Then had not many a Grecian, lifeless now,70 Clench’d with his teeth the ground, victim, alas! Of my revenge; whence triumph hath accrued To Hector and his host, while ours have cause For long remembrance of our mutual strife. But evils past let pass, yielding perforce75 To sad necessity. My wrath shall cease Now; I resign it; it hath burn’d too long. Thou therefore summon forth the host to fight, That I may learn meeting them in the field, If still the Trojans purpose at our fleet80 To watch us this night also. But I judge That driven by my spear to rapid flight, They shall escape with weary limbs[5] at least. He ended, and the Grecians brazen-greaved Rejoiced that Peleus’ mighty son had cast85 His wrath aside. Then not into the midst Proceeding, but at his own seat, upstood King Agamemnon, and them thus bespake. Friends! Grecian heroes! Ministers of Mars! Arise who may to speak, he claims your ear;90 All interruption wrongs him, and distracts, Howe’er expert the speaker. Who can hear Amid the roar of tumult, or who speak? The clearest voice, best utterance, both are vain I shall address Achilles. Hear my speech95 Ye Argives, and with understanding mark. I hear not now the voice of your reproach[6] First; ye have oft condemn’d me. Yet the blame Rests not with me; Jove, Destiny, and she Who roams the shades, Erynnis, caused the offence.100 She fill’d my soul with fury on that day In council, when I seized Achilles’ prize. For what could I? All things obey the Gods. Ate, pernicious Power, daughter of Jove, By whom all suffer, challenges from all105 Reverence and fear. Delicate are her feet Which scorn the ground, and over human heads She glides, injurious to the race of man, Of two who strive, at least entangling one. She injured, on a day, dread Jove himself110 Most excellent of all in earth or heaven, When Juno, although female, him deceived, What time Alcmena should have brought to light In bulwark’d Thebes the force of Hercules. Then Jove, among the gods glorying, spake.115 Hear all! both Gods and Goddesses, attend! That I may make my purpose known. This day Birth-pang-dispensing Ilithya brings An hero forth to light, who, sprung from those That sprang from me, his empire shall extend120 Over all kingdoms bordering on his own. To whom, designing fraud, Juno replied. Thou wilt be found false, and this word of thine Shall want performance. But Olympian Jove! Swear now the inviolable oath, that he125 Who shall, this day, fall from between the feet Of woman, drawing his descent from thee, Shall rule all kingdoms bordering on his own. She said, and Jove, suspecting nought her wiles, The great oath swore, to his own grief and wrong.130 At once from the Olympian summit flew Juno, and to Achaian Argos borne, There sought the noble wife[7] of Sthenelus, Offspring of Perseus. Pregnant with a son Six months, she now the seventh saw at hand,135 But him the Goddess premature produced, And check’d Alcmena’s pangs already due.