a father's and a mother's woe: Let their large gifts procure an urn at least, And Hector's ashes in his country rest." "No, wretch accursed! relentless he replies; (Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes;) Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer. Could I myself the bloody banquet join! No--to the dogs that carcase I resign. Should Troy, to bribe me, bring forth all her store, And giving thousands, offer thousands more; Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame, Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame: Their Hector on the pile they should not see, Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee." Then thus the chief his dying accents drew: "Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew: The Furies that relentless breast have steel'd, And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield. Yet think, a day will come, when fate's decree And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee; Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate, And stretch thee here before the Scaean gate."(278) He ceased. The Fates suppress'd his labouring breath, And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death; To the dark realm the spirit wings its way, (The manly body left a load of clay,) And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost! Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes O'er the dead hero, thus unheard, replies: "Die thou the first! When Jove and heaven ordain, I follow thee"--He said, and stripp'd the slain. Then forcing backward from the gaping wound The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground. The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes His manly beauty and superior size; While some, ignobler, the great dead deface With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace: "How changed that Hector, who like Jove of late Sent lightning on our fleets, and scatter'd fate!" High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, Begirt with heroes and