The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope

A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period

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,

Had thence retir’d; 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,

Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore.

But he, who found not whom his soul desir’d,

Whose virtue charm’d him as her beauty fir’d,

Stood in the gates, and ask’d what way she bent

Her parting steps; if to the fane she went,

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 tow’r she bent her way,

To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day.

Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword;

She heard, and trembled for her absent lord.

Distracted with surprise, she seem’d to fly,

Fear on her cheek and sorrow in her eye.

The nurse attended with her infant boy,

The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy.”

Hector, this heard, return’d without delay;

Swift through the town he trod his former way

Through streets of palaces and walks of state,

And met the mourner at the Scæan gate.

With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair,

His blameless wife, E{“e}tion’s wealthy heir

(Cilician Thebè great E{“e}tion sway’d,

And Hippoplacus’ wide-extended shade);

The nurse stood near, in whose embraces prest

His only hope hung smiling at her breast,

Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn,

Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn.

To this lov’d infant Hector gave the name

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:

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?

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.

Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;

Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain!

Oh, grant me, gods! e’er Hector meets his doom,

All I can ask of heav’n, an early tomb!

So shall my days in one sad tenor run,

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 wrapp’d our walls in fire,

Laid Thebè waste, and slew my warlike sire!

His fate compassion in the victor bred;

Stern as he was, he yet rever’d the dead,

His radiant arms preserv’d from hostile spoil,

And laid him decent on the fun’ral pile;

Then rais’d a mountain where his bones were burn’d:

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:

While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed,

Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled!

My mother liv’d to bear the victor’s bands,

The queen of Hippoplacia’s sylvan lands;

Redeem’d too late, she scarce beheld again

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:

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,

Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy:

Thou from this tow’r 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.

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 care,

Not 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?

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,

(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,

Not Priam’s hoary hairs defil’d 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,

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!’

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,

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.

The babe clung crying to his nurse’s breast,

Scar’d 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,

And plac’d 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 pray’r:

“O thou! whose glory fills th’ ethereal throne,

And all ye deathless pow’rs! protect my son!

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,

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.”

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,

Restor’d the pleasing burthen 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 chastis’d by fear,

She mingled with the smile a tender tear.

The soften’d chief with kind compassion view’d,

And dried the falling drops, and thus pursu’d:

“Andromache! my soul’s far better part,

Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?

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;

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.

Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,

The first in danger as the first in fame.”

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