A light-foot hare, which straight she stoops, trusses, and strikes her dead; So dead thou strook’st thy charge, O king, through all war’s thickets so Thou look’dst, and swiftly found’st thy man exhorting ’gainst the foe, And heart’ning his plied men to blows us’d in the war’s left wing; To whom thou saidst: “Thou god-lov’d man, come here, and hear a thing Which I wish never were to hear. I think ev’n thy eye sees What a destruction God hath laid upon the sons of Greece, And what a conquest he gives Troy; in which the best of men, Patroclus, lies exanimate, whose person passing fain The Greeks would rescue and bear home; and therefore give thy speed To his great friend, to prove if he will do so good a deed To fetch the naked person off, for Hector’s shoulders wear His priséd arms.” Antilochus was highly griev’d to hear This heavy news, and stood surpris’d with stupid silence long; His fair eyes standing full of tears; his voice, so sweet and strong Stuck in his bosom; yet all this wrought in him no neglect Of what Atrides gave in charge, but for that quick effect He gave Laodocus his arms (his friend that had the guide Of his swift horse) and then his knees were speedily applied In his sad message, which his eyes told all the way in tears. Nor would thy gen’rous heart assist his sore charg’d soldiers, O Menelaus, in mean time, though left in much distress; Thou sent’st them god-like Thrasymede, and mad’st thy kind regress Back to Patroclus; where arriv’d, half breathless thou didst say To both th’ Ajaces: “I have sent this messenger away To swift Achilles, who, I fear, will hardly help us now, Though mad with Hector; without arms he cannot fight, ye know. Let us then think of some best mean, both how we may remove The body, and get off ourselves from this vocif’rous drove, And fate of Trojans.” “Bravely spoke at all parts,” Ajax said, “O glorious son of Atreus. Take thou then straight the dead, And thou, Meriones; we two, of one mind as one name, Will back ye soundly, and on us receive the wild-fire flame That Hector’s rage breathes after you, before it come at you.” This said, they took into their arms the body; all the show, That might be, made to those of Troy; at arm’s end bearing it. Out shriek’d the Trojans when they saw the body borne to fleet, And rush’d on. As at any boar, gash’d with the hunter’s wounds, A kennel of the sharpest set and sorest bitten hounds Before their youthful huntsmen haste, and eagerly awhile Pursue, as if they were assur’d of their affected spoil; But when the savage, in his strength as confident as they, Turns head amongst them, back they fly, and ev’ry one his way; So troop-meal Troy pursu’d awhile, laying on with swords and darts; But when th’ Ajaces turn’d on them, and made their stand, their hearts Drunk from their faces all their bloods, and not a man sustain’d The forechace, nor the after-fight. And thus Greece nobly gain’d The person towards home. But thus, the changing war was rack’d