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Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air.

MIITON

THE QUARREL OF ACHILLES AND ATRIDES.

INSATIATE king! (Achilles thus replies,)

Fond of the power, but fonder of the prize!

Would'st thou the Greeks their lawful prey should yield,
The due reward of many a well fought field?
The spoils of cities razed, and warriors slain,
We share with justice, as with toil we gain :
But to resume whate'er thy avarice craves
(That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves;
Yet if our chief for plunder only fight,
The spoils of Ilion shall thy loss requite,
Whene'er by Jove's decree our conquering powers
Shall humble in the dust her lofty towers.

Then thus the king: Shall I my prize resign
With tame content and thou possessed of thine?
Great as thou art and like a god in fight,
Think not to rob me of a soldier's right.
At thy demand shall I restore the maid?
First let the just equivalent be paid;
Such as a king might ask; and let it be
A treasure worthy her, and worthy me.
Or grant me this, or with a monarch's claim
This hand shall seize some other captive dame ;
The mighty Ajax shall his prize resign,
Ulysses' spoils, or e'en thy own be mine.
The man who suffers loudly may complain,
And rage he may,
but he shall rage in vain.
At this Pelides, frowning stern, replied:
O tyrant, arm'd with insolence and pride!
Inglorious slave to interest ever joined
With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind!
What generous Greek, obedient to thy word,
Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword?
What cause have I to war at thy decree?
The distant Trojans never injured me ;

To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led;
Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed;
Far hence removed, the hoarse resounding main
And walls of rocks secure my native reign;
Whose fruitful and luxuriant harvests grace,
Rich in her fruits and in her martial race.

POPE

THE SAME, CONTINUED.

FLY, mighty warrior! fly,

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Thy aid we need not and thy threats defy —
Want not such chiefs in such a cause to fight,
And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right.
Of all the kings (the gods' distinguished care)
To power superior none such hatred bear;
Strife and debate thy restless soul employ,
And wars and horrors are thy savage joy.

If thou hast strength, 't was heaven that strength bestow'd:
For know, vain man! thy valor is from God.
Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away,
Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway:

I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate

Thy short-lived friendship, and thy groundless hate.
Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons; but here
"T is mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear.
Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand,
My barque shall waft her to her native land :
But then prepare imperious prince! prepare,
Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair;
E'en in thy tent, I'll seize the blooming prize,
Thy loved Briseïs with the radiant eyes.

Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour
Thou stood'st a rival of imperial power;

And hence to all our host it shall be known,

The kings are subject to the gods alone.
Achilles heard with grief and rage oppressed,

His heart swelled high, and labored in his breast.
Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,
Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke :

O monster! mix'd of insolence and fear,
Thou dog in forehead but in heart a deer!
When wert thou known in ambushed fights to dare
Or nobly face the horrid front of war ?

'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try,
Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die.
So much 't is safer through the camp to go
And rob a subject than despoil a foe.
Scourge of thy people, violent and base!
Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race,
Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past,
Are tamed to wrongs, or this had been thy last.
Now by this sacred scepter let me swear,
Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear,
Which severed from the trunk, (as I from thee,)
On the bare mountains left its parent tree;
This scepter, formed by tempered steel to prove
An ensign of the delegates of Jove;

By this I swear when bleeding Greece again
Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain;

When flushed with slaughter, Hector comes to spread

The purple shore with mountains of the dead,

Then shalt thou mourn the affront thy madness gave,
Forced to deplore, but impotent to save:

Then rage in bitterness of soul to know

This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe,

He spoke; and furious hurled against the ground
His scepter starred with golden studs around.
Then sternly silent sat. With like disdain
The raging king returned his frowns again.

GLOSTER'S INDIGNATION.

BRAVE peers of England, pillars of the state,
To you duke Humphrey must unload his grief,
Your grief, the common grief of all the land.
What did my brother Henry spend his youth,
His valor, coin, and people, in the wars?
Did he so often lodge in open field,

In winter's cold, and summer's parching heat,
To conquer France, his true inheritance?
And did my brother Bedford toil his wits,
To keep by policy what Henry got?
Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,
Brave Yerk, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,
Received deep scars in France and Normandy?
Or hath my uncle Beaufort, and myself,

POPE.

With all the learned council of the realm,
Studied so long, sat in the council-house,
Early and late, debating to and fro

How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe?
And hath his highness in his infancy

Been crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?
And shall these labors, and these honors, die ?
Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,
Your deeds of war, and all our counsel, die?
O peers of England, shameful is this league!
Fatal this marriage, canceling your fame :
Blotting your names from books of memory,
Razing the characters of your renown;
Defacing monuments of conquered France;
Undoing all, as all had never been!

For Suffolk's duke- may he be suffocated!

That dims the honor of this warlike isle!
France should have torn and rent my very heart
Before I would have yielded to this league.
I never read but England's kings have had
Large sums of gold, and dowries, with their wives:
And our king Henry gives away his own,
To match with her that brings no vantages.
A proper jest, and never heard before,
That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth,
For costs and charges in transporting her!
She should have staid in France, and starved,
My lord of Winchester, I know your mind;
Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,
But 't is my presence that doth trouble you.
Rancor will out; proud prelate, in thy face,
I see thy fury; if I longer stay,
We shall begin our ancient bickerings.
Lordlings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,
I prophesied - France will be lost ere long.

SHAKSPEARK

NORFOLK AGAINST BOLINGBROKE.

LET not my cold words here accuse my zeal,
'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
The bitter clamor of two eager tongues,
Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain:

The blood is hot that must be cooled for this,
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast,
As to be hushed, and nought at all to say.

First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me,
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
Which else would post, until it had returned
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,

And let him be no kinsman to my leige,

I do defy him, and I spit at him;

Call him a slanderous coward and a villain:
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds;
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable,
Wherever Englishman durst set his foot.
Meantime, let this defend my loyalty,
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
Oh! let my sovereign turn away his face,
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood,
How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest !
Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais,
Disbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers;
The other part reserved I by consent;
For that my sovereign liege was in my debt,
Upon remainder of a dear account,

Since last I went to France to fetch his queen ;
Now swallow down that lie.

For Gloster's death

I slew him not; but to my own disgrace,
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
For you, my noble lord of Lancaster,
The honorable father to my foe,
Once did I lay in ambush for your life,
A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;
But, ere I last received the sacrament,
I did confess it; and exactly begged
Your grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.
This is my fault. As for the rest appealed,
It issues from the rancor of a villain,
A recreant and most degenerate traitor:
Which in myself I boldly will defend ;
And interchangeably hurl down my gage

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