344 [from Homer’s Iliad Book 12]
… Through the wall, uprore]
stood up on end.
Nor had great Hector and his friends, the rampire
overrun,
If heavens great Counsellour, high Jove, had not
inflam’d his sonne
Sarpedon (like the forrests king, when he on Oxen
flies)
5 Against the Grecians: his round targe, he to his arme
applies
Brasse-leav’d without: and all within, thicke Oxe-
hides quilted hard:
The verge nail’d round with rods of gold, and with
two darts prepard;
He leades his people: as ye see, a mountaine Lion
fare,
Long kept from prey: in forcing which, his high
mind makes him dare,
10 Assault upon the whole full fold: though guarded
never so
With well-arm’d men, and eager dogs; away he
will not go,
But venture on, and either snatch, a prey, or be a
prey:
So far’d divine Sarpedons mind, resolv’d to force his
way
Through all the fore-fights, and the wall: yet since
he did not see
15 Others, as great as he, in name, as great in mind as he: He spake to Glaucus: Glaucus, say, why are we honord more Then other men of Lycia, in place? with greater store | Sarpedons speech to |
Of meates and cups? with goodlier roofes?
delightsome gardens? walks?
More lands, and better? so much wealth, that Court
and countrie talks
20 Of us, and our possessions; and every way we go,
Gaze on us as we were their Gods? this where we
dwell, is so:
The shores of Xanthus ring of this; and shall not we
exceed,
As much in merit, as in noise? Come, be we great
in deed
As well as looke; shine not in gold, but in the flames
of fight;
25 That so our neat-arm’d-Lycians, may say; See, these
are right
Our kings, our Rulers; these deserve, to eate, and
drinke the best;
These governe not ingloriously: these, thus exceed
the rest,
Do more then they command to do. O friend, if
keeping backe
Would keepe backe age from us, and death; and
that we might not wracke
30 In this lifes humane sea at all: but that deferring
now
We shund death ever; nor would I, halfe this vaine
valour show,
Nor glorifie a folly so, to wish thee to advance:
But since we must go, though not here; and that,
besides the chance
Proposd now, there are infinite fates, of other sort
in death,
35 Which (neither to be fled nor scap’t) a man must
sinke beneath:
Come, trie we, if this sort be ours: and either render
thus,
Glorie to others, or make them, resigne the like to
us.