Thou first, great Ajax! on the unsanguined plain
Laid Hyrtius, leader of the Mysian train.
Phalces and Mermer, Nestor’s son o’erthrew,
Bold Merion, Morys and Hippotion slew.
Strong Periphaetes and Prothoon bled,
By Teucer’s arrows mingled with the dead,
Pierced in the flank by Menelaus’ steel,
His people’s pastor, Hyperenor fell;
Eternal darkness wrapp’d the warrior round,
And the fierce soul came rushing through the wound.
But stretch’d in heaps before Oileus’
son,
Fall mighty numbers, mighty numbers run;
Ajax the less, of all the Grecian race
Skill’d in pursuit, and swiftest in the chase.
{Illustration: BACCHUS.}
ARGUMENT.
THE FIFTH BATTLE AT THE SHIPS; AND THE ACTS OF AJAX.
Jupiter, awaking, sees the Trojans repulsed from the
trenches, Hector in a swoon, and Neptune at the head
of the Greeks: he is highly incensed at the artifice
of Juno, who appeases him by her submissions; she
is then sent to Iris and Apollo. Juno, repairing
to the assembly of the gods, attempts, with extraordinary
address, to incense them against Jupiter; in particular
she touches Mars with a violent resentment; he is
ready to take arms, but is prevented by Minerva.
Iris and Apollo obey the orders of Jupiter; Iris commands
Neptune to leave the battle, to which, after much
reluctance and passion, he consents. Apollo reinspires
Hector with vigour, brings him back to the battle,
marches before him with his aegis, and turns the fortune
of the fight. He breaks down great part of the
Grecian wall: the Trojans rush in, and attempt
to fire the first line of the fleet, but are, as yet,
repelled by the greater Ajax with a prodigious slaughter.
Now in swift flight they pass the trench profound,
And many a chief lay gasping on the ground:
Then stopp’d and panted, where the chariots
lie
Fear on their cheek, and horror in their eye.
Meanwhile, awaken’d from his dream of love,
On Ida’s summit sat imperial Jove:
Round the wide fields he cast a careful view,
There saw the Trojans fly, the Greeks pursue;
These proud in arms, those scatter’d o’er
the plain
And, ’midst the war, the monarch of the main.
Not far, great Hector on the dust he spies,
(His sad associates round with weeping eyes,)
Ejecting blood, and panting yet for breath,
His senses wandering to the verge of death.
The god beheld him with a pitying look,
And thus, incensed, to fraudful Juno spoke:
“O thou, still adverse to the eternal will,
For ever studious in promoting ill!
Thy arts have made the godlike Hector yield,
And driven his conquering squadrons from the field.
Canst thou, unhappy in thy wiles, withstand
Our power immense, and brave the almighty hand?
Hast thou forgot, when, bound and fix’d on high,
From the vast concave of the spangled sky,
