And mixed among the senate of the Gods. At her departure his disdain returned; The fire she fanned with greater fury burned, Rumbling within till thus it found a vent:-- Dastard and drunkard, mean and insolent! Tongue-valiant hero, vaunter of thy might, In threats the foremost, but the lag in fight! When didst thou thrust amid the mingled preace, Content to bide the war aloof in peace? Arms are the trade of each plebeian soul; 'Tis death to fight, but kingly to controul; Lord-like at ease, with arbitrary power, To peel the chiefs, the people to devour. These, traitor, are thy talents; safer far Than to contend in fields, and toils of war. Nor couldst thou thus have dared the common hate, Were not their souls as abject as their state. But, by this sceptre solemnly I swear, (Which never more green leaf or growing branch shall bear; Torn from the tree, and given by Jove to those Who laws dispense, and mighty wrongs oppose,) That when the Grecians want my wonted aid, No gift shall bribe it, and no prayer persuade. When Hector comes, the homicide, to wield His conquering arms, with corpse to strew the field, Then shalt thou mourn thy pride, and late confess My wrong, repented when 'tis past redress.-- He said; and with disdain, in open view, Against the ground his golden sceptre threw, Then sate; with boiling rage Atrides burned, And foam betwixt his gnashing grinders churned. But from his seat the Pylian prince arose, With reasoning mild, their madness to compose; Words, sweet as honey, from his mouth distilled; Two centuries already he fulfilled, And now began the third; unbroken yet, Once famed for courage, still in council great. What worse, he said, can Argos undergo, What can more gratify the Phrygian foe, Than these distempered heats, if both the lights Of Greece their private interest disunites? Believe a friend, with thrice your years increased, And let these youthful passions be repressed. I flourished long before your birth; and then } Lived equal with a race of braver men, } Than these dim eyes shall e'er behold again. } Ceneus and Dryas, and, excelling them, Great Theseus, and the force of greater Polypheme. With these I went, a brother of the war, Their dangers to divide, their fame to share; Nor idle stood with unassisting hands, When savage beasts, and men's more savage bands, Their virtuous toil subdued: yet those I swayed, With powerful speech; I spoke, and they obeyed. If such as those my counsels could reclaim, Think not, young warriors, your diminished name Shall lose of lustre, by subjecting rage To the cool dictates of experienced age. Thou, king of men, stretch not thy sovereign sway Beyond the bounds free subjects can obey;