And there are many such in Troy.” Thus jested he so near His own grave death; and then made in, to spoil the charioteer, With such a lion’s force and fate, as, often ruining Stalls of fat oxen, gets at length a mortal wound to sting His soul out of that rav’nous breast, that was so insolent, And so his life’s bliss proves his bane; so deadly confident Wert thou, Patroclus, in pursuit of good Cebriones, To whose defence now Hector leap’d. The opposite address, These masters of the cry in war now made, was of the kind Of two fierce kings of beasts, oppos’d in strife about a hind Slain on the forehead of a hill, both sharp and hungry set And to the currie never came but like two deaths they met; Nor these two entertain’d less mind of mutual prejudice About the body, close to which when each had press’d for prise, Hector the head laid hand upon, which, once grip’d, never could Be forc’d from him; Patroclus then upon the feet got hold, And he pinch’d with as sure a nail. So both stood tugging there, While all the rest made eager fight, and grappled ev’ry where. And as the east and south winds strive, to make a lofty wood Bow to their greatness, barky elms, wild ashes, beeches, bow’d Ev’n with the earth, in whose thick arms the mighty vapours lie, And toss by turns, all, either way, their leaves at random fly, Boughs murmur, and their bodies crack, and with perpetual din The sylvans falter, and the storms are never to begin; So rag’d the fight, and all from Flight pluck’d her forgotten wings, While some still stuck, still new-wing’d shafts flew dancing from their strings, Huge stones sent after that did shake the shields about the corse, Who now, in dust’s soft forehead stretch’d, forgat his guiding horse. As long as Phœbus turn’d his wheels about the midst of heaven, So long the touch of either’s darts the falls of both made even; But, when his wain drew near the west, the Greeks past measure were The abler soldiers, and so swept the Trojan tumult clear From off the body, out of which they drew the hurl’d-in darts, And from his shoulders stripp’d his arms; and then to more such parts Patroclus turn’d his striving thoughts, to do the Trojans ill. Thrice, like the God of war, he charg’d, his voice as horrible, And thrice-nine those three charges slew; but in the fourth assay, O then, Patroclus, show’d thy last; the dreadful Sun made way Against that onset; yet the prince discern’d no Deity, He kept the press so, and, besides, obscur’d his glorious eye With such felt darkness. At his back, he made a sudden stand, And ’twixt his neck and shoulders laid down-right with either hand A blow so weighty, that his eyes a giddy darkness took, And from his head his three-plum’d helm the bounding violence shook, That rung beneath his horses’ hooves, and, like a water-spout, Was crush’d together with the fall; the plumes that set it out, All spatter’d with black blood and dust; when ever heretofore It was a capital offence to have or dust or gore