises, and Anchises ives us birth, But Jove alone endues the soul orth: He, source of power and ives, or takes away

Long in the field of words we may contend, Reproach is infinite, and knows no end, Ar; So voluble a weapon is the tongue; Wounded, ound; and neither side can fail, For every th to rail: Women alone, when in the streets they jar, Perhaps excel us in this wordy war; Like us they stand, encoer impotent and loud

Cease then--Our business in the field of fight Is not to question, but to prove our ht

To all those insults thou hast offer'd here, Receive this answer: 'tisspear”

He spoke With all his force the javelin flung, Fix'd deep, and loudly in the buckler rung

Far on his outstretch'd ar lance) his dreadful shi+eld, That trembled as it stuck; nor void of fear Saw, ere it fell, the immeasurable spear

His fears were vain; impenetrable charh two strong plates the point its passage held, But stopp'd, and rested, by the third repell'd

Five plates of various metal, various mould, Composed the shi+eld; of brass each outward fold, Of tin each inward, and theere he threw, The forceful spear of great Achilles flew, And pierced the Dardan shi+eld's extremest bound, Where the shrill brass return'd a sharper sound: Through the thin verge the Pelean weapon glides, And the slight covering of expanded hides

aeneas his contracted body bends, And o'er hi plates, the upper air, And at his back perceives the quivering spear: A fate so near hiht; And swiht

Achilles, rushi+ng in with dreadful cries, Draws his broad blade, and at aeneas flies: aeneas rousing as the foe cahty stone: A enerate sons could raise

But ocean's God, whose earthquakes rock the ground

Saw the distress, and moved the powers around:

”Lo! on the brink of fate aeneas stands, An instant victied; but Phoebus has bestow'd His aid in vain: the hteous chief atone With guiltless blood for vices not his own?

To all the Gods his constant voere paid; Sure, though he wars for Troy, he clain The future father of the Dardan line:(266) The first great ancestor obtain'd his grace, And still his love descends on all the race: For Priath are odious to the all-seeing n, And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain”

The great earth-shaker thus: to whom replies The imperial Goddess with the radiant eyes: ”Good as he is, to immolate or spare The Dardan prince, O Neptune! be thy care; Pallas and I, by all that Gods can bind, Have sworn destruction to the Trojan kind; Not even an instant to protract their fate, Or save onestate; Till her last fla ruins are no h all the whistling darts his course he bends, Swift interposed between the warrior flies, And casts thick darkness o'er Achilles' eyes(267) Froreat aeneas' shi+eld the spear he drew, And at his master's feet the weapon threw