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

hero’s boasted fame?

How vain, without the merit, is the name!

Since battle is renounced, thy thoughts employ What other methods may preserve thy Troy: ‘Tis time to try if Ilion’s state can stand By thee alone, nor ask a foreign hand:

Mean, empty boast! but shall the Lycians stake Their lives for you? those Lycians you forsake?

What from thy thankless arms can we expect?

Thy friend Sarpedon proves thy base neglect; Say, shall our slaughter’d bodies guard your walls, While unreveng’d the great Sarpedon falls?

Even where he died for Troy, you left him there, A feast for dogs, and all the fowls of air.

On my command if any Lycian wait,

Hence let him march, and give up Troy to fate.

Did such a spirit as the gods impart

Impel one Trojan hand or Trojan heart,

(Such as should burn in every soul that draws The sword for glory, and his country’s cause) Even yet our mutual arms we might employ, And drag yon carcase to the walls of Troy.

Oh! were Patroclus ours, we might obtain Sarpedon’s arms and honour’d corse again!

Greece with Achilles’ friend should be repaid, And thus due honours purchased to his shade.

But words are vain—Let Ajax once appear, And Hector trembles and recedes with fear; Thou dar’st not meet the terrors of his eye; And lo! already thou prepar’st to fly.”

 

The Trojan chief with fix’d resentment eyed The Lycian leader, and sedate replied:

 

“Say, is it just, my friend, that Hector’s ear From such a warrior such a speech should hear?

I deem’d thee once the wisest of thy kind, But ill this insult suits a prudent mind.

I shun great Ajax? I desert my train?

‘Tis mine to prove the rash assertion vain; I joy to mingle where the battle bleeds, And hear the thunder of the sounding steeds.

But Jove’s high will is ever uncontroll’d, The strong he withers, and confounds the bold; Now crowns with fame the mighty man, and now Strikes the fresh garland from the victor’s brow!

Come, through yon squadrons let us hew the way, And thou be witness, if I fear to-day;

If yet a Greek the sight of Hector dread, Or yet their hero dare defend the dead.”

 

Then turning to the martial hosts, he cries: “Ye Trojans, Dardans, Lycians, and allies!

Be men, my friends, in action as in name, And yet be mindful of your ancient fame.

Hector in proud Achilles’ arms shall shine, Torn from his friend, by right of conquest mine.”

 

He strode along the field, as thus he said: (The sable plumage nodded o’er his head:) Swift through the spacious plain he sent a look; One instant saw, one instant overtook

The distant band, that on the sandy shore The radiant spoils to sacred Ilion bore.

There his own mail unbraced the field bestrow’d; His train to Troy convey’d the massy load.

Now blazing in the immortal arms he stands; The work and present of celestial hands; By aged Peleus to Achilles given,

As first to Peleus by the court of heaven: His father’s arms not long Achilles wears, Forbid by fate to reach his father’s years.

 

Him, proud in triumph, glittering from afar, The god whose thunder rends the troubled air Beheld with pity; as apart he sat,

And, conscious, look’d through all the scene of fate.

He shook the sacred honours of his head; Olympus trembled, and the godhead said; “Ah, wretched man! unmindful of thy end!

A moment’s glory; and what fates attend!

In heavenly panoply divinely bright

Thou stand’st, and armies tremble at thy sight, As at Achilles’ self! beneath thy dart

Lies slain the great Achilles’ dearer part.

Thou from the mighty dead those arms hast torn, Which once the greatest of mankind had worn.

Yet live! I give thee one illustrious day, A blaze of glory ere thou fad’st away.

For ah! no more Andromache shall come

With joyful tears to welcome Hector home; No more officious, with endearing charms, From thy tired limbs unbrace Pelides’ arms!”

 

Then with his sable brow he gave the nod That seals his word; the sanction of the god.

The stubborn arms (by Jove’s command disposed) Conform’d spontaneous, and around him closed: Fill’d with the god, enlarged his members grew, Through all his veins a sudden vigour flew, The blood in brisker tides began to roll, And Mars himself came rushing on his soul.

Exhorting loud through all the field he strode, And look’d, and moved, Achilles, or a god.

Now Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon, he inspires, Now Phorcys, Chromius, and Hippothous fires; The great Thersilochus like fury found, Asteropaeus kindled at the sound,

And Ennomus, in augury renown’d.

 

“Hear, all ye hosts, and hear, unnumber’d bands Of neighbouring nations, or of distant lands!

‘Twas not for state we summon’d you so far, To boast our numbers, and the pomp of war: Ye came to fight; a valiant foe to chase, To save our present, and our future race.

Tor this, our wealth, our products, you enjoy, And glean the relics of exhausted Troy.

Now then, to conquer or to die prepare; To die or conquer are the terms of war.

Whatever hand shall win Patroclus slain, Whoe’er shall drag him to the Trojan train, With Hector’s self shall equal honours claim; With Hector part the spoil, and share the fame.”

 

Fired by his words, the troops dismiss their fears, They join, they thicken, they protend their spears; Full on the Greeks they drive in firm array, And each from Ajax hopes the glorious prey: Vain hope! what numbers shall the field o’erspread, What victims perish round the mighty dead!

 

Great Ajax mark’d the growing storm from far, And thus bespoke his brother of the war: “Our fatal day, alas! is come, my friend; And all our wars and glories at an end!

‘Tis not this corse alone we guard in vain, Condemn’d to vultures on the Trojan plain; We too must yield: the same sad fate must fall On thee, on me, perhaps, my friend, on all.

See what a tempest direful Hector spreads, And lo! it bursts, it thunders on our heads!

Call on our Greeks, if any hear the call, The bravest Greeks: this hour demands them all.”

 

The warrior raised his voice, and wide around The field re-echoed the distressful sound.

“O chiefs! O princes, to whose hand is given The rule of men; whose glory is from heaven!

Whom with due honours both Atrides grace: Ye guides and guardians of our Argive race!

All, whom this well-known voice shall reach from far, All, whom I see not through this cloud of war; Come all! let generous rage your arms employ, And save Patroclus from the dogs of Troy.”

 

Oilean Ajax first the voice obey’d,

Swift was his pace, and ready was his aid: Next him Idomeneus, more slow with age, And Merion, burning with a hero’s rage.

The long-succeeding numbers who can name?

But all were Greeks, and eager all for fame.

Fierce to the charge great Hector led the throng; Whole Troy embodied rush’d with shouts along.

Thus, when a mountain billow foams and raves, Where some swoln river disembogues his waves, Full in the mouth is stopp’d the rushing tide, The boiling ocean works from side to side, The river trembles to his utmost shore, And distant rocks rebellow to the roar.

 

Nor less resolved, the firm Achaian band With brazen shields in horrid circle stand.

Jove, pouring darkness o’er the mingled fight, Conceals the warriors’ shining helms in night: To him, the chief for whom the hosts contend Had lived not hateful, for he lived a friend: Dead he protects him with superior care.

Nor dooms his carcase to the birds of air.

 

{Illustration: FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS.}

 

The first attack the Grecians scarce sustain, Repulsed, they yield; the Trojans seize the slain.

Then fierce they rally, to revenge led on By the swift rage of Ajax Telamon.

(Ajax to Peleus’ son the second name,

In graceful stature next, and next in fame) With headlong force the foremost ranks he tore; So through the thicket bursts the mountain boar, And rudely scatters, for a distance round, The frighted hunter and the baying hound.

The son of Lethus, brave Pelasgus’ heir, Hippothous, dragg’d the carcase through the war; The sinewy ankles bored, the feet he bound With thongs inserted through the double wound: Inevitable fate o’ertakes the deed;

Doom’d by great Ajax’ vengeful lance to bleed: It cleft the helmet’s brazen cheeks in twain; The shatter’d crest and horse-hair strow the plain: With nerves relax’d he tumbles to the ground: The brain comes gushing through the ghastly wound: He drops Patroclus’ foot, and o’er him spread, Now lies a sad companion of the dead:

Far from Larissa lies, his native air,

And ill requites his parents’ tender care.

Lamented youth! in life’s first bloom he fell, Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell.

 

Once more at Ajax Hector’s javelin flies; The Grecian marking, as it cut the skies, Shunn’d the descending death; which hissing on, Stretch’d in the dust the great Iphytus’ son, Schedius the brave, of all the Phocian kind The boldest warrior and the noblest mind: In little Panope, for strength renown’d, He held his seat, and ruled the realms around.

Plunged in his throat, the weapon drank his blood, And deep transpiercing through the shoulder stood; In clanging arms the hero fell and all

The fields resounded with his weighty fall.

 

Phorcys, as slain Hippothous he defends, The Telamonian lance his belly rends;

The hollow armour burst before the stroke, And through the wound the rushing entrails broke: In strong convulsions panting on the sands He lies, and grasps the dust with dying hands.

 

Struck at the sight, recede the Trojan train: The shouting Argives strip the heroes slain.

And now had Troy, by Greece compell’d to yield, Fled to her ramparts, and resign’d the field; Greece, in her native fortitude elate,

With Jove averse, had turn’d the scale of fate: But Phoebus urged AEneas to the fight;

He seem’d like aged Periphas to sight:

(A herald in Anchises’ love grown old,

Revered for prudence, and with prudence bold.) Thus he—“What methods yet, O chief! remain, To save your Troy, though heaven its fall ordain?

There have been heroes, who, by virtuous care, By valour, numbers, and by arts of war, Have forced the powers to spare a sinking state, And gain’d at length the glorious odds of fate: But you, when fortune smiles, when Jove declares His partial favour, and assists your wars, Your shameful efforts ‘gainst yourselves employ, And force the unwilling god to ruin Troy.”

 

AEneas through the form assumed descries The power conceal’d, and thus to Hector cries: “Oh lasting shame! to our own fears a prey, We seek our ramparts, and desert the day.

A god, nor is he less, my bosom warms,

And tells me, Jove asserts the Trojan arms.”

 

He spoke, and foremost to the combat flew: The bold example all his hosts pursue.

Then, first, Leocritus beneath him bled, In vain beloved by valiant Lycomede;

Who view’d his fall, and, grieving at the chance, Swift to revenge it sent his angry lance; The whirling lance, with vigorous force address’d, Descends, and pants in Apisaon’s breast; From rich Paeonia’s vales the warrior came, Next thee, Asteropeus! in place and fame.

Asteropeus with grief beheld the slain, And rush’d to combat, but he rush’d in vain: Indissolubly firm, around the dead,

Rank within rank, on buckler buckler spread, And hemm’d with bristled spears, the Grecians stood, A brazen bulwark, and an iron wood.

Great Ajax eyes them with incessant care, And in an orb contracts the crowded war, Close in their ranks commands to fight or fall, And stands the centre and the soul of