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

laugh. He was the ugliest man of all those that came
before Troy--bandy-legged, lame of one foot, with his two shoulders
rounded and hunched over his chest. His head ran up to a point, but
there was little hair on the top of it. Achilles and Ulysses hated him
worst of all, for it was with them that he was most wont to wrangle;
now, however, with a shrill squeaky voice he began heaping his abuse on
Agamemnon. The Achaeans were angry and disgusted, yet none the less he
kept on brawling and bawling at the son of Atreus.

"Agamemnon," he cried, "what ails you now, and what more do you want?
Your tents are filled with bronze and with fair women, for whenever we
take a town we give you the pick of them. Would you have yet more gold,
which some Trojan is to give you as a ransom for his son, when I or
another Achaean has taken him prisoner? or is it some young girl to
hide and lie with? It is not well that you, the ruler of the Achaeans,
should bring them into such misery. Weakling cowards, women rather than
men, let us sail home, and leave this fellow here at Troy to stew in
his own meeds of honour, and discover whether we were of any service to
him or no. Achilles is a much better man than he is, and see how he has
treated him--robbing him of his prize and keeping it himself. Achilles
takes it meekly and shows no fight; if he did, son of Atreus, you would
never again insult him."

Thus railed Thersites, but Ulysses at once went up to him and rebuked
him sternly. "Check your glib tongue, Thersites," said be, "and babble
not a word further. Chide not with princes when you have none to back
you. There is no viler creature come before Troy with the sons of
Atreus. Drop this chatter about kings, and neither revile them nor keep
harping about going home. We do not yet know how things are going to
be, nor whether the Achaeans are to return with good success or evil.
How dare you gibe at Agamemnon because the Danaans have awarded him so
many prizes? I tell you, therefore--and it shall surely be--that if I
again catch you talking such nonsense, I will either forfeit my own
head and be no more called father of Telemachus, or I will take you,
strip you stark naked, and whip you out of the assembly till you go
blubbering back to the ships."

On this he beat him with his staff about the back and shoulders till he
dropped and fell a-weeping. The golden sceptre raised a bloody weal on
his back, so he sat down frightened and in pain, looking foolish as he
wiped the tears from his eyes. The people were sorry for him, yet they
laughed heartily, and one would turn to his neighbour saying, "Ulysses
has done many a good thing ere now in fight and council, but he never
did the Argives a better turn than when he stopped this fellow's mouth
from prating further. He will give the kings no more of his insolence."

Thus said the people. Then Ulysses rose, sceptre in hand, and Minerva
in the likeness of a herald bade the people be still, that those who
were far off might hear him and consider his council. He therefore with
all sincerity and goodwill addressed them thus:--

"King Agamemnon, the Achaeans are for making you a by-word among all
mankind. They forget the promise they made you when they set out from
Argos, that you should not return till you had sacked the town of Troy,
and, like children or widowed women, they murmur and would set off
homeward. True it is that they have had toil enough to be disheartened.
A man chafes at having to stay away from his wife even for a single
month, when he is on shipboard, at the mercy of wind and sea, but it is
now nine long years that we have been kept here; I cannot, therefore,
blame the Achaeans if they turn restive; still we shall be shamed if we
go home empty after so long a stay--therefore, my friends, be patient
yet a little longer that we may learn whether the prophesyings of
Calchas were false or true.

"All who have not since perished must remember as though it were
yesterday or the day before, how the ships of the Achaeans were
detained in Aulis when we were on our way hither to make war on Priam
and the Trojans. We were ranged round about a fountain offering
hecatombs to the gods upon their holy altars, and there was a fine
plane-tree from beneath which there welled a stream of pure water. Then
we saw a prodigy; for Jove sent a fearful serpent out of the ground,
with blood-red stains upon its back, and it darted from under the altar
on to the plane-tree. Now there was a brood of young sparrows, quite
small, upon the topmost bough, peeping out from under the leaves, eight
in all, and their mother that hatched them made nine. The serpent ate
the poor cheeping things, while the old bird flew about lamenting her
little ones; but the serpent threw his coils about her and caught her
by the wing as she was screaming. Then, when he had eaten both the
sparrow and her young, the god who had sent him made him become a sign;
for the son of scheming Saturn turned him into stone, and we stood
there wondering at that which had come to pass. Seeing, then, that such
a fearful portent had broken in upon our hecatombs, Calchas forthwith
declared to us the oracles of heaven. 'Why, Achaeans,' said he, 'are
you thus speechless? Jove has sent us this sign, long in coming, and
long ere it be fulfilled, though its fame shall last for ever. As the
serpent ate the eight fledglings and the sparrow that hatched them,
which makes nine, so shall we fight nine years at Troy, but in the
tenth shall take the town.' This was what he said, and now it is all
coming true. Stay here, therefore, all of you, till we take the city of
Priam."

On this the Argives raised a shout, till the ships rang again with the
uproar. Nestor, knight of Gerene, then addressed them. "Shame on you,"
he cried, "to stay talking here like children, when you should fight
like men. Where are our covenants now, and where the oaths that we have
taken? Shall our counsels be flung into the fire, with our
drink-offerings and the right hands of fellowship wherein we have put
our trust? We waste our time in words, and for all our talking here
shall be no further forward. Stand, therefore, son of Atreus, by your
own steadfast purpose; lead the Argives on to battle, and leave this
handful of men to rot, who scheme, and scheme in vain, to get back to
Argos ere they have learned whether Jove be true or a liar. For the
mighty son of Saturn surely promised that we should succeed, when we
Argives set sail to bring death and destruction upon the Trojans. He
showed us favourable signs by flashing his lightning on our right
hands; therefore let none make haste to go till he has first lain with
the wife of some Trojan, and avenged the toil and sorrow that he has
suffered for the sake of Helen. Nevertheless, if any man is in such
haste to be at home again, let him lay his hand to his ship that he may
meet his doom in the sight of all. But, O king, consider and give ear
to my counsel, for the word that I say may not be neglected lightly.
Divide your men, Agamemnon, into their several tribes and clans, that
clans and tribes may stand by and help one another. If you do this, and
if the Achaeans obey you, you will find out who, both chiefs and
peoples, are brave, and who are cowards; for they will vie against the
other. Thus you shall also learn whether it is through the counsel of
heaven or the cowardice of man that you shall fail to take the town."

And Agamemnon answered, "Nestor, you have again outdone the sons of the
Achaeans in counsel. Would, by Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I
had among them ten more such councillors, for the city of King Priam
would then soon fall beneath our hands, and we should sack it. But the
son of Saturn afflicts me with bootless wranglings and strife. Achilles
and I are quarrelling about this girl, in which matter I was the first
to offend; if we can be of one mind again, the Trojans will not stave
off destruction for a day. Now, therefore, get your morning meal, that
our hosts join in fight. Whet well your spears; see well to the
ordering of your shields; give good feeds to your horses, and look your
chariots carefully over, that we may do battle the livelong day; for we
shall have no rest, not for a moment, till night falls to part us. The
bands that bear your shields shall be wet with the sweat upon your
shoulders, your hands shall weary upon your spears, your horses shall
steam in front of your chariots, and if I see any man shirking the
fight, or trying to keep out of it at the ships, there shall be no help
for him, but he shall be a prey to dogs and vultures."

Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans roared applause. As when the waves run
high before the blast of the south wind and break on some lofty
headland, dashing against it and buffeting it without ceasing, as the
storms from every quarter drive them, even so did the Achaeans rise and
hurry in all directions to their ships. There they lighted their fires
at their tents and got dinner, offering sacrifice every man to one or
other of the gods, and praying each one of them that he might live to
come out of the fight. Agamemnon, king of men, sacrificed a fat
five-year-old bull to the mighty son of Saturn, and invited the princes
and elders of his host. First he asked Nestor and King Idomeneus, then
the two Ajaxes and the son of Tydeus, and sixthly Ulysses, peer of gods
in counsel; but Menelaus came of his own accord, for he knew how busy
his brother then was. They stood round the bull with the barley-meal in
their hands, and Agamemnon prayed, saying, "Jove, most glorious,
supreme, that dwellest in heaven, and ridest upon the storm-cloud,
grant that the sun may not go down, nor the night fall, till the palace
of Priam is laid low, and its gates are consumed with fire. Grant that
my sword may pierce the shirt of Hector about his heart, and that full
many of his comrades may bite the dust as they fall dying round him."

Thus he prayed, but the son of Saturn would not fulfil his prayer. He
accepted the sacrifice, yet none the less increased their toil
continually. When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley-meal
upon the victim, they drew back its head, killed it, and then flayed
it. They cut out the thigh-bones, wrapped them round in two layers of
fat, and set pieces of raw meat on the top of them. These they burned
upon the split logs of firewood, but they spitted the inward meats, and
held them in the flames to cook. When the thigh-bones were burned, and
they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small, put the
pieces upon spits, roasted them till