Apollo bows to the superior throne, And to his uncle’s anger adds his own; Then, in a cloud involved, he takes his flight, Where Greeks and Trojans mix’d in mortal fight, And found out Paris, lurking where he stood, And stain’d his arrows with plebeian blood: Phoebus to him alone the god confess’d, Then to the recreant knight he thus address’d: “Dost thou not blush, to spend thy shafts in vain On a degenerate and ignoble train? If fame or better vengeance be thy care, There aim; and with one arrow end the war.”

He said; and show’d from far the blazing shield And sword, which, but Achilles, none could wield, And how he moved a god, and mow’d the standing field. The deity himself directs aright The envenom’d shaft, and wings the fatal flight.