My court beneath the hoary waves I keep,
And hush the roarings of the sacred deep:
Olympus, and this earth, in common lie;
What claim has here the tyrant of the sky?
Far in the distant clouds let him control,
And awe the younger brothers of the pole;
There to his children his commands be given,
The trembling, servile, second race of heaven."
"And must I then," said she, "O sire of floods,
Bear this fierce answer to the king of gods?
Correct it yet, and change thy rash intent;
A noble mind disdains not to repent.
To elder brothers guardian fiends are given,
To scourge the wretch insulting them and heaven."[1]
"Great is the profit," thus the god rejoined,
"When ministers are blessed with prudent mind;
Warned by thy words, to powerful Jove I yield,
And quit, though angry, the contended field;
Not but his threats with justice I disclaim,
The same our honours, and our birth the same.
If yet, forgetful of his promise given
To Hermes, Pallas, and the queen of heaven,
To favour Ilion, that perfidious place,
He breaks his faith with half the ethereal race;
Give him to know, unless the Grecian train
Lay yon proud structures level with the plain,
Howe'er the offence by other gods be passed,
The wrath of Neptune shall for ever last."
Thus speaking, furious from the field he strode,
And plunged into the bosom of the flood.
The lord of thunders from his lofty height
Beheld, and thus bespoke the source of light:
"Behold! the god whose liquid arms are hurled
Around the globe, whose earthquakes rock the world,
Desists at length his rebel-war to wage,
Seeks his own seas, and trembles at our rage;
Else had my wrath, heaven's thrones all shaking round,
Burned to the bottom of his seas profound,
And all the gods that round old Saturn dwell,
Had heard the thunders to the deeps of hell.
Well was the crime, and well the vengeance spared,
E'en power immense had found such battle hard.
Go thou, my son, the trembling Greeks alarm,
Shake my broad ægis on thy active arm:
Be godlike Hector thy peculiar care,
Swell his bold heart, and urge his strength to war:
Let Ilion conquer, till the Achaian train
- ↑ The rights of the eldest born are vindicated by avenging powers.
