No More Learning

Then fierce Tydides stoops; and from the fields
Heaved with vast force, a rocky fragment wields.
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days:(147)
He swung it round; and, gathering strength to throw,
Discharged the ponderous ruin at the foe.
Where to the hip the inserted thigh unites,
Full on the bone the pointed marble lights;
Through both the tendons broke the rugged stone,
And stripp'd the skin, and crack'd the solid bone.
Sunk on his knees, and staggering with his pains,
His falling bulk his bended arm sustains;
Lost in a dizzy mist the warrior lies;
A sudden cloud comes swimming o'er his eyes.
There the brave chief, who mighty numbers sway'd,
Oppress'd had sunk to death's eternal shade,
But heavenly Venus, mindful of the love
She bore Anchises in the Idaean grove,
His danger views with anguish and despair,
And guards her offspring with a mother's care.
About her much-loved son her arms she throws,
Her arms whose whiteness match the falling snows.
Screen'd from the foe behind her shining veil,
The swords wave harmless, and the javelins fail;
Safe through the rushing horse, and feather'd flight
Of sounding shafts, she bears him from the fight.

Nor Sthenelus, with unassisting hands,
Remain'd unheedful of his lord's commands:
His panting steeds, removed from out the war,
He fix'd with straiten'd traces to the car,
Next, rushing to the Dardan spoil, detains
The heavenly coursers with the flowing manes:
These in proud triumph to the fleet convey'd,
No longer now a Trojan lord obey'd.
That charge to bold Deipylus he gave,
(Whom most he loved, as brave men love the brave,)
Then mounting on his car, resumed the rein,
And follow'd where Tydides swept the plain.

Meanwhile (his conquest ravished from his eyes)
The raging chief in chase of Venus flies:
No goddess she, commission'd to the field,
Like Pallas dreadful with her sable shield,
Or fierce Bellona thundering at the wall,
While flames ascend, and mighty ruins fall;
He knew soft combats suit the tender dame,
New to the field, and still a foe to fame.
Through breaking ranks his furious course he bends,
And at the goddess his broad lance extends;
Through her bright veil the daring weapon drove,
The ambrosial veil which all the Graces wove;
Her snowy hand the razing steel profaned,
And the transparent skin with crimson stain'd,
From the clear vein a stream immortal flow'd,
Such stream as issues from a wounded god;(148)
Pure emanation! uncorrupted flood!
Unlike our gross, diseased, terrestrial blood:
(For not the bread of man their life sustains,
Nor wine's inflaming juice supplies their veins:)
With tender shrieks the goddess fill'd the place,
And dropp'd her offspring from her weak embrace.
Him Phoebus took: he casts a cloud around
The fainting chief, and wards the mortal wound.

Then with a voice that shook the vaulted skies,
The king insults the goddess as she flies:
"Ill with Jove's daughter bloody fights agree,
The field of combat is no scene for thee:
Go, let thy own soft sex employ thy care,
Go, lull the coward, or delude the fair.
Taught by this stroke renounce the war's alarms,
And learn to tremble at the name of arms. "

Tydides thus. The goddess, seized with dread,
Confused, distracted, from the conflict fled.
To aid her, swift the winged Iris flew,
Wrapt in a mist above the warring crew.
The queen of love with faded charms she found.
Pale was her cheek, and livid look'd the wound.
To Mars, who sat remote, they bent their way:
Far, on the left, with clouds involved he lay;
Beside him stood his lance, distain'd with gore,
And, rein'd with gold, his foaming steeds before.
Low at his knee, she begg'd with streaming eyes
Her brother's car, to mount the distant skies,
And show'd the wound by fierce Tydides given,
A mortal man, who dares encounter heaven.
Stern Mars attentive hears the queen complain,
And to her hand commits the golden rein;
She mounts the seat, oppress'd with silent woe,
Driven by the goddess of the painted bow.
The lash resounds, the rapid chariot flies,
And in a moment scales the lofty skies:
They stopp'd the car, and there the coursers stood,
Fed by fair Iris with ambrosial food;
Before her mother, love's bright queen appears,
O'erwhelmed with anguish, and dissolved in tears:
She raised her in her arms, beheld her bleed,
And ask'd what god had wrought this guilty deed?

[Illustration: VENUS, WOUNDED IN THE HAND, CONDUCTED BY IRIS TO MARS. ]

VENUS, WOUNDED IN THE HAND, CONDUCTED BY IRIS TO MARS.


Then she: "This insult from no god I found,
An impious mortal gave the daring wound!
Behold the deed of haughty Diomed!
'Twas in the son's defence the mother bled.
The war with Troy no more the Grecians wage;
But with the gods (the immortal gods) engage.