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

form’d the immense and solid shield; Rich various artifice emblazed the field; Its utmost verge a threefold circle bound; [213]

A silver chain suspends the massy round; Five ample plates the broad expanse compose, And godlike labours on the surface rose.

There shone the image of the master-mind: There earth, there heaven, there ocean he design’d; The unwearied sun, the moon completely round; The starry lights that heaven’s high convex crown’d; The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team; And great Orion’s more refulgent beam;

To which, around the axle of the sky,

The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye, Still shines exalted on the ethereal plain, Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main.

 

Two cities radiant on the shield appear, The image one of peace, and one of war.

Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight, And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite;

Along the street the new-made brides are led, With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed: The youthful dancers in a circle bound

To the soft flute, and cithern’s silver sound: Through the fair streets the matrons in a row Stand in their porches, and enjoy the show.

 

There in the forum swarm a numerous train; The subject of debate, a townsman slain: One pleads the fine discharged, which one denied, And bade the public and the laws decide: The witness is produced on either hand: For this, or that, the partial people stand: The appointed heralds still the noisy bands, And form a ring, with sceptres in their hands: On seats of stone, within the sacred place, [214]

The reverend elders nodded o’er the case; Alternate, each the attesting sceptre took, And rising solemn, each his sentence spoke Two golden talents lay amidst, in sight, The prize of him who best adjudged the right.

 

Another part (a prospect differing far) [215]

Glow’d with refulgent arms, and horrid war.

Two mighty hosts a leaguer’d town embrace, And one would pillage, one would burn the place.

Meantime the townsmen, arm’d with silent care, A secret ambush on the foe prepare:

Their wives, their children, and the watchful band Of trembling parents, on the turrets stand.

They march; by Pallas and by Mars made bold: Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold, And gold their armour: these the squadron led, August, divine, superior by the head!

A place for ambush fit they found, and stood, Cover’d with shields, beside a silver flood.

Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful seem If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream.

Soon the white flocks proceeded o’er the plains, And steers slow-moving, and two shepherd swains; Behind them piping on their reeds they go, Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.

In arms the glittering squadron rising round Rush sudden; hills of slaughter heap the ground; Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains, And, all amidst them, dead, the shepherd swains!

The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear;

They rise, take horse, approach, and meet the war, They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood; The waving silver seem’d to blush with blood.

There Tumult, there Contention stood confess’d; One rear’d a dagger at a captive’s breast; One held a living foe, that freshly bled With new-made wounds; another dragg’d a dead; Now here, now there, the carcases they tore: Fate stalk’d amidst them, grim with human gore.

And the whole war came out, and met the eye; And each bold figure seem’d to live or die.

 

A field deep furrow’d next the god design’d, [216]

The third time labour’d by the sweating hind; The shining shares full many ploughmen guide, And turn their crooked yokes on every side.

Still as at either end they wheel around, The master meets them with his goblet crown’d; The hearty draught rewards, renews their toil, Then back the turning ploughshares cleave the soil: Behind, the rising earth in ridges roll’d; And sable look’d, though form’d of molten gold.

 

Another field rose high with waving grain; With bended sickles stand the reaper train: Here stretched in ranks the levell’d swarths are found, Sheaves heap’d on sheaves here thicken up the ground.

With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands; The gatherers follow, and collect in bands; And last the children, in whose arms are borne (Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn.

The rustic monarch of the field descries, With silent glee, the heaps around him rise.

A ready banquet on the turf is laid,

Beneath an ample oak’s expanded shade.

The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare; The reaper’s due repast, the woman’s care.

 

Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines, Bent with the ponderous harvest of its vines; A deeper dye the dangling clusters show, And curl’d on silver props, in order glow: A darker metal mix’d intrench’d the place; And pales of glittering tin the inclosure grace.

To this, one pathway gently winding leads, Where march a train with baskets on their heads, (Fair maids and blooming youths,) that smiling bear The purple product of the autumnal year.

To these a youth awakes the warbling strings, Whose tender lay the fate of Linus sings; In measured dance behind him move the train, Tune soft the voice, and answer to the strain.

 

Here herds of oxen march, erect and bold, Rear high their horns, and seem to low in gold, And speed to meadows on whose sounding shores A rapid torrent through the rushes roars: Four golden herdsmen as their guardians stand, And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band.

Two lions rushing from the wood appear’d; And seized a bull, the master of the herd: He roar’d: in vain the dogs, the men withstood; They tore his flesh, and drank his sable blood.

The dogs (oft cheer’d in vain) desert the prey, Dread the grim terrors, and at distance bay.

 

Next this, the eye the art of Vulcan leads Deep through fair forests, and a length of meads, And stalls, and folds, and scatter’d cots between; And fleecy flocks, that whiten all the scene.

 

A figured dance succeeds; such once was seen In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen,

Form’d by Daedalean art; a comely band

Of youths and maidens, bounding hand in hand.

The maids in soft simars of linen dress’d; The youths all graceful in the glossy vest: Of those the locks with flowery wreath inroll’d; Of these the sides adorn’d with swords of gold, That glittering gay, from silver belts depend.

Now all at once they rise, at once descend, With well-taught feet: now shape in oblique ways, Confusedly regular, the moving maze:

Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring, And undistinguish’d blend the flying ring: So whirls a wheel, in giddy circle toss’d, And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are lost.

The gazing multitudes admire around:

Two active tumblers in the centre bound; Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend: And general songs the sprightly revel end.

 

Thus the broad shield complete the artist crown’d With his last hand, and pour’d the ocean round: In living silver seem’d the waves to roll, And beat the buckler’s verge, and bound the whole.

 

This done, whate’er a warrior’s use requires He forged; the cuirass that outshone the fires, The greaves of ductile tin, the helm impress’d With various sculpture, and the golden crest.

At Thetis’ feet the finished labour lay: She, as a falcon cuts the aerial way,

Swift from Olympus’ snowy summit flies, And bears the blazing present through the skies. [217]

 

BOOK XIX.

 

ARGUMENT.

 

THE RECONCILIATION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON.

 

Thetis brings to her son the armour made by Vulcan. She preserves the body of his friend from corruption, and commands him to assemble the army, to declare his resentment at an end. Agamemnon and Achilles are solemnly reconciled: the speeches, presents, and ceremonies on that occasion. Achilles is with great difficulty persuaded to refrain from the battle till the troops have refreshed themselves by the advice of Ulysses. The presents are conveyed to the tent of Achilles, where Briseis laments over the body of Patroclus. The hero obstinately refuses all repast, and gives himself up to lamentations for his friend. Minerva descends to strengthen him, by the order of Jupiter. He arms for the fight: his appearance described. He addresses himself to his horses, and reproaches them with the death of Patroclus. One of them is miraculously endued with voice, and inspired to prophesy his fate: but the hero, not astonished by that prodigy, rushes with fury to the combat.

 

The thirteenth day. The scene is on the seashore.

 

Soon as Aurora heaved her Orient head

Above the waves, that blush’d with early red, (With new-born day to gladden mortal sight, And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light,) The immortal arms the goddess-mother bears Swift to her son: her son she finds in tears Stretch’d o’er Patroclus’ corse; while all the rest Their sovereign’s sorrows in their own express’d.

A ray divine her heavenly presence shed, And thus, his hand soft touching, Thetis said: “Suppress, my son, this rage of grief, and know It was not man, but heaven, that gave the blow; Behold what arms by Vulcan are bestow’d, Arms worthy thee, or fit to grace a god.”

 

Then drops the radiant burden on the ground; Clang the strong arms, and ring the shores around; Back shrink the Myrmidons with dread surprise, And from the broad effulgence turn their eyes.

Unmoved the hero kindles at the show,

And feels with rage divine his bosom glow; From his fierce eyeballs living flames expire, And flash incessant like a stream of fire: He turns the radiant gift: and feeds his mind On all the immortal artist had design’d.

 

“Goddess! (he cried,) these glorious arms, that shine With matchless art, confess the hand divine.

Now to the bloody battle let me bend:

But ah! the relics of my slaughter’d friend!

In those wide wounds through which his spirit fled, Shall flies, and worms obscene, pollute the dead?”

 

“That unavailing care be laid aside,

(The azure goddess to her son replied,) Whole years untouch’d, uninjured shall remain, Fresh as in life, the carcase of the slain.

But go, Achilles, as affairs require,

Before the Grecian peers renounce thine ire: Then uncontroll’d in boundless war engage, And heaven with strength supply the mighty rage!”

 

{Illustration: THETIS BRINGING THE ARMOUR TO ACHILLES.}

 

Then in the nostrils of the slain she pour’d Nectareous drops, and rich ambrosia shower’d O’er all the corse. The flies forbid their prey, Untouch’d it rests, and sacred from decay.

Achilles to the strand obedient went:

The shores resounded with the voice he sent.

The heroes heard, and all the naval train That tend the ships, or guide them o’er the main, Alarm’d, transported, at the well-known sound, Frequent and full, the great assembly crown’d; Studious to see the terror of the plain, Long lost to battle, shine in arms again.

Tydides and Ulysses first appear,

Lame with their wounds, and leaning on the spear; These on the sacred seats of council placed, The king of men, Atrides, came the last: He too sore wounded by Agenor’s son.

Achilles (rising in the midst) begun:

 

“O monarch! better far had been the fate Of thee, of me, of all the Grecian state, If (ere the day when by mad passion sway’d, Rash we contended for the black-eyed maid) Preventing Dian had despatch’d her dart, And shot the shining mischief to the heart!

Then many a hero had not press’d the shore, Nor Troy’s glad fields been fatten’d with our gore.

Long, long shall Greece the woes we caused bewail, And sad posterity repeat the tale.

But this, no more the subject of debate, Is past, forgotten, and resign’d to fate.

Why should, alas, a mortal man, as I,

Burn with a fury that