also. Let him by no specious guile
Of flattery soothe thee, or by threats appall,
Nor slack thy furious fires 'till with a shout
I give command, then bid them cease to blaze. 400
She spake, and Vulcan at her word his fires
Shot dreadful forth; first, kindling on the field,
He burn'd the bodies strew'd numerous around
Slain by Achilles; arid grew the earth
And the flood ceased. As when a sprightly breeze 405
Autumnal blowing from the North, at once
Dries the new-water'd garden,[7] gladdening him
Who tills the soil, so was the champain dried;
The dead consumed, against the River, next,
He turn'd the fierceness of his glittering fires. 410
Willows and tamarisks and elms he burn'd,
Burn'd lotus, rushes, reeds; all plants and herbs
That clothed profuse the margin of his flood.
His eels and fishes, whether wont to dwell
In gulfs beneath, or tumble in the stream, 415
All languish'd while the artist of the skies
Breath'd on them; even Xanthus lost, himself,
All force, and, suppliant, Vulcan thus address'd.
Oh Vulcan! none in heaven itself may cope
With thee. I yield to thy consuming fires. 420
Cease, cease. I reck not if Achilles drive
Her citizens, this moment, forth from Troy,
For what are war and war's concerns to me?
So spake he scorch'd, and all his waters boil'd.
As some huge caldron hisses urged by force 425
Of circling fires and fill'd with melted lard,
The unctuous fluid overbubbling[8] streams
On all sides, while the dry wood flames beneath,
So Xanthus bubbled and his pleasant flood
Hiss'd in the fire, nor could he longer flow 430
But check'd his current, with hot steams annoy'd
By Vulcan raised. His supplication, then,
Importunate to Juno thus he turn'd.
Ah Juno! why assails thy son my streams,
Hostile to me alone? Of all who aid 435
The Trojans I am surely least to blame,
Yet even I desist if thou command;
And let thy son cease also; for I swear
That never will I from the Trojans turn
Their evil day, not even when the host 440
Of Greece shall set all Ilium in a blaze.
He said, and by his oath pacified, thus
The white-arm'd Deity to Vulcan spake.
Peace, glorious son! we may not in behalf
Of mortal man thus longer vex a God.