held: the Grecian lord Drew the broad cutlass sheath'd beside his sword: The stubborn bristles from the victim's brow He crops, and offering meditates his vow. His hands uplifted to the attesting skies, On heaven's broad marble roof were fixed his eyes. The solemn words a deep attention draw, And Greece around sat thrill'd with sacred awe. "Witness thou first! thou greatest power above, All-good, all-wise, and all-surveying Jove! And mother-earth, and heaven's revolving light, And ye, fell furies of the realms of night, Who rule the dead, and horrid woes prepare For perjured kings, and all who falsely swear! The black-eyed maid inviolate removes, Pure and unconscious of my manly loves. If this be false, heaven all its vengeance shed, And levell'd thunder strike my guilty head!" With that, his weapon deep inflicts the wound; The bleeding savage tumbles to the ground; The sacred herald rolls the victim slain (A feast for fish) into the foaming main. Then thus Achilles: "Hear, ye Greeks! and know Whate'er we feel, 'tis Jove inflicts the woe; Not else Atrides could our rage inflame, Nor from my arms, unwilling, force the dame. 'Twas Jove's high will alone, o'erruling all, That doom'd our strife, and doom'd the Greeks to fall. Go then, ye chiefs! indulge the genial rite; Achilles waits ye, and expects the fight." The speedy council at his word adjourn'd: To their black vessels all the Greeks return'd. Achilles sought his tent. His train before March'd onward, bending with the gifts they bore. Those in the tents the squires industrious spread: The foaming coursers to the stalls they led; To their new seats the female captives move Briseis, radiant as the queen of love, Slow as she pass'd, beheld with sad survey Where, gash'd with cruel wounds, Patroclus lay. Prone on the body fell the heavenly fair, Beat her sad breast, and tore her golden hair; All beautiful in grief, her humid eyes