Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/151

To the black ships Idæus bent his way;
There, to the sons of Mars, in council found,
He raised his voice: the host stood listening round:
" Yes sons of Arteus, and ye Greeks, give ear!
The words of Troy, and Troy's great monarch, hear.
Pleased may ye hear—so heaven succeed my prayers!—
What Paris, author of the war, declares.
The spoils and treasures he to Ilion bore—
O had he perished ere they touched our shore!—
He proffers injured Greece; with large increase
Of added Trojan wealth, to buy the peace.
But, to restore the beauteous bride again,
This Greece demands, and Troy requests in vain.
Next, O ye chiefs! we ask a truce to burn
Our slaughtered heroes, and their bones inurn.
That done, once more the fate of war be tried,
And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide!"
The Greeks give ear, but none the silence broke;
At length Tydides rose, and rising spoke:
"O take not, friends, defrauded of your fame,
Their proffered wealth, nor e'en the Spartan dame.
Let conquest make them ours: fate shakes their wall,
And Troy already totters to her fall."
The admiring chiefs, and all the Grecian name,
With general shouts returned him loud acclaim.
Then thus the king of kings rejects the peace:
"Herald! in him thou hearest the voice of Greece.
For what remains, let funeral flames be fed
With heroes' corps: I war not with the dead:
Go, search your slaughtered chiefs on yonder plain,
And gratify the manes of the slain.
Be witness, Jove, whose thunder rolls on high!"
He said, and reared his sceptre to the sky.
To sacred Troy, where all her princes lay
To wait the event, the herald bent his way.
He came, and, standing in the midst, explained
The peace rejected, but the truce obtained.
Straight to their several cares the Trojans move;
Some search the plain, some fell the sounding grove:
Nor less the Greeks, descending on the shore,
Hewed the green forests, and the bodies bore.
And now from forth the chambers of the main,
To shed his sacred light on earth again,
Arose the golden chariot of the day,
And tipped the mountains with a purple ray.
In mingled throngs the Greek and Trojan train
Through heaps of carnage searched the mournful plain.
Scarce could the friend his slaughtered friend explore,
With dust dishonoured, and deformed with gore.