Her shalt thou wound: so Pallas gives command."

With that, the blue-eyed virgin wing'd her flight;

The hero rush'd impetuous to the fight;

With tenfold ardour now invades the plain,

Wild with delay, and more enraged by pain.

As on the fleecy flocks when hunger calls,

Amidst the field a brindled lion falls;

If chance some shepherd with a distant dart

The savage wound, he rouses at the smart,

He foams, he roars; the shepherd dares not stay,

But trembling leaves the scattering flocks a prey;

Heaps fall on heaps; he bathes with blood the ground,

Then leaps victorious o'er the lofty mound.

Not with less fury stern Tydides flew;

And two brave leaders at an instant slew;

Astynous breathless fell, and by his side,

His people's pastor, good Hypenor, died;

Astynous' breast the deadly lance receives,

Hypenor's shoulder his broad falchion cleaves.

Those slain he left, and sprung with noble rage

Abas and Polyidus to engage;

Sons of Eurydamus, who, wise and old,

Could fate foresee, and mystic dreams unfold;

The youths return'd not from the doubtful plain,

And the sad father tried his arts in vain;

214

The Iliad of Homer