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To guard his slaughter’d friend, Æneas flies, His spear extending where the carcase lies; Watchful he wheels, protects it every way, As the grim lion stalks around his prey. O’er the fall’n trunk his ample shield display’d, He hides the hero with his mighty shade, And threats aloud! the Greeks with longing eyes Behold at distance, but forbear the prize. Then fierce Tydides stoops; and from the fields Heaved with vast force, a rocky fragment wields. Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise, Such men as live in these degenerate days:[147] He swung it round; and, gathering strength to throw, Discharged the ponderous ruin at the foe. Where to the hip the inserted thigh unites, Full on the bone the pointed marble lights; Through both the tendons broke the rugged stone, And stripp’d the skin, and crack’d the solid bone. Sunk on his knees, and staggering with his pains, His falling bulk his bended arm sustains; Lost in a dizzy mist the warrior lies; A sudden cloud comes swimming o’er his eyes. There the brave chief, who mighty numbers sway’d, Oppress’d had sunk to death’s eternal shade, But heavenly Venus, mindful of the love She bore Anchises in the Idaean grove, His danger views with anguish and despair, And guards her offspring with a mother’s care. About her much-loved son her arms she throws, Her arms whose whiteness match the falling snows. Screen’d from the foe behind her shining veil, The swords wave harmless, and the javelins fail; Safe through the rushing horse, and feather’d flight Of sounding shafts, she bears him from the fight.

Thus pray’d Tydides, and Minerva heard, His nerves confirm’d, his languid spirits cheer’d; He feels each limb with wonted vigour light; His beating bosom claim’d the promised fight. “Be bold, (she cried), in every combat shine, War be thy province, thy protection mine; Rush to the fight, and every foe control; Wake each paternal virtue in thy soul: Strength swells thy boiling breast, infused by me, And all thy godlike father breathes in thee; Yet more, from mortal mists I purge thy eyes,[145] And set to view the warring deities. These see thou shun, through all the embattled plain; Nor rashly strive where human force is vain. If Venus mingle in the martial band, Her shalt thou wound: so Pallas gives command.”

In the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one upon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath two shoots of olive that grew from a single stock—the one an ungrafted sucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however squally, could break through the cover they afforded, nor could the sun’s rays pierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely did they grow into one another. Ulysses crept under these and began to make himself a bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead leaves lying about—enough to make a covering for two or three men even in hard winter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he laid himself down and heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one who lives alone in the country, far from any neighbor, hides a brand as fire-seed in the ashes to save himself from having to get a light elsewhere, even so did Ulysses cover himself up with leaves; and Minerva shed a sweet sleep upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and made him lose all memories of his sorrows.

The good old Priam welcomed her, and cried, “Approach, my child, and grace thy father’s side. See on the plain thy Grecian spouse appears, The friends and kindred of thy former years. No crime of thine our present sufferings draws, Not thou, but Heaven’s disposing will, the cause The gods these armies and this force employ, The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy. But lift thy eyes, and say, what Greek is he (Far as from hence these aged orbs can see) Around whose brow such martial graces shine, So tall, so awful, and almost divine! Though some of larger stature tread the green, None match his grandeur and exalted mien: He seems a monarch, and his country’s pride.” Thus ceased the king, and thus the fair replied:

Meantime to beauteous Helen, from the skies The various goddess of the rainbow flies: (Like fair Laodice in form and face, The loveliest nymph of Priam’s royal race:) Her in the palace, at her loom she found; The golden web her own sad story crown’d, The Trojan wars she weaved (herself the prize) And the dire triumphs of her fatal eyes. To whom the goddess of the painted bow: “Approach, and view the wondrous scene below![112] Each hardy Greek, and valiant Trojan knight, So dreadful late, and furious for the fight, Now rest their spears, or lean upon their shields; Ceased is the war, and silent all the fields. Paris alone and Sparta’s king advance, In single fight to toss the beamy lance; Each met in arms, the fate of combat tries, Thy love the motive, and thy charms the prize.”

To whom the leader of the Dardan race: “Be calm, nor Phœbus’ honour’d gift disgrace. The distant dart be praised, though here we need The rushing chariot and the bounding steed. Against yon hero let us bend our course, And, hand to hand, encounter force with force. Now mount my seat, and from the chariot’s height Observe my father’s steeds, renown’d in fight; Practised alike to turn, to stop, to chase, To dare the shock, or urge the rapid race; Secure with these, through fighting fields we go; Or safe to Troy, if Jove assist the foe. Haste, seize the whip, and snatch the guiding rein; The warrior’s fury let this arm sustain; Or, if to combat thy bold heart incline, Take thou the spear, the chariot’s care be mine.”