As when two scales are charged with doubtful loads,
From side to side the trembling balance nods,
(While some laborious matron, just and poor,
With nice exactness weighs her woolly store,)
Till poised aloft, the resting beam suspends
Each equal weight; nor this, nor that, descends:
[187]
So stood the war, till Hector’s matchless might,
With fates prevailing, turn’d the scale of fight.
Fierce as a whirlwind up the walls he flies,
And fires his host with loud repeated cries.
“Advance, ye Trojans! lend your valiant hands,
Haste to the fleet, and toss the blazing brands!”
They hear, they run; and, gathering at his call,
Raise scaling engines, and ascend the wall:
Around the works a wood of glittering spears
Shoots up, and all the rising host appears.
A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved to throw,
Pointed above, and rough and gross below:
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days:
Yet this, as easy as a swain could bear
The snowy fleece, he toss’d, and shook in air;
For Jove upheld, and lighten’d of its load
The unwieldy rock, the labour of a god.
Thus arm’d, before the folded gates he came,
Of massy substance, and stupendous frame;
With iron bars and brazen hinges strong,
On lofty beams of solid timber hung:
Then thundering through the planks with forceful sway,
Drives the sharp rock; the solid beams give way,
The folds are shatter’d; from the crackling
door
Leap the resounding bars, the flying hinges roar.
Now rushing in, the furious chief appears,
Gloomy as night! and shakes two shining spears:
[188]
A dreadful gleam from his bright armour came,
And from his eye-balls flash’d the living flame.
He moves a god, resistless in his course,
And seems a match for more than mortal force.
Then pouring after, through the gaping space,
A tide of Trojans flows, and fills the place;
The Greeks behold, they tremble, and they fly;
The shore is heap’d with death, and tumult rends
the sky.
{Illustration: GREEK ALTAR.}
BOOK XIII.
ARGUMENT.
THE FOURTH BATTLE CONTINUED, IN WHICH NEPTUNE ASSISTS
THE GREEKS:
THE ACTS OF IDOMENEUS.
Neptune, concerned for the loss of the Grecians, upon
seeing the fortification forced by Hector, (who had
entered the gate near the station of the Ajaces,)
assumes the shape of Calchas, and inspires those heroes
to oppose him: then, in the form of one of the
generals, encourages the other Greeks who had retired
to their vessels. The Ajaces form their troops
in a close phalanx, and put a stop to Hector and the
Trojans. Several deeds of valour are performed;
Meriones, losing his spear in the encounter, repairs
to seek another at the tent of Idomeneus: this
occasions a conversation between those two warriors,
