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

in Ilion else had refuge found!

What gasping numbers now had bit the ground!

Thou robb’st me of a glory justly mine, Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine: Mean fame, alas! for one of heavenly strain, To cheat a mortal who repines in vain.”

 

Then to the city, terrible and strong,

With high and haughty steps he tower’d along, So the proud courser, victor of the prize, To the near goal with double ardour flies.

Him, as he blazing shot across the field, The careful eyes of Priam first beheld.

Not half so dreadful rises to the sight, [234]

Through the thick gloom of some tempestuous night, Orion’s dog (the year when autumn weighs), And o’er the feebler stars exerts his rays; Terrific glory! for his burning breath

Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death.

So flamed his fiery mail. Then wept the sage: He strikes his reverend head, now white with age; He lifts his wither’d arms; obtests the skies; He calls his much-loved son with feeble cries: The son, resolved Achilles’ force to dare, Full at the Scaean gates expects the war; While the sad father on the rampart stands, And thus adjures him with extended hands: “Ah stay not, stay not! guardless and alone; Hector! my loved, my dearest, bravest son!

Methinks already I behold thee slain,

And stretch’d beneath that fury of the plain.

Implacable Achilles! might’st thou be

To all the gods no dearer than to me!

Thee, vultures wild should scatter round the shore.

And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore.

How many valiant sons I late enjoy’d,

Valiant in vain! by thy cursed arm destroy’d: Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles To shameful bondage, and unworthy toils.

Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore, Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore, And loved Lycaon; now perhaps no more!

Oh! if in yonder hostile camp they live, What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give!

(Their grandsire’s wealth, by right of birth their own, Consign’d his daughter with Lelegia’s throne:) But if (which Heaven forbid) already lost, All pale they wander on the Stygian coast; What sorrows then must their sad mother know, What anguish I? unutterable woe!

Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me, Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee.

Yet shun Achilles! enter yet the wall;

And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all!

Save thy dear life; or, if a soul so brave Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save.

Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs; While yet thy father feels the woes he bears, Yet cursed with sense! a wretch, whom in his rage (All trembling on the verge of helpless age) Great Jove has placed, sad spectacle of pain!

The bitter dregs of fortune’s cup to drain: To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes, And number all his days by miseries!

My heroes slain, my bridal bed o’erturn’d, My daughters ravish’d, and my city burn’d, My bleeding infants dash’d against the floor; These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more!

Perhaps even I, reserved by angry fate, The last sad relic of my ruin’d state,

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness!) must fall, And stain the pavement of my regal hall; Where famish’d dogs, late guardians of my door, Shall lick their mangled master’s spatter’d gore.

Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods! ‘tis well; Well have they perish’d, for in fight they fell.

Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best, Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast.

But when the fates, in fulness of their rage, Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age, In dust the reverend lineaments deform, And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm: This, this is misery! the last, the worse, That man can feel! man, fated to be cursed!”

 

He said, and acting what no words could say, Rent from his head the silver locks away.

With him the mournful mother bears a part; Yet all her sorrows turn not Hector’s heart.

The zone unbraced, her bosom she display’d; And thus, fast-falling the salt tears, she said: “Have mercy on me, O my son! revere

The words of age; attend a parent’s prayer!

If ever thee in these fond arms I press’d, Or still’d thy infant clamours at this breast; Ah do not thus our helpless years forego, But, by our walls secured, repel the foe.

Against his rage if singly thou proceed, Should’st thou, (but Heaven avert it!) should’st thou bleed, Nor must thy corse lie honour’d on the bier, Nor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear!

Far from our pious rites those dear remains Must feast the vultures on the naked plains.”

 

So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll; But fix’d remains the purpose of his soul; Resolved he stands, and with a fiery glance Expects the hero’s terrible advance.

So, roll’d up in his den, the swelling snake Beholds the traveller approach the brake; When fed with noxious herbs his turgid veins Have gather’d half the poisons of the plains; He burns, he stiffens with collected ire, And his red eyeballs glare with living fire.

Beneath a turret, on his shield reclined, He stood, and question’d thus his mighty mind: [235]

 

“Where lies my way? to enter in the wall?

Honour and shame the ungenerous thought recall: Shall proud Polydamas before the gate

Proclaim, his counsels are obey’d too late, Which timely follow’d but the former night, What numbers had been saved by Hector’s flight?

That wise advice rejected with disdain, I feel my folly in my people slain.

Methinks my suffering country’s voice I hear, But most her worthless sons insult my ear, On my rash courage charge the chance of war, And blame those virtues which they cannot share.

No—if I e’er return, return I must

Glorious, my country’s terror laid in dust: Or if I perish, let her see me fall

In field at least, and fighting for her wall.

And yet suppose these measures I forego, Approach unarm’d, and parley with the foe, The warrior-shield, the helm, and lance, lay down.

And treat on terms of peace to save the town: The wife withheld, the treasure ill-detain’d (Cause of the war, and grievance of the land) With honourable justice to restore:

And add half Ilion’s yet remaining store, Which Troy shall, sworn, produce; that injured Greece May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace.

But why this thought? Unarm’d if I should go, What hope of mercy from this vengeful foe, But woman-like to fall, and fall without a blow?

We greet not here, as man conversing man, Met at an oak, or journeying o’er a plain; No season now for calm familiar talk,

Like youths and maidens in an evening walk: War is our business, but to whom is given To die, or triumph, that, determine Heaven!”

 

Thus pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh; His dreadful plumage nodded from on high; The Pelian javelin, in his better hand, Shot trembling rays that glitter’d o’er the land; And on his breast the beamy splendour shone, Like Jove’s own lightning, or the rising sun.

As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise,

Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies.

He leaves the gates, he leaves the wall behind: Achilles follows like the winged wind.

Thus at the panting dove a falcon flies (The swiftest racer of the liquid skies), Just when he holds, or thinks he holds his prey, Obliquely wheeling through the aerial way, With open beak and shrilling cries he springs, And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings: No less fore-right the rapid chase they held, One urged by fury, one by fear impell’d: Now circling round the walls their course maintain, Where the high watch-tower overlooks the plain; Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad, (A wider compass,) smoke along the road.

Next by Scamander’s double source they bound, Where two famed fountains burst the parted ground; This hot through scorching clefts is seen to rise, With exhalations steaming to the skies; That the green banks in summer’s heat o’erflows, Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows: Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills, Whose polish’d bed receives the falling rills; Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm’d by Greece) Wash’d their fair garments in the days of peace. [236]

By these they pass’d, one chasing, one in flight: (The mighty fled, pursued by stronger might:) Swift was the course; no vulgar prize they play, No vulgar victim must reward the day:

(Such as in races crown the speedy strife:) The prize contended was great Hector’s life.

As when some hero’s funerals are decreed In grateful honour of the mighty dead;

Where high rewards the vigorous youth inflame (Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame) The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal, And with them turns the raised spectator’s soul: Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly.

The gazing gods lean forward from the sky; To whom, while eager on the chase they look, The sire of mortals and immortals spoke: “Unworthy sight! the man beloved of heaven, Behold, inglorious round yon city driven!

My heart partakes the generous Hector’s pain; Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain, Whose grateful fumes the gods received with joy, From Ida’s summits, and the towers of Troy: Now see him flying; to his fears resign’d, And fate, and fierce Achilles, close behind.

Consult, ye powers! (‘tis worthy your debate) Whether to snatch him from impending fate, Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain, (Good as he is) the lot imposed on man.”

 

Then Pallas thus: “Shall he whose vengeance forms The forky bolt, and blackens heaven with storms, Shall he prolong one Trojan’s forfeit breath?

A man, a mortal, pre-ordain’d to death!

And will no murmurs fill the courts above?

No gods indignant blame their partial Jove?”

 

“Go then (return’d the sire) without delay, Exert thy will: I give the Fates their way.

Swift at the mandate pleased Tritonia flies, And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies.

 

As through the forest, o’er the vale and lawn, The well-breath’d beagle drives the flying fawn, In vain he tries the covert of the brakes, Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes; Sure of the vapour in the tainted dews, The certain hound his various maze pursues.

Thus step by step, where’er the Trojan wheel’d, There swift Achilles compass’d round the field.

Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends, And hopes the assistance of his pitying friends, (Whose showering arrows, as he coursed below, From the high turrets might oppress the foe,) So oft Achilles turns him to the plain: He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain.

As men in slumbers seem with speedy pace, One to pursue, and one to lead the chase, Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake, Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake: No less the labouring heroes pant and strain: While that but flies, and this pursues in vain.

 

What god, O muse, assisted Hector’s force With fate itself so long to hold the course?

Phoebus it was; who, in his latest hour, Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power: And great Achilles, lest some Greek’s advance Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, Sign’d to the troops to yield his foe the way, And leave untouch’d the honours of the day.

 

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show The fates of mortal men, and things below: Here each contending hero’s lot he tries, And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies.

Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector’s fate; Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight.

 

Then Phoebus left him. Fierce Minerva flies To stern Pelides, and triumphing, cries: “O loved of Jove! this day