The Iliad by Homer (book club recommendations txt) 📕

augury,
Just as they were in act to cross, appeared
Upon the left: an eagle high in air,
Between the armies, in his talons bore
A monstrous serpent, bleeding, yet alive
And palpitating⁠—nor disabled yet
For combat; for it turned, and on the breast
Wounded the eagle, near the neck. The bird
In pain let fall his prize amid the host,
And flew away, with screams, upon the wind.
The Trojans shuddered at the spotted snake
Lying among them, and Polydamas
Said thus to fearless Hector, standing near:⁠—

“Hector, thou almost ever chidest me
In council, even when I judge aright.
I know it ill becomes the citizen
To speak against the way that pleases thee,
In war or council⁠—he should rather seek
To strengthen thy authority; yet now
I will declare what seems to me the best:
Let us not combat with the Greeks, to take
Their fleet; for this, I think, will be the end,
If now the omen we have seen be meant
For us of Troy who seek to cross the trench;
This eagle, flying high upon the left,
Between the hosts, that in his talons bore
A monstrous serpent, bleeding, yet alive,
Hath dropped it mid our host before he came
To his dear nest, nor brought it to his brood;
So we, although by force we break the gates
And rampart, and although the Greeks fall back,
Shall not as happily retrace our way;
For many a Trojan shall we leave behind,
Slain by the weapons of the Greeks, who stand
And fight to save their fleet. Thus will the seer,
Skilled in the lore of prodigies, explain
The portent, and the people will obey.”

Sternly the crested Hector looked, and spake:⁠—
“Polydamas, the thing that thou hast said
Pleases me not, and easily couldst thou
Frame better counsels. If thy words convey
Thy earnest thought, the gods assuredly
Have made thee lose thy senses. Thou dost ask
That I no longer reverence the decree
Of Jove, the Thunderer of the sky, who gave
His promise, and confirmed it. Thou dost ask
That I be governed by the flight of birds,
Which I regard not, whether to the right
And toward the morning and the sun they fly,
Or toward the left and evening. We should heed
The will of mighty Jupiter, who bears
Rule over gods and men. One augury
There is, the surest and the best⁠—to fight
For our own land. Why dreadest thou the war
And conflict? Though we all should fall beside
The galleys of the Greeks, there is no fear
That thou wilt perish, for thou hast no heart
To stand against the foe;⁠—no warrior thou!
Yet, if thou dare to stand aloof, or seek
By words to turn another from the fight,
The spear I wield shall take thy life at once.”

He spake, and went before; and all his band
Followed with fearful clamor. Jupiter,
The God of thunders, sending a strong wind
From the Idaean summits, drave the dust
Full on the galleys, and made faint the hearts
Of the Greek warriors, and gave new renown
To Hector and the men of Troy. For these,
Trusting in portents sent from Jupiter,
And their own valor, labored to break through
The massive rampart of the Greeks: they tore
The galleries from the towers, and levelled down
The breastworks, heaved with levers from their place
The jutting buttresses which Argive hands
Had firmly planted to support the towers,
And brought them to the ground; and thus they hoped
To force a passage to the Grecian camp.
Not yet did they of Greece give way: they fenced
The rampart with their ox-hide shields, and smote
The enemy from behind them as he came
Under the wall. The chieftains Ajax flew
From tower to tower, and cheered the Achaians on,
And roused their valor⁠—some with gentle words,
And some with harsh rebuke⁠—whome’er they saw
Skulk from the toils and dangers of the fight.
“O friends!” they said, “ye great in war, and ye
Of less renown, and ye of little note!⁠—
For all are not alike in war⁠—the time
Demands the aid of all, as well ye know:
And now let no man turn him toward the fleet
Before the threats of Hector, but press on,
And each exhort his fellow: so may Jove,
Who flings the lightning from Olympus, grant
That, driving back their onset, we may chase
The enemy to the very walls of Troy.”

Thus in the van they shouted, and awoke
New courage in the Greeks. As when the flakes
Of snow fall thick upon a winter-day,
When Jove the Sovereign pours them down on men,
Like arrows, from above;⁠—he bids the wind
Breathe not; continually he pours them down,
And covers every mountain-top and peak,
And flowery mead, and field of fertile tilth,
And sheds them on the havens and the shores
Of the gray deep; but there the waters bound
The covering of snows⁠—all else is white
Beneath that fast-descending shower of Jove;⁠—
So thick the shower of stones from either side
Flew toward the other⁠—from the Greeks against
The Trojans, and from them against the Greeks;
And fearful was the din along the wall.

Yet would illustrious Hector and the men
Of Troy have failed to force the gates and burst
The bar within, had not all-seeing Jove
Impelled his son Sarpedon to attack
The Greeks as falls a lion on a herd
Of horned beeves. The warrior held his shield,
A brazen orb, before him⁠—beautiful,
And fenced with metal; for the armorer laid
Broad plates without, while under these he sewed
Bull’s-hides the toughest, edged with golden wires
Upon the rim. With this the warrior came,
Wielding two spears. As when a lion, bred
Among the mountains, fasting long from flesh,
Comes into the fenced pastures, without fear,
To prey upon the flock; and though he meet
The shepherds keeping watch with dogs and spears,
Yet will he not be driven thence until
He makes a spring into the fold and bears
A sheep away, or in the act is slain,
Struck by a javelin from some ready hand;⁠—
Sarpedon, godlike warrior, thus was moved
By his great heart to storm the wall and break
Through the strong barrier; and to Glaucus, son
Of Lycia’s king Hippolochus, he said:⁠—

“Why, Glaucus, are we honored, on the shores
Of Lycia, with the highest seat at feasts,
And with full cups? Why look men up to us
As to the gods? And why do we possess
Broad, beautiful enclosures, full of vines
And wheat, beside the Xanthus? Then it well
Becomes us, foremost in the Lycian ranks
To stand against the foe, where’er the fight
Is hottest; so our well-armed Lycian men
Shall say, and truly: ‘Not ingloriously
Our kings bear rule in Lycia, where they feast
On fatlings of