Part 50 (1/2)
Thestor was next, who saw the chief appear, And fell the victiard eye, Nor stood to combat, nor had force to fly; Patroclus s shook the car, And dropp'd the flowing reins Him 'twixt the jaws, The javelin sticks, and fros the hty fish draws panting to the shore: Not with less ease the barbed javelin bore The gaping dastard; as the spear was shook, He fell, and life his heartless breast forsook
Next on Eryalus he flies; a stone, Large as a rock, was by his fury thrown: Full on his crown the ponderous fragment flew, And burst the helround the breathless warrior fell, And death involved him with the shades of hell
Then low in dust Epaltes, Echius, lie; Ipheas, Evippus, Polymelus, die; Amphoterus and Erymas succeed; And last Tlepole slaughters spread In heaps on heaps a monument of dead
When now Sarpedon his brave friends beheld Grovelling in dust, and gasping on the field, With this reproach his flying host he warrace to arlorious, the contended plain; This hand unaided shall the war sustain: The task be th to try, Who mohole troops, and , leaps frohts, and sternly waits the war
As when two vultures on the ht; They cuff, they tear, they raise a screa cry; The desert echoes, and the rocks reply: The warriors thus opposed in are
Jove view'd the combat: whose event foreseen, He thus bespoke his sister and his queen: ”The hour draws on; the destinies ordain,(245) My Godlike son shall press the Phrygian plain: Already on the verge of death he stands, His life is owed to fierce Patroclus' hands, What passions in a parent's breast debate!
Say, shall I snatch hi fate, And send hiers and the toils of war; Or to his doo yield, And fatten, with celestial blood, the field?”
Then thus the Goddess with the radiant eyes: ”What words are these, O sovereign of the skies!
Short is the date prescribed to mortal man; Shall Jove for one extend the narrow span, Whose bounds were fix'd before his race began?
How many sons of Gods, foredoon their breath!
Were thine exe powers condelorious fate in fight; And when the ascending soul has wing'd her flight, Let Sleep and Death convey, by thy command, The breathless body to his native land
His friends and people, to his future praise, Ahonours to his ashes give; His fame ('tis all the dead can have) shall live”
She said: the cloud-compeller, overcome, assents to fate, and ratifies the doo heavens distill'd A shower of blood o'er all the fatal field: The God, his eyes averting from the plain, Laments his son, predestined to be slain, Far fron
Now met in arms, the combatants appear; Each heaved the shi+eld, and poised the lifted spear; Froroin of valiant Thrasymed; The nerves unbraced nobites the bloody plain
Two sounding darts the Lycian leader threw: The first aloof with erring fury flew, The next transpierced Achilles' enerous Pedasus of Theban breed: Fix'd in the shoulder's joint, he reel'd around, Roll'd in the bloody dust, and paw'd the slippery ground
His sudden fall the entangled harness broke; Each axle crackled, and the chariot shook: When bold Auto coursers, and restrain their rage, Divides the traces with his sword, and freed The encu steed: The rest move on, obedient to the rein: The car rolls slowly o'er the dusty plain
The towering chiefs to fiercer fight advance: And first Sarpedon whirl'd his weighty lance, Which o'er the warrior's shoulder took its course, And spent in e dart; Ai fibres bind the solid heart
Then as the reat ad sound It sinks, and spreads its honours on the ground, Thus fell the king; and laid on earth supine, Before his chariot stretch'd his forore, And, pale in death, lay groaning on the shore
So lies a bull beneath the lion's paws, While the gri liroans, and hollow roars, rebellow through the wood
Then to the leader of the Lycian band The dying chief address'd his last colorious dangers of destructive war, To lead , and supply the dead
Tell theed to bear Sarpedon's death
What grief, what shao, If these spoil'd arms adorn a Grecian foe!
Then as a friend, and as a warrior fight; Defend reat examples, all may try Like thee to vanquish, or like me to die”
He ceased; the Fates suppress'd his labouring breath, And his eyes darken'd with the shades of death
The insulting victor with disdain bestrode The prostrate prince, and on his boso heart, The reeking fibres clinging to the dart; Froush'd out a stream of blood, And the soul issued in the purple flood
His flying steeds the Myrhty rief, Unhappy Glaucus heard the dying chief: His painful arm, yet useless with the smart Inflicted late by Teucer's deadly dart, Supported on his better hand he stay'd: To Phoebus then ('twas all he could) he pray'd:
”All-seeing ht presence boast, Powerful alike to ease the wretch's s art!
Lo! stiff with clotted blood, and pierced with pain, That thrills h every vein, I stand unable to sustain the spear, And sigh, at distance froreat Sarpedon laid, Nor Jove vouchsafed his hapless offspring aid; But thou, O God of health! thy succour lend, To guard the relics of h distant, canst restore ht”
Apollo heard; and, suppliant as he stood, His heavenly hand restrain'd the flux of blood; He drew the dolours fro heart
Renew'd by art divine, the hero stands, And owns the assistance of iht his native troops he warms, Then loudly calls on Troy's vindictive arms; With aenor, now Polyda thus the rage of all their hosts