The Iliads of Homer Translated according to the Greek · Homer
ANOTHER ARGUMENT
About her broad-spread shoulders hung his huge and horrid shield, Fring’d round with ever-fighting snakes; through it was drawn to life The miseries and deaths of fight; in it frown’d bloody Strife, In it shin’d sacred Fortitude, in it fell Púrsuit flew, In it the monster Gorgon’s head, in which held out to view Were all the dire ostents of Jove; on her big head she plac’d His four-plum’d glitt’ring casque of gold, so admirably vast It would an hundred garrisons of soldiers comprehend. Then to her shining chariot her vig’rous feet ascend; And in her violent hand she takes his grave, huge, solid lance, With which the conquests of her wrath she useth to advance, And overturn whole fields of men, to show she was the Seed Of him that thunders. Then heav’n’s Queen, to urge her horses’ speed, Takes up the scourge, and forth they fly. The ample gates of heav’n Rung, and flew open of themselves; the charge whereof is giv’n, With all Olympus, and the sky, to the distinguish’d Hours, That clear, or hide it all in clouds, or pour it down in show’rs.
This way their scourge-obeying horse made haste, and soon they won The top of all the topful heav’ns, where aged Saturn’s son Sat sever’d from the other Gods; then stay’d the white-arm’d Queen Her steeds, and ask’d of Jove, if Mars did not incense his spleen With his foul deeds, in ruining so many and so great In the command and grace of Greece, and in so rude a heat? At which, she said, Apollo laugh’d, and Venus, who still sue To that mad God, for violence that never justice knew; For whose impiety, she ask’d, if, with his wishéd love, Herself might free the field of him? He bade her rather move Athenia to the charge she sought, who us’d of old to be The bane of Mars, and had as well the gift of spoil as he.
This grace she slack’d not, but her horse scourg’d, that in nature flew Betwixt the cope of stars and earth; and how far at a view A man into the purple sea may from a hill descry, So far a high-neighing horse of heav’n at ev’ry jump would fly.[2] Arriv’d at Troy, where, broke in curls, the two floods mix their force, Scamander and bright Simois, Saturnia stay’d her horse, Took them from chariot, and a cloud of mighty depth diffus’d About them; and the verdant banks of Simois produc’d In nature what they eat in heav’n. Then both the Goddesses[3] March’d, like a pair of tim’rous doves, in hasting their access To th’ Argive succour. Being arriv’d, where both the most and best Were heap’d together (showing all, like lions at a feast Of new-slain carcasses, or boars, beyond encounter strong) There found they Diomed; and there, ’midst all th’ admiring throng, Saturnia put on Stentor’s shape, that had a brazen voice, And spake as loud as fifty men; like whom she made a noise, And chid the Argives: “O ye Greeks, in name and outward rite But princes only, not in act, what scandal, what despite, Use ye to honour!
All the time the great Æacides Was conversant in arms, your foes durst not a foot address Without their ports, so much they fear’d his lance that all controll’d, And now they outray to your fleet.” This did with shame make bold The gen’ral spirit and pow’r of Greece: when, with particular note Of their disgrace, Athenia made Tydeus’ issue hot. She found him at his chariot, refreshing of his wound Inflicted by slain Pandarus; his sweat did so abound, It much annoy’d him, underneath the broad belt of his shield; With which, and tiréd with his toil, his soul could hardly yield His body motion. With his hand he lifted up the belt, And wip’d away that clotter’d blood the fervent wound did melt.
Minerva lean’d against his horse, and near their withers laid Her sacred hand, then spake to him: “Believe me, Diomed, Tydeus exampled not himself in thee his son; not great, But yet he was a soldier; a man of so much heat, That in his ambassy for Thebes, when I forbad his mind To be too vent’rous, and when feasts his heart might have declin’d, With which they welcom’d him, he made a challenge to the best, And foil’d the best; I gave him aid, because the rust of rest, That would have seiz’d another mind, he suffer’d not, but us’d The trial I made like a man, and their soft feasts refus’d. Yet, when I set thee on, thou faint’st; I guard thee, charge, exhort That, I abetting thee, thou shouldst be to the Greeks a fort, And a dismay to Ilion, yet thou obey’st in nought, Afraid, or slothful, or else both; henceforth renounce all thought That ever thou wert Tydeus’ son.” He answer’d her: “I know Thou art Jove’s daughter, and, for that, in all just duty owe Thy speeches rev’rence, yet affirm ingeniously that fear Doth neither hold me spiritless, nor sloth.
I only bear Thy charge in zealous memory, that I should never war With any blesséd Deity, unless (exceeding far The limits of her rule) the Queen, that governs chamber sport, Should press to field; and her thy will enjoin’d my lance to hurt. But, He whose pow’r hath right in arms, I knew in person here, Besides the Cyprian Deity; and therefore did forbear, And here have gather’d in retreat these other Greeks you see, With note and rev’rence of your charge.” “My dearest mind,” said she, “What then was fit is chang’d. ’Tis true, Mars hath just rule in war, But just war; otherwise he raves, not fights. He’s alter’d far. He vow’d to Juno, and myself, that his aid should be us’d Against the Trojans, whom it guards; and therein he abus’d His rule in arms, infring’d his word, and made his war unjust. He is inconstant, impious, mad. Resolve then; firmly trust My aid of thee against his worst, or any Deity; Add scourge to thy free horse, charge home; he fights perfidiously.”
This said; as that brave king, her knight, with his horse-guiding friend, Were set before the chariot, for sign he should descend, That she might serve for waggoness, she pluck’d the wagg’ner back, And up into his seat she mounts; the beechen tree did crack Beneath the burthen; and good cause, it bore so huge a thing, A Goddess so replete with pow’r, and such a puissant king. She snatch’d the scourge up and the reins, and shut her heaven’ly look In Hell’s vast helm from Mars’s eyes; and full career she took At him, who then had newly slain the mighty Periphas, Renown’d son to Ochesius, and far the strongest was Of all th’ Ætolians; to whose spoil the bloody God was run. But when this man-plague saw the approach of god-like Tydeus’ son, He let his mighty Periphas lie, and in full charge he ran At Diomed; and he at him. Both near; the God began, And, thirsty of his blood, he throws a brazen lance that bears Full on the breast of Diomed, above the reins and gears; But Pallas took it on her hand, and strook the eager lance Beneath the chariot.
Then the knight of Pallas doth advance, And cast a jav’lin off at Mars, Minerva sent it on, That, where his arming girdle gilt, his belly graz’d upon, Just at the rim, and ranch’d the flesh; the lance again he got, But left the wound, that stung him so, he laid out such a throat As if nine or ten thousand men had bray’d out all their breaths In one confusion, having felt as many sudden deaths. The roar made both the hosts amaz’d. Up flew the God to heav’n; And with him was through all the air as black a tincture driv’n To Diomed’s eyes, as when the earth half-choked with smoking heat Of gloomy clouds, that stifle men, and pitchy tempests threat, Usher’d with horrid gusts of wind; with such black vapours plum’d, Mars flew t’ Olympus, and broad heav’n, and there his place resum’d. Sadly he went and sat by Jove, show’d his immortal blood, That from a mortal-man-made wound pour’d such an impious flood, And weeping pour’d out these complaints: “O Father, storms’t thou not To see us take these wrongs from men?
Extreme griefs we have got Ev’n by our own deep councils, held for gratifying them; And thou, our council’s president, conclud’st in this extreme Of fighting ever; being rul’d by one that thou hast bred; One never well, but doing ill; a girl so full of head That, though all other Gods obey, her mad moods must command, By thy indulgence, nor by word, nor any touch of hand, Correcting her; thy reason is, she is a spark of thee, And therefore she may kindle rage in men ’gainst Gods, and she May make men hurt Gods, and those Gods that are besides thy seed. First in the palm’s hit Cyprides; then runs the impious deed On my hurt person; and, could life give way to death in me, Or had my feet not fetched me off, heaps of mortality Had kept me consort.”
Jupiter, with a contracted brow, Thus answered Mars: “Thou many minds, inconstant changeling thou, Sit not complaining thus by me, whom most of all the Gods, Inhabiting the starry hill, I hate; no periods Being set to thy contentions, brawls, fights, and pitching fields; Just of thy mother Juno’s moods, stiff-neck’d, and never yields, Though I correct her still, and chide, nor can forbear offence, Though to her son; this wound I know tastes of her insolence; But I will prove more natural; thou shalt be cur’d, because Thou com’st of me, but hadst thou been so cross to sacred laws, Being born to any other God, thou had’st been thrown from heav’n Long since, as low as Tartarus, beneath the giants driv’n.” This said, he gave his wound in charge to Pæon, who applied Such sov’reign med’cines, that as soon the pain was qualified, And he recur’d; as nourishing milk, when runnet is put in, Runs all in heaps of tough thick curd, though in his nature thin, Ev’n so soon his wound’s parted sides ran close in his recure; For he, all deathless, could not long the parts of death endure, Then Hebe bath’d, and put on him fresh garments, and he sate Exulting by his sire again, in top of all his state. So, having, from the spoils of men, made his desir’d remove, Juno and Pallas re-ascend the starry court of Jove.
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