Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/215

Nor boast the scratch thy feeble arrow gave,
A coward's weapon never hurt the brave.
Not so this dart, which thou mayst one day feel:
Fate wings its flight, and death is on the steel.
Where this but lights, some noble life expires,
Its touch makes orphans, bathes the cheeks of sires,
Steeps earth in purple, gluts the birds of air,
And leaves such objects as distract the fair."
Ulysses hastens with a trembling heart,
Before him steps, and bending draws the dart:
Forth flows the blood; an eager pang succeeds:
Tydides mounts, and to the navy speeds.
Now on the field Ulysses stands alone,
The Greeks all fled, the Trojans pouring on:
But stands collected in himself and whole,
And questions thus his own unconquered soul:
"What farther subterfuge, what hopes remain?
What shame, inglorious if I quit the plain?
What danger, singly if I stand the ground,
My friends all scattered, all the foes around?
Yet wherefore doubtful? let this truth suffice:
The brave meets danger, and the coward flies;
To die, or conquer, proves a hero's heart;
And, knowing this, I know a soldier's part."
Such thoughts revolving in his careful breast,
Near, and more near, the shady cohorts pressed;
These, in the warrior, their own fate enclose:
And round him deep the steely circle grows.
So fares a boar, whom all the troop surrounds
Of shouting huntsmen, and of clamorous hounds;
He grinds his ivory tusks; he foams with ire;
His sanguine eyeballs glare with living fire;
By these, by those, on every part is plied;
And the red slaughter spreads on every side.
Pierced through the shoulder, first Deiopis fell;
Next Ennomus and Thoön sunk to hell;
Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust,
Falls prone to earth, and grasps the bloody dust.
Charops, the son of Hippasus, was near;
Ulysses reached him with the fatal spear;
But to his aid his brother Socus flies,
Socus, the brave, the generous, and the wise:
Near as he drew, the warrior thus began:
"O great Ulysses, much-enduring man!
Not deeper skilled in every martial slight,
Than worn to toils, and active in the fight!
This day two brothers shall thy conquest grace,
And end at once the great Hippasian race,
Or thou beneath this lance must press the field."