style="font-size:15px;"> Of his bad quarrel, laid by him in dust, and eating earth."He pray'd; Jove heard him not, but made more plentiful the birth
Of his sad toils, yet took his gifts. Pray'rs past, cakes on they
threw;
The ox then, to the altar drawn, they kill'd, and from him drew
His hide, then cut him up, his thighs; in two hewn, dubb'd with
fat,
Prick'd on the sweetbreads, and with wood, leaveless, and kindled
at
Apposéd fire, they burn the thighs; which done, the inwards, slit,
They broil'd on coals and eat; the rest, in giggots cut, they spit,
Roast cunningly, draw, sit, and feast; nought lack'd to leave
allay'd
Each temp'rate appetite; which serv'd, Nestor began and said:
"Atrides, most grac'd king of men, now no more words allow,
Nor more defer the deed Jove vows. Let heralds summon now
The brazen-coated Greeks, and us range ev'rywhere the host,
To stir a strong war quickly up." This speech no syllable lost;
The high-voic'd heralds instantly he, charg'd to call to arms
The curl'd-head Greeks; they call'd; the Greeks straight answer'd
their alarms.
The Jove-kept kings, about the king all gather'd, with their aid
Rang'd all in tribes and nations. With them the gray-eyed Maid
Great Ægis (Jove's bright shield) sustain'd, that can be never old,
Never corrupted, fring'd about with serpents forg'd of gold,
As many all suffic'd to make an hundred fringes, worth
An hundred oxen, ev'ry snake all sprawling, all set forth
With wondrous spirit. Through the host with this the Goddess ran,
In fury casting round her eyes, and furnish'd ev'ry man
With strength, exciting all to arms, and fight incessant. None
Now lik'd their lov'd homes like the wars. And as a fire upon
A huge wood, on the heights of hills, that far off hurls his light;
So the divine brass shin'd on these thus thrusting on for fight,
Their splendour through the air reach'd heav'n. And as about the
flood
Caïster, in an Asian mead, flocks of the airy brood,
Cranes, geese, or long-neck'd swans, here, there, proud of their
pinions fly,
And in their falls layout such throats, that with their spiritful
cry
The meadow shrieks again; so here, these many-nation'd men
Flow'd over the Scamandrian field, from tents and ships; the din
Was dreadful that the feet of men and horse beat out of earth.
And in the flourishing mead they stood, thick as the odorous birth
Of flow'rs, or leaves bred in the spring; or thick as swarms of
flies
Throng then to sheep-cotes, when each swarm his erring wing applies
To milk dew'd on the milk-maid's pails; all eagerly dispos'd
To give to ruin th' Ilians. And as in rude heaps clos'd,
Though huge goatherds are at their food, the goatherds eas'ly yet
Sort into sundry herds; so here the chiefs in battle set
Here tribes, here nations, ord'ring all. Amongst whom shin'd the
king,
With eyes like lightning-loving Jove, his forehead answering,
In breast like Neptune, Mars in waist. And as a goodly bull
Most eminent of all a herd, most wrong, most masterful,
So Agamemnon, Jove that day made overheighten clear
That heav'n-bright army, and preferr'd to all th' heroës there.
Now tell me, Muses, you that dwell in heav'nly roofs, (for you
Are Goddesses, are present here, are wise, and all things know,
We only trust the voice of fame, know nothing,) who they were
That here were captains of the Greeks, commanding princes here.
The multitude exceed my song, though fitted to my choice
Ten tongues were, harden'd palates ten, a breast of brass, a voice
Infract and trump-like; that great work, unless the seed of Jove,
The deathless Muses, undertake, maintains a pitch above
All mortal pow'rs. The princes then, and navy that did bring
Those so inenarrable troops, and all their soils, I sing.
Peleüs, and Leitus, all that Bœotia bred,
Arcesilaus, Clonius, and Prothoenor led;
Th' inhabitants of Hyria, and stony Aulida,
Schæne, Scole, the hilly Eteon, and holy Thespia,
Of Græa, and great Mycalesse, that hath the ample plain,
Of Harma, and Ilesius, and all that did remain
In Eryth, and in Eleon, in Hylen, Peteona,
In fair Ocalea, and, the town well-builded, Medeona,
Copas, Eutresis, Thisbe, that for pigeons doth surpass,
Of Coroneia, Haliart, that hath such store of grass,
All those that in Platæa dwelt, that Glissa did possess,
And Hypothebs, whose well-built walls are rare and fellowless,
In rich Onchestus' famous wood, to wat'ry Neptune vow'd,
And Arne, where the vine-trees
