The Iliad · Homer
THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OF HECTOR.
He said, and, entering, took his seat of state; Where full before him reverend Priam sate; To whom, composed, the godlike chief begun: “Lo! to thy prayer restored, thy breathless son; Extended on the funeral couch he lies; And soon as morning paints the eastern skies, The sight is granted to thy longing eyes: But now the peaceful hours of sacred night Demand reflection, and to rest invite: Nor thou, O father! thus consumed with woe, The common cares that nourish life forego. Not thus did Niobe, of form divine, A parent once, whose sorrows equall’d thine: Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids, In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades; Those by Apollo’s silver bow were slain, These, Cynthia’s arrows stretch’d upon the plain: So was her pride chastised by wrath divine, Who match’d her own with bright Latona’s line; But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy’d; Those boasted twelve, the avenging two destroy’d. Steep’d in their blood, and in the dust outspread, Nine days, neglected, lay exposed the dead; None by to weep them, to inhume them none; (For Jove had turn’d the nation all to stone.) The gods themselves, at length relenting gave The unhappy race the honours of a grave. Herself a rock (for such was heaven’s high will) Through deserts wild now pours a weeping rill; Where round the bed whence Achelous springs, The watery fairies dance in mazy rings; There high on Sipylus’s shaggy brow, She stands, her own sad monument of woe; The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow.
“Such griefs, O king! have other parents known; Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own. The care of heaven thy Hector has appear’d, Nor shall he lie unwept, and uninterr’d; Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown’d, And all the eyes of Ilion stream around.” He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe With silver fleece, which his attendants slew. The limbs they sever from the reeking hide, With skill prepare them, and in parts divide: Each on the coals the separate morsels lays, And, hasty, snatches from the rising blaze. With bread the glittering canisters they load, Which round the board Automedon bestow’d. The chief himself to each his portion placed, And each indulging shared in sweet repast. When now the rage of hunger was repress’d, The wondering hero eyes his royal guest: No less the royal guest the hero eyes, His godlike aspect and majestic size; Here, youthful grace and noble fire engage; And there, the mild benevolence of age. Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke, (A solemn scene!) at length the father spoke: “Permit me now, beloved of Jove! to steep My careful temples in the dew of sleep: For, since the day that number’d with the dead My hapless son, the dust has been my bed; Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes; My only food, my sorrows and my sighs! Till now, encouraged by the grace you give, I share thy banquet, and consent to live.”
With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed, With purple soft and shaggy carpets spread; Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way, And place the couches, and the coverings lay. Then he: “Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here; Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear, Lest any Argive, at this hour awake, To ask our counsel, or our orders take, Approaching sudden to our open’d tent, Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent. Should such report thy honour’d person here, The king of men the ransom might defer; But say with speed, if aught of thy desire Remains unask’d; what time the rites require To inter thy Hector? For, so long we stay Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey.” “If then thy will permit (the monarch said) To finish all due honours to the dead, This of thy grace accord: to thee are known The fears of Ilion, closed within her town; And at what distance from our walls aspire The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire. Nine days to vent our sorrows I request, The tenth shall see the funeral and the feast; The next, to raise his monument be given; The twelfth we war, if war be doom’d by heaven!” “This thy request (replied the chief) enjoy: Till then our arms suspend the fall of Troy.”
“Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ, Ye wretched daughters, and ye sons of Troy! If e’er ye rush’d in crowds, with vast delight, To hail your hero glorious from the fight, Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow; Your common triumph, and your common woe.” In thronging crowds they issue to the plains; Nor man nor woman in the walls remains; In every face the self-same grief is shown; And Troy sends forth one universal groan. At Scæa’s gates they meet the mourning wain, Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain. The wife and mother, frantic with despair, Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scatter’d hair: Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay; And there had sigh’d and sorrow’d out the day; But godlike Priam from the chariot rose: “Forbear (he cried) this violence of woes; First to the palace let the car proceed, Then pour your boundless sorrows o’er the dead.” The waves of people at his word divide, Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide; Even to the palace the sad pomp they wait: They weep, and place him on the bed of state. A melancholy choir attend around, With plaintive sighs, and music’s solemn sound: Alternately they sing, alternate flow The obedient tears, melodious in their woe. While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, And nature speaks at every pause of art.
First to the corse the weeping consort flew; Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw, “And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries) Snatch’d in thy bloom from these desiring eyes! Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone! And I abandon’d, desolate, alone! An only son, once comfort of our pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains! Never to manly age that son shall rise, Or with increasing graces glad my eyes: For Ilion now (her great defender slain) Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain. Who now protects her wives with guardian care? Who saves her infants from the rage of war? Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o’er (Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore: Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shall go, The sad companion of thy mother’s woe; Driven hence a slave before the victor’s sword Condemn’d to toil for some inhuman lord: Or else some Greek whose father press’d the plain, Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain, In Hector’s blood his vengeance shall enjoy, And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy.[297] For thy stern father never spared a foe: Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe! Thence many evils his sad parents bore, His parents many, but his consort more. Why gav’st thou not to me thy dying hand? And why received not I thy last command? Some word thou would’st have spoke, which, sadly dear, My soul might keep, or utter with a tear; Which never, never could be lost in air, Fix’d in my heart, and oft repeated there!”
Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan, Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan. The mournful mother next sustains her part: “O thou, the best, the dearest to my heart! Of all my race thou most by heaven approved, And by the immortals even in death beloved! While all my other sons in barbarous bands Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands, This felt no chains, but went a glorious ghost, Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast. Sentenced, ’tis true, by his inhuman doom, Thy noble corse was dragg’d around the tomb; (The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain;) Ungenerous insult, impotent and vain! Yet glow’st thou fresh with every living grace; No mark of pain, or violence of face: Rosy and fair! as Phœbus’ silver bow Dismiss’d thee gently to the shades below.” Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears. Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears; Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries.
He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train Their mules and oxen harness to the wain, Pour through the gates, and fell’d from Ida’s crown, Roll back the gather’d forests to the town. These toils continue nine succeeding days, And high in air a sylvan structure raise. But when the tenth fair morn began to shine, Forth to the pile was borne the man divine, And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes, Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise. Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, With rosy lustre streak’d the dewy lawn, Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre, And quench with wine the yet remaining fire. The snowy bones his friends and brothers place (With tears collected) in a golden vase; The golden vase in purple palls they roll’d, Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold. Last o’er the urn the sacred earth they spread, And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead. (Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done, Watch’d from the rising to the setting sun.) All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again, A solemn, silent, melancholy train: Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast. Such honours Ilion to her hero paid, And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.[300]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.