Part 8 (1/2)

XLII.

Among the spices and fair robes he lay, His arm beneath his head, as though he slept.

For so the G.o.ddess wrought that no decay, No loathly thing about his body crept; And all the people look'd on him and wept, And, weeping, Paris lit the pine-wood dry, And lo, a rainy wind arose and swept The flame and fragrance far into the sky.

XLIII.

But when the force of flame was burning low, Then did they drench the pyre with ruddy wine, And the white bones of Corythus bestow Within a gold cruse, wrought with many a sign, And wrapp'd the cruse about with linen fine And bare it to the tomb: when, lo, the wild OEnone sprang, with burning eyes divine, And shriek'd unto the slayer of her child:

XLIV.

”Oh Thou, that like a G.o.d art sire and slayer, That like a G.o.d, dost give and take away!

Methinks that even now I hear the prayer Thou shalt beseech me with, some later day; When all the world to thy dim eyes grow grey, And thou shalt crave thy healing at my hand, Then gladly will I mock, and say thee nay, And watch thine hours run down like running sand!

XLV.

”Yea, thou shalt die, and leave thy love behind, And little shall she love thy memory!

But, oh ye foolish people, deaf and blind, What Death is coming on you from the sea?”

Then all men turned, and lo, upon the lee Of Tenedos, beneath the driving rain, The countless Argive s.h.i.+ps were racing free, The wind and oarsmen speeding them amain.

XLVI.

Then from the barrow and the burial, Back like a bursting torrent all men fled Back to the city and the sacred wall.

But Paris stood, and lifted not his head.

Alone he stood, and brooded o'er the dead, As broods a lion, when a shaft hath flown, And through the strong heart of his mate hath sped, Then will he face the hunters all alone.

XLVII.

But soon the voice of men on the sea-sand Came round him; and he turned, and gazed, and lo!

The Argive s.h.i.+ps were das.h.i.+ng on the strand: Then stealthily did Paris bend his bow, And on the string he laid a shaft of woe, And drew it to the point, and aim'd it well.

Singing it sped, and through a s.h.i.+eld did go, And from his barque Protesilaus fell.

XLVIII.

Half gladdened by the omen, through the plain Went Paris to the walls and mighty gate, And little heeded he that arrowy rain The Argive bowmen shower'd in helpless hate.

Nay; not yet feather'd was the shaft of Fate, His bane, the gift of mighty Heracles To Philoctetes, lying desolate, Within a far off island of the seas.

BOOK V--THE WAR

The war round Troy, and how many brave men fell, and chiefly Sarpedon, Patroclus, Hector, Memnon, and Achilles. The coming of the Amazon, and the wounding of Paris, and his death, and concerning the good end that OEnone made.

I.

For ten long years the Argive leaguer lay Round Priam's folk, and wrought them many woes, While, as a lion crouch'd above his prey, The Trojans yet made head against their foes; And as the swift sea-water ebbs and flows Between the Straits of h.e.l.le and the main, Even so the tide of battle sank and rose, And fill'd with waifs of war the Ilian plain.

II.