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

cloud of woe, Rage lifts his lance, and drives him on the foe.

 

But now the Eternal shook his sable shield, That shaded Ide and all the subject field Beneath its ample verge. A rolling cloud Involved the mount; the thunder roar’d aloud; The affrighted hills from their foundations nod, And blaze beneath the lightnings of the god: At one regard of his all-seeing eye

The vanquish’d triumph, and the victors fly.

 

Then trembled Greece: the flight Peneleus led; For as the brave Boeotian turn’d his head To face the foe, Polydamas drew near,

And razed his shoulder with a shorten’d spear: By Hector wounded, Leitus quits the plain, Pierced through the wrist; and raging with the pain, Grasps his once formidable lance in vain.

 

As Hector follow’d, Idomen address’d

The flaming javelin to his manly breast; The brittle point before his corslet yields; Exulting Troy with clamour fills the fields: High on his chariots the Cretan stood,

The son of Priam whirl’d the massive wood.

But erring from its aim, the impetuous spear Struck to the dust the squire and charioteer Of martial Merion: Coeranus his name,

Who left fair Lyctus for the fields of fame.

On foot bold Merion fought; and now laid low, Had graced the triumphs of his Trojan foe, But the brave squire the ready coursers brought, And with his life his master’s safety bought.

Between his cheek and ear the weapon went, The teeth it shatter’d, and the tongue it rent.

Prone from the seat he tumbles to the plain; His dying hand forgets the falling rein: This Merion reaches, bending from the car, And urges to desert the hopeless war:

Idomeneus consents; the lash applies;

And the swift chariot to the navy flies.

 

Not Ajax less the will of heaven descried, And conquest shifting to the Trojan side, Turn’d by the hand of Jove. Then thus begun, To Atreus’s seed, the godlike Telamon:

 

“Alas! who sees not Jove’s almighty hand Transfers the glory to the Trojan band?

Whether the weak or strong discharge the dart, He guides each arrow to a Grecian heart: Not so our spears; incessant though they rain, He suffers every lance to fall in vain.

Deserted of the god, yet let us try

What human strength and prudence can supply; If yet this honour’d corse, in triumph borne, May glad the fleets that hope not our return, Who tremble yet, scarce rescued from their fates, And still hear Hector thundering at their gates.

Some hero too must be despatch’d to bear The mournful message to Pelides’ ear;

For sure he knows not, distant on the shore, His friend, his loved Patroclus, is no more.

But such a chief I spy not through the host: The men, the steeds, the armies, all are lost In general darkness—Lord of earth and air!

Oh king! Oh father! hear my humble prayer: Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more:

If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish in the face of day!”

 

With tears the hero spoke, and at his prayer The god relenting clear’d the clouded air; Forth burst the sun with all-enlightening ray; The blaze of armour flash’d against the day.

“Now, now, Atrides! cast around thy sight; If yet Antilochus survives the fight,

Let him to great Achilles’ ear convey

The fatal news”—Atrides hastes away.

 

So turns the lion from the nightly fold, Though high in courage, and with hunger bold, Long gall’d by herdsmen, and long vex’d by hounds, Stiff with fatigue, and fretted sore with wounds; The darts fly round him from a hundred hands, And the red terrors of the blazing brands: Till late, reluctant, at the dawn of day Sour he departs, and quits the untasted prey, So moved Atrides from his dangerous place With weary limbs, but with unwilling pace; The foe, he fear’d, might yet Patroclus gain, And much admonish’d, much adjured his train: “O guard these relics to your charge consign’d, And bear the merits of the dead in mind; How skill’d he was in each obliging art; The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart: He was, alas! but fate decreed his end, In death a hero, as in life a friend!”

 

So parts the chief; from rank to rank he flew, And round on all sides sent his piercing view.

As the bold bird, endued with sharpest eye Of all that wings the mid aerial sky,

The sacred eagle, from his walks above

Looks down, and sees the distant thicket move; Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare, Snatches his life amid the clouds of air.

Not with less quickness, his exerted sight Pass’d this and that way, through the ranks of fight: Till on the left the chief he sought, he found, Cheering his men, and spreading deaths around: To him the king: “Beloved of Jove! draw near, For sadder tidings never touch’d thy ear; Thy eyes have witness’d what a fatal turn!

How Ilion triumphs, and the Achaians mourn.

This is not all: Patroclus, on the shore Now pale and dead, shall succour Greece no more.

Fly to the fleet, this instant fly, and tell The sad Achilles, how his loved-one fell: He too may haste the naked corse to gain: The arms are Hector’s, who despoil’d the slain.”

 

The youthful warrior heard with silent woe, From his fair eyes the tears began to flow: Big with the mighty grief, he strove to say What sorrow dictates, but no word found way.

To brave Laodocus his arms he flung,

Who, near him wheeling, drove his steeds along; Then ran the mournful message to impart, With tearful eyes, and with dejected heart.

 

Swift fled the youth: nor Menelaus stands (Though sore distress’d) to aid the Pylian bands; But bids bold Thrasymede those troops sustain; Himself returns to his Patroclus slain.

“Gone is Antilochus (the hero said);

But hope not, warriors, for Achilles’ aid: Though fierce his rage, unbounded be his woe, Unarm’d, he fights not with the Trojan foe.

‘Tis in our hands alone our hopes remain, ‘Tis our own vigour must the dead regain, And save ourselves, while with impetuous hate Troy pours along, and this way rolls our fate.”

 

“‘Tis well (said Ajax), be it then thy care, With Merion’s aid, the weighty corse to rear; Myself, and my bold brother will sustain The shock of Hector and his charging train: Nor fear we armies, fighting side by side; What Troy can dare, we have already tried, Have tried it, and have stood.” The hero said.

High from the ground the warriors heave the dead.

A general clamour rises at the sight:

Loud shout the Trojans, and renew the fight.

Not fiercer rush along the gloomy wood, With rage insatiate, and with thirst of blood, Voracious hounds, that many a length before Their furious hunters, drive the wounded boar; But if the savage turns his glaring eye, They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.

Thus on retreating Greece the Trojans pour, Wave their thick falchions, and their javelins shower: But Ajax turning, to their fears they yield, All pale they tremble and forsake the field.

 

While thus aloft the hero’s corse they bear, Behind them rages all the storm of war: Confusion, tumult, horror, o’er the throng Of men, steeds, chariots, urged the rout along: Less fierce the winds with rising flames conspire To whelm some city under waves of fire; Now sink in gloomy clouds the proud abodes, Now crack the blazing temples of the gods; The rumbling torrent through the ruin rolls, And sheets of smoke mount heavy to the poles.

The heroes sweat beneath their honour’d load: As when two mules, along the rugged road, From the steep mountain with exerted strength Drag some vast beam, or mast’s unwieldy length; Inly they groan, big drops of sweat distil, The enormous timber lumbering down the hill: So these—Behind, the bulk of Ajax stands, And breaks the torrent of the rushing bands.

Thus when a river swell’d with sudden rains Spreads his broad waters o’er the level plains, Some interposing hill the stream divides.

And breaks its force, and turns the winding tides.

Still close they follow, close the rear engage; Aeneas storms, and Hector foams with rage: While Greece a heavy, thick retreat maintains, Wedged in one body, like a flight of cranes, That shriek incessant, while the falcon, hung High on poised pinions, threats their callow young.

So from the Trojan chiefs the Grecians fly, Such the wild terror, and the mingled cry: Within, without the trench, and all the way, Strow’d in bright heaps, their arms and armour lay; Such horror Jove impress’d! yet still proceeds The work of death, and still the battle bleeds.

 

{Illustration: VULCAN FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM.}

 

BOOK XVIII.

 

ARGUMENT.

 

THE GRIEF OF ACHILLES, AND NEW ARMOUR MADE HIM BY VULCAN.

 

The news of the death of Patroclus is brought to Achilles by Antilochus. Thetis, hearing his lamentations, comes with all her sea-nymphs to comfort him. The speeches of the mother and son on this occasion. Iris appears to Achilles by the command of Juno, and orders him to show himself at the head of the intrenchments. The sight of him turns the fortunes of the day, and the body of Patroclus is carried off by the Greeks. The Trojans call a council, where Hector and Polydamas disagree in their opinions: but the advice of the former prevails, to remain encamped in the field. The grief of Achilles over the body of Patroclus.

 

Thetis goes to the palace of Vulcan to obtain new arms for her son. The description of the wonderful works of Vulcan: and, lastly, that noble one of the shield of Achilles.

 

The latter part of the nine-and-twentieth day, and the night ensuing, take up this book: the scene is at Achilles’ tent on the seashore, from whence it changes to the palace of Vulcan.

 

Thus like the rage of fire the combat burns, [210]

And now it rises, now it sinks by turns.

Meanwhile, where Hellespont’s broad waters flow, Stood Nestor’s son, the messenger of woe: There sat Achilles, shaded by his sails, On hoisted yards extended to the gales; Pensive he sat; for all that fate design’d Rose in sad prospect to his boding mind.

Thus to his soul he said: “Ah! what constrains The Greeks, late victors, now to quit the plains?

Is this the day, which heaven so long ago Ordain’d, to sink me with the weight of woe?

(So Thetis warn’d;) when by a Trojan hand The bravest of the Myrmidonian band

Should lose the light! Fulfilled is that decree; Fallen is the warrior, and Patroclus he!

In vain I charged him soon to quit the plain, And warn’d to shun Hectorean force in vain!”

 

Thus while he thinks, Antilochus appears, And tells the melancholy tale with tears.

“Sad tidings, son of Peleus! thou must hear; And wretched I, the unwilling messenger!

Dead is Patroclus! For his corse they fight; His naked corse: his arms are Hector’s right.”

 

A sudden horror shot through all the chief, And wrapp’d his senses in the cloud of grief; Cast on the ground, with furious hands he spread The scorching ashes o’er his graceful head; His purple garments, and his golden hairs, Those he deforms with dust, and these he tears; On the hard soil his groaning breast he threw, And roll’d and grovell’d, as to earth he grew.

The virgin captives, with disorder’d charms, (Won by his own, or by Patroclus’ arms,) Rush’d from their tents with cries; and gathering round, Beat their white breasts, and fainted on the ground: While Nestor’s son sustains a manlier part, And mourns the warrior with a warrior’s heart; Hangs on his arms, amidst his frantic woe, And oft prevents the meditated