Oh, could I meet him! but I wish too late:
To prove my trident is not in his fate!
But let him try (for that’s allow’d) thy dart,
And pierce his only penetrable part.”
Apollo bows to the superior throne,
And to his uncle’s anger adds his own;
Then, in a cloud involved, he takes his flight,
Where Greeks and Trojans mix’d in mortal fight,
And found out Paris, lurking where he stood,
And stain’d his arrows with plebeian blood:
Phoebus to him alone the god confess’d,
Then to the recreant knight he thus address’d:
“Dost thou not blush, to spend thy shafts in vain
On a degenerate and ignoble train?
If fame or better vengeance be thy care,
There aim; and with one arrow end the war.”
He said; and show’d from far the blazing shield
And sword, which, but Achilles, none could wield,
And how he moved a god, and mow’d the standing field.
The deity himself directs aright
The envenom’d shaft, and wings the fatal flight.
Thus fell the foremost of the Grecian name,
And he, the base adulterer, boasts the fame;
A spectacle to glad the Trojan train,
And please old Priam, after Hector slain.
If by a female hand he had foreseen
He was to die, his wish had rather been
The lance and double axe of the fair warrior queen.
And now the terror of the Trojan field,
The Grecian honour, ornament, and shield,
High on a pile the unconquer’d chief is placed;
The god that arm’d him first, consumed at last.
Of all the mighty man, the small remains
A little urn, and scarcely fill’d, contains.
Yet great in Homer, still Achilles lives,
And equal to himself, himself survives.
His buckler owns its former lord, and brings
New cause of strife between contending kings;
Who worthiest after him his sword to wield,
Or wear his armour, or sustain his shield.
Ev’n Diomede sat mute, with downcast eyes,
Conscious of wonted worth to win the prize;
Nor Menelaus presumed these arms to claim;
Nor he, the king of men, a greater name:
Two rivals only rose: Laertes’ son,
And the vast bulk of Ajax Telamon.
The king, who cherish’d each with equal love,
And from himself all envy would remove,
Left both to be determined by the laws,
And to the Grecian chiefs transferr’d the cause.
Book XIII
Speeches of Ajax and Ulysses
Ajax and Ulysses lay claim to the armour of Achilles, which is assigned to the latter by the Grecian chiefs.
The chiefs were set; the soldiers crown’d the field;
To these the master of the sevenfold shield
Upstarted fierce, and kindled with disdain.
Eager to speak, unable to contain
His boiling rage, he roll’d his eyes around
The shore and Grecian galleys haul’d aground;
Then, stretching out his hands, “Oh Jove,” he cried,
“Must then our cause before the fleet be tried?
And dares Ulysses for the prize contend,
In sight of what he durst not once defend?
But basely fled that memorable day,
When I from Hector’s hands redeem’d the flaming prey;
So much ’tis safer at the noisy bar
With words to flourish, than engage in war.
By different methods we maintain our right;
Nor am I made to talk, nor he to fight:
In bloody fields I labour to be great;
His arms are a smooth tongue and soft deceit:
Nor need I speak my deeds, for those you see;
The sun and day are witnesses for me:
Let him who fights unseen relate his own,
And vouch the silent stars and conscious moon.
Great is the prize demanded, I confess;
But such an abject rival makes it less:
That gift, those honours, he but hoped to gain,
Can leave no room for Ajax to be vain:
Losing, he wins, because his name will be
Ennobled by defeat, who durst contend with me.
Were my known valour question’d, yet my blood
Without that plea, would make my title good:
My sire was Telamon, whose arms, employ’d
With Hercules, these Trojan walls destroy’d;
And who before, with Jason sent from Greece,
In the first ship brought home the golden fleece.
Great Telamon from Aeacus derives
His birth: (the inquisitor of guilty lives
In shades below; where Sisyphus, whose son
This thief is thought, rolls up the restless heavy stone.)
Just Aeacus, the king of gods above
Begot: thus Ajax is the third from Jove:
Nor should I seek advantage from my line,
Unless, Achilles, it was mix’d with thine.
As next of kin, Achilles’ arms I claim:
This fellow would ingraft a foreign name
Upon our stock; and the Sisyphian seed
By fraud and theft asserts his father’s breed.
Then must I lose these arms, because I came
To fight uncall’d, a voluntary name;
Nor shunn’d the cause, but offer’d you my aid?
While he long lurking was to war betray’d:
Forced to the field he came, but in the rear,
And feign’d distraction to conceal his fear,
Till one more cunning caught him in the snare,
(Ill for himself,) and dragg’d him into war.
Now let a hero’s arms a coward vest,
And he who shunn’d all honours gain the best;
And let me stand excluded from my right,
Robb’d of my kinsman’s arms, who first appear’d in fight.
Better for us, at home had he remain’d,
Had it been true the madness which he feign’d,
Or so believed; the less had been our shame,
The less his counsell’d crime, which brands the Grecian name
Nor Philoctetes had been left enclosed
In a bare isle, to wants and pains exposed,
Where to the rocks, with solitary groans,
His sufferings and our baseness he bemoans:
And wishes (so may Heaven his wish fulfil!)
The due reward to him who caused his ill:
Now he, with us to Troy’s destruction sworn,
Our brother of the war, by whom are borne
Alcides’ arrows, pent in narrow bounds,
With cold and hunger pinch’d, and pain’d with wounds,
To find him food and clothing, must employ
Against the birds the shafts due to the fate of Troy.
Yet still he lives, and lives from treason free,
Because he left Ulysses’ company:
Poor Palamede might wish, so void of aid
Rather to have been left, than so to death betray’d.
The coward bore the man immortal spite,
Who shamed him out of madness into fight;
Nor daring otherwise to vent his hate,
Accused him first of treason to the state,
And then, for proof, produced the golden store
Himself had hidden in his tent before:
Thus of two champions he deprived our host,
By exile one, and one by treason lost.
Thus fights Ulysses, thus his fame extends,
A formidable man but to his friends:
Great, for what greatness is
