Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/377

Approached, and sought his knees with suppliant tears;
Loath as he was to yield his youthful breath,
And his soul shivering at the approach of death.
Achilles raised the spear, prepared to wound;
He kissed his feet, extended on the ground:
And while above the spear suspended stood,
Longing to dip its thirsty point in blood,
One hand embraced them close, one stopped the dart;
While thus these melting words attempt his heart:
⁠"Thy well-known captive, great Achilles! see;
Once more Lycaon trembles at thy knee;
Some pity to a suppliant's name afford,
Who shared the gifts of Ceres at thy board;
Whom late thy conquering arm to Lemnos bore,
Far from his father, friends, and native shore;
A hundred oxen were his price that day,
Now sums immense thy mercy shall repay.
Scarce respited from woes I yet appear,
And scarce twelve morning suns have seen me here:
Lo! Jove again submits me to thy hands,
Again, her victim cruel Fate demands!
I sprung from Priam, and Laothoe^[1] fair;
Old Altes' daughter, and Lelegia's heir;
Who held in Pedasus his famed abode,
And ruled the fields where silver Satnio flowed;
Two sons, alas I unhappy sons, she bore;
For ah! one spear shall drink each brother's gore,
And I succeed to slaughtered Polydore.
How from that arm of terror shall I fly?
Some demon urges, 'tis my doom to die!
If ever yet soft pity touched thy mind,
Ah I think not me too much of Hector's kind!
Not the same mother gave thy suppliant breath,
With his, who wrought thy loved Patroclus' death."
These words, attended with a shower of tears,
The youth addressed to unrelenting ears:
"Talk not of life, or ransom," he replies;
"Patroclus dead, whoever meets me, dies:
In vain a single Trojan sues for grace;
But least, the sons of Priam's hateful race.
Die then, my friend!^[2] If what boots it to deplore?
The great, the good Patroclus is no more!
He, far thy better, was foredoomed to die,

And thou, dost thou bewail mortality?

1. The original is, daughter of Altes, who ruled over the Leleges. Satnio was a river of Troas, Book xiv., line 520, page 270.
2. Cowper suggests that the term is ironically used, in ridicule of Lycaon's plea for mercy on the ground that he had eaten at the table of Achilles.