Of tottering Troy, now nodding to her fall; Dost thou not mourn our power employed in vain, And the defenders of our city slain? To pass the rest, could noble Hector lie Unpitied, dragged around his native Troy? And yet the murderer lives; himself by far A greater plague, than all the wasteful war: He lives; the proud Pelides lives, to boast Our town destroyed, our common labour lost. O could I meet him! But I wish too late, To prove my trident is not in his fate. But let him try (for that's allowed) thy dart, And pierce his only penetrable part.-- Apollo bows to the superior throne, And to his uncle's anger adds his own; Then, in a cloud involved, he takes his flight, Where Greeks and Trojans mixed in mortal fight; And found out Paris, lurking where he stood, And stained his arrows with plebeian blood. Phœbus to him alone the god confessed, Then to the recreant knight he thus addressed:-- Dost thou not blush, to spend thy shafts in vain On a degenerate and ignoble train? If fame, or better vengeance, be thy care, There aim, and with one arrow end the war.-- He said; and shewed from far the blazing shield } And sword, which but Achilles none could wield; } And how he moved a god, and mowed the standing field. } The deity himself directs aright The envenomed shaft, and wings the fatal flight. Thus fell the foremost of the Grecian name, And he, the base adulterer, boasts the fame; A spectacle to glad the Trojan train, And please old Priam, after Hector slain. If by a female hand he had foreseen } He was to die, his wish had rather been } The lance and double axe of the fair warrior queen. } And now, the terror of the Trojan field, The Grecian honour, ornament, and shield, High on a pile, the unconquered chief is placed; The god,[36] that armed him first, consumed at last. Of all the mighty man, the small remains A little urn, and scarcely filled, contains; Yet, great in Homer, still Achilles lives, And, equal to himself, himself survives. His buckler owns its former lord, and brings New cause of strife betwixt contending kings; Who worthiest, after him, his sword to wield, Or wear his armour, or sustain his shield. Even Diomede sat mute, with downcast eyes, Conscious of wanted worth to win the prize; Nor Menelaus presumed these arms to claim, Nor he the king of men, a greater name. Two rivals only rose; Laertes' son, And the vast bulk of Ajax Telamon. The king, who cherished each with equal love, And from himself all envy would remove, Left both to be determined by the laws, And to the Grecian chiefs transferred the cause. FOOTNOTES: [31] The swan.