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

in his hand, And clad in arms that lighten’d all the strand, Fierce on the foe the impetuous hero drove, Like lightning bursting from the arm of Jove, Which to pale man the wrath of heaven declares, Or terrifies the offending world with wars; In streamy sparkles, kindling all the skies, From pole to pole the trail of glory flies: Thus his bright armour o’er the dazzled throng Gleam’d dreadful, as the monarch flash’d along.

 

Him, near his tent, Meriones attends;

Whom thus he questions: “Ever best of friends!

O say, in every art of battle skill’d,

What holds thy courage from so brave a field?

On some important message art thou bound, Or bleeds my friend by some unhappy wound?

Inglorious here, my soul abhors to stay, And glows with prospects of th’ approaching day.”

 

“O prince! (Meriones replies) whose care Leads forth the embattled sons of Crete to war; This speaks my grief: this headless lance I wield; The rest lies rooted in a Trojan shield.”

 

To whom the Cretan: “Enter, and receive The wonted weapons; those my tent can give; Spears I have store, (and Trojan lances all,) That shed a lustre round the illumined wall, Though I, disdainful of the distant war, Nor trust the dart, nor aim the uncertain spear, Yet hand to hand I fight, and spoil the slain; And thence these trophies, and these arms I gain.

Enter, and see on heaps the helmets roll’d, And high-hung spears, and shields that flame with gold.”

 

“Nor vain (said Merion) are our martial toils; We too can boast of no ignoble spoils:

But those my ship contains; whence distant far, I fight conspicuous in the van of war,

What need I more? If any Greek there be Who knows not Merion, I appeal to thee.”

 

To this, Idomeneus: “The fields of fight Have proved thy valour, and unconquer’d might: And were some ambush for the foes design’d, Even there thy courage would not lag behind: In that sharp service, singled from the rest, The fear of each, or valour, stands confess’d.

No force, no firmness, the pale coward shows; He shifts his place: his colour comes and goes: A dropping sweat creeps cold on every part; Against his bosom beats his quivering heart; Terror and death in his wild eyeballs stare; With chattering teeth he stands, and stiffening hair, And looks a bloodless image of despair!

Not so the brave—still dauntless, still the same, Unchanged his colour, and unmoved his frame: Composed his thought, determined is his eye, And fix’d his soul, to conquer or to die: If aught disturb the tenour of his breast, ‘Tis but the wish to strike before the rest.

 

“In such assays thy blameless worth is known, And every art of dangerous war thy own.

By chance of fight whatever wounds you bore, Those wounds were glorious all, and all before; Such as may teach, ‘twas still thy brave delight T’oppose thy bosom where thy foremost fight.

But why, like infants, cold to honour’s charms, Stand we to talk, when glory calls to arms?

Go—from my conquer’d spears the choicest take, And to their owners send them nobly back.”

 

Swift at the word bold Merion snatch’d a spear And, breathing slaughter, follow’d to the war.

So Mars armipotent invades the plain,

(The wide destroyer of the race of man,) Terror, his best-beloved son, attends his course, Arm’d with stern boldness, and enormous force; The pride of haughty warriors to confound, And lay the strength of tyrants on the ground: From Thrace they fly, call’d to the dire alarms Of warring Phlegyans, and Ephyrian arms; Invoked by both, relentless they dispose, To these glad conquest, murderous rout to those.

So march’d the leaders of the Cretan train, And their bright arms shot horror o’er the plain.

 

Then first spake Merion: “Shall we join the right, Or combat in the centre of the fight?

Or to the left our wonted succour lend?

Hazard and fame all parts alike attend.”

 

“Not in the centre (Idomen replied:)

Our ablest chieftains the main battle guide; Each godlike Ajax makes that post his care, And gallant Teucer deals destruction there, Skill’d or with shafts to gall the distant field, Or bear close battle on the sounding shield.

These can the rage of haughty Hector tame: Safe in their arms, the navy fears no flame, Till Jove himself descends, his bolts to shed, And hurl the blazing ruin at our head.

Great must he be, of more than human birth, Nor feed like mortals on the fruits of earth.

Him neither rocks can crush, nor steel can wound, Whom Ajax fells not on the ensanguined ground.

In standing fight he mates Achilles’ force, Excell’d alone in swiftness in the course.

Then to the left our ready arms apply,

And live with glory, or with glory die.”

 

He said: and Merion to th’ appointed place, Fierce as the god of battles, urged his pace.

Soon as the foe the shining chiefs beheld Rush like a fiery torrent o’er the field, Their force embodied in a tide they pour; The rising combat sounds along the shore.

As warring winds, in Sirius’ sultry reign, From different quarters sweep the sandy plain; On every side the dusty whirlwinds rise, And the dry fields are lifted to the skies: Thus by despair, hope, rage, together driven, Met the black hosts, and, meeting, darken’d heaven.

All dreadful glared the iron face of war, Bristled with upright spears, that flash’d afar; Dire was the gleam of breastplates, helms, and shields, And polish’d arms emblazed the flaming fields: Tremendous scene! that general horror gave, But touch’d with joy the bosoms of the brave.

 

Saturn’s great sons in fierce contention vied, And crowds of heroes in their anger died.

The sire of earth and heaven, by Thetis won To crown with glory Peleus’ godlike son, Will’d not destruction to the Grecian powers, But spared awhile the destined Trojan towers; While Neptune, rising from his azure main, Warr’d on the king of heaven with stern disdain, And breathed revenge, and fired the Grecian train.

Gods of one source, of one ethereal race, Alike divine, and heaven their native place; But Jove the greater; first-born of the skies, And more than men, or gods, supremely wise.

For this, of Jove’s superior might afraid, Neptune in human form conceal’d his aid.

These powers enfold the Greek and Trojan train In war and discord’s adamantine chain,

Indissolubly strong: the fatal tie

Is stretch’d on both, and close compell’d they die.

 

Dreadful in arms, and grown in combats grey, The bold Idomeneus controls the day.

First by his hand Othryoneus was slain, Swell’d with false hopes, with mad ambition vain; Call’d by the voice of war to martial fame, From high Cabesus’ distant walls he came; Cassandra’s love he sought, with boasts of power, And promised conquest was the proffer’d dower.

The king consented, by his vaunts abused; The king consented, but the fates refused.

Proud of himself, and of the imagined bride, The field he measured with a larger stride.

Him as he stalk’d, the Cretan javelin found; Vain was his breastplate to repel the wound: His dream of glory lost, he plunged to hell; His arms resounded as the boaster fell.

The great Idomeneus bestrides the dead; “And thus (he cries) behold thy promise sped!

Such is the help thy arms to Ilion bring, And such the contract of the Phrygian king!

Our offers now, illustrious prince! receive; For such an aid what will not Argos give?

To conquer Troy, with ours thy forces join, And count Atrides’ fairest daughter thine.

Meantime, on further methods to advise, Come, follow to the fleet thy new allies; There hear what Greece has on her part to say.”

He spoke, and dragg’d the gory corse away.

This Asius view’d, unable to contain,

Before his chariot warring on the plain: (His crowded coursers, to his squire consign’d, Impatient panted on his neck behind:)

To vengeance rising with a sudden spring, He hoped the conquest of the Cretan king.

The wary Cretan, as his foe drew near,

Full on his throat discharged the forceful spear: Beneath the chin the point was seen to glide, And glitter’d, extant at the further side.

As when the mountain-oak, or poplar tall, Or pine, fit mast for some great admiral, Groans to the oft-heaved axe, with many a wound, Then spreads a length of ruin o’er the ground: So sunk proud Asius in that dreadful day, And stretch’d before his much-loved coursers lay.

He grinds the dust distain’d with streaming gore, And, fierce in death, lies foaming on the shore.

Deprived of motion, stiff with stupid fear, Stands all aghast his trembling charioteer, Nor shuns the foe, nor turns the steeds away, But falls transfix’d, an unresisting prey: Pierced by Antilochus, he pants beneath The stately car, and labours out his breath.

Thus Asius’ steeds (their mighty master gone) Remain the prize of Nestor’s youthful son.

 

Stabb’d at the sight, Deiphobus drew nigh, And made, with force, the vengeful weapon fly.

The Cretan saw; and, stooping, caused to glance From his slope shield the disappointed lance.

Beneath the spacious targe, (a blazing round, Thick with bull-hides and brazen orbits bound, On his raised arm by two strong braces stay’d,) He lay collected in defensive shade.

O’er his safe head the javelin idly sung, And on the tinkling verge more faintly rung.

Even then the spear the vigorous arm confess’d, And pierced, obliquely, king Hypsenor’s breast: Warm’d in his liver, to the ground it bore The chief, his people’s guardian now no more!

 

“Not unattended (the proud Trojan cries) Nor unrevenged, lamented Asius lies:

For thee, through hell’s black portals stand display’d, This mate shall joy thy melancholy shade.”

 

Heart-piercing anguish, at the haughty boast, Touch’d every Greek, but Nestor’s son the most.

Grieved as he was, his pious arms attend, And his broad buckler shields his slaughter’d friend: Till sad Mecistheus and Alastor bore

His honour’d body to the tented shore.

 

Nor yet from fight Idomeneus withdraws; Resolved to perish in his country’s cause, Or find some foe, whom heaven and he shall doom To wail his fate in death’s eternal gloom.

He sees Alcathous in the front aspire:

Great AEsyetes was the hero’s sire;

His spouse Hippodame, divinely fair,

Anchises’ eldest hope, and darling care: Who charm’d her parents’ and her husband’s heart With beauty, sense, and every work of art: He once of Ilion’s youth the loveliest boy, The fairest she of all the fair of Troy.

By Neptune now the hapless hero dies,

Who covers with a cloud those beauteous eyes, And fetters every limb: yet bent to meet His fate he stands; nor shuns the lance of Crete.

Fix’d as some column, or deep-rooted oak, While the winds sleep; his breast received the stroke.

Before the ponderous stroke his corslet yields, Long used to ward the death in fighting fields.

The riven armour sends a jarring sound; His labouring heart heaves with so strong a bound, The long lance shakes, and vibrates in the wound; Fast flowing from its source, as prone he lay, Life’s purple tide impetuous gush’d away.

 

Then Idomen, insulting o’er the slain:

“Behold, Deiphobus! nor vaunt in vain:

See! on one Greek three Trojan ghosts attend; This, my third victim, to the shades I send.

Approaching now thy boasted might approve, And try the prowess of the seed of Jove.

From Jove, enamour’d of a mortal dame,

Great Minos, guardian of his country, came: Deucalion, blameless prince, was Minos’ heir; His first-born I, the third from Jupiter: O’er spacious Crete, and her bold sons, I reign, And thence my ships transport me through the main: Lord of a host, o’er all my host I shine, A scourge to thee, thy father, and thy line.”

 

The Trojan heard; uncertain or to meet, Alone,