Classic Poem

viii.542

Hector spake to them thus, & the Trojans cheered with applauses.
Straightway then from the yoke did they loosen their ranked sweating horses;
Then tethered they with the thongs each one to the lock of its war-car.
Oxen, good grand sheep of a size, did they drive from the towngates
Speedily; heart-enlivening wine too they fetched from their homesteads;
Bread therewith, & moreover they gathered them bundles of firewood.
Forth on the winds from the plains to the heavens went up the sweet savour.
These now big in their minds lay stretched on the field of the conflict
All through night, & mid-army the flames rose of many a watchfire;
Even as when in the heavens seen high do the stars round the lustrous
Moon shine glorious out, when the air it has fallen to windless;
When all the hill-tops clear shadow forth, & the horns of the headlands,
Into the glens, too, & deep ope the heavens to infinite aether,
Hosts of the stars shine forth, and the shepherd's heart it is gladdened;
So in like numbers between beached ships & the Xanthian streamlets,
Shone against Ilion's face those fires lit ablaze by the Trojans.
Fires, bright thousands burned on the plains, & the men in their fifties
Sate there nigh by the flames, in the light of the strong burning firebrands.
Meanwhile the close-tethered coursers, standing ranked by their war-cars,
Champed the white barley & spelt, there waiting the fair-throned morning.