The prince replies: “Ah cease, divinely
fair,
Nor add reproaches to the wounds I bear;
This day the foe prevail’d by Pallas’
power:
We yet may vanquish in a happier hour:
There want not gods to favour us above;
But let the business of our life be love:
These softer moments let delights employ,
And kind embraces snatch the hasty joy.
Not thus I loved thee, when from Sparta’s shore
My forced, my willing heavenly prize I bore,
When first entranced in Cranae’s isle I lay,
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Mix’d with thy soul, and all dissolved away!”
Thus having spoke, the enamour’d Phrygian boy
Rush’d to the bed, impatient for the joy.
Him Helen follow’d slow with bashful charms,
And clasp’d the blooming hero in her arms.
While these to love’s delicious rapture yield,
The stern Atrides rages round the field:
So some fell lion whom the woods obey,
Roars through the desert, and demands his prey.
Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy,
But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy;
Even those had yielded to a foe so brave
The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave.
Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose,
“Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes!
Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown’d,
Our brother’s arms the just success have found:
Be therefore now the Spartan wealth restor’d,
Let Argive Helen own her lawful lord;
The appointed fine let Ilion justly pay,
And age to age record this signal day.”
He ceased; his army’s loud applauses rise,
And the long shout runs echoing through the skies.
{Illustration: VENUS.}
{Illustration: Map, titled “Graeciae Antiquae".}
BOOK IV.
ARGUMENT.
THE BREACH OF THE TRUCE, AND THE FIRST BATTLE.
The gods deliberate in council concerning the Trojan
war: they agree upon the continuation of it,
and Jupiter sends down Minerva to break the truce.
She persuades Pandarus to aim an arrow at Menelaus,
who is wounded, but cured by Machaon. In the
meantime some of the Trojan troops attack the Greeks.
Agamemnon is distinguished in all the parts of a good
general; he reviews the troops, and exhorts the leaders,
some by praises and others by reproof. Nestor
is particularly celebrated for his military discipline.
The battle joins, and great numbers are slain on both
sides.
The same day continues through this as through the
last book (as it does also through the two following,
and almost to the end of the seventh book). The
scene is wholly in the field before Troy.
And now Olympus’ shining gates unfold;
The gods, with Jove, assume their thrones of gold:
Immortal Hebe, fresh with bloom divine,
The golden goblet crowns with purple wine:
While the full bowls flow round, the powers employ
Their careful eyes on long-contended Troy.
