The Iliad - Homer (best novels to read for beginners .txt) 📗

your ancient trophies won, Your great forefathers’ virtues, and your own.

Behold, the general flies! deserts his powers!

Lo, Jove himself declares the conquest ours!

Now on yon ranks impel your foaming steeds; And, sure of glory, dare immortal deeds.”

 

Writh words like these the fiery chief alarms His fainting host, and every bosom warms.

As the bold hunter cheers his hounds to tear The brindled lion, or the tusky bear:

With voice and hand provokes their doubting heart, And springs the foremost with his lifted dart: So godlike Hector prompts his troops to dare; Nor prompts alone, but leads himself the war.

On the black body of the foe he pours;

As from the cloud’s deep bosom, swell’d with showers, A sudden storm the purple ocean sweeps, Drives the wild waves, and tosses all the deeps.

Say, Muse! when Jove the Trojan’s glory crown’d, Beneath his arm what heroes bit the ground?

Assaeus, Dolops, and Autonous died,

Opites next was added to their side;

Then brave Hipponous, famed in many a fight, Opheltius, Orus, sunk to endless night; AEsymnus, Agelaus; all chiefs of name;

The rest were vulgar deaths unknown to fame.

As when a western whirlwind, charged with storms, Dispels the gather’d clouds that Notus forms: The gust continued, violent and strong, Rolls sable clouds in heaps on heaps along; Now to the skies the foaming billows rears, Now breaks the surge, and wide the bottom bares: Thus, raging Hector, with resistless hands, O’erturns, confounds, and scatters all their bands.

Now the last ruin the whole host appals; Now Greece had trembled in her wooden walls; But wise Ulysses call’d Tydides forth,

His soul rekindled, and awaked his worth.

“And stand we deedless, O eternal shame!

Till Hector’s arm involve the ships in flame?

Haste, let us join, and combat side by side.”

The warrior thus, and thus the friend replied: “No martial toil I shun, no danger fear; Let Hector come; I wait his fury here.

But Jove with conquest crowns the Trojan train: And, Jove our foe, all human force is vain.”

 

He sigh’d; but, sighing, raised his vengeful steel, And from his car the proud Thymbraeus fell: Molion, the charioteer, pursued his lord, His death ennobled by Ulysses’ sword.

There slain, they left them in eternal night, Then plunged amidst the thickest ranks of fight.

So two wild boars outstrip the following hounds, Then swift revert, and wounds return for wounds.

Stern Hector’s conquests in the middle plain Stood check’d awhile, and Greece respired again.

 

The sons of Merops shone amidst the war; Towering they rode in one refulgent car: In deep prophetic arts their father skill’d, Had warn’d his children from the Trojan field.

Fate urged them on: the father warn’d in vain; They rush’d to fight, and perish’d on the plain; Their breasts no more the vital spirit warms; The stern Tydides strips their shining arms.

Hypirochus by great Ulysses dies,

And rich Hippodamus becomes his prize.

Great Jove from Ide with slaughter fills his sight, And level hangs the doubtful scale of fight.

By Tydeus’ lance Agastrophus was slain, The far-famed hero of Paeonian strain;

Wing’d with his fears, on foot he strove to fly, His steeds too distant, and the foe too nigh: Through broken orders, swifter than the wind, He fled, but flying left his life behind.

This Hector sees, as his experienced eyes Traverse the files, and to the rescue flies; Shouts, as he pass’d, the crystal regions rend, And moving armies on his march attend.

Great Diomed himself was seized with fear, And thus bespoke his brother of the war: “Mark how this way yon bending squadrons yield!

The storm rolls on, and Hector rules the field: Here stand his utmost force.”—The warrior said; Swift at the word his ponderous javelin fled; Nor miss’d its aim, but where the plumage danced Razed the smooth cone, and thence obliquely glanced.

Safe in his helm (the gift of Phoebus’ hands) Without a wound the Trojan hero stands; But yet so stunn’d, that, staggering on the plain.

His arm and knee his sinking bulk sustain; O’er his dim sight the misty vapours rise, And a short darkness shades his swimming eyes.

Tydides followed to regain his lance;

While Hector rose, recover’d from the trance, Remounts his car, and herds amidst the crowd: The Greek pursues him, and exults aloud: “Once more thank Phoebus for thy forfeit breath, Or thank that swiftness which outstrips the death.

Well by Apollo are thy prayers repaid,

And oft that partial power has lent his aid.

Thou shall not long the death deserved withstand, If any god assist Tydides’ hand.

Fly then, inglorious! but thy flight, this day, Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay,”

 

Him, while he triumph’d, Paris eyed from far, (The spouse of Helen, the fair cause of war;) Around the fields his feather’d shafts he sent, From ancient Ilus’ ruin’d monument:

Behind the column placed, he bent his bow, And wing’d an arrow at the unwary foe;

Just as he stoop’d, Agastrophus’s crest To seize, and drew the corslet from his breast, The bowstring twang’d; nor flew the shaft in vain, But pierced his foot, and nail’d it to the plain.

The laughing Trojan, with a joyful spring.

Leaps from his ambush, and insults the king.

 

“He bleeds! (he cries) some god has sped my dart!

Would the same god had fix’d it in his heart!

So Troy, relieved from that wide-wasting hand, Should breathe from slaughter and in combat stand: Whose sons now tremble at his darted spear, As scatter’d lambs the rushing lion fear.”

 

He dauntless thus: “Thou conqueror of the fair, Thou woman-warrior with the curling hair; Vain archer! trusting to the distant dart, Unskill’d in arms to act a manly part!

Thou hast but done what boys or women can; Such hands may wound, but not incense a man.

Nor boast the scratch thy feeble arrow gave, A coward’s weapon never hurts the brave.

Not so this dart, which thou may’st one day feel; Fate wings its flight, and death is on the steel: Where this but lights, some noble life expires; Its touch makes orphans, bathes the cheeks of sires, Steeps earth in purple, gluts the birds of air, And leaves such objects as distract the fair.”

Ulysses hastens with a trembling heart, Before him steps, and bending draws the dart: Forth flows the blood; an eager pang succeeds; Tydides mounts, and to the navy speeds.

 

Now on the field Ulysses stands alone,

The Greeks all fled, the Trojans pouring on; But stands collected in himself, and whole, And questions thus his own unconquer’d soul: “What further subterfuge, what hopes remain?

What shame, inglorious if I quit the plain?

What danger, singly if I stand the ground, My friends all scatter’d, all the foes around?

Yet wherefore doubtful? let this truth suffice, The brave meets danger, and the coward flies.

To die or conquer, proves a hero’s heart; And, knowing this, I know a soldier’s part.”

 

Such thoughts revolving in his careful breast, Near, and more near, the shady cohorts press’d; These, in the warrior, their own fate enclose; And round him deep the steely circle grows.

So fares a boar whom all the troop surrounds Of shouting huntsmen and of clamorous hounds; He grinds his ivory tusks; he foams with ire; His sanguine eyeballs glare with living fire; By these, by those, on every part is plied; And the red slaughter spreads on every side.

Pierced through the shoulder, first Deiopis fell; Next Ennomus and Thoon sank to hell;

Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust,

Falls prone to earth, and grasps the bloody dust.

Charops, the son of Hippasus, was near; Ulysses reach’d him with the fatal spear; But to his aid his brother Socus flies, Socus the brave, the generous, and the wise.

Near as he drew, the warrior thus began: “O great Ulysses! much-enduring man!

Not deeper skill’d in every martial sleight, Than worn to toils, and active in the fight!

This day two brothers shall thy conquest grace, And end at once the great Hippasian race, Or thou beneath this lance must press the field.”

He said, and forceful pierced his spacious shield: Through the strong brass the ringing javelin thrown, Plough’d half his side, and bared it to the bone.

By Pallas’ care, the spear, though deep infix’d, Stopp’d short of life, nor with his entrails mix’d.

 

The wound not mortal wise Ulysses knew, Then furious thus (but first some steps withdrew): “Unhappy man! whose death our hands shall grace, Fate calls thee hence and finish’d is thy race.

Nor longer check my conquests on the foe; But, pierced by this, to endless darkness go, And add one spectre to the realms below!”

 

He spoke, while Socus, seized with sudden fright, Trembling gave way, and turn’d his back to flight; Between his shoulders pierced the following dart, And held its passage through the panting heart: Wide in his breast appear’d the grisly wound; He falls; his armour rings against the ground.

Then thus Ulysses, gazing on the slain: “Famed son of Hippasus! there press the plain; There ends thy narrow span assign’d by fate, Heaven owes Ulysses yet a longer date.

Ah, wretch! no father shall thy corpse compose; Thy dying eyes no tender mother close;

But hungry birds shall tear those balls away, And hovering vultures scream around their prey.

Me Greece shall honour, when I meet my doom, With solemn funerals and a lasting tomb.”

 

Then raging with intolerable smart,

He writhes his body, and extracts the dart.

The dart a tide of spouting gore pursued, And gladden’d Troy with sight of hostile blood.

Now troops on troops the fainting chief invade, Forced he recedes, and loudly calls for aid.

Thrice to its pitch his lofty voice he rears; The well-known voice thrice Menelaus hears: Alarm’d, to Ajax Telamon he cried,

Who shares his labours, and defends his side: “O friend! Ulysses’ shouts invade my ear; Distressed he seems, and no assistance near; Strong as he is, yet one opposed to all, Oppress’d by multitudes, the best may fall.

Greece robb’d of him must bid her host despair, And feel a loss not ages can repair.”

 

Then, where the cry directs, his course he bends; Great Ajax, like the god of war, attends, The prudent chief in sore distress they found, With bands of furious Trojans compass’d round. [183]

As when some huntsman, with a flying spear, From the blind thicket wounds a stately deer; Down his cleft side, while fresh the blood distils, He bounds aloft, and scuds from hills to hills, Till life’s warm vapour issuing through the wound, Wild mountain-wolves the fainting beast surround: Just as their jaws his prostrate limbs invade, The lion rushes through the woodland shade, The wolves, though hungry, scour dispersed away; The lordly savage vindicates his prey.

Ulysses thus, unconquer’d by his pains, A single warrior half a host sustains:

But soon as Ajax leaves his tower-like shield, The scattered crowds fly frighted o’er the field; Atrides’ arm the sinking hero stays,

And, saved from numbers, to his car conveys.

 

Victorious Ajax plies the routed crew;

And first Doryclus, Priam’s son, he slew, On strong Pandocus next inflicts a wound, And lays Lysander bleeding on the ground.

As when a torrent, swell’d with wintry rains, Pours from the mountains o’er the deluged plains, And pines and oaks, from their foundations torn, A country’s ruins! to the seas are borne: Fierce Ajax thus o’erwhelms the yielding throng; Men, steeds, and chariots, roll in heaps along.

 

But Hector, from this scene of slaughter far, Raged on the left, and ruled the tide of war: Loud groans proclaim his progress through the plain, And deep Scamander swells with heaps of slain.

There Nestor and Idomeneus oppose

The warrior’s fury; there the battle glows; There fierce on foot, or from the chariot’s