And all this was, since after this he had not long to live, This lightning flew before his death, which Pallas was to give (A small time thence, and now prepar’d) beneath the violence Of great Pelides. In mean time, his present eminence Thought all things under it; and he, still where he saw the stands Of greatest strength and bravest arm’d, there he would prove his hands, Or nowhere; off’ring to break through, but that pass’d all his pow’r, Although his will were past all theirs, they stood him like a tow’r Conjoin’d so firm, that as a rock, exceeding high and great, And standing near the hoary sea, bears many a boist’rous threat Of high-voic’d winds and billows huge, belch’d on it by the storms; So stood the Greeks great Hector’s charge, nor stirr’d their battellous forms. He, girt in fire borne for the fleet, still rush’d at ev’ry troop, And fell upon it like a wave, high rais’d, that then doth stoop Out from the clouds, grows, as it stoops, with storms, then down doth come And cuff a ship, when all her sides are hid in brackish foam, Strong gales still raging in her sails, her sailors’ minds dismay’d, Death being but little from their lives; so Jove-like Hector fray’d And plied the Greeks, who knew not what would chance, for all their guards. And as the baneful king of beasts, leapt into oxen herds Fed in the meadows of a fen, exceeding great; the beasts In number infinite; ’mongst whom (their herdsmen wanting breasts To fight with lions, for the price of a black ox’s life) He here and there jumps, first and last, in his blood-thirsty strife, Chas’d and assaulted; and, at length, down in the midst goes one, And all the rest spers’d through the fen; so now all Greece was gone; So Hector, in a flight from heav’n upon the Grecians cast, Turn’d all their backs; yet only one his deadly lance laid fast, Brave Mycenæus Periphes, Cypræus’ dearest son, Who of the heav’n’s-Queen-lovéd king, great Eurysthæus, won The grace to greet in ambassy the strength of Hercules, Was far superior to his sire in feet, fight, nobleness Of all the virtues, and all those did such a wisdom guide As all Mycena could not match; and this man dignified, Still making greater his renown, the state of Priam’s son, For his unhappy hasty foot, as he address’d to run, Stuck in th’ extreme ring of his shield, that to his ancles reach’d, And down he upwards fell, his fall up from the centre fetch’d A huge sound with his head and helm; which Hector quickly spied, Ran in, and in his worthy breast his lance’s head did hide; And slew about him all his friends, who could not give him aid, They griev’d, and of his god-like foe fled so extreme afraid. And now amongst the nearest ships, that first were drawn to shore, The Greeks were driv’n; beneath whose sides, behind them, and before, And into them they pour’d themselves, and thence were driv’n again Up to their tents, and there they stood; not daring to maintain Their guards more outward, but, betwixt the bounds of fear and shame,