My beauteous captives thither I'll convey,
And all that rests of my unravished prey.
One only valued gift your tyrant gave,
And that resumed, the fair Lyrnessian slave.
Then tell him, loud, that all the Greeks may hear,
And learn to scorn the wretch they basely fear;
For, armed in impudence, mankind he braves,
And meditates new cheats on all his slaves;
Though, shameless as he is, to face these eyes
Is what he dares not; if he dares, he dies;
Tell him, all terms, all commerce, I decline,
Nor share his council, nor his battle join;
For once deceived, was his; but twice, were mine.
No—let the stupid prince, whom Jove deprives
Of sense and justice, run where frenzy drives;
His gifts are hateful: kings of such a kind
Stand but as slaves before a noble mind.
Not though he proffered all himself possessed,
And all his rapine could from others wrest;
Not all the golden tides of wealth that crown
The many-peopled Orchomenian town;
Not all proud Thebes'[1] unrivalled walls contain,
The world's great empress on the Egyptian plain,
That spreads her conquests o'er a thousand states,
And pours her heroes through a hundred gates—
Two hundred horsemen and two hundred cars
From each wide portal issuing to the wars—
Though bribes were heaped on bribes, in number more
Than dust in fields, or sands along the shore;
Should all these offers for my friendship call;
'Tis he that offers, and I scorn them all.
Atrides' daughter never shall be led,
An ill-matched consort, to Achilles' bed;
Like golden Venus though she charmed the heart,
And vied with Pallas in the works of art.
Some greater Greek let those high nuptials grace,
I hate alliance with a tyrant's race.
If heaven restore me to my realms with life,
The reverend Peleus shall elect my wife;
Thessalian nymphs there are, of form divine,
And kings that sue to mix their blood with mine.
Blessed in kind love, my years shall glide away,
Content with just hereditary sway;
There, deaf for ever to the martial strife,
Enjoy the dear prerogative of life.
Life is not to be bought with heaps of gold;
- ↑ After the mention of the Bœotian town Orchomenes, we should expect the Bœotian Thebes. The passage is doubtful.
