Yet with more skill he drew the bending bow;
And now was drawing it with artful hand,
When Perseus, snatching up a flaming brand,
Whirl’d sudden at his face the burning wood,
Crush’d his eyes in, and quench’d the fire with blood;
Through the soft skin the splinter’d bones appear,
And spoil’d the face that lately was so fair.
When Lycabas his Athis thus beheld,
How was his heart with friendly horror fill’d!
A youth so noble, to his soul so dear,
To see his shapeless look, his dying groans to hear!
He snatch’d the bow the boy was used to bend,
And cried, “With me, false traitor, dare contend;
Boast not a conquest o’er a child, but try
Thy strength with me, who all thy powers defy,
Nor think so mean an act a victory.”
While yet he spoke he flung the whizzing dart,
Which pierced the plaited robe, but miss’d his heart.
Perseus defied, upon him fiercely press’d
With sword unsheathed, and plunged it in his breast:
His eyes o’erwhelm’d with night, he stumbling falls,
And with his latest breath on Athis calls;
Pleased that so near the lovely youth he lies,
He sinks his head upon his friend, and dies.
Next eager Phorbas, old Methion’s son,
Came rushing forward with Amphimedon,
When the smooth pavement, slippery made with gore,
Tripp’d up their feet, and flung them on the floor:
The sword of Perseus, who by chance was nigh,
Prevents their rise; and where they fall, they lie:
Full in his ribs Amphimedon he smote,
And then stuck fiery Phorbas in the throat.
Eurythus lifting up his axe, the blow
Was thus prevented by his nimble foe:
A golden cup he seizes, high emboss’d,
And at his head the massy goblet toss’d:
It hits, and from his forehead bruised rebounds,
And blood and brains he vomits from his wounds;
With his slain fellows on the floor he lies,
And death for ever shuts his swimming eyes.
Then Polydaemon fell, a goddess born:
Phlegias and Elycen, with locks unshorn,
Next follow’d: next the stroke of death he gave
To Clytus, Abanis, and Lycetus brave;
While o’er unnumber’d heaps of ghastly dead
The Argive hero’s feet triumphant tread.
But Phineus stands aloof, and dreads to feel
His rival’s force, and flies his pointed steel;
Yet threw a dart from far; by chance it lights
On Idas, who for neither party fights:
But wounded, sternly thus to Phineus said:
“Since of a neuter thou a foe hast made,
This I return thee,” drawing from his side
The dart, which, as he strove to fling, he died.
Odites fell by Clymenus’s sword;
The Cephen court had not a greater lord.
Hypseus his blade does in Protenor sheath;
But brave Lyncides soon revenged his death.
Here too was old Emathion, one that fear’d
The gods, and in the cause of Heaven appear’d,
Who, only wishing the success of right,
And by his age exempted from the fight,
Both sides alike condemns: “This impious war
Cease, cease,” he cries; “these bloody broils forbear.”
This scarce the sage, with high concern, had said,
When Chromis, at a blow, struck off his head,
Which, dropping, on the royal altar roll’d,
Still staring on the crowd with aspect bold;
And still it seem’d their horrid strife to blame;
In life and death his pious zeal the same:
While clinging to the horns the trunk expires,
The sever’d head consumes amid the fires.
Then Phineus, who from far his javelin threw,
Broteas and Ammon, twins and brothers, slew;
For knotted gauntlets matchless in the field;
But gauntlets must to swords and javelins yield.
Ampycus next, with hallow’d fillets bound,
As Ceres’ priest, and with a mitre crown’d,
His spear transfix’d, and struck him to the ground.
O Iapetides, with pain I tell
How you, sweet lyrist, in the riot fell:
What worse than brutal rage his breast could fill
Who did thy blood, O bard celestial! spill?
Kindly you press’d amid the princely throng,
To crown the feast, and give the nuptial song:
Discord abhorr’d the music of thy lyre,
Whose notes did gentle peace so well inspire:
Thee when fierce Pettalus far off espied,
Defenceless with thy harp, he scoffing cried,
“Go, to the ghosts thy soothing lessons play;
We loathe thy lyre, and scorn thy peaceful lay;”
And, as again he fiercely bid him go,
He pierced his temples with a mortal blow.
His harp he held, though sinking on the ground,
Whose strings in death his trembling fingers found,
By chance, and tuned by chance a dying sound.
With grief Lycormas saw him fall, from far,
And wresting from the door a massy bar,
Full in his poll lays on a load of knocks,
Which stun him, and he falls like a devoted ox.
Another bar Pelates would have snatch’d,
But Corythus his motions slyly watch’d;
He darts his weapon from a private stand,
And rivets to the post his veiny hand;
When straight a missive spear transfix’d his side,
By Abas thrown, and, as he hung, he died.
Melaneus on the prince’s side was slain,
And Dorylas, who own’d a fertile plain,
Of Nasamonia’s fields the wealthy lord,
Whose crowded barns could scarce contain their hoard:
A whizzing spear obliquely gave a blow,
Stuck in his groin, and pierced the nerves below:
His foe beheld his eyes convulsive roll,
His ebbing veins, and his departing soul,
Then taunting said: “Of all thy spacious plains,
This spot thy only property remains.”
He left him thus; but had no sooner left,
Than Perseus in revenge his nostrils cleft;
From his friend’s breast the murdering dart he drew,
And the same weapon at the murderer threw;
His head in halves the darted javelin cut,
And on each side the brain came issuing out.
Fortune his friend, his deaths around he deals,
And this his lance, and that his falchion feels:
Now Clytius dies; and, by a different wound,
The twin, his brother Clanis, bites the ground:
In his rent jaw the bearded weapon sticks,
And the steel’d dart does Clytius’ thigh transfix.
With these Mendesian Celadon he slew;
And Astreus next, whose mother was a Jew;
His sire uncertain: then by Perseus fell
Aethion, who could things to come foretell;
But now he knows not whence the javelin flies
That wounds his breast, nor by whose arm he dies.
The squire to Phineus next his valour tried,
And fierce Agyrtes stain’d with parricide.
As these are slain, fresh numbers still appear,
And wage with Perseus an unequal war;
To rob him of his right—the maid he won,
By honour, promise, and desert his own.
With him the father of the beauteous bride,
The mother, and the frighted virgin, side:
With shrieks and doleful cries they rend the air:
Their shrieks confounded with the
