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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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We-for myself I speak, and all the name Of Grecians, who to Troy's destruction came, Omitting those who were in battle slain, Or borne by rolling Simois to the main- Not one but suffer'd, and too dearly bought The prize of honor which in arms he sought; Some doom'd to death, and some in exile driv'n. Outcasts, abandon'd by the care of Heav'n; So worn, so wretched, so despis'd a crew, As ev'n old Priam might with pity view. Witness the vessels by Minerva toss'd In storms; the vengeful Capharean coast; Th' Euboean rocks! the prince, whose brother led Our armies to revenge his injur'd bed, In Egypt lost! Ulysses with his men Have seen Charybdis and the Cyclops' den. Why should I name Idomeneus, in vain Restor'd to scepters, and expell'd again? Or young Achilles, by his rival slain? Ev'n he, the King of Men, the foremost name Of all the Greeks, and most renown'd by fame, The proud revenger of another's wife, Yet by his own adult'ress lost his life; Fell at his threshold; and the spoils of Troy The foul polluters of his bed enjoy. The gods have envied me the sweets of life, My much lov'd country, and my more lov'd wife: Banish'd from both, I mourn; while in the sky, Transform'd to birds, my lost companions fly: Hov'ring about the coasts, they make their moan, And cuff the cliffs with pinions not their own. What squalid specters, in the dead of night, Break my short sleep, and skim before my sight! I might have promis'd to myself those harms, Mad as I was, when I, with mortal arms, Presum'd against immortal pow'rs to move, And violate with wounds the Queen of Love. Such arms this hand shall never more employ; No hate remains with me to ruin'd Troy. I war not with its dust; nor am I glad To think of past events, or good or bad. Your presents I return: whate'er you bring To buy my friendship, send the Trojan king. We met in fight; I know him, to my cost: With what a whirling force his lance he toss'd! |
