The Iliad by Homer (book club recommendations txt) 📕

So spake Minerva, and her words o’ercame
The weak one’s purpose. He uncovered straight
His polished bow, made of the elastic horns
Of a wild goat, which, from his lurking-place,
As once it left its cavern lair, he smote,
And pierced its breast, and stretched it on the rock.
Full sixteen palms in length the horns had grown
From the goat’s forehead. These an artisan
Had smoothed, and, aptly fitting each to each,
Polished the whole and tipped the work with gold.
To bend that bow, the warrior lowered it
And pressed an end against the earth. His friends
Held up, meanwhile, their shields before his face,
Lest the brave sons of Greece should lift their spears
Against him ere the champion of their host,
The warlike Menelaus, should have felt
The arrow. Then the Lycian drew aside
The cover from his quiver, taking out
A well-fledged arrow that had never flown⁠—
A cause of future sorrows. On the string
He laid that fatal arrow, while he made
To Lycian Phoebus, mighty with the bow,
A vow to sacrifice before his shrine
A noble hecatomb of firstling lambs
When he should come again to his abode
Within his own Zeleia’s sacred walls.
Grasping the bowstring and the arrow’s notch,
He drew them back, and forced the string to meet
His breast, the arrow-head to meet the bow,
Till the bow formed a circle. Then it twanged.
The cord gave out a shrilly sound; the shaft
Leaped forth in eager haste to reach the host.

Yet, Menelaus, then the blessed gods,
The deathless ones, forgot thee not; and first,
Jove’s daughter, gatherer of spoil, who stood
Before thee, turned aside the deadly shaft.
As when a mother, while her child is wrapped
In a sweet slumber, scares away the fly,
So Pallas turned the weapon from thy breast,
And guided it to where the golden clasps
Made fast the belt, and where the corselet’s mail
Was doubled. There the bitter arrow struck
The belt, and through its close contexture passed,
And fixed within the well-wrought corselet stood,
Yet reached the plated quilt which next his skin
The hero wore⁠—his surest guard against
The weapon’s force⁠—and broke through that alike;
And there the arrow gashed the part below,
And the dark blood came gushing from the wound.
As when some Carian or Maeonian dame
Tinges with purple the white ivory,
To form a trapping for the cheeks of steeds⁠—
And many a horseman covets it, yet still
It lies within her chamber, to become
The ornament of some great monarch’s steed
And make its rider proud⁠—thy shapely thighs,
Thy legs, and thy fair ankles thus were stained,
O Menelaus! with thy purple blood.

When Agamemnon, king of men, beheld
The dark blood flowing from his brother’s wound,
He shuddered. Menelaus, great in war,
Felt the like horror; yet, when he perceived
That still the arrow, neck and barb, remained
Without the mail, the courage rose again
That filled his bosom. Agamemnon, then,
The monarch, sighing deeply, took the hand
Of Menelaus⁠—while his comrades round
Like him lamented⁠—sighing as he spake:⁠—

“Dear brother, when I sent thee forth alone
To combat with the Trojans for the Greeks,
I ratified a treaty for thy death,
Since now the Trojans smite and under foot
Trample the league. Yet not in vain shall be
The treaty, nor the blood of lambs, nor wine
Poured to the gods, nor right hands firmly pledged;
For though it please not now Olympian Jove
To make the treaty good, he will in time
Cause it to be fulfilled, and they shall pay
Dearly with their own heads and with their wives
And children for this wrong. And this I know
In my undoubting mind⁠—a day will come
When sacred Troy and Priam and the race
Governed by Priam, mighty with the spear,
Shall perish all. Saturnian Jove, who sits
On high, a dweller of the upper air,
Shall shake his dreadful aegis in the sight
Of all, indignant at this treachery.
Such the event will be; but I shall grieve
Bitterly, Menelaus, if thou die,
Thy term of life cut short. I shall go back
To my dear Argos with a brand of shame
Upon me. For the Greeks will soon again
Bethink them of their country; we shall then
Leave Argive Helen to remain the boast
Of Priam and the Trojans⁠—while thy bones
Shall moulder, mingling with the earth of Troy⁠—
Our great design abandoned. Then shall say
Some haughty Trojan, leaping on the tomb
Of Menelaus: ‘So in time to come
May Agamemnon wreak his wrath, as here
He wreaked it, whither he had vainly led
An army, and now hastens to his home
And his own land, with ships that bear no spoil,
And the brave Menelaus left behind.’
So shall some Trojan say; but, ere that time,
May the earth open to receive my bones!”

The fair-haired Menelaus cheerfully
Replied: “Grieve not, nor be the Greeks alarmed
For me, since this sharp arrow has not found
A vital part, but, ere it reached so far,
The embroidered belt, the quilt beneath, and plate
Wrought by the armorer’s cunning, broke its force.”

King Agamemnon took the word and said:⁠—
“Dear Menelaus! Would that it were so,
Yet the physician must explore thy wound,
And with his balsams soothe the bitter pain.”
Then turning to Talthybius, he addressed
The sacred herald: “Hasten with all speed,
Talthybius; call Machaon, warrior-son
Of Aesculapius, that much-honored leech,
And bring him to the Achaian general,
The warlike Menelaus, whom some hand
Of Trojan or of Lycian, skilled to bend
The bow, hath wounded with his shaft⁠—a deed
For him to exult in, but a grief to us.”

He spake; nor failed the herald to obey,
But hastened at the word and passed among
The squadrons of Achaia, mailed in brass,
In search of great Machaon. Him he found
As midst the valiant ranks of bucklered men
He stood⁠—the troops who followed him to war
From Triccae, nurse of steeds. Then, drawing near,
The herald spake to him in wingèd words:⁠—

“O son of Aesculapius, come in haste.
King Agamemnon calls thee to the aid
Of warlike Menelaus, whom some hand
Of Trojan or of Lycian, skilled to bend
The bow, hath wounded with his shaft⁠—a deed
For him to exult in, but a grief to us.”

Machaon’s heart was touched, and forth they went
Through the great throng, the army of the Greeks.
And when they came where Atreus’ warlike son
Was wounded, they perceived the godlike man
Standing amid a circle of the chiefs,
The bravest of the Achaians, who at once
Had gathered round. Without delay he drew
The arrow from the fairly-fitted belt.
The barbs were bent in drawing. Then he loosed
The embroidered belt, the quilted vest beneath,
And plate⁠—the armorer’s work⁠—and carefully
O’erlooked the wound