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in vain."
Dryden's Virgil, v. 106.
291 Virgil, by making the boaster vanquished, has drawn a better moral
from this episode than Homer. The following lines deserve
comparison:--
"The haughty Dares in the lists appears:
Walking he strides, his head erected bears:
His nervous arms the weighty gauntlet wield,
And loud applauses echo through the field.
* * * *
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to the Grecian powers,
But spared awhile the destined Trojan towers;
While Neptune, rising from his azure main,
Warr'd on the king of heaven with stern disdain,
And breathed revenge, and fired the Grecian train.
Gods of one source, of one ethereal race,
Alike divine, and heaven their native place;
But Jove the greater; first-born of the skies,
And more than men, or gods, supremely wise.
For this, of Jove's superior might afraid,
Neptune in human form conceal'd his aid.
These powers enfold the Greek and Trojan train
In war and discord's adamantine chain,
Indissolubly strong: the fatal tie
Is stretch'd on both, and close compell'd they die.
Dreadful in arms, and grown in combats grey,
The bold Idomeneus controls the day.
First by his hand Othryoneus was slain,
Swell'd with false hopes, with mad ambition vain;
Call'd by the voice of war to martial fame,
From high Cabesus' distant walls he came;
Cassandra's love he sought, with boasts of power,
And promised conquest was the proffer'd dower.
The king consented, by his vaunts abused;
The king consented, but the fates refused.
Proud of himself, and of the imagined bride,
The field he measured with a larger stride.
Him as he stalk'd, the Cretan javelin found;
Vain was his breastplate to repel the wound:
His dream of glory lost, he plunged to hell;
His arms resounded as the boaster fell.
The great Idomeneus bestrides the dead;
"And thus (he cries) behold thy promise sped!
Such is the help thy arms to Ilion bring,
And such the contract of the Phrygian king!
Our offers now, illustrious prince! receive;
For such an aid what will not Argos give?
To conquer Troy, with ours thy forces join,
And count Atrides' fairest daughter thine.
Meantime, on further methods to advise,
Come, follow to the fleet thy new allies;
There hear what Greece has on her part to say."
He spoke, and dragg'd the gory corse away.
This Asius view'd, unable to contain,
Be