The Iliad - Homer (best novels to read for beginners .txt) 📗
- Author: Homer
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Yet Helen bids thee stay, lest thou unskill’d Shouldst fall an easy conquest on the field.”
The prince replies: “Ah cease, divinely fair, Nor add reproaches to the wounds I bear; This day the foe prevail’d by Pallas’ power: We yet may vanquish in a happier hour:
There want not gods to favour us above; But let the business of our life be love: These softer moments let delights employ, And kind embraces snatch the hasty joy.
Not thus I loved thee, when from Sparta’s shore My forced, my willing heavenly prize I bore, When first entranced in Cranae’s isle I lay, [84]
Mix’d with thy soul, and all dissolved away!”
Thus having spoke, the enamour’d Phrygian boy Rush’d to the bed, impatient for the joy.
Him Helen follow’d slow with bashful charms, And clasp’d the blooming hero in her arms.
While these to love’s delicious rapture yield, The stern Atrides rages round the field: So some fell lion whom the woods obey,
Roars through the desert, and demands his prey.
Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy,
But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy; Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave.
Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, “Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes!
Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown’d, Our brother’s arms the just success have found: Be therefore now the Spartan wealth restor’d, Let Argive Helen own her lawful lord;
The appointed fine let Ilion justly pay, And age to age record this signal day.”
He ceased; his army’s loud applauses rise, And the long shout runs echoing through the skies.
{Illustration: VENUS.}
{Illustration: Map, titled “Graeciae Antiquae”.}
BOOK IV.
ARGUMENT.
THE BREACH OF THE TRUCE, AND THE FIRST BATTLE.
The gods deliberate in council concerning the Trojan war: they agree upon the continuation of it, and Jupiter sends down Minerva to break the truce. She persuades Pandarus to aim an arrow at Menelaus, who is wounded, but cured by Machaon. In the meantime some of the Trojan troops attack the Greeks. Agamemnon is distinguished in all the parts of a good general; he reviews the troops, and exhorts the leaders, some by praises and others by reproof. Nestor is particularly celebrated for his military discipline. The battle joins, and great numbers are slain on both sides.
The same day continues through this as through the last book (as it does also through the two following, and almost to the end of the seventh book). The scene is wholly in the field before Troy.
And now Olympus’ shining gates unfold;
The gods, with Jove, assume their thrones of gold: Immortal Hebe, fresh with bloom divine, The golden goblet crowns with purple wine: While the full bowls flow round, the powers employ Their careful eyes on long-contended Troy.
When Jove, disposed to tempt Saturnia’s spleen, Thus waked the fury of his partial queen, “Two powers divine the son of Atreus aid, Imperial Juno, and the martial maid; [85]
But high in heaven they sit, and gaze from far, The tame spectators of his deeds of war.
Not thus fair Venus helps her favour’d knight, The queen of pleasures shares the toils of fight, Each danger wards, and constant in her care, Saves in the moment of the last despair.
Her act has rescued Paris’ forfeit life, Though great Atrides gain’d the glorious strife.
Then say, ye powers! what signal issue waits To crown this deed, and finish all the fates!
Shall Heaven by peace the bleeding kingdoms spare, Or rouse the furies, and awake the war?
Yet, would the gods for human good provide, Atrides soon might gain his beauteous bride, Still Priam’s walls in peaceful honours grow, And through his gates the crowding nations flow.”
Thus while he spoke, the queen of heaven, enraged, And queen of war, in close consult engaged: Apart they sit, their deep designs employ, And meditate the future woes of Troy.
Though secret anger swell’d Minerva’s breast, The prudent goddess yet her wrath suppress’d; But Juno, impotent of passion, broke
Her sullen silence, and with fury spoke: {Illustration: THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS.}
“Shall then, O tyrant of the ethereal reign!
My schemes, my labours, and my hopes be vain?
Have I, for this, shook Ilion with alarms, Assembled nations, set two worlds in arms?
To spread the war, I flew from shore to shore; The immortal coursers scarce the labour bore.
At length ripe vengeance o’er their heads impends, But Jove himself the faithless race defends.
Loth as thou art to punish lawless lust, Not all the gods are partial and unjust.”
The sire whose thunder shakes the cloudy skies, Sighs from his inmost soul, and thus replies: “Oh lasting rancour! oh insatiate hate
To Phrygia’s monarch, and the Phrygian state!
What high offence has fired the wife of Jove?
Can wretched mortals harm the powers above, That Troy, and Troy’s whole race thou wouldst confound, And yon fair structures level with the ground!
Haste, leave the skies, fulfil thy stern desire, Burst all her gates, and wrap her walls in fire!
Let Priam bleed! if yet you thirst for more, Bleed all his sons, and Ilion float with gore: To boundless vengeance the wide realm be given, Till vast destruction glut the queen of heaven!
So let it be, and Jove his peace enjoy, [86]
When heaven no longer hears the name of Troy.
But should this arm prepare to wreak our hate On thy loved realms, whose guilt demands their fate; Presume not thou the lifted bolt to stay, Remember Troy, and give the vengeance way.
For know, of all the numerous towns that rise Beneath the rolling sun and starry skies, Which gods have raised, or earth-born men enjoy, None stands so dear to Jove as sacred Troy.
No mortals merit more distinguish’d grace Than godlike Priam, or than Priam’s race.
Still to our name their hecatombs expire, And altars blaze with unextinguish’d fire.”
At this the goddess rolled her radiant eyes, Then on the Thunderer fix’d them, and replies: “Three towns are Juno’s on the Grecian plains, More dear than all the extended earth contains, Mycenae, Argos, and the Spartan wall; [87]
These thou mayst raze, nor I forbid their fall: ‘Tis not in me the vengeance to remove; The crime’s sufficient that they share my love.
Of power superior why should I complain?
Resent I may, but must resent in vain.
Yet some distinction Juno might require, Sprung with thyself from one celestial sire, A goddess born, to share the realms above, And styled the consort of the thundering Jove; Nor thou a wife and sister’s right deny; [88]
Let both consent, and both by terms comply; So shall the gods our joint decrees obey, And heaven shall act as we direct the way.
See ready Pallas waits thy high commands To raise in arms the Greek and Phrygian bands; Their sudden friendship by her arts may cease, And the proud Trojans first infringe the peace.”
The sire of men and monarch of the sky
The advice approved, and bade Minerva fly, Dissolve the league, and all her arts employ To make the breach the faithless act of Troy.
Fired with the charge, she headlong urged her flight, And shot like lightning from Olympus’ height.
As the red comet, from Saturnius sent
To fright the nations with a dire portent, (A fatal sign to armies on the plain,
Or trembling sailors on the wintry main,) With sweeping glories glides along in air, And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair: [89]
Between both armies thus, in open sight Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light, With eyes erect the gazing hosts admire The power descending, and the heavens on fire!
“The gods (they cried), the gods this signal sent, And fate now labours with some vast event: Jove seals the league, or bloodier scenes prepares; Jove, the great arbiter of peace and wars.”
They said, while Pallas through the Trojan throng, (In shape a mortal,) pass’d disguised along.
Like bold Laodocus, her course she bent, Who from Antenor traced his high descent.
Amidst the ranks Lycaon’s son she found, The warlike Pandarus, for strength renown’d; Whose squadrons, led from black AEsepus’ flood, [90]
With flaming shields in martial circle stood.
To him the goddess: “Phrygian! canst thou hear A well-timed counsel with a willing ear?
What praise were thine, couldst thou direct thy dart, Amidst his triumph, to the Spartan’s heart?
What gifts from Troy, from Paris wouldst thou gain, Thy country’s foe, the Grecian glory slain?
Then seize the occasion, dare the mighty deed, Aim at his breast, and may that aim succeed!
But first, to speed the shaft, address thy vow To Lycian Phoebus with the silver bow,
And swear the firstlings of thy flock to pay, On Zelia’s altars, to the god of day.” [91]
He heard, and madly at the motion pleased, His polish’d bow with hasty rashness seized.
‘Twas form’d of horn, and smooth’d with artful toil: A mountain goat resign’d the shining spoil.
Who pierced long since beneath his arrows bled; The stately quarry on the cliffs lay dead, And sixteen palms his brow’s large honours spread: The workmen join’d, and shaped the bended horns, And beaten gold each taper point adorns.
This, by the Greeks unseen, the warrior bends, Screen’d by the shields of his surrounding friends: There meditates the mark; and couching low, Fits the sharp arrow to the well-strung bow.
One from a hundred feather’d deaths he chose, Fated to wound, and cause of future woes; Then offers vows with hecatombs to crown Apollo’s altars in his native town.
Now with full force the yielding horn he bends, Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends; Close to his breast he strains the nerve below, Till the barb’d points approach the circling bow; The impatient weapon whizzes on the wing; Sounds the tough horn, and twangs the quivering string.
But thee, Atrides! in that dangerous hour The gods forget not, nor thy guardian power, Pallas assists, and (weakened in its force) Diverts the weapon from its destined course: So from her babe, when slumber seals his eye, The watchful mother wafts the envenom’d fly.
Just where his belt with golden buckles join’d, Where linen folds the double corslet lined, She turn’d the shaft, which, hissing from above, Pass’d the broad belt, and through the corslet drove; The folds it pierced, the plaited linen tore, And razed the skin, and drew the purple gore.
As when some stately trappings are decreed To grace a monarch on his bounding steed, A nymph in Caria or Maeonia bred,
Stains the pure ivory with a lively red; With equal lustre various colours vie,
The shining whiteness, and the Tyrian dye: So great Atrides! show’d thy sacred blood, As down thy snowy thigh distill’d the streaming flood.
With horror seized, the king of men descried The shaft infix’d, and saw the gushing tide: Nor less the Spartan fear’d, before he found The shining barb appear above the wound, Then, with a sigh, that heaved his manly breast, The royal brother thus his grief express’d, And grasp’d his hand; while all the Greeks around With answering sighs return’d the plaintive sound.
“Oh, dear as life! did I for this agree The solemn truce, a fatal truce to thee!
Wert thou exposed to all the hostile train, To fight for Greece, and conquer, to be slain!
The race of Trojans in thy ruin join,
And faith is scorn’d by all the perjured line.
Not thus our vows, confirm’d with wine and gore, Those hands we plighted, and those oaths we swore, Shall
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