Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/281

Then Greece shall breathe from toils." The godhead said;
His will divine the son of Jove obeyed.
Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies,
That drives a turtle through the liquid skies,
As Phoebus, shooting from the Idaean brow,
Glides down the mountain to the plain below.
There Hector seated by the stream he sees,
His sense returning with the coming breeze;
Again his pulses beat, his spirits rise;
Again his loved companions meet his eyes;
Jove thinking of his pains, they passed away.
To whom the god who gives the golden day:
"Why sits great Hector from the field so far,
What grief, what wound, withholds him from the war?"
The fainting hero, as the vision bright
Stood shining o'er him, half unsealed his sight:
"What blessed immortal, with commanding breath,
Thus wakens Hector from the sleep of death?
Has fame not told, how, while my trusty sword
Bathed Greece in slaughter, and her battle gored,
The mighty Ajax with a deadly blow
Had almost sunk me to the shades below?
E'en yet, methinks, the gliding ghosts I spy,
And hell's black horrors swim. before my eye."
To him Apollo: "Be no more dismayed;
See, and be strong! the Thunderer sends thee aid:
Behold! thy Phoebus shall his arms employ,
Phœbus, propitious still to thee and Troy.
Inspire thy warriors then with manly force,
And to the ships impel thy rapid horse:
E'en I will make thy fiery coursers' way,
And drive the Grecians headlong to the sea."
Thus to bold Hector spoke the son of Jove,
And breathed immortal ardour from above.
As when the pampered steed, with reins unbound,
Breaks from his stall, and pours along the ground;
With ample strokes he rushes to the flood,
To bathe his sides and cool his fiery blood,
His head, now freed, he tosses to the skies:
His mane dishevelled o'er his shoulders flies:
He snuffs the females in the well-known plain,
And springs, exulting, to his fields again:
Urged by the voice divine, thus Hector flew,
Full of the god; and all his hosts pursue.
As when the force of men and dogs combined
Invade the mountain-goat or branching hind;
Far from the hunter's rage secure they lie
Close in the rock, not fated yet to die;