Poems by George Meredith Volume Iii Part 23

"Bibber besotted, with scowl of a cur, having heart of a deer, thou!

Never to join to thy warriors armed for the press of the conflict, Never for ambush forth with the princeliest sons of Achaia Dared thy soul, for to thee that thing would have looked as a death- stroke.

Sooth, more easy it seems, down the lengthened array of Achaians, s.n.a.t.c.h at the prize of the one whose voice has been lifted against thee.

Ravening king of the folk, for that thou hast thy rule over abjects; Else, son of Atreus, now were this outrage on me thy last one.

Nay, but I tell thee, and I do swear a big oath on it likewise: Yea, by the sceptre here, and it surely bears branches and leaf-buds Never again, since first it was lopped from its trunk on the mountains, No more sprouting; for round it all clean has the sharp metal clipped off Leaves and the bark; ay, verify now do the sons of Achaia, Guardian hands of the counsels of Zeus, p.r.o.nouncing the judgement, Hold it aloft; so now unto thee shall the oath have its portent; Loud will the cry for Achilles burst from the sons of Achaia Throughout the army, and thou chafe powerless, though in an anguish, How to give succour when vast crops down under man-slaying Hector Tumble expiring; and thou deep in thee shalt tear at thy heart- strings, Rage-wrung, thou, that in nought thou didst honour the flower of Achaians."

MARSHALLING OF THE ACHAIANS--Iliad, ii 455

Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous, Up on a mountain height, and the blaze of it radiates round far, So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did the splendour Gleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky- vault.

They, now, as when swarm thick in the air mult.i.tudinous winged flocks, Be it of geese or of cranes or the long-necked troops of the wild- swans, Off that Asian mead, by the flow of the waters of Kaistros; Hither and yon fly they, and rejoicing in pride of their pinions, Clamour, shaped to their ranks, and the mead all about them resoundeth; So those numerous tribes from their s.h.i.+ps and their shelterings poured forth On that plain of Scamander, and horrible rumbled beneath them Earth to the quick-paced feet of the men and the tramp of the horse- hooves.

Stopped they then on the fair-flower'd field of Scamander, their thousands Many as leaves and the blossoms born of the flowerful season.

Even as countless hot-pressed flies in their mult.i.tudes traverse, Clouds of them, under some herdsman's wonning, where then are the milk-pails Also, full of their milk, in the bountiful season of spring-time; Even so thickly the long-haired sons of Achaia the plain held, Prompt for the dash at the Trojan host, with the pa.s.sion to crush them.

Those, likewise, as the goatherds, eyeing their vast flocks of goats, know Easily one from the other when all get mixed o'er the pasture, So did the chieftains rank them here there in their places for onslaught, Hard on the push of the fray; and among them King Agamemnon, He, for his eyes and his head, as when Zeus glows glad in his thunder, He with the girdle of Ares, he with the breast of Poseidon.

AGAMEMNON IN THE FIGHT--Iliad, xi, 148

These, then, he left, and away where ranks were now clas.h.i.+ng the thickest, Onward rushed, and with him rushed all of the bright-greaved Achaians.

Foot then footmen slew, that were flying from direful compulsion, Horse at the hors.e.m.e.n (up from off under them mounted the dust- cloud, Up off the plain, raised up cloud-thick by the thundering horse- hooves) Hewed with the sword's sharp edge; and so meanwhile Lord Agamemnon Followed, chasing and slaughtering aye, on-urgeing the Argives.

Now, as when fire voracious catches the unclipped wood-land, This way bears it and that the great whirl of the wind, and the scrubwood Stretches uptorn, flung forward alength by the fire's fury rageing, So beneath Atreides Agamemnon heads of the scattered Trojans fell; and in numbers amany the horses, neck-stiffened, Rattled their vacant cars down the roadway gaps of the war-field, Missing the blameless charioteers, but, for these, they were outstretched Flat upon earth, far dearer to vultures than to their home-mates.

PARIS AND DIOMEDES--Iliad, xi, 378

So he, with a clear shout of laughter, Forth of his ambush leapt, and he vaunted him, uttering thiswise: "Hit thou art! not in vain flew the shaft; how by rights it had pierced thee Into the undermost gut, therewith to have rived thee of life-breath!

Following that had the Trojans plucked a new breath from their direst, They all frighted of thee, as the goats bleat in flight from a lion."

Then unto him untroubled made answer stout Diomedes: "Bow-puller, jiber, thy bow for thy glorying, spyer at virgins!

If that thou dared'st face me here out in the open with weapons, Nothing then would avail thee thy bow and thy thick shot of arrows.

Now thou plumest thee vainly because of a graze of my footsole; Reck I as were that stroke from a woman or some pettish infant.

Aye flies blunted the dart of the man that's emasculate, noughtworth!

Otherwise hits, forth flying from me, and but strikes it the slightest, My keen shaft, and it numbers a man of the dead fallen straightway.

Torn, troth, then are the cheeks of the wife of that man fallen slaughtered, Orphans his babes, full surely he reddens the earth with his blood- drops, Rotting, round him the birds, more numerous they than the women."

HYPNOS ON IDA--Iliad, xiv, 283

They then to fountain-abundant Ida, mother of wild beasts, Came, and they first left ocean to fare over mainland at Lektos, Where underneath of their feet waved loftiest growths of the woodland.

There hung Hypnos fast, ere the vision of Zeus was observant, Mounted upon a tall pine-tree, tallest of pines that on Ida l.u.s.tily spring off soil for the shoot up aloft into aether.

There did he sit well-cloaked by the wide-branched pine for concealment, That loud bird, in his form like, that perched high up in the mountains, Chalkis is named by the G.o.ds, but of mortals known as Kymindis.

CLASH IN ARMS OF THE ACHAIANS AND TROJANS--Iliad, xvii, 426

Not the sea-wave so bellows abroad when it bursts upon s.h.i.+ngle, Whipped from the sea's deeps up by the terrible blast of the Northwind; Nay, nor is ever the roar of the fierce fire's rush so arousing, Down along mountain-glades, when it surges to kindle a woodland; Nay, nor so tonant thunders the stress of the gale in the oak-trees'

Foliage-tresses high, when it rages to raveing its utmost; As rose then stupendous the Trojan's cry and Achaians', Dread upshouting as one when together they clashed in the conflict.

THE HORSES OF ACHILLES--Iliad, xvii, 426

So now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground, Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrown there, Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector.

Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores, Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift whip, and oft, too, Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten.

Vainly, for these would not to the s.h.i.+ps, to the h.e.l.lespont s.p.a.cious, Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians.

Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone, Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under; Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car, Earthward bowed with their heads; and of them so lamenting incessant Ran the hot teardrops downward on to the earth from their eyelids, Mourning their charioteer; all their l.u.s.trous manes dusty-clotted, Right side and left of the yoke-ring tossed, to the breadth of the yoke-bow.

Now when the issue of Kronos beheld that sorrow, his head shook Pitying them for their grief, these words then he spake in his bosom; "Why, ye hapless, gave we to Peleus you, to a mortal Master; ye that are ageless both, ye both of you deathless!

Was it that ye among men most wretched should come to have heart- grief?

'Tis most true, than the race of these men is there wretcheder nowhere Aught over earth's range found that is gifted with breath and has movement."

THE MARES OF THE CAMARGUE--From the 'Mireio' of Mistral

A hundred mares, all white! their manes Like mace-reed of the marshy plains Thick-tufted, wavy, free o' the shears: And when the fiery squadron rears Bursting at speed, each mane appears Even as the white scarf of a fay Floating upon their necks along the heavens away.

O race of humankind, take shame!

For never yet a hand could tame, Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdue The mares of the Camargue. I have known, By treason snared, some captives shown; Expatriate from their native Rhone, Led off, their saline pastures far from view:

And on a day, with prompt rebound, They have flung their riders to the ground, And at a single gallop, scouring free, Wide-nostril'd to the wind, twice ten Of long marsh-leagues devour'd, and then, Back to the Vacares again, After ten years of slavery just to breathe salt sea

For of this savage race unbent, The ocean is the element.

Of old escaped from Neptune's car, full sure, Still with the white foam fleck'd are they, And when the sea puffs black from grey, And s.h.i.+ps part cables, loudly neigh The stallions of Camargue, all joyful in the roar;

And keen as a whip they lash and crack Their tails that drag the dust, and back Scratch up the earth, and feel, entering their flesh, where he, The G.o.d, drives deep his trident teeth, Who in one horror, above, beneath, Bids storm and watery deluge seethe, And shatters to their depths the abysses of the sea.

Cant. iv.