The Iliads of Homer Translated according to the Greek · Homer
ANOTHER ARGUMENT
In Rho the vent’rous hosts maintain A slaught’rous conflict for the slain. Nor could his slaughter rest conceal’d from Menelaus’ ear; Who flew amongst the foremost fights, and with his targe and spear Circled the body, as much griev’d, and with as tender heed To keep it theirs, as any dam about her first-born seed, Not proving what the pain of birth would make the love before, Nor to pursue his first attaint Euphorbus’ spirit forbore;[1] But, seeing Menelaus chief in rescue of the dead, Assay’d him thus: “Atrides, cease, and leave the slaughteréd With his embru’d spoil to the man, that first, of all our state, And famous succours, in fair fight, made passage to his fate; And therefore suffer me to wear the good name I have won Amongst the Trojans, lest thy life repay what his hath done.” “O Jupiter,” said he, incens’d, “thou art no honest man To boast so past thy pow’r to do. Not any lion can, Nor spotted leopard, nor boar, whose mind is mightiest In pouring fury from his strength, advance so proud a crest As Panthus’ fighting progeny.
But Hyperenor’s pride, That joy’d so little time his youth, when he so vilified My force in arms, and call’d me worst of all our chivalry, And stood my worst, might teach ye all to shun this surcuidrie; I think he came not safely home, to tell his wife his acts. Nor less right of thy insolence my equal fate exacts, And will obtain me, if thou stay’st. Retire then, take advice: A fool sees nought before ’tis done, and still too late is wise.” This mov’d not him but to the worse, since it renew’d the sting That his slain brother shot in him, remember’d by the king, To whom he answer’d: “Thou shalt pay, for all the pains endur’d By that slain brother, all the wounds sustain’d for him, recur’d With one made in thy heart by me. ’Tis true thou mad’st his wife A heavy widow, when her joys of wedlock scarce had life, And hurt’st our parents with his grief; all which thou gloriest in, Forespeaking so thy death, that now their grief’s end shall begin. To Panthus, and the snowy hand of Phrontes, I will bring Those arms, and that proud head of thine. And this laborious thing Shall ask no long time to perform.
Nor be my words alone, But their performance; Strength, and Fight, and Terror thus sets on.” This said, he strook his all-round shield; nor shrunk that, but his lance That turn’d head in it. Then the king assay’d the second chance; First praying to the King of Gods; and his dart entry got (The force much driving back his foe) in low part of his throat, And ran his neck through. Then fell pride, and he; and all with gore His locks, that like the Graces were, and which he ever wore In gold and silver ribands wrapp’d, were piteously wet. And when alone in some choice place, a husbandman hath set The young plant of an olive tree, whose root being ever fed With plenty of delicious springs, his branches bravely spread, And all his fresh and lovely head, grown curl’d with snowy flow’rs, That dance and flourish with the winds, that are of gentlest pow’rs; But when a whirlwind, got aloft, stoops with a sudden gale, Tears from his head his tender curls, and tosseth therewithal His fix’d root from his hollow mines; it well presents the force Of Sparta’s king; and so the plant, Euphorbus and his corse.
He slain, the king stripp’d off his arms; and with their worthy prise, All fearing him, had clearly pass’d, if heaven’s fair Eye of eyes Had not, in envy of his acts, to his encounter stirr’d The Mars-like Hector; to whose pow’rs the rescue he preferr’d Of those fair arms, and took the shape of Mentas, colonel Of all the Cicones that near the Thracian Hebrus dwell. Like him, he thus puts forth his voice: “Hector, thou scour’st the field In headstrong púrsuit of those horse, that hardly are compell’d To take the draught of chariots, by any mortal’s hand; The great grandchild of Æacus hath only their command, Whom an immortal mother bore. While thou attend’st on these, The young Atrides, in defence of Menœtiades, Hath slain Euphorbus.” Thus the God took troop with men again; And Hector, heartily perplex’d, look’d round, and saw the slain Still shedding rivers from his wound; and then took envious view Of brave Atrides with his spoil; in way to whom he flew Like one of Vulcan’s quenchless flames.
Atrides heard the cry That ever usher’d him, and sigh’d, and said: “O me, if I[2] Should leave these goodly arms, and him, that here lies dead for me, I fear I should offend the Greeks; if I should stay and be Alone with Hector and his men, I may be compass’d in, Some sleight or other they may use, many may quickly win Their wills of one, and all Troy comes ever where Hector leads. But why, dear mind, dost thou thus talk? When men dare set their heads Against the Gods, as sure they do that fight with men they love, Straight one or other plague ensues. It cannot therefore move The grudge of any Greek that sees I yield to Hector, he Still fighting with a spirit from heav’n. And yet if I could see Brave Ajax, he and I would stand, though ’gainst a God; and sure ’Tis best I seek him, and then see if we two can procure This corse’s freedom through all these. A little then let rest The body, and my mind be still. Of two bads choose the best.”
In this discourse, the troops of Troy were in with him, and he Made such a lion-like retreat, as when the herdsmen see The royal savage, and come on, with men, dogs, cries, and spears, To clear their hornéd stall, and then the kingly heart he bears (With all his high disdain) falls off; so from this odds of aid The golden-hair’d Atrides fled, and in his strength display’d Upon his left hand him he wish’d, extremely busiéd About encouraging his men, to whom an extreme dread Apollo had infus’d. The king reach’d Ajax instantly, And said: “Come, friend, let us two haste, and from the tyranny Of Hector free Patroclus’ corse.” He straight and gladly went; And then was Hector haling off the body, with intent To spoil the shoulders of the dead, and give the dogs the rest, His arms he having pris’d before; when Ajax brought his breast To bar all further spoil. With that he had, sure Hector thought ‘Twas best to satisfy his spleen; which temper Ajax wrought With his mere sight, and Hector fled. The arms he sent to Troy, To make his citizens admire, and pray Jove send him joy.
Then Ajax gather’d to the corse, and hid it with his targe, There setting down as sure a foot, as, in the tender charge Of his lov’d whelps, a lion doth; two hundred hunters near To give him onset, their more force makes him the more austere, Drowns all their clamours in his roars, darts, dogs, doth all despise, And lets his rough brows down so low, they cover all his eyes; So Ajax look’d, and stood, and stay’d for great Priamides. When Glaucus Hippolochides saw Ajax thus depress The spirit of Hector, thus he chid: “O goodly man at arms, In fight a Paris, why should fame make thee fort ’gainst our harms, Being such a fugitive? Now mark, how well thy boasts defend Thy city only with her own. Be sure it shall descend To that proof wholly. Not a man of any Lycian rank Shall strike one stroke more for thy town; for no man gets a thank Should he eternally fight here, nor any guard of thee. How wilt thou, worthless that thou art, keep off an enemy From our poor soldiers, when their prince, Sarpedon, guest and friend To thee, and most deservedly, thou flew’st from in his end, And left’st to all the lust of Greece?
O Gods, a man that was (In life) so huge a good to Troy, and to thee such a grace, (In death) not kept by thee from dogs! If my friends will do well, We’ll take our shoulders from your walls, and let all sink to hell; As all will, were our faces turn’d. Did such a spirit breathe In all you Trojans, as becomes all men that fight beneath Their country’s standard, you would see, that such a prop your cause With like exposure of their lives, have all the honour’d laws Of such a dear confederacy kept to them to a thread, As now ye might reprise the arms Sarpedon forfeited By forfeit of your rights to him, would you but lend your hands, And force Patroclus to your Troy. Ye know how dear he stands In his love, that of all the Greeks is, for himself, far best, And leads the best near-fighting men; and therefore would at least Redeem Sarpedon’s arms; nay him, whom you have likewise lost. This body drawn to Ilion would after draw and cost A greater ransom if you pleas’d; but Ajax startles you; ’Tis his breast bars this right to us; his looks are darts enow To mix great Hector with his men.
And not to blame ye are, You choose foes underneath your strengths, Ajax exceeds ye far.” Hector look’d passing sour at this, and answer’d: “Why dar’st thou, So under, talk above me so? O friend, I thought till now Thy wisdom was superior to all th’ inhabitants Of gleby Lycia; but now impute apparent wants To that discretion thy words show, to say I lost my ground For Ajax’ greatness. Nor fear I the field in combats drown’d, Nor force of chariots, but I fear a Pow’r much better seen In right of all war than all we. That God, that holds between Our victory and us his shield, lets conquest come and go At his free pleasure, and with fear converts her changes so Upon the strongest. Men must fight when his just spirit impels, Not their vain glories. But come on, make thy steps parallels To these of mine, and then be judge, how deep the work will draw. If then I spend the day in shifts, or thou canst give such law To thy detractive speeches then, or if the Grecian host Holds any that in pride of strength holds up his spirit most, Whom, for the carriage of this prince, that thou enforcest so, I make not stoop in his defence.
You, friends, ye hear and know How much it fits ye to make good this Grecian I have slain, For ransom of Jove’s son, our friend. Play then the worthy men, Till I indue Achilles’ arms.” This said, he left the fight, And call’d back those that bore the arms, not yet without his sight, In convoy of them towards Troy. For them he chang’d his own, Remov’d from where it rained tears, and sent them back to town. Then put he on th’ eternal arms, that the Celestial States Gave Peleus; Peleus, being old, their use appropriates To his Achilles, that, like him, forsook them not for age. When He, whose empire is in clouds, saw Hector bent to wage War in divine Achilles’ arms, he shook his head, and said: “Poor wretch, thy thoughts are far from death, though he so near hath laid His ambush for thee. Thou putt’st on those arms, as braving him Whom others fear; hast slain his friend, and from his youthful limb Torn rudely off his heav’nly arms, himself being gentle, kind, And valiant. Equal measure then, thy life in youth must find.
Yet since the justice is so strict, that not Andromache, In thy denied return from fight, must ever take of thee Those arms, in glory of thy acts; thou shalt have that frail blaze Of excellence that neighbours death, a strength ev’n to amaze.” To this His sable brows did bow; and he made fit his limb To those great arms, to fill which up the War-god enter’d him Austere and terrible, his joints and ev’ry part extends With strength and fortitude; and thus to his admiring friends High Clamour brought him. He so shin’d, that all could think no less But he resembled ev’ry way great-soul’d Æacides. Then ev’ry way he scour’d the field, his captains calling on; Asteropæus, Eunomus, that foresaw all things done, Glaucus, and Medon, Desinor, and strong Thersilochus, Phorcis, and Mesthles, Chromius, and great Hippothous; To all these, and their populous troops, these his excitements were: “Hear us, innumerable friends, near-bord’ring nations, hear. We have not call’d you from our towns, to fill our idle eye With number of so many men (no such vain empery Did ever joy us) but to fight; and of our Trojan wives, With all their children, manfully to save the innocent lives.
In whose cares we draw all our towns of aiding soldiers dry, With gifts, guards, victual, all things fit; and hearten their supply With all like rights; and therefore now let all sides set down this, Or live, or perish; this of war the special secret is. In which most resolute design, whoever bears to town Patroclus, laid dead to his hand, by winning the renown Of Ajax’ slaughter, the half-spoil we wholly will impart To his free use, and to ourself the other half convert; And so the glory shall be shar’d, ourself will have no more Then he shall shine in.” This drew all to bring abroad their store Before the body. Ev’ry man had hope it would be his, And forc’d from Ajax. Silly fools, Ajax prevented this By raising rampires to his friend with half their carcasses. And yet his humour was to roar, and fear, and now no less To startle Sparta’s king, to whom he cried out: “O my friend! O Menelaus! Now no hope to get off; here’s the end Of all our labours. Not so much I fear to lose the corse (For that’s sure gone, the fowls of Troy and dogs will quickly force That piece-meal) as I fear my head, and thine, O Atreus’ son.
Hector a cloud brings will hide all. Instant destructión, Grievous and heavy, comes. O call our peers to aid us; fly.” He hasted, and us’d all his voice, sent far and near his cry: “O princes, chief lights of the Greeks, and you that publicly Eat with our General and me, all men of charge, O know Jove gives both grace and dignity to any that will show Good minds for only good itself, though presently the eye Of him that rules discern him not. ’Tis hard for me t’espy, Through all this smoke of burning fight, each captain in his place, And call assistance to our need. Be then each other’s grace, And freely follow each his next. Disdain to let the joy Of great Æacides be forc’d to feed the beasts of Troy.” His voice was first heard and obey’d by swift Oïliades; Idomenëus and his mate, renown’d Meriones, Were seconds to Oïleus’ son; but, of the rest, whose mind Can lay upon his voice the names, that after these combin’d In setting up this fight on end? The Trojans first gave on.
And as into the sea’s vast mouth, when mighty rivers run, Their billows and the sea resound, and all the utter shore Rebellows in her angry shocks the sea’s repulsive roar; With such sounds gave the Trojans charge, so was their charge repress’d. One mind fill’d all Greeks, good brass shields close couch’d to ev’ry breast, And on their bright helms Jove pour’d down a mighty deal of night, To hide Patroclus; whom alive, and when he was the knight Of that grandchild of Æacus, Saturnius did not hate, Nor dead would see him dealt to dogs, and so did instigate His fellows to his worthy guard. At first the Trojans drave The black-ey’d Grecians from the corse; but not a blow they gave That came at death. Awhile they hung about the body’s heels, The Greeks quite gone. But all that while, did Ajax whet the steels Of all his forces, that cut back way to the corse again. Brave Ajax (that for form and fact, pass’d all that did maintain The Grecian fame, next Thetis’ son) now flew before the first.
And as a sort of dogs and youths are by a boar disperst About a mountain; so fled these from mighty Ajax, all That stood in conflict for the corse, who thought no chance could fall Betwixt them and the prise at Troy; for both Hippothous, Lethus’ Pelasgus’ famous son, was so adventurous That he would stand to bore the corse about the ancle-bone, Where all the nervy fibres meet and ligaments in one, That make the motion of those parts; through which he did convey The thong or bawdric of his shield, and so was drawing away All thanks from Hector and his friends; but in their stead he drew An ill that no man could avert; for Telamonius threw A lance that strook quite through his helm, his brain came leaping out; Down fell Letheides, and with him the body’s hoisted foot. Far from Larissa’s soil he fell; a little time allow’d To his industrious spirits to quit the benefits bestow’d By his kind parents. But his wreak Priamides assay’d, And threw at Ajax; but his dart, discover’d, pass’d, and stay’d At Schedius, son of Iphitus, a man of ablest hand Of all the strong Phocensians, and liv’d with great command In Panopëus.
The fell dart fell through his channel-bone, Pierc’d through his shoulder’s upper part, and set his spirit gone. When after his another flew, the same hand giving wing To martial Phorcis’ startled soul, that was the after spring Of Phænops’ seed. The jav’lin strook his curets through, and tore The bowels from the belly’s midst. His fall made those before Give back a little, Hector’s self enforc’d to turn his face. And then the Greeks bestow’d their shouts, took vantage of the chace, Drew off, and spoil’d Hippothous and Phorcis of their arms. And then ascended Ilion had shaken with alarms, Discov’ring th’ impotence of Troy, ev’n past the will of Jove, And by the proper force of Greece, had Phœbus fail’d to move Æneas in similitude of Periphas (the son Of grave Epytes) king at arms, and had good service done To old Anchises, being wise, and ev’n with him in years. But, like this man, the far-seen God to Venus’ son appears, And ask’d him how he would maintain steep Ilion in her height, In spite of Gods, as he presum’d; when men approv’d so slight All his presumptions, and all theirs that puff’d him with that pride, Believing in their proper strengths, and gen’rally supplied With such unfrighted multitudes?
But he well knew that Jove, Besides their self-conceits, sustain’d their forces with more love Than theirs of Greece; and yet all that lack’d pow’r to hearten them. Æneas knew the God, and said: “It was a shame extreme, That those of Greece should beat them so, and by their cowardice, Not want of man’s aid nor the Gods’; and this before his eyes A Deity stood ev’n now and vouch’d, affirming Jove their aid; And so bade Hector and the rest, to whom all this he said, Turn head, and not in that quick ease part with the corse to Greece.” This said, before them all he flew, and all as of a piece Against the Greeks flew. Venus’ son Leocritus did end, Son of Arisbas, and had place of Lycomedes’ friend; Whose fall he friendly pitied, and, in revenge, bestow’d A lance that Apisaon strook, so sore that straight he strow’d The dusty centre, it did stick in that congealéd blood That forms the liver.
Second man he was of all that stood In name for arms amongst the troop that from Pæonia came, Asteropæus being the first; who was in ruth the same That Lycomedes was; like whom, he put forth for the wreak Of his slain friend; but wrought it not, because he could not break That bulwark made of Grecian shields, and bristled wood of spears, Combin’d about the body slain. Amongst whom Ajax bears The greatest labour, ev’ry way exhorting to abide, And no man fly the corse a foot, nor break their ranks in pride Of any foremost daring spirit, but each foot hold his stand, And use the closest fight they could. And this was the command Of mighty Ajax; which observ’d, they steep’d the earth in blood. The Trojans and their friends fell thick. Nor all the Grecians stood (Though far the fewer suffer’d fate) for ever they had care To shun confusion, and the toil that still oppresseth there. So set they all the field on fire; with which you would have thought The sun and moon had been put out, in such a smoke they fought About the person of the prince.
But all the field beside Fought underneath a lightsome heav’n; the sun was in his pride, And such expansure of his beams he thrust out of his throne, That not a vapour durst appear in all that region, No, not upon the highest hill. There fought they still, and breath’d, Shunn’d danger, cast their darts aloof, and not a sword unsheath’d. The other plied it, and the war and night plied them as well, The cruel steel afflicting all; the strongest did not dwell Unhurt within their iron roofs. Two men of special name. Antilochus and Thrasymed, were yet unserv’d by Fame With notice of Patroclus’ death. They thought him still alive In foremost tumult, and might well, for (seeing their fellows thrive In no more comfortable sort than fight and death would yield) They fought apart; for so their sire, old Nestor, strictly will’d, Enjoining fight more from the fleet. War here increas’d his heat The whole day long, continually the labour and the sweat The knees, calves, feet, hands, faces, smear’d, of men that Mars applied About the good Achilles’ friend.
And as a huge ox-hide[3] A currier gives amongst his men, to supple and extend With oil till it be drunk withall; they tug, stretch out, and spend Their oil and liquor lib’rally, and chafe the leather so That out they make a vapour breathe, and in their oil doth go, A number of them set on work, and in an orb they pull, That all ways all parts of the hide they may extend at full; So here and there did both parts hale the corse in little place, And wrought it all ways with their sweat; the Trojans hop’d for grace To make it reach to Ilion, the Grecians to their fleet, A cruel tumult they stirr’d up, and such as should Mars see’t (That horrid hurrier of men) or She that betters him, Minerva, never so incens’d, they could not disesteem. So baneful a contention did Jove that day extend Of men and horse about the slain.
Of whom his god-like friend Had no instruction, so far off, and underneath the wall Of Troy, that conflict was maintain’d; which was not thought at all By great Achilles, since he charg’d, that having set his foot Upon the ports, he would retire, well knowing Troy no boot For his assaults without himself, since not by him as well He knew it was to be subdu’d. His mother oft would tell The mind of mighty Jove therein, oft hearing it in heav’n; But of that great ill to his friend was no instruction giv’n By careful Thetis. By degrees must ill events be known. The foes cleft one to other still, about the overthrown. His death with death infected both. Ev’n private Greeks would say Either to other: “’Twere a shame, for us to go our way, And let the Trojans bear to Troy the praise of such a prise! Which, let the black earth gasp, and drink our blood for sacrifice, Before we suffer. ’Tis an act much less infortunate, And then would those of Troy resolve, though certainly our fate Will fell us altogether here. Of all not turn a face.”
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.