Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/434

Except, to place the dead with decent care,
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand,
May the slow mules and funeral car command.
Nor shalt thou death, nor shalt thou danger dread;
Safe through the foe by his protection led:
Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey,
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way.
Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare
Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair:
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave,
Some sense of duty, some desire to save"
She spoke, and vanished. Priam bids prepare
His gentle mules, and harness to the car;
There, for the gifts, a polished casket lay:
His pious sons the king's commands obey.
Then passed the monarch to his bridal-room,
Where cedar-beams the lofty roofs perfume,
And where the treasures of his empire lay;
Then called his queen, and thus began to say:
"Unhappy consort of a king distressed!
Partake the troubles of thy husband's breast:
I saw descend the messenger of Jove,
Who bids me try Achilles' mind to move,
Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain
The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain.
Tell me thy thought: my heart impels to go
Through hostile camps, and bears me to the foe."
The hoary monarch thus: her piercing cries
Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies:
"Ah! whither wanders thy distempered mind;
And where the prudence now that awed mankind,
Through Phrygia once, and foreign regions known?
Now all confused, distracted, overthrown!
Singly to pass through hosts of foes! to face
O heart of steel I the murderer of thy race!
To view that deathful eye, and wander o'er
Those hands, yet red with Hector's noble gore!
Alas! my lord, he knows not how to spare,
And what his mercy, thy slain sons declare;
So brave! so many fallen! to calm his rage
Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age.
No—pent in this sad palace, let us give
To grief the wretched days we have to live.
Still, still, for Hector let our sorrows flow,
Born to his own, and to his parents' woe!
Doomed from the hour his luckless life begun,
To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus' son!
Oh! in his dearest blood might I allay
My rage, and these barbarities repay!