The admiring chiefs, and all the Grecian name,

With general shouts return'd him loud acclaim.

Then thus the king of kings rejects the peace:

Herald! in him thou hear'st the voice of Greece

For what remains; let funeral flames be fed

With heroes' corps: I war not with the dead:

Go search your slaughtered chiefs on yonder plain,

And gratify the manes of the slain.

Be witness, Jove, whose thunder rolls on high!"

He said, and rear'd his sceptre to the sky.

To sacred Troy, where all her princes lay

To wait the event, the herald bent his way.

He came, and standing in the midst, explain'd

The peace rejected, but the truce obtain'd.

Straight to their several cares the Trojans move,

Some search the plains, some fell the sounding grove:

Nor less the Greeks, descending on the shore,

Hew'd the green forests, and the bodies bore.

And now from forth the chambers of the main,

To shed his sacred light on earth again,

Arose the golden chariot of the day,

And tipp'd the mountains with a purple ray.

In mingled throngs the Greek and Trojan train

Through heaps of carnage search'd the mournful plain.

304

The Iliad of Homer