Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/364

Through all their summits tremble Ida's woods,
And from their sources boil her hundred floods.
Troy's turrets totter on the rocking plain;
And the tossed navies beat the heaving main.
Deep in the dismal regions of the dead,
The infernal monarch reared his horrid head,
Leaped from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay
His dark dominions open to the day,
And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes,
Abhorred by men, and dreadful e'en to gods.
Such war the immortals wage: such horrors rend
The world's vast concave, when the gods contend.
First silver-shafted Phoebus took the plain
Against blue Neptune, monarch of the main:
The god of arms his giant bulk displayed,
Opposed to Pallas, war's triumphant Maid.
Against Latona, marched the son of May;
The quivered Dian, sister of the Day,
Her golden arrows sounding at her side,
Saturnia, majesty of heaven, defied.
With fiery Vulcan last in battle stands
The sacred flood that rolls on golden sands;
Xanthus his name with those of heavenly birth,
But called Scamander by the sons of earth.
While thus the gods in various league engage,
Achilles glowed with more than mortal rage:
Hector he sought; in search of Hector turned
His eyes around, for Hector only burned;.
And burst like lightning through the ranks, and vowed
To glut the god of battles with his blood.
Æneas was the first who dared to stay;
Apollo wedged him in the warrior's way,
But swelled his bosom with undaunted might,
Half-forced and half-persuaded to the fight.
Like young Lycaon, of the royal line,
In voice and aspect, seemed the power divine;
And bade the chief reflect, how late with scorn
In distant threats he braved the goddess-born.
Then thus the hero of Anchises' strain:
"To meet Pelides you persuade in vain;
Already have I met, nor void of fear
Observed the fury of his flying spear;
From Ida's woods he chased us to the field,
Our force he scattered, and our herds he killed:
Lyrnessus, Pedasus in ashes lay;
But, Jove assisting, I survived the day.
Else had I sunk, oppressed in fatal fight,
By fierce Achilles and Minerva's might.
Where'er he moved, the goddess shone before,