Pallas oppos'd her hand, and caus'd to glance,
Far from the car, the ftrong immortal lance.
Then threw the force of Tydeus' warlike fon;
The javelin hifs'd; the Goddefs urg'd it on:
Where the broad cincture girt his armour round, 1050
It pierc'd the God: his groin receiv'd the wound.
From the rent fkin the warriour tugs again
The fmoaking steel. Mars bellows with the pain:
Loud as the roar encountering armies yield,
When fhouting millions fhake the thundering field.
Both armies start, and trembling gaze around j
And earth and heaven rebellow to the found.
As vapours blown by Aufter's fultry breath,
Pregnant with plagues, and fhedding feeds of death,
Beneath the rage of burning Sirius rife,
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Choke the parch'd earth, and blacken all the skies;
In fuch a cloud the God from combat driven,
High o'er the dusty whirlwind fcales the heaven.
Wild with his pain, he fought the bright abodes,
There fullen fate beneath the Sire of Gods,
Show'd the celeftial blood, and with a groan
Thus pour'd his plaints before th' immortal throne:
Can Jove, fupine, flagitious facts furvey,
And brook the furies of this daring day?
For mortal men celeftial powers engage,
And Gods on Gods exert eternal rage.
From thee, O father! all thefe ills we bear,
And thy fell daughter with the fhield and spear:
Thou gav'ft that fury to the realms of light,
Pernicious, wild, regardless of the right.
All heaven befide reveres thy fovereign sway,
Thy voice we hear, and thy behefts obey:
'Tis hers t' offend, and ev'n offending share
Thy breast, thy counfels, thy distinguish'd care :
So boundless fhe, and thou fo partial grown,
Well may we deem the wondrous birth thy own.
Now frantic Diomed, at her command,
Against th' Immortals lifts his raging hand:
The heavenly Venus first his fury found,
Me next encountering, me he dar'd to wound; 1085
Vanquish'd I fled: ev'n I the God of fight,
From mortal madness scarce was fav'd by flight.
Elfe hadst thou feen me fink on yonder plain,
Heap'd round, and heaving under loads of flain!
Or, pierc'd with Grecian darts, for ages lie,
Condemn'd to pain, though fated not to die.
Him thus upbraiding, with a wrathful look
The Lord of thunders view'd, and ftern bespoke :
To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain ?
Of lawless force fhall lawless Mars complain?
Of all the Gods who tread the spangled skies,
Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes!
Inhuman difcord is thy dire delight,
The waste of flaughter, and the rage of fight.
No bound, no law, thy fiery temper quells,
And all thy mother in thy foul rebels.
In vain our threats, in vain our power we use;
She gives th' example, and her fon pursues.
Yet long th' inflicted pangs thou shalt not mourn,
Sprung fince thou art from Jove, and heavenly born.
Elfe, fing'd with lightning hadft thou hence been
Where chain'd on burning rocks the Titans groan.
Thus he who shakes Olympus with his nod;
Then gave to Pæon's care the bleeding God.
With gentle hand the balm he pour'd around,
And heal'd th' immortal flesh, and clos'd the wound.
As when the fig's preft juice, infus'd in cream,
To curds coagulates the liquid stream,
Sudden the fluids fix, the parts combin'd;
Such, and fo foon, th' ætherial texture join'd.
Cleans'd from the dust and gore, fair Hebè drest
His mighty limbs in an immortal vest.
Glorious he fate, in majesty restor'd,
Faft by the throne of heaven's superior Lord,
Juno and Pallas mount the bleft abodes,
'Their task perform'd, and mix among the Gods.
The Episodes of Glaucus and Diomed, and of Hector and Andromache.
THE Gods having left the field, the Grecians prevail. Helenus, the chief augur of Troy, commands Hector to return to the city, in order to appoint a folemn proceffion of the queen and the Trojan matrons to the temple of Minerva, to entreat her to remove Diomed from the fight. The battle relaxing during the abfence of Hector, Glaucus and Diomed have an interview between the two armies; where coming to the knowledge of the friendship and hospitality paft between their ancestors, they make exchange of their arms. Hector, having performed the the orders of Helenus, prevails upon Paris to return to the battle; and taking a tender leave of his wife Andromache, haftens again to the field.
The scene is firft in the field of battle, between the river Simoïs and Scamander, and then changes to Troy.
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