Achilles (Mythological character) -- Poetry; Classical literature; Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War -- Poetry
“The morning sun, awaked by loud alarms,
Shall see the almighty Thunderer in arms.
What heaps of Argives then shall load the plain,
Those radiant eyes shall view, and view in vain.
Nor shall great Hector cease the rage of fight,
The navy flaming, and thy Greeks in flight,
Even till the day when certain fates ordain
That stern Achilles (his Patroclus slain)
Shall rise in vengeance, and lay waste the plain.
For such is fate, nor canst thou turn its course
With all thy rage, with all thy rebel force.
Fly, if thy wilt, to earth’s remotest bound,
Where on her utmost verge the seas resound;
Where cursed Iapetus and Saturn dwell,
Fast by the brink, within the streams of hell;
No sun e’er gilds the gloomy horrors there;
No cheerful gales refresh the lazy air:
There arm once more the bold Titanian band;
And arm in vain; for what I will, shall stand.”
Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light,
And drew behind the cloudy veil of night:
The conquering Trojans mourn his beams decay’d;
The Greeks rejoicing bless the friendly shade.
The victors keep the field; and Hector calls
A martial council near the navy walls;
These to Scamander’s bank apart he led,
Where thinly scatter’d lay the heaps of dead.
The assembled chiefs, descending on the ground,
Attend his order, and their prince surround.
A massy spear he bore of mighty strength,
Of full ten cubits was the lance’s length;
The point was brass, refulgent to behold,
Fix’d to the wood with circling rings of gold:
The noble Hector on his lance reclined,
And, bending forward, thus reveal’d his mind:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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