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

noise, with less impetuous force, The tide of Trojans urge their desperate course, Than when in autumn Jove his fury pours, And earth is loaden with incessant showers; (When guilty mortals break the eternal laws, Or judges, bribed, betray the righteous cause;) From their deep beds he bids the rivers rise, And opens all the flood-gates of the skies: The impetuous torrents from their hills obey, Whole fields are drown’d, and mountains swept away; Loud roars the deluge till it meets the main; And trembling man sees all his labours vain!

 

And now the chief (the foremost troops repell’d) Back to the ships his destined progress held, Bore down half Troy in his resistless way, And forced the routed ranks to stand the day.

Between the space where silver Simois flows, Where lay the fleets, and where the rampires rose, All grim in dust and blood Patroclus stands, And turns the slaughter on the conquering bands.

First Pronous died beneath his fiery dart, Which pierced below the shield his valiant heart.

Thestor was next, who saw the chief appear, And fell the victim of his coward fear; Shrunk up he sat, with wild and haggard eye, Nor stood to combat, nor had force to fly; Patroclus mark’d him as he shunn’d the war, And with unmanly tremblings shook the car, And dropp’d the flowing reins. Him ‘twixt the jaws, The javelin sticks, and from the chariot draws.

As on a rock that overhangs the main,

An angler, studious of the line and cane, Some mighty fish draws panting to the shore: Not with less ease the barbed javelin bore The gaping dastard; as the spear was shook, He fell, and life his heartless breast forsook.

 

Next on Eryalus he flies; a stone,

Large as a rock, was by his fury thrown: Full on his crown the ponderous fragment flew, And burst the helm, and cleft the head in two: Prone to the ground the breathless warrior fell, And death involved him with the shades of hell.

Then low in dust Epaltes, Echius, lie;

Ipheas, Evippus, Polymelus, die;

Amphoterus and Erymas succeed;

And last Tlepolemus and Pyres bleed.

Where’er he moves, the growing slaughters spread In heaps on heaps a monument of dead.

 

When now Sarpedon his brave friends beheld Grovelling in dust, and gasping on the field, With this reproach his flying host he warms: “Oh stain to honour! oh disgrace to arms!

Forsake, inglorious, the contended plain; This hand unaided shall the war sustain: The task be mine this hero’s strength to try, Who mows whole troops, and makes an army fly.”

 

He spake: and, speaking, leaps from off the car: Patroclus lights, and sternly waits the war.

As when two vultures on the mountain’s height Stoop with resounding pinions to the fight; They cuff, they tear, they raise a screaming cry; The desert echoes, and the rocks reply: The warriors thus opposed in arms, engage With equal clamours, and with equal rage.

 

Jove view’d the combat: whose event foreseen, He thus bespoke his sister and his queen: “The hour draws on; the destinies ordain, [205]

My godlike son shall press the Phrygian plain: Already on the verge of death he stands, His life is owed to fierce Patroclus’ hands, What passions in a parent’s breast debate!

Say, shall I snatch him from impending fate, And send him safe to Lycia, distant far From all the dangers and the toils of war; Or to his doom my bravest offspring yield, And fatten, with celestial blood, the field?”

 

Then thus the goddess with the radiant eyes: “What words are these, O sovereign of the skies!

Short is the date prescribed to mortal man; Shall Jove for one extend the narrow span, Whose bounds were fix’d before his race began?

How many sons of gods, foredoom’d to death, Before proud Ilion must resign their breath!

Were thine exempt, debate would rise above, And murmuring powers condemn their partial Jove.

Give the bold chief a glorious fate in fight; And when the ascending soul has wing’d her flight, Let Sleep and Death convey, by thy command, The breathless body to his native land.

His friends and people, to his future praise, A marble tomb and pyramid shall raise,

And lasting honours to his ashes give;

His fame (‘tis all the dead can have) shall live.”

 

She said: the cloud-compeller, overcome, Assents to fate, and ratifies the doom.

Then touch’d with grief, the weeping heavens distill’d A shower of blood o’er all the fatal field: The god, his eyes averting from the plain, Laments his son, predestined to be slain, Far from the Lycian shores, his happy native reign.

Now met in arms, the combatants appear; Each heaved the shield, and poised the lifted spear; From strong Patroclus’ hand the javelin fled, And pass’d the groin of valiant Thrasymed; The nerves unbraced no more his bulk sustain, He falls, and falling bites the bloody plain.

Two sounding darts the Lycian leader threw: The first aloof with erring fury flew,

The next transpierced Achilles’ mortal steed, The generous Pedasus of Theban breed:

Fix’d in the shoulder’s joint, he reel’d around, Roll’d in the bloody dust, and paw’d the slippery ground.

His sudden fall the entangled harness broke; Each axle crackled, and the chariot shook: When bold Automedon, to disengage

The starting coursers, and restrain their rage, Divides the traces with his sword, and freed The encumbered chariot from the dying steed: The rest move on, obedient to the rein: The car rolls slowly o’er the dusty plain.

 

The towering chiefs to fiercer fight advance: And first Sarpedon whirl’d his weighty lance, Which o’er the warrior’s shoulder took its course, And spent in empty air its dying force.

Not so Patroclus’ never-erring dart;

Aim’d at his breast it pierced a mortal part, Where the strong fibres bind the solid heart.

Then as the mountain oak, or poplar tall, Or pine (fit mast for some great admiral) Nods to the axe, till with a groaning sound It sinks, and spreads its honours on the ground, Thus fell the king; and laid on earth supine, Before his chariot stretch’d his form divine: He grasp’d the dust distain’d with streaming gore, And, pale in death, lay groaning on the shore.

So lies a bull beneath the lion’s paws, While the grim savage grinds with foamy jaws The trembling limbs, and sucks the smoking blood; Deep groans, and hollow roars, rebellow through the wood.

 

Then to the leader of the Lycian band

The dying chief address’d his last command; “Glaucus, be bold; thy task be first to dare The glorious dangers of destructive war, To lead my troops, to combat at their head, Incite the living, and supply the dead.

Tell them, I charged them with my latest breath Not unrevenged to bear Sarpedon’s death.

What grief, what shame, must Glaucus undergo, If these spoil’d arms adorn a Grecian foe!

Then as a friend, and as a warrior fight; Defend my body, conquer in my right:

That, taught by great examples, all may try Like thee to vanquish, or like me to die.”

He ceased; the Fates suppress’d his labouring breath, And his eyes darken’d with the shades of death.

The insulting victor with disdain bestrode The prostrate prince, and on his bosom trod; Then drew the weapon from his panting heart, The reeking fibres clinging to the dart; From the wide wound gush’d out a stream of blood, And the soul issued in the purple flood.

His flying steeds the Myrmidons detain, Unguided now, their mighty master slain.

All-impotent of aid, transfix’d with grief, Unhappy Glaucus heard the dying chief:

His painful arm, yet useless with the smart Inflicted late by Teucer’s deadly dart, Supported on his better hand he stay’d: To Phoebus then (‘twas all he could) he pray’d: “All-seeing monarch! whether Lycia’s coast, Or sacred Ilion, thy bright presence boast, Powerful alike to ease the wretch’s smart; O hear me! god of every healing art!

Lo! stiff with clotted blood, and pierced with pain, That thrills my arm, and shoots through every vein, I stand unable to sustain the spear,

And sigh, at distance from the glorious war.

Low in the dust is great Sarpedon laid, Nor Jove vouchsafed his hapless offspring aid; But thou, O god of health! thy succour lend, To guard the relics of my slaughter’d friend: For thou, though distant, canst restore my might, To head my Lycians, and support the fight.”

 

Apollo heard; and, suppliant as he stood, His heavenly hand restrain’d the flux of blood; He drew the dolours from the wounded part, And breathed a spirit in his rising heart.

Renew’d by art divine, the hero stands, And owns the assistance of immortal hands.

First to the fight his native troops he warms, Then loudly calls on Troy’s vindictive arms; With ample strides he stalks from place to place; Now fires Agenor, now Polydamas:

AEneas next, and Hector he accosts;

Inflaming thus the rage of all their hosts.

 

“What thoughts, regardless chief! thy breast employ?

Oh too forgetful of the friends of Troy!

Those generous friends, who, from their country far, Breathe their brave souls out in another’s war.

See! where in dust the great Sarpedon lies, In action valiant, and in council wise, Who guarded right, and kept his people free; To all his Lycians lost, and lost to thee!

Stretch’d by Patroclus’ arm on yonder plains, O save from hostile rage his loved remains!

Ah let not Greece his conquer’d trophies boast, Nor on his corse revenge her heroes lost!”

 

He spoke: each leader in his grief partook: Troy, at the loss, through all her legions shook.

Transfix’d with deep regret, they view o’erthrown At once his country’s pillar, and their own; A chief, who led to Troy’s beleaguer’d wall A host of heroes, and outshined them all.

Fired, they rush on; first Hector seeks the foes, And with superior vengeance greatly glows.

 

But o’er the dead the fierce Patroclus stands, And rousing Ajax, roused the listening bands: “Heroes, be men; be what you were before; Or weigh the great occasion, and be more.

The chief who taught our lofty walls to yield, Lies pale in death, extended on the field.

To guard his body Troy in numbers flies; Tis half the glory to maintain our prize.

Haste, strip his arms, the slaughter round him spread, And send the living Lycians to the dead.”

 

The heroes kindle at his fierce command; The martial squadrons close on either hand: Here Troy and Lycia charge with loud alarms, Thessalia there, and Greece, oppose their arms.

With horrid shouts they circle round the slain; The clash of armour rings o’er all the plain.

Great Jove, to swell the horrors of the fight, O’er the fierce armies pours pernicious night, And round his son confounds the warring hosts, His fate ennobling with a crowd of ghosts.

 

Now Greece gives way, and great Epigeus falls; Agacleus’ son, from Budium’s lofty walls; Who chased for murder thence a suppliant came To Peleus, and the silver-footed dame;

Now sent to Troy, Achilles’ arms to aid, He pays due vengeance to his kinsman’s shade.

Soon as his luckless hand had touch’d the dead, A rock’s large fragment thunder’d on his head; Hurl’d by Hectorean force it cleft in twain His shatter’d helm, and stretch’d him o’er the slain.

 

Fierce to the van of fight Patroclus came, And, like an eagle darting at his game, Sprung on the Trojan and the Lycian band.

What grief thy heart, what fury urged thy hand, O generous Greek! when with full vigour thrown, At Sthenelaus flew the weighty stone,

Which sunk him to the dead: when Troy, too near That arm, drew back; and Hector learn’d to fear.

Far as an able hand a lance can throw,

Or at the lists, or at the fighting foe; So far the Trojans from their lines