The Iliad of Homer by Homer (some good books to read txt) 📕

So spake the seer, and as he spake, is done.
043 Wait, therefore, brave Achaians! go not hence400
Till Priam's spacious city be your prize.

He ceased, and such a shout ensued, that all
The hollow ships the deafening roar return'd
Of acclamation, every voice the speech
Extolling of Ulysses, glorious Chief.405

Then Nestor the Gerenian,[13] warrior old,
Arising, spake; and, by the Gods, he said,
Ye more resemble children inexpert
In war, than disciplined and prudent men.
Where now are all your promises and vows,410
Councils, libations, right-hand covenants?[14]
Burn them, since all our occupation here
Is to debate and wrangle, whereof end
Or fruit though long we wait, shall none be found.
But, Sovereign, be not thou appall'd. Be firm.415
Relax not aught of thine accustomed sway,
But set the battle forth as thou art wont.
And if there be a Grecian, here and there,
One,[15] adverse to the general voice, let such
Wither alone. He shall not see his wish420
Gratified, neither will we hence return
To Argos, ere events shall yet have proved
Jove's promise false or true. For when we climb'd
Our gallant barks full-charged with Ilium's fate,
Saturnian Jove omnipotent, that day,425
(Omen propitious!) thunder'd on the right.
Let no man therefore pant for home, till each
Possess a Trojan spouse, and from her lips
044 Take sweet revenge for Helen's pangs of heart.
Who then? What soldier languishes and sighs430
To leave us? Let him dare to lay his hand
On his own vessel, and he dies the first.
But hear, O King! I shall suggest a course
Not trivial. Agamemnon! sort the Greeks
By districts and by tribes, that tribe may tribe435
Support, and each his fellow. This performed,
And with consent of all, thou shalt discern
With ease what Chief, what private man deserts,
And who performs his part. The base, the brave,
Such disposition made, shall both appear;440
And thou shalt also know, if heaven or we,
The Gods, or our supineness, succor Troy.

To whom Atrides, King of men, replied.
Old Chief! Thou passest all Achaia's sons
In consultation; would to Jove our Sire,445
To Athenæan Pallas, and Apollo!
That I had ten such coadjutors, wise
As thou art, and the royal city soon
Of Priam, with her wealth, should all be ours.[16]
But me the son of Saturn, Jove supreme450
Himself afflicts, who in contentious broils
Involves me, and in altercation vain.
Thence all that wordy tempest for a girl
Achilles and myself between, and I
The fierce aggressor. Be that breach but heal'd!455
And Troy's reprieve thenceforth is at an end.
Go—take refreshment now that we may march
Forth to our enemies. Let each whet well
His spear, brace well his shield, well feed his brisk
High-mettled horses, well survey and search460
His chariot on all sides, that no defect
Disgrace his bright habiliments of war.
So will we give the day from morn to eve
To dreadful battle. Pause there shall be none
Till night divide us. Every buckler's thong465
045 Shall sweat on the toil'd bosom, every hand
That shakes the spear shall ache, and every steed
Shall smoke that whirls the chariot o'er the plain.
Wo then to whom I shall discover here
Loitering among the tents; let him escape470
My vengeance if he can. The vulture's maw
Shall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones.

He spake; whom all applauded with a shout
Loud as against some headland cliff the waves
Roll'd by the stormy South o'er rocks that shoot475
Afar into the deep, which in all winds
The flood still overspreads, blow whence they may.
Arising, forth they rush'd, among the ships
All scatter'd; smoke from every tent arose,
The host their food preparing; next, his God480
Each man invoked (of the Immortals him
Whom he preferr'd) with sacrifice and prayer
For safe escape from danger and from death.
But Agamemnon to Saturnian Jove
Omnipotent, an ox of the fifth year485
Full-flesh'd devoted, and the Princes call'd
Noblest of all the Grecians to his feast.
First, Nestor with Idomeneus the King,
Then either Ajax, and the son he call'd
Of Tydeus, with Ulysses sixth and last,490
Jove's peer in wisdom. Menelaus went,
Heroic Chief! unbidden, for he knew
His brother's mind with weight of care oppress'd.
The ox encircling, and their hands with meal
Of consecration fill'd, the assembly stood,495
When Agamemnon thus his prayer preferred.

Almighty Father! Glorious above all!
Cloud-girt, who dwell'st in heaven thy throne sublime,
Let not the sun go down, till Priam's roof
Fall flat into the flames; till I shall burn500
His gates with fire; till I shall hew away
His hack'd and riven corslet from the breast
Of Hector, and till numerous Chiefs, his friends,
046 Around him, prone in dust, shall bite the ground.

So prayed he, but with none effect, The God505
Received his offering, but to double toil
Doom'd them, and sorrow more than all the past.

They then, the triturated barley grain
First duly sprinkling, the sharp steel infix'd
Deep in the victim's neck reversed, then stripp'd510
The carcase, and divided at their joint
The thighs, which in the double caul involved
They spread with slices crude, and burn'd with fire
Ascending fierce from billets sere and dry.
The spitted entrails next they o'er the coals515
Suspended held. The thighs with fire consumed,
They gave to each his portion of the maw,
Then slash'd the remnant, pierced it with the spits,
And managing with culinary skill
The roast, withdrew it from the spits again.520
Thus, all their task accomplished, and the board
Set forth, they feasted, and were all sufficed.
When neither hunger more nor thirst remain'd
Unsatisfied, Gerenian Nestor spake.

Atrides! Agamemnon! King of men!525
No longer waste we time in useless words,
Nor to a distant hour postpone the work
To which heaven calls thee. Send thine heralds forth.
Who shall convene the Achaians at the fleet,
That we, the Chiefs assembled here, may range,530
Together, the imbattled multitude,
And edge their spirits for immediate fight.

He spake, nor Agamemnon not complied.
At once he bade his clear-voiced heralds call
The Greeks to battle. They the summons loud535
Gave forth, and at the sound the people throng'd.
Then Agamemnon and the Kings of Greece
Dispatchful drew them into order just,
With whom Minerva azure-eyed advanced,
The inestimable Ægis on her arm,540
Immortal, unobnoxious to decay
047 A hundred braids, close twisted, all of gold,
Each valued at a hundred beeves,[17] around
Dependent fringed it. She from side to side
Her eyes cerulean rolled, infusing thirst545
Of battle endless into every breast.
War won them now, war sweeter now to each
Than gales to waft them over ocean home.[18]
As when devouring flames some forest seize
On the high mountains, splendid from afar550
The blaze appears, so, moving on the plain,
The steel-clad host innumerous flash'd to heaven.
And as a multitude of fowls in flocks
Assembled various, geese, or cranes, or swans
Lithe-neck'd, long hovering o'er Caÿster's banks555
On wanton plumes, successive on the mead
Alight at last, and with a clang so loud
That all the hollow vale of Asius rings;
In number such from ships and tents effused,
They cover'd the Scamandrian plain; the earth560
Rebellow'd to the feet of steeds and men.
They overspread Scamander's grassy vale,
Myriads, as leaves, or as the flowers of spring.
As in the hovel where the peasant milks
His kine in spring-time, when his pails are fill'd,565
Thick clouds of humming insects on the wing
Swarm all around him, so the Grecians swarm'd
An unsumm'd multitude o'er all the plain,
Bright arm'd, high crested, and athirst for war.
As goat-herds separate their numerous flocks570
With ease, though fed promiscuous, with like ease
Their leaders them on every side reduced
048 To martial order glorious;[19] among whom
Stood Agamemnon "with an eye like Jove's,
To threaten or command," like Mars in girth,575
And with the port of Neptune. As the bull
Conspicuous among all the herd appears,
For he surpasses all, such Jove ordain'd
That day the son of Atreus, in the midst
Of Heroes, eminent above them all.580

Tell me, (for ye are are heavenly, and beheld[20]
A scene, whereof the faint report alone
Hath reached our ears, remote and ill-informed,)
Tell me, ye Muses, under whom, beneath
What Chiefs of royal or of humbler note585
Stood forth the embattled Greeks? The host at large;
They were a multitude in number more
Than with ten tongues, and with ten mouths, each mouth
Made vocal with a trumpet's throat of brass
I might declare, unless the Olympian nine,590
Jove's daughters, would the chronicle themselves
Indite, of all assembled, under Troy.
I will rehearse the Captains and their fleets.

[21]Bœotia's sturdy sons Peneleus led,
And Leïtus, whose partners in command595
049 Arcesilaus and Prothoenor came,
And Clonius. Them the dwellers on the rocks
Of Aulis followed, with the hardy clans
Of Hyrie, Schoenos, Scholos, and the hills
Of Eteon; Thespia, Græa, and the plains600
Of Mycalessus them, and Harma served,
Eleon, Erythræ, Peteon; Hyle them,
Hesius and Ocalea, and the strength
Of Medeon; Copæ also in their train
Marched, with Eutresis and the mighty men605
Of Thisbe famed for doves; nor pass unnamed
Whom Coronæa, and the grassy land
Of Haliartus added to the war,
Nor whom Platæa, nor whom Glissa bred,
And Hypothebæ,[22] and thy sacred groves610
To Neptune, dark Onchestus. Arne claims
A record next for her illustrious sons,
Vine-bearing Arne. Thou wast also there
Mideia, and thou Nissa; nor be thine
Though last, Anthedon, a forgotten name.615
These in Bœotia's fair and gallant fleet
Of fifty ships, each bearing o'er the waves
Thrice forty warriors, had arrived at Troy.

In thirty ships deep-laden with the brave,
Aspledon and Orchomenos had sent620
050 Their chosen youth; them ruled a noble pair,
Sons of Astyoche; she, lovely nymph,
Received by stealth, on Actor's stately roof,
The embraces of a God, and bore to Mars
Twins like himself, Ascalaphus the bold,625
And bold Iälmenus, expert in arms.

Beneath Epistrophus and Schedius, took
Their destined station on Bœotia's left,
The brave Phocensians; they in forty ships
From Cyparissus came, and from the rocks630
Of Python, and from Crissa the divine;
From Anemoria, Daulis, Panopeus,
And from Hyampolis, and from the banks
Of the Cephissus, sacred stream, and from
Lilæa, seated at its fountain-head.635

Next from beyond Eubœa's happy isle
In forty ships conveyed, stood forth well armed
The Locrians; dwellers in Augeia some
The pleasant, some of Opoëis possessed,
Some of Calliarus; these Scarpha sent,640
And Cynus those; from Bessa came the rest,
From Tarpha, Thronius, and from the brink
Of loud Boagrius; Ajax them, the swift,
Son of Oïleus led, not such as he
From Telamon, big-boned and lofty built,645
But small of limb, and of an humbler crest;
Yet he, competitor had none throughout
The Grecians of what land soe'er, for skill
In ushering to its mark the rapid lance.

Elphenor brought (Calchodon's mighty son)650
The Eubœans to the field. In forty ships
From Histrïæa for her vintage famed,
From Chalcis, from Iretria, from the gates
Of maritime Cerinthus, from the heights
Of Dios rock-built citadel sublime,655
And from Caristus and from Styra came
His warlike multitudes, all named alike
Abantes, on whose shoulders fell behind
051 Their locks profuse,[23] and they were eager all
To split the hauberk with the pointed spear.660

Nor Athens had withheld her generous sons,
The people of Erectheus. Him of old
The teeming glebe produced, a wondrous birth!
And Pallas rear'd him: her own unctuous fane
She made his habitation, where with bulls665
The youth of Athens, and with slaughter'd lambs
Her annual worship celebrate. Then led
Menestheus, whom, (sage Nestor's self except,
Thrice school'd in all events of human life,)
None rivall'd ever in the just array670
Of horse and man to battle. Fifty ships
Black-prowed, had borne them to the distant war.

Ajax from Salamis twelve vessels brought,
And where the Athenian band in phalanx stood
Marshall'd compact, there station'd he his powers.675

The men of Argos and Tyrintha next,
And of Hermione, that stands retired
With Asine, within her spacious bay;
Of Epidaurus, crown'd with purple vines,
And of Trœzena, with the Achaian youth680
Of sea-begirt Ægina, and with thine,
Maseta, and the dwellers on thy coast,
Wave-worn Eïonæ; these all obeyed
The dauntless Hero Diomede, whom served
Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, a Chief685
Of deathless fame, his second in command,
And godlike man, Euryalus, the son
Of King Mecisteus, Talaüs' son, his third.
But Diomede controll'd them all, and him
Twice forty sable ships their leader own'd.690

Came Agamemnon with a hundred ships,
Exulting in his powers; more numerous they,
052 And more illustrious far than other Chief
Could boast, whoever. Clad in burnish'd brass,
And conscious of pre-eminence, he stood.695
He drew his host from cities far renown'd,
Mycenæ, and Corinthus, seat of wealth,
Orneia, and Cleonæ bulwark'd strong,
And lovely Aræthyria; Sicyon, where
His seat of