The Iliad by Homer (ereader for textbooks .txt) 📕

he is not far to seek, if
you will listen to me and not resent my speaking though I am younger
than any of you. I am by lineage son to a noble sire, Tydeus, who lies
buried at Thebes. For Portheus had three noble sons, two of whom,
Agrius and Melas, abode in Pleuron and rocky Calydon. The third was the
knight Oeneus, my father's father, and he was the most valiant of them
all. Oeneus remained in his own country, but my father (as Jove and the
other gods ordained it) migrated to Argos. He married into the family
of Adrastus, and his house was one of great abundance, for he had large
estates of rich corn-growing land, with much orchard ground as well,
and he had many sheep; moreover he excelled all the Argives in the use
of the spear. You must yourselves have heard whether these things are
true or no; therefore when I say well despise not my words as though I
were a coward or of ignoble birth. I say, then, let us go to the fight
as we needs must, wounded though we be. When there, we may keep out of
the battle and beyond the range of the spears lest we get fresh wounds
in addition to what we have already, but we can spur on others, who
have been indulging their spleen and holding aloof from battle
hitherto."

Thus did he speak; whereon they did even as he had said and set out,
King Agamemnon leading the way.

Meanwhile Neptune had kept no blind look-out, and came up to them in
the semblance of an old man. He took Agamemnon's right hand in his own
and said, "Son of Atreus, I take it Achilles is glad now that he sees
the Achaeans routed and slain, for he is utterly without remorse--may
he come to a bad end and heaven confound him. As for yourself, the
blessed gods are not yet so bitterly angry with you but that the
princes and counsellors of the Trojans shall again raise the dust upon
the plain, and you shall see them flying from the ships and tents
towards their city."

With this he raised a mighty cry of battle, and sped forward to the
plain. The voice that came from his deep chest was as that of nine or
ten thousand men when they are shouting in the thick of a fight, and it
put fresh courage into the hearts of the Achaeans to wage war and do
battle without ceasing.

Juno of the golden throne looked down as she stood upon a peak of
Olympus and her heart was gladdened at the sight of him who was at once
her brother and her brother-in-law, hurrying hither and thither amid
the fighting. Then she turned her eyes to Jove as he sat on the topmost
crests of many-fountained Ida, and loathed him. She set herself to
think how she might hoodwink him, and in the end she deemed that it
would be best for her to go to Ida and array herself in rich attire, in
the hope that Jove might become enamoured of her, and wish to embrace
her. While he was thus engaged a sweet and careless sleep might be made
to steal over his eyes and senses.

She went, therefore, to the room which her son Vulcan had made her, and
the doors of which he had cunningly fastened by means of a secret key
so that no other god could open them. Here she entered and closed the
doors behind her. She cleansed all the dirt from her fair body with
ambrosia, then she anointed herself with olive oil, ambrosial, very
soft, and scented specially for herself--if it were so much as shaken
in the bronze-floored house of Jove, the scent pervaded the universe of
heaven and earth. With this she anointed her delicate skin, and then
she plaited the fair ambrosial locks that flowed in a stream of golden
tresses from her immortal head. She put on the wondrous robe which
Minerva had worked for her with consummate art, and had embroidered
with manifold devices; she fastened it about her bosom with golden
clasps, and she girded herself with a girdle that had a hundred
tassels: then she fastened her earrings, three brilliant pendants that
glistened most beautifully, through the pierced lobes of her ears, and
threw a lovely new veil over her head. She bound her sandals on to her
feet, and when she had arrayed herself perfectly to her satisfaction,
she left her room and called Venus to come aside and speak to her. "My
dear child," said she, "will you do what I am going to ask of you, or
will you refuse me because you are angry at my being on the Danaan
side, while you are on the Trojan?"

Jove's daughter Venus answered, "Juno, august queen of goddesses,
daughter of mighty Saturn, say what you want, and I will do it for you
at once, if I can, and if it can be done at all."

Then Juno told her a lying tale and said, "I want you to endow me with
some of those fascinating charms, the spells of which bring all things
mortal and immortal to your feet. I am going to the world's end to
visit Oceanus (from whom all we gods proceed) and mother Tethys: they
received me in their house, took care of me, and brought me up, having
taken me over from Rhaea when Jove imprisoned great Saturn in the
depths that are under earth and sea. I must go and see them that I may
make peace between them; they have been quarrelling, and are so angry
that they have not slept with one another this long while; if I can
bring them round and restore them to one another's embraces, they will
be grateful to me and love me for ever afterwards."

Thereon laughter-loving Venus said, "I cannot and must not refuse you,
for you sleep in the arms of Jove who is our king."

As she spoke she loosed from her bosom the curiously embroidered girdle
into which all her charms had been wrought--love, desire, and that
sweet flattery which steals the judgement even of the most prudent. She
gave the girdle to Juno and said, "Take this girdle wherein all my
charms reside and lay it in your bosom. If you will wear it I promise
you that your errand, be it what it may, will not be bootless."

When she heard this Juno smiled, and still smiling she laid the girdle
in her bosom.

Venus now went back into the house of Jove, while Juno darted down from
the summits of Olympus. She passed over Pieria and fair Emathia, and
went on and on till she came to the snowy ranges of the Thracian
horsemen, over whose topmost crests she sped without ever setting foot
to ground. When she came to Athos she went on over the waves of the sea
till she reached Lemnos, the city of noble Thoas. There she met Sleep,
own brother to Death, and caught him by the hand, saying, "Sleep, you
who lord it alike over mortals and immortals, if you ever did me a
service in times past, do one for me now, and I shall be grateful to
you ever after. Close Jove's keen eyes for me in slumber while I hold
him clasped in my embrace, and I will give you a beautiful golden seat,
that can never fall to pieces; my clubfooted son Vulcan shall make it
for you, and he shall give it a footstool for you to rest your fair
feet upon when you are at table."

Then Sleep answered, "Juno, great queen of goddesses, daughter of
mighty Saturn, I would lull any other of the gods to sleep without
compunction, not even excepting the waters of Oceanus from whom all of
them proceed, but I dare not go near Jove, nor send him to sleep unless
he bids me. I have had one lesson already through doing what you asked
me, on the day when Jove's mighty son Hercules set sail from Ilius
after having sacked the city of the Trojans. At your bidding I suffused
my sweet self over the mind of aegis-bearing Jove, and laid him to
rest; meanwhile you hatched a plot against Hercules, and set the blasts
of the angry winds beating upon the sea, till you took him to the
goodly city of Cos, away from all his friends. Jove was furious when he
awoke, and began hurling the gods about all over the house; he was
looking more particularly for myself, and would have flung me down
through space into the sea where I should never have been heard of any
more, had not Night who cows both men and gods protected me. I fled to
her and Jove left off looking for me in spite of his being so angry,
for he did not dare do anything to displease Night. And now you are
again asking me to do something on which I cannot venture."

And Juno said, "Sleep, why do you take such notions as those into your
head? Do you think Jove will be as anxious to help the Trojans, as he
was about his own son? Come, I will marry you to one of the youngest of
the Graces, and she shall be your own--Pasithea, whom you have always
wanted to marry."

Sleep was pleased when he heard this, and answered, "Then swear it to
me by the dread waters of the river Styx; lay one hand on the bounteous
earth, and the other on the sheen of the sea, so that all the gods who
dwell down below with Saturn may be our witnesses, and see that you
really do give me one of the youngest of the Graces--Pasithea, whom I
have always wanted to marry."

Juno did as he had said. She swore, and invoked all the gods of the
nether world, who are called Titans, to witness. When she had completed
her oath, the two enshrouded themselves in a thick mist and sped
lightly forward, leaving Lemnos and Imbrus behind them. Presently they
reached many-fountained Ida, mother of wild beasts, and Lectum where
they left the sea to go on by land, and the tops of the trees of the
forest soughed under the going of their feet. Here Sleep halted, and
ere Jove caught sight of him he climbed a lofty pine-tree--the tallest
that reared its head towards heaven on all Ida. He hid himself behind
the branches and sat there in the semblance of the sweet-singing bird
that haunts the mountains and is called Chalcis by the gods, but men
call it Cymindis. Juno then went to Gargarus, the topmost peak of Ida,
and Jove, driver of the clouds, set eyes upon her. As soon as he did so
he became inflamed with the same passionate desire for her that he had
felt when they had first enjoyed each other's embraces, and slept with
one another without their dear parents knowing anything about it. He
went up to her and said, "What do you want that you have come hither
from Olympus--and that too with neither chariot nor horses to convey
you?"

Then Juno told him a lying tale and said, "I am going to the world's
end, to visit Oceanus, from whom all we gods proceed, and mother
Tethys; they received me into their house, took care of me, and brought
me up. I must go and see them that I may make peace between them: they
have been quarrelling, and are so angry that they have not slept with
one another this long time. The horses that will take me over land and
sea are stationed on the