Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/248

Called by the voice of war to martial fame,
From high Cabesus' distant walls he came;
Cassandra's love he sought, with boasts of power,
And promised conquest was the proffered dower.
The king consented, by his vaunts abused;
The king consented, but the fates refused.
Proud of himself, and of the imagined bride,
The field he measured with a larger stride.
Him, as he stalked, the Cretan javelin found;
Vain was his breast-plate to repel the wound:
His dream of glory lost, he plunged to hell;
The plains resounded as the boaster fell,
⁠The great Idomeneus bestrides the dead;
"And thus," he cries, "behold thy promise sped!
Such is the help thy arms to Ilion bring,
And such the contract of the Phrygian king!
Our offers now, illustrious prince, receive;
For such an aid what will not Argos give?
To conquer Troy, with ours thy forces join,
And count Atrides' fairest daughter thine.
Meantime, on farther methods to advise,
Come, follow to the fleet thy new allies;
There hear what Greece has on her part to say."
He spoke, and dragged the gory corse away.
⁠This Asius viewed, unable to contain,
Before his chariot warring on the plain—
His valued coursers, to his squire consigned,
Impatient panted on his neck behind—
To vengeance rising with a sudden spring.
He hoped the conquest of the Cretan king.
The wary Cretan, as his foe drew near,
Full on his throat discharged the forceful spear:
Beneath the chin the point was seen to glide,
And, glittered, extant, at the farther side.
As when the mountain oak, or poplar tall,
Or pine, fit mast for some great admiral,
Groans to the oft-heaved axe, with many a wound,
Then spreads a length of ruin o'er the ground:
So sunk proud Asius in that dreadful day,
And stretched before his much-loved coursers lay.
He grinds the dust distained with streaming gore,
And fierce in death, lies foaming on the shore.
Deprived of motion, stiff with stupid fear,
Stands all aghast his trembling charioteer,
Nor shuns the foe, nor turns the steeds away,
But falls transfixed, an unresisting prey;
Pierced by Antilochus, he pants beneath
The stately car, and labours out his breath.

Thus Asius' steeds, their mighty master gone,