THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES.
FROM THE “ILIAD.”
* * * * *
He also graved on it a fallow field,
Rich, spacious, and well tilled. Plowers not few,
There driving to and fro their sturdy teams,
Labor’d the land; and oft as in their course
They came to the field’s bourn, so oft a man
Met them, who in their hands a goblet placed,
Charged with delicious wine. They, turning, wrought
Each his own furrow, and impatient seem’d
To reach the border of the tilth, which black
Appear’d behind them as a glebe new-turn’d,
Though golden, sight to be admired by all!
There, too, he form’d the likeness of a field,
Crowded with corn, in which the reapers toil’d
Each with a sharp-tooth’d sickle in his hand.
Along the furrow here the harvest fell
In frequent handfuls, there they bound the sheaves.
Three binders of the sheaves their sultry task
All plied industrious, and behind them boys
Attended, filling with the corn their arms,
And offering still their bundles to be bound.
Amid them, staff in hand, the master stood
Silent exulting, while beneath an oak
Apart, his heralds busily prepared
The banquet, dressing a well-thriven ox,
New slain, and the attendant maidens mix’d
Large supper for the hinds of whitest flour.
There, also, laden with its fruit, he form’d
A vineyard all of gold; purple he made
The clusters, and the vines supported, stood
By poles of silver set in even rows.
The trench he color’d sable, and around
Fenced it with tin. One only path it show’d
By which the gatherers, when they stripp’d the vines,
Pass’d and repass’d. There, youths and maidens blithe,
In pails of wicker bore the luscious fruit,
While in the midst a boy, on his shrill harp,
Harmonious play’d; still as he struck the chord,
Carolling to it with a slender voice,
They smote the ground together, and with song
And sprightly reed came dancing on behind.
There, too, a herd he fashion’d of tall beeves,
Part gold, part tin; they, lowing, from the stalls
Rush’d forth to pasture by a river-side,
Rapid, sonorous, fringed with whispering reeds.
Four golden herdsmen drove the kine a-field,
By nine swift dogs attended. Dreadful sprang
Two lions forth, and of the foremost herd,
Seized fast a bull. Him, bellowing, they dragg’d,
While dogs and peasants all flew to his aid.
The lions tore the hide of the huge prey,
And lapp’d his entrails and his blood. Meantime
The herdsmen, troubling them in vain, their hounds
Encouraged; but no tooth for lion’s flesh
Found they, and therefore stood aside and bark’d.
There, also, the illustrious smith divine
Amidst a pleasant grove a pasture found
Spacious, and sprinkled o’er with silver sheep
Numerous, and stalls, and huts, and shepherds’ tents.
Translation of William Cowper. Homer.