But he impervious and untouched remains.
Great Neptune's care preserved from hostile rage
This youth, the joy of Nestor's glorious age.
In arms intrepid with the first he fought,
Faced every foe, and every danger sought;
His winged lance, resistless as the wind,
Obeys each motion of the master's mind:
Restless it flies, impatient to be free,
And meditates the distant enemy.
The son of Asius, Adamas, drew near,
And struck his target with the brazen spear,
Fierce in his front; but Neptune wards the blow,
And blunts the javelin of the eluded foe.
In the broad buckler half the weapon stood;
Splintered on earth flew half the broken wood.
Disarmed, he mingled in the Trojan crew;
But Merion's spear o'ertook him as he flew,
Deep in the belly's rim an entrance found,
Where sharp the pang, and mortal is the wound.
Bending he fell, and, doubled to the ground,
Lay panting. Thus an ox, in fetters tied,
While death's strong pangs distend his labouring side,
His bulk enormous on the field displays;
His heaving heart beats thick, as ebbing life decays.
The spear the conqueror from his body drew,
And death's dim shadows swam before his view.
Next brave Deïpyrus in dust was laid:
King Helenus waved high the Thracian blade,[1]
And smote his temples with an arm so strong,
The helm fell off, and rolled amid the throng;
There, for some luckier Greek it rests a prize,
For dark in death the godlike owner lies.
With raging grief great Menelaüs burns,
And, fraught with vengeance, to the victor turns;
That shook the ponderous lance, in act to throw,
And this stood adverse with the bended bow:
Full on his breast the Trojan arrow fell,
But harmless bounded from the plated steel.
As on some ample barn's well-hardened floor,
The wind collected at each open door,
While the broad fan with force is whirled around,
Light leaps the golden grain, resulting from the ground:
So from the steel that guards Atrides' heart,
Repelled to distance flies the bounding dart.
Atrides, watchful of the unwary foe,
Pierced with his lance the hand that grasped the bow,
And nailed it to the yew: the wounded hand
Trailed the long lance that marked with blood the sand;
- ↑ The Thracian swords were very large and weighty.
