The Iliad by Homer (book club recommendations txt) 📕

massive beams
Polished and strongly fitted each to each,
Will keep the town. Tomorrow we shall take,
At dawn, our station on the towers, arrayed
In armor, and his difficult task will be,
Far from his ships, to fight us from below;
And after he has tired his high-necked steeds
With coursing round the ramparts to and fro,
Back to his galleys he must go; nor yet
With all his valor can he force his way
Into the town to lay its dwellings waste⁠—
The dogs will feed upon his carcass first.”

And crested Hector answered with a frown:
“The counsel thou hast given, Polydamas,
Pleases me not⁠—that we return to be
Pent up in Troy. Are ye not weary yet
Of lying long imprisoned within walls
And towers? The time has been that in all lands,
Wherever human speech is heard, the fame
Of Priam’s city, for its treasured gold
And brass, was in all mouths. Those treasures now
Have passed away; our dwellings have them not.
Much that we had was sold on Phrygia’s coast,
And in Maeonia’s pleasant land, for Jove
The mighty was displeased with us. But now,
When politic Saturn’s son hath granted me
To win great glory at the fleet, and hold
The Greeks imprisoned by the sea, refrain,
Idler, from laying counsels such as these
Before the people. Not a Trojan here
Will follow them, nor would I suffer it.
Now hearken all, and act as I advise:
First banquet, rank by rank, throughout the host,
And set your guards, and each of you keep watch;
And then, if any Trojan stands in fear
For his possessions, let him bring them all
Into the common stock, to be consumed;
Better that we enjoy them than the Greeks.
Tomorrow, with the dawn and all in arms,
We will do battle at the roomy ships
Valiantly. If in truth the noble son
Of Peleus choose to rise and to defend
The ships, so much the worse for him, since I
Shall not for him desert the field, but stand
Firmly against him, whether he obtain
The victory or I. The chance of war
Is equal, and the slayer oft is slain.”

So Hector spake: the Trojans shouted forth
Applause, the madmen! Pallas took away
Their reason; all approved the fatal plan
Of Hector; no one ventured to commend
The sober counsel of Polydamas.
And then they banqueted throughout the host;
But all night long the Achaians mourned with tears
Patroclus, while Pelides in the midst,
Leading the ceaseless lamentation, placed
His slaughter-dealing hands upon the breast
Of his companion with continual sighs.
As a maned lion, from whose haunt within
The thick, dark wood a hunter has borne off
The whelps, returning finds them gone, and grieves,
And roams the valleys, tracking as he goes
The robber, bent to find him, for his rage
Is fierce⁠—with such fierce sorrow Peleus’ son
Spake, deeply sighing, to his Myrmidons:⁠—

“O, idle were the words which once I spake,
When in our palace-halls I bade the chief
Menoetius bear a cheerful heart. I said
That I would bring to Opus yet again,
Laden with spoil from Ilium overthrown,
His valiant son. But Jove doth not fulfil
The plans of men. That both of us should stain
Earth with our blood in Troy was the decree
Of fate, and never will the aged knight
Peleus receive me in his palace-halls,
Returning from the war, nor Thetis, she
Who gave me birth; the earth will hold me here.
And now, since after thee I take my place
In earth, Patroclus, I will not perform
Thy funeral rites before I bring to thee
The arms and head of the magnanimous chief
Hector, who slew thee. By thy funeral pile
I will strike off in vengeance for thy death
The heads of twelve illustrious Trojan youths.
Thou meanwhile, lying at the beaked ships,
Shalt be lamented night and day, with tears,
By many a Trojan and Dardanian maid,
Deep-bosomed, won by our victorious spears
After hard wars and opulent cities sacked.”

Thus having said, the great Achilles bade
Place a huge tripod on the fire in haste,
To cleanse Patroclus from the clotted blood.
They brought and set upon the glowing hearth
A tripod for the bath, and in it poured
Water, and piled the wood beneath. The flame
Crept up the vessel’s rounded sides and warmed
The water. When within the murmuring brass
It boiled, they washed the dead, and with rich oil
Anointed him, and filled the open wounds
With ointment nine years old; and laying him
Upon a couch, they spread from head to foot
Fine linen over him, and covered all
With a white mantle. Through the hours of night
The Myrmidons, lamenting their dead chief,
Wept round the swift Achilles. Then did Jove
Thus to his wife and sister Juno speak:⁠—

“Large-eyed, imperial Juno, thou hast now
Accomplished thy desire, for thou hast roused
The swift Achilles. There is not a doubt
The long-haired Argives owe their birth to thee.”

And large-eyed Juno answered: “What strange words,
Austere Saturnius, hast thou said? A man,
A mortal far less skilled in shaping means
To compass ends, might do what I have done
Against his fellow-man. Then should not I⁠—
Who boast to be the chief of goddesses
By birthright, and because I bear the name
Of wife to thee who rulest o’er the gods⁠—
Plan evil to the Trojans, whom I hate?”

So talked they. Silver-footed Thetis came
Meanwhile to Vulcan’s halls, eternal, gemmed
With stars, a wonder to the immortals, wrought
Of brass by the lame god. She found him there
Sweating and toiling, and with busy hand
Plying the bellows. He was fashioning
Tripods, a score, to stand beside the wall
Of his fair palace. All of these he placed
On wheels of gold, that, of their own accord,
They might roll in among the assembled gods,
And then roll back, a marvel to behold.
So far they all were finished; but not yet
Were added the neat handles, and for these
The god was forging rivets busily.
While thus he labored, with a mind intent
Upon his skilful task, on silver feet
Came Thetis. Charis, of the snowy veil,
The beautiful, whom the great god of fire,
Vulcan, had made his wife, beheld, and came
Forward to meet her, seized her hand, and said:⁠—

“O Thetis of the flowing robe, beloved
And honored, what has brought thee to our home
Thou dost not often visit us. Come in,
That I may pay the honors due a guest.”

So the bright goddess spake, and led the way,
And seated Thetis on a sumptuous throne,
With silver studs divinely wrought, and placed
A footstool, and called out to Vulcan thus:
“Come, Vulcan; Thetis here hath need of thee.”

And the great artist, Vulcan, thus replied:
“Then