And little heeded he that arrowy rain
The Argive bowmen shower'd in helpless hate.
Nay; not yet feather'd was the shaft of Fate,
His bane, the gift of mighty Heracles
To Philoctetes, lying desolate,
Within a far off island of the seas.



BOOK V--THE WAR



The war round Troy, and how many brave men fell, and chiefly
Sarpedon, Patroclus, Hector, Memnon, and Achilles. The coming of the
Amazon, and the wounding of Paris, and his death, and concerning the
good end that OEnone made.

I.

For ten long years the Argive leaguer lay
Round Priam's folk, and wrought them many woes,
While, as a lion crouch'd above his prey,
The Trojans yet made head against their foes;
And as the swift sea-water ebbs and flows
Between the Straits of Helle and the main,
Even so the tide of battle sank and rose,
And fill'd with waifs of war the Ilian plain.

II.