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With grief he heard, and bade the chiefs prepare To join his milk-white coursers to the car; He mounts the seat, Antenor at his side; The gentle steeds through Scæa’s gates they guide:[120] Next from the car descending on the plain, Amid the Grecian host and Trojan train, Slow they proceed: the sage Ulysses then Arose, and with him rose the king of men. On either side a sacred herald stands, The wine they mix, and on each monarch’s hands Pour the full urn; then draws the Grecian lord His cutlass sheathed beside his ponderous sword; From the sign’d victims crops the curling hair;[121] The heralds part it, and the princes share; Then loudly thus before the attentive bands He calls the gods, and spreads his lifted hands:

arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry’s house in Mayfair. It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk, long-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies that Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars and parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a summer day in London.

To him the Lycian: “Whom your eyes behold, If right I judge, is Diomed the bold: Such coursers whirl him o’er the dusty field, So towers his helmet, and so flames his shield. If ’tis a god, he wears that chief’s disguise: Or if that chief, some guardian of the skies, Involved in clouds, protects him in the fray, And turns unseen the frustrate dart away. I wing’d an arrow, which not idly fell, The stroke had fix’d him to the gates of hell; And, but some god, some angry god withstands, His fate was due to these unerring hands. Skill’d in the bow, on foot I sought the war, Nor join’d swift horses to the rapid car. Ten polish’d chariots I possess’d at home, And still they grace Lycaon’s princely dome: There veil’d in spacious coverlets they stand; And twice ten coursers wait their lord’s command. The good old warrior bade me trust to these, When first for Troy I sail’d the sacred seas; In fields, aloft, the whirling car to guide, And through the ranks of death triumphant ride. But vain with youth, and yet to thrift inclined, I heard his counsels with unheedful mind, And thought the steeds (your large supplies unknown) Might fail of forage in the straiten’d town; So took my bow and pointed darts in hand And left the chariots in my native land.

But thee, Atrides! in that dangerous hour The gods forget not, nor thy guardian power, Pallas assists, and (weakened in its force) Diverts the weapon from its destined course: So from her babe, when slumber seals his eye, The watchful mother wafts the envenom’d fly. Just where his belt with golden buckles join’d, Where linen folds the double corslet lined, She turn’d the shaft, which, hissing from above, Pass’d the broad belt, and through the corslet drove; The folds it pierced, the plaited linen tore, And razed the skin, and drew the purple gore. As when some stately trappings are decreed To grace a monarch on his bounding steed, A nymph in Caria or Mæonia bred, Stains the pure ivory with a lively red; With equal lustre various colours vie, The shining whiteness, and the Tyrian dye: So great Atrides! show’d thy sacred blood, As down thy snowy thigh distill’d the streaming flood. With horror seized, the king of men descried The shaft infix’d, and saw the gushing tide: Nor less the Spartan fear’d, before he found The shining barb appear above the wound, Then, with a sigh, that heaved his manly breast, The royal brother thus his grief express’d, And grasp’d his hand; while all the Greeks around With answering sighs return’d the plaintive sound.

While round the prince the Greeks employ their care, The Trojans rush tumultuous to the war; Once more they glitter in refulgent arms, Once more the fields are fill’d with dire alarms. Nor had you seen the king of men appear Confused, unactive, or surprised with fear; But fond of glory, with severe delight, His beating bosom claim’d the rising fight. No longer with his warlike steeds he stay’d, Or press’d the car with polish’d brass inlaid But left Eurymedon the reins to guide; The fiery coursers snorted at his side. On foot through all the martial ranks he moves And these encourages, and those reproves. “Brave men!” he cries, (to such who boldly dare Urge their swift steeds to face the coming war), “Your ancient valour on the foes approve; Jove is with Greece, and let us trust in Jove. ’Tis not for us, but guilty Troy, to dread, Whose crimes sit heavy on her perjured head; Her sons and matrons Greece shall lead in chains, And her dead warriors strew the mournful plains.”

These thou mayst raze, nor I forbid their fall: ’Tis not in me the vengeance to remove; The crime’s sufficient that they share my love. Of power superior why should I complain? Resent I may, but must resent in vain. Yet some distinction Juno might require, Sprung with thyself from one celestial sire, A goddess born, to share the realms above, And styled the consort of the thundering Jove; Nor thou a wife and sister’s right deny;[128] Let both consent, and both by terms comply; So shall the gods our joint decrees obey, And heaven shall act as we direct the way. See ready Pallas waits thy high commands To raise in arms the Greek and Phrygian bands; Their sudden friendship by her arts may cease, And the proud Trojans first infringe the peace.”