Alexander Pope
Books and Quotes Collection
The Rape of the Lock
1712Iliad
1715
He is a Master of Civility, no less well-bred to his own Sex than courtly to the other.
Of heav'n's undrossy gold the God's array /
Refulgent, flash'd intolerable day.
He said: the driver whirls his lengthful thong; The horses fly; the chariot smokes along.
The queen assents, and from the infernal bowers /
Invokes the sable subtartarean powers, /
And those who rule the inviolable floods, /
Whom mortals name the dread Titanian gods.
Their pain soft arts of pharmacy can ease, /
Thy breast alone no lenitives appease.
Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules, /
Led nine swift vessels through the foamy seas, /
From Rhodes, with everlasting sunshine bright, /
Jalyssus, Lindus, and Camirus white.
Oβer both their marks it flew; till fiercely flung /
From PolypΕtesβ arm the discus sung: /
Far as a swain his whirling sheephook throws, /
That distant falls among the grazing cows,
The power ignipotent her word obeys: /
Wide oβer the plain he pours the boundless blaze; /
At once consumes the dead, and dries the soil /
And the shrunk waters in their channel boil.
The corslet his astonishβd breast forsakes: /
Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes; /
Stupid he stares, and all-assistless stands: /
Such is the force of more than mortal hands!
Like furious, rushβd the Myrmidonian crew, /
Such their dread strength, and such their deathful view.