Lies undistinguished from the vulgar dead.
His long-disputed corpse the chiefs enclose, 240
On every side the busy combat grows;
Thick as beneath some shepherd’s thatched abode
(The pails high foaming with a milky flood)
The buzzing flies, a persevering train,
Incessant swarm, and chased return again.
Jove viewed the combat with a stern survey,
And eyes that flashed intolerable day.
Fixed on the field his sight, his breast debates
The vengeance due, and meditates the fates:
Whether to urge their prompt effect, and call 250
The force of Hector to Patroclus’ fall,
This instant see his short-lived trophies won,
And stretch him breathless on his slaughtered son;
Or yet, with many a soul’s untimely flight,
Augment the fame and horror of the fight.
To crown Achilles’ valiant friend with praise
At length he dooms; and, that his last of days
Shall set in glory, bids him drive the foe;
Nor unattended see the shades below.
Then Hector’s mind he fills with dire dismay; 260
He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away;
Sunk with Troy’s heavy fates, he sees decline
The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine.
Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled,
And left their monarch with the common dead:
Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall
Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall.
(So Jove decreed!) At length the Greeks obtain
The prize contested, and despoil the slain.
The radiant arms are by Patroclus borne; 270
Patroclus’ ships the glorious spoils adorn.
Then thus to Phoebus, in the realms above,
Spoke from his throne the cloud-compelling Jove:
‘Descend, my Phoebus! on the Phrygian plain,
And from the fight convey Sarpedon slain;
Then bathe his body in the crystal flood,
With dust dishonoured, and deformed with blood;
[270–8]