Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/329

And thick bull-hides the spacious concave lined.
Them Chromius follows, Aretus succeeds,
Each hopes the conquest of the lofty steeds;
In vain, brave youths, with glorious hopes ye burn,
In vain advance I not fated to return.
⁠Unmoved, Automedon attends the fight,
Implores the Eternal, and collects his might.
Then, turning to his friend, with dauntless mind:
"Oh keep the foaming coursers close behind!
Full on my shoulders let their nostrils blow,
For hard the fight, determined is the foe;
'Tis Hector comes; and when he seeks the prize,
War knows no mean: he wins it, or he dies."
⁠Then through the field he sends his voice aloud,
And calls the Ajaces from the warring crowd,
With great Atrides. "Hither turn," he said,
"Turn where distress demands immediate aid;
The dead, encircled by his friends, forgo,
And save the living from a fiercer foe.
Unhelped we stand, unequal to engage
The force of Hector and Æneas' rage:
Yet mighty as they are, my force to prove
Is only mine; the event belongs to Jove."
⁠He spoke, and high the sounding javelin flung,
Which passed the shield of Aretus the young;
It pierced his belt, embossed with curious art;
Then in the lower belly stuck the dart.
As when a ponderous axe, descending full,
Cleaves the broad forehead of some brawny bull;
Struck 'twixt the horns, he springs with many bound,
Then tumbling rolls enormous on the ground:
Thus fell the youth; the air his soul received,
And the spear trembled as his entrails heaved.
⁠Now at Automedon the Trojan foe
Discharged his lance; the meditated blow,
Stooping, he shunned; the javelin idly fled,
And hissed innoxious o'er the hero's head:
Deep rooted in the ground, the forceful spear
In long vibrations spent its fury there.
With clashing faulchions now the chiefs had closed,
But each brave Ajax heard, and interposed;
Nor longer Hector with his Trojans stood,
But left their slain companion in his blood:
His arms Automedon divests, and cries,
"Accept, Patroclus, this means sacrifice.
Thus have I soothed my griefs, and thus have paid,
Poor as it is, some offering to thy shade."
⁠So looks the lion o'er a mangled boar,

All grim with rage, and horrible with gore: