Achilles (Mythological character) -- Poetry; Classical literature; Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War -- Poetry
The Trojan heard; uncertain or to meet,
Alone, with venturous arms the king of Crete,
Or seek auxiliar force; at length decreed
To call some hero to partake the deed,
Forthwith Æneas rises to his thought:
For him in Troy’s remotest lines he sought,
Where he, incensed at partial Priam, stands,
And sees superior posts in meaner hands.
To him, ambitious of so great an aid,
The bold Deiphobus approach’d, and said:
“Now, Trojan prince, employ thy pious arms,
If e’er thy bosom felt fair honour’s charms.
Alcathous dies, thy brother and thy friend;
Come, and the warrior’s loved remains defend.
Beneath his cares thy early youth was train’d,
One table fed you, and one roof contain’d.
This deed to fierce Idomeneus we owe;
Haste, and revenge it on th’ insulting foe.”
Æneas heard, and for a space resign’d
To tender pity all his manly mind;
Then rising in his rage, he burns to fight:
The Greek awaits him with collected might.
As the fell boar, on some rough mountain’s head,
Arm’d with wild terrors, and to slaughter bred,
When the loud rustics rise, and shout from far,
Attends the tumult, and expects the war;
O’er his bent back the bristly horrors rise;
Fires stream in lightning from his sanguine eyes,
His foaming tusks both dogs and men engage;
But most his hunters rouse his mighty rage:
So stood Idomeneus, his javelin shook,
And met the Trojan with a lowering look.
Antilochus, Deipyrus, were near,
The youthful offspring of the god of war,
Merion, and Aphareus, in field renown’d:
To these the warrior sent his voice around.
“Fellows in arms! your timely aid unite;
Lo, great Æneas rushes to the fight:
Sprung from a god, and more than mortal bold;
He fresh in youth, and I in arms grown old.
Else should this hand, this hour decide the strife,
The great dispute, of glory, or of life.”
He spoke, and all, as with one soul, obey’d;
Their lifted bucklers cast a dreadful shade
Around the chief. Æneas too demands
Th’ assisting forces of his native bands;
Paris, Deiphobus, Agenor, join;
(Co-aids and captains of the Trojan line;)
In order follow all th’ embodied train,
Like Ida’s flocks proceeding o’er the plain;
Before his fleecy care, erect and bold,
Stalks the proud ram, the father of the bold.
With joy the swain surveys them, as he leads
To the cool fountains, through the well-known meads:
So joys Æneas, as his native band
Moves on in rank, and stretches o’er the land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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