Life's purple tide impetuous gushed away,
Then Idomen, insulting o'er the slain:
"Behold, Deïphobus! nor vaunt in vain:
See! on one Greek three Trojan ghosts attend,
This, my third victim, to the shades I send.
Approaching now, thy boasted might approve,
And try the prowess of the seed of Jove.
From Jove, enamoured on a mortal dame,
Great Minos, guardian of his country, came;
Deucalion, blameless prince, was Minos' heir;
His first-born I, the third from Jupiter:
O'er spacious Crete and her bold sons I reign,
And thence my ships transport me through the main:
Lord of a host, o'er all my host I shine,
A scourge to thee, thy father, and thy line."
The Trojan heard; uncertain, or to meet
Alone, with venturous arms, the king of Crete;
Or seek auxiliar force; at length decreed
To call some hero to partake the deed.
Forthwith Æneas rises to his thought;
For him, in Troy's remotest lines he sought;
Where he, incensed at partial Priam,[1] stands,
And sees superior posts in meaner hands.
To him, ambitious of so great an aid,
The bold Deïphobus approached, and said:
"Now, Trojan prince, employ thy pious arms,
If e'er thy bosom felt fair honour's charms.
Alcathoüs dies, thy brother and thy friend.
Come, and the warrior's loved remains defend.
Beneath his cares thy early youth was trained,
One table fed you, and one roof contained.
This deed to fierce Idomeneus we owe;
Haste, and revenge it on the insulting foe."
Æneas heard, and for a space resigned
To tender pity all his manly mind;
Then, rising in his rage, he burns to fight:
The Greek awaits him, with collected might.
As the fell boar on some rough mountain's head,
Armed with wild terrors, and to slaughter bred,
When the loud rustics rise, and shout from far,
Attends the tumult, and expects the war;
O'er bent back the bristly horrors rise,
Fires stream in lightning from his sanguine eyes;
His foaming tusks both dogs and men engage,
So stood Idomeneus, his javelin shook,
- ↑ Æneas, it was said, incurred the suspicious jealously of Priam through an oracle, which declared that in course of time he should reign over the Trojans. Compare Book xx., lines 220, 355.
