The Iliad - Homer (best novels to read for beginners .txt) š
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His venturous spear first drew the heroās gore; He struck, he wounded, but he durst no more.
Nor, though disarmād, Patroclusā fury stood: But swift withdrew the long-protended wood.
And turnād him short, and herded in the crowd.
Thus, by an arm divine, and mortal spear, Wounded, at once, Patroclus yields to fear, Retires for succour to his social train, And flies the fate, which heaven decreed, in vain.
Stern Hector, as the bleeding chief he views, Breaks through the ranks, and his retreat pursues: The lance arrests him with a mortal wound; He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound.
With him all Greece was sunk; that moment all Her yet-surviving heroes seemād to fall.
So, scorchād with heat, along the desert score, The roaming lion meets a bristly boar,
Fast by the spring; they both dispute the flood, With flaming eyes, and jaws besmearād with blood; At length the sovereign savage wins the strife; And the torn boar resigns his thirst and life.
Patroclus thus, so many chiefs oāerthrown, So many lives effused, expires his own.
As dying now at Hectorās feet he lies,
He sternly views him, and triumphant cries: āLie there, Patroclus! and with thee, the joy Thy pride once promised, of subverting Troy; The fancied scenes of Ilion wrapt in flames, And thy soft pleasures served with captive dames.
Unthinking man! I fought those towers to free, And guard that beauteous race from lords like thee: But thou a prey to vultures shalt be made; Thy own Achilles cannot lend thee aid;
Though much at parting that great chief might say, And much enjoin thee, this important day.
āReturn not, my brave friend (perhaps he said), Without the bloody arms of Hector dead.ā
He spoke, Patroclus marchād, and thus he sped.ā
Supine, and wildly gazing on the skies, With faint, expiring breath, the chief replies: āVain boaster! cease, and know the powers divine!
Joveās and Apolloās is this deed, not thine; To heaven is owed whateāer your own you call, And heaven itself disarmād me ere my fall.
Had twenty mortals, each thy match in might, Opposed me fairly, they had sunk in fight: By fate and Phoebus was I first oāerthrown, Euphorbus next; the third mean part thy own.
But thou, imperious! hear my latest breath; The gods inspire it, and it sounds thy death: Insulting man, thou shalt be soon as I; Black fate oāerhangs thee, and thy hour draws nigh; Even now on lifeās last verge I see thee stand, I see thee fall, and by Achillesā hand.ā
He faints: the soul unwilling wings her way, (The beauteous body left a load of clay) Flits to the lone, uncomfortable coast; A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!
Then Hector pausing, as his eyes he fed On the pale carcase, thus addressād the dead: āFrom whence this boding speech, the stern decree Of death denounced, or why denounced to me?
Why not as well Achillesā fate be given To Hectorās lance? Who knows the will of heaven?ā
Pensive he said; then pressing as he lay His breathless bosom, tore the lance away; And upwards cast the corse: the reeking spear He shakes, and charges the bold charioteer.
But swift Automedon with loosenād reins Rapt in the chariot oāer the distant plains, Far from his rage the immortal coursers drove; The immortal coursers were the gift of Jove.
{Illustration: AESCULAPIUS.}
BOOK XVII.
ARGUMENT.
THE SEVENTH BATTLE, FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS.āTHE ACTS OF MENELAUS.
Menelaus, upon the death of Patroclus, defends his body from the enemy: Euphorbus, who attempts it, is slain. Hector advancing, Menelaus retires; but soon returns with Ajax, and drives him off. This, Glaucus objects to Hector as a flight, who thereupon puts on the armour he had won from Patroclus, and renews the battle. The Greeks give way, till Ajax rallies them: Aeneas sustains the Trojans. Aeneas and Hector Attempt the chariot of Achilles, which is borne off by Automedon. The horses of Achilles deplore the loss of Patroclus: Jupiter covers his body with a thick darkness: the noble prayer of Ajax on that occasion.
Menelaus sends Antilochus to Achilles, with the news of Patroclusā
death: then returns to the fight, where, though attacked with the utmost fury, he and Meriones, assisted by the Ajaces, bear off the body to the ships.
The time is the evening of the eight-and-twentieth day. The scene lies in the fields before Troy.
On the cold earth divine Patroclus spread, Lies pierced with wounds among the vulgar dead.
Great Menelaus, touchād with generous woe, Springs to the front, and guards him from the foe.
Thus round her new-fallen young the heifer moves, Fruit of her throes, and first-born of her loves; And anxious (helpless as he lies, and bare) Turns, and returns her, with a motherās care, Opposed to each that near the carcase came, His broad shield glimmers, and his lances flame.
The son of Panthus, skillād the dart to send, Eyes the dead hero, and insults the friend.
āThis hand, Atrides, laid Patroclus low; Warrior! desist, nor tempt an equal blow: To me the spoils my prowess won, resign: Depart with life, and leave the glory mineā
The Trojan thus: the Spartan monarch burnād With generous anguish, and in scorn returnād: āLaughāst thou not, Jove! from thy superior throne, When mortals boast of prowess not their own?
Not thus the lion glories in his might, Nor panther braves his spotted foe in fight, Nor thus the boar (those terrors of the plain;) Man only vaunts his force, and vaunts in vain.
But far the vainest of the boastful kind, These sons of Panthus vent their haughty mind.
Yet ātwas but late, beneath my conquering steel This boasterās brother, Hyperenor, fell; Against our arm which rashly he defied, Vain was his vigour, and as vain his pride.
These eyes beheld him on the dust expire, No more to cheer his spouse, or glad his sire.
Presumptuous youth! like his shall be thy doom, Go, wait thy brother to the Stygian gloom; Or, while thou mayāst, avoid the threatenād fate; Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late.ā
Unmoved, Euphorbus thus: āThat action known, Come, for my brotherās blood repay thy own.
His weeping father claims thy destined head, And spouse, a widow in her bridal bed.
On these thy conquerād spoils I shall bestow, To soothe a consortās and a parentās woe.
No longer then defer the glorious strife, Let heaven decide our fortune, fame, and life.ā
Swift as the word the missile lance he flings; The well-aimād weapon on the buckler rings, But blunted by the brass, innoxious falls.
On Jove the father great Atrides calls, Nor flies the javelin from his arm in vain, It pierced his throat, and bent him to the plain; Wide through the neck appears the grisly wound, Prone sinks the warrior, and his arms resound.
The shining circlets of his golden hair, Which even the Graces might be proud to wear, Instarrād with gems and gold, bestrow the shore, With dust dishonourād, and deformād with gore.
As the young olive, in some sylvan scene, Crownād by fresh fountains with eternal green, Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair, And plays and dances to the gentle air; When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades The tender plant, and withers all its shades; It lies uprooted from its genial bed,
A lovely ruin now defaced and dead:
Thus young, thus beautiful, Euphorbus lay, While the fierce Spartan tore his arms away.
Proud of his deed, and glorious in the prize, Affrighted Troy the towering victor flies: Flies, as before some mountain lionās ire The village curs and trembling swains retire, When oāer the slaughterād bull they hear him roar, And see his jaws distil with smoking gore: All pale with fear, at distance scatterād round, They shout incessant, and the vales resound.
Meanwhile Apollo viewād with envious eyes, And urged great Hector to dispute the prize; (In Mentesā shape, beneath whose martial care The rough Ciconians learnād the trade of war;) [207]
āForbear (he cried) with fruitless speed to chase Achillesā coursers, of ethereal race;
They stoop not, these, to mortal manās command, Or stoop to none but great Achillesā hand.
Too long amused with a pursuit so vain, Turn, and behold the brave Euphorbus slain; By Sparta slain! for ever now suppressād The fire which burnād in that undaunted breast!ā
Thus having spoke, Apollo wingād his flight, And mixād with mortals in the toils of fight: His words infixād unutterable care
Deep in great Hectorās soul: through all the war He darts his anxious eye; and, instant, viewād The breathless hero in his blood imbued, (Forth welling from the wound, as prone he lay) And in the victorās hands the shining prey.
Sheathād in bright arms, through cleaving ranks he flies, And sends his voice in thunder to the skies: Fierce as a flood of flame by Vulcan sent, It flew, and fired the nations as it went.
Atrides from the voice the storm divined, And thus explored his own unconquerād mind: āThen shall I quit Patroclus on the plain, Slain in my cause, and for my honour slain!
Desert the arms, the relics, of my friend?
Or singly, Hector and his troops attend?
Sure where such partial favour heaven bestowād, To brave the hero were to brave the god: Forgive me, Greece, if once I quit the field; āTis not to Hector, but to heaven I yield.
Yet, nor the god, nor heaven, should give me fear, Did but the voice of Ajax reach my ear: Still would we turn, still battle on the plains, And give Achilles all that yet remains
Of his and our Patroclusāā This, no more The time allowād: Troy thickenād on the shore.
A sable scene! The terrors Hector led.
Slow he recedes, and sighing quits the dead.
So from the fold the unwilling lion parts, Forced by loud clamours, and a storm of darts; He flies indeed, but threatens as he flies, With heart indignant and retorted eyes.
Now enterād in the Spartan ranks, he turnād His manly breast, and with new fury burnād; Oāer all the black battalions sent his view, And through the cloud the godlike Ajax knew; Where labouring on the left the warrior stood, All grim in arms, and coverād oāer with blood; There breathing courage, where the god of day Had sunk each heart with terror and dismay.
To him the king: āOh Ajax, oh my friend!
Haste, and Patroclusā loved remains defend: The body to Achilles to restore
Demands our care; alas, we can no more!
For naked now, despoiled of arms, he lies; And Hector glories in the dazzling prize.ā
He said, and touchād his heart. The raging pair Pierced the thick battle, and provoke the war.
Already had stern Hector seized his head, And doomād to Trojan gods the unhappy dead; But soon as Ajax rearād his tower-like shield, Sprung to his car, and measured back the field, His train to Troy the radiant armour bear, To stand a trophy of his fame in war.
Meanwhile great Ajax (his broad shield displayād) Guards the dead hero with the dreadful shade; And now before, and now behind he stood: Thus in the centre of some gloomy wood, With many a step, the lioness surrounds Her tawny young, beset by men and hounds; Elate her heart, and rousing all her powers, Dark oāer the fiery balls each hanging eyebrow lours.
Fast by his side the generous Spartan glows With great revenge, and feeds his inward woes.
But Glaucus, leader of the Lycian aids, On Hector frowning, thus his flight upbraids: āWhere now in Hector shall we Hector find?
A manly form, without a manly mind.
Is this, O chief! a
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