So from fome deep-grown wood a panther starts,
Rous'd from his thicket by a storm of darts :
Untaught to fear or fly, he hears the founds
Of shouting hunters, and of clam'rous hounds;680
Tho' ftruck, tho'wounded,fcarce perceives the pain;
And the barb'd jav'lin stings his breast in vain :
On their whole war, untam'd the favage flies;
And tears his hunter, or beneath him dies.

Not lefs refolv'd, Antenor's valiant heir

685

Confronts Achilles, and awaits the war,

Disdainful of retreat: high-held before,
His fhield (a broad circumference) he bore;
Then graceful as he ftood, in act to throw
The lifted jav'lin thus bespoke the foe.

690

How proud Achilles glories in his fame! And hopes this day to fink the Trojan name Beneath her ruins! Know, that hope is vain; A thousand woes, a thousand toils remain. Parents and children our juft arms employ, 695 And strong, and many, are the fons of Troy. Great as thou art, ev'n thou may'ft ftain with These Phrygian fields, and press a foreign shore

gore

He said: with matchless force the jav'lin flung Smote on his knee; the hollow cuishes rung 700 Beneath the pointed steel; but fafe from harms He stands impaffive in th' ætherial arms. Then fiercely rushing on the daring foe, His lifted arm prepares the fatal blow:

705

But jealous of his fame Apollo fhrouds
The God-like Trojan in a veil of clouds.
Safe from purfuit, and shut from mortal view,
Difmifs'd with fame, the favour'd youth with-
drew.

Meanwhile the God, to cover their escape,
Affumes Agenor's habit, voice, and shape, 710

*.709. Meanwhile the God, to cover their escape, &c.] The Poet makes a double use of this fiction of Apollo's deceiving Achilles in the shape of Agenor; by these means he draws him from the purfuit, and gives the Trojans time to enter the city, and at the fame time brings Agenor handfomely off from the combat. The moral of this fable is, that Destiny would not yet fuffer Troy to fall.

Euftathius fancies that the occafion of the fiction might be this: Agenor fled from Achilles to the banks of Xanthus, and might there conceal himfelf from the purfuer behind fome covert that grew on the fhores; this perhaps might be the whole of the ftory. So plain a narration would have passed in the mouth of the hiftorian, but the Poet dreffes it in fiction, and tells us that Apollo (or Destiny) concealed him in a cloud from the fight of his enemy.

Flies from the furious chief in this disguife;
The furious chief still follows where he flies.
Now o'er the fields they stretch with lengthen'd
ftrides,

Now urge

the course where swift Scamander glides: The God now, distant scarce a stride before, 715 Tempts his pursuit, and wheels about the shore; While all the flying troops their speed employ, And pour on heaps into the walls of Troy : No stop, no stay; no thought to ask, or tell, Who 'fcap'd by flight, or who by battle fell. 720 'Twas tumult all, and violence of flight; And fudden joy confus'd, and mix'd affright; Pale Troy against Achilles fhuts her gate; And nations breathe, deliver'd from their fate.

The fame author farther obferves, that Achilles by an unseasonable piece of vain-glory, in pursuing a fingle enemy, gives time to a whole army to escape: he neither kills Agenor, nor overtakes the Trojans.

THE END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.