Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/75

BOOK III

THE ARGUMENT

THE DUEL OF MENELAUS AND PARIS

The armies being ready to engage, a single combat is agreed upon between Menelaus and Paris (by the intervention of Hector) for the determination of the war. Iris is sent to call Helena to behold the fight. She leads her to the walls of Troy, where Priam sat with his counsellors, observing the Grecian leaders on the plains below, to whom Helen gives an account of the chief of them. The kings on either part take the solemn oath for the conditions of the combat. The duel ensues, wherein Paris being overcome, is snatched away in a cloud by Venus, and transported to his apartment. She then calls Helen from the walls, and brings the lovers together. Agamemnon, on the part of the Grecians, demands the restoration of Helen, and the performance of the articles.

The three-and-twentieth day still continues throughout this book. The scene is sometimes in the field before Troy, and sometimes in Troy itself.

⁠Thus by their leader's care each martial band
Moves into ranks, and stretches o'er the land.
With shouts the Trojans, rushing from afar,
Proclaim their motions, and provoke the war:
So when inclement winters vex the plain
With piercing frosts, or thick-descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise, and order, through the mid-way sky;
To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing.
But silent, breathing rage, resolved, and skilled
By mutual aids to fix a doubtful field,
Swift march the Greeks: the rapid dust around
Darkening arises from the laboured ground.
Thus from his flaggy wings when Notus sheds
A night of vapours round the mountain-heads,
Swift-gliding mists the dusky fields invade,
To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade;
While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey,
Lost and confused amidst the thickened day:
So, wrapt in gathering dust, the Grecian train,
A moving cloud, swept on, and hid the plain.
⁠Now front to front the hostile armies stand,

Eager of fight, and only wait command;

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