The Iliad by Homer (book club recommendations txt) 📕

“Lie there among the fishes, who shall feed
Upon thy blood unscared. No mother there
Shall weep thee lying on thy bier; thy corpse
Scamander shall bear down to the broad sea,
Where, as he sees thee darkening its face,
Some fish shall hasten, darting through the waves,
To feed upon Lycaon’s fair white limbs.
So perish ye, till sacred Troy be ours,
You fleeing, while I follow close and slay.
This river cannot aid you⁠—this fair stream
With silver eddies, to whose deity
Ye offer many beeves in sacrifice,
And fling into its gulfs your firm-paced steeds;
But thus ye all shall perish, till I take
Full vengeance for Patroclus of the Greeks,
Whom, while I stood aloof from war, ye slew.”

He spake: and, deeply moved with inward wrath,
The River pondered how to render vain
The prowess of Achilles, and avert
Destruction from the Trojans. Now the son
Of Peleus rushed, his ponderous spear in hand,
To slay Asteropasus, who was sprung
From Pelegon, and Pelegon was born
To the broad river Axius, of a maid,
The eldest-born of Acessamenus,
Named Periboea; for the river-god
Was joined with her in love. Achilles sprang
To meet the youth, as, rising from the stream,
Armed with two spears, he stood, his heart made strong
And resolute by Xanthus, who had seen
Indignantly so many Trojans die⁠—
Youths whom Achilles slaughtered in his stream,
And had no pity on them. When the twain
Were near each other, standing face to face,
The swift Achilles was the first to speak:⁠—
“Who and whence art thou that dost venture thus
To meet me? They who seek to measure strength
With me are sons of most unhappy men.”

And thus the illustrious son of Pelegon
Made answer: “Brave Pelides, why inquire
My lineage? I am from a distant coast⁠—
Paeonia’s fertile fields; I lead to war
Paeonia’s warriors with long spears, and this
Is now the eleventh morning since I came
To join the war at Troy. I claim descent
From Axius, the broad Axius, who pours forth
The fairest river on the earth. His son
Was Pelegon, expert to wield the spear,
And I was born to Pelegon. And now,
Illustrious son of Peleus, let us fight.”

He spake: Achilles raised the Pelian ash
To smite; Asteropaeus aimed at him
Both lances, for he used both hands alike.
One struck the Grecian’s shield, yet passed not through,
Stopped by the god-given gold; the other gashed
Lightly the elbow of his dexter arm;
The black blood spouted forth, the spear passed on
Beyond him, and, still eager for its prey,
Stood fixed in earth. Achilles then, intent
To slay Asteropaeus, hurled at him
His trusty spear. The weapon missed its mark,
And, striking the high bank, was buried there
Up to the middle of its ashen staff.
Achilles drew the keen sword from his thigh,
And flew with fury toward his foe, who toiled
In vain with sinewy arm to pluck that spear
From out the bank; and thrice he shook the beam
Fiercely, and thrice desisted, lacking strength,
And last he sought, by bending it, to break
The ashen weapon of Aeacides.
But ere it snapped Achilles took his life,
Smiting him at the navel with the sword.
Forth gushed the entrails to the ground, and o’er
His dying eyes the darkness came; and then
Achilles, leaping on his breast, tore off
The armor, and exultingly exclaimed:⁠—

“Lie there! A perilous task it was for thee
To combat with a son of Jove, though born
Thyself to a great River. I can boast
Descent from sovereign Jove. I owe my birth
To Peleus, ruler of the Myrmidons.
His father was Aeacus, who was born
To Jupiter, a god more potent far
Than all the rivers flowing to the sea.
And mightier is the race of Jupiter
Than that of any stream. Here close at hand
Is a great river, if such aid can aught
Avail thee; but to strive with Jupiter
Is not permitted. Acheloüs, king
Of rivers, cannot vie with him, nor yet
The great and mighty deep from which proceed
All streams and seas and founts and watery depths.
He trembles at the bolt of mighty Jove
And his hoarse thunder crashing in the sky.”

As thus he spake he plucked from out the bank
His brazen spear, and left the lifeless chief
Stretched in the sand, where the dark water steeped
His limbs, and eels and fishes came and gnawed
The warrior’s reins. Achilles hastened on,
Pursuing the Pseonian knights, who now,
When they beheld their bravest overthrown
In desperate battle by the mighty arm
And falchion of Pelides, took to flight
Along the eddying river. There he slew
Mydon, Thersilochus, Astypylus,
Mnesus, and Thrasius, and struck down in death
Aenius and Ophelestes. Many more
Of the Pseonians the swift-footed Greek
Had slain, had not the eddying River, roused
To anger, put a human semblance on,
And uttered from its whirling deeps a voice:⁠—

“O son of Peleus! Thou who dost excel
All other men in might and dreadful deeds⁠—
For the gods aid thee ever⁠—if the son
Of Saturn gives thee to destroy the race
Of Trojans, drive them from me to the plain,
And there perform thy terrible exploits.
For now my pleasant waters, in their flow,
Are choked with heaps of dead, and I no more
Can pour them into the great deep, so thick
The corpses clog my bed, while thou dost slay
And sparest not. Now then, withhold thy hand,
Prince of the people! I am horror-struck.”

Achilles the swift-footed made reply:
“Be it as thou commandest, foster-child
Of Jove, Scamander! Yet I shall not cease
To slay these treaty-breakers till at length
I shut them up within their town, and force
Hector to meet me, that we may decide
Which shall o’ercome the other⁠—he or I.”

He spake, and rushed upon the men of Troy,
Terrible as a god, while from his bed
The eddying River called to Phoebus thus:⁠—

“Why this, thou bearer of the silver bow,
Thou son of Jove? Thou heedest not the will
Of Saturn’s son, who strictly bade that thou
Shouldst aid the Trojans till the latest gleam
Of sunset, and till night is on the fields.”

And then Achilles, mighty with the spear,
From the steep bank leaped into the mid-stream,
While, foul with ooze, the angry River raised
His waves, and pushed along the heaps of dead
Slain by Achilles. These, with mighty roar
As of a bellowing ox, Scamander cast
Aground; the living with his whirling gulfs
He hid, and saved them in his friendly streams.
In tumult terribly the surges rose
Around Achilles, beating on his shield,
And made his feet to stagger, till he grasped
A tall, fair-growing elm upon the bank.
Down came the tree, and in its loosened roots
Brought the