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

bands who fly.

Now bursting on his head with thundering sound, The falling deluge whelms the hero round: His loaded shield bends to the rushing tide; His feet, upborne, scarce the strong flood divide, Sliddering, and staggering. On the border stood A spreading elm, that overhung the flood; He seized a bending bough, his steps to stay; The plant uprooted to his weight gave way. [230]

Heaving the bank, and undermining all;

Loud flash the waters to the rushing fall Of the thick foliage. The large trunk display’d Bridged the rough flood across: the hero stay’d On this his weight, and raised upon his hand, Leap’d from the channel, and regain’d the land.

Then blacken’d the wild waves: the murmur rose: The god pursues, a huger billow throws, And bursts the bank, ambitious to destroy The man whose fury is the fate of Troy.

He like the warlike eagle speeds his pace (Swiftest and strongest of the aerial race); Far as a spear can fly, Achilles springs; At every bound his clanging armour rings: Now here, now there, he turns on every side, And winds his course before the following tide; The waves flow after, wheresoe’er he wheels, And gather fast, and murmur at his heels.

So when a peasant to his garden brings

Soft rills of water from the bubbling springs, And calls the floods from high, to bless his bowers, And feed with pregnant streams the plants and flowers: Soon as he clears whate’er their passage stay’d, And marks the future current with his spade, Swift o’er the rolling pebbles, down the hills, Louder and louder purl the falling rills; Before him scattering, they prevent his pains, And shine in mazy wanderings o’er the plains.

 

Still flies Achilles, but before his eyes Still swift Scamander rolls where’er he flies: Not all his speed escapes the rapid floods; The first of men, but not a match for gods.

Oft as he turn’d the torrent to oppose, And bravely try if all the powers were foes; So oft the surge, in watery mountains spread, Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head.

Yet dauntless still the adverse flood he braves, And still indignant bounds above the waves.

Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil; Wash’d from beneath him slides the slimy soil; When thus (his eyes on heaven’s expansion thrown) Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan: “Is there no god Achilles to befriend,

No power to avert his miserable end?

Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date, [231]

And make my future life the sport of fate.

Of all heaven’s oracles believed in vain, But most of Thetis must her son complain; By Phoebus’ darts she prophesied my fall, In glorious arms before the Trojan wall.

Oh! had I died in fields of battle warm, Stretch’d like a hero, by a hero’s arm!

Might Hector’s spear this dauntless bosom rend, And my swift soul o’ertake my slaughter’d friend.

Ah no! Achilles meets a shameful fate,

Oh how unworthy of the brave and great!

Like some vile swain, whom on a rainy day, Crossing a ford, the torrent sweeps away, An unregarded carcase to the sea.”

 

Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief, And thus in human form address’d the chief: The power of ocean first: “Forbear thy fear, O son of Peleus! Lo, thy gods appear!

Behold! from Jove descending to thy aid, Propitious Neptune, and the blue-eyed maid.

Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave ‘Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.

But thou, the counsel heaven suggests, attend!

Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend, Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall: Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance, And Hector’s blood shall smoke upon thy lance.

Thine is the glory doom’d.” Thus spake the gods: Then swift ascended to the bright abodes.

 

Stung with new ardour, thus by heaven impell’d, He springs impetuous, and invades the field: O’er all the expanded plain the waters spread; Heaved on the bounding billows danced the dead, Floating ‘midst scatter’d arms; while casques of gold And turn’d-up bucklers glitter’d as they roll’d.

High o’er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds, He wades, and mounts; the parted wave resounds.

Not a whole river stops the hero’s course, While Pallas fills him with immortal force.

With equal rage, indignant Xanthus roars, And lifts his billows, and o’erwhelms his shores.

 

Then thus to Simois! “Haste, my brother flood; And check this mortal that controls a god; Our bravest heroes else shall quit the fight, And Ilion tumble from her towery height.

Call then thy subject streams, and bid them roar, From all thy fountains swell thy watery store, With broken rocks, and with a load of dead, Charge the black surge, and pour it on his head.

Mark how resistless through the floods he goes, And boldly bids the warring gods be foes!

But nor that force, nor form divine to sight, Shall aught avail him, if our rage unite: Whelm’d under our dark gulfs those arms shall lie, That blaze so dreadful in each Trojan eye; And deep beneath a sandy mountain hurl’d, Immersed remain this terror of the world.

Such ponderous ruin shall confound the place, No Greeks shall e’er his perish’d relics grace, No hand his bones shall gather, or inhume; These his cold rites, and this his watery tomb.”

 

{Illustration: ACHILLES CONTENDING WITH THE RIVERS.}

 

He said; and on the chief descends amain, Increased with gore, and swelling with the slain.

Then, murmuring from his beds, he boils, he raves, And a foam whitens on the purple waves: At every step, before Achilles stood

The crimson surge, and deluged him with blood.

Fear touch’d the queen of heaven: she saw dismay’d, She call’d aloud, and summon’d Vulcan’s aid.

 

“Rise to the war! the insulting flood requires Thy wasteful arm! assemble all thy fires!

While to their aid, by our command enjoin’d, Rush the swift eastern and the western wind: These from old ocean at my word shall blow, Pour the red torrent on the watery foe, Corses and arms to one bright ruin turn, And hissing rivers to their bottoms burn.

Go, mighty in thy rage! display thy power, Drink the whole flood, the crackling trees devour.

Scorch all the banks! and (till our voice reclaim) Exert the unwearied furies of the flame!”

 

The power ignipotent her word obeys:

Wide o’er the plain he pours the boundless blaze; At once consumes the dead, and dries the soil And the shrunk waters in their channel boil.

As when autumnal Boreas sweeps the sky, And instant blows the water’d gardens dry: So look’d the field, so whiten’d was the ground, While Vulcan breathed the fiery blast around.

Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys; Along the margin winds the running blaze: The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn, The flowering lotos and the tamarisk burn, Broad elm, and cypress rising in a spire; The watery willows hiss before the fire.

Now glow the waves, the fishes pant for breath, The eels lie twisting in the pangs of death: Now flounce aloft, now dive the scaly fry, Or, gasping, turn their bellies to the sky.

At length the river rear’d his languid head, And thus, short-panting, to the god he said: “Oh Vulcan! oh! what power resists thy might?

I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight—

I yield—Let Ilion fall; if fate decree—

Ah—bend no more thy fiery arms on me!”

 

He ceased; wide conflagration blazing round; The bubbling waters yield a hissing sound.

As when the flames beneath a cauldron rise, [232]

To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice, Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires: So boils the imprison’d flood, forbid to flow, And choked with vapours feels his bottom glow.

To Juno then, imperial queen of air,

The burning river sends his earnest prayer: “Ah why, Saturnia; must thy son engage

Me, only me, with all his wasteful rage?

On other gods his dreadful arm employ,

For mightier gods assert the cause of Troy.

Submissive I desist, if thou command;

But ah! withdraw this all-destroying hand.

Hear then my solemn oath, to yield to fate Unaided Ilion, and her destined state,

Till Greece shall gird her with destructive flame, And in one ruin sink the Trojan name.”

 

His warm entreaty touch’d Saturnia’s ear: She bade the ignipotent his rage forbear, Recall the flame, nor in a mortal cause Infest a god: the obedient flame withdraws: Again the branching streams begin to spread, And soft remurmur in their wonted bed.

 

While these by Juno’s will the strife resign, The warring gods in fierce contention join: Rekindling rage each heavenly breast alarms: With horrid clangour shock the ethereal arms: Heaven in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound; And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.

Jove, as his sport, the dreadful scene descries, And views contending gods with careless eyes.

The power of battles lifts his brazen spear, And first assaults the radiant queen of war: “What moved thy madness, thus to disunite Ethereal minds, and mix all heaven in fight?

What wonder this, when in thy frantic mood Thou drovest a mortal to insult a god?

Thy impious hand Tydides’ javelin bore, And madly bathed it in celestial gore.”

 

He spoke, and smote the long-resounding shield, Which bears Jove’s thunder on its dreadful field: The adamantine aegis of her sire,

That turns the glancing bolt and forked fire.

 

Then heaved the goddess in her mighty hand A stone, the limit of the neighbouring land, There fix’d from eldest times; black, craggy, vast; This at the heavenly homicide she cast.

Thundering he falls, a mass of monstrous size: And seven broad acres covers as he lies.

The stunning stroke his stubborn nerves unbound: Loud o’er the fields his ringing arms resound: The scornful dame her conquest views with smiles, And, glorying, thus the prostrate god reviles: “Hast thou not yet, insatiate fury! known How far Minerva’s force transcends thy own?

Juno, whom thou rebellious darest withstand, Corrects thy folly thus by Pallas’ hand; Thus meets thy broken faith with just disgrace, And partial aid to Troy’s perfidious race.”

 

The goddess spoke, and turn’d her eyes away, That, beaming round, diffused celestial day.

Jove’s Cyprian daughter, stooping on the land, Lent to the wounded god her tender hand: Slowly he rises, scarcely breathes with pain, And, propp’d on her fair arm, forsakes the plain.

This the bright empress of the heavens survey’d, And, scoffing, thus to war’s victorious maid: “Lo! what an aid on Mars’s side is seen!

The smiles’ and loves’ unconquerable queen!

Mark with what insolence, in open view, She moves: let Pallas, if she dares, pursue.”

 

Minerva smiling heard, the pair o’ertook, And slightly on her breast the wanton strook: She, unresisting, fell (her spirits fled); On earth together lay the lovers spread.

“And like these heroes be the fate of all (Minerva cries) who guard the Trojan wall!

To Grecian gods such let the Phrygian be, So dread, so fierce, as Venus is to me; Then from the lowest stone shall Troy be moved.”

Thus she, and Juno with a smile approved.

 

Meantime, to mix in more than mortal fight, The god of ocean dares the god of light.

“What sloth has seized us, when the fields around Ring with conflicting powers, and heaven returns the sound: Shall, ignominious, we with shame retire, No deed perform’d, to our Olympian sire?

Come, prove thy arm! for first the war to wage, Suits not my greatness, or superior age: Rash as thou art to prop the Trojan throne, (Forgetful of my wrongs, and of thy own,) And guard the race of proud Laomedon!

Hast thou forgot, how, at the monarch’s prayer, We shared the lengthen’d labours