And whose broad eye their happy soil surveys! If, Smintheus, I have poured before thy shrine The blood of oxen, goats, and ruddy wine, And larded thighs on loaded altars laid, Hear, and my just revenge propitious aid! Pierce the proud Greeks, and with thy shafts attest How much thy power is injured in thy priest.-- He prayed; and Phœbus, hearing, urged his flight, With fury kindled, from Olympus' height; His quiver o'er his ample shoulders threw, His bow twanged, and his arrows rattled as they flew. Black as a stormy night, he ranged around The tents, and compassed the devoted ground; Then with full force his deadly bow he bent, And feathered fates among the mules and sumpters sent, The essay of rage; on faithful dogs the next; And last, in human hearts his arrows fixed. The God nine days the Greeks at rovers killed, Nine days the camp with funeral fires was filled; The tenth, Achilles, by the queen's command, Who bears heaven's awful sceptre in her hand, A council summoned; for the goddess grieved Her favoured host should perish unrelieved. The kings, assembled, soon their chief inclose; Then from his seat the goddess-born arose, And thus undaunted spoke:--What now remains, But that once more we tempt the watery plains, And, wandering homeward, seek our safety hence, In flight at least, if we can find defence? Such woes at once encompass us about, The plague within the camp, the sword without. Consult, O king, the prophets of the event; } And whence these ills, and what the God's intent, } Let them by dreams explore, for dreams from Jove are sent. } What want of offered victims, what offence In fact committed could the Sun incense, To deal his deadly shafts? What may remove His settled hate, and reconcile his love? That he may look propitious on our toils, And hungry graves no more be glutted with our spoils. Thus to the king of men the hero spoke, Then Calchas the desired occasion took; Calchas, the sacred seer, who had in view Things present and the past, and things to come foreknew; Supreme of augurs, who, by Phœbus taught, The Grecian powers to Troy's destruction brought. Skilled in the secret causes of their woes, The reverend priest in graceful act arose, And thus bespoke Pelides:--Care of Jove, Favoured of all the immortal powers above, Wouldst thou the seeds deep sown of mischief know, And why, provoked, Apollo bends his bow, Plight first thy faith, inviolably true, To save me from those ills that may ensue. For I shall tell ungrateful truths to those, Whose boundless powers of life and death dispose; And sovereigns, ever jealous of their state, Forgive not those whom once they mark for hate: Even though the offence they seemingly digest,