Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (3 page)
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Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
Opening Invocation of the Mus
e: Book I
Translated by Alexander Pope
ACHILLES’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber’d, heav’nly Goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurl’d to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain:
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore,
5
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore:
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the Sov’reign doom, and such the will of Jove!
Declare, O Muse! in what ill-fated hour
Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power?
10
Latona’s son a dire contagion spread,
And heap’d the camp with mountains of the dead;
The King of Men his rev’rend priest defied,
And for the King’s offence, the people died.
For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
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His captive daughter from the victor’s chain.
Suppliant the venerable father stands;
Apollo’s awful ensigns grace his hands:
By these he begs: and, lowly bending down,
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown.
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He sued to all, but chief implored for grace
The brother-kings of Atreus’ royal race:
‘Ye Kings and Warriors! may your vows be crown’d,
And Troy’s proud walls lie level with the ground;
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o’er,
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Safe to the pleasures of your native shore.
But oh! relieve a wretched parent’s pain,
And give Chryseïs to these arms again;
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move,
And dread avenging Phœbus, son of Jove.’
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The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare,
The Priest to rev’rence and release the Fair.
Not so Atrides: he, with kingly pride,
Repuls’d the sacred sire, and thus replied:
‘Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains,
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Nor ask, presumptuous, what the King detains:
Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod,
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy God.
Mine is thy daughter, Priest, and shall remain;
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain;
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Till time shall rifle ev’ry youthful grace,
And age dismiss her from my cold embrace,
In daily labours of the loom employ’d,
Or doom’d to deck the bed she once enjoy’d.
Hence then! to Argos shall the maid retire,
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Far from her native soil, and weeping sire.’
The trembling priest along the shore return’d,
And in the anguish of a father mourn’d.
Disconsolate, not daring to complain,
Silent he wander’d by the sounding main:
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Till, safe at distance, to his God he prays,
The God who darts around the world his rays.
‘O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona’s line,
Thou guardian power of Cilla the divine,
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
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And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa’s shores;
If e’er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain,
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ,
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy.’
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List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Translated by William Cowper
To whom the illustrious Lycian Chief replied.
Why asks brave Diomede of my descent?
For, as the leaves, such is the race of man.
The wind shakes down the leaves, the budding grove
Soon teems with others, and in spring they grow.
So pass mankind. One generation meets
Its destined period, and a new succeeds.
But since thou seem’st desirous to be taught
My pedigree, whereof no few have heard,
Know that in Argos, in the very lap
Of Argos, for her steed-grazed meadows famed,
Stands Ephyra;
there Sisyphus abode,
Shrewdest of human kind; Sisyphus, named
Æolides. Himself a son begat,
Glaucus, and he Bellerophon, to whom
The Gods both manly force and beauty gave.
Him Prœtus (for in Argos at that time
Prœtus was sovereign, to whose sceptre Jove
Had subjected the land) plotting his death,
Contrived to banish from his native home.
For fair Anteia, wife of Prœtus, mad
Through love of young Bellerophon, him oft
In secret to illicit joys enticed;
But she prevail’d not o’er the virtuous mind
Discrete of whom she wooed; therefore a lie
Framing, she royal Prœtus thus bespake.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Hector’s Farewell of His Wife Andromache and Son: Book VI
Translated by Alexander Pope
He said, and pass’d with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul’s far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
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Had thence retired; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion’s tow’ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken’d at the sight;
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore,
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Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore.
But he who found not whom his soul desired,
Whose virtue charm’d him as her beauty fired,
Stood in the gates, and asked what way she bent
Her parting steps? If to the fane she went,
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Where late the mourning matrons made resort;
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court?
‘Not to the court’ (replied th’ attendant train),
‘Nor, mixed with matrons, to Minerva’s fane:
To Ilion’s steepy tower she bent her way,
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To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day.
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword:
She heard, and trembled for her distant lord;
Distracted with surprise, she seemed to fly,
Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye.
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The nurse attended with her infant boy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy.’
Hector, this heard, return’d without delay;
Swift thro’ the town he trod his former way,
Thro’ streets of palaces and walks of state;
490
And met the mourner at the Scæan gate.
With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair,
His blameless wife, Eëtion’s wealthy heir
(Cicilian Thebé great Eëtion sway’d,
And Hippoplacus’ wide-extended shade):
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The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press’d,
His only hope hung smiling at her breast,
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn,
Fair as the new-born that gilds the morn.
To this lov’d infant Hector gave the name
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Scamandrius, from Scamander’s honour’d stream:
Astyanax the Trojans call’d the boy,
From his great father, the defence of Troy.
Silent the warrior smil’d, and, pleas’d, resign’d
To tender passions all his mighty mind:
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His beauteous Princess cast a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke;
Her bosom labour’d with a boding sigh,
And the big tear stood trembling in her eye.
‘Too daring Prince! ah, whither dost thou run?
510
Ah too forgetful of thy wife and son!
And think’st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, a helpless orphan he!
For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue’s sacrifice.
515
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain!
Oh grant me, Gods! ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of Heav’n, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
520
And end with sorrows as they first begun.
No parent now remains, my griefs to share,
No father’s aid, no mother’s tender care.
The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire,
Laid Thebé waste, and slew my warlike sire!
525
His fate compassion in the victor bred;
Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead,
His radiant arms preserv’d from hostile spoil,
And laid him decent on the funeral pile;
Then raised a mountain where his bones were burn’d;
530
The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorn’d;
Jove’s sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow
A barren shade, and in his honour grow.
‘By the same arm my sev’n brave brothers fell;
In one sad day beheld the gates of Hell;
535
While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed,
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled!
My mother lived to bear the victor’s bands,
The Queen of Hippoplacia’s sylvan lands:
Redeem’d too late, she scarce beheld again
540
Her pleasing empire and her native plain,
When, ah! oppress’d by life-consuming woe,
She fell a victim to Diana’s bow.
‘Yet while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee.
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Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all,
Once more will perish if my Hector fall.
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share;
Oh prove a husband’s and a father’s care!
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,
550
Where you wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy:
Thou, from this tower defend th’ important post;
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host,
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain,
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train.
555
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have giv’n,
Or led by hopes, or dictated from Heav’n.
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy.’
The Chief replied: ‘That post shall be my car,
560
Nor that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown’d,
And Troy’s proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,
Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame?
565
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to th’ embattled plains:
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father’s glories, and my own.
Yet come it will, the day decreed by Fates
570
(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates)!
The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother’s death, the ruin of my kind,
575
Not Priam’s hoary hairs defiled with gore,
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore;
As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread;
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!
In Argive looms our battles to design,
580
And woes of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor’s hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hyperia’s spring.
There, while you groan beneath the load of life,
They cry, Behold the mighty Hector’s wife!
585
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,
Embitters all thy woes by naming me.
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
A thousand griefs, shall waken at the name!
May I lie cold before that dreadful day,
590
Press’d with a load of monumental clay!
Thy Hector, wrapp’d in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep.’
Thus having spoke, th’ illustrious Chief of Troy
Stretch’d his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
595
The babe clung crying to his nurse’s breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smil’d,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child;
The glitt’ring terrors from his brows unbound,
600
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground.
Then kiss’d the child, and, lifting high in air,
Thus to the Gods preferr’d a father’s prayer:
‘O thou! whose glory fills th’ ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless Powers! protect my son!
605
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country’s foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when, triumphant from successful toils
610
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserv’d acclaim,
And say, This Chief transcends his father’s fame:
While pleas’d, amidst the gen’ral shouts of Troy,
His mother’s conscious heart o’erflows with joy.’
615
He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,
Restor’d the pleasing burden to her arms;
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
Hush’d to repose, and with a smile survey’d.
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
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She mingled with the smile a tender tear.
The soften’d Chief with kind compassion view’d,
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued:
‘Andromache! my soul’s far better part,
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?
625
No hostile hand can antedate my doom,
Till Fate condemns me to the silent tomb.
Fix’d is the term to all the race of earth,
And such the hard condition of our birth.
No force can then resist, no flight can save;
630
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave.
No more — but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom:
Me glory summons to the martial scene,
The field of combat is the sphere for men.
635
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,
The first in danger as the first in fame.’
Thus having said, the glorious Chief resumes
His tow’ry helmet, black with shading plumes.
His Princess parts with a prophetic sigh,
640
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye,
That stream’d at ev’ry look: then, moving slow,
Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe.
There, while her tears deplor’d the godlike man,
Thro’ all her train the soft infection ran;
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The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed,
And mourn the living Hector as the dead.
But now, no longer deaf to honour’s call,
Forth issues Paris from the palace wall.
In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray,
650
Swift thro’ the town the warrior bends his way.
The wanton courser thus, with reins unbound,
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground;
Pamper’d and proud he seeks the wonted tides,
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides:
655
His head now freed he tosses to the skies;
His mane dishevell’d o’er his shoulders flies;
He snuffs the females in the distant plain,
And springs, exulting, to his fields again.
With equal triumph, sprightly, bold, and gay,
660
In arms refulgent as the God of Day,
The son of Priam, glorying in his might,
Rush’d forth with Hector to the fields of fight.
And now the warriors passing on the way,
The graceful Paris first excused his stay.
665
To whom the noble Hector thus replied:
‘O Chief! in blood, and now in arms, allied!
Thy power in war with justice none contest;
Known is thy courage, and thy strength confess’d.
What pity, sloth should seize a soul so brave,
670
Or godlike Paris live a woman’s slave!
My heart weeps blood at what the Trojans say,
And hopes thy deeds shall wipe the stain away.
Haste then, in all their glorious labours share;
For much they suffer, for thy sake, in war.
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These ills shall cease, whene’er by Jove’s decree
We crown the bowl to Heav’n and Liberty:
While the proud foe his frustrate triumphs mourns,
And Greece indignant thro’ her seas returns.’
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order