of ours will bring you some measure of safety." So speaking, he feeds his soul on the empty portraiture, with many a sigh, and lets copious rivers run down his cheeks. For he still saw how, as they battled round Pergamus,[o] here the Greeks were flying, the Trojan youth in hot pursuit; 5 here the Phrygians, at their heels in his car Achilles, with that dreadful crest. Not far from this he recognizes with tears the snowy canvas of Rhesus' tent, which, all surprised in its first sleep, Tydeus' son was devastating with wide carnage, himself bathed in blood—see! he drives off 10 the fiery steeds to his own camp, ere they have had time to taste the pastures of Troy or drink of Xanthus.[o] There in another part is Troilus[o] in flight, his arms fallen from him—unhappy boy, confronted with Achilles in unequal combat—hurried away by his horses, and hanging half 15 out of the empty car, with his head thrown back, but the reins still in his hand; his neck and his hair are being trailed along the ground, and his inverted spear is drawing lines in the dust. Meanwhile to the temple of Pallas,[o] not their friend, were moving the Trojan dames with locks 20 dishevelled, carrying the sacred robe, in suppliant guise of mourning, their breasts bruised with their hands—the goddess was keeping her eyes riveted on the ground, with her face turned away. Thrice had Achilles dragged Hector round the walls of Ilion, and was now selling for 25 gold his body, thus robbed of breath. Then, indeed, heavy was the groan that he gave from the bottom of his heart, when he saw the spoils, the car, the very body of his friend, and Priam, stretching out those helpless hands. Himself, too, he recognizes in the forefront of 30 the Achæan ranks, and the squadrons of the East, and the arms of the swarthy Memnon.[o] There, leading the columns of her Amazons, with their moony shields, is Penthesilea[o] in her martial frenzy, blazing out, the centre of thousands, as she loops up her protruded breast with a girdle of gold, 35 the warrior queen, and nerves herself to the shock of combat, a maiden against men.
While these things are meeting the wondering eyes of
