The proud prerogative had seized the best. Chryseis was the greedy tyrant's prize, Chryseis, rosy-cheeked, with charming eyes. Her sire, Apollo's priest, arrived to buy, With proffered gifts of price, his daughter's liberty. Suppliant before the Grecian chiefs he stood, Awful, and armed with ensigns of his God; Bare was his hoary head; one holy hand Held forth his laurel-crown, and one his sceptre of command. His suit was common, but, above the rest, To both the brother-princes was addressed. With shouts of loud acclaim the Greeks agree To take the gifts, to set the prisoner free. Not so the tyrant, who with scorn the priest Received, and with opprobrious words dismissed. The good old man, forlorn of human aid, For vengeance to his heavenly patron prayed: The Godhead gave a favourable ear, And granted all to him he held so dear; In an ill hour his piercing shafts he sped, And heaps on heaps of slaughtered Greeks lay dead, While round the camp he ranged: at length arose A seer, who well divined, and durst disclose The source of all our ills: I took the word; And urged the sacred slave to be restored, The God appeased: the swelling monarch stormed, And then the vengeance vowed he since performed. The Greeks, 'tis true, their ruin, to prevent, Have to the royal priest his daughter sent; But from their haughty king his heralds came, And seized, by his command, my captive dame, By common suffrage given;--but thou be won, If in thy power, to avenge thy injured son! Ascend the skies, and supplicating move Thy just complaint to cloud-compelling Jove. If thou by either word or deed hast wrought A kind remembrance in his grateful thought, Urge him by that; for often hast thou said Thy power was once not useless in his aid, When he, who high above the highest reigns, Surprised by traitor Gods, was bound in chains; When Juno, Pallas, with ambition fired, And his blue brother of the seas conspired, Thou freed'st the sovereign from unworthy bands, Thou brought'st Briareus with his hundred hands, (So called in heaven, but mortal men below By his terrestrial name, Ægeon, know; Twice stronger than his sire, who sate above Assessor to the throne of thundering Jove.) The Gods, dismayed at his approach, withdrew, Nor durst their unaccomplished crime pursue. That action to his grateful mind recal, Embrace his knees, and at his footstool fall; That now, if ever, he will aid our foes; Let Troy's triumphant troops the camp inclose; Ours, beaten to the shore, the siege forsake, And what their king deserves, with him partake; That the proud tyrant, at his proper cost, May learn the value of the man he lost.-- To whom the Mother-goddess thus replied, Sighed ere she spoke, and while she spoke she cried,--