"Return not, my brave friend (perhaps he said) "Without the bloody arms of Hector dead.”
Supine and wildly gazing on the skies,
With faint, expiring breath, the chief replies:
Vain boaster! cease, and know the Powers divine :
Jove's and Apollo's is this deed, not thine;
To Heaven is ow'd whate'er your own you call, 1020
And Heaven itself difarm'd me ere my fall.
Had twenty mortals, each thy match in might,
Oppos'd me fairly, they had funk in fight:
By Fate and Phoebus was I first o'erthrown,
Euphorbus next; the third mean part thy own.
But thou, imperious! hear my latest breath;
The Gods inspire it, and it sounds thy death.
Infulting man, thou shalt be foon as I ;
Black fate hangs o'er thee, and thy hour draws nigh; Ev'n now on life's laft verge I fee thee stand,
I fee thee fall, and by Achilles' hand.
He faints; the foul unwilling wings her way
(The beauteous body left a load of clay)
Flits to the lone, uncomfortable coast;
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghoft!
Then Hector, paufing, as his eyes he fed
On the pale carcafe, thus address'd the dead:
From whence this boding speech, the stern decree
Of death denounc'd, or why denounc'd to me?
Why not as well Achilles' fate be given
To Hector's lance? Who knows the will of Heaven?
Penfive he faid; then preffing, as he lay,
His breathlefs bofom, tore the lance away;
And upwards caft the corpfe: the reeking fpear
He shakes, and charges the bold charioteer.
But fwift Automedon with loofen'd reins
Rapt in the chariot o'er the diftant plains,
Far from his rage th' immortal courfers drove;.
Th' immortal courfers were the gift of Jove.
The feventh Battle, for the body of Patroclus: the Acts of Menelaus.
MENELAUS, upon the death of Patroclus, defends his body from the enemy: Euphorbus, who attempts it, is flain. Hector advancing, Menelaus retires; but foon returns with Ajax, and drives him off. This Glaucus objects to Hector as a flight; who thereupon puts on the armour he had won from Patroclus, and renews the battle. The Greeks give way, till Ajax rallies them: Æneas fuftains the Trojans. Æneas and Hector attempt the chariot of Achilles, which is borne off by Automedon. The horfes of Achilles deplore the lofs of Patroclus: Jupiter covers his body with a thick darknefs: the noble prayer of Ajax on that occafion. Menelaus fends Antilochus to Achilles, with the news of Patroclus' death: then returns to the fight, where, though attacked with the utmost fury, he and Meriones, affifted by the Ajaxes, bear off the body to the ships.
The time is the evening of the eight and twentieth day. The fcene lies in the fields before Troy.
On the cold earth divine Patroclus spread,
Lies pierc'd with wounds among the vulgar dead.
Great Menelaüs, touch'd with generous woe,
Springs to the front, and guards him from the foe:
Thus round her new-fall'n young the heifer moves, 5
Fruit of her throes, and first-born of her loves;
And anxious (helpless as he lies, and bare)
Turns, and re-turns her, with a mother's care.
Oppos'd to each that near the carcase came,
His broad fhield glimmers, and his lances flame.
The fon of Panthus, skill'd the dart to fend,
Eyes the dead hero, and infults the friend.:
This hand, Atrides, laid Patroclus low ;
Warriour desist, nor tempt an equal blow:
To me the spoils my prowess won, refign;
Depart with life, and leave the glory mine.
The Trojan thus: the Spartan monarch burn'd
With generous anguish, and in fcorn return'd:
Laugh'ft thou not, Jove! from thy fuperior throne,
When mortals boast of prowefs not their own?
Not thus the lion glories in his might,
Nor panther braves his spotted foe in fight,
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