The brave Greeks have withstood their worst; but this our mighty wall Being thus transcended by their pow’r, grave fear doth much appall My careful spirits, lest we feel some fatal mischief here, Where Hector, raging like a flame, doth in his charge appear, And boasts himself the best God’s son. Be you conceited so, And fire so, more than human spirits, that God may seem to do In your deeds, and, with such thoughts cheer’d, others to such exhort, And such resistance; these great minds will in as great a sort Strengthen your bodies, and force check to all great Hector’s charge, Though ne’er so spirit-like, and though Jove still, past himself, enlarge His sacred actions.” Thus he touched, with his fork’d sceptre’s point, The breasts of both; fill’d both their spirits, and made up ev’ry joint With pow’r responsive; when, hawk-like, swift, and set sharp to fly, That fiercely stooping from a rock, inaccessible and high, Cuts through a field, and sets a fowl (not being of her kind) Hard, and gets ground still; Neptune so left these two, either’s mind Beyond themselves rais’d. Of both which, Oïleus first discern’d The masking Deity, and said: “Ajax, some God hath warn’d Our pow’rs to fight, and save our fleet. He put on him the hue Of th’ augur Calchas. By his pace, in leaving us, I knew, Without all question, ’twas a God; the Gods are eas’ly known; And in my tender breast I feel a greater spirit blown, To execute affairs of fight; I find my hands so free To all high motion, and my feet seem feather’d under me,” This Telamonius thus receiv’d: “So, to my thoughts, my hands Burn with desire to toss my lance; each foot beneath me stands Bare on bright fire, to use his speed; my heart is rais’d so high That to encounter Hector’s self, I long insatiately.” While these thus talk’d, as overjoy’d with study for the fight, (Which God had stirr’d up in their spirits) the same God did excite The Greeks that were behind at fleet, refreshing their free hearts And joints, being ev’n dissolv’d with toil; and (seeing the desp’rate parts Play’d by the Trojans past their wall) grief strook them, and their eyes Sweat tears from under their sad lids, their instant destinies Never supposing they could ’scape. But Neptune, stepping in, With ease stirr’d up the able troops, and did at first begin With Teucer, and Peneleüs, th’ heroe Leitus, Deipyrus, Meriones, and young Antilochus, All éxpert in the deeds of arms: “O youths of Greece,” said he, “What change is this? In your brave fight, I only look’d to see Our fleet’s whole safety; and, if you neglect the harmful field, Now shines the day when Greece to Troy must all her honours yield. O grief! So great a miracle, and horrible to sight, As now I see, I never thought could have profan’d the light! The Trojans brave us at our ships, that have been heretofore Like faint and fearful deer in woods, distracted evermore With ev’ry sound, and yet ’scape not, but prove the torn up fare