And now the delegates Ulysses sent, To bear the presents from the royal tent: The sons of Nestor, Phyleus' valiant heir, Thias and Merion, thunderbolts of war, With Lycomedes of Creiontian strain, And Melanippus, form'd the chosen train. Swift as the word was given, the youths obey'd: Twice ten bright vases in the midst they laid; A row of six fair tripods then succeeds; And twice the number of high-bounding steeds: Seven captives next a lovely line compose; The eighth Briseis, like the blooming rose, Closed the bright band: great Ithacus, before, First of the train, the golden talents bore: The rest in public view the chiefs dispose, A splendid scene! then Agamemnon rose: The boar Talthybius 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 st