Achilles! yes! this day at least we bear
Thy rage
in fafety thro' the files of war:
But come it will, the fatal time must come,

Nor ours the fault, but God decrees thy doom. 455
Not thro' our crime, or flowness in the course,
Fell thy Patroclus, but by heav'nly force;
The bright far-shooting God who gilds the day,
(Confest we saw him) tore his arms away.
No-could our swiftness o'er the winds prevail,
Or beat the pinions of the western gale,

461

All were in vain — the Fates thy death demand, Due to a mortal and immortal hand.

Then ceas'd for ever, by the Furies ty'd, His fate-ful voice. Th' intrepid chief reply'd 465

lity. Would not one general answer do better, to say once for all, that the above-cited authors lived in the age of wonders: the tafte of the world has been generally turned to the miraculous; wonders were what the People would have, and what not only the poets, but the priests, gave them. *. 464. Then ceas'd for ever, by the Furies ty'd,

His fate-ful voice.-]

The poet had offended against probability if he had made Juno take away the voice; for Juno (which fignifies the air) is the cause of the voice. Befides, the Poet was willing to intimate that the privation of the voice is a thing so dismal and melancholy, that none but the Furies can take upon them so cruel

With unabated rage-So let it be!
Portents and prodigies are loft on me.
I know my fates: to die, to fee no more
My much-loved parents, and my native shore
Enough-when heav'n ordains, I fink in night; 470
Now perish Troy ! he said, and rush'd to fight.

THE

TWENTIETH BOOK

OF THE

ILIA D.

The ARGUMENT.

The battle of the Gods, and the acts of Achilles.

J

UPITER upon Achilles's return to the battle, calls a council of the Gods, and permits them to affift either party. The terrors of the combat defcribed, when the Deities are engaged. Apollo encourages Æneas to meet Achilles.. After a long converfation, these two heroes encounter; but Eneas is preferved by the affiftance of Neptune. Achilles falls upon the rest of the Trojans, and is upon the point of killing Hector, but Apollo conveys bim away in a cloud. Achilles pursues the Trojans with a great flaughter.

The fame day continues. The fcene is in the field before Troy.

Greece fheath'd in arms, befide her veffels stood; While near impending from a neighb'ring height, Troy's black battalions wait the fhock of fight. Then Jove to Themis gives command, to call 5 The Gods to council in the starry hall :

4. 5. Then Jove to Themis gives command, &c.] The poet is now to bring his hero again into action, and he introduces him with the utmost pomp and grandeur: the Gods are af