Fame with affection strove, And made him furnish twelve fair ships, to lend fair Troy his hand. His ships he in Percope left, and came to Troy by land. And now he tried the fame of Greece, encount’ring with the king, Who threw his royal lance and miss’d. Iphidamas did fling, And strook him on the arming waist, beneath his coat of brass, Which forc’d him stay upon his arm, so violent it was, Yet pierc’d it not his well-wrought zone, but when the lazy head Tried hardness with his silver waist, it turn’d again like lead. He follow’d, grasping the ground end, but with a lion’s wile That wrests away a hunter’s staff, he caught it by the pile, And pluck’d it from the caster’s hand, whom with his sword he strook Beneath the ear, and with his wound his timeless death he took. He fell and slept an iron sleep; wretched young man, he died, Far from his newly-married wife, in aid of foreign pride, And saw no pleasure of his love; yet was her jointure great, An hundred oxen gave he her, and vow’d in his retreat Two thousand head of sheep and goats, of which he store did leave. Much gave he of his love’s first-fruits, and nothing did receive. When Coon (one that for his form might feast an amorous eye, And elder brother of the slain) beheld this tragedy, Deep sorrow sat upon his eyes, and (standing laterally, And to the Gen’ral undiscern’d) his jav’lin he let fly, That ’twixt his elbow and his wrist transfix’d his armless arm; The bright head shin’d on th’ other side. The unexpected harm Impress’d some horror in the king; yet so he ceas’d not fight, But rush’d on Coon with his lance, who made what haste he might, Seizing his slaughter’d brother’s foot, to draw him from the field, And call’d the ablest to his aid, when under his round shield The king’s brass jav’lin, as he drew, did strike him helpless dead; Who made Iphidamas the block, and cut off Coon’s head. Thus under great Atrides’ arm Antenor’s issue thriv’d, And, to suffice precisest fate, to Pluto’s mansion div’d. He with his lance, sword, mighty stones, pour’d his heroic wreak On other squadrons of the foe, whiles yet warm blood did break Through his cleft veins; but when the wound was quite exhaust and crude, The eager anguish did approve his princely fortitude. As when most sharp and bitter pangs distract a labouring dame, Which the divine Ilithyæ, that rule the painful frame Of human child-birth, pour on her; th’ Ilithyæ that are The daughters of Saturnia; with whose extreme repair The woman in her travail strives to take the worst it gives, With thought it must be, ’tis love’s fruit, the end for which she lives, The mean to make herself new born, what comforts will redound; So Agamemnon did sustain the torment of his wound. Then took he chariot, and to fleet bad haste his charioteer, But first pour’d out his highest voice to purchase ev’ry ear: “Princes and leaders of the Greeks, brave friends, now from our fleet Do you expel this boist’rous sway. Jove will not let me meet