ART: Jupiter and Thetis
Embrace his knees; entreat him that he give
The host of Troy his succor, and shut fast
The routed Grecians, prisoners in the fleet,
That all may find much solace in their King,
And that the mighty sovereign o’er them all,
Their Agamemnon, may himself be taught
His rashness, who hath thus dishonor’d foul
The life itself, and bulwark of his cause.
To him, with streaming eyes, Thetis replied.
Born as thou wast to sorrow, ah, my son!
Why have I rear’d thee! Would that without tears,
Or cause for tears (transient as is thy life,
A little span) thy days might pass at Troy!
But short and sorrowful the fates ordain
Thy life, peculiar trouble must be thine,
Whom, therefore, oh that I had never borne!
But seeking the Olympian hill snow-crown’d,
I will myself plead for thee in the ear
Of Jove, the Thunderer. Meantime at thy fleet
Abiding, let thy wrath against the Greeks
Still burn, and altogether cease from war.
For to the banks of the Oceanus,
Where Æthiopia holds a feast to Jove,
He journey’d yesterday, with whom the Gods
Went also, and the twelfth day brings them home.
Painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867).