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

perhaps his pity may engage;

Perhaps at least he may respect my age.

He has a father too; a man like me;

One, not exempt from age and misery

(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace Begot this pest of me, and all my race).

How many valiant sons, in early bloom,

Has that cursed hand send headlong to the tomb!

Thee, Hector! last: thy loss (divinely brave) Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.

O had thy gentle spirit pass’d in peace, The son expiring in the sire’s embrace, While both thy parents wept the fatal hour, And, bending o’er thee, mix’d the tender shower!

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, To melt in full satiety of grief!”

 

Thus wail’d the father, grovelling on the ground, And all the eyes of Ilion stream’d around.

 

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears:

(A mourning princess, and a train in tears;) “Ah why has Heaven prolong’d this hated breath, Patient of horrors, to behold thy death?

O Hector! late thy parents’ pride and joy, The boast of nations! the defence of Troy!

To whom her safety and her fame she owed; Her chief, her hero, and almost her god!

O fatal change! become in one sad day

A senseless corse! inanimated clay!”

 

But not as yet the fatal news had spread To fair Andromache, of Hector dead;

As yet no messenger had told his fate,

Not e’en his stay without the Scaean gate.

Far in the close recesses of the dome,

Pensive she plied the melancholy loom;

A growing work employ’d her secret hours, Confusedly gay with intermingled flowers.

Her fair-haired handmaids heat the brazen urn, The bath preparing for her lord’s return In vain; alas! her lord returns no more; Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore!

Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear, And all her members shake with sudden fear: Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls, And thus, astonish’d, to her maids she calls: {Illustration: THE BATH.}

 

“Ah follow me! (she cried) what plaintive noise Invades my ear? ‘Tis sure my mother’s voice.

My faltering knees their trembling frame desert, A pulse unusual flutters at my heart;

Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate (Ye gods avert it!) threats the Trojan state.

Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest!

But much I fear my Hector’s dauntless breast Confronts Achilles; chased along the plain, Shut from our walls! I fear, I fear him slain!

Safe in the crowd he ever scorn’d to wait, And sought for glory in the jaws of fate: Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath, Now quench’d for ever in the arms of death.”

 

She spoke: and furious, with distracted pace, Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face, Flies through the dome (the maids her steps pursue), And mounts the walls, and sends around her view.

Too soon her eyes the killing object found, The godlike Hector dragg’d along the ground.

A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes: She faints, she falls; her breath, her colour flies.

Her hair’s fair ornaments, the braids that bound, The net that held them, and the wreath that crown’d, The veil and diadem flew far away

(The gift of Venus on her bridal day).

Around a train of weeping sisters stands, To raise her sinking with assistant hands.

Scarce from the verge of death recall’d, again She faints, or but recovers to complain.

 

{Illustration: ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL.}

 

“O wretched husband of a wretched wife!

Born with one fate, to one unhappy life!

For sure one star its baneful beam display’d On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade.

From different parents, different climes we came.

At different periods, yet our fate the same!

Why was my birth to great Aetion owed,

And why was all that tender care bestow’d?

Would I had never been!—O thou, the ghost Of my dead husband! miserably lost!

Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!

And I abandon’d, desolate, alone!

An only child, once comfort of my pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains!

No more to smile upon his sire; no friend To help him now! no father to defend!

For should he ‘scape the sword, the common doom, What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come!

Even from his own paternal roof expell’d, Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field.

The day, that to the shades the father sends, Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends: He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears; Amongst the happy, unregarded, he

Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee, While those his father’s former bounty fed Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread: The kindest but his present wants allay, To leave him wretched the succeeding day.

Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, Shall cry, ‘Begone! thy father feasts not here:’

The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear.

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, To my sad soul Astyanax appears!

Forced by repeated insults to return,

And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn: He, who, with tender delicacy bred,

With princes sported, and on dainties fed, And when still evening gave him up to rest, Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast, Must—ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls, [239]

Is now that name no more, unhappy boy!

Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.

But thou, my Hector, liest exposed in air, Far from thy parents’ and thy consort’s care; Whose hand in vain, directed by her love, The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove.

Now to devouring flames be these a prey, Useless to thee, from this accursed day!

Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, An honour to the living, not the dead!”

 

So spake the mournful dame: her matrons hear, Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear.

 

BOOK XXIII.

 

ARGUMENT.

 

FUNERAL GAMES IN HONOUR OF PATROCLUS. [240]

 

Achilles and the Myrmidons do honours to the body of Patroclus. After the funeral feast he retires to the seashore, where, falling asleep, the ghost of his friend appears to him, and demands the rites of burial; the next morning the soldiers are sent with mules and waggons to fetch wood for the pyre. The funeral procession, and the offering their hair to the dead. Achilles sacrifices several animals, and lastly twelve Trojan captives, at the pile; then sets fire to it. He pays libations to the Winds, which (at the instance of Iris) rise, and raise the flames. When the pile has burned all night, they gather the bones, place them in an urn of gold, and raise the tomb. Achilles institutes the funeral games: the chariot-race, the fight of the caestus, the wrestling, the foot-race, the single combat, the discus, the shooting with arrows, the darting the javelin: the various descriptions of which, and the various success of the several antagonists, make the greatest part of the book.

 

In this book ends the thirtieth day. The night following, the ghost of Patroclus appears to Achilles: the one-and-thirtieth day is employed in felling the timber for the pile: the two-and-thirtieth in burning it; and the three-and-thirtieth in the games. The scene is generally on the seashore.

 

Thus humbled in the dust, the pensive train Through the sad city mourn’d her hero slain.

The body soil’d with dust, and black with gore, Lies on broad Hellespont’s resounding shore.

The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand, All, but the martial Myrmidonian band:

These yet assembled great Achilles holds, And the stern purpose of his mind unfolds: “Not yet, my brave companions of the war, Release your smoking coursers from the car; But, with his chariot each in order led, Perform due honours to Patroclus dead.

Ere yet from rest or food we seek relief, Some rites remain, to glut our rage of grief.”

 

The troops obey’d; and thrice in order led [241]

(Achilles first) their coursers round the dead; And thrice their sorrows and laments renew; Tears bathe their arms, and tears the sands bedew.

For such a warrior Thetis aids their woe, Melts their strong hearts, and bids their eyes to flow.

But chief, Pelides: thick-succeeding sighs Burst from his heart, and torrents from his eyes: His slaughtering hands, yet red with blood, he laid On his dead friend’s cold breast, and thus he said: “All hail, Patroclus! let thy honour’d ghost Hear, and rejoice on Pluto’s dreary coast; Behold! Achilles’ promise is complete;

The bloody Hector stretch’d before thy feet.

Lo! to the dogs his carcase I resign;

And twelve sad victims, of the Trojan line, Sacred to vengeance, instant shall expire; Their lives effused around thy funeral pyre.”

 

Gloomy he said, and (horrible to view)

Before the bier the bleeding Hector threw, Prone on the dust. The Myrmidons around Unbraced their armour, and the steeds unbound.

All to Achilles’ sable ship repair,

Frequent and full, the genial feast to share.

Now from the well-fed swine black smokes aspire, The bristly victims hissing o’er the fire: The huge ox bellowing falls; with feebler cries Expires the goat; the sheep in silence dies.

Around the hero’s prostrate body flow’d, In one promiscuous stream, the reeking blood.

And now a band of Argive monarchs brings The glorious victor to the king of kings.

From his dead friend the pensive warrior went, With steps unwilling, to the regal tent.

The attending heralds, as by office bound, With kindled flames the tripod-vase surround: To cleanse his conquering hands from hostile gore, They urged in vain; the chief refused, and swore: [242]

 

“No drop shall touch me, by almighty Jove!

The first and greatest of the gods above!

Till on the pyre I place thee; till I rear The grassy mound, and clip thy sacred hair.

Some ease at least those pious rites may give, And soothe my sorrows, while I bear to live.

Howe’er, reluctant as I am, I stay

And share your feast; but with the dawn of day, (O king of men!) it claims thy royal care, That Greece the warrior’s funeral pile prepare, And bid the forests fall: (such rites are paid To heroes slumbering in eternal shade:) Then, when his earthly part shall mount in fire, Let the leagued squadrons to their posts retire.”

 

He spoke: they hear him, and the word obey; The rage of hunger and of thirst allay, Then ease in sleep the labours of the day.

But great Pelides, stretch’d along the shore, Where, dash’d on rocks, the broken billows roar, Lies inly groaning; while on either hand The martial Myrmidons confusedly stand.

Along the grass his languid members fall, Tired with his chase around the Trojan wall; Hush’d by the murmurs of the rolling deep, At length he sinks in the soft arms of sleep.

When lo! the shade, before his closing eyes, Of sad Patroclus rose, or seem’d to rise: In the same robe he living wore, he came: In stature, voice, and pleasing look, the same.

The form familiar hover’d o’er his head, “And sleeps Achilles? (thus the phantom said:) Sleeps my Achilles, his Patroclus dead?

Living, I seem’d his dearest, tenderest care, But now forgot, I wander in the air.

Let my pale corse the rites of burial know, And give me entrance in the realms below: Till then the spirit finds no resting-place, But here and there the unbodied spectres chase The vagrant dead around the dark abode, Forbid to cross the irremeable flood.

Now give thy hand; for to the farther shore When once we pass, the soul returns no more: When once the last funereal flames ascend, No more shall meet Achilles and his friend; No more our thoughts to those we loved make known;