Then pale with fears, and sickening at the sight;
They dragg’d the unwilling Irus to the fight;
From his blank visage fled the coward blood,
And his flesh trembled as aghast he stood.

“O that such baseness should disgrace the light? 
O hide it, death, in everlasting night! 
(Exclaims Antinous;) can a vigorous foe
Meanly decline to combat age and woe? 
But hear me wretch! if recreant in the fray
That huge bulk yield this ill-contested day,
Instant thou sail’st, to Eschetus resign’d;
A tyrant, fiercest of the tyrant kind,
Who casts thy mangled ears and nose a prey
To hungry dogs, and lops the man away.”

While with indignant scorn he sternly spoke,
In every joint the trembling Irus shook. 
Now front to front each frowning champion stands,
And poises high in air his adverse hands. 
The chief yet doubts, or to the shades below
To fell the giant at one vengeful blow,
Or save his life, and soon his life to save
The king resolves, for mercy sways the brave
That instant Irus his huge arm extends,
Full on his shoulder the rude weight descends;
The sage Ulysses, fearful to disclose
The hero latent in the man of woes,
Check’d half his might; yet rising to the stroke,
His jawbone dash’d, the crashing jawbone broke: 
Down dropp’d he stupid from the stunning wound;
His feet extended quivering, beat the ground;
His mouth and nostrils spout a purple flood;
His teeth, all shatter’d, rush inmix’d with blood.

The peers transported, as outstretch’d he lies,
With bursts of laughter rend the vaulted skies;
Then dragg’d along, all bleeding from the wound,
His length of carcase trailing prints the ground: 
Raised on his feet, again he reels, he falls,
Till propp’d, reclining on the palace walls: 
Then to his hand a staff the victor gave,
And thus with just reproach address’d the slave: 
“There terrible, affright with dogs, and reign
A dreaded tyrant o’er the bestial train! 
But mercy to the poor and stranger show,
Lest Heaven in vengeance send some mightier woe.”

Scornful he spoke, and o’er his shoulder flung
The broad-patch’d scrip in tatters hung
Ill join’d, and knotted to a twisted thong. 
Then, turning short, disdain’d a further stay;
But to the palace measured back the way. 
There, as he rested gathering in a ring,
The peers with smiles address’d their unknown king: 
“Stranger, may Jove and all the aerial powers
With every blessing crown thy happy hours! 
Our freedom to thy prowess’d arm we owe
From bold intrusion of thy coward foe: 
Instant the flying sail the slave shall wing
To Eschetus, the monster of a king.”

While pleased he hears, Antinous bears the food,
A kid’s well-fatted entrails, rich with blood;
The bread from canisters of shining mould
Amphinomus; and wines that laugh in gold: 
“And oh! (he mildly cries) may Heaven display
A beam of glory o’er thy future day! 
Alas, the brave too oft is doom’d to bear
The gripes of poverty and stings of care.”