The Iliad

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Год написания книги

2019

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But silent, breathing rage, resolved and skill’d

By mutual aids to fix a doubtful field,

Swift march the Greeks: the rapid dust around

Darkening arises from the labour’d ground.

Thus from his flaggy wings when Notus sheds

A night of vapours round the mountain heads,

Swift-gliding mists the dusky fields invade,

To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade;

While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey,

Lost and confused amidst the thicken’d day:

So wrapp’d in gathering dust, the Grecian train,

A moving cloud, swept on, and hid the plain.

Now front to front the hostile armies stand,

Eager of fight, and only wait command;

When, to the van, before the sons of fame

Whom Troy sent forth, the beauteous Paris came:

In form a god! the panther’s speckled hide

Flow’d o’er his armour with an easy pride:

His bended bow across his shoulders flung,

His sword beside him negligently hung;

Two pointed spears he shook with gallant grace,

And dared the bravest of the Grecian race.

As thus, with glorious air and proud disdain,

He boldly stalk’d, the foremost on the plain,

Him Menelaus, loved of Mars, espies,

With heart elated, and with joyful eyes:

So joys a lion, if the branching deer,

Or mountain goat, his bulky prize, appear;

Eager he seizes and devours the slain,

Press’d by bold youths and baying dogs in vain.

Thus fond of vengeance, with a furious bound,

In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground

From his high chariot: him, approaching near,

The beauteous champion views with marks of fear,

Smit with a conscious sense, retires behind,

And shuns the fate he well deserved to find.

As when some shepherd, from the rustling trees

Shot forth to view, a scaly serpent sees,

Trembling and pale, he starts with wild affright

And all confused precipitates his flight:

So from the king the shining warrior flies,

And plunged amid the thickest Trojans lies.

As godlike Hector sees the prince retreat,

He thus upbraids him with a generous heat:

“Unhappy Paris! but to women brave!

So fairly form’d, and only to deceive!

Oh, hadst thou died when first thou saw’st the light,

Or died at least before thy nuptial rite!

A better fate than vainly thus to boast,

And fly, the scandal of thy Trojan host.