Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/417

This narrow way! Take larger field," he cried,
"Or both must fall." Atrides cried in vain;
He flies more fast, and throws up all the rein.
Far as an able arm the disc can send,
When youthful rivals their full force extend,
So far, Antilochus! thy chariot flew
Before the king: he, cautious, backward drew
His horse compelled; foreboding in his fears
The rattling ruin of the clashing cars,
The floundering coursers rolling on the plain,
And conquest lost through frantic haste to gain.
But thus upbraids his rival as he flies:
"Go, furious youth! ungenerous and unwise!
Go, but expect not I'll the prize resign;
Add perjury to fraud, and make it thine."
Then to his steeds with all his force he cries:
"Be swift, be vigorous, and regain the prize!
Your rivals, destitute of youthful force,
With fainting knees shall labour in the course,
And yield the glory yours." The steeds obey;
Already at their heels they wing their way,
And seem already to retrieve the day.
⁠Meantime the Grecians in a ring beheld
The coursers bounding o'er the dusty field.
The first who marked them was the Cretan king;
High on a rising ground, above the ring,
The monarch sat; from whence with sure survey
He well observed the chief who led the way,
And heard from far his animating cries,
And saw the foremost steed with sharpened eyes;
On whose broad front a blaze of shining white,
Like the full moon, stood obvious to the sight.
He saw; and, rising, to the Greeks begun:
"Are yonder horse discerned by me alone?
Or can ye, all, another chief survey,
And other steeds, than lately led the way?
Those, though the swiftest, by some god withheld,
Lie sure disabled in the middle field:
For since the goal they doubled, round the plain
I search to find them, but I search in vain.
Perchance the reins forsook the driver's hand,
And, turned too short, he tumbled on the strand,
Shot from the chariot; while his coursers stray
With frantic fury from the destined way.
Rise then some other, and inform my sight;
For these dim eyes, perhaps, discern not right;
Yet sure he seems, to judge by shape and air,
The great Ætolian chief, renowned in war."

⁠"Old man!" Oïleus rashly thus replies,