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

prince, O Neptune! be thy care; Pallas and I, by all that gods can bind, Have sworn destruction to the Trojan kind; Not even an instant to protract their fate, Or save one member of the sinking state; Till her last flame be quench’d with her last gore, And even her crumbling ruins are no more.”

 

The king of ocean to the fight descends, Through all the whistling darts his course he bends, Swift interposed between the warrior flies, And casts thick darkness o’er Achilles’ eyes. [227]

From great AEneas’ shield the spear he drew, And at his master’s feet the weapon threw.

That done, with force divine he snatch’d on high The Dardan prince, and bore him through the sky, Smooth-gliding without step, above the heads Of warring heroes, and of bounding steeds: Till at the battle’s utmost verge they light, Where the slow Caucans close the rear of fight.

The godhead there (his heavenly form confess’d) With words like these the panting chief address’d: “What power, O prince! with force inferior far, Urged thee to meet Achilles’ arm in war?

Henceforth beware, nor antedate thy doom, Defrauding fate of all thy fame to come.

But when the day decreed (for come it must) Shall lay this dreadful hero in the dust, Let then the furies of that arm be known, Secure no Grecian force transcends thy own.”

 

With that, he left him wondering as he lay, Then from Achilles chased the mist away: Sudden, returning with a stream of light, The scene of war came rushing on his sight.

Then thus, amazed; “What wonders strike my mind!

My spear, that parted on the wings of wind, Laid here before me! and the Dardan lord, That fell this instant, vanish’d from my sword!

I thought alone with mortals to contend, But powers celestial sure this foe defend.

Great as he is, our arms he scarce will try, Content for once, with all his gods, to fly.

Now then let others bleed.” This said, aloud He vents his fury and inflames the crowd: “O Greeks! (he cries, and every rank alarms) Join battle, man to man, and arms to arms!

‘Tis not in me, though favour’d by the sky, To mow whole troops, and make whole armies fly: No god can singly such a host engage,

Not Mars himself, nor great Minerva’s rage.

But whatsoe’er Achilles can inspire,

Whate’er of active force, or acting fire; Whate’er this heart can prompt, or hand obey; All, all Achilles, Greeks! is yours to-day.

Through yon wide host this arm shall scatter fear, And thin the squadrons with my single spear.”

 

He said: nor less elate with martial joy, The godlike Hector warm’d the troops of Troy: “Trojans, to war! Think, Hector leads you on; Nor dread the vaunts of Peleus’ haughty son.

Deeds must decide our fate. E’en these with words Insult the brave, who tremble at their swords: The weakest atheist-wretch all heaven defies, But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies.

Nor from yon boaster shall your chief retire, Not though his heart were steel, his hands were fire; That fire, that steel, your Hector should withstand, And brave that vengeful heart, that dreadful hand.”

 

Thus (breathing rage through all) the hero said; A wood of lances rises round his head,

Clamours on clamours tempest all the air, They join, they throng, they thicken to the war.

But Phoebus warns him from high heaven to shun The single fight with Thetis’ godlike son; More safe to combat in the mingled band, Nor tempt too near the terrors of his hand.

He hears, obedient to the god of light, And, plunged within the ranks, awaits the fight.

 

Then fierce Achilles, shouting to the skies, On Troy’s whole force with boundless fury flies.

First falls Iphytion, at his army’s head; Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led; From great Otrynteus he derived his blood, His mother was a Nais, of the flood;

Beneath the shades of Tmolus, crown’d with snow, From Hyde’s walls he ruled the lands below.

Fierce as he springs, the sword his head divides: The parted visage falls on equal sides: With loud-resounding arms he strikes the plain; While thus Achilles glories o’er the slain: “Lie there, Otryntides! the Trojan earth Receives thee dead, though Gygae boast thy birth; Those beauteous fields where Hyllus’ waves are roll’d, And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold, Are thine no more.”—The insulting hero said, And left him sleeping in eternal shade.

The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore, And dash’d their axles with no vulgar gore.

 

Demoleon next, Antenor’s offspring, laid Breathless in dust, the price of rashness paid.

The impatient steel with full-descending sway Forced through his brazen helm its furious way, Resistless drove the batter’d skull before, And dash’d and mingled all the brains with gore.

This sees Hippodamas, and seized with fright, Deserts his chariot for a swifter flight: The lance arrests him: an ignoble wound The panting Trojan rivets to the ground.

He groans away his soul: not louder roars, At Neptune’s shrine on Helice’s high shores, The victim bull; the rocks rebellow round, And ocean listens to the grateful sound.

Then fell on Polydore his vengeful rage, [228]

The youngest hope of Priam’s stooping age: (Whose feet for swiftness in the race surpass’d:) Of all his sons, the dearest, and the last.

To the forbidden field he takes his flight, In the first folly of a youthful knight, To vaunt his swiftness wheels around the plain, But vaunts not long, with all his swiftness slain: Struck where the crossing belts unite behind, And golden rings the double back-plate join’d Forth through the navel burst the thrilling steel; And on his knees with piercing shrieks he fell; The rushing entrails pour’d upon the ground His hands collect; and darkness wraps him round.

When Hector view’d, all ghastly in his gore, Thus sadly slain the unhappy Polydore,

A cloud of sorrow overcast his sight,

His soul no longer brook’d the distant fight: Full in Achilles’ dreadful front he came, And shook his javelin like a waving flame.

The son of Peleus sees, with joy possess’d, His heart high-bounding in his rising breast.

“And, lo! the man on whom black fates attend; The man, that slew Achilles, is his friend!

No more shall Hector’s and Pelides’ spear Turn from each other in the walks of war.”—

Then with revengeful eyes he scann’d him o’er: “Come, and receive thy fate!” He spake no more.

 

Hector, undaunted, thus: “Such words employ To one that dreads thee, some unwarlike boy: Such we could give, defying and defied, Mean intercourse of obloquy and pride!

I know thy force to mine superior far;

But heaven alone confers success in war: Mean as I am, the gods may guide my dart, And give it entrance in a braver heart.”

 

Then parts the lance: but Pallas’ heavenly breath Far from Achilles wafts the winged death: The bidden dart again to Hector flies,

And at the feet of its great master lies.

Achilles closes with his hated foe,

His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow: But present to his aid, Apollo shrouds

The favour’d hero in a veil of clouds.

Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart, Thrice in impassive air he plunged the dart; The spear a fourth time buried in the cloud.

He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud: “Wretch! thou hast ‘scaped again; once more thy flight Has saved thee, and the partial god of light.

But long thou shalt not thy just fate withstand, If any power assist Achilles’ hand.

Fly then inglorious! but thy flight this day Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay.”

 

With that, he gluts his rage on numbers slain: Then Dryops tumbled to the ensanguined plain, Pierced through the neck: he left him panting there, And stopp’d Demuchus, great Philetor’s heir.

Gigantic chief! deep gash’d the enormous blade, And for the soul an ample passage made.

Laoganus and Dardanus expire,

The valiant sons of an unhappy sire;

Both in one instant from the chariot hurl’d, Sunk in one instant to the nether world: This difference only their sad fates afford That one the spear destroy’d, and one the sword.

 

Nor less unpitied, young Alastor bleeds; In vain his youth, in vain his beauty pleads; In vain he begs thee, with a suppliant’s moan, To spare a form, an age so like thy own!

Unhappy boy! no prayer, no moving art,

E’er bent that fierce, inexorable heart!

While yet he trembled at his knees, and cried, The ruthless falchion oped his tender side; The panting liver pours a flood of gore That drowns his bosom till he pants no more.

 

Through Mulius’ head then drove the impetuous spear: The warrior falls, transfix’d from ear to ear.

Thy life, Echeclus! next the sword bereaves, Deep though the front the ponderous falchion cleaves; Warm’d in the brain the smoking weapon lies, The purple death comes floating o’er his eyes.

Then brave Deucalion died: the dart was flung Where the knit nerves the pliant elbow strung; He dropp’d his arm, an unassisting weight, And stood all impotent, expecting fate: Full on his neck the falling falchion sped, From his broad shoulders hew’d his crested head: Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies, And, sunk in dust, the corpse extended lies.

Rhigmas, whose race from fruitful Thracia came, (The son of Pierus, an illustrious name,) Succeeds to fate: the spear his belly rends; Prone from his car the thundering chief descends.

The squire, who saw expiring on the ground His prostrate master, rein’d the steeds around; His back, scarce turn’d, the Pelian javelin gored, And stretch’d the servant o’er his dying lord.

As when a flame the winding valley fills, And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills; Then o’er the stubble up the mountain flies, Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies, This way and that, the spreading torrent roars: So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores; Around him wide, immense destruction pours And earth is deluged with the sanguine showers As with autumnal harvests cover’d o’er, And thick bestrewn, lies Ceres’ sacred floor; When round and round, with never-wearied pain, The trampling steers beat out the unnumber’d grain: So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls, Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes’ souls, Dash’d from their hoofs while o’er the dead they fly, Black, bloody drops the smoking chariot dye: The spiky wheels through heaps of carnage tore; And thick the groaning axles dropp’d with gore.

High o’er the scene of death Achilles stood, All grim with dust, all horrible in blood: Yet still insatiate, still with rage on flame; Such is the lust of never-dying fame!

 

{Illustration: CENTAUR.}

 

BOOK XXI.

 

ARGUMENT.

 

THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER SCAMANDER. [229]

 

The Trojans fly before Achilles, some towards the town, others to the river Scamander: he falls upon the latter with great slaughter: takes twelve captives alive, to sacrifice to the shade of Patroclus; and kills Lycaon and Asteropeus. Scamander attacks him with all his waves: Neptune and Pallas assist the hero: Simois joins Scamander: at length Vulcan, by the instigation of Juno, almost dries up the river. This Combat ended, the other gods engage each other. Meanwhile Achilles continues the slaughter, drives the rest into Troy: Agenor only makes a stand, and is conveyed away in a cloud by Apollo; who (to delude Achilles) takes upon him Agenor’s shape, and while he pursues him in that disguise, gives the Trojans an opportunity of retiring into their city.

 

The same day continues. The scene is on the banks and in the stream of Scamander.

 

And now to Xanthus’ gliding stream they drove, Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove.

The river here divides the flying train, Part to the town fly diverse o’er the plain, Where late their