[32] The Centaurs, a people of Thessaly, said to be begotten by Ixion, on the cloud which he took for Juno.
----_Felicem diximus illa Conjuge Pirithoum: quod pæne fefellimus omen._
The translation is somewhat obscure; it means, "All wished her joy, and it had nearly happened that all had wished it in vain."
[34] The _dress_ seems to apply to the clothing of the Centaur's human part, the _habit_ to the furniture of the horse; perhaps, however, _habit_ means his mode of life.
[35] _Unhoped_ for _unexpected_. See note on "death unhoped," in the fable of the Cock and the Fox, Vol. XI.
FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK Of OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.
The chiefs were set, the soldiers crowned the field; To these the master of the sevenfold shield Upstarted fierce; and, kindled with disdain, Eager to speak, unable to contain His boiling rage, he rolled his eyes around The shore, and Grecian gallies hauled a-ground. Then stretching out his hands, O Jove, he cried, Must then our cause before the fleet be tried? And dares Ulysses for the prize contend, In sight of what he durst not once defend; But basely fled, that memorable day, When I from Hector's hands redeemed the flaming prey? So much 'tis safer at the noisy bar With words to flourish, than engage in war. By different methods we maintained our right, Nor am I made to talk, nor he to fight. In bloody fields I labour to be great; His arms are a smooth tongue, and soft deceit. Nor need I speak my deeds, for those you see; The sun and day are witnesses for me. Let him, who fights unseen, relate his own, And vouch the silent stars, and conscious moon. Great is the prize demanded, I confess, But such an abject rival makes it less. That gift, those honours, he but hoped to gain, Can leave no room for Ajax to be vain; Losing he wins, because his name will be Ennobled by defeat, who durst contend with me. Were mine own valour questioned, yet my blood Without that plea would make my title good; My sire was Telamon, whose arms, employed With Hercules, these Trojan walls destroyed; And who before, with Jason, sent from Greece, In the first ship brought home the golden fleece: Great Telamon from Æacus derives His birth: (the inquisitor of guilty lives In shades below; where Sisyphus, whose son This thief is thought, rolls up the restless heavy stone.) Just Æacus the king of gods above Begot; thus Ajax is the third from Jove. Nor should I seek advantage from my line, Unless, Achilles, it were mixed with thine: As next of kin Achilles' arms I claim; This fellow would ingraft a foreign name Upon our stock, and the Sisyphian seed By fraud and theft asserts his father's breed. Then must I lose these arms, because I came To fight uncalled, a voluntary name? Nor shunned the cause, but offered you my aid, While he, long lurking, was to war betrayed: Forced to the field he came, but in the rear, And feigned distraction, to conceal his fear; Till one more cunning caught him in the snare, Ill for himself, and dragged him into war. Now let a hero's arms a coward vest, And he, who shunned all honours, gain the best; And let me stand excluded from my right, Robbed of my kinsman's arms, who first appeared in fight. Better for us at home he had remained, Had it been true the madness which he feigned, Or so believed; the less had been our shame, The less his counselled crime, which brands the Grecian name; Nor Philoctetes had been left inclosed In a bare isle, to wants and pains exposed; Where to the rocks, with solitary groans, His sufferings and our baseness he bemoans, And wishes (so may heaven his wish fulfil!) The due reward to him who caused his ill. Now he, with us to Troy's destruction sworn, Our brother of the war, by whom are borne Alcides' arrows, pent in narrow bounds, With cold and hunger pinched, and pained with wounds, To find him food and clothing, must employ Against the birds the shafts due to the fate of Troy. Yet still he lives, and lives from treason free, Because he left Ulysses' company; Poor Palamede might wish, so void of aid, Rather to have been left, than so to death betrayed. The coward bore the man immortal spite, Who shamed him out of madness into fight; Nor daring otherwise to vent his hate, Accused him first of treason to the state; And then, for proof, produced the golden store Himself had hidden in his tent before. Thus of two champions he deprived our host, By exile one, and one by treason lost.