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

soon as he had driven back those that were bringing
fire against them, and not join battle with Hector."

As he was thus pondering, the son of Nestor came up to him and told his
sad tale, weeping bitterly the while. "Alas," he cried, "son of noble
Peleus, I bring you bad tidings, would indeed that they were untrue.
Patroclus has fallen, and a fight is raging about his naked body--for
Hector holds his armour."

A dark cloud of grief fell upon Achilles as he listened. He filled both
hands with dust from off the ground, and poured it over his head,
disfiguring his comely face, and letting the refuse settle over his
shirt so fair and new. He flung himself down all huge and hugely at
full length, and tore his hair with his hands. The bondswomen whom
Achilles and Patroclus had taken captive screamed aloud for grief,
beating their breasts, and with their limbs failing them for sorrow.
Antilochus bent over him the while, weeping and holding both his hands
as he lay groaning for he feared that he might plunge a knife into his
own throat. Then Achilles gave a loud cry and his mother heard him as
she was sitting in the depths of the sea by the old man her father,
whereon she screamed, and all the goddesses daughters of Nereus that
dwelt at the bottom of the sea, came gathering round her. There were
Glauce, Thalia and Cymodoce, Nesaia, Speo, Thoe and dark-eyed Halie,
Cymothoe, Actaea and Limnorea, Melite, Iaera, Amphithoe and Agave, Doto
and Proto, Pherusa and Dynamene, Dexamene, Amphinome and Callianeira,
Doris, Panope, and the famous sea-nymph Galatea, Nemertes, Apseudes and
Callianassa. There were also Clymene, Ianeira and Ianassa, Maera,
Oreithuia and Amatheia of the lovely locks, with other Nereids who
dwell in the depths of the sea. The crystal cave was filled with their
multitude and they all beat their breasts while Thetis led them in
their lament.

"Listen," she cried, "sisters, daughters of Nereus, that you may hear
the burden of my sorrows. Alas, woe is me, woe in that I have borne the
most glorious of offspring. I bore him fair and strong, hero among
heroes, and he shot up as a sapling; I tended him as a plant in a
goodly garden, and sent him with his ships to Ilius to fight the
Trojans, but never shall I welcome him back to the house of Peleus. So
long as he lives to look upon the light of the sun he is in heaviness,
and though I go to him I cannot help him. Nevertheless I will go, that
I may see my dear son and learn what sorrow has befallen him though he
is still holding aloof from battle."

She left the cave as she spoke, while the others followed weeping
after, and the waves opened a path before them. When they reached the
rich plain of Troy, they came up out of the sea in a long line on to
the sands, at the place where the ships of the Myrmidons were drawn up
in close order round the tents of Achilles. His mother went up to him
as he lay groaning; she laid her hand upon his head and spoke
piteously, saying, "My son, why are you thus weeping? What sorrow has
now befallen you? Tell me; hide it not from me. Surely Jove has granted
you the prayer you made him, when you lifted up your hands and besought
him that the Achaeans might all of them be pent up at their ships, and
rue it bitterly in that you were no longer with them."

Achilles groaned and answered, "Mother, Olympian Jove has indeed
vouchsafed me the fulfilment of my prayer, but what boots it to me,
seeing that my dear comrade Patroclus has fallen--he whom I valued more
than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life? I have lost him;
aye, and Hector when he had killed him stripped the wondrous armour, so
glorious to behold, which the gods gave to Peleus when they laid you in
the couch of a mortal man. Would that you were still dwelling among the
immortal sea-nymphs, and that Peleus had taken to himself some mortal
bride. For now you shall have grief infinite by reason of the death of
that son whom you can never welcome home--nay, I will not live nor go
about among mankind unless Hector fall by my spear, and thus pay me for
having slain Patroclus son of Menoetius."

Thetis wept and answered, "Then, my son, is your end near at hand--for
your own death awaits you full soon after that of Hector."

Then said Achilles in his great grief, "I would die here and now, in
that I could not save my comrade. He has fallen far from home, and in
his hour of need my hand was not there to help him. What is there for
me? Return to my own land I shall not, and I have brought no saving
neither to Patroclus nor to my other comrades of whom so many have been
slain by mighty Hector; I stay here by my ships a bootless burden upon
the earth, I, who in fight have no peer among the Achaeans, though in
council there are better than I. Therefore, perish strife both from
among gods and men, and anger, wherein even a righteous man will harden
his heart--which rises up in the soul of a man like smoke, and the
taste thereof is sweeter than drops of honey. Even so has Agamemnon
angered me. And yet--so be it, for it is over; I will force my soul
into subjection as I needs must; I will go; I will pursue Hector who
has slain him whom I loved so dearly, and will then abide my doom when
it may please Jove and the other gods to send it. Even Hercules, the
best beloved of Jove--even he could not escape the hand of death, but
fate and Juno's fierce anger laid him low, as I too shall lie when I am
dead if a like doom awaits me. Till then I will win fame, and will bid
Trojan and Dardanian women wring tears from their tender cheeks with
both their hands in the grievousness of their great sorrow; thus shall
they know that he who has held aloof so long will hold aloof no longer.
Hold me not back, therefore, in the love you bear me, for you shall not
move me."

Then silver-footed Thetis answered, "My son, what you have said is
true. It is well to save your comrades from destruction, but your
armour is in the hands of the Trojans; Hector bears it in triumph upon
his own shoulders. Full well I know that his vaunt shall not be
lasting, for his end is close at hand; go not, however, into the press
of battle till you see me return hither; to-morrow at break of day I
shall be here, and will bring you goodly armour from King Vulcan."

On this she left her brave son, and as she turned away she said to the
sea-nymphs her sisters, "Dive into the bosom of the sea and go to the
house of the old sea-god my father. Tell him everything; as for me, I
will go to the cunning workman Vulcan on high Olympus, and ask him to
provide my son with a suit of splendid armour."

When she had so said, they dived forthwith beneath the waves, while
silver-footed Thetis went her way that she might bring the armour for
her son.

Thus, then, did her feet bear the goddess to Olympus, and meanwhile the
Achaeans were flying with loud cries before murderous Hector till they
reached the ships and the Hellespont, and they could not draw the body
of Mars's servant Patroclus out of reach of the weapons that were
showered upon him, for Hector son of Priam with his host and horsemen
had again caught up to him like the flame of a fiery furnace; thrice
did brave Hector seize him by the feet, striving with might and main to
draw him away and calling loudly on the Trojans, and thrice did the two
Ajaxes, clothed in valour as with a garment, beat him from off the
body; but all undaunted he would now charge into the thick of the
fight, and now again he would stand still and cry aloud, but he would
give no ground. As upland shepherds that cannot chase some famished
lion from a carcase, even so could not the two Ajaxes scare Hector son
of Priam from the body of Patroclus.

And now he would even have dragged it off and have won imperishable
glory, had not Iris fleet as the wind, winged her way as messenger from
Olympus to the son of Peleus and bidden him arm. She came secretly
without the knowledge of Jove and of the other gods, for Juno sent her,
and when she had got close to him she said, "Up, son of Peleus,
mightiest of all mankind; rescue Patroclus about whom this fearful
fight is now raging by the ships. Men are killing one another, the
Danaans in defence of the dead body, while the Trojans are trying to
hale it away, and take it to windy Ilius: Hector is the most furious of
them all; he is for cutting the head from the body and fixing it on the
stakes of the wall. Up, then, and bide here no longer; shrink from the
thought that Patroclus may become meat for the dogs of Troy. Shame on
you, should his body suffer any kind of outrage."

And Achilles said, "Iris, which of the gods was it that sent you to me?"

Iris answered, "It was Juno the royal spouse of Jove, but the son of
Saturn does not know of my coming, nor yet does any other of the
immortals who dwell on the snowy summits of Olympus."

Then fleet Achilles answered her saying, "How can I go up into the
battle? They have my armour. My mother forbade me to arm till I should
see her come, for she promised to bring me goodly armour from Vulcan; I
know no man whose arms I can put on, save only the shield of Ajax son
of Telamon, and he surely must be fighting in the front rank and
wielding his spear about the body of dead Patroclus."

Iris said, "We know that your armour has been taken, but go as you are;
go to the deep trench and show yourself before the Trojans, that they
may fear you and cease fighting. Thus will the fainting sons of the
Achaeans gain some brief breathing-time, which in battle may hardly be."

Iris left him when she had so spoken. But Achilles dear to Jove arose,
and Minerva flung her tasselled aegis round his strong shoulders; she
crowned his head with a halo of golden cloud from which she kindled a
glow of gleaming fire. As the smoke that goes up into heaven from some
city that is being beleaguered on an island far out at sea--all day
long do men sally from the city and fight their hardest, and at the
going down of the sun the line of beacon-fires blazes forth, flaring
high for those that dwell near them to behold, if so be that they may
come with their ships and succour them--even so did the light flare
from the head of Achilles, as he stood by the trench, going beyond the
wall--but he did not join the Achaeans for he heeded the charge which
his mother laid upon him.

There did he stand and shout aloud. Minerva also raised her voice from
afar, and spread terror unspeakable among the Trojans. Ringing as the
note