And pallid silver richly fram’d, and wondrous to behold; His great and golden armour is not fit a man should wear, But for immortal shoulders fram’d. Come then, and quickly bear Your happy pris’ner to your fleet; or leave him here fast bound, Till your well-urg’d and rich return prove my relation sound.” Tydides dreadfully replied: “Think not of passage thus, Though of right acceptable news thou hast advértised us, Our hands are holds more strict than so; and should we set thee free For offer’d ransom, for this ’scape thou still wouldst scouting be About our ships, or do us scathe in plain opposed arms, But, if I take thy life, no way can we repent thy harms.” With this, as Dolon reach’d his hand to use a suppliant’s part, And stroke the beard of Diomed, he strook his neck athwart With his forc’d sword, and both the nerves he did in sunder wound, And suddenly his head, deceiv’d, fell speaking on the ground. His weasel’s helm they took, his bow, his wolf’s skin, and his lance, Which to Minerva Ithacus did zealously advance, With lifted arm into the air; and to her thus he spake: “Goddess, triumph in thine own spoils; to thee we first will make Our invocations, of all pow’rs thron’d on th’ Olympian hill; Now to the Thracians, and their horse, and beds, conduct us still.” With this, he hung them up aloft upon a tamrick bough As eyeful trophies, and the sprigs that did about it grow He proinéd from the leafy arms, to make it easier view’d When they should hastily retire, and be perhaps pursu’d, Forth went they through black blood and arms, and presently aspir’d The guardless Thracian regiment, fast bound with sleep, and tir’d; Their arms lay by, and triple ranks they, as they slept, did keep, As they should watch and guard their king, who, in a fatal sleep, Lay in the midst; their chariot horse, as they coach-fellows were, Fed by them; and the famous steeds, that did their gen’ral bear, Stood next him, to the hinder part of his rich chariot tied. Ulysses saw them first, and said, “Tydides, I have spied The horse that Dolon, whom we slew, assur’d us we should see. Now use thy strength; now idle arms are most unfit for thee; Prise thou the horse; or kill the guard, and leave the horse to me.” Minerva, with the azure eyes, breath’d strength into her king, Who filled the tent with mixéd death. The souls, he set on wing, Issu’d in groans, and made air swell into her stormy flood. Horror and slaughter had one pow’r, the earth did blush with blood. As when a hungry lion flies, with purpose to devour, On flocks unkept, and on their lives doth freely use his pow’r; So Tydeus’ son assail’d the foe; twelve souls before him flew; Ulysses waited on his sword, and ever as he slew, He drew them by their strengthless heels out of the horses’ sight. That, when he was to lead them forth, they should not with affright Boggle, nor snore, in treading on the bloody carcasses; For being new come, they were unus’d to such stern sights as these.